I nodded slowly. "So, once again I'm doing your dirty work, am I? Cleaning up the messes you're not allowed to touch."
"It is what you do best," said Walker. "I have every confidence in you. Of course, if you screw up, you're nothing to do with me." He looked at Suzie's shotgun, still trained rock steady on him, and raised an elegant eyebrow. "My dear Suzie, as bloodthirsty as ever. You don't really think guns are going to help you against angels, do you?"
"There's always the Speaking Gun," I said, and Walker looked at me sharply.
"The depths and range of your knowledge never cease to amaze me, Taylor. But a word of warning: some cures are worse than the disease."
Suzie gave him a hard look. "You know about the Speaking Gun?"
Walker smiled coldly. "Of course, my dear. It's my job to know about things like that. I know all the weapons powerful enough to bring down or destroy the Nightside. As for the Speaking Gun, only the truly irresponsible or the seriously deluded would even consider using such a weapon."
"Any idea where such a thing might be found?" I said. "The Collector's supposed to have had it for a while."
"And couldn't hold on to it," said Walker. "Which should tell you something. Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. For your and everyone else's good.
Trust me on this, Taylor. You're in deep enough waters as it is."
"What is the Authorities' position on the angels themselves?" I asked, acting like I'd given up on the Speaking Gun. It didn't fool Walker in the least, but he went along with it.
"Their position is that they don't have a position. We are on the sidelines in this, and intend to stay there until all the violence and mass destruction are safely over, one way or another. Then we will return, to supervise the picking up of pieces."
"People are going to get hurt," I said. "Good people."
"This is the Nightside," said Walker. "Good people don't come here." He smiled at Suzie. "Good to see you out and working again, my dear. You know I worry about you so."
"I like to think of you being worried," said Suzie. The gun she had on him hadn't wavered once.
"Don't you care at all about the carnage that's coming?" I said, and the anger rising in my voice brought his gaze snapping back to me. "If angels go to war in the Nightside, the whole place could end up as rubble, or one big cemetery. What happens to your precious status quo then?"
Walker looked at me almost sadly. "The Nightside will survive, no matter how many people die. The major players will survive, and all the more important businesses. They're protected. No-one else matters, in the great scheme of things. And no, Taylor, I don't care how many die. Because the Nightside has never been more than a job to me. If I had my way, I'd wipe out the whole sick freak show and start over. But I have my orders."
"And the Unholy Grail?"
Walker pursed his lips, and shrugged. "I wouldn't worry too much about that. The odds are it's just another religious con job, another fake relic for fools to fight over. There have been more versions of the true Grail passing through here than there were copies of the Maltese Falcon. And even if this Unholy Grail does turn out to be the real thing, from what I've seen of its history, it's never brought anyone any real happiness or lasting power. Let the angels take it away, to Above or Below. We're better off without it. The Unholy Grail is nothing more than tinsel and glamour and shoddy dreams, just like everything else in the Nightside."
"And if it is... what everyone's afraid it is?" said Suzie.
"Then it's just as well you and Taylor are on the job, isn't it? So, off you go. Have fun. Try not to break anything too important. But if you do get your hands on the Unholy Grail, don't be foolish enough to hang on to the dreadful thing yourselves. I have to go to enough funerals in the line of duty as it is. The best you'll be able to achieve in this appalling business is to decide which side to hand it over to. Which ma not be as straight forward as you think. You see, I know who your client really is. And you only think you do."
I started to say something, but Walker had already turned his back on us and was walking unhurriedly away. Head held high and back ramrod straight, as always. He'd said everything he'd come to say, sowed all the right doubts, and now wild horses couldn't drag another word out of him. I shook my head slowly. No-one can mess with your mind like Walker.
Suzie continued to cover him with her shotgun until he rounded a corner and was safely out of sight, then she holstered the gun with one swift motion, and turned to me. "What was that all about, Taylor? Who is our client?"
"The Vatican, supposedly." I scowled thoughtfully. "Represented by an undercover priest called Jude."
"Like in St. Jude's?"
