Tales From the Nightside Read online

  “Love to,” said Razor Eddie.

  He stepped forward, and his blade swept out impossibly quickly, faster than the human eye could follow. He cut deeply into the heavy stone front with no discernable effort, drawing a deep line from above the door to below it. Then another deep cut, on the other side. The flashing razor cut through the stone like a knife through fog. And then he cut again, above and below the door, his skinny figure moving with a terrible sense of unstoppable purpose. Because nothing can stand against Razor Eddie once he’s taken his aspect upon him. He finished the last deep cut with a flourish, to complete the oblong he’d made; and then he stepped smartly away to one side as the wooden door fell forward, out of the wall. No longer supported by or connected to the surrounding stone, it measured its length on the sidewalk before the club, rattled a few times, and lay still.

  We all moved quickly forward, to peer through the opening Razor Eddie had made, and see what lay beyond.

  I got there first, of course. The narrow stone tunnel I remembered from before was gone. In its place was a white beach, with a red sea beyond. I moved cautiously forward, and leaned in through the opening. The stench hit me hard. That old, familiar smell of spilled blood, and so much death. I looked carefully around. The beach stretched away for miles and miles on either side, a beach made up entirely of bones. Human bones. Skulls and rib cages, leg-bones and arm-bones, packed tightly together. As though they’d been left there for so long that they’d settled down and compacted into place.

  The ocean was red because it was blood. Nothing but blood. It moved slowly, sluggishly, an entire sea of spilled human blood. I could tell. I could feel it, in the depths of my soul. A beach of bones and a sea of blood, under a night sky empty of everything but a piss-yellow moon. An atrocity of a world.

  I stepped back and let the others take a good look. Dead Boy and Razor Eddie squeezed in together, shoulder to shoulder. Then Suzie, and finally the Doorman. We all looked at each other.

  “Nasty,” said Suzie, apparently unmoved. “Not the worst thing I’ve seen in the Nightside, but pretty damned nasty, all the same.”

  “Varney’s work?” said the Doorman, looking at me.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Is it real?” said the Doorman.

  “Real enough,” I said. “Real enough to kill us if we let our guard down. Let’s go.”

  Dead Boy looked back at his car. “If we’re not back in half an hour, come and get us. Or avenge us.”

  The car seemed to nod at him.

  • • •

  I led the way in, stepping carefully over the stone lip and out onto the bone beach. The others hurried in after me, then spread out, so as not to present a single target to whatever might be waiting. The bones creaked and cracked under our weight. The stench from the blood ocean was sickening. The deep, dark night sky had no stars at all, just that full yellow moon. Yellow as sickness. There was more than enough light to see by, but none of it came from the moon. Varney wanted us to see clearly the world he’d made for us.

  It was cold—the harsh, unwavering cold of the grave, or the graveyard. And not a breath of air moving anywhere.

  “Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside,” murmured Razor Eddie. He stood very still, both hands thrust deep in the pockets of his filthy coat.

  “Where the hell are we?” said Dead Boy. He looked around interestedly, apparently unmoved and unconcerned by his surroundings. “I thought we were going clubbing.”

  “So much blood,” said Suzie. She held her shotgun at the ready, prepared for the first hint of a threat.

  “It smells of death and horror,” said the Doorman.

  “I can’t smell anything,” said Dead Boy, just a bit sadly. “Look at all these bones! How many people died here? Thousands? Millions? I don’t get it. Why kill so many people? I thought Varney wanted to make everyone like him.”

  “Only up to a point,” I said. “Too many predators in one place, and they’d run out of victims. Turn on each other.”

  “So what, or where, is this?” said Suzie.

  “This is the vampires’ world,” I said. “Or, at least, the world as they would like it to be. Their fantasy, perhaps, of where they originally came from. Who knows how vampires came into our world, originally?”

  I looked around me, and the bleached white beach of bones stretched away for as far as I could see. The blood ocean reached away into the distance, all the way to the far horizon, heavy blood, moving sluggishly in slow waves. And when I finally turned and looked behind me, the opening we’d come in through was gone. No door, no doorway. Just more bones and more beach, stretching away forever. The others followed my gaze. They didn’t seem particularly surprised, or upset, and not in the least intimidated. We’d all known what we were doing when we entered the world Varney made for us.

