Страница:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- Следующая »
- Последняя >>
Simon R Green
Something from the Nightside
/ went to a house that was not a house
I opened a door that was not a door.
And what I saw, I saw.
ONE - Money
Comes Walking In
Private eyes come in all shapes and sizes, and none of them look like television stars. Some do insurance work, some hang around cheap hotels with camcorders hoping to get evidence for divorce cases, and damn few ever get to investigate complicated murder mysteries. Some chase things that don't exist, or shouldn't. Me, I find things. Sometimes I'd rather not find them, but that comes with the territory.
The flaking sign on the door in those days said Taylor Investigations.I'm Taylor. Tall, dark and not particularly handsome. I bear the scars of old cases proudly, and I never let down a client. Provided they've paid at least some cash up front.
My office back then was cosy, if you were feeling charitable, cramped if you weren't. I spent a lot of time there. It beat having a life. It was a low-rent office in a low-rent area. All the businesses with any sense were moving out, making more room for those of us who operated in the greyer areas of the legal and illegal. Even the rats were just passing through, on their way to somewhere more civilised. My neighbours were a dentist and an accountant, both of them struck off, both of whom made more money than I did.
It was raining hard the night Joanna Barrett came to see me. The kind of cold, driving, pitiless rain that makes you glad to be safe and dry indoors. I should have taken that as an omen, but I've never been very good at picking up on hints. It was late, well past the point where the day starts edging into evening, and everyone else in the building had gone home. I was still sitting behind my desk, half-watching the portable television with its sound turned down, while the man on the phone yelled in my ear. He wanted money, the fool. I made sympathetic noises in all the right places, waiting for him to get tired and go away, and then my ears pricked up as I heard footsteps in the hall outside, heading for my door. Steady, unhurried ... and a woman. Interesting. Women always make the best clients. They say they want information, but mostly what they really want is revenge; and they aren't mean when it comes to paying for what they want. What they need. Hell hath no fury; and I should know.
The footsteps stopped outside my door, and a tall shadow studied the bullet hole in the frosted-glass window. I really should have got that seen to, but it made such a great conversation piece. Clients like a touch of romance and danger when they're hiring a private detective, even if they only want some papers served. The door opened, and she walked in. A tall good-looking blonde who reeked of money and class, looking immediately out of place amid the battered furniture and cracked-plaster walls of my office.
Her clothes had the quiet elegance and style that shrieks of serious money, and when she spoke my name her voice had an aristocratic edge that could cut glass. Either she'd been to all the very best boarding and finishing schools, or she'd spent a hell of a lot on elocution lessons. She was perhaps a little too slender, with a raw-boned face and minimal make-up that meant she would always be handsome rather than pretty. From the way she stood, the way she held herself, it was obvious she was a control freak, and the set of her perfectly made-up mouth showed she was used to being obeyed. I notice things like that. It's my job. I gave her my best unimpressed nod and gestured for her to take a seat on the only other chair, on the opposite side of my desk. She sat down without taking out a handkerchief to clean the seat first,
and I gave her extra points for bravery. I watched her look around my office, while the voice in the phone at my ear grew ever more hysterical, demanding money with menaces. Very specific menaces. Her face was studiously calm, even blank, but as I glanced around my office, it was only too easy to see it as she saw it.
A battered desk, with only a few token papers in the in and out trays, a fourth-hand filing cabinet, and a rickety couch pushed back against the wall. Rumpled blankets and a dented pillow on the couch showed someone had been sleeping on it regularly. The single window behind my desk had bars on the outside, and the glass rattled loosely in its frame as the wind goosed it. The scuffed carpet had holes, the portable television on my desk was black and white, and the only note of colour on my walls was a giveaway girlie calendar. Old delivery pizza boxes stood stacked in one corner. It didn't take a genius to work out this wasn't just an office. Someone lived here. It was also patently obvious that this wasn't the office of someone on his way up.
I'd chosen to live in the real world, for what seemed like good reasons at the time, but it had never been easy.
I suddenly decided I'd had enough of the voice on the telephone. "Look," I said, in that calm reasonable tone that if done properly can drive people absolutely batshit, "if I had the money I'd pay you, but I don't
have the money. So you'll just have to take a number and get in line. You are of course welcome to try sue-ing, in which case I can recommend a neighbour of mine who's a lawyer. He needs the work, so he won't laugh in your face when you tell him who you're trying to get money out of. However, if you'd care to be patient just a little longer, it's possible a whole lot of money just walked in... You know, hysteria like that can't be good for your blood pressure. I recommend deep breathing and visits to the seaside. I always find the sea very soothing. I'll get back to you. Eventually."
I put the phone down firmly and smiled politely at my visitor. She didn't smile back. I just knew we were going to get along. She looked pointedly at the murmuring television on my desk, and I turned it off.
"It's company," I said calmly. "Much like a dog, but with the added advantage that you don't have to take it for walks."
"Don't you ever go home?" Her tone made it clear she was asking for information, not because she cared.
"I am currently in between homes. Big, empty, expensive things. Besides, I like it here. Everything's within reach, and nobody bothers me when the day's over. Usually."
"I know it's late. I didn't want to be seen coming here."
"I can understand that."
She sniffed briefly. "You have a hole in your office door, Mr. Taylor."
I nodded. "Moths."
The corners of her dark red mouth turned down, and for a moment I thought she was going to get up and leave. I have that effect on people. But she controlled herself and gave me her best intimidating glare.
"I'm Joanna Barrett."
I nodded, non-commitally. "You say that like it should mean something to me."
'To anyone else, it would," she said, just a little acidly. "But then, I don't suppose you read the business pages, do you?"
"Not unless someone pays me to. Am I to take it you're rich?"
"Extremely."
I grinned. "The very best kind of client. What can I do for you?"
She shifted slightly in her chair, clutching her oversized white leather handbag protectively to her. She didn't want to be here, talking to the likes of me. No doubt usually she had people to take care of such unpleasant tasks for her. But something was eating at her. Something personal. Something she couldn't trust to anyone else. She needed me. I could tell. Hell, I was already counting the money.
"I have need of a private investigator," she said abruptly. "You were ... recommended to me."
I nodded, understandingly. "Then you've already tried the police, and all the big private agencies, and none of them were able to help you. Which means your problem isn't one of the usual ones."
She nodded stiffly. "They let me down. All of them. Took my money and gave me nothing but excuses. Bastards. So I called in every favour I was owed, pulled every string I had, and eventually someone gave me your name. I understand you find people."
"I can find anyone or anything, if the price is right. It's a gift. I'm dogged and determined and a whole bunch of other things that begin with d,and I never give up as long as the cheques keep coming. But, I don't do insurance work, I don't do divorces, and I don't solve crimes. Hell, I wouldn't know a clue if I fell over it. I just find things. Whether they want to be found or not."
Joanna Barrett gave me her best icy disapproving look. "I don't like being lectured."
I smiled easily. "All part of the service."
"And I don't care for your attitude."
"Not many do."
She seriously considered leaving again. I watched her struggle with herself, my face calm and relaxed. Someone like her wouldn't have come this far unless she was really desperate.
"My daughter is ... missing," she said finally, reluctantly. "I want you to find her for me."
She produced an eight-by-ten glossy photo from her oversized bag, and skimmed it across the table towards me with an angry flick of her hand. I studied the photo without touching it. A head and shoulders shot of a scowling teenager stared sullenly back at me, narrowed eyes peering past a rat's nest of long blonde hair. She would have been pretty if she hadn't been frowning so hard. She looked like she had a mad on for the whole damned world, and it would have been a sucker who bet on the world. In other words, every inch her mother's daughter.
"Her name is Catherine, Mr. Taylor." Joanna Barrett's voice was suddenly quieter, more subdued. "Only answers to Cathy, when she answers at all. She's fifteen, going on sixteen, and I want her found."
I nodded. We were on familiar territory so far. "How long has she been gone?"
"Just over a month." She paused, and then added reluctantly, "This time."
I nodded again. It helps me look thoughtful. "Anything happen recently to upset your daughter?"
"There was an argument. Nothing we haven't said before, God knows. I don't know why she runs away. She's had everything she ever wanted. Everything."
She dug in her bag again and came out with cigarettes and lighter. The cigarettes were French, the lighter was gold with a monogram. I raised my rates accordingly. She lit a cigarette with a steady hand,
and then scattered nervous little puffs of smoke across my office. People shouldn't smoke in situations like this. It's far too revealing. I pushed across my single ash-tray, the one shaped like a lung, and studied the photo again. I wasn't immediately worried about Cathy Barrett. She looked like she could take care of herself, and anybody else stupid enough to bother her. I decided it was time to start asking some obvious questions.
"How about Catherine's father? How does your daughter get on with him?"
