Nightside - Agents of Light and Darkness

      I was alone, standing in the ruins of London, in the Nightside of the future. I'd been here before, seen this before, courtesy of a Timeslip. A future that might be, of death and destruction, and all of it supposedly my fault. For as far as I could see in the dim purple twilight, I was surrounded by tumbled buildings and seas of rubble. There was no moon in the almost starless sky, and the still air was bitterly cold. And somewhere, hidden in the deepest, darkest shadows, something was watching me. I could feel its presence, huge and awful, potent and powerful, drawing steadily closer. It was coming for me, with blood and worse on its breath. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere left to go, nowhere left to hide. It was close now. So close I could hear its eager breathing. It was coming for me, to take me away from everything I knew and cared for, and make me its own at last. The terrible shadow that loomed over everything I did, that had dominated my life ever since I was born. Close now, vast and powerful. A great dark shape, threatening to unmake everything I'd so painstakingly made of myself.
      I knew what it was. I knew its name. And that knowledge frightened me more than anything else. That finally she was coming for me, after pursuing me my whole damned life. It was almost a relief to say her name.
       Mother... I whispered.
      And in naming my fear, that unknown creature who had birthed and then abandoned me, I was suddenly so full of rage it was the easiest thing in the world to push back the fear, and deny it. My mental shields slammed back into place, one by one, and the dead world around me shuddered, becoming flat and grey and unconvincing. I pushed the Bedlam Boys out of my mind with almost contemptuous ease, and in the blink of an eye I was back in the Hot N Spicy franchise again.
      I'd fallen to my knees on the grimy floor, my whole body shaking with the strain of what I'd been put through. Suzie was kneeling beside me, tears running jerkily down her face from wide, unseeing eyes, lost inside herself. I put a hand on her shoulder, and in that moment I saw what she saw.
      Suzie was lying in bed in a hospital ward, held in place by heavy restraining straps. Her throat was raw from screaming. She lunged against the leather straps, but they were far stronger than her. So all she could do was lie there and watch helplessly as her fear crawled slowly, laboriously, across the ward floor towards her. It was small and weak, but determination kept it moving. It was soft and scarlet and barely formed, and it left a scuffed bloody trail behind it as it crawled slowly towards her. It was almost at the side of her bed when it painfully raised its oversized head and looked at her.
      And called her Mommy...
      It took all my strength to wrap my mental shield around Suzie too, and drag her out of there and back into the waking world. She pulled away from me immediately, kneeling alone, hugging herself tightly as though afraid she might fly apart. Her face was a snarling mask of outrage and horror, tears still dripping off her chin. It was actually shocking to see her so vulnerable, so hurt. I hadn't thought there was anything that could hurt Shotgun Suzie. I started to reach out to her; then her puffed-up eyes fell upon the Bedlam Boys, and she reached for the shotgun holstered on her back. The Boys gaped at us, amazed that we'd been able to break free from their power. I fired up the dark side of my gift. For a moment, anything could have happened.
      And that was when the angel arrived.
      A vivid, overwhelming presence suddenly filled the restaurant, slapping up against the walls and suppressing everything else. The Bedlam Boys' power snapped off in an instant, blown out like four tiny candles in a hurricane. They just stood there and bunked stupidly at the angel. At first, it looked like a grey man in a grey suit, so average-looking in every way as to seem almost generic. You couldn't quite look at him, only glimpse him out of the corner of your eyes. And then he grew more and more real, more and more solid, more there,until you couldn't look at anything else. The angel lifted his grey head and looked at the Boys, and suddenly erupted into a pillar of fire in human form. His light was blinding, dazzling, too bright to look at directly. Vast glowing wings spread out behind him, sparking and spitting. There was a stench of ozone and burning feathers. The Bedlam Boys stared into the heart of that terrible light, mesmerized.
      And turned to salt.
      One moment they were living and breathing people, and the next there were four salt statues, paler than death, still wearing their stupid spangled jumpsuits. And all four fixed white faces were screaming horribly, silently, forever. The franchise's staff and customers, freed from their imposed fears, now had something real to be afraid of. They screamed and howled and ran for the open door. I hauled Suzie back out of the way as they stampeded past us, fighting and clawing each other in their need to get away. I felt very much like joining them. The sheer presence of the angel was viscerally disturbing, like every authority figure you ever knew was out to get you, all rolled into one.
