Night Fall E-Book

Simon R. Green

• Herausgeber: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Secret Histories
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 861

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

In Night Fall, New York Times-bestselling author Simon R. Green brings the Secret Histories series to a stunning conclusion. The Nightside is London's hidden heart and secret soul, packed full of sin and shadows. It's a place where it's always three o'clock in the morning and dawn never comes. John Taylor, once a private eye specializing in lost causes, runs the Nightside—as much as anyone can be said to run a place where anything goes. For generations, the Drood clan has guarded London from demons, aliens, and secret organizations, but a strict series of pacts and agreements has kept their authority out of the Nightside itself. Something's changed, though, and the Nightside's boundaries are expanding—and threatening not just London but all of humanity. Eddie Drood, along with his girlfriend Molly Metcalf, must enter the Nightside, figure out what's disrupted the delicate balance, and come face-to-face with John Taylor—before the whole universe is turned inside out. Praise for Night Fall: "A splendid riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, conveyed with trademark wisecracking humor, and carried out with maximum bloodshed and mayhem. In a word, irresistible." –Kirkus (Starred Review!) "Green wraps up the Secret Histories and the Nightside series (and a few more) in a massive kitchen-sink of a battle between the righteous Droods and the lawless Nightside that brings together a host of old characters with a bunch of impossibly deadly weapons, a massive body count, and a healthy sprinkling of humor." —Locus

Leseprobe

NIGHT FALL

Copyright © 2018 by Simon R. Green

All rights reserved.

Published as an eBook in 2018 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

Originally hardcover publication in the United States by Penguin Random House in 2018.

Cover design by John Fisk.

ISBN 978-1-625673-76-3

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

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New York, NY 10036

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[email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Also by Simon R. Green

PROLOGUE

THE NIGHTSIDE

London has a hidden heart and a secret soul, packed full of sin and shadows. Where gods and monsters go clubbing together, aliens and angels go fist-fighting through alley-ways, and you can find your heart’s desire and your worst nightmare in the eyes of the same woman. Where it’s always night and the dawn never comes, where it’s always three o’clock in the morning and the hour that tries men’s souls. On the packed streets and rain-slick pavements, where hot neon burns bright and gaudy as Hell’s candy, you can rub shoulders with heroes and villains, brighter buccaneers and twilight souls . . . but there’s only one man you can depend on. John Taylor, who started out as a private eye specialising in lost causes, and ended up as Walker, the man who runs the Nightside.

Inasmuch as anyone does, or can.

THE SECRET HISTORIES

For countless generations, the Drood family has guarded Humanity from all the weird things that threaten it. Demons, aliens, secret organisations . . . and the occasional invasion from other worlds and dimensions. Drood agents move between the pages of the history books, doing what needs to be done, never noticed by the people they protect. To help them do this, the Droods have a golden armour that makes them very strong, very fast, and very hard to say no to. They fight secret wars to keep us safe, and ensure we never need to know . . . that sometimes monsters are real. Eddie Drood is the finest field operative the family has ever had. While working under-cover, he uses the name Shaman Bond; because in his line of work you have to take your laughs where you can find them. He walks through the shadows of the world, the ghost in the machine of history.

The very-secret agent.

* * *

The Droods are all about control, making people do what they’re told for the greater good. The Nightside is all about choice: good and bad and everything in between. The Droods want to make the world behave. The Nightside wants to party.

They were never going to get along.

* * *

For years almost beyond counting, a strict set of Pacts and Agreements have kept the Droods out of the Nightside.

But that is going to change.

CHAPTER ONE

When the Gods Are Afraid, Be Very Afraid

They say that home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. The Nightside is where you go when the rest of the world wants to shoot you on sight. Usually with good reason.

* * *

The Nightside; it’s one hell of a town. The jig is up and the hammer is down. Where it’s always the hour of the wolf, and you should never look back for fear of what might be gaining on you. From Rats’ Alley, where homeless monsters and forgotten heroes live in cardboard shelters and beg for spare change; to the Adventurers Club, where legends from all over Space and Time come to the long night to hunt the really big game . . . The Nightside is where you go to find everything you ever dreamed of, to save your soul or damn it. Your soul, or someone else’s.

* * *

You get to Strangefellows, the oldest drinking hole, conversation pit, and scumbag attractor in the history of mankind, by walking down streets where hot neon burns like souls on fire, then slipping furtively down a side alley that isn’t always there.

The wall that blocks off the end of the alley has a single door, a flat slab of steel set flush into the grimy brickwork, with no bell or handle. If you’re the right sort, the door will open for you; and if you aren’t, it’s open to bribes. Above the door a small but dignified neon sign spells out the name of the place in ancient Sanskrit. Strangefellows has never felt the need to advertise.

Beyond the door lies an entrance foyer that doesn’t even try to appear welcoming. The furniture usually looks like it’s been recently used in hand-to-hand combat, apart from where people are slumped across it, doing their best to sleep off some of the hangover before they have to head out again into the unforgiving night. The precious Persian rugs are soaked with old blood and other less reputable stains. The walls are covered in obscene murals, by any number of Old Masters. The air is heavy with the smell of excitement, opportunity, and all the more dangerous kinds of sex. Music beats on the air like the heart-beat of a possessed teenager, calling you on. And if you’ve got this far, you probably feel like you’ve come home.

A metal stairway leads down into the bar itself, so everyone can hear you arrive. (It’s not paranoia when people really do want to hunt you down and stick your head on a spike.) And in the wide stone-walled pit at the bottom of the stairs, the bar’s patrons gather to drink and carouse, plot their angry schemes against an uncaring world, and slip a knife between the ribs of their best friend.

