Something from the Nightside

SEVEN — Where the Really Wild Things Are

Joanna and I left Suzie Shooter intimidating the entire Fortress through the sheer force of her appalling personality, and headed for Blaiston Street. Where the wild things are. Every city has at least one area where all the rules have broken down, where humanity comes and goes, and civilisation is a sometime thing. Blaiston Street is the kind of area where no-one has ever paid any rent, where even the little comforts of life go only to the strongest, and plague rats go around in pairs because they're frightened. It's mob rule, on the few occasions when the brutal inhabitants can get their act together long enough to form a mob. They live in the dark because they like it that way. Because that way they can't see how far they've fallen. Drink, drugs and despair are the order of the day on Blaiston Street, and no-one ends up there by accident. Which made Cathy's choice of destination all the more disturbing. What on earth, or under it, could have called a vital, mostly sensible young girl like her to such a place?

What did she think was waiting for her there?

It was raining, soft pitterpatters of blood temperature that made the streets glisten with the illusion of freshness. The air was heavy with the smell of restaurants, of cuisines from a hundred times and places, not all of them especially appealing. The ever-present neon seemed subtly out of focus behind the rain, and the people passing by had hungry, angry faces. The Nightside was getting into its stride.

"This is a hell of a place," Joanna said abruptly.

"Sometimes literally," I said. "But it has its attractions. Just as it's always the bad boy that makes the good girl's heart beat that little bit faster, so it's the darker pleasures that seduce us out of the everyday world, and into the Nightside."

Joanna snorted. "I always thought you could find every kind of pleasure in London. I've seen the postcards in public phone kiosks, advertising perversion at reasonable rates. Every kind of sex, with and without bodily contact, performed by people of every kind of sex. And a few proudly in between. Pre-op, post-op, during the op… I mean, what's left?"

"Trust me," I said seriously. "You really don't want to know. Now change the subject."

"All right. What was it like, growing up here, in the Nightside?" Joanna looked at me earnestly. "This must have been… an unusual place, for a child."

I shrugged. "It was all I knew. When miracles and wonders happen every day, they lose their powers to amaze. This is a magical place, in every sense of the word, and if nothing else, growing up here was never boring. Always some new trouble to get into, and what more could a curious child ask for? And it's a great place to learn self-discipline. When they tell you to behave or the bogeyman will get you, they aren't necessarily kidding here. You either learn to be a survivor early on, or you don't get to grow up. You can't trust anyone to watch your back for you… not friends or family. But there's an honesty to that, at least."

"This all seems normal to me, Joanna. Your world, the calm and reasonable, mostly logical, everyday London was a revelation to me. Safe, sane, reassuringly predictable… There's a deal of comfort in being blessedly anonymous, of knowing that sometimes things can just happen, with no great significance, for you or anyone else. The Nightside is lousy with omens and prophecies, and intrusions and interventions from Above and Below. But though your world is mostly secure and protected, it's also… grey, boring, and bloody hard to earn a living in. I'll go back there, when I'm through with this case, but I couldn't honestly say whether that's because I prefer it, or because I've lost my touch in how to survive in a place of gods and monsters."

"This Blaiston Street," said Joanna. "It sounds a dangerous location, even for the Nightside. Are you sure Cathy was heading there?"

I stopped, and she stopped with me. It was a question I'd been asking myself. The voice at the Fortress might have said anything, just to get rid of us, and get Suzie off his back. I would have. But… it was my only lead. I scowled, frustrated, and the people passing by gave us a little more room. I've always been able to find anything with my gift. That was how I'd made my reputation. To be back in the Nightside, and blind in my private eye, was almost too much to bear. I ought to be able to pick up at least a glimpse of her, if she really was so close, on Blaiston Street.

I lashed out with my mind, hitting the night like a hammer-blow, forcing my gift out across the secret terrains of the hidden world. It beat on the air, wild and angry, pushing open locked doors with grim abandon, and people around me clutched their heads, cried out and shrank away. My hands closed into fists at my sides, and I could feel myself smiling that old vicious smile, that wolf on a trail smile, from a time when nothing mattered but getting to the truth. There was a sick, vicious pain throbbing in my left temple. I could do myself some serious damage by forcing my gift beyond its natural limits, after so long asleep, but right then I was so angry and frustrated I didn't care.

I could feel her out there, Cathy, not long gone, her traces still vibrating on the membrane of the hidden world, but it was like reaching out for something you can sense in the dark, but not see. Someone, some thing, didn't want me to see her. My smile widened nastily. Hell with that. I pushed harder, and it was like slamming my mind against a barbed-wire fence. Blood was dripping steadily from my left nostril now, and I couldn't feel my hands. Serious damage. And then some tension, some defence, broke under my determination, and Cathy's ghost sprang into being before me. It was a recent image, a manifestation only days old, shimmering right there on the street before me. I grabbed Joanna's hand so she could see it too. Cathy hurried down the street, really striding out, and we hurried after her. Her face sparkled and shimmered, but there was no mistaking the broad smile on her face. She was listening to something only she could hear, something wonderful, that called to the very heart of her, and it was drawing her in like an angler plays a fish, leading her straight to Blaiston Street. The smile was the most terrible thing. I couldn't think of anything in my life I'd ever wanted as much as Cathy clearly wanted what the unheard voice was promising her.

"Something's calling her," said Joanna, gripping my hand so hard it hurt.

"Summoning her," I said. "Like the Sirens called the Greek sailors of old. It could be a lie, but it might not. This is the Nightside, after all. What disturbs the hell out of me is that I can't even sense the shape of whatever it is that's out there. As far as my gift's concerned, there's nothing there, never has been. Nothing at all. Which implies major shields, and really heavy-duty magic. But something that powerful should have showed up on everyone's radar the moment it appeared in the Nightside. The whole place should be buzzing with the news. A new major player could upset everyone's apple carts. But no one knows it's here… except me. And I'm damned if I can even guess what anything that powerful would want with a teenage runaway."

Cathy's ghost snapped out, despite everything I could do to hang on to it. My gift retreated back into my head and slammed the door shut after it. The headache was really bad now, and for a moment all I could do was stand there in the middle of the pavement, eyes clenched shut, fighting to hold my thoughts together. When this case was finally over, I was going to need some serious healing time. I opened my eyes and Joanna offered me a handkerchief, gesturing at my nose. I dabbed at my left nostril until the bleeding finally gave up. I hadn't even felt her let go of my hand. I was pushing myself way too hard, for my first time back. Joanna stood close to me, trying to comfort me with her presence. The headache quickly faded away. I gave Joanna her bloodied handkerchief back, she received it with a certain dignity, and we set off towards Blaiston Street again. I didn't mention my lapse, and neither did she.