      I've never got on well with authority figures.
      The angel gestured with a brightly glowing hand, and one of the salt statues toppled over and shattered. Suzie slapped me hard on the arm to get my attention.
      "The Gun, Taylor. Give me the Gun, dammit. Give me the Speaking Gun!"
      Her voice was back under control, but her eyes were fey and wild. "No," I said. "I get to try it first."
      I yanked the case out of my inner coat pocket. I felt unpleasantly warm to the touch. I snapped open the lid and took out the Speaking Gun. The case fell unnoticed to the floor as I stood paralyzed, unable to move even the smallest part of me. My skin crawled, revulsed at contact with the Gun made of meat. It was like holding the hand of someone long dead, but still horribly, eagerly active. It felt hot and sweaty and feverish. It felt sick and powerful. The Speaking Gun had woken up. It breathed wetly in my hand, and its slow heavy thoughts crawled sluggishly across the front of my mind. The Gun was awake, and it wanted to be used. On everything. It ached to say the backward Words that would uncreate all the material world. It had been made to destroy angels, but its appetite had grown down the many, many years. And yet the Gun was dependent on others to use it, to pull its trigger formed from a tooth, and it hatedthat. Hated me. Hated everything that lived. The Speaking Gun forced its filthy thoughts upon me, determined to control and compel me, to make me its weapon. Its thoughts and feelings were in no way human. It was as though death and decay and destruction had found a voice, and hideous ambition. It knew my Name, and ached to say it.
      It took all my self-control, all my rigid self-discipline, and all the outrage raised in me by the Bedlam Boys, to force my fingers open one at a time, until the Speaking .Gun fell stickily from my hand and hit the floor, still howling defiantly in my mind. I shut it out, behind my strongest shields, and leaned back against the wall behind me, shaking and shuddering.
      The angel was gone. It had seen the Speaking Gun, and that was enough.
      The restaurant was quiet now. The staff and customers were gone, the angel had escaped, and the Bedlam Boys were salt. There was just me and Suzie. My whole body was shaking, my hands beating a noisy tattoo against the wall. My mind felt like it had been violated. I could feel tears running down my cheeks. Walker had been right. Some cures are far worse man the diseases. I looked down at the Gun on the floor, lying beside its case, but I couldn't bring myself to reach down and touched the damned thing. So Suzie knelt and did it for me, closing the case around the Gun without actually touching it herself. She slipped the case into her jacket pocket, then stood patiently beside me while I got myself under control again. It was the closest she could come to comforting me.
      Soon enough the shuddering stopped, and I was myself again. I felt tired, bone tired and soul tired, as though I hadn't slept for a week. I wiped the drying tears off my face with my hands, sniffed a few times, and gave Suzie my best reassuring smile. It felt fairly convincing. Suzie took it in the spirit with which it was intended and nodded briskly, all business again. Suzie's always been uncomfortable around naked emotions.
      "I'll carry the case," she said. "I'm more used to guns than you are."
      "It isn't just a gun, Suzie."
      She shrugged. "That angel. Do you think it was from Above or Below?"
      It was my turn to shrug. "Does it matter, Suzie? When the Bedlam Boys had us, trapped in our fears, for a moment I saw what you saw..."
      "We won't talk about that," Suzie said flatly. "Not now. Not ever. If you are my friend."
      Sometimes being a friend means knowing when to let things go and shut the hell up. So I pushed myself away from the wall and headed for the nearest of the three remaining salt statues. Suzie followed after me. The scattered remains of the shattered statue crunched loudly under our feet. I looked at the three white faces, trapped in a moment of horror, forever. Sometimes I think the whole universe runs on irony.
      "Well, there goes our chances of finding the Collector's location," said Suzie, her voice and face utterly calm and easy.
      "Not necessarily," I said. "Remember the first rule of the private detective, when in doubt, check their pockets for clues."
      "I thought the first rule was wait until the client's check has cleared?"
      "Picky picky."
      It took a while, but eventually we turned up a single embossed business card, proclaiming a performance by Nasty Jack Starlight at the old Styx Theatre, dated that very day. Or, more properly, night.
      "So Starlight's back in town," I said. "Wouldn't have thought he was the Boys' cup of tea."
