"Get out of our way," said Eamonn 20. "You don't know what this bastard's done."
"Get out of our way, or we'll kill you," said Eamonn 30.
"Oh, Security!" said Cathy.
A closet door I hadn't noticed before sprang open, and a huge and impressively hairy hand shot out of the closet and wrapped itself firmly around both the invading Eamonns. They struggled fiercely against the great gripping fingers, but with their arms pinned to their sides, they were both quite helpless. They shouted and cursed until I strolled over and gave them both a brisk warning slap round the back of the head. A thought struck me, and I looked back at Cathy.
"Can I ask what's on the other end of this thing's arm?"
"I find it best not to ask questions like that," Cathy said, and I had to agree with her.
I gave the two intruders my best intimidating glare, and they glared right back at me. Proof, if proof were needed, that they were newcomers to the Nightside. Anyone else would have had the sense to be scared.
"Look," I said patiently. "You are currently being held by a hand big enough to give all of us seriously worrying thoughts about what it might be attached to. A hand that will do whatever I tell it to. So not only are you not going anywhere anytime soon, but if I were you, I'd be giving some serious thought about what might happen if I don't start getting some answers out of you. Words like crunch and squish should be echoing uneasily through your heads. So, why not tell me what it is you're doing here and what you have against my client? There's always a chance we can work this out peacefully. Not a very big chance, admittedly, this is the Nightside after all; but I feel we should make the effort."
"He betrayed me!" said Eamonn 20, almost spitting out the words, his face dark with rage. "Look at him! Just another faceless drone in a suit and tie. Everything I ever hated and despised. I was never going to be him! I had
dreams and ambitions, I was going to go places and do things; become someone who mattered, doing things that mattered! I was going to change the world ... live a life I could be proud of ..."
"Dreams are nice," said Eamonn 30, his voice cold but controlled. "But we wake up from dreams. I had drive and ambition. I was going places, going to make something of myself. Be a mover and shaker in the business world. I never intended to settle for being just another cog in the machine, like him! Look at him! Middle-aged middle-management, filling in his days till his pension."
"I was going to be an ecowarrior!" said Eamonn 20. "Fight the good fight for the environment! No compromise in defence of Mother Earth!"
"Causes!" sneered Eamonn 30. "Just more dreams, more illusions. I'd had enough of living on pocket change and good intentions. I was going to be rich and powerful, and force the world to make sense!"
"So," I said to Eamonn 40. "What happened?"
"I fell in love," he said, in a quiet, almost defiant voice. "I met Andrea, and it was like finding the one part of my life that had always been missing. We married, then the children came along; and I was never happier. They became my life. Far more important than the vague dreams and ambitions of my younger days that I never would have achieved anyway. Part of maturity is learning to recognise your own limitations."
"That's it?" said Eamonn 20. "You threw away my dreams for some bitch and a couple of snotty-nosed brats?"
"You got old," Eamonn 30 said bitterly. "You found the world too hard to cope with, so you settled for suburbia and apron strings."
"Neither of you has ever been in love, have you?" said Eamonn 40.
Eamonn 20 snorted loudly. "Women? Love them and leave them. They just get in the way."
"I had more important things in mind," said Eamonn 30. "Marriage is a trap, an anchor holding you back."
"I can't believe I was ever you," said Eamonn 40. "So small, so limited. Thinking of no-one but myself. For all your great dreams and ambitions, can either of you say you were ever really happy? Content? Satisfied?"
There was a strength and conviction in his voice that gave his younger selves pause, but only for a moment.
"You won't get away with this," said Eamonn 20. "We have been given power; the power to change things. To change you! To remake our life into what it should have been."
"Probability magic," said Eamonn 30. "The power to rewrite history by choosing among alternate timetracks. You're a mistake, a stumble that should never have happened."
"I'm going to undo all your decisions," said Eamonn 20. "Snuff you out with my magic!"
"My magic is more powerful than yours!" Eamonn 30 snarled immediately. "My future will prevail, not yours!"
