Nightside - Hell To Pay

Simon R Green
Hell to Pay

      And follow darkness like a dream…

ONE - The Hall of the Mountain King

      The boundaries of that dark and secret place, the Nightside, lie entirely contained within the city of London. And in that sick and magical place, gods and monsters, men and spirits, go about their very private business, chasing dreams and nightmares you won’t find anywhere else, marked down at sale price and only slightly shop-soiled. You want to summon up a demon or have sex with an angel? Sell your soul or someone else’s? Change the world for the better or just trade it in for something different? The Nightside lies waiting to oblige you, with open arms and a nasty smile. And yet within the Nightside there are many different lands and principalities, many private kingdoms and domains, and even more private heavens and hells.
      One such place is Griffin Hall, where the immortals live.
 
      My name is John Taylor. I’m a private eye, specialising in cases of the weird and uncanny. I don’t solve murders, I don’t do divorce work, and I wouldn’t recognise a clue if you held it up before my face and said Look, this is a clue.I do have a special gift for finding things, and people, so mostly that’s what I do. But basically I’m a man for hire, so sometimes that means I have to go where the money is.
      I drove my car along the long, narrow road that spiralled up through the primordial jungle surrounding Griffin Hall. Except it wasn’t really my car, and I wasn’t actually driving. I’d borrowed Dead Boy’s futuristic car, to make a better impression. It was a long, silver bullet with many wondrous features, which had fallen into the Nightside from the future, via a Timeslip. It adopted Dead Boy as its owner and occasional driver. I get the impression he wasn’t given much of a choice. I just sat back in the driving seat, enjoyed the massage function, and let the car drive itself. Probably had faster reactions than me anyway. I knew better than to try to touch any of the controls; the last time I even let my hands rest on the steering wheel, the car gave me a warning electric shock.
      Griffin Hall stood at the top of a great hill, in the middle of extensive grounds surrounded by high stone walls, protected by all the very latest scientific and magical defences. The huge wrought-iron gates were guaranteed impenetrable unless you had a current invitation, and you could get turned to stone just for leaning on the bell too hard. Griffin Hall, inside the Nightside, but not part of it. The Griffin family valued their privacy, and didn’t care whom they had to maim, mutilate, or murder to ensure it. Only the very important and the very privileged were ever invited to visit the Griffins at home. Their occasional parties were the biggest and brightest in the Nightside, the very height of the Social Scene; and you weren’t anybody if you didn’t have your invitation weeks in advance. I’d never been here before. For all my chequered and even infamous background, I’d never been important enough to catch the Griffins’ eye, until now. Until they needed me to do the one thing no-one else could do.
      I wondered who or what had gone missing, so completely and so thoroughly that not even the mighty Griffins, with all their resources, could find it.
      What had once been a truly massive and elegant garden, sprawling up the high sides of the hill, had been left neglected, then abandoned, possibly for centuries. It had fallen into a rioting jungle of assorted and unnatural vegetation, including some plants so ancient they’d been declared extinct outside the Nightside, along with others so strange and distorted they had to have been brought in from other dimensions. A great dark jungle of towering trees and mutant growths, pressed tight together and crowding right up to the edges of the single narrow road. The trees rose high enough to block out the starry expanse of the eternal night sky, leaning out over the road so their interlocking branches formed a canopy, a shadowy green tunnel through which I drove deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.
      They say he raised the hill and the Hall in a single night…But then, they say a lot of things about Jeremiah Griffin.
      The car’s headlamps blazed bright as the sun, but the stark scientific light couldn’t seem to penetrate far into the verdant growth on either side of the road. Instead, thick motes of pollen drifted between the trees, big as tennis balls, glowing phosphorescent blue and green. Occasionally, one would burst into a spectacular fireworks display, illuminating the narrow trails and shifting jungle interior with flares and flashes of vivid light.
      Some of the plants turned to watch as the car glided smoothly past them.
