A Hard Day's Knight n-11 Read online

  I gave her a stern look. “You’ve been watching the History Channel again.”

  She laughed and let go of me. She started towards the table, reached out to grasp the sword’s hilt, then stopped.

  “This sword fascinates me,” she said slowly. “It’s one of the greatest weapons in the world. But as much as I want to, I can’t bring myself to touch it. I don’t think it wants me to. As though ... I’m not worthy.”

  “Hell with that,” I said immediately, carefully keeping it light. “If I’m worthy, you’re worthy. No, I think it’s just ... we’re back to the destiny thing again. It wants me.”

  “So we’re back to the main question,” said Suzie, glaring at the sword with her arms folded firmly across her chest. “Why would anyone send Excalibur to you?”

  “I think it’s my turn to feel hurt,” I said. “Are you implying that I am not worthy?”

  She snorted briefly. “Don’t start getting ideas above your station.”

  “I am, let us not forget, the son of a Biblical Myth.”

  “And look how that turned out.”

  “Good point,” I said. It was my turn to look thoughtfully at the sword. “Maybe ... I’m supposed to hold on to the sword, guard and protect it, until its rightful owner turns up.”

  “You mean Arthur? King Arthur? The King Arthur?”

  “Why not?” I said reasonably. “We spent enough time in Merlin’s company ... Dead, but definitely not departed enough for my liking. A lot of people believe Arthur is still out there, somewhere, sleeping in state until the day shall come when he will be needed again, to lead us all in the Final Battle. I used to love all those books when I was a kid.”

  “This is sounding worse and worse,” said Suzie. “If Excalibur’s turned up, does that mean we’re on the verge of the Final Battle? I’ve already been through the Angel War and the Lilith War. I think I’m entitled to a little rest between Armageddons.”

  “I wish everyone would stop talking about those two wars as if they were my fault!”

  “Well, they were.”

  “Only indirectly!”

  “Don’t shout, or I’ll give you a headache,” said Suzie. “Still, it has been a little quiet of late. I could use some exercise. It’s been a while since I killed a whole bunch of people.”

  “I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about this,” I said.

  Suzie looked at me thoughtfully. “How did the sword feel when you handled it?”

  “Light,” I said. “Almost weightless. Good balance.”

  “No, John. How did it feel ...”

  I thought about it. “Like it could do anything. Like I could do anything. Like nothing in this world could stand against us as long as we fought in a noble cause.”

  On an impulse, I picked up the scabbard and slung it over my shoulder. Leather straps appeared out of nowhere, and I pulled them into place, securing the scabbard on my back. My hands moved expertly, knowing exactly what to do. I could feel the weight of the sword, hanging all the way down my back, almost to my heels. I could sense the hilt standing up behind my left shoulder, waiting to be drawn. I could feel Excalibur’s presence, like a shield at my back that no weapon could ever pierce. Like another pair of eyes, watching out for me. I was so taken up with all these new feelings that it took me a moment to notice that Suzie was looking at me very strangely.

  “What?” I said.

  Suzie walked round me in a tight circle, examining me from all angles. “The moment you strapped that sword into place, it vanished. Gone. Invisible. Are you sure it’s still there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I can feel the weight of it, the pressure of its purpose. And it feels like it’s got my back.”

  “You used to feel that way about me,” said Suzie.

  “I still do!”

  “Shouting again ...”

  “I trust you with my life, Suzie. Which is more than I’ll say about Excalibur. I can’t help feeling that this sword has its own agenda.”

  “Yes, well, that’s magic swords for you,” said Suzie. “And destiny, for that matter. I suppose it’s too late to mark it RETURN TO SENDER and throw the thing out?”

  “Almost certainly,” I said. “It’s no good, Suzie; I’m going to need help with this one. Very specialised help and advice. And there’s only one place I can think of that’s a real authority on all things Arthurian. I’m going to have to leave the Nightside and go back out into London Proper. And talk with the London Knights.”

