Tales From the Nightside Read online

  “The Nightside is full of sad tales,” I said. “That’s why I’m here, Eddie.”

  He nodded. No-one ever came to see Razor Eddie unless they wanted something from him, and mostly he liked it that way. Razor Eddie, the Punk God of the Straight Razor, was a tall, thin presence in an oversized grey raincoat held together by accumulated filth and grease. His face was sallow and unshaven, with deep hollows and fever-bright eyes. Flies hung around him, and he smelled really bad.

  A wild child, and already an experienced killer by the age of fourteen, Eddie was a street kid who’d run with any gang that promised him kicks or killing. But he finally went too far, even for them, and so he ran to the Street of the Gods for shelter. The one place even his many enemies might not dare follow. The Street of the Gods is where all the Powers and Forces and Beings too powerful for the Nightside are segregated. You can find any kind of church or temple there, any kind of faith or racket, and pretty much any kind of god or devil you can think of. Big or small, famous or forgotten by the outside world, you can find whatever you’re looking for on the Street of the Gods.

  A place where prayers are heard and answered whether you want it or not.

  Eddie had an epiphany on the Street of the Gods, and it changed him forever. He came back into the Nightside with a new and terrible power in him, determined to do penance for his old, evil ways. But since all he knew was killing, he turned his rage upon the Bad Guys, the important people no-one else could touch. He killed them in horrible, disturbing ways, and his reputation grew. He lived on hand-outs and slept in shop doorways, a god of back streets and shadows, whose name was known and feared in all the highest and lowest places of the Nightside. And that was Razor Eddie—an extremely upsetting force for the Good. (And no, the Good didn’t get a say in the matter.)

  Eddie and I are friends, I suppose. It’s hard to tell, with people like us.

  Mad Old Alice passed by, muttering querulously to herself, still searching for the giant white rabbit she says led her into the Nightside, then abandoned her. Still, that’s Pookahs for you. Eddie led me a little away from watching eyes and ears, so we could talk privately.

  “What do you want?” he said, blunt as always.

  “Bad things are happening on the Street of the Gods,” I said.

  “Good. Let them all fall. Gods always were more trouble than they’re worth.”

  I had to smile. “How can you not approve of gods when you are one?”

  He sniffed. “I never asked to be worshipped. Feared, yes.”

  “That’s how most religions start. Eddie, the Street is in danger, and so am I.”

  He studied me with his bright, unblinking gaze, but I didn’t flinch or back away, and after a while, he sighed heavily.

  “I never wanted to go back there. But I owe you. Let’s go.”

  • • •

  We left the gloom of Rats’ Alley for the sleazy neon and endless roar of the Nightside streets. Everyone gave Razor Eddie plenty of room. Some even turned and ran when they saw him coming. We headed for the nearest Underground tube station. The Street of the Gods isn’t actually in the Nightside, as such, for security reasons, but there are trains that will take you there. You can get to pretty much anywhere from the Nightside, including places that don’t officially exist any more.

  It should have taken the best part of half an hour to reach the nearest station, but Eddie led me suddenly down a narrow alleyway that hadn’t been there a moment before, and when we came out the other end, we were right at the station entrance. Eddie didn’t make a big deal out of it, but then he never does. The one time I asked him about it, he smiled his disturbing smile, and said, I can move in mysterious ways, too, when I feel like it.

  We went down into the station. The crowds were even thicker here, with eager eyes and impatient mouths, bad intentions heavy on the air. The white-tiled walls were covered in the usual graffiti, in a variety of languages, some of which hadn’t been spoken in centuries. Deeply gouged claw-marks and recent blood and hair crusted high up on the walls. A busker with Multiple Personality Disorder sang close harmony with himself, while a small, winged monkey plaintively held out a plastic cup for spare change. I dropped in a few coins. It never hurts to have some spare karma in the bank.

  The platform was packed with all sorts of interesting types, but then, the Nightside has interesting like a dog has fleas. A small group of furry animals walked on two legs with bowed heads, following a bear in priestly robes, holding up a cross with the image of a small green frog nailed to it. A princess chatted amiably with her unicorn. A fifteenth-century Crusader in full plate armour scowled disapprovingly about him. A red cross was painted on his breast-plate, in what looked like fresh blood.

