Nightside bit feats (Nightingale's Lament)

A 'ghost' tears apart a steel machine, then dodges a laser.

The white figure was flashing in and out of the shadows, on every side at once, drawing steadily closer all the time. Shimmering white, ragged round the edges, with long, reaching arms and a dark malevolent glare in an indistinct face. It gestured abruptly, and suddenly all the shrapnel scattered across the floor rose and hammered us like a metallic hailstorm. I put my arms over my head and did my best to shield Vincent with my body. The rain of objects ended as suddenly as it began, and we looked up to see something pale and dangerous squatting on one of the machines, tearing it apart with unnatural strength. Vincent howled with rage and fired his laser, but the figure was gone long before the light beam could reach it. -Nightingale's Lament

Description of said laser.

"He's here! The saboteur . . . he's never got this far before. He must have been following us all this time . . . Are you armed, John?"

"I don't use guns," I said. "I've never felt the need."

"Normally I don't, either, but ever since this shit began happening, I've felt a lot more secure knowing I've got a little something to even out the odds." Vincent produced a gleaming silver gun from inside his jacket. It looked sleek and deadly and very futuristic. Vincent hefted it proudly. "It's a laser. Amplified light to fight the forces of darkness. Another of my inventions. I always meant to do more with it, but the power plant took over my life. I can't see anyone, John. Can you see anyone?" -Nightingale's Lament

This laser draws power from a being whose own power comes straight from the sun itself.

"Ordinary guns are no use against you, John. I know that. I know all about that clever trick you do with bullets. But this is a laser, and it will quite definitely kill you. It's a clever little device. Draws its power directly from Quinn. So you're going to do exactly what I tell you to do. You're going to use your talent to fix and hold Melinda in one place, one shape, while I kill her. Or I'll kill you. Slowly and very nastily." -Nightingale's Lament

Rossignol's song can drive people into a suicidal depression.

Whatever she was doing, it came straight from her, and from her voice.

The audience was utterly engrossed, still and rapt and silent, drinking their diva in with eyes and ears, immersing themselves in emotions so sharp and melancholy and compelling that they were helpless to do anything but stand there and soak it up. It was all they could do to come out of it to applaud her in between songs. The three Ian Augers and the quartet of backing singers were looking tired and drawn, faces wet with sweat as they struggled to keep up with Rossignol, but the crowd only had eyes for her. She hung on to her microphone stand as though it was a lifeline, smoking one cigarette after another, blasting out one song after another, as though it was all she lived to do.

And then, as she paused at the end of one song to light up another cigarette, a man not far from me pressed right up against the edge of the stage, a man who'd been staring adoringly at Rossignol from the moment she first appeared, smiled at her with tears still wet on his cheeks and drew a gun. I could see it happening, but I was too far away to stop it. All I could do was watch as the man put the gun to his head and blew his brains out. All over Rossignol's bare feet. -Nightingale's Lament

The Night Times, the Nightside's very own newspaper press, has some downright ridiculous magical defenses placed on their building.

I stepped up to the front door very carefully, ready to duck and run at a moment's notice. I was usually welcome at the Night Times offices, but it paid to be cautious. Victoria House had really heavy-duty magical defences, of a thorough and downright vicious nature that would have put the Cavendishes' defences to shame. They'd been built up in layers over two hundred years, like a malevolent onion. A subsonic avoidance spell ensured that most people couldn't even get close to the building unless they were on the approved list, or had legitimate business there. I'm not saying I couldn't get in if I really had to, but nothing short of a gun at the back of my head would convince me to try. The last time some idiot tried to smuggle a bomb into Victoria House, the defences turned him into something. No-one was quite sure what, because you couldn't look at him for more than a moment or two without projectile vomiting everything you'd ever eaten, including in previous lives. I'm told he, or more properly it, works in the sewer systems these days, and the rat population is way, way down. -Nightingale's Lament

A description of Dead Boy's current condition.

