Agents of Light and Darkness

by Simon R. Green

  “Any idea where the hell we are?” said Suzie. “All I can see is crates, and all I can smell is sawdust and cat’s pee.”

  “If we’re where I think we are, they manufacture lucky charms here. Let’s hope some of it will rub off. This way, I think.”

  I pushed myself away from the wall and strode off into the gloom, Suzie padding along beside me. We threaded our way through the piles of stacked crates, heading for the far end of the warehouse. We hadn’t made twenty feet before what was left of the doorway was blown inwards by a blast of concentrated light. The gloom was banished in a moment, every part and content of the warehouse thrown into sharp relief. I ran like hell, and Suzie was right there beside me. The floor shook under our feet like an earthquake as angels punched through the warehouse wall like it was made of paper. I put my head down and kept running.

  The floor broke open right in front of me, a jagged crack that widened in an instant into a gaping crevice. I tried to jump it, but didn’t even come close. My stomach lurched as my kicking feet found nothing beneath them, and I fell into a darkness that seemed to fall away forever. At the last moment I caught the far edge of the crevice with one flailing hand, and fastened on to it with a death grip. My shoulder exploded with pain as my fall was suddenly halted, all my weight hanging from the one arm. I scrambled for the edge with my other hand, but I couldn’t quite reach. The ground was still shaking, and the edge under my hand didn’t feel at all secure. I looked up, and there was Suzie, on the far side of the gap, looking down at me. I should have known she’d make it. She knelt, studying my situation, her face entirely blank.

  “Get out of here,” I said. “They don’t want you. And I think I’d rather fall than let them use me.”

  “I can’t let you fall, Taylor.”

  “You can’t touch me, remember?”

  “Hell with that shit,” said Suzie Shooter.

  She reached down with one hand, and I reached up with my free hand and grabbed it. Suzie’s face set into cold, determined lines, and her grip was as sure as death, sure as life, sure as friendship. She hauled me up out of the crevice, and we both fell sprawling on the far side of the gap. She let go of me the second I was safe, and we both scrambled to our feet on our own.

  “You’d be surprised what I can do, when I have to,” said Suzie.

  “No I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’ve tasted your cooking, remember?”

  Sometimes humour is all we have to say the things that can’t be said.

  Angels came crashing through the warehouse wall as though it was nothing more than heavy mist. As though the angels were more solid, more real than anything in the material world they currently moved in. And perhaps they were, at that. Brilliant light and pitch-darkness invaded the warehouse, consuming everything they touched. Suzie glared at me.

  “Tell me you’ve come up with an idea, Taylor. Any idea. Because I think we’ve run as far as we’re going.”

  “I do have an idea,” I said. “But I’m reluctant to use it.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea,” Suzie said immediately. “Whatever it is, it’s a marvelous idea. I am in love with this idea. What is it?”

  “I have a short cut that can take us straight to Strangefellows. Sometime back, in a weak moment, Alex Morrisey gave me a special club membership card, for use in emergencies. Once activated, the magic in the card will transport us right into the bar. Alex heard about a rather unpleasant experience I had with the Harrowing, outside his club…”

  Suzie was staring at me ominously. “You’ve had it all along, and you haven’t used it?”

  “There’s a catch.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Magic like this leaves a trail,” I said patiently. “The angels will know immediately where we’ve gone. I was still hoping we might shake them off…but that doesn’t seem to be an option any more.”

  “Use the card,” said Suzie. “Trust me, this is the right time to use it. Morrisey’s always boasted his place had major-league protections. I say it’s well past time we put that to the test.”

  “He won’t be pleased to see us.”

  “Is he ever? Use the card!”

