Poison! Poison ga.s.ses, you idiot! Defend yourself! Eat the celery!
I thrust a numbing hand into an inside coat pocket, pulled out the piece of celery, and chewed on it. I always keep a piece handy, pre-prepared with all kinds of useful substances, for just such occasions as this. It tasted bitter as I chewed, but it cleared my head rapidly. It"s an old trick but a good one, taught me long ago by a Travelling Doctor I met at the Hawk"s Wind Bar & Grill.
Guns and bullets lay scattered in spirals across the dirty flagstones, and we kicked them out of our way. A rainbow of discarded pills crunched under our feet. The dead closed in around us. I kept staring straight ahead.
The corpses were all around us now, filling the vast hall, the furthest of them only dim shadows in the churning mists. For the first time, I was sure I"d chosen the right companions for this case. Anyone else would already have run screaming, and I wasn"t far from it myself. The living were never meant to come this close to death and all its horrors. The Lamentation was served by everyone who ever took their own life in the Nightside, and so had acquired the second biggest standing army in the Nightside, behind the Authorities. They allowed this to continue only because the Lamentation had never been much interested in how the Nightside was run. There was never any shortage of suffering and suicides in a place where it"s always three o"clock in the morning, and the comfort of the dawn never comes.
The blood-tinted mists suddenly blew apart like curtains, revealing the Lamentation hanging supported in its cage. The great and terrible Being was held securely inside an intricate construction of rusting black metal, a ma.s.sive cube thirty feet on a side. Black iron bars crisscrossed in elaborate patterns to make up the sides, and then thrust back and forth across the interior, piercing and transfixing the inhumanly stretched and distorted body inside the cage. It was hard to tell just how big the Being really was, bent over and twisted back upon itself, again and again. Its flesh was stretched taut by the strain of its contortions, and its skin was colourless and sweaty, though whether from pain or pleasure... There was something about it that suggested it might have started out as human, long and long ago ...
Whether the cage had been built around the Lamentation, or it had grown inside the cage, wasn"t clear. There was no sign of a door or entrance in any of the six sides. The inhumanly long arms and legs stretched out from the crooked torso, twisted back upon themselves again and again, in defiance of all the rules of anatomy, held irrevocably in place by the rusting metal bars transfixing them. There was no trace of blood at any of the many puncture points. More iron bars punched in and out of the torso, which showed no signs of breathing or heartbeat, though the thick body hair swirled slowly, making patterns that sucked in the eye. The face thrust up against the bars of the cage, looking out at its new visitors; stretched impossibly wide, the skin was taut to the point of tearing, and a rusty black spike thrust up out of one eye-socket. The nose had rotted away, or perhaps been bitten off, and the ears were gone, too. The mouth was a wide, suppurating wound, full of metal teeth. Cracked and crumbling goat"s horns curled up from the wide, distorted brow.
It hurt to look at the Lamentation for any length of time. It was just too big, too ... other.
It stank of desperate emotions, of hate and despair and thwarted needs, and the sorrow that can only see one way out, and all of it was thick and overpowering with the headiness of musk. None of this was natural, of course. The Lamentation radiated all the horrors of sudden death, of unnecessary death, of suicides and lives wasted, of potential unrealised and families blighted. For suffering was food and drink for the Lamentation.
"Whose stupid idea was it to come here?" Sinner said quietly. There was something about the place that imposed quiet, like an anti-church.
"Yours," I said.
"Why do you listen to me?" said Sinner.
A clump of mists beside the cage suddenly dispersed, blown away by some unfelt breeze, revealing the dead remains of the Brittle Sisters of the Hive. Their bodies had been piled up to a great height, carelessly dumped there like so much rubbish. There had to be hundreds of them, maybe even thousands; enough to boggle the mind. Shimmering sh.e.l.ls of insect husks, spindly limbs already rotting where they stuck out of the pile. Their devil"s faces were cold and uninhabited, their compound eyes and complex mouth parts seeming somehow resigned. The Brittle Sisters of the Hive-genetic terrorists, insect saviours, ravagers of the subconscious mind. Hated by pretty much everyone. And yet still it didn"t please me to see them lying broken and shattered, like offerings to the Lamentation.