And then somehow they'd both worked a hand free, and each of them was brandishing a magic wand. I was so surprised I just stood there for a moment, and gaped. No-one's used a wand in the Nightside for centuries. Wands went out with black cats and pointy hats. (All right, the Faerie Court still use them, but the Fae have always been weird.) And then Cathy and I had to jump for our lives as both the younger Eamonns started blasting probability magics at each other, and around my office in general. Beams of pure chance energy shot out of the wands, spitting and crackling on the air, full of the power that runs through rolling dice or a tossed coin, power to change the outcome of any decision in favour of the magician's will. Except these were a couple of amateurs with wands, so all they could do was unleash the magic and let it run wild, changing whatever it touched. I pushed Cathy to safety
behind the heavy oak desk, then realised Eamonn 40 was still sitting in his chair, staring open-mouthed at what was happening. I scuttled across the carpet on all fours, keeping my head well down, hauled Eamonn 40 off his chair, and drove him to safety behind the desk with encouraging words and harsh language.
Both the younger Eamonns turned their attention to the giant hand still holding them. They blasted it repeatedly with their wands, and there was a flurry of coruscating energies as the hand changed colour several times, then was suddenly and quite definitely female. Right down to the pink nail varnish. The fingers snapped open, and the hand shot back into its closet, probably in shock. The two younger Eamonns staggered free, blasting everything they could see with their wands, searching for Eamonn 40. They might have done some serious damage if they hadn't been compelled to spend most of their time dodging each other's magics.
Everything touched by the crackling beams changed its nature immediately. A Spice Girls poster on the wall suddenly featured Twisted Sister. The bullet-proof glass in my office's only window was abruptly replaced by a stained-glass effort featuring St. Michael slaying the dragon. With an Uzi. The coffeemaker became a Teasmaid, and a big bunch of flowers in a vase started snapping at each other with pointed teeth. One beam hit the steel sphere of the future computers dead-on, but it shrugged off the magic, announcing loudly We 're protected, monkey boy.
Eamonn 40 stuck his head out from behind the desk to see what was going on, and a sputtering beam of change magic only missed him because Cathy dragged him back out of the way. Unfortunately, she left one hand in plain view a moment too long, and a second beam hit it. And Cathy was suddenly Colin. A tall, good-looking young man in the very latest Versace. He looked at me, wide-eyed, and for once in my life I didn't have a thing to say.
Colin stood up to yell obscenities at the two Eamonns, and was immediately hit by another beam, changing him back to Cathy. She dropped back down out of sight with a muffled shriek. We looked at each other again.
"Don't ever ask," said Cathy.
"I wouldn't dare."
"You have to Do Something about these two idiots!"
"I will. I'm thinking."
"Think faster!"
"I could still disinherit you, you know."
Fortunately, I already had an idea. The two younger Eamonns were still trying for a clear shot at Eamonn 40 while dodging attacks from each other. I waited till they were on opposite sides of my office, then I charged out from behind the desk, yelling at the top of my voice. They both turned their wands on me, I hit the deck, and two change beams hit each other head-on. The resulting clash of probabilities was too much for local causality to bear, and both Eamonns vanished, as probability decided they'd never been given the bloody wands in the first place.
The universe does like to keep itself tidy, whenever possible.
Cathy rose cautiously up from behind the desk, which now seemed to be made of an entirely different kind of wood, and after checking that everything really was all clear, she hauled Eamonn 40 up beside her. His eyes were stretched so wide it had to be painful, and he was visibly shaking. Cathy eased him into a chair, patted him comfortingly on the head in an absent-minded sort of way, and winced as she looked round my haphazardly transmuted office.
"It's going to take forever to get everything looking nice again. Though I do like the new poster. And I know I'm going to have to go through every damned folder to check that the contents haven't been changed. John, I want whoever is responsible for this nonsense strung up by the balls!
If I have to work late, I want someone to suffer! Who the hell would be dumb enough to equip complete amateurs with change magics?"
"Good question," I said. "There must be more to our new client than meets the eye."
"Wouldn't be difficult," Cathy sniffed. A thought struck her, and she considered the still-dazed Eamonn 40. "I don't know if we can really class him as a client, boss. He couldn't afford our rates, these days. I mean, look at him."
"Someone sent all these Eamonns into my life, to mess up my day," I said. "That makes it personal."
