The Bride Wore Black Leather (7 page)

To my surprise, he actually sought out Razor Eddie in his corner. A lot of people started backing away. I mean, you don’t upset the Punk God of the Straight Razor. Not if you like having your organs on the inside. I’ve seen gods and powers come running out of the Street of the Gods, crying their eyes out, because Razor Eddie was on the rampage. But no; King of Skin walked right up to the thin grey presence and sniggered in his face.

“So, Eddie,” said King of Skin, “when are you going to tell everyone where you really got your pearl-handled straight razor?”

Razor Eddie looked at him, and the silence lengthened uncomfortably. King of Skin snarled and growled under his breath, and turned abruptly away. And I stopped holding a breath I hadn’t even realised was caught in my throat. It was as though two great racing cars had played chicken, and one had turned aside at the last moment. King of Skin strode up to Dead Boy, who was still making serious inroads on the buffet and sucking his dead fingers noisily. He straightened up as he sensed King of Skin approaching and turned unhurriedly round to face him.

“So, Dead Boy; how’s your girl-friend these days? Still changeable?”

“Fuck off, Skinny,” Dead Boy said flatly. “You can’t frighten me. I’m dead.”

“Even the dead have nightmares,” said King of Skin, the air rippling and puckering around his hands as he played with probabilities.

Dead Boy smiled suddenly, and it was a most unpleasant smile. “I made a deal with my worst nightmare. You invoke that, and it’ll rip the soul right out of you.”

And again, King of Skin turned suddenly away, faced with something even worse than he was. He snarled with frustration and turned on Mistress Mayhem, who started to back away, then made herself hold her ground. It was always worse if you made him chase after you.

“Love the blue skin,” said King of Skin. “Hope you don’t run out of dye. And you didn’t want the baby anyway. Don’t worry; I won’t tell the Thunder god what you did.”

A single tear ran down Mayhem’s blue cheek, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying anything. King of Skin sniggered loudly and turned his hot gaze on Lord Orlando before dismissing him as easy prey. The Lord Orlando almost fainted with relief. King of Skin looked around him, laughing breathily every time someone flinched, and finally advanced on the Bride. She glared down her nose at him and didn’t budge an inch. Springheel Jack stepped forward and stood between King of Skin and his prey.

“Wait your turn, boy,” said King of Skin. “I’ll get to you.”

“Leave the lady alone,” said Springheel Jack. “Or else.”

“Or else? You think you can threaten me, boy? I know all about you. Who you were before, what you really are now. Does the Bride know . . .”

“One more word, and I’ll open you up and let your lights see the light,” said Springheel Jack.

“You think you can hurt me, boy? I have made myself into a thing that cannot be harmed by mortal weapons!”

“My razors are no mortal weapons,” said Springheel Jack. “And there’s nothing left you can scare me with. Because I’ve already been through it.”

King of Skin looked at him, his hot gaze meeting cold, cold eyes; and again, he looked away. No-one could believe it.

“Come away, Jack,” said the Bride. “He’s not worth it.”

She led her beau away, one huge hand on his arm, and King of Skin whirled around, watching everyone watching him, and rage and frustrated malice filled his face. And while he stood there, undecided, Hadleigh Oblivion strolled out of the crowd to stand before him. He smiled easily at King of Skin, whose eyes narrowed as he drew himself up to his full height. The whole ballroom was utterly still, utterly silent, as everyone watched, fascinated, to see what would happen.

“When are people going to realise that your power is nothing more than skin-deep?” said Hadleigh.

King of Skin flinched as though he’d been hit. I didn’t know what Hadleigh meant, but his opponent clearly did.

“When are you going to tell your brothers about the price you paid to be allowed entrance to the Deep School?” said King of Skin.

“King . . . of what, exactly?” said Hadleigh, still smiling. “And . . . of Skin? Who’s skin, or skins? How deep does beauty go with you?”

And to everyone’s surprise, even shock, King of Skin broke first. He seemed to shrink in on himself as though some vital part of his confidence had been broken. He turned his back on Hadleigh, marched over to the buffet table, and made a big show of being interested in the delicacies on offer. Hadleigh looked after him, clearly considering whether he should continue the confrontation; but he smiled briefly and wandered off in the opposite direction. Quite clearly the winner. Of something. Many hands came out, to clap him on the back or the shoulder, though no-one actually said anything. King of Skin might have picked the wrong victims for one day . . . but no-one doubted there would be other days and other victims.

