“About time,” said Eddie.
“I’ve had enough of this place,” I said. “Let’s take the fight to the vampires. Use your razor and cut me a doorway, between this world and wherever the vampires are hiding!”
“You don’t want much, do you?” said Razor Eddie.
He struck at the air before him with his shining blade; and it sank in deep, leaving a bloody trail behind as it descended. He cut at the world again and again, until it shuddered under his blows, and the false reality collapsed, unable to withstand the terrible godly power contained within that supernaturally bright razor blade. The bone beach and the blood sea and the piss-yellow moon all disappeared at once, as the illusion was replaced by the underlying reality of the Vampire Club.
• • •
We were all suddenly standing in a great stone amphitheatre. Illuminated by that old familiar blood-red glow. A huge stone circle, of curving stone steps rising up and up into a covering darkness. Old grey stone, soaked and caked with dark stains and fresh running blood from new victims. And vampires, vampires, everywhere. Hundreds of them, scattered across the raised steps of the amphitheatre. Many of them feeding on human prey. Men and women seduced or snatched in, from the street outside the club. Some might even have been volunteers; there’s always someone ready to try a new kick. Some might even have been fooled by the modern romantic lies about vampirekind. But none of the victims looked like they were enjoying the experience. The victim’s horror is part of the vampire’s feeding.
They didn’t feed daintily, like in the books and films. No small puncture marks in the side of the neck. The vampires tore at the flesh, biting deep, worrying at the wounds they made like dogs with a fresh kill. Gulping down the blood, lapping it up from the skin, making deep, grunting sounds of satisfaction like pigs at the trough. Some fastened onto the neck, others the wrist. Some went for the breast or the belly or the crotch.
Right in front of me, a vampire had his face sunk deep in the bloody mess he’d made of a young goth girl’s neck. She was past the point of struggling, her whole front soaked in her own blood, but she looked at me pleadingly. I pointed her out to Suzie; and she stepped forward, put both barrels of her shotgun against the vampire’s head, and blew it right off. The vampire’s body convulsed and fell away, clawed hands still grasping convulsively for the goth girl. She didn’t move. Even when Suzie shot her head off, too. I didn’t say anything. The goth girl had already lost so much blood, all that was left for her was to die, or turn. I nodded to Suzie; and she nodded back.
The mesmerised Adventurers stood still and confused, in the great open circle at the centre of the amphitheatre. Unable to cope with the sudden change. The huge sabre-tooth tiger prowled among them, herding them together, ready to bring down anyone who tried to start anything.
The vampires slowly became aware of us, aware that we had invaded their private domain. They raised bloody mouths from their victims, to shout and scream from every side, demanding Varney do something. One vampire launched itself at Dead Boy, and sank its sharp teeth deep into the side of his neck. And then the vampire recoiled and fell back, spitting and shaking his head.
“Formaldehyde! There isn’t a drop of blood in him!”
“What would I do with blood?” said Dead Boy. He grabbed the vampire’s head with both hands and ripped it right off. He threw the head away, and the body went stumbling off after it.
I yelled to Dead Boy to get his attention, then to Suzie and Eddie.
“Take out as many as you can! Maximum damage; no mercy.”
“And what will you be doing?” said Suzie.
I pointed at the one figure standing alone, at the top rank of the amphitheatre. Varney, King of the Vampires.
“He is going down,” I said.
Suzie nodded, and opened fire with her shotgun, blowing away vampires left and right. Heads blew off, chests exploded, and stolen blood flew on the air. Some of the vampires pulled themselves back together almost immediately, but Razor Eddie was quickly there to carve them up with his brightly shining blade. Dead Boy walked right into the biggest collection of vampires and smashed their heads in with his dead fists.
