Nightside - Agents of Light and Darkness

      "Yes," I said. "Know any good travel agents?"
      "Ah, Taylor," said a calm, familiar voice behind me. "Always ready with an inappropriate quip."
      I took my time turning around. I knew that voice. It was Walker, standing magnificently at ease in the open doorway, as always every inch the cultivated city gent. Suzie had already spun round and was covering him with her shotgun. Walker tipped his bowler hat to her, then to me. He glanced at Razor Eddie, and his mouth made a brief moue of distaste before he looked back at me.
      "Well, Taylor, still keeping bad company, I see. You could do so much better for yourself."
      "By working for you, and the Authorities?" I gave him my best cold, menacing smile. "Walker, I wouldn't piss on the Authorities if they were on fire. They, and you, stand for everything I despise. I have my pride. Not to mention scruples."
      "Yes," said Walker. "Best not to. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, Taylor. It seems that the angels have made direct contact with my superiors in the Authorities. Which came as something of a shock, I understand. My superiors were apparently under the impression that they had made themselves unreachable ... In any case, the angels have made it very clear that either the Authorities cooperate fully in locating and handing over the Unholy Grail, or the angels will raze the Nightside to the ground. Slaughter every living being, and leave not one stone left standing upon another. Angels aren't the most subtle of creatures, but then, I suppose they don't have to be."
      "Which angels are we talking about here?" said Suzie. "The ones from Above, or Below?"
      "I don't know," said Walker. "Either. Both. Does it really matter? The point is that the Authorities have far too much invested in the Nightside to allow such a threat to their interests, so they have agreed to assist the angels. To be exact, they ordered me to come and get you, Taylor. I will take you in, we'll all have a nice chat and a cup of tea, and perhaps the good biscuits, and then you will use your special gift to track down and locate the Unholy Grail. And no, you don't get a choice in the matter. Your presence is required. Don't scowl, Taylor. You get to save the Nightside from utter annihilation, and put yourself in the Authorities' good books, for once. Some people would be flattered and grateful. Now come along, dear boy. Time is of the essence."
      "You think we're going to just let you walk in here and take him?" Suzie's voice was very flat and very dangerous, and her shotgun didn't waver an inch, trained on the second button of Walker's waistcoat. "I've never trusted the Authorities before, and I'm not about to start now. The angels already tried to screw with Taylor's head once, so they could get their hands on the Unholy Grail. This is the Nightside, Walker. We don't bow down to Heaven or Hell."
      Walker looked at her dispassionately. "I don't have any orders about you, or Eddie. You're both free to leave and go your own ways. Unless you choose to interfere with this, in which case I really can't speak for your safety."
      The tension in the room cranked up a whole other notch. Suzie was grinning unpleasantly, and Eddie was looking at Walker in a disturbingly thoughtful manner. Anyone else would have turned and run, but not Walker. He was the Authorities' voice, with the power to back it up. There were a lot of stories about Walker, and the things that he'd done, and none of them had a happy ending. I took a step forward, to bring his attention back to me. He smiled charmingly, but it didn't reach his eyes.
      "Well done, Taylor. I knew I could rely on you to do the right thing, eventually."
      "You assured me earlier that you trusted me to sort this one out," I said. "You said it would be best for everyone if I got to the Unholy Grail first and put it out of everyone's reach."
      "Times change," Walker said calmly. "The wise man bows to the inevitable. I have my orders, and now so do you. Come along, Taylor. I don't want to have to get testy with you."
      "Do you really want to go one-on-one with me, Walker?" I said, and something in my voice made his eyes narrow. "Maybe we should, just for the hell of it. Haven't you ever wondered . . . haven't you ever wanted to know if either of us is really everything our reputations make us out to be?"
      Walker looked at me thoughtfully for a long moment, and I met his gaze unflinchingly. I could feel Suzie poising for action, tense as a coiled spring. And men Walker smiled his charming smile again, and shrugged. "Perhaps another time, Taylor. Are you sure I can't persuade you to come with me? There are forces at my beck and call that you really don't want to meet. And surely you wouldn't want to risk your friends being hurt?"
      Suzie sniggered offensively. "Yeah, right. That'll be the day."
      "Good-bye, Walker," I said. "I'm sure you can find your own way out."
