Hex In The City

Seven - Why Don't the Dead Lie Still?

We left the darkness of Rats' Alley behind us and made our way back out into the bright city lights of Uptown. The night was too dark, the neon too bright, but it still felt like home. In many ways, leaving Rats' Alley was like being born again. Like declaring you're ready to take on the world again, and the world had better look out. I'd felt the same the last time I did so, all those years ago. Because no-one ever really lives in Rats' Alley; they're all just existing. I took a deep breath and looked around me. The usual crowds came and went, pounding the pavements, intent on their own very private business, and Walker's watchers were still observing from what they hoped was a safe distance. (Walker didn't pay them enough to go into Rats' Alley after us.) It seemed to me that there were rather more of them than there had been the last time I looked, and I stopped where I was, to check out the situation. My companions waited patiently as I glared openly about me. Some of the watchers stepped back into doorways and the shadows of alley mouths, but the newcomers just stared calmly back. Like vultures scenting dead bodies in the near future. I pointed these people out to Sinner and Pretty Poison. (Madman was already off with the faeries again.)

"We've picked up some new friends," I said. "Not your ordinary, everyday watchers. See those seven Oriental gentlemen, with the idiograms tattooed above their left eyebrows? Combat magicians. Hooded Claw Clan. Just goes to show; everyone answers to Walker."

"Dangerous people?" said Sinner.

"Very," I said.

"That's all right," said Pretty Poison. "We're dangerous people, too."

"Still," said Sinner. "Combat magicians? Walker is taking this case seriously, isn't he ... What about those two gentlemen there, with the wolf pelts and claw necklaces?"

"Supernatural trackers. Lupus extremis. They could follow our scent through a skunk factory. And teleporting wouldn't throw them off either; they'd just jump right after us, piggy-backing our magics."

"Is there any way to shake them off?" said Sinner.

I grinned. "Sure. Go places they won't dare follow us."

"I don't like the look of those three," Pretty Poison said mildly. "They have the stink of sanctity about them."

I looked where she was pointing, then cursed under my breath. "Now they are serious trouble. The Holy Trio. A man, a woman, and a recently departed spirit; all of them Jesuit demonologists and fully paid-up members of the Fun Is Evil Club. The flip side of tantric magic; they used the tensions caused by a lifetime of celibacy to power their spells. Result—energy to burn, and a really spiteful attitude to the world in general and the Nightside in particular. The Authorities don't normally let them in. Damn! Walker must be really serious about this. We can forget about any more hell-fire teleports; the Trio could stamp the flames out just by glaring at us."

"I could kill them," said Pretty Poison.

"No you couldn't," said Sinner. "Not if you want to stay with me."

"Well of course, Sidney darling. But you're going to have to explain this whole restraint concept to me again later."

Sinner looked at me suddenly, his usual mild gaze thoughtful and appraising. "I thought you were supposed to be the Vatican's blue-eyed boy, after you got the Unholy Grail back for them?"

"That was a special assignment for the Pope," I said. "Not the Vatican. And Walker has always been able to call on the Church, as well as the State and the Army, to back him up. But I haven't seen a gathering like this for years ... and never just for me."

"So what do we do?" said Madman, catching us all by surprise. It was easy to forget he was listening. It was easy to forget he was still there.

"I think ... we'll just let them follow us," I said. "It's not a long walk from here to the lair of the Lamentation. An awful lot of them will drop out, once they realise where we're going. I don't blame them. I wouldn't go there myself if I didn't have to. In fact, I do have to, and I'm still trying to think of a way out of it."

"The trouble with shadows," said Madman, "is they watch you all the time, but you can't see their eyes."

We all considered that for a while. "Congratulations," said Sinner. "That actually bordered on pertinent, not to mention lucid."

"No-one listens when I tell them things," Madman said sadly.

Sinner turned back to me in a determined sort of way. "I just had a thought," he said firmly. "Sandra Chance is supposed to have a relationship with the Lamentation these days; even if no-one is sure what it might be. Could we perhaps contact her and ask her for an introduction? Maybe even get her to act as an intermediary?"

"I doubt it," I said. "First, it's just gossip. And second, she's not too keen on me at the moment. Not since I let the butterfly get away."

Sinner waited until he realised I wasn't going to say any more, then sighed. "You have a history with practically everyone, don't you?"

"Not all of it bad," I said defensively. 'There must be someone in the Nightside who hasn't wanted to kill me at some time or other."

"I wouldn't put money on it," said Pretty Poison.

We walked out of Uptown, trailing our pack of observers behind us, and made our way through a series of increasingly seedy areas, where even the neon seemed grimy. The buildings huddled together, though the strangers on the streets kept resolutely to themselves. The windows were all shuttered or covered with metal grilles, and the doors were locked to everyone except those who knew the right things to say or ask for. We were in Freak Fair now, where all the fetishists, obsessives, and the more extreme enthusiasts came in search of things that most people wouldn't even recognise as pleasure. Not a place for tourists. The Freak Fair makes even the everyday residents of the Nightside feel dirty. I'd been here once before, on a case, and afterwards I had to burn my shoes.