“Come on!” he roared. “Give me your best shot! I can take it! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”
The sabre-tooth tiger prowled among the Adventurers, keeping them from getting involved. Most stood where they were, dazed, abandoned for the moment by their vampire puppet masters, who had more immediate troubles of their own. And Varney . . . stood alone, on the top rank of the stone amphitheatre, looking down in disbelief on what I and my friends were doing to his vampire army. I walked steadily towards him, climbing the stone circles, one by one.
“You can’t win,” Varney said finally. He had to raise his voice, to be heard over the shouts and screams and the roar of the fighting. “You can hurt my people, but you can’t stop them. Eventually, they will pull themselves together, overpower you and your friends, and drag you down.”
“You forget,” I said, closing in on him. “I find things. That’s what I do. I can find sunlight from outside the Nightside and bring it here.”
“I didn’t forget,” said Varney. “I heard you did that once, in the past. But it won’t work here. I have never been troubled by sunlight, thanks to a certain deal I made, long ago. And now I am King of the Vampires, I have shared that gift with all my followers.”
“Ah,” I said. “But did you think to share that gift with the Adventurers you hypnotised?”
Varney looked at me. “What?”
“I thought not,” I said.
I reached out with my gift, found the brightest sunlight in all the outside world, and brought it slamming down into the stone amphitheatre. Blazing sharp sunlight, bright as the day and twice as powerful, blasted into the Vampire Club like a single vicious spotlight, piercing the heart of the Club like a stake driven into a vampire. Most of the vampires present screamed and howled and fell back, turning their heads away from the light. Varney might have told them they were protected from the light of day, but clearly most of them were having trouble believing it. They scrabbled backwards, across the stone circles, abandoning their victims. And in the meantime, the sunlight hit the mesmerised Adventurers like a slap in the face, waking them from their hypnosis and freeing their minds.
Just like that, they were themselves again, and back in command of their actions. It was clear from the looks on their faces that they knew what had been done to them, that they remembered what they had been forced to do by the vampires’ will. And that they really weren’t at all happy about it.
They burst out of the central space and threw themselves at the nearest vampires, striking them down with outraged fury.
I used my gift again, to find the door that led out of the Vampire Club and into the street in Clubland. The doorway appeared out of nowhere, standing alone in the centre of the amphitheatre, an opening cut out of Space and Time by Razor Eddie, showing the bright lights and hot neon of the Nightside. I called out to the sabre-tooth tiger, and it spat out the vampire it was mauling to look at me with fierce cat eyes.
“Doorman!” I said. “I need you.”
And like that, he was there, that tall black warrior in his sweeping white robe.
“Round up the Adventurers!” I said quickly. “Have them gather up the surviving victims and get them safely out of here!”
The Doorman nodded quickly and set about it. I turned and yelled to Suzie. I had to yell her name a couple of times, to get her attention, as she shot down vampire after vampire with a terrible cold smile on her face.
“Suzie! Work with Eddie and Dead Boy, and hold off the vampires while the Adventurers get the victims to safety! When they’re out, you follow them!”
“What about you?” said Suzie.
“I’ll deal with Varney and his army,” I said. “And then I’ll come out after you.”
“Do you have a plan?” said Suzie.
“Of course I’ve got
a plan! I always have a plan!”
“Except for when you don’t, and you wing it,” said Suzie. “That doesn’t always work out so well.”
“Trust me, I have a plan,” I said. “And it’s a really nasty one.”
Suzie grinned briefly. “Best kind.”
The Doorman and the Adventurers gathered up the victims, and half led and half carried them down the stone circles and out through the doorway, out of the club and into the street. Suzie and Dead Boy and Razor Eddie covered the rear, doing terrible things to any vampire who tried to interfere with the rescue. Not all the victims could be saved, but you learn to settle for what you can get in the Nightside.
• • •
Surprisingly quickly, it was all over. All of them were gone, through the doorway and out into Clubland. Leaving me standing alone at the top of the stone steps, facing Varney. Behind me, I could hear his followers stirring, gathering their strength to come up the steps after me. I let the daylight go, and it snapped off. There was just enough light left in the Vampire Club to let me see Varney, standing before me, studying me with a cold, implacable eye. He walked slowly forward to meet me. I could hear vampires hissing and scrambling behind me, rising up the stone circles, drawing closer. I didn’t look back.
