“Nearest hospital is about half a mile from here,” said Suzie. “The Hospice of Saint Baphomet. We might have to fight our way out afterwards, but they do a really good line in miracle cures.”
“No!” I said, a bit more loudly than I intended. My head was swimming again. “No hospitals. Not safe enough. Take me to Strangefellows.”
Suzie and Dead Boy exchanged another look they didn’t think I saw. Dead Boy raised an eyebrow, and Suzie nodded; and Dead Boy gestured to the backdoor of his car. It swung open on its own, and he and Suzie man-handled me into the back seat as carefully as they could. Every movement hurt me, and I cried out several times, despite myself. But when I was finally settled on the back seat, propped up against the smooth leather, I felt decidedly safer. I let out a long, relieved sigh as Suzie settled in beside me. Her face was worryingly grim. She didn’t like seeing me reduced to this. Dead Boy paused and looked back at the door to the Vampire Club.
“You want me to take the burning cross out of the door? I’m pretty sure it couldn’t hurt me.”
“No!” I said loudly. “Don’t touch it! The power left in that cross is the only thing holding the door shut, keeping them back. We’re going to need the time that cross is buying us.”
Dead Boy shrugged, slammed the car door shut, then hurried round to slip into the driver’s seat. The futuristic car moved smoothly out into the Nightside traffic, persuading all the other vehicles to get out of its way through brute force and vicious intimidation. Suzie sat as close as she could without hurting me further even as my blood stained her leathers.
“Dead Boy!” she said loudly. “Does this car have a med kit?”
“No,” he said. “Why would I need one? Does he need one?”
“Drive faster,” said Suzie.
She didn’t look at my blood on her jacket, didn’t give a damn. She kept her gaze on my face, her expression thoughtful and considering, her gaze icy-cold. I knew she was thinking of killing a whole bunch of people for what had been done to me. Because killing a whole lot of people was Suzie’s usual first response to problems and difficulties. Except this time, I wasn’t sure that would work. Whether even Shotgun Suzie could kill things that were already dead.
• • •
Dead Boy drove his car as smoothly as he could, but every sudden movement and change in direction was enough to send new pain blazing through me. I felt horribly broken, splintered inside. I wanted to let go, and black out, and not have to wake up again until I was safely inside Strangefellows, but I didn’t dare. Because if I was as badly damaged as I thought I was, there was no telling how long it might be before I woke up again. And the clock was still ticking. I didn’t know how long the abducted Adventurers had before Varney decided to turn them. To make them like him.
I couldn’t let them down. I’d promised I’d save them.
I let my head loll slowly sideways, to look out the car window at the passing Nightside streets. All the blazing, coloured neon was smeared into long rainbow streaks by the car’s speed. I broke open the dried blood sealing my right eye shut, so I could see more clearly, but it didn’t help. Everything looked dim and strange, familiar but disturbingly wrong. I did my best to look for signs of pursuit, but I couldn’t see any. Didn’t mean it wasn’t there, though. Vampires are masters at the art of moving unseen and undetected. It’s how they survive. Only one of the reasons why I wouldn’t feel safe until I was back at Strangefellows, behind its many ancient layers of puissant shields and nasty protections.
It worried me that I felt that way. All my confidence was gone, torn away. I didn’t like feeling so helpless, so broken, that all I could think of was the need to be protected by someone else. I’d always been able to look after myself. Protect myself, against all comers. I’d had to, ever since I was a child, when I first learned the hard way that I couldn’t afford to depend on anyone but myself. But everyone has their limits. And it was a long time since I’d been hurt this badly. I hadn’t realised how bad until I saw the shock in Suzie and Dead Boy’s faces when they first saw what had been done to me.
I felt weak and vulnerable and no longer in control of my life; and I hated it.
A car with no windows, not even a windscreen, swept in really close, challenging our position on the road; and I actually cringed back from it. Suzie saw me do it and scowled.
“Who did this to you, John? Tell me; and I will slaughter every damned one of them.”
