Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth Part 4

"Not hiding," said Lilith, and the chill in her voice made them all fall back a pace. "I've been... preparing. So much to do, and so many to do it to. And then, of course, I had to produce a new child, and see to his education. He is mine, body and soul, even if he doesn't realise it yet. My dearest darling John Taylor."

The name rumbled through the crowd, from wors.h.i.+ppers and wors.h.i.+pped alike, and not in a good way. Many s.h.i.+fted uneasily, and aspects flickered on and off in the crowd like heat lightning. The Splendid opened his perfect mouth to protest further, and Lilith reached out and touched him lightly on the forehead. He cried out in shock and horror as his life energy was ripped right out of him, to feed Lilith's endless hunger. She sucked him dry in a moment, watching calmly as he crumpled and shrivelled up before her, all his power nothing more to her than a drop in her ocean. The Splendid blinked out and was gone, as though he had never been. Lilith smiled about her.

"Just a little ill.u.s.tration of my mood, so everyone knows where they stand. I may be your mother, but I won't abide over-familiarity. Now, where are those who banded together to betray me, so very long ago? To banish me from my own creation? Step forward, that I might look upon your faces once again."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, then the Devil's Bride stepped forward reluctantly, the conjoined twin in the hump on her back peering over her shoulder. "They're all gone, mistress," said the little twin, in a sweet seductive voice. "Long and long ago. They killed each other, or were brought down, or grew irrelevant to the modern world and just faded away. There's only one left that we know of. Its original name is lost to us. We call it the Carrion in Tears, and it is quite insane."

She darted back into the safety of the crowd, while others pushed forward the Carrion in Tears, a huge body of rotting flesh, red and black and purple, with jagged ends of bones protruding from suppurating flesh. Forever decaying, never dying, quite mad. It snapped at the world with broken teeth, dull grey in muddy scarlet flesh, and its cloudy eyes were fixed and staring.

"It incorporates dead things into itself," volunteered Molly Widders.h.i.+ns. "They keep it going. Make it strong."

"And this... has followers?" said Lilith.

"Of a kind," said Molly.

"Proof, if proof were needed, that some people will wors.h.i.+p absolutely anything," said Lilith. "As long as it has the stink of immortality about it."

Some of the Carrion in Tears' wors.h.i.+ppers were thrust forward through the crowd, to face Lilith. They dressed in soiled rags and torn plastic, with grime artfully smeared across their faces. The oldest among them raised his head proudly and stood defiantly before Lilith.

"We wors.h.i.+p it because it shows us the truth. The real world is filth and rot, pollution and corruption. Our G.o.d shows us the dirty truth behind the pretty face. When all else is fallen into ruin, our G.o.d will remain, and we will be with him."

"No you won't," said Lilith. "You offend me even more than he does." And she killed them all, with a glance.

The Carrion in Tears didn't notice. It was too busy digesting a dead angel it had noticed lying by its foot. Inch by inch, the dead angel was sucked into the Being's corrupt flesh and absorbed. The smell was awful, and even other Beings looked away. The Carrion in Tears straightened up abruptly, as the last lingering traces of the angel's divine energies surged through it, and shocked the slumbering mind awake. It cried out, a thick choking sound of horrid awareness, and fixed Lilith with its staring eyes.

"You! This is all your fault! See what has become of me! Look at what driving you out did to me!"

"I see it," Lilith said calmly. "Fair punishment, I'd have said, for a traitor and a fool."

"It was necessary," said the Carrion in Tears, but it sounded tired, as though repeating an old, worn-out argument. "And now you're back, and it was all for nothing. I told them, but they wouldn't listen... Kill me if you want. I don't care. I was beautiful once, and adored... I don't recognise this Nightside. You won't either. It's all changed. It's moved on and left us behind."

"Killing you would be a mercy, in your current state," said Lilith. "But what the h.e.l.l. Don't say I never did anything for you."

She absorbed all its living energies in a moment, then made a moue of distaste with her night-dark mouth as the Carrion in Tears vanished into her. "Nasty," she said to the silent crowd. "But I promised myself that I'd kill all of my old enemies who survived, and I always keep my word. Now, step forward, my children. The original productions of my young and l.u.s.ty flesh."