The atmosphere in Strangefellows can best be described as determinedly non-judgemental. Anyone can get in, though getting out can sometimes be a problem. The sign at the bottom of the stairs reads ABANDON ALL HOPE. Anywhere else, this would be a joke. To get to the long wooden bar at the far end of the room, you have to respectfully negotiate a maze of tightly packed tables and chairs, cheerfully mismatched because they’re always being smashed in some dispute or another. Strangefellows is a boisterous kind of place, and its clientele wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

On the night when it all began, John Taylor was leaning on the bar chatting with Strangefellows’ owner, bartender, and celebrated pain in the arse, Alex Morrisey. John was in his late thirties and in pretty good shape considering the perilous nature of his chosen career. Back when he was the Nightside’s only private eye, he used to wear a heavy white trench-coat because it helped to reassure his clients if he looked the part: the last of the knights-errant, in tarnished white armour. Now he was Walker and needed everyone to believe he was the man in charge, he wore a perfectly cut suit of neutral grey, a rich burgundy waistcoat, and a bowler hat. Partly in tribute to his former best enemy and mentor, the previous Walker, but mostly because that particular look had always represented authority in the Nightside.

John Taylor, a good man in a bad place. Because someone had to be.

Alex Morrisey, on the other hand, was born in a bad mood and probably punched the doctor. Now heading reluctantly into his late thirties, Alex was tall, pale, and malevolently moody. He acted like the whole world was out to get him because he honestly believed it was. His permanent scowl had etched a deep notch above his nose, and on the rare occasions when he did smile, it usually meant someone was about to have a really bad day. He always wore black, in one style or another, topped off with designer sun-glasses and a snazzy black beret tilted at a rakish angle. To hide the fact that he was prematurely bald. Proof, if proof was needed, he was prone to saying bitterly, that God hated him personally. People who knew Alex thought that was only to be expected. Wiser customers counted their change carefully and avoided the bar-snacks.

“It’s surprisingly quiet tonight,” said John Taylor. “Perhaps I can get some important lounging around done without being interrupted, for a change.”

“Want to try one of our special offers?” said Alex. “I’m offering very reasonable rates on some glowing champagne, from the Holy Order of Saint Strontium. Complete with a depleted uranium swizzle-stick. Or there’s the Timothy Leary Special, for people who want to get really out of their minds.”

John gave Alex a hard look. “Are you trying to kill me? Is there a new bounty on my head that I haven’t heard about?”

“Of course not!” said Alex. “I don’t want you dead. Not till you’ve settled your bar bill.”

John glanced around the bar. “It is unusually quiet . . . I mean, yes it’s noisy as all hell, and the general ambience is just short of distressing, but that’s just business as usual. No one’s tried to open a gateway to Hell, or entice me into a conspiracy all evening.”

“It’s just the calm before the storm,” Alex said wisely.

John raised an eyebrow. “Have you heard something?”

“No, that’s just the voice of experience.”

“Pour me another glass of Ponce de Leon sparkling water,” said John. “With an adrenaline chaser.”

He put his back to the bar while Alex poured, taking in the sights. There was a lot to be said about Strangefellows, most of it offensive and bordering on the obscene, but it was never boring.

Alex slammed John’s drink down on the bartop, with a little extra emphasis to make it clear he didn’t approve of non-alcoholics, and John turned back to accept it. The magician’s top hat standing upside down on the bar rocked briefly from side to side, and a human hand emerged, brandishing an empty martini glass. Alex refilled it, and hand and glass disappeared back inside the top hat. Alex shook his head.

“That rabbit really was mad at him.”

“He should have known better than to play Find the Lady with a Pookah,” said John. “Though he has been in there for some time now . . . Maybe we should try to get him out.”

“You leave him be,” Alex said firmly. “He says he feels a lot safer where he is.”

John nodded and turned away. It was just another long night in Strangefellows. A group of minor Norse deities was playing poker with Tarot cards, which meant the supernatural weather was going to be more than usually troubled for a while. And certain unfortunate individuals were about to discover their previously fixed destinies were now up for grabs. Sitting opposite each other at a nearby table, the bar’s muscle-bound bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, were engaged in a flex off, while they waited for someone to get drunk enough or dumb enough to start something. The Coltranes were always ready to put a stop to something, usually with broad grins and excessive violence. One of the more glamorous of Baron Frankenstein’s creations, in a black leather bustier that contrasted nicely with her dead white skin, was taking advantage of open-mike night to murder the old standard “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”

Hecate’s Handmaidens, a coven of apprentice witches out on a hen night, were dancing upside down on the ceiling and singing a very rude song about broomsticks. Something from a Black Lagoon was muscling its way between the packed tables, looking for signatures on its petition to save the Amazonian Rain Forests. Two Men in Black were crying into their gin-and-tonics because no one took them seriously any longer; and a handsome Time Agent in a World War II greatcoat was arm-wrestling with the Nightside’s very own costumed super-heroine, Ms Fate. She was winning.

Just the usual crowd, enjoying a night out.

“I haven’t seen Suzie in a while,” said Alex, and John nodded.

“She’s off in the border-lands, taking care of some last bounty-hunter business. While she still can.”

“How long before the baby’s due?” said Alex, spitting into a glass before polishing it with a dirty rag.

“About five weeks,” said John.

“And you let her go off chasing dangerous fugitives?”

John gave Alex a look. “This is Shotgun Suzie we’re talking about. The nearest thing to sudden death on two legs you’re ever likely to meet in this life. Besides, do you really think I could stop her?”

“Any idea yet whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl?” said Alex, just a bit too casually.

John grinned. “Leaving it a bit late to get your bet down, aren’t you?”

Alex shrugged. “The longer I leave it, the better the odds. Though given some of the unnatural forces the pair of you have been exposed to on some of your cases, I could probably get really good odds on how human it’s going to be.”

“Suzie was very firm that she didn’t want to know,” said John. “And after she shot that hole in the hospital wall, the staff stopped trying to persuade her. I’m hoping for a boy, but . . .”

They were interrupted by some frankly unpleasant sounds from farther down the bar. Alex’s pet vulture, Agatha, was squatting on her perch by the old-fashioned cash register, brooding over the night-dark egg she’d laid some months previously. The egg had grown steadily until now it was bigger than the vulture, but there was still no sign of its being ready to hatch. People who had studied the egg closely all ended up saying the same thing: My God, it’s full of stars . . . The vulture rubbed her vicious beak against the gleaming black surface of the egg and made some more of what she fondly considered to be maternal sounds.

“Why did you choose a vulture for a pet, Alex?” said John.

“Suits my personality.”

“And why name the obnoxious thing after your ex-wife?”

“You’ve met her,” said Alex.

