Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

educate them,” I said cheerfully.
    He sighed. “It’s all going to end in tears. I know it.”

THREE
    The Memory That Bears the Gun Smoke’s Traces
    I might be going back to the real world, but no-one said I had to feel good about it. London Proper never did feel like home to me. Home is where monsters dwell; home is where someone tries to kill you every day; home ... is where you belong. I’ve always known I belong in the shadows, along with all the other shades of grey.
    But, in my business you go where the job takes you. So I headed for Whitechapel Underground Rail Station, with Suzie Shooter striding silently along beside me. She stared straight ahead, her face cold and composed and very dangerous, as always, and perhaps only I could recognise how much stress she was under. Suzie’s never been very demonstrative, except when she’s shooting people. It took her a long time to get on speaking terms with her emotions, and she still wasn’t sure what to do with some of them. And now here I was heading off into danger, into a part of my life she’d never known or shared, and I couldn’t let her come with me. I couldn’t, for all kinds of reasons. She wouldn’t lower herself to argue, and she had more pride than to sneak along after me, so she settled for escorting me to the station, to make sure no-one messed with me along the way. I didn’t say anything. How could I? I was always proud to have her walk beside me.
    Everyone took one look at her face and gave us even more room than usual.
    There are those who say Whitechapel was the first Underground railway station to be built in the Nightside, back in Victorian times, linking us to its duplicate in London Proper. Do I really need to tell you why they chose Whitechapel? The man currently known as Mr. Stab, the immortal uncaught serial killer of Old London Town, stuck a knife deep into the heart of the city, and while the blood was washed away long ago, the psychic wound remains. Back before the Underground, it was all hidden doors and secret gateways, and certain rather unpleasant methods provided by very private members-only clubs. Though there have always been weak spots in London Proper, places where anyone could take a wrong turn, walk down the wrong street, and end up in the night that never ends. Sin always finds a way.
    “So,” Suzie said abruptly, still staring straight ahead, “Walker’s dead, and now you’re in charge. Didn’t see that one coming.”
    “How about this,” I said, as casually as I could. “You’re going to need something to keep you occupied while I’m away. So I hereby deputise you to keep the peace while I’m gone. You can be Walker till I come back. Be tough but fair, and try not to shoot too many people.”
    She turned her cold gaze on me. “You give me the nicest presents, John.”
    “You can’t come with me, Suzie.”
    “You’re going back into the outside world, the London of guns and gangs and knives in the back. You need me.”
    “I’m all grown-up now, Suzie. I can cope. And I know how to fit in; you’ve lost that knack if you ever had it. I need to do my work under the radar, so I won’t be recognised or bothered by any of the outer world’s authorities. Official, or supernatural. Or, indeed, by any of the various enemies from my past who might still wish me ill.”
    “You’re trying to reason with me,” said Suzie. “You know I don’t do reasonable.”
    “I still know how to fake being normal, Suzie. You don’t.”
    “I haven’t been back to the real world since I first found my way here,” said Suzie. “Fifteen years old, on the run from everyone and everything. My dead brother’s blood still wet on my hands. Don’t know why I waited so long ... I should have killed him the first time he forced himself on me. You’re right, John. I wouldn’t know what to do in that world any more. I prefer it here, where I can be the monster I always knew I was.”
    I stopped, and she stopped with me. I looked her right in the eye, and held her cold gaze with my own.
    “He was the monster, Suzie. You did what people are supposed to do: you killed the monster. Now say good-bye and let me go.”
    “If they kill you ... I will go out into London Proper, kill them all, and burn the city down.”
    I smiled. “You say the sweetest things, Suzie.”
    We hugged each other, right there in the middle of the street, ignoring the people who hurried past. Suzie still had problems with public displays of