"Is Suzie really as dangerous as everyone seems to think she is?" said Joanna, after a while, just to be saying something.

"More, if anything," I said honestly. "She built her reputation on the bodies of her enemies, and a complete willingness to take risks even Norse berserkers would have balked at. Suzie doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. Other concepts she has trouble grasping are restraint, mercy and self-preservation."

Joanna had to laugh. "Damn it, John; don't you know any normal people here?"

I laughed a little myself. "There are no normal people here. Normal people would have more sense than to stick around in a place like this."

We walked on, and though people were giving me plenty of room, no-one even glanced at me. Privacy is greatly valued in the Nightside, if only because so many of us have so much to hide. The traffic roared past, never stopping, rarely slowing, always in such a hurry to be somewhere else, to be doing something somebody else would be sure to disapprove of. There are no traffic lights in the Nightside. No-one would pay them any attention anyway. There are no official street crossings, either. You get to the other side of the street through courage and resolve and intimidating the traffic to get out of your way. Though I'm told bribery is also pretty effective. I looked at Joanna, and asked her a question I'd been putting off for too long. Now we were finally getting close to Cathy, I felt I needed to know the answer.

"You said this wasn't the first time Cathy ran away. Why does she keep running away, Joanna?"

"I try to spend time with her," said Joanna, looking straight ahead. "Quality time, when I can. But it isn't always possible. I lead a very busy life. I work all the hours God sends, just to stay in one place. It's ten times harder for a woman than a man, to get ahead and stay ahead in the business world. The people I have to deal with every day would eat sharks for breakfast, as an appetizer, and have turned betrayal and back-stabbing into a fine art. I work bloody hard, for the security Cathy takes for granted, to get the money to pay for all the things she just has to have. Though Heaven forfend she should show the slightest interest in the business that makes her comfortable world possible."

"Do you enjoy your work?"

"Sometimes."

"Ever thought about trying something else?"

"It's what I'm good at," she said, and I had to nod. I knew all about that.

"No stepfathers?" I said casually. "Or father figures? Someone else she could turn to, talk to?"

"Hell, no. I swore I'd never make the mistake of being tied to a man again," Joanna said fiercely. "Not after what Cathy's father put me through, just because he thought he could. I'm my own woman now, and whoever comes into my life does so on my terms. Not a lot of men can cope with that. And I have trouble hanging on to the few that can. The work, again. Still, Cathy never wanted for anything she really needed. I raised her to be bright, and sharp, and independent."

"Even from you?" I said quietly. Joanna wouldn't even look at me.

And that was when the world suddenly changed. The living city disappeared, and abruptly we were somewhere else. Somewhere much worse. Joanna and I stumbled on for a few steps, caught off guard, and then we stopped and looked quickly about us. The street was empty of people and the road was empty of traffic. Most of the buildings surrounding us were nothing more than ruins and rubble. The taller buildings had apparently collapsed, long ago, and everywhere I looked nothing was more than a storey or two high. I could see for miles now, all the way to the horizon, and it was all destruction and devastation. I turned in a slow circle, and everywhere was the same. We had come to a dead place. London, the Nightside, the old city, was now a thing of the past. Something bad had come, and stamped it all flat.

It was very dark now, with all the street-lights and the glaring neon gone. What light there was had a dull, purple cast, as though the night itself was bruised. It was hard to make out anything clearly. There were shadows everywhere, very deep and very dark. Not a normal light to be seen anywhere, in any of the wrecked and tumbledown buildings; not even the flicker of a campfire. We were all alone, in the night. Joanna fumbled in her bag and finally produced her cigarette lighter. Her hands shook so much it took her half a dozen goes to get it to light. The warm yellow flame seemed out of place in such a night, and the glow didn't travel far. She held the lighter up high as we looked around, trying to get some sense of where we were, although I already had a sinking feeling I knew what had happened.

It was quiet. Very quiet. No sounds at all, save for the shuffling of our feet and our own unsteady breathing. Such utter quiet was eerie, unsettling. The roar of the city was gone, along with its inhabitants. London had been silenced, the hard way. I only had to look around in the awful purple light to know that we had come to an empty place. The heavy silence was almost overpowering, until I felt like shouting out… something, just to emphasize my presence. But I didn't. There might have been something listening. Even worse, there might not.

I'd never felt so alone in my life.

All around us the buildings were squat, deformed, their shapes altered and the edges softened by exposure to wind and rain. Long exposure. All the windows were empty, every trace of glass gone, and I couldn't see a single doorway with a door; just dark openings, like eyes or mouths, or maybe wounds. There was something almost unbearably sad in seeing such a mighty city brought so low. All those centuries of building and expanding, all those many lives supporting and giving it purpose, all for nothing, in the end. I moved slowly forward, and puffs of dust sprang up around my feet. Joanna made a noise at the back of her throat and moved slowly after me.

It was cold. Stark and bitter cold, as though all the heat had gone out of the world. The air was still, with not even a breath of wind blowing. Our footsteps seemed very loud in the quiet, loud and carrying as we walked down the middle of what had once been a street, through what had once been a vital, thriving place. We were both shivering now, and it had nothing to do with the cold. This was a bad place, and we didn't belong here. Off in the distance, broken buildings stood blackly against the horizon in jagged silhouettes, shadows of what they had once been. The city, inside and out, was over.

"Where are we?" Joanna said finally. The hand holding up the lighter was steadier now, but her voice trembled. I didn't blame her.

"Not… where," I said. "When. This is the future. The far future, by the look of it. London has fallen, and civilisation has come and gone. This isn't even an epilogue. Someone closed the book on London and the Nightside, and closed it hard. We've stumbled into a Timeslip. An enclosed area where Time can jump back and forth, into the past and the future and everything in between. Needless to say, there wasn't a Timeslip here the last time I came this way. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows enough to avoid Timeslips, and they're always well sign-posted. If only because they're such arbitrary things. No-one understands how they work, or even what causes them. They come and they go, and so do whatever poor bastards get sucked up in them."

"You mean we're trapped here?"

