Simon Green - The Bride Wore Black Leather

“I’ve got a murder at the Ball of Forever,” I said loudly. “Nasty business, with nasty implications. How soon can you get here?”

“Ah well,” he said. “That’s the problem. I’m already working another murder, at the Old Haymarket Theatre. That’s right on the other side of the city. (Bad business. Actors. Very touchy people.) (Who knew the old fellow had so much poison in him?) I’ll get to you as soon as I can (blood), but it’ll take me a while. (I want a pony.)”

“Do your best,” I said. “Got a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get on this one.”

“Do you want me to alert the Authorities? (Who’s been messing with my DNA kit again?)”

“Tell them,” I said. “And then tell them to stay out of it. It happened on my watch, right in front of me, so it’s my murder, my case. Tell them I’ll be in touch when I’ve found the killer; and not before.”

“Your funeral, Walker. (Ooh, can I come? I love funerals!) See you in a while.”

I put my phone away and looked down at the body again. A stab wound in the back meant he never saw it coming. The assassin had struck from behind . . . but who would King of Skin turn his back on, in a place like this? He would have known better. So, had the murderer sneaked up on him? Without being noticed, in a crowded room? I glared at the watching immortals.

“Who found the body? Come on; somebody screamed.”

A tall, gangly fellow dressed in Puritan blacks raised a hesitant hand. “I was startled, that’s all. You don’t expect something as vulgar as common murder in a select gathering like this. I saw him lying there, and the blood, and I let out . . . an involuntary noise, that’s all.”

“You saw the body lying on the floor?” I said. “You didn’t see the actual murder?”

“No! No! Just the body. Isn’t that enough?”

“Don’t go anywhere,” I said because you have to say things like that. And I went back to looking at King of Skin.

The three reporters finally fought their way through the tightly packed crowd and stared at the dead body with fascinated, eager eyes. Brilliant Chang seemed as calm and serene as ever. He’d seen his share of bodies before, in his time as an enforcer. Bettie Divine’s face was flushed, and she was breathing heavily at the prospect of covering a real story. She didn’t get many of those, working for the Unnatural Inquirer . And Charlotte ap Owen’s face was an open book, for all her many nips and tucks. This story was her passport to the big time, and she was damned if anything was going to get in her way. She snarled for Dave the camera-man to get good coverage of the crime scene, and I let her. I could always commandeer the coverage later if I needed it. I nodded for Brilliant Chang to step forward. I could use a cool head to talk with.

“Am I not a suspect, then?” he said amiably.

“You’re a combat sorcerer,” I said. “If you’d wanted him dead, you could have killed him in a dozen ways and never left a mark.”

“True.”

“Why are you standing around, Taylor?” snapped Charlotte. “Why don’t you use your gift and find the killer!”

“Because it doesn’t work that way,” I said. “I have to ask my gift a specific question to get a specific answer.”

“A question occurs to me,” said Chang. “King of Skin was not a well-liked man. He knew things, and wasn’t loath to let people know it. So, which of his many secrets was a step too far? Which one was important enough to be worth killing over, to keep it secret?”

“Good point,” I said. “But he’s been hoarding secrets for years. He always knew how far he could push things . . . Wait. Hold everything. Something’s happening to the body.”

Chang and I both knelt beside King of Skin, while Charlotte shrieked for Dave to get a close-up. King of Skin’s deeply wrinkled face was twitching, rising and falling, as though something was moving underneath it. And then, as we all watched, his entire face peeled off and dropped away, revealing another face beneath it. A second, completely different set of features. And then it aged, too, shrivelling into a mess of wrinkles, before dropping off to reveal yet another face beneath. The process went on and on, face giving way to face, skin to skin, aging and slipping away to reveal another, like those Russian dolls that nest inside one another. As each face fell to the floor, it rotted quickly, decaying and falling to dust in a matter of seconds. Skin under skin, face under face, until the process finally stopped, with a face I recognised. I’d seen it once before, on the future King of Skin, who’d been a member of my Enemies, in the terrible possible future I’d visited. And then that face aged, too, and fell in upon itself, a mask of far too many years.

“It’s stopped,” said Chang. “Do you suppose that last one was his real face? His original face?”

“I think so,” I said. “Remember what Hadleigh said to him? He said King of Skin’s power was skin deep. He knew about this.”

“You think you can get Hadleigh to talk?” said Chang.

“Probably not,” I said. “It’s his job to know things like this, but he never talks about his job. Hell, I’m not even sure exactly what his job is. Stick to the point. Is this how King of Skin became immortal, by wrapping himself in other people’s skin? Stealing their skins, their lives, their life energies, to bolster and prolong his own?”

“I have heard of such measures,” said Chang. “But I never knew . . . His name! King of Skin! He was taunting us all with his name. His own greatest secret, right there in the open for everyone to see.”

He carried on talking, but I wasn’t listening. A thought had struck me. A very personal, very selfish thought. With King of Skin dead, the group of Enemies I’d seen in that potential future couldn’t happen. Which meant . . . that future couldn’t happen. Did this mean that, finally, the Nightside was safe from the terrible destiny I’d seen? The end of the world that I was supposed to bring about? Oh please God, let it be so. I could do with one less burden to carry. I realised Chang had stopped talking and was looking at me quizzically.

“Sorry,” I said. “King of Skin’s death has many repercussions, and I’m only starting to see some of them.”

“I was wondering . . . what’s become of the murder weapon?” said Brilliant Chang. “It isn’t in the victim, or anywhere near the body.”

I got down on my hands and knees and looked back and forth underneath the buffet tables. Dust bunnies, dropped food, and what looked very like rat turds, but nothing that could have killed King of Skin. I got back to my feet, brushing dust from my knees.

“The murderer must still have it on him,” I said.

“Do you have the authority to search everyone here?” said Chang.

“I could try,” I said. “But I think that might be a step too far for most of them. They’d see it as an affront to their dignity. Some of them would rather fight a duel or defy the Authorities than be physically man-handled in front of their peers. And anyway, the murderer’s had plenty of time to dispose of the weapon by now. It could be anywhere.”

“Anywhere inside this room,” said Charlotte ap Owen, chipping in to remind us she was still there and not being left out of anything.

“Excuse me! Hello, excuse me! I’ve got an idea!”

I looked round to see Bettie Divine bouncing on her feet and waving her hand in the air excitedly, like a child in class who knows the answer.

“What have you got, Bettie?” I said patiently.

“We all saw the different faces King of Skin was hiding behind. If they are the faces of people he killed, to take their life energies for his own. well, mightn’t they have friends or family who’d want to avenge their deaths? If someone had found out King of Skin was a serial killer, that could be your motive right there!”