Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth Read online

  His right hand, thin and grey, came out of his pocket, holding a pearl-handled straight razor. He flipped the blade open, and the steel shone supernaturally bright. I could feel Suzie tensing beside me, but she had enough sense not to go for any of her weapons. Eddie flashed her a meaningless smile, turned away, and cut savagely at the empty air. The whole night seemed to shudder as the air split apart, widening and opening up like a wound in the world. And through the opening Razor Eddie had made, I could see another world, another dimension. It was a darker night than ours, and bitter cold air rushed out into our world. I shuddered, and so did Suzie, but I don’t think it was from the cold. Razor Eddie, unaffected, stared calmly through the gap he’d made.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

  “I went back to the Street of the Gods,” said Eddie, putting away his razor. “Got an upgrade. Did you know, John, there’s a new church there, worshipping your image. Unauthorised, I take it? Good. I took care of it for you. Knew you’d want me to. Follow me.”

  Poor bastards, I thought, as the Punk God of the Straight Razor stepped through the wide opening, and Suzie and I followed him through, into another world.

  The terrible cold hit me like a fist and cut me like a knife, burning in my lungs as I struggled with the thin air. Suzie blew harshly on her cupped hands, flexing her fingers so they’d be free and ready if she had to kill someone in a hurry. Before us, the graveyard seemed to stretch away forever. Row upon row and rank upon rank of massed graves, for as far as the eye could see in any direction, from horizon to horizon. A world of nothing but graves. The Necropolis’s private cemetery lay silently under an entirely different kind of night from the Nightside. It was darker, with an almost palpable gloom, apart from a glowing pearlescent ground mist that curled around our ankles and swirled slowly over the rows of tombstones. There was no moon in the jet-black sky, only vivid streaks of multi-coloured stars, bright and gaudy as a whore’s jewels.

  “We’re not in the Nightside any more,” said Eddie. “This is a whole different kind of place. Dark and dangerous and dead. I like it.”

  “You would,” said Suzie. “Damn, but it’s cold. I mean, serious cold. I don’t think anything human could survive here for long.”

  “Cathy’s here, somewhere,” I said. “Whoever has her had better be taking really good care of her. Or I will make them scream before they die.”

  “Hard-core, John,” said Suzie. “And not really you. Leave the rough stuff to me. I’m more experienced.” She looked around her and sniffed loudly to show how unimpressed she was. “The Necropolis could have chosen a more cheerful resting place for the Nightside dead.”

  “Perhaps all the alternatives were worse,” I said. “Or more expensive.”

  “We didn’t come here to admire the scenery,” said Razor Eddie.

  “Damn right,” said Suzie. “Find me someone I can shoot.”

  I looked around. There was only the dark, and the graves and the mist. Nothing moved, not a breath of wind anywhere, and the place was utterly silent. The only sounds in the cemetery were those we made ourselves. Razor Eddie’s rasping breathing, the creaking of Suzie’s leathers.

  “I don’t see anyone,” I said.

  Eddie shrugged slightly. “Nothing lives here. That’s the point. Even the flowers left on the graves are plastic.”

  There were headstones of all shapes and sizes, catafalques and mausoleums, statues of weeping angels and penitent cherubs and crouching gargoyles. All kinds of religious symbols, large and small, simple and complex, and a few even I didn’t recognise. All the objects of death, and not one of life.

  “I thought there might be at least a few mourners,” said Suzie.

  “Not many come here to visit,” said Eddie. “I mean, would you? Now follow me and walk carefully. There are concealed traps here, for the uninvited and the unwary.”

  Suzie brightened up a bit. “You mean some of those stone gargoyles might come to life? I could use some target practice.”

  “Possibly,” said Razor Eddie. “But mostly I was thinking about bear traps and land mines. The Necropolis takes security very seriously. Stick to the gravel path, and we should be safe enough.”

  “I never get to go anywhere nice,” I said, wistfully.

