Just Another Judgement Day Part 2

The Baron had gone back to his old surgical experiments. Frankenstein, the living G.o.d of the scalpel.

He was standing at the far end of the room, wearing a blood-spattered butcher's ap.r.o.n over his cream suit, half-bent over the body on the table before him. It had been a young woman, though it was hard to tell that now. The Baron looked up at me, startled, his scalpel raised, dripping blood. We'd interrupted him at his work.

"Get out," he said. "You can't be here. I'm doing important work here."

"This isn't a surgery," I said. "It's a slaughter-house."

He straightened up, and, with almost prissy precision, put his scalpel down beside the woman's body. "No," he said calmly. "A slaughter-house is a place of death. This is a salon dedicated to life. Look beyond the obvious, Mr. Taylor. I am working to frustrate death, to cheat him of his victims. I take dead flesh and make it live again, all through my own efforts. You have no idea of the wonders and glories I've seen inside people."

He came out from behind the table to face Suzie and me, wiping the blood from his bare hands with a bit of rag. "Try to understand and appreciate what I'm doing here. I have gone far beyond merely duplicating nature. Now I seek to improve on her work. I use only the most perfect organs, reshaped and improved by surgical skills perfected over centuries. I . . . simplify things, removing all unnecessary details. And from these perfect parts I have built something new-a living creature completely in balance with itself. I see no reason why it should not live forever, and know lifetimes. It took me so long to understand . . . the key was to work not with corpses, but with the living! To harvest them for what I needed-the most fresh and vital tissues!"

"How many?" I said, cutting him off roughly. There was something almost hypnotic in the brute certainty of his voice.

"I don't understand," he said. "How many what?"

"How many victims, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! How many good men and women died at your hands, to make your perfect b.l.o.o.d.y creature?"

He actually looked a little sulky, angry that I hadn't got the point, even after he'd explained it all so carefully.

"I really don't know, Mr. Taylor. I don't keep count. Why should I? It's the parts that matter. It isn't as if they were anyone important. Anyone who mattered. People go missing all the time in the Nightside, and no-one ever cares."

"He does," said Suzie, unexpectedly. "Part of why I love him. He cares enough for both of us."

The Baron looked at her uncertainly, then turned his attention back to me. "Progress always has a price, Mr. Taylor. Nothing is ever gained without sacrifice. And I sacrificed them." He gestured at all the bodies on all the tables, and smiled briefly. "I do so love an audience. A failing, I admit, this need to explain and justify myself... But I think I've rattled on quite long enough. Am I to understand that Joan Taylor and Stephen Shooter will not be joining us?"

"No," said Suzie. "They rest in pieces."

The Baron shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I still have my nurses."

He snapped his fingers, and a whole army of bamboo nurses appeared out of the bare stone walls, snapping into existence, to fill the s.p.a.ce between us and the Baron. They surged forward, bamboo hands reaching out to Suzie and to me, but this time I was prepared. I'd been waiting for them. I took the salamander egg from my coat pocket, crushed it in my hand, and threw it into their midst. The egg exploded into flames, and a dozen nurses immediately caught fire. Yellow flames leapt up, jumping from nurse to nurse as the bamboo figures lurched back and forth, spreading the flames with their flailing arms. In a few moments the cellar was full of juddering, burning figures, a h.e.l.lish light dancing across the bare stone walls. Suzie and I were back by the door, ready to make our escape if necessary, but the Baron was trapped with his back against the far wall. He watched helplessly as the nurses crashed into his trestle tables, overturning them and setting them on fire, too. And in the end he had no choice but to shout the command Word that shut them all down. The figures crashed to the floor and lay there, still burning. The sound of crackling flames was very loud in the quiet.

Suzie and I moved forward into the cellar again, stepping carefully around blackened bamboo shapes. The Baron studied me thoughtfully. He didn't look nearly as worried as I'd thought he would. He had the air of someone who still had a card left to play.

"Wait," he said. "I'm sure we can reason together."

"I'm pretty sure we can't," said Suzie.

"You must meet my latest creation," said the Baron. "See the results of my work. Creature, stand! Show yourself!"

And from a dark, concealing shadow in one corner, something stirred and stood up. It had been sitting quietly on a chair all this time, so inhumanly inert it went unnoticed. Suzie moved quickly to cover the figure with her shotgun as it moved forward into the light. It was beautiful. Tall and perfect, utterly naked, it stood head and shoulders above us all, perfectly proportioned, no scars or visible st.i.tches anywhere, thanks to modern surgical techniques. It had strong androgynous features, and it moved with a sublime and perfect grace.

