Nightside - Hell To Pay

      “If only,” said Gloria. “It’s just another story. There have always been stories about the Griffin, but no-one knows anything for sure.”
      “Does William believe it?”
      “He did once. That’s why he wanted a child. To use as a weapon against his father.”
      “William wanted his father dead?”
      “Dead and gone, because that was the only way William could ever be his own man. Free at last…though free to do what, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps even he doesn’t know.”
      “Do you want me to find your daughter?” I said.
      “Given that if I do bring her back, safe and well, she could disinherit William and you?”
      “Find her,” said Gloria, fixing me with her calm dark gaze. “It’s all right that she never loved me. You can’t love a stranger. But I gave birth to her, nursed her, held her in my arms…Find her, Mr. Taylor. And if anyone has dared to hurt her…kill them slowly.”
      “Any idea where I should look for William?” I said.
      Gloria smiled. “And just like that, you’re finished with me. I told you all I knew, and you told me nothing. What a marvellous private investigator you are, Mr. Taylor.”
      “You didn’t ask me anything,” I said.
      “No,” said Gloria. “I didn’t, did I? If you want to find William…try the Arcadian Project.”
      And the snake draped across her shoulders looked at me and seemed to laugh silently, as though it knew something I didn’t.
 
      Like the Caligula Club, I knew the Arcadian Project by reputation; but whereas everyone talked about what went on at the Caligula, no-one knew anything about the inner workings of the Arcadian Project. The most private place in the Nightside, some said. A lot of people go in, but not all of them come out again, others said. Its very location was a secret, known only to the trusted few, and this in a place where the secrets of the universe are sold openly on street corners. But I can find anything. That’s my job.
      I fired up my gift and looked out over the Nightside through my third eye, my private eye. Great forces were abroad in the night, ancient and awful Powers walking unseen and unsuspected, but they were too big to notice something as small as me. I concentrated on the single thing I was looking for, and my Sight rocketed through the streets and alleys of the Nightside, before finally zeroing in on a narrow dark alley, where most people only went to dump their garbage or the occasional body.
      It wasn’t all that far from Uptown, but it might as well have been another world. No private clubs and restaurants here, just paint-peeling doors and fly-specked windows, guttering neon signs with half the lettering burnt out, and sloe-eyed cold-eyed daughters of the twilight on every corner, selling their shop-soiled wares. The kind of place where there’s nothing for sale that didn’t originally belong to someone else, where the pleasures and pursuits on offer leave a nasty taste in the mouth, and even the muggers go around in pairs, for safety.
      I found the alley easily enough and looked down it from the relative safety of the brighter-lit street. The light didn’t penetrate far into the hot sweaty shadows, and I was pretty sure I could hear things scrabbling about in the darkness beyond. The air smelled close and moist and ripe. Ripe for an ambush, certainly. I reached into my coat-pocket and brought out a dead salamander in a plastic globe. I shook it hard, and a fierce silver glow burst from the globe, illuminating the alley ahead of me. Things scuttled away from the sudden new light, hurrying off to hide in darker, safer places. I made my way slowly and cautiously down the alleyway, being very careful where I put my feet, and finally came to a simple green door set into the grimy stone of the left-hand wall. There was no sign over the door, not even a handle on the door, but this was it. The one and only access point to the Arcadian Project. I studied the door carefully, not touching it, but it seemed like simply another door. It wasn’t locked or booby-trapped or cursed—my gift would have told me. So I just shrugged, placed one hand against it, and gave it a good push.
      The door swung easily open and I almost cried out as a blindingly bright light spilled into the alleyway. I tensed, ready for anything, but nothing happened. There was only the golden sunlight, warm and fresh and sweet as a summer’s day, heavy with the scents of woods and fields and meadows. I realised I was still holding the salamander globe, with its sickly inferior light, and put it back in my coat-pocket. And then I walked forward into daylight, and the green door swung slowly shut behind me.
