Something From The Nightside (7 page)

I threw aside the last of my pride and let out one last, desperate mental call for help. Not many would care, even if they heard, not in the Nightside, but Alex might hear .. . and do something. But even as I opened up my mind, the thoughts of the Harrowing crashed in on me; a deafening cacophony of alien, yammering voices, utterly inhuman, trying to fill my head and force out my own thoughts. I had to shut my mind down again, in self-defence. There wasn't going to be any help—no cavalry, no last-minute rescue. As always, I was all alone, in the night that never ends. Just me, and my enemies, at my throat at last.

The Harrowing closed in, six before and six behind, taking their time now they knew I had nowhere to go. They moved in silence, like ghosts or shadows, or deadly thoughts, and their blank faces were scarier than any murderous expressions could ever have been. Their purpose and intent were clear in their movements—sharp, economic, perfectly synchronised. Not graceful; that was too human an attribute for them. I raised my fists in one last gesture of defiance, and they held up their pale hands. For the first time I saw that their long slender fingers ended in hy-

podermic needles, protruding inches beyond their nail-less tips. Long slender needles, dripping a pale green liquid. That was new, something I'd never seen before. And I knew suddenly, on a level deeper than instinct, and more sure, that the game had changed while I was away. They weren't here to kill me. They were here to jab me with those needles, drug me till I couldn't fight any more, and then drag me away to... somewhere else. To their mysterious, unknown masters. The bad people.

I could have cried. I wasn't even going to be allowed the dignity of a quick, if nasty, death. My enemies had something slower, more lingering, planned for me. Torture, horror, madness; perhaps to make me one of them, to do their bidding. Saying their words, carrying out their commands, while some small part of me screamed helplessly, forever trapped and suffering behind my own eyes. I'd rather die. I was finally so scared I got angry. To hell with that, and to hell with them. If I couldn't escape, I could at least defy them. Make them kill me, and deny them their victory, or triumph.

And who knew; if I could hold them off long enough, maybe I'd find some way out of this mess, after all. Miracles do happen, sometimes, in the Nightside.

The first of the Harrowing came in reach, and I hit it right in its blank face, putting all my strength behind the blow. My fist sank deeply into its head,

square in the middle where its nose should have been, the pale flesh giving unnaturally, stretching like dough. The skin clung stickily to my hand as I jerked it free, and the creature barely swayed under the impact. I spun round quickly, striking out at the others as they came crowding in around me. They were fast, but I was faster. They were strong, but I was desperate. I held them off for a while with sheer fury, but it was like hitting corpses. Their bodies were horribly yielding, as though there was really nothing inside them, and perhaps there wasn't. They were just vessels for my enemies' hatred. They absorbed punishment as a passing thing, of no importance at all, and came back for more. Their hands came at me from all directions, striking like snakes, trying over and over again to catch me with their needled fingers. They had the mindless tenacity of machines, and all I could do was keep moving, keep dodging, getting a little slower with every panting breath. Their needles ripped open my trench coat, and pale green liquid stained the material. I actually got mad enough to pick one of the things up, and throw it back against a wall; but though it hit hard enough to break the bones of a living man, the Harrowing just flattened slightly against the brickwork, like a horrid toy that wouldn't break, and came back at me again.

Faceless, remorseless, completely silent. It was like fighting nightmares. I yelled to Joanna to run, while they were still preoccupied with me, but she

just lay huddled on the ground, mouth slack with shock, staring with wide, almost mindless eyes. The Harrowing were all over me by then, and I was so tired, so cold. The best I could do was fool them into working against each other, so that they stabbed each other rather than me. Even rage and terror can only keep you going for so long, and what strength I had left was fast fading away. I was working on how best to make them kill me, when the shadow came moving among them, and everything changed.

The Harrowing's heads all turned at once, as they suddenly realised they weren't alone. Something new had come into the alley, something scarier and even more dangerous than they were. They could feel it, the way predators can always sense a rival. They forgot all about me for the moment, and I collapsed gratefully onto the cobbles beside Joanna, my heart hammering painfully in my chest as I fought for breath. Joanna threw her arms about me, and clung to me, shuddering, hiding her face in my neck. I watched it all.

