Agents of Light and Darkness n-2

by Simon R. Green

  And all through Time Tower Square there was a terrible sound of angels crying out in pain and rage, as magic moved in the night, denying them their rightful prey.

  The angels flew in great spirals overhead, moving faster and faster, spreading wider and wider as they gathered in ever greater numbers. Soon there would be so many of them that no amount of magics would be enough to hold them back, then they would descend. One had clearly been impatient, and had paid the price. It had ventured too low, too soon, and one of the major players had snatched it out of the air and crucified it against the side of the Time Tower. Dozens of cold iron nails pierced its outstretched arms and legs, pinning it to the wall like a frog in a science lab, ready for dissection. But the angel was still alive, its light flickering feebly like a fallen star. Its golden eyes wept slow, mystified tears, unable to understand what had brought it so low. It was finding out the limitations of the material world the hard way. Its severed wings lay on the ground beneath its broken feet.

  Further off in the night, in a direction that could not be named or pointed to, there was a sound like a great engine slowly turning, as older, darker, more powerful presences began to wake, to defend the Nightside. They stirred in ancient vaults, or long-forgotten graves, creatures and beings of power and legend, some of them almost as old as angels, and as dreadful.

  The Nightside is an old, old place.

  Suzie and I eased around the edges of the Square, scurrying from one place of relative safety to the next. The air was full of the stresses of great forces clashing, like icebergs grinding together in the night sea. I had no intention of getting involved. I knew when I was out of my depth, and for once Suzie had enough sense to follow my lead. There were powers abroad in the night now that could crush both of us like bugs and never even notice. It seemed to take forever to creep around two sides of the Square, my heart hammering painfully fast in my chest all the way, but finally we were able to slip away into a blessedly anonymous side street and run for our lives. Behind us someone was screaming, but we didn't pause to look back. We weren't far from Big Sergei's Warehouse now.

  And, of course, Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. Possibly. Sometimes a friend, sometimes not. Saint and sinner, all wrapped up in one enigmatic and distinctly unhygienic bundle. Your connection to minor deities and divinity wannabes, and as much trouble as you can handle. An extremely disturbing agent for the good, and no, the good didn't get any say in the matter. He lived a life of violent penance for earlier misdeeds. Lots of them. The last time I'd seen Eddie was in a possible future I'd accessed through a Timeslip, and I'd ended up having to kill him: It had been a mercy killing, made necessary at least partly because of the time-traveling Collector, but even so it wasn't the kind of thing that came up easily in the conversation. I was still trying to decide just how much, if any, of this I should tell Eddie. The situation was complicated by Eddie's future self blaming me for the eventual destruction of the world. If I told Eddie that, I could quite easily see him killing me on the spot, on general principle. Of course, the future I'd visited wasn't inevitable. Nothing is set in stone where Time is concerned.

  As in so many things, I decided the best thing to do was wait and see what happened, and decide then, if at all. I'd always had a real talent for putting things off till later. Hell, I could dither for the Olympics.

  Suzie and I stopped at the edge of the warehouse district and looked cautiously about us. Fires were burning all around, some of them seriously out of control. The shadows danced and leapt, but the area seemed abandoned by mortals and angels. The fighting was over, and the struggle had moved on, leaving only flames and devastation behind. The air was tight and hot as a summer's day, and twice as sweaty. I could see Big Sergei's Warehouse at the end of the street, just another anonymous building among many. It seemed to have survived pretty much intact. The way to it seemed clear enough, but still I hung back, taking my time. Razor Eddie wasn't above luring me into a trap if he felt it served a higher purpose. Suzie growled restlessly at my side, hefting her pump-action shotgun and looking frustrated because she didn't have anyone to use it on.

  "This whole situation stinks, Taylor." Her voice was as cold and calm as ever, but her knuckles were white from holding the shotgun too tightly. I should really have insisted she go home, and rest and recover, but I didn't because I needed her. She sniffed at the smoky air. as though she could smell trouble, and perhaps she could, at that. "Think about it. Why would the Collector tell Eddie his most preciously guarded secret, the location of his collection? Eddie's spooky, but the Collector would slit his own granny's throat for a bargain. I can't see him putting his hoard at risk without a hell of a good reason. And everyone knows the Collector never gives away anything he can sell."