      "Has to be a connection," said Suzie. "I know for a fact that Starlight's supposed to have supplied certain items to the Collector in the past."
      "Let's go talk to the man," I said. "See what he knows."
      "Let's," said Suzie. "I'm in the mood to talk forcibly to someone. Possibly even violently."
      "Never knew a time when you weren't," I said generously.
      We walked through the streets of the Nightside, through a city under siege. There were angels everywhere now, soaring across the night sky, plunging down to snatch victims right out of the street, spreading terror and destruction. There were screams and cries, fires and explosions. Dark plumes of smoke rose from burning buildings on all sides. People had been driven out into the streets, as homes and businesses and hiding places collapsed into rubble behind them. Everywhere I looked there were salt statues, and bodies impaled on lamp-posts. Burned and blackened corpses lay piled up in the gutters, and once I saw someone turned inside out, still horribly alive and suffering. Suzie put him out of his misery. Judgement Day had come to the Nightside, and it wasn't pretty. There was gun-fire all over the place, and fiery explosions, and now and again I felt the fabric of the world shake as some poor desperate fool leveled heavy-duty magics against the invading angels. Nothing stopped them, or even slowed them down. Grey men in grey suits stood unnaturally still in doorways, or looked out of alleyways, or walked untouched out of fire-gutted buildings. They were everywhere, and people ran howling before them, driven like cattle to the slaughter.
      Suzie and I hadn't been out in the street five minutes before an angel came swooping down out of the night sky, brilliant as a falling star, fierce and irrevocable, blazing wings spread wide, heading straight for me. I gave it my best significant glare, but it kept coming. Suzie pulled the Speaking Gun's case out of her jacket, and the angel changed course immediately, sweeping over our heads and flashing down the street behind us like a snow-white comet. Suzie and I stopped and looked at each other. Suzie weighed the case in her hand.
      "Guess word about the Speaking Gun has got around."
      "So much for the element of surprise," I said.
      She sniffed. "I'd rather have the element of naked threat any day."
      We started off down the street again, walking unhurriedly while everyone else ran, and blood an chaos flowed around us. Suzie put the Gun's case away again, then unconsciously rubbed that hand against her jacket, over and over, as though trying to clean it.
      The Styx was an old, abandoned theatre, set well back from the main drag, in one of the quieter backwaters of the Nightside. There are enough dramas in the Nightside's everyday life that most people don't feel any need for the theatre, but we have to have somewhere for vain and bitchy people to show off in public. Suzie and I stopped outside the large, slumping building and studied it cautiously from a safe distance. It didn't look like much. The whole of the boarded-up front was plastered with peeling, overlapping posters for local rock groups, political meetings, and religious revivals. The once proud sign above the double doors was choked with grime and dirt.
      Property doesn't normally stay untenanted long in the Nightside; someone's always got a use for it. But this place was different. Some thirty years ago, some poor fool tried to open a Gate to Hell during a performance of the Caledonian Tragedy, and that kind of thing plays havoc with property values. The three witches killed and ate the guy responsible, but didn't have the skills to close what he'd partway opened. The Authorities had to bring in an outside troubleshooter, one Augusta Moon, and while she sewed the thing up tighter than a frog's ass, the incident still left a nasty taste in everyone's spiritual mouth.
      Even unsuccessful Hellgates can affect the tone of a whole neighborhood.
      Unsurprisingly enough, the theatre's double doors were locked, so Suzie kicked them in, and we strolled nonchalantly into the lobby. It was dirty and dusty, with thick shrouds of cobwebs everywhere. The shadows were very dark, and the still air smelled stale and sour. Dust motes swirled slowly in the shafts of light that had followed us in through the open door, as though they were disturbed by the light's intrusion. The once plush carpet was dry and crunchy under our feet. The whole place reeked of faded nostalgia, of better times long gone. It was like walking back into the shadows of the past. Old posters advertising old productions still clung stubbornly to the walls, faded and fly-specked. The Patchwork Players Present: Marlowe's King Lier,Webster's Revenger's Triumph,Ibsen's Salad Days.There was no sign anyone had been here for thirty years.
      "Odd name for a theatre," Suzie said finally, her voice echoing loudly in the quiet. "What's a Styx, when it's at home?"
