Just Another Judgement Day.

Nightside 9.

by Simon R. Green

ONE.

Retro Voodoo and the Spirit of Dorian Gray

You don't go to Strangefellows for the good company. You don't go to the oldest bar in the world for open-mike contests, trivia quizzes, or theme nights. And certainly not for happy hour. You don't go there for the food, which is awful, or the atmosphere, which is worse. You go to Strangefellows to drink and brood and plan your revenges on an uncaring world. And you go there because no-one else will have you. The oldest bar in the world has few rules and fewer standards, except perhaps for Mind your own d.a.m.ned business. Mind your own d.a.m.ned business.

I was sitting in a booth at the back of the bar that particular night, with my business partner and love, Suzie Shooter. I was nursing a gla.s.s of wormwood brandy, and Suzie was drinking Bombay Gin straight from the bottle. We were winding down, after a case that hadn't gone well for anyone. We didn't talk. We don't, much; we don't feel the need. We're easy in each other's company.

My long white trench coat was standing to attention beside our table. I've always believed in having a coat that can look after itself. People gave it plenty of room, especially after I happened to mention that I hadn't fed it recently. The trench coat is my one real affectation; I think a private eye should look the part. And while people are distracted by the cliche, they tend not to notice me running rings around them. I'm tall, dark, and handsome enough from a distance, and no matter how bad things get, I never do divorce work.

Suzie Shooter, also known as Shotgun Suzie, was wearing her usual black motorcycle leathers, complete with steel studs and chains and two bandoliers of bullets crossing over her impressive chest. She has long blonde hair, a striking face with a strong bone structure, and the coldest blue gaze you'll ever see. My very own black leather Valkyrie. She's a bounty hunter, in case you hadn't guessed.

We were young, we were in love, and we'd just killed a whole bunch of people. It happens.

Strangefellows was full that night... the night he came to the Nightside. We thought it was just another night, and the joint was jumping. Roger Miller's "King of the Road" was pumping out of hidden speakers, and thirteen members of the Tribe of Gay Barbarians were line-dancing to it, complete with sheathed broadswords, fringed leather chaps, and tall ostrich-feather head-dresses. Two wizened Asian conjurers in long, sweeping robes had set their tiny pet dragons to fighting, and already a crowd had gathered to place bets. (Though I had heard rumours that only the dragons were real; the conjurers were merely illusions generated by the tiny dragons so they could get around in public without being bothered.) Half a dozen female ghouls, out on a hen night, were getting happily loud and rowdy over a bottle of Mother's Ruination and demanding another bucket of lady-fingers. It probably helps to be a ghoul if you're going to eat the bar snacks at Strangefellows. And a young man was weeping into his beer because he'd given his heart to his one true love, and she'd put it in a bottle and sold it to a sorcerer in return for a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes.

In a more private part of the bar, a small gathering of soft ghosts were flickering in and out around a table that wasn't always there. Soft ghosts-the hazy images of men and women who'd travelled too far from their home worlds and lost their way. Now they drifted through the dimensions, from world to world and reality to reality, trying desperately to find their way home, fading a little more with every failure. A lot of them find their way to Strangefellows, and stop off for a brief rest. Alex Morrisey keeps the memories of old wines stored in Klein bottles, just for them. Though what they pay him with is beyond me. The soft ghosts cl.u.s.tered together, whispering the names of lands and heroes and histories that no-one else had ever heard of and comforting each other as best they could.

Alex Morrisey is the owner and main bartender of Strangefellows, last of a long line of miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. He always wears black, right down to designer shades and a snazzy black beret pushed well back on his head to hide his spreading bald spot, because, he says, anything else would be hypocritical. Alex wakes up every evening p.i.s.sed off at the entire world, and his mood only gets worse as the night wears on. He has a gift for short-changing people, doesn't wash the gla.s.ses nearly often enough, and mixes the worst martinis in the world. Wise men avoid his special offers.

Strangefellows attracts a varied crowd, even for the Nightside, and Alex has to be able to cater to all kinds of trade, with everything from Shoggoth's Old and Very Peculiar, Angel's Urine (not a trade name, unfortunately), and Delerium Treebeard (taste that chlorophyll!). Alex will never say where he obtained some of the rarer items on his shelves, but I knew for a fact he had contacts in other dimensions and realities, including a whole bunch of disreputable alchemists, tomb-robbers, and Time-travellers.

