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"Because they're all dead," I said.
Walker raised an eyebrow. "Well, well. How very ... impressive. You're not usually so final in your dealings with my agents."
I said nothing. Apparently he hadn't been told yet that I'd hooked up with Madman, Sinner, and Pretty Poison. So let him think I'd killed the Reasonable Men. It all helped maintain my reputation.
"Never did take to Hadleigh," Walker admitted, spearing a piece of meat with his fork. "Dreadful fellow. Far too full of himself; downright cocky, in fact."
"Not quite the word I had in mind for him, but close," I said. "Will there be repercussions?"
"For killing thirteen bright young men with prospects, all from good families? Oh, almost certainly. I don't give a damn, but you can be sure the families, some of them very old and very connected, will be most upset with you. This time tomorrow there won't be a bounty hunter in the Nightside without paper on you. The price on your head is about to go through the roof. And don't look to me to protect you. They were my boys, after all."
"Let them all come," I said. "I've never depended on you for protection."
He nodded slightly, admitting the point. "This new case of yours, Taylor..."
"Yes."
"Drop it."
I leaned back in my chair, studying him thoughtfully. Walker isn't usually that direct. "Why?"
"Because the Authorities don't take kindly to anyone investigating the Nightside's history and beginnings."
"Why not?"
Walker sighed, as though faced with a very dim pupil. "Because it is possible that you might discover things better left lost and forgotten, things that might threaten or even upset the status quo. If only because an awful lot of people, and I use the term loosely, would be very interested in obtaining such information. And would almost certainly make every effort to buy, steal, or torture it from you. We are talking about the kind of people even you would have trouble saying no to. They might even go to war with each other over its possession, and we can't have that. We're still recovering and rebuilding after the recent angel war— a war you helped to bring about. The Authorities would quite certainly order me to have you eliminated, rather than risk another war in the Nightside."
"And you'd hate to have to do that," I said.
"Of course," said Walker. "There's still a lot of use I was hoping to get out of you, before your inevitable early death."
"You'd really have me killed, after all the jobs I've done for you? After all the messes I've cleaned up for you? After I saved the whole Nightside by bringing the angel war to a close?"
"Only after you started it."
"Details, details."
Walker looked at me narrowly. "There is a line you can't be allowed to cross, Taylor. A line no-one can be allowed to cross. For the good of all. So; who hired you?"
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "I thought you knew everything, Walker?"
"Normally, I do. Whoever hired you must be incredibly powerful, to hide their identity from my people, and that in itself is worrying."
"I never reveal the identity of a client, Walker. You know that. I will say ... I was offered as payment the identity of my mother."
Walker put down his knife and fork and looked at me for a long moment. He looked suddenly older, tireder.
"Trust me, John," he said finally. "You don't want to know."
When Walker starts calling me by my first name, it usually means I'm in real trouble, but this time there was something in his voice, and in his face ...
"You know! All this time, you've known who my mother is and kept it from me!"
"Yes," said Walker, unmoved by the clear anger and accusation in my voice. "I never told you because I wanted to protect you. Your father and I were ... close, once."
"So where were you when he was drinking himself to death?"
My voice must have been cold as ice, but Walker didn't flinch. He met my gaze squarely, and his voice was calm. "There was nothing I could have done for him. He'd stopped listening to me a long time before. And we all have the right to go to Hell in our own way. Sometimes I think that's what the Nightside is all about."
"Tell me," I said, and it wasn't a request. 'Tell me the name of my mother."
"I can't," said Walker. "There are ... reasons. I'm one of only two people who know, and God willing we'll take the knowledge to our graves with us."
"The other being the Collector."
"Yes. Poor Mark. And he won't tell you either. So let it go, John. Knowing who your mother was won't make you happy or wise. It killed your father."
"What if she comes back?" I said.
"She won't. She can't."
"You're sure of that?"
"I have to be." Walker leaned back in his chair. He looked smaller, diminished. "Give up this case, John. No good will come of it. The origins of the Nightside are best left lost and forgotten."
"Even to the Authorities?"
"Quite possibly. There are things they don't tell me. For my own protection. Let the past stay in the past. Where it can't hurt anyone."
I did consider it, for a moment. I'd never known Walker to be this open, this concerned, about anything before. But in the end, I shook my head.
"I can't, Walker. I have to do this. I have to know. . .About the Nightside, about my mother. My whole life has been a search for the truth, for others and myself."
Walker sat up straight, his old commanding arrogance suddenly back in place. He fixed me with a cold gaze, and said, Drop the case, John.His voice sounded in my head like thunder, a voice like God speaking to one of his prophets; the Voice of the Authorities, speaking through their servant Walker. They gave him the Voice that commands, that cannot be disregarded, so that he might enforce their wishes in all things. There are those who claim Walker once used his Voice to make a corpse in a mortuary sit up and answer his questions. His words reverberated in my head, filling my thoughts, pinning me in my seat like a butterfly transfixed on a pin.
And then everything on the table between us began to tremble and clatter. The cutlery and the plates jumped and bounced on the immaculate tablecloth. The table rocked back and forth, its legs slamming up and down with increasing force. The floor lurched, and the whole Dining Room shook and shuddered. People cried out and clung to their juddering tables. And then it all died slowly away, and the reverberations in my head disappeared with it. I rose easily to my feet and smiled down at the openly astonished Walker.
"How about that?" I said. "So much for His Master's Voice. Perhaps I am my mother's son after all."
I walked away, and no-one wanted to look at me. I carefully chose my path to take me past Julien Advent's table, and when I was sure there was a wide marble pillar between me and Walker's table, I dropped suddenly into a chair beside Julien, and sank down, so that his body helped to hide me. I put a finger to my lips to hush him, and he nodded agreeably. By leaning back just right, I could see Walker at his table in the corner. He was so taken up with his own thoughts it was clear he hadn't noticed I never actually left the room. I'd thought that last parting shot would distract him. I wanted to see what he would do, who he would talk to, now he knew he didn't have his Reasonable Men to hold over me.
In the end, he called for a footman to clear away the mess on his table, then looked sharply to one side and nodded, A beautiful woman appeared suddenly from behind a concealing glamour, right beside the table. I cursed quietly. I'd been so focussed on Walker, and what he was saying, that I hadn't even sensed someone else was listening, unobserved. I must be getting old. I didn't used to make mistakes like that. And it didn't help at all that I recognised the stunning woman smiling at Walker.
Bad Penny was a freelance operative for hire, always turning up when least expected. Vicious, deadly, seductive, and entirely treacherous. An agent extremelyprovocateur. She smiled around the crowded Dining Room, and struck an elegant pose, the better for everyone to admire her. Most did, unobtrusively, though there were those who deliberately looked away rather than admit recognising her. Bad Penny was drop-dead gorgeous, with a voluptuous figure like a Bill Ward cartoon, somehow stuffed into a classic little black dress, complete with elbow-length white silk gloves, black mesh stockings, and a cigarette in a long black holder. She wore her night-dark hair piled up on top of her head, above a sharp, fierce face with strong bone structure and an openly insolent mouth. Her eyes were dark and deep enough to drown in. And it wasn't just her thrusting bosom that gave Bad Penny her air of sexual intimidation; she was a predator, in every way there was. She radiated sex appeal on an almost brutal level, like a weapon. She also carried two guns and any number of throwing knives about her person, though no-one was quite sure where.
We knew each other. A bit. Ships that passed in the night and kept on going. We didn't approve of each other, but we had been known to work together, occasionally. When no-one else would do.
Walker invited her to sit down at his table, and immediately the footman was there to pull her chair out for her, then push it back in again. Bad Penny accepted the attention as her due, but did deign to favour him with a flashing smile; and the footman did everything but wriggle like a puppy.
"You needn't bother with a menu," Walker said calmly to the footman. "The lady isn't stopping."
Bad Penny pouted. "Wouldn't eat here if you paid me, darling. I do have my standards."
Walker waved the footman away, and he disappeared reluctantly. I leaned out a little way from Julien's table, to hear them more clearly. Bad Penny worried me; but then, she always did, even when she was supposedly on my side. Julien watched me, amused, but continued with his dinner. As editor of the Nightside's only daily newspaper, the Night Times,he knew he'd get a good story out of me eventually.
I was just a bit surprised that Bad Penny was working for Walker. He was usually more subtle than that. Bad Penny, on the other hand, would work for anyone with enough money, on anything from espionage to assassination. Whether she was working on the side of Good or Evil had honestly never mattered to her; as she was only too happy to point out, gold has no provenance. She had no personal preference either way, nor any ethics worth the mentioning. She was utterly amoral and quite cheerful about it. I knew she'd occasionally done the Authorities' dirty work in the past, when they felt the need for a little distance or deniability. (Strictly pro bono, in return for which they agreed to turn a blind eye to some of her more notorious activities. Business as usual, in the Nightside.)
"I do hope this isn't about a honey trap, darling, because I don't do those any more," she said flatly to Walker. "They're just too easy, my dear; there's no challenge in it. Been there, done that, starred in the video. These days I prefer to specialise in cunning thefts, daring exploits, and just a touch of the good old-fashioned ultraviolence now and again, to keep the blood flowing."