Dead Boy was seventeen. He'd been seventeen for over thirty years, ever since he was murdered. I knew his story. Everybody did. He was killed in a random mugging, because such things do happen, even here in the Nightside. Clubbed to death in the street, for his credit cards and the spare change in his pockets. He bled to death on the pavement, while people stepped over and around him, not wanting to get involved. And that should have been it. But he came back from the dead, filled with fury and unnatural energies, to track down and kill the street trash who murdered him. They died, one by one, and did not rise again. Perhaps after all the awful things Dead Boy had done to them, Hell seemed like a relief. But though they were all dead and gone long ago, Dead Boy went on, still walking the Nightside, trapped by the deal he made.

Who did you make your deal with? He was often asked. Who do you think? he always replied.

He got his revenge, but nothing had ever been said in the deal he made about being able to lie down again afterwards. He really should have read the small print. And so he goes on, a soul trapped in a dead body. Essentially, he's possessing himself. He does good deeds because he has to. It's the only chance he has of breaking the compact he made. He's a useful sort to have on your side - he doesn't feel pain, he can take a hell of a lot of damage, and he isn't afraid of anything in this world.

He's spent a lot of time researching his condition. He knows more about death in all its forms than anyone else in the Nightside. Supposedly. -Nightingale's Lament

Cryogenic freezing technology didn't do anything to him.

I nodded at the silent, brooding Necropolis. "What's happened here?"

"A good question. It seems the Necropolis suffered an unexpected power cut, and all hell broke loose. I've been telling them for years they should get their own generator and hang the expense, but... Anyway, the cryonics section was very badly hit. I warned them about setting that up, too, but oh no, they had to be up to date, up to the moment, ready to meet any demand their customers might come up with." He paused. "I did try it out myself, once, wondering whether I could sleep it out in the ice until someone found an answer to my predicament, but it didn't work. I didn't even feel the cold. Just lay there, bored . . . Took me ages to get the icicles out of my hair afterwards, as well." -Nightingale's Lament

Dead Boy kicks a steel door in.

We got to the door without anything nasty actually turning up to rip chunks off us, and Dead Boy rattled the door handle. From his expression, I gathered it wasn't supposed to be locked. He pushed at it with one hand, and it didn't budge. Dead Boy pulled back his hand and looked at it thoughtfully. I put my hand against the solid steel door, and it gave spongily, as though the substance, the reality of it, was being slowly leached out of it. My skin crawled at the contact, and I snatched my hand back and rubbed it thoroughly against my jacket. Dead Boy raised one booted foot and kicked the door in. The great slab of steel and silver flew inwards as though it were weightless, torn away from its hinges. It fell forward and slapped against the floor inside, making a soft, flat sound. -Nightingale's Lament

A psychic assault from the Necropolis (or, more specifically, an entity which has decided to inhabit it) nearly drives John and Dead Boy off their feet for a moment.

It hit us both at the same time, a psychic assault so powerful and so vile we both staggered and almost fell. Something was watching us, from behind the blind, windowless walls of the Necropolis. A presence permeated the atmosphere, hanging on the air like an almost palpable fog, something dark and awful and utterly alien to human ways of thinking. It felt like crying and vomiting and the smell of your own blood, and it throbbed with hate. Approaching the Necropolis was like wading through an ocean of shit while someone you loved thrust knives into your face. Dead Boy just straightened his shoulders and took it in his stride, heading directly for the front door. I suppose there's nothing like having already died to put everything else in perspective. I gritted my teeth, hugged myself tightly to keep from falling apart, and stumbled forward into the teeth of the psychic assault. -Nightingale's Lament

Higher-dimensional statement.

