Just Another Judgement Day Part 11

Chandra made the mistake of trying to talk kindly to these hyperventilating vultures and was immediately shouted down by a dozen competing voices. Some of them even grabbed at his silk sleeves and tried to drag him off in a dozen different directions at once. So I made a point of throwing all my pamphlets on the ground and stamping on them, and when I had the pamphleteers attention, I fixed them all with a hard stare. They fell back as one, struck suddenly dumb. It's amazing what you can achieve with a good hard stare when you've got a reputation like mine. But by now more pamphleteers had arrived, scenting blood in the water, and filled the silence with their own shouts.

"I saw them first! They're mine!"

"Don't listen to him! Only I can bring you to Enlightenment!"

"You? You couldn't even spell Enlightenment! I offer a tenfold path to true transcendence!"

"Ten? Ten? I can do it in eight!"

"Seven!"

"Four!"

"Dagon shall rise again!"

It got nasty after that. They fell on each other, pamphlets thrown to the winds, fluttering on the air like particularly gaudy autumn leaves. Fists were brandished, shins were kicked, and there was a lot of close grappling and unnecessary biting. I strolled off and left them to it, and Chandra hurried after me.

The Street of the G.o.ds was being its usual strange and unnatural self, with weird s.h.i.t on every corner and more manifestations than you could shake a crucible at. Chandra enjoyed the sights, like any other tourist on his first grand tour, but every now and again he'd catch himself as he remembered he wasn't supposed to approve of things like this. Organised religions are always jealous of the up-and-comers. But there was a lot to look at and enjoy. Self-appointed saints with neon halos looked disapprovingly on other-dimensional ent.i.ties playing croquet with the heads of heretics, while rival congregations shouted rap sermons at each other from the safety of their church doors.

And a long line of sad furry animals followed a large scruffy bear as he trudged down the Street, holding up a crucifix to which was nailed a small green frog.

I pointed out some of the more interesting faiths and beliefs to Chandra as they presented themselves, at least partly in the spirit of self-defence. It pays to watch your back in the Street of the G.o.ds. You never knew when some of the more aggressive Ideas will sneak up behind you and mug your subconscious. But there are many sights to be seen in the Street of the G.o.ds, and I enjoyed showing them off to Chandra. It was all so new to him. The glamour rubs off fast after you've cleaned a fallen G.o.d's blood off your shoes, as he's viciously ejected from his temple to make way for someone more popular.

I showed him the Church of the Blood Red G.o.d-a tall Gothic structure with spiked towers and barbed parapets, a gloomy crimson edifice made entirely out of blood. Blood and nothing but blood, gallons of the stuff shaped and held in place entirely by the will of the Blood Red G.o.d. Impressive to look at, though up close it smelled pretty bad. Attracted flies like you wouldn't believe. The G.o.d's disciples provide the blood, mostly voluntarily.

"And what, precisely, does the Blood Red G.o.d get out of all this?" said Chandra suspiciously. "Apart from a church that smells like a slaughterhouse?"

"Well," I said. "He feeds off his flock, trans.m.u.tes the blood in his own divine body, then feeds the supercharged blood back to his devotees, a few drops at a time. Their worship makes him a G.o.d, and they get to feel divine, for a time. Do I really need to tell you that the process is addictive and that it burns out the human system pretty d.a.m.n quickly? Not that it matters. There's a believer born every minute."

"But...that means he's nothing more than a glorified leech! Feeding off his followers!"

"I could say something very cynical and cutting here about the nature of most organised religions," I said. "But the Street says it all, really."

Chandra sniffed loudly. "What does he look like, this Blood Red G.o.d?"

"Good question," I said. "No-one knows. Like many of the Beings on the Street, he rarely walks abroad in person. Probably because if their flocks ever got a good look at what they were actually worshipping, they'd go off the whole idea. However, the Blood Red G.o.d has been known to send out humanoid figures composed entirely of blood to take care of day-to-day business. Some of the more adventurous vampires like to sneak up behind and stick straws in them."

"Show me something else," said Chandra. "Before I projectile vomit every meal I've eaten in the last three months."

"Well," I said. "If you're looking for something more spiritual . . . over there we have the Hall of Entropy. A dour-looking place for a congregation of real gloomy b.u.g.g.e.rs. They believe that since the whole universe is winding down, and everything that lives is going to die, it's up to us to evolve into a higher order of Being and get the h.e.l.l out of here in search of a better cla.s.s of universe. They offer courses in how to become a higher order of Being. Very expensive courses."

