Tales From the Nightside Read online

  Eddie came in like a wild dog seeking shelter from the storm, and he let me feed and look after him, perhaps because he could tell I was never going to be any threat to him. He didn’t care about the god of my church, but my stubborn persistence fascinated him. He stayed with me, and somehow . . . we connected. Perhaps because we both had nobody else. I gave him sanctuary, and we talked for many hours. I asked him what he believed in.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never came across anything or anyone worth believing in.”

  “Then why not try believing in yourself,” I said. “That you can be more than you are, better than you are. That’s a start, at least.”

  “What if I’m not . . . worth believing in?” he said.

  “Everyone can change,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve changed, down the years.”

  Sometime later, another lost soul came bursting into my church, desperate and bedraggled, begging for sanctuary and protection. He was a flower child from the 1960s who’d been attending the Summer of Love festival when he fell through a Timeslip and ended up on the Street of the Gods. Half out of his mind with fear and culture shock, he’d made the mistake of appealing to the wrong god for help, and now he had a killer on his trail.

  Another figure came striding into my church, a broad and stocky man in old-fashioned armour, carrying a short-sword. He had come for the flower child, and his scarred face was ugly with rage and contempt. Mithras was an old soldier’s god. He had fallen far from what he once was, but he still had his pride and the convictions of his old beliefs. The flower child was everything he detested. The very idea that a man could turn his back on war and embrace peace was anathema to Mithras. It offended everything he was.

  He advanced on the young man, murder in his eyes. I stepped forward and stood between the soldier and his victim.

  “Not in my church,” I said.

  “This isn’t a church,” said Mithras. “How can it be a church when its god is no more? You’re just a man. Get out of my way.”

  “I still follow the way of Dagon,” I said. “I have given this man sanctuary.”

  “Get out of the way, or I’ll kill you, too.”

  I don’t know what made me so stubborn. Perhaps all those hours of talking with Eddie had reminded me of what I used to be. But I wouldn’t move. Mithras drew back his sword to run me through. And Eddie, wild child, cut-throat, and killer, who had never had a friend before, threw himself forward. Mithras turned at the unexpected attack, and Eddie opened up the god’s throat with his straight razor. Mithras staggered backwards, choking on his own blood, then fell to his knees, more mortal than he had realised. He tried to lift his sword, but it fell from his hand. Eddie stepped forward and finished the job, and Mithras fell dead at his feet.

  And Razor Eddie cried out in shock and astonishment, as all of Mithras’s remaining power flooded out of the dead god and into him. All in a moment the street kid was gone, and a new god was created. Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor.

  I found a way to send the flower child back to where and when he belonged, and Eddie stayed with me for some time. We learned much from each other. It was fascinating to watch a new person being born, right before my eyes. He asked me once exactly what it was I believed in since Dagon no longer existed as a god. I thought for a long while before I answered.

  “I’ve been here a long time,” I said finally. “But I think what I truly believe in is people. They can always surprise you. They have such potential . . . They can change and grow and become so much more than they or anyone else would ever have thought possible. Unlike gods. And at the end of the day, I believe that people should be kind to each other. Because there’s more than enough evil in the world already.”

  “I’ve seen many strange things in the Nightside,” said Eddie. “Monsters and men, and men who were monsters. Wonders and terrors and odd things passing through; but none of them impressed me as much as the bravery of your stand against Mithras. I don’t want to be . . . like I was. Before. I want to be like you.”

  He left, not long after that, to begin his long penance in the Nightside for all the evils he’d done. When he first mentioned his intention, I thought he meant good deeds and charity. I should have known better.

  The more bad people he killed, the more everyone believed in this new appalling god, and so his power grew. The whole of the Nightside was his church and the killings his doctrine. Never worshipped, ever feared. Doing penance in his own way. Poor Eddie. I did offer to absolve him, but he would not accept my forgiveness. He did not forgive himself, for who and what he used to be and all the terrible things he’d done.

  I don’t think he realises how close he still is to what he was, and that a man who murders in the name of the Good is still a murderer. Certainly I’ll never tell him.

  • • •

  We came at last to the church of the Twenty-First-Century Dagon. I hardly recognised the old place, but then I had been away for a while, and they’d tarted up the old girl something fierce. More sleazy neon and blatant come-ons than a Nightside brothel. Eddie stared down a doorman who had the nerve to demand an entrance fee, and we went inside. It looked like some ghastly Hollywood theme restaurant. The walls had been painted the colours of the sea, the pews had been artfully draped with plastic seaweed, and the air stank of artificial brine. The new Dagon came striding forward to meet us. He was big and green and scaly, and looked like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and one of those plastic He-Man steroid-abuse toys. He glared at us and opened his fanged mouth to speak, and Razor Eddie cut his head off. The few worshippers in the church ran out, screaming. The scaly body was still standing, so Eddie pushed it over and kicked the head away like a football. He smiled briefly at me.

  “Fancy some sushi later?”

  There was the sound of unhurried footsteps behind us, so we looked round. I was half expecting to see Walker back again, with major reinforcements, but it was only the goddess from the church next door, come to see what was up. She’d faced the same choice I had, but had chosen to be reinvented rather than evicted and replaced. I nodded politely. I make no judgements.