  “You have got to be kidding. Those arrogant, stuck-up, conceited little prigs?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s the ones.”

  “You are not going anywhere until we’ve talked this through very thoroughly. You don’t have to leave the Nightside, John. This place is lousy with all kinds of experts, on every subject under the sun, and a whole bunch of other things that can only thrive in permanent darkness. There are people here who know something about everything, everything about something, and ... there has to be somebody here! There has to be.”

  “Not this time,” I said gently. “Excalibur is too ... pure for the Nightside. Pure in purpose and nature. It has to be the London Knights. After all: who has a better claim to Excalibur than the last defenders of Camelot?”

  Suzie sniffed loudly. Her way of saying that while I might have convinced her, there was no way in hell she was going to admit it. And being Suzie, she immediately attacked from another direction.

  “I thought you said you felt a responsibility to take over Walker’s position, here in the Nightside?”

  “I do,” I said. “But that can wait. This ... is bigger. I’m hoping Excalibur has reappeared to prevent a Final Battle rather than start one. But I can’t know for sure, and I won’t know what to do for the best until I’ve talked with the London Knights.”

  Suzie looked at me for a long moment with her cold blue eyes and her cold, expressionless face. She might be easier with me physically these days, but emotions were always going to be difficult for her.

  “You’ve been gone from London Proper for a long time, John. They didn’t treat you at all well, out there in the real world.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t say I was ever happy there. And there are probably still a lot of really nasty people who would love to have another crack at me. Never mind those I still owe money to. But I was hiding my light under a bushel in those days, pretending to be merely another private investigator. I’m so much more than that now.”

  “Ah well,” said Suzie. “If you’ve got enemies there, that simplifies things. I’ll have to go with you. Hang on while I go gather up my guns and grenades.”

  “You can’t come with me, Suzie.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because you can’t walk round London Proper loaded down with guns and grenades like you do here. The police would arrest you on sight. And you know you wouldn’t get on with the London Knights. They’re very ... spiritual.”

  “You mean superior!”

  “Well, yes, that, too. They are knights of the realm.”

  “Stuck-up pricks ...”

  “Suzie, be reasonable ...”

  “I don’t do reasonable! It’s bad for my reputation. You are not going back into London Proper without me! Or try and deal with those aristocratic head-cases on your own. They’ll talk you into things. Probably persuade you to hand Excalibur over to them because it ought to belong to one of their kind!” She scowled fiercely. “Look at what owning the sword has already done to us. You think now you’ve got Excalibur, you don’t need me to guard your back any more.”

  “I’ll always need you, Suzie ...”

  “Don’t you patronise me!”

  “I can’t let you go with me! Not this time.”

  “You mean you don’t want me to.”

  “Of course I want you to!”

  “Then that’s settled,” said Suzie. “I’m going.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said, hanging on to my self-control as best I could. �
�Look, Suzie, this has to be a diplomatic mission. The London Knights aren’t going to share their most valued secrets with me unless they’re convinced I respect their position and authority in these matters. I am going to have to be very diplomatic. And you don’t really do diplomacy. Do you?”

  There was a long pause. And then Suzie said, very grudgingly, “I could learn ...”

  “Not in time you couldn’t,” I said, hiding my relief behind a reasonable voice. “I have to do this alone. I’ll be fine. Trust me. When I get back, we’ll—what the hell is that noise outside?”

  “I don’t know,” said Suzie. “But whoever it is, they’ve picked a really bad time to annoy me. I am in the mood to take out my displeasure on someone. You check the front door. I am going to load up on guns and grenades.”

  We left the kitchen. It seemed to me that the noise outside had been building for some time, but I’d only just noticed it consciously. It sounded like a crowd of some size had gathered outside the house, and none of them sounded too happy about being there. I opened the front door and looked out; and the whole street was packed full of people. They took one look at me and went ballistic. The noise level shot right off the scale as they shouted and yelled and hurled abuse, stamping their feet and shaking their fists. I ostentatiously ignored the commotion, knowing that would annoy them most, and looked up and down the street. My house appeared to be under siege by hundreds of people, all of them with one thing on their minds. I could tell that from the loud chant that had gone up.

