as they were, many of them took one look at Eddie and started running. Rather more unsettlingly, a whole lot more took one look at me and came forward to kneel before me, praising me as Lilith's son and calling on me for mercy and deliverance.

"All right," said Suzie, curling her upper lip. "This is seriously freaking me out."

"You're not alone," I said. "You! Let go of my leg, right now."

"No-one ever kneels to me," said Suzie. "You there! Yes, you, stop shaking and tell us what the hell happened here."

It took a while, but we finally got the story out of them. Lilith had made her triumphant return to the Nightside, and I'd missed it. The shivering wrecks before us made it very clear that Mommie Dearest was looking for me. And not necessarily in a good way. It seemed she had some special purpose in mind for her only begotten child.

"Tough," I said. "I don't happen to feel like obliging her. At least, not yet. When we finally do meet, I want it to be on my terms, on my home ground."

By now, word of my arrival had spread up and down the Street of the Gods, and a mob of ragged people formed around us, half out of their minds with fear and anger, crying out Blasphemer! and Drag him down! and Take him to Lilith! Suzie and Eddie and Sandra moved in close beside me, but the mob didn't even see them. There were hundreds of them now, with more coming, faces twisted with hate and loathing, reaching out for me with clawed hands. They surged forward from all sides, and before I could say anything, Suzie opened up with her pump-action shotgun, blowing great holes in the advancing ranks. They kept coming. Razor Eddie cut a bloody path through them, moving too fast for the human eye to follow. Then Sandra Chance raised the bodies of the fallen dead to attack the living, and that was too much for the mob. The crowd broke apart and quickly dispersed, scattering in all directions, leaving the dead and dying behind. I couldn't feel angry at them. None of this was their fault, really. It was just that my mother made such a powerful impression on people. Suzie lowered her shotgun and reloaded. Eddie reappeared at my side, his razor dripping blood. Sandra let the dead lie down again. A shivering acolyte in an Aztec feathered headdress approached her timidly.

"If you can raise the dead, could you perhaps… ?"

"Sorry, no," said Sandra Chance. "Raising dead gods is beyond me. Besides, if he stays dead, he probably wasn't much of a god to begin with, was he?"

The acolyte burst into tears, and we left him sitting there on the shattered steps of what had once been his temple.

"Ms. Tact," said Suzie, to Sandra.

"You'd know," said Sandra.

"Where's Walker?" said Eddie. "I don't see a body anywhere, and you know what they say in the Nightside—if you don't see a body, they're almost certainly not dead."

"I think I can help you there," said a sad-eyed priest. "You'll find him over there, under what's left of my church."

We thanked him and approached the remains of what might once have been a pretty impressive edifice. Half of it was still on fire, burning sullenly in the still night air. In the end, we had to dig through a pile of rubble, hauling it away brick by brick, to uncover Walker. His suit was tattered and torn and soaked with blood, but he still opened his eyes the moment I leaned over him. He even managed a small smile.

"John," he said faintly. "Late, as usual. I've been having a few words with your mother."

"So I see," I said. "You can't get on with anyone, can you?"

We dug him out, and sat him up with his back against a wall. He never made a sound the whole time. Suzie checked him over with brisk efficiency. Suzie knows a lot about wounds, from both ends. Eventually she stood back and nodded to me.

"He's damaged, but he'll live."

"Oh good," said Walker. "For a while there, I was almost worried."

"You should be," said Sandra Chance. "You trapped us all in the cemetery dimension and left us there to die. We had an agreement, and you broke it. No-one does that to me and lives."

"You can't kill him now," I said.

"Why not?" said Sandra, turning the full force of her cold, angry gaze upon me. I looked back at