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“Pe
“Get over her,” said the Walking Man, not unkindly. “I will do worse before I’m done because I must. The Nightside is an abomination in the world of men, and it must be humbled and brought down. There are too many temptations here, too many evils operating openly. It gives people . . . the wrong idea. That they can sin and get away with it.”
“You don’t believe in free will?” I said. “Or free choice? God gave them to us. Everyone who comes here knows the score, knows what they’re getting into. You could say the Nightside keeps all the real sin and temptation in one place, away from the rest of the world.”
“Shows how little you know about the rest of the world,” said the Walking Man. “You argue well, John, but none of this matters. I will do what I will do, and no-one can stop me. I am here to clean up the Nightside, scour the filth right out of it, from top to bottom. Including your presumptuous new Authorities. As soon as I’ve finished the tasks I’ve set myself, I will kill these new Authorities, to put the fear of God into the Nightside. And you, John Taylor . . . are either with me, or against me.”
“That’s why you let me see what you do, and why,” I said. “You want me to understand. To approve.”
“I want you to stay out of my way,” said the Walking Man.
“Many people whose opinion I respect tell me that the Nightside serves a purpose,” I said slowly. “There are good people here. I won’t let you hurt them. This is my home.”
“Not for long,” said the Walking Man. He pulled his old mocking insolence about him, flashed me a smile, then turned his back on me and walked away.
“Bastard son of a bitch,” I said, after a moment.
“Well, yes,” said Chandra. “By the way, you have blood all down the front of your trench coat.”
I looked. Pe
“Not for the first time,” I said.
We stood alone in the middle of the Boys Club, surrounded by the dead. The air seemed very still, very calm, as though a thunderstorm had just passed.
“I couldn’t stop him,” I said finally, unable to keep the helplessness out of my voice. “Even though I knew what to expect, even though I thought I was prepared for what he was, and what he did . . . I still couldn’t stop him.”
“Who are we, to stand against the will of God?” said Chandra Singh, reasonably. “And the men and women of this establishment were very definitely people who needed killing.”
“Not all of them,” I said. “The world is undoubtedly a better place with most of these people gone, but some of them were just...ordinary men and women, doing their jobs, drawing a pay-cheque to pay the bills and look after their families. Getting by, as best they could. Yes, they knew where the money came from... but whatever evil they did by working here was a small thing. Not worth dying like this.”
“Like your Pe
“She was never mine,” I said, automatically. “Pe
“Of course! That’s why you stay, isn’t it?” said Chandra, with the enthusiasm of a sudden insight. “To try and save those you care about. Like your Suzie Shooter.”
“Don’t go there,” I said, and when I looked at him, he fell silent.
No telling where that conversation might have gone because that was when King of Skin suddenly materialised out of mid air before us. Chandra and I both fell back a little, startled, as King of Skin skipped and swaggered among the dead bodies, sniggering and cackling and looking very pleased with himself. He stopped suddenly, and looked back over his shoulder at Chandra and me.
“I’ve been here all along,” he said, in his hot breathy voice. “Hidden by my power and my nature, watching and listening. Know thy enemy! He does like to talk, this Walking Man, and says so much more than he realises. He has a weakness, and it’s a very old one. Pride! He ca
And just like that, he was gone again. Or at least, I presumed so. With King of Skin, you could never be sure.
I thought about Adrien Saint, the current Walking Man, so sure in his vocation. Could he really bring down the whole Nightside? Not by shooting the bad guys one by one . . . That would take him years, maybe centuries. So he must be pla
I had to stop the Walking Man. For many reasons. But how do you stop the will and wrath of God?
I was going to have to do some research.
SIX
The Only Thing Worse Than Asking Questions of God
We set fire to the Boys Club before we left. It seemed like the least we could do.
Afterwards, Chandra Singh and I stood outside in the street and watched the place burn. It went up very nicely. A crowd gathered around us to enjoy the spectacle. We like free entertainment in the Nightside. A street trader soon turned up to provide the crowd with snacky things on sticks, and in no time at all we were all variously toasting and roasting things in the flames of the burning Club. There’s nothing like a good pork, beef, and quite probably something else sausage you’ve personally blackened in a fire. Chandra politely declined to get involved and looked around uncertainly.
“Shouldn’t the fire brigade be here by now?”
“No such thing in the Nightside,” I said cheerfully. “The surrounding clubs have their own fire-insurance spells, so the blaze won’t spread. And in a high-rent area like this, reconstructive magics come as standard. This time tomorrow, there’ll be a whole new club standing here. Minus the Boys and their lackeys, of course.”
“What about the Walking Man?” said Chandra, apparently determined to be upset about something. “Shouldn’t we be hot on his trail before he causes another massacre?”
“If he’d been pla
“Wouldn’t we be better off in a library?” said Chandra, tactfully. “You have some of the most famous libraries in the world here.”
“I think you mean infamous,” I said. “Not to mention downright dangerous. Some of our libraries have books that read people. And edit them. No, I think we need a more personal touch for something like this. Which rules out the big organisations, like the Salvation Army Sisterhood. They’d only feed us the party line. We need to talk to the missionaries, the holy rollers, and the dedicated individuals. Like Prestor Joh