Paths Not Taken (3 page)

"I ran away. Just put my head down and ran, while they were distracted with each other. I never thought of myself as a coward before, but I couldn't face all those other versions of me, saying such hateful things, blaming me for doing something ... terrible." He took a deep breath, and looked at me with a strained smile. "Tell me the truth. Please. Am I in Hell? Have I died and gone to Hell?"

"No," I said quickly. "You're still very much alive, Mr. Mitchell. This isn't Hell, it's the Nightside. Though sometimes you can see Hell from here. Basically ... may I call you Eamonn? Thank you. Basically, Eamonn, you have stumbled into a place you have no business in. You don't belong here. But not to worry; you have fallen among friends. I'll get you back where you belong."

Eamonn Mitchell actually crumpled in his chair, as relief flooded through him. Cathy had to grab his coffee mug as it slipped from his fingers. She patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. And then my solid silver, reinforced, security-spelled office door banged open, catching us all by surprise, and two more Eamonn Mitchells stormed in. It was quite clearly the same man, at different ages. The youngest looked to be about twenty, probably still a student, with a save the whales T-shirt, bright purple bell-bottoms, long hair, and an unsuccessful beard. He would have seemed ridiculous if he hadn't looked so angry and so dangerous. The other man was maybe ten years older, in a sharp navy blue suit, clean-shaven, with seriously short hair. He looked just as angry, and perhaps even more dangerous because he was more focussed, more experienced. I decided to think of them as Eamonn 20 and Eamonn 30, and my client as Eamonn 40, just to keep my head straight. I moved to stand between the newcomers and my client, and they transferred their angry gaze to me.

"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

S
trangefellows 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