Hex and the City

by Simon R. Green

  “I wish to know why probabilities are always so out of my control, in the Nightside. Why so many long shots, good and bad, come true here. Is there perhaps a hex on the Nightside, and if so, who put it there, and for what reason? I want to know these things. If I knew and understood the origins of the Nightside, I might be better able to manipulate chance here, as my role requires.”

  I looked at her thoughtfully, taking my time. Lady Luck was one of the Transient Beings, a physical incarnation of an abstract concept, or ideal. Appallingly powerful, but limited to the role she embodied. She normally appeared in person only once in a Blue Moon, but this was the Nightside, after all. And like every other Power and Domination, she always had her own agenda, as well as being notoriously fickle.

  “I’m not the first one you’ve approached about this, am I?” I said finally.

  “Of course not. Many others have had the honour to serve me in this matter, down the centuries. All of them failed. Or at least, none of them ever came back, to tell me how close they’d got. But it’s not in my nature to give up. I am always on the lookout for a likely…”

  “Sucker?” I suggested.

  She favoured me with her glorious smile again. “But you are different, John Taylor. I have high hopes for your success. After all, you can find anything, can’t you?”

  I considered the matter, letting her wait while I examined all the angles. When something seems too good to be true, it nearly always is too good to be true. Especially in the Nightside. Lady Luck sat patiently, as relaxed as a cat in the sun. Cathy had pushed her chair back as far as it would go without her actually joining another table, and it was clear from her unhappy face that she didn’t want me having anything to do with this case, or this client. But if I were afraid of taking chances, I’d never have come back to the Nightside. I nodded slowly to Lady Luck, and did my best to sound as though I knew more than I actually did.

  “The few who profess to know the Nightside’s true beginnings have a vested interest in keeping them secret. Knowledge is power. And these people…we’re talking major players, Powers and Dominations…Beings like yourself—and greater. They won’t take kindly to my barging in and treading on their toes.”

  “That’s never stopped you before,” Lady Luck said sweetly.

  “True,” I said. “But still, I have to ask: why haven’t you gone looking for the answer yourself if you want to know so badly?”

  Lady Luck nodded briefly, acknowledging the point. “I don’t interfere directly in the world nearly as much as people think I do. Statistics just have a way of working themselves out. My role requires that I remain…mysterious. Enigmatic. I prefer to work at a distance, through…deniable agents.”

  “Expendable agents.”

  “That, too!”

  I scowled. “I get enough of this doing jobs for Walker. Why did you choose me, particularly?”

  “Because you let the chaos butterfly go free, instead of destroying it. Or trying to control it yourself.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” I said.

  “What will it take to hire you?” said Lady Luck. “To take this case? How much do you want?”

  “How much have you got?”

  Her smile was suddenly that of a cat spotting a cornered mouse. “I will give you something far more valuable than gold or silver, John Taylor. I know who and what your mother was. I will tell you, in return for you finding out what I wish to know.”

  I leaned forward across the table, and I could feel my face and voice going cold and ugly. “Tell me. Tell me now.”

  “Sorry,” said Lady Luck, entirely unmoved. “You must earn your reward.”

  “I could make you tell me,” I said.

  People began getting up out of the chairs and backing away. Cathy looked as though she wanted to, but loyalty held her in place. And Lady Luck laughed softly in my face.

  “No you won’t, John Taylor. Because you’re as trapped in your role as I am in mine.”

  I sat back in my chair, suddenly very tired. Cathy scowled at me.

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

  “I have to. I want to know the origins of the Nightside as much as she does.”

  Cathy glared at Lady Luck. “Are you at least going to make John lucky, while he’s working for you? You owe him that much.”

  “If I were to ally myself openly with John Taylor,” said Lady Luck, “others of my kind might come out against him. You wouldn’t want that, would you, John?”