 
      I was standing on the side of a great grassy hill, looking out over a view of open countryside that took my breath away. Fields and meadows stretched away before me for as far as I could see, and perhaps forever. To one side were sprawling woods with tall dark trees, and down below a stream of clear and sparkling water ran happily on its way, crossed here and there by simple old-fashioned stone bridges. A dream of old England, as it never was but should have been, happy and content under the bright blue sky of a perfect summer’s day. A soft gusting breeze brought me scents rich as perfume, of flowers and grass and growing things. Birds sang, and there was a gentle buzz of insects, and it was good, so good, just to stand in daylight again after so very long away.
      This was the great secret, never to be shared with the unworthy for fear it would be spoiled—Arcadia.
      A single pathway meandered away before me, starting at my feet. A series of square stone slabs resting on the grass, leading down the hillside. I set off, stepping carefully from slab to slab, like stepping-stones on a great green sea. The path curved around the side of the hill, then led me along a river-bank, while I watched birds swoop and soar, and butterflies drift this way and that, and smiled to see small woodland creatures scurry all around me, undisturbed by human presence. Pure white swans sailed majestically down the stream, bowing their heads to me as I passed.
      Finally I rounded a corner, and there on a river-bank before me were my father and my mother, reclining at their ease on the grassy bank, with the contents of a wicker picnic basket spread out on a checked tablecloth. My father Charles was lying stretched out, in a white suit, smiling as my mother Lilith, in a white dress, threw pieces of bread to the ducks. I made some kind of sound, and my mother looked round and smiled dazzlingly at me.
      “Oh, Charles, see who’s here! John has come to join us!”
      My father raised himself up on one elbow and looked round, and his smile widened as he saw me. “Good of you to join us, son. We’re having a picnic. There’s ham and cheese, and scotch eggs and sausage rolls, and all your favourites.”
      “Come and join us, darling,” said my mother. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
      I stumbled forward and sat down between my mother and my father. He squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring way, and my mother passed me a fresh cup of tea. I knew it would be milk and two sugars, just the way I liked it. I sat there for a while, enjoying the moment, and there was a part of me that would have liked to stay for the rest of my life. But I’ve never been any good at listening to that part of me.
      “There are so many things I meant to say to you, Dad,” I said finally. “But there wasn’t time.”
      “You have all the time in the world here,” said my father, lying on his back again and staring up into the summer sky.
      “And despite everything that happened, I would have liked to get to know you, Mother,” I said to Lilith.
      “Then stay here with us,” she said. “And we can be together, forever and ever and ever.”
      “No,” I said regretfully. “Because you’d only ever say what I wanted you to say. Because this isn’t real, and neither are you. My parents are gone, and lost to me forever. This is Arcadia, the Summerland where dreams can come true, and everyone is happy, and good things happen every day. But I have things to do, and people to meet, because that’s what I do and who I am. And besides, my Suzie will be waiting for me when I get home. She might be a psycho gun nut, but she’s mypsycho gun nut. So, I have to be going now. My life might not be perfect, like this, but at least it’s real.
      “And I’ve never let down a client yet.”
      I got up and walked away, following the stepping-stone path again. I didn’t look back to see my father and my mother fade away and disappear. Perhaps because I liked to think of them there together, picnicking on a river-bank forever and a day, happy at last.
 
      The path led me along beside the river-bank for a while, then turned abruptly to take me up a grassy hillside towards a stretch of woodland, standing tall and proud against the sky. I could hear voices up ahead now, loud and happy and occasionally bursting into laughter. It sounded like children. When I got close enough, I could see William Griffin, lying at his ease on the grassy slope, looking out over the magnificent view, while all around him his childhood friends laughed and played and ran in the never-ending sunshine of Summerland.
      I knew some of them, because they’d been my childhood friends, too. Bruin Bear, a four-foot-tall teddy bear in his famous red tunic and trousers and his bright blue scarf, every young boy’s good friend and brave companion. And there beside the Bear, his friend the Sea Goat in a long blue-grey trench coat, human-sized but with a large blocky goat’s head and long, curling horns. Everyone had those books when I was a kid, and we all went on marvellous adventures with the Bear and the Goat in our imaginations…There was Tufty-Tailed Squirrel, and Barney the Battery Boy, and even Beep and Buster, one boy and his alien. There were others, too—child-sized toys and anthropomorphic animals in cut-down human clothes, and happy smiling creatures of the kind we all forget as we grow up and move on. Except we never do forget them, not deep down, where it really matters. They played together all around William Griffin, squabbling cheerfully, laughing and chattering and chasing each other back and forth. Old companions, and sometimes the only real friends a child ever had.