"She doesn't. He walked out on us when she was two. Only decent thing the selfish bastard ever did for us. His lawyers got him access, but he hardly ever takes advantage of it. I still have to chase him for maintenance money. Not that we need it, of course, but it's the principle of the thing. And before you ask, no; there's never been any problems with drugs, alcohol, money, or unsuitable boyfriends. I've seen to that. I've always protected her, and I've never once raised a hand to her. She's just a sullen, ungrateful little bitch."
For a moment something glistened in her eyes that might have been tears, but the moment passed. I leaned back in my chair, as though considering what I'd been told, but it all looked pretty straight forward to me. Tracking a runaway wasn't much of a case, but as it happened I was short on cases and cash, and there were bills that need paying. Urgently. It hadn't
been a good year—not for a long time. I leaned forward, resting my elbows in my desk, putting on my serious, committed face.
"So, Mrs. Barrett, essentially what we have here is a poor little rich girl who thinks she has everything but love. Probably begging for spare change down in the Underground, eating left-overs and stale bread, sleeping on park benches; hanging out with all the wrong sorts and kidding herself it's all one big adventure. Living life in the raw, with the real people. Secure in the knowledge that once again she's managed to secure her mother's full attention. I wouldn't worry about her too much. She'll come home, once it starts getting cold at nights."
Joanna Barrett was already shaking her expensively coiffured head. "Not this time. I've had experienced people looking for her for weeks now, and no-one's been able to find a trace of her. None of her previous ... associates have seen anything of her, even with the more than generous rewards I've been offering. It's as though she's vanished off the face of the earth. I've always been able to locate her before. My people have contacts everywhere. But this time, all I have for my efforts is a name I don't recognise. A name, given to me by the same person who supplied me with your name. He said I'd find my daughter... in the Nightside."
A cold hand clutched at my heart as I sat up straight. I should have known. I should have known
the past never leaves you alone, no matter how far you run from it. I looked her straight in the eye. "What do you know about the Nightside?"
She didn't flinch, but she looked like she wanted to. I can sound dangerous when I have to. She covered her lapse by grinding out her half-finished cigarette in my ash-tray, concentrating on doing the job properly so she wouldn't have to look at me for a while.
"Nothing," she said finally. "Not a damned thing. I'd never heard the name before, and the few of my people who recognised it... wouldn't talk to me about it. When I pressed them, they quit, just walked out on me. Walked away from more money than they'd ever made in their life before, rather than discuss the Nightside. They looked at me as though I was ... sick, just for wanting to discuss it."
"I'm not surprised." My voice was calm again, though still serious, and she looked at me again. I chose my words carefully. "The Nightside is the secret, hidden, dark heart of the city. London's evil twin. It's where the really wild things are. If your daughter's found her way there, she's in real trouble."
"That's why I've come to you," said Joanna. "I understand you operate in the Nightside."
"No. Not for a long time. I ran away, and I vowed I'd never go back. It's a bad place."
She smiled, back on familiar ground again. "I'm
prepared to be very generous, Mr. Taylor. How much do you want?"
I considered the matter. How much, to go back into the Nightside? How much is your soul worth? Your sanity? Your self-respect? But work had been hard to come by for some time now, and I needed the money. There were bad people in this part of London too, and I owed some of them a lot more than was healthy. I considered the matter. Shouldn't be that difficult, finding a teenage runaway. A quick in-and-out job. Probably in and gone before anyone even knew I was there. If I was lucky. I looked at Joanna Barrett and doubled what I had been going to ask her.
"I charge a grand a day, plus expenses."
"That's a lot of money," she said, automatically.
"How much is your daughter worth?"
She nodded briskly, acknowledging the point. She didn't really care what I charged. People like me would always be chump change to people like her.
"Find my daughter, Mr. Taylor. Whatever it takes."
"No problem."
"And bring her back to me."
"If that's what she wants. I won't drag her home against her will. I'm not in the kidnapping business."
It was her turn to lean forward now. Her turn to try and look dangerous. Her gaze was flat and hard, and her words could have been chipped out of ice.
"When you take my money, you do as I say. You
find that spoilt little cow, you drag her out of whatever mess she's got herself into this time, and you bring her home to me. Then, and only then, will you get paid. Is that clear?"
I just sat there and smiled at her, entirely unimpressed. I'd seen a lot scarier than her, in my time. And compared to what was waiting for me back in the Nightside, her anger and implied threats were nothing. Besides, I was her last chance, and both of us knew it. No-one ever comes to me first, and it had nothing to do with what I charge. I have an earned reputation for doing things my own way, for tracking down the truth whatever it takes, and to hell with whoever gets hurt in the process. Including, sometimes, my clients. They always say they want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but few of them really mean it. Not when a little white lie can be so much more comforting. But I don't deal in lies. Which is why I've never made the kind of money that would allow me to move in Mrs. Barrett's circles. People only come to me when they've tried absolutely everything else, including prayer and fortune-tellers. There was no-one else left for Joanna Barrett to turn to. She tried to stare me down for a while, and couldn't. She seemed to find that reassuring. She rummaged in her bag again, took out a completed cheque, and tossed it onto my desk. Apparently it was time for plan B.
"Fifty thousand pounds, Mr. Taylor. There will be another cheque just like it, when this is all over."
I kept a straight face, but inside I was grinning broadly. For a hundred grand, I'd find the crew of the Marie Celeste.It almost made going back into the Nightside worthwhile. Almost.
"There is ... a condition."
I smiled. "I thought there might be."
"I'm going with you."
I sat up straight again. "No. No way. No way in Hell."
"Mr. Taylor ..."
"You don't know what you're asking ..."
"She's been gone over a month! She's never been gone this long before. Anything could have happened to her by now. I have to be there ... when you find her."
I shook my head, but I already knew I was going to lose this one. I've always been a soft touch where family is concerned. It's what comes of never having known one. Joanna still wouldn't cry, but her eyes were bright and shining, and for the first time her voice was unsteady.
"Please." She didn't look comfortable saying the word, but she said it anyway. Not for herself, but for her daughter. "I have to come with you. I have to know. I can't just sit at home any more, waiting for the phone to ring. You know the Nightside. Take me there."
We stared at each other for a while, both of us perhaps seeing a little more of the other than we were used to showing the world. And in the end I nodded, as we both knew I would. But for her sake, I tried one more time to make her see reason.
"Let me tell you about the Nightside, Joanna. They call London the Smoke, and everyone knows there's no smoke without fire. The Nightside is a square mile of narrow streets and back alleys in the centre of city, linking slums and tenements that were old when the last century was new. That's if you believe the official maps. In practice, the Nightside is much bigger than that, as though space itself has reluctantly expanded to fit in all the darkness and evil and generally strange stuff that has set up home there. There are those who say the Nightside is actually bigger than the city that surrounds it, these days. Which says something very disturbing about human nature and appetites, if you think about it. Not to mention inhuman appetites. The Nightside has always been a cosmopolitan kind of place.
"It's always night in the Nightside. It's always three o'clock in the morning, and the dawn never comes. People are always coming and going, drawn by needs that dare not speak their names, searching for pleasures and services unforgivable in the sane, daylight world. You can buy or sell anything in the Nightside, and no-one asks questions. No-one cares. There's a nightclub, where you can pay to see a fallen
angel forever burning inside a pentacle drawn in baby's blood. Or a decapitated goat's head, that can tell the future in enigmatic verses of perfect iambic pentameter. There's a room where silence is caged, and colours are forbidden, and another where a dead nun will show you her stigmata, for the right price. She didn't rise again, after all, but she'll still let you stick your fingers in the blood-caked holes, if you want.
"Everything you ever feared or dreamed of is running loose somewhere in the shifting streets of the Nightside, or waiting patiently for you in the expensive private rooms of patrons-only clubs. You can find anything in the Nightside, if it doesn't find you first. It's a sick, magical, dangerous place. You still want to go there?"
"You're lecturing me again."
"Answer the question."
"How could such a place exist, right here in the heart of London, without everyone knowing?"
"It exists because it has always existed, and it stays a secret because the powers that be, the real powers, want it that way. You could die there. I could die there, and I know my way around. Or at least, I did. I haven't been back in years. Still want to do this?"
"I'll go wherever my daughter is," Joanna said firmly. "We haven't always been... as close as I
would have liked, but I'll go into Hell itself to get her back."
I smiled at her then, and there was little humour in that smile. "You may have to, Joanna. You might very well have to."
The flaking sign on the door in those days said Taylor Investigations.I'm Taylor. Tall, dark and not particularly handsome. I bear the scars of old cases proudly, and I never let down a client. Provided they've paid at least some cash up front.
My office back then was cosy, if you were feeling charitable, cramped if you weren't. I spent a lot of time there. It beat having a life. It was a low-rent office in a low-rent area. All the businesses with any sense were moving out, making more room for those of us who operated in the greyer areas of the legal and illegal. Even the rats were just passing through, on their way to somewhere more civilised. My neighbours were a dentist and an accountant, both of them struck off, both of whom made more money than I did.
