Nightside - Hell To Pay

      “This isn’t about money, or business, or power,” said William. “I’d give them all up to be free of him.”
      “Do it for us, John,” said Eleanor. “Do it for me.”
      “I’m a private eye,” I said. “Not an assassin.”
      “You don’t understand,” William said urgently. “We’ve talked this over. We believe our father is behind Melissa’s disappearance. We think he arranged to have her taken against her will from the Hall. Nothing happens here without his knowing, without his permission. Only he could have bypassed the Hall’s extensive security and made sure all the servants were in areas of the Hall where they wouldn’t see anything. He wants my daughter dead, with someone else set up to take the blame. I believe my daughter is dead, John, and I want that murder avenged.”
      “If he’s had Melissa killed,” said Eleanor, “my Paul could be next. I can’t let that happen. He’s all I’ve got that’s really mine. You have to help us, John. Our father is capable of anything to get what he wants.”
      “Then why did he hire me?” I said.
      “What better way publicly to display his grief and anger?” said William. “Our father’s always understood the need for good publicity.”
      “And if he does need someone to fix the blame on,” said Eleanor, “what better choice than the infamous John Taylor?”
      “The best way I can help you,” I said carefully, “is by finding Melissa and bringing her back, safe and well. I’ll go this far: whoever is behind her disappearance will get what’s coming to them. Whoever it turns out to be.”
      I walked away from them, bursting through the privacy field and back into the raucous clamour of the party. I had some thinking to do. I couldn’t say it surprised me that Jeremiah’s children would turn out to be as ruthless as him, but I was still disappointed in them. I’d started to like William and Eleanor. Still, could Jeremiah have brought me in to be his very visible fall guy? Someone to blame when Melissa never turned up? It wouldn’t be the first time a client had been less than honest with me. And as though just the thought was enough to conjure him up, Jeremiah appeared abruptly out of the crowd before me.
      “Not drinking?” he said cheerfully. “This is a party!”
      “Someone here needs to keep a clear head,” I said.
      Jeremiah nodded vaguely. “You haven’t seen Paul around anywhere, have you? I had one of the servants shout through his door that I expected him to make an appearance along with the rest of the family, but that’s Paul for you. Probably still sulking in his room, with his music turned up loud. Unless he’s sneaked out again.” Jeremiah laughed briefly. It had a sour sound. “He thinks I don’t know…Nothing goes on in this house that I don’t know about. I had some of my people follow him at first, from a discreet distance…turns out the boy’s a shirtlifter. Spends all his time at gay clubs…After everything I did to try and make a man out of him. Damned shame, but what can you do?”
      I nodded. It was clear Jeremiah didn’t know about Polly, and I wasn’t about to tell him.
      “Why didn’t you tell me this was a costume party?” I said. “I feel rather out of place. It might even have been embarrassing if I was the kind who got embarrassed.”
      “But you’re not,” said Jeremiah. “I needed you to come as you are so everyone would be sure to recognise you. I want them all to know you’re working for me. First, it makes it clear that I’m doing something about Melissa’s kidnapping. Second, the fact that I’m able to hire you, the infamous John Taylor, helps make me look strong and in command. Perception is everything, in business. And third, maybe your presence will be enough to provoke Melissa’s captors into making a move, at last. Have you found out anything yet?”
      “Only that someone is really determined to keep me from finding out what’s going on,” I said. “And you already knew that.”
      “Ah. Yes. That business in the conference room.” Jeremiah scowled at me. “You must hurry, Taylor. Time is running out.”
      “For her?” I said. “Or for you?”
      “Both.”
      Suddenly, the doors to the ballroom slammed open with a deafening crash. Everyone turned to look, and a sudden hush fell across the party because there in the doorway, standing perfectly poised and at ease, was Walker. The man who currently ran the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone did, or could, because everyone else was too scared to challenge him. In the old days he was the voice of the Authorities, those grey shadowy men behind the scenes, but now they were dead and gone, and Walker was…The Man.
      As always, he looked every inch the smart city gent, in his expensively cut suit, old school tie, and bowler hat. Calm, relaxed, and always very, very dangerous. He had to be in his sixties now, his trim figure yielding just a little to gravity and good living, but he still radiated confidence and quiet power. His face seemed younger, but his eyes were old. Walker represented authority now, if not actually law and order; and he did so love to make an entrance.
