The Bride Wore Black Leather

put it away, and quickly explained my thinking to Cathy and Dennis. They both nodded quickly—Cathy excitedly, Dennis reluctantly. I looked out over the empty hole.
    “Den-Den; can you . . . ?”
    “I’ve been trying ever since we got here, Mr. Taylor; and I can’t feel a thing. Wherever the Bar’s gone, it’s way out my reach.”
    So I had no choice but to raise my gift again. It didn’t come easily. It was like lifting a dead weight, then forcing it to do tricks. But I made it work, through sheer will-power, and reached out with my gift to find the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille and call it back.
    It really was only a ghost, this time. A grey, semi-transparent shape, its colours a faded memory, with transparent walls, through which could be seen dark human figures, standing or sitting at tables, very still. All the people trapped inside when the Bar was forced out of Time and Space. It was a very tenuous, very flimsy manifestation; but it was quite definitely there, right in front of me. I could sense its presence, feel its living, conscious thoughts . . . but I couldn’t understand them. The Bar might be a sentient thing, but it wasn’t in any way human. How the hell was I going to get any answers out of it?”
    I turned to Dennis, but he was already shaking his head. “Wery sorry, Mr. Taylor, but I only work with deceased peoples.”
    “Try!” I said, very coldly. “Because every damned soul in the Nightside is depending on us, right now, and if we screw this up . . .”
    And then I stopped, as one of the dark figures inside the ghostly Bar rose abruptly from its table, then walked slowly through the Bar to the front door. None of the other figures moved, or even acknowledged it. The front door opened of its own accord, and the dark figure stood there, in the doorway. It looked at me. A cold hand took hold of my heart, and squeezed it tight. I knew that face. I hadn’t known Julien Advent back in the sixties, but he hadn’t changed at all. I wasn’t even born then, but he looked exactly the same. He spoke to me; but it was the voice and words of the Hawk’s Wind, speaking through the sixties incarnation of the Great Victorian Adventurer.
    I could tell.
    “The Sun King didn’t remove me from this reality,” said the Bar, through Julien’s mouth. “The Entities from Beyond did it.”
    “The Aquarians?” I said. My mouth was very dry.
    “That’s not their name. They removed me from the world because I’m the only part of the Nightside that the Sun King cares about. He went along with it because the Entities said it was important to remove the people held within me; but they lied.”
    “How do you know what the Entities want?” I said carefully.
    “Because you can’t hide the truth from the dead,” said the Bar. “Many things about the world become so much clearer, once you’re dead. Especially if you’ve chosen not to depart, just yet.”
    “How did you become . . . conscious?” I said.
    The sixties Julien actually smiled, briefly. “You should have been here, in the sixties. It was all going on.”
    “Why is the Sun King so determined to bring about the end of the night, and the Nightside?” I said.
    “Because he wants to bring back the great Dream of the sixties, and the Nightside is everything he disapproves of. He’s always had a very limited perception of what Dreams are. You can’t force them on people. He also wants everyone else to bow down to him, and admit that his Dream is better than theirs. Even if he won’t admit it to himself. He’s still very human.”
    I nodded slowly. So far, it all sounded plausible enough. Ghosts know everything because the world can’t hide anything from them, any more. The trick is to get ghosts to tell you the truth. Because the dead always have their own agendas. Hopefully, the Hawk Wind’s interests were the same as mine, in this case.
    “The Entities are lying to the Sun King,” said the Bar, in Julien Advent’s voice. “They always were. And they never were what he thought they were. Everything he does, he does to serve them and their true instincts. They will destroy me, and everyone trapped inside me, eventually. They’re only holding on to us now in case the Sun King should waver. We are hostages to his fortune. The Entities aren’t what he thinks they are.”
    “Then what are they?” I said. “Really?”
    “Hungry,” said the Hawk’s Wind.
    “Boss?” Cathy said quietly. “What’s it saying? I