Dead Men's s Boots

Okay, it was kind of by proxy: actually I just made it really easy for someone else to kill him. It wasn’t like he left me much choice, either, since he was out for my blood; and the wolf I threw him to was one he’d brought to the party himself, so you could say what goes around comes around. Lots of great arguments to mix and match. None of them made me feel any better about it, though: and there was no way I’d ever be able to explain it to the wife and kid he left behind.

‘So what’s she doing here?’ I asked.

‘She came with Bourbon. I think he put the word out at the Oriflamme that John was going into the ground today – said he’d lay on cars for any exorcists who wanted to come along.’

‘She’s a ghostbreaker?’

Louise shrugged. ‘That’s what she’s calling herself, yes. Following in father’s footsteps. I don’t know if she’s any good or not.’

I took it on the chin, but it wasn’t great news. If Gabe’s daughter was in the same line of business as me now, and if she was operating in London, then we were going to keep running across each other’s trails whether we liked it or not.

Not a happy prospect. I watched Gabe’s daughter down to the gates: saw her stop, her two escorts walking on without her, and exchange words with the Breathers on picket duty. Someone ought to have a word with her about that: it’s not a great idea to encourage the lunatic fringe.

‘How’s the music going?’ I asked, in a ham-fisted effort to raise the mood. Louise played bass in a band that had had many more names than gigs.

I had a vague feeling that their current nom de sound-stage was something vaguely punk, like All-Star Wank, but it would be something different tomorrow.

‘It’s good,’ Louise said. ‘It’s going good. We’ve got a new manager. He reckons he can get us in at the Spitz.’

Larry Tallowhill came up alongside Louise at this point and slid an arm around her waist. ‘Felix Castor,’ he said, with mock sternness. ‘Leave my fucking woman alone.

’"

"‘Can I help it if I’m irresistible?’ I asked. ‘How are the new drugs working?’

Larry shrugged expansively. ‘They’re great,’ he said. ‘I’ll live until something else kills me. Can’t ask for more than that.’

Larry was always amazingly upbeat about his condition, which was the result of the sort of arbitrary bad luck that would fill mo duwould fst people with rage or despair to the slopping-over-the-top, foaming-at-the-mouth point.