"Not necessarily. I've been using my gift to try and find us a way out. The physical area of a Timeslip isn't very large. If I can just locate the boundaries, crack open a weak spot…"

"Not very large!" Joanna's voice rose, harsh with emotion. "I can see for miles, all the way to the horizon! It'll take us weeks to walk out of here!"

"Things aren't always as they appear. You should know that by now." I kept my voice calm and light, trying to sound knowledgeable and reassuring, and not at all as though I was just guessing. "While we're in the Timeslip, we see all of it; but the actual affected area is comparatively small. Once I can crack a hole in the boundary, and we walk through, we'll snap back to our own time. And I'd say we're only half an hour away. Easy walk. Assuming, of course, that nothing goes wrong."

"Wrong?" said Joanna, seizing on the word. "What could possibly go wrong? We're all alone here. This is the far future, and everyone's dead. Can't you feel it? The lights of London have finally gone out…"

"Nothing lasts forever," I said. "Everything comes to an end, in Time. Even the Nightside, I suppose. Let enough centuries pass, and even the greatest of monuments will fall."

"Maybe they dropped the Bomb, after all."

"No. The Nightside would survive the Bomb, I think. Whatever did happen here… was much more final."

"I hate to see London like this," Joanna said quietly. "It was always so alive. I always thought it would go on forever. That we built it so well, ran it so tightly, loved it so much, that London would outlast us all. I guess I was wrong. We all were."

"Maybe we just went away and built another London somewhere else," I said. "And as long as people are around, we'll always need a Nightside, or something like it."

"And what if people aren't around, any longer? Who knows how far into the future we are now? Centuries? Millennia? Look at this place! It's dead. It's all dead. Everything ends. Even us." She shuddered abruptly, and then glared at me, as though it was all my fault. "Nothing's ever easy around you, is it? A Timeslip… Is this sort of thing usual, in the Nightside?"

"Well," I said carefully, "it's not unusual."

"Typical," said Joanna. "You can't even trust Time in the Nightside."

I couldn't argue with that, so I looked around me some more. Millennia? The ruins looked old, but surely not that old. "I wonder where everyone is. Did they just up and leave, when they saw the city was doomed? And if so, where did they go?"

"Maybe everyone's gone to the moon. Like in the song."

That was when I finally looked up, and the chill sank past my bones and into my soul. It was suddenly, horribly, clear why it was so dark. There was no moon. It was gone. The great swollen orb that had dominated the Nightside sky for as long as anyone could remember was missing from the dark sky. Most of the stars were gone too. Only a handful still remained, scattered in ones and twos across the great black expanse, shining only dimly, a few last sentinels of light against the fall of night. And since the stars are so very far away, perhaps they were gone too, and this was just the last of their light to reach us…

How could the stars be gone? What the hell had happened…

"I always thought the moon seemed so much bigger in the Nightside because it was so much closer here," I said finally. "Perhaps… it finally fell. Dear Jesus, how far forward have we come?"

"If the stars are gone," Joanna said softly, "do you suppose our sun has gone out too?"

"I don't know what to think…"

"But…"

"We're wasting time," I said roughly. "Asking questions we have no way of answering. It doesn't matter. We're not staying. I've got the far boundary fixed in my head. I'm taking you there, and we are getting the hell out of here, and back to where we belong."

"Wait a minute," said Joanna. "The far boundary? Why can't we just turn around and go back the way we came, through the door that brought us here?"

"It's not that simple," I said. "Once a Timeslip has established itself, nothing less than an edict from the Courts of the Holy is going to shift it. It's here for the duration. If we go back, we'll just re-emerge by the Fortress again, and the Timeslip will still be between us and Blaiston Street. We'd have to go around the Timeslip to reach Blaiston Street, and for that we'll need a fairly major player to map the Timeslip's extent and affected area. Or we'll just keep ending up here again."

"How long could such a mapping take?"

"Good question. Even if we could find someone powerful enough who wouldn't charge us an arm and a leg, and could fit it into his schedule straightaway… we're talking days, maybe even weeks."

"How big could a Timeslip be?"

"Another good question. Maybe miles."

"That's ridiculous," said Joanna. "There must be another way of reaching Blaiston Street!"

I shook my head reluctantly. "The Timeslip's connected to Blaiston Street, on some level. I can feel it. Which makes me think this can't be coincidental. Someone, or something, is protecting its territory. It doesn't want us interfering. No. Our best bet is to cross this space to the far boundary, where I can force an opening, and we should emerge right next to Blaiston Street. Shouldn't be too difficult. This is all pretty unpleasant, but I don't see any obvious dangers. Just stick with me. My gift will guide us right there."

Joanna looked at me, and I looked back, trying hard to seem confident. Truth be told, I was just winging it, going by my guts and my instincts. In the end, she looked away first, staring unhappily about her.

"I hate this place," she said flatly. "We don't belong here. No-one does, any more. But Cathy's been gone too long already, so… Which way?"

I pointed straight ahead, and we set off together.

Joanna held her lighter out before her, but the yellow glow didn't travel far at all. The small flame stood still and upright, untroubled by even the slightest murmur of breeze. I tried not to think about how much longer it would last. The purple light around us seemed even darker in comparison. I was feeling colder all the time, as though the empty night was leeching all the human warmth out of me. I would have improvised a rough torch of some kind, but I hadn't seen any wood anywhere. Just bricks and rubble, and the endless dust.

The quiet was getting on my nerves. It just wasn't natural, to be so completely quiet. This was the quiet of the tomb. Of the grave. It had an almost anticipatory quality, as though somewhere off in the darkest and deepest of the shadows, something was watching, and waiting, and biding its time to attack. The city might be empty, but that didn't mean the night was. I was reminded suddenly of how I'd felt as a small child, when my father would put me to bed at night and turn out the light. Back when he still cared enough, and was sober enough, to do such things. Children know the secret of the dark. They know it has monsters in it, which might or might not choose to reveal themselves. Now here we were, in the darkest night of all; and more and more I was convinced something was watching us. There are always monsters. That's the first thing you learn, in the Nightside.

Some of them look just like you and me.

Perhaps the monster here was London itself. The dead city, resenting the return of the living. Or maybe the monster was just loneliness. A man and a woman, in a place that life had left behind. Man isn't meant to be alone.