“I take your point,” said John.

A vicious crack of lightning blinded everyone for a moment. Wild electricity stabbed down from ceiling to floor, crackling loudly and raising everyone’s hairs before shutting off abruptly. When everyone could see clearly again, a young man was crouching in an open space in the middle of the room. People stood up everywhere to get a better look at the man who’d ridden the lightning in from some other place.

The young man rose slowly to his feet and glared around him with deep-set, haunted eyes. He looked half-starved, his face all hollows and shadows. He wore a battered black leather jacket over ragged jeans, and his bare feet were caked with filth and grime. The young man’s terrible gaze finally found John at the bar, and he stabbed an accusing finger at him.

“John Taylor! It’s all your fault!”

“Possibly,” said John, entirely unmoved by the new-comer’s arrival or his accusation. “What am I supposed to have done this time?”

“You murdered the world,” said the young man.

He lunged forward, an open straight razor suddenly in his hand. The long steel blade flashed supernaturally bright as it leapt for John’s throat. John grabbed hold of the young man’s wrist at the last moment, then twisted it until he cried out and was forced to drop the razor. The young man hauled himself free and fell back, still glaring at John, who didn’t allow himself to appear in the least disturbed. He watched the young man carefully, and when the new-comer went to snatch up the razor again, John threw his drink in the young man’s face, blinding him.

“That’s enough!” John said sharply. “We don’t have to do this. Tell me what the problem is. Maybe I can do something to help.”

The young man shook his head fiercely, drops of water flying in all directions, his terrible gaze fixed on John again.

“You’ve already done too much.”

He produced a glowing knife from inside his jacket. The serrated blade shone with a nasty, unhealthy light, the essence of poison given shape and form and a cutting edge. He closed with John again, cutting and hacking viciously. John ducked and dodged, the knife always getting closer, until finally he had no choice but to grab the young man’s arm again and turn it suddenly around, so he impaled himself on his own blade. He cried out once, in shock and outrage rather than pain, and fell backwards. Blood soaked the front of his jacket. The glowing blade disappeared. John knelt beside the dying man.

“It didn’t have to come to this,” John said. “Why wouldn’t you listen to me? Who are you?”

One hand came up to grab John’s lapel and pull his face down to the dying man’s. He smiled horribly, his teeth slick with blood. “My name is Henry. Just like you planned.”

“I don’t understand,” said John. “I don’t know you.”

Henry struggled to force out his last words, spitting them into John’s face.

“I came all the way back from the future. The future you made! The time of ruins and monsters and the death of Humanity. You thought you’d avoided that timeline, made it impossible for those things to happen. You should have known better. The war is coming, and what you’ll do to end it will make that future inevitable. I had to stop you . . . Damn you, Father. It’s all your fault . . .”

His hand fell away from John’s lapel and dropped to the floor, and just like that, the young man stopped breathing. Hate still seemed to glare from his unseeing eyes. John didn’t know what to think, what to feel. He’d been meaning to tell Suzie that if they did have a son, he wanted to call him Henry, after the previous Walker. John reached out with a steady hand and gently closed the young man’s staring eyes. This couldn’t be his son. His future son. He couldn’t have just killed his own child, who hadn’t even been born yet. He’d been through so much, lost so much; he couldn’t have lost the one thing that gave him hope. John looked away. The straight razor was still lying on the floor next to the body. He picked it up, and studied the familiar pearl handle. And then he got to his feet, to show the razor to Alex.

Because he had to do something practical or go mad.

Behind him, the bar’s patrons went back to minding their own business, drinking and laughing and talking, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Because this was Strangefellows, after all.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Alex. “I’m not the one who tried to kill you.”

“I thought you had shields in place, to keep out undesirables!”

“Are you kidding? That’s all we ever get in this place. What have you got there?”

“One of Razor Eddie’s weapons,” said John. “Only the Punk God of the Straight Razor carries a blade like this.”

“How could anyone take a blade away from Razor Eddie?” said Alex. “I can’t think of anyone I’d back against him.”

“Unless he was dead . . .” said John.

Alex lowered his sun-glasses so he could stare over them at John. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“More than you could possibly imagine,” said John. Because some burdens can’t be shared.

“You want me to have Betty and Lucy throw the body out?” said Alex. “There’s bound to be something in the alley that will eat it.”

“No!” said John, then stopped himself until he was sure he was in control of his voice. “No. I want the body treated with respect.”

“You had no choice, John,” Alex said carefully. “He would have killed you. Do you have any idea why . . . ?”

“I didn’t know him,” said John. Quietly, and bitterly. He turned to look back at the dead man and found that the body was gone. Not even a drop of blood on the floor to show where it had been. John glared around the bar. “Who moved the body?”

A chorus of voices rose up quickly, reacting to the anger in John Taylor’s voice, protesting that they hadn’t touched the body and hadn’t seen anyone who had. Because nobody wanted Walker mad at them. John looked at his hand and found that the straight razor had disappeared too.

“I hate Time-travel events,” he said. “You always end up with more questions than answers.”

“At least this one cleaned up after itself,” said Alex. “What did he say to you, right at the end?”

“That the world and everything in it will be destroyed,” said John. “Because of something I will do.”

“Oh come on!” said Alex. “Even you couldn’t bring about the end of the world, all on your own!”

John didn’t say anything. Alex looked at his empty glass.

“You want a refill? On the house?”

John managed a small smile. “The end of the world really must be coming if you’re offering free drinks.”

“Get out of my bar,” said Alex, not unkindly. “If there’s a problem, do something about it. That’s your job, Walker.”

John nodded and moved off through the crowd, and everyone moved back to give him room, without actually looking like they were. John didn’t notice. He was too busy remembering the future he’d once encountered in a Timeslip: one of those arbitrary doorways that open up in the Nightside, to give glimpses of things that were and may be. He’d spent some time in the future world his son had claimed to come from. An awful place, all ruins and rubble, where monsters and abominations lurched through deserted streets in search of the last few surviving humans. A world where civilisation had been torn down, and only the insects thrived. He’d been told that was down to him, but he’d thought he’d done everything necessary to make sure that terrible future could never happen. Now he had to wonder if he’d done enough. Or if his whole life had been for nothing.

