Nick Nightmare Investigates

Nick Nightmare #1

Adrian Cole

Pulp Hero Press

www.PulpHeroPress.com

© 2019 Adrian Cole

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Editor: Bob McLain
Layout: Artisanal Text

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Contents

Cover

Front Matter

Author's Note to the Revised Paperback Edition

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

You Don’t Want to Know

The Vogue Prince

Mayhem on Mad Gull Island

Kiss the Day Goodbye

What Dread Hands and What Dread Feet?

Fire All of the Guns at One Time

Hot Little Number from Hell

This One Will Kill You

Appendix: The Chaos Blade

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Adrian Cole

Author’s Note to the Revised Paperback Edition

Pulp and Circumstance

It occurred to me while I was in the process of checking over the manuscript for this revised edition of Nick Nightmare Investigates, that maybe my intro title above should have been: “New Pulp and Circumstance”, given that more than a few people have suggested that these tales belong under the heading, “New Pulp”. The stories are certainly inspired by those of the original pulp era, although I like to think their style is generally more modern. Certainly you shouldn’t find examples of the old attitudes and prejudices herein, this being an area where the new pulps have cleaned up their act. However, the spirit of the old lives on and their sense of fun and adventure does, too; at least that’s been my prime intention in unleashing Nick Nightmare’s canon.

The first seeds of Nick Nightmare’s genesis were subconsciously nurturing when, in my early teens, I was reading such books as Peter Cheyney’s Sinister Errand, Carter Brown’s tough-guy pulps, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer adventures, and HP Lovecraft’s Mythos yarns, to name just a fraction. And movies? Hell, my top men were Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum.

Like many a bit-part player before him, Nick Nightmare started his literary career nearer the edge of the stage rather than in the centre of it. It suited me to have him skulking about in the shadows, an occupation perfectly convenient to both his nature and also to the requirements of my plot development. Thus you will find his initial appearance in Night of The Heroes (Wildside Press, US, 2011) a minor (but important) one, in a novel which is packed with references to the world of pulps, comics, and a certain type of old-fashioned yarn spinning.

It occurred to me as I was writing that book that some of the characters therein might well warrant further tales of their own. This was certainly the case with Nick Nightmare himself, who began battering at my imagination with irresistible determination. At about the same time, when I was asked to submit a short story for a collection themed around Cthulhu versus hard-boiled detectives, I knew Nick Nightmare was my man. Private Eye, Public Fist was in business.

Subsequently I wrote the first Nick Nightmare short story, “You Don’t Want to Know”. Even though it was approved for the aforementioned collection, the project sadly collapsed. However, my story lived to fight another day and has since seen publication in Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth (Fedogan and Bremer, US, 2013).

The story is reprinted here in a slightly edited version (converted to one of Nick Nightmare’s written files, rather than as a tape transcript as in the original).

Nick Nightmare’s first actual published yarn was “The Vogue Prince”, which came out in The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes.

And so my intrepid private eye was gathering momentum, backed by some encouraging support and his own evident desire to muscle in on my word processor’s output. “Nightmare on Mad Gull Island” (originally in Cthulhu 4 from Spectre Press, and reprinted herein as “Mayhem on Mad Gull Island”) soon followed. The chapbook had a particularly tasty cover by award-winning artist Jim Pitts (who was also responsible for the interior artwork of the limited hardback edition of the book).

By now I was firmly resolved to gather the stories together and add new material to them to form a collection: thus the concept of Nick Nightmare Investigates was born. There was already a connecting arc to the stories—that of my man’s on-going struggle with something big and very nasty out in the ocean deeps—so it seemed only right and proper that I continue this theme in the four brand-news yarns which came tumbling energetically out of my brain, as if the man himself was holding one of his twin Berettas to my head, albeit grinning.

Some of the characters who appeared alongside Nick Nightmare in the original novel, Night of the Heroes, were also clamoring to tell their own tales. Montifellini, he who drives the Magic Bus, returns in “What Dread Hands and What Dread Feet?” a novella that imparts more of his particular story and those extraordinary characters who people it.

In one of life’s strange ironies, I had no sooner finished writing the yarn than I bumped into an old omnibus in the town where I live, Bideford, which could serve perfectly as the Magic Bus of the story. For those interested in such technical details, I can now reveal it’s a 1950 Bedford Duple Coach. I have since sat behind its steering wheel, although I’ve not enjoyed an actual journey on it. I live in hope.

I should add that Montifellini also has a cat, a particularly feisty little creature, by the name of Bella. She is based on my own calico cat, who frequently parks herself on and around my keyboard when I’m bashing out the stories, so her spirit has infused itself into them in more ways than one.

When I was asked if I’d like to add a little something extra to Nick Nightmare Investigates by collaborating with Mike Chinn on a Nick Nightmare/Damian Paladin crossover, my immediate reaction was: “That would be fun.” In the event, it seemed the most natural thing in the world(s) that two such like-minded and like-moulded guys should get together for some serious butt-kicking. Mike’s Paladin stories are a terrific celebration of the old pulps of the 30s, in particular the air aces. I’m a big fan, just as I am of Airboy and Captain Midnight comics, and movies like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I think that “Fire All of the Guns at One Time” perfectly reflects Mike’s and my mutual love for that kind of rumbustious tale. And my instincts had been right—it was great fun to work on it together—a natural symbiosis—and the two tough guys are, I think, a perfect foil for each other.

The collection opens with “Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself”, a title which reflects one of numerous references throughout the book to Nick Nightmare’s interests, loves, and hates; which, for anyone who knows me, are, to some extent at least, a reflection of my own. Ironically, writing the yarns has given me an appetite to revisit some of those old Cheyney, Carter Brown, and Mike Hammer novels.

Since the original edition of this book appeared, I was hugely encouraged by the fact that it won the prestigious British Fantasy Award for best collection of 2014. I hope, therefore, that followers of the saga will be pleased to note that further stories are already seeing print.

— Adrian Cole
Devon, 2019

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

They call me Nick Nightmare.

Real name’s Stone but I’m used to the nickname, given the weird nature of the stuff I have to deal with. I’m a private detective, of a sort. My office door says PRIVATE EYE, PUBLIC FIST, or at least, it should. Time, erosion, and me being too damn lazy to repaint it have whittled the flaking letters down to PRIVATE PUB. Maybe you’d have to be a Brit to get the joke. Not many of the guys over the Big Pond pass this way—there’s a couple you’ll find out about if you can bring yourself to wade through these records.

I’m not going to give you my life story, not even an abbreviated one, not here. I’ll embellish the files with some of it as I go along, as it suits me. Take it or leave it.

I’ll just say: I live in New York, or at least, a version of it. I know of at least two others. As I’m typing this on an old manual Olivetti, I’m not long past my 35th birthday, I’m single, and I’m a non-smoker. Prefer a wad of gum. Most other things are fair game—in this town, you don’t want to be too fussy.

I’m no Ernest Hemingway and writing stuff down has never been something I had a particular yen for, although lately it occurs to me that something really weird is going on in the world. Make that worlds. It’s like I keep scratching at the surface of something. I thought maybe by banging out these records I could make more sense of it. Maybe even alert people to it. One thing’s for sure, if people ignore it, life is going to get very tough indeed. The lights will be going out all over the city; and beyond it, too.

So where did all this crap start? Long before I came kicking and screaming into the world, that’s for sure. Probably even long before Adam and Eve figured out there was more to life than gardening. For me, I guess the best place to begin this is at Big Belly’s Blues Bar, listening to the stunning boogie-woogie piano playing of Fickle Fingers Finnegan—Frankie, as we all called him. It was a quiet mid-week night, just a few customers cooling their heels and nodding along to Frankie’s frenetic playing. The air was thick with smoke, beer glasses clinking, a couple of molls propping up the bar unenthusiastically. There was no money in here tonight. I wasn’t looking for a new client, just relaxing after a soft few weeks. I guess it’s what they call the calm before the storm. I just sat back and dug the piano playing.

The walls of Big Belly’s joint are lined with old black-and-white photos, blues and boogie stars going back to when it all started. Big Belly opened up the club in the bad old days of the Depression, though no one as much as guesses where he got the loot to do it. He reckoned most of the guys in the photos played here at one time or another—some of the pics are signed; my guess is it was just BB’s way of drawing in trade. Whatever, it’s given the place its own mystique. And some of the new kids on the block are pretty hot, even if they ain’t making a big living out of their music.

Frankie Finnegan was no spring chicken. He was knocking on the door of seventy now, though he still had what it took to liven up an audience when he wanted to. He seemed content with a few beers, a place at his piano in a corner of the club and to hear something about the world outside. He had a room somewhere up above the club, paid for in kind. The guy who owned the place now, Mick the Pug, was BB’s grandson by his favourite love monkey, and he treated Frankie like family. Frankie had been pretty thick with BB at one time, though he doesn’t talk about it too much.

Frankie finished playing and sipped at his beer. I caught his eye and nodded my appreciation. He waved me over so I joined him, propping my elbow on the battered old piano. Not everyone could do that without Frankie hurling a stream of abuse.

“I was hopin’ you’d be in here tonight, Nick.” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief as stiff as cardboard from years of use without being anywhere near a washtub. “I need your help.”

“Always glad to lend a hand, Frankie. What’s the problem?”

He looked around the room, although it was as dark as a coal mine. No one seemed to be paying us any attention, all lost in their introverted little worlds. I could see Frankie, normally the world’s least flustered man, was for once flustered. “You’ve known me for a good while. I like a drink, though I ain’t no drunk. I keep to myself, Nick. I ain’t got cause to roll out no bullshit stories about the world. For me, life’s all in these keys. I just want to spend the rest of my time quietly fading away here in the club. Trouble is for someone else and I don’t look for it.”

“Spit it out, Frankie—what’s bugging you?”

“You know Rattlebones, the blues man? Plays mainly down by the docks, though he’s done a few gigs here.”

“Sure.” I’d heard Rattlebones play and he was one mean finger-pickin’ son-of-a-gun. Not too many guitarists like him around these days. Word was he’d jammed with the Stones many moons back, when they were first waking up the country to our own blues heritage.

“Things ain’t right with him, not by a long shot. He’s got himself mixed up with some crazy cult. Heck, Nick, he’s an old boy like me. Why in hell does he want to get doing bad stuff at his time of life? He should be windin’ down; takin’ it easy.”

“What kind of cult?”

“That’s just it. Religious. Now, I know Rattlebones and he ain’t no god-fearin’ mutha. He’d always fight shy of voodoo and all that black magic stuff; and I never heard him say a prayer or tip his hat to no god. Seems like things have changed. Now he’s got serious.”

“So why is it a problem? If a man chooses God, it’s his business.”

“Me, I wouldn’t give a cuss, but it’s his music. It’s gone weird. And kinda dangerous.”

I would have grinned, except Frankie’s face was unduly pale and his hands were shaking, which was definitely a bad sign. “How the hell can music be dangerous, Frankie? The church used to condemn rock and roll for being Satan’s music; no one gives a damn these days.”

“This ain’t rock and roll. It does things inside your head. Bad things. I don’t never want to hear the like again. It’s got hold of Rattlebones.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

Frankie reached inside his jacket and tugged out a fat envelope. It was stuffed with greenbacks. “Here,” he said, offering it to me. “It’s all I got, Nick. Take it. Go and see Rattlebones. Shake him outta whatever’s got a hold on him, before it drags him down to some kind of hell.”

I was beginning to take this seriously—there were a few thousand bucks in the envelope. Likely Frankie’s entire savings. He must be really worked up about this. I shoved the wad back inside his jacket before he could stop me.

“Please, Nick. You’re the only one who can help.” He was desperate.

“Keep your money, Frankie. I’ll check it out anyhow. So where am I going to find the blues man?”

“They say he’s hanging out at the Cannibal Club.”

I needed that like I needed a broken nose. The Cannibal rightly had the reputation for being the roughest, least hospitable joint in the city. Even the cops gave it a wide berth unless they were sent there in a fleet of patrol cars. And at least two of the city’s mobs steered well clear, tough guys though they were.

“What makes you think I can walk into the place and come out in one piece?” I asked Frankie.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at me. “If you can’t, Nick, no one can.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel confident?

****

You don’t get to survive in this city without you know people. You do a few favours here and there and you pick your contacts. All knowledge has a price, no matter how dirty. All doors can be opened, even if they’re better locked. Normally I would have drawn the line at the Cannibal Club, but I needed in. So it was time to call in a favour. In this case it was through a scrawny apology of a weasel called Joe Slightly, or sometimes Slightly Joe—I just called him Slightly. Once I hauled his ass out of a scrap between Louis del Orro’s mob and the cops. Slightly had only been a bit player in the game, and even though I could have left him to the bullets, I must have been having a soft day. He wasn’t the sort of punk I had much to do with, given the dives he crept about in. Yet a job’s a job and you gotta use whatever tools are best for it.

I dug him out now, in a dive down by the docks. His enthusiasm at seeing me wasn’t exactly fulsome. He’d have been happier if a three-week-old cadaver had walked in on him. Even so, he owed me; so we ducked into a shadowed corner where the rabble he mixed with would have less chance of noticing us. Suited me. I’d have preferred partying in a plague ward. The faces peering at us from the gloom—maybe I should say sniffing at us—would have come second best to any gargoyle in a beauty pageant.

“Do me one little favour, and all scores are settled, right?” I told him straight.

“Just name it, Mr. Nightmare.” He tried to grin: it looked like he’d had a knife shoved into his gut. And I’d seen better teeth in a museum. He was well named: slight of build, like he’d been folded into shape from paper and only half finished.

“I hear Rattlebones, the blues king, is playing the Cannibal Club, exclusively. I’m a big fan. I want in.”

The grin turned to a grimace—that knife was twisting about inside him. “Exclusive is right. You have to be a devout fan to get in. I mean, proper devout.”

“Rattlebones doesn’t have a bigger fan than me. How devout is that?”

He shook his head, his greasy locks as slick as seaweed and just as pungent. “I don’t mean him. I mean the music. What they all pray to in there.”

Now I was getting interested. “And what would that be?”

He shuddered. The thick, cloying air of the dive wasn’t enough for him. He dropped his voice, like a man squeezing out his dying breath, a sound I’ve heard more than once. “Some kinda god, or gods. I can’t say the names. Too weird, too twisted. Supposed to live out in the oceans, deep down. Them guys in the Cannibal, they make sacrifices to them. And I ain’t talkin’ about chickens.”

He looked as if he believed all this bullshit. Me? I got the feeling someone somewhere was trying to make monkeys of us. I could have pulled him over the table and shaken him like a terrier shakes a rat. Instead I played it cool. “All this to the sound of boogie-woogie? Sounds like a party. So how do I get in on it?”

“You don’t. They’d kill you first.”

“What about new recruits? These gods must be expanding their fan club all the time. It’s how these things work. Okay—so I’m up for joining. All you got to do is get me in and leave me to it.”

He shook his head. I could almost hear his bowels contracting into a hard, cold knot. “I daren’t! You don’t understand what they can do.”

“Slightly, let me put it this way. Who do you fear most, these deep-water gods and their blood-crazy psychos slumming it in the Cannibal Club—or me?” I gave him the fixed stare, the one which would have made Medusa blush.

****

Two nights later I got a message telling me to be at the Cannibal for a late-night session. It was a very up-market card, simply saying The Cannibal Club welcomes new members. Admit One. Slightly had pulled a few strings after all. So I was either going as a potential new acolyte of the mad god brigade, or they were simply going to eliminate me. It depended on what the little runt had told them. Maybe they would give me the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, maybe I would assume otherwise. I felt naked without my guns, but I figured I wouldn’t get in if I was bristling with hardware; so I just slipped a stiletto into its sheath alongside my right calf.

I found the place more by luck than design, wedged in between two huge, nondescript blocks, a single bulb lighting its door, which was guarded by a couple of gorillas who looked eager to get down to some serious alligator-butt kicking. There was a small line, clones dressed in long coats and drooping hats. I had a trench coat on and still stood out like a boil on a pig’s backside. The heavies frisked me, missing the knife. The card did the trick and I was in.

Beyond the dingy corridor and down a long, narrow stairway, the club was barely lit in subdued pinks and reds, its air thick with cigarette smoke and incense that made it hard to breathe. There were a couple of bars, crushed up against the side walls where a dozen or more statuettes were highlighted: like works of art on display. I’m no art critic, and I thought these things, figurines, were pretty damn freakish. Like some kind of mutants: their forms either squat or elongated beyond the human range. All of them had heads which were just about recognisable as such, with weird mouths stuffed with long tubes; or so it seemed to me. They looked more like they belonged in the sea than on land. The other thing which hit me was the overall smell of the place. Not healthy, like I’d come down into a fish market at filleting time.

I couldn’t dredge up any enthusiasm for risking a drink at the bars, so I mingled with the crush. Everyone’s attention was fixed on a small, unlit stage. In the shadows I could see a drum kit and a few instruments. Someone drew close up beside me and I turned to look into a face that would have inspired Picasso on LSD. Its skin was deathly pale and glistening, hairless and rubbery-looking; the eyes abnormally huge, like two small plates.

“Dagon is all,” it croaked from a toothless mouth suffering from the grand-daddy of halitosis cases. I had a sudden image of the Florida swamps.

“Dagon is all? Yeah, I heard that.”

“Our little coven interests you, Mr. Stone?”

I nodded. “I don’t get enough excitement in my life. Word is you guys know how to have a good time.” I was flying by the seat of my pants; luckily the human fish here seemed okay with my droll comment.

“You wish to convert to the Order? Become one of Dagon’s children?”

“Be a mug to miss it.”

“You are a friend of Rattlebones?”

“A big fan. I hear he has a new act. I’m all ears.”

The eyes widened and I was glad of the near darkness. “He will be here in a while. He has promised a new song tonight. Soon he will have all he needs to take to the recording studio. What an album it will be: When the Stars Are Right. Think of the many, many people who will hear it and succumb to its wonders. The voice of the Deep Ones will reach far into the minds of men. Enjoy it, Mr. Stone. Afterwards there will be a little—ceremony.” He made it sound vaguely kinky. The only ceremony I wanted right then was a piping hot shower and a good scrub.

Fortunately I didn’t have long to wait for Rattlebones to take the stage. My host had wriggled away and the crowd pressed in; I felt suffocated by its sticky enthusiasm. I focused on the stage. Rattlebones was a six-footer plus, a black blues singer who put me in mind of Howlin’ Wolf. The hands on his guitar like two shovels; even so, he tickled those strings dexterously. He had a drummer and a base guitarist with him: two anonymous shapes, content to let the front man have the spotlight.

Once the cheers—cheers? more like ululations—had died down, Rattlebones began. It was a twelve-bar number, usual blues stuff; but it was what the big guy did to the runs he wrapped around the basic beat which gave him his style and his magic. We, the audience, were sucked in almost at once, and I could feel every note, curling around my spine like a lover’s touch. Hypnotic, hell yeah. The words were lost in there somewhere, their rhythm counterpointing the music. I tried to fix on them. People around me were murmuring along with the song, entranced.

Entranced? Sure, that was it. Rattlebones was immersing us all in some bizarre chant, glossed over as blues. I listened hard to the words, even though they were gibberish to me, spoken in a language I didn’t recognise. Those words were somehow seductive. The blues man was like a stage hypnotist, twisting everyone in the club to his will, and soon he would have the whole place sown up. I fought it hard; and I mean hard. The music was powerful as hell. It seemed to promise everything a man could desire. All you had to do was relax and go with the flow. It scared the living crap out of me: the only reason I was able to fight it.

I started to push my way cautiously through the crowd. It’d become a single organism, enraptured. Enough to ignore my hampered passage. Those faces! More like reptiles than people, men and women both, and did I see gills? I had to get out of this place. If not, I was screwed. I got the feeling if I fell into this pit of submission, I’d never get out of it. Dagon, whoever the hell he was, would have his aquatic way with me; and that was an experience I did not want to suffer.

I got to a side wall and felt my way along it. Those contorted statues were watching me, like they’d come to life, imbued by the music. I could hear the name Dagon being bawled out as part of the song, every other voice in the place echoing it. On stage, Rattlebones’s fingers were a blur, like he was calling on some deep, dark power to fuel his impossibly fast rhythms. This stuff was pure evil, the air as thick as tar.

I reached a door and tried it but it resisted. I waited for a swell in the music and used my elbow to smash the door inwards, fired up by a primitive instinct for survival. The wood frame was old, probably wormy, and it gave easily enough. I slipped inside the room beyond and tried to shut the door behind me. It had come clean off its hinges so I had to lean it against the jamb. No one followed me; they were too caught up in the swell of the music. It was easier to close my ears to it in here.

The room was no more than a big cupboard. There was a single table and a pile of rags behind it which turned out to be a guy; his blobby head emerging like a turtle’s from his drooping, baggy clothes. He had been examining the contents of a gunnysack, emptied on to the table. Small boxes, ancient curios, antiques by the look of them. The man—if he was a man—stumbled around the table towards me, gargling something, his wet, elongated mouth working like a lamprey’s. He reached out for me with misshapen hands—and it wasn’t just a trick of the poor lighting.

Hands or not, this creep had one thing in mind, and it wasn’t my good health. His clumsiness made it easy for me to drive in my best straight right. When I land it, it can do serious damage to a human—or inhuman—face. This punch landed bang on the money. I felt something thick and wet pulping up under the impact, like I’d mashed a jellyfish. The guy’s mouth opened like a big guppy’s—he had no tongue, just a couple of extra rows of teeth. Didn’t do him no good, though. My sledgehammer right had switched off all the lights. He went down and out. As far out as it gets.

I heard something behind me and instinctively got the table between me and the ruptured door. My original host was framed there, two or three of his gorillas behind him. He glanced down at my pole-axed victim and let out a hiss I don’t mind admitting sent a shudder down my spine. Even though his eyes were no more human than a rattlesnake’s, I was under no illusion about his mood. He was not happy.

I knew they would move in and get rough, so I snatched up one of the strange stones on the table. For a moment I thought it had wriggled in my hand. I almost tossed it aside in revulsion, but I needed something. It would have to do. My host glared at the stone-thing and I saw at once he was afraid of it, as if I was holding a gun on him. Maybe I was. I grabbed another long implement, iron maybe, and held it up as well.

My host and his cronies actually groaned and drew back. This was better. A chink of light in my tunnel of hopelessness.

“Okay,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I’m leaving now. You good folks are going to show me the door. Failing that—” I waved the two objects about suggestively. It did the trick. Those guys were going to need fresh underwear. Behind them, Rattlebones had gone into a new number, every bit as mesmerising as his first. The crowd were locked on to it and nothing else, writhing about ecstatically; the entire spectacle repulsive. It was all I could do not to gag.

On impulse, I scooped all the other stuff on the table into the gunnysack and pulled its drawstring tight. There were more hisses and muted snarls from my host and company; even so, there was no way they were coming at me while I held the goodies. I gestured for them to back off.

It was slow work, edging away from the club, back up the stairs and eventually out into the street; the objects I had snatched up were more effective than a hand grenade with the pin out. The hardest part was closing my ears to Rattlebones’s blues. It seemed to get more frenetic, as if the guy was bending everything he had towards snaring me. I’ve been called tone deaf more than once, so maybe that saved me. Anyhow, I got outside.

“Don’t follow me, guys,” I warned. “I know how to use these things. You know what it would mean.” Even if I didn’t, they did. They stood like statues, cold as the night, their baleful eyes pouring out their frustration and fury. I eased my way back out into the city. I put the stone and the other object back into the bag. Like Jack in the story, I hadn’t exchanged the cow for money. Instead of rescuing Rattlebones, I’d picked up a heap of magic beans. Or I’d opened a can of worms the size of a trash can.

****

The next day went by slowly. In spite of my apprehension, the punks from the Cannibal Club didn’t come calling. I put the bag of exotic objects straight into a central bank vault and spent some time chewing over what I was eventually going to do with them. I kept the two I’d picked up and waved about with me: the ones which had caused all the angst among the ugly boys. They went back into their slim boxes, buried in a cupboard at the back of my office while I was working there, well out of sight.

Late afternoon I got a phone call. It was Fickle Fingers Finnegan. Not like him to use a phone.

“I got someone with me,” he said, his voice shaking like some tough had a gun shoved up the back of his neck.

Another voice came on the line. Deep, unwavering. “You know who I am, Mr. Stone.” There was no mistaking the southern patois. His name was Jazzy Boy Jericho and he hailed from New Orleans. Jazz and blues were his playground and he was one of the few music men who could give Rattlebones a good run for his money.

“Didn’t know you were in town. Don’t tell me you’re playing at Big Belly’s.”

“Maybe. I’m lookin’ for a friend. An old blues hound. Want to talk about it?”

I fixed up a meeting with him and Frankie down at the club. Outside, evening was drawing on. I can usually spot a tail, or smell one; right then I couldn’t be sure. This Dagon-thing and his twisted followers lived on the wrong side of the dark and my guess was they could use it to nasty effect. But if they could bleed, they could die. This time I had two Berettas with me as insurance, as well as the two artifacts I’d kept, tucked away inside my coat.

I met Jazzy Boy Jericho and Frankie in the club and we secreted ourselves away in a cubicle where I could keep an eye on the door. Jericho was a huge man, and it was all muscle, like he only ate raw meat and a lot of it. He was younger than Frankie by a good twenty years, and fitter than most guys half his own age. He’d shaved his head and even in this poor light, it shone like he’d waxed and polished it. It went with his perfectly white teeth.

“Frankie told me ’bout you, Mr. Stone. And he told me ’bout Bones. That man is into some real bad shit.”

“You got that right.” I told them about my exciting adventures in Undersea World for Freakies. “The music was something else. I take it back, Frankie—you were right. It was dangerous stuff. If I hadn’t got out of it when I did, it would have turned my head inside out.”

“You’d be a slave,” said Jericho. “A mind slave. Zombified.”

“You know this cult?”

“You bet. Been around a long time, boy. There’s things out in the ocean deeps, both sides of the continent, been there for millennia. Every now and then they start dreamin’ of taking things over. Jus’ waitin’ on the stars. Conjunctions, they calls it.”

“When the stars are right,” I said. “Cue for a song—or worse, an album?”

Jericho looked horrified. “What the hell—?”

I told him and Frankie about Rattlebones on stage and the album he planned to record, When the Stars Are Right. They both looked doubly appalled: like I’d said Lucifer and a gang of his fallen angels would be arriving on the next train from Boston.

“Man, if’n that record gets made and released,” said Jericho, “a whole lotta people gonna come under the power of them muthas outta the deep waters. It could be jus’ the start. We have to stop this. Though it’s gonna take mighty strong magic. Old magic.”

Now, I’ve never been much of a one for superstition, juju, voodoo, and all that jazz; yet when Jazzy Boy Jericho talked about old magic, he gave it a whole new dimension. I wasn’t about to laugh. I told him about the bag of objects I’d snatched on my getaway from the Cannibal Club. As I did so, his face went through a sequence of emotions, from amazement and horror to a kind of excited relief. He reached over and gripped my arm. It was like I’d stuck it in a steel press.

“Where are these things now?” he snapped.

“Safe enough. Though I kept a couple of them with me for protection.” I tapped my chest.

The words sounded ridiculous to me; not to Jericho. He nodded slowly. “Let me see them.”

I took them out from inside my coat and opened the two slim boxes. The things inside were dull, though we could see the sigils and glyphs chiselled into them even in the shadows. They were hard to focus on, always seeming to shimmer, shifting in the light. Jericho drew back, motioning me to shut the boxes again. “So they do exist,” he breathed. “I’m hearin’ ’bout this stuff for a while now. Mostly from sailors and folks I know who’ve travelled. There was people livin’ out there on the South Sea islands long before the cities we know sprung up. Those folks knew about the Deep Ones. They had their own gods and they were given talismans and spells and charms and stuff. To keep back the things in the seas. Some of them people, they fell to the water dwellers. Some islands got took over. They sank down and rose up again, their people changed. Water dwellers. It’s like a plague. Slow movin’ but steady, like waves lappin’ at the shore.”

“So now they’re lapping at the docks here.” I wasn’t making light of it.

“Sure. What you got in them boxes, man, is powerful magic. You got to use it with care. You get it wrong, boy, and it’ll suck you in. Next thing you knows, you’re one of the slaves.” He gave me the glare of a man who looked like he’d seen the apocalypse rolling in on the next tide. “I got some stuff of my own, come down from the long ago; left to me by my folk. Too afraid to use it. Maybe it’s time, Mr. Stone. Maybe we got to fight this thing.” He leaned in close, his voice dropping further.

“Listen, man, you can’t keep that stuff near you. It’s like them stones are giving off radiation, you know what I’m sayin’? Too much exposure and you’ll be twisted.”

“You mean I turn into Gollum or something?”

I could see the reference was lost on him. Maybe he thought I said golem. But he got the drift.

“And you got to use ’em sparingly. You hide ’em good.”

“Okay. So what’s the next move?” I glanced across at Frankie: he’d drawn into himself, like a bird in the presence of two large alley cats.

“We gotta get hold of Rattlebones. We gotta silence his music, whatever it takes.”

Before he had a chance to elaborate, there was a commotion in the doorway to the club. Several guys had come bursting in, shouting and bawling. It took awhile for the dust to die down; when it did, we found out there’d been a bank job. A big central branch. Not just a gun job—this had been major league. The hoods, or whoever was responsible, had blown a hole the size of Texas in the back of the bank before helping themselves to the takings.

“You don’t look too good,” Jericho told me.

I’m sure he was right. The bank was the one where I’d had the gunnysack of artifacts locked away. My guess was—and it turned out to be a good one—the bag was no longer on the premises. All I had left were the two objects with me.

“They’ll want to collect them stones,” Jericho said, shaking his head. “They’ll be comin’ for you.”

I put on my brave face; it felt like it needed laundering. “Yeah. Let them make the next move.”

****

Jazzy Boy Jericho’s warning about the less-than-healthy effect the stones might have prompted me to find a safe hiding place for them. It was late when I got back to the office. I had a small apartment a mile or two away, and I figured it to be an obvious target for anyone trying to lay their paws—or whatever they had for upper limbs—on me. Same went for the office. What I needed was somewhere with people in it, where I was less likely to be attacked. Time to head for the Sleaze Sisters’ bar. The world’s weird and wonderful gathered there and no one in their right mind would try starting a riot; not that Rattlebones’s new pals were what you might reasonably call sane. It would have to do.

I was about to quit the office for the bar, when I heard something outside the door. I slid a gun out and flicked off the light, waiting. A tapping—no, it was more like a scraping—on the lower door panel had my spine crawling. It came again, insistent. This was the only exit. If I was going to leave, it would be through this door. I stood aside and swung it inward, aiming the Beretta down, ready to blow a large hole in whatever was outside.

There was just a pile of quivering rags with a head. The face which looked up at me—a mask of painful misery– all but took my breath away.

“Rattlebones! I almost blew your face off.”

He looked as if he’d been involved in a traffic accident, his crumpled form tossed on to a sidewalk. His face was wet with sweat, his eyes bulging as if someone with very large mitts had got a hold of his head and squeezed it. He reached up pathetically, his fingernails cracked.

“Help me, man. You gotta help me.”

I looked down the steep stairwell to the outside door: it was empty, the lower door shut. With a quick jerk I dragged the musician into the office, my gun aimed at his face. No way was I going to trust this guy. “Keep talking,” I told him. “Make it snappy. We’re not staying.”

He made no attempt to get up. “I’m done in, Mr. Stone. I broke free. Somehow.” His breath came in laboured sobs, his frail chest heaving with effort. “You gotta help me.”

I motioned with the gun for him to get up and he did so very slowly, like a broken man who’d collided with a subway car. Very convincing, if it was an act. Okay, I’d play along. He might drop his guard if I acted dumb.

“Those people are insane,” he gasped. “I didn’t know what I was gettin’ into. They must have used some kinda drug on me. I just about figured what was goin’ on. They was usin’ me, Mr. Stone. Me and my music. To do real bad things. I had dreams. Terrible. Comin’ at me in waves. That thing out there in the ocean. You gotta help me!”

“Take it easy. Come on. Let’s blow this place.”

“They want the stones.”

“Then they’ll be disappointed. They’re not here.”

“They’ll be waitin’.” He said it with feeling and for a moment I thought maybe this was no act. I wasn’t buying it yet. I kept the gun ready as I pushed him back to the head of the stairs and locked the office. I took out my second gun. If I was going down, I would take a few with me. Hell, it’s what my hero, Ned Killigan, the pulp detective, would have said. I’d just finished reading The Doll Dies at Midnight, so I was feeling kinda inspired.

As Rattlebones groped his way downstairs, I regretted having dumped those two stones. It was okay they weren’t here, a target for the Cannibal Club’s mob, but, guns aside, that didn’t leave me too well protected. My worry was Rattlebones might be a decoy, sent to drag me away from the office, so his buddies could sneak in and check the place out. If the stones had been there, they would’ve helped themselves. They were taking a gamble, though. They couldn’t know I wouldn’t be carrying them around with me. If they thought I was, they wouldn’t attack me; like they hadn’t at the Cannibal. Maybe Rattlebones was on the level. Maybe he had got free of them.

Outside it was pitch black. The single street light which usually daubed a few pathetic rays of light along the alley had failed. I could see the street, twenty yards away, a vague blur of dirty yellow. Rattlebones squinted, shaking his head.

“They’re out there,” he said. “Expectin’ us to go that way.”

I looked down the alley: it was like peering into a black hole. Perfect place for a trap. I had to do some fast thinking. What would Ned Killigan have done? I pushed Rattlebones down towards the darkness. “You go ahead. If anything moves, I’ll blow it apart.”

He nodded, shuffling forward. I let him go on, several yards before me. If he was going to swing round and make a grab for me, he wouldn’t do it before I’d turned him into a cheese grater. He reached into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out a lighter, flicking it on to give himself some light. By its miserly glow I saw a few low shapes darting away into invisibility: the usual pack of rats which infested the place. Rattlebones moved a little more surely.

At the alley’s end was a canal, its tow path narrow, and we eased along it. A few smudges of light from a factory across the water gave us something to see by. I heard a movement in the alley we had just quit and turned in time to see a man-shape emerge. I fired down at its feet, aiming to miss: no point killing someone yet. The cops wouldn’t take too kindly to it. It had the desired effect—the creep darted back into the alley.

Rattlebones moved on quickly. Messed up though he was, his fear kicked him into gear. There were more movements behind us. Several pursuers were on the scent. Even if the poor lighting obscured their faces and made slumped shapes of them, their purpose was clear enough. I fired off a couple more rounds, the bullets whining out into the night. It didn’t deter them. What bothered me most was the thought they might be corralling us. Rattlebones might yet prove to be faking it. One thing kept me going: they wanted the stones more than me; and without me, they wouldn’t get the stones.

We reached the docks where work had stopped for the night. Nothing moved, not even the air. Rattlebones was bent over, chest heaving like he’d just climbed a mountain. He struggled to speak. “Can we take cover at BB’s?” he panted. “I don’t know what else to suggest.”

I looked back. Not only were the bad guys moving in on us from the rear, there were others across the canal, moving parallel to us. This wasn’t looking good. “Maybe. You’re going to have to move faster.”

I heard something down in the black waters of the canal. Something which broke its surface, though it was too murky to see what. I thought it was just as well.

Rattlebones straightened, drew in a lungful of night air and nodded. We moved off as quickly as we could, intent on getting beyond the canal side to the first street beyond it before the trap could close in on us. There were enough people about, and cars droning up and down the street to deter our pursuers from trying anything nasty in the open. We got on to the sidewalk and kept moving. I could hear Rattlebones’ rasping breath—he wasn’t faking it—yet he kept going. I sensed rather than saw the pursuit; we weren’t going to shake it off.

It took us awhile to reach Big Belly’s. Close on midnight, the place was just beginning to liven up. There were more in here tonight than usual; Rattlebones and I squeezed through the bodies. Even though I’d pocketed the guns, my left hand still gripped one of them. A few of the customers recognised my companion and I heard them calling out encouragement, hoping he was going to play. I didn’t think that was such a good idea. Had he set this up just so he could? And reproduce all the crazy stuff he had been playing at the Cannibal Club? That would have been a darn shame—I would have had to rub him out first. And how in hell was I going to explain it to the local police chief, Rizzie Carter? He and I had a good arrangement—I even did a few jobs for him—but there was no way he would believe what he’d call gibberish about mad gods trying to take over New York. Politicians, mobsters, sure; but not monsters swimming out in the mid-Atlantic.

I knew the things pursuing us wouldn’t get into the club, not without a fight and my guess was they wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves. They would be waiting, for sure. My best bet was one or two of the private exits to the club that I knew about. Mick the Pug, the owner of the place, kept these exits exclusively for special members of the clientele, of which I am one.

“Listen, Rattlebones, we can give your ex-pals the slip. I can get you outta here and to a safe house. Buy us some time.”

He gave a passable impression of being totally wasted. “I need to rest up first,” he gasped, like a fish stranded on a mud flat. We were standing next to the stage, the crowd inadvertently pressing us. A couple of guys were on stage, playing some blues numbers and when they saw Rattlebones they finished up and came over to us. Before I could do anything, they were introducing him to the crowd.

“Get this, people! The man is here. The blues king himself—Rattlebones!”

I had no time to react as Rattlebones got up on to the stage and waved to the audience, which began to shout and holler its full approval. Rattlebones went over to one of the guitars and hooked its strap around his neck. A vague chord twanged from the speakers. He looked down at me, a smile on his face that said, What you gonna do now, sucker? Yeah, it was what he had wanted all along. Control of a crowd, me without the protective stones and his scaly buddies massing outside ready to scoop me up for a painful interrogation.

I came back with a smile of my own, like I didn’t give a damn. Now you got me exactly where I want you, pal. This is indeed a trap. And it’s me just closed it.

Except that’s not how he interpreted it. His own expression was triumphant. No skin off my nose. Music, maestro, please.

He began to play, and at once I recognised the same wild notes and chords he’d banged out when we’d been in the Cannibal Club. This time I was better prepared—I pushed two earplugs into place. They didn’t keep all of the sinister music out, just enough of it to let me keep a grip on my sanity. As Rattlebones got more into his playing, he ignored me—he knew I wouldn’t just shoot him.

The crowd were bopping along to the music, shaking their heads, snapping their fingers or just tapping their feet. There wasn’t a lot of room for moving about, given they were all so tightly packed and it worked well enough for what Rattlebones intended. I looked across to the other side of the stage, which had been in deeper shadow. There was a piano there and now a figure had emerged from the curtain behind it. It sat down and started hitting the keys. Jazzy Boy Jericho was about to get down to some serious jamming.

Rattlebones’ head jerked up when he realised what had happened: he grinned inanely, his teeth like a predator’s; his eyes all fire and fury. He struck the chords more violently and the air quivered, full of bolts and electrical charges which scattered among the crowd. People were twisting and turning, writhing in ecstatic unison with the music. Jericho upped his own volume, treating the piano like a weapon, flinging out chords of his own, somehow using them against the blues runs. In the air over the stage, it was as though a host of demons were beating the crap out of each other in a growing pandemonium.

I wanted to get away from the stage—staying so close to this madness was like standing at the edge of a real stormy sea; where any minute the next wave would come curling and crashing in, sweeping me up and churning me to pulp. But there was no way through the crush. I figured they would react negatively if I tried pushing through: like, ripping me apart with their bare hands. A lot of them were drooling, thick strings of saliva hanging from their mouths, dogs closing in on a kill. Maybe I would have to use the guns after all.

Jericho and Rattlebones had become completely taken over by the music and I was glad I could only hear a muffled version of it. Both of them were trying to control the flow and direction of the sound; it looked to me like it was deadlocked. The two blues men who had got Rattlebones up on to the stage and who had tried to fit in with the music had both dropped to the boards, either out cold, or they’d bought it. I could see blood seeping from their mouths, ears, and eyes.

The joint was dimly lit, yet even those lights shrank down to near nothing as a different kind of darkness filled the place. Darkness is darkness, but this stuff crawled. It was like oil, thick and oppressive. The things Rattlebones had presented his soul to were somehow pumping their thoughts—dreams maybe—into a window on Hell. Feeding on the music and expanding through it. Jericho’s face was sweat-soaked, his eyes bulging with the realisation he was losing his grip on the contest. His hands flew up and down the keys, and still failed to repel the darkness.

I was going to have to use the guns, even though something told me it was far too late. Rattlebones was on a different plane. Bullets wouldn’t stop him now. May as well try and shoot a phantom. Though he was substantial enough. I tugged my Berettas out and he saw me do it. He laughed and his scorn was like one of the musical shafts, tearing through any last shred of belief I had that I could kick his ass.

Behind Jericho, another figure stirred. Half his size and bent down, clearly terrified, it was Frankie Finnegan. Not daring even to look at the blues guitarist, head well down, eyes on the keys, Frankie shoved a stool next to Jericho and joined him in a duet, adding weight to the sound. I couldn’t see their hands: they must have been moving at light speed, perfectly synchronised. Around me there was instant confusion, as if the weird melody driven by Rattlebones started to break up, forced to link in to the piano-playing twosome. I swear I felt the darkness shudder: a huge beast that had taken a serious body blow.

Rattlebones gave it another notch or two and there was blood flying from his own fingers, the guitar strings red with it. His eyes widened like he was studying something particularly revolting right there in front of him. The piano was practically jumping across the stage. Somewhere out back a fuse must have blown—there was a bang like thunder and screams followed as the crowd lost it altogether. People were fighting like wildcats to get the hell out of there, like they’d suddenly come to their senses and found Satan himself about to snack on them.

I watched as Rattlebones, his entire body shaking like some invisible giant terrier had hold of him, ran out of speed and derailed. The guitar blew apart, strings whipping the air. The blues man staggered backwards, his hands streaming blood, and just fell flat on his face. He looked like he was having a fit, his body curling up, feet kicking. I got up on the stage, my guns aimed at him in case he tried a last trick.

Jericho and Frankie scaled down their own musical storm and in a moment they were playing a simple boogie tune, quietly in the shadows. I tested Rattlebones’ neck for a pulse. Nothing doing. He looked like a doll, dried up and ragged. And dead as it gets.

As the crowd forced its way out of the club, single-mindedly fixed on escape into the fresh air, I went over to the pianists. They stopped playing. Frankie got up and stared in horror at the dead blues legend decorating centre stage.

“Hell, Nick, is he dead?”

“I reckon the man you knew died a while ago. Whatever it is, it ain’t your friend.”

Frankie bent down and studied the corpse for a moment. There were tears in his eyes. “We’ll give him a proper burial,” he murmured.

“I was beginning to think I should have brought those stones after all,” I told Jericho.

“Leavin’ them brought the enemy out,” he said. “Whatever had a hold of Rattlebones was no match for me and Frankie. He’s one mean piano player, ain’t ya buddy? Hell, it was touch and go. If’n he hadn’t have joined in, I was about to bust apart.”

Frankie’s grin soured and he suddenly looked very sheepish. “Well,” he murmured. “I did have a piece of help.” Slowly he drew something from inside his jacket. An elongated box I recognised at once.

Jericho’s eyes popped at sight of it. “Dammit, Frankie, you got one of the stones?”

I decided I’d rather not know how he got his hands on it. Something to do with the fact he’d been good at unofficially opening safes once upon a time. He shoved the box into my hand and I had hold of it before I could object. I shook my head and slipped it inside my jacket.

“You make good’n sure you hide that thing well away,” Jericho said to me with feeling. “And the other one.”

The crowd had just about dispersed. They would all of them have one heck of a hangover in the morning. A single shape coalesced out of the smoky gloom. It was Mick the Pug, shaking his head as if he’d just woken up from a deep sleep.

“What the bejeezus was all that about? Some crazy new free-form jazz? Dunno if I liked it, boys. And it emptied the place quicker’n an unexploded land mine. You wanna put me outta business? Just stick to the blues from here on out, huh?”

Jericho managed a laugh. He put his huge spade of a hand on my shoulder. It was kinda like being touched by a god. “Sure, Mick. But this guy has started something. They don’t call him Nick Nightmare for nothin’.”

You Don’t Want to Know

In my line of business, you can’t afford to be picky. Some days, some months, you have to take the rough, as there’s no smooth. Putting it bluntly, these days there’s not a lot of smooth. Smooth is something I get from a whiskey bottle. Okay, I draw the line at some stuff: I don’t do divorce cases, snooping on some sucker who’s screwing around, or some wife who’s looking for a new life away from her loaded husband. You can keep that kind of grime. Otherwise I’ll take on the more obscure stuff and brother, I’ve seen some bizarre things. If there’s a Hell waiting in the afterlife, I’ve been there already, more times than I care to mention.

I know a lot of the guys in this town call me Nick Nightmare, usually when I’m out of earshot. That’s about all you need to know about me. The cops have a file; there’s always a file, right? Nick Stone, Private Eye, Public Fist. Tackles the cases other dicks won’t touch, kind of like a one-time beer ad I seem to recall.

This case started with a phone call. I was workin’ late that night, catchin’ up on some paperwork. I’d had a lean week, so I shut myself away to get on with it. I don’t have a secretary. They’d only go nuts tryin’ to work for me. Anyhow, this phone call was from some guy who sounded like he was talkin’ through a hole in his throat. Maybe he was, given the kind of crap he was mixed up in.

Wanted me to find a man. Here in New York. Wouldn’t be easy, said the guy. The man he was after was an illegal immigrant, gone to ground. They had a few clues about where he might be, a trail.

I asked for some details, but gravel-voice didn’t want to stay on the phone. Maybe he thought my wire was tapped. It’s not, I promise you. I like my privacy and I have some good contacts for wire work.

The guy asked, was I free now? Okay, this was at 2:00 am., but it suited me. Especially when he told me how much he would pay. You don’t need to know that. So I said, come on over.

Less than an hour later they were knockin’ on the office door. Three of them. It may have been October, but these guys were done up like they were headin’ for the Russian Front. I thought maybe they had at least three trench coats on, they were so god-dammed broad. And the slouch hats were classics. What little I saw of their faces were white. Not pale, white. I’m not sayin’ they were zombies, but they did not look healthy. And they never showed their hands. Just kept them at their sides, deep down in their pockets. Shooters, I guessed. Why be different from everyone else in the neighborhood?

Only one of them spoke: the batteries on the other two must have run down. I guess he was the guy I’d spoken with on the phone. His voice was a gargle, like he was full of runny cold, and foreign, maybe Eastern bloc. I know the light in my office was pretty poor, but his eyes were colorless. No emotion. Flat. Very cold fish.

He didn’t give me much to go on. The guy they were after, last calling himself Stefan Zeitsheim, had stepped off a boat out of Odessa that had arrived here in New York a few days ago. He had no papers, given everyone the slip. He was being hunted. So my job was to find him first.

I may not have the sharpest brain this side of the Atlantic, but I figured out pretty quick that if these handsome guys were good buddies of Mr. Zeitsheim, he would have made a beeline for them once he’d slipped . Obviously he was looking forward to meeting them with as much enthusiasm as a vampire would greet a priest. So he’d gone to ground. Lookin’ at them, I’d say Zeitsheim had his head screwed on.

“We don’t want to meet him,” gurgled my new employer. For the one and only time he took his hand out of his coat. Covered in a thick black glove; no surprise there. He also had a thin black file, which he dropped on my desk. Taped to the front of it was a key. I recognized it: safety deposit box, Grand Central Station.

“Your pay. Half of it. The rest when the job is completed, Mr. Stone.” He shoved his hand back in his pocket, like it had already been exposed to the air too long.

“So what do I do when I find him? Buy him lunch? Show him around the Big Apple?”

No hint of a smile. “It’s all in the file, Mr. Stone. You kill him.”

That was it, no frills. Just simply: you kill him.

“He is persona non grata. Find him quickly. No one need know.”

Yeah, except for whoever the hell else was hunting him. Like the law, or more likely the KGB, or whatever they call themselves these days.

“You have a suitable weapon?” growled the overcoat.

“If you mean a gun, yeah. Or is this a knife job? Or maybe a glass of something very strong?”

“We leave the means to you, Mr. Stone. But once you have killed him, and this is vital, you must incinerate him.”

There was what the poet once called a pregnant pause. Incinerate him?

“You would rather not accept this commission?”

Oh yeah, with these three monoliths looming over me, like I was going to refuse? I said not.

“Everything you need is in the file. We will contact you again, one week from now, at the same time. Be alone. Provided you have completed the task, the rest of the money will be in the same deposit box.”

****

I decided not to waste any time. My initial stop was Grand Central. The first helping of money was in the box all right. I could have moved out of town and set up on the West Coast right there and then, but I had this feeling that the three goons wouldn’t take too kindly to it. I read through the file. I still have it safely tucked away; the cops are welcome to it any time. It’s not the snappiest read since Spillane. Just a few details about Stefan Zeitsheim, coupla mug shots so’s I’d know him. Looked like he’d spent a month or two in a jail, fed on bread and water once a week.

I grabbed a few hours’ sleep then decided to check out the docks. It was nearly 6:00 am when I got there. Zeitsheim was supposed to have come in on one of the huge rust buckets, with some tongue-twisting Russian name. Easy enough to find the tub, although it would have been a needle-in-a-haystack job finding someone who could tell me where he took off from. Yet already the waterfront was crawling with unaccustomed life: the boys in blue were out in force.

I saw someone I knew over in the shadows of a warehouse. Never mind who: just a bum who tips me off from time to time. In a job like mine, you need eyes and ears everywhere. These guys are my lifeblood.

I eased over to him and slipped him a smoke. “So what’s the story?”

“Hi, Nick. Some guy left that big tub last night and walked straight into the next world. Cut himself up. No kiddin’. Real messy. Seems a long way to come to end it all.”

Suicide? That didn’t make any sense. “Don’t tell me. Name of Zeitsheim?”

“You knew him?”

“Of him. You?”

“All I know is, some of the boys got word there were some weird characters on the waterfront. Expensive suits. You know, not regulars. Not the Mob either. They must have been waiting for the guy. He didn’t want to meet them, big time.”

I described the three uglies who’d visited me.

“Nah. These were slick. More like FBI. But they weren’t quick enough to stop the Russkie toppin’ himself. See, over there.” He pointed to a group of shadows: men cleaning up the quayside. “Bled a river before they hauled his carcass out of here.”

“Who took him away?”

“Meat wagon. Down to the morgue. The slicks didn’t hang around. I guess they’ll be on the other side of the state by now.”

So my work was already done for me. Or it seemed like it. The whole thing stank. Like my man had said, why come halfway across the world to cut yourself up?

“Get me any information you can on the suits. Where they went, who they spoke to,” I said and started for the local morgue. I needed to tie-up some loose ends before I collected the second half of my payload.

****

No one takes too much interest in the comings and goings of a morgue at 6:00 a.m., not unless something really big has gone down, so when I got there, it was quiet. Zeitsheim’s suicide would have been no great shakes here. I knew the guy on the desk, Raglo. I won’t say I’m a regular, but we’d played poker together a few times. He’s the worst poker player I know, but I let him win more than lose. That way I don’t always have to pry information out of him with a crowbar.

“Much happenin’?” I asked him.

“Quiet night, Nick. Three or four heart attacks, one drunk fished out the Hudson, brawl victim. Usual intake. What’s your angle?”

I flashed him a glimpse of Zeitsheim. “Fresh off the night boat from Odessa.”

He knew the case: no disguising that. His face clouded and he pulled back. “No, I don’t think so. You got the wrong morgue.”

“Don’t go cold on me, Raglo. He’s here.”

My man was sweating. “I don’t know nothin’.”

I smiled my horrible smile and leaned over the counter. “I know. Tell me anyhow.”

He knew what I got like when someone upset me. “Three guys came in, flashing badges at me.”

“Let me guess. FBI?”

He looked appalled. “You know about them?”

“A little. So what did they want, apart from a peek at Zeitsheim?”

He looked even worse, like he had acute guts ache. His face was like chalk. “They wanted a whole lot more. They wanted his corpse. I mean, they wanted to take it away.”

I started sliding bills across the counter, lots of them.

“Listen, I saw the guy when we unzipped his bag and put him in the locker,” said Raglo, face even whiter.

“A mess, right?”

“You got that right. Nick. Used a long knife on himself. You know I ain’t squeamish, but this was about as bad as it gets. The guy was dead, right. You don’t get no deader. Think I don’t know a stiff when I see one? Jimmy and me slid him into a locker and turned the key.”

I straightened up. “So?”

“So when I took the three suits back there and Jimmy unlocked it—jeeze, it was crazy. The smell was like nothin’ I ever smelled before. I tell ya, I’ve known every kind of horror in this place, Nick. Makes you thick-skinned and you can take anything, sights, smells, whatever. But this was one stench. Like a drain outta Hell itself.”

“The body?”

“Body? Shit, there was no body. Just a pool of … what the hell can I call it? Green slime. Yeah, slime. Inch deep in the locker.”

“You’re telling me the body had decomposed that quickly? Turned into a pool of green slime in—what, minutes?”

He shook his head. “No. Weirder than that, pal. Jimmy spotted the rest of it. You want to see? Only you betta be quick. The dicks’ll be here in a minute.”

“Lead on.” I followed him out through the back into the cold room. Jimmy, his attendant, was slumped at a desk, head down, snoring. We didn’t wake him. Sounded like he’d had enough for one night.

“This is the locker. Look, that’s what Jimmy noticed.” He pointed to the polished floor. Going across it was a kind of trail. I went over to look at it and bent down. Green slime was right. Like some big fat slug had dragged itself across the room. I got up and walked through an open door to a small washroom in back.

“I haven’t touched anything,” avowed Raglo. “The Feds told me not to. They said they’d be back.”

I nodded. “I haven’t been here, okay? And you were right about the stink.” It made me cough. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, vile.

Raglo pointed to the window. It was busted, like something far too bulky had been shoved through it, hard. More slime.

“Nick, what in hell is goin’ on? Who’s done this? Jimmy says no one could have got in here. No one could have gotten that body out of the locker without him knowin’.”

I shoved some more greenbacks into his shaking hand. “I guess you’re right. So we have to consider the other possibility. Well, you don’t; I do.”

He gaped at me like a beached guppy.

“The guy was alive,” I said. “He crawled out. Where does the window lead to?”

****

I left him to it and none too soon. Minutes after I quit the morgue, a couple of police patrol cars drew up. At least I had a short head start on them.

Round back of the building I found the alley system lit by the window from which Stefan Zeitsheim (or whatever had consumed him) had made his escape. I was beginning to see the attraction this guy had for his various pursuers. My current employers had told me Stefan was hunted. No wonder. FBI? I had no contacts there. My guess was they wanted him alive, while my employers wanted him dead. Maybe he had the dirt on them.

I picked up the slime trail: it wound its way through a dozen alleys before petering out. After that there was nothing much to go on. So what was I looking for now? The mother of all maggots, or Houdini’s older brother? If this was a trick, a fake suicide and a weird escape to follow, it had taken some pulling off.

I went back to more familiar haunts and pored over what I knew so far with a pot of coffee and a fried breakfast at Fat Duke’s. Halfway through the Canadian bacon, a guy came in, noticed me in the corner and helped himself to the chair opposite. I chewed slowly, waiting. This was no chance encounter. Another nice suit. The mountain had come to Mohammed.

“Mr. Stone.” Nice voice. Nice salary, too, I guessed.

“You want a coffee?”

He shook his head. “We have a mutual friend. I think you know to whom I am referring.”

“Yes, I think I know to whom you are referring. Tell me something, is this friend of ours dead or still wandering the streets of our fair city?”

Not a blink. “I was hoping you could tell me, Mr. Stone.”

“So why are you interested in him?”

“It’s rather a complicated story.”

“Isn’t it always?”

He sort of smiled, making it look like he had swallowed a bad oyster. “Our friend is wanted for questioning. Not just by us. It’s an international matter. Security. And he is a very dangerous character. I can’t tell you how dangerous.”

I went on chewing, occasionally breaking off to sip my coffee. “I guess a man like that makes more than a few enemies.”

“It doesn’t pay to get mixed up with this sort of people.”

Ah, did I detect a chill note creeping into the voice? A coldness of expression? I grunted.

“So what is your interest, Mr. Stone?”

“Let’s just call it curiosity.”

“If you say so, Mr. Stone. Is the payload worth the trouble?”

“A man’s got to eat.”

“You know the people I represent? It’s a powerful outfit.”

It had taken him long enough to get round to the threat. Now came the payoff. “Sure.”

“How much would it take to eliminate your curiosity?”

“Like I said, a man’s got to eat.”

He named a figure that would have fed a sell-out at Yankee Stadium. “You want me to forget about our mutual friend.”

“Completely.”

“Somebody might be disappointed if I did. Somebody with a bad attitude. It could affect my health.”

“We can take care of that for you. If you help us.”

The idea of the FBI and my three employers going head to head was an interesting one. I just didn’t want to get mashed in the middle of it. “I’ll think about it.”

He nodded and stood, pushing the chair back slowly. “Good. We’ll talk again, Mr. Stone. I’ll be in touch. I know where you live,” he added, with a grin.

I forgot to shudder and just did my casual wave. The fact was, I was deep in the mire. Whatever I did, someone was going to be very pissed.

****

Later in the day, one of my sewer rats came up with a lead. He’d been in and out of the wharf cafés, bumming smokes and a crust or two, when he’d tuned in on an intriguing conversation. Now this guy, a dropout called Shivers, is a real pro. He can blend in with the walls, or the furniture, or the garbage. You wouldn’t know he was there. He lives by the skin of his teeth and traffics in gossip. And he makes a point of knowing his market. So he knew Nick Nightmare had an ear out for anything to do with the docks “suicide.” Word had already got around.

In another bar, tucked away in a thick wooden booth, the air hung with smoke as thick as curtains, he spilled his news. He’d overheard two guys. One of them was a major link in an illegal immigrant chain: a man who could arrange to shift people from place to place with no questions asked. I knew the guy by reputation. Let’s call him BoBo.

According to Shivers, BoBo was talking to a weird guy—I interrupted so I could show him the mug shot of Zeitsheim.

“Jeeze, Nick, that’s him, I tell ya! That’s the guy. White as a corpse.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“He was lookin’ for passage along the coast. Not by any normal channels. He kept turnin’ round as if Satan himself was blowin’ hot air down his neck, so I guess he was on the run.”

“How did he smell?”

Shivers nearly choked on his beer. “You know about that—? Real bad, Nick. I mean, real bad. Fish gone bad. I been in some places, but man, this guy was stinkin’ fit to make a guy retch.”

I merely nodded. Sailor Stefan it was, then.

“He spoke low and with a weird kind of voice, like he had a mother of a cold. I heard him mention one of them old Massachusetts seaports. Innsmouth. He wanted to get to Innsmouth. BoBo took his time about answerin’. Sounded like Innsmouth was bad news to him. But he agreed. The fish guy gave him a wad of bills, must’ve been a fortune. BoBo told him it would take a few days to sort out. The guy would have to hole up until then.”

“You know where he is now?”

“Yeah.” He gave me the address of an old warehouse down by the docks. Good place to hide a needle. “Want me to take you?”

“Not yet. Just keep an eye on him. I don’t want him leaving New York before I get a chance to meet him.”

My man was living up to his name, shivering like it was snowing out. Maybe it wasn’t just the cold and maybe the beer and the steamy bar air hadn’t done enough to warm him. I’d already given him money; still I dragged my coat off the chair beside me. It had had its day. “Here, keep this. You need it more than I do.” If this panned out, I’d be picking up a dozen new coats . Maybe even get myself a slick suit.

He struggled into the coat like it was something alien, grinning a crack-toothed grin. You could have gotten two of him inside it. “Thanks, Nick,” he muttered. Then he was gone.

I was left to chew over what he’d told me. Innsmouth. Meant nothing to me. So it was public library time, for a bit of research.

****

It took some digging out. I spend half my life glued to old newspapers: the nice library ladies are getting used to me. I think they find me kinda romantic. Must be my old-fashioned charm. Whatever, they came up trumps on Innsmouth. And I got my connection.

Years ago, way back in the winter of 1927–28 it seems the government had investigated some pretty weird goings-on in the port, following complaints about demon worship and likewise subversive cults. The Feds had gone as far as to blow up or burn down whole parts of the town. There had been a lot of arrests. One report referred to a submarine diving down into the deep waters off the port to a reef known as Devil’s Reef, where something had been torpedoed. There had obviously been some sort of lunatic cult based around the area: sure seemed like overkill for bootlegging. Whatever they had really been up to would probably remain a mystery, but the government had obviously taken it seriously enough to send in their heavies.

It had been a long time ago and though I couldn’t find out anything more, maybe there was still life left in the place. Stefan Zeitsheim clearly wanted a piece of the action.

Evening was crowding in. Time to look up the errant sailor. In spite of my instructions, I didn’t plan on killing him. I reckoned he’d be worth more alive.

****

I knew where to find the warehouse Shivers had told me about. I got out of a cab a few blocks away, checked my Beretta and used the thickening shadows to mask my approach. Shivers wouldn’t be far away. He’d see me when others wouldn’t.

I was within a hundred yards of the building, when I heard a commotion up ahead. I knew in my guts it was going to be bad news: these streets are usually dead at this time of day. I wasn’t wrong.

There was a mob. Something had stirred them up, like a kicked hornets’ nest. They were crowding round the sidewalk, opposite the warehouse.

I moved in, looking down.

“Hey, Nick,” breathed a voice beside me. Another of the local dropouts.

“What gives?”

“It’s Shivers. Some punk shot him.”

I started muscling people aside. Sure enough, Shivers was sprawled across the edge of the sidewalk. I bent down to him. He was alive, if only just. His face was gray, his expression a mixture of agony and disbelief. I felt his chest. It was a mess.

Only one bullet, but it had done the job. I felt the fury rising up in me, but fought it down.

“A car,” he breathed through teeth clenched on pain. “The gun … silencer. Jeeze, I’m so cold, Nick. So cold.”

I pulled the coat tighter around him. The coat, goddam it. My coat. He was wearing the coat I’d given him. The bullet had been meant for me.

“Who did this, Shivers?”

He managed only half a word before he died. It was enough. Suit. It had been some guy in a suit. It figured. The Feds had warned me off. They really had meant business.

“Cops are on the way,” someone above me said. I got up and stood aside. In a minute or two I’d slipped to the back of the crowd. No one paid me any attention, all eyes on the curled-up form of Shivers.

I made my way along the street and crossed where I thought I’d be least noticed. I figured the Feds would be gone, thinking they’d taken me out of the picture. It was the one advantage I had on them. I was going to find Zeitsheim before they did, so help me.

At the far end of the warehouse there was an alley running alongside it. The light was fading, but I could just about see enough to ease my way down it. It suited me. I flattened against the wall and moved forward by inches. Shivers would have known exactly where Zeitsheim was holed up inside; now I was going to have to flush him out. I had a feeling it was going to be damn tough. My quarry had already shown his credentials in the hide-and-seek stakes.

I was about halfway down the alley when I felt the breeze. Nothing unusual about a breeze, especially in these city canyons. They come and go. But there was something about this breeze that made my skin crawl: like it was the breath of some huge beast, crouched back in the darkness.

Something scratched along the alley. A ball of newspaper. The breeze stiffened and in a minute, other bits of lightweight garbage came tumbling along. Couple of paper cups. More paper. Discarded bags.

I heard something far overhead, a distant roar. Maybe there was a storm brewing up. Very sudden. So what the hell: it was October.

I had my Beretta out, catch off. My nerves were dancing. More scraping sounds behind me. I swung round, aiming the gun. A tin can rolled, followed by more paper, a crushed cardboard box. The breeze was a light wind now. I could feel its strength growing, cold on the face. It kept cuffing stuff down the alley like it was a wind tunnel.

At the end of the alley was a chain link fence, eight feet high; beyond it a pile of packing cases and other junk, heaped up so the fence bulged at its base, fit to burst. There were broken tea chests and tumbled stacks of newspaper my side of the fence. The wind was driving more captive garbage towards them: a growing procession.

Moving on down the alley, I fetched up against some metal dumpsters, beyond which was a door into the warehouse. It didn’t look like it had been opened in a long time. I reached for the rusting handle.

“You don’t want to go in there, Mr. Stone,” called a soft voice from across the alley. I recognized it. The Fed from Fat Duke’s.

I was instantly down on one knee, partially masked by the dumpsters, gun trained at the shadows across the way. I could already imagine the slug smashing into me.

