Agents Of Light And Darkness (12 page)

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.

By that time, Suzie Shooter had the Speaking Gun out of its case, and was holding it rock steady in her hand, aimed right at the angel. But I could see from her twisted features that she was feeling the same sick horror at the Gun’s touch that I had. Her iron self-control fought off its attempt to seize control of her mind, but her whole body was shaking from the effort of the struggle, even while the hand holding the Gun remained perfectly steady. All she had to do was pull the trigger. But she couldn’t spare enough willpower to do it.

The angel turned its gaze away from Starlight’s remains and looked at Suzie. It saw the Speaking Gun in her hand, and in a moment it was gone, flying upwards on wings of dazzling brightness, crashing through the roof of the theatre and up and out into the safety of the night skies.

Suzie didn’t move, still aiming the Speaking Gun at where the angel had been. Her face was pale, and slick with sweat. Her eyes were fixed and wild. Her whole body was shaking now, as she and the Gun fought for control of her mind, and her soul. And in the end she won, and threw the Gun from her. Perhaps because in the end she was Shotgun Suzie, who owned guns, and not the other way round. She won, and I never knew how much it cost her. I never asked. Because what she did tell me was so much worse.

She sat down suddenly on the stage, as though her legs had just given out. Her hands twitched meaninglessly in her lap, and she rocked back and forth like a troubled child. She wasn’t crying; she was beyond that. Her eyes were wild, desperate, feral. She was making a low, moaning sound, like an animal in pain. I sat down beside her, and put an arm round her shoulders to comfort her. She shrieked dismally, and scuttled away from me like a child afraid of a beating. I moved cautiously after her, careful not to get too close.

“It’s all right, Suzie,” I said. “I’m here. It’s over. Let me help you.”

“You can’t,” she said, not looking at me.

“I’m here… it’s me, John.”

“But you can’t touch me,” she said, her voice so harsh now it was almost inhuman. “No-one can. I can’t bear to be touched, by anyone. Not ever again. Can’t be vulnerable, to anyone.”

I knelt before her, trying to hold her darting gaze with mine. I was desperate to help her, to haul her back from the edge, but it felt like the wrong choice of words might shatter her into so many pieces, she’d never recover. I’d never seen her like this before. So… defenseless.

“When the Bedlam Boys brought out our fears,” I said slowly, “I saw what you saw. I was there with you, in the hospital. I saw… the baby.”

“There was no baby,” she said tiredly. “It has to be born to be a baby. What you saw was how the fetus looked, after I had it aborted. I left it so late because I was ashamed. Too ashamed to tell my parents that my brother had been abusing me since I was thirteen, and the baby would be his. It wasn’t rape, not really. Sometimes he’d buy me things, little presents. And sometimes he’d say he’d kill me if I ever told anyone. He used me. And when the truth came out, my parents blamed me. Said I must have led him on.

“I had an abortion, just after my fifteenth birthday. No cake and candles for me that year. They made me look at the fetus, afterwards. So I wouldn’t forget the lesson. Like I could ever forget. I killed my brother. Shot him dead with a gun I stole. My first gun. Pissed on his body, and then ran away to the Nightside. Been here ever since. Swore I’d never be weak and vulnerable, not ever again. I’m Shotgun Suzie now, death on two legs. But I can’t be touched. Not by anyone. Not even by a friend, or a lover. I’m safe now. Safe from everyone. Even myself.”

“You mean… there’s never been anyone in your life?” I said. “No-one you could ever trust enough to…”

“No. Never.”

“I had no idea how alone you really were, Suze.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said in a dead voice. “That’s what he used to call me.”

“Oh Jesus, I’m so sorry, Suzie. I am so sorry.”

Some life came back into her eyes as she looked at me, and her mouth turned down in a bitter smile. “I would trust you with my life, John. But I can’t bear to have you touch me. My brother won after all. Because even though I killed him, he’s always with me.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just said “I’m here, Suzie.”

“I know,” she said. “And sometimes, that’s enough.”

She got up, retrieved the Speaking Gun by wrapping the case around it, and put the case back in her jacket. She stood on the edge of the stage, looking out into the darkness. She seemed entirely composed again. I came and stood beside her.

“It’s just a gun,” she said, not looking at me. “I know how to handle guns. Next time, I’ll use it.”

I nodded. And after a while we walked out of the Styx Theatre together, side by side and miles and miles between us.

We’d only just got out into the street when my mobile rang again. This time it was Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor. Or so he claims, and since he tends to kill people who disagree, not many people contest the point any more. Certainly he’s one of the strangest and most dangerous people in the Nightside, and that takes some doing. I suppose we’re friends. It’s hard to tell sometimes, in the Nightside. This time he had information for me.

