Just Another Judgement Day n-9 Read online

  I was breathing hard, my whole body tense with the need to do . . . something. I knew he’d kill me if I took another step forward, but right then, I wasn’t sure I cared, as long as I took him down with me.

  “What about God’s mercy?” I said finally, in a harsh voice I barely recognised. “What about his compassion?”

  “Not my department,” said the Walking Man. He decided I wasn’t going to do anything after all and put away his guns.

  “What gives you the right to condemn anyone to Hell?”

  “I don’t send anyone to Hell. I send them to judgement.”

  “Who are you, to take such responsibility upon yourself?” said Chandra Singh.

  The Walking Man smiled; and for the first time it was a simple, human smile. “About time you asked. Very well, just for you; the secret origin of the Walking Man. My name is, or more properly was, Adrien Saint. No-one special. Just a man with a job and a wife and two small children. Mr. Average, I suppose. No great ambitions. All I wanted was to get on with my life and look after my family.

  “A teenage joy-rider in a stolen car hit my wife and my two children head-on, when he lost control taking a corner too fast. Cut my wife in half, and dragged my children under his car for almost half a mile before he finally had to stop. He ran away, with his friends. The police couldn’t identify any of them.

  “I survived. You couldn’t call it living, but I survived. Lost my job, my house, my money . . . and then one of the few friends I hadn’t driven away found me a place in a monastery, in the countryside. A place for solitudes and contemplatives, and those hiding from a world that had become unbearable. It was a good place. I found a kind of peace there, if not comfort. And then one day, while helping to catalog the library, I found a very old book that told me all about the deal a man can make with God, to be his man, to be his Walking Man, and punish the guilty.

  “I made the deal. Didn’t hesitate for a moment. I went back into the world transformed, with God’s will and God’s wrath burning within me. I found the teenage joy-rider, with God’s help. Sitting on a sofa, watching television, as though nothing had happened. I beat him to death with my bare hands, and his screams comforted me. I went round to his friends, and killed them all. There’s a fine line between justice and revenge, but as long as it ended up with dead joy-riders, I didn’t care.

  “And then . . . I went travelling in the world, seeing it as it really was, walking up and down in it, dispensing justice. Until finally I was ready to come to the Nightside, and bring the wrath of God to the most sinful place on Earth.”

  “No wonder you’re always smiling,” I said. “This has never been about justice for you. It’s always been about revenge. Every time you fire your guns, you’re killing joy-riders, over and over again.”

  The Walking Man smiled briefly. “You think I don’t know that? I’m obsessed, not crazy.”

  “You sure about that?” I said.

  He actually laughed. “Well, I hear voices in my head telling me to kill people in God’s name, so I suppose there has to be a chance that I’m a complete loony tune; but I don’t think so. Not as long as I remain untouchable by all the evil in the world.”

  “What brought you to the Nightside, at this particular time?” said Chandra.

  “I know what I need to know, when I need to know it. When God was sure I was ready, he showed me the secret ways into the Nightside.”

  “You talk often with your god?” said Chandra. He sounded genuinely curious. “What is that like?”

  “Comforting,” said the Walking Man.

  “I often speak with my god,” said Chandra. “He speaks to me through dreams, and prophecies and omens. And he has never once insisted I commit murder in his name.”

  “You kill monsters,” said the Walking Man.

  “Only when I have to. And then, only to protect the innocent.”

  “Yes!” said the Walking Man. “Exactly! I punish the guilty to avenge and protect the innocent. I kill the killers before they can kill again! The law might not be able to touch these evil men, but I can. And I do. Think of me . . . as a champion of last resort. The last person you can go to for justice, when the ways of the world have failed you. What I do is never murder, because I have a valid legal warrant for all that I have done, and will do, from the highest court of all. The Courts of the Holy.”

  “Penny wasn’t evil,” I said.

