Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth (21 page)

I had only met him once, and that was more than enough. I am the stone that breaks all hearts, he'd said. I am the nails that bound the Christ to his cross. I am the necessary suffering that makes us all stronger. .. God's power flowed through him, the power over life and death and everything between. He could save or damn you with a word or a glance, and his every decision was binding. I was pretty sure he didn't approve of people like me, even though he'd been friendly enough, in a distant sort of way, at our last meeting.

Why hadn't he come forth to confront Lilith?

I wasn't at all keen on descending into the World Beneath, to talk to him. It was a foul and dangerous place, and a hell of a long way to travel, besides. Especially if he had already surfaced somewhere, to show Lilith the error of her ways… I pushed the thought back and forth for a while, but I was only putting off what I knew I had to do, so in the end I just sighed heavily, took the risk, and raised my gift. Wherever the Lord of Thorns was, in or under the Nightside, my gift would find him.

My inner eye, my third eye, opened wide and soared up into the night sky, my Sight spreading out for miles in every direction, till the whole of the Nightside lay sprawled below me like a twisted and convoluted map. Whole areas were burning, out of control, while monsters roamed the streets and panicked mobs ran this way and that. I forced my Sight to focus in on the one individual soul I was searching for, and my mind's eye plummeted down, narrowing in on a single speck of light in the dark. I'd found the Lord of Thorns. Just as I'd thought, he had left the World Beneath for the surface; but much to my surprise, the most powerful man in the Nightside was currently hiding out in St. Jude's, the only real church in the Nightside.

I quickly shut down my Sight, and dropped back into my head. I took a few moments to make sure all my mental barriers were safely in place again. I really didn't want Lilith to know where I was till I was ready to face her. I considered what to do next. St. Jude's wasn't anywhere near the Street of the Gods, because it was the real deal. An ancient place of worship, almost as old as the Nightside itself, older by far than the Christianity that had given it its present name. (St. Jude is the patron Saint of lost causes, in case you were wondering.) It was the one place in all the world where you could go to speak with your Maker and be sure of getting a reply. Which is why most people didn't go there. Unless they absolutely had to.

St. Jude's was located way over on the other side of the Nightside, a long way from anywhere, and separated from me by miles and miles of very dangerous territory. Walking was not an option. I wished I'd told the Harley to stick around. I took my Membership Card out of my pocket, fired it up, and called for Alex Morrisey in a loud and demanding voice. There was a pause, just to keep me from getting above myself, then his face appeared, glowering out of the Card at me.

"Taylor! About time you turned up again. If only so you can pay your bar bill before the world ends. And what have you done to Walker? He showed up here a few minutes ago looking like someone had put the fear of God into him. I don't think I've ever seen him so pissed off at the world. He's currently charging round my bar yelling orders at everyone like Captain Kirk on crack, and organising everyone within an inch of their lives."

"Probably just a midlife crisis," I said. "Put Tommy Oblivion on, would you, Alex? I need to ask him something."

Alex sniffed loudly, just to remind me he was no-one's servant, and his face disappeared from my Card, which then played me a tinny Muzak version of Prodigy's "Firestarter" while I was on hold. Tommy's face finally peered out of the Card at me, frowning suspiciously.

"What do you want, Taylor?"

"You," I said.

And I reached into the Membership Card, grabbed him by the front of his ruffled shirt, and dragged him through the Card to where I was. The Card expanded hastily to let him through, but even so it was a tight squeeze for a moment. Tommy sat down suddenly on the Club steps as his head spun from the sudden transfer, and the Card shrank back to normal size and shut itself off, possibly in protest at such rough handling. I put it away, and helped Tommy to his feet.

"Son of a bitch!" he said.

"Yes," I said. "That just about sums me up."

He glared at me. "I didn't know you could do that with a Card."

"Most people can't," I said. "But I'm special."

Tommy sniffed. "I suppose that's one way of putting it." He brushed himself down here and there, repairing his appearance as best he could, then looked at the headless Doorman, lying on the steps beside him. He moved fastidiously a little further away from the blood. "Been busy, I see."