What war had Henry been talking about? There was nothing serious happening in the Nightside. He would have heard. What could he be about to do, that his own future son had fought his way back through Time to try to stop him? A cold hand closed around John’s heart as he remembered the future version of his wife, Suzie, who’d also come back through Time to try to kill him, to prevent the awful future she’d known. Merlin had ripped the Speaking Gun grafted onto her right elbow right off her, in a spray of arterial blood, and she’d disappeared back to the future. John had been so sure he’d saved his Suzie from having to become that person. But now . . .

He wondered what, if anything, he would tell her the next time he saw her.

* * *

John had just reached the entrance lobby when his phone rang inside his jacket. He thought about turning it off because he already had enough to worry about, but he couldn’t. He was still Walker, with Walker’s responsibilities. He took out his phone. It was playing the theme from the old Twilight Zone television series because when John found a joke he liked, he tended to stick with it. He checked for caller ID, but nothing was showing. Which was not unusual in the Nightside, where most people preferred not to admit anything. He answered the call anyway because anyone who knew his private number knew better than to bother him for anything less than a real or unreal emergency.

“This is Walker,” he said. “What do you want?”

The voice that answered was as cold and implacable as rocks grinding together. “This is the Lord of Thorns. You must go to the Street of the Gods.”

“Why?” said John.

“Because something has happened.”

It was turning out to be a night full of surprises. Not least because John hadn’t thought the Lord of Thorns would ever do anything so ordinary as use a phone.

“Why would you care what happens on the Street of the Gods?” said John. “I thought you were above such things. Literally.”

“Who else would I talk to? Who else could I have anything in common with?”

John supposed he had a point. “All right,” he said resignedly. “What’s happened on the Street of the Gods, that I need to get involved?”

“The beginning of the end,” said the Lord of Thorns.

“The end of what?”

“Everything.”

The phone went dead. John scowled as he put the phone away. Now he had to go.

* * *

Outside Strangefellows, the air felt hot and close, and the cobbles were slick and shining from recent rain. John looked up, but the storm had passed on, and the dark vault of the sky was packed with stars in unknown constellations. Some spun madly, like celestial Catherine wheels, throwing off comets like multi-coloured sparks, while the full moon, so much larger and closer than it had any right to be, looked down on the Nightside like a great watchful eye. Suggesting that the Nightside wasn’t necessarily where or even when everyone thought it was. John tried not to let that bother him. The longest night of all was full of mysteries that were never going to be answered to anyone’s satisfaction.

He glanced casually up and down the alley-way, to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then retrieved his gold pocket-watch. He’d inherited the watch from the previous Walker, and it remained one of his most useful secrets. The watch contained a portable Timeslip, allowing him to jump directly from one part of the Nightside to another. Which, given the frankly dangerous nature of much of the transport in the long night, was just as well. The streets were full of things that only looked like cars and trucks, many of which were known to run right over slower-moving vehicles. The taxis ate their passengers as often as not, the buses frequently came unstuck in Space and Time, and the horse and carriages were really expensive. Most people walked. Or ran.

John did a lot of footwork in his time as a private eye, and got through a lot of shoes. Now he was Walker, the one sane voice in a crazy place and the only authority everyone would listen to, he needed to be on the spot and on top of things as quickly as possible. He opened the gold watch, and the darkness inside leapt out to engulf him. When it fell away again, he was where he needed to be.

* * *

The Street of the Gods is aggressively weird, even for the Nightside. On this strange and thankfully very separate Street, you can find anything and everything that people have ever worshipped. All the gods that ever were or may be, all the beings and entities and anthropomorphic representations, crammed together in row upon row of churches, temples, sacred places, and eldritch grottos. Towering spires stand next to golden minarets, and do their best not to notice the dark and dangerous edifices on the opposite side of the Street, into which not one ray of light has ever entered. Pilgrims and penitents come to the Street of the Gods from all over the worlds, searching for the kind of answers that can’t be found anywhere else. No one ever actually says Believer beware, but it is strongly implied. On the Street of the Gods, prayers are heard and answered.

Powerful beings and unknowable creatures parade openly on the Street, sometimes stopping to chat with their worshippers and pose for selfies. There are glories and wonders, penances and punishments, premonitions of doom and good news for all. The tourists eat it up with spoons, especially when gods come together to dispute points of theology, compare the weekly take, or argue over who performed the best miracles recently. Though it’s a wise tourist who knows to start running before the smiting starts.

The smallest and least important of the gods huddle together in cheap accommodations at the bottom, and the various churches and meeting-places become gradually grander and more impressive as one progresses up the Street. It’s all about location. Some of the more important temples and cathedrals are so huge they contain entire worlds within them, while others present such an enigmatic or abstract appearance, their priests have to hang around outside so they can lead people in. Wherever you look, doors are always open, ready to admit new worshippers, though getting out again with a full wallet and your soul still attached might prove a little more difficult. In this place, gods walk like gun-slingers.

Normally, if such a word can be used with regard to the Street of the Gods, you would expect the night air to be full of chants and songs, the practiced patter of supernatural confidence tricksters and the half-hysterical come-ons from shills and barkers, competing to lure in any wavering passers-by; for their own good, of course. Bells toll and voices summon, and choirs send up a joyous noise to drown out the screams of more or less willing sacrificial victims. Wide-eyed prophets struggle to outshout one another over which particular End is Nigh, and up and down the Street of the Gods, crowds of worshippers and tourists and seekers after truth chatter happily and boast about the things they’ve seen, like bird-watchers ticking off names on their list.

The noise is rarely short of deafening, with no room for the small, quiet voice of conscience.

But when John Taylor appeared on the Street of the Gods, the first thing that struck him was the hush. All around him, and for as far as he could see, all the places of worship stood empty and abandoned, their doors left hanging open, as though no one cared any more.

Worshippers and tourists were milling back and forth, frightened and confused. The priests in gaudy robes had no words of wisdom for their flocks, abandoned by the beings they served. Even the prophets of doom had been struck silent, huddling together like lost children. John made his way through the dumb-struck crowds, doing his best to look assured and in charge, dispensing calm words and reassuring counsel as he went. But while people were more than ready to pluck at his sleeve or ask him the same things over and over again, none of them had anything useful to tell him about what had happened.

