“It’s wrong that we should be at their beck and call,” said Max Maxwell, the Voodoo Apostate. “My people have worshipped them for centuries, and still the most we can hope for is that they will deign to ride us as their mounts. This is the Nightside. We have a Street full of gods, and we have taught them to know their place. As I will teach the loa.”
      He held out one hand towards me, and just like that, the Aquarius Key appeared upon it. The metal box looked like a toy on his huge pale palm. Its steel parts moved slowly against each other, sliding around and above each other, and I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. The Key was becoming something actually uncomfortable to look at, as though it was rotating itself through strange, unfamiliar spatial dimensions, in search of the doorway into the world of the loa. It burst open, blossoming like a metal flower, and a wide split opened up in mid air, like a wound in reality.
      A great sound filled the air, echoing through the silent forms of Fun Faire, like a cry of outrage. A bright light blasted out of the opening hanging on the air, so sharp and fierce I had to look away, and just like that the spell of the Key was broken. I fell back a pace, raising one arm to shield my watering eyes against the fierce light. The split in the night widened inexorably, sucking the air into itself. It tugged at me, and at Suzie. I grabbed her waist, as much to steady myself as hold her in place, and she was steady as a rock, as always. Suzie grabbed on to the side of the nearest ride, and I held on to Suzie as the pull increased. Max Maxwell stood unaffected, protected by the Aquarius Key, shuddering and twitching on the palm of his hand. The rushing air shrieked as it was pulled into the growing split in the air, along with everything else loose. All kinds of junk flew through the air, tumbling end over end. I was holding Suzie so tightly it must have hurt her, but she never made a sound, and her white-knuckled grip on the ride never faltered. She raised her free hand, aimed the shotgun with one casual movement, and shot the Aquarius Key right out of Max’s hand.
      He cried out in rage as much as pain, as his hand exploded in a flurry of flying blood and blown-away fingers. The Key flew undamaged through the air, hit the ground, and rolled away into the shadows. The long split in the air slammed shut, and, just like that, the howling wind died away to nothing. Max fell on all fours, ignoring the blood that still spurted from his maimed hand, scrambling in the shadows for the Key. I let go of Suzie’s waist, and we walked purposefully forward. Suzie chambered another round, and Max rose suddenly, the Key raised triumphantly in his good hand. He snarled at me, and I leaned forward and threw a handful of black pepper right into his face.
      I never travel anywhere without condiments.
      The pepper filled Max’s eyes and nose, and he fell backwards, sneezing so hard it shook his whole body, while his eyes screwed shut around streaming tears. He couldn’t even hold on to the Aquarius Key, let alone concentrate enough to operate it, and the metal box fell to the ground before him. So I just stooped down and took it away from him. Suzie nodded respectfully to me.
      “You always did know the best ways to fight dirty.”
      She kicked Max briskly in the ribs with her steel-toed boot, just enough to take the fight out of him. He grunted once, and then glared up at us from his knees, forcing his watering eyes open. He was squeezing his injured hand with the other so tightly the bleeding had almost stopped. There were no signs of pain or weakness or even defeat in his dark face; only an implacable hatred, while he waited for his chance to come round again. Suzie shoved the barrel of her shotgun into his face.
      “I get paid the same whether I bring you in dead or alive,” she said, her voice cold and calm as always. “On the whole, I tend to prefer dead. Less paper-work.”
      “I am not carrying anyone that large out of here,” I said firmly. “Unless I absolutely have to. So let’s all play nice, then we can all walk out.”
      But Max wasn’t listening to either of us. He was staring at something behind me, and even before he said anything, I could feel all the hackles on my neck rising.
      “Ah, hell,” said Max Maxwell. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse…”
      Suzie and I turned to look, and there standing in rows behind us was a small army of the Nightside’s very best bounty hunters. Heavily armed and armoured, they stood unnaturally still, all of them grinning unpleasantly, while their eyes glowed golden in the gloom, like so many candle-flames in the depths of Hell. Their wide grins showed teeth, like hunting dogs who’d brought their game to ground at last.
      The loa had found us.
      Max laughed suddenly, a flat, breathy sound. “Protect me, Suzie, Taylor. If you want your bounty money.”
      I looked at Suzie. “Do we really need the money that badly?”