"For once, not my fault." I filled him in on what had been happening, or at least as much of it as I thought he could cope with, and explained my need to get to St. Jude's in a hurry. He really wasn't keen on the idea, but I can be very persuasive when I have to be. Not to mention downright threatening. I only had to mention a certain video that had come into my hands, featuring him and a very athletic exotic dancer, who happened to be married to someone exceedingly scary, and suddenly he was only too willing to help me out. (I didn't actually have the video. I'd just heard of it and run a bluff. The guilty flee…)

Tommy Oblivion's gift manifested subtly on the air around us, and everything became uncertain. Tommy was an existentialist, and his gift allowed him to express his uncertainty about the world in a real and very physical way. The more he thought about a thing, the more possibilities he could see, and he fixed on the reality he preferred and made it solid. By concentrating hard enough, Tommy was able to convince the world that not only were we not where it thought we were, but actually we were somewhere else entirely.

And so, in the blink of an eye we left the Londinium Club behind us and materialised outside the Church of St. Jude. A dodo wandered past, hooting mournfully, a flock of passenger pigeons flapped by overhead, and an ostrich with two heads looked confusedly at itself, but they were only a few odd possibilities generated by Tommy's gift. He concentrated on shutting his gift down, while I looked around us. Everything but the church had been razed to the ground, for as far as the eye could see. It stood alone, an old squat stone structure in the middle of a wasteland. A wide-open plain of ash and dust, where thick curls of glowing ground fog surged this way and that under the urging of a fitful wind. It was very dark, with just the blue-white glare of the oversized moon shining off the church walls. In the distance, fires leapt up briefly, screams rang out, but it was all very far away. The War had come and gone here, and left nothing behind but the church.

"I'm trying very hard to be existential about this," Tommy said finally, "But this really is a god-awful place. I'd like to say something like… from the ashes of the old shall arise a brave new Nightside… but my heart isn't in it."

"If a new Nightside does arise, I doubt it would be anything you or I would recognise, or would want to," I said. "Not if Lilith has her way."

"God, you're depressing to be around, Taylor. My brother's more cheerful than you, and he's dead. Who are we here to see, anyway?"

"The Lord of Thorns."

"Right," said Tommy. "I am leaving now. Good-bye. Write if you get work. I am out of here…"

"Tommy…"

"No! No way in Hell! There is absolutely nothing you can say or do or threaten me with that would persuade me to have anything to do with Him! I would rather eat my own head! The Lord of Thorns is the only person who actually scares me more than Lilith! She only wants to kill me; he wants to judge me!"

"You could leave," I said. "But it's a really long walk to anywhere civilised. All on your own, in the dark. And if you try to teleport back using your gift… I'll just have the Lord of Thorns drag you back again."

"You know the Lord of Thorns?"

"I know everyone," I said airily.

Tommy kicked at the dusty ground. "Bully," he muttered, not looking at me.

"You're my ride home, Tommy," I said, not unkindly. "You don't have to come into the church with me, if you don't want to. You can guard the door."

"It'll all end in tears," said Tommy.

I tried the church's only door, and it opened easily at my touch. I left Tommy sulking outside, and went in. The bare stone walls were grey and featureless, with only a series of narrow slits for windows. Short stubby candles that never went out burned in old lead wall holders, casting a cold judgemental light. Two rows of blocky wooden pews, without a cushion in sight. The altar was just a great slab of stone, covered with a cloth of spotless white samite. A single silver cross hung on the wall over the altar. And that was it. You didn't come to St. Jude's for frills and fancies.

This was a place where prayers were answered, and if you didn't like the answers you got, that was your problem.

A single ragged figure sat slumped on the cold stone floor, leaning against the altar, embracing it with desperate arms. It was the Lord of Thorns. He looked like he'd been crying. He also looked like he'd been dragged through Hell backwards. Instead of the grand Old Testament Prophet I remembered, he looked like one of the homeless, like a refugee. The Overseer of the Nightside had been reduced to a man in torn and bloodied robes. His long grey hair and beard had been half-burned away. He didn't look up as I walked down the aisle towards him, but he flinched at the sound of my footsteps, like a dog that's been kicked once too often. I knelt before him, took his chin in my hand, and made him look at me. He trembled at my touch.