A slow buzz of confused, mystified conversation rose among the gathered immortals as they tried to work out what had just happened. After all, no-one defied King of Skin. Everyone present was very interested in working out the details, if only so they could use it themselves, in the future.

I went back to working the crowd, but even after what had just occurred, no-one was prepared to talk to me. A scary reputation only works when you aren’t surrounded by people even scarier than you. I passed by the Merlin Memorial Chair, standing on its own in a corner; much like Razor Eddie. The chair was a duplicate of Merlin’s old throne, made from dark ironwood and wrapped in fresh mistletoe. The immortals always give it a place of honour at their Ball because most of them are convinced he’s coming back. I was pretty sure he wasn’t, but I’ve been wrong about that before, so I didn’t say anything.

I sat down on the throne, casually crossing my legs, to make a point, and looked out over the crowd. I’d never seen so many immortals in one place, acting more or less politely. And then . . . a teenage boy caught my eye. A long, sulky streak of lukewarm water, wearing distressed jeans and battered knock-off sneakers, and a grubby T-shirt under a hooded grey jacket. He stood alone, scowling at everyone, his hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets, the archetypal teenage hoodie. I couldn’t make out what the hell he was doing at the Ball of Forever, among people who were probably ancient before his great-grandparents were born. I didn’t recognise him as anyone special, or important. No-one had actually challenged his right to be there, yet, but he was getting a number of glances, none of them good. So I got up off Merlin’s throne and went over to find out who he was. Because if there was going to be trouble at the Ball, I wanted to start it.

I walked right up to him and planted myself in front of him, so he couldn’t ignore me. “Hello!” I said cheerfully. “Isn’t the ambience awful? You probably know who I am; but who are you?”

He looked me straight in the eye, and like that he didn’t look like a teenager any more. His eyes were old, very old, and his slow smile had generations of experience behind it.

“Call me Rogue,” he said, and his voice was rich with contempt and soaked in pride. “I’m one of the few real immortals here, from the Family of Immortals.”

Everyone around us stopped talking, to stare at Rogue. We’d all heard of the Family of Immortals; the half-legendary, very long-lived family supposed to run the world from behind the scenes, for a thousand years and more . . . but no-one had ever met one, before now. Everyone at the Ball was an immortal of one kind or another, but none of them had families. They were all unique, unable to pass on what made them immortal. But the Family of Immortals had bred slow, but true, for hundreds of years.

Everyone here had heard the story, that the Family of Immortals had very recently been wiped out, slaughtered, by the equally as legendary Drood family, those very secret agents for the Good. I wasn’t the only one startled to discover that one of the few survivors of that massacre was this sulky-looking teenager.

“I did hear that the Family of Immortals is no more,” I said carefully. “The Droods are, after all, usually very thorough when it comes to wiping out threats to Humanity.”

“Some of us got away,” said Rogue. “Even Droods can’t be everywhere at once. A few of us grabbed some useful items from the Family Vaults, then escaped through the emergency teleport gates. Now those of us left are spread across the world, hiding behind new identities and keeping our heads down. And I came here because the Nightside is one of the few places in the world where Droods are forbidden to set foot, by ancient compact. One of the few places in this world or off it where I thought I could be safe.

“Of course, I hadn’t been here long before I heard that the Drood family had also been destroyed, repaid in their turn. The universe has a warped sense of humour.”

“Are you sure about this?” I said, hearing a new buzz of conversation start up behind me. “I’d heard stories, but no details . . .”

“Oh yes, I’m sure,” said Rogue, and again there was a very old, very adult unpleasantness in his voice. “I took a quick look, through a scrying glass. Drood Hall has been destroyed, blown up and burned down. They’re all dead. Such a marvellous sight: half-melted golden figures strewn across the rubble, like broken dolls. I wish I could have seen it happen . . . but you can’t have everything.”

“They’re all dead?” I said. “Every single Drood?”

“One got away,” said Rogue. “Because he wasn’t there when it happened. Only one left, out of all those self-righteous, murdering bullies. Eddie, the last Drood. I really must get around to killing him when I have a moment. There’d be no fun in doing it now, you understand, while he’s still grieving. Better to wait till he’s recovered and started rebuilding his life . . . and then there I’ll be, to put an end to the last Drood.”

“Who the hell could be powerful enough to wipe out the entire Drood family?” I said, because I felt someone should say it.

