The Good, The Bad, And The Uncanny Part 8

"Time caught up with it," I said. "Can we get the h.e.l.l out of here now, before the whole b.l.o.o.d.y place collapses?"

Polly was a practical soul. She wasted no time with arguments, just hurried over to the entrance wall and studied it through her Looking Gla.s.s. Only took her a few moments to work the mechanism again, then we vaulted over the lowering wall and ran back through the shaking stone pa.s.sages, trying not to listen to the increasingly loud groaning sounds all around us. Dust fell in thick sheets, and we both coughed harshly as we ran, holding our hands over our mouths and noses to keep out the worst of it. I don't know how long we ran, following the light from the Looking Gla.s.s, but it seemed like the journey would never end. For years afterwards I had dreams where I was still there, still running through the dark and the dust, forever.

But finally we came to the side-door again and made our way back out onto the Street of the G.o.ds. We kept running, and didn't stop until we were safely on the other side of the Street. We looked back just in time to see the tip of the pyramid crumble and decay, and fall in upon itself, until there was nothing left but a great hole in the ground.

"All that gold," I said.

"All your fault," said Polly.

"How do you work that out?" I said, honestly curious. "Everything was fine until you grabbed the wand from the mummy."

"It's your fault because you hurried me!"

You can't argue with logic like that. "Sorry," I said.

"Now, give me the wand. You don't know what to do with it."

"It wants me to have it," I said firmly.

Polly looked at me.

We took a taxi to our next destination. Most people don't trust taxis, but I find you can always rely on the driver as long as you keep a gun pressed to the back of his neck. Polly had promised the next item on our list would be much easier to acquire, and I relaxed a little as we headed into Uptown, with its many up-market clubs and bars. You meet a much better cla.s.s of sc.u.m in Uptown. We were looking for a pair of chaos dice, simple probability changers, and according to Polly, the very best example of their kind were to be found in Wu Fang's Garden of Delights.

Everybody knew Wu Fang's scandalously decadent establishment; one of the most exclusive and expensive gambling dens in the whole of the Nightside. Which took some doing. The Garden of Delights had been around since the early 1930s, and so had Wu Fang. My father knew them both, back in the day, and swore the Oriental Gentleman hadn't aged a day in all those years. There were many rumours about the man, most of them quite unsavoury, and Wu Fang encouraged them all. Especially the nasty ones.

We had no trouble getting in; Polly showed the tuxedoed bouncers a handful of platinum credit cards, and they all but fought each other for the privilege of opening the door for us. The Garden of Delights always stood ready to welcome anyone with more money than sense. Like many establishments in the Nightside, the interior was far bigger than the exterior. It's the only way we can fit everything in. Or, as my father likes to say, s.p.a.ce expands to accommodate the sin available.

Inside Wu Fang's, the Garden of Delights stretched away for as far as I could see; a veritable jungle of Far Eastern trees and vegetation, where huge pulpy flowers blossomed in the perfumed air. Tiny birds of startlingly bright colours fluttered over our heads, or hovered over pouting petals. A river meandered through the jungle, with delightful roofed bridges crossing it at regular intervals. The rich scents hanging on the air buzzed inside my head. It was like breathing in heaven itself.

Polly and I wandered unhurriedly past a tumbling waterfall, enjoying the faint haze of water droplets in the air, and nodded calmly to the celebrities and high-rollers we pa.s.sed, as though we belonged there just as much as they did. And they nodded politely back, because since we were there, we must belong.

Set out in little clearings were the gambling tables. Every game of chance you could think of, and some Wu Fang had imported specially from other realities. The traditional games predominated, of course, from poker to c.r.a.ps, roulette to vingt-et-un. You could bet money, futures, your life, or your soul on the outcome; and Wu Fang would be right there to cover your bet. You'd find every single way there is of parting a sucker from his money somewhere in Wu Fang's celebrated Garden of Delights.

Amongst the delicate trees and the glorious foreign growths were statues and works of art, modern sculptures that ranged from the seriously abstract to the disturbingly erotic and displays of weapons from all times and places, including some that didn't exist yet. Suits of medieval armour stood at regular intervals, pretending to be decorative. Wu Fang's body-guards and enforcers; ready to step in and get violently physical at a moment's notice. Sore losers were not tolerated in the Garden of Delight. Curious guests in the know occasionally lifted the gleaming helmet visors and looked inside the armour; but it was always empty.