“Easy, Mr. Stone.” He was well hidden, though I could see about half of him. And a gun. Either him or one of his companions had killed Shivers. “I told you we would take care of this.”

I shifted back a little, squeezing more of me behind the dumpsters. I was getting angry again.

The wind rose, gusting down the alley, rolling another wave of trash forward. It struck me that there was something freakish about the moving garbage. There seemed to be an unusual amount of it.

“There’s still time for you to leave,” came the voice.

Sure, and take a bullet like Shivers had. I wasn’t planning on making the first move. And I wasn’t about to make polite conversation.

“You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with, Mr. Stone.”

“Suppose you enlighten me.”

“I can’t do that. It’s a case of—”

He didn’t get to finish. Near to the shadows which hid him, a pile of garbage erupted: cartons and cans and paper all bursting every which way. The Fed swung his gun arm round like he was about to start pumping shots into the mass of paper. It was all I needed.

My Beretta spat once. At that range I don’t miss, never mind the poor vision. Clear across the alley I heard the bullet smack into flesh and bone. The Fed’s gun spun from his grasp and clanked as it hit the ground. He gasped, forearm shattered, and crashed into the recess behind him.

The pile of garbage revealed itself to be some poor wino: his drunken stupor interrupted by the arrival of the Fed and me. Arms flapping like a scarecrow, he gabbled and shrieked something unintelligible and sat down hard among the huge pile of garbage that he’d made his home. A half-full bottle of something rolled from his fingers into the middle of the alley. A few thin beams of light played on the moving contents inside it.

I was across the alley quickly, picking up the Fed’s gun and pocketing it. I took a chance he only carried one. He’d gone quiet. I guessed he’d passed out.

The wino suddenly started to blubber, shouting something crazy about the garbage trying to eat him. I watched as the wino, no more than a filthy bundle of old rags, leapt back to his feet, beat at himself as if he was on fire, then tried to run off back up the alley. Paper clung to him like a cloud of huge moths.

I looked down at the bottle. The wino must’ve been totally freaked out to leave it.

I pulled out my old Zippo lighter and flicked it on: I needed to see the Fed. Cautiously I went toward him. In the flickering glow I could just make him out. He was conscious, good arm tightly clutching his bad, very bad, one. That was no flesh wound. He’d need attention pretty soon.

Hell, I was in no hurry. Obviously I didn’t want his death on my hands, but there would be time yet to call the medics.

I aimed my gun at his forehead. “You want to tell me why you tried to kill me? Why a man is dead instead of me?”

He shook his head, eyes shutting and opening against the pain from his shattered arm.

“You’re gonna have to talk to somebody. If not me, the cops. I’m a man who likes to trade. Tell me about Zeitsheim and you can go back to your buddies in one piece.”

The wind was howling overhead. I hadn’t been taking any notice. Again I got the feeling something was really freakish about it. More trash came rolling and tumbling down the alley, like a paper wave breaking on a beach. I turned to the Fed, about to step up our little chat, when it struck me something even more weird was going on.

The garbage. It had heaped itself around the Fed and, just like it had with the wino, it was starting to heave and bulge upward. Not another goddam wino!

It wasn’t. The Fed started to scream. No exaggeration. He screamed. The wind was shrieking around us now, like a banshee; the Fed’s scream tore right through it. I shuffled back, my gun aimed at the garbage pile. I swear to God it was bunching itself together. Shaping itself into something. And the wind was doing it. Like a potter kneading clay. All the garbage which had come rolling down into the alley was now gathering itself.

The Fed went on screaming. The garbage shape raised itself. It now looked about the size of a man, hunched over, neck-less, its rounded, incomplete head a massive paper blob on huge shoulders.

I fired twice at it. Trust me, those bullets went right into its guts. It didn’t make any difference. I stepped back; my heel came down carelessly on the wino’s discarded bottle. I was over on my back before I knew it, the air punched out of me by the landing, Beretta spinning away. I could just about see the garbage-thing bending over the Fed.

Seconds later the screaming stopped. The thing turned round to look for me. I say look for me, but it had no face, no eyes. Like a dried papier-mâché golem gone wrong, it shambled forward, spurred on by the wind, which seemed like it was howling with glee, encouraging its malformed offspring. The contorted arms reaching out for me were wet and dark with the Fed’s blood.

No time to think. Just do. Whatever. Instinct took over.

My left hand was inches from the bottle that had betrayed me. I grabbed it. The limbs of the thing above me were a couple of feet from my face. I was still holding my Zippo in my right hand: I stuck it in my teeth. I rolled aside, snatched up some sheets of paper, shaped some crude wicks and rammed them down the neck of the bottle. Still on my back, I faced the oncoming shape again. I used the lighter to ignite my impromptu touch paper. I hoped to God it was high-proof moonshine or something like it in that bottle.

I shoved the bottle into where the mouth should have been. Something soft and pulpy gave, like I was punching a bowl of Jell-O. The wine bottle stuck firm. I did a few fast rolls away, just in time to avoid the sudden whoosh of igniting spirits. The mock arms about to grab my face were now beating at my assailant’s head and chest. With all that kindling at its disposal, the fire caught on fast. It crackled and snapped and the shape swung aside, blundering into the mound of debris by the fence: an instant bonfire. I watched as the bulging head dissolved into smoke and the upper torso streamed red flames.

I was on my feet fast, picking up my gun. I had just a moment to check on the Fed: he was slumped down, but alive. His good arm groped for me. I yanked him to his feet; he almost swung into the blazing garbage and an early cremation. But I dragged him away. The smoke was coming in dense clouds. There was going to be one helluva conflagration in no time.

I put my arm round the groaning Fed, straining to get him across the alley. I could feel my eyebrows singeing in the ferocious heat. No choice now but to get through the door into the warehouse. We made it across and I yanked at the handle so hard it snapped off. The door swung open anyhow. I pushed the Fed in, took one last look at the inferno behind me and got the door as near shut as I could.

He grunted; there was something clutched tightly in his good hand. A cell phone. I pried it loose; thankfully it was useless, squashed like an empty can, I guess, by the paper monstrosity. That suited me fine: I didn’t want the Fed calling up a swarm of his buddies. I flung the phone aside.

There were stone stairs going up. I flicked on my Zippo. It would do. I got the Fed up the first flight, turned a corner and let him slump down.

I held the flame close to his face. There was blood on it. The guy was a real mess. I couldn’t tell if mâché-man had drawn more blood or spread what was leaking from the gunshot wound.

“Can you hear me?”

His eyes opened, blinking tears, and he nodded.

“Pal, you have to talk to me,” I snapped. “What in hell is going on here?”

As if suddenly wising up to our position, he jerked upright. “Where is it? That thing—”

“Gone up in a blaze of glory,” I told him, waving the Zippo.

“There may be more—”

“Not from the alley. It’ll take a fleet of fire engines to clear it. So what was it? Tell me I’m not going nuts.”

“He sent it. Zeitsheim. He has very strange connections,” the Fed gasped, wincing as more agony lanced through his arm. “He’s protected. For the love of Mike, don’t try going after him, Stone. He’s in this warehouse. You’ve seen what he can do.”

“So he’s some kind of magician?”

“He has equally dangerous enemies. You work for them. I doubt if you know who they really are.”

“While you obviously do. Explain. You ain’t going nowhere. We’re stuck here. Once that smoke gets in, we’ll have to enter the warehouse. So talk to me. Tell me about what’s happening up at Innsmouth.”

It was a long shot, but it hit home. “You know about Innsmouth?”

“Enough.”

“Damn diseased place,” he coughed. “Zeitsheim is one of its progeny. There are other enclaves in Europe. He’s on his way back from there. We have to get to him before he gets back. It’s too far for even one of his kind to swim.”

“So the FBI wants him alive?”

“Yeah. Your employers are his own kind. They don’t want us to get hold of him. Not outside Innsmouth. Up there, he’d be safe. They have ways of protecting the community you wouldn’t believe. On his own, here, he’s vulnerable. So rather than let him fall into our hands, they want him dead.”

“Incinerated,” I corrected.

“What?”

“Incinerated. If Zeitsheim burns like that paper zombie out there, there’ll be no more than a small pile of ash to interrogate. That was my job. What I was paid to do, anyhow. Which is why, I assume, you guys wanted me out of the picture. And why a friend of mine ended up bleeding to death on the sidewalk.”

The Fed grimaced; I won’t say it was in remorse. “You seemed determined not to take a hint.”

“So, what did you mean when you said Zeitsheim sent that thing?”

“You won’t believe it—”

“After what I saw out there, at least try me.”

“Not all of his kind want him dead; others want to help get him back to Innsmouth. Whatever transpired in Europe, they want to know about it. So they send him help when he calls for it. Did you notice the wind? How freakish it was?”

“Sure.” The wind which had sculpted the garbage man.

“Does the name Ithaqua mean anything to you? Or the Wendigo?”

I nodded at the latter. “Indian spirit.” I was combing my mental files for a reference. “Walker on the winds.” Ah, illumination, of a sort.

“That’s it, Mr. Stone,” the Fed grunted. “The winds. It was around long before the Indians called it the Wendigo. Zeitsheim and his kind call it Ithaqua. They worship it and other very strange gods. Gods who’ve been around longer than the solar system.”

“They wouldn’t be gods otherwise,” I said flippantly.

“Doesn’t pay to laugh at them.”

“No. I wasn’t laughing when that thing came at me. So you’re telling me Zeitsheim summoned the wind—the wind-walker? And it molded the garbage thing?” But I’d seen it, goddam it. It had happened right in front of me. That was no illusion. For the moment I was going to have to go along with all this bullshit.

The Fed started coughing and I noticed the air getting thick. The damn smoke was seeping in fast. We had to get up into the warehouse. I dragged the Fed to his feet, pulled his gun out of my pocket and stuck it into his left hand.

“You may need this. Just forget about taking me out of the equation, pal. Next time I shoot at you, it’ll be here.” And I tapped him lightly between the eyes. He knew I wasn’t kidding.

We made our way up the stairs. The stairwell was filling with smoke now. I guessed the fire outside had really gotten going. Maybe the whole block would end up in flames. Well, it’s what my employers wanted, assuming Zeitsheim ended up on the pyre. We went through some doors on to a warehouse floor.

My night vision isn’t bad, though I wouldn’t have seen anything if it hadn’t been for the fire in the alley below: waving red light danced on the opposite walls so that the place was lit in dull, wavering orange, the deserted spaces like an alien landscape. Appropriate, I guess.

“How do you know Zeitsheim is still here?” I said softly.

The Fed leaned on one of the iron columns. “We’ve got all the exits covered. Cellars are shut down. He can’t walk through walls.”

“Sewers? Seems to me if a guy stinks like he does, a little excrement isn’t going to make a lot of difference.”

“He couldn’t get into the system. Sealed a while back for safety.”

I nodded. “He knows you’re after him and he knows his mock suicide didn’t work. How did he do it, by the way? The word is, he was dead. Down at the morgue, they do know a dead body when they see one.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, but I do. One more impossibility isn’t going to spoil my day.”

“All right. Can’t do any harm to tell you. No one would believe you. He’s not human. Not completely. None of them are in that damn seaport. They spend most of their lives in the sea, god damn it. The sea!”

A momentary reflection came to me, something I’d read in the papers I’d been researching. “Isn’t there some kind of reef?”

“Devil’s Reef? You’ve been doing your homework, Mr. Stone.”

“Your mob torpedoed it some seventy-five-odd years ago. I guess they didn’t finish the job.”

He shook his head. “Guess you’re right. They’ve spawned anew. And we can’t just go in, guns blazing. We’ve sent investigative bodies in to Innsmouth, but they cover themselves. We have nothing to go on. No shred of evidence that would hold up in court. If we could take Zeitsheim—” He suddenly gripped my arm, face knotted in pain. “Stone, I’m going to need medical attention soon. Lost a lot of blood. Listen to me: you have to keep away from Zeitsheim. You have to let our boys take him. Never mind what you’re being paid. We’ll treble it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just stay cool. But I think I know where our man will be.”

He looked as if he was going to slip out of consciousness, managing a weak nod. I lowered him, resting his back against the column. His lap was full of blood. He’d be lucky if his arm survived this. He shouldn’t complain. It was still luckier than Shivers had been.

I left him there and went back to the stairs: they were shrouded with thick smoke. I crossed the huge, empty floor and found another stairway. If Zeitsheim could talk to the wind, the best place to do it would be up on the roof. I went up to look for him, though I had no concrete plan.

The roof was several flights up, beyond a half-dozen empty floors which offered no hint where Zeitsheim was. I went up the last steps very slowly. There was still enough of a glow from below to show me the terrain here. Beyond, opposite where the fire was, the dark waters of the Hudson stretched on either side.

Zeitsheim could have been hiding behind any number of vents up there. The fire was roaring away noisily below, and I could hear sirens. This whole block was in danger of going up if they didn’t control it soon. Luckily the wind had died down: back to what it had been during daylight.

I ducked and weaved between vents, using the shadows to cover me. Then I found what I was looking for; or rather, my nose did. It was that stench again, the one I’d first encountered at the morgue. And sure enough, the green slime. I picked up a length of wood that had come away from the vent housing and dipped the end in the slime, holding it up before me. It was no illusion. No, this was real. Like the viscous oozing of a snail, only a human-size one.

The slime trail led to another opening in the roof, and more stairs. Carefully I peered down; as I did so, I heard shots—several of them—a few floors below. It could only be the Fed. Dammit, Zeitsheim had conned me. He’d gone back down after the guy. Divide and conquer.

I hurtled down the stairs, almost breaking my neck in the process. When I reached the floor where I’d left the Fed, the whole area was lit up by the alley bonfire. I could see the slumped form of the Fed; Zeitsheim had made himself scarce again. My guess was he’d be making for the water. The Fed said these people had an affinity for the sea, so maybe that was where Zeitsheim would have to end up.

I reached the Fed. He gazed up at me like a beached fish, his gun hanging from limp fingers.

“It was here. I emptied the gun into it,” he croaked.

“Looks like you missed.”

He shook his head weakly. “Bullets don’t hurt them.”

“Crap. You missed.”

He shook his head more emphatically. “No, Stone. That’s the point. They’ve been working on something. Their breeding program. Zeitsheim is back from Europe. The enclave over there must be more advanced. They’ve had years to develop, hidden away deep in the Eastern bloc. They morph. From their true form. At best I may have wounded it, but it’s still alive.”

“Heading for the river?”

“It’ll dive in. It’ll have to swim out to sea. Try for another ship to get it up to Innsmouth. It’s desperate to get there, to pass on what it can do—” He coughed. “Leave me here. Find it. Stop it. If it gets to Innsmouth and starts breeding—”

“Tell me again why my employers want it incinerated? Don’t they want its secrets themselves?”

“They are terrified of the possibility we might take Zeitsheim alive. Nothing is worth that risk to them. And, God help us, Stone, there will be others coming over. They have been patient. Time means nothing to these creatures. Zeitsheim is just the forerunner—” He sank back, exhausted.

I left him again, making for the far side of the warehouse and steps leading down to the wharf-side. I was being cautious about my descent; even so, I nearly slipped and went headlong. More slime, so I was on the right track. I could just make out the first floor below me. There was a door, which had to lead out on to the wharf.

I kept very still. If Zeitsheim was there, he would have heard me. I had one last card to play. I held the Beretta tightly, even though the Fed had told me bullets would be useless.

“Zeitsheim!” I hissed. I repeated the name a couple of times. “I’m from BoBo. He told me you’d be here. You hear me? I’m from BoBo.”

I inched my way down the slippery stair. The light below was very poor, but something shifted in the shadows. I called again. Then at last I saw him, though he was no more than a blur. He was on the next landing down, halfway between me and ground level.

“Zeitsheim. That you? I’m from BoBo. You can’t stay here. We gotta find you another hideout until the ship for Innsmouth is ready.”

He eased out from cover. From here, he looked human enough, though I couldn’t see his face properly. I kept my gun out of sight.

“The Feds are lookin’ for you,” I told him, easing down another step. “Can’t stay here, pal. BoBo has a better place.”

He didn’t look hostile, so maybe he was buying it. I wasn’t about to find out. The outside door opened, letting in a pale shaft of streetlight. Zeitsheim swung round; over his massive shoulder I saw a figure slide into the building. It took immediate cover in the pitch darkness behind the door.

“Don’t move up there!” barked a voice. “NYPD! I have a gun trained on you. One move and I will shoot. You hear me. I will shoot. Now, come down the stairs very slowly with your hands on your head.”

The cop edged forward; I could just make him out. He held his weapon in both hands, like he said, trained on Zeitsheim.

Impasse. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

Zeitsheim made up my mind for me. He swung round and hauled himself up the stairs, his shape blurring for a moment as he did so. Like I said, the light was very poor, the whole place one mass of shadows; but Zeitsheim was sure as hell changing. His trunk thickened, his neck disappearing. In the darkness, he was a single mass rising up the stairs. And he meant to burst past me. Or over me.

Down below, the cop opened fire. I was too mesmerized to turn and run. I took out my own gun and let the Zeitsheim-thing have it. I didn’t miss. I guess the cop’s bullets found their mark, too. The combined force of the slugs achieved something, because the shape crashed into the steel rail at one side of the stair, snapping it clean off like it was balsa wood, and then tumbled out into space.

It landed with a sickening smack on the cement floor, making a sound like a huge sack of eggs bursting. I was grateful for the darkness, because the thing exploded. It’s the only word for it. The shafts of light from the open door picked out the details in appalling, gory splendor. Like a bathful of slime. One very big bathful.

The cop staggered back against the door, pretty shaken up, his gun hanging at his side. He hardly noticed me as I began a slow climb down.

The fun was only just beginning. As I looked down at the widespread remains of Zeitsheim, I realized they were moving. Rippling, to be precise. The edges of that slick pool were beginning to flow towards the door. And gradually the whole mass started to shiver and edge forward, like fluid running off toward a drain.

The sea! That was it. This damn thing was flowing back to the water beyond the wharf outside the door, no more than a few yards away.

The cop was just gaping, rigid as stone.

“Shut the door!” I yelled. “For Chrissake, shut the door!”

It snapped him awake, but panic swept overwhelmed him: he blasted away with his last couple of rounds. The bullets whanged off the floor and walls, powerless against the moving slime. One clanged into a pile of oil drums stacked beyond the shadows. Faintly I could hear the glug, glug of released oil.

I flicked on my Zippo and raised it. Sure enough, oil was leaking out over the floor, running thickly to the edge of the pool of moving slime.

I had my instructions.

I tossed the lighter floorward. It bounced and came to a halt in the widening oil slick. For a moment I thought nothing would happen. Then the oil caught. And I had my second blaze of the night.

Without another glance, I raced down the last of the stairs. The oil had really caught now and fingers of flame were reaching out across the floor. The cop didn’t know which way to look, like a man in a dream.

Too close for comfort, the slime abruptly rose up like it would reshape itself into human form, the fire engulfing it as though the slime were as combustible as the oil. A wild, wide mouth gaped where the head should have been and a dreadful hissing, an agonized shriek, emerged.

“What the—?” gasped the cop.

“Don’t ask.” I gripped him by the elbow, propelling him to the door. Behind us, Zeitsheim was swaying to and fro, his shape completely distorted now, like someone trying to break his way out of a thick cellophane shroud. The flames just roared hotter; it would be over in seconds.

I pushed the cop out on to the wharf, which was easy enough given his stupefaction, and dragged the door shut behind us. I turned round—to find myself looking into the mouths of three more guns.

“FBI,” said one of the gunmen, briefly holding up a badge.

I’d already put my empty Beretta away out of sight. “You better go quickly if you want to pull your buddy out,” I told them, jerking my thumb at the warehouse. “He’s gonna need medical help.”

The first of them swore, speaking urgently into his cell phone.

“What about Zeitsheim?” another growled, almost in my ear.

I looked down. A smear of something dark had oozed out from under the door. I was about to comment, when a small tongue of fire licked out and covered it possessively. There was a brief crackle, like fat on a fire, and it was over.

“He’s all yours,” I told them.

They were far too interested in their quarry to pay the cop and me any more attention. So we simply walked away.

The Feds had parked their car along the wharf. Just behind it, another cop was leaning against the hood of a patrol car. “What’s all the fuss, Sarge?” he asked the cop beside me. “I heard shooting, but the Feds told me to keep my nose out of it.” It didn’t look like it had bothered him any.

The cop with me just shook his head, like he’d dreamt all this.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just leave it to you boys,” I drawled, making a move to do just that.

The cop beside me chose that moment to wake up. “Hold it, pal. You’re not going anywhere until we’ve cleared this mess up. We have arson—two fires, dammit—we have Feds crawlin’ all over the place—we have that … thing in there. There’s a whole lot of questions which need answering, down at the precinct.”

I shrugged in resignation. It was going to be a long night.

The Vogue Prince

I knew by the smell alone that whoever was dragging himself up the gnarled stairway to my office late that night was a grade-A weirdo. I mean, this was rank—and I’ve had some pretty unique characters climb those stairs. How do I describe it? Think sewers, cemeteries, abattoirs—you’re getting the picture, or rather, the foetor. All those things and worse, too.

I kept one eye on the grubby window pane of the door, waiting for whatever it was to heave into silhouette while I went to the back of the office, pushing through the chaos of files to a locked cupboard. I barely had time to unlock it, rummage around in its guts, and pull out a carved box about the size of a large dictionary. I flipped the lid, took out the long, flat object inside and slipped it into my coat pocket. Jazzy Boy Jericho had warned me not to fool around with the stone in this box: together with its companion, they were, paradoxically, both a blessing and a curse; objects which could shield mugs like me or warp us to strange powers. I’d crossed paths with these powers a few times, so I figured I’d take a chance on protection.

Back at my desk, I saw the shambler from the street—or for all I knew, the stars—raise a globular arm and thump the door, surprisingly gently. Now I was intrigued. If this guy had come to assault me, or otherwise intimidate me, my guess was he wouldn’t have knocked.

“Door’s open,” I called, the fingers of my right hand closing reassuringly, if not that reassuringly, around the gun in my pocket. My left hand pressed against the stone I had taken from the cupboard.

After a moment or two of fumbling and shuffling, the door swung inwards to reveal my visitor in the monochrome glow of my overhead bulb. My initial reaction was one of relief: no matter how bizarre this thing was, heaped up like some kind of ponderous sea-life, it was human. The thick coat it wore and the woollen scarf to match cloaked it in a way that distorted its shape. But it was a man and it had a man’s head. Barely.

“Nightmare,” it said, its voice barely above a whisper, as if a corpse was trying to communicate. With it came another waft of that obnoxious smell.

I nodded. I’ve gotten used to being labelled Nick Nightmare by the denizens of this town. So I didn’t argue the point with El Excremento. “You got a job for me?” I make a point of very rarely refusing a case, however off the wall it might be; and I can tell you, I have dealt with the weird and the wonderful like you wouldn’t believe. Check my files. Nick Nightmare, Private Eye, Public Fist, was prepared for almost anything.

“I work for Sperranzo. They call me Willy the Pimple.”

Ordinarily I would have laughed. Willy the Pimple? There were two reasons why I kept still. Not even a smile crinkled my cynical lips. One: it was hard to smile in the presence of this reeking intruder, with its ultra-haggard face and rheumy, myopic eyes. Two: he worked for Sperranzo. Biggest thug in the city and ruler of an underground empire which ran most of the rackets. Rod of iron. Even the cops, those who weren’t bent double and tied up on Sperranzo’s payroll, were reluctant to get involved with him. I had crossed swords—well, guns—with his mob a couple of times; otherwise, I kept my distance. I was small fry to him, so his heavies didn’t pay me and my work much heed.

Until now it seemed.

“He wants to hire your services.” He shifted his unstable bulk from one foot to another as if embarrassed. His thick fingers clutched together involuntarily in a kind of mock prayer. “He’ll pay good money.” What he meant was, a lot of money, not good money. Sperranzo’s pile was from robberies, extortion, protection rackets—all the usual malpractices.

“So tell me, Willy, how come the Big Man wants to hire a simple street rat like me? I’m just a tick on the hide of this city.”

“You know things,” he slurred. I wondered if it was meant as a compliment or a curse. “You do the jobs others won’t touch. From what we hear, the weirder, the better.”

“You’re trying to flatter me, Willy. I like flattery.” Now I was curious. Sperranzo wanted me to look into something so outrageous no one else would touch it. And whatever it was, my be-pustuled pal here was scared. Slick sweating scared. I nodded for him to go on.

“Someone is rubbing out his men, and I don’t mean day-to-day casualties. You win some you lose some, you know?” Life was cheap among the gangs; even the Big Man could expect to lose a few front-line troops. It was the nature of the game.

“So what’s new?” I prompted him, seeing as how he’d gone off into a reverie. Whatever this mess was, he wasn’t enjoying being part of it. And it sure wasn’t me he was scared of.

“It ain’t natural. They don’t die normal. Once they’re marked, that’s it: they get picked off. Some of Sperranzo’s top men. It ain’t the cops or CIA or nothing like that. It ain’t natural.”

“You said that already. So what’s particular about their deaths?”

He swallowed hard and shuddered. It wasn’t pretty. “I’m to show you. Someone died tonight. It was the last straw. Sperranzo is wild: the guy had a lead.”

I leaned back. I knew the money would be ten times or more what I usually picked up on a case. Even so, did I want to get mixed up with a creep like Sperranzo? “Well, Willy, I don’t know.”

“Maybe when I tell you who was nailed tonight, you’ll do the job. It was Polecat Eddy.”

I didn’t let him see what I felt. Outside I was cold, motionless. Inside it was like he’d slipped a stiletto into my gut. The Polecat? Someone had killed the Polecat? He was a nobody, a shadow in the streets, trading bits of information here and there. Useful enough to the gangs—and to me—to warrant protection from the cops or anyone else for that matter. And although I’d hesitate to call anyone in the world I inhabit my friend, he was a kindred spirit of sorts. This made me very sad—and angry.

“Want me to take you to where it happened?” He knew he had me then.

****

Out on the street, the rain thumped down monotonously. Seemed like it had been doing this for weeks, just to annoy me. But I guess a few million others were just as hacked off with it. Willy the Pimple slushed along the sidewalk, scarf wrapped around him so only his eyes were visible, head down, making for his destination like a dog sniffing among trash cans. A mile or so from my base he stopped outside a construction site. I could see beyond the steel fence erected around it that a large area, once a mass of tenements, had been flattened; even the rubble was gone. All that was left was a vast expanse of thick, grey mud, churned by the incessant deluge.

Willy had a key; after a few minutes fumbling he had the main gate open. It leaned precariously as he led me into the site. Through the blur of rainfall I could just about make out the jutting buildings overlooking it. Not a light between them, although it was long gone midnight.

I stood close beside Willy to make myself heard over the downpour. “This is the place where they killed Polecat Eddy?”

He nodded, pointing up ahead. We moved on until we came to a slight dip in the mire, somewhere in the middle of this empty wilderness. “This is it,” he said.

“So what do you know about the killing? And where’s the body?” Looking around, there was nothing to indicate anything had happened here. No boot prints in the mud, nothing churned up. If this was a set-up, I’d been a prize sap. Apart from the screening rain, I was a sitting duck for anyone with a mind to blow me away. But it beat me why anyone would have gone to such trouble.

“Don’t know much. Sperranzo got a note. Sent two of his best men here. They didn’t like the look of it, but they did what the boss ordered. Came in here. Found Polecat Eddy. Throat cut.” Willy pointed uncomfortably at the ground as if the Polecat was still there. For the first time I noticed he was shivering, and it wasn’t with the cold.

I tried to keep a grip of my anger. That was no way to die. “So what happened to the kid?” I wanted to see him, pay my last respects. Make sure he got a decent burial. No one else was going to do it; least of all Sperranzo.

Willy seemed to hunch up his shoulders and it took me a minute to realise he had shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said eventually, like the words were dragged out of him. He knew how I felt about this.

“You don’t know? What the hell ya mean by that? Where is he?”

“He … kind of sank. Into the mud. I know it sounds crazy—”

“Damn right. What ya mean, sank into the mud? Talk to me, Willy, or I’ll make Sperranzo and his baboons seem like pussycats.”

The shivers became shudders. He knew I meant it. “Just that. Polecat Eddy sank into the mud, like it was quicksand or something. Right here. Far as I know, he’s still under there. Sperranzo’s men didn’t stop to find out. They just hightailed it.”

“You sayin’ they were spooked? How come?”

“They didn’t want to talk about it. It weren’t natural.”

There was that expression again. “So this was unnatural, or you going the whole hog on this and trying to tell me it was supernatural?” That was why Sperranzo had dragged me into this. Me and my dumb reputation.

“They was going to take him away, but before they got a chance, the mud dragged him under, like it was deliberate. They tried to get him out, but the more they pulled, the worse it got, like fighting against a—a—” His limited imagination couldn’t dredge up an image.

“Like the ground was alive?” I finished for him.

He gasped like I’d punched him in the belly, nodding furiously, eyes bulging. “How … how d’ya know that?”

“Because I can feel it, Willy. Can’t you? Under your feet. Right now.”

He looked around him in terror, his jaw dropping like he was about to scream. All that came out was a sound like he was being strangled.

Like I said, we were in a dip and now I scanned it, I knew the depression had deepened while we’d been here. And it was slowly getting worse. Much longer and we wouldn’t be able to see over the top of it to the surrounding buildings. The ground was enveloping us. Willy sagged to his knees, overcome with terror. He wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was I. Making a break for it would be a waste of time. This mousetrap had already closed.

At the rim of the pit, the earth gave a sudden tremor, like the flanks of a horse twitch to shake off a fly. In three or four places it kind of belched, like a mud hole at a geyser. Gobbets of mud sprayed and up from the muck several shapes burgeoned: man-sized, amorphous. Willy tried to scream, shoving a handful of scarf into his mouth. I knew my gun would be useless, so my left hand closed on the object I had brought with me. When you go out to swap punches with the unexplainable, you need the right kind of weapon. I tugged it free of my pocket. I was much relieved, I can tell you, to see it glowing.

As Willy and I watched, half a dozen of the mud-things began to ooze towards us, their intentions clear. Maybe we’d be spared the horror of slit throats, but my guess was the plan was for us to join the Polecat down in his muddy grave. Like an oily grey wave, these things were going to smother us and plunge us deep down, well out of sight, into oblivion.

Yeah, well, I had a better plan. I held up the stone as if it was a lantern. Which was kinda fitting, because it shone now, with a fierce scarlet light, brightening up the pit, its rays painting the bobbing horrors. And they didn’t like it. I could tell from the putrid vapours abruptly rising off them like smoke and the sounds they made: like they were gargling with maple syrup. They didn’t get any closer: the stone’s light was poisonous to them.

“What is that thing?” Willy croaked.

“Strong voodoo, Willy. In my business you meet a lot of strange people, you know? As your boss knows, I do the jobs no one else wants. And I don’t always get paid in dollars.” I looked at the stone. You could just about make out the whorls and sigils engraved on it now it had come to life. Powerful juju, I had been told. Well, it was working. And better than I thought, because something else was happening, coaxed by the stone’s forces.

Right in front of us the ground opened like a gigantic shovel had chopped into it. The sides of the gash peeled back. I thought it was another of the mud-beings: it looked pretty much like them. Then it shaped itself more specifically. Willy moaned in horror and ducked down even further, hiding his head in his hands as if, like some kind of demented ostrich, he could banish the vision.

Because it was the Polecat. Or what was left of him. The light from the stone bathed him, peeling off muck and slime, focusing the image rather than burning it up. I tried not to stare at the gaping throat, wondering how the head remained on his shoulders.

“Who did this, Eddy?” I called.

He wanted to refuse me, but those dreadful eyes were fixed on the stone, unable to deny its demands. The mouth opened and closed like he was a fish. The voice that finally came out wasn’t Polecat Eddy’s. But it told me what I wanted to know.

“The Vogue Prince.”

And that was it. The Polecat sank back into the mud like it had taken every last vestige of energy to make its one pronouncement. Within moments the mud lapped back over the opening, levelling it; mercifully reclaiming the Polecat’s remains. Slow movements at the edge of the stone’s light alerted me: the mud-things had taken advantage of my distraction. They were moving in again.

I held up the stone and called out a number of tongue-twisting voodoo phrases Jazzy Boy Jericho had taught me, praying they would pack a punch. Don’t ask me who I was praying to. All I can say is, it wasn’t any god you know. Suffice to say, it worked. It was like holding on to the tails of a hurricane. The stone squirmed and writhed like it was alive: a fat serpent with a gaping mouth. I knew I had to hang on to it or I’d become just as much a victim of its power as the things out there in the mud.

Inexorably it drew all six of them to it. There was a brief struggle as they resisted. Then, like tissue paper being shredded, the mud-things broke apart, sucked into the ever-opening mouth of the serpent form. I felt its heat; seemed like my hand was welded to it. I cried out with the pain, because, man, that hurt.

Willy gazed up, saw what was happening, yelped and ducked down again. At least it was over quickly. All of the mud-things were enveloped. In a moment the stone was a stone again, glowing softly, no longer searing hot. My hand was okay, undamaged. I noticed the rain had stopped.

“Okay, Willy. Time to get up.”

Like a tortoise emerging from winter, his head appeared from the folds of his scarf. “Can I go home now?”

“Sure. You go home. On your way, tell Sperranzo I’ll take the job. And tell him I don’t want his money. This one’s on me.”

****

I stopped off at the Sleaze Sisters’ place—no point hitting the sack after the mud bath incident. Despite the lateness of the hour, the lurid bar was still busy. Sal had a soft spot for me and shoved me into a backroom where I cleaned up a mite. She watched me, her curiosity roused. Well, I did look like I’d just emerged from a sewer.

“You want to talk about it?” she drawled, leaning on the door jamb, her tattooed arms folded. She and Sadie did their own bouncing. It was impressive and very effective.

“I just want the dope on a name. Shut the door.”

Sal nudged it shut and leaned on it. No one would get in.

“The Polecat is dead, Sal. And buried.”

She had a hard face; for once there was a bleakness in her eyes, something which would have frozen bigger men than me. She stiffened, waiting for me to go on.

“All I have is a name. The Vogue Prince,” I said very quietly; her expression warned me not to repeat it.

In her world and its environs, information was currency, often the only commodity that kept people alive. People like Polecat Eddy. He had been a bit player, scratching around for a few crumbs to keep him going. Once in a blue moon he might turn up something of interest to guys like me, or in this case, Sperranzo. Whatever the Polecat had found out was valuable enough to kill for. Sal didn’t need me to hammer it home. She scratched under an armpit, those steely eyes fixed on me like a cobra fixes its next meal. I had no way of knowing which way this was going to go. Like I said, she had a soft spot for me, though what I wanted could easily have squashed it.

“I liked Eddy,” she breathed, her eyes focusing someplace else. I was off the hook. “Rats like him are the blood of this place. Without them, we’d fold. Most of the time they talk crap, fishing for something to keep them going. Sadie and I hear it all, you know that.”

“So what have you heard?”

“Mutterings. A whisper here and there. Nothing more. Eddy and others. They’re frightened, big time. Something ugly’s here. Powerful. And it wants more. Wants it all.”

“A new outfit?”

She frowned. “Sort of. No one gets close, not without getting burned. To a cinder.”

“The name I gave you runs it.”

She nodded. “Some of the other outfits and the gangs are missing members. Too many to be a coincidence.”

“Including Sperranzo’s mob?”

Another nod. “No loss. But it’s upsetting the balance. Has to stop somehow. It’s like a plague. When it takes over—and it will—we’re all finished. You want my advice? Keep well out of it.”

I brushed another patch of dried mud off my coat. “Someone’s gotta draw the line, Sal.”

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“I like a challenge.”

****

Before I left the Sleaze Sisters’ bar, I gave Sal some brief instructions. “There may be a few inquiries about me from, let’s say, unusual sources. Sometime tomorrow, after I’ve had a chance to catch up on a bit of shuteye, you can let out that Nick Nightmare was in here, scratching around for anything on this Vogue Prince. Low key.” She got the picture.

If Polecat Eddy had been rubbed out for asking a few questions, it would be me they came for next, given I’d stuck my oar in, big time.

Chances were pretty good Willy the Pimple would be blabbing to someone about tonight’s little jaunt as well. I slept on it, but not in my usual apartment. I got up, showered and made my preparations. Tonight was going to get lively.

I can be Mr. Patient when I have to be; even so, the day dragged. I kept well away from my usual haunts. It was late afternoon, with the clouds bringing on a premature gloom of evening when I made my move. My office is in a quiet, seedy alley off one of the city’s less salubrious avenues. I chose it for two reasons: the type of weirdos I deal with don’t shy away from the area, and it’s cheap. Some would call it a dump. I say it’s got character.

Across the alley is an old warehouse that now spends most of its life as a rat-run. I mean real rats, the furry kind with tails. There’s a whole load of crates, newspaper stacks, and stuff strewn about in there, so they make great nests. Windows mostly blown out, roof leaking. Now and again bums get in there to hole up, though the janitor, Mr. Two-Guts, kicks them out pronto. For a few bucks he lets me in there when I need to keep an eye on my place. Like now.

From one of the few intact windows, I was able to see down into the alley and avenue beyond it without being seen: I’d rigged up a net curtain. I waited. An hour. Two. More rain falling: it was as good as night time out there. A street light spread sickly yellow blotches across the pools in the alley. Two or three mangy hounds sniffed their way up and down it, cocking a leg over the same rain barrel.

When they came, I was dozing and almost missed them. Like shadows they eased down the alley towards the door to my office. Shapeless coats, high collars. Two big guys, bald as cue balls. They tried the door to the stairs. I’d locked it. I didn’t want them to smell the wrong kind of rat. One of them leaned on the door: it crunched, like someone had broken a bone. They looked around and I caught a brief flash of face. Not from around these parts. Not by a long way.

Then they were in, heading up the stairs for my office. My guess was they intended a very brief interview, ending with a dead private dick decorating his own carpet. As soon as they went in, I moved quickly, down to the door to the alley, from where I could watch and wait, unseen. Earlier in the day I’d secured anything in my office that I didn’t want trashed, stolen or torched. Arson was a possibility I had to consider: whoever came for me had the easy option of burning the place down. In this part of town, no one was going to spend any time investigating a fire. The whole place was a tinderbox. It would be cheaper to buy earthquake insurance.

I waited. No plumes of smoke wafted from my upstairs office windows. There wasn’t a sound. The two goons were like ghosts. They didn’t take long: I figured with my absence, they had no further business there. They emerged, again sniffing the air like hounds. I bit my lip. Boy, they were ugly. Their heads were huge and looked like someone had pressed down on them, squashing them into their shoulders. Wide nose, wide neck, wide face. Eyes which sank back in grey folds of flesh. I say grey, but it was unlike any grey colour—or flesh colour—I’d ever seen before. All I could think of was they looked like they would have been at home under the sea.

So now the hunters became the hunted. I followed them. This was my terrain and I knew how best to blend in with it. For another two hours they trudged about the city in a pattern I recognised. Someone had given them a pretty good idea of my typical movements. They ducked into bars, clubs, and other murky dives I won’t catalogue; you get the idea. Thorough. Just after midnight they decided to call the hunt off. They headed away from my stamping ground. It wasn’t long before I knew where we were headed: the docks.

It figured. Anything alien entering the city was almost certainly going to come in via the docks. The dirty end. I knew it well. Good thing I’d prepared myself for this picnic.

The two heavies lumbered along in shadow, ending up at a side-dock that was almost impassable. A million steel containers jammed it almost completely, so you had to wriggle through them. Fifty yards on, I saw the ugly boys pause at a narrow gangplank. I eased forward, masked by the shadows of the steel corridor. There was a ship tied up at the dockside. And, yes, it was the mother of ugly ships. Tramp steamer sounds about right. A fat, squat funnel, coated in soot and oil. Sides rusting, great smears of orange. Like a beached whale, rotting in the moonlight.

As the two goons went up the gangplank, it sagged and protested so much I thought it would snap. They managed to heave themselves on board. There was brief movement up above, but no light. There had to be a watchman, or a watch-thing. Obviously that wouldn’t be the way I’d get aboard.

I cursed mentally as I sidled past the gangplank and mid-section of the big tub. I would have to be the Human Spider, Rat Man or something similar if I was going to get up there. If? Hell, I had every intention of doing so. I made it to the stern and looked up at the two thick ropes hanging down from its rail to the quay. They looked slick and oily. My eye was distracted by the name painted across the curve of the stern: SEAWITCH, out of Port-au-Prince. Except the word SEAWITCH had replaced her original name. Whoever had daubed it out and then over-painted the new name had done a sloppy job. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, or cared. But in my experience, it was picking up on little details like this that had extended my lifespan. I could just about read the original name.

VOGUE PRINCE.

I wiped droplets of rain from my chin. Time for the fun to begin. A blur of movement had me ducking deeper into the rain-soaked shadows. A rat the size of a cat had scuttled up one of the thick ropes to the deck: a wise guy. So that was how it was done. Neat. I pulled on a pair of skin-tight gloves and untied my boots. They were not meant for shinning up dripping ropes. I didn’t want to lose them, so I tied the laces around my neck and stood in my socks. Anyone who saw me would have figured me for a nut. Given what I was about to do, maybe I was.

Then I was on the rope, toes gripping it like I was a monkey, gloved hands pulling me forward. The Human Rat in action. The trick is, do it fast. He who hesitates plunges into the drink. Believe me, no one wants to fall into those waters. They’re so polluted, you’d bounce.

Briefly buffeted by a cross-wind, I made it to the stern rail, gripped it and waited. I peered over. No one about. The ship was like a floating coffin. It was just a question of how many bodies it contained. The more the merrier. Who was I kidding? It was just the adrenalin rush kicking in.

I slipped over the rail and into the shadows, putting my boots back on. You never know when you want to give something—or someone—a good kick.

No sounds, very little light, but this was no ghost ship. It reeked of the sea: an old tub that had ploughed the waves for a long, long time. I slipped around to the side of the deck, peering in portholes: there was nothing to see. The shadows stiffened. I eased my way through the oil spills until I reached the bridge. Looking up, I saw only darkness. No one up there. Ahead and below the cramped hold stretched out, a gloomy chasm in the gut of the boat. There was a stair downwards. I heard voices, low and abrupt.

I took one deep breath, like a diver about to plunge into the depths and clambered softly down. A doorway below beckoned, a rectangle of bright light. I reached it, listening. Voices again, inside the hold. Time for an entry.

I moved in and to one side, trying to be inconspicuous. The place was garishly lit and as weird a cargo hold as you could expect. Thought it might be stuffed with coffee or rum. Instead it was more like a hotel suite—and high class at that. Most of the lighting was from thick, fat candles the size of logs. Expensive furnishings, very stylish seating. The floor was polished wood, glazed like ice. In its centre there was a design which put me in mind of pentacles and other such bizarre mathematical workings. The only thing missing was the throb of voodoo drums.

While I was gawking, both my arms were suddenly pinned. Hands like giant clams had hold of me. I winced, but made no effort to break free, not that it would have done me any good. I’d been expecting it. The two goons who I had followed—or two just like them—jerked me forward into the room. I avoided looking at their faces. We came to a stop just outside the pentacle thing.

My host came from behind a tall set of velvet drapes and inspected me, his smile sardonic. He was tall, unusually thin, dressed immaculately, his shoes as polished as the floor. I couldn’t place his nationality—Oriental? No, not quite. Polynesian? Maybe. Amerindian. No. Maybe some kind of weird blend. His eyes held me, amused, cold—boy were they cold.

“Nice of you to drop by, Mr. Stone,” he said in a clipped, English voice. Very cultured. He stepped forward, lithe as a big cat, swinging a silver-topped cane. I thought he was about to go into a dance routine. He looked the part. “Somehow I thought you wouldn’t resist following my two boys.”

“Your boys killed Polecat Eddy,” I growled.

“Friend of yours? Shame. However, I’m afraid there will be many more casualties. I need to clean up this town before I settle here. Introduce some class. So—what have you brought me? I think you have a little gift for the Vogue Prince, no?”

“I figured you had plans. Me, I work alone. Never subscribed to any of the firms. Not until now,” I grinned.

“Ah, yes. You recognise real power when you witness it. That was an impressive display at the brickyard. The object you used—very interesting. I take it you brought it?” He nodded to his two goons and they both slipped a hand into one each of my pockets. One brought out the gun, the other the stone. No reaction, no fear. They held them up.

The Vogue Prince indicated the design on the floor with his cane. The goons slid the gun and stone into it. My host bent down and looked at the elongated stone. It was smooth, apart from a few glyphs. He studied it cautiously, as if watching a coiled cobra. “What, exactly, did you intend to do with this, Mr. Stone? Absorb me? That’s what it does. Sucks in power. Drains it. I’ve heard of such things. They existed long before your kind.”

By my kind, I think he meant humanity, not inhabitants of the city. He was talking real old. And he was right.

“It’s yours,” I said. “I thought about it. My guess is, you can call up a whole lot more of them black powers than I saw at the brickyard. I’d be a mug to resist. So I figured, why not offer my services? Guy like me can be useful to someone setting up here. Hate to lose a good weapon, but if it buys me in, so be it.”

I could see he was chewing it over, his distrust clashing with his desire for the stone. I had gambled on it; I got lucky. He walked to the stone and picked it up, examining it gingerly.

“Very well– though I need to be satisfied it works.” He said something unintelligible to the two goons and they immediately started to pull my coat off. I’d been expecting something like this, and I put up a sort of struggle: if only for appearances. In a few moments they had me down to no more than my shorts. I was held like a chicken ready for the knife, or whatever implement they intended to use.

The Vogue Prince scowled deeply. He hadn’t been expecting to see the complicated pattern of blue painted lines on my chest. I said I’d prepared for this little soiree. The markings were part of it. A guy needs all the protection he can get in these situations.

“I don’t think that will save you,” said the Prince coolly. “It’s what you people call mumbo-jumbo.” He held up the stone. “This, however, is what real power is about.” He pointed the stone at me, and said something under his breath.

I braced myself, still gripped firmly by the two goons. Then the stone came to life. Rays of scarlet light speared out of it and struck me on the chest, dead centre of the glyphs on my naked skin. I was rocked back, the goons holding on like machines. It was a weird feeling, but I held my ground and the light kinda bounced back off me. I was muttering under my breath, using the words I had been taught. Call it a spell, or whatever, it was basically the reverse of the spell I’d used in the brickyard. So instead of drawing me into the stone, the power did the opposite: it regurgitated what it had swallowed.

The Prince knew at once something had gone belly-up and tried to toss the stone aside. No dice: it was like it was glued to his hand. And the air about it ruptured apart; a whole ton of mud came belching out. I say mud, but that’s just the way it looked. It was all those poor saps the stone had sucked in. And poor Polecat Eddy. The stuff pooled around the Prince—made one helluva mess of his shiny shoes, neat trousers and slick jacket. He screamed as the muck buried him and then, after a brief pause, it burst explosively, splattering the entire room, velvet curtain and all, in a disgusting, steaming stew.

The goons holding me collapsed like rag dolls. I wasted no time getting dressed and retrieving my gun. Meantime, a vague shape bent over the gloopy remains of the Vogue Prince. It turned a face to me and, just before it winked out like a light, smiled. Deep satisfaction. Polecat Eddy. Rest in peace, little man.

Mayhem on Mad Gull Island

I was locking the office, another week nailed, when I heard some kind of commotion down in the dingy end of the alley. Nothing unusual about a ruckus down there in the dark: dogs, cats, rats, and the occasional drunk, fighting each other, individually or all at the same time. So it went. But when I heard the yell—more a high-pitched scream—I checked my stride. It sounded more than a bit nasty. I slipped my Beretta out and eased down the alley.

River fog was drifting in. It was the usual Friday 4:30 pm muck you could set your watch by. Like it was sentient and knew it was a good time to drift in from the river, up the alleys and into people’s lives: cold, with a strong stench of the sea. I could see it curling and thickening, a regular witches’ brew. Stifling a cough, I edged closer to the action.

Through the grey murk I could barely make out four figures, their clothes obscured. One of them was in trouble, being the target. Some kind of mugging. I didn’t like the odds, given the noises the victim was making—the thugs must have been doing something pretty horrible to him. I caught a glimpse of his face, white and wide-eyed. Not one I knew, so not from around this neck of the woods. One of his assailants had a thick arm around his throat, naked and gleaming, like it had been dipped in oil.

“Nightmare!” the victim shrieked as his terrified eyes caught sight of me. He was dragged back into the darkness. I swore, stepping forward quickly. A lot of people know me as Nick Nightmare, an epithet which has stuck on account of some of the bizarre cases I’ve been involved in, rather than my personality. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I lifted my Beretta, but the alley was too clouded to let off a shot. Instead I moved forward quickly; there was another choked-off gurgle. The fog briefly opened and I saw a figure retreating so I let him have it. My vision was obscured, but I was sure I’d hit the guy; he just ducked and ran into the closing fog. Other shapes slipped away after him. I pursued, but my way was blocked by the fallen victim. I clambered over him and raced down the alley, knowing it led to a river which fed the city’s main watercourse and docks.

I saw them in another shifting of the fog, all bent down, collars drawn right up tight. I hollered and fired into the air; they ignored me and reached the riverside. To my amazement, they leapt out, head first, straight into the water. Now, I can promise you, that river water is not only cold, it’s filthy. Maybe not quite poisonous, but anyone taking a dip in that stew is asking for a night or more in the nearest isolation ward. I reached the waterfront and waited for them to surface, putting a hand to my face to smother the stench.

I had a long wait. No one appeared. These guys had dived and—not surfaced. I could barely see up and down the river. They must have swum like otters, even fully dressed. For a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of something downriver—a coiled something, twisting in the muck, slick and serpentine. Hell, it was gone before I could draw a bead on it. I gave up waiting and went back to the alley.

I bent over the man sprawled in its narrow confines. His tattered rags told me he was a riverside tramp: his face was white, bleached. The eyes were wide open: whatever they were looking at wasn’t of this world, nor was it of a pleasant disposition. I flipped his eyelids down over those bulging orbs. He had been wearing a thick, woollen scarf; in the scuffle it had been pulled aside to reveal his neck. I bent closer to examine it. There were marks around it where the arm of his assailant had been choking him: weals like burns. Inside them, like a necklace, were circular abrasions. Looked like they’d been made by suckers. By an oiled arm maybe?

I was getting a bad feeling about this. I checked out the guy’s pockets. Apart from a few dollar bills and some loose change, he had nothing on him. I was about to give up figuring who he was, when I noticed his clenched right fist. It took me a while to pry it open. Interesting. He had been gripping a small, yellowish item, obviously determined not to let the muggers have it. A shark’s tooth. There was a hole drilled through the broad end and a curious etching, a sigil perhaps, cut into it.

I didn’t know who this guy was, but I could guess who he’d come from: Sharkbait Bill. An old acquaintance of mine. And it looked like the stiff had been trying to get to me before the thugs caught up with him. I slipped the tooth into my pocket. I’d give it back to Bill when I found him. Assuming I could. With his messenger dead, I had no idea where to start looking. The docks, obviously, as Bill would never stray far from them; but there were a heck of a lot of docks. Bill had wanted to see me. That hadn’t suited someone, hence the heavy brigade.

I lugged the stiff into the darkest part of the alley where he wouldn’t be found. I made my way to the nearest phone box and dialled up Rizzie Carter, my local police chief. He was used to me dumping my dirty laundry on his doorstep: generally speaking we worked on the same side of the law.

“Jeeze, Nick, how come you always do this to me! It’s goddam Friday night and I’m on leave for two days!” Rizzie bawled down the phone; he always bawls. Like he was deaf or thought everyone else was.

“Just get one of your boys to clear up, Chief. All I want to know is—who is this guy? And where did he come from?”

Carter, in spite of his bloated size and collection of chins, was not a lazy guy. He packed more energy into that huge bulk than three of his rookies. I knew he’d come himself. Ten minutes later he was bending over the corpse, grimacing at its damaged neck.

“Looks like a bunch of vampires set to work on him,” he concluded in his basso profundo. Fortunately there was only me within hearing distance. “I’ll get the meat wagon.”

****

I abandoned my Friday evening luxury—an Italian meal in Fucinello’s– and went back to my office, clasping a chunky Jolly Joe’s Hero sandwich. Death by cholesterol, but hot and filling. I waited by the phone; it rang at around 7.00 pm. I held it away from my ear while Carter filled me in. According to his sources, often as seedy as mine, the dead man was a dockside bum known as the Grubber. Ran errands and passed on messages mostly in the East End docks. Based near a notorious inn, O’Darrigan’s Snug.

“Give me an hour to check the place over, then you can poke your own nose in there, if you’ve a mind to,” Carter roared.

I left my office at eight and headed down to the eastern docks, knowing I was asking for trouble. I went prepared and took an arsenal. If I could’ve slung a cannon over my shoulder, I would have. O’Darrigan’s Snug. I knew it from rare previous visits: a dive where entertainment meant a bunch of sea dogs beating each other’s brains out to the tune of whichever mad fiddler Dirty Dan, the proprietor, had booked for the night. Joining in with the punch-ups was optional, which was just as well as things usually got out of hand. So much so, in fact, that some of the participants ended up leaving in a sack.

As I entered the grimy little street which led to the dockside housing O’Darrigan’s, my nerves were screwed up tight. My right hand clenched the grip of one of my guns and I was watching every twitching shadow. The inn was very quiet, which itself was unusual. Wan light seeped from the windows, cold and uninviting. If Sharkbait Bill was looking for me, this was a good place for him to find me.

I went in slowly. The place was a cemetery, just a handful of drinkers, all stowed away in dark corners. There was a weird smell about it, not just the usual dockside reek of the sea, but something else: like rotting weed. At the bar, Dirty Dan was shifting bottles from a crate to the counter. He looked up, scratching his beer-barrel paunch and finger-combing his shock of blazing red hair. His eyes and muted voice told me that he was not his usual jocund self.

“Mr. Stone,” he breathed. Using my real name was a code for trouble. “The cops were here. They said the Grubber’s dead.” He glanced at a group of men who were huddled together, long coats wrapped around them, collars up high. A little bell was ringing in my head.

I discreetly showed him the shark tooth. “I got his message. Where’s Sharkbait Bill?”

Dan’s eyes told me to watch my back. I turned. Two of the drinkers were standing a few feet away. These guys were from Freaktown. Apart from being dressed up for a mid-Atlantic gale, they had pasty, greenish skin, and grotesquely wide eyes—fish eyes? When their leader spoke, his voice wasn’t normal, as if those translucent lips weren’t shaped for speech. I knew these creatures: they’d done for the Grubber.

“Mr. Nightmare. This not good place to be tonight. We hope you stay away. To avoid—unpleasantness. Best you go.”

I tossed the shark’s tooth up in the air and he made a grab for it. He was fast, but not that fast. I closed my left hand around it and pulled out my Beretta with my right, sighting on his forehead. “Where’s Sharkbait Bill?” I gave him my cold, dispassionate voice.

“We wait for him. You go.” His emotionless expression never wavered. Behind him I saw his cronies getting to their feet. There were maybe a dozen of them. I had enough slugs for them all, but I was going to have to be damn quick. Their long coats opened and all of them carried blades: long dirks. Behind me, Dirty Dan had disappeared—I was hoping for reinforcements.

What happened next took me by surprise—I thought I was fast. I felt my gun wrist being squeezed, like it was in a metal vice: my gun just dropped from nerveless fingers. Something coiled around my lower arm, like a thick whip. It was cold and slimy, pretty much like my guts were feeling. There was a stool beside me and I snatched it up with my free hand, smashing it as hard as I could against the thing gripping me. It was no whip. It was an extension of the fish-man’s arm, sliding out from his sleeve like a wet python. It loosened.

I smashed at it a couple more times and it let me go. Without the gun I was at a serious disadvantage against these bozos. Three of them groped for me and I swung the stool. It disintegrated on the head of the first of them. I ducked, rolled, and snatched up the gun, turning to blaze away—three shots. The first blew one of the fish eyes to splattering pulp, knocking the creature back over the bar. The remaining shots missed the other two; even so, it was enough to drive them back.

However, these uglies were not the scaring type. They circled me and leapt in. I was still on the floor, sliding away as best I could. I fired two more rounds into their legs and they screeched: weird, animal sounds. They toppled, unintentionally helping by obstructing the others. It gave me time to struggle up and yank out my second gun. The rest of them rushed me, dirks flashing in the cold light. I fired both weapons into the confusion. I must have downed at least six of them: they were either dead, dying or twitching uselessly like hooked fish.

Which left just another six. My attention was snagged by a scene behind them at the bar. Their spokesman had a hold of Dirty Dan, dirk to his neck. “Enough, Mr. Nightmare. Leave now. Go quickly.”

I stared into Dan’s eyes. He was a big man, veteran of innumerable bar brawls; but the creature trying to throttle him wasn’t human, and not predictable. I started to lower my guns. The other thugs watched me, knives ready to slice me open. I was going to have to back off.

Something hissed past my ear, and there was a soft, pulpy sound in the flesh of the creature pinning Dan. A whalebone knife handle protruded from between its eyes, the whole blade buried in the strange flesh. The creature folded up like an old sack and collapsed. Only one man I knew could throw a knife like that.

Sharkbait Bill had arrived.

I blew two more of the fish-men away as the last four rushed me. Their knives chopped at the air within inches of my face and it was only the mad howl of the repellent creature at my back that alerted me and saved me from a bloody finale. Bill carried a curved sword, a genuine old-style cutlass. He swung it with all the expertise and wild abandon of a mad pirate, decapitating two of the remaining fish-men before they could get out of the way. One of the last two crashed into me and I forced his dirk away as we thudded to the floor. Bill’s cutlass chopped down like a guillotine, splitting the head in two like a melon.

Dirty Dan brought up the rear, gripped the last of the fish-men in his two immense hams and squeezed until something popped. He dropped the corpse like a shrunken gourd, wiping his hands on his apron. “That’ll be enough shenanigans for one night. You boys’ll be wantin’ a drink.”

Sharkbait Bill helped me to my feet. Life had dealt him a crabby hand in the looks department. He had matching cauliflower ears which burgeoned out from either side of his huge head, a reddish purple nose the size of a zeppelin—alcohol induced—and a face that was scarred and deeply lined. And his eyes: they were sharp, piercing and, to most men, enough to see you off down the street. He had lost his right leg below the knee to shark attack, and had replaced it with a whalebone peg. He did more damage with it than he ever had with the original and was as nimble on his feet as an athlete.

A mite later we sat at the bar with O’Darrigan, who had finished clearing up the mess, including the bodies. Don’t ask me what he did with them; you don’t want to know.

Warmed by a couple of boilermakers, I quizzed Bill. “Want to let me in on what’s the hell’s going on?”

“These fish-goons have been tryin’ to move me on, away from my patch.” He meant the region of the sea where he did his fishing. He’d been trawling for years and made a reasonable living out of it. Enough to keep him and feed his simple habits: booze, enough to eat, booze, an occasional floozy, booze. Not so demanding. He was a loner and plied the coastal waters, hauling his nets and coming ashore no more than was necessary to sell off his catch.

“A while back I was trawling out of Buddstown. You know it?”

“Yeah—near the border of Connecticut and Rhode Island?” My unease deepened; Buddstown was usually mentioned in the same breath as Arkham, Providence, and Innsmouth: further north in Massachusetts. Not places I’d want to spend a vacation. Places that specialised in weird. And I do mean weird.

“Don’t know much about the land, but the waters are good for fishing,” he growled. “Never had no trouble with the locals before.”

I knew trawler folk were jealous of their patches and didn’t waste too many words when it came to a dispute. Even so, they were reckoned to be fair with each other. “So what about these goons?”

“First saw them in the water. Swimming.” He glared at his drink as if it had soured. “Force six gale, fifteen-foot swell breaking over my prow and these mugs were swimming. Thought they were seals at first; only seals don’t climb aboard yer boat and speak.”

“They threatened you?”

“Yeah. Told me to keep away from certain areas. That or my boat’d end up on the bottom. You’ve seen ’em now. Freaks of nature! Told me to keep away from the best fishing grounds. I use an island out there as a base a lot of the time. If the weather turns rough, I just anchor alee and hole up till the blow passes. These jerks must have taken it over. Said it was out of bounds.

“Place is called Mad Gull Island—it’s smooth as a pig’s rump. ’Cept for the gulls. Millions of the scum. They like fishing, too. Wouldn’t a-thought there was room for people on it. I don’t go ashore, just use the bays for shelter.”

I sat back, the booze no longer having its deep, mellow effect on me. Mad Gull Island. It had a nasty reputation, even in my urban realm. Not for hybrid fish-men, but for being a hazardous place to go near. In the course of my work I’d rubbed shoulders with not a few sailors of one persuasion or another. Mad Gull Island was well named, they said. Set foot on that hellhole and you’d find yourself dive-bombed or buried under gull-shit. Its bird population was crazed, one guy told me. He reckoned the government had dumped a whole load of chemicals on it and the gulls had eaten the lot and mutated into a flock of miniature Godzillas. A colourful point of view, yet it served to conjure up the kind of bizarre winged horrors which obviously thrived there.

“And these fish-men are on the island?”

“Maybe. I’d be glad to keep away from the place—I ain’t got no love for them sky rats. Vermin. Still, I can’t afford to give up fishing there, neither. I’ve spoken to some of the folks in Buddstown. Jeb Watterson for one. Reckon as how him and a few of his cronies would help us.”

Us. He’d said us.

“Come up there with me, Nick. We’ll round up some of the local hard men and fix these fish-men once and for all. What do you say?”

What did I say? He’d just saved my life. Okay, even if he’d gotten me into this mess in the first place, I guess I owed him. I shuddered. Mad Gull Island. A man had to be insane to even think about that anteroom to Hell.

****

The next day, fully provisioned and armed to the teeth, we set out for Sharkbait Bill’s hunting grounds. Something outré was definitely going down. I don’t just mean Bill’s little problem. This whole seaboard had become infested over the last god knew how many years by something freakish and disgusting. I’d come across the followers of these nauseating powers before—and lost friends to them. They worshipped some kind of old gods, dredging up something from the deep seas. I would have laughed at the suggestion once, but these days I had seen the sort of twisted travesties of life they conjured.

It took us three days, bucking and bouncing on the rough waters, to get to Buddstown. I don’t mind the sea. I’ve never been a sailor, but there’s something about the wildness of it, the careless way it slaps you about and does its damndest to turn your boats over and drag you down. That I find refreshing. Okay, it makes me sound like a masochist, though it’s not that. The sea is an ultimate expression of freedom. No one bosses it. You sail it or swim it under its terms. That or you’re a dead man. If you can do that when it’s kicking up rough, then you can appreciate life.

The half-pint, ramshackle port of Buddstown was cut out of a steep-sided bay. There was a narrow harbour built along both sides of a deep river, with enough draft for trawlers to berth. The town had its own fleet, with a few independents like Bill who tied up there; usually when the weather turned foul. We secured Bill’s boat, the Silkie Sister. His predilection for folk tales, combined with a remote Scottish ancestry, had prompted the name. We made for a tavern he knew on the harbour side. I squinted through the fresh downpour at the cramped buildings, which looked like they’d been picked up from some eighteenth century village and dumped here to rot.

“Let me do the talking,” said Bill. “There’s a few of these trawler men who’d be glad to see the back of the intruders. Reckon we can bank on them lending a hand to flush the bastards out of their nest. I told you about Jeb Watterson. Seems he’s respected. Maybe he can band a few together.”

We were almost at the tavern when its door opened and three of the night’s clientele spilled out. Bill accosted one of them. “Jeb Watterson in there?”

The squat troll of a guy peered up at him from rheumy eyes. He shook his head, pointing with a scrawny arm along the quay. “Down at the far docks. Near where the fire was.”

The three men watched us leave, as though they were glad to see the back of us. If this was how the local inhabitants welcomed outsiders, I didn’t feel too hopeful about the men Bill was planning to recruit. Although the rain had eased, the night was deeply gloomy. There were a few streetlights working, their pools of anaemic light sporadic. By the time Bill and I were far enough along the harbour, at a point where the disused warehouses squashed up against the rock wall, there was almost no light at all.

We studied those rotting buildings. They looked like one good kick would bring the lot down. Going inside seemed like a very bad idea.