I hated it on sight. There was something . . . wrong wrong about it. Perhaps simply because it didn't move like anything human, because its face held no trace of human thoughts or human emotions. I felt the same way looking at the creature as I did when surprised by a spider. An instinctive impulse to strike out, at something with which I could never have any empathy. about it. Perhaps simply because it didn't move like anything human, because its face held no trace of human thoughts or human emotions. I felt the same way looking at the creature as I did when surprised by a spider. An instinctive impulse to strike out, at something with which I could never have any empathy.

"Isn't it marvellous?" said the Baron von Frankenstein, moving forward to place one large and possessive hand on the creature's bare shoulder. "Hermaphroditic, of course. Self-repairing, self-fertilising, potentially immortal."

No b.r.e.a.s.t.s and no obvious genitals, but I took his word for it. "Whose brain did you use this time?" I said finally.

"My own," said the Baron. "Or at least, all my memories, downloaded into a brain wiped clean of its original patterns. Computers have made such a difference to my work. You see, Mr. Taylor? Even if you kill me here, my work goes on. I go on, in every way that matters."

He patted his creature fondly on the shoulder. It turned its perfect head and regarded him thoughtfully, turned and placed its perfect hands on the Baron's face, and ripped the Baron's head right off his shoulders. The body fell jerking and kicking to the floor, the neck stump pumping blood, while the creature held the Baron's slack face up before its own. The Baron's eyes were still moving, and his mouth worked, though no sound came out.

"Now that I exist, you are redundant," said the creature, to the Baron's dying eyes. Its voice was like music; horrible music-with nothing human in it. "I have all your knowledge, all your techniques, so what use are you? Yes, you made me. I know. Did you think I'd be grateful?"

"I can't believe he didn't see that one coming," said Suzie.

The creature looked into the Baron von Frankenstein's eyes, satisfied itself that its creator no longer saw anything, and tossed the head aside. Then it turned slowly, thoughtfully, to consider Suzie and me.

"Nice operation the Baron had here," said the creature. "Think I'll take it over."

I shook my head. "Not going to happen."

"You can't stop me," said the creature.

Suzie shot it in the chest at point-blank range. The blast blew half its chest away, and the impact sent the creature staggering backwards. But it didn't fall, and when it regained its balance the huge wound was already repairing itself. The creature's mouth moved in something that would have been a smile on anything human.

"My creator made me very well. The best work I ever did."

I raised my gift, searching for the link that held all the creature's separate parts and pieces together, but there wasn't one. The Baron hadn't used science or sorcery to put his creature together, only expert surgical skills honed over lifetimes of work. I dropped my gift and looked at Suzie.

"We're going to have to do this the hard way. You ready to get your hands dirty?"

"Always," said Suzie Shooter.

So we took a scalpel each, slammed the creature to the floor, and took it apart piece by piece. There was a lot of kicking and screaming, and in the end we had to burn all the pieces separately to stop them moving, but we did it.

TWO.

At Home with John and Suzie

Until Walker's people arrived, Suzie and I stuck around, talking to the newly awakened patients, and comforting them as best we could. Well, I did most of the talking and comforting. Suzie isn't really a people person. Mostly she stood at the door with her shotgun at the ready, to a.s.sure the patients that no-one was going to be allowed to mess with them any more. A lot of them were confused, and even more were in various states of shock. The physical injuries might have been reversed, but you can't undergo that kind of extended suffering without its leaving a mark on your soul.

Some of them knew each other, and sat together on the beds, holding each other and sobbing in quiet relief. Some were scared of everyone, including Suzie and me. Some . . . just didn't wake up.

Walker's people would know what to do. They had a lot of experience at picking up the pieces after someone's grand scheme has suddenly gone to h.e.l.l in a hand-cart. They'd get the people help and see them safely back to their home dimension. Then they'd shut down the Timeslip, and slap a heavy fine on the Mammon Emporium for losing track of the d.a.m.n thing in the first place. If people can't look after their Timeslips properly, they shouldn't be allowed to have them. Walker's people . . . would do all the things I couldn't do.