The people we passed kept their eyes determinedly downcast and made a point of giving each other plenty of room. It was all very quiet and polite, though the stamp of perversion and morbidity hung heavily on the air. The people tracking us began to fall back in ones and twos, then in something of a rush, once it was clear where we were going, clearly deciding that there were very definite limits to their duty. Everyone draws the line somewhere, even in the Nightside. But the hardier souls stuck with us, shouldering people out of their way to maintain their line of sight. I could feel my shoulders hunching as we continued through the narrow streets, as though anticipating an attack. Freak Fair is not a comfortable place to be. Pretty Poison, on the other hand, actually blossomed, striding happily along with a smile for everyone. Sinner didn't seem to be affected at all, but then, he was in love with a demon succubus. Madman hummed cheerfully along with his sound track, which was currently Madonna's Erotica. Takes all sorts ...

We finally arrived at the deconsecrated funeral parlour that currently housed that old and awful Being called the Lamentation. It changed its location regularly, partly because there were a hell of a lot of people (and others) who wanted it dead and gone, and also because its presence alone was enough to suck all the life out of any environment it inhabited. The Lamentation—also known as the God of Suicides, the Saint of Suffering, the Tyrant of Tears. It had many names but only one nature, and nobody worshipped it. You only turned to the Lamentation when you'd run out of belief, hope, and any kind of faith.

We stood together before the flimsy-looking front door, hanging just a little open between stained stone walls. There were no windows. Above the door was a tarnished brass plaque, giving the name of the place in Gothic Victorian script—the Maxwell Mausoleum. The funeral parlour had been around for almost two centuries, before it was shut down amid general outrage. (This was long before the Necropolis became the only supplier for funeral ceremonies in the Nightside.)

They still tell stories about what happened in the Maxwell Mausoleum all those years ago. Bad stories, even for the Nightside. Of what was done to the dead and the living, in dark and silenced rooms, where the Maxwell family worshipped the insides of bodies, and practised rites so revolting there aren't even words to describe them. The Maxwells were finally discovered, then dragged out and hanged from the nearest street-lamps, their bodies set alight while they were still kicking. Their remains were buried in the same coffin, after certain precautions, and for weeks afterwards people lined up to piss on the grave.

It was because of the terrible things that happened here that the Authorities decided to forget all about free enterprise, and determined that in the future all funeral practices would be supplied by the Necropolis, which they would watch over and control. The Maxwell Mausoleum had been abandoned for years before the Lamentation moved in but you could still feel the evil oozing out of the filthy old stones. The Lamentation presumably felt right at home.

It suddenly seemed a lot quieter than it had a few moments ago, and it took me a while to work out why. Madman's music had stopped. He stood right in front of the door, studying it closely while being careful not to touch it, and frowning, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. "Why don't the dead lie still?" he said, then turned away, without waiting for an answer.

I looked at Sinner. "Is it just me, or is he starting to make more sense?"

"It's probably just you," said Sinner. "So, what do we do? Knock loudly and announce our presence?"

"Oh, I think it knows we're here," I said. " The Lamentation is a Power and a Domination. Beings like that don't believe in being surprised."

I reached cautiously forward and gave the door a gentle push. It swung slowly inwards, the hinges squealing loudly. Like most of the older Beings, the Lamentation was a traditionalist and a bit of a drama queen. Beyond the doors was a dull red glow, a tense silence, and nothing else. Like opening a gate to Hell. We waited a while, but no-one came to greet us.

"I'm a bit surprised the door wasn't locked," said Sinner. "I mean, this is the Nightside, after all, where communal property tends to be defined as anything that isn't actually nailed down and guarded by trolls."

"Anyone stupid enough to invade the Lamentation's lair deserves every nasty thing that happens to them," I said. "And no-one inside ever leaves, except by the Lamentation's will."

"Excuse me," said Pretty Poison, "but are we ever going in, or is the plan to stand about on the doorstep discussing strategy until the Lamentation gets so bored it comes out to see us?"

I looked at Sinner. "Pushy girl-friend."

"You have no idea," said Sinner.

I led the way in, Sinner and Pretty Poison in flanking position, and Madman bumbling along in the rear. Behind us, the door slammed shut without anyone touching it, and none of us were in the least surprised. Drama queens, the lot of them. The interior of the Mausoleum turned out to be much bigger than its modest exterior indicated. The rooms of the original small business had been replaced by a vast, echoing hall, half-full of curling, blood-tinted mists. We couldn't see the end of the hall from where we were, but the high, vaulted ceiling suggested it was some way off in the distance. We were in a big, big place, and the small sounds of our feet on the uneven flagstones seemed to echo on and on before they reached the distant stone walls. There are those who say space expands to contain all the evil present. And this was the lair of the Lamentation. We had come to a bad place, one of the worst in the world, and all of us could feel it, in our water and in our bones and in our souls.

"I like it here," said Pretty Poison. "It feels like home."

The air was bitterly cold, but quite still. The bloodred mists moved of their own accord, gusting and billowing, thickening and thinning apparently at random. The flagstones beneath our feet were covered in grave dirt. One wall let in shafts of light, falling through old-fashioned stained-glass windows, each depicting the awful deaths of saints and martyrs, the vivid colours glowing through the mists. A dull red glow from the far end of the great hall coloured the mists, pulsing slowly, so that as we moved cautiously forward, it was like walking through the bloodstream of a dying god. The mists smelled of blood and meat and recent death.