Cathy rolled her eyes dramatically. She got away with it because she was a teenager, but only just. "So, it's another freebie, is it? The money you got from the Vatican won't last forever, you know. Not with the rent we're paying on this place. You need to take on some proper-paying cases, and soon. Before someone large and professionally unpleasant turns up here to cut off your credit with a meat-axe."
"My creditors can take a number," I said. "I've got far more powerful people mad at me, at the moment. I think... I'll take Eamonn to Strangefellows. If nothing else, it should prove safer territory."
"Strangefellows?" Cathy said dubiously. "Given the shape he's in, I'm not sure he's ready to cope with that much weirdness in one dose."
"Sink or swim," I said briskly. "I've always believed in shock treatment for someone in shock. Take a look round while I'm gone and see how much actual damage the wands did. Keep anything that's been improved and throw out the rest. Are we insured?"
Cathy gave me a hard look. "What do you think?"
"I think I need several large drinks, followed by a really large drink as a chaser. Come along, Eamonn, we are going to pay a visit to the oldest bar in the world."
"Oh, I don't drink much any more," said Eamonn 40.
"Why am I not surprised? We're going anyway. I have a
strong feeling that even more alternate versions of you will be turning up soon, and I'd rather they made a mess of someone else's place." I paused and looked about me. "Cathy ... didn't you once tell me we had an office cat?"
She shrugged. "The future computers ate it. It wasn't a very good cat anyway."
I took Eamonn 40 by the arm and ushered him firmly towards the door. Some conversations you just know aren't going to go anywhere good.
Three -
Oblivion
Strangefellows is the oldest bar in the world, and not for the faint-hearted. You find it up a back alley that isn't always there, under a small neon sign with the bar's name in Sanskrit. The bar's owner doesn't believe in advertising. If you need to find the place, you will, though whether that's a good or bad thing is open to debate. I hang out there from time to time, mostly because it's full of people with even worse problems than mine, so no-one bothers me. Strange-fellows is a seedy place, bordering on sleazy, with good booze, bad service, and really distressing bar snacks. The atmosphere is unhealthy, the mood is changeable, and most of the furniture is nailed to the floor so it can't be used in hand-to-hand combat. I've always felt right at home there. The bar's current owner, Alex Morrisey, did experiment
with going up-market, but it didn't take. You can give a bad dog all the makeovers you like, but it'll still hump your leg when you're not looking.
Rather than risk freaking Eamonn 40 out by walking him through the streets again, I hailed a horse and carriage to take us to Strangefellows. He seemed somewhat reassured by the solid and uncomplicated nature of the transport, only to get upset all over again when the horse asked me for the destination. Eamonn sat bolt upright beside me in the carriage with his arms folded tightly across his chest and refused to say a single word for the rest of the journey. I had to half cajole and half bully him out of the carriage when we finally stopped, and he stood very close to me as I paid off the driver. He stared determinedly at the ground as I guided him towards Strangefellows, so he wouldn't have to see what was going on around him. Some country mice have no place in the big city.
"Why are you doing this?" he said suddenly, still not looking at me. "Why are you helping me? Your secretary was right; I can't pay you. At least, not the kind of money you're used to, for dealing with ... things like this. So why are you so ready to get involved with my problems?"
"Because I'm interested," I said easily. "Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to introduce you and all your chaos into my life, and I want to find out who, so I can thank them appropriately."
"So ... you're using me, for your own reasons."
"Well done," I said. "You see-you're already learning to think like a Nightsider."
He looked at me sharply for the first time. "I'm not stupid, Mr. Taylor. I may be out of my depth, but I still know a shark when I see one. You're using me, as bait in a trap. But, if it takes enlightened self-interest to get you on my side, I can live with that. Just how good are you, Mr. Taylor? Can you really sort out this mess I'm in?"
"I'll give it my best shot," I said. "And I really am pretty good at this. I may be ... any number of things, but I never let down a client."