      There were trees with trunks big as houses, their dark, mottled bark glistening wetly in the uncertain light. Heavy, swollen leaves, red as blood, pulsed gently on the lowering branches. Huge flowers blossomed, big as hedges, garish as Technicolor, petals thick and pulpy like diseased flesh. Hanging vines fell like bead curtains over the narrow trails, shivering and trembling like dreaming snakes. Now and again some small scuttling thing would brush up against the tips of the liana, and they would snap and curl around the helpless creature and haul it up, kicking and screaming, into the darkness above. The squealing would stop abruptly, and blood would drip down for a while. Green leafy masses with purple flowers for eyes and rings of thorns for teeth lurched and crashed along the narrow paths, stopping at the very edge of the road to shake their heavy bodies defiantly at the intrusion of light into their dark domain.
      I’d hate to be the Griffins’ gardener. Probably have to go pruning armed with a cattle prod and a flame-thrower. As the car drove on, I thought I saw something that might have been a gardener, leaning patiently on a wooden rake at the side of the road to watch me go by. He looked like he was made out of green leaves.
      The road rose before me, growing steadily steeper as I approached the summit, and Griffin Hall. The jungle was full of ominous sounds, deep grunts and sibilant rustlings, and the occasional quickly stifled scream. Everything in the jungle seemed to be moving slowly, stirring and stretching as though waking from a deep sleep, disturbed by the intruder in their midst. I was safe, of course. I’d been personally summoned by Jeremiah Griffin himself. I had the current passWords. But I didn’t feel safe. The car’s windows were all firmly closed, and the future vehicle had more built-in weapons than some armies, but still I didn’t feel safe. Being simply a passenger made me feel…helpless. I’ve always preferred to protect myself rather than rely on others. I trust my own capabilities.
      A thrashing mass of barbed vines lurched suddenly into the middle of the road, stretching out to block my way. There wasn’t time to slow, never mind stop, and the living barrier looked heavy and solid enough to stop a tank. I braced myself for the impact, and at the last moment a roaring circular buzz-saw rose up out of the car’s bonnet. We slammed into the thorny mass at full speed, and the howling saw tore right through it, spraying green leafy fragments in all directions. Many of them were still twitching. The great green thing screamed shrilly, its thorns trailing harmlessly along the car’s armoured sides as we punched through the green mass and out the other side.
      Long, twisting branches lowered themselves into the road ahead, any one of them big enough to snatch up the car and feed it to the overhead canopy. The buzz-saw sank back into the bonnet, and twin flame-throwers rose up in its place. Vicious flames roared out to attack the branches, their flaring light bright and clean against the dark. The heavy branches shook and shuddered as the flames took hold, and they shrank back from the car. We drove on through the opening gap, while the burning branches tried to beat out the flames by slamming themselves repeatedly against the road with terrific force.
      Nothing else bothered us. In fact, most of the vegetation seemed to draw back more than a little as we passed by.
 
      It still took a long time to get to Griffin Hall, the road rising higher and higher, increasingly steep and twisting as I ascended far above the neonlit streets of the Nightside and all the little people who lived there. It felt like I was scaling the heights of Mount Olympus to meet with the gods, which was probably the intention. Griffin Hall stood at the very top of its own private mountain, looking out over the Nightside as though the whole area was the Griffins’ own private preserve. As though they owned everything they could see, for as far as they could see. And if Jeremiah Griffin didn’t actually own all of the Nightside, and everyone who lived in it, it certainly wasn’t for want of trying.
      In the past the Authorities had kept him in his place, but they were all dead and gone now, so who knew what the future held. Someone had to run the Nightside, and ensure that everyone played nice together, and certainly no-one was better placed than Jeremiah Griffin, the immortal.
      I didn’t give a damn who ran the Nightside, or thought they did. I was only here because I’d been summoned, by the man himself. A great honour, if you cared about such things, which mostly I don’t. Of course, such an important man couldn’t follow the usual route of contacting my office and making an appointment with my secretary. No, the first I knew was when his voice suddenly appeared in my head, booming This is Jeremiah Griffin. I have need of you, John Taylor.
      “Dammit, turn down the volume!” I yelled, attracting the occasional glance from other people in the street.
      “God himself wouldn’t be that loud, even if it was the Second Coming, and He was offering advance bookings for ringside seats. You’re not God, are you? I’ve been good. Mostly.”
      There was a pause, then a somewhat quieter voice said, This is Jeremiah Griffin. I have need of you, John Taylor.