There were any number of trophies on display, prizes acquired by Wu Fang down the years. A severed hand holding aces and eights; Wild Bill Hickok's actual hand, stuffed and mounted, holding the cards he was dealt just before being shot in the back. The cards known forever after as the dead man's hand. Howard Hughes's death masque, smiling a very unsettling smile. The actual roulette wheel ball that broke the bank at Monte Carlo. And a pair of chaos dice. Two small cubes of night-dark ivory, with the points picked out in tiny blood-red rubies.

I couldn't see any protections, but I had no doubt they were there.

I spotted my brother Tommy, sitting at one of the main poker tables.

A lot of things about this surprised and horrified me. First, Tommy had always been famously bad at gambling. Lady Luck wouldn't recognise Tommy if she stumbled over him in the gutter. He could bet on the Nightside staying dark, and the sun would come up just to spite him. Second, Tommy had no card skills whatsoever. Anything more complicated than Snap was beyond him, and he couldn't count to twenty-one without dropping his trousers. And third, to my utter despair, Tommy was sitting in with some really major card-players. Famous faces from the gambling fraternity, men who made the cards dance and change their spots at will.

I was debating whether or not to rush over and shoot Tommy repeatedly in the head, as a kindness, when Wu Fang himself glided over to greet me. A rare honour indeed. Wu Fang bowed courteously, and I bowed back. Polly sank into a deep curtsey. Wu Fang ignored her, his attention fixed on me. A slight and delicate oriental gentleman, in a suit that undoubtedly cost more than I made in a year, Wu Fang was politeness personified. And for a man who had to be at least a century old, he didn't appear much older than me. There were lots of stories about Wu Fang, and most of them had blood in them. His brief smile showed yellow teeth, and his eyes were very dark.

"Larry Oblivion, son of Dash," he said, in a quiet and civilised tone that could somehow still be heard clearly over the general clamour of his Garden. "So kind of you to drop in. Avail yourself of my facilities. Deny yourself nothing. And do give my kindest regards to your father. An honourable foe from times past and a most determined pain in the a.r.s.e."

Everybody knew my father.

"What's Tommy doing here?" I said bluntly.

"Winning," said Wu Fang. "Much to my and everyone else's surprise. But no matter. The money may move round and round the table, but it always comes back to me, eventually." Another swift smile. "I do so love to see you white boys lose."

He glided away like a Chinese ghost in a Chinese garden, and I hurried over to stand beside Tommy. Polly tried to grab my arm, but I avoided her. Family always comes first. I could feel her angry gaze burning into my back as I tapped Tommy briskly on the shoulder. He looked up and smiled happily at me.

"Oh, hi, Larry. Does Dad know you visit places like this? Ooh, like your new girlfriend. Tasty. Why is she glaring like that?"

He hadn't adopted his effete existentialist act then.

"What are you doing here, Tommy?"

"Winning," he said proudly. "I read this book, you see, and it suggested a whole new approach to cards I hadn't even considered before."

"You should have asked me," I said. "I've always known what you're doing wrong. You're c.r.a.p at cards."

Tommy laughed and gestured grandly at the piles of poker chips laid out before him. Some of them were in colours I hadn't ever seen before. Sitting around the table were Maggot McGuire, Big Alois, and Lucky Lucinda. Card sharks, all of them. Professional card-players, red in tooth and claw. They looked as much mystified as upset, though on the whole I think upset was rapidly coming to the fore. Their piles of chips were noticeably smaller. Tommy fanned out his current hand for me to have a look, and I almost fainted. He had a pair of threes.

Big Alois and Lucinda took one look at my face, misinterpreted what they saw, and folded immediately. That left the Maggot, a man not known for losing gracefully. Tommy grinned at him, and shoved all his chips forward, betting everything he had on his pair of threes. Maggot didn't have enough chips to match him, so he pulled a magic charm from his pocket and slapped that down on the pile. Tommy considered, nodded, and produced several handfuls of poker chips from his pockets and added them to the pile on the table. Maggot threw down his cards in disgust, pushed back his chair, and rose to his feet with a gun in his hand. But before he could aim it, two empty suits of armour moved quickly in on either side and grabbed him by the arms. One metal hand squeezed hard, until blood ran down Maggot's fingers, and he had no choice but to drop the gun. Then they dragged him away from the table. Wu Fang's enforcers were always good at antic.i.p.ating trouble.