We were almost half-way across the hall before we got our first glimpse of what was waiting for us. At the far end, in the darkest of the shadows, barely illuminated by the light of the swirling mists, were five huge figures. The corpsicles. Thawed from unimaginable cold, revived from the dead, reanimated by abhuman spirits from Outside, they didn't look human any more. The forces that possessed the vacant bodies were too strong, too furious, too other for merely human frames to contain. They had all grown and expanded, forced into unnatural shapes and configurations by the pressures within, and now they were changed and mutated in hideous ways. It hurt to look at them. Their outlines seethed and fluctuated, trying to contain more than three dimensions at once. Mere flesh and blood and bone should have broken down and fallen apart, but the five abominations were held together by the implacable will of the creatures possessing them. They needed these bodies, these vacant hosts. The corpsicles were their only means of access to the material world. I kept wanting to look away. The shapes the bodies were trying to take were just too complex, too intricate for simple human minds to deal with. -Nightingale's Lament

Description of The Primal, a collective of purely conceptual beings "from the earliest days of creation", who exist on a higher plane.

One of the shapes leaned forward. It was twice as tall as a man, and almost as wide, its pale, sweating skin stretched painfully tight. A head craned forward on the end of a long, extended neck. Bloody tears fell constantly, to hiss and steam on the hall floor. Bone horns and antlers thrust out of the distorted face, and, when it spoke, its voice was like a choir of children whispering obscenities.

"We are The Primal. Purely conceptual beings, products of the earliest days of creation, before the glory of ideas was trapped and diminished in the narrow confines of matter. Kept out of the material worlds, to protect its fragile creatures of meat and mortality. Ever since Time was, we were. Waiting and watching at the Edge of things, searching eternally for a way in, to finally show our contempt and hatred for all the lesser creations, that dare to dream of being more than they are. We are The Primal. We were here first. And we will be here when all the meat that dares to think has been stamped back into the mud it came from." -Nightingale's Lament

Some information regarding John's biological mother.

"Typical bloody demons," said Dead Boy. "Created millennia ago, and still sulking because they didn't get better parts in the story. Let's get this over with. Come on, let's see what you can do!"

"Can you at least try for a more rational attitude?" 1 said sharply. And then I broke off, as the head turned suddenly to look at me.

"We know you, little prince," said the choir of whispering voices. "John Taylor. Yes. We know your mother, too."

"What do you know about her?" My mouth was painfully dry, but I fought to keep my voice steady.

"She who was first, and will be first again, in this worst of all possible worlds. She's coming back. Yes. Soon, she will come back."

"But who is she? What is she?"

"Ask the ones who called her up. Ask the ones who called her back. She is coming home, and she will not be denied."

"You're scared of her," I said, almost wonderingly. And you're scared of me, too, I thought.

"We are The Primal. There is still time to play in the world, before she comes back to take it for her own. Time to play with you, little prince." -Nightingale's Lament

Important to note here is the fact that these higher-dimensional beings, who by their own account have existed since the earliest point of creation, are scared of her. Yeah, she's that serious.

Dead Boy's curse, which in this book is implied to have come from the Devil himself, is apparently powerful enough to prevent one of The Primal from possessing him. (Way to fucking Worf these guys, really...)

Dead Boy reached out to grab the extended head of the speaking Primal, and its whole body surged suddenly forward to engulf and envelop him, holding him firm like an insect in amber. It wanted to possess him, but Dead Boy was already possessing his body, and his curse didn't allow room for anyone else. The Primal convulsed and spat him out, repulsed by his very nature. Dead Boy hit the floor hard, but was back on his feet in a moment, looking around for something he could hit. -Nightingale's Lament

Being higher-dimensional and all, normal magic obviously doesn't work to slow them (or their controlled undead) down for very long.

I grabbed two handfuls of salt from my jacket pocket and scattered it in a wide circle around Dead Boy and myself, yelling to him to stay inside it. I wasn't sure even his legendary invulnerability would stand up to being torn apart and digested in a hundred undead stomachs. The oozing biomass hesitated at the salt, then formed itself into high, living arches to cross over it. I glared about me, while Dead Boy slapped and punched at the nearest extensions of the biomass. He was shouting all kinds of spells, from elvish to corrupt Coptic, but none of them had any obvious effect. The reanimated tissues were charged with the energies of The Primal, forces old when the world was new, and even Dead Boy had never come across anything like this before. -Nightingale's Lament

Apparently Dead Boy can null magic that's directed at him.