When it spoke, the Lamentation"s voice sounded like someone who pretends to be your friend, then whispers lies and distortions in your ear when you"re at your most vulnerable.
"This is all of them," it said, its quiet rasping voice the only sound in the great hall. "There are no more. They came here earlier, looking for you, John Taylor. They intended to ambush you and bear you away to the dissecting tables, to open you up and dig out all your secrets. To steal your heritage for themselves. They knew you"d be coming here. They bought the knowledge from an oracle. They really should have inquired further. I will not permit anyone to interfere with my guests, or my intentions. So I lured them all in here, with lies they wanted to believe, then watched them all kill each other under my influence, until none were left. They screamed in quite a satisfactory way, for insects. And now they"re all gone. The Hives stand empty, now and forever. My gift to you, John Taylor."
"Thank you," I said. "That was ... kind of you."
"Not really," said the Lamentation. "I don"t do kind. Why have you come here, John Taylor?"
"I"m investigating the origins of the Nightside," I said. "On behalf of the Transient Being known as Lady Luck. My companions are Madman and Sinner and the demon Pretty Poison. I have already consulted with Merlin Satansp.a.w.n and Herne the Hunter." I tried to think of some more names I could drop, but it was taking everything I had just to keep my act together, in the relentless presence of the Lamentation, so I kept it simple and direct. "What can you tell me about the beginnings of the Nightside, of its creation and true purpose?"
"The Nightside is much older than I," said the Lamentation, its voice a sly and insinuating murmur. "Older than anyone I know. The only one who could give you the answers you seek... is your mother. Wherever she may be."
"What do you know about my mother?" I said.
"She was gone, but now is returned to us. Lucky old us. Babalon, Babalon. It took an army of the Light and the Dark to rid us of her, all those centuries ago, but only three foolish mortal men to bring her back."
"Three men," I said, my mind racing. "My father, of course, and the Collector, and ... Walkerl"
"Of course. Who else? Those three good and true friends, who had such great dreams and meant so well..."
It stopped talking, thick pus dribbling from one corner of its distorted mouth. It looked at me expectantly with its single unblinking eye. I thought hard. This wasn"t going where I"d expected, but then my whole day had been like that.
"I met the Primal once," I said finally. "Ancient demons, from the very dawn of Creation, when they possessed some bodies at the Necropolis. They spoke of my mother. They said, She who was first, and will be again, in this worst of all possible worlds. Do you know what they meant by that?"
"She is back," said the Lamentation. "And the Nightside will never be the same again. I remember the early days of the Nightside, back before there were Authorities to curb the appet.i.tes and ambitions of those who would play here. We all ran free in those days, the Light and the Dark, and those who couldn"t or wouldn"t choose. That was the point. It was a time of miracles and monstrosities, dreams and d.a.m.nations built with pride, where anything and everything seemed possible. None of us now are what was intended then. The Nightside was young when the world was young, and all the kingdoms this world has ever known have never produced anything as wild or as free or as glorious as the Nightside was then."
"What happened ... to that place?" I said.
"We drove your mother out, for we wished to be free even from her intentions, but without her, we lost our way. The Nightside"s potential collapsed under the weight of our... limitations, and became a shadow of the dream that was. All we have now is a place of small ambitions and furtive pleasures, where all that matters about a thing is the price it will bring."
"You knew my mother?" I said.
"Perhaps. It was all such a long time ago. I no longer remember things clearly. Not even my own past, never mind another"s. But I do know that the Nightside was already old when I was a young thing and newly formed."
"And human?" suggested Sinner. I jumped. I"d honestly forgotten anyone else was there.
"Human?" said the Lamentation, not bothering to hide the scorn in its voice. "Such a little thing to be. I am large and glorious. I have always been here, and always will be."
"Nonsense," Pretty Poison said briskly. She stepped forward to stare closely at the twisted thing in its cage. "You"re not one of my kind. You were made, not created, this way. The world, or your own desires, made you what you are. There is nothing of the eternal in you, nothing of the Infernal or the Elect. You"re just meat, with meat"s needs and delusions."