"Presumably. It occurs to me now that I never did check out his credentials properly. I don't usually slip up like that. There's just something about the man... that makes you want to trust him. Which in the Night-side should be automatic grounds for suspicion. If we do get our hands on the Unholy Grail, I think I'll make a point of asking some really awkward and pointed questions before I hand it over to anyone. Come on, Suzie. Let's get over to the Fourth Reich's headquarters. Before someone else does."
The old assembly room currently hosting the last great hope of the Fourth Reich was situated at the end of a quiet side street, in a largely residential area. The kind of place where people kept to themselves, minded their own business, and watched the world from behind drawn curtains. The street was empty, the night unusually quiet. Suzie and I strolled down the deserted street, our footsteps sounding unusually loud and carrying. No-one appeared to challenge us as we approached the assembly room. Which was also not usual. Suzie and I stopped outside the front door. It was standing slightly ajar. Suzie unholstered her shotgun, and scowled at the door. I looked at her enquiringly.
"What is it, Suze?"
"Don't call me that. It's too quiet. Those Nazi freaks always have their martial music running full blast, so they can puff out their chests and march up and down to it and shout Heil! at each other. This is their usual meeting time, but I can't hear a damned thing." She stepped cautiously forward and put her face to the crack of the door. She sniffed a few times. "Cordite. Smoke. Someone's been firing guns in there."
She looked at me, and I nodded. Suzie kicked the door in and charged on in, gun at the ready. I followed after her, at a more sedate pace. I don't carry a gun. I've never felt the need. I soon caught up with Suzie. She'd stopped not far inside. We stood together and looked around the old assembly room, taking our time. There was no need to hurry any more.
The long hall the Fourth Reich used as their headquarters and meeting place was a fair size. Far too big for the small-scale rallies that were all they could manage these days. And every inch of the great open floor was covered with dead bodies. Dozens of dead Nazis, all in full uniform, all of them soaked in blood and riddled with bullet holes. They lay where they had fallen, outstretched hands reaching out for help that never came, like so many discarded toy soldiers. The walls had taken a lot of hits too. The swastika flags and Nazi memorabilia and old curling photos covering the walls had been torn apart by sustained gun-fire. Most hung in tatters, pitiful remnants of a dead empire. And there was blood everywhere, splashed and splattered across the walls, running down to form thick pools between the bodies on the floor.
Suzie was on full alert, raking every inch of the hall with savage eyes, swiveling her shotgun back and forth, searching for an enemy or a target. Suzie only ever really came alive when there was a chance of killing someone. But there was nothing moving in the assembly room but us. The Fourth Reich was over before it even got started. This was a place of the dead now.
"Whatever happened here, we missed it," said Suzie.
"Someone else looking for the Unholy Grail got here first," I said, stepping carefully forward, over and around the piled-together bodies. "And whatever questions they asked, they sure as hell didn't like the answers they got."
"Whoever that someone was, they had a hell of a lot of firepower," said
Suzie, moving cautiously forward after me. "You couldn't do this much damage with handguns. We're talking heavy-duty weaponry. Given the fire patterns, at least a dozen automatic weapons, maybe more. If the Nazis had any weapons, it doesn't look like they got the chance to use them. I don't see anyone dead not wearing a uniform." She knelt beside one corpse and checked for a pulse in the neck. She shook her head briefly and stood up. "Still warm, though. This all happened fairly recently."
I looked around me, estimating the numbers. "We're looking at... at least a hundred dead people here. Most of their organization. Maybe all of it."
Suzie sniggered suddenly. "Hey, Taylor, what do you call a hundred dead Nazis? A good start."
"Cheap, Suzie, even for you. You'll be doing knock-knock jokes next." I stopped and looked at a huge poster of Adolf Hitler on the wall beside me. Blood had splashed across half his face. Some symbols are just too obvious, even for me. "They say he owned the Holy Grail."
"Didn't do the silly bugger a lot of good in the long ran, did it?'
"Good point." I looked back at the dead Nazis, trying to summon up some sympathy, and failing. Given a chance, they would have done this to the whole world, and laughed while they did it. To hell with them. A thought struck me. "Men with guns did this, Suzie. Not angels."