I poured myself another gla.s.s of the wormwood brandy, and Suzie tossed aside her empty gin bottle and reached for another. Both our hands were steady, despite everything we'd been through earlier. A Springheel Jack meme had entered the Nightside through a Timeslip, sneaking in from an alternate Victorian England. The meme had spread unnaturally quickly, infecting and transforming the minds of everyone it came into contact with. Soon there were hundreds of Springheel Jacks, raging through the streets, cutting a b.l.o.o.d.y path through unsuspecting revellers. Every bounty hunter in the Nightside got the call, and I went along with Suzie, to keep her company.

We killed the Jacks as fast as they manifested, but the meme spread faster than we could stamp it out. Bounty hunters filled the Nightside streets with the sound of gunfire, and bodies piled up while blood ran thickly in the gutters. We couldn't save any of them. The meme had completely overwritten their personalities. In the end I had to use my gift to find the source of the infection, the Timeslip itself. I put in a call to the Temporal Engineers, they shut it down, and that was finally that. Except for all the bodies lying in the streets. The ones the Springheel Jacks killed, and the ones we killed. Sometimes you can't save everyone. Sometimes all you can do . . . is kill a whole bunch of people.

Business as usual, in the Nightside.

There was a sudden drop in the noise level as someone new entered the bar. People actually stopped what they were doing to follow the progress of the new arrival as he strode majestically through the packed bar. In a place noted for its eccentrics, extreme characters, and downright lunatics, he still stood out.

A tall and slender figure, with a gleaming black face and an air of aristocratic disdain, he wore a bright yellow frock coat over a powder-blue jerkin and green-and-white-striped trousers. Calfskin boots and white satin gloves completed the ensemble. He didn't look like he belonged in Strangefellows, but then, I would have been hard-pressed to name anywhere he might have looked at home. He stalked arrogantly through the speechless crowd, and they let him pa.s.s untouched, awed by the presence of so much fashion in one person. He was too weird even for us; an exotic b.u.t.terfly in a dark place. And, of course, he was heading straight for my table.

He swayed to a halt right before me, looked down his nose at me, ignored Suzie completely, which is never wise, and struck a dramatic pose.

"I am Percy D'Arcy!" he said. "The Percy D'Arcy!" He looked at me as though that was supposed to mean something. Percy D'Arcy!" He looked at me as though that was supposed to mean something.

"Good for you," I said generously. "It's not everyone who could bear up under a name like that, but you it suits. Now what do you want, Percy? I have some important drinking and brooding to be getting on with."

"But...I'm Percy D'Arcy! Really! You must have seen me in the glossies, and on the news shows. It isn't a fabulous occasion unless I'm there to grace it with my presence!"

"You're not a celebrity, are you?" I said cautiously. "Only I should point out Suzie has a tendency to shoot celebrities on general principles. She says they have a tendency to get too loud."

Percy actually curled his lip, and made a real production out of it, too. "Please! A celebrity? Me? I . . . am a personality personality! Famous just for being me! I'm not some mere actor, or singer. I'm not functional; I'm decorative! I am a dashing man about town, a wastrel and a drone and proud of it. I add charm and glamour to any scene simply by being there!"

"You're getting loud, Percy," I said warningly. "What do you do, exactly?"

"Do? I'm rich, dear fellow, I don't have to do do anything. I have made myself into a living work of art. It is enough that I exist, that people may adore me." anything. I have made myself into a living work of art. It is enough that I exist, that people may adore me."

Suzie made a low, growling noise. We both looked at her nervously.

"Your existence as a work of art could come to an abrupt end any moment now," I said. "If you don't leave off fancying yourself long enough to explain what it is you want with me."

Percy D'Arcy pouted, in a wounded sort of way, and pulled over a chair so he could sit down facing me. He gave the seat a good polish with a monogrammed silk handkerchief first, though. He shot Suzie an uncertain glance, then concentrated on me. I didn't blame him. Suzie gets mean when she's on her second bottle.

"I have need of your services, Mr. Taylor," Percy said stiffly, as though such directness was below him. "I am told you find things. Secrets, hidden truths, and the like."

"Those are the kinds of things that usually need finding, yes," I said. "What do you want me to find, Percy?"

"It's not that simple." He looked round the bar, looking at everything except me while he gathered his courage. Then he turned back, took a deep breath, and made the plunge. It was a marvellous performance; you'd have paid good money to see it in the theatre. Percy fixed me with what he thought was a commanding gaze and leaned forward confidentially.

