Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth n-6

by Simon R. Green

  I grinned. “I was thinking of paying the Doormouse a visit.”

  Suzie winced visibly. “Do we have to? I mean, he’s so damned… cute. I don’t do cute.”

  “Brace yourself,” I said kindly. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  I announced our destination in a loud, clear voice, and Alex hit the latch and pulled the door open, revealing a typical Nightside street. People and other things bustled briskly back and forth, and the gaudy Technicolor neon pushed back the gloom of the cellar. I strode forward into the welcoming night, with Suzie right behind me, and Alex slammed the door shut.

  To the crowds in the street, we must have seemed to appear suddenly out of nowhere, but that was nothing new in the Nightside, so no-one noticed, or if they did, no-one gave a damn. They were all intent on pursuing their own pleasures and damnations. The twilight daughters catcalled to prospective customers from the street corners, sticking out their breasts and batting kohl-stained eyes. Club barkers cried their wares to the more unsuspecting tourists, and the traffic on the road roared past without ever, ever stopping.

  I hurried down the rain-slick pavement, noting without surprise that some people were already muttering my name and Suzie’s into mobile phones. Must be a really good price on my head. And there was the Doormouse’s shop, right ahead. It was set between a new establishment called the Bazaar of the Bizarre and a music emporium that specialised in rare vinyl LPs from alternate dimensions. I paused despite myself to check out the latest specials in the window. There was a Rolling Stones album with Marianne Faithfull as the lead singer, a Pink Floyd debut LP where they were fronted by Arthur Brown, and a live double album of Janis Joplin, from her gigs as an overweight, middle-aged lounge singer in Las Vegas. I wasn’t tempted. Not at those prices.

  The frosted-glass doors hissed open as I entered the Doormouse’s excellent establishment. Then I had to go back out again and drag Suzie Shooter in. Inside, it was all very high-tech, with rows of computers and towering stacks of futuristic technology, most of which I couldn’t even identify, let alone hope to understand. The Doormouse had very good contacts and an uncanny eye for a bargain. But what he did best… was doors. He came bustling forward to meet us, a cheerful six-foot-tall roughly humanoid mouse, with dark chocolate fur under a pristine white lab coat, complete with pocket protector. He had a long muzzle with twitching whiskers, but his kind eyes were entirely human. He lurched to a halt before us, clapped his paws together, and chattered pleasantly in a high-pitched but perfectly clear voice.

  “Welcome, welcome, sir and lady, to my humble establishment! Am I correct in thinking I am in the presence of two of the Nightside’s most noted celebrities? John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie, no less! My, my, what a day! I know, I know, you weren’t expecting all this technology, were you? No-one ever does. You hear the name Doormouse, and immediately your thoughts go all rustic, but I, sir and lady, am a Town Mouse! And proud of it! Now, what can I do for you? I have doors for everyone, to everywhere, and all points between. And all at very reasonable prices! So, just state your travelling needs, and I shall rush to satisfy them! Why is she growling at me?”

  “Don’t mind her,” I said. “She’s being herself. Are you the only mouse in the Nightside? That is…”

  “I quite grasp your meaning, sir. There were others, once, but they all moved away to a small town in the countryside. Wimps. I am the only one of my kind currently residing here.”

  “Good,” said Suzie. “I was beginning to think I’d have to start putting bigger traps down.”

  “I need a door,” I said, loudly. “One that will take us directly to the Necropolis. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Oh no, sir, not at all,” said the Doormouse, edging just a little further away from Suzie. “I always keep a number of the more common destination doors in stock, ready for sale. Both inside and outside the Nightside. This way if you please, sir and… lady…”

  He scurried away deeper into his shop, with Suzie and me in close pursuit, to a showroom full of doors standing upright on end, apparently entirely unsupported. Neat handwritten labels announced the destination they opened onto. Shadows Fall, Hy Breasil, Hyperborea, Carcosa. Together with a whole series of doors that would take you practically anywhere inside the Nightside. But it was two other doors that caught my attention, standing a little off to one side. They were labelled simply Heaven and Hell. They looked no different than any of the others—simple waxed and polished wood, each with a gleaming brass handle.

