Simon Green - Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

Strangefellows is said by many and considered by most to be the oldest bar in the world, and therefore has seen pretty much everything in its time. So when Suzie Shooter and I appeared suddenly out of nowhere, looking half-dead in blood-stained and tattered clothing, most of the bar’s patrons didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, cosmopolitan bastards and general scumbags that they are. Suzie and I leaned heavily on the long, polished wooden bar and spent some time just getting our breath back. We’d been through a lot during our trip through the Past, including being possessed by angels to fight demons from the Pit, so I felt very strongly that we were entitled to a little time out. Alex Morrisey, Strangefellows’ owner, bartender, and general miserable pain in the arse, stood behind the bar putting a lot of effort into cleaning a glass that didn’t need cleaning, while he fixed us both with his familiar unwavering scowl.

“Why can’t you walk through the door like normal people, Taylor?” he said finally. “You always have to make an entrance, don’t you? And look at the state of you. Don’t either of you dare drip blood over my nice, new, and very expensively cleaned floor. I haven’t seen the natural colour of that floor in more years than I care to remember, and I’m trying to memorise it before it inevitably disappears again. I have got to get some new clientele. When I inherited this place I was promised a nice upmarket bar with a select and discreet group of regular drinkers.”

“Alex,” I said, “you couldn’t drive this bar upmarket with an electric cattle prod and a branding iron. Now bring me many drinks, all in the same glass, and a bottle of the old mother’s ruin for Suzie.”

“Two,” said Suzie Shooter. “And don’t bother with a glass.”

Alex looked at Suzie, and his expression changed abruptly. During our brief stop-off in Arthurian times, Suzie had lost the left side of her face. The flesh had been ripped and torn away; then seared together with fire. Her left eye was gone, the eyelid sealed shut. Suzie glared at Alex with her one remaining cold blue eye, daring him to say anything. Alex’s face tried to show several things at once, then went blank. He gave Suzie his best professional bartender’s polite nod and went to get us our drinks. Suzie had no time for pity or compassion, even from those she considered her friends. Perhaps especially from them.

But I knew there was more to it than that. Alex and I had seen that face before, on a future incarnation of Suzie, who’d travelled back through Time from a potential future to kill me, right here in this bar. I might have killed that Suzie. I wasn’t sure. Alex came back with a large glass of wormwood brandy for me, and two bottles of gin for Suzie. He scowled disapprovingly as I gulped down the expensive liquor, and tried not to see Suzie sucking gin straight from the bottle like it was mother’s milk.

“How long have we been gone?” I said finally.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “About five hours, since you and Tommy Oblivion left here with Eamonn Mitchell, that new client of yours.”

“Ah,” I said. “It’s been a lot longer for us. Suzie and I have been Time travelling. Back into the various Pasts of the Nightside.”

“I’ve got no sympathy for you,” said Alex. “Don’t you have enough problems in the here and now, without upsetting people in the Past? Who did you piss off this time? You look like you’ve both been through a meat grinder.”

“That’s nothing,” said Suzie. “You should see the meat grinder.”

She belched and farted, then went back to sucking on her bottle.

“I don’t suppose you thought to bring me back a present?” said Alex.

“Of course not,” I said. “I told you; we were in the Past, not the Present.”

“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days,” said Alex.

I persuaded Suzie to put down her gin bottle long enough to make use of the rechargeable clothing spell Alex always keeps at hand behind the counter. A few Words of Power followed by a couple of quick passes with an aboriginal pointing-bone, and our clothes were immediately clean and repaired. Our bodies remained battered and bloody and exhausted, but it was a start. The spell was standard equipment in all Nightside bars and hostelries, where the general joie de vivre could be very hard on the appearance. Suzie and I admired ourselves in the long mirror behind the bar.

I looked like myself again, if just a little more world-weary around the eyes. Tall, dark, and handsome in the right kind of light, wrapped in a long white trench coat. I like to think I look like someone you could trust, if not take home to meet the parents. Suzie Shooter, also known as Shotgun Suzie, and Oh Christ it’s her, run! looked as cold and dangerous and downright scary as she always did. A tall blonde in her late twenties, but with a lot of mileage on the clock, standing stiff-backed and arrogant in black motorcycle leathers, lavishly adorned with steel chains and studs, a pump-action shotgun holstered on her back, and two bandoliers of bullets criss-crossing her substantial chest. Knee-length black leather boots with steel-capped toes completed the distressing picture. She had a strong-boned face, a mouth that rarely smiled, and a gaze older than the world. She’d shot me in the back once, but it was only a cry for attention.

(Alex was dressed all in black, as usual, even down to the designer shades and snazzy black beret perched on the back of his head to hide a spreading bald patch. He was in his late twenties but looked ten years older. Running a bar in the Nightside will do that to you.)