The Unnatural Inquirer (7 page)

Bettie Divine jumped up and down, and did a little dance of joy, which did very interesting things to her breasts. I looked back at Scoop.

“If this Afterlife Recording should turn out to be the real thing,” I said, “I’m not sure anyone should be allowed to see it. Real proof of Heaven or Hell? I don’t think we’re ready for that.”

“It’s the headline that’s important,” said Scoop. “That’s what will sell lots and lots of papers. The DVD…can be fixed, one way or the other. It’s the concept we’re selling.”

“But if it is real,” I said. “If it is hard evidence of what happens after we die…the whole Nightside could go crazy.”

“I know!” said Bettie Divine. “A real story at last! Who would have thought it! Isn’t it simply too wonderful, darling!”

THREE

Faith, Hope, and Merchandising

B
ettie and I stepped out of the Unnatural Inquirer’s offices and shot straight back to the same street corner I’d left, appearing abruptly out of nowhere thanks to Bettie’s dimensional key. No-one paid us any attention. People appearing out of nowhere is business as usual in the Nightside. It’s when people start disappearing suddenly that everyone tends to start screaming and taking to their heels, and usually with good reason. I realised Bettie was looking at me expectantly, and I sighed inwardly. I knew that look.

“I know that look,” I said to her sternly. “You’ve heard all the stories, studied up on the legend, and now you expect me to solve the whole case with one snap of my fingers. Probably while smiling sardonically and saying something wickedly witty and quotable. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.”

“But…everyone knows you have a gift!” said Bettie, fixing me with her big dark eyes like a disappointed puppy. “You can find anyone, or anything. Can’t you?”

“You of all people should know better than to believe in legends,” I said. “Reality is always far more complicated. Case in point: yes, I do have a gift for finding things, and people, but I can’t just use it to pinpoint the exact location of Pen Donavon or his DVD. I need a specific question to get a specific answer. But with the information I’ve got, I should be able to get a rough sense of where to start looking…”

I concentrated, waking my third eye, my private eye, and the world started to open up and reveal its secrets to me…and then I cried out in shock and pain as a sudden harsh pressure shot through my head, slamming my inner eye shut. Some great force from Outside had shut down my gift as quickly and casually as a dog shrugging off a bothersome flea. I swore harshly, and Bettie actually retreated a couple of steps.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to ease the scowl I could feel darkening my face. “Something just happened. It would appear that Someone or Something big and nasty doesn’t want me using my gift. They’ve shut me down. I can’t See a damned thing.”

“I didn’t know anyone could do that,” said Bettie.

“It’s not something I’m keen to advertise,” I said. “Has to be a Major Player of some kind. I hope it’s not the Devil again…”

“Again?” said Bettie delightedly. “Oh, John, you do lead such a fascinating life! Tell me all about it!”

“Not a chance in Hell,” I said. “I don’t discuss other client’s cases. Anyway, it’s not like I’m helpless without my gift. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way: asking questions, following leads, and tracking down clues.”

“But…if a Major Player is involved, doesn’t that mean the Afterlife Recording must be the real deal?” said Bettie. “Or else, why would they get involved?”

“They’re involved for the same reason we are,” I said. “Because they want to discover whether the Recording is the real deal, or not. Or…because Someone wants us to think it’s real…Nothing’s ever simple in the Nightside.”

And then I stopped and looked thoughtfully at Bettie Divine. There was something subtly different about her. Some small but definite change in her appearance since we’d left the Unnatural Inquirer offices. It took me a moment to realise she was now wearing a large floppy hat.

“Ah,” said Bettie. “You’ve noticed. The details of my appearance are always changing. Part of my natural glamour, as the daughter of a succubus. Don’t let it throw you, dear; I’m always the same underneath.”

“How very reassuring,” I said. “We need somewhere quiet, to think and talk this through…somewhere no-one will bother us. Got it. The Hawk’s Wind Bar and Grille isn’t far from here.”

“I know it!” said Bettie, clapping her little hands together delightedly. “The spirit of the sixties! Groovy, baby!”

“You’re like this all the time, aren’t you?” I said.

“Of course!”