"And a little discreet blackmail," said Walker. "To keep your coffers full."
Bad Penny batted her long eyelashes at him. "A girl has to live. And I never was very good at investments. All I have to do is mention that I'm thinking of finally writing my memoirs, and you'd be surprised how fast the cheques come flooding in. Now, what is it you want me to do, Walker? Something frightfully nasty, no doubt."
"You were listening to my little chat with John Taylor."
"Well yes, but I can't honestly say it made much sense to me."
"I want you to take care of Taylor."
Bad Penny looked at him sharply. "Now you're going to have to be just a little more specific than that, darling."
"I want you to do whatever it takes to prevent him from completing his mission. I want him off his present case, and I don't care how you do it."
"So ... dear John is no longer under your protection?"
"No," said Walker. "Can you take him?"
"Of course, darling! He's just a man."
"Distract him. Divert him. Do whatever you think necessary. But, if all else fails, you are authorised to eliminate him."
"I get to kill John Taylor?" said Bad Penny. "Oh, result,darling! This will absolutely make my reputation!"
"Ifall else fails," Walker said sternly, but Bad Penny wasn't listening.
"How shall I kill thee, let me count the ways ... That Shotgun Suzie thinks she's so hot. I'll show her"
I decided it was time to leave. Hell hath no fury like a woman you really shouldn't have slept with.
Five -
All Answers Become Clear, in Time.
Walker raised an eyebrow. "Well, well. How very ... impressive. You're not usually so final in your dealings with my agents."
I said nothing. Apparently he hadn't been told yet that I'd hooked up with Madman, Sinner, and Pretty Poison. So let him think I'd killed the Reasonable Men. It all helped maintain my reputation.
"Never did take to Hadleigh," Walker admitted, spearing a piece of meat with his fork. "Dreadful fellow. Far too full of himself; downright cocky, in fact."
"Not quite the word I had in mind for him, but close," I said. "Will there be repercussions?"
"For killing thirteen bright young men with prospects, all from good families? Oh, almost certainly. I don't give a damn, but you can be sure the families, some of them very old and very connected, will be most upset with you. This time tomorrow there won't be a bounty hunter in the Nightside without paper on you. The price on your head is about to go through the roof. And don't look to me to protect you. They were my boys, after all."
"Let them all come," I said. "I've never depended on you for protection."
He nodded slightly, admitting the point. "This new case of yours, Taylor..."
"Yes."
"Drop it."
I leaned back in my chair, studying him thoughtfully. Walker isn't usually that direct. "Why?"
"Because the Authorities don't take kindly to anyone investigating the Nightside's history and beginnings."
"Why not?"
Walker sighed, as though faced with a very dim pupil. "Because it is possible that you might discover things better left lost and forgotten, things that might threaten or even upset the status quo. If only because an awful lot of people, and I use the term loosely, would be very interested in obtaining such information. And would almost certainly make every effort to buy, steal, or torture it from you. We are talking about the kind of people even you would have trouble saying no to. They might even go to war with each other over its possession, and we can't have that. We're still recovering and rebuilding after the recent angel war— a war you helped to bring about. The Authorities would quite certainly order me to have you eliminated, rather than risk another war in the Nightside."
"And you'd hate to have to do that," I said.
"Of course," said Walker. "There's still a lot of use I was hoping to get out of you, before your inevitable early death."
"You'd really have me killed, after all the jobs I've done for you? After all the messes I've cleaned up for you? After I saved the whole Nightside by bringing the angel war to a close?"
"Only after you started it."
"Details, details."
Walker looked at me narrowly. "There is a line you can't be allowed to cross, Taylor. A line no-one can be allowed to cross. For the good of all. So; who hired you?"
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "I thought you knew everything, Walker?"
"Normally, I do. Whoever hired you must be incredibly powerful, to hide their identity from my people, and that in itself is worrying."
"I never reveal the identity of a client, Walker. You know that. I will say ... I was offered as payment the identity of my mother."
Walker put down his knife and fork and looked at me for a long moment. He looked suddenly older, tireder.
"Trust me, John," he said finally. "You don't want to know."
When Walker starts calling me by my first name, it usually means I'm in real trouble, but this time there was something in his voice, and in his face ...
"You know! All this time, you've known who my mother is and kept it from me!"
"Yes," said Walker, unmoved by the clear anger and accusation in my voice. "I never told you because I wanted to protect you. Your father and I were ... close, once."
"So where were you when he was drinking himself to death?"
My voice must have been cold as ice, but Walker didn't flinch. He met my gaze squarely, and his voice was calm. "There was nothing I could have done for him. He'd stopped listening to me a long time before. And we all have the right to go to Hell in our own way. Sometimes I think that's what the Nightside is all about."
"Tell me," I said, and it wasn't a request. 'Tell me the name of my mother."
"I can't," said Walker. "There are ... reasons. I'm one of only two people who know, and God willing we'll take the knowledge to our graves with us."
"The other being the Collector."
"Yes. Poor Mark. And he won't tell you either. So let it go, John. Knowing who your mother was won't make you happy or wise. It killed your father."
"What if she comes back?" I said.
"She won't. She can't."
"You're sure of that?"
"I have to be." Walker leaned back in his chair. He looked smaller, diminished. "Give up this case, John. No good will come of it. The origins of the Nightside are best left lost and forgotten."
"Even to the Authorities?"
"Quite possibly. There are things they don't tell me. For my own protection. Let the past stay in the past. Where it can't hurt anyone."
I did consider it, for a moment. I'd never known Walker to be this open, this concerned, about anything before. But in the end, I shook my head.
"I can't, Walker. I have to do this. I have to know. . .About the Nightside, about my mother. My whole life has been a search for the truth, for others and myself."
Walker sat up straight, his old commanding arrogance suddenly back in place. He fixed me with a cold gaze, and said, Drop the case, John.His voice sounded in my head like thunder, a voice like God speaking to one of his prophets; the Voice of the Authorities, speaking through their servant Walker. They gave him the Voice that commands, that cannot be disregarded, so that he might enforce their wishes in all things. There are those who claim Walker once used his Voice to make a corpse in a mortuary sit up and answer his questions. His words reverberated in my head, filling my thoughts, pinning me in my seat like a butterfly transfixed on a pin.
And then everything on the table between us began to tremble and clatter. The cutlery and the plates jumped and bounced on the immaculate tablecloth. The table rocked back and forth, its legs slamming up and down with increasing force. The floor lurched, and the whole Dining Room shook and shuddered. People cried out and clung to their juddering tables. And then it all died slowly away, and the reverberations in my head disappeared with it. I rose easily to my feet and smiled down at the openly astonished Walker.
"How about that?" I said. "So much for His Master's Voice. Perhaps I am my mother's son after all."
I walked away, and no-one wanted to look at me. I carefully chose my path to take me past Julien Advent's table, and when I was sure there was a wide marble pillar between me and Walker's table, I dropped suddenly into a chair beside Julien, and sank down, so that his body helped to hide me. I put a finger to my lips to hush him, and he nodded agreeably. By leaning back just right, I could see Walker at his table in the corner. He was so taken up with his own thoughts it was clear he hadn't noticed I never actually left the room. I'd thought that last parting shot would distract him. I wanted to see what he would do, who he would talk to, now he knew he didn't have his Reasonable Men to hold over me.
In the end, he called for a footman to clear away the mess on his table, then looked sharply to one side and nodded, A beautiful woman appeared suddenly from behind a concealing glamour, right beside the table. I cursed quietly. I'd been so focussed on Walker, and what he was saying, that I hadn't even sensed someone else was listening, unobserved. I must be getting old. I didn't used to make mistakes like that. And it didn't help at all that I recognised the stunning woman smiling at Walker.
Bad Penny was a freelance operative for hire, always turning up when least expected. Vicious, deadly, seductive, and entirely treacherous. An agent extremelyprovocateur. She smiled around the crowded Dining Room, and struck an elegant pose, the better for everyone to admire her. Most did, unobtrusively, though there were those who deliberately looked away rather than admit recognising her. Bad Penny was drop-dead gorgeous, with a voluptuous figure like a Bill Ward cartoon, somehow stuffed into a classic little black dress, complete with elbow-length white silk gloves, black mesh stockings, and a cigarette in a long black holder. She wore her night-dark hair piled up on top of her head, above a sharp, fierce face with strong bone structure and an openly insolent mouth. Her eyes were dark and deep enough to drown in. And it wasn't just her thrusting bosom that gave Bad Penny her air of sexual intimidation; she was a predator, in every way there was. She radiated sex appeal on an almost brutal level, like a weapon. She also carried two guns and any number of throwing knives about her person, though no-one was quite sure where.
We knew each other. A bit. Ships that passed in the night and kept on going. We didn't approve of each other, but we had been known to work together, occasionally. When no-one else would do.
