Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

Nine - Thrown to the Wolves

I found an undead Harley Davidson lurking in an alleyway, and persuaded it to give me a lift to the Londinium Club, in return for squeezing the essential juices out of several nearby corpses into the undead machine’s fuel tank. I swear other people don’t have days like this. The motorcycle carried me smoothly through the Nightside, weaving in and out of crashed and overturned vehicles littering the abandoned road. The air rushing into my face was hot and dry, thick with drifting smoke and ashes. It stank of burned meat. Even above the roar of the bike, I could still hear distant screams. Riding through the deserted streets, lit by the intermittent glow of burning buildings rather than the sleazy flush of hot neon, reminded me uncomfortably of the devastated future Nightside that was coming. A future coming true in front of my eyes, despite everything I did to try and stop it.

You’re trying to steer again, said the Harley. Don’t. I know what I’m doing.

“Then I envy you,” I said. “Really. You have no idea.”

That’s right; condescend to me, just because I’m undead. You wait until the mystical Vampire Lords of the Twenty-seventh Dimension descend in their crimson flying saucers to make me Grand High Overlord of the Nightside… Oh. Damn. I said that out loud, didn’t I? Sorry. I’ve not been taking my medication, lately.

“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ve all got a lot on our minds at the moment.”

The Harley mournfully sang Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell” as we cruised through the deserted streets. There were hardly any people around now. They were either hiding, or evacuated, or dead. There were bodies everywhere, and sometimes only parts of bodies. I saw piled-up severed heads, and dozens of severed hands laid out in strange patterns. Something had strung a web of knotted human entrails between a series of lamp-posts. I didn’t raise my Sight. I didn’t want to understand. I didn’t want to see all the new ghosts.

The motorcycle dropped me off outside the Londinium Club, then disappeared into the night at speed. It thought there was still somewhere safe to go, and I didn’t have the heart to disillusion it. I wasn’t blessed with the same delusion. I knew better. Walker was already waiting for me, of course. He stood at the foot of the Club’s steps, looking sadly down at the dead body of the Doorman. The Londinium’s most faithful servant lay sprawled across the steps, before the entrance he’d guarded for so many centuries. Something had ripped the Doorman’s head off and impaled it on the spiked railings. The expression on the face was more surprised than anything.

“He was supposed to be immortal,” observed Walker. “I didn’t think anything could kill him.”

“Now that Lilith’s back, all bets are off,” I said. “It is a pity.”

Walker gave me a hard look. “You know very well you couldn’t stand the man, Taylor.”

“I gave him a rose once,” I said.

Walker sniffed, unconvinced, and led the way up the steps to what was left of the Londinium. The oldest Gentleman’s Club in the Nightside had seen better days. The magnificent façade was cracked and holed, smoke-blackened and fire-damaged. It looked like the outer wall of a city that had finally fallen to its besiegers. The huge single door had been burst inwards, forced off its hinges. The great slab of ancient wood lay toppled on the floor of the lobby, torn and gouged with deep claw marks. The once-elegant lobby had been thoroughly trashed and befouled. The statues had been shattered and the paintings defaced. The delicately veined marble pillars were cracked and broken, and the unknown Michelangelo painting that covered the entire ceiling was now half-hidden behind smoke stains and sprayed arterial blood.

Bodies littered the wide floor, left to lie where they had fallen. Many were mutilated, or half-eaten. Most of them looked to have been unarmed. Important men and servants lay together, probably killed fighting back-to-back, equal at last in death.

“Something got here before us,” I said, because I had to say something. “You think any of the bastards are still around?”

“No,” said Walker, kneeling beside one of the bodies. “The flesh is cold, the blood-stains are dry. Whatever happened here, we missed it.” He looked at the dead man’s face for a long moment, frowning slightly.

“Did you know him?” I asked.

“I knew all of them,” he said, rising to his feet again. “Some were very good, some were very bad, and none of them deserved to die like this.”

He stalked across the lobby, his back very straight, stepping carefully round the scattered bodies. I followed him, my shoulders tense with the anticipation of unseen watching eyes. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to trash the Nightside’s most visible symbol of power and authority. Walker finally came to a halt facing the right-hand wall, and solemnly considered a part of it that looked no different from any other part. I stood beside him, looking hard for any sign of a concealed door or panel, but I couldn’t see anything. And I’m usually really good at spotting things like that. Walker fished in his waistcoat pocket for a long moment, but when he finally brought his hand out, it was empty. He held the empty hand up before me, the fingers pinched together as though holding something.

“This,” he said, “is a key that isn’t a key, that will open a door that isn’t a door, to a room that isn’t always there.”

I considered his empty hand. “Either the strain is finally getting to you, or you’re being cryptic again. This secret room… it’s not by any chance going to try to eat me, is it?”

He smiled briefly. “It’s a real key. But invisible. Feel it.”