"Ah," said Chandra. "And have any of these people ever actually transcended?"

"Funnily enough, no," I said sadly. "According to the people who run the courses, it's because the students aren't trying hard enough. Or because they haven't taken enough courses. There's a pool running on the Street as to how long it will take before the students wise up and rebel, and tear the whole place apart. Probably only to find that the organisation's leaders have already absconded with all the cash. In search of a better universe, presumably."

"Why is everyone staying well away from that one?" said Chandra, pointing entirely unselfconsciously. "Even the tourists are taking their photos from the other side of the Street."

"Ah," I said. "That is the Church of Sacrifice. Its priests have an unnerving tendency to rush out of their church without warning, grab anyone handy, or anyone who doesn't run away fast enough, and drag them into their church to sacrifice to their G.o.d. Usually singing psalms very loudly, to drown out the screams and objections. Their G.o.d, who has no name but I think we can all take a pretty good guess at his nature, sucks up the souls and shares the life energy with its followers. No-one on the Street objects, as such. They think he adds colour and character to the Street. And besides, he helps keep the tourists moving. The Church's worshippers wear masks at all times. Because if any of them do get identified, everyone else kills them. Just on general principles."

"This whole Street is a disgrace!" said Chandra, rather more loudly than I was comfortable with. "None of these Beings are G.o.ds! Powerful creatures, yes, but not G.o.ds! Nothing worthy of worship. In fact," he said, his voice suddenly thoughtful. "Many would seem to me to qualify as monsters . . ."

"Let us not go there," I said quickly. "We really don't want to start anything. We're here to stop the Walking Man."

"But I'm right, aren't I?" insisted Chandra.

"Well, yes, quite probably," I said. "But it's still not something you want to actually announce out loud unless you like having your t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es expand suddenly and violently, then blow up in slow motion. Some of the G.o.ds here have very old-fashioned ideas when it comes to smiting unbelievers."

"You think that will stop the Walking Man?" said Chandra.

"No. But then, his G.o.d is bigger than everyone else's G.o.d."

"I am a khalsa," said Chandra. "I do not believe . . . that this Walking Man can do anything that I cannot."

"You can believe anything you like, on the Street of the G.o.ds," I said. "But that doesn't necessarily make it true."

There was the sudden sound of loud and angry confrontation, from further down the Street. I started running again, with Chandra pounding along behind me. He was in better shape than I, but he was carrying more weight, so I kept a comfortable lead. I felt a very definite need to encounter situations or Beings before Chandra did. He had a disturbing tendency to say exactly what he was thinking, and that can get you into a whole lot of trouble on the Street of the G.o.ds.

Lots of other people were running right alongside me, including a whole bunch of tourists with their cameras at the ready. We do love our free entertainment in the Nightside, especially if it promises to be dramatic, violent, and quite spectacularly b.l.o.o.d.y. And given that this involved the Walking Man, it promised to be all three. He was standing quite calmly in the middle of the Street, his long duster hanging open to reveal the guns still holstered on his belt. He was surrounded by proponents of a whole bunch of belief systems, singing the praises of their G.o.ds and denouncing the Walking Man as a heretic, an unbeliever, or worse still, a fake prophet. Even more were shouting insults from the safety of their church doors. And yet, n.o.body wanted to get too close to him. Even the fiercest of believers, the most fanatical wide-eyed extremists, could sense the power and the threat of the Walking Man. Even standing still, he was more frightening and more dangerous than any of the Beings on the Street of the G.o.ds.

You just knew it.

I pushed my way through the crowd surrounding the Walking Man, and most people only gave me a quick glance before getting out of my way. Probably because they were curious to see what I was going to do. My name moved swiftly through the crowd, along with a sense of Now we're going to see something . . . Now we're going to see something . . . Chandra Singh stuck close behind me. I was huffing and puffing from the run, and he wasn't even out of breath. And then the Walking Man opened his mouth to speak, and everyone fell silent. Chandra Singh stuck close behind me. I was huffing and puffing from the run, and he wasn't even out of breath. And then the Walking Man opened his mouth to speak, and everyone fell silent.