The Street of the Gods had seen turf wars, miracles and damnations, and all manner of exhibitionist supernatural behaviour on a daily basis, but never before had the gods taken to their heels en masse, deserting their churches and their followers.

John finally spotted a familiar face and forced his way through the crowds to join him. Dead Boy was lounging in the open doorway of the Church of Rotwang, god of automatons, regarding the general chaos with a broad grin. Dead Boy was seventeen. He’d been seventeen for more than forty years now, ever since he was mugged and murdered on a Nightside street for the spare change in his pockets. He made a deal he still wasn’t prepared to talk about to come back from the dead, so he could hunt down his killers and avenge himself on them. And after everything he did to them with his cold, dead hands, they were probably glad to escape into death.

It was only afterwards that Dead Boy discovered he should have read the small print. There was nothing in the agreement he made about being allowed to lie down again afterwards. And so he continued, a returned spirit possessing his own corpse, a ghost that couldn’t die in a body that wouldn’t rot. He was philosophical about it, on the whole.

Tall and adolescent thin, Dead Boy wore a long, deep-purple coat over black leather trousers and shining calf-skin boots, and a large floppy hat crammed down on his dark, curly hair. He sported a black rose in his lapel, which had to be replaced on a regular basis because he was prone to snacking on them. His long, pale face had a debauched, pre-Raphaelite look, with burning fever-bright eyes and a disturbing smile. He deliberately left his long coat hanging open so he could show off the Y-shaped autopsy scar on his torso, along with various other wounds that would never heal. He stitched up the worst ones himself, plugged the bullet-holes with builder’s putty, and occasionally resorted to lengths of black duct tape to hold everything together.

John was surprised to see Dead Boy on the Street of the Gods, since it was widely known he didn’t worship anyone but himself. John nodded gravely to him, and Dead Boy grinned cheerfully.

“Hello, John. Welcome to the Street of Runaway Gods.”

“Do you know what happened here?” said John.

“I know the what, if not the why. The Street of the Gods shut itself down, just a few hours ago. Everyone on the Street, priests and worshippers and gawkers alike, all found themselves suddenly and unceremoniously dumped outside. And when they tried to get back in, all the ways that normally gave access to the Street of the Gods suddenly didn’t go there any more. At which point there were a great many raised voices, and not a little gnashing of teeth and tears before bedtime. I just happened to be passing, so I joined the gathering throng, ready for a spot of free entertainment, and just like that, all the entrances suddenly opened up again. The flocks surged back in, crying out for answers and reassurances, only to find that their gods had done a bunk.”

“No signs of violence?” said John. “Nothing to suggest a god war, or a nasty outbreak of atheism?”

“No sign of anything,” said Dead Boy. “It’s like the Mary Celeste of godly dwelling-places. The priests have been going out of their minds, and the worshippers aren’t far behind.” He stopped, to smile wistfully for a moment. “I was worshipped, once. As someone who had clearly and demonstrably risen from the dead. I could have had my own church . . .”

“What happened?” said John.

Dead Boy grinned. “They met me.”

“Of course,” said John. He looked up and down the Street of the Gods, where crowds of the faithful were huddling together like sheep in a thunder-storm. Even the tourists were starting to look worried, perhaps fearful that what they’d come so far to see was going to be a no show. John frowned. “If all the gods have left, does that mean the end of the world really is nigh?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Dead Boy. “It’s getting so you can’t go for a stroll through the long night without bumping into one sign or another of the apocalypse. If you ask me, the Nightside is just one big drama queen.”

John set off up the Street, and Dead Boy sauntered along at his side, for want of anything better to do. And because experience had taught him that wherever John went, trouble would inevitably find him. Dead Boy was always on the look-out for some new trouble to get into; it helped keep his mind occupied. Doors lay open to every side, offering free access to what had once been fiercely guarded secret sanctums and holders of the mysteries. With the gods departed, their various buildings seemed sullen and drab, for all their eccentric architecture.

“I might move into one of these very desirable properties,” said Dead Boy. “Stake a claim, just for the hell of it. That should upset all the right people.”

“Not necessarily a good idea,” said John. “The gods could still return, and they’ve always taken a very dim view of squatters. And I hate having to organise the clean-up after rains of frogs; they block up the guttering.”

“To hell with them all,” Dead Boy said happily. “Bring it on, that’s what I say. Smite and be damned. I’m already dead; what more can they do to me?”

“You really want to find out?” said John.

And then they both stopped and looked around sharply, as an unexpected sound issued from a nearby door. Laughter, dark and disturbing, came drifting out of one of the more unusual buildings on the Street. The stout stone structure had clearly started out as an archetypal Victorian church, but someone had splashed bright and gaudy colours all over the stone frontage. The church looked like a Day-Glo rainbow had crashed into it or someone had dipped the place in ice-cream and allowed it to go off. The church now looked sweet and tempting and frankly unwholesome. The pigments in the stained-glass windows had melted and run, like Technicolor tears, but the bright pink front door stood invitingly open. The spiritual equivalent of the witch in her candy cottage.

Beyond the door there was only darkness. The laughter died away, ending on one last sardonic chuckle, like a hungry troll under a bridge who’d just heard dinner approaching.

“Well,” said Dead Boy. “Someone sounds pleased with the way things are. Positively amused, in fact. I think it behooves us to go in there and investigate. And kick things around, just on general principles.”

“It’s a trap,” said John.

“Of course it’s a trap!” said Dead Boy. “But it’s the first church we’ve found that’s still occupied, and so much laughter on such a solemn occasion has to mean something. I vote we go in, and your vote doesn’t count. Ready?”

“After you,” said John.

Dead Boy nodded happily. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He strode confidently through the open door, and John followed on behind, shaking his head resignedly and bracing himself for the inevitable unpleasantness ahead. Dead Boy didn’t know the meaning of the word fear. He also had trouble with similar concepts, like caution and self-preservation.

