The Bride Wore Black Leather

NINE Ghosts Know Everything

Getting out of the Library wasn’t a problem; deciding what to do next took rather more time. I hid in the darker shadows of the Library’s side alley and ran through my various options. It didn’t take long. I needed to talk to someone I could trust. Normally, this would have been Suzie, but . . . I thrust my hands deep into my coat pockets and frowned so hard it hurt my forehead. Who was there left, who hadn’t been poisoned against me or influenced by the Sun King? Who was there left, that I could depend on? I took a deep breath, mentally crossed my fingers, took out my mobile phone and hit speed dial for Cathy.

I used her emergency mobile number, the very private phone I gave her, in case she needed help after a particularly boisterous party. I didn’t see how anyone could listen in on my phone, after all the money I’d invested in top-of-the-line security, but I wasn’t feeling at all trusting any more. Cathy took her own sweet time picking up, and I was actually beginning to wonder if she was deliberately holding out so someone could track my position, when she finally answered my call.

“Boss? I’ve been waiting for you to call me, but I was expecting it to come through the office phone. I left this one tucked away in the bottom of my bag, for emergencies. I’m on my own here, in the office, packing up. The hen party broke up when the news about Julien Advent reached us. Suzie’s out somewhere, looking for you.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.”

“Are you all right? Are you hurt? Every time someone rings me with the story, the details are different.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I . . .”

“Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”

“Cathy,” I said. “You don’t believe I murdered Julien Advent, do you?”

“Of course not! How long have we known each other? I know bullshit when I hear it, boss. You never killed anyone without good cause. Hell, I’m more vicious than you. Particularly when I’ve had a few . . .”

I hadn’t realised how tense I was, until Cathy said she still believed in me. I felt my whole body slowly relax as her familiar rush of words washed over me. If Cathy had turned on me, like Suzie, I think I would have given up . . . “Meet me . . .” I said, then stopped to think again. I couldn’t bring her here because I couldn’t afford to hang around anywhere near the Library. A mob could catch up with me at any time, or Larry and Tommy Oblivion might be overcome by the influence again, the moment they left the Library and all its protections. So where could I go next that my enemies couldn’t follow me? And then the answer hit me, and I smiled briefly.

“You remember the street where we first met?” I said. “Don’t say the name! . . . But you do remember?”

“Of course,” said Cathy. “How could I forget? It was where you saved my life by rescuing me from something that only looked like a house. Is that really where you want me to meet you, boss? The area hasn’t improved, you know. It’s still where the really wild things live.”

“No-one goes there who doesn’t have to,” I said. “Hardly anyone I know would think to look for us there; and the poor bastards who live on that street tend not to care about the latest gossip.” Or would care that I’d killed Julien Advent, I thought, but didn’t say.

“And anyone who did go there looking for you would be lucky to get out alive anyway,” Cathy said cheerfully. “I’ll meet you there in half an hour, boss. I take it you’re going to need transport? Thought so. Can you get there in that time? Of course you can; you’re John Taylor, what am I thinking?”

She cut off the call, and I shut my phone and put it away. How was I going to get to Blaiston Street, right on the other side of the Nightside, without being spotted along the way? I still couldn’t use my Portable Timeslip. The Sun King, or his precious Entities from Beyond, might well track the energy trail and be there waiting for me when I arrived. They might even arrange for all my old friends and enemies to be there, waiting. I shuddered at the thought.

And . . . I couldn’t walk down the streets, hiding out as just another face in the bustling crowds. My white trench coat made me far too easy to spot. Everyone knew my coat; it was part of my image and my rep. But I couldn’t take it off and dump it. My trench coat contained a great many useful tricks, and powerful defences, that I might still need. More importantly, I couldn’t give it up because . . . it was my coat. Letting it go would be like giving up a vital part of me. I was damned if I would. I’d already lost too much that mattered, to the Sun King.

I had to get to Blaiston Street, and that meant I needed transport. I couldn’t trust the taxis, or any of the other usual means . . . Hell, I wouldn’t trust them under normal conditions. Usually, there were people I could call on, like Dead Boy and his futuristic car; but he’d already turned against me. There was Ms. Fate, the Nightside’s very own costumed adventurer . . . but her bright pink Fatemobile was even easier to spot than my white trench coat. My enemies would already be keeping an eye on that car, just in case.

So, when in doubt, cheat. I hurried out of the side alley and down the street, till I came to the nearest underpass. People were already turning to look at me as I clattered down the stone steps and into its concealing gloom. I raised my gift and used it to find one particular underpass, on the other side of the Nightside. And then it was the easiest thing in the world to move myself from one to the other. So that when I reached the bottom of the stone steps, I was walking into a completely different underpass, not far from Blaiston Street.