“I hear you’re looking for the Unholy Grail,” he said, without preamble. “I know where it is. The Collector’s got it.”

“I’d pretty much worked that out for myself,” I said. “What makes you think the Collector’s got it?”

“Because I got it for him,” said Eddie. His voice was a ghostly whisper, as always. “To be exact, he hired me to take it away from the bastards who had it. The Collector got a bit jumpy after his people lost the Speaking Gun, so he came to me. Normally he’d know better, but this time he had something I wanted, so we struck a deal. The Unholy Grail was in the hands of the Warriors of the Cross, a bunch of hardcore Christian evangelists who planned to use the Unholy Grail’s power to launch a Crusade against the Nightside and slaughter everyone and everything that even smacked of magic. Anything that wasn’t pure, untainted human was to be exterminated as ungodly and unchristian. Since that definitely included me, I was only too happy to get my own pre-emptive strike in first.”

“The Collector hired you?” I said. “I didn’t think you had any use for money any more?”

“I don’t,” said Razor Eddie. “His payment was the current location of the Warriors of the Cross. I’d been looking for those bastards for some time. They’d been hauling teenage runaways off to their hidden base and brainwashing them, then sending them out to act as spies, and honey to trap more kids. They were going to be the cannon fodder of the Crusade.”

“So the Collector definitely has the Unholy Grail now?” I said.

“Put it into his hands myself. Ugly thing. But more and more it seemed to me that he is not a fit person to have such a thing. I can’t touch him. I gave my word. But I never said anything about you. So you come to me, and I’ll tell you where the Collector is hiding out these days. Then you can take the damned thing away from him and put it somewhere safe. Sound good to you?”

“Best thing I’ve heard all day. Where are you, Eddie?”

“Back at the Warriors of the Cross’s hideout, having a bit of a look round for anything else of interest.”

“You mean looting,” I said.

He chuckled dryly. “Old habits die hard. You know Big Sergei’s Warehouse, on Kaynek Avenue?”

“I know it. Be with you in twenty minutes. You do know that there are angels in the Nightside, from Above and Below, kicking the crap out of anyone they even suspect has any connection with the Unholy Grail?”

“I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me,” said Razor Eddie. He hung up.

I put my mobile away, and turned to Suzie. She looked as calm and composed as usual, ice-cold and perfectly poised. I filled her in on the parts of the conversation she’d missed, and she frowned.

“Why couldn’t he just tell you where the Collector is over the phone?”

“Because you never know who might be listening,” I said. “There’s no such thing as a secure line in the Nightside. You know Big Sergei’s place?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“He’s Russian mafioso. You want it, he can get it for you. Guns and armor a specialty, which is presumably why the Warriors of the Cross went to him. You’ll like him, Suzie, if Razor Eddie’s left anything of him.”

“You know all the best people, Taylor. Let’s go. I want to get this case over with.”

“Suzie…”

“Let’s go.”

So we went, together, once more side by side.

Death Comes Suddenly

S
uzie and I hurried through largely deserted streets, while fires burned all across the Nightside, like warning balefires set against the dark. The air was thick with smoke and drifting ashes, and the smell of bodies burning. Buildings exploded, blown apart by angelic light, like party favors in Hell. There were so many angels flying overhead now that they blocked out most of the light from the moon and the stars. Most of the street-lights were smashed. The Nightside was at its lowest ebb, illuminated mostly by the leaping flames of its own destruction. Suzie and I stuck to the shadows and sprinted through the shifting pool of light. The streets seemed eerily still and quiet without the usual massed traffic rushing endlessly past, but everyone who could leave the Nightside was long gone by now, and no-one outside was stupid enough to come in.

Angels had come to the Nightside, from Above and Below, and the night had never seemed so dark.

Down in Time Tower Square, some of the area’s major players had come out into the streets, out into the open, to make a last stand against the invading forces. Suzie and I watched from the shadows of a recessed doorway and hoped not to be noticed. The Lord of Thorns stood proudly with his staff of power, cut from the Tree of Life itself. Lightning crackled around him, and he laughed like a crow on a battlefield as angels wheeled away rather than meet his baleful gaze. Count Video leaned casually against a lamp-post, wrapped in static and shifting plasma lights, his pale skin studded with silicon nodes and sorcerous circuitry. He sniggered nastily as his long-fingered hands weaved binary magic, rewriting reality with applied description theory and insane mathematics, and the angels couldn’t get anywhere near him. King of Skin slouched into the Square, his eyes bright with glory, undoing probabilities with his terrible glamour. And Bloody Blades, reeking of sweat and musk and awful appetites, snorted and stamped his great hooves impatiently as he waited for one of the others to bring something down in reach of his great spurred hands.

