The Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green Read Free Book Online

trying to find out. Certainly the aggressive tone of the paper hadn’t changed in over a hundred years; it was just as blunt and brash and obnoxious now as it had always been.
    I sat more or less patiently on the couch, idly considering the possibilities of redecorating the Reception area with a couple of incendiaries, while a handful of people drifted in and out. Reporters and office functionaries wandered past, caught up in their own business and paying no attention at all to me. Paparazzi teleported in just long enough to drop off their latest snatched photos of celebrities doing things they shouldn’t, and then disappeared again. There are cannibal demons on the Street of the Gods less hated and despised than the Unnatural Inquirer’s paparazzi. Suzie shoots at them on sight, but so far she’s only managed to wing a couple. We stopped them hanging about our house by planting disguised man-traps. Nothing like the occasional scream of a wounded paparazzi in the early hours of the morning to help you sleep peacefully.
    A few of the paparazzi looked at me thoughtfully but were careful not even to point their cameras in my direction. It’s all in the reputation.
    “You’re sure the Sub-Editor knows I’m waiting?” I said to the Receptionist. “I was told this was urgent.”
    “He knows,” she said. “Or maybe he doesn’t. Embrace the possibilities!”
    I walked over to her and gave her one of my best hard looks. “I’ll bet this place would burn up nicely if I put my mind to it.”
    “Go ahead. See if I care. The only time this place gets a makeover is after a good fire. Sometimes they just scrub down the walls.”
    I gave up. “Distract me. Talk to me. Tell me things.”
    “What sort of things?”
    “Well, how big is the paper’s circulation these days?”
    She shrugged. “Don’t think anyone knows for sure. The print run’s been rising steadily for thirty years now, and it was huge before that. Sales aren’t limited to the Nightside, you know. It goes out to all kinds of other worlds and dimensions. Because everyone’s interested in what’s happening in the Nightside. We get letters from all over. We got one from Mars.”
    “Really? What did it say?”
    “No-one knows. It was in Martian.”
    I decided I didn’t want to talk to her any more. I sat down on the couch again and looked at the framed front pages on the walls, showcasing the paper’s long history.
    Elvis Really Is Dead! We Have Proof! Honeymoon Over; Giant Ape Admits Size Isn’t Everything! Hitler Burns in Hell! Official! Orson Welles Was Really a Martian! We Have X-Rays! Our Greatest Ever Psychic Channels New Songs from Elvis, John Lennon, Marc Bolan, and Buddy Holly! All Available on a CD You Can Buy Exclusively from the Unnatural Inquirer!
    Proof, if proof were needed, that not only is there one born every second, but that they grow up to read the tabloids.
    Still, if nothing else, the Unnatural Inquirer had style. It got your attention. For want of anything better to do, I picked up a copy of the latest edition from the low table. The front-page headline was Tribute Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to Tour Nightside! Over Their Dead Bodies, Says Walker! I leafed through the paper, grimacing as the cheap print came off on my fingers.
    Apparently the Holy Order of Saint Strontium had been forcibly evicted from the Street of the Gods after it was discovered that their Church had a radioactive half-life of two million years. “Bunch of pussies,” said Saint Strontium. He had a lot more to say, but none of the reporters present wanted to hang around long enough to find out what…There were some intriguing Before and After photos of Jacqueline Hyde, poor soul. Jacqueline and Hyde were in love, but doomed never to meet save for the most fleeting of moments…Another story insisted that the Moon really was made of green cheese, and that the big black monoliths were just oversized alien crackers…And right at the bottom of an inner