      He looked round the ballroom, smiling politely, taking his time. Letting everyone get a good look at him. He had come alone into the lair of his enemies, and I had to wonder whom he could call on for support, now. There was a time when he could have summoned armies to back him up, from the military and the church, courtesy of the Authorities. But would those armies still come now if he called? They might—this was Walker, after all. A man who knew many things, not all of them good or lawful or healthy.
      The crowd fell back to allow Jeremiah to walk unhurriedly through it to confront Walker. Walker smiled easily and let the most powerful businessman in the Nightside come to him. I moved quickly after Jeremiah. I wasn’t going to miss this. Jeremiah came to a stop before Walker, looked him up and down, and snorted dismissively. Walker nodded politely.
      “You’ve got a nerve coming here, Walker,” said Jeremiah. “Into my house, my home, uninvited!”
      “I go where I’m needed, Jeremiah,” said Walker, his calm voice carrying clearly on the quiet. “You know that. Nice place you’ve got here. Good security systems, too. State-of-the-art. But you should have known even they wouldn’t be enough to keep me out when I want in. Still, not to worry; I haven’t come to haul you away in chains. Not this time. I’ve come to take someone else away, to answer for their crimes.”
      “Everyone present in this room is a guest of mine,” Jeremiah said immediately. “And therefore under my personal protection. You can’t lay a finger on any of them.”
      “Oh, I think you’ll want me to take this person away,” said Walker, still smiling, entirely unmoved by the Griffin’s open defiance. “They really have been very naughty.”
      He looked round the ballroom, and any number of people quailed under his glance, because after all…this was Walker, and they all had something to feel guilty about.
      Jeremiah snapped a Word of Power, and his security came bursting right out of the ballroom walls—huge grey golems twice the size of a man, with fists like mauls. There was a great commotion among the guests as they scrambled to get out of the golems’ way. The ugly grey things crashed through the artificial rose garden, destroying the hedges and the bushes, intent on their prey. One guest didn’t get out of their way fast enough, and the golems trampled him underfoot, ignoring his screams. The floor shook under their heavy tread as they closed in on Walker.
      He stood his ground, entirely casual and at his ease. He waited till they were almost upon him, and then he used his Voice on them. The Voice that cannot be disobeyed.
      “ Go away,” Walker said to the golems. “ Go back where you came from, and don’t bother me again.”
      The golems stopped as one in a great crash of heavy feet, then they all turned and walked back through the party and disappeared into the ballroom walls again. Jeremiah called desperately after them, using increasingly powerful Words, but they ignored him. They still had Walker’s Voice echoing in their heads, and there wasn’t room for anything else. They disappeared one by one until they were all gone, and none of the guests said anything. They watched until all the golems had disappeared, then they looked at Jeremiah, then they looked at Walker. And everyone in the ballroom knew where the real power lay. Jeremiah glared at Walker, his hands clenched into fists, actually trembling with rage.
      “You’ll never get out of here alive, Walker. Everything in this house is a weapon I can use against you.”
      “Oh hush, Jeremiah, there’s a good fellow; petulance is so unbecoming in a man of your age and standing. I told you I’m not here for you. Believe me, you want this person out of here as much as I do. Because one of your guests isn’t who you think they are.”
      That got everyone’s attention. They all started looking around them, some actually backing away from each other. Where once they might have united against Walker, now they were all looking out for themselves. Walker strode past Jeremiah, nodding to me in an affable, urbane, and totally dismissive way, and walked into the crowd as though he was a favourite uncle come to bestow gifts. The thoroughly unnerved guests scattered before him, but he only had eyes for one very well known personage. He came to a halt before her and shook his head, seemingly more in sorrow than in anger.
      “But…that’s the Lady Orlando!” protested Jeremiah.
      “Not as such,” said Walker, studying the Lady Orlando thoughtfully while she stared coldly back at him. “Actually, this is the Charnel Chimera—shapeshifter, soul eater, identity thief. Not the Lady Orlando at all. So, show yourself. Show us your true face.”