The moment they both passed through the door, the building stopped even pretending to be a church. Vivid lights flared up, and John Taylor and Dead Boy were suddenly standing in the middle of a sawdust-covered circus-ring, surrounded by rows and rows of empty bleachers. There were ugly stains in the narrow aisles, and the air smelled of over-worked animals, stale pop-corn and staler urine, and candy-floss that had turned. Striped canvas walls shot up all around, arching towards a ceiling that was so high up it was lost in the gloom.

“A circus?” said John. “On the Street of the Gods?”

Dead Boy shrugged. “Why not? People have worshipped everything else, at one time or another.”

The sound of approaching footsteps came clearly, from one particularly gloomy aisle between the bleachers. There was something very wrong about them. Dead Boy planted both fists on his hips and addressed the darkness defiantly.

“Get a move on, we haven’t got all day! Get in here and face us! Come on; give me your best shot! Violent as you like! I can take it!”

“This is why no one ever wants to partner with you,” said John.

“Bunch of wimps,” said Dead Boy, cheerfully.

A colourful figure emerged from the gloom and stepped into the ring, dressed in a patchwork motley of rags far too big for the figure within. He might have looked amusing if both sleeves hadn’t been dripping with fresh blood and other less pleasant stains. Instead of a row of buttons down the front of his costume there were small skulls, with bits of meat still clinging to them. The shoes were freakishly elongated, which explained the odd footsteps; but something about the shoes suggested they’d been made to fit the feet within. The figure’s face had been painted in the traditional gaudy patterns over basic white, but it only took John a moment to realise that underneath the crimson grin the real lips weren’t smiling at all. And the unblinking eyes were full of a terrible, spiteful malevolence.

Dead Boy clapped his hands delightedly. “It’s a clown! I love clowns!”

“You stand alone in that,” said John. “What the hell is a clown doing on the Street of the Gods?”

The clown spread both baggy arms wide, in a parody of welcome. His voice was loud and cheerful, like the con man who cheats your mother out of her life’s savings. “I am Mockery: the god of clowns. Laughter is a form of worship, after all. What else does a laugh say, except: Rather you than me. Or Please don’t hurt me.”

“If you’re the god of clowns,” said John, “why aren’t you funny?”

“I laugh,” said Mockery. “I don’t get laughed at. I celebrate the insanity of the world, the futility of life, the great joke on Humanity that is existence.”

Dead Boy pouted. “I hate all this post-modern stuff. He’ll be deconstructing the custard pie in a minute.”

“Why are you still here, Mockery?” said John. “Why didn’t you leave, along with all the other gods?”

“I stayed behind to watch you all die,” said Mockery. “To watch blood surge down the Street of the Gods in a tidal wave. And laugh and laugh and laugh.”

“I’m going off you,” said Dead Boy.

“I knew there was a reason why I never liked clowns,” said John. “You shouldn’t have to paint your face to look happy. Why did all the other gods leave, Mockery?”

“Because they didn’t get the joke,” said the god of clowns.

“Okay . . .” said John. “We’ve satisfied your curiosity, Dead Boy, and I hope you think it was worth it. Time we were leaving.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said Mockery. “You’re in my domain now. And everyone knows there’s nothing funny about a circus at midnight. You belong to me now because every clown needs a stooge or two. Oh the things I’ll do to you, and the things I’ll make you do! We’ll have such fun together; while you last. You won’t laugh much, but I will.”

John looked at Dead Boy. “The things you get me into.”

“You love it,” said Dead Boy. “And I love a challenge.” He showed Mockery his own dark and disturbing smile. “I am Dead Boy! Returned from the houses of forever with a song on my lips and violence in my heart. I come and I go and no one tells me otherwise. I love the smell of grease-paint in the morning! It smells of victory!”

He charged straight at the god of clowns, laughing breathlessly at the prospect of striking down someone who’d annoyed him. John stayed where he was, curious to see what would happen when a dead man fought a god. Mockery waited until Dead Boy had almost reached him, then laughed in his face. Dead Boy slammed to a halt, as though he’d run face-first into an invisible barrier. Mockery laughed at Dead Boy, and he shuddered at the sound of it. The horrid power in that laughter denied everything he was and ridiculed everything he’d done. It was full of scorn and derision, vicious and unrelenting. Dead Boy dropped to his knees under the weight of it.

John wanted to clap both hands to his ears to keep out the awful sound, which made his whole life seem worthless. The god of clowns mocked John Taylor and Dead Boy on a spiritual level, his laughter eating away at their souls like acid. And then Dead Boy stood up suddenly, perfectly composed, his calm voice breaking easily across the laughter.

“Nice try, clown. But I lost all my illusions long ago. There’s nothing like dying to put everything else in perspective.”

Dead Boy suddenly punched Mockery right in his painted grin, and the god of clowns cried out in shock. He staggered backwards, covering his face with his gloved hands. He wasn’t laughing any more. John was immediately himself again, unable even to remember what it was about the laughter that had affected him so strongly. But he remembered enough to be really angry about it. He stepped forward to stand beside Dead Boy.

“Nice punch.”

“Beats a pie in the face every time,” said Dead Boy. “For my next trick, watch me kick him in the crotch so hard his balls fly off in different directions.”

“No,” said John. “It’s my turn now.”

Mockery lowered his gloved hands from his painted face and glared at John and Dead Boy. “I am the god of clowns! I will make you the butt of my jokes for all eternity!”

“You have the gift of laughter,” said John. “But I have a gift for finding things.”

He reached deep inside himself, and his gift unfolded in his mind. Opening up his third eye, his private eye, until he could see all the things that were hidden from everyone else. He looked at the world with an unflinching gaze until he found what he was looking for: the man behind the painted mask, the human conduit Mockery was manifesting through. And having found that link, it was the easiest thing in the world for John to break it. And just like that the god of clowns was gone, leaving behind just a man in stupid clothes, with tears streaming down through his patchy make-up. Dead Boy laughed at him.

“You’re not the god of anything; you’re just a very silly boy.”

“You can’t leave me like this!” the man said. “Bring him back! Please . . . If he’s not here, nothing’s funny any more.”

“Oh, I’m sure Mockery will find his way back,” said John. “You can’t keep gods out of the Nightside; they’re worse than cockroaches.”

