The Bride Wore Black Leather n-12

by Simon R. Green

  “You can’t kill me,” Dead Boy said craftily. “The clue’s in the name.”

  “All right then, I won’t damage or destroy your body, or shove it in the furnace and dance around singing Hallelujah.”

  Dead Boy considered this for a while, looking up at me thoughtfully. “You could find a way to get rid of me, couldn’t you? Typical John bloody Taylor. All right, let’s talk. If we must. I got a call to go to the Hospice. Anonymous, but you get used to those, in the Nightside. It told me Julien Advent was dead. I didn’t want to believe it, so of course I had to go. When I got there, he was lying there, stretched out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood, so for a moment I hoped, but . . . Some doctor was weeping over him. Nurses and patients, too. I knelt and looked Julien over, but he was definitely gone. The dead know death when they see it. The doctor said you’d killed him, for no reason. I always knew you’d go rogue someday.”

  “I find my friends’ lack of faith in me disturbing,” I said.

  “Go on! Kill me, if you can! Find a way to destroy my body! But you’d better make a really good job of it; because it’s the only way you’ll stop me from avenging Julien Advent!”

  “Why is everyone so keen to avenge him?” I said. “None of you ever had much time for him when he was alive.”

  “I couldn’t help him, then,” said Dead Boy. “What could someone like me do for someone like him? But I can do this!”

  “I’m not going to kill, destroy, or disassemble you,” I said patiently.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re my friend.”

  “All right,” said Dead Boy, slowly. “One of us has definitely mellowed; and it sure as hell isn’t me. Something is very wrong here. You never killed anyone that you weren’t prepared to boast about afterwards; and you never showed mercy to anyone who threatened your life. Are you sure you didn’t kill Julien Advent? Because . . . as much as I want to believe you, something is yelling in my head that you did it.”

  “I only ever killed people who needed killing,” I said.

  “Good point,” said Dead Boy. “I’ll think about it. But you’d better run, John, while you can. Because once I get out from under this car, if I’ve thought about it and made up my mind that you are guilty . . . I will come after you. Because I can’t let Julien Advent’s murderer get away with it.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

  I walked away. Behind me I could hear the futuristic car reversing very slowly off Dead Boy, while he yelled Careful, dammit! and Don’t worry, baby; it wasn’t your fault.

  * * *

  I found a short cut that took me straight to the H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Library, only to find it wasn’t there. It was only then that I remembered hearing that the Library had recently vanished and been replaced by a doppelganger from some alternate dimension. The Linda Lovecraft Library of Spiritual Erotica. Takes all sorts . . . A large crowd of extremely interested observers had gathered before the front doors, at what they hoped was a safe distance, watching while men in heavy-duty protective clothing checked the place out first. Because some kinds of forbidden knowledge are more dangerous than others. Everyone there was so interested in what might be going on inside that no-one even noticed my arrival.

  I stood as deep in the shadows of a side alley as I could get and frowned thoughtfully. The Linda Lovecraft Library was no use to me. I had one particular book in mind, and for that I needed the original building back again. So I raised my gift, reached out with my mind in a direction I could sense but not point at, grabbed hold of the missing Library, and brought it back again. It took up its old position quite comfortably, nudging the intruder back to its own world. No explosions, no earthquakes, not even any bright lights. It helped that I was only reversing an existing transfer; someone had taken our Library and replaced it with theirs. And later on, if I was still alive, I would have to find out why.

  Loud cries of shock, outrage, and deep disappointment came from the watching crowd. They’d really been looking forward to discovering exactly what kind of informative books the new Library might contain. The men in protective clothing came stumbling out of the front door, shaking their heads. One of them was heard to state, quite loudly, that he wished some people would make up their minds. The crowd began to disperse.

  I couldn’t move. I was so tired I had to lean against the alley wall and wait for my strength to come back to me. I was using my gift too much, again. Not that I had any choice. But I’d been through a lot in a short time, and even werewolf blood and Alex’s pick-me-up could only do so much. They could heal my body, but abusing my gift was doing serious damage to my mind and my soul.

