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“We killed a whole bunch of people, settled some old scores, burned down half the town, and escaped here before anyone knew we were gone,” said Stephen. He was gri
“We’ve been here for ages,” said Joan Taylor. “Doing all sorts of things you wouldn’t approve of. You’ll probably take the blame for a lot of them. Everyone knows about you, but no-one knows about us. Though I can’t say I believe half the things they say about you.”
“Goody Goody Two-shoes,” said Stephen.
“Any chance we can make a deal?” I said.
Joan raised an eyebrow. “Would you?”
“No,” I said. “Your very existence offends me.”
I lunged forward and punched her right in the face. She fell backwards, sprawling awkwardly on the floor. She hadn’t even had the time to take her hands out of her pockets. I looked round, and Suzie had already taken her shotgun away from Shooter and back-elbowed him in the throat. I gri
We stood facing each other, hands clenched into fists at our sides as we concentrated, both of us calling on our gifts. I opened my i
I was vaguely aware of all hell breaking loose in the hospital ward, as Suzie and Stephen went head to head. Shotgun blasts were going off all over the place, accompanied by the roar of grenades. Beds overturned, and patients were thrown out, disco
I couldn’t let this go on. We were too evenly matched with our duplicates, and too many i
“Hey, Suzie! Switch partners and dance!”
She grasped the idea immediately and turned her shotgun on Joan Taylor. And while Stephen Shooter hesitated, I used my gift to find the one pin that wasn’t secure in his grenades. It popped out, Stephen glanced down, and there was a swift series of explosions, as the one grenade set off all the others. Small parts of Stephen Shooter went flying all over the hospital ward in a soft, pattering, crimson rain. Behind me there was the single blast of a shotgun, and when I looked round Joan Taylor was lying flat on her back, without a head. She probably wasted time trying to find a way to stop Suzie, the fool. No-one stops Suzie Shooter.
“They were good,” I said. “But they weren’t us. They hadn’t been hardened and refined by life in the Nightside.”
“They weren’t us,” Suzie agreed. She came over to me and looked closely at my face. “You took a hell of a beating.”
“So did you. Thank the good Lord for werewolf blood.”
“But you still tried to get to me, to protect me. I saw you. I didn’t even think to do that for you. You’ve always been better than me, John.”
“Forgive me?” I said.
She smiled briefly. “Well, just this once.” She looked at Joan’s headless body. “I’ve never cared for cheap knock-offs.”
“Our dark sides,” I said.
“Well, darker,” said Suzie.
I considered the point. “Do you suppose . . . there might be better versions of us, somewhere? In some other world? More saintly selves?”
“You’re creeping me out now,” said Suzie. “Let’s go find the Baron and shut him down.”
“First things first,” I said. “I’ve had enough of this place. No more suffering i
I raised my gift again, and studied the whole ward through my i
Suzie and I had other business.
I considered what must be happening, in all the best clubs and bars and parlours in the Nightside above, as rich and powerful faces were suddenly struck down with years, and the many results of debauchery and surgical choices. I visualised them screaming in pain and shock and horror as they all finally assumed their real faces. What better revenge could there be?
“You’re smiling that smile again,” said Suzie. “That I’ve just done something really nasty and utterly justified and no-one’s ever going to be able to pin it on me smile.”
“How well you know me,” I said. “Now, where were we? Ah yes—the Baron.”
“Bad man,” said Suzie Shooter. She worked the action on her shotgun. “I will make a wicker man out of his nurses and burn him alive.”
“I love the way you think,” I said.
We found another door that opened on to another stairwell, leading down into hell. We crept quietly down the bare concrete steps. The Baron had to have heard the fire-fight above him; but he had no way of knowing who’d won. Suzie led the way, shotgun at the ready, and I struggled to maintain my gift, searching the descent below us with my i
The smell hit me first. A thick stench of spilled blood and spoiled meat, of foul things done in a foul place. It grew stronger as we descended the last few steps and found ourselves facing a simple wooden door. The air was hot and sweaty, almost oily on my bare skin. It was the heat of opened bodies in a cold room, the pulsing warmth of i
We were in a great stone chamber, carved out of the very bedrock itself. Rough pitted walls and ceiling, and an uneven floor partly covered with blood-stained matting. Naked light bulbs hung down on long, rusting chains, filling the chamber with harsh and unforgiving illumination. There were shadows, but not nearly enough to hide what had been done in this place. Trestle tables had been set up in long rows, and each of them bore a human body, or bits of bodies. Men and women had been opened up, and the parts dissected. White ribs gleamed in dark red meat. Piles of entrails steamed in the cool air. Heavy leather restraining straps held the bodies to the tables. They had been alive when the cutting began.
The Baron had gone back to his old surgical experiments. Frankenstein, the living god of the scalpel.
He was standing at the far end of the room, wearing a blood-spattered butcher’s apron over his cream suit, half-bent over the body on the table before him. It had been a young woman, though it was hard to tell that now. The Baron looked up at me, startled, his scalpel raised, dripping blood. We’d interrupted him at his work.