"Have we come at last to Hell?" said Madman.

"This isn't Hell," said Pretty Poison. "But you can see Hell from here."

We kept walking. The end of the hall seemed impossibly far away. I had no idea how long we'd been inside the Mausoleum. We were all shivering now, even Madman. The cold was leaching the living warmth right out of us.

We stuck close together. And from out of the bloodred mists, the dead came walking to meet us, to welcome their new guests. There were hundreds of them, men and women and even some children, and there was no mistaking the fact that they were all corpses. They still wore the wounds that killed them, the self-inflicted cuts and rope burns they'd used to end their lives. They showed off then-gaping wounds and dried blood, their stretched and broken necks, with simple indifference. Their skins were colourless, even the insides of their injuries only pale, muted colours, and their faces were blank. Until you looked into their unblinking eyes and saw a suffering there that would never end.

An army of the dead, shuffling forward on unfeeling feet, the rags of their clothes just the tatters of so many scarecrows. They all raised one hand, and beckoned us forward. An aisle opened up through the mass of them, and I led the way into it. The ranks of the dead continued to open silently up before us, then close behind us. We weren't going anywhere they didn't want us to. Some of the dead pawed at me, the way the street people had in Rats' Alley. They looked at me with their dead eyes, and muttered with their pale mouths, in the barest ghosts of voices.

Help us. Free us from the Lamentation. We didn 't know. We didn't know it would be like this. We want to lie down, and rest. Help us. Free us. Destroy us.

And all I could do was keep on walking.

The Lamentation was an old, old Being. Older than most of what passes for history in the Nightside. Served and powered by suicides, it fed on suffering and despair and death. The dead bodies pressed close around us, showing off the deep noose marks on their crooked necks, or the ragged exit wounds in the backs of their heads where they'd shot themselves in the mouth, or in the eye. There were faces thick and puffy from the gasses they'd breathed, or the pills they'd swallowed. Pale red mouths at wrists and throats. The heavy marks of falls and vehicle collisions. They wore their deaths like open books, not as a warning but as proof of their damnation.

And finally, signs began to appear that we were near-ing the Lamentation itself. Hanging nooses dropped from the high ceiling like jungle liana, and we had to push our way through them. There were great sculptures made entirely out of razor blades, and we edged carefully between them. It was just the Lamentation, making itself at home. The blood-tinged mists were thinning out now, taking on the smells and tastes of all kinds of poisonous gasses.

That last development almost took me by surprise. The others weren't affected by the increasingly deadly mists, for their own various reasons, but the first I knew of the danger was when my head began to go all swimmy, and I couldn't seem to get my breath. My thoughts stuttered and repeated themselves, feeling increasingly far away, and then the voice of the unicorn's horn pin sounded loudly in my head.

Poison! Poison gasses, you idiot! Defend yourself! Eat the celery!

I thrust a numbing hand into an inside coat pocket, pulled out the piece of celery, and chewed on it. I always keep a piece handy, pre-prepared with all kinds of useful substances, for just such occasions as this. It tasted bitter as I chewed, but it cleared my head rapidly. It's an old trick but a good one, taught me long ago by a Travelling Doctor I met at the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill.

Guns and bullets lay scattered in spirals across the dirty flagstones, and we kicked them out of our way. A rainbow of discarded pills crunched under our feet. The dead closed in around us. I kept staring straight ahead.

The corpses were all around us now, filling the vast hall, the furthest of them only dim shadows in the churning mists. For the first time, I was sure I'd chosen the right companions for this case. Anyone else would already have run screaming, and I wasn't far from it myself. The living were never meant to come this close to death and all its horrors. The Lamentation was served by everyone who ever took their own life in the Nightside, and so had acquired the second biggest standing army in the Nightside, behind the Authorities. They allowed this to continue only because the Lamentation had never been much interested in how the Nightside was run. There was never any shortage of suffering and suicides in a place where it's always three o'clock in the morning, and the comfort of the dawn never comes.

The blood-tinted mists suddenly blew apart like curtains, revealing the Lamentation hanging supported in its cage. The great and terrible Being was held securely inside an intricate construction of rusting black metal, a massive cube thirty feet on a side. Black iron bars crisscrossed in elaborate patterns to make up the sides, and then thrust back and forth across the interior, piercing and transfixing the inhumanly stretched and distorted body inside the cage. It was hard to tell just how big the Being really was, bent over and twisted back upon itself, again and again. Its flesh was stretched taut by the strain of its contortions, and its skin was colourless and sweaty, though whether from pain or pleasure... There was something about it that suggested it might have started out as human, long and long ago ...

Whether the cage had been built around the Lamentation, or it had grown inside the cage, wasn't clear. There was no sign of a door or entrance in any of the six sides. The inhumanly long arms and legs stretched out from the crooked torso, twisted back upon themselves again and again, in defiance of all the rules of anatomy, held irrevocably in place by the rusting metal bars transfixing them. There was no trace of blood at any of the many puncture points. More iron bars punched in and out of the torso, which showed no signs of breathing or heartbeat, though the thick body hair swirled slowly, making patterns that sucked in the eye. The face thrust up against the bars of the cage, looking out at its new visitors; stretched impossibly wide, the skin was taut to the point of tearing, and a rusty black spike thrust up out of one eye-socket. The nose had rotted away, or perhaps been bitten off, and the ears were gone, too. The mouth was a wide, suppurating wound, full of metal teeth. Cracked and crumbling goat's horns curled up from the wide, distorted brow.