The tunnel was a lot darker and dirtier than I was used to, and the smell was pretty bad. Things had died down here, quite recently; but some hadn’t died nearly enough. I moved quickly through the underpass, being very careful where I put my feet. I made a point of breathing through my mouth, though it didn’t help much. Half the overhead lights had been smashed, with malice aforethought, to give the things that lived down there an advantage over those of us passing through. And because some things can only be done in the dark.

The buskers were an ugly lot, with their battered, stolen, and improvised instruments, all but demanding money with menaces from those who didn’t drop money into their caps quickly enough. Having heard what the buskers considered music, I couldn’t help feeling that all they had to do was threaten to play another song, and we’d all dig deep into our pockets. Heavy dirt and dust stains on the curving stone walls formed into eyeless faces that turned to follow me as I hurried past. Luckily, my reputation was still potent enough to keep them from forming mouths and proclaiming my name.

I kept up a steady pace, staring straight ahead, not pausing for anyone or anything. Animals can smell fear. And weakness. So I strode right on, giving every indication of being ready to walk right over anything or anyone who didn’t get out of my way fast enough. The other people in the underpass went out of their way to be polite and give me plenty of room; but a shadow of a man with no man to cast it rose suddenly up before me to block my way.

I smiled, unpleasantly. I’d been waiting for something over-confident or arrogant enough to try it on. I needed to make an example of some poor damned fool, so everyone else could see I was still dangerous, and spread the word that I should be left strictly alone. So when the dark shape rose before me, spreading out its over-long arms to fill the tunnel, I already had a salamander ball in my hand, palmed from an inside pocket when no-one was looking. I triggered the pasty white ball and threw it into the dark, featureless face; and the salamander ball exploded in a fierce vicious light that filled the underpass from end to end. Everyone cried out in pain and shock as the incandescent glare overloaded their eyes temporarily. I, of course, had my eyes squeezed tightly shut, with an arm raised over them, just in case. When the light faded enough for me to see again, the dark shape was gone, blown apart into tiny dark fragments that spiralled on the air like midnight confetti. I walked straight through them, and they swung madly on the air to get out of my way. It’s nice to be respected.

I have known people to get really snotty about salamander balls, saying they’re expensive, you don’t get much bang for your buck, and they’re a bit on the small side. But as I always point out, you only get two to a salamander.

I kept walking, not looking back or even glancing about me, and everyone else pressed themselves against the sides of the tunnels. If there were any enemies or bounty hunters down in the underpass with me, none of them bothered me. And when I finally walked up the steps and out into the open night air again, I was only half a dozen blocks down from Blaiston Street.

I had to stop for a while and lean against a handy shop-window while I got my breath back. (The shop was called Hope, and it was shut. That’s all you need to know about the Nightside, right there.) I looked at my reflection and hardly recognised the gaunt and drawn face that stared back. Blood was streaming thickly from my nose, as though it had been hit, and I could taste the bad coppery stuff in my mouth. I spat hard to clear my mouth, and the crimson stuff ran slowly down the shop-window. I was tired, bone-deep tired, and when I fumbled a handkerchief out of my pocket, I could hardly feel it. My fingertips were dangerously numb. Somehow, I managed to pinch the bridge of my nose till the bleeding stopped, and spat more blood across the window-glass till I ran out. I mopped roughly at my face and stuffed the handkerchief back into my pocket. A slow, hot pain pulsed behind my eyes. I had to sort this case out soon, while I still could. Overusing my gift was causing me serious physical and maybe even neurological damage. I could feel it. And God alone knew what it was doing to my soul. I’d never had to use my gift so often before.

I finally pushed myself away from the blood-streaked window, straightened my back, and raised my head through an act of sheer will-power, and headed determinedly for Blaiston Street. I was deathly tired, every muscle ached, and I still couldn’t feel my fingertips. And I would have killed for a deep-crust pizza and a whole bunch of drinks to wash it down with. Not really in my best condition to face a threat that could mean the end of the Nightside, forever.

Some days, you can’t get a break.

Didn’t take me long to get to Blaiston Street. A nowhere street in a nowhere place, the really bad end of town. It made the area outside Green Henge wall seem like a petting zoo. I could feel the property values plummeting the closer I got, and the people looked less furtive and more feral. Though none of them did more than watch me carefully from a safe distance. Even down here, they’d heard of me.

