in me.
“It’s not fair,” I said. “You always get more respect than me.”
“Well, you get more fear,” Julien said generously. “And now you’re Walker, I’m sure the respect will come. In time.”
“All the hard work I put into building a reputation that makes grown men weep and grow weak at the knees; and all you have to do is show up and no-one even notices I’m here.” I sniffed loudly. “I could have a neon sign over my head, listing all the people I’ve brought to justice, and they’d still look at you first.”
“I have been around a lot longer than you,” said Julien. “And I do have more . . . classically handsome features.”
“Never mind that,” I said. “Answer me this. What are all these naked people doing here?”
I indicated the dozen or so entirely naked men and women cordoning off the great hole in the ground and discouraging anyone else from getting too close, apparently simply by looking at them.
“Ah, yes,” said Julien Advent. “I phoned ahead, to have them close off and protect the area till we could take a look. These very impressive individuals are the Tantric Troops. The very latest addition to the Authorities’ private army of security personnel and useful people.”
“Oh, them,” I said. “You mean the Fuck Buddies.”
Julien winced. “Please, John. Don’t call them that in public. We want people to take them seriously. I know there are those who refer to the Troops by that . . . vulgar description, but I think we should insist on the correct name in front of the children. They’re so impressionable. The Troops are a puissant force in their own right. Every man and woman here can use tantric or sexual energies to power their magic; and no, I don’t want to go into the technicalities.”
“I’d love to be around when they recharge their batteries,” I said.
“Let us not go anywhere near there. The point is, no-one is going to intrude on the crime scene while the Troops are around.”
“What do they do?” I said, honestly curious. “Threaten to bukkake people to death if they get too close?”
“For you, taste is something other people talk about, isn’t it?” said Julien. “I am told that if anyone does threaten the crime scene’s integrity, the Troops are quite capable of sending the perpetrator’s sex drive into reverse. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but it doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to experience.”
Some of the people at the front of the crowd heard all this and showed a distinct interest in getting to the back of the crowd. I was careful to avoid the gaze of any of the naked people. Glancing in their general direction was enough to give me a pleasant but subtly disturbing buzz.
“The previous Walker had a similar set of enforcers: the Holy Trio,” said Julien. “You broke them, didn’t you?”
“You know damn well I did,” I said. “You wrote a whole editorial about what I did to them. Walker set them on me because I’d defied the previous Authorities. The Holy Trio derived their very unpleasant magics from energies stored up by a lifetime of celibacy and denial. I . . . defused them.”
“You had them jumping each other in the street!” said Julien.
“I made them happy,” I said, with dignity. “Which is more than the Authorities ever did. I’m told it took the medics three weeks to get the smiles off their faces.”
“You always did fight dirty, John,” said Julien. “Anyway, the Tantric Troops work directly for the Authorities, not you. One less thing for you to bother yourself with.”
“You’re so good to me,” I said. “You mean one more thing you can hold over me if I go off the rails or off the reservation. Let us be clear here, Julien; I am my own kind of Walker, and as long as I’m on the scene, I have authority. Not you, not the Authorities, and not this bunch of supernatural flashers.”
“Of course,” said Julien. “Of course.”
I gave him my best disdainful look, then, because we’d said all we could and couldn’t put it off any longer, we strode forward to look down into the hole. The naked people immediately fell back to give us room, for which I was quietly grateful. Walking between them sent my heart racing uncomfortably. They weren’t naked in a Strippers or Chippendales way, they were more like sky-clad witches, men and women of primal power, unbound by everyday restraints. They burned with dangerous attitude, drawing the eyes to them like moths to a naked flame. I stared straight ahead till I was comfortably past them, then stopped to stand right at the very edge of the great hole, looking down into it. There was nothing much to see. Only broken ground, dark earth, and bare stone; not even a single piece of rubble to mark the Hawk Wind’s passing. Julien stood beside me. If the Troops had bothered him, he kept it to himself.
“The fire that burned down the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille was before my time,” I said. “But you were here, in 1970. Does this look anything like what was left behind then?”
“There’s not a lot of difference, that I can see,” said Julien. “The blaze was . . . sudden, and extensive. The whole building went up in moments, with flames so fierce no-one could get close or even look at them directly for too long. Not a trace of the Bar remained; even the cellar was gone, leaving a hole exactly like this. Some said arson; some said a magical attack against one or other of the significant individuals who often visited. A few romantic souls said it was self-immolation, as a protest against the splitting up of the Beatles. No-one ever found out for sure.
“The Bar’s owners were suspiciously eager to draw a line under the proceedings and replace the Bar with an entirely new building, something more modern and up-to-date. They’d made no secret they were tired of the whole sixties look, and that only public affection (and high profits) had kept them from making changes. This was their chance to go up-market, and attract a better (and better-paying) class of clientele.
“And then the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille came back. Twenty-four hours after it burned down, there it was again. The ghost of a building, a haunting so strong you could walk around inside it, just like the original. Time passed, but not inside the Hawk’s Wind. The sixties lived on, as the decades passed, preserving all kinds of drinks and food and music you couldn’t find anywhere else. And to the fury of the owners, the Bar became more popular than ever, with visitors dropping in from Past, Present, and any number of possible futures.
“The owners went ballistic. Took it as a personal affront. They tried everything to get rid of the ghost Bar. They called in heavy-duty exorcists; had Bishop Beastly curse it with bell, book, and candle; even got the old rogue vicar Pew in to give it a good scolding . . . I’m even told they quietly and quite illegally imported some barely trained poltergeists to go in there and tear the place down. Only to watch the poltergeists come running out, screaming. I believe a few of them are still at large in the Nightside, running their own security business. But the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille stood its ground.
“You have to understand, John; none of us had ever seen anything like this before, even in the Nightside. The ghost of a building, so real and solid it was almost undistinguishable from the original. I always thought it came back simply because so many people loved and missed it . . . Anyway. Eventually the Bar’s owners shrugged, threw up their hands, and said
I frowned. “Could the owners have finally found a way to dismiss the haunting, and reclaim their property, after all these years?”
“Unknown,” said Julien. “But unlikely. If they had, they’d be here now, dancing and celebrating and boasting how they’d finally won. And they were never more than a pair of minor business men. To do something like this . . . would take real power.”
“Hold that thought,” I said. “I spy a pair of well-dressed city types heading in our direction, who look a lot like owners to me.”
Julien looked round, nodded sourly, and gestured for the Troops to let them pass. The two men strode up to us and glared right into our faces, which was brave of them. They both looked prosperous enough, in an obvious sort of way. Two old men, well into their seventies, in good suits, coats, and gloves. Men with hard faces and harder eyes, and flat, determined mouths. The kind of business men who hadn’t been talked back to in far too long. The taller of the two men produced his business card with a snap of the hand, like a conjuring trick, and thrust it at me. I refused to even glance at it, on general principles, so he pushed it right into my face. So I took the card, tore it into little pieces, and scattered them over him like confetti. Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I always say.
The tall man’s face went pale, then flushed a dangerous shade of purple. “We are Tattersol and Vane!” he
