Just Another Judgement Day (28 page)
Read Just Another Judgement Day Online
Authors: Simon R. Green
He led us through the crush of the crowd, through the lobby and the bar, to the stairs at the back of the room, and people fell back and gave way for him, where they wouldn’t have budged an inch for me, or even Chandra Singh. No-one messes with Walker. Familiar faces bowed briefly to him, nodded and smiled to Chandra, and gave me long, thoughtful looks.
“So, John, what did you find to set against the unstoppable Walking Man?” said Walker, as we made our way up the stairs to the back room where the new Authorities were waiting. “Something truly dangerous and appallingly destructive, I trust?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think that’s a fair description.”
“Then why are you so sure I’m not going to approve of it?”
“Because it’s the Speaking Gun.”
Walker stopped dead on the stairs, then turned and looked back at me. I’d never seen his face so cold, or his gaze so utterly bleak.
“Oh John,” he said. “What have you done?”
“What I had to,” I said. “Revived an old terror to stop a new one.”
“I was under the impression you had destroyed the vile thing.”
“I did,” I said. “But some things just won’t stay gone. You should know that.”
“I was there when a Shotgun Suzie appeared out of a possible future, with the Speaking Gun grated on to her mutilated arm,” said Walker.
“I know,” I said. “I was there, too.”
“Are you really prepared to put Suzie at such awful risk to preserve the new Authorities?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because you’re not the only one who understands about duty and responsibility.”
“And Suzie?” said Walker.
“She’d want me to take the risk,” I said.
“Yes,” said Walker. “She would, wouldn’t she?”
Upstairs, in the barely furnished back room, the new Authorities were preparing themselves for war. Julien Advent, the great Victorian Adventurer, sat at his ease in a chair tilted back against the far wall, polishing the slender steel blade that usually lay concealed in his sword-stick. His handsome, almost saturnine, features were completely without fear or concern. Julien had never cared whether he lived or died, as long as he was fighting on the side of the right. He had a certainty in his cause to match that of the Walking Man.
Jessica Sorrow, that gaunt and still scary presence who used to be the Unbeliever, was striding up and down in her flapping black leather jacket, scowling at anything and everything. She’d only recently found faith in the everyday world and the people around her, and she was clearly furious at the prospect of having it all taken away from her again. Everyone else was keeping a cautious eye on her, and giving her plenty of room, just in case things started disappearing around her.
Annie Abattoir, in a fabulous off-the-shoulder emerald green evening gown, was mixing something potent and noxious with an old-fashioned pestle and mortar, then using the resultant heaving mixture to daub disturbing symbols on to an Aboriginal pointing bone that looked big and mean enough to take out a blue whale. Her face was fixed and intent, but not altogether concerned. Annie had killed many men in her career, and to her the Walking Man was only another man.
Shifting plasma lights sparked and sputtered on the air around Count Video, as he hovered in mid air in the middle of the room, concentrating on his weird binary magics. I always knew he could be a Major Player, if he could just grow a pair. I suppose there’s nothing like imminent death and the destruction of everything you believe in and care about to bring out the true nature of a man.
King of Skin was crouching in one corner of the room, surrounded by dark and nasty images that could only be glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. I still couldn’t believe he was on the side of the Good, if only because the Good usually wouldn’t have him on a bet. But still, here he was, preparing to stand and fight with the others, when I would have bet good money he’d have been legging it for the horizon by now.
Larry Oblivion sat alone, not looking at anyone, frowning heavily, caught up in whatever dead men think about. Of us all, he had the least to lose.
The new Authorities, who had been and might yet be again my future Enemies. I could walk away and let them die. Except then, I would be the kind of man the Enemies always said I was. And I hate to be predictable.
They all looked up with some kind of hope as I walked in, ignoring Walker and Chandra. I smiled and nodded to all concerned, doing my best to look relaxed and confident. Julien Advent got up from his chair, slipped his blade back into the stick, and strode forward to shake my hand in his usual hale and hearty way.
“I knew we could rely on you, John. What have you found that will stop the Walking Man?”
“He’s found something,” said Walker. “But you’re really not going to like it.”
“Oh bloody hell,” said Larry Oblivion. “He hasn’t got Merlin up and walking around again, has he?”
“Worse than that,” I said, savouring the moment despite myself. “I bring the Speaking Gun, and all that goes with it.”
It went very quiet in the room. They all knew of the Speaking Gun, what it was and what it could do. I watched them considering the possibilities of whether it might actually be the one thing that would slap down the Walking Man, against whether just using it would go against everything they were trying to achieve. And damn all their souls in the process.
“Maybe we should have asked Chandra Singh to find something,” said Annie Abattoir.
“No,” Chandra said simply. “I have tested myself against this Walking Man and failed. John Taylor is your only hope.”
“Then we are in deep trouble,” said Count Video.
“You have got to be kidding!” said Larry Oblivion, striding forward on his silent feet so he could glare right into my face with his dead blue eyes. “We can’t risk using the Speaking Gun! It’s . . . evil! More dangerous than the Walking Man himself!”
“Yes,” said King of Skin, giggling suddenly. “It is. And that’s why it will work.”
“Oh, it’ll work all right!” said Count Video, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “It’ll kill him, then kill everyone else! That’s what it does!”