“I will make your Editor pay for this…”

“Lot of people say that,” said Bettie Divine.

The Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille started out as a swinging café and social watering hole for all the brightest lights of the 1960s. Everyone who was anyone made the scene at the Hawk’s Wind, to plot and deal and spread the latest gossip. It was wild and fabulous, and almost too influential for its own good. It burned down in 1970, possibly self-immolation in protest at the splitting up of the Beatles, but it was too loved and revered to stay dead for long. It came back as a ghost, the spirit of a building haunting its own location. People’s belief keeps it real and solid, and these days it serves as a repository for all that was best of the sixties.

You can get brands of drink and food and music that haven’t existed for forty years in the rest of the world at the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille, and famous people from the sixties are always dropping in, through various forms of Time travel, and other less straightforward means. It’s not for everyone, but then, what is?

I pushed open the Hindu latticed front door and led the way in. Bettie gasped and oohed at the psychedelic patterns on the walls, the rococo Day-Glo neon signs, and the Pop Art posters of Jimi, Che, and Timothy Leary. The air was thick with the scents of jasmine, joss sticks, and what used to be called jazz cigarettes. A complicated steel contraption hissed loudly in one corner as it pumped out several different colours of steam and dispensed brands of coffee with enough caffeine to blow the top of your head clean off. Hawk’s Wind coffee could wake the dead, or at least keep them dancing for hours. I sat Bettie down at one of the Formica-covered tables and lowered myself cautiously onto the rickety plastic chair.

Revolving coloured lights made pretty patterns across walls daubed in swirls of primary colours, while a juke-box the size of a Tardis pumped out one groovy hit after another, currently the Four Tops’ “Reach Out, I’ll Be There.” Which has always sounded just a bit sinister to me, for a love song. All around us sat famous faces from the Past, Present, and Futures, most there to just dig the scene. Bettie swivelled back and forth in her chair, trying to take it all in at once.

“Don’t stare,” I said. “People will think you’re a reporter.”

“But this is so amazing!” said Bettie, all but bouncing up and down in her chair. “I’ve never been here before. Heard about it, of course, but…people like me never get to come to places like this. We only get to write about them. Didn’t I hear this place had been destroyed?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Several times. But it always comes back. You can’t keep a good ghost down, not when so many people believe in it.”

The juke-box’s music changed to Manfred Mann’s “Ha! Ha! Said the Clown.” Go-Go girls, wearing only handfuls of glued-on sequins, danced wildly in golden cages suspended from the ceiling. At a nearby table, a collection of secret agents exchanged passwords and cheerful tall tales, while playing ostentatiously casual one-upmanship with their latest gadgets—pens and shoes that were communication devices, watches that held strangling wires and lasers, umbrellas that were also sword-sticks. One agent actually blinked on and off as he demonstrated his invisibility bracelet. Not far away, the Travelling Doctor, the Strange Doctor, and the Druid Doctor were deep in conference. Presumably some Cosmic Maguffin had gone missing again. And there were the King and Queen of America, smiling and waving, as they passed through.

A tall and splendid waitress dressed in a collection of pink plastic straps and thigh-high white plastic boots strode over to our table to take our order. Her impressive bust bore a name badge with the initials EV. She leaned forward over the table, the better to show off her amazing cleavage.

“Save it for the tourists, Phred,” I said kindly. “What are you doing working here? The monster-hunting business gone slack?”

She shrugged prettily. “You know how it is, John. My work is always seasonal, and a girl has to eat. You wait till the trolls start swarming again in the Underground and see how fast they remember my phone number. Now, what can I do you for? We’ve got this amazing green tea in from Tibet, though it’s a bit greasy; or we’ve got some freshly baked fudge brownies that will not only open your doors of perception, but blow the bloody things right off their hinges.”

“Just two Cokes,” I said firmly.

“You want curly-wurly straws with that?”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s all part of the experience.”

“Excuse me,” said Bettie, “but why does he call you Phred, when your initials are EV? What does the EV stand for?”

“Ex-Virgin,” said Phred. “And I stand for pretty much anything.”

And off she went to get our order, swaying her hips through the packed tables perhaps just a little more than was strictly necessary.

