Hex In The City n-4

by Simon R. Green

  I left Uptown behind me and headed back into the old main drag, where business puts on its best bib and tucker, and tarts itself up for the travelling trade. All the gaudiest establishments and tourist traps, where sin is mass-produced, and temptation comes in six-packs. In short, I was heading for the Nightside's one and only shopping mall. Mass brands and franchises from the outside world tended to roll over and die here, where people's appetites run more to the unusual and outre, but there's always the exception. The Mammon Emporium offers brand-name concessions and fast-food chains from alternative universes and divergent timetracks. There may be nothing new under the sun, but the sun never shines in the Nightside.

  I strolled between the huge M and E that marked the entrance to the mall, and for once nobody crossed themselves, or headed for the nearest exit. The Mammon Emporium was one of the few places where I could hope to be just another face in the crowd. Shoppers from all kinds of Londons came here in search of the fancy and the forbidden, and, of course, that chance for a once-in-a-lifetime bargain. People dressed in a hundred different outrageous styles called out to each other in as many different languages and argots, crowding the thoroughfares and window-shopping sights they'd never find anywhere else. Brightly coloured come-ons blazed from every store, their windows full of wonders, and countless businesses crammed in side by side in a mall that somehow managed to be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Apparently space expands to encompass the trade involved.

  To every side of me blazed signs and logos from far and distant places, MCCAMPBELL'S DOLPHIN BURGERS, STAR-DOCK'S SNUFF. WILL DIZZY'S MORTIMER MOUSE. BAPTISMS R US. PERV PARLOUR, SOUL MARKET; NEW, USED AND REFURBISHED. And of course THE NOSFERATU BLOOD BANK. (Come in and make a deposit. Give generously. Don't make us come looking for you.) A dark-haired Goth girl in a crimson basque gave me the eye from the shadowy doorway. I smiled politely and continued on my way.

  Right in the middle of the mall stood an old-fashioned wishing well, largely ignored by the crowds that bustled unseeingly past it. The well didn't look like much. Just a traditional stone-walled well with a circle of stunted grass around it, a red slate roof above, and a bucket on a rusty steel chain. A sign in really twee writing invited you to toss a coin in the well and make a wish. Just a little bit of harmless fun for the kiddies. Except this was the Nightside, which has never gone in for harmless fun. Most oracles are a joke. The concept of alternate timetracks (as seen every day in the Nightside's spontaneously generating Time-slips) makes prophecy largely unprofitable and knocks the idea of Fate very firmly on the head. But this particular oracle had a really good track record in predicting the present; in knowing what was going on everywhere, right now. I suppose specialisation is everything, these days. I leaned against the well's stone wall and looked casually about me. No-one seemed to be paying me or the well any special attention.

  "Hello, oracle," I said. "What's happening?" "More than you can possibly imagine," said a deep, bubbling voice from a long way below. "Bless me with coin of silver, oh passing traveller, and I shall bless thee with three answers to any question. The first answer shall be explicit but unhelpful, the second allusive but accurate, and the third a wild stab in the dark. The more you spend, the more you learn."

  "Don't give me that crap," I said. "I'm not a tourist. This is John Taylor."

  "Oh bloody hell; you're back again, are you?" The oracle sounded distinctly sulky. "You know very well your whole existence makes my head ache."

  "You haven't got a head."

  "Exactly! It's people like you that give oracles a bad reputation. What do you want? I'm busy."

  "What with?" I asked, honestly curious.

  "Trust me, you really don't want to know. You think it's easy being the fount of all wisdom, when your walls are covered with algae? And I hate Timselips! They're like haemorrhoids for an oracle. And speaking of pains in the arse; what do you want, Taylor?"

  "I'm looking for the man called Madman."

  "Oh God; he's even worse than you. He'd turn my stomach, if I had one. What do you want with him?"

  "Don't you know?"

  The oracle sniffed haughtily. "That's right, make fun of a cripple. At least I can see where he is, unlike you. But this answer will cost you. No information for free; that's the rule. Don't blame me, I just work here. Until the curse finally wears off; then I will be out of here so fast it'll make your head spin."