“Wait,” I said. “Get me to Strangefellows. I’ll tell you everything there. No telling who’s listening, out here.”
Suzie looked at me doubtfully, then her head snapped round as the car with no windows rammed us from the side. The futuristic car shuddered under the impact, and Dead Boy swore dispassionately. Up close, the other car didn’t look like a car any more. The bodywork was an organic red, pulsing and sweating. The whole side of the car facing us opened up into a horrible wide smile, jammed full of heavy, grinding teeth. The Nightside is full of predators; some are more specialised than others.
Dead Boy swung the steering wheel round hard, and the futuristic car slammed back into the predator car. It cried out, in a loud, inhuman wail, as its teeth smashed and broke under the impact. The car pulled away, and Dead Boy let it get ahead before opening up with the futuristic car’s concealed weapons. Heavy gunfire slammed into the predator car, raking it from side to side. Great chunks of meat were blown away, and blood spurted heavily into the air. The predator car swept wildly back and forth across the road, until it was run over and thoroughly chewed up by a heavy articulated vehicle.
“Traffic’s murder tonight,” Dead Boy said cheerfully.
I went back to looking out the car window, watching the streets pass, with all their familiar sights and sounds. They’d never seemed so open, so vulnerable, before. The Nightside thought it was untouchable. As I had till Varney showed me otherwise. The Nightside didn’t know who was out there in the dark, didn’t know what was coming. I wanted to lower the window, lean out, and shout at them, warn them of the hungry things plotting against them. But no-one would have listened. There’s always someone shouting a warning in the Nightside.
I looked at the bustling streets, and in my mind’s eye, I saw them littered with bodies, while blood ran like rivers in the gutters. I saw corpses piled up on street-corners, as the undead took control of the streets. I saw vampires running wild, cutting through panicked packs of tourists like wolves in among the sheep. I saw mad-eyed things with bloody mouths swarming over vehicles in the road, fighting to get inside. I saw them scuttling over the fronts of buildings, hanging from street-lamps, jumping from roof to roof. Saw them running down the streets after the last few human prey, snapping their teeth behind the slowest to keep them moving and prolong the sport. Until there was nothing left living in the night—just a sated, blood-drunk army of the undead, strutting proudly along empty streets, undisputed masters of their new territory. Lords of the night that never ends.
No more hot neon, no more music spilling out of clubs and bars because the undead would have no use for such things. They would drive all life out of the Nightside and leave it cold and silent as the grave.
• • •
Dead Boy finally brought his car to a halt outside Strangefellows. Or at least, parked on a street you could use to get there. The oldest bar in the world isn’t supposed to be easy to get to. Dead Boy turned around in his seat, and looked at me.
“Front or backdoor?”
“Front,” I said.
“John,” Suzie said carefully. “Do you really think it’s wise, to let people see you like this?”
“Word is bound to get around,” I said. “Better to let them see how bad it is, so it will seem that much more impressive when I bounce back from it. This will make my reputation; you’ll see.”
“What if you don’t bounce back?” said Dead Boy. He caught Suzie glaring at him and raised his hands defensively. “Just asking . . . All right; front entrance it is.”
In th
e end, it took both of them to prise me out of the back seat and onto the sidewalk. And then they had to hold me up until I could get my feet under me. I was too tired, and hurting too bad, to feel embarrassed. I looked carefully about me but couldn’t see anyone taking too much of an interest. I managed a small smile for Dead Boy.
“Sorry about the blood on your upholstery.”
“She’s known worse,” said Dead Boy.
They took their hands away from me, and, somehow, I managed to stay upright. I took a few deep breaths and set off down the side alley that led to Strangefellows’ front door. Dead Boy and Suzie stuck close, in case they might be needed. I looked straight ahead and pretended I didn’t see them. My back was killing me, the leg with the bloody big hole in it kept threatening to collapse, and my strength came and went in sudden rushes; but I was damned if I’d give in to any of it. I stamped my feet down hard because I couldn’t feel them, and lurched forward, using the momentum to keep me going.
