The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (25 page)

“That’s Larry Oblivion,” I said. “You’ll have to excuse his manners. He’s dead.”

The Collector looked Larry over and shrugged. “I’ve already got a zombie. And a lich. I used to have a mummy, but the damn thing fell apart when I tried to steam-clean its bandages. What do you want this time, Taylor? Whatever it is, you can’t have it. I’m very busy right now.”

“What’s with the new outfit?” I said cunningly. The Collector never could resist showing off his latest acquisitions.

“Oh, this old thing?” said the Collector. “It is rather fine, isn’t it? This is the very tunic Pontius Pilate was wearing when he washed his hands. Would you believe I found it tossed away in a laundry basket? If people can’t be trusted to look after things, they shouldn’t be allowed to have them.” He scowled suddenly as he realised he’d allowed himself to be distracted. “Why can’t you just leave me alone, Taylor? What did I ever do to you?”

“You know what you did,” I said, and he looked away, not meeting my gaze.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “How many times must a man pay for his sins? There ought to be a statute of limitations on guilt.” He glared at me sullenly. “You can’t keep on dropping in on me, whenever you feel like it! If I wanted company, I’d put a personal ad in the
Inquirer
! Oh hell, tell me what you want this time, and let’s get on with it. I’d keep guard dogs, but they pee on the exhibits.”

“You were right,” Larry said to me. “Crazy as a bag of arse-holes.”

“Shut up, grave dodger,” said the Collector.

I cut in quickly. “The last time we met, Collector, you said you were busy with something new. And now you say you’re still busy ... I have to ask: have you taken on a new interest? Something ... different?”

The Collector stared at me for a moment. He seemed honestly puzzled. “No ... Not really. I’ve spent most of my time recently trying to pin down a particularly elusive Arthurian artefact that isn’t when it’s supposed to be, but that’s not enough to bring you here ... So, what is it, Taylor? Spit it out!”

“Word is, you’ve started collecting people,” I said bluntly. “Unique, important, and significant individuals. Larry thinks you’ve got his brother Tommy here, because of his gift. Have you?”

The Collector actually gawked at me. “That’s it? That’s why you’re here? Are you crazy? What the hell would I want with people? Nasty, noisy, demanding things. Which part of
I live alone in secret lairs as far from bloody people as I can get
have you failed to grasp? I collect rare and fascinating objects, from all ages of history. Mainly to protect them from other people, who wouldn’t appreciate them. I like things. You know where you are with things. Oh ... come and take a look, then, if that’s what it will take to get rid of you. You can have half an hour to admire my collection and satisfy yourselves that I’m not stockpiling people, then I’m throwing you out of here.”

He turned and stalked away into the recesses of the station, and his spotlight went with him. Larry and I hurried after. We’d barely passed through the exit arch when a dozen of the Collector’s personal security robots appeared out of nowhere to stride along beside us. I dropped a warning hand on Larry’s arm to keep him from reacting, but he shrugged me off. All his attention was fixed on the Collector’s back. He hadn’t believed a single word the Collector had said. I wasn’t sure myself. Walker wasn’t usually wrong about things like this, but ... the Collector was right. He really didn’t care about people. Only things.

Like the elegantly long-legged rococo cat-faced robots that were walking with us, which he’d picked up from some future Chinese time-line. Gleaming curves of metal, more works of art than functional servants, topped with stylised cat faces, complete with jutting steel whiskers and slit-pupilled eyes that glowed bright green in the gloom. They moved with an eerie grace, tap-tapping along on their tiny metal paw-like feet. Now and again, one of the robots would flex its steel-clawed hands, as though considering what it would like to do if it wasn’t bound by the Collector’s commands.

It was dark all around us now, the only illumination spilling out from the Collector’s spotlight.

“I have to be careful,” the Collector said abruptly. “There are people out there who would stop at nothing to rob me of my lovely treasures. Other collectors, rogue traders—thieves, the lot of them!”

“Indeed,” I murmured. “How dare they steal the things you stole first?”

“I appreciate them!” the Collector said haughtily. “And I never give up anything that’s mine. My lovely things.”

