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“Right,” said Larry. “And hey, I’m dead. What else can he do to me, after all?”
“You really don’t want to know,” said A
“We have to make a stand,” Julien said doggedly. “To prove we are worthy to be the new Authorities.”
“And all those adventurers and rogues gathered down below?” I said. “Are you ready to let them fight and die, sacrificing themselves to defend you?”
“No-one asked them to do this,” said Julien. “They are volunteers, every last one of them. It’s about faith, John.”
“Right,” said Larry. “They wanted to do this. You couldn’t drive them out of here with sticks.”
“Of course,” said Chandra. “We are adventurers. Heroes and warriors and defenders of the Light. It is what we are here for.”
“At least half the people I saw down there wouldn’t fit that description if you used a tire iron to squeeze them in,” I said. “In fact, some of them are exactly the kind of people you and your kind formed this Club to fight.”
Chandra smiled. “What is it you people say—needs must when the Devil drives?”
“You’ve grown cynical,” I said. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s what comes of hanging around with you,” said Chandra, and we both smiled.
“I still have hope that seeing so many men and women of good faith come together will shock the Walking Man back to sanity,” said Julien.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
“He’s here,” said Jessica Sorrow, and we all stopped and looked at her. Her gaunt face was blank, her eyes empty and far away. “He is at the door. And the rage that burns within him is cold... so very cold.”
“Stay here!” I snapped at Julien. “Let us test the waters first, see if he can be talked down. Or stopped. Having you people there would only concentrate him on his mission.”
“Give it your best shot, John,” said Julien Advent. “But preferably not with the Speaking Gun.”
“We’re relying on John Taylor to reason with the Walking Man,” said Larry Oblivion. “We’re doomed.”
Walker and Chandra and I scrambled back down the stairs at speed and charged through the bar into the lobby. All the heroes and the rogues and the morally undecided were standing together, tense and silent, their eyes fixed on the closed front door of the Club. Walker gestured for Chandra and me to stay with him at the back of the crowd and observe how things went before we committed ourselves, and I was happy to go along with that. I really didn’t want to do what I was there to do. The tension in the air was almost unbearable, like waiting for the bullet to come your way, knowing your name is on it. The front door shook suddenly in its frame, as some massive force slammed against it. Like God himself knocking on the door and demanding entry. There was another great impact, and the huge door flew inwards, blasted right off its hinges. It slammed flat against the floor, and in came Adrien Saint, the Walking Man.
Just a man in a long coat, with worn-down heels on his shoes from walking up and down in the world, doing good the hard way. He hadn’t even drawn his guns. But still he was the most dangerous, the most frightening man in the Club, and we all knew it. He walked in Heaven’s way, and Death walked with him. He was as inevitable as an earthquake or a flood, as implacable as cancer or heart failure. He was smiling his insolent smile, his gaze openly mocking as he contemplated the rows of adventurers gathered against him. He had come here to do a thing, and he was going to do it, no matter what we might set against him.
He walked forward, and all the Club’s built-in security defences went to work. Force shields sprang into being before him, fierce energy screens generated by salvaged alien machines down in the Club basement. The Walking Man strode through the force shields, and they popped like soap bubbles. Protective magics and potent sorceries snapped and crackled on the air, bending the very laws of reality to get at him, and none of them could touch him. Even the mechanical booby-traps failed to slow him down. Trap-doors opened beneath him, and he just kept walking. Spikes protruded from the wall, only to break in half against his long duster as though it was armour. Man-traps snapped together around his ankles, and he kicked them away.
The Walking Man headed straight for the packed crowd of waiting adventurers, who tensed, ready for action; and then he stopped before them and smiled easily. He looked back and forth, nodding briefly to familiar faces, and all the time his smile said I can do any damned thing I want, and none of you can stop me.
“Stand aside,” he said finally, and his voice was quite cheerful and relaxed, as though he couldn’t imagine not being obeyed. Augusta Moon sniffed loudly and stepped out of the crowd to ostentatiously block his way. She scowled fiercely at him, her monocle screwed firmly into one eye, and brandished her staff of blessed wood tipped with silver.
“And if we don’t? Eh? What will you do then?”
“Then, I will kill as many of you as I have to, to get past you,” said the Walking Man, his voice as calm as though he was discussing the weather. “I walk in straight lines, to get to where I have to be, to do what I have to do. To carry out God’s will in this sinful world.”
“This isn’t His will,” I said, from the safety of the back of the crowd. “This is your will.”
“Ah, hello, John,” he said happily, and actually waved at me. “I was wondering what had happened to you. But you’re quite wrong, you know. When I take my aspect upon me, His will and my will are one and the same. To protect the i
“You’d really kill us?” said Janissary Jane, her voice cold and measured. “All these good people?”
“If they’re standing against me,” said the Walking Man, his voice the very epitome of reason and patience, “then they’re standing against God’s will. Which means, by definition, they’re no longer good people. It’s really up to all of you what happens next. I’m not here for you. I want the Authorities.”
“Well you can’t have them!” snapped Augusta. “Never heard such arrogance in all my life! Now get out of here or I’ll stick this staff in one end and out the other!”
The Walking Man sighed. “There’s always one . . .”
Augusta Moon roared with rage and lashed out at him with her staff, her tweeds flying bravely as she launched herself at him. But the staff that had struck down so many monsters in its time slammed to a halt a few inches short of the Walking Man’s head, then snapped in two as it finally met an immovable force. Augusta cried out in shock and pain as the unexpected impact tore her half of the staff right out of her hands, and she watched in horror as the two pieces fell to the floor. The Walking Man looked at her sadly, then struck her down with a single blow. And since Augusta was really just a middle-aged woman, she hit the floor hard and lay there groaning.
Janissary Jane drew two automatic pistols out of nowhere and opened fire on the Walking Man. Veteran of a hundred demon wars, her guns were always loaded with blessed and cursed ammunition, but still none of them could find their target. Janissary Jane might be prepared, but the Walking Man was protected. She fired and fired, until both guns were empty, and the Walking Man stood there and let her do it. In the end, Jane looked down at her empty guns, put them away, and knelt to comfort Augusta.
Next up was Zhang the Mystic, Asian master of the unknown arts. A hero and a sorcerer since the nineteen thirties, Zhang wore a sweeping gown of gold, his long fingernails were pure silver, and his eyes burned with eldritch fires. He’d duelled demons from the Inferno, and faced down Elder Gods in his day, and founded most of the combat sorcery schools in the Nightside, and no-one knew more magic than he did. But all his spells and sorceries detonated harmlessly, savage destructive energies reduced to nothing more than fireworks. The Walking Man waited patiently until Zhang had exhausted himself, and then did Zhang the final insult of ignoring him.