      Walker shook his head. "You know your father wouldn't approve of behavior like this, John. He understood about duty and responsibility."
      "You leave my father out of this! What did working for the Authorities ever do for him? And where were you when he needed you? You were supposed to be his friend! Where were you when he married my mother? Perhaps we should talk about my mother. Would you like that?"
      "No," said Walker. "I wouldn't."
      "No... no-one ever does," I said, cold and flat and bitter. "Funny, that."
      Razor Eddie stood up behind his desk, and all eyes immediately went to him. He never looked like much, but just then his presence seemed to fill the room. He looked at Walker, and Walker inclined his head slightly, respectfully.
      "John doesn't have to go anywhere he doesn't want to," said Razor Eddie, in a voice like a death sentence. "And don't think you can threaten me, Walker. I have known worse things than Authorities or angels."
      "And I'm just plain mean," said Shotgun Suzie.
      "I have seen the Unholy Grail," said Razor Eddie. "The Collector wasn't fit to have it, and neither are you, or the angels. It is a thing that doesn't belong here, and the only person I trust to get rid of it is Taylor. Go now, John, Suzie. I'll keep Walker occupied."
      Walker looked at me almost sadly. "You didn't really think I'd come here alone, did you?"
      A gaudily colored blur swept past him and into the office, blasting through the open doorway almost too fast to be seen. Something buffeted me in passing, almost knocking me off my feet, and rushed on to slam into Razor Eddie. The sheer force of the impact lifted him off his feet, smashed him clean through the closed window behind him, and sent him tumbling helplessly through the smoky air to the ground three stories below. Suzie was only just turning round, and trying to bring her gun to bear, when the blur turned and swept back, and a single horribly clawed hand slapped the shotgun out of Suzie's hand, then whipped back to tear out her guts. The black leather jacket blew apart in an explosion of tatters, and Suzie cried out once, in shock and pain, as her stomach opened up like a great mouth, and her intestines fell out in a rush of blood. She collapsed to her knees, grabbing with shaky hands at the thick purple ropes spilling out of her. More blood gushed out, soaking her lap and legs, and pooling on the floor around her.
      It only took a few steps before I was kneeling beside her and holding her in my arms, but it seemed t take forever. I held her shoulders tightly, trying to stop her shaking. Her face was bone white, and already wet with sweat She rolled her eyes at me and tried to say something, but her mouth was loose and ugly and wouldn't work properly. There was no fear in her eyes, only something that might have been a terrible resignation. One bloody hand groped around for her shotgun, but it was on the other side of the room. Her other hand was still trying to stuff severed bits of intestines back into her stomach. The stench of blood and guts was almost overwhelming. Suzie was breathing clumsily now, great heaving gasps, as though every breath was an effort.
      She was dying, and both of us knew it.
      And then the blur came to a sudden halt before me, solidifying into a familiar shape, one I hadn't seen in years. I should have known; it had to be her. She struck an elegant pose before me and smiled a happy contented smile. She always did like to show off. In one white-gloved hand she held the Speaking Gun's case, taken from Suzie even as she ripped out her guts. She waggled the case a few times before me, as a trophy, then slipped it casually under one arm.
      "A little extra, I think, on top of my exorbitant fee. You don't object, do you, Walker darting?"
      Walker started to say something, then stopped himself.
      "Hello, Belle," I said, in a voice I didn't recognize. "It's been a while, hasn't it?'
      "Oh, years and years, darling. But you know me. Always happy to bump into old friends."
      Belle. Short for La Belle Dame Sans Merci.Tall and elegant, beautiful and sophisticated, supernaturally slender. She had poise and style and vicious charm, and an aristocratic disdain for small-minded things like ethics or morality, good or evil. She was what she was, and delighted in it. Her face had a marvelous bone structure, a broad forehead, purple eyes and a heavy, sulky mouth. Belle was a freelancer-intrigue, murder, theft, and conspiracy, or anything else you might desire, as long as you could pay for it. She'd done it all in her time, and always on her own terms. She drifted from one European capital to another, leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken bodies behind her, and never once looked back. Mostly she stayed out of the Nightside. Said the place was beneath her. I think she just felt happier away from any real competition.