  Someday, I’d go too far, and not come back.

  After a while, the pain in my head began to subside, and I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. I stared at the long streak of blood I left there, then took out a handkerchief and wiped it away. I moved to the entrance of the alley and looked across at the front entrance to the Library. Most of the crowd was gone. The H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Library was strictly for those interested and discerning minds concerned with ancient knowledge and secrets preserved in forbidden books . . . the kind of thing that could only be dug out through hard work and harder research. Strictly for only the most hardened scholars. And who had time for that, in the Nightside, when so many other more immediate pleasures were to be had, on every side? Only the most dedicated students of the strange and unnatural came to this Library, men who had no time for anything else. Each to their own . . . The scholarly boys would be heading back the moment they heard the old place had returned, so I had to get in and out quickly if I didn’t want to be noticed. Fortunately, I knew of a very secret side entrance to the Library, shown to me by the last Head Librarian but one, who owed me a favour for finding a rather important book that had gone walkabout. (Apparently it was mostly bored. The Head Librarian made arrangements for it to be read continuously, in shifts, and that took care of that.) I drifted carefully and very inconspicuously down the side of the Library and used the key that I’d taken in part payment for my work. (Not only for finding the book but for keeping quiet about what it was about.)

  Inside, the Library was still and quiet. I moved quickly through the deserted stacks, in pursuit of the one book I was increasingly sure I needed to take a good look at. No-one else had got in yet, not even the very dedicated and more than a little unhinged scholars of the weird and appalling who normally have to be beaten off with big sticks or hosed down with Ritalin and thrown out bodily, when they got too attached to a particular volume and wouldn’t give it up to anyone else. Hell, some of them would sleep in the stacks if they were allowed. But the Library’s security would keep the scholars at bay until they’d had a chance to do a full sweep of the building and make sure everything was where it should be. And that the stacks hadn’t picked up any dangerous hitch-hikers from where it had recently been. I kept a careful eye out but didn’t see anything unusual. Or at least, no more unusual than usual.

  I finally found my way to the Really Restricted Section, where they keep the kind of books most scholars aren’t even supposed to know exist. I knocked on the closed door, said the proper passwords, and the door opened before me. I walked in, and the ghost of the Head Librarian, a thin, dusty presence, with dark eyes and a disapproving look, appeared before me, blocking my way. (He had been eaten by a book, then brought back by the other books, apparently because they approved of him. Because even though he didn’t have much time for people, he loved books.) I was forced to acknowledge his presence or walk right through him.

  “John Taylor,” said the Ghost Librarian, in a voice of spiritual accusation. “I might have known.”

  “Don’t get snotty,” I said. “I brought this place back from wherever it’s been. Where did you go, anyway?”

  “I don’t like to think about it,” said the Ghost Librarian, sounding distinctly embarrassed. “Some alternate worlds are more alternate than others.
A very . . . uninhibited culture, indeed. Thank you for bringing us back. Would it have killed you to wait a few days? Anyway, what are you doing here? You don’t have access to the Really Restricted Section.”

  I pulled a card out of thin air and showed it to him. “Oh yes I do. See? I have special clearance. Courtesy of Ebeneezer Scrivener, the last Head Librarian but one. And, no, you don’t get to ask why. But I have full clearance, for everything, cannot be refused or revoked.”

  The Ghost Librarian sniffed dustily. “They’ll let anyone in these days. Oh, very well. If you must. But treat the books properly; if I find one dog-eared page after you’ve gone, I’ll have you indexed. And make sure you put everything back where you found it.”