It was raining hard the night Joanna Barrett came to see me. The kind of cold, driving, pitiless rain that makes you glad to be safe and dry indoors. I should have taken that as an omen, but I've never been very good at picking up on hints. It was late, well past the point where the day starts edging into evening, and everyone else in the building had gone home. I was still sitting behind my desk, half-watching the portable television with its sound turned down, while the man on the phone yelled in my ear. He wanted money, the fool. I made sympathetic noises in all the right places, waiting for him to get tired and go away, and then my ears pricked up as I heard footsteps in the hall outside, heading for my door. Steady, unhurried ... and a woman. Interesting. Women always make the best clients. They say they want information, but mostly what they really want is revenge; and they aren't mean when it comes to paying for what they want. What they need. Hell hath no fury; and I should know.
The footsteps stopped outside my door, and a tall shadow studied the bullet hole in the frosted-glass window. I really should have got that seen to, but it made such a great conversation piece. Clients like a touch of romance and danger when they're hiring a private detective, even if they only want some papers served. The door opened, and she walked in. A tall good-looking blonde who reeked of money and class, looking immediately out of place amid the battered furniture and cracked-plaster walls of my office.
Her clothes had the quiet elegance and style that shrieks of serious money, and when she spoke my name her voice had an aristocratic edge that could cut glass. Either she'd been to all the very best boarding and finishing schools, or she'd spent a hell of a lot on elocution lessons. She was perhaps a little too slender, with a raw-boned face and minimal make-up that meant she would always be handsome rather than pretty. From the way she stood, the way she held herself, it was obvious she was a control freak, and the set of her perfectly made-up mouth showed she was used to being obeyed. I notice things like that. It's my job. I gave her my best unimpressed nod and gestured for her to take a seat on the only other chair, on the opposite side of my desk. She sat down without taking out a handkerchief to clean the seat first,
and I gave her extra points for bravery. I watched her look around my office, while the voice in the phone at my ear grew ever more hysterical, demanding money with menaces. Very specific menaces. Her face was studiously calm, even blank, but as I glanced around my office, it was only too easy to see it as she saw it.
A battered desk, with only a few token papers in the in and out trays, a fourth-hand filing cabinet, and a rickety couch pushed back against the wall. Rumpled blankets and a dented pillow on the couch showed someone had been sleeping on it regularly. The single window behind my desk had bars on the outside, and the glass rattled loosely in its frame as the wind goosed it. The scuffed carpet had holes, the portable television on my desk was black and white, and the only note of colour on my walls was a giveaway girlie calendar. Old delivery pizza boxes stood stacked in one corner. It didn't take a genius to work out this wasn't just an office. Someone lived here. It was also patently obvious that this wasn't the office of someone on his way up.
I'd chosen to live in the real world, for what seemed like good reasons at the time, but it had never been easy.
I suddenly decided I'd had enough of the voice on the telephone. "Look," I said, in that calm reasonable tone that if done properly can drive people absolutely batshit, "if I had the money I'd pay you, but I don't
have the money. So you'll just have to take a number and get in line. You are of course welcome to try sue-ing, in which case I can recommend a neighbour of mine who's a lawyer. He needs the work, so he won't laugh in your face when you tell him who you're trying to get money out of. However, if you'd care to be patient just a little longer, it's possible a whole lot of money just walked in... You know, hysteria like that can't be good for your blood pressure. I recommend deep breathing and visits to the seaside. I always find the sea very soothing. I'll get back to you. Eventually."
I put the phone down firmly and smiled politely at my visitor. She didn't smile back. I just knew we were going to get along. She looked pointedly at the murmuring television on my desk, and I turned it off.
"It's company," I said calmly. "Much like a dog, but with the added advantage that you don't have to take it for walks."
"Don't you ever go home?" Her tone made it clear she was asking for information, not because she cared.
"I am currently in between homes. Big, empty, expensive things. Besides, I like it here. Everything's within reach, and nobody bothers me when the day's over. Usually."
"I know it's late. I didn't want to be seen coming here."
"I can understand that."
She sniffed briefly. "You have a hole in your office door, Mr. Taylor."
I nodded. "Moths."
The corners of her dark red mouth turned down, and for a moment I thought she was going to get up and leave. I have that effect on people. But she controlled herself and gave me her best intimidating glare.
"I'm Joanna Barrett."
I nodded, non-commitally. "You say that like it should mean something to me."
'To anyone else, it would," she said, just a little acidly. "But then, I don't suppose you read the business pages, do you?"
"Not unless someone pays me to. Am I to take it you're rich?"
"Extremely."
I grinned. "The very best kind of client. What can I do for you?"
She shifted slightly in her chair, clutching her oversized white leather handbag protectively to her. She didn't want to be here, talking to the likes of me. No doubt usually she had people to take care of such unpleasant tasks for her. But something was eating at her. Something personal. Something she couldn't trust to anyone else. She needed me. I could tell. Hell, I was already counting the money.
"I have need of a private investigator," she said abruptly. "You were ... recommended to me."
I nodded, understandingly. "Then you've already tried the police, and all the big private agencies, and none of them were able to help you. Which means your problem isn't one of the usual ones."
She nodded stiffly. "They let me down. All of them. Took my money and gave me nothing but excuses. Bastards. So I called in every favour I was owed, pulled every string I had, and eventually someone gave me your name. I understand you find people."
"I can find anyone or anything, if the price is right. It's a gift. I'm dogged and determined and a whole bunch of other things that begin with d,and I never give up as long as the cheques keep coming. But, I don't do insurance work, I don't do divorces, and I don't solve crimes. Hell, I wouldn't know a clue if I fell over it. I just find things. Whether they want to be found or not."
Joanna Barrett gave me her best icy disapproving look. "I don't like being lectured."
I smiled easily. "All part of the service."
"And I don't care for your attitude."
"Not many do."
She seriously considered leaving again. I watched her struggle with herself, my face calm and relaxed. Someone like her wouldn't have come this far unless she was really desperate.
"My daughter is ... missing," she said finally, reluctantly. "I want you to find her for me."
She produced an eight-by-ten glossy photo from her oversized bag, and skimmed it across the table towards me with an angry flick of her hand. I studied the photo without touching it. A head and shoulders shot of a scowling teenager stared sullenly back at me, narrowed eyes peering past a rat's nest of long blonde hair. She would have been pretty if she hadn't been frowning so hard. She looked like she had a mad on for the whole damned world, and it would have been a sucker who bet on the world. In other words, every inch her mother's daughter.
"Her name is Catherine, Mr. Taylor." Joanna Barrett's voice was suddenly quieter, more subdued. "Only answers to Cathy, when she answers at all. She's fifteen, going on sixteen, and I want her found."
I nodded. We were on familiar territory so far. "How long has she been gone?"
"Just over a month." She paused, and then added reluctantly, "This time."
I nodded again. It helps me look thoughtful. "Anything happen recently to upset your daughter?"
"There was an argument. Nothing we haven't said before, God knows. I don't know why she runs away. She's had everything she ever wanted. Everything."
She dug in her bag again and came out with cigarettes and lighter. The cigarettes were French, the lighter was gold with a monogram. I raised my rates accordingly. She lit a cigarette with a steady hand,
and then scattered nervous little puffs of smoke across my office. People shouldn't smoke in situations like this. It's far too revealing. I pushed across my single ash-tray, the one shaped like a lung, and studied the photo again. I wasn't immediately worried about Cathy Barrett. She looked like she could take care of herself, and anybody else stupid enough to bother her. I decided it was time to start asking some obvious questions.
"How about Catherine's father? How does your daughter get on with him?"
"She doesn't. He walked out on us when she was two. Only decent thing the selfish bastard ever did for us. His lawyers got him access, but he hardly ever takes advantage of it. I still have to chase him for maintenance money. Not that we need it, of course, but it's the principle of the thing. And before you ask, no; there's never been any problems with drugs, alcohol, money, or unsuitable boyfriends. I've seen to that. I've always protected her, and I've never once raised a hand to her. She's just a sullen, ungrateful little bitch."
For a moment something glistened in her eyes that might have been tears, but the moment passed. I leaned back in my chair, as though considering what I'd been told, but it all looked pretty straight forward to me. Tracking a runaway wasn't much of a case, but as it happened I was short on cases and cash, and there were bills that need paying. Urgently. It hadn't
been a good year—not for a long time. I leaned forward, resting my elbows in my desk, putting on my serious, committed face.
"So, Mrs. Barrett, essentially what we have here is a poor little rich girl who thinks she has everything but love. Probably begging for spare change down in the Underground, eating left-overs and stale bread, sleeping on park benches; hanging out with all the wrong sorts and kidding herself it's all one big adventure. Living life in the raw, with the real people. Secure in the knowledge that once again she's managed to secure her mother's full attention. I wouldn't worry about her too much. She'll come home, once it starts getting cold at nights."