  I fired up my gift, hoping that since I was closer to Cathy, it would at least be able to provide me with a direction. My Sight was limited, in this new dimension. There was no hidden world here, no secret lives for me to See; just the dead, lying at peace in their graves and mausoleums, like so many silent strangers at the feast. And yet there was a feeling…of being watched, by unseen eyes. I tried to focus in on Cathy, but a strangely familiar shadow still hid her exact position from me. At least I had a direction.

  I set off down the gravel path, with Suzie Shooter and Razor Eddie on either side of me. Suzie had her shotgun in her hands, alert for any opportunity to show off what she did best. Eddie strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his unblinking eyes missing nothing, nothing at all. The sound of our feet crunching the gravel was uncomfortably loud, announcing our coming. I watched the shadows between the stone mausoleums, ready for any sudden attack from behind the larger tombstones; but I wasn’t at all ready for what lay in wait for us around an abrupt corner.

  They were sitting at a picnic around a pristine white cloth, laid out on a long earth barrow. There was a food hamper, with plates of cucumber sandwiches and sausage rolls and nibbles on sticks, and a bottle of quite decent champagne chilling in an ice bucket. And smiling calmly back at us—Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, and Sandra Chance, the consulting necromancer. Tommy’s usual New Romantic silks were mostly concealed under a heavy fur coat, but he still managed a certain dated style. He smiled easily at us, showing off a broad, toothy grin in his long, horsey face, and toasted me with a brimming glass of bubbly. Sandra just glared coldly, pale of face and red of hair, wearing nothing but apparently random splashes of dark crimson liquid latex from chin to toe. She looked like a vampire after a really messy meal, and not by accident. Sandra went out of her way to make an impression on people. Supposedly, the liquid latex also contained holy water and other useful protections. The tattoo on her back could make angels vomit and demons hyperventilate. Interestingly enough, she’d had all of the steel piercings in her face and body removed, recently enough that some of the holes were still closing. A simple leather belt, carrying a series of tanned pouches holding the tools of her unpleasant trade, surrounded her waist. She didn’t feel the cold because she thrived in graveyards. Sandra Chance loved the dead—and sometimes even more, if that was what it took to get them to talk.

  We’d worked together on a few cases, successfully, if not entirely happily. Sandra only cared about getting results, and to hell with whoever got caught in the cross-fire. I liked to think that wasn’t true of me, any more.

  “Hello, old thing,” said Tommy Oblivion. “So glad you could join us. And you’ve brought company! How sweet. Do sit down and have a little something with us, and a splash of champers. I think it’s terribly important we all remain civilised in situations like this, don’t you?”

  “Want me to shoot him?” said Suzie.

  “I’m thinking about it,” I said. “Hello, Tommy. I should have known it was you, with your existential gift, hiding Cathy. Still sticking with the effete image, I see.”

  He flapped his long, bony fingers in an affable sort of way. “Stay with what works, that’s what I say.”

  “How’s your brother?”

  “Still dead. But he says he’s starting to get used to it. And he’s a better private eye now than he ever was while he was alive.”

  “I think that’s enough civilities,” I said. “Tell me where Cathy is, or I’ll have Suzie shoot you somewhere really unfortunate.”

  “Any violence and you’ll never see her again,” said Sandra. Her voice was deep and vibrant and bitter as cyanide. “You’ll never find Cathy Barrett without our help.”

  �
�Where is she?” I said, and my voice was colder than the night. Tommy and Sandra sat up a little straighter.

  “She’s sleeping peacefully,” said Sandra. “In one of these graves. I put a spell on her, then Tommy and I opened up a grave, put her in it, and covered her over again. She’s quite safe, for the time being. All you have to do is turn yourself in to Walker, and Tommy and I will dig her up and return her safely to the Nightside. Of course, the longer she stays underground, the more difficult it will be to wake her from the spell…”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re never happy with a spell unless it’s got a sting in the tail.” I looked at Tommy. “Why are you doing this? Sandra I can understand. I’ve never known her to balk at anything if the price was right. But you…what happened to those principles you used to trumpet so loudly? Cathy’s the only innocent in this whole business.”

