Mean Streets Page 8

  “Ignore him,” I said. “He’s just boasting.”

  “But . . . Scissormen?” said Liza.

  “Everything comes to the Nightside,” I said. “Especially all the bad things, with nowhere else to go. Still, it’s always a shame when childhood characters go bad. How did you get away from them?”

  “I didn’t,” said Liza, her eyes and her voice becoming uncertain again as she remembered. “They were all around me, smiling their awful smiles, opening and closing their . . . scissorhands, chanting something in German in shrill mocking voices. They cut at me, always drawing back at the very last moment, and laughing as I jumped this way and that to avoid them. Scuttling round and round me, always pressing closer, smiling and smiling . . . And nobody did anything! Most people didn’t even stop to watch! I was screaming by then, but no one helped. Until this . . . strange man appeared out of nowhere, and the Scissormen stopped, just like that. They huddled together, facing him like a pack of dogs at bay. He said his name, and the Scissormen just turned and ran. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “What was his name?” I said.

  “Eddie. He was very sweet, though he looked like some kind of vagrant. And from the smell of him, he’d been sleeping rough for some time. I tried to give him some money, but he wasn’t interested. He listened to my story, though I don’t know how much sense I made, and then he brought me here. Told me to look for you. John Taylor. That you’d be able to help me. Do you know this man?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Dead Boy. “Everyone here knows Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. No wonder the Scissormen cut and ran. Most people do.”

  Liza looked at me, and I nodded. “Eddie’s a good man, in his own disturbing way. And he’s right; I can help you. I have a gift for finding things.”

  “Even missing memories?” Liza managed a real, hopeful smile for the first time.

  “Anything,” I said. “But I have to ask . . . are you sure you want to remember? A lot of the time, people forget things for a reason.”

  She looked at me steadily. “Of course I want to remember. I think I need to. I think . . . something bad happened.”

  “In the Nightside? I can practically guarantee it,” said Dead Boy.

  “You’re really not helping,” I said. “Liza, you’re sure you’ve never even heard of the Nightside before? It’s not unheard of for innocents to wander in by accident, but usually you have to want it pretty bad.”

  “I never knew places like this existed,” Liza said stubbornly. “I never knew monsters were real.”

  “The world is a much bigger place than most people realise,” I said. “Magic still exists, though it’s grown strange and crafty and maybe just a bit senile.”

  “Magic?” she said, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow.

  “Magic, and other things. Time isn’t as firmly nailed down in the Nightside as it might be. We get all sorts turning up here, from the Past and any number of alternate Futures. Not to mention all kinds of rogues, adventurers, and complete and utter scumbags from other worlds and dimensions, all looking for a little excitement, or a nice bit of sin that isn’t too shop-soiled.” I stopped, and considered her thoughtfully. “You really don’t care about any of this, do you? It doesn’t interest or attract you in the least.”

  “No,” said Liza. “I don’t belong in a madhouse like this. I have no business being here.”

  “I could just take you home,” I said. “Back to the safe and sane London you’ve always known.”

  “No,” she said immediately. “There’s a whole day of my life missing. It’s mine, and I want it back.”

  “But what if you’ve done something really bad?” said Dead Boy. “Most people come to the Nightside to do something really bad.”

  “It’s always better to know,” Liza said firmly.

  “No,” I said. “Not always. And especially not here. But if that’s what you want, then that’s what you get. The client is always right. Now, the odds are you came here looking for something. Or someone. So let’s take a look in that shoulder bag of yours. The way you’ve been clinging to it since you got here, it must hold something important.”

  She looked down at the bag as though she’d honestly forgotten it was there. And when I reached out a hand to take it, she actually shrank back for a moment. But once again her stern self-control reasserted itself, and she made herself hand over the bag. But there was a subtle new tension in her that hadn’t been there before.

