Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay by Simon R. Green

me,” said Alex. “She never visits. Though she’s late with the alimony cheque again. Jonathon, leave the duck alone! I won’t tell you again! And no, I don’t want the orange back.”
    “Place seems pretty crowded tonight,” I said.
    “We’ve got a very popular new cabaret act,” Alex said proudly. “Hang about while I announce him.” He raised his voice. “Listen up, scumbags! It’s cabaret time, presenting once again that exceptional artiste, Mr. Explodo! Your own, your very own, and I wish you’d take him with you because he disturbs the crap out of me, yes; it’s Suicide Jones!”
    A very ordinary-looking man stepped bashfully out onto a small spotlit stage, waved cheerfully to the wildly applauding audience, then exploded into bloody gobbets. Messiest thing I’d seen in ages. The crowed roared their approval, clapping and stamping their feet. As cabaret acts went, it was impressive enough if a bit brief. I looked at Alex.
    “It’s not the blowing himself up that’s the act,” Alex explained. “It’s the way he pulls all the little bits of himself back together again afterwards.”
    “You mean he blows himself up over and over again?” I said.
    “Every night, and twice on Saturdays. It’s a living, I suppose.”
    “Speaking of which,” I said, “why are you still here, Alex? You always said you only stayed because Merlin’s geas bound you and your line to this bar in perpetuity. But now he’s finally dead and gone, thanks to Lilith, what’s holding you here?”
    “Where else would I go?” said Alex, his voice flat and almost without emotion. “What else could I do? This is what I know and what I do. And besides, where else would I get the opportunity to upset, insult, and terrorize so many people on a regular basis? Running this bar has spoilt me for anywhere else. This…is my life. Dammit.”
    “How has Merlin’s disappearance affected things here?”
    “ Will you keep your voice down! I haven’t told anyone, and I’m not about to. If certain people, and certain other forces not at all people, knew for certain that this bar was no longer protected by Merlin’s magics, they’d be hitting it with everything from Biblical plagues to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
    “It’s your own fault for short-changing people.”
    “Let us change the subject. I hear you and Suzie Shooter are shacking up together now. I can honestly say I never saw that one coming. How is everyone’s favourite psychopathic gun nut?”
    “Oh, still killing people,” I said. “She’s off chasing down a bounty, out on the Borderlands. She’s got a birthday coming up soon; maybe I’ll buy her that backpack nuke she’s been hinting about.”
    “I wish I thought you were joking.” Alex regarded me thoughtfully. “How’s everything…working out?”
    “We’re taking it one day at a time,” I said. My turn to change the subject. “I need to talk to someone who can tell me all about the Griffin and his family. Very definitely including all the things people like us aren’t supposed to know about. Anyone in tonight who might fit the bill?”
    “You’re in luck, sort of,” said Alex. “See that smartly dressed gentleman sitting at the table in the far corner, trying to charm someone else into buying him a drink? Well, that is no gentleman, that is a reporter. Name’s Harry Fabulous. Currently working as a stringer for the Nightside’s very own scurrilous tabloid, the Unnatural Inquirer . All the news that can be made to fit. He knows everything, even if most of it probably isn’t true.”
    I nodded. I knew Harry. I caught his eye and gestured for him to come over and join me. He smiled cheerfully and sauntered up to the bar. Oh yes, I knew all about Harry Fabulous. Handsome, charming, and always expressively dressed, Harry was a snake in wolf’s clothing. There was a time when Harry was the Nightside’s premiere Go To man, for everything that’s bad for you. And then he got religion