I would have killed the brother who’d done this to her if she hadn’t already killed him years ago.
“I love you, Suzie,” I said. “If you never believe anything else, believe that.”
“I love you, John. As much as I can.”
“That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
“No it isn’t!”
She made herself hug me, holding me tight. Her bandoliers of bracelets pressed against my chest. She was breathing hard, from the effort of what this cost her. Her whole body was stiff and tense. I didn’t know whether to put my own arms around her or not, but in the end I held her as gently as I could.
“Love you, John,” she said, her chin on my shoulder. I couldn’t see her face. “Die for you. Kill for you. Love you till the world ends.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s all right. Really.”
But we both knew it wasn’t.
TWO - Demon Girl Reporter
Some days they won’t even give you a chance to catch your breath. Suzie and I were just walking out of Fun Faire when my mobile phone rang. (The ring tone is the theme from The Twilight Zone. When I find a joke I like, I tend to stick with it.) An unctuous voice murmured in my ear.
“You have one phone call and one important message. Which would you like to hear first?”
“The call,” I said determinedly.
“I’m sorry,” said the voice. “I’m afraid I have been paid to insist you listen to the important message first. Have you ever considered the importance of good Afterlife insurance?”
I sighed, hit the exorcism function on the phone, and was gratified to hear the voice howl in pain as it was forced out of my phone. Admail…You’ll never convince me it isn’t a plot by demons from Hell to make life not worth living. With the admail banished, my call came through clearly. It was my teenage secretary, Cathy, calling from my office. (I’d rescued her from a house that ate people, and she adopted me. I didn’t get a say in the matter. I let her run my office to keep her out of my hair. Worryingly, she’s far better at it than I ever was.)
“Got a case for you, boss,” she said cheerfully.
“I’ve just completed two in a row,” I said plaintively. “I was looking forward to some serious quality time, with a nice hot bath and my rubber ducky. Rubber ducky is my friend.”
“Oh, you’ll want to take this one,” said Cathy. “The offices of the one and only Unnatural Inquirer called. They need your services desperately, not to mention very urgently.”
“What on earth does that appalling rag want with me? Or have they finally decided to hire someone to try to find their long-missing ethics and good taste?”
“Rather doubt it, boss. They wouldn’t go into details over an open line, but they sounded pretty upset. And the money offered really is very good.”
“How good?” I said immediately.
“Really quite staggeringly good,” said Cathy. “Which means that not only are they pants-wettingly desperate, but there has to be one hell of a catch hidden away in it somewhere. Go on, boss, take the case. I’d love to hear what goes on in that place. They have all the best stories; I never miss an issue.”
“The Unnatural Inquirer is a squalid, scabrous, tabloid disgrace,” I said sternly. “And the truth is not in it.”
“Who cares about truth, as long as they have all the latest gossip and embarrassing celebrity photos? Oh please please please…”
I looked at Suzie. “Do you need me to…?”
“Go,” she said. “I have to claim my bounty money.”
She strode off, not looking back. Suzie’s never been big on good-byes.
“All right,” I said into the phone. “Give me the details.”
“There aren’t many. They want you to visit their editorial offices to discuss the matter.”
“Why can’t they come to my office?”
“Because you’re never here. You have to come in soon, boss; I have a pile of paper-work that needs your signature.”
“Go ahead and forge it for me,” I said. “Like you did when you acquired those seven extra credit cards in my name.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“Where do they want to meet?”
“They’ll send someone to bring you to them. Employees of the Unnatural Inquirer don’t like to be caught out in public. People throw things.”
“Understandable,” I said. “Where am I supposed to go, to be met?”
Cathy gave me directions to a particular street corner, in a not-too-sleazy area of the Nightside. I knew it: a busy place, with lots of people always passing through. A casual meeting stood a good chance of going unnoticed, lost in the crowd. I said good-bye to Cathy and shut down the phone before she could nag me about the paper-work again. If I’d wanted to shuffle papers for a living, I’d have shot myself in the head repeatedly.
Didn’t take me long to get to the corner of Cheyne Walk and Wine Street, and I lurked as unobtrusively as possible in front of a trepanation franchise—Let Some Light In, Inc. Personally, I’ve always felt I needed trepanation like a hole in the head. Still, it made more sense than smart drinks ever did. People and others came and went, carefully minding their own business. Some stood out; a knight in shining armour with a miniature dragon perched on his steel shoulder, hissing at the passers-by; a fluorescent Muse, with Catherine-wheel eyes; and a sulky-looking Suicide Girl with a noose round her neck. But most were just people, familiar faces you wouldn’t look twice at, come to the Nightside for the forbidden pleasures, secret knowledge, and terrible satisfactions they couldn’t find anywhere else. The Nightside has always been something of a tourist trap.
I don’t like standing around in the open. It makes me feel vulnerable, an easy target. When I have to do surveillance, I always take pains to do it from somewhere dark and shadowy. People were starting to recognise me. Most gave me plenty of room; some nudged each other and stared curiously. One couple asked if they could take my photo. I gave them a look, and they hurried away.
To keep myself occupied, I went over what I knew about the Unnatural Inquirer. I’d read the odd copy; everyone has. People do like gossip, in the way we always like things that are bad for us. The Nightside has its own newspaper of record; that’s the Night Times. The Unnatural Inquirer, on the other hand, has never allowed itself to be inhibited by mere facts. For them, the story is everything.
All the news that can be made to fit.
The Unnatural Inquirer has been around, in various formats, for over a hundred years, despite increasingly violent attempts to shut it down. These days Editorial, Publishing, and Printing all operate out of a separate and very private pocket dimension, hidden away behind layer upon layer of seriously heavy-duty protections. You can get cursed down to the seventh generation just for trying to find it. The paper’s defences are constantly being upgraded, because they have very powerful enemies. Partly because they print exaggerations, gossip, and outright lies about very important people, and partly because every now and again they tell the truth when no-one else will dare. The paper has no fear and shows no favour.
Only properly accredited staff can even approach the paper’s offices. They’re given special dimensional keys, bonded directly to the owner’s soul, to prevent theft. The offices still get attacked on a daily basis. The paper prints details of every failed assault, just to rub it in. Despite everything the Unnatural Inquirer appears every day, full of things the rich and powerful would rather you didn’t know about. There are no delivery trucks any more; they kept getting fire-bombed. New editions of the paper just appear out of nowhere, materialising right next to the news-stands all across the Nightside, direct from the printing presses. No-one ever interferes with the news-sellers; for fear of being lynched on the spot by the paper’s fanatical audience.
And when you’ve finished reading the Unnatural Inquirer, just throw it away. It automatically disappears, returning to the printing presses to be recycled for the next edition. Even the Night Times can’t match that. No-one has ever wrapped fish and chips in the Unnatural Inquirer.