      To give her her due, she'd always been ready to take on anyone, anywhere, and she'd never been known to lose. Mainly because Belle had armored herself in trophies taken from her many victims. On her back she wore a werewolf's pelt, thick and grey and shaggy. She skinned the hide off him herself, and now she wore the pale grey fur all the way down her back, with the emptied head pulled forward over her head like a hood. The skull's long canines dented her forehead, above her purple eyes. It wasn't just  garment; her magics kept the pelt alive and plugged into her own system. It was her skin now, her fur, and as a result she had a werewolf's ability to regenerate. Her burnished golden breastplate was made from a dragon's hide, and it formed utterly impenetrable amour. Her shimmering white elbow-length gloves were in fact a vampire's lily white skin, flayed from the undead victim by Belle's own fair hand. On one of her hands, heavy claws pushed through the white glove; claws taken from a ghoul and fused onto her own fingers. The thigh-high leather boots were new. I didn't know who she'd got them from. Belle's magics made her various amours a part of her, made her, for all practical purposes, unkillable.
      Belle was very much a self-made woman.
      Most strikingly, the two halves of her face didn't match. The left half was a distinctly darker shade than the rest of her body. One victim had got close enough to rip half of Belle's face away. So after she was dead, Belle took half the victim's face as a replacement. The new skin was younger, tighter, and a perfect fit.
      Belle would go anywhere, and do anyone, as long as the check cleared. Or as long as the enemy was a challenge, or had something Belle wanted.
      I clutched Suzie to me, cradling her shaking body in my arms. She was trembling violently now, as shock took hold. Blood ran in sudden spurts from her slack mouth, and dripped off her chin. I could almost feel the life going out of her. Part of me wanted to throw myself at Belle and tear her throat out, make her pay for what she'd done. But I couldn't do that. I had to be smarter, sharper, than that. Belle was armored against all attacks, physical or magical. Or so she thought. My only hope was to keep cool and talk calmly with Belle. Keep her mind occupied, distracted, while I slowly and very surreptitiously focused my gift on her. Do it right, and she'd never even notice. As long as I narrowed my concentration right down, into a single cold needle, I should be able to slip my gift past her mental and magical defenses just long enough to do what I had to do. It was dangerous. If Belle even suspected what I was planning, she'd have my throat out in a second, and to hell with her mission. And even so small a use of my gift would still blaze like a beacon in the night, revealing my presence to those who were always hunting me. So I had to be careful, and focused, and utterly underhanded.
      Luckily, I was good at that.
      "Been a long time, Belle," I said, in something very like a normal voice. "What is it, six, seven years since we worked together on that Hellstorm business? I thought we made a good team."
      "Don't try to appeal to my better nature, darling," Belle said in her marvelously cool and smoky voice. "You know very well I don't have one. We made good partners, John, but we were never more than that."
      "I heard the Walking Man got you, stalking you through the catacombs under Paris."
      "Oh he very nearly did, darling, but I'm so very hard to kill. Unlike your little sweetie there. Poor Suzie. Never did know what you saw in her."
      "You're a lot faster than you used to be, Belle. Been taking vitamins?"
      "See these new boots, darling? Aren't they simply super? I skinned a minor Greek deity to get them, so I could have his speed."
      "Give it up, John," said Walker. "Come with me now, and I promise you I'll see Suzie gets help. No-one has to die here. Don't let your pride get in the way. I'm the good guy, this time. I'm saving the Nightside from destruction."
      "I've been told," I said, still looking at Belle, "that if either set of angels gets their hands on the Unholy Grail, Armageddon could come early."
      "You say that like it's a bad thing," said Walker. "The dark chalice doesn't belong among people, John. It's always been trouble. Let it pass to others more suited to control it."
      "Ah, Walker," I said. "Always ready with an inappropriate homily." I smiled sadly at Belle. "You must know you can't trust him, or the Authorities."
      "I don't trust anyone, darling. But Walker paid in advance, so I'm all his, for as long as the money lasts. And after this unfortunate business is over, and they're finished with you, I've been promised that  can root through your living brains until I find the source of your special gift. Then I'll rip it out and stick it in my own head. And your gift will become mine. Isn't that sweet? It means you'll always be with me. Now put Suzie down, dear, and come with me. Or do you want to dance a little first?"
