The living Merlin was tall, easily eight feet, and grossly fat from lifetimes of indulging his many appetites. Naked, his skin was flushed, stretched taut with heavy rolls of fat, and covered in ancient Celtic and Druidic tattoos. The designs were hard to make out, stretched and distorted by his huge shape. His face was wide, his arms and legs huge. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull, and his smile showed teeth yellowed with age. There was something in those eyes, and in that smile, that held me where I was like a mouse hypnotised by a snake. The knowledge in that stare, the centuries of experience, the sheer concentrated happy evil ...
Dried blood had caked under his long fingernails, and more was trapped in the heavy lines round his mouth. Goat’s horns curled up from his lowering forehead, and scarlet flames danced up from his eyes, rising and falling as his gaze moved this way and that. They say he has his father’s eyes ... And an inverted pentagram had been branded deep into his bare chest. No-one was going to steal this Merlin’s heart.
Simply sitting there, on his brutal throne, Merlin’s presence was overwhelming. He seemed to curdle the bar’s atmosphere and poison the air by being there. Merlin Satanspawn, the Devil’s only begotten son, the anti-Christ who’d corrupted and destroyed the greatest dream of all, to make his Sinister Albion.
Anyone else would have been helpless under his gaze. But I had an angel’s feather, Suzie had her shotgun, and Alex ... was Alex.
The bar’s muscular bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, had held their ground when everyone else ran. They stood poised together at the end of the bar, ready for action. They weren’t impressed by the living Merlin any more than they had been by the dead Merlin who used to manifest in Strangefellows. In fact, the Coltranes were famous for not being impressed by anyone. Which came in very handy when it came to chucking-out time. They looked to Alex for instructions, and he gestured urgently for them to stay put. Merlin turned his great head slowly to look at the two muscular young women, then he licked his lips slowly. Betty and Lucy both shuddered suddenly, despite themselves. Merlin raised one fat hand, and a rose appeared in it out of nowhere. He offered it to the two bouncers, and they both turned up their noses. Merlin laughed softly, a flat horrid sound with all the wickedness of the world in it. He brought the rose to his mouth and breathed on it, so it withered and died in a moment.
“Big deal,” said Alex, his voice steady. “I can do that most mornings. Of course, I am not a morning person.”
“Hush,” said Merlin. “Be still. I have come to the Nightside in search of my errant King. Pretty little Artur. He is mine, and I will have him again. I do enjoy this Nightside ... Love what you’ve done with the place. So delightfully uncomplicated, and unhypocritical when it comes to sin and temptation. I really must come again, when I have the time to properly indulge myself. I do like to play though I’m so big I usually break my toys ...”
“We’re not toys,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm and casual and not in any way impressed. “You may be the big mover and shaker in your world, but we’ve seen better. And you’re not in your world now.”
“But my father is everywhere, in all worlds,” said Merlin. “And where he is, I have power. Do not think I am weak because I am out of my domain.”
He gestured lazily with one plump hand at Lucy Coltrane, and she cried out in pain as her back arched suddenly. Her breath came fast and panicked, her eyes full of horror. Merlin gestured again, and Lucy’s chest split apart in a flurry of blood and broken bone. Her heart ripped itself out of the great wound in her chest and flew across the intervening space to nestle into Merlin’s waiting hand. Lucy collapsed as all the strength went out of her, blood still spurting from the great wound between her breasts and spraying from her slack mouth with her last few gasps for breath. Betty was there to hold Lucy before she hit the floor, but Lucy was already dead, her wide eyes fixed and staring. Betty lowered her slowly to the blood-slick floor and sat there with her, hugging the dead body to her while she cried silent, angry tears. And Merlin Satanspawn brought the still-beating heart to his mouth and ate it greedily, stuffing the pulsing meat into his mouth. And when he was done, and he’d eaten every last bit of it, he licked all the blood from his fingers like a small child with a treat.
I had to physically stop Suzie from giving him both barrels in the face. I grabbed her arm and held it firmly, pitting all my strength against hers. Even her specially made blessed and cursed bullets wouldn’t touch Merlin Satanspawn. And I wasn’t ready to lose my Suzie the way Betty had lost her Lucy. Suzie stopped fighting me abruptly, her furious gaze still fixed on Merlin. She lowered her shotgun and nodded briefly. Not giving up; just waiting for a better chance. Behind me, I could hear Alex breathing heavily. I knew he had all kinds of weapons and protections stashed away, but I hoped he had more sense than to try to use any of them. He and the Coltranes had been together for years, but this was no time for grand gestures. This was a time for cold thought, and plans, and eventually some very cold revenge, when the opportunity presented itself. Merlin smiled on us all.
“That wasn’t a demonstration of power. That was a little something to get your attention. This ... is the demonstration.”
And Lucy Coltrane sat bolt upright in Betty’s arms, drawing in a deep breath of air. The great wound in her chest was gone, her eyes were wide open, and she grabbed on to Betty with desperate hands as she fought to get her breathing back under control again. She had been dead, and now she was alive again; and Merlin Satanspawn chuckled happily.
“I am my father’s son, inflicted on the world to do his will; and I can do anything the Lamb could do.”
(And I remembered Jerusalem Stark saying that his new allies could bring his dead wife back to life. That he’d seen proof ...)
“What are you doing here?” I said to Merlin. “What do you want with us?”
“This place called to me. My magic tells me that this world’s Merlin spent time here.”
“Yes,” said Alex. “He was buried in the cellars under the bar. But he’s dead and gone now. You missed him.”
“Pity,” said the living Merlin. “I would have enjoyed showing him what he could have become. If only he’d had more ambition.” He considered Alex thoughtfully. “You’re of his line, though the blood has been diluted through many generations. I have no descendents ... I kill them all as soon as they appear. I have no use for ... competition. But, there’s some of me in you, boy. I could just eat you up ...”
I moved quickly forward to place myself between Merlin and Alex, doing my best to meet his terrible gaze with my best hard look.
“Your King Artur isn’t here, and none of us have seen him in ages.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Merlin. “He came to this Nightside against my wishes, and he has never returned. And I can’t have that. Can’t have people thinking they can go against my wishes. My magic tells me you have a gift for finding things, and people, John Taylor. I can see your gift, hiding within you. You only think you know what it is. Use that gift for me, find my missing Artur, and you and your friends can live.”
“If I’m to find him,” I said steadily, “I need to know about him. What is Artur doing here? What is he looking for?”
“A toy, a trinket,” said Merlin. “Something I’d already told him would do him no good.”
“Excalibur,” I said. “He wanted Excalibur, didn’t he?”
Merlin looked at me for a long moment, and I could feel my skin crawl, feel my legs shake. My heart was hammering in my chest. He could kill me in a moment, and we both knew it.
“I want my Artur,” said Merlin. “Find him for me. Or you ... are no use to me.”
“Don’t you threaten him,” Suzie said immediately, her shotgun trained on his face again.