Suzie nodded. "Hard to visualize an angel with an Uzi. What do we do now?"
"We search the place thoroughly. Just in case whoever did this missed something. Something that might tell us where to go next. I'm a private detective, remember? Find me some nice juicy clues, so I can smile enigmatically over them."
It took us the best part of an hour, but eventually we found our clue. He was kneeling behind a piano at the far end of the hall, next to a half-open fire exit door. A white statue of a man, dressed in a smart black suit. He was crouched down right next to the piano, as though trying to hide from something. And given the horrified scream still fixed on his gleaming white face, a pretty damned awful something at that. Suzie and I studied him carefully.
"Just when you think you've seen everything," Suzie said finally. "Marble?"
"I don't think so." I touched a fingertip to the contorted white face, brought the fingertip to my mouth, and tasted it.
"Well?" said Suzie.
"Salt," I said. "It's salt."
"A statue made of salt?"
"This isn't a statue. I've seen this work before, at St. Jude's. Someone, or more properly something, turned a living human being into salt, just like this."
Suzie curled her upper lip. "Kinky. Why salt?"
"Lot's wife looked back to see the Lord's angels at work. And was turned to salt."
"Creepy," said Suzie. "Big-time creepy. But why just this man, and not any of the others?"
I considered the matter. "This isn't one of the Nazis. He isn't wearing a uniform. More likely, this was one of the people who wiped out the Nazis. Because they couldn't, or wouldn't, deliver the Unholy Grail to their attackers. Then... the angels turned up. The ambushers disappeared out this fire exit at speed, but this poor bastard either didn't move fast enough, or thought he could hide here. Search his pockets, Suzie."
She looked at me. "Why do I have to do it?"
"Hey, I tasted his face."
Suzie sniffed, put away her gun, and frisked the statue's clothing with practiced thoroughness. A small pile of all the usual junk formed on the floor before him, while I studied the silently screaming face.
"You know, Suzie, there's something familiar about this guy."
"Nothing in the coat pockets."
"I've seen him before somewhere..."
"Nothing in the trouser pockets... except a piece of old gum in his handkerchief. Now that is really disgusting."
"Got it!" I said triumphantly. "This guy braced me in Strangefellows, earlier tonight. He wanted me to work for his boss and didn't take it at all well when I declined."
"Who was he working for?" said Suzie, straightening up and rubbing her hands briskly against her jacket.
"He didn't say. But he knew my client was a priest, even though Jude was traveling incognito. Called him a 'pew-polisher.' Which means this guy has to be working for one of the major players. Someone with real information as to what's going on in the Night-side."
Suzie frowned. "Walker?"
"No. This isn't his style. Too crude. Besides, he said he'd taken all his people out, and I believe him. No, this has to be the work of some of the real movers and shakers. The Collector, Nasty Jack Starlight, the Smoke Ghosts, the Lord of Tears..."
And then my eye fell on something on the floor, tucked under the statue's ankle. A small black case, almost hidden in the shadows. I gestured to Suzie, and she helped me manhandle the salt statue to one side. It felt eerily light and strangely delicate, as though it might shatter and fall apart under rough handling. I pushed the black case out into the light with the tip of my shoe. It was about a foot long, eight inches wide, and its surface was a strangely dull matte black. Suzie prodded it with the barrel of her gun. Nothing happened. We both knelt down to study the case more closely. Neither of us felt like rushing things. We both had extensive experience of booby-traps. It took me a while to make it out, but I finally recognized a familiar symbol, set out in bas-relief on the case's lid. A large initial C, containing a stylized crown.
"The Collector," said Suzie. "I'd know his mark anywhere."
"Whatever's in the case must be important," I said slowly. 'This guy stopped here to try and open the case, and the angel got him."
"A weapon?" said Suzie.
"Seems likely. But he never got a chance to use it."
"Do we open it?" said Suzie.
"Give me a minute," I said.