Walker invited her to sit down at his table, and immediately the footman was there to pull her chair out for her, then push it back in again. Bad Penny accepted the attention as her due, but did deign to favour him with a flashing smile; and the footman did everything but wriggle like a puppy.
"You needn't bother with a menu," Walker said calmly to the footman. "The lady isn't stopping."
Bad Penny pouted. "Wouldn't eat here if you paid me, darling. I do have my standards."
Walker waved the footman away, and he disappeared reluctantly. I leaned out a little way from Julien's table, to hear them more clearly. Bad Penny worried me; but then, she always did, even when she was supposedly on my side. Julien watched me, amused, but continued with his dinner. As editor of the Nightside's only daily newspaper, the Night Times,he knew he'd get a good story out of me eventually.
I was just a bit surprised that Bad Penny was working for Walker. He was usually more subtle than that. Bad Penny, on the other hand, would work for anyone with enough money, on anything from espionage to assassination. Whether she was working on the side of Good or Evil had honestly never mattered to her; as she was only too happy to point out, gold has no provenance. She had no personal preference either way, nor any ethics worth the mentioning. She was utterly amoral and quite cheerful about it. I knew she'd occasionally done the Authorities' dirty work in the past, when they felt the need for a little distance or deniability. (Strictly pro bono, in return for which they agreed to turn a blind eye to some of her more notorious activities. Business as usual, in the Nightside.)
"I do hope this isn't about a honey trap, darling, because I don't do those any more," she said flatly to Walker. "They're just too easy, my dear; there's no challenge in it. Been there, done that, starred in the video. These days I prefer to specialise in cunning thefts, daring exploits, and just a touch of the good old-fashioned ultraviolence now and again, to keep the blood flowing."
"And a little discreet blackmail," said Walker. "To keep your coffers full."
Bad Penny batted her long eyelashes at him. "A girl has to live. And I never was very good at investments. All I have to do is mention that I'm thinking of finally writing my memoirs, and you'd be surprised how fast the cheques come flooding in. Now, what is it you want me to do, Walker? Something frightfully nasty, no doubt."
"You were listening to my little chat with John Taylor."
"Well yes, but I can't honestly say it made much sense to me."
"I want you to take care of Taylor."
Bad Penny looked at him sharply. "Now you're going to have to be just a little more specific than that, darling."
"I want you to do whatever it takes to prevent him from completing his mission. I want him off his present case, and I don't care how you do it."
"So ... dear John is no longer under your protection?"
"No," said Walker. "Can you take him?"
"Of course, darling! He's just a man."
"Distract him. Divert him. Do whatever you think necessary. But, if all else fails, you are authorised to eliminate him."
"I get to kill John Taylor?" said Bad Penny. "Oh, result,darling! This will absolutely make my reputation!"
"Ifall else fails," Walker said sternly, but Bad Penny wasn't listening.
"How shall I kill thee, let me count the ways ... That Shotgun Suzie thinks she's so hot. I'll show her"
I decided it was time to leave. Hell hath no fury like a woman you really shouldn't have slept with.
Five -
All Answers Become Clear, in Time.
I'd only just sneaked out of that august establishment and snobs' central, the Londinium Club, when my cell phone rang. (It plays the theme from the
Twilight ZoneTV show. What else?) I hauled the phone out of my coat pocket and looked at it suspiciously. It very rarely rang, partly because only a very few people have my number, but mostly because they all knew better than to use it for anything less than a real run for the hills emergency. The line is not secure. Not only is there never any shortage of people potentially listening in, sometimes they actually join in the conversation. There's also the problem of pop-in advertising, intrusions from other dimensions, and the occasional possession of the phone by pervert demons with a thing about technology. I have to admit I'm not even sure how cell phones work in the Nightside, well out of reach of the everyday world's satellites and relay stations. (Though at least that means my enemies can't use Global Positioning to find me.) I've always assumed the cell phone system is supported by heavy-duty sorcery, but I have absolutely no idea who might be providing it, or why. Or when they're going to get around to charging for it. All things that would worry me, if I were the worrying sort.
I always screen my calls (after an unfortunate incident with a dead ex-girl-friend), and I relaxed slightly as I discovered the caller was Alex Morrisey. The owner and bartender of the oldest bar in the world, Strangefellows, Alex was one of the few people in the Nightside entitled to call me at any time. We were friends, sort of, which got him points for courage if nothing else. And since he'd never called me before in his life, I decided I'd better take the call. At first there was only silence at the other end, then a faint whispering of sound that might have been a wind blowing, far away. I said Alex's name twice, and when he finally spoke his voice sounded harsh, strained, under pressure.
"John. You have to come to Strangefellows. You have to come right now. It's urgent."
"Alex? What's the matter? You sound really rough. Are you okay?"
"I can't keep him out! The whole bar is reverting! The Past is breaking in everywhere! It feels like dying. .."
The phone went dead, buzzing uselessly in my ear. I shut it down and put it away. I hate being interrupted in the middle of a case, but Alex sounded like he was in real trouble, and the bar itself was under threat. I had to do something. I'm very fond of that bar. Of course, the odds favoured it being some kind of trap, with Alex as the bait. All my best interests were screaming at me, and you don't tend to survive long in the Nightside without developing instincts you can trust. Walker might have had Bad Penny transported to the bar, to lie in wait for me. It was the kind of thing he'd do. So, when in doubt, depend on the element of surprise. Getting all the way across the Nightside to Strangefellows would take quite some time, whatever method I chose, more than enough time for my putative enemy to set up all kinds of booby-traps and nasty surprises. But with a little lateral thinking I could be there in moments, and maybe catch my enemy with their pants down.
A certain image of Bad Penny filled my mind, but I pushed it firmly aside.
I reached into another coat pocket and took out my special Club Membership Card. It was very special; Alex only had five made, to my knowledge. I tapped it thoughtfully against my chin, considering. They might be expecting me to use the Card ... or relying on me thinking that, so as to avoid me using it... but that way madness lies. Concentrate on the matter at hand. The Card was simple embossed pasteboard, a rich cream in colour, bearing the name of the bar in dark Gothic script, and beneath that the words you are here, in bloodred lettering. All I had to do was press my thumbprint against the scarlet lettering, and the magic stored in the Card would immediately transport me right into the bar. Zero travelling time, and the added advantage of bypassing the watched front door. (They couldn't know about the Card. Hardly anybody knew about the Card.) In the end, all that mattered was that Alex needed my help. So I pressed my thumb down firmly, and the Card activated.
It leapt out of my hand, so fast it practically burned my fingertips, and hung on the air in front of me, shimmering with unearthly light and throbbing with stored energies. Alex always believed in putting out for the full package.
The Card suddenly grew to the size of a door, and I pushed it open and walked through. And as quickly as that I was standing in Strangefellows bar. The door slammed shut behind me, and the Card was just a card in my hand again.
I glanced quickly about me, braced for any kind of trouble or attack, ready for anything except what I saw. The bar was deserted, and transformed. The low fog of early mornings covered the floor from wall to wall, grey as a shroud, swirling slowly. The air was bitterly cold, and my breath steamed before me. I could barely feel the floor beneath my feet, as though it was far away in some other distance or dimension. A wind was blowing heavily outside the bar, beating against the walls. It surged and roared, and there were voices in it. Not human voices. I'd heard this kind of wind before, announcing the breakthrough of a Timeslip, one of those brief glimpses of past or future. When the Time Winds blew, even the greatest Powers shuddered and looked to their defences. Their arrival was always a bad sign. A sign that Time was currently out of joint.
The bar was utterly empty. Not a customer anywhere. The bar only closes when Alex is off duty, and if he had been off duty, the Card wouldn't have admitted me. But here I was, alone in a room I barely recognised. The bar itself, that long slab of polished mahogany at the rear of the room, was gone, along with all the booze and accumulated trophies that were usually piled up behind it. In its place was a huge screaming face, made out of wicker. It looked big enough to burn people alive in. The expression on the green wicker face was one of horror. I shuddered suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the cold. On the phone, Alex had said the bar was reverting.. . Could this be an earlier version of the oldest bar and drinking house in the world?
I moved slowly forward, the ground fog tugging at my legs. Everywhere I looked there were overturned tables and chairs, sticking up like dark islands in the grey mists. Whatever customers were present when all this started must have left in a hurry. I had a pretty good idea why. The biggest clue to what was going on stood in the middle of the bar, dominating the room, and I stopped to study it from a cautious distance. A huge oak tree stood tall and firm, its trunk wide and gnarled, looking as though it had always been there, though I had never seen it before. Thick roots plunged down into the floor, and presumably on down into the cellars. Heavy branches thrust up through the high ceiling. There were no leaves, but the bar's two bouncers, Lucy and Betty Coltrane, had been strung up on the tree trunk, held in place by thick strands of ivy and mistletoe. They'd been battered unconscious, the blood still drying on their bruised faces. They were large, muscular women, with warrior's hearts; they would have gone down fighting. I reached out to tug at the ivy, to try and free them, and the thick strands stirred threateningly. I withdrew my hand, and they grew still again. I swore dispassionately. I knew what had happened here. Who had to be behind this.