  “Get over her,” said the Walking Man, not unkindly. “I will do worse before I’m done because I must. The Nightside is an abomination in the world of men, and it must be humbled and brought down. There are too many temptations here, too many evils operating openly. It gives people . . . the wrong idea. That they can sin and get away with it.”

  “You don’t believe in free will?” I said. “Or free choice? God gave them to us. Everyone who comes here knows the score, knows what they’re getting into. You could say the Nightside keeps all the real sin and temptation in one place, away from the rest of the world.”

  “Shows how little you know about the rest of the world,” said the Walking Man. “You argue well, John, but none of this matters. I will do what I will do, and no-one can stop me. I am here to clean up the Nightside, scour the filth right out of it, from top to bottom. Including your presumptuous new Authorities. As soon as I’ve finished the tasks I’ve set myself, I will kill these new Authorities, to put the fear of God into the Nightside. And you, John Taylor . . . are either with me, or against me.”

  “That’s why you let me see what you do, and why,” I said. “You want me to understand. To approve.”

  “I want you to stay out of my way,” said the Walking Man.

  “Many people whose opinion I respect tell me that the Nightside serves a purpose,” I said slowly. “There are good people here. I won’t let you hurt them. This is my home.”

  “Not for long,” said the Walking Man. He pulled his old mocking insolence about him, flashed me a smile, then turned his back on me and walked away.

  “Bastard son of a bitch,” I said, after a moment.

  “Well, yes,” said Chandra. “By the way, you have blood all down the front of your trench coat.”

  I looked. Penny’s blood, from where I’d held her.

  “Not for the first time,” I said.

  We stood alone in the middle of the Boys Club, surrounded by the dead. The air seemed very still, very calm, as though a thunderstorm had just passed.

  “I couldn’t stop him,” I said finally, unable to keep the helplessness out of my voice. “Even though I knew what to expect, even though I thought I was prepared for what he was, and what he did . . . I still couldn’t stop him.”

  “Who are we, to stand against the will of God?” said Chandra Singh, reasonably. “And the men and women of this establishment were very definitely people who needed killing.”

  “Not all of them,” I said. “The world is undoubtedly a better place with most of these people gone, but some of them were just...ordinary men and women, doing their jobs, drawing a pay-cheque to pay the bills and look after their families. Getting by, as best they could. Yes, they knew where the money came from... but whatever evil they did by working here was a small thing. Not worth dying like this.”

  “Like your Penny Dreadful?” he said.

  “She was never mine,” I said, automatically. “Penny was always her own woman. I never approved of her, but I liked her. She took no shit from anyone. And she really did do some good things in her time, even if she had to be paid to do them.” I looked around me, and a slow, steady anger burned within me. “They didn’t all need killing, Chandra. Some of them could have been saved.”

  “Of course! That’s why you stay, isn’t it?” said Chandra, with the enthusiasm of a sudden insight. “To try and save those you care about. Like your Suzie Shooter.”

  “Don’t go there,” I said, and when I looked at him, he fell silent.

  No telling where that conversation might have gone because that was when King of Skin s
uddenly materialised out of mid air before us. Chandra and I both fell back a little, startled, as King of Skin skipped and swaggered among the dead bodies, sniggering and cackling and looking very pleased with himself. He stopped suddenly, and looked back over his shoulder at Chandra and me.

  “I’ve been here all along,” he said, in his hot breathy voice. “Hidden by my power and my nature, watching and listening. Know thy enemy! He does like to talk, this Walking Man, and says so much more than he realises. He has a weakness, and it’s a very old one. Pride! He cannot ever admit to being wrong . . . Destroy his faith in the righteousness of what he does, even for a moment, and he will crumble . . . Oh yes!” He was suddenly right in front of me again, wrapped in his sleazy glamour, laughing right in my face. “Because of what I was, and what I am, I see the world very clearly. I see the Nightside for what it is, and not for what people on both sides like to think it is, or should be . . . That’s why Julien Advent insisted I be a part of his precious new Authorities. Because I will always see what needs to be done, and the best way to do it, no matter how upsetting.”

