Tales From the Nightside

  I went back into the bar and sat down again opposite Holly. She looked at me inquiringly, trustingly. So what could I do except tell her the truth?

  “There was no murderer, Holly. You took your own life. Can you tell me why . . .”

  But she was gone. Disappeared in a moment, blinking out of existence like a punctured soap-bubble. No sign to show that anyone had ever been sitting there.

  So I went back to the bar and told Maxie what had happened, and he laughed in my face.

  “You should have talked to me first, Taylor! I could have told you all about her. You aren’t the first stranger she’s approached. Look, you know the old urban legend, where the guy’s driving along, minding his own business, and sees a woman in white signalling desperately from the side of the road? He’s a good guy, so he stops and asks what’s up. She says she needs a lift home, so he takes her where she wants to go. But the woman doesn’t say a word, all through the drive, and when he finally gets there, she’s disappeared. The guy at the address tells the driver the woman was killed out there on the road long ago, but she keeps stopping drivers, asking them to take her home. Old story, right? It’s the same here, except our woman in white keeps telling people that she’s been murdered but doesn’t remember how. And when our good Samaritans find out the truth and tell her, she disappears. Until the next sucker comes along. You ready for another drink?”

  “Can’t you do something?” I said.

  “I’ve tried all the usual shit,” said Maxie. “But she’s a hard one to shift. You think you could do something? That little bitch is seriously bad for business.”

  I went back to my table in the corner to do some hard thinking. Most people would walk away on discovering the ghost was nothing more than a repeating cycle . . . But I’m not most people. I couldn’t bear to think of Holly trapped in this place, maybe forever.

  Why would a woman, with apparently everything to live for, kill herself in a dive like this? I raised my gift, and once again pastel-tinted semi-transparent images of the living Holly darted back and forth through the dimly lit bar, lighting briefly at this table and that, like a flower fairy at midnight. It didn’t take me long to realise there was one table she visited more than most. So I went over to the people sitting there and made them tell me everything they knew.

  Professor Hartnell was a grey-haired old gentleman in a battered city suit. He used to be somebody, but he couldn’t remember who. Igor was a shaven-headed kobold with more piercings than most who’d run away from the German mines of his people to see the world. He didn’t think much of the world, but he couldn’t go back, so he settled in the Nightside. Where no-one gave a damn he was gay. The third drinker was a battered old Russian, betrayed by the Revolution but appalled at what his country had become. No-one mentioned the ice-pick sticking out the back of his head.

  They didn’t know Holly, as such, but they knew who she’d come here after. She came to the Jolly Cripple to save someone. Someone who didn’t want to be saved. Her brother, Craig De Lint. He drank himself to death, right here in the bar, right at their table. Sometimes in their company, more often not, because the only company he was interested in came in a bottle. I used my gift again and managed to pull up a few ghost images from the Past, of the living Craig. Stick thin, shabby clothes, the bones standing out in his grey face. Dead, dead eyes.

  “You’re wasting your time, sis,” Craig De Lint said patiently. “You know I don’t have any reason to drink. No great trauma, no terrible loss . . . I like to drink, and I don’t care about anything else. Started out in all the best places and worked my way down to this. Where someone like me belongs. Go home, sis. You don’t belong here. Go home. Before something bad happens to you.”

  “I can’t leave you here! There must be something I can do!”

  “And that’s the difference between us, sis, right there. You always think there’s something that can be done. But I know a lost cause when I am one.”

  The scene shifted abruptly, and there was Holly at the bar, arguing furiously with Maxie. He still smiled even as he said things that cut her like knives.

  “Of course I encouraged your brother to drink, sweetie. That’s my job. That’s what he was here for. And no, I don’t give a damn that he’s dead. He was dying when he walked in here, by his own choice; I only helped him on his way. Now either buy a drink or get out of my face. I’ve got work to do.”

  “I’ll have you shut down!” said Holly, her voice fierce now, her small hands clenched into fists.

  He laughed in her face. “Like to see you try, sweetie. This is the Nightside, where everyone’s free to go to Hell in their own way.”

  “I know people! Important people! Money talks, Maxie; and I’ve got far more of it than you have.”

  He smiled easily. “You’ve got balls, sweetie. Okay, let’s talk. Over a drink.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “My bar, my rules. You want to talk with me, you drink with me.”

  Holly shrugged and turned away. Staring at the table where her brother died. Maxie poured two drinks from a bottle, then slipped a little something into Holly’s glass. He watched, smiling, as Holly gulped the stuff down to get rid of it; and then he smiled even more widely as all the expression went out of her face.

  “There, that’s better,” said Maxie. “Little miss rich bitch. Come into my bar, throwing your weight about, telling me what to do? I don’t think so. Feeling a little more . . . suggestible, are you? Good, good . . . Such a shame about your brother. You must be sad, very sad. So sad, you want to end it all. So here’s a big handful of helpful pills, and a bottle of booze. So you can put an end to yourself, out back, in the toilets. Bye-bye, sweetie. Don’t make a mess.”

