I raised my gift and forced my inner eye all the way open, making it look in a direction I normally had sense enough to avoid. I concentrated, drawing on every resource I had, and I Saw beyond this world and into the Next. I found who I was looking for and called his name; and he came. A great door opened up in the middle of the bar, spilling a bright and brilliant light into the crimson glare, forcing it back. All the demons stopped and looked round, as a great mongrel dog with a shaggy head and drooping ears bounded out of the door and into the bar. He went straight for the demons nearest Donavon, and tore right through them, gripping them with his powerful jaws and shaking them back and forth like a terrier with a rat. The demons cried out miserably, and fell apart. Donavon looked at the dog, and his whole face lit up in amazed disbelief.
“Prince?”
“Typical,” said the dog, spitting out a bit of demon, then trotting over to push his great shaggy head into Donavon’s lap. “Can’t turn my back on you for five minutes.”
“I’m so sorry, Prince. I’m so sorry.” Donavon could hardly get the words out. He bent over and hugged the dog round the neck.
“It’s all right,” said the dog. “Humans can’t think for shit when they’re in heat. It was her fault, not yours. You were just weak; she was the bad one.”
“Do you forgive me, Prince?”
“Of course; that’s what dogs do. Another good reason why all dogs go to Heaven. Now come along with me, Pen. It’s time to go.”
Donavon looked at the wonderful light falling out of the door in the middle of the bar. “But…you’re dead, Prince.”
“Yes. And so are you. You’ve been dead ever since that parasite ate its way into you. Don’t you remember? No; I suppose it won’t let you. Either way, it’s only the parasite’s energies that have been keeping you going, so it could feed on your pain and fear.” The dog paused. “You know, there’s nothing like being dead for increasing your vocabulary. I’ve been so much more articulate since I crossed over. Anyone got a biscuit? No? Come with me, Pen. Heaven awaits.”
“Will we be together, Prince?”
“Of course, Pen. Forever and ever and ever.”
There was a bright flash of light, and when it faded the bar was back to normal again. The Hell that Pen Donavon had made was gone, and so was the door full of light. His dead body slumped slowly forward and fell off the stool, hitting the floor. It heaved suddenly, jerked this way and that by loud cracking and tearing sounds, and then the parasite appeared from under the body. It scuttled across the floor like a huge beetle, until I stepped forward and stamped down hard. It crunched satisfyingly under my boot, and was still.
Gone straight to Hell, where it belonged.
NINE - Entrances and Exits
So, back to Uptown we went. It had been a long time since I’d been involved with a case that involved so much walking, and I was getting pretty damned tired of it. If I’d wanted to spend so much time tramping back and forth in the Nightside, wearing out good shoe leather and guaranteeing severe lower back pain for later, I’d have had my head examined. And to add insult to injury, a fog had come up, ghosting the Nightside in shades of pearl and grey. Fog is always a bad sign; it means the barriers between the worlds are wearing thin. You can never tell what might appear out of the mists or disappear into them.
The Witch’s Tit aspired to dreams of class and opulence, but it was really just another titty bar with a theme. A campy mixture of Goth come-ons and Halloween kitsch, where the girls danced naked, apart from tall witch’s hats, and did obscene things with their broomsticks. The club was situated right on the very edge of Uptown, as though the other establishments were ashamed of it, and quite probably they were. The Witch’s Tit was the only legitimate business Kid Cthulhu owned and certainly the only one he took a personal interest in.
Why? Well, here’s a hint: word has it he’s not a leg man.
The club itself looked cheap and tacky from the outside, all sleazy neon and seedy photos of girls who probably didn’t even work there, but that wasn’t what concerned me. There was no barker outside, singing the praises of the girls and cajoling passers-by to come on in and take a look. And when I cautiously pushed the door open and looked inside, there weren’t any bouncers either, or any traces of security. Kid Cthulhu wasn’t known for leaving his assets undefended, especially during an important meet like this. Had to be a trap of some kind. So I walked in, smiling cheerfully, with Bettie bouncing happily along at my side in a black leather outfit with chains and studs, and a perky little dog collar round her throat.
The club had been fitted out with all the usual Halloween motifs—black walls, witch’s cauldrons, and grinning pumpkin-heads. The lighting was comfortably dim and inviting, save for half a dozen spotlights that stabbed down onto the raised stage at the back of the club, picking out the dancer’s steel poles. But still; no girls, no customers, no bar staff. Kid Cthulhu had cleared the place out, just for me. The phrase no witnesses was whispering in the back of my head. I led Bettie through the empty tables and out into the open space before the stage, our footsteps loud and carrying in the quiet. Half a dozen human skeletons had been hung from stretchy elastic, bobbing gently at the edge of the open space, perhaps disturbed by our approach. At first I thought they were another example of the Halloween décor, but something made me stop and take a closer look. They were all real skeletons, the bones held together by copper wire. Some of the longer bones showed teeth-marks.
A new spotlight stabbed down from overhead, revealing Kid Cthulhu sitting on a huge reinforced chair, right in the centre of the open space. He looked like a man, but he wasn’t. Not any more. You could tell. You could see it, feel it. There was a taint in the man, all the way through. He had been touched, and changed, by something from Outside. Kid Cthulhu was a large man, he had to be, to contain everything that was in him now. He was naked, his skin stretched taut and swollen, as though pushed out by pressures from within. He was supposed to be about my age, but his face was so puffed out no trace of human character remained in it. He sat slumped in his oversized chair, like King Glutton on his throne. His bare skin gleamed dully in the mercilessly revealing spotlight, colourless as a fish’s belly, while his eyes were all black, like a shark’s.
They say he broke men’s bones with his bare hands. They say he ate the flesh of men, breaking open the bones to get at the marrow. They said there was something growing within him, or perhaps through him, from Outside. And right then, I believed every word they said.
“Hey, KC,” I said cheerfully. “Where’s the Sunshine Band?”
He studied me coldly with his flat black eyes. “John Taylor…Your name is bile and ashes in my mouth. Your presence here is an affront to me. Your continued existence an unbearable insult. You killed my combat sorcerers. My boys. My lovely boys.”
“You have changed,” I said. “You never should have gone on that deep-sea voyage. Or at the very least, you should have thrown back what you caught.”
“You defy me,” said Kid Cthulhu. “No-one does that any more. I shall enjoy killing you.”
His voice was harsh and laboured, forced out word by word, with a distinct gurgle in it, as though he were speaking underwater. He sounding like a drowning man, venting his spite on the man who’d pushed him in.
“I thought we were here to do business,” I said. “I have the Afterlife Recording right here with me.”
“I don’t care about that any more,” said Kid Cthulhu. “Money doesn’t matter to me. I have money. All that matters now is the satisfying of my various appetites and the destruction of my enemies. I will see you broken, suffering, and dead, John Taylor. And your pretty little companion. Perhaps I’ll make you watch as I tear her guts out, and eat them as she dies, screaming.”