  I left him muttering to himself in a spectral way and pressed on into the gloomy depths of the Really Restricted Section. The Library could provide perfectly good lighting, like everywhere else, if it wanted; I think they do it here for atmosphere. All the reading desks have their own lights, complete with a large red panic button. This particular section holds more ancient tomes of forbidden lore, and spiritually dangerous books, than the human mind can comfortably cope with. Not even my special-access card could keep me safe from all the threats and dangers in this Section. Some books were padlocked inside cold iron cases, to keep their extreme energies from leaking out and contaminating the area. Or rewriting the other books. Some were chained to the shelves, not to keep them from being stolen but to keep them from attacking people. And some had their very own illuminated warning signs because in the H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Library, some books read people.

  There are books bound in dragon skin, black goatskin, and human skin; and I could hear them muttering and stirring on the shelves as I walked by. A few actually silently vanished away, rather than have me read them, which I felt was a bit harsh. But then, books can be terrible snobs.

  I was also hoping the Library’s many layers of protective spells and privacy enforcements (built up over the centuries, to protect the books and keep them under control, and prevent anyone from getting in without paying the proper fee), would be enough to conceal my presence from all those looking for me. But I still couldn’t afford to waste any time. I wasn’t just on the run; I had a target nailed to my back. By the Sun King. I had to wonder where he was, right now, and what he was doing; but I couldn’t let myself get distracted. I hurried through the stacks, while some books whispered seductively Read me! and others snorted Don’t even touch my binding, unworthy one! One book bound in very pale elf skin glowed unhealthily in the gloom, poisoning the air with its aetheric radiations. I gave it plenty of room. Elves have always been big on revenge, even when they’re dead. Especially when they’re dead.

  It took me a while to find the particular book I wanted. I couldn’t use my gift, not in a place like this. I had to do it the old-fashioned way, checking the index and working my way up and down the shelves. The book was exactly where it was supposed to be, for which I gave quiet thanks to the Ghost Librarian. He might be fond of books, but he didn’t take any shit from any volume on his watch.

  You’re welcome.

  I pretended I hadn’t heard that and eased the book carefully off the shelf. The books on either side immediately shuffled closer together to take up the intervening space. The shelf was very tightly packed. I took the book over to the nearest reading desk, and the green-shielded light turned itself on. I thought I heard a faint sigh of relief from the other books, that I wasn’t interested in them; but that could have been my imagination.

  The book I’d wanted was a lengthy and exhaustive history of the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille, in life and in death, so to speak. Written by Julien Advent, in 1977. I paused for a moment as I looked at his name on the title page and let my fingertips drift over the printed letters. I had my own signed copy at home. He gave it to me years ago. Hadn’t looked at it in ages. So much to do . . . But this was the full, unexpurgated version. I leafed quickly through the pages, looking for . . . something. Something to jog my memory. Because something about the Hawk Wind’s sudden disappearance was bugging me. I’d missed something, forgotten something, but I was damned if I could think what. But I knew it was something significant. I flicked quickly through the chapters, letting words and phrases flow past my eyes, but nothing jumped out at me. I already knew all this . . . And then I looked up sharply. Footsteps were heading my way. Two sets, heavy but unhurried, apparently completely unconcerned that I might hear them. I closed the book, tucked it carefully into the large shoplifting pocket inside my trench coat, got up, and turned around, to meet whoever it was who’d been clever and fast enough to find me here. I could probably have got away, given that I knew the layout of this Library better than anyone who didn’t actually work here, but I was curious to know who it might be. And to take care of them here and now, so they wouldn’t follow me any further.

  They came walking through the stacks towards me, and very dangerous books shuddered back on their shelves to get away from them. From Tommy and Larry, the Oblivion brothers. They both caught sight of me waiting for them at the same moment, and they came to a sudden halt, side by side. We stared at each other for a long moment.

  “Of course,” I said. “The existential private eye and the Dead Detective. I should have known. It always takes one PI to find another.”

  “Or in this case two PIs,” Tommy said brightly.

  “Shut up, Tommy,” said Larry. “This is business. Serious business. It’s always trouble when one of us goes bad.”

