Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

Atalluk had been a gifted warrior, but gifted with wit as well. Clay still carried a certain amount of guilt for killing the Sumerian upon the battlefield, but there had been no choice. It was what he had been paid by the opposing forces to do.

The limousine hit a slow moving cluster of ambling dead, their dried flesh and bones scattering like dusty tenpins. "Strike!" Squire roared, shaking a gnarled fist in the air under the disapproving gaze of Leonard Graves.

Clay glanced at Eve, who still appeared to be resting. Here was someone that he had fought beside on numerous occasions, who understood and embraced the meaning of calm before the storm. She was a creature of infinite patience, Eve was, and there wasn't another warrior that he would rather have fighting by his side. When it was time to fight, she would be ready. He had no doubts about that.

The dead had become even more numerous. Their horrible faces crowded around to peer into the limousine as it began to slow.

"We're almost there," Squire said, gunning the engine, plowing through the mass of decaying flesh and bones. "I want to get you close enough so you're not bogged down. They can be a real pain in the ass, these dead guys."

The goblin leaned on the horn, as if that would make a difference. "Outta the way, you stinkin' bags of bones! Can't you see we're trying to get through here?"

Clay felt his respiration gradually begin to increase, the beating of his heart quicken. It was as it always was for him, the response of his body to the battle that was sure to come.

"Are we ready?" he asked.

Graves turned in his seat to look at Clay, his death pale features nearly transparent. "As set as I'll ever be when dealing with things of this nature," the ghost said, apparently perturbed that he was again forced to face the facts that he had so vehemently denied in life. Graves drifted up and out of his seat toward the limo ceiling, his head passing through the roof.

"I got your backs," Squire said, his large, dewy eyes reflected in the surface of the rearview mirror, and he cracked the door on the passenger side, ready to exit.

Clay looked to Eve, the woman scrunched down in her seat, seemingly still in the embrace of sleep.

"This is it, Eve," he said, reaching to shake her awake.

The woman responded in an instant, gripping his wrist in her powerful grasp before his hand could fall upon her.

"I'm awake," she told him, and he could see by the look in her deep, dark eyes that she was more than ready for what they were about to face.

"Then let's do what we came here for," he said, letting go of her wrist and preparing to open his passenger door.

As he did this, he heard the surprising sound of laughter, a pleasant sound, and one that he did not remember hearing too many times before. Clay looked across the back seat to see that Eve was giggling as she too prepared to exit the car.

She must have felt his eyes upon him and turned her head to meet his gaze.

"What's so funny?" he asked, completely in the dark as to what could have tickled her funny bone at that particular moment.

"Yeah," Squire reiterated, a breathless tension in his voice. Even he did not see any signs of the humorous at the moment. "What's the joke?"

"Art," she said and again began to laugh. "The guy with no arms or legs hanging on the wall. His name would be Art."

Eve opened her door, stepping out into the billowing crimson mist that hid an army of the dead. "That's pretty fucking funny," she said, just before slamming the door closed behind her.

And as Clay also left the vehicle, his body pulsing with the potential for violence that was to follow, he was forced to admit that the woman was right; it was funny.

When you looked at it from a certain way, it was all funny.

Kingsley is dead.

Conan Doyle, for that is how he is known to all and sundry, sits in the foyer of the Grosvenor Hotel with an unlit pipe propped between his lips. His eyes glaze as he gazes across the elegant foyer at ladies and their gentlemen, bustling to and fro. It is the middle of November, yet already the spirit of Christmas is in the air. Conan Doyle spies a small boy, perhaps five, running circles round his Ma'am's legs as his Da has an angry word with a bellman.

The father often loses patience with the boy. Conan Doyle can see bruises on the child's inner arms, dark purple marks where his father's thumb and fingers have gripped too tightly. The mother loves her husband, but she holds her breath, hoping his temper is satisfied by berating the bellman, and quietly trying to calm her boy so that he does not draw his father's attention.

The bellman is new to the job. Conan Doyle can see this from his shoes. The uniform is new, the buttons polished, but the shoes are badly scuffed, heels worn. The man had not been working at the Grosvenor long enough to have saved money for new shoes.

And Kingsley is dead.

The bellman has no money. The boy's father is far too rough with him. But Conan Doyle's own son, the pride of his heart, had been taken by the influenza. The wounds that Kingsley had received at the Somme had not killed him, but they had weakened him.

Kingsley is dead, and now a fortnight later Conan Doyle sits in the foyer of the Grosvenor Hotel and frowns as he glances up at the woman who has just entered through the revolving door. She is a large woman, stern-featured and well-dressed, and she carries in each hand a tiny Union Jack, the flag of Britain. As if in a dream, she waltzes silently and alone, waving these small banners, and then she disappears through the revolving door once more, returning to the street.

Moments later, a roar begins to build. Voices. Tears. Dancing feet.

Armistice. The war is over.

Kingsley is dead.

"Peace," a voice says, dry and cold. It is not a greeting, but an observation, and even then it is more cynical than celebratory.

Conan Doyle taps his pipe on his knee and glances up into a the face of Lorenzo Sanguedolce, his olive skin, fancy mustache, and Italian accent marking him as a suspicious character in these times of war.

"Kingsley is dead," Conan Doyle tells him.

Sanguedolce nods. "Yes. But he has not gone far, Arthur. Not yet. You may still be able to speak with him for a time yet."

Ice forms around Conan Doyle's heart and he cannot meet Sanguedolce's eyes. "I think not."

"No?"

"No. If I speak with him, I may become too fond of the idea of joining him."

When he looks up, they are no longer in the Grosvenor Hotel, these two men. Conan Doyle stands on Wandsworth Road, looking up at the face of the Three Goats' Heads pub. The name of the place is repeated on three signs, two on the building itself and one on a post in front of it, along with a faded reminder that one might also find Watney amp; Company's inside. The windows are filthy. Gathered in a small circle is a quartet of rough looking men in dark Derby hats.

The war has not yet begun, will not begin for years yet.

Conan Doyle enters the Three Goats' Heads. Ale spills from glasses as the barkeep slides them along a table. The air is choked with smoke, a fog that obscures his vision.

In the center of the pub there is a table that is clean, save for a single pint of ale. Despite the crowd, no one goes near. Impossibly, there is a circle of clear air around and above the table, as though the wafting smoke is kept out by some invisible wall. Conan Doyle has come to the Wandsworth Road this evening in response to a note, a summons signed by Lorenzo Sanguedolce. He has heard of the man, of course, the one they call Sweetblood the Mage. He has dismissed much of this talk as merely that. Talk.

One glimpse of Sanguedolce's eyes, like bright pennies, and the way he seems to exist separate from the world, even in the din and dirt of a public house, and he knows there is more to the man than talk.