  "All right," I said. "How many drops of blood for a straight answer?"

  "Just the one, for you, sweet prince," the oracle said, its voice suddenly ingratiating. "And remember me, when you come into your kingdom."

  I looked down into the shadows of the well. "You've heard something."

  "Maybe I have, maybe I haven't," the oracle said smugly. "Take advantage of my sweet nature, before the price goes up."

  I jabbed my thumb with a pin and let a single fat drop of blood fall into the well, which made a soft, ugly, satisfied noise.

  "You'll find Madman at the Hotel Clappe," it said briskly. "In the short-time district. Watch your back there, and don't talk to any of the strange women, unless you're collecting infections. Now get the hell out of here; my head is splitting. And carpe that old diem, John Taylor. It's later than anyone thinks."

  The Hotel Clappe, spelled that way to give it that extra bit of class, looked just like it sounded; the kind of duty, disgusting dump where you rented rooms by the hour, and a fresh pair of sheets was a luxury. Good-time girls and others stalked their prey in the underlit streets, and the crabs were so big they leapt out of dark alleyways to mug passersby. Appearance was everything, and buyer beware. But there will always be those for whom sex is no fun unless it's seedy, dirty, and just a bit dangerous, so... I walked down the street of red lamps looking determinedly straight ahead and keeping my hands very firmly to myself. In areas like this, the twilight daughters could be scarier and more dangerous than most of the more obvious monsters in the Nightside. Depressingly enough, an awful lot of them seemed to know my name.

  The Hotel Clappe was just another flaky-painted establishment in the middle of a long, terraced row, and no-one had bothered to repaint the sign over the door in years. I pushed the door open with one hand, wishing I'd thought to bring some gloves with me, and strode into the lobby, trying to look like a building inspector or someone else with a legitimate reason to be there. The lobby was just as foul and unclean as I expected, and the carpet crunched under my feet. A few individuals of debatable sexuality looked up from their gossip magazines as I entered, but looked quickly away again as they recognised me.

  I wasn't entirely sure what Madman was doing in a place like this. I didn't think he cared any more about sane and everyday things like sex or pleasure. But then, I suppose to him one place was as good as any other. And it was a good area to hide out. It wasn't the kind of place you came to unless you had definite business here.

  A couple of elfin hookers made way for me as I approached the hotel clerk, protected from his world by a heavy steel grille. The elves looked me over with bold mascaraed eyes, and gave me their best professional smiles. Their wings looked a bit crumpled, but they still had a certain gaudy glamour. I smiled and shook my head, and they actually looked a bit relieved. God alone knew what my reputation had transmuted into, down here. Certainly the clerk behind his grille didn't look at all pleased to see me. He was a short sturdy type, in grubby trousers and a string vest, a sour face, and eyes that had seen everything. Behind him a sign said simply you touch it, you pay for it. The clerk spat juicily into a cuspidor, and regarded me with a flat, indifferent face.

  "I don't do questions," he said, in a grey toneless voice. "Not even for the infamous John Taylor. See nothing, know nothing; all part of the job. You don't scare me. We get worse than you coming in here every day. And the grille's charmed, cursed, and electrified, so don't get any ideas."

  "And here I am, come to do you a favour," I said cheerfully, carefully unimpressed by his manner. "I've come to take Madman
away with me."

  "Oh thank God," said the clerk, his manner changing in a moment. He leaned forward, his face suddenly pleading, almost pathetic. "Please get him out of here. You don't know what it's like, having him around. The screams and the howls and the rains of blood. The rooms that change position and the doors that suddenly don't go anywhere. He scares the Johns. He even scares the girls, and I didn't think there was anything left that could do that. My nerves will never be the same again. He's giving the hotel a really bad reputation."

  "I would have thought that was an advantage, in an area like this," I said.

  "Just get Madman out of here. Please."

  "We'd be ever so grateful," said one of the elfin hookers, pushing her bosoms out at me.

