This is a story called "The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds". It was first published in 1984, in KNAVE and was my third published short story. It was reprinted in 1993 ANGELS AND VISITATIONS (although I didn't put it into Smoke and Mirrors) and it's been collected in anthologies a few times since then. --NGor What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?Written by Neil Gaiman, Illustrations and Layout by Jouni Kopnen - Requires the Adobe PDF reader available at Adobe.com."Come on," said Vic. "It'll be great." "No, it won't," I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it. "It'll be brilliant," said Vic, for the hundredth time. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He grinned with white teeth.David Bowie fan fiction. Illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano.