Tales From the Nightside

  “There’s a whole army of the things,” I said.

  “A whole army?” said Dead Boy. “Fantastic! It’s been a long time since I took on an army. Those were good days . . .”

  “I spit on armies,” said Razor Eddie.

  “I know you do,” said Dead Boy. “I’ve seen you do it, and it’s a disgusting habit.”

  “No-one messes with my man and gets away with it,” said Suzie. “Not while I still have breath in my body. And ammunition. You’re going back to the Vampire Club, John. And we are going with you.”

  “Why would you do that?” I said. “You saw what they did to me.”

  “Because we’re family,” said Dead Boy.

  “Your family,” said Razor Eddie. “In a highly dysfunctional sort of way.”

  “And, of course, none of us wants to miss out on the kind of fight this promises to be,” said Suzie.

  I nodded. I couldn’t say anything.

  “You all go right ahead,” said Alex. “Kick the hell out of the ungodly bastards. I’ll stay here and guard the bar. In case the vampires come here, looking for you. And then we can all have a nice party, if you get back. When you get back.”

  Suzie ignored him, looking at me thoughtfully. “The vampires were only able to abduct those Adventurers who happened to be at the Club when they forced their way in. What about all the other Adventurers, scattered across the world? Should we contact them, tell them what’s happened, and inquire whether they want to join us? No shame in bringing in reinforcements.”

  “No,” I said. “They’d be vulnerable to the vampires, too. More meat for the grinder. I’m protected, Dead Boy’s dead, and Razor Eddie is a living god. And you’re . . . you. Besides, this is the Nightside. We clean up our own messes. Can’t have the heroes and do-gooders thinking we need them to do something we can’t. We’d never hear the end of it.”

  “You want to save the day and hold it over the rescued Adventurers’ heads for the rest of their lives,” said Dead Boy.

  “Got it in one,” I said.

  “After everything the vampires did to you, you’re still ready to walk back into the meat-grinder yourself,” said Suzie. “Not because you want to be able to look down your nose at the Adventurers. You do that already. Because you believe the men and women the vampires abducted are people worth saving.”

  “I never could hide anything from you,” I said.

  “My hero,” said Suzie.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as a hero,” I said. “Just . . . your last chance for a little private justice, in the Nightside.”

  “I can live with that,” said Dead Boy.

  “You sure you want to come with me?” I said. “The odds are not good.”

  “We’re family,” said Suzie.

  I had to smile. “I haven’t been all that lucky when it comes to family.”

  “We’re the family you chose,” said Dead Boy. “The family that matters.”

  I stood up. I felt strong and sharp and ready to kick vampire arse. The horrors I’d been through were still with me; but you can’t let things like that slow you down if you’re going to work in the Nightside. Where blood and pain and horror are always going to come as standard. I brushed the dried blood off my coat and it fell away in clouds of blood-red confetti. And underneath, my long white trench coat was completely undamaged. Not a rip or a tear anywhere.

  “A coat that repairs itself?” said Dead Boy. “Oh, I have got to get me one of those!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s a one-of-a-kind item. I had to go through a lot to get it; and you really wouldn’t want to pay the price I had to.”

  “I still say he overcharged you,” said Suzie. She was busy loading shells into her shotgun. “Special ammunition,” she said, without looking up. “These particular blessed and cursed cartridges are greased with garlic. Should make the vampires’ eyes water. You know . . . we could stop off along the way, pick up some more specialised weapons. The Weapon Shoppes of Usher are always open.”

  Razor Eddie’s hand was suddenly full of a large, pearl-handled straight razor. The long blade gleamed supernaturally bright.

  “Damn right!” said Dead Boy, striking a martial pose. “We don’t need no stinking weapons!”

  He punched a hole in the wooden bar front, with one dead-white fist. And then had to struggle to pull it out again. Alex glared at him.

  “Did you have to do that?”

  “Yes!” said Dead Boy. “I was on a roll!”

  “That’s going on your tab,” said Alex.