  'True," I said. "But on the other hand, Razor Eddie isn't an easy person to say no to. More to the point, if the Collector really has been forced to reveal the location of his warehouse, you can bet he's already making plans to move his hoard to a new location. If we take too long getting the information from Eddie, it might well turn out to be worthless."

  "It'll take the Collector time to move," said Suzie. "If he really does have everything he's supposed to have, it'll take him ages to shift it all. Particularly if he doesn't want to draw attention. And that's assuming he has an alternative safe site ready to move his collection to. No, we've got time. I'm more concerned with how much longer we can afford to spend standing around here. I'm beginning to feel like I've got a target painted on me. Find me something I can shoot."

  She was right, of course. In times like these, doing nothing can be just as dangerous as doing the wrong thing. So I started off down the street, heading straight for Big Sergei's Warehouse, as though I didn't have a care in the world. Suzie rather spoiled the effect by slinking along beside me, gun at the ready, glaring about her like a junkyard dog. No-one shot at us, or swooped down out of the sky on glowing wings.

  The front of Big Sergei's Warehouse was a long blank wall, with no name or sign anywhere. Big Sergei didn't believe in advertising. Either you knew his reputation, or you weren't big-league enough to do business with him. I kept my eyes open as we headed for the front door, ready to duck and weave and run as necessary. The warehouse was supposed to be protected by all kinds of state-of-the-art defenses, everything from tailored curses to anti-aircraft guns. No-one stole from Big Sergei and lived to boast of it. Didn't stop people trying, though. This was the Nightside, after all. The front door was said to be six inches of solid steel, protected by the very finest electronic locks, and all the windows had bulletproof glass and steel shutters. Big Sergei believed in feeling secure.

  Not that any of that would stop Razor Eddie, of course.

  "If Big Sergei's got any sense, he'll have sealed this place up tighter than a duck's ass and gone into hiding," said Suzie. "In which case, how are we going to get in?"

  "We'll just have to improvise," I said, trying hard to sound confident.

  "Ah yes," said Suzie. "Improvise. Suddenly and violently and without remorse. I feel better already."

  "Unfortunately," I said, slowing thoughtfully as we approached the front door, "it would appear someone else has beaten us to that."

  Up close, it was clear the warehouse had taken a battering. Several of the windows had been smashed, which couldn't have been easy with bulletproof glass, and their steel shutters were buckled, hanging crookedly, or completely missing. There was a hole in the wall up by the first floor, as though it had been hit by a cannon-ball. Or a very angry fist. And the celebrated front door, six inches of solid steel protected by all kinds of heavy-duty defenses, had been ripped right out of its frame and was currently lying in the street some distance away, in a severely crumpled condition. I gave it plenty of room as I cautiously approached the opening where the door had been. Suzie stuck close to me, shotgun at the ready. I peered in, satisfied myself that there was no movement or sounds of life, then stepped warily forward into the reception lobby. Suzie crowded past
me, sweeping her gun back and forth, eager for a target. The possibility of imminent violence had cheered her up considerably.

  The lobby was a mess. Every stick of furniture had been wrecked or overturned, and in some cases reduced to little more than kindling. The expensive carpeting had been torn and rucked up, as though whole armies had trampled across it. There were signs of bullet and bomb damage on some of the walls, and a tall potted plant in the corner had been pretty much shredded. The sheer extent of the destruction might almost have been funny, if it hadn't been for the blood. There was spilled blood everywhere, gallons of it. The torn carpeting was soaked from wall to wall, most of still so wet it squelched under our feet. There was more blood splashed across the walls, in thick red swatches and spatters, and the occasional handprint. It dripped from the shattered furniture, and from a wide wet stain on the ceiling. I didn't even want to think about what could have caused blood to jet almost a dozen feet into the air. I stepped around the dripping ceiling and advanced slowly across the lobby. I glanced at Suzie.