Our footsteps seemed to grow louder and more carrying as we made our way down what had once been a main street. The dust should have absorbed the sound. There was enough of it. It was everywhere, thick layers of it, undisturbed for God alone knew how long. It was at its worst in the street, but we'd learned the hard way that we had no choice but to stick to the very middle of the street. Buildings had a tendency to collapse, if we got too close. Just the vibrations of our tread were enough to disturb their precarious rest, and whole sections of wall would crumble and fall away, crashing to the ground in great angry clouds of the grey dust. I picked up one brick, and it fell apart in my hand. I tried to work out how ancient it must be, to have become so delicate, but the answers I came up with made no sense. The human mind isn't comfortable with numbers that big.

Just when I thought I was finally coming to terms with where and when I was, things got worse. I started hearing things. Sounds, noises, so faint at first I thought I'd imagined them. But soon they were coming from all around us, from before and behind, subtle, disturbing sounds that seemed to be gradually creeping closer. I don't have that good an imagination. The sounds were almost familiar, but not quite, giving them a strange, sinister feel. And all the time, drawing gradually, remorselessly, closer. I didn't turn my head, but my eyes probed every shadow as I approached it. Nothing. I increased our pace, and the sounds kept right up with me. Following us, tracking us, keeping their distance for the moment, but never too far away. My hands were sweating now. Clattering, chattering noises, that I could almost put a name to. Joanna had picked up on them too, and was glaring openly about her. The flame in the lighter flickered so wildly I was afraid it would go out, and I put a hand on her arm, ostensibly to slow our pace again.

"What the hell is that?" she said fiercely. "Could there be something here with us, after all? Something alive?"

"I don't know. But the sound's coming from a lot of directions at once, which suggests that there's a lot of them, and they're all around us." I glared at the shadows from which the ruins grew, but I couldn't make out a damned thing. Anything could have been hiding in there. Anything at all. I was getting less happy by the minute. "Whatever they are, they seem to be content for the moment to keep their distance. Could be they're more afraid of us than we are of them."

"Don't take bets on it," said Joanna. "How much further to the boundary?"

I checked with my gift. "Half an hour's walk. Maybe half that, if we run. But running might send the wrong message."

She looked at me abruptly. "Could it be the Harrowing, after you again?"

I shook my head firmly. "Not so soon after Razor Eddie's little message. Whoever's behind the Harrowing will want to consider the ramifications of that for a while. I would. Even the major players can get really twitchy whenever Razor Eddie's name comes up. Besides, the Harrowing have never been able to track me that accurately. Or I wouldn't have survived this long. Maybe… it's insects. I always thought that if anything would outlast Humanity, it would be the bloody insects. Scientists were always saying the damn things would be the only creatures to survive a nuclear war. It could well be insects. Damn. I hate creepy-crawlies."

"You're sure it couldn't be anything human? Maybe some other poor soul who got sucked into the Timeslip, maybe hurt and trapped and trying to get our attention?"

I scowled. I should have thought of that. Unlikely, but… I sent my gift out into the night, trying to find the source of the sounds, and to my astonishment I locked on to a human trace straightaway. We had to be right on top of him.

"There is someone here! A man… one man, on his own. Not moving. Could be hurt… this way."

I ran down the street, clouds of dust billowing up around my pounding feet, Joanna right there at my side. I was starting to get used to that. I kind of liked it. We lost track of the sounds around us, caught up in the excitement of finding another human being alive in this awful, dead place. Could be a visitor, could be a survivor… could be the answer to a whole lot of questions. And it could be just some poor soul who needed help. First things first. My gift tracked his location as accurately as any radar, leading us off the main street and down a side alley. We slowed to a walk immediately, for fear our footsteps would bring down the brick walls on either side of the alley. But the walls stood firm, not even trembling as we passed.

Finally, we came to a halt beside a large ragged hole in the left-hand wall. The jagged edges of the hole made it seem… organic, more like a wound than an entrance. I prodded a protruding brick with a careful fingertip, but it didn't crumble at my touch. Odd. It was very dark beyond the hole, and the air had a faint but distinct mouldy smell. I gestured for Joanna to hold her lighter closer, but the light didn't penetrate more than an inch or two.

"He's in there?" said Joanna. "Are you sure? It's pitch-black… and I can't hear anything."

"He's in there," I said firmly. "My gift is never wrong about such things. But it does feel… odd." I put my head cautiously into the hole. "Hello? Can you hear me? Hello!"

We waited, but there was no reply. The brickwork didn't even shudder at the vibrations of my raised voice. As I listened, I realised the faint sounds that had been following us had stopped. I told myself we'd left them behind, but I wasn't convinced. I pulled my head back and studied the hole in the wall. The more I looked at the situation, the less I liked it. The whole thing smelled of a trap, with the (possibly) injured man as bait. There could be anything waiting in the darkness beyond the hole. But there was definitely a man in there, even if he wasn't answering, and if he was hurt… we could be his only chance. And I was damned if I'd abandon anyone here in this Godforsaken place. So… I took a deep breath, the smell of mould tickling my nostrils and the back of my throat, and then I eased myself cautiously through the hole in the wall. It was a tight fit. I found the floor with my foot and stepped into the utter darkness of the room beyond. I stood very still for a long moment, listening, but there was no reaction anywhere. I stepped aside, and Joanna followed me in, bringing the feeble yellow light with her.

It looked like two rooms had been knocked through into one, and pretty messily at that. There were dark objects all over the floor. They didn't look like bricks, but I didn't feel like touching them to find out what they were, so I stepped carefully round them as I moved further into the room. The air was close and foul, dry and acrid, but with an underlying scent of decay, as though something had died here, not that long ago. There was no dust on the floor, but the bare brick walls were thick with ugly mounds of grey furry mould. I kept moving, following my gift, Joanna holding her lighter out before us. Shadows danced menacingly around us. It soon became clear we were heading for the far corner, occupied by what seemed to be a huge, dirty grey cocoon. It filled the corner from floor to ceiling; nine feet tall and three feet wide. I thought about what kind of insect might emerge from a cocoon of such size, and then decided very firmly that I wasn't going to think about that any more. Hate creepy-crawlies. I kept looking around for the subject of our search, but he was nowhere to be seen, despite my gift urging me forward.

Until finally we were standing right in front of the cocoon, glistening palely in the glow from the lighter, and there was nowhere else to go.

"Tell me you're not thinking what I'm thinking," said Joanna.

