at nothing. Even Nimue couldn't get a response out of him. Interestingly enough, once she was sure he was out of it, she turned off the charm and leaned back in her chair, kicking her heels sulkily; and then she jumped up out of her chair and flounced off to the bar for a refill. Where I happened to be waiting, ready to buy her a drink of something expensive. I smiled at her and complimented her, and she giggled like a teenager on a first date. After a while, I invited her to join our table, and after a quick glance at Merlin to make sure he was still nodding, she trotted over to join us. Her face was flushed from so much drinking, and her hair was a mess, but her speech was still clear. She was enchanted to meet Tommy, but pretty much ignored Suzie. I got a few more drinks into her, then laid out our plan. Nimue didn't take much convincing. She had the morals of a cat and the brains of a puppy.
"We need Merlin's help," I said, putting it as simply as I could. "But he's too wrapped up in his own problems to listen. But if we take his heart, he'll have to listen. And when we have the heart outside his body, and therefore outside his defences, you'll be able to put a spell on it, so he'll forget all his worries and care about nothing but you. When you're finished, you can put the heart back, and everyone will get what they want. What could be simpler, or fairer?"
Nimue frowned over her drink, trying to concentrate. "The heart could make me powerful... with real magic ... But really, I only want my old bear back the way he used to be. You should have seen him in his prime, at Camelot. At the King's side, where he belonged. They all bowed to him, then. I was never there myself, of course. I was just another dumb little priestess, back then, gathering mistletoe and worshipping the Hecate, the three in one ... But I was always good at Seeing from Afar, and Camelot fascinated me. Merlin fascinated me. I watched him at Court, and even then I knew he needed looking after. Needed someone who cared about him. Everyone else put up with him, so they could call on his magic to bail them out when they messed up. When muscular clods in armour weren't enough to save the day."
Her voice was getting blurred as she got more emotional. "Even the King, bless him... even he never really cared about Merlin. Not like I do. Silly little priestess, silly little hedge witch, that's what they say ... but I'm the only one who can reach his heart now... And when I'm powerful, I'll make them all pay ..."
Her lower lip was trembling by then, and big fat tears ran down her cheeks. I didn't look round at the others. I already felt guilty enough about taking advantage of an oversized child like Nimue. But it had to be done ...
"So you will help us?" I said. "It's for the best. Really."
"If you say so," said Nimue. "I've always needed other people to tell me what's for the best."
Something in her voice told me that would always be the case. Tommy heard it, too, and glared at me, but I concentrated on the witch.
"Have you got something you could slip into his drink, Nimue? Something to make him sleep?"
"Oh sure," Nimue said off-handedly. "Druids know everything there is to know about potions. I often drug his drink. It's the only way he can sleep these days. Poor sweetie."
And that was it. We waited till the customers had thinned out, and then I bribed Hebe to shut down the bar for a while. It took most of the coins in my purse, particularly when Hebe realised we wanted her to go home early as well, but money talks in the Nightside, as it always had. A few customers didn't want to go, but Suzie obliged them with a short but instructive example of how a shotgun works, and they couldn't get out of the bar fast enough. The two smoke ghosts looked at me reproachfully, then faded slowly away, still dancing. The bar seemed so much larger with everyone else gone, and the quiet was actually eerie. Merlin sat slumped and finally sleeping in his chair, while Nimue sat cross-legged in a hastily