  The train pulled in. A long, shining silver bullet with no windows anywhere. You have to pass through strange, dangerous places getting to and from the Nightside, and you really don’t want to see them. Eddie and I sat alone in our carriage. No-one felt like joining us. I didn’t blame them. Eddie’s smell got really bad in confined spaces, and the leather seats were already beginning to sweat.

  • • •

  And so we came at last to the Street of the Gods. Where everything that has ever been worshipped, or ever will be, makes its home. No-one knows for sure how long the Street is. Some say it expands and contracts to fit in all the sanctity and abominations available. I warned Eddie the place had changed a lot since he was last here, but even so, I think he was shocked. These days the Street of the Gods is determinedly modern, very now, and in your face. Church fronts blazed with gaudy neon, promising delights and damnations, while barkers worked the crowds, tempting and cajoling the passers-by.

  Beings and Powers walked openly on the Street, showing off their peacock glory, out and about to See and be Seen. Animal-headed gods from antiquity, elemental spirits, awful creatures from higher and lower dimensions, and energy forms so abstract you sensed as much as saw them. In the old days, they would have stopped to chat pleasantly together, share the latest news and catch up on the gossip. It was a big Street, and there was room for everyone. But not now. There was a distinct tension on the air, and the gods walked like gun-slingers, wary for insult or attack. Their followers banded together like street gangs, shouting slogans and dogmas at each other.

  And here and there, burned and bombed-out churches left gaps in the Street like pulled teeth. What had once been unthinkable was now a sign of the times, of gods no longer able to protect themselves.

  We passed by the Egyptian cat goddess Bast, now reduced to singing “Memory” out on the Street, for the tourists.

  “This isn’t the way to your church,” said Eddie, after a while.

  “I don’t have a church any more,” I said steadily. “As the one and only representative of my religion, I have been evicted from my church, so it could be handed over to some more successful god. I have a street stall now.”

  Eddie stopped and looked at me, so I stopped, too, and met his angry gaze calmly. He started to say something, but we were interrupted by an approaching zealot, calling out Eddie’s name like an insult. He was a Kali worshipper, in black leather bondage trousers under an open robe, pulled back to show off the ritual scars on his shaven chest. A thugee strangling cord hung ostentatiously from his fist. He was big and muscular but very young. Anyone else would have had more sense. No doubt Someone else put him up to it, to see if Razor Eddie still had it.

  The zealot shoved his face right into Eddie’s. I decided to retreat several steps, so I wouldn’t get any of the blood on me.

  “Have You Been Saved?” the zealot barked.

  “I saved myself,” said Razor Eddie. “But who will save you from me?”

  “I serve Kali, mistress of death!”

  “Met her once. We didn’t get on. She said I was too extreme.”

  An old-fashioned pearl-handled straight razor appeared in his hand, out of nowhere. The steel blade shone supernaturally bright. The zealot brought up his strangling cord, and Ra
zor Eddie fell upon him. He moved supernaturally quickly, his razor rising and falling, and the zealot cried out in terror as his clothes fell away in tatters, sliced clean through. In a moment, he was entirely naked, his strangling cord in pieces on the ground. Eddie stood with his razor pressed lightly against the zealot’s throat, and he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I’ve been away too long,” said the Punk God of the Straight Razor, in his soft, ghostly voice. “I think I need to set an example. So I’m going to flay every inch of skin from your body. Nothing personal, you understand.”

  The young zealot cried out miserably, but no-one came forward to help him.

  “No,” I said. Eddie looked at me. One doesn’t say No to the Punk God of the Straight Razor, even if he is an old friend. “Please,” I said.

  Eddie sighed and shrugged. “You always were too soft for your own good.”

  His razor flashed once, briefly, and the zealot cried out in agony as he was instantly and expertly circumcised.

  “You can go now,” said Razor Eddie, and the zealot ran, howling all the way down the Street. And everyone who’d been watching went about their business again.

  “Well,” I said, trying to keep it light. “At least he’s not a complete prick any more.”