When Suzie and I finally left the Guaranteed New You Parlour, Percy D'Arcy was outside waiting for us. His fine clothes looked almost shabby, and his eyes were puffy from crying. He came at me as though he meant to attack me, and stopped only when Suzie drew her shotgun and trained it on him with one easy move. He glared at me piteously, wringing his hands together.

"What have you done, Taylor? What have you done?"

"I found out what was going on, and I put a stop to it," I said. "I saved a whole bunch of innocent people from . . ."

"I don't care about them! What do they matter? What have you done to my friends?" He couldn't speak for a moment, his eyes clenched shut to try to stop the tears streaming down his face. "I saw the most beautiful people of my generation reduced to hags and lepers! Saw their pretty faces fall and crack and split apart. Their hair fell out, and their backs bent, and they cried and shrieked and screamed, running mad in the night. I saw them break out in boils and pus and rot! What did you do to them? What did you do to them?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "But they earned it."

"They were my friends," said Percy D'Arcy. "I've known them since I was so high. I never meant for this to happen."

"Percy . . ." I said.

"You can whistle for your fee!" said Percy, with almost hysterical dignity. And then he spun around and walked away, still crying.

I let him go. I saw his point, sort of. Some cases, no-one gets to feel good afterwards. So Suzie and I went home.

The Nightside doesn't have suburbs, as such. But a few areas are a little more safe and secure than anywhere else, where people can live quietly and not be bothered. Not gated communities, because gates wouldn't even slow down the kind of predators the Nightside attracts, but instead small communities protected by a few magical defences, a handful of force s.h.i.+elds, and a really good mutual defence pact. Besides, if you can't look after yourself, you shouldn't be living in the Nightside anyway. Suzie and I lived together in a nice little detached house (three up, three down, two sideways) in one of the more peaceful and up-market areas. Just by living there, we were driving the house prices down, but we tried not to worry about that too much. Originally, there was a small garden out front, but since Suzie and I were in no way gardening people, the first thing we did was dig it up and put in a mine-field. We're not big on visitors. Actually, Suzie did most of the work, while I added some man-traps and a few invisible floating curses, to show I was taking an interest.

Our immediate neighbours are a Time-travelling adventurer called Garth the Eternal, a big Nordic type who lived in a scaled-down Norman castle, complete with its own gargoyles who kept us awake at night during the mating season, and a cold-faced, black-haired alien hunter from the future named Sarah Kingdom, who lived in a conglomeration of vaguely organic shapes that apparently also functioned as her star-s.h.i.+p, if she could only find the right parts to repair it.

We've never even discussed having a housing a.s.sociation.

Suzie and I live on separate floors. She has the ground floor, I have the top floor, and we share the amenities. All very civilised. We spend as much time in each other's company as we can. It's not easy being either of us. My floor is defiantly old-fas.h.i.+oned, even Victorian. They understood a lot about comfort and luxury. That particular night, I was lying flat on my back in the middle of my four-poster bed. The goose-feather mattress was deep enough to sink into, with a firm support underneath. Some mornings Suzie had to pry me out of bed with a crow-bar. Supposedly Queen Elizabeth I had slept in the four-poster once, on one of her grand tours. Considering what the thing cost me, she should have done cart-wheels in it.

A carefully constructed fire crackled quietly in the huge stone grate, supplying just enough warmth to ward off the cold winds that blew outside. The wood in the fire remained eternally unconsumed, thanks to a simple moebius spell, so the fire never went out. One wall of my bedroom is taken up with bookshelves, mostly Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour Westerns, and a whole bunch of old John Creasey thrillers, of which I am inordinately fond. Another wall is mostly hidden behind a great big f.u.c.k-off wide-screen plasma television, facing the bed. And the final wall holds my DVDs and CDs, all in strict alphabetical order, which Suzie never ceases to make remarks about.

I have gas lighting in my bedroom. It gives a friendlier light, I think.

A richly detailed Persian rug covers most of the floor. It's supposed to have been a flying carpet at some point, but no-one can remember the activating Words any more, so it's just a rug. Except I always have to be very careful about what I say out loud while I'm standing on it. Scattered about the room are various and a.s.sorted odds and ends I've collected and acquired down the years, often as part or even full payment for a case. A few purported Objects of Power, some antiques with interesting histories, and a whole bunch of things that might or might not turn out to be valuable or useful someday.

