Nightingale lament

'Since he wouldn't give me what I wanted, I went looking for someone who would, and at one of Julien's soirees, I made the acquaintance of the generous gentleman at my side. The Murder Masque himself. He showed me a whole new world of monies and plea­sures, and I took to it as to the manner born. And so I took up a Masque, too, and I found far more thrills as a lord of crime than I ever did in poor Julien's arms. In the end, when I pushed him into the Timeslip to be rid of him, I didn't feel anything at all.'

'Tell them,' the Jonah said impatiently. 'Tell John what we did to Rossignol. I want to see his face, once he realises there's nothing he can do to save her.'

'Our Rossignol grew just a little too independent as she became more popular,' said Mr. Cavendish. He sounded stiff and even bored, as though he was only saying this to satisfy the Jonah's wishes. 'She started taking meetings on her own, without consulting us first. Executives at the record companies professed to be concerned by the terms of our deal, though Rossig­nol had been glad enough to sign it at the time, when no-one else would touch her. Those executives assured Rossignol she could do much better with them. They promised their lawyers would easily break the contract, if she would only transfer her allegiance to them. So she came to us and demanded a better deal, or she would leave.'

'The impudence of the girl!' said Mrs. Cavendish. 'Of course, we couldn't allow her to do any such thing. Not after all the money we'd already invested in her. And all the money we stood to make. We found her, we made her, we groomed her. We made Rossignol into a viable product. We had a right to protect our invest­ment. Don't think you're fighting the good fight here, Mr. Taylor. This damsel in distress doesn't need rescu­ing. From what, after all? Fame and fortune? We promised we would make her a star, and so we shall. But she is our property, and no-one else's.'

'What about freedom of choice?' I said.

'What about it?' said Mr. Cavendish. 'This is busi­ness we're talking about. Rossignol signed away all such nonsense when she put her fate in our hands. Rossignol belongs to Cavendish Properties.'

'Is that why you murdered her?' said Dead Boy. 'Because she wanted to leave and run her own life?'

The Cavendishes didn't seem at all surprised by the accusation. If anything, they preened a little.

'We didn't actually kill her,' said the woman.

'Not quite,' said the man.

'She isn't entirely dead,' said the woman. 'The poi­son we gave her took her to the very edge of death, then the Jonah found and imposed the one chance in a mil­lion that held her there, at death's very door, in an ex­ tended Near-Death Experience. And when she came back from the edge, and we revived her, the profound shock had reduced her will and vitality to such a mal­leable state that she imprinted on us and accepted us as surrogate parents and authority figures. We had to keep her isolated, of course, to preserve this useful emo­tional connection. But even so, she persisted in dis­playing annoying signs of independence ... perhaps we need to poison her again and repeat the process, to put her back in the right frame of mind.'

'You bastards,' said Rossignol.

'Oh hush, child,' said the man. 'Artistes never know what's best for them.'

'But the best bit,' said the Jonah, beaming happily, 'the best bit is that only my will holds her where she is, on the very edge of death. My magic, my power. Her life is irrevocably linked to mine now. If you attack me, John, if you kill me, she goes all the way into the dark. Forever and ever. You don't dare threaten me.'

'That's as may be,' Dead Boy said mildly. 'But what can you threaten me with? I only just met this girl, and her life and death are a small thing to me. You, on the other hand, have dared to meddle in my province, and I won't have that. I think I'll kill you anyway, Billy boy.'

'Don't call me that! That's not my name any more! I'm . . .'

'The same irritating little tit you've always been, Billy.'

'I'll...'

'You'll what? Kill me dead? Been there, done that, stole the T-shirt. And you're nowhere near powerful enough to break the compact I made.'

'Perhaps not,' said the Jonah, and suddenly he was smiling again. I stirred uneasily. I really didn't like that smile. The Jonah stepped forward to lock glares with Dead Boy. 'You've done a really good job of stitching and stapling yourself together, down the years. All the wounds and damage you took, and never thought twice. Holding your battered and broken body together with superglue and duct tape. But. . . what if none of it had ever held? What if all your repairs just. . . failed?'