"He's in there," I said reluctantly. "He's still alive. Alive, and in there… because there's nowhere else he can be."

I swallowed hard, and reached out one hand to the cocoon. The material was hot and sweaty to the touch, something like silk, something like spiderweb, and my flesh crawled instinctively just at the feel of it. I grabbed a handful at about head height, and tore it away by brute strength. The horrid stuff clung stickily to my fingers, stretching unnaturally rather than breaking, and it took all my strength to open up a hole in the outer layer of the cocoon. There was a face underneath. A human face. The skin was grey, the eyes were closed. I hesitated, sure he must be dead, even though my gift was never wrong, and then the eyelids quivered, as though the eyes were trying to open.

I thrust both hands into the hole I'd made and tore the material away from his face. It fought me, clinging to my fingers and the face, trying to repair the broken threads even as I tore them apart. I yelled for Joanna to help, and between us we broke open a larger gap, freeing the head and shoulders. I pulled the last of the stuff away from the face, the eyes finally opened, and I was forced to admit that I knew the face. It was older than I remembered, and much more lined, and the eyes held more horror than I ever want to think about, but it was still, clearly, Razor Eddie.

His eyes slowly came into focus as they looked at me. I scrubbed the last sticky traces from his face with Joanna's handkerchief. The eyes were aware, but that was all. There was no recognition in them, no sense of self, of humanity. Joanna and I talked loudly and comfortingly as we forced open the cocoon, splitting it apart inch by inch, until finally we had an opening large enough to drag him out of. His whole body was limp, unresponsive. He was wearing his old grey coat, even more of a mess than I remembered, much holed and tattered, soaked with slime and darkened with what looked like a whole lot of bloodstains.

We hauled him away from the cocoon, but his legs wouldn't work, so we had to lower him to the floor and set him down with his back against the wall to support him. He was breathing heavily now, great gasping breaths, as though he wasn't used to it. I didn't even want to guess how long he'd been in the cocoon, or what it had done to him. I had a hundred questions, but I kept talking calmly, trying to reach Eddie, bring him up out of the place he'd had to hide in, deep inside himself, for the sake of his own sanity. His eyes fixed on me, ignoring Joanna.

"It's all right, Eddie," I said. "It's me. John Taylor. You're out of that… thing. You get your strength back, and your legs working, and we'll get you out of here and back to the Nightside. Eddie? Can you hear me, Eddie?"

A slow knowledge came into his unblinking eyes, though the horror never quite left them. His mouth worked slowly. I leaned closer, to hear his quiet voice. It was rough and harsh, and painful, as though he hadn't used it in a long, long time.

"John… Taylor. After all this time. You… bastard. God damn you to Hell."

"What?" I jerked back, shocked, sure he must have misunderstood. "I'm going to get you out of here, Eddie. It's going to be all right."

"It'll never be all right… Never again. This is all your fault. All of this."

"Eddie…"

"I should have killed you… when I had the chance. Before you… destroyed us all."

"What are you talking about?" Joanna said angrily. "We only just got here! He hasn't done anything! This is a Timeslip!"

"Then damn you, John… for what you will do."

"You're blaming me for this?" I said slowly. "You're blaming me… for something I haven't even done yet? Eddie, you must know I'd never do anything to bring the world to this. The end of everything. Not by choice, anyway. You have to tell me. Tell me what to do, to prevent this happening."

Razor Eddie's mouth moved in a slow, utterly mirthless smile. "Kill yourself."

"You betrayed John to the Harrowing," said Joanna. "Why should we believe anything you say? Maybe we should forget about rescuing you. Just stick you back in the cocoon again."

"That's not going to happen, Eddie," I said quickly, as the horror filled his eyes again. "Come with us. Help us prevent this. We're not far from the Timeslip's boundary. I can crack it open, get us home again. Back where we belong."

"Back… into the past?"

That stopped me for a moment. If this Eddie had got here the hard way, the long way, could I risk taking him back? Would the Nightside accept two Razor Eddies? I pushed the thought aside. It didn't matter. There was no way I was going to leave Eddie here. In the dark. In the cocoon. Some things you just can't do and still call yourself a man.

We got him on his feet, and this time his legs supported him. Even after all he'd been through, he was still Razor Eddie, and tough as nails. Joanna and I helped him across the room, pushed and pulled him through the hole in the wall, and out into the alley. As soon as we were all out into the night, the sounds started up again. Eddie actually cringed for a moment as he heard them, but only for a moment. His gaze was steady now, and his mouth was firm. By the time we reached the main street again, he was walking on his own. Something had broken him, something awful, but he was still Razor Eddie.

"How did you end up the only living person here?" I said finally. "When is this, anyway? How far in my future? I've just come back into the Nightside, after five years away. Does that help you date it? Dammit, Eddie, how many centuries have passed, since the city fell?"

"Centuries?" said Eddie. "It seems like centuries. But I've always had a good grasp of time. Not centuries, John. It's only been eighty-two years since you betrayed us all, and the Nightside fell."

Joanna and I looked at each other, and then out over the deserted city. The crumbling buildings, the starless, moonless night.

"How could all this have happened in just eighty-two years?" I said.

"You were very thorough, John. All of this is down to you. Because of what you did." Eddie tried to sound more accusing, but he was just too tired. "All Humanity is dead… thanks to you. The world is dead. Cold and corrupt, the only remaining life… like maggots writhing in a rotten fruit. And only I am left… to tell the tale. Because I can't die. Part of the deal I made… all those years ago. On the Street of the Gods. Fool. Damned fool. I have lived long enough… to see the end of everything and everyone I ever cared for. To see all my dreams dashed, and made into nightmares. And now I want so badly to die… and I can't."

"What did John do?" Joanna said urgently. "What could he have done… to bring about this?"

"You should never have gone looking for your mother," said Eddie. "You couldn't cope, with what you found. You couldn't cope with the truth."

"Hang in there, Eddie," I said lamely. "You're going home. Back in Time, to the Nightside as it was. And I swear to you… we'll find a way to prevent this. I'll die, rather than let this happen."

Razor Eddie turned his head away and wouldn't look at me. He breathed deeply of the relatively fresh air, as though it had been a long time since he'd breathed anything like it. He was walking more or less normally now, and we were making a good pace as I headed us towards the boundary. But we were still in the same street when it all went to hell.