      “Better,” I said. “Now how did you get hold of this number? My head is supposed to be strictly ex-directory.”
       You will come to Griffin Hall. There is work for you here.
      “What’s in it for me?”
      There was a rather longer pause. People like Jeremiah Griffin weren’t used to being questioned, especially when they’ve lowered themselves to speak to you personally.
       I could have you killed.
      I had to laugh. People (and others) have been trying to kill me for as long as I can remember, and I’m still here, while mostly they aren’t. To my surprise, the voice in my head laughed, too, just a little.
       Good. I was told you weren’t the kind of man who could be threatened or intimidated. And that’s the kind of man I need. Come to Griffin Hall, John Taylor, and you shall have more money than you have ever dreamed of.
      So of course I had to go. I didn’t have any other cases, and the big money the Vatican had paid me for finding the Unholy Grail had pretty much run out. Besides, I was intrigued. I’d heard of the Griffin, the legendary human immortal—everyone in the Nightside had—but I’d never moved in the kind of circles where I was likely to meet him. Jeremiah Griffin was a man of wealth and fame and had been for centuries.
      All the Griffins were immortal, and there are very few human immortals left these days, even in the Nightside. Jeremiah was the first and the oldest, though no-one knew for sure exactly how old he was. Impossibly rich and incredibly powerful, Griffin owned much of the Nightside and many of the businesses that operated there. And he’d always been very open about his intention eventually to run the whole Nightside as his own private kingdom. But he was never a part of the Authorities, those grey and faceless men who used to run the Nightside from a safe distance. They blocked him at every turn, denied him openings and opportunities, kept him in his place…because when all was said and done, to them he was just another part of the freak show they’d run for longer than he’d been alive.
      Still, they were gone now. Perhaps it was the Griffin’s time, come round at last. Most of the Nightside wouldn’t care, too busy chasing their own chosen damnations and salvations, all the passions and pleasures that could only be found and enjoyed in the sleazy bars and members-only clubs of the Nightside.
      No-one knew for sure how Jeremiah Griffin became immortal. There were stories, there are always stories, but no-one knew for sure. He wasn’t a godling, a vampire, or a sorcerer. He had no angelic or demonic blood in him. He was just a man who’d lived for centuries and might live for centuries more. And he was rich and powerful enough to be very hard to kill. The Griffin’s past and true nature were a mystery, reportedly even from the rest of his family, and he went to great lengths to keep it that way. I saw the severed heads of investigative journalists set on spikes above the main gates as I drove through. Some of the heads were still screaming.
 
      The jungle garden came to an abrupt halt at the low stone walls surrounding the great open courtyard laid out before Griffin Hall. Rustling vegetation came right up to the walls but stopped just short, careful not to touch them. Long rows of curious carvings had been deeply etched into the pale creamy stone. The future car passed through the single opening into the courtyard, delicate filigree silver gates opening before the car as we approached and shutting themselves firmly behind us. The car curved around in a wide arc, its heavy wheels churning up the gravel, and stopped right before the main entrance. The driver’s door opened, and I got out. The door then immediately shut and locked itself. I didn’t blame it. There was nothing remotely inviting or welcoming about Griffin Hall.
      I leaned against the car, and took my time looking around. Beyond the low stone walls, the jungle pressed forward here and there, over and over. Any part of the vegetation that touched the creamy stone immediately shrivelled up and died, but the jungle persisted, sacrificing small parts of itself in its tireless search for a weak spot, driven by the slow, stubborn relentless nature of plants. Waiting only for the day, however far in the future that might be, when the walls would finally fall, and the jungle press inexorably forward to overwhelm Griffin Hall and all who lived in it. The jungle was immortal, too, and it had endless patience.
      The Hall itself was huge, sprawling and subtly menacing in the shimmering silver light from the oversized moon that dominated the Nightside sky. All the windows were illuminated, dozens of them, blazing out at the surrounding darkness. It should have been impressive, but every single window was long and narrow, like squinting, mean-spirited eyes. The massive main door was made of some unnaturally dark wood I didn’t recognise. It looked solid enough to stop a charging rhino.