We came to the bar and I took him inside, holding him firmly by the arm so he couldn't turn and bolt. Strangefel-lows can have that effect on people. We descended the metal stairway into the bar proper, and everyone looked round to see who was coming. The place was packed with the usual unusual suspects. Two glowing nuns in white habits were sitting at the bar, Sisters of the Holy Order of Saint Strontium. They were drinking tall glasses of sparkling water, though it probably wasn't sparkling when they ordered it. A cyborg with jagged bits of machinery poking out of him kept sticking his finger into a light socket and giggling. A vampire was drinking a bloody Mary, and from the look on her face Mary was really getting into it. Ms. Fate, the Nightside's very own transvestite-costumed adventurer, a man who dressed up as a super-heroine to fight crime, was shaving his legs with a Bic before going out on patrol. A couple of tourists stood in one corner, with cameras raised. Someone had had them stuffed and mounted, for a joke.
I got Eamonn 40 to the bar with only minimum force, sat him down as far from the radioactive nuns as possible, and nodded to the bartender and owner, Alex Morrisey, who glowered back at me. We're friends, I suppose, but we've never been very demonstrative. It would probably help if I remembered to pay my bar tab now and again.
Alex Morrisey was a tall streak of misery who always wore basic black, down to designer shades and a stylish French beret perched on the back of his head to hide his growing bald patch. He was in his late twenties, but looked ten years older. Running a bar in the Nightside will do that to you. His permanent scowl had dug a deep notch above his nose, and he only smiled when he was fiddling your change. He'd been married once, and was still bitter about
it. Basically, Alex was pissed off at the entire world, and didn't care who knew about it. Order a cocktail from him at your peril.
He was descended from Merlin Satanspawn, who was buried in the cellars under the bar, after the fall of Camelot. Merlin occasionally manifests through Alex, and everyone sensible runs for cover. Being dead doesn't stop you from being a major player in the Nightside.
"What are you doing here, Taylor?" said Alex. 'Trouble follows you around like a stalker. I've only just finished refurbishing the place after your last visit."
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," I said. "You're looking very yourself. Bring me many drinks, and have several for yourself."
"How about Mr. Ordinary?" said Alex.
Eamonn 40 was sitting sullenly beside me, keeping his back stubbornly turned on all the more outrageous elements in the bar. I asked him what he'd like to drink, and he said he'd have a dry white wine. I gave Alex a hard look, and he reluctantly poured Eamonn 40 a glass of the better stuff. Alex hated to waste a good vintage on people he didn't think were capable of appreciating it.
"I have a mystery to solve," I said briskly. "Someone has been messing about with my client's time-line, yanking other versions of him out of alternate timetracks, to harass and maybe even kill him. They've also been messing about with me, by dumping him and his problems in my lap. I hate it when people start interfering with Time. As if the Nightside wasn't complicated enough as it is."
"You take far too narrow a view of things, my dear Taylor," said a lazy, affected voice. "Where you see problems, other more robust intellects see possibilities."
I looked around, carefully not letting myself be hurried, and standing at my side was one of the Nightside's few other private investigators, Tommy Oblivion. There was a time I was the only PI in the Nightside, but my successes
had encouraged others to throw their hats into the ring. One such was Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, who specialised in cases that might or might not have actually happened. One of the most persuasive men I'd ever met, Tommy could tie logic in square knots and have people swearing black was white and up was down, just to get rid of him. He was a tall, studiedly effete fellow in starkly coloured New Romantic silks. (Unlike most of us, Tommy had a great Eighties. Being existential probably helped,)
He had long, limp black hair, a long horsey face with a toothy smile, and long-fingered hands he liked to flap around while he was talking. Tommy liked to talk. It was said by many, and believed by most, that Tommy Oblivion could talk his own firing squad into shooting each other to get away from his relentlessly reasonable voice. He thrived in areas of moral obscurity, uncertain reality, and cases so complicated you couldn't pin anything down even if you used tent pegs. And yet Tommy was very good at getting answers to the kinds of questions people in authority didn't want answered. Tommy had a gift for getting at the truth. Not a very nice gift, perhaps, but then, that's the Nightside for you.
I had a feeling there was something I should remember about Tommy Oblivion, something important, but I couldn't pin it down.
"Hello, Tommy," I said resignedly. "Keeping busy?"
"Who can say? But I'm almost certain I would like a drink. My usual, Alex."
Alex scowled at him. "You always say that, and you always order something different."
"Of course," said Tommy, smiling brightly. "I have a reputation to maintain. I think I'll have a Buck's Fizz."
