Something from 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 Nightside.

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.

You can't step in petrol fumes.

Many of the sleek and gleaming vehicles darting through the Nightside had to be new to Joanna; shapes and sizes and even concepts that had never known the light of day; some of them powered from sources best not thought about too much, if you wanted to sleep at night. Taxis that ran on debased holy water, limousines that ran on fresh blood, ambulances that ran on distilled suffering. You can turn a profit from anything, in the Nightside. I had to take Joanna by the arm as she drifted unrealisingly too close to the edge of the pavement.

"Careful!" I said loudly in her ear. "Some of those things aren't really cars. And some of them are hungry."

But she wasn't listening to me. She'd looked up at the sky, and her upturned face was full of wonder and awe. I smiled, and looked up too. Deep deep black, the sky, falling away forever, blazing with the light of thousands and thousands of stars, far more than you'd ever seen above any earthly city, dominated by a full moon a dozen times larger than the poor pallid thing Joanna was used to seeing. I've never been sure whether the moon really is bigger in the Nightside, or whether it's just closer. Maybe someday someone with serious money will hire me to find out.

I looked back at Joanna, but she was still clearly struggling to find her equilibrium, so I just stood there and looked mildly about me. It had been five years, after all. But it all seemed much as I remembered it. The same quietly desperate people, hurrying down the same rain-slicked streets, heading eagerly into the same old honey traps. Or perhaps I was just being cynical. There were wonders and marvels to be found in the Nightside, sights and glories to be savoured and clutched to your heart forever; you just had to look that little bit harder to find them, that was all. The Nightside is really just like any other major city, only amplified, intensified, like the city streets we walk in dreams and nightmares.

There was a kiosk beside the station entrance selling racks of shrink-wrapped T-shirts. I studied some of the legends on the shirtfronts. Good boys go to Heaven, bad boys go to the Nightside. My mother took thalidomine, and all I got was this lousy hammer toe. And the perennial Michael Jackson died for our sins. I snorted quietly. The usual tourist stuff.

Joanna turned suddenly to look at me, her mouth snapping shut as though she'd only just realised it was hanging open.

"Welcome to the Nightside," I said, smiling. "Abandon all taste, ye who enter here."

"It's night," she said numbly. "What happened to the rest of the day? It was only just starting to get dark when we left."

"I told you; it's always night here. People come here for the things they can't find anywhere else; and a lot of those things can only thrive in the dark."

She shook her head slowly. "We're really not in Kansas any more, are we? Guess I'll just have to try and keep an open mind."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," I said solemnly. "You never know what might walk in."

She gave me a hard look. "I can never tell when you're joking."

"Neither can I sometimes, in the Nightside. It's that kind of place. Life, death and reality are all flexible concepts here."

A street gang came whooping and hollering down the street towards us, shouldering people out of their way, and playfully pushing some out into the road to dodge the traffic, which didn't even bother with horns, let alone slowing down. The gang members laughed and elbowed each other and drank heavily from bottles they passed back and forth between them. They were loud and obnoxious and loving every minute of it, and the threat of sudden violence hung about them like bad body odour. There were thirteen of them, wearing polished leathers and hanging chains, with bright tribal colours on their faces. Their teeth came to sharp points, and they wore strap-on devil's horns on their foreheads. They came roaring and swaggering down the street, swearing nastily at anyone who didn't get out of their way fast enough and looking eagerly round for some trouble to get into. Preferably the kind where someone got hurt.

And then one of them spotted Joanna, recognising her immediately as a newcomer. Easy target, money on the hoof, and a woman as well. He clued in his brothers, and they surged forward, moving with a purpose. I stepped forward, out of the shadows, and put myself between them and Joanna. The gang lurched to a sudden halt, and I could hear my name on their lips. Their hands were quickly full of knives, long slender blades gleaming sullenly in the neon light. I smiled at the gang, and some of them started backing away. I let my smile widen, and the gang turned abruptly and walked away. Mostly, I felt relieved. I hadn't been sure whether I was bluffing or not.

"Thank you," said Joanna, her voice quite steady. "I was concerned there, for a moment Who were they?"

"Demons."

"Is that the name of their gang?"

"No, they're demons, playing at being a street gang. Probably out on day release. We get all sorts here."

She thought about that. "They were frightened of you."

"Yes."

"What makes you so special, here?"

I had to smile. "Damned if I know. Let's just say I have something of a reputation in the Nightside. Or at least, I used to. Be interesting to see how much currency my name still has here, in some of the places we're going to have to visit."

Joanna looked around her. "Shouldn't we alert the police, or something? Those… demons might attack someone else."

"There are no police operating in the Nightside," I explained patiently.

"Not many laws, either. Anything goes here; that's part of the attraction. There are… Authorities. Those with power to punish serious transgressors. Pray we don't run into them."

Joanna took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "All right; I can handle this. I came here to find my daughter, and I can cope with anything if it helps me retrieve her. You said you had a gift for finding people. Show me."

"It's not that simple."

"Why did I just know you were going to say that?"