"I'm not interested in buying her services," I said. "I just need to talk to her."

Grey shrugged. "Whatever you choose to do with her, it all costs the same. Cash only, of course."

"Go on up, John," said Dead Boy. "I'll have a nice little chat with Grey."

He moved forward, and Grey fell back, because people do when Dead Boy comes walking right at them. Grey quickly recovered himself and put out a hand to stop Dead Boy. Magic sparkled briefly on the air between them, then sputtered and went out. Grey backed up against a wall, his eyes very large.

"Who . . . what are you?"

"I'm Dead Boy. And that's all you need to know. Get a move on, John. I don't want to be here all night." -Nightingale's Lament

Might have something to do with his curse. As far as this installment goes, we haven't learned yet.

I don't even really know how to explain this next one.

I looked around for Grey. He was crouching huddled in a corner, shaking and shuddering and crying his eyes out. I looked at Dead Boy, leaning casually against the front door.

"What happened to him?" I said.

"He wanted to know what it was like, being dead," said Dead Boy. "So I told him."

I looked at Grey and shuddered. His eyes were very wide and utterly empty. -Nightingale's Lament

Pretty basic time magic to use for scaling to the verse's most powerful wizards.

We watched interestedly as one of the builder magicians used a temporal reverse spell to restore some damaged woodwork, then joined in the general jeering as he let the spell get away from him, and time sped back too far, so that the wood started sprouting branches and leaves again. -Nightingale's Lament

Dead Boy can see magic defenses and wards, even when they're disguised.

Dead Boy looked the nightclub over with his professionally deceased eyes.

"There are new and really nasty magical wards all over the place," he said quietly. "They're well disguised, but there's not much you can hide from the dead. It's mostly shaped curses and proximity hexes, an awful lot of them keyed specifically to your presence, John. We're only just out of range here. The Cavendishes really don't want you anywhere near their club again."

"How nasty are we talking?" I said.

"Put it this way - if you were to trigger even one of these quite appalling little bear-traps, they'll be scraping your remains off the surroundings with a palette knife." -Nightingale's Lament

He can also see people's auras, and can use this ability as a means of telling whether or not someone is alive.

"This had better be important, John. Just being in here alone with you is undoubtedly doing my reputation no good at all."

"Shut up and listen. The Cavendishes have already sent one duplicate Rossignol after me - a tulpa with supernatural strength and a really bad attitude. Is there any way you can tell whether that's the real Rossignol or not? You're always saying nothing can be hidden from the dead."

"Oh sure. I've already checked her out."

"And?"

"She is the original. And she's dead."

I looked at him for a long moment. "She's what?"

"She doesn't have an aura. It was the first thing I noticed about her."

"Well, why didn't you say anything?"

"It's none of my business if she's mortally challenged. You need to be more open-minded, John."

"You mean, she's dead, like you?"

"Oh no. I'm a special case. And she's far too bright and bubbly to be a zombie. But you can't be alive without an aura. Everyone has one."

"Really?" I said, momentarily distracted. "What does mine look like?"

"Lots of purple." -Nightingale's Lament

He can establish a link between himself and another deceased person and call up a vision of their last moments alive.

"Is there anything you can do to help me? Or at least find out what these cochons did to me?"

"I can try," said Dead Boy, surprisingly gently. "I have learned to See all kinds of things that are hidden from the living. It helps that you and I are both dead. It gives me a link I can use." He took her hand in his and gestured for me to take his other hand. I did so, a little hesitantly. I still remembered what he'd done to Grey. Dead Boy smiled briefly. "Don't wet yourself, John. I'm just going to look into Rossignol's mind and call up a vision of her last moments alive. Her memory is probably blocked by the trauma of what happened. As long as both of you are linked to me, you'll be able to see what I See. But remember, it's just a vision of the past. We can't interfere or intervene. The past cannot be changed, no matter how much we might wish to."

