Something from the Nightside

FIVE — The Harrowing

We left Strangefellows, stepping out into the sullen gloom of the back alley, and the solid steel door shut itself firmly behind us. On the whole, things hadn't gone too badly. Eddie had come up with a solid lead, no-one serious had tried to kill me, and Alex hadn't even mentioned my long-standing bar bill. Presumably because he knew a rich client when he saw one. I'd hate to think he was getting soft. Joanna looked vaguely about her, frowned, and hugged herself tightly, shivering suddenly. Understandable. The alley was freezing cold, with thick whorls of hoarfrost on the walls and cobbled ground. The night had turned distinctly wintry in the short time we'd been inside. Joanna looked at me accusingly, her breath steaming thickly on the still air.

"All right, what happened to the weather? It was a nice balmy summer night when we went through that door."

"We don't really have weather, as such, in the Nightside," I explained patiently. "Or seasons, either. Here, the night never ends. Think of temperature changes here less as weather, and more as moods. Just the city, expressing itself. If you don't like the current conditions, wait a minute, and something new but equally distressing will come along. Sometimes, I think we get the weather we deserve here. Which is probably why it rains a lot."

I started off down the alley, and Joanna strode along beside me, her heels clacking loudly on the cobbles. She was working her way up to asking me something intrusive. I could tell.

"Eddie said bad people were looking for you," she said finally.

"Don't worry. The Nightside is a big place to get lost in. We'll have found your daughter and be long gone before anyone can catch up to us."

"If people are always looking for you here… why don't you just stay out of the Nightside?"

I did her the courtesy of considering the matter for a few moments. It was a serious question, and deserved a serious answer. "I tried, for five long years. But the Nightside is seductive. There's nothing in everyday London to match it. It's like living in colour, instead of black and white. Everything's more intense here, more primal. Things matter more, here. Beliefs, actions, lives… can have more significance, in the great scheme of things. But in the end, it all comes down to the fact that I can make a much better living here, than I can in London. My gift only works in the Nightside. I'm somebody, here, even if I don't always like who that person is. Besides, you can't let anyone tell you where you can and can't go. It's bad for business."

"Alex said this was your home. Where you belong."

"Home is where the heart is," I said. "And most people don't dare reveal their heart here. Someone would eat it."

"Eddie said they were bad people," Joanna said stubbornly. "And he looked like the kind who would know bad. Be honest with me. Are we in any immediate danger?"

"Always, in the Nightside. All kinds of people end up here, drawn and driven by passions and needs that can't properly be expressed or satisfied anywhere else. And a lot of them like to play rough. But most of them know better than to mess with me."

She looked at me, amused. "Hard man."

"Only when I have to be."

"Are you armed?"

"I don't carry a gun," I said. "I've never felt the need."

"I can look after myself too," she said suddenly.

"I don't doubt it," I assured her. "Or I would never have let you come with me."

"So, who's this Suzie, that Eddie said we'd meet at the Fortress?"

I looked straight ahead. "Ask a lot of questions, don't you?"

"I believe in getting my money's worth. Who is she? An old flame? An old enemy?"

"Yes."

"Is she going to be a problem?"

"Perhaps. We have a history."

Joanna was smiling. Women like to know things like that. "Does she owe you a favour too?"

I sighed, reluctantly realising that Joanna wasn't going to be put off by curt, monosyllabic answers. Some women just have to know everything, even when it's patently none of their business.

"Not so much a favour; more like a bullet in the back of the head. So… Suzie Shooter. Also known as Shotgun Suzie, also known as Oh God, it's her, run! The only woman ever thrown out of the SAS for unacceptable brutality. Works as a bounty hunter, in and around the Nightside. Probably got paper on someone hiding out in the Fortress."

Joanna was looking at me closely, but I kept on looking straight ahead, my face carefully calm. "All right," she said finally. "Would she be willing to help us?"

"She might. If you can afford her."

"Money is no object, where my daughter is concerned."

I looked at her. "If I'd known that, I'd have charged you more."