Tommy whooped with joy, and scooped up all the chips on the table, gathering them in with both arms.

Polly was suddenly there beside me, elbowing me discreetly in the ribs. I looked round, and she showed me the chaos dice in her hand, before quickly making them disappear about her person. While everyone's attention had been fixed on Tommy's triumph, Polly had got on with the job. Which meant there was now an empty display case on view, and it was well past time Polly and I were leaving. I said as much to Tommy, and he nodded easily.

"Catch you later, brother. I have some serious debauchery to be getting on with."

I had to smile. "What is this wonderful new card skill, that you learned from a book?"

He grinned cheerfully. "Betting entirely at random, with absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. No thought, no studying; half the time I didn't even look at my cards. Baffled the h.e.l.l out of them."

Polly pulled me away before I could hit him.

I was still trembling and twitching, just a bit, when Polly and I arrived at our next destination: Savage Hettie's Lost and Found. (We Ask No Questions.) Polly's list of ingredients for opening her demon gate called for a Hand of Glory made from a monkey's paw. As if such a thing wasn't dangerous enough as it is, without meddling. Be like walking around with a tactical nuke in your pocket and the pin half-pulled. Savage Hettie specialised in items that were frequently as dangerous to you as they were to your enemies. Mostly because it amused her.

She sat in her chair by the open door, fanning herself with a paper fan covered in filthy pictures. Hugely fat, overflowing her chair on all sides, in a dark sack of a dress that fitted where it touched. Her red sweaty face was topped with a patently obvious wig of blonde curls. Her huge fingers were tattooed with the words DIE DIE and Sc.u.m. Her front two teeth were missing, and her tongue kept poking through the gap as she sucked the insides out of variously sized eggs that she kept in a sack by her chair. She radiated s.h.i.+fty malevolence but barely looked me over before fixing her piggy eyes on Polly. Savage Hettie sniffed loudly. and Sc.u.m. Her front two teeth were missing, and her tongue kept poking through the gap as she sucked the insides out of variously sized eggs that she kept in a sack by her chair. She radiated s.h.i.+fty malevolence but barely looked me over before fixing her piggy eyes on Polly. Savage Hettie sniffed loudly.

"I don't let just anyone in here, you know," she said, in her harsh East End accent. "And you look dead sneaky, girl. Hiding something, aren't you? Ho yes; I know your sort, girl."

"She's with me," I said flatly. "And you know me, Hettie."

She sniffed again. "I knows your father, you mean. Ho yes. I knew him very well, back in the day."

"Who didn't?" I said, resignedly.

She cackled loudly. "But I knew him intimately, as you might say. I didn't always look like this, you know."

I moved quickly past her, pus.h.i.+ng Polly ahead of me, and Hettie's cackling laughter followed me into the dark interior of her shop. There are some mental images you really don't want to dwell on.

Hettie's place was always a mess, on a grand scale. All gloom and shadow and heaps of things, set out apparently at random. No order, no rationale, and absolutely no presentation. Handwritten price tags for everything; and no haggling. Pay Hettie's price or go somewhere else; except if you could have found it anywhere else, you wouldn't have ventured into Savage Hettie's appalling lair. There were shelves and boxes and tottering piles, and you had to dig for what you needed. At your own risk, of course. Touch the wrong thing in the wrong way, and it would have your hand off. Or turn you into a frog, or steal your soul. Browser very much beware; and watch your back at all times. Some of the items in Savage Hettie's Lost and Found had a way of sneaking up on you from behind.

Hettie didn't give a d.a.m.n. Except to laugh loudly when something really horrible happened.

Polly and I moved gingerly between stacks of magic boxes, enchanted dancing-shoes, and nasty old magazines, careful not to touch anything. There was fabulous and seriously valuable stuff to be found, if a person was not too fussy over little things like provenance, or guarantees. Savage Hettie was a fence as well as a dealer, and didn't care who knew it.

