Agents of Light and Darkness

poising for action, tense as a coiled spring. And men Walker smiled his charming smile again, and shrugged. 'Perhaps another time, Taylor. Are you sure I can't persuade you to come with me? There are forces at my beck and call that you really don't want to meet. And surely you wouldn't want to risk your friends being hurt?'

Suzie sniggered offensively. 'Yeah, right. That'll be the day.'

'Good-bye, Walker,' I said. 'I'm sure you can find your own way out.'

Walker shook his head. 'You know your father wouldn't approve of behavior like this, John. He understood about duty and responsibility.'

'You leave my father out of this! What did working for the Authorities ever do for him? And where were you when he needed you? You were supposed to be his friend! Where were you when he married my mother? Perhaps we should talk about my mother. Would you like that?'

'No,' said Walker. 'I wouldn't.'

'No... no-one ever does,' I said, cold and flat and bitter. 'Funny, that.'

Razor Eddie stood up behind his desk, and all eyes immediately went to him. He never looked like much, but just then his presence seemed to fill the room. He looked at Walker, and Walker inclined his head slightly, respectfully.

'John doesn't have to go anywhere he doesn't want to,' said Razor Eddie, in a voice like a death sentence. 'And don't think you can threaten me, Walker. I have known worse things than Authorities or angels.'

'And I'm just plain mean,' said Shotgun Suzie.

'I have seen the Unholy Grail,' said Razor Eddie. 'The Collector wasn't fit to have it, and neither are you, or the angels. It is a thing that doesn't belong here, and the only person I trust to get rid of it is Taylor. Go now, John, Suzie. I'll keep Walker occupied.'

Walker looked at me almost sadly. 'You didn't really think I'd come here alone, did you?'

A gaudily colored blur swept past him and into the office, blasting through the open doorway almost too fast to be seen. Something buffeted me in passing, almost knocking me off my feet, and rushed on to slam into Razor Eddie. The sheer force of the impact lifted him off his feet, smashed him clean through the closed window behind him, and sent him tumbling helplessly through the smoky air to the ground three stories below. Suzie was only just turning round, and trying to bring her gun to bear, when the blur turned and swept back, and a single horribly clawed hand slapped the shotgun out of Suzie's hand, then whipped back to tear out her guts. The black leather jacket blew apart in an explosion of tatters, and Suzie cried out once, in shock and pain, as her stomach opened up like a great mouth, and her intestines fell out in a rush of blood. She collapsed to her knees, grabbing with shaky hands at the thick purple ropes spilling out of her. More blood gushed out, soaking her lap and legs, and pooling on the floor around her.

It only took a few steps before I was kneeling beside her and holding her in my arms, but it seemed t take forever. I held her shoulders tightly, trying to stop her shaking. Her face was bone white, and already wet with sweat She rolled her eyes at me and tried to say something, but her mouth was loose and ugly and wouldn't work properly. There was no fear in her eyes, only something that might have been a terrible resignation. One bloody hand groped around for her shotgun, but it was on the other side of the room. Her other hand was still trying to stuff severed bits of intestines back into her stomach. The stench of blood and guts was almost overwhelming. Suzie was breathing clumsily now, great heaving gasps, as though every breath was an effort.

She was dying, and both of us knew it.

And then the blur came to a sudden halt before me, solidifying into a familiar shape, one I hadn't seen in years. I should have known; it had to be her. She struck an elegant pose before me and smiled a happy contented smile. She always did like to show off. In one white-gloved hand she held the Speaking Gun's case, taken from Suzie even as she ripped out her guts. She waggled the case a few times before me, as a trophy, then slipped it casually under one arm.

'A little extra, I think, on top of my exorbitant fee. You don't object, do you, Walker darting?'

Walker started to say something, then stopped himself.

'Hello, Belle,' I said, in a voice I didn't recognize. 'It's been a while, hasn't it?'

'Oh, years and years, darling. But you know me. Always happy to bump into old friends.'

