We passed an old-fashioned I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, and I stopped and regarded it thoughtfully.
“I know a guy who collects these,” I said, deliberately casual. “He’s trying to teach them to sing the ‘Halleluiah Chorus.’”
“Why?” said Suzie.
“I’m not sure he’s thought that far ahead,” I admitted.
And then we broke off, as the machine stirred slowly into life before us. Parts moved inside it, grinding against each other, even though neither of us had stepped on it; and the voice-box made a low, groaning sound, as though it was in pain. The flat painted face lit up, sparking fitfully. And in a voice utterly devoid of humanity, or any human feeling, the machine spoke to us.
“John Taylor. No father, no mother. No family, no friends, no future. Hated and feared, never loved, or even appreciated. Why don’t you just die and get it over with?”
“Not even close,” I said calmly. “You’d probably get my weight wrong, too.”
“Susan Shooter,” said the voice. “Always the celibate, never the bride. No-one to touch you, ever. Not your breast, or your heart. You miss your brother, even though he sexually abused you as a child. Sometimes you dream of how it felt, when he touched you. No love for you, Susan. Not any kind of love, now or ever.”
Suzie raised her shotgun and blew the painted face apart. The machine screamed once, and then was still. Suzie pumped another shell into the magazine. “Machines should know their place,” she said.
“You can’t trust anything you hear in Fun Faire,” I said carefully. “The Devil always lies.”
“Except when a truth can hurt you more.”
“He doesn’t know you like I do,” I said. “I love you, Suzie.”
“Why?”
“Somebody has to. There’s a man for every woman, and a woman for every man. Just be glad we found each other.”
“I am,” said Suzie. And that was as far as she would go.
She spun round suddenly, her gun trained on one particular shadow. “Come out. Come out into the light where I can see you.”
Max Maxwell emerged slowly and cautiously, even bigger in life than his ghost image had suggested. He held his huge hands up to show us they were empty, and then he smiled slowly, grey lips pulling back to show grey teeth.
“You’re good, Suzie,” he said, in a low, deep voice like stones grinding together. “No-one else would have known I was there.”
“No-one sneaks up on me,” said Suzie, her shotgun trained unwaveringly on his barrel chest. His cream suit looked somehow off in the moonlight, as though it had gone sour.
“I might have known they’d send you two,” he said, apparently unmoved by the threat of the shotgun. “But I’m afraid you got here just a little too late. I didn’t come here to hide; this whole place is a sink of other- dimensional energies, and the Aquarius Key has been soaking them up for hours. Soon the Key will be strong enough to open a door into the world of the loa; and then I will go through into that world…and the power stored in the Key will make me their master. A god of gods, lord of the loa.”
“Really bad idea, Max,” I said. “Messing with gods on their own territory. They’ll eat your soul, one little bit at a time. What did you think you were doing, bringing them here and humiliating them?”
“It’s wrong that we should be at their beck and call,” said Max Maxwell, the Voodoo Apostate. “My people have worshipped them for centuries, and still the most we can hope for is that they will deign to ride us as their mounts. This is the Nightside. We have a Street full of gods, and we have taught them to know their place. As I will teach the loa.”
He held out one hand towards me, and just like that, the Aquarius Key appeared upon it. The metal box looked like a toy on his huge pale palm. Its steel parts moved slowly against each other, sliding around and above each other, and I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. The Key was becoming something actually uncomfortable to look at, as though it was rotating itself through strange, unfamiliar spatial dimensions, in search of the doorway into the world of the loa. It burst open, blossoming like a metal flower, and a wide split opened up in mid air, like a wound in reality.
A great sound filled the air, echoing through the silent forms of Fun Faire, like a cry of outrage. A bright light blasted out of the opening hanging on the air, so sharp and fierce I had to look away, and just like that the spell of the Key was broken. I fell back a pace, raising one arm to shield my watering eyes against the fierce light. The split in the night widened inexorably, sucking the air into itself. It tugged at me, and at Suzie. I grabbed her waist, as much to steady myself as hold her in place, and she was steady as a rock, as always. Suzie grabbed on to the side of the nearest ride, and I held on to Suzie as the pull increased. Max Maxwell stood unaffected, protected by the Aquarius Key, shuddering and twitching on the palm of his hand. The rushing air shrieked as it was pulled into the growing split in the air, along with everything else loose. All kinds of junk flew through the air, tumbling end over end. I was holding Suzie so tightly it must have hurt her, but she never made a sound, and her white- knuckled grip on the ride never faltered. She raised her free hand, aimed the shotgun with one casual movement, and shot the Aquarius Key right out of Max’s hand.
He cried out in rage as much as pain, as his hand exploded in a flurry of flying blood and blown-away fingers. The Key flew undamaged through the air, hit the ground, and rolled away into the shadows. The long split in the air slammed shut, and, just like that, the howling wind died away to nothing. Max fell on all fours, ignoring the blood that still spurted from his maimed hand, scrambling in the shadows for the Key. I let go of Suzie’s waist, and we walked purposefully forward. Suzie chambered another round, and Max rose suddenly, the Key raised triumphantly in his good hand. He snarled at me, and I leaned forward and threw a handful of black pepper right into his face.
I never travel anywhere without condiments.
The pepper filled Max’s eyes and nose, and he fell backwards, sneezing so hard it shook his whole body, while his eyes screwed shut around streaming tears. He couldn’t even hold on to the Aquarius Key, let alone concentrate enough to operate it, and the metal box fell to the ground before him. So I just stooped down and took it away from him. Suzie nodded respectfully to me.
“You always did know the best ways to fight dirty.”
She kicked Max briskly in the ribs with her steel-toed boot, just enough to take the fight out of him. He grunted once, and then glared up at us from his knees, forcing his watering eyes open. He was squeezing his injured hand with the other so tightly the bleeding had almost stopped. There were no signs of pain or weakness or even defeat in his dark face; only an implacable hatred, while he waited for his chance to come round again. Suzie shoved the barrel of her shotgun into his face.
“I get paid the same whether I bring you in dead or alive,” she said, her voice cold and calm as always. “On the whole, I tend to prefer dead. Less paper-work.”
“I am not carrying anyone that large out of here,” I said firmly. “Unless I absolutely have to. So let’s all play nice, then we can all walk out.”
But Max wasn’t listening to either of us. He was staring at something behind me, and even before he said anything, I could feel all the hackles on my neck rising.
“Ah, hell,” said Max Maxwell. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse…”
Suzie and I turned to look, and there standing in rows behind us was a small army of the Nightside’s very best bounty hunters. Heavily armed and armoured, they stood unnaturally still, all of them grinning unpleasantly, while their eyes glowed golden in the gloom, like so many candle-flames in the depths of Hell. Their wide grins showed teeth, like hunting dogs who’d brought their game to ground at last.
The loa had found us.
Max laughed suddenly, a flat, breathy sound. “Protect me, Suzie, Taylor. If you want your bounty money.”
I looked at Suzie. “Do we really need the money that badly?”
“Always,” said Suzie. “It isn’t the principle of the thing, it’s the money. No-one takes a bounty away from me.”
“Maybe we could split him down the middle,” I said.
“Tempting, but messy. And I don’t share.”
I sighed. “Things are in a bad way if I have to be the voice of reason…”
