The shock-and-awe troopers could tell the guns in their hands were empty by the sudden change in weight, and they holstered them quickly. Without slowing their advance, they transferred their truncheons back to their right hands. A good move. You can't take bullets out of a stick. I looked behind me, casually, in case there was an obvious exit route, but the street was blocked off by a crowd of fascinated onlookers, taking photos and placing bets. One guy had even taken advantage of the crowd to set up a fast-food stall, selling wriggling things on sticks.
Ms. Fate finished fastening her midnight blue cloak about her shoulders. It suited her. The cape made her look more like an experienced crime-fighter and less like a pervert in a fetish suit. The heavy leather cape swirled about her as she drew a handful of razor-sharp silver shuriken out of her belt. In that moment, she looked every inch the real thing; because she was.
'We could drive off,' I said. 'Thus avoiding unnecessary blood and suffering. Just putting it forward as a possibility…'
'Don't be silly,' said Ms. Fate, making fists inside her gauntlets so that the leather creaked loudly. The knuckles were reinforced with steel caps. 'I have my reputation to consider.'
'Sorry,' I said. 'Don't know what came over me. Don't suppose you've got any battle armour built into that costume?'
'Of course not. It slows me down when I'm fighting. You really mustn't worry about me, John. It's sweet, but just a touch patronising. Worry about those poor bastards.'
Her right hand whipped forward, with a practised snap of the wrist, and a silver shuriken flashed through the air to bury itself in the nearest trooper's left tit. It punched right through his body armour and buried itself deep in the pectoral muscle. Blood spurted on the air as the force of the blow slammed him back onto his arse. Well trained, though, he didn't make a sound as his fellow troopers trampled right over him in their eagerness to get to us.
'Some people would take a hint,' said Ms. Fate. 'But I can see we're going to have to do this the hard way. Up close and personal.'
'Best way,' said Lord Screech.
I looked at him, and couldn't keep from raising an eye brow. 'Are you seriously proposing to involve yourself in a common brawl? I didn't think your kind lowered themselves to simple fisticuffs and putting the boot in.'
'We don't, usually,' said the elf. 'But we never miss an opportunity to put mere humans in their place.'
And he and Ms. Fate marched purposefully forward to strike terror into the hearts of the ungodly. I stayed right where I was, considering my options. I've never been much of a one for brute force, mainly because I've never been very good at it. I had no doubt I'd have to get personally involved at some point, but I thought I'd wait and see what Ms. Fate and Lord Screech had to offer first.
The shock-and-awe troopers clearly didn't take a costumed super-heroine seriously, right up to the moment she hit their advancing front line like a grenade. She punched out one man, back-elbowed another in the throat, swung around and took out two more with a sweeping karate kick. Shocked cries of pain and horror filled the night as she waded right into the troopers, breaking heads and noses, beating them up and knocking them down, and making it all look easy. The troopers quickly rallied, striking out viciously with their truncheons, but somehow Ms. Fate was never where they thought she should be, and they did more damage to each other than they did to her.
Ms. Fate had trained long and hard to be a costumed crime-fighter, and it showed.
Lord Screech, on the other hand, was every inch the magnificent amateur; a man who never practised because he didn't need to. He seemed simply to stroll into the mayhem, and men started dropping to the blood- stained ground. He moved languidly, gracefully, through the confused pack of armed men, and every time his hand shot out, there was the sound of breaking bone and cartilage, and blood flew everywhere. He moved so quickly none of the shock-and-awe troopers could even touch him.
I sat on the bonnet of the Fatemobile, cheering my colleagues on but not so loudly as to draw unwelcome attention to myself. Screech and Ms. Fate didn't seem to need my help. Until a new pack of troopers, twice the size of the original, came racing round the corner, and charged forward to join the fight. I sighed. Given that Walker was every inch a product of the old public school system, he seemed to have great difficulty in grasping the concept of playing fair.