"You really shouldn't tease Alex," I said, as Alex slunk away, muttering. "He's quite capable of slipping something in your drink that will have you throwing up meals you ate six months ago."
"I know," said Tommy. "It's my way of living dangerously. Now then, a little bird tells me you're contemplating a journey back in Time."
"My, what big ears you have, grandma. Why would you be interested, Tommy?"
"Because I'm desperate to go travelling in Time, but I've never been able to persuade Old Father Time to let me. The old poop. Apparently he regards me as a somewhat frivolous character."
"Get away," I said. "And after you've made a whole career out of being flippant, foppish, and dropping other people right in it."
"How very unkind."
"I notice you're not denying it."
"I wouldn't dare. Image is everything these days. But even you would have to admit I do get results, in my own distinctive and somewhat lateral way. The point is... I know I had a point with me when I came in here ... ah yes, the point is, I was wondering whether I could prevail on you to put in a good word for me when you talk with Old Father Time."
"Oh, I've got a very good word for you, Tommy," I said.
Perhaps fortunately, that was when the unpleasantness started. Two sets of heavy feet came crashing down the metal stairs into the bar, and everyone turned to look. Sometimes I think Alex only had those stairs installed so no-one could sneak into his bar unnoticed. I was sort of expecting it, but even so my heart sank as two more Eamonn Mitchells stormed into the bar, brandishing wands. Eamonn 40 made a sad, trapped sound, and clutched at my arm. I murmured something soothing, carefully detached his hand from my arm, and moved to put myself between him and the newcomers.
One of the new Eamonns looked to be a prosperous businessman in his fifties, overweight with good living. The other man was older, at least in his sixties, and looked
like a street person. Malnutrition-thin, and wrapped in ragged charity shop clothes. I immediately tabbed them Eamonn 50 and Eamonn 60, and let my hands drift towards certain useful objects in my coat pockets. Much more than the earlier alternates in my office, these two looked desperate and dangerous. They stalked through the crowded bar, ignoring the strangeness to all sides, their hot angry gazes fixed on the Eamonn behind me. I stepped forward to block their path, and they stopped and smiled nastily at me. All around people were getting up from their tables and backing away, so as not to get caught in the cross-fire. Ms. Fate put his disposable razor back into her utility belt and produced a steel throwing star. I caught his eye, and shook my head slightly. I've always felt it important to handle my own messes.
"You must be Taylor," said Eamonn 50. Even his voice sounded fat and self-important. "We were warned you might try to interfere. This is none of your business. Get out of our way, or we'll fix it so you were never born."
I had to smile. "You might find that harder than you think," I said.
"Then maybe we'll fix it so you were born crippled, or diseased," said Eamonn 60. His voice was harsh and painful, as though he didn't use it much any more. "We'll kill you, Taylor. Kill you nasty, if you try and stop us doing what we have to do."
"What is it you want?" Eamonn 40 said from behind me. He was scared, but he kept his voice firm.
"I want you to make the decisions that will lead to me, and my life," said Eamonn 50. "I worked hard to get all the good things that life has to offer. All the comforts, and the pleasures. I won't risk losing them now, just because you don't have the balls to go for the brass ring. I'll fix you. Make you make the right decisions. Make you become me."
"Is that what you want?" I asked Eamonn 60.
"I don't want to be me," he said flatly. "No-one should
have to live like I do. I never wanted this. Never wanted to sleep in shop doorways and beg for food from people who walk right past without making eye contact. I've been given the chance to undo the decisions that stupid bastard made, that led to him becoming me; and I'll destroy anyone who interferes."
"Kill you all," said Eamonn 50. "Destroy you all."
"Hold everything," I said, holding up one hand politely. "Can I check something? Have either of you ever been married ... and in particular, have either of you ever met a woman named Andrea?"
The two new Eamonns looked at each other, confused, then they shook their heads angrily.
"You're trying to confuse us," said Eamonn 50.
"No, really," I said. "Her arrival in my client's life is what changed everything. Changed him. So your being here is already redundant. He was never going to become either of you."
"He will if we force him to," said Eamonn 50. "If we remake him with our magics. Cut the woman out of his life, like a cancer."
