Meanwhile, I had my own problems.
A tentacle came right for me, then hesitated at the last moment, as though it recognised me, or at least something about me. Which was both flattering and worrying. The tentacle humped and coiled before me, as though making up its mind, then suddenly pressed forward. I jumped out of the way, dodging behind a handy stone pillar. The tentacle curled around the massive pillar and wrenched it away with one heave. The roof started to come down, and I was forced back out into the Street. There was nowhere to run; the tentacles were everywhere. I dug through my coat pockets, searching for something I could use, and finally came up with a flat blue packet of salt. I tore the packet apart and spilled the salt on to the tentacle as it reached for me. The metallic flesh shrivelled and blackened and fell apart, the way salt affects a slug.
Never leave home without condiments.
I tried raising my gift, hoping I could use it to find some fatal weakness in the Abomination (seeing as I’d run out of salt), but the aether was jammed with the emanations of all the Beings out on the Street, fighting the Abomination. It was like being blinded by spotlights—I couldn’t See a damned thing. I had to screw my inner eye shut to keep from being overwhelmed.
When I could see clearly again, the Walking Man was striding right into the heart of the lashing and roiling tentacles, heading straight for that burning three-lobed eye. It loomed over him, bigger than a house by then. The tentacles couldn’t even get close to him, let alone touch him. Something made them pull back in spite of themselves, as though just the touch of him would be more than they could stand. He was protected because he was walking in Heaven’s path. He passed by Chandra Singh, still fighting valiantly though surrounded on all sides. The Walking Man didn’t even glance at Chandra, all his attention fixed on the three-lobed eye.
He walked right up to the eye, tentacles recoiling from his very proximity, and when he was standing right before it . . . he raised one of his long-barrelled pistols and shot the eye three times; one bullet for each lobe. The eye exploded in a blast of incandescent fire, and a wave of almost unbearable heat rushed down the Street, but none of it touched the Walking Man. The tentacles collapsed and lay still, slowly melting away, disappearing into long blue streams of decaying ectoplasm. The Unspeakable Abomination was gone. I’d like to think it was dead, but such creatures are notoriously hard to kill.
All around, Beings and men alike stared at the Walking Man, and a whisper went down the Street; Godkiller . . .
I started towards him, and Chandra Singh came forward to join me. He looked like he’d been in a fight, his silks torn and steaming from black blood-stains, but he still held his long sword, and his back was straight and stiff. He only had eyes for the Walking Man, and he looked mad as hell.
“You!” he said, when he was close enough. “Walking Man! You did this! How many dead and injured, simply because they happened to be here when you chose to pick a fight with the Abomination? How many innocents dead today, because of you?”
“There are no innocents here,” the Walking Man said calmly. “Not on the Street of the Gods, or in the whole damned Nightside. Isn’t that right, John?”
“Not everyone here needs killing,” I said stubbornly. “Sometimes, a place like this can be a haven for the damaged and the broken . . . a place to go when no-one else will have you. You can’t just kill everyone.”
“No?” said the Walking Man. “Watch me.”
He didn’t even bother with his guns this time. He walked unhurriedly down the Street, turning his terrible implacable gaze this way and that, and buildings and structures on all sides began to shudder and shake and fall apart under the impact of his deadly faith. Centuries-old stone and marble cracked and splintered, while construction materials from a hundred worlds and dimensions collapsed, or shattered like glass, or melted away like mist. For what use was antiquity and mystery in the face of his brutal faith? He was the Walking Man. He had God on his side, and he wasn’t afraid to use Him. Beings and creatures and things beyond reason stumbled horrified out on to the Street, driven from their places of worship. Some came out howling and screaming, some sobbing bitterly, and some came out fighting.
The Robot God, the Deus in Machina, demon construct from the forty-first century, all strangeness and charm and vicious quarks, came stamping down the Street on its solid steel legs, its divine metal workings exposed, clanking and scraping against each other. Its eyes were multi-coloured diodes, and its slit mouth roared static. All kinds of energy weapons emerged from secret recesses, and the Robot God unleashed all its terror arsenal on the Walking Man, seeking to blast him right down to the quantum level.
The Walking Man swaggered down the Street to meet it, flashing his old insolent smile, and when he got close enough, he jumped lightly up to grab a handhold on the massive metal body and tore the Robot God apart, piece by piece, with his bare hands. Future energies howled and sputtered around the pair of them as the Robot God lurched back and forth, screaming bursts of static. In a matter of moments, all that remained was a scattered pile of metal parts and a few dispersing energies.
The Inscrutable Enigma appeared out of nowhere, forming itself around the Walking Man in spiralling circles of coruscating intensities. Its living energies had burned up through the material world to reach the Street, and its very presence set fire to the ground and ignited the air. Unearthly flames burned all around the Walking Man, but could not consume him. The Inscrutable Enigma might have been as much idea as matter, an alien concept manifesting in the material world, but it was still no match for the power that burned within the Walking Man. And all too soon the Enigma exhausted its energies and faded away, its base idea consumed by a bigger one.
