with demons and given birth to monsters, she also gave of her rib and her flesh, to make the Speaking Gun. With the help of Abraxus Artificers.”
“Yeah,” Suzie said suddenly. “That was engraved on the stock of the Speaking Gun; Abraxus Artificers, the old firm, solving problems since the beginning. I’ve always been very good at remembering things, where weapons are involved.”
“Very good,” said my double. “Now shut up and listen, and you might learn something. Abraxus Artificers were the descendants of Cain, the first murderer. How else do you think they could fashion such marvellous weapons of destruction?” My double paused. “You do all realise that I’m talking in parables, representing a far more complicated reality? Good. I shall continue. The Speaking Gun was designed to speak backwards the echoes of the original Word of Creation, which resonates on in everything, giving each separate thing its own true secret name. By speaking this secret name backwards, the Speaking Gun can thus unmake or uncreate anything. But the Speaking Gun could be used, by someone with enough power, someone who gave of their own flesh to make it, to respeak those secret names, and thus change their essential nature. Lilith will use the Speaking Gun to respeak the Nightside, making it over into whatever she wants it to be. Personally, I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do…”
“That’s enough,” I said, and shut down my gift. It didn’t fight me, just collapsed back into darkness, and my shadow was nothing more than my shadow. I wondered if I’d ever look at it in the same way again. Or ever really trust my gift, knowing that it lived within me like a parasite.
“So,” Walker said finally, “who has the Speaking Gun? My people lost track of it some time back.”
“I last saw it here, in this bar, with the future Suzie Shooter,” said Alex, glancing apologetically at Suzie. “Before Merlin banished both of them.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Merlin. He sounded a lot smaller, since I’d stared him down. “I only sent them away. They could be anywhere now. Or anywhen.”
“The last time I saw it, in the Present, Eddie had it,” I said. I looked at him. We all looked at him, and he nodded slowly. “You were using it to kill angels from Above and Below, in the angel war,” I said, being careful to sound not at all challenging or confrontational. “What did you do with it, Eddie?”
“I gave it away,” said Razor Eddie, quite calmly. “To Old Father Time. The only Being I knew powerful enough to control it and not be corrupted by it.”
“I thought all you cared about was smiting the bad guys?” said Suzie.
“No,” said Razor Eddie. “I wanted to do penance. There’s a difference. All the time I had the Speaking Gun, I could feel it working on me, trying to seduce me with its endless hunger for death and destruction. But I have been there, and done that. I am something else now.”
“According to my agents’ last reports, Lilith has destroyed the Time Tower,” Walker said heavily. “Reduced it to nothing but rubble. Old Father Time is dead, and the Speaking Gun buried under the rubble with him.”
“No,” I said, feeling hope rise anew within me. “Time’s domain isn’t actually in the Nightside. The Tower was just how people got to speak to him. There is another way to reach him… So, who’s up for one last suicidal charge for glory? Don’t all speak at once.”
Twelve -
I explained what I had in mind. Everyone looked at me. And somehow I knew they weren’t too keen.
“You’re crazy!” said Larry Oblivion.
“And if you think we’re going along with you, you’re crazy, too!” said Dead Boy.
“Hold everything,” said Walker, holding up his hand, and it was a measure of the man that everyone else fell silent, like children when the teacher speaks. “Let me be sure I’ve grasped all the details of this cunning plan of yours, John. You want us to go out onto the streets full of madmen and monsters and run interference for you, at the risk of all our lives, so you can get safely to the nearest Underground station and catch a train to take you safely out of the Nightside? Is that it? Have I grasped all the nuances correctly?”
“I love it when you get all sarcastic, Walker,” I said. “But actually, you’re pretty much right. Look, Old Father Time resides in Shadows Fall, that small town in the back of beyond that’s an elephants’ graveyard for the supernatural. He only commutes into the Nightside to work. When Lilith destroyed the Time Tower, all she did was cut off his access to the Nightside. He’s still safe in Shadows Fall, with the Speaking Gun. If I can get safely to the Underground, I can take a train straight to him. And just maybe I can persuade him to give me the Speaking Gun, to use against Lilith.”
“Or, you could just run out on us,” said Larry, fixing me with his cold unblinking gaze. “Even Lilith would think twice about going after you, if you were hiding out in Shadows Fall.”
“He may be dead, but he has a point,” said Walker. “You’ve never been the most trustworthy soul, Taylor. Why should we risk our lives to save your selfish skin?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” I said. “We need the Gun, and I’m the only one he might give it to. Do you have any means of communicating with Shadows Fall, Walker? Any way we can talk to Time, and save me the journey?”
“No,” Walker admitted reluctantly. “All outgoing communications have been jammed. Scientific and supernatural. We’re completely cut off from the rest of the world.”
“Then I have to go in person, don’t I?” I said. “Is there anyone else here who thinks Old Father Time might surrender the most powerful weapon in the world to them? No, I didn’t think so.”
“Why should he give it to you?” said Julien Advent. From him, it was a fair question.
“Because I’m Lilith’s son. Because he knows I’m the only one who can stop her now.”
“I say!” Tommy Oblivion said suddenly, and we all jumped a little. “I’ve just had a brilliant idea! Taylor, why don’t you get Old Father Time to send you back into the Past again, to before all this started, so you can warn yourself about what’s coming?”
“I can’t,” I said patiently, “because I didn’t.”
Tommy frowned, his lower lip pouting out sullenly. “I can’t help feeling there should be more to the argument than that.” He pulled a notepad out of his pocket and started jotting down equations and Venn diagrams, muttering about divergent timetracks, opposing probabilities, experiment’s intent, and whether or not someone’s pizza had anchovies on it, so we left him to get on with it. In my experience, Time travel just complicated things even more.
“The Speaking Gun is what matters,” I said forcefully. “It’s the only weapon we can be sure will work on Lilith, because it’s made out of her flesh and bone. I can use it to speak her name in reverse, and uncreate her.”
“Or perhaps to respeak her?” said Walker. “Remake her into some more acceptable form? She is your mother, after all.”
“No,” I said. “As long as she lives, she’ll always be a threat. For everything she’s done, and for everything she intends to do, she has to die. She was never my mother. Not in any way that mattered.”
Alex produced a rather grubby and much-folded map of the local Underground system out from behind the bar, along with half a dozen cards from local taxi firms, a stuffed cat, and a dead beetle or two, and after a certain amount of argument and calculation (because the streets around Strangefellows aren’t always there when you need them), we finally decided the nearest Underground station entrance had to be Cheyne Walk. Within walking distance from the bar, under normal circumstances, which these weren’t, but still… it was reachable.
“I don’t like this,” said Ms. Fate. “It’s a war zone out there.”
We all stopped and listened to the chaos raging outside the bar. Even behind the shuttered windows and the locked doors, even behind Merlin’s ancient defences, we could still hear screams and howls, the rage of fires and the rumble of collapsing buildings. Raw hatred ran loose in the streets, and it was hard to tell what sounds were human and which weren’t, any more.
“So,” I said, trying hard to sound confident, “who’s coming with me?”
“I am,” said Suzie Shooter. “But you knew that already.”
“Yes,” I said. “My love.”