“You must know,” said Varney, almost conversationally, “that I will never let you leave here, John Taylor. An army of my kind stands between you and the only exit; and all your little friends are gone. You shamed me to save a few debased heroes and some human cattle. It won’t make any difference. We can always get more. You hurt some of my people; but they will get over it. You have stopped nothing, changed nothing. But for what you have done, and tried to do, I promise you, there will be an eternity of suffering.”
“Save it,” I said. “I really have heard it all before, and from far worse than you.”
“There is no-one worse than I,” said Varney.
I had to smile. “You never met my mother.”
Varney shrugged impatiently. “I have to say, you’re looking well, John. Considering how badly my children hurt you the last time. Trust me—that will be as nothing, compared to what I will do to you now. Why did you stay behind, John, when the others left? You have no friends to defend you now, no weapons, not even the sunlight.”
“I don’t need them any more,” I said. “I have something better in mind.”
Varney chuckled easily. “You do bluff well, John. It’s actually a pleasure to have an enemy worthy of me. But there’s just you, and so many of us. You really shouldn’t have let your friends go.”
“You didn’t really think I’d go off and leave him, did you?” said Suzie Shooter. I looked around and there she was, standing beside me, shotgun at the ready.
“I told you to go,” I said.
“Yeah, like that ever works,” said Suzie. “I never leave a job unfinished when there’s still killing to be done.”
“Dear Suzie,” said Varney. “You will make such a wonderful vampire. You have just the temperament for it.”
“Over my dead body,” said Suzie.
She raised her shotgun and gave him both barrels, at point-blank range. And he just stood there and took it. She shot him again and again, working her pump action with savage speed; but the garlic-smeared shells did him no harm at all. She slowly lowered her gun, and Varney smiled at her; completely unharmed and entirely unmoved.
“I made a deal, many years ago,” he said. “To become more than just another vampire. And part of the deal I made was that I could never be harmed by any weapon of this world.”
“I thought it might be something like that,” I said. “A deal with whom, exactly?”
“Who do you think?” said Varney.
“Ah,” I said. “You always have to be careful, with deals like that. There’s always a loophole, or two. The Devil really is in the details.”
I glanced behind me. The vampires were closing in, crawling up the stone steps on all fours, to get to me and Suzie. Hundreds of them, with hate and viciousness stamped on their dead faces. Suzie moved quickly to stand back-to-back with me, covering the approaching vampires with her shotgun. Many of them stopped when they saw her. They remembered what her special ammunition had done to them, if not to Varney. But they could afford to be patient. There were so very many of them, surrounding Suzie and me on all sides.
I looked back at Varney and smiled. Because I had one last trick up my sleeve. One last and very nasty rabbit to pull out of my hat.
“What are vampires, really?” I said to Varney. “When you get right down to it? You’re all just walking corpses that have dug your way up out of your graves. And what eats corpses? Insects, maggots . . . worms. Since you’re not ordinary dead bodies, you’re not bothered by ordinary eaters of the dead. But here in the Nightside, we have our very own private cemetery—the Necropolis. We keep it locked up in a separate dimension because of the kind of people, and things not even a little bit people, that get buried there . . . We don’t want them coming back. And of course, the worms that eat the bodies buried in the Necropolis can’t just be ordinary everyday worms. After generations of feeding on the Nightside’s dead, they have grown very strong and very hungry. Supernaturally strong and hungry.”
I saw the look of understanding and dismay grow on Varney’s face, and I savoured it as I reached out with my gift, found all the worms in the Nightside Necropolis, and brought every damned one of them to the Vampire Club.
