Nightingale lament

this way and that, deflecting attacks. It soaked up the punishment, and Dead Boy didn't object. I think he was getting a weird kind of kick out of it. Rossignol was beside me, fighting dirty, pulling trannies' wigs down over their eyes and kicking them in the nuts when she could get a clear target. My back slammed up against the wall behind me, and I yelled past Dead Boy's shoulder for Rossignol to overturn our table and make it a barricade. She broke away from shoulder-charging a Nico and pulled the table over, and soon all three of us were sheltering behind it.

'I'm bored with this,' said Dead Boy. 'I know a curse that will boil their brains in their heads.'

'No!' I said quickly. 'We can't kill any of them! The divas aren't responsible for this. They're the vic­tims here.'

'Oh hell,' said Dead Boy. 'It's good deeds time again, is it?'

The divas, all of them eerily silent, swarmed around us, trying to reach us with their weapons and clawed hands. We were safe for the moment, but we were trapped in our corner. There was nowhere left for us to go, and soon enough the divas would work together to pull the table away; and then ... I swore regretfully, and reluctantly did what I do best. I concentrated and opened up my inner eye, my third eye, and used my gift to find the channel the fans were using to drive the divas. It was like suddenly seeing a shimmering lat­ticework of silver strings, rising up from the divas' heads and sailing off into infinity. And having seen it, it was the easiest thing in the world to locate the single thread they all connected to, the focus for the overlay­ing signal. It turned out to be a single diva, a Whitney, standing watching from the stage. All I had to do was point the Whitney out to Dead Boy, and he made a swift crushing motion with his fist. The Whitney crum­pled unconscious to the stage, and all of the silver lines snapped off.

The spell was broken in a moment, and the attacking divas were suddenly nothing more than disoriented men in frocks and make-up. They stopped where they were, shocked and confused, some clinging to each other for mutual support and comfort. Possession is a kind of violation, of the mind and the soul. For a mo­ment, it actually seemed the danger was over. I should have known better.

The trannies suddenly screamed and scattered as a dozen dark and dangerous figures appeared out of nowhere. Tall menacing figures, with smart suits and no faces. I had used my gift once too often, burned too brightly in the night, and now my enemies had found me again. They had sent the Harrowing for me. The trannies quickly cleared the floor and disappeared out the exits. It had all been too much for them. I would have run, too, if I could. The Harrowing advanced slowly towards us, unstoppable figures of death and horror. They had human shapes, but they didn't move like people did, and the faces under their wide-brimmed hats were only stretches of blank skin. They had no eyes, but they could see. One of them raised its hand, showing me the hypodermic needles where its fingernails should have been. Thick green drops pulsed from the tips of the needles, and I shuddered. Rossignol was clutching my arm so hard it hurt. Dead Boy was frowning for the first time.

'Would I be right in thinking events have just taken a distinct turn for the worse?'

'Oh yes,' I said. 'They're the Harrowing. The hounds my enemies send after me. You can't hurt or kill them because they're not real. Just constructs. And there's nothing you or I can do to stop them.'

'How do you normally deal with them?' said Rossignol.

'I run like hell. I've spent a lot of my life running from the Harrowing.' I raised my gift again, desper­ately trying to find a way out, but there wasn't one. There was no exit close enough to reach, and the over­turned table wouldn't slow them down for a second. The dozen vicious figures moved towards us, relentless

as cancer, implacable as destiny. And then a female fig­ure came howling out of nowhere and launched itself at one of the Harrowing. The attacker had been a Kylie once, but all traces of glamour and femininity had been torn away by recent traumas. All that mattered to the Kylie now was that there was a target for his rage. He stabbed the Harrowing in the chest, and its pliant body just absorbed the blow, taking no damage and trapping both the knife and the hand inside its unnatural flesh. The Harrowing made a brief slashing gesture with one hand, and the Kylie just fell apart into a hundred pieces, blood spurting and gushing all over the floor.