      I put Suzie carefully to one side, laying her tenderly on the bloody floor. Her eyes stayed locked on mine. I stood up and faced Belle. The whole front of my coat was soaked in Suzie's blood. More of it dripped from my clenched hands. I grinned at Belle, cold as ice. "Let's dance, darling."
      She laughed in my face. "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?"
      "Sure," I said. "Know any?"
      And while she was still laughing, I hit her with my sharply focused gift, driving it right past all her defenses. I can find anything, with my gift. This time, I found the single small magic that Belle used to hold all her acquisitions together, that made it possible for her to access all their various attributes. And it was the easiest thing in the world for me to tear that magic away from her and crush it with my mind. Belle screamed once as the magic vanished, and her control over her various armors disappeared with it. The werewolf pelt fell away from her back and head, revealing only bare meat showing, red and glistening, with no skin left to cover it any more. The long gloves and boots cracked and rotted and fell apart,
      leaving bare muscles and tendons showing on her arms and legs. And half her face, the younger half, slipped away from her head, disintegrating into dust. Belle shrieked horribly, half her face a horror show.
      I stepped forward and hit her once, breaking her neck. She was dead before she hit the floor.
      I leaned over her and grabbed the werewolf pelt. It started to come apart in my hands, but I thought it would hold together long enough for what I had in mind. I looked around for Walker, but he was gone. Presumably in search of reinforcements. I knelt down beside Suzie. She was lying ominously still, scarcely even breathing. I pushed her guts back into the tear in her stomach, then held the werewolf pelt over the gaping wound. I crushed the pelt with both hands, wringing the last of its blood out of the pelt so that it dripped into the open wound. Werewolf blood, with all its regenerative properties. For a moment I couldn't breathe, then the edges of Suzie's wound slowly crept together, and vanished, as though it had never been there at all.
      The pelt crumbled and fell apart, and I threw it away. It had done its job. I sat Suzie up again and cradled her in my arms, rocking her slowly back and forth. Her breathing became stronger, and more regular, and suddenly her eyes snapped open, wide and questioning. For a moment she just breathed steadily, as though it was a new thing and not to be trusted, and then her bloody hands went to her stomach, where the wound had been. Finding nothing, she looked at the unmarked flesh for a while. Then she smiled tremulously and turned her head back to look at me. I nodded and smiled, and she smiled back.
      She slowly raised one hand and touched my face with her fingertips. I sat very still, afraid to do anything that might break the moment. Her fingertips moved slowly, hesitantly, across my cheek, my lips, delicate as the breath of a butterfly's wing. And then she pushed herself away from me, almost throwing me away. She knelt on all fours, with her back to me, breathing heavily and shaking her head back and forth.
      "Suzie..." I said.
      "No. I can't dothis!" she said, in a voice so harsh it must have hurt her throat. "I can't.Not even with you."
      "It's all right," I said.
      "No it isn't! It'll never be all right. No matter how many times I kill him."
      She rose unsteadily to her feet, looked around for her shotgun, and snatched it up from the floor. And then she shot Belle in the face three times, until there was hardly anything left above the neck.
      "Just in case," said Suzie. "Besides, look what the bitch did to my best jacket."
      I got to my feet and looked at her resolutely turned back, and for once in my life I didn't have a damned clue what to say. There was the sound of hurrying fee outside in the corridor, and Suzie and I both turned quickly to face the door. I think right then both of us would have been happy to see Walker with reinforcements. We could have used something to hit. But it was only Razor Eddie, appearing abruptly in the open doorway with his pearl-handled straight razor in his hand. He saw Belle's body, and relaxed a little.
      "Where the hell were you?" said Suzie, lowering her shotgun.
      "It will take more than a three-storey drop to kill me," said Eddie, in his pale ghostly voice. "But there's a limit to how fast even I can take three flights of stairs. Still, you seemed to have coped quite well in my absence. Where's Walker?"
      "He made himself scarce when the trouble started," I said. "No doubt he'll soon return, with backup."
      "Someone's coming," said Eddie. "I can feel it. Someone's coming, but it isn't Walker."
      And we all looked round sharply as we suddenly realized we weren't alone in the office any more. Standing by the desk was a grey man in a grey suit. Up close, even his face looked grey. The angels had found me.