"Usually my whole existence is very simple, and I like it that way. I show up at all the right places and at all the right parties, mingle with my friends and my peers, dazzle everyone with my latest fashions and devastating bon mots, and thus ensure that the occasion will be covered by all the right media. I do so love to party, and make the scene, and generally brighten up this dull old world with my presence. There's a whole crowd of us, you see; known each other since we were so high, you know how it is . . . There isn't a club in the Nightside that doesn't benefit regularly from the sheer spectacle of our presence . . . But now it's all changed, Mr. Taylor! And it's not fair! How can I be expected to compete for my moment in the spotlight when all my friends are cheating? Cheating!"

"How are they cheating?" I said, honestly baffled.

Percy leaned in very close, his voice a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "They're staying young and beautiful, while I'm not. I'm aging, and they're not. I mean; look at me. I've got a wrinkle!"

I couldn't actually see it, but I took his word for it. "How long has this been going on?" I said.

"Months! Almost a year now. Though I've had my suspicions . . . Look, I know these people. Have known them all my life. I know their faces like I know my own, down to the smallest detail. I can always tell when someone's had a little work done, around the eyes or under the chin . . . but this is different. They look younger younger, untouched by time or the stresses of our particular life-style.

"It started last autumn, when some of them began patronising this new health club, the Guaranteed New You Parlour. Very expensive, very elite. Now all my friends go there, and every time they appear in public, they're the absolute peak, the very flower of beauty. Not a detail that isn't perfect, no matter how dissolute their private lives may be. I mean, people like us, Mr. Taylor, we live . . . extreme lives. We experience . . . everything. It's expected of us, so the rest of you can live the wild life vicariously, through us. Drink, drugs, debauchery, every night and twice on Sat.u.r.day. It all gets just a bit tiring, actually. But anyway, as a result, we've all been in and out of those very discreet clinics that provide treatments for the kind of diseases you only get by being very social, or help in getting over the kind of good cheer that comes in bottles and powders and needles. We all need a little help to be beautiful all the time. A little something to help us soldier on to the next party. We all need damage repair, on a regular basis.

"But that's all stopped! They don't need the clinics any more, just this Parlour. And they all look like teenagers! It's not fair!"

"Well," I said reasonably, "If this Parlour is doing such a good job, why don't you go there, too?"

"Because they won't have me!" Percy slumped in his chair, and suddenly looked ten years older, as though he could only maintain his air of glamour through sheer effort of will these days. "I have offered to pay anything they want. Double, even triple the going rate. I begged and pleaded, Mr. Taylor! And they turned me away, as though I were n.o.body. Me! Percy D'Arcy! And now my friends don't want me around any more. They say I don't . . . fit in.

"Please, Mr. Taylor, I need you to find out what's going on. Find out why the Parlour won't let me in. Find out what they're really doing behind those closed doors . . . and if they are cheating, shut them down! So I won't be left out any more."

"It's not really my usual kind of case," I said.

"I'll pay you half a million pounds."

"But clearly this is something that needs to be investigated. Leave it with me, Percy."

He stood up abruptly, pulling his dignity back about him. "Here's my card. Please inform me when you know something." He tossed a very expensive piece of engraved paste-board on to the table before me, then stalked off back through the crowd with his head held high. A smattering of applause followed him. I picked up the card, tapped it thoughtfully against my chin a few times, and looked at Suzie.

"It's something to do," I said. "You interested?"

"I'll come along," said Suzie. "Just to keep you company. Will I get to kill anybody?"

"Probably not."

Suzie shrugged. "The things I do for love."

In the sane and normal world outside the Nightside, if you're getting older and starting to look your age, there's always cosmetic surgery and a.s.sociated treatments. In the Nightside, the rich and the famous and the powerful have access to other options, some of them quite spectacularly nasty and extreme.

The Guaranteed New You Parlour was situated in Uptown, the very best part of the Nightside, offering only the very best services for the very best people. Suzie and I went there anyway. The rent-a-cops in their colourful private uniforms took one look at us and decided they were needed urgently somewhere else. The neon there was just as hot, but perhaps a little more restrained, and the clubs and restaurants and discreet establishments glowed in the night like burning jewels. And the lost souls filling the streets and squares were all pounding the pavements in search of a better cla.s.s of d.a.m.nation.

In Uptown, even the Devil wears a tie.

The Guaranteed New You Parlour occupied the site of what used to be a rather tacky place called The Cutting Edge, an S&M joint for people with a surgery fetish. It got closed down for cutting corners on the after-care services, and for being too d.a.m.ned tacky even for the Nightside. The new owner had pulled the old place down and started over, so the Parlour was a gleaming new edifice of steel and gla.s.s, style and cla.s.s, with pale-veined marble for the entrance lobby. Someone had spent a lot of money pushing the place up-market, and it showed. But then, money attracts money.

