“Girl side-kick? You arrogant little tosser! You don’t mess with my boss!”
Cathy had a very large pistol in her hand, aimed right at the Sun King’s chest. I grabbed her arm and pulled it down, then wrestled with Cathy till I was sure she wasn’t going to try that again. She stopped fighting me, breathing hard, and glared at me. I glared right back at her.
“Why not, boss? Give me one reason why not?”
“You really think a bullet is going to stop him? Or the Entities behind him? He could turn you inside out just by looking at you! Where did you get hold of a gun, anyway? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Suzie gave it to me.”
“Of course she did. Please, Cathy, as a personal favour to me, put the gun away. Before he decides to do something amusing to it. Or you.”
Cathy snarled but made the gun disappear somewhere about her person again. I had to lean on the nearest pew for a moment. Even the brief struggle with Cathy had taken a lot out of me. There wasn’t a lot left in me to draw on. Cold sweat beaded my face, and my legs were trembling. I could barely feel the rough ancient wood of the pew, under my hands.
“Not looking too good there, John,” the Sun King said cheerfully. “In fact, I’d have to say you were looking pretty shit. Been having a hard time, have you? Getting near the bottom of the barrel? I knew there was a reason why I had the Entities mess you up and drive you round the Nightside like a mad thing. Killing you would have been far too kind. I wanted you to catch up with me and be here for my final triumph. Because it’s never enough to break your opponents; they have to admit they’ve been beaten.”
“That’ll be the day,” I said. I pushed myself upright and turned away from the pew, with an effort I hoped wasn’t too obvious. I met the Sun King’s gaze steadily.
“You made it as difficult as you could, but I’m still here. And I will stop you.”
“How did it feel, John?” said the Sun King. “Having to kill your old friend, Julien Advent?”
I heard Cathy’s breath catch in her throat. “You killed him, John? You really did kill him?”
“I need you to trust me, Cathy,” I said, not looking round. “I have no right to ask it of you, but . . .”
“Of course you do. You risked your life to save me. Nothing else matters. You can fill me in on the details later.”
“Yes. I promise I’ll tell you everything, later.” I took a step towards the Sun King. “I did what I had to do. I’ve always been able to do the hard, necessary thing.”
“Yes, but how did it feel, John? Did it break your heart? Well, now you know how I feel. The world, the future that I gave my heart and soul to, betrayed me by not becoming what it was supposed to.”
“Wallow in self-pity on your own time,” I said. “Where’s the Lord of Thorns?”
The Sun King shrugged easily. “I had the Entities lure him away, with urgent news. Though I can’t believe anyone his age still believes in angels. Only room for one living god in this church, and that’s me.”
“But why here?” said Cathy bluntly. “Come on; you know you want to tell us. Your sort always likes to make speeches and justify yourself.”
“Girl side-kicks should be seen and not heard,” said the Sun King. “If they like having their tongues attached. But she’s right, John; I always have loved addressing an audience. Those were my happiest days, preaching in Haight-Ashbury. So why St. Jude’s? Because this particular place was here before the Nightside was here. A holy place, where Heaven touched Earth, briefly, and made a connection. This location was sacred long before someone built a church here, and made it Christian with a saint’s name. Think of St. Jude’s as a conduit, where here meets the hereafter. Where reality itself can be overwritten, by a greater power.
“I will call on the Aquarians, and they will fill me with their power, in this place where miracles happen and dreams come true. I will bring the sun here, and let the sun shine in, and it will shed its natural light over this unnatural darkness and make it what it should always have been. Sunnyside! Let us all hail the Age of Aquarius, and the soul’s true liberation! All things shall be made well, all hurts healed, and good things will happen every day.”
“You can’t do that,” I said.
He glared at me, irritated at being interrupted in midflow. “Oh, I think you’ll find I can. I must. I have to save the world. From itself, if need be.”
