The Bride Wore Black Leather

FIVE Walking Among Ghosts

I took Julien Advent through the back door and out into the rear alley. The clamour of my continuing stag do shut off abruptly as I closed the door firmly behind us. Julien’s nostrils flared sharply as the unique ambience of the rear alley assaulted his senses. He looked around him and, without saying a word, made it very clear that he was not impressed. He had a point. The dimly lit alleyway stretched away before us, half-full of garbage and the things that feed on it. Something had left a thick, slimy trail across the cobbled ground and half-way up the adjoining wall. And a small pile of severed shrunken heads, draped with ivy and mistletoe, suggested the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chain-saw were celebrating Christmas early again this year. There was nothing in the alley that you’d want to see, and even less that you’d want to see you. Julien gave me a very cold look.

“What, exactly, are we doing out here, John? I have known Victorian slum-dwellers who would have looked down their noses at a location like this.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’d call in the exterminators, but we still haven’t found out what happened to the last crew they sent. We’re here because I can’t use my Portable Timeslip inside Strangefellows. Alex paid out a lot of money for state-of-the-art protective shields, specially to prevent anyone from dropping in when they felt like it. At one stage, it got to the point where he was opening fire on anyone who teleported in without warning, or even at people he hadn’t noticed before. So Alex has his shields, and I try to be polite about such things, when I can.”

“Alex has shields strong enough to keep you out?” said Julien. “I didn’t think that was possible any more.”

“It isn’t,” I said. “This pocket-watch could punch through Alex’s shields like a bullet through a paper bag. But I don’t want him knowing that. Partly because I don’t want him upset, and partly because I might need to make a sudden and strategic and surprise entrance into his bar someday.”

“Typical Walker,” said Julien, smiling. “You’ll fit into the job nicely.” And then he froze and made a brief moue of distress. “Something large and furry has just scurried across my shoes, and I’m really hoping it was a much larger than usual rat.”

“Don’t look down,” I advised him.

“Is there a reason we’re still standing here?” said Julien.

“You’re the one who started making conversation,” I said.

And then we both looked round sharply as a figure paused at the end of the alleyway and looked in at us. Something in a frock struck an evocative pose and smiled professionally.

“Evening, gents. Fancy a horrible time?”

“Not now, George,” I said. “We’re working.”

“Well, pardon me, I’m sure. Catch you on the flip side, darlings.”

“I really think we should be leaving now,” Julien said firmly.

I opened the gold pocket-watch, and the darkness within jumped out to swallow us up. I had a brief glimpse of things in the alleyway shrinking back from the living dark and even disappearing into concealed doorways; and then there was only falling and falling in the endless dark, surrounded by voices thundering in no human language. Spend too long in that terrible dark, and you start to understand what the voices are saying, and that’s even worse. My feet slammed suddenly against hard and unyielding ground, there was a flash of light, and the world returned. Julien and I were standing in a street familiar to both of us, bathed in the warm glow of amber street-lights and flaring neon signs. And right before us, where the legendary Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille should have stood, was a great hole in the ground, dug out between two lowering buildings like the empty space left by a pulled tooth. Julien Advent shuddered and glared at me.

“That . . . was a most unpleasant experience. Is it always like that when you travel through the watch?”

“Mostly,” I said. “I keep hoping I’ll get used to it. Walker did.”

“Either that, or he was an excellent actor,” said Julien.

We were only saying things so we wouldn’t have to talk about what was really bothering us. Rather than look at the hole in the ground, I took a good look at the watching crowd. Quite a large gathering had turned out to see what was going on. Disasters and catastrophes count as free entertainment, in the Nightside. A slow buzz of conversation and comment moved through the crowd as they recognised Julien Advent and me. A few started to drift casually away. I couldn’t help but notice that most of the onlookers seemed far more interested in Julien than in me.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “You always get more respect than me.”

“Well, you get more fear,” Julien said generously. “And now you’re Walker, I’m sure the respect will come. In time.”

“All the hard work I put into building a reputation that makes grown men weep and grow weak at the knees; and all you have to do is show up and no-one even notices I’m here.” I sniffed loudly. “I could have a neon sign over my head, listing all the people I’ve brought to justice, and they’d still look at you first.”

“I have been around a lot longer than you,” said Julien. “And I do have more . . . classically handsome features.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Answer me this. What are all these naked people doing here?”

I indicated the dozen or so entirely naked men and women cordoning off the great hole in the ground and discouraging anyone else from getting too close, apparently simply by looking at them.

“Ah, yes,” said Julien Advent. “I phoned ahead, to have them close off and protect the area till we could take a look. These very impressive individuals are the Tantric Troops. The very latest addition to the Authorities’ private army of security personnel and useful people.”

“Oh, them,” I said. “You mean the Fuck Buddies.”

Julien winced. “Please, John. Don’t call them that in public. We want people to take them seriously. I know there are those who refer to the Troops by that . . . vulgar description, but I think we should insist on the correct name in front of the children. They’re so impressionable. The Troops are a puissant force in their own right. Every man and woman here can use tantric or sexual energies to power their magic; and no, I don’t want to go into the technicalities.”

“I’d love to be around when they recharge their batteries,” I said.

“Let us not go anywhere near there. The point is, no-one is going to intrude on the crime scene while the Troops are around.”

“What do they do?” I said, honestly curious. “Threaten to bukkake people to death if they get too close?”

“For you, taste is something other people talk about, isn’t it?” said Julien. “I am told that if anyone does threaten the crime scene’s integrity, the Troops are quite capable of sending the perpetrator’s sex drive into reverse. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but it doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to experience.”