Pretty Kitty God gave it her best shot. She was an utterly artificial god, cold-bloodedly designed and created by marketing groups to appeal to the biggest possible audience. But they did their job too well, and Pretty Kitty God became real, or real enough. She escaped the confines of her planned Christmas Special, broke the shackles of her trade-mark, and took up residence on the Street of the Gods, where she belonged. She was vast and powerful and almost unbearably cute. All fluffy pink fur and enormous eyes, ten feet tall and wondrously soft, she advanced on the Walking Man with her padded arms outstretched for a hug, to overwhelm as she always had, through sheer, unnatural cuteness. The God of Lost Toys, designed to appeal to all those who never got over finding out Father Christmas wasn’t real, or having their favourite teddy bear thrown out by their mother because they were too old for it now, though they weren’t and never would be. I’d seen Pretty Kitty God subdue and smother old-school horned demons within a deluge of sheer niceness.
She always gave me the shudders. Toys should know their places. They certainly shouldn’t want you to worship them.
The Walking Man gave Pretty Kitty God a hard look, and she burst into flames. She waddled away sadly, her leaping flames lighting up the gloom of the Street. The Walking Man, still smiling his mocking smile, looked unhurriedly about him, and all the gods of the Nightside stood there and stared back, not knowing what to do.
Then Razor Eddie appeared, and everything on the Street of the Gods went really quiet. He didn’t come walking down the Street, he didn’t make an entrance. He was suddenly there, the Punk God of the Straight Razor, a terrible thin presence in a filthy old coat, more than a man but less than a god. Or just possibly the other way round. Thin to the point of emaciation, his eyes dark and feverish in his sunken grey face, Razor Eddie was one of the more disturbing agents of the Good in the Nightside. He slept in doorways, lived on hand-outs, and killed people who needed killing, all in penance for the sins of his youth. He did awful things with his straight razor, in the name of justice, and didn’t give a damn.
I suppose he’s my friend. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.
He wandered down the Street towards the Walking Man, who turned and considered him thoughtfully. Like two gun-fighters in a Western town who’d always known that some day t
hey’d have to meet, and sort out once and for all which of them was fastest on the draw. The wrath of God and the Punk God of the Straight Razor finally stood facing each other, maintaining a respectful distance, and it felt like the whole Street was holding its breath. God’s holy warrior and the most distressing agent the Good had ever had. The Walking Man’s nose twitched. Eddie lived among the homeless, and up close his smell could get pretty rank. But when the Walking Man finally spoke, his voice was calm and measured and even respectful.
“Hi, Eddie,” he said. “I wondered when you’d get here. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nothing good, I hope,” said Razor Eddie, in his pale ghostly voice.
“You should approve of what I’m doing here. Striking down the false gods, punishing those who prey on the weak.”
“I don’t give a damn for most of the scum who infest this place,” said Razor Eddie. “And yes, I’ve killed a few gods in my time. But Dagon . . . is my friend. You don’t touch him.”
“Sorry,” said the Walking Man. “But I really can’t make exceptions. Bad for the reputation. People would think I was going soft.”
“Bloody hell,” I said, stepping forward. “The testosterone’s getting so thick around here you could carve your initials in it. Both of you, take a step back and calm the hell down.”
The Walking Man looked at me. “Or?” he said politely.
I met his gaze steadily. “You really want to find out?”
“Oh you’re good,” said the Walking Man. “You really are, John.”
I looked at Razor Eddie. “You’ve got a friend here, on the Street of the Gods? You’ve been holding out on me.”
He shrugged briefly, the merest lifting of his shoulders. “Do you tell me all your secrets, John?”
“Can we at least give reason and common sense a try?” I said. “Before the shit hits the straight razor, and I have to get seriously peeved with both of you?”
“All right,” said the Walking Man. “I’m game. Try me.”
“The Street of the Gods serves a purpose,” I said, trying hard to sound both firm and reasonable. “Not everyone who comes to the Nightside is ready for the real thing, for true faith. You could say this whole place is a repository and a haven for the spiritually walking wounded. They have to work their way up, in easy steps, one step at a time, out of the dark and back into the light.”
“There is only one way,” the Walking Man said patiently. “There is good, and there is evil. No shades of grey. You’ve been living here too long, John. Made too many compromises along the way. You’ve got soft.”
“I haven’t,” said Razor Eddie. “You’re not so different from me, Walking Man. We both gave up our old lives, and all human comforts, to serve God in violent ways, to do the dirty work no-one else wants to know about.”
“If you understand, then step aside and let me do my work,” said the Walking Man. “You don’t have to die here today, Eddie.”
“Can’t do that,” said Razor Eddie. “Hard as it may be to believe, there are some good people here. And some good gods. One of them is my friend. And what kind of... good man would I be, to step aside and let my friend be killed? Sometimes this Street can be a place for second chances, one last opportunity to make something better of one’s life. I found new hope here. You have to believe that.”