We pa.s.sed by gla.s.s jars labelled Manticore musk, Vampire's teeth Manticore musk, Vampire's teeth (which clattered and ground against the gla.s.s if you got too close), and a wine bottle covered in cobwebs marked simply (which clattered and ground against the gla.s.s if you got too close), and a wine bottle covered in cobwebs marked simply Drink Me You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Drink Me You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I was briefly distracted by a pile of old magazines that I couldn't resist leafing through (once I'd put some gloves on). The private schoolgirls' issue of I was briefly distracted by a pile of old magazines that I couldn't resist leafing through (once I'd put some gloves on). The private schoolgirls' issue of Oz, International Times Oz, International Times with a naked Paul and Linda on the front cover, and a battered copy of with a naked Paul and Linda on the front cover, and a battered copy of Playbeing, Playbeing, with something utterly revolting on the front cover. Polly, though, was not one for distractions. She stalked up and down the narrow aisles, seemingly following her nose, until finally she stopped abruptly before a sealed gla.s.s jam-jar. I joined her, and peered over her shoulder. In the jar was a small, withered thing, with half the hair fallen out, the stiff fingers made into candles with delicate little wicks. The stump was blackened, from where it had been sealed shut with a naked flame. I reached for the jar, and the fingers stirred slowly, like spider's legs. I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand back instinctively. Polly snorted dismissively and picked up the jar without hesitating in the least. with something utterly revolting on the front cover. Polly, though, was not one for distractions. She stalked up and down the narrow aisles, seemingly following her nose, until finally she stopped abruptly before a sealed gla.s.s jam-jar. I joined her, and peered over her shoulder. In the jar was a small, withered thing, with half the hair fallen out, the stiff fingers made into candles with delicate little wicks. The stump was blackened, from where it had been sealed shut with a naked flame. I reached for the jar, and the fingers stirred slowly, like spider's legs. I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand back instinctively. Polly snorted dismissively and picked up the jar without hesitating in the least.

We took it back to Savage Hettie, who shocked me rigid by refusing to take any payment. She reared back in her chair rather than touch the jam-jar, and leered at Polly, the tip of her tongue poking provocatively through the gap in her teeth.

"I know your kind, missie, ho yes I do. Don't want no dealings with you and yours, and I ain't going to risk being beholden to you. Take the nasty thing. Glad to be rid of it." She sniffed loudly, then looked at me. "Surprised to see an Oblivion boy with one of her lot, but I suppose you knows what you're doing. Blinded by a pretty face and bemused by the smell of p.u.s.s.y. Just like your dad."

Polly and I walked quickly away.

"Do you know what she was talking about?" she said, after a while.

"Haven't a clue," I said determinedly.

"Probably just as well," said Polly.

The last two items were easy. Deconsecrated host soaked in virgin's urine and a fine powder made from the crushed wings of wee flower faeries. Women use the strangest things as cosmetics. We found both items at the Mammon Emporium, the Nightside's premiere mall, and Polly made me shoplift them from their shelves while she kept a lookout. We then stalked imperiously out of the mall, and no-one challenged us. I think I was less scared in the mummy's burial chamber.

"You know," I said afterwards, "we could have paid for these."

"Where's the fun in that?" said Polly, and I was honestly lost for an answer.

Not entirely to my surprise, we ended up back on the Street of the G.o.ds, standing before a quiet little church in the Street's equivalent of a backwater. A simple stone structure, with no fancy tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and no obvious name. People pa.s.sed it by without looking, but it must have had something, or some other church or Being would have taken over its location long ago. The door was closed, the windows were dark, and there was no sign of life anywhere.

"Not very inviting," I said, after a while, because you have to say something.

"It isn't here for people," said Polly. Her face was full of an emotion I couldn't read, her eyes blazing.

"Does it have a name?" I said.

"It's old," said Polly. "Names come and go, but the church remains. It is a place of power, and it has been here for a very long time. So long that people have forgotten who it was originally created to venerate and preserve."

"The Lady of the Lake?" I said. "She's here?"

"Help me open the dimensional gate, and you'll see," said Polly.

There were no guards, no protections to get past. The door wasn't even locked, opening easily at Polly's touch. There wasn't actually a sign over the door saying Enter at Your Own Risk, Enter at Your Own Risk, but there might as well have been. I could feel all the hackles rising on the back of my neck as I followed Polly in. but there might as well have been. I could feel all the hackles rising on the back of my neck as I followed Polly in.

