Hex In The City

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 Zone TV 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 goodness of 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 Times is 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.

They were human in shape, but not in nature. They wore plain suits with slouch hats, the brims pulled low to shadow their faces so they could walk unnoticed in the world of men when they chose. But here, so close to their prey, they did not bother to hide what they were. They had no faces. There was just a blank expanse of skin on the front of their heads, featureless from chin to brow. They had no eyes, but they could see me. No ears, but they could hear. No mouth or nose, but they didn't need to breathe or speak. They were fast and strong, and they never tired. I'd known them to chase and track me for miles, for hours, tearing people limb from limb just for getting in their way.

They stood unnaturally still in their circle around me, and there was no way out. The Harrowing ignored everyone else in the bar, and one by one they lifted long slender hands to show me the vicious hypodermic needles that protruded from their fingers. Drops of a dark green liquid formed at the needle tips. It wasn't enough just to kill me any more; they wanted to drag me back to wherever they came from, so they could take their time about it.

I'd been running from them of!" and on all my life. And I'd never known why.

My heart was hammering painfully fast in my chest, and my hands were shaking. I was breathing hard, and there was cold sweat on my face. I couldn't fight them. Their bodies were inhumanly strong, soft and yielding. You couldn't hurt them, break them, stop them, or even slow them down. I knew. I'd tried. They just kept on coming. I'd only ever been able to outrun them. I looked wildly at Alex.

"Call Merlin! We need Merlin back!"

"I can't," said Alex. "I'm sorry, John. He only comes when he wants. And if he wanted to be here, he'd be here by now."

"Hell with him," Sinner said cheerfully. "We don't need him. You've got us, John. So, these are the dreaded Harrowing. Nasty-looking things, but I've seen worse. Pretty Poison, if you wouldn't mind ..."

"Of course, Sidney. Anything for you."

The demon succubus smiled a happy, terrible smile, and suddenly she didn't look pretty any more. Her teeth all had points, and her eyes glowed bloodred. She held up her hands, and they had claws. She surged forward, inhumanly fast, and tore the two nearest Harrowing apart. They didn't even have time to turn before she'd ripped off both their heads, torn away their arms, slammed their bodies to the floor, and stamped on them. There was no blood, but the scattered body parts still trembled with something like life. Pretty Poison had already moved on, tearing her savage way through the circle of Harrowing. Then resilient, yielding flesh was no match for her demonic fury.

Others of the Harrowing were turning now, responding to the unexpected threat. One advanced on Sinner, only to stop suddenly, as though it had encountered a barrier it couldn't cross. Sinner looked at it sadly, and reached out to lay a hand on its blank brow. The Harrowing crumpled up like an old leaf, and fell shuddering at his feet. Madman lurched forward to confront another of the creatures, and it melted and ran away under his fierce gaze, collapsing into a pool of bubbling protoplasm.

They're weaker here, I thought slowly. This bar has powerful protections. Getting past Merlin's defences weakened them. For the first time, I have a chance ...

A new confidence flared up in me. I'd never seen the Harrowing fall so fast, except when Razor Eddie hit them. But here, now, they could be stopped. They could be destroyed. I could destroy them. There were six left, hovering uncertainly. I stepped forward, and they all turned together to orient on me.

"Let's do it," I said.

"Let's," said Alex, unexpectedly. "No-one gets to come into my bar and mess with my customers. It's bad for business. Betty, Lucy, time to earn your pay."

He came out from behind the bar hefting his enchanted baseball bat, while Betty and Lucy advanced on the Harrowing, cracking their knuckles noisily. I grinned. It's good to have friends. I turned my gaze on the Harrowing, and it seemed to me that they actually hesitated.

"You're going down," I said. "All the way down."