"All right, Merlin," I said. "Show yourself." A pentacle flared into life on the floor, right in front of the screaming wicker face, forming line by line, glowing with the blue-white glare you sometimes see in lightning strikes over graveyards. There was a growing tension on the air, as that old enchanter Merlin, Architect of Camelot, the Devil's only begotten Son, Merlin Satanspawn himself, rose unhurriedly up through the pentacle to stand before me, with his familiar cold and arrogant smile. Merlin had been dead for centuries, his body buried in the cellars under the bar not long after the fall of Logres; but being dead didn't necessarily stop you from being a major player in the Nightside. Merlin was dead, but very definitely not departed.
An awful lot of what Alex had said on the phone made sense now. All the changes in the bar were artifacts of Merlin's time, and the man himself could only manifest by possessing, or rather pushing aside, Alex Morrisey, latest in a very long line of owner/bartenders bound to Strangefel-lows by a geas almost as old as the bar itself. Merlin rarely appeared in person these days, to everyone's relief, and when he did, it meant bad news for everyone.
Merlin ran one hand caressingly over the screaming wicker face, perhaps savouring old memories, then he turned the full force of his attention on me. He was tall and wiry and utterly naked, his corpse-pale skin decorated from throat to toe with unpleasant Celtic and Druidic tattoos. Beneath the curling signs of power, his dead flesh was blotchy and discoloured with rot and the various stages of decay. Even Merlin's awful will couldn't fully hold back the ravages of Time. His long grey hair fell down past his bony shoulders in thick convoluted knots, packed and stuffed with clay. His heavy brow supported a crown of mistletoe, unhealthily green and red with poisonous berries. His face was long and heavy-boned, ugly with character, and two flickering fires burned in his empty eye-sockets. (They say he has his father's eyes.)And in the middle of his chest the old, old wound that had never healed, still showing broken bone and ruptured muscle, where the heart had been torn right out of him.
Merlin Satanspawn, perhaps the most powerful sorcerer of all time, still continuing through his own implacable will. Old and bad and dangerous to know.
"We're seeing far too much of each other," I said. "People will start to talk."
"Insolent as ever, John Taylor," said Merlin, in a voice like grinding iron, thick with an accent no-one had used in over fifteen hundred years.
"You made Alex call me, before you took him over."
"Of course. It was necessary that you come here. There are things that must be said, words that must be spoken. You have set a thing in motion, and even I cannot See where it will lead."
My first impulse on hearing that was to turn and run like hell. When Merlin started plotting, even the other Powers and Dominations remembered urgent appointments elsewhere. But I couldn't abandon Alex, and I was curious as to what Merlin had to say. Besides, I was pretty sure that even if I did leg it, Merlin would just drag me back again.
"All right," I said, doing my best to sound calm and casual. "Let's talk. What's brought you back this time? Been having bad dreams?"
"The dead don't dream," said Merlin. "For which I am on occasion grateful."
I looked significantly around at the changed bar. "Why the redecorating?"
"This bar is old, older even than I. There are those who say it's very nearly as old as the Nightside itself. I used to come here, now and again, as an escape from the overwhelming goodnessof Camelot. You'd be surprised at some of the great names who've drunk here, down the ages. Heroes and villains and all creatures great and small. This ... is one of the very few places that ever felt like home to me. That's why I had my body buried here." He looked around him, taking in the changes, smiling unpleasantly as the flames in his eye-sockets danced. "Ah, memories..."
"Can we please get on with this?" I said. "So I can have Alex back?"
"He is of no importance. He only exists that he might serve me. I bound his family and his line to this bar, long and long ago, just so that I could be sure of having someone of my blood here, that I could manifest through when necessary."
"Hold everything," I said. "Your blood? I thought Alex was supposed to be descended from Uther Pendragon, and Arthur?"
Merlin laughed. "From the Pendiagon? No, boy; there's nothing of Kings in Alex Morrisey. He is mine, of my line, descended from my dear betrayer, the witch Nimue. He belongs to me."
I bit down hard on an angry retort. I couldn't afford to get him mad at me. Better just to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"Why did you call me here, Merlin? What do you want from me?"
A huge iron throne materialised behind Merlin, a memory made real by the power of his awful will. It was a roughly fashioned thing, all strength and power and no grace, the black metal scored with runes and sigils that seemed to move when I wasn't looking at them directly. What little of them I could read made me glad I couldn't make out the rest. Merlin sat down without looking back and settled onto his sombre throne like a dragon curling up on a mound of skulls. His pale flesh showed starkly against the dark metal. He smiled on me like a favoured son, showing aged brown teeth. I didn't smile back.
"You have a new case, John Taylor. You have been engaged to discover the true beginnings of the Nightside, by one of the Transient Beings, no less. I knew this almost as soon as you did. I have psychic alarms set in place all across the Nightside, primed to inform me immediately if such a thing should occur. You set off the alarm in the Lon-dinium Club. I was a Member, long ago."
Why does that not surprise me?I thought.
"This is not just another case," said Merlin. "By agreeing to undertake it, you have set in motion a thing that cannot be stopped, caused ripples in Space and Time, alerted all kinds of Powers who have waited long and long for this to happen. Old forces are awakening, in and outside the Nightside, to aid or stop you. More than you can imagine is at stake here. There was a time I would have killed you out of hand, to prevent this thing from happening. Good and bad will die, terrible forces will clash by night, and nothing will ever be the same again. But perhaps it is time for the truth to come out, at last. Perhaps it is time for a new thing to be born, out of the death of the old ..." He brooded silently for a moment. "I brought you here, John Taylor, to tell you what I know. To set you on your way. Perhaps because I do not know the origins of the Nightside, and it irks me that for all my strength and power there are still things I cannot See. I want to know."
"Do you think that knowing will release you from this bar?" I said slowly. "Free you to be fully dead and gone, at last?"
Merlin laughed, though there was precious little humour in the rough, raw sound. "No, boy. No-one holds me here but me. I wait for the return of my heart, and my full power, and then ... Then, there shall be a reckoning!"
(Short version. The witch Nimue stole his heart, then lost it. Everyone knew that much. And that a whole lot of Merlin's power departed with the heart. Absolutely no-one wanted to find the heart, or reunite it with its owner. No-one was that stupid. Merlin was dangerous enough as he was.)
"The true nature of the Nightside's birth is tied in with the identity of your lost mother," said Merlin, almost casually. "That's one of the few things that everyone agrees on. Though strangely no-one can identify a definite source for that knowledge. Don't ask me who your mother is, or might be. She is one of the very few beings I' ve never been able to See with my mind, sleeping or awake. There was a moment, some years before you were born, when the whole Nightside looked up, startled, as Something utterly unexpected flared brightly in everyone's consciousness. Something Old and terribly powerful had been reborn into the material world, and the balance of everything changed, forever. The moment passed almost immediately, the new arrival shielding itself from everyone's eyes. Which should, of course, have been impossible. Just the first of many worrying signs and portents ... Your mother was, and presumably still is, at the very least a Power and a Domination.
"My own best guess is that your mother is, or was briefly in the past, that most powerful witch Morgan La Fae. The only one powerful enough to oppose me during Arthur's reign. A strange creature; powerful, yes, and undeniably beautiful, but I cannot say I ever understood her mind. I always suspected she was much more than she ever admitted, to me or to Arthur. And I never did believe that sob story she spun for Arthur, about being his half-sister. She only said that to get close to him; he always had a weakness for those he considered family. That's what comes of being raised as an orphan. She used Arthur to produce a son, Mordred, then used that son to bring down Camelot. I have to wonder whether your mother might have produced you to bring down the Nightside. Oh yes; I know what you experienced in that Timeslip. The terrible future you saw. Everything destroyed and everyone dead, at your hands. Quite a few Powers have seen that future in visions, down the years."
"I thought you were supposed to have killed Morgan La Fae?" I said, hoping to change the subject.
"I did my best," Merlin said dryly. "But I was never sure ... She always said she'd be back. Mind you, Arthur said the same thing, and I'm still waiting."
"So you're not just hanging around here for the return of your heart," I said.
Merlin nodded slowly, acknowledging the point. "Arthur ... was special. I made him possible, plotting with Uther Pendragon, back when I was still playing Kingmaker. But Arthur turned out to be so much more than anyone ever thought or intended him to be. He made himself special. He was the best of us all. The only man I ever followed. I dreamed a great dream for him, and he made it come true. A single great land, founded on Reason and Compassion, sweeping aside all the old madnesses. The holy Realm of Logres, burning so very brightly in a Dark Age."
He paused, his chin resting on one hand, remembering. "I could have been much more than I was. I was supposed to be the Antichrist, the Devil's only son born of mortal woman; but I declined the honour. I was wise, even as a child, and I determined that I would follow my own path and no other's. I killed all the members of the coven that conspired to bring me into being, and all those who came afterwards, to ensure my freedom. My mother was already dead—some nameless witch who did not survive my birthing. Apparently I tore her apart, clawing my way out of her, impatient to be born."