  Tommy nodded and gave me his best disappointed look. Larry looked at me as though this was what he’d always expected of me.

  “How did you find me so quickly?” I said.

  “We are detectives,” said Larry.

  “Good song,” said Tommy.

  “Shut up, Tommy!”

  “Is Hadleigh with you?” I said.

  “The Detective Inspectre is apparently busy,” said Larry, trying to keep the distaste out of his voice, and not even coming close.

  “Oh good,” I said. “I thought I might be in trouble, for a moment.”

  “Now you’re just being nasty,” said Tommy.

  Larry stared coldly at me. “Put up a fight, Taylor. Go on. Give me an excuse to stamp your arrogant murderous face into the floor.”

  “I always wondered how a good man like Julien Advent could survive in a place like this,” said Tommy. “But I never thought you’d be the one to finish him off, John.”

  “I can explain,” I said, but they were already shaking their heads.

  “Don’t,” said Tommy. “Please, John. Don’t lower yourself.”

  “You’d say anything,” said Larry. “And we don’t care enough to listen. This is for the Great Victorian Adventurer; you bastard.”

  He brought up his hand, and suddenly there was an elven wand pointing right at me. Larry Oblivion stabbed the wand at me, then frowned, when nothing happened. He stabbed the wand at me again, a little less confidently, and slowly lowered the wand as I smiled at him.

  “I took precautions to protect myself against that thing the moment I discovered you had it,” I said. “I always knew you’d find a reason to turn on me, someday. And I always knew a lot more about elves than you ever did.”

  Larry said something quietly obscene and made the wand disappear again. Tommy seized the moment and stepped forward. He smiled engagingly at me.

  “Come, let us reason together . . .”

  “Let’s not,” I said, very firmly. “Because you are the existential private eye, who can persuade anyone of anything. Who could talk the hind leg off a donkey, then use it to club the poor beast’s head in. I have extensive mental training, from when I was a young man learning my craft with old Carnacki; but even so, I don’t feel I want to test that training against your unnatural gift. So don’t try it on with me, Tommy Oblivion, or I will punch you right in the throat.”

  And all the time I was speaking my mind, and the Oblivion brothers were listening to me, I was e
dging closer to the nearest bookshelf. I couldn’t hide my movements from them, but as long as I was still talking and not running, they stayed where they were. Confident that they were blocking the way to the exit. But I wasn’t thinking about running. Not yet. I grabbed the nearest book, feeling it squirm in my hand, and threw it at Larry. He flinched away as the book swooped angrily about his head, flapping its leather covers like stiff wings. Tommy cried out piteously and put both hands up to protect his head. He’d always had a thing about anything getting in his hair.

  Larry grabbed the book out of mid air, holding it firmly with both hands. The book fought him, struggling fiercely, strange energies sparking and spitting on the air around it; but Larry was dead, and the book couldn’t hurt him. He forced the book closed with his dead strength and pushed it firmly back into its proper gap on the shelf. He then backed quickly away, while all the books on that shelf vied to make the loudest and most obscene noises of defiance. Larry smiled briefly.

  “I may be dead, but I still have my reflexes. Tommy, will you please put your hands down! The danger, what there was of it, has quite definitely passed.”

  And while they were both distracted by all of that, I slipped behind the bookshelf, put my shoulder to the wooden frame, and threw all my strength and weight against it. The bookshelf resisted, but I insisted, and with a lurch and a groan the whole bookshelf tilted to one side, then fell onto Tommy and Larry Oblivion. They both looked round to see it coming, but not in time to do anything about it. The heavy weight of the packed bookshelves slammed down onto both of them, throwing them to the floor and pinning them there. Tommy cried out piteously again. Larry didn’t. He had his pride. And besides, unlike Tommy, he was dead and therefore felt no pain.

  When I was sure they were both safely pinned to the floor, I moved forward to smile down at them.

  “You bastard,” said Larry.

  “Takes one to know one,” I said. “Now, will you listen to me?”