Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

and tall dark pain in the neck, Alex Morrisey, greeted Suzie and me with a sullen nod. Alex was born under a cloud, which surprised the midwife. He was the world’s first clinically depressed toddler, and has only got worse down the years. He only ever wears black, including shades and a beret, mixes the worst martinis in the world, doesn’t wash the glasses nearly often enough, and could gloom for the Olympics. Always check your change with Alex, and never ever try the bar snacks. You never know who they might have been. He glared at his pet vulture, Agatha, still perched menacingly on his old-fashioned till and still extremely pregnant. Alex put out a hand to pet her. The vulture fixed him with a malignant look, and Alex pulled his hand back.
    “I’ve lost track of how many months that damned bird has been pregnant,” he said bitterly as he poured me my usual wormwood brandy and handed Suzie her bottle of Gordon’s Gin. “Has to be well over a year now. I think she’s going for the record. Still no idea what the hell she mated with, but it must have been something really brave. Wouldn’t surprise me if she ate him afterwards. Or even during. I’m hoping it wasn’t a phoenix. You can’t get good fire insurance in the Nightside.”
    “That’s always been one of the big riddles,” I said. “If the phoenix is always born from the ashes of the previous phoenix, then who fired the first phoenix?”
    Suzie stopped sucking at her gin bottle long enough to say “Prometheus,” unexpectedly.
    Alex and I looked at her, then at each other, and shrugged pretty much in unison.
    “What are you doing here, John?” said Alex. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided you were too good for us, now you’re off hobnobbing with the aristocracy. It’ll all end in tears. The London Knights ... Give me a slippery floor and a can-opener, and I could take the lot of them.”
    “Pretty sure you couldn’t,” I said. “I’ve seen them fight. To be exact, I saw them take on a whole army of elves and make chutney out of them. And since they’re currently a bit annoyed with me ...”
    “He lost Excalibur,” said Suzie.
    “I’m getting it back!” I said quickly. “I’m here to use my gift, while you and Suzie run interference and keep the flies off. I can’t afford to be interrupted once I start concentrating.”
    “All right,” said Suzie, setting down her half-empty bottle. “Anyone bothers us, I’ll shoot them quietly.”
    “I’ll get a bucket and mop,” Alex said resignedly.
    “Don’t pop off yet,” I said. “I need to discuss something with you.”
    “Let’s start with your bar bill,” said Alex.
    “You know I’m good for it. Listen, remember the ... object I left here with you after the Angel War? The thing I asked you to hide for me? And never mention to anyone?”
    Alex lowered his sunglasses and studied me over them. “Are things really that serious?”
    “Could be,” I said. “I have a strong feeling things could get extremely unpleasant, then a whole lot worse, before they even look like getting better.”
    “Situation entirely bloody normal round here,” said Alex. “Hang on while I get my special gloves.”
    He reached under the counter and pulled out a pair of woollen mittens, specially knitted for him by the Holy Sisters of Saint Strontium. Guaranteed to protect his hands from anything up to and including the Holy Sisters. Alex went to the back of the bar and very carefully brought down a slender bottle labelled ANGEL’S TEARS, in Alex’s own appalling handwriting. He set the bottle down gently on the bar before us and the liquor inside swelled slowly from side to side, shining with delicate silver light. Angel’s Tears was a particularly vicious and brutal liquor that could not only open the doors of perception inside your mind, but blow the doors right off their hinges. Alex could only keep the liquor in stock for so long, then he had to take it out, bury it in unconsecrated ground, and run like hell. Alex broke the heavy wax seal with extreme care and reached inside the bottle with a pair of delicate silver tongs. And from out of the concealing liquor, he pulled a single long feather.
    It glowed faintly with its own light, a pure white feather of indescribable beauty and grace. It looked like the first, original feather, which all other feathers are based on. Alex laid it gently out on the bar counter, then put the bottle away. The feather lay there, utterly