  “No, I bloody well wouldn’t,” I said. “Your kind are too powerful and too weird, even for the Nightside. But…could I perhaps say that I am working on your behalf? That would give me some authority, and might even get me into some of the more difficult places.”

  “If you like,” said Lady Luck, “but I cannot, and will not, intervene directly in your investigation.”

  I grinned. “The people I’ll be questioning won’t know that.”

  “Then the mission is yours,” said Lady Luck. She rose gracefully to her feet and bowed briefly. “Try not to get killed.”

  She vanished abruptly, in a crackle of possibilities. A spring of clear water bubbled up from the ground where she’d been standing. I didn’t think Rick would be too bothered. Knowing him, he’d probably make a feature out of it. Everyone watching began to relax, and sat down again. A number of serious hushed conversations started up, combined with lots of glancing in my direction. A few began pocketing the transmuted gold cutlery, until the penguin waiters made them put it back. Rick didn’t miss a trick.

  “I’ve decided…to sit this case out,” said Cathy. “I’m almost sure I have some urgent filing that needs doing, back at the office. Behind a securely locked and bolted door.”

  “Understandable,” I said.

  “You’re not thinking of doing this on your own, though, are you? You are definitely going to need backup on this one. Serious backup, with hard-core firepower. What about Suzie Shooter? Dead Boy? Razor Eddie?”

  I shook my head. “All good choices. Unfortunately, Shotgun Suzie is still on the trail of Big Butcher Hog, and likely to be for some time. Dead Boy is very involved with his new girl-friend, a Valkyrie. And the Punk God of the Straight Razor is currently occupied doing something very unpleasant on the Street of the Gods. It must be something especially upsetting, because some of the gods have come running out crying. No, I’ve got someone else in mind, for a case like this. I thought I’d approach Madman, and just maybe, the man called Sinner.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot yourself in the head now and get it over with?” said Cathy.

  THREE

  Dealing with Reasonable Men

  And so I walked out into the Nightside, looking for an honest oracle. There’s never any shortage of people who don’t want to be found, especially in the Nightside, and I don’t like to use my special gift unless I absolutely have to. My enemies still want me dead, and I shine so very brightly in the dark when I open my third eye, my private eye. Fortunately, there’s also no shortage of people (and things that never were and never will be people) who specialise in Knowing Things that other people don’t want known. There are those who claim to know the secrets of the past, the present, and the future; but most are only in it for the money, most of the rest can’t be trusted, and they all have their own agendas. Sucker bait will never go out of fashion in the Nightside. But luckily I was once offered, as payment for a successfully completed case, the location of one of the few honest oracles left in this spiritual cesspool. The long centuries had left the creature eccentric, garrulous, prone to gossip, and not too tightly wrapped, but I suppose that goes with the territory.

  I left Uptown behind me and headed back into the old main drag, where business puts on its best bib and tucker, and tarts itself up for the travelling trade. All the gaudiest establishments and tourist traps, where sin is mass-produced, and temptation comes in six-packs. In short, I was heading for the Nightside’s one and only shopping mall. Mass brands and fran
chises from the outside world tended to roll over and die here, where people’s appetites run more to the unusual and outré, but there’s always the exception. The Mammon Emporium offers brand-name concessions and fast-food chains from alternative universes and divergent timetracks. There may be nothing new under the sun, but the sun never shines in the Nightside.

  I strolled between the huge M and E that marked the entrance to the mall, and for once nobody crossed themselves, or headed for the nearest exit. The Mammon Emporium was one of the few places where I could hope to be just another face in the crowd. Shoppers from all kinds of Londons came here in search of the fancy and the forbidden, and, of course, that chance for a once-in-a-lifetime bargain. People dressed in a hundred different outrageous styles called out to each other in as many different languages and argots, crowding the thoroughfares and window-shopping sights they’d never find anywhere else. Brightly coloured come-ons blazed from every store, their windows full of wonders, and countless businesses crammed in side by side in a mall that somehow managed to be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Apparently space expands to encompass the trade involved.

