Neil Gaiman: Stories: All-New Tales

“Lucky. I should have known you were in this somehow. This shambles has got your mark all over it.”

I yelped and tried to free my arm. But the other bastard was holding me too tight.

“Move, and I’ll break it,” snarled the voice. “Hell, perhaps I ought to break it anyway. Just for old times’ sake.”

I indicated to him that I’d rather he didn’t. He locked my arm a little further-I felt it begin to go and screamed-then he shoved me hard towards the alley wall. I hit it, bounced, spun round with mindsword ready, half drawn, and found myself staring into a pair of eyes as grim and colourless as a rainy day. Just my luck-a friend with a grievance, which is the only kind I tend to have nowadays.

Well, I say friend . He’s one of our kind, but you know how it is. Fire and rainstorm-we don’t get along. Besides, in his present Aspect he stood taller, weighed heavier, hit harder than me. His face was a thundercloud, and any thought I had of fighting the guy evaporated like cheap perfume. I sheathed the sword and took the better part of valour.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s Our Thor.”

He sniffed. “Try anything, and I’ll douse you cold,” he said. “I’ve got an army of stormclouds ready to roll. You’ll be out like a light before you can blink. Want to try it?”

“Did I ever? Nice greeting, friend. It’s been a long time.”

He grunted. “Arthur’s the name in this present Aspect. Arthur Pluviôse-and you’re dead.” He made it sound like some weird kind of naming ceremony.

“Wrong,” I said. “ Brendan’s dead. And if you think I’d be a party to the murder of my own brother-”

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” Arthur said, though I could tell the news had shaken him. “Brendan’s dead ?” he repeated.

“’Fraid so.” I was touched-I’d always thought he hated us both.

“Then this wasn’t you?”

“My, you’re fast.”

He glowered. “Then how?”

“How else?” I shrugged. “The Shadow, of course. Chaos. Black Surt. Choose your own damn metaphor.”

Arthur gave a long, soft sigh. As if it had preyed on his mind for such a long time that any news-even bad news-even terrible news-could come as a relief. “So it’s true,” he said. “I was beginning to think-”

“Finally-”

He ignored the gibe and turned on me once more, his rainy-day eyes gleaming. “It’s the wolves, Lucky. The wolves are on the trail again.”

I nodded. Wolves, demons, no word exists in any tongue of the Folk to describe exactly what they were. I call them ephemera , though I had to admit there was nothing ephemeral about their present Aspect.

“Skól and Haiti, the Sky-Hunters, servants of the Shadow, Devourers of the Sun and Moon. And of anything else that happens to be in their way, for that matter. Brendan must have tried to tackle them. He never did have any sense.”

But I could tell he was no longer listening. “The Sun and-”

“Moon.” I gave him the abridged version on the events of last night. He listened, but I could tell he was distracted.

“So, after the Moon, the Sun. Right?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “That is, assuming there’s an Aspect of Sól in Manhattan, which, if there is-”

“There is,” said Arthur grimly. “Her name’s Sunny.” And there was something about his eyes as he said it, something even more ominous than the rain-swelled clouds above us, or his hand on my shoulder, horribly pally and heavy as lead, that made me think I was in for an even lousier day than I’d had so far.

“Sunny,” I said. “Then she’ll be next.”

“Over my dead body,” said Arthur. “And yours,” he added, almost as an afterthought, keeping his hand hard on my shoulder and smiling that dangerous, stormy smile.

“Sure. Why not?” I humoured him. I could afford to-I’m used to running, and I knew that at a pinch, Lukas Wilde could disappear within an hour, leaving no trace.

He knew it too. His eyes narrowed, and above us the clouds began to move softly, gathering momentum like wool on a spindle. A dimple appeared at its nadir-soon, I knew, to become a funnel of air, stitched and barbed with deadly glamours.

“Remember what they say,” said Arthur, addressing me by my true name. “Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you.”

“You wrong me.” I smiled, though I’d never felt less like it. “I’ll be only too happy to help your friend.”

“Good,” said Arthur. He kept that hand on my shoulder, though, and his smile was all teeth. “We’ll keep to the shadows. No need to involve the Folk any more than we have to. Right?”

It was a dark and stormy afternoon. I had an idea that it was going to be the first of many.

SUNNY LIVED IN BROOKLYN Heights, in a loft apartment on a quiet street. Not a place I visit often, which accounts for my not having spotted her sooner. Most of our kind take the discreet approach; gods have enemies too, you know, and we find it pays to keep our glam to ourselves.

But Sunny was different. For a start, according to Arthur (what a dumb name!), she didn’t know what she was anymore. It happens sometimes; you just forget. You get all wrapped up in your present Aspect; you start to think you’re like everyone else. Perhaps that’s what kept her safe for so long; they say gods look after drunks and half-wits and little children, and Sunny certainly qualified. Transpires that my old pal Arthur had been looking after her for nearly a year without her knowing it, making sure that she got the sunshine she needed to be happy, keeping sniffers and prowlers away from her door.

Because even the Folk start getting suspicious when someone like Sunny lives nearby. It wasn’t just the fact that it hadn’t rained in months; that sometimes all of New York City could be under a cloud but for the two or three streets surrounding her block; or the funny northern lights that sometimes shone in the sky above her apartment. It was her , just her , with her face and her smile, turning heads wherever she went. A man-a god- could fall in love.

Arthur had dropped his raingod Aspect, and was now looking more or less like a regular citizen, but I could tell he was making a hell of an effort. As soon as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge I could see him beginning to hold it in, the way a fat man holds in his gut when a pretty girl comes into the room. Then I saw her colours-from afar, like lights in the sky, and the look on his face-that look of truculent yearning-intensified a little.

He gave me the critical once-over. “Tone it down a bit, will you?” he said.

Well, that was offensive. I’d looked a lot flashier as Lukas Wilde, but looking at Arthur right then I thought it a bad time to say so. I turned down the volume on my red coat, but kept my hair as it was, hiding my mismatched eyes behind a pair of snappy shades.

“Better?”

“You’ll do.”

We were standing outside the place now. A standard apartment at the back of a lot of others; black fire escape, small windows, little roof garden throwing down wisps of greenery into the guttering. But at the window there was a light, something rather like sunlight, I guess, occasionally strobing here and there-following her movements as she wandered about her flat.

Some people have no idea of how to go unnoticed. In fact, it was astonishing that the wolves hadn’t seized on her before. She’d not even tried to hide her colours, which was frankly beyond unwise, I thought-hell, she hadn’t even pulled the drapes.

Arthur gave me one of his looks. “We’re going to protect her, Lucky,” he said. “And you’re going to be nice. Okay?”

I made a face. “I’m always nice. How could you possibly doubt me?”