  I already had it in my hand. A simple embossed card, with the name of the club in dark Gothic script, and the words You Are Here in blood red lettering. I pressed my thumb against the crimson words, and the card activated, thrumming with stored energy. It leapt out of my hand and hung in mid-air before me, pulsing with light and bubbling with strange energies. Alex always liked his magics showy. The angels sensed what was happening, and both sides surged forward. The card grew suddenly in size and became a door, which opened before me. Comfortable light and convivial sounds spilled out into the warehouse. Suzie and I ran through the opening into Strangefellows, and the door slammed shut behind us, cutting off the frustrated screams of thwarted angels.

  I suppose I must have made more impressive entrances into Strangefellows, but I can’t think when. Certainly the two of us appearing out of nowhere, crying Run for your lives! The angels are coming! made one hell of an impression. The crowd of assorted suspects and dubious types drinking in the club all suddenly remembered they had urgent appointments somewhere else and left the bar in an extreme hurry. Some used the doors, some used the windows. A few vanished in impressive puffs of black smoke, while others opened their own doors to less immediately threatening locations, and disappeared into them. One thoroughly panicked shapeshifter turned himself into a barstool, and hoped not to be noticed. And one guy (there’s always one) took advantage of the general confusion to vault over the bar top and make a grab for the cash register. But Alex’s bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, got him before he’d taken a dozen steps. Betty took the register away from him, Lucy kicked his arse up around his ears; then they let the dumb bastard run (or more properly limp) away. The Coltranes were both pretty sure they were going to have more important things to worry about. Alex stood behind the bar, watching it all and looking even more bitter and put upon than usual. As the last of his patrons vanished, and the place fell unusually quiet, he threw his mopping-up rag onto the bar top and glared at me.

  “Thanks a whole bunch, Taylor. There go my profits for the evening. I knew I should never have given you that bloody card.”

  Suzie and I leaned on the bar, breathing heavily, and Alex grudgingly pushed a bottle of brandy towards us. I took a good swallow, then passed the bottle to Suzie, who drank the rest of it. Alex winced.

  “Why do I even bother giving you the good stuff? You never appreciate it. Now what’s this about angels coming here?”

  “They’re right behind us,” I said. “And in a really bad mood.”

  “Tell us this place is protected,” said Suzie, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I really need to hear this dump is seriously protected.”

  “It is protected,” said Alex. “But possibly…not that protected.”

  “Be specific,” I said. “What have you got?”

  Alex sighed heavily. “I hate giving away trade secrets, but…Basically, this whole building is protected by wards, shaped curses and genetic-level booby-traps laid down by various magicians down the centuries, all of them pretty powerful and vicious as all hell. Grandfather put a really nasty curse on people who miss the urinals in the toilet. And, of course, my ancestor Merlin’s still buried somewhere under the wine cellar. More than enough to keep the flies off, even in the Nightside, but no-one ever said anything about bloody angels! I don’t suppose anyone ever thought the possibility would arise. Of course, they didn’t know about you, Taylor.”

  “You could always turn me over to the angels,” I said. “I’d understand.”

  “This is my bar!” Alex snapped immediately. “No-one messes with my patrons, even if it’s you. And No-one tells me what to do in my own bar, not even a bunch of celestial storm troopers. Should I lock all the doors and barricade the windows?”

  “If you like,” I said.

  “Won’t it help?”
/>   “Not really, no.”

  “You’re a bundle of fun to be around, Taylor, you know that?”

  Suzie had her back to the bar, her shotgun in her hands, glowering warily about her. “Taylor, how long before the angels get here?”

  “Not long,” I said.

  “Am I at least allowed to ask why both of you are soaked in what looks revoltingly like fresh blood?” said Alex. “Not that I care if you’re hurt, of course. I ask only for information, in the interests of hygiene.”

  “I met up with an old friend,” I said.

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Belle.”

  “Oh,” said Alex. “Her. Is she…?”

  “She rests in pieces.”

  “Good,” said Alex. “Snooty bitch. Never liked her. Always putting on airs and looking down her nose at my bar snacks. And she always ordered the best champagne and never paid for it.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a really, really big gun stashed away behind your bar, would you?” Suzie said hopefully.