“Watterson!” Bill called, shattering the stillness. We waited uneasily. Someone finally showed up, shuffling out of the warehouse. He wore oilskins and thick waders, his face shadowed under a hood. Bill knew him for the man he sought. Watterson lifted his head and the pale light washed those features: lined and puckered, he could have been anything from forty to seventy. And he had a long scar running from under his right eye down to the corner of his mouth, twisting it into a leer.

“Last time I spoke to you,” said Bill, “you were having problems with vermin. A particularly nasty outbreak. Way I see it, it’s time to deal with it. You people of Buddstown ready for that?”

The man looked up and the lurid glow caught his features. Pale, over-sized eyes, lips fuller then a normal man’s. There was something wrong here. I was about to warn Bill, when movements among the shadows heightened my concern.

The Freak Show had arrived. Five figures emerged from a broken-down doorway in the side of the warehouse. They were wearing long oilskins, buttoned up tight under the chin, and drooping hats shading their faces. The lamp light picked out their eyes—oddly large, saucer-like almost. Familiar to me now, those fish eyes.

The figures lined up in an arc, blocking off our retreat up the quay. All of them had their hands in their pockets, so I couldn’t tell if they were armed. My own right hand slipped comfortably around the grip of my Beretta.

“Shouldn’t have come here,” said Watterson, his voice dull and flat.

“You were warned,” said one of the fish-men. He did slip his hand out of his pocket. It must have been a deep pocket—he’d pulled out a curved weapon, some kind of old sickle big enough to slit open a shark. In an orchestrated move, the other four goons did the same. Watterson skulked back into the shadows, dismissing us. So much for the help of the good folks of Buddstown.

“Now that’s language I do understand,” grinned Bill ominously, tugging his cutlass from his thick belt. I did have a knife with me—two, in fact—but I just eased my gun out like a card-shark raising the bet.

I was feeling reasonably confident. If any one of the five moved I would simply blow a hole in his head. No point beating about the bush when the chips are down. I lifted my gun so they knew I meant business. And I wasn’t going to be outmanoeuvred by the uncoiled arm trick this time. They didn’t seem fazed, looking at me with those lunatic eyes as if the gun was a piece of harmless driftwood. No doubt their confidence was boosted by the sounds coming from behind me. I didn’t need eyes in the back of my head to tell me something was climbing out of the water on to the bank.

Bill turned and swore with typical inventiveness. Let’s face it, he was no poet. In essence he said, “Four more of the scum,” ending the conversation. He launched himself at the four from the harbour, his blade hissing ominously as he swung, literally, into action. Me, I just blasted two of the weirdoes aside before they could get too close to block my aim. I had to pull a knife out, though: the other three just came at me with those wicked gut-rippers.

I ducked and dived, barely avoiding being sliced and diced where I stood. I could hear Bill yelling like a maniac—he always thrived best when he was shouting, loud as a foghorn. I heard the ring and clash of steel and the rain of amazingly foul and abusive language indicating Bill was in his absolute element. There were loud splashes, too, suggestive of bodies being hurled into the harbour.

I concentrated on evading the wild swipes of my remaining three opponents until I had enough room to blast another one of them aside with my gun. The fourth brought his sickle down in a fast, slashing motion which should have taken my left hand off at the wrist. I twisted my knife and deflected the blow, losing the blade as it was knocked from my shattered grip by the impact. I barely managed to drop to one knee and put a slug in the assailant’s forehead before he finished the job he‘d started.

The last of them saw his chance and dived at me. Before he could cleave my unguarded head in two, his own head went spinning away in a bloody blur. Bill stood over me, cutlass dripping. This was getting to be a habit. A good one, mind.

“Any more of those bastards about?” he snarled, trying to wipe his blade on the oilskin coat of the nearest of our fallen opponents. He gave up and looked about, obviously eager to continue the mayhem. It had taken no more than a few minutes to deal with all nine of the fish freaks.

“I think we may have a bit of explaining to do to the authorities, Bill,” I told him, putting my gun away. He had thrown, kicked, and otherwise battered his four opponents into the harbour—they had sunk without trace and I didn’t expect to see them again, alive or dead. The five corpses on the harbour side, however—one sans head –were more of a problem.

“Chuck ’em in the drink,” he growled, about to do so.

“Hold on, matey.” I shook my head. “Go and get the Silkie Sister. Let’s get them down into the hull. We’ll dump them when we’re out to sea.”

****

My guess was, the inhabitants of Buddstown, the normal ones, if there were any, were unlikely to poke their noses into any nocturnal activities involving gunfire, especially near the abandoned warehouses. I was right: no one showed up. I did think, however, it might not be such a good idea to have a pile of bullet-blasted corpses lying around the harbour-side come the dawn. Fish-men or not, I couldn’t be sure that whatever passed for the authorities in this remote outpost of mankind would turn a blind eye to their bloody disposal.

Bill duly arrived in the Silkie Sister. Mooring her, he dragged a tarpaulin out from below, on to which I heaved the five dead. I assumed the missing head had conveniently rolled into the harbour and sunk down into the mud, unlikely to resurface long before we were out of there. Our movements were obscured from any potential onlookers by the darkness: clouds had thickened and the moon was blotted out altogether. We wrapped up the tarp and slung her down into the hold, Bill grumbling about toxic waste messing up his next catch.

“If we don’t get these Piscean pirates out of your hair, Bill, there won’t be another catch. Now—get this trawler outta here, fast.”

He needed no further urging. He’d had a bellyful of Buddstown and the same went for me. I wouldn’t be sending anyone a postcard from this dump.

We headed out seawards, well away from land, and got rid of the stiffs. They floated for a short time, before disappearing into the pitch-dark waters. Satisfied, we moved on and found a quiet place along the coast where we could anchor and hole up for the rest of the night without expecting to be disturbed. The sea was restless, though not unpleasantly so. We got some shut-eye.

We both woke up just after dawn. Bill immediately set to grilling something to eat and presently we had enough breakfast to feed a fleet of trawler men. Bill had a way of frying eggs, bacon, mushrooms and … well, you name it. They all went into the fat morass of a crisp, yellow-brown pie-like something. I ate enough to last me a week.

“Should keep us going until midday,” he grinned. “Then we’ll fry up some fresh cod.”

I chewed happily: no point in arguing. I pointed to his whalebone leg. “Tell me again about how you lost your leg, Bill. Shark fishing, wasn’t it?”

He grimaced as if I had touched a nerve, but in truth he liked nothing better than a chance to sound off about what had happened. No, not shark fishing: he’d been a long way offshore, out in the Atlantic. Him and two of his mates. Pulling in “…the biggest haul you ever set eyes on.” They had set to, gutting as much of the catch on board as they could, readying it for market. A ton of wasted fish blood and guts still got tossed overboard and it brought in the sharks. Usual pack of them, two dozen strong. Tiger sharks.

I don’t know much about sharks, but those were not man’s best friend. Some folks reckon sharks—even Great Whites—are fine if you just stare them out: eyeball to eyeball. They don’t like human meat and all the attacks you read about are mistakes. Sharks like to snack on seals or penguins. They get confused easy and the occasional human imitating a seal, for whatever bizarre reason, tends to get a bite or two taken out of him. Tiger sharks, said Bill, were different. They just ate. Indiscriminately.

“You want to discuss it with a tiger shark, make your peace with your maker before you get in the water.”

They’d hit a storm, a bad one and, for all their combined skills, the three sailors had lost out: their boat keeled over, spewing out both them and their catch. The tiger sharks ignored the storm. Calm seas, rough seas, tornados, it didn’t matter a damn to them. They wanted to finish off the huge catch. Which they did. Trouble was, they wanted seconds, and Bill’s two companions were it. Bill would have been finished, too, if he hadn’t been lucky enough to fetch up on an island. When he’d checked himself out to see if he really was, by some miracle, still alive, he discovered the miracle was a mite tarnished: he was missing the lower half of his right leg.

He lifted its replacement now and banged it down on the table. The whalebone leg was a fascinating thing, solid and, I guessed, very heavy. It had been ornately carved with all kinds of shapes, some which looked like sea creatures, mythical maybe, as well as different types of writing; I had no idea what. I don’t think Bill knew, either. It was “an Eskimo what done it,” he told me.

“He put some kind of magic into it. I ain’t met no sharks since. That old Eskimo, he told me if I do, this here leg will blow the bastards to smithereens.”

I nodded, admiring the leg. It certainly was a fine object. I have to say, I never mock these tales; if the leg was blessed, or cursed, then the chances were, in my experience, it would do just what he said.

He was scraping the few remains of our meal over the side when his face clouded. “Speak of the devil. Don’t pay to mock him.”

I asked what had spooked him and he pointed. I felt a shiver or two of fear. Out there in the waves I could see the unmistakable triangle of a shark fin. Or two. Or—five. It was like they had been listening.

“What the hell—are they following us?” My voice was shaking. Nick Nightmare, tough guy of the seas, was conspicuously absent—well, they were big fins.

“Those goddam corpses! We should have left them on the quayside.” Bill tapped his whalebone leg on the gunwale of the boat. The clang of bone on metal made no appreciable impression on the sharks. As we moved away from our mooring, and out to sea, the sharks annoyingly fell in line. They’d obviously got it into their heads there were more man-sized meals to be had: like tuna in a tin.

****

“I don’t get it,” said Bill, glowering at the tall island, now no more than three miles off. We had come east along the coast for a couple of days; Mad Gull Island was dead ahead. Something about it had jarred Bill’s mind into deep unease. “It’s taller,” he said, scowling.

I peered across the swell, through the mist. The island rose up like a butte in the desert of an otherwise empty sea. The mainland was on our port side, a vague, low-lying blur. There was a stiff breeze and enough daylight to see clearly when the shifting banks of mist opened. We got a little closer to the island and its shape became better defined. It was not unexpectedly weird: what you would call a stack, although Bill said it was just like someone, or thing, had raised up the entire island. As far as I recalled, the area wasn’t known for its seismic activity, but these things happened. Mad Gull Island had been a rounded hump, no more than a hundred feet above sea level at its peak; now it was a rounded hump on top of a towering stack, three or four hundred feet above the sea.

“So where’s your natural harbour? Up there in the clouds?”

“This ain’t natural,” he said. “I’ve seen some weird voodoo down south a-ways, but nothing like this. Maybe we should just get the hell outta here.”

Now that was not like Sharkbait Bill: it was the most sensible thing he’d said yet. All I had to do was say: Good idea, Bill. Let’s go back and open a few bottles. Did I say that? No. God knows what had gotten into me, as I tossed aside the opportunity to hightail it with my balls intact. Instead I heard myself saying:

“You didn’t bring me all the way out here just to take a few tourist snapshots then slink off home, Bill. Where’s the fun in that?”

He studied the sea around us. No sign of the sharks today, even though they’d been staying with us on the journey, like pups following momma. “Yeah, let’s get closer to the shore. Throw them sharks off the scent.”

He steered the trawler towards Mad Gull Island and its features started to come into focus. The cliffs were leaning outwards, thick with seaweed, hanging in festoons like some gigantic decoration. I could smell it even out here. Jagged rocks ringed the base of these towering cliffs like protective teeth. Water dripped and in some cases cascaded down the sides of the walls. You would have to be the most intrepid of climbers to want to try and scale them (such lunatics did exist, I knew). Suffice to say Bill and I would not be going on to the island via that route; no sir.

As we eased our way around the ominous cliffs, we heard sounds high above. A screeching, squawking cacophony; growing louder. The island was living up to its name. Over the crest of the cliffs, the first wave of gulls broke like an Atlantic comber in a storm. Thousands of them. Gulls, mainly white as snow, their beaks vivid red—red? For a gull?—their feet not webbed, but—clawed. Clawed? What the hell was this? Seagulls with claws?

I had no time to deliberate. The immense cloud of these flying rats poured down towards us like a feather avalanche. Bill conjured up another colourful expression which would have made a Marine blush and dragged me into the wheelhouse, pulling the door shut. Just in time, as the birds hammered down on to the deck and wheelhouse roof like missiles. The world outside was a raging blizzard of wings, claws and red beaks.

“No ordinary gulls,” I commented.

“Damn right. They eat people. And they don’t wait for them to be dead first.”

The noise, even in here with the door shut tight, was deafening. The gulls screamed hysterically, battering away at the trawler as if they meant to peck and scratch it to pieces. They were, as their name suggested, mad. Insane—totally outside any boundaries of normality. Mutations? What the heck could have done that to them? Lunatic military experiments?

I already knew, of course. The fish-men and whatever horrific deity they worshipped. Whatever blasphemous aquatic demi-god was dwelling out in the deeps had done this. It was warping whatever it touched. It sounds like the ravings of a madman, I know. But when you’re crouched down in the very vulnerable wheelhouse of a trawler, surrounded by a zillion screaming, blood-maddened gulls with claws, it doesn’t sound quite so deranged.

“Bill,” I said, failing miserably to disguise my nerves, “I think maybe we need to get to some kind of shelter.”

He gripped the wheel and did whatever he needed to get the Silkie Sister moving. Painfully slowly, he guided the trawler around to the seaward side of the island, barely able to see ahead through the solid mass of gulls. The birds were battering themselves to death in their attempts to open up the wheelhouse, their wrecked bodies piling up outside. The siege went on interminably, until at last we saw a huge split in the rock face that offered a way in to the heart of the island. Gritting his teeth against the sound of the hull scraping along those treacherous rocks, Bill took us into the crevice. The gulls mustered a final, maniacal assault, but they weren’t up for a flight in that dark, cramped space. They withdrew as we slipped inside the gap. The wall of noise fell back behind us.

Bill winced as we bumped into the rock face on either side, more concerned for his boat than anything else, and the darkness swallowed us. It would have been chilling, except it kept the gulls off us; so bring on the dark. I switched on the light, a flickering single bulb which barely penetrated the gloom outside. Now we had moved from the crazy screeching of the flock to silence. It dropped over us like a blanket.

There was light ahead. Sickly, greenish light which said: This is not a healthy place for you boys to be. This is an evil place. Now would be a good time to abandon any hope you might be clinging on to.

And go back to the gull apocalypse? No, not yet. Bill steered us quietly inwards and the great split opened up into a wider area, hollowed out from the very guts of the island, a cavernous place, its walls rising up to darkness overhead. It was, as I have said, lit by an eerie glow: a phosphorescent miasma which made a good case for staying inside the wheelhouse. In that creepy glow, we now saw a small waterfront. Although it was crude there was no mistaking it: cut from blocks of stone and otherwise featureless, it ran around the far curve of the cavern. Beyond it there were some kind of houses chiselled from the bedrock, but these were not your common, garden-variety. They were weird. Boy, were they weird.

The angles were all wrong: they leaned awkwardly and their doors and windows—openings, I should say—were twisted. This was the geometry of a drunk. Upwards they rose, claimed by the darkness. This was a city—or a small town—carved from the heart of the island. How long had it been here? It would have been under water until the island rose up. So had it been created long ago when maybe the island had originally been above water? Either that or— It was my turn to unleash a few meaty blasphemies.

Bill looked at me. Not shocked, but wondering what had occasioned my outburst.

“Whoever lives in this place, Bill, is marine.”

“The navy built this?”

I explained what I meant and he gazed at the buildings, mystified. He berthed the trawler, tying her off at a jutting stone which served well enough as a bollard. We checked out our armament—for once he was packing a couple of guns as well as his knives—and went ashore. The waterfront was slippery with weed; we moved very cautiously along it.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read a pulp novel where some sap is wandering about and suddenly gets the feeling he’s being watched. Eyes boring into him out of the darkness, invisible things watching him—all that stuff. The sap doesn’t see or hear anything; he just knows eyes are watching him.

Okay—well, this is the bit where I tell you that me and Bill were wandering along that waterfront in the gloom and we could feel we were being watched. Silence; no movement. Just that feeling. For real. Not nice.

He had his cutlass at the ready and I had my Beretta, plus a reserve in my belt. We came to a break in the buildings, a narrow alley-like gullet running deeper into the place. There was light at the far end. We’d come this far, so we decided to go on. That is, Bill did. He moved into the alley and I followed. If we were attacked, it would be one at a time.

We went down the alley, which broke out into a kind of square. Buildings surrounded it, the windows like black sockets, no sign of life in any of them. The stone walls were smooth, clear of any weed, which seemed strange. Maybe there were janitors who took care of all that stuff. There was another alleyway leading off and we both heard sounds emanating from it: gurgling noises like the sea was swirling around in a deep drain. Neither of us spoke.

The alley led to a broken, uneven staircase. Wherever it led to played havoc with my imagination. Even so, we climbed, the steps twisting and turning, until we came to another alleyway bisecting it. It led to a gallery which overlooked another large chamber. It felt like we’d emerged into an underground cathedral. Way up above our heads the ceiling curved to an open space where pale sunlight filtered down. There were countless rock ledges up there, ringing the uppermost reaches of the cavern. I flinched: sitting in quiet rows on those ledges were row after row of the psycho-gulls, squashed together like an audience waiting for the show to start. I could see the mad gleam of their eyes. Why did I think they were all fixed on me?

Bill jabbed my arm and pointed down into the cavern. It was lit by the peculiar greenish glow, the details vague. No bad thing.

Opposite us, some fifty feet below, two enormous pillars—or rock outcrops carved into pillars—rose up on either side of a huge seat made from blocks of stone that must have weighed several tons. My guess was it was some kind of throne—because draped over it was this gargantuan shape: a marine horror that looked like some kind of sea creature which had fallen into a nuclear reactor and come out a lot worse than when it went in. The mouth was all squid, but the body was more of a walrus: smooth hide, slick and gleaming. I was looking for fins or flippers, but there were none. Instead the thing had several long, curling appendages, thicker than Bill’s thigh; their ends furled and unfurled, like fingers clasping and unclasping.

Below us, facing the glistening, deep green thing, was a gathering of the fish-men. Maybe as many as a hundred. That strange gurgling Bill and I had heard was them. They were chanting, like sinners in a church, singing to the priest. It sent a shiver up and down my spine, I kid you not. If that wasn’t bad enough, another group emerged from the side of the place and lined up at the foot of the monstrous throne. Led in by more fish-men, they were absolutely silent—these were people. One by one they knelt down and flattened themselves. Worshipping, if you can believe it, worshipping Mr. Ugly.

I recognised the first of them instantly—no mistaking that puckered face with the scar running from eye to twisted mouth! I turned to Bill; he must have read my mind. “Yeah, that’s Jeb Watterson,” he whispered. “And the rest of them are from Buddstown, too.”

The thing on the throne unfurled its arms and touched each of the grovelling citizens of that God-cursed town. They rose up, shuddering with ecstasy, clearly enjoying the experience as they turned to face the rest of the company. Their bulging eyes widened even more as they changed. They were becoming fish-men: slaves of the subterranean deity which had made its base in this sunken chamber.

Some of those protruding eyes looked up, faces twisted with whatever kind of mad glee flushed them, and fixed upon the two figures watching from the high gallery. That’s to say, me and Bill. The sounds issuing from their throats may no longer have been human, but Bill and I understood exactly what they meant. It was time to sling our hooks.

“Think maybe we bit off more’n we can chew,” Bill said philosophically. Rather than engage in further conversation we headed back down the alley and the steps, near colliding in our haste to get the hell out of there. We could hear sounds coming from somewhere. The alleys and houses were still empty, but the shrieks and screams and—other noises—were amplified by them. It was like we were surrounded. I could hear the swishing of the final curtain.

We got through the square and down the alley leading to the waterfront just as a bunch of fish-men arrived further along it. Like we had overturned a wasp’s nest—this place was full of the creatures. God alone knew how long they had been taking on recruits—for all we knew the entire eastern seaboard was polluted with acolytes of this underwater cult. Like I said, I’d had brushes with it, but I was only now beginning to realise its full extent.

Bill used his cutlass like a scythe, cutting down three of the fish-men right beside the Silkie Sister. They spurted blood like anybody else and they died the same. Two of them tumbled over the gunwale into the boat, flopping about like an oversized catch. The other, neatly gutted, went into the harbour.

“Get ready to cast off!” Bill yelled, the words thundering around the cavern. He leapt into the boat and went straight to the wheelhouse, starting up the engine. I turned to face the first rush of the pursuit and fired off a few shots—easy kills—and my victims sprawled across the stones, hampering those behind them. Still firing, I lifted the rope from the bollard and flung it into the boat, quickly following it before the first webbed hands could get hold of me.

I was on my second gun by now, blazing away like I was re-enacting the Alamo. The odds were about the same, but at least Bill had swung the boat away from the waterfront. We’d have been able to draw breath if the pursuers had been human, but these boys just dived headlong into the water. I concentrated on re-loading my guns. As we turned and made our way towards the exit to the cavern, I fired into the churning waters behind us, not sure how successful I was. It was dark out there and there were scores of these things after us.

Somehow we evaded them, entering the narrow channel that led out of there. Bill steered more swiftly than when we’d arrived, gambling that the boat wouldn’t start banging up against the walls again. Any delay and we would be overrun. I leaned over the stern, watching. Although the waters were stirred up, none of the fish-men surfaced. I was sure they were down there, like torpedoes aimed at our hull.

“You better get in here!” Bill bawled. “We’re going to break out in a minute. And sure as Hell’s hot, it’ll be rainin’ gulls again.”

I got into the wheelhouse as we broke from the tall cleft in the rock face and came to open water. For the moment the sky was clear of the gulls, but we knew they would be above, certain to renew the attack at any moment. Something bumped against the hull, and again: our fish-eyed pursuit was hotting up. Unless we did something soon, they would be aboard, swamping us just like the gulls. Likely they would rip the wheelhouse to pieces to get at us.

“I have an idea,” I said to Bill, who was cursing roundly and fulsomely as if it would be enough to deter pursuit. Ordinarily it might have been. But not in this aquatic nightmare. I dashed out on to the deck and took hold of the first of the two dead fish-men. It leaked blood and guts as I heaved it over the stern of the boat. The second of the bodies went the same way and for good measure I fired off a few more rounds into the water –the odds in favour of hitting one of the pursuers were short, seeing as how there were so many of the damned things.

Back in the wheelhouse, I watched the heaving sea around us. A thought struck me. “Those sharks. Persistent cusses. They may still be around.”

Bill glared at the sea. “Hell, we got enough on our plate without them muscling in on the act. Here come the gulls.”

Just as before, we found ourselves dive-bombed by a vast cloud of the warped gulls from the island’s heights. A white mass descended, beaks driving like pump-drills at the wheelhouse. The only consolation was it kept the fish-men at bay. My guess was if they had boarded us at that point, the gulls were so frenzied, so wound up with blood-lust they’d probably have torn into the fish-men just as happily as they would have me and Bill.

To my amazement, Bill burst out laughing. I knew he liked a fight more than most men– he was more than a little mad himself—but the humor of the situation passed me by. Until I saw what had made him laugh. A fin. No—there were more. Our original followers had not abandoned us. My idea had paid off. They had come for the bodies I’d thrown overboard. Evidently, the fish-men were to their taste. I soon had proof positive: a huge shape curved up out of the spray close to the boat, the sleek, missile-like body of a tiger shark. Before it disappeared into the waves, I saw its mouth, its rows of teeth and, clasped therein, a struggling fish-man. I was all out of sympathy.

Through the increasing flurry of gull madness I saw more fins. Our original followers had called in the whole gang. Plenty of food for all. A veritable feast, in fact. And as the waters churned around us, turning a delightful crimson colour, the gulls went absolutely crazy. Which was difficult, seeing as how they had been pretty much that way to start with. The carnage in the water, the scale of the slaughter, drove the gulls to distraction.

The Silkie Sister moved away, no longer the focus of attention for the diving squadrons. The gulls scented blood and there were enough corpses, or bits of corpse, in the water to glut them all. Easy pickings—no point expending energy on me and Bill in the wheelhouse. I watched as the sea behind us continued to boil. I was just thinking that we were free of the fish-men, when I saw two pairs of hands, with webbed fingers, gripping the stern of the boat. These two jokers meant to come aboard.

The gulls had fallen behind, a last few whirling high overhead, preparing to join the melee down in the sea where the sharks were having their murderous way. I opened the door to the wheelhouse and went out on to the deck, gun still hot from the shooting. I slowly crossed to where the two fish-men were clinging on; fish in a barrel, or near enough. Except when I pulled the trigger I realised I was out of ammo. In my excitement I had emptied both guns again.

I was surprised the two fish-men weren’t trying to clamber aboard. They seemed happy just to hitch a ride. Escaping the fury of the sharks, maybe. I pulled out my knife and approached them cautiously, peering over the stern rail. Both wore hang-dog faces; not so surprising, since from their chests down, there was nothing left. The sharks had done their work. All I had to do now was free the hands of the dead fish-men and let what was left of them float away.

I swung the knife, one of Bill’s curved, cutlass affairs, meaning to cut the fish-men free. As I raised the blade, something lit up the eyes of the first of them: a light from deep within, impossibly alive. Worse, I recognised that goddam scar, running down the right side of his face. It was Jeb Watterson! His hand jerked free of the stern and gripped my wrist, tugging at me with all the strength of hell and damnation. The shock weakened me, so much so that I hesitated and whoever said something about the guy who hesitates is lost, knew a thing or two because before I could prevent it, I was performing an unplanned somersault and landing in the water, the Silkie Sister chugging away from me.

Instinctively I hacked at the hand gripping me and sliced it off at the wrist, leaving me with an unwanted ghoulish bracelet. My hideously unsynchronised and distinctly non-Olympian tuck and roll had taken me deep and I couldn’t see much, but I knew there were shapes in the water, blurred but solid. The fish-men hadn’t given up the chase altogether. Fortunately, if that’s the right word, there were sharks there, too. I concentrated my frantic efforts on getting to the surface, pronto. Not so easy when something grabs your foot and pulls you deeper.

Any minute now, I thought, my entire life is going to unfold before me. Not a pretty sight. I fought the thing holding me; most of all I fought panic. Real bowel-twisting panic. How long it went on, I don’t know. You can’t move easy in sea water: you slow right down. Except for your heart, which is pounding out the beats at several times its normal speed.

Something thumped into me and I thought—that’s it, closing time. Nick Nightmare, shark feed. But it wasn’t one of the killing machines. It was Sharkbait Bill. Being heroic. He’d joined me in the drink and there was this weird glow about him. It took some slow figuring out underwater, but then I had it. His leg! His amazing whalebone leg. Magic, like the Eskimo had said, it blazed like a torch. The last of the half-chewed Watterson-thing shrivelled up like a worm in a furnace and my foot was free of its grip.

I floated in a kind of slow motion, watching the strangest conflict imaginable as Bill’s pulsing leg opened up the belly of a tiger shark, turning the sea deep red. Fish-men thrashed about as if caught in an electrical current, twisting so convulsively they looked as if they might burst. Whatever juju was in that whalebone leg, it was pouring out in waves. It caught me up in the maelstrom and I had visions of being sucked down into oblivion. Light flashed, severed limbs and heads swept by, and shark teeth flashed, ripping apart the one Bill had gutted. Everything seemed to be tearing into everything else. Except, miraculously, me and Bill.

At long, long last, we broke surface, both gasping for air and Bill lugged me back to the boat. I was over the side and coughing up seawater before I knew it. Huddled inside the relative warmth of the wheelhouse, I gasped out my gratitude.

“My pleasure,” he grinned, watching the huge, bloody stain from which we’d emerged as it slowly drifted astern of us. “You know what? I’m thinking maybe I should go back to the South Seas and start over. Don’t care much for the Atlantic no more.”

“I’ll tell you what, Bill. A life on the ocean is not for me. I’m happy to go back to my humdrum existence in the city.” I said it with a stupid grin. I mean, who was I kidding? When had my existence ever been humdrum? “There’s just one phone call I gotta make. Let’s leave Mad Gull Island to the navy.”

Kiss the Day Goodbye

Sometimes you’re glad of the dull moments between jobs, especially when you’ve been tangling with the kind of freaks and psychos I seem to get mixed up with in this private dick business of mine. When you’ve been attacked by weirdos who spend more time underwater than on land; or by voodoo-crazed mutants; or by the usual gangland mob who’d sooner shoot you than spit, you appreciate the quieter times. I fill some of these with a good read. Now, when I say a good read, I’m not talking any of that classical stuff. You can keep your Dickens, Zola, and the slicks. Me, I like Bart Kraggs.

Bart Kraggs. There’s a name to conjure with. He writes my kind of book. Dead Dames Don’t Bounce, The Blonde Wore Bullets, that kind of noir. Beat-em-up, no-nonsense, thick-ear melodrama. I have no illusions about it. It’s crude, not haute cuisine literature; and it’s music to my ears. Most of all, I like the Ned Killigan stuff. He’s something of a model for me. Just about on the right side of the law. He kicks out the trash and no messing.

So, this particular night, I was sunk back in my office chair, feet on the desk, papers nudged aside, head buried in Killigan Kills Again. One of my favourites. No punches pulled, a corpse on every other page, the Big Guy wreaking havoc among the thugs who’ve rubbed out his favourite dame. I know it inside out and can recite the best chunks; it’s an old friend and I like it to keep me company.

When the phone jarred me back to the real world, it was as much as I could do not to respond with “Ned Killigan.”

Talk about a coincidence: the voice on the other end was none other than that of Bart Kraggs himself. “Jeeze, Bart, you must be psychic,” I said, sitting up and brushing myself down the way people react to royalty. “I was just thinkin’ about you.”

“I need your help, Nick,” he said. I could sense the nerves jangling. “It’s a weird one.”

“Weird is my alter-ego, you know that. Where are you?” It was early evening: a cold, blustery January. My guess was a bar.

“I’m with Captain Malevolent.”

That would have been my second guess. Madcap Mal runs Kikbak Komix, a beat-up joint boasting pretty much all the back issues of any half-decent comic you can name. That or access to it. And pulps—I kid you not, Mal has everything worth having. I reckon Kikbak Komix is worth more than Fort Knox. Plus it’s my second home. I’ve spent many a cheerful hour with Madcap Mal, chewing over the finer points of Bart Kraggs and writers like him.

Not long after the phone call I was outside the store. It’s buried away down a maze of back alleys: a place you have to want to find and not one you’d come on by chance. I approached it with caution, like my third eye was looking out for something. Call it intuition. It gets me like that sometimes: although Bart hadn’t said anything other than being mixed up in something weird, I was ready for any obvious trouble. I turned down a very narrow side alley, so dark it blended into the buildings; more like a crack in the bricks than a passage. From its shadows I could see the front of Kikbak Komix and the store’s immediate neighbours, none of which had operated for a long time. In this backwater, Kikbak was the only sign of life.

As I watched, I noticed movement in a couple of the alleys opposite my hiding place. Just a subtle shift among the shadows, but enough to know someone—or thing—was nosing. I slipped my hand around the Beretta in my coat pocket. In this part of town it was shoot first, questions later. I crossed the narrow street; the shadows receded like rats disturbed at their bin-pillaging.

The storefront was boarded up and wire-netted; the name KIKBAK KOMIX ran across the top of what had once been a wide window. A couple of faded superheroes leapt and flew around the lettering. The door was as solid as the entrance to a maharaja’s mausoleum, but there was a bulb glowing under the lintel. Captain Malevolent was at home. I don’t think he ever went out. I prodded the buzzer button, using a unique sequence given to me by the Cap. Moments later a rasping voice that resembled a death-rattle came at me from a hidden speaker:

“Door’s open, Nick.”

I pushed and entered, the thick door closing behind me. Again I got an intuitive feeling, as if I had just shut out a nasty bank of fog. Another door clicked and opened and I was in the store. It’s a joy to behold, that place: I could spend a lotta time rhapsodising, but let’s just say it was stuffed from floor to ceiling with goodies. Comics, magazines, pulps, the stuff of dreams. A blaze of colour—heroes, super and modest, dames wearing little more than seductive smiles, villains, monsters, horrors, aliens from the far reaches of the imagination—they were all crowding each other in hundreds of displayed covers.

I did what I always do and gaped, the proverbial kid in the candy store. Mal sat behind a counter, perched on a rickety stool, the embodiment of all those covers. He was not much bigger than a kid, wizened and with more wrinkles than a crate of prunes. Minute spectacles balanced on the end of his extraordinary nose and his claw-like hands turned the pages of the book he was reading like they were gold foil.

Without as much as a cursory glance, he poked a finger skywards. “Bart’s in his den,” he growled.

I nodded, like I was in the presence of a confessor priest. I’m not a religious guy, but that store is as close to a shrine as I get. I climbed the cramped stairs, avoiding the ones about to burst in a woodworm-induced cloud.

Bart was waiting. This was his home-away-from-home, where he did a lot of his writing. A bare room, the complete opposite of the store, with a fireplace, a table, a phone, two battered armchairs, and Bart’s manual typewriter. Yeah—no modern technology for Bart Kraggs. He banged his stuff out in the old way and gave it to a secretary to prepare for publication. He liked the atmosphere—which wasn’t so easy to breathe, seeing as how he clogged it up with an endless sequence of poisonous, high-tar smokes. I would have opened a window, except there were none. Me, I prefer gum.

“Those things’ll kill you,” I told him, not for the first time, watching him suck in a great lungful of disgusting smoke and coughing it out noisily. He was a bag of bones, in worse condition than Mal; but there was a vitality in him men half his age would have envied.

“I’m nigh on seventy, Nick. Fit as I ever was. It ain’t the smokes that will do me in.”

I sat opposite him. He went to the fireplace and tossed his half-smoked cigarette into a fire that was burning gently. “Thanks for coming. Don’t suppose you know Rocky Ridge? He’s a writer like me. Uses the handle, PJ Ludbane.” He started to pace, like he was about to uncurl one of his plots.

“Horror,” I said. “You do the ’tecs, he does the ghoulish stuff. I don’t read it.” Most of the time I was dealing with the real thing.

“Ain’t many writers got an imagination like Rocky. Fact may be stranger than fiction—who knows that better than you, pal?—still, Rocky dredges up some of the weirdest stuff this side of Hell and beyond. And he’s as sane as me and you, Nick.”

That wasn’t saying a whole lot. “So what’s his problem?”

“He’s been warned off. Someone out there reckons his latest bunch of stuff is getting too near to the truth. Like he’s basing his yarns on real characters and events. Sounds like complete bullshit to me, Nick: his stuff is way out. I’ve read a lot of it. If I thought it was real, I’d likely pack up and move somewhere healthy. Like Mars. He writes about old gods, secret cults, bizarre practices, mutated creatures taking over whole villages and towns. Fabulous—people like it hard and horrible. But it ain’t real, for Chrissakes!”

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything: not after what I’d witnessed in my own travels. Seemed to me Bart was a shade naïve. Maybe the only bad experiences he’d ever had were in his books.

“Who put the fear on him? Got a name?”

Bart shook his head. “He may have. He can describe them: sounded like something from one of his freakier yarns. He’s shaken up. Doesn’t like to talk about it. I only got it out of him because he was liquored up, and that’s not normal for him. Can you see him, Nick?”

“Sure. And I’ll read up on his latest stuff. Mal will have it, right?”

He scribbled down an address on a pad and handed it to me. I could see by his face there was more to come. He just seemed reluctant to speak, as if this whole business was somehow embarrassing. Maybe he thought Rocky Ridge was losing his marbles. Even I couldn’t be sure.

Bart put his scrawny hand on my arm. “Seems like us writers are attracting the wacky brigade right now, Nick. Rocky’s not the only one with problems.”

“Someone bothering you?”

“Not like they are Rocky. That’s nasty. My problem is … hell, I don’t know if I’m imagining it. It may just be all in my head, since no one’s threatening me. I’m being messed with; I’m darn sure of it.” He was pacing about again. I watched him quietly, letting it all come out in his own time.

“Writers have their own problems. Ideas dry up; we get writers’ block; we write the odd dud. We live with it. Usually it’s temporary. I’ve shared thoughts on it with plenty of my colleagues; we all suffer. Occasionally we get an ace idea for a yarn and when we start to bang it out, we find some other guy’s had the same idea and he’s already used it. The collective unconscious at work, right? Fact of life. But when it keeps on happening, especially with your best ideas, it starts to grate. It ain’t coincidence anymore. It’s like someone is screwin’ with your brain. Right now, it’s drivin’ me nuts. I can’t hold on to one good yarn without some other guy beating me to it, stealing my thunder. Does that make me sound like a lunatic?”

“Same guy?”

“Don’t know. A lot use pen names. Several, in some cases.”

“Write down the names of all the guys who’ve published stories you reckon were your ideas: magazines, publishers, anything relevant. I’ll do some digging. Meantime, I’ll go and see Rocky Ridge.”

****

When I left Kikbak Komix, I sensed eyes watching me from the shadows. They didn’t follow me, so I guessed they were interested in the store—maybe Bart himself. I’d follow that up later. Meanwhile I went to pay the other writer a visit.

Rocky Ridge had an apartment in an old, inconspicuous brownstone; when I reached it, I found I wasn’t the first. Rizzie Carter, the local police chief, was already encamped with a posse of his cops. The place was a mess, and so was Rocky Ridge. Everything was strewn about like a bomb had hit the place, including Ridge. I’d rather not describe what the bad guys had done to him.

Rizzie’s huge bulk loomed over me, collective chins vibrating to his thunderous bawl. “How come you’re nosing about here, Nick? What do you know about this?” He eyed me with deep suspicion. I told the big guy what I knew from Bart. He listened and at the end, nodded.

“Yeah, the killers were looking for something,” he boomed. “You say they didn’t like what he wrote about? I heard he was a pulp writer—sleaze and stuff like that. Was he fingering someone in the Mob? Is that what Bart Kraggs told you?”

I nodded. “It was just his hunch, Rizzie.”

Later, close to the witching hour, the cops finally left, no wiser than when they’d arrived. Rizzie okayed me having a poke around. I’d come up trumps for him before and he trusted me not to mess things up. There were times when I’d been glad of his help. I knew what the thugs had been looking for: it had to be the next plot or two that Ridge was going to write. Maybe a notebook. Didn’t seem to be a computer here or any sign of one.

I had a number for Bart.

He answered at once, his voice guarded—like he was surrounded by his worst fears incarnate. “Dead! Jeeze, you’re kidding! Rocky Ridge is dead?”

“He got even closer to the truth. Did he use a computer?”

“He was even more old school than me, Nick. He wrote all his stuff longhand.”

I was standing next to a wall of books, some of which had been yanked off the shelves and scattered about like the rest of the chaos. I could see one run of the shelved books were PJ Ludbane titles, presumably a set of them. I grimaced at the titles, like Tentacles of Terror and Damnation from the Deep. There must have been two dozen of them, along with a whole load of pulp magazines.

“I see he liked to keep his output together,” I said, casually reading off some of the titles to Rocky. The last one was Death Seeds from the Future.

I could hear Bart chewing that one over. “Must be a new one. I don’t know it.”

I pulled it off the shelf. It was a shade taller and thicker than the rest, and had no jacket—all the other books had lurid covers. Instead of scantily clad dames being pestered by hoods with guns and such like, these had scantily clad dames being pestered by things which were more tentacle and drooling tongue than anything else. Death Seeds from the Future was the exception: plain covered, with no dust jacket of any description. I opened it and realised why. It wasn’t a novel: it was a notebook. And a quick flip through told me all I wanted to know.

“Is it too late for me to come over?” I asked Bart, shoving the book deep inside my inner pocket. He said it wasn’t, so I got moving.

I made it to the door and had just pulled it shut, engaging the lock as I’d promised the chief, when I heard something down on the stairs below. There was one miserable bulb lighting the stairwell, barely enough to see by. I slipped out my Beretta and looked for another way out. There was a corridor and I eased down it quietly. More stairs, but my guts told me they were occupied. Rocky Ridge’s killers were looking to double their tally, and they wanted that notebook. I found another, narrower stairway and went down it fast. Looked like it was an emergency exit, just what I needed. You might know the door at the bottom of the stairs was locked.

I peered up through the gloom. Something gleamed above me, oozing across the top of the stairs. The light barely picked it out, but I could hear what sounded like a drain emptying: sucking and bubbling. Stuff curled out over the stairs and dripped; thick globules of grey muck melting downwards like a slow motion waterfall. And boy, did it stink. Seaweed and rotting fish, like a ton of gunk had been scooped up from the harbour bottom and dumped in the upper corridor. As it rolled on ponderously down each step, viscous as molasses, my guess was the bottom line would be my mummification in slime. I was trapped down there.

I turned to the door and gave the lock two shots from the Beretta, followed by a kick strengthened by panic. It did the trick and the doorframe caved in. I was outside, fast as a cat with its tail on fire. A few strides and I was away from the brownstone, heading back to Kikbak Komix. I could feel the book inside my coat, like it was burning a hole in it, but no way was I losing it.

I eventually approached the store from one of the side alleys, meaning to exit it and go back in through the usual door. However, the mouth of the alleyway darkened as if all the nearest streetlights had just blown out. I heard a familiar gurgling sound. Whatever that goddam gloop had been back at Ridge’s place, there was more of it here. It started to ripple and roll into the alley, taller than me and twice as ugly. Worse still, it had a double: the far end of the alley, where I’d entered it, was likewise gunged up with the muck. It was coming at me in stereo and I was stuck in a brick coffin. I looked up: there was nothing to climb up on, the brick walls smooth and slippery.

I tried blasting both masses with the gun, but the bullets simply plopped into the muck like cherries tumbling into Jell-O. I used some of my best abusive language; it didn’t work either,. The curtain was about to come down on my dubious career.

I heard another sound, a grinding, grating noise, like steel and gears. From inside the wall on the store side of the alley. I put my hand on it and felt it vibrate; then it shook. Finally a whole section of it slid sideways as if it was on rollers. What the hell was this, a Bat Cave or something? The two bubbling walls of protoplasmic mire were only yards away on either side of me, when I saw a figure limned in the brick opening. Captain Malevolent had arrived. Stooped and squinting, he looked more like a runaway gnome than a superhero, but I tell you, right then, he was my hero.

“Get your ass in here, Nightmare!” he growled. I didn’t need him to repeat it. As I jumped into the opening he did something with his hands—I couldn’t see what. The two gelatinous columns closed in, there was a blinding flash, and a humming like a generator in a power station. The brick door slammed shut. In the ensuing dark I felt the whole building shake like it was about to fall apart.

Mal flicked on a light, nodding to himself. “Nothing gets into my store unless I okay it,” he wheezed. Outside there were distant booms, muffled by the wall. I gaped at him. I knew he was the last word in bizarre, but heck—was he some kind of magician, too?

“You got the notebook?” he snapped.

I pulled it out of my coat. Not only was it hot, it was kind of glowing. Like I said, it had no dust jacket—the cover was bare, but it had a slightly embossed design on it: a weird, demon-thing, wrapped around a sword. I wasn’t going to argue with something that must have played a part in my eleventh-hour rescue.

Upstairs, we joined Bart in his den. The writer looked at the notebook uncomfortably. “Seems like you got to it just in time, Nick. What do you know about it, Mal?”

“I warned Ridge he was playin’ with fire. He weren’t the first to tamper with things from beyond. Pass them off as stories. Should’ve let sleeping dogs lie. Instead he kicked their asses. Now they’re awake. You read that notebook and you’ll know what I mean.”

“It’s no ordinary notebook, is it?” I said, dropping it on Bart’s table.

Mal shook his head. “No. It’s protected. Strong magic. You’ve seen it at work. Ridge had a bunch of weird friends. He was no ordinary pulp writer.”

He left me and Bart to leaf through the notebook. Death Seeds from the Future turned out to be a whole lot of notes for an alien invasion novel. Things from another dimension, sea-things: sneaking into ports and infecting their inhabitants like a plague. I felt progressively more spooked as I read it. After all, I’d encountered some of this stuff. But if this wasn’t fantasy, a product of Rocky Ridge’s unhinged mind, then something big and nasty was going down. No wonder it had sent the gloop-death out for me.

“Burn it,” said Bart. “No one in their right mind is going to believe that stuff. So burn it and whatever wants it will go back to wherever they came from.”

You wish, I thought, but didn’t say it; just nodded. “Okay, so we were too late to save your pal. Let’s concentrate on your problem.”

Bart put a couple of extra logs on the fire. We sat on either side of it, him smoking one hand-rolled cigarette after another, me chewing a fresh wad of gum.

“So what are you working on now?” I asked.

“A new Ned Killigan. I’m about a third of the way in. It’s about a drug ring.”

I stopped him short. “Don’t spoil it for me—keep your ideas tight to your chest, buddy.”

“I started another Killigan yarn last week, just a short one for Street Detective Magazine. Only got half way through it. Another of the magazines ran a story yesterday that was a dead ringer for it. Like it had been lifted off my desk, dammit.” He yawned. It was near enough 2:00 am.

“Get some shuteye.” He had a bedroom next door where Mal let him stay when he was busy on a new story. “I’ll stretch out here.” I wasn’t excited about the prospect of going back out into streets bulging with homicidal blancmange. Bart nodded and left me to it. He shut the door to his room. It wasn’t long before I heard his snores, loud as thunder.

I didn’t much feel like sleep myself, so I read more of the notebook. Most of it was in note form: garbled sentences; more a bunch of ideas—some linked, some random. There were names, some of which would have needed a couple of tongues to get around, and even a few diagrams, reminiscent of pentacles and things associated with demonic practices. At one point I felt my nape hairs tightening. I saw the name, Buddstown. I remembered my trip to that dump a few months back. To say it was freaky was being kind.

Now, I like to keep an open mind on things fantastical, said mental state being based on some very weird experiences. I’m a sceptic, but I never say “No such thing.” It tempts fate and whatever it is you’re denying usually jumps out and socks you in the kisser. I was wondering about this stealing of ideas: Bart had said it was like having someone inside his brain. He’d started a Killigan story last week and it had been filched, appearing yesterday. Hell, that was fast. I knew some writers could turn out a story real quick and have it out in print in a matter of days—the pulps did move fast as there was a big market. Even if the thief had sneaked into Bart’s workroom, read the yarn, and gone off to write it for himself, that was still damn fast.

And how the heck would a thief get in? Madcap Mal had said, Nothing gets into my store unless I okay it. Physically, it would be impossible. There were no windows to the room and, looking up at the ceiling, I could see no trap doors to a loft or any other kind of potential opening. The only person who had access was Madcap Mal himself and I couldn’t believe he was the thief, or would endorse one. Hell, he was Bart’s biggest fan, even over me.

I got up, still carrying the notebook, moving to Bart’s bedroom door. I listened. The snoring had stopped and I could hear something in there. What the hell—it sounded like surf, gently breaking on the seashore. Even Bart couldn’t snore that way. From under the door came a draft of very cold air, like something from outside: the frosty grip of January.

I gripped the doorknob—also icy cold—and twisted it slowly. The door wasn’t locked and I was able to ease it inward. I held the notebook in my left hand and took the Beretta out of my coat pocket in my right. Inch by inch I nudged the door open with my knee. Cold air pulsed out from the room as if I’d gone outside into the night. The room was lit, though not by any normal means. This air was pale green, a corpse-light.

Bart was dead to the world, head propped up on the generous pillow, his mouth wide open as he drew in that sickly air. Around him, a kind of mist was swirling about like fog in a breeze. Shifting within it, hovering over the bed, was a human shape that seemed to be flickering in and out of substance, trying to coalesce into something solid. It was a man, his white face ghastly in that glow, his huge eyes fixed on Bart’s like a modern Svengali at work. Right there, I christened it the Scene Stealer.

I was frozen in the doorway, my own eyes glued to the scene. I guessed bullets wouldn’t be the answer here. Only some kind of talisman was going to counter this joker. And I had none handy. I had stuff, but mostly it was just too dangerous to use. All I could do was watch.

The thief bent over Bart and from its eyes two strands of pure white something—ectoplasm?—writhed down, coiling together like rope and entering Bart’s mouth. The writer was almost motionless, his chest barely lifting and falling. My guess was, this was how his brain was being relieved of all its latest ideas.

I was about to conceal myself behind the door, when the thing finished its work and swung round as if it had heard me. Those glittering eyes did look my way and the face, glaring like a lunatic’s, started to contort; fit to put the squeeze on anyone’s bowels. I held my ground. My left hand, clutching the notebook, felt hot. My fingers were splayed over the cover; I felt the embossed design, demon wrapped around sword, shifting. Some kind of energy flowed from it into my hand. I almost dropped the book.

The thief looked through me like I wasn’t there. So the notebook was protecting me: I was invisible as long as I held on to it. Believe me, I held it damn tight.

Around me the green mist began to draw in on itself, centering on the thief, who acted like a conduit for it. The creature rose up, light as a cloud, and was simply absorbed by the ceiling. Moments later, it had disappeared, like it had been no more than a figment of my imagination. The Scene Stealer had escaped. I figured by the time I got outside and up on the roof, it would be long gone.

Bart was snoring again, seemingly unscathed, so I shut the door and left him to it. I went downstairs. Madcap Mal was slumped in another battered armchair, though he jerked awake as I entered the book-stuffed room.

“Late to be skulking about,” he grunted. “Even for you.”

I pulled a sheet of paper from my pocket and stuck it under his prodigious nose. It was the list of names Bart had given me. Writers and publishers. “Mean anything to you?”

Mal scratched his nose, peering at the names. His mind sifted them, weighing and chewing on them like he was enjoying a meal. Slowly he began to nod.

“Pseudonyms,” he said grandly. “All of ’em. Hope you don’t expect me to say any more’n that, son. Code of practice.”

“Bullshit. They are all the same guy, right?” I could see by his expression I had hit the nail on the head. “He’s bad news, Mal. An ideas thief. Taking what’s not his and passing it off as his own work. Now that’s outside the code of practice.” I explained what was going on.

It was too much for Mal: his expression got a whole lot angrier with each word—not a pleasant sight to behold.

“His name’s Randall Stockhart.”

****

I slept for a few hours, woke, and splashed cold water from the sink in Bart’s cupboard-size bathroom over my face before going down to see if Mal was up. I’m not sure if he ever sleeps: he was lost in a pile of magazines. Maybe he slept in them. My own coupla hours had freed my mind: I was thinking ahead. By the time I saw Mal, I had a plan. It was going to be a busy day.

“It’s clear outside,” he said. “But for the time being, I’d keep that notebook close.”

I was way ahead of him. He let me out the front door; he was right about the street. Empty. I made my way back to my own part of town and checked in at the Sleaze Sisters’ place. Sal fixed me up with a breakfast that would have fed a troop of Marines. What can I say, I was hungry. When I’d finished, she put one of her muscled, tattooed arms around my shoulders—those tattoos would make a sailor blush—and planted a wet, lipsticky kiss on my cheek.

“You stayin’ in for a while, honey? We could run through a couple of chapters of the book I showed you.” Now, that was tempting. Sal and I were having a bit of a thing, and that book—sheesh. But business was pressing.

“Maybe later. I need to see Eddie the Scratch. It’s a matter of life and death. Though I’m probably exaggerating the life bit.”

She gave a knowing shrug, jerking her thumb at a pile of old clothes in one corner of the dive. I went over and prodded it into life. Eddie’s head popped up, turtle-like, and his sleepy eyes met mine like the Grim Reaper was standing over him.

“Don’t get up,” I told him. I pulled a photo from my pocket, one Madcap Mal had given me. It was from the jacket of a discarded old magazine. Randall Stockhart, alias the Scene Stealer. He was a gaunt, cadaverous creature who looked as if he spent most of his time frequenting graveyards. I guess, as a horror writer, it went with the territory. “You know this guy, Eddie?”

Eddie’s the Person Archive. You ever want a face named, Eddie’s your guy. He could have earned a good living down at the precinct—Rizzie Carter used him all the time. Useless for anything else, but infallible when it came to faces. He gazed at the crumpled photo, scratching himself unashamedly.

“Never seen him before,” he muttered. It was his usual opening gambit. I stuffed a few greenbacks into his grubby paw and he started to nod. “Wait, though. Yeah, I do know this guy. Randall Stockhart.”

I handed over some more cabbage leaves. “Right on the money, Eddie. So where does he hang out?”

He gave me an address. Nice and easy. The rest of the day would get tougher.

****

I made a few calls and visited a few contacts, preparing myself for the main action, which would come that night. I got back to my office late that afternoon, made myself a pot of coffee, and put my feet up. A couple more hours light sleep would be all I needed to set me up. It stayed quiet outside. I thought maybe the Heavy Boys from the gloop factory would show, hell-bent on snatching Rocky Ridge’s notebook; but they didn’t. That would come later, for sure. Maybe they didn’t like sunlight. A lot of the types I deal with are like that.

I headed out before evening bled into night and made my way to the address which Eddie had identified as Randall Stockhart’s home. It was a swell place—he’d gotten rich on his plunder. I knew pulp writing didn’t pay a lot, so maybe he had a few other strings to his bow, apart from what he turned over as the Scene Stealer. The house was set in its own grounds—even had a few trees—and was walled in. Suited me fine. I wanted my little escapade to be private.

I guessed a direct approach—by phone or by check-in at the gate—would be met by disinterest, and most likely a “Get lost!” so I resorted to less civil means. Let’s just say I got over the wall and into the house, using my professional skills, the details of which you don’t need to know. I thought maybe I’d have to deal with a few guardians, of whatever dark persuasion; turned out Stockhart didn’t seem to bother with such niceties. His security was pretty good—the common criminal would have set the alarms off long before they got to the house. I’m slicker than that.

Once inside, I crept about until I found what I was looking for: a library. Very impressive. Mainly books, some of them older than the house; doubtless rare and valuable. A few manuscripts, both old and newly worked. This was Stockhart’s den. I assumed he sat in the tall, leather chair and worked on his stuff at the huge desk. It would have fetched a king’s ransom at auction. He must have been at the thieving game a long time.

I sat myself down in another ornate chair, directly opposite the tall one. I pulled out Rocky Ridge’s notebook and dropped it in my lap, one hand over the embossed cover. And I waited.

It was late when he came in. Tall, thin as a vampire; dressed in a dark suit, his grey hair swept back from either side of his ears like silk. And pale, so pale. Maybe he was a vampire—heck, I’d always assumed they were around someplace. I had gambled with the notebook: in Bart’s bedroom, the Scene Stealer had not seen me. I was counting on the same happening here. I felt the embossed cover warming to my touch.

Sure enough, Stockhart couldn’t see me. He sat in his chair, leaning back, steepling his fingers, and looking upwards as if contemplating his night’s work. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The room was frozen in time. Its lights seemed to dim and silence enveloped us, utter and complete. Stockhart had gone limp in the chair, his mouth open wide. As I expected, the white, misty stuff started emanating from it, twisting upwards in a spiral like a transparent sheet. It hovered over him and became the Scene Stealer I had seen in Bart’s room. Luckily, I remained invisible to it.

It didn’t stay long, floating upwards and through the beautifully plastered ceiling. Off to dredge some other writer’s mind, I guessed. Now I had to play the patient game; that was okay. Neither me nor Stockhart moved for the next hour or so. It got so quiet I almost dropped off, though as the Scene Stealer came floating back down from above, I was back on red alert. I watched it return through Stockhart’s mouth until there was no trace of it left.

He woke up slowly, sighed, un-cricked his neck, and leaned forward, looking at the papers on his desk. I slipped the notebook deep inside my inner pocket and took my hand off it. At once I was visible. Stockhart jerked upright, his eyes narrowing as he looked into mine. A brief curse escaped those thin, cruel lips. Before he could rise up in protest, I lifted my right hand and he was gaping at the business end of my Beretta.

“Keep still, Mr. Stockhart,” I said calmly. “No need to panic.”

“What the devil do you think you’re up to! You won’t get away with this.”

“Relax, pal. I haven’t come to rob you. I’ve come to make you a deal. One you’ll like.”

He looked no less suspiciously at me. I guess the gun made me appear somewhat hostile. “What kind of deal?”

“You’re a writer, Mr. Stockhart. You utilise a whole lot of sources. I know about them. Like I know you had some real neat ideas this very night, huh? That’s okay, pal. All I want to do is add to your rich trove of plunder. I have something that will inspire you.”

His expression suggested he took me for a lunatic, but he nodded.

“You’re a colleague of a writer called Rocky Ridge—alias PJ Ludbane. Top-notch horror writer. I bet you wish you had his imagination. Good money in horror fiction.”

He smiled contemptuously. “Really? I heard he’s dead. Sometime last night. Heart attack.”

“Yeah, I know all about that. It’s why I’m here. He was a pal of mine, and he left me a little bequest. Told me it would be worth something. I used to help him with his research. It was his way of paying me back.”

He was a cool customer, I’ll give him that; but he couldn’t keep the greed from seeping across his white face. “A bequest? Like what?”

“He was writing a new novel. It was going to be his biggest hit yet: Death Seeds from the Future. He kept a notebook, everything he needed to write it. And now it’s mine. It could be yours. Complete with rights. No need to suck my brains out, either.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch, Mr. Stockhart. The book’s no good to me; I can just about write my name. I’m sure we can agree on a price for it. I want two things. One: ten thousand dollars. You’ll get twice that as an advance when you sell your version of the book. Well, that’s what Mychael Press told me they’d pay for it.”

He laughed, a short, sharp bark. “You’ve done your homework. And your second condition?”

“I want you to lay off Bart Kraggs. He’s a friend of mine. I like his books. I don’t want any other punk writing them.” I lifted the gun. “I have other weapons, Mr. Stockhart. You do voodoo, and I do, too—say: that sounds like a song. Just play ball with me and no one will ever hear it. Do we have a deal?”

“Show me the notebook.”

I eased it out of my coat and flipped it open so he could read some of the notes. His eyes betrayed his interest. He recognised Ridge’s work, even if they were only notes.

“I don’t have ten grand lying around,” he said.

“Let’s meet in a couple of hours, on safe ground.” I told him a place I knew. I could see he was uneasy, but not enough to smother his greed.

****

Guys like me, who deal with the kind of people I get mixed up with, sometimes need neutral ground. Otherwise there’d be so many double crosses no one would survive. Honour among thieves works up to a point, though I learned early not to bestow my trust lightly. That’s why joints like the Riot of Noise bar exist. On the edge of the prime hoods’ territory, it provides a place where deals can be done, money can be exchanged, and seedy contracts drawn up. Everyone is protected and even the Mob contributes towards its upkeep. No one gets wasted, or beat up. The atmosphere is tense, of course, but anyone breaking the rules pays for it.

Stockhart had agreed to meet me in there. There’s one big bar and several side bars running off it where you can draw the curtains if you want total privacy. The Dooley Boys who run it make sure no one disturbs you; not even the cops. (Hell, they do business in there, too.) I was sitting in an annex, leafing through the notebook. I knew I’d been followed there, and I knew who by. But they wouldn’t be bothering me in the Riot of Noise; even so, I just about got there in time to avoid being confronted by my shadows. They could wait.

Stockhart showed up on time; Mick Dooley at the bar gave him a stiff drink—I’d paid for it—and pointed him in my direction. The gaunt figure sat opposite me, his gaze saturnine. He managed a twisted grin when he saw what I was holding. I slid it over the table to him and he picked it up carefully, as if afraid it would take a bite out of his hand. The demon and sword motif didn’t interest him—I’d guessed he didn’t know what they meant. He just leafed through the book, nodding.

“You seem to have the real deal, my friend.”

“Sure, but like I said, it’s no good to me.”

He sipped at the Scotch, enjoying it. It was a good one. From inside his coat he slowly removed a thick envelope. “You wanted cash. Ten grand.” He put it on the table and nudged it my way. “Count it.”

I made a play of checking the bills to be sure they weren’t phoney. It was another thing that was frowned on here: swindling each other. But they were fine: one hundred crisp, new portraits of Benjamin Franklin, totalling ten grand. Most of them would go a long way to compensating Bart Kraggs for what he’d lost. I shoved the bills back into the envelope and pocketed it.

“It’s that simple, Mr. Stockhart. I look forward to reading your next novel.” I stood up before he could. “Give me ten minutes. Then you can go home.” He knew if he attempted to follow me out of the Riot, the Dooleys would hold him up. My guess was, he was pleased with his night’s work. To him, ten grand wouldn’t have been an expensive price to pay for that notebook.

I left, keeping away from the obvious route home. I was expecting company—not Stockhart’s or anyone working for him: the shadows of earlier. Probably another gloop-thing, so I kept to the open streets where it wouldn’t be likely to show itself. What did put in an appearance, though, was a grey figure in a very wide coat and wearing a slouch hat. Trademarks of the particular bunch he worked for, creeps who were all too familiar. He kept his hands in his pockets, which was fine by me. He wouldn’t be carrying a gun, but those hands—well, they weren’t something you wanted to see outside of one of Stockhart’s horror pulps.

“Mr. Nightmare,” the guy hissed, his face shaded from the blazing neon around us. We had mutually shuffled close to an alleyway. I had my hand on my Beretta, but I was only too ready to do my second bit of business of the night. Sure enough, I could hear some unpleasant gurgling and bubbling sounds emanating from the alley’s maw.

“You have something I want,” he said, pronouncing it like a judge handing down a life sentence.

I gently eased the envelope out of my coat and held it out to him. I could barely see his face. He acted like I was offering him a rotten fruit. I opened the envelope and showed him the wad of bills.

“I don’t want money,” he hissed in disgust. “I want the notebook.”

“I never even read it. I just sold it. Ten grand. The man you’re now looking for is in the Riot of Noise.” I glanced at my watch. “In a few minutes he’ll be leaving.” I slipped the money back inside my coat and took out a thin piece of paper. “This is his name and his address. Give him an hour and I guarantee he’ll be sitting in his high chair, glued to that notebook. ”

He looked at the note. Very slowly his right hand came out of his pocket. Mercifully it was gloved. I put the note into the glove and he studied what was written on it.

I said, “Like PJ Ludbane, Stockhart writes horror stories. And his next one will be a big smash. Death Seeds from the Future. Based on a whole load of facts, I believe. It could make him an international star.”

Glove and note disappeared back into the pocket.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said, maybe a bit glibly. I didn’t waste any more time or words and walked off. I found another alley and enjoyed the darkness. Behind me I heard … nothing. My friend in the slouch hat and his glutinous servant had other things to deal with.

****

Some weeks later I was back in Kikbak Komix, leaning on one of its counters. Captain Malevolent eyed me up and down, a wry smile tugging his jaw. He pulled a few magazines out from under the counter and dropped them in front of me. I perused the lurid covers with interest.

“Got any Randall Stockhart’s? New ones, I mean.”

Madcap Mal scowled. “I told you, privately: he writes under pen names.”

I nodded. “So—what’s he done recently under pen names?” I carried on flipping through the mags.

“Curiously enough, he ain’t written a thing for some time now. Not since that night you came in here with Rocky Ridge’s notebook. Maybe Stockhart dried up. No matter—I got something better than that.” He pulled out another mag, one with a scantily dressed broad on the cover and a guy toting a fat shooter.

“Tough Guy Tales,” I read. “This the latest?”

“Sure is. Got a brand new Ned Killigan yarn in it. One of Bart’s best yet.” He opened the mag to a double-page spread of furious black-and-white art and Bart’s story. “Better still, he’s signed it for you. A personal message.”

I gaped, more thrilled than I could have explained. “What do I owe you?”

“On the house, Nick. Get out of here.”

Back in my office I locked the door, put the coffee on, and placed all the magazines, except Tough Guy Tales, on the shelf alongside my battered collection of other mags and books. I glanced at the notebook innocuously squeezed between them. The original Rocky Ridge notebook, that is. I hadn’t locked it away in the miniature vault with my other collection of weird and wonderful relics and talismanic articles: it looked more nondescript sitting among the books. You never know when these little treasures are going to come in useful—given some of the truly nasty things waiting out there on the streets.

The duplicate notebook that I’d had made for the unsuspecting Randall Stockhart was probably at the bottom of the harbour by now, alongside his rotting bones. I’d neither seen nor heard anything of the gloop from Hell since I’d sold it. Bart tried to refuse the well-stuffed envelope; I made him take it anyhow. After all, I’d pocketed enough of the ten big ones to keep me in Tough Guy Tales and the like for a long time to come.

I lounged at my desk and opened up the new mag. I liked Bart’s latest title. I was going to do exactly what it said right there on the page. Kiss the Day Goodbye.

What Dread Hands and What Dread Feet?

