We finally emerged onto the main streets, and I immediately spotted that we were under observation. Walker hadn’t wasted any time in putting his people on my tail. At least there was no sign of Bad Penny yet, but then there probably wouldn’t be until she was ready to do something appallingly nasty. I couldn’t say I was surprised at Walker’s people picking me up so quickly. He knew the odds were I’d drop into Strangefellows at some point, so staking it out had to be a safe bet. To be fair, his people didn’t exactly stand out in the crowd. He trained them better than that. But Walker had been having me watched and followed for so long now that many of them had actually become familiar faces. In fact, if I was getting nowhere on a case, I quite often took them off somewhere for a drink and tried out my various theories on them. On the grounds that neither of us was going anywhere for a while, so we might as well be comfortable. Most of them went along with it. In the Nightside, today’s enemy can be tomorrow’s friend, or at least ally. And vice versa, of course. None of us ever mentioned this arrangement to Walker, of course. He wouldn’t have understood. Probably have his people hauled up on charges of fraternising with the enemy.
I looked openly about me, counting off the agents. I spotted twenty, half of whom were new faces making a valiant effort to appear inconspicuous. Twenty. I was impressed. A hell of lot more than he usually sent after me. It only went to show how seriously he was taking this case. My companions, naturally, failed to spot any of the watchers, and I had to identify each and every one.
“Don’t point at them,” I said kindly. “It would only embarrass them.”
So we waved at them instead. One was so taken aback he walked right into a lamp-post.
“I don’t like being spied on,” said Pretty Poison, her schoolgirl face disfigured by a menacing scowl.
Sinner patted her comfortingly on the arm. “It’s only because they don’t know you like I do, dear.”
“I’m pretty sure these are only decoys,” I said. “Distractions, to take our attention away from the real observers, hidden behind cloaking spells and invisibility cloaks. I think Walker is seriously concerned about our progress on this case.”
“I’d be hard-pressed to name anyone who mattered in the Nightside who isn’t,” said Sinner. “Whatever we discover, it’s bound to affect everyone here. Maybe we should invite some of these watchers along, as backup, for when things get…difficult.”
“No,” I said immediately. “Walker represents the Authorities; and all they care about is maintaining the status quo. If we do get close to some real answers, I wouldn’t put it past them to order us all killed. Just in case.”
Sinner looked at me. “You don’t seem unduly worried at the prospect.”
I shrugged. “There’s always been someone who wants me dead. The Authorities can just get in the queue. Besides, we’ve danced this dance before, Walker and I. As long as I’m leading, and he’s following, I have the advantage.”
“I don’t like being watched,” Madman said abruptly.
“But then, I know who’s watching us. We’re not alone here. We’re never alone. They watch from the other side of our mirrors, and they hate us for being real. Always turn your mirrors to the wall when you sleep, so they can’t come through.”
“Well,” I said, after a pause. “Thank you for that insight…”
“I’m not mad,” Madman said sadly. “It would be so much easier, for me and for everyone else, if I was, but…if you could see what I have Seen…the world isn’t what we think it is, and never has been. Where are we going next?”
I blinked a few times, then decided to just answer the question. “We need to get to the restaurant area, in Uptown. I can find Herne from there. But it’s a question of distance. You can bet Walker will be able to track us on any of the usual forms of mass transport, and I hate to make things easy for him.”
“Why don’t you get a car?” said Sinner.
I actually shuddered. “Are you serious? You see the traffic on that road? That’s not commuting, that’s evolution in action! Half the things that charge back and forth only look like cars, and the other half run on magics so upsetting they’d give Pretty Poison palpitations. And don’t even think about sticking your thumb out; someone would steal it.”
“I know a way we can get to Uptown,” Pretty Poison said unexpectedly. “I can take us straight there. If that’s what you want, Sidney.”