His grip tightened on my hand, and suddenly we were somewhere else. No incantations, no objects of power - just the will of a man who'd been dead for thirty years and still wouldn't lie down. We were in the Cavendishes' inner office, the place to which I had I been dragged, broken and bleeding. Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish were smiling at a preoccupied and scowling Rossignol. She was trying to tell them something, but they weren't listening. Mrs. Cavendish poured Rossignol a glass of champagne and said something soothing. Rossignol snatched the glass out of her hand, knocked it back in one, and threw the glass aside. Then she fell heavily to the floor, as her legs betrayed her. She lay there, convulsing and frothing at the mouth, while Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish looked on, smiling. Until, finally, she lay still. Then the Cavendishes looked at someone standing in the shadows, but I couldn't make out who the third person was.

We were suddenly back at our table again. Dead Boy had let go of our hands. Rossignol was trembling, but her mouth was a firm, flat line. She made herself be still with an effort of will.

"The Cavendishes poisoned me?" said Rossignol. Why would they want to murder their meal ticket?"

"A good question," I said. "And one I think we should ask them, in a pointed and forcible manner." -Nightingale's Lament

The Cavendishes can force people (''living'' people) to mentally possess the bodies of others.

And that was when a wave of quiet swept across the club. The music and the singing cut off abruptly in mid number, and the chatter from the surrounding tables died swiftly away to nothing. We all looked around and found every diva in the place staring straight at us. Every trannie, every celebrity by proxy, was up on their feet and staring at us with dark, malignant eyes. Their painted faces were suddenly strange, twisted, shaped by new and deadly emotions. It was like being suddenly surrounded by a pack of wolves. Rossignol and Dead Boy and I rose slowly to our feet, and a frisson of anticipation moved through the menacing crowd. They all smiled at the same moment, a grimace that was all teeth and no humour. One of the Marilyns produced a knife from out of his puffed sleeve. As though that was

a signal, dozens of other divas suddenly had weapons in their hands, everything from knives to razor blades to the occasional derringer. Several of them smashed bottles and glasses against tables to make jagged-edged weapons.

"They've been possessed," Dead Boy said quietly. "I know the signs. Their auras have changed. They were channelling the talents and even some of the personalities of their heroines, but that channel has been overridden by a stronger signal, imposed from outside. There's something new and a whole lot nastier in those bodies now."

"Could it be The Primal?" I said. "Back for another crack at us?"

"No," said Dead Boy. "The signs are still human."

A Dusty lurched suddenly forward to stare at Rossignol with unblinking eyes. "We are your greatest fans. We worship you. We adore you. We would die for you. You shouldn't be here. We have come to take you back where you belong."

"Bloody hell," I said. "It's that bunch of Goths and geeks the Cavendishes let hang around their outer office. The fan club from Hell. The Cavendishes must have put them in the divas' heads and sent them to bring Ross back." -Nightingale's Lament

Dead Boy is, naturally, pretty much impossible to kill with conventional weapons. He also knows a curse that can boil hundreds of people's brains at once.

I grabbed Dead Boy and pulled him between us, using his dead body as a shield. The knife slammed into his chest up to the hilt.

"You bastard, Taylor!" said Dead Boy, and then rather spoiled the effect by giggling. I heaved his dead body this way and that, deflecting attacks. It soaked up the punishment, and Dead Boy didn't object. I think he was getting a weird kind of kick out of it. Rossignol was beside me, fighting dirty, pulling trannies' wigs down over their eyes and kicking them in the nuts when she could get a clear target. My back slammed up against the wall behind me, and I yelled past Dead Boy's shoulder for Rossignol to overturn our table and make it a barricade. She broke away from shoulder-charging a Nico and pulled the table over, and soon all three of us were sheltering behind it.