  Alex sneered in her face. “Even if I did, I’m not stupid enough to annoy an angel by pointing it at him. Anyway, last I heard, you and Taylor had the Speaking Gun…Tell me you still have the Speaking Gun.”

  “We lost it,” I admitted.

  Alex really looked like he was about to have a fit. His fists clenched, his teeth clenched, and he actually shuddered for a moment with frustration and outrage. He grabbed two tufts of spiky hair sticking out from under his beret and tugged at them dangerously.

  “That is typical of you, Taylor! As long as I thought you had the Speaking Gun, I thought we might actually have a chance. But no! You get your hands on one of the most powerful weapons in the Nightside, and you lose it! You’re a jinx, Taylor, you know that? You are nothing but bad news, and always have been! I can feel one of my heads coming on…How are we supposed to defend ourselves now? Buy the angels a round and spike their drinks? Lucy, Betty, emergency measures! Right now!”

  The Coltranes fell to with a will, moving all the furniture away from in front of the bar, and opening up a large clear space. (The shapeshifted barstool yelped quietly at the rough handling, but refused to turn back.) Once the Coltranes had created a big enough space, they laid out a large pentacle, using salt cellars from behind the bar to mark the lines. They made a really professional job of it, considering they were drawing it freehand. Bouncers have to know many special skills, especially in the Nightside. We all took our places inside the pentacle, then Lucy and Betty sealed and activated the design by scrawling disturbing signs in the vales between the five points. Betty drew the last sign with a flourish, and the salt lines blazed with blue-white energies. Properly constructed pentacles drew their power from ley lines, the living nervous system of the material world. Unfortunately, angels drew their power from somewhere even more impressive.

  Betty and Lucy Coltrane sat down together and held each other tightly. They’d done all they could. Suzie and I stood back-to-back, watching and waiting. Alex muttered darkly to himself while trying to look in all directions at once. At least when he wasn’t shooting dark glances at me that clearly said This is all your fault. Do Something. And you’d better have a really good plan. As it happened, I did. But I wasn’t going to tell him about it just yet. Because he really wasn’t going to like it.

  Upstairs, the front door to the club blew in. There was the sound of great wings beating, followed by the tread of heavy feet. A blindingly bright light spilled out of the foyer but stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs leading down into the bar proper. A heavy tension built on the air, oppressive and threatening like a storm about to break, as the angels pressed against Strangefellow’s ancient defences. All of the windows shattered at once, vicious shards of glass flying through the air, only to fall just short of the pentacle’s glowing lines. A blackness far darker than the night oozed through the windows, swallowed them up, then crept slowly across the walls.

  “They’re here,” said Suzie. “Heaven and Hell.”

  “And poor Humanity caught in the middle, just like always,” I said. I turned to Alex. “And now, it’s up to you. We need your ancestor, Alex. We need Merlin.”

  “No,” he said. “No way. I won’t do it.”

  “He’s the only one powerful enough to make a stand against angels, Alex.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking, John. I can’t do it.”

  “That’s your big plan?” said Suzie. “Call up Merlin? What’s he but another dead sorcerer who won’t lie down?”

  “According to some Arthurian legends, his full name was Merlin Satanspawn,” I said. “Because his father was supposed to be the devil.”

  “Just when you think things can’t get any worse…” Suzie scowled unhappily. “I can see a rock and a hard place moving into position around us. If you like, I could just shoot us all now. It might be less painful.”

  “Relax, Suzie,” I said. “I’m on the case. Alex…”

  “Don’t make me do this, John,” he said quietly. “Please. You don’t know what it’s like, what it does to me. When I call him up, he manifests through me. He takes my place in the world. I have to cease to exist, so he can be real. It feels like dying.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” I said. “Really. But we don’t have the time for me to be kind.”

  I pushed my gift into his head, found the connection that still existed between Alex and his most ancient ancestor, and pushed it hard.

  “Merlin Satanspawn; come forth!”

