Nightside 09 - Just Another Judgement Day

eventually.”
    “Hardly,” Joan said easily. “You and I are the perfect example of the only child. Self-sufficient, self-taught, a legend in our own lifetime by our own efforts. Was your mother . . . ?”
    “Yes. Did you . . . ?”
    “Yes.” Her smiled widened. “And I made her beg before I killed her.”
    I smiled. “We’re not even remotely alike. My partner is a professional. Yours is a psychopath.”
    “Perhaps,” said Joan. “But he’s my psychopath.”
    Stephen Shooter giggled suddenly. A brief, disturbing sound. “It’s true, it’s true. I do enjoy my work. That’s why I’m so good at it. Practice makes perfect.”
    “You talk too much,” said Suzie.
    “How did the two of you end up here?” I said, before things could get out of hand. I needed to keep Joan talking, buy myself some time, because I was counting on there being one major difference between us and them.
    “We made the old home-town a touch too hot for us,” Joan said coyly. “We’d spent years together as soldiers for hire, professional trouble-shooters, whatever euphemism floats your boat, but we made the mistake of taking out a very well-connected functionary called Walker. It was all his fault. Stupid old man, thinking he could tell us who we could and couldn’t kill. We’d have done him for the fun of it, but luckily he had an awful lot of enemies . . . Stephen blew him in half with his shotgun, and we laughed about it all the way home. But it turned out Walker also had friends, rich and powerful friends, and, just like that, no-one loved us any more. So when the Baron very kindly offered us a regular gig and a guaranteed new start . . .”
    “We killed a whole bunch of people, settled some old scores, burned down half the town, and escaped here before anyone knew we were gone,” said Stephen. He was grinning, a loose, crafty smile with far too many teeth in it.
    “We’ve been here for ages,” said Joan Taylor. “Doing all sorts of things you wouldn’t approve of. You’ll probably take the blame for a lot of them. Everyone knows about you, but no-one knows about us. Though I can’t say I believe half the things they say about you.”
    “Goody Goody Two-shoes,” said Stephen.
    “Any chance we can make a deal?” I said.
    Joan raised an eyebrow. “Would you?”
    “No,” I said. “Your very existence offends me.”
    I lunged forward and punched her right in the face. She fell backwards, sprawling awkwardly on the floor. She hadn’t even had the time to take her hands out of her pockets. I looked round, and Suzie had already taken her shotgun away from Shooter and back-elbowed him in the throat. I grinned. Sometime back, Suzie and I had both received werewolf blood, diluted enough that we were in no danger of turning were, but still potent enough that we healed really quickly. My aches were already fading away. I looked down at Joan Taylor and smiled as she scrambled angrily back on to her feet.
    We stood facing each other, hands clenched into fists at our sides as we concentrated, both of us calling on our gifts. I opened my inner eye, my third eye, and studied her coldly, searching for some gap in her defences, something I could use against her. I could feel her doing the same thing. Strange energies flickered on and off in the air between us, a tension of unseen forces building and building until they had to explode somewhere. My gift versus hers. It was like arm-wrestling with invisible, intangible arms.
    I was vaguely aware of all hell breaking loose in the hospital ward, as Suzie and Stephen went head to head. Shotgun blasts were going off all over the place, accompanied by the roar of grenades. Beds overturned, and patients were thrown out, disconnected from their supporting tech. Dark smoke drifted across the ward as equipment caught fire.
    I couldn’t let this go on. We were too evenly matched with our duplicates, and too many innocents were getting hurt. So I found a slippery patch under Joan’s left foot, let her stumble and lose her concentration for a moment, then I yelled to Suzie.
    “Hey, Suzie! Switch partners and dance!”
    She grasped the idea immediately and turned her shotgun on Joan Taylor. And while Stephen Shooter hesitated, I used my gift to find the one pin that wasn’t secure in his grenades. It popped out, Stephen glanced down, and there was a swift series of explosions, as the one grenade set off all the others. Small parts of Stephen Shooter went flying all over the