Some of the people at the front of the crowd heard all this and showed a distinct interest in getting to the back of the crowd. I was careful to avoid the gaze of any of the naked people. Glancing in their general direction was enough to give me a pleasant but subtly disturbing buzz.

“The previous Walker had a similar set of enforcers: the Holy Trio,” said Julien. “You broke them, didn’t you?”

“You know damn well I did,” I said. “You wrote a whole editorial about what I did to them. Walker set them on me because I’d defied the previous Authorities. The Holy Trio derived their very unpleasant magics from energies stored up by a lifetime of celibacy and denial. I . . . defused them.”

“You had them jumping each other in the street!” said Julien.

“I made them happy,” I said, with dignity. “Which is more than the Authorities ever did. I’m told it took the medics three weeks to get the smiles off their faces.”

“You always did fight dirty, John,” said Julien. “Anyway, the Tantric Troops work directly for the Authorities, not you. One less thing for you to bother yourself with.”

“You’re so good to me,” I said. “You mean one more thing you can hold over me if I go off the rails or off the reservation. Let us be clear here, Julien; I am my own kind of Walker, and as long as I’m on the scene, I have authority. Not you, not the Authorities, and not this bunch of supernatural flashers.”

“Of course,” said Julien. “Of course.”

I gave him my best disdainful look, then, because we’d said all we could and couldn’t put it off any longer, we strode forward to look down into the hole. The naked people immediately fell back to give us room, for which I was quietly grateful. Walking between them sent my heart racing uncomfortably. They weren’t naked in a Strippers or Chippendales way, they were more like sky-clad witches, men and women of primal power, unbound by everyday restraints. They burned with dangerous attitude, drawing the eyes to them like moths to a naked flame. I stared straight ahead till I was comfortably past them, then stopped to stand right at the very edge of the great hole, looking down into it. There was nothing much to see. Only broken ground, dark earth, and bare stone; not even a single piece of rubble to mark the Hawk Wind’s passing. Julien stood beside me. If the Troops had bothered him, he kept it to himself.

“The fire that burned down the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille was before my time,” I said. “But you were here, in 1970. Does this look anything like what was left behind then?”

“There’s not a lot of difference, that I can see,” said Julien. “The blaze was . . . sudden, and extensive. The whole building went up in moments, with flames so fierce no-one could get close or even look at them directly for too long. Not a trace of the Bar remained; even the cellar was gone, leaving a hole exactly like this. Some said arson; some said a magical attack against one or other of the significant individuals who often visited. A few romantic souls said it was self-immolation, as a protest against the splitting up of the Beatles. No-one ever found out for sure.

“The Bar’s owners were suspiciously eager to draw a line under the proceedings and replace the Bar with an entirely new building, something more modern and up-to-date. They’d made no secret they were tired of the whole sixties look, and that only public affection (and high profits) had kept them from making changes. This was their chance to go up-market, and attract a better (and better-paying) class of clientele.

“And then the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille came back. Twenty-four hours after it burned down, there it was again. The ghost of a building, a haunting so strong you could walk around inside it, just like the original. Time passed, but not inside the Hawk’s Wind. The sixties lived on, as the decades passed, preserving all kinds of drinks and food and music you couldn’t find anywhere else. And to the fury of the owners, the Bar became more popular than ever, with visitors dropping in from Past, Present, and any number of possible futures.

“The owners went ballistic. Took it as a personal affront. They tried everything to get rid of the ghost Bar. They called in heavy-duty exorcists; had Bishop Beastly curse it with bell, book, and candle; even got the old rogue vicar Pew in to give it a good scolding . . . I’m even told they quietly and quite illegally imported some barely trained poltergeists to go in there and tear the place down. Only to watch the poltergeists come running out, screaming. I believe a few of them are still at large in the Nightside, running their own security business. But the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille stood its ground.

“You have to understand, John; none of us had ever seen anything like this before, even in the Nightside. The ghost of a building, so real and solid it was almost undistinguishable from the original. I always thought it came back simply because so many people loved and missed it . . . Anyway. Eventually the Bar’s owners shrugged, threw up their hands, and said Have it your own way, and went off to sulk in private. And count their profits, of course.”

I frowned. “Could the owners have finally found a way to dismiss the haunting, and reclaim their property, after all these years?”

“Unknown,” said Julien. “But unlikely. If they had, they’d be here now, dancing and celebrating and boasting how they’d finally won. And they were never more than a pair of minor business men. To do something like this . . . would take real power.”

“Hold that thought,” I said. “I spy a pair of well-dressed city types heading in our direction, who look a lot like owners to me.”

Julien looked round, nodded sourly, and gestured for the Troops to let them pass. The two men strode up to us and glared right into our faces, which was brave of them. They both looked prosperous enough, in an obvious sort of way. Two old men, well into their seventies, in good suits, coats, and gloves. Men with hard faces and harder eyes, and flat, determined mouths. The kind of business men who hadn’t been talked back to in far too long. The taller of the two men produced his business card with a snap of the hand, like a conjuring trick, and thrust it at me. I refused to even glance at it, on general principles, so he pushed it right into my face. So I took the card, tore it into little pieces, and scattered them over him like confetti. Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I always say.

The tall man’s face went pale, then flushed a dangerous shade of purple. “We are Tattersol and Vane!” he said angrily. “We own this most valuable property, and we have a legal right to be here! I am Tattersol, this is Vane. Show him the documents, Mr. Vane!”

