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Finally, the stone steps curved suddenly round to one side and deposited us into a great natural stone cavern, deep beneath the street. The stone floor stretched away in all directions, covered with blue-chalked pentacles, circles of salt, and rows of squat solid cages made of steel and silver and brass. All designed to safely hold and contain the poor possessed creatures who were the whole reason and purpose of the Order of Beyond. There were men and women and even children, trapped like animals. Some sat and talked calmly, reasonably, arguing that they really didn’t belong in a place like this. Others howled and raged and threw themselves at the cages that held them prisoner, beating at the solid bars with hands that felt no pain. And others just sat and watched sullenly, hatefully, with unblinking eyes, waiting for someone to make a mistake.
Sitting before every possessed prisoner was a member of the order, coaxing and cajoling the possessor into speaking to them. It usually didn’t take much. The possessors do love to talk, to tease and threaten and horrify the listener with lies, half-truths, and terrible facts.
No one in the Order of Beyond was interested in helping any of these people. They didn’t give a damn for the victims. They just wanted to listen, and record everything they heard. There were microphones everywhere, and the most sophisticated recording equipment, and a whole bunch of scribes with pen and paper, to set down what was said by those voices that couldn’t be recorded because technology wouldn’t accept their existence. And sitting comfortably all around, listening intently, were the invited guests, the very well-paying clientele of the Order of Beyond. Who came hoping to hear bits of forbidden knowledge, or hints of the secrets of Heaven and Hell. The Order of Beyond sent full transcripts of everything heard to an extensive mailing list, for an extortionate fee, of course, but there was nothing like being there in person, to hear it for yourself. And just maybe to get the jump on everyone else.
Molly and I stood cautiously at the bottom of the stone steps, letting our eyes adjust to the dim lighting, the rise and fall of harsh overlapping voices, and the stench of hate and fear and things that shouldn’t be allowed in our supposedly sane and rational world. Not all the voices sounded human, though they came from human lips.
There is a river in Hell, made up of the tears of suicides. Tears are wine, among the damned.
Beware the Many-Angled Ones, the Hyperbreed! Beware the Black Sun and what incubates inside it! Beware the howling that never ends, and the teeth that rend men’s souls! Even death is no escape from what lies waiting, in the worlds beyond the worlds!
They watch you from the other side of your mirrors, only pretending to be your reflection, waiting and biding their time. And then, in the dead of night, they come out while you’re sleeping, grab you, and force you back into the other side of the mirror, so they can take your place, and do terrible things in your name. Just because they look like you, it doesn’t mean they are you.
Blood shall rain down, and offal, and the great Beast that is Babalon shall come again, and all Hell shall rise up with her, and…
The Celestials are coming to judge us all, in their million-mile-long spaceships, and we shall be as ants before them…
Please, I don’t want to be here, I shouldn’t be here, there’s something ru
You can hear broadcasts from Heaven and Hell every day, on certain designated frequencies. To hear a recording, phone any of these numbers…
“Okay,” said Molly. “Most of this is bullshit, and I should know.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” I said. “I find it very disturbing to be constantly reminded that I’m in love with the original girlfriend from Hell.”
Molly shrugged. “You can’t be a witch of any standing unless you’re prepared to make deals with both sides. And I have to tell you, Eddie, that which side is which depends very much on where you’re standing.” She studied the shadowy figures in their various cages and sniffed loudly. “People pay good money to listen to this shit? I half expected one of them to start spouting pea soup, yelling, Your mother knits socks in Hell! Demons lie. It’s what they do.”
“Except when a truth can hurt you more,” I said.
And then a grossly fat man with a purple birthmark covering half his face called me by name. My real name, not my cover identity. In the great babble of voices I was pretty sure it had gone u
“Edwin Drood, sweet prince of a ruined family, we meet again. Do you remember me? We spoke once before, in the cellars under Dr. Dee’s House of Exorcism. I promised you the world and everything in it, and you turned me down. Too good to listen to the likes of me. But here you are now, searching for wisdom in the strangest of places. Shall I tell you what you need to know, sweet Drood?”
“You don’t know anything I need to know,” I said.
“But I do, I do! Nothing is hidden, from Heaven or Hell. You seek the undying killer, the saint of slaughter, Mr. Stab. And I know where he is.”
“And you’ll tell us, for a price?” said Molly, standing close beside me, as though to protect me. “What are we supposed to do, break you out of here? I don’t think so.”
“No charge, no charge at all, little witch,” crooned the awful presence behind the fat man’s unblinking eyes. “Because getting what you want won’t make you happy, or free, or wise. You humans make your own way to Hell, with every step you take. And so I give you Mr. Stab. My very own poisoned chalice, a gift from Hell to clutch to your family’s bosom.”
“You demons are so full of yourselves,” said Molly. “If you’re going to tell us, tell us.”
“As you wish, dear little indentured soul. Go you now to the Café Night, and someone there will tell you exactly where to find dear Mr. Stab.”
He was still laughing loudly when we left, a horrible, dirty, disturbing sound, even though the attendants shocked him again and again with cattle prods to try to shut him up.
And so by Merlin’s Glass we went straight to Café Night, a deliberately dark and gloomy establishment tucked away in a corner of Kensington you can’t get to without trying really hard. From the outside, the café looked like just another coffeehouse, a place for suburban mums to sit down after a hard day’s shopping and catch up on the latest gossip…but that was just a simple glamour, with an attached Move along, nothing to see here spell, to keep the uninformed from entering. Café Night has a strict entrance code, and nonmembers enter strictly at their own risk. The place started out as meeting place for vampires and those foolish romantic types who longed to be their victims. It was called Renfields back then. These days the Café Night catered to the kind of immortals whose presence wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else.
I kicked the door open and strode in like I was there to condemn the place on moral health grounds. The café was distinctly gloomy, with artfully arranged track lighting to keep it that way while still allowing you to see who or what you were talking to. The background music drifted from the Cure to the Mission to Gregorian chants, and the air was perfumed with the sickly reek of rotting lilies. Café Night was big on atmosphere.