“No I don’t,” said the Walking Man. And he shot Razor Eddie in the head.
Or at least, he tried to. Razor Eddie’s hand came up and round impossibly fast, his straight razor blazing like the sun, and cut the bullet out of mid air before it could reach him. The two separated halves fell to the ground, and the two small sounds seemed to echo on forever in the hushed quiet of the Street of the Gods. The Walking Man stood still, openly stunned, defied and defeated for the first time in his life since he’d left his simple humanity behind to become God’s hit-man. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen any more. And while he was standing there, trying to make sense of what was happening, Razor Eddie brought his straight razor round in a blindingly swift arc and cut the Walking Man’s throat.
Or at least, he tried to. The supernaturally sharp blade, which had been known to cut through Time and Space, sliced across the Walking Man’s throat but couldn’t touch it. The blade just swept past, held back the merest fraction of an inch from the bare skin, by the power and the force operating within the Walking Man. The two men just stood there, shocked silent, looking first at each other, then down at the weapons that had betrayed them. And from the crowd that had gathered all round, there came the busy murmurs of many bets being made.
The Walking Man’s hands were suddenly full of his guns. He blazed away with both pistols, firing over and over again, but somehow Razor Eddie was never there to be hit. He surged back and forth, dancing through the fusillade of bullets, here there and everywhere at once, like the grey god he was. The Walking Man swept his guns back and forth, raking the Street with bullets, and everyone watching fell to their knees or flattened themselves on the ground, as bullets flew overhead. I had to pull Chandra Singh down beside me. He was so caught up in the spectacle of two earthly gods going at it right in front of him that he forgot all about self-preservation.
Both guns kept firing long after they should have run out of bullets, but for all the deafening thunder of the gunfire, Razor Eddie was drawing closer, step by step. Now and again he cut another bullet out of mid air, just to prove the first time hadn’t been a fluke, slicing clean through the flashing bullet with his shining blade. And finally, inevitably, he drew close enough to go head to head with the Walking Man. He cut and sliced and slashed, moving almost too fast to be followed by mortal eye; and still he couldn’t touch the man touched by God.
And finally, inevitably, they duelled each other to a standstill. They stood facing each other, both breathless from their exertions, close enough to feel each other’s panting breath on their faces, eyes staring into eyes. Neither of them beaten, neither willing to admit defeat. And then, quite unexpectedly, the Walking Man took a step back. He put his guns back in their holsters and showed Razor Eddie his empty hands. And as Eddie looked, and hesitated, the Walking Man snatched the straight razor out of Razor Eddie’s hand. Eddie cried out, as though he’d lost a part of himself. The Walking Man threw the straight razor the length of the Street. It tumbled end over end through the air, the blade flashing brightly, until it vanished into the distance. And then the Walking Man clubbed Razor Eddie to the ground with his bare hands, beating him unmercifully again and again until Eddie crashed bloodily to the ground and stopped moving. The Walking Man stood over him, breathing harshly, blood dripping from his fists. And then he drew back his foot to kick the fallen god in the head.
“No!” said Chandra Singh. “Don’t you dare!”
I was back on my feet again, and so was he. And if he hadn’t spoken out, I would have. But when Chandra advanced steadily on the Walking Man, I stayed right where I was and let him do it. I was still observing the Walking Man, seeing what he could do, and making up my mind as to what I was going to have to do. So I let Chandra Singh take his shot, to see what would happen. I can be a real cold-blooded bastard when I have to.
Chandra stood protectively over the fallen Razor Eddie, and stuck his face right into the Walking Man’s. Chandra was clearly steaming mad, but his face and his gaze had never looked so cold. The Walking Man met Chandra’s gaze calmly and didn’t budge an inch. One holy warrior facing off against another. This was what Chandra had wanted all along, whether he’d admitted it to himself or not. Why he insisted on sticking with me. To end up here, in this place and at this moment, for a chance to test his faith and his god and his standing, against the legendary Walking Man.
He stepped quite deliberately over the unconscious Razor Eddie, putting himself between the fallen god and further violence, openly defying the Walking Man to do anything about it. He didn’t draw his sword, made no move to attack or defend; but stood there, confident in his faith and the righteousness
of his cause.
“Go ahead,” he said steadily to the Walking Man. “Shoot me. Kill a good man. Just because you can.”
“A good man?” said the Walking Man, raising an eyebrow. “Is that what you are, Chandra Singh? After all those creatures you killed, merely for the sin of being . . . different?”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Chandra, entirely unmoved. “I have only ever acted to save lives. Can you say the same?”
“Yes,” said the Walking Man.
“Too much faith can blind a man,” said Chandra. “Especially to his own faults. I admit, I came here for selfish reasons. I wanted to test myself, my skills, my faith, against yours. To prove once and for all that I was your equal, if not more, in everything that mattered. But now that I have seen you at your bloody work, your murderous function . . . I see I have a duty here. You have to be stopped. You’re out-of-control. What you are doing . . . is not God’s work. He may have his wrath, but He tempers it with mercy and compassion.”