The interior was no bigger or smaller than it should have been, an open, empty s.p.a.ce surrounded by four stone walls, heavy with shadows, only the barest light seeping in through a narrow-slit window at the far end. No pews, no altar, just the open s.p.a.ce. The air was still and uncomfortably warm, as though some great furnace were still operating down below. There was no sign anyone had been here in ages, but no dust either, or any sign of neglect.

Whatever might have been wors.h.i.+pped here in the past, it hadn't been a good or a wholesome thing. I could feel it, in my bones and in my water. Bad things had happened here. The horror of them still vibrated on the air, like the echoes of a scream that never ended. I looked at Polly, but she seemed entirely unaffected by the atmosphere. She trotted happily down the length of the empty church, with me stumbling along in the gloom behind her, trying to look in all directions at once. She dropped suddenly to one knee, and her fingers scrabbled against the floor for a moment before finally closing around the metal ring of a large trap-door I would have sworn wasn't there a moment before. The trap-door itself was solid metal and must have weighed half a ton, but she pulled it open easily with one hand before letting it fall back onto the stone floor. It landed hard, but even so, the echoes were strangely muted, as though the grim atmosphere was soaking up the sound. I looked at Polly, only a pale gleam in the gloom. There was no way a woman of her size could have handled that much weight so easily. I'd suspected she was keeping things from me, and now it seemed I was about to find out what.

Beneath the hole in the floor was a set of bare stone steps, leading down and down into darkness. Polly produced her Looking Gla.s.s and started down them without even looking to see if I was following. She knew I wouldn't hang back, not now I'd come so far.

I followed Polly and her light down into the dark, and wasn't at all surprised when the trap-door slammed shut again, over our heads.

The steps were rough and unmarked. The bare stone walls to either side were close enough to touch, hot enough to burn the fingers. The air was hot enough to bring a sheen of sweat to my face. I had to wonder exactly how far down we were going. My legs were aching from the strain of continuous descent when the stairway finally came to an end, and Polly stopped abruptly. She held up the Looking Gla.s.s, but its light couldn't penetrate more than a few inches into the dark. She laughed lightly, made the Gla.s.s disappear, and snapped her fingers imperiously. A harsh light sprang up, illuminating a huge cavern dug out of the bedrock far beneath the Street of the G.o.ds. It wasn't any normal light; long streams of electrical fire crackled up and down the stone walls and crawled across the ceiling like living lightning. The fierce light hurt my eyes, but didn't seem to bother Polly at all. She looked back at me, and smiled.

"What are you waiting for, sweetie? This is it. This is what you came here for. Come on down, Larry Oblivion, and claim your prize."

She bestowed her most winning smile on me and batted her eye-lashes, but it looked grotesque now, clearly artificial, and practised. All of the attraction I once felt for her was gone, perhaps because I was seeing her clearly for the first time. But I went down to join her anyway. Because I'd come this far, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what treasure had been buried here if it wasn't the Lady of the Lake. Polly took me by the hand, and my flesh actually crawled at her touch. I went with her, deep into the cavern, until finally she stopped, let go my hand, and indicated with a warm smile what she'd brought me all this way to see.

It hung on the wall before us, opened up and stretched out over twenty feet or more. I couldn't tell whether it had been a man or a woman originally, but the guts and organs had been spread out and pinned to the stone with silver daggers. The skin had been stretched terribly without tearing, to make a background. The face had been expertly peeled from the skull, and extended so far I couldn't recognise any features in it but the eyes, wide and gleaming and very aware. The whole thing was still alive, despite its state. That was the point. The suffering was fuel for the magic, feeding and maintaining the gateway that pulsed like an alien wound deep in the exposed guts of what had once been a man or a woman.

Not a dimensional gate. Not a dimensional gate at all. A h.e.l.lgate. A doorway into h.e.l.l itself.

Awful sounds burst briefly from the gate, screams and howls and endless destruction.

"What is that?" I said. "Is that h.e.l.l?" I said. "Is that h.e.l.l?"