      "The Styx is a river that runs through Hell," I said. "Made up from the tears shed by suicides. Sometimes it bothers me that I know things like that. Maybe the theatre specialized in tragedies. We may be in the wrong place, Suzie. Look around you. No-one's disturbed this dust in years."
      "In which case," said Suzie, "where's that music coming from?"
      I listened carefully, and sure enough, faint strains of music were coming from somewhere up ahead. Suzie drew her shotgun, and we crossed the lobby and made our way up to the stage doors. The music was definitely louder. We pushed the doors open and stepped through into the theatre proper. It was very dark, and we stood there for a while till our eyes adjusted. Up on the stage, in two brilliant following spotlights was Nasty Jack Starlight with his life-sized living rag doll partner, singing and dancing.
      The music was an old sixties classic, the Seekers' "The Carnival Is Over." Nasty Jack Starlight sang along cheerfully, stepping it out across the dusty stage with more style than precision. He was dressed as Pierrot, in a Harlequin suit of black and white squares, and his face was made up to resemble a grinning skull, with dark, hollowed eyes and white teeth painted on his smiling lips, all of it topped with a jaunty sailor's cap. He was tall and gangling, and he danced with more deliberation than grace as his voice soared along with the melancholy song.
      He danced a fiercely merry two-step with his partner, a living rag doll costumed as Columbine. She was almost as tall as he was, her arms and legs amazingly flexible as she danced, without joints to get in the way. She had a sadly erotic look, in her patched dress of many colors, and her face of tightly stretched white satin had garishly painted-on features. Her movements were disturbingly sexual, her dance provocative in every lascivious movement.
      Pierrot and Columbine capered across the whole stage, making the most of the space, dancing and leaping and pirouetting in the two spotlights that followed them faithfully wherever they went. I looked back and above me, but there was no sign anywhere of a source for the spotlights. They just were. The music also seemed to come from nowhere. It changed abruptly to "Sweet Little Jazz Baby, That's Me," a staple from the Roaring Twenties, and Pierrot and Columbine came together and Charlestoned for all they were worth. Their feet on the stage made no sound at all. The music had a distorted, eerily echoing quality, as though it had had to travel a long way to get there and lost something of itself along the way. And for all the effort Nasty Jack Starlight and his partner put into their performance, it all had a dull, flat feeling. There was no appeal to it, no charisma or emotion. But the packed audience was in ecstatics, sheer raptures of emotion.
      The audience.
      Nasty Jack Starlight and his living rag doll were singing and dancing for the dead. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, I could see the stalls were full of zombies, vampires, mummies, werewolves, and ghosts of varying density. Every form of undead or half-life the Nightside had to offer, all come together in one place under a strict pact of non aggression that wouldn't have lasted five minutes anywhere else. But no-one would destroy the truce here; no-one would dare. This was the one place they could come to recapture just a little of their lost or discarded humanity. To remember what it felt like to be alive.
      The vampires looked right at home in their formal tuxedos and ball gowns, daintily sipping blood from discreet thermoses, passed back and forth. In comparison, the mummies looked distinctly drab and dirty in their yellowing bandages, and dust puffed out when they clapped their hands together. The werewolves huddled together in a clump, howling along to the tune, their alpha male distinguished by an impressive leather jacket made from human hide, the tattooed words on its back proclaiming him Leader of the Pack. The ghouls mostly kept to themselves, snacking on fingers from a takeaway tub. The zombies tended to sit very still, and applauded very carefully, in case anything dropped off. They sat as far away from the ghouls as possible. The ghosts varied from full manifestations to pale misty shapes, some so thinly spread their hands passed through each other when they tried to clap along. Others had to concentrate all their sense of personality just to keep from falling through their chairs. But dead, undead, partly human, or mostly inhuman, they all seemed to be having a good time.
      They laughed and cheered, sighed and wept, and applauded in unison, as though reacting to what was happening on the stage, though their responses seemed to have little to do with the performance.
      Nasty Jack Starlight performed exclusively for the dead, or those feeling distanced from their original humanity. He remembered old emotions for them, evoked them through his singing and dancing, and madehis audience feel them. He made them feel alive again, if only fleetingly. His patrons paid very well for the illusion of life he gave them, for a while ... and while they wallowed in second-hand emotions, Starlight fed off their unnatural vitality, sucking it out of them as he danced, gorging on their inhuman energies like a happy little parasite. He had lived many lifetimes in this fashion, and intended to live many more. Long ago, he'd made a really bad deal with Something he was still afraid to name aloud, and now he couldn't afford to die. Ever.
