Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth Read online

  And yet, even under its madness and its rage, I could feel the Speaking Gun yearning for my mother’s touch. It wanted to go to her and nestle in her hand, and do terrible, awful things for her. I gripped the Gun so tightly my whole hand ached, and never once took my gaze off Lilith. She laughed soundlessly at me, and took a step forward. I aimed the Speaking Gun carefully, and pulled the trigger.

  And nothing happened.

  I tried again and again, but the long canine tooth that served as the Speaking Gun’s trigger wouldn’t budge. I shook the Gun, and even hit it with my other hand, but it did no good. In my mind, I could hear it laughing.

  “The Speaking Gun won’t work on me, John,” Lilith said calmly. “It will never operate against the wishes of its creator. Just a little safeguard I had built into it, back at the Beginning. It loves me, you know. It aches to serve me, and make me happy. Such a good son…Unlike you. Give me the Gun, John. It was never meant for you. And in my hands it will respeak your most secret name and remake you into the respectful, obedient son I always intended you to be.”

  She held out her hand, and the Speaking Gun jerked in my grasp, as though desperate to go to the one who would let it do what it had always wanted to do.

  I couldn’t let her take the Gun. So I raised my gift, and forced it to find the one way in which the Speaking Gun could be destroyed. The answer was simple: by making it speak its own secret name backwards, and uncreate itself. My gift fought me, and the Gun fought me, but I had come a long way in the past few years, down a long hard road, perhaps to prepare me for moments like this. I bent all my will and all of my soul against the gift and the Gun, beating them down step by step and inch by inch, until finally the Speaking Gun choked out a single awful sound, then howled in despair as its very existence was reversed and undone. Uncreated.

  My hand was suddenly empty, and I staggered and almost fell, wiped out by such a tremendous effort. I felt as though I’d just lifted a mountain with my bare hands, and turned it over on its side. Lilith grunted suddenly with surprise, and clapped one hand to her bare side. I studied her warily, but she just smiled back at me.

  “Why thank you, John. For returning my flesh and bone to me. I’d forgotten how much I missed that rib till I had it back again. You always give your mother the best presents.”

  “The Speaking Gun is gone,” I said. “You can’t remake me without it, which means you can’t remake the Nightside. So, it’s over. Your precious scheme is dead in the water. Stand down your armies. This isn’t your Nightside any more. You don’t belong here. Just…go away, and leave us alone.”

  But she was already smiling and shaking her head. “You always did think too small, John. The Speaking Gun was never that important to me. It was just there to make things easier for you. It would have been a more…merciful method, that’s all. Now I’ll just have to do it the hard way. And don’t you dare cry. You brought this on yourself. The Speaking Gun was never intended to be my main weapon against the Nightside, John. That was, and is, you. That is why I gave birth to you, after all.”

  “What?” I said. My mind was numb, from too many reverses. “I don’t understand…”

  “Of course you don’t. I arranged for you to inherit one particular gift from me, John, so I could make use of it when the time was right. I will make you do what you were born to do. I will make you use your gift to find for me the perfect form of the Nightside, the original uncontaminated model that I always intended it to be, and when you’ve found that for me I will enforce that version on all the world.”

  “I won’t do it,” I said. I tried to look away from her, from her deep dark eyes, and couldn’t. “I won’t do that!”

  “You don’t have any choice, sweetie. I decided your fate before you were even born, working on you while you were still forming in my womb. All through the first few years of your childhood, I built a geas deep within your mind, so I’d be able to use it in this place, on this day. A geas to bend your will to mine. That’s why you’ve never been able to remember your early years with me. It became necessary for me to leave the dear bosom of my family before I was quite finished with you, but there’s enough there to do the job. I can see it, squirming deep in your mind, wrapped around your soul.”

  “You do love the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” I said. Never let them see they’ve got you rattled… “Why didn’t my gift tell me any of this, when I questioned it earlier?”

  “Because it’s not your gift, it’s mine. I gave it to you, to do my will.” She pirouetted slowly, arms outstretched, mistress of all she surveyed, smiling like a cat with a small bird in its jaws. “Time to redecorate, I think. The old place has become terribly infested. I will spread my Nightside across all the Earth, freeing it from the influence of Heaven and Hell. I’ll steal the world away from both those Tyrants, and make the Earth my playground, for all time. And everything that lives on it, including Humanity, that bothersome breed, will be swept aside and replaced with something more to my liking. Including you, my dearest boy. You’ll be so much happier when I’ve remade you in my own true image. You will kneel at my feet and sing my praises through all eternity. Won’t that be nice? A mother and her son, together, forever.”

  And I had just destroyed the Speaking Gun, the only weapon that might have stopped her.

  Unless…the last time I went face-to-face with Lilith, long and long ago, back at the very creation of the Nightside, I’d found a way to hurt and weaken her. I grinned nastily, inside. I’m John Taylor. I always have one more trick up my sleeve. I fired up my gift, driving it ruthlessly with the last of my will, and used it to find the link between my mother and me. The physical, mental, and magical connections between a mother and her only son. A trick I’d used before, to drain the life energy right out of her.