Suzie and I studied the Parlour from the other side of the street. Very rich people came and went, in stretch limousines and private ambulances, but though a great many old people went in, only young people came out. Which was . . . odd. There are ways of turning back the clock to be found in the Nightside, but the price nearly always involves your soul, or someone else's. And there are any number of places that will sell you false youth, but nothing that lasts. What did the Guaranteed New You Parlour have that no-one else could provide?

I headed for the main door, Suzie right there at my side. Her steel chains jangled softly, and the b.u.t.t of her pump-action shotgun stood up behind her head from its holster down her back. There were two very large gentlemen in well-fitting formal suits standing on either side of the door. Security, but discreet, so as not to frighten the nice ladies and gentlemen. They tensed visibly as they saw Suzie and me approaching but made no move to challenge us. We swept past them with our noses in the air and strolled into the lobby as though we were thinking of buying the place. We got various looks from various people, but no-one said anything. We walked right up to the huge state-of-the-art reception desk, and I smiled pleasantly at the coldly efficient young lady sitting behind it. She wore a simple white nurse's uniform with no markings on it, and her smile was completely professional while at the same time possessing not an ounce of any real warmth. She didn't bat an eye at my trench coat or Suzie's leathers. This was the Nightside, after all.

"Welcome to the Guaranteed New You Parlour, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Shooter," said the receptionist.

I considered her thoughtfully. "You know who we are?"

"Of course. Everyone knows who you are."

I nodded. She had a point. "We're here about Suzie's face," I said.

Suzie and I had already decided this was our best chance for getting a close look at the Parlour's inner workings. One side of Suzie's face had been terribly burned during an old case, leaving it a mess of scar tissue. Her left eye was gone, the eyelid sealed shut. It didn't affect her aim. The damage was my fault. She'd never have been hurt if she hadn't been helping me out. Suzie forgave me almost immediately. But I don't forgive me, and I never will.

She could have had her face healed or repaired in a dozen different ways. She chose not to. She believed a monster should look like a monster. I never pushed her on it. We monsters have to stick together.

The receptionist's smile didn't waver one bit. "Of course, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Shooter. If you'll just fill out these forms for me . . ."

"No," I said. "We want to see what this place has to offer first."

The receptionist gathered her papers together again. "One of our interns is on his way here, to give you a guided tour," she said, still professionally cheerful. If I smiled like that on a regular basis, my cheeks would ache. "Ah, here he is. Dr. Dougan, this is . . ."

"Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Shooter," the intern said cheerfully. "Doesn't everyone?"

"Our reputation precedes us," I said dryly, shaking his proffered hand. He had a firm, manly grip. Of course. He offered his hand to Suzie, but she just looked at it, and he quickly pulled it back out of range and stuck it in his coat pocket as though he'd meant to do that all along. He wore the traditional white coat, along with the traditional stethoscope hanging loosely around his neck.

"Every medico in the Nightside knows about you two," he said, still cheerful. "Most of us get our training in the emergency wards, patching up people who've come into contact with you."

I looked at Suzie. "If nothing else, it seems we provide employment."

Dr. Dougan babbled on for a while, telling us how marvellous the Parlour was, and how fantastic its new techniques were, while I looked him over. His coat was starched blindingly white and had clearly never seen a bloodstain in its life. And he was far too young and handsome for a real hands-on doctor, which meant he was a shill. He was just for show. He wouldn't know anything about the real inner workings of the Parlour. But we followed him through the rear doors into the show ward behind the lobby, because you've got to start somewhere. Dr. Dougan never stopped talking. He'd been given a script designed to sell the Parlour's services, he'd learned every word of it, and by G.o.d we were going to hear it.

The show ward turned out to be very impressive, and utterly artificial. Neat patients in neat beds, none of them suffering from anything unsightly or upsetting, attended to by very attractive young nurses in starched white uniforms. There were flowers everywhere, and even the antiseptic in the air had a trace of perfume in it. Lots of light, lots of s.p.a.ce, and no-one in any pain at all. A complete dream of a hospital ward. We weren't actually allowed to talk to any of the patients or nurses, of course. The intern did his best to blind us with statistics about recovery rates, while I looked around for something, anything, out of place. The ward looked absolutely fine, but... something about it disturbed me.

It took me a while to realise that the whole ward was simply too normal for the Nightside. If this was all the rich and powerful patients wanted, they could get it in Harley Street. The clincher was that not one of the patients or the nurses so much as glanced at me, or Suzie. And that was very definitely not normal.