And all through Time Tower Square there was a terrible sound of angels crying out in pain and rage, as magic moved in the night, denying them their rightful prey.

The angels flew in great spirals overhead, moving faster and faster, spreading wider and wider as they gathered in ever greater numbers. Soon there would be so many of them that no amount of magics would be enough to hold them back, then they would descend. One had clearly been impatient, and had paid the price. It had ventured too low, too soon, and one of the major players had snatched it out of the air and crucified it against the side of the Time Tower. Dozens of cold iron nails pierced its outstretched arms and legs, pinning it to the wall like a frog in a science lab, ready for dissection. But the angel was still alive, its light flickering feebly like a fallen star. Its golden eyes wept slow, mystified tears, unable to understand what had brought it so low. It was finding out the limitations of the material world the hard way. Its severed wings lay on the ground beneath its broken feet.

Further off in the night, in a direction that could not be named or pointed to, there was a sound like a great engine slowly turning, as older, darker, more powerful presences began to wake, to defend the Nightside. They stirred in ancient vaults, or long-forgotten graves, creatures and beings of power and legend, some of them almost as old as angels, and as dreadful.

The Nightside is an old, old place.

Suzie and I eased around the edges of the Square, scurrying from one place of relative safety to the next. The air was full of the stresses of great forces clashing, like icebergs grinding together in the night sea. I had no intention of getting involved. I knew when I was out of my depth, and for once Suzie had enough sense to follow my lead. There were powers abroad in the night now that could crush both of us like bugs and never even notice. It seemed to take forever to creep around two sides of the Square, my heart hammering painfully fast in my chest all the way, but finally we were able to slip away into a blessedly anonymous side street and run for our lives. Behind us someone was screaming, but we didn’t pause to look back. We weren’t far from Big Sergei’s Warehouse now.

And, of course, Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. Possibly. Sometimes a friend, sometimes not. Saint
and
sinner, all wrapped up in one enigmatic and distinctly unhygienic bundle. Your connection to minor deities and divinity wannabes, and as much trouble as you can handle. An extremely disturbing agent for the good, and no, the good didn’t get any say in the matter. He lived a life of violent penance for earlier misdeeds. Lots of them. The last time I’d seen Eddie was in a possible future I’d accessed through a Timeslip, and I’d ended up having to kill him: It had been a mercy killing, made necessary at least partly because of the time-traveling Collector, but even so it wasn’t the kind of thing that came up easily in the conversation. I was still trying to decide just how much, if any, of this I should tell Eddie. The situation was complicated by Eddie’s future self blaming me for the eventual destruction of the world. If I told Eddie that, I could quite easily see him killing me on the spot, on general principle. Of course, the future I’d visited wasn’t inevitable. Nothing is set in stone where Time is concerned.

As in so many things, I decided the best thing to do was wait and see what happened, and decide then, if at all. I’d always had a real talent for putting things off till later. Hell, I could dither for the Olympics.

Suzie and I stopped at the edge of the warehouse district and looked cautiously about us. Fires were burning all around, some of them seriously out of control. The shadows danced and leapt, but the area seemed abandoned by mortals and angels. The fighting was over, and the struggle had moved on, leaving only flames and devastation behind. The air was tight and hot as a summer’s day, and twice as sweaty. I could see Big Sergei’s Warehouse at the end of the street, just another anonymous building among many. It seemed to have survived pretty much intact. The way to it seemed clear enough, but still I hung back, taking my time. Razor Eddie wasn’t above luring me into a trap if he felt it served a higher purpose. Suzie growled restlessly at my side, hefting her pump-action shotgun and looking frustrated because she didn’t have anyone to use it on.

“This whole situation stinks, Taylor.” Her voice was as cold and calm as ever, but her knuckles were white from holding the shotgun too tightly. I should really have insisted she go home, and rest and recover, but I didn’t because I needed her. She sniffed at the smoky air. as though she could smell trouble, and perhaps she could, at that. “Think about it. Why would the Collector tell Eddie his most preciously guarded secret, the location of his collection? Eddie’s spooky, but the Collector would slit his own granny’s throat for a bargain. I can’t see him putting his hoard at risk without a hell of a good reason. And everyone knows the Collector never gives away anything he can sell.”

“True,” I said. “But on the other hand, Razor Eddie isn’t an easy person to say no to. More to the point, if the Collector really has been forced to reveal the location of his warehouse, you can bet he’s already making plans to move his hoard to a new location. If we take too long getting the information from Eddie, it might well turn out to be worthless.”

“It’ll take the Collector time to move,” said Suzie. “If he really does have everything he’s supposed to have, it’ll take him ages to shift it all. Particularly if he doesn’t want to draw attention. And that’s assuming he has an alternative safe site ready to move his collection to. No, we’ve got time. I’m more concerned with how much longer we can afford to spend standing around here. I’m beginning to feel like I’ve got a target painted on me. Find me something I can shoot.”