“You don’t understand!” I said. “You’ve never understood how important the Nightside is, just as it is! We are the last-ditch defence, against things like the Aquarians, or whatever they really are. What the good guys can’t do, we will. The Nightside is here to do whatever needs doing, to defend Humanity, and the world. Your Aquarian masters need you to destroy us, so they can invade our reality. You must see that! They’re not Entities, they’re Enemies!”
At the end I was shouting at him, but he didn’t flinch. None of it touched him. He smiled coldly, condescendingly.
“You’re so desperate now you’d say anything, anything at all to stop me, wouldn’t you? Well, tough. Here comes the Sun.”
At that moment, the shotgun blast hit him square in the chest, punching him right off his feet, and backwards over the stone altar. Blood flew on the air, and the Sun King hit the floor behind the altar. He hit it hard, and didn’t move again. And while the sound of the shotgun blast was still ringing on the close air of the church, I turned to look; and there was Shotgun Suzie, my Suzie, standing behind me. Smoke still rising from both barrels of her pump-action shotgun. She stood tall and proud in her black motorcycle leathers, my blonde-haired Valkyrie. She smiled at me.
“You didn’t really think I’d leave you to do all this on your own, did you?”
“I thought you’d never get here,” I said. Because I had to say something.
Suzie racked new shells into place and strode forward to join me, tilting the gun up and back to rest on her leather-clad shoulder. I made myself stand very still. Hope was a small and fragile thing in my heart, and I didn’t want to do anything to disturb it.
“I knew someone would be listening in on my phone,” she said, in her cool, calm voice. “It’s what I would have done. So I said what they expected me to say. And once everyone knew I was pursuing you for the bounty on your head, most of the other would-be bounty hunters quietly dropped out of the race. Rather than go up against me. I’ve been trailing you at a distance for ages, taking out anyone who looked like getting too close. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve saved your life, tonight. You didn’t even notice, did you? All caught up in the thrill of the chase. You always did need me to watch your back. And now here we are, at the end of the trail. Together again.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “You’re being very quiet, John. You didn’t really think I’d turned against you, did you?”
“Of course not,” I lied.
Suzie looked at me, for a long moment. “It must have been very hard for you, out there on your own. All your friends turned against you. I’m glad you found Cathy.”
“More like I found him!” Cathy said cheerfully. “So you never wanted the bounty on John’s head?”
“There’s only ever been one bounty, as far as I was concerned,” said Suzie. “And that was on the Sun King. No-one messes with my man and gets away with it.”
“You are a very frightening person,” said Cathy. “Don’t know what he sees in you.”
But they were both smiling. They never doubted me for a moment. They were always better people than me.
We all stopped, and looked around, as we heard sounds of movement from behind the altar. And there was the Sun King, rising to his feet, brushing himself down in a fussy sort of way. He turned to face us and smiled, completely unharmed. His Coat of Vivid Colours had no bullet-holes in it, and no blood-stains. His gaze was very cold.
“I can’t believe he’s getting up again,” said Suzie. “I must be losing my touch.”
She stepped forward and shot him in the face with
both barrels, at point-blank range. The sound was deafening, and smoke filled the air. But when it cleared, he was still standing there, untouched. He smiled at Suzie, showing his teeth, defying her. I’d always suspected that with the power of the Entities behind him, no mortal weapon could stop the Sun King. Suzie lowered her shotgun, not even bothering to rack fresh shells. Oddly, she didn’t seem that upset. She looked at me and surprised me with a quick wink.
“Good thing I brought a few friends along,” said Suzie.
Razor Eddie and Dead Boy strode into St. Jude’s as though they’d been waiting at the door all along, ready for their cue. Which they probably had been, though only Suzie could have persuaded them to go along with such a plan. (Because Razor Eddie doesn’t take orders, and Dead Boy always wants to be the first into any dangerous situation.) Razor Eddie looked uneasily about him. As far as I knew, he’d never seen the inside of St. Jude’s before. He might be the Punk God of the Straight Razor, but he was in the presence of a greater power now, and he knew it. He nodded brusquely to me.