      They all stopped abruptly and looked round as I approached. They didn’t look scared, just curious. William sat up slowly and looked at me. I held up my hands to show they were empty, and that I came in peace. William hugged his knees to his chest and looked at me over them, and finally sighed tiredly.
      “You’d better go,” he said to the toys and animals.
      “This is going to be grown-up talk. You’d only be bored.”
      They all nodded and faded away, like the dreams they were. Except for Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat, who stood their ground and studied me thoughtfully with calm, knowing eyes. The Sea Goat pulled a bottle of vodka from his coat pocket and took a long pull.
      “That’s right,” he said thickly. “We’re real. Sort of. Get used to it.”
      “Not many remember us anymore,” said the Bear. “We’re legends now, so we live in Shadows Fall, where all stories have their ending. We commute into the Nightside now and again, to be here for those who still have a need for us.”
      “Yeah, right,” said the Sea Goat, belching loudly. “I just come here for the view and a bit of peace and quiet. And the free food. You’re John Taylor, aren’t you? You’ll probably end up a legend yourself, after you’ve been dead long enough for people to forget the real you. Then it’s Shadows Fall for you, whether you like it or not. I’ll tell you now, you won’t like it. And don’t you mess with William. He’s with us. You spoil his day, and I’ll shove this bottle so far up you, you’ll need a trained proctologist with spelunking gear to get it out again.”
      “Don’t mind him,” Bruin Bear said fondly. “He’s just being himself.”
      They moved off into the dark wood, still arguing companionably. They didn’t seem quite as I remembered them. I moved forward and sat down beside William.
      “So this is the Arcadian Project,” I said. “Nice. I really like the view.”
      “What do you want, Taylor?” said William. “And how did you know to find me here anyway? This was supposed to be the one place where no-one could bother me.”
      “It’s a gift,” I said. “Gloria pointed me in the right direction. I think she’s worried about you.”
      William snorted briefly. “That would be a first.”
      “What are you doing here?” I said, honestly curious. “Why…this?”
      “Because I never had a childhood,” said William. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring out over the view, or perhaps seeing something else in his head, in his past. “For as far back as I can remember, my father’s only interest in me was to groom me as his heir and successor. So he could be sure everything he built would still continue, even without him. He wanted me to be just like him. It wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t, and never would be. There’s only one Jeremiah Griffin, which is probably for the best. But even as a small child, I was never allowed much time to play, to be myself. Never allowed to have any real friends because they couldn’t be trusted. They might be spies for my father’s many enemies. It was always work, work, work. Endless lessons, on family business and family duty. My only means of escape was into books and comics. I lived in my dreams then, whenever I could, in the simpler happier realms of my imagination. The only place that was truly mine, that my father couldn’t reach and spoil or take away.”
      I couldn’t have stopped him talking if I’d tried. He’d held this bottled up inside him for years, and he would have told it to anyone who found him here. Because he had a terrible need to tell it to someone…
      “That’s why I started body-building as a teenager,” said William Griffin, still not looking at me. “So I could have some control over some part of my life, even if it was only the shape of my body. By then I knew I wasn’t up to running the family business. I knew that long before my father did. I liked to think…I might have managed some smaller triumph if I’d been left to myself. If I’d been left to choose my own way, follow my own interests. But the Griffin couldn’t bear to have a son who was anything less than great.
      “These days, I’m just a glorified gopher, there to deal with all the things my father can’t trust to anyone who isn’t family. We both pretend I’m someone important, but everyone knows…I carry out the policy he sets, but God help me if I should ever dare to make even the smallest decision on my own. I move papers from one place to another, talk to people with my father’s voice, and every day I die a little more. Do you have any idea what that’s like, for an immortal? To die by inches, forever and ever…
      “For a while I filled my time by indulging my senses and my pleasures…I must have belonged to every private club in the Nightside, at one time or another. Tried everything they had to offer…and everyone. But while that distracted, it never satisfied.”
