Simon Green - Just Another Judgement Day

The Walking Man swaggered down the Street to meet it, flashing his old insolent smile, and when he got close enough, he jumped lightly up to grab a handhold on the massive metal body and tore the Robot God apart, piece by piece, with his bare hands. Future energies howled and sputtered around the pair of them as the Robot God lurched back and forth, screaming bursts of static. In a matter of moments, all that remained was a scattered pile of metal parts and a few dispersing energies.

The Inscrutable Enigma appeared out of nowhere, forming itself around the Walking Man in spiralling circles of coruscating intensities. Its living energies had burned up through the material world to reach the Street, and its very presence set fire to the ground and ignited the air. Unearthly flames burned all around the Walking Man, but could not consume him. The Inscrutable Enigma might have been as much idea as matter, an alien concept manifesting in the material world, but it was still no match for the power that burned within the Walking Man. And all too soon the Enigma exhausted its energies and faded away, its base idea consumed by a bigger one.

Pretty Kitty God gave it her best shot. She was an utterly artificial god, cold-bloodedly designed and created by marketing groups to appeal to the biggest possible audience. But they did their job too well, and Pretty Kitty God became real, or real enough. She escaped the confines of her planned Christmas Special, broke the shackles of her trade-mark, and took up residence on the Street of the Gods, where she belonged. She was vast and powerful and almost unbearably cute. All fluffy pink fur and enormous eyes, ten feet tall and wondrously soft, she advanced on the Walking Man with her padded arms outstretched for a hug, to overwhelm as she always had, through sheer, unnatural cuteness. The God of Lost Toys, designed to appeal to all those who never got over finding out Father Christmas wasn’t real, or having their favourite teddy bear thrown out by their mother because they were too old for it now , though they weren’t and never would be. I’d seen Pretty Kitty God subdue and smother old-school horned demons within a deluge of sheer niceness.

She always gave me the shudders. Toys should know their places. They certainly shouldn’t want you to worship them.

The Walking Man gave Pretty Kitty God a hard look, and she burst into flames. She waddled away sadly, her leaping flames lighting up the gloom of the Street. The Walking Man, still smiling his mocking smile, looked unhurriedly about him, and all the gods of the Nightside stood there and stared back, not knowing what to do.

Then Razor Eddie appeared, and everything on the Street of the Gods went really quiet. He didn’t come walking down the Street, he didn’t make an entrance. He was suddenly there, the Punk God of the Straight Razor, a terrible thin presence in a filthy old coat, more than a man but less than a god. Or just possibly the other way round. Thin to the point of emaciation, his eyes dark and feverish in his sunken grey face, Razor Eddie was one of the more disturbing agents of the Good in the Nightside. He slept in doorways, lived on hand-outs, and killed people who needed killing, all in penance for the sins of his youth. He did awful things with his straight razor, in the name of justice, and didn’t give a damn.

I suppose he’s my friend. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.

He wandered down the Street towards the Walking Man, who turned and considered him thoughtfully. Like two gun-fighters in a Western town who’d always known that some day they’d have to meet, and sort out once and for all which of them was fastest on the draw. The wrath of God and the Punk God of the Straight Razor finally stood facing each other, maintaining a respectful distance, and it felt like the whole Street was holding its breath. God’s holy warrior and the most distressing agent the Good had ever had. The Walking Man’s nose twitched. Eddie lived among the homeless, and up close his smell could get pretty rank. But when the Walking Man finally spoke, his voice was calm and measured and even respectful.

“Hi, Eddie,” he said. “I wondered when you’d get here. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nothing good, I hope,” said Razor Eddie, in his pale ghostly voice.

“You should approve of what I’m doing here. Striking down the false gods, punishing those who prey on the weak.”

“I don’t give a damn for most of the scum who infest this place,” said Razor Eddie. “And yes, I’ve killed a few gods in my time. But Dagon . . . is my friend. You don’t touch him.”

“Sorry,” said the Walking Man. “But I really can’t make exceptions. Bad for the reputation. People would think I was going soft.”

“Bloody hell,” I said, stepping forward. “The testosterone’s getting so thick around here you could carve your initials in it. Both of you, take a step back and calm the hell down.”

The Walking Man looked at me. “Or?” he said politely.

I met his gaze steadily. “You really want to find out?”

“Oh you’re good,” said the Walking Man. “You really are, John.”

I looked at Razor Eddie. “You’ve got a friend here, on the Street of the Gods? You’ve been holding out on me.”

He shrugged briefly, the merest lifting of his shoulders. “Do you tell me all your secrets, John?”

“Can we at least give reason and common sense a try?” I said. “Before the shit hits the straight razor, and I have to get seriously peeved with both of you?”

“All right,” said the Walking Man. “I’m game. Try me.”

“The Street of the Gods serves a purpose,” I said, trying hard to sound both firm and reasonable. “Not everyone who comes to the Nightside is ready for the real thing, for true faith. You could say this whole place is a repository and a haven for the spiritually walking wounded. They have to work their way up, in easy steps, one step at a time, out of the dark and back into the light.”

“There is only one way,” the Walking Man said patiently. “There is good, and there is evil. No shades of grey. You’ve been living here too long, John. Made too many compromises along the way. You’ve got soft.”

“I haven’t,” said Razor Eddie. “You’re not so different from me, Walking Man. We both gave up our old lives, and all human comforts, to serve God in violent ways, to do the dirty work no-one else wants to know about.”

“If you understand, then step aside and let me do my work,” said the Walking Man. “You don’t have to die here today, Eddie.”

“Can’t do that,” said Razor Eddie. “Hard as it may be to believe, there are some good people here. And some good gods. One of them is my friend. And what kind of... good man would I be, to step aside and let my friend be killed? Sometimes this Street can be a place for second chances, one last opportunity to make something better of one’s life. I found new hope here. You have to believe that.”

“No I don’t,” said the Walking Man. And he shot Razor Eddie in the head.

Or at least, he tried to. Razor Eddie’s hand came up and round impossibly fast, his straight razor blazing like the sun, and cut the bullet out of mid air before it could reach him. The two separated halves fell to the ground, and the two small sounds seemed to echo on forever in the hushed quiet of the Street of the Gods. The Walking Man stood still, openly stunned, defied and defeated for the first time in his life since he’d left his simple humanity behind to become God’s hit-man. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen any more. And while he was standing there, trying to make sense of what was happening, Razor Eddie brought his straight razor round in a blindingly swift arc and cut the Walking Man’s throat.