      His Voice beat upon the air, as unrelenting as fate, as unavoidable as death. The Lady Orlando opened her mouth, then kept on opening it, stretching her features unnaturally, and the sound that came out of the ugly gaping maw was in no way human. Impelled by Walker’s Voice, the creature before us dropped the shape it had adapted and showed us what it really was. The Lady Orlando melted away, revealing a horrid patchwork thing, like pieces of raw meat slapped together in a roughly human shape. It was all red-and-purple flesh, wet and glistening, marked with dark traceries of pulsing veins. The lumpy head was featureless, save for a circular mouth filled with needle teeth. The thing stank of filth and decay, sulphur and ammonia like all the bodies in a charnel house far gone in rot and suppuration. All around the thing people were stumbling backwards, coughing and choking at the smell, horrified at the awful creature that had walked unsuspected among them. Nightmares like this belonged in the streets of the Nightside, not in the safer and protected houses of the rich. The Charnel Chimera stood its ground, brought to bay, and turned its terribly unfinished face on Walker, who stared calmly back at it. When the creature finally spoke, its voice sounded more like an insect’s buzz than anything else.
      “Even your Voice can’t hold me for long, Walker. It was never designed to work on such as me. There are far too many people in me for you to control us all.”
      “What the hell is that thing?” I said. I’d come forward to join Walker, thinking he might need some kind of backup.
      “The Charnel Chimera collects DNA through casual contact,” said Walker, not taking his eyes off the creature. “Handshakes, and the like. And then it stores the epithelial cells in its internal database. It’s always adding new people to its collection. It only needs a few cells to be able to duplicate anyone, right down to the last hair on their head. But to hold on to a single shape for long, it needs to kidnap the victim, imprison them somewhere safe, and…feed off them. Some kind of psychic transference…Until the original is all used up and rots away to nothing. And then the Charnel Chimera has to move on to a new form.
      “One of my agents tracked down the creature’s lair and found the real Lady Orlando chained to a wall in a rather nasty little oubliette under an abandoned warehouse out on Desolation Row. Along with the rotting remains of over a dozen previous victims.” Walker shook his head sadly at the creature before him. “You really shouldn’t have taken such a well-known personage. You’re not that good an actor. But it got you in here, didn’t it? Among all the rich, important people. You must have been spoilt for choice for your next identity. How many hands did you shake? How many cheeks did you kiss?”
      Shocked and disgusted noises came from all across the ballroom, as people remembered greeting or being greeted by the Lady Orlando, who was always so very popular, and so very touchy-feely…A few actually vomited. I remembered being backed into a corner, and the Lady saying to me, I want your body…I really must add you to my collection.And how badly I had misunderstood.
      Jimmy Thunder, his face bright crimson with outrage, came roaring up behind the Charnel Chimera and hit it over the head with his hammer. The blunt meaty head collapsed under the impact and crashed down between its shoulder-blades, scattering bits of flesh like shrapnel, only to rise back up again with a soft wet sucking sound. The creature whirled round unnaturally fast and hit Thunder hard with an oversized arm. The Norse godling flew through the air and crashed into the wall behind him so hard he cracked the wooden panelling from top to bottom. The creature swung back to lash out at Walker, but he’d already stepped back out of reach. I saw Dead Boy eagerly pushing his way forward through the panicking crowd and yelled to him.
      “Keep it busy! I’ve got an idea!”
      Dead Boy came charging out of the crowd and threw himself at the Charnel Chimera. He waded right in, grabbing meaty chunks of the creature’s body with his bare hands, tearing them free by brute force, and throwing them aside. The creature didn’t bleed, but it howled with rage and hit Dead Boy square in the face with a hand like a fleshy club. Dead Boy’s head snapped all the way round under the terrible force of the blow, and people gasped as they heard his neck break. Dead Boy stood for a moment with his face staring right at me, twisted so far round it was practically on back to front. Then he winked at me and slowly turned his head back into its proper position. In the shocked silence we could all hear his neck bones grinding as they realigned themselves. Dead Boy grinned nastily at the Charnel Chimera.
      “That the best you’ve got? I’m dead, remember? Come on, give me your best shot! I can take it!”
      The two of them slammed together, tearing at each other with unnatural strength, while everyone around them cried out in shock and horror at the awful things they were doing to each other. And while all this was going on I concentrated on slowly and cautiously raising my gift, opening my inner eye, my third eye, a fraction at a time. Previously, when I’d tried to use my gift in this house, Someone had shut me down, hard. But nothing happened this time, and I was able to use my gift to find the old and very nasty magic that held the various parts of the Charnel Chimera together, in defiance of all natural laws. And it was the easiest thing in the world for me to rip that magic away.