  I hefted the bag. It wasn’t that large, and it didn’t feel like there was that much in it. Nothing obviously special about it. Expensive, yes; white leather Gucci without a mark on it. I opened the bag, and spilled the contents out onto the wooden bar top. All three of us leaned in for a closer look. But it was just the usual feminine clutter, with nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from a single colour photograph, torn jaggedly in two. I fitted the pieces together as best I could, and we all studied the image in silence for a while. The photo showed a somewhat younger Liza Barclay in a stylish white wedding dress, hugging a handsome young man in a formal suit. They were both laughing at the camera, clearly caught a little off guard. They looked very happy. As though they belonged together, and always would. Someone had torn the photo fiercely in two, right down the middle, as though trying to separate the happy couple.

  “That’s Frank,” said Liza, frowning so hard her brow must have ached. “My husband, Frank. That’s our wedding day, just over seven years now. I was never so happy in my life, the day we got married. Poor Frank, he must be worried sick by now, wondering where I am. But . . . this is my favourite photo ever. I must have worn out half a dozen copies, carrying it around in my bag and showing it to people. Who could have torn it like this?”

  “Maybe you tore it,” said Dead Boy. “Been having problems recently, have you?”

  “No! No . . .” But even as she objected, I could practically see the beginnings of memories resurfacing in her. She concentrated on the two pieces of the photo, speaking only to them. “We were always so much in love. He meant everything to me. Everything. But . . . I followed him. All the way across London, on the Underground. He never saw me. He’d been so . . . preoccupied, the last few months. I could tell something was wrong. I was worried about him. He’d been keeping things from me, and that wasn’t like him. There were letters and e-mails I wasn’t allowed to read, phone calls he wouldn’t talk about. He’d never done that before. I thought he might be in some kind of trouble. Something to do with his business. I wanted to help. He was my love, my life, my everything. I was so worried . . .”

  “Sounds like another woman,” Dead Boy said wisely, and was genuinely surprised when I glared at him. “Well, it does.”

  But Liza was smiling, and shaking her head. “You don’t know my Frank. He loves me as much as I love him. He’s never even looked at another woman.”

  “Come on,” said Dead Boy. “Every man looks at other women. When he starts pretending he doesn’t, that’s when you know he’s up to something.”

  “You followed Frank through the Underground,” I said to Liza, ignoring Dead Boy. “What happened then?”

  “I don’t know.” Liza reached out to touch the photo, but didn’t, quite. “The next thing I remember, I’m here in the Nightside, and there’s no sign of Frank anywhere. Could we have been kidnapped, dragged here against our will, and I somehow escaped?”

  “Well,” I said diplomatically, “it’s possible, I suppose.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “It’s not the way I’d bet, no. But at least now we know you’re not here alone. If you’re here, then the odds are Frank is too. I can find him with my gift, and see if perhaps he holds the answer to your missing memories.”

  “No!” said Liza. “I don’t want my Frank involved in all this . . . madness.”

  “If he’s here, he’s involved,” said Dead Boy. “If only because the Nightside doesn’t take kindly to being ignored.”

  She shook her head again,
still smiling. “You don’t know my Frank.”

  “And you don’t know the kind of temptations on offer here,” said Dead Boy. “Sex and love and everything in between, sweet as cyanide and sprinkled with a little extra glamour to help it go down easier. Sin is always in season in the Nightside.”

  “And you followed him here,” I said.

  She glared at me. “How could he know the way to a place like this?”

  “Because he’d been here before,” said Dead Boy. “Sorry, but it’s the only answer that makes sense.”

  Liza glared at him, and then looked me right in the eye. “Find him. Find my Frank for me. If only so he can tell us the truth, and throw these lies back in your faces.”

  “I’ll find him,” I said. “Anything else . . . is up to you, and him.”