The whole cage shook as the Lamentation howled, an awful, disturbing sound, black flecks of rusting iron falling from the metal bars as the distorted body shook with rage, and perhaps shock. It must have been a long time since anyone had dared speak to it in such a fashion. I felt like applauding. The black iron bars rattled, but the cage held. The Lamentation"s skin stretched and tore, but still no blood flowed. The dead bodies in the hall stirred restlessly, and the blood-tinted mists churned and roiled. There was a power pulsing on the air, and we could all feel it. Pretty Poison watched it all calmly. Sinner and Madman were hiding behind me, and I wished I could hide, too. There was no easy way out of the Mausoleum, no obvious exit, and the rage of a Power and a Domination can be a terrible thing. Just ask the Brittle Sisters of the Hive. Eventually the Lamentation settled down again, fixing me with its one awful eye.
"You want to know who your mother was?" it said, and its voice was cold, cold. "If I ever knew for sure I have forgotten, or was made to forget, but they could not keep me from thinking and deducing all these years. It is my belief that she was that old and terrible one sometimes called Morrigan, of the Badhbh; the Celtic war G.o.ddess, who also manifested as a wolf and a crow and a raven. That old G.o.ddess of battlefields and of slaughter, who dressed in the entrails of her worshippers and whose laughter was the gathering storms of war. To whom every dead soldier was a sacrifice, and every ma.s.sacre a delight. The secret G.o.ddess and guiding spirit of the twentieth century, some say. And you are her only son, already spreading death and destruction. You almost brought down the Nightside with your angel war. Whatever will you do next, John Taylor?"
"You don"t really know a d.a.m.ned thing about her," I said, with the certainty of sudden insight. "It"s all just guesses and wishful thinking. You gave up or lost your memories, in order to live entirely in the present. To better savour the suffering you steal. How would you know who my mother really was? You can"t even remember your own beginnings, never mind the Nightside"s."
"It doesn"t matter," said the Lamentation, its dry, whispering voice suddenly calm again. "Your quest stops here. Let the past remain the past; I care only for the way things are. It may be that the old days were not as free and fine as I choose to remember, but I won"t let you threaten what I have now. All the sweet suffering, the despair and d.a.m.nations ... you would take it all away. I don"t think so. I won"t have you digging up old secrets that might overturn the source of my power, and my delight."
"You"re scared of my mother," I said.
"I"m not scared of you, John Taylor. When I kill you here, and make you one of my army, I close the only doorway through which your mother might return to rule the Nightside and spoil all our fun. We shall be safe again."
I glanced round at my companions, just to make sure they were still there, then lifted my chin and gave the Lamentation my best confident look. If you"re going to bluff, bluff big. "You really think you can take the four of us? You do know who and what we are?"
"It doesn"t matter," said the Lamentation, its voice slowly fading away, as though it was losing interest. "You are in my place, and in my power. I will show you things, awful things, until you kill yourselves rather than have to see them. And then you will rise again, trapped in your dead bodies, to serve me forever, with no will in you but mine. And your suffering will sustain me for centuries."
There was a pause, then Madman laughed cheerfully, and the mood was broken. Sinner was shaking his head, too.
"What can you show us, you caged freak? I am Sinner, and I have known the secrets of the Pit."
"I am Pretty Poison, a demon of the Inferno."
"I"m Madman, and I have seen the Truth."
"And I," I said, "am John Taylor; and you wouldn"t believe the s.h.i.t I"ve seen. So bring it on, Lamentation. Bring it all on."
The Lamentation shook and rattled its cage again, and now its voice was a shrill inhuman scream. "Kill them! Kill them all!"
The dead came surging forward out of the bloodred mists, moving quickly but without grace, cold bodies forced on by an inhuman will. They had no weapons, only the endless implacable strength of the dead and the overwhelming numbers to drag us down. They came from every direction at once, reaching out with pale, clawed hands. But they couldn"t seem to find Madman. They stumbled all around him, striking out at anyone but him, while he looked sadly back at them, unmoving. Pretty Poison was already tearing a path through the dead, flashing back and forth impossibly quick, laughing loudly as she tore the dead bodies limb from limb and trampled the twitching pieces under her feet. Chunks of unliving flesh flew through the air, tossed about with glee, and the overwhelming numbers meant nothing to her. Pretty Poison was enjoying herself. Sinner watched her, frowning, but did nothing to try to stop her. The dead surrounded him, their hands b.u.mping uselessly against him, unable to harm a man that Heaven and h.e.l.l had already forsworn.