  Alex cried out, in pain and shock and horror, and ran out of the pentacle before any of us could stop him. He got as far as the bar before the change hit him. The whole world seemed to shudder, as reality shifted and changed…and where Alex had been, suddenly someone new, or rather very old, came into the world. He sat in state upon a great iron throne, the heavy black metal carved and scored with crawling, unquiet runes. He was naked, his corpse-pale body decorated from throat to toes with curving Celtic and Druidic tattoos. Many were unpleasant and actually disturbing to look upon. Between the ancient designs, his skin was blotchy and discoloured and visibly decayed in places. He’d been dead a long time, and it showed. His hair was long and grey, falling past his shoulders in convoluted knots, and stiffened here and there with clay and woad. Upon his heavy brow he wore a crown of mistletoe. His face was heavy-boned and ugly, and two fires leapt and danced in the sockets where his eyes should have been. There was an ancient wound in the centre of his chest, where skin and muscle and bone had been torn apart, leaving a gaping hole. His heart was gone, torn out, long and long ago. He was Merlin, dead but not departed, powerful beyond hope or sanity. Merlin, sitting on his ancient throne and smiling horribly.

  They say he has his father’s eyes…

  He only still existed through an awful act of will. Life and death and reality itself bowed down to his magics. Though there were those who said he was only still around because neither Heaven nor Hell would take him.

  “Who disturbs me at this time?” Merlin’s voice was deep and dark, and grated on the ear like fingernails dragged across the soul.

  “I’m John Taylor,” I said, politely. “I called you. Angels have come to the Nightside, from Above and Below, in search of the Unholy Grail. They threaten this place, and your current descendant.”

  “Damn,” said Merlin. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.”

  A voice spoke from the top of the stairs; a choir of voices speaking in a harmony so perfect it was inhuman. “We are the Will of the Most High. We are the soldiers of the shimmering plains, and the Courts of the Holy. Give us the mortal, for we have need of him.”

  Another voice spoke, from out of the darkness that had enveloped the windows and was spreading slowly across the walls. Its harmonies were dissonant and disturbing, but still inhumanly perfect. “We are the Will of the Morningstar. We are the soldiers of the Pit, and the Inferno. Do not stand in our way. The mortal is ours.”

  “Typical angels,” said Me
rlin, sitting utterly at ease and unmoved on his iron throne. “All bluff and bluster. Bullies, then and now. The Hereafter’s attack dogs, only with less manners. Guard your tongues, all of you. I am the Son of the Morningstar, and I will not be spoken to in such a fashion. I could have been the Anti-Christ, but I declined the honour. I was determined to be free, from both Heaven and Hell. I gave birth to Camelot, and the song that never ends. I made a Golden Age for Mankind, an Age of Reason. And then the Holy Grail came to England’s fair shores, and no-one could think of anything else. They all went riding off on their stupid quests, abandoning their duty to the people. And, of course, it all fell apart. What is Reason, in the face of dreams? I still miss Arthur. He was always the best of them. Arthur, my once and future King.”

  “Did you really get to see the Holy Grail?” said Suzie, who would interrupt anybody. “What was it like?”

  Merlin’s smile softened, just for a moment. “It was…wonderful. A thing of beauty, and of joy. Almost enough to be worth losing the world for. Almost beautiful enough…to shame me for the shallowness of my vision. Man cannot live by Reason alone.”

  “And now the Unholy Grail’s come here,” I said. “I’ve been told it would be a really bad thing if either set of angels gets their hands on it. Judgement Day was mentioned, and not in a good way.”

  “The sombre chalice…” Merlin raised one rotting hand to the gaping hole in his chest. “I suppose it was inevitable the ugly thing should turn up here. The Nightside was created to be the one place where neither Heaven nor Hell could intervene directly. A place apart, free from the tyrannies of fate and destiny. In the Nightside, even the Highest and the Lowest can only work through agents. Which is why the angels are so much weaker here.”