  I picked up the two pieces of the photo, holding them firmly between thumb and forefinger, and held them up before me. I took a deep breath and concentrated, reaching deep inside myself for my gift, my special gift, that allowed me to find anyone or anything. I concentrated on the photo until I couldn’t see anything else, and then slowly, my inner eye opened; my third eye, my private eye . . . from which nothing can hide. With my inner eye all the way open, I could See the world as it really was, every last bit of it. All the things that are hidden from Humanity, because if we could all See the true nature of this world, and the kinds of things we share it with, Humanity would go stark staring mad with horror.

  I can only bear to See it for a little while.

  I sent my Sight soaring up out of my body, shooting up through the roof of my skull and the roof of Strangefellows, until I was high in the star-speckled sky, looking down on the Nightside spread out below me, turning slowly, like the circles of Hell. Hot neon burned everywhere, like balefires in the night. Sudden bright glares detonated in this place or that; as souls were bartered, great magical workings rewrote the world, or some awful new thing was born to plague Mankind. There were great Voices abroad in the night, and terrible rumblings deep in the earth, as Powers and Dominations went about their unknowable business.

  Ghosts howled in the streets, trapped in moments of Time like insects in amber. Demons rode their human hosts, whispering in their ears. And vast and powerful creatures walked the night in majesty, wonderful and terrible beyond human ability to bear.

  I dropped down from my high vantage point, sending my Sight flashing through the packed narrow streets, slamming in and out of buildings with the quickness of thought, following a trail only I could See. The photo of Frank Barclay had let me sink my mental hook in his consciousness, if not his soul, and I could See the ghost of him still striding purposefully through the streets. Semitransparent and fragile as a soap bubble, the mark he’d made in the Nightside was still clear, his imprint on Time itself, still walking the streets that he had walked not so long ago . . . and would do until the last vestiges of it faded away.

  Frank Barclay showed no interest in any of the usual pleasure joints or temptations. The open doors of nightclubs where the music never ends, the heavy-lidded glances from dark-eyed ladies of the twilight, had no attraction for him. He never hesitated once, or paused to check directions. He knew where he was going. And from the increasingly intense, almost desperate anticipation in his face, wherever he was going promised something none of the usual temptations could hope to satisfy. I could See him clearly now, and he was smiling. And something in the smile chilled me all the way to my soul.

  I pulled back, as I realised where he was going. There are some places you just don’t go into with your spirit hanging out. Some parts of the Nightside are hungrier than others. I slowly closed my third eye, my inner eye, until I was safely back inside my own head again. And then I dropped the two pieces of the photo back onto the bar top as though they burned my fingers. I looked at Liza.

  “Good news and bad news,” I said. “I’ve found him. I’ve found husband Frank.”

  “Then what’s the bad news?” said Liza, meeting my gaze unflinchingly.

  “He’s in the badlands,” I said. “Where the really wild things are, and hardly anyone gets out alive. You only go into the badlands in search of the pleasures too sick, too twisted, and too nasty for the rest of the Nightside.”

  “If that’s where he is,” Liza said steadily, “then that’s where I have to go.”

  “You can’t go there alone,” I said. “They’d eat you up and chew on the bones.”

  “But I have to know!” said Liza, her chin jutting stubbornly. “I have to know what’s wrong with him, what could possibly bring him to an awful place like this. And I have to know what, if anything, this has to do with my missing memories. I have to go there.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to take you,” I said.

  “I . . . don’t have much money on me, at the moment,” said Liza. “Is my credit good?”

  “Put the plastic away,” I said. “No charge, this time. Razor Eddie owes me a favour, for dumping you on me, and that’s worth more than you could ever pay.”

  I leaned over and nudged Dead Boy, who’d lost interest in all this long ago. His eyes snapped back into focus.

  “What is it, John? I have some important existential brooding I need to be getting on with.”

  “I’m taking Liza into the badlands in pursuit of her missing husband, and her missing memories,” I said briskly. “Bound to be some trouble. Interested?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Dead Boy. “You can’t get too much excitement, when you’re dead. How much are you offering?”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You can have half of my fee. But only if we can use your car.”

  “Done!” said Dead Boy.