"What about your... father?" I said.
"We don't talk. I kept myself busy for years, amusing myself with building up Kings and countries, and then destroying them. And then I met Arthur, and that changed everything. He shamed me, for the shallowness of my vision. I loved him. He was my father, my son, my light in the endless dark. I knew that Hell was real, but he made me believe that Heaven was, too. I gave him my life. I would have died for him, but... I always knew I couldn't save him without making him over into something he would have abhorred. He proved his dream worthy by dying in defence of it. He and Mordred met on the battlefield and died in each other's arms, neither ever really understanding what had brought them to that bloody place. I was elsewhere, killing Morgan La Fae. Afterwards, with Arthur and Camelot gone, I didn't much care about anything any more. It was almost a relief when dear, treacherous Nimue came along and found me. She really was magnificent, boy."
I decided it was time to change the subject again. There's nothing worse than a centuries-old corpse getting maudlin. "What do you know about the Nightside's beginnings?"
Merlin stirred on his iron throne, his face cold and considering once again. "When I was young, I learned from the Powers that came before me. They taught me that the Nightside was originally created, by forces unknown, to be the one place on earth free from the control of Heaven or Hell. The only truly free place. That's why I've been able to remain here so long, despite my... diabolical beginnings. But that's really all I know for sure. You need to speak to Powers older than I. One of my old teachers is still to be found here in the Nightside, though I understand he is no longer what he once was. Herne the Hunter, the free spirit of the wild places, leader of the Wild Hunt. The untamed savage. The force that drove the great green dream of Old England, when the forests were still huge, dark and primal places."
"Where do I find him?" I said.
"Good question. I haven't spoken with him in a thousand years. The spirit of the wild woods is apparently much diminished, these days. The encroachment of cities, and civilisation, the felling of the forests, all served to reduce his powers, and I dare say he is now merely a figment of the Power I knew. But he knew many things in the old days, secrets he did not choose to share with me, and it may be that you can convince him to tell you what you need to know. Use your precious gift, boy. Find Herne the Hunter. If you dare."
"Anything else you want to say to me?" I said. "Before you go."
He grinned nastily. "You know ... I could make you use your gift to find my heart for me."
"You could try. But even if you could make me find it, you must know I'd destroy the heart before I ever turned it over to you."
Merlin nodded his great head slowly. "Yes. You would, wouldn't you."
He stood up, and his throne vanished. He looked around the transformed bar wistfully, then sank slowly into his pentacle, dropping back down into his grave in the cellars. The glowing lines of the pentacle blinked out one by one, and as the last line vanished Alex Morrisey reappeared, lying curled up in a foetal ball on the floor. I looked quickly around. The bar was back to normal again, the fog and the oak and the wicker face gone, the present replacing the remembered past. The Time Winds no longer blew. I let out a long slow breath. It's not easy talking with a Power that can wipe you out with a passing impulse. But luckily, that's what I do for a living, as often as not. I helped Alex to sit up and set his back against the restored mahogany bar. He was shaking, fighting back tears, as much from anger as shock.
"You never told me, Merlin," he said bitterly. "All these years, and you never told any of us. I'm not a Pendragon after all. Not a descendant of a great and holy King. Just another of Merlin's damned spawn. I'm never going to be free of this bar..."
I sympathised, but had the good sense not to say so aloud. Alex has never been comfortable with expressions of friendship or support. They got in the way of his well-rehearsed self-pity. He finally lurched back onto his feet unassisted, a long streak of misery in basic black, even down to the beret he only wore to cover his spreading bald patch. He'd put aside shock and anger in favour of a good sulk. He knew where he was with a sulk. I could see he was about to launch into one of his rants, so I pointed out his two bouncers, regaining consciousness where the oak tree had been, and encouraged him to help me revive them, to take his mind off things. He did so, grudgingly. Good staff were hard to find.
Lucy and Betty Coltrane were basically unharmed, but mad as hell. It seemed Merlin had possessed Alex without warning, made him call me, then manifested fully and changed the whole bar without so much as a by your leave. The customers all fled. When Lucy and Betty protested, Merlin slapped them down. I think they were mostly embarrassed at how easily he'd taken them out. They were big, muscular body-building girls, used to defending themselves against all comers, and in Strangefellows that covered a lot of ground. Alex and I dusted them down, in a respectful sort of way, and set them to clearing up the overturned tables and chairs. Alex and I retired to the bar proper.
"I have a horrible feeling I'm allergic to mistletoe," said Lucy, scratching madly at one arm.
"You're always being allergic to something," said Betty. "It's all in the mind."
"I think we could do with a recuperative brandy," said Alex, moving to his usual place behind the bar.
I raised an eyebrow. "On the house?"
Alex scowled. "Just this once."
While Alex busied himself pouring out two surprisingly good brandies, I filled him in on everything that had been said in his absence. He grunted here and there, but didn't seem particularly surprised by any of it. It took a lot to surprise Alex. I considered him thoughtfully.
"How do you know you're really one of Merlin's line? Usually when you're replaced, you're completely gone."
"He made me know," said Alex. "He wanted me to know."
Yet again I decided it was time to change the subject. I used my Club Membership Card to contact my new companions, back in the Library. The card made itself into a door, and opened an aperture between the bar and the Research Section. Sinner peered curiously through the new opening.
"That's a good trick," he said mildly. "I didn't think anything could get past the Library's defences."
"This is powered by Merlin's magic," I said. "There aren't many places that can keep him out."
Sinner raised an eyebrow. "You do move in high circles, John."
Pretty Poison squeezed in beside him. "Oh look, Sidney darling; it's a bar! Do let's go through. I'm positively dying for a little drinkie."
"Probably a good idea," said Sinner. "Madman's been wandering through the Religious Studies section going No, no, that's all wrong,and some of the books have started disappearing. Or rewriting themselves. I have a distinct feeling the Library is not going to be pleased."
"Come on through," I said.
Sinner and Pretty Poison stepped through, then we coaxed Madman into ambling through after them. He had a dangerously preoccupied look in his eyes. I shut the door down and put the Membership Card away. Alex sniffed loudly from behind the bar.
"I never meant for my Cards to be used by freeloaders. I shall have to set up a new vetting system, preferably one involving scalpels and hacksaws and absolutely no anaesthetics." He studied my new companions, and as usual was not impressed. I was actually a little relieved. Such an open display of spleen showed that Alex was feeling better and getting back to normal again. Anytime now he'd be back to giving short measures and screwing up your change. He glared openly at Madman.
"You—I know you. Stay away from the bar, in case you change all the vintages. Or sweeten the beer. Or start my bar snacks evolving again. In fact, stay away from everything. Just stand where you are, don't move, don't even breathe. I swear, John, you lower the tone of the place every time you invite your friends to join you."
"Madman will be good," I promised. "Won't you, Madman?"
"Who knows?" said Madman. "Who can tell?"
"This is Sinner," I said quickly to Alex. "And this is his ghoul-friend, Pretty Poison."
Alex gave them his best scowl. "Oh God; it's the Nightside's very-own answer to Love Story.The infernal Odd Couple. The ultimate sucker and fall guy, and the real girlfriend from Hell. And why does she look so much like my ex-wife?"
"Let's not go there," I said. "Listen up, people. I've just had a short but nevertheless disturbing chat with Merlin, and he says I need to talk with one of the Old Folk, Herne the Hunter. Do any of you have an idea as to where he might be found? Apparently he's dropped out of sight in recent times, and I'd really prefer not to use my gift this early in the case, unless I absolutely have to."
"Of course," said Sinner. "You don't wish to attract the attention of your infamous unidentified enemies. You see, I do keep up with things. You're almost as much a legend in the Nightside as I am, these days. I know something of Herne the Hunter. There's a lot about him in the Library, most of it contradictory. But the reports all seem to agree that he's come down in the world and is no longer the Power of old. It may be that he has gone to Shadows Fall."
"Where's that?" said Madman, passing briefly through one of his lucid phases.
"It's the elephants' graveyard of the supernatural," said Alex, always glad of a chance to show off his knowledge of trivia. "It's where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them. A bit bucolic, by all accounts, but very restful. If you're inclined that way, which personally I'm not. Why is Madman's sound track suddenly playing Dolly Parton? I know; don't ask. But I don't think Herne's left the Nightside yet. I'm almost sure I was reading something about him recently ..."
He reached down beneath the bar and hauled up a pile of old magazines. He sorted quickly through them, finally producing a copy of the Nightside's very own scurrilous and scabrous gossip tabloid, the Unnatural Inquirer.(All the stories the Night Timesis too uneasy to print.) Alex thumbed quickly through the glossy pages, while I studied the headlines on the front cover, MADONNA IN BED WITH RAZOR EDDIE'S LOVE CHILD! PHOTOS! WE HAVE PHOTOS! And beneath that: MADONNA TO DUET WITH NIGHTINGALE! TICKETS! WE HAVE TICKETS! And right down at the bottom, in fairly small print: end of world nigh again.