      "Get out of here, John," said Razor Eddie. "There are more coming. Lots of them." He moved forward to put himself between the angel and Suzie and me. "Move! I'll hold them off."
      He raised his left hand, and in it was the Speaking Gun, poisoning the air with its presence. The angel began to glow, a light so bright it seemed to come from another place entirely. Suzie and I ran for the open door. We clattered down the stairs at full speed, a terrible pressure building on the air behind us. It felt like a storm was coming. It felt like thunder in the blood, and lightning in the soul. We hit the lobby together and kept running. And from far away and close at hand, we heard the awful sound of a single backwards spoken Word. Something screamed, so loudly I thought my head would burst. Suzie and I ran out into the street and kept going, and the whole damned warehouse exploded behind us. The shock wave almost blew us off our feet, but somehow we kept going, and didn't stop running until we were at the end of the street.
      We finally stumbled to a halt and looked back, breathing harshly. The walls of Big Sergei's Warehouse collapsed slowly inwards, and disappeared in a great outrushing of black smoke. In a moment, there was nothing left of the building except a great pile of rubble.
      "Think Eddie got out in time?" said Suzie.
      "I think so," I said. "Razor Eddie's always been very hard to kill."
      "Isn't that what they used to say about Belle?"
      "We'd better get moving," I said. "More angels will be on the way."
      'Terrific. Where can we go that will be safe from angels?"
      "Strangefellows," I said, trying hard to sound confident. "I've got an idea."
      "Oh, that's always dangerous."
      "Shut up and run."

Seven - Manifesting Merlin

      Suzie Shooter and I ran through the Nightside, with Heaven and Hell close behind. Angels circled overhead in a narrowing gyre, riding the night skies on widespread wings, closing in remorselessly as Suzie and I sprinted down one deserted street after another. The night was full of fires and explosions, death and destruction. All the power and sleazy majesty of the Nightside, brought low in a single night, crushed under celestial heels. I looked quickly about me, trying to get my bearings. I didn't know the warehouse district that well, and I was so turned around now that the only thing I was still sure of was that I was a long way from home and safety. I chose another street at random and plunged down it, Suzie pounding away at my side. I had a stitch in my side that was killing me, and she wasn't even breathing hard.
      Something moved in the street ahead, and I stumbled to a halt. Suzie saw it too, and crashed to a halt just ahead of me, automatically bringing her shotgun to bear. Two dim figures came running down the street towards us, silhouetted against the fires burning behind them. They both looked... wrong, somehow. And then the skin of Count Video came flapping down the street, raw and empty, with his flayed body running weeping after it. Suzie and I drew back to let them pass. There was nothing we could do.
      "I don't think the city resistance is faring too well," I said, trying hard to sound calm.
      "Just when you think you've seen everything..." said Suzie. "These angels are hard-core. We have got to get off the street, Taylor. But I am fresh out of ideas. Think of something. Fast."
      From up above came the sound of great wings, beating on the night. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, sounding lower all the time. I glared about me, looking for inspiration. We had the street pretty much to ourselves. Everyone else had either gone to ground or was waiting to be buried under it. Dark, hulking, anonymous buildings lined the street to either side. Some of them were more damaged than others, but none of them had lights in their windows. Suzie and  were on our own, surrounded by the enemy, and miles and miles from friendly territory. Business as usual, really, only more so. And just when things couldn't get any worse, they did.
      Grey figures appeared out of nowhere, blocking off the street ahead of us. A dozen grey men in grey suits, watching us, unnaturally still and focused. I looked behind me, and, sure enough, there were more grey figures there. The angels had found us. I looked up at the sky, half-expecting to see winged figures plunging down, to snatch us out of the street and carry us away, but there was no sign of any attack. Presumably they thought we still had the Speaking Gun. Once they figured out we didn't, we were dead in the water.
      The figures up ahead pulsed suddenly with a bright and brilliant light, pushing back the night. Suzie and I both cried out, dazzled, and had to raise our arms to shield our faces. We'd grown too accustomed to the gloom. Widespread wings blazed like the sun. I looked back, eyes smarting, only to see grey figures disappear inside a sea of darkness that rolled slowly up the street towards us. A complete and unrelenting shadow, far darker than any mere absence of light could ever be. Unbearable light ahead, and a merciless dark behind.
