The Bride Wore Black Leather

to tell your brothers about the price you paid to be allowed entrance to the Deep School?” said King of Skin.
    “King . . . of what, exactly?” said Hadleigh, still smiling. “And . . . of Skin? Who’s skin, or skins? How deep does beauty go with you?”
    And to everyone’s surprise, even shock, King of Skin broke first. He seemed to shrink in on himself as though some vital part of his confidence had been broken. He turned his back on Hadleigh, marched over to the buffet table, and made a big show of being interested in the delicacies on offer. Hadleigh looked after him, clearly considering whether he should continue the confrontation; but he smiled briefly and wandered off in the opposite direction. Quite clearly the winner. Of something. Many hands came out, to clap him on the back or the shoulder, though no-one actually said anything. King of Skin might have picked the wrong victims for one day . . . but no-one doubted there would be other days and other victims.
    A slow buzz of confused, mystified conversation rose among the gathered immortals as they tried to work out what had just happened. After all, no-one defied King of Skin. Everyone present was very interested in working out the details, if only so they could use it themselves, in the future.
    I went back to working the crowd, but even after what had just occurred, no-one was prepared to talk to me. A scary reputation only works when you aren’t surrounded by people even scarier than you. I passed by the Merlin Memorial Chair, standing on its own in a corner; much like Razor Eddie. The chair was a duplicate of Merlin’s old throne, made from dark ironwood and wrapped in fresh mistletoe. The immortals always give it a place of honour at their Ball because most of them are convinced he’s coming back. I was pretty sure he wasn’t, but I’ve been wrong about that before, so I didn’t say anything.
    I sat down on the throne, casually crossing my legs, to make a point, and looked out over the crowd. I’d never seen so many immortals in one place, acting more or less politely. And then . . . a teenage boy caught my eye. A long, sulky streak of lukewarm water, wearing distressed jeans and battered knock-off sneakers, and a grubby T-shirt under a hooded grey jacket. He stood alone, scowling at everyone, his hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets, the archetypal teenage hoodie. I couldn’t make out what the hell he was doing at the Ball of Forever, among people who were probably ancient before his great-grandparents were born. I didn’t recognise him as anyone special, or important. No-one had actually challenged his right to be there, yet, but he was getting a number of glances, none of them good. So I got up off Merlin’s throne and went over to find out who he was. Because if there was going to be trouble at the Ball, I wanted to start it.
    I walked right up to him and planted myself in front of him, so he couldn’t ignore me. “Hello!” I said cheerfully. “Isn’t the ambience awful? You probably know who I am; but who are you?”
    He looked me straight in the eye, and like that he didn’t look like a teenager any more. His eyes were old, very old, and his slow smile had generations of experience behind it.
    “Call me Rogue,” he said, and his voice was rich with contempt and soaked in pride. “I’m one of the few real immortals here, from the Family of Immortals.”
    Everyone around us stopped talking, to stare at Rogue. We’d all heard of the Family of Immortals; the half-legendary, very long-lived family supposed to run the world from behind the scenes, for a thousand years and more . . . but no-one had ever met one, before now. Everyone at the Ball was an immortal of one kind or another, but none of them had families. They were all unique, unable to pass on what made them immortal. But the Family of Immortals had bred slow, but true, for hundreds of years.
    Everyone here had heard the story, that the Family of Immortals had very recently been wiped out, slaughtered, by the equally as legendary Drood family, those very secret agents for the Good. I wasn’t the only one startled to discover that one of the few survivors of that massacre was this sulky-looking teenager.
    “I did hear that the Family of Immortals is no more,” I said carefully. “The Droods are, after all, usually very thorough when it comes to wiping out threats to Humanity.”
    “Some of us got away,” said Rogue. “Even Droods can’t be