They came up out of holes in the ground, before and behind and all around us. Dark and glistening, squeezing and forcing their flexible bodies through the ragged openings in the dusty ground. We stopped dead in our tracks, looking quickly around us. And everywhere there were long spindly legs, hard-shelled bodies, compound eyes, grinding teeth and clattering mandibles, and long, quivering antennae. Insects, of all shapes and breeds, species I'd never seen before, all horribly, unnaturally large. More of them came scuttling and scurrying out of the ruined buildings, or skittering down the crumbling walls, light as a breath of air for all their size, joining the hundreds and hundreds already circling us, hopping and seething in a living carpet, covering the ground. The smallest were six inches long, the largest two and even three feet in length, with great serrated mandibles that looked sharp enough and strong enough to take off a man's arm or leg in a single vicious bite. Sometimes the insects crawled right over each other to get a better look at us, but for the moment at least they maintained a safe distance.

I could feel my gorge rising. I really can't stand creepy-crawlies.

"Well," I made myself say lightly, "I always thought insects would end up inheriting the world. Just never thought they'd be so bloody big."

"Cockroaches," said Joanna, her voice thick with loathing and disgust. "Revolting things. I should have stomped on more when I had the chance." She waved her cigarette lighter at the nearest insects, and they actually seemed to shrink back a little. It had to be the light. It wasn't any real threat now, but their instincts remembered. Maybe we could use it to open up a path, make a run for it… I glanced at Eddie, to see how he was doing, and was horrified to discover he was quietly crying. What had they done to him? The great and terrible Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor, reduced to tears by a bunch of bloody bugs? I was suddenly so angry I couldn't speak. Somehow, before I left this place, there was going to be some serious payback.

"This… is disgusting," said Joanna. "We've come to where the really wild things are. Nature at its most basic and appalling."

"Got that right," said a familiar, cheerful and self-satisfied voice. I looked round sharply, and there he was, in a little circle entirely clear of insects — the Collector. An old acquaintance of mine, from before I left the Nightside. Not a friend. I don't think the Collector has friends. Got a hell of a lot of enemies, though. He was currently dressed as a gangster from the Roaring Twenties; every detail correct, from the white spats on his shoes to the overbearing colour scheme of the waistcoat, to the snap-brimmed hat. But he was at least thirty pounds too heavy for the suit, and his stomach strained against the half-buttoned waistcoat. As always there was an impression of the utterly false about him. Of someone hiding behind a whole series of masks. His face was almost painfully florid, his eyes gleamed fiercely, and his smile was totally insincere. No change there, then. Warm yellow sunlight surrounded him, from no obvious source, and the insects gave it plenty of room.

"What the hell are you doing here, Collector?" I said. "And who did you steal that incredibly vulgar suit from?"

"It is rather good, isn't it?" said the Collector smugly. "It's an original Al Capone, acquired from his very own wardrobe when he wasn't looking. He won't miss it. He had twenty others just like it. I even have a letter of authentification, from Capone's tailor." He beamed about him, not in the least disturbed by his surroundings. "We do meet in the strangest places, don't we, John?"

"Do I take it you know this person?" said Joanna, looking at me almost accusingly.

"This is the Collector," I explained resignedly.

"You name it and he collects it; even if it's nailed down and surrounded by barbed wire. Nothing too rare or too obscure but he hasn't got a line on it. He has an endless appetite for the unique item, and the thrill of the chase. Word is he gets off just indexing his hoard. The Collector, thief, con man, cheat, and quite possibly the most conscienceless individual in the Nightside. There's nothing he won't go after, no matter how precious it might be to other people. I know other collectors, not in his league, who'd give everything they owned, and everything you owned, just for a tour of the Collector's famous and very well hidden warehouse. How's it going, Collector? Found the Phoenix's Egg yet?"

He shrugged. "Hard to tell, until it hatches." He turned his entirely unconvincing smile on Joanna. "You don't want to believe everything you hear about me, my dear. I am a very misunderstood man."

"No you're not," I said. "You're a grave robber, a miser and a meddler in history. Archaeologists use your name to frighten their children. You don't care who gets hurt, as long as you get what you want."

"I save things that would otherwise disappear into the mists of history," said the Collector, unperturbed. "One day I'll open a museum in the Nightside, so everyone can appreciate my treasures… But for the moment there are just too many competitors, jealous people, who would cheerfully rob me blind."

"What are you doing here, Collector?" I said. "I wouldn't have thought there was anything valuable left here for you to appropriate."

"You have such limited vision, John," said the Collector, shaking his head sadly. "Surrounded by treasures, and so blind to them. Look around you. There are species of insect here unknown to the world we came from. Unique variations, unavailable anywhere else. I know collectors who speculate in insects who will piss blood when they hear what I've got. I'll take back a few duplicates, of course, to auction off for utterly extortionate prices. Travelling in Time can be so expensive these days."

"Time travel?" Joanna said quickly. "You have a time machine?"

"Nothing so crude," said the Collector. "Though I do have rather a nice display of some of the more rococo mechanisms… No, I have a gift. Many do, in the Nightside. Dear John here finds things, Eddie kills with a razor that no-one ever sees… and I flit back and forth in Time. It's how I've been able to acquire so many lovely pieces. But to answer your next question; no, I don't carry passengers. How did you get here, John?"

"Timeslip," I said. "I was heading for the boundary when these insects appeared. When exactly are you from, Collector?"

"You've just left the Nightside," said the Collector. "In something of a hurry, swearing never to return. Do I take it you're back?"

"Five years up the line, after you left," I said. "I'm back, and my mood has not improved."

"Can't say I'm surprised," said the Collector. He grinned happily about him. "Ah, so many beauties, I don't know where to start. I can't wait to get them back to my warehouse and start pinning them to display boards!"

Joanna snorted. "Hope you brought a really big killing bottle."

The insects were stirring restlessly all around us, antennae twitching with dangerous agitation. I decided to get to the point. "Collector, Eddie says we're only eighty-two years in my future, but everything here is destroyed. Do you know what brought this about?"

The Collector spread his fat, nail-bitten hands in an innocent gesture. "There are so many futures, so many possible timelines. This is just one possibility. If it's any comfort, there's nothing inevitable about this."

"You knew this future well enough for your gift to bring you here," I said. "You knew about the insects. Talk to me, Collector. Before I get upset with you."