He made a short chopping gesture with one hand, and it was as though Dead Boy's body exploded. His back arched as black duct tape suddenly unwrapped and sailed away like streamers. Stitches and staples shot out, pattering softly to the stage, and his clothes were only tatters. No blood flew, or any other liquid, but all at once there were gaping wounds opening everywhere in Dead Boy's death-white flesh. He collapsed as his legs failed him, pale pink organs and guts falling out of him, and he hit the stage hard. One hand fell away entirely, the fingers still twitching. Dead Boy lay still, wounds opening slowly like flowers. I'd never realised how much damage he'd taken. Rossignol gripped my arm so hard it hurt, but didn't make a sound. And I just stood where I was, because I couldn't think of a single damned thing I could do to help my friend.

'Entropy,' the Jonah said smugly, 'means every­thing falls apart. Look at you now, Dead Boy. Not so big now, are you? Can you still feel pain? I do hope so. You must have made a hell of a deal, to be able to sur­vive so much punishment. . . Not that it's done you any good, in the end. Tell you what, Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish, why don't you come over here and do the honours. Send him on his way. I wouldn't want to be accused of hogging all the fun.'

The Cavendishes looked at each other, sighed qui­etly, then moved forward to indulge the Jonah. They stood over Dead Boy and studied his stubbornly exist­ing body with thoughtful frowns.

'We could always feed him into a furnace,' said Mr. Cavendish.

'Indeed we could,' said Mrs. Cavendish. 'I always enjoy it so much more when they're still alive to appreciate what's happening.'

'But I think a more immediate end is called for here,' said the man. 'Major players like Dead Boy have a habit of escaping their fates, if given the slight­est chance.'

'And we haven't existed this long by taking unnec­essary chances with our enemies, Mr. Cavendish.'

'Quite right, my dear.'

They both drew handguns from hidden holsters and shot Dead Boy in the heart and in the forehead. He jerked convulsively, pink-and-grey brains spraying out the back of his head. And then he lay back and was per­ fectly still, and his eyes looked at nothing at all. The Cavendishes turned to face me, and I gave them my best sneer.

'Your guns don't have bullets in them any more, you bastards.'

The Cavendishes pulled the triggers anyway a few times, but nothing happened. They shrugged pretty much in unison and went back to stand behind their Jonah.

'We've always believed in delegation,' said the man.

'You wanted him, dear Billy,' said the woman. 'He's all yours.'

The Jonah stepped forward, smiling his cocky smile like he had all the time in the world and wouldn't have rushed this for anything. 'Still got a few tricks left up your sleeve, eh, John? But then, tricks are all you ever really had. Your precious gift for finding things was never a real power, not like mine. There's nothing you can do to stop me killing you and taking Rossignol back where she belongs. How shall I kill you, John? Let me count the ways . . . The cancers that lie in wait, needing only a nudge to swell and prosper. The arthri­tis that lurks in every joint, the bacteria and viruses to boil in your blood. . . Perhaps all of them at once might be amusing. You might even explode like Dead Boy! Or maybe ... I'll find that one-in-a-million chance where you were born horribly deformed and helpless, and leave you like that. So everyone can see what happens to anyone foolish enough to cross the Jonah.'

He could do it. He had the power. And all I had was a gift I didn't dare use again. Now my enemies knew exactly where I was, if I opened my mind to use my gift, they'd attack my mind directly. They'd take control of my mind and my soul in a second, then . . . there are worse things than death, in the Nightside. But with­out my gift, I didn't have anything strong enough to stop the Jonah and save Rossignol. All I had . . . was myself. I smiled suddenly, and the Jonah's grin fal­tered.

'Billy, Billy,' I said, calm and easy and utterly con­descending, 'you never did understand the true nature of magic. It's not based in the power we wield or the gifts we inherit. In the end, it all comes down to will and intent.