He put something I couldn’t see into my hand. It felt cold and metallic. “Okay,” I said. “That’s creepy. If the door is as invisible as the key, how are we going to find it?”

“Because it isn’t invisible to me,” Walker said airily, taking the key back again. “I serve the Authorities, so I get to see everything I need to see.”

“Show-off,” I said, and he smiled briefly again.

He thrust the key only he could see into the lock only he could see, and part of the wall before us disappeared. I was staring so hard by now that my eyes were beginning to hurt. Walker strolled into the newly revealed room before us with just a hint of smugness, and I sighed and followed him in. It figured that the Authorities would have their very own special room to hold their meetings in, exclusive even from other members of the Nightside’s most exclusive Gentleman’s Club.

“The Authorities don’t agree to meet with just anyone,” Walker murmured. “You should feel honoured.”

“Oh, I do,” I said. “Really. You have no idea.”

Walker actually winced. “Somehow, I know this isn’t going to go well.”

The wall reappeared behind us, sealing us in, and the room abruptly snapped into focus. It was protected by very powerful magics. I could feel them, crawling on my skin like living static. The room itself was something of a cliché, the very essence of a private room in a Gentleman’s Club. Oversized but no doubt extremely comfortable chairs, rich furnishings, and splendid decorations. Far more splendid, indeed, than the expensively tanned, personally trained but still sloppy, overdressed men sitting slumped in their big chairs, with their big drinks and their big cigars. I took my time looking them over, the ten powerful men who ran the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone did. You wouldn’t know their names. You’ve never seen their faces in the glossies. These men were above that. They all had the same casual arrogance of people used to getting what they wanted when they wanted it. Somehow, I just knew we weren’t going to get along.

Walker introduced me to the Authorities, then moved aside to stand leaning against the William Morris wallpaper, his arms folded, as though to indicate he’d done all that could reasonably be expected of him. Maybe he simply wanted to be out of the line of fire, for when everything inevitably went wrong. And though he must have had many questions of his own for his absentee masters, he seemed content to leave the lead to me. For the moment, at least.

“So,” I said finally, “you’re the grey men, the businessmen, the faceless men who only ever operate behind the scenes. Somehow, I always thought you’d be… bigger. Talk to me, Authorities. Tell me what I need to know. While there’s still time.”

“I am Harper, and I speak for us all,” said the man nearest me. His face was far too old for his jet-black hair, and his waistcoat strained over a bulging stomach. It was covered with cigar ash that he couldn’t be bothered to brush away. Presumably he had someone to do that for him, in his own world. He stared coldly at me with piggy, deep-set eyes. “Our ancestors made their fortunes operating in the Nightside of Roman times, during their occupation. Our families have spent generations building on those fortunes. We own all the businesses here, at one remove or another. There’s nothing that happens that we don’t take our cut. The Nightside belongs to us.”

“Not for much longer,” I said. “If Lilith has her way. This isn’t just a corporate take-over she’d proposing, she plans to kill us all. Or hasn’t that penetrated your thick skulls yet?”

My voice must have got a little sharp, because that was when the Authorities’ bodyguards decided to make themselves known to me. They manifested abruptly, one on each side of the room, and I studied them warily. Two basically humanoid forms, large and overpowering, one made of pure light, one of pure darkness. It would be hard to say which was more unpleasant to the eye. They were presences rather than physical forms, and I could feel power radiating off them. It was like standing in front of a furnace when someone unexpectedly opened the door.

“They used to be angels,” said Harper, with more than a hint of smugness. “From Above, and Below. Now they work for us.”

“How are the mighty fallen,” I said, just to be saying something. Never let the other side know when you’ve been seriously impressed. “I suppose that’s why they don’t have wings any more. Or halos.”

“You cannot conceive how much we have lost,” said the figure of light, its voice like cracking ice floes.

“But we have also gained much,” said the figure of darkness, in a voice like a burning orphanage. “We are here because we developed… appetites. Tastes for things that can only be found in the material world. Our new masters… indulge us.”

“We take our comforts here,” said the light. “To our eternal shame.”

“To our endless satisfaction,” said the dark.

“But why serve the Authorities?” I said. “Even as diminished as you are, you must know they’re not worthy of you.”

“We have to serve someone,” said the light.

“It’s in our nature,” said the dark.

“Enough,” said Harper, and immediately both figures fell silent. Harper glared at me, and I glared right back. He raised his voice a little, to convince both of us who was really in charge here. “Normally, we run the Nightside from outside. We live in London proper, in the sane world. We’re only here now because Walker summoned us with your name. What do you want with us, John Taylor?”

“Answers, to start with,” I said, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “Why haven’t you sent your armies to support Walker? Don’t you know how bad things are here?”

“We know,” said Harper. “But what help could we send that could hope to stand against Lilith and her followers? We’re not in the business of throwing good lives away after bad.”