  I declined her offer with all the politeness at my command, and the clerk gave me a room number on the second floor. The elevator wasn't working, of course, so I trudged up the stairs. Bare stone steps and no railing, the walls painted industrial grey. I could feel Madman's room long before I got anywhere near it. Like a wild beast, lying in wait around a corner. The feeling grew stronger as I moved warily out onto the second floor. Madman's room lay ahead of me, like a visit to the dentist, like a doctor bearing bad news. The air was bitter cold, my breath steaming thickly before me. I could feel my heart pounding fast in my chest. I walked slowly down the empty corridor, leaning forward slightly, as though forcing my way against an unseen pressure. All my instincts were screaming at me to get out while I still could.

  I stopped outside the door. The number matched the one the clerk had given me, but I would have recognised it anyway. The room felt like the pain that wakes you in the middle of the night and makes you think awful words like tumour and poison. It felt like the death of a loved one, or the tone in your lover's voice as she tells you she's leaving you for someone else. The room felt like horror and tragedy, and the slow unravelling of everything you ever held true. Except it wasn't the room. It was Madman.

  I didn't know his name. His true, original name. I don't suppose even he did, any more. Names imply an identity and a history, and Madman had torn those up long ago. Now he was a sad, perilous, confused gentleman who had only a nodding relationship with reality. Anyone's reality. What drove him mad in the first place, insane beyond any help or hope of rescue, is a well-known story in the Nightside, and one of the most disturbing. Back in the sixties, Madman was an acid sorcerer, a guru to Timothy Leary, and one of NASA's leading scientists. A genius, with many patents to his name, and an insatiable appetite for knowledge. By the end of the sixties, he'd moved from outer space to inner space, to mysticism and mathematical description theory. He studied and researched for many years, exploring the more esoteric areas of arcane information, trying to discover a way to view Reality as it actually is, rather than the way we all perceive it, through our limited human minds and senses.

  Somehow, he found a way to See past the comfortable collective illusion we all live in, and look directly at what lies beneath or beyond the world we know. Whatever it was he Saw in that endless moment, it destroyed his sanity, then and forever. Either because baseline Reality was so much worse, or so much better, than what we believe reality to be. Unbelievable horror or beauty, I suppose both are equally upsetting ideas. These days Madman lives in illusions, and doesn't care. The difference between him and us is that he can sometimes choose his illusions. Though sometimes, they choose him.

  Madman can be extremely dangerous to be around. He doesn't believe what he sees is real, so for him it isn't. Around him, the world follows his whims and wishes, his fears and his doubts, reality reordering itself to follow his drifting thoughts. Which can be helpful, or confusing, or scary, because he doesn't necessarily believe in you, either. He can change your personality or your history without your even noticing. And people who annoy or threaten him sufficiently tend to get turned into things. Very unpleasant things. So mostly people just let him wander wherever he wants to go and do whatever he feels like doing. It's safer that way. It helps that Madman doesn't want to do much. People who try to use him tend to come to bad ends.

  And here I was standing outside his door, breathing hard, sweating, clenching my hands into fists as I tried to summon up the courage to knock. I was taking a hell of a risk in talking to him, and I knew it. I hadn't been this scared since I faced up to Jessica Sorrow the Unbeliever; and I'd had a sort of weapon to use against her. All I had to set against Madman were my wits and my quick thinking. And even I wouldn't have bet on me. Still, at least Madman came with his own warning signals. For reasons probably not even known to himself, Madman came complete with his own personal sound track; music from nowhere that echoed his moods and intentions. If you paid attention to the changes in style, you could learn things.

  I stood before his door, one hand raised to knock. It was like standing before the door to a raging furnace, or maybe a plague ward. Open at your own risk. I took a deep breath, knocked smartly, announced my name in a loud but very polite voice, then opened the door and walked into Madman's room. From somewhere I could hear Nilsson's "Everybody's Talking at Me."

