"Well, open up again," I said ruthlessly. "You have some seriously thirsty people here, and you wouldn't believe the kind of day we've had."
Alex sighed. "I hear that a lot. All right; one drink each, at my very special Extra Expensive After Hours prices. And no, I'm not warming up any food for you. What do you think I am, your mother? And give me back that bloody Membership Card, Taylor! If I wanted people dropping in unexpectedly at all hours, I'd advertise for a stalker. Would I be right in supposing that the bad guys are once again hot on your trail and that I can expect armed invasions, mayhem, and bad language at any moment?"
"Got it in one," I said.
"You're a jinx, Taylor, you know that? I know people who sexually molest albatrosses for a living who have better luck than you."
I looked around. "Where are the Coltranes? I could use a little extra muscle."
"I already sent them home," said Alex, reluctantly fixing our drinks. I had a large wormwood brandy, Sinner had a Malvern water, Pretty Poison insisted on a Manhattan, complete with little umbrella, and Madman wanted a pile-driver-which turned out to be vodka with prune juice. Alex actually winced as he served it, and we all winced as Madman drank it. I nursed my drink and considered the bar thoughtfully. Strangefellows at least had the advantage that it was terribly difficult to get into unnoticed. The bar was surrounded by all kinds of protective wards, on more than one level of reality, powered directly by Merlin Sa-tanspawn's magic. If nothing else, we should get plenty of warning of any attack.
"So," Alex said heavily. "What exactly is it that brings you scurrying back here so soon?"
"Walker is almost definitely on his way here," I said. "Once he figures out that we're not where he thought we were, it won't take him long to fix on this place as my most likely bolt-hole. And when he gets here, he is not going to be at all pleased with me. In fact, he may well have his people shoot first and ask questions through a medium afterwards."
"I could call the Coltranes back," said Alex. "Or do you want I should try and get word to Shotgun Suzie?"
"She's already working a case," I said. "By the time we could track her down, the odds are it would all be over anyway. One way or another. Besides, we have Sinner and Pretty Poison to protect us."
"And me!" Madman said cheerfully.
"Well, yes," I said tactfully. "But you're not always here, are you?"
'True," said Madman, and tried to eat his empty glass.
Alex was looking hard at Pretty Poison. "Why does she look so much like my ex-wife, only with much bigger breasts?"
"Let us discuss what we're going to do next," I said, in a loud and determined I Am Changing the Subject kind of voice, on the grounds that you just know some conversations aren't going to go anywhere useful. "The case we're working seems to have reached an abrupt end. There's no-one left we can talk to, old enough or important enough, to be able to tell us about the Nightside's true beginnings. Well, there are others, like the Awful Folk, or the Giants in the Earth, but you don't disturb Beings and Forces like those unless you've already picked out your coffin and favourite hymns in advance. And there's no guarantee they'd talk to us anyway. I can bluff and stare down most people, plus a whole bunch of things that aren't at all people; but even I have my limits."
"I'm relieved to hear you say that," said Alex. "You've changed since you returned to the Nightside, John. You've been using your reputation more and more like a weapon, like you're starting to believe you really are a King in waiting."
"Maybe I am," I said, finishing off my drink. "But then, there's never been any shortage of those in the Nightside. Right now I'm just a private investigator who's run out of leads."
"You still have your gift," said Pretty Poison, fluttering her heavy eyelashes at me over the rim of her cocktail glass. "Why not use it to track down someone else who can tell you what you need to know?"
"Because I don't dare," I said. "My enemies would be bound to find me ... and they have a new weapon to send against me. Something even worse than the Harrowing. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it hovering, waiting for its chance to manifest and take my enemies' revenge for the terrible thing I've done ..."
I realised everyone was looking at me, and shut my mouth firmly. There were things they didn't need to know. Luckily, at that point we were all distracted by the sound of heavy, measured footsteps descending the metal stairway into the bar. We all turned sharply to look at the stairs. Even Madman seemed momentarily focussed on the matter at hand. I could feel my breath coming short and fast as I rummaged in my coat pockets with both hands, searching for something I could use to slow down the inevitable. It couldn't be Walker already ... it just couldn't. And then Lady Luck stepped daintily down the last few metal steps into the bar, and we all breathed a little more easily again. Even a Transient Being had to be easier to deal with than Walker in a bad mood. Lady Luck looked just as she had before, a small and delicate Oriental in a long, shimmering silver evening gown. Her rosebud mouth was red as a plum, and her eyes shone like stars. She stood before us, proudly poised and smiling, the living incarnation of all chance, good and bad. The lottery win and the heart attack, the sudden cancer and the perfect moment, and everything in between. I think we were all impressed; except, of course, for Alex, who sniffed loudly behind his bar.
