“He also said he Saw you and me, going head to head, fighting to the death. That’s . . . interesting, isn’t it?”
I shuddered briefly, as though someone had danced on my grave. “There are many different potential futures,” I said carefully. “Nothing Seen is ever inevitable.”
“Yes,” said Razor Eddie. “I know. But it is interesting. I thought you ought to know. Haven’t you ever wondered whether I could take you in a fight?”
“I try very hard not to think about things like that,” I said. “Did your friend happen to mention the outcome of this fight he Saw?”
“No. See you later, John.”
I took the hint and moved away, leaving him to enjoy his corner. Eddie was a friend, sort of. That’s why he warned me. We’d been through a lot together, good and bad. But the Punk God of the Straight Razor went his own way, following his own unknowable purposes. Would he kill me if he thought he had cause? Yes. Razor Eddie was many things, but sentimental wasn’t one of them.
I went back to the buffet tables. I felt very much in need of a little light refreshment. Every immortal makes it a matter of pride to bring a bottle of something special to the Ball of Forever, and some of them have cellars that go back centuries. Vintages laid down when that was still a new thing to do. In fact, I think you have to be immortal to withstand what some of those wines can do to your taste buds. I found Dead Boy trying to get a glass of champagne from one of the French maid waitresses, only to have his dead hand slapped repeatedly away on the grounds that she wasn’t wasting a really impressive vintage on someone who didn’t even have taste buds any more. Dead Boy was good-natured about it.
“Hello, Dead Boy,” I said. “How are you?”
“Still dead,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a fuss. I wouldn’t waste good booze on me either. I have no palate. Or if I have, it’s probably riddled with holes.”
I don’t know if even Dead Boy knows exactly how long he’s been dead. He was seventeen when he was mugged and murdered in the Nightside, long ago, for the spare change in his pockets. He made a deal he still won’t talk about to come back from the dead, to avenge his murder; only to discover afterwards that he should have read the small print. He was trapped in his dead body, possessing himself, unable to let go and move on. He’s more or less philosophical about it these days and does his best to live the good life despite being quite definitely deceased.
Dead Boy gave up on the champagne and gave his full attention to the assorted snacks and nibbles laid out before him. He crammed his mouth full of delicate culinary creations and filled his coat pockets, for later. Tall and forever adolescent thin, Dead Boy wore a long, deep, purple greatcoat, over black leather trousers and calf-skin boots. He sported a black rose on his coat lapel, and every now and again his coat would hang open to reveal the bare white torso beneath, marked with cuts, scars, bullet-holes and his Y-shaped autopsy scar. Dead Boy never could resist getting into trouble, and as a result was held together with heavy stitches, staples, and the odd length of black duct tape. His long, pale face had a weary, debauched Pre-Raphaelite look, with burning fever-bright eyes and a sulky mouth with no colour in it. He wore a large, battered, dark floppy hat, crammed down hard over a mess of thick, curly hair. Dead Boy did take a pride in his appearance, but it wasn’t a pride the living could understand.
“How did you get in?” I asked, honestly interested. “You’re not an immortal. You’re dead.”
“I got in the same way you did, by intimidating the staff. I come here every year; even after they put a fatwa on me. I don’t give a damn for these immortal arseholes; I’m here for the food and drink. The MEC really puts itself out for the Ball of Forever—nothing but the best for people who’ll come back for centuries. I mean, we are talking delicacies and specialities from all across history! A lot of it supplied by Rick’s Cafe Imaginaire; you know, the place that supplies meals made from extinct and legendary animals. I used to go there a lot, before I was banned. How was I to know it was a dog? It didn’t look like a dog. Anyway, they have all kinds of tasty treats here, including some so appallingly off-centre that most people wouldn’t try them even if you put a gun to their head. Look, larks’ tongues in peanut butter on Ritz crackers. Coneys—baby rabbits ripped from their mother’s breast and skewered. Stuffed baby Morlock . . .”
“Stuffed with what?” I asked, despite myself.
“Baby Eloi, probably. Those things over there are moebius mice; they stuff themselves. Crunchy . . . but they don’t half repeat on you. Hmmm . . .
“Elephant, sir,” said the French maid.
We both looked at the richly steaming meat laid out across a very long plate. “Is that the trunk?” I said finally. “Please tell me that’s the trunk.”
“Not even close, sir. That is the elephant’s penis. Soaked in a dozen different herbs and spices, tenderised with meat hammers, and then char-grilled to bring out the flavour. Would sir like me to cut him a slice off the end?”
“Oh I couldn’t,” I said. “I’d wince with every bite.”
Dead Boy laughed in my face and had a really big slice, beaming happily. “One of the more annoying problems with being dead is that I can only experience the most extreme sensations. I’m only able to enjoy food and drink at all because of these marvellous little pills I have made for me, by this amazing little Obeah woman I know. You can’t beat graveyard voodoo when it comes to getting you things you’re not supposed to have. She’s called Mother Macabre; though whether that’s her name or her title, I’ve never been sure. Certainly there’s been a Mother Macabre in the Nightside Necropolis for more centuries than I can cope with.” He looked around the Ball. “She can’t be immortal or she’d be here . . . God, this is grand stuff . . . bit chewy, mind. I wonder if they do the balls, as well . . .”
“You ask,” I said. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“You on a case here?” he said easily. “I don’t mind helping out. I could use some pocket money. In fact, I could use quite a lot of it.”
“Never knew you when you couldn’t,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”
He shrugged, and went back to stuffing his face with elephant. I wandered off into the crowd again.
Where I met Mistress Mayhem, a tall, lithe, blue-skinned beauty, with a massive frizz of black hair that fell all the way down her back to her very slender waist. Descended, at a great many removes, from the Indian death goddess Kali, she was currently wearing an outfit from the film
We’d worked a few cases together, and she’d tried to have me killed a few times. Business as usual, in the Nightside.
“Weren’t you going out with Jimmy Thunder, last time I saw you?” I said to make conversation.
“Oh, him! The Norse God for Hire,” said Mayhem. “We are currently not speaking. And anyway, he’s banned from the Ball of Forever for excessive smiting last year. Just as well; he can lower the tone of any gathering simply by being a part of it.”
My next encounter was with Hadleigh Oblivion. He appeared before me, emerging from the crowd with casual grace, smiling easily, as though he knew something I didn’t. Which, given who and what he was, was probably true. Hadleigh knew a great many things other people didn’t know and wouldn’t want to. He was perhaps the most powerful, and certainly the most influential, of the legendary Oblivion brothers. Tommy Oblivion was the Existential Detective, specialising in cases that may or may not have actually happened. Larry Oblivion was the Dead Detective, the Post-Mortem Private Eye. And Hadleigh . . . was a product of the Deep School, and the current Detective Inspectre, only called in on cases where reality itself was under threat. He was wearing his usual long, black leather coat, dark as a scrap of the night, all the better to show off his stark white face and his mane of jet- black hair. He also had sinister dark eyes and a downright unnerving smile. Hadleigh always gave the impression that wherever he was, that was where he was supposed to be.
I made a point of nodding easily to him, conspicuously unimpressed. You can’t let people like that know they’ve got to you, or they’ll walk all over you.
“Something’s going to happen here,” Hadleigh announced, quite casually. “I can feel it in the air, like a thunder-storm drawing closer. I take it you feel it, too?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “Something like that.” I didn’t feel like mentioning the Anonymous Gentleman’s warning