      I let my eyes drift up several stories. All those brightly lit windows, and not one face peering out. Up on the roof, dark, indistinct figures moved shiftily among the sharp-edged gables. The gargoyles were getting restless. As long as they didn’t start throwing things…gargoyles delighted in toilet humour, and possessed uncanny aim. I took a deep breath, pushed myself away from the future car, and headed for the main door as though I didn’t have a care in the world. Never show fear in the Nightside, or something will walk all over you.
      I didn’t have to worry about Dead Boy’s car. It could look after itself.
      The path to the front door was illuminated by Japanese paper lanterns on tall poles, each one decorated with a different screaming face to ward off evil spirits. I took the time to study a few close up, but I didn’t recognise anyone. As I approached the front door, I realised for the first time that for all Griffin Hall’s legendary age, its stonework was still clean and sharp, the creamy stone untouched by time or erosion or the ravages of weather. The huge building could have been built just yesterday. Griffin Hall, like the family it protected, was also immortal, untouched, unchanging.
      I stood before the door, carefully pronounced the passWords I’d been given, and rapped firmly with the old-fashioned brass knocker. The sound seemed to echo on and on beyond the door, as though travelling unimaginably long distances. After letting me wait a suitable time, the door swung smoothly and silently open, to reveal the butler standing solemnly before me. He had to be the butler. Only a butler can look down his nose at you while remaining impeccably polite and courteous. I think they teach them that on the first day at butler training school. Certainly there’s no bigger snob than a servant of long standing.
      “I’m John Taylor,” I said.
      “Of course you are, sir.”
      “Jeremiah Griffin is expecting me.”
      “Yes, sir. Do come in.”
      He stepped back only enough to let me get past, so I made a point of stepping heavily on his perfectly polished shoes. He closed the door, then inclined his head to me in what was almost a bow, but not quite.
      “Shall I summon a servant to take your trench coat, sir? We could have it cleaned.”
      “No,” I said. “It goes everywhere with me. It’d be lost without me.”
      “Indeed, sir. I am Hobbes, the Griffin family butler. If you would care to follow me, I will escort you into the master’s presence.”
      “Works for me,” I said.
 
      Hobbes led the way through the huge entrance lobby and down a long hallway, back stiff, chin up, not even bothering to check if I was following. It probably never even occurred to him that I wouldn’t be. So I strolled along, a few paces behind, deliberately slouching with both hands in my coat-pockets. You learn to take your little victories where you find them. The hallway was big enough to drive a train through, lit by a warm golden glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Typical supernatural track lighting. I had a good look round, refusing to allow Hobbes to dictate the pace. I was genuinely interested. Not many people get to see the inside of Griffin Hall, and most of them had the decency and common sense to keep quiet about what they saw. But I’ve never been big on either. I was pretty sure I could make a tasty sum selling a detailed description to the Gracious Living section of the Night Times.
      But…I have to say, I wasn’t that impressed. The hallway was big, yes, but you soon got over that. The gleaming wooden floor was richly waxed and polished, the walls were brightly painted, and the high ceiling was decorated with a series of tasteful frescoes…but there were no standing suits of armour, no antique furnishings, no great works of art. Just a really long hallway with an endless series of paintings and portraits covering both walls. All of them depicting Jeremiah Griffin and his wife Mariah, in the fashions and styles of centuries past. Paintings hundreds of years old, celebrating two people who were probably even older. From formal stylised portraits where they both wore ruffs and the obligatory unsmiling expressions, through dozens of kings and more Parliaments, from Restoration to Edwardian and beyond. Some by artists so famous even I recognised them.
      I spent so long admiring a Rembrandt that Hobbes had to come back and hover over me, clearing his throat in a meaningful manner. I turned to give him my full attention. Hobbes really was the archetypal butler, upright and stern in his formal black-and-white Victorian outfit. His hair was jet-black and so were his eyes, though his tightlipped mouth was so pale as to be almost colourless. He had a high-boned face, and a long, pointed chin you could use to get pickles out of a jar. He should have been amusing, an anachronism in this modern day and age, but behind the arrogant servility there was a sense of enormous strength held in check, ready to be released in the service of his master. Hobbes…was creepy, in an utterly intimidating sort of way.