  "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you'd been here."

  She sniffed unhappily. "No, this is Razor Eddie's work. I'm a professional, he's ... enthusiastic. You know what worries me the most about this? Lots of blood ... but no bodies. What the hell has he done with the bodies? And what's with all this religious stuff on the walls?"

  She gestured at the paintings hanging crookedly on the walls. They all depicted extremely detailed scenes from the deaths of Christian martyrs, with the emphasis very much on blood and gore and suffering. There were large crucifixes too. Extremely graphic crucifixes. And there were signs in ugly block lettering; Pray for mercy while you still can. Every day, God is judging you. No mercy for the ungodly. The Church's way is the only way. Have you killed an unbeliever today?

  "Hard-core," said Suzie.

  "None of that was here the last time I had occasion to have words with Big Sergei," I said. "He believed in profits, not prophets. I can only assume that the Warriors of the Cross wanted to buy so much from him that it was easier for him to rent them the whole warehouse, for as long as they were here. And they ... made themselves at home. Just how many guns were the Warriors buying, I wonder?"

  Suzie scowled. "Didn't he realize they were planning an invasion of the Nightside?"

  I shrugged. "If he had, he wouldn't have cared. As long as they paid in advance. Someone was going to make a profit anyway, so why not him?" I looked around at all the blood and destruction. "The Unholy Grail has a lot to answer for. Jude said it attracted evil."

  Suzie looked at me. "Jude?"

  "Our client."

  "Oh yeah. So much has happened, I'd almost forgotten about him. So, where do we go now, Taylor?"

  "I think I may have spotted a clue," I said. She looked where I pointed. By a door marked stairs, someone had drawn a large arrow, painted in blood. "The stairs lead up to the offices on the third floor. We'd better get a move on. Razor Eddie's waiting for us."

  "Wonderful," said Suzie.

  We made our way up the stairs, following bloody arrows on the walls. Suzie took the lead with gun at the ready, checking every shadowed corner before she committed herself. There were no nasty surprises, only more damage and even more blood. A hell of a lot of people had to have died here, and recently, given how wet the blood still was. But there was never any sign of a body. The smeared scarlet arrows eventually led us to a small office at the back of the third floor. The door had been kicked in and was hanging drunkenly from one hinge. Suzie and I ducked past it, into the office. The cheap but practical furniture was still intact, but there was a long splash of blood across one wall. Not far away, there was a wall safe, with its heavy steel door torn away and left discarded on the floor. And sitting behind the office desk, slowly working his way through a pile of papers he'd taken from the safe, was Razor Eddie. He didn't look up as we came in.

  "Hello, John. Suzie. Come on in. Make yourselves at home. Be with you in a minute."

  Suzie headed straight for the open safe, grinned widely on finding it still packed with bundles of cash, and immediately set about transferring as many of them as she could into the many pockets of her leather jacket. Suzie had always been a deeply practical person.

  The Punk God of the Straight Razor looked much the same as always, a painfully thin presence in an oversized grey coat that had seen better days, a really long time ago. It was torn and ragged, and apparently only held together by accumulated filth and grease. His long gaunt face was unhealthily pale, all dark hollows and fever-bright eyes. His voice was low, controlled, almost ghostly. And he smelled really bad, all the time. There are sewer rats dying of the Black Death that smell better than Razor Eddie. The only reason he didn't attract flies was because they tended to drop dead if they got too close to him. His slender pale hands moved slowly and methodically through the papers before him, now and again setting one aside in a separate pile.