Alex was muttering to himself as he tried to find the right page. "The Walking Man, we pay for sightings ... DNA proves Royal Family are descended from lizards ... Well, we all knew that... Ah, here we are. It's in their How Are the Mighty Fallen section. Apparently Herne the Hunter has been reduced to a street person, and has been seen begging for food and small change."
"Where?" I said. I wasn't all that surprised. A lot of the homeless and street people in the Nightside used to be Someone, once upon a time. Karma has teeth here, and the wheel turns for all of us.
"Says here he moves around a lot," said Alex, dropping the tabloid onto the bar. He gave me a meaningful look, and I sighed.
I reached inside my mind, concentrating in a way I could never explain to anyone, and powered up my gift. I could find anything, or anyone, if I just looked hard enough. My third eye opened deep in my mind, my private eye, and suddenly I could See all the Nightside at once, vast and full of life and death, like a playground wrapped in poison ivy, like the best present in the world studded with rusty nails. The neon-lit streets and squares flashed by beneath my searching gaze, giving me glimpses of Beings and creatures that are normally, thankfully, hidden from most people. There are many layers and levels to the Nightside, not all of them suitable for human comprehension. I hurried on, narrowing in on my target, until finally I saw a single ragged figure, mostly hidden inside a cardboard box already sodden from the falling rain. One gnarled hand protruded from the box, mutely requesting charity. People walked by without making eye contact. A great head covered by a grubby blanket slowly emerged from the box, turning slowly to look in my direction. Great jutting antlers protruded from under the blanket. Even in his fallen state, it seemed Herne could still tell when he was being watched.
And then my Sight snapped off abruptly, and I was thrust back into the bar again. I'd fixed Herne's position, but I had no time to think about him. My enemies had found me. When I use my gift I burn so very brightly, like a beacon in the night, and they had followed the light right to me. A dozen of the Harrowing, my enemies' attack dogs, appeared out of nowhere into the bar and formed a circle around me. The terrible deathless creatures my enemies had been sending to kill me for so very long, nightmares given shape and form. My nightmares.
I always screen my calls (after an unfortunate incident with a dead ex-girl-friend), and I relaxed slightly as I discovered the caller was Alex Morrisey. The owner and bartender of the oldest bar in the world, Strangefellows, Alex was one of the few people in the Nightside entitled to call me at any time. We were friends, sort of, which got him points for courage if nothing else. And since he'd never called me before in his life, I decided I'd better take the call. At first there was only silence at the other end, then a faint whispering of sound that might have been a wind blowing, far away. I said Alex's name twice, and when he finally spoke his voice sounded harsh, strained, under pressure.
"John. You have to come to Strangefellows. You have to come right now. It's urgent."
"Alex? What's the matter? You sound really rough. Are you okay?"
"I can't keep him out! The whole bar is reverting! The Past is breaking in everywhere! It feels like dying. .."
The phone went dead, buzzing uselessly in my ear. I shut it down and put it away. I hate being interrupted in the middle of a case, but Alex sounded like he was in real trouble, and the bar itself was under threat. I had to do something. I'm very fond of that bar. Of course, the odds favoured it being some kind of trap, with Alex as the bait. All my best interests were screaming at me, and you don't tend to survive long in the Nightside without developing instincts you can trust. Walker might have had Bad Penny transported to the bar, to lie in wait for me. It was the kind of thing he'd do. So, when in doubt, depend on the element of surprise. Getting all the way across the Nightside to Strangefellows would take quite some time, whatever method I chose, more than enough time for my putative enemy to set up all kinds of booby-traps and nasty surprises. But with a little lateral thinking I could be there in moments, and maybe catch my enemy with their pants down.
A certain image of Bad Penny filled my mind, but I pushed it firmly aside.
I reached into another coat pocket and took out my special Club Membership Card. It was very special; Alex only had five made, to my knowledge. I tapped it thoughtfully against my chin, considering. They might be expecting me to use the Card ... or relying on me thinking that, so as to avoid me using it... but that way madness lies. Concentrate on the matter at hand. The Card was simple embossed pasteboard, a rich cream in colour, bearing the name of the bar in dark Gothic script, and beneath that the words you are here, in bloodred lettering. All I had to do was press my thumbprint against the scarlet lettering, and the magic stored in the Card would immediately transport me right into the bar. Zero travelling time, and the added advantage of bypassing the watched front door. (They couldn't know about the Card. Hardly anybody knew about the Card.) In the end, all that mattered was that Alex needed my help. So I pressed my thumb down firmly, and the Card activated.
It leapt out of my hand, so fast it practically burned my fingertips, and hung on the air in front of me, shimmering with unearthly light and throbbing with stored energies. Alex always believed in putting out for the full package.
The Card suddenly grew to the size of a door, and I pushed it open and walked through. And as quickly as that I was standing in Strangefellows bar. The door slammed shut behind me, and the Card was just a card in my hand again.
I glanced quickly about me, braced for any kind of trouble or attack, ready for anything except what I saw. The bar was deserted, and transformed. The low fog of early mornings covered the floor from wall to wall, grey as a shroud, swirling slowly. The air was bitterly cold, and my breath steamed before me. I could barely feel the floor beneath my feet, as though it was far away in some other distance or dimension. A wind was blowing heavily outside the bar, beating against the walls. It surged and roared, and there were voices in it. Not human voices. I'd heard this kind of wind before, announcing the breakthrough of a Timeslip, one of those brief glimpses of past or future. When the Time Winds blew, even the greatest Powers shuddered and looked to their defences. Their arrival was always a bad sign. A sign that Time was currently out of joint.
The bar was utterly empty. Not a customer anywhere. The bar only closes when Alex is off duty, and if he had been off duty, the Card wouldn't have admitted me. But here I was, alone in a room I barely recognised. The bar itself, that long slab of polished mahogany at the rear of the room, was gone, along with all the booze and accumulated trophies that were usually piled up behind it. In its place was a huge screaming face, made out of wicker. It looked big enough to burn people alive in. The expression on the green wicker face was one of horror. I shuddered suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the cold. On the phone, Alex had said the bar was reverting.. . Could this be an earlier version of the oldest bar and drinking house in the world?
I moved slowly forward, the ground fog tugging at my legs. Everywhere I looked there were overturned tables and chairs, sticking up like dark islands in the grey mists. Whatever customers were present when all this started must have left in a hurry. I had a pretty good idea why. The biggest clue to what was going on stood in the middle of the bar, dominating the room, and I stopped to study it from a cautious distance. A huge oak tree stood tall and firm, its trunk wide and gnarled, looking as though it had always been there, though I had never seen it before. Thick roots plunged down into the floor, and presumably on down into the cellars. Heavy branches thrust up through the high ceiling. There were no leaves, but the bar's two bouncers, Lucy and Betty Coltrane, had been strung up on the tree trunk, held in place by thick strands of ivy and mistletoe. They'd been battered unconscious, the blood still drying on their bruised faces. They were large, muscular women, with warrior's hearts; they would have gone down fighting. I reached out to tug at the ivy, to try and free them, and the thick strands stirred threateningly. I withdrew my hand, and they grew still again. I swore dispassionately. I knew what had happened here. Who had to be behind this.
"All right, Merlin," I said. "Show yourself." A pentacle flared into life on the floor, right in front of the screaming wicker face, forming line by line, glowing with the blue-white glare you sometimes see in lightning strikes over graveyards. There was a growing tension on the air, as that old enchanter Merlin, Architect of Camelot, the Devil's only begotten Son, Merlin Satanspawn himself, rose unhurriedly up through the pentacle to stand before me, with his familiar cold and arrogant smile. Merlin had been dead for centuries, his body buried in the cellars under the bar not long after the fall of Logres; but being dead didn't necessarily stop you from being a major player in the Nightside. Merlin was dead, but very definitely not departed.
An awful lot of what Alex had said on the phone made sense now. All the changes in the bar were artifacts of Merlin's time, and the man himself could only manifest by possessing, or rather pushing aside, Alex Morrisey, latest in a very long line of owner/bartenders bound to Strangefel-lows by a geas almost as old as the bar itself. Merlin rarely appeared in person these days, to everyone's relief, and when he did, it meant bad news for everyone.
Merlin ran one hand caressingly over the screaming wicker face, perhaps savouring old memories, then he turned the full force of his attention on me. He was tall and wiry and utterly naked, his corpse-pale skin decorated from throat to toe with unpleasant Celtic and Druidic tattoos. Beneath the curling signs of power, his dead flesh was blotchy and discoloured with rot and the various stages of decay. Even Merlin's awful will couldn't fully hold back the ravages of Time. His long grey hair fell down past his bony shoulders in thick convoluted knots, packed and stuffed with clay. His heavy brow supported a crown of mistletoe, unhealthily green and red with poisonous berries. His face was long and heavy-boned, ugly with character, and two flickering fires burned in his empty eye-sockets. (They say he has his father's eyes.)And in the middle of his chest the old, old wound that had never healed, still showing broken bone and ruptured muscle, where the heart had been torn right out of him.