The Harrowing looked about them, all their blank faces moving as one. They were confused, disoriented. This wasn't in the plan. And then one of the faces was suddenly different from all the others. A long red line had appeared, crossing the empty face where the eyes should have been, immediately leaking blood. The creature hesitantly raised a needled hand to its bloody face, as though to examine the cut.

A shadow swept across the Harrowing, fast as a fleeting thought, and the hand toppled from the wrist and fell away, neatly severed. Blood pumped out of the stump into the chill air, steaming thickly. And I smiled, a nasty gloating smile, as I realised just who had come to my rescue. It was already over. The Harrowing were all finished. They just didn't know it yet.

Something moved among the blank-faced figures, too fast to be seen. Blood flew on the air, spurting from a hundred wounds at once. The Harrowing tried to fight, but all they struck was each other. They tried to run, but wherever they went the shadow was already there before them, cutting and slicing at them, ripping them apart, tearing them to pieces. They couldn't scream, but I like to think that in their last few moments of existence they knew something of the horror and suffering they had always brought to others.

In a matter of seconds, it was all over. The dozen Harrowing, the deadly hounds on my trail, were no more. They had been rendered into hundreds, maybe thousands, of small scattered body parts, spread the length of the alley. Some of them were still twitching. The grimy brick walls ran red with blood, and the cobbled ground was slick with it, save for a small empty circle around Joanna and myself. And a dozen featureless faces, expertly skinned from featureless

heads, had been nailed to the wall in neat rows beside the closed steel door leading to Strangefellows.

The bloody light snapped off, and the alley returned to its usual gloom. The bitter chill slowly began to relax its hold. I murmured comfortingly to Joanna, until her death grip on me began to relax, and then I nodded to the still, quiet figure standing beneath the small neon sign.

"Thanks, Eddie."

Razor Eddie smiled faintly, his hands thrust into the pockets of his oversized grey coat. There wasn't a speck of blood on him.

"That's your favour paid off, John."

Something about the way he said that made a lot of things fall into place for me. "You knew this was going to happen!"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you wade in sooner?"

"Because I wanted to see if you still had it."

"You could at least have said something! Why couldn't you have warned me?"

"Because you wouldn't have listened. Because I wanted to send the Harrowing's bosses a warning. And because I do so hate to be indebted to anyone."

And I knew, then. "You told them I was going to be here."

"Welcome back, John. The old place hasn't been the same without you."

Something moved like a fleeting shadow, or a

passing breeze, and there was no-one standing beneath the neon sign. The alley was empty, apart from all the scattered body parts, and the blood sliding down the walls. I should have known. Everyone has their own agenda, in the Nightside. Joanna raised her pale face to look at me.

"Is it over?"

"Yes. It's over."

"I'm sorry. I know I should have run. But I was so scared. I've never been that scared before."

"It's all right," I said. "Not everyone can swim when they're thrown in the deep end. Nothing in your old life could ever have prepared you for the Harrowing."

"I always thought I could cope with anything," she said quietly. "I've always had to be hard1—to be a fighter—to protect my interests, and those of my child. I knew the game, how it was played. How to use .., what I have, to get my own way, do all the other people down. But this ... this is beyond me. I feel like a child again. Lost Helpless. Vulnerable."

"The rules aren't that different," I said, after a while. "It's still all about the powerful, getting away with murder because they can. And a few of us who won't be beaten down. Fighting our corner, helping those we can, because we must."

"My hero," said Joanna, smiling slightly for the first time.

"I'm no hero," I said, very definitely. "I just find

things. I'm not here to clean up the Nightside. It's too big, and I'm too small. I'm just one man, using what gifts I have to help my clients, because everyone should have someone to turn to, in time of need."

"I never met a man I respected," said Joanna. "Before now. You could have run and left me. Saved yourself. But you didn't. My hero."

She raised her mouth to mine, and after a moment, we kissed. She was warm and comforting in my arms, pressing against my body, and for the first time in a long time, I felt alive again. For a time, I was happy. It was like waking up in a foreign country. Afterwards, we sat there on the bloody cobbles for a while, holding each other. And nothing else mattered at all.

