Nightside 02 - Agents of Light and Darkness

away from her and put it on the floor, carefully out of her reach.
    “Almost six years since I was last here, Suze,” I said, just loud enough to be heard over the television. “Six years, and the old place hasn’t changed a bit. Still utterly appalling, with a side order of downright disgusting. Garbage from all across the country probably comes here to die. I’ll bet the only reason this building isn’t overrun with rats is that you probably eat them.”
    “They’re good with fries, and a few onions,” said Suzie, not looking round.
    “How can you live like this, Suze?”
    “Practice. And don’t call me Suze. Now sit down and shut up. You’re interrupting a good bit.”
    “God, you’re a slob, Suzie.” I didn’t sit down on the couch. I’d just had my coat cleaned. “Don’t you ever clean up in here?”
    “No. That way I know where everything is. What do you want, Taylor?”
    “Well, apart from world peace, and Gillian Anderson dipped in melted chocolate, I’d like to see some evidence that you’ve been eating sensibly. You can’t live on junk food. When was the last time you had some fresh fruit? What do you do for vitamin C?”
    “Pills, mostly. Isn’t science wonderful? I hate fruit.”
    “I seem to recall you’re not too keen on vegetables either. It’s a wonder to me you haven’t come down with scurvy.”
    Suzie sniggered. “My system would self-destruct if it encountered anything that healthy. I eat soup with vegetables in. Occasionally. That sneaks them past my defenses.”
    I kicked an empty ice cream tub out of the way and sighed heavily. “I hate to see you like this, Suzie.”
    “Then don’t look.”
    “Fat and lazy and smug with it. Don’t you have any ambitions?”
    “To die gloriously.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette and sighed luxuriously.
    I sat on the arm of the couch. “I don’t know why I keep coming back here, Suze.”
    “Because we monsters have to stick together.” She finally turned her head to look at me, unsmiling. “Who else would have us?”
    I met her gaze squarely. “You deserve better than this.”
    “Shows how much you know. What do you want, Taylor?”
    “How long have you been lounging around here? Days? Weeks?”
    She shrugged. “I am currently between cases. Bottom’s dropped out of the bounty-hunting business lately.”
    “Most people have a life apart from their work.”
    “I’m not most people. Just as well, really, considering most people depress me unutterably. My work is my life.”
    “Killing people is a life?”
    “Stick to what you’re good at, that’s what I always say. Hell! When I do it, it’s an art form. I wonder if I could get a grant… Shut up and watch the film, Taylor. I hate it when people talk during the good bits.”
    I sat with her and watched quietly for a while. As far as I knew, I was the closest thing Shotgun Suzie had to a friend. She wasn’t much of a one for getting out and meeting people, unless it involved killing them later. She only really came alive when she was working. In between cases, she shut down and vegetated, waiting for her next chance to go out and do the only thing she did well, the thing she was born to do.
    “I worry about you, Suzie.”
    “Don’t.”
    “You need to get out of this dump and get to know people. There are some out there worth knowing.”
    “Men have been known to walk into my life, from time to time.”
    It was my turn to sniff loudly. “They usually leave running.”
    “Not my fault if they can’t keep up.” She shifted her weight on the couch and farted unselfconsciously.
    I glared at her. “They usually leave because you made them watch Girl On A Motorcycle one time too many.”
    “That film is a classic!” Suzie said automatically. “Marianne Faithful never looked better. That film is right up there with Easy Rider and Roger Corman’s Hells Angels movies.”
    “Why did you shoot me, six years ago?” I didn’t know I was going to ask that until I said it.
    “I had paper on you,” said Suzie. “Serious paper, backed by serious money.”
    “You knew that paper was false. The whole thing was a setup. You had to know that… but you shot me anyway. Why?”
    “You were leaving,” she said quietly. “How else could I stop you?”
    “Oh, Suze…”
    “Why do you think you were only wounded? You know I never miss. If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
    “Why was it so important for you to stop me leaving?”
    She finally