The side alley wasn’t that much cleaner than the back alley. It ended abruptly in a flat slab of steel set flush in a grimy brick wall. Above the door, a small but dignified neon sign spelled out the name of the bar in ancient Sanskrit. Alex has never believed in advertising. If you’re meant to find your way to the oldest bar in the world, you will. If you’re not, all the signs and directions in the world won’t help you.
It’s a destiny thing.
• • •
The door opened before us, and Suzie and Dead Boy accompanied me into the foyer. It never changes. The same old Tudor-period furniture, mostly occupied by people sleeping one off before they have to head home. The same obscene murals on the wall and ceiling, the same appalling stains on the Persian carpeting. There’s nothing so comforting as the familiar. I felt a little stronger, merely for being in Strangefellows, hidden and protected behind the best shields in the world. I didn’t like feeling that way. Another sign of how broken down and vulnerable I was.
We clattered down the heavy metal stairway, into the wide, stone-walled pit that holds the bar proper. The place was still packed, and just as raucous. I felt strangely angry—that I had been through so much, and they’d just gone on as normal. The music pumping through the hidden speakers was hot retro swing from The Cherry Poppin Daddies; but it shut off abruptly as Alex caught sight of me from behind the bar. The rest of the bar noise fell quickly away, replaced by a startled silence as everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the blood-soaked spectre, come to interrupt their feast. Many of the faces looked genuinely shocked on seeing the state I was in. The state I’d been reduced to. It was clear my reputation was taking a beating.
Some of the expressions I was seeing made me wonder if I was actually in worse shape than I’d thought; and given that I was feeling half-dead, that was a worrying thought. A lot of the faces were studying me carefully, judging the extent of my wounds and my weakness. The Nightside is always ready to see the Great brought low. Always waiting for a chance to shout The King is dead; long live the new King! Because there are always jackals, hoping for a chance to tear down a lion. I smiled around me, showing my teeth.
“All right!” Alex said loudly. “Everybody out! The bar is now closed, and this is a lock-in! By invitation only. If you have to ask, the answer’s no. Go on; get the hell out of here!”
Dead Boy and Suzie supported me unobtrusively as I moved to the side of the stairs, and together we watched the crowd hurry past us, giving us plenty of room. Most of them made a point of not looking directly at me, to show that whatever was going on, they didn’t want to get involved. But, of course, there are always a few who don’t realise the party’s over and don’t want to go. A bunch of young merchant bankers, wearing sackcloth and ashes in a mostly ironic way, huddled together at the bar and protested loudly at having their fun interrupted. Until Alex lost patience with them and set his body-building bouncers on them.
Lucy and Betty Coltrane are large, forceful girls who never wear anything more than a T-shirt and tight shorts, the better to show off their impressive muscles. One is blonde, and one is brunette; but apart from that, there’s not much to choose between them. They’re married, to each other. They fell upon the merchant bankers, slapped them briskly about the head, kneed them in the privates, then frog-marched them to the foot of the metal stairway. By then they were all more than ready to leave.
But, of course, there’s always one, isn’t there. He pulled away from the pack, drew a sharp, golden sickle from inside his sleeve, waved it in my direction, and started to say something abusive. Suzie drew her shotgun from its holster with terrifying speed, and stuck both barrels up his nose. And after that, he couldn’t leave quickly enough.
I walked slowly, and very carefully, up to the bar. My legs were shaking, and my vision kept blurring in and out, but I got there. Through sheer strength of will. Suzie and Dead Boy strode watchfully on either side of me. Only one customer had stayed at the bar. Razor Eddie perched on a high bar-stool, watching me calmly. The Punk God of the Straight Razor, a painfully thin presence in an oversized grey coat apparently held together by accumulated filth and grease. He lived on the street, slept in doorways, and killed all the people who needed killing that the rest of us couldn’t get to. He had a hollowed face and fever-bright eyes; and he lived a life of endless penance for an atonement he wasn’t sure he believed in.