Light flared up around us, and Lud’s Gate Station was gone. A new warm, golden glow revealed a huge warehouse, sprawling away in all directions. Massive glass display cases held all the wonders of the world, arranged in rank upon rank for as far as the eye could see, along with shelves and shelves of curios and collectables, the popular trash of decades past and future, everything rare and valuable from every period of Time. It was a maze, a labyrinth, of rarities and marvels, toys and trinkets, objets d‘art and objets trouvés ... If it was bright and shiny, the Collector had an eye for it.

“You can look,” the Collector said grudgingly. “But don’t touch! Every time I let you in, Taylor, things get broken. But see for yourself: there are no people here! Unless someone’s tried to break in again. I haven’t checked the traps recently.”

I looked at Larry and had to grin. His dead face finally held an emotion, and it was as much shock as awe. Like many people, he’d heard about the Collector’s legendary hoard, but the reality was so much bigger. The Collector had promised us half an hour, but you couldn’t manage a proper look around in under a month. Not that I felt the need to examine everything. If the Collector had started picking up people, they’d have been set out on prominent display, in pride of place, so he could gloat over them. And there weren’t any.

I wandered down the aisle before me, Larry stumbling along behind. I pointed out a few things of particular interest. A stuffed waterbaby, covered in thorns; a frozen water ghost in a refrigerated container; and the original sketches for the Turin Shroud. Two of the cat robots followed us at a respectful distance, ready to tell on us to the Collector if we got too close to anything. After a while, I stopped before a diorama of stuffed giant albino penguins and looked at Larry.

“Walker lied,” I said.

“It would appear so,” said Larry. “But why would he lie about my brother?”

“The devil always lies,” I said. “Except when a truth can hurt you more. But you’re right; why would he lie about this?”

The Collector laughed harshly, and we both looked around. He was watching from a safe distance, surrounded by his cat robots.

“If you’ve started trusting Walker, you’re really letting the side down, Taylor. He always has a plan inside a scheme inside an agenda, and he’ll tell you whatever he needs to tell you to get you to do what he wants you to do. Face it, Taylor; he sent you on a wild goose chase to get you out of his way; and you fell for it.”

“Looks like it,” I said. “Sorry to have troubled you. Show us the way out, and we’ll be going.”

“No,” said the Collector. “I don’t think so.” He leaned casually against an old-fashioned grandfather clock, with a cobwebbed human skeleton propped up inside it. His gaze was clear and cold, and he didn’t seem nearly as out of it as he had before. “I’ve been thinking, Taylor, and it seems to me ... that you owe me far more than I owe you. I lost my leg to those giant insects at the end of Time, all because of you.”

Larry looked at me. “You do get around, don’t you?”

“I’ve replaced the leg a dozen times,” said the Collector, still glaring at me. “I’ve used machines, cloned tissues, even regrown it using a lizard serum; but it never feels right. I still have nightmares about the insects eating my skin and burrowing into my flesh, while you stood by and did nothing.”

“Is that right?” said Larry.

“Sort of,” I said. “There was more to it than that. He was planning to do something far worse...”

“Shut up!” said the Collector. “This is my moment, not yours! If you’d just left me alone, I might have let bygones be bygones ... but no, here you are again, intruding and interfering and insulting me in my own home. Relying on my guilt over a few minor past indiscretions to keep me in line ... Well, I have had enough of you, John Taylor. I don’t care if you are Charles’s son. I don’t care about Charles or Henry or your mother, or any other ... people. I don’t care about people! They always let you down. I like my things, my wonderful things. You can depend on them to be what they are and nothing else, forever and ever. So I’m going to flush you out of my life, Taylor, because I don’t care any more.”

“You see,” I said to Larry. “Told you that you and he had a lot in common.”

“Yes, but I’m dead,” said Larry. “What’s his excuse?”

The Collector actually stamped his sandalled foot in rage, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of purple. “You never take me seriously, Taylor! You always have to make fun of me, and my marvellous collection! You never appreciated me!”

“You looked after me, sometimes, when I was a kid and my dad couldn‘t,” I said. “I remember that, Uncle Mark. I appreciated that man. Whatever happened to him?”

“No. Don’t you dare,” said the Collector. “That was a long time ago. We were all different people then.”

