Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth Part 13

"Yeah, well," I said, as casually as I could, "nothing like having your mother around to inspire you to new heights."

Walker brought me a gla.s.s of wormwood brandy. I'd actually have preferred a nice ice-cold c.o.ke, but I appreciated the thought. I nodded my thanks to him, and he nodded back. Which was about as demonstrative as we were ever likely to get. It did seem we were becoming closer, whether we liked it or not. Suzie stopped dabbing at my face with her damp cloth, inspected her work critically, then nodded and tossed the b.l.o.o.d.y cloth aside. She sat down on the edge of a table facing me, and concentrated on cleaning her double-barrelled shotgun.

At another table, not too far away, Tommy Oblivion thrashed about while Alex did necessary, painful things to him. Betty and Lucy Coltrane held Tommy down, using all their considerable strength, while Tommy used the kind of language you didn't expect to hear from effete existentialists. Alex's remedies tended to be swift, brutal, but effective. He chanted something alliterative in Old Saxon, while pouring a thick blue gunk into Tommy's exposed guts, while Dead Boy peered over his shoulder, watching interestedly.

"I could lend you some duct tape, if you like," he said. "I've always found duct tape very useful."

"Get the h.e.l.l away from my patient, you heathen," said Alex, not looking up from what he was doing. "Or I'll use this superglue to seal your mouth up."

"Superglue?" gasped Tommy. "You're putting me back together with superglue? I demand a second opinion!"

"All right, you're a noisy b.u.g.g.e.r, too," said Alex. "Now shut the h.e.l.l up and let me concentrate. Superglue was good enough for the grunts in Vietnam. It's not like you needed all that lower intestine anyway... There. That's it. Give the glue a few minutes to bond with the spells, then you can sit up. I've got the bullets here. Do you want to keep them for souvenirs?"

Tommy told Alex exactly where he could stick the bullets, and everyone managed some kind of smile. I looked around me, studying the small crowd gathered in the bar. My only remaining allies in the struggle to stop Lilith. It really was a very small crowd. I looked at Walker, who shrugged. He'd got his equilibrium back, but he still looked very tired.

"All my other agents are either out in the field, doing what they can, or they're missing, presumed dead. What you see... is all that's left."

There was Alex Morrisey, cleaning his b.l.o.o.d.y hands on a grubby bar cloth, all in black as usual, in perpetual mourning for the way his life might have gone, if only he hadn't been Alex Morrisey. He glowered at me, and said something about the mess I'd made of his place, but I could tell his heart wasn't really in it. Tommy Oblivion was already sitting up on his table-top, ruefully inspecting the tattered and bloodied remains of his ruffled shirt. He nodded almost cheerfully to me and gave me a thumbs-up. Betty and Lucy Coltrane had chosen chairs from where they could keep a watchful overview of the bar, ready to deal with any and all intruders. They looked muscular as ever, but there were deep black smudges of fatigue under their eyes.

Dead Boy struck a casual pose in his flapping purple greatcoat, while Ms. Fate struck an heroic pose in his leather superhero outfit, mask, and cape. Standing proudly at his side was my teenage secretary, Cathy Barrett, in an oversized black leather jacket covered in badges. I stopped and looked at her closely.

"Cathy... why are you wearing a black domino mask?"

"Ms. Fate made me his sidekick!" Cathy said cheerfully. "I thought I'd call myself Deathfang the Avenger, or maybe..."

I shut my eyes, just for a moment. Teenagers...

Razor Eddie was standing a little off to one side, as he always did. Eddie wasn't a people person. Mien Advent was nursing a gla.s.s of champagne and smoking a long black cheroot. As always, he was every inch the elegant Victorian, but his opera cloak was torn and tattered and even burned through in places. Of us all he looked the most like a real hero, tall and brave and unbending. Because he was. Larry Oblivion, in a soiled and battered Gucci suit, stood supportively beside his brother, and nodded briefly when my gaze landed on him.

"You saved my brother's life," he said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said.

I hadn't let Tommy die. The thought warmed me. I'd finally broken one clear link between my present and the devastated future, and it felt good, so good. And then I felt guilty, for caring more about that than for saving the man who'd risked his life to save mine. I do try to be a good man, but my life gets so d.a.m.ned complicated, sometimes...

