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There wasn’t an ounce of uncertainty in Walker’s voice. He sounded like he meant every word he said and all the ones he was just implying. Good Time Georgie hesitated, his anger draining away in the face of Walker’s calm certainty. Georgie looked around him. A lot of people had stopped what they were doing to see what would happen, but none of them looked like they had any intention of getting involved. This was Walker, after all. Georgie turned abruptly and stalked away. Walker took a sip of his Perrier, little finger extended even more than usual. And everyone went back to what they’d been doing.
“Awful fellow,” murmured Walker. “I’d have shut him down years ago, but ten more would just spring up in his place. There will always be steady business for those who come here to sin on a restricted budget.”
“Neatly handled, I thought,” I said.
“Thank you. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“How long do you think you can keep this going before people know for sure you’re bluffing about your Voice?”
“What makes you think I’m bluffing?” said Walker.
I didn’t look at him. “Can I just ask . . . You lost your Voice originally in the Lilith War? As in, the biblical Lilith?”
“Yes.”
“Forget it. I don’t think I really want to know.”
“Very wise,” said Walker.
Behind the bar, the Portable Timeslip made a polite chiming noise to let us know its recharging was complete. The blond barmaid unplugged the pocket watch from what looked like a battery recharger on steroids and slapped the watch down on the wooden bar before Walker with a violence that made both of us wince. Walker smiled politely, tipped his bowler hat to her, and then picked up the watch and turned to me.
“We have to do this outside,” he said. “Too many built-in protections and defences inside the bar.”
“To keep creditors from getting in?” I said.
“I heard that!” said the barmaid.
“I notice you’re not denying it,” said Walker. “Let’s go, Eddie.”
Outside the bar, I got my first real look at the Nightside. Walker gave me a few moments to look around and brace myself. The Nightside was everything I’d always thought it would be: loud, sleazy, brightly coloured, and steeped in its own dangerous glamour. It was like standing on a city street in Hell. Harshly coloured lights blazed from the half-open doors of nightclubs that never closed, along with every kind of music that ever made you want to dance till you dropped, till your feet bled and your heart broke. Shops and stores, selling everything you ever dreamed of in your worst nightmares. All sins catered for, every desire encouraged. The pavements were packed with would-be customers hot for pleasures and secrets and knowledge forbidden by the outside world. Beasts and monsters moved openly among them. Anywhere else, I would have had to use my Sight to see so much, so clearly, but this was the Nightside. And this, all this, was just business as usual.
Everyone knows there’s no law in the Nightside. Just a few overseers like Walker to keep things from getting out of hand. Anything is permitted, everything is for sale. You can buy anything or anyone, do anything or anyone, and no one will stop you or call you to account. Or rescue you when things go bad. A place of casual sin and unchecked appetites, and no one gives a damn because . . . that’s what the Nightside is for. I ached to call up my armour, take my aspect upon me, and bring justice and retribution to the only city where the night never ends.
“Now you know why we don’t allow Droods in here,” said Walker. “You’re really far too simple and straightforward for a place like this. We do things differently here.”
“You can’t have sin without victims,” I said. “Who cares for them?”
“And you do take things so very personally . . . Everyone who comes to the Nightside knows what to expect, Eddie. There are no i
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed briefly. “There are some who do what they can. And that’s more than most of those who come here are entitled to.”
“How do you stand it?” I said. “Working in a moral cesspit like this?”
“It’s my job,” said Walker. “And I’m very good at it. Now, time we were going.”
His hands worked expertly on the pocket watch, and the darkness within leapt up and out, forming a great dark blanket above us. It slammed down like a flyswatter, and I didn’t even have time to react before suddenly we were somewhere else.
The interior of Place Gloria looked just as I remembered it. Tacky, gaudily coloured reminders from the decade that taste disowned. I looked quickly about me while Walker put his pocket watch away, but everything was still and silent. I knew this room; it was where we’d all stood together at the start of the game, when we’d still thought we had a fair chance of wi
“I don’t think we should just go charging through the rooms at random,” murmured Walker, “in the hope of just ru
“Searching this place thoroughly could take forever,” I said. “I’ve a better idea. Make a lot of noise and make them come to us.”
I drew my Colt Repeater, the gun that doesn’t need to be aimed and never runs out of ammunition, and I fired it again and again, calmly and coldly destroying everything of value in the room. Anything that looked important, or expensive, or hard to replace. Ancient china blew apart, glasses and mirrors shattered, and the room was full of vengeful thunder. Photos of Alexander’s old cases and triumphs jumped off the walls, precious memories destroyed in moments. The photos showed him posing with the great and the good, the famous and the infamous. Smiling faces, blown away. I shot holes in objects of historical significance and artistic merit, and I didn’t give a damn. I destroyed antique furnishings and modern furniture and stamped the pieces under my feet as I raged around the room. The continual roar of the gun in the confined space was almost unbearable.
Some things had their own protections. An oversized clock whose hands swept steadily backwards faded away before my bullets could reach it. An ancient black runesword mounted on the wall began to sing menacingly in no human language. My bullets couldn’t touch it, so I moved on. And a huge stone hand in an impenetrable glass case gave me the finger. I didn’t care. There were still many good things left to destroy.
It did occur to me that I was probably destroying or at least vandalising important relics of spy history, but none of that mattered. Not with Honey’s blood still drying on my clothes, from where I’d held her close as she died. Not with the Blue Fairy’s death message still fresh in my mind. And not while Alexander and Peter still lived.
I finally ran out of things to shoot and slowly lowered the Colt Repeater. It felt heavy in my hand. The echoes from the continuous gunfire died away, and Walker removed his hands from his ears. The room was destroyed, bits and pieces everywhere, but no one came to investigate.
“Odd,” said Walker, entirely unmoved by the destruction all around him. “No alarms? No bells or sirens or those a
“I don’t care,” I said.
“Don’t care was made to care,” said an angry, familiar voice.