"You aren't G.o.ds," he said, in a calm but still loud and carrying voice. "You're spiritual con men, confidence tricksters offering false faith and false hope. Is there a greater sin?"

"Even false hope is better than none," I said. "Especially in a place like the Nightside." Everyone around me fell back to what they clearly hoped was a safe distance. The Walking Man looked at me, and I met his gaze firmly. I needed to get him talking, try to reason with him, before the horror I sensed hanging on the air erupted into b.l.o.o.d.y murder. There had to be a way to reach him. Before all h.e.l.l broke lose.

The Walking Man did me the politeness of considering my words for a moment, then shook his head. "No. All of... this is just a distraction from the true G.o.d, the real G.o.d, and a real state of grace. G.o.d is G.o.d, and none of these pretenders can be allowed to continue in their offences. There's no room for mercy when souls are at stake."

"What are you going to do?" I said bluntly. "Fight your way into all the churches and temples, drag the G.o.ds out into the Street, and shoot them all in the head? Even if you could do that, which I rather doubt, there are so many of them, you'd still be at it years from now."

"I have faith," said the Walking Man. "And faith can move mountains, never mind a false Church or two." He stopped and glared across the Street at a grimy stone edifice. "I mean, come on, look at that. The Temple of the Unspeakable Abomination. Who in their right mind would want to worship that that?"

"Someone looking for an unfair advantage, probably," I said. "It's all about the deals you can make on the Street of the G.o.ds. Faith is currency here, with valuable prizes to be won by the faithful. You can win good fortune, bad cess to your enemies, transformation or immortality, and everything in between, if you make the right kind of deal with the Being of your choice. Though the price will almost certainly be your soul, or someone else's. And I don't see that you're in any position to protest. You made a deal, didn't you? To put your humanity behind you and become the Walking Man?"

He glared at me, all the casual humour gone from his face, and when he spoke his voice was flat and calm and very dangerous. "Don't press me, John Taylor. And don't you dare compare me to the debauched fools and heretics of this corrupt and corrupting place. I serve the real deal, the one true G.o.d."

"That's what they all say here," I said easily, refusing to be intimidated.

"But my G.o.d has made me strong enough to destroy all their G.o.ds," said the Walking Man.

"Is that who you serve?" I said. "A G.o.d of blood and murder?"

He smiled suddenly, and I realised I hadn't even touched his faith and conviction. "I am the wrath of G.o.d. I punish the guilty. Because someone has to."

Chandra Singh pushed in beside me, positively quivering with eagerness to join the debate. He still thought we were only talking.

"I have no interest or affection for this place, but still, everyone has the right to worship who or what they please, in their own way," he said earnestly. "There are many paths to enlightenment, and none of us are fit to judge them. Do you intend to kill me, for worshipping my G.o.d in a way that is different to yours?"

"I don't know," said the Walking Man, with breath-taking casualness. "I haven't decided yet."

"You would kill me?" said Chandra Singh.

The Walking Man shrugged easily. "Only if you get in my way. You're not guilty. Merely deluded. Ah well, time to get to work."

He drew both his pistols and opened fire on the Temple of the Unspeakable Abomination. The crowd scattered to give him room, keeping their heads well down. I stood my ground, and Chandra stood his ground beside me. Under normal circ.u.mstances I would have done the sensible thing and run like h.e.l.l with the rest of them, but somehow I just couldn't while Chandra was with me. Never hang around with heroes; they'll always get you killed. The pistols' bullets hammered away at the front of the temple, punching holes clean through the wall and exploding the ancient stonework. There was a power in those guns and those bullets that the temple was no match for.

Cracks spread jaggedly across the entire front of the temple, then the whole front wall exploded outwards, as the Unspeakable Abomination showed itself for the first time in centuries, to see who was knocking so loudly on its door. Dozens of loathsome tentacles burst out into the street, dozens of feet long and bigger around than the average car, all of them lined with hundreds of vicious suckers packed full of rotating knifelike teeth. The flesh of the tentacles was a sick and leprous grey, as much metallic as organic, an impossibly flexible living metal that dripped corrosive slime. More and more tentacles slammed through the disintegrating front of the temple, as the Unspeakable Abomination rose up from the depths of its night-dark caverns far beneath the Street of the G.o.ds, determined to have its revenge on whoever had dared disturb its sleep of centuries.