  To every side of me blazed signs and logos from far and distant places. MCCAMPBELL’S DOLPHIN BURGERS. STAR-DOCK’S SNUFF. WILL DIZZY’S MORTIMER MOUSE. BAPTISMS R US. PERV PARLOUR. SOUL MARKET; new, used and refurbished. And of course the NOSFERATU BLOOD BANK. (Come in and make a deposit. Give generously. Don’t make us come looking for you.) A dark-haired Goth girl in a crimson basque gave me the eye from the shadowy doorway. I smiled politely and continued on my way.

  Right in the middle of the mall stood an old-fashioned wishing well, largely ignored by the crowds that bustled unseeingly past it. The well didn’t look like much. Just a traditional stone-walled well with a circle of stunted grass around it, a red slate roof above, and a bucket on a rusty steel chain. A sign in really twee writing invited you to toss a coin in the well and make a wish. Just a little bit of harmless fun for the kiddies. Except this was the Nightside, which has never gone in for harmless fun. Most oracles are a joke. The concept of alternate timetracks (as seen every day in the Nightside’s spontaneously generating Timeslips) makes prophecy largely unprofitable and knocks the idea of Fate very firmly on the head. But this particular oracle had a really good track record in predicting the present; in knowing what was going on everywhere, right now. I suppose specialisation is everything, these days. I leaned against the well’s stone wall and looked casually about me. No-one seemed to be paying me or the well any special attention.

  “Hello, oracle,” I said. “What’s happening?”

  “More than you can possibly imagine,” said a deep, bubbling voice from a long way below. “Bless me with coin of silver, oh passing traveller, and I shall bless thee with three answers to any question. The first answer shall be explicit but unhelpful, the second allusive but accurate, and the third a wild stab in the dark. The more you spend, the more you learn.”

  “Don’t give me that crap,” I said. “I’m not a tourist. This is John Taylor.”

  “Oh bloody hell; you’re back again, are you?” The oracle sounded distinctly sulky. “You know very well your whole existence makes my head ache.”

  “You haven’t got a head.”

  “Exactly! It’s people like you that give oracles a bad reputation. What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “What with?” I asked, honestly curious.

  “Trust me, you really don’t want to know. You think it’s easy being the fount of all wisdom, when your walls are covered with algae? And I hate Timselips! They’re like haemorrhoids for an oracle. And speaking of pains in the arse; what do you want, Taylor?”

  “I’m looking for the man called Madman.”

  “Oh God; he’s even worse than you. He’d turn my stomach, if I had one. What do you want with him?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  The oracle sniffed haughtily. “That’s right, make fun of a cripple. At least I can see where he is, unlike you. But this answer will cost you. No information for free; that’s the rule. Don’t blame me, I just work here. Until the curse finally wears off; then I will be out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “All right,” I said. “How many drops of blood for a straight answer?”

  “Just the one, for you, sweet prince,” the oracle said, its voice suddenly ingratiating. “And remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

  I looked down into the shadows of the well. “You’ve heard something.”

  “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t,” the oracle said smugly. “Take advantage of my sweet nature, before the price goes up.”

  I jabbed my thumb with a pin and let a single fat drop of blood fall into the well, which made a soft, ugly, satisfied noise.

  “You’ll find Madman at the Hotel Clappe,” it said briskly. “In the short-time district. Watch your back there, and don’t talk to any of the strange women, unless you’re collecting infections. Now get the hell out of here; my head is splitting. And carpe that old diem, John Taylor. It’s later than anyone thinks.”

  The Hotel Clappe, spelled that way to give it that extra bit of class, looked just like it sounded; the kind of dirty, disgusting dump where you rented rooms by the hour, and a fresh pair of sheets was a luxury. Good-time girls and others stalked their prey in the underlit streets, and the crabs were so big they leapt out of dark alleyways to mug passersby. Appearance was everything, and buyer beware. But there will always be those for whom sex is no fun unless it’s seedy, dirty, and just a bit dangerous, so…I walked down the street of red lamps looking determinedly straight ahead and keeping my hands very firmly to myself. In areas like this, the twilight daughters could be scarier and more dangerous than most of the more obvious monsters in the Nightside. Depressingly enough, an awful lot of them seemed to know my name.