Screech and Ms. Fate moved quickly to stand back-to-back, surrounded by broken and bloodied figures crawling painfully about on the street. They could have run back to the safety of the Fatemobile, but that wasn't their style. Ms. Fate was breathing hard, the leather over her fake breasts rising and falling, but her gloved hands were full of shuriken, and her cowled head was proudly erect. Screech wasn't even breathing hard. He flicked drops of blood from the tips of his elegant fingers and glared arrogantly at the approaching troopers. But there had to be a good sixty armed men heading right for them, and the odds weren't good.
So I got up off the bonnet, walked casually forward to join Screech and Ms. Fate, waited till the charging troopers were almost upon us, then used a variation on my bullet-removing trick to rip all the fillings, crowns and bridgework right out of their mouths. The troopers skidded to a halt, clutching at ruined, bloody mouths, making quite distressing and pitiful sounds of pain and horror. Screech and Ms. Fate looked at me inquiringly. I explained what I'd just done, and Ms. Fate got the giggles. Screech nodded approvingly, as though I was a rather backwards pupil who'd finally done something right. I stepped forward, and cleared my throat loudly to get the troopers' attention.
'Yes,' I said cheerfully. 'That was me. Now, be good little shock-and-awe troopers and trot off back to Walker, or I'll show you another disappearing trick, involving your testicles and a series of buckets.'
They looked at each other, put away their various weapons, and trudged off to tell Walker I'd been mean to them. And probably to ask if he knew a good dentist. They looked rather sullen and sulky, as though we hadn't played the game by refusing to be helpless victims.
'Spoil-sport,' said Ms. Fate, her breathing almost back to normal. 'I was just getting warmed up.'
'That was a really nasty trick, Mr. Taylor,' said Screech. 'Almost worthy of an elf.'
'Let's get back to the car,' I said. 'We need to remove ourselves from the vicinity, at speed, before Walker decides to send someone or something really dangerous after us. Those poor fools were just a shot across the bows, to get our attention.'
'And,' said Ms. Fate, 'now he knows what car you're using. So much for the element of surprise.'
We all piled back into the Fatemobile, Ms. Fate detaching her cloak and tossing it onto the back seat, where it enveloped Lord Screech. Ms. Fate slapped at various controls, the automatic seat belts did themselves up, and she gripped the ermine-covered steering wheel with her gloved hands.
'Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed!' she yelled joyously, and slammed her foot down.
The Fatemobile peeled out so fast it took a minute for its shadow to catch up, and bullied its way into the streaming traffic through sheer bravado and force of character. The acceleration pressed me back into my seat, and the sudden turns clanged my eye-balls together. Screech finally freed himself from the folds of Ms. Fate's cape and leaned forward.
'Atomic batteries? Is she joking?'
'Who can tell?' I said. 'This is the Nightside. We do things differently here.'
'You humans and your toys,' said Screech. 'I think I'll take a little nap. Wake me up when we get to the Gate.'
We shot through the Nightside at breath-taking speed, overtaking most things, intimidating others, and shouldering aside anything that didn't get out of the way fast enough. The Fatemobile might look like a contender for Top Gear's Most Effeminate Car of the Year Award, but it moved like a guided missile, and had enough built-in weapons systems to more than punch its weight. Ms. Fate wasn't above using the front-mounted machine-guns to clear the way ahead if she recognised anyone she disapproved of, and she tossed a concussion grenade through the open window of a taxi-cab when the driver was rude to her. He must have been new. Anyone else would have had more sense. Or at least sense enough to maintain a safe distance. The various bars and clubs all merged into one long blur as we streaked past them, the neon signs a long multi-coloured smear. The Fatemobile's motor roared like a beast unleashed, and there wasn't a thing on the road that could match us.
It wasn't until we were directed off the main road and onto the side routes that our real troubles began.
Walker had set up roadblocks at all the major intersections leading to the Osterman Gate, heavy fortifications
