Agents of Light and Darkness Read online

  She looked at me. “Why do I have to do it?”

  “Hey, I tasted his face.”

  Suzie sniffed, put away her gun, and frisked the statue’s clothing with practiced thoroughness. A small pile of all the usual junk formed on the floor before him, while I studied the silently screaming face.

  “You know, Suzie, there’s something familiar about this guy.”

  “Nothing in the coat pockets.”

  “I’ve seen him before somewhere…”

  “Nothing in the trouser pockets…except a piece of old gum in his handkerchief. Now that is really disgusting.”

  “Got it!” I said triumphantly. “This guy braced me in Strangefellows, earlier tonight. He wanted me to work for his boss and didn’t take it at all well when I declined.”

  “Who was he working for?” said Suzie, straightening up and rubbing her hands briskly against her jacket.

  “He didn’t say. But he knew my client was a priest, even though Jude was travelling incognito. Called him a ‘pew-polisher.’ Which means this guy has to be working for one of the major players. Someone with real information as to what’s going on in the Nightside.”

  Suzie frowned. “Walker?”

  “No. This isn’t his style. Too crude. Besides, he said he’d taken all his people out, and I believe him. No, this has to be the work of some of the real movers and shakers. The Collector, Nasty Jack Starlight, the Smoke Ghosts, the Lord of Tears…”

  And then my eye fell on something on the floor, tucked under the statue’s ankle. A small black case, almost hidden in the shadows. I gestured to Suzie, and she helped me manhandle the salt statue to one side. It felt eerily light and strangely delicate, as though it might shatter and fall apart under rough handling. I pushed the black case out into the light with the tip of my shoe. lt was about a foot long, eight inches wide, and its surface was a strangely dull matte black. Suzie prodded it with the barrel of her gun. Nothing happened. We both knelt down to study the case more closely. Neither of us felt like rushing things. We both had extensive experience of booby-traps. It took me a while to make it out, but I finally recognised a familiar symbol, set out in bas-relief on the case’s lid. A large initial C, containing a stylised crown.

  “The Collector,” said Suzie. “I’d know his mark anywhere.”

  “Whatever’s in the case must be important,” I said slowly. “This guy stopped here to try and open the case, and the angel got him.”

  “A weapon?” said Suzie.

  “Seems likely. But he never got a chance to use it.”

  “Do we open it?” said Suzie.

  “Give me a minute,” I said.

  I couldn’t afford to open my gift for finding things all the way, not with angels hovering in the overworld, waiting for the chance to grab me again. But I could ease my third eye, my private eye, open just a crack, just enough to find out what defences the Collector had built into the case. I braced myself, ready to shut down all of the way if I even sensed anyone watching me, but it only took me a few seconds to sense there were no defences, and no booby-traps. Faced with an angel, this guy must have revoked all the case’s protections to try and get at the contents faster. I shut down my third eye, and re-established all my mental shields.

  And then I opened the case.

  The smell hit me first. The smell of hardworking horses, the scent of dogs maddened on heat, the stench of freshly spilled guts. I pushed the lid all the way back. And there, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was the ugliest handgun I have ever seen. It was made of meat. Of flesh and bone, dark-veined gristle, and shards of cartilage, held together with strips of pale skin. Living tissues, shaped into a killing tool. Thin slabs of bone made up the handle, surrounded by freckled skin. The flushed skin had a hot and sweaty look. The trigger was a long canine tooth, and the red meat of the barrel glistened wetly.

  “Is that…what I think it is?” said Suzie.

  I swallowed hard. “It fits the description.” We were both speaking very quietly.

  “The Speaking Gun. The Collector had it after all.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it…alive, do you think?”

  “Good question. No, don’t touch it. You might wake it.”

  Suzie leaned in close, wrinkling her nose at the smell, then frowned and turned her head to one side. Strands of her long blonde hair fell down, almost touching the thing as she listened. She straightened up again and looked at me. “I think it’s breathing.”

  “The Speaking Gun,” I said. “A gun created specifically to kill angels, from Above and Below. Damn…We are in deep spiritual waters here, Suzie.”