  “I don’t have a tab!”

  “You do now.” Alex turned his glare on me. “And before anybody thinks to ask. No, I don’t have any wooden stakes here!”

  “Not even any firewood that we could sharpen into stakes?” I said.

  “No, I don’t have any firewood because I happen to live in the twenty-first century! Mostly.”

  “There must be somewhere in the Nightside that could sell us some wooden stakes,” said Dead Boy. “I mean, you can get everything else here. I know a place where . . .”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said. “But we don’t need stakes. There are any number of ways you can take down a vampire, and I think we’ve got most of them covered, between us.”

  “Even the King of the Vampires?” said Alex.

  “He . . . is going to be difficult,” I said. “But in the end, it’s all about faith. Do you have any crosses behind the bar?”

  “Of course,” said Alex, ducking and rummaging around. “You’d be surprised what people leave behind . . . Here, help yourselves.”

  He stood up and slammed a large wooden box down on the bar top, packed full of all kinds of religious items, from all kinds of religions. We all crowded round and sorted through the crucifixes. I took a small silver cross, in an old Celtic design. Dead Boy and Eddie squabbled over the more intricate designs. Suzie didn’t bother. She met my gaze steadily.

  “I’m not really a believer.”

  “How can you live in a place like the Nightside and not be a believer?” I said. “You’ve fought angels!”

  “Just stubborn, I guess,” said Suzie.

  “You still carve a cross into the head of your bullets,” I said.

  “That’s just being practical,” said Suzie.

  “Don’t you believe in anything?” said Dead Boy, stuffing his pockets with assorted crosses.

  “I believe in John,” said Suzie. “And really big guns.”

  She caressed her shotgun in a disturbingly affectionate way; and we all found reasons to look somewhere else until she stopped doing it.

  I stopped suddenly and looked at Alex. “Hold it. Where’s Sebastian Stargrave?”

  “Out back,” said Alex. “Having a nice lie-down. Don’t worry, I’ll look after him.”

  “I feel I have to ask,” said Dead Boy. “If it should all go wrong, suddenly and horribly, and the only way to stop a vampire invasion is to kill absolutely everything . . . What about the hypnotised Adventurers?”

  “The whole point of this mission,” I said, “is to rescue the kidnapped heroes. They are the victims here.”

  “But what if they attack us, under Varney’s control?” Razor Eddie said softly.

  “Then we take them down without killing them,” I said firmly. “We save them from themselves.”

  “Not going to be easy,” said Dead Boy.

  “If this were going to be easy, it wouldn’t take all of us,” I said. “All right, let’s go.”

  “Are we going by pocket-watch, this time?” said Suzie, just a bit pointedly.

  “No,” I said. “We’ll take your car, Dead Boy. We need to pick someone up along the way.”

  FIVE

  Dead Boy drove us back through the Nightside with all his usual casual disregard for traffic laws, natural laws, and any other laws he could thumb his nose at. Razor Eddie took the shotgun seat beside him because only a dead man could stand to be that close to Eddie for any length of time. Dead Boy could st
and the smell because his sensory input was only ever a sometime thing. Suzie and I sat together in the back seat. All the blood I’d spilled all over the leather upholstery was gone. Not a trace left anywhere. I didn’t say anything. Dead Boy’s car has always been able to look after herself.

  “Don’t know if you’ve noticed,” said Dead Boy, without looking round, “but it does seem to me that there’s a lot more traffic coming out of Clubland, than there is heading in. Perhaps they’ve heard something . . . ?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “Nothing travels faster in the Nightside than bad news.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Suzie said quietly. “You took a hell of a beating. Have you at least got a plan?”

  “Of course he’s got a plan!” said Dead Boy. “John Taylor always has a plan!”

  “Except for when he doesn’t,” said Razor Eddie. “And then he improvises. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.”

  “How well you know me,” I said.

  • • •

  Dead Boy stopped his car outside the Adventurers Club. He turned around in the driver’s seat to give me a hard look.

