Robert Rankin - The Brightonomicon

I looked over his shoulder. But Mr Rune was still as dead as he could be.

'It doesn't work,' said Tobes. 'I'm not who you think I am. I'm just a bloke. I can't work miracles.'

I leaned down and whispered words into the ear of Tobes. These words described to Tobes in graphic detail exactly what I would do to him should he fail in his allotted task. So horrendous were these threatened tortures that crucifixion would have been little more than a Sunday-School picnic in comparison. 'Awake from the dead!' cried Tobes. 'Return to life.'

And there came a drumming-humming sound that caused my ears to pop. And then a light so pure and white that I had to shield my eyes.

And when the noise had died away and the brightness was all gone, I opened my eyes, and I looked down, and Tobes was there, but Hugo Rune had vanished.

'He has gone.' I pointed. 'What happened? Where has he gone?' 'Dunno,' said Tobes. 'Did you see a real bright light?'

'You did it wrong.' I kicked at Tobes. 'You sent him off to Heaven or something. You are in trouble now.'

And I prepared to beat the Holy bejaysus out of the great and many, many times great-great-grandson of God.

'I wouldn't do that,' said a voice that I knew. The voice of Mr Hugo Rune. And I turned and there he was, big and bald and breathing and hole-less in the forehead.

'Praise the Lord!' I cried. 'Oh, by Crimbo, praise the Lord.'

'I feel that we should both do that.' And Mr Rune sank to his knees.

The Concluding Chaotic Conundrum Of The Coldean Cat The Coldean Cat

We knelt in the icy alleyway and bowed our heads before Tobes, the man who had brought Mr Rune back from the dead. The last of the bloodline of Christ.

'Thank you,' I said and I raised my head. 'Thank you, sir, for that.' Tobes looked most embarrassed. He obviously did not take too much to us kneeling there before him. Although I am reasonably sure he preferred it to me kicking him.

'Get up,' said Tobes. 'It wasn't me. Something weird just happened, but I didn't do it.'

'You did,' said Mr Rune, now raising his head, 'and my eternal thinks to you. And if you will return with us now to our rooms in St Aubyns, I will show you something that will explain everything.'

'I'm returning to the bar,' said Tobes. 'This would never have happened if I'd been drunk.' We owed it to Tobes to buy him a drink and so we returned to the bar. In the dance hall proper, Tim McGregor was playing 'I Got the Clap and My Knob Fell Off' by Lawnmower Death. Which I felt was most inappropriate.

Tobes slumped down in a chair at a vacant table. Mr Rune sat down beside him and I brought over the beers, which I had gained for free. I must have looked pretty raddled after my sojourn to the alleyway. The knees had gone out of my thigh-high boots and my hair was all over the place. It is funny how that look really gets men going, is it not? I also had whisky chasers to go with our beers, and I placed one of these into the outstretched hands of Tobes.

'I suppose I've always known that there was something different about me,' he said, tossing back the whisky and reaching out for his beer. 'I've never been ill in my life, you know. And weird things happen around me all the time. Crips* leaping out of their wheelchairs in Lidl when I pass them by on my way to the off-licence section. Which is why I get drunk all the time – it drives me nuts.' 'And why you wake up sober five minutes later,' I said.

Tobes hung his head. He had finished his beer. I offered him mine and he took it. 'That man,' said Tobes, 'who stepped over me, who shot you in the alleyway – that man is pure evil.' * I know. But if He says it – well, it must be okay, mustn't it?

'Count Otto Black,' said Hugo Rune. 'And I walked right into his trap.'

'How could he know,' I asked, 'that you would be searching for the Lord Tobes here?'

'Don't call me that,' said Tobes. And he downed Mr Rune's Scotch, which I found most amusing.

'I am sure he would have searched our rooms at forty-nine Grand Parade before he torched them,' said Mr Rune. 'He would have found the map of the Brightonomicon. He reasoned it out. I have to give him credit.'

'Perhaps then he has also located our present rooms and has taken the Chronovision.'

'I have no doubt of it,' said Mr Rune, 'for I gave him our address.' 'But you said to Lord Tobes in the alleyway-'

'He will have taken what he believes to be the Chronovision. I removed the real one this morning before you awoke and substituted a similar television that I'd purchased from the Sussex Beacon in George Street.' 'That sounds most unlikely,' I said.

'But nevertheless it is the case. And so I suggest that the three of us collect it now. And if it is convenient to you, Lord Tobes, might I ask that we return to your abode for the night?'

Lord Tobes did not answer this. For he was asleep once more. I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer at Rock Night. I was rather warming to heavy metal. And all the free beers were not going amiss, either. But Mr Rune roused Lord Tobes and asked again if we might stay with him, and him being as nice a fellow as he was, he said yes. After we had downed a few more drinks. Which we did, so I did get to stay a bit longer, after all.

And I had a dance, too. Several dances, all of them the head-banging dance that involved the fingering of invisible guitars. I got really into that dance. And I must have been pretty good at it, too, because a most appreciative audience of young black-'I-shirted fellow-me-lads formed about me as I danced and I got even more free drinks.

'I can see that being a good-looking woman really does have its benefits,' I said to Mr Rune when I returned to our table once more, somewhat sweaty.

'Beware the balance of equipoise,' said Mr Rune. 'For every favour offered, one is expected in return.'

A handsome young stud dressed in the de rigueur black, who had earlier identified himself to me as Matty and joined me in dancing to some of the more frenzied numbers, came over to our table. 'Can I buy you a drink, Yola?' he asked. 'Yola?' said Mr Rune. I shushed at him. 'If you have no objection to buying for my granddad and my brother also,' I said. 'Your granddad?' said Mr Rune. I shushed him once more.

Matty made away to the bar and shortly returned, as I had requested that he did, in the company of a bottle of the house champagne. And four glasses.

'I shall uncork the bubbly,' said Matty, popping the bottle.

'What is zis?' asked another fellow, giving Matty a bit of a push.

I looked up at this interruptive fellow. It was Mario, the waiter from Georgio's Bistro. 'Hello, Mario,' I said. 'Sit down with us, have a drink.'

'I turna my back,' said Mario, 'anda my betrothed, she go outa on da town, taking drinks from this gigolo.'

'I'm not a gigolo,' said Matty. 'I'm a computer programmer.'

'You are a son of a bitch!' And Mario thumbed his teeth, which judging by all the Mafia movies I had seen was not a very good sign.

'It is not what you think,' I said to Mario. 'Matty is only a friend.' 'But you said-' said Matty. 'What did you say?' said Mr Rune.

'She's my girlfriend, anyway,' said a very tall fellow called Solo, who I had met earlier, and who had also bought me a drink.

'Whose girlfriend are we talking about?' said Tim McGregor, who I had met while I was dancing on the stage and who had promised to buy me a drink when he was taking his half-time break. 'My fiancee,' said Mario, pointing at me. 'I am not his fiancee,' I said.

'But my papa, he pay the dowry money to your papa here.' And he pointed to Mr Rune.

' What?' I said rather loudly. And my loud' What?' awoke Tobes, who had nodded off again at some point.

'Whose round is it?' asked the great-times-whatever grandson of Christ. 'Yours, I think,' I said.