He walked forward, and all the Club’s built-in security defences went to work. Force shields sprang into being before him, fierce energy screens generated by salvaged alien machines down in the Club basement. The Walking Man strode through the force shields, and they popped like soap bubbles. Protective magics and potent sorceries snapped and crackled on the air, bending the very laws of reality to get at him, and none of them could touch him. Even the mechanical booby-traps failed to slow him down. Trap-doors opened beneath him, and he just kept walking. Spikes protruded from the wall, only to break in half against his long duster as though it was armour. Man-traps snapped together around his ankles, and he kicked them away.
The Walking Man headed straight for the packed crowd of waiting adventurers, who tensed, ready for action; and then he stopped before them and smiled easily. He looked back and forth, nodding briefly to familiar faces, and all the time his smile said
I can do any damned thing I want, and none of you can stop me.
“Stand aside,” he said finally, and his voice was quite cheerful and relaxed, as though he couldn’t imagine not being obeyed. Augusta Moon sniffed loudly and stepped out of the crowd to ostentatiously block his way. She scowled fiercely at him, her monocle screwed firmly into one eye, and brandished her staff of blessed wood tipped with silver.
“And if we don’t? Eh? What will you do then?”
“Then, I will kill as many of you as I have to, to get past you,” said the Walking Man, his voice as calm as though he was discussing the weather. “I walk in straight lines, to get to where I have to be, to do what I have to do. To carry out God’s will in this sinful world.”
“This isn’t His will,” I said, from the safety of the back of the crowd. “This is your will.”
“Ah, hello, John,” he said happily, and actually waved at me. “I was wondering what had happened to you. But you’re quite wrong, you know. When I take my aspect upon me, His will and my will are one and the same. To protect the innocent, by punishing the guilty.”
“You’d really kill us?” said Janissary Jane, her voice cold and measured. “All these good people?”
“If they’re standing against me,” said the Walking Man, his voice the very epitome of reason and patience, “then they’re standing against God’s will. Which means, by definition, they’re no longer good people. It’s really up to all of you what happens next. I’m not here for you. I want the Authorities.”
“Well you can’t have them!” snapped Augusta. “Never heard such arrogance in all my life! Now get out of here or I’ll stick this staff in one end and out the other!”
The Walking Man sighed. “There’s always one . . .”
Augusta Moon roared with rage and lashed out at him with her staff, her tweeds flying bravely as she launched herself at him. But the staff that had struck down so many monsters in its time slammed to a halt a few inches short of the Walking Man’s head, then snapped in two as it finally met an immovable force. Augusta cried out in shock and pain as the unexpected impact tore her half of the staff right out of her hands, and she watched in horror as the two pieces fell to the floor. The Walking Man looked at her sadly, then struck her down with a single blow. And since Augusta was really just a middle-aged woman, she hit the floor hard and lay there groaning.
Janissary Jane drew two automatic pistols out of nowhere and opened fire on the Walking Man. Veteran of a hundred demon wars, her guns were always loaded with blessed and cursed ammunition, but still none of them could find their target. Janissary Jane might be prepared, but the Walking Man was protected. She fired and fired, until both guns were empty, and the Walking Man stood there and let her do it. In the end, Jane looked down at her empty guns, put them away, and knelt to comfort Augusta.
Next up was Zhang the Mystic, Asian master of the unknown arts. A hero and a sorcerer since the nineteen thirties, Zhang wore a sweeping gown of gold, his long fingernails were pure silver, and his eyes burned with eldritch fires. He’d duelled demons from the Inferno, and faced down Elder Gods in his day, and founded most of the combat sorcery schools in the Nightside, and no-one knew more magic than he did. But all his spells and sorceries detonated harmlessly, savage destructive energies reduced to nothing more than fireworks. The Walking Man waited patiently until Zhang had exhausted himself, and then did Zhang the final insult of ignoring him.
Walker made his way forward through the crowd, and everyone fell back to let him pass, and see what he could do. Chandra and I stuck close behind him. The Walking Man’s smile widened as he recognised Walker, becoming insolent and taunting almost beyond bearing. Walker stopped right before him and studied him sadly, like a teacher disappointed by a promising pupil.
“Hello, Henry,” said the Walking Man. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Hold everything,” I said. “You two know each other?”
“Oh, he knows everyone, don’t you, Henry?” said the Walking Man. “Especially when they can be useful to him, to do those dirty and dangerous jobs that no-one else wants to know about. Henry doesn’t just deal with problems in the Nightside, you know. Especially after he lost his famous Voice and had to go out into the world to find a replacement.”
“That’s all right, Adrien,” said Walker, entirely unmoved. “I got it back.
Now stand down, Adrien, and surrender yourself to me.
”
And there it was, Walker’s Voice that could not be denied, hammering on the air like the Voice of God. This close, even I could feel the power of it, like the thunderstorm that breaks right over your head. I looked at the Walking Man, to see how he was taking it.
He laughed at Walker. “I know that Voice,” he said cheerfully. “I hear it every day. Only rather more clearly than that. I have to say, Henry, I’m very disappointed in you. That you of all people should be prepared to defend these upstart new Authorities. A mixture of old heroes and worse villains, and even two authentic monsters? What were you thinking?”
“I know my duty,” said Walker.
“So do I,” said the Walking Man. And he struck Walker down. The punch came out of nowhere, and Walker crashed to the floor and lay still. I was actually shocked. No-one touches Walker. And on the few occasions they had, he’d always bounced right back. But instead he lay there on the floor, barely moving, blood flowing from his mouth and nose. The Walking Man regarded the fallen man thoughtfully, then drew one of his guns. I reached inside my coat.