I met her accusing gaze steadily, choosing my words with more than usual care. "I have a gift. Call it magic, or esp, or whatever current buzzword you feel most comfortable with. I can use that gift to track down missing people or objects, things that are hidden from normal view and normal investigative procedures. It only works here in the Nightside, where the laws of reality aren't as strictly nailed down as they might be. But I have to be very careful how and where and when I use it. I have enemies here. Bad people. Using my gift is like shining a bright light in a dark place. It attracts attention. My enemies can follow the light to find me. And kill me."

"Who are these enemies?" said Joanna, and for the first time there was something like concern in her cool blue eyes. "Why are they so keen to kill you? What did you do? And why is a man who can scare off demons so frightened by these people?"

"They are many, and I am one. They've been after me for as long as I can remember. It started when I was still a child. They once burned down a whole city block, trying to get to me. Over the years they've killed a lot of people who were close to me. It's a wonder I have any friends left. They aren't always out there… sometimes I think they're afraid of me. Either way, I've never been able to find out who they are, or why they want me dead so badly. I'm safe in the mundane world. They can't track me there. But this is their territory as well as mine. I only agreed to take on this case because it seemed so simple and straightforward. With just a little bit of luck, we should be able to track down your daughter, put the two of you together for a little heart-to-heart, and then get the hell out of here. Without anyone who matters knowing I'm here. Now hush, and let me concentrate. The briefer I can keep this, the better." I concentrated, reaching deep down inside myself, and my gift unfolded like a flower, blossoming up to fill my mind, then spilling out onto the night. My third eye opened wide, my private eye, and suddenly I could See. And there she was, right before me; Cathy Barrett's afterimage, glowing and shimmering on the night. The ghost she left behind, stamped on Time by her presence; a semi-transparent wraith drawn in pastel shades. Passing pedestrians walked around and through her without seeing her. I concentrated on her image, rewinding the past, watching closely as Cathy emerged again from the Underground station entrance and looked around her, dazed and delighted at the new world she'd found. She was wearing Salvation Army cast-offs, but she looked happy and healthy enough. Cathy looked around suddenly, as though someone had called her name. She smiled then, a wide happy smile that transformed her face. She looked radiant, delighted, as though she'd found an old dear Mend in an unexpected place. She started off down the street, hurrying towards… something. Something I couldn't See or sense, but it pulled her to it with a single-minded, implacable purpose, like a moth drawn to a blow-torch.

I replayed the image from the beginning, watching again as the ghost from the past came tripping out of the station entrance. Cathy's imprint was still too clear and uncorrupted to be more than a few weeks old at most. The impressions I was getting from the image puzzled me. Unlike most runaways Cathy hadn't come into the Nightside looking to hide from someone, or forget some past pain. She'd come here with a purpose, looking for some specific thing or person. Something or someone here had called her. I frowned, and opened up my mind just a crack further, but there was nothing unusual beating on the night air. No siren call strong enough to summon people from the safety of the mundane world.

Unless the caller was shielded from me. Which was a worrying thought. There's not much that can hide from me. When I put my mind to it. I'm John Taylor, damn it. I find things. Whether they want to be found or not.

Unless… I was dealing with one of the Major Powers.

I braced myself and pushed my mind all the way open. The hidden world snapped into focus all around me. Old paths of power criss-crossed each other, cutting unnoticed through the material world, burning so brightly I had to look away. Ghosts stamped and howled, going through their endless paces over and over, trapped in moments of Time like insects caught in amber. Wispy insubstantial giants strode slowly through the city, not deigning to look down on all the tiny mortals beneath them. The Faerie and the Transient Beings and the Awful Folk went about their various mysterious businesses, and none of them so much as looked at me. And still there was no trace anywhere of whatever had called so beguilingly to Cathy Barrett.

I shut my mind down again, layer by careful layer, re-establishing my shields. It had been so long since I'd had a chance to glory in the Sights of my gift that I'd forgotten all about being cautious. For a time there, I must have shone like the sun. Time to get this show on the road. I reached out and took Joanna firmly by the hand, linking her mind to mine, and she gasped as she saw the street through my private eye. She saw Cathy's translucent image, and called out to her, starting forward. Immediately I let go of her hand, and shut everything down, tamping down the edges of my gift with great thoroughness, so that not even a spark of light could get out to betray me. Joanna rounded on me angrily.

"What happened? Where is she? I saw her!"

"You saw an image from the past," I said carefully. "A footprint, left in Time. Cathy hasn't been here for at least two weeks, more than enough time for her to get into some serious trouble. But at least now we know for sure that she did get here, and that she was alive and well two weeks ago. Did you see the look on her face? She came here for a reason. She was headed somewhere specific."

Joanna's face had quickly resumed its usual chilly mask, as though she was ashamed I'd caught her showing actual emotions. When she spoke, her voice was entirely calm again. "Specific. Is that good or bad?"

"Depends," I said honestly. "This is the Nightside. She could be anywhere by now. She might have found friends, protection, enlightenment, or damnation. They're all pretty cheap here. I think… I'm going to need a little help on this one. How would you like to visit the oldest established bar and nightclub in the world?"

One side of her dark red mouth twitched in something that might have been a smile. "Sounds good to me. I could use a stiff drink. Hell, I could use several stiff drinks and an adrenaline chaser. What's the name of this place?"

I grinned. "Strangefellows."