She called for them by their original names, and again there was a long pause. Finally, a mere handful of Beings made their way to the front of the crowd to face their long-forgotten mother. First was the Harlequin, who knelt before her in his chequered finery and bowed his masked head to her.

"I am here, mother dear, though much-changed by time and circ.u.mstance. I allowed myself to be shaped by fas.h.i.+on and fad, but still I survive, and still I dance. I would like to think that you could still see something in me that you would recognise."

"I change, too, when I must," said the Incarnate, bowing elegantly to Lilith. He was young and pretty, dressed in an immaculate white suit of impeccable cut, his n.o.ble face attractively androgynous under a white panama hat. "The details change, but I go on, wors.h.i.+pped and adored. At present I am a pop sensation, singing for my supper, and teenage girls wors.h.i.+p my image on their bedroom walls. I am the Thin White Prince, and they love my music and they love me. Don't you, my little doves?"

A pack of fierce young girls surrounded him, dressed just like him, their overly made-up faces sullen and aggressive. You could see in their faces that he was more than life itself to them, and they would die for him in a moment. Some actually spat and hissed at Lilith, sensing a threat to their beloved idol. The oldest of them couldn't have been more than fifteen.

"I know," said the Thin White Prince. "But one takes one's adoration where one can find it."

And finally, there was b.l.o.o.d.y Blades. He crouched uncertainly before Lilith, snorting and quivering, held in place by ancient instinct. He was huge and hairy, with hooves and horns and terrible clawed hands. He stank of sweat and musk and uncontrolled appet.i.tes. He glowered at Lilith with stupid, crafty eyes, attracted by her femininity but cowed by the sheer power he sensed in her.

"There's not much left of b.l.o.o.d.y Bones," said Harlequin. "He's been reduced to a purely animal nature, a G.o.d of wild actions and transgression without conscience. There are always men and women ready to wors.h.i.+p the beast within. There are those who say he did this to himself, quite deliberately, to free his needs and appet.i.tes from the tyranny of reason."

"How very depressing," said Lilith. "From all the thousands who spilled from my fecund loins, only three remain? And all of you so much less than I made you to be."

She killed them all, contemptuously, sucking in their life energies, then murdered all of the Incarnate's child followers with a casual wave of her hand, just to be thorough. Her power beat on the air like a storm that sweeps all before it, and the a.s.sembled crowd quailed under her cold gaze.

"It's time," said Lilith, and all those present shuddered at the power in her voice. "Time for you to choose which side you're on. I'm back, ready to remake the Nightside in my own image, to restore it to what I originally intended it to be. It was never meant to be this... small, shabby thing. I will make the Nightside glorious again, and you with it. Unless you choose to stand against me, in which case no-one will even remember your names."

Beings and Forces and Powers glanced at each other uneasily, and there was much muttered conversation. The main gist of it was that they liked things the way they were. They liked being G.o.ds, being wors.h.i.+pped and feared and adored. They liked being rich and famous and revered. (And if these were all very human things for a G.o.d to value, no-one said so.) Give all this up, to see their world and their very selves remade according to Lilith's whim? Unthinkable. And yet... she was Lilith. No-one doubted that. Greater than the Nightside and destroyer of those who only thought themselves to be G.o.ds. In the name of survival, it might be wise to go along... for a while... and hope some opportunity might arise where they could rid themselves again of this unwanted matriarch. And so the argument went this way and that, while Lilith waited patiently, amusing herself by killing people at random if they didn't look respectful enough. And in the end, it was left to one of the more modern manifestations, Abomination Inc, to step forward and speak first.

Ever since the law decided that corporations were, technically speaking, both persons and immortal, it was inevitable that one would grow large and powerful enough to be wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d. Abomination Inc manifested itself through a crowd of faceless worker drones, all dressed exactly the same. Grey men in grey suits, they spoke in chorus.