Belle. Short for La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Tall and elegant, beautiful and sophisticated, supernaturally slender. She had poise and style and vicious charm, and an aristocratic disdain for small-minded things like ethics or morality, good or evil. She was what she was, and delighted in it. Her face had a marvelous bone structure, a broad forehead, purple eyes and a heavy, sulky mouth. Belle was a freelancer- intrigue, murder, theft, and conspiracy, or anything else you might desire, as long as you could pay for it. She'd done it all in her time, and always on her own terms. She drifted from one European capital to another, leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken bodies behind her, and never once looked back. Mostly she stayed out of the Nightside. Said the place was beneath her. I think she just felt happier away from any real competition.

To give her her due, she'd always been ready to take on anyone, anywhere, and she'd never been known to lose. Mainly because Belle had armored herself in trophies taken from her many victims. On her back she wore a werewolf's pelt, thick and grey and shaggy. She skinned the hide off him herself, and now she wore the pale grey fur all the way down her back, with the emptied head pulled forward over her head like a hood. The skull's long canines dented her forehead, above her purple eyes. It wasn't just  garment; her magics kept the pelt alive and plugged into her own system. It was her skin now, her fur, and as a result she had a werewolf's ability to regenerate. Her burnished golden breastplate was made from a dragon's hide, and it formed utterly impenetrable amour. Her shimmering white elbow-length gloves were in fact a vampire's lily white skin, flayed from the undead victim by Belle's own fair hand. On one of her hands, heavy claws pushed through the white glove; claws taken from a ghoul and fused onto her own fingers. The thigh-high leather boots were new. I didn't know who she'd got them from. Belle's magics made her various amours a part of her, made her, for all practical purposes, unkillable.

Belle was very much a self-made woman.

Most strikingly, the two halves of her face didn't match. The left half was a distinctly darker shade than the rest of her body. One victim had got close enough to rip half of Belle's face away. So after she was dead, Belle took half the victim's face as a replacement. The new skin was younger, tighter, and a perfect fit.

Belle would go anywhere, and do anyone, as long as the check cleared. Or as long as the enemy was a challenge, or had something Belle wanted.

I clutched Suzie to me, cradling her shaking body in my arms. She was trembling violently now, as shock took hold. Blood ran in sudden spurts from her slack mouth, and dripped off her chin. I could almost feel the life going out of her. Part of me wanted to throw myself at Belle and tear her throat out, make her pay for what she'd done. But I couldn't do that. I had to be smarter, sharper, than that. Belle was armored against all attacks, physical or magical. Or so she thought. My only hope was to keep cool and talk calmly with Belle. Keep her mind occupied, distracted, while I slowly and very surreptitiously focused my gift on her. Do it right, and she'd never even notice. As long as I narrowed my concentration right down, into a single cold needle, I should be able to slip my gift past her mental and magical defenses just long enough to do what I had to do. It was dangerous. If Belle even suspected what I was planning, she'd have my throat out in a second, and to hell with her mission. And even so small a use of my gift would still blaze like a beacon in the night, revealing my presence to those who were always hunting me. So I had to be careful, and focused, and utterly underhanded.

Luckily, I was good at that.

'Been a long time, Belle,' I said, in something very like a normal voice. 'What is it, six, seven years since we worked together on that Hellstorm business? I thought we made a good team.'

'Don't try to appeal to my better nature, darling,' Belle said in her marvelously cool and smoky voice. 'You know very well I don't have one. We made good partners, John, but we were never more than that.'

'I heard the Walking Man got you, stalking you through the catacombs under Paris.'

'Oh he very nearly did, darling, but I'm so very hard to kill. Unlike your little sweetie there. Poor Suzie. Never did know what you saw in her.'

'You're a lot faster than you used to be, Belle. Been taking vitamins?'

'See these new boots, darling? Aren't they simply super? I skinned a minor Greek deity to get them, so I could have his speed.'

'Give it up, John,' said Walker. 'Come with me now, and I promise you I'll see Suzie gets help. No-one has to die here. Don't let your pride get in the way. I'm the good guy, this time. I'm saving the Nightside from