“I remember the Speaking Gun,” said Jessica Sorrow, and everyone stopped to listen. She knew more about the unseen world than we ever would. “I can hear it, drawing closer. It moans and sings and hates. It is a hunger that can never be satisfied, a rage that can never be eased. Because that is how it was made. It has murdered angels and delighted in the destruction of God’s work.”
“But can it stop the Walking Man?” said Annie Abattoir, and we all waited to hear what Jessica would say.
“The Walking Man is both more and less than an angel,” she said finally. “He was designed to perform a function, just like the Speaking Gun. Who can say what will happen when the divine and the infernal come face-to-face?”
“Well, that was about as helpful as we had any right to expect,” said Count Video.
“No-one’s ever killed a Walking Man,” said King of Skin. “But they can be broken. It seems to me that a gun constructed to kill God’s messengers should be just what we need to do the job.” He sniggered suddenly, his sleazy glamour beating on the air like musty wings. “I can’t wait to see . . .”
“You disgust me,” said Larry Oblivion.
King of Skin smiled. “It’s what I do best.”
“Going head to head with the Walking Man is our last resort,” Julien Advent said firmly. “I don’t want any killing unless it’s absolutely necessary. There’s still a chance we can reason with the man, make him understand that we’re not what he thinks we are. Make him understand what it is we’re trying to achieve.”
“I think he already knows,” I said. “And I don’t think he gives a damn.”
“We can’t allow ourselves to be destroyed,” said Larry. “We are the last hope of the Nightside.”
“Whether we want to be or not,” said Count Video.
“I knew your father,” said Julien. “This is what he wanted for you. He would be so proud of what you’re doing.”
“You always did know how to fight dirty, Julien,” said Count Video. But he smiled a little as he said it.
“I just want to see a Walking Man go down,” said Annie. “To do what no-one else has ever done.”
“It doesn’t have to come to that,” Julien insisted. “I refuse to believe that God would allow His servant to wage war against the Good once its nature had been made clear to the Walking Man.”
“I’ve met the man,” I said. “And I think the God he serves is strictly Old Testament. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and to hell with repentance. Mercy and compassion, and just possibly reason, too, are not in him any more. He gave all that up long ago, for a chance to punish the guilty.”
“We have to make a stand,” said Julien. “We’re all of us powerful people, in our own way. Perhaps together we can do what no-one else has . . .”
“Right,” said Larry. “And hey, I’m dead. What else can he do to me, after all?”
“You really don’t want to know,” said Annie.
“We have to make a stand,” Julien said doggedly. “To prove we are worthy to be the new Authorities.”
“And all those adventurers and rogues gathered down below?” I said. “Are you ready to let them fight and die, sacrificing themselves to defend you?”
“No-one asked them to do this,” said Julien. “They are volunteers, every last one of them. It’s about faith, John.”
“Right,” said Larry. “They wanted to do this. You couldn’t drive them out of here with sticks.”
“Of course,” said Chandra. “We are adventurers. Heroes and warriors and defenders of the Light. It is what we are here for.”
“At least half the people I saw down there wouldn’t fit that description if you used a tire iron to squeeze them in,” I said. “In fact, some of them are exactly the kind of people you and your kind formed this Club to fight.”
Chandra smiled. “What is it you people say—needs must when the Devil drives?”
“You’ve grown cynical,” I said. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s what comes of hanging around with you,” said Chandra, and we both smiled.
“I still have hope that seeing so many men and women of good faith come together will shock the Walking Man back to sanity,” said Julien.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
“He’s here,” said Jessica Sorrow, and we all stopped and looked at her. Her gaunt face was blank, her eyes empty and far away. “He is at the door. And the rage that burns within him is cold... so very cold.”
“Stay here!” I snapped at Julien. “Let us test the waters first, see if he can be talked down. Or stopped. Having you people there would only concentrate him on his mission.”
“Give it your best shot, John,” said Julien Advent. “But preferably not with the Speaking Gun.”
“We’re relying on John Taylor to reason with the Walking Man,” said Larry Oblivion. “We’re doomed.”
Walker and Chandra and I scrambled back down the stairs at speed and charged through the bar into the lobby. All the heroes and the rogues and the morally undecided were standing together, tense and silent, their eyes fixed on the closed front door of the Club. Walker gestured for Chandra and me to stay with him at the back of the crowd and observe how things went before we committed ourselves, and I was happy to go along with that. I really didn’t want to do what I was there to do. The tension in the air was almost unbearable, like waiting for the bullet to come your way, knowing your name is on it. The front door shook suddenly in its frame, as some massive force slammed against it. Like God himself knocking on the door and demanding entry. There was another great impact, and the huge door flew inwards, blasted right off its hinges. It slammed flat against the floor, and in came Adrien Saint, the Walking Man.
Just a man in a long coat, with worn-down heels on his shoes from walking up and down in the world, doing good the hard way. He hadn’t even drawn his guns. But still he was the most dangerous, the most frightening man in the Club, and we all knew it. He walked in Heaven’s way, and Death walked with him. He was as inevitable as an earthquake or a flood, as implacable as cancer or heart failure. He was smiling his insolent smile, his gaze openly mocking as he contemplated the rows of adventurers gathered against him. He had come here to do a thing, and he was going to do it, no matter what we might set against him.
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