"We are a G.o.d of this time. It suits us, and we are suited to it. Why should we give up all that we are, and that we intend to be? We have no reason to believe that you have our best interests at heart."

Next up were the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chainsaw. Terrifying figures in stark black and white, these nuns were dogmatists first and foremost, and modern dogmatists at that. They cursed and abused Lilith in rich, vibrant voices and defied her with awful threats.

Others stepped forward, representing the modern religions of a modern world, but already other voices were rising in the crowd to shout them down. Older voices, remembering old ways, and lesser voices seeing hope in a changed future. And so, just like that, the G.o.d war started.

Beings and Forces and Powers went head to head, aspects clas.h.i.+ng like mighty engines in the night, while strange energies boiled on the still air. And as above, so below, with whole armies of the faithful going for each other's throats. Hot and vicious murder ran up and down the Street of the G.o.ds, sucking everyone in, and bodies piled up as blood flowed thickly in the gutters.

Lilith rose gracefully into the starry sky, looking down upon what she had brought about, and laughed aloud to see such slaughter done in her name. She encouraged those of her children who followed her to kill their brothers and sisters who didn't, and encouraged their followers to fight and riot and delight in the death of their enemies. She wanted them to get a taste for it. There would be much more of this, when they went out into the Nightside. But for now, murdering their fellows would help to bind the survivors more closely to her.

She walked in glory down the Street of the G.o.ds, treading the air high above the conflict that surged back and forth, while lesser beings raged beneath her. Wherever she pa.s.sed, churches and temples and cathedrals juddered and shook themselves to pieces, and were swallowed up by the ground breaking apart beneath them. Lilith was sending them all to h.e.l.l, by the direct route. G.o.ds and followers caught within these sanctuaries, too scared to come out and face Lilith, died screaming.

"There shall be no other G.o.ds but me," said Lilith, her voice rising effortlessly above the roars and screams and howls of the violence below. "All who live in the Night-side shall wors.h.i.+p only me. This is my place, and I am all you need to know."

And that was when Walker showed up. He came strolling casually down the Street of the G.o.ds, in his smart city suit, and everything slowed to a halt as word of his progress went ahead of him. People and Beings stopped fighting, backing away from each other and from him. They withdrew to the sidewalks and watched silently as he pa.s.sed by, not even acknowledging their presence. Beings and Forces and Powers stopped doing distressing things to each other and stood still, waiting to see what would happen. A slow sullen silence fell across the b.l.o.o.d.y Street, and the G.o.d war stopped. All of this, simply because Walker had come to the Street of the G.o.ds.

He brought no backup with him, no bodyguards, specialised operatives, or armed forces. His presence was enough to calm and intimidate all those around him. G.o.ds and their followers looked sheepishly at the destruction they'd wrought, like children caught in the act of doing something naughty. Because this was Walker, the Voice of the Authorities, whose word was law. The single most implacable force in the Nightside. He finally came to a halt, looking up at Lilith standing on the air. They considered each other for a while, then Walker smiled and tipped his bowler hat to her. Walker had style. Lilith dropped elegantly down to stand on the b.l.o.o.d.y Street before him, and if he was aware of her nakedness or the s.e.xuality that burned in her like a furnace, he gave no sign of it. He looked around at the scattered bodies, the burning churches, then at the watching G.o.ds and their followers, none of whom could meet his gaze.

"That's quite enough of that," he said crisply, not looking at anyone in particular, though everyone just knew he was talking to them. "Never seen such a mess. You will stop this nonsense immediately and start clearing up. You wouldn't want me to get upset, would you?"

Some of the G.o.ds and their congregations were already backing away, muttering excuses and apologies, and in some cases actually trying to hide behind each other. They all knew the names and legends of those poor unfortunates who'd upset Walker in the past, and the terrible things that had happened to them. But all that stopped as Lilith addressed Walker in a loud and carrying voice that had not the slightest trace of fear or unease in it. If anything, she seemed... amused.

"Dear Henry, so good to see you again. You've come such a long way, since we last met."

Walker raised an elegant eyebrow. "You have the advantage of me, madam. I seem to recognise the voice, but..."