She started to laugh, and then it turned into a cough, as she hugged herself hard again. "Damn, it's cold! I can hardly feel my fingers. I'll be glad to get back into the light again. Maybe it'll be warmer, out on the street."

I stopped abruptly, and she stopped with me. She was right. It was cold. Unnaturally cold. And we'd been walking for far too long still to be in the alley. We should have reached the street long before this. I looked behind me, and Strangefellow's small neon sign was just a glowing coal in the dark, far away. I looked back at the alley exit, and it was no nearer now than when we'd started. The alley had grown while I was distracted by Joanna's questions. Someone had been playing with the structure of space, stretching the alley… the energy drain manifesting as the sudden cold… I could feel the trap closing in around me. Now I was looking for it, I could sense magic in the air, crackling like static, stirring the hair on my arms. Everything seemed far away, and what sounds there were came slow and dull, as though we were underwater. Someone had taken control of the space around us, like closing the lid on a box.

And as I looked, six dark silhouettes appeared, blocking the exit to the alley. Dark men in dark suits, waiting for me to come to them.

"Next time you want to pick a fight," Joanna said quietly, "do it on your own time. It would appear Ffinch-Thomas' daddy has sent reinforcements."

I nodded, trying hard not to let my relief show in my face. Of course; Ffinch-Thomas and his threats. Druid magic and city honour. No problem. I could handle half a dozen yuppie Druid wannabes, and send them home crying to their mothers. The alley spell would collapse soon enough, once I shattered their concentrated will with a little practiced brutality. And then a pale ruddy light filled the alley, leaking out of nowhere, illuminating the scene in shades of blood so Someone else could enjoy the show, and for the first time I saw clearly what was waiting for me at the end of the alley. And I was so scared I nearly vomited right there and then.

They stood together, six of them, things that looked like men but were not men. Human in shape, but not in nature, they wore plain black suits, with neat string ties and highly polished shoes, and slouch hats with the brims pulled low, but that was just part of the disguise. Something to help them blend in, so they could walk the streets without people screaming. It worked, until you looked under the brims of their hats, to where their faces should have been. They had no faces. Just utterly blank expanses of skin, from chin to brow. They had no eyes, but they could still see. No ears, but they could hear. No mouths or noses, but then, they didn't need to breathe. There was something uniquely horrid about the sight, an offence against nature and common sense, foul enough to sicken any sane man.

I knew them, from before. They were fast and they were strong, and they never got tired; and once they had been set on your trail they'd track you to Perdition itself and never once falter. I had seen them tear people literally limb from limb, and trample over screaming bodies. Oh yes, I knew them, of old. They moved forward suddenly, calm and unhurried, stepping out in perfect unison, advancing on me in complete silence, with not even the sound of their own footsteps to accompany them.

I made a sound in the back of my throat, the kind of sound a fox makes when it sees the hounds closing in. Or the sound of a man who can't wake up from a nightmare. I was so scared I was shaking, sweat running down my face. My own personal bogeymen, my pursuers since childhood, come for me at last. Joanna saw my fear, and it quickly infected her too. After seeing some of the things I'd taken in my stride, she knew these had to be really bad. She had no idea. Inside, I was screaming. After all the years of running and hiding, they'd finally found me.

And I was going to die hard, and bloody, and people would vomit when they saw what was left of me. I'd seen their work.

I looked back over my shoulder, wondering if I had time to reach Strangefellows. Maybe run through the bar, and out the back, through the old cellars. But they were already there. Six more of them, standing together, cutting me off from hope and safety and all chance of escape. I hadn't even sensed them appearing. I'd spent too long in the everyday world. Got soft, and careless. I looked back at the six bearing down on me. I was breathing hard, my hands opening and closing helplessly.

"What… what are they?" said Joanna, clinging to my arm with both hands. She was as scared as I was.

"The Harrowing," I said, my voice little more than a whisper. It was an effort to talk. My mouth was painfully dry, my throat closed like there was a hand round it. "The ones who are always looking for me. Death given shape and form, the act of murder made manifest in flesh and blood and bone."

"The bad people Eddie warned you about?"