“Well, of course,” said Sinner. “But I didn’t know you could…”
A halo of flies sprang up around Pretty Poison’s head, buzzing loudly. Vicious claws thrust out of her elegant fingers as she traced fiery sigils on the air. Her face disappeared into shadow, in which two sullen red glows burned. I actually fell back a step. Madman just looked at her sadly. Pretty Poison said something that hurt our ears to hear it, and a circle of hell-fire sprang up around all of us. Sulphur yellow flames that stank of brimstone, though the heat couldn’t reach us. The flames leapt high, then died down again, and as quickly as that we were Uptown. The flames snapped off, and Pretty Poison looked like a woman again. I shook my head, disoriented. Just then, in the moment of transition, it seemed to me that I had heard uncountable voices, crying out in torment…I looked at Pretty Poison, who smiled back demurely.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” said Sinner, framing his words with what I thought was considerable calm, under the circumstances.
“Just a quick side-step through the Infernal Realms,” said Pretty Poison. “After all, I am a demon succubus, Sidney darling. We have to be able to get absolutely anywhere; it’s in the job description.”
“I saw you,” said Sinner. “Just for a moment there, I saw you the way you really are.”
She looked at the ground. “A girl can’t help her background, Sidney.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve seen your true form before. It was the first thing they showed me when I arrived in Hell. It doesn’t change how I feel. I love you for who you are, not what you are.”
“I’ve never understood that,” said Pretty Poison.
“Of course not,” Sinner said kindly. “You’re a demon from Hell.”
They laughed quietly together. I looked around me. The crowds bustling up and down the busy street had just seen four people arrive out of nowhere in a circle of hell-fire, but no-one seemed particularly interested. This was the Nightside, after all. People (and others) minded their own business here, and expected the same courtesy from everyone else. Though they did give us a little more room than most. I started off up the street, and my companions followed. I knew where we were, and I knew where to find Herne. I’d been here before. Uptown has all the best clubs and restaurants, the fashionable places where fashionable people meet, but even the gaudiest light casts a shadow, and that was where we’d find Herne.
I passed by an especially renowned bistro, the kind of place where even the finger food costs an arm and a leg, and then took a sudden turn into a dimly lit side street. The contrast between the bistro’s brightly coloured come-on and the alleyway that led to its rear couldn’t have been greater. The side street was cold and wet and grimy, and it only took half a dozen steps before you knew you were in a whole different world. The street gave out onto a gloomy back square, part of the squalid maze of back alleys, garbage-strewn squares, and cul-de-sacs that gave access to the restaurants’ back entrances. The side of fashionable eating that the customers never saw. The tradesmens’ entrance, the staff’s entrance, and the dumping grounds for all the food the restaurants no longer wanted. Which was why the homeless and the street people and the bums of the Nightside came here, to cluster together away from the indifferent everyday world.
I looked around Rats’ Alley. It hadn’t changed.
It was darker here than anywhere else in the Nightside, and it had nothing to do with the lack of street lighting. This was a darkness of the heart and of the soul, which touched everything at the bottom of the heap. The bright flaring neon from the main streets
didn’t penetrate, and even the blue-white glow from the overly large moon above seemed somehow muted. The smell was appalling, a thick organic stench of rot and filth and accumulated despair. The cobbled street was sticky underfoot. People lived here, in the shadows, a small community of the lost and the destitute. Not so much forgotten as wilfully overlooked. Sinner moved in beside me as I paused at the entrance to the square.
“This is where Herne the Hunter lives? The old god of the forests?”
“It’s a long way down from the top,” I said. “But you’re never so far up you can’t fall. At least in Rats’ Alley he has company. A lot of the homeless and destitute end up here, because this is where restaurant staff dump unwanted food at the end of their shifts. Everything from scraps to whole meals. It’s cheaper to feed it to the bums than pay to have it carted away.”
“Why is it called Rats’ Alley?” said Pretty Poison.
“Why do you think?” I said. “And watch where you step.”
“I never realised there were so many homeless in the Nightside,” said Sinner. “It’s like a whole community here. A shanty town for the lost.”