The tentacles lashed back and forth, grabbing everything within reach and crushing it to rubble or pulp. People died screaming as the tentacles shot after them faster than they could run. Men and women were s.n.a.t.c.hed and slammed against the ground or the nearest buildings. Razor-packed suckers ate greedily into yielding flesh, and blood and other fluids ran down the Street in thickening streams. The temple was gone now. All that remained was a nest of long, thrashing tentacles killing everyone within reach. And finally, deep in the heart of the tentacles, there rose up a burning three-lobed eye, almost the size of the temple itself, staring unblinkingly on the death and destruction it was causing and finding it good.

Beings of all shapes and sizes and natures came charging out of their churches and temples to face this new threat to the Street of the G.o.ds, for whatever threatened the security and business of the Street was a threat to them all. The Walking Man might have intimidated them, but this was one of their own, and no-one would take you seriously on the Street if you let your neighbour intimidate you. So G.o.ds and icons and avatars spilled out on to the Street, and magics and sciences and strange energies spit and crackled on the air. Tentacles writhed and caught fire, exploded and cracked apart, and a choking, noxious smell filled the air as thick black blood spilled. But there were always more tentacles to replace those that were destroyed. Fanatical worshippers rushed in to cut and hack at the tentacles with blessed swords and axes, urged on by their priests, only to see the metal of their weapons break and shatter against the unyielding unearthly flesh of the Unspeakable Abomination.

The three-lobed burning eye looked on G.o.d and follower alike and found them all equally hateful in its gaze.

The tentacles churned out from the ruins of the temple, growing longer and thicker. They s.n.a.t.c.hed up G.o.ds and squeezed them till their heads exploded, or pounded them against their own churches like a child having a temper tantrum with its toys. They slammed down on whole congregations, crushing them under their writhing weight until nothing was left but red pulp. The Abomination was awakening from its long sleep and remembering the joys of slaughter and destruction and the sweet taste of blood and suffering.

Chandra Singh strode steadily forward, his long, curved sword glowing almost unbearably bright in the gloom of the Street. Some of the lesser Beings actually flinched away from its light and fell back to give Chandra room to work. He cut savagely at the nearest tentacle, and the shining blade sank deep into the metallic flesh. Steaming black blood spurted, hissing and spitting on the ground, but though the tentacle reached for Chandra, it couldn't touch him. He gripped his sword in both hands, raised it high above his head, and brought it sweeping down in a mighty blow that sheared clean through the tentacle. The severed end flapped and flopped on the Street, curling and uncurling aimlessly. The stump retreated, spurting blood. Chandra went after it, his gaze fixed on the three-lobed eye.

Meanwhile, I had my own problems.

A tentacle came right for me, then hesitated at the last moment, as though it recognised me, or at least something about me. Which was both flattering and worrying. The tentacle humped and coiled before me, as though making up its mind, then suddenly pressed forward. I jumped out of the way, dodging behind a handy stone pillar. The tentacle curled around the ma.s.sive pillar and wrenched it away with one heave. The roof started to come down, and I was forced back out into the Street. There was nowhere to run; the tentacles were everywhere. I dug through my coat pockets, searching for something I could use, and finally came up with a flat blue packet of salt. I tore the packet apart and spilled the salt on to the tentacle as it reached for me. The metallic flesh shrivelled and blackened and fell apart, the way salt affects a slug.

Never leave home without condiments.

I tried raising my gift, hoping I could use it to find some fatal weakness in the Abomination (seeing as I'd run out of salt), but the aether was jammed with the emanations of all the Beings out on the Street, fighting the Abomination. It was like being blinded by spotlights-I couldn't See a d.a.m.ned thing. I had to screw my inner eye shut to keep from being overwhelmed.

When I could see clearly again, the Walking Man was striding right into the heart of the lashing and roiling tentacles, heading straight for that burning three-lobed eye. It loomed over him, bigger than a house by then. The tentacles couldn't even get close to him, let alone touch him. Something made them pull back in spite of themselves, as though just the touch of him would be more than they could stand. He was protected because he was walking in Heaven's path. He pa.s.sed by Chandra Singh, still fighting valiantly though surrounded on all sides. The Walking Man didn't even glance at Chandra, all his attention fixed on the three-lobed eye.