"Doesn't anyone take Closed for an answer any more? I can remember a time when locking my door actually made a difference. I've got to get those protective wards upgraded. What do you want, Lady?"
"Hello, John," said Lady Luck, ignoring everyone else to fix her attention on me. It felt like suddenly being hit by a spotlight. "I thought I'd just look in on you, see how you were getting on. Do you have any answers for me yet?"
"Well," I said. "There have been some interesting developments ..."
"That isn't what I asked you, John."
"So you're an actual Transient Being," said Sinner. "Wow. I'm impressed. Really. It's not often we get to see one of your station in the flesh these days. In fact, I was under the impression that you only appeared once in a Blue Moon."
"I'm here for a reason," said Lady Luck, still looking only at me.
"Yes," Madman said abruptly. "You are. But you're not Lady Luck. You're not even a Transient Being." We all looked at him. His face was white and strained, with blotchy patches of colour, but he seemed entirely rational. "I know you, Lady. I have Seen you before."
"So you have," said the woman who wasn't Lady Luck. "Poor thing." She smiled graciously at him, and he winced, raising his hands as though to protect himself. Her voice was calm, perhaps a little regretful, as she turned her gaze and her smile on me again. "I'm sorry to have deceived you, John, but if you'd known who you were really working for, you wouldn't have taken the case."
She dropped the glamour that surrounded her, and the sweet and delicate Oriental disappeared, replaced by a new vision. Madman shrank back against the bar, horror stamped on his face. Even in his confused state, he still Saw more deeply than the rest of us. He looked away, squeezing his eyes shut and whimpering. By now the woman looked entirely different. She was tall and thin, with colourless skin and jet-black hair, eyes, and lips, like a black-and-white photograph. Her face was sharp and pointed, with a prominent bone structure and a hawk nose. Her mouth was thin-lipped and somehow subtly too wide, and her dark eyes were full of a fire that could burn through anything. She was still wearing the shimmering silver dress, but on this new her it looked more sinister than stylish.
"Hello, John," she said, in a deep, smooth voice like bitter honey. "I'm your mother."
The words seemed to fill the bar. Everything had gone still and quiet, as though history itself had paused to appreciate such a significant moment. I didn't know what to do or say. I'd thought and planned and dreamed about what it would be like, when I finally came face to face with my mother, but I'd never thought it would be like this. After all the years of searching and wondering, I'd never expected her to just stroll casually back into my life ... but I should have known it would always be on her terms, not mine. I'd thought I'd know what I would say. I'd rehearsed it often enough in dark moments, all the accusations and harsh words, but...
I had no memories of her, from before she'd left. I should have, I wasn't that young, but it was as though she'd taken everything of her with her when she left. And yet I'd always thought I'd just... know, when I saw her. How could I not know my own mother? But the stark and sinister woman before me was a stranger. I didn't know what I felt about her. It was all just too sudden.
My mother smiled at me. I think it was supposed to be an understanding smile, but on her it just looked intimidating. Like some graceful feline predator assessing its prey.
"Come on, John, pick up the slack. We have so much to discuss, before Walker arrives. Why, for instance, did I disguise myself as Lady Luck? She was just a mask I hid behind, to get your investigations started."
"Why did you want me to take the case?" I said finally. "Why did you send me searching for questions you already know the answers to?"
"Because I wanted you to stir things up. Stir people up. I want everyone to be thinking and talking about the true beginnings of the Nightside, and what it was supposed to be. I wanted everyone talking about how much the Nightside has changed, down the many centuries. And I wanted you to be able to tell them how and why it all began, and who began it, so that they would understand what it meant, that I was coming back." She fixed me with her burning gaze, and her smiled widened. "I am back, John. Aren't you glad to see me again, after all these years?"
"You abandoned me," I said.
She shrugged easily. "It was necessary. I knew you'd survive. You're my son."
