The Bride Wore Black Leather

“If they like having their tongues attached. But she’s right, John; I always have loved addressing an audience. Those were my happiest days, preaching in Haight-Ashbury. So why St. Jude’s? Because this particular place was here before the Nightside was here. A holy place, where Heaven touched Earth, briefly, and made a connection. This location was sacred long before someone built a church here, and made it Christian with a saint’s name. Think of St. Jude’s as a conduit, where here meets the hereafter. Where reality itself can be overwritten, by a greater power.
    “I will call on the Aquarians, and they will fill me with their power, in this place where miracles happen and dreams come true. I will bring the sun here, and let the sun shine in, and it will shed its natural light over this unnatural darkness and make it what it should always have been. Sunnyside! Let us all hail the Age of Aquarius, and the soul’s true liberation! All things shall be made well, all hurts healed, and good things will happen every day.”
    “You can’t do that,” I said.
    He glared at me, irritated at being interrupted in midflow. “Oh, I think you’ll find I can. I must. I have to save the world. From itself, if need be.”
    “You don’t understand!” I said. “You’ve never understood how important the Nightside is, just as it is! We are the last-ditch defence, against things like the Aquarians, or whatever they really are. What the good guys can’t do, we will. The Nightside is here to do whatever needs doing, to defend Humanity, and the world. Your Aquarian masters need you to destroy us, so they can invade our reality. You must see that! They’re not Entities, they’re Enemies!”
    At the end I was shouting at him, but he didn’t flinch. None of it touched him. He smiled coldly, condescendingly.
    “You’re so desperate now you’d say anything, anything at all to stop me, wouldn’t you? Well, tough. Here comes the Sun.”
    At that moment, the shotgun blast hit him square in the chest, punching him right off his feet, and backwards over the stone altar. Blood flew on the air, and the Sun King hit the floor behind the altar. He hit it hard, and didn’t move again. And while the sound of the shotgun blast was still ringing on the close air of the church, I turned to look; and there was Shotgun Suzie, my Suzie, standing behind me. Smoke still rising from both barrels of her pump-action shotgun. She stood tall and proud in her black motorcycle leathers, my blonde-haired Valkyrie. She smiled at me.
    “You didn’t really think I’d leave you to do all this on your own, did you?”
    “I thought you’d never get here,” I said. Because I had to say something.
    Suzie racked new shells into place and strode forward to join me, tilting the gun up and back to rest on her leather-clad shoulder. I made myself stand very still. Hope was a small and fragile thing in my heart, and I didn’t want to do anything to disturb it.
    “I knew someone would be listening in on my phone,” she said, in her cool, calm voice. “It’s what I would have done. So I said what they expected me to say. And once everyone knew I was pursuing you for the bounty on your head, most of the other would-be bounty hunters quietly dropped out of the race. Rather than go up against me. I’ve been trailing you at a distance for ages, taking out anyone who looked like getting too close. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve saved your life, tonight. You didn’t even notice, did you? All caught up in the thrill of the chase. You always did need me to watch your back. And now here we are, at the end of the trail. Together again.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “You’re being very quiet, John. You didn’t really think I’d turned against you, did you?”
    “Of course not,” I lied.
    Suzie looked at me, for a long moment. “It must have been very hard for you, out there on your own. All your friends turned against you. I’m glad you found Cathy.”
    “More like I found him!” Cathy said cheerfully. “So you never wanted the bounty on John’s head?”
    “There’s only ever been one bounty, as far as I was concerned,” said Suzie. “And that was on the Sun King. No-one messes with my man and gets away with it.”
    “You are a very frightening person,” said Cathy. “Don’t know what he sees in you.”
    But they were both smiling. They never doubted me for a moment. They were always better people than me.
    We