While Vane hurriedly fumbled important-looking papers out of his briefcase, I took the opportunity to look the two men over carefully. Tattersol was well dressed in a casual sort of way, while Vane was well dressed in a careless sort of way. Tattersol had thin black hair with pronounced white streaks, while Vane was almost entirely bald. Tattersol had a hulking, powerful presence, while Vane had a shifty, detached presence. I was irresistibly reminded of Badger and Mole from The Wind in the Willows, but kept the thought to myself. I was Walker now. Dignity at all times. I was prepared to be tactful and polite, right up to the point where someone got on my tits, and I said To hell with it, and booted someone somewhere painful. I beamed on Tattersol and Vane in my most avuncular fashion.

“So what can the Authorities and their newly appointed front man do for Misters Tattersol and Vane?”

Vane finally fished out a handful of legal documents and shook them at me meaningfully. I ignored them, so he thrust them at Julien, who looked at him in a disturbingly thoughtful manner until Vane lowered his papers and looked away. Tattersol glared at Vane, then at us.

“We have a legal right to this land! Isn’t that right, Mr. Vane?”

“Of course we do, Mr. Tattersol! I have all the necessary documentation right here!”

“Quite so, Mr. Vane. We are here to demand access to this location, our property. We also insist that you do absolutely nothing that might assist the ghost of the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille to return. It is gone, and we want nothing more to do with it. Do we, Mr. Vane?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Tattersol! We wash our hands of it, at long last. The law is on our side in this matter!”

“We are the law, inasmuch as there is law,” said Julien, entirely unmoved by the two old men shouting at him. “This is a crime scene, and the crime is under investigation. If only to ensure that other buildings don’t start disappearing, too.”

“None of the other buildings are ghosts or phantasms!” snapped Tattersol. “We demand access to our property so we can . . . protect it! Isn’t that right, Mr. Vane?”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Tattersol! We have documents! Signed contracts! The law stands four-square behind us!”

“When has the law ever mattered, in the Nightside?” I said, honestly curious.

“Ah, but this is business law!” said Tattersol, with the air of someone closing a trap. “Contracts must be honoured! Or no-one could make a profit here!”

“He may be obnoxious, and far too loud for his own good, but he has a point,” said Julien.

“Exactly!” said Vane. “What?”

“I was saying you had a point,” said Julien.

“Oh! Yes!” Vane glared at me. “You had better watch your step, Mr. So-called Walker! Or I will have you hauled up before the Better Unnatural Business Committee!”

“You made that up!” I said. I looked at Julien. “Tell me he made that up.”

“Unfortunately not,” said Julien.

“And the Authorities have a duty to enforce business contracts!” said Tattersol, with the air of someone slamming down an ace.

“He’s right,” said Julien. “We do. There are very old agreements to that effect.”

“But I am Walker,” I said. “And I don’t have to agree to anything. In fact, I think that’s part of the job description. Mr. Tattersol and Mr. Vane, while I accept that your legal position is undoubtedly correct, I also find you both guilty of obstructing an on-going investigation and getting on my nerves in a built-up area. I have work to do, and you are getting in the way. So be good little business men and go away, and we’ll let you know whatever we feel like letting you know. In special legal writing. Won’t that be nice? Wave bye-bye, or I’ll run you both in for disturbing my peace of mind.”

“The abuse of authority comes naturally to you,” murmured Julien. “You’re going to make a fine Walker.”

Tattersol’s face was going through a series of dark colours that really didn’t speak well for his blood pressure, while Vane had gone white with shock. And then they both began to splutter loudly.

“I will have your heads for this!” yelled Tattersol, his impeccably gloved hands clenched into fists. “I will have you dragged through the streets by horses! I will ruin you, and your family, and everyone you know and care about!”

“We’ll take everything you own!” said Vane, just as loudly. “Do you have a house? We’ll seize it! Do you have a wife? We’ll throw her out on the streets to starve!”

“Oh no,” Julien said quietly.

“A wife!” said Tattersol, thinking he saw a weak spot. “We’ll sell her to a sporting-house, to sell her body for other men’s pleasures! We’ll . . .”

I used an old magical trick then, one I mostly use to take the bullets out of threatening guns, and ripped every filling, crown, implant, and piece of bridgework right out of their mouths. They all disappeared in a moment and fell in a silent rain from my outstretched palms. Tattersol and Vane clapped their hands to their bloody mouths and made loud noises of shock and distress. They looked at me, horrified, and I looked back at them.

“Never threaten his wife,” said Julien.

“Get the hell out of here,” I said, “before I decide to show you a similar magic trick, involving your lower intestines and a row of plastic buckets.”

They couldn’t leave fast enough. Some of the watching crowd applauded, and some decided they were urgently needed elsewhere. Most of them carried on watching. It takes a lot to impress a Nightside crowd. I looked at Julien, who was shaking his head sadly.

“What?” I said.

“Oh, nothing, John. You’ve bullied and assaulted two old men who were technically in the right, very successfully. What do you have planned for an encore? Kicking a puppy?”

“Have you got one?”

“John . . .”

“All right; perhaps I did over-react. But remember; they were business men. Which makes them fair game, in the Nightside. It’s probably time we started culling them again, to thin back the numbers.”

“You see?” said Julien. “That, right there. That is the difference between how you and I operate. I use reason, you favour brute force.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I said. “They’re gone, aren’t they? In fact, if you look down the street, you can still see them going, at some speed.”