  The Hotel Clappe was just another flaky-painted establishment in the middle of a long, terraced row, and no-one had bothered to repaint the sign over the door in years. I pushed the door open with one hand, wishing I’d thought to bring some gloves with me, and strode into the lobby, trying to look like a building inspector or someone else with a legitimate reason to be there. The lobby was just as foul and unclean as I expected, and the carpet crunched under my feet. A few individuals of debatable sexuality looked up from their gossip magazines as I entered, but looked quickly away again as they recognised me.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what Madman was doing in a place like this. I didn’t think he cared any more about sane and everyday things like sex or pleasure. But then, I suppose to him one place was as good as any other. And it was a good area to hide out. It wasn’t the kind of place you came to unless you had definite business here.

  A couple of elfin hookers made way for me as I approached the hotel clerk, protected from his world by a heavy steel grille. The elves looked me over with bold mascaraed eyes, and gave me their best professional smiles. Their wings looked a bit crumpled, but they still had a certain gaudy glamour. I smiled and shook my head, and they actually looked a bit relieved. God alone knew what my reputation had transmuted into, down here. Certainly the clerk behind his grille didn’t look at all pleased to see me. He was a short sturdy type, in grubby trousers and a string vest, a sour face, and eyes that had seen everything. Behind him a sign said simply YOU TOUCH IT, YOU PAY FOR IT. The clerk spat juicily into a cuspidor, and regarded me with a flat, indifferent face.

  “I don’t do questions,” he said, in a grey toneless voice. “Not even for the infamous John Taylor. See nothing, know nothing; all part of the job. You don’t scare me. We get worse than you coming in here every day. And the grille’s charmed, cursed, and electrified, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “And here I am, come to do you a favour,” I said cheerfully, carefully unimpressed by his manner. “I’ve come to take Madman away with me.”

  “Oh thank God,” said the clerk, his manner changing in a moment. He leaned forward, his face suddenly pleading, almost pa
thetic. “Please get him out of here. You don’t know what it’s like, having him around. The screams and the howls and the rains of blood. The rooms that change position and the doors that suddenly don’t go anywhere. He scares the johns. He even scares the girls, and I didn’t think there was anything left that could do that. My nerves will never be the same again. He’s giving the hotel a really bad reputation.”

  “I would have thought that was an advantage, in an area like this,” I said.

  “Just get Madman out of here. Please.”

  “We’d be ever so grateful,” said one of the elfin hookers, pushing her bosoms out at me.

  I declined her offer with all the politeness at my command, and the clerk gave me a room number on the second floor. The elevator wasn’t working, of course, so I trudged up the stairs. Bare stone steps and no railing, the walls painted industrial grey. I could feel Madman’s room long before I got anywhere near it. Like a wild beast, lying in wait around a corner. The feeling grew stronger as I moved warily out onto the second floor. Madman’s room lay ahead of me, like a visit to the dentist, like a doctor bearing bad news. The air was bitter cold, my breath steaming thickly before me. I could feel my heart pounding fast in my chest. I walked slowly down the empty corridor, leaning forward slightly, as though forcing my way against an unseen pressure. All my instincts were screaming at me to get out while I still could.

  I stopped outside the door. The number matched the one the clerk had given me, but I would have recognised it anyway. The room felt like the pain that wakes you in the middle of the night and makes you think awful words like tumour and poison. It felt like the death of a loved one, or the tone in your lover’s voice as she tells you she’s leaving you for someone else. The room felt like horror and tragedy, and the slow unravelling of everything you ever held true. Except it wasn’t the room. It was Madman.