'Damn,' said Dead Boy. 'That is seriously nasty. You know, I have to wonder . . . how many pieces could you cut me into, and I'd still be able to put my­self back together again?'

'Well, unless you fancy life as a jigsaw, stop won­dering about it and bloody well do something,' I said, stridently.

'Boys,' said Rossignol. 'They really are getting ter­ribly close. Please tell me one of you has something re­ sembling a plan.'

'When you get right down to it,' said Dead Boy, 'I'm just a walking corpse who's picked up a few un­pleasant strategems along the way. There's nothing in my bag of tricks that could even slow those bastards down. You have really powerful enemies, John.'

'Okay,' I said, my mouth almost painfully dry. 'That's it. Dead Boy, grab Ross and run like hell. As long as you're not a threat, they might not bother with you. They're only here for me.'

'What will they do to you?' said Rossignol.

'If I'm lucky, they'll kill me quickly,' I said. 'But I've never been that lucky. The Harrowing are horror and despair. Please, get out of here.'

'I can't leave you,' said Dead Boy. 'Good deeds, re­member? Abandoning you now would set me back years.'

'And I won't leave you,' said Rossignol. 'If only because you're my only hope of breaking free from the Cavendishes.'

'Please,' I said. 'You don't understand. If you stay, they'll do ... horrible things to you. I've seen it hap­pen before.'

'You'll think of something, John,' said Rossignol. 'I know you will.'

But I didn't. I'd never been able to face the Harrow­ing, only run from them. My very own pursuing demons. The first of the Harrowing grabbed one edge of our barricading table with a puffy corpse-pale hand and threw it aside as though it were nothing. Dead Boy braced himself, and I pushed Rossignol behind me, sheltering her with my body. And then all the Harrowing stopped and turned their featureless faces, as though listening to something only they could hear. They started to shake and shudder, and then one by one they fell apart into rot and slime, slumping shapelessly to the floor. One moment a dozen menacing figures were closing in on us, and the next there was nothing but thick puddles of reeking ooze, spreading slowly. Dead Boy and I looked at each other, and then we both glared round sharply at the sound of soft, mocking laughter. And there, standing on the stage at the end of the room was Billy Lathem, the Jonah, in his smart, smart suit. He looked very pleased with himself. Standing on either side of him in their undertakers' clothes were Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish.

'I told you, John,' said the Jonah. 'I am far more powerful than you ever realised. I am entropy, the end of all things, and not even sendings like those ugly bas­tards can stand against me. Now, you have something that doesn't belong to you. And I have come to repos­sess it.'

'Come along, dear Rossignol,' said Mr. Cavendish. 'You'll be late for your show.'

'You don't want to be late for your show, do you?' said Mrs. Cavendish.

Rossignol was still gripping my arm tightly. 'I won't go with them. Don't let them take me, John. I can't go back to being the half-asleep thing I was, nodding and smiling and agreeing to everything they said. I'd rather die.'

'You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to,' I said, but it didn't sound convincing, even to me. I was still stunned at how easily the Jonah had destroyed the Harrowing. He had become a Power and a Domination, like his late father, Count Entropy, and I was just a man with a gift. And a bad reputation ... I raised my head and gave Billy Lathem one of my best enigmatic looks.

'We've done this dance before, Billy. Back off, or I'll use my gift...'

'You don't dare,' said the Jonah, grinning nastily. 'Not now your enemies know where you are. What do you think they'll send next, if you're dumb enough to open up your mind again? Something so appalling even I might not be able to deal with it. No, your only option now is to hand over the girl and skulk off out of here, before your enemies track you down anyway.' He laughed suddenly. 'You'll never be able to bluff any­one ever again, John. Not after I tell everyone how I saw you cringing and helpless, and hiding behind a table. And all from things I turned to rot and slime with just a wave of my hand. Now, you back off, John. Or I'll use my power to find the one piece of bad luck that will break you forever.'