Six

Storming the Fortress

I
hailed a horse and carnage to take us to the Fortress. It was too damned far to walk, especially after that business outside Strangefellows, and I felt in distinct need of a bit of a sit-down. And it was probably a good idea to get my face off the streets for a while. The horse came trotting over, glaring down any traffic that looked like getting in his way. He was a huge brute of a Clydesdale, white as the moon, with broad shoulders and massive silver-hoofed feet, hauling an ornate nineteenth-century hansom carriage, of dark ebony and sandalwood, with solid brass trimmings. The man sitting up top, wrapped in an old leather duster, was carrying a five-foot-long

blunderbuss, its long stock etched with offensive charms and sigils. He looked carefully about him as the horse manoeuvred the carriage in beside Joanna and me, clearly ready to use his huge gun at a moment's notice. Joanna had recovered most of her composure by now, if not all her old arrogance, but she was immediately charmed by the horse. She went immediately over to him, to pat his shoulder and rub his nose. The horse whinnied appreciatively.

"What a wonderful animal," said Joanna, almost cooing. "Do you think he'd like some sugar, or a sweetie?"

"No thanks, lady," said the horse. "Gives me cavities. And I hate going to the dentist. Wouldn't say no to a carrot, mind, if you had such a thing about your person."

Joanna blinked a few times, and then looked at me accusingly. "You do this to me deliberately. Every time I think I'm finally getting my head round the Nightside, you spring something like this on me. I swear, my nerves are sitting in a corner, crying their eyes out." She looked back at the horse. "Sorry. No carrots."

"Then get in the carriage and stop wasting my time," said the horse. 'Time is money, in this business, and I've got payments to make."

"Excuse me," said Joanna, diffidently, "but am I to understand that this ... is your carriage? You're in charge here?"

"Damn right," said the horse. "Why not? I do all the hard work. Out in all weathers, wearing grooves in my shoulders from this bloody harness. And I know every road, route, and resurfaced bypass in the Nightside, plus a whole bunch of short cuts that aren't on anybody's maps. You name it, and I can get you there, and faster than any damned cab."

"And the ... gentleman up top?" said Joanna.

"Old Henry? He's just there to take the fares, make change, and ride shotgun. No-one messes with us, unless they fancy going home with their lungs in a bucket. Handy things, hands. Once I've paid off the bank, I'm thinking about investing in some cybernetic arms. If only so I can scratch my own damned nose. Now are we going to stand around talking all night, for which I charge extra, or are we actually going somewhere?"

"You know the Fortress?" I said.

"Oh sure. No problem. Though I think I'll drop you off at the end of the block. Never know when those crazies are going to start shooting again."

Old Henry grunted loudly in agreement and hefted his blunderbuss. I held open the carriage door for Joanna, and she climbed in, somewhat dazed. I got in after her, slammed the door, and we were off. The seats were red leather, and very comfortable. Not a lot of room, but cosy. It was a smooth ride, which argued for some fairly sophisticated springs somewhere down below.

"I don't like cabs," I said, just to make conversation while Joanna got her mental breath back. "You never know who they're really working for, or who they're reporting back to. And the drivers always want to talk politics. The few horse and carriage outfits working the Nightside are strictly independent. Horses are stubborn that way. You might have noticed Old Henry doesn't even have any reins; the horse makes all the decisions. Besides, Old Henry probably needs both hands free to handle that massive shooting iron of his."

"Why does he need a gun?" said Joanna, her voice back to normal.

"Keeps the other traffic at bay. Not everything that looks like a car is a car. And you never know when the trolls are going to take up carjacking again."

"I feel a distinct need to change the subject," said Joanna. 'Tell me more about this Suzie Shooter we might be running into at the Fortress. She sounds ... fascinating."