"Oh Henry, have you forgotten your dear little Fennella Davis so soon?" said Lilith, and Walker actually caught his breath, as though he'd been hit.

"So..." he said finally. "Lilith. This is what you really look like."

Lilith laughed, shaking her head a little coquettishly. "This... is as much of me as human senses can stand. You must remember that the whole Eden thing is just a parable. Really, this body is something I use to walk around in, in your limited world. Once I have refas.h.i.+oned the Nightside into something more suited to my needs and nature, I will bring all of myself here, and I will be glorious indeed."

"What are you?" said Walker. "I mean, what are you, really?"

"I am of the first creation," said Lilith. "I am what came first, long before this world was. I am also Charles Taylor's wife and John Taylor's mother. I am what three foolish boys summoned into the world, unknowingly. Oh dear Henry, am I everything you thought I'd be?"

"Stand where you are," said Walker, and his words thundered on the air. He was using the Voice the Authorities had given him, that could not be denied by the living or the dead. "Surrender yourself to me, Lilith, and do no more harm."

Lilith laughed at him, and the Voice's power shattered on the air like cheap gla.s.s. "Don't be silly, Henry. Your Voice was only ever designed to work on the things of this world, and I am so much more than that. Run away, dear Henry, and hide until I come for you. I have a special reward in mind for you. You will wors.h.i.+p me, and love me, and I will make you immortal in some more pleasing shape, so that you can sing my praises for all eternity. Won't that be fun?"

"I'd rather die," said Walker.

Lilith slapped him aside contemptuously, and her slender pale arm hit him like a battering ram. His bones broke under the force of the blow, and blood flew on the air as he flew backwards, cras.h.i.+ng into the wall of a half-buried church. He fell to the ground like a broken doll, and the church wall collapsed on top of him. The G.o.ds and their wors.h.i.+ppers watched the rubble settle, then watched some more, but Walker, who could have called down armies from both Church and State with but a word, did not emerge.

The G.o.d war was over. Everyone had seen the Authorities' Voice crushed and broken in a moment, his power brushed aside like an annoying insect, and that was enough for them. They knelt and bowed their heads to Lilith, then joined up behind her as she led her army in triumph down the Street of the G.o.ds and out into the Nightside.

Not long after that, I finally turned up, with Shotgun Suzie, Razor Eddie, and Sandra Chance. The Street was a mess, with ruined buildings to every side, unattended fires sending up thick black smoke that stank of incense, and the dead and the dying lying ignored. The survivors and the walking wounded stumbled this way and that, deep in shock, only left behind because they were too damaged to be of use. It said something for Razor Eddie's reputation that broken, dazed, and defeated as they were, many of them took one look at Eddie and started running. Rather more unsettlingly, a whole lot more took one look at me and came forward to kneel before me, praising me as Lilith's son and calling on me for mercy and deliverance.

"All right," said Suzie, curling her upper lip. "This is seriously freaking me out."

"You're not alone," I said. "You! Let go of my leg, right now."

"No-one ever kneels to me," said Suzie. "You there! Yes, you, stop shaking and tell us what the h.e.l.l happened here."

It took a while, but we finally got the story out of them. Lilith had made her triumphant return to the Nightside, and I'd missed it. The s.h.i.+vering wrecks before us made it very clear that Mommie Dearest was looking for me. And not necessarily in a good way. It seemed she had some special purpose in mind for her only begotten child.

"Tough," I said. "I don't happen to feel like obliging her. At least, not yet. When we finally do meet, I want it to be on my terms, on my home ground."