"Where have you been all this time?"
"Walking up and down in the Nightside, wearing many faces, learning the shape and condition of the current Nightside. It has changed so very much. It was never meant to be as dark as this. Or as tacky."
"Did you ever love me?" I didn't know I was going to say that, so bluntly, until I said it. The words forced themselves out of me.
"Of course. That's why I left you with your father. So you could be human, and innocent, for a while."
"Who are you?" I said.
And she said; "I am Lilith. Adam's first wife, thrown out of Eden for refusing to bow down to Adam's authority. Though, of course, you must understand, that's just a parable. A simple fiction to help you comprehend a far more complicated reality. You don't think I really look like this, do you? I am far greater, and more powerful. This is just another mask, put on for old times' sake. This is the face and body I wore to be your mother, John."
"Fennella Davis," I said. Even as I was still thinking, Lilith? My mother is a biblical myth?
"Exactly."
Madman peeked at her, past my shoulder, his voice shocked almost normal. "Lilith is just a projection into our limited reality of something much bigger. This female human body is just something Lilith wears to walk around in, like a glorified glove puppet. She's really..." He stopped, hesitating. "She is really ..." But he didn't have the words. Perhaps there were no words, in our simple rational language. Whatever his mathematics had enabled him to See of her, in his brief glimpse of the Reality behind reality, he still couldn't describe it to us. He started to shake and tremble, then to cry, and the bar and all the things and people in it began to shake along with him. It was as though an earthquake had hit the place. Tables and chairs danced and clattered on the juddering floor. The walls bowed in and out, the solid stone flexing unnaturally. Strange colours came and went, and sounds that made no sense. Distance became uncertain and unreliable, and things were both close and far away at the same time. Directions changed without warning. Madman's hold on reality was weakening again, and reality around him weakened as well. Merlin's great oak tree slammed back into the bar again, taking up the middle of the room; and then it was a tower built of stained and discoloured bones; and then it was gone again. Cracks crawled jaggedly across the floor, opening wide to show vast watching eyes. I could hear things scuttling across the outer walls of our perception. Things that wanted in.
"That's enough of that," Lilith said sharply.
And just like that, everything was still and normal again. Madman's projected unreality was immediately suppressed, the bar snapping back into sharp focus as Lilith's super-presence stabilised the world, and him. He stopped shaking and crying, and a little colour actually seeped back into his cheeks. Lilith looked at him thoughtfully.
"You Saw what mortal man was never supposed to See. Was not designed to cope with. Let me take the knowledge away from you, so that you can be ignorant and happy again."
"No," Madman said firmly, surprising us all. "Even a bitter truth is better than a comfortable lie."
"But the truth is killing you," said Lilith.
"No," said Madman. "I'm adapting."
Somehow, that thought was even more worrying. I cleared my throat loudly, to get everyone's attention.
"So," I said to my mother, trying really hard to keep my voice calm and casual. "You're Lilith. I know some of your story. Pew told me, a long time ago, when he was still my teacher."
"Blind Pew?" said Alex. "The rogue vicar? The Christian terrorist? Is he still around?"
"Yes," I said. "And if you interrupt me again, Alex, I'll have my mother turn you into a tea cosy."
"That's it," said Alex, snatching my empty glass off the bar top. "You're cut off. You get nasty when you've been drinking, John."
I ignored him, concentrating on Lilith. "According to the stories, after you were expelled from Eden you went down into Hell, where you coupled with demons and gave birth to all the monsters that have plagued the world."
"I was young," said Lilith. "You know how it is. We all do things we later regret, when we're being rebellious teenagers. Anyway, I got over that phase, and after travelling extensively through the many levels of reality, seeing the sights and working out my options, I finally ended up in the world of men. Not that men had made much of an impression on the place, in those days. Beings and Forces still walked freely, and a new legend was born every minute. I created the Nightside, a world within a world, in a place the Romans would later name Londinium. Interesting people, the Romans. A very savage form of civilisation. Some of them worshipped me, and I let them.
"Now pay attention, John, because this is the important bit. The Nightside was created and designed to be the one place on Earth where Heaven and Hell could not interfere or intimidate. A place set apart from the ordained war between Good and Evil. An alternative way to live. The only truly free place on Earth. It didn't turn out the way I expected, but then, that's life for you.