“None of them are coming back,” said the clown. “We’re all going to die.” He tried to laugh but couldn’t manage on his own. “The other gods thought they were so important . . . but in the end they couldn’t face what’s coming. They’re just gods, and what’s coming is worse. Isn’t that funny?”

“You know what’s always funny?” said Dead Boy. “A kick in the pants.”

He grabbed the clown by one shoulder and threw him in the direction of the door. Encouraging him on his way with a good hard kick up the arse. He kept on kicking the clown’s backside, all the way out of the church and back onto the Street of the Gods. John followed, smiling slightly. He would have liked to contribute a kick or two himself, but he had his dignity as Walker to consider. Once they were outside, Dead Boy bestowed one last and particularly emphatic kick on the clown, then let him run away. The clown quickly disappeared into the baffled crowd, crying his eyes out.

John looked at Dead Boy. “Bully.”

“He deserved it,” said Dead Boy. “Well, that was fun, but I can’t say I’m any clearer as to what it is that’s coming, or why the gods took to their heels rather than face it. What could be more powerful than a whole Street full of Gods?”

“I think I’d better find out before it gets here,” said John.

“You do that, John,” said Dead Boy. “Off you go and do your investigating thing, while I busy myself with sex, drugs, and rock and roll till whatever the bad thing is has finished.”

He swaggered off down the Street of the Gods, and everyone else hurried to get out of his way. Because Dead Boy, like the gods, was known to move in mysterious and occasionally incredibly violent ways.

John considered his options and finally decided that if you wanted information on the gods, the best person to ask was another god. Which meant contacting the only one in the Nightside he considered a friend: Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor. The homeless god, who slept in shop doorways, scavenged in bins for day-old food, and existed on the kindness and occasional intimidation of strangers.

Razor Eddie usually steered well clear of the Street of the Gods. He had no church on the Street, partly because he frightened the other gods but mainly because he refused to be worshipped. He spent most of his time going after the bad guys no one else could touch and doing terrible things to them. In penance for the many sins of his youth, when he was still human.

John took a conch-shell out of his jacket pocket, looked at it, and sighed quietly. Razor Eddie wouldn’t be caught dead using anything as ordinary as a phone. It wouldn’t go with his carefully cultivated outsider image. And besides, he’d made it very clear in the past that most of the time he just didn’t want to be bothered. But in a moment of sentimental weakness, he’d presented the conch to John as a wedding gift, so that the new Walker could call on him when faced with a real or unreal emergency. John raised the conch to his mouth and spoke into it, just a little self-consciously.

“Razor Eddie?”

A dry, ghostly voice whispered in his ear. “What do you want, John?”

“How did you know it was me?” said John. “Does your conch-shell have caller ID?”

“You’re the only one I ever gave a shell to.”

John paused a moment, honestly touched, but knew better than to say anything. He moved on. “There’s a problem with the Street of the Gods.”

“I know,” said Razor Eddie. “Good news spreads quickly.”

“All the gods have disappeared,” said John.

“I know. What do you want me to do about it? Lead the applause?”

“My concern is over what might have driven them off,” John said patiently. “What if something is coming our way that’s worse than them?”

“You had to spoil my good mood, didn’t you?” said Razor Eddie. “All right, just let me finish this bit of dismemberment I’m in the middle of, and I’ll be right with you.”

His voice cut off and was replaced with the sound of the sea, complete with sea-gulls. John put the conch-shell back in his pocket. Razor Eddie might have been joking, or he might not. He was that sort of god. Some people are born scary, some have it thrust upon them, and some grab hold of the scary with both hands and hug it to them like a favourite toy. John looked around sharply as something unnaturally sharp cut a ragged rent through Space itself, opening up a door through which Razor Eddie could pass. Even the laws of physics threw up their hands and slouched off to sulk in a corner when faced with Razor Eddie’s glowing blades. The Punk God of the Straight Razor stepped casually through the open rent, and it immediately sealed itself behind him, as though the universe were desperate to forget the awful thing that had just happened to it. Razor Eddie closed his pearl-handled straight razor and made it disappear about his person. The same kind of blade John’s future son had brought back through Time, to kill him. He decided he wasn’t going to think about that, for the moment.

A painfully thin presence wrapped in an oversized grey raincoat apparently held together by accumulated filth and grease, Razor Eddie had a hollowed face, dirty grey skin, and a disturbingly thoughtful gaze, as though he were quietly considering all the ways he could take you apart with his supernaturally sharp razors. He smelled awful, though whether that was him or the places he lay down in when he was sleeping rough, no one had ever wanted to get close enough to find out. Flies had been known to drop dead out of the air when they got too close. Razor Eddie wiped some fresh blood off his hands with a dirty rag and nodded briefly to John, who nodded back. The two of them were sometimes friends and sometimes enemies, but then, that’s the Nightside for you.

“Do you have any idea what might have frightened off the gods?” said John.

“It wasn’t me,” said Razor Eddie, in his ghostly voice. “I’ve been good. Mostly.”

“Have you heard anything?”

“You know I don’t give a damn about what the gods get up to,” said Razor Eddie. “But I might know someone who does. The only god I have any time for. I don’t think he would have left without telling me . . . Let us go and see.”

He started off down the Street, without even looking back to see if John was following. Because he honestly didn’t care, one way or the other. John quickly caught up, and they strolled along together. People jumped out of their way, turned and ran, and occasionally prostrated themselves on the ground so Razor Eddie and John Taylor could walk right over them if they felt so inclined. And mostly they did, because it would be a shame not to. Standards must be upheld. Worshippers and tourists alike watched wide-eyed as the two of them passed by. Some made the sign of the cross, while others made the sign of the pants-wettingly terrified. John couldn’t tell whether they were more scared of him as Walker or of Razor Eddie as an implacable force of justice, but he thought he could make a pretty good guess.

“Where are we going?” he said, after Razor Eddie had passed a whole bunch of deserted churches and temples without even glancing at them.

“All the way down to the lowest end of the Street,” said Razor Eddie. “To see Dagon. An old-time god who fell from grace after his worshippers deserted him. He only recently returned to the Street of the Gods, to work his way back up again. He’s all right for a god.”

John didn’t know what to say in response to that, so he didn’t say anything. The ways of gods are not the ways of men.

