Read Nightside 06 - Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth for Free Online

crunching the gravel was uncomfortably loud, announcing our coming. I watched the shadows between the stone mausoleums, ready for any sudden attack from behind the larger tombstones; but I wasn't at all ready for what lay in wait for us around an abrupt corner.
    They were sitting at a picnic around a pristine white cloth, laid out on a long earth barrow. There was a food hamper, with plates of cucumber sandwiches and sausage rolls and nibbles on sticks, and a bottle of quite decent champagne chilling in an ice bucket. And smiling calmly back at us—Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, and Sandra Chance, the consulting necromancer. Tommy's usual New Romantic silks were mostly concealed under a heavy fur coat, but he still managed a certain dated style. He smiled easily at us, showing off a broad, toothy grin in his long, horsey face, and toasted me with a brimming glass of bubbly. Sandra just glared coldly, pale of face and red of hair, wearing nothing but apparently random splashes of dark crimson liquid latex from chin to toe. She looked like a vampire after a really messy meal, and not by accident. Sandra went out of her way to make an impression on people. Supposedly, the liquid latex also contained holy water and other useful protections. The tattoo on her back could make angels vomit and demons hyperventilate. Interestingly enough, she'd had all of the steel piercings in her face and body removed, recently enough that some of the holes were still closing. A simple leather belt, carrying a series of tanned pouches holding the tools of her unpleasant trade, surrounded her waist. She didn't feel the cold because she thrived in graveyards. Sandra Chance loved the dead—and sometimes even more, if that was what it took to get them to talk.
    We'd worked together on a few cases, successfully, if not entirely happily. Sandra only cared about getting results, and to hell with whoever got caught in the crossfire. I liked to think that wasn't true of me, any more.
    "Hello, old thing," said Tommy Oblivion. "So glad you could join us. And you've brought company! How sweet. Do sit down and have a little something with us, and a splash of champers. I think it's terribly important we all remain civilised in situations like this, don't you?"
    "Want me to shoot him?" said Suzie.
    "I'm thinking about it," I said. "Hello, Tommy. I should have known it was you, with your existential gift, hiding Cathy. Still sticking with the effete image, I see."
    He flapped his long, bony fingers in an affable sort of way. "Stay with what works, that's what I say."
    "How's your brother?"
    "Still dead. But he says he's starting to get used to it. And he's a better private eye now than he ever was while he was alive."
    "I think that's enough civilities," I said. "Tell me where Cathy is, or I'll have Suzie shoot you somewhere really unfortunate."
    "Any violence and you'll never see her again," said Sandra. Her voice was deep and vibrant and bitter as cyanide. "You'll never find Cathy Barrett without our help."
    "Where is she?" I said, and my voice was colder than the night. Tommy and Sandra sat up a little straighter.
    "She's sleeping peacefully," said Sandra. "In one of these graves. I put a spell on her, then Tommy and I opened up a grave, put her in it, and covered her over again. She's quite safe, for the time being. All you have to do is turn yourself in to Walker, and Tommy and I will dig her up and return her safely to the Nightside. Of course, the longer she stays underground, the more difficult it will be to wake her from the spell…"
    "Of course," I said. "You're never happy with a spell unless it's got a sting in the tail." I looked at Tommy. "Why are you doing this? Sandra I can understand. I've never known her to balk at anything if the price was right. But you… what happened to those principles you used to trumpet so loudly? Cathy's the only innocent in this whole business."
    His cheeks flushed a little, but he held my gaze steadily.