  The ghost images snapped off as the memory ended. I was so angry, I could hardly breathe. I got up from the table and stormed over to the bar. Maxie leaned forward to say something, and I grabbed two handfuls of his grubby T-shirt and hauled him right over his bar, so I could stick my face right into his. He had enough sense not to struggle.

  “You knew,” I said. “You knew all along! You made her kill herself!”

  “I had no choice!” said Maxie, still smiling. “It was self-defence! She was going to shut me down. And yeah, I knew all along. That’s why I hired you! I knew you’d solve the elemental business right away, then stick around for the free drinks. I knew the ghost would approach you, and you’d get involved. I needed someone to get rid of her; and you always were a soft touch, Taylor.”

  I let him go. I didn’t want to touch him any more. He backed away cautiously and sneered at me from a safe distance.

  “You feel sorry for the bitch, help her on her way to the great Hereafter! You’ll be doing her a favour, and me, too. I told you she was bad for business.”

  I turned my back on him and went back to the drinkers who’d known him best. And before any of them could even say anything, I focused my gift through them, through their memories of Craig, and reached out to him in a direction I knew but could not name. A door opened that hadn’t been there before, and a great light spilled out into the bar. A fierce and unrelenting light, too bright for the living to look at directly. The drinkers in the bar should have winced away from it, used as they were to the permanent gloom; but something in the light touched them despite themselves, waking old memories, of what might have been.

  And out of that light came Craig De Lint, walking free and easy. He reached out a hand, smiling kindly, and out of the gloom came the ghost of Holly De Lint, walking free and easy. She took his hand, and they smiled at each other, then Craig led her through the doorway and into the light; and the door shut behind them and was gone.

  In the renewed gloom of the bar, Maxie hooted and howled with glee, slapping his heavy hand on the bar top in triumph. “Finally, free of the bitch! Free at last! Knew you had it in you, Taylor! Drinks on the house, people! On the house!”

  And they all came stumbling up to the bar, already forgetting what they might have se
en in the light. Maxie busied himself serving them, and I considered him thoughtfully, from a distance. Maxie had murdered Holly, and got away with it, and used me to clean up after him, removing the only part of the business that still haunted him. So I raised my gift one last time and made contact with the elemental of the sewers, deep under the bar.

  “Maxie will never agree to the deal you want,” I said. “He likes things the way they are. But you might have better luck with a new owner. You put your sewer water into Maxie’s bottles. There are other places you could put it.”

  “I take your meaning, John Taylor,” said the elemental. “You’re everything they say you are.”

  Maxie lurched suddenly behind his bar, flailing desperately about him as his lungs filled up with water. I turned my back on the drowning man and walked away. Though being me, I couldn’t resist having the last word.

  “Have one on me, Maxie.”

  HUNGRY HEART

  The city of London has a hidden heart; a dark and secret place where gods and monsters go fist-fighting through alleyways, where wonders and marvels are two a penny, where everything and everyone is up for sale, and all your dreams can come true. Especially the ones where you wake up screaming. In London’s Nightside it’s always dark, always three o’clock in the morning, the hour that tries men’s souls . . . and finds them wanting.

  • • •

  I was drinking wormwood brandy in the oldest bar in the world when the femme fatale walked in. The bar was quiet, or at least as quiet as it ever gets. A bunch of female ghouls out on a hen night were getting tipsy on Mother’s Ruin and complaining about the quality of the finger buffet. Ghouls just want to have fun. A pair of Neanderthals had put away so many smart drinks they were practically evolving before my eyes. And four Emissaries from the Outer Dark were playing cutthroat bridge and cheating each other blind. Just another night at Strangefellows—until she walked in.

  She came striding between the tables with her head held high, as though she owned the place, or at the very least was planning a hostile takeover. She slammed to a halt before my table, gave me a big smile, and let me look her over. A tall, slender platinum blonde, late teens, Little Black Dress . . . big eyes, big smile, industrial-strength makeup. Attractive enough, in an intimidating sort of way. An English rose with more than her fair share of thorns. She introduced herself in a light breathy voice and sat down opposite me without waiting to be asked. She tried her smile on me again. On anyone else, it would probably have worked.

  “You’re John Taylor, private investigator,” she said briskly. “I’m Holly Wylde, and I’m a witch. My ex stole my heart. I want you to find it, and get it back for me.”

  Not the strangest thing I’ve ever been asked to find, but I felt obliged to raise an eyebrow.

  “I’m being quite literal,” she said. “All witches learn how to remove their hearts, and keep them safe and secure in some private place, so that no-one can ever fully kill us. As long as the heart stays safe, we always come back. Hardly sporting, I know, but if I believed in things like fair play I’d never have become a witch in the first place. My ex, bad cess to his diseased soul, used to be my mentor. Taught me all I know about magic, and rogered me breathless every evening at no extra cost. Gideon Brooks; perhaps you know the name?”

  “No,” I said. “Which is unusual. I know all the Major Players in the Nightside, all the real movers and shakers on the magical scene; but I don’t know him.”