The Collector just kept on smiling his insufferable self-satisfied smile. "You're in no position to make threats, John. In fact, you don't even recognise just how much danger you're in. You're right; I have studied these insects, from a safe distance. I know why they're so interested in us. In humans. I even know why they haven't just killed you. I'm afraid it's rather an unpleasant reason, but then, that's insects for you. Such wonderfully uncluttered minds. No room for fear, or other emotions. They don't even bother with sentience, as we understand it. They're concerned only with survival. I've always admired their ruthlessness. Their single-minded, implacable nature."

"You always were strange," I said. "Get to the point." It seemed to me that the insects around us were edging closer.

"You never studied," said the Collector. "Insects lay their eggs in host bodies. Non-insect host bodies. The eggs grow and hatch inside the host, and the larvae then eat their way out. A bit hard on the host, of course, but… Nasty, totally without conscience and compassion, and utterly insect. However, the only living species left in this future world are insects. So all they've got left to use for a host is… that unfortunate fellow with you. For eighty-two years now, the undying form of Razor Eddie has been host to generation after generation of insects. Eggs go in, larvae with teeth come out, and the insect race survives. Rather unpleasant for poor Eddie, of course, eaten alive over and over again, but then… I never liked him."

I didn't look at Eddie. He didn't need to see my shock and horror at what had been done to him. Especially if it really was my fault. I knew now why the insects had kept him imprisoned in a cocoon. They couldn't risk his finding a way to kill himself. I was so angry then… if I'd been big enough, I'd have stamped on every damned insect in the world.

"And now here you are, John," said the Collector. "You and your lady friend. New hosts, for more insect young. I shouldn't think you'll last anywhere near as long as Eddie, but I'm sure they'll make good use of you, while you do last. I suppose I could help you escape… but then, I never liked you much either, John."

Razor Eddie cried out suddenly, his back arching, his whole body shaking and shuddering. I grabbed him by the shoulders, but his spasms were so violent I couldn't hold on to him. He fell to the ground, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out again, but his eyes were leaking tears in spite of him. I knelt beside him. I think I already knew what was happening. I didn't back away as hundreds of insect young the size of thumbs burst out of his flesh, eating their way out of his convulsing body. Black soft squishy things, with teeth like tiny razors. They even came out through his eyes. His coat soaked up most of the blood. Joanna fell to one knee and vomited, but still managed to hang on to her lighter. I grabbed handfuls of the emerging larvae and crushed them viciously. Their innards ran down my wrists, but there were just too many of them.

"What can I do, Eddie?" I said desperately, but he couldn't hear me.

"Only one thing you can do," the Collector said reasonably. "Kill him. Put him out of his long misery. Except, of course, you can't. This is after all the remarkable Razor Eddie, who cannot die. Take a good look at him, John. Once that cigarette lighter runs out of fuel, they'll come for you… and this will be your future, and hers, for as long as they can make you last…"

I pushed his hateful words aside, concentrating on my gift. If there was anything that could still kill Razor Eddie, and give him peace at last, my gift would find it. It didn't take long. Pretty obvious, once I had the answer. The only thing that could kill Eddie was his own straight razor. The weapon that no-one ever saw. I already knew it wouldn't be anywhere about his person, or he'd have used it on himself before now. The insects couldn't separate him from it, either. Eddie and his Razor were bound together by a pact only a god could break. I focused my gift further, and there it was, in the one place the insects could put it that Eddie couldn't reach it. They'd buried it deep inside his own body, in his guts.

I made myself act without thinking, without feeling. I thrust my hand into one of the insects' exit wounds, forcing it open, and then drove my hand deep into Eddie's guts, not listening as he screamed, holding him down with all my weight as he kicked. Joanna was dry-heaving by now, but she couldn't bring herself to look away. My arm was bloody up to the elbow by the time my fingers closed around the pearl handle of the old-fashioned straight razor, and Eddie howled like a damned thing as I pulled my hand back out again. Blood dripped thickly from my fingers and my prize. Eddie lay shuddering, moaning quietly. I opened the razor and set the edge against his throat, and I like to think there was gratitude in his eyes.

"Good-bye, Eddie," I said softly. "I'm so sorry. Trust me. I won't let this happen."

"How very sentimental," said the Collector, "but you haven't really thought this through, have you?" I didn't need to look round to know that he was enjoying every moment of this. "You see, if you destroy the insects' only host, and then remove yourself and the woman from this Time, you will be condemning every species here to extinction. Are you really ready to commit genocide, to wipe out the only living things left on the earth?"

"Hell yes," I said, and Razor Eddie didn't even twitch as I cut his throat, pressing down so hard with the blade that I could feel the steel edge grate against his neckbones. I needed to be sure. Blood pumped out under pressure, soaking his clothes and mine, and the dusty ground around us. Eddie lay there peacefully as he died, and afterwards I held him in my arms and cried the tears he couldn't. Because for all our differences, and there had been many, he had always been my friend. When the very last of his life went out of him with a sigh, his razor disappeared from my hand. I lowered his body to the ground and clambered unsteadily to my feet. The Collector was looking at me, utterly stupefied.

"Hate creepy-crawlies," I explained.

The insects screamed suddenly; a shrill inhuman sound that filled the purple night. It had taken them a while, but they'd finally understood the significance of what I'd done. The scream rose and rose as more and more of them took it up, until it seemed to be coming from everywhere in the desolate city. I smiled my old smile, my devilish smile, and the Collector flinched at the sight of it. The insects were boiling all around us, pressing right up to the limits of the yellow light. I had just murdered all their future generations… unless they could find a way to make use of me, and Joanna. I checked the distance to the far boundary again. Fifteen minutes' running time, maybe ten, depending on how motivated we were. As long as the lighter fuel held out.

The Collector cried out suddenly as holes opened up in the ground around his feet. The insects down below weren't intimidated by his light, and they had finally come for him. One of the Collector's legs plunged down into a gaping hole, and he cried out in pain and shock as unseen jaws sank deep into the meat of his leg. More holes opened up in the ground around me and Joanna, but I had already hauled her to her feet by main force, and we were off and running. We left Eddie's body behind. He was past caring, at last. And already decaying, as the long years finally caught up with him.