“But they will be back!” said Julien. “Probably attended by serious bodyguards, and, which is even worse, with lawyers! They do own this land, and they do have a legitimate claim to be involved with what happens here. All right, I agree; I don’t like them either, and I don’t want them preventing the return of the Hawk’s Wind. But it behooves the Authorities, and you as Walker, to walk carefully around vested business interests.”

“Statements like that are why I never wanted to be Walker,” I said. “I will defend what is right and just, and let the law catch up when it can. That doesn’t suit you or any of the other Authorities, get yourselves another Walker.”

“You can be a real pain in the arse sometimes, John,” said Julien. “Especially when you’re right.” He sighed. “They will be back.”

“They’ll have to visit a dentist first,” I said. “That should buy us some time.”

“I don’t know why I even bother to talk to you, sometimes,” said Julien.

“Because you have such a beautiful speaking voice,” I said.

Julien ignored me, giving all his attention to the great hole in the ground. “I knew the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille when it was still real,” he said finally. “It was a marvellous place, in its prime. In the sixties. Everyone who mattered made the scene at the Hawk’s Wind. It was neutral ground, you see; much like Strangefellows today. So on any given night, you could expect to encounter good guys and bad, famous heroes and infamous villains, and everyone in between. Where the Underworld could meet the elite, gods could sit down with monsters, and every night a whole new gaggle of worshipped celebrities and the briefly fashionable showed up. Some nights you could hardly breathe for all the charisma hanging on the air. The Hawk’s Wind was a celebration of the place and the time . . . And it was such an exciting time to be alive . . . “I came here many times, with my original assistant and companion. A lovely young lady of great charm and enormous energies, what was known back then as a dolly bird. Her name was Juliet; she was an exotic dancer. My first friend and advisor, when I was still coming to terms with having left Victorian England for the Technicolor sixties. Juliet . . . kept me sane, in the face of so many changes, and a whole new world that often made no sense to me. A brave new world that had so many wonders and nightmares in it. Ah yes; all the adventures we had together . . . Solving mysteries, tracking down evildoers, exposing corruption and brutality and then doing something about it. There was a lot of that going on, in the sixties.”

“So what happened to her?” I said. “To Juliet?” I was fascinated; Julien doesn’t talk much about his early days in the Nightside.

“She left me,” he said, not looking at me. “When I gave up free-lance adventuring to work for the Night Times. It seemed the most obvious thing to do, to me, the next obvious step; I thought I could do more good that way. To put pressure on the Powers That Be, to bring about real and lasting change. But she didn’t see it that way.”

“You gave it all up to become the Man,” I said. “ Like me.”

“Because somebody has to do it,” said Julien. “And better us than someone else.”

“Exactly.”

He did look at me then. “Adventuring is when you do it for yourself. Crusading is when you do it for other people.”

“So what happened to Juliet after she left you?”

“Oh, she runs a night-club now, the Adamant. Very fashionable, I’m told. Very selective. I stay away. Because she’s got older, and I haven’t. It wouldn’t be fair, to keep reminding her . . . I think it’s better that we keep our happy memories.”

“Why don’t you grow old?” I said, pushing it since he was in a talkative mood. “Is it to do with the serum you created? The Anti-Hyde?”

He looked at me then and smiled briefly. “The Anti-Hyde? I suppose that’s as good a description as any. Dr. Jekyll created a serum to bring out all the evil in a man, release the beast within. I never did understand why anyone would want to do that. To wallow in the mud when they could fly with the angels. I created a serum to bring out the best in a man and tested it on myself. I suppose it worked. I can’t tell; I’m too close. But I do know I haven’t aged a day since I took it.”

“Are you immortal?” I said, the subject being much on my mind.

“Too soon to tell. I hope not. Most of the immortals I’ve encountered have been an utter waste of space.” He looked back at the hole in the ground. “I used to visit the Hawk’s Wind all the time, back in the sixties. But I rarely went back after it became a ghost. I kept bumping into Time-travellers, from the Past and the Future, and they always wanted to tell me things . . . I wonder if one of them was trying to tell me about this . . .”

“When the Bar disappeared tonight, there were still people inside.”

“Of course. A great many of them famous and important people, from the Past and the Present and a whole bunch of different futures. A few got out, but they’re still in shock. They don’t remember much. The English Assassin died, getting his sister to safety; but he’ll get over it. He always does. The point is, we have to get the Hawk’s Wind back, so we can rescue the people trapped inside, and return them to their proper places in Time. Because if we don’t . . . God alone knows how much damage that might do to the time-stream.”

“Do we have any names, for these famous and important people?” I said.

“Some. The Shimmer Twins; very big rock-and-roll stars. Zodiac the Mystical, from the eighties. Possibly a very-high adept, possibly a major con man. Either way, a Major Player in his day. Shame about what happened to him . . . The Amber Prince, and the Grey Fox. But most importantly . . . I’m in there, John. With Juliet. We Time-travelled here, from the sixties, following a case. I don’t remember the details . . .”

“But if you were in there, in your past, you must remember what happened to the Hawk’s Wind!” I said. “Where you were taken, how you were rescued!”

“No,” said Julien Advent. “It was all too traumatic. All I had was a gap in my memory. I didn’t remember any of this until the Bar disappeared today; then some of it started to come back. Most of it’s still gone. Temporal fugue.”

“I hate Time travel,” I said, feelingly.

“Well,” said Julien, “you do have more reason than most.”

“Why did you bring me here?” I said flatly. “What does the Bar’s disappearance have to do with the current major threat to the Nightside? Is the same person behind both events?”

