up and down the dimensions. So the Psychenauts would just keep coming, from up and down the line, until one of them finally found the butterfly. And none of them would care how much damage they did to this world and the people in it. So there was only one thing left to do.

I lurched over to the glass display cases, forcing myself against the terrible pull of the gravity well, until finally I stood before the case holding the chaos butterfly. It hung there in its stasis field, such a small thing to hold such potential power. I reached out for the case, and Wilde cried out, afraid I was going to kill the butterfly, even after all its presence had brought about. I used my gift to find things, opening the third eye deep in my mind, my private eye, to locate the necessary Word of Power that would collapse the stasis field.

I said the Word, the field collapsed, and the butterfly disappeared, free at last to return to the moment in Space and Time from which it had been snatched. And as it moved on, it became just a butterfly again, no longer significant, no longer the first domino in any line of destiny. And so became ordinary again, of no importance to anyone at all.

The Presence snapped out of reality in a moment, no longer interested, and the gravity well was gone. All across the Hall people collapsed, mostly in gratitude that their ordeal was over. I sat down with my back to a reliably strong and solid wall and let myself shake for a while.

Of course, not everyone was pleased with the way things turned out. Deliverance Wilde, for example, wandered miserably around the Hall saying / could have been rich, rich, rich... She could have been dead, in any number of unpleasant ways, but I was too much of a gentleman to point that out. And many of the people who'd come to bid for the butterfly came up to ask pointedly whether I couldn't have found some better way to deal with the problem. I gave them my best hard look, and they went away again. An awful lot of people were dead, or much diminished, so I helped the Auction Hall staff pile the bodies up in one corner, for the Authorities to deal with, when they finally showed up. No-one else wanted to help. Most people couldn't get out of the Hall fast enough. I decided it might be best if I was long gone, too, before Walker and his people turned up, asking awkward questions. I said as much to Wilde, and she nodded slowly. "I suppose I could always try and track down another chaos butterfly ..."

I silently indicated the wreckage and the piled-up dead, and she shuddered.

"Or perhaps not."

"Stick to fashion," I said, not unkindly. "It's a lot less dangerous."

She managed a small smile. "Lot you know," she said, and drifted away.

I went back to Grave, looking mournfully round her devastated Hall, and told her where she could send the cheque for my services. She glared at me.

"You don't seriously expect to get paid, after this debacle?"

I gave her my very best hard look. "I always get paid."

She thought about that for a moment, then said she quite understood my point. I smiled, said good-bye, and went back out into the Nightside.

Two

When Lady Luck Comes Calling ... Run

I eat out, mostly. Partly because the Nightside has some of the best restaurants in this and many other universes, but mostly because I have neither the gift, the time, nor the interest to cook for myself. Though of course in an emergency I am quite capable of sticking something frozen in a microwave and nuking it till it screams. I also much prefer to eat on my own, so that I can give my full attention to the excellent food I've just paid a small fortune for. But on this occasion I was lunching with my young secretary, Cathy Barrett. I was doing so because she'd made a point of phoning me from my office, just to tell me so, and as in so many other things where Cathy was concerned, I didn't get a say in the matter. I have learned to accept such defeats gracefully. Not least because whenever Cathy insists that it's important we meet for a little chat over a meal, it nearly always means bad news is heading in my direction at warp speed. And