"We're all glad you're back, Taylor," said Walker, a little tartly. "But you'd better have some really good ideas, because we're all out. We're losing, John."

Outside the bar, I could hear the roar of unchecked fires and the rumble of explosions, running feet, human screams, and the cries of monsters loose in the streets. Merlin's shields were apparently still holding, but the War was edging closer. It occurred to me that this might be the last safe haven left in the Nightside. I remembered my Enemies, huddled together in their last refuge, and shuddered despite myself.

"What is there left for us to do?" said Walker. "We've tried open confrontation, manning the barricades, hit-and-run tactics, and guerrilla warfare, and none of it has ever done more than slow down Lilith's advance. Now there's just us... We're all good, in our own ways, but she's Lilith. Even her children were worshipped as G.o.ds for centuries. Lilith represents a kind of Power that's almost beyond our comprehension. And her army of followers is growing all the time. I like to think most of them have been terrorised into joining, and would cut and run if given a chance, but..."

Everyone looked at me, and the silence stretched, because I had nothing to say. I had no plans, no schemes, no last trick up my sleeve.

"Can't you use your gift, to find out what Lilith will do next?" said Cathy. It was hard for me to look at her. She still had faith in me. "Couldn't your gift find us a way to defeat her?"

I shook my head slowly. "I know you're trying to help, Cathy, but my gift doesn't work like that. And every time I raise my gift now, it's like running up a flag to tell Lilith exactly where I am."

"But you're always finding new things you can do with your gift," said Cathy.

"Specific questions lead me to specific answers," I said tiredly. "The vaguer the question, the harder it is to get any kind of answer that makes sense."

"Where did you get this gift, anyway?" said Ms. Fate, in his rough, smoky voice. "I would have loved to have a gift to help me. I had to create myself through hard work and long training."

"I won my gift in a poker game," said Tommy Oblivion, unexpectedly.

"It's true, he did," said his brother Larry. "And he was bluffing, with a pair of threes. I couldn't believe it."

"My gift was a legacy, inherited from my inhuman mother," I said. "My only legacy."

"Now that's interesting," said Mien Advent. "Why that gift, in particular, and no other? I mean, when your mother is an ancient Power and a Biblical myth, I think you could reasonably expect to inherit at least half of that power, simply through the operations of chance. If all you got was one specific gift, it's because that's what your mother intended. She wasn't prepared to risk your becoming powerful enough to challenge her, but she wanted you to have this gift for finding things. Why?"

An earthquake shook the bar. Tables rattled and chairs shimmied across the heaving floor. The walls creaked, and the long wooden bar groaned out loud. Everyone clung to each other, to keep from falling. Bottles toppled and crashed behind the bar, and the lights swung crazily. My first thought was that Lilith had found us at last, and was smashing her way through Merlin's defences, but as quickly as it started the disturbance faded away, and everything grew still again. We were all standing, prepared to defend ourselves in our various ways.

"The cellars!" Alex said abruptly. "I can hear something moving, down in the cellars!"

We all fell silent, listening. Nothing good could come from the cellars under Strangefellows. Finally, we heard faint but definite footsteps, coming up the stairs under the bar. Slow, measured, inexorable footsteps. And then the trap-door behind the bar flew open with a crash, and that ancient sorcerer, Merlin, came up into the bar. Merlin of Camelot, the Devil's only begotten son, risen up in his own dead body with the dirt still on him from where he'd burst up out of his own grave. I'd known that giant crucifix wouldn't hold him down if he wanted out.

Merlin strolled out from behind the bar, taking his time, enjoying the shock and apprehension in all our faces. Alex stared, open-mouthed. He'd never seen his ancestor before, because up till now Merlin had always manifested through him. This was the real deal, Merlin's dead body up and about again, raised from its long rest through an effort of supernatural will.

Merlin Satansp.a.w.n. A man born out of h.e.l.l who became a warrior for Heaven. And scared the c.r.a.p out of both sides.