The four of us waded into the remaining Harrowing, and together we beat the crap out of them. It wasn't easy. Even weakened by Merlin's defences, their bodies were still unnaturally soft, soaking up punishment while they struggled to stab me with their needle fingers. I punched one in the face, and my fist sank almost to the back of its skull before I tugged it free again. Alex hit one with his bat, and the enchanted wood sank down through the head and on into the chest before it stopped. But soon we learned to attack their weak spots, their joints, sweeping the legs out from under them, then battering them to a pulp as they struggled to get to their feet again. Lucy and Betty grabbed an arm each and pulled one apart like a wishbone. I don't know if they made a wish. Alex slammed one to the floor, and I hit it with a table. We kicked the bodies back and forth across the floor, laughing breathlessly. It felt good for all of us, to have something to take out our various frustrations on. We carved them up and trampled the pieces underfoot, and it felt good, so good. I'd never beaten them before. Never.

It wasn't until later that I figured out all the implications. My enemies knew Strangefellows was protected by Merlin's magic. That's why they'd never sent the Harrowing here after me before, even though they had to know I was a regular visitor. Something had made them desperate enough to try anyway; and it wasn't difficult to guess what. In the end, we all leaned back against the bar, breathing hard, looking contentedly at the horrid mess we'd made. Twelve of the most dangerous and feared creatures in the Nightside now lay scattered across the floor of the bar in so many small, quivering body parts. We grinned at each other. I was feeling ecstatic. I'd defeated my oldest nightmares. The scattered pieces were suddenly still, then they vanished silently away, back to whatever hell produced them. We all whooped loudly, even Sinner. "Where do these things come from?" he said. "I don't know," I said. "I've never known." "Who sends them? Who are these enemies of yours?" "I've never known who they are, either. No-one knows." "Powers from the Nightside? From Outside, perhaps? Maybe even from other dimensions ..."

"I don't know!"

"Then why," said Sinner, calmly and reasonably, "don't you use your gift to track them down and identify them?"

I gaped at him blankly. The idea had honestly never occurred to me before. Unless I had considered it, but suppressed it, because it scared me so much. But now I'd seen the Harrowing defeated, now I was safe in Strangefellows, surrounded by good and powerful allies... I nodded, slowly, and opened my third eye.

This time, it was different. My gift granted me a Vision. I seemed to be a disembodied spirit, without face or form, wandering in a strange place. I drifted across a dark and devastated landscape, a place of ruins and rubble. It didn't take me long to recognise where and when I was. I had come again to a possible future for the Nightside, a silent and empty place I had experienced once before when I stumbled into a Timeslip. My Vision had brought me to the end of all things, the end of the Nightside and all civilisation.

An event I helped to bring about, or so an old dying friend had told me.

Everywhere I looked, the Nightside had been destroyed. The proud buildings had collapsed or been torn down, nothing left but cracked and broken walls, and piles of rubble. Smashed and abandoned vehicles choked the still streets. Nothing moved anywhere. The Nightside was a dead place. The light had a dark purple texture, as though bruised by what it saw and showed. In the far distance, broken buildings made stark silhouettes against the horizon. And up in the dark, dark sky there was no moon, and only a few dozen stars in all the night.

Everything looked as though it had been dead for centuries, but I knew better. The last time I was here, in the Timeslip, this future's Razor Eddie had told me I had brought down the Nightside, and the world, in just eighty-two years. Wiped out civilisation and Humanity. And all because I'd insisted on finding out who my mother was. I'd sworn an oath to that Eddie, before I killed him as a mercy, that I would never let this future happen.

My Vision leapt suddenly forward, as though my gift had finally caught the scent of what it sought. I swooped across the broken landscape, shooting between the wrecked stumps of buildings, focussing in on one particular location. My final destination was a cracked crumbling house, nothing obviously different about it, but I knew that was where I had to be. It was where I would find my enemies. There was no light showing at any of the shuttered windows, but I could tell there was light and life inside. Hidden, barricaded against the dark. As I drifted towards the house, another piece of knowledge came to me. My Vision had brought me into a time some years previous to my , appearance in the Timeslip. Humanity was not all dead here. Not yet. I drifted through the crumbling walls and on into a small, desperately defended inner room, lit only by flickering stumps of candles. And then, finally, I saw my enemies.