“Leave that man alone!”
The voice crackled on the air with natural authority, and we all, including the Walking Man, turned to look as Julien Advent led his new Authorities through the crowd. Julien looked very fine and every inch the hero, in his traditional Victorian clothes, including a sweeping black opera-cloak. The others gathered defensively around him, each with their own deadly glamour and gravitas. Even in such august company, surrounded by heroes and adventurers on all sides, there was still something noble and impressive about the new Authorities. Good and bad, determined to be better, not just for their own sakes but for all the Nightside. I moved in on one side of Julien, and Chandra took the other.
“We are the new Authorities,” Julien said flatly to the Walking Man. “We are the hope of the Nightside. For the first time in its long existence, the Nightside is being run by its own kind. The good, the bad and the unnatural, working together for the greater good. For a better future. We will remake the Nightside . . .”
“Don’t be naïve,” said the Walking Man, cutting right across him. “This place corrupts everyone. Look at you, the great Victorian Adventurer, reduced to running a cheap news rag. Look at who you associate with—the infamous John Taylor, who could have been so much more but settled for being just another sleazy enquiry agent. And Chandra Singh, standing up for the kind of monster he used to hunt. I had such hopes for you two . . . I thought, if I showed you . . . but you wouldn’t listen. The Nightside grinds everyone down, dragging them down to its own level, just because it can. There is no hope here, no future. Only filth and evil and corruption of the body and the soul. I will kill you, all of you presumptive Authorities, and that will send a message that cannot be ignored. Leave the Nightside, or die.”
“We can redeem the Nightside!” said Julien Advent.
“I don’t care,” said the Walking Man.
And then everything stopped, as I drew the flat black case from inside my coat and took out the Speaking Gun. People cried out all around me, shrinking back from the sudden dark presence in the room. It felt like standing over the corpse of your best friend or looking down at the hilt of the knife protruding from your guts. The Speaking Gun was death and horror and the end of all things, and just to be near it was to feel your heart stutter and taste bad blood in your mouth.
Julien Advent turned his head away, unable to look at it. The Walking Man curled his lip in disgust.
The Speaking Gun was right there in my head with me. A vicious, spiteful presence, almost overpowering in its ancient and awful power. It crashed against my mental shields, trying to force its way in and take control. Wanting, needing, demanding to be used, because for all its power, it couldn’t fire itself. It lived to kill, but it needed me for that, and so its voice howled in my head, telling me to pull the trigger and kill someone. Anyone. It didn’t care who. It never had. It just ached to say the words that would uncreate. The red raw meat of the Gun was heavy in my hand, a weight on my soul, dragging me down. But slowly, steadily, I set my will against it. And won. Because bad as it was, I had faced far worse in my time.
Somehow I kept the struggle out of my face, and when I finally pointed the Speaking Gun at the Walking Man, my hand was entirely steady. He looked at the Gun, then at me, and for the first time I heard uncertainty in his voice.
“Well,” he said, trying for a light touch and not quite bringing it off. “Look at that. The Speaking Gun; almost as infamous as you, John. I should have known it would show up here. It belongs in a place like this. I thought I destroyed it in Istanbul, five years ago, when the Silent Brotherhood were fighting their endless feud against the Drood Family . . . but it always comes back. Would you really use such a vile thing, John? Would you use such an evil thing, to stop a good man in his work? To use that Gun, in that way, would damn your soul forever.”
“Yes,” I said. “It would.”
And I slowly lowered the Speaking Gun, even as it hissed and squirmed in my hand. Because that was the real price the Gun Shop owner had wanted me to pay—for me to damn my own soul. And I wouldn’t do that, not even to save my friends. If only because I knew they would never have wanted me to do that.
“What are you doing?” Chandra Singh asked. “After all we went through to get that thing, now you’re not going to use it?”
“No,” I said.
“Then give it to me. I am not afraid to use it!”
“Chandra . . .”
“I have to do something!
He broke my sword!
”
And he grabbed the Speaking Gun and wrestled it from my hand. He aimed it at the Walking Man, but already his hand was shaking, and his eyes were very wide as he heard the Gun’s awful voice in his head, the terrible temptation—to use the Gun and keep on using it, for the sheer joy of slaughter. Julien reached out to Chandra, seeing the horror in his face, but I stopped him with a sharp gesture. This was Chandra’s fight, he had to do it for himself. For the sake of his own soul. Or he’d always wonder what he would have done.
I had faith in him.
And slowly, inch by inch, he lowered the Speaking Gun, fighting it all the way, refusing to be tempted or mastered. Because he was, at heart, a good man.
The Walking Man waited until the Speaking Gun was pointing at the floor, then he reached out and gently eased the Gun out of Chandra’s hand. The Indian monster hunter swayed, and almost fell, but Julien and I were there to support him. He was clearly shaken, and there was cold sweat on his grey face. The Walking Man hefted the Speaking Gun in his hand, turning it back and forth as though he’d never seen anything so ugly before. If he heard anything in his head, he hid it well. And having examined the thing thoroughly, and found not a trace of good in it, he crushed the Speaking Gun in his hand.
The bone and cartilage cracked and shattered, the red meat pulped, and the Speaking Gun cried out in agony in all our heads as it died. The Walking Man slowly opened his hand, and the already decaying pieces of the Speaking Gun fell from his hand to spatter on the floor. The Walking Man lifted his foot to crush what remained; but it had already disappeared, every last bit of it. Gone, back to the Gun Shop perhaps, or to wherever else in the world it could do the most harm.