  “Nobody panic,” I said. “I can find the door again.”

  “Who’s panicking?” Dead Boy said immediately. “I do not panic! What have I got to panic about? The worst thing that could possibly happen to me has already happened. I got over it.”

  Suzie turned her shotgun this way and that, frowning thoughtfully. “I don’t see any vampires, John.”

  “I’m sure they’re around, somewhere,” I said. “Watching us. Checking out who I brought with me. Seeing how we’re affected by . . . all this.”

  “Should we do something, to make sure they know we’re here?” said the Doorman. “I grow impatient to see my missing Adventurers, Mr. Taylor.”

  “They know,” I said. “That’s why Varney redecorated. He’s trying to impress us.”

  Suzie made a rude noise.

  “This is the world as vampires see it,” said Razor Eddie. “A fantasy, nothing more. It’s not real.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Dead Boy. “That word can cover a lot of ground in the Nightside.”

  The Doorman stamped a heavy sandaled foot on the bones beneath him; and they cracked and shattered loudly. “Feels real enough.”

  “Some kind of mass-broadcast illusion, perhaps?” murmured Razor Eddie. “Vampires do love to play mind-games. They hide their true appearance behind glamours, so they can move among us, and we won’t see them as the walking corpses they really are. They mesmerise their victims, so they won’t fight back. Maybe this is their idea of a good fighting ground. A killing ground. I can’t believe there ever was a place like this . . .”

  “Who knows?” I said. “We’ve all seen stranger places. It’s probably as real as it needs to be, for us and them. We can die here.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Dead Boy.

  “Would you prefer, destroyed?” said Suzie.

  “A killing ground, for us and them,” said the Doorman. “What more do you need?”

  “Something to shoot at,” said Suzie.

  A shaft of heavy yellow moonlight fell across the bloody waters, a phosphorescent path shining out across the crimson ocean, all the way to the bone beach. And walking along that sick yellow path, walking on the bloody surface without disturbing it at all, came a single figure. A man wearing the stark black uniform of the Nazi SS, complete in every detail, down to the lightning flashes on his epaulettes and the silver deathface on his peaked cap. He strode forward with an easy swagger until he finally stepped off the moonlit path onto the bones of the beach. His boots made no sound at all as he strode across skulls and leg-bones. He cast no shadow. He finally stopped before us and smiled easily, the colourless lips in his dead-white face peeling back to show jagged teeth. His eyes were blood-red, no pupils. There were several bullet-holes in the front of his uniform, but no blood-stains.

  I just smiled back at him because I didn’t believe any of it. His appearance was another illusion, another glamour.

  “Welcome back, John Taylor,” said the vampire, in a deep guttural voice. “We knew you couldn’t stay away. And you’ve brought some friends for us to play with. How nice.”

  “Who the hell are you?” said Suzie, her shotgun trained unwav
eringly on him.

  The vampire ignored her, his dead gaze fixed on me. “Back for more pain, Mr. Taylor? What a glutton for punishment you are. You must know, you won’t get away this time.”

  Suzie stepped forward, putting herself bodily between the vampire and me, so he had no choice but to look at her. And then she stood very still as he caught her gaze with his, and held her in place with it. Her shotgun lowered slightly as the vampire smiled at her.

  “Hello, Shotgun Suzie. We’ve heard of you. Little bounty hunter, who thinks she knows all there is to know about death. You know nothing. We know because we are death, and worse than death. We were hoping you would follow John back here. Like the obedient little puppy-dog you are. We’re so pleased all of you are here, to share John Taylor’s awful fate. To share in his punishment for daring to defy our will. This is our world, and nothing happens in it but what pleases us. So please me, Suzie Shooter. Turn your gun on your precious John Taylor and see how many times you can shoot him without killing him. You mustn’t kill him because that is ours to do. But make him hurt, and make him bleed; for me.”