I couldn't afford to open my gift for finding things all the way, not with angels hovering in the over-world, waiting for the chance to grab me again. But I could ease my third eye, my private eye, open just a crack, just enough to find out what defenses the Collector had built into the case. I braced myself, ready to shut down all of the way if I even sensed anyone watching me, but it only took me a few seconds to sense there were no defenses, and no booby-traps. Faced with an angel, this guy must have revoked all the case's protections to try and get at the content faster. I shut down my third eye, and re-established all my mental shields.
And then I opened the case.
The smell hit me first. The smell of hardworking horses, the scent of dogs maddened on heat, the stench of freshly spilled guts. I pushed the lid all the way back. And there, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was the ugliest handgun I have ever seen. It was made of meat. Of flesh and bone, dark-veined gristle, and shards of cartilage, held together with strips of pale skin. Living tissues, shaped into a killing tool. Thin slabs of bone made up the handle, surrounded by freckled skin. The flushed skin had a hot and sweaty look. The trigger was a long canine tooth, and the red meat of the barrel glistened wetly.
"Is that... what I think it is?" said Suzie.
I swallowed hard. "It fits the description." We were both speaking very quietly.
"The Speaking Gun. The Collector had it after all."
"Yes."
"Is it... alive, do you think?"
"Good question. No, don't touch it. You might wake it."
Suzie leaned in close, wrinkling her nose at the smell, then frowned and turned her head to one side. Strands of her long blonde hair fell down, almost touching the thing as she listened. She straightened up again and looked at me. "I think it's breathing."
"The Speaking Gun," I said. "A gun created specifically to kill angels, from Above and Below. Damn... We are in deep spiritual waters here, Suzie."
"Who made it?" she said suddenly. "Who'd want to be able to kill angels?"
"No-one knows for sure. Merlin's name has been bandied about, but he gets blamed for a lot of stuff... There's always The Lamentation or The Engineer, but they usually deal in more abstract threats ..." Something on the bone handle caught my eye, and I leaned forward. Etched deep into the bone
were lines of tiny writing. I struggled with it for a while, then admitted defeat. "Suzie, you take a look at this. You've got better eyes than me."
She leaned in close again, holding her long hair back, and slowly read out the words on the bone handle. "Abraxus Artificers. The old firm. Solving problems since the Beginning." She straightened up again, frowned, and looked at me. "Any of that mean anything to you?"
"Not much."
"So, are we going to take it with us?"
I snorted. "I'm certainly not leaving something this powerful lying around here. It'll be safer with us."
"Great!" said Suzie. "A whole new kind of gun for me to use!"
"Hold everything, Suzie. I'm not sure we can afford to use a weapon like this. We kill an angel, even a Fallen one, and you can bet Someone is going to get really mad at us."
Suzie shrugged. "It's got to beat getting turned into salt."
"There is that, yes." I carefully closed the lid on the Speaking Gun, picked the case up, and slipped it carefully into my coat pocket, next to my heart. "Still, I think we should consider using this only as a very last resort."
Suzie pouted, but didn't object. "Any idea how it's supposed to work?"
"Only roughly. According to the Voynich Manuscript, the Speaking Gun re-creates God's Word. You know, in the Beginning was the Word? The great Sound at the start of Creation, that lives on in the real, secret, names of everything. The Speaking Gun recognizes the secret name of whatever you point it at, and then Says it backwards, uncreating it. Theoretically, this Gun could destroy anything. Or everything."
"Cool..." said Suzie.
"The Gun is also supposed to exert a very heavy price on whoever uses it," I said sternly. "No-one today knows what. But given the fact that no-one's dared use the awful thing in centuries, I think we should be extremely cautious."
"All right," said Suzie. "No need to look at me like that. I can take a hint. I can be cautious, when I have to be. So, where do we go now?"
"Well, given that the lid of this case bears the Collector's mark, I think it's fair to assume this guy and his friends worked for the Collector. Which make sense. He'd sell what's left of his scavenging soul to get his hands on a unique item like the Unholy Grail. He'd certainly sell any number of other people's souls for it. And you can bet good money he'll have the very latest information on where it might be. If he doesn't already have it... So I think we should pay him a little visit."
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