Simon Green: The Bride Wore Black Leather

Is there anything more fun than deliberately crashing a party where you know you’re not welcome, you’re not supposed to be there, and you can be absolutely sure that everyone is going to throw a major hissy fit over your very appearance? It’s little victories like this, against the rich and the mighty, that keep me going.

The Portable Timeslip inside my gold pocket-watch dropped me off at the entrance to the top (and most select and most expensive) floor of the MEC, the Mammon Emporium Centre. A meeting place and upscale watering hole for the Major Players of the Nightside, or at the very least those rich enough to act like they are. The MEC provides whole floors set apart for private gatherings, complete with uniformed staff, excellent food and drink, and heavily armed security staff, all at only mildly extortionate prices. (If you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it.)

The Ball of Forever is one of the oldest and most select get-togethers in the Nightside, which takes some doing. You have to be immortal to get an invitation, you have to be rich enough to pay the entrance fee and powerful enough to be able to defend yourself against the other guests. For hundreds of years the Ball of Forever was held at Strangefellows, the oldest bar in the world; but then Merlin Satanspawn came back from the dead, declared the bar to be his own private territory, and kicked them all out. (And perhaps only I knew he did this because it wasn’t only his body that was buried in the cellars under the bar but that of Arthur Pendragon, the once-and-future King, as well.)

The Ball of Forever moved through various venues over the next thousand years or so, before finally settling in what became the MEC. Which these days provides staff in uniforms of your own choosing, all of them guaranteed very discreet about what they might or might not see, along with every luxury you can think of, and some that would shock less-well-travelled souls rigid. The extremely long-lived have a tendency to develop strange and unusual tastes, and a morality that can best be described as flexible. So the MEC is always careful to provide staff with combat training, diplomatic skills, and a hell of a lot of danger money. In advance.

I stood outside the closed door to the top-floor ball-room, and looked it over thoughtfully. A large sign to one side proudly proclaimed THE MEC WELCOMES ALL IMMORTALS TO THE BALL OF FOREVER. AGAIN. A sign on the other side of the door presented coming attractions: THE JEKYLL & HYDE REUNION DINNER (for all those touched and affected by the Good Doctor’s special elixir) and THE GRAND ORDER OF GHOULS MANGES TOUTES EVENING. (No living staff will be provided.)

The personal ads at the back of the Unnatural Inquirer , the Nightside’s very own scabrous tabloid, are jam-packed with would like to meet similar messages.

I turned my attention to the tall and muscular butler standing to attention before the door, staring deliberately through me as though I weren’t there. He was wearing the full formal outfit—a tight powder blue frock coat, white tights, and a powdered wig, from the Court of Versailles of Louis XIV . . . and carrying it off with professional dignity. Presumably some of the immortals were feeling nostalgic. I moved to stand directly before the butler and gave him my best cheerful smile. In return, he gave me the butler’s professionally cool up and down, managing to imply (without speaking a single word) that not only was I not welcome, not invited, and not in any way the right sort, but also that I was improperly dressed and my flies were open. All in one glance. You had to admire the professionalism. I smiled a little more, and he sighed deeply, before reluctantly deigning to meet my impertinent gaze with his own.

“This is a private gathering, sir. May I see your invitation?”

“You know I haven’t got one,” I said. “I don’t need one. I’m Walker.”

“Not quite, sir,” said the butler. “Your title has yet to be officially validated, and thus your authority is still . . . in question. Also, you do not possess the Voice. Sir.”

“No,” I said. “But I’ve got other things. Want me to demonstrate them, in a sudden, violent, and utterly distressing way? Do you need me to remind you that the last butler who annoyed me got dragged down to Hell?”

“Please go right in, sir. Walk all over me. It’s what I’m here for.”

He stood to one side and opened the door. I started to walk past him, and then had to ask, “Do they pay you extra, to wear that outfit?”

“It’s traditional, sir. It is also ill-fitting, uncomfortable, and chafes in places I don’t even care to mention. Damn right they pay me extra. Would sir like me to take his coat? We could store it in the private cloak-room. We could also have it dry-cleaned and perhaps fumigated.”

“I don’t think I’ll leave the coat on its own,” I said. “I haven’t fed it recently. You may announce me, though.”

“Of course, sir. I live to grovel.”

The butler pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside. I strolled in past him, smiling easily in all directions, and the butler raised his voice to cut across the babble of many conversations, and the somewhat overbearing piped music.

“My lords, ladies, and others, may I present to you Mr. John Taylor, newly appointed Walker to the Nightside. The horror, the horror . . .”

“You get no tip,” I said as I walked forward into the Ball of Forever.

The ball-room stretched away before me, larger than a football pitch, and packed from wall to wall with all the most noted immortal beings still walking this Earth. So, of course, I ignored the lot of them and fixed my attention on the huge running buffet lining most of one wall. I strolled along the trestle tables, nodding to the various waitresses, all of them dressed in vaguely fetish French maid outfits. There were no waiters. Presumably because they wouldn’t look as good in the outfits. Knowledge of my presence spread quickly through the tightly packed immortals. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched them watching me as they gathered in little groups to discuss what the hell to do, look blankly at each other, hide behind each other, and stare openly at me from what they hoped was a safe distance. They all knew I was gate-crashing, but none of them felt confident enough to raise a fuss. They all knew I had killed an immortal in my time, or at the very last arranged for his death—the legendary Griffin. And made his children mortal again. Perhaps the worst threat of all.

I looked for something to take the edge off my thirst. There were any number of interesting vintages, including an open jug of a wine so deep red it looked like blood. In fact, given the predilections of some of those immortals present, it might very well be blood.

So I picked up a glass of complimentary champagne I wasn’t entitled to, leaned back against the buffet table, and looked around me under the cover of taking a long drink. For all the expensive and elegant setting, the rich and the mighty in all their finery, and the piped music playing Elizabethan airs with a lot of lute action (I suppose everyone has a special taste for the music of their youth), there was still a strange feeling to the gathering. Of a whole bunch of people from all kinds of backgrounds, who would normally have nothing to say to each other, brought together by the only thing they had in common. Not having died yet. After all, you’re only an immortal until someone manages to kill you. After that, you were just long-lived.

The huge ballroom was full of gods, superhumans, inhumans, posthumans, and a few things that wouldn’t pass for human during a complete black-out. All the products of super-science and the supernatural, come together in one place to talk about the things that only immortals could really understand and appreciate. To prove to everyone that they were still around, to swap useful survival tips, to show off new achievements and new fashions, to reminisce about the good old days . . . and whinge and moan about how no-one appreciates the important things any more. And, of course, to show off for the media. Immortals are, first and foremost, celebrities.