      The creature just fell apart. It screamed like a soul newly damned to Hell as all the separate pieces of meat dropped to the floor, already rotting, the last dying remnants of people the creature had been before. The Charnel Chimera collapsed, its scream choking off as it sagged to the floor, losing all shape and running like filthy liquids, until nothing was left but a quietly steaming stain on the floor and the last, lingering traces of its charnel house stench.
      Walker nodded pleasantly to me. “Thank you, John. I could have handled it myself. In fact, I would have liked to take it back in one piece for questioning and study…but then, you can’t have everything.”
      “Indeed,” I said. “Where would you put it all?”
      Jeremiah came over to join us and looked down at the stain on the floor. “First you, Walker, and now this. It’s getting so anyone can walk into my house. I’m going to have to upgrade my security again. What am I supposed to do with this mess? Look, there are still bits of meat scattered everywhere.”
      “Tasty,” said Dead Boy, chewing on something. “Why not jam them on cocktail sticks and hand them round as party snacks? People could take them home in doggy bags, as party favours.”
      More people vomited, and there was general backing away from Dead Boy. I looked apologetically at Jeremiah.
      “Sorry about that. Being dead hasn’t mellowed him at all. He doesn’t get invited out much, you know.”
      “Really?” said Jeremiah. “You do surprise me.”
      “Nice use of the Voice,” I said to Walker. “But I have to wonder, with the Authorities dead and gone now, who’s powering it? Or should that be What, rather than Who?”
      “Life goes on,” Walker said easily. “And I’m still in charge. Because somebody has to be. Certainly I don’t see anyone suitable coming forward to replace me.”
      “You’ve always hated the Nightside,” I said. “You told me it was your dearest wish to wipe out the whole damned freak show, before it spilled out over its boundaries to infect the rest of the world.”
      “Perhaps I’m mellowing in my old age,” said Walker. “All that matters is that I am still here, preserving order in the Nightside, and with the Authorities gone, I have a much freer hand to go after those who threaten the way things are.”
      “I see,” I said. “And would that include people like me?”
      “Probably,” said Walker.
      “You kidnapped my grand-daughter!” Jeremiah said abruptly, his face ablaze with the power of a new idea, glaring right into Walker’s face. “You walked right past my security and used your Voice to make Melissa leave with you! What is she? Your hostage, your insurance to stop me from taking my rightful place as ruler of the Nightside?”
      “That certainly sounds like something I might do,” murmured Walker. “But I don’t need to stop you from taking over. You’re not up to it. And I wouldn’t take your grand-daughter because we both know I’d be the first person you would come after. And I don’t want another war in the Nightside, just yet.”
      “You think I’d take your word for it?” snorted the Griffin. “I’ll tear this whole city down to find where you’ve hidden her!”
      “Would you swear to me that you had nothing to do with Melissa’s disappearance?” I said quickly to Walker.
      “Would you swear it, on my father’s name?”
      “Yes, John,” said Walker. “I’ll swear to that, on your father’s name.”
      I looked at Jeremiah. “He hasn’t got her.”
      “How can you be so sure?” Jeremiah said suspiciously. “Exactly how closely are you two connected?”
      “Long story,” I said. “Let’s just say…he knows better than to lie to me.”
      Walker nodded politely to Jeremiah, tipped his bowler hat briefly to me, and walked unhurriedly out of the ballroom. No-one said anything, or tried to stop him, not even Jeremiah. Shortly after Walker left, the butler Hobbes arrived with a small army of servants to clean up the mess and restore order to the demolished hedges and rose-bushes trampled by the golems. The party slowly resumed, with much animated chatter over what had just happened. They’d be telling stories about it for years.
 
      Surprisingly, the Griffin didn’t seem at all put out. Once Walker was gone, Jeremiah calmed right down and even started smiling again. “Nothing like a little excitement to get your party talked about,” he said cheerfully. “Look at Mariah, surrounded by all her friends and hangers-on, all of them comforting her and offering to bring her food or drink or anything else she might desire…and she’s loving it. She’s the centre of attention now, and that’s all she ever wanted. Behind the tears and the swoons, she knows all this excitement guarantees her party will be written up in all the right places, and anyone who wasn’t here will be killingly jealous of everyone who was.”