      He turned suddenly to look at me, and his eyes were dark and angry and dangerous. “You can’t tell anyone about this, Taylor. About me, being here. With my friends. People wouldn’t understand. They’d think me weak, and try to take advantage. And my father…really wouldn’t understand. I don’t think he ever neededanything in his life. In fact, it’s hard to think of the mighty and powerful Jeremiah Griffin ever having had anything as normal and vulnerable as a childhood. This is the only thing I have that he isn’t a part of. The only place I can be free of him.”
      “Don’t worry,” I said. “Your father doesn’t need to know about this. He hired me to investigate Melissa, not you. I’m only interested in what you can tell me about your daughter and her disappearance.”
      “I wanted to be a father to her,” said William, his eyes lost and far away again. “A good father, not like Jeremiah. I wanted her to have the childhood I never had. But he took her away, and after that I was only allowed to see her when Jeremiah said so. I think Melissa sees him as her real father. Her daddy. I spent years trying to reach out to her…but even when I timed my visits so Jeremiah wasn’t there, somehow Melissa was never there either. She’d always just gone out…Hobbes is my father’s man, body and soul. He runs the Hall, and no-one gets past him. In the end…I just stopped trying.”
      He looked at me, and there was something beaten, and broken, in his face. “I don’t hate my father, you know. Don’t ever think that. He only ever wanted what he thought was best for me. And for so long…all I wanted was for my father to be proud of me.”
      “All sons do,” I said.
      “What about your father? Was he proud of you?”
      “At the end,” I said. “I think so, yes. When it was too late for either of us to do anything about it. You know about my mother…”
      William smiled for the first time. “Everyone in the Nightside knows about your mother. We all lost someone in the Lilith War.”
      “Do you believe Melissa was kidnapped?” I said bluntly.
      He shook his head immediately. He didn’t even have to think about it. “How could she have been, from inside Griffin Hall, with all our security? But she couldn’t have run away, either. There was no way she could have got out of the Hall without someone noticing. And where could she have run to, where could she go, where they wouldn’t know who she was? Someone would have been bound to turn her in, either for the reward or to our enemies, as a way of getting back at Father.”
      “Unless someone else in the family was involved,” I said carefully. “Either to help her escape or to override the security so she could be taken…”
      William was shaking his head again. “She has no friends in the family, except perhaps Paul. And nobody would risk interfering with the security that protects us.”
      “Who would dare kidnap Melissa Griffin?”
      “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, John Taylor; I’d kill anyone who hurt her. So would the Griffin.”
      “Even though he could stand to lose…everything when she turns eighteen?”
      William laughed briefly, though there wasn’t much humour in the sound. “Oh, you’ve heard that story, have you? Forget it. It’s bullshit. Urban legend. If it was true, my father would have killed Melissa and Paul the moment he learned of their existence. He’s always been able to do the hard, necessary, vicious things, no matter who it hurt. Even him. A very practical man, my father. I didn’t have Melissa to threaten him, no matter what anyone says. I just wanted something that was mine. I should have known he’d never allow that.”
      “Then why did your immortal father make a will?” I said.
      “Good question,” said William. “I didn’t even know about the first will, never mind the second. My father can’t die. He’d never do anything so ordinary, so weak.” He looked straight at me again. “Find my daughter, Mr. Taylor. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs.”
      “Whoever it hurts?” I said. “Even if it’s family?”
      “Especially if it’s family,” said William Griffin.
      “Aren’t you two finished yet?” the Sea Goat said loudly. “Me and the Bear have some important lounging about we should be getting on with.”
      William Griffin smiled fondly at his two friends, and for a moment he looked like someone else entirely. Bruin Bear gave him a big hug, and the Sea Goat passed over his bottle of vodka. William took a long drink, passed the bottle back, and sighed deeply.
      “It’s hard to tell which of the two comforts me more,” he said sadly.
      “You just need a good crap, clear the system out,” the Sea Goat said wisely. “Everything looks better after a good crap.”
      “Can’t take you anywhere,” said Bruin Bear.