  “Who made it?” she said suddenly. “Who’d want to be able to kill angels?”

  “No-one knows for sure. Merlin’s name has been bandied about, but he gets blamed for a lot of stuff…There’s always The Lamentation or The Engineer, but they usually deal in more abstract threats…” Something on the bone handle caught my eye, and I leaned forward. Etched deep into the bone were lines of tiny writing. I struggled with it for a while, then admitted defeat. “Suzie, you take a look at this. You’ve got better eyes than me.”

  She leaned in close again, holding her long hair back, and slowly read out the words on the bone handle. “Abraxus Artificers. The old firm. Solving problems since the Beginning.” She straightened up again, frowned, and looked at me. “Any of that mean anything to you?”

  “Not much.”

  “So, are we going to take it with us?”

  I snorted. “I’m certainly not leaving something this powerful lying around here. It’ll be safer with us.”

  “Great!” said Suzie. “A whole new kind of gun for me to use!”

  “Hold everything, Suzie. I’m not sure we can afford to use a weapon like this. We kill an angel, even a Fallen one, and you can bet Someone is going to get really mad at us.”

  Suzie shrugged. “It’s got to beat getting turned into salt.”

  “There is that, yes.” I carefully closed the lid on the Speaking Gun, picked the case up, and slipped it carefully into my coat pocket, next to my heart. “Still, I think we should consider using this only as a very last resort.”

  Suzie pouted, but didn’t object. “Any idea how it’s supposed to work?”

  “Only roughly. According to the Voynich Manuscript, the Speaking Gun re-creates God’s Word. You know, in the Beginning was the Word? The great Sound at the start of Creation, that lives on in the real, secret, names of everything. The Speaking Gun recognises the secret name of whatever you point it at, and then Says it backwards, uncreating it. Theoretically, this Gun could destroy anything. Or everything.”

  “Cool…” said Suzie.

  “The Gun is also supposed to exert a very heavy price on whoever uses it,” I said sternly. “No-one today knows what. But given the fact that no-one’s dared use the awful thing in centuries, I think we should be extremely cautious.”

  “All right,” said Suzie. “No need to look at me like that. I can take a hint. I can be cautious, when I have to be. So, where do we go now?”

  “Well, given that the lid of this case bears the Collector’s mark, I think it’s fair to assume this guy and his friends worked for the Collector. Which makes sense. He’d sell what’s left of his scavenging soul to get his hands on a unique item like the Unholy Grail. He’d certainly sell any number of other people’s souls for it. And you can bet good money he’ll have the very latest information on where it might be. If he doesn’t already have it…So I think we should pay him a little visit.”

  “Good idea,” said Suzie. “Except nobody knows where to find him.”

  “There is that problem, yes. The location of his secret hideout is one of the great mysteries of the Nightside. Not too surprising, really. If people knew where he kept his legendary collection, they’d be lining up a dozen deep to burgle and loot it. But someone must know. This guy would have had some way of reporting back to the Collector, but his associates are long gone. So, who else do we know
that works for him?”

  “The Bedlam Boys!” said Suzie.

  “Of course…They wouldn’t normally betray the Collector’s confidence, not even to hard cases like us, but now we have something to bargain with. He’s bound to want the Speaking Gun back.”

  “And we’ll only agree to hand it over in person.”

  “Got it in one. Let’s go.”

  The Bedlam Boys, nasty little bastards that they were, often did work for the Collector. They specialised in running protection rackets, using their appalling abilities to extract regular payments from small businesses and the like. They were also very good at recovering debts. The Collector used them to persuade reluctant owners to hand over some special item that he had his eye on. Few people had the strength of will to stand against the Bedlam Boys. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track them down; they made enough noise and commotion when they were working.

  The black case lay snugly in my coat pocket as Suzie and I left the assembly room. It pressed heavily against my side, almost painfully hot. Suzie was right. It was breathing.