Joanna Barrett was already shaking her expensively coiffured head. "Not this time. I've had experienced people looking for her for weeks now, and no-one's been able to find a trace of her. None of her previous ... associates have seen anything of her, even with the more than generous rewards I've been offering. It's as though she's vanished off the face of the earth. I've always been able to locate her before. My people have contacts everywhere. But this time, all I have for my efforts is a name I don't recognise. A name, given to me by the same person who supplied me with your name. He said I'd find my daughter... in the Nightside."
A cold hand clutched at my heart as I sat up straight. I should have known. I should have known
the past never leaves you alone, no matter how far you run from it. I looked her straight in the eye. "What do you know about the Nightside?"
She didn't flinch, but she looked like she wanted to. I can sound dangerous when I have to. She covered her lapse by grinding out her half-finished cigarette in my ash-tray, concentrating on doing the job properly so she wouldn't have to look at me for a while.
"Nothing," she said finally. "Not a damned thing. I'd never heard the name before, and the few of my people who recognised it... wouldn't talk to me about it. When I pressed them, they quit, just walked out on me. Walked away from more money than they'd ever made in their life before, rather than discuss the Nightside. They looked at me as though I was ... sick, just for wanting to discuss it."
"I'm not surprised." My voice was calm again, though still serious, and she looked at me again. I chose my words carefully. "The Nightside is the secret, hidden, dark heart of the city. London's evil twin. It's where the really wild things are. If your daughter's found her way there, she's in real trouble."
"That's why I've come to you," said Joanna. "I understand you operate in the Nightside."
"No. Not for a long time. I ran away, and I vowed I'd never go back. It's a bad place."
She smiled, back on familiar ground again. "I'm
prepared to be very generous, Mr. Taylor. How much do you want?"
I considered the matter. How much, to go back into the Nightside? How much is your soul worth? Your sanity? Your self-respect? But work had been hard to come by for some time now, and I needed the money. There were bad people in this part of London too, and I owed some of them a lot more than was healthy. I considered the matter. Shouldn't be that difficult, finding a teenage runaway. A quick in-and-out job. Probably in and gone before anyone even knew I was there. If I was lucky. I looked at Joanna Barrett and doubled what I had been going to ask her.
"I charge a grand a day, plus expenses."
"That's a lot of money," she said, automatically.
"How much is your daughter worth?"
She nodded briskly, acknowledging the point. She didn't really care what I charged. People like me would always be chump change to people like her.
"Find my daughter, Mr. Taylor. Whatever it takes."
"No problem."
"And bring her back to me."
"If that's what she wants. I won't drag her home against her will. I'm not in the kidnapping business."
It was her turn to lean forward now. Her turn to try and look dangerous. Her gaze was flat and hard, and her words could have been chipped out of ice.
"When you take my money, you do as I say. You
find that spoilt little cow, you drag her out of whatever mess she's got herself into this time, and you bring her home to me. Then, and only then, will you get paid. Is that clear?"
I just sat there and smiled at her, entirely unimpressed. I'd seen a lot scarier than her, in my time. And compared to what was waiting for me back in the Nightside, her anger and implied threats were nothing. Besides, I was her last chance, and both of us knew it. No-one ever comes to me first, and it had nothing to do with what I charge. I have an earned reputation for doing things my own way, for tracking down the truth whatever it takes, and to hell with whoever gets hurt in the process. Including, sometimes, my clients. They always say they want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but few of them really mean it. Not when a little white lie can be so much more comforting. But I don't deal in lies. Which is why I've never made the kind of money that would allow me to move in Mrs. Barrett's circles. People only come to me when they've tried absolutely everything else, including prayer and fortune-tellers. There was no-one else left for Joanna Barrett to turn to. She tried to stare me down for a while, and couldn't. She seemed to find that reassuring. She rummaged in her bag again, took out a completed cheque, and tossed it onto my desk. Apparently it was time for plan B.
"Fifty thousand pounds, Mr. Taylor. There will be another cheque just like it, when this is all over."
I kept a straight face, but inside I was grinning broadly. For a hundred grand, I'd find the crew of the Marie Celeste.It almost made going back into the Nightside worthwhile. Almost.
"There is ... a condition."
I smiled. "I thought there might be."
"I'm going with you."
I sat up straight again. "No. No way. No way in Hell."
"Mr. Taylor ..."
"You don't know what you're asking ..."
"She's been gone over a month! She's never been gone this long before. Anything could have happened to her by now. I have to be there ... when you find her."
I shook my head, but I already knew I was going to lose this one. I've always been a soft touch where family is concerned. It's what comes of never having known one. Joanna still wouldn't cry, but her eyes were bright and shining, and for the first time her voice was unsteady.
"Please." She didn't look comfortable saying the word, but she said it anyway. Not for herself, but for her daughter. "I have to come with you. I have to know. I can't just sit at home any more, waiting for the phone to ring. You know the Nightside. Take me there."
We stared at each other for a while, both of us perhaps seeing a little more of the other than we were used to showing the world. And in the end I nodded, as we both knew I would. But for her sake, I tried one more time to make her see reason.
"Let me tell you about the Nightside, Joanna. They call London the Smoke, and everyone knows there's no smoke without fire. The Nightside is a square mile of narrow streets and back alleys in the centre of city, linking slums and tenements that were old when the last century was new. That's if you believe the official maps. In practice, the Nightside is much bigger than that, as though space itself has reluctantly expanded to fit in all the darkness and evil and generally strange stuff that has set up home there. There are those who say the Nightside is actually bigger than the city that surrounds it, these days. Which says something very disturbing about human nature and appetites, if you think about it. Not to mention inhuman appetites. The Nightside has always been a cosmopolitan kind of place.
"It's always night in the Nightside. It's always three o'clock in the morning, and the dawn never comes. People are always coming and going, drawn by needs that dare not speak their names, searching for pleasures and services unforgivable in the sane, daylight world. You can buy or sell anything in the Nightside, and no-one asks questions. No-one cares. There's a nightclub, where you can pay to see a fallen
angel forever burning inside a pentacle drawn in baby's blood. Or a decapitated goat's head, that can tell the future in enigmatic verses of perfect iambic pentameter. There's a room where silence is caged, and colours are forbidden, and another where a dead nun will show you her stigmata, for the right price. She didn't rise again, after all, but she'll still let you stick your fingers in the blood-caked holes, if you want.
"Everything you ever feared or dreamed of is running loose somewhere in the shifting streets of the Nightside, or waiting patiently for you in the expensive private rooms of patrons-only clubs. You can find anything in the Nightside, if it doesn't find you first. It's a sick, magical, dangerous place. You still want to go there?"
"You're lecturing me again."
"Answer the question."
"How could such a place exist, right here in the heart of London, without everyone knowing?"
"It exists because it has always existed, and it stays a secret because the powers that be, the real powers, want it that way. You could die there. I could die there, and I know my way around. Or at least, I did. I haven't been back in years. Still want to do this?"
"I'll go wherever my daughter is," Joanna said firmly. "We haven't always been... as close as I
would have liked, but I'll go into Hell itself to get her back."
I smiled at her then, and there was little humour in that smile. "You may have to, Joanna. You might very well have to."
TWO -
Getting There
My name is John Taylor. Everyone in the Nightside knows that name.
I'd been living an ordinary life in the ordinary world, and as a reward no-one had tried to kill me in ages. I liked being anonymous. It took the pressure off. The pressure of recognition, of expectations and destiny. And no; I don't feel like explaining any of that just yet. I hit thirty a few months ago, but found it hard to give a damn. When you've been through as much bad fortune as I have in my time, you learn not to sweat the small stuff. But even the small problems of an everyday world can mount up, and so there I was, going back again, back to the Nightside, despite
all my better judgment. I left the Nightside five years ago, fleeing imminent death and the betrayal of friends, and swore through blood-flecked lips that I'd never go back, no matter what. I should have remembered; God does so love to make a man break a promise.
God, or Someone.
I was going back to a place where everyone knew me, or thought they did. I could have been a contender, if I'd cared enough. Or perhaps I cared too much, about all the little people I'd have had to step on, to get there. To tell the truth, which I try very hard not to do in public, I never was all that ambitious. And I was never what you'd call a joiner. So I went my own way, watched my own back, and tried to live by my own definition of honour. That I screwed up so badly wasn't all my fault. I saw myself as a knight-errant... but the damsel in distress stabbed me in the back, my sword shattered on the dragon's hide, and my grail turned out to be the bottom of a whiskey bottle. I was going back, to old faces and old haunts and old hurts; and all I could do was hope it would be worth it.
There was no point in hoping not to be noticed. John Taylor is a name to conjure with, in the Night-side. Five years' exile wouldn't have changed that. Not that any of them ever knew the real me, of course. Ask about me in a dozen different places, and you'd get a dozen different answers. I've been called
a warlock and a magus, a con man and a trickster, and an honest rogue. They're all wrong, of course. I'd never let anyone get that close. I've been a hero to some, a villain to others, and pretty much everything in between. I can do a few things, beside finding people, some of them quite impressive. When I ask a question, people usually answer. I used to be a dangerous man, even for the Nightside; but that was five years ago. Before the fates broke me, on the wheel of love. I didn't know if I still had it in me to be really dangerous, but I thought so. It's like knocking someone off a bike with a baseball bat; you never really lose the knack.