We ran past the Collector, who was screaming shrilly as he scrabbled in his suit pockets for something. He finally pulled out a shiny canister, and sprayed the contents down the hole. More of the insects screamed underground, and the Collector was able to pull his leg free. Huge chunks of flesh were missing, the cracked bone clear among red strings of meat. The Collector whimpered, and then sprayed his canister wildly about him as more holes opened up. The light he stood in was flickering unsteadily now as his concentration wavered. He swore briefly, like a disappointed child, and vanished, back into Time. The light snapped off, and the insects charged forward, coming after Joanna and me as we ran for the boundary.

Joanna was back in control again, her face grim and focused as she held the lighter out before her, almost like a cross to ward off the undead. It seemed to me the flame was smaller than it had been, but I didn't say anything. Either it would last, or it wouldn't. Insects crowded in all around us, scrambling over each other in their eagerness to get at us, but still they couldn't bring themselves to enter the gradually shrinking pool of yellow light. There were some the size of dogs, and some the size of pigs, and I hated them all. Joanna and I ran straight at them, and they fell aside at the very last moment, huge dark mandibles snapping shut like bear traps. I glanced again at Joanna's lighter, and didn't like what I saw. The flame wasn't going to last until we reached the boundary, and if it didn't, neither would we. So I called on my gift one more time, to find a path of power.

There are lots of them, in the Nightside, with lots of names; from the uber science of the ley lines to the shimmering magic of the Rainbow Run, there have always been roads of glory, hidden from all but the keenest of gazes, holding the substance of the world together with their immaterial energies. If you had the courage to run them, you could gain your heart's desire. Supposedly. And even now, in this desolate and deserted place, the paths of power remained. My gift locked on to one that led right to the Timeslip boundary, and called it up into existence. A bright, vivid, scintillating path appeared before us, and the insects fell back from the new light as though they'd been burned. Joanna and I ran on, hand in hand, pushing ourselves hard, and sparks flew up from our pounding feet.

But I was already slowing. Using the gift had taken a lot out of me, at the end of a long, hard day. I'd used my gift too often, pushed it too hard, and I was paying the price now. My head was throbbing so hard I could barely see anything outside of the path, and blood ran steadily from both my nostrils and dripped from my chin. My legs felt very far away. Joanna was having to drag me along now, keeping me moving through sheer determination. I could feel the boundary drawing closer, but it still seemed a hell of a way off. Like in those dreams where you run as hard as you can, and still never get anywhere. Joanna was yelling at me now, but I could hardly hear her. And the insects were all around us, a scuttling carpet of dark intent.

I was tired and hurting, but even so I was surprised when my legs just suddenly gave out, and I fell. I hit the glory path hard, and small shocks ran through me, none of them enough to get me back on my feet again. So close, the magic was almost painful. The insects surged right up to the edge of the light, staring at me with expressionless compound eyes. Joanna leaned over me, and tried to raise me up, but I was too heavy. I rolled over onto my side and looked up at her.

"Get the hell out of here," I said. "I've taken you as far as I can. There's nothing more I can do for you. Boundary's straight ahead. I've already cracked an opening that will take you back to the Nightside. Go find your daughter, Joanna. And be kind to her. In memory of me."

She let go of my arm, and it dropped limply to the bright track. I couldn't even feel it.

"I won't leave you," said Joanna. "I can't just leave you."

"Of course you can. If we both die here, who'll help your daughter? Don't worry; I'll be dead before the insects get to me. I'll see to that. Maybe… by dying here, now, I can prevent this ever happening. Time's funny that way, sometimes. Now go. Please."

She stood looking down at me, and suddenly her face was utterly blank. All the emotion had gone out of it. Shell-shocked, again, perhaps. Or just considering the matter. She turned away from me, staring down the glowing path towards a boundary whose existence she could only take on faith. She was going to leave me behind, to die. I could feel it. Part of me cursed her, and part of me urged her on. I'd always known something in the Nightside would kill me, and I hated the thought that I might drag someone else down with me. And then she turned back, all the blankness gone from her face, and she grabbed me by the arm again with both hands.

"Get up!" she said fiercely. "Damn you, get up on your feet, you bastard! We haven't come this far together for you to give up now! I'm not leaving without you, so if you don't get up, you're killing me along with you. So move, damn you!"

"Well," I said, or thought I said. "If you put it that way…"

Between the two of us, we got me back on my feet again, and we staggered down the shimmering path. I kept thinking that the next step would be my last, that there just wasn't anything left in me, but Joanna kept me going. Half-supporting, half-carrying me, urging me on with comforting words and shouted obscenities. She dragged me down the path, all the way to the boundary, the insects screaming shrilly all the way, until suddenly we crashed through the crack I'd opened and back into our own Time.

We collapsed together on a rain-slick street, fighting for breath, and the wonderful roar of the living city was all around us. Bright neon and thundering traffic, and people, people everywhere. The night sky was full of the blaze of stars, and the great and glorious moon. It was good to be home. We lay side by side on the pavement, and people walked around us, ignoring the blood that soaked my clothes. The Nightside is a great place for minding your own business. I looked at the moon in its bright unblinking eye, and said sorry. Not everyone gets to see the possible results of their own future actions. The world that could be, if they really screw up. I wondered whether I should tell the present-day Razor Eddie of what I'd seen in the possible future. I thought not. There are some horrors no man should have to contemplate, not even the Punk God of the Straight Razor.

Not every future is etched in stone. I should know.

I'd seen enough, before now. But I still felt guilty, even if I didn't know what for.

You should never have gone looking for your mother. That's what the future Eddie had said. I'd always been curious about the mother who abandoned me. The woman who wasn't actually human after all. In the early hours of the morning, when a man just can't sleep, I'd often wondered if I help other people find things that matter to them because I can't find the one thing that really matters to me. Well, now I'd have something else to think about at three o'clock in the morning.

I looked at Joanna. "You know, I really thought you were going to leave me there, for a moment."

"For a moment," she said slowly, "I was. I surprised myself. I didn't know I had that kind of determination in me." She frowned. "But it was… strange. Something in me didn't want to help you. Don't ask me to explain, because I can't. It's like there's something on the tip of my tongue, a word or a memory I can't quite grasp… Oh hell, it doesn't matter. We both got out. Now let's get up off this freezing-wet pavement and go find Blaiston Street. After all we've been through to get there, I'm curious to see what it looks like. It had better be worth it."

"Cathy will be there," I said.

"And we will find her, and save her from whatever damn fool mess she's got herself into this time. Anything else can wait. Right?"

"Right," I said, not entirely sure just what it was I was agreeing to.

When I did find out it was, of course, far too late.