"Hi, John!" she said, her voice rich and warm as always. "In trouble again, are we?"

"How did you know?" I said, a bit suspiciously. "John, my phone is preprogrammed to recognise your voice. It sets off all sorts of warning bells and a siren, because let's face it, sweetie, you're always in some kind of trouble."

"How would you like to drive me and my elven client from one side of the Nightside to the other, all the way to the Osterman Gate, almost certainly fighting off attacks by assorted bad guys from beginning to end, and help prevent a major war into the bargain?"

She laughed. "You always did know how to show a girl a good time. Did you say… elven?"

"Yes. Don't ask me to explain, or I'll start to whimper. It's complicated."

"My fee just doubled. Shall we say… twenty per cent of what you're getting?"

I grinned. "I don't have any problem with that."

"Fabulous, darling! I'll slip a few extra nasty tricks into my utility belt, fire up the Fatemobile, and be with you in two shakes of the best false boobies money can buy."

There wasn't anything I felt like saying in response to that, so I shut down my phone. I was about to put it away when it rang. I looked at it for a moment. Sometimes you just have a feeling… I answered the phone, holding it a cautious distance away from my ear.

"This had better not be who I think it is."

"John, dear boy, this is Walker. You need to stop what you're doing and go home, right now. This is none of your business."

"He's my client," I said. I didn't know how Walker knew I was involved with the putative Lord Screech; but then, Walker knows everything. I think that's actually part of his job description. Along with keeping the peace and enforcing the status quo in the Nightside by any and all means necessary. Either way, he should have known better than to give me orders.