him. He wanted nothing to do with any of it.
'I have to get home,' he said miserably. 'I'm never late getting home. Andrea and the children will be so worried. They'll think something's happened to me.'
'Well, something has,' I said reasonably. 'Just think of the great story you'll be able to tell them when you get back.'
'Oh no,' he said immediately. 'I could never tell them
anything about... this. It would only frighten them. It frightens me.'
'Will you please relax,' said Tommy, a little irritated. 'You're with me and John Taylor; the two most proficient private investigators in the Nightside. You couldn't be safer if you were wrapped in cotton wool and body armor. We'll sort out your little problem for you. After all, I have a marvelous deductive brain, and Taylor is the only man in the Nightside that everyone else is afraid of.'
'Somehow I don't find that particularly reassuring,' said Eamonn, but he managed a small smile nonetheless. 'I do appreciate your efforts on my behalf. It's only that... I don't belong here.'
I couldn't help but agree with that. The Nightside isn't for everyone. Dragging Eamonn into our endless night was like throwing a small child to the wolves. I was starting to feel protective about him, and increasingly angry at whoever had decided to put him through this ordeal.
'We'll get you through this,' I said. 'Once we talk to the people at the Widow's Mite, I'm sure they'll tell us everything we need to know.'
'Taylor is very good at getting answers out of people,' Tommy said blithely. 'Even if he has to pries them out with a crow-bar.'
I gave him a hard look. 'You're really not helping, Tommy.'
'Couldn't we hail a taxi?' Eamonn said plaintively. 'I think I'd feel a lot safer off the streets.'
'Best not to,' I said. 'Not everything here that looks like traffic is. There are taxis, but most of them charge unusual and distressing payments for their services. Hell, even the ambulances run on distilled suffering, and motorbike messengers snort powdered virgin's blood for that extra kick. All kinds of things use that road, and most of them are hungry. We're better off walking. Besides, we'll be harder to locate in the crowds.'
'The more you explain things, the worse I feel,' said Eamonn. 'I'd hate to see your Tourist Information office.' It was a small joke, but a brave effort under the circumstances.
We made our way into the business sector, and Eamonn did seem to relax a little as more and more business suits appeared in the crowds around him. Admittedly some of the suits were worn by demons, and some weren't being worn by anyone at all, but he was pleased to see something familiar at last. Rent-a-cops were thick on the ground, and gave me suspicious looks as we passed, but they all kept their distance. They weren't paid enough to mess with me. In fact, I had heard a rumor that the rent-a-cops' union was trying to get a clause inserted in their contracts that said they were all entitled to go off sick if I so much as entered their territory. It's little things like that that make life worth living. We finally came to the Widow's Mite building and stopped before the main entrance to look it over. For the first time, Eamonn actually looked angry rather than upset.
'This shouldn't be here,' he said flatly. 'Not here, in this place. It puts our whole moral probity at risk. I can't believe top management knows about this. We raise money for charities. Important charities. If top management knew about this branch, the same top management that decides which charities get the money we raise ...'
He broke off suddenly, as he realized where his argument was going. 'Go on,' I said. 'If they know about this, and approve ...'
'Then their judgment in deciding where the money goes would have to be equally suspect,' Eamonn said unhappily. 'And possibly I've spent twenty years persuading people to give money to unworthy causes. If Widow's Mite has a branch here, I have to wonder... where all that money has been going, all these years.'
'You see?' I said. 'Only a few hours in the Nightside, and already you're much smarter than you were. Let's go inside and make some trouble.'
I knew a big corporation like the Widow's Mite would have to be protected by some major magical security, but even so I was startled when the two great stone statues on either side of the door suddenly came to life. Tall, idealized figures carved out of the very best marble turned their heads with a slow, grating sound, and their blank eyes fixed unerringly on me. Eamonn almost jumped out of his skin, and even Tommy took a step back. I held my ground. The more worried you are, the less you can afford to show it Both statues stepped ponderously down from their pedestals to stand between us and the door. They loomed threateningly over me, huge, hulking, marble forms, cold and implacable as the stone from which they were carved. They would kill without conscience, do any terrible thing they were ordered to, because there was nothing in them to care about the soft, fragile living things they hurt. Stone endures, but it has no soul. Tommy looked at me to see what I was going to do, and I looked right back at him. I had a few useful tricks up my sleeve, but I was interested to see what the famous existential detective could do. He smiled easily and approached the two statues.
'Do be reasonable and stand aside, chaps. We have business inside.'
'None shall pass,' said the statue on the left, its voice like grating rocks.
'Now that is interesting,' said Tommy. 'How is it you're able to talk, considering you almost certainly don't have any vocal cords?'
The statue looked at him blankly. 'What?'
'Well, I mean, I don't see how you're even able to move, old thing. Being solid stone and all. It's not as if you have any musculature, or even joints. How can you even think to act, when you have no brain? How can you be living, when no part of you is living matter? You're quite clearly stone, and nothing but stone, and therefore you cannot be alive, or think, or act.'
The statues had clearly never considered this before, and impressed by Tommy's relentless logic, they stepped back up onto their pedestals and reverted to unmoving statues. I kicked the one on the left, just to be sure, but it didn't budge. I grinned at the bewildered Eamonn.
'That's Tommy's gift-to ask the unanswerable question, to raise doubts on any matter and confuse any situation beyond retrieval. He could talk all four legs off a donkey, then persuade it to fly him home. Demons from Hell have been known to run screaming from his appalling logic. Which is kind of scary, when you think about it.'
'How very kind,' Tommy drawled. 'I think we can all learn a lesson here, you know. It doesn't always have to end in violence.'
'Bet it will,' I said.
'Well of course,' said Tommy. 'You're here.'
We slammed the door open and stalked into the lobby, which was very grand, very luxurious, with a polished wooden floor and original masterpieces adorning the walls. Various people in sharp business suits saw us coming, and decided they were urgently needed somewhere else. Anywhere else. I headed straight for the reception desk, Tommy and Eamonn in tow. It was a big lobby, and long before we got to the desk the far doors banged open, and a whole bunch of armed men came running in. They fanned out to form a big semicircle blocking us off from the desk, pointing all kinds of guns in our direction. I stopped and considered them thoughtfully. They gave every appearance of being the real deal, wearing body armor rather than the gaudy uniforms of rent-a-cops, and they held their guns like they knew what to do with them. I stood very still, with Tommy and Eamonn both trying to hide behind me. There really were a hell of a lot of guns trained on us. The men behind them stood rock-solid, perfectly concentrated. They were professionals, ready to shoot us down at the
bark of an order. I felt like shouting Boo! to see what would happen.
'That's far enough, Taylor,' said the officer in charge. His voice was sharp and cold, military to the core. 'We were warned you might be coming. This whole building is secured. There's nowhere you can go where my men won't open fire on you, on sight. Put your hands in the air. Slowly.'
'Of course,' I said. I raised my hands. Tommy and Eamonn had already raised theirs. 'I like your guns,' I said. 'Very impressive. Pity they don't have any bullets in them.'
The officer looked at me. 'What?'
And I smiled as I opened my empty hands, and a steady stream of bullets fell from my palms to clatter and jump on the polished hardwood floor. The security guards watched wide-eyed as the bullets kept falling, then several of them tried to open fire anyway. But by then, of course, it was far too late, and the guards all looked very unhappy as their guns just made forlorn clicking noises. The last few bullets tumbled from my palms, and I