Blaiston Street was a ragged collection of shabby buildings in a shabby setting. Where every single street-light had been smashed because the inhabitants felt more at home in the dark. Filth and garbage piled up everywhere, left to sit in festering heaps. Rats crouched here and there, not even bothering to look away as I strode past them. Every wall was covered in obscene graffiti, rough and brutal stuff, like dogs pissing to mark their territory. Kicked-in doors, boarded-up windows, dark doorways and darker alley mouths. Only two long rows of ancient, battered tenements, neglected and despised, by those within and those without.

Blaiston Street is where you go when nobody cares, not even you.

Not many people about. Normally, you’d expect a street like this to be teeming with the lost and the desperate, like maggots in an open wound. But the street stretched away before me, completely deserted, still and silent. As though they’d known I was coming and wanted to be well out of the way before the trouble started. Reasonable enough. They’d emerge afterwards, to rob the bodies or eat them. There were definitely unseen eyes following me as I strolled unhurriedly down the middle of the empty road as though I didn’t have a care in the world. I could feel the watchers even if I never saw them.

Didn’t take me long to find the right house. Years had gone by, but I’d never forget that house-front. It wasn’t the original house, of course; I’d destroyed that nasty thing long ago, for disguising itself as a house so it could prey on people. It called to the homeless and the hopeless, with a voice they couldn’t resist, lured them inside, then ate them all up. Suzie and I rescued Cathy from it. No; this . . . was a cheap copy. The previous Walker had discovered traces of damaged alien tissue left behind and had the stuff studied and cultivated, so he could make his own living house trap. I don’t know why he wanted it; to feed people he disapproved of, probably.

The first copy was destroyed during the Lilith War; I don’t know how many generations beyond the original this one was. It sat there, squatting in place, looking like a house and stinking the place up. No-one was ever so homeless or so desperate they’d want to venture inside this house. I sat down on the cold stone steps before the front door, put my back to the house, and waited.

It felt like sitting with my back to a giant freezer with the door left open. A cold bad enough to chill the soul as well as the body. There was a constant sense of being watched—by something that would hurt me if it could. I didn’t care. Didn’t even look back at it. I had too many bad memories of the original house. And of a woman named Joanna, who turned out not to be a woman, any more than the house was a house. Poor Joanna. I could have loved her if she’d been real.

Some people you shouldn’t remember. If only because the Nightside can find so many ways to hurt and haunt you . . . For a moment, there, I had to wonder if maybe the Sun King might not be right about the Nightside after all . . . And then there was the roar of a mighty motor, and Cathy turned up, taking the far corner on two wheels, racing down Blaiston Street in an old MINI Cooper, complete with bright Union Jack colours. The “Self-preservation Society” song blasted out of the open windows. I should never have brought her that DVD. Cathy brought the MINI to a squealing halt right in front of me, and the passenger door jumped open of its own accord. I got up off the steps and hurried over, clambered into the passenger seat, and Cathy had the car off and away before the door could even shut itself again. I looked for a seat belt, and, of course, there wasn’t one. You can take authenticity too far. I clung to the dash-board with both hands and braced both feet against the floor, to hold myself firmly in place in my seat. Cathy drove us out of the area at great speed and headed towards the main flow of traffic like a shark scenting blood in the water. She darted a glance at me and grinned fiercely.

“Just like old times!” she said loudly. “You were right; we owed it to ourselves to have one last adventure together, before the old firm closes down!”

“Having to come back to Blaiston Street didn’t . . . bother you?” I said carefully.

“Come on, boss; that was Where we met! Best thing that ever happened to me! So where are we going now?”

“I need to see the place where the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille used to be,” I said. “I’ve already been there once, but I can’t help feeling I missed something.”

It felt good to be able to relax again. I hadn’t felt safe with anyone since Julien Advent died. I hunched down in my seat, so as to present a smaller target. The music system was playing a Matt Munro song. I smiled . . . I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, and not have to wake up until the whole mess was over. But I couldn’t do that. Cathy reached a main road and threw the MINI Cooper into the main flow of traffic like a knight entering a joust. I told her about the Sun King, about everything that had happened, and what might still happen if I couldn’t stop it. She didn’t get a lot of the sixties stuff—way before her time. So she concentrated on the bit she did understand.

“If you’re going to be dealing with a ghost,” she said, hitting her horn imperiously and steering her car like it was an offensive weapon, “you’re going to need help and advice from someone who specialises in the differently departed. Ghosts can be really difficult characters.”

“You have a specialist in mind?” I said.

“I always have someone in mind,” Cathy said loftily. “I know everyone, or at the very least, everyone worth knowing. I’ll take you right to the gent in question, but I’ll warn you now, boss; you’re really not going to like him. No-one ever does. Get out of the bloody way! I hate people who change lanes without signalling. Where was I? Oh yes. You probably know the guy, and not in a good way. But he knows more about talking to ghosts than anyone should who hasn’t actually been nailed into a box and waved good-bye under six feet of wet turf.”