  “Excalibur! Excalibur! Excalibur!”

  Suzie squeezed in beside me in the doorway and glared out at the crowd. The chanting died away.

  “Get off my lawn!” said Suzie.

  “I think you need grass for it to be a lawn,” I said. “And we got rid of that when we laid down the land mines.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” Suzie said vaguely, scowling indiscriminately at the crowd, who were looking at anything except her. Those at the back started shoving those at the front forward. General pushing and shoving in the crowd increased over who had the better right to approach us and who had the better right to stand at the back shouting orders. It was mostly groups, along with certain individual protestors, and I recognised quite a few of them. The Salvation Army Sisterhood were out in force: overmuscled nuns of the militant persuasion. God-botherers with attitude, they were always heavily armed, the better to get their point across. Maintaining a respectful distance from the nuns were representatives of the Church of the Riddle of Steel, all the way from the Street of the Gods. They dressed like Vikings, right down to the culturally inaccurate horned helmets, and they worshipped swords. And not in a good way. At least half a dozen different groups of the Arthur Is Not Dead Only Sleeping persuasion were arguing fiercely with each other over obscure points of dogma that probably meant nothing to anyone except them.

  Plus, a whole bunch of notorious faces, well-known on the scene, determined to get their hands on one of the most dangerous weapons of all time, by whatever means necessary. Either because they had their own plans for it, or thought they could sell it to people who did have plans. Most of them had come armed or with armed body-guards. There was even a contingent who’d turned up in full armour, riding caparisoned horses with brightly coloured plumes.

  And every now and again a voice would rise up from somewhere in the crowd, loudly proclaiming that Merlin was a louse.

  The crowd was getting out of hand, so I stepped forward and held up a hand to get their attention. Somewhat to my surprise, the whole lot immediately fell silent. In fact, there was something very like a breathless hush as they all waited to see what I was going to say. Which threw me a bit. I wasn’t used to that. I gave them all my very best hard stare.

  “What are you doing here?”

  They waited to see if I was going to say anything else, and when it became clear that I wasn’t, they all looked at each other in a confused sort of way. Finally, one of the nuns stepped forward, bobbed a curtsey, made the sign of the cross, and adjusted the Smith & Wesson .45 on her hip.

  “Because you’ve got Excalibur. Haven’t you?”

  I did consider denying it, just to wind them up a bit more, but I didn’t have the energy.

  “How did you know Excalibur was here?”

  “You drew the sword,” the nun said flatly. “You should have known it would blaze so very brightly, in such a dark place. We’ve all been waiting for the sword to reveal itself. Precogs and oracles have been predicting its arrival in the Nightside for months now, but due to its overwhelming nature, no-one could pin it down. Most groups have been running a countdown to today, ready and poised to spot the sword the moment it made its location clear. Once you drew Excalibur and revealed it to the world, we all came running. The sword of destiny must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands!”

  A great roar of agreement went up from the crowd, which fell apart almost immediately as everyone began arguing fiercely over whose were the right hands. Merlin got called a louse again.

  “Okay!” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the general clamour. “That takes care of how. Now would anyone care to take a stab at why?”

  “Give us Excalibur!” cried the Salvation Army Sisterhood.

  “We demand you turn the sword of destiny over to us!” yelled a rather podgy Viking, who was quite clearly wearing a long blond wig under his horned helmet.

  “Only we have the right to Excalibur!” roared a knight in full armour.

  “Merlin is a louse!”

  “Will somebody please shut him up!”