And I knew them.

My enemies were the last remaining major players of this future time, the last defenders of the Nightside, pooling their remaining power and working frantically together to try and destroy me in the Past, before I could do... whatever terrible thing it was that I had done. My Vision could only tell me so much. My enemies were trying to kill me in order to save the Nightside, and the world.

They sat together around a simple iron brazier, huddling around the heat, binding the last remnants of their power together with unsteady words and shaking hands, while from outside the house came horrible, threatening sounds. They paused briefly, listening. I could hear what they heard. Something large and heavy was moving, out in the dark purple night, drawing slowly closer. And from the awful sounds it made, I was glad I couldn't see it. The handful of ragged figures in the room froze where they were, fear written clearly in their malnourished faces, not daring to speak or even move for fear of being detected; but eventually the awful thing outside moved on. Their defences still shielded them, for now.

Whatever it was that had brought the Nightside down, it wasn't over yet. Though just as clearly, Life was losing. I hung above my enemies, unseen and unsuspected, and listened while they spoke of the monsters from Outside, abroad in the night, everywhere. Apparently there were still other small enclaves of resistance, scattered among the ruins, but they were failing, one by one. Nothing had been heard from them, for months. This small group, in this small room, was quite possibly the last hope of Humanity. If they failed and died, there would be nothing left living in the Nightside but the insects, which were already changing and mutating under the terrible forces released by the War.

It was hard to look upon the handful of pitiful forms that had once been the major players of my day. Jessica Sorrow, no longer the terrible Unbeliever, looked almost human here, though still painfully skinny. She wore a battered black leather jacket and leggings, and hugged an ancient battered teddy bear in her arms. I'd found the bear for her, to help restore her lost humanity. And now she used it as a focus to help the group locate me in the Past. Next to her was Larry Oblivion, the dead detective, wrapped in the tattered remains of what had once been a very smart suit.

He said quietly that he wished he could have died fully, like his brother Tommy, rather than witness what the Nightside had come to. Jessica put an arm across his shoulders and hugged him listlessly.

Count Video warmed his wrinkled hands at the brazier. He'd had his skin stitched back on, after the angel war, the sutures making grotesque designs around the familiar neu-rotech, silicon nodes, and circuitry patches soldered to his flesh. Strange energies formed a shifting halo around his head. He wore nothing but a series of leather straps, crisscrossing his skinny body, tightly buckled. Perhaps they held him together.

King of Skin was just a man now, stripped of his terrible glamour. Objects of power hung about him on silver chains, half-hidden in the thick pelt of his fur coat. He had a crystal ball in his hands, but it was a poor thing, disfigured with cracks and scorings. He twitched and shuddered at every sudden sound, his eyes rolling pitifully in his head.

Annie Abattoir wore the remains of a wine-dark evening dress, the cutaway back showing the mystic sigils carved into the flesh between her shoulder blades. I wasn't surprised to see her here. Annie had always been very hard to kill, though many had tried. Six-foot-two, and mostly muscle, even now, she still looked somehow ... diminished. The War had worn her down. She kept a bowl of blood beside her and used it to refresh the lines of the pentacle around the brazier. She refilled the bowl from a vein she'd opened in her arm.

I listened to them speak, their voices just whispers, drifting to me from far away.

"The Sending has failed," said Jessica. "Our agents have been destroyed."

"All twelve?" said Count Video. "That's never happened before. He must have gathered new allies. Powerful companions."

"Perhaps he grows stronger," said Larry Oblivion. "As his time approaches. Should we try again?"

"No," said Annie Abattoir. "It's too soon. We're too weak. Wait, and gather strength. There is still time."

"We always knew forcing our way past Merlin's spells was a risk," said Jessica.