      He looked at me thoughtfully. “One of the problems with living as long as we have is that you’ve seen it all, done it all. Boredom is the enemy, and anything new is welcomed, good or bad. Everyone in my family is preoccupied with finding new things to distract and entertain them. I’ve spent centuries fighting and intriguing to gain control of the Nightside, because…it was there. The most difficult task I could set myself, and the biggest prize. Anything less…would have been unworthy of me. And now it infuriates me! That I’m so close to winning it all, and perhaps a bit too late!”
      “Because you’re expecting to die soon?” I said bluntly.
      “There’s a way out of every bargain,” said Jeremiah, not looking at me. “And a way to break every deal. You only have to be smart enough to find it.”
      “Even if it means killing your own grand-children to stay alive?”
      He finally looked at me, and surprised me by laughing, painfully. “No. I couldn’t do that. Not even if I wanted to.”
      “You have to tell me the truth,” I said. “The whole truth, or I’m never going to get anywhere with this case. Talk to me, Jeremiah. Tell me what I need to know. Tell me about the cellar under this house, for instance, and why no-one but yourself is ever allowed to go down there.”
      “You have been digging, haven’t you?” said Jeremiah.
      “You do want me to find Melissa, don’t you?”
      “Yes. I do. Above everything else, I want that.”
      “Then either take me down to the cellar and show me what you’ve got hidden there, or tell me the truth about how you became immortal.”
      The Griffin sighed but didn’t seem too displeased by my insistence. “Very well,” he said finally. “Come with me, and we’ll discuss this in private.”
      I was half-expecting another privacy field, but the Griffin led me over to a corner of the ballroom, produced a small golden key on a length of gold chain, and fitted the key carefully into a small lock hidden inside a particularly rococo piece of scroll-work. The key turned, and a whole section of the wall swung open, revealing a room beyond. Jeremiah ushered me in, then shut and locked the door behind us. The room was empty, the walls bare, dimly lit by a single light that came on as we entered.
      “I keep this room for private business conferences,” said Jeremiah. “It’s specially shielded against all eavesdroppers. You’d be surprised how much business gets done at parties. Hobbes will stand guard outside, to see that we’re not disturbed. So…here I am at last, finally about to tell someone the true story of my beginnings as an immortal. I always thought I’d find it difficult, but now that the moment has arrived I find myself almost eager to unburden myself. Secrets weigh you down; and I have carried this one for so many years…
      “Yes, John. I really did make a deal with the Devil, back when I was nothing more than a simple mendicant in twelfth-century London. It wasn’t even particularly difficult. Heaven and Hell were a lot closer to people in those days. I took an old parchment scroll I’d acquired in part payment of an old debt and used it to summon up the Prince of Darkness himself.” He stopped abruptly, looking at his hands as they shook, remembering the moment. “I abjured and bound him to appear in a form bearable to human eyes, but even so, what I saw…But I was so very ambitious in my young days, and I thought I was so clever. I should have read the contract I signed in my own blood more carefully. The Devil is always in the details…
      “There is a clause, you see, in that original infernal document, which states that any grand-child of my line, once safely born, cannot be killed by me. Neither can I have them killed, or through inaction allow them to come to harm. On pain of forfeiture of soul. So once I discovered their existence and had them brought before me, all that was left…was to embrace them. In a way I never did, or could, with William and Eleanor. Two grand-children were my death sentence, the sign of my inevitable damnation, but I couldn’t say their existence came as much of a surprise. I did everything I could to ensure I’d never father children, but they came anyway. I could have had them killed, but…a man wants his line to continue, even if he knows it means his end. I’m a ruthless man, John. I’ve destroyed many men in my time. But I never once harmed a child.
      “I tried my best with Paul, but it soon became clear he could never lead the family, any more than William could. Not their fault—they were born to wealth and luxury. Made them soft. But Melissa…turned out to be the best of all of us. The only uncorrupted Griffin.”
      “And the cellar?” I said. “What have you got down there?”
      “The contract I signed, locked away and hidden, and protected by very powerful defences. I came to the Nightside because I’d heard that Heaven and Hell couldn’t interfere directly, but of course, they both had their agents here. And while the contract cannot be destroyed, someone with the right connections to Heaven or Hell could rewrite its terms. I couldn’t risk that. I have paid so very much for my immortality.”