There's a musical box that plays top-twenty hits from thirty years in the future. Still mostly c.r.a.p . . . Some Tyrannosaurus rex dung, in a sealed gla.s.s jar, labelled For when any old s.h.i.+t just won't do. For when any old s.h.i.+t just won't do. A bra.s.s head that could supposedly predict the future, though I've never heard it utter a word. And a single blood-red rose in a long gla.s.s vase. It doesn't need watering, and it hisses angrily if anyone gets too close, so mostly I leave it alone. It's only there to add a spot of colour. A bra.s.s head that could supposedly predict the future, though I've never heard it utter a word. And a single blood-red rose in a long gla.s.s vase. It doesn't need watering, and it hisses angrily if anyone gets too close, so mostly I leave it alone. It's only there to add a spot of colour.

As I lay on top of the blankets on my huge bed, listening to the wind battering outside and feeling all warm and cosy, it occurred to me how far I'd come since I returned to the Nightside. Wasn't that long ago I'd been trying to live a normal life in normal London and being spectacularly bad at it. I'd been living in my one-room office, in a building that should have been condemned, sleeping on a cot pushed up against one wall. Eating take-away food and hiding under my desk when the creditors came calling . . . I'd left the Nightside to feel safe. And because I was afraid I was turning into a monster. But there are worse things than that. Failure tastes of cold pizza and over-used tea bags, and the knowledge that you're not really helping anyone, even yourself.

I'll never leave the Nightside again. For all its many sins, it's my home, and I belong there. Along with all the other monsters. And Suzie Shooter, of course. My Suzie.

I got up off the bed, with a certain amount of effort, and went downstairs to see what she was doing. We loved each other as best we could, but I was always the one who had to reach out. Suzie . . . couldn't. But then, I knew that going in. So down the stairs I went, and treading the patterned carpeting was like moving from one world to another. Suzie wasn't what you'd call house-proud.

Her floor looked a lot like her old place-a mess. Dirty and disgusting with overtones of appalling. It was somewhat more hygienic, because I insisted, but the smell always. .h.i.t me first. Her floor smelled heavy, female, borderline feverish. I peered through the bedroom door in pa.s.sing. It was empty apart from a pile of blankets in the middle of the floor, churned up like a nest. At least they were clean blankets. Since she wasn't there, I moved on to the living-room, careful to knock on the door first. Suzie didn't react well to surprises.

Suzie was crashed out on her only piece of furniture, a long couch upholstered in deep red leather. So it won't show the blood, Suzie had said when I asked, so I stopped asking. She ignored me as I entered the room, her attention fixed on the local news showing on her more modest television set. The room never ceased to depress me. It was bleak, and so empty. Bare wooden floor-boards, bare plaster walls, apart from a huge life-size poster of Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel in the old Avengers TV show. Suzie had scrawled My Idol My Idol across the bottom, in what looked suspiciously like dried blood. across the bottom, in what looked suspiciously like dried blood.

Her DVDs were stacked in piles against one wall. Her Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, her much-watched copies of Easy Rider and Marianne Faithful in Girl on a Motorcycle. She also had a fond spot for James Cameron's Aliens and his two Terminator Terminator movies. Plus a whole bunch of Roger Cor-man's h.e.l.ls Angels movies, which Suzie always claimed were comedies. movies. Plus a whole bunch of Roger Cor-man's h.e.l.ls Angels movies, which Suzie always claimed were comedies.

She was wearing her favourite Cleopatra Jones T-s.h.i.+rt over battered blue jeans, and scratching idly at the bare belly between the two, while eating deep-fried calamari nuggets from a bucket. I sat down beside her, and we watched the local news together. The impossibly beautiful presenter was in the middle of a story about a proposed strike by the Nightside sewer workers, who were holding out for bigger flame-throwers and maybe even bazookas. Apparently the giant ants were getting to be a real problem.

Next, a new Timeslip had opened up in a previously unaffected area, and already members of the Really Dangerous Sports Club were racing to the location, so they could throw themselves in and be the first to find out where they'd end up. n.o.body was trying to stop them. In the Nightside we're great believers in letting everyone go to h.e.l.l in their own way.

And finally, a fanatical Druid terrorist had turned up in the Nightside with his very own backpack nuke wrapped in mistletoe. Fortunately, he had a whole list of demands he wanted to read out first, and he hadn't got half-way through them before Walker turned up, used his commanding Voice on the Druid, and made him eat his bomb, bit by bit. People were already placing bets as to how far he'd get before the plutonium gave him terminal indigestion.