      I had to explain all this to Suzie. She'd never had any interest in the theatre. At the end, she sniffed, unimpressed.
      "So what's the deal with the rag doll?" she said.
      "The word is she was human once, and Jack Starlight's lover. He needed a dancing partner, but he didn't feel at all inclined to share what he'd be taking from his audience. So he had her made over into what she is now. A living rag doll, endlessly compliant, a partner who'll follow his every move and whim, an never complain. Of course, that was a long time ago ... She's probably quite insane by now. If she's lucky. Now you know why they call him NastyJack Starlight."
      "Who was she, originally?" said Suzie, glaring at the stage.
      "No-one knows who she was any more. Except Jack, of course, and he'll never tell. Nasty little man that he is. Come on, let's go on up and ruin his day."
      "Let's. I might even ruin his posture while I'm at it."
      We strode off down the central aisle, side by side. The dead in the seats nearest us didn't even glance round as we passed, utterly transfixed by the performance onstage, and the old emotions flooding through what was left of their hearts. There was magic in the air, and it had nothing to do with sorcery. On and on they danced, Pierrot and Columbine, Harlequin and his rag doll, never stopping or resting as the music changed inexorably from one sentimental ditty to another... as though they had no need to pause, to refresh their strength or regain their breath. And perhaps they didn't. He was feeding, and she... she was just a rag doll, after all, her wide eyes and smiling lips only painted on. Neither of them suffered from human limitations any more. They mimed love and tenderness for their audience, and meant none of it.
      It was all just an act.
      Suzie and I vaulted up onto the stage, and everything stopped. The music cut off, and Starlight and his rag doll immediately ended their dance. They each stood very still in their separate spotlights, as Suzie and I approached them. Nasty Jack Starlight struck an elegant pose, calm and relaxed, smiling his skullface smile while his eyes gleamed brightly from darkened hollows. The rag doll had frozen in mid move, her head turned away, her arms and legs interrupted at impossible angles, inhumanly flexible. The audience was still only for a moment as the performance was interrupted, then they burst out into a roar of boos and yells and insults, quickly descending into open threats and menaces. Suzie glared out at them, to little effect. I turned and gave them my best thoughtful stare, and everyone shut up.
      "I'm impressed," Suzie said quietly.
      "To tell the truth, so am I," I said. "But don't tell them that. Jack Starlight! It's been a while, hasn't it, Jack? You still on your world tour of the Nightside?"
      "Still playing to packed houses," Starlight said easily. "And they say the theatre's dead..." His voice was soft and precise, completely without accent or background. He could have been from anywhere, anywhen. His unwavering smile was very wide, and his eyes never blinked. "You know, most hecklers have the decency to do it from their seats. What do you want, Taylor? You are interrupting genius at work."
      "We found your card in the possession of one of the Bedlam Boys," I said. "They worked for the Collector."
      "I notice you're using the past tense. Am I to presume the little shits are all dead? My my, Taylor, you have become hard-core since your return."
      'Tell me about the card, Jack," I said, deliberately not correcting his presumption. "What's your connection with the Collector?"
      He shrugged easily enough. "There's not much to tell. The Collector sent the Boys round to lean on me, because he'd heard I once very nearly got my hands on the Unholy Grail, some years ago in France. I was excavating at Rennes-le-Chateau, in search of the Maltese Falcon ..."
      I winced. "I thought you had more sense, Jack. Never go after the Maltese Falcon. That's the first rule of private investigators."
      Suzie frowned. "I thought the first rule was ..."
      "Not now, Suzie. Continue, Jack."
      "Well, imagine my surprise when my companions unwrapped the contents of the hidden grave, and we found ourselves face to face with the Unholy Grail. It all got rather unpleasant after that. It's always sad when friends fall out over money.... Anyway, after the dust had settled and the blood had dried, I ended up having to leave the chateau empty-handed, and at speed. But I still remain one of the few men who ha actually seen the Unholy Grail with his own eyes, and lived to tell of it."
      "What did it look like?" said Suzie.