His face was long and heavy-boned, unrepentantly ugly, and two flames leapt in the empty sockets where his eyes should have been. (He has his father's eyes, they said...) His long grey hair and beard were stiff and packed with old clay. His skin was taut and cracked and stained with grave-moss, but still he looked in pretty good shape for someone who'd been dead and buried for fifteen hundred years. He wore the magician's robe they'd buried him in, a long scarlet gown with golden tr.i.m.m.i.n.g round the collar. I remembered that robe. He'd been wearing it when I killed him, back in the Past. The robe hung open to reveal a bare chest covered in Druidic tattoos, interrupted by a great gaping hole, from where I'd torn the living heart out of his chest with my bare hands. For what seemed like good reasons at the time. As far as I knew, he didn't know I'd taken it.

Merlin came striding through the bar, and the tables and chairs drew back to get out of his way. His dead body made low, creaking sounds with every movement, and gravedirt fell off him. He wasn't breathing. He ignored Razor Eddie, standing ready with his straight razor shining impossibly bright in his filthy hand. He ignored Suzie Shooter, with her double-barrelled shotgun following his every movement. He ignored Dead Boy and Julien Advent and all the others. He came straight for me, his dead lips drawn back in a mirthless smile that showed brown teeth and grey leathery tongue.

He stopped right before me, and actually bowed slightly. "Here we are at last," he said, in a voice like everyone's favourite uncle. "Two sons of distinguished parents, who only ever wanted to be left alone to work out their own destinies. I was born to be the Antichrist, but I declined the honour and went my own way. And much good it did me. We've always had a lot in common, you and I, John Taylor."

"What brings you up here, sorcerer?" I asked. I kept my voice calm and easy through an effort of will. (First rule of operating in the Nightside-never let them see they've got you scared or they'll walk all over you.) "What brings you up out of your grave, after all these centuries?"

"To tell you things you need to know," he said, still smiling his unnerving smile. "I know why your mother bestowed only the one gift upon you, when she could have made you one of the greatest Powers in the Nightside. I am old and wise and I know many things I'm not supposed to. Being dead didn't stop me listening, and learning. Lilith gave you that one gift and no other because she intended to make use of you and it, on her return. Your gift will find for her the one thing that will make possible her control of the whole Nightside.

"I would have thought you'd have worked that out by now. If she could remake the Nightside by will alone, she would have done it by now, don't you think? But her creation has grown and changed so very much during the long centuries of her absence, become something far greater and more intransigent than she ever intended... Why else would a Power like Lilith need an army to subdue the Nightside?"

"Why haven't you manifested before?" Walker said sharply. "We could have used your help. Why wait till now, when it's almost too late?"

"I'm here now because you finally asked the right question," said Merlin, still looking only at me. He pulled up a chair and sat down before me, and his manner made it seem like a throne. His presence dominated the room, pulling all eyes to him. "Now I'm up and about again, Lilith will know I'm back. She'll know where to come, to find me. She has to face me, because I'm her only real rival. She'll never feel safe until she's seen me utterly destroyed and cast down."

"Can you stop her?" said Mien Advent.

Merlin ignored him, his fiery gaze fixed on me. "The protections I have set in place around this bar won't keep her out forever. She'll be here, very soon now. And if she finds me in my present condition, she'll strike me down with a look and a word and laugh while she does it. And then she'll take you over, John, make you her puppet, and use your gift as though it were her own. Just as she's planned from the very beginning."

I considered him for a long moment, letting the silence build. "But now you're here, to save the day. Because you have a plan, too, don't you, Merlin?"

He nodded. "Yes. I have a plan."

"Of course you do. You're Merlin Satansp.a.w.n, and you always have a plan."

"Don't drag my father into this," said Merlin. "You know very well we never got on. Now, John Taylor, I need you to use your gift for me. I need you to find my missing heart and bring it here to me. I will place it back in my breast, and then... Ah then, I will show you wonders and miracles beyond your wildest dreams! I will live again, my body made new and vital, and all my old power will return! I shall be the greatest magician of this Age, and walk out of this bar, free at last... to teach Lilith the error of her ways."

There was a long pause. I looked around, and it was clear that no-one except Merlin thought this was a good idea.

"You might win against Lilith," I said finally. "Or you might not. But even if you did... who's to say you might not prove as great a threat as she?"