  “Why are we stopping here? The vampires have already taken all the Adventurers in the Club. So there’s no-one here who needs rescuing. They’re all gone!”

  “Not everyone,” I said.

  I got out of the car, gestured immediately for Suzie to stay put, and walked over to nod respectfully at the Doorman. He was still at his post, the huge black man in the long white robe, with the were sabre-tooth-tiger charm hanging round his throat. He nodded to me, warily.

  “I sent you out to find the missing Club Members, Mr. Taylor,” he said, in his rich, deep, cultured voice. “Not to return here with some of your more disreputable associates.”

  “It’s time for you to come with me,” I said. “I have discovered where the missing Adventurers are being held.”

  “I told you before, Mr. Taylor; I cannot abandon my post. I have to guard the door. It is not just a job; it is a sacred duty.”

  “But where does your true loyalty lie?” I said. “To the Club, or to its Members? You can come with us, and help save them; or you can stand here and guard a whole bunch of empty rooms. Which of those sounds more like a sacred duty to you?”

  The Doorman looked at me steadily. “Who has them?”

  “The King of the Vampires,” I said. “And his vampire army. They want to make the Club Members into leeches like them, then make them part of an invading and conquering army, to take control of the Nightside. Well, I’m not having that. Not on my watch. So I and my very impressive friends are going to pay a visit to the Vampire Club, get the missing Adventurers back, while they’re still human, and generally kick vampire arse till they cry like babies. We could use your help.”

  The Doorman smiled suddenly. “Well. If you put it like that . . . The door is locked, and the Club is secured. It can manage without me, for a while. So let us go.”

  “You’ve just been waiting for me to come and get you,” I said. “Haven’t you?”

  “Of course, Mr. Taylor.”

  I hate being predictable. I led him over to the car and the backdoor swung open before us.

  “You’ve been listening in again,” I said to the car, accusingly. “Suzie, Eddie, Dead Boy, this is the Doorman of the Adventurers Club. He’s coming with us.”

  “Why?” said Dead Boy immediately. “What’s so special about him?”

  “He’s a were sabre-tooth tiger,” I said. “Try not to upset him.”

  “All right,” said Dead Boy. “That is a bit special, even for the Nightside.”

  Suzie sniffed loudly. “I could use a new rug for the den.”

  “Play nice,” I said. “Or there will be spankings.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” said Suzie.

  “Oh God,” said Dead Boy. “There’s a mental image I wasn’t expecting to take home with me.”

  Suzie budged up to the far side of the back seat, to let me and the Doorman climb into the back of the car. He had to bend right over, to squeeze his bulk into the limited space. Suzie and I were crushed together on the far side. It was all rather crowded, but we managed.

  “Do you know everyone here?” I said to the Doorman.

  “Let me say, I have at least heard of everyone present,” said the Doorman. “Not always in a good way, perhaps, but this is the Nightside, after all. I know warriors when I see them. I pity the vampire . . .”

  “All right,” Dead Boy said to me, deliberately ignoring the Doorman. “Where to next?”

  “The Vampire Club,” I said. “A few streets along, and round the corner.”

  Dead Boy turned all the way round in the driver’s seat again. “If it’s that close, why are we driving? We don’t we walk?”

  “Because I want your marvellous car with us,” I said. “In case we need the superior firepower built into her.”

  “Good reason,” said Dead Boy. He turned round again, and set the car in motion. The Doorman looked at me steadily.

  “This car . . . It is not just a car, is it?”

  “Nothing is ever just anything, in the Nightside,” I said.

  • • •

  The car eased to a halt right in front of the Vampire Club, and we all got out. And then we stood together before the single closed door and looked the place over carefully. There was still a great pool of blood drying on the sidewalk before the door. And all the people passing by were giving the door and the club a great deal of room; as though they could sense really bad things happening beyond the small wooden door in the bruised stone front. The door seemed exactly the same as before; except now there wasn’t a trace of the blessed old cross I’d hammered into the wood. It was gone, with nothing left to show it had ever been there. Not even a scorch mark from its unnatural flames.

