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“I never knew you to be so eloquent, John,” murmured Walker.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Stark terror will do that to you.”
“You want to let this one go?” said Walker. “Step aside, and let someone else talk over?”
“No,” I said.
“Hell no,” said Suzie.
Chandra just gave us his broad grin again, his eyes twinkling and happy. I was begi
Walker took out his pocket-watch, fiddled with the fob, and immediately the three of us were on our way. The transition was as unpleasant as before—darkness, total and complete, but with the enduring sense that there was something else in there with us. Something imprisoned in the dark, waiting for its chance. It could have been just my imagination, but that’s not the way to bet in the Nightside. The three of us reappeared half-way down the street where I’d Seen the Walking Man in my vision. He wasn’t there any more. No-one in the busy street paid any attention at all to our sudden arrival. In fact, I got the impression from the faces of people around me that sudden arrivals were so common as to be utterly unfashionable.
“An impressive way to travel,” said Chandra Singh, quickly checking his person to make sure everything had arrived safely.
“You have no idea,” I said. “Really.”
We were standing on one of the main shopping streets, in the wildly expensive area usually referred to as the Old Main Drag. The kind of exclusive establishments where nothing has a price tag, because if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. The neon signs were delicate and restrained, the window displays were works of art, and you had to make an advance appointment just to get sneered at by the sales staff. The Timeslip had deposited us right in front of one of the most famous stores. The elegant sign said simply PRECIOUS MEMORIES, the single window was covered with steel shutters, and there wasn’t a clue anywhere as to exactly what the shop sold. Again, either you already knew, or you were in the wrong place. Precious Memories only supplied its very expensive products to those in the know. An exclusive place, offering exclusive services, for very exclusive people. I’d heard of the shop and what it offered because I make it my business to know about such things.
“Memory crystals,” I said to Suzie and Chandra. “These people can impress real, you are there, POV memories on to a single crystal, which can then replay the experience in its entirety. Complete sensory recordings of any experience, to be enjoyed as many times as you wish.”
“What kind of memories?” said Chandra. “What kind of experiences?”
“No-one knows,” I said. “Except the few fortunate customers. The suppliers go to great pains to keep it all very hush-hush. There are any number of guesses, of course. Important events from the point of view of the protagonist. Any and all kinds of sex, by any and all kinds of people. Gourmet meals, enjoyed by the experienced taste buds of a real epicure. The rarest of wines, on an educated palate. Whatever interests you . . . Precious Memories is supposed to be able to supply you absolutely any experience you can name, from climbing Mount Everest to diving in the Mariana Trench. For the right price, of course. But, no-one knows for sure.
“The customers never talk. Part of the deal. The crystals are very expensive, and there’s only a limited supply. There’s a waiting list to get on the waiting list. Precious Memories is in a position to pick and choose, and it does. So even though there is intense curiosity everywhere as to what the experience is like, no-one ever talks.”
“Oh come on,” said Suzie. “This is the Nightside. Someone always talks.”
“A few customers dropped a hint or two, and were immediately cut off,” I said. “They killed themselves.”
“Ah,” said Chandra. “The practice is addictive, perhaps?”
“Could be,” I said. “The crystals are supposed to be a safe way of observing or experiencing very extreme and unsafe things. Though, of course, that’s not for everyone. When you come to the Nightside, the risk is part of the game.”
“The door’s open,” said Suzie.
“Yes,” I said. “I Saw the Walking Man push it open, quite easily, as though all its locks and security measures were nothing to him.”
We looked at the door, standing slightly ajar.
“It seems . . . very quiet in there,” said Chandra. “I think we have a duty to investigate the situation.”
“Right,” said Suzie. “Try and stay out of the way when I start shooting.”
I pushed the door in, with one hand. No reaction, no alarms, no sound at all from inside. Not good. I led the way in, Suzie and Chandra pressing close behind me. The lobby of Precious Memories was perfectly normal—comfortable chairs, a nice carpet, tasteful prints on the walls, and an impressive state-of-the-art reception desk. All perfectly normal. Except for the bodies lying everywhere, and the blood splashed thickly across the walls, soaking into the rich carpet. Dozens of men and women, in expensive clothing, lying broken and bloodied with staring eyes, reaching out for help that never came. All of them shot to death, and not too long ago.
I moved cautiously forward, stepping over and around the bodies. Everything was still, and silent. Suzie had her shotgun in her hands. Chandra had his long, curved sword. Dead men and women covered the floor of the lobby, cut down where they stood. Huge chest wounds, gaping holes in backs, heads blown apart. The stench of spilled blood was so strong I could taste it in my mouth, and it squelched up out of the carpet as I trod on it. More blood ran down the walls, along with the occasional grey splash of brains. Some of the dead looked to be clients, some staff. Young and old, they’d all been murdered with brutal efficiency. Heart shots, head shots, and in the back if they’d tried to run. Even the receptionist was dead, sitting slumped in her chair behind her desk. She was just a teenager, but the Walking Man had shot her through the left eye.
Chandra Singh moved quickly through the lobby, kneeling here and there to check for a possible pulse, searching increasingly desperately for anyone who might have survived. Suzie swivelled back and forth, searching for a target, for someone she could shoot. The dead didn’t bother her. She’d seen worse. I stood in the middle of the lobby, looking around for some sign of where the Walking Man might have gone, but the bodies kept drawing my attention back to them. Forty-eight in total, mostly men. Gathered together in the lobby for some kind of meeting. Some had been gut-shot, their insides splashed across the carpet. Some looked like they’d tried to surrender. It hadn’t saved them. The wrath of God in the world of men . . . What could have been going on here to make him so angry? There was another door, at the far end of the lobby, with a single bloody hand-print on it.
“This is an abomination,” said Chandra Singh, quite simply. “There ca
“This is bad,” I said. “Even for the Nightside.”
“He walked in and killed everyone he saw,” said Suzie. “What could they have been guilty of, to make him so angry? Or were they just in his way?”
“I hunt monsters,” said Chandra. “I have dedicated my life to protecting people from the things that prey on them. I never thought I would see the day when I would end up on the trail of a human monster. How could a man of God do something like this?”
I moved over to the reception desk. Set directly before the dead receptionist was a single memory crystal. Someone had drawn an arrow in blood on the desk top, pointing to the crystal. We all gathered together before the desk and studied the crystal carefully, without touching it.
“Did he leave this here, for us?” said Chandra. “His . . . explanation, or justification, for this atrocity?”