"I miss him," said King of Skin, his mouth trembling. "He gave us hope. He fought so bravely. When they finally dragged Merlin down, and ate his heart right in front of him, a part of me died with him. He was the best of us, at the end."

"He always believed Arthur would return, to save us," said Jessica.

"Well if he is coming back, he'd better get a move on," said Count Video, and they all managed some kind of smile.

Who could they be fighting? I thought. Who could this War be against, that could destroy a mighty Power like Merlin Satanspawn? What's out there, in the night?

"We must make more Harrowing," said Annie. "We must be ready for another Sending, when the opportunity presents itself."

"We already have one body," said King of Skin.

"We can't use him!" Jessica said immediately. "You can't! He was one of us."

"He's just a body now," said Annie. "It's what he would have wanted. You know that. You know how dangerous it is for any of us to go out into the night to dig bodies out of the rubble. Can't make homunculi without bodies."

"But not Julien Advent," said Jessica.

"He was always ready to serve," said Larry. "To be the hero. This is his last chance. You don't have to work on the body if you don't want to."

I missed what they said after that. I was in shock. Julien Advent, the legendary Victorian Adventurer, one of my enemies? He might have disapproved of me from time to time, but we had always been friends and allies. Fought the good fight side by side ... How could he have become a part of this? He would never have sided with murder or betrayal ... unless the stakes were so high his conscience gave him no choice. Unless all the other alternatives were so much worse. And if Julien were to become a Harrowing ... I had to face the possibility that maybe other Harrowing I'd encountered in the past had been made out of the bodies of friends of mine.

I remembered when I first discovered the name of the creatures that had been hunting me on and off since I was a child. The oracle in the mall's wishing well had given me the name, in return for a price I still regretted paying. And years later, Julien had been the one who explained what the name meant. Harrow had been an old Victorian word, meaning to harass, to harry, to chase down. Had Julien Advent been the first to give them that name, here in the future?

"I still say we should just kill John," said Annie Abattoir, dripping blood from her arm into her bowl. "He's too dangerous to take chances with."

"No," Jessica said immediately. "He's too close to becoming now. We have to bring him back here alive, and question him. We have to understand why he did ... what he did. Drugged and helpless, he will tell, eventually. And maybe then we'll be able to figure out a way to stop all this happening."

"And afterwards, we'll kill him," said King of Skin.

"Yes," said Count Video. "For all his sins. For the death of the world. For being his mother's son."

And with that the Vision broke, and I was suddenly back in Strangefellows again. I was standing in the middle of the room, shaking and shuddering, cold sweat dripping off my face. Sinner had an arm around me, holding me up. Alex was offering me a new glass of brandy. I took it gratefully, gulping it down, the glass chattering against my teeth. I was in shock—too many truths, too fast.

I told them some of what I'd Seen and heard, but not all. There were things they didn't need to know. Things ... I couldn't trust them with. They were almost as shocked as I was, and they all looked at me in a new way, even Madman. The man who would destroy the Nightside. I couldn't blame them. Could my enemies actually be the good guys, after all? Desperately trying to prevent a catastrophe, in the only way left to them?

I had given that future's Razor Eddie my word that I would die before I allowed that terrible future to happen; but could I have already set things in motion by taking on this case? If discovering the origins of the Nightside was tied in with the mystery of my mother's identity, could pursuing this case be the first domino that sent all the others toppling?

"Timeslips are only potential futures," said Alex. "Everyone knows that."

"They're just possibilities," said Sinner. "Time has more branches than a tree."

I shook my head. "The fact that my lifelong enemies are rooted in this particular future means it has to be more probable than most."

"So what are you going to do?" said Alex.

"It's up to you," said Sinner. "Whether you wish to continue with this case. You don't have to. You can turn aside. But if you're determined to go on, Pretty Poison and I will accompany you. If only because I'm fascinated to see what will happen next."

"Hear, hear," said Madman.

"We go on," I said. "I have a case, and I've never let a client down yet. The truth always comes first. No matter who it ends up hurting."