“I’m really not going to like this person, am I?” I said.

“Boss, you’re going to hate him on sight. Everyone does.”

Cathy finally pulled up outside a really sleazy nude dancing club, specialising in ghost girls. SPIRITED DANCING, it said on the sign. It looked like the kind of place where you could contract a whole new kind of STD, have your wallet lifted, and do a dozen things that were morally bad for you, all before you sat down. Cathy parked her MINI half on the pavement, got out, and glared around her at anyone who even looked like they might object. I clambered carefully out and managed to whip the tail of my trench coat out of the way before the door slammed itself shut. Cathy slapped a display sign on the windscreen, reading EXORCIST ON CALL! THIS CAR IS PROTECTED BY SOMETHING YOU WON’T EVEN SEE COMING!

“Is it really?” I said.

“Who can say?” said Cathy, beaming brightly. “Would you risk it?”

I gave my full attention to the front of the club, which was basically an open door surrounded by photos of dancing girls wearing nothing but smiles. Not the girls we’d be seeing inside, of course. Ghosts don’t photograph well; normally, all you get is a shimmering blob of ectoplasm. The barker at the door was a large, muscular type in a tweed suit who gave me his best professional smile.

“Come on in, sir! They’re dead, and they dance! They’re all naked and not in the least departed! Oh, hello Cathy. How’s it going?”

“Not too bad, Tim,” said Cathy. “Do you know my boss, John Taylor?”

“No, and I don’t want to,” the barker said firmly. “You go in. I’ll go and hide in the toilets till the trouble’s over. Give me a call when it’s safe to come out again.”

“It would appear my reputation proceeds me,” I said, as Cathy led the way in.

“Isn’t that what a reputation’s for?” said Cathy.

We barged straight past the ticket-seller in her little glass cage. She took one look at me and ducked completely out of sight. Inside, the club was dark and dingy, with a side order of openly disgusting. It smelled like something really bad had happened in the toilets. Very recently. The floor was sticky under my feet, and I didn’t want to think with what. There was a general air of cheap and nasty, including some of the girls and most of the customers. Sawdust had been scattered thickly on the floor around the edges of the raised circular stage, to soak up the usual spilled fluids.

Ghost girls danced on the spotlit stage, sliding up and down steel poles in defiance of gravity, leaping and soaring through the smoke-filled air, often passing in and out of each other’s translucent figures. Their faces pretended delight, but their eyes were empty. Faded rainbows moved slowly across their semi-transparent forms, like the colours you see sliding across the surface of a soap bubble. The girls moved sexily, even gracefully, but with little emotion. They were only the memories of living flesh, going through the motions.

Row upon row of customers pressed close around the raised stage, jostling each other to get in close. Sweat gleamed on their fascinated faces, and they couldn’t look away. None of them offered money; ghosts have no use for cash. They sucked a little life energy out of any customer who got close enough. Sucking them dry, bit by bit, and making them love it. Not too different from any other such club, really.

Cathy took it all in her stride. I looked at her suspiciously.

“You’ve been here before. And you knew the man outside by name. How is it you even know places like this exist?”

“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” Cathy said calmly. “You really don’t want to know about how I spend my spare times, boss. I’m all grown-up now. And you probably have enough trouble sleeping as it is. This way . . .”

She beckoned imperiously to a figure at the bar, and the owner of the place came smarming forward to join us. I knew immediately why Cathy hadn’t told me his name. Because if I’d known we were going to talk with Dennis Montague, I would have hurled myself out of the car and into the on-coming traffic. Oh yes, I knew Dennis of old. This wasn’t the first disreputable club he’d owned. I’d shut down several of them on moral-health grounds and because his very existence offended me.

Dennis, or Den-Den, as he preferred to be called, in the mistaken belief that it made him seem more engaging, was a minor player and major-league scumbag who always seemed to land on his feet, no matter how high a building you threw him off. He came sleazing forward to greet Cathy and me as though we were most-favoured customers, smiling and smiling as though he were genuinely pleased to meet us. A short, shiny butter-ball of a man, with slicked-down black hair, a face like a boiled ham, and large, watery eyes. He looked like he ought to leave a trail of slime behind him when he moved, like a snail. Though given the state of the floor in this club, it would probably have been an improvement. He came to an abrupt halt before us, bobbing his head repeatedly and rubbing his soft, podgy hands together.