I've never carried a gun. I've never felt the need.
My father drank himself to death. He never got over finding out his wife wasn't human. I never knew her at all. People on my street took it in turns to look after me, with varying amounts of reluctance and attention, with the result that I never really felt at home anywhere. I have a lot of questions about myself, and I'm still looking for answers. Which is perhaps why I ended up as a private investigator. There's a certain comfort to be had in finding the answers to other people's problems, if you can't solve your own. I wear a long white trench coat when I'm working. Partly because it's expected of me, partly because it's practical, mostly because it establishes an expected image behind which I can conceal the real me. I like to keep
people wrong-footed. And I never let anyone get close, any more. As much for their protection as mine.
I sleep alone, I eat everything that's bad for me, and I take care of my own laundry. When I remember. It's important to me to feel self-sufficient. Not dependent on anyone. I have bad luck with women, but I'd be the first to admit it's mostly my fault. Despite my life I'm still a Romantic, with all the problems that brings. My closest female friend is a bounty hunter, who operates exclusively in the Nightside. She tried to kill me once. I don't bear a grudge. It was just business.
I drink too much, and mostly I don't care. I value its numbing qualities. There's a lot I prefer not to remember.
And now, thanks to Joanna Barrett and her errant daughter, I was heading back into Hell. Back into a place where people have been trying to kill me for as long as I remember, for reasons I've never understood. Back into the only place where I ever feel really alive. I'm more than just another private detective, in the Nightside. It was one of the reasons why I left. I didn't like what I was becoming.
But as I headed down into the Underground system below London's streets, with Joanna Barrett in tow, damn if it didn't feel like coming home.
It didn't matter which station or line I chose. All routes lead to the Nightside. And the whole point of
the Underground is that every rail station looks the same. The same tiled walls, the same ugly machines, the overly bright lights and the oversized movie and advertising posters. The dusty vending machines, that only tourists are dumb enough to actually expect to get something out of. The homeless, sitting or lying in their nests of filthy blankets, begging for spare change, or just glad to be away from the elements for a while. And, of course, the endless tramp of hurrying feet. Of shoppers, commuters, tourists, businessmen, and media types, always in a hurry to be somewhere else. London hasn't quite reached saturation point yet, like Tokyo, where they have to employ people to forcibly squeeze the last few travellers into a carriage, so the doors will close; but we're getting there.
Joanna stuck close to me as I led the way through the tunnels. It was clear she didn't care for her surroundings, or the crowds. No doubt she was used to better things, like stretch limousines with a uniformed chauffeur and chilled champagne always at the ready. I tried not to smile as I led her through the crush of the crowds. Turned out she didn't carry change on her, so I ended up having to pay for tickets for both of us. I even had to show her how to work the machines with her ticket.
The escalators were all working for once, and we made our way deeper into the system. I took turnings at random, trusting to my old instincts to guide me,
until finally I spotted the sign I was looking for. It was written in a language only those in the know would even recognise, let alone understand. Enochian, in case you're interested. An artificial language, created long ago for mortals to talk with angels, though I only ever met one person who knew how to pronounce it correctly. I grabbed Joanna by the arm and hustled her into the side tunnel underneath the sign. She jerked her arm free angrily, but allowed me to urge her through the door marked Maintenance.Her protests stopped abruptly as she found herself in what appeared to be a closet, half-full of scarecrows in British Rail uniforms. Don't ask. I pulled the door shut behind us, and there was a blessed moment of peace as the door separated us from the roar of the crowds. There was a phone on the wall. I picked it up. There was no dialling tone. I spoke a single word into the receiver.
"Nightside."
I put the phone back and looked expectantly at the wall. Joanna looked at me, mystified. And then the dull grey wall split in two, from top to bottom, both sides grinding apart in a steady shuddering movement, to form a long narrow tunnel. The bare walls of the tunnel were bloodred, like an opened wound, and the sourceless light was dim and smoky. It smelled of ancient corrupt perfumes and crushed flowers. A murmur of many voices came from within the tunnel, rising and falling. Snatches of music faded in and
out, like so many competing radio signals. Somewhere a cloister bell was ringing, a lost and lonely, doleful sound.
"You expect me to go into that?"said Joanna, finding her voice at last. "It looks like the road to Hell!"
"Close," I said calmly. "It's the way to the Night-side. Trust me; this part of the journey is quite safe."
"It feels bad,"Joanna said quietly, staring fascinated into the tunnel, like a bird at a snake. "It feels ... unnatural."
"Oh, it's all of that. But it's the best way to get to your daughter. If you can't handle this, turn back now. It's only going to get worse."
Her head came up, and her mouth firmed. "You lead the way."
"Of course."
I stepped forward into the tunnel, and Joanna was right there behind me. And so we left the everyday world behind.
We emerged from the connecting tunnel onto a station platform that at first glance was no different than what you'd expect. Joanna took a deep breath of relief. I didn't say anything. It was better for her to notice things for herself. The wall closed silently behind us as I led Joanna down the platform. It was five years since I'd last been here, but nothing had really changed. The cream-tiled walls were spattered here and there with old dried bloodstains, deep gouges
that might have been clawmarks, and all kinds of graffiti. As usual, someone had spelt Cthulhu wrongly.
On the curving wall opposite the platform, the list of destinations hadn't changed. Shadows Fall. Night-side. Haceldama. Street of the Gods.The posters were still strange, disturbing, like scenes from dreams best forgotten. Famous faces advertised films and places and services of the kind normally only discussed in whispers. The people crowding the platform were a sight in themselves, and I enjoyed Joanna's reactions. It was clear she would have liked to stop and stare open-mouthed, but she was damned if she'd give me the satisfaction. So she stumbled on, wide eyes darting from one unexpected sight to the next.
Here and there buskers were playing unfamiliar tunes, their caps on the floor before them, holding coins from all kinds of places, some of which no longer existed, and a few that never had. One man sang a thirteenth-century ballad of unrequited love in plain-chant Latin, while not far away another sang Bob Dylan verses backwards, accompanying himself on air guitar. The guitar was slightly out of tune. I dropped a few coins into both their caps. Never know when you might need a little extra credit in the karma department.
Further down the platform, a stooped neanderthal in a smart business suit was talking animatedly with
a bored-looking dwarf in full Nazi SS uniform. A noble from Queen Elizabeth I's court, complete with ruff and slashed silks, was chatting amiably with a gorgeous six-foot transvestite in full chorus girl outfit, and it was hard to tell which of them looked more extreme. A woman in futuristic space armour and a nude man covered in tattoos and splashes of woad were eating things on sticks that were still wriggling. Joanna had come to a full stop by now. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she all but jumped out of her skin.
'Try not to be a tourist," I said dryly.
"What..." She had to stop and try again. "What is this place? Where have you brought me? And who the hell are these people?"
I shrugged. "This is the quickest way to the Night-side. There are others. Some official, some not. Anyone can walk down the wrong street, open the wrong door, and end up in the Nightside. Most of them don't last long, though. London and the Nightside have rubbed up against each other for so long now that the barriers are getting dangerously thin. Someday they'll all come crashing down, and all the poisons in the Nightside will come spilling out; but I plan to be safely dead and in my grave by then. However, this is still the safest way."
"And these people?"
"Just people, going about their lives. You're seeing a part of the world most of you never get to know
about. The underside, the hidden paths, walked by secret people on secret business, pursuing goals and missions we can only guess at. There are more worlds than we know, or would wish to know, and most of them send people through the Nightside sooner or later. You can meet all sorts here, in the Underground, and never know harm as long as the ancient Truce holds. Everyone comes to the Nightside. Myths and legends, travellers and explorers, visitors from higher or lower dimensions. Immortals. Death-walkers. Psychonauts. Try not to stare."
I led her down the platform, and it was a mark of how shaken she was that she didn't have a single comment to make. She didn't even object to my holding her arm again. Without looking round, without interrupting their conversations or in any way acknowledging my presence, the people ahead of us moved back out of the way to let us pass. A few made the sign of the cross when they thought I wasn't looking, and older warding signs against evil. It seemed I hadn't been forgotten after all. A vicar in a shabby grey cloak, with a pristine white collar and a grey blindfold over his eyes, was hawking his wares before us, a much-travelled suitcase open at his feet.
"Crow's feet!" he yelled, in a harsh, strident voice. "Holy water! Hexes! Wooden stakes and silver bullets! You know you need them! Don't come crying to me if you end up limping home with someone else's spleen instead of your own!"
He broke off as Joanna and I approached. He sniffed the air suspiciously, cocking his great blind head to one side. His fingers worked busily at a rosary made from human fingerbones. He stepped forward suddenly to block our way and stabbed an accusing finger at me.
