Hex In The City n-4

by Simon R. Green

  "How long were you here?" said Pretty Poison.

  "I don't know. Long enough. This is where I first met Razor Eddie. He still sleeps here, sometimes." I stepped cautiously forward into the square, looking around me for familiar faces as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. "That's Sister Morphine over there, in what's left of her habit. A Carmelite nun who chose to come here and live among the street people, to preach and to console them. Her veins manufacture all kinds of drugs for the needy, expressed through her tears. And there's never any shortage of reasons for tears in Rats' Alley. Her tears are shed for the suffering around her, and no-one is ever turned away. Some time ago, a bunch of thugs decided to kidnap and make use of her, as an endless supply of drugs for them to peddle. They turned up here mob-handed to drag her away, all confident and cocky ... and the street people ganged up on them and beat them all to death. Afterwards, they ate the bodies."

  Sister Morphine came forward to meet me, holding the dark rags of her habit around her with tired dignity. She looked a lot older than I remembered, but then living out in the open will do that to you. Her robes were spattered with filth, her smile weary but kind.

  "John Taylor. I always knew you'd be back."

  "I'm just visiting, Sister."

  "That's what they all say."

  "I'm looking for Herne the Hunter, Sister. We need to talk to him."

  "But does he want to talk to you?" Sister Morphine glared at Pretty Poison. "This one has the stink of the Pit about her."

  "We're not here to make trouble," I said carefully.

  "You are trouble, John," said Sister Morphine. And she turned her back on me and walked away.

  I looked around for someone who might be more helpful. For cash in hand, or even the promise of a drink. The Bone Horror peered at me dully, curled up under a propped-up blanket. He'd lost everything at the gambling tables, even his flesh. All he had left was his bones, but still he wouldn't, perhaps couldn't, die. Some of his bones had clearly been gnawed on, and I could only hope it was just by rats. I saw other names, other faces, but none of them looked friendly. There were creatures as well as people, and even a few broken-down machines, hoarding the last sparks of energy in their positronic brains. Even the underside of the Nightside is still a cosmopolitan place. There was even a Grey alien, dressed in the tattered remains of an atmosphere suit. Left behind, presumably. Damn things get everywhere. His badly handwritten cardboard sign said Will probe for food. I seriously considered kicking the crap out of the abducting little bastard on general principles, but I made myself rise above the temptation. All are welcome in Rats' Alley, no matter what their past. That's the point. They even took me in.

  "Does no-one do anything to help these people?" said Sinner. "Doesn't anybody care?"

  "Remember where you are," I said. "The Nightside is famous for not caring about anything. That's what brings people in. There are still a few who give a damn, like Sister Morphine. And Pew still does the rounds of places like this, dispensing hot soup and fire-and-brimstone sermons. Julien Advent raises money for various charities through the Night Times. But mostly the Nightside prefers to pretend that places and people like these don't exist. They don't want to be reminded of the price of failure in the Nightside."

  My companions and I were beginning to attract attention. Our faces and our stories were known, even here. The street people were getting interested. I kept a watchful eye on the shadowy forms nearest us. Street people have a tendency to gang up on those they consider intruders into their territory. All outsiders, often including do-gooders, are seen as targets of opportunity. I'd been here. I could remember searching quickly through the pockets of unconscious bleeding bodies. The street people weren't afraid of us, or our histories. Fall this far, and you weren't afraid of anything any more. They started lurching to their feet, pulling their blankets around them, rising on every side. A quick look behind showed our retreat was still clear, if necessary. I didn't want to hurt anyone. Sinner and Pretty Poison moved in protectively on either side of me as the ragged forms stumbled forward. They all seemed to be orientating on me, ignoring the others. Surely they couldn't all remember me.

  And then they knelt before me, and bowed their heads to me, and murmured my name like a benediction. Some of them wanted to rub their grubby faces against my hands. Some touched my white trench coat wonderingly, as though just the touch might heal them. I looked around for Sister Morphine, but she still had her back to us. The homeless knelt before me like a congregation, their grimy faces full of adoration.

