Something from the Nightside

gaping hole, and he cried out in pain and shock as unseen jaws sank deep into the

meat of his leg. More holes opened up in the ground around me and Joanna, but I had already hauled her to her feet by main force, and we were off and running. We left Eddie's body behind. He was past caring, at last. And already decaying, as the long years finally caught up with him.

We ran past the Collector, who was screaming shrilly as he scrabbled in his suit pockets for something. He finally pulled out a shiny canister, and sprayed the contents down the hole. More of the insects screamed underground, and the Collector was able to pull his leg free. Huge chunks of flesh were missing, the cracked bone clear among red strings of meat. The Collector whimpered, and then sprayed his canister wildly about him as more holes opened up. The light he stood in was flickering unsteadily now as his concentration wavered. He swore briefly, like a disappointed child, and vanished, back into Time. The light snapped off, and the insects charged forward, coming after Joanna and me as we ran for the boundary.

Joanna was back in control again, her face grim and focused as she held the lighter out before her, almost like a cross to ward off the undead. It seemed to me the flame was smaller than it had been, but I didn't say anything. Either it would last, or it wouldn't. Insects crowded in all around us, scrambling over each other in their eagerness to get at us, but still they couldn't bring themselves to enter the

gradually shrinking pool of yellow light. There were some the size of dogs, and some the size of pigs, and I hated them all. Joanna and I ran straight at them, and they fell aside at the very last moment, huge dark mandibles snapping shut like bear traps. I glanced again at Joanna's lighter, and didn't like what I saw. The flame wasn't going to last until we reached the boundary, and if it didn't, neither would we. So I called on my gift one more time, to find a path of power.

There are lots of them, in the Nightside, with lots of names; from the uber science of the ley lines to the shimmering magic of the Rainbow Run, there have always been roads of glory, hidden from all but the keenest of gazes, holding the substance of the world together with their immaterial energies. If you had the courage to run them, you could gain your heart's desire. Supposedly. And even now, in this desolate and deserted place, the paths of power remained. My gift locked on to one that led right to the Timeslip boundary, and called it up into existence. A bright, vivid, scintillating path appeared before us, and the insects fell back from the new light as though they'd been burned. Joanna and I ran on, hand in hand, pushing ourselves hard, and sparks flew up from our pounding feet.

But I was already slowing. Using the gift had taken a lot out of me, at the end of a long, hard day. I'd used my gift too often, pushed it too hard, and I

was paying the price now. My head was throbbing so hard I could barely see anything outside of the path, and blood ran steadily from both my nostrils and dripped from my chin. My legs felt very far away. Joanna was having to drag me along now, keeping me moving through sheer determination. I could feel the boundary drawing closer, but it still seemed a hell of a way off. Like in those dreams where you run as hard as you can, and still never get anywhere. Joanna was yelling at me now, but I could hardly hear her. And the insects were all around us, a scuttling carpet of dark intent.

I was tired and hurting, but even so I was surprised when my legs just suddenly gave out, and I fell. I hit the glory path hard, and small shocks ran through me, none of them enough to get me back on my feet again. So close, the magic was almost painful. The insects surged right up to the edge of the light, staring at me with expressionless compound eyes. Joanna leaned over me, and tried to raise me up, but I was too heavy. I rolled over onto my side and looked up at her.

'Get the hell out of here,' I said. 'I've taken you as far as I can. There's nothing more I can do for you. Boundary's straight ahead. I've already cracked an opening that will take you back to the Nightside. Go find your daughter, Joanna. And be kind to her. In memory of me.'

She let go of my arm, and it dropped limply to the bright track. I couldn't even feel it.

'I won't leave you,' said Joanna. 'I can't just leave you.'

'Of course you can. If we both die here, who'll help your daughter? Don't worry; I'll be dead before the insects get to me. I'll see to that. Maybe ... by dying here, now, I can prevent this ever happening. Time's funny that way, sometimes. Now go. Please.'

She stood looking down at me, and suddenly her face was utterly blank. All the emotion had gone out of it. Shell-shocked, again, perhaps. Or just considering the matter. She turned away from me, staring down the glowing path towards a boundary whose existence she could only take on faith. She was going to leave me behind, to die. I could feel it. Part of me cursed her, and part of me urged her on. I'd always known something in the Nightside would kill me, and I hated the thought that I might drag someone else down with me. And then she turned back, all the blankness gone from her face, and she grabbed me by the arm again with both hands.

'Get up!' she said fiercely. 'Damn you, get up on your feet, you bastard! We haven't come this far together for you to give up now! I'm not leaving without you, so if you don't get up, you're killing me along with you. So move, damn you!'

'Well,' I said, or thought I said. 'If you put it that way...'

Between the two of us, we got me back on my feet again, and we staggered down the shimmering path. I kept thinking that the next step would be my last, that there just wasn't anything left in me, but Joanna kept me going. Half-supporting, half-carrying me, urging me on with comforting words and shouted obscenities. She dragged me down the path, all the way to the boundary, the insects screaming shrilly all the way, until suddenly we crashed through the crack I'd opened and back into our own Time.

We collapsed together on a rain-slick street, fighting for breath, and the wonderful roar of the living city was all around us. Bright neon and thundering traffic, and people, people everywhere. The night sky was full of the blaze of stars, and the great and glorious moon. It was good to be home. We lay side by side on the pavement, and people walked around us, ignoring the blood that soaked my clothes. The Nightside is a great place for minding your own business. I looked at the moon in its bright unblinking eye, and said sorry. Not everyone gets to see the possible results of their own future actions. The world that could be, if they really screw up. I wondered whether I should tell the present-day Razor Eddie of what I'd seen in the possible future. I thought not. There are some horrors no man should have to contemplate, not even the Punk God of the Straight Razor.

Not every future is etched in stone. I should know.

I'd seen enough, before now. But I still felt guilty, even if I didn't know what for.

You should never have gone looking for your mother. That's what the future Eddie had said. I'd always been curious about the mother who abandoned me. The woman who wasn't actually human after all. In the early hours of the morning, when a man just can't sleep, I'd often wondered if I help other people find things that matter to them because I can't find the one thing that really matters to me. Well, now I'd have something else to think about at three o'clock in the morning.

I looked at Joanna. 'You know, I really thought you were going to leave me there, for a moment.'

'For a moment,' she said slowly, 'I was. I surprised myself. I didn't know I had that kind of determination in me.' She frowned. 'But it was ... strange. Something in me didn't want to help you. Don't ask me to explain, because I can't. It's like there's something on the tip of my tongue, a word or a memory I can't quite grasp ... Oh hell, it doesn't matter. We both got out. Now let's get up off this freezing-wet pavement and go find Blaiston Street. After all we've been through to get there, I'm curious to see what it looks like. It had better be worth it.'

'Cathy will be there,' I said.

'And we will find her, and save her from whatever damn fool mess she's got herself into this time. Anything else can wait. Right?'

'Right,' I said, not entirely sure just what it was I was agreeing to.

When I did find out it was, of course, far too late.

EIGHT - Time Out At the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill

I'd just seen the end of the world, murdered one of my oldest friends, and discovered that the one quest I'd always intended to give my life to was now forever barred to me; so I decided I was owed a break. Luckily there was a really good cafe close by, so I took Joanna firmly by the hand and led her there, so that we could both get