  Outside the hall of the dead, in the deserted street, we stopped and looked up. The great moon hung heavily in the sky, full and bright and a dozen times larger than it seemed outside the Nightside. Things were flying across the night sky, silhouetted against the pallid face of the moon. Dark shapes, vaguely human, with huge wingspans. As Suzie and I watched, more of the things flew past, crowding together in ever greater numbers until there were hundreds of them, darkening the night, blocking out the light of the moon and the stars.

  Angels had come to the Nightside. Armies of angels.

  FIVE

  Angels, Bedlam Boys, and Nasty Jack Starlight

  There were angels all over the Nightside, crossing the night sky in such numbers that they blocked out the stars in places. At first, people came crowding out onto the streets, laughing and pointing, marvelling and loudly blaspheming, and more often than not discussing ways to profit from the new situation. And then the angels started dropping down into the Nightside like birds of prey, winged Furies in search of information and retribution, and God and the devil help anyone who dared refuse them. People were snatched up into the boiling skies, and after a time dropped screaming back into the city streets. Sometimes, only blood or body parts fell back. And sometimes, worse and stranger things were returned that were no longer in any way human. Angels are creatures of purpose and intent only, and know nothing of mercy. Soon anyone with a grain of common sense had disappeared from the streets. Suzie and I walked alone down deserted ways, and from all around came the sound of doors being locked and bolted, and even barricaded.

  Like that was going to help.

  “So,” Suzie said, after a while, “when are you going to use your gift, to find out where the Bedlam Boys are practicing their appalling trade these days?”

  “I’m not,” I said shortly. “The last time I tried to use my gift, the angels ripped me right out of my head and hauled me up into the shimmering realms to interrogate me. I was lucky to get away with my thoughts intact, and I daren’t risk it again. We’re going to have to solve this case the old-fashioned way.”

  Suzie brightened up a little. “You mean kicking in doors, asking loud and pointed questions, threatening life and property, and maybe just a touch of senseless violence?”

  “I was thinking more of gathering clues, piecing together information, and developing useful theories. Though there’s a lot to be said for your way too.”

  I took my mobile out of my coat pocket and called my secretary. Actually, she’s my secretary, receptionist, junior partner, and general dogsbody of all trades. I acquired Cathy Barrett on an earlier case, when I rescued her from a house that tried to eat her. I took her in, gave her a bowl of milk, and now I can’t get rid of her. To be fair, she runs my office in the Nightside far more efficiently than I ever could. She understands things like filing, and keeping an appointment diary, and paying bills on time. I’ve never had the knack for being organised. I think it’s a genetic thing. In the few months she’s been working for me, Cathy’s made herself indispensable, though God forbid she should ever find that out. She’s insufferable enough as it is, and besides, I’d have to pay her more.

  “Cathy! This is John. Your boss, John. I need some information on the current whereabouts of the Bedlam Boys. What have you got?”

  “Give me a minute to check, oh mighty lord and master, and I’ll see what I can dig out of the computer. Seems to me I heard something about them the other day. Do I take it it’s their turn for a good kicking? Oh happy day.” Cathy sounded bright and cheerful, but then she always did. I think she just did it to annoy me. “Okay, boss, got them. Seems they’re running the old protection racket again, down on Brewer Street. In fact, the computer’s getting updates from the crystal ball that they’re shaking down the Hot N Spicy franchise on Brewer Street right now. If you hurry, you should get there before they leave. If the blonde one’s there, feel free to give him a good slap on my account.”

  Part of Cathy’s duties, when she’s not working tirelessly to keep my business solvent in spite of me, is to keep track of all the major players in the Nightside, where they are, and who they’re doing this week. Information is currency, and forewarned is definitely forearmed. Cathy makes a lot of contacts through her incessant clubbing, and her cheerful willingness to chat, drink, and dance with anyone still warm and breathing. It helps that she can chat, dance, and drink under the table pretty much anyone who isn’t actually already dead and pickled. Cathy seems to regard alcohol as a food group, and has the endless energy of every teenager. It also helps that she’s sweet and pretty and charming, and people like to talk to her. They tell her things they’d never tell anyone else, and Cathy feeds it all into the computer.