  “Why do we need his car?” said Liza.

  “Because we have to travel all the way across town,” I said. “And the rush hour can be murder.”

  TWO

  She’d never seen the sky before. Preoccupied with so much new sin and strangeness right before her, it had never even occurred to her to stop and look up. Now, on the rain-slick pavement outside the oldest bar in the world, Liza Barclay followed my pointing finger and stood very still, held to the spot by awe and enchantment, quite unaware of all the people, and others, hurrying by on every side. In the Nightside, the sky is full of stars, thousands and thousands of them, burning bright and sharp in constellations never seen in the outside world. And the moon . . . ah, the moon is big and bright indeed in the Nightside, unnaturally luminous and a dozen times larger than it should be, hanging over us all like a great mindless eye, like an ancient guardian that has quite forgotten its duty and purpose. Seeing all, judging nothing.

  I often think that it isn’t a matter of where the Nightside is, so much as when.

  Meanwhile, all kinds and manner of Humanity, and many things not in any way human, pushed past with brisk impartial haste, intent on their own personal salvations and damnations. No one got too close, though. They might not give a damn about Liza, clearly just another starstruck tourist, but everyone in the Nightside knows me. Or knows enough to give me plenty of room. Liza finally tore her gaze away from the overcrowded heavens, and gave her attention to the crowds bustling around us. The street, as always, positively squirmed with life and energy and all manner of hopes, the pavements packed with desperate pilgrims come in search of sin and temptation and the kinds of love that might not have a name but most certainly have a price. Hot neon blazed and burned up and down the street, gaudy as a hooker’s smile, signposts to all the most succulent hells. If you can’t find it in the Nightside, it doesn’t exist.

  Liza clung to my arm like a drowning woman, but to her credit she never flinched or looked away. She took it all in, staring grimly about her, refusing to allow the strange sights and tacky glamour to overwhelm her. She pressed a little more closely to me, as a bunch of eight-foot-tall insect things paused to bow their devilish heads before me. Bones glowed through their flesh, filmy wings fluttered uncomfortably on their long chitinous backs, and their iridescent compound eyes d
idn’t blink once. Their absurdly jointed legs lowered them almost to the ground as they abased themselves, speaking in unison with urgent breathy children’s voices.

  “All hail to thee, sweet prince of a sundered line, and remember us when you choose to come into your kingdom.”

  “Move on,” I said, as kindly as I could.

  They waited a while, antennae twitching hopefully, until they realised I wasn’t going to say any more, and then they moved on. Liza watched them go, and then looked at me.

  “What the hell was that all about? Who . . . what were they?”

  “They are all that remains of the Brittle Sisters of the Hive,” I said. “They were just being polite.”

  “So you’re . . . someone special here?”

  “I might have been, once,” I said. “But I abdicated.”

  “So what are you now?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “And a bloody good one.”

  She favoured me with another of her brief smiles, and then looked out at the traffic, thundering ceaselessly through the Nightside. There was a lot of it to look at. Vehicles of all kinds and natures flashed past, never slowing, never stopping, jockeying endlessly for position and dominance. Some of them carried goods and some of them carried people, and many of them carried things best not thought about at all. Most were just passing through, on their way to somewhere more interesting; mysteries and enigmas, never to be understood.

  A horse-drawn diligence from the eighteenth century clattered past, overtaken by a lipstick red Plymouth Fury with a dead man grinning at the wheel. An articulated rig bore the logo of a local long-pig franchise, while a motorcycle gang of screaming skeletons burning forever in hellfire chased something very like a tank crossed with an armadillo. The Boggart On Stilts, one of the Lesser Atrocities, strode disdainfully down the middle of the road, while smaller vehicles nipped in and out of its tall bone stilts. A great black beauty of a car cruised past, driven by an Oriental in black leathers, and the man in the back in the green face mask and snap-brimmed hat nodded respectfully to me in passing. Liza turned and looked at me speechlessly, demanding an explanation.