It was a masterful performance, to make himself appear nothing more than another harmless letch; but he needn’t have bothered. I remembered Den-Den. A cheat and a liar, a ponce and a pervert, given to abusing and profiting from anyone weaker than himself. But I also knew why Cathy had brought me here to see Den-Den rather than anyone else. Because once upon a time, Dennis Montague had been a rising star, a young man with a great future ahead of him, as the most talented field agent the Carnacki Institute had ever produced. The Institute exists to track down, identify and then do something about all kinds of ghosts and hauntings. And for a while, Dennis Montague was their top man. Till they found out what he was really up to and threw him out. And quite rightly, too. I looked at Cathy.

“Are you sure there isn’t anyone else?”

“Not who can do what he can do. And you’re really not too popular in the Nightside right now, boss. We have to work with what we can get. What’s so bad about Den-Den, anyway? I mean, apart from the obvious. He knows his ghosts.”

“Did he ever tell you why he was kicked out of the Carnacki Institute?” I said. “Tell her, Den-Den.”

“For having sex with ghosts,” said Dennis, quite proudly.

“Can I just say Oh ick! in a loud and carrying voice?” said Cathy. “How is that even possible?”

Dennis sniggered until I glared at him, and he stopped. “Best not to ask, dear,” he said to Cathy, smiling happily. “Not at all the kind of thing you want to talk about in public.” He looked me up and down, still rubbing his hands together, considering how best to squeeze money out of me. “Welcome to my humble establishment, Mr. Taylor, yes . . . Make yourself at home, do. See anything you like? All wery tasty, wery clean, and all at wery reasonable prices, I assure you.”

“You even hint to anyone we were ever here,” said Cathy, “and I will burn this place down around your ears.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Dennis said immediately. “Mr. Taylor’s reputation isn’t the only one that proceeds him, you little minx, you. You can rely on old Den-Den not to breathe a word, oh yes. I have no problems with Mr. Taylor’s being here! No! Anyone capable of seeing off Julien Advent is clearly a man to be reckoned with. A man on the way up, heading for greatness. I always knew you had it in you, Mr. Taylor. If you’re looking for new members of a new Authorities, once you’ve finished off the others, I would of course be wery honoured . . . I am a man of refined character and a wery successful business man . . .”

“No you’re not,” said Cathy. “You’re a sleazoid with delusions of grandeur who does mucky things with ghosts. Don’t you go getting ideas above your station.”

“Well, if you’re not here to see me in my position as a business man, then why?” said Dennis, apparently entirely unmoved by Cathy’s fierce words.

“Because you were trained by the Carnacki Institute,” I said.

“You did talk to ghosts, as a field agent, didn’t you?” said Cathy. “When you weren’t trying to touch them inappropriately.”

Dennis sniggered again. “Those so-called sophisticates running the organisation never did approve of me. Even though I got results no-one else could. Bunch of prudes and Puritans, the lot of them, my dears. Some of us are a little more open to the more interesting opportunities to be found in life and death. Still, what can you expect from an organisation that takes its name from a man who cared more about the dead than he ever did about the living?”

He stopped talking abruptly as I fixed him with a cold, hard stare. “I was trained by old Carnacki himself, back when I was starting out,” I said. “He was a good man. One more word from you against him, and I will rip the soul right out of you and send it screaming down into Hell.”

Dennis looked at me uneasily. He wasn’t sure I could actually do that; but he wasn’t sure I couldn’t, either. There are a lot of stories about me running round the Nightside, and I make it a point never to confirm or deny any of them. Because you never know when they might come in handy.

Dennis scowled, then forced his face back into its usual smarmy good nature. “A splendid fellow, that Mr. Carnacki! A most knowledgeable man, yes. I’ve always said so! Certainly he had enough integrity to walk away from the Institute that bears his name when it let him down.”

“So he did,” I said. “Now, Den-Den . . . I have need of your assistance.”

“But of course, Mr. Taylor! You know me! Always happy to help out . . .”

“I need you to come with me, right now,” I said. “To talk to a ghost, on my behalf.”

“But . . . but . . . I can’t simply leave the club!” said Dennis. “Not . . . just like that!”

“There must be somebody here who can run the place while you nip out for a minute,” said Cathy. “Isn’t there anyone here you can trust?”

“Please,” said Dennis. “Remember where you are.”

“It’s up to you,” I said. “Either you come along with us, right now, or Cathy can sing a quick chorus of There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight . . .”

“I’ll be right with you,” said Dennis. “I knew I should have signed up for fire insurance when I had the chance . . . Let me talk to somebody.”

“If I even think you’re running for the back door, I will make your knee-caps disappear,” I said.

“Mr. Taylor! You wound me!”

“Almost certainly,” I said.

