Paths Not Taken (13 page)

"We can't keep walking at random," Suzie said quietly. "Even with Old Father Time's glamour protecting us, you're still attracting attention, Taylor. Use your gift. Find the Londinium Club."

"You know I don't like to use my gift unless I have to," I said, just as quietly.

"Your Enemies aren't going to be looking for you in the sixth century," Suzie said sternly.

"We could ask people for directions," said Tommy.

"No we couldn't," said Suzie. "We want our arrival there to have the element of surprise. Use your gift, Taylor."

I thought about it. My Enemies had no reason to suspect I was here, sixteen hundred years in the Past, unless the future Suzie had told them about this little trip... but I couldn't keep thinking that way, or I'd go mad. So, I powered up my gift, opening the third eye deep in my mind, and Saw the world around me. There were ghosts everywhere, walking through the crowds and the buildings, pale, faded figures trapped in their temporal fugues, repeating the same endless circle of action and mourning. There were huge spirit forms, bigger than houses, striding through the material world as though they were all that was real and the rest of us only phantoms. Massive, winged things that were neither angels nor demons flapped overhead in great clouds, holding rigid formations. Unknowable forces moving on unguessable missions. I pulled my drifting thoughts together, concentrated on the Londinium Club, and found it in a moment. We weren't as far from it as I'd thought, only a few minutes' walk. Which made me think: did Lilith know that? Had she chosen where as well as when to drop me back into the world? Was I supposed to go to the Club, to meet someone or learn something? More questions with no answer.

I shut down my gift, carefully pulling my mental defences back into place. Just at the end there, I'd felt... Something, starting to take notice of my presence. Not my Enemies. Something of this time, big and dark and brutally powerful. Just possibly ... Merlin Satanspawn.

I didn't mention this to the others. Just led them down the street, heading for the Londinium Club. But almost immediately our way was blocked by a ragged bunch of street thugs who appeared out of nowhere and had us surrounded in a moment. Ten of them, big and bulky swords for hire in scrappy chain mail and battered leather armor, with scarred faces and nasty smiles. They carried short-swords and axes, and long knives with blades so notched they were practically serrated. None of them topped five feet, but they all had barrel chests and arms bigger than my thighs. None of this lot had ever gone hungry. They were, however, filthy dirty, and they smelled awful. The leader was a swarthy man with a roughly cut mane of black hair. He smiled nastily, revealing several missing teeth.

"Well, well," he said easily. "Not often we gets nobility in our part of town, do we, lads? So... clean, and well dressed. Slumming, are we, gents and lady? Looking for a bit of rough trade, perhaps? Well, they don't come much rougher than us, and that's a fact." His fellow thugs all laughed unpleasantly, some of them already looking at Suzie in a way I didn't like. If she killed them all, it would be bound to attract unwelcome attention. At least she hadn't drawn her shotgun yet.

"What do you want?" asked Suzie, and the leader looked at her uncertainly, taken aback by the cold, almost bored tone in her voice.

"What do we want, lady? What have you got? Just a toll, a little local taxation, for the privilege of passing through our territory."

"Your territory?" I said.

"Our territory, because we control it," said the leader. "Nothing and no-one moves through here, without paying us tribute."

"But..."

"Don't you argue with me, you tosser," said the thug, prodding me hard in the chest with a filthy finger. "Give us what we want, and we'll let you walk away. Piss us about, and we'll mess you up so bad people will puke just to look at you."

"How much is this going to cost us?" said Tommy, already reaching for his purse.

"Whatever coin you've got on you. Any goods we happen to take a liking to. And some quality time with this lady." The chief thug leered at Suzie. "I likes them big."

I winced on his behalf. I could feel Suzie's icy presence beside me, like the ticking of an activated bomb.

"That is a really bad idea," I said, in my best cold and dangerous voice. I relaxed a little as the thug turned his attention back to me. I could handle scumbags like him. I gave him my best hard stare. "You don't know who we are.

What we can do. So do the sensible thing and step aside, before we have to show you."

He laughed in my face, and his fellow thugs laughed with him. I was a bit taken aback. It had been a long time since anyone dared laugh in my face.

