masters need you to destroy us, so they can invade our reality. You must see that! They’re not Entities, they’re Enemies!”
At the end I was shouting at him, but he didn’t flinch. None of it touched him. He smiled coldly, condescendingly.
“You’re so desperate now you’d say anything, anything at all to stop me, wouldn’t you? Well, tough. Here comes the Sun.”
At that moment, the shotgun blast hit him square in the chest, punching him right off his feet, and backwards over the stone altar. Blood flew on the air, and the Sun King hit the floor behind the altar. He hit it hard, and didn’t move again. And while the sound of the shotgun blast was still ringing on the close air of the church, I turned to look; and there was Shotgun Suzie, my Suzie, standing behind me. Smoke still rising from both barrels of her pump-action shotgun. She stood tall and proud in her black motorcycle leathers, my blonde-haired Valkyrie. She smiled at me.
“You didn’t really think I’d leave you to do all this on your own, did you?”
“I thought you’d never get here,” I said. Because I had to say something.
Suzie racked new shells into place and strode forward to join me, tilting the gun up and back to rest on her leather-clad shoulder. I made myself stand very still. Hope was a small and fragile thing in my heart, and I didn’t want to do anything to disturb it.
“I knew someone would be listening in on my phone,” she said, in her cool, calm voice. “It’s what I would have done. So I said what they expected me to say. And once everyone knew I was pursuing you for the bounty on your head, most of the other would-be bounty hunters quietly dropped out of the race. Rather than go up against me. I’ve been trailing you at a distance for ages, taking out anyone who looked like getting too close. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve saved your life, tonight. You didn’t even notice, did you? All caught up in the thrill of the chase. You always did need me to watch your back. And now here we are, at the end of the trail. Together again.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “You’re being very quiet, John. You didn’t really think I’d turned against you, did you?”
“Of course not,” I lied.
Suzie looked at me, for a long moment. “It must have been very hard for you, out there on your own. All your friends turned against you. I’m glad you found Cathy.”
“More like I found him!” Cathy said cheerfully. “So you never wanted the bounty on John’s head?”
“There’s only ever been one bounty, as far as I was concerned,” said Suzie. “And that was on the Sun King. No-one messes with my man and gets away with it.”
“You are a very frightening person,” said Cathy. “Don’t know what he sees in you.”
But they were both smiling. They never doubted me for a moment. They were always better people than me.
We all stopped, and looked around, as we heard sounds of movement from behind the altar. And there was the Sun King, rising to his feet, brushing himself down in a fussy sort of way. He turned to face us and smiled, completely unharmed. His Coat of Vivid Colours had no bullet-holes in it, and no blood-stains. His gaze was very cold.
“I can’t believe he’s getting up again,” said Suzie. “I must be losing my touch.”
She stepped forward and shot him in the face with both barrels, at point-blank range. The sound was deafening, and smoke filled the air. But when it cleared, he was still standing there, untouched. He smiled at Suzie, showing his teeth, defying her. I’d always suspected that with the power of the Entities behind him, no mortal weapon could stop the Sun King. Suzie lowered her shotgun, not even bothering to rack fresh shells. Oddly, she didn’t seem that upset. She looked at me and surprised me with a quick wink.
“Good thing I brought a few friends along,” said Suzie.
Razor Eddie and Dead Boy strode into St. Jude’s as though they’d been waiting at the door all along, ready for their cue. Which they probably had been, though only Suzie could have persuaded them to go along with such a plan. (Because Razor Eddie doesn’t take orders, and Dead Boy always wants to be the first into any dangerous situation.) Razor Eddie looked uneasily about him. As far as I knew, he’d never seen the inside of St. Jude’s before. He might be the Punk God of the Straight Razor, but he was in the presence of a greater power now, and he knew it. He nodded brusquely to me.
“I would have beaten you in the cemetery if something hadn’t been messing with my head. Not my fault if my heart wasn’t really in it.” He smiled at me for a moment, then turned to glare at the Sun King. “As for you, when I decide to kill John Taylor, it will be my idea and no-one else’s.”
“Can’t take you anywhere,” said Dead Boy. He pushed in beside Eddie and smiled ruefully at me. “We would have been here sooner, but it took me a while to put myself back together again. Did you have to take me apart quite so thoroughly? You know I’ve never been any good at sewing. Still, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that you didn’t damage my car in the least.”
“Are you both clear in your minds towards me now?” I said, smiling despite myself. “Are we all friends again?”
“Move on,” said Razor Eddie. “I wasn’t myself.” It was as close to an apology as he could get.
“Being dead means never having to say you’re sorry,” Dead Boy said solemnly. “It was Suzie here that did it. Having her around was enough to break the influence. She is a very . . . single-minded person, and very attached to you, in her own endearing and really quite scary way.”
Razor Eddie nodded. “She intimidated the influence right out of me. Nothing like having a shotgun shoved up your nose to concentrate the mind wonderfully.”
“You have such friends, John,” said the Sun King. “You should be very proud of them.”
Larry and Tommy Oblivion came strutting in, to join the party. Tommy was grinning broadly, and Larry looked as pleasant as his dead face and dour personality would permit.
“Once the Library broke the Sun King’s influence over us, it never got a proper grip again,” said Tommy happily. “And then we joined up with Suzie and these two bad boys, and came here.” He glared at the Sun King and stuck out his tongue at him.
“And it did help,” said Larry, “When we were presented with proof that Julien Advent wasn’t dead after all.”
Footsteps approached the church from outside, and I spun round to face the door; a sudden wild pleading hope filling my heart to bursting. And through the door came Dr. Benway and Julien Advent. I staggered and almost fell as the strength went out of my legs, and I had to grab onto a nearby pew to hold myself up. Julien smiled at me; and in that smile was all the understanding and forgiveness in the world. I ran to him, and hugged him, and held on to him like a drowning man who’s finally been offered an outstretched hand. He patted me on the back as I held him to me, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was looking extremely embarrassed. Neither of us has ever been the touchy-feely kind. But right then I didn’t care. I finally let him go and stepped back to look him over. He looked fine.
“No,” he said, smiling. “I’m not dead. I never was.” He looked at the Sun King, and his smile was strangely understanding. “You could have let me die, but you didn’t. Because you couldn’t bring yourself to kill me. Despite everything, despite your masters’ orders, you couldn’t do something you knew was wrong.”
“No,” said the Sun King. “How could I kill my oldest friend? But I needed John Taylor distracted, and the whole Nightside outraged enough to want him dead, so I went with the thing that would have upset me most.” He looked at me. “All an illusion, John. You only thought you killed him. I put him in a coma and tucked him away in Ward 12A. Seemed appropriate. And then I convinced everyone else to see things my way. You keep thinking of me as the villain, John, but I’m really not. I only do what I have to do, for the greater good.” He looked at Julien. “You were quite definitely in a coma. How . . . ?”
“Shouldn’t have put me in Ward 12A,” said Julien. “You and your sense of humour . . . Dr. Benway spotted me the moment she made her next rounds. She woke me up, and we went out into the Nightside together and joined up with these good people.”
“Suzie broke the influence, but it kept creeping back,” said Dead Boy. “Until they came along. Hard to believe someone is dead when they’re standing right in front of you insisting that they’re not. I mean, I know dead; and he isn’t.”
“Suzie brought us here,” said Razor Eddie. “So we could make amends for being . . . mistaken.”
“And so we could kick the Sun King’s arse,” said Larry Oblivion. “The Nightside may be a spiritual cesspit, but
