Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

was drowning, burying her ruined bloody face in my shoulder. I held on to her, and all I could say was I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, over and over again. After a while she pushed me away, and I let go of her immediately. It was hard for Suzie to let anyone touch her, even a friend. Even then. Poor little broken bird. I made myself look at what remained of her face. The whole left side was gone, a ragged torn-up mess only held together by charred and blackened flesh. And then, as I watched, the terrible wounds began to heal. The torn flesh crawled together, slowly closing over and drawing itself together into old scar tissue. Even the empty eye-socket closed, the lids sealed together. Until at the end it was the awful, familiar, disfigured face I'd seen once before-on the Suzie Shooter from the future.
    I had brought Suzie here, to this place and time, and made that face, that Suzie possible.
    She smiled at me, but only half her mouth moved. She gingerly touched at the scarred half of her face with her fingertips, then took her hand away again. "Don't look so shocked, Taylor. You put werewolf blood into me to save my life, remember, back during the angel war? The blood wasn't strong enough or pure enough to make me into a were, but it did give me one hell of a healing factor. Very useful, in the bounty-hunting business. My face... will never be the same again, I know that. My healing factor has very definite limits. But I can live with this. It's not like I ever cared about looking pretty ... John? What's the matter, John?"
    I couldn't tell her. I lurched to my feet and looked around for the mace I'd discarded. Kae ... It was all Kae's fault. He had barged in and ruined everything ... everything. Suzie knew me well enough to see which way my thoughts were going, and she hauled herself to her feet to stand before me.
    "No, John. You can't kill him."
    "Watch me."
    "You can't, John. Because Arthur wouldn't want you to. And because you're not a killer. Like me."
    And because in the end I still hoped she was right about that, I turned away from Kae's unconscious body, and together Suzie and I moved slowly and carefully back across the bar to Merlin's table. Tommy was still there, holding the witch Nimue in his arms, his face set and cold. It was obvious Nimue wasn't breathing. Dead, her face looked more like a child's than ever.
    "She died keeping Merlin alive with her own life energy," said Tommy. He looked only at me, his gaze openly accusing. "She gave her life for him, her present and all her future; and it still wasn't enough. He's dead, too, if you care. And all because of us."
    "We never meant for any of this to happen," said Suzie.
    Tommy looked at her briefly, taking in her scarred face, but his cold gaze returned almost immediately to me. "And that makes it all right, does it?"
    "No," I said. "But what's done, is done. We can't help them, but we can still help ourselves. We don't need Merlin; we still have his heart." I leaned over the wrapped bundle on the table and pulled back the cloth to show that the heart was still slowly beating, even though there was no blood left in it. "Merlin put enough of his power into his heart that it still continues, still holds a large portion of his magic. We can tap into that magic and use it to send us further back into the Past."
    Tommy put Nimue to one side, arranging her tenderly in a chair like a sleeping child, then he stood up to face me. "Did you know this all along, Taylor? Did you plan for this?"
    "No," I said. "I Saw it with my gift, when I studied his defences."
    "Why should I believe you?" said Tommy, and Suzie stirred at my side, picking up on the anger burning in the man.
    "I've never lied to you, Tommy," I said carefully. "I'm sorry about Nimue, and even about Merlin, but I came into the Past to stop Lilith, and that's what I'm going to do."
    "Whatever it takes? No matter who gets hurt?"
    "I don't know," I said. "Maybe."
    "If we take the heart with us, further back into the Past,
    no wonder no-one could ever find it," said Suzie. "They were always looking in the wrong place, the wrong time."
    "We'll take Nimue's body along with us," I said. "Dump it somewhere in the Past. So that when Merlin returns from the dead, he'll never have to know that Nimue died trying to save him."
    "You pick the strangest ways to be thoughtful, Taylor," said Suzie.
    "If you were to put the heart back," Tommy said slowly, "there's a real chance the magic stored in the heart would be enough