He walked right up to the eye, tentacles recoiling from his very proximity, and when he was standing right before it . . . he raised one of his long-barrelled pistols and shot the eye three times; one bullet for each lobe. The eye exploded in a blast of incandescent fire, and a wave of almost unbearable heat rushed down the Street, but none of it touched the Walking Man. The tentacles collapsed and lay still, slowly melting away, disappearing into long blue streams of decaying ectoplasm. The Unspeakable Abomination was gone. I'd like to think it was dead, but such creatures are notoriously hard to kill.

All around, Beings and men alike stared at the Walking Man, and a whisper went down the Street; G.o.dkiller . . . G.o.dkiller . . .

I started towards him, and Chandra Singh came forward to join me. He looked like he'd been in a fight, his silks torn and steaming from black blood-stains, but he still held his long sword, and his back was straight and stiff. He only had eyes for the Walking Man, and he looked mad as h.e.l.l.

"You!" he said, when he was close enough. "Walking Man! You did this! How many dead and injured, simply because they happened to be here when you chose to pick a fight with the Abomination? How many innocents dead today, because of you?"

"There are no innocents here," the Walking Man said calmly. "Not on the Street of the G.o.ds, or in the whole d.a.m.ned Nightside. Isn't that right, John?"

"Not everyone here needs killing," I said stubbornly. "Sometimes, a place like this can be a haven for the damaged and the broken . . . a place to go when no-one else will have you. You can't just kill everyone."

"No?" said the Walking Man. "Watch me."

He didn't even bother with his guns this time. He walked unhurriedly down the Street, turning his terrible implacable gaze this way and that, and buildings and structures on all sides began to shudder and shake and fall apart under the impact of his deadly faith. Centuries-old stone and marble cracked and splintered, while construction materials from a hundred worlds and dimensions collapsed, or shattered like gla.s.s, or melted away like mist. For what use was antiquity and mystery in the face of his brutal faith? He was the Walking Man. He had G.o.d on his side, and he wasn't afraid to use Him. Beings and creatures and things beyond reason stumbled horrified out on to the Street, driven from their places of worship. Some came out howling and screaming, some sobbing bitterly, and some came out fighting.

The Robot G.o.d, the Deus in Machina, demon construct from the forty-first century, all strangeness and charm and vicious quarks, came stamping down the Street on its solid steel legs, its divine metal workings exposed, clanking and sc.r.a.ping against each other. Its eyes were multi-coloured diodes, and its slit mouth roared static. All kinds of energy weapons emerged from secret recesses, and the Robot G.o.d unleashed all its terror a.r.s.enal on the Walking Man, seeking to blast him right down to the quantum level.

The Walking Man swaggered down the Street to meet it, flashing his old insolent smile, and when he got close enough, he jumped lightly up to grab a handhold on the ma.s.sive metal body and tore the Robot G.o.d apart, piece by piece, with his bare hands. Future energies howled and sputtered around the pair of them as the Robot G.o.d lurched back and forth, screaming bursts of static. In a matter of moments, all that remained was a scattered pile of metal parts and a few dispersing energies.

The Inscrutable Enigma appeared out of nowhere, forming itself around the Walking Man in spiralling circles of coruscating intensities. Its living energies had burned up through the material world to reach the Street, and its very presence set fire to the ground and ignited the air. Unearthly flames burned all around the Walking Man, but could not consume him. The Inscrutable Enigma might have been as much idea as matter, an alien concept manifesting in the material world, but it was still no match for the power that burned within the Walking Man. And all too soon the Enigma exhausted its energies and faded away, its base idea consumed by a bigger one.

Pretty Kitty G.o.d gave it her best shot. She was an utterly artificial G.o.d, cold-bloodedly designed and created by marketing groups to appeal to the biggest possible audience. But they did their job too well, and Pretty Kitty G.o.d became real, or real enough. She escaped the confines of her planned Christmas Special, broke the shackles of her trade-mark, and took up residence on the Street of the G.o.ds, where she belonged. She was vast and powerful and almost unbearably cute. All fluffy pink fur and enormous eyes, ten feet tall and wondrously soft, she advanced on the Walking Man with her padded arms outstretched for a hug, to overwhelm as she always had, through sheer, unnatural cuteness. The G.o.d of Lost Toys, designed to appeal to all those who never got over finding out Father Christmas wasn't real, or having their favourite teddy bear thrown out by their mother because they were too old for it now they were too old for it now, though they weren't and never would be. I'd seen Pretty Kitty G.o.d subdue and smother old-school horned demons within a deluge of sheer niceness.