By now, word of my arrival had spread up and down the Street of the G.o.ds, and a mob of ragged people formed around us, half out of their minds with fear and anger, crying out Blasphemer! and Drag him down! and Take him to Lilith! Suzie and Eddie and Sandra moved in close beside me, but the mob didn't even see them. There were hundreds of them now, with more coming, faces twisted with hate and loathing, reaching out for me with clawed hands. They surged forward from all sides, and before I could say anything, Suzie opened up with her pump-action shotgun, blowing great holes in the advancing ranks. They kept coming. Razor Eddie cut a b.l.o.o.d.y path through them, moving too fast for the human eye to follow. Then Sandra Chance raised the bodies of the fallen dead to attack the living, and that was too much for the mob. The crowd broke apart and quickly dispersed, scattering in all directions, leaving the dead and dying behind. I couldn't feel angry at them. None of this was their fault, really. It was just that my mother made such a powerful impression on people. Suzie lowered her shotgun and reloaded. Eddie reappeared at my side, his razor dripping blood. Sandra let the dead lie down again. A s.h.i.+vering acolyte in an Aztec feathered headdress approached her timidly.

"If you can raise the dead, could you perhaps... ?"

"Sorry, no," said Sandra Chance. "Raising dead G.o.ds is beyond me. Besides, if he stays dead, he probably wasn't much of a G.o.d to begin with, was he?"

The acolyte burst into tears, and we left him sitting there on the shattered steps of what had once been his temple.

"Ms. Tact," said Suzie, to Sandra.

"You'd know," said Sandra.

"Where's Walker?" said Eddie. "I don't see a body anywhere, and you know what they say in the Nightside-if you don't see a body, they're almost certainly not dead."

"I think I can help you there," said a sad-eyed priest. "You'll find him over there, under what's left of my church."

We thanked him and approached the remains of what might once have been a pretty impressive edifice. Half of it was still on fire, burning sullenly in the still night air. In the end, we had to dig through a pile of rubble, hauling it away brick by brick, to uncover Walker. His suit was tattered and torn and soaked with blood, but he still opened his eyes the moment I leaned over him. He even managed a small smile.

"John," he said faintly. "Late, as usual. I've been having a few words with your mother."

"So I see," I said. "You can't get on with anyone, can you?"

We dug him out, and sat him up with his back against a wall. He never made a sound the whole time. Suzie checked him over with brisk efficiency. Suzie knows a lot about wounds, from both ends. Eventually she stood back and nodded to me.

"He's damaged, but he'll live."

"Oh good," said Walker. "For a while there, I was almost worried."

"You should be," said Sandra Chance. "You trapped us all in the cemetery dimension and left us there to die. We had an agreement, and you broke it. No-one does that to me and lives."

"You can't kill him now," I said.

"Why not?" said Sandra, turning the full force of her cold, angry gaze upon me. I looked back at her steadily.

"Because he was my father's friend. Because I don't kill in cold blood. And because I have a use for him."

"Practical as ever, John," said Walker.

Sandra frowned. "This plan. Will he like it?"

"Almost definitely not."

"Then I'll wait," said Sandra Chance.

I crouched down before Walker so I could look right into his face. "She's back," I said. "Lilith. My mother. Back to tear down the Nightside and replace it with something that will have no room in it for Humanity. And if I try to stop her, just maybe she'll bring down the whole world. I can't do this alone, Walker. I need your help."

He smiled briefly. "We're finally on the same wavelength. Pity it took such dire straits to bring us together."

"Don't kid yourself," I said. "All we have in common is a mutual enemy."

"Yes. Someone who's worse than either of us."

"You should know," I said. "You brought her here, through the Babalon Working. You, and the Collector, and my father."

"Ah," said Walker. "So you worked it out, finally. I was beginning to think you were a bit slow. You'll have all the support I can raise from the Authorities, but it'll take more than an army of warm bodies and everyday magics to stop Lilith."

"I have a few old friends and allies in mind," I said. "And a plan I can practically guarantee no-one's going to like." I turned to Suzie. "Take Sandra and Eddie and get Walker back to Strangefellows. Alex can fix him up, but make sure he doesn't try to put it on my tab. Then you wait there, till I get back."

"h.e.l.l with that," Suzie said immediately. "Wherever you're going, you'll need me to watch your back."

"Not this time," I said gently. "I need you with the others. You're the only one I can trust. And besides... I don't want you to see some of the things I might have to do."

She smiled briefly. "You pick the d.a.m.nedest times to worry about my feelings, John."

"Somebody has to," I said.

Four.

Not Fade Away