"I'm bored with this," said Dead Boy. "I know a curse that will boil their brains in their heads." -Nightingale's Lament

He doesn't actually use it (John prevents him from doing so), but considering how all of his other magic so far has been verbal AND combat-applicable, it makes sense that this curse would be as well.

The Harrowing show up again, and we're reminded just how much of a threat they are.

The Harrowing advanced slowly towards us, unstoppable figures of death and horror. They had human shapes, but they didn't move like people did, and the faces under their wide-brimmed hats were only stretches of blank skin. They had no eyes, but they could see. One of them raised its hand, showing me the hypodermic needles where its fingernails should have been. Thick green drops pulsed from the tips of the needles, and I shuddered. Rossignol was clutching my arm so hard it hurt. Dead Boy was frowning for the first time.

"Would I be right in thinking events have just taken a distinct turn for the worse?"

"Oh yes," I said. "They're the Harrowing. The hounds my enemies send after me. You can't hurt or kill them because they're not real. Just constructs. And there's nothing you or I can do to stop them."

"How do you normally deal with them?" said Rossignol.

"I run like hell. I've spent a lot of my life running from the Harrowing." I raised my gift again, desperately trying to find a way out, but there wasn't one. There was no exit close enough to reach, and the overturned table wouldn't slow them down for a second. The dozen vicious figures moved towards us, relentless as cancer, implacable as destiny. -Nightingale's Lament

Rossignol's final song.

She stepped past me, and when the Jonah looked at her, she sang right into his face. Her voice was strong and true and potent, and she aimed it like a weapon right at him. I fell quickly backwards, clapping my hands to my ears. Beyond the Jonah, the Cavendishes were retreating, too, and protecting their ears. Rossignol sang, face to face with the Jonah - a sad, sad song of love lost and lovers gone, and all the secret betrayals of the heart. She sang directly at him, and he couldn't look away, couldn't back away, like a mouse hypnotized by a snake, like a fish on a hook. She held him where he was, with a merciless song of violation and isolation and the corruption of talent. Everything that had been done to her, she threw back at him. And the more she sang, the more it was the story of his life, too. Of poor little Billy Lathem, who might have been a Power and a Domination like his father, but had never been anything more than a hired thug.

The Cavendishes huddled together for comfort, as far away as they could get. I had my hands pressed so tightly to my ears I thought my skull would collapse under the pressure, and still the edges of the song ripped and tore at me, till my heart felt it would tear loose in my chest. -Nightingale's Lament

Being blown to pieces and then shot in the vital organs didn't put Dead Boy down worth a shit.

And then we all looked round, startled, as Dead Boy spoke. It was just a whisper, with most of his lungs gone, but it was still and quite clear in the quiet.

"It's not over yet," he said, staring blindly up at the ceiling. "Rossignol is dead, but not actually departed. Not yet. There's still time, John. Still time to save her, if you've got the will and the courage."

"How is it you're still with us?" I said, too numb to be properly surprised. "Half of your insides are scattered across the stage. They blew your brains out, for God's sake!"

He chuckled briefly. An eerie, ghostly sound. "My body's been dead for years. It doesn't really need its internal organs any more. They don't serve any purpose. This body is just a shape I inhabit. A habit of living. Like eating and drinking and all the other things I do to help me pretend I'm still alive." -Nightingale's Lament

Dead Boy can use a person's life force to power a spell that sends both of them into the darkness between the mortal world and the afterlife.

"You can still rescue Rossignol, John. I can use your life force to power a magic, to send both of us after her. Into the dark lands, the borderlands we pass through between this life and the next. When I died and came back, the door was left open a crack for me. I can go after her, but only a living soul can bring her back again. I won't lie to you, John. You could die, doing this. We could all go through that final door and never return. But if you're willing to try, if you're willing to give up all your remaining years in one last gamble, I promise you, we have a chance."

