The Bride Wore Black Leather

to keep a check on the stock, take care of trouble-makers, and clean up afterwards. The bar bill for tonight will be my wedding gift, to you and Suzie. Oh, and Cathy’s bought you a foot spa. Don’t ask me why.”
    I looked at the dusty and deceptively innocent-looking bottles crowded together at the back of the bar. “I thought you had some pretty dangerous stuff back there.”
    Alex smiled. “Oh, I do, I do. It’s all carefully marked OFF LIMITS , along with a sign saying TRESPASSERS WILL BE TRANSMOGRIFIED . If anyone’s dumb enough to ignore the warning signs, they deserve everything that happens to them. I was sort of hoping Cathy would be free to help out, but it seems she’s organising Suzie’s hen do. Probably involving obscenely named cocktails and unsafe humping and grinding with improperly dressed Chippendales. The poor bastards. And no, before you ask, I don’t know where it’s being held, and we’re almost certainly better off not knowing. We can listen for the sound of excessive gunfire and explosions.”
    He moved away, to put out small bowls of bar snacks that no-one in their right mind would touch, and I went back to looking over the crowded room. Dead Boy and Razor Eddie had turned up. Dead Boy was loudly talking up the murder case at the Ball of Forever and greatly exaggerating his own part in it. He already had his arms around two female ghouls dressed in rotting Playboy Bunny outfits. Razor Eddie stood a little to one side, sipping his designer water and nodding in agreement, now and again. The girl ghouls eyed him uncertainly, and manoeuvred Dead Boy to make sure they maintained a respectful distance. Because there are some smells even ghouls have trouble with.
    Dead Boy swaggered over to the bar to order two Really Bloody Marys for his new ghoul-friends, and nodded easily to me. He reached inside his long greatcoat to scratch fitfully at his autopsy scar, his usual sign that he had something embarrassing he needed to discuss.
    “There are rumours going around,” he said carefully. “Foul and vicious exaggerations, no doubt, that there’s a fight brewing between you and Razor Eddie. He won’t talk to me about it, but then he rarely talks to me about anything. Never was much of a one for the talking, our Razor Eddie. Tell me it’s not true, John. Tell me you have enough sense not to pick a fight with the legendarily dangerous Punk God of the Straight Razor.”
    “It’s some prophecy,” I said. “A glimpse of a future that might or might not happen. Certainly I’ve no intention of letting things get that far.”
    “You do know,” said Dead Boy, not quite looking in my direction, “if it does all kick off, you can always rely on me.”
    I looked at him thoughtfully. “You’d take on the dreaded and justly feared Razor Eddie, for me?”
    “Well,” he said. “Not necessarily for you, John, or at least, not just for you. But, come on; you must have wondered at some time or another whether you could take Razor Eddie. I know I have.”
    “Testosterone is a terrible thing,” observed Alex.
    Razor Eddie turned his head suddenly to look at us as he settled into his private booth at the back of the bar, with his usual calm and unconcerned face—as though he knew we were talking about him. Even though there was no way he could have heard us through the general bedlam of raised voices. Except . . . he was Razor Eddie. We all nodded to each other, as though our gazes had happened to meet, in a friendly enough way; and then he went back to staring at nothing, and Dead Boy and I looked at each other.
    “He really is a spooky bugger,” said Dead Boy, nodding to Alex as he collected his two Really Bloody Marys with real blood, and a Valhalla Venom for himself. He gave me a sideways look. “I’ve never known what you see in him.”
    “Lot of people say the same to me about you,” I said.
    “Really?” said Dead Boy. “Can’t think why. Life and soul of the party, that’s me, even though I’m dead. You’ll have to excuse me now; my new ghoul-friends are waiting, and I don’t know how long they’ll last.”
    He took his drinks away, and, after a moment’s thought, I made my way through the tightly packed crowd to join Razor Eddie in his private booth. I sat down opposite him, and he nodded to me gravely. There was plenty of room at the table; no-one else was going to sit with him. And not only because of the smell. I leaned forward and made a point of meeting his