"No. These are their emissaries. The ones they always send to kill me. Someone has betrayed me. They couldn't have tracked me down this fast, set up so perfect a trap so quickly. Someone told them where and when to find me, the bastards. Someone sold me out. To the Harrowing."

All the time I was babbling, my mind was working furiously. There had to be a way out of this. Had to be. It couldn't all end so simply, so stupidly, with my guts torn out in a grimy back alley in the middle of a nothing case.

"Can you fight them?" said Joanna, her voice high, bordering on the hysterical.

"No. My bag of tricks is pretty much empty, after so long away."

"But you're the hard man, remember!"

"They're harder."

"Can't you just… stare them down? Like you did with Ffinch-Thomas?" Her voice broke off sharply. She could see them more clearly now. The Harrowing.

"They don't have any eyes!" I said, hysteria edging into my voice too. "You can't hurt them; they don't feel anything. You can't even kill them; they're not really alive."

I hit my gift for all it was worth. Most of it was still sleeping at the back of my head, unused for five years, but I forced it ruthlessly awake, knowing I'd pay in pain and damage later. If there was a later. I pushed against my limits, scrabbling with my mind at the spell surrounding me, probing it for weaknesses. Front and back were blocked, but maybe the alley walls… I can find things, so I tried as hard as I knew how to find a way out of that alley. The alley walls were solid brick, but walls can conceal a lot of things, in the Nightside. And sure enough my third eye, my private eye, found the outlines of an old door hidden underneath the bricks and mortar of the present wall. A door in the space currently occupied by the right-hand wall, hidden from all but those with a very special gift. From the look of it, the door hadn't been opened in a long time, but its temporal inertia was no match for my desperation. I hit it with all my mind, and space shuddered.

The Harrowing lifted their heads slightly, together, sensing something. I hit the door again and it groaned, springing open just a crack. Bright light flared around the edges of the door, spilling into the alley, pushing back the unnatural bloody light. It was sunlight, pure and uncorrupted, and the Harrowing flinched back from it, just a little. I could hear a wind blowing beyond the door, harsh and ragged, and it sounded like freedom.

"What is that?" said Joanna.

"Our way out." My voice was firmer. "Lots of weak spots and fracture lines in the Nightside, if you know where to look. Come on. We are out of here."

"I can't."

"What?"

"I can't move!" I looked at her. She wasn't kidding. Her face was white as a skull, her eyes as wide as an animal's in a slaughterhouse. Her hands gripped my arm with painful pressure. "I'm scared, John! They scare me. I can't… I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't think!"

She was panicking, lost to hysteria. The Nightside had finally pushed her too far. I'd seen it before. I had to act for us. I hauled her towards the door I'd opened, but her legs wouldn't cooperate, and she fell awkwardly, sprawling across the cobbles and almost dragging me down with her. I forced her hands off my arm, and she curled up on the ground, crying helplessly and shaking all over. I looked at the door, and then at the approaching Harrowing. It was so far, and they were so close. I couldn't drag her. But I could get away. I could still reach the door, force it open, fall through and slam it shut behind me, and be safe. But that would mean leaving Joanna behind. The Harrowing would kill her. Horribly. Partly because they never leave witnesses, and partly as a message to me, and others. They'd done it before.

She was nothing to me. Joanna bloody Barrett, all money and pride and snotty manners, dragging me back into the Nightside against my better judgement. Making me feel sorry for her, and her stupid bloody daughter. I owed her nothing. Nothing worth putting my life at risk, trying to save her. She couldn't run. She fell. She brought it on herself. All I had to do was leave her to the Harrowing, and I'd be safe.

I turned towards the door in the wall, and let go of my hold on it. The door slammed shut in a moment, the daylight snapped off, and the awful ruddy light took back its hold on the alley. I moved back to stand over Joanna, my hands balled into fists. She might not be a friend, or even an ally, but she was a client. I've failed myself more times than I care to remember, but I've always done my best never to fail a client. A man has to have some self-respect.