  “Ah yes,” said the Doormouse, easing chummily in beside me. “Everyone notices those.”

  “Can they really take you where it says they go?” I said.

  “That is a matter of some debate,” the Doormouse admitted, crinkling his muzzle. “The theory’s sound, and the mathematics quite clear. Certainly no-one who’s gone through has ever come back to complain…”

  “Let us talk of other things,” I said.

  “Yes, let’s,” said the Doormouse.

  He led us past other doors, some labelled in languages and ideographs even I couldn’t identify. And I’ve been around. We finally came to a door labelled Necropolis. The Doormouse patted it affectionately with one padded paw.

  “I always keep this one charged up and at the ready for people who need to visit the Necropolis for a sad occasion. Much more dignified than fighting the traffic in a black Rolls Royce. This door will deliver you and the… lady, to right outside the main entrance.”

  “Not inside?” I said sharply.

  “She’s started growling again,” said the Doormouse. “No, no, sir. Never inside! My doors lead only to exterior locations. If word got out that I was willing to provide access to the interiors of buildings, thus circumventing all usual security measures, you can be sure the Authorities would send Walker to shut me down. With prejudice. Now, sir, let us talk of the price.”

  We haggled for a while, and he drove a really hard bargain for a mouse. We finally settled for an only moderately painful extortionate sum, which I paid with gold from the traveller’s pouch Old Father Time had given me, when I travelled back in Time. The pouch was seemingly bottomless, and I’m pretty sure Time meant for me to give it back to him when I returned, but I fully intended to hang on to it until it was wrestled from my grasp. The Doormouse opened the door with a flourish, and Suzie and I stepped through into another part of the Nightside.

  The Necropolis looked just as I remembered it; big, dark, and supernaturally ugly. I’d been here not long ago, with Dead Boy, to clean up an incursion by Primal demons. Which meant that technically speaking the Necropolis staff still owed me a favour. How much weight that had, when set against Walker’s publicly stated disapproval, remained to be seen.

  The Necropolis itself was a huge towering edifice of old brick and stone, with no windows anywhere and a long, gabled roof. The various owners had been adding exteriors to it for years, in a clashing variety of styles, and yet the building maintained a traditional aspect of gloom and depression. The one and only front door was a massive slab of solid steel, rimmed with silver, covered with deeply etched runes and sigils and a whole bunch of nasty words in dead languages. Two huge chimneys at the back pumped out thick black smoke from the on-site crematorium.

  The Necropolis serves all the Nightside’s funereal needs. Any religion, any ritual, any requests, no matter how odd or distressing. Cash up front and no questions asked. People paid serious money to ensure that their dearly departed could rest peacefully in their graves, undisturbed and unmolested by any of the many magicians, necromancers, and creatures of the night who might profess an unhealthy interest in the helpless dead. And, of course, to ensure that the dead stayed dead and didn’t turn up unexpectedly to contest the will. In the Nightside, you learn to cover all the bases. I considered the ugly, sprawling building before me. Cathy was being held there somewhere, very much against her will, and if she’d been harmed in any way, someone was going to pay for it in blood and horror.

  “E
nough travelling,” said Suzie Shooter. “I feel the need to kill someone.”

  “Questions first,” I said. “But if anyone doesn’t feel like talking, feel free to encourage them in violent and distressing ways.”

  “You know how to show a girl a good time, Taylor.”

  “Except, your secretary isn’t in there,” said a calm, quiet, and very familiar voice.

  We both looked round sharply and there he was, Razor Eddie, the Punk God of the Straight Razor, standing unnaturally still in the pool of light from a nearby street-lamp. Even though he very definitely hadn’t been there a moment before. Razor Eddie, a painfully thin presence wrapped up in an oversized grey coat held together by accumulated filth and grime. His hollowed face was deathly pale and streaked with grime, dominated by fever-bright eyes and a smile that had absolutely no humour in it. We walked over to him, and the smell hit us. Razor Eddie lived on the streets, slept in doorways, and existed on hand-outs, and he always smelled bad enough to make a sewer rat’s eyes water. I half expected the street-lights to start wilting.