      Nasty Jack Starlight considered for a moment. "Cold. Ugly. Seductive. I wasn't stupid enough to touch it, even then. I know evil when I see it."
      "You should," I said. "You've had enough practice. So, what did you tell the Bedlam Boys, when they came calling?"
      He laughed softly. It was a dark, unpleasant sound. "I didn't tell them a damned thing. I kicked their over-padded asss and sent them home crying to their master. Teach the Collector to set his dogs on me. Their fears were no match for my emotions. I am a master of my craft, and don't you forget it. And that is it. There's nothing more I can tell you about the Unholy Grail or the Collector. Just ships that passed in the Nightside, that's all. Now, do either of you happen to be in show business? Then perhaps you'll both be good enough to get the hell off my stage. I am making art here. Why is there never a guy with a long hook around when you need him?"
      "There are angels all over the Nightside," I said. "They're looking for anyone with any knowledge of, or connection to, the Unholy Grail. And they're not playing nicely. They don't have to. They're angels. Now, impressive though your audience is, the whole lot of them put together wouldn't be enough to even slow down an angel. Even if they did feel disposed to try and protect you, which I personally doubt. The dead can be so fickle. On the other hand, you help us track down the Unholy Grail, and/or the Collector, and Suzie and I will protect you."
      Nasty Jack Starlight shook his head slowly. "Just when you think it can't get any worse... Angels in the Nightside. Right! That is it. I am out of here." He turned to face the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's show is cancelled on account of Biblical intervention. Good night, God bless, hope it was good for you too. Form an orderly queue for the exits. Sorry, no refunds."
      He stalked over to his rag doll partner, snapped his fingers sharply, and she collapsed limply over his waiting shoulder, as though there was nothing inside her but straw and stuffing. And perhaps there wasn't. Certainly she seemed no weight at all to Starlight as he headed determinedly for the wings. I didn't see any point in trying to stop him. He didn't have anything I needed, and an unwilling partner would only slow us down. But then Nasty Jack Starlight stopped abruptly, turned round and looked back, moving slowly, almost reluctantly. And that was when we all realized there was someone else onstage with us. We looked slowly at the back of the stage, even the rag doll raising her satin face. There, standing behind us, still and silent like a living shadow, was a grey man in a grey suit.
      He waited till we were all looking, then he blaze like the sun, a light so bright it was painful to merely human eyes. Suzie and I stumbled back, shielding our faces with upraised arms. Starlight turned and ran for the edge of the stage. The rag doll hanging down over his shoulder was the only one to stare adoringly at the angel, with her dark-painted eyes. The audience was in a panic, shrieking and crying out in alarm, while the word angelmoved swiftly among them like a curse. Ghosts disappeared, snapping out of existence like popping soap bubbles. Vampires became bats and flapped away. Those still burdened with material bodies fought their way out into the aisles and sprinted for the lobby doors.
      The angel became a pillar of fire in human form, spreading wide his glowing wings, brilliant and terrible and incandescent with glory. There was a stench of burning flesh and melting metals. The rag doll hanging limply over Starlight's shoulder burst into flames. They leapt up impossibly fast, consuming the doll from head to toe. And still she stared adoringly through the flames at the angel. Starlight cried out in pain and rage, and threw her from him. She flopped about on the stage, burning fiercely. She tried to crawl towards Starlight, but the flames were too hot, too eager, and she was only rags and stuffing. She burned up, and she was gone, and in moments there was nothing left of her but a scorch mark on the stage, and dark smoke drifting slowly though the air. It smelled of violets.
      Starlight didn't spare the burning doll a glance once he'd thrown her aside. He ran for the edge of the stage, and had almost made it when his clothes burst into flames. The sailor's cap went up first, burning fiercely with a pale blue flame, setting his hair on fire. Then the Harlequin's costume caught alight, flames leaping everywhere at once. He beat at the flames with his bare hands, but soon they were burning too. In a matter of seconds, his whole body was burning hotter than a furnace. He screamed once, and a long jet of yellow flame shot out of his mouth from his burning lungs. He fell forward onto the stage, and lay there kicking and jerking, while the flames leapt even higher. They quickly consumed Nasty Jack Starlight, until there was nothing left but a few charred and blackened bones, and sizzling melted fat dripping slowly off the edge of the stage.