  She shrugged prettily. “When it comes to forbidden knowledge, Gideon is the reason why a lot of it is forbidden. A very powerful, very dangerous man, on the quiet. Anyway, I thought we were getting on splendidly. But when I decided I’d learned enough to leave Gideon and strike out on my own, he suddenly got all possessive on me. I thought we were just mentor and student, with benefits, but now he’s all over me, declaring his undying love and how he can’t live without me! Well. I was shocked, Mr. Taylor. I don’t do emotional entanglements. Not at this stage in my career. I tried to be graceful about it, but there’s only so many ways a girl can say ‘No!’ in a loud and carrying voice. So. After a while he calmed down, apologized, and said he was just worried about me. Which was fair enough. But then he persuaded me to hand over my heart, so he could place some heavy-duty protections on it, to keep me safe once I was out on my own. And like a fool, I believed him. He has my heart, Mr. Taylor, and he won’t give it back! And whoever owns a witch’s heart will always have power over her. I’ll never be free of him.”

  She finally stopped for breath and gave me the big smile again, accompanied by the big, big eyes and a deep breath to show off her bosoms. I gave her a smile of my own, no more sincere than hers. For all her artless honesty and finishing-school accent, Holly was as phony as a banker’s principles. All the time she’d been talking to me, her gaze had been darting all around the bar, hardly ever looking at me, and never making eye contact for more than a few seconds. Which is a pretty reliable sign that someone is lying to you. But that was okay; I’m used to clients lying to me, or at the very least being economical with the truth. My job is to find what the client asks for. The truth makes the job easier, but I can work around it if I have to.

  “What kind of a witch are you, Holly?” I said. “Black, white, Wiccan, or gingerbread house?”

  She bestowed a happy wink on me. “I never allow myself to be limited by other people’s perceptions. I’m just a free spirit, Mr. Taylor; or at least I was, until I met Gideon Brooks. Nasty man. Say you’ll help me. Pretty please.”

  “I’ll help you,” I said. “For one thousand pounds a day, plus expenses. And don’t plead poverty. That dress you’re wearing costs more than I make in a year. And don’t get me started on the shoes.”

  She didn’t even blink. Just slapped an envelope down on the table before me. When I opened it, a thousand pounds in cash stared back. I gave Holly my best professional smile and made the envelope disappear about my person. Never put temptation in other people’s way, especially in a bar like Strangefellows, where they’ll steal your gold fillings if you fall asleep with your mouth open. Holly leaned forward across the table to fix me with what she thought was a serious look.

  “They say you have a special gift for finding things, Mr. Taylor; a magical inner eye that can See where everything is. But that won’t help you find my heart. Gideon placed it inside a special protective rosewood box, called Heart’s Ease. No-one can pierce the magics surrounding that box—and only Gideon can open it. And you won’t be able to find him or his house, either. Gideon lives inside his own private pocket dimension that only connects with our world when he feels like it. I only saw him when he let his house appear, at various places throughout the Nightside. And I haven’t seen him since he stole my heart.” She looked me right in the eye while she told me this, so I accepted most of it as provisionally true.

  She leaned back in her chair and gave me her big smile again. It really was quite impressive. She must have spent a lot of time practicing it in front of a mirror.

  “I know: Find a missing heart, and a missing man, in a missing house. But if finding them were easy I wouldn’t need you, would I, Mr. Taylor?”

  She got up to leave. As entirely calm and composed as when she’d entered, despite her fascinating sob story.

  “How will I find you?” I said.

  “You won’t, Mr. Taylor. I’ll find you. Toodles.”

  She waggled her fingers at me in a genteel good-bye, and was off, striding away with a straight back, ignoring her surroundings as though they were unworthy of her. Which they probably were. Strangefellows isn’t exactly elite, and you couldn’t drive it upmarket with a whip and a chair. I sipped thoughtfully at my wormwood brandy for a while, and then strolled over to the long mahogany bar to have a quiet word with Strangefellows’ owner, bartender, and long-time pain in the neck, Alex Morrisey. Alex only wears black because no-one has come up with a darker color, and he could gloom for the Olympics, with an honorable mention in existential angst. He started
losing his hair while he was still in his early twenties, and I can’t help feeling there’s a connection. He was currently prodding the bar snacks with a stick, to see if they had any life left in them.

  A bunch of spirits were hanging round the bar: shifting semitransparent shapes that blended in and out of each other as they drained the memories of old wines from long-empty bottles. Only Alex could sell the same bottle of wine several times over. I made the sign of the extremely cross at the spirits, and they drifted sulkily off down the bar so Alex and I could talk privately.

  “Gideon Brooks,” Alex said thoughtfully, after I’d filled him in on the necessary details. He cleaned a dirty glass with the same towel he used to mop up spills from the bartop, to give him time to think. “Not one of the big Names, but you know that as well as I do. Of course, the really powerful ones like to stay out of sight and under the radar. But the rosewood box, Heart’s Ease . . . that name rings a bell. Some sort of priceless collectible; the kind that’s worth so much it’s rarely bought or sold, but more often prized from the dead fingers of its previous owner.”

  “Collectibles,” I said. “Always more trouble than they’re worth. And the Nightside is littered with those magic little shops that sell absolutely anything, no questions asked, and certainly no guarantees. Where the hell am I supposed to start?”