It hurt to look at the Lamentation for any length of time. It was just too big, too ... other.

It stank of desperate emotions, of hate and despair and thwarted needs, and the sorrow that can only see one way out, and all of it was thick and overpowering with the headiness of musk. None of this was natural, of course. The Lamentation radiated all the horrors of sudden death, of unnecessary death, of suicides and lives wasted, of potential unrealised and families blighted. For suffering was food and drink for the Lamentation.

"Whose stupid idea was it to come here?" Sinner said quietly. There was something about the place that imposed quiet, like an anti-church.

"Yours," I said.

"Why do you listen to me?" said Sinner.

A clump of mists beside the cage suddenly dispersed, blown away by some unfelt breeze, revealing the dead remains of the Brittle Sisters of the Hive. Their bodies had been piled up to a great height, carelessly dumped there like so much rubbish. There had to be hundreds of them, maybe even thousands; enough to boggle the mind. Shimmering shells of insect husks, spindly limbs already rotting where they stuck out of the pile. Their devil's faces were cold and uninhabited, their compound eyes and complex mouth parts seeming somehow resigned. The Brittle Sisters of the Hive—genetic terrorists, insect saviours, ravagers of the subconscious mind. Hated by pretty much everyone. And yet still it didn't please me to see them lying broken and shattered, like offerings to the Lamentation.

When it spoke, the Lamentation's voice sounded like someone who pretends to be your friend, then whispers lies and distortions in your ear when you're at your most vulnerable.

"This is all of them," it said, its quiet rasping voice the only sound in the great hall. "There are no more. They came here earlier, looking for you, John Taylor. They intended to ambush you and bear you away to the dissecting tables, to open you up and dig out all your secrets. To steal your heritage for themselves. They knew you'd be coming here. They bought the knowledge from an oracle. They really should have inquired further. I will not permit anyone to interfere with my guests, or my intentions. So I lured them all in here, with lies they wanted to believe, then watched them all kill each other under my influence, until none were left. They screamed in quite a satisfactory way, for insects. And now they're all gone. The Hives stand empty, now and forever. My gift to you, John Taylor."

"Thank you," I said. "That was ... kind of you."

"Not really," said the Lamentation. "I don't do kind. Why have you come here, John Taylor?"

"I'm investigating the origins of the Nightside," I said. "On behalf of the Transient Being known as Lady Luck. My companions are Madman and Sinner and the demon Pretty Poison. I have already consulted with Merlin Satanspawn and Herne the Hunter." I tried to think of some more names I could drop, but it was taking everything I had just to keep my act together, in the relentless presence of the Lamentation, so I kept it simple and direct. "What can you tell me about the beginnings of the Nightside, of its creation and true purpose?"

"The Nightside is much older than I," said the Lamentation, its voice a sly and insinuating murmur. "Older than anyone I know. The only one who could give you the answers you seek... is your mother. Wherever she may be."

"What do you know about my mother?" I said.

"She was gone, but now is returned to us. Lucky old us. Babalon, Babalon. It took an army of the Light and the Dark to rid us of her, all those centuries ago, but only three foolish mortal men to bring her back."

"Three men," I said, my mind racing. "My father, of course, and the Collector, and ... Walkerl"

"Of course. Who else? Those three good and true friends, who had such great dreams and meant so well..."

It stopped talking, thick pus dribbling from one corner of its distorted mouth. It looked at me expectantly with its single unblinking eye. I thought hard. This wasn't going where I'd expected, but then my whole day had been like that.

"I met the Primal once," I said finally. "Ancient demons, from the very dawn of Creation, when they possessed some bodies at the Necropolis. They spoke of my mother. They said, She who was first, and will be again, in this worst of all possible worlds. Do you know what they meant by that?"

"She is back," said the Lamentation. "And the Nightside will never be the same again. I remember the early days of the Nightside, back before there were Authorities to curb the appetites and ambitions of those who would play here. We all ran free in those days, the Light and the Dark, and those who couldn't or wouldn't choose. That was the point. It was a time of miracles and monstrosities, dreams and damnations built with pride, where anything and everything seemed possible. None of us now are what was intended then. The Nightside was young when the world was young, and all the kingdoms this world has ever known have never produced anything as wild or as free or as glorious as the Nightside was then."

"What happened ... to that place?" I said.

"We drove your mother out, for we wished to be free even from her intentions, but without her, we lost our way. The Nightside's potential collapsed under the weight of our... limitations, and became a shadow of the dream that was. All we have now is a place of small ambitions and furtive pleasures, where all that matters about a thing is the price it will bring."

"You knew my mother?" I said.

"Perhaps. It was all such a long time ago. I no longer remember things clearly. Not even my own past, never mind another's. But I do know that the Nightside was already old when I was a young thing and newly formed."

"And human?" suggested Sinner. I jumped. I'd honestly forgotten anyone else was there.

"Human?" said the Lamentation, not bothering to hide the scorn in its voice. "Such a little thing to be. I am large and glorious. I have always been here, and always will be."

"Nonsense," Pretty Poison said briskly. She stepped forward to stare closely at the twisted thing in its cage. "You're not one of my kind. You were made, not created, this way. The world, or your own desires, made you what you are. There is nothing of the eternal in you, nothing of the Infernal or the Elect. You're just meat, with meat's needs and delusions."

The whole cage shook as the Lamentation howled, an awful, disturbing sound, black flecks of rusting iron falling from the metal bars as the distorted body shook with rage, and perhaps shock. It must have been a long time since anyone had dared speak to it in such a fashion. I felt like applauding. The black iron bars rattled, but the cage held. The Lamentation's skin stretched and tore, but still no blood flowed. The dead bodies in the hall stirred restlessly, and the blood-tinted mists churned and roiled. There was a power pulsing on the air, and we could all feel it. Pretty Poison watched it all calmly. Sinner and Madman were hiding behind me, and I wished I could hide, too. There was no easy way out of the Mausoleum, no obvious exit, and the rage of a Power and a Domination can be a terrible thing. Just ask the Brittle Sisters of the Hive. Eventually the Lamentation settled down again, fixing me with its one awful eye.

"You want to know who your mother was?" it said, and its voice was cold, cold. "If I ever knew for sure I have forgotten, or was made to forget, but they could not keep me from thinking and deducing all these years. It is my belief that she was that old and terrible one sometimes called Morrigan, of the Badhbh; the Celtic war goddess, who also manifested as a wolf and a crow and a raven. That old goddess of battlefields and of slaughter, who dressed in the entrails of her worshippers and whose laughter was the gathering storms of war. To whom every dead soldier was a sacrifice, and every massacre a delight. The secret goddess and guiding spirit of the twentieth century, some say. And you are her only son, already spreading death and destruction. You almost brought down the Nightside with your angel war. Whatever will you do next, John Taylor?"

"You don't really know a damned thing about her," I said, with the certainty of sudden insight. "It's all just guesses and wishful thinking. You gave up or lost your memories, in order to live entirely in the present. To better savour the suffering you steal. How would you know who my mother really was? You can't even remember your own beginnings, never mind the Nightside's."

"It doesn't matter," said the Lamentation, its dry, whispering voice suddenly calm again. "Your quest stops here. Let the past remain the past; I care only for the way things are. It may be that the old days were not as free and fine as I choose to remember, but I won't let you threaten what I have now. All the sweet suffering, the despair and damnations ... you would take it all away. I don't think so. I won't have you digging up old secrets that might overturn the source of my power, and my delight."

"You're scared of my mother," I said.

"I'm not scared of you, John Taylor. When I kill you here, and make you one of my army, I close the only doorway through which your mother might return to rule the Nightside and spoil all our fun. We shall be safe again."

I glanced round at my companions, just to make sure they were still there, then lifted my chin and gave the Lamentation my best confident look. If you're going to bluff, bluff big. "You really think you can take the four of us? You do know who and what we are?"

"It doesn't matter," said the Lamentation, its voice slowly fading away, as though it was losing interest. "You are in my place, and in my power. I will show you things, awful things, until you kill yourselves rather than have to see them. And then you will rise again, trapped in your dead bodies, to serve me forever, with no will in you but mine. And your suffering will sustain me for centuries."

There was a pause, then Madman laughed cheerfully, and the mood was broken. Sinner was shaking his head, too.

"What can you show us, you caged freak? I am Sinner, and I have known the secrets of the Pit."

"I am Pretty Poison, a demon of the Inferno."

"I'm Madman, and I have seen the Truth."

"And I," I said, "am John Taylor; and you wouldn't believe the shit I've seen. So bring it on, Lamentation. Bring it all on."

The Lamentation shook and rattled its cage again, and now its voice was a shrill inhuman scream. "Kill them! Kill them all!"

The dead came surging forward out of the bloodred mists, moving quickly but without grace, cold bodies forced on by an inhuman will. They had no weapons, only the endless implacable strength of the dead and the overwhelming numbers to drag us down. They came from every direction at once, reaching out with pale, clawed hands. But they couldn't seem to find Madman. They stumbled all around him, striking out at anyone but him, while he looked sadly back at them, unmoving. Pretty Poison was already tearing a path through the dead, flashing back and forth impossibly quick, laughing loudly as she tore the dead bodies limb from limb and trampled the twitching pieces under her feet. Chunks of unliving flesh flew through the air, tossed about with glee, and the overwhelming numbers meant nothing to her. Pretty Poison was enjoying herself. Sinner watched her, frowning, but did nothing to try to stop her. The dead surrounded him, their hands bumping uselessly against him, unable to harm a man that Heaven and Hell had already forsworn.

I took a bag of salt from an inside pocket and sprinkled a wide circle around me. The dead couldn't cross the salt, so they circled round and round me, clawing clumsily with their empty hands, driven forward even as the salt forced them back. My heart pounded painfully fast as I turned around and around, constantly checking that the salt circle remained unbroken. I was breathing so fast I was practically hyperventilating. I really didn't like this. None of my tricks or magics were strong enough to hold back a whole army of the living dead. I called out to the others, but they were too far away to help. And then I looked into the unblinking eyes of the dead faces lunging at me from every side, and all I saw in them was suffering. None of this was their idea. They only ever moved in obedience to the will of their master; slaves to the Lamentation. They had killed themselves with the last little bit of their courage, hoping to be free from the pains and obligations of their unbearable lives, only to find themselves eternally bound to something far worse. No peace for the dead here, no rest for those who had been, briefly, wicked.

And the more I thought about that, the angrier I got. I've known what it feels like, when your whole life hurts so much that you're ready to die, just for the pain to stop. A little less stubbornness, a little more resolve at certain moments, and I might have been one of these poor trapped souls ... What kind of a place had we made of the Nightside, where even the dead weren't allowed to rest in peace? My anger burned through me like a cold flame, clearing my head and calming my racing heart. I fired up my gift, and my third eye, my private eye, opened deep in my mind, allowing me to find and identify the link between the dead and their master. My eyesight lurched, and suddenly I could See a tracework of glimmering silver lines, rising from the tops of the corpses' heads and trailing away back to the Lamentation in its cage; the strings by which it manipulated its puppets. And powered by my anger and outrage, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to reach out with my mind and sever all those silver cords in a single moment.

The dead froze where they stood, stopped in mid-movement and even mid-lunge. There was a new feeling in the Mausoleum, as though an endless tension had finally snapped. The Lamentation screamed, a horrible inhuman sound that rasped through the great hall like a saw through flesh. And one by one the dead bodies dropped to the floor and lay still, as their souls burst up out of them like incandescent stars, blasting out of their rotten husks, rising up and up, free at last. They blazed brightly in that dark place, then were gone, to wherever they should have gone long ago.

I've never believed all suicides go to Hell. God has more mercy than that.

The last of the souls departed, and my Sight returned to normal. I looked about me. The blood-tinged mists were gone. Sinner and Pretty Poison and even Madman were staring around in a puzzled way. The dead were piled up all around us, and none of them so much as twitched. The oppressive atmosphere of despair and horror that had permeated the great hall was already fading away like a bad dream, because there was no longer anything here to be scared of. We looked down the empty hall at where the Lamentation had been. The black iron cage was already falling apart, the metal bars cracking and dissolving in showers of black rust. And lying at the bottom of the cage, under the criss-crossed bars, stripped of all power, a naked man and woman clutched each other desperately, weeping angry tears of shock and loss. No longer joined, no longer a Power, no longer that vicious old Being called the Lamentation. Whatever they had done to themselves, or caused to be done, it was over now. Must have been hard on them, to be just human again, after so long. I did think about killing them, but I had no reason to be merciful. I turned my back on them and nodded to my companions.

"Time we were going," I said. "I think we've learned all we're going to here."

"What about... them?" said Sinner.

"Wait till the word gets out," I said. "That they are human again, and defenceless. Then they'll learn what suffering really is. Lot of people in the Nightside have old unfinished business, for loved ones lost and enslaved."

"You can't just leave us here like this!" howled a voice from the dissolving cage. It could have been the man or the woman. "You're supposed to be the great hero of the Nightside! You can't just abandon us!"

"Watch me," I said.

I led the way out of the great hall, and my companions followed me without comment. The hall was already breaking down, disappearing in bits and pieces as the magic that sustained it leaked away. Soon enough the old rooms would return, with all the old memories of what was done there by the Maxwell family. And then maybe, in that old atmosphere of torture and despair and death, the man and woman who had once been the Lamentation might see no other way out than to take their own lives. I smiled at the thought. I could live with that.

Why don't the dead lie still? Because in the Nightside there are always Powers and Dominations ready to make use of them.

We stepped out of the Maxwell Mausoleum, and the perverse atmosphere of Freak Fair was like a breath of fresh air. Until I noticed that all of Walker's watchers seemed to have disappeared, along with everyone else. The street was deserted. All the doors around us were firmly shut, and there wasn't a light showing at a window anywhere.

"Why are you scowling?" said Sinner. "It's always a really bad sign when you start scowling. And Madman's sound track has gone all tense again."

"It looks like Walker has withdrawn his people and closed off the area," I said. "And he wouldn't do that unless he had something really nasty planned and didn't want any witnesses. And given the kinds of horrible things I've known him do in front of whole crowds of people, this new caution does not bode well for us."

We all huddled together for protection, even Madman, and did our best to look in every direction at once. I could have used a break after taking down the Lamentation, but that's Walker for you—always strike when your enemy is weakest. The street remained empty, the busy sounds of city life sounding very far away. Could Walker really know already that I'd destroyed the Lamentation? Had that been the final straw that made him decide I was too dangerous to be allowed to live? Was he finally ready to have me killed, after all these years?

Did he know that I knew about his part in my mother's return?

It could be that the Authorities had given him no choice in this. Had ordered him to stop me getting any closer to answers that might upset their precious status quo. He had tried to warn me of that possibility, back at the Londinium Club. And as I thought that, I knew who was out there, watching and waiting for just the right moment to make her entrance. Who it had to be.