Walker stirred for the first time. “Bad? Those were my people!”

Harper didn’t even look at him. “Not now, Walker. I’m talking.”

“If not now, then when?” said Walker, and his voice was colder than I’d ever heard it before. “How many years have I and my people served you here, protecting your interests in the Nightside? Is this how you reward us—by throwing us to the wolves?”

Harper finally looked at him, but only to smile condescendingly. “You mustn’t take it personally, Walker. It’s just business.”

“You look nervous,” I said suddenly. “All of you. Uncomfortable. Sweating. You don’t like being here, do you?”

“As you said, the Nightside has become a dangerous place.” Harper took a long draw on his cigar. “Before Walker contacted us with your name, we had been preparing to seal off the Nightside, closing every entrance and exit until all this… unpleasantness has run its course.”

“You’re abandoning us?” I said.

“Why not? You’re only a business interest. A cash cow, from which we squeeze every penny we can. We are aware of the powerful men and women who come to your little freak show, to indulge in the pleasures and excitements they can’t find anywhere else, but we… We have only ever cared about the profit they made us. For us, the Nightside is simply a commodity, that we exploit. Correct, Walker?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Walker, surprisingly. “I see things differently, these days.”

I looked at him for a moment. There was something in his voice… but that would have to wait. I turned back to Harper.

“If the Nightside falls to Lilith, then so does the rest of the world. You can’t hope to contain a Power like her. She will break out, then there’ll be nowhere far enough or safe enough for you to hide.”

“So we have come to believe,” said Harper, reluctantly. He glared at his cigar, as though it had failed him in some way, and stubbed it out in an ashtray with quick, angry movements. “So, it seems we have no choice but to make a deal with Lilith. Very well. We can do that. We’re good at making deals. It’s what we do, after all. That is why we agreed to meet with you here, John Taylor. Lilith’s son. You will be our agent, our representative, in these negotiations. Talk to your mother and promise her… whatever it takes, to reach an accommodation. We have already revealed our presence to her and summoned her here to talk with us.”

Walker stood up straight, pushing himself away from the wall he’d been leaning on. “What? Why didn’t you consult me first? Do you know what you’ve done, you bloody fools…”

“Not now, Walker!” Harper didn’t even look at him.

He was still doing his best to intimidate me with an imperious stare. “We are rich beyond the nightmares of avarice, Taylor. We can afford to be flexible, if we have to. Better to share the wealth of the Nightside with your mother than risk seeing it destroyed. It’s just a matter of finding out what she wants… We’re all reasonable people, after all. I’m sure we can come to an understanding with Lilith, with your help.”

“Lilith isn’t reasonable,” I said. “She isn’t even people. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. She isn’t interested in money, or even in power, as you understand it. She just wants to wipe the whole slate clean and start again. And replace Humanity with something more suited to her needs.”

One whole wall of the private room suddenly disappeared, ripped away by an outside force. We all looked round, startled, to discover that the room now looked directly out onto the Nightside. Nothing stood between us and the dark, the blazing buildings, and the streets filled with smoke and screams. And there before us stood Lilith, naked and magnificent, with all her monstrous Court ranked behind her. The Authorities rose to their feet, stumbling and awkward, staring with wide horrified eyes.

The two former angels surged forward, to stand between the Authorities and Lilith, their power shimmering on the air around them like a heat haze. Lilith smiled at them and said Go home, and the light and dark figures both disappeared in a moment, banished from the material planes by the sheer force of her will. I had a good idea where she’d sent them, and I doubted either of them could expect much of a welcome back.

“So,” said Lilith, stepping gracefully forward into the private room, her voice light and teasing, “you’re the Authorities. The Secret Masters of the Nightside, the Big Men… We meet at last. Only, I have to say, you don’t look very big to me. You look much more like little boys, way out of their depth. Come to me. Come to Mommie…”

Her presence ignited, filling the whole room, vast and overwhelming. I had to look away, retreating behind my strongest mental shields, while the ten most powerful men in the Nightside, and therefore the world, fell to their knees and went to Lilith on all fours, like swine before a goddess. Walker started forward. I grabbed him by the arm and hustled him towards the invisible door. He found the key and opened the door, his hand steady even though his face was torn with conflicting emotions. I looked back, briefly.

Lilith laughed, to see the high-and-mighty Authorities cringe and fawn at her colourless feet. “Why, you’re so cute! I could eat you up… but I think you’d probably make me sick. Fortunately, my children have far more robust appetites…”

She laughed again, as her horrid offspring surged forward. I pushed Walker through the door, following him into the relative safety of the Club’s lobby. As the door swung slowly shut behind us, I looked back one last time. And saw Lilith’s monstrous children fall upon the screaming Authorities and tear at them hungrily, like wolves let into the fold.