Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

everyone’s surprise the bird sat there and let him do it. She actually looked bashfully at Arthur, and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Anyone else, she’d have had his hand off at the wrist.
    “Arthur’s always had a way with the beasts and the birds,” said Kae. “Never would go hunting with me.”
    “Barbarian sport,” Arthur said briskly. “Killing for necessity is one thing. You’re not supposed to enjoy it.”
    He studied the ranks of drinks available behind the bar and beamed happily. “We never had anything like this in my day, did we, Kae? Mead and uisge, and wines that were always half-way towards vinegar. This looks much more interesting. I want lots of drinks, and I want them now. Start pouring, bartender; I have it in me to try at least one of everything. Nothing like sleeping fifteen hundred years to work up a real thirst.”
    We all looked on, suitably impressed, as Arthur knocked back the drinks as fast as Alex could produce them, to no obvious effect. Kae smiled proudly, though I noticed he made no attempt to keep up with Arthur. I sipped at a wormwood brandy, to be sociable, while Suzie barely touched her bottle of Gordon’s Gin. She was still watching Arthur carefully. After a while, Arthur belched loudly, stretched as unselfconsciously as any cat, and looked at all the empty glasses racked up before him.
    “Don’t suppose there’s anything to eat here, is there?”
    “I wouldn’t,” I said quickly.
    Alex glared at me. “I’m sure I could find something ...”
    “That’s what worries me,” I said. “A somewhat merry King Arthur is one thing; a King full of killer E coli , bent over a toilet when he should be out saving the world, is quite another.”
    Alex sulked. “It’s been days since we had a real case of food poisoning.”
    “What about that nun who exploded?”
    “Coincidence!”
    Kae got Arthur really excited over the concept of cocktails, so I moved off down the bar and left them to it. I paused a moment to murmur in Suzie’s ear.
    “Why are you keeping such a close eye on King Arthur? He’s saying all the right things.”
    “They always do,” said Suzie. “You of all people should know that legends rarely turn out who you expect them to be.”
    “But this is King Arthur! If you can’t give someone like him the benefit of the doubt ...”
    “I have,” said Suzie. “I haven’t shot him yet.”
    “But can’t you ... well, just feel the nobility pouring off the man?”
    “I’ve never trusted my feelings,” said Suzie.
    I moved even further down the bar, took out my mobile phone, and contacted the Authorities, to find out what had been going on in the Nightside in my absence. I got put straight through to Julien Advent.
    “Where the hell have you been, Taylor? All hell’s breaking loose in the Nightside!”
    “It always is,” I said.
    “Not like this! You’d better come straight to me, so we can talk.”
    “Okay. Where are you?”
    “You’ve got Walker’s old watch. He programmed it to bring him right to me, in times of need. Open it and say my name, and it’ll lock on and bring you here.”
    He hung up on me. I took the gold watch out of my pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. I had to wonder what else Walker might have programmed into it. He always was a great believer in little surprises, and leaving nasty booby-traps for the unsuspecting. I looked back down the bar at the others.
    “I have to pop out for a minute. Arthur, don’t touch the bar snacks. Suzie, don’t let Alex put any of this on my bill. I’ll be back soon, then we can set about stopping the elf civil war and saving all Humanity if you’re not too busy.”
    “There’s time,” said Arthur expansively. “If there’s one thing sleeping for centuries teaches you, it’s that there’s always time. Now, Sir Alex, more of that peach brandy, I think. Yes. I like the peach brandy. Off you go, John Taylor. Don’t mind us. Lots of drinking still to do. Never face an elf sober; they’ll just take advantage.”
    I opened up the gold watch and got the hell out of Strangefellows before I said something someone might regret.

    The Portable Timeslip delivered me straight to Julien Advent, dropping me off right on the top of Griffin Hill. I arrived standing on the edge of the great pit where Griffin Hall had once stood, before the Devil himself appeared to drag it down into Hell, along with the Griffin himself and his awful wife. He really should have known better than to make