"Oh, she's all that and more, is Suzie," I said, smiling. "She tracks down runaway villains like a hunter on the trail of big game. There's nowhere they can hide that she won't go after them, no protection so overwhelming that she won't go charging right in, guns blazing. Not the most subtle of people, Suzie, but definitely one of the most determined. No job ever turned down, no target ever too dangerous, if the price is right. Suzie's been known to use every kind

of gun known to man, as well as a few she's had made up specially, but mostly she favours the pump-action shotgun. You can usually tell where she's been, because it's on fire. And you can track her down by following the kicked-in doors, scattered screaming and blood splashed up the walls. Her presence can start a fight, or stop one dead. Hell of a woman."

"Were you ever... close? You said you had a history ..."

"We worked some cases together, but Suzie doesn't let anyone get close. I don't think she knows how. Men have been known to enter her life from time to time, but they usually exit running."

"Razor Eddie, Shotgun Suzie... you know the most interesting people, John. Don't you know any ordinary people?"

"Ordinary people don't tend to last long, in the Nightside."

"Is she likely to be a help, or a hindrance?"

"Hard to tell," I said honestly. "Suzie's not the easiest of people to work with, especially if you prefer to bring your quarry back alive. Suzie's a killer. She only became a bounty hunter because it provides her with a mostly legal excuse for shooting lots of people."

"But you like her, don't you? I can hear it in your voice."

"She's been through a lot. Endured things that would have broken a lesser person. I admire her."

"Do you trust her?"

I smiled briefly. "You can't trust anyone here. You should know that by now."

She nodded. "Razor Eddie."

"And he's my friend. Mostly."

We spent the rest of the ride in silence. We both had a lot to think about. Joanna spent a lot of the time looking out the window. I didn't. I'd seen it all before. The carriage finally lurched to a halt, and the horse yelled back that we'd reached our destination. I got out first, and paid Old Henry, while Joanna got her first look at the Fortress. (I made sure Old Henry got a good tip, one he'd remember. Never know when you might need a ride in a hurry.) The horse waited till Old Henry nodded that everything was okay, and then he set off again. I went over to Joanna, who was still staring at the Fortress. It was worth looking at. Hadn't changed a bit in five years.

The Fortress started out life as a discount warehouse. Stack them high, sell them cheap, and absolutely no refunds. It dealt mostly in weapons, from all times and places, no questions asked, but it made the mistake of flooding the market. Even in the Nightside, there are only so many people who need killing at any given time. So the warehouse tried quietly instigating a few turf wars, to stimulate demand, and that was when the Authorities took an interest.

Next day the property was up for sale. The alien ab-ductees took it over, lock, stock and a whole lot of gun barrels.

The Fortress was a squarish building of several storeys, with all its windows and doors protected behind reinforced steel shutters. There were heavy-duty gun emplacements on the flat roof, looking up as well as down, and all kinds of electronic gear. No-one ever approached the Fortress without being carefully scrutinised well in advance. The word FORTRESS had been painted in big letters across the front wall, over and over, in every language under the sun, and a few spoken only in the Nightside. They weren't hiding. They're proud of what they are. The Fortress is still primarily a last refuge for alien ab-ductees, but it was there for anyone in need, for short-term stays. They'd provide counseling, another address more suited to your needs, and whatever kind of weapons you needed to make you feel safe. The Fortress firmly believed in the Kill them all and let God sort them out school of therapy. Being abducted from the age of ten will do that to you. Those few people stupid enough to abuse the Fortress's hospitality never lived long enough to boast about it.

The Fortress stood between a Voodoo Business School and an Army Surplus Store. Joanna just had to stop and look in the windows. The Voodoo establishment's current display boasted St. John The Conqueror's Root in easy-to-swallow capsules, Mandrake

Roots with screaming human faces, and a Pick & Mix section of assorted charms. They'd dressed up a window dummy as Baron Samedi, complete with mock graveyard, but it looked more tacky than anything.

The Army Surplus window had uniforms from throughout history, a display of medals from countries that didn't exist any more, and a single executive's suitcase, closed, marked Backpack nuke; make us an offer. Joanna looked at that for a long time, before turning to me.

"Are they serious? Could that actually be the real thing?"

"Must be something wrong with it," I said. "Otherwise, the Fortress would have bought it. Maybe you have to supply your own plutonium."

