Nightside 08 - The Unnatural Inquirer

his table. I knew him vaguely. Thallassa, a wizened old sorcerer who claimed to be responsible for the sinking of Atlantis. He said he drank to forget, but it was amazing how many stories he could remember, as long as you were dumb enough to keep buying him drinks. Everyone else had clearly decided that discretion was the better part of running for the hills, and that the combination of Pen Donavon, his DVD, and me in one place was just too dangerous to be around. Even the kind of people who habitually drink at a place like Strangefellows have their limit; and I’m often it.
    Donavon was easy to spot. He was sitting slumped on a stool at the bar. No-one else could look that miserable, beaten down, and shit scared from the back. He peered round as Bettie and I approached, and almost collapsed off his stool before he recognised me. He was just a small, ordinary-looking man, no-one you’d look at twice in the street, clearly in way over his head and going down for the third time. Up close, he looked in pretty bad shape. He was shaking and shivering, his face drawn and ashen, with dark circles under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept in days. Perhaps because he didn’t dare. He couldn’t have been half-way through his twenties, but now he looked twice that. Something had aged him and hadn’t been kind about it. He clutched a long, shabby coat around him, as though to keep out a chill only he could feel.
    He looked like a man who’d seen Hell. Or Heaven.
    Alex Morrisey glared at me, and then went back to half-coaxing, half-bullying Donavon into putting aside his brandy glass and trying some freshly made hot soup. Donavon remained unconvinced. He watched, wide-eyed, until Bettie and I were right there with him. Then he sighed deeply, and some of the tension seemed to go out of him. He emptied his glass with a gulp and signalled for another. Alex put aside the soup bowl, sniffed loudly, and reluctantly opened a new bottle.
    Alex owns and runs Strangefellows, and possibly as a result, has a mad on for the whole world. He loathes his customers, despises tourists, and never gives the right change on principle. He also had his thirtieth birthday just the other day, which hadn’t helped. He always wore black, because, he said, he was in mourning for his sex life. (Gone, but not forgotten.) His permanent scowl had etched a deep notch between his eyebrows, right above the designer shades he always affected. He also wore a snazzy black beret, perched far back on his head to hide his spreading bald patch. I have known clinically depressed lepers with haemorrhoids who smiled more often than Alex Morrisey. Though at least he doesn’t have to worry when he sneezes. I leaned against the bar and looked at him reproachfully.
    “You never made me hot soup, Alex.”
    He sniffed loudly. “My home-made soup is full of things that are good for you, including a few that are downright healthful, all of which would be wasted on a body as ruined and ravaged as yours.”
    “Just because I don’t like vegetables…”
    “You’re the only man I know who makes the sign of the cross when confronted with broccoli. And don’t change the subject! Once again I am left clearing up the mess from one of your cases. Like I don’t have enough troubles of my own. Bloody eels have got into the beer barrels again, the pixies have been at the bar snacks, which they will live to regret, the poor fools, and my pet vulture is pregnant! Someone’s going to pay for this…”
    He broke off as Pen Donavon suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm. There was so little strength left in him it felt like a ghost tugging at my sleeve. His mouth worked for a moment before easing into something like a smile, and there were real tears of gratitude in his eyes.
    “Thank God you’re here, Mr. Taylor. I’ve been so afraid…They’re after me. Everyone’s after me. You have to protect me!”
    “Of course, of course I will,” I said soothingly. “You’re safe now. No-one’s going to get to you here.”
    “Just keep them away,” he said pathetically. “Keep them all away. I can’t think…I’ve been running from everyone. Either they want to pressure me into selling the Recording, or they want to kill me and take it. I can’t trust anyone any more. I thought I’d be safe, once I’d made my deal with the Unnatural Inquirer, but I was ambushed on my way there. I’ve been running and hiding ever since.”
    He let go of me and looked back at the full