Dennis sleazed away to talk with the tall, cadaverous figure behind the nasty-looking bar, while I looked thoughtfully at Cathy.

“When, exactly, did you acquire this reputation for aggressive pyromania? Did I miss something?”

“Almost certainly,” said Cathy. “You know how it is, boss; you’re out on the town with a few friends, drinking it up; you’re young, you’ve got incendiaries . . . shit happens.”

Perhaps fortunately, Dennis came back at that moment, giving us both his best professional smile. “All arranged, my dears! Now let us get this all over and done with. Maurice will look after things, in my hopefully short absence. He’ll cheat me on the take, no doubt about it, but better to lose some than all by having to close up. No-one appreciates the trials and tribulations of the honest business man.”

“Least of all you,” I agreed. I held his gaze firmly with mine. “If I ever find out you’re holding any of these ghost girls against their will . . .”

Dennis came as close to real laughter as he dared. “Do me a favour, Mr. Taylor! They come to me! They ask for this. Every girl working here is a volunteer. They need the life-force they suck out of the punters every night, to hold themselves together. To maintain their grip on this world. You couldn’t make them leave here if you tried. Couldn’t drive them out, with bell, book, and candle. This is their club, Mr. Taylor; I get to run things for them. Of course, I also get a bit of the old rumpy pumpy, from time to time . . .”

“Oh, ick!” said Cathy, firmly.

Dennis sniggered. “Every job has its perks, my dears. Can I help it if I like my ectoplasm cold?”

We all clambered into Cathy’s MINI Cooper and headed off into the Nightside rather more swiftly than I was comfortable with. Dennis enjoyed the trip immensely, waving his podgy fingers out the window at people he recognised though most of them chose not to recognise him. If nothing else, he made a great distraction. I thought hard about what I was going to do when I revisited the hole in the ground that was all that was left of the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille. I also kept a watchful eye on Cathy and Dennis. I wasn’t too concerned about dear old Den-Den. You always knew where you were with him. He didn’t care that I’d killed Julien Advent because he didn’t care about anyone. He’d back-stab me for the reward in a moment, given half a chance, but we both knew he didn’t have the balls to do it to my face. He’d do whatever I told him, in the hope of favours to call on, further down the line. But Cathy . . . worried me. Why hadn’t she fallen under the influence of the Sun King? Like Suzie had? I couldn’t ask Cathy. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t trust her.

When we finally pulled up alongside the great hole in the ground where the Bar used to be, it all looked exactly as it had before. Big and ugly and completely lacking in any supernatural energies. We all got out of the MINI Cooper, moved over to the edge of the hole, and stared down into it. No difference at all. Just a hole, where something marvellous used to be. Something about the scene bothered me, and I realised it was the quiet. I looked quickly about me. Most of the watching crowd had disappeared, gone in search of something more interesting to look at. Never any lack of that to be had, in the Nightside. And . . . “Why aren’t there any naked people here?” I said suddenly.

Cathy gave me a sideways look. “Should there be? Were you expecting naked people; or are you at a funny age, boss?”

“I mean the Tantric Troops,” I said. “The Authorities’ new attack dogs. They were all over the place here before.”

“Oh, them,” Dennis said wisely. “The Fuck Buddies. Oh yes, my dears, we’ve all heard about them. Talk about making a virtue out of a necessity . . . Last I heard, the remaining Authorities had scattered them across the Nightside, looking for you, Mr. Taylor. After all; it’s not like there’s much here for them to guard . . .”

I nodded and went back to looking into the hole. “I was here before, with Julien. Talking about the Bar’s sudden disappearance. And I can’t help feeling I’m missing something . . .”

I took the book out of my inside pocket, and leafed quickly through it. Cathy frowned slowly.

“Does that book, by any chance, come from where I think it does?” she said. “From, in fact, the much-respected and even-more-feared HPL?”

“I borrowed it, for a while,” I said. “Unofficially. Without telling anybody. Though they’ve probably noticed by now.”

Cathy was already shaking her head. “You’re a lot braver than I am, boss. They’ll send the Library Policemen after you. The big men, with hammers.”

“I have more pressing things to worry about,” I said, still flipping quickly through the pages. It was all very familiar. I’d read it all before. I knew everything that was in the book; so what was I missing? And then I stopped, as a very familiar phrase jumped out at me. The Bar burned down in 1970, possibly in self-immolation as a protest against the breaking up of the Beatles, then came back as a ghost of itself. The Hawk’s Wind chose to come back! That was the answer, right there! The Bar made a conscious decision to return, which meant the building was sentient. Not just a ghost image of a missing place but a conscious entity in its own right! That’s why the Bar was able to be so solid and hold aspects of the sixties within itself. And as a real, sentient, ghost personality . . . I should be able to ask it questions and get some answers.

