back and forth, its legs slamming up and down with increasing force. The floor lurched, and the whole Dining Room shook and shuddered. People cried out and clung to their juddering tables. And then it all died slowly away, and the reverberations in my head disappeared with it. I rose easily to my feet and smiled down at the openly astonished Walker.

"How about that?" I said. "So much for His Master's Voice. Perhaps I am my mother's son after all."

I walked away, and no-one wanted to look at me. I carefully chose my path to take me past Julien Advent's table, and when I was sure there was a wide marble pillar between me and Walker's table, I dropped suddenly into a chair beside Julien, and sank down, so that his body helped to hide me. I put a finger to my lips to hush him, and he nodded agreeably. By leaning back just right, I could see Walker at his table in the corner. He was so taken up with his own thoughts it was clear he hadn't noticed I never actually left the room. I'd thought that last parting shot would distract him. I wanted to see what he would do, who he would talk to, now he knew he didn't have his Reasonable Men to hold over me.

In the end, he called for a footman to clear away the mess on his table, then looked sharply to one side and nodded, A beautiful woman appeared suddenly from behind a concealing glamour, right beside the table. I cursed quietly. I'd been so focussed on Walker, and what he was saying, that I hadn't even sensed someone else was listening, unobserved. I must be getting old. I didn't used to make mistakes like that. And it didn't help at all that I recognised the stunning woman smiling at Walker.

Bad Penny was a freelance operative for hire, always turning up when least expected. Vicious, deadly, seductive, and entirely treacherous. An agent extremely provocateur. She smiled around the crowded Dining Room, and struck an elegant pose, the better for everyone to admire her. Most did, unobtrusively, though there were those who deliberately looked away rather than admit recognising her. Bad Penny was drop-dead gorgeous, with a voluptuous figure like a Bill Ward cartoon, somehow stuffed into a classic little black dress, complete with elbow-length white silk gloves, black mesh stockings, and a cigarette in a long black holder. She wore her night-dark hair piled up on top of her head, above a sharp, fierce face with strong bone structure and an openly insolent mouth. Her eyes were dark and deep enough to drown in. And it wasn't just her thrusting bosom that gave Bad Penny her air of sexual intimidation; she was a predator, in every way there was. She radiated sex appeal on an almost brutal level, like a weapon. She also carried two guns and any number of throwing knives about her person, though no-one was quite sure where.

We knew each other. A bit. Ships that passed in the night and kept on going. We didn't approve of each other, but we had been known to work together, occasionally. When no-one else would do.

Walker invited her to sit down at his table, and immediately the footman was there to pull her chair out for her, then push it back in again. Bad Penny accepted the attention as her due, but did deign to favour him with a flashing smile; and the footman did everything but wriggle like a puppy.

"You needn't bother with a menu," Walker said calmly to the footman. "The lady isn't stopping."

Bad Penny pouted. "Wouldn't eat here if you paid me, darling. I do have my standards."

Walker waved the footman away, and he disappeared reluctantly. I leaned out a little way from Julien's table, to hear them more clearly. Bad Penny worried me; but then, she always did, even when she was supposedly on my side. Julien watched me, amused, but continued with his dinner. As editor of the Nightside's only daily newspaper, the Night Times, he knew he'd get a good story out of me eventually.

I was just a bit surprised that Bad Penny was working for Walker. He was usually more subtle than that. Bad Penny, on the other hand, would work for anyone with enough money, on anything from espionage to assassination. Whether she was working on the side of Good or Evil had honestly never mattered to her; as she was only too