      “Always,” said Suzie. “It isn’t the principle of the thing, it’s the money. No-one takes a bounty away from me.”
      “Maybe we could split him down the middle,” I said.
      “Tempting, but messy. And I don’t share.”
      I sighed. “Things are in a bad way if I have to be the voice of reason…”
      I stepped forward, conspicuously putting myself between the loa’s hosts and their prey, and they all fixed their glowing unblinking eyes on me.
      “We know you, John Taylor.” It was hard to tell where the voice came from. It could have been any of them, or all of them. It sounded almost…amused. “We know who and what you are, probably better than you do yourself. But do not presume to stand between us and what is rightfully ours.”
      “And I know you, lords of the loa,” I said, keeping my voice reasonably polite and respectful. “But this is my world, not yours, and Max is mine. He will be punished severely, I promise you.”
      “Not good enough,” said the voice, and the whole possessed army surged forward as one.
      Max reared up suddenly, catching me off guard. He snatched the Aquarius Key away from me with his one good hand and twisted it savagely, shouting Words of Power. And all the bounty hunters screamed, as the possessing loa were forced out of them. Dozens of men and women crumpled to the ground, twitching and shuddering and crying hot tears of relief. For a moment, I actually thought the threat was over. I should have known better.
      All around me, all the old rides and machinery creaked slowly back into life, wheels turning, machinery stirring, while the wooden Merry-Go-Round horses slowly turned their heads to look at us. The loa had found new hosts. A slow, awful life moved through Fun Faire, burning fiercely inside cold metal and painted wood, and out of the mouths of oversized clowns and Tunnels of Love and Horror came the outraged screams of the defied loa.
      Max was hunched over, struggling to manipulate the Aquarius Key with just the one good hand, trying to open a door that would take him away. Suzie clubbed him in the side of his head with the butt of her shotgun, and he hardly felt it. She hit him again, and while he was distracted I moved in and snatched the Key away. Max glared at me, grey lips pulling back to show grey teeth.
      “I will kill you for this, Taylor. Make you crawl first; make her crawl. I’ll let you watch helplessly as I violate your woman. Do her and do her till she bleeds, until her throat rips from screaming. Tear her apart, body and soul. I’ll send her to Hell…and then it’ll be your turn.”
      I looked at Suzie. “Kneecap him.”
      She blew off his left kneecap with her shotgun. His leg burst apart, blood spurting, and Max collapsed, crying out in agony as he clutched at his leg. I looked down at him.
      “Shouldn’t have threatened Suzie, Max. No-one messes with me and mine.”
      I turned my attention back to Fun Faire, coming slowly alive like a great beast stretching after a long sleep. Lights were snapping on all around us, flaring blue and green and pink in the dark. The huge rides creaked and groaned as rusting metal stirred to life again. Suzie moved in beside me, swinging her shotgun back and forth, restless for a target.
      “John, what’s happening?”
      “The loa have possessed the whole damned fairground,” I said. “All those exorcisms must have left it wide open…”
      “Can’t we get Max to throw them out again?”
      “Possibly,” I said. “If he wasn’t currently preoccupied with holding his shattered leg together.”
      “It was your idea.”
      “I know, I know!”
      The dodgem cars came first, smashing through the reinforced sides of their stand and heading straight for us at impossible speed. They hammered through the shadows, their wooden sides already splitting as they struggled to contain the terrible energies that were animating them. Suzie stood her ground and blasted the first car at point-blank range. It exploded in a shower of wooden spikes and splinters, some of which pattered harmlessly against the front of Suzie’s motorcycle jacket. The rest of the dodgem cars were already upon us, so Suzie and I threw ourselves in opposite directions, out of their way. The cars swung round and over each other to come after us, their garishly painted faces grinning the same grin I’d seen on the faces of the possessed bounty hunters. The loa were having fun. The loa were playing with us.
      I ran down the moonlit paths between the slowly stirring stands, and the cars came after me, calling out now in terrible voices. I could hear Suzie running, not far away, and yelled for her to intersect with me at the next crossing of the paths. We both arrived at the intersection at the same time, and I grabbed Suzie by the hand and pulled her to the ground. The cars came up on us too fast to stop, and flew right over our heads to slam into each other head-on. There was an explosion of splintered wood and released uncanny energies, and when Suzie and I scrambled to our feet again, their was nothing left of the dodgem cars but gaily painted wreckage.