"Nice try, Taylor," said Suzie. "But they don't know your legend here. Let me deal with them."

"You can't kill them all," Tommy said immediately. "Kill them, and you kill all their potential future descendants. Who knows how many cumulative changes that could cause, back in our Present? Let me try my gift on them." He gave the leader his best winning smile. "Come, let us reason together."

"Shut your face, pretty boy," said the leader. He spat right into Tommy's face, and Tommy recoiled with a cry of disgust, his concentration shattered.

"So much for diplomacy," said Suzie, and she drew her shotgun with one easy movement.

The leader regarded the gun interestedly. "Whatever that thing is, it won't do you any good, lady. Me and the lads are protected, against all edged weapons and magical attacks. None of them can touch us."

Suzie shot the man in the face, blowing his head right off his shoulders. The body staggered back a few steps and collapsed. The other thugs looked at the body twitching on the ground, then slowly and reluctantly looked back at Suzie.

"Run away," I suggested, and they did. Suzie looked after them thoughtfully for a moment, then put her shotgun away again.

"There really wasn't any need for that," I said. "I could have dealt with them."

"Of course you could," said Suzie.

"I could!"

"You can deal with the next ones," said Suzie, as she set off down the street.

"I never get to have any fun," I said, following after. "He's going to sulk now, isn't he?" said Tommy, hurrying to catch up.

"Oh, big time," said Suzie Shooter.

Seven

Some Unpleasantness at the Londinium Club

O
nly those personages of extreme power, prestige, or parentage can hope to gain admittance to the oldest private members' club in the world. Just fame, wealth, or knowing the right people won't do it. The Londinium Club was and is extremely exclusive, and the merely heroic or significant need not apply. There are those who say Camelot operated on a pretty similar principle. All I know for sure is that neither establishment would let me in without a fight.

We found the Londinium Club easily enough. It was a large, dignified building in a much more salubrious area of the Nightside. The traffic was quieter, the pedestrians were of a much-better-dressed class, and there wasn't a brothel anywhere in sight. Still a hell of a lot of shit in the street, mind. I stopped before the front door of the Club, and looked the place over. The exterior looked pretty much the same as the last time I'd seen it, back in my Present. Old, old stone decorated with sexually explicit Roman bas-reliefs, surrounding a large and very solid oak door. And when I say sexually explicit, I'm talking about the kind of images that would have made Caligula blush, and maybe dash for the vomitorium. Suzie regarded the designs calmly, while Tommy started searching his pockets for a paper and pencil, to make notes.

Standing in front of the main entrance was the Doorman, a solid and immovable presence whose function and delight it was to keep out the unworthy. He was protected against any form of attack, by Powers known and unknown, was strong enough to tear a bull in half, and was, supposedly, immortal. Certainly he was still around in my time, large as life and twice as obnoxious. The Doorman was a snob's snob, and he gloried in it. He was currently a short, stocky man in a purple Roman toga, with bare muscular arms folded firmly across an imposing chest. I half expected him to be wearing a sash saying they shall not pass. He stood proudly erect, nose in the air, but his eyes missed nothing. He'd already noticed us.

"I could shoot him," said Suzie.

"Don't even think it," I said quickly. "The Doorman is seriously protected. And besides, we already know you didn't kill him, because I already met him, back in the Present, during my last case."

"I hate circular reasoning like that," said Suzie. "Let's shoot him anyway and see what happens."

"Let's not," I said, very firmly. "This is the kind of place where they have you impaled for being late with your membership dues. For once, our usual tactics of brute force and ignorance will not win the day. We're going to have to talk our way past him."

"Get to the front, Tommy," said Suzie. "You're on."

"I knew you were going to say that," said Tommy.

We approached the front door, and the Doorman actually stepped forward to block our way, one meaty hand held out in warning.

"All right, that's as far as you go. You three are not at all welcome here. Ever. I still remember you from the trouble you caused the last time you were here, some two hundred years ago."

"Guess where we're going next," murmured Tommy.

"Shut up," I hinted.

"We must have made a pretty big impression on the man," said Suzie.