  “Look down,” said Suzie.

  “What?” said the vampire.

  He looked down, and suddenly stood very still as he realised Suzie had stuck both barrels of her shotgun right up against his crotch.

  “Before I came out,” said Suzie, “I greased all my shells with oil of garlic. Which everyone tells me is just like rat poison to vampires.”

  The vampire started to say something strident, and Suzie let him have it with both barrels. The vampire’s words became a sudden, horrified shriek, as the shotgun blast all but tore him in two. His whole crotch area just disappeared, blown out in long, bloody streamers behind him. He was thrown back a dozen steps across the bone beach before he finally collapsed, screaming horribly, trying to hold himself together with his hands. He crawled away, scrabbling painfully across the bones, until he could throw himself into the blood sea and disappear beneath the slow, heavy waves. Suzie looked at me.

  “Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I always say.”

  “You can always rely on a woman to fight dirty,” I said, and all the other men nodded solemnly in unison—until Suzie glared at them, and they stopped.

  “We should have finished him off,” said the Doorman.

  “No,” I said. “We want him to go back to Varney and the others. Tell them we’re coming.”

  And then we all looked round sharply, at sudden disturbances in the bones all around us. Skulls overturned, and arm- and leg-bones rose and fell, as the abducted Adventurers rose through them to form a great circle all around us. The Doorman called out to them eagerly, but none of them answered him. The Adventurers stood unnaturally still, with slow, crafty faces and someone else staring out from behind their eyes. Dozens of famous heroes and adventurers, men and women of great renown, staring at us with deadly, unblinking eyes. The Doorman looked to me.

  “What is happening here, Mr. Taylor?”

  “The vampires have sent their slaves to do their fighting for them,” I said. “Because they know that being forced to fight those we came here to save would prove most distressing for us. I hadn’t realised the vampires had taken so many . . .”

  Forty, maybe fifty of the doughtiest heroes and fighters of all times surrounded us. The most familiar faces at the front, where they would have the most effect. Julien Advent, the Great Victorian Adventurer. Chandra Singh, the monster hunter. Gareth de Lyon and Augusta Moon. And more, so many more. All at once, as though in response to some unheard signal or order, they began to shuffle forward, across the bones of the dead. Heading right for us with bad intent. I turned to the Doorman.

  “This is why I brought you; because I thought Varney would try something like this. I need your other self—the sabre-tooth tiger. You can use your bulk and strength and speed to keep most of these poor bastards occupied, without killing them. I can rely on the others to win this battle, but only you can keep the majority back until I can figure out a way to get to the King of the Vampires and put a stop to this.”

  “Don’t take too long,” said the Doorman.

  He changed suddenly, abruptly, without any sense of strain or pain. He didn’t stretch or change or transform. One moment, there was a man standing before me, then a huge, black-striped tiger crouched in his place. He had to be at least eight feet long, with massive muscles rippling under his streaked hide and a great leonine head with two terribly large teeth stabbing down from his upper jaw. The Doorman was a sabre-tooth tiger, and the air was heavy with the rank smell of cat. He growled, once, like a roll of thunder, and launched himself at the approaching Adventurers.

  He hit the first handful like a living battering ram, bowling them over and throwing them off their feet. He twisted and turned, slamming his great body into the mesmerised heroes, sending them flying this way and that. He moved incredibly quickly for a beast of his size, in and among the possessed heroes and out again, before they had time to react. Some struck out at the great beast, but he was always gone before they could touch him. He charged back and forth among the Adventurers, knocking them down with his heavy shoulders or the occasional slap from a massive paw.

  Augusta Moon lurched forward, her fierce gaze fixed on Dead Boy. Augusta Moon, the professional trouble-shooter, who always looked like someone’s favourite middle-aged auntie, complete with country tweeds and a monocle screwed into one eye. She raised her famous walking-stick, that long staff of blessed oak with a silver top, that had beaten many a monster to death in its time, and brought it hammering down with both hands on Dead Boy’s head. And he stood there and took it. The staff rebounded without hurting him. Augusta blinked at him uneasily, then rained a series of vicious blows upon Dead Boy, belabouring him again and again about the head and shoulders. Dust flew up from his long coat where the blows landed, but Dead Boy didn’t react. He didn’t feel anything, and he wasn’t in any danger; so he just stood there politely and let her get on with it. Until her strength began to wane, and she slowed down, and he stepped quickly forward and took her in his arms, crushing the breath out of her.