“I would have beaten you in the cemetery if something hadn’t been messing with my head. Not my fault if my heart wasn’t really in it.” He smiled at me for a moment, then turned to glare at the Sun King. “As for you, when I decide to kill John Taylor, it will be my idea and no-one else’s.”
“Can’t take you anywhere,” said Dead Boy. He pushed in beside Eddie and smiled ruefully at me. “We would have been here sooner, but it took me a while to put myself back together again. Did you have to take me apart quite so thoroughly? You know I’ve never been any good at sewing. Still, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that you didn’t damage my car in the least.”
“Are you both clear in your minds towards me now?” I said, smiling despite myself. “Are we all friends again?”
“Move on,” said Razor Eddie. “I wasn’t myself.” It was as close to an apology as he could get.
“Being dead means never having to say you’re sorry,” Dead Boy said solemnly. “It was Suzie here that did it. Having her around was enough to break the influence. She is a very . . . single-minded person, and very attached to you, in her own endearing and really quite scary way.”
Razor Eddie nodded. “She intimidated the influence right out of me. Nothing like having a shotgun shoved up your nose to concentrate the mind wonderfully.”
“You have such friends, John,” said the Sun King. “You should be very proud of them.”
Larry and Tommy Oblivion came strutting in, to join the party. Tommy was grinning broadly, and Larry looked as pleasant as his dead face and dour personality would permit.
“Once the Library broke the Sun King’s influence over us, it never got a proper grip again,” said Tommy happily. “And then we joined up with Suzie and these two bad boys, and came here.” He glared at the Sun King and stuck out his tongue at him.
“And it did help,” said Larry, “When we were presented with proof that Julien Advent wasn’t dead after all.”
Footsteps approached the church from outside, and I spun round to face the door; a sudden wild pleading hope filling my heart to bursting. And through the door came Dr. Benway and Julien Advent. I staggered and almost fell as the strength went out of my legs, and I had to grab onto a nearby pew to hold myself up. Julien smiled at me; and in that smile was all the understanding and forgiveness in the world. I ran to him, and hugged him, and held on to him like a drowning man who’s finally been offered an outstretched hand. He patted me on the back as I held him to me, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was looking extremely embarrassed. Neither of us has ever been the touchy-feely kind. But right then I didn’t care. I finally let him go and stepped back to look him over. He looked fine.
“No,” he said, smiling. “I’m not dead. I never was.” He looked at the Sun King, and his smile was strangely understanding. “You could have let me die, but you didn’t. Because you couldn’t bring yourself to kill me. Despite everything, despite your masters’ orders, you couldn’t do something you knew was wrong.”
“No,” said the Sun King. “How could I kill my oldest friend? But I needed John Taylor distracted, and the whole Nightside outraged enough to want him dead, so I went with the thing that would have upset me most.” He looked at me. “All an illusion, John. You only thought you killed him. I put him in a coma and tucked him away in Ward 12A. Seemed appropriate. And then I convinced everyone else to see things my way. You keep thinking of me as the villain, John, but I’m really not. I only do what I have to do, for the greater good.” He looked at Julien. “You were quite definitely in a coma. How . . . ?”
“Shouldn’t have put me in Ward 12A,” said Julien. “You and your sense of humour . . . Dr. Benway spotted me the moment she made her next rounds. She woke me up, and we went out into the Nightside together and joined up with these good people.”
“Suzie broke the influence, but it kept creeping back,” said Dead Boy. “Until they came along. Hard to believe someone is dead when they’re standing right in front of you insisting that they’re not. I mean, I know dead; and he isn’t.”
“Suzie brought us here,” said Razor Eddie. “So we could make amends for being . . . mistaken.”
“And so we could kick the Sun King’s arse,” said Larry Oblivion. “The Nightside may be a spiritual cesspit, but it’s our spiritual cesspit.”
“You old romantic, you,” said Tommy.
The Sun King wasn’t paying any attention to us. He only had eyes for Dr. Benway. He studied the old woman, with her grey hair and lined face, still wearing her white doctor’s coat, and his smile was a very gentle thing indeed.