SIX - It’s All About Reputations

      I was learning a lot about the inner secrets of the Nightside’s most mysterious family, but I wasn’t getting any closer to finding Melissa, or what had happened to her. No-one wanted to talk about her; they just wanted to talk about themselves. I hadn’t realised how much I’d come to depend on my gift for finding things to help get me through cases. It had been a long time since I’d had to investigate the hard and honest way, by asking questions and following up on the answers. But I could tell I was narrowing in on something, even if I wasn’t sure what. All I could do was keep digging and hope that if I asked enough awkward questions, someone would tell me something I wasn’t supposed to know. I asked William where I could find his sister Eleanor, and he shrugged and said Try Hecate’s Tea Room. I should have known. Hecate’s Tea Room was the premiere watering hole for all the Nightside’s Ladies Who Lunch.
      I walked back out of the long, green dream of the Arcadian Project and back into the more comfortable nightmare of neonlit streets and hospitable shadows. Not all of us thrive in sunlight. Hecate’s Tea Room is one of the most expensive, exclusive, and extravagant bistros in the Nightside, set right in the heart of Uptown. A refined and resplendent setting where the better halves of rich and famous men could come together to chat and gossip and practice character assassination on those of their kind unfortunate enough not to have made the scene that day. There was a long waiting list to get in, and you could be barred for the slightest lapse in etiquette. But no-one ever complained because it was so very much the In place, to see and be seen. And there never was a faux pas so bad that a big enough cheque couldn’t put right.
      I studied the place from a safe distance, watching from the shadows of an alley mouth as a steady stream of chauffeur-driven limousines glided down the street to pull up outside the heavily guarded front door and drop off famous faces from the society pages and the gossip rags. The sweet and elite of the Nightside, in stunning gowns and understated makeup, weighed down with enough jewellery to make even the smallest gesture an effort.
      The neon sign above the door spelt out Hecate’s Tea Roomin stylings so rococo it was almost impossible to read, and the whole place reeked of art deco redux. There’s nothing more fashionable than an old style come round again. I used my Sight to check out the security, and sure enough the whole building was surrounded by layer upon layer of defensive magics, everything from shaped curses to Go Straight to Hell spells. There were all kinds of guards, tactfully hidden behind camouflage magics, and the two large gentlemen standing by the front door might be dressed in elegant tuxedos, but they both had tattoos on their foreheads that marked them as combat magicians. Ex-SAS, from the look of them. Even the paparazzi maintained a very discreet distance.
      So, fighting or intimidating my way in wasn’t going to work here. That just left bluff and fast talking, which fortunately I’ve always been very good at. My reputation’s always been more impressive than me, and that’s because I put a lot of work into it. I left the alley-way and sauntered up to the front door. The two gentlemen in tuxedos saw me coming, recognised me immediately, and moved to stand in front of the door, blocking my way. A bouncer is a bouncer, no matter how smartly you dress him. I stopped before them and smiled easily, like I didn’t have a care in the world.
      “Hi guys. I’m here representing the Griffin, to speak with his daughter Eleanor.”
      They weren’t expecting that. They looked at each other, communicating in that silent way of bouncers everywhere, then they looked back at me.
      “Do you have any proof of that, sir?”
      “Would even I claim the Griffin’s support if I didn’t have it?” I countered.
      They considered that, nodded, and stepped aside. My reputation might be unsettling, but the Griffin’s was downright scary. I strolled through the door and into the Tea Room as though I was slumming just by being there. When it comes to looking down the nose at someone, it pays to get your retaliation in first. The cloakroom girl was a friendly looking zombie dressed in a black bustier and fishnet stockings to set off her dead white skin. The dead make the best servants—so much less back-talk. She asked very nicely if she could take my trench coat, and I said I thought not.
      I got her phone number, though. For Dead Boy.
      I stepped through a hanging bead curtain into the main Tea Room, and the loud babble of conversation didn’t even dip for a moment. The Ladies Who Lunch saw scarier and more important people than me every day. I wandered slowly between the crowded tables, taking my time. A few people got up and left, heading discreetly but speedily for the rear exit. I was used to that. The Tea Room was all steel and glass and art deco stylings, with one entire wall dominated by a long row of high-tech coffee machines, the kind that labour mightily for ages that little bit longer than you can actually stand, in order to finally provide you with a cup full of flavoured froth. I’ve always preferred tea to coffee myself, and preferably in a brew so strong that when you’ve finished stirring it, the spoon has stress marks on it.