  "Well," said Sinner. "This is ... unexpected. And just a little worrying."

  "Trust me," I said, holding my hands carefully back out of everyone's reach. "If there's one thing I think we can all be sure of, it's that I am not the Second Coming."

  "Definitely not," said Pretty Poison.

  There was something in the way she said that. Sinner and I both looked at her. "Do you know something you're not telling?" I said.

  "More than you could possibly imagine," said Pretty Poison.

  When it became clear I wasn't going to perform any miracles, the street people quickly lost interest and drifted away again. Madman went wandering off among them, and they accepted him as one of their own. They could tell he was just as damaged, just as divorced from the world as the rest of them.

  "Poor Tom's a-cold," he said, somewhat predictably.

  I felt like saying Get thee to a nunnery, but rose above it. I was here on business. I made my way carefully through the maze of cardboard boxes and improvised tents and finally found Herne the Hunter just where my gift had told me he'd be. He was still squatting inside his soggy, half-collapsed box, wrapped in something dark and soiled. He saw me and Sinner and Pretty Poison gathered in front of his box, and retreated even further back inside. We all tried coaxing him out, but he wouldn't budge until I used my name. Then he came out slowly, a bit at a time, like an uncertain animal that might bolt at any moment, until finally he stood crouching before us. He could have been just another bum, engulfed in the filthy remains of an old greatcoat, except for the stag's antlers protruding from his bulging forehead. He was smaller than I'd expected, barely five feet tall, broad and squat and almost Neanderthal. His skin was cracked and leathery, his face heavy and broad and ugly. His eyes were deeply sunken, and his almost li-pless mouth trembled. He smelled really bad, which in Rats' Alley took some doing. It was a rank, animal smell, thick with musk. In one overlarge hand he held firmly onto a begging bowl fashioned from a hollowed-out human skull.

  "Not much of a god, yes?" he said, in a deep, growling voice thickened by an accent I'd never heard before. "Should have gone on long ago. But, still a few worshippers left. Mostly New Age hippy types. Bah! But, take what you can get, these days. Belief is still power. Herne the Hunter just a tale for children now. I know, I know. No-one wants to worship at the blood altars any more. Don't blame them. No. Never was a comfortable god to have around, me. Herne embodied the chase and the hunt and the kill, nature red in tooth and claw." His speech improved as he talked, as though he was remembering how. "You sacrificed to me for luck in the hunt, for good weather and the death of your enemies, and to keep me away. I was a dangerous and capricious god, and I loved tricks. Yes ... Herne rode high, lived off the best, trampled men and women under my hooves, and the Wild Magic was strong in me. But if you were under my protection, no-one dared touch you! No! No ... A long time ago ... I have fallen far. What you want with me anyway? Better gods on Street of the Gods, very reasonable prices. I have no powers, no secrets, no wisdom."

  "We're looking for information," I said. "The answers to some questions."

  Herne shook all over, like a dog. "Don't know anything, any more. World has moved on, oh yes. The forests are gone. All cities now. Steel and stone and brick, and the magic in them does not know me. Hate cities. Hate the Nightside. Hate being old. Live long enough, and you get to see everything you ever cared for rot and fail and fall." He looked at me sharply. "I know you, John Taylo
r. Know you well enough not to worship at your feet. What you want? What questions?"

  "Tell me about the old days," I said. "When England was young, and so were you."

  He grinned widely, showing great gaps in his teeth. "Still remember my glory days, leading the Wild Hunt on my moon stallion. All men and women were my prey on that night. Long, long ago ... Once I preyed on humans, now I live off their leavings. Anyone could end up like me, oh yes. One bad day ... and then you fall off the edge and can't get back. Men become farmers, not hunters. Towns grow into cities. The forests grew smaller, and so did I. Men grew more powerful, and I grew less. Cities ... the Nightside was one of the first, the beginnings of the rot."

  "Not the first?" said Sinner.

  Herne grinned again. "Opinion is divided. Before my time. Ask the Old Ones. It was there in the earliest of days, and it is still here. More savage and merciless than I ever was."