I slammed the book shut, put it away, and quickly explained my thinking to Cathy and Dennis. They both nodded quickly—Cathy excitedly, Dennis reluctantly. I looked out over the empty hole.

“Den-Den; can you . . . ?”

“I’ve been trying ever since we got here, Mr. Taylor; and I can’t feel a thing. Wherever the Bar’s gone, it’s way out my reach.”

So I had no choice but to raise my gift again. It didn’t come easily. It was like lifting a dead weight, then forcing it to do tricks. But I made it work, through sheer will-power, and reached out with my gift to find the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille and call it back.

It really was only a ghost, this time. A grey, semi-transparent shape, its colours a faded memory, with transparent walls, through which could be seen dark human figures, standing or sitting at tables, very still. All the people trapped inside when the Bar was forced out of Time and Space. It was a very tenuous, very flimsy manifestation; but it was quite definitely there, right in front of me. I could sense its presence, feel its living, conscious thoughts . . . but I couldn’t understand them. The Bar might be a sentient thing, but it wasn’t in any way human. How the hell was I going to get any answers out of it?”

I turned to Dennis, but he was already shaking his head. “Wery sorry, Mr. Taylor, but I only work with deceased peoples.”

“Try!” I said, very coldly. “Because every damned soul in the Nightside is depending on us, right now, and if we screw this up . . .”

And then I stopped, as one of the dark figures inside the ghostly Bar rose abruptly from its table, then walked slowly through the Bar to the front door. None of the other figures moved, or even acknowledged it. The front door opened of its own accord, and the dark figure stood there, in the doorway. It looked at me. A cold hand took hold of my heart, and squeezed it tight. I knew that face. I hadn’t known Julien Advent back in the sixties, but he hadn’t changed at all. I wasn’t even born then, but he looked exactly the same. He spoke to me; but it was the voice and words of the Hawk’s Wind, speaking through the sixties incarnation of the Great Victorian Adventurer.

I could tell.

“The Sun King didn’t remove me from this reality,” said the Bar, through Julien’s mouth. “The Entities from Beyond did it.”

“The Aquarians?” I said. My mouth was very dry.

“That’s not their name. They removed me from the world because I’m the only part of the Nightside that the Sun King cares about. He went along with it because the Entities said it was important to remove the people held within me; but they lied.”

“How do you know what the Entities want?” I said carefully.

“Because you can’t hide the truth from the dead,” said the Bar. “Many things about the world become so much clearer, once you’re dead. Especially if you’ve chosen not to depart, just yet.”

“How did you become . . . conscious?” I said.

The sixties Julien actually smiled, briefly. “You should have been here, in the sixties. It was all going on.”

“Why is the Sun King so determined to bring about the end of the night, and the Nightside?” I said.

“Because he wants to bring back the great Dream of the sixties, and the Nightside is everything he disapproves of. He’s always had a very limited perception of what Dreams are. You can’t force them on people. He also wants everyone else to bow down to him, and admit that his Dream is better than theirs. Even if he won’t admit it to himself. He’s still very human.”

I nodded slowly. So far, it all sounded plausible enough. Ghosts know everything because the world can’t hide anything from them, any more. The trick is to get ghosts to tell you the truth. Because the dead always have their own agendas. Hopefully, the Hawk Wind’s interests were the same as mine, in this case.

“The Entities are lying to the Sun King,” said the Bar, in Julien Advent’s voice. “They always were. And they never were what he thought they were. Everything he does, he does to serve them and their true instincts. They will destroy me, and everyone trapped inside me, eventually. They’re only holding on to us now in case the Sun King should waver. We are hostages to his fortune. The Entities aren’t what he thinks they are.”

“Then what are they?” I said. “Really?”

“Hungry,” said the Hawk’s Wind.

“Boss?” Cathy said quietly. “What’s it saying? I can’t hear anything!”

I looked at her, then at Dennis, who shook his head quickly. “I can see the ghost but not hear it,” said Dennis, sounding more than a little put-out. “A wery fascinating presence, quite unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before. And I’ve been around. In more ways than one. So I am moved to ask, How is it you can hear it, Mr. Taylor, and I can’t?”

“I told you,” I said. “I trained with old Carnacki. And he knew all sorts of things he never shared with the Institute that took his name.” I looked back at the Julien Advent shade in the doorway. It hurt to look at him, knowing he was as dead as the Bar now. Thanks to me. “Why did the Entities allow the Sun King to return?”