"You can really do this?" I said.

"I told you," said Dead Boy. "I know all there is to know about death."

"Ah, hell," I said. "I never let a client down yet."

"An attitude like that will get you killed," said Dead Boy.

"What if the Cavendishes attack us while we're gone? Destroy our bodies, so there's nothing left to come back to?"

"We'll be back the same moment we left. Or we won't be back at all."

"Do it," I said.

Dead Boy did it, and we both died. -Nightingale's Lament

I felt this snippet to be important, though I don't exactly know what it means yet as far as the verse goes.

Powered by all the remaining years of my life, Dead Boy and I went into the dark together, and for the first time I discovered there is a darkness even darker than the Nightside. A night that never ends, that never knew stars or a moon. The coldest cell, the longest fall. It was the absence of everything, except for me and Dead Boy. I was just a presence, without form or shape, a scream without a mouth to limit it, but I calmed somewhat as I sensed Dead Boy's presence. We spoke without voices, heard though there was no sound.

There's nothing here. Nothing ...

Actually there is, John, but you're still too close to life to be able to appreciate it. Think yourself lucky.

Where's Ross?

Think of the darkness as a tunnel, leading us to a light. A way out. This way...

Yes. . . How can there be a direction when there's nothing. . .

Stop asking questions, John. You really wouldn't like the answers. Now follow me.

You've been this way before.

Part of me is always here.

Is that supposed to make me feel better? You're a real spooky person, you know that?

You have no idea, John. This way. . .

And we were falling in a whole new direction. It did help to think of the darkness as a tunnel, leading somewhere. We were definitely approaching something, though with no landmarks it was impossible to judge our speed or progress. I should have been scared, terrified, but already my emotions were fading away, as though they didn't belong there. Even my thoughts were growing fuzzy round the edges. But then I began to feel there was something ahead of me, something special, calling me. A speck of light appeared, beautiful and brilliant, all the colours of the rainbow in a single sharp moment of light. It grew unhurriedly, a great and glorious incandescence, yet still warm and comforting, like the golden beam from a lighthouse, bringing ships safely home through the long lonely nights. And then there was another presence with us, and it was Rossignol.

Are you angels?

Hardly, Ross. I don't think they're talking to me any more. This is John, with Dead Boy. We've come to take you home.

But I can hear music. Wonderful music. All the songs I ever wanted to sing.

For her it was music, for me it was light. Like the warm glow from a window, the friendly light of home after a long hard journey. Or perhaps the last light of the day, when all work is over, all responsibilities put aside, and we can all rest at last. Day is done. Welcome home, at last.

Oh John, I don't think I want to go back.

I know, Ross. I feel it, too. It's like. . . we've been playing a game, and now the game's over, and it's time to go back where we belong . . .

There was a sense of taking her hand in mine, and we moved towards the light and the music. But Dead Boy had been there before. Kindly, remorselessly, he took us both by the hand and pulled us away, back to life and bodies and all the worries of the world. -Nightingale's Lament

By the way, Dead Boy can use a person's life energy to restore damage done to his body.

I sat up sharply, dragging air deep into my lungs as though I'd been underwater for ages. The lesser light of the world crashed in around me. I'd never felt so clearly, starkly alive. My skin tingled with a hundred sensations, the world was full of sound, and Ross was right there beside me. She threw herself into my arms, and for a long moment we hugged each other like we'd never let go. But eventually we did and got to our feet again. We were back in the real world, with all its own demands and priorities. Dead Boy was standing before us, complete and intact again, resplendent in his undamaged finery. The only difference was the neat bullet hole in his forehead.

"Told you I know all there is to know about death," he said smugly. "Oh, I used some of your life energy to repair the damage the Jonah did to my body, John. Knew you wouldn't mind. Trust me, you won't miss it."

I glared at him. "Next time, ask."

Dead Boy raised an eyebrow. "I hope very much there isn't going to be a next time." -Nightingale's Lament