  “All right,” said Suzie. “How did you know we’d be here, Eddie?”

  “I’m a god,” said Razor Eddie, in his quiet ghostly voice. “I always know what I need to know. Which is how I know exactly where your secretary is being held, John.”

  I regarded him thoughtfully. Eddie and I were friends, sort of, but given the kind of pressure Walker was capable of bringing to bear… Eddie nodded slightly, following my thoughts.

  “Cautious as ever, John, and quite right, too. But I’m here to help.”

  “Why?” I said bluntly.

  “Because Walker was foolish enough to try and order me to do his dirty work for him. Like I give a damn what the Authorities want. I go where I will, and do what I must, and no-one gets to stand in my way. No-one tells me what to do. So, your secretary isn’t being held inside the Necropolis building, but rather in their private graveyard. Which is so big they keep it in a private dimension that they sub-let.”

  “Who from?” said Suzie.

  “Best not to ask,” said Razor Eddie.

  I nodded. It made sense. I’d heard that the Necropolis’s extensive private graveyard was kept in a pocket dimension, for security reasons, protected by really heavy-duty magics. Getting in wouldn’t be easy.

  “You can’t just crash into the Necropolis and intimidate the staff into giving you access,” said Eddie.

  “Want to bet?” said Suzie.

  “They know you’re here,” Eddie said patiently. “And they’re already on the phone to Walker, screaming for reinforcements. By the time you’ve smashed your way through that building’s defences, you’ll be hip deep in Walker’s people. And your only real hope for rescuing Cathy is a surprise attack. Fortunately, I can offer an alternative way in.”

  His right hand, thin and grey, came out of his pocket, holding a pearl-handled straight razor. He flipped the blade open, and the steel shone supernaturally bright. I could feel Suzie tensing beside me, but she had enough sense not to go for any of her weapons. Eddie flashed her a meaningless smile, turned away, and cut savagely at the empty air. The whole night seemed to shudder as the air split apart, widening and opening up like a wound in the world. And through the opening Razor Eddie had made, I could see another world, another dimension. It was a darker night than ours, and bitter cold air rushed out into our world. I shuddered, and so did Suzie, but I don’t think it was from the cold. Razor Eddie, unaffected, stared calmly through the gap he’d made.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

  “I went back to the Street of the Gods,” said Eddie, putting away his razor. “Got an upgrade. Did you know, John, there’s a new church there, worshipping your image. Unauthorised, I take it? Good. I took care of it for you. Knew you’d want me to. Follow me.”

  Poor bastards, I thought, as the Punk God of the Straight Razor stepped through the wide opening, and Suzie and I followed him through, into another world.

  The terrible cold hit me like a fist and cut me like a knife, burning in my lungs as I struggled with the thin air. Suzie blew harshly on her cupped hands, flexing her fingers so they’d be free and ready if she had to kill someone in a hurry. Before us, the graveyard seemed to stretch away forever. Row upon row and rank upon rank of massed graves, for as far as the eye could see in any direction, from horizon to horizon. A world of nothing but graves. The Necropolis’s private cemetery lay silently under an entirely different kind of night from the Nightside. It was darker, with an almost palpable gloom, apart from a glowing pearlescent ground mist that curled around our ankles and swirled slowly over the rows of tombstones. There was no moon in the jet-black sky, only vivid streaks of multi-coloured stars, bright and gaudy as a whore’s jewels.

  “We’re not in the Nightside any more,” said Eddie. “This is a whole different kind of place. Dark and dangerous and dead. I like it.”

  “You would,” said Suzie. “Damn, but it’s cold. I mean, serious cold. I don’t think anything human could survive here for long.”

  “Cathy’s here, somewhere,” I said. “Whoever has her had better be taking really good care of her. Or I will make them scream before they die.”

  “Hard-core, John,” said Suzie. “And not really you. Leave the rough stuff to me. I’m more experienced.” She looked around her and sniffed loudly to show how unimpressed she was. “The Necropolis could have chosen a more cheerful resting place for the Nightside dead.”