  And just like that, he was gone again. Or at least, I presumed so. With King of Skin, you could never be sure.

  I thought about Adrien Saint, the current Walking Man, so sure in his vocation. Could he really bring down the whole Nightside? Not by shooting the bad guys one by one . . . That would take him years, maybe centuries. So he must be planning something else. Something more . . . apocalyptic. Could he perhaps be the one to bring about the bleak dead future I’d encountered in the Timeslip? Where all the world was dead, and even the stars were going out? Could he be the real cause of that, and not me? Was that why the members of the new Authorities were the same people who had been my Enemies in that terrible future?

  I had to stop the Walking Man. For many reasons. But how do you stop the will and wrath of God?

  I was going to have to do some research.

  SIX

  The Only Thing Worse Than Asking Questions of God

  We set fire to the Boys Club before we left. It seemed like the least we could do.

  Afterwards, Chandra Singh and I stood outside in the street and watched the place burn. It went up very nicely. A crowd gathered around us to enjoy the spectacle. We like free entertainment in the Nightside. A street trader soon turned up to provide the crowd with snacky things on sticks, and in no time at all we were all variously toasting and roasting things in the flames of the burning Club. There’s nothing like a good pork, beef, and quite probably something else sausage you’ve personally blackened in a fire. Chandra politely declined to get involved and looked around uncertainly.

  “Shouldn’t the fire brigade be here by now?”

  “No such thing in the Nightside,” I said cheerfully. “The surrounding clubs have their own fire-insurance spells, so the blaze won’t spread. And in a high-rent area like this, reconstructive magics come as standard. This time tomorrow, there’ll be a whole new club standing here. Minus the Boys and their lackeys, of course.”

  “What about the Walking Man?” said Chandra, apparently determined to be upset about something. “Shouldn’t we be hot on his trail before he causes another massacre?”

  “If he’d been planning something imminent, he’d have told us,” I said, around a mouthful of sausage. “The man does love an audience. No, we’ve got time to do a little research. I need to talk with some Christian authorities, someone who can give us more detailed information...on the Walking Man in general, and the present incumbent in particular. Trouble is, there aren’t that many truly Christian people in the Nightside, apart from some rather extreme groups on the Street of the Gods, and a handful of missionaries.”

  “Wouldn’t we be better off in a library?” said Chandra, tactfully. “You have some of the most famous libraries in the world here.”

  “I think you mean infamous,” I said. “Not to mention downright dangerous. Some of our libraries have books that read people. And edit them. No, I think we need a more personal touch for something like this. Which rules out the big organisations, like the Salvation Army Sisterhood. They’d only feed us the party line. We need to talk to the missionaries, the holy rollers, and the dedicated individuals. Like Prestor Johnny, Saint Gorgeous, Kid Christ, or the Really Righteous Brothers.”

  “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 banned from the Nightside,” I said patiently. “Lilith designed it that way. Even the bigger organisations have trouble operating here, not least because the Street of the Gods offers mighty and ineffable Beings you can actually have a conversation and even do business with. But there’s a long tradition of rebel priests and rogue vicars who come here against standing orders, to test their faith and their mettle against the Nightside. Half-mad missionaries and holy terrorists, no practice too extreme, variously successful and always a pain in the arse. Tamsin MacReady is the latest in a long line of hard-nosed optimists. She probably knows all there is to know about the Walking Man. If only I can persuade her to talk to me.”

  “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 bonnet to threaten any other vehicles that didn’t move fast enough, or looked like they were getting too close. Which was also fair enough. Offensive driving is the norm in the Nightside if you want to reach the end of your journey alive, or even in one piece. I relaxed a little, feeling that I was in safe hands.

  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 l
iquids connected him to the cab on both a physical and a mental level. Basically, he was a cyborg, and the cab was an extension of his truncated body. He drove it with his thoughts, but he kept his hands on the steering wheel to reassure his passengers. He kept a bonsai pine tree on his dash-board to serve as an air-freshener.

  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.