They passed the dilapidated churches of such has-been gods as The Speaking Stone, Soror Marium, and the latest incarnation of The Carrion In Tears. All of which were clearly deserted. Until finally, right at the farthest end of the Street, there was Dagon’s church. A pleasant little residence, its white stone walls scrubbed spotlessly clean. Lengths of bottle-green seaweed hung from the windows. Razor Eddie stopped before the perfectly ordinary door. It was closed, with a sign carved into the stone above that John didn’t even recognise. He looked to Razor Eddie, who smiled faintly.

“It dates back to the Pharisees, who were the first to worship Dagon. Not many of them around these days, which may be why Dagon is currently just a man.”

“Does he have any godly attributes?” said John.

“I’m told he can hold his breath underwater for a really long time,” Razor Eddie said solemnly. “For anything else, ask him.”

He pushed the door open and strode into the church. John hurried in after him. Razor Eddie called out to Dagon, his ghostly voice echoing across a much bigger open space than the small church could possibly have contained, but such small miracles came as standard on the Street of the Gods. It was the only way to fit everything in. The walls had been painted a deep, dark green, and the air was heavy with the smells of the sea. Strange creatures from the deepest part of the ocean swam freely in the green, in such detail they seemed almost to move on the edges of John’s vision. He licked his lips and tasted salt. He looked at Razor Eddie and gestured expansively with both arms.

“Why?”

“It makes Dagon feel at home.”

There was no sign of the god, or any of his current worshippers. Rows of crude wooden pews stood empty, with not even a hymn-book on show. The simple stone altar at the far end of the room held nothing but a single candle, unlit. Razor Eddie stopped in the middle of the aisle, and John stopped with him.

“Dagon!” said Razor Eddie, and his voice seemed to echo on and on, gathering strength and power on the quiet. “You know I’m here. This is John Taylor, the new Walker. Come out and talk to us, or I’ll tie knots in your seaweed.”

“Don’t do that,” said a calm voice. “How will I tell what the weather’s going to be?”

A slim figure emerged from the shadows by the altar. A quite ordinary-looking man in dark priest’s robes, with a bulging back-pack slung casually over one shoulder. He came forward to join Razor Eddie and John Taylor, and smiled pleasantly on both of them. He had the kind of face John knew he would have trouble remembering later, but there was an undeniable presence to the man. Razor Eddie looked at the back-pack and raised an eyebrow.

“Travel light, travel fast,” said Dagon. His voice seemed to reverberate across the whole room, a god in his church.

“Knock that off,” said Razor Eddie. “We’re not tourists.”

Dagon smiled, and when he spoke again, it was a perfectly ordinary voice. John thought the first voice had probably been more honest.

“Possessions only slow you down,” said Dagon. “Never own anything you can’t bear to leave behind. I’m always ready to get the hell out of Dodge, before the raging mob turns up. You learn things like that in the god business when you’ve been around as long as I have. First rule of religion: Nothing lasts.”

“I thought you were in the eternity business,” said Razor Eddie.

“Eternity isn’t what it used to be,” said Dagon.

“Is that why all the other gods have left the Street?” said John.

“There’s something in the air,” said Dagon. “Gods can smell trouble like a horse scenting a coming storm. Something bad is coming.”

“Why didn’t you leave with them?” said Razor Eddie.

“You know me,” said Dagon. “Always the last to hear anything. And I stayed because I knew you were coming.”

Dagon and Razor Eddie exchanged a quick smile: two men who were more than men, easy in each other’s company. John felt a little left out.

“Do you know what’s going on?” John asked, just a little brusquely.

“It’s not only the gods who’ve disappeared,” said Dagon. “All the Transient Beings, all the confidence tricksters with their big names and bigger promises, all the elementals and spirits and avatars, all the unnatural flotsam and jetsam thrown up by popular culture . . . Gone, all gone. And they shut the Street down when they left because they didn’t expect to be coming back.”

“So who opened it up again?” said John.

“The Street,” said Dagon. “I think it felt lonely. Fill a Street with enough weird stuff, and you’re going to end up with a pretty weird Street.”

“I can never tell when you’re joking,” said Razor Eddie.

“To be fair,” said John, “you have a hard time telling when anyone is joking.”

“True,” said Razor Eddie. “Now guess whether I give a damn.”

John gave Dagon his full attention. “Where have the gods gone?”

“Some went back to where they came from,” said the priest who used to be a god. “Some have gone to sleep, in the deep-down places under the Nightside. And some have taken refuge in higher and lower dimensions, to wait out the storm.”

“What storm?” John asked, allowing his voice to rise just a little because he felt he’d been polite long enough. Razor Eddie stirred at his side, but Dagon seemed untroubled.

“The storm that’s coming,” he said steadily. “Powerful enough to uproot everything we know and sweep it all away. I haven’t heard a name yet, or at least, not one I trust.”

“Where have most of the gods gone?” said John.

“To the Sundered Lands,” said Dagon. “The world King Arthur found in another dimension, to be a new home for the exiled elves. Or to Shadows Fall, and the Unseeli Court of King Oberon and Queen Titania.”

“Of course,” said John. “The only places gods could feel at home because elves have always behaved like little gods anyway.”

“How did the gods know this storm is coming?” asked Razor Eddie.

“Gods exist outside of Time,” said Dagon. “They see the Past, the Present, and the Future equally clearly. They saw something bad coming to the Nightside and decided not to be here when it arrived.”

“I haven’t seen anything,” said Razor Eddie.

“Neither have I,” said Dagon, smiling kindly. “We’re too human.”

“Given some of the crises the Nightside has already weathered,” John said slowly, “from the angel war over the Unholy Grail . . . to the return of Lilith, the long night’s original creator . . . What could be so bad that the gods themselves are frightened of it?”

“I don’t know,” said Dagon. “But I’m not sticking around to find out.”

“You didn’t tell me you were leaving,” said Razor Eddie, and John thought he heard something in the ghostly voice that might have been reproach.

“I knew you were coming,” said Dagon. “So I could tell you now.”

“Are you going to the Sundered Lands?” said John.

“No,” said Dagon. “I’m too human to fit in there. I think it’s time for me to go to Shadows Fall.”