The bullet smacked into the wall, inches from my face and flattened itself, sending out a little cloud of brick dust. I rolled vertically away and fired off a couple of rounds, just to let the bastards know I was still alive. Some creep had set me up. Another bullet whined overhead and I dipped down among the packing crates. One of Louis del Orro’s thugs had invited me to this rendezvous. Not the kind of blind date I’d have normally chosen, but my guess had been that if I didn’t show, the gangster would have sent a few of his butchers around to drag me down here anyway. I slipped through a tight packing case alley, quiet as a mouse wearing slippers. More bullets were digging holes in the brickwork behind me, getting farther off target—for the moment.

I’d come fully armed, naturally. You don’t meet scumballs like Louis or his punks without being prepared, even if it’s for nothing more than a social chat. He’d just had word brought he wanted my advice. That was a joke. Even so, I’d sent his hoods back with an okay. Before I came down here to the warehouse wilderness, I tooled up and rang the chief, warning him there might be a fireworks display going down. Rizzie knows when the rats are running. I was banking on him and the city’s finest being out there somewhere to cover my back; even if it was 2:00 am and so far he hadn’t shown.

I dropped down in the dust and slithered along on my belly. Undignified maybe, but in the thickening shadows it gave me half a chance of surviving this turkey shoot. With iron in each of my hands, it wasn’t easy crawling forward. Anyone coming upon me from the back would terminate my less-than-illustrious career with ease. It was a chance I had to take.

Ahead of me I could smell something familiar. An old acquaintance, you might say. Death, in fact. It was the smell of blood: freshly spilled and a whole lot of it. That and something else, redolent of the harbour at its most offensive. I must’ve fired off a lucky shot and hit one of the dummies in the neck, opening an artery or something. I moved even more slowly, ready to fire off another salvo.

It had gone quiet. Were those apes watching me? I hadn’t had time to try and figure out why they had singled me out for elimination. Then again, I’d upset enough members of the Mob in this town over the years: sooner or later someone would decide they’d had a bellyful of Nick Nightmare and his interference. So where the hell was the chief? He and his cop army must have heard the racket.

I edged around a corner into another dark alley of packing cases. The smell of blood thickened; it was close. Closer than I’d thought: I was elbowing my way through a pool of it, gelatinous as oil. This was one pair of pants I wouldn’t be wearing again if I got out of this mess alive. There was light ahead, seeping from a lonely bulb high above on a beam, like someone had switched it on to illuminate the way for a reason. I tried to blend in with the packing cases as I went forward, out of the main glow of the light.

Peering very carefully round the next turn, I saw an open space, hemmed in with crates, some dozen feet across. Slap bang in the middle of it a body was sprawled, the source of the generous outpouring of blood. If the guy had been shot, it would have taken more than one slug to bleed the crimson lake running from the corpse. The body must have been ripped open from one end to the other. It was a messy job, like Jack the Ripper was in town. And that smell...

“That you, Nightmare?” growled a voice from across the open space and down another of the alleys running off it. “Hold your fire.”

I recognised Louis del Orro’s nasal tones. “You set me up, you punk,” I snarled back, ready to spread lead in his general direction.

“I didn’t bring ya here to do ya in, Nightmare. It ain’t you the boys are shootin’ at.”

I was less than convinced. “So what the hell are you firing at?”

“Ya see the stiff out there? That’s Lonnie the Lip. Or what’s left of him. He’s a mess. The hardest nut in my whole outfit. I’m coming out, so put the hardware away.”

I watched as del Orro stepped into the thin pool of light. He had both hands up so I guessed he was on the level. I got to my feet and slid both my guns into my belt. Del Orro and I met across the mashed body of his former gang member.

“Suppose you tell me what the hell this is all about,” I muttered.

He pointed and I looked down. For the first time I noticed Lonnie the Lip was not as he had once been. Not just stone cold dead, but missing something. The reason he’d lost so much blood was clear now. His left arm was absent. It had been torn off at the shoulder, complete with a section of cheap pinstriped suit he was wearing. The arm hadn’t been cut, or neatly severed, it was ripped away, judging by the remaining goo. Either it had been done clumsily by a machine, or a man with the strength of a bull gorilla. Then again, maybe it had been a bull gorilla. I’ve seen weirder things in this burg.

“He ain’t the first,” said del Orro. His face was always pasty; but now, as he studied the incomplete corpse, it was more so. Gaunt expression, eyes like flints, hands long and thin. Strangler’s hands, someone had said. Apt.

We heard movement along one of the alleys. “You boys finished shootin’ the bejeezus out of each other?”

Neither of us reacted too strongly as Rizzie Carter, the local police chief, pushed his considerable bulk out from the darkness to join us. For once he was gripping a gun in his huge hock of a right fist, rather than the customary triple-size hamburger. He lowered the rod as he saw the object of our mutual interest. “Is that Lonnie the Lip?” he boomed, chins a-quiver. Rizzie was one big guy.

“Formerly,” I said dryly. “He has spoken his last.”

“I’m sure there’s a right good explanation for all this. I heard enough shootin’ goin’ off to relieve the Alamo. Mind fillin’ me in?”

Del Orro pointed to the corpse’s most arresting feature, or rather, the absence of it. “Some goon took off his arm. It ain’t here. I wanted Nightmare to see it; tell me if he knew anything about this kind of mayhem.”

“By fillin’ him full of lead?” said Rizzie.

“We thought he was one of—well, whatever the hell did this. My guys got spooked. We started shootin’ at each other. Easy enough mistake to make.”

“What was Lonnie the Lip doin’ in here?” said Rizzie.

“He was killed outside, then dumped for us to find. We had a phone call. Anonymous.” Del Orro spoke coldly, mechanically. If he got to the killer first, he was going to do some very nasty stuff with him, gorilla or no.

“What do you make of it?” Rizzie asked me.

“Lonnie was no big shot. Maybe some other Mob is tryin’ to make a point. Put the frighteners on Mr. del Orro here.”

Louis del Orro’s face curdled. “I don’t scare so easy, pal.”

“That’s what Pugsey Malloy said last week,” I quipped.

Del Orro’s eyes narrowed to the point where you couldn’t see them. It was his angry look. “Whaddya mean by that?”

“One of his thugs died the same way as Lonnie. The hardest nut in his outfit. Only it wasn’t his arm they took. It was one of his legs.” I was tempted to make a wry comment about maybe this was some weird take on The Nutcracker Suite, but I let it pass.

Del Orro and Rizzie both swore crudely. I could tell Rizzie already knew about the other bizarre killing. The chief put his gun away. “Okay. I’ll have my team clear this mess up. I’ll need statements from both of you. Leave it for the morning. Be down at the precinct pronto; right?”

Del Orro nodded. Then he was gone, collecting his gaggle of gunmen on his way out of the warehouse. Rizzie spent a few minutes studying the remains of Lonnie the Lip before he pulled me aside. “You know anything else about this, Nick?”

I shook my head. “I heard about Malloy. Thought it was just another gangland punch up. What’s a missing limb between friends? But twice? Gotta be more to it.”

“If it was up to me,” said Rizzie, “I’d turn a blind eye. If the mobsters want to rub each other out, it’s okay by me, so long as no one else gets hurt. But this kind of carnage stirs things up. I don’t want the press getting hold of it.”

“You want me to do some nosing around?” I didn’t have to ask. I’d done enough dirty work for the chief. Any of the jobs that were too weird or off-the-wall usually came my way.

“It looks like one for you,” he grinned. “You know I’d hand over the file in a second, Nick, but the thing is—we got nothing. Whoever did for Malloy—and for this sap here, too, I guess—hid his tracks real well. And no one is talkin’ to me or my sources. Not a peep.”

“I’ll sleep on it.”

****

Louis del Orro has his chunk of turf over the river in the eastern docks; most of the place is deserted these days: the huge, ramshackle warehouses crumbling, the wharves missing chunks where the river has dug into them. Huge metal cranes loom over everything like alien monster-birds and the roofs are buckled with age and timber rot. Del Orro’s gang has made a neat nest in the heart of it and know if anyone is crazy enough to set foot anywhere near them. I went visiting, knowing they’d be waiting for me. They were not happy, not after the incident with Lonnie the Lip. There was a whole lot more to this business than anyone was letting on.

Louis sat behind an incongruously expensive mahogany desk. Matter of fact, all the furnishings were flash, right down to the carpets. He’d spared nothing to do his inner den up like a tart’s boudoir. He pushed a glass of whiskey across the desk. I sipped it; very nice stuff. I swallowed it and said so.

“So what do you know about Pugsey Malloy’s gunman?” he asked.

I shrugged. Three of Louis’ tough guys were watching me, the way a cat watches a trapped rat before it rakes it with the next sweep of its claw. They were bristling with hardware, though I didn’t think del Orro had me here so he could turn me into a human colander. He needed me as much as Rizzie Carter did. Lucky me.

“Only that he was found, sans leg. Didn’t think anything of it at the time. What’s the word in your bit of the jungle?”

He swallowed his whiskey and poured us both another. “If someone was tryin’ to make a point, they’d have been boasting about it. Me and Malloy would both have had some kinda warning. Some freak would be tryin’ to make monkeys out of us, using the dead men to do it. But there’s been nothing.”

“So you don’t reckon it’s a rival gang?”

He shook his head. “This is somethin’ from outside. Maybe someone new tryin’ to muscle in on the block. You heard anything?”

I thought about a few things. There’d been a nasty piece of work calling himself the Vogue Prince a while back; he’d been screwing about with some weird voodoo until it backfired and messed him up proper. Also there were some very bizarre characters operating out of those northeastern seaports and islands—more like a plague than anything else. I decided not to avail del Orro of everything I knew about them: he’d think I was losing it if I described them. “Whoever it is, they’ll show their hand. Guess we’ll all have to keep our eyes peeled.”

“You hear anythin’, you tell me, right? Likewise, I’ll have anythin’ we find passed on to you.”

I almost felt privileged: he was scared, all right. “So what do I get out of all this? A man’s got to eat.”

He may have tried to smile, but I don’t reckon the concept was something he was familiar with. “Find out who did this, Nightmare, and I’ll be your friend for life.”

****

Back in my office, I dug out from the mound of newspapers and magazines that I laughingly call my archives some stuff that I thought might help. Wacko cases, dismembered bodies, unsolved murders involving lunatic killers trying to impersonate the murderer in the Rue Morgue. There were a lot of them. This was one sick city, but then, I knew that.

After three hours and enough coffee to sink a barge, I was little the wiser. I hadn’t gotten anything concrete to link up the murders other than the purloined limbs. When the phone rang, it was a relief to tear myself away from the monotony of research. Though not, as it turned out, from the case in hand. It was Rizzie Carter.

“We have a third one,” he boomed, shouting down the phone as if at a deaf man.

“By which you mean: there’s a limb missing?” I said dryly.

“Another arm. Ripped off like the first.”

“And a gang member? Whose?”

“Stu Latimer’s mob on the north side. They’re arming for war. Better keep away from them. I know there may be a lead, but chances are they’ll drill anyone and anything who goes near their patch for a day or two.”

“Anyone left a visiting card?” Sooner or later someone was going to throw down the gauntlet; no point in stirring up the gangs until they did. Rizzie had nothing more to go on. All we could figure now was the three killings and the outré thefts had to be a piece of the same crackpot design. Obviously part of it included making obscene gestures to the gangs, riling them. There were two other major gangs in the city—would they be losing a member, too? Along with an arm or a leg? Maybe it was symbolic, someone making a statement: I am more powerful than any of you and I can cut you down to size any time I like.

Or maybe that was just me being my usual glib self.

I ground through the day. As evening spread its luminous fog outside, I was getting nowhere; going backwards if anything. I had to conclude the next move would be the killer’s. Another calling card, message, or ultimatum; whatever. Del Orro had told me that he’d had one phone call: the voice disguised, unrecognisable. It had led him to the body of Lonnie the Lip. I found out from Rizzie that Malloy had had a similar call. Nothing traceable.

The chief rang. He’d gone over all three murder scenes and found nothing; there was no point me doing the same.

“Any common factor, anything at all?” I asked him.

“Nothin’. Just the smell of death. Yeah, a rank smell. Mixture of rot and sea and blood, if you know what I mean.” He rang off, frustrated and surly.

Smell. Rot and sea and blood. Yeah, I’d caught a whiff of it in the warehouse. Was that the common denominator? If it was, then it was time to haul ass out of the office and get down to the Sleaze Sisters’ place for a drink, or two. If I was going to sleep on it, I wanted to be free of the sort of nightmares the thoughts of rot, sea, and blood were curdling in my tiny brain.

I was about to get up from my desk when I saw the cat. I have to tell you, I am no lover of cats. I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me, given the type of mangy, flea-bitten creatures that prowl about the alleys and roofs around this grimy neck of the woods. Waifs and strays; homeless; predatory. I give them unimaginative names like Rat Ripper, Bird Slasher, and Scourge of Vermin. We live under an uneasy truce: I tolerate them so long as they do a good job keeping down the other pestilential inhabitants of the neighbourhood. They tend to steer clear of me and the kind of language I fling their way.

This one was different. For a start, it didn’t look like it had just emerged from a dripping sewer, its teeth yellow and broken, its bite a promise of poison. It must have been lost: the coat was sleek, immaculate; the ears intact; its small shape elegant. Hell, it looked like it belonged in an uptown apartment, pampered and loved by some society dame. To make the point it bent down and licked at its fur fastidiously, enhancing the sheen. It was partly black with white and light brown markings: I believe they call these calicos.

“How did you get in here?” I asked it rhetorically.

It yawned, showing glitteringly bright, perfect teeth. Of course, I knew that it was merely awaiting an opportunity to sink those needles into my flesh, compounding the assault with a slash or two of invisible talons which could open a good-sized rat like a Hershey bar. If it could have answered me, it would no doubt have said, I’m a cat, ya dope, I can go anywhere.

It had been sitting on the scruffy carpet inside the office door and now it rose, stretched to emphasize its utter boredom, and shifted to one side; sitting on its haunches, waiting. I noticed the letter, or sheet of paper on the carpet. The cat must have been sitting on it. The beast studied me as if to say, Ain’t ya going to open it? At least it hadn’t brought me the sort of offering the other local beasts sometimes dropped in, like half a small mammal, complete with trailing giblets. Always the trailing giblets.

I went over to the door slowly. The cat looked up at me and to my amazement, closed its eyes in what I can only describe as an encouraging expression, an altogether new feline experience for me. Yeah, lulling me into a false sense of security was my guess. I picked up the folded sheet of paper without incident; the cat went back to cleaning itself. It had other priorities.

I opened the sheet, a single piece of somewhat chic vellum, as much an anomaly here as the cat. The message written thereon was short and to the point:

I hear you got problems with body parts. Maybe I can help. You know where to find me. MF.

I let my breath out in a long, slow exhalation of relief. MF was Montifellini. Celebrated driver of the Magic Bus. Suddenly the cat took on a new meaning. I bent down and got as close to her as I dared—it only now occurred to me she was a female—I heard her purring softly. She belonged to the legendary man himself, and if I remembered correctly, her name was Bella, meaning beautiful in the language of the opera fan-cum-driver.

I spoke the name and it was like uttering a breath of magic. She rose and rubbed her soft coat against my outstretched hand. We understand each other, she might have said.

“So—your master awaits. I’ll get my coat.” By the time I’d snatched it off its hook and donned my hat, the cat had disappeared as silently as she had come. But it was okay. I knew where Montifellini could be found. It was the last Friday of the month: which meant he’d be parked up outside Craggy MacFury’s Diner, chowing down on one of MacFury’s abominably large helpings of Italian special.

By the time I got there, night gripped the city in a particularly cold, smoggy fist. A few streetlamps leaked light, barely enough to help anyone plot a course through the cramped streets of the district where MacFury had his diner. I squinted through the gloom at its long, submarine-like shape: it looked more like something which spent most of its time probing the ocean depths than a land machine. It had a few windows, though they were more like afterthoughts, the glazed eyes of the dead—and a long, black chimney coughing smoke up into the night, as though whatever was being cooked in the diner was going to be seriously overdone. But I tell you, MacFury’s food was the absolute best. No one did food—burger or full-blown meal—like the mad Irish chef.

So why wasn’t the place heaving with customers? Well, you only got to eat in this diner by invitation. The word was MacFury had more money than the local bank vault could hold; he didn’t need the work. He just loved cooking. Montifellini was one of his particular guests, always welcome. My guess is the two of them had shared some lunatic enterprise in the days of yore, probably centred on gold and rainbows. Neither of them spoke about such things, and you didn’t ask, not if you wanted to book a meal there any time.

I studied the diner. Its front door was wide open, spilling vivid light on to the sidewalk. A tiny silhouette was framed by the glow—Bella, who’d got there before me. She seemed to dissolve into the light. I stepped forward. The street was deserted. The diner looked even more like an alien ship, fresh out of the sea, sleek and slippery. I could just about make out another shape not far down the street, namely the fabled Magic Bus of Montifellini, parked in silence.

I had travelled on that most intriguing of vehicles. Single-decked, rusting, its faded yellow paint peeling, usually belching smoke from its exhaust, amazingly able to keep running where most machines of its age—whatever the hell that was—would have blown up, seized, or just plain collapsed. It was no ordinary bus, of course: a vehicle created in who knew what realm, dimension, or demon’s workshop. I glanced at it, parked there like a sleeping creature, its lights off, its door closed. In all its long life, no one had ever vandalised it. I had a feeling any such wayward action would have resulted in dire consequences for the perpetrator. Personally I’d have been as wary of tampering with the infernal machine as I would have been prodding the testicles of a sleeping T-rex.

I took a deep breath and entered MacFury’s Diner as if plunging into a pool. I had always been welcome, but the atmosphere of the place invariably sent a few shivers of apprehension up the spine. There were a handful of people eating in here, some of them dressed in clothes which suggested they were from out of town; and I don’t just mean down the road apiece. The place was glaringly lit, its floor spotless, its chairs and tables all gleaming metal. Difficult to name its style or period; it was singularly original. Somewhere out back in the kitchen—a very private place where no one, but no one, was allowed to venture other than MacFury himself—the sound of boilers, rattling plates, and sharpening knives filtered through to the tables. The smell was awesome. It set the juices flowing: irresistible and mesmerising.

To my right, presiding at the far end of the diner like a potentate, the lone but striking figure of Montifellini sat at a wide table. It needed to be wide: Montifellini was, like Rizzie Carter, one very large guy. I had never seen Montifellini standing up. He had either been sitting in his driver’s seat, heartily belting out one of his favourite operas, or bent over a meal table. The lower part of his body was obscured in shadow. He might have had four legs for all I knew.

“Spaghetti Bolognese,” he said on my behalf as I joined him. “Only MacFury cooks it like this. The best in the world, or any other.”

Who was I to argue with a gourmet? I sat down opposite him, noticing Bella had found a nearby window ledge and was surveying the diner through deceptively sleepy eyes.

Montifellini had a huge dome of a head, two thick black tufts of remaining hair curling over his ears; his broad, grinning face was unshaven. His stubble might have been pasted on—it was never more or less than a dark stain, so if he shaved, the timing was monotonously regular. I found it weird in a man whose life was anything but—his comings and goings were erratic. As for the Magic Bus, well, there was no timetable, nor placetable either.

He poked his fork into the small mountain of spaghetti and rich sauce, twisted it and lifted the dripping, steaming mass to his mouth, chomping ecstatically, nodding with supreme satisfaction.

“You know about these killings,” I said.

Before he could swallow enough mashed grub to reply, another figure joined us, standing over the table, as thin and cadaverous as Montifellini was huge. MacFury’s hands hung loose at his sides, white and bony, veins standing out like electrical wires. His face, screwed up in a twisted grin some people would have interpreted as a threatening glare, looked to have been hewn from granite.

“Mr. Nightmare,” he said in his disarmingly mellifluous voice. “You’ll be having something to eat? I have special lasagne on tonight a man of your taste would very much appreciate.” He said it in a way that had me salivating and I nodded enthusiastically. Only a lunatic refused Craggy MacFury’s food.

Something huge and hairy shuffled up beside him. It was the biggest pooch I’d ever clapped eyes on. An Irish wolfhound, its coat ruffled and snagged, as if it had just come in out of a downpour. This was the Hooligan, a beast I knew of old. It allowed me to ruffle its neck; its big, lugubrious eyes watched me comfortably. But their expression suddenly changed and the dog backed off as though I had drawn a gun on it.

At the window, something furry stirred. It was Bella. Gone was the dozy-eyed, loving little moggy, replaced by a fat-tailed, baleful beast with a mouthful of needles. She growled—I mean, growled—her wide eyes blazing with hatred, fixed on the Hooligan. The fact that he was maybe ten times her size cut no ice with her. Both Montifellini and MacFury froze, like something dark and horrible had suddenly materialised from Hell itself.

The Hooligan obviously took the same view. He looked as if he might chance a howl, thought better of it, swung round and shot off like a bolt from the blue. He bounced off tables and chairs, paws scrabbling for purchase on the sleek floor, before finally negotiating the turn into the kitchen. Bella was in hot pursuit, but contented herself with a mild swipe at the dog’s haunches before sauntering nonchalantly to the front door, sitting down, and cleaning herself like nothing had happened.

“That’s one terrible beastie,” said MacFury. “Lord knows what she was in her last life.”

Montifellini grinned, almost losing the mass of spaghetti trailing from his mouth, but he slurped it back in with practiced ease. MacFury stalked off to his kitchen, glad to be able to prepare my coming feast.

“These killings,” said Montifellini, sitting back and wiping a few stray strands of pasta from the immense bulge of his belly, the stained t-shirt almost parting under the stress. “Unusual, eh?”

“Got the gangs all stirred up,” I nodded. “Someone is kicking all the hornets’ nests over. Why would they do a damn fool thing like that?”

“And taking an arm, a leg, maybe more.”

I leaned forward. “More? We haven’t noticed anything other than limbs.”

“Ah, maybe you soon will. I have seen this once before, many years ago.” He renewed his attack on the Bolognese and I waited. “Five men died. Each of them contributed something to the killer.”

“Are we talking cannibal?”

His face clouded. “Please, my friend, I am eating. No, not that. The man who did the killings all those years ago was a scientist of sorts.” My comment hadn’t deterred him from shovelling away his food. I waited while he chewed on. “He used what he stole to—construct—a creature to serve him.”

I sat back with a groan. “Hell, Montifellini, you’re talking about Frankenstein? That was a book, goddamit. A movie.”

“Maybe it inspired him. You’ll not find anything about him in your files or your newspapers. The things he did … they happened elsewhere.”

Now, when Montifellini talks about elsewhere, he means the Other Side, another dimension; some other sister world loosely connected to this one. The kind of places where he drives that crazy bus of his, along roads most normal vehicles couldn’t even find, let alone traverse. It’s not something he talks about in detail. To him it’s just a way of life. I’ve sampled it a couple of times and seen something of what’s out there. It’s confusing, to say the least.

“His experiments were blessedly a failure,” said Montifellini. “He caused a good deal of misery when he set his creation free.” A cloud crossed his face as if he looked inward at some vision he’d rather not share. Anger seethed deep within him, that and a sadness I could almost reach out and touch. “In the end, the thing was destroyed. As for that madman, he was never found.”

“So you reckon someone here is copying him?”

He shuddered. “Unless he has come through. To start the madness again. Maybe he builds a new killing machine. This time, better equipped. And, I can tell you, he has a new master. Something vile beyond belief. Something whose path you have already crossed.”

I groaned, premonition stirring in my guts like a ball of maggots. “Would this have anything to do with the sea?”

“Indeed. Buried deep, with the patience of millennia. It reaches out and gives powers to anything which will serve its malign purpose. I will not name it. To speak its name is a dangerous thing, even here.”

I heaved a sigh. This was not something I was going to be able to explain to Rizzie Carter. “And just what the hell is this malign purpose, as if I didn’t know?”

“Power, Nick. Absolute power; and with it control. It wants this city of yours. Who runs the city, eh?” He didn’t need my answer. “The Mob, eh? I’m thinking, this thing wants to run their gangs. Who knows how? Maybe you need to pay a little visit. Some research.” He chomped happily as if he had been suggesting nothing more than a brief holiday in the sun. “I can drive you someplace where they might be. It will be very dangerous. Especially as you’ll have to go alone.”

MacFury returned with a tray and a long plate on which my lasagne sizzled and bubbled like a lava flow. He set it down and waited for me to begin. I tried not to think of it as the condemned man’s last meal. I took a hot mouthful and for a moment forgot all about the nasty things outside, and their even nastier plans. MacFury didn’t need me to comment—the delirium of eating his food radiated off me in waves. He grunted contentedly and left us to it. Montifellini paused in his own eating, looking lovingly at the lasagne as if he would trade it for his own grub. Or better still, eat both dishes.

“Go back to your office and wait,” he said. “We have to let the killer complete the first part of his machinations before you seek him out. Maybe by then he’ll be complacent.”

If it hadn’t been for the food, I’d have scrammed and to hell with the mad scientist. I don’t know what MacFury put in his specials, but it made you feel like you could kick even the Devil’s ass. I nodded dumbly, like I was signing some crackpot pact.

Usually on a Friday night I would have gone down to the Sleaze Sisters’ joint and sunk a few beers or whatever and probably ended up in the sack with Sal, counting her tattoos. We had an understanding and it sure took my mind off the darker side of life. But after gorging myself on MacFury’s fabulous food, I went back to the office, adjusted my chair, and sank down into a surprisingly untroubled sleep.

The phone woke me like someone tossed a bucket of cold water over me and I almost fell out of the chair. My back was kinked, my eyes were glued half shut, and I felt like I’d aged thirty years. I grabbed the phone to shut off its racket.

Rizzie Carter bawled: “You heard the morning’s news?”

“Another stiff and, lemme guess—missing a useful limb.”

“You’re half right. You better get over here to Packard’s Wharf. Something you need to see.”

By the time I got to the place—another disused, ramshackle clutch of warehouses on the point of collapsing into the river (half the damned waterfront was made up of these deteriorating sites) Rizzie’s boys were swarming over the place. The chief eyed me like a dyspeptic walrus, his accumulated chins wobbling in frustration and fury. No hamburger, so he was definitely out of sorts.

“One of Vittorio Sperranzo’s thugs,” he growled, pointing to a shadow-hung corner. Among the jumbled spars and discarded barrels, I could just about see the lower half of the victim jutting out. Well, most of it—one leg was missing. Our killer was Mr. Consistent.

“Four dead, one left arm, one right. One left leg, one right leg. Is that it? And all taken from the toughest guys possible.”

Rizzie scowled. “Yeah. How’d you figger that?”

“A hunch, but it fits a pattern.”

“That’s not all.” He led me away to another part of the building. “The last of the big five gangs in this town is run by Luigi Spettini, right?” He saw me nod and waved me to where a bunch of packing crates had been shoved together in the middle of an otherwise empty part of the warehouse. They looked like they’d been set up like a makeshift stage; that or a weird kind of sarcophagus. As I got closer, I saw congealed trails of blood decorating the sides of some of the crates. And stretched out on top of them, spread-eagled and lifeless, was the fifth victim. For once it had retained all of its limbs.

But not its head: this time, the body had been decapitated. Which accounted for the excessive amount of blood. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and a more sensitive soul might have parted with his previous night’s repast, but I’m thick-skinned enough to cope with this kind of lunacy. I’ve read too many Ned Killigan yarns.

“Same old story,” said the chief. “Phone call. Anonymous. Gang member—that’s one from each of the five main players. No clues. Nothing to go on. So—what have you got?”

“A headache. Any of the bosses say they’d been contacted?”

He shook his head. “How much longer is this going to go on? Pretty soon the press boys are going to get wise and all hell is going to break loose. They’ll hang me and my boys out for the crows.”

“Maybe the killer will settle for what he’s got. Unless he wants to start slicing off other bits of his victims.”

Rizzie’s already pale face turned even whiter as he digested the implications of what I’d said. I would have grinned at his expression, except I wasn’t feeling so amused by those implications either. “I’m going to have to go underground,” I told him. “Someone in this town will know something.”

****

Two days later, everything had gone quiet. That is, there were no more killings—at least, none related to the crazy collector. I had told Rizzie Carter to wait to hear from me, so he wouldn’t be pestering me with calls: I didn’t want to attract any undue attention. I’d considered moving somewhere warmer, like maybe the West Coast, but I had the feeling it would only be a matter of time before this bizarre killer or whatever monstrous power he was working for reached out its tentacles—and I use the word advisedly—for me. Just lately I seemed to be attracting a particular type of nemesis. All I had to keep me going in this ballsed-up venture was my curiosity.

Just when I was getting to the point where my nerves were twisting into knots and my patience was wearing thin as a bubble, I ran into Montifellini. Or to be more precise, he found me. I was turning up a quiet street: a shortcut to a dive where I thought maybe I’d pick up a hint of a lead on the case. It was foggy, the air grey and curdled. I heard a particular kind of growling behind me: an engine. Only one engine made that kind of semi-strangled racket. Montifellini’s Magic Bus.

I merged with the deeper shadows. The vehicle bounced up and shuddered to a halt, spewing exhaust fumes, its windows like dull yellow eyes. I couldn’t see any passengers on board. The door swung to one side and I found myself looking up to where the monumental form of Montifellini sat at his wheel, opera music thumping out from hidden speakers. He beamed at me, waiting for the aria to finish, wiped a tear from his eye (he never listened to his beloved opera without blubbering) and waved me on board.

I sat in the first seat, a small cloud of dust rising as I did so. This was one vehicle which would never pass any official road tests; not that the authorities would ever get their hands on it. Easier to strike a match on a jellyfish. I looked around for the formidable feline, Bella, but there was no sign of her. My guess was she didn’t like sharing Montifellini’s affection with a four-wheeled monster that must’ve played hell with her acute sense of smell.

“So what have you got?” he called, above the roar of the engine. It sounded like we were climbing a hill with a gradient of one in three. Gears ground and more smoke poured out from the exhaust, cloaking the bus and rendering whatever was outside invisible. We could be anywhere; almost certainly not in the city as I knew it.

“You were right about the killer,” I told him. “Five victims and a fine collection of body parts.”

He grimaced, wiping beads of sweat from his brow as he fought to keep the bus on whatever road he had set. “If it is truly who I think it is, he has only just started.”

“I think it’s time you spilled the beans on this jerk. Give it to me, Montifellini. I’m a big boy now. I can take it.”

He looked at me with more than a degree of sympathy, though he nodded. His usual humour had deserted him. “Okay. You need to know what you might be dealing with. First I gotta get you some special protection. We need to visit Eddie the Oil-Gun. You know him?”

I’d heard rumours. Eddie’s Car Emporium. Flash name for a garage. Specialised in old crates that would otherwise be rusting in junk yards or crushed into metal cubes for recycling. I nodded.

“Oil-Gun has a side line, yes? He makes weapons, but not like you’d normally carry. What you toting now, Nick?”

I had two of my best hand guns, both Berettas, as well as a knife or two.

He chuckled. “Oil-Gun has something else. And armour.”

I said something blasphemous but Montifellini shrugged. “I ain’t talking about the Round Table, Nick. That’s old school, eh? And I need to get the bus serviced. She’s starting to clog up.”

He wasn’t exaggerating—the engine was protesting loud enough to wake the dead. And that was one problem we didn’t need right now. I sat back—I won’t say comfortably—and let Montifellini’s rust-bucket bounce me farther out into the shrouded night. I didn’t bother looking out: even if the windows had not been smeared with grime, there was only a lightless terrain beyond, like we were under ground. My host let loose with some opera, exercising his over-sized lungs. I’m no fan of that stuff, but I tell you, Montifellini had one hell of a voice box. It’s a wonder he didn’t shatter his own windows.

When we pulled up, the bus shook like it had been kicked by a herd of buffalo, then fell silent. Montifellini ended his song at the same moment: a bizarre stillness dropped over us. The door swung open slightly lopsidedly and admitted a waft of white smog. Montifellini ignored it. “Oil-Gun’s yard. You go and dig him out, Nick. I’ll see to the bus.”

I pulled my coat tight, hands deep in its pockets. Outside, the mist was as thick as custard and almost the same colour. I told myself it was probably just as well—I couldn’t see Eddie’s Car Emporium in all its splendour. What I could make out was a building or two: huge sheds that looked like they’d fallen out of the sky and landed crookedly. There were lights—old oil lamps bobbing about like we were at sea. I made my way to a wide door of sorts and found myself peering into a black hole. It was crammed with machinery: chunks of it strewn across the floor, other sections hanging from chains. The whole place was stuffed with pieces of metal—I guessed they were automobile parts from one era or another. The smell of oil hit me like a wave. One match in here and we would be talking Towering Inferno Two.

“That Montifellini and his bone-shakin’ bus?” came a voice from the pitch. It was followed by the staccato rattle of a cough which put me in mind of hospitals and morgues. Eddie the Oil-Gun leered at me, a fat, mercifully unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. He seemed to be broader than he was tall, a squat, overweight gnome. He wore a sleeveless vest, exposing arms wider than more than a few tree trunks I’ve seen. His skin was slick with oil, like he’d been dipped in a vat of the stuff. In one huge meaty hand he held a metal spar or wrench; the other he was gently clutching, of all things, a comic.

“I’m Nick Stone,” I told him, using my name rather than my soubriquet.

“Yeah, the big guy said you was goin’ to drop in. I got somethin’ for ya. Coffee?”

“You speak my language.”

He grinned and led me back into his gas-reeking den. There was a kind of annex, a kitchen-cum-office, cobbled together from sheets of corrugated iron, timber, and various other mechanical stuff, as well as a sink, a worktop where stained cups vied for room with more engine parts, and a couple of mangled chairs that may have been salvaged from a highway pile-up. Beside them, on a leaning table, sat a thick stack of comics. Vengeance Unlimited proclaimed the top one.

Oil-Gun dropped the one he was holding down on top of the pile with the care only a true comic lover can bestow upon one of his precious issues. He filled a battered coffee pot with steaming water; what came out was the colour—and thickness—of molasses, but man, it tasted good.

“You a comic man, Mr. Nightmare?”

“Call me Nick. And yeah, I like comics, up to a point. I’m more of a pulp man, though. Ned Killigan.”

“You don’t say! The Dum-Dum Blonde, and all that stuff? Crazy. I love those Ned Killigan yarns. We gotta set some time aside to talk about them. You read these?” He pointed to the leaning pile. “Vengeance Unlimited? Amazing stuff. Best bunch of superheroes around. ’Course they’re long out of print now, but for my money none of the modern stuff can touch ’em. You can keep your Fabulous Five and Laser Patrol.”

I reached out and picked up the top comic with all the subtlety of a surgeon lifting a vital flap of flesh. Oil-Gun watched me, his whole frame tensed, as if I was about to drop a Ming vase on to concrete. I flipped the comic open and scanned it. “Last issue: The Crawling Terror—the conclusion to the Doctor Moribund Saga. Didn’t a couple of these guys buy it? There was a big protest from the fans?”

Oil-Gun studied his thick boots, his face knotted with sudden pain. “Hell, yeah. Steel Wasp and Quicksilver Queen created a diversion and drew Moribund’s fire. They got wiped, but it allowed Stormcaller, Trollhammer, and Blue Banshee to finish the job. Moribund’s mob was smashed for good and all. Stormcaller was gutted—no one knew he was soft on Queenie—real soft. He hid it from her and the Wasp.”

“Now they’ll never know,” I said.

He shook his head, obviously deeply moved by the injustice of it all. “Worse’n that. They were never sure Moribund died. Never found the bastard. Series closed, so there’ll always be doubts. Bad show, Nick.”

I put the comic down. “These things have a habit of coming back,” I told him. “They killed off Sherlock Holmes and Superman, but those guys still came back to finish the job. Maybe Vengeance Unlimited will get a re-launch.”

His face lit up as if I’d held a welding torch under it. “You bet, mister! When the time comes, they’ll be kicking off, for sure.” The thought of it started him coughing again, to the extent that I thought his chest would burst. He swallowed half a pint of thick coffee and drowned the spasm.

“Where you’re goin’ you need armour. I got you some. I used it myself, a long time back. Doubt if it would fit me now.” He patted a not-insubstantial gut which almost rivalled Montifellini’s. Rising, he took me out into the garage and we spent a while wandering around its endless piles of metal and half-gutted cars. Seemed to me like some of this stuff went back a long, long time. I’m no car expert, yet some of these beasts looked like they belonged in another world; that or they’d been fused together in one of Oil-Gun’s frenzies of creativity. Both, I guess.

As for the armour he gave me, well, it came as a surprise. I was expecting something real clunky, but what he had was thin. I mean, paper-thin. Sort of like a beetle’s carapace, and extra tough with it. Oil-Gun said it would take a hail of lead; not that I had a mind to put it to the test.

“You work for the Batman, right?” I quipped.

He gave me a look which said, I don’t mess with amateurs, son.

At any rate, I was glad of the protection. Montifellini had already told me I wasn’t heading out on a picnic. By the time I got back outside, the big fella was back at the wheel of his vehicle, like he’d never got out of it. Oil-Gun busied himself under the hood, waving any number of wrenches and similar tools about like a mad surgeon, cussing and swearing like there was no tomorrow. Montifellini grinned at my expression.

“That’s the one guy who gets to tinker with the Magic Bus,” he said. “He’s got certain talents. Give him a road sweeper and he’d turn it into a racer.”

“Let me guess—he learns it all from comics?”

Montifellini roared with laughter, and I swear the entire bus shook in tune to his heaving frame. “You got that right, Nick! Oil-Gun and his comics. Big, big fan.”

“Vengeance Unlimited,” I said. “He’s stuck in a time warp.”

More laughter from the big guy. “I remember them, too. Used to live that stuff. Crazy.”

Oil-Gun finished his work and appeared in the doorway, face and arms slick with oil, his hair spiked like he’d had the mother of electric shocks. He held out what looked like a black baseball bat. “Here, Nick. I got this gizmo from Jazzy Boy Jericho. You must’ve heard him play. Wildest music outside of the Deep South.”

His words threw me for a moment. Jazzy Boy Jericho and I had last crossed paths under some very weird circumstances; between us we’d picked up some extremely dubious—and hazardous—artifacts. Jericho had warned me about what they could do. I’d put one to the test not so long back when I’d had to tangle with one of the night’s more unsavoury characters: the Vogue Prince. I was leery of using them again.

I figured the thing Oil-Gun gave me was a weapon, and hefted it very cautiously. It was lightweight, like it was made of aluminium, not hardwood, and covered in carvings. Most of them depicted a whole gang of naked folks who were, let’s just say, dancing. The club would drive them wild at the Sleaze Sisters’ place.

“Don’t sock anyone with that,” Oil-Gun warned me, “unless you really mean business.” His entire squat bulk heaved as he began a fit of coughing that would have drowned out an orchestra in full swing. He waved so long and sank back into the night and Montifellini closed the door behind him.

“So you’re set,” he said, pumping up the engine. It sounded to me just the way it had before, but he nodded appreciably as if the grinding, shuddering noises emitted notes only he could appreciate. We rumbled off, quickly swallowed by the night.

“What’s the plan?” I asked him. I had the feeling the night was young, even though it was long gone midnight.

“There’s this quay—more like a pier—right out on the end of the south harbour-side.”

“And would this quay be run-down, dilapidated, abandoned by the saner inhabitants of the docks?”

“Of course!” Montifellini laughed. “Where else would the bad guys be holed up? So we drive up to the end of the road where you slip out and find a way over to the pier. You may have to do your spider impersonation: most of the pier itself has rotted away so there’s no proper walkway. The hoods who use the place only go there by boat. But if you try it, they’ll sink you before you know it. And you don’t want to get into these waters, Nick. I ain’t seen what swims down there, but from what I hear, they’re pretty weird. A tide from way out at sea. They don’t like the sunlight.”

“Naturally. You said earlier the clown who’s collecting the body parts has teamed up with something out there in the sea. So these waters are alive with its little buddies, right?”

His expression changed and he nodded. “You gotta find out who’s involved. Don’t try nothing smart, Nick. Just get an eyeful and come back. Once we got a better picture, we’ll know what to do.”

“And if they grab me?”

“You got the club. And your guns.”

“Yeah, and a shedful of prayers.” My guess was no normal god would be listening to any of that stuff, though.

“Get back here by four a.m.,” he said when we got to our destination.

I stepped off the bus and into the protection of shadows clotted around the last rotting warehouse on the quayside. The Magic Bus growled as it swung round and kicked up a dust cloud. Montifellini had no intention of waiting here. No small wonder. The place was a graveyard, what little I could see of it. Falling apart. There was some kind of seaweed groping its way up from the harbour, like it was trying to pull the buildings down into the water. Black as oil and smooth as tar, the harbour waters reflected not a beam. If there was a moon tonight, it had sensibly ducked for cover. I could just about discern the long pier, curling out into the beginnings of the bay, no more than line upon line of jagged spars, pointing skyward. At the pier’s far end there was a shapeless blob of deeper darkness: some kind of Fun Palace. The den of thieves, I guessed. It looked about as welcoming as a plague pit.

It was easy enough to get to the pier and clamber down onto the first crossed spars. There were no guards hereabouts—why should there be? Only a lunatic or someone who had completely lost his way would be poking about in this sinkhole of rotting wood and tidal debris. Out at the pier end it would be different.

I pulled on my skin-tight gloves and got to work, slippery as an eel, and worked my way through the piles. Now and then the sea would give a surge and rise up, as though eager to work me loose and swallow me whole. I could smell the salt and something far worse, like there were several rafts of corpses floating about down there, half-chewed and split open. My imagination was working overtime; I guess the bad guys had chosen this dump for just that reason.

It took me maybe an hour to get across to the last section of the pier and I had my eyes peeled for any sign of life. There was almost none, but the waters here had a very faint glow, that is if it was sea water. It slurped and gurgled about the piles, more like glue or liquid mud. I’m damn sure I saw an obscenely oversized eye or two gazing up at me from below; otherwise I remained invisible. Looking around, I saw I must be over a mile from the distant quayside; right out on a limb. Typical Nick Nightmare scenario.

I climbed, up off the pier, along a leaning gantry and to the base of the domed roof of one building that rose up like a giant beetle’s carapace at pier’s end. It was slippery as all hell, be-slimed and dripping with some kind of fungus; like it was regularly dipped under the sea at high tide. I was in danger of slithering off it, but the thought of plopping into that black yogurt of a sea made me stick to the roof like a limpet with attitude. Out in the darkness of the sea, I could sense rather than see something: a kind of power, cruel and hungry, like it could feast on human pain. I tried to shake off the feeling, but it persisted. Like a serious toothache. Painfully slowly I got nearer to the crest of the dome and sidled around it, looking for a way in.

If there were any doors or inspection hatches, they’d long ago been welded shut by storms and cemented in place by the profusion of growths. I got dealt one lucky card, though: I found a rotting section where worm and weather had chewed a convenient man-sized hole. I silently pulled at the disintegrating wood until I got back to something substantial enough to support me. Below me, inside, was a well of utter darkness. For all I knew there was a drop of a hundred feet and the promise of a splatter death.

Something behind me stirred my nape hairs. I swung about. Whatever was seeping up over the dome was invisible, but very palpable. It was like the sea—or one of its disgusting denizens—had sent out a dream and now, like lapping mist, it was coming up the roof like an incoming tide. I knew for sure if it so much as touched me, my mind would scramble loose from its moorings. It was going to be the end of me and my investigation and any future ones. Worse, this nightmare tide was coming from all around the dome, closing in.

There was only one place left to go. I swung myself into the hole and felt about with my boots for any kind of purchase. Big surprise—nothing. I kept kicking this way and that. I looked up and sensed that seeping miasma edging towards my exposed fingers. One touch—that was all it wanted. I imagined something vast and globular smacking its drooling lips in anticipation—another soul to suck down into oblivion.

My right boot hit something. A spar maybe. What the hell—I swung and let go. At least if I hit the ground it would be a quick bow out. I grabbed—thin air for a moment—then my chest smacked into something like a rhino had butted me. I grappled with something, a fat wooden beam. I swung up, fuelled by fear, and got over it. Whatever curled around the outside of the dome wasn’t about to pour in; at least, it seemed that way. Maybe it didn’t like the thought of entering this mausoleum. I wasn’t exactly cheered by the thought myself. I wriggled my way along the beam, covering myself in thick dust and something which smelled very much like bird dung. That figured. A million gulls must have roosted up here. I shoved the thought away—I had seen enough gulls to last a lifetime, and some.

I must’ve been on a long roof beam. It led me towards several crossbeams; I was able to ease myself slowly downwards. There was light below me: very faint, seeping up through cracks in boards I took to be a ceiling. I crawled on to and along it and got to a gantry of rusting steel which shuddered as I touched it. I descended the gantry like it was made of thin glass. Mercifully it held my weight and I lowered myself. The silence was broken by the rhythmic purring of machinery and the light grew a little stronger. I dropped lightly on to another platform and wound my way around it. It seemed to be a service area: there were banks of ancient electrical stuff and a million wires. Some of them were humming.

I reached a small set of steel stairs which took me to a narrow gallery that led around whatever the main area was below. My guess was it had once been the grandest of ballrooms, the centre of this huge hive of a building. Clustered lights hung from it like broken bunches of fruit, their former elegance mocked now by the curtains of web wrapping them. They served to mask my presence from whoever was down on the ballroom floor.

It had been converted into something weird. Judging by the tanks and wires and glass pipes and masses of scientific instrumentation, my guess was a laboratory. Some of the tanks contained what can best be described as shapes. They writhed and wriggled: so it was life of some kind, but mostly stuff you might expect to find crawling around the pages of a post-apocalyptic novel. And you wouldn’t have wanted them out of the tanks.

I heard voices and shifted my position so as to get a better view. Sure enough, there were several guys below. Half a dozen of them were goons, guns stuffed into their belts, faces glazed with boredom; they’d rather have had something to shoot or maim, something like me, only I wasn’t up for that kind of sport if I could help it. The main man, though, was notably different. His suit was no two-bit, off-the-rack ragbag of material, no sir. This was class. Very expensive. Same went for the tie and the shoes. The guy reeked of money, success; glamor even. He made the ritziest gang bosses look cheap, and that took some doing.

His face was long and sallow and had me thinking instinctively of Europe—the darker regions with all the forests. His hair was cut short, kind of military fashion; his whole rigid bearing suggested maybe he was a general, at least, that high up the pecking order. His eyes were cold but unusually alive, reflecting the light in a strange way. I would have said, Hey, whaddya know, it’s another freakin’ vampire, but this was something else, much more subtle. He was human; but something powerful surged through that controlled frame. Authority, complete control, invincibility—boy, he had it all.

He raised his hands, gesturing at something just outside my line of vision. He had surgeon’s hands or maybe those of a concert pianist: not exactly pale and delicate, they were manicured and expressive. For sure not the hands of a thug or someone who worked the land. If he’d throttled a few mugs in his time, it would probably have been to classical music.

“We are almost ready,” he said. The voice confirmed my guess: he was Eastern European. Russian, I thought.

Maybe he was telepathic, because his next mouthful sounded like a response to my mental questions. I drew back, though I was sure no one had detected me. Even so, my blood ran colder than a penguin’s ass in a blizzard. “The city will soon bow to Pyotr Ivanovitch Moribundin. Those who control it will bow to me and to our ally out in the deeps. Between us we will begin the magnificent work of conversion!”

If this ballyhoo didn’t exactly have me shivering in my shoes, one thing did ring a vague bell with me. Not an alarm bell or church bells—more a distant tinkle. It was his name: Pyotr Ivanovitch Moribundin. Where in blazes had I heard that before? Did I say, bell? It was more like an itch, one you can’t quite reach, niggling away.

I had no time to speculate. The Russian called to something. Silence draped everything for a moment, then I heard movement: soft footsteps. Another guy came into the light—kinda gliding—and faced Moribundin. Very tall, maybe six foot eight, with sleek black hair and naked as a new-born babe. The skin colour was weird. No sign of a tan, but not bleached and not your usual fleshy pink. Unique. As for the physique—man, it was like a beaten-bronze statue. Was it flesh or stone, or some kind of amalgam? As I gaped at it, I realised its proportions weren’t exactly perfect. The arms, though muscular, didn’t quite match, nor did the legs. When the head moved, it did so slowly, stiff-necked, though its eyes were as piercing as an eagle’s.

Yet another guy appeared, a perfect contrast to the naked god. This one was short, slightly twisted, wearing a spotless white lab coat. This just had to be a mad scientist. So he’d be Moribundin’s eyes and hands. He wore spectacles which exaggerated the size of his eyes and a grin that made him King of Smug. He bowed to the Russian, indicating the motionless hunk with a rubber-gloved hand.

“Seamless. Wouldn’t you say?” His cracked smile widened; it didn’t do his face any favours.

Seamless? That was a giveaway. I studied the naked ape as closely as I dared from this distance. The coin dropped in the slot machine. Montifellini had told me the guy he suspected of the killings had built a, what had he called it…? A construct. If Moribundin had sidestepped into this world, the thing below me was his latest model. I had, literally, found the pieces of the missing jig-saw puzzle.

“Your finest work to date,” the Russian told the stooped scientist, who beamed like a kid just given a fistful of ice cream. “Let me see what he can do.”

The scientist turned to one of the mechanical banks of levers and dials and poked about, twisting and turning things enthusiastically. Across the lab, in a long glass tank, something stirred, raising its dark green bulk: slopping fluid over the side of the tank as it struggled to drag itself out of it. This thing was about the size of a horse, but had the looks of a cross between a walrus and an octopus, plus a few other denizens of the deep. I don’t think it was born in our world. I could see a wide, flapping mouth, wet and sticky with thick drool. Maybe it hadn’t fed for a few days. It slapped its great bulk down on the tiled floor; one of its eyes, opaque and watery and wide as a dinner plate, fixed on the first thing it saw: the naked construct.

Calmly the man—and I use the term loosely—walked forward, straight into the path of the monstrosity from the tank. Evidently the scientist hadn’t provided it with much of a brain. The slithering mass raised a few of its long, curling appendages and reached out for what it probably assumed was dinner; the disgusting, slobbering mouth opened wide. There were no teeth visible; just a whole lot of suckers and pink protuberances which looked like they could do as much damage as one of Eddie the Oil-Gun’s junkyard car-crushers.

The naked guy was pulled forward and enfolded like a dozen anacondas had hold of him and were constricting, pulping up the body in preparation for the final repast. I expected the guy to go Pop! at any moment.

But hell, no. Instead, the guy drew in a breath or two, like a diver about to take a deep plunge, and flung off the circling arms. They recoiled like they’d been scorched or bathed in acid. The man drove forward, one arm outstretched, fist bunched like a chunk of kryptonite, and drove it into a milky eye. It was like someone had thrown a dozen eggs at a wall; yellow gunk showered both antagonists. The sea-thing reared up, rolling over and over in agony, smacking into the tank. It shattered and flooded the place.

The scientist beckoned another of the thugs forward He was holding a long-muzzled weapon that was fed from a cylinder strapped to his back. The goon let rip—it was a flame thrower. Fire engulfed the writhing sea-thing, igniting the great blob like its blood was oil. Even the naked giant stepped back from the heat blast. Thick, black smoke boiled upwards and I was glad to be on the opposite side of the gallery, out of its direct path. One lungful of that poison and I’d have been done for.

In the aftermath of the impromptu cremation, the scientist turned to Moribundin with another lop-sided grin. “Isn’t he magnificent? Imagine what he could do to a man.”

Moribundin made a noise I guess was about as close as he ever got to a laugh. “It would take more than an army to slow him down. And that, my industrious friend, is exactly what I have in mind. Gangland will not know what hit it.”

I got the picture. This thing was an assassin. It was going to be despatched to knock the heart out of the gangs; maybe even take down the top men. Moribundin would move in and take ownership of all the turf. Unless someone did something about it.

Well, maybe I could squash this whole caper right now. I pulled one of the Berettas from my belt and slowly drew a bead on the head of the construct; from here the shot was a cinch. But something about that face, expressionless though it was, prodded the back of my mind: that itch again. I knew this guy. He was—or had been—Spettini. Antonio Spettini: brother of Luigi, one of the gangland bosses. My mind reviewed a picture of the last body Rizzie Carter had shown me: spread-eagled on a pile of crates in an old warehouse. Minus its head.

Which was now right here, bright-eyed and alive; kind of. My gun wavered, I don’t mind admitting. Antonio Spettini’s head spliced on to the reconstituted body parts of the other murdered victims would have filled most guys with revulsion. Another thought occurred to me. I had a vision of Frankenstein’s dummy just swatting my slugs aside. If it could do that, my bacon was over-cooked. I was thinking tactical withdrawal might be a better option. He who fights and runs away doesn’t get his head kicked in.

So I pulled back deeper into the shadows and made my way silently along the gantry. I had the information Montifellini wanted. Fine. Enough was enough. Time to scram the hell out of there. I wasn’t sure how to get out of the building—a cinch it wasn’t going to be the way I’d gotten in. My mind was made up for me: as I moved, the gantry below me gave a lurch, groaned like it was in pain and swung sideways. I had no time to react and was pitched shoulder first into a wall. Like a lot of the wood round here, this was being eaten by worms—my shoulder made a big fat hole in the wall and I went straight through into a dark emptiness. Oil-Gun’s armour—worn under my shirt like a thin bulletproof vest—did its stuff and cushioned me from some serious bruising.

I fell, hit something which could have been a pile of wet blankets. Except it shuddered at my impact and issued a deep moan. Fortunately I rolled over and smacked into another wall, no more solid than the first one, and out into the cold air beyond the dome. I’d stuffed my gun back in my belt: I was able to use both hands to grab on to anything that would prevent me from slipping down, down into the foul waters way below. Except there wasn’t anything.

I fell some more, pitch darkness careening around me. Then I hit something soft, as chance would have it, with my feet and ended up sprawling in the bottom of a small boat of some kind. I could just about see the guy I had crashed into. He was bent over in the bow of the boat, gurgling something like his throat was tied in a knot. I must’ve hit him pretty hard from that height. He rose up, fists waving about like two sledgehammers. Dazed or not, he was about to lay into me. I felt something hard under me—it was the club Eddy the Oil-Gun had given me. I slid it out and just about got to one knee.

As the guy lumbered forward, I saw his face. I say face, but that’s being kind. It was more of a blob: a pale grey oval with huge eyes, rheumy and wet and a mouth from which things writhed, like he’d swallowed a sea anemone. I swung the club and it smacked up against his thigh. The light was poor, but I swear I saw something move from the club to the thing attacking me—as if those carved dancers had skipped across. Whatever, the thing screeched: head back, eyes filming over in acute agony. Its whole body shook, wrenched itself away, and toppled into the black waters beyond the boat.

I leaned over and watched. Nothing at first. Then a sound deep below: like a small depth charge had gone off. The water erupted, bouncing the boat up and down a few times. There were bits of something fleshy floating on the water.

I heard scuttling and scuffing and, looking closely at the club, I saw its dancers had returned. Was that singing I could hear? Hell, no, I must have imagined it. I put the club away and looked for an oar. There were two. I was able to steer the boat under cover of the huge building that loomed over me and get a look at my surroundings. My unceremonious exit from the dome seemed to have gone unnoticed; at least, there was no one above me, scanning the water. Maybe it was my lucky night.

On the other hand...someone hailed me from beyond the nearest piles. If it was a man, I didn’t recognise the voice or language. It was guttural, like the guy had a mouth full of syrup. My guess was, he was checking if everything was okay. I did my best to impersonate the noise, briefly. But I pulled out the club. My little friends might get to dance again. Seemed to work, though—the other guy steered his own boat back into darkness. Me, I just rowed away, back towards the distant quay beyond the pier.

I looked at my watch as I got ashore: 3:30 am. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. I found a hiding place to lay up while I waited for Montifellini. At that point, time stopped flying and ironically although it was a half hour before he showed, it seemed like a whole night.

****

Montifellini pulled the bus up someplace in the back of beyond, where we wouldn’t be disturbed. He switched off the engine; silence quickly wrapped itself around us, suspending us in time and space in a way you only get on that metal beast of his. It’s like being back in some kind of womb.

“So—what have you got, my friend?”

I gave him the rundown. He listened without moving a muscle, nodding occasionally, and scratching his chin. At the end of my diatribe, he sat back, grunting.

“Pyotr Ivanovitch Moribundin.” He repeated the name a couple of times. “I was right. It is him.”

“He’s done this before? Built himself an assassin from his victims?”

“Dr Moribund.” He pronounced it like he was discussing a particularly virulent disease.

That itch at the back of my mind was playing up again. I thought about Eddie the Oil-Gun and his comics. Vengeance Unlimited: they’d fought a Dr Moribund. Bits of their epic battle were coming back to me. The five superheroes had fought and beaten him, two of them killed in the process, the others wounded or otherwise damaged. Although his organization had been wrecked, he himself had never been found. “Are you telling me the Russian creep I saw tonight is the same Dr Moribund that Vengeance Unlimited took on?”

“I have no doubt of it,” said Montifellini. “I suspected, but dared do nothing about it until I was sure.”

“You want to tell me about this stuff?”

“In this world,” he said, “Vengeance Unlimited is—or was—a comic. A fantastic story about five people who fought crime and injustice, ending up with them going head-to-head with their greatest enemy: Dr Moribund. In another world—and you know of it, Nick—their conflict was very real. It was made more difficult by their relationships with each other. I don’t know how well you know the story in the comic.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“Steel Wasp and Quicksilver Queen—Queenie they called her—broke the code they’d all agreed on and became lovers. They’d all sworn they should never get involved in relationships among themselves because that would make the team vulnerable. It was to cost them dear: Moribund exploited it ruthlessly. Trollhammer and Blue Banshee had their affairs of the heart, but always outside the workings of the team. Stormcaller was the same; at least, for a long time. However, when love calls, ah, no one can hold back the tide, eh?”

I didn’t feel inclined to comment.

“Stormcaller fell in love with Queenie. She and Wasp had been lovers for a few years—it was no secret. Stormcaller kept his feelings to himself, so no one knew. Queenie and Wasp were very discreet.”

I’d read this in the comic, and for me it had slowed down the action and gone on too long. I wasn’t about to tell Montifellini that; like Eddy the Oil-Gun, he had been wrapped up in all that stuff.

“When Wasp and Queenie set that last trap for Dr Moribund,” he continued sorrowfully, “she knew they were risking everything. Almost like she was purging her guilt. And Wasp knew in his heart that their love was doomed if the team was to survive, so for him, the sacrifice was worth it.” He sighed deeply. “It could have been an opera. Their deaths almost destroyed Stormcaller; certainly it was the end for Vengeance Unlimited. Their powers were never quite the same.”

I broke into his reverie as diplomatically as I could. “So how does all this relate to what’s going on now?”

“Dr Moribund is here. He fled Vengeance Unlimited and survived—weakened, but not destroyed. And now an even more terrible power has chosen him to do its filthy work. I speak of that monstrous thing swimming out in the ocean deeps; always dreaming of conquest, of subjugating all life. I have sensed its malign purpose for some time, preparing for an attack. Your city is its target and it will use Dr Moribund as its willing vessel. It has restored whatever powers he lost. That thing he has created is to be the instrument of destruction.”

It may have sounded crazy, but I’d been mixed up in too many other incidents and seen too many freakish things in recent times to laugh it off. I’d had a feeling something like this was brewing: everything pointed towards it. “So what happens next?”

“Moribund will perform the final act necessary to empower his creature. I am thinking the ritual will involve all five of the major gang leaders: they will die and be replaced. Exactly how Moribund is to begin his subjugation of the city, I cannot be sure; but the ritual has to be foiled. It cannot be allowed to bear fruit. If it does, it will be the first of many.”

I was beginning to get the full picture, and it was as sweet on the eye as a melting Picasso. When I mentally lined up the potential opposition to this maritime invasion from Hell, it appeared to consist of me and ... well, that was about it. Even Montifellini wouldn’t be able to do a lot to help—he was just the messenger. Besides, we would need an army of tanks, not one bone-jarring heap of a passenger vehicle.

“You want me to pitch in and spoil the party? On my own?”

“You are most resourceful, Nick, but no, you cannot do this alone. I must seek help for you.”

“How about Darkwing, Shadow Woman, and Black Bowman? Or any of that crowd in Pulpworld? This would be their kind of caper.”

He shook his head. “No, I think not. However, I will bring help, I promise you.”

I studied that lugubrious face. Its troubled look wasn’t comforting. I thought about Rizzie Carter and a legion or two of enthusiastic cops. But this wasn’t going to be an ordinary showdown; I didn’t think mere guns were going to be a whole lot of use.

****

The next day I got a phone call from Louis del Orro. “You were right, Nightmare,” he said coldly. “Me and the other head men have all been contacted. Some creep calling himself Moribundin wants a pow-wow. All five of us. Plus he wants you there. Unless you know of some other private dick called Nick Nightmare. Now ain’t that interestin’?”

“Me?” What the hell?

“You know this guy?” asked del Orro, voice thick with suspicion.

“We’ve never been formally introduced. He runs a new outfit in town.”

“He said he’s the one responsible for the five dead men. Can you believe that? Bold as freakin’ brass. Boastin’ about it. Now he wants to do business. Meet up with us all.”

“So where’s this happy event taking place?”

“The Swinging Citadel.”

I knew the place—who didn’t? Biggest nightclub in the city. It wasn’t run by the Mob, which suited the gang chiefs. It served them all well enough as a kind of no-man’s land, somewhere they could cross paths when they needed to without blasting the hell out of each other. God alone knew how much black marketing business went on in the backrooms of that den, and just how much of a rake-off went to the men who did own it, at least one of whom was, I knew, a congressman. Well, a guy has to make a living.

“Tonight at 10.00 pm,” said del Orro. “You be there, Nightmare. Don’t make me send the boys out to collect you.”

“The day will pass all too slowly, Louis. I’ll wear my best suit.”

I sat back and chewed it over some. How was I supposed to play this? There was no way I was going to be able to contact Montifellini; though my guess was he’d be expecting the fireworks to start tonight. He knew I wouldn’t be able to ram a spoke in Dr Moribund’s wheel on my own, so he’d send help of some kind. I wasn’t getting a special warm glow about that, though—I’d still be going in blind. I could tool up and take a couple of handy weapons from my outré collection, including Oil-Gun’s dancing club … but I was going to have to play this low key; and there was no way I was going to tackle the Thing that Walked, not without a pocket nuclear missile.

I rang the chief and after he’d ranted on for a few minutes, I squeezed in a few words. “The action is going down tonight,” I told him. “But trust me, Chief, you and your boys really don’t want to stick your noses in until after the noise dies down. Make it look like you’re doing the Seventh Cavalry thing and riding in at the eleventh hour. And fifty-ninth minute.”

“I don’t want a goddam war on my hands!”

“No. But if you go in too early, you’ll likely need a fleet of ambulances to take out your brave heroes. You don’t know what you’re up against, Chief. My gut feeling is that whatever blows will make Hell seem like a cool holiday resort.”

He swore and ranted some more and I could picture his florid features expanding, fit to burst.

“Just gather an army, surround the place, keep your heads down, and wait for my signal. Which will be something along the lines of, ‘Now would be a good time to get in here and save my butt.’”

“Okay,” he grunted reluctantly. “But I won’t wait all night, ya got that?”

“I love you, too, Rizzie. See you at the ball.”

****

I had to go out and buy a decent shirt and tie. Without them I wouldn’t even get into the Swinging Citadel, regardless of del Orro’s invite. I did have a suit: the last time I wore it—which, judging by the state of it, must have been round about the time we won the War of Independence—it had gotten so creased up it looked like something a grease monkey tosses away after long use cleaning engines. I decided against it and settled on a pale jacket, which I managed to iron without setting alight, and I gave my best shoes a polish. All this heavy work kept me busy for half the day, which was just as well as my nerves were not so much on edge as well over it. I took some small consolation from the paper-thin suit of armour Oil-Gun had given me, which I squeezed myself into before dressing.

Nothing from Montifellini. Would he know about tonight? Sure he would. He had his own grapevine. So who was he going to send? The guys I’d suggested, like Darkwing and the others, weren’t available, he’d said. This showdown was going to need someone of their calibre, though. I decided to take on a swig or two of Dutch courage and ambled down to the Sleaze Sisters’ place, but I made damn sure my long coat covered up my jacket and tie. If anyone in there saw me ritzed up like this, they’d wonder what had gotten into me.