"You could kill him with your meddling," I said. "You could destroy yourselves."
"Death would be a release," said Eamonn 60.
"Excuse me," said Eamonn 40, from behind me. "Could someone please explain where all these others mes are coming from?"
"Alternate timetracks," Tommy Oblivion said briskly. "Possible futures, lives that might have been, the wheels of If and Maybe. Our lives are determined by the decisions we make, or fail to make, and these ... gentlemen are the ? men you might have become if you'd made certain specific decisions. Can't say either of them looks particularly attractive, but that's probably why your enemies chose to empower them. Can I ask what's happened to my Buck's Fizz?"
"But how did they get here?" said Eamonn 40, a little desperately.
"Someone's been meddling," I said. "Somebody really powerful, too, to be able to manipulate probability magics."
"Has to be a major player," said Tommy. He'd gone behind the bar to get his own drink, as Alex was quite sensibly keeping his head down. "Messing about with Time and timetracks is a serious business. So serious that the few who do work with probability tend to come down really heavily on anyone new trying to invade their territory. No-one wants some dilettante threatening the carefully maintained status quo."
"But I don't have any enemies!" said Eamonn 40. "People like me don't have enemies! I'm no-one important!"
"You are now," said Tommy, sipping daintily at his drink with one finger carefully extended. "Someone's gone to a lot of trouble over you, old man." He looked at me thoughtfully. "Could it be the Jonah, perhaps?"
"Dead," I said.
"Count Video?"
"Missing, presumed dead," I said. "Last seen running through the streets with his skin ripped off, during the angel war."
Tommy shrugged. "You know the Nightside. People are always making comebacks. Just look at your good self."
"God, you people love to talk," said Eamonn 50. "I came here to fix this stupid, short-sighted version of myself, and nothing and no-one is going to stop me."
"Nothing you do here will change anything that matters," said Tommy. "Every version of you is as valid as any other. Every timetrack is just as real, and as certain. Changing or adapting this younger version won't make your existence any more or less likely. If anyone told you otherwise, they lied."
"I don't believe that," said Eamonn 60. "I can't believe that."
"You'd say anything, to try and stop us," said Eamonn 50.
Both men let fly with their wands, beams of probability magic crackling as they shot through the air. I dived out of the way, dragging Eamonn 40 along with me. Tommy ducked gracefully down behind the bar, still holding on to his drink. A change beam hit the oak bar and ricocheted harmlessly away. The bar's main furnishings and fittings were all protected by Merlin's magic. Both the new Ea-monns fired their wands furiously in all directions as I dodged back and forth across the bar, hauling Eamonn 40 along with me. A haze of change magic filled the air as the wands' beams transmuted everything they touched in arbitrary and unpredictable ways.
The vampire who'd been feeding on his bloody Mary got hit by a beam and swelled up like a tick, engorging with more and more blood as he drained Mary dry, before exploding messily and showering everyone around him with second-hand blood. The empty husk of Mary crumpled to the floor like a paper sack. Some of the newer chairs and tables fell apart as they were brushed by probability beams, reduced in a moment to their original component parts. So was one of Baron Frankenstein's creatures, as all his stitches came undone at once. Body parts rolled across the floor, while the head mouthed silent obscenities. Lightning bolts struck down out of nowhere, blackening bodies and starting fires all over. Bunches of hissing flowers blossomed from cracks in a stone wall. An old Victorian portrait began speaking in tongues. People collapsed from strokes and cerebral haemorrhages and epileptic fits. Some simply blinked out of existence, as the chances that created them were abruptly revoked.
A ghost girl was suddenly corporeal again, after years of haunting Strangefellows, and she sat at the bar crying tears of happy relief, touching everything within reach. Bottles stacked behind the bar changed shape and colour and contents. And a demon long kept imprisoned under the
floor-boards burst free from its pentacle, as its containing wards were suddenly undone. Burning with thick blue ec-toplasmic flames, it turned its horned head this way and that, cherishing centuries of hoarded frustrated rage, before lurching forward to kill everything within reach of its clawed hands. The bar's two muscular bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, jumped the demon from behind and wrestled it to the floor; but it was clear they wouldn't be able to hold it for long.