Rogue smiled and shrugged easily. “Haven’t a clue. Don’t know anyone who does. But I will find out, eventually, if only so I can shake him by the hand.”

“Okay,” I said. “So far, you’re everything your family was supposed to be. Where are the rest of you?”

“Oh, here and there,” said Rogue, deliberately vague. “All over the world, hidden in plain sight, making their plans for the return of the family.”

He grinned suddenly, the first youthful thing I’d seen him do.

“And we will be back. You can count on it. We are the real immortals, and we have ruled this world for longer than anyone in this room has been alive.” He looked disparagingly around him. “Call yourselves immortals? My family has walked this Earth for fifteen centuries!”

“So how old are you?” I said.

He scowled suddenly, sticking out his lower lip in a proper teenage pout. “I was cheated out of my inheritance by the Droods. I’ve had barely eighty years of playing with Humanity! I should have had centuries as part of the most important and powerful family there’s ever been, to walk up and down in the world and change the course of human history as the whim took me. I should have had a life of wealth and influence, dispensing Life and Death, success or failure, at my pleasure! But I’d barely got started . . . It isn’t fair!”

He broke off, startled, as I stuck my face right in close to his. I’d had enough. “That was then, Rogue, this is now. As far as I’m concerned, you’re only another refugee, on the run in the Nightside. My Nightside. So behave yourself here. You try to play with the lives of people under my protection, and I’ll drag you down to the Street of the Gods and feed you to something unknowable.”

“Of course, Walker,” said Rogue, his voice suddenly entirely reasonable. “I’m a guest in this wonderfully gaudy, tawdry city. I wouldn’t dream of making any trouble.”

“You’re overdoing it,” I said.

He smiled distantly, backed carefully away, not taking his eyes off me, and moved on. A lot of people were quite keen to talk to him, to make themselves known to a living legend.

I stood alone, thinking. I’d seen and heard a great many interesting things at the Ball of Forever, but none of it to do with what I was here for. No-one had so much as mentioned an immortality serum; either to discuss its possibilities, its price, or whether it should be destroyed. And somebody would have by now. Perhaps its owner was holding court in some hidden back room, unknown to any but the most select immortals. But I hadn’t seen anybody drifting away, or disappearing and reappearing . . . and it’s really hard to hide secret doors and rooms from me. I was beginning to wonder if the serum actually existed. A drug that could make everyone immortal would set off all kinds of alarms. The universe itself resents the existence of immortals, which is why there are so few of them. They mess things up, disrupt the natural order . . . and the universe has been known to react when it feels there are too many, in quite brutal and efficient ways. Trust me; you don’t want to know how.

I was still considering the implications of that when a great cry went up, followed by a number of screams. People were shouting, backing away, and pressing forward. I pushed my way through the crowd, following the screams, and there on the floor by the buffet, very quiet and very still and quite definitely dead, was King of Skin.

THREE

Time, See What’s Become of Me

I moved in quickly to kneel down beside the motionless body, to check for signs of life; but there was no pulse at wrist or neck. The skin under my fingertips felt cold and clammy, and strangely slack . . . It moved too easily and too freely under my touch, as though it wasn’t properly attached. I checked that King of Skin wasn’t breathing, then stood up and looked coldly around me. The immortals stood huddled together in little groups, for comfort and support, staring at me silently with wide, fascinated eyes, like traumatised children. None of them were strangers to death, even sudden and violent death; but a murder, of one of their own kind, in a place where they should have been safe . . . that was something else. No personal weapons were allowed for anyone at the Ball of Forever, supposedly to prevent things like this.

I caught Hadleigh Oblivion’s eye and beckoned him forward. He slipped easily through the crowd and moved forward to join me. He looked at the body, then looked at me expectantly.

“You’re the Detective Inspectre,” I said. “Do you want to take over the case?”

“You’re Walker,” said Hadleigh. “This is your jurisdiction.”

“Then do me a favour. Go stand by the door, laugh in anyone’s face if they try to leave. No-one gets in or out until I’ve finished my investigation.”

“I’ll stand guard,” said Hadleigh. “It should be . . . amusing.”

He shot me a quick smile and strode through the crowd to the far door, without always waiting for everyone to get out of his way. The immortals were finding their voices now, the clatter of questions and demands becoming louder by the moment. I was going to have to make a stand—be Walker, and take charge of the situation. Or none of them would talk to me. I raised my voice and addressed the gathered immortals, and they reluctantly quietened down and looked at me.