When I arrived, the Sisters were busy, which suited me fine. Moby Grin, the barman, poured me a stiff one and pushed a sheet of vellum across the bar at me, his full set of gold teeth twinkling. “This came for you. Didn’t see who brought it.”

I nodded my mysterious nod and scanned the note. I saw with relief that it was from Montifellini: as I’d guessed, he knew about tonight. You won’t be on your own, his note read. Don’t forget Oil-Gun’s nightstick. I hadn’t: it was strapped inside my jacket; not an easy thing to conceal, not like my two Berettas and the long-bladed knife I’d selected. My clothes were just about baggy enough to hold the mini-arsenal.

I took a cab out to the Swinging Citadel. It’s a couple of miles from the centre, built out like some kind of fortress into the busy part of the harbour. It’s all glitz and glamour: a soaring modern block done up like something from the Jazz Age. Lights blazing and flashing, enough energy poured into it to fuel a couple of small towns. I got out of the cab by the main gates, two huge wrought-iron monstrosities that looked more like part of a portcullis than anything. From the twin gatehouses on either side a small posse of goons emerged and gathered about me, their own guns barely concealed.

“I’m here to meet Mr. del Orro,” I told them. “Nick Nightmare.”

Two of them grinned at each other, but they nodded. “Yeah, pal, go on in.” The heavies stepped aside. There was a smaller gate set inside one of the bigger ones; it swung open and I went through. Beyond was a wide causeway that led to the front of the night palace. I should have worn a pair of shades to shield my eyes from the brazen glory of all that lighting: neon tubes twisted into the outline of dancing girls and liquor bottles, rising up to the heavens. On either side of the main doors there were half a dozen huge columns which looked like they’d been filched from some Greek temple, either that or a Hollywood film set.

There were more guards, beautifully suited, who looked at my coat as if I’d just emerged from the black waters on either side of the causeway. I was expected so they let me in. The joint stank of money, every last inch of the place. This was how kings and queens lived; how Roman emperors fitted out their private pads. The carpets were so thick I thought I’d need a boat to pole across them. Chandeliers hung overhead like gleaming, glittering small planets. The main ballroom stretched out ahead of me; a packed crowd of very richly dressed swanks strutted their stuff to the orchestra, itself a high-class outfit. No expenses spared, nothing but the best.

I checked my coat at the cloakroom and the tall wraith of a guy who took it made no comment as he gave me a receipt, though he handled it like he was removing something which had died out in the back yard. I turned away, surprised to find myself facing Louis del Orro himself. He’d been waiting to pounce.

“Glad you could make it,” he said in that cold voice of his.

“So what gives?” I was playing it nonchalantly, doing my best to take in as much of the crowd as I could. Around the edges of the pulsating dancers and heaving congestion at the three main bars, it wasn’t hard to spot the array of heavies. Men with guns—probably machine guns at that. The five gangland head honchos would have gone for overkill tonight. There’d be enough of their thugs here to re-run Iwo Jima.

Del Orro glanced at his watch. I didn’t need to look at mine: there was a giant time piece on one wall proclaiming the time as 9.58 pm. “This punk, Moribundin, says he’ll be here at ten. Malloy, Latimer, Sperranzo, and Spettini are all here, too. Luigi Spettini is in a very bad mood. He didn’t take kindly to having his brother decapitated.”

“Who would?”

“None of us knows what this jumped-up sonofabitch wants. He’s goin’ to have to do some real fancy talkin’ if he’s goin’ to get away without being carved up into a million chunks.”

“Forgive my simple mind, Louis, but how do I fit on to this?”

“I told ya, the guy asked for ya. Somethin’ ya ain’t told me?”

“I gave you all I know.”

“Maybe you can do the talkin’ for us. Don’t get nervous, Nightmare. We got enough firepower here to blow a hole in Fort Knox.”

At his shoulder, one of his many flunkies said something and I caught the drift: Moribundin had arrived. Del Orro waved me along with him and we made our way past a hundred fascinated stares towards the far end of the ballroom, through it and into the palatial open space of a conference suite. At its luxurious far end there was a sweeping expanse of curved glass, a magnificent window which afforded an unimpeded view of the wide decking and slipway down to the harbour. Its waters stretched away on both sides of the window, dotted with lights that partially lit the panorama of ships, wharves, and cranes. Work must have shut down for the night. Silent and immobile, it was like an enormous oil painting.

Behind us the doors closed with a thump, like we’d been shut up in a tomb; or maybe that was just my negative state of mind. I could see we had been joined by the four other gang leaders. The walls of this room were decorated with their men, all of whom now shrugged off their coyness about showing their hardware. Submachine guns all. If Godzilla had come up from the sea for some action, this bunch of bad boys would have shredded him like cheese through a grater. Except that this wasn’t Godzilla; it was far worse.

Standing framed by the window was Dr Moribund: Pyotr Ivanovitch Moribundin. He’d brought a single companion: The Thing that Walked, or whatever it was called. It was no longer naked, instead wearing a suit which looked as priceless as the one adorning the Russian. It made the goddam thing look even more impressive. It sure hid those little inconsistencies of surgery I’d seen previously. Power radiated from it, along with a kind of coldness: glacial as an iceberg and every bit as suggestive of danger.

Luigi Spettini swore when he saw its face. Those features had once belonged to his brother, Antonio. But not anymore. Some new, deeply embedded power animated that face, those hellfire eyes. They regarded the gathering imperturbably, like a lion watches a herd of gazelles at snack time. I could feel my guts losing their solid form. This would not be a good time to have them liquefy.

“Gentlemen,” said Moribundin, “I am grateful for your agreeing to this gathering.” He bowed and I wondered how the hoods managed to resist trying to blow him away in one brief hail of lead. Only the long wooden conference table separated them, its surface polished as a mirror.

Del Orro nudged me forward. Time to do my party piece; except I didn’t have one.

“Ah, Mr. Nightmare,” said Moribundin, bowing again. “A pleasure to meet you at last. I know you have been searching for me assiduously.” I took it to be a reference to my spider impersonation on his roof.

I sort of grinned, playing it dumb. I looked at the living jigsaw puzzle beside him. Close up you could see it wasn’t quite … human. Its facial expressions—it didn’t have much of a range—looked like they were being operated by remote control. Around me, the air was very still, though I could feel about half a million machine guns pointed in my general direction. If someone jumped the gun and started the firestorm, my carcass—very much a human one—would turn into an instant bloody spray.

Moribundin was enjoying himself. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I am here. Well, I wanted to give you the opportunity to be the first to witness the new power that is coming to this wonderful city of yours. Tomorrow will see the dawn of a new era. Something rather special.”

I clenched my teeth—in fact, my entire body, particularly my bowels—and edged as discreetly closer to del Orro as I could. Maybe the guns wouldn’t go off with him in the firing line; him and the other four top hoods.

Moribundin—Dr Moribund—stepped aside from his creature, which regarded the company blankly. It seemed to be waiting for something. Moribundin looked directly at me. “Perhaps you could assist us in this little demonstration, Mr. Nightmare. Would you be good enough to take out one of your Berettas—no, make that both of them.”

I felt a whole lot happier with the two guns in my hands, so it was no problem at all to oblige.

“Those are very fine guns. Now—in your own time, Mr. Nightmare, please empty as many bullets as you like into my companion here. Don’t worry, he won’t take it personally.”

The atmosphere tightened like a noose and I could feel all those other guns aiming in roughly my direction. Del Orro grunted beside me. I took it as confirmation I should do exactly as Moribundin instructed. So I let the walking monolith have it, three quick shots from each gun. I’m not The Man with No Name, but at that range, I don’t miss. Six bullets should have ripped into the thing, all neatly drilled into its heart, assuming it had one.

Should have. Instead, it just waved its hands in a blur of movement, like an airplane propeller, fast enough to be invisible. There were several metallic sounds and I knew my bullets had all been deflected. They zipped off into the room like seriously pissed off hornets and smacked into the walls or polished floor. Moribundin grinned wolfishly.

“Would anyone like to step forward and unload a machine gun into my companion? Please, be my guest.”

There was no shortage of volunteers: at least a score of the heavies moved in for the kill. The five head men all nodded in unison and it was time for the ear defenders. When twenty state-of-the-art Uzi machine guns are let loose in a relatively confined space, it re-defines the meaning of the word “deafening”. I clapped my hands to my ears and watched as the automaton danced and whirled: not like a puppet being shredded as if it had been thrown into a particularly big food blender, but in a sequence of impossibly fast defensive manoeuvres. Hell knew how many slugs flew at it, but not one of them scored a hit. Instead they were all batted back; some of them smacking into the men who’d fired them. Behind the colossus, the huge window shattered as a dozen or more of the bullets hit it. A zillion shards of glass cascaded across the floor in a glittery, lethal carpet.

Moribundin stood, totally un-phased by it all—he might have been waiting for a subway train. I joined del Orro and the others, ducking to avoid the bullet monsoon. When it stopped—it seemed like an hour later, but in reality it lasted no more than a couple of minutes—several men were down, dead as midnight. Others had been wounded. Me and the big five were all on our knees.

Moribundin smiled. “I think you can see, gentlemen, that my colleague has certain talents which make him worthy of your respect. You may be surprised to learn he is only partially complete, though you will recognise his components. Five of your best men died to bring him into this world. In a moment I will finish my work here and empower him fully.”

“What the hell is it you want?” snarled Luigi Spettini, but he remained crouching. He knew a bad thing when he saw one.

“Why, the city,” said Moribundin flatly. “Your—mob. I’m simply changing the management. None of these worthy followers of yours needs to be alarmed. I’m sure they’ll be quite happy working for me. I promise them all I’ll treble their own personal stake in the affairs of the city. What do you say, boys?”

No one dared speak, though the massed gunmen were all watching each other. The truth was, they didn’t care that much who paid their bills. If this new kid on the block was going to raise the profits, it wasn’t going to be so bad.

“What makes you think we’ll work for you?” said Stu Latimer, getting to his feet. He was a thin, pale figure; everyone knew beneath that cold, merciless exterior was a cold, merciless interior. When he turned his malicious attention on you, you generally withered like a corn sheaf in a drought.

“Oh, you won’t, Mr. Latimer.” Moribundin waved his automaton forward and it crossed the floor and eased the conference table aside like it was a deck chair and in one flowing movement, grabbed Latimer by the throat. It lifted him clean off the ground. A huge hand closed around the hood’s windpipe, shutting it off and pulping the flesh and bone like it was a banana. Latimer’s legs spasmed for a moment before the thing dropped him, stone dead. I was waiting for a fresh hail of lead. It didn’t happen, though the guns were all up and aimed.

I knew what was coming and drew back into the room before the thing with the hand of God could make a grab for me. Spettini was next: it only took a moment for the thing to grab his head, twist it to and fro a couple of times and practically unscrew it. Jeeze, the thing was so goddam quick! Pugsey Malloy, Vittorio Sperranzo, and last of all, Louis del Orro, all went more or less the same way, crumpled up like so many balls of paper and tossed aside. Management had indeed been replaced. Dr Moribund’s promotion to the top spot had been a real fast-track job.

“Messy, but necessary,” he said. I was watching the automaton: it was nonchalantly examining its hands. I was just relieved it hadn’t seen fit—yet—to lay them on me. I blended with the mobsters to the best of my ability. The doors to the conference suite were still shut tight. They would be as thick as a bank vault’s doors. If there was going to be a way out of this place, it would be through the shattered window. Cold air streamed through it.

“One more demonstration of my power,” said Moribundin. “Then I trust I can rely on your complete support. In return for your loyalty to me, I can promise you special protection. You have seen my colleague at work; now let me arm him fully.” He turned to the broken glass and indicated the dark waters of the harbour and the slipway angling into it. “The harbour and the deeper waters beyond it have a long history. Men have been in these lands for hundreds of years. During that time there have been many disasters. Shipwrecks, drownings, other incidents resulting in the loss of ships and men. Why, the harbour floor must be positively littered with bones.”

I felt my guts clench even tighter. I had a feeling I knew where this was headed.

“We shall see,” he said, moving to the window, ignoring the cold blast of air that came in through the hanging shards of broken glass as he studied the harbour. Beside him the automaton waited, silent and motionless like its batteries had flattened. Around me, the gunmen moved restlessly, exchanging brief words; none of them daring to take even a brief peep at the five dead men whose lives had ended so abruptly. I thought something would give: someone’s nerve would snap and the lead would be flying again.

Instead, the first movement came from outside: at the bottom of the slipway. Something bobbed up out of the oily water, a blob of darkness, getting larger as it heaved itself up and staggered on to the slipway. It was crudely man-shaped, a sculpture in mud and muck from the bottom of the river. It moved sluggishly, more like something oozing along the sea floor than a man walking. The darkness obscured any features it may have had, which was no bad thing. Behind it, several more amorphous shapes bulged up like bubbles, all of them made from mud, or so it looked to me. I heard the guns around me swinging up and cocking in readiness. And I could hear the gunmen‘s indrawn breaths: they were not enjoying this.

The river went on disgorging its dripping host—and I mean host, as there were scores of these things now, stumbling up the slipway, emanating a strong ubiquitous stench, reminiscent of rotting fish. The first of them had reached the broken window. It was about five feet high, with no neck and a head which was little more than a ball of viscous mud. The features were no more than shadows, except for the mouth: a wide, black hole, toothless and tongueless. The sound coming from it was serpentine and I was thankful I wasn’t standing close enough to smell its foetid breath.

Dr Moribund turned, smiling. Anyone who could smile at a time like this was making a clear statement about his sanity; or rather, complete lack of it. He spoke to the automaton, which jerked to life and, get this, embraced the shambling mud-thing like it was a long lost relative. For all I knew, it was. As we all watched, the two figures merged: the automaton becoming more and more smeared in the muck and filth the horror it clutched was composed of. The automaton raised its head and made a sound, a roar of weird pleasure as the last vestiges of the mud thing slithered down to the decking and pooled. Whatever had animated it had transferred itself into the automaton.

My attention was tugged to the harbour. Looking over the waves of mud creatures which poured gelatinously up the slipway like an incoming tide of fat slugs, I saw something much larger out in mid-stream. I knew instinctively it was from the ocean: a twisted relative of the giant squid or some other deep-sea beast. The power it housed was unearthly, throbbing and pulsing like evil radiation, somehow fuelling the mud-made army. Like Moribund, it served that horror out in the fathomless places of the ocean, whose name nobody was supposed to speak, the heart of all this deformed energy.

Several more mud-things merged with the automaton, which now radiated an even stronger power, as if some walking generator had been switched on, blazing with unimaginable levels of voltage. Dr Moribund stepped aside to allow other mud-things into the building. I was getting the picture. He wanted everyone in on the fun. When he’d said, join me, he meant Join me.

“Who will be first?” he said, reading my mind.

The unfortunate sap who was closest to the window had no time to comment. The sight of the plodding mud things had blown the fuses in his brain: he just stood there, dumbfounded and motionless. So it was easy enough for the mud-thing to wrap its cloying arms around him and drag him to its chest. I waited for the creature to dissolve, leaving whatever essence powered it to transfer into the gunman, but that wasn’t how it worked this time. Instead, the gunman’s body shrivelled, his bones and solid components turning to mush, leaving a fleshy sack which plopped on to the wooden floor, whereas the mud-thing expanded and crude features carved themselves across its previously blank face.

It was too much for the crowd. Howling with anger and fear, the gunmen let loose with their Uzis. In that blistering assault I had to flatten myself under the table to avoid being chopped up into something resembling the sauce for MacFury’s next Bolognese. It meant I had a hard time seeing what was going on. But I did see one of the mud-things being scythed in half by a withering machine gun blast—the two halves toppled sideways, moments later slithering back together like two huge blobs of mercury. The message was not getting through to the gunmen: guns were a waste of time.

Dr Moribund had eased himself to one side, protected by the automaton. It was grinning like an idiot as the mud-things poured in from the slipway. Muck flew everywhere, heads and limbs dissolving in sheets of splattering gore and river filth, but always the obnoxious stuff coalesced and reformed. Whether the original stuff re-mixed with the same creature, I wouldn’t like to say. It didn’t seem to make a difference. Eventually the guns stopped firing; either the mob had run out of ammo or the gunmen realised they were banging their heads against a brick wall, so to speak.

For a few moments there was silence, broken only by the slurping and gurgling made by the reforming horrors. The first group of them wrapped their arms around those gunmen unfortunate to be in the front line and the disgusting transformations continued. It was only going to be a matter of time before all of the hoods were sucked dry and re-created as the slimy servants of Dr Moribund. And unless I could think of something real snappy, that was going to include me.

I slipped my guns into my belt and remembered Oil-Gun’s nightstick. I drew it out and even without studying it, sensed the naked dancers were stretching their limbs as if they were ready to perform. Maybe, just maybe, they would save my bacon.

Outside, from somewhere up above, came a sudden weird sound. It was like an abrupt wind out of nowhere, a scream almost: demonic in its intensity and venom. Like a dozen wild banshees had been unleashed. That squid-freak out in the harbour must have been dredging up even more of its powers. Or … did I say—banshees? That rang a bell. Banshee. Could this be—the Blue Banshee? He of Vengeance Unlimited fame? Montifellini had promised help. Had he somehow found the erstwhile superhero and urged him to our defence?

I had no time to speculate further as three of the mud-things plodded toward me, blobby hands reaching out. I could smell the reek of the river, tidal mud and rotting fish; or worse. I got out from under the table and swung the nightstick. As it smashed into the head of the first assailant there was a stab of light, a vague buzz of laughter from somewhere and the creature began to shudder uncontrollably. In a moment it simply burst, showering everything around it in sizzling bits of flesh. This time they didn’t coalesce. When the mud-things got hit by that club, they stayed hit.

As I smote about me, doing a manic impersonation of Samson with his jawbone of an ass, the mud-things obliged by doubling up as Philistines. I carved a path through them, intending to get to Dr Moribund and his walking monstrosity. But something else came crashing on to the scene: a tall, dark-clad avenger in regalia which looked like it had been filched from Batman. It was, as I had wondered, Blue Banshee himself. He threw back his head and let loose a howl which would have embarrassed any wolf. It seemed to boil the very air and within it there were shapes: a cloud of—well, banshees; straight out of the comic book I used to read.

“Leave Dr Moribund to me, Nightmare!” he shouted above the noise of the gale. “You deal with that thing in the harbour. Trollhammer’s club will be more than it can stand.” Blue Banshee then rushed at the automaton and the two of them started in on some kind of ultra-wrestling match. I was running on pure nerves now and battered my way through the still gathering horde of mud-things, swinging this way and that like I was hitting home runs on all sides. I could hear the laughter of the dancers, too. There seemed to be a constant stream of them, like the club was a gateway: admitting dozens of the impish, naked shapes, which seemed to be enjoying a feeding frenzy with the mud-things, like a mass of aerial piranhas.

On the slipway, another figure joined me out of the night. This one was as broad as two men, but short and stooped; nevertheless he was incredibly muscular; a powerhouse of energy. It used a huge hammer, not unlike something Thor himself might have wielded, this one with a blunt hammer at one end and an axe head at the other. Vengeance Unlimited had indeed heeded the call: it was Trollhammer. Grinning like all his Christmases had just come at once, he tore into the mud-things and wrought utter havoc, roaring with glee as he did so. I guess the pent-up frustration of years was coming out in one big burst.

I made it down to the edge of the water. Okay, I’d drawn the short straw and my job was to zap the overweight slime-ball out in the harbour, but there was no way I was going to swim out to it. I looked around: there was a small launch with an outboard motor. Not exactly a military landing craft, but it would have to do. I got in and yanked on the cord which got the motor going; it buzzed obligingly and I steered the little boat out across the black glass-like surface of the harbour. Blue Banshee and his cloud of horrors were gathering on the building behind me, so the harbour was thankfully calm. I looked ahead of me. As I watched the pulsing shape of the deep sea-thing, I wondered just for a moment what in all the hells I was doing here, homing in on this spawn of an alien god. Maybe at that moment I was completely insane, lost in the blood-surge of the battle. It’s the only way I can account for what I was doing.

Nevertheless I bore down on the creature. It raised what I took to be its head; a long projectile, green and weed-encrusted. Two eyes the size of truck tires regarded me, almost sleepily, as if to say: You must be kidding me, little flea—you gonna zap me with that toothpick? You are the winner of this year’s Mr. Utterly Crazy prize.

I ignored the baleful gaze and swung Trollhammer’s club. It connected with a long, sinuous whip-thing that had broken the surface. At once there was an explosion of light as the curling tendril burst asunder. More gunk and fleshy gobbets sizzled through the air like a burger stand had been hit by a grenade. Twice more these things uncoiled and swung at me, but the weapon was more than a match for them. The laughter of its naked dancers—god knows how many of them poured from it—had become harsh: a shrieking wind to match the banshees swarming around the Swinging Citadel.

As the dancers, visible as a kind of flickering series of lights, descended on the huge water dweller, it gave a tremendous shudder, thrashing the water and sending up plumes of spray. My little boat zipped in like a wasp and before I could prevent it, smacked up against that wall of scaled flesh. I was flung forward, toppling on to the very crown of the creature’s brow, somewhere between its eyes. Instinctively I drove the club down at the quivering flesh: it was like I had set off a small nuclear bomb deep down inside the gut of the beast. I could feel the whole thing reverberating to that detonation.

This was not going to be a good place to hang out, not when that explosion breached the outer body. I saw the boat, bobbing up and down, and wasted no time in leaping for it. I clung on to it with one hand, the other retaining the club like it was life itself. Something under me in the water gave me a shove and I was flung up and into the boat, doubly thankful I was wearing that armour of Oil-Gun’s. I yanked at the cord again and it responded sweetly. In no time I was puttering back across the water towards the buildings, praying whatever explosion was coming would give me time to escape it.

Under me, the waters heaved like Moby Dick had come to town and was surfacing. The boat was lifted out of the water and awkwardly surfed its way to the slipway, skidding up and beyond it, halting as the thunder of the explosion rocked the entire harbour and its environs. Small nuclear explosion was right. Sea-beast, or whatever, it was ripped asunder like a melon in a microwave. The attendant rain was particularly sticky and effusive.

The mud-things had concentrated inside the Swinging Citadel and as I reached the area of shattered glass, I saw both Blue Banshee and Trollhammer had fought them to a standstill. Glass shards had been whipped up by the wind like a raincloud of butterflies, ripping and tearing. What was left of the lumbering horde had become relatively still, its sting drawn by the abrupt demise of the thing out in the harbour. Dr Moribund and his personal henchman still stood to one side. As I entered, they both turned to me.

“No doubt, Mr. Nightmare,” said Moribund, cool as a whole row of proverbial cucumbers, “you think you have thwarted our plans. Your destruction of Xagath-Muul out in the harbour is of no consequence now. His power has already been transferred.” He indicated the automaton, which, I have to say, glowed like a generator. “A valiant attempt by you and these … remnants of a bygone age; yet ultimately a failed one.”

Trollhammer and Blue Banshee looked more than ready to resume combat, though I could see in their eyes inside their masks the strain of uncertainty. I joined them and we simply waited, sure we were in for one last blast of effort. Moribund smiled like an indulgent parent.

“The Deep Lord out in the ocean presides over us. He has given to me the power to undertake the first of what will be many invasions of the land. Other ancient powers will awaken, once this city is mine. Why not give yourselves up to the inevitable? Enjoy the power the Deep Lord can bestow. It is not too late. Throw aside your weapons. They cannot harm me or my servant.” He sounded like a priest, but I don’t have much time for religion.

We would have been glad to put his words to the test, but somehow we suspected he had the winning hand. Again the mud-things began their inexorable march towards us. Them we could deal with. No way were we going to be sucked dry and spat back into their quivering forms. So we hit out, pulping them as they came. Moribund, impatient to finish this, sent his automaton into the fray. It laughed as it wafted aside banshee and dancer alike, eyes fixed on me and my two heroic, albeit exhausted companions.

We were backed against the doors. Maybe we were going to have to cut and run—we all thought about it. As we rallied a last time, we heard something outside in the main dance hall. An engine? Roaring and protesting—but in the ballroom? The huge doors—which must have been a foot or more thick—were hit by something that sounded like a tank, judging by the way they bulged, creaked, and then snapped. They burst aside, showering us with splinters.

Mad engine it sure was: no tank, but the familiar shape of Montifellini’s Magic Bus. How it had battered through the doors and blown them aside was beyond me. I would have thought the whole vehicle would have just concertinaed up under the effort. But no, it roared into the room, the huge driver singing at the top of his considerable basso profundo voice. The bus came to a shuddering halt, only partially damaged, like a huge dog shaking itself after a dip in a river.

Dr Moribund laughed contemptuously. “My dear Montifellini. Such a joy to see you! Now the circle really can be completed.”

The automaton turned its malicious intention from me and my companions to the bus and faced it like this was High Noon revisited. It raised its hands. I had no idea what the heck it was going to do to the vehicle; my guess was it would have been terminal. However, Montifellini roared out a challenge, slipped into gear, and drove forward. Instead of coughing into life and grinding its gears like the quintessential infernal machine, the bus shot ahead like a torpedo. Its grille and snub nose had miraculously received minimal damage when it had smashed aside the doors and now it hit the automaton full on. If that had been a flesh-and-bone pedestrian, they would have disintegrated like a water balloon. But this was Dr Moribund’s all-powerful instrument of destruction, fuelled by ungodly, alien powers.

So when it did explode, showering the room with more muck and effluvium, we were aghast. Pleasantly so, if it’s possible to be pleasantly aghast.

Dr Moribund gaped in stupefaction. I thought he was going to burst into tears. He came close, sagging down to his knees like his world had ended. Which, make no mistake, it had.

“What kept you so long, Stormcaller?” Trollhammer shouted up to Montifellini, but the huge driver was slumped unconscious over the wheel, which we could see now was buckled. The whole front of the bus was twisted and bent up, the hood having been wrenched to one side—it was peeled away like the skin of a lemon. It revealed an engine that was pouring out clouds of white smoke. As this cleared I saw—to my astonishment—the entire engine, damaged though it was, possibly irreparably, seemed to be made of silver.

I paid no more heed to Dr Moribund—he looked utterly spent, bent forward and lifeless as a doll. I watched as both Trollhammer and Blue Banshee pulled off their masks and studied the engine. Oil-Gun and Craggy MacFury’s faces were revealed. Vengeance Unlimited—they were part of it. It only then dawned on me that so, of course, was Montifellini. He stirred, his bloodied face lifted. Somehow he managed a grin. Then he sank back into oblivion.

Oil-Gun put his hands on the buckled engine. He studied it like a surgeon inspects a prepared patient. “Badly damaged, but not finished, my friends. She will survive this.” The rest of his words were lost as something smacked hard against the side of my head. I was sent spinning sideways like I’d been hit by an errant buffalo. A cloud of stars clustered about me and I found myself cheek to cheek with the floor. I could just about make out the demonic form of Dr Moribund. He’d been faking his exhaustion and I was a damn fool for buying it. Worse still, his blow had left my hands nerveless and both my Beretta and Trollhammer’s club had gone sliding away from me.

Dr Moribund triumphantly strode towards the club. Now he was going to give Vengeance Unlimited—and me—a taste of our own medicine. Oil-Gun was studying the engine of the bus, while MacFury had climbed up inside to try and revive Montifellini. Both were oblivious to the Russian’s moves and I was in no state to shout a warning. Dr Moribund bent down to pick the lethal weapon up, but as he did so a furious ball of fur came out of the shadows. Tiny claws dug into the flesh of his hand, drawing blood and forcing him to stagger back with a shriek. I watched, paralysed, as Montifellini’s beloved cat, Bella, stood over the club like she was protecting a kitten and spat, her body arched, every hair puffed out in an attempt to make her twice her normal size, her thickened bush of a tail whipping from side to side in anger.

Dr Moribund was in no mood to be thwarted by a cat, no matter how feisty. He had the face of a maniac, beyond all reason. For all the cat’s resistance, she would stand no chance if he kicked out at her. The other guys were still unaware. Just when I thought Dr Moribund’s cruel boot was going to smash the cat aside, something else came storming into the fray. Dr Moribund was hit by a snarling grey cloud of energy that sent him tumbling end over end. Even the cat darted for cover. I could just about bend my neck enough to see that it was the Hooligan, MacFury’s immense pooch. It made the Hound of the Baskervilles look like the runt of the litter.

Its massive front legs thumped down on Dr Moribund’s chest and it howled—probably with glee, although it was about as bloodcurdling as bloodcurdling gets. It certainly froze my bowels, so heck knows how Dr Moribund felt about it. Then the Hooligan dipped those jaws—they would have given most Great White sharks a run for their money—and prepared to—well, rip Dr Moribund’s head off was my guess. But Dr Moribund’s fall had landed him right next to the goddam club. Snarling, he snatched it up.

I wanted to shout to the dog, knowing what would happen once that club smashed into him, but my larynx had given up on me. The Hooligan, however, was not so daft. The hound gave a yelp of dismay and leapt backwards with remarkable agility for such a huge beast. I could only watch as Dr Moribund raised the weapon and strode over to me instead, bestriding me with decidedly evil intent. I could see the shapes writhing within the club. When he brought it crashing down on me, I was going to be dancing with those horrors. I managed to hold up an arm to protect myself and I felt the whang! of the club as it hit my forearm.

There was a flash and a crackle of energy and I waited for whatever was going to pour into me to start jerking my strings. However, instead of leaping out and tearing into the Hooligan, the dancers flowed, a steady stream, down Dr Moribund’s arm and into him. The armour! It had a reversing effect. It had turned the club’s power backwards: so Dr Moribund was the beneficiary, not me.

The Hooligan had raced off, watched somewhat bemusedly by Bella. Dr Moribund was staring at the club, which seemed glued to his hand. Now he was trying to shake it off, but to no avail. His whole body began to shudder, as if a storm wind had hold of it. He was flung every which way in a mad parody of a dance; I could hear the tiny, jubilant laughter of the dancers.

I was barely able to get up off the floor, my head still ringing. Dr Moribund gave one last tortured scream and dropped the club. His body began to lose all solidity, drawn like smoke into the club. His expensive suit and the rest of his clothes were all that remained. There was a final, remote shout of horror, more laughter, then silence.

Beside me, Oil-Gun—that is, Trollhammer—was watching. “Another one joins the Dancers of Ruin,” he said. “I think I’d better look after this.” He retrieved the club while I was still gaping at the bizarre spectacle, tucking it into his belt. He looked just as he had when I’d first met him at his garage: his creased superhero jump-suit was oil-smeared and reeking. “You okay, son?”

I managed to nod, massaging my head and neck, as he led us over to the bus, where MacFury was still studying its slumped driver. Montifellini had not recovered—MacFury was holding the last word in dirty handkerchiefs to his forehead. I looked back to where the Hooligan had stretched himself out, not unlike the Sphinx, Bella not far away from him, though she was cleaning herself with supreme indifference. At least she wasn’t going to take anything out on the dog.

“Just like old times,” Oil-Gun called up to MacFury. “The five of us back together.”

As I came out of the last of my dizziness, it hit me. Vengeance Unlimited. I stared at the dog and then the cat; to them I may as well have been invisible. The spirits of Steel Wasp and the Quicksilver Queen were here, imbued in them. Was that it? Something of those two superheroes had survived whatever disaster had befallen them on their last confrontation with Dr Moribund. Ironically they were now in a state of more or less permanent adversity, except for occasions like this. A marriage made in … well, I let that one pass.

I leaned against the bus. My voice was coming back and I said hoarsely, “How bad is it?”

Oil-Gun was nodding. “They’ll be okay. Don’t you worry: Monti, me, and Oil-Gun will put this right.” He touched the amazing silver engine as gently as if he were touching something alive. “Queenie and Wasp weren’t killed by that Russian thug before, and he hasn’t finished them now.”

I looked again at the bus: its pale yellow paint, its black tires. Yellow and black, the colours of a wasp. A silver-like engine. Dammit, the cat and the dog were just that: a cat and a dog. They weren’t invested with the spirits of Steel Wasp and Quicksilver Queen. But The Magic Bus was! They were what gave it its supernatural powers. I stared up into MacFury’s eyes; he was reading my mind like it was an open newspaper and he nodded, as if to say, Yes, my friend, you got that right.

“Is he okay?” I said, increasingly worried about Montifellini.

MacFury managed a grin, although his own anxiety was clear. “He’s a tough fellow, this one. We all were before we fought Dr Moribund that last time. We thought we’d lost Queenie and Wasp, but they’re here, part of this vehicle. They can never be anything else, but they survive. Oil-Gun and myself, we lost something in that battle before, but Monti—ah, it was cruel on him. He could have been an opera singer to shake the world. Although he didn’t lose his voice, he lost its magic and he couldn’t call up the storms again. Still, although he lost Queenie as she was, she’s always been with him since.”

I saw Montifellini’s eyes open. He was staring at something. Whatever it was, it sure made him smile. He was going to be okay.

Oil-Gun had been looking about the huge room. Mud was heaped up near the window, some still running in viscous flows back down the slipway and into the harbour, numerous pieces of glass embedded in it. The horde dredged up from the harbour bed was no more. Oil-Gun turned to say something, but was forestalled by the arrival of another huge bulk: Chief Carter’s curiosity had finally gotten the better of him and he stood, more than a little baffled, taking in the whole damn mess.

“I heard World War Three had started, though I didn’t get no message,” he said to me, glaring. “You found the killer?”

Oil-Gun answered for me. “Sure, Chief.” He pointed to several places among the muck and filth that splattered the place. “You’ll find him there, there, there, and there. Oh, and over there, too. What was joined together has been un-joined. The city’s going to have to shell out for a few funerals.”

Carter looked at him and his weird clothes, shaking his head in bafflement. “You got a blowtorch in your tool kit?”

Oil-Gun grinned. “Mister, I got napalm, if you want it.”

“Use it. Cremate what’s left. If the families exist, I’ll have the last rites read.” He stared at me like I’d also been dredged up from the river bed; I daresay that’s how I looked, and smelled. “You need a shower. No, make that a dozen baths. I’ll give you the day to do it. Then maybe you can help me write a report. One my boss can read without having me locked up in a padded cell.”

****

The evening mist had turned to drizzle. I hunched myself up in the doorway and glanced at my watch. 9:00 p.m. Beyond me the street was empty, save for a few parked cars. I could hear a shout in the middle distance: kids heading for a bar. An automobile turned a corner and came gliding up to the sidewalk, the engine smooth and silky. I knew without having to peer through the murk that the chief had kept our appointment.

He got out of the police car and gently closed the door, looking up and down the street.

“You there, Nick?” he called.

I stepped out of the shadows. “Sure. You hungry?”

“Whaddya think?”

I pointed up the street. “Come on then. Our ride will be along soon.”

“Ride? What’s wrong with the prowl car?” He tapped its polished hood, treating it like it was his own.

“Nothing. But where we’re going, we need another vehicle.”

“Don’t get all mysterious on me. And you got that report ready for me?”

I laughed. “Whaddya think?”

He fell into step beside me and we walked down the street, listening to the sounds of the city: unusually subdued down here. Behind us we heard an engine revving, gears changing as a distinct shape rumbled into the street and bore down on us.

“Looks like Montifellini’s had a paint job done on that bus of his,” I remarked as the vehicle pulled up alongside. It was a vivid yellow, with slick black markings and new tires that were equally as black, with snazzy chrome dust caps gleaming. Like a big fat wasp.

Montifellini opened the door and beamed at us from behind the wheel, a white bandage tight across his forehead. “Good evening, sirs,” he called down. “I believe you commissioned a ride, Mr. Stone.”

I ushered the chief on board. Although he was a little confused, he squeezed himself into one of the seats. “I didn’t think any of these things were still running,” he grunted.

“Never been in better working order,” Montifellini retorted happily.

“This one will run forever,” I said. “Okay, driver, take it away.”

Montifellini duly obliged, singing a few strains from one of his operas: the one about the matadors, or whatever. Rizzie Carter scowled.

We eventually pulled up in a run-down part of the city, where the lighting had all but given up. As the chief and I got down from the Magic Bus, Montifellini waved his farewell and we watched the night absorb him.

“Some engine,” said the chief. “Sounds like a swarm of hornets.”

“Or wasps.”

He studied the gloom. “So where in hell have you brought me? There are no eating houses in this district. Is this some kind of—?” His eyes suddenly alighted on the long torpedo shape across the street, the odd circular windows which looked more like portholes in a ship. “God in heaven, is that what I think it is?”

“That, my friend, is Craggy MacFury’s Diner. Come and take a closer look.”

Fascinated, like he was having an epiphany, he crossed the street with me and we stood outside the mobile monster. “I’ve never seen it, never really believed it,” he said, a little boy. “It’s an urban legend, exclusive. Not for the likes of me.” He couldn’t hide the depth of regret in his voice. “You can’t just walk in there.”

“I can.” I waited a moment and the door opened. MacFury stood there in his neatest, cleanest tabard. Behind him, half as tall, was the Hooligan, though the beast’s tongue lolled and its ears perked up in what passed for its best effort at a welcome.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Won’t you step inside?”

The chief gaped, looking around as if he thought MacFury’s invitation was being extended to some other passerby. I nudged him forward as our host stepped aside. Within it was brilliantly lit, though there were no customers. MacFury shut the door behind us.

“I have something very special for tonight,” he said, beaming. He loved cooking more than anything. When he said “special”, boy, did he mean it.

The chief was still gaping, like a kid sent to one of the mega toy stores and told to help himself. He and I were led to a table, where we sat.

“I told you I’d treat you to a meal,” I said. “Nothing but the best tonight.”

To my amazement, there were tears gleaming in the chief’s eyes. Hell, why should I be surprised? We’re all human. We just pretend to be tough guys. Like Vengeance Unlimited.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” he said.

“Is it a menu you’ll be wanting?” said MacFury. “Or would you prefer to leave it to me?”

“Uh … your special.”

MacFury beamed. Right answer. He strode off, whistling, the Hooligan following him. The chief noticed movement on the seat nearest to him, where a calico cat was curled up, pretending to be asleep. He reached down and dug his fingers gently into her fur, stroking her. I was about to warn him when I heard the purring, loud and long. He really was welcome here.

The chief looked around him. On a nearby wall there was a framed picture, the cover of an old comic book. “Vengeance Unlimited,” he said with a grimace.

“You ever read that stuff, Chief?” I asked him.

“Nah. Too way out for me. Superheroes. Kid’s stuff. I get enough mayhem dealing with the real world. Hey—you got that report?”

“I thought maybe we could talk about it while we were eating. We’re gonna be in here a long time.”

Fire All of the Guns at One Time

The air curdled like milk, fog thickening as night dragged on long past midnight. I was pretty fogged up myself, having just quit the Sleaze Sisters’ place, with a tankful inside me. So the twists and turns of the fog, and whatever bizarre shapes it tried to mock me with didn’t register. I’d not had the easiest of nights with Sal. Hell, we’d reached that crossroads in a relationship where the way ahead is going to get very bumpy and you both know it’s time to move on; that is, down different roads. Don’t get me wrong, we’d had fun and it wasn’t going to be an acrimonious split. With someone like Sal, a break-up is just that: a whole pile of things getting broken up. Including a few heads. In the morning, when the sun came up, my own head was going to feel like someone had buried an axe in it, but that was the booze. I’d managed to avoid the flying chairs and other blunt instruments that had sailed through the air in my general direction.

My feet know the way back to my apartment and don’t require the use of brain or eyes to guide me there when I’m soused, so the fog wasn’t hindering my trek back. My ears were working just fine, though. They picked up the deep-throated growl of something prowling the night; for a moment I thought I was in for a spot of trouble. Hell of a time to get caught by something nasty. The roar closed in on me and a shape burgeoned out of the fog.

To my addled mind it looked a mite like one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I belched as the rider got off the rumbling beast and stepped towards me. I tried to pull out my Beretta: it got caught in my belt and I stood there like an idiot, ready to be hauled off to whatever nether regions this goon had prepared for me.

“Don’t suppose there’s any point telling you ya got the wrong guy?” I blurted.

The figure, all creaking leather and gleaming studs, put its hands on its hips, which somehow reduced its air of menace. I felt a giggle welling up.

“Hell, Nick, you smell like a beer truck that’s crashed into a distillery. You in any fit state for a little conversation?” It was Oil-Gun Eddy, mechanic supreme. His charger was no horse after all: just a throbbing beast of a motor bike.

I tried looking at my watch, but hell, I couldn’t even focus on my arm. “Oil-Gun? What the heck are you doing out on the streets at this time of night?”

“Someone wants to meet you. Got a job. It won’t wait. You’re going to need to sober up and come for a little ride. Not necessarily in that order.”

I gazed at his bike. It was starting to look like it had stepped out of a Frank Frazetta painting, all teeth and hooves. I had no time to object: Oil-Gun just grabbed my arm and steered me to the bike. As I straddled the passenger saddle, I could feel the monster growling under me. I swear it was alive. Maybe I’d have been better off back in the bar with Sal after all.

“Get a good grip,” Oil-Gun called as he pulled down his goggles and took hold of the handlebars. He revved up the engine; I felt the energy surge through me like fire. He had a wide belt and I got hold of it like it was my only link with life. Then we were off into the darkness, tearing along like we were tied to a torpedo.

At first I felt my guts rising up, along with a definite loosening of the bowels; then the rush of cold air and the rise and fall of our ride gradually got a hold of me. I began to enjoy the sensation of speed. God knows how fast we were tearing through the streets. We didn’t hit anything—at this speed that must have been as much luck as judgement, though I swear I heard Oil-Gun singing happily. Point me at the sky and let me fly, or words to that effect. I relaxed a tad more. This was cool after all. Invisible fingers pulled away the layers of wool that had wrapped my brain. I won’t say I became sober—that would have taken the rest of the night—but my head was clearing.

I had no sense of time passing; I guess we must have raced on for an hour or more. The fog began to thin; I could see we were outside the city limits. Our road was wide, flat, and featureless—I had no idea where we were. Oil-Gun was a big buddy of Montifellini, driver of the celebrated Magic Bus, and for all I knew, he had the same unique ability to zip between worlds.

Eventually we came to a skidding halt and Oil-Gun switched off the engine. The silence dropped on us like a great wave, only punctuated by the sound of my rasping breath. Like I’d run the New York Marathon. I wasn’t sober, though I was starting to think straight. And what I was thinking ran along the lines of: Where the hell is this place and how did I let Oil-Gun talk me into coming here?

The fog was in full retreat: a sluggish grey tide. We were in the middle of a very flat, open area of tarmac. One solitary building graced its lonely emptiness: a brick box with a tower, the shape of which gave me a clue as to our location. It was an airfield. I felt my guts melting again. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s flying. There’s fear and there’s real fear—this was the latter. The ball-crawling kind. I wanted to go home.

Oil-Gun dragged me off the bike and dropped its stand. He nodded at the building, an obviously crumbling control tower. So this airfield was derelict, which meant there shouldn’t be any planes about. If there were, the last shreds of fog were shrouding them. I still had a problem controlling my knees; I told myself it was the drink. It didn’t fool me for a second.

“Not too bad a crossing, eh?” said Oil-Gun. “We won’t be disturbed here.”

Crossing? So we had indeed slipped out of my world.

Oil-Gun led the way to the building; there was a light inside. So much for being deserted. The interior was a mess, long abandoned and given over to weeds and webs. At the far end of the room, among the debris, a table had been dragged to a fireplace where a small fire crackled. A solitary figure waited for us, framed in the glow of the guttering flames. It was a tall, gaunt guy with a shock of black hair and a neat moustache. He stared at me with striking dark eyes, the kind that would have earned him a mint as a mesmerist.

Something about him was familiar: he was an aviator—so much was obvious from his clothes: leather flying coat, gloves, boots, and unslung goggles. Yet his coat had no sleeves, and a broad belt sporting two holsters was cinched around his waist. The belt was also covered in an array of pouches—I couldn’t help thinking of a certain caped crusader’s utility belt. One of the holsters was empty: he had been fussing with a large black gun on the table. Some cannon, I can tell you: my guess was a 9mm Broomhandle Mauser; a relic of days long gone. I’d heard tell they were very effective when it came to chewing up flesh and bone: stand three bad guys in a line, and you could nail all three with one slug. That’s what I call economical.

It came to me where I’d seen him. On the cover of Terrific Air Tales, piloting an old biplane, shooting the bejeezus out of a pack of aerial demons. Not my kind of fiction, too old-fashioned and cheesy—but back at Kikbak Komix, Captain Malevolent was a big fan. What would Mal have given to be here now? The name came to me at the same time. “Damian Paladin,” I said. “Ghost-hunter extraordinaire.”

He grinned at that, although I sensed his mood was anything but amused. He had the look of a man with problems, anger simmering under the surface warmth.

“You’ll be the shamus. Nick Stone.” His voice cut the night air like a knife, deep and assured. I guess we both thought about shaking hands; instead we just nodded at each other to convey our mutual respect.

I turned to Oil-Gun. “You brought me to Pulpworld, right?” It was the logical explanation for my meeting up with the real Damian Paladin.

“Wrong,” grinned Oil-Gun, unzipping his thick biker leathers and stretching. “This is just a way station. We’ll get to that. Mr. Paladin needs some help. He’s like you, Nick, a man who prefers to work alone. But this caper is bigger than—” Oil-Gun suddenly clammed up: this Paladin guy was staring at him cold enough to freeze the Sahara. “Yeah—well… I’ll fix coffee while you two get to know each other. It’s going to be a long night.”

No one in this world or any other made coffee like Oil-Gun, so I nodded. Paladin waved me to a spare chair at the table. I dropped my hat on it as he holstered the Mauser. We sat opposite each other like a couple of poker players about to engage.

“All this stuff about my world, your world, Pulpworld, and so on,” said the flyboy, “I can’t say I’m new to the idea. I know guys who can step between the Tiers better than your pal, here. Sadly, I’m not one of them so—sure—I needed a hand.” He glanced over at Oil-Gun who was keeping himself busy boiling the coffee, pretending not to listen to a single word. “As for those guys, well… Raven has vanished, no doubt off on another of his saving-the-universe jaunts; and it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I ask Saint-Germain for a hand. Even if I could find him.”

I gotta admit, I wasn’t sure who the hell Raven and Saint-Germain were supposed to be. I figured “Tiers” was another fancy-schmancy way of describing the different worlds, though.

Paladin was still talking, pulling a pipe out of his coat. “Luckily for me, seems you also got friends who can’t keep their beaks out of others’ business. A letter turns up in my apartment: unsigned, typed; just happens to include everything I needed to know to make the transition to this—what did Eddy there call it?—way station. That, and a clever, logical reason why I should make the flight. Real convenient. And because I’m such a trusting soul, I did just that.”

I stared at Oil-Gun myself. Was it my imagination, or was his squat frame shrinking even more? He and I were going to have a little talk about privacy and personal boundaries sometime soon. Working alone, my ass!

Paladin lit a match. “Unfortunately, I cracked up my machine: snapped the landing gear when this airfield appeared out of nowhere. And wouldn’t you know, there was Eddy on hand to fix up the plane and give with an explanation. Again, real convenient.” The match had burned almost to his fingers without lighting his pipe. He gave up and stuffed it back in a pocket.

“Time flows at different rates and directions between Tiers, I know that. For instance, in my world it’s 1936. World War II hasn’t happened yet; though Eddy tells me it’s as inevitable as dawn. He won’t say any more—and I don’t want to know—but I’m not surprised Herr Hitler starts the ball rolling. I’ve crossed swords with some of his … allies before.” He smiled again: cold and unamused. “And it’s kind of humbling to find that in your reality, I’m just in the funny papers.”

“Magazines,” I said, off hand. “Not comic books.” By now I was stone-cold sober. What Paladin was telling me was far more effective than a procession of cold showers, or a bucket of Oil-Gun Eddy’s coffee. “So what exactly are you mixed up in?”

He gave me another arctic stare. “Leigh says I’ve become a G-Man; working with the British, though—not Hoover. Seems I have quite the reputation over in England: someone must have told them I kick monster butt before breakfast. Wonder who.” His expression softened for a moment; it lasted no time before the darkness was back. “Hitler is big on the occult. He’s got a posse of thugs who specialise in the black arts: the Thule-Gesellschaft, the Ahnenerbe, others who’re even crazier. The worst of them is a scum ball by the name of Wolfgang Rottwanger.”

Oil-Gun set down two brimming mugs of coffee and a tall can of the stuff for himself; steam filled the air between us. We all took a grateful swig and I felt my insides coming back to life.

“Rottwanger has been given unlimited resources to develop his arts. He hasn’t wasted any time. I’ve been to Germany under cover; I’ve seen his factories and the kind of creatures he’s allying to the Nazi cause. Trouble is, I got smelled out. Not surprising, given the sentinels he’s got posted around his operations. Straight out of Hell.”

Oil-Gun chipped in. “The last thing Rottwanger wants is to have the world’s top psychic sleuth rocking his zeppelin.” He looked pleased with the analogy.

“He forced me to back off,” said Paladin, lowering his voice. Now the anger welled up and radiated off him like a heat wave. I thought it would go hard for anyone who crossed him. “The son of a bitch knew the one way to hurt me.”

My mental gears finally engaged. He had a sidekick: a girl. Born in Russia then raised by the New Jersey mob. Eventually, they’d teamed up, since every hero has to have a sidekick. Captain Malevolent told me about them, when he re-ran his favourite yarns past me. The same way I re-lived my favourite Ned Killigan pulps.

“He kidnapped Leigh Oswin, my partner. As long as I keep my nose out of his business, she’s safe. Or so he says. I’m in a jam, Stone: if I mount a rescue mission, Leigh will be history; if I don’t, the world that I know will inevitably come under the Nazi boot. It’s a huge chess game, and I’m in check.”

“It’s not checkmate,” grinned Oil-Gun. “There’s another piece you can play.” His smile faded a little under Paladin’s scrutiny; seems the aviator was nurturing a bit of a grudge.

“Enter the pawn,” I grunted. “The lone pawn at that.” I was beginning to wonder if I’d be better off enduring the histrionics back at the Sleaze Sisters’ place. “So do you know where Miss Oswin is being held?”

Paladin nodded gravely. “A Tier you referred to as Pulpworld. In some rundown township called Dunnsmouth.”

I leaned back and smothered a groan. I knew the place. My world had its crazy towns, like Arkham, Innsmouth, and Black Wake, to name just a few. Places where the denizens of the deep, spawned by that living god-thing out in the ocean, crawled, hopped, and generally screwed about with mankind. Pulpworld had its parallels and Dunnsmouth was right up there with the worst of them. A bigger sinkhole you couldn’t find.

“You want me to go in, rescue the damsel in distress, and incur the wrath of this Teutonic thaumaturge. Then what happens?”

Paladin’s face was not about to crack: he was studying something in the distance. The girl meant a lot to him, I could see that. I was sure this was the worthiest of causes, but sending me into Dunnsmouth—alone—was, to be honest, a goddam suicide mission.

“So where is Rottwanger; what’s his angle? What was it you were investigating that got him so riled up?”

“He found a way into Pulpworld. Looking for the ultimate expression of power; something he could use in my world to further the Nazi cause.”

I had a horrible feeling I knew what was coming.

“Rottwanger tapped into something very big and very bad. Out in the ocean. Some kind of vast, supernatural entity.”

Yeah, I was right on the money. “And this quasi-deity promised him as much power and support as he wanted, in exchange for his services when it comes to its own lunatic plans for world domination? I’ve been there, pal. I have the tee shirt.”

The latter reference escaped him for obvious reasons. “Rottwanger has a zeppelin in Pulpworld, and it’s no ordinary dirigible. Believe me when I tell you, Stone, it’s alive.”

“Oh, I believe you. A living zeppelin. How cute.”

“He intends to set it down close to Dunnsmouth and load an army comprised of the inhabitants of that particular burg. And I gather they’re not exactly people. Whatever sleeps out in the ocean has re-moulded them into something very different.”

“You got that right, Mr. Paladin. Trust me, I’ve met their kind. Not people you’d want to introduce to your mom.”

The aviator leaned forward. “Get Leigh out of there, and I’ll fly us out before Rottwanger has so much as sniffed your cologne.”

Oh boy … there was that word again. Fly. I drank more coffee, trying to calm my nerves and failing miserably. “Dunnsmouth I can cope with. Animated zeppelins likewise. Mad magicians are no problem. But there’s one flaw in your otherwise magnificent plan.”

He regarded me coldly, not a man used to being refused. “Yeah?”

“You said you’ll fly us out. That’s when I start gibbering. I have big trouble even saying the f-word.”

I thought he was going to reach out and drag me over the table by my coat lapels; instead he laughed. In spite of my unease, his laughter was infectious.

“You’ll be fine,” Oil-Gun said to me. “Just a short flight out of Dunnsmouth before Rottwanger can get his hands on you. When you’ve done, I’m sure Montifellini can be persuaded to pick you up and bring you home.”

“Listen, Stone,” said Paladin. “You’re the one guy who can help me pull this off. Who knows better than you what these things are capable of?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Oil-Gun poured more coffee into my mug. “Yeah, you do that, Nick. Drink your coffee. Meantime I’ll go and get the bike ready. I want to drop you off in Pulpworld before dawn. And I need to make a few modifications to Mr. Paladin’s DH9A.” I must have looked blank. He stood up and held his arms out in a sort of crucifix, waggling his fingers like wingtips. “His plane, dummy!”

Oil-Gun’s face wrinkled up with child-like excitement. Jeeze, he was loving every minute of this! “You should see it, Nick: a thing of beauty. I fixed up the landing gear; now I just need to give it an edge over Rottwanger’s zeppelin and the squadron of flying freaks hanging around it.”

I was beginning to wish I’d brought along a bottle—two bottles—of hooch with me.

****

By the time I’d finished my coffee I’d swapped my hat and coat for a grubby set of garage mechanic’s coveralls (which Oil-Gun seemed to think would make me less conspicuous) and was on the back of the monster motorbike, off into the fog. My own inner fog had dissipated and I was about as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I was ever going to get. Oil-Gun had tried to persuade me to leave my two guns with him; I treated him to my scornful laugh and stuffed them into my belt. However he did provide me with what he called some assistance.

It was a small whistle, made of bone, probably human. I didn’t like to ask. Normally I’d have come over all scornful again, but Oil-Gun was the mechanic supreme. He tapped into powers I’d seen demonstrated repeatedly; and very effectively. I hung the whistle around my neck and tucked it inside my shirt.

“Only blow it when—” he started to say. I cut him short.

“I know. When I mean business.” I’d no idea what it would conjure up; if it was anything like the Dancers of Ruin, we were in for one wild party come the showdown in Dunnsmouth.

Before we quit the airfield, I finally shook hands with Paladin: the guy certainly knew how to press the flesh. It was like having my hand caught in a laundry press—I think it was his way of underlining there was a lot riding on me. I didn’t need reminding.

After another heart-stopping ride, all the while the bike’s engine amazingly quiet, Oil-Gun had cruised into Pulpworld and dropped me off on a marshy slope about half a mile outside Dunnsmouth. He gave a cheery wave as if I was off to a beach party, and disappeared. I picked my way through thin reeds and found one of the paths that would lead me into town.

I guessed the time to be about 7:00 am. The sun was coming up over the sea, glowing through a faint curtain of mist which shrouded whatever was out in the bay, thankfully. I had never had the pleasure of actually visiting Dunnsmouth before, but a friend and employer of mine, Henry Riderman, had painted a pretty lurid picture. What I could make out of the buildings verified his description. Ramshackle, run down, dilapidated: all that kind of thing. Didn’t look as though much had been done to it since it first sprang up, some two hundred years ago. Everything was squeezed together, the streets narrow, most of them not made for anything wider than a kid’s cart.

A few scrawny gulls sat astride crumbling roof ridges; I exchanged glares with them. If I hadn’t been in discreet mode I’d have taken a couple of pot shots. The town was quiet. From what Riderman had told me, most of the action went on at night, centred on a church (of Dagon, naturally) and what was under it. Oil-Gun had warned me to keep away from the waterfront, unless I had no other choice. The denizens of Dunnsmouth spent as much time in the sea as out of it, and he wasn’t talking about bathing and surfing.

Gable windows crowded over me, as if they were squinting suspiciously. I went into my best shamble mode; hell, I’d had a lot of practice, coming home from the Sleaze Sisters’ joint. Overhead the sun had given up trying to make any impression: the only thin light seeping down made the place feel unseasonably cold. I saw a few inhabitants, and studied them with my head down. I won’t say they were zombies, but they were barely more animated. And those eyes … boy, I knew that fish-look: eyes so wide they gave an immediate impression of madness. No one questioned me, or even acknowledged my existence with more than a cursory glance.

Since I was of no more interest than one more beast in a herd, I decided to push on into the heart of the town. My dirty coveralls weren’t so dissimilar to the shapeless rags these people wore; Oil-Gun had chosen well. When I did bump into a couple of guys, we could all have been cut from the same cloth—literally. They came out of a side alley and grunted what I took to be a greeting. I gave them a like-minded grunt back.

“You headin’ fer the church?” one asked. He was a kid of about eighteen; his companion looked about the same. They watched me as if they were waiting for instructions, minds half-numb. Their faces were kind of crooked: whoever had rearranged them had lost the instruction guide.

“Sure,” I said with a nod. “You guys mind if I tag along?”

In the pause, while their brain cells processed my profound question, it occurred to me they were both studying my face in a weird, intense kind of way. It dawned on me: everyone in the dump must have been instructed to watch out for Paladin. Rottwanger was reckoning on the aviator making a play for the girl: hence my recruitment. If Paladin showed up in person, the sky would catch on fire.

“Nope,” said the speaker. He smelled like he’d spent the night gutting fish. Looking at his fingernails, I figured he wouldn’t have needed any other tools. The fingers were webbed, too. If I’d pulled aside his stained neck scarf, I just know I’d have found gills in there someplace. “We likes to make an offering first thing afore we starts the day’s work. Guess most folks do.”

“Dagon be praised,” I intoned. I wasn’t being flippant: these fish-eyed guys love that stuff. They repeated it, heads bowed, and led the way to the church.

Riderman and I had a number of mutual acquaintances who’d once been into and under that church. My guts were already starting to churn at the thought of what might be down there, but Oil-Gun was convinced that was where Leigh Oswin would most likely be incarcerated. I stood in a shabby square with my two new-found buddies, looking up at a steeple that leaned to one side. Seemed to me most of Dunnsmouth leaned to one side. The church was pure gothic: carved and chiselled stone, with the ugliest looking gargoyles I’d ever seen. If they’d been offered up at Notre Dame, Quasimodo could have won a swimsuit competition alongside of them.

We mounted the steps. The two guys were mumbling, so I joined in as best I could. I could make out some of their words, but if I’d tried repeating them my tongue would have gotten itself in a knot double quick. Whatever I was saying, my efforts were considered okay. I could sense a few other figures behind me; I assumed they were just here for matins, like all us good servants of the Sea Thing.

Then we were inside. Big fat candles lit the place right up to its tall, vaulted ceiling. More pillars and sculpture: the work of someone who’d had a very disturbed childhood. For a church this place was decidedly kinky. Some of those statues and friezes would have made Hugh Hefner blush. I thought if I had a camera I could have taken a few snaps back to Sal, before remembering maybe that wasn’t such a good idea anymore.

Like at any other church, we sat among the pews. Both of my companions pulled small bags out of their jackets; the smell emanating from them suggested something well dead and decomposing. I prayed they didn’t open the damn things.

“Have you brought an offering, brother?” one of the guys asked me.

I was fumbling about in my head for an answer, when the congregation’s attention was distracted. At the front of the church, where the altar would normally be, stood a dais, with nothing more than black drapes behind it from where a figure emerged. There were a dozen or more other supplicants in the pews; they all gaped at the newcomer. It wasn’t the priest they were most likely expecting. I recognised him for what he was, though, and kept my head down.

Dressed in a grey military uniform in stark contrast to that of the flock, he was undoubtedly one of Wolfgang Rottwanger’s goons. He stared out at the tiny congregation, a satisfied sneer curling his lip as he drew on a cigarette, blowing a crude smoke ring. I’m not sure Dagon would have approved; not that this guy looked the kind to give a damn. He stepped off the dais and strode arrogantly down the aisle, his dark leather boots creaking as he walked.

Everyone shrank back, all thoughts of offerings forgotten as the man passed by. When he reached the open doors I turned and watched him. Seemed like he had just come out here for a breath of not-so-healthy air. He finished his cigarette, flicked what remained into the gloom beyond and stretched. I slipped out of my seat and was up behind the guy before he knew it, one of my Berettas pressed into his back.

“What say we take a little walk, pal?” I breathed in his ear. “You’ll find it a whole lot easier without a bullet in your guts.”

I had the drop on him. He had no choice except to start walking, going down the steps to the square and off to one side as I guided him. “Dummkopf!” he hissed. “You are insane if you think you can do this.”

“That’s fine. Being a little insane goes with the territory in my line of work.”

He remained stiff; there was no way of his avoiding a quick exit from this world if he didn’t comply. “What do you want?”

“The girl, pal. You and your buddies are holding a girl. Where is she?” He didn’t reply anything like quick enough. “I’ll start with the left knee.”

He came out with some staccato German, which I assumed wasn’t lifted from Wagner. He told me what I wanted to know anyway. I thanked him courteously, giving him a good solid tap which put him well and truly out. I lugged him into the shadows, down another narrow alley behind a pile of fallen debris. Oil-Gun had provided me with the basics for fieldwork: I was able to gag the guy and truss him up good and tight. I guessed I could leave him there: it wasn’t likely he’d be discovered for a good while; if at all. Like I cared.

He’d said they were holding Leigh Oswin under the church. I went back inside. By now, the good people of Dunnsmouth were lining up at the dais and depositing their offerings. They formed a little pile: like an oversized quadruped had dumped it there. No one questioned me as I walked up to the dais, bent down and made my own offering. I’d torn a scrap of material from the Nazi’s uniform, filled it with dirt and fashioned a crude bag. It looked okay as I squeezed it in among the other foetid bundles.

As the congregation shuffled out, I hung back, making my way through the black curtain once the church was empty. There was a wider space beyond with a circular opening in the floor. I dispensed with subtlety and descended the spiral steps which led down from the opening. Light came up from below: more candles. I guessed there wasn’t much electricity in this town.

The steps debouched into a wide chamber which looked like it had been gouged out of the earth and shored up with more of those unsettling columns. Whoever built them was nuts about carving; by the looks of the sculptured stone, they’d had a real fixation: sea and sex had never been intertwined quite so colourfully. If the creatures depicted were based on what was splashing about in the seas hereabout, it was no wonder the inhabitants of Dunnsmouth were drifting well off the normal evolutionary path.

Staying in character, I shambled on into the chamber. I heard voices; a moment later I spotted three more uniformed men: the rest of Rottwanger’s bully boys. They were sprawled about over a couple of huge blocks that could have been altars or coffins, playing cards and laughing. They looked pretty bored. Beyond them, tied to a pillar, was Leigh Oswin. Spine crushed against the pillar, her hands and feet were stretched back behind her, lashed together tightly. Her blonde head hung down: unconscious, unless she was faking it. She looked younger than I had expected from Mal’s description: dressed in a well-cut lavender two-piece, the skirt’s hem more than halfway to her ankles. Lying about a yard away on the dirty floor was the crushed remains of what I figured had to be her hat.

I slipped behind another pillar before the thugs could see me; I had to do some fast thinking. The quickest course of action would have been to pull out a gun and blow these mugs into the afterlife—Valhalla, maybe—and ride off into the sunset with Leigh Oswin intact. Ned Killigan wouldn’t have hesitated. I must be a softie: I balked at cold-blooded murder, even of these punks. Instead I eased my way around in the shadows until I got behind the girl’s pillar.

Watching the three men very closely, I gave her shoulder a gentle tug. It took a couple of goes before she roused and stiffened. “Keep silent,” I whispered. “Not all the guys in this dump are sickos. Paladin sent me.”

She let out a gasp that almost sounded like a short laugh. Otherwise, she stayed quiet. I pulled a knife from my coveralls and sawed at her bonds. The three Germans went on with their card game; but as I freed the girl, one jumped to his feet, cursing up a fit. Seemed like he was a bad loser at cards. He swung round, fists raised; no doubt intending to take it out on the captive. Instead, he saw me. He fumbled for his holstered gun: just the excuse I needed for no more mister nice guy.