  "I have heard it said," I said carefully, "that my mother is tied in with the creation of the Nightside. What do you know of that?"

  Herne shrugged easily. "Don't know for sure. Don't think anyone does. I have an opinion. Opinions are like arseholes; everyone's got one. You ask me, I think your mother was Queen Mab, first Queen of the Faerie; before Titania. Pretty pretty Titania. I remember Mab. Beautiful as the dawn, more powerful than the seasons. She walked in lightning, danced on the moonbeams, entranced you with a look, and forgot you with a shrug. Queen Mab, the magnificent and feared. The Faerie don't talk much about Mab any more, but still they fear her, should she ever return. She's been written out of most of the stories and the secret histories, in favour of sweet little Titania; but some of us have never forgotten Queen Mab."

  "What happened?" I said.

  He chuckled briefly. A low, nasty sound. "Ask Tam O'Shanter, dancing on his own grave. Brandishing the broken bones of a rival, and gnawing on the heart he tore from the rival's breast. We took our love affairs seriously in those days. Our passions were larger, our tragedies more terrible. Death had little dominion over such as us. Our stories had the power of fate, and destiny." Herne cocked his ugly head on one side, as though listening to voices or perhaps songs only he could hear. "I remember the Faerie leaving the worlds of men, once it was clear to them that cities and civilisation and cold steel would inevitably triumph. They walked sideways from the sun, all of them, retreating to their own secret, hidden world. Yes. I should have gone with them when I had the chance. They did offer. They did! Herne always had more in common with the Fae than with earth-grubbing Humanity. But they were in it for the long term, and we never were. Should have gone with them, yes; but no, stayed to fight and lose and see the world become something I no longer recognise, or have a place in.

  "So, here is Herne the Hunter. Among the fallen and the hopeless. Doing penance."

  "What for?" said Pretty Poison.

  He crawled back into his cardboard box, holding my gaze all the while. "Ask the Lord of Thorns. Now go away. All of you. Or I'll kill you."

  We left him crying in his cardboard box.

  I looked around for Madman. It was time we were moving on. "Where to next?" I said. "I'm open to suggestions."

  "How about the Lord of Thorns?" suggested Sinner.

  I winced, and so, I noticed, did Pretty Poison. I looked severely at Sinner. "Only when we've tried absolutely everyone else in the Nightside, and I mean everybody. That guy even scares Walker, and with good reason. Why bring him up?"

  "Because Herne mentioned him."

  "So he did. Next?"

  "All right," said Sinner. "How about the Lamentation?"

  I actually shuddered that time. "Why on earth would we want to go and see that crazy piece of shit?"

  "Because Herne said we needed to talk to the Old Ones," Sinner said calmly. "And the Lamentation is the oldest Being I know of."

  "There is that," I said, reluctantly. "There's no doubt it knows all kinds of things; if you can persuade it to talk. But you don't get to be an old Power in the Nightside by being friendly and approachable. No-one's even sure what the Lamentation is any more; except it's supersaturated with death magic and crazy with it. I don't even like saying the name aloud, in case it's listening. It could be a demon or a Transient Being or even a human who took a really wrong turn. No-one knows. They say it eats souls..."

  "But it's definitely older than Herne," Sinner said stubbornly. "If anyone knows how far back the Nightside goes, I'd put good money on the Lamentation."

  "So you think we should just barge in and ask it questions?" I said.

  "You can hide behind me if you like," said Sinner. "It's up to you, John. How badly do you want to get to the bottom of this case? Bad enough to beard a Power and a Domination in its lair?"

  "Oh hell," I said. "It wouldn't be the first time."

  "Boys ..." said Pretty Poison. "I think we have a problem with Madman."

  I looked round quickly. And there was Madman, dancing and pirouetting through the boxes and tents of Rats' Alley while flowers blossomed brightly in his wake, springing right out of the cobbled ground and through cracks in the grimy brickwork. He ended his dance with a flourish, and a spring bubbled up at his feet. One of the homeless dipped his metal cup in the stream, tried it, and cried out excitedly that it was pure whiskey. The homeless looked on Madman with new eyes.