Merlin Satanspawn, perhaps the most powerful sorcerer of all time, still continuing through his own implacable will. Old and bad and dangerous to know.
"We're seeing far too much of each other," I said. "People will start to talk."
"Insolent as ever, John Taylor," said Merlin, in a voice like grinding iron, thick with an accent no-one had used in over fifteen hundred years.
"You made Alex call me, before you took him over."
"Of course. It was necessary that you come here. There are things that must be said, words that must be spoken. You have set a thing in motion, and even I cannot See where it will lead."
My first impulse on hearing that was to turn and run like hell. When Merlin started plotting, even the other Powers and Dominations remembered urgent appointments elsewhere. But I couldn't abandon Alex, and I was curious as to what Merlin had to say. Besides, I was pretty sure that even if I did leg it, Merlin would just drag me back again.
"All right," I said, doing my best to sound calm and casual. "Let's talk. What's brought you back this time? Been having bad dreams?"
"The dead don't dream," said Merlin. "For which I am on occasion grateful."
I looked significantly around at the changed bar. "Why the redecorating?"
"This bar is old, older even than I. There are those who say it's very nearly as old as the Nightside itself. I used to come here, now and again, as an escape from the overwhelming goodnessof Camelot. You'd be surprised at some of the great names who've drunk here, down the ages. Heroes and villains and all creatures great and small. This ... is one of the very few places that ever felt like home to me. That's why I had my body buried here." He looked around him, taking in the changes, smiling unpleasantly as the flames in his eye-sockets danced. "Ah, memories..."
"Can we please get on with this?" I said. "So I can have Alex back?"
"He is of no importance. He only exists that he might serve me. I bound his family and his line to this bar, long and long ago, just so that I could be sure of having someone of my blood here, that I could manifest through when necessary."
"Hold everything," I said. "Your blood? I thought Alex was supposed to be descended from Uther Pendragon, and Arthur?"
Merlin laughed. "From the Pendiagon? No, boy; there's nothing of Kings in Alex Morrisey. He is mine, of my line, descended from my dear betrayer, the witch Nimue. He belongs to me."
I bit down hard on an angry retort. I couldn't afford to get him mad at me. Better just to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"Why did you call me here, Merlin? What do you want from me?"
A huge iron throne materialised behind Merlin, a memory made real by the power of his awful will. It was a roughly fashioned thing, all strength and power and no grace, the black metal scored with runes and sigils that seemed to move when I wasn't looking at them directly. What little of them I could read made me glad I couldn't make out the rest. Merlin sat down without looking back and settled onto his sombre throne like a dragon curling up on a mound of skulls. His pale flesh showed starkly against the dark metal. He smiled on me like a favoured son, showing aged brown teeth. I didn't smile back.
"You have a new case, John Taylor. You have been engaged to discover the true beginnings of the Nightside, by one of the Transient Beings, no less. I knew this almost as soon as you did. I have psychic alarms set in place all across the Nightside, primed to inform me immediately if such a thing should occur. You set off the alarm in the Lon-dinium Club. I was a Member, long ago."
Why does that not surprise me?I thought.
"This is not just another case," said Merlin. "By agreeing to undertake it, you have set in motion a thing that cannot be stopped, caused ripples in Space and Time, alerted all kinds of Powers who have waited long and long for this to happen. Old forces are awakening, in and outside the Nightside, to aid or stop you. More than you can imagine is at stake here. There was a time I would have killed you out of hand, to prevent this thing from happening. Good and bad will die, terrible forces will clash by night, and nothing will ever be the same again. But perhaps it is time for the truth to come out, at last. Perhaps it is time for a new thing to be born, out of the death of the old ..." He brooded silently for a moment. "I brought you here, John Taylor, to tell you what I know. To set you on your way. Perhaps because I do not know the origins of the Nightside, and it irks me that for all my strength and power there are still things I cannot See. I want to know."
"Do you think that knowing will release you from this bar?" I said slowly. "Free you to be fully dead and gone, at last?"
Merlin laughed, though there was precious little humour in the rough, raw sound. "No, boy. No-one holds me here but me. I wait for the return of my heart, and my full power, and then ... Then, there shall be a reckoning!"
(Short version. The witch Nimue stole his heart, then lost it. Everyone knew that much. And that a whole lot of Merlin's power departed with the heart. Absolutely no-one wanted to find the heart, or reunite it with its owner. No-one was that stupid. Merlin was dangerous enough as he was.)
"The true nature of the Nightside's birth is tied in with the identity of your lost mother," said Merlin, almost casually. "That's one of the few things that everyone agrees on. Though strangely no-one can identify a definite source for that knowledge. Don't ask me who your mother is, or might be. She is one of the very few beings I' ve never been able to See with my mind, sleeping or awake. There was a moment, some years before you were born, when the whole Nightside looked up, startled, as Something utterly unexpected flared brightly in everyone's consciousness. Something Old and terribly powerful had been reborn into the material world, and the balance of everything changed, forever. The moment passed almost immediately, the new arrival shielding itself from everyone's eyes. Which should, of course, have been impossible. Just the first of many worrying signs and portents ... Your mother was, and presumably still is, at the very least a Power and a Domination.
"My own best guess is that your mother is, or was briefly in the past, that most powerful witch Morgan La Fae. The only one powerful enough to oppose me during Arthur's reign. A strange creature; powerful, yes, and undeniably beautiful, but I cannot say I ever understood her mind. I always suspected she was much more than she ever admitted, to me or to Arthur. And I never did believe that sob story she spun for Arthur, about being his half-sister. She only said that to get close to him; he always had a weakness for those he considered family. That's what comes of being raised as an orphan. She used Arthur to produce a son, Mordred, then used that son to bring down Camelot. I have to wonder whether your mother might have produced you to bring down the Nightside. Oh yes; I know what you experienced in that Timeslip. The terrible future you saw. Everything destroyed and everyone dead, at your hands. Quite a few Powers have seen that future in visions, down the years."
"I thought you were supposed to have killed Morgan La Fae?" I said, hoping to change the subject.
"I did my best," Merlin said dryly. "But I was never sure ... She always said she'd be back. Mind you, Arthur said the same thing, and I'm still waiting."
"So you're not just hanging around here for the return of your heart," I said.
Merlin nodded slowly, acknowledging the point. "Arthur ... was special. I made him possible, plotting with Uther Pendragon, back when I was still playing Kingmaker. But Arthur turned out to be so much more than anyone ever thought or intended him to be. He made himself special. He was the best of us all. The only man I ever followed. I dreamed a great dream for him, and he made it come true. A single great land, founded on Reason and Compassion, sweeping aside all the old madnesses. The holy Realm of Logres, burning so very brightly in a Dark Age."
He paused, his chin resting on one hand, remembering. "I could have been much more than I was. I was supposed to be the Antichrist, the Devil's only son born of mortal woman; but I declined the honour. I was wise, even as a child, and I determined that I would follow my own path and no other's. I killed all the members of the coven that conspired to bring me into being, and all those who came afterwards, to ensure my freedom. My mother was already dead—some nameless witch who did not survive my birthing. Apparently I tore her apart, clawing my way out of her, impatient to be born."
"What about your... father?" I said.
"We don't talk. I kept myself busy for years, amusing myself with building up Kings and countries, and then destroying them. And then I met Arthur, and that changed everything. He shamed me, for the shallowness of my vision. I loved him. He was my father, my son, my light in the endless dark. I knew that Hell was real, but he made me believe that Heaven was, too. I gave him my life. I would have died for him, but... I always knew I couldn't save him without making him over into something he would have abhorred. He proved his dream worthy by dying in defence of it. He and Mordred met on the battlefield and died in each other's arms, neither ever really understanding what had brought them to that bloody place. I was elsewhere, killing Morgan La Fae. Afterwards, with Arthur and Camelot gone, I didn't much care about anything any more. It was almost a relief when dear, treacherous Nimue came along and found me. She really was magnificent, boy."
I decided it was time to change the subject again. There's nothing worse than a centuries-old corpse getting maudlin. "What do you know about the Nightside's beginnings?"
Merlin stirred on his iron throne, his face cold and considering once again. "When I was young, I learned from the Powers that came before me. They taught me that the Nightside was originally created, by forces unknown, to be the one place on earth free from the control of Heaven or Hell. The only truly free place. That's why I've been able to remain here so long, despite my... diabolical beginnings. But that's really all I know for sure. You need to speak to Powers older than I. One of my old teachers is still to be found here in the Nightside, though I understand he is no longer what he once was. Herne the Hunter, the free spirit of the wild places, leader of the Wild Hunt. The untamed savage. The force that drove the great green dream of Old England, when the forests were still huge, dark and primal places."
"Where do I find him?" I said.
"Good question. I haven't spoken with him in a thousand years. The spirit of the wild woods is apparently much diminished, these days. The encroachment of cities, and civilisation, the felling of the forests, all served to reduce his powers, and I dare say he is now merely a figment of the Power I knew. But he knew many things in the old days, secrets he did not choose to share with me, and it may be that you can convince him to tell you what you need to know. Use your precious gift, boy. Find Herne the Hunter. If you dare."
