The Bride Wore Black Leather

the Troops are around.”
    “What do they do?” I said, honestly curious. “Threaten to bukkake people to death if they get too close?”
    “For you, taste is something other people talk about, isn’t it?” said Julien. “I am told that if anyone does threaten the crime scene’s integrity, the Troops are quite capable of sending the perpetrator’s sex drive into reverse. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but it doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to experience.”
    Some of the people at the front of the crowd heard all this and showed a distinct interest in getting to the back of the crowd. I was careful to avoid the gaze of any of the naked people. Glancing in their general direction was enough to give me a pleasant but subtly disturbing buzz.
    “The previous Walker had a similar set of enforcers: the Holy Trio,” said Julien. “You broke them, didn’t you?”
    “You know damn well I did,” I said. “You wrote a whole editorial about what I did to them. Walker set them on me because I’d defied the previous Authorities. The Holy Trio derived their very unpleasant magics from energies stored up by a lifetime of celibacy and denial. I . . . defused them.”
    “You had them jumping each other in the street!” said Julien.
    “I made them happy,” I said, with dignity. “Which is more than the Authorities ever did. I’m told it took the medics three weeks to get the smiles off their faces.”
    “You always did fight dirty, John,” said Julien. “Anyway, the Tantric Troops work directly for the Authorities, not you. One less thing for you to bother yourself with.”
    “You’re so good to me,” I said. “You mean one more thing you can hold over me if I go off the rails or off the reservation. Let us be clear here, Julien; I am my own kind of Walker, and as long as I’m on the scene, I have authority. Not you, not the Authorities, and not this bunch of supernatural flashers.”
    “Of course,” said Julien. “Of course.”
    I gave him my best disdainful look, then, because we’d said all we could and couldn’t put it off any longer, we strode forward to look down into the hole. The naked people immediately fell back to give us room, for which I was quietly grateful. Walking between them sent my heart racing uncomfortably. They weren’t naked in a Strippers or Chippendales way, they were more like sky-clad witches, men and women of primal power, unbound by everyday restraints. They burned with dangerous attitude, drawing the eyes to them like moths to a naked flame. I stared straight ahead till I was comfortably past them, then stopped to stand right at the very edge of the great hole, looking down into it. There was nothing much to see. Only broken ground, dark earth, and bare stone; not even a single piece of rubble to mark the Hawk Wind’s passing. Julien stood beside me. If the Troops had bothered him, he kept it to himself.
    “The fire that burned down the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille was before my time,” I said. “But you were here, in 1970. Does this look anything like what was left behind then?”
    “There’s not a lot of difference, that I can see,” said Julien. “The blaze was . . . sudden, and extensive. The whole building went up in moments, with flames so fierce no-one could get close or even look at them directly for too long. Not a trace of the Bar remained; even the cellar was gone, leaving a hole exactly like this. Some said arson; some said a magical attack against one or other of the significant individuals who often visited. A few romantic souls said it was self-immolation, as a protest against the splitting up of the Beatles. No-one ever found out for sure.
    “The Bar’s owners were suspiciously eager to draw a line under the proceedings and replace the Bar with an entirely new building, something more modern and up-to-date. They’d made no secret they were tired of the whole sixties look, and that only public affection (and high profits) had kept them from making changes. This was their chance to go up-market, and attract a better (and better-paying) class of clientele.
    “And then the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille came back. Twenty-four hours after it burned down, there it was again. The ghost of a building, a haunting so strong you could walk around inside it, just like the original. Time passed, but not inside the Hawk’s Wind. The sixties lived on, as the decades passed, preserving all kinds of drinks and food and music you couldn’t