"John Taylor!" he snapped, almost spitting out the words. "Damnation's child! Demonspawn and Abomination! Bane of all the Chosen! Avaunt! Avaunt!"
"Hello, Pew," I said easily. "Good to bump into you again. Still working the old act, I see. How's business?"
"Oh, not too bad thanks, John." Pew smiled vaguely in my direction, putting aside his official Voice for the moment. "My wares are like travel insurance; no-one ever really believes they'll need it, until it's too late. It can't happen to me,they whine. But of course, in the Nightside it can, and it will. Suddenly and violently and usually quite horribly too. I'm saving lives here, if they'd only pay attention, the fools. So; what are you doing back here, John? I thought you had more sense. You know the Nightside isn't good for you."
"I'm working a case. Don't worry; I won't be stopping."
"That's what they all say," growled Pew, shifting his broad shoulders uneasily inside his threadbare
cloak. "Still, we all do what we have to, I suppose. Who are you looking for this time?"
"Just a runaway. Teenager called Catherine Barrett. Don't suppose the name means anything to you?"
"No. But then, I'm pretty much out of the loop these days, by my own choice. Hard times are coming ... word of advice, boy. I hear things, bad things. Something new has come into the Nightside. And people have been mentioning your name again. Watch your back, boy. If anyone's going to kill you, I'd much rather it was me."
He turned away abruptly and took up his piercing cry again. There's no-one closer, more like family, than old enemies.
The platform shook, there was a blast of approaching air, and a train roared into the station and slowed to a stop—a long shining silver bullet of a train, with no windows anywhere. The carriages were solid tubes of steel, with only the heavily reinforced doors standing out against their shimmering perfection. The doors hissed open, and people poured in and out. I was ready to take Joanna by the arm again, but it wasn't necessary. She strode into the carriage before her without hesitating, her head held high. I followed her in and sat down beside her.
The carriage was almost empty, for which I was grateful. I've never liked being crowded. All kinds of things can hide in a crowd. The man sitting opposite
us was reading a Russian newspaper with great concentration. The date below the masthead was from a week in the future. Further down the immaculately clean carriage sat a young woman kitted out in full Punk regalia, right down to the multiple face piercings and fierce green mohawk rising up from her shaved head. She was reading an oversized leather-bound Holy Bible. The pages appeared to be blank, but the white on white of her unblinking eyes marked her as a graduate of the Deep School, and I knew that for her and her alone, the pages were full of awful wisdom.
Joanna was looking around the carriage, and I tried to see it through her eyes. The complete lack of windows made it feel more like a cell than a conveyance, and the strong smell of disinfectant reminded me irresistibly of a dentist's surgery. There was no map anywhere. People who took this train knew where they were going.
"Why aren't there any windows?" said Joanna, after a while.
"Because you don't want to see what's outside," I said. "We have to travel through strange, harsh, places to reach the Nightside. Dangerous and unnatural places, that would blast the sight from your eyes and the reason from your mind. Or so I'm told. I've never felt like peeking."
"What about the driver? Doesn't he have to see where he's going?"
"I'm not convinced there is a driver," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know anyone who's ever seen one. I think the trains have been running this route for so long now that they're quite capable of running themselves."
'You mean there's no-one human at the controls?"
"Probably better that way. Humans are so limited." I smiled at her shocked face. "Sorry you came yet?"
"No."
"Don't worry. You will be."
And that was when something from outside crashed against the side of the carriage opposite us, throwing the Russian to the floor. He carefully gathered up his paper and went to sit further down. The heavy metal wall dented inwards, slowly yielding under the determined assault from outside. The Punk girl didn't look up from her Bible, though she was silently mouthing the words now. The dents in the metal deepened, and one whole section bowed ominously inwards under unimaginable pressure. Joanna sank back in her seat.
"Take it easy," I said reassuringly. "It can't get in. The train is protected."
She looked at me just a little wildly. Culture shock. I'd seen it before. "Protected?" she said finally.
"Old pacts, agreements; trust me, you really don't
want to know the details. Especially if you've eaten recently."
Outside the carriage, something roared with thwarted rage. It didn't sound at all human. The sound fell slowly away, retreating down the length of the carriage as the train left it behind. The metal wall unhurriedly resumed its original shape, the dents disappearing one by one. And then something, or a series of somethings, ran along the side of the carriage and up onto the roof. Light, hasty, pitterpattering fast, moving in unison, like so many huge insects. The carriage lights flickered briefly. It sounded like there was a whole crowd of them up on the roof, scuttling back and forth. Voices came floating down to us, shrill and high and mixed together, like the same voice speaking in harmony with itself. There was a faint metallic buzz in the elongated vowel sounds that sent a shiver down my spine. The Brittle Sisters of the Hive were on the prowl again.
"Come out, come out, whatever you are," said the chorus of a single voice. "Come out, and play with us. Or let us in, let us in, and we will play with you till you can't stand it anymore. We want to stir our sticky fingers in your gene pool, and sculpt your wombs with our living scalpels ..."
"Make them shut up," Joanna said tightly. "I can't stand their voices. It's like they're scratching at my brain, trying to get in."
I looked at the Russian and the Punk, but they
were resolutely minding their own business. I looked up at the roof of the carriage.
"Go away and stop bothering us," I said firmly. "There is nothing for you here, by terms of Treaty and sacrifice."
"Who dares address us so?" said the many voices in one, almost drowned out by the constant clattering of their taloned feet on the steel roof.
"This is John Taylor," I said clearly. "Don't make me have to come up there."
There was a long pause. They were all very still, until eventually the inhuman chorus said "Then farewell, sweet prince, and do not forget us when you come into your kingdom."
A scurrying of insect feet and they were all gone, and the train rocked on its way in silence. The Russian and the Punk looked at me, and then looked quickly away before I could meet their gaze. Joanna was looking at me too. Her gaze was steady, but her voice couldn't quite manage it.
"They knew you. What did they mean?"
"I don't know," I said. "I've never known. That's always been my problem. There are a great many mysteries in the Nightside, and much against my will, I'm one of them."
No-one else had anything to say, all the way to the Nightside.
I'd been living an ordinary life in the ordinary world, and as a reward no-one had tried to kill me in ages. I liked being anonymous. It took the pressure off. The pressure of recognition, of expectations and destiny. And no; I don't feel like explaining any of that just yet. I hit thirty a few months ago, but found it hard to give a damn. When you've been through as much bad fortune as I have in my time, you learn not to sweat the small stuff. But even the small problems of an everyday world can mount up, and so there I was, going back again, back to the Nightside, despite
all my better judgment. I left the Nightside five years ago, fleeing imminent death and the betrayal of friends, and swore through blood-flecked lips that I'd never go back, no matter what. I should have remembered; God does so love to make a man break a promise.
God, or Someone.
I was going back to a place where everyone knew me, or thought they did. I could have been a contender, if I'd cared enough. Or perhaps I cared too much, about all the little people I'd have had to step on, to get there. To tell the truth, which I try very hard not to do in public, I never was all that ambitious. And I was never what you'd call a joiner. So I went my own way, watched my own back, and tried to live by my own definition of honour. That I screwed up so badly wasn't all my fault. I saw myself as a knight-errant... but the damsel in distress stabbed me in the back, my sword shattered on the dragon's hide, and my grail turned out to be the bottom of a whiskey bottle. I was going back, to old faces and old haunts and old hurts; and all I could do was hope it would be worth it.
There was no point in hoping not to be noticed. John Taylor is a name to conjure with, in the Night-side. Five years' exile wouldn't have changed that. Not that any of them ever knew the real me, of course. Ask about me in a dozen different places, and you'd get a dozen different answers. I've been called
a warlock and a magus, a con man and a trickster, and an honest rogue. They're all wrong, of course. I'd never let anyone get that close. I've been a hero to some, a villain to others, and pretty much everything in between. I can do a few things, beside finding people, some of them quite impressive. When I ask a question, people usually answer. I used to be a dangerous man, even for the Nightside; but that was five years ago. Before the fates broke me, on the wheel of love. I didn't know if I still had it in me to be really dangerous, but I thought so. It's like knocking someone off a bike with a baseball bat; you never really lose the knack.
I've never carried a gun. I've never felt the need.
My father drank himself to death. He never got over finding out his wife wasn't human. I never knew her at all. People on my street took it in turns to look after me, with varying amounts of reluctance and attention, with the result that I never really felt at home anywhere. I have a lot of questions about myself, and I'm still looking for answers. Which is perhaps why I ended up as a private investigator. There's a certain comfort to be had in finding the answers to other people's problems, if you can't solve your own. I wear a long white trench coat when I'm working. Partly because it's expected of me, partly because it's practical, mostly because it establishes an expected image behind which I can conceal the real me. I like to keep
people wrong-footed. And I never let anyone get close, any more. As much for their protection as mine.