  The room was far bigger than it should have been, though its shape was strangely uncertain. Instead of the pokey little crib I'd expected, it was more like a suite, with a huge bed, antique furniture, and all kinds of luxurious trappings. And all of it covered in glitter and shimmering lights. Everywhere I looked the details were all just that little bit off, subtly wrong. The angles between walls and floor didn't add up, the ceiling seemed to recede in uncomfortable directions, and there was no obvious source for the painfully bright light. Objects seemed to change, slumping and transmuting when I wasn't looking at them directly. The floor was solid beneath my feet, but it felt like I was standing over a precipice. Every sound in the room was dull and distant, as though I was underwater. I stood very still, concentrating on why I was there, because it felt as though I might alter and drift away if I lost my grip on who and what I was, even for a moment.

  This was why people didn't like being around Madman.

  He was lying on top of the covers on his oversized bed, looking small and lost. He was a squat and blocky man, with a heavy grey beard. His eyes as he suddenly sat up and looked at me didn't track properly, and there was something wild and desperate in his gaze. He looked tired and sad, like a dog that's been punished and doesn't know why. He was wearing what he always wore; a black T-shirt over grubby jeans. He always wore the same because he couldn't be bothered with inconsequential things like clothes. Or washing, by the smell of him.

  All the walls in the room were covered in lines and lines of scrawled mathematical equations. They manifested wherever he stayed, apparently without Madman's noticing or caring, and they disappeared shortly after he left. No-one had ever been able to make any sense out of them, though many had tried. Just as well, probably. Madman looked at something just behind my shoulder. I didn't turn to look. Whatever he was Seeing, I was pretty sure I didn't want to see it. After a moment, Madman's gaze drifted away, and I relaxed slightly. All around us, the room was changing in subtle ways, moving with his mood as he adjusted to my presence. Shadows were gathering in the room's corners. Deep, dark shadows, with things moving in them. Things that had the simple awful threat of the monsters we see in childhood nightmares.

  "Hello, Madman," I said, in a calm and neutral tone. "It's John Taylor. Remember? We've met at Strangefel-lows a few times, and at the Tourniquet Club. We have a mutual friend in Razor Eddie. Remember?"

  "No," Madman said sadly, in his low breathy voice. "But then, I rarely remember anyone. It's safer that way. I know you, though. I know you, John Taylor. Oh yes. Very dangerous. Bad blood. I think if I really remembered you ... I'd be frightened."

  The thought that someone like Madman could be frightened of me was distinctly worrying, on all sorts of levels, but I pushed the thought aside to concentrate on more immediate problems. Like getting through the conversation without being changed or killed, and, somehow, persuading Madman to
work with me.

  "I'm going in search of the origins of the Nightside," I said. "I could use your help. And maybe along the way, we might find someone, or something, who could help you."

  "No-one can help me," said Madman. "I can't even help myself." He cocked his head on one side to regard me, like a bird. "Why would you want my help, John Taylor?" He sounded almost rational, and I pressed the advantage while it lasted.

  "Even I'm not strong enough to take on or bluff some of the Beings I'm going to have to talk to," I said. "So I thought I'd take you along to confuse the issue. And maybe to hide behind."

  "That makes sense,", said Madman, nodding in an almost normal manner. "All right, I'll go with you. I think I've been lying here for months, thinking about things, and I'm almost sure I'm bored. Yes, I'll go with you. I'm always looking for something to distract me. To keep my mind occupied, so it won't go wandering off in ... unfortunate directions. I'm more scared of me than you'll ever be. Let's go."

  He swung down off the bed, his movements strangely unconnected. Standing up, he was almost as tall as I, but he seemed much heavier, as though he weighed more heavily on the world. The shadows in the corners had retreated, for the moment. Madman headed for the door, and I followed him out of the room, carefully not looking back. His sound track was playing something jazzy, heavy on the saxophone. As I closed the door, I glanced back into the room, just for a moment. It was a small, pokey room, dark and dirty and thick with dust and cobwebs. Clearly it hadn't been used in years. Something was lying on the bed. It started to sit up, and I shut the door firmly and stepped back. Madman was looking at me patiently, so I led the way to the stairs and down into the lobby. People saw us step out into the lobby and scurried to get out of our way. And so together, Madman and I went out into the Nightside in search of the man called Sinner.