  But when I reached out through the link, she was right there waiting for me. Her will slammed through the link, slapping me aside, monstrously strong and utterly overpowering. I cried out and fell to my knees as she drained the life energy out of me, despite everything I could do to stop her. She smiled down at me.

  “You didn’t really expect to catch me with the same trick twice, did you? Not when I’ve had so many years to think about this day, this moment, planning it all down to the very last detail…Poor boy. This isn’t your story, John; it’s mine. Time to start your makeover, I think. And then what fun we’ll have, tearing down everything you ever believed in. Open wide and say aaah!, John. It’ll only hurt for a moment…”

  FOURTEEN

  The Things We Sacrifice, for Love

  Time slowed, cranking down to a crawl. The hand Lilith was extending towards me ground to a halt, inches short of my face. Her voice became a long growl and then cut off abruptly as the Collector appeared out of nowhere, in an improbable device. Trust him to bring Time itself to a stop, just so he could make an entrance. The Collector, con man, thief, and snapper up of anything collectible that wasn’t actually nailed down or guarded by enraged wolverines. An old acquaintance of mine, but not what you could call a friend. I don’t think the Collector had friends any more. They got in the way of his collecting.

  A portly middle-aged man with a florid face, the Collector was currently wearing a stylish dark blue blazer with white piping, and a large badge on his lapel bearing the number six. He was crouching inside a strange contraption that hovered uncomfortably close above my head. It looked like an overcomplicated climbing frame, made up of long quartz-and-crystal rods that sparked and shimmered against the night sky. The whole framework couldn’t have been more than ten feet wide, but there was something more to it, as though it extended away in more than just the usual three dimensions. The air was thick with the smell of discharging ozone.

  The Collector reached down out of his contraption and grabbed the collar of my trench coat. He hauled me up into the framework with him, and immediately I could move again. I grabbed at the nearest rods to steady myself, and they squirmed unpleasantly in my grasp as though they weren’t
fully there. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I might have been dragged out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Collector has always been famous for not being on any side but his own. Below us, Lilith was slowly turning her head to look in our direction.

  “Shit,” said the Collector, “the field’s collapsing. Brace yourself, Taylor, we are out of here!”

  He wrapped both his plump hands around a control like a fragmented crystal flower, and the whole structure tilted sideways through space. Time Tower Square disappeared abruptly as we spun round and round, dimensions of space snapping in and out of focus. I tried closing my eyes, but it didn’t help. I was sensing the movement on some basic spiritual level, and my stomach really hated it. I clung desperately to the crystal rods, which seemed to be deliberately trying to slip out of my grasp. I could still hear Lilith’s voice, screaming No… in a howl that seemed to go on forever. The crystal contraption actually buckled under the force of her rage, and solid crystal rods cracked and shattered. The Collector fussed over his controls, swearing and blaspheming, and suddenly the whole device crashed to a halt, and I fell out of it into Strangefellows bar.

  I sat there for a long moment, enjoying the solid support of a floor that stayed still, then I hauled myself painfully slowly to my feet. I don’t know when I’ve ever felt so tired. I looked across at the Collector, who was walking round and round his crystal contraption and cursing loudly as bits fell off it. He actually chattered with rage and kicked spitefully at the pieces on the floor.

  “Bloody thing! I’ll never get another one like this! Not after the extra security they’ve installed since my last visit…This trip had better have been worth it, Henry!”

  Walker strolled over to pat him soothingly on the shoulder. “Leave strategy to me, Mark. You know I’ve always been the devious one. You never did explain. What is this thing, exactly?”

  “Well, originally it was a four-dimensional climbing frame for really gifted children in the thirtieth century. I acquired it when no-one was looking, and adapted it for interdimensional travel. Not as accurate as some of my other Time travel mechanisms, but just basically weird enough to sneak in and catch Lilith by surprise. And now look at it! I’d better get compensation for this, Henry.”

  “I’ll see you’re provided with the correct forms,” Walker said briskly. “And how are we, Taylor?”

  “We feel like shit,” I said, collapsing into the nearest chair. “Why did you send that creep to rescue me?”

  “Because you were obviously incapable of rescuing yourself, you ungrateful little turd!” snapped the Collector. “We watched you talking with Lilith through one of Merlin’s visions, once he detected your reappearance, and a right balls up you were making of it. So Henry sent me in as the cavalry. And if you’re wondering why someone of my good sense has joined this doomed resistance, reluctantly and very much against my better judgement, I can only put it down to emotional blackmail.”

  “I simply pointed out that if Lilith has her way with the Nightside, there will be nothing left to collect,” said Walker.

  “Bloody vandal!” said the Collector. “I haven’t spent the best part of my life putting together the greatest collection of treasures and wonders in this or any other universe, just so the Great White Bitch can wipe it all out. Women never appreciate the true value of collectibles…”

  “I knew you’d come, if I asked,” said Walker. “What are old friends for?”