      “We need to get back to Max,” said Suzie. She’d already pulled her hand out of mine, the moment we were safe. She couldn’t bear to be touched for long, even when I was saving her.
      “Max isn’t going anywhere on that leg,” I said.
      “He could crawl,” said Suzie.
      So back we went, to face the loa again. I sometimes wonder which of us is crazier—Suzie for suggesting these things or me for going along with them.
      She was right. We found Max at the end of a long bloody trail, crawling for the exit, dragging his useless leg behind him. We’d just caught up with him when the snub-nosed planes came flying down at us from the Tilt-A-Whirl. They’d broken free of their supporting struts and shot through the air towards us on stubby wooden wings. I just hoped someone had got around to removing the heat-seeking missiles. Suzie shot them out of the air, one by one, just like pigeon shooting. (There are no pigeons in the Nightside, and people like Suzie are the reason why. Sometimes you can’t even find a dove to sacrifice when you’re in a hurry.) The last plane crashed to the ground not five feet away from us and gave up its ghost. Suzie looked at me as she reloaded her shotgun.
      “So? Do I win a prize?”
      “Depends,” I said. “You shoot horses, don’t you?”
      Suzie looked where I was looking and hurried her reloading. The carved wooden horses had dragged themselves free from the Merry-Go-Round and were heading our way. They were big and nasty and brightly coloured in places where paint still clung to the diseased wood. They had snarling rusty teeth in their grinning mouths, the hinged jaws working hungrily. Their eyes gleamed gold, just like the bounty hunters’, and they stamped their heavy hoofs deep into the ground. And for all their rusty hinged joints, they moved very much like living things, driven by the wrath of the loa.
      The old stories said the horses ate their riders; and right then I believed it.
      “Now this is what I call a Fun Faire,” said Suzie, and she opened fire with her shotgun.
      The noise was deafening as she fired shell after shell, but though she hit every horse she aimed at, blowing huge chunks of wood out of them, they just kept coming. Suzie emptied her shotgun in under a minute and swore harshly as she scrambled at the bandoliers over her chest for reloads. The horses were very close now, but she still held her ground. The first wooden head lunged forward, and rusting teeth snapped shut on her black leather sleeve.
      Which meant it was down to me, and one last desperate idea. I raised my gift and used it to find the last traces of the old magic that had once run the Faire, when it was still just an amusement park. Some last vestiges of that old innocent magic still remained, untouched by all the prayers and exorcisms, the evil and the horror, and I found it and put it back in touch with the wooden horses.
      They stumbled to a halt, one by one, as the old magic stubbornly reinstated the terms of the original compact. And one by one the horses were dragged back to the Merry-Go-Round. They fought it all the way, shaking their heads and stamping their heavy feet, but back they went. And as they stepped backwards up onto the Merry-Go-Round, the old steel poles slammed down again, piercing their wooden bodies through and holding them mercilessly in place.
      I looked round at Suzie. She’d finished reloading her shotgun and was standing with one foot in the small of Max’s back, to keep track of him. I nodded to her, and she took her boot away. I knelt down beside Max and helped him roll over onto his back. He was breathing hard, sweat beading all over his face, but he still glared unwaveringly up at me. I showed him the Aquarius Key in my hand.
      “You know how to operate this, and I don’t,” I said carefully. “Use it and drive the loa out of Fun Faire. Use it for anything else, and Suzie will do to your head what she’s already done to your knee.”
      He glared silently at me, but held out his good hand for the Key. I helped him sit up, then gave him the metal box. Suzie moved quickly forward to press the barrel of her shotgun against the back of his skull. He had to use what was left of his shattered hand in the end, despite the blood and the pain, but he made the Key do what he wanted, and a great cry went up all through Fun Faire as the loa were forced out. I quickly took the Key back again.
      “John…” said Suzie. “Was this what you meant to happen?”
      I looked where she was looking. The bounty hunters were back on their feet again, smiling their awful smiles, watching us with their glowing golden eyes. I had to sigh. Sometimes things wouldn’t go right even if you bribed St. Peter. I moved forward to confront the bounty hunters, holding up the Aquarius Key so they could all see it. They stood very still, their glowing eyes fixed on me.