  Chandra Singh came forward, resplendent in his height of the Raj finery. All splendid silks and satins, with a jet-black turban fronted by a magnificent diamond. He carried a long, curved sword, glowing fiercely with ancient enchantments from another world. Razor Eddie stepped forward to block his way, and Chandra Singh’s sword came sweeping around in a tight arc, to cut off his head. The Punk God of the Straight Razor met the enchanted sword with his own glowing blade. The straight razor blocked and stopped the sword in midswing, absorbing the impact easily, and great sparks flew on the air from the vicious impact. Chandra cut at Eddie again and again, but couldn’t get past Eddie’s defence. Because Chandra wasn’t himself, and so wasn’t fighting at the height of his powers; and because Eddie was Razor Eddie.

  Chandra pressed forward, swinging his sword wildly, but he couldn’t force Eddie back a single step. The grey little man just stood his ground, putting his razor blade where it needed to be, every time, his fever-bright eyes entirely unmoved. Until Chandra, too, began to tire and slow, and Eddie stepped neatly forward inside Chandra’s reach and kicked him hard in the knee-cap. Chandra went down on one knee as his leg betrayed him, and Eddie back-elbowed him in the side of the head. Chandra’s head swung round under the impact; and while he was stunned, Razor Eddie slashed him neatly across the back of his right hand. Chandra’s fingers flew open in spite of themselves, and he dropped his glowing sword. Eddie kicked it away, and it came to rest right in front of me. I didn’t touch it.

  Gareth de Lyon headed straight for Suzie, and she raised her shotgun to cover him. For a moment I really thought she might forget she was there to save the heroes or decide she didn’t care. But I should have known better. Suzie always knows what she’s doing. She waited till Gareth was almost upon her, then reversed her shotgun and slammed the butt into his gut. All the breath exploded out of him, and he fell ont
o his knees before her. Suzie took another swing, and clubbed him down with the butt of her shotgun. The sound from the impact was enough to make even me wince. Gareth de Lyon fell forward onto the bones and lay still. Suzie kicked him in the ribs a few times, to be sure, and looked around for someone else to take down.

  And then it was my turn, as I found myself facing Julien Advent. Another old friend and old enemy, we’d fought side by side on a dozen cases and gone up against each other on as many more. A very moral man—when he wasn’t being possessed by a vampire. I met his gaze steadily as he stumbled towards me.

  “Come on, Julien,” I said. “It’s me, John. You know me. You don’t want to do this. Whatever hold Varney has over you, fight it. You can do it. You’re Julien Advent, the Great Victorian Adventurer! You’re better than this!”

  And he stopped. He stood there before me, and I could see his own personality rising in his face. His eyes cleared, and he looked at me and knew me. I could see him fighting the vampire’s control with all his iron will. He started to say something . . . and then a look of slow horror passed across his face as the vampire’s will took hold again. Because in the end he was a man, a natural creature, under the control of a supernatural creature. I saw the last of his consciousness drown in his eyes, replaced by the cold, deadly gaze of the King of the Vampires. Varney glared at me through Julien’s eyes, and he came at me again. And I could see in his face and in his eyes that Varney meant to make Julien kill me. Or make me kill Julien.

  So I reached into an inside pocket, and brought out a sealed packet of coarse black pepper. I ripped it open, and threw the whole contents in Julien’s face. He stopped dead in his tracks and sneezed explosively. And then he did it again, and again, huge, overpowering sneezes that shook his whole body. Great helpless tears ran down his face, forcing their way past squeezed-shut eyes.

  Condiments are our friends. Never leave home without them.

  I looked across at Razor Eddie. “Time we were leaving, Eddie! I’ve had an idea.”