“I think we’re supposed to call them street people these days,” I said. “Because if we call them homeless, it begs the question of why we’re not finding homes for them. And they’ve always been here. The Nightside’s finances are based on scamming losers, and it’s never been kind to failures.”
Rats’ Alley was what everyone called the square and its tributaries, packed full of cardboard boxes, lean-to shelters, plastic tenting, and clusters of people huddled shapelessly together under blankets. Men and women of all ages and sizes, thrown together like shipwreck victims, refugees from the overthrown countries of their lives. Bright eyes showed here and there in the shadows, and glimmers of light on what might have been weapons. They might be down and out, but they didn’t care for being stared at.
“Do they have dogs?” said Madman. “I thought all homeless people had dogs.”
“Not around here,” I said. “These people would eat a dog if it showed up. Or the rats would. They have serious rats around here. That’s why the street people stick together. So the rats won’t drag them off in the night.”
Sinner looked at me. “You seem to know this place very well, John.”
“I used to live here,” I said. “Years ago, when things had got really bad. This is probably the only place in the Nightside where my name and history mean nothing. They’ll take anyone here. And this was a great place to hide from everyone, even myself. Having to concentrate on keeping warm and dry, and where the hell your next meal is coming from, is very useful when you don’t want to think about other things.”
“How long were you here?” said Pretty Poison.
“I don’t know. Long enough. This is where I first met Razor Eddie. He still sleeps here, sometimes.” I stepped cautiously forward into the square, looking around me for familiar faces as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. “That’s Sister Morphine over there, in what’s left of her habit. A Carmelite nun who chose to come here and live among the street people, to preach and to console them. Her veins manufacture all kinds of drugs for the needy, expressed through her tears. And there’s never any shortage of reasons for tears in Rats’ Alley. Her tears are shed for the suffering around her, and no-one is ever turned away. Some time ago, a bunch of thugs decided to kidnap and make use of her, as an endless supply of drugs for them to peddle. They turned up here mob-handed to drag her away, all confident and cocky…and the street people ganged up on them and beat them all to death. Afterwards, they ate the bodies.”
Sister Morphine came forward to meet me, holding the dark rags of her habit around her with tired dignity. She looked a lot older than I remembered, but then living out in the open will do that to you. Her robes were spattered with filth, her smile weary but kind.
“John Taylor. I always knew you’d be back.”
“I’m just visiting, Sister.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“I’m looking for Herne the Hunter, Sister. We need to talk to him.”
“But does he want to talk to you?” Sister Morphine glared at Pretty Poison. “This one has the stink of the Pit about her.”
“We’re not here to make trouble,” I said carefully.
“You are trouble, John,” said Sister Morphine. And she turned her back on me and walked away.
I looked around for someone who might be more helpful. For cash in hand, or even the promise of a drink. The Bone Horror peered at me dully, curled up under a propped-up blanket. He’d lost everything at the gambling tables, even his flesh. All he had left was his bones, but still he wouldn’t, perhaps couldn’t, die. Some of his bones had clearly been gnawed on, and I could only hope it was just by rats. I saw other names, other faces, but none of them looked friendly. There were creatures as well as people, and even a few broken-down machines, hoarding the last sparks of energy in their positronic brains. Even the underside of the Nightside is still a cosmopolitan place. There was even a Grey alien, dressed in the tattered remains of an atmosphere suit. Left behind, presumably. Damn things get everywhere. His badly handwritten cardboard sign said Will probe for food. I seriously considered kicking the crap out of the abducting little bastard on general principles, but I made myself rise above the temptation. All are welcome in Rats’ Alley, no matter what their past. That’s the point. They even took me in.
“Does no-one do anything to help these people?” said Sinner. “Doesn’t anybody care?”
“Remember where you are,” I said. “The Nightside is famous for not caring about anything. That’s what brings people in. There are still a few who give a damn, like Sister Morphine. And Pew still does the rounds of places like this, dispensing hot soup and fire-and-brimstone sermons. Julien Advent raises money for various charities through the Night Times. But mostly the Nightside prefers to pretend that places and people like these don’t exist. They don’t want to be reminded of the price of failure in the Nightside.”