  “Greetings, patron of witches. It’s been a while. Eddie, you remember Hecate, the goddess next door.”

  “Not like this I don’t,” said Eddie.

  He had a point. Hecate, that ancient inspiration for all witches, had been made over into the ultimate Goth diva. Pale, colourless skin, night-dark hair, jet-black leathers, and so many face and body piercings she had to be a danger during thunder-storms. It didn’t suit the mystical and mysterious goddess I remembered, but this was a new Hecate, for a New Age. Half a dozen acolytes clustered around her, cute little gothettes in black basques, torn stockings, and sinister face make-up. They all carried switch-blades and looked like they’d be glad of a chance to use them.

  “I know,” said Hecate. “It’s not a look I would have chosen, either. But needs must when the Authorities drive, and I have always done my best to reflect the times I move in. After all, seduction spells and murder magic are never out of fashion.”

  “You’ve given in,” said Eddie. “Given up. I thought better of you than that, Hecate.”

  The acolytes stirred menacingly at such open disrespect, but Hecate hushed them with a glance. “I knew you’d be back, Eddie. Blood and death call to you like a lover, and there has been so much of both here on the Street, of late. But you should consider that some of us are reasonably happy with the way things are. I’m still running the same old racket I always was; give me blood and suffering and regular live sacrifices, and I’ll answer your prayers. I’m really a very easy goddess to get along with.”

  “You look . . . silly,” said Eddie.

  She shrugged, not offended. “Like you know anything about fashion. It’s only a new face for a very old game.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Eddie. “I don’t like any of this. Faith should mean something. Gods . . . should stand for something, no
t chop and change with every breeze that blows. Gods should be worshipped for the truths they represent, not what party favours they might dispense.”

  “You always were a romantic, Eddie,” said Hecate. “In your own disturbing way. But the times they are a-changing, and not even you can hold back this tide.”

  Razor Eddie smiled slowly. “Want to bet?”

  Hecate didn’t even try to meet his gaze. She turned to leave, and her acolytes hissed with rage at seeing their goddess so slighted. They surged forward as one, their switch-blades gleaming brightly in the undersea lighting. Eddie was kind and killed them quickly. Their young bodies lay sprawled across the floor of what had once been my church like so many bloody, broken toys. I looked on them sadly, and Hecate came back to join me.

  “Ah well,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to find some more fools. It’s not like there’s a shortage . . .”

  “You’re a hard woman, Hecate,” I said.

  She smiled. “I told you I hadn’t changed.”

  “You should leave now,” said Razor Eddie. “This church is corrupted. Beyond saving. I’m bringing it down.”

  There was something in his voice. I grabbed Hecate’s hand, and we ran from the church. Behind us, I could feel Razor Eddie’s power growing as his implacable presence filled the whole church. He wasn’t just a street person in a filthy overcoat any more, or even an extremely disturbing agent for the Good; he was the Punk God of the Straight Razor, and he was terrible in his rage. The whole building shook as though in the grip of some great beast, then collapsed in upon itself. A massive cloud of smoke billowed out the front door as the walls fell in, and the ceiling crashed through. Within moments, there was nothing left but a pile of rubble, and standing before it like some shop-soiled avenging angel, Razor Eddie.

  He strode past Hecate and me, not even looking in our direction, and headed down the Street. I hurried after him and watched aghast as, one by one, he brought down all the churches of the new and reinvented gods. His power roared and crackled on the air around him like a living thing, awful and potent, and none of the new gods and goddesses could stand against him. Wherever he looked, buildings exploded or caught on fire, and all the gods who could not, dared not, face him ran screaming and sobbing down the Street of the Gods. Because they believed in the Punk God of the Straight Razor.

  In the end, Eddie tired, and even his rage ran dry. He stood alone, surrounded by smoke and fire and destruction, and the cries of those who’d seen their gods thrown down. Eddie looked upon his work, and knew it to be Good. He flicked a few drops of blood from the blade of his straight razor, and it vanished from his hand. I came forward to join him.

  “Oh, Eddie,” I said. “Still over-reacting.”

  “It’s what I do best. Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

  I had no answer to that.

  Walker came strolling down the Street and stopped a respectful distance away. “You know the Authorities will send me after you for this, Eddie.”

  “Let them come,” said Razor Eddie, in his soft, ghostly voice. “Let them all come.”

  “You haven’t really stopped anything here.”

  “I haven’t really started yet.”

  Walker looked at me. “All this because we put you out of a church no-one came to anyway?”

  “It was my church,” I said. “Beware the man with nothing left to lose.”

  Walker nodded. “Or the god.”

  “Take me home,” Razor Eddie said to me. “I think I’ve done all the Good I can stand, for one day.”

  • • •

  Eddie and I made our way back to the Nightside, where everyone gave him even more room than usual. Word of his latest exploits was already making the rounds, growing wildly in the telling, as always. And thus his power grew. We went back to Rats’ Alley, to the homeless and the cardboard boxes. Razor Eddie could have lived well, with every luxury. No-one would have dared deny him anything. But Eddie had very old-fashioned ideas about doing penance. I could understand that. We shook hands, a little awkwardly. We’ve never found it very easy, being friends, being what we are.