"Anything else you want to say to me?" I said. "Before you go."
He grinned nastily. "You know ... I could make you use your gift to find my heart for me."
"You could try. But even if you could make me find it, you must know I'd destroy the heart before I ever turned it over to you."
Merlin nodded his great head slowly. "Yes. You would, wouldn't you."
He stood up, and his throne vanished. He looked around the transformed bar wistfully, then sank slowly into his pentacle, dropping back down into his grave in the cellars. The glowing lines of the pentacle blinked out one by one, and as the last line vanished Alex Morrisey reappeared, lying curled up in a foetal ball on the floor. I looked quickly around. The bar was back to normal again, the fog and the oak and the wicker face gone, the present replacing the remembered past. The Time Winds no longer blew. I let out a long slow breath. It's not easy talking with a Power that can wipe you out with a passing impulse. But luckily, that's what I do for a living, as often as not. I helped Alex to sit up and set his back against the restored mahogany bar. He was shaking, fighting back tears, as much from anger as shock.
"You never told me, Merlin," he said bitterly. "All these years, and you never told any of us. I'm not a Pendragon after all. Not a descendant of a great and holy King. Just another of Merlin's damned spawn. I'm never going to be free of this bar..."
I sympathised, but had the good sense not to say so aloud. Alex has never been comfortable with expressions of friendship or support. They got in the way of his well-rehearsed self-pity. He finally lurched back onto his feet unassisted, a long streak of misery in basic black, even down to the beret he only wore to cover his spreading bald patch. He'd put aside shock and anger in favour of a good sulk. He knew where he was with a sulk. I could see he was about to launch into one of his rants, so I pointed out his two bouncers, regaining consciousness where the oak tree had been, and encouraged him to help me revive them, to take his mind off things. He did so, grudgingly. Good staff were hard to find.
Lucy and Betty Coltrane were basically unharmed, but mad as hell. It seemed Merlin had possessed Alex without warning, made him call me, then manifested fully and changed the whole bar without so much as a by your leave. The customers all fled. When Lucy and Betty protested, Merlin slapped them down. I think they were mostly embarrassed at how easily he'd taken them out. They were big, muscular body-building girls, used to defending themselves against all comers, and in Strangefellows that covered a lot of ground. Alex and I dusted them down, in a respectful sort of way, and set them to clearing up the overturned tables and chairs. Alex and I retired to the bar proper.
"I have a horrible feeling I'm allergic to mistletoe," said Lucy, scratching madly at one arm.
"You're always being allergic to something," said Betty. "It's all in the mind."
"I think we could do with a recuperative brandy," said Alex, moving to his usual place behind the bar.
I raised an eyebrow. "On the house?"
Alex scowled. "Just this once."
While Alex busied himself pouring out two surprisingly good brandies, I filled him in on everything that had been said in his absence. He grunted here and there, but didn't seem particularly surprised by any of it. It took a lot to surprise Alex. I considered him thoughtfully.
"How do you know you're really one of Merlin's line? Usually when you're replaced, you're completely gone."
"He made me know," said Alex. "He wanted me to know."
Yet again I decided it was time to change the subject. I used my Club Membership Card to contact my new companions, back in the Library. The card made itself into a door, and opened an aperture between the bar and the Research Section. Sinner peered curiously through the new opening.
"That's a good trick," he said mildly. "I didn't think anything could get past the Library's defences."
"This is powered by Merlin's magic," I said. "There aren't many places that can keep him out."
Sinner raised an eyebrow. "You do move in high circles, John."
Pretty Poison squeezed in beside him. "Oh look, Sidney darling; it's a bar! Do let's go through. I'm positively dying for a little drinkie."
"Probably a good idea," said Sinner. "Madman's been wandering through the Religious Studies section going No, no, that's all wrong,and some of the books have started disappearing. Or rewriting themselves. I have a distinct feeling the Library is not going to be pleased."
"Come on through," I said.
Sinner and Pretty Poison stepped through, then we coaxed Madman into ambling through after them. He had a dangerously preoccupied look in his eyes. I shut the door down and put the Membership Card away. Alex sniffed loudly from behind the bar.
"I never meant for my Cards to be used by freeloaders. I shall have to set up a new vetting system, preferably one involving scalpels and hacksaws and absolutely no anaesthetics." He studied my new companions, and as usual was not impressed. I was actually a little relieved. Such an open display of spleen showed that Alex was feeling better and getting back to normal again. Anytime now he'd be back to giving short measures and screwing up your change. He glared openly at Madman.
"You—I know you. Stay away from the bar, in case you change all the vintages. Or sweeten the beer. Or start my bar snacks evolving again. In fact, stay away from everything. Just stand where you are, don't move, don't even breathe. I swear, John, you lower the tone of the place every time you invite your friends to join you."
"Madman will be good," I promised. "Won't you, Madman?"
"Who knows?" said Madman. "Who can tell?"
"This is Sinner," I said quickly to Alex. "And this is his ghoul-friend, Pretty Poison."
Alex gave them his best scowl. "Oh God; it's the Nightside's very-own answer to Love Story.The infernal Odd Couple. The ultimate sucker and fall guy, and the real girlfriend from Hell. And why does she look so much like my ex-wife?"
"Let's not go there," I said. "Listen up, people. I've just had a short but nevertheless disturbing chat with Merlin, and he says I need to talk with one of the Old Folk, Herne the Hunter. Do any of you have an idea as to where he might be found? Apparently he's dropped out of sight in recent times, and I'd really prefer not to use my gift this early in the case, unless I absolutely have to."
"Of course," said Sinner. "You don't wish to attract the attention of your infamous unidentified enemies. You see, I do keep up with things. You're almost as much a legend in the Nightside as I am, these days. I know something of Herne the Hunter. There's a lot about him in the Library, most of it contradictory. But the reports all seem to agree that he's come down in the world and is no longer the Power of old. It may be that he has gone to Shadows Fall."
"Where's that?" said Madman, passing briefly through one of his lucid phases.
"It's the elephants' graveyard of the supernatural," said Alex, always glad of a chance to show off his knowledge of trivia. "It's where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them. A bit bucolic, by all accounts, but very restful. If you're inclined that way, which personally I'm not. Why is Madman's sound track suddenly playing Dolly Parton? I know; don't ask. But I don't think Herne's left the Nightside yet. I'm almost sure I was reading something about him recently ..."
He reached down beneath the bar and hauled up a pile of old magazines. He sorted quickly through them, finally producing a copy of the Nightside's very own scurrilous and scabrous gossip tabloid, the Unnatural Inquirer.(All the stories the Night Timesis too uneasy to print.) Alex thumbed quickly through the glossy pages, while I studied the headlines on the front cover, MADONNA IN BED WITH RAZOR EDDIE'S LOVE CHILD! PHOTOS! WE HAVE PHOTOS! And beneath that: MADONNA TO DUET WITH NIGHTINGALE! TICKETS! WE HAVE TICKETS! And right down at the bottom, in fairly small print: end of world nigh again.
Alex was muttering to himself as he tried to find the right page. "The Walking Man, we pay for sightings ... DNA proves Royal Family are descended from lizards ... Well, we all knew that... Ah, here we are. It's in their How Are the Mighty Fallen section. Apparently Herne the Hunter has been reduced to a street person, and has been seen begging for food and small change."
"Where?" I said. I wasn't all that surprised. A lot of the homeless and street people in the Nightside used to be Someone, once upon a time. Karma has teeth here, and the wheel turns for all of us.
"Says here he moves around a lot," said Alex, dropping the tabloid onto the bar. He gave me a meaningful look, and I sighed.
I reached inside my mind, concentrating in a way I could never explain to anyone, and powered up my gift. I could find anything, or anyone, if I just looked hard enough. My third eye opened deep in my mind, my private eye, and suddenly I could See all the Nightside at once, vast and full of life and death, like a playground wrapped in poison ivy, like the best present in the world studded with rusty nails. The neon-lit streets and squares flashed by beneath my searching gaze, giving me glimpses of Beings and creatures that are normally, thankfully, hidden from most people. There are many layers and levels to the Nightside, not all of them suitable for human comprehension. I hurried on, narrowing in on my target, until finally I saw a single ragged figure, mostly hidden inside a cardboard box already sodden from the falling rain. One gnarled hand protruded from the box, mutely requesting charity. People walked by without making eye contact. A great head covered by a grubby blanket slowly emerged from the box, turning slowly to look in my direction. Great jutting antlers protruded from under the blanket. Even in his fallen state, it seemed Herne could still tell when he was being watched.
And then my Sight snapped off abruptly, and I was thrust back into the bar again. I'd fixed Herne's position, but I had no time to think about him. My enemies had found me. When I use my gift I burn so very brightly, like a beacon in the night, and they had followed the light right to me. A dozen of the Harrowing, my enemies' attack dogs, appeared out of nowhere into the bar and formed a circle around me. The terrible deathless creatures my enemies had been sending to kill me for so very long, nightmares given shape and form. My nightmares.