I let him have it. At that distance, even in the lousy light, I don’t miss. Half the guy’s face disappeared and he tumbled sideways like a bull had kicked him. I got off a couple of rounds: the remaining two thugs dived behind the stone blocks. Miss Oswin had taken shelter behind the pillar at my back.

“Where is he?” she said in my ear.

I realized she meant Paladin. “Waiting outside, with a plane to get us back to the sane world.” I studied the deep darkness behind us, my nose screwing up at the foetid stench wafting across from it. “Is that the way out?”

She shook her head. “God knows what’s down there. I’ve been hearing … sounds, and I’m in no hurry to find out what’s making them. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take my chances with the Nazis.”

I grunted, disappointed, and fired off another round or two.

“It’s useless!” came the voice of one of the soldiers. “We can keep you here until more of our people arrive. Give up the girl and you will go free.”

I grinned. “Sounds like bullshit to me. Pardon my French…”

Miss Oswin grinned: she had a perfect set of real sharp teeth, and eyes a man could sure get to like. “How many guns do you have, Mr.—?”

“Stone. Nick Stone. This, plus a spare.” I took out my second Beretta. “Can you handle it?”

“Wanna find out?”

“Sure.” I passed her the automatic. The gun was likely to be more modern than the character I’d heard about had ever fired; nevertheless, she had its weight and balance in a moment. She thumbed off the safety and cocked the gun, glancing overhead. There was a fat candle, hanging from chains, just above one of the thugs; chains which looked pretty rusty. Miss Oswin took careful aim and fired. One chain snapped apart. Dripping hot wax, the candle tumbled straight down on to the shoulder of the Nazi beneath it.

He howled in pain, leaping out of cover. I would have blown his head off, but the girl beat me to it. Boy, she was one cool lady. I’d seen some damn good shots in my time; Miss Oswin was up there with the best of them.

“Hell, kid, who taught you to shoot like that? You win the kewpie doll.”

She ignored my pithy comment and pointed to the last German: scuttling into the shadows, making for the stairs back up to the church. We both blasted away at him; somehow he dodged the bullets and went on out of sight.

The girl and I followed. She was limping slightly—pins and needles as her circulation returned, I guessed—and wasn’t moving as quickly as I would have liked. I didn’t complain, though. I had a hunch getting on the wrong side of Leigh Oswin would be as dumb as doing the same with her boyfriend. We went up the stairs cautiously, in case our man was waiting to pick us off.

He’d gone out into the church instead, bawling his head off. There were at least fifty or sixty of the moon-eyed inhabitants in there, all glaring at us as we emerged from behind the drapes. The German shouted out instructions to them, standing near the doors, waving his gun about in fury. From outside, more of the mob was appearing, drawn to the commotion.

Miss Oswin sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a Chicago Typewriter right now.”

“A what?”

“A Tommy Gun, Mr. Stone. We’re going to need a hell of a lot more slugs. I hope you came prepared.”

“Well, now, that’s a good point, ma’am. I do have a few spare clips. There’s a little something else we might try instead. You okay to deal with the Gruppenführer while I set it up?”

“My pleasure.” She ignored the horde of clawing, clamouring pseudo-humanity below us: drawing a bead on the last of the soldiers, she took him out, clean as a whistle, right between his bright blue Aryan eyes. She patted the Beretta’s barrel. “Boy, I do love this roscoe.”

Speaking of whistles, I had pulled mine—the one Oil-Gun had given me—out on its chain. There was no time to study it: the mob was surging forward and we were about to be turned into paté for the next sacrifice. I put it to my lips and blew. Hell, not a sound. I tried again. Nothing. Except as usual, I was mistaken: something had heard it. And responded.

The mob fell uncannily silent. Everyone was as still as the statues about them: heads cocked, listening to the outside air; waiting. Miss Oswin and I looked at one another.

“Now what?” she asked, a little uneasily.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s going to be pleasant. Not for the congregation, anyhow.”

I got that right. We all heard the arrival of whatever the whistle had conjured. A deep baying came from outside: hounds, a pack of them. For sure they were going to be hungry. I got that right, too. Two of them bounded in through the church doors, foam-flecked jaws gaping; teeth big as yellow tusks snapping; I kid you not, these mutts were the size of horses. They tore into the congregation like piranhas on amphetamines.

Miss Oswin was looking at me funny. “Just how well do you and Damy know each other?”

I grabbed her arm. “Come on, ma’am. We’re not on the menu. Time to hightail it.”

None of Dunnsmouth’s inhabitants were interested in us now. Trying to avoid the slavering attacks of the hounds was all they cared about. More of the beasts had come into the church; the carnage they were wreaking was more effective than an exploding bomb. Blood and guts sprayed everything; the snarling rose to a crescendo as the hounds let rip—quite literally—partying like they’d not been fed for months.

Somehow, Miss Oswin and I got to the doors and pushed through. I was right about the hounds—they ignored us. Maybe because we didn’t have the Dunnsmouth stink clinging to us. Outside there was more chaos: hounds snacking away busily, growling and slobbering, maws dripping with blood and other meaty morsels.

Oil-Gun and Paladin had given me rough directions in which to head. Once out of Dunnsmouth we scooted along the coast, making for a promontory poking out into the bay. A long, flat finger of land, tapering to a featureless, exposed point. By the time we’d made it, we were alone; the sky dark and brooding above us, the sea equally as grey and forbidding on either side.

“I don’t want to sound picky, Mr. Stone, but I don’t see Damy. Nor a plane.”

“He’ll be here,” I said with a firm conviction I didn’t feel.

Behind us, from the direction of the town, came the distant howls and shrieks of a mêlée which promised to continue for a good while. I was hoping it would buy us enough time for Miss Oswin’s aerial buddy to drop in and pluck us to safety, although my guts were already starting to knot again at the thought of having to get into a plane’s seat—especially the sort of crate Paladin was sure to be flying.

“We got company.” Miss Oswin was pointing to the sea. She was correct: the surf breaking on the rocks and shingle was peppered with heads. The aquatic arm of the Dunnsmouth brigade was about to effect its equivalent of the D-Day landing. On three sides. Going back along the promontory to Dunnsmouth was, I thought, a poor option, and yet—

Overhead I could hear something else. An angry buzzing. Sounded like Rottwanger’s forces were bending everything to grabbing their erstwhile prisoner back again. I muttered something very ungentlemanly but Miss Oswin was grinning, the cat with the cream.

“Think that’s our ride.”

I wasn’t about to argue—as I said: I didn’t think she’d take to the concept. I had no idea what Paladin’s biplane would sound like, and maybe the aerial soup was distorting the engine noise, but that buzz wasn’t like how I imagined it. As we waited, it grew louder; deeper. Moreover, I was pretty sure there was more than one source for the noise.

“I’m getting a bad feeling,” I murmured.

“Bushwa!” she replied. Though judging from her expression, I don’t think she was convincing herself any.

Dunnsmouth’s sub-aquatic army was hauling itself out on to land, already dragging itself in our direction. Obviously, they were seriously wigged out by our antics. I raised my gun and kept it aimed in the shambling wave’s general direction, all the time checking over my shoulder for the flyboy’s imminent landing. He was taking his time! Was he only free to rescue us when it was the last, final, most dramatic moment? I guess that was how it always worked in Terrific Air Tales…

Something loomed out of the gloom; or rather: a whole load of somethings. It wasn’t Paladin—hadn’t anyone given him his goddam cue?—but a vast, black airship; and nothing like the Goodyear blimp. This was grotesque: the smooth lines you’d expect all puckered and ridged, like folds of thick, horny flesh; the nose yawned in a lunatic parody of a shark’s grin; where there should be engine nacelles and airscrews were instead gnarled limbs sprouting vestigial wings and long, flailing paddles. It wasn’t much of a jump to figure this was Rottwanger’s airship.

The thing wasn’t alone: buzzing its reticulated hide were countless flying things. As black as the mother ship; winged, clawed, and crawling with restless nests of cilia, tentacles, pseudopods … whatever you want to call them. They were bug ugly, anyhow.

“They got air support,” I said.

Miss Oswin glanced up quickly, pulled a face, and nodded. “Rats.” One of the land-based army staggered within range and she snapped off a shot. The thing spun about, spraying what I would loosely call blood in all directions, and hit the ground. “Me and Damy have had the pleasure of waltzing with something like those flying bastards before.”

Several of the winged things had spotted us and were circling lazily in our direction. “And they’re easy to kill, yes?”

“They shrug off bullets; though a flare gun distracts them.” She took out a couple more fish-faces. “I’m out of shells, Mr. Stone.”

I passed her another clip. “Where are the angry villagers with pitchforks and torches when you need ’em, huh?”

She laughed out loud at that, punctuating it with another couple of deadly accurate shots. If we’d had unlimited ammo, I guess she’d have nailed every one of Dunnsmouth’s underwater constituents without further mussing her blonde curls.

The aerial things swooped lower. They really were not much more than blind Medusa heads fitted out with extra clawed limbs and bat-like wings. I blazed away at the nearest: it flipped over, snatching at the air with leathery wings which now sported two fresh holes, and righted itself. Miss Oswin was right: they were tough hombres. I don’t normally pack a flare gun; it was a cinch the box of matches in my pants would be pretty useless against a squadron of the things. And Oil-Gun had neglected to pack a flamethrower.

Rottwanger’s hideous blimp was slowly descending. If he was bringing reinforcements, Miss Oswin and I were history. It dropped to within around ten feet of the ground, wallowing gently like a dozing whale; while its rumbling and growling to itself sounded like anything but. Flaps opened in the underside, unrolling in a way that looked uncomfortably like tongues to me. The aerial things kept out of range after my first couple of shots: content to circle overhead. There was something very sinister about their implied indifference.

“They don’t seem to care much about us,” I called to Miss Oswin.

“I know what you mean.”

I glanced back: all of the vast, shambling landing party had subtly changed direction: heading clumsily towards the hovering blimp. Miss Oswin shot one; as it folded to the ground, none of its multitude of companions so much as glanced at it—or us. “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head.”

“Yeah—my feelings are real hurt.” I checked the lowering skies once again. “Now would be a good time for Paladin to show.”

“Don’t get antsy, Mr. Stone—Damy’ll be here.” She plugged two more of the fish-eyed shamblers for straying too close. “Eventually.”

“And in the meantime, this Rottwanger guy gets to load up his stinky army and bob back to your world.” I started walking towards the living zeppelin; I figured now the threat from the sea had lessened I could maybe wreak a little havoc on board. Immediately, a swarm of black demons dropped around my head, attempting to rake my face with their talons whilst serpentine limbs struck at my eyes. I jumped back, and the assault eased off. So that was it: everything was fine, long as I hung back from the airship. Those nasty little boogers were around just to stop me—and Miss Oswin, I guess—getting up close and personal with Rottwanger. They were good at it, too.

The first of the amphibious things had reached the tongue-like ramps. Slowly, they lumbered up the slope, heading deep into the bowels of the hovering monstrosity. My guts flipped over again at the thought of bowels: it was too on the nose.

“I’m starting to feel redundant,” I complained. “The ark’s filling while we stand here with the water lapping round our ankles.”

“If you want something to do…” She shot another creature right between its bulging eyes then began picking them off, one by one, until the Beretta’s clip was empty. Not one of them so much as held up a webbed hand in protest. Miss Oswin ejected the spent clip and held out her hand for a fresh one. Her expression was cold, pitiless. “The fewer, the better.”

I swapped clips, pocketing the empty one, and watched as she plugged a few more of the bovine things. I couldn’t argue with her reasoning, and Ned Killigan would have been right alongside her. The expression shooting fish in a barrel had never seemed so appropriate. I told myself it was just a waste of ammo: no matter how many of them we slaughtered, it was just a tiny percentage. Instead I fell in with the herd, flowing with it; maybe I could slip past the aerial sentries that way.

No such luck. I must have stood out like a ballerina in a football team: within seconds they were mobbing me, wings and disgusting limbs slashing and battering. At least, squeezed as I was among the pug-ugly Dunnsmouth crew, I had some shelter—even if the stink was almost overwhelming. The only direct route the demons had to me was from immediately overhead, and then they started getting in each other’s way. I ducked those who got too close, clubbing with my gun barrel; I’d already learned not to waste ammo. Again I missed that flamethrower: my head was suffering death by a thousand nicks.

I was getting close to the zeppelin. I could almost glimpse the interior over the heads of the endless shuffling masses climbing the ramps. It was deep-space black in there, although there seemed to be lights of some kind drifting across the void, weaving hypnotically. I don’t know what colour you’d call them, they were just wrong.

The huge black balloon groaned; I felt the vibration in my gut and up through my feet more than heard it. The lines of Dunnsmouth uglies wavered; some stumbled and fell off the ramps. I suddenly realised I was no longer swatting at flying snakeheads. Something was happening.

I backed out of the crowd, not taking my eyes away from the trumpeting aerial behemoth, wishing the fishy stench wasn’t following me, and slowly made my way towards Miss Oswin, who’d stopped mowing down amphibians: either out of slugs, or grown bored. The blimp was definitely wallowing. It looked to me like the ramps were trying to curl back up into the body of the ship, but the weight of fish men was holding them down. The zeppelin yawed slowly, trying to shake off the excess baggage; the Dunnsmouth crowd were too dumb to take a hint. They kept on scrambling up towards the gaping interior, the ones in the rear crushing tight against those in front, who couldn’t move. Already full up inside, I guessed. Eventually, the airship gave up trying to free itself of its hangers-on: it began to rise, bellowing and snarling. The shark mouth nose gaped in mock agony. Dozens of uglies tumbled to the ground, just as many hung on to the trailing ramps: now flapping majestically like vast, sodden flags.

“It’s not gonna make it,” Miss Oswin said into my ear.

The airship’s nose rose gradually, its paddles flailing at the clouded air, snatching for height. Shapes tumbled piecemeal to the ground: individual Dunnsmouth creatures losing their grip. It didn’t seem to be enough. The blimp was foundering—that’s the best way I can describe it: about to sink with all hands. Overloaded. The embarkation had turned into a total foul-up.

Another shape appeared in the dull skies: a biplane, its gleaming red fuselage and bright yellow wings glowing in the thin sunlight. I heard Miss Oswin give an unladylike snort.

“Now he shows up!”

The plane flipped over and swooped past the wallowing blimp. Then it dropped lower, the landing gear skimming the ground as the crazy pilot came straight for us. Even the half-brained Dunnsmouth crowd—those who hadn’t made it on to the zeppelin—scattered, bleating like mutated sheep. At the last moment the airplane jigged, wingtips missing me by around six feet, and I caught a snapshot image of Paladin in the front cockpit, making a thumbs-up sign as he passed. Miss Oswin squealed with delight, clapping her hands, before glancing at me a little shame-faced.

“He probably brought my cigarettes—” she called above the biplane’s engine. The machine was climbing again, heading straight for Rottwanger’s ship.

I couldn’t help grinning at the brief glimpse of the girl under the hard-boiled adventuress. “Sure.”

Paladin aimed his plane straight for the airship, which was making a clumsy effort to manoeuvre out of the way. I heard the clatter of machine guns. Sparks of fire danced along the black monstrosity’s strange hide. It rolled; more shapes tumbled from the unsealed ventral openings. The biplane grazed the dorsal spine; more brief fires burst along the surface. They didn’t look much, but with each strafing run, the living airship yawed and pitched: a dinosaur plagued by a persistent flea. And with each slow motion twitch, more of Dunnsmouth’s finest plunged to the earth.

Meanwhile, Miss Oswin and I found ourselves on the irked receiving end of all those who hadn’t made it to the ship. No longer distracted by the sight of Rottwanger’s zeppelin, and whatever siren call had lured them, they were looking for something to take it out on. No prizes for guessing who that was.

I had two full clips left: one each. We reloaded and made every shot count. The things’ stupid docility had evaporated; it was our blood, or theirs. I don’t know about Miss Oswin, but I want to die in bed—mourned by New York’s most beautiful dames. I pistol-whipped anything which got too close; luckily, they weren’t half as resilient as the flying things. We finished them off with one slug to spare, in Miss Oswin’s gun; if they’d been a half dozen more, we’d have been reduced to fighting them with our rapier wit alone.

Up in the sky, Paladin had changed tactics. He was attacking the bizarre winged limbs and their propulsive paddles: they were obviously more inflammable. Thin streamers of smoke ran from a couple of sites; I could swear I saw the gnarled limbs flexing, the stunted wings fluttering. There was also a swarm of black mites buzzing the biplane: the aerial demons. Not too happy about the mother ship getting fragged.

The biplane broke off the attack, leaving the black airship to limp ponderously away, still leaking trickles of Dunnsmouth citizens. I had an image of someone—or something, maybe the owner of those weaving lights—tossing the helpless creatures overboard in a frantic attempt to loose ballast and gain height. Paladin brought his airplane down in a level glide, touching down on the promontory’s flattish surface in what I believe they call a three-point landing. It taxied to a halt within feet of us, engine idling. The biplane—a DH9A, Oil-Gun had called it—might have been a two-seater, but it didn’t look so big to me. I swear I’ve seen bigger sidecars. Paladin was waving at us; Miss Oswin needed no encouragement. She sprinted over the rough ground—no mean feat in those shoes and long skirt—and hugged Paladin where he sat in the pilot’s cockpit.

“You okay, princess?” He was grinning; no disguising the relief in his voice.

“Swell. You sure took your time!”

“There’s gratitude. Hop aboard—you too, Stone—we still have a zeppelin to finish off.”

A what? Wait! “Hey—no one said anything about dogfights. A trip back home is what Oil-Gun said!”

“Well, Eddie says lots of things.” He waved at the rear cockpit. “C’mon—let’s ankle!”

For a moment I froze: Stone by name, stone by nature. The only thing that got me moving was the faint derision in Miss Oswin’s eyes. No one calls Nick Nightmare yellow; even if it’s in silence. Never mind that at that moment it was true.

I crawled into the cramped hole in the fuselage, more than hampered by the twin machine guns fitted to a swivelling rig around the cockpit’s rim: I recognised them as old-school Lewis guns. The seat wasn’t the most uncomfortable I’ve ever parked myself in, but it came close. A moment later, Miss Oswin had climbed aboard—again, in that skirt—and dropped in my lap. Any other day I’d have been delighted. Today only one thing controlled my emotions—terror. She nonchalantly handed me a pair of flying goggles, slipping on a pair of her own.

“Buckle up, hero: it’s likely to get bumpy—”

Her words were swallowed by the roar of the engine as Paladin opened her up. The plane surged forward; I felt the ground’s every rise and hollow through my seat. I only realised we were airborne when the jolting stopped; then it was too late to jump. My guts, wisely, decided to stay on the ground. I felt the very moment they quit.

I tried to sink down in my seat, let the fuselage block my view. I tried not to register each heart-stopping wobble as the plane hit some kind of airborne dip, or the buffeting of side winds. I could have shut my eyes: except they were as immobile as the rest of me. The vast, black bulk of Rottwanger’s airship gradually filled the sky.

For a moment, I didn’t know what the distant chatter was, so far and distant. Then I realised it was the airplane’s forward-firing machine gun: Paladin had opened up on the zeppelin. I was a witness to everything: unable to look away, or duck for cover. The airship seemed to swoop by, twisting in the air as tiny fires lit up on its gnarled hide; while our biplane was immobile—except for the occasional lurch. I spotted the swarm of black winged things as they boiled out of the airship.

Miss Oswin wriggled; she was actually reaching for the Lewis guns. As she cocked them, Paladin leaned back in his seat, his head half-turned. “I loaded incendiaries!” he called, grinning like a kid.

Miss Oswin laughed in delight. “You think of everything!”

“Don’t I just.”

Streams of the black things flew to either side of our plane. Miss Oswin pivoted in my lap; when she opened up, the machine guns’ hammering left me convinced I’d be permanently deaf. My look of utter, abject horror must have moved Miss Oswin, but not to tears.

“Don’t worry Mr. Stone.” She fired another ear-splitting burst. “We’ve never killed anybody yet.” Her voice was clear above the engine. “Have we, Damy!” Hellfire, she was enjoying this.

“Sure we have!”

My stomach was doing more slow rolls than the plane.

“I mean by accident!”

“Oh!” He let loose with his own gun: mini explosions stitched the airship’s surface. “Not by accident, no…!”

I tell you, those guys were a laugh riot. I tried to rest my head back on the cockpit’s rim: all it bought me was a ringside view of the airship’s belly as Paladin side-slipped underneath. Weird limb/engine nacelles shot by, much too close, flames blossoming as incendiary shells burst along the alien surface. The airplane lurched to one side, leaving my head swimming: Paladin had almost flown into one of the dangling ramps. Somehow, there were still a few determined fish men clinging like bugs on flypaper. As we passed, Miss Oswin stood, angled her twin Lewis guns, and fired off a burst. I was content to imagine the carnage she left in our wake.

“He’s making a run for it!” Paladin called.

“I shouldn’t have shot off his ballast,” Miss Oswin yelled back with a wink in my direction.

I could see what they meant: the airship was no longer wallowing: the tail was up and Rottwanger, his crew, or the ship itself, had established some kind of trim. I no longer saw bodies tumbling from the openings: I guess they’d all been ejected. The black zeppelin was turning—slowly, clumsily—but turning anyhow. My guess was, making for Dunnsmouth.

Vertigo was tossing me to and fro like a demented circus acrobat but I managed to shriek, “If Rottwanger makes it there, can he escape?”

I saw Paladin raise a gloved right hand; between the fingers he held what looked like a pale, shrivelled flower bud. As I watched, it stirred, its petals peeled back; if I hadn’t been immobilised by fear I would have jumped. Nestling in the bud’s centre was what looked nauseatingly like a dark, glistening eye. I felt sure it was staring back at me. After a moment, Paladin threw it overboard.

“There’s a gate nearby,” he answered, head back so I could hear him. “If he can reach it, he’ll be gone!”

The chamber where Miss Oswin had been imprisoned: it had to be. “It’s under the Church of Dagon!”

She glanced at me briefly, her features hardening “He’s right! They sure as shooting have something down there…!”

“Then we better make sure he never gets that far!” Paladin leaned forward; moments later the biplane banked, dropping neatly on to the airship’s tail. I wish I’d been feeling better disposed to appreciate the manoeuvre. He continued to fire in short, surgical bursts which seemed to have no effect on the leviathan. More of the black flying demons poured in our direction, and Miss Oswin decimated their ranks with cold precision. Even so, some got past: settling on our wings and fuselage. One made directly for Paladin’s face. He pulled out a large, ugly flare pistol and blasted a fiery charge that sent the creature tumbling into space, charring as it went. Another was hanging on to the rim of my cockpit: claws cutting through the canvas, whip-like tendrils flailing for a better purchase. Somehow I drew my empty Beretta and clubbed at it until it let go and flew erratically away, wings shattered. I almost forgot to be terrified.

Paladin was shaking his head. “Bullets aren’t going to work!”

Miss Oswin paused in her assault on the flying pests. “What then?”

“Bombs.”

Bombs! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Neither did Miss Oswin.

“You bought bombs?”

“Sure did! Eight fifty-pounders with grappling hooks and five second fuses.”

“Incendiaries?”

“What do you think?” He climbed the airplane, accelerating to overtake the zeppelin. “I’m gonna need to fly close enough so the bombs don’t bounce off, so it might get rough. Hold on, princess…!”

Trailing an escort of flying demons which couldn’t quite keep up, he skimmed so close to the airship’s gnarled surface I thought he was going to land. I watched his shoulders twitch each time he pulled the bomb release handle, or wire, or however the old crate worked; counting down from five after the first drop.

The air shuddered; I felt the biplane get pushed from behind. All the bombs gone, Paladin banked sharply to the right, diving out of trouble. Turning into a parallel course, the biplane held back out of range as a series of explosions rocked the flying giant. From tail to nose, seconds apart, the bombs detonated. The airship quivered, reared—and bellowed its agony like an elephant hit by a locomotive travelling flat-out. The howls drowned out our aero engine—a real conversation killer. Dipping, the infernos spreading—whatever Paladin used for accelerant was deadly—the zeppelin folded to the ground, reminiscent of the Hindenburg disaster—I guessed still to come in Paladin’s world. I couldn’t shake the conviction our little crate was going to be next.

The living blimp crashed slowly to the ground; its final scream really did make the welkin ring. On foggy nights I still hear it. Flames and melting chunks of the airship spread everywhere, flowing like candlewax. Some fell steaming into the sea and I realised that, by luck or judgement—and I know where my money is—Rottwanger had plunged to earth right on top of Dunnsmouth. Scratch one town of mutated cod.

The winged demons must have found it a tad dispiriting: they abandoned the chase, letting go whatever bit of airplane they were clinging to, tumbling into space and vanishing into individual twists of unhealthy light. Back to wherever Rottwanger had summoned them from, I guess.

Then, just when I thought this particular carny ride was over, Miss Oswin tapped Paladin on the shoulder, pointing at a dot rising up from the oozing carnage. It looked like some kind of crazy airplane: blood red and moving fast. Much faster than Paladin’s mess of wires and cheesecloth. Even so, he put the biplane into a dive, on an intercept course.

The other aircraft swiftly grew clearer. It was shaped somewhat like a modern, three-bladed arrowhead: two blades forming delta wings, the third both tail section and enclosed cockpit. The red colour gave its pilot away; the swastikas at the tip of each blade only confirmed it. Wolfgang Rottwanger: escaping either in a secret Nazi jet plane, or something he’d acquired from another world. As we approached, it accelerated, leaving a black contrail against the sullen sky.

Miss Oswin slammed a hand on the grip of a Lewis gun. “Dammit! He’s leaving us cold!”

Paladin half-turned, his grin showing far too many teeth. “Think so? Stone here has some talented pals—just watch.” As an afterthought, he added: “You better sit down, too, princess.”

She hmphed loudly, but perched herself back on my lap. I easily distracted myself by thinking how high up we were; and in what. Paladin reached down and pulled at something again. I felt the whine more in my back teeth than my ears, and the kick in the small of my back as the biplane leapt forward. An unearthly rainbow flowed all around: either encasing us, or slipstreaming from the wings. We were screaming towards Rottwanger’s fancy jet plane at a lick that should have torn the wings off Paladin’s old crate. Oil-Gun and his modifications!

From his poky cockpit, Rottwanger saw us coming. And I saw his face: he was wearing his maniacal mask. From the little I knew about Nazis (gleaned mostly from war comics and not the war itself) Rottwanger had it all: the lunatic gleam of the fanatic, the rictus of wild triumph. His determination to conquer the universe was running riot. For a moment this vision of insanity fixed on me like it would be enough to squeeze my heart into a sodden pulp. Pity nobody had told Herr Rottwanger you can’t scare the crap out of someone who’s already suffering from the screaming meemies.

Defiant to the last, he threw his blood red arrowhead around the sky in a manner I’ve never seen outside a Hollywood science-fiction movie. It did him no good: Paladin stuck to his tricorn tail like he was nailed there; even snapping off a few shots, just to focus the mad German’s attention. When Rottwanger finally went on the offensive I was expecting ray guns at least—but it was just a plain old-fashioned machine gun which opened up. Shells punched holes in the biplane’s fabric with an odd, wet smacking sound. The red jet blurred past. Miss Oswin swung and fired her machine guns, though I doubt she hit anything: not at our combined speeds.

Paladin wrenched his plane around in pursuit. Rottwanger was headed back towards Dunnsmouth again; he must have thought this gate doohickey was still usable. The town where armageddon had come to visit was an unbelievable mess of lurid flame and half-molten airship; nevertheless, Rottwanger angled his jet straight for it. Paladin hammered at him with his machine gun: either they all went wild, the jet was too well armoured, or Rottwanger just didn’t give a damn. He was undoubtedly fuelled with the confidence of a raving lunatic. His black smoke trail was a straight shaft to his arrowhead.

Not that anyone cared at that point, but I was starting to have difficulty breathing, and pretty sure a heart attack was imminent. At least it would have put me out of my misery. To take my mind off the manic speed we were doing, and how close to Rottwanger’s tail Paladin was determined to stay, I fixed my attention on Dunnsmouth’s guttering remains. My guess was, everything down there was dead—that or mortally injured. Not the best way to go, but I didn’t know anybody who’d mourn them.

At first I thought it was an illusion: some trick played on my eyes by the flames, speed, and—I confess again—sheer funk. I’d seen something move: stirring up the gooey remains of the zeppelin. I dismissed it: anything so obvious at our height would have to be pretty damn big. A moment later, I saw it again: a great slab of Dunnsmouth rising up, strings of airship oozing like cheese on a mountainous fresh pizza. There was something down there. A huge something.

I don’t know if Rottwanger saw it, or if he couldn’t pull up in time. His jet plunged straight at the disturbance as a chunk of rubble, bigger than a city block, broke away. I’m still not sure what I saw: molten airship, flame, shattered buildings, and a shape I can only describe as a mouth on starfish legs—all fused together in a charred mess. Rottwanger’s jet ploughed straight into it; an instant later there was another explosion. Burning aviation fuel erupted in a ball of flame which could have swallowed the Statue of Liberty.

Paladin tore back on the stick, but his plane had none of Rottwanger’s manoeuvrability. We plunged into a wall of flame; for what felt like forever all I could see was an inferno, shot through by flying debris. I smelled something like kerosene. Then we were through: small fires nibbling at the fabric snuffed out by our insane speed. I started breathing again.

Paladin circled the biplane for a while, all three of us looking down on what remained of the Dunnsmouth apocalypse. A vast crater had been added to the landscape; a definite improvement.

“Well, if he’s still there,” said Paladin, “I guess he’s spread over a dozen square miles of New England.”

We landed well beyond the chaos: the town just a rosy glow on the horizon. Miss Oswin hopped lightly from the cockpit; I crawled out like the old man I felt. My legs refused to have anything to do with the rest of my body. To add to my indignity, she was the one helping me down.

“Well, it’s been bully,” I croaked. “We must do it again some time. In about a hundred years, maybe.”

Miss Oswin laughed, handing me back my spare Beretta. “Buck up, Mr. Stone. We’ve slain the dragon and come through unscathed.”

“Speak for yourself. I don’t think I’ll walk straight again.”

Her face suddenly clouded. “Shoot!” She looked away to where Dunnsmouth’s pyre glowed on. “I left my hat down there!”

Paladin shook his head. “Princess, you got a closet full of hats—”

“Yeah—but I liked that hat.”

The flyboy shrugged, no doubt figuring this was one fight he’d better not get into. He stepped towards me, hand held out. “We owe you, Stone. I owe you.” He grabbed my quivering fist; I swear I heard bones crack.

“Nightmare,” I said. “Call me Nick Nightmare. Man of Blancmange.”

“Nick Nightmare?” He glanced at Miss Oswin, who was impersonating the enigmatic smile first made famous by the Mona Lisa. “What kind of name is that for a man?”

Miss Oswin, hat forgotten, hugged me; I could smell machine gun oil on her cheek. She gave me a peck on the forehead before stepping away. “Like the man says, Mr. Nightmare: we both owe you. If there’s ever anything we can do…”

I raised a hand, about to wave it off with an aw shucks grin when an idea struck. “Matter of fact, I think there might be something.”

****

They left me standing, wherever it was. They’d hopped back on the DH9A—I’d made up my mind to check out just what a DH9A was when I got back—waved so-long and flown back into a sky showing signs of brightening. The biplane was just a speck when that rainbow light flared around it one last time. There was a lightning flash which filled the sky, as silent as it was blinding, and they were gone. Back to their own crazy world. I wasn’t too unhappy to see them go: life around Damian Paladin and Leigh Oswin was not my idea of stimulation.

I wasn’t alone for long. I heard a familiar and mercifully land-bound engine grating its way out of the shreds of mist still saturating the landscape. Montifellini’s bus loomed towards me, its recent paint job still brilliantly fresh. It stopped with a whine of gears and asthmatic brakes. The door swung open and that crazy Italian dude grinned down at me. “Someone told me you needed a lift.”

“A ride, my friend. The last thing I want is to be lifted so much as a foot off the goddamn ground. Take me home. Please…” I clambered on board and gratefully threw myself into a seat. At least this rickety vehicle wasn’t about to leave terra firma. Ratcheting through the gears in his usual haphazard way, Montifellini spun the wheel and stepped on the gas.

“What’s that you have, Nick?” he called, watching me through the rear-view mirror.

“What, this?” I held my prize up, examining it closely. Paladin hadn’t been too eager to part with it, but Miss Oswin—Leigh—had persuaded him, as I’d figured she would. A brown leather coat: battered, sleeveless; it sure looked like it had gone through the wars. “A souvenir. Totally unique. Captain Malevolent should get a big, big kick out of it.”

Mal was a true fan. And only a true fan would appreciate a genuine Damian Paladin flying coat, signed by the man himself.

As for me, for once I let every bump and bounce of that weird old bus shake me from one side of the seat to the other without a word of complaint. Nothing—but nothing—could possibly compare with taking to the skies in a DH9A, which had to be the most infernal of machines.

Hot Little Number from Hell

I guess we all like to spoil ourselves from time to time. Throw money around and enjoy it without paying too much attention to the consequences. They don’t call me Mr. Capricious, but when the mood takes me, I like to visit the best nightclub in town, where the malt whiskey is second to none, the clientele are straight off the movie sets—literally—and the music is like nothing else you ever heard. On a day-to-day basis, I usually go for the bluesy stuff or a riff or two of metal, but occasionally I just like to sit back in Diamonds Are Forever and listen to one of their classy singers, backed by the band who could reasonably stand in for Duke Ellington’s. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart, although no one who knows me would tell you that.

I had just settled down with a very smooth double, lucky enough to get a table a couple of rows in from the dance floor and, more importantly, the stage, when the latest singing sensation at Diamonds slid across to the microphone and breathed a “hello” into it that could have melted granite. Her voice shivered along my spine and I indulged myself in the fantasy that her words were directed at me and me alone; as did all the other guys in the building. She introduced herself as FiFi Cherie. From Paris, naturellement. No one gave a damn if that was Paris, Texas. Or Paris, Siberia, for that matter.

She was dressed in a shimmering light green item which clung to her from neckline to ankles as if she’d just climbed out of a swimming pool, and had a figure that would have given Veronica Lake a run for her money, with the long hair to match. FiFi’s was jet black, hung down over one eye, the exposed one fixed brightly and seductively on her enraptured audience. She had the looks of a screen goddess, but where she really scored for me was when she sang.

Man, that voice! I never heard better. Low and sulky, effortless with the notes, crystal pure, rich with caged emotion. She was only two numbers in by the time I got a lump in my throat. The whole joint was hushed: the entire universe had shrunk down to that girl in the spotlight. Even the women were caught up in the magic of that voice, like it spoke to their hearts, touching on old loves, new hopes, broken dreams. I know all about it, her face told you, and I’m hiding behind my smile.

She did a lot of the classics, but where she knocked everyone off their seats was with a song she called her own, “Hot Little Number from Hell”. We were all pinned back, enthralled, nodding at the words, which someone, herself maybe, had written with just her in mind.

“There ain’t no doubt about it;
I’m underneath his spell,
When that old Devil made me,
I guess he knew darn well,
I’m just a—”
[stunning pause]
“—hot little number from Hell.”

They say all good things have to end, though I’m damned if I know why: I could have sat there for a month of Sundays listening to that voice. It wasn’t going to happen and Ms Cherie finished. As the rapturous applause died down, I ordered another double, sat back, and closed my eyes for a moment, letting the last notes drift through my mind, stirring up a few old memories, numbed by the whiskey. When I opened my eyes, I had a surprise waiting.

She was standing right before me, tall in her amazing stiletto heels, that one eye looking down at me, the other still screened by the curtain of silky hair. Her lips were full, enriched with scarlet lipstick that shone in the club’s glare, her cheeks twin rouge highlights. To my amazement she said, “Mr. Stone.”

My mouth wasn’t working, like my last wad of gum had expanded to fill it and glued it up. I did manage a nod.

“My boss wants to see you,” she said, leaning forward. Her long arms were sheathed in thin green gloves to the elbows; she reached out with one and dropped a card on the table. I picked it up slowly and read the four lines of print and the neatly hand-written words beneath it.

ARIADNE CARNADINE

Diamonds Are Forever

With compliments

10:00 am tomorrow

A car will pick you up at your office

I looked up at FiFi but she was already slinking away into the shadows. She did turn back briefly, and gave me a smile and a half wave. Every guy in the place was watching and my guess is, I was the most hated man on the planet at that point. Also the most smug.

Again I studied the card, which had a strong smell of extremely expensive perfume. The handwriting was a woman’s, almost certainly Miss Carnadine’s. I’d never met her, just as I’d never met any of society’s top names, but I’d seen her in the press and on TV. Very attractive, but no dumb blonde. The word went she was a cut and thrust businesswoman, part of a family who ruled a big chunk of the city like the Borgias used to run Italy. Even the Mob trod carefully with the Carnadines.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I was too tired to think about tomorrow’s potential date. I threw off my clothes and sank down into a sleep where long green arms were stroking my neck and a whispering voice told me to join it in certain subterranean regions where the bad people go when they die.

I was up early and showered, hot and steaming water flushing any traces of hangover well away. I ate a plateful of mushrooms and eggs, washed it down with a couple of mugs of black coffee, and hauled out my best suit. Okay, my only suit. The other collection of rags I wear is strictly functional and not designed to impress. Dressed in this finery, I headed out for the office. I was there by 9:00 a.m. The world around me was very quiet, like it was waiting for something to break. I fidgeted and fiddled with papers and files. Curiosity had gotten the better of me; that and my boredom. Since my terrifying escapade with Dr Moribund, life had become a tad dull again.

A shadow fell across my door at 10:00 a.m. precisely. I called the guy in. He was tall and lean, wearing a dark suit with a neat motif sewn on to the breast pocket which proclaimed him to be in the employ of the Diamonds club. I guess his suit would have cost ten times what mine had, but I decided against asking him if he’d like to swap. After all, he had about six inches on me.

“Mr. Stone?” he intoned. Hammer Films would’ve loved him. “I’m to take you to Miss Carnadine.”

I nodded. I had already slipped a Beretta into its shoulder holster earlier. Moments later, I’d locked up. My chauffeur remained silent, striding out into the brightness of the day and along the alley to the main street beyond. He had parked his car, a fastidiously polished Daimler, at the curb and already it was gathering a dazzled audience. Such a class vehicle was unique to this district. Kids and adults alike scattered as we got in. I sat in back, enjoying the leather luxury.

“Our journey will take us about an hour, Mr. Stone. Please help yourself to refreshments. Would you like some music?”

“No thanks.” I decided against raiding the liquor cabinet, wanting to keep sharp for this meeting. We pulled out into the traffic, driving along the familiar city canyons. I wondered for the twentieth time why Miss Carnadine wanted to see me. If she needed a private eye, she could have hired the best. A dozen of them, if need be. I had no connections with her, her family, or anyone who worked for them, as far as I knew. I was left concluding it had to be something weird. I guess I was known for such things. They didn’t call me Nick Nightmare because I only did the soft stuff.

Eventually we reached our destination on the outskirts of the outskirts of the city, a private estate, by the look of its high wall and the landscape inside it, which put me in mind of what the English call a stately home. We cruised up a long drive, lush lawns and vistas of woodland on either side, where the word Money was writ very large. And the house—yeah, stately home was right. The place could have been picked up from rural England and dropped right down here in New York State. I gaped at it for a while as we disembarked. Once inside, the chauffeur gave way to a footman who could have doubled for John Gielgud in austere mode.

I was taken up a grand staircase (you could have lost my office in it) to one of the numerous royal chambers, or its equivalent; this was definitely a visit to the aristocracy. I won’t describe its interior: I don’t have that many adjectives. Just check out a guide to Versailles, or Blenheim, or wherever. Somewhere among all that knee-deep carpet and expensive furniture, Ariadne Carnadine was waiting for me.

It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had been dressed up like one of the dames in the many pictures around the walls: all billowing gowns and wigs; instead, she wore a simple enough business suit, light grey and sleek. Expensive, of course, but not ostentatious. I put her in her early thirties and she was about five-ten and wore her hair short, though she had dyed it a kind of auburn—not its natural colour, but it worked well with her pale skin. She had the sharp, intelligent gaze of an eagle and I guessed claws to match. Metaphorically speaking: her hands were small, delicate.

She smiled as I stood before her. “Mr. Stone. Nice of you to come at such short notice.” She was English down to her ankles—which were very shapely—and I warmed to her voice, though I couldn’t help feeling like a small rodent who’d wandered into an enclosed space presided over by birds of prey. The footman had discreetly withdrawn. I couldn’t see anyone else in the huge room, but I guessed my interview was being overseen.

“I didn’t have anything better to do,” I drawled.

She smiled again. “Good. Do have a seat. Is it too early for a drink? Or would you prefer coffee? I usually have tea at this time of the morning.”

The idea of sipping tea in this extraordinary environment appealed to my warped sense of humour. “Tea sounds absolutely super, ma’am,” I said flippantly.

She laughed gently, not at all needled by my response. She spoke to the space behind me; I assumed the footman would respond.

“I understand that some people call you Nick Nightmare,” she said casually. I tried not to stare at those perfect teeth. “Your reputation for dealing with the slightly more outré aspects of worldly affairs runs ahead of you. I’ll be honest: it’s why I asked you to come. I have a proposition for you.”

The tea arrived: a large pot on a silver salver, with china cups, saucers, cream, sugar in a silver bowl—a set whose value would have funded a small country for a year. The footman bowed and disappeared again. Miss Carnadine didn’t actually say, Shall I be mother? but she did pour. Once the little ritual was taken care of and we were both sipping like a couple of old dowagers, she spoke again.

“You don’t drive, Mr. Stone. Why is that?”

It was an unexpected question, but I kept my gaze level. “I choose not to.”

She nodded. “I seem to spend a lot of my time in the air. My business takes me all over the world, as you can imagine. I suppose you know what sort of an empire my brother and I run?”

You’d have to have lived a very isolated life not to have known about Terrance Carnadine, her brother and a magnate of no small standing in the business world. I nodded.

“Terry is not exactly the black sheep of the family, although he is something of a wild card, Mr. Stone. His heart has never really been in the business. It doesn’t matter, as he’s lucky enough to have me for a sister. I run things and generally he lets me get on with it. I suspect it’s no great secret to the world.”

She was being diplomatic. Terrance Carnadine was, not to put it too finely, a playboy, an adventurer; a sort of latter-day Hemingway, though more eccentric. There’d been times when the press had had field days with his antics, and my guess was he was more than a little embarrassing to the family, even though the public thrived on his escapades. Sounded like his sister here had his measure. No doubt her grip on the companies she ran was very firm.

She reached behind her. On the antique table there was a file; she set it in her lap, idly flicking through some of its pages. She held it at such an angle, deliberately, so I could read the name on the cover. It was mine. I didn’t spit out my tea, but suddenly it tasted a little bitter.

“Why do you do it, Mr. Stone?” she asked softly, leaning forward and fixing me with that intense gaze. I suspect businessmen from here to Tokyo and back had succumbed to it; I remained my stoic self. “The detective work, I mean. I know it’s not for the money.” She was looking down at the file, as if reading from it. “You’re very well heeled. A lot of money passes through your account.”

I should have known someone like her would have access to such details. Her list of contacts must have been as long as a telephone directory. “I’ve hit lucky just lately.”

“So why don’t you retire?”

“All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.”

She laughed. “Yes, I can see that. Although it’s not true of my brother, Terry. Work is a concept he never quite grasped. Well, I have an offer of work for you. And I’ll pay very handsomely. Might you be interested? I’d rather you said no, if you’re not. I’m not prepared to discuss the job unless I have your complete discretion.” She slipped the file—my file—back on to the table behind her. I would have given a lot to have read that file. It was a loaded gun, for sure.

“I know what you do with your money,” she said. “I expect another hundred thousand dollars would serve you well.”

I barely succeeded in not dropping the expensive china. She was one rich lady, but a hundred thousand bucks? Really? She had to be kidding.

“I’m serious,” she said, reading my mind. “But believe me, you’ll earn it.”

“How could I possibly refuse?” I grinned my idiot grin.

“Okay. I have your word all this is just between you and me?”

“My lips are sealed.” I knew they would be if I blabbed: likely with a rivet gun. Luckily, blabbing isn’t my style.

“Terry is missing. Now, some people would think it no loss, seeing him as a liability to the business. At first, I did think his disappearance might even have been engineered by a disaffected group from within. However, I’ve had my own team on the case. Terry has not been abducted, or done away with, or otherwise suborned. He’s gone off on another of his madcap adventures and got himself into very hot water. And I can’t reach him. Whereas you, Mr. Stone—Nick Nightmare—might just be able to.”

If that file contained half of what it could, I knew she was right. But I had to ask anyway. “I’m just a bit player, ma’am. Why me?”

“You’ve travelled to some very strange places. Places most of us don’t even know about. Teddy heard about one of them. To him it would have been like Shangri-La or Xanadu. He would have stopped at nothing to go there. I’m not sure if I believe in all of this, Mr. Stone, but my people tell me that every trail leads to a blank wall. They don’t have a door, never mind a key.” She leaned forward and studied me.

I kinda enjoyed it.

“You think I can open it?”

“I’m not asking you how you do it, but yes, I think you can. I think you can find my brother. And bring him back before the worst happens.”

“You got any leads?”

She sat back, nodding, relieved. “The last man to see Teddy alive, at least in this world. You need to speak to him. Then, when you’re ready to go—over, or whatever you call it—you’re to let me know. You won’t be going alone.”

I frowned. “Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t buddy up on this sort of caper. Solo is healthy.”

She shook her head like a woman who does not take “no” for an answer. “Just one companion, Mr. Stone. Me. I’m coming with you.”

My face dropped, appropriately, like a stone from a great height. She waved aside my mute objections.

“Now, Mr. Stone, please don’t make me have to exert undue pressure on you.”

I knew she had the power to grind me under her heel if the mood took her. Her friends were one heck of a lot more powerful than mine. I nodded slowly. “Okay, lady, you’re calling the shots.” I pointed to the file. “But you got to throw in that file. And any copies. I want everything you got on me destroyed.”

She picked it up and handed it over with her best double-edged smile. “It’s a deal, Mr. Stone. There’s one other, the original. I’ll have it delivered to you. You have my word on it.”

I took the file. “I’ll keep our little chat confidential. You have my word on it.”

We shook hands on it. Her grip was warm and not surprisingly, strong. I hoped she was able to handle herself, because if her brother was where I thought he was, she was going to have to shape up, big time.

****

I didn’t open the file until I got back to my office. I should have known: the pages were all blank. But she’d said enough about me to convince me she really did have a file. We were going to have to trust each other. That, or I’d have to show my teeth.

I got a phone call later telling me to go uptown where I was to meet the last guy Terrance Carnadine had seen on this side. Our rendezvous was a very swank hotel, the Splendor in Manhattan, one of a chain owned by the Carnadines. As I walked into the main foyer, it was like stepping on to a Hollywood set: very ritzy and glamorous. I could see why my contact had chosen this place: the lounge off the foyer was vast and open. Anyone hoping to listen in on a conversation would have nowhere to hide away. At the desk I asked the clerk for a Mr. Luke Phillips.

The clerk called over a bellhop and he took me into the heart of the lounge where a lone guy was sitting, reading a newspaper; though I could feel his eyes on me as I approached. I sank into the plush armchair beside him and gave him my name.

“Ah, Private Eye, Public Fist,” he said with a wry grin. “Good to meet you.” He was English, but he didn’t speak the language like Ariadne Carnadine did. My guess was he’d come up through the lower orders: a street fighter like me.

We shook hands. He was younger than me, I’d say in his early thirties, although his hair was almost white, prematurely so. One glance was enough to show me he was very fit. Not an ounce of flab, hard lines to his features, skin slightly tanned like he spent more time in the sun than out of it. If he was a buddy of Carnadine, he would be a traveller, and maybe the city was not his home territory.

“I was told you could give me the dope on Terrance Carnadine,” I said.

“His sister told me she’s employed you to find him. She offered me the job, but I told her no deal. I’ll take on most commissions, Mr. Stone, but I’m not ready to throw my life away just yet. Besides, I don’t have your qualifications.” He sounded like somebody else who’d read that file. I wasn’t sure I liked that, but something about this guy made me warm to him.

“What line of business are you in?” I asked him.

“I’m a soldier of fortune. Put more bluntly, a hired gun. A mercenary. I’ve made a lot of money out of it.” He waved at the surroundings. “Which is how I can afford to hole up in places like this for a while.”

I was impressed. “You have expensive tastes.”

“Sure. I’ve earned my bit of luxury. May even be time to quit altogether. You pull this job off for Miss Carnadine, and you can do the same.” He leaned forward, though there were very few people in the lounge and none of them looked remotely interested in us or our conversation. “I can tell you where Terry was when he—disappeared. If you’ve got the means to follow him, good for you. But you need to know what he was after, the reason for his going … beyond the normal sphere of things.”

“Some kinda treasure hunt? What I’ve dug up on him and what I’ve seen in the media tells me he always had an eye for the exotic.”

“You’ve got it in one. And he was a hell-raiser to boot. This last caper of his stretched all of that to its limit. I’ll be honest with you, Stone, I don’t give much for his chances. Have you ever heard of something called the Chaos Blade?”

I shook my head.

“Suffice it to say, it’s a very old relic from a time before history began. Very powerful, and in the wrong hands, a pretty nasty weapon. Perhaps a man of your experience could appreciate that. Believe me, it’s better left in some remote dimension, far away from this plane of existence. I’ve seen it, and what controls it.”

I had a brief mental vision of something vast and aquatic, flexing its psychic muscles somewhere out in the deeps of the ocean. I shook myself free of the image. Those freakish monsters were becoming too much of an obsession. “I get the picture.”

“Ariadne said you would. Okay, her brother heard about the blade and set out to find it. He knew I’d been involved in an archaeological dig in Egypt: I’d led a team of security guards who policed the dig. Very hush-hush. My employer found the Chaos Blade. He opened some kind of window and what I saw beyond was pure nightmare. Something came out of that pit and took back the Chaos Blade. The window shut down and the dig collapsed. No one has been back there since. I expect the desert has simply covered everything over.”

“So our big-game hunter is out there, like a kid on a beach?”

He shook his head. “No. He went to a place known as the Black Wake promontory. North of the city, about fifty miles up the coast in the middle of nowhere. Once it was home to a million gannets; then ten years ago it was taken over by a charming bunch of hoodlums calling themselves—”

“The Bang Gang. Yeah, I know about them.” Nastiest bunch of scum balls this side of hell. They had run every kind of racket going. Even the Mob had been wary of them. Hadn’t stopped them disappearing, though. Word was they’d holed up at Black Wake and fell out, slowly reverting back to savagery. Not to mention cannibalism. You were either insane or totally lost if you went near Black Wake. The cops kept one eye on it from a healthy distance, only too glad the thugs were off the map and keeping to themselves. “You saying Carnadine went to visit the Bang Gang?”

Phillips nodded. “Right. Someone tipped him off they knew about the Chaos Blade. God knows how, but who can say what those maniacs get up to on that hellish rock? If Carnadine is still alive–if they haven’t eaten him—he’ll be either there or somewhere beyond. There may be some kind of gate. From what I hear, you’d know more about that sort of thing than me. So—it’s all yours, Mr. Stone. I wish you bon chance.”

****

The rough house got into full swing about ten minutes after I’d entered Chiang-Kai Chung’s dump of a restaurant. I hadn’t gone there to eat—only a desperate man does that. I was down in one of the squalid, cramped basements, dealing with an ancient bag of bones called Mr. Hung, whose wrinkled skin had more lines than a city map. Mr. Hung was the keeper of much knowledge. Stuff he swore he would never dare share, except he also had a bad gambling habit and needed a lot of money to feed it. I’d given him a wad of greenbacks and he was in the process of studying the details of a curled parchment with me when the ruckus broke out.

Normally I wouldn’t enter a dive like this without at least one gun stuffed into my belt, but the guys on the door were cast from the same mould as Bruce Lee, with fists to match. Useful for punching holes in walls, never mind human chests. They didn’t let anyone in if they wore a gun.

So when the fight upstairs began, I felt a stab or two of discomfort. If I was gonna get drawn into this—and in places like this, free-for-alls usually ended up just that: everyone just smacking the hell out of anyone else who moved—I was going to have to rely on my own fists. And there were a lot of people in here. Me and Mr. Hung were in a small room, served by one set of stairs. Two men came down these, bouncing several times on their heads, blood flying from various parts of their anatomy. One was already unconscious, the other too dazed to do anything other than curl up in a ball. Another followed, bent double as if a mule had kicked him somewhere too delicate to mention.

Mr. Hung had retreated to dubious safety under the table. I snatched up the parchment and stuffed it into my inner pocket. I’d paid enough for it. Slowly I went up the stairs. There was more rough-and-tumble upstairs and the sound of bodies hitting walls, glass breaking, shrieks—the usual sort of pandemonium that goes with bar brawls. Not quite as full-blooded as you get in O’Darrigan’s Snug, but close.

Some guy took a swing at me and I gave him a swift chop to the back of his neck that took him out of the fight. Most of these mugs were easy enough to disable. They weren’t pros: just bystanders who liked violence. Fine by me. However, the centre of attention was from a different league. Dressed head to toe in tight-fitting black material, only the eyes showing through the covered face, it swung a four foot pole this way and that, using it amazingly effectively as both a bat and a kind of sword. There’s a name for all these Oriental martial arts. I don’t know what this was called but my guess was it would be translated as Lightning death on two legs.

I tried not to gape as the human whirlwind disposed of at least a dozen of its opponents, wondering if I’d gotten myself wedged into some kind of Tong war—in which case I had an even better reason for getting the hell out of there. With that in mind, I pushed my way towards the exit door. I didn’t want to tangle with the Black Ninja from Hell—if that pole caught me, it would do the sort of damage that marks a man for life, if it left him alive at all. The eyes of the black-dressed tornado fell on me and to my amazement managed to convey the message that if I could get to the door, I would be protected. Not pulped: protected. That made me feel so much better.

After that, getting outside was easy. The street was blissfully silent in comparison with the bedlam in the restaurant. There were more cries from within before my unexpected ally exited. Inside, the survivors shut the door and I heard bolts slamming. Clearly the rabble had had enough. I was about to ask for an explanation, when the black-clad warrior motioned me to follow her. Oh, yes, I’d figured it was a woman. The black garb wasn’t that loose that it disguised her curves. I had known a few tough cookies like this—Shadow Woman for one—though this wasn’t her.

We slipped through a few narrow streets until we reached a low, jet-black car the Batman would have envied: one of those ludicrously expensive Italian jobs. My companion did something to her long staff, telescoping it down into a quarter of its original length, and slipped it inside her clothing. She motioned me into the car and I squeezed into the passenger seat, almost horizontal, like I’d strapped into an F-16 jet. We took off at once and I felt like I was in an F-16 jet.

When she glanced over at me, I got a closer look at those eyes. “I thought I was supposed to be your bodyguard, Miss Carnadine.”

She pulled off the mask and dropped it beside her, shaking her bob of auburn hair loose and laughing. “I had a feeling you might get yourself into a tight corner in that place, Mr. Stone. So I thought I’d kill two birds at once. Just as well I turned up. Did you get what you went in for?”

I tapped my chest, where the parchment was hidden. “You bet. So what was the second thing?”

“I hope I’ve convinced you I won’t be a burden to you when I accompany you on our little outing.”

“Just so long as you know that was a tea party, ma’am. Kids’ stuff. Where we’re going, you’re going to need a bigger stick.”

****

We had the parchment spread out on the desktop, its curling edges weighed down with very expensive paperweights. Miss Carnadine had changed out of her shogun assassin gear and wore a casual version of one of her business suits. She studied the lines, writing, and strange astrological data, though it wasn’t making a lot of sense to her.

“You understand this thing, Mr. Stone?”

I sipped the whiskey she had poured me. It was pure gold. “Up to a point. What we’re looking for is a gate. Your brother went to a place called Black Wake. It’s not far off, but it’s out on a limb. In fact, you could say it’s out on a limb in time and space, if you accept that kind of stuff.”

“I may have to.”

“Right. Black Wake is like a fortress built out at the end of the promontory. Small town carved out of the rock. The Bang Gang made themselves a whole lotta dough when they ran most things here in the city. They could afford to turn Black Wake into something. My guess is, there’s a gate at its heart. These gates exist in various places and their locations are kept secret. Mr. Hung got careless. That little reception party was for me. Someone didn’t want me getting my mitts on this parchment. It’s not a whole load of use to us here, though. We need to take it to Black Wake.”

“Will the place be guarded?”

“Maybe not. If the gate is closed, no one gets through. In theory. I can get us through; that’s not the problem. It’s what we might find on the other side we need to worry about. The Bang Gang disappeared some years ago: every last one of them. There must have been damn near a whole town full of them and their cronies. Stands to reason they went through the gate and closed it after them. Convenient.”

“Until my idiot brother poked his nose in. Did Luke Phillips tell you what Terry was after?”

“Something called the Chaos Blade. Believe me, ma’am, whatever the hell it is, it belongs on the other side. Getting your brother back is important to you, I appreciate that, but keeping that damned weapon out of this world is what this is all about.”

“I’ll leave that side of things to you. I just need to get Terry back here where I can keep an eye on him. Weapon or no weapon, he’s a bloody liability to our multi-national.”

“Sure. Blood is thicker than water, eh, Miss Carnadine?”

****

Our drive north along the coast beyond the city was made in something far less ostentatious than the Batmobile lookalike in which Ariadne Carnadine had rescued me from Mr. Hung’s bloodthirsty associates, namely, a Land Rover. We were tooled up and she had her black outfit ready to unpack and wear. I have to say I was looking forward to it. When she went into warrior mode, it sure set the pulse racing. I just took an extra gun or two and a couple of long knives, slid down into their sheaths alongside my calves.

We hit the last stretch of road to Black Wake at mid-afternoon on a dreary day that threatened to end prematurely. Mist obscured the horizon. The promontory wound away into it: a huge, petrified serpent, its high spatula of a head poking up from the wide mud flats beyond it. I could just about make out the sea, its shoreline a couple of miles away, out in the bay. My companion went behind the back of the wagon and changed while I made further observations of the landscape.

“I suggest we park this beast out of sight and go out there on foot,” I told her when she emerged, once again in full ninja gear. Her eyes gleamed. She was enjoying this. “Paris is going to love that outfit,” I said appreciatively.

“Nothing wrong with being practical, Mr. Stone.” She had that long pole with her; this time I could see it had a retractable blade. She also had a belt round her waist, with a few serious looking blades hooked in to it. I wore dark pants and a similar jacket, but I drew the line at a mask, or smearing mud over my face like some kind of commando. But I was tempted. Somehow this whole deal felt like a wartime raid. I had the parchment with me, deciding against bringing any of my more bizarre artifacts—Jazzy Boy Jericho’swarning about them backfiring still rang in my ears.

“Hell, man,” he’d said, “they’ll have you workin’ for the opposition in no time.” I didn’t want that, not out here in the land of the ghouls.

Ariadne hid the vehicle and we headed out along the edge of the promontory, keeping low, though there was little cover: just an occasional scrubby tree, bent over by the prevailing sea winds. There were a few gulls about, squabbling over whatever they’d pecked out of the mud. I suppressed a shudder. Since I’d been attacked by the maniacal inhabitants of Mad Gull Island, I tended to turn green at a gathering of more than a dozen of the goddamn creatures. These, however, were more wary of us than we were of them. As we drew closer to Black Wake, we both felt its atmosphere radiating like a pulse. It spoke of emptiness, decay. Luke Phillips had said the place was deserted; looked like he got that right.

We stayed careful, keeping down to the side of the road. It wound up a slope to the walls of the village and through an arch where maybe gates had once been pulled shut. If they had been there, they’d rotted away to nothing. The way in was open. If there was anything in the place, human or otherwise, we would have been sitting ducks. Trouble was, the walls may have been shy of a couple of blocks in places, but they would be tough to climb. And we’d be doubly exposed.

I pulled out one of my Berettas. “Front door?”

She nodded and instinctively we split, going up to either side of the arched entry before slipping through it and into the sheltering shadows beyond. From what we could make out, the place had been an ordinary village, a mass of small houses cramped together. Under different circumstances, you might have called it picturesque and got your oil paints out. But we still had that atmosphere to deal with. I’d had the dubious pleasure of visiting Buddstown and the like, and this place seemed little different. We were too close to the sea, and the worst of what it spawned, for complacency. I’d warned Ariadne about such things on the way here, expecting her to turn her nose up. Instead, she took it all in, dismissing nothing. Good for her.

We padded down the main street: a narrow, twisting affair which ran on into the guts of the village. The houses were not complete ruins, although if anyone had wanted to move in, they’d have needed an army of builders. Most roofs had collapsed, exposing beams like snapped ribs. There were a few apologies of weeds poking up from the cracked paving stones. Silence pervaded everything as we came to a small square in the centre of the place. I was expecting to feel eyes on me, that nasty sense of being watched by something hungry and feral; but zippo. Black Wake was indeed dead. Even the flying rats didn’t bother to perch up on the tumbled gable ends.

Nevertheless, we spoke very softly. “Not a sign of life,” said Ariadne. “As if no one’s been here for donkey’s years. No wheel marks. Nothing to suggest my brother was ever here. You’d think there’d be something.”

I pulled out the parchment. “If the gate is here, it’s well hidden.” I studied the buildings around the square; they gave nothing away. The coordinates I’d worked out from the parchment were a little vague. It wasn’t an exact science. I didn’t have a magic wand, just my instinct; my nose for the supernatural. Trouble was, my sense of smell had deserted me.

We went on, the street sloping down towards the far end of the village until we came to a low wall, beyond which was a sheer drop, down to the cracked mud flats. The sea mist had rolled in with the dying afternoon, its banks lined up across the mud like a spectral army, waiting. Behind us the village still gave no hint of life, not even a spider. If the gate was in there somewhere, it had been closed, locked from the other side, impenetrable. We were going to have to rethink this.

Ariadne pointed down at the mud. “Hey, is that a path?”

I looked and saw what she meant. The fading sunlight had picked out what looked like a beaten path of dried mud, smooth and free of zigzag cracks; running straight as an arrow out into the mist. I leaned over the wall and saw there were stone steps cut into it, dropping to the path. As my eyes followed the path’s line, the mist shifted aside, like someone had opened a pair of curtains. The vista beyond still didn’t reveal the distant sea, but something more interesting poked up from the mud and rocks. It was a ship. An old tub, maybe a big trawler, rusting and filthy, half-buried in muck, its wheelhouse leaning crazily. I could see a few other vessels out there on that weird landscape, all of them twisted and rotting. But the trawler was slap bang in the pathway.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Ariadne.

“The gate. It’s out there, in that hulk.” Now that I’d said it, it had the ring of truth.

“What about the tide?”

I shook my head. “The sea hasn’t come this far in for a long time. See how dry everything is? No weed. That’s a good sign. The rocks look baked.” I led the way to the head of the stone steps and we wormed our way down them. Once we got to the mud flats, we could see I was right. They were dry, caked and desiccated more like the mud of a desert in a drought. It was a relief: we didn’t have to worry about getting sucked down into a morass. I hadn’t thought to bring a pair of waders.

Still keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of movement back in the village, or in the sky, we went out across the path. The old tub was about a mile from the shore. When we reached it and stood in its shadow, gazing back, Black Wake looked small and insignificant, fused with its rock outcrop like it had grown out of it. Still no sign of pursuit, but I gripped my weapon, ready to use it.

The hulk was sunk deep into the baked mud like it had been concreted in to the point where part of its deck and broken rail offered an obvious way aboard. We went ahead, gripping the rail to prevent ourselves slipping down into the hold, most of which had been exposed. Hard to say what the original fate of the ship was, though it looked like it had been torpedoed or otherwise blasted. Whole chunks of its metal shell curled back like a peeling orange. Rust caked everything and the deck leaned like we were at sea in a big swell. We peered down into the hold and Ariadne pulled a flashlight out of her belt, directing its beam below. A large section of the keel was gone, leaving a wide, roughly circular hole, through which the mud flat protruded, ringed by the metal spars and beams of the ship’s structure. In the centre of this artificial arena, a single rock poked up like a renegade block from Stonehenge.

I turned to Ariadne with a grin. “May I present to you: one gate. This old tub is shielding it.”

