Tommy looked at me. "This is really spooky. I feel like I've wandered into A Christmas Carol."

Mr. Alexander patted Count Video fondly on the shoulder. "Take it easy, dear boy. You can leave whenever you want. Your work here is over."

"The hell it is," Count Video said painfully. 'This isn't over until I say it's over."

Mr. Alexander took a cheque from his wallet and gave it to Count Video. "Here. Payment in full, for services rendered."

Count Video considered the cheque in his hand, then looked at me. I raised an eyebrow, and he winced.

"All right, it's over."

He lurched to his feet, shrugging off a helping hand from Mr. Alexander, and walked painfully over to the door. He pulled it open, then looked back at me.

"I'm not finished with you, Taylor."

"I know," I said. In the future, you will be one of my Enemies, and try to kill me, for the good of the Nightside.

And that was it, really. We all had a nice sit-down and a chat with the new and improved Mr. Alexander, who

couldn't do enough for us. He even presented all of us with generous cheques of our own. Eamonn had to be persuaded to accept his, but Tommy and I had no problem with it. We certainly weren't going to be paid by anyone else.

"Don't you love a happy ending?" I said to Tommy.

"Well, it depends what you mean by happy, and by ending," the existential detective began.

"Oh shut up," I said.

We all said our good-byes to Mr. Alexander, and left the Widow's Mite building. Tommy and I escorted Eamonn back through the Nightside streets to the underground station, so he could finally return to London and his precious family. We did try to interest him in trying some of the Nightside's tamer delights, just for the experience, but he refused to be tempted. He was going home, and that was all he cared about. We finally stood together outside the entrance to the tube station.

"Well," he said. "It's been... interesting, I suppose. Thank you both for all your help. I don't know what I would have done without you. But I trust you'll forgive me if I say I hope I'll never see you again."

"Lot of people feel that way about me," I said, and Tommy nodded solemnly.

"It was strange," said Eamonn. "Seeing all those other mes, the people I used to be, and the men I might have become. They were all very passionate about who they were, and what they wanted, but none of them seemed particularly happy, did they? I'm happy, in my quiet little life. I have my Andrea, and my children; and perhaps that's what true happiness is. Knowing what really matters to you."

He smiled briefly, insisted on shaking hands one last time, then he went down the steps into the Underground, and in a moment he was lost to sight among the crowd-a man going home, like so many others.