I took a bag of salt from an inside pocket and sprinkled a wide circle around me. The dead couldn"t cross the salt, so they circled round and round me, clawing clumsily with their empty hands, driven forward even as the salt forced them back. My heart pounded painfully fast as I turned around and around, constantly checking that the salt circle remained unbroken. I was breathing so fast I was practically hyperventilating. I really didn"t like this. None of my tricks or magics were strong enough to hold back a whole army of the living dead. I called out to the others, but they were too far away to help. And then I looked into the unblinking eyes of the dead faces lunging at me from every side, and all I saw in them was suffering. None of this was their idea. They only ever moved in obedience to the will of their master; slaves to the Lamentation. They had killed themselves with the last little bit of their courage, hoping to be free from the pains and obligations of their unbearable lives, only to find themselves eternally bound to something far worse. No peace for the dead here, no rest for those who had been, briefly, wicked.
And the more I thought about that, the angrier I got. I"ve known what it feels like, when your whole life hurts so much that you"re ready to die, just for the pain to stop. A little less stubbornness, a little more resolve at certain moments, and I might have been one of these poor trapped souls ... What kind of a place had we made of the Nightside, where even the dead weren"t allowed to rest in peace? My anger burned through me like a cold flame, clearing my head and calming my racing heart. I fired up my gift, and my third eye, my private eye, opened deep in my mind, allowing me to find and identify the link between the dead and their master. My eyesight lurched, and suddenly I could See a tracework of glimmering silver lines, rising from the tops of the corpses" heads and trailing away back to the Lamentation in its cage; the strings by which it manipulated its puppets. And powered by my anger and outrage, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to reach out with my mind and sever all those silver cords in a single moment.
The dead froze where they stood, stopped in mid-movement and even mid-lunge. There was a new feeling in the Mausoleum, as though an endless tension had finally snapped. The Lamentation screamed, a horrible inhuman sound that rasped through the great hall like a saw through flesh. And one by one the dead bodies dropped to the floor and lay still, as their souls burst up out of them like incandescent stars, blasting out of their rotten husks, rising up and up, free at last. They blazed brightly in that dark place, then were gone, to wherever they should have gone long ago.
I"ve never believed all suicides go to h.e.l.l. G.o.d has more mercy than that.
The last of the souls departed, and my Sight returned to normal. I looked about me. The blood-tinged mists were gone. Sinner and Pretty Poison and even Madman were staring around in a puzzled way. The dead were piled up all around us, and none of them so much as twitched. The oppressive atmosphere of despair and horror that had permeated the great hall was already fading away like a bad dream, because there was no longer anything here to be scared of. We looked down the empty hall at where the Lamentation had been. The black iron cage was already falling apart, the metal bars cracking and dissolving in showers of black rust. And lying at the bottom of the cage, under the criss-crossed bars, stripped of all power, a naked man and woman clutched each other desperately, weeping angry tears of shock and loss. No longer joined, no longer a Power, no longer that vicious old Being called the Lamentation. Whatever they had done to themselves, or caused to be done, it was over now. Must have been hard on them, to be just human again, after so long. I did think about killing them, but I had no reason to be merciful. I turned my back on them and nodded to my companions.
"Time we were going," I said. "I think we"ve learned all we"re going to here."
"What about... them?" said Sinner.
"Wait till the word gets out," I said. "That they are human again, and defenceless. Then they"ll learn what suffering really is. Lot of people in the Nightside have old unfinished business, for loved ones lost and enslaved."
"You can"t just leave us here like this!" howled a voice from the dissolving cage. It could have been the man or the woman. "You"re supposed to be the great hero of the Nightside! You can"t just abandon us!"
"Watch me," I said.
I led the way out of the great hall, and my companions followed me without comment. The hall was already breaking down, disappearing in bits and pieces as the magic that sustained it leaked away. Soon enough the old rooms would return, with all the old memories of what was done there by the Maxwell family. And then maybe, in that old atmosphere of torture and despair and death, the man and woman who had once been the Lamentation might see no other way out than to take their own lives. I smiled at the thought. I could live with that.
Why don"t the dead lie still? Because in the Nightside there are always Powers and Dominations ready to make use of them.