"What are you doing here?" I said. I didn't mean for it to come out as harshly as it did, but that's St. Jude's for you.

"It's all gone," he said, in a distant, empty voice. "So I'm hiding. Hiding out, in the one place where even Lilith's power can't touch me. I believe that. I have to believe that. It's all I've got left."

I let go of his chin, and made an effort to soften my voice. "What happened?"

His eyes came up to meet mine, and a Vision appeared in my mind's eye, showing me Lilith's descent into the World Beneath. She came in force, with all her monstrous Court, smashing through ancient defences and protections as though they weren't even there, and set her people to destroying everything and everyone. As above, so below. Just because she could. She wiped out the Eaters of the Dead, the Solitudes in their cells, the Subterraneans in their sprawling city of catacombs. A warning went out ahead of her, echoing from gallery to gallery, and some came out to fight and some dug themselves in deeper; but none of it did any good. Lilith and her terrible offspring pushed relentlessly on, destroying whole nests of vampires and ghouls and Elder Spawn, and even the worms of the earth in their deep deep tunnels.

The Lord of Thorns came forth from his crystal cave, wrapped in power and a cold, awful anger, to set his faith and authority against Lilith. For he was the Voice of God, and she was but a name out of the past. He had his staff of power, its wood taken from a tree grown from a sliver of the original Tree of Life itself, brought to Britain long and long ago by Joseph of Arimathea. The Lord of Thorns stood in Lilith's way, and she slapped him aside contemptuously. She took his staff and it shattered into pieces in her grasp. She walked on, leaving him lying helpless in the dirt, and not even the least of her offspring would deign to touch him. The killing continued, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He made himself watch, as a penance. And when it was all over, the Lord of Thorns made his way up from the World Beneath and came to St. Jude's. To hide.

"You have to understand," he said, as the Vision faded from my mind. "When Lilith appeared, I thought I'd finally discovered my true purpose, my reason for being in the Nightside. That this was my destiny—to stop Lilith when no-one else could. But I was wrong. I was nothing, next to her. After so many years of judging others, I was judged… and found unworthy."

"But… you're one of the greatest Powers in the Nightside!"

"Not compared to her. I forgot… in the end I'm just a man, blessed with God's power. And my faith… was nothing compared to her certainty."

"All right," I said. "We need backup. Can we use St. Jude's to call for Heavenly help? For direct divine intervention?"

"What do you think I've been doing?" said the Lord of Thorns. "The Nightside was expressly designed from its first conception so that neither Heaven nor Hell could intervene directly. And it was decided long ago in the Courts of the Holy that this Great Experiment would be allowed to continue, to see where it would lead. I was placed here to Oversee the Experiment, to keep it on track. But now that the Nightside's creator has returned, it seems my time and my purpose are at an end. There will be no outside help. The Nightside must save itself. If it can."

"There is a resistance," I said. "Come with me. You can be a part of it."

But the Lord of Thorns just sat where he was, shaking his grey head. "No. I am not who I thought I was. So I will stay here and pray for guidance."

I tried to argue with him, but I don't think he really heard me. Lilith broke him when she broke his staff. So I left what was once the most feared man in the Nightside, sitting mumbling to himself, in the one place he still felt safe.

I went outside and found myself facing a crowd of hard-faced and heavily armed individuals. Their expressions lit up at the sight of me, and not in a good way. At their head stood Sandra Chance, resplendent in her thick crimson swirls of liquid latex and not much else. Though the old-fashioned pistol holstered on her bare hip was a new addition. She grinned at me, very unpleasantly. I looked at Tommy Oblivion, who was standing very very still, with his back pressed against the wall of the church.

"Sorry, old sport," he said miserably. "Didn't even hear them coming. Just popped out of nowhere."

"Have you at least asked them what they want?" I said.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure they want to speak to you, John. In fact, they were most insistent on it being a surprise."