Everyone looked at me, then at Merlin. He rose slowly up out of his chair, his dead body creaking and groaning, and I stood my ground, facing him unflinchingly.

"I could make you find my heart," said Merlin.

"No you couldn't," I said.

We stared at each other, both of us very still. I looked into the flames that were his eyes, and I'd never felt colder in my life. And in the end, Merlin looked away first. He sat down heavily on his chair. I sat down quickly, too, so no-one would see how badly my legs were shaking. There were impressed murmurs all around me, but I just nodded stiffly. I was the only one there who knew for sure that I'd been bluffing.

"I've had enough of this," I said harshly. "Enough of guesses and warnings and prophecies of doom. It's time to get to the heart of the matter, time to find out the truth, once and for all. You were right all along, Cathy. The only way to find out what I need to know, is to use my gift. So, gift, Why did Lilith give you to me ?"

I was ready for another fight, another concentrated effort of will that would half kill me, but in the end it was as easy as taking a deep breath. As though my gift had been waiting all my life for me to ask of it the one question that really mattered. My shadow stood up before me, separating itself, taking on form and substance until it looked exactly like me, right down to the white trench coat with the flapping sleeve. Exactly like me, in every detail-except my doppelganger's eyes were full of darkness. It leaned against a table and folded its arms across its chest, smiling mockingly at me.

"Took you long enough," it said. Its voice was smooth, a.s.sured, and only just short of openly taunting. "Well, here I am, John. Your gift personified, ready to answer all your questions."

"All right," I said. My mouth was very dry. "How do you work? How is it you're always able to find the things that are hidden from everyone else?"

"Easy. I tap directly into reality itself. I see everything that is, all at once. I'm really so much more than you ever allowed me to be, John."

"d.a.m.n," Tommy said quietly. "That is... really spooky."

"Why did Lilith give you to me?" I said.

"Because she intends to use you to find the Speaking Gun. The most powerful weapon in the world. It was originally created to kill angels and demons, but it can do so much more than that. Lilith will use the Speaking Gun to remake the Nightside in her own image. Return it to what she originally intended it to be, before Humanity infested and perverted it from its true purpose and nature. She was responsible for the Gun's creation, long and long ago. Adam gave of his rib and his flesh to make Eve, and after Lilith came back up from h.e.l.l, having lain down with demons and given birth to monsters, she also gave of her rib and her flesh, to make the Speaking Gun. With the help of Abraxus Artificers."

"Yeah," Suzie said suddenly. "That was engraved on the stock of the Speaking Gun; Abraxus Artificers, the old firm, solving problems since the beginning. I've always been very good at remembering things, where weapons are involved."

"Very good," said my double. "Now shut up and listen, and you might learn something. Abraxus Artificers were the descendants of Cain, the first murderer. How else do you think they could fashion such marvellous weapons of destruction?" My double paused. "You do all realise that I'm talking in parables, representing a far more complicated reality? Good. I shall continue. The Speaking Gun was designed to speak backwards the echoes of the original Word of Creation, which resonates on in everything, giving each separate thing its own true secret name. By speaking this secret name backwards, the Speaking Gun can thus unmake or uncreate anything. But the Speaking Gun could be used, by someone with enough power, someone who gave of their own flesh to make it, to respeak those secret names, and thus change their essential nature. Lilith will use the Speaking Gun to respeak the Nightside, making it over into whatever she wants it to be. Personally, I can't wait to see what she's going to do..."

"That's enough," I said, and shut down my gift. It didn't fight me, just collapsed back into darkness, and my shadow was nothing more than my shadow. I wondered if I'd ever look at it in the same way again. Or ever really trust my gift, knowing that it lived within me like a parasite.

"So," Walker said finally, "who has the Speaking Gun? My people lost track of it some time back."

"I last saw it here, in this bar, with the future Suzie Shooter," said Alex, glancing apologetically at Suzie. "Before Merlin banished both of them."

"Don't look at me," said Merlin. He sounded a lot smaller, since I'd stared him down. "I only sent them away. They could be anywhere now. Or anywhen."

"The last time I saw it, in the Present, Eddie had it," I said. I looked at him. We all looked at him, and he nodded slowly. "You were using it to kill angels from Above and Below, in the angel war," I said, being careful to sound not at all challenging or confrontational. "What did you do with it, Eddie?"