"No, sweetie," Polly said happily. "That's the future. That's what the future will sound like, in the h.e.l.l on Earth we're going to make for all Humankind."

We stood facing each other before the h.e.l.lgate. Her smile was wide with antic.i.p.ation, her face alive with enjoyment at the secret she'd kept from me, now to be revealed. I should have known it would end up like this. I've always had rotten luck with women.

And when you can't see the patsy in the deal, it's almost certainly you.

"So, Polly," I said, calm as calm could be. "No Lady in the Lake, and the pretty face was just a come-on. So what's the deal? What do you need a h.e.l.lgate for?"

"Sometimes, the living can be cast down into h.e.l.l," said Polly. "d.a.m.ned to the Houses of Pain, forever. Unless you can send down a worthy replacement."

"That's why the scavenger hunt," I said. "You didn't need any of those things to open a h.e.l.lgate. You wanted to test my mettle, see if I was ... worthy."

"Exactly. I knew your reputation, but I needed to see you in action. After all, reputations are ten a penny in the Nightside. And the items we acquired will make a fine tribute for my long-lost mistress."

"Who?" I said. My mouth was dry, though my face was streaming with sweat, and I had to clench my hands into fists to stop them trembling. "Who are you planning to raise up out of h.e.l.l?"

"Can't you guess?" she said, and just like that she didn't look like Polly Perkins any more, or anything human.

She was tall and supernaturally slender, her glowing skin pale as the finest porcelain. Her ears were long and pointed, and her eyes had slitted cat pupils. She wore a simple white s.h.i.+ft with the arrogance of n.o.bility and a necklace of human fingers. Delicate elven script had been branded in a straight line across her forehead. Just looking at her now roused a kind of arachnid revulsion in me. There's nothing worse than something that looks like human, but isn't.

"You're an elf," I said, and my voice sounded dull and defeated, even to me. "Never trust an elf."

"Exactly," she said, and her voice was rich and sweet and cloying, like poisoned honey. "You're here to help me bring back our lost mistress, Queen Mab. Oldest and greatest of our kind, thrown down into h.e.l.l by the traitors Oberon and t.i.tania. But any living thing d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l can be rescued or redeemed by another living thing. One of the oldest rules there is .. She stopped, and looked at me, thoughtfully. "I wonder if the same rule applies to Heaven? What sport, what joy, to drag a n.o.ble person back from Paradise! But that's a thought for another day. Bye-bye, sweetie. Give my regards to the Inferno. It's been fun; but now it's over."

She lunged at me while she was still speaking, moving inhumanly quickly, expecting to catch me off-balance. But I was ready for her. I had the wand. She'd been so caught up in her moment of triumph that she'd forgotten to take it from me. I said the Words, and the wand stopped Time. Polly hung in mid air before me, her elongated alien form suspended between one moment and the next. I looked at her for a while. Thinking of what might have been. We'd worked well together, and I had enjoyed her company. But I'm n.o.body's patsy. So I took careful hold of her, turned her around in mid air so that she was facing the h.e.l.lgate, and started Time up again.

She screamed, just once, as she saw what lay before her, then the gate sucked her in and sent her down, and she was gone while the echo of her scream still hung on the hot air. I looked at the h.e.l.lgate, at the suffering human eyes in what had once been a human face, and thought about killing it. I knew how. I'd done it before. But to disrupt the h.e.l.lgate while the transfer was still in progress could release unimaginable energies. I certainly wouldn't survive it. Wand or no wand. I didn't want to die, not while I still had so much life ahead of me ... So even though I knew what was coming, I waited and watched, as Queen Mab of the Fae returned to the world of the living. One of the old monsters, Humanity's Ruin.

Something came rising up out of h.e.l.l. I could feel it, in the deepest part of what made me human. Something old and powerful, and huge beyond bearing, was rising up out of the dark lat.i.tudes, up from the Houses of Pain, forcing her way back into a natural world that wanted no part of her. Rising up, like a shark through b.l.o.o.d.y waters, like a tidal wave come to sweep away every living thing before it, up she came, Queen Mab, rising faster and faster. Coming at me like a meteor cras.h.i.+ng to the Earth, like a bullet with my name on it.

Screaming in an ancient tongue, laughing horribly, swearing d.a.m.nation and torment on all her many enemies; Queen Mab came back.