"You always do, Suzie," I said generously. I smiled at the Doorman. "Look, I know we're not actually Members, but we only want to pop in for a moment and maybe ask a few questions. Then we'll be gone and out of your life. Won't that be nice?"

"Members only means Members only," growled the Doorman. "Leave now. Or I will be compelled to use force."

Suzie started to reach for her shotgun. "No!" I said urgently. "When I said the Doorman was protected, I meant by everyone who's a Club Member. And that means he can draw on the powers of sorcerers, elves, and minor godlings to stop us."

"Ah," said Suzie. "So shooting him wouldn't work?"

"No."

"I've got these special grenades ..."

"No!" I turned to Tommy. "You're up. Mess with the man's head."

Tommy Oblivion stepped forward, smiling confidently. The Doorman considered him warily.

"We're not from around here, old thing," Tommy said easily. "You probably already noticed that. In fact, we're not from this place, or this time. We're from the future. Some sixteen hundred years from now, to be exact. And in that future, my friends and I are Members of your Club."

"What?" said the Doorman. Whatever he'd been expecting to hear, that clearly wasn't it.

"We are Members, where and when we come from. Which means, technically speaking, we are also Members here and now. Once a Member, always a Member, right?"

The Doorman frowned as he thought about that. Thinking clearly wasn't what he did best. He brightened up as an idea came to him.

"If you're a Member," he said slowly, "you know the secret handshake."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "There is no secret handshake, dear fellow. But there is a secret password, which I have written down on this piece of paper."

He showed the Doorman his empty hand. The Doorman looked at it closely, moving his lips as though reading, then nodded reluctantly and stepped back to let us pass. He was frowning heavily, as though his head hurt. The oak door swung open before us, and I led the way into the lobby beyond. Once the door was safely shut behind us, I looked at Tommy.

"You made him see something that wasn't there."

"Of course," said Tommy. "It's my gift to be convincing. Besides, in some alternate time-line we probably are Members. Or at least, I am."

I sniffed. "I still didn't get to do anything."

"You will, you will," Suzie said soothingly. 'This place is bound to be packed with all the kinds of people you detest the most. I'm sure you'll find someone worth upsetting in some thoroughly appalling and vindictive way."

I sniffed again, unconvinced, and looked around the Club lobby. It still had some of the old Roman magnificence I remembered from my last visit, with gleaming tiled walls and marble pillars, but instead of thick carpeting on the floor there were only trampled rushes, strewn here and there in clumps, and the high ceiling had been covered in thick Druidic designs that looked like they'd been daubed with woad. The only lighting came from oversized oil-lamps, and the perfumed air was hot and flat and a little stale. There was a sense that the Club had declined somewhat from its original glory days in Roman times and had yet to develop its own style. Certainly the Romans would never have put up with this much mess. The rushes on the floor looked like they hadn't been changed in days, and there were smoke and soot streaks on the walls above the oil-lamps. Stains here and there suggested spillages of all kinds.

A servant, or more probably a slave, given the iron collar bolted around his neck, came forward hesitantly to greet us. Something about us clearly upset him because he stopped dead in his tracks, and yelled Security! at the top of his lungs. A panel slammed open in one of the walls, revealing a hidden alcove, from whose dark depths a hideous crone emerged, spitting and cackling. She was clearly some kind of witch, with stray magics sputtering and discharging around her clawed hands. She was a twisted figure in rags and tatters, with a heavy iron chain leading back into the alcove from the slave collar around her scrawny throat. She lurched towards us, her eyes wide with madness and thwarted rage. I could feel the power building around her as she muttered ancient words in a deep guttural voice, and I knew that as soon as she oriented on us, we'd be in deep shit.

So I raised my gift only long enough to find the spell that kept her from breaking her chain and slave collar, and removed it. The collar snapped open, and the chain fell away from her. The witch broke off in mid spell, and lurched to a halt. She kicked tentatively at the chain on the floor, and it rattled helplessly. The witch grinned slowly, revealing a handful of yellowed teeth, then she turned to look at the slave who'd called her out of the alcove. He turned and ran, but he was a grease spot on the floor before he'd made half a dozen steps.