  "The Warriors of the Cross are an extreme, far-right Christian sect," Eddie said finally, still not looking up from what he was doing. "Widespread, very well funded, and very much into fire and brimstone and Crusades against... well, anything with even the faintest hint of fun about it. This particular branch of the Warriors was planning a full-scale invasion of the Nightside, in search of the Unholy Grail. Big Sergei apparently sold them everything from left-over Tiger Tanks to shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, and more guns and ammunition than the mind can comfortably comprehend, then disappeared sharpish before the shit could hit the fan. Nasty bastards, the Warriors. According to what I've found here, they were planning to set the Nightside on fire, then shoot everything that moved until someone handed over the Unholy Grail. But they got lucky. Someone just walked in here and offered to sell them the bloody thing. They, of course, tortured its location out of the poor bastard, then went and got it.

  "And then I came here and took it from them. After a certain amount of unpleasantness.

  "The Warriors of the Cross have done a lot of really nasty things in the past, and I had been looking for an excuse to make clear how displeased I was with them. It's extremists like this who give religion a bad name. They were only a small branch, of course, but I like to think I've sent a message."

  "A message?" I said.

  "Stay out of the Nightside, for starters." He looked up for the first time, and a smile moved briefly over his pale lips. "Wish I'd known the angels were coming. They'd probably have been even more unpleasant to the Warriors than I was. Not that I like the angels much better."

  Suzie came back to join me, her jacket bulging with accumulated cash. She gave Eddie a hard look. "What did you do with the bodies, Eddie?"

  He smiled again, just as briefly. "I sold them. Got a good price, too."

  There are some conversations you know you don't want to pursue any further. I coughed politely, to draw Eddie's attention back to me. "You said you knew where we could find the Collector, Eddie. I really do need to see him rather urgently."

  "Ah yes. The great mystery of the Nightside; the location of the Collector's secret lair. I've been there. No doubt you've been wondering why he should chose to reveal his greatest secret to the likes of me. Simple really. I didn't give him any choice. A quick tour of his collection was part of the price I demanded for retrieving the Unholy Grail from the Warriors and handing it over to him." Eddie laughed softly, a thin ghostly sound, like the wind gusting through dead branches. "I had him over a barrel, and he knew it. He was desperate at the thought of losing out on such a unique item, and I wanted to see his collection. I hadn't known he possessed the Speaking Gun, until he told me he'd lost it. Nasty weapon. I understand you have it now. If you're sensible, you'll get rid of it. The Speaking Gun has never made anyone happy or wealthy or wise. It was made to destroy, and that's all it does. Anyway, it occurred to me that if the Collector had one such weapon, he might well have others, and I wanted to know what. After all someday he might try to use them against me."

  There were many things I
might have said, but I chose not to. "We did try to use the Speaking Gun," I said. "It wasn't a success."

  "Bloody thing's alive," said Suzie. "And vicious."

  "In which case, I'm amazed you're still alive," said Eddie. "Hell, I'm impressed you're still sane."

  "What was the Collector's place like?' said Suzie, sticking to the point as always.

  "Big," said Eddie. "Bigger than the human mind can comfortably conceive. Floors and floors of it, packed to saturation point, including a whole load of crates he hasn't even got around to unpacking yet He has so much stuff now, even he can't be sure of everything he's got. And, of course, he'd die before he brought in any assistance." Eddie considered for a moment. "I'll tell you this; he must have been collecting for a lot longer than any of us thought. He has some items you wouldn't believe..."

  "Where is his lair, Eddie?" I said patiently. "And how do we get in?"

  Eddie produced a computer card out of nowhere and laid it carefully on the desk before me. It was made of brass and studded with precious gems. "This card is programmed to open all his locks. The Collector shouldn't know it's missing yet, but I wouldn't wait too long before using it."

  "Eddie," I said, "Where..."

  "On the Moon," said Razor Eddie. "In a series of caverns and tunnels, dug out deep under the Sea of Tranquility. Complete with power, atmosphere, and artificial gravity. I don't know whether he had it made for him, or simply inherited it... Either way, he's filled it with all the comforts of home, and all kinds of defense systems, including some he apparently looted from the future. You have to admire the man's nerve ... How you two get to the Moon, and into his lair, is unfortunately your problem. I can't help. The Collector teleported me there and back. Any questions?"