Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

and frowned at Hadleigh.
    “You know where Tommy is, don’t you? When Larry asked, you said, Closer than you think.”
    “Yes,” Hadleigh said equably. “I know. I’ve known all along. But I had to wait until you and Walker had put an end to your business. That was more important. What just happened here will affect the Nightside for generations to come.”
    “How ...?”
    “Tommy is in no danger where he is. He’s just ... lost, and needs our help to find his way home. Come on; Larry’s waiting. Impatiently, I have no doubt.”
    I looked down the mountain side, at the dark and angry jungle that covered its slopes. “You going to call one of Larry’s limousines?”
    “Oh,” said Hadleigh, “I think we can do better than that.”
    He seemed to turn sideways, then keep on turning, and the sheer force of his unnatural motion dragged me along with him. In a moment we were both back at the Cheyne Walk approach, and Larry actually jumped as we appeared out of nowhere right in front of him. The few remaining onlookers took our reappearance as their cue to be getting along. I grinned at Hadleigh.
    “Nice trick. Could you teach me to do that?”
    “Depends. How attached are you to your sanity?”
    “We’re still on speaking terms, which given my life is actually quite an achievement.”
    “Where the hell have you been?” demanded Larry, glaring at both of us. “I thought you were here to help find Tommy, Hadleigh, but all you’ve done so far is stand around looking enigmatic, then disappear after Taylor.”
    “Tommy’s right here with you, in a sense,” said Hadleigh. “It’s time to bring him back. I had to wait for John to acquire the last necessary piece of the puzzle. You do have the Collector’s device, don’t you, John?”
    I took it out of my coat. Larry regarded it dubiously, while Hadleigh nodded a bit smugly.
    “Put it on, John, and raise your gift. Then focus your gift through the device, and it will lead you right to Tommy.”
    I raised the device with both hands, then hesitated as I remembered Walker doing the same thing. I cautiously lowered the future-science thing onto my head, while some small part of me gleefully thought, I crown thee King John the First of the Nightside. The device settled itself onto my head, feeling a lot heavier than it had in my hands. A series of small pin-pricks ran around my scalp as the device established contact, and sharp stabs of lightning detonated inside my head, as long-quiet parts of my mind woke up and made themselves known.
    I raised my gift and a huge charge ran through my mind, blasting my inner eye wide open. And suddenly I could See a whole lot more of the world than I ever had before. All the secrets that had been hidden from me, all the wonders and terrors that my Sight either couldn’t or wouldn’t See; because the world is so much more full than we ever realise. I made myself concentrate on Tommy, and immediately I was surrounded by ghosts. Soft ghosts, people worn thin and ragged at the edges—vague, undefined, faceless. Walking through the hard places of the world as though they weren’t there. Haunted by their own past, forever always just out of their reach. Dazed, confused, helpless ... lost.
    One of them was Tommy Oblivion. I was looking through his eyes now, Seeing the world he saw. He had become a soft ghost. I could sense his presence, his drifting, unfocused thoughts. More than dreaming, but far from awake. The Collector’s device brought our two minds together, and I could actually feel his thoughts concentrating, his identity coming into focus for the first time in a long time, strengthened and stabilised by my presence.
    “John?” said Tommy Oblivion. “John Taylor? Is that you?”
    “Yes, Tommy. I’m here with you. I’ve been looking for you. I’ve come to take you home.”
    “Home ... I’ve been trying to find my way home for such a long time ... What happened?”
    “I was hoping you could tell me, Tommy. Do you remember the Lilith War?”
    “Hell, yes! There was a mob ... out of their minds, swarming all over me, trying to kill me. There was no way to escape, so ... I used my special gift and made myself existential. Neither one thing nor another, neither here nor there, living or dead. It saved me from the mob, but in that existential state I drifted out of reality, or turned sideways from it ... and became enduringly uncertain. In reality, but not of it.”
    “A soft ghost,” I said.
    “Yes ... I