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passenger seat while Screech folded his long body almost in two to fit through the backdoor. Sitting down, he had to lean forward to keep from banging his head on the roof, and his knees came up to his chin. He still looked insufferably dignified and aristocratic, but that’s elves for you. The Fatemobile’s interior was pretty much as I remembered. Lipstick red leather on all the seats, a high-tech dashboard complete with computer displays and weapons systems, and a steering wheel covered in ermine. A bonsai pine tree perched on the dashboard served as an air freshener. Ms. Fate touched the ignition pad with a leather-clad fingertip, and the whole car trembled eagerly.
    “Are there many super-heroes in the Nightside?” said Screech, from between his raised knees.
    “We prefer the term costumed adventurers,” said Ms. Fate, running quickly through her car’s warm-up checks. “Pretty much everyone and everything turns up here eventually, and there have always been a few of us, making a stand for justice and revenge and the right to kick six different colours of crap out of the bad guys. I think we do it for the challenge. No-one does villains like the Nightside. Right, John?”
    “Archetypes and icons have always felt at home in the Nightside,” I said. “But super-heroes and super-villains are a bit too innocent to do well here. I think we disappoint them, with our endless shades of grey rather than their preferred black-and-white morality. There have always been a few costumed heroes; the Mystery Avenger, the Lady Phantasm, the Cutting Edge ...”
    “And the villains?” said the elf, hopefully.
    “Again, we tend more towards colourful characters,” I said. “The Painted Ghoul, Jackie Schadenfreude, Penny Dreadful...”
    “And remember that awful little poseur, Dr. Delirium?” said Ms. Fate. “Today the Nightside, tomorrow the world?”
    “Of course I remember,” I said. “Walker had Suzie and me toss his nasty little arse out of the Nightside. Last I heard, he was sulking somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, swearing vengeance on the world and trying to build his own private army through ads in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine. This is what comes of uncles leaving you far too much money.”
    “You work for Walker?” said Screech.
    “Sometimes,” I said. “When he’s not trying to have me killed. It’s complicated. It’s the Nightside.”
    “Heads up, people,” said Ms. Fate. “Company’s coming.”
    They came marching down the street towards us, and everyone else hurried to get out of their way. Striding arrogantly in perfect formation and perfect lock-step, carrying heavy truncheons and pistols holstered on both their hips, in black-and-gold uniforms with reinforced helmets; Walker’s very own shock-and-awe troopers. I felt obscurely flattered that Walker had sent his own personal heavies to stop me. It showed a certain respect for my capabilities.
    Walker’s job was to keep the lid on things, and to do that he could call on support from the Army, the Church, and pretty much anyone else he felt like, along with any number of specialists. But he wasn’t usually one for displays of brute force; he tended more towards dividing and conquering and Let’s you and him fight, He only sent in the shock-and-awe troopers when he absolutely positively felt the need to stamp on everyone in sight, as an object lesson to others. He must see Lord Screech’s Peace Treaty as a threat to the Nightside’s status quo... but still, he shouldn’t have done it. He must have known I’d take it personally.
    I did a quick headcount, and came up with thirty heavily armed specimens, heading right for us. Under normal circumstances, sending thirty armed men to take down one elf, one super-heroine, and me might have seemed somewhat excessive ; but as I’ve said before, we don’t do normal in the Nightside. These might well be hard-faced, hard-hearted, hardened soldier types; but in the end they were only