From out of the shadows that cloaked the end of the street came the sudden sound of expensive shoes click-clacking on the pavement. We all turned to look, and from out of the dark Bad Penny came swaying down the street towards us. Bold and brassy, that sweet sensation, death on high heels and loving it, the sexiest, most voluptuous assassin of them all. She was still wearing the classic little black dress she'd somehow crammed herself into at the Londinium Club, but now there were splashes of blood across the front of it, and more standing out starkly against the shimmering white of her elbow-length evening gloves. She came to a halt a sensible distance away from us and favoured us all with a dazzling smile. Down by one thrusting hip she carried a set of blood-flecked antlers in her hand.

"Hello, John," she said, in a voice that promised absolutely everything that's bad for you. "Journeys end in lovers' meetings. And your journey ends right here."

"We were never lovers," I said firmly. "I'm not entirely sure what we were, but lovers is definitely not the word. So Walker's finally given you the go-ahead, has he?"

She raised one perfect eyebrow. "You already know I'm working for Walker? Of course you do. I was forgetting; you're John Taylor. You know everything."

"Not necessarily," I said. "Where did you get those antlers, Penny?"

"From Herne the Hunter, after I killed him," Bad Penny said lightly. "Walker wanted Herne made an example of, to anyone else who might be considering answering any of your questions. Oh, don't look so sad, darling! He was a very old god, and his time was over. I can't abide people who outstay their welcome. And there's no greater sin than insisting on being unfashionable."

She dropped the antlers carelessly to the ground, and they made only the briefest of sounds in the quiet. Not much of an end for a once powerful god.

"I bear a message from Walker," said Bad Penny, falling naturally into a provocative pose. "The Authorities really are frightfully keen that you abandon this case, right here. Turn back now, go no further, do not collect two hundred pounds. Or else."

"Am I to presume that you're the or else?" I said.

"Got it in one! I do hope you're going to do the sensible thing for once in your life, sweetie. What's so wrong with wanting things to stay the way they are? I've always been a great supporter of the status quo, if only because it continues to supply me with so many good business opportunities. There's always money to be made out of murder, and a girl has to eat."

"And if I refuse?" I said.

"Like I said, darling—there's always money to be made out of murder."

"You'd kill me, after what we had between us?"

"Because of what we had between us! No-one walks out on me, honey."

"Would I be right in thinking there's a history between you two?" said Sinner. "You do get around, don't you, Jack?"

"Shut up," I said.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your new friends, John?" said Bad Penny, spreading her smile generously around her.

I raised an eyebrow. "Walker didn't brief you? Or haven't you reported in recently? You always were slack when it came to doing the research on a case. Well, this is

Sinner, and his girl-fiend Pretty Poison, and that is Madman. We've just destroyed the Lamentation."

"Oh dear," said Bad Penny. "How sad. Fallen in with bad company again, I see. What am I going to do with you, John? I know! I'll kill you right here and now. And just to keep everything neat and tidy, your friends can die with you." She turned her powerful smile on Sinner. "You disapprove of John, don't you? How sweet. Perhaps you'd like to break his neck for me? I'd really like that. In fact, I'd like it if you all beat each other to death, right in front of me."

And just like that, she was suddenly the most attractive woman in the world. Her sexuality blazed like someone had just opened a furnace door. Her presence filled the street, impossible to look away from, impossible to resist. To see her was to want her, to need her, more than life itself. I had my gift, and Bad Penny had hers. She had become the woman you'd do anything for, including murder. Her greatest weapon had always been herself. No-one could resist her body, once she'd turned it up to eleven. Except... for all our special abilities, Sinner and Madman and I were just men, while Pretty Poison was a demon succubus from Hell.

"Amateur," she said.

And just like that, the spell was broken. Bad Penny's glamour snapped off, and she was just another really good-looking woman with a bit of a weight problem. She looked at us, open-mouthed, absolutely dumbfounded. I don't think anyone had ever broken her spell that easily, that casually, before. I smiled at her.

"Nice try, Penny. But I have been there, and done that, and, to be honest, I've known better."

She stamped one high-heeled foot, said a few baby swear words, and suddenly she had two really big guns in her white-gloved hands. She opened fire at point-blank range, the explosions deafeningly loud, but I was already moving. I knew how she operated. And yet even as I dodged and ducked, it was clear she wasn't just targeting me. We all had to die, so no-one would ever be told about the failure of her glamour. And that... was a mistake. If she'd concentrated on me, she might have got somewhere. I'm fast, and I'm tricky, but I'm not bullet-proof.

The bullets couldn't even find Madman. He just stood there, blinking owlishly, his mind on other things, while bullets ricocheted from the wall behind him. I wasn't sure what damage bullets could do to a demon succubus, but Sinner didn't wait to find out. He stepped quickly forward, to stand between his love and Bad Penny, and the bullets thudded into his chest over and over again, to no obvious effect. Bad Penny blinked a few times, then shot him in the head. That didn't help, so she kicked his feet out from under him. He crashed onto his back, and Bad Penny targeted Pretty Poison. I grabbed Bad Penny from behind, pinioning her arms, and she bent sharply forward at the waist and threw me right over her head. I hit the ground hard, but kept rolling. Bullets smashed into the ground where I'd been. Sinner was back on his feet and advancing on Bad Penny. She emptied her guns into him, going for all the most vulnerable points, but he didn't even flinch as the bullets punched into him. No blood flowed. Like Cain before him, he bore the mark of his offence on his brow, and nothing of this world could ever really harm him again. He stopped right in front of Bad Penny, and she put her last bullet right through his left eye.