  His cheeks flushed a little, but he held my gaze steadily. “Needs must when the devil drives, old sport. You’re just too dangerous to be allowed to run loose any more. I saw what you did with Merlin and Nimue, remember? You don’t care about anyone or anything, except getting your own way.”

  “No,” said Razor Eddie. “That’s not true.”

  We all glanced at him, a little startled. He was so quiet and still it was easy to forget he was there.

  “You have to be stopped,” said Tommy, a little more loudly than was necessary. “You’re cold and ruthless and…”

  “You got back from the Past months ago,” I said, talking right over him. “Why didn’t you do something before this? Why wait till now?”

  “I was keeping my head down, out of sight, while I thought things through,” said Tommy. He was trying hard not to sound defensive. “I put a lot of thought into how best to stop you. It took me a while to admit I couldn’t hope to do it alone. So I came up with this plan, and went to Walker with it, and he put me together with Sandra. Not at all a nice plan, I agree, but you brought it on yourself. Fight fire with fire, and all that. You might say…this was my last test for you, John. One last chance to see what you’re really made of, to see if you care for anyone other than yourself. Prove me wrong about you. Prove to me and to Walker that you’re not the evil we think you are by turning yourself in. And I give you my word that Cathy will be released, entirely unharmed.”

  “I can’t,” I said, trying hard to make him hear the need and urgency and honesty in my voice. “My mother Lilith is back, and she’s worse than I’ll ever be. I’m the only one who can stop her from destroying the Nightside.”

  “Such arrogance,” said Sandra. “We’ll stop her, after we’ve dealt with you.”

  “I could blow your head right off your shoulders,” Suzie Shooter said casually.

  “You could try,” said Sandra Chance. The two women smiled at each other easily. Sandra leaned forward to put down her champagne glass, and Suzie moved her shotgun slightly to keep her covered. “I am a necromancer,” said Sandra. “And this is my place of power. With this much death to draw on, even the Punk God of the Straight Razor can’t hope to stand against me. Your presence here was not expected or required, little god. This is nothing to do with you.”

  “Yes it is,” said Eddie. “I know what you found in the future, John. I know who you found. I’ve always known.”

  I looked at him sharply. I saw him die, in the Timeslip future. I helped him to die. But I never told anyone.

  He shrugged easily. “I’m a god, remember?”

  “This doesn’t have to end in violence,” Tommy said urgently, sensing the undercurrents. “You know I’m an honourable man, John.”

  “You might be,” I said. “But Sandra works for Walker. And Walker…has his own very personal take on honour, when it comes to the Nightside. He’d sacrifice any number of innocents to preserve the Nightside for the Authorities.”

  “He was supposed to be here,” said Tommy, frowning slightly. “To reassure you of his good intentions. But unfortunately he was called away. It seems something really unpleasant is happening on the Street of the Gods.”

  We all looked at Razor Eddie, who met our gaze a little reproachfully. “Nothing to do with me,” he said.

  “Hell with this,” said Sandra Chance, rising to her feet in one smooth feline movement. “It’s time to take care of business.”

  “No!” said Tommy, scrambling untidily to his feet. “He has to be given a chance to surrender! You agreed!”

  “I lied,” said Sandra. “His existence offends me. He killed the Lamentation.”

  “Ah yes,” I said. “Your…what was the term, exactly, I wonder? You never did have much taste in lovers, Sandra. The Lamentation was just a nasty little Power with delusions of godhood, and the world smells better now that it’s gone.”

  “It was the Saint of Suffering, and it served a purpose!” Sandra said loudly. “It weeded out the weak and punished the foolish, and I was proud to serve it!”

  “Exactly what was your relationship with the Lamentation?” said Tommy Oblivion. His voice was thoughtful and not at all threatening, as his gift manifested subtly on the still air. Tommy could be very persuasive when he chose to be. I don’t know whether Sandra could feel what was happening, but she answered anyway, her cold green eyes locked on mine.

  “I used to investigate insurance fraud,” she said. “And a cluster of unexplained suicides brought me to the Church of the Lamentation. We talked, and we…connected. I don’t think it had ever met anyone like me, with my fetish for death.”

