Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

fixed and real things in the world.
    There was no telling where that insane and dangerous struggle might have gone if Suzie hadn't put a stop to it by simply hitting Tommy round the back of the head with the butt of her shotgun. He cried out and fell to his knees, his gift snapping off as the pain in his head kept him from concentrating. He still tried to come up off his knees fighting, and Suzie calmly and dispassionately beat the shit out of him. He finally collapsed into unconsciousness, and I used my gift to find Old Father Time's touch on him and remove it. Tommy disappeared immediately, swept back to our Present.
    (And that was when I finally remembered when I'd seen Tommy Oblivion before. He'd appeared out of nowhere in Strangefellows, during the Nightingale case, some months previously. He'd been badly beaten, and yelled threats at me before he was thrown out. Now I knew why. He'd obviously arrived back in the Nightside before he left. Still, it did beg the question of why, if Tommy knew what was going to happen on this trip, he didn't search out his younger self, and inform him... Unless something happened to the older Tommy to prevent it... That's why I hate Time travel. Just thinking about it makes your head hurt.)
    I sat down in a chair while Suzie checked my head wound, then cleaned the blood off my face. I sat looking at Merlin's heart on the table before me, planning what I was going to do next. Even after everything that had happened, I was still determined to press on. I had to succeed in my mission to justify all the suffering and damage I'd caused.
    "If nothing else," said Suzie, "we have discovered the answer to one of the great mysteries of the Nightside-who stole Merlin's heart? We did. Who would have thought it... Can it really take us further back into the Past?"
    She was speaking calmly and professionally, so I did the same. "I don't see why not. The power's definitely there; I have to tap into it and guide it."
    "And you're not worried about your Enemies locating you here?"
    "I think they would have by now if they were going to," I said.
    I took the heart in my hand and made myself look at Suzie's ruined face without flinching. I'd done that to her. I had to stop Lilith, or all Suzie's pain had been for nothing. I looked slowly round the bar, taking in all the damage I'd done, without meaning to. I had to wonder if perhaps it was my own implacable stubbornness that was forging the very series of causal links that would bring about the dead future.
    Who caused this ? I asked the future Razor Eddie, as he lay dying in my arms. You did, he said. How do I stop it? I asked him. Kill yourself, he said.
    I'd promised him I would die rather than let that future happen. I'd promised Suzie back during the angel war that I would never let her be hurt again. I'd failed her. She didn't blame me, but I did. She would forgive me, but I never would. Perhaps ... the only way to stop the awful future was to kill myself, now, before it was too late ...
    No. I could still stop Lilith. I was the only one who could stop her.
    So I nodded to Suzie to pick up Nimue's body, while I raised my gift and tapped the power of Merlin's heart, and we went hurtling back through Time again.

Nine
    When in Rome

    W e arrived. I looked around. I looked at Suzie. "Hold me back, Suzie, or I am going to kill absolutely everything that moves."
    "Hold yourself back," Suzie said calmly. "You know very well I don't do the restraint thing. It's bad for my reputation."
    "I don't believe this!" I said, actually stamping my foot in frustration. "We're still only part of the way back!"
    "At least it doesn't smell so bad this time," said Suzie, judiciously. "I find a little horse shit in the street goes a hell of a long way."
    "I could spit soot," I said.
    We'd reappeared in the middle of a large open square, under the star-speckled sky and huge full moon of the Nightside. The buildings enclosing the square were low and squat, stone and marble, with the unmistakable classic touches of Roman architecture. Men in wraparound togas looked at us curiously, then went on their way, as though strange people appearing suddenly out of nowhere happened all the time. Maybe it did, in this Nightside.
    "First or second century," said Suzie, showing off her knowledge again. "The Romans built Londinium over the River Thames, and were the first human society to colonize the already existing Nightside. Outside, Rome rules Britain, after Julius Caesar led a