“And you know how to open it?”

“I thought you’d ask that. Won’t know unless we try it.”

“Now that we’re here,” she said, her eyes narrowing with obvious uncertainty, “what can we expect on the other side? How do we know we won’t be going straight into a trap?”

“It’s an alternative world. Kinda like this one. A few variations. But nothing too drastic, or the gate wouldn’t work. My guess is, it’ll be another hulk on another mud flat. If we’re lucky, ma’am, no one will know we’ve arrived. I think the problem will lie with Black Wake. The one on the other side will be buzzing like a hive.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Well, we didn’t come here for no picnic.” Despite the words, my confidence was like the local tide, at a low ebb. I had to be nuts for even contemplating going through to the other side.

Nevertheless we got down into the hold and took a long look at the stone. I had expected to find it covered in glyphs and stuff, Druidic graffiti; but it was dark and bare. I put the palm of my left hand on it: the surface was cold. I walked around it a couple of times, touched it again, prodded it, and listened to it. Nix. Nothing doing. Ariadne watched me and I could feel her impatience, like she was asking, Do you have any idea what to do with that damn thing? I guess she was on the point of saying something blunt, when a sound outside made both of us jerk upright. There was one buckled tear in the seaward side of the hulk offering an impromptu porthole. I looked through it—and swore.

Out on the flats, coming in from the distant sea, was a tide of a different nature. Things were moving: crawling mostly, though some hopped like huge fleas. Like the remote seabed had disgorged an army of giant aquatic maggots. It wouldn’t be long before the hulk was overrun. Ariadne and I would be swallowed up. She’d gone over to a similar gash in the other side of the hulk. I was hoping she was going to tell me the way back to Black Wake was clear; instead, she gasped. The denizens of the deep were crowding in on all sides and already we were surrounded.

“We’re going to have to blast a way through them,” I told her. I watched the landward side as the creatures closed the trap. The sky was suddenly very dark, mercifully so, because the details of the creatures were obscured. They were mostly slug-like, about the size of two men; others stumbled on two legs, their bodies like carapaces, heads amorphous. They looked soft enough to take a bullet, but I didn’t have nearly enough to deal with this swarm. I had a few spare magazines, but if I blew away fifty of these things, it wasn’t going to help. The only temporary consolation was the whole caboodle had stopped several yards from the hulk’s sides, like maybe they were waiting for something. I could imagine what that was—something big and bulky, squirming out of the sea mist, ravenous for a human snack or two.

“Let’s get real, Mr. Stone,” Ariadne said. “We are not going to blast our way through that horde. Besides, have you seen Black Wake? I hate to spoil our party, but there are lights on up there.”

I gaped out at the distant village. She was right. The place was a dead shell no longer. It was lighting-up time. If we did get back to its streets, something would be waiting to cheer us in, and it wouldn’t be a high school reunion.

“If you can’t open the gate,” said Ariadne, “this is going to be our last stand. Do you have any final requests? Not that anyone’s going to grant them.” She looked more than a little exasperated.

I did my thing with the monolith again, but ended up kicking it and bruising my toes. I pressed the parchment to it. I recited a few well-chosen words. I ran out of ideas. I leaned my back on the damned thing, waving both my guns like a kid who’s had his toys taken away. “Last request?” I grunted. “No, but it’s a damn shame I won’t get to hear FiFi Cherie sing again. At that club of yours. That was a voice. I’d die happy if I heard that voice.”

“As for me,” she said, grimacing, “I’ve got an overwhelming desire to sing one last time.”

Was she kidding? Sing, at a time like this? She was standing in the smothering shadows, her flashlight pointed at the floor. I saw her nod. It took me a moment to realise she was humming, like she was tuning up. Then she started to sing. She’d slipped her facemask off, but the shadows obscured everything but one eye. It regarded me warmly. The lyrics of “Hot Little Number from Hell” drifted on the still air, amplified by our insalubrious surroundings. I just gaped like a landed fish.

She was FiFi Cherie. One and the same. I’d missed it. The nightclub singer had been taller, surely. And she’d had long black hair. Hell, it had been a wig, the whole thing a fabrication. A perfect disguise. I stood, mesmerised by the singing, the mellifluous voice. Ariadne’s eye watched me, sparkling, ablaze with mischief.

I was about to babble a response, when the ship groaned like it had been broadsided by something big. My reverie dissipated. Ariadne stopped singing and we both dashed to the hole in the seaward side of the hold, expecting to see the horrors outside attacking the hull, preparing to board in droves. They were gone. Replaced. By the sea! Nothing out there but low combers, rolling in, one after another; thumping up against the side of the shuddering hulk. I swung round and gasped: the mud floor was gone. The huge hole in the keel had been restored. More important, the monolith had gone.

It hit me then: we had shifted through the gate. The singing had done it. A last piece in the process. Don’t ask me how.

Ariadne realised a moment or two after me. She laughed. “Did I do that?”

We had no time for a conference. Climbing back on deck we found night had taken over. The old hulk was dipping and rising, its anchor chain creaking under the strain. We could see Black Wake, where waves were breaking on its lower rocks. There were lights up in the village just as there had been in our own world’s version: sickly pale in the sea spray, and plenty of them. A quick check of the ship told us we were alone; no sign of the crawling army we had left behind.

“So, either we pilot this tub over to the shore, or we swim for it,” I said. For the moment I wasn’t going to make any comments about her dual personality.

“Swim?” She shook her head, restoring the facemask. “It would ruin my hair. Can you get this heap of junk moving?”

I’m no sailor, though I’ve spent some time at sea: mostly in rusting old buckets like the one we were in, so I gambled there might be something in the wheelhouse to allow me to raise the anchor. If anything still worked. Rust caked everything and locked up levers, obscuring dials. However, I got lucky, and found what I was looking for. I slammed the heel of my hand into a fat button and after a moment there were grinding noises below us, machinery waking from a long sleep. We could hear it protesting and whining. The ship shook itself.

I grinned at Ariadne. “That’s the anchor being hauled aboard. Where to now, Cap’n?”

“So now you’re Long John Silver. Fine, but can you steer this bloody thing?”

I gripped the wheel and attempted to turn it, but it was jammed up tight, rusted into a solid lump of useless metal. The anchor inched aboard; we were free of the seabed. That was a big plus. On the minus side, we had no means of controlling the tub. The tide was rolling in: ergo we were going to roll with it and end up on the rocks. Whatever lurked up in Black Wake would be able to scrape us off them at its leisure.

Ariadne could see there was no way I was going to get the wheel to obey my commands. “I told you, I’m not up for a swim. Besides, we’ve no idea what’s under the waves.”

I didn’t want to think about that. Instead I went to the prow, which had swung round and directed itself straight at the huge knuckle of rock on which Black Wake squatted. I thought I could make out figures lining the low wall which ringed it. Reception committee. At least the rabble looked vaguely human, though I wasn’t placing bets on it.

“My guess is, your brother is up there with that bunch of wackos. Whaddya say we just breeze in, shoot the blazes out of them, or cut them into sliced ham, and grab his lordship? They won’t be expecting a war party.” I really couldn’t think of anything more constructive—or sensible.

“I’d say we don’t have too much choice, Mr. Stone.” She pointed. The prow was now very definitely aimed at the rocky outcrop, like it was being guided there. Something under the keel gave it another buffet, confirming my thoughts. My guess was, whatever it was, it was fat-bodied, wriggling with tentacles and had eyes the size of tractor tires. Ariadne was right; this was no time for a swim.

As we got closer to the rocky shore, the inhabitants of Black Wake became more clearly visible. They were human after all, but I’d say from the lower orders: like maybe the bottom rung. They had the dress sense of scarecrows, their hair ragged and unkempt, their faces blank, mottled, and bordering on the lunatic. As the ship ground in towards the rocks and the steps above them, a score or more threw ropes out, tied to grapnels. Ariadne and I could only watch as these hooked into the rail of the ship, pulling it into the shore. There was a consolation prize after all: we weren’t about to be mangled on the rock fangs. Maybe by the weirdos, but they didn’t want the hulk damaged any more than it was.

The tide was high. I felt rocks grazing the keel: there was just enough depth of water to keep us afloat. Hands reached out for us; we had no choice. Getting ashore now was paramount. So we let ourselves be guided across and onto the steps, slippery and slick in this world with green weed and spray. Most of the villagers had their attention focussed on the boat, like Ariadne and I were incidental. A handful of them stood back, lining the steps upward, gesticulating with their claw-like hands and urging us to go up. I had both my guns out and Ariadne would have swung that killer spear of hers in a flash if anyone had made a play for her.

So we climbed, turning back at the top to look down on the ship. A whole bunch of villagers had leapt aboard and they were doing something to it, obscured by the darkness and thick spume thrown up by the waves. Whatever they did, it dragged the old hulk around and back out into the tide, its blunt prow bouncing into the waves. I got it then. They wanted it back where it had been anchored in the bay—right over the gate. That made sense. And if Ariadne and I were going to get home at some point, we’d need to use the gate again.

I turned my attention to the mob as we got onto the narrow street beyond the wall. There were dozens of them: all watching us, never coming closer than a few feet, like we were plague bearers. If any of them had once been part of the notorious Bang Gang, I didn’t recognise them. I was wondering what the heck to do next, when the decision was taken out of my hands. Several of the quasi-people drew aside and a lone figure emerged. His clothes had once been neat and tidy, now they were soiled and ripped. His hair was a mess and he had an uneven short beard. I recognised him, though. So did Ariadne.

“Terry?” she gasped. She unhooked her facemask. “It’s me, Ariadne.” If she had been expecting him to reach out and hug her, she was disappointed. He just gaped at her.

I could sense the mob around us, closing in, waiting for some quiet, unspeakable command. In this confined space, Ariadne and I would have a good chance of blasting and cutting our way out.

Terrance Carnadine smiled, his surprisingly sharp, pointed teeth gleaming fit to grace a toothpaste ad. “Ariadne! You picked a great time to join us. He’ll be here soon. This is brilliant.” That was it. No more details. He turned and gestured for us to follow him, the mob parting wordlessly, most of them nodding and grinning inanely. I did not get a warm feeling in my gut.

He took us into the heart of the village, through an alley which was more like a tall drain and down into the basement of one of the buildings. He shut the following mob out and slid the bolts on the door. I wasn’t sure if I appreciated that. But what the heck, it kept the weird bunch outside.

“So what are you doing here?” Ariadne asked him as he lit some old lanterns and gestured for us to sit at the wormy table.

“Great things are happening in the world—this world. And then—our world. You came through. You and your friend.” He looked at me the way a kid looks at his favourite jar of candy. “Who is he?”

“Stone,” I said, before she could answer. He held out his hand. Its nails were elongated, encrusted with muck. I didn’t shake it. I inclined my head and he seemed satisfied with that.

“You need to come home,” Ariadne told him.

He looked suspiciously at her, but then grinned again, the perfect imbecile. “Sure! Soon, soon. But you have to meet our leader first. He’s coming tonight! And … he may have the sword. We’ll all be baptised with it.” If there were any doubts this guy had become a complete basket case, they were dispelled by the combination of his words and his lunatic expression. I could see by Ariadne’s own face that she was appalled by the revelation. If we were going to take her brother back to our own world, it would have to be the hard way. I was asking myself for the hundredth time, What the hell am I doing here? I must be as nuts as this guy.

“That’s swell news,” I told him. “Your sister and me couldn’t be more pleased. We’ve come to join the party, if that’s okay with you.”

His grin widened and I saw those carnivore’s teeth again. “Yes, yes,” he whooped and before we could react, he undid the bolts and opened the door. I could hear movements beyond it. “Wait here. I’ll come back for you later: when everything’s prepared,” he said as he dashed through. Ariadne would have stopped him, except the door shut again before she could grab him. Shut and locked. We were imprisoned.

She turned to me, one unhappy lady. “What’s happened to him? What have they done?”

“I’ve had a few scrapes with their kind before. Likewise Luke Phillips did. That’s why he didn’t want the job. Something out in the deep seas, something very old and very horrible, wants to exercise its power. This place and the crazy people in it, have been—hell, converted. They serve this creature, like it was their god. Looks like they’ve gotten to your brother, too. My guess is, you and me are lined up for the next ceremony. We walked straight into it.

“Listen, if we’re going to make a play for your brother and beat a path back to the Land Rover on our side, we’re going to have to choose our moment well. Maybe if we play along until then.” I slid my two guns back into their holsters, out of sight, and she did the same with her own weapon.

“He’s not going to come willingly, is he?” she said.

“No. I’m going to have to exercise a little Nick Nightmare charm.”

****

It was an hour before laughing boy came back. He pointed back up the steps beyond the door. “Everyone’s ready. You should come now.”

Ariadne and I followed him, ready to pull our weapons out at the first hint of trouble. We did our best to look like two docile dummies, eager to throw in with the cause. The mob was up there somewhere nearby, chanting unintelligible gibberish. It was dark, the sky overcast and oppressive. Our guide led us through the narrow alleys and up steps to what seemed to be the heart of the village, an open area where most of its populace had gathered en masse. There were chunks of masonry suggesting a building had once stood here: a church, I guessed. Evidently passé with these freaks.

Ariadne’s brother bowed low before the central mound, where a small group of guys, the head honcho and his mugs, stood, chests bared; studying us like they were deciding which part of us to carve up for the barbeque. The main man, muscled like a runaway from the Big Smackdown, was tattooed from head to belt—and probably beyond. He wore pants, so I couldn’t see the rest. Those tattoos were something else: the weirdest shapes, creatures from the far reaches of your worst dreams, and then some.

“Brother Tyrus,” Terrance Carnadine called. “Two more acolytes for Dagon’s children.” The fact that one of them was his sister had long since ceased to be of consequence to him. Ariadne was nothing more to him now than a sacrificial cow.

The muscled guy, Tyrus, had the essential hood’s mug: broken nose, scars, close-cropped hair. I’d seen that glare before: Tyrus Maguire, leader of the Bang Gang. So they were here. The ugly brigade beside him were its lieutenants. They all looked down at me and Ariadne, the main course at their pork roast.

“Strip yourselves,” snapped Tyrus, confirming my suspicions. The crowd ringed us, keeping its distance like dogs on leashes. But they did shriek their enthusiasm and support for their leader’s instruction.

I pulled out both Berettas. No time for niceties. I aimed them both at the heavies. “I think me and the lady will pass on that,” I said, though my mouth was drier than Death Valley in high summer.

Tyrus wasn’t impressed. He held up both his arms and the torchlight picked out their embossed veins and muscles. And the tattoos. They writhed in the glow. Writhed and began to wriggle down his arms, live things. He had his face raised to the heavens, calling out to the dark powers and I fancied I heard the word “Dagon” shouted a few times. Ariadne and I watched as the twisting shapes—now corporeal—left Tyrus’s body and flowed towards us, lifting up their misshapen heads, serpentine and fanged, and hissed their disrespect. They were waiting. I trained my guns on two of them and Ariadne had her long stick out, its blade flashing, though I guess neither of us was brimming with confidence.

“Dagon’s chosen commander is coming,” said Tyrus and the mob howled its excitement. There was an echoing rumble far out across the sea. Yeah, that figured: it was coming from the sea. “He’ll bring the Chaos Blade to us and lead us!” Tyrus added. His twisted glare turned back to me and Ariadne. “You will feed him and we will all drink the blood of your sacrifice. And when the stars are right, we will enter your world and claim it!”

I guess Ariadne’s horror at this must have increased tenfold when she saw her brother nodding excitedly; licking his lips with anticipation. Brotherly love was long gone.

“Back off, Maguire, or I’ll unleash a hailstorm that’ll strip you to the bone.”

He just laughed, his henchmen along with him. “Your bullets won’t help you here! Dagon is my shield!” He pushed out his chest as if to demonstrate my powerlessness.

“These are no ordinary bullets. You didn’t think I’d be so dumb as to walk in here without my own protection? These are pure silver, cast in blood, and every one marked with the forbidden rhymes of Na-Kopt. A big shot like you will know exactly what that means.”

His eyes narrowed, his belligerent stance slightly shaken. “You would not dare,” he hissed.

Ariadne was trying not to look at me as if I had gone nuts. I thrust one of the guns further forward. “Which one of these critters do you want me to shred first?” I added a few lines Jazzy Boy Jericho had taught me. Everything had gone deathly silent.

Then all hell broke loose. Terrance Carnadine, or whoever he had become, completely lost his cool and leapt at me, those hideous claws reaching for me as if he would rip the guts out of me. I sidestepped and clipped him behind the ear, an instinctive and precise move which sent him sprawling at Ariadne’s feet. She swung round, her weapon slicing the air and driving the mob back. I saw the tattoo-serpents drawing back for a strike and fired off two rounds without further thought. Two serpent heads exploded in a cloud of blood and muck. On the mound, Tyler Maguire screamed, as if the bullets had lodged in the muscles of his arms. The mob thought better of closing in; they starting backing off, every one of them howling in fury. I could smell their terror.

Ariadne bent down to her brother. He was out cold and would be for an hour or two. I hadn’t pulled my punch. I swung round, ready to fire again at anything that attacked us. The tattoo-things writhed back up the slope and fused themselves to Maguire again, but his arms hung limply at his sides. His henchmen closed in around him as if they were spooked.

“Get him up. We’re leaving,” I told Ariadne. I covered her while she struggled to get her brother upright. There were scores of protests, but no one was stupid enough to risk a missile soaked in the curse of Na-Kopt. Who knew what the consequences would be—I sure didn’t.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

“You take the guns. Can you use them?” I gave them to her as she nodded, and I swung her sack of a brother up and over my shoulder. “We have to get back to the ship—the gate—before the next mob arrives from the sea. This chosen commander, whatever the hell he is. We have to get back home and close the gate before he gets there. If he does have the Chaos Blade, we have to shut it out.”

We forced the mob to part for us: Ariadne waving the Berettas meaningfully. Fortunately the only thing our opponents hurled at us was abuse, curses, and what were probably spells in the name of Dagon and all the other sub-aquatic monsters they served. It was slow progress, getting back down through the streets to the wall above the sea. My mind was churning—how the blazes were we going to get across to the ship? These people must have smaller boats. We were just going to have to bully some of them into ferrying us over.

When we got to the sea, the mob still pressing close to us, yapping and snapping, we got lucky—well, it was a break. The tide had retreated, almost as far as the ship, and the path to it was exposed. In our world, the path was cracked and dry; here, it gleamed, slick with weed and pooled seawater. I nodded for Ariadne to cover me as I went down the steps, almost slithering over the edge as I fought to hang on to my limp burden. The noise as we descended rose in pitch: a crescendo of maddened anger. Ariadne never took the guns off the mob; those freaks held back like one touch alone of the barrels would char and blister them.

We made it down to the path and I led the way across. Still the mob followed, hoping we would slip up. We came close enough more than once, but I gritted my teeth. Terrance Carnadine was not a big man, but he was getting heavier with every slippery step I took. I was apprehensive about something else—maybe my sixth sense had woken up and was nudging me. Something shifted out at sea, beyond the ship. I couldn’t see anything clearly, but my guess was, it was the promised coming of Dagon’s appointed minion, complete with the Chaos Blade. We were going to have to get to the ship first. There would be no prizes for second place. This race was about winning, not taking part.

I shifted up a gear or two, almost toppling off the rock path into the thick mud beyond more than once. The thought of being spiked and eaten aided my balance. Our luck held—the tide was almost past the ship and we were able to climb a rusting vertical ladder that got us up to the deck. Our pursuers—I could now see the entire mass of them, several hundred strong—lapped up against the keel, themselves a kind of tide. Still cowed, not one of them would get onto the ladder. Instead they flowed out around the grounded ship, surrounding it, like they were going to starve us out. But we’d made it before the really nasty mob from the sea had arrived.

Scrambling across the deck—Terrance Carnadine moaned, then subsided over my shoulder again—Ariadne and I looked out to sea. A mile separated us from a sailing ship which looked like it had been oared out from the pages of a book on Pharaonic Egypt. Whatever was amidships was cloaked in darkness, like thick exhaust fumes from a belching diesel had spewed a cloak around it. We ’d seen enough and went below into the hold.

“I hope you feel a song coming on,” I said to Ariadne. “Whatever’s in that approaching boat won’t be afraid of climbing aboard. And our guns will be useless against it.”

She nodded. We stood in the centre of the hold. Ariadne had to clear her throat a few times. We heard distorted noises above us, sounding like a huge sack slithering across the deck. I could smell something, like the biggest latrine in Hell had opened up. And the sounds from overhead were guttural, alien. All the incarnated muck and filth in the world was about to flow down upon us.

FiFi Cherie sang like she’d never sung before. My heart sang with her. The earth moved. I kid you not. We shifted. Just as something huge and black and dripping with horror reached down to suck us up into its madness, we shifted. On the other side, again standing next to the monolith, I gave voice to a few well-chosen words. The air trembled for a brief moment. We stepped away from the monolith. The gate held. For how long? No idea. We just skedaddled.

We were out on the flats again, in our own world, so at least we didn’t have the mud to contend with. It was still tough going lugging Carnadine, but I felt a mite easier with Ariadne at my back, toting my two Berettas. I could see Black Wake ahead of us and the lights were still on there, flickering and dancing in the night.

“Let’s make a detour,” I called back to her. “Head for the shore, further along the coast. You can find the wagon from there?”

“Yes. Whatever’s up in the village won’t be friendly.”

We wove our way across the dried mud flats. We were out in the open, exposed to anyone with an eye on the surroundings. I glanced back at the ship: so far nothing had followed us through the gate. Maybe the stars weren’t right, after all. These sea freaks didn’t like to do a lot if the stars weren’t right. I wasn’t complaining. Ariadne called a warning and I looked the other way. Shadows had detached themselves from the village walls, flowing down on to the mud flats. Whatever they were, they had seen us.

We got to within about thirty yards of the shore when they started to close in. The moon was still being coy, so we couldn’t see a lot, which suited us fine, given it was another ugly brigade. More like huge slugs than people, though they moved almost as fast as snakes. Ariadne started blazing away, which was fine by me. I heard popping sounds as the bullets smacked home, reducing the pursuit with every hit. She did know how to use a gun.

I struggled up the shore’s bank to where a pitted road, untended for years, wound along the coast. My breath was rasping, my muscles arguing painfully for a respite. Ariadne joined me, her words bludgeoning me as she pointed to the steeper slope the other side of the road. “Up there, over the top and down in the valley beyond. About a hundred yards. Can you make it?”

I had no breath to reply, but nodded. She turned and fired back into the things which slid and wriggled towards the road in droves. Where in hell were they all coming from? Pretty soon she would be out of shells. I climbed, my legs aching like they were preparing to cramp up. The thought of the slime-balls and what they would probably do to us gave me a mental kick and we were rising, rising. At the crest of a treeless hill she pointed and led the way down. It got a bit easier for me, but Carnadine seemed to have doubled his weight, like I was carrying a horse, my knees creaking.

Finally we saw the Land Rover and made for it, ahead of the pursuit. We were a couple of yards away when a bunch of Black Wake’s human inhabitants broke from cover and came at us. I say human, only that’s just an approximation. These guys had four limbs and a sort of head, but their naked flesh—yeah, no modesty here—was scaled and stank of fish. They had gills and a long spine running down their backs. I’d seen those huge, bulging eyes before.

Ariadne had run out of bullets; she jammed the guns in her belt and unlocked her pole. Its blade met the first of the assailants and ripped it open from belly to jaw. What fell out steamed as the thing crashed to the ground. Two of the others made a grab for her and she yelled in pain as one of them clawed her flesh. She responded, lightning-fast. In the poor light I could hardly see, but whatever she did was damned effective. Her pole hissed through the air and I heard it thump into bone several times. I dropped Carnadine, fishing a spare magazine from my pocket. Ariadne had taken out all of the fish-men and turned to me. She tossed me one of the Berettas. I loaded it and swung round, just as the first of the mob from Black Wake started to close in.

I blew a swath through them and the rest of them backed off, shrouded in darkness, bobbing and weaving about silently. As Ariadne unlocked the doors to the wagon, I could see her wincing with pain. I dragged her brother to the vehicle and lifted him in back, where he crumpled on the seat like an empty sack. I turned back to Ariadne. She was gripping her right arm tightly, like she thought it would fall off. She shook her head.

“It’s no good. You’ll have to drive us out of here. No way can I do it.”

Her words hit me harder than any of those creatures could have done. Drive? Me? “I don’t drive,” I told her. I tried to say it in a way that implied it was final.

“You choose not to,” she gasped, her pain increasing. “I’ve read your file, Mr. Stone. You can drive. Maybe not since the accident, five years ago. But you can drive.”

I shook my head, trying not to look through the window on my past she’d just opened. The things out in the dark were sliding inch by inch towards us.

“Then we’ll die here,” she said hotly. “You want that? Engulfed by those things? They may even take us back and feed us to their god. A nice way to depart this life, Mr. Stone.”

She got in the passenger seat and slammed the door, leaving me to work it out. Drive. After five years. I swore I’d never get behind a wheel again. I’d die first. Well, maybe Ariadne was right. I was indeed going to die here; probably horribly. Something deep inside me, the raw instinct for survival, I guess, took hold of me and wrenched me up into the driver’s seat. I closed the door. She had already put the keys in the ignition. Mechanically I turned them. The engine fired. And the horrors outside flowed in from all sides.

I damn near stalled as we took off, bouncing the vehicle like we were caught in a deep-sea swell, but somehow I rescued the situation and got the gears engaged. I just accelerated, battering aside a whole cluster of the slug-things, smearing the windshield with their revolting life juice. The crazy ride along that road went by in a flash, like some other guy was driving, not me. My mind was punched and thumped by images from the past, the accident that had almost killed me, but not spared Martha. When that tumbling wreck had stopped rolling over and over, I had spilled out: a bag of broken bones. Not Martha. She went up in flames along with the twisted metal.

Somewhere out on the highway, miles from Black Wake, I pulled over in the darkness and slumped over the wheel, exhausted. Ariadne had been dozing beside me; she sat upright, still holding her arm. By the faint light of the dashboard, I could see she was dripping blood.

“Don’t stop now,” she breathed. “I need a hospital. You’re doing fine, Mr. Stone. One more ride and you can quit.”

Behind us, we heard a grunt. Terrance Carnadine had come to. He sat forward; I realised with horror he was holding one of my guns. I’d put them on the back seat when I’d tossed him in there.

Ariadne realised the mess we were in, too shocked to speak. Were we going to end up in Black Wake after all?

“Where the hell are we?” groaned Carnadine, rubbing his head. “I feel as if a donkey tried to kick my head in. Ariadne, is that you? What’s going on?”

To say this was a relief was putting it mildly. The cuff I’d given him back there in the village must have knocked some sense into him.

“It’s all right, Terry,” said Ariadne. “We’re just heading home. We’ve been to a party. It all got a bit wild. And you, dear boy, had far too much to drink. Hence the hangover. You just sit back and relax. And put that bloody gun down. We’ll be in the city soon: you don’t want to get yourself arrested.”

“Okay, sis,” he nodded, mercifully subdued, and slumped back.

I restarted the engine and eased the Land Rover back out onto the empty highway. It wasn’t any easier, but I guess the relief helped my confidence.

“It would have been a shame to die from one of those magical bullets of yours,” said Ariadne, just about managing a smile. “Silver, coated in—what was it? The blood of some god or another?”

I snorted. “Lady, that was a big fat lie. The bullets are lead, like any other. I was bluffing. But bullshit baffles brains. There was a lot of bullshit and it seemed to me like there wasn’t a lot of brain power in that place.”

She gaped at me for a long couple of minutes. “I see,” she said at last. “Ordinary bullets. Okay, Mr. Stone, just drive. Just—drive.”

This One Will Kill You

The file arrived by hand, delivered to my office by a tall, uniformed chauffeur who worked for Ariadne Carnadine. The guy didn’t say much, or smile; just gave me the fat package and left. I opened it. There was a neat, pink envelope with the file and I knew the scent. I used my Randall Mark 1 combat knife to slit it open instead of my usual, more brutal-fingered method. A single folded sheet of vellum, with an embossed heading, Carnadine Industries Incorporated. The note itself was more informal, from my erstwhile employer, the head of that illustrious outfit.

I grinned at her words. She’d spent a short time in a hospital, recovering from the little shindig we’d had at Black Wake, that remote promontory on the edge of Hell. Now she was back in her business world. The money she’d promised me for the job I’d done for her, pulling her brother out of one very deep pit, was in my bank account. I hadn’t checked, but I knew I could trust her. It was a lot of dough, but I had a good use for it. I had no plans to retire. Ariadne told me to call in at her club, Diamonds Are Forever, any time I liked, where FiFi Cherie would sing a few numbers especially for me and maybe even let me buy her a drink. My smile broadened at the thought: something to look forward to with relish.

I put the note away and opened the file. My life story in words. The only copy, she said. Mine to dispose of as I saw fit. I would shred it, once I’d read it through: to find out how much she—and maybe others—knew about me. It took me a couple of hours, with my phone off the hook, to get through it. Some bastard had done his homework. It was all there, going back a long way into my past. If it had been anyone other than Ariadne Carnadine who had this much on me, I would have considered taking them to one side … and not back again.

The car crash was in there, as I had known it would be. Marsha. My girl. We’d been together for over a year. She had been the only woman to make me realise I’m not made of iron and I do belong to the human race. And that I’m as vulnerable as the next guy. When she died in the car crash, me driving like a maniac, I wished I’d died along with her. Hell, a big part of me had. Not even the seductive voice of FiFi Cherie could revive that.

As I watched the file turn to thin strips, shredded into the paper bin, I sat back and reflected. Thinking about Martha had opened up other visions of what had gone on at the time: the creep she had worked for, the thugs he had sent after us. Erik van Brazen. He’d run an international freight outfit, specialising, as it turned out, in human traffic from Eastern Europe. Big as he was, I’d tracked him down after Martha’s death and put a bullet in his head. Amazingly he’d lived, if you can call that living. They’d shoved him in a private sanitarium, where he was left to vegetate. Call it poetic justice. I do.

I wouldn’t be going over all this again, but it didn’t end there. I guess I have to get this over with: I have to tell you about Spiderhead.

****

I got out of the cab and paid the fare, watching the vehicle going back down the long, tree-lined drive before distance swallowed it up. Steeling myself, I turned and faced the long building before me, its windows gleaming in the sunlight, its main doors beckoning. This was the last place on earth I wanted to visit, but Rizzie Carter, my local police chief, had insisted I get out here. He hadn’t wanted to meet at the precinct. I could tell from his tone it was urgent. That and the fact that he wasn’t prepared to talk on the phone about whatever was bugging him.

Inside, the place was over-lit, bright, and oppressively cheery, at least to me. Certain types of buildings give me the creeps: hospitals, medical research establishments, and most of all, sanitariums. This was of the latter variety. Scrubbed, polished, sparingly decorated. Very expensive and with a wing especially reserved for those residing here as guests of the state. I guess you’d call it a prison wing, although the powers-that-be would have been embarrassed to call it so. Some jerk with a perverse sense of humour had christened it the “Harmony Wing”.

The nice lady at the reception point was all white and smiles and for a moment I wondered if she’d slipped out of her cell to man the desk. I was rescued from the gleaming teeth by Rizzie Carter himself. He appeared from a corridor, his face blotched, his whole manner agitated, and bustled me away to a small office which had been put at his disposal. He sat on the edge of the desk and waved me into a metal chair. I took out a fresh wad of gum. This whole place made me nervous.

For a moment or two, the chief looked puzzled, folding his arms, dragging in ragged breaths, unsure how to proceed: like he was gearing up to tell me a close relative had died. Except I didn’t have any. I chewed slowly, letting him get to the point.

“There’s an inmate in this wing,” he said at last. “A guy by the name of Rick Stacker. Small time crook. Coupla years ago he got mixed up in a heist that went wrong. Used a shooter and blew away two bystanders. Sent him nuts. We shot all but two of the gang. They got clean away and Stacker is the only one who knows who they are.” He tapped his temple. “It’s all locked up in his head. We had him brought here, hoping one day we could get it out of him. Seems to me like he’s the granddaddy of fruitcakes, though. Especially after this latest outburst.”

I never heard of Rick Stacker, but I waited.

“You know who else is detained in here.” Carter actually paled when he said it.

I felt my guts churning. I guess I’d secretly known this was coming. Carter was referring to Erik van Brazen, the mobster I’d shot, but somehow not killed. “I hope you’re not expecting me to go visit,” I growled. “I’ll tear his head off if I get near him.”

Carter shook his head, beads of sweat flung this way and that. “You can’t. He’s escaped.”

I got up slowly, my fists balling as the anger began to surge like a cold tide. Then I smiled.

Carter could read my mind: he knew what I wanted. “Listen, Nick. Don’t get rash. It ain’t that simple. We can’t figure out how van Brazen got away. This place is too well guarded. No one gets out alive, believe me. There are people in here who are far more dangerous than van Brazen. They’d die before they got out.”

“So you called me in because you think there’s some funny business going on? Supernatural agents at work.” I knew I would have been the last person Carter would have called on for help in this case, given my past involvement with van Brazen, so it had to mean something weird.

“You know I don’t believe in all that stuff,” he grunted, but I could read the scepticism in his eyes. I’d cleaned up enough bizarre messes for him to have sown at least a few seeds of doubt. “But I’m running out of ideas. You need to meet Rick Stacker.”

****

The room was like the inside of a metal container: all steel, brilliant overhead strip-light, and buried a couple of floors below ground. Stacker was secured in a straightjacket, strapped into a special chair, and guarded by two robots with what Carter called “stun guns.” So he wasn’t going anywhere.

“You hear me, Mr. Stacker?” said the chief.

Stacker’s eyes were wide, his mouth twisted out of shape, like a wad of fat had melted and dried askew. He fixed his lunatic gaze on the chief. “Has he come back? Don’t let him get me! Don’t!”

“It’s okay, Stacker. He’s gone away. This is Mr. Stone. He’d like to hear your story. Would you mind telling him what happened?”

Seemed like Stacker was only too glad to babble on, reliving his own personal nightmare. For all I knew it was one of many running through his tortured mind. He’d been in a ward adjacent to the private room where the comatose Erik van Brazen had been totally dormant for five years. Stacker and the inmates of his ward were allowed to roam around certain areas. Stacker would not normally have bothered with van Brazen any more than he would have touched a corpse.

“He called me one night,” said Stacker. “I heard him … in my dreams” He shook his head, like the visions would fall out. “Said he’d chosen me to be his special friend. I was scared. I went to his room anyhow: he made me go. I could see a shadow over him.” He shuddered, as if he was about to start blubbering. “Like there was two of him. A body on the bed, asleep. And that—thing. It changed into another shape.” He shook his head, his eyes even more wild.

“That’s okay, Mr. Stacker,” said Carter. “It can’t hurt you now. Go on.”

“He wanted me to move his bed into my ward. Over to the windows.”

Carter looked at me. “They’re barred. Inside and out. Nice view of the gardens in the daylight, but no way out. You’d find it easier squeezing through a cheese grater. Go on, Mr. Stacker. You wheeled Mr. van Brazen into your ward, right?”

“Yeah. Right up to the window, like he wanted. The … the shadow went out into the darkness. But it came back.” He started to shake, horrified by the memory. “I saw it! I saw it!” he shouted.

“What was it?” I asked him.

“Spider!” he cried. “A monster! As big as … as … a dog. All black, just a fat body and all those legs! Horrible! It got up on the bed. On to Mr. van Brazen. It squatted down on his head! Then it … disappeared. Did it go inside? Inside him? Then he moved. His hands, his feet. He sat up. Oh God, oh God!” Stacker was twisting this way and that, barely able to move in the restraints, his face red with effort, his eyes bulging fit to burst. “His head was … was … in shadow. Weird shape. Too fat. With a whole lot of hair, moving about. He got up. All those eyes! Hundreds!”

Carter and I watched in amazement as Stacker seemed to contract within the straightjacket, as though somehow his body had begun to shrivel with terror.

“Where did it go?” I said, but Stacker was beyond communication, like a bird in a cage, heart pumping as if it would burst.

“It went out the window,” said Carter. “Tore its way through like a machine. Nothing human could have done that. We’ve checked the surveillance cameras. Nothing in the grounds. No tracks. Like van Brazen turned to smoke and wafted away. I don’t know how it was done, Nick, but I don’t buy that magic baloney. Someone must’ve helped him.”

“You want me to check it out,” I said coldly.

He nodded. “Yeah. But I don’t want you to get yourself killed. You’re a cool customer, Nick, but van Brazen is smart. He knows you’re angry. He’ll play on that. Maybe this is one case you shouldn’t take on alone.”

I nodded, my mind elsewhere. Why had van Brazen chosen now, five years on, to wake up? I didn’t think for a moment he was after me. Revenge was beneath him—only a potential by-product of whatever he was really planning. It sounded from what Stacker had said as if van Brazen was using—or being used by—some very dark powers. There were a whole lot of freakish things going on lately, as I well knew from my skirmishes with some of them. If van Brazen was mixed up in this… My guts froze up again at the thought.

****

The chief drove me back to the city. It was obvious this whole mess was getting to him. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep of late: his baggy eyes even more red-rimmed and bruised. “Look, Nick, I’m just a straight guy, you know that.” He watched the road, not even glancing at me. “But I gotta admit, all this weird stuff is hard to ignore. You got any kind of handle on it? I mean, we ain’t just talkin’ about van Brazen. There’s other stuff. Am I goin’ nuts, or what?”

“You’re right. Something’s crawled out of a very dark place. Most folks are like you: they’d just laugh it off. It’s how these things get a hold. People don’t believe that stuff.”

“Can you handle it? I can’t go to the commissioner and tell him I’m tryin’ to deal with some kind of apocalypse, or whatever the hell this is.”

You don’t know the half of it, old friend, I thought. “I know a few people, Chief. Between us we can fix this.” Yeah, like I was confident we had it under control.

He ducked his head and peered up at the darkening skies. It was late afternoon, not so late that it should be this dark. Storm, maybe? It was like the air had thickened into pea soup. The chief slowed the car. We studied the road ahead and the outlying buildings around us. This was no ordinary dark. I took out my Beretta—Carter swore and drew his own gun. We were in the suburbs now, yet there was no sign of life; just a few parked cars. The darkness was rolling in on both sides like a tide. I didn’t want to find out what it would be like to have it break over the roof.

“Hit the gas, Chief!” I shouted.

He wasted no time and the prowl car leapt forward, fingers of darkness groping at it. The road ahead was in deep shadow, though there was just enough light to see by. Just as well, or we might have rammed into something, and at this speed, that wouldn’t have been a smart move. As it was, something thumped down on the roof, once, twice, and then again, like the darkness had solid hands, grabbing at us.

“Falling branches,” I told him above the protesting engine. He nodded, though the ever-doubting Carter didn’t look like he believed me. We must have lit out of there just in time, swerving around a bend and deeper into the city’s buildings. There were cars about now. Horns blared and I saw a few fists waving at us, , but the chief just kept on going. I’ll give him that, he could sure handle a car.

“I think we’ve got clear of it!” I had to yell it a coupla times before he slowed, before even his skill ran out and we ended up decorating a storefront or two. He muttered something and I said nothing more until we got back to the precinct. We both got out of the car, looking back down the canyon of buildings: there was no sign of the thing that had been pursuing us. However, the chief’s jalopy was not completely unscathed. Across its roof, dripping down one side of it, was a mess of thick, glue-like gunk. Neither of us was about to touch it.

A passing cop grinned at it. “Hey, Chief, looks like a herd of elephants barfed over your wagon. What the hell is that?”

The chief looked at me. I was studying the muck from as close as I dared. It was like some kind of web. But what kind of spider secreted something that thick? It was dissolving very quickly, like frost in bright sunlight. I followed the chief into the building, and he got his men to cordon the wagon off and call in a few experts to clean it up. My guess was, it would be gone before they arrived.

“Message for you, Chief, and if that’s Mr. Stone, it’s for him, too,” said a sergeant. “We taped it.”

In his office, the chief and I listened to the voice. I recognised it at once; it sent a cold trickle of ice down my spine. Erik van Brazen. He spoke slowly, deliberately, rarely demonstrating any kind of emotion. Five years he had been in that coma. Now it was like he’d never been gone.

“I just wanted to offer you two worthy gentlemen a word of advice. You meddled in my business once before and you set me back five years. I think you should settle for that. Five years. Now I have other things to attend to, and I do not want to be disturbed. Chief Carter, if I were you, I’d forget about trying to bring me in and hauling me in front of a judge. I’ve done my time. Let’s start with a clean slate, what do you say? It’ll save you a lot of pain.”

I could see van Brazen’s words carried plenty of weight with the chief. Not having to face whatever nastiness van Brazen had in mind would have been attractive to him.

“As for you, Mr. Stone—Mr. Nightmare—I would have thought you’d had more than enough of me. You’ve already lost anything worth having. You wouldn’t want to lose what small scraps of comfort you have left in your miserable life.”

The chief glanced at me uneasily. He knew van Brazen was referring to Martha. He could see me tensing, my fists balling. I almost had to nail them to the floor to keep from smashing the phone to pieces.

“You mustn’t blame yourself for her death, you know. Oh, I know you drove like a madman to get both of you to safety that night, five years ago. You were a fine driver; good as anyone. If you’d been yourself, you’d almost certainly have driven out of that jam. But, you see, you weren’t.” The acidic voice paused and I felt like a knife was about to slide into my guts. I leaned forward. What was the bastard saying?

“Truth is, you were drugged. You didn’t know it. So when you made your heroic break for freedom with your damsel in distress, you were never going to stay in control. Not at that speed. All these years you probably thought it was your over-zealousness that led to the crash. In fact, it was the drugs we injected into you. Now I’m sure I’ve made you very angry, Mr. Stone—Mr. Nightmare.” His voice had become scathing. “Too bad. Stay away from me and my business and it won’t get any worse.”

The chief looked horrified, knowing how hard those damning words would hit me. He had seen what Martha’s death had done to me, how it had chewed me up and almost finished me. Now this—this was bad. Van Brazen had been right, I was angry. No, the word didn’t do my feelings justice. Not by a long way.

****

I held on to that fury now. I needed it to sustain me through whatever was coming. One thing was for sure, no way was I going to back off van Brazen. He had duped me into believing it was my recklessness that had caused the crash and had let me suffer for it, big time. There was an irony in the truth: in shifting some of the blame across to him, partially absolving me. I was no less angry—it gave me all the more reason to hunt the sucker down. Back at my office I did some serious thinking.

Then I got tooled up. There were two places where I could start looking. Van Brazen had a home—a fortress of a place—where his thugs had held Martha after she had helped me to expose his crooked empire. I’d broken in, snatched her, and taken the drive which had led to disaster. I didn’t want to go back there yet. Besides, I doubted van Brazen would have risked hiding out there so soon after his recent escape. It would be swarming with cops. The other location was the huge office block in the centre of the city: Kraken Tower. Most of its offices had been shut down since his fall and mainly it was locked up, a silent behemoth waiting to be revived. Good place to hide away from the world.

I’d deliberated about my weapons but figured my Berettas and a knife or two would be enough to start with. They’d always served me well. If I got a chance to blow van Brazen away, this time I’d make damn sure I did it right.

It was dark by the time I got to the tower block. I studied it from the seclusion of a closed shop doorway across the street from it. The reception area was lit; even so I couldn’t see inside. There were no other lights showing. Whatever business had been contracted for the day was over. I had no mind to enter the place in the conventional manner. I didn’t believe for a moment that van Brazen hadn’t told his people to watch out for me. He wasn’t intent on hunting me down, but given a chance to nail me, he’d take it gladly.

I went around the side of the building. Near its back, inside a high wall, there was a wide yard where delivery trucks came and went. The steel gates were still open and I could see an office window and movement beyond. Janitor, maybe. Or security guard. Abruptly one of the parked trucks rumbled into life. Its driver leaned out of the cab and shouted something to a guy who had emerged from the office. While they bawled at each other, I slipped inside the gates and ducked between two more trucks, parked and silent. I heard the first truck leave and waited. From my cover I saw the guy go back into the office. He switched off the lights and came back out into the yard. He walked out through the gates; after a moment they swung shut electronically. I figured the guy was finished for the night.

I crossed the yard in sheltering darkness to where a steel fire escape zigzagged its way up the side of the building. I climbed. There was no sign of life in the building, no lights. The windows were blank, offering almost no view into the rooms beyond. I tried a few, but none of them had been left unsecured. So I went on up the escape until I must have been sixty feet or more above the yard. The chief had told me the place was only partly wired up for alarms and there were no CCTV cameras. Since van Brazen’s fall from grace, the upkeep had been minimised. So if I bust open a window, the chief would see to it that none of his people responded to a call. He’d told me I had the place to myself tonight—tomorrow he would be sending in his people.

I broke in through a window. I waited; no alarms went off; no lights came on. No one came. I crossed the empty office, using a small flashlight to guide me. The floor was thick with dust. No furniture, nothing. In the hallway outside it was the same. Bare floor, empty walls. I looked in to several offices: all large, abandoned floor spaces. There would be hundreds of them. If van Brazen was holed up in here, he wasn’t going to be easy to find.

At the end of the hallway there was an elevator. Its panel was dead. I would have to use the stairs. Where to go first? Executive suites, right up at the top level? Too obvious. Van Brazen would have known the police would check this place out, so he’d want a rat hole where they wouldn’t find him. Down below? Yeah, there would be more of a warren there: old stores, equipment rooms. I went to the nearest stairwell. I was about to descend, when I heard sounds above me, higher up the stairwell.

A pattering, like feet. A whole lot of them. Rats? Coming down the stairs from above? A handful of them I could handle, but this sounded like a flood. I went back out into the hallway, thinking to let the rats scuttle down the stairs without disturbing their flow. Then I heard the same sounds coming from along the hallway, in the distance. Another rat pack? Worse, they were converging from both directions. That left only one place to go: down the stairwell. I made for it, listening. Mercifully no sounds came up from below, so I went down fast, almost tripping more than once. I swore. Last thing I wanted now was a twisted ankle.

No time to think this through. A tide of rats would chew me up into little meatballs in the blink of an eye. I tried a couple of doors off the stairwell but they resisted. So I just went on down, outdistancing the scuttling horrors behind me. I reckoned I was below ground level by the time the stairs ended at a single door. Like the rest, it was locked, but I wasn’t having any: I just kicked the lock to blazes, swinging the door back off its hinges. I don’t mind admitting it was a pretty satisfying experience. I pushed the hanging door aside and emerged into a wide area which I thought at first was an underground car park. I couldn’t see much with the flashlight, its beam being pencil slim.

There were pillars on all sides, rows of them, part of the structure. As I moved between them, I studied them. Now, in a place like this, you might reasonably expect to find bare, concrete pillars, with maybe a few splashes of graffiti, even though this was a private building. The pillars at the edge of the area were like that, but further in they became … well, weird. Like they belonged in something much, much older. Hell, they were like columns from an old temple, and I do mean old. It was like I’d stumbled into some ancient Mayan or Cambodian remains. I turned to look back down the avenue I’d walked. I could vaguely make out the door to the stairs, lying in a twisted heap to one side of it. In the opening, the darkness heaved. The rats were spilling out—only they weren’t rats at all.

Oh, they were as big as rats, some of them bigger: more like small dogs. But they were spiders. Thousands of them. In moments they had carpeted the stone floor, scuttling towards me. I ran on through the pillars, which got fatter, their artwork stranger, the deeper I went. Something about it made me shudder; a whole lot of the images wrapped around the pillars were associated with the sea. A nauseating shock of familiarity took hold of me as I came to an area apparently central to this complex. I stood still, both guns out, ready to blaze away. I had nowhere to go.

The spiders fanned out around the pillars until they’d surrounded me, containing me in this goddamn arena. All it needed was an altar on which they could sacrifice me to whatever disgusting deity they served. A few names sprang to mind. After all, the foul mob from the deeps had a few scores to settle with me. I just wondered what van Brazen had to do with all this. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

The man himself stepped out from behind one of the pillars. I recognised him. He’d changed; and not for the better. He was very tall, his body thin and angular, but it was the head which drew my attention. Somehow—maybe it was the poor light—it looked obscenely bloated. Long, thick hair, black as night, hung down beyond his shoulders to the middle of his back; collected like dreadlocks. They made him look more animal than man. It took me a moment to realise what it was his head reminded me of—a huge, engorged spider. His gangling arms and spindly legs added to the effect.

I would have emptied both guns into him, except something behind me moved faster than I could. I felt a sudden coldness at the base of my spine, like a stiletto had been slid neatly into me. My whole body rapidly started to go cold. My guns fell from nerveless fingers. I was powerless, locked up like stone. Immobilised. The thing that had neutralised me came scuttling around in front of me. Hell, if I could have given voice, I’d have shrieked loud enough to cause a cave-in. It was another spider, though this one looked like something which had shambled off the set of a Middle Earth movie. It was the size of a small horse. Evidently satisfied its poison was doing a good job on me, it squatted down, motionless,

Van Brazen stepped forward. There were a few lights on now, and I could just about see his features under all that hair. “Mr. Nightmare,” he said in a sibilant voice. If spiders could speak, that’s what they would sound like. “I had a feeling you’d want to join us.” It was the last thing I heard before darkness clamped down on me and ended the world.

****

Okay, the world didn’t end. I did come to. I don’t know how long I’d been under. The first thing I noticed was that my arms ached. I tried to move them and realised I was tied up—in that tacky web stuff—and hanging from an invisible beam, I guessed. Darkness swirled around me and I peered into it. As far as I could tell, I was in some kind of stone prison, maybe the same place I’d been in when the fat spider zapped me. Nothing but stone and dust and lights, flickering like they must be torches. I tried to crane my neck to get a better view. I could hardly move it. The spider poison hadn’t killed me, but it had initially paralyzed me. Now I could just about move, though not much.

Someone behind me came out of the night and stood a few feet away. It was van Brazen. Even in this poor light I could see he was even more weird than I remembered. That head. Jeeze, it was monstrous, his eyes like pinpoints of scarlet light, his face bearded, but in a way that would have made a werewolf look handsome. And the smell! The last word in nauseating. His head and angular body kept saying the same thing to me, over and over: spider. Normally the little critters didn’t bother me, but this was too freaky for comfort.

“Ah, you are awake. No ill effects from the crossing?” I guess I looked puzzled. “We’re no longer in your world. We’re in the place you and some of your contemporaries think of as Pulpworld. You’ve been here before, so you understand the implications.”

I tried to speak, but my mouth muscles were still locked. I managed a dumb grunt.

“Relax. That way the poison will wear off more quickly. At least you can hear me. That’s good: I owe you an explanation. How come I woke up? I didn’t—I was woken. Otherwise I would have rotted in that sanitarium where you had me dumped.” The eyes blazed for a moment, before he got a grip on whatever resentment was fuelling him. “Yes, woken. There are powers stretching out over more than one world—powers with which you have already clashed, Mr. Nightmare.” He pronounced the name contemptuously, dragging it out. “Powers which, like me, have had to suffer your damned interference.

“They are choosing their representatives, their—generals—in the war that is coming.”

Let me guess, I wanted to say, you’re talking about when the stars are right.

“To us will be given such power, such control over the things which hop and crawl and scuttle across the worlds! You have already seen a part of what I can do. Have you any idea how many spiders inhabit the worlds? Don’t even contemplate it: it would drive you mad.”

Looking at you, buster, I can believe it, I was thinking.

“Soon, it will be time to use these powers. The seas will come alive and the Old Gods shall rise up. All the petty minions of humanity will be swept aside. In this world and in yours, they will be replaced. No amount of resistance from you and your own masters will save your species. Its days are numbered.”

He paused, as if savouring his next salvo. “I thought I had dealt with you the last time you crossed me. What was the woman called? Martha, yes, that was it. Not the most attractive woman; nevertheless, she was intelligent and I liked her sense of humour. Very good administrator; at least, while she was working for my company. Disguised her treachery very well. But that was largely thanks to her silly infatuation with you, wasn’t it?

“I had thought her death would have warned you off harassing me. I was surprised my warning to you and that oaf, Carter, wasn’t enough. No, you had to come blundering in, burning for revenge. It diminishes you, believe me. Personally I have no desire to extract my own revenge. No. However, you will be useful to me. Here, in Pulpworld, there are several places dedicated to the glorious ones: they who shall rise. There will be rituals performed, ceremonies. It was ever thus. And you will be part of them.”

Ah, yes, this would be the human sacrifice bit. Nothing like the spilling of human blood on some mossy altar to speed up the coming of the Big Uglies. It would have been amusing, except I wasn’t too keen on having my gizzard slit to fuel the sacrificial fires. And right now, I couldn’t see how in hell I was going to prevent it.

“It occurs to me, that I can perform an even greater service to my masters by improving the quality of the sacrifice. A man of your standing—and with your record of intolerance—would be a powerful medium. Yet I could enhance the working of power if I were to add one more to the blood ritual.”

The slow dissolution of the poison within me, coupled with my mounting anger allowed me to frame a few words. “Go to hell, spider head,” I croaked, loud enough for him to hear.

“Spiderhead? Well, I must say, I rather like that. Spiderhead. Yes, that will do very nicely. Thank you, Mr. Nightmare. You have christened me well.”

I tried to spit, but couldn’t suck up enough saliva.

“Where was I? Oh yes, the double sacrifice. Who would you like to share your last moments with? Whose blood would you like to see mingled with your own as your lives ebb away? You are a loner, aren’t you? Those who woke me filled me with information about you. They have been studying you: Mad Gull Island, Black Wake, the Swinging Citadel. My, but you have been busy.”

He walked about on those elongated, spindly legs, his pants glued to him like a layer of thin hair. When he turned back to me, his eyes were doubly alive. “Of course, it’s obvious. Who do you admire most? That lovely singer. Miss FiFi Cherie, or should I say, Ariadne Carnadine? One and the same, though not many people know that. Our little secret, eh?”

I hoped my face was a mask, though the horrors crawling over me probably gave him a good idea of how I felt.

“Yes, she would be ideal. Of course, I’d have to have her tongue ripped out before I brought her here. Her voice and the songs she sings: very dangerous to my masters. Amazing what doors she can open. And she’s so blissfully unaware of the fact! So—we could kill two birds with one stone. Hah! A pun, a veritable pun. I’m full of it today.”

“You’re full of it all right. Full of crap.”

His hairy mouth split in a grin and I saw his teeth: several tiny rows of them. Did spiders have teeth? This one did.

****

He left me there, hanging, and I sensed the big fat daddy/mummy spider which had spiked me was around in the background: squatting down, contemplating its navel or navels, or whatever did for the arachnid equivalent. I wasn’t going anywhere. The web-stuff that had me strung up was as effective as wire. It was the least of my worries. Ariadne! Van Brazen—Spiderhead—knew about her, and his lords and masters were pissed at her working with me and fouling up their operations at Black Wake and the rest. She and I had talked about potential retribution, so she was always going to be looking over her shoulder. But Spiderhead, and the things he controlled, would be something else.

I said there were torches somewhere down in that cavern, out of sight but casting a lurid glow over everything. At some point the glow disappeared, like the torches had been snuffed out. I heard the big spider shuffle to its feet and the sound of its going away: like someone was dragging a huge sack across the stone floor. Can’t say I was sorry. I tried the webbing, but no dice. I was trussed tighter than a turkey at Thanksgiving. I didn’t think the effluent could get any deeper, but it did.

Smoke. I could smell it. My senses were returning and almost back to normal. Yeah, it was smoke. A few wafts at first; then a cloud of it. I coughed. I could hear sounds in the distance, not happy ones. Suggestions of panic, pain, all that kind of thing. Abruptly there was bright light in the distance, flames for sure. At least this area I was in couldn’t catch fire; but most people die in fires from suffocation. If this damned smoke got any worse, it would do for me.

So was this going to be it, the end of the rainbow? Hell of a way to die. To compound my dilemma, motes of something—paper, cloth, I couldn’t tell—came wafting through the chamber on the smoky breeze: embers carried by the draft, like a minor blizzard of fireflies. In a moment I was going to be fried while I choked to death. My eyes were streaming and I was racked with coughs. Paradoxically it was the coughing, along with the twisting of my trussed body which gave me a glimmer of hope. Some of the passing embers had stuck to the webbing that held me. They set it alight. Another outburst of coughing and, presto! one of the strands snapped. I swung floorward and the weight of the movement parted a second burning strand.

I may have been numbed and weakened, but panic goaded me out of there. I scrambled across the chamber, ahead of the worst of the smoke. I couldn’t see much of a damn thing ahead of me, though the embers gave enough dim light to see there was a tunnel. It was dark and curved, like a huge wormhole. I didn’t waste any time and plunged down it. I figured if the air was going that way, it must be making for the outside. I was just congratulating myself on a brilliant escape, when an arm wrapped itself around my neck like an anaconda; I felt the unmistakably cold chill of a gun poked up under my jaw. Whoever had hold of me had the strength of an octopus.

“Move one muscle, buddy, and I’ll blow your ugly face off.”

For a brief moment the words stunned me. I was out of the pan and into the boiling fat. Then I gasped. How many times had I read those words? The most famous catch-phrase in pulp detective fiction. Killigan? Ned Killigan? Here, in this godforsaken place? How in Hades was that possible? Then I had it—Spiderhead had told me this was Pulpworld.

I would have said something, but the big private eye’s grip was doing a better job of choking me than the smoke had done. He unwrapped his arm from my neck and dug in his coat pocket, pulling out a cigarette lighter and flicking it on. He held it up to my face and peered at me. And I peered at him. Jeeze, it was the man himself: my hero from all those crackpot novels. Ned Killigan. All two hundred and twenty pounds of him. And pure muscle.

“Killigan?” I croaked.

“Do I know you? Your ugly mush looks familiar.”

Something behind us in the tunnel hissed like an oncoming steam engine and he prodded me away up the tunnel, keeping the gun trained on me. There was no time for further discussion: some of Spiderhead’s less savoury supporters were heading our way and by the sounds of it, a few of them were doing a fine job of doubling as flambeaux. I couldn’t think of a better use for them.

Killigan and I got to the end of the tunnel, which debouched on to a muddy bank, a wide, polluted river stretching away from it, black as tar. Killigan, thankfully, had no plans for us to take a plunge and swim away from trouble. He tapped me with the gun and we moved on up the bank into deeper darkness.

“I’m Nick Stone—or Nightmare, whichever you prefer,” I told him.

If I thought that would impress him, it didn’t. Behind me, he growled, “Yeah, sure, buddy, and I’m the Batman. You been readin’ too many pulps. Keep movin’. And where’s your boss?”

“My boss?”

“Don’t play games with me, buster, not if you don’t want I should decorate this path with your brains; or whatever crap you got between them ears of yours. Van Brazen. Where is he? I know he was back there before I ignited that little reception party. Come on, walk and talk.”

This was the weirdest situation I’d ever been in. The one guy I’d have wanted beside me in this mess thought I was a punk and was ready to blow me to hell and beyond. “Van Brazen isn’t my boss,” I said. “He’s the bastard who trussed me up. He was going to present me to the mob he works for.”

“Trussed you up? So how come you were crawlin’ around in the tunnel?”

I told him all I could; he just regarded me with a ton of suspicion.

“You’re after van Brazen, right?” I said.

“I’ve been tracking down this cult of maniacs for a month now. Nailed a coupla them and got them to squeal. They’ve been expecting this van Brazen creep to arrive and take charge.”

“I know where he is. He’s left this world and slipped through to mine. He’s going after a friend of mine: name of Ariadne Carnadine. You might know of her.”

“Your world? You must have banged your head, buster. You think I’m a sap who’ll buy all that baloney? Your world? What the heck’s that supposed to mean?”

We’d been moving along the riverbank, immersed in our confused conversation, when a voice in the dark, almost beside us, made us jerk to attention. “Hey, you guys! You’re on the wrong side of the river. You’re gonna run into big trouble. I can get you outta here!”

Killigan and I looked down at the river. We could see a small boat, like a long canoe, pulled in to the side. There was a stooped figure in it, holding the boat inshore by means of a long pole, like he was some kind of gondolier or something. He had a squat body and a head which looked like it had been stuck on top of it like a blob of clay, his moon face grinning up at us.

Killigan’s gun was aimed right at it. “Who the hell are you, pal?”

“Fred the Ferryman. Everyone knows me. I’m one of the good guys.”

Ahead of us, and behind us, too, for that matter, I could hear the gathering of something, en masse. Spiderhead’s creep show was sneaking up on both fronts. I pointed to the boat. “Better get aboard, Killigan,” I said. “That, or be trussed up, which I categorically don’t recommend.”

He swore, uncomfortable with our dilemma. I made up his mind for him by getting into the boat, which wobbled about like jelly on a plate. Fred the Ferryman was a whole lot more cheerful than Charon would have been, and held the craft steady as Killigan growled something before joining me. We were poled out into the night. Just in time, I guess, for the massed ranks of our invisible foes closed in on the spot we had occupied on the shore.

“So where we headed?” Killigan snapped at Fred, his gun still held on him. If this was the Killigan I read about so often, it wouldn’t take much for him to loose off a shot or two.

“Other side is safer,” said the boatman, his grin so wide I thought his head would split in half. “You can make a quick getaway.”

“You know anything about a punk called van Brazen?” I asked him. “He was supposed to have died a few years back, but he’s alive and kicking, somewhere hereabouts.”

“Someone will.” The boat moved sleekly over the water. Along the far shore I could make out warehouses clumped together and a set of narrow steps leading up on to the dockside. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, although there were dim streetlights down at least two alleyways. Fred guided us in to the steps and berthed the boat, holding on to a gleaming rope tied to a ring set in the wall.

Killigan gestured with the gun for me to disembark and I climbed up onto the dock, Killigan right behind me. He turned to the boatman. “If this is a trap, buster, I’ll come back and feed you to the fishes, piece by piece.”

Fred the Ferryman just grinned. “It’s no trap, Mr. Killigan. You’ll find friends this side of the river. And none of those spider things.” He poled away from the bank and merged with the darkness in moments.

Killigan and I went down the first of the alleys, both watching out for trouble, despite the boatman’s words. Everywhere seemed to be deserted. The only signs of life were those street lamps. We reached one and I saw something that at last gave my spirits a boost. Parked across the road, silent as a sleeping elephant, was a black and yellow bus, a real sight for sore eyes.

“Montifellini,” I murmured.

“You know this guy?” snapped Killigan.

I nodded as we went across the street. The door to the vehicle was open and, praise be to all the gods, the big guy was sitting behind the wheel, reading a paper like it was Sunday morning and all was well with the world. He looked down at us and laughed. “Hey, you boys lost or something? This isn’t a good place.”

“I need to get home,” I told him. “And fast.”

“What about you, Mr. Killigan?” said Montifellini, switching on the engine.

The private eye looked uncertain. He stared hard at Montifellini, gesturing at me with his automatic. “You know this guy?”

“Sure. Nick Nightmare. He’s okay. I stake my neck on it, eh?”

Killigan studied me, surprised, maybe seeing me properly in the lights of the bus. “Hell, you really Nick Nightmare? How the heck is that possible? You belong in a book.” To my amazement he held out his hand. We shook, like long-lost relatives. He almost smiled.

“Let’s get moving,” called Montifellini above the roar of the engine. I got aboard, dropping down in to the front seat.

“Here,” said Killigan, taking my two Berettas out from inside his coat. “I found these in the tunnels. They must be yours, buddy.”

“You’re not coming over to my place?”

“Nah. If van Brazen is there, you nail him. I’ll shake up his mob on this side.”

“You’re gonna need help,” I warned him. “This is big. Get hold of Darkwing, Shadow Woman, any of the superhuman crew, got me?”

Montifellini nodded. “Better do it, Ned,” he said. With that, we pulled away. The night absorbed Ned Killigan and I sat there in quiet amazement, as if I’d simply imagined him. I grinned like an imbecile as the Magic Bus sped into the darkness between worlds.

****

Ariadne Carnadine stood with her back to me, studying the vast expanse of cityscape spread far below her. We were in the executive suite of the headquarters of Carnadine Industries. She was dressed in her finest chic business suit, her hair drawn tight in a bun, make-up immaculate. She swung round, her face taut, eyes like flints. I’d seen her in action: not someone I’d want to mess with.

“You say the whole thing is a set-up? A trap?”