She was right, of course. In times like these, doing nothing can be just as dangerous as doing the wrong thing. So I started off down the street, heading straight for Big Sergei’s Warehouse, as though I didn’t have a care in the world. Suzie rather spoiled the effect by slinking along beside me, gun at the ready, glaring about her like a junkyard dog. No-one shot at us, or swooped down out of the sky on glowing wings.

The front of Big Sergei’s Warehouse was a long blank wall, with no name or sign anywhere. Big Sergei didn’t believe in advertising. Either you knew his reputation, or you weren’t big-league enough to do business with him. I kept my eyes open as we headed for the front door, ready to duck and weave and run as necessary. The warehouse was supposed to be protected by all kinds of state-of-the-art defenses, everything from tailored curses to anti-aircraft guns. No-one stole from Big Sergei and lived to boast of it. Didn’t stop people trying, though. This was the Nightside, after all. The front door was said to be six inches of solid steel, protected by the very finest electronic locks, and all the windows had bulletproof glass and steel shutters. Big Sergei believed in feeling secure.

Not that any of that would stop Razor Eddie, of course.

“If Big Sergei’s got any sense, he’ll have sealed this place up tighter than a duck’s ass and gone into hiding,” said Suzie. “In which case, how are we going to get in?”

“We’ll just have to improvise,” I said, trying hard to sound confident.

“Ah yes,” said Suzie. “Improvise. Suddenly and violently and without remorse. I feel better already.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, slowing thoughtfully as we approached the front door, “it would appear someone else has beaten us to that.”

Up close, it was clear the warehouse had taken a battering. Several of the windows had been smashed, which couldn’t have been easy with bulletproof glass, and their steel shutters were buckled, hanging crookedly, or completely missing. There was a hole in the wall up by the first floor, as though it had been hit by a cannon-ball. Or a very angry fist. And the celebrated front door, six inches of solid steel protected by all kinds of heavy-duty defenses, had been ripped right out of its frame and was currently lying in the street some distance away, in a severely crumpled condition. I gave it plenty of room as I cautiously approached the opening where the door had been. Suzie stuck close to me, shotgun at the ready. I peered in, satisfied myself that there was no movement or sounds of life, then stepped warily forward into the reception lobby. Suzie crowded past me, sweeping her gun back and forth, eager for a target. The possibility of imminent violence had cheered her up considerably.

The lobby was a mess. Every stick of furniture had been wrecked or overturned, and in some cases reduced to little more than kindling. The expensive carpeting had been torn and rucked up, as though whole armies had trampled across it. There were signs of bullet and bomb damage on some of the walls, and a tall potted plant in the corner had been pretty much shredded. The sheer extent of the destruction might almost have been funny, if it hadn’t been for the blood. There was spilled blood everywhere, gallons of it. The torn carpeting was soaked from wall to wall, most of still so wet it squelched under our feet. There was more blood splashed across the walls, in thick red swatches and spatters, and the occasional handprint. It dripped from the shattered furniture, and from a wide wet stain on the ceiling. I didn’t even want to think about what could have caused blood to jet almost a dozen feet into the air. I stepped around the dripping ceiling and advanced slowly across the lobby. I glanced at Suzie.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d been here.”

She sniffed unhappily. “No, this is Razor Eddie’s work. I’m a professional, he’s … enthusiastic. You know what worries me the most about this? Lots of blood … but no bodies. What the hell has he done with the bodies? And what’s with all this religious stuff on the walls?”

She gestured at the paintings hanging crookedly on the walls. They all depicted extremely detailed scenes from the deaths of Christian martyrs, with the emphasis very much on blood and gore and suffering. There were large crucifixes too. Extremely graphic crucifixes. And there were signs in ugly block lettering;
Pray
for mercy while you still can. Every day, God is judging you. No mercy for the ungodly. The Church’s way is the only way. Have you killed an unbeliever today
?

“Hard-core,” said Suzie.

“None of that was here the last time I had occasion to have words with Big Sergei,” I said. “He believed in profits, not prophets. I can only assume that the Warriors of the Cross wanted to buy so much from him that it was easier for him to rent them the whole warehouse, for as long as they were here. And they … made themselves at home. Just how many guns were the Warriors buying, I wonder?”

Suzie scowled. “Didn’t he realize they were planning an invasion of the Nightside?”

I shrugged. “If he had, he wouldn’t have cared. As long as they paid in advance. Someone was going to make a profit anyway, so why not him?” I looked around at all the blood and destruction. “The Unholy Grail has a lot to answer for. Jude said it attracted evil.”

Suzie looked at me. “Jude?”

“Our client.”