"I gave it away," said Razor Eddie, quite calmly. "To Old Father Time. The only Being I knew powerful enough to control it and not be corrupted by it."

"I thought all you cared about was smiting the bad guys?" said Suzie.

"No," said Razor Eddie. "I wanted to do penance. There's a difference. All the time I had the Speaking Gun, I could feel it working on me, trying to seduce me with its endless hunger for death and destruction. But I have been there, and done that. I am something else now."

"According to my agents' last reports, Lilith has destroyed the Time Tower," Walker said heavily. "Reduced it to nothing but rubble. Old Father Time is dead, and the Speaking Gun buried under the rubble with him."

"No," I said, feeling hope rise anew within me. "Time's domain isn't actually in the Nightside. The Tower was just how people got to speak to him. There is another way to reach him... So, who's up for one last suicidal charge for glory? Don't all speak at once."

Twelve.

Last Train to Shadows Fall

I explained what I had in mind. Everyone looked at me. And somehow I knew they weren't too keen. explained what I had in mind. Everyone looked at me. And somehow I knew they weren't too keen.

"You're crazy!" said Larry Oblivion.

"And if you think we're going along with you, you're crazy, too!" said Dead Boy.

"Hold everything," said Walker, holding up his hand, and it was a measure of the man that everyone else fell silent, like children when the teacher speaks. "Let me be sure I've grasped all the details of this cunning plan of yours, John. You want us to go out onto the streets full of madmen and monsters and run interference for you, at the risk of all our lives, so you can get safely to the nearest Underground station and catch a train to take you safely out of the Nightside? Is that it? Have I grasped all the nuances correctly?"

"I love it when you get all sarcastic, Walker," I said. "But actually, you're pretty much right. Look, Old Father Time resides in Shadows Fall, that small town in the back of beyond that's an elephants' graveyard for the supernatural. He only commutes into the Nightside to work. When Lilith destroyed the Time Tower, all she did was cut off his access to the Nightside. He's still safe in Shadows Fall, with the Speaking Gun. If I can get safely to the Underground, I can take a train straight to him. And just maybe I can persuade him to give me the Speaking Gun, to use against Lilith."

"Or, you could just run out on us," said Larry, fixing me with his cold unblinking gaze. "Even Lilith would think twice about going after you, if you were hiding out in Shadows Fall."

"He may be dead, but he has a point," said Walker. "You've never been the most trustworthy soul, Taylor. Why should we risk our lives to save your selfish skin?"

"Oh ye of little faith," I said. "We need the Gun, and I'm the only one he might give it to. Do you have any means of communicating with Shadows Fall, Walker? Any way we can talk to Time, and save me the journey?"

"No," Walker admitted reluctantly. "All outgoing communications have been jammed. Scientific and supernatural. We're completely cut off from the rest of the world."

"Then I have to go in person, don't I?" I said. "Is there anyone else here who thinks Old Father Time might surrender the most powerful weapon in the world to them? No, I didn't think so."

"Why should he give it to you?" said Julien Advent. From him, it was a fair question.

"Because I'm Lilith's son. Because he knows I'm the only one who can stop her now."

"I say!" Tommy Oblivion said suddenly, and we all jumped a little. "I've just had a brilliant idea! Taylor, why don't you get Old Father Time to send you back into the Past again, to before all this started, so you can warn yourself about what's coming?"

"I can't," I said patiently, "because I didn't."

Tommy frowned, his lower lip pouting out sullenly. "I can't help feeling there should be more to the argument than that." He pulled a notepad out of his pocket and started jotting down equations and Venn diagrams, muttering about divergent timetracks, opposing probabilities, experiment's intent, and whether or not someone's pizza had anchovies on it, so we left him to get on with it. In my experience, Time travel just complicated things even more.

"The Speaking Gun is what matters," I said forcefully. "It's the only weapon we can be sure will work on Lilith, because it's made out of her flesh and bone. I can use it to speak her name in reverse, and uncreate her."

"Or perhaps to respeak her?" said Walker. "Remake her into some more acceptable form? She is your mother, after all."