Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

was almost too angry to feel the pain, and what I did feel drove me on. I wasn’t fighting for myself, but for Suzie, and for all my friends who would inevitably die at Walker’s hands. At my hands, driven by his will. I thought of Suzie; and the blood and the pain didn’t matter a damn.
    We stamped back and forth on the edge of the pit, with me fighting to get to Walker, and him fighting to hold me off. But in the end, I was willing to die to bring him down, and he ... was dying. He stumbled, just briefly, as he mistimed a lunge, and I hit him in the head. His foot turned under him, and he fell suddenly sideways into the pit. He reached out instinctively to me for help, and just as instinctively I lunged forward to grab his hand. But it was too late.
    Walker fell into the pit. I knelt at the side, reaching helplessly after him. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry out, and in a moment he was gone. Nothing left but the darkness. I called after him, but there was no reply. He was gone. Swallowed up at last, by the dark.

ELEVEN
    Bringing Them All Back Home
    I sat on the edge of the pit, my legs dangling over the impenetrable darkness. The cold wind was still blowing, ruffling my hair and striking tears from my eyes. I watched blood drops slowly form on the bottom edge of my trench coat, then fall into the pit. I felt tired, and hurt, and strangely numb. As though a major part of my life was finally over. For good or for bad, Walker had always been there in the background, defining my life by my resistance to everything he stood for. He protected me and threatened me, but he never once ignored me, like my father did. I could always depend on Walker ... to be Walker. I’d gone out walking earlier in the night because I was unsure about my life, and now I had just destroyed the one sure thing in it. I’d wanted change, and now I had it. You should always be careful of wishing for things in the Nightside because you never know who might be listening. There was the slightest of sounds to my left, and when I looked around, there was Hadleigh, standing next to me.
    “Hello, John. You look like shit.”
    “How the hell did you get here?”
    He shrugged. “There are short cuts in reality if you know where to look.”
    “How did you know I was here?”
    “I know what I need to know when I need to know it”
    “That answer is getting really irritating.”
    “I know.” He looked thoughtfully down into the pit, leaning dangerously far over. “So Walker’s really gone, then?”
    “Yes.” I studied him thoughtfully. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
    “Not as such. The future’s not set in stone; there are many possible futures. Which one we end up in depends on the decisions we make. And you and Walker have always been very difficult to predict. You’re hurt, John. Allow me.”
    He took a firm hold on my shoulder, and a sudden shock ran through me, like a bucket of cold water thrown right in my soul. I gasped, and the pain was gone; and I knew without having to check that all my wounds had been healed, all damage repaired. I scrambled up onto my feet, suddenly full of energy. Hadleigh chuckled briefly.
    “You see, I’m not only here for the bad things in life.”
    I arched my back and stretched my arms, relishing the freedom from pain and tiredness. I didn’t feel numb any more. I felt like kicking the whole damned world in the arse and making it take notice. I gave Hadleigh one of my best hard looks.
    “What did you do to me? I’m not used to feeling this good. It feels ... strange.”
    “Let’s just say I jump-started you. The technicalities would only upset you.”
    “What is your job, exactly, Detective Inspectre?”
    “I could tell you,” said Hadleigh. “But then I’d have to haunt you. Some secrets cannot be revealed because the burden is not mine to share. To put it simply, I walk between life and death, the better to deal with crimes against reality itself. Because somebody has to.”
    I looked down at my once-white trench coat, now tattered and torn and soaked with drying blood. I looked at Hadleigh. “Could you ... ?”
    “No, I couldn‘t,” Hadleigh said firmly. “I’m a healer, not a tailor.”
    We stood together for a moment, side by side, looking down into the pit. Walker was gone. Let the neon lights be dimmed and the traffic brought to a halt. Walker was gone, and we shall not see his like again. If we’re lucky. After a while, I deliberately turned away from the pit