  I was surprised at how angry and upset I felt. The cross had been the only thing I had left from my old teacher. Pew had been a good friend, and a better enemy. I still miss him.

  “This is it?” said Dead Boy. He marched right up to the closed door and kicked it a few times. “Doesn’t look like much.”

  “Don’t show your ignorance, boy,” said the Doorman. “This is a place of death and eternal suffering. Can’t you feel it?”

  “No,” said Dead Boy. “I’m dead.”

  The Doorman looked him over carefully. “Of course you are. My apologies.”

  “If Pew’s cross was the only thing preventing the vampires from coming out after you,” Suzie said slowly, “what’s holding them back now?”

  “They’re waiting for us,” I said. “Waiting for us to go in. It’s a wise predator that chooses to fight on its own ground.”

  “How did you get in last time?” said Suzie.

  “I knocked,” I said.

  “He’s so polite,” Dead Boy said to Razor Eddie.

  “He really is,” said Razor Eddie. “Except for when he isn’t.”

  “Is there a backdoor?” said Suzie. “Some way of sneaking in and catching the bastards by surprise?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “As King of the Vampires, Varney has made his own world in there. He isn’t just a vampire. He has power. The only entrances to this club are the ones he allows.”

  Dead Boy looked dubiously at the closed door before him. “Do you think he knows we’re out here?”

  “Of course he knows,” I said. “He’s watching us right now. Waiting to see what we’ll do.”

  “Then why isn’t he opening the door to us?” Dead Boy said loudly. He kicked the door again, with enough force to make the wood shake and shudder in its frame. “Come on! Let us in! I am Dead Boy, and I can take all you rotten leeches with both legs tied behind my back!”

  The Doorman looked at me. “Is he always like this?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “Nothing like having no self-preservation instincts left to make you always first into the fray. The rest of us mostly use him to soak up the opening fire
, while we hide behind him. Dead Boy, please get away from the door.”

  “Why?” said Dead Boy, a bit plaintively.

  “Because I think Varney is planning a surprise for us,” I said. “I don’t think he was expecting me to come back with reinforcements. He thought I’d be like him—arrogant enough to want to go head to head. He’s probably taking a good look at who I’ve brought with me and asking his followers who you all are.”

  “That should scare him,” said Suzie.

  “No,” I said. “Varney doesn’t scare. He’s the King of the Vampires. He doesn’t believe anything can harm him, or stop him, or get in the way of anything he plans. He’s being cautious. Planning something special for him and his army to enjoy. Remember, he doesn’t want only to kill us. He wants to break us, enslave us to his will, make us leeches like him. Make us serve him and lead his invasion of the Nightside.”

  “That’ll be the day,” said Suzie. “You want to try knocking again?”

  “No,” I said. “Time for a display of power, I think. A little spiritual shock and awe. Eddie?”

  “Love to,” said Razor Eddie.

  The Punk God of the Straight Razor showed his dirty brown teeth in a shifty smile, and suddenly his pearl-handled straight razor flashed supernaturally bright in his grey hand, a sharp, clean light in the neon-lit dark. People passing by cried out and turned their heads away, unable to look at the light. Even Suzie and I could only look at it out of the corners of our eyes. Dead Boy stared right at it because he was dead. And, surprisingly, the Doorman didn’t seem at all bothered by the light. Which made me wonder what kind of things he had been used to, in his long-lost city of ancient Africa.

  “You really believe he can cut through that door, with a single small blade?” said the Doorman. “It is an impressive weapon, I will agree; but I can see powerful shields and protections laid down upon this door and this structure. I would not bet on breaking it down with a battering ram blessed by all the dark gods. Even the most powerful weapons are only as strong as the man who wields them.”

  “Eddie isn’t a man,” I said. “And hasn’t been for some time. He’s the living god of the straight razor. I have seen him cut through Time and Space with that edge. Go for it, Eddie.”