  “It’s all in the wrist action,” said Eddie.

  We continued down the Street of the Gods, Razor Eddie studying everything and everyone with his hot, intense gaze. Some of the names on the churches were clearly familiar to him even though their exteriors had changed greatly. The Speaking Stone, Soror Marium, The Carrion In Tears, and a whole bunch of the Transient Beings, honoured mostly in the hope they’d stay away. The Transient Beings aren’t actually gods, but it doesn’t stop them behaving as though they are.

  “I don’t see the problem,” Eddie said finally. “The Street of the Gods may have undergone a make-over, but it all still seems very much business as usual. A business where souls are currency, and the suckers still get fleeced.”

  “Not everyone is doing well,” I said. “A lot of the lesser gods are suffering.”

  He looked sideways at me. “Do the gods who can’t hack it any more still suffer the same fate?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Faith and worshippers bestow power, and without that, the gods are as vulnerable as anyone else. Take away a god’s congregation, and they wither up and fade away. Some keep going by merging with other, more successful gods and pantheons, and some choose to become mortal rather than disappear entirely. There’s always a chance of a comeback. This is a place of miracles, after all.”

  “The Street . . . feels different,” said Eddie. He might have been listening to me, or he might not. “There’s no . . . community any more. Tell me what’s been happening here. What’s so important that you would leave the Street to look for me?”

  “There are moves afoot,” I said carefully, “to modernise, organise, and regulate all the various gods and religions that make up the Street. Those with the most worshippers, the most powerful and adored, are to be given dominion over all the best locations. The rest will be ranked, according to power and status, and positioned accordingly on the Street. The lowest will actually have to pay the highest, in order to be allowed to stay on the Street. Those at the very bottom, like Bast, are being forced out. It seems we lesser religions lower the tone and might scare off the paying customers. At the end of the day, it’s all about the Big Boys wanting more power and more money and less competition. It seems doctrines and articles of faith aren’t enough any more. The Big Boys want job security.”

  “That sounds more like Nightside thinking than Street of the Gods,” said Eddie. “Who brought it here?”

  “Who do you think?” I said. “Who’s behind all the bad news in our lives?”

  “How unkind,” murmured a calm, cultured voice behind us. “After all, I was invited.”

  We both looked round. Walker was standing right behind us even though neither of us had heard him approach. A smart city gent in a smart city suit, complete with old-school tie and a bowler hat, Walker was the public face of the Authorities: those shadowy background figures who run the Nightside, inasmuch as anybody does. Walker’s word is law, and he can call on all kinds of nasty people to back him up. Few people argue with him. They say he once made a dead man sit up on his mortuary slab and answer questions. Walker smiled easily at Eddie, ignoring me.

  “It had to happen eventually, Eddie. The Street of the Gods was getting terribly old-fashioned. It was time to spruce the place up, clear out the dead wood, bring a little order and efficiency to things. Just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a job for life. Think of what’s happening here as survival of the fittest, divine evolution in action.”

  “I’ve always been on the side of the underdog,” said Eddie. “And the undergod. There’s room enough here for everyone, Walker.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Walker. “But the Big Boys have decided they don’t want to share any more.”

  Eddie smiled slowly. “I wonder who put that idea into their heads. And I wonder how much they’ve had to promise the Authorities in return for your help, Walker. Who’s working with you on this? You couldn’t hope to pull this off without really heavy-duty backup.”

  “True,” said Walker. “But even gods can be smacked down and made to behave if you have powerful enough attack dogs. Let me present the Holy Trio.”

  A man and a woman appeared suddenly out of nowhere on either side of Walker. Tall, cadaverous, and dressed in long black priestly robes, I could feel magic crackling threateningly on the air around them. Their eyes were cold, and their smiles colder still.

  “Don’t you need three for a Trio?” said Eddie, entirely unmoved.

  “The Holy Trio consists of a man, a woman, and a disembodied spirit,” Walker said calmly. “All of them Jesuit demonologists. They specialise in the flip side of tantric magic, channelling the accumulated tensions of a lifetime’s celibacy to power their magics. They have energy to burn and a really spiteful attitude towards the world in general. It helps that they strongly disapprove of worshipping any god except their own. Perfect enforcers for whipping the gods into shape. I have dozens of units like this, working the whole length of the Street.”