“You look a mess, John,” he said, in his quiet, ghostly voice. “I always thought that when the time came, I would be the one to do that to you. It seems I must have a quiet word with someone. Can’t have someone else taking away my rightful prerogative.”
“Thank you, Eddie,” I said. “It’s good to have friends.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Razor Eddie.
I propped myself up against the bar and looked about me. The open space seemed so much bigger, now it was deserted. Calm, and quiet. The bar felt slightly uncomfortable, as though it wasn’t used to being empty and didn’t like it. Dead Boy brought me a chair, and Suzie helped me settle into it. I looked at Alex.
“Put your strongest shields and protections in place. And I mean everything. Don’t let anything in.”
“Already taken care of,” said Alex, coming out from behind the bar. “I did all that the moment I caught sight of you. Damn, you look like someone put you through a blender. Typical John Taylor, always bringing trouble to my door. Here. Drink this. It’s good for what ails you.”
He thrust a glass of some thick yellow liquid at me. The nasty-looking stuff churned and seethed in the glass, as though trying to get out. I looked at it suspiciously.
“What the hell is that?”
“If I told you what was in it, you wouldn’t drink it,” said Alex. “It’s called Rassillonn’s Restorative, if that makes any difference. It’ll put you right.”
“Is it any good?” said Suzie.
“It’s expensive,” said Alex.
And it was a sign of how bad I was feeling that I didn’t argue with him. I took the glass in a slightly shaky hand and knocked the stuff back as fast as I could, trying not to taste it. The Restorative was thick and foul, but I got it all down. And then my eyes squeezed shut, as something exploded deep inside me. I shook and shuddered as something picked me up, gave me a damned good shake, then set me down again. And just like that, I felt fine. I felt better than fine. All my pains were gone, my wounds were gone, my head felt fine; and I was so full of energy, I felt like I could kick the whole world’s arse. I laughed out loud, grinned at Alex, and handed him back the empty glass. He accepted it with his thumb and forefinger and handed it quickly to one of the Coltranes.
“Take this out back, destroy it, and throw the remains in the incinerator. And for God’s sake, don’t let any of the dregs touch you.”
I looked at Alex, as the bouncer disappeared out back. “Is there something you’re not telling me . . . ?”
“More than you can possibly imagine. Don’t worry about it. If that stuff was going to kill you, it would have by
now.”
“Time to cut to the chase,” said Suzie, and something in her cold voice cut right through everything else. “Talk to me, John. Who did this to you?”
“Vampires,” I said. “A whole army of them, hiding out in Clubland, in their very own club. Led by the King of the Vampires. And no, I don’t mean Dracula; I mean Varney. He’s gathered all the vampires in the Nightside to him, so they can make the long night into a sanctuary and a homeland for all the vampires. Everyone else here goes to the wall.”
“Vampires,” Alex said disgustedly, moving back behind the bar. “Nasty things. Hard to kill. Worse than cockroaches.”
I brought them up to date on everything that had happened since I was summoned to the Adventurers Club. They all listened intently, not interrupting. Which wasn’t like any of them, so they must have been really interested. When I finished, ending with my narrow escape from the Vampire Club, Suzie growled dangerously, and everyone moved back a little.
“No wonder all the vampires seemed to have gone missing,” growled Alex. “They were hiding out in their precious new club! It’s hard to think of them as such a threat . . . I’ve had vampires in here, on and off, for ages. Never made any trouble.”
“Varney has kicked them awake,” I said. “Made them angry and ambitious.”
Alex cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but . . . A whole army of vampires might be a little more than even we can handle. Does anyone here think we should . . . contact the Authorities? Let them deal with it?”
“No,” I said immediately. “I need to do this myself. I can’t have word getting out that I know my limits.”
“Of course you have to do it,” said Suzie. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”
“Damn right!” Dead Boy said cheerfully. “Vampires are vermin. I mean, I’m dead, but I still have standards.”
“Exactly,” said Razor Eddie. “Can’t have the vermin getting above themselves. King of the Vampires . . . He’ll be wanting his own church on the Street of the Gods next.”