“So, after all these years . . . Princess Starshine has returned to join her Sun King,” he said. “You always were my touchstone, Emily. You were the one I wanted to make a better world for. When I finally came out of the White Tower, and you weren’t there . . . When I found out I’d lost you, and the life we should have had together . . . It was like I’d lost everything that mattered. All I had left, was the Dream. It’s all I’ve got left now. I will bring about a better world. Because I am the good guy here, and I will not be stopped.”
“I keep telling you,” I said. “In the Nightside, it’s not enough just to be the good guy. To fight the real bad guys, like your Aquarian masters, you need fighters, monsters, outcasts, like us.”
“No!” said the Sun King. “I have given my life to this! I saw the Dream, in the Summer of Love, and it was a real thing! It should have happened; it would have happened if I’d still been here! Well, I’m here now, and I will make up for my absence; and all of you together aren’t enough to stop me! I will do this! I will! You aren’t enough!”
“Just as well I’m here, then,” said the Lord of Thorns.
We all looked round again. The Lord of Thorns didn’t walk through the doorway; he was suddenly there, with us, a cold, forbidding presence in his long, grey robes, long, grey hair and beard, leaning on a heavy wooden staff. Looking like one of those Old Testament prophets who never did believe in sugar-coating God’s words. He smiled upon the Sun King, and it was not a good smile.
“Did you really think you could lure me from this sacred place with your petty stratagems?” he said, his voice as unyielding as the ancient, grey, stone walls of St. Jude’s. “I have been here all along, watching and waiting. For this moment.”
“You can’t stop me!” shouted the Sun King. His face was flushed red, his eyes puffy as though he wanted to cry tears of sheer frustration, and there was something of the thwarted, petulant child in his voice. “Even all of you together don’t have the power to stand against me! All those long years I spent in the White Tower, learning terrible wisdoms at my masters’ feet, all to gain the power I needed, to do this thing! To do this one, necessary, thing!”
“It’s not your power,” I said. “It never was. You have nothing except for what the Entities let you have. To do their work. If you could only see who and what they really are, you’d throw that power bac
k in their faces.”
“What?” said the Sun King. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because you’re the good guy,” I said. “And they’re not.”
And I raised my gift one last time and reached out with my mind, to find the Entities from Beyond, the Aquarians, or whatever the hell they really were. It took everything I had left, every last bit of hoarded strength. Blood coursed down my face, from my eyes and my nose. It ran from my ears, and spilled from my slack lips. I could feel things bleeding and breaking inside me, important things. I’d pushed myself and my gift further than I ever had before. Too far. No coming back from this. But after everything I’d done, after my lack of faith in those who’d loved me most, how could I not? It needed doing, so I did it. That’s always been my job. My legs started to buckle, and Cathy and Suzie moved quickly in on either side to hold me up. They were both speaking to me, saying urgent things, but I couldn’t hear them. I pushed past all the pain, refusing to be beaten by my own weakness, and concentrated on my gift. And I found my way to the Entities from Beyond and the world where they lived.
And once I’d done that, the greater power in St. Jude’s rose and bound all of us, everyone in the church, together; and used us as a focus to open a door between the Nightside and the other place. I couldn’t have done it on my own, but I wasn’t alone. My good friends were with me. In St. Jude’s, where prayers are answered, and miracles can happen.
The gateway lay before us, a great circle cut in the air itself, through which the other reality could be seen. Don’t ask me where it was. Outside; that’s all I can tell you. Not simply another world but another reality. A harsh light blasted into the church through the gateway, thick and foul and somehow spoiled. Far worse than the few drops of light that had spilled through before, pulled through by the Sun King’s presence. This was an alien light, from an alien place, never meant for human eyes. And through that light, that gateway, I could see the other place, so alien as to be almost beyond human comprehension. Think of a whole world, a whole universe, made up of insects crawling over a ball of dung, forever and ever. That’s as close as I can some to describing what I saw there.
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