  “Spiritual storm-troopers,” said Eddie. “What next, the Inquisition?”

  Walker sighed. “I knew you were going to be difficult,” he murmured. “Jonathon, Martha, Francis, if you wouldn’t mind . . .”

  The two visible members of the Holy Trio stepped forward, their cold smiles widening, and I could feel a power building around them, like a coming storm. I could feel a third presence, too, even if I couldn’t see it. A bitter wind blew out of nowhere, and all around us the shadows were very dark. On the Street, men and gods ran for cover. Lightning bolts slammed down around us, blasting holes in the road. Eddie didn’t move an inch. The man and woman in black raised their hands, and dark energies manifested. My feet were suddenly very cold, and I looked down to find a vast black pool forming under me, and under Eddie. Already, we had sunk a few inches into it. Eddie laughed softly.

  “Is that it? Open up a bottomless hole, drop us into it, then disappear the hole? I’m disappointed in you, Walker. You used to have style; this is just a cheap party trick. I prefer something a little more . . . humorous.”

  He moved suddenly, in a direction I couldn’t comprehend, and abruptly we were all somewhere else, leaving the black pool behind. Eddie had moved in his mysterious way again, and we were all standing before a completely different church. Tall white pillars of the purest marble fronted the Church of the Glorious Marilyn. A huge statue of the modern goddess towered over us, holding down her iconic flapping white dress. Raw sexuality poured out of the church, beating on the air like heavy breathing. Walker and I had the sense to step back immediately, moving out of range, but Jonathon and Martha were rooted to the spot by unfamiliar feelings and emotions surging through them. Eddie’s razor flashed, and all their clothes fell a
way. Naked, and overwhelmed by sudden lust and a lifetime’s frustrated needs, Jonathon and Martha fell upon each other, and did it right there in the Street. There was a horrified howl from the unseen presence, fading rapidly away to nothing as the living pair’s ecstasy exorcised the unquiet spirit.

  Eddie smiled briefly at Walker. “Holy Trio, eh? I liked them. They were fun. What else have you got?”

  “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” said Walker.

  “Always,” said Razor Eddie.

  Walker sighed again, tipped his bowler hat to Eddie and to me with his usual impeccable manners, and turned away and strode unhurriedly off down the Street of the Gods. He’d be back, once he’d thought of something sufficiently distressing to do to us. Eddie looked at me thoughtfully.

  “What happened to your old church? You were the last follower of Dagon. Is he to be forgotten now?”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Nothing’s ever wasted under the new regime. That wouldn’t be efficient. They’ve installed a new, modernised Dagon in my old church—a Dagon for the twenty-first century.”

  “A new Dagon?”

  I shrugged. “Some semi-divine wannabe, looking for his big break. A lot of the more recalcitrant weaker gods are being ousted and replaced.”

  “A new Dagon, in the church where I was . . . reborn.” Eddie shook his head slowly. “No. I won’t have that. Take me there.”

  “Are you going to make trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go. But I have to warn you, Eddie; the church won’t look at all like you remember. It’s been remade, in the image of its new deity, along with all new dogmas and doctrines.”

  “How can he be Dagon if everything that used to represent Dagon has been changed?”

  “The name is everything, these days,” I said. “The name and the brand and the logo are all anyone cares about.”

  • • •

  Eddie could have transported us both to my old church in a moment if he’d wanted, but I think he needed to walk, to give him time to think and consider and remember. I remembered him, as he was then. Fourteen years old and on the lam, having outraged absolutely everybody. He’d kill anyone back then, striking out blindly at a world that had always hurt him and done him wrong. He was out-of-control, and everyone knew it. The word went out, and Eddie ran, and once on the Street of the Gods, dazzled and overwhelmed by forces even more dangerous than he, he somehow found his way to the old, small church of Dagon, a fish god once worshipped by the Pharisees. Forgotten by pretty much everyone except the one man who still maintained his church.