      The staff darted gracefully back and forth among the tables, pretty young boys and girls dressed in nothing but collars and cuffs, which presumably made them very careful not to spill anything. The rich and therefore very important women sat huddled around their tables, ignoring everything except their own conversation, laughing and shrieking loudly and throwing their hands about to make it clear they were having a much better time than everyone else. There were a few private booths at the back, for assignations of a more personal nature, but not many used them. The whole point of being at Hecate’s Tea Room was to prove that you were rich and important enough to be allowed into such a prestigious gathering.
      (But just try and get in after you’d been divorced or dumped or disinherited, and see how fast they slam the door in your face.)
      All the women were dressed to the nines, chattering raucously like so many gorgeous creatures of the urban jungle as they drank their tea and coffee with their little fingers carefully extended. They all felt free to stroke and caress the staff’s bare flesh as they came and went with fresh cups of tea and coffee, and the pretty young things smiled mechanically and never lingered. They all knew a caress could turn into a slap or a blow for any reason or none, and that the customer was always right. Every table was full, the ladies crowded together under conditions they would never have tolerated anywhere else. These were the fabled Ladies Who Lunch, though there didn’t seem to be any actual lunching going on anywhere. You didn’t get to look that good and that svelte by eating when you felt like it. There was civilised music playing in the background, but I could barely make it out through the din of the raised voices.
      I soon spotted Eleanor Griffin, seated at a table right in the middle of the room, (of course), where everyone could get a good look at her. She wore a long, elegant gown of emerald green, set off with flawless diamonds, and a black silk choker with a single polished emerald at her throat. Even in this gathering of professionally beautiful women, there was something about her that stood out. Not just style and grace, because they all had that, or something like it. Perhaps it was that Eleanor seemed to have made less of an effort than everyone else, because she didn’t have to. Eleanor Griffin was the real thing; and there’s nothing more threatening than that to women who had to work hard to be what they were. She was beautiful, poised, and effortlessly aristocratic. Three good reasons to hate anyone in this circle. But her table was larger than most and surrounded by women who had clearly made a considerable effort to appear half as impressive as Eleanor. A circle of “friends” who got together regularly to chat and gossip and practice one-upwomanship on each other. Ladies who had nothing in common except the circles they moved in, who clung together only because it was expected of them.
      It’s hard to be friends with anyone when they can disappear at a moment’s notice through divorce or disapproval, and never be seen or spoken of again. And when they vanish from your circle, all you feel is the relief that the bullet missed you, this time…
      I knew some of the faces at Eleanor’s table. There was Jezebel Rackham, wife of Big Jake Rackham. Jezebel was tall and blonde and magnificently bosomed, with a face like a somewhat vacant child. Big Jake took his cut from every sex business that operated in the Nightside, big or small. Word is Jezebel used to be one of his main money earners before he married her, but of course noone says that out loud anymore. Not if they like having knee-caps. Jezebel sat at the table like a child among grown-ups, following the conversation without ever joining in, and watching the others carefully so she’d know when to laugh.
      Then there was Lucy Lewis, sweet and petite and exotically oriental, splendidly outfitted in a midnight dark gown to match her hair and eyes. Wife to Uptown Taffy Lewis, so called because he owned most of the land that Uptown stood on. Which meant all the famous clubs and bars and restaurants relied on his good will to stay in business. Taffy never leased anywhere for more than twelve months at a time, and he’d never even heard of rent control. Lucy was famous for always having the best gossip, and never caring who it hurt. Even if they were sitting right next to her.
      Sally DeVore was married to Marty DeVore, mostly called Devour, though never to his face. No-one has ever been able to prove what it is that Marty does for a living, but if anyone ever does there’ll be a general rush to hang him from the nearest lamp-post. Sally was big and brassy, with a loud voice and a louder laugh. People always talk louder when they’re afraid. Sally was the fourth Mrs. DeVore, and no-one was betting she’d be the last.