I’d gotten her out of a top-level board meeting, something no one did lightly. But when she was told it was me wanting to speak to her in person, she left her pals to it and met me here. “Van Brazen reckons to drag you across to Pulpworld. He thinks I’m still there. You and me are to be a duet, a double sacrifice to the same mob whose ass we kicked out on Black Wake.”

Van Brazen, or someone representing him, had phoned Ariadne some hours earlier. He’d told her there was a legal arrangement with van Brazen’s business colleagues that if he remained in a coma for five years, his empire could be sold off. It was well known Ariadne wanted to buy up van Brazen’s stock on behalf of Carnadine Industries. Well, said the voice, here’s your chance. You get first bid. Ariadne had taken the bait. There was a meeting planned—at the same pile where I’d fallen foul of Spiderhead. No doubt the gathering would be down in the basement, where Ariadne would be introduced to the spider tide and washed over to Pulpworld.

“Things are reaching boiling point, ma’am,” I told her. “Stuff is coming together. Van Brazen and all the other creeps refer to something about the stars being right. Well, maybe there’s gonna be some kind of astrological conjunction. Make the right kind of sacrifices and doors to some very nasty places open. And out pops the worst kind of plague you can picture. Things that have been asleep for a long, long time will wake up and flex their tentacles. Me, I’d laugh at all this, but I’ve seen too much of it.”

She nodded calmly. “You’re right, Nick. You’re not the only one to have warned me about it. Since we dragged Terry back from the edge, I’ve heard more than enough about it. And the weapons they’ll use—like that Chaos Blade—will be like nothing we’ve ever experienced. We have to stop van Brazen. What do you suggest?”

I tapped my chest and the gun inside my coat. “Just get me one clean shot at the bastard and I’ll blow that freakish head of his to pulp. One shot. I won’t screw up this time.”

“So we go along with the trap—meet him in his den.”

“He won’t be expecting me, so I’ll keep a low profile. We have to get him away from the basement. That’s where the gate is. I suggest we send in as many of Chief Carter’s boys as he’ll muster. Close the bottom of the building off. You have to find a way of getting van Brazen up into the building. I’m telling you, though: he has the weirdest protection.”

Her calmness threatened to crack as she mused on what I’d told her about the spiders. They were not her favourite creatures at the best of times. Let alone the worst. But her chin came up. My only regret was, she wouldn’t be wearing her Ninja of Death outfit. Man, that was something I would like to have seen again.

****

She got the expected phone call and the meeting was confirmed for the following evening. Meantime I went and saw Rizzie Carter and told him how I wanted to play it. Given that it was van Brazen we were hoping to snare, he was all smiles. He was less than delighted when I told him everyone would have to dress up in suits and play the part of a business entourage. Even so, he organised it.

The front of Kraken Tower was all lit up when we got there. It looked the part: big concern open for business, like all the other buildings around it. Ariadne and her immediate associates, including me and about a dozen of the chief’s toughest, went into the reception area. I knew Carter had deployed some fifty men or more outside, ready to get in to the building via side entrances at the signal. Carter was with them, eager for the kill.

“Mr. Vanzen is expecting you,” said the receptionist. Ariadne and I knew it was van Brazen’s alias. “Please go on up.” One of her clerks bowed and showed us to a set of elevators. It looked like van Brazen’s initial plan was to have us meet at least one floor up. So we packed into the elevator cars and up we went. I felt like a jerk in my suit—chosen with some amusement by Ariadne—and my very slicked-back, creamed hair. I also had a stubbly beard pasted on. The whole effect may have made me feel dumb, but Ariadne swore it changed me enough to disguise me from all but the closest inspection. I wasn’t aiming to get nose to nose with Spiderhead.

We got out of the elevators and were shown through wide doors into a sumptuous chamber, expensively furnished. Ariadne and her immediate colleagues lined up; me and the cops behind her in three ranks. I guess in business a show of power is de rigueur. Van Brazen stood in the centre of the room. He was immaculately dressed, but even that didn’t disguise the bizarre nature of his head. In this light, it looked even more repulsive than I remembered; like he had some weird kind of bloating disease. Spiderhead—I’d named him well. His eyes lit up as Ariadne stood before him. Me he hadn’t recognised.

“I am Martin Vanzen. Delighted you could come,” he said, offering her his hand. I’d warned her about him and that he might act at any moment. Although I couldn’t see her face, I sensed a deep shudder run through her as she shook hands with him. He had a posse of punks with him, though I got the impression they were for decoration. He was going to handle this business solo. Him and the other things that would be scuttling around in the shadows.

I slipped my hand inside my jacket and gripped one of my Berettas. All I needed was one clear shot. I didn’t intend to mess about.

“Documents regarding Mr. van Brazen’s estate have been drawn up and are ready for your perusal, Miss Carnadine. Shall we go to the secure area? It is a few floors below us.”

He indicated another set of elevators at the side of the long office. I could see that we wouldn’t all cram into them. It figured: divide and conquer. I watched as Ariadne, nodding and doing her best to seem in favour of the arrangements, eased across to the elevators, along with her immediate colleagues. They screened van Brazen from me for a brief moment as I moved with the rest of the company. I wanted to be in that elevator when van Brazen entered it.

Whether he had recognised me or not, he was taking no chances. The first car opened and there was a blur of movement. Ariadne was fighting him off: he’d gripped her wrist in one of those long, spindly arms and he was far too strong for her. He yanked her into the elevator; no one had time to intervene as the doors hummed shut. I barged forward and got into the second car, snarling orders. As the doors closed, I saw the rest of the entourage, cops and all, racing for the office doors. They would have to take the stairs to the basement.

I tried to keep cool. I knew the chief’s men were near at hand. I tried to send a message on my cell phone, but the signal was blocked. Again I told myself not to panic: Carter’s men in here would already have contacted him. The ones outside should be moving into place below. Van Brazen was going down to a trap. I paced about in the dropping elevator, both guns in my fists, my nerves on fire.

The elevator dropped all the way down, and I was out through the doors in a hurry. The lighting was like I remembered: dim and unhelpful. I could barely make out the shape of van Brazen ducking and weaving through the pillars. He must have knocked Ariadne out—I could see her slumped over one of his arms, like she was no more than a straw doll. He was making for the gate. I couldn’t get a decent shot off at him and I was starting to sweat. Where the hell was the Fifth Cavalry?

Just when I was really panicking, a dozen or more men leapt into view from around the pillars, calling on van Brazen to freeze. He moved at impossible speed—no human could have done that—darting in and out of the shadows. But the cops had been well briefed: they were not about to let Spiderhead reach the central area and the gate. As I tried to follow his movements, it seemed to me like I was watching a huge spider, scuttling in the darkness. I fired a couple of rounds, but if they hit him, they made no difference.

Spiderhead made a number of attempts to get to the gate area, but the police numbers had grown and they were closing in on him. Only Ariadne’s form prevented them from hosing him down with lead. I’d allowed for that: reckoning he’d retreat to the elevator. He duly obliged. I followed as he made it and shut its doors. The first of the cops reached me; together we watched the elevator’s indicator showing Spiderhead on his way up. All the way up.

I grinned, though I felt no amusement. As long as Spiderhead held Ariadne, we were in a mess. I took a handful of cops with me in the second car. I had the rest of them divide and pour up two sets of stairs, warning them they might meet up with some problems on the climb. My guess was Spiderhead would have protected his retreat with that eight-legged army of horrors I’d seen on my first visit. The cops were prepared: several of them would be carrying flamethrowers. They would torch their way through Spiderhead’s defences. Only wish I could have been there to see it.

I was gambling Spiderhead would head for the rooftop; that he’d figure anywhere else in Kraken Tower would be a blind alley. So I let the elevator shoot uninterrupted to the top floor. I was out in a flash, ducking and diving in case he had drawn a bead on the door, assuming he had a gun. I took cover behind an air duct; the cops who had come with me spread out. The roof was flat, its open space broken up here and there with more vents. I could see something in the moonlight, scuttling away towards the far edge of the roof. With both guns drawn, I headed after it. I was cursing myself for letting Ariadne get into this position. At least if she was unconscious she wouldn’t be aware of her circumstances.

I reached the far end of the roof and for a moment wondered if Spiderhead had the ability to drop over the low parapet wall and crawl perpendicularly down to freedom. A low moan made me turn: I saw Ariadne had been tossed aside. She was sprawled under the wall, still groggy but coming to. I headed for her and was yards short when a dry laugh brought me up sharp. Spiderhead emerged from behind one of the ducts. In that pale light, his head looked even more grotesque.

“Mr. Nightmare,” he hissed. “You really are very careless with your women. Not content with burning Martha Delacourt to a crisp, you’re now sacrificing Miss Carnadine in your ridiculous pursuit of me.” He glanced in her direction. “One more song, my dear, before I rip out your tongue.” He was standing no more than a few yards away, arms dangling at his side, ignoring my twin weapons. He seemed devoid of any himself. He glared at me again. “You are very tiresome.”

“Allow me to put you out of your misery,” I said and let him have it with both shooters. I must have emptied a dozen rounds into him; at that range they would all be neatly grouped in the chest area. I may as well have patted balloons at him for all the effect the slugs had. Zippo. He just laughed that dry rattle.

I eased along the parapet wall; it was the height of my knees. Spiderhead stepped a pace or two forward. The cops were not far away, but maybe they were all stunned motionless by the sight of my ineffective fusillade. Spiderhead’s arms lifted. I knew that if he fixed them on me I was likely done for. I took a quick look at Ariadne: she was trying to roll away, still unable to rise.

“Come now, Mr. Nightmare. Surely you didn’t think those pea-shooters of yours would do me any harm?”

I was groping behind me along the wall. Thankfully I found what I was looking for: a little something I had set up earlier in the day, just in case. My fingers found the wire and I tugged it quickly, pulling it up and with it the object which had been dangling over the other side.

“Of course not,” I growled. “Maybe this will impress you more.” I swung the weapon—it was an Uzi-Pro—into my hands and let rip. A dozen or so Beretta slugs will generally do some serious damage to a man’s chest, but let me tell you, a few right to left and left to right sprays with a Uzi-Pro will blow a herd of cattle apart in the time it takes to say, “Make mine well done.” I don’t know what kind of protection Spiderhead had, but van Brazen’s physical body couldn’t resist the withering hailstorm of lead I unleashed. In a matter of moments I had decorated half of the rooftop with it.

All that was left was a wide pool of gore with a black lump of flesh and hair in its centre.

I wasted no time in going to Ariadne, aware the cops had shaken off their coyness and were moving in to take a closer look-see at what in hell had happened. I sat Ariadne up. She was still dazed, but okay. She was about to say something, but instead her eyes widened and she pointed.

I spun round. To my horror I saw the remains of Spiderhead, a rounded hump about the size of a Doberman, stirring. It sprouted legs, lifting the bulbous, hairy body off the ground. I opened fire again, but the spider-thing scuttled at a ridiculous speed to the wall. I was certain I’d caught it with the last burst. The cops were firing at it, too. Then it had plunged over the lip into the darkness. It was a long, long drop to the ground.

I turned back to Ariadne; at last she was able to get to her feet. “I was a complete mug to let you go through this,” I told her awkwardly. “I underestimated the guy.”

“He wasn’t human,” she said, brushing herself down. “Van Brazen is long gone, Nick. That thing—Spiderhead as you call it—had taken him over. It sucked out his memories, his persona, and just used his body as a vehicle.”

We were both at the low wall, craning over. The moon overhead was full. It picked something out a few feet down. “What the hell is that?” I said. It looked like a cable, stretching away into the darkness. It gleamed, like it was sticky.

I felt Ariadne shudder beside me. Across the void between us and the nearest building, we both saw the darkness shift, as if something moved down the facing wall. Probably we had imagined it. We looked at each other, but said nothing.

A few minutes later we heard the drone of a couple of police helicopters; we all moved back while they landed. The chief emerged from one of them. He came over to me and Ariadne.

“Did you get the sonofabitch?” he bawled.

I indicated the sticky mess he was standing in.

“Nice job. Okay, everyone get into the choppers. We need to evacuate pronto. The building is ablaze down below. Somehow I don’t think the fire boys are going to be turning up to put it out any time soon. In fact, I reckon the whole damn shebang will collapse before the night’s out.”

And thereby the gate will close, I thought. “Hell, Rizzie,” I said, laughing, “you sure know how to cheer a guy up.”

Ariadne and I got aboard one of the choppers. “I don’t know about you, ma’am,” I told her, “but I could do with a stiff drink or two.”

“Me, too. But listen, you don’t have to call me ma’am. Ariadne is fine.” She leaned a little closer and spoke into my ear above the row of the rotating blades. “And when you’re sure no one can overhear you, you can call me FiFi.”

I felt as if someone had slugged me in the gut. I never knew it could feel so good.

Appendix

The Chaos Blade

When I was a kid, we were all afraid of certain medical practices our parents and guardians (and various other persons who had it in mind to torment us) would verbally abuse us with. Things like, Soon be time for your next tetanus jab, or Cut down on the candy bars or the dentist will have to pull all your teeth out, not to mention the one that got me crawling up the wall, Wash your ears out or it’ll be time for another syringing.

Among this array of witless, soul-searing banter was the one about having your appendix out. The way I heard it, every kid had to have certain things done in life, and bits of the body simply had to be removed if you were going to avoid an unpleasant early demise. The appendix was one such bit. Well, I still have my adenoids and also my appendix.

So here’s the irony—I’m about to insert an appendix into this body of work. Okay, okay, so it’s a pun. You need a sense of humor in this life, pal. You have that removed and there’s no hope for you.

I already wrote up the succession of incidents from my files about how I met Ariadne Carnadine, and how she had me look up a certain mercenary adventurer by the name of Luke Phillips. (See “Hot Little Number from Hell,” above.) Well, he was an interesting guy and threw me a lively yarn about how he had uncovered a particularly puissant artifact known as the Chaos Blade. I abbreviated my long conversation with Luke Phillips in the interests of expediting the narrative of my own story, but for those of you interested in such things, here is the promised appendix.

It’s Luke Phillips’ yarn and if I’ve embellished it somewhat, I can promise you, I’ve not tampered with its substance, only its style. You can set the blame for that squarely at the door of my alter ego, Ned Killigan, who taught me most of what I know. Stuff which matters, anyhow.

—NN

The Chaos Blade

The ending of one story is the beginning of another. As day closes, night opens. Life never ceases, it merely pauses. Individuals may perish, whether they be man or galaxy. And certain forces exist outside the cycle of time itself.

—Ludwig Kreigmann, “The Hungry Stars”

From the oval window of the private hire plane, the old man squinted out at the crystal desert night, where an extravagance of stars winked like jewels. There was no night sky on earth as clear as that of the desert. He tapped the glass, his finger singling out a meteor’s passing, the long tail of white light sharp as a laser’s beam.

“So it began,” he said.

The man wedged into the seat beside him was far younger, in his late twenties. Unlike the older man, whose age had brought with it an air of calmness, a refusal to be hurried, the youth was tense, constantly alert, as if every breath of the night pulsed with threat.

He saw the swift flash of the meteor, cut off by the dune horizon. He assumed the old man meant life, the world, something like that, and grunted acquiescence. Did this guy ever sleep? They’d been on the plane for hours since quitting Cairo. He swore the old man’s eyes had never closed.

“This thing you’ve found. The one your people are so anxious for me to see,” the old man said.

“The sarcophagus?”

The old man smiled. “Of course, it’s unique and very valuable in itself. I can imagine the authorities of a dozen countries squabbling over it, regardless of its contents.”

“You know whose remains are inside?” said the other, his whole manner one of unease, as if in a moment he would be on his feet, fretting to be at the invisible forces he seemed to be so sensitive to.

The old man pulled from his breast pocket a creased sheet of vellum. By the dim light of the plane’s interior, the writing on it, written in thick pen strokes, could barely be discerned. It looked like Arabic, or some variant of it.

“According to this, yes. Your boss transcribed this from the lid?”

“He could only understand some of it. Is that why he wanted you here? You can read it? Mannerton said one look at that and you’d come; you’d know who was in the sarcophagus.”

“Oh, yes,” the old man nodded, a little smugly. “And Mannerton was quite right. I can read this. I believe only a handful of men could.”

Luke Phillips, the young man, yawned, trying to make himself comfortable in the seat. If it weren’t for the payload, he’d have been long gone from this job. Mannerton, along with a group of keen archaeologists, had been poking around in the western deserts for a year or more. Mannerton, a fastidious and testy eccentric, and a professor of antiquities somewhere in England, had hired a dozen or so security guards like Luke to do the fetching and carrying, mainly on site: or so the media had been led to believe. There was a hidden agenda. Which inevitably meant a whole heap of money at the end of it. The guards were here as protection, a sort of private army. Luke had been taken on because of the time he had spent in the Marines, not because he had graduated in digging holes. He’d had a crash course from Mannerton and his team, like the other guards, just in case he had to talk to the media.

There had been little to do out in the desert. A few wandering Bedouin, though they showed little interest in the dig. They called it accursed, and Mannerton’s people encouraged them to think it. Occasionally a stuttering chartered plane like this old tub dropped in, spilling out a handful of journalists, eager for any news of discoveries. Mannerton played everything down, his irritable nature as effective at deterring the visitors as the lack of real news. And the stone coffin’s discovery had been kept completely secret, its tomb closed to all but Mannerton and his most trusted team members. Although none of the other guards were taken into confidence, Luke had the privilege, such as it was, of being the principal bodyguard. He’d been given a free rein and a considerable sum to acquire firearms for the guards. These men, like himself all ex-servicemen, were reliable. No questions, and the pay was good. Hell, most of it had already been stashed in their accounts. Luke wondered about that. Surely no university or grant body would fund this. Mannerton, though, was reputed to own a personal fortune; and this tomb, this lost pharaoh, or whatever it was, must be worth big bucks.

At any rate, it had caused a stir when Mannerton had found it. The only reason Luke knew about it was because he had been at the professor’s shoulder when the seals had been broken on the uncovered chamber. Mannerton was superstitious: he saw ghosts, djinns, whatever, round every dune, or down every pit. Luke believed in more solid enemies, his faith embedded in the weapons he carried. As the chamber had revealed itself, only a cloud of dust had exhaled from it. But they had been wearing masks; his gun hadn’t been necessary and Luke had slipped into the background shadows as Mannerton eagerly began his exploration of the chamber, and the sand-choked maze within.

“Not a word to a soul about this, Phillips,” Mannerton had told him when the huge stone block of the sarcophagus had been exposed, its heaped dust shrouds scooped away. Later, when the exasperated professor had run out of invective and curses, unable to translate the carved writing on the lid, he had given Phillips a revised instruction. “I need you to fly to Cairo. Take this.” He handed over a sealed envelope. “It’s vital you give it to Claverton and no one else. Absolutely no one must see this. Under no circumstances are you to open it. Make no mistake, Phillips, there are people out there who would kill for this, if they knew what it was. That’s why I’m sending you.” Luke was under no illusions: he was here as a private soldier.

He’d met Claverton, the go-between, as planned in a suitably low-key bar in Cairo. The pale, wraith-like Englishman slipped the envelope into his suit, coughed as though about to induce heart failure, and sloped off into the shadows. He must have done his job, though: a week later Luke had been sent back to Cairo to meet the old man who was now sitting beside him. Luke would have guessed him to be in his late seventies, maybe older. Although he was a little less than five-and-a-half feet tall, there was an energy about him: a vitality belied by his calmness. He spoke with an accent Luke assumed to be mid-European, although his narrow face had more than a hint of the Orient about it.

The envelope had been for him, and the creased sheet he was now looking at had been its contents. He recognised the writing as that on the lid of the unearthed sarcophagus. Glancing at it again, it struck him there was something freakish about it. His brief course in archaeology and related topics had taught him a little about hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and other ancient forms of writing. He’d guessed this to be a form of Arabic, but out here, deep in the lost wastes of the Sahara, in what was otherwise an Egyptian tomb, how could that be?

“Is it Arabic?” Luke said aloud to the old man.

The other shook his head. “This pre-dates it by centuries, though it is something of a forerunner.”

Luke frowned. “Centuries? I didn’t think there was any writing that old.”

The old man smiled cryptically. “Strange that a man like you should know that. But yes, you are right. It is no ordinary writing. Unique. There are very few records of it. And they are among the most secret works known to man. Legend has it this writing was first set down by a civilization which pre-dates Egypt, Sumer, or any other early culture you care to name. Pre-Atlantean, even.”

Luke snorted. “Isn’t that a bit fanciful? Mannerton would think you had a screw loose if you told him that.”

“You think so? Isn’t that why I am here?”

Luke decided not to press the point. “So what does it say?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.

The old man tapped the window again. “In part it refers to something it calls the Sky Gift.”

“A meteor?”

“If you like. I have read something of the history of that sarcophagus, which itself has been lost to Man for an aeon. In those histories, there are tales of dark gods who ruled the stars long before the birth of our solar system. Utterly alien, with powers and dreams outside anything humanly conceivable, they have existed, fought, created, enslaved, and been imprisoned in dimensions outside of time and space. Some, the worst of them, diabolically evil, have touched our own world. Some ancient cults hold that they actually spawned Man.”

Again Luke snorted. “This is the Von Daniken theory of evolution?”

The old man merely smiled indulgently. “He is mainly regarded as a charlatan these days—a very rich charlatan, mind you—but there may be some elements of truth in what he writes about. The secret histories all refer to visitations. The Old Ones, as these renegade dark gods are referred to, have infected this world. In most cases, shall we say, spiritually, commonly through the medium of dreams. Physically, too. The Star Gift fell from the skies, flung here, if we are to believe the histories, by an outer darkness. As a dog shakes off a flea.

“It fell into the ocean and sank into primordial ooze. There it cooled, its molten metals solidifying within its shell. Long ages passed. Life rose from the mire, cities came and went. Cities whose structures and architecture would have seemed insane to men of our time. And the things which hopped and crawled through those twisted streets would have had the look of alien worlds more remote than our own.”

Luke listened silently, his expression blank. The old guy had flipped, or he was having a joke at Luke’s expense. Still, there was no doubting his imagination, and there was still a long way to go to the site. It was one way to pass the time.

“As the earth heaved, twisted by eruptions and cataclysms, the Star Gift fetched up on the shore of an island kingdom. Its people dragged it into their city and named it, saying it had come down from the blasphemous gods they worshipped. Their smiths worked the metals; they forged them in blood on sacrificial altars—for they were at war. Servants of a nameless Old One, his very spawn, they were set to infest the world: a great plague spreading across it. They would bring all life forms under their sway and pervert them to their own evolutionary path. All in the name of their vile god.”

The old man paused. He looked across at Luke. “All this is recorded, in these secret texts. From time to time, fragments of the texts have emerged. In some cases, new volumes have been written, drawing from the original texts. But they have either been destroyed, suppressed, or ridiculed.”

Luke shrugged. “I can see why. Are you saying you believe all this stuff?”

Again the old man smiled. “I am only telling you what I have read. I am a seeker after truth; knowledge. The histories may well be the fantastical imaginings of various lunatic cults. You would think so, given their extraordinary nature. One would have to question some of the works of Abdul Alhazred, to whom the Necronomicon is ascribed. He died a raving madman; yet did he write his works because he was mad, or did what he know turn him mad? It is easy to dilute the unthinkable by making it appear ridiculous. He who is not taken seriously can never be seen to be a threat.”

“So there may be something in all this?”

“I believe it is possible. It is a puzzle and men like Mannerton and myself will always seek to unravel its message.”

“And the Star Gift? What do these histories say became of it?”

“Something which should interest a man like you.” It was the second time the old man had used the expression. He clarified his comment. “You are a man of arms. You carry two dangerous weapons on your person. And I am aware there are other weapons on board.”

Luke chuckled. “Goes with the job. Security.”

“Don’t mistake me: I approve. It is only the nature of the weapons which have changed over the centuries. The metal in the Star Gift was used to forge weapons. Mostly swords and knives. Enough to equip an army which planned to swarm across the surface of a world. Weapons that were infinitely superior to any others used at the time. But there was one other weapon, one specific sword, created above all the rest. A blade which could only be wielded by a demi-god, a demon lord who would lead the unholy war in the name of his grim masters. The histories call it the Chaos Blade.”

In spite of himself, Luke was intrigued. Almost subconsciously he repeated the name.

“The secret to the power and efficiency of a good blade—” the old man began.

“—Is how you temper it,” said Luke, imagining some vast, prehistoric forge, in which this huge sword was being beaten, heated, and cooled.

“Quite so. But the Chaos Blade was the gift of the Old Ones. And to cool it, to finish and ready it, the smiths did not use water, or even blood. They used the vital juices of another god: one their masters had subdued and imprisoned, deep under the earth. In that nethermost pit, time and again they plunged the Chaos Blade into the vitals of the god; until its life had been expended and the weapon was complete. The dark champion took up the blade and the wars of madness began. In the hands of the demonic champion, the Chaos Blade swept whole legions aside. Cities fell, nations sank beneath the boiling oceans. Sword and champion were as one, a living entity, a black god incarnate. But which was the instrument, which the architect?

“Does this sound familiar?” the old man said, breaking his narrative.

“Sword legends run down through history—”

“Indeed. Echoes, perhaps, from the ravages of the Chaos Blade.”

“So what happened to it?”

“The wars fought by its champion spanned the primeval earth. The forces which were embroiled were colossal, not merely confined to the crawling hordes that were newly birthed from the primal soup. Gradually the Old Ones themselves were drawn into the nightmare, for it was their tool, their modus operandi. What passed for Man in those days could never have withstood the power of the Chaos Blade, not even if a million had risen against it. So the enemies of the Old Ones aided Man. Another dimension was added to the eternal cosmic war, as god fought god. As they do still.

“The sword and its demonic bearer had to be prised apart. Only this would render the Chaos Blade powerless, for none other could wield it without being destroyed.”

“Like trying to grip a live terminal, a million volts or something.”

“A perfectly adequate analogy. Yes. Thus the warring gods bent their efforts to the task and in time, it was done. The Chaos Blade was wrenched from its master in an upheaval which shook the very roots of the world. All the minor weapons were destroyed, none surviving. The Chaos Blade was shut away, locked up on a remote plateau, as far from the eyes and mind of Man as possible. And he who had wielded it, the crazed demi-god, the very hand of the Old Ones, was entombed.”

“Killed?”

“The histories are not clear. They say his powers were made impotent and that he was made as other men. He was entombed and walled up in a place as remote as that which housed the Chaos Blade and which was at the opposite ends of the earth, that they were sundered for all time. And all this before known history began. Before the first recorded city. As I said, before even Atlantis.

“But the saga of the blade was far from over. Although it and the wielder had been thrust from the light of the stars—perhaps beneath the Antarctic wastes, or down in the vaults below the forbidden Plateau of Kangarsk, or even under haunted Leng itself—the greed of Man always sought out these riches. The awful Chaos Blade was found. They knew it in Ur and Akkad, where its very presence brought bloody ruin, though no hand of Man ever lifted it. It lured things other than Man to it, for its twisted servants rose up from the swamplands, slaves to its siren call. The horrors which were ever drawn to it brewed war after war. Even motionless, untouched, it could hypnotise nations, direct their destinies.

“The histories tell of a great flood, just as the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh also tell of it. After this, there is no further written word of the Chaos Blade, nor of the one who carried it. Perhaps the Elder Gods sent the flood to wash them both away from human eyes altogether. Though Man has not ceased in his search.”

Luke used the sudden silence to interrupt the strange flow of words. “So you are saying that the sarcophagus Mannerton has found is part of this myth?”

The old man lifted the sheet of vellum. “These words imply as much.”

“What do they say?”

“I would rather not speak them aloud, even in translation. The tongue of the Old Ones releases powers you could not begin to understand. In essence they speak of a resting place, of a timeless power, of one who sleeps, undying.”

“So it’ll be the bones of the mad crusader, the guy who carried the Chaos Blade? Is that what you think?”

“Something like that, yes. The writing, the script, could not possibly be referring to an Egyptian pharaoh, or any other known type of burial.”

“Does Mannerton know this? What he’s actually dealing with?”

“Partly. I doubt if he is aware of the enormity of what he has found. He is far too practical a man, too traditional, to accept fully all this nonsense about prediluvian legends. I am sure,” the old man went on, smiling to himself, “he will convince himself there are saner explanations. What do you think?”

“I’m not paid to think,” Luke grinned. But as the monotonous flight wore on, he was able to do little else except think: imagining a mummified figure lying under the lid of the tomb, possibly encased in armour. A demon lord? Mannerton may be a traditionalist, but in spite of what the old man had said, the professor was superstitious. Scared at any rate. Yes, that was it. Mannerton was afraid of what was in the block of stone. Maybe he’d find it easier to accept this than the old man reckoned.

****

It was hours past midnight, deep into the desert night, when the plane dropped on to a makeshift airstrip and buffeted to a halt in a mild sandstorm. Overhead, the brilliant stars were shrouded by the billowing drifts. Luke escorted the old man to the cluster of buildings at the edge of the strip, both ducking down to shield themselves from the numbing wind, which was surprisingly cold. Inside the first long hut, reminiscent of a WWII Desert Rat base, the old man looked around calmly, apparently none the worse for the gruelling flight.

One of Mannerton’s colleagues, Tensley, was waiting: thrusting out his hand to pump the old man’s vigorously, as though meeting a long-admired celebrity. Luke looked around for Mannerton himself, but there was no one else present. The place seemed to be deserted.

“Good to have you here, sir. We’ve got somewhere for you to bed down and to freshen up,” Tensley told the old man. “It’s no palace, but you’re probably used to that.” He indicated some doors off at the end of the hut.

The old man picked up his light case and merely nodded, his air of calmness unruffled.

Tensley turned nervously to Luke. “We’ll be called together in the morning. About nine.” A sheen of perspiration gleamed across his face in the lamplight. He led the old man away, muttering platitudes about how he must be tired and wanting sleep.

Luke waited until they had gone, then went back outside, crossed the sand-swept compound, and entered another long hut. Two of the security guards were sitting on oil drums, makeshift seats, playing cards. They looked up, acknowledging him with brief nods.

Luke unslung the automatic rifle and pack he had brought from the plane, went over to another oil drum, and scooped out water, splashing it over his face. He’d forgotten how the damn sand got everywhere. The trip out had been a brief respite.

“Mannerton wants to see you,” one of the others called.

“Now? At three in the morning?”

The others grinned. “That’s what the prof said. Tell you the truth, we didn’t expect to see you back. We’ve all had it with this sodding desert. Reckon we’ve earned enough.”

Luke swore under his breath but picked up his gun and left. In another hut he found Mannerton poring over a scattered collection of maps, charts, and old volumes. He had spent half his life buried in their mysteries. Luke waited until he looked up.

“Ah, Phillips. Good trip?”

“The old guy’s here, in one piece. Tensley’s sorting him out. Tough old bird.”

“Any problems?”

Luke shook his head.

“Cairo all right?”

“If you mean, were we watched, I’d say probably not. Couldn’t guarantee it, though. Biggest rat-hole this side of Bombay.”

Mannerton leaned back, rubbing at his eyes. He was in his sixties, his red face blotched by the sun, his white beard straggling on to his chest, unkempt white mane of hair thinning. Unlike the old man’s eyes, his looked tired and deeply creased.

“So who is he?” asked Luke. “Does he have a name?” So far, he had been given only a description of the old man, enough to single him out in Cairo.

“He’s Taras Lupescu. He has as many doctorates as I’ve got teeth,” said Mannerton, though he seemed to be more irritated than amused. “We’re old adversaries. He sees me as just another grubber in the dirt, if the truth were known. You want a drink?”

Luke noticed the whisky bottle. Mannerton usually drank sparingly, but it looked as though he’d had more than a few shots tonight. Luke shook his head. “I’ll just kip down for a few hours, if you don’t mind. So the old man and you go back a ways?”

Mannerton slopped some of the spirit into a glass and gulped it down, wincing at its fire. “You could say that. Lupescu is an arrogant bastard. He and a handful of others like him are an enclave, a sort of secret society. They, and only they, have access to knowledge they share with no one. Unless it suits them. They treat people like me as muddlers: ignorant dabblers in the dark. No matter how qualified or experienced we are.”

Luke said nothing. But he knew Mannerton had been at loggerheads with the established authorities over a number of antiquarian issues for years. Some of his theories had been ridiculed. It had certainly fuelled the fire of his irascibility.

“But he’s going to have to compromise now, by Christ! He already knows what I’ve found here. This isn’t something I’ve dreamed up. Not some far-fetched theory.”

Slowly Luke sat down. He could see Mannerton was in a mood to spill more. “So what’s his background?”

Mannerton poured another drink. “His work on the earliest civilizations is acclaimed, although some is controversial. There isn’t a relevant site in the world that he doesn’t know like the back of his hand; or an ancient language he doesn’t understand. Intimately. It’s uncanny.”

“He read that inscription—”

Mannerton glared at him, fist tightening around the glass. “I knew he would. It’s why I need him. You’ve seen the walls in that tomb, under the desert. The glyphs, the writings. I can’t translate it without Lupescu, damn him. So what did he say?”

Luke shrugged. “Not much. Older than Atlantis, that was part of it. He wasn’t going to say a lot to me. I think he wanted me to think he’s a crank. Gave me some spiel about lost gods and pre-human civilizations.”

Mannerton actually shuddered, but tried to pass it off as the night’s chill. “Yes, well, he would do that. It’s part of the way he and his cronies work. Sometimes it suits them to use that kind of thing to obfuscate what they’re really about.”

“And what is that, Professor?”

Mannerton’s face clouded. “I have my suspicions. Something dark. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“My guess is, he knows who’s in that tomb.”

Mannerton just nodded, staring into the distance.

****

The small company came together at nine the following morning. Luke had slept unusually fitfully for him, his mind churning with images of blood-drenched swords, toppling cities, and grinning cosmic horrors. Buildings, twisted and contorted in the most bizarre forms, heaped upon each other; rose up from beds of molten lava and were sucked down again by monstrous tides. Humanity, or some grotesque variant on it, seethed among these horrors, swept aside by the enormity of the cataclysms. And behind it all, the serene face of the old man smiled casually.

That same old man, Lupescu, waited with his usual patience while Mannerton, Tensley, and a few others came to him in the long hut.

Mannerton and the old man faced each other; there were no smiles, no handshakes. Lupescu pulled the sheet of vellum from the breast pocket of his suit, a suit which looked, amazingly, as though it had been neatly pressed an hour before.

“Well, Mannerton, it seems you really have stumbled across something of interest this time,” he said softly, almost mockingly.

“Hardly stumbled,” retorted Mannerton through clenched teeth. Luke could see he was containing his fury with difficulty. The very presence of the old man was anathema to him. All the more so because it was essential.

“You want to show me?”

Mannerton didn’t answer, instead turning to his companions and introducing them, explaining their status, though he knew the old man didn’t give a damn. After the cursory exchange of pleasantries, Mannerton squared up to Lupescu again. “I want to make a few things clear. What we have found must be kept a close secret for the time being. You know as well as I do that every crank, every gold-digger on God’s earth would descend on this place in five minutes if they knew about this.”

“Who else knows?” asked the old man and Luke felt the sudden steel in his voice; the hardness behind it.

Mannerton glanced at Luke. “No one. You alone, outside of those here.”

“That is for the best.”

“And until this business is resolved, you won’t be able to leave,” Mannerton added.

The old man studied Luke impassively. “I’m sure your guards will ensure I don’t make a bolt for it.”

Luke would have smiled at that, but there was a tension in the air which reminded him of the atmosphere before a battle. Beyond the huts and airstrip, the desert was very quiet, its storms dormant, as though it, too, focussed on the drama.

Mannerton led the party outside and along the rim of the encampment. There were a number of guards around the camp, watching; but only Luke went with the party to the dunes where the tombs had been found. As always, he had his gun with him. Down in the dunes a rectangular opening, its inner air choked with shadows, waited. Last to enter it, Luke turned to look back at the desert. Like a great beast, it seemed to be listening avidly.

Inside the passageway, the air was oddly cold, though stale, the structure beyond having been sealed up for untold centuries. The party wound downwards along the sand-clogged passage, which seemed to spiral slowly and over a long distance to surprising depths. This was no ordinary tomb. Their lamps lit the way to a precarious ledge: a rim which circled the interior of an immense dome, an edifice that had been completely buried over time. They had come into it, not through a doorway, but by a high window. Below them, obscured by shadow and heaped sand, the vastness of the interior spread out. The far wall of this stunning space was over a hundred yards away, the lamplight barely able to pick out its details. Scores of pillars rose up from the floor to support the upper structure, and among the dust and sand, blocks and carved stones leaned erratically.

“It’s the size of a palace,” said Mannerton. “But it’s a mausoleum. Each of the blocks below is a sarcophagus.” Although he spoke softly, his words carried to all members of the party.

“Have you opened any of them?” asked Lupescu.

“All had been opened long before we came here.” By the lamplight it was possible to see where each of the tombs had had their lids rudely removed and tossed aside. Some of them had crumbled, or broken into pieces. “Whoever were buried here have long since been removed, their treasures taken.” It was a typical situation in the desert: grave robbers were frequently at work mere years after even pharaohs had been buried.

“Do you know who they were?” the old man asked.

“Egyptians. All of them. Not royalty—though men of stature within their society. High-ranking officials. Their servants put these tombs here. Although Egyptians did not build this mausoleum,” added Mannerton, with a cool certainty.

“Quite so,” Lupescu nodded. “It was here long before them. As was the tomb you have brought me here to see.”

Mannerton shot him a glance, but the old man ignored it. Instead they continued the long, spiral walk down the inside of the dome. Luke brought up the rear of the party: he had trodden this path before and it never failed to raise the hackles on the back of his neck. It was like sinking down into a time pit, a remote period; it was also disturbingly like something out of last night’s disjointed dreams. There were ancient inscriptions and drawings on the walls; most had been worn away, or faded to total obscurity. Even so it was possible to glimpse strange, unique figures, depicted against a background of angled buildings, or dizzy pillars. Since speaking with Lupescu, and more particularly since his strange dreams, Luke read far more into these images. In this forgotten place, it was easy to give credence to their reality.

Down on the floor of the mausoleum, Lupescu studied the first of the desecrated tombs. They seemed to tell him little he did not already know, or expect. He said nothing, nodding as he passed them. Mannerton led the party to a curious doorway at the far side of the area. This had puzzled Luke when he had first seen it: it was just tall enough to allow a man to walk upright beneath its portal, but it was at least a dozen feet wide. The old man paused before it, studying the inscription above.

“You have read this?” he said to Mannerton.

“My limited knowledge of its tongue,” said the latter coldly, “tells me it is a warning.”

“It’s a sister tongue to one once spoken in Ib and Sarnath and in some parts of Kadath. Those who pass in, know that death is the guise of sleep and that which sleeps will wake at the appointed hour. Yes, a warning. Yet you have already survived your visits.”

Mannerton grunted something inaudible and led the way forward. The lamps seemed to dim a little as the party went through. Beyond, apparently hewn from living desert bedrock, a great cavern yawned. Something far up in its invisible ceiling flapped away. Ahead of the group, a wide stairway dropped down to an oval floor. This had been swept clear of debris and sand, revealing slabs of fabulously preserved stone, inlaid with what could have been astrological designs, untouched over the millennia. These only drew the eye for a moment, for in the centre of the chamber, raised on a stone dais, the sarcophagus sat. Carved from black obsidian, shot through with zigzag grey veins, it dominated the place.

As Luke followed the party down the steps, which themselves were three feet wide, he levelled his gun, just as he had done the first time he had been here. This place, more than anything else he had encountered in life, really did give him the creeps. The walls, some of which were beyond the light cast by the lamps, gave an impression of being alive: breathing, listening. If he tried to look into the darkness that had hidden them them for too long, he started to get dizzy. He concentrated on the block of stone.

The old man stood below it, next to Mannerton. “Have you tried to open it?” he asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. In that awful space it carried: everyone heard it clearly, almost as though thought had transferred itself.

“Not yet,” said Mannerton.

Luke listened to the exchange between the two men: more like priests in a holy sepulchre than archaeologists. He had been surprised at Mannerton’s unwillingness to open the sarcophagus, once it had been found. Usually archaeologists, careful or not, couldn’t wait to study their finds. They lived for it. But the others in the party had been perfectly supportive of the professor. They were frightened of the thing. Luke had been told about the so-called curse on the tomb of Tutankhamun: there had been some weird deaths after its opening. So these guys were taking no chances. Fair enough. It’s how the soldier in him would have acted. And Mannerton had told him they didn’t want to damage anything inadvertently.

“You know what this is,” the professor was saying to the old man.

“I believe so. Alhazred spoke of the Nameless City, lost in the limitless Arabian deserts. And the Book of Eibon speaks of the tomb of the Fallen Bearer of the Star Gift. You know of these sources, Mannerton?”

The professor tensed, as though reluctant to answer, but he nodded. “I have been to the Miskatonic. I’ve read parts of the Arab’s works.”

Lupescu’s mouth stretched in a thin smile. “They go against everything you have been taught. Mad ravings. And yet, here is proof. The creatures which crawled and hopped through those forbidden cities were here. Long before Man walked. The door we came through was made for other than human passage. You cannot deny that.”

If Luke expected Mannerton or any of the others to laugh, or pour scorn on the old man’s half-cracked comments, he was disappointed. They hung on every word now, ensnared by the soft voice and its outrageous revelations.

“Read the inscription—I know you can,” breathed Mannerton. It was a plea, not a command.

Both men climbed the dais to stand at the foot of the sarcophagus. On the huge lid, some nine feet in length and four wide, the pseudo-Arabic lettering which Luke had seen on the sheet of vellum covered all but a few inches of it. Lupescu studied it for a few moments, his lips still. “It is the language of the Old Ones,” he said at last. “I dare not speak it aloud. If I do, it will open more than this stone.”

To his surprise, Luke could see a deep fear etched on the face of the old man now. Lupescu had been so calm, so perfectly relaxed, since the moment they had met in Cairo, that this sudden cold change shocked Luke.

Mannerton must have noticed, yet he pressed the old man to speak. “Who lies there?” he said, finger thrust out accusingly at the stone lid.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie—”

“No more riddles!” Mannerton hissed. “Tell me, old man, or by God I’ll have the lid off anyway. I mean it.”

The old man actually backed away, as though a serpent had reared up in front of him. He was nodding. “You must take the utmost precautions first. The thing which sleeps within is itself protected. By powers from beyond time’s dawn. They are not to be mocked. The lid speaks of these things. It speaks of the Star Gift and its Wielder. Locked away for eternity, for the safety of Order. Like others of the Old Ones: chained.” He was perspiring now, his words tumbling out of him, his dignified manner slipping.

Mannerton, on the other hand, was quick to snatch the initiative, seeing his great rival under unexpected duress. His temperament asserted itself. “Precautions? Such as? What must be done? I tell you, Lupescu, I mean to open this.”

The old man nodded, stepping back down from the dais. He looked around at the other members of the party. Apart from Luke, there were Tensley and four others, each of them accomplished men in their field. “How far will your people go? How dedicated are they?” His words made Luke feel suddenly chill and he realised he had subconsciously trained the muzzle of the weapon on the old man.

“What the blazes are you talking about?” snarled Mannerton. “We’ll have none of your ravings here, Lupescu. Don’t think you can use charlatanism to fool us. Or scare us. It won’t work.”

“Very well. If this is the tomb of the Wielder of the Chaos Blade, it has been sealed by the Elder Gods. If it is opened, there will be a penalty. Servants of the Old Ones located the sarcophagus and brought it here from its original prison, although it was at a terrible cost to themselves. They thought they could open it and re-awaken the sleeper within. And failed. They carved its inscription. Its terrible warning.”

It was Tensley’s voice which broke the awkward silence. “He’s mad!” He had spoken, as he thought, softly, but again the acoustics of that weird cavern amplified the words.

The old man had now reached the floor of the chamber and was very slowly moving away from the sarcophagus.

Mannerton glowered down at him . “No, I don’t think so. Just devious. Always the same. Well, Lupescu, it’s been a very impressive performance. And just what is this penalty? What sacrifice are we expected to make?”

The old man had reached Luke’s side. Luke had been too absorbed to realise he was there. Sensing him, he stepped back, his weapon still raised, his finger touching the edge of the trigger.

“You have scorned me, though you have envied me, down all these years,” Lupescu told Mannerton. “My reticence on the great esoteric secrets has earned your bitterness. Yet now, at last, when I speak of them, you deride them. You and others like you, like these would-be acolytes. Why should I pass on the knowledge of the ages to you? You, who would do little more than mock.”

“You prevaricate! What sacrifice?” Mannerton repeated.

“Your sanity. Your souls. Your essence throughout eternity.”

“Professor,” said another of the archaeologists. “This is beyond a joke. Can we just get on with it? Our time here is limited. Did you really have to drag him here to have us listen to this? You have a reputation to think of. We all have.”

Mannerton was considering this, nodding slowly. “You go too far, Lupescu,” he said, far more quietly. “I don’t know what you are protecting, but it isn’t going to work.”

“As you wish.” The old man turned to Luke. “I am not going to wait here while they open it. You will have to shoot me to prevent me from leaving. If you have any sense, young man, you will come with me.”

“Phillips!” Mannerton called. “Don’t let him out of your sight! You hear me? Lupescu, you’re not leaving the camp. I warn you, he will shoot you if you try to leave the camp.”

The old man was already climbing the steps back up to the elongated doorway. Luke followed him, glad to turn his back on the tomb and its unsettling atmosphere. The old man may be mad, but right now he seemed like a better prospect as far as company went.

****

In the cavern, Mannerton stood glaring at the retreating backs of the old man and the guard. To hell with Lupescu. He just wasn’t prepared to share this, had to do it his way.

“Come on,” said Mannerton to the others. “We should have done this days ago.”

Eagerly, the others rushed up to join him at the top of the dais. Four of them each took a corner of the great stone lid, Mannerton and Tensley at either end. At a nod from their leader, they heaved and strained. At first it seemed as though their efforts would be in vain, then something cracked under the lid, and a small cloud of dust puffed out from one edge. They redoubled their efforts and felt the lid shift. A third heave and it began to slide across, until at length, after several more concerted jerks, the lid toppled. They tried to let it slide to the top of the dais, but its massive weight scorned their efforts. It tumbled off the dais and down on to the polished floor with a resonating crash. Yet it showed no sign of a crack, no hint of breaking.

Mannerton was first to peer through the dust clouds within the sarcophagus: swirling like mist on a pond. The others drew back, looking inside cautiously. Gradually the dust settled. And as one, the members of the party gasped at what had been revealed within. They had none of them been prepared for this.

****

Up in the chamber of the dome, Luke and Lupescu paused outside the door to the lower chamber they had quitted.

“I don’t intend to shoot you,” said Luke with a tired smile. “Still, we’d better wait here.”

The old man seemed to have recovered himself. “They have no idea what they are doing. Mannerton thinks I am joking. Hiding the truth behind mad stories of gods and a time that never existed. You probably think so, too.”

Luke shrugged. “Down there, I could believe anything. I reckon Mannerton believes something of what you say. Part of him just doesn’t want to face it.”

“Man’s curiosity has been a useful tool to dark forces over the centuries,” said the old man. He was about to say more when from below, carrying up to them as clearly as gunfire, the terrible screaming had begun.

****

The first thing Luke was aware of as he reached the top of the stair was the smell. It was a frightful combination of ozone and scorched flesh, as though a bolt of electricity had seared through the huge chamber. The whole place was glowing, the walls throbbing as if charged by a hidden dynamo. Sigils and glyphs stood out on them like pulsing veins. Shapes writhed within the rock: an army of creatures heaving at reality’s thin fabric, urgently trying to tear through it. Spread out around the circumference of the chamber, tossed aside like dolls, five bodies lay inert, faint wisps of steam or smoke rising from them. They were crumpled and charred: Luke knew instantly they were dead. They seemed to have been electrocuted.

“They opened the sarcophagus,” the old man breathed at his shoulder. “I told them it was protected.”

“Yeah, wired up by some bright bastard,” Luke growled. “Someone who already found this place.” He motioned for silence. He could hear something, an incoherent mumbling.

The lid of the sarcophagus had indeed been lifted. It was at the foot of the dais. A faint glow from within the opened stone block flickered. The sounds came from beyond it. Luke led the way down the steps, his weapon raised, ready for instant use. He and the old man eased around the dais, neither eager to look into it. Luke pulled up short with an indrawn gasp as he saw what was beyond.

Mannerton was squatting on his haunches, a grotesque batrachian figure, his back to the dais, gazing up at what should have been the wall before him. Now, in the pitch black, it was a cosmic window, open on to the vastness of a starless space. Framed by a thirty-foot span, the columns riddled with bizarre glyphs, it gaped on to the maw of infinity, a well of darkness seething with a suggestion of living energy. How was this possible, here deep under the earth?

The old man’s lips moved as he read those glyphs to himself. Luke went to Mannerton, where another shock awaited him. His arms ended at his elbows in two globular lumps, as though they had been made of plastic, melted down by the heat of a white-hot fire. Mannerton’s eyes were bulging: gazing upon the face of some monumental horror in that abyss before him. His mutterings were incomprehensible: as though not spoken in any human tongue.

“Mannerton! What the hell happened?” Luke said, gripping the professor’s shoulder and shaking him. Even through the jacket, the professor felt intensely hot. Luke released him. There was no response. Mannerton went on quietly raving to himself.

Lupescu had drawn back from the archway, staring now at Mannerton. “His mind has been blasted away, scorched as badly as his arms.”

“What the hell did this?” Luke snapped, backing away from the portal cautiously, gun trained on it.

“The thing in the sarcophagus,” said the old man. “Go and look.”

Luke swung the muzzle of the gun round on him. “You look. I’ll see if any of the others are alive.”

“They won’t be!” the old man hissed. “Don’t go near them.” Reluctantly, his face a mask of panic, Lupescu crept up the steps of the dais, deeply wary of the open sarcophagus. When he finally reached it, he leaned forward infinitely slowly, until he could see what lay within, his face bathed in a red glow from below. Almost at once he recoiled, as though a nest of serpents writhed there.

“Who is it?” called Luke. “Is it your so-called Wielder of the sword? Or is it a bloody generator? Booby trap?”

The old man started backing down the steps, face dripping with perspiration. His suavity was gone, the years piling up on him, his very body shrivelling. Luke snorted with impatience and climbed to the dais, though equally as wary as the old man had been. He put the gun down before he went to the open sarcophagus. He didn’t want to be welded to it by whatever power it generated.

The curious red light from within etched the contents clearly. Luke’s jaw dropped. There wasn’t a body in there at all, or any bones. Instead, stretched out like a corpse, on a bed of white sand, was a single object. A sword.

Luke swung round to Lupescu, but he had moved, spider-like, to the foot of the steps. Luke could smell the fear on him, even above the stench of the charred corpses.

“You knew this was here?”

The old man nodded. “The Chaos Blade. Mannerton tried to lift it. No man can. Only one being can raise that weapon. The Wielder himself. But the Elder Gods will prevent it if they can. Eternal pain awaits him if he tries. So says the lid.”

Luke swore impatiently. “I’m going to need help. Go and get some of the other guards. I’ll try and sort Mannerton out.” He’d had enough of this mumbo-jumbo. Somebody was screwing about here. They didn’t need archaeologists to sort things out, they needed sappers. He re-slung his weapon over his shoulder and went back to Mannerton, trying to rouse him again. If he wasn’t treated soon, he’d likely die. There was no response; the professor was locked in a world of his own, a world of total madness, eyes locked on that abyss. God alone knew what he saw there. Luke couldn’t bring himself to look at it, although somehow he felt he would see an immense, malign face scrutinising him.

A new sound snapped his head up. Peering into the shadows of the far wall, Luke saw jerky movements. One of the bodies twitched. But the sounds came from beyond the dais. Luke went cautiously towards the corpse: it rolled over. Jeeze, the man was still alive! Luke stopped, swinging round to the stairs.

Lupescu had adopted a new pose, eyes closed in concentration, mouth forming the words of what appeared to be an incantation. What the hell was he playing at? Praying? His voice, very low, unnaturally deep, croaked, his hands lifting and falling slowly, as though in supplication. He turned to another of the bodies and directed his speech at it. It moved. In answer to the old man’s murmurings.

In total disbelief, Luke watched as the old man restored each of the five fallen archaeologists to movement. They sat up, the terrible extent of the fire-damage only too plain. They could not possibly have survived such a blaze of energy, yet each of them struggled to his feet: clumsy, half-falling, groping their way forward. Two of them had no faces left to speak of, yet still they staggered on, forming a semi-circle around the dais. Something else was happening to them, as though the old man was moulding them, like a potter shaping his clay, his deep, unearthly voice the instrument of his power. They were no longer men, their shapes alien, their features distorted, their bulk spreading so that their bodies were slug-like; their arms elongated into bloated tentacles. Their mouths flapped, fish-like, new eyes replacing what had been scorched away. Creatures from the dawn of time, from the primal ooze, from cities where no man had ever walked.

Luke felt his bowels clenching. He was powerless to move.

The old man opened his eyes. “The Old Ones have heard me across the aeons. Out in that gulf beyond space and time. They give me their power. Through me, their servants live again, within these vessels of human flesh. And with their resurrection comes the key.” He walked forward, towards the dais, all of his old dignity restored; that and far more. He breathed new power.

Beyond, framed by the arch, the huge area of darkness rippled. Within it, gigantic shapes coalesced, seen as if behind a thick film of shadows. From them there welled a distinct wave of evil power, a malefic force which filled Luke with rising dread, like nothing he had ever experienced before. The old man was speaking to them, genuflecting before them. They were his blasphemous gods, though in what nether hell they dwelled was beyond reason itself.

Yet there were other forces within that grim universe, forces which clashed with the burgeoning terrors. A titanic struggle was taking place, a war resounding down the millennia. Mesmerised, Luke half-glimpsed the cosmic conflict, fought out so far away, yet so close, silent but suggestive of deafening fury.

The old man had gone up again to the sarcophagus. “I have waited a thousand lifetimes for this moment. I am no longer denied my destiny,” he called to Luke. “The Old Ones shield me.” As he said this, the five monstrous hybrids turned as one to the abyss, forming a line across its mouth, the slumped, impotent figure of Mannerton beyond them. He, too, had undergone a vile transmogrification, his head a bulbous extension of his shoulders.

A shield, Luke thought. These abominations are Lupescu’s shield.

The old man bent down and reached inside the sarcophagus. His hands gripped the hilt of the Chaos Blade, lifting it with a shout of triumph. “I have crossed the prison of time for this moment. The sword and its Wielder are reunited!”

As he cried this, bolts of light tore from the heart of the gateway. Like the jagged prongs of an electric storm, each of them struck the shambling figures before the arch. They were more than a shield, they were conductors, deflecting the wrath of the Elder Gods and their crackling protection. And while the deformed beings endured devastating blasts which far transcended what they had already absorbed when Mannerton had lifted the sword, Lupescu raised higher the Chaos Blade.

He held it before him like a huge standard. The Wielder, the old man, and the blade were indeed bound together again, centuries of separation sloughed away. Those bolts which bypassed the row of ghastly figures struck the sword, but it simply flung them back on themselves, discharging into the chasm, their puissance diminished.

For a moment, Luke tore himself from the numbing torpor that gripped him. With a demonic howl which broke the dam holding back his own wave of primeval terror, he squeezed the trigger of the automatic weapon and unleashed a withering hail of lead blindly into the cavern. The old man, no longer bent and slumped, but tall and powerful, swung round instantly, the Chaos Blade before him. Like a magnet, it drew every bullet to it. They smacked up against the steel, winging away instantly as the hail was redirected: fanning out in a blanket. As they did so, their arcs curled around the rim of the dais.

Like a cloud of maddened hornets, they ripped into the bloated bodies of the five shapes, spattering the floor with gobbets of blood and freshly reformed flesh. The creatures lurched back, jerked like puppets as the lead tore through them. One by one they were torn apart and once more flung across the chamber floor, though with a nauseating finality this time. An abrupt cutting off of the noise wrenched Luke out of his frenzy: he had run out of ammunition. He fumbled with the gun, ejecting the clip and groping in his pocket for another. As the five amorphous shapes disintegrated, another bolt of light crackled from the chasm: there was nothing now to reduce its energy or the speed with which it struck the old man between the shoulder blades. Before Lupescu could spin round to defend himself with the blade, the white-hot bolt caught him, smashing him aside with the power of a hurricane.

The Chaos Blade tumbled from his grip, clattering down the steps of the dais. Rolling aside, screaming in fury and pain, the Wielder—no longer demonic, an old man once more—scuttled like a broken spider down the steps. His hand grabbed air as he tried to regain the fallen weapon. It skidded across the polished floor, stopping inches from the lip of the dark gateway. A figure shambled between it and Lupescu, blocking his way forward.

The old man got to his knees with a huge effort. Luke could see the smouldering ruin that was his back, where the bolt had caught him. His spine was exposed, bent like wax. Yet something forced him up onto his feet, some deathless force as old as time itself. The revolting thing which Mannerton had become lurched forward: a dreadful nemesis to the bitter end, distorted arms lifting for a nightmare embrace. Lupescu tried to evade it, but could hardly move for the agonies spearing through him.

Luke watched as the two figures, limned by the hungry vault beyond them, grappled, Mannerton’s shortened arms still clamping the old man: seeming to burn into his flesh, leaching onto him in an unbreakable hold. In the void above and beyond them, a cyclopean head rose in the darkness, baleful and satanic, as if by its presence it could prise apart the grisly protagonists. Lupescu made a last attempt to grope for the fallen Chaos Blade, as something pseudopodic flowed from the Mannerton shape and engulfed the arm. The old man began to scream; the sound was choked off as both figures staggered to the lip of the precipice. Writhing and twisting, somehow merging into a travesty of humanity—a single, self-destructive organism—they toppled out into those frightful depths. Beyond them the demonic gaze sank back to the space beyond the outer gulfs.

Luke swung his weapon up and fired another long burst. Whether the bullets had any effect on any of this madness, he could not tell, but the gateway was a black, impenetrable curtain once more. As he finished, the chamber was plunged into silence, total and utter. And on the lip of the abyss, something hummed, as if charged with electricity. It was the Chaos Blade. It was waiting, like a living entity. Luke’s chest heaved, his body shaking. He lowered the gun.

The sword. No man could lift it, the Wielder had said. Mannerton had tried. But it would be worth an emperor’s ransom! Take it! whispered a voice in Luke’s head. Sell it! You’ll live like a god.

As he hesitated, tempted in spite of everything he had seen, the abyss shimmered once more. He heard a growing murmur: the mounting sound of a great, gathering host. Silhouetted in starlight against the edge of the gateway, rising from the pit beyond it, shapes flowed forward: writhing, slithering. He would have opened fire, but fresh terror clamped his every muscle. His breath frozen, he watched as those emissaries of chaos leaked around the Chaos Blade, inching it backwards.

A moment more and it had been absorbed. The crawling horrors subsided. With them went the accursed weapon.

Transfixed, Luke felt his head swimming as he, too, was drawn towards the pit. From behind him, a shout dragged him back from the brink.

“What’s going on down here? Hey, that you, Luke?”

Two of the other security guards had arrived, their guns ready to release new waves of lead. “We were coming down to see if things were okay, but we heard gunfire. You okay?”

Luke nodded. He couldn’t speak, trying to indicate the fallen corpses of the former archaeologists. But all that was left were the coagulated pools of their remains, nothing to suggest that five living humans had been there.

One of the guards was peering into the sarcophagus. “Empty,” he grunted. “I guess someone got here first after all. Like a lot of the others they found.”

“So what’s behind you, Luke? That another chamber?”

At last Luke was able to move. He twisted round. The gateway was no more. The stone walls of the chamber had closed up like a healed wound. In the centre of what had been the opening, a huge etching stood out in relief. The Chaos Blade.

“This place is a warren,” he said, his voice surprisingly loud and firm. “There are things down here you really don’t want to see. You’re right. We’re too late. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where’s Mannerton? And what were you shooting at?” they asked him as they made their way back up towards the dawn.

“I think he’s losing his mind. He … uh … took off, along another gallery. You go a bit crazy in these places. Crawling with ghosts, or bats. And worse. I got a bit edgy. Why don’t we just leave it to the prof. Me—I’ve had it with this desert. I’m for Cairo. Like you guys said, there’s enough in the bank.”

The others laughed, glad to have an excuse to quit the place. “Now you’re talking.”

Far below them, in the spaces under and beyond the earth, behind the stars, the war went on. The life of the Chaos Blade and its Wielder had been, for a moment, detained. One story ended. Another struggled to be born.

Acknowledgments

Nick Nightmare Investigates was first published in a slightly different, limited edition by The Alchemy Press/Airgedlamh Publications, 2014.

“The Vogue Prince” first appeared in The Alchemy Book of Pulp Heroes, edited by Mike Chinn (The Alchemy Press, UK, 2012).

“Mayhem on Mad Gull Island” first appeared as “Nightmare on Mad Gull Island” in Cthulhu 4, a chapbook edited by Jon Harvey (Spectre Press, UK, 2013).

“Kiss the Day Goodbye” first appeared in The Alchemy Book of Pulp Heroes 2 , edited by Mike Chinn (The Alchemy Press, UK, 2013).

“You Don’t Want To Know” first appeared in a slightly different version in Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, edited by Stefan Jones (Fedogan and Bremer, US, 2013).

“The Chaos Blade” first appeared in Worlds of Cthulhu, edited by Robert Price (Fedogan and Bremer, US, 2012).

The remaining stories appear here for the first time.

The author is especially indebted to Dennis Weiler for painstakingly reading through the stories and steering me away from inappropriate language and what you might call “Anglicanisms”. Nick Nightmare would not be the same otherwise.

I would also like to say a Big Thanks to those who have encouraged and supported me in bringing the collection to life, in particular:

- Peter, Jan and Mike at Alchemy Press, and specifically Mike for really getting into the swing of things;

- Bob Price, who had no idea what he was letting loose;

- Steve Jones and Dave Sutton;

- Jim Pitts, whose artwork has so vividly portrayed the man and his quirky world;

- Jon Harvey;

- Sam, for rescuing the IT system more than once;

- and Judy, for her helpful suggestions, particularly that I include Bella in the proceedings.

About the Author

Adrian Cole is a native of and lives in North Devon, England.

My first published work was a ghost story for IPC magazines (UK, 1972) followed by a trilogy of sword & planet novels, The Dream Lords (Zebra, US, 1970s). Subsequently I have had more than two-dozen novels and numerous short stories published, many translated into foreign editions.

I have written science fiction, heroic fantasy, sword & sorcery, horror, pulp fiction, and Mythos as well as two young adult novels, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants (Spindlewood, UK, 1980s).

My best-known works are the Omaran Saga and Star Requiem fantasy quartets, both reprinted recently as e Books (Gollancz SF Gateway) and as audio books (Audible).

My collection Nick Nightmare Investigates (Alchemy UK), the first arc of stories about my hard-boiled occult private eye was the recipient of the 2015 British Fantasy Award for best collection. This is to be reprinted by Pulp Hero Press, together with two further volumes, Nightmare Cocktails and Nightmare Creatures. I also have another collection, Elak, King of Atlantis, also from Pulp Hero Press next year.

I have previously appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy and Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies.

I contribute regularly to the revised Weirdbook magazine (US) and have had several short horror stories in anthologies in both the US and the UK, most recently in The Mammoth Book of Halloween, The Alchemy Book of Horror, Hinnom, and Occult Detective Quarterly Presents.

Books by Adrian Cole

DREAM LORDS:

A Plague of Nightmares

Lord of Nightmares

Bane of Nightmares

OMARAN SAGA:

A Place Among the Fallen

Throne of Fools

The King of Light and Shadows

The Gods in Anger

STAR REQUIEM:

Mother of Storms

Thief of Dreams

Warlord of Heaven

Labyrinth of Worlds

VOIDAL:

Oblivion Hand

The Long Reach of Night

Sword of Shadows

Individual Novels:

Madness Emerging

Paths in Darkness

Wargods of Ludorbis

The Lucifer Experiment

Blood Red Angel

The Crimson Talisman

Storm Over Atlantis

Night of the Heroes

The Shadow Academy

Collections:

Nick Nightmare Investigates

Tough Guys

Young Adult:

Moorstones

The Sleep of Giants

Edited by:

Young Thongor