“All right!” I said. “Pay attention! King of Skin has been murdered. That makes this ball-room a crime scene, and you’re all suspects. So none of you are going anywhere soon. Get used to it. Now, I’m going to need your help and cooperation to find the killer. He’s still here, hiding; and the sooner I find him, the sooner you can all feel safe again. I’m going to have to ask all of you some questions. None of you should take it personally . . .”

“We don’t answer to you!” snapped a man wrapped in a purple Roman toga, to which he might or might not have been entitled. “Jumped-up functionary! We are leaving; all of us! Before the murderer strikes again!”

“No you’re not,” I said, fixing him with my best hard glare. “No-one leaves until I’ve found the killer.”

Jasmine de Loir stepped forward, cocking her oversized head back, the better to sneer down her aristocratic nose at me. She was dressed as Elizabeth I, complete with red hair and a very high forehead. “You can’t keep us here! You’re only a mortal. You have no authority over us!”

“He isn’t even really a Walker!” said another voice from somewhere safe in the back of the crowd. “He doesn’t have the Voice!”

“I’m John Taylor!” I said loudly, and the crowd fell quiet again. I smiled nastily around me, and a few actually shivered. “You’ve all heard of me. The man with a gift for finding things. Now be quiet, and behave yourselves, or . . .”

“Or what?” said Jasmine.

“Or I’ll find your missing husband,” I said.

Jasmine hesitated and was lost. She slipped back into the crowd. I looked unhurriedly around me, nodding to faces I recognised.

“You there, I could find where the missing funds from your company went. Or you. I could find where you buried the bodies. And as for you, sweetie, I could find your old nose and put it back where it used to be.”

They were all very quiet now, looking at each for support and not finding it. They all had secrets, and none of them wanted me looking at them too closely. Of course, I was mostly bluffing, throwing out a few educated guesses based on the latest gossip; but they didn’t know that. I turned my back on them all and knelt beside what was left of King of Skin.

He was lying face-down, half-curled into a ball. There was a single bloody wound in the small of his back and more blood soaking his tattered coat. He’d died quickly, bleeding out in seconds. With his glamour gone, without his usual spooky aspect, he looked much smaller and very ordinary. I turned the head carefully, so I could see the face. His real face, at last. Not particularly handsome, or ugly; nothing more than another face in the crowd. His clothes were old and comfortable, and not in the least stylish. Very worn, very lived-in. And then, as I looked at the face, it suddenly shrivelled up into a mass of wrinkles. As though all the years of his considerable age had caught up with him at once. The wrinkles kept appearing, criss-crossing each other, sinking deep into the flesh, until I was looking at the face of a man who’d lived at least a hundred years, and most of them hard ones. The few immortals who’d edged in for a closer look let out horrified gasps and hurriedly retreated. Time’s catching up was an immortal’s greatest fear.

I checked the rest of the body thoroughly. Just as old, but no more wounds. The stab wound in his back was wide and deep, and it had been made with something with a jagged edge. Not a knife, or any other bladed weapon. Whatever it was, it had irregular, serrated edges . . . I went through King of Skin’s pockets and found nothing. Not even a wallet or a handkerchief or a ring of keys. The killer couldn’t have had time to rob his victim; which suggested King of Skin had arrived with empty pockets. Perhaps because he relied on his glamour to get him what he needed. Didn’t rule out robbery as a motive, though . . . I stood up, straightened my aching back, took out my mobile phone and put in a call to the Nightside CSI. Alistair Hoob; nice guy, multiple personalities, a whole department in one head. Crowded, but efficient. He took a long time to answer his phone.

“Yes? What is it? (I’m busy!) Oh, hello, John. (You call him Walker now.) I know! (He knows, he knows.) Someday I swear I’m going to buy a spirit gun and shoot all you other voices in my head.”

“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!”

“Good point,” I said. “Well done. Unfortunately, all the faces have rotted away to dust. I’ll see if the CSI guy can dig out some evidence from what’s left, when he finally gets here; but I’m not hopeful.”

“I got all the faces on camera,” said Dave. “Close-ups of each, before they rotted.”

“Good man,” I said. “We can study the coverage later.”

“For a price,” Charlotte said quickly.

“Don’t push it,” I said. I looked round at the crowd of assembled immortals, and sighed deeply. No easy fixes here. I was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, by asking a lot of people a lot of questions they didn’t want to answer and trying to sort the truth from a pack of lies.