      “Why the sudden change in your will?” I said. “Why risk alienating your whole family by leaving everything to Melissa?”
      “Because she’s the only one fit to run the empire I built. Her intelligence, her drive, her strength of character…made me see how limited the others are. What could I leave to my wife that others wouldn’t take from her? Mariah couldn’t hang on to anything I gave her. She’d throw my empire away, or let others take control of it through impulsive marriages or bad business deals. And it’s not like she’ll be left impoverished. She has her own money, invested in properties all over the Nightside. She thinks I don’t know! She never could hide anything from me, least of all the identities of her many lovers, men and women. I don’t begrudge her, not really. All my family has a desperate need for novelty in all things, to divert us from the endless stream of similar days…And William and Eleanor are just too damned weak.”
      “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “They might surprise you.”
      “No,” Jeremiah said firmly. “They wouldn’t. They couldn’t hold on to my business. If I left it to one, the other would try and take it, and they’d destroy my empire fighting over it, like two dogs with one bone. If I left the business to both of them, they’d destroy it fighting for control. They’re both Griffins enough that neither would settle for second best. And Paul…has made it very clear he’s not interested. My empire must survive, John. It’s all I have to leave behind…my footprints on the world. A business is perhaps the only thing in this world that can be truly immortal…I can’t let it be destroyed. Or everything I’ve done has been for nothing.”
      “You’re sure there’s nothing you can do?” I said. “You’re sure that you’re…damned?”
      He smiled briefly. “Everything I’ve created and everything I own, I’d give it all up in a heart’s beat to avoid what’s coming…but there’s no way out. Even apart from the deal I made, I’ve damned myself to the Pit a thousand times over by the things I’ve done to make myself rich and powerful. I was immortal, you see, so what did sin matter to such as I? I was never going to have to pay the price for all the terrible things I did…”
      “But…all the years you’ve lived,” I said. “All the things you’ve seen and done, aren’t they enough?”
      “No! Not nearly enough! Life is still sweet, even after all these centuries.”
      “All the things you could have achieved,” I said slowly. “With your centuries of wealth and power. You could have been someone. Someone who mattered.”
      “Do you think I don’t know that?” said the Griffin. “I know that. But all I’ve ever been any good at is business. I sold my soul away to eternal punishment, and all I have to show for it is…things.”
      There was a sudden, though very polite, knock at the door. Jeremiah opened it with his golden key, and Hobbes came in, bearing a folded letter on a silver tray. Next to the letter was a knife.
      “Forgive the interruption, sir, but it seems we have a ransom note at last.”
      Jeremiah snatched the letter from the tray, opened it, and read it quickly. I looked at Hobbes, then at the knife still on the tray.
      “The letter was pinned to the front door with the knife, sir,” said Hobbes.
      I took the knife and examined it while Jeremiah scowled over the letter. There wouldn’t be any physical evidence. These people were professionals, but there might still be some psychic traces I could pick up. I started to raise my gift, and once again a force from Outside slammed my inner eye shut. I tensed and stared quickly about me, but nothing appeared to attack me this time. I scowled, and studied the knife again. Just an ordinary, everyday knife with nothing unusual or distinctive about it. No doubt the paper and ink used in the letter would prove just as commonplace. Nice touch with pinning the letter to the front door. Traditional. Symbolic. And meaningful, saying We can come and go as we please, and you’ll never see us.Jeremiah handed me the letter, and I put the knife back on the tray so I could study the note thoroughly. It was typed, in a standard font.
      “We demand that Jeremiah Griffin put up all his holdings, business and personal, at public auction and dispose of everything he owns, within the next twelve hours. All monies gained are then to be given away to established charities. Only then will the Griffin see his grand-daughter Melissa alive and well. If the Griffin agrees, he is to go to the address below, in person and alone, within the next hour, and give evidence that the process has begun. Should the Griffin fail to do so, he will never see his grand-daughter again.”
      I checked the address at the bottom of the letter. I knew it. An underground parking area, in the heart of the business district. I looked at Jeremiah.
      “Interesting,” I said. “That they should demand from you the one thing you’d never give up, even for Melissa.”