I threw aside the last of my pride and let out one last, desperate mental call for help. Not many would care, even if they heard, not in the Nightside, but Alex might hear… and do something. But even as I opened up my mind, the thoughts of the Harrowing crashed in on me; a deafening cacophony of alien, yammering voices, utterly inhuman, trying to fill my head and force out my own thoughts. I had to shut my mind down again, in self-defence. There wasn't going to be any help — no cavalry, no last-minute rescue. As always, I was all alone, in the night that never ends. Just me, and my enemies, at my throat at last.

The Harrowing closed in, six before and six behind, taking their time now they knew I had nowhere to go. They moved in silence, like ghosts or shadows, or deadly thoughts, and their blank faces were scarier than any murderous expressions could ever have been. Their purpose and intent were clear in their movements — sharp, economic, perfectly synchronised. Not graceful; that was too human an attribute for them. I raised my fists in one last gesture of defiance, and they held up their pale hands. For the first time I saw that their long slender fingers ended in hypodermic needles, protruding inches beyond their nailless tips. Long slender needles, dripping a pale green liquid. That was new, something I'd never seen before. And I knew suddenly, on a level deeper than instinct, and more sure, that the game had changed while I was away. They weren't here to kill me. They were here to jab me with those needles, drug me till I couldn't fight any more, and then drag me away to… somewhere else. To their mysterious, unknown masters. The bad people.

I could have cried. I wasn't even going to be allowed the dignity of a quick, if nasty, death. My enemies had something slower, more lingering, planned for me. Torture, horror, madness; perhaps to make me one of them, to do their bidding. Saying their words, carrying out their commands, while some small part of me screamed helplessly, forever trapped and suffering behind my own eyes. I'd rather die. I was finally so scared I got angry. To hell with that, and to hell with them. If I couldn't escape, I could at least defy them. Make them kill me, and deny them their victory, or triumph.

And who knew; if I could hold them off long enough, maybe I'd find some way out of this mess, after all. Miracles do happen, sometimes, in the Nightside.

The first of the Harrowing came in reach, and I hit it right in its blank face, putting all my strength behind the blow. My fist sank deeply into its head, square in the middle where its nose should have been, the pale flesh giving unnaturally, stretching like dough. The skin clung stickily to my hand as I jerked it free, and the creature barely swayed under the impact. I spun round quickly, striking out at the others as they came crowding in around me. They were fast, but I was faster. They were strong, but I was desperate. I held them off for a while with sheer fury, but it was like hitting corpses. Their bodies were horribly yielding, as though there was really nothing inside them, and perhaps there wasn't. They were just vessels for my enemies' hatred. They absorbed punishment as a passing thing, of no importance at all, and came back for more. Their hands came at me from all directions, striking like snakes, trying over and over again to catch me with their needled fingers. They had the mindless tenacity of machines, and all I could do was keep moving, keep dodging, getting a little slower with every panting breath. Their needles ripped open my trench coat, and pale green liquid stained the material. I actually got mad enough to pick one of the things up, and throw it back against a wall; but though it hit hard enough to break the bones of a living man, the Harrowing just flattened slightly against the brickwork, like a horrid toy that wouldn't break, and came back at me again.

Faceless, remorseless, completely silent. It was like fighting nightmares. I yelled to Joanna to run, while they were still preoccupied with me, but she just lay huddled on the ground, mouth slack with shock, staring with wide, almost mindless eyes. The Harrowing were all over me by then, and I was so tired, so cold. The best I could do was fool them into working against each other, so that they stabbed each other rather than me. Even rage and terror can only keep you going for so long, and what strength I had left was fast fading away. I was working on how best to make them kill me, when the shadow came moving among them, and everything changed.

The Harrowing's heads all turned at once, as they suddenly realised they weren't alone. Something new had come into the alley, something scarier and even more dangerous than they were. They could feel it, the way predators can always sense a rival. They forgot all about me for the moment, and I collapsed gratefully onto the cobbles beside Joanna, my heart hammering painfully in my chest as I fought for breath. Joanna threw her arms about me, and clung to me, shuddering, hiding her face in my neck. I watched it all.