“Yes,” said Julien. “He’s called the Sun King. And he has come a very long way, to reach this time, this place, this moment. He wants to bring the sun here, in a long-delayed dawn, and put an end to the longest night in the world. He wants to turn the Nightside into Sunnyside. No more shadows, no more shades of grey. He wants to bathe the Nightside in the harsh and unrelenting light of truth and justice. No more hiding places for old gods and lost monsters, for heroes and villains and those in between.”

“You’ve never approved of the way things are, in the Nightside,” I said carefully.

“No,” he said. “But I want to help and save the people here, not destroy them. The Nightside has it uses; it serves a purpose. It must be preserved.”

“Who is this Sun King?” I said. “I never heard of him.”

“Before your time,” said Julien Advent. “But he really was big, once upon a time. He was the real happening of the sixties. He was born out of the famous Summer of Love, in 1967. The herald of Man’s true evolution, and the mind’s true liberation. He believed we could all become more than human, become living gods and walk in glory forever. And he actually managed it. He stepped up and out of the human condition, and became the Sun King. Now he wants to bring back the Big Dream of the sixties, and put us all on the right path again. He believes we’ve lost our way, betrayed the Dream and ourselves. He’s come back to change the world, and he intends to make a start with the Nightside. No more night, no more shadows; Let the sun shine in . . .”

I looked at him sharply. “You know him; don’t you?”

“Oh, we all knew the Sun King, back in the Summer of Love,” said Julien Advent. “But yes, I knew him personally, back in the day. I knew him as just a man, before he burst out of his cocoon and became the Sun King. I left the Nightside to go travel the world and see how much it had changed, since my day, when Victoria was still on the Throne and the British Empire was the greatest the world had ever seen . . . So much had changed, and so much hadn’t, and the more I saw, the less I understood. In the summer of 1967, I went to San Francisco to wear some flowers in my hair. It made as much sense as anything else. These days, the word hippy has become an insult, but back then they were the bravest of the brave, determined to overthrow an unjust society without using violence. That was a revelation to me. My generation changed the world through brute force, with armies and opium and gunboat diplomacy. But these were a new kind of young people, gentle people with strong convictions, dedicated to non-violent action. Sticking flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns, knowing that some of those soldiers were quite prepared to shoot them. Standing up to be counted even though they knew someone would club them down. And the Sun King . . . was the very best of them.

“His real name was Harry Webb. No-one knew much about who or what he was before he came to America and made his way to San Francisco. Another young Englishman, walking across the USA, to see what there was to see. He found his way to Haight-Ashbury, and the counter-culture, and following the path of so many of the questing souls of those glorious days, he turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. We met when we crashed together in the same cheap boarding-house. I liked being among people who’d never heard of me, and we all sat and talked for hours about everything under the sun.

“So far, only another story of times past. But then one day, right at the height of the Summer of Love, Harry Webb went to the park and took what Timothy Leary would call an heroic dose of LSD. His mind expanded and exploded, and in that transcendental state . . . he made mental contact with Entities from Beyond.

“Now, a good many people said they did, while under the influence of the many and various mind-expanding chemicals of the day; but Harry really did. The Entities talked to him of many things, and he listened, and when he finally came down again, he wasn’t Harry Webb any more. He wasn’t human any more. He was transformed, he was transmogrified, he was the Sun King. The living god of LSD, the true Acid Sorcerer, the Miracle Man. Psychedelic rock and roll played around him wherever he went, manifesting out of nowhere—a glorious music that we could never remember or reproduce afterwards. He and his music led us through the streets of San Francisco, like a psychedelic pied piper. Hundreds, thousands strong, our minds blown and expanded by his very presence. We would have followed him anywhere, done anything for him. Lived for him, died for him. Oh yes, I was there, swept up in it all. He was our leader, our prophet, our guru. And all he ever wanted of us was that we should become like him, shine like him. He wanted to raise us all up, into all we’d ever wanted or hoped we could be. A world of turned-on, non-violent superhumans.

“The gentle knights, the lords and ladies of a new Camelot.

“He walked through Haight-Ashbury, and we followed after him, hundreds of thousands strong, singing Hallelujah. He healed the sick with a look, raised up the broken-spirited with just a word, turned on the straights and blasted everyone’s minds into something better. A living god, he walked in sunlight wherever he went, and miracles and wild happenings burst out all around him.

“The local authorities totally freaked out. The cops arrived first, with their uniforms and guns and night-sticks; and the Sun King stopped them in their tracks and stunned them with the truth. Of who they really were, as opposed to who they’d wanted to be. And some of them joined us, and some of them ran away to hide in the shadows, and some of them drew their guns and opened fire. But the Sun King smiled, and their bullets turned into flowers and fell out of the air.

“So they called in reinforcements, and they met us with armoured vans, and bigger guns, and water cannon; but none of them made any difference. The Sun King had no weapons; he was benevolence personified, and the natural world itself rose up to protect him. He . . . made you want to be better, to do better, by example. And through his presence, his example, we were.”

Julien stopped talking, his eyes far-away, lost in the past. I’d never heard him say so much, or speak so eloquently. Or talk about someone else the way most people talked about him. The Great Victorian Adventurer; the crusading editor of the Night Times; the man even his enemies admired.

“What happened?” I said. “What went wrong?”

