"You were expecting me," I said.

"Of course," said Walker, in his calm dry voice. "It was inevitable, one way or another."

I sat down opposite him without waiting to be asked, and the hovering footman reluctantly asked if he could bring me a menu.

"That won't be necessary," said Walker. "He isn't staying."

"You could invite me to join you," I said.

"I could still have you killed," said Walker.

He gestured at the footman, who bowed low to Walker, then hurried away. I looked at what Walker was having for dinner and sniffed loudly. It was all very stolid and British; roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, lumpy gravy, and limp vegetables. With probably a steamed pudding for afters.

"That is so you, Walker," I said. "Dull, worthy, and supposedly good for you. Indigestion on a plate, and not a spot of imagination anywhere."

"This is good solid food," said Walker, cutting up his meat with military precision. "Sticks to the ribs and keeps the cold out."

"Public school dinners ruin the palate for real cuisine," I said.

Walker raised an eyebrow. "What would you know about public school life?"

"Not a damned thing, and proud of it," I said. "Now, Walker, we have things to discuss, you and I. You cast a long shadow over the Nightside ..."

"Yes," said Walker, chewing his food thoroughly. "I do. I have many shadows; my operatives are my eyes and ears, and they are everywhere. I knew the details of your current case almost as soon as you did."

"Is that why you sent the Reasonable Men after me?"

"Yes. They may be vicious animals, but they're my vicious animals. And they do put people in the right frame of mind for talking to me, and telling me what I want to know. I knew they wouldn't be enough to stop you, but I was pretty sure they'd get your attention. May I ask why they're not here with you?"

"Because they're all dead," I said.

Walker raised an eyebrow. "Well, well. How very ... impressive. You're not usually so final in your dealings with my agents."

I said nothing. Apparently he hadn't been told yet that I'd hooked up with Madman, Sinner, and Pretty Poison. So let him think I'd killed the Reasonable Men. It all helped maintain my reputation.

"Never did take to Hadleigh," Walker admitted, spearing a piece of meat with his fork. "Dreadful fellow. Far too full of himself; downright cocky, in fact."

"Not quite the word I had in mind for him, but close," I said. "Will there be repercussions?"

"For killing thirteen bright young men with prospects, all from good families? Oh, almost certainly. I don't give a damn, but you can be sure the families, some of them very old and very connected, will be most upset with you. This time tomorrow there won't be a bounty hunter in the Nightside without paper on you. The price on your head is about to go through the roof. And don't look to me to protect you. They were my boys, after all."

"Let them all come," I said. "I've never depended on you for protection."

He nodded slightly, admitting the point. "This new case of yours, Taylor..."

"Yes."

"Drop it."

I leaned back in my chair, studying him thoughtfully. Walker isn't usually that direct. "Why?"

"Because the Authorities don't take kindly to anyone investigating the Nightside's history and beginnings."

"Why not?"

Walker sighed, as though faced with a very dim pupil. "Because it is possible that you might discover things better left lost and forgotten, things that might threaten or even upset the status quo. If only because an awful lot of people, and I use the term loosely, would be very interested in obtaining such information. And would almost certainly make every effort to buy, steal, or torture it from you. We are talking about the kind of people even you would have trouble saying no to. They might even go to war with each other over its possession, and we can't have that. We're still recovering and rebuilding after the recent angel war— a war you helped to bring about. The Authorities would quite certainly order me to have you eliminated, rather than risk another war in the Nightside."

"And you'd hate to have to do that," I said.

"Of course," said Walker. "There's still a lot of use I was hoping to get out of you, before your inevitable early death."

"You'd really have me killed, after all the jobs I've done for you? After all the messes I've cleaned up for you? After I saved the whole Nightside by bringing the angel war to a close?"

"Only after you started it."

"Details, details."

Walker looked at me narrowly. "There is a line you can't be allowed to cross, Taylor. A line no-one can be allowed to cross. For the good of all. So; who hired you?"

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "I thought you knew everything, Walker?"

"Normally, I do. Whoever hired you must be incredibly powerful, to hide their identity from my people, and that in itself is worrying."

"I never reveal the identity of a client, Walker. You know that. I will say ... I was offered as payment the identity of my mother."

Walker put down his knife and fork and looked at me for a long moment. He looked suddenly older, tireder.

"Trust me, John," he said finally. "You don't want to know."

When Walker starts calling me by my first name, it usually means I'm in real trouble, but this time there was something in his voice, and in his face ...

"You know! All this time, you've known who my mother is and kept it from me!"

"Yes," said Walker, unmoved by the clear anger and accusation in my voice. "I never told you because I wanted to protect you. Your father and I were ... close, once."

"So where were you when he was drinking himself to death?"

My voice must have been cold as ice, but Walker didn't flinch. He met my gaze squarely, and his voice was calm. "There was nothing I could have done for him. He'd stopped listening to me a long time before. And we all have the right to go to Hell in our own way. Sometimes I think that's what the Nightside is all about."

"Tell me," I said, and it wasn't a request. 'Tell me the name of my mother."

"I can't," said Walker. "There are ... reasons. I'm one of only two people who know, and God willing we'll take the knowledge to our graves with us."

"The other being the Collector."

"Yes. Poor Mark. And he won't tell you either. So let it go, John. Knowing who your mother was won't make you happy or wise. It killed your father."

"What if she comes back?" I said.

"She won't. She can't."

"You're sure of that?"

"I have to be." Walker leaned back in his chair. He looked smaller, diminished. "Give up this case, John. No good will come of it. The origins of the Nightside are best left lost and forgotten."

"Even to the Authorities?"

"Quite possibly. There are things they don't tell me. For my own protection. Let the past stay in the past. Where it can't hurt anyone."

I did consider it, for a moment. I'd never known Walker to be this open, this concerned, about anything before. But in the end, I shook my head.

"I can't, Walker. I have to do this. I have to know. . . About the Nightside, about my mother. My whole life has been a search for the truth, for others and myself."

Walker sat up straight, his old commanding arrogance suddenly back in place. He fixed me with a cold gaze, and said, Drop the case, John. His voice sounded in my head like thunder, a voice like God speaking to one of his prophets; the Voice of the Authorities, speaking through their servant Walker. They gave him the Voice that commands, that cannot be disregarded, so that he might enforce their wishes in all things. There are those who claim Walker once used his Voice to make a corpse in a mortuary sit up and answer his questions. His words reverberated in my head, filling my thoughts, pinning me in my seat like a butterfly transfixed on a pin.