I sleep alone, I eat everything that's bad for me, and I take care of my own laundry. When I remember. It's important to me to feel self-sufficient. Not dependent on anyone. I have bad luck with women, but I'd be the first to admit it's mostly my fault. Despite my life I'm still a Romantic, with all the problems that brings. My closest female friend is a bounty hunter, who operates exclusively in the Nightside. She tried to kill me once. I don't bear a grudge. It was just business.
I drink too much, and mostly I don't care. I value its numbing qualities. There's a lot I prefer not to remember.
And now, thanks to Joanna Barrett and her errant daughter, I was heading back into Hell. Back into a place where people have been trying to kill me for as long as I remember, for reasons I've never understood. Back into the only place where I ever feel really alive. I'm more than just another private detective, in the Nightside. It was one of the reasons why I left. I didn't like what I was becoming.
But as I headed down into the Underground system below London's streets, with Joanna Barrett in tow, damn if it didn't feel like coming home.
It didn't matter which station or line I chose. All routes lead to the Nightside. And the whole point of
the Underground is that every rail station looks the same. The same tiled walls, the same ugly machines, the overly bright lights and the oversized movie and advertising posters. The dusty vending machines, that only tourists are dumb enough to actually expect to get something out of. The homeless, sitting or lying in their nests of filthy blankets, begging for spare change, or just glad to be away from the elements for a while. And, of course, the endless tramp of hurrying feet. Of shoppers, commuters, tourists, businessmen, and media types, always in a hurry to be somewhere else. London hasn't quite reached saturation point yet, like Tokyo, where they have to employ people to forcibly squeeze the last few travellers into a carriage, so the doors will close; but we're getting there.
Joanna stuck close to me as I led the way through the tunnels. It was clear she didn't care for her surroundings, or the crowds. No doubt she was used to better things, like stretch limousines with a uniformed chauffeur and chilled champagne always at the ready. I tried not to smile as I led her through the crush of the crowds. Turned out she didn't carry change on her, so I ended up having to pay for tickets for both of us. I even had to show her how to work the machines with her ticket.
The escalators were all working for once, and we made our way deeper into the system. I took turnings at random, trusting to my old instincts to guide me,
until finally I spotted the sign I was looking for. It was written in a language only those in the know would even recognise, let alone understand. Enochian, in case you're interested. An artificial language, created long ago for mortals to talk with angels, though I only ever met one person who knew how to pronounce it correctly. I grabbed Joanna by the arm and hustled her into the side tunnel underneath the sign. She jerked her arm free angrily, but allowed me to urge her through the door marked Maintenance.Her protests stopped abruptly as she found herself in what appeared to be a closet, half-full of scarecrows in British Rail uniforms. Don't ask. I pulled the door shut behind us, and there was a blessed moment of peace as the door separated us from the roar of the crowds. There was a phone on the wall. I picked it up. There was no dialling tone. I spoke a single word into the receiver.
"Nightside."
I put the phone back and looked expectantly at the wall. Joanna looked at me, mystified. And then the dull grey wall split in two, from top to bottom, both sides grinding apart in a steady shuddering movement, to form a long narrow tunnel. The bare walls of the tunnel were bloodred, like an opened wound, and the sourceless light was dim and smoky. It smelled of ancient corrupt perfumes and crushed flowers. A murmur of many voices came from within the tunnel, rising and falling. Snatches of music faded in and
out, like so many competing radio signals. Somewhere a cloister bell was ringing, a lost and lonely, doleful sound.
"You expect me to go into that?"said Joanna, finding her voice at last. "It looks like the road to Hell!"
"Close," I said calmly. "It's the way to the Night-side. Trust me; this part of the journey is quite safe."
"It feels bad,"Joanna said quietly, staring fascinated into the tunnel, like a bird at a snake. "It feels ... unnatural."
"Oh, it's all of that. But it's the best way to get to your daughter. If you can't handle this, turn back now. It's only going to get worse."
Her head came up, and her mouth firmed. "You lead the way."
"Of course."
I stepped forward into the tunnel, and Joanna was right there behind me. And so we left the everyday world behind.
We emerged from the connecting tunnel onto a station platform that at first glance was no different than what you'd expect. Joanna took a deep breath of relief. I didn't say anything. It was better for her to notice things for herself. The wall closed silently behind us as I led Joanna down the platform. It was five years since I'd last been here, but nothing had really changed. The cream-tiled walls were spattered here and there with old dried bloodstains, deep gouges
that might have been clawmarks, and all kinds of graffiti. As usual, someone had spelt Cthulhu wrongly.
On the curving wall opposite the platform, the list of destinations hadn't changed. Shadows Fall. Night-side. Haceldama. Street of the Gods.The posters were still strange, disturbing, like scenes from dreams best forgotten. Famous faces advertised films and places and services of the kind normally only discussed in whispers. The people crowding the platform were a sight in themselves, and I enjoyed Joanna's reactions. It was clear she would have liked to stop and stare open-mouthed, but she was damned if she'd give me the satisfaction. So she stumbled on, wide eyes darting from one unexpected sight to the next.
Here and there buskers were playing unfamiliar tunes, their caps on the floor before them, holding coins from all kinds of places, some of which no longer existed, and a few that never had. One man sang a thirteenth-century ballad of unrequited love in plain-chant Latin, while not far away another sang Bob Dylan verses backwards, accompanying himself on air guitar. The guitar was slightly out of tune. I dropped a few coins into both their caps. Never know when you might need a little extra credit in the karma department.
Further down the platform, a stooped neanderthal in a smart business suit was talking animatedly with
a bored-looking dwarf in full Nazi SS uniform. A noble from Queen Elizabeth I's court, complete with ruff and slashed silks, was chatting amiably with a gorgeous six-foot transvestite in full chorus girl outfit, and it was hard to tell which of them looked more extreme. A woman in futuristic space armour and a nude man covered in tattoos and splashes of woad were eating things on sticks that were still wriggling. Joanna had come to a full stop by now. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she all but jumped out of her skin.
'Try not to be a tourist," I said dryly.
"What..." She had to stop and try again. "What is this place? Where have you brought me? And who the hell are these people?"
I shrugged. "This is the quickest way to the Night-side. There are others. Some official, some not. Anyone can walk down the wrong street, open the wrong door, and end up in the Nightside. Most of them don't last long, though. London and the Nightside have rubbed up against each other for so long now that the barriers are getting dangerously thin. Someday they'll all come crashing down, and all the poisons in the Nightside will come spilling out; but I plan to be safely dead and in my grave by then. However, this is still the safest way."
"And these people?"
"Just people, going about their lives. You're seeing a part of the world most of you never get to know
about. The underside, the hidden paths, walked by secret people on secret business, pursuing goals and missions we can only guess at. There are more worlds than we know, or would wish to know, and most of them send people through the Nightside sooner or later. You can meet all sorts here, in the Underground, and never know harm as long as the ancient Truce holds. Everyone comes to the Nightside. Myths and legends, travellers and explorers, visitors from higher or lower dimensions. Immortals. Death-walkers. Psychonauts. Try not to stare."
I led her down the platform, and it was a mark of how shaken she was that she didn't have a single comment to make. She didn't even object to my holding her arm again. Without looking round, without interrupting their conversations or in any way acknowledging my presence, the people ahead of us moved back out of the way to let us pass. A few made the sign of the cross when they thought I wasn't looking, and older warding signs against evil. It seemed I hadn't been forgotten after all. A vicar in a shabby grey cloak, with a pristine white collar and a grey blindfold over his eyes, was hawking his wares before us, a much-travelled suitcase open at his feet.
"Crow's feet!" he yelled, in a harsh, strident voice. "Holy water! Hexes! Wooden stakes and silver bullets! You know you need them! Don't come crying to me if you end up limping home with someone else's spleen instead of your own!"
He broke off as Joanna and I approached. He sniffed the air suspiciously, cocking his great blind head to one side. His fingers worked busily at a rosary made from human fingerbones. He stepped forward suddenly to block our way and stabbed an accusing finger at me.
"John Taylor!" he snapped, almost spitting out the words. "Damnation's child! Demonspawn and Abomination! Bane of all the Chosen! Avaunt! Avaunt!"
"Hello, Pew," I said easily. "Good to bump into you again. Still working the old act, I see. How's business?"
"Oh, not too bad thanks, John." Pew smiled vaguely in my direction, putting aside his official Voice for the moment. "My wares are like travel insurance; no-one ever really believes they'll need it, until it's too late. It can't happen to me,they whine. But of course, in the Nightside it can, and it will. Suddenly and violently and usually quite horribly too. I'm saving lives here, if they'd only pay attention, the fools. So; what are you doing back here, John? I thought you had more sense. You know the Nightside isn't good for you."
"I'm working a case. Don't worry; I won't be stopping."
"That's what they all say," growled Pew, shifting his broad shoulders uneasily inside his threadbare
cloak. "Still, we all do what we have to, I suppose. Who are you looking for this time?"