Dr. Dougan broke off from his speech when the doors burst open behind us and half a dozen security men moved quickly forward to surround us. Large men, with large bulges under their jackets where their guns were holstered. Suzie looked at them thoughtfully.

"We're not here to make any trouble," I said quickly. "We're just looking."

"Visiting hours are over," said the largest of the security men. "Your presence is disturbing the patients."

"Yeah," I said. "They do look disturbed, don't they? We'll come back another day, when they're feeling more talkative."

He didn't smile. "I don't think that would be wise, Mr. Taylor."

"Is he giving us the b.u.m's rush, John?" said Suzie. Her voice was calm and lazy and very dangerous. The security men held themselves very still.

"I'm sure the nice gentleman didn't mean anything of the kind," I said carefully. "Let's go, Suzie."

Suzie fixed the man with her cold blue eye. "He has to say please please, first."

You could feel the tension on the air. Everyone's hands were only an impulse away from their guns. Suzie was smiling, just a little. The main security man gave her his full attention.

"Please," he said.

"Let's get out of this dump," said Suzie.

The security men escorted us out, maintaining a respectful distance at all times. I was impressed at their professionalism. I'd known Suzie to reduce grown thugs to tears with only a look. Which begged the question-why would a supposedly straightforward operation like the Guaranteed New You Parlour need heavy-duty security like them? What kind of secret were they hiding, that needed this level of protection?

I couldn't wait to find out.

We gave it a few hours before we went back again. Long enough to make them think we were thinking it over and still planning our next move. We killed the time at a pleasant little tea-shop nearby, where I enjoyed a nice cup of Earl Grey while Suzie wolfed down a whole plate of tea-cakes, and amused herself by practising her menacing glare on the trembling uniformed maids and the steadily decreasing number of fellow customers. The place was pretty much empty by the time we left, and the maids were refusing to come out of the kitchen. I left a generous tip.

"Can't take you anywhere," I said to Suzie.

"You love it," said Suzie.

When we returned to the Guaranteed New You Parlour, the whole place had been locked down tight. Doors were firmly closed, windows were covered with reinforced steel shutters, and a dozen security men were making themselves very visible, politely informing anyone who approached the Parlour that it was currently closed to all visitors and new patients. Some very rich and famous people wanted to get inside very badly, but for once, shouting, bribes, and temper tantrums got them nowhere. The Parlour was closed. I felt quite flattered that I'd made such an impression. Though to be honest, a lot of it was probably due to Suzie. Quite a few places close early when they see her coming, which is why I usually end up doing the shopping.

The security men looked like they knew what they were doing, so Suzie and I wandered casually round the side of the building. Not to the back. That's an amateur's mistake. Any security force worth its wages knows enough to guard the back doors as closely as the front. But there's nearly always a side entrance, used by staff and maintenance, that most people don't even know exists or think to mention. There were still a few oversized gentlemen keeping an eye on things, but they were so widely s.p.a.ced it was easy to sneak past them.

The side door was right where I expected it to be. Suzie dealt with the lock in a few seconds, and as easily as that, we were in. (Getting past locked doors is just one of the many skills necessary to the modern bounty hunter. Though it does help if you've got a set of skeleton keys made from real human bones. Personally, I've always attributed Suzie's skills with locks to the fact that they're as scared of her as everyone else is.) We found ourselves in a narrow corridor, whitely tiled and brightly lit, with not a shadow to hide in anywhere. There was no-one about, for the moment. Suzie and I moved quickly down the corridor, trying doors at random along the way, to see what there was to see. A few store-rooms, a few offices, and a toilet that could have used a few more air fresheners. It all seemed normal and innocuous enough.

A set of swing doors let us into the main building. The lights were bright, every surface had been polished and waxed to within an inch of its life, but still there was no-one about. It was as though the whole place had been evacuated in a hurry. The silence was absolute, not even the hum of an air-conditioner. I looked at Suzie. She shrugged. I'd seen that shrug before. It meant You're the brains; I'm the muscle. Get on with it. You're the brains; I'm the muscle. Get on with it. So I chose a corridor at random and started down it. Several corridors later, we still hadn't encountered anyone, not even a guard doing his rounds. Surely they couldn't have shut the whole place down just because Suzie and I had expressed an interest? Unless . . . there never had been anything going on there, and the whole place was only a front for something else . . . So I chose a corridor at random and started down it. Several corridors later, we still hadn't encountered anyone, not even a guard doing his rounds. Surely they couldn't have shut the whole place down just because Suzie and I had expressed an interest? Unless . . . there never had been anything going on there, and the whole place was only a front for something else . . .

I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. When hospitals go bad, they go really bad.