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She snapped her fingers, and all the dead men and women in the parlour turned their heads to look at me. And then they started forward, cold and implacable as death itself. All of them just as strong as me and as capable of taking punishment. They reached for me with their dead hands, and the young ladies and gentlemen laughed and pointed, enjoying the show. I looked around me. The way to the only door was blocked, and I was clearly outnumbered. So, when in doubt, cheat.
I reached into my pocket and took out the jade fire amulet I’d taken from its previous owner. I said the right Words, and set fire to all the dead men and women. They burst into bright green flames, burning with a fierce heat that consumed their flesh in moments. They kept coming as long as they could, reaching out blindly through the flames, bumping into the furnishings and fittings and setting them alight, too. They even set fire to the clothes of the Bright Young Things. Most of them just sat where they were, watching as the flames ate them up, and laughing. Giggling happily as they died, as stupidly as they’d lived.
Mother Macabre ran for the door the moment her servants started burning, but I was there before her. I took her in my dead arms, and held her to me, almost tenderly. She beat at me with her fists, but I couldn’t feel them, and she wasn’t strong enough to do me any damage. I held her with all my dead strength, and she couldn’t get away. The whole parlour was on fire now, burning the living and the dead alike, and the air was full of thick black smoke.
“You have to let me go!” shrieked Mother Macabre. “If we stay here, we’ll both die! This fire’s enough to destroy even you!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said. “I’m tired. I want to rest. It will be worth it, to die here, as long as I can be sure I’m taking you with me. Thanks to you, I can’t feel any of the things the living feel; but dead as I am, I can still feel some things, even without your special pills. I’m watching you die, Mother Macabre, and that feels … so fine.”
“I can make you new pills, new potions!” Mother Macabre said desperately. “I can make you feel all the things you felt before!”
“Perhaps. But what have I got that’s worth living for?”
And then we both looked round as a series of explosions shook the front of the building. There was the sound of energy weapons firing, and repeated sounds of something large and heavy and very determined crashing through the walls between us, heading right for us. And I began to smile. I looked at the door, still holding firmly on to the fiercely struggling Mother Macabre; and my futuristic car came smashing through the door and into the parlour, bringing half the wall with her. She slammed to a halt before me, her gleaming steel-and-silver body entirely untouched by all the destruction she’d wrought. And as I watched, smiling … as Mother Macabre watched with wide-stretched eyes and mouth … my car rose and transmogrified, taking on a whole new shape, until my Sil stood before me. A tall, buxom woman, in a classic little black dress, cut just high enough at the hip to show off the bar-code and copyright notice stamped on her magnificent left buttock. Her frizzy steel hair was full of sparking static, and her eyes were silver, but she was still every inch a woman. My woman.
“Nothing to live for, sweetie?” said Sil. “What about me?”
“You were listening in,” I said, just a bit reproachfully.
“You were taking too long,” said Sil. “I became … concerned. You always go over the top when you go too far into the dark. You forget there are other feelings, other pleasures, than revenge.”
“Of course,” I said. “You’re quite right. You always were my better half. I never needed pills to feel the way I feel about you.”
“What the hell is that?” said Mother Macabre, staring at Sil with horrified fascination.
“I am a sex droid from the twenty-third century,” Sil said proudly. “With full trans-morph capabilities!” She shot me a smouldering look. “I have always loved my job. It took more than one man to change my name to Silicon Lily. But I never met anyone like you, my sweet Dead Boy. And I won’t let you die with her. She isn’t worth it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re always right. You’re worth living for, inasmuch as I can. But … I can’t go on, I can’t just walk out of here and let her get away with what she did to me.”
“You don’t have to,” said Sil.
She raised one hand and morphed it into a glowing energy weapon. She shot Mother Macabre in the face and blew her head apart. I let go of the headless body, and it crumpled to the floor, still twitching. I swept blood and brains from my face and shoulder with one hand, then nodded briefly to Sil. She’s always been able to do the things I can’t do. She swept forward, discarding her human shape, melting into a wave of metallic silver that swept right over me. She wrapped herself around me like a suit of armour, covering me from head to foot. Embracing me, and protecting me, all at once. And, together, we walked out of the burning building.
* * *
Outside, Walker was waiting for us, watching the building burn. He barely twitched an eyebrow as Sil peeled herself off me, and resumed her human shape. She stood beside me as Silicon Lily, while I nodded politely to Walker. He tipped his bowler hat to both of us.
“Mother Macabre was getting a little too big for her boots,” Walker said easily. “But I couldn’t go after her, because of her … connections. So I pointed you at her. Well done, Dead Boy. Excellent work.”
“How long have you known?” I said. “How long have you known the truth about me, and Krauss, and Mother Macabre?”
“I know everything,” said Walker. “Remember?”
He smiled again, very politely, and walked off. Sil and I turned away, to watch the Voodoo Lounge burn.
“What am I going to do now, for my special pills and potions?” I said.
“There’s always someone,” said Sil. “This is the Nightside.”
“True,” I said. “If you’re going to be damned, this is a pretty good place for it.” I looked at her for a long moment. “Even with my pills, it takes more than an everyday woman to light the fires in my dead flesh.”
“Good thing I’m not an everyday woman, then,” said Silicon Lily. “I am a pleasure droid; and I do love my work! And it’s good to know I can even raise the dead…”
“How can I love you?” I said. “When I don’t have a heart any more?”
“I don’t have a heart either,” said Sil. “Doesn’t matter. Love comes from the soul.”
“Do we have souls?” I said.
