Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

however, filthy dirty, and they smelled awful. The leader was a swarthy man with a roughly cut mane of black hair. He smiled nastily, revealing several missing teeth.
    "Well, well," he said easily. "Not often we gets nobility in our part of town, do we, lads? So... clean, and well dressed. Slumming, are we, gents and lady? Looking for a bit of rough trade, perhaps? Well, they don't come much rougher than us, and that's a fact." His fellow thugs all laughed unpleasantly, some of them already looking at Suzie in a way I didn't like. If she killed them all, it would be bound to attract unwelcome attention. At least she hadn't drawn her shotgun yet.
    "What do you want?" asked Suzie, and the leader looked at her uncertainly, taken aback by the cold, almost bored tone in her voice.
    "What do we want, lady? What have you got? Just a toll, a little local taxation, for the privilege of passing through our territory."
    "Your territory?" I said.
    "Our territory, because we control it," said the leader. "Nothing and no-one moves through here, without paying us tribute."
    "But..."
    "Don't you argue with me, you tosser," said the thug, prodding me hard in the chest with a filthy finger. "Give us what we want, and we'll let you walk away. Piss us about, and we'll mess you up so bad people will puke just to look at you."
    "How much is this going to cost us?" said Tommy, already reaching for his purse.
    "Whatever coin you've got on you. Any goods we happen to take a liking to. And some quality time with this lady." The chief thug leered at Suzie. "I likes them big."
    I winced on his behalf. I could feel Suzie's icy presence beside me, like the ticking of an activated bomb.
    "That is a really bad idea," I said, in my best cold and dangerous voice. I relaxed a little as the thug turned his attention back to me. I could handle scumbags like him. I gave him my best hard stare. "You don't know who we are.
    What we can do. So do the sensible thing and step aside, before we have to show you."
    He laughed in my face, and his fellow thugs laughed with him. I was a bit taken aback. It had been a long time since anyone dared laugh in my face.
    "Nice try, Taylor," said Suzie. "But they don't know your legend here. Let me deal with them."
    "You can't kill them all," Tommy said immediately. "Kill them, and you kill all their potential future descendants. Who knows how many cumulative changes that could cause, back in our Present? Let me try my gift on them." He gave the leader his best winning smile. "Come, let us reason together."
    "Shut your face, pretty boy," said the leader. He spat right into Tommy's face, and Tommy recoiled with a cry of disgust, his concentration shattered.
    "So much for diplomacy," said Suzie, and she drew her shotgun with one easy movement.
    The leader regarded the gun interestedly. "Whatever that thing is, it won't do you any good, lady. Me and the lads are protected, against all edged weapons and magical attacks. None of them can touch us."
    Suzie shot the man in the face, blowing his head right off his shoulders. The body staggered back a few steps and collapsed. The other thugs looked at the body twitching on the ground, then slowly and reluctantly looked back at Suzie.
    "Run away," I suggested, and they did. Suzie looked after them thoughtfully for a moment, then put her shotgun away again.
    "There really wasn't any need for that," I said. "I could have dealt with them."
    "Of course you could," said Suzie.
    "I could!"
    "You can deal with the next ones," said Suzie, as she set off down the street.
    "I never get to have any fun," I said, following after. "He's going to sulk now, isn't he?" said Tommy, hurrying to catch up.
    "Oh, big time," said Suzie Shooter.

Seven
    Some Unpleasantness at the Londinium Club

    O nly those personages of extreme power, prestige, or parentage can hope to gain admittance to the oldest private members' club in the world. Just fame, wealth, or knowing the right people won't do it. The Londinium Club was and is extremely exclusive, and the merely heroic or significant need not apply. There are those who say Camelot operated on a pretty similar principle. All I know for sure is that neither establishment would let me in without a fight.
    We found the Londinium Club easily enough. It was a large, dignified building in a much more salubrious area of the Nightside. The traffic was quieter, the pedestrians were of a much-better-dressed class, and there wasn't a brothel anywhere in sight. Still a