They fell down from above, a never-ending waterfall of millions of fat, wriggling worms. They fell upon the vampires and ate their dead flesh, burrowing deep into their dead bodies with supernatural strength and speed. The vampires screamed and howled, and tried to beat the worms away with their hands. But more and more worms fell out of nowhere, an endless tumbling rain of them. They ate their way into the vampires’ bodies and burrowed through them, chewing rapidly through organs that didn’t work any more. Stolen blood burst out of widening holes in crimson gushes. It seemed the supernatural worms had a special taste for undead flesh. Vampires ran and scrabbled on all fours, in all directions, beating at themselves, tearing away chunks of their own flesh with clawed hands as they tried to rip out the worms. But already they were falling, and flailing helplessly, as the worms ate up their muscles. More worms burst out of vampire eye-sockets and wriggled in their screaming mouths.
They fell upon Suzie, and on me, too; but they didn’t trouble us. They had no taste for the living.
And Varney, King of the Vampires, screamed loudest of all. The worms burrowed into him, all over his body. The deal he’d made only covered things of this world; and the worms came from a separate dimension. He beat at his body with his hands, unable to believe this was happening to him. And I bent down and picked up the sword I’d seen gleaming on the top steps of the amphitheatre. I saw it fall from Chandra Singh’s hand when he went up against Razor Eddie on the bone beach. It had come through with us, to the Vampire Club; because it was an enchanted sword, bound to Chandra Singh. He never said where he had acquired the magical blade, only that it was a thing not of this world. Which meant Varney’s deal didn’t cover it.
I picked it up and advanced on Varney. He was too busy with the worms to see me coming. I swung the enchanted sword with both hands, and the glowing blade took his head right off.
The severed head fell away, still trying to scream, and I grabbed hold of it quickly, before it could roll away. Varney’s body stumbled forward, reaching out with clawed hands. The glamour was gone, and now Varney looked like what he was: an old rotting cadaver in disintegrating clothes. I turned around and gave Suzie the nod, and we ran back down the stone circles, heading for the open doorway. I had the sword in one hand, and Varney’s worm-ridden head in the other. Suzie blasted away any vampire that got in our way. The amphitheatre was full of screams.
• • •
We left the Vampire Club through the open doorway and stepped out into the Nightside street. The Doorman, Dead Boy, and Razor Eddie were
waiting for us, leaning against the futuristic car. I looked behind me. The doorway had disappeared, along with the rest of the Vampire Club. The whole building was gone, no longer a part of Clubland without Varney’s will to support it.
I placed Varney’s head carefully on the sidewalk. There wasn’t much of it left. Most of the flesh was gone, and worms crawled all over the skull, spilling from the empty eye-sockets, and rioting in the still-weakly-snapping mouth. I raised Chandra Singh’s sword and brought it swinging down one last time. The skull exploded into a hundred pieces. They melted away into mists and were gone; and all that was left were the worms.
“Is that it?” said Suzie. “Is it over now?”
“I think so,” I said. “Without the King of the Vampires to hold them together, the few vampires who do survive will just scatter and go to ground, and hope not to be noticed.” I looked at the Doorman. “Thanks for your help. Take your Adventurers home and give them a few stiff drinks. And let this be a salutary lesson to them of what can happen, when they go after game so much bigger than they are.”
The Doorman looked down at the worms wriggling on the sidewalk. “It would seem to me that it’s not the Big Game you have to worry about.”
“That’s the Nightside for you,” I said. “There’s always something nastier than you.”
“He always has to have the last word,” said Suzie.
“Yes,” I said.
SIX
Later, at the Adventurers Club:
Many famous faces insisted on buying me many drinks, at the Club bar. And I let them. All the heroes and adventurers, and the Club staff, were back where they belonged, and mass celebration was the order of the day. Gareth de Lyon was the only absent face because he was off in the Library, overseeing the reprogramming of the Club Door, to make sure it could never be misused again. Nobody was really mad at him (Could have happened to any one of us, being the general feeling), but Gareth wouldn’t allow himself to relax until he was sure the Club was secure again.