      You knew he’d be the first person to lean over your shoulder during a formal dinner and loudly announce that you were using the wrong fork. He’d also be the first to toss you out on your ear, probably with a broken limb or two, if you were dumb enough to upset his lord and master. I made a mental note not to turn my back on him at any time and to fight extremely dirty if push ever came to shove.
      “If you’ve quite finished, sir…?” Implied threats filled the pause at the end.
      “Tell me about Jeremiah,” I said, not moving, just to be contrary. “Have you worked for him long?”
      “I have had the honour of serving the Griffin family for years, sir. But you will of course understand that I cannot discuss the family’s personal matters with any visitor, no matter how…well-known.”
      “I like your gardens,” I said. “Very…lively.”
      “We do our best, sir. This way, sir.”
      It was clear he wasn’t going to tell me one damn thing, so I set off at a fast pace down the long hallway, and he had to hurry to catch up with me. He quickly resumed the lead, gliding silently along a careful two paces ahead of me. He was very quiet for such a big man. I felt like sticking my tongue out at his back, but somehow I knew he’d know, and wouldn’t care. So I settled for ambling along again, making as much noise as I could, doing my best to leave scuff marks on the polished floor. Every now and again, other servants would emerge from side corridors, all of them dressed in old-fashioned Victorian outfits, and every time they’d crash to a halt and wait respectfully for Hobbes to pass, before continuing on their way. Except… respectfulwasn’t quite the word. No, they looked scared. All of them.
      Jeremiah and Mariah Griffin continued to stare solemnly back at me from the walls as I passed. Clothes and hairstyles and backgrounds changed, but they remained the same. Two hard, unyielding faces, with unyielding stares. I’d seen portraits of kings and queens in all their finery who looked less royal, less sure of themselves. As Hobbes and I finally approached the end of the hallway, paintings finally gave way to photographs, from faded sepia prints to the latest digital clarity. And for the first time the Griffin children appeared, William and Eleanor. First as children, then as adults, again fixed and unchanging while the fashions and the world changed around them. Both children had their parents’ strong bone structure but none of their character. The children looked…soft, pampered. Weak. Unhappy.
      At the end of the hallway, Hobbes took a sharp right turn, and when I followed him round the corner I found we were in another great hallway, where both walls were lined with trophies of the hunt. Animal heads watched and snarled from their carefully positioned wall plaques, stuffed and mounted with glass eyes that seemed to follow you down the hall. There were all the usual beasts of the field, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and a single fox head that creeped the hell out of me by winking as I passed. I didn’t say anything to Hobbes. I knew he wouldn’t have anything to say about it that I wanted to hear. As we progressed further down the long hallway, the trophies progressed from the unusual to the unnatural. No-one cares about permits in the Nightside. You can hunt any damn thing you take a fancy to if it doesn’t start hunting you.
      There was a unicorn’s head, complete with the single long curlicued horn, though its pure white hide seemed drab and lifeless, for all the taxidermist’s skill. Further along there was a manticore, with its disturbing mix of leonine and human features. The snarling mouth was full of huge blocky teeth, but the long, flowing mane looked as though it had been recently blow-dried. And…an absolutely huge dragon’s head, a good fourteen feet from ear to pointed ear. The golden eyes were big as dinner plates, and I’d never seen so many teeth in one mouth before. The snout projected so far out into the hallway that Hobbes and I had to edge past in single file.
      “I’ll bet that’s hell to dust,” I said, because you have to say something.
      “I wouldn’t know, sir,” said Hobbes.
 
      Several hallways and corridors later, we came at last to the main conference room. Hobbes knocked briskly, pushed open the door, and stepped aside to gesture me through ahead of him. I strolled in like I did this every day, and didn’t even glance back as I heard Hobbes close the door firmly behind me. The conference room was large and noisy, but the first thing that caught my attention were the dozens of television screens covering the wall to my left, showing news channels, business information, market reports, and political updates from all round the world. All blasting away simultaneously. The sheer noise of the babble was overwhelming, but no-one in the room seemed to be paying it any particular attention.