“He went back to the park,” said Julien Advent. “And he raised up a huge and wonderful White Tower, with nothing more than a wave of his hand. It appeared before us, huge and magical, all complete in a moment, a Tower with no doors or windows. He walked through the wall and disappeared inside the Tower, shutting himself off from the clamour of the world, and his followers, so that he could meditate on what to do next, and commune with the Entities from Beyond. All the people came from far around, in their psychedelic clothes and pretty painted faces, with flowers in their hair and in their hands, and they sat around the Tower in endless ranks, closely packed circles spreading out for as far as the eye could see. All the beautiful people, the flower people, the good and groovy people. And there they sat, talking and singing, waiting patiently. Until the light went out of the day, and night fell over the park, and the White Tower blazed like a beacon. And still they stayed, eating and drinking, laughing and loving, dancing and singing in celebration of what they’d seen and the hope of new wonders to come. For twenty-four hours they waited for the Sun King to come out and lead them to glory.

“And exactly twenty-four hours after he disappeared into the White Tower, the Tower with no doors and no windows . . . after they’d all exhausted themselves and there was no more singing or dancing . . . the Tower disappeared. No-one saw it go. No sound or fury, no great explosions of colour; people looked up, and it wasn’t there any more. No trace to show it had ever been there. Strangely enough, there weren’t any tears or protests, no demands for explanations. Slowly, a few at a time, the people went away. And within a few days, most of them had forgotten about the Sun King, and everyone got on with their lives. The Sun King became another marvellous story from that magical time.”

“You were there,” I said. “You sat and watched, outside the Tower in the park. Didn’t you?”

“Yes. I was there. I knew him, walked with him, saw what he could do. I walked beside him, as he entered the White Tower. It wouldn’t let me in. I can still remember how the white wall felt, under my fingertips. Like cold coral, from the bottom of the sea. I waited, because I believed in him and wanted to see what he would do; but when the Tower vanished and took him with it, I knew it was over.

“Hardly anyone talks about the Sun King now. Perhaps because he promised so much and disappointed so many. So that they wanted, needed, to forget him. There are conspiracy sites that dismiss the whole story as CIA black propaganda. Disinformation, to discredit the counter-culture. But he was real. I was there. And they were right; he was dangerous because he was the best drug ever. A transforming presence, a way to break out of the Reality Trip, and lead a better life. He was the revolution. Or, he could have been.”

“Do you think . . . the authorities of that time were responsible for his disappearance?” I said.

“I don’t know. I always thought he’d be back someday . . . but not like this.”

“I never knew you could speak fluent sixties,” I said.

He smiled, slightly. “I’ve been around a long time, John, and lived more lives than most people realise. A man plays many roles in his time, and I’ve had more time than most . . . You used to be a private investigator; now you’re Walker. Who and what will you be, in ten, twenty, thirty years?”

“Dead, probably,” I said. “I seem to keep picking life-styles and vocations that contain far more threat and danger than is good for me.” I looked at him steadily. “You’re sure he’s back? The Sun King?”

“Oh yes, John. He’s finally returned to us, and he really doesn’t like what we’ve done with the world in his absence. His love and devotion and benevolence are things of the past now, replaced by a righteous rage and fury. Because we, the people, have betrayed the Big Dream of the sixties; sold our hopes and our principles for a mess of pottage. And most of all, we never lived up to the potential he showed us. We can all shine like the sun, said the Sun King. We were supposed to become superhumans, living gods, like him. Haul ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps; embrace the mind’s true liberation and make a Paradise on Earth. Imagine his reaction, when he finally walked out of the White Tower and got a good look at the twenty-first century.

“He knew some time had passed, that he’d been gone a while; but he hadn’t realised how long. So he spent some time walking up and down in the world, walking among us as one of us, hiding his light behind a bushel of ordinariness . . . Catching up, looking the new world in the eye and disapproving of most of it. And now his long walk is over; he’s returned from the wilderness, and he has decided to put things right. To wake people up from the nightmare they’re living in and help them make a better world. He can change things simply by thinking about it, backed by the power of the Entities from Beyond. Whatever they actually are. And he’s starting with the Nightside because, as far as he’s concerned, it’s the most representative of everything that’s wrong with the world.”

I had to ask. “How do you know all this, Julien?”

“Because he told me. He rang me up, in my editorial offices in the Night Times, and I knew his voice at once. I could never forget that voice. We talked for ages, bringing each other up to date, then he told me of his plans. He was very eloquent. And really quite cheerful about it. He wanted me to know, so I could tell everyone else. So I could tell the Nightside he was coming. I was to be his John the Baptist, announcing his return and warning of the great change to come. I think he was actually quite shocked when I refused and put the phone down on him. How could I run all that in the Night Times, John? After all the wars and upheavals we’ve been through? There would have been mass panic, and God alone knows how many cases of over-reaction. The Nightside can’t afford another disaster, John. We have to stop him.”

“You and me?” I said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

“I still think . . . If I can find him, and speak to him, I can talk him out of this,” said Julien. “I can help him remember who he used to be: the gentle man, the living god of non-violence. Not this hate-fuelled avatar of revenge.”

“You always did have more faith in people than me,” I said. “Do you really think he can do what he says? Raise the sun here, in the Nightside?”

“The man I remember certainly could,” said Julien. “And who knows what he’s capable of now, after so many years communing with the Entities from Beyond?”

“Whatever they really are,” I said. I looked at the great empty hole. “You believe he did this?”

“I know he did this. He told me he was going to. But it wasn’t until I remembered that my earlier self was there, that I knew why. I think that he thinks he can keep me from interfering by holding my old self, and Juliet, hostage.”

“Is he right?” I said.