“You know the most interesting people, John,” said Bettie.

I grinned. “Let us concentrate on the matter at hand. What can you tell me about the guy who originally offered to sell you the Afterlife Recording?”

“All anyone knows is the name, Pen Donavon,” said Bettie, frowning prettily as she concentrated. “No-one in the offices has ever met him; our only contact has been by phone. He called out of the blue and almost got turned away. We get a lot of crank calls. But he was very insistent, and once we realised he was serious, he got bumped up to Scoop, who in turn passed him on to the Editor, who made the deal for exclusive rights.”

“For a whole lot of money,” I said. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd, given that no-one ever met Donavon, or even glimpsed what was on the DVD?”

“We had to pin the rights down before he went somewhere else! Trust me, the paper will make more money out of this story than Donavon will ever see.”

“Do you at least have his address?”

“Of course!” Bettie said indignantly. “We’ve already checked; he isn’t there. Skipped yesterday, owing two weeks’ rent.”

“We need to go there anyway,” I said patiently. “There may be clues.”

“Ooh, clues!” Bettie said delightedly. “Goody! I’ve never seen a clue.”

She opened up a large leather purse, which I would have sworn she wasn’t carrying before, and rummaged around in it for her address book. The purse seemed to be very full and packed with all kinds of interesting things. Bettie caught me looking, and grinned.

“Mace spray, with added holy water. Skeleton keys, including some made from real bones. And a couple of smoke grenades, to cover a quick exit. A demon girl reporter has to be prepared for all kinds of things, sweetie.”

We went to Pen Donavon’s place. It wasn’t far. Bettie stuck close beside me. She wasn’t too keen on appearing in public, given some of the stories she’d written. Apparently while celebrities tended to take such things in their stride, their fans could be downright dangerous.

“Relax,” I said. “No-one’s going to look at you while I’m here.”

“You do seem to attract a lot of attention,” Bettie agreed, peering out from under her large floppy hat, which was now a completely different colour. “It’s really fascinating, the way people react to your presence. I mean, there’s fear, obviously, and even an element of panic; but some people look at you in awe, as though you were a king, or a god. You really have done most of the things people say, haven’t you?”

“I shall neither confirm nor deny,” I said. “Let’s just say I get around, and leave it at that.”

“And you and Shotgun Suzie…?”

“Are off-limits. Don’t go there.”

She smiled at me dazzlingly. “Can’t blame a girl for trying, darling.”

It turned out Pen Donavon had a small apartment over a pokey little junk shop, one more in a row of shabby, grubby establishments offering the usual dreams and damnations at knocked-down prices. The kind of area where the potential customers scurry along with their heads bowed, so they won’t have to make eye contact with anyone. Pen Donavon’s establishment boasted the grandiose name Objets du Temps Perdu, a literary allusion that was no doubt wasted on most of his clientele. I wasn’t entirely sure I got it myself.

Bettie and I peered through the streaky, fly-specked window. It appeared that Donavon specialised in the kind of weird shit that turns up in the Nightside, through the various Timeslips that are always opening and closing. Lost objects and strange artifacts, from other times and dimensions. All the obviously useful, valuable, or powerful things are snapped up the moment they appear; in fact, there are those who make a good living scavenging the Timeslips. (Though they have to be quick on their feet; there’s never any telling how long a Timeslip will last, and you don’t want to be caught inside it when it disappears.) But a lot of what appears often defies easy description, or analysis, and such things tend to trickle down through the mercantile community, the price dropping at every stage, until it ends up in shops like these. Things too intricate, too futuristic, or just too damned weird to be categorised, even by all the many learned authorities that the Nightside attracts like a dog gets fleas. Great discoveries, and fortunes, have been made in places like this. But not many.

I rubbed the sleeve of my trench coat against the window. It didn’t help.

“Well,” I said. “Nothing here to give the Collector any sleepless nights. Only the usual junk and debris from the various time-lines. I wouldn’t give you tuppence for any of it.”

“Wait a minute,” said Bettie. “You know the Collector? Personally? Wow…I keep forgetting, you know all the legends of the Nightside. What’s he like?”