The Harrowing looked about them, all their blank faces moving as one. They were confused, disoriented. This wasn't in the plan. And then one of the faces was suddenly different from all the others. A long red line had appeared, crossing the empty face where the eyes should have been, immediately leaking blood. The creature hesitantly raised a needled hand to its bloody face, as though to examine the cut.

A shadow swept across the Harrowing, fast as a fleeting thought, and the hand toppled from the wrist and fell away, neatly severed. Blood pumped out of the stump into the chill air, steaming thickly. And I smiled, a nasty gloating smile, as I realised just who had come to my rescue. It was already over. The Harrowing were all finished. They just didn't know it yet.

Something moved among the blank-faced figures, too fast to be seen. Blood flew on the air, spurting from a hundred wounds at once. The Harrowing tried to fight, but all they struck was each other. They tried to run, but wherever they went the shadow was already there before them, cutting and slicing at them, ripping them apart, tearing them to pieces. They couldn't scream, but I like to think that in their last few moments of existence they knew something of the horror and suffering they had always brought to others.

In a matter of seconds, it was all over. The dozen Harrowing, the deadly hounds on my trail, were no more. They had been rendered into hundreds, maybe thousands, of small scattered body parts, spread the length of the alley. Some of them were still twitching. The grimy brick walls ran red with blood, and the cobbled ground was slick with it, save for a small empty circle around Joanna and myself. And a dozen featureless faces, expertly skinned from featureless heads, had been nailed to the wall in neat rows beside the closed steel door leading to Strangefellows.

The bloody light snapped off, and the alley returned to its usual gloom. The bitter chill slowly began to relax its hold. I murmured comfortingly to Joanna, until her death grip on me began to relax, and then I nodded to the still, quiet figure standing beneath the small neon sign.

"Thanks, Eddie."

Razor Eddie smiled faintly, his hands thrust into the pockets of his oversized grey coat. There wasn't a speck of blood on him.

"That's your favour paid off, John."

Something about the way he said that made a lot of things fall into place for me. "You knew this was going to happen!"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you wade in sooner?"

"Because I wanted to see if you still had it."

"You could at least have said something! Why couldn't you have warned me?"

"Because you wouldn't have listened. Because I wanted to send the Harrowing's bosses a warning. And because I do so hate to be indebted to anyone."

And I knew, then. "You told them I was going to be here."

"Welcome back, John. The old place hasn't been the same without you."

Something moved like a fleeting shadow, or a passing breeze, and there was no-one standing beneath the neon sign. The alley was empty, apart from all the scattered body parts, and the blood sliding down the walls. I should have known. Everyone has their own agenda, in the Nightside. Joanna raised her pale face to look at me.

"Is it over?"

"Yes. It's over."

"I'm sorry. I know I should have run. But I was so scared. I've never been that scared before."

"It's all right," I said. "Not everyone can swim when they're thrown in the deep end. Nothing in your old life could ever have prepared you for the Harrowing."

"I always thought I could cope with anything," she said quietly. "I've always had to be hard — to be a fighter — to protect my interests, and those of my child. I knew the game, how it was played. How to use… what I have, to get my own way, do all the other people down. But this… this is beyond me. I feel like a child again. Lost. Helpless. Vulnerable."

"The rules aren't that different," I said, after a while. "It's still all about the powerful, getting away with murder because they can. And a few of us who won't be beaten down. Fighting our corner, helping those we can, because we must."

"My hero," said Joanna, smiling slightly for the first time.

"I'm no hero," I said, very definitely. "I just find things. I'm not here to clean up the Nightside. It's too big, and I'm too small. I'm just one man, using what gifts I have to help my clients, because everyone should have someone to turn to, in time of need."

"I never met a man I respected," said Joanna. "Before now. You could have run and left me. Saved yourself. But you didn't. My hero."

She raised her mouth to mine, and after a moment, we kissed. She was warm and comforting in my arms, pressing against my body, and for the first time in a long time, I felt alive again. For a time, I was happy. It was like waking up in a foreign country. Afterwards, we sat there on the bloody cobbles for a while, holding each other. And nothing else mattered at all.