Simon Green - The Good,the Bad and the Uncanny

"Shut up, Augustus," I said kindly. "Or I will come over there and kick the fractions out of you."

Larry and I waited politely, but Grimm didn't want to meet either of our eyes. We made a point of turning our backs on him.

"Hadleigh objected to the very existence of this place," said Larry. "Turnabout Inc. could swap a mind from one body to another, for the right price. An old man could live on in a young man's body as long as he kept up the payments. Do as much damage to the young body as he liked because he could always move on to another and walk away unconnected from all the evils he'd done. A very popular business; so popular, Turnabout had run out of paid volunteers and taken to snatching kids right off the street."

I nodded slowly. This was the third case of mind-swapping I'd heard about today. Was someone trying to tell me something? Or warn me about something?

"Hadleigh blasted the whole building into kindling with just a glance," said Larry. "Killed the owners and the staff, and all the customers who happened to be there. A handful of the possessed staggered out of the ruins, entirely unarmed, and back in their own bodies again. Not all of them were grateful. A few had gone in with their eyes open because they needed the money. When you've sold off everything you own to pay your debts, all you have left to sell is your body, one way or another. Hadleigh had nothing to say to them. It seems the Detective Inspectre is only interested in crime, not its victims."

The crowd was getting noisy. I looked back, and there was Augustus Grimm, with his pinched, vindictive face, whipping up grievances, pointing the finger at Larry and me. The crowd seemed bigger than before, full of angry faces and raised voices. A slow, cold anger moved through me as I remembered the maddened faces that had killed Sister Morphine, and maybe Tommy as well. No matter where you are in the Nightside, you're never far from an angry mob, eager to get their hands bloody for any good reason or none. Just for the thrill of it. It's in the nature of the Nightside to bring out the worst in us. It's what we come here for.

"You think I don't know you, dead man?" Grimm shouted at Larry. "You're his brother! Which makes you as guilty as him! Who are you, to judge us? To take our fun away? You'll pay for what he did!"

He gestured grandly with one hand, and a long, glowing blade manifested in his grip. I suppose it's only a short step from imaginary numbers to imaginary weapons. There was no substance to the blade he held; it was the concept of a sword. But that only made it stronger and sharper. The crowd growled its approval. Larry stepped forward to address them, and Grimm cut at him with his imaginary sword. The glowing edge sliced clean through Larry's jacket and shirt, and opened up a long thin cut in the grey flesh beneath. There was no blood, of course.

Larry looked down, then back at Grimm. "That was my best suit, you little turd!"

He whipped out his magic wand, and just like that Time slammed to a halt. Every sound was cut off; everyone stood still; everything was struck motionless. The very atmosphere seemed to hang in the balance, caught between one moment and the next. Even the impaled neon sign was caught in mid flicker. Larry put his wand away, then moved swiftly through the crowd, beating the crap out of every last one of them. His unfeeling dead hands rose and fell, dispensing brutal punishments. He punched heads and chests and sides, and the sound of breaking bone was crisp and sharp on the enforced quiet. No blood flowed-not yet. And no matter how hard he hit them, none of the bodies stirred or reacted, or even rocked in place.

I saw it all and heard it all, because even though I was frozen in place like everyone else… I could still think and observe. Perhaps my special gift protected me from the wand's magic, or maybe my unnatural bloodline. Like it or not, I am still my mother's son. Either way, I decided to keep this to myself. Larry didn't need to know.

And I might need to use it against him sometime.

Larry finally returned to his original position, not even breathing hard from his exertions. He took out his wand, started Time up again, then put the wand away and enjoyed the general unpleasantness. The whole crowd cried out in shock and surprise and agony. Bones broke, bruises blossomed, and blood spurted from mouths and noses. Some collapsed; some fainted; some lurched back and forth clutching at broken heads and cradling broken ribs. Augustus Grimm lay flat on his back, fortunately unconscious, so he couldn't feel all the terrible things Larry had done to him. Never get the dead mad; they don't have our sense of restraint.

I pretended a certain amount of surprise, then looked sternly at Larry.

"Wasn't that a bit extreme?"

"You're a fine one to talk," said Larry. "At least I don't rip the teeth right out of their heads. Besides, this bunch wouldn't have been quite so mad if they hadn't been customers, or potential customers, of Turnabout Inc. And therefore deserving of what just happened to them, on general principles. Like my elder brother, there is some shit up with which I will not put."

Those of the crowd who could had already departed, leaving the moaning and the unconscious behind. Larry turned his back on them all, studying the rest of the people on the busy street, most of whom were far too taken up with their own wants and needs to notice a minor scuffle. Business went on as usual, and Larry took it all in; and his cold, dead face showed nothing at all.

"I wasn't there that night," he said finally. "I was busy with the war, organising resistance against your damned mother. If I had been here, do you think it would have made any difference? Would my brother still be alive if I hadn't entrusted him to your care?"

"I couldn't save him," I said. "No-one could have. It was a war. People die in wars."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is it?" He didn't look at me. He didn't expect an answer. "You're sure this is the street where he fell? This is where he disappeared?"

"A bit further down from here, but yes. I didn't actually see him die. So there is still some hope."

"Hope is for the living," said Larry. "The dead must make do with vengeance."

He still wasn't looking at me, apparently concentrating entirely on the street.

"I haven't seen Hadleigh in years," Larry said finally. "Don't even know what he looks like, these days."

"Shouldn't think many do," I said. "Only ones who see him now are his enemies and his victims; and they're not usually in any shape to talk about it afterwards."

"He isn't that bad," said Larry. "Just a really scary agent of the Good."

"You ever met Razor Eddie?" I said.

"Hadleigh isn't a monster," said Larry. "I have to believe that. The last living Oblivion brother can't be a monster."

I looked back at the ruins of Turnabout Inc. and invoked my gift. I concentrated on my inner eye, my third eye, and used it to summon up ghost images from the recent Past. Important events and significant people stamp themselves on Time, for a while. I let go of now, and focused my Sight on what had happened to Turnabout Inc. so very recently. The world went misty and uncertain, then snapped back into focus as the street changed before me. The shop was still a ruin; something kept me from going back any further; but Hadleigh Oblivion was standing right before me.

He didn't look like any of the usual ghost images I See in the Past: shimmering figures, translucent as soap bubbles, sometimes barely there at all. Hadleigh looked firm and solid and almost unnaturally real. A tall, forbidding presence, in a long leather coat so black it seemed almost a part of the night, with a great mane of long, dark hair. He stood tall and proud, arrogant in his certainty that he had a right to be there and to do whatever he felt like doing. There was a power in him. I could See it, feel it, even at such a distance. His head snapped round, and he stared right at me. His face was bone white, dominated by dark, unblinking eyes and a bright, happy smile. He could see me as clearly as I could See him, even though I was in a future that hadn't happened for him yet.