  There was a time I’d have been doing the rounds myself, but I just don’t have the energy any more to drink and debauch till dawn. Especially since dawn doesn’t ever happen. It’s always night in the Nightside. Luckily, Cathy seems to positively thrive on a regular diet of booze, caffeine, and adrenaline, and is on a first-name basis with practically every doorman and bouncer in the Nightside. You’d be surprised what people will say in front of them, not even noticing they’re there because, after all, they’re only servants.

  I do keep up my own circle of contacts, of course. Old friends and enemies. You’d be surprised how often they turn out to be the same person, as the years go by. Some movers, some shakers, and a few that most people don’t even suspect are major players. There aren’t many doors that are closed to me. People tell me things. Mostly because they’re afraid not to. And it all goes into the computer, too.

  Between us, Cathy and I keep tabs on most things and people that matter. Cathy updates every day, and is always busy trying to spot upcoming trends and significant connections. Though we nearly lost everything last month, when the mainframe got possessed by Sumerian demons, and we had to call in a technodruid to exorcise it. I’d never heard language like that before, and even after it was all over, the office still smelled of burning mistletoe for weeks.

  And I might add that the computer Helpline people were no bloody use at all.

  “I’m getting mass reports of angel sightings,” said Cathy. “Wings and blood everywhere, and several manifestation of statues weeping, bleeding, and soiling themselves. Either the Pholio Brothers are pushing a really potent brand of weed this week, or the Nightside’s being invaded. This got anything to do with you, John?”

  “Only indirectly.”

  “Angels in the Nightside…that is so cool! Hey, do you think you could get me a feather from one of their wings? I’ve got this new hat that could look absolutely killer with just the right feather…”

  “You want me to sneak up on an angel and rip out its pinfeathers, so you can make a fashion statement? Oh right, like that’s going to happen. No, Cathy. Stay away from the angels, as a personal favour to me. Concentrate on the Bedlam Boys. Is there any particular reason why
I should be annoyed with the blonde one?”

  “He tried to chat me up last week at the Dancin’ Fool,” said Cathy. “Thought he could impress me because he and his brothers used to be this big boy band. As if! That is so nineties…Anyway, he wouldn’t take No, Get lost or Fuck off and die! for an answer, so I ended up smacking him right in the eye. I swear, he was so surprised he hit top C above A. Then he started crying, so I got all guilty and danced with him anyway. And I have to say his moves were complete rubbish without his old choreographer on hand to help him out. Then he pulled me in close for a slow dance, and stuck his tongue in my ear, so I rammed the heel of my stiletto through his foot and left him to it. Wanker.” She paused.

  “Ooh, ooh! I just remembered! I have messages for you…Yes. The Pit’s management called to say you and Suzie are banned. Forever. And, they may sue for emotional distress and/or post-traumatic stress disorder. And Big Nina called to say Not to worry, it wasn’t crabs after all. It was lobsters.”

  I hung up. Some conversations, you know they’re not going to go anywhere you want.

  It didn’t take us long to get to the Hot N Spicy franchise on Brewer Street. We could hear the trouble half-way up the street. Screams and shouts and the sounds of things breaking; all the usual signs of the Bedlam Boys at their work. People were expressing a polite interest, but from a very safe distance. The Boys’ powers tend to leak out in all directions once they get started. Suzie and I threaded our way through the crowd and cautiously approached the franchise’s open door. We looked in. Nobody noticed us. Everyone had problems of their own.

  It was a cheap place, all ugly wallpaper and over-bright lighting and plastic tablecloths. Plastic so that they could be wiped down between customers. You can wipe pretty much anything off plastic. The Hot N Spicy franchise specialises in fire alarm chillies, all variations, one mouthful of which could melt all your fillings and set fire to your hair. Chillies from hell. Three toilets, no waiting, and they keep the loo rolls in the fridge. We are talking atomic chillies, and I don’t want to even think about the fallout. For real chilli fans only. A sign on the wall just inside the door proudly proclaimed Today’s Special, wasabe chilli. Wasabe is a really fierce Japanese green mustard, which ought by right to be banned under the Geneva Convention for being more dangerous than napalm.