"Ouch," Sinner said dryly. There was only the slightest of pauses before his eyeball rebuilt itself, then he gargled and spat the bullet out into his palm. He offered it to Bad Penny. "Yours, I believe."

She snarled prettily, made her guns disappear, and snatched two silver knives out of nowhere. She buried them both up to the hilt in his chest. They were magical weapons, scored with ancient runes, one cursed and one blessed. I'd known gods who would have died from an attack like that. Sinner just stood there and took it. I felt like applauding. Bad Penny folded her arms over her impressive chest and pouted.

"Now that's just not fair, darling."

"Step aside, Sidney," said Pretty Poison, at Sinner's shoulder. "I have business with this woman. Very nasty business."

"No," said Sinner.

"She tried to kill you, my darling! I can't allow that to go unpunished. It's not in my nature."

"You came up out of Hell to be with me, in order to change your nature. Remember?"

"Yes, but..."

"Hush," said Sinner, and the demon succubus hushed, for the moment.

Bad Penny poked out her tongue at Pretty Poison, then smiled hopefully at Sinner. "If you're not actually going to kill me, darling, could I please have my knives back? They are family heirlooms, and Daddy would be furious if I lost them."

Sinner tugged the blades out of his chest with some effort and handed them back in a gentlemanly way. Bad Penny accepted the knives, glanced briefly in my direction to see if she still had a chance of picking me off, decided she hadn't, and made the knives disappear. I came forward to join her.

"What are we going to do with you, Penny?" I said.

"We can't just let you go. You'd only carry on following us, looking for another good place to ambush us, with better weapons. You're like me; you never give up on a case."

"I am nothing like you, John Taylor! I have style."

Faster than any of us could react, Pretty Poison surged forward, grabbed Bad Penny by the throat and bent her over backwards. Penny squealed and struggled furiously, but couldn't break the succubus's hold. Pretty Poison's fingers now ended in claws, and her widely smiling mouth was packed full of pointed teeth. The red lips were very close to Penny's neck, and she didn't look like an English public school girl any more. She looked like what she was, a demon spat up from Hell.

"Don't!" said Sinner. He started forward, then stopped abruptly as Pretty Poison set her sharp teeth directly against Penny's throat, the points just dimpling the skin. Sinner raised his hands calmingly. "Please. Don't kill her."

"She has to die," Pretty Poison said reasonably, her lips brushing Penny's throat. "You heard her, Sidney; she's under orders to kill anyone who might talk to us. Either I rip her throat out, or the case stops here."

"No case of mine has ever been worth the sacrifice of an innocent life," I said.

Pretty Poison raised an eyebrow. "You think this is an innocent?"

"Maybe not technically, but yes. Kill her, and you're my enemy. Forever."

Pretty Poison grinned. "Never threaten a demon, John Taylor. We have long memories." She looked at Sinner. "Besides, you wouldn't let him hurt me, would you, Sidney?"

"You're trying to confuse the issue," said Sinner. "All that matters is that you can't kill this woman now that she's helpless. It may be that she deserves it, but we are not like her. We have to be better than that. So let her go. For me."

Pretty Poison considered this for a long moment, while Bad Penny barely dared breathe, then the demon succubus abruptly dropped her victim to the ground and strolled unhurriedly back to Sinner. Bad Penny rose to her feet, brushed herself down, and gave me a smile that was only just a little shaky.

"I knew you wouldn't let her kill me, John. You always were a soppy, sentimental sort. But I will find you again. And I will kill you."

"Not on the best day you ever had," I said calmly. "I'm getting very close to my mother now, Penny. Get in the way of that, and someone will quite definitely kill you."

Bad Penny looked startled, then turned and walked quickly away, moving quite rapidly for someone in a clinging dress and high heels, and soon she was lost in the shadows at the end of the street. I watched her go and allowed myself a small smile. I couldn't kill her in cold blood, but I wasn't above putting a good scare into her. Sentiment only goes so far. And I wasn't too worried about her following us. It felt like we were getting near the end of the quest. I knew where we had to go next.

"Where are we going next?" said Madman, joining us in spirit at least. "Anywhere fun?"

"Not really," I said. "I'm pretty sure we need to go and see the Lord of Thorns."

Sinner gave me a hard look. "Correct me if I'm wrong, John, but I thought we'd agreed that was a really bad idea? I mean, ten out of ten for ambition, courage, and lateral thinking, but minus several thousand for self-preservation. The Lord of Thorns ... Possibly the oldest Being in the

Nightside who still inhabits this level of reality, and the most powerful. I only mentioned him in Rats' Alley because Herne brought him up. I didn't really expect to be taken seriously."

"The Lord of Thorns," said Pretty Poison. "We know of him in Hell. They say he knew the Christ. They say angels and demons are forced to kneel in his presence."

"And if anyone should know the beginnings of the Nightside, it will be him," I said. "He was here before the Romans made Londinium into a city. And just maybe, Walker had Penny kill Herne for a reason; so he wouldn't point us in the direction of the Lord of Thorns."

"This is a really bad idea," said Madman, and we all looked at him sharply, but he had nothing more to say.