We stepped out of the Maxwell Mausoleum, and the perverse atmosphere of Freak Fair was like a breath of fresh air. Until I noticed that all of Walker"s watchers seemed to have disappeared, along with everyone else. The street was deserted. All the doors around us were firmly shut, and there wasn"t a light showing at a window anywhere.
"Why are you scowling?" said Sinner. "It"s always a really bad sign when you start scowling. And Madman"s sound track has gone all tense again."
"It looks like Walker has withdrawn his people and closed off the area," I said. "And he wouldn"t do that unless he had something really nasty planned and didn"t want any witnesses. And given the kinds of horrible things I"ve known him do in front of whole crowds of people, this new caution does not bode well for us."
We all huddled together for protection, even Madman, and did our best to look in every direction at once. I could have used a break after taking down the Lamentation, but that"s Walker for you-always strike when your enemy is weakest. The street remained empty, the busy sounds of city life sounding very far away. Could Walker really know already that I"d destroyed the Lamentation? Had that been the final straw that made him decide I was too dangerous to be allowed to live? Was he finally ready to have me killed, after all these years?
Did he know that I knew about his part in my mother"s return?
It could be that the Authorities had given him no choice in this. Had ordered him to stop me getting any closer to answers that might upset their precious status quo. He had tried to warn me of that possibility, back at the Londinium Club. And as I thought that, I knew who was out there, watching and waiting for just the right moment to make her entrance. Who it had to be.
From out of the shadows that cloaked the end of the street came the sudden sound of expensive shoes click-clacking on the pavement. We all turned to look, and from out of the dark Bad Penny came swaying down the street towards us. Bold and bra.s.sy, that sweet sensation, death on high heels and loving it, the s.e.xiest, most voluptuous a.s.sa.s.sin of them all. She was still wearing the cla.s.sic little black dress she"d somehow crammed herself into at the Londinium Club, but now there were splashes of blood across the front of it, and more standing out starkly against the shimmering white of her elbow-length evening gloves. She came to a halt a sensible distance away from us and favoured us all with a dazzling smile. Down by one thrusting hip she carried a set of blood-flecked antlers in her hand.
"h.e.l.lo, John," she said, in a voice that promised absolutely everything that"s bad for you. "Journeys end in lovers" meetings. And your journey ends right here."
"We were never lovers," I said firmly. "I"m not entirely sure what we were, but lovers is definitely not the word. So Walker"s finally given you the go-ahead, has he?"
She raised one perfect eyebrow. "You already know I"m working for Walker? Of course you do. I was forgetting; you"re John Taylor. You know everything."
"Not necessarily," I said. "Where did you get those antlers, Penny?"
"From Herne the Hunter, after I killed him," Bad Penny said lightly. "Walker wanted Herne made an example of, to anyone else who might be considering answering any of your questions. Oh, don"t look so sad, darling! He was a very old G.o.d, and his time was over. I can"t abide people who outstay their welcome. And there"s no greater sin than insisting on being unfashionable."
She dropped the antlers carelessly to the ground, and they made only the briefest of sounds in the quiet. Not much of an end for a once powerful G.o.d.
"I bear a message from Walker," said Bad Penny, falling naturally into a provocative pose. "The Authorities really are frightfully keen that you abandon this case, right here. Turn back now, go no further, do not collect two hundred pounds. Or else."
"Am I to presume that you"re the or else?" I said.
"Got it in one! I do hope you"re going to do the sensible thing for once in your life, sweetie. What"s so wrong with wanting things to stay the way they are? I"ve always been a great supporter of the status quo, if only because it continues to supply me with so many good business opportunities. There"s always money to be made out of murder, and a girl has to eat."
"And if I refuse?" I said.
"Like I said, darling-there"s always money to be made out of murder."
"You"d kill me, after what we had between us?"
"Because of what we had between us! No-one walks out on me, honey."
"Would I be right in thinking there"s a history between you two?" said Sinner. "You do get around, don"t you, Jack?"
"Shut up," I said.
"Aren"t you going to introduce me to your new friends, John?" said Bad Penny, spreading her smile generously around her.
I raised an eyebrow. "Walker didn"t brief you? Or haven"t you reported in recently? You always were slack when it came to doing the research on a case. Well, this is Sinner, and his girl-fiend Pretty Poison, and that is Madman. We"ve just destroyed the Lamentation."