"Creating the Nightside, on Earth but not of it, stable but entirely separate, seriously weakened me. My power was much diminished, and the rising major players of that time, some human but mostly not, seized the opportunity to band together and thrust me back out of this reality, and into Limbo. So that they could be truly free, even from my intentions. I don't bear them any malice. Not really. I've outlived nearly all of them. And Limbo wasn't the worst place to be exiled to. Limbo is a place, or not-place, where things only exist in potential. Ideas without form."
"Like the Primal?" I said, just to show I was paying attention.
"Oh, please. They're just chalk-drawings, compared to me. But as an idea without shape or form, I was helpless to do anything. I was trapped in Limbo, unable to open a door into any other realm. Until someone here created an opening I could use. They were trying to incarnate a female principle into physical existence, a part of the Babalon Working, and it was easy for me to push the Transient Being aside and imprint myself upon the summoning. Someone in that group hadn't done his homework properly. He'd left all kinds of openings for a determined mind to take advantage of. And once I'd left Limbo behind, they couldn't keep me out. All the Powers and Dominations that ever were couldn't have stopped me then.
"I came through, decanted myself into the idealised body I found waiting in their minds, then disappeared, losing myself in the Nightside. Partly because I wanted to walk incognito to see how much things had changed in my absence, and partly to conceal myself from any of my old enemies who might have survived. I was still vulnerable, then. I needed to rebuild my power in peace. After some time, when I was myself again, I chose one of my unwitting summoners, who seemed to have grasped a little of the truth, and-disguised as the woman Fennella Davis-I made a child with him. The child rooted me in this reality, so that I could never be forced out again. I hadn't planned to stick around afterwards, but you were so fascinating, John ... I'd never had a human child before. Flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit... I was curious to see how you'd turn out. And I enjoyed playing human. Being mother. Carrying out the role I had originally been intended for ...
"And then Charles found out. Somebody told him; I never did discover who. But it meant I had to disappear again, back into the more secret depths of the Nightside, so that no-one would ever guess your true identity, your true nature and purpose. If any of the day's major players had even suspected, they would have been lining up to kill you, for any number of reasons. I knew Charles wouldn't talk. If anyone ever suspected he was responsible for bringing back Lilith, the manner of his death would have been legendary, even in the Nightside. And, of course, he still believed his research would uncover a way to banish me again. He couldn't talk to his old friend Henry, by then so highly placed in the Authorities, and he wouldn't talk to his old friend Mark, who had been the Collector, because Mark had found Fennella Davis in the first place. Charles was alone. He couldn't trust anyone any more. Not even his young son. Poor Charles.
"I never did find out who told him. But whoever it was, they never talked either. Perhaps because they knew what I would do to them, the moment they revealed themselves.
"Now my power is back. The stars have come round again, and all the most dangerous Powers and Forces in the Nightside have been nicely weakened by the angel war. I knew causing the Unholy Grail to be brought to the Nightside would shake things up. The time is right for me to remake and refashion the Nightside into what I always intended it to be. Something much ... purer in concept. A great many people will undoubtedly die in the process, yes, but you can't make an omelette without beating hell out of the eggs."
She smiled around at all of us, inviting comment. And all I could think of was the awful dead landscape I'd walked through in the Timeslip. Was that her idea of a purer concept? Or did it mean that something was going to go horribly wrong with her plans? That the Powers and the Dominations of the Nightside would go to war with her, to preserve their vision of the Nightside, and everyone would lose?
"No," I said, and everyone looked at me. Even I could hear the coldness in my voice. I met Lilith's dark gaze as steadily as I could. "I can't let you do that, Lilith. I've seen the world that's coming, because of you and me, and I'll see us both dead and gone before I'll ever let that happen."
Lilith shook her head. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth..."
"And the fruit never falls far from the tree," said a familiar voice.
We all looked round, startled, as Walker unhurriedly descended the metal stairs into the bar. He still looked every inch the city gent, calm and unruffled. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, smiled at us all, and raised his bowler hat politely to Lilith.
"Doesn't anybody ever bother to knock any more?" Alex said bitterly. "That's it; I'm putting in barbed wire and anti-personnel hexes."
"You didn't really think the Lord of Thorns would fool me for long, did you?" said Walker, looking only at me. "Not when we have such urgent business to discuss."