My companions and I were beginning to attract attention. Our faces and our stories were known, even here. The street people were getting interested. I kept a watchful eye on the shadowy forms nearest us. Street people have a tendency to gang up on those they consider intruders into their territory. All outsiders, often including do-gooders, are seen as targets of opportunity. I’d been here. I could remember searching quickly through the pockets of unconscious bleeding bodies. The street people weren’t afraid of us, or our histories. Fall this far, and you weren’t afraid of anything any more. They started lurching to their feet, pulling their blankets around them, rising on every side. A quick look behind showed our retreat was still clear, if necessary. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Sinner and Pretty Poison moved in protectively on either side of me as the ragged forms stumbled forward. They all seemed to be orientating on me, ignoring the others. Surely they couldn’t all remember me.
And then they knelt before me, and bowed their heads to me, and murmured my name like a benediction. Some of them wanted to rub their grubby faces against my hands. Some touched my white trench coat wonderingly, as though just the touch might heal them. I looked around for Sister Morphine, but she still had her back to us. The homeless knelt before me like a congregation, their grimy faces full of adoration.
“Well,” said Sinner. “This is…unexpected. And just a little worrying.”
“Trust me,” I said, holding my hands carefully back out of everyone’s reach. “If there’s one thing I think we can all be sure of, it’s that I am not the Second Coming.”
“Definitely not,” said Pretty Poison.
There was something in the way she said that. Sinner and I both looked at her. “Do you know something you’re not telling?” I said.
“More than you could possibly imagine,” said Pretty Poison.
When it became clear I wasn’t going to perform any miracles, the street people quickly lost interest and drifted away again. Madman went wandering off a
mong them, and they accepted him as one of their own. They could tell he was just as damaged, just as divorced from the world as the rest of them.
“Poor Tom’s a-cold,” he said, somewhat predictably.
I felt like saying Get thee to a nunnery, but rose above it. I was here on business. I made my way carefully through the maze of cardboard boxes and improvised tents and finally found Herne the Hunter just where my gift had told me he’d be. He was still squatting inside his soggy, half-collapsed box, wrapped in something dark and soiled. He saw me and Sinner and Pretty Poison gathered in front of his box, and retreated even further back inside. We all tried coaxing him out, but he wouldn’t budge until I used my name. Then he came out slowly, a bit at a time, like an uncertain animal that might bolt at any moment, until finally he stood crouching before us. He could have been just another bum, engulfed in the filthy remains of an old greatcoat, except for the stag’s antlers protruding from his bulging forehead. He was smaller than I’d expected, barely five feet tall, broad and squat and almost Neanderthal. His skin was cracked and leathery, his face heavy and broad and ugly. His eyes were deeply sunken, and his almost lipless mouth trembled. He smelled really bad, which in Rats’ Alley took some doing. It was a rank, animal smell, thick with musk. In one overlarge hand he held firmly onto a begging bowl fashioned from a hollowed-out human skull.
“Not much of a god, yes?” he said, in a deep, growling voice thickened by an accent I’d never heard before.
“Should have gone on long ago. But, still a few worshippers left. Mostly New Age hippy types. Bah! But, take what you can get, these days. Belief is still power. Herne the Hunter just a tale for children now. I know, I know. No-one wants to worship at the blood altars any more. Don’t blame them. No. Never was a comfortable god to have around, me. Herne embodied the chase and the hunt and the kill, nature red in tooth and claw.” His speech improved as he talked, as though he was remembering how.
“You sacrificed to me for luck in the hunt, for good weather and the death of your enemies, and to keep me away. I was a dangerous and capricious god, and I loved tricks. Yes…Herne rode high, lived off the best, trampled men and women under my hooves, and the Wild Magic was strong in me. But if you were under my protection, no-one dared touch you! No! No…A long time ago…I have fallen far. What you want with me anyway? Better gods on Street of the Gods, very reasonable prices. I have no powers, no secrets, no wisdom.”