shoots at them on sight, but so far she’s only managed to wing a couple. We stopped them hanging about our house by planting disguised man-traps. Nothing like the occasional scream of a wounded paparazzi in the early hours of the morning to help you sleep peacefully.
A few of the paparazzi looked at me thoughtfully but were careful not even to point their cameras in my direction. It’s all in the reputation.
“You’re sure the Sub-Editor knows I’m waiting?” I said to the Receptionist. “I was told this was urgent.”
“He knows,” she said. “Or maybe he doesn’t. Embrace the possibilities!”
I walked over to her and gave her one of my best hard looks. “I’ll bet this place would burn up nicely if I put my mind to it.”
“Go ahead. See if I care. The only time this place gets a makeover is after a good fire. Sometimes they just scrub down the walls.”
I gave up. “Distract me. Talk to me. Tell me things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Well, how big is the paper’s circulation these days?”
She shrugged. “Don’t think anyone knows for sure. The print run’s been rising steadily for thirty years now, and it was huge before that. Sales aren’t limited to the Nightside, you know. It goes out to all kinds of other worlds and dimensions. Because everyone’s interested in what’s happening in the Nightside. We get letters from all over. We got one from Mars.”
“Really? What did it say?”
“No-one knows. It was in Martian.”
I decided I didn’t want to talk to her any more. I sat down on the couch again and looked at the framed front pages on the walls, showcasing the paper’s long history.
Elvis Really Is Dead! We Have Proof! Honeymoon Over; Giant Ape Admits Size Isn’t Everything! Hitler Burns in Hell! Official! Orson Welles Was Really a Martian! We Have X-Rays! Our Greatest Ever Psychic Channels New Songs from Elvis, John Lennon, Marc Bolan, and Buddy Holly! All Available on a CD You Can Buy Exclusively from the Unnatural Inquirer!
Proof, if proof were needed, that not only is there one born every second, but that they grow up to read the tabloids.
Still, if nothing else, the Unnatural Inquirer had style. It got your attention. For want of anything better to do, I picked up a copy of the latest edition from the low table. The front-page headline was Tribute Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to Tour Nightside! Over Their Dead Bodies, Says Walker! I leafed through the paper, grimacing as the cheap print came off on my fingers.
Apparently the Holy Order of Saint Strontium had been forcibly evicted from the Street of the Gods after it was discovered that their Church had a radioactive half-life of two million years. “Bunch of pussies,” said Saint Strontium. He had a lot more to say, but none of the reporters present wanted to hang around long enough to find out what…There were some intriguing Before and After photos of Jacqueline Hyde, poor soul. Jacqueline and Hyde were in love, but doomed never to meet save for the most fleeting of moments…Another story insisted that the Moon really was made of green cheese, and that the big black monoliths were just oversized alien crackers…And right at the bottom of an inner page, in very small type: Old Ones Fail to Rise Yet Again.
Most of the rest of the pages were filled with excited puff pieces about various Nightside celebrities I either hadn’t heard of, or didn’t give a damn about, including two whole pages given over to photos of young women getting out of limousines and taxis, just so the paparazzi could get a quick photo of their underwear, or lack of it. As far as the Unnatural Inquirer is concerned, taste is something you find in the restaurant guides.
I skipped through to the personal ads and announcements in the back pages; all human life is there, and a whole lot more besides.
Soul-swapping parties; just show up and throw your karma keys into the circle. Bodies for rent. Sex change while you wait. Go deep-sea diving in sunken R’lyeh; no noise-makers allowed. A whole bunch of pyramid schemes, some involving real pyramids. Remote viewing into the bedrooms and bathrooms of the rich and famous; highlights available on VHS or DVD. Time-share schemes, involving real time travel. (Though those tended to be stamped on pretty quick by Old Father Time, especially if they weren’t cons.) And, of course, a million different drugs from thousands of dimensions; buyer very much beware. The paper