“So much for peace and love,” said Julien. “It’s always sad, to see an old dream die.”
He stepped forward and booted the Sun King square in the groin. He put all his strength and weight into it, and the force of the kick actually lifted the Sun King right off the ground for a moment. He tried to scream, but the pain blocked his throat. He fell to his knees, all the strength and all of his breath knocked right out of him. He bent forward over his pain, air rattling in his constricted throat, tears streaming down his face from puffy, squeezed-shut eyes. He didn’t look like a living god any more. I looked at Julien with something very like shock. You don’t expect the Great Victorian Adventurer to fight dirty. But he was looking down at the Sun King, genuinely more in sorrow than anger, and when he spoke, his voice was tired, and soul-deep weary.
“Stay down, Harry. I know a lot of tricks a lot worse than that one. You always liked to hear stories of my old days as an Adventurer, fighting the forces of evil. But you never understood what that meant. You were never a fighter.”
The Sun King’s head came up slowly, and he forced his eyes open so he could sneer at Julien. His face was flushed a dark and unhealthy purple with rage, and when he forced his hands away from his aching groin, they were trembling with rage, too.
“Don’t you laugh at me. Don’t you dare laugh at me! You wanted the power. Have it!”
The Sun King stabbed one hand at Julien, and a fierce light erupted out of his fingertips, hitting Julien in the chest like a lightning bolt. He cried out and staggered backwards, then the same terrible light blasted out of his eyes. Julien howled horribly, clutching at his face, and the light blazed right through his hands, outlining the bones within like an X-ray. The light shone out of Julien’s face, and out of his hands, and from his chest. He fell to his knees. He seemed to catch on fire from the light, blue flames bursting out all over him without burning or consuming him. His whole body shook and shuddered, as though he might explode at any moment.
Patients and security people scattered away from him, screaming and shouting. I had to fight my way through the press of bodies to get to Julien. There was no heat from the blue flames, only the terrible light blazing out of him. The Sun King laughed breathlessly. He was still holding himself as though something inside was broken, but his eyes had cleared, full of an awful laughter.
“He’s too small a thing to hold the power I gave him. He can’t control it, he can’t even hold on to it. Any minute now, the power will break loose and destroy this whole building and everyone in it. And that’s what you get, for mouthing off to a living god.” He looked at me, and sniggered. “Of course, you can stop all this, John Taylor. I left you a way out; because I am a kind and considerate living god. You can stop this; save everyone in the hospital. All you have to do is kill him. Kill your friend, kill the legendary Great Victorian Adventurer, and the power will return to me. But you’d better do it quickly, while there’s still time!”
He disappeared, still laughing.
I looked around, and there was Dr. Benway, staring at Julien in horror. She hadn’t run, but she couldn’t bring herself to move any closer.
“What do I do?” I screamed at her. “How do I stop this? How do I save him?”
But she shook her head numbly. For all her experience in Ward 12A, this was beyond her. I grabbed Julien by the shoulders, holding him still against the power within him, which was shaking him like a rag doll. The blue flames burned my hands, but I wouldn’t let him go. He turned his face to me. The light blazing from his eyes was almost incandescent now. He forced words out, painfully.
“Do it, John. Kill me. You can’t let all these people die.”
“Julien, I can’t!”
“You have to! It’s all right, John. I understand. Never did think I’d die in bed. At least this way, I get to die saving lives. Doing something that matters.”
“Julien . . . please . . .”
“Sorry I won’t be there for your wedding. Now say good-bye, and kill me. Save the Hospice. Then track down the Sun King and stop him. And don’t screw it up, or I’ll come back and haunt you.”
“Good-bye, Julien,” I said. And then I took his head in both hands, and snapped it all the way round, breaking his neck.
All the light disappeared, and he was just a man again. He collapsed into my arms, and I held him tightly, ignoring the throbbing pain in my burned hands. I didn’t cry. There was so much anger in me there wasn’t room for anything else. I would find the Sun King. And I would kill him. Because he’d made me kill my good friend. The only decent man in the Nightside.
“Stop him!” Dr. Benway yelled suddenly. I looked up to see her pointing a shaking, accusing finger at me. “Someone stop that man! He killed Julien Advent!”
I lowered Julien’s body carefully to the floor and got to my feet again, looking at Benway, frowning. “What are you talking about? You saw what happened!”
“You murdered him!”
“It wasn’t like that! You know it wasn’t like that!”
People all around were pointing at me and shouting my name, crying out to everyone that I’d killed Julien Advent. Some of the security people were pointing guns at me.
“Don’t let him get away!” shrieked Benway, tears streaming down her face. “Murderer! Murderer!”
But there were too many of them, shouting my name. I turned and ran, breaking through the crowds, as they fell back before me. I ran out of the Hospice lobby and into the car-park, and the crowd spilled out after me, yelling my name. People everywhere turned to look. A great cry went up behind me, that I’d murdered the Great Victorian Adventurer. People on the street began to shout and point.
I ran through the streets of the Nightside, with an angry mob behind me, my name a curse on their lips.
EIGHT
Old Friends and Enemies
And I went running, with horror at my heels.
Everywhere I went, people stopped to scream abuse at me. They threw stones and worse things. Some had guns, some had spells. I ran and dodged and ducked, trying desperately to work out where best to go, to hide from the whole damned Nightside. The word was out, to this side and that and sometimes even ahead of me. I’d been on the run before, back in my younger days, for various reasons, good and bad, but never anything like this. Julien Advent was a much loved and admired figure in the Nightside, far more than I ever was. I’d always thought it more important to be feared; and now my reputation was catching up with me, big-time.
I didn’t dare use my Portable Timeslip. Far too easy to track something that powerful. So I ran.
Why the hell had Benway called me a murderer? She was right there, she saw what was happening, she had to know why I did it. Unless . . . the Sun King was messing with her head. Making her see what he wanted her to see. I grinned savagely as I ran, a humourless snarl that had people falling back before me and hurrying to get out of my way. Things were finally starting to make sense. The Sun King was responsible for everything that was happening to me now, to keep me occupied, too busy trying to stay alive to stop him doing what he planned. That was why everyone was so ready to abuse and attack and pursue me, when normally most of them would have kept their heads down and concentrated on their own business. I laughed briefly as I ran, the sound like the bark of some dangerous animal, and people hid in doorways or hurried down side streets, rather than confront me.
I spent a lot of my early years running and hiding from people who wanted to kill me, from all the usual villains and scumbags, and from the Harrowing. Those faceless homunculi sent back through Time by my Enemies in the Future, to punish me for something I hadn’t even done yet. What doesn’t kill you makes you very light on your feet and very hard to find; and as I raced through the Nightside, old skills and knowledge swiftly came back to me. I raced through the busy streets, taking this turn and that, charging through the front door of a big store, slipping through the crowds, then darting out the back door. Raised voices fell away behind me, caught up in new and unexpected quarrels with people who didn’t take kindly to being shoved. I scrambled over low walls, doubled back and forth, always keeping to the darkest shadows, taking all kinds of short cuts and connections that most people didn’t even know existed.