      "Oh shit," said Suzie.
      "My thoughts exactly," I said. "Please don't shoot at the angels, Suzie. If you do, and they notice, they'll get even more annoyed with us."
      "What do you mean us, white man?" Suzie flashed me a brief smile. "These bastards really do want you, don't they, Taylor?"
      "They want my gift, my ability to find things. Whichever side controls that is pretty much guaranteed to get to the Unholy Grail first."
      "Well," said Suzie, "given that we are outclassed, outnumbered, and almost certainly out-gunned, might this be a good time to strike some kind of deal?"
      "No," I said immediately. "I don't work for free. And I don't trust extremes, of whatever kind."
      "I really don't think they're in the mood to take no for an answer."
      "And there is the very real possibility that either side would be willing to destroy me, rather than lose my gift to the enemy." I looked at Suzie. "They only want me. You could ..."
      "No I couldn't," said Suzie. "I'm not leaving you. That much I can do for you."
      The light swept slowly down the street, while the darkness advanced from behind. It would have been a close bet which was the most disturbing to look at. Such pure manifestations didn't belong in the material world. And I really didn't want to be still standing here when the two forces met. I looked about me while Suzie hefted her shotgun unhappily.
      "All this, just for you, Taylor? Haven't these creeps ever heard of overkill?"
      "They're angels, Suzie. I think they invented the concept. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? And we're facing agents from Above and Below... The light and the dark, and us caught right in the middle."
      "Story of my life," Suzie said briskly. "Come on, Taylor, I'm waiting. What are we going to do? What can we do?"
      "I'm thinking!"
      She sniffed. "You always did freeze in the clinch, Taylor."
      Suzie turned her shotgun on a recessed door in the wall beside us and let fly with one blast after another, as fast as she could work the pump. The door collapsed and blew inwards in a cloud of smoke and splinters, blown right off its hinges. Suzie dived through the jagged gap into the gloom beyond, with me crowding her heels all the way.
      Once inside, we moved to either side of the open doorway and pressed our backs against the wall, while we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dim light. The wall felt comfortably thick and solid, even though I knew it wouldn't even slow the angels down. I felt as much as saw a huge, echoing space before and around me. A little light came through slit windows set high up on the walls, and I began to make out a series of narrow aisles between towering stacks of piled-up merchandise. Outside in the street, inhuman voices rose in rage and frustration. The sound was pure and primal and painfully loud. The two forces swept down the street and slammed together with a sound like mountains crashing. The floor shook underfoot, and the walls of the warehouse trembled. Flashes of bounding light flared through the slit windows, illuminating the warehouse like lightning going to war. And above it all, the sound of giant wings beating furiously. The air was heavy with significance, with the feeling of vital matters being decided by forces far above Humanity. I snorted, and shook my head. Like I was going to let that happen. This is the Nightside, you bastards. We do things differently here...
      "Any idea where the hell we are?" said Suzie. "All I can see is crates, and all I can smell is sawdust and cat's pee."
      "If we're where I think we are, they manufacture lucky charms here. Let's hope some of it will rub off. This way, I think."
      I pushed myself away from the wall and strode off into the gloom, Suzie padding along beside me. We threaded our way through the piles of stacked crates, heading for the far end of the warehouse. We hadn't made twenty feet before what was left of the doorway was blown inwards by a blast of concentrated light. The gloom was banished in a moment, every part and content of the warehouse thrown into sharp relief. I ran like hell, and Suzie was right there beside me. The floor shook under our feet like an earthquake as angels punched through the warehouse wall like it was made of paper. I put my head down and kept running.
      The floor broke open right in front of me, a jagged crack that widened in an instant into a gaping crevice. I tried to jump it, but didn't even come close. My stomach lurched as my kicking feet found nothing beneath them, and I fell into a darkness that seemed to fall away forever. At the last moment I caught the far edge of the crevice with one flailing hand, and fastened on to it with a death grip. My shoulder exploded with pain as my fall was suddenly halted, all my weight hanging from the one arm. I scrambled for the edge with my other hand, but I couldn't quite reach. The ground was still shaking, and the edge under my hand didn't feel at all secure. I looked up, and there was Suzie, on the far side of the gap, looking down at me. I should have known she'd make it. She knelt, studying my situation, her face entirely blank.