“No. He’s been gone too long, and he doesn’t understand the modern world. All he can see is what’s wrong with it and not all the marvellous things we’ve achieved. I don’t entirely disagree with him, that we have lost our way, and that the world could use a good hard kick up its spiritual backside; but he’s wrong about the Nightside. It’s necessary. It serves a purpose.”

“Yes,” I said. “It does.”

“This is why I insisted on joining you on this case, as your partner,” said Julien. “I have to be here because I know the Sun King. He was my friend once, and a good man, as well as a great one. If you can find him, I’m sure I can reach him. And I wanted you on this case so I could prove that you are worthy to be Walker. Show the other Authorities you can stop a threat like the Sun King, and none of them will be able to deny your right to be Walker.”

“Every now and again, I forget how devious you can be,” I said. “I think some of me must be rubbing off on you.”

“What a truly appalling mental image,” said Julien.

I had to smile. “Been a long time since we worked together on a case, the two of us. How many years has it been? Not since . . .”

“We agreed never to talk about that,” Julien said sternly.

“So we did,” I agree. “I still see her around, sometimes . . .”

“Shut up, John.”

“Just saying . . .”

“Can you use your gift to find the missing Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille?”

I grinned. “I can try.”

I gave silent thanks for Alex’s potent pick-me-up and raised my gift. I reached out in all directions at once, feeling for the familiar sights and sounds and smells of the Hawk’s Wind, and got nothing. My mind raced round and round the Nightside in ever-expanding circles; and it felt like groping in the dark for something I knew should be there but that I couldn’t quite put my hand on. I could feel the Bar’s presence, in a faint and distant way, but only right at the edge of my perceptions, in a direction I could sense but not look in. Hidden behind a corner in reality. I let my mind drop back inside my head and looked at Julien.

“I’m sorry. It’s gone too far. I can sense the Bar, but I can’t reach it. I don’t think it’s even in our reality any more.”

“There must be something you can do!”

“There is,” I said. “And don’t you raise your voice to me! I’m not your butler!”

“Of course not,” said Julien. “She does what she’s told.”

I gave him a look, then carried on. “I can use my Sight to call up a vision of Time Past, and See what really happened when the Hawk’s Wind disappeared. Hopefully, that will give us some facts to work with.”

Julien nodded stiffly, so I raised my Sight and looked back into the recent Past; and there was the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille, back again, right before me. The ghost of a ghost, a vision of a haunting so real you could walk around inside it and order drinks. The Bar now looked to me more ghostly than it ever had before: all shimmering pastel colours and fraying edges. But even in the tinted shapes and shadows of the Past, it was still a magnificent sight. I reached out and placed a hand on Julien’s shoulder, making contact, so he could See what I was Seeing. I heard him take a sudden sharp breath as he saw the Past through my eyes.

A perfect monument to the swinging sixties, complete with rococo Day-Glo neon sign and a Hindu-latticed front door, the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille stood before us; but even as we watched, the whole structure began to shake and shudder, the walls fading in and out as the Bar lost all coherence. It began to fade away, then suddenly there was the English Assassin, standing in the doorway. He collapsed and fell forward onto the ground, and the whole scene vanished, and all that was left was the great hole in the ground.

I let go of Julien’s shoulder, and the real world, Time Present, returned for both of us. The hole was still a hole.

“Fascinating,” said Julien. “To see the Past unfold, all its secrets laid bare in a moment, living again before us . . . What I would give, to see the Nightside through your eyes, John.”

“I have enough ghosts in my life without calling up more,” I said. “The Past should stay where it belongs.”

“We’re not done yet,” said Julien. “We need to go further back, deeper into the Past, to see what happened inside the Bar before it disappeared. Can you do that, John?”

“I can try,” I said. “But you should brace yourself; there’s a reason why we choose to forget the past and leave it behind.”

I raised my gift and focused my Sight through it, to find exactly the section of Time Past I needed; and once again, the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille rose before me, faded and even more indistinct, the ghostly image of a ghost. I felt Julien’s hand drop onto my shoulder, the fingers closing tightly as the image filled his eyes again. I walked us towards the Hindu-latticed door, then right through it, and we walked into the memory of the Hawk’s Wind.

It looked as it always had: big Day-Glo Pop-Art posters, with colours so rich and powerful they by-passed your retinas and seared themselves directly onto your brain. Stylised plastic tables and chairs, flaring lights, great swirls of primary colours splashed across the walls and ceiling and floor. But all of it somehow smaller and diminished. Another remainder of Time Past. Like an old photograph of an old friend. A juke-box the size of a Tardis jumped and shuddered happily in a corner, pumping out an endless stream of hits from the sixties. There was no sound in my vision. I could see people talking animatedly at their tables, but not one word of what they were saying came to me. But from far and far-away, it seemed to me that I could hear Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” . . . In the centre of the great open floor, two gorgeous go-go dancers dressed mostly in bunches of white feathers danced energetically in two huge golden cages. Birds of paradise, indeed. I looked around the packed tables, and a number of familiar faces presented themselves, famous and important people from the Past, Present, and futures. The English Assassin was there, with his beautiful twin sister, Margaret, comparing ornate sonic pistols and arguing cheerfully over a roll of microfilm. Sebastian Stargave, the Fractured Protagonist, was taking tea with a golden-eyed cyborg. Zodiac the Mystical arranged his cloak fussily about him as he gave his order to the mini-skirted, gum-chewing waitress. And Pierrot and Columbine only had eyes for each other. A typical enough gathering for the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille.