  “Kindred spirits, who found each other in Hell,” I said softly. “What did you do for the Lamentation, Sandra? What deal did you make with your devil?”

  “Your devil, my god,” said Sandra Chance. “I became its Judas Goat, leading the suffering to their Saint, and it taught me the ways of the necromancer. It gave me what I’d always wanted. To lie down with death and rise up wreathed in power.”

  “Of course,” said Tommy, “such knowledge usually drives people insane. But you were functionally crazy to begin with.”

  “Takes one to know one,” said Sandra. “Now shut up, Tommy, or I’ll do something amusing to you. You’re only here on sufferance.”

  “It was my plan!”

  “No,” said Sandra. “This was always Walker’s plan.”

  “And you never gave a damn, for all the poor bastards you delivered to your nasty lover?” I said. “To die in despair, then linger in horror, bound even after death to the service of the Lamentation?”

  “They were weak,” said Sandra. “They gave up. I never broke under the strain, never gave up. I save my help for those who deserve it.”

  “Of course you didn’t care,” said Suzie Shooter. “You’re even more heartless than I am. I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

  “Enough talk,” said Sandra. “It’s time to dance the dance of life and death, little people. I shall raise all those who lie here because of you—John Taylor, Shotgun Suzie, Razor Eddie. All your victims gathered together in one place, with hate and vengeance burning in their cold, cold hearts. And they will drag you down into the cold wet earth and hold you there in their bony arms until finally…you stop screaming. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  She raised her arms high in the stance of summoning, and chanted ancient Words of Power. Energies crackled fiercely around her extended fingers…and nothing happened. The energies dissipated harmlessly on the freezing air, unable to come together. Sandra stood there awkwardly for a long moment, then slowly lowered her arms and looked about her, confused.

  “The Necropolis graveyard is protected by seriously heavy-duty magics,” said Eddie, in his calm, ghostly voice. “I thought everyone knew that.”

  “But the magics were supposed to have been suppressed!” said Sandra. “Walker promised me!”

  “That wasn’t the deal!” said Tommy. “I wasn’t told about any of this!”

  “You didn’t need to know.”

  There was a pleasant chiming sound, a brief shimmering on the air, and t
here was Walker, standing before us in his neat city suit and old-school tie. He smiled vaguely about him. “This…is a recording. I’m afraid I can’t be here with you, on the grounds it might prove injurious to my health. By now you should have realised that the magics of this place have not been shut down, as promised, Sandra Chance. My apologies for the deception; but it was necessary. You see, this isn’t just a trap for John Taylor; it’s a trap for all of you. Taylor, Shooter, Oblivion, and Chance. I’m afraid you’ve all become far more trouble than you’re worth. And I need to be free to concentrate on the Really Bad Thing that all my best precogs insist is coming. So the decision has been made to dispense with all of you. I have at least extracted a promise from the Authorities that after you’ve all killed each other, or the cemetery has killed you, your bodies will be buried here, free of charge. It’s the least I could do. Good-bye, John. I am sorry it had to come to this. I protected you for as long as I could…but I’ve always known my duty.”

  The image of Walker raised his bowler hat in our general direction, then snapped off. There was a long moment of silence.

  “We are so screwed,” said Suzie.

  I looked at Eddie. “He didn’t know you’d be here. You’re our wild card in this situation.”

  “It’s what I do best,” said Eddie.

  “Walker, you supercilious son of a bitch!” said Sandra Chance, actually stamping one bare foot in her outrage.

  “I wouldn’t argue with that,” I said. “Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear we have all been declared redundant. Might I suggest it would be in all our best interests to work together, putting aside old quarrels until we’re all safely out of here?”

  “Agreed,” said Sandra, two bright red spots burning on her pale cheeks. “But Walker is mine to kill.”

  “First things first,” I said. “Where is Cathy?”

  “Oh, we put her in the mausoleum right behind us,” said Tommy. “Sleeping peacefully. You didn’t really think I’d stand for her being buried alive, did you? What kind of a person do you think I am?”