  They surged forward to crowd around him, demanding he conjure up for them food and drink, heat and light and palaces to live in. They pawed and clawed at him, their voices growing loud and insistent and threatening. Madman tried to back away, but there was nowhere for him to go. I tried to get to him, but there were too many people in the way. I yelled at the street people, using the authority of my name, but they were beyond listening. And then my skin prickled and my heart missed a beat, and I stopped trying to press forward. Something bad was coming. I could feel it.

  The brickwork nearest to Madman began to bubble and melt and run away. The ground shook, as though something was heaving up beneath it, trying to break through.

  The light in Rats' Alley kept changing colour, and there were too many shadows in the square with nothing to cast them. All around there was a growing feeling of... uncertainty. That nothing could be relied on any more. That the curtains of the world might part at any moment to reveal what was really going on behind the scenes. Madman was losing his self-control.

  The street people fell back from him, crying out in shock and alarm and growing horror. The world was coming undone all around Madman. I grabbed Sinner by the arm. I couldn't get my breath, and it seemed to me that at any moment I might fall upwards, sailing off into the night sky forever. Everywhere I looked, the details on everything were changing, in utterly arbitrary ways. One of the homeless grabbed at Madman, to make him stop the changes, only to shriek in terror as Madman looked at him, and changed him, till he looked like a modern art painting, all angles and dimensions and clashing perspectives. Parts of him were missing. Horribly, he was still alive. Madman looked upon his work, and his face showed nothing, nothing at all.

  Sister Morphine pulled the changed man away from Madman and cradled him in her comforting arms. She glared at me. "This is all your fault! You brought him here! Do something!"

  I grabbed a few useful items from my coat, braced myself, and was about to start forward again when Sinner pushed past me. He strode forward and locked eyes with Madman. The two men stood silently together, lost in each other's eyes, while the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Madman let out his breath in a long, slow sigh, and looked away, and the world grew calm and steady around him again. Sinner's singular nature had given Madman an anchor, and stabilised him. Rats' Alley was still and sane again. Many of the homeless were weeping and shaking. Sinner took Madman by the arm and led him out of the square, and Madman went with him as docile as a child. "Can't take you anywhere," I said.

  Seven - Why Don't the Dead Lie Still?

  We left the darkness of Rats' Alley behind us and made our way back out into the bright city lights of U
ptown. The night was too dark, the neon too bright, but it still felt like home. In many ways, leaving Rats' Alley was like being born again. Like declaring you're ready to take on the world again, and the world had better look out. I'd felt the same the last time I did so, all those years ago. Because no-one ever really lives in Rats' Alley; they're all just existing. I took a deep breath and looked around me. The usual crowds came and went, pounding the pavements, intent on their own very private business, and Walker's watchers were still observing from what they hoped was a safe distance. (Walker didn't pay them enough to go into Rats' Alley after us.) It seemed to me that there were rather more of them than there had been the last time I looked, and I stopped where I was, to check out the situation. My companions waited patiently as I glared openly about me. Some of the watchers stepped back into doorways and the shadows of alley mouths, but the newcomers just stared calmly back. Like vultures scenting dead bodies in the near future. I pointed these people out to Sinner and Pretty Poison. (Madman was already off with the faeries again.)

  "We've picked up some new friends," I said. "Not your ordinary, everyday watchers. See those seven Oriental gentlemen, with the idiograms tattooed above their left eyebrows? Combat magicians. Hooded Claw Clan. Just goes to show; everyone answers to Walker."

  "Dangerous people?" said Sinner.

  "Very," I said.

  "That's all right," said Pretty Poison. "We're dangerous people, too."

  "Still," said Sinner. "Combat magicians? Walker is taking this case seriously, isn't he ... What about those two gentlemen there, with the wolf pelts and claw necklaces?"

  "Supernatural trackers. Lupus extremis. They could follow our scent through a skunk factory. And teleporting wouldn't throw them off either; they'd just jump right after us, piggy-backing our magics."