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“They sound . . . rather eccentric,” said Chandra. Still being tactful.
“Well, yes,” I said. “You’ve got to be a little weird, not to mention certifiably strange, to want to spread the good word in a place like this. But we’ve always attracted more than our fair share of determined and highly individual religious zealots. Like Tamsin MacReady, the current rogue vicar. Yes, I think she’s our best bet. Ooh look—are those marshmallows?”
“The rogue vicar?” said Chandra, refusing to be side-tracked.
I finished the last of my sausage, discarded my stick, and wiped my greasy fingers on the coat of the person standing next to me. I strode away from the burning Boys Club, and Chandra walked along with me. A mothman had turned up, circling overhead, attracted by the light, and already people were using it for target practice.
“Direct agents from Above and Below have always been ba
“Would I be correct in assuming that there is some bad feeling between you?” said Chandra.
“Sort of,” I said. “The previous rogue vicar was a man called Pew. My mortal enemy, for many years. He’s dead now, because of me.”
“I can see that would cause problems,” said Chandra.
Because I was in a hurry to get some information on the Walking Man before the bodies started dropping again, I broke one of my oldest rules and hailed a passing taxi-cab. Normally I know better. You can’t trust the taxis in the Nightside. Partly because you can never be sure who the drivers are really working for, or reporting back to . . . but mostly because taxis are just too bloody dangerous. Some of them run on powdered virgin’s blood, some of them interrupt their journeys to fight duels with cabs from rival firms, and some of them eat their passengers. Not everything that looks like a cab is necessarily a cab. But this was an emergency, so . . .
An old-fashioned black London taxi-cab pulled sharply out of the endless roar of Nightside traffic and screeched to a halt before me. I recognised the firm, Infernal Taxis. Their proud motto—We promise you a Hell of a ride! I held the door open for Chandra so he could get in first, just in case. I let him get settled comfortably and only then got in after him. You can’t be too careful.
A sign inside the cab said Please refrain from smoking or the driver will rip your lungs out. Fair enough. I’d barely settled back into the scuffed leather seat beside Chandra before the driver slammed through the gears and forced his way back into the flow of traffic through brute force and intimidation. He body-slammed a few slower-moving vehicles out of his way, and heavy-duty automatic weapons deployed from the gleaming black bo
The driver was human enough, from the waist up. From the waist down, his torso plugged directly into the driving seat. Cables, wires, and tangles of translucent plastic tubing full of pulsing liquids co
Chandra took one look at the driver’s situation, and immediately lost his temper.
“Who did this to you, sir?” he demanded loudly. “Give us the man’s name, and I promise you we shall hunt him down and inflict dire punishments upon him!”
“Will you relax?” I said. “He paid for it himself. You can make serious money driving a cab in the Nightside, if you live long enough. Being a cabby here is a vocation, like mountain-climbing or spree killing. You leave him alone, Chandra, he’s quite happy.”
“Too right, squire,” said the cabbie, without looking round. His skin was as pale and puffy as a mushroom, but his voice was disturbingly hale and hearty. “I had that Walker in the back of my cab the other day, you know. A real toff. Lousy tipper, mind. Where to, squire?”
“I need to speak to the rogue vicar,” I said. “Take us to the Vicarage.”
The driver sucked in a sharp breath between his yellow teeth. “Ooh no, I don’t think so, squire. I don’t go that far into the badlands. Far too dangerous.”
I leaned forward so he could get a good look at me in his mirror. “I’m John Taylor. How dangerous do you think it’s going to get in here if you don’t do what I tell you to?”
“Oh bloody hell,” said the driver.
He sniffed loudly, put his mental foot down, then sulked in silence for the rest of the way. Which suited me well enough. He’d only have wanted to talk politics, and how there were far too many elves in the Nightside these days. Chandra was apparently lost in his own thoughts, so I just stared out the window at the traffic. It was the usual mixture of vehicles—from the past, present, and future—thundering through the Nightside on their way to somewhere more interesting. Ambulances that ran on distilled suffering. Articulateds with unfamiliar logos emblazoned on their sides, transporting goods too dangerous or too disturbing even for the Nightside. Demon messengers on souped-up motorcycles, with hellfire flying out their exhausts. And a whole bunch of things pretending to be vehicles, for reasons of their own.
At least there are never any roadblocks to slow things down, mostly because the road is tougher than the traffic, and bites back if it gets a
And no, there aren’t any traffic lights. Anywhere. We tried putting some in a few years back, and they all retired with nervous breakdowns.
“Hello,” said the driver suddenly. “Don’t remember seeing that before . . .”
I immediately leaned forward to take a good look over his shoulder. Anything new and unexpected in the Nightside is automatically considered dangerous until proven otherwise by exhaustive testing. Up ahead a new bridge straddled the road, all gleaming steel and bright lights. The rest of the traffic seemed to be going out of their way to avoid it. I frowned.
“Is there another way we can take, driver?”
“Not one that doesn’t add an hour or more to our journey,” said the driver. “That new bridge crosses the only main road into the badlands. What do you say, squire? How much of a hurry are you in?”
“We’re going in,” I said. “Take it slow and steady. And if anything even looks at you in a way you don’t like, feel free to shoot the crap out of it.”