Julien and I walked among them, the faded figures like so many ghosts and phantoms. Or perhaps we were the ghosts, moving unseen and unsuspected. I led the way, being careful not to walk through anything or anyone. The vision was fragile enough as it was, without my doing anything to damage it. And besides, it always pays to be careful when moving through the Past; you never know what might make waves . . . The English Assassin’s head came up suddenly, and he looked suspiciously around him as though disturbed by a presence he couldn’t quite put a finger on. He looked right at Julien and me, and even though he couldn’t see us, his steady gaze sent chills up my back. He finally shrugged quickly and resumed his conversation with his sister. Which, given who and what he is, was just as well. Julien studied the English Assassin thoughtfully.

“I’ve known him for so many years,” he said quietly. “With this name and that, one face or another. In the service of chaos, and law. And I’m still no nearer understanding him. He was as much an icon and a representative of the sixties as the Sun King; but he always stood for the darker aspects of that time.”

“You don’t need to lower your voice,” I said. “He can’t see or hear us. None of them can.”

Julien’s hand on my shoulder urged me forward, towards the rear of the Bar. We threaded our way between the tables and finally stopped at a little alcove by the window, and there he was . . . his younger self, sitting with his girl companion, Juliet. Julien didn’t look much different than he did now, but there was perhaps a more youthful sense to his smile, his gaze, the way he held himself. He certainly smiled a lot more than the man I was used to. And from the quiet sigh that came behind me, if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Julien was looking at someone who’d died.

“Ah, Juliet,” he said. “We were so happy together, for a time.”

Juliet was a beautiful and vivacious English rose, with a porcelain complexion and long blonde hair, pale pink lips and flashing blue eyes, and a single small flower painted on one cheek. She wore a dress of black-and-white go-go checks, and tall, white, plastic boots with stiletto heels. And she was so alive: gesturing excitedly as she talked, tossing her long hair so it danced around her head, and silently teasing her more stolid and reserved companion.

“Why did I ever let you go, Juliet?” said Julien, in a voice so quiet I could barely hear it. There was something in that voice that would have broken the hearts of the two young people before us if only they could have heard it. “I want to warn them, John, about so many things; but I can’t, and I know I won’t, because I didn’t.”

“This is why I hate Time travel,” I said. “Nothing good ever comes of it. This is the only truth that ever comes out of the Past—that nothing lasts.”

“But sometimes, people make comebacks,” said Julien. He moved in beside me, maintaining his grip, and looked thoughtfully at the crowd behind him. “Can any of you hear me? Do you know I’m here? Do you know what’s happened, or what’s about to happen? Come on, you’re all ghosts; if anyone’s not fixed in Time, it’s you. Help us to help you.”

But there was no response. No-one said anything, or even turned a head to look. It was only an echo of the Past, after all.

“Did you really expect anyone to answer?” I said.

Julien shrugged. “It’s the Nightside. Normal rules do not apply.”

And then we both looked round sharply as the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille began to shake and shudder. All around us, people jumped to their feet, shouting silently at each other. The young girls stopped dancing and rattled their golden cages, screaming noiselessly to be let out. A great light seemed to burn in from all directions at once, a fierce, consuming light that ate up everything it touched. People started to fade away, to disappear. The walls of the Bar began to break up as thick beams of light punched through them like battering rams.

Let the sun shine in . . . A few people ran for the door. Most of them didn’t make it, fading softly and silently away, often in midstep. A few tried to fight. The younger Julien Advent tried to protect his Juliet, holding up a large golden amulet with an unblinking eye set in it. They still disappeared, clutching each other’s hands so they wouldn’t be separated. Zodiac the Mystical surrounded himself with a shield of coruscating energies, silently chanting and stabbing his hands in all directions; but the light sneaked up on him when he wasn’t looking and snatched him up, and he was gone in a moment. The English Assassin got his sister to the door, fighting his way through the incandescent light beams, and threw her out the door. He stopped in the doorway to glare about him, sonic pistol in hand; but there was nothing he could shoot at. The light blazed up, dazzling, blindingly bright, then it snapped off; and the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille was gone.

I let go of the Past, and we were back where we’d started, looking down into the hole. It looked much the same. Some of the Tantric Troops started towards us, but Julien stopped them with a look. Showing rather more sang-froid than I would have shown, in the face of so many naked people. Julien beckoned to one naked woman, and she came forward to stand before him. I concentrated on her face.

“Right at the end there,” Julien said brusquely. “What did you see?”

“Light burst in from everywhere,” said the naked woman. “Forcing back the night. And then it was as though the two of you were there, and not there, at the same time. Strobing back and forth . . . and then the light was gone, and you were back.”

“You didn’t see the ghost building?” said Julien. “The Hawk’s Wind?”

“No,” said the naked woman. “Only you and Walker.”

“Thank you,” said Julien. “I want this whole area sealed off. No-one in or out until I tell you otherwise, or the Hawk’s Wind returns.”

“Is that likely?” asked the naked woman.

Julien gave her a hard look. “It’s the Nightside. Who knows anything?”

“Good point,” said the naked woman, and she hurried back to join the other naked people and started shouting at the watching crowd to back the hell off. And they did. Julien looked sharply at me.

“You felt the strength of that light, didn’t you? It could have taken us, along with the Bar. So why didn’t it?”

“Perhaps because we weren’t really there,” I said. “We were walking in the Past, not part of it. So what do we do now?”

“There is a place we could go,” Julien said slowly. “Somewhere that might provide answers. Green Henge.”

“Of course,” I said. “The Nightside’s very own Ring of Standing Stones. Where better to look for an old hippy?”