Without looking away from the screen, Suzie reached out and placed her left hand lightly on my thigh. I sat very still, but she took the hand away again almost immediately. She tries hard, but she can't bear to be touched, or to touch anyone else in a friendly way. She was abused as a child, by her own brother; and it left her psychologically scarred. I would have killed the brother, but Suzie beat me to it, years ago. We're working on the problem, taking our time. We're as close as we can be.

So I was surprised when she deliberately put down her calamari bucket, turned to me, and put both her hands on my shoulders. She moved her face in close to mine. I could feel her steady breath on my lips. Her cool, controlled expression didn't change at all, but I could feel the growing tension in her hands on my shoulders, the sheer effort she had to put into such a small gesture. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands away and turned her back on me, shaking her head.

"It's all right," I said. Because you have to say something.

"It's not all right! It'll never be all right!" She still wouldn't look at me. "How can I love you when I can't touch you?"

I took her shoulders in my hands, as gently as I could, and turned her back to face me. She tensed under my touch, despite herself. She met my gaze unflinchingly for a moment, then lunged forward, pressing me back against the couch. She put both her hands on my chest and kissed me with painful fierceness. She kissed me for as long as she could stand it, then pushed herself away from me. She jumped up from the couch and moved away from me, hugging herself tightly as though afraid she'd fly apart. I didn't know what to say, or do.

So it was probably just as well that the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, and there at my front door was Walker himself. The man who ran the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone does, or can. A dapper middle-aged gentleman in a smart City suit, complete with old-school tie, bowler hat, and furled umbrella. Anyone else you might have mistaken for someone in the City, some nameless functionary who kept the wheels of business or government turning. But you only had to look into his calm, thoughtful eyes to know how dangerous he was, or could be. Walker had the power of life and death in the Nightside, and it showed. He smiled easily at me.

"Well," I said. "This is . . . unexpected. I didn't think you did house calls. I wasn't even sure you knew where we lived."

"I know where everyone is," said Walker. "All part of the job."

"As a matter of interest," I said, "how did you get past all the mines, man-traps, and shaped charges we put down to discourage the paparazzi?"

"I'm Walker."

"Of course you are. Well, you'd better come in."

"Yes," said Walker.

I took him into Suzie's living-room. He was clearly distressed by the state of the place, but was far too well brought up to say anything. So he smiled brightly, tipped his bowler hat to Suzie, and sat down on the couch without any discernable hesitation. I sat down beside him. Suzie leaned back against the nearest wall, arms tightly folded, glaring unwaveringly at Walker. If he was in any way disturbed, he did a good job of hiding it. Surprisingly, he didn't immediately launch into whatever business had brought him to my home for the very first time. Instead, he made small-talk, was polite and interested and even charming, until I felt like screaming. With Walker, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Usually he speaks to me only when he absolutely has to-when he wants to hire me, or have me killed, or drop me right in it. This new friendly approach . . . just wasn't Walker. But I played along, nodding in all the right places, while Suzie scowled so fiercely it must have hurt her forehead.

Finally, Walker ran out of inconsequential things to say and looked at me thoughtfully. Something big was coming-I could feel it. So I did my best to avert it with other business, if only to a.s.sert my independence.

"So," I said. "Did you get all the Parlour's patients safely back to their home dimension?"

"I'm afraid not," said Walker. "Less than half, in the end. Many didn't survive being separated from their life-support technology. Many more died from the shock of what had been done to them. And quite a few were in no fit physical or mental state to be sent anywhere. They're being cared for, in the hope that their condition will improve, but the doctors . . . are not hopeful."

"Less than half?" I said. "I didn't go through all that just to save less than half!"

"You saved as many as you could," said Walker. "That's always been my job-to save as many people as possible."

"Even if you have to sacrifice some of your own people along the way?" I said.

"Exactly," said Walker.

"Why should you get to decide who lives and who dies?" said Suzie.

"I don't," said Walker. "That's up to the Authorities."

"But they're dead," I said. "We were both there when they were killed and eaten by Lilith's monstrous children. So who . . . exactly . . . pulls your strings these days?"

"The new Authorities," said Walker, smiling pleasantly. "That's why I'm here. I need you to come with me and meet the new Authorities."

I considered him thoughtfully. "Now you know very well I've never got on with authority figures."

"These people . . . are different," said Walker.