  The Collector looked at him coldly. “Don’t push it, Henry. We haven’t been friends for over twenty years, and you know it. You’ve been doing your best to have me arrested, ever since that unfortunate incident over the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Hell, I haven’t seen you in the flesh since Charles’s funeral.” He looked at me, then back at Walker. His voice softened, just a little. “You’ve got old, Henry. Respectable.”

  “You got fat.”

  I left them to their somewhat prickly reunion, forced myself up out of my chair, and stumbled over to the bar. Lilith had taken a lot out of me. Alex was in his usual place behind the bar and actually had a large wormwood brandy waiting for me. He’d put a little umbrella in it, just because he knew I hated them. He didn’t want me to think he was getting soft. I threw the umbrella away, took a long drink, and nodded gratefully to him. He nodded back. We’ve never been very demonstrative.

  “Did any of my people make it back here?” I said finally.

  “Only me,” said Suzie Shooter.

  I turned around, and there she was. Shotgun Suzie, her black leathers almost falling apart from tears and slashes, and soaked with dried blood. Her bandoliers were empty of bullets, and all the grenades were gone from her belt. Even her shotgun was missing from its holster on her back. She half sat, half collapsed onto the bar stool beside me, and Alex put a bottle of gin in front of her. I was too tired to do more than smile at her, to show how glad I was to see her still alive, and she nodded in return.

  “You should have seen the shape she was in, when she came back without you,” said Alex. “Took three of my best repair spells to put her back together again. I put them on your tab, Taylor. Though given the way things are going, maybe you should settle up now, while there’s still time.”

  “I broke my shotgun,” said Suzie, ignoring Alex with the ease of long practice. “Had to use it as a club when I ran out of ammo. And I left my best stiletto in some bastard’s eye. All my weapons are gone. I feel naked.”

  “How did you make it back here, through all those mobs?” I asked.

  “A variety of blunt instruments and a whole lot of bad temper,” said Suzie.

  “Have you seen any of the others?”

  “No,” said Suzie, staring at her bottle of gin without touching it. “But Dead Boy was dead to begin with, and Razor Eddie’s a god. I wouldn’t be surprised to see either of them stroll back in here, eventually.”

  “But not Tommy Oblivion,” I said.

  “No. His brother Larry went out to look for him, as soon as he heard what happened. No-one’s heard anything from him since.”

  “Julien Advent is out and about,” said Alex. “Supposedly pulling Walker’s remaining people together into an army, for one last desperate assault on Lilith’s forces.”

  “No!” I said. I pushed myself away from the bar, and stalked over to confront Walker. He deliberately ignored me, continuing his talk with the Collector, so I grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him around. I don’t know which of us was more surprised. It had been a long time since anyone had dared treat Walker like that. “You can’t fight Lilith’s army with an army of your own,” I said, as forcefully as I could. “You’ll destroy the Nightside, fighting over it. Nobody wins. I’ve seen it.”

  “You’re sure of this?” said Walker.

  “Oh yes. I’ve talked to people in the future, people who lived through it. They were the only ones left. You’d know some of the names if I said them, but trust me on this, Walker, you really don’t want to know. Believe me, you can’t win this with an army.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” said Walker, and I swear his voice was just as calm and courteous and civilised as ever, even though I’d just kicked away his last hope. “What else can we do, except fight?”

  “You have to do something,” said Merlin, his voice just a harsh rasp. “And you’d better do it soon. My defences are under constant attack. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain them.”

  I looked round. I’d actually overlooked the ancient sorcerer, sitting slumped and alone at a table in the corner. He looked very old and very tired, even for a fifteen-hundred-year-old corpse. His grey face was slack, the crimson flames barely stirring in his empty eye-sockets.

  “Keeping Lilith out, holding her off, is taking everything I’ve got,” Merlin said, not even looking at me. “It’s draining me dry, Taylor. I need my heart. There’s still time. Find my stolen heart for me, bring it here, and put it back in my chest, and I could be a Power again. I could bring myself back to life, wrap myself in g
lory, and go out to face Lilith head to head.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “You are Satan’s only begotten son, born to be the Antichrist. I won’t risk loosing that on the Nightside.”

  “That’s right, blame me for my family background! You of all people should know that we aren’t always our parent’s children. Do you want me to beg, Taylor? Then I’ll beg! Not for me, but for the Nightside. For all of us.”

  “I can’t do it,” I said. “I know where your heart is. And there’s no way I can get it for you.”

  “Then we’re all dead,” said Merlin. “Dead and damned.”

  “Look, if he can’t protect me, then I’m getting the hell out of here,” said the Collector. “Come on, Henry, I only agreed to come here because you assured me this bar was safer than any of my bolt-holes. I only agreed to rescue Taylor because you said he was vital to our survival.”

  “Shut the hell up,” I said, feeling the anger build within me. “You don’t get to complain, Collector. Not when all of this is your fault anyway! You made possible the Babalon Working that brought Lilith back out of Limbo! You put my father together with my mother and made me possible!”

  The Collector wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I was misled,” he said finally. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “Leave Mark alone,” said Walker, moving forward to stand beside the Collector. “We all thought we were doing the right thing, back then. Including your father. We never meant for any of this to happen…. You’re looking at me strangely, John. What is it?”