"You're very brave to come in here alone," I said. "How does it feel, Henry, to be faced with a whole bunch of people you can't control with your famous Voice?"
Walker just smiled. "That's why I brought reinforcements, John."
And that was when a whole army of people came clattering down the metal steps to back up Walker. They fanned out on either side of him, taking up half the bar. I recognised some of the combat magicians, but there were a hell of a lot more of them now, all looking grim and determined and ready for action. These were professional fighters, cold-hearted killers, the kind the Authorities send out when they don't want anything left behind but scorched earth. But it was the last two to enter the bar who really caught my attention.
Bad Penny descended the stairway with her head held high, like a member of the Royal Family visiting an abattoir. She flashed me a brief, vicious smile. And right behind her came Pew, my old enemy Pew, tall and broad-shouldered, a soldier of Christ in his usual battered grey cloak over his vicar's outfit, a mane of long grey hair and a simple grey cloth hiding his blind eyes. Descending confidently and valourously into a world of sin, having already made a deal with the devil called Walker. Pew turned his great blocky head in my direction and nodded slowly, armoured in his cold and brutal faith.
"I apologise for the small turn-out," murmured Walker, brushing an invisible bit of lint from his immaculate sleeve, "But most of my people are currently earning their money for a change, by keeping the Lord of Thorns occupied so he won't interfere here and save your worthless souls. I'm afraid this is the end of the road, Taylor. You can't say I haven't given you every chance, since you returned. But now the Authorities want you and everyone else here dead, for the sin of making a bloody nuisance of yourselves." He paused then, looking at Lilith. "Fennella ... my oldest sin, come back to haunt me. I shall enjoy seeing you destroyed."
"Poor Henry," said Lilith. "Always putting your money on the wrong dream."
I ignored them both, looking at Pew. He felt my gaze and stirred uneasily, one hand rising to his white collar. And then he squared his broad shoulders defiantly, his mouth hard and unyielding, and I knew nothing I could say would change his mind. I still had to try.
"Hello, Pew. I thought you didn't set foot in dens of iniquity like this."
"My business is with sinners, so I must go where the sin is," Pew said roughly. "Time to pay the piper, John, and make your peace with God."
"Are you really here to kill me at last, Pew?"
"Yes. I will save your soul, if I can. For old times' sake."
"My mother is here," I said. "Do you know my mother, Pew?"
"Of course. I've always known. I told you I gave up my eyes for wisdom. I was the one who told your father who and what he was married to. I still had faith you could be saved, then."
Cold anger pushed aside the shock of what I was hearing. "You told him? You broke up my family! You destroyed my life!"
"You should never have been born, John. Abomination." His voice was almost kindly now. "I should have killed you long ago, and now I pay for the weakness of my resolve with the pain I will feel for killing ... such a worthy adversary."
"You will not touch my son, preacher," said Lilith.
Pew's head snapped round in her direction, and he stabbed a finger right at her before launching into a long, angry incantation. I recognised some of it, from old parchments and forbidden books. It was an exorcism, and a very old one, in Aramaic and Latin and corrupt Coptic. The old words hammered on the air, full of significance and power, and Lilith laughed at them. Pew broke off, confused.
"I know that song," said Lilith. "It's the exorcism the Christ used against the possessors called Legion, who ended up in the Gadarene swine. But I am much older than that, and such bindings have no power over me."
"You cannot stand against me!" said Pew, almost spitting out the words. "I speak for God!"
"We never got on," said Lilith.
She gestured almost negligently with one hand, and Pew was thrown the whole width of the bar, hurtling ungainly through the air to smash into the far stone wall with sickening force. We all heard his bones break. Blood flew from his mouth. He slid down the wall and curled up on the floor, twitching spasmodically. Lilith laughed, a brief, happy sound like water splashing in a fountain. I ran over to Pew, knelt beside him, and cradled him in my arms. There is no-one closer than friends or family, except perhaps an enemy you've known all your life. I cradled his noble head on my chest, and blood spilled out of his mouth to stain my white trench coat. His grey blindfold had come loose, revealing dark empty eye-sockets. His breathing was harsh and uneven, spraying the air with blood from deep in his lungs.
"John?" he said.
"Hush, Pew. I'm here. I'm here."
"Pride. The sin of pride. I really thought I could take her."
"Hush."