"Jesus wept," said Joanna.

"He did indeed," I agreed. "And over worse things than this."

We approached the Fortress's front door, and that was when I first got the feeling that something was seriously wrong. The security camera over the door had been smashed, and the reinforced steel door was standing slightly ajar. I frowned. That door was never left open. Never. I stopped Joanna with a gentle pressure on her arm, gestured for her to be quiet and stay well behind me, and then I carefully pushed the door open a way. From inside came the faint sounds of distant gun-fire and the occasional scream. I smiled briefly.

"Looks like Suzie's here. Stick close to me, Joanna, and try to look harmless."

I pushed the door all the way open and looked in. The lobby was deserted. I walked in, very quietly, and studied the situation carefully.

The lobby had probably been very comfortable originally, designed to put new visitors at their ease, but now it was just a mess. All the up-to-the-moment furniture had been overturned, the country-side scenes on the walls hung crookedly, punctured with bullet holes, and the tall rubber plant in the corner had been riddled with extremely unfriendly fire. Normally you had to pass through a bulky ex-airport metal detector to get into the lobby proper. Someone had thrown it half-way across the room. There was still some smoke drifting on the air, and the unmistakable smell of cordite. Someone had let off a whole lot of rounds in here, and pretty damned recently at that.

But there weren't any bodies, anywhere.

I slowly crossed the lobby, Joanna sticking as close to me as she could without actually climbing into my pockets. I checked out the security cameras in the ceiling corners. The little red lights showed they were still operating. Someone had to have seen what went down here, but there was no sign of any reinforcements. Which could only mean the real action was still going on, somewhere deeper inside the building. I was beginning to get a really bad feeling.

The door on the other side of the lobby, that gave access to the inner layers of the Fortress, was also standing ajar. All its locks and bolts had been smashed, and one of the door's hinges had been torn clean away from the door-jamb. I carefully pushed the door aside and peered out into the corridor beyond. There were fresh bullet scars on the walls, but still no bodies. From further ahead came the sound of multiple gun-shots and angry shouting.

"Maybe we should nip next door to the Army Surplus and pick up some guns of our own?" said Joanna.

"Would you know how to use one, if we did?"

"Yes."

I looked at her. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you? I don't like guns. They make it too easy to make the kind of mistakes you can't put right by saying 'Sorry' afterwards. Besides, I've never felt the need."

"What about the Harrowing?"

"Guns wouldn't have stopped them anyway."

Joanna gestured at the cameras up by the corridor ceiling. "Why all the security?"

"Abductee logic. They have cameras in every room, every corridor, every nook and cranny. And more hidden booby-traps than I feel comfortable thinking about. And, a whole team of people whose only job is to sit and watch the monitors, in shifts. These people are genuinely afraid that the aliens will

come for them again. And since no-one knows how the little grey bastards come and go, the cameras ate always running. The idea is, that while human eyes might be fooled, cameras would still catch them. I suppose once the security team spots them, they hit every alarm in sight, and everyone grabs the nearest weapon and shoots the shit out of anything that doesn't look entirely human. They even have cameras in the toilets and showers, just in case. No-one here is being taken again without one hell of a fight first."

Joanna pulled a face. "No privacy anywhere? Seriously paranoid."

"Not if They really are after you. And the more I look at what's happened here ... the less I like it. All the signs are that someone, or something, crashed into the lobby, and the Fortress people opened fire. To no obvious effect. From the sound of it, they're still fighting, but they're clearly on the retreat. Something is pushing them further and further back, into the heart of their own territory. So far, so obvious. But, where are the bodies? Maybe, just maybe... the aliens have come at last, looking for their missing specimens..."

"Are you serious?" said Joanna. "Aliens?"

I looked down the empty corridor, considering the possibilities. "All sorts end up in the Nightside. Past, present and future. Aliens are no stranger than a lot of the things I've seen here."

"Maybe we should come back another time," said Joanna.

"No. These are good people. I can't walk away, when they might need help. I never could. And Suzie's probably in there somewhere . . . Damn. Damn. I really didn't need this right now. You can wait outside if you want, while I check this out."