      Instead, all eyes were on the man himself, Jeremiah Griffin, sitting at the head of his long table like a king on his throne, listening intently as his people came to him in a steady flow, bearing news and memos and files and urgent but respectful questions. They swarmed around him like worker drones with a queen bee, coming and going, clustering and re-forming, and competing jealously for the Griffin’s attention. They all seemed to be talking at the same time, but Jeremiah Griffin had no difficulty telling whom he wanted to talk to, and whom he needed to listen to. He rarely looked at any of the men and women around him, giving all his attention to the papers placed before him. He would nod or shake his head, initial some pages and reject others, and occasionally growl a comment or an order, and the people around him would rush away to do his bidding, their faces fixed and intent. Impeccably and expensively dressed, and probably even more expensively educated, they still behaved more like servants than Hobbes. None of them paid me any attention, even when they had to brush right past me to get to the door. And Jeremiah didn’t even glance in my direction.
      Presumably I was supposed to stand there, at full attention, until he deigned to notice me. Hell with that. I pulled up a chair and sat down, putting my feet up on the table. I was in no hurry, and I wanted to take a good look at the immortal Jeremiah Griffin. He was a big man, not tall but big, with a barrel chest and broad shoulders, in an exquisitely cut dark suit, white shirt, and black string tie. He had a strong, hard-boned face, with cold blue eyes, a hawk nose, and a mouth that looked like it rarely smiled. All topped with a great leonine mane of grey hair. Just as he’d looked in all his portraits, right back to the days of the Tudors. It seemed he’d only come to his immortality when he was already in his fifties, and the package hadn’t included eternal youth. He’d just stopped aging. He sat very upright, as though doing anything else would be a sign of weakness, and his few gestures were sharp and controlled. He had that effortless gravitas and calm authority that come from long years of experience. He gave the impression that here was a man who would always know exactly what you were going to say even before you said it, because he’d seen and heard it all before. Over and over again.
      His people treated him with a deference bordering on awe, more like a pope than a king. Outside this room they might be people of wealth and breeding and experts in their field, but here they were just underlings to the Griffin, a position and a privilege they would rather die than give up. Because this was where the power was, where the real money was, where all the decisions that mattered were made, every day, and even the smallest decision changed the course of the world. To be working here, for the Griffin, meant you were at the very top of the heap. For as long as you lasted. Somehow I knew there was a constant turnover of bright young things passing through this room. Because the Griffin wouldn’t stand for anyone becoming experienced or influential enough to be a threat to him.
      Jeremiah Griffin kept me waiting for some time, and I got bored, which is always dangerous. I was supposed to just sit there and cool my heels, to put me in my place, but I am proud to say I have never known my place. So I decided to act up cranky. I have a reputation to live down to. I looked unhurriedly round the conference room, considering various possibilities for mischief and mayhem, before finally settling on the wall of television screens.
      I used my special gift to find the channel control signal and used it to tune every single television screen to the same appalling show. I’d found it accidentally one night while channel hopping (never a good idea in the Nightside, where we get not only the whole world’s output, but also transmissions from other worlds and other dimensions), and I actually had to go and hide behind the sofa till it was over. The John Waters Celebrity Perversion Houris the single most upsetting pornography ever produced, and now it was blasting out of dozens of screens simultaneously. The various men and women hovering around Jeremiah Griffin looked up, vaguely aware that something had changed, and then they saw the screens. And saw what was happening. And then they started screaming, and puking, and finally running for their lives and their sanity. There are some things man is just not meant to know, let alone do with a moose. The conference room quickly cleared, leaving only myself and Jeremiah Griffin. He looked briefly at the screens, sniffed once, then looked away again. He wasn’t shocked or upset, or even impressed. He’d seen it all before.
      He gestured sharply with one hand, and all the screens shut down at once. The room was suddenly and blessedly quiet. The Griffin looked at me sternly. I leaned back in my chair, and smiled easily at him. Jeremiah sighed heavily, shook his head briefly, and rose to his feet. I took my boots off the table and quickly got to my feet, too. The Griffin hadn’t become the richest and most powerful individual in the Nightside without killing his fair share of enemies, many with his bare hands. I struck a carefully casual pose as he approached me (never show fear, they can sense fear), and he came to a halt carefully out of arm’s reach. Presumably he’d heard about me, too. We studied each other silently. I didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did he.