The other man was older, at least in his sixties, and looked
like a street person. Malnutrition-thin, and wrapped in ragged charity shop clothes. I immediately tabbed them Eamonn 50 and Eamonn 60, and let my hands drift towards certain useful objects in my coat pockets. Much more than the earlier alternates in my office, these two looked desperate and dangerous. They stalked through the crowded bar, ignoring the strangeness to all sides, their hot angry gazes fixed on the Eamonn behind me. I stepped forward to block their path, and they stopped and smiled nastily at me. All around people were getting up from their tables and backing away, so as not to get caught in the cross-fire. Ms. Fate put his disposable razor back into her utility belt and produced a steel throwing star. I caught his eye, and shook my head slightly. I've always felt it important to handle my own messes.
'You must be Taylor,' said Eamonn 50. Even his voice sounded fat and self-important. 'We were warned you might try to interfere. This is none of your business. Get out of our way, or we'll fix it so you were never born.'
I had to smile. 'You might find that harder than you think,' I said.
'Then maybe we'll fix it so you were born crippled, or diseased,' said Eamonn 60. His voice was harsh and painful, as though he didn't use it much any more. 'We'll kill you, Taylor. Kill you nasty, if you try and stop us doing what we have to do.'
'What is it you want?' Eamonn 40 said from behind me. He was scared, but he kept his voice firm.
'I want you to make the decisions that will lead to me, and my life,' said Eamonn 50. 'I worked hard to get all the good things that life has to offer. All the comforts, and the pleasures. I won't risk losing them now, just because you don't have the balls to go for the brass ring. I'll fix you. Make you make the right decisions. Make you become me.'
'Is that what you want?' I asked Eamonn 60.
'I don't want to be me,' he said flatly. 'No-one should
have to live like I do. I never wanted this. Never wanted to sleep in shop doorways and beg for food from people who walk right past without making eye contact. I've been given the chance to undo the decisions that stupid bastard made, that led to him becoming me; and I'll destroy anyone who interferes.'
'Kill you all,' said Eamonn 50. 'Destroy you all.'
'Hold everything,' I said, holding up one hand politely. 'Can I check something? Have either of you ever been married ... and in particular, have either of you ever met a woman named Andrea?'
The two new Eamonns looked at each other, confused, then they shook their heads angrily.
'You're trying to confuse us,' said Eamonn 50.
'No, really,' I said. 'Her arrival in my client's life is what changed everything. Changed him. So your being here is already redundant. He was never going to become either of you.'
'He will if we force him to,' said Eamonn 50. 'If we remake him with our magics. Cut the woman out of his life, like a cancer.'
'You could kill him with your meddling,' I said. 'You could destroy yourselves.'
'Death would be a release,' said Eamonn 60.
'Excuse me,' said Eamonn 40, from behind me. 'Could someone please explain where all these others mes are coming from?'
'Alternate timetracks,' Tommy Oblivion said briskly. 'Possible futures, lives that might have been, the wheels of If and Maybe. Our lives are determined by the decisions we make, or fail to make, and these ... gentlemen are the ? men you might have become if you'd made certain specific decisions. Can't say either of them looks particularly attractive, but that's probably why your enemies chose to empower them. Can I ask what's happened to my Buck's Fizz?'
'But how did they get here?' said Eamonn 40, a little desperately.
'Someone's been meddling,' I said. 'Somebody really powerful, too, to be able to manipulate probability magics.'
'Has to be a major player,' said Tommy. He'd gone behind the bar to get his own drink, as Alex was quite sensibly keeping his head down. 'Messing about with Time and timetracks is a serious business. So serious that the few who do work with probability tend to come down really heavily on anyone new trying to invade their territory. No-one wants some dilettante threatening the carefully maintained status quo.'
'But I don't have any enemies!' said Eamonn 40. 'People like me don't have enemies! I'm no-one important!'
'You are now,' said Tommy, sipping daintily at his drink with one finger carefully extended. 'Someone's gone to a lot of trouble over you, old man.' He looked at me thoughtfully. 'Could it be the Jonah, perhaps?'
'Dead,' I said.
'Count Video?'
'Missing, presumed dead,' I said. 'Last seen running through the streets with his skin ripped off, during the angel war.'
Tommy shrugged. 'You know the Nightside. People are always making comebacks. Just look at your good self.'
'God, you people love to talk,' said Eamonn 50. 'I came here to fix this stupid, short-sighted version of myself, and nothing and no-one is going to stop me.'
'Nothing you do here will change anything that matters,' said Tommy. 'Every version of you is as valid as any other. Every timetrack is just as real, and as certain. Changing or adapting this younger version won't make your existence any more or less likely. If anyone told you otherwise, they lied.'
'I don't believe that,' said Eamonn 60. 'I can't believe that.'
'You'd say anything, to try and stop us,' said Eamonn 50.
Both men let fly with their wands, beams of probability magic crackling as they shot through the air. I dived out of the way, dragging Eamonn 40 along with me. Tommy ducked gracefully down behind the bar, still holding on to his drink. A change beam hit the oak bar and ricocheted harmlessly away. The bar's main furnishings and fittings were all protected by Merlin's magic. Both the new Ea-monns fired their wands furiously in all directions as I dodged back and forth across the bar, hauling Eamonn 40 along with me. A haze of change magic filled the air as the wands' beams transmuted everything they touched in arbitrary and unpredictable ways.
The vampire who'd been feeding on his bloody Mary got hit by a beam and swelled up like a tick, engorging with more and more blood as he drained Mary dry, before exploding messily and showering everyone around him with second-hand blood. The empty husk of Mary crumpled to the floor like a paper sack. Some of the newer chairs and tables fell apart as they were brushed by probability beams, reduced in a moment to their original component parts. So was one of Baron Frankenstein's creatures, as all his stitches came undone at once. Body parts rolled across the floor, while the head mouthed silent obscenities. Lightning bolts struck down out of nowhere, blackening bodies and starting fires all over. Bunches of hissing flowers blossomed from cracks in a stone wall. An old Victorian portrait began speaking in tongues. People collapsed from strokes and cerebral haemorrhages and epileptic fits. Some simply blinked out of existence, as the chances that created them were abruptly revoked.
A ghost girl was suddenly corporeal again, after years of haunting Strangefellows, and she sat at the bar crying tears of happy relief, touching everything within reach. Bottles stacked behind the bar changed shape and colour and contents. And a demon long kept imprisoned under the
floor-boards burst free from its pentacle, as its containing wards were suddenly undone. Burning with thick blue ec-toplasmic flames, it turned its horned head this way and that, cherishing centuries of hoarded frustrated rage, before lurching forward to kill everything within reach of its clawed hands. The bar's two muscular bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, jumped the demon from behind and wrestled it to the floor; but it was clear they wouldn't be able to hold it for long.
By then I'd dragged Eamonn 40 to safety behind the huge oak bar and was running through my options, which didn't take me nearly as long as I'd hoped. Alex glared at me.
'Do something, dammit! If Merlin has to manifest through me to sort out this mess, I can't speak for the safety of your client. You know Merlin's always favoured the scorched-earth policy when it comes to dealing with problems.'
I nodded reluctantly. I know a few tricks, and more magic than I like to let on; but in the end it always comes down to my gift. I have a gift for finding things, a third eye in my mind, a private eye that can see where
