Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

him,” said Larry. “Whatever it takes.”
    “The Collector is a very powerful personage,” I said carefully. “The only reason he’s not a Major Player in the Nightside is because he can’t be bothered. He’s dedicated his life to acquiring rare and valuable objects. To help him in his search, he mastered sciences and magics and a whole bunch of other disciplines most people have never even heard of. Also, he steals time machines. He’s a fanatic, and dangerous with it.”
    “I know,” said Larry. “And I don’t care.”
    The rain was getting heavier. I moved us under a candy-striped awning to continue our conversation. Being dead, Larry probably didn’t care about getting soaked, but I’ve always been susceptible to chills.
    “Look,” I said, “he isn’t in it for the money. His collection is everything to him. So if he has taken to collecting people, you can be sure he won’t give Tommy up without a fight.”
    “I know,” said Larry. “And I still don’t care. One of the few good things about being dead is that you only have to care about the things you choose to care about. Let him do his worst. He can’t hurt me.”
    “Maybe not,” I said. “But he could destroy you. Or make you into one of his exhibits. Or do a hundred other awful things that death could not protect you from.”
    Larry thought about it. “What are his protections like?”
    “Top of the range, magical and scientific, and a few things we don’t even have a name for. Weapons and defences he’s collected from the past, the future, and any number of alternate realities. Plus his own private army of vicious little rococo robots. And let us not forget his latest acquisition, a time-travel device that apparently allows him to jump inside other people’s heads and look out through their eyes.”
    “Ah,” said Larry. “Better kill him on sight, then.”
    I had to smile at his confidence. “Better men than you and I have tried and failed. I’ve managed to outwit him on a few occasions, but only because he’s not too tightly wrapped. In his own way he’s just as dangerous as his old friend Walker.”
    Larry looked at me sharply. “They know each other? I didn’t know that.”
    “They started out together,” I said. “Thick as thieves and twice as tricky. And the fact that Walker is sending us, rather than facing the Collector himself, should tell you something.”
    “Why is nothing ever simple?” said Larry, wistfully.
    I shrugged. “It’s the Nightside. Everything’s complicated here, including the Collector. He wasn’t always crazy. He isn’t always the villain. For all his many sins, he did help save us all from Lilith during the War.”
    “I don’t care,” Larry said stubbornly.
    “What do you care about?” I said. I was honestly interested in the answer.
    He didn’t hesitate. “I care about family, and friends. No-one else. Nothing else. We’re going to get Tommy back even if we have to do it over the Collector’s dead and lifeless body.”
    “I seem to remember you saying something about Heaven and Hell seeming a lot closer, since you died,” I said. “Are you really ready to murder a man, before you know the whole story? He could be innocent in this.”
    “No-one’s innocent in the Nightside,” said Larry. “Innocent people don’t come here. You know the Collector better than me; can you honestly say he hasn’t done anything to deserve being killed?”
    “No,” I said. “I can’t say that. But that’s not a good enough reason to shoot him on sight. Let me try talking to him first.”
    “Getting soft, Taylor,” said Larry.
    I remembered meeting the Collector in a horrible, devastated future Nightside, the one I was supposed to bring about and had worked so hard to prevent. I remembered the horrible things the Collector did there, and the worse things he was prepared to let happen. I remembered how, long ago, he had found my mother for my father and put them together, and all the terrible things that came out of that. Including me. But I still wasn’t ready to see him dead. If only because he’d also been Uncle Mark, when I was a kid.
    I used my gift to find the Collector’s current lair. He was always on the move, hiding his vast collection in more and more obscure locations, away from enemies and rivals and people like me. My inner eye snapped open as my gift manifested, and I shot up out of my head, my Sight soaring higher and higher into the night, sailing weightlessly