Hex In The City

finally dragged Merlin down, and ate his heart right in front of him, a part of me died with him. He was the best of us, at the end.'

'He always believed Arthur would return, to save us,' said Jessica.

'Well if he is coming back, he'd better get a move on,' said Count Video, and they all managed some kind of smile.

Who could they be fighting? I thought. Who could this War be against, that could destroy a mighty Power like Merlin Satanspawn? What's out there, in the night?

'We must make more Harrowing,' said Annie. 'We must be ready for another Sending, when the opportunity presents itself.'

'We already have one body,' said King of Skin.

'We can't use him!' Jessica said immediately. 'You can't! He was one of us.'

'He's just a body now,' said Annie. 'It's what he would have wanted. You know that. You know how dangerous it is for any of us to go out into the night to dig bodies out of the rubble. Can't make homunculi without bodies.'

'But not Julien Advent,' said Jessica.

'He was always ready to serve,' said Larry. 'To be the hero. This is his last chance. You don't have to work on the body if you don't want to.'

I missed what they said after that. I was in shock. Julien Advent, the legendary Victorian Adventurer, one of my enemies? He might have disapproved of me from time to time, but we had always been friends and allies. Fought the good fight side by side ... How could he have become a part of this? He would never have sided with murder or betrayal ... unless the stakes were so high his conscience gave him no choice. Unless all the other alternatives were so much worse. And if Julien were to become a Harrowing ... I had to face the possibility that maybe other Harrowing I'd encountered in the past had been made out of the bodies of friends of mine.

I remembered when I first discovered the name of the creatures that had been hunting me on and off since I was a child. The oracle in the mall's wishing well had given me the name, in return for a price I still regretted paying. And years later, Julien had been the one who explained what the name meant. Harrow had been an old Victorian word, meaning to harass, to harry, to chase down. Had Julien Advent been the first to give them that name, here in the future?

'I still say we should just kill John,' said Annie Abattoir, dripping blood from her arm into her bowl. 'He's too dangerous to take chances with.'

'No,' Jessica said immediately. 'He's too close to becoming now. We have to bring him back here alive, and question him. We have to understand why he did ... what he did. Drugged and helpless, he will tell, eventually. And maybe then we'll be able to figure out a way to stop all this happening.'

'And afterwards, we'll kill him,' said King of Skin.

'Yes,' said Count Video. 'For all his sins. For the death of the world. For being his mother's son.'

And with that the Vision broke, and I was suddenly back in Strangefellows again. I was standing in the middle of the room, shaking and shuddering, cold sweat dripping off my face. Sinner had an arm around me, holding me up. Alex was offering me a new glass of brandy. I took it gratefully, gulping it down, the glass chattering against my teeth. I was in shock—too many truths, too fast.

I told them some of what I'd Seen and heard, but not all. There were things they didn't need to know. Things ... I couldn't trust them with. They were almost as shocked as I was, and they all looked at me in a new way, even Madman. The man who would destroy the Nightside. I couldn't blame them. Could my enemies actually be the good guys, after all? Desperately trying to prevent a catastrophe, in the only way left to them?

I had given that future's Razor Eddie my word that I would die before I allowed that terrible future to happen; but could I have already set things in motion by taking on this case? If discovering the origins of the Nightside was tied in with the mystery of my mother's identity, could pursuing this case be the first domino that sent all the others toppling?

'Timeslips are only potential futures,' said Alex. 'Everyone knows that.'

'They're just possibilities,' said Sinner. 'Time has more branches than a tree.'

I shook my head. 'The fact that my lifelong enemies are rooted in this particular future means it has to be more probable than most.'

'So what are you going to do?' said Alex.

'It's up to you,' said Sinner. 'Whether you wish to continue with this case. You don't have to. You can turn aside. But if you're determined to go on, Pretty Poison and I will accompany you. If only because I'm fascinated to see what will happen next.'

'Hear, hear,' said Madman.

'We go on,' I said. 'I have a case, and I've never let a client down yet. The truth always comes first. No matter who it ends up hurting.'

Six - The Hunter Run to Ground

I left Strangefellows through the front door, thinking hard. I'd always known the Nightside was old, had to be really old, but if Merlin was to be believed, the Nightside had been old back when he was still young. Just how far back did the Nightside go? And if it was created for a specific purpose, who created it? I had a horrible suspicion I already knew the answer.

My missing mother.

I led the way up the damp, gloomy alley that led back into the bright neon and hue and cry of the main drag, my companions lagging behind as always. Sinner and Pretty Poison were strolling along arm in arm, murmuring and giggling together, close as any lovey-dovey teenagers. It might have been charming if I hadn't known one of them was a demon from Hell, with centuries of treachery and moral corruption behind her. And Madman was ambling along in the rear, his eyes far away, for which I was grateful. It was when he started taking notice of the world that things started getting dangerous. It occurred to me, not for the first time on this case, that I might have chosen my companions more carefully.

We finally emerged onto the main streets, and I immediately spotted that we were under observation. Walker hadn't wasted any time in putting his people on my tail. At least there was no sign of Bad Penny yet, but then there probably wouldn't be until she was ready to do something appallingly nasty. I couldn't say I was surprised at Walker's people picking me up so quickly. He knew the odds were I'd drop into Strangefellows at some point, so staking it out had to be a safe bet. To be fair, bis people didn't exactly stand out in the crowd. He trained them better than that. But Walker had been having me watched and followed for so long now that many of them had actually become familiar faces. In fact, if I was getting nowhere on a case, I quite often took them off somewhere for a drink and tried out my various theories on them. On the grounds that neither of us was going anywhere for a while, so we might as well be comfortable. Most of them went along with it. In the Nightside, today's enemy can be tomorrow's friend, or at least ally. And vice versa, of course. None of us ever mentioned this arrangement to Walker, of course. He wouldn't have understood. Probably have his people hauled up on charges of fraternising with the enemy.

I looked openly about me, counting off the agents. I spotted twenty, half of whom were new faces making a valiant effort to appear inconspicuous. Twenty. I was impressed. A hell of lot more than he usually sent after me. It only went to show how seriously he was taking this case.

My companions, naturally, failed to spot any of the watchers, and I had to identify each and every one.

'Don't point at them,' I said kindly. 'It would only embarrass them.'

So we waved at them instead. One was so taken aback he walked right into a lamp-post.

'I don't like being spied on,' said Pretty Poison, her schoolgirl face disfigured by a menacing scowl.

Sinner patted her comfortingly on the arm. 'It's only because they don't know you like I do, dear.'

'I'm pretty sure these are only decoys,' I said. 'Distractions, to take our attention away from the real observers, hidden behind cloaking spells and invisibility cloaks. I think Walker is seriously concerned about our progress on this case.'

'I'd be hard-pressed to name anyone who mattered in the Nightside who isn't,' said Sinner. 'Whatever we