didn’t stay long enough to find out if anyone had followed us. My guess was, whatever chaos the Entropic Chord had unleashed, the Cold Lady and Spiderhead had survived it, one way or another.
Henry was still gripping the guitar like it was welded to his fingers.
“I think maybe it’s time to put that goddam thing back in its case,” I told him. I noticed that it had lost its blue glow and it looked like any other battered old guitar.
“It’s okay, Nick. Once the Entropy Chord’s been played, it takes a long time for the guitar to re-charge itself.”
Suki turned to Henry, her face breaking out into a big smile. “Henry!” she chirped. “So nice to see you.”
The kid looked embarrassed. Now, that was a first.
Maria also managed a smile, but the Raggedy Man had already beaten a hasty retreat into the night. What the hell, he’d earned his freedom.
“Come on, you guys,” I said. “I know somewhere we can get a stiff drink and a clean-up. And I know who’ll pick up the tab.”
There were no objections.
* * * *
“Piece of cake,” said Henry.
We were sitting in a late bar, the two girls almost asleep beside us, their drinks untouched on the table. I’d been that thirsty I’d sunk two bottles of beer and had a third in front of me. Henry didn’t usually drink alcohol, but after our exhausting escapades had managed to down a bottle of beer himself.
“It bothers me,” I said. “I know we had that crazy guitar to get us through, but don’t you think it was a might…easy?”
He frowned. “One false step and we’d have been dragged into that mire.”
“I know. I’m just saying.” I let it go for now. “You get the girls somewhere safe and we’ll talk about it when Ariadne gets back.”
I left him to it. Outside, the night life buzzed, and there didn’t seem like there would be any immediate moves from the mob we’d cheated. I reckoned Henry would take care of things for the time being.
* * * *
A few days later, after Ariadne had returned, I gave her a blow by blow account of the rescue of the two singers. Like me, she thought maybe we’d got off lightly, given the kind of powers we’d been up against.
“You smell a rat,” she told me, knowing me well enough to read me and my murky mind. “What are you thinking?”
“The girls—are they okay? Anything out of order?” I’d had Henry deliver them to her. No one had tried to interfere. It was like the Cold Lady had given up on them. Maybe she had, but then again—
“They don’t seem any the worse for their experiences,” said Ariadne. “And it hasn’t affected their singing. They’re coming on fine. In fact, I’ll be ready to give them their first night at the club soon. Warm up act for FiFi Cherie at the Big Jamboree I told you about. It’ll be the place to be seen. You’ll be there, of course.”
“Front row,” I grinned. “But you’d better have the place well protected. There’s a couple of things bugging me. For one, the Raggedy Man told us the girls were being groomed by Carmella Cadenza. To do the work of the Angels of Malice. Which was to unleash the Pullulating Tribe.”
“What else?”
“Something Henry said the other day. He was wriggling with embarrassment like a teenager on his first date—which he is not—when he told me that Suki is not as hot as she was. Now, maybe she’s cooled off toward him, or just needs a bit of private space after her little adventure. You know more about these things than me. Apparently, she don’t kiss like she used to. Kind of dead, as Henry put it.”
Ariadne gave me her thoughtful frown. “May be something in it.”
* * * *
For the next few days, I chewed over the events in the stone world and our remarkable abduction of the two girls. Remarkable, yeah. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. With all the powers at their disposal, the Angels of Malice—who’d had us at their mercy—had let us slip through their clammy fingers. Sure, I’d been protected and we’d had the guitar, but it was their world, bulging at the seams with their teeming hordes. No, something was wrong. Why did I think we’d been suckered?
I thought about the guitar, going back to the auction. Now that I did think about it, that was odd. If the thing was such a goddam prize, why run the risk of losing it at an auction? If the Nasty Guys had wanted it that bad, they’d have raised Hell to get it, wouldn’t they? So why the soft approach?
There could only be one reason. They wanted Henry to have it. Dressed up to look like he’d beaten them to it, albeit with my help. So that meant they’d wanted him to take it into their bizarre little world. But even then, they hadn’t taken it off him. They must have known he would use it to win back the singers. And in doing so, blowing the Pullulating Tribe and its surroundings to smithereens.
And in so doing, exhausting the guitar! It takes a long time for the guitar to re-charge itself, Henry’d said. Which meant, right now, it was useless.
We’d brought the girls—the singers—into our world. Singers who had gifts bestowed on them by the Angels of Malice. Singers who, according to Henry, were not quite as they had been. Puppets.
It was an Oh my God moment.
They were going to sing in Ariadne’s Big Jamboree at the night club and raise God alone knew what horrors, and there would be no blue guitar to blast them back to Hell. And when was this going to happen?
Tonight. In a few hours’ time.
* * * *
If I thought I was going to leave my office, sprint out into the city, grab a taxi and hightail to Ariadne like a bolt from the blue, I must have been kidding. I had my armoury strapped in and I went down the stairs to the alley like a cat with its tail ablaze, but no sooner had I got out of the door than I knew I was not alone. I almost ran into a hail of lead.
They were at both ends of the alley. Luckily the street lights were on the fritz again, so I must have made a blurred target. I was able to duck back inside before they shredded my carcass. Something nicked my arm, and I felt something hit my chest like I’d been punched but not enough to slow me down. I tore back upstairs, locked the door and made for the fire exit out back. I tossed an old jacket out first, and sure enough, it was ripped apart in seconds by another crossfire.
They had me pinned down. I had to get hold of Ariadne and tell her what I’d figured out. I reached inside my coat and pulled out my cell phone—or what was left of it. It disintegrated in my hand. The punch I thought I’d felt was a bullet glancing off it. I was glad enough the damn thing had saved me what might have been a crippling hit, but now I had no way of warning Ariadne.
I had one last chance to get out of there. I went into my cunningly converted broom cupboard, dropped down a makeshift elevator and emerged in the darkness of the cellar. There was a hidden door and I opened and closed it cautiously. Beyond, in a dank, dripping tunnel that was originally dug here generations ago, I crept away, listening for anything