  “Perhaps all the alternatives were worse,” I said. “Or more expensive.”

  “We didn’t come here to admire the scenery,” said Razor Eddie.

  “Damn right,” said Suzie. “Find me someone I can shoot.”

  I looked around. There was only the dark, and the graves and the mist. Nothing moved, not a breath of wind anywhere, and the place was utterly silent. The only sounds in the cemetery were those we made ourselves. Razor Eddie’s rasping breathing, the creaking of Suzie’s leathers.

  “I don’t see anyone,” I said.

  Eddie shrugged slightly. “Nothing lives here. That’s the point. Even the flowers left on the graves are plastic.”

  There were headstones of all shapes and sizes, catafalques and mausoleums, statues of weeping angels and penitent cherubs and crouching gargoyles. All kinds of religious symbols, large and small, simple and complex, and a few even I didn’t recognise. All the objects of death, and not one of life.

  “I thought there might be at least a few mourners,” said Suzie.

  “Not many come here to visit,” said Eddie. “I mean, would you? Now follow me and walk carefully. There are concealed traps here, for the uninvited and the unwary.”

  Suzie brightened up a bit. “You mean some of those stone gargoyles might come to life? I could use some target practice.”

  “Possibly,” said Razor Eddie. “But mostly I was thinking about bear traps and land mines. The Necropolis takes security very seriously. Stick to the gravel path, and we should be safe enough.”

  “I never get to go anywhere nice,” I said, wistfully.

  I fired up my gift, hoping that since I was closer to Cathy, it would at least be able to provide me with a direction. My Sight was limited, in this new dimension. There was no hidden world here, no secret lives for me to See; just the dead, lying at peace in their gravesж and mausoleums, like so many silent strangers at the feast. And yet there was a feeling… of being watched, by unseen eyes. I tried to focus in on Cathy, but a strangely familiar shadow still hid her exact position from me. At least I had a direction.

  I set off down the gravel path, with Suzie Shooter and Razor Eddie on either side of me. Suzie had her shotgun in her hands, alert for any opportunity to show off what she did best. Eddie strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his unblinking eyes missing nothing, nothing at all. The sound of our feet crunching the gravel was uncomfortably loud, announcing our coming. I watched the shadows between the stone mausoleums, ready for any sudden attack from behind th
e larger tombstones; but I wasn’t at all ready for what lay in wait for us around an abrupt corner.

  They were sitting at a picnic around a pristine white cloth, laid out on a long earth barrow. There was a food hamper, with plates of cucumber sandwiches and sausage rolls and nibbles on sticks, and a bottle of quite decent champagne chilling in an ice bucket. And smiling calmly back at us—Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, and Sandra Chance, the consulting necromancer. Tommy’s usual New Romantic silks were mostly concealed under a heavy fur coat, but he still managed a certain dated style. He smiled easily at us, showing off a broad, toothy grin in his long, horsey face, and toasted me with a brimming glass of bubbly. Sandra just glared coldly, pale of face and red of hair, wearing nothing but apparently random splashes of dark crimson liquid latex from chin to toe. She looked like a vampire after a really messy meal, and not by accident. Sandra went out of her way to make an impression on people. Supposedly, the liquid latex also contained holy water and other useful protections. The tattoo on her back could make angels vomit and demons hyperventilate. Interestingly enough, she’d had all of the steel piercings in her face and body removed, recently enough that some of the holes were still closing. A simple leather belt, carrying a series of tanned pouches holding the tools of her unpleasant trade, surrounded her waist. She didn’t feel the cold because she thrived in graveyards. Sandra Chance loved the dead—and sometimes even more, if that was what it took to get them to talk.

  We’d worked together on a few cases, successfully, if not entirely happily. Sandra only cared about getting results, and to hell with whoever got caught in the crossfire. I liked to think that wasn’t true of me, any more.

  “Hello, old thing,” said Tommy Oblivion. “So glad you could join us. And you’ve brought company! How sweet. Do sit down and have a little something with us, and a splash of champers. I think it’s terribly important we all remain civilised in situations like this, don’t you?”