  “Good-bye, Eddie,” I said.

  He nodded. “Good-bye, Dagon.”

  LUCY, AT CHRISTMASTIME

  You never forget your first; and mine was Lucy.

  It was Christmas Eve in the Nightside, and I was drinking wormwood brandy in Strangefellows, the oldest bar in the world. The place was crowded, the air was thick with good cheer, the ceiling trailed long streamers of the cheapest paper decorations money could buy; and as midnight approached, the revellers grew so festive they could barely stand up. Even so, everyone was careful to give me plenty of room as I sat on my stool at the bar, nursing my drink. I’m Leo Morn, and that’s a name you can scare people with. Of course, my Lucy was never scared of me, even though everyone told her I was a bad boy, and would come to a bad end. Lucy sat on the stool beside me at the bar, smiling and listening while I talked. She didn’t have a drink. She never does.

  The music system was playing “Jingle Bells” by the Sex Pistols, a sure sign the bar’s owner was feeling nostalgic. Farther down the long (and only occasionally polished) wooden bar, sat Tommy Oblivion, the existential private eye. He was currently doing his best to convince a pressing creditor that his bill might or might not be valid in this particular reality. Not that far away, Ms. Fate, the Nightside’s very own leather-costumed transvestite superheroine, was dancing on a tabletop with demon girl reporter Bettie Divine. Bettie’s cute little curved horns peeped out from between the bangs of her long dark hair.

  The Prince of Darkness was sulking into his drink over the cancellation of his TV reality show; the Mistress of the Dark was trying to tempt Saint Nicholas with a sprig of plastic mistletoe; and a reindeer with a very red nose was lying slumped and extremely drunk in a corner, muttering something about unionization. Brightly glowing wee-winged fairies swept round and round the huge Christmas tree, darting in and out of the heavy branches at fantastic speed in some endless game of tag. Every now and again one of the fairies would detonate like a flashbulb, from sheer overpowering joie de vivre, before re-forming and rejoining the chase.

  Just another Christmas Eve, in the oldest bar in the world. Where dreams can come true, if you’re not careful. Especially at the one time of the year when gods and monsters, good men and bad, can come together in the grand old tradition of eating and drinking yourself stupid, and making a fool of yourself over past loves.

  Alex the bartender noticed my glass was empty, and filled it up again without having to be asked. Since he knows me really well, he usually has the good sense to insist I pay in advance for every drink; but even nasty mean-spirited Alex Morrisey knows better than to disturb me on Christmas Eve. I saluted Lucy with my new drink, and she smiled prettily back. My lovely Lucy. Short and sweet, pleasantly curved, tight blonde curls over a heart-shaped face, bright flashing eyes and a smile to break your heart. Wearing the same long white dress she’d been wearing just before she left me forever. Lucy was . . . sharp as a tack, sweet as forbidden fruit, and honest as the day is long. What she ever saw in me, I’ll never know. She was sixteen, going on seventeen. Of course, I’m a lot older than her now.

  I only ever see her here, on Christmas Eve. I don’t have to come here, tell myself every year that I won’t; but I always do. Because no matter how much it hurts, I have to see her. Silly boy, she always says. I forgave you long ago. And I always nod, and say, I don’t forgive me. And I never will.

  Were we in love, really? We were very young. And everything seems so sharp and intense, when you’re a teenager. Emotions surge through you like tidal waves, and a sudden smile from a girl can explode in your heart like a firecracker. Immersed in the moment, transfixed in each other’s eyes like rabbits caught in the glare of approaching headlights . . . Yes; she was my first love, and I have never forgotten the time we had together.

  All the things we were going to do, all the people we could have been . . . throw
n away, in a moment of madness.

  I reminded Lucy of how we first met; standing in a railway station late at night, waiting for a train that seemed like it would never come. I looked at her, she looked at me, we both smiled; and next thing I knew we were chatting away as though we’d known each other all our lives. After that, we were never apart. Laughing and teasing, arguing and making up, walking hand in hand and arm in arm because we couldn’t bear not to be touching each other. Running through the thick woods under Darkacre; drinking and singing in a late-night lockup, even though we were still underage, because the owner was an old romantic who believed in young love; and later, slow dancing together on the cobbled street of a back alley, to the sound of sentimental music drifting out of a half-open window up above.

  You never forget your first love, your first great passion.

  I was jolted out of my mood, as Harry Fabulous lurched out of the crowd to greet me with his best salesman’s smile. He should have known better, but Harry would try and sell a silencer to the man who was about to shoot him. Always affable and professionally charming, Harry was a con man, a fixer, a specialist in the kind of deal that leaves you counting your fingers afterwards. Always ready to sell you something that was bad for you, or someone else. A hard man to dislike, but worth the effort. He went to sit on the stool next to me, and then froze as I fixed him with my stare. I smiled at him, showing my teeth, and he went pale. He eased back from the stool, holding his empty hands out before him to show how sorry and harmless he was. I let him go. My time with Lucy was too precious to interrupt with the likes of Harry Fabulous.