"Just a runaway. Teenager called Catherine Barrett. Don't suppose the name means anything to you?"
"No. But then, I'm pretty much out of the loop these days, by my own choice. Hard times are coming ... word of advice, boy. I hear things, bad things. Something new has come into the Nightside. And people have been mentioning your name again. Watch your back, boy. If anyone's going to kill you, I'd much rather it was me."
He turned away abruptly and took up his piercing cry again. There's no-one closer, more like family, than old enemies.
The platform shook, there was a blast of approaching air, and a train roared into the station and slowed to a stop—a long shining silver bullet of a train, with no windows anywhere. The carriages were solid tubes of steel, with only the heavily reinforced doors standing out against their shimmering perfection. The doors hissed open, and people poured in and out. I was ready to take Joanna by the arm again, but it wasn't necessary. She strode into the carriage before her without hesitating, her head held high. I followed her in and sat down beside her.
The carriage was almost empty, for which I was grateful. I've never liked being crowded. All kinds of things can hide in a crowd. The man sitting opposite
us was reading a Russian newspaper with great concentration. The date below the masthead was from a week in the future. Further down the immaculately clean carriage sat a young woman kitted out in full Punk regalia, right down to the multiple face piercings and fierce green mohawk rising up from her shaved head. She was reading an oversized leather-bound Holy Bible. The pages appeared to be blank, but the white on white of her unblinking eyes marked her as a graduate of the Deep School, and I knew that for her and her alone, the pages were full of awful wisdom.
Joanna was looking around the carriage, and I tried to see it through her eyes. The complete lack of windows made it feel more like a cell than a conveyance, and the strong smell of disinfectant reminded me irresistibly of a dentist's surgery. There was no map anywhere. People who took this train knew where they were going.
"Why aren't there any windows?" said Joanna, after a while.
"Because you don't want to see what's outside," I said. "We have to travel through strange, harsh, places to reach the Nightside. Dangerous and unnatural places, that would blast the sight from your eyes and the reason from your mind. Or so I'm told. I've never felt like peeking."
"What about the driver? Doesn't he have to see where he's going?"
"I'm not convinced there is a driver," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know anyone who's ever seen one. I think the trains have been running this route for so long now that they're quite capable of running themselves."
'You mean there's no-one human at the controls?"
"Probably better that way. Humans are so limited." I smiled at her shocked face. "Sorry you came yet?"
"No."
"Don't worry. You will be."
And that was when something from outside crashed against the side of the carriage opposite us, throwing the Russian to the floor. He carefully gathered up his paper and went to sit further down. The heavy metal wall dented inwards, slowly yielding under the determined assault from outside. The Punk girl didn't look up from her Bible, though she was silently mouthing the words now. The dents in the metal deepened, and one whole section bowed ominously inwards under unimaginable pressure. Joanna sank back in her seat.
"Take it easy," I said reassuringly. "It can't get in. The train is protected."
She looked at me just a little wildly. Culture shock. I'd seen it before. "Protected?" she said finally.
"Old pacts, agreements; trust me, you really don't
want to know the details. Especially if you've eaten recently."
Outside the carriage, something roared with thwarted rage. It didn't sound at all human. The sound fell slowly away, retreating down the length of the carriage as the train left it behind. The metal wall unhurriedly resumed its original shape, the dents disappearing one by one. And then something, or a series of somethings, ran along the side of the carriage and up onto the roof. Light, hasty, pitterpattering fast, moving in unison, like so many huge insects. The carriage lights flickered briefly. It sounded like there was a whole crowd of them up on the roof, scuttling back and forth. Voices came floating down to us, shrill and high and mixed together, like the same voice speaking in harmony with itself. There was a faint metallic buzz in the elongated vowel sounds that sent a shiver down my spine. The Brittle Sisters of the Hive were on the prowl again.
"Come out, come out, whatever you are," said the chorus of a single voice. "Come out, and play with us. Or let us in, let us in, and we will play with you till you can't stand it anymore. We want to stir our sticky fingers in your gene pool, and sculpt your wombs with our living scalpels ..."
"Make them shut up," Joanna said tightly. "I can't stand their voices. It's like they're scratching at my brain, trying to get in."
I looked at the Russian and the Punk, but they
were resolutely minding their own business. I looked up at the roof of the carriage.
"Go away and stop bothering us," I said firmly. "There is nothing for you here, by terms of Treaty and sacrifice."
"Who dares address us so?" said the many voices in one, almost drowned out by the constant clattering of their taloned feet on the steel roof.
"This is John Taylor," I said clearly. "Don't make me have to come up there."
There was a long pause. They were all very still, until eventually the inhuman chorus said "Then farewell, sweet prince, and do not forget us when you come into your kingdom."
A scurrying of insect feet and they were all gone, and the train rocked on its way in silence. The Russian and the Punk looked at me, and then looked quickly away before I could meet their gaze. Joanna was looking at me too. Her gaze was steady, but her voice couldn't quite manage it.
"They knew you. What did they mean?"
"I don't know," I said. "I've never known. That's always been my problem. There are a great many mysteries in the Nightside, and much against my will, I'm one of them."
No-one else had anything to say, all the way to the Nightside.
THREE -Neon
Noir
We came up out of the Underground like souls emerging from the underworld, with chattering throngs of people surging endlessly past in both directions. The train was already long gone, hurrying off as though glad to be leaving. The slow-moving escalators were packed with new travellers and supplicants, all carefully not looking at each other. No-one wanted to draw attention to themselves until they'd got their bearings. The few cold-eyed souls who looked openly about them were the predators and chickenhawks, picking out their prey for later. No-one looked openly at me, but there were a hell of a lot of sidelong glances, and not a few whispers. So
much for a quiet visit. The only thing that moves faster than the speed of light is gossip in the Night-side.
Still, the crowd was much as I remembered. Boys, girls, and a few others, all looking for a good time. Business as usual on the dark side of the city. Up on the street, they spilled out of the train station, sniffing freedom and opportunities on the crisp air, and scattered into the endless night, hot on the trail of their own salvations and damnations. Joanna stumbled to a halt inside a dozen paces; wide-eyed, shell-shocked, transfixed by the wonders and strangeness of a whole new world.
This vibrant new city was almost overpoweringly alive; all fever-bright colours and jet-black shadows, welcoming and embracing, frightening and intimidating, seductive and hateful, all at once. Bright neon gleamed everywhere, sharp and gaudy, shiny as shop-soiled tinsel; an endless come-on to suckers and victims and all the lonely souls. Enticing signs beckoned the unwary into all kinds of clubs, promising dark delights and unfamiliar pleasures, drinking and dancing with strangers in smoke-filled rooms, the thrill that never ends, life in the fast lane with no crash barriers anywhere. Sex licked its lips and cocked a hip. It was all dangerous as Hell and twice as much fun.
Damn, it was good to be back.
People surged up and down the street, in all their
many variations, from the unnatural to the unlikely, all of them intent on their own pursuits, while the roar of traffic never stopped. Every vehicle moved at great speed, stopping for nothing, in stark and noisy contrast to the packed city streets of everyday London, where the general speed of traffic hasn't changed much in centuries; thanks to the appalling congestion it still averages out at around ten miles an hour. No matter how important you think you are. Though at least these days the streets stink of petrol fumes rather than horse shit.
much for a quiet visit. The only thing that moves faster than the speed of light is gossip in the Night-side.
Still, the crowd was much as I remembered. Boys, girls, and a few others, all looking for a good time. Business as usual on the dark side of the city. Up on the street, they spilled out of the train station, sniffing freedom and opportunities on the crisp air, and scattered into the endless night, hot on the trail of their own salvations and damnations. Joanna stumbled to a halt inside a dozen paces; wide-eyed, shell-shocked, transfixed by the wonders and strangeness of a whole new world.
This vibrant new city was almost overpoweringly alive; all fever-bright colours and jet-black shadows, welcoming and embracing, frightening and intimidating, seductive and hateful, all at once. Bright neon gleamed everywhere, sharp and gaudy, shiny as shop-soiled tinsel; an endless come-on to suckers and victims and all the lonely souls. Enticing signs beckoned the unwary into all kinds of clubs, promising dark delights and unfamiliar pleasures, drinking and dancing with strangers in smoke-filled rooms, the thrill that never ends, life in the fast lane with no crash barriers anywhere. Sex licked its lips and cocked a hip. It was all dangerous as Hell and twice as much fun.
Damn, it was good to be back.
People surged up and down the street, in all their
many variations, from the unnatural to the unlikely, all of them intent on their own pursuits, while the roar of traffic never stopped. Every vehicle moved at great speed, stopping for nothing, in stark and noisy contrast to the packed city streets of everyday London, where the general speed of traffic hasn't changed much in centuries; thanks to the appalling congestion it still averages out at around ten miles an hour. No matter how important you think you are. Though at least these days the streets stink of petrol fumes rather than horse shit.