Страница 28 из 49
I went over to Chandra, and he leaned heavily on me, his sword hanging down as though it had become too heavy to lift.
“Nice call, John,” he said faintly.
“Nice cut,” I said.
The Boys Club was still and silent. There was blood and dead bodies everywhere, even in the swimming pool, where the perfect bodies of young men and women floated facedown in bloody waters. The Hellsreich brothers stood together, holding their hands high in the air in surrender. The Walking Man regarded them thoughtfully.
“You’ve killed hundreds of men and women,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” said the Walking Man. “It’s never enough.”
“We’re just businessmen!” protested Paul Hellsreich. “We provide a service, we protect our customers from the vicissitudes of fate!”
“We’re insurance men!” said Davey Hellreich. “We never killed anyone!”
“We’ll go legitimate!” said Paul. “We’ll pay taxes! We promise!”
“You don’t have to kill us!” said Davey. “We’re not worth it!”
“It’s always worth it,” said the Walking Man.
“You should turn them over to Walker,” I said quickly, as he started to raise his guns again. “They have surrendered.”
“To Walker?” said Paul. “And end up in Shadow Deep? I think I’d rather be shot.”
“No problem,” said the Walking Man.
“To hell with that,” said a new voice. “I’ve never let a client down yet.”
We all looked round in surprise as the owner of the charming French accent came forward. God alone knew where she’d managed to hide, but Pe
“Pe
“I took their money,” she said. “Swore to guard them against all dangers, to put my body between theirs and all harm. That’s the job.”
“She took their money,” said the Walking Man. “Even knowing where it came from. That makes her as guilty as them.”
“No it bloody doesn’t!” I said. “She’s a professional, that’s all! Just like me. And Chandra.”
“You side with the si
“No it isn’t,” I said. “Not here. Not in the Nightside. We do things differently here.”
“I know,” said the Walking Man. “That’s the problem. Sin is sin. You’ve lived here so long you’ve forgotten that.”
“She is brave, and honourable, and trustworthy, in her way,” I said. And I moved slowly and deliberately forward, to stand between Pe
“I’m sure God will take that into consideration,” said the Walking Man. And he shot right past my ear. I spun round, but it was already too late. Pe
I finally put her aside, got back on my feet, and glared at the Walking Man, who stared impassively back. I started towards him, and Chandra was quickly there to grab my arm and stop me.
“No, my friend! Not now. We’re not ready.”
“Let go of my arm,” I said, and he let go immediately.
I was breathing hard, my whole body tense with the need to do . . . something. I knew he’d kill me if I took another step forward, but right then, I wasn’t sure I cared, as long as I took him down with me.
“What about God’s mercy?” I said finally, in a harsh voice I barely recognised. “What about his compassion?”
“Not my department,” said the Walking Man. He decided I wasn’t going to do anything after all and put away his guns.
“What gives you the right to condemn anyone to Hell?”
“I don’t send anyone to Hell. I send them to judgement.”
“Who are you, to take such responsibility upon yourself?” said Chandra Singh.
The Walking Man smiled; and for the first time it was a simple, human smile. “About time you asked. Very well, just for you; the secret origin of the Walking Man. My name is, or more properly was, Adrien Saint. No-one special. Just a man with a job and a wife and two small children. Mr. Average, I suppose. No great ambitions. All I wanted was to get on with my life and look after my family.
“A teenage joy-rider in a stolen car hit my wife and my two children head-on, when he lost control taking a corner too fast. Cut my wife in half, and dragged my children under his car for almost half a mile before he finally had to stop. He ran away, with his friends. The police couldn’t identify any of them.
“I survived. You couldn’t call it living, but I survived. Lost my job, my house, my money . . . and then one of the few friends I hadn’t driven away found me a place in a monastery, in the countryside. A place for solitudes and contemplatives, and those hiding from a world that had become unbearable. It was a good place. I found a kind of peace there, if not comfort. And then one day, while helping to catalog the library, I found a very old book that told me all about the deal a man can make with God, to be his man, to be his Walking Man, and punish the guilty.
“I made the deal. Didn’t hesitate for a moment. I went back into the world transformed, with God’s will and God’s wrath burning within me. I found the teenage joy-rider, with God’s help. Sitting on a sofa, watching television, as though nothing had happened. I beat him to death with my bare hands, and his screams comforted me. I went round to his friends, and killed them all. There’s a fine line between justice and revenge, but as long as it ended up with dead joy-riders, I didn’t care.
“And then . . . I went travelling in the world, seeing it as it really was, walking up and down in it, dispensing justice. Until finally I was ready to come to the Nightside, and bring the wrath of God to the most sinful place on Earth.”
“No wonder you’re always smiling,” I said. “This has never been about justice for you. It’s always been about revenge. Every time you fire your guns, you’re killing joy-riders, over and over again.”
The Walking Man smiled briefly. “You think I don’t know that? I’m obsessed, not crazy.”
“You sure about that?” I said.
He actually laughed. “Well, I hear voices in my head telling me to kill people in God’s name, so I suppose there has to be a chance that I’m a complete loony tune; but I don’t think so. Not as long as I remain untouchable by all the evil in the world.”
“What brought you to the Nightside, at this particular time?” said Chandra.
“I know what I need to know, when I need to know it. When God was sure I was ready, he showed me the secret ways into the Nightside.”
“You talk often with your god?” said Chandra. He sounded genuinely curious. “What is that like?”
“Comforting,” said the Walking Man.
“I often speak with my god,” said Chandra. “He speaks to me through dreams, and prophecies and omens. And he has never once insisted I commit murder in his name.”
“You kill monsters,” said the Walking Man.
“Only when I have to. And then, only to protect the i
“Yes!” said the Walking Man. “Exactly! I punish the guilty to avenge and protect the i