Simon Green - Just Another Judgement Day

“I want you to stay out of my way,” said the Walking Man.

“Many people whose opinion I respect tell me that the Nightside serves a purpose,” I said slowly. “There are good people here. I won’t let you hurt them. This is my home.”

“Not for long,” said the Walking Man. He pulled his old mocking insolence about him, flashed me a smile, then turned his back on me and walked away.

“Bastard son of a bitch,” I said, after a moment.

“Well, yes,” said Chandra. “By the way, you have blood all down the front of your trench coat.”

I looked. Penny’s blood, from where I’d held her.

“Not for the first time,” I said.

We stood alone in the middle of the Boys Club, surrounded by the dead. The air seemed very still, very calm, as though a thunderstorm had just passed.

“I couldn’t stop him,” I said finally, unable to keep the helplessness out of my voice. “Even though I knew what to expect, even though I thought I was prepared for what he was, and what he did . . . I still couldn’t stop him.”

“Who are we, to stand against the will of God?” said Chandra Singh, reasonably. “And the men and women of this establishment were very definitely people who needed killing.”

“Not all of them,” I said. “The world is undoubtedly a better place with most of these people gone, but some of them were just...ordinary men and women, doing their jobs, drawing a pay-cheque to pay the bills and look after their families. Getting by, as best they could. Yes, they knew where the money came from... but whatever evil they did by working here was a small thing. Not worth dying like this.”

“Like your Penny Dreadful?” he said.

“She was never mine,” I said, automatically. “Penny was always her own woman. I never approved of her, but I liked her. She took no shit from anyone. And she really did do some good things in her time, even if she had to be paid to do them.” I looked around me, and a slow, steady anger burned within me. “They didn’t all need killing, Chandra. Some of them could have been saved.”

“Of course! That’s why you stay, isn’t it?” said Chandra, with the enthusiasm of a sudden insight. “To try and save those you care about. Like your Suzie Shooter.”

“Don’t go there,” I said, and when I looked at him, he fell silent.

No telling where that conversation might have gone because that was when King of Skin suddenly materialised out of mid air before us. Chandra and I both fell back a little, startled, as King of Skin skipped and swaggered among the dead bodies, sniggering and cackling and looking very pleased with himself. He stopped suddenly, and looked back over his shoulder at Chandra and me.

“I’ve been here all along,” he said, in his hot breathy voice. “Hidden by my power and my nature, watching and listening. Know thy enemy! He does like to talk, this Walking Man, and says so much more than he realises. He has a weakness, and it’s a very old one. Pride! He cannot ever admit to being wrong . . . Destroy his faith in the righteousness of what he does, even for a moment, and he will crumble . . . Oh yes!” He was suddenly right in front of me again, wrapped in his sleazy glamour, laughing right in my face. “Because of what I was, and what I am, I see the world very clearly. I see the Nightside for what it is, and not for what people on both sides like to think it is, or should be . . . That’s why Julien Advent insisted I be a part of his precious new Authorities. Because I will always see what needs to be done, and the best way to do it, no matter how upsetting.”

And just like that, he was gone again. Or at least, I presumed so. With King of Skin, you could never be sure.

I thought about Adrien Saint, the current Walking Man, so sure in his vocation. Could he really bring down the whole Nightside? Not by shooting the bad guys one by one . . . That would take him years, maybe centuries. So he must be planning something else. Something more . . . apocalyptic. Could he perhaps be the one to bring about the bleak dead future I’d encountered in the Timeslip? Where all the world was dead, and even the stars were going out? Could he be the real cause of that, and not me? Was that why the members of the new Authorities were the same people who had been my Enemies in that terrible future?

I had to stop the Walking Man. For many reasons. But how do you stop the will and wrath of God?

I was going to have to do some research.

We set fire to the Boys Club before we left. It seemed like the least we could do.

Afterwards, Chandra Singh and I stood outside in the street and watched the place burn. It went up very nicely. A crowd gathered around us to enjoy the spectacle. We like free entertainment in the Nightside. A street trader soon turned up to provide the crowd with snacky things on sticks, and in no time at all we were all variously toasting and roasting things in the flames of the burning Club. There’s nothing like a good pork, beef, and quite probably something else sausage you’ve personally blackened in a fire. Chandra politely declined to get involved and looked around uncertainly.

“Shouldn’t the fire brigade be here by now?”

“No such thing in the Nightside,” I said cheerfully. “The surrounding clubs have their own fire-insurance spells, so the blaze won’t spread. And in a high-rent area like this, reconstructive magics come as standard. This time tomorrow, there’ll be a whole new club standing here. Minus the Boys and their lackeys, of course.”

“What about the Walking Man?” said Chandra, apparently determined to be upset about something. “Shouldn’t we be hot on his trail before he causes another massacre?”

“If he’d been planning something imminent, he’d have told us,” I said, around a mouthful of sausage. “The man does love an audience. No, we’ve got time to do a little research. I need to talk with some Christian authorities, someone who can give us more detailed information...on the Walking Man in general, and the present incumbent in particular. Trouble is, there aren’t that many truly Christian people in the Nightside, apart from some rather extreme groups on the Street of the Gods, and a handful of missionaries.”

“Wouldn’t we be better off in a library?” said Chandra, tactfully. “You have some of the most famous libraries in the world here.”

“I think you mean infamous,” I said. “Not to mention downright dangerous. Some of our libraries have books that read people. And edit them. No, I think we need a more personal touch for something like this. Which rules out the big organisations, like the Salvation Army Sisterhood. They’d only feed us the party line. We need to talk to the missionaries, the holy rollers, and the dedicated individuals. Like Prestor Johnny, Saint Gorgeous, Kid Christ, or the Really Righteous Brothers.”

“They sound . . . rather eccentric,” said Chandra. Still being tactful.

“Well, yes,” I said. “You’ve got to be a little weird, not to mention certifiably strange, to want to spread the good word in a place like this. But we’ve always attracted more than our fair share of determined and highly individual religious zealots. Like Tamsin MacReady, the current rogue vicar. Yes, I think she’s our best bet. Ooh look—are those marshmallows?”

“The rogue vicar?” said Chandra, refusing to be side-tracked.

I finished the last of my sausage, discarded my stick, and wiped my greasy fingers on the coat of the person standing next to me. I strode away from the burning Boys Club, and Chandra walked along with me. A mothman had turned up, circling overhead, attracted by the light, and already people were using it for target practice.