Agents of Light and Darkness

'Practice. And don't call me Suze. Now sit down and shut up. You're interrupting a good bit.'

'God, you're a slob, Suzie.' I didn't sit down on the couch. I'd just had my coat cleaned. 'Don't you ever clean up in here?'

'No. That way I know where everything is. What do you want, Taylor?'

'Well, apart from world peace, and Gillian Anderson dipped in melted chocolate, I'd like to see some evidence that you've been eating sensibly. You can't live on junk food. When was the last time you had some fresh fruit? What do you do for vitamin C?'

'Pills, mostly. Isn't science wonderful? I hate fruit.'

'I seem to recall you're not too keen on vegetables either. It's a wonder to me you haven't come down with scurvy.'

Suzie sniggered. 'My system would self-destruct if it encountered anything that healthy. I eat soup with vegetables in. Occasionally. That sneaks them past my defenses.'

I kicked an empty ice cream tub out of the way and sighed heavily. 'I hate to see you like this, Suzie.'

'Then don't look.'

'Fat and lazy and smug with it. Don't you have any ambitions?'

'To die gloriously.' She took a deep drag on her cigarette and sighed luxuriously.

I sat on the arm of the couch. 'I don't know why I keep coming back here, Suze.'

'Because we monsters have to stick together.' She finally turned her head to look at me, unsmiling. 'Who else would have us?'

I met her gaze squarely. 'You deserve better than this.'

'Shows how much you know. What do you want, Taylor?'

'How long have you been lounging around here? Days? Weeks?'

She shrugged. 'I am currently between cases. Bottom's dropped out of the bounty-hunting business lately.'

'Most people have a life apart from their work.'

'I'm not most people. Just as well, really, considering most people depress me unutterably. My work is my life.'

'Killing people is a life?'

'Stick to what you're good at, that's what I always say. Hell! When I do it, it's an art form. I wonder if I could get a grant... Shut up and watch the film, Taylor. I hate it when people talk during the good bits.'

I sat with her and watched quietly for a while. As far as I knew, I was the closest thing Shotgun Suzie had to a friend. She wasn't much of a one for getting out and meeting people, unless it involved killing them later. She only really came alive when she was working. In between cases, she shut down and vegetated, waiting for her next chance to go out and do the only thing she did well, the thing she was born to do.

'I worry about you, Suzie.'

'Don't.'

'You need to get out of this dump and get to know people. There are some out there worth knowing.'

'Men have been known to walk into my life, from time to time.'

It was my turn to sniff loudly. 'They usually leave running.'

'Not my fault if they can't keep up.' She shifted her weight on the couch and farted unselfconsciously.

I glared at her. 'They usually leave because you made them watch Girl On A Motorcycle one time too many.'

'That film is a classic!' Suzie said automatically. 'Marianne Faithful never looked better. That film is right up there with Easy Rider and Roger Corman's Hells Angels movies.'

'Why did you shoot me, six years ago?' I didn't know I was going to ask that until I said it.

'I had paper on you,' said Suzie. 'Serious paper, backed by serious money.'

'You knew that paper was false. The whole thing was a setup. You had to know that... but you shot me anyway. Why?'

'You were leaving,' she said quietly. 'How else could I stop you?'

'Oh, Suze .,.'

'Why do you think you were only wounded? You know I never miss. If I'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead.'

'Why was it so important for you to stop me leaving?'

She finally turned to look at me. 'Because you belong here. Because . .. even monsters need to feel they're not alone. Look, what do you want here, Taylor? You're interrupting a classic.'

'Bruce Lee again?' I said, just to tease her. And because I knew I'd got as much honesty out of her as both of us could stand.

'Don't show your ignorance. This is Jackie Chan.'

'There's a difference?'

'Blasphemer. Jackie's got some great moves, but Bruce Lee is God.'

'Speaking of whom,' I said casually, 'I have a case I could use some help on.'

Suzie sat up and gave me her full attention for the first time. 'You have a case involving Bruce Lee?'

'No. God. There are angels in the Nightside.'

Suzie shrugged and gave her attention back to the television screen. 'About time. Maybe they'll clean the place up.'

'Maybe. But there's a distinct possibility there might not be much left of the place by the time they'd finished with it. They're looking for the Unholy Grail. I've got a client who wants me to find it first. Thought you might like to help. The money really is extremely good.'

Suzie produced a remote control from somewhere underneath her and put the film on hold. Jackie froze in mid kick. Suzie looked at me. 'How good?'

'I'm offering fifty thousand, out of my fee. You get twenty-five up front, and the rest when the job's done.'

Suzie considered, her face impassive. 'Is the job very dangerous? Will I have to kill lots of people?'

'Odds are ... yes and yes.'

She smiled. 'Then I'm in.'

And that was it. Suzie didn't really care about the money; she never did. She just went through the motions, so people wouldn't think they could take advantage of her. With her, it was always the job that mattered, the challenge. The only feelings of self-worth she had came from testing herself against forces that could destroy her. I took the money out of the envelope Jude had given me, peeled off half, and dropped it onto the couch beside her. She nodded, but made no move to pick it up. She didn't have a safe, or even a strongbox, on the unanswerable grounds that no-one was going to be stupid enough to steal from her. There were less painful ways to commit suicide. She turned off the television, stubbed out the last half inch of her cigarette on the leather couch, flicked it away, then fixed me with a steady stare.

'You have my full attention. Angels ... and an Unholy Grail. Kinky. Bit out of our usual territory. Would silver work against angels?'

'Not even if you loaded it into a bazooka. You could probably strap an angel to a backpack nuke and set it off, and he wouldn't even blink. Angels are major hard-core.'

Suzie looked at me for a long moment. It was always hard to tell what she was thinking, behind the cold mask she used for a face. 'You religious, Taylor?'

I shrugged. 'Hard not to be, in the Nightside. If only because there are no atheists in foxholes. I'm pretty sure there is a God, a Creator. I just don't think he cares about us. I don't think we matter to him. You?'

'I used to tell people I was a lapsed agnostic,' she said easily. 'Now I tell them I'm a born-again heretic. I hung out with this bunch of Kali worshippers for a while, but they said I was too hard-core, the wimps. Mostly ... I believe in guns, knives, and things that go bang. All of which we're probably going to need if we're going after the Unholy Grail. I take it there will be competition?'

'Lots and lots. So you don't have any problems, about going up against angels or devils?'

She smiled coldly. 'Just give me something to aim at and leave the rest to me.' She frowned thoughtfully. 'There was a weapon I heard of once ... The Speaking Gun. Created specifically to kill angels. The Collector tried