"Oh dear," said Bad Penny. "How sad. Fallen in with bad company again, I see. What am I going to do with you, John? I know! I"ll kill you right here and now. And just to keep everything neat and tidy, your friends can die with you." She turned her powerful smile on Sinner. "You disapprove of John, don"t you? How sweet. Perhaps you"d like to break his neck for me? I"d really like that. In fact, I"d like it if you all beat each other to death, right in front of me."
And just like that, she was suddenly the most attractive woman in the world. Her s.e.xuality blazed like someone had just opened a furnace door. Her presence filled the street, impossible to look away from, impossible to resist. To see her was to want her, to need her, more than life itself. I had my gift, and Bad Penny had hers. She had become the woman you"d do anything for, including murder. Her greatest weapon had always been herself. No-one could resist her body, once she"d turned it up to eleven. Except... for all our special abilities, Sinner and Madman and I were just men, while Pretty Poison was a demon succubus from h.e.l.l.
"Amateur," she said.
And just like that, the spell was broken. Bad Penny"s glamour snapped off, and she was just another really good-looking woman with a bit of a weight problem. She looked at us, open-mouthed, absolutely dumbfounded. I don"t think anyone had ever broken her spell that easily, that casually, before. I smiled at her.
"Nice try, Penny. But I have been there, and done that, and, to be honest, I"ve known better."
She stamped one high-heeled foot, said a few baby swear words, and suddenly she had two really big guns in her white-gloved hands. She opened fire at point-blank range, the explosions deafeningly loud, but I was already moving. I knew how she operated. And yet even as I dodged and ducked, it was clear she wasn"t just targeting me. We all had to die, so no-one would ever be told about the failure of her glamour. And that... was a mistake. If she"d concentrated on me, she might have got somewhere. I"m fast, and I"m tricky, but I"m not bullet-proof.
The bullets couldn"t even find Madman. He just stood there, blinking owlishly, his mind on other things, while bullets ricocheted from the wall behind him. I wasn"t sure what damage bullets could do to a demon succubus, but Sinner didn"t wait to find out. He stepped quickly forward, to stand between his love and Bad Penny, and the bullets thudded into his chest over and over again, to no obvious effect. Bad Penny blinked a few times, then shot him in the head. That didn"t help, so she kicked his feet out from under him. He crashed onto his back, and Bad Penny targeted Pretty Poison. I grabbed Bad Penny from behind, pinioning her arms, and she bent sharply forward at the waist and threw me right over her head. I hit the ground hard, but kept rolling. Bullets smashed into the ground where I"d been. Sinner was back on his feet and advancing on Bad Penny. She emptied her guns into him, going for all the most vulnerable points, but he didn"t even flinch as the bullets punched into him. No blood flowed. Like Cain before him, he bore the mark of his offence on his brow, and nothing of this world could ever really harm him again. He stopped right in front of Bad Penny, and she put her last bullet right through his left eye.
"Ouch," Sinner said dryly. There was only the slightest of pauses before his eyeball rebuilt itself, then he gargled and spat the bullet out into his palm. He offered it to Bad Penny. "Yours, I believe."
She snarled prettily, made her guns disappear, and s.n.a.t.c.hed two silver knives out of nowhere. She buried them both up to the hilt in his chest. They were magical weapons, scored with ancient runes, one cursed and one blessed. I"d known G.o.ds who would have died from an attack like that. Sinner just stood there and took it. I felt like applauding. Bad Penny folded her arms over her impressive chest and pouted.
"Now that"s just not fair, darling."
"Step aside, Sidney," said Pretty Poison, at Sinner"s shoulder. "I have business with this woman. Very nasty business."
"No," said Sinner.
"She tried to kill you, my darling! I can"t allow that to go unpunished. It"s not in my nature."
"You came up out of h.e.l.l to be with me, in order to change your nature. Remember?"
"Yes, but..."
"Hush," said Sinner, and the demon succubus hushed, for the moment.
Bad Penny poked out her tongue at Pretty Poison, then smiled hopefully at Sinner. "If you"re not actually going to kill me, darling, could I please have my knives back? They are family heirlooms, and Daddy would be furious if I lost them."