Stories: All-New Tales - By Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio Page 0,17

which soon became excruciating as the joint locked and a low, familiar voice rasped in my ear.

“Lucky. I should have known you were in this somehow. This shambles has got your mark all over it.”

I yelped and tried to free my arm. But the other bastard was holding me too tight.

“Move, and I’ll break it,” snarled the voice. “Hell, perhaps I ought to break it anyway. Just for old times’ sake.”

I indicated to him that I’d rather he didn’t. He locked my arm a little further—I felt it begin to go and screamed—then he shoved me hard towards the alley wall. I hit it, bounced, spun round with mindsword ready, half drawn, and found myself staring into a pair of eyes as grim and colourless as a rainy day. Just my luck—a friend with a grievance, which is the only kind I tend to have nowadays.

Well, I say friend. He’s one of our kind, but you know how it is. Fire and rainstorm—we don’t get along. Besides, in his present Aspect he stood taller, weighed heavier, hit harder than me. His face was a thundercloud, and any thought I had of fighting the guy evaporated like cheap perfume. I sheathed the sword and took the better part of valour.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s Our Thor.”

He sniffed. “Try anything, and I’ll douse you cold,” he said. “I’ve got an army of stormclouds ready to roll. You’ll be out like a light before you can blink. Want to try it?”

“Did I ever? Nice greeting, friend. It’s been a long time.”

He grunted. “Arthur’s the name in this present Aspect. Arthur Pluviôse—and you’re dead.” He made it sound like some weird kind of naming ceremony.

“Wrong,” I said. “Brendan’s dead. And if you think I’d be a party to the murder of my own brother—”

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” Arthur said, though I could tell the news had shaken him. “Brendan’s dead?” he repeated.

“’Fraid so.” I was touched—I’d always thought he hated us both.

“Then this wasn’t you?”

“My, you’re fast.”

He glowered. “Then how?”

“How else?” I shrugged. “The Shadow, of course. Chaos. Black Surt. Choose your own damn metaphor.”

Arthur gave a long, soft sigh. As if it had preyed on his mind for such a long time that any news—even bad news—even terrible news—could come as a relief. “So it’s true,” he said. “I was beginning to think—”

“Finally—”

He ignored the gibe and turned on me once more, his rainy-day eyes gleaming. “It’s the wolves, Lucky. The wolves are on the trail again.”

I nodded. Wolves, demons, no word exists in any tongue of the Folk to describe exactly what they were. I call them ephemera, though I had to admit there was nothing ephemeral about their present Aspect.

“Skól and Haiti, the Sky-Hunters, servants of the Shadow, Devourers of the Sun and Moon. And of anything else that happens to be in their way, for that matter. Brendan must have tried to tackle them. He never did have any sense.”

But I could tell he was no longer listening. “The Sun and—”

“Moon.” I gave him the abridged version on the events of last night. He listened, but I could tell he was distracted.

“So, after the Moon, the Sun. Right?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “That is, assuming there’s an Aspect of Sól in Manhattan, which, if there is—”

“There is,” said Arthur grimly. “Her name’s Sunny.” And there was something about his eyes as he said it, something even more ominous than the rain-swelled clouds above us, or his hand on my shoulder, horribly pally and heavy as lead, that made me think I was in for an even lousier day than I’d had so far.

“Sunny,” I said. “Then she’ll be next.”

“Over my dead body,” said Arthur. “And yours,” he added, almost as an afterthought, keeping his hand hard on my shoulder and smiling that dangerous, stormy smile.

“Sure. Why not?” I humoured him. I could afford to—I’m used to running, and I knew that at a pinch, Lukas Wilde could disappear within an hour, leaving no trace.

He knew it too. His eyes narrowed, and above us the clouds began to move softly, gathering momentum like wool on a spindle. A dimple appeared at its nadir—soon, I knew, to become a funnel of air, stitched and barbed with deadly glamours.

“Remember what they say,” said Arthur, addressing me by my true name. “Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you.”

“You wrong me.” I smiled, though I’d never felt less like it. “I’ll be only too happy to help your friend.”

“Good,” said Arthur. He kept