She always gave me the shudders. Toys should know their places. They certainly shouldn't want you to worship them.

The Walking Man gave Pretty Kitty G.o.d a hard look, and she burst into flames. She waddled away sadly, her leaping flames lighting up the gloom of the Street. The Walking Man, still smiling his mocking smile, looked unhurriedly about him, and all the G.o.ds of the Nightside stood there and stared back, not knowing what to do.

Then Razor Eddie appeared, and everything on the Street of the G.o.ds went really quiet. He didn't come walking down the Street, he didn't make an entrance. He was suddenly there, the Punk G.o.d of the Straight Razor, a terrible thin presence in a filthy old coat, more than a man but less than a G.o.d. Or just possibly the other way round. Thin to the point of emaciation, his eyes dark and feverish in his sunken grey face, Razor Eddie was one of the more disturbing agents of the Good in the Nightside. He slept in doorways, lived on hand-outs, and killed people who needed killing, all in penance for the sins of his youth. He did awful things with his straight razor, in the name of justice, and didn't give a d.a.m.n.

I suppose he's my friend. It's hard to tell, sometimes.

He wandered down the Street towards the Walking Man, who turned and considered him thoughtfully. Like two gun-fighters in a Western town who'd always known that some day they'd have to meet, and sort out once and for all which of them was fastest on the draw. The wrath of G.o.d and the Punk G.o.d of the Straight Razor finally stood facing each other, maintaining a respectful distance, and it felt like the whole Street was holding its breath. G.o.d's holy warrior and the most distressing agent the Good had ever had. The Walking Man's nose twitched. Eddie lived among the homeless, and up close his smell could get pretty rank. But when the Walking Man finally spoke, his voice was calm and measured and even respectful.

"Hi, Eddie," he said. "I wondered when you'd get here. I've heard a lot about you."

"Nothing good, I hope," said Razor Eddie, in his pale ghostly voice.

"You should approve of what I'm doing here. Striking down the false G.o.ds, punishing those who prey on the weak."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n for most of the sc.u.m who infest this place," said Razor Eddie. "And yes, I've killed a few G.o.ds in my time. But Dagon . . . is my friend. You don't touch him."

"Sorry," said the Walking Man. "But I really can't make exceptions. Bad for the reputation. People would think I was going soft."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," I said, stepping forward. "The testosterone's getting so thick around here you could carve your initials in it. Both of you, take a step back and calm the h.e.l.l down."

The Walking Man looked at me. "Or?" he said politely.

I met his gaze steadily. "You really want to find out?"

"Oh you're good," said the Walking Man. "You really are, John."

I looked at Razor Eddie. "You've got a friend here, on the Street of the G.o.ds? You've been holding out on me."

He shrugged briefly, the merest lifting of his shoulders. "Do you tell me all your secrets, John?"

"Can we at least give reason and common sense a try?" I said. "Before the s.h.i.t hits the straight razor, and I have to get seriously peeved with both of you?"

"All right," said the Walking Man. "I'm game. Try me."

"The Street of the G.o.ds serves a purpose," I said, trying hard to sound both firm and reasonable. "Not everyone who comes to the Nightside is ready for the real thing, for true faith. You could say this whole place is a repository and a haven for the spiritually walking wounded. They have to work their way up, in easy steps, one step at a time, out of the dark and back into the light."

"There is only one way," the Walking Man said patiently. "There is good, and there is evil. No shades of grey. You've been living here too long, John. Made too many compromises along the way. You've got soft."

"I haven't," said Razor Eddie. "You're not so different from me, Walking Man. We both gave up our old lives, and all human comforts, to serve G.o.d in violent ways, to do the dirty work no-one else wants to know about."

"If you understand, then step aside and let me do my work," said the Walking Man. "You don't have to die here today, Eddie."

"Can't do that," said Razor Eddie. "Hard as it may be to believe, there are some good people here. And some good G.o.ds. One of them is my friend. And what kind of... good man would I be, to step aside and let my friend be killed? Sometimes this Street can be a place for second chances, one last opportunity to make something better of one's life. I found new hope here. You have to believe that."