“And look what’s become of us,” I said. “All your travels in time, and you couldn’t see what was coming? That man with his whole future before him ... He couldn’t avoid ending up a lonely, sad, old man, surrounded by things?”

“Kill them,” the Collector said to his robots. “Kill John Taylor, and rip his dead friend to pieces.”

The cat robots started forward, inhumanly graceful, taking their time, closing in from all sides to leave us no chance of escape. Their slow, studied approach had something in it of the cruelty of cats. Larry pulled out his magic wand, started to say something, then stopped abruptly.

“That won’t work here,” I said, looking quickly about for possible escape routes and maybe even a weapon. “The Collector has wards in place for unexpected items like yours.”

“Pretty little thing,” said the Collector, from behind the safety of his robots. “Elven, isn’t it? Thought so. Wasted on a dead thug like you, Oblivion. But it’ll make a fine addition to my new elf annex. And you needn’t try raising your gift, either, Taylor; I’ve got shaped charges hanging on the air, bristling with anticipation, ready to do really quite appalling things if you even peek through your inner eye. Should have set them up years ago.”

“Come on, Collector,” I said, doing my best to sound brave and heroic and not in any way panicking. “You can’t kill me. You know lots of people will track you down to avenge me.”

“I’ll bet a hell of a lot more will celebrate,” said the Collector. “Hell. Half of the Nightside will probably throw a party. With streamers and balloons. Besides, no-one will ever know it was me. You and your unpleasant associate will join my collection, as very small portions in a series of very small boxes. Then maybe I’ll be able to get some proper sleep at last.”

I’d looked everywhere and run out of options. The cat robots had covered every possible escape route, and there were no obvious weapons out on display. None of the usual cursed needles, singing swords, or interstellar blasters. Not even anything heavy enough to pass for a blunt instrument. The robots were all around us now and pressing closer. The Collector didn’t allow them weapons, in case they might damage any of his beloved exhibits, but they still had their inhuman strength and wickedly sharp claws.

“Don’t suppose you’ve a gun on you, by any chance?” said Larry.

“I don’t like guns,” I said. “Besides, most of the time I’m smart enough to avoid getting caught in situations where I might need them. I really thought I had the Collector intimidated ... or at the very least, sufficiently guilt-tripped ...”

“On the whole, I’d have to say he doesn’t look intimidated,” said Larry. “And no; I don’t have a gun on me either. I’ve grown far too dependent on my wand since I died.”

“Yes,” I said. “Tricky.”

“Well, don’t just stand there; do something! Those robots are getting bloody close! I do not want to spend the rest of my life as kitty litter! I’m dead, not invulnerable.”

“I told you that,” I said. “And will you please stop hyperventilating? It’s really very unattractive in a dead person. Dead Boy never makes a fuss like this when we work together.”

“Dead Boy is crazy!”

“There is that, yes ... I think we should grab some of the more fragile-looking exhibits, and build a barricade between us and the robots. The Collector won’t let them damage anything.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Larry.

“I’m betting my life on it.”

It didn’t take long to drag some of the shelves and display cases into place around us, pushing the more delicate objects to the front. A glass phallus from the Court of Cleo patra, engraved with snake scales; dainty china butterflies from the Court of Versailles, with tiny erotica hand-painted on the wings; and half a dozen paper ghosts from Hiroshima. And sure enough, once the Collector realised what we were doing, he stopped his robots in their tracks rather than have them break anything. Things would always matter more to him than any human emotions, even revenge. He glared at us, and we glared right back at him, and there was no telling where the stalemate might have taken us, if we hadn’t been distracted by the sound of deliberate, approaching footsteps. We all looked round sharply, and there was Walker; strolling through the packed shelves and cases, as calm and composed and elegantly dangerous as ever.

The cat robots immediately forgot all about Larry and me and turned as one to focus on Walker. The Collector gestured urgently for them to stand still, and they did. Walker ignored them completely, smiling and nodding to the three of us as though we’d just happened to meet in the street. He walked through the still ranks of robots and finally came to a halt before the Collector. Walker smiled at him warmly.

“Hello, Mark. Been a while, hasn’t it?”