      “When you were forced out of the rides, you were supposed to take the hint and go back where you came from,” I said reproachfully.
      “We won’t go,” they said, in their creepy single voice. “We can’t go until we have satisfaction. And if you stand between us and our rightful vengeance, we will be at your back and at your throat for as long as you live.”
      I considered the problem. I could probably get Max to use the Key to send the loa home; but they’d just come back again, and again, till they got what they wanted. Max had hurt their pride, undermined their status as gods, and posed a threat to their whole religion. Hard to argue with that. It was an intriguing stand-off, and there was no telling which way it might have gone if Walker hadn’t arrived. As usual he appeared out of nowhere, strolling casually out of the shadows as though he happened to be passing and thought he’d drop in for a chat. He came and stood beside me, and Suzie immediately moved to stand on my other side. Walker smiled easily at the ranks of possessed bounty hunters.
      “Well, well, the gang’s all here. But I think we’ve had enough fun and games for one night. Max Maxwell is in my custody, and therefore under my protection. I can give you my word that he will be severely punished. I have a nice little cell just waiting for him, in Shadow Deep. And you know what we do to prisoners there.”
      “Not enough.” One of the bounty hunters stepped forward to confront Walker. “Revenge, to be properly savoured, has to be personal. Has to be…hands-on.”
      “Not this time,” said Walker. “This is the Nightside, and we deal with our own problems. Go home.”
      He used the Voice on them. The Voice that cannot be disobeyed or opposed. It hammered on the air, so loud and forceful that even I winced. But the loa wouldn’t budge. Until I raised my voice.
      “Go home,” I said. “Or I’ll be very upset with you.”
      Perhaps I was bluffing. Perhaps not. I’ll never tell. But it tipped the balance. They might have defied the powerful Walker or the infamous John Taylor, but not both of us at once. The bounty hunters collapsed again as the loa left them, returning at last to their own world. And that…was that. For now.
      I looked at Walker. “You do know they’ll be back, sometime. We hurt their feelings.”
      “Let them,” said Walker. “They should have accepted a place on the Street of the Gods, when I offered it to them. There’s no room for independent operators any more.”
      “Like me?” I said.
      “Exactly.”
      I considered him thoughtfully. “Your Voice was impressive as always; but I can’t help remembering it was granted to you by the Authorities. Who are all now extremely dead. So who powers your Voice these days?”
      Walker smiled briefly. “I’m sure you’ll find out, John. One of these days.” He looked at Max Maxwell. “Come with me.”
      And shattered leg notwithstanding, Max Maxwell rose up and followed Walker out of Fun Faire, limping heavily all the way. The bounty hunters moved off after them, talking rather confusedly amongst themselves. Until only Suzie and I were left. She looked at me with her cold, utterly contained face.
      “You saved my life, John. Again.”
      “And you saved mine,” I said easily. “It’s what we do. All part of being in a relationship.”
      “I know…it’s not easy, for you,” she said. “That close as we are, we still can’t be…close. You’ve been so patient with me.”
      She reached out and touched my face gently with her fingertips. I stood very still and let her do it. I could feel the effort it took, for her to do that much. She trailed a fingertip across my lips—the closest we could come to a kiss. Suzie Shooter, Shotgun Suzie, who took no shit from me, or gods, or anyone in the Nightside, was still mostly helpless in the face of her own inner demons.
      I would have killed the brother who’d done this to her if she hadn’t already killed him years ago.
      “I love you, Suzie,” I said. “If you never believe anything else, believe that.”
      “I love you, John. As much as I can.”
      “That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
      “No it isn’t!”
      She made herself hug me, holding me tight. Her bandoliers of bracelets pressed against my chest. She was breathing hard, from the effort of what this cost her. Her whole body was stiff and tense. I didn’t know whether to put my own arms around her or not, but in the end I held her as gently as I could.
      “Love you, John,” she said, her chin on my shoulder. I couldn’t see her face. “Die for you. Kill for you. Love you till the world ends.”
      “I know,” I said. “It’s all right. Really.”
      But we both knew it wasn’t.

TWO - Demon Girl Reporter