“Because he’s ready. Programmed and primed, to do what they want. And, because the Droods are gone. The whole family, gone in a moment. Only Eddie remains, the last Drood. Arthur Pendragon and the London Knights are also gone, off fighting the good fight in another dimension. When they try to return, they will find the Entities have closed and sealed the dimensional gates behind them. And the Carnacki Institute . . . is preoccupied with its own problems. There are still certain individuals who might hope to stand against the Entities: the Walking Man, the Regent of Shadows, the Detective Inspectre. But by the time they can come together, it will be too late. The Entities will be in control. That leaves only you, John Taylor.”

“How do I stop them?” I said urgently. “How do I stop the Sun King?”

“Show him what the Entities really are,” said the ghost. “Show him what they really mean to do with this world. And what they really think of his precious Dream. He’s still asleep. Wake him up.”

The sixties Julien Advent turned his back on me and walked into the Bar. The door closed itself. And despite everything I could do to hold on to it, the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille slowly and silently vanished, and was gone.

“You couldn’t have hung on a little longer?” I said angrily. “Not for one more question? Like, Where is the bloody Sun King? Where can I find him?”

“Boss,” said Cathy. “You’re shouting at empty air. And freaking us all out. I mean, I’m sure it’s all very therapeutic, but . . .”

“I thought the Entities took the Bar because that was where they intended to break through,” I said. “But I was wrong. I was so sure I’d find the Sun King here, but . . .”

“What did the Bar tell you?” said Cathy.

“Not what I needed to know. Think, think . . . Where is the Sun King, right now? Where would he go, to raise the sun and bring down the Nightside?”

“He needs a weak spot,” said Cathy. “So where’s the oldest place in the Nightside? What’s been here longest, boss?”

“Of course!” I said. “St. Jude’s! That was here before it was a church, before Christianity even got started!”

“Then that’s where he’ll be,” said Cathy.

She was right, of course. The oldest and most powerful spot in the Nightside was also its weakest because it had been around so long. The church is one of the few places on Earth where the physical world can make direct contact with the spiritual world. Could the Sun King use that as a doorway, a way to break in and out? Maybe. Some days, all you can do is wing it.

I didn’t want to go to St. Jude’s; but I couldn’t tell Cathy why. Because Suzie might still be there. I hadn’t told Cathy about Suzie. How could I? But I had to go there. I had to go to St. Jude’s, right now . . . and all I could do was hope that Suzie was somewhere else, hunting me down.

My back twinged briefly, where she’d shot me once, long ago.

I turned abruptly to Dennis. “All right, that’s it. Turned out I didn’t need you after all, Den-Den. Go on back to your club. I think I’ve enjoyed about as much of your company as I can stand.”

“Lots of people say that,” said Dennis. “Glad to have been of service. Be assured I bear no ill will at being dragged out of my wery own bar, hauled half-way across the Nightside, only to find I’m not needed. Perish the thought! I suppose a lift back’s out of the question?”

“What do you think?” I said.

He gave me a look of sleazy dignity. “Your mother knits socks in Hell.”

And he turned and strode away. That’s Den-Den for you. Always knows exactly how far he can push it.

“Boss,” said Cathy. “Your eyes are bleeding.”

I put a hand to my face, and the fingers came away bloody. I could see the blood, but I couldn’t feel it. Cathy handed me a handkerchief, and I mopped roughly at my face till the bleeding stopped. Crying tears of blood was not a good sign. I couldn’t keep on using my gift like this. It was killing me by inches. I offered Cathy her handkerchief back; but she looked at the bloody mess and shook her head quickly. I tucked the handkerchief away in an inside pocket. Not the kind of thing you want to leave lying around, in the Nightside. There’s a lot you can achieve with someone else’s blood, little of it good. When I looked at Cathy again, she was looking at me as though she was already buying the wreath.

“Boss,” said Cathy. “What’s happening to you? You look like shit. You look like death warmed up and allowed to congeal.”

“It’s the gift,” I said, as steadily as I could. “You go to the well too often, you get blood instead of water. I’ll last. I’ve still got things to do.”

“We need to get you back to Strangefellows,” said Cathy. “Alex has all kinds of stuff there that will put you right.”

“No,” I said. “I think I’ve gone beyond anything Alex can help me with. It doesn’t matter. We have to get to St Jude’s. That’s got to be Ground Zero. You don’t have to come with me, Cathy.”

“Yes I do,” she said sturdily. “I’m damned if I’ll let anyone interfere with the wedding preparations for tomorrow. You promised I could be maid of honour, and I’m holding you to it.” She stopped, and looked at me thoughtfully. “Do you suppose . . . the Lord of Thorns will be there?”

“I’m banking on it,” I said. “He’s the only weapon I’ve got left.”