October 17th, 1797. Ash Farm, between Porlock and Linton.
There's a lot of things I'd rather have in my mouth than Unicorn horn. Hell, just about anything, and not just what you're thinking. But the bad taste I had in my mouth this time wasn't the Horn. Mostly it was the six guys in Kevlar armour seventeen-ninety-seven shouldn't have known a damn thing about. The ones I was guessing I wasn't supposed to have noticed before I went skipping up to the door of the farmhouse to tell the nice Mr Coleridge not to answer the door to any insurance salesmen from Porlock. The ones with their eyes glued to long sights covering every approach to the farmhouse door. Sights set on top of four hundred and fifteen millimeter barrels able to throw five rounds of thirty-nine-millimeter-you're-fucked every three seconds at any target they saw inside three hundred and fifty meters. Right now I was wishing Mickey K had stuck to fucking poetry.
Poets. You just can't trust them.
Still, where there's a will, there's a way. Or in my case, where there's a piano wire garrote there is. Because whoever put these guys out, they hadn't given them overlapping fields like the kind of books Mom gave me to read when I was six say you should. See, that way if someone's creeping up on you with, like, the piano wire I mentioned, one of your buddies (or two if they're laid right, and I'm never against a guy's buddies getting laid) is half looking at you as well as the kill zone. Like that, the chick with the piano wire, assuming there is one, gets introduced to some real bad news even if she gets you. The way these guys were laid, they weren't going to get laid ever again, at least not by the time I was done with piano practice. But that still left me with a problem. If I cleared the meat, it wasn't going to be as quiet as making it meat in the first place. Sammy was likely to stop the scribbling he'd better be doing right now and come see what the racket was. If I left it where it was, then any passing insurance salesmen might see it. And that was apart from the other thing. The thing I'd missed. I had no idea what it was, but I knew there was something. Because there's always something. That was one of the first things Mom made me learn, and made me learn all over again every day. The time you think you covered everything, the time you think you didn't miss a thing? That's the time you're dead. So I dropped back down the track to the farmhouse, and I kept on dropping. I stayed in cover, but I kept moving. The only thing any insurance salesman was going to need was life-insurance, and the good news was he wasn't going to have to worry about making any more payments. Of course, that was the bad news too.
Or he wouldn't have had to. If he'd existed. Because there wasn't one. In fact, there wasn't anybody. Porlock or Poughkeepsie, this was starting to feel like the wrong Sammy. Like, less Coleridge and more Beckett (some stuff at school wasn't all bad). Because nobody came, and nobody went and nothing happened. All night. Which might have been just fine for Estragon and Vladimir, but not for me. See, I was here to fuck-up history, not get fucked by it – and somebody who might or might not have been an insurance salesman from Porlock was supposed to be dead by now. I had a feeling something was wrong, and the feeling was starting to feel like a friend with benefits. Like, one way or another, I was screwed. It was like a really bad game show, and I had to choose a door. Thing is I only had one and I didn't know if opening it or leaving it shut meant game over. I tossed a coin in my head, and it came down wondering what Sammy C would say to a girl in black leather at his door. I ran back down the track to the farm door – and I knocked.
Washington D.C. - 350 And Down
The man in the black leather duster sat back in the chair facing the girl. “I'd tell you that you get used to it, but you don't. Not really. You just stop noticing.”
The girl's eyes were cold. She said nothing.
The man in black leather raised an eyebrow. “Please yourself. But right now your head hurts like hell and you don't know if it's Thursday or Christmas. Even more than usual I mean. Because you get that a lot. The memory thing, right? Or rather – the not memory.”
The girl darted a glance at the four armed woman at the piano. The woman didn't look up, but four hands slid gently into 'Rhapsody in Blue'.
Jack shook his head. “Nothing to do with P. You just got Nudged.”
The girl spat. “Nudged? Whatever you hit me with, nudge isn't the half of it. You like hitting girls you bastard?”
“You're lucky, dear. You should have seen what he did to the Countess.” The piano player's hands slid into 'El Diablo Cojuelo'.
“Countess? What Countess?”
Jack shrugged. “Long ago, and far away. And besides, she's dead. She bloody well better be, anyway.” Jack's eyes went colder than the girl's. “But then, you know all about that. Or Maggie Spencer does, right?”
The girl's eyes narrowed. “Fuck. I knew I missed something. I could feel it. So CG wasn't the only one. I guess Mom's even more pissed with me than I thought, right? So what happens now?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Now? Right now, your soul knows you jumped a guy in 1798. Thing is, it knows he got dead in 1797 too. Or rather, it doesn't. Because you don't have one, do you?”
For the first time, the girl grinned. “I don't know about soul. I've always been a jazz...” She stopped. On her face, scared danced with puzzled, and it looked like both had two left feet. “Anyway. Fuck that! And fuck Mom too. Whatever this is, it's on you! You fucked up my mission!
Jack sighed. “Your mission. Yeah, you had a mission. You've always had one. Just one. Want to see?”
“See? See what?”
Jack shrugged. “I don't remember. Not yet, at least.” He pulled a bottle from his pocket, opened it and drank. The smell of Unicorn Horn didn't fill the room. “You know how some folk drink to forget? This doesn't do that. This makes you remember. Even things that never happened.” He held it out. The girl locked her eyes on his – and nodded. Jack stood up and stepped over to the girl. He tipped the bottle to her mouth. “P?”
The piano player got up, and came over to the two of them. Two hands settled on Jack's head, and two on the girl's. Her fingers sank into their skulls.
Outside the room, the Universe screamed.