  Then they all fell on each other, the whole crowd fighting for the right to be heard, the right to bear Excalibur, and the right to smite the unbeliever, knock him down, and trample him underfoot. Swords were brandished, magics were unleashed, and punches were thrown when only close quarters would do. There was also a fair amount of gunfire, from the non-traditionalists and those only in it for the money. The crowd had become a mob, surging dangerously back and forth at the bottom of my property. The most enthusiastic groups quickly wiped each other out, and there was then a general tapering off of violence as calmer and more moderate voices made themselves heard, urging that they all work together to take Excalibur from me, by force if necessary. A few self-appointed spokesmen (there are always a few), came right to the edge of my non-lawn and shouted their demands at me. Well, demand, really. They wanted me to hand over Excalibur. Right now. Please.

  I shook my head; and before I could even begin to explain why, the whole crowd went apeshit all over again. They surged forward into my garden. Or non-lawn. Or whatever else you wanted to call it. I always thought of it as my first line of defence.

  One of the first things Suzie and I did when we moved in was dig up the flower garden at the front of the house and lay down a whole mess of land mines. To keep out the uninvited and ruin an investigative journalist’s day. There was a series of loud explosions as the first wave of the crowd hit the first wave of mines, and bits and pieces of people went flying in all directions. Blood splashed everywhere, and black smoke billowed across the property. There were a few brief screams, but that was mostly from those in the second wave, being forced onwards by those behind. The crowd pressed on, and that was when the invisible floating curses kicked in. There was a flare-up of fierce thaumatic energies, and when the black smoke had cleared, the first few waves of intruders had been replaced by a whole bunch of rather resentful-looking frogs. I’ve always been a traditionalist in these matters.

  Besides: the shop had had a sale on.

  “We did put up warnings,” I said to Suzie. “Didn’t we?”

  “I am almost sure I meant to,” said Suzie. “Can I start shooting people yet?”

  “They seem to be taking themselves out of the game quite thoroughly,” I said. “Oh look, here comes another wave.”

  Having used up most of the nuns and the Vikings, the braver and more sensible elements of the crowd were pressing forward, slowl
y and cautiously and very light-footedly. Most of them were shouting something, if only to keep their spirits up. There were still quite a lot of them.

  “John Taylor is the rightful ruler of the Nightside! Excalibur is his! Bow down to King John!”

  “Taylor’s possession of the noble blade Excalibur is blasphemy! Seize the blade from him, that it might be held in trust for King Arthur! Only we know the way to Avalon!”

  “Excalibur belongs to us! Arthur belongs to us! It is prophesised! Kill the unbelievers!”

  “Merlin is a louse!”

  “Why aren’t you dead yet?”

  The general advance sort of broke down and went sideways then, as the various elements in the crowd turned on each other, fighting tooth and nail over who represented whom. There was much bandying of Arthur’s name, and indeed which King Arthur was the most historical, or accurate, or even most representative. Arguments quickly degenerated into insults, then to hand-to-hand combat. The crowd surged this way and that, churning up the blood-soaked mud of what had once been my garden. I encouraged the general antagonism along with helpful comments like Are You Really Going to Let Him Talk to You Like That? and Look Out! He’s Sneaking Up Behind You!

  I do love a good debate.

  When the slaughter finally died down, there was a hell of a lot less of the crowd than there used to be, but the survivors were the really dangerous and determined ones. They studied Suzie and me thoughtfully and plotted together on how best to take Excalibur from me now and worry about what to do with it afterwards. And while I was considering what to do about that, another branch of the crowd, the really quiet and sneaky ones, attacked my house from the rear. And ran straight into the waiting nasty and really very efficient security devices Suzie and I had set up there, right after we finished with the garden. Invisible floating mines, shaped curses, poisoned-shrapnel hedges, and a whole bunch of Suzie’s finest incendiaries.

  Suzie and I take our privacy very seriously.

  A series of explosions filled the night, accompanied by bright flashes of light, sudden flurries of blood, a whole bunch of suddenly cut-off screams, and, finally, a severed head that came flying over the roof like a football. Everyone in the crowd stopped what they were doing to watch the head sail through the air, then they all scattered with some really quite girlish screams as the head finally plummeted down into their midst. People can get freaked out by the strangest things. I looked over what was left of my non-lawn and shook my head sadly.