Agents of Light and Darkness

'The depths and range of your knowledge never cease to amaze me, Taylor. But a word of warning: some cures are worse than the disease.'

Suzie gave him a hard look. 'You know about the Speaking Gun?'

Walker smiled coldly. 'Of course, my dear. It's my job to know about things like that. I know all the weapons powerful enough to bring down or destroy the Nightside. As for the Speaking Gun, only the truly irresponsible or the seriously deluded would even consider using such a weapon.'

'Any idea where such a thing might be found?' I said. 'The Collector's supposed to have had it for a while.'

'And couldn't hold on to it,' said Walker. 'Which should tell you something. Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. For your and everyone else's good.

Trust me on this, Taylor. You're in deep enough waters as it is.'

'What is the Authorities' position on the angels themselves?' I asked, acting like I'd given up on the Speaking Gun. It didn't fool Walker in the least, but he went along with it.

'Their position is that they don't have a position. We are on the sidelines in this, and intend to stay there until all the violence and mass destruction are safely over, one way or another. Then we will return, to supervise the picking up of pieces.'

'People are going to get hurt,' I said. 'Good people.'

'This is the Nightside,' said Walker. 'Good people don't come here.' He smiled at Suzie. 'Good to see you out and working again, my dear. You know I worry about you so.'

'I like to think of you being worried,' said Suzie. The gun she had on him hadn't wavered once.

'Don't you care at all about the carnage that's coming?' I said, and the anger rising in my voice brought his gaze snapping back to me. 'If angels go to war in the Nightside, the whole place could end up as rubble, or one big cemetery. What happens to your precious status quo then?'

Walker looked at me almost sadly. 'The Nightside will survive, no matter how many people die. The major players will survive, and all the more important businesses. They're protected. No-one else matters, in the great scheme of things. And no, Taylor, I don't care how many die. Because the Nightside has never been more than a job to me. If I had my way, I'd wipe out the whole sick freak show and start over. But I have my orders.'

'And the Unholy Grail?'

Walker pursed his lips, and shrugged. 'I wouldn't worry too much about that. The odds are it's just another religious con job, another fake relic for fools to fight over. There have been more versions of the true Grail passing through here than there were copies of the Maltese Falcon. And even if this Unholy Grail does turn out to be the real thing, from what I've seen of its history, it's never brought anyone any real happiness or lasting power. Let the angels take it away, to Above or Below. We're better off without it. The Unholy Grail is nothing more than tinsel and glamour and shoddy dreams, just like everything else in the Nightside.'

'And if it is... what everyone's afraid it is?' said Suzie.

'Then it's just as well you and Taylor are on the job, isn't it? So, off you go. Have fun. Try not to break anything too important. But if you do get your hands on the Unholy Grail, don't be foolish enough to hang on to the dreadful thing yourselves. I have to go to enough funerals in the line of duty as it is. The best you'll be able to achieve in this appalling business is to decide which side to hand it over to. Which ma not be as straight forward as you think. You see, I know who your client really is. And you only think you do.'

I started to say something, but Walker had already turned his back on us and was walking unhurriedly away. Head held high and back ramrod straight, as always. He'd said everything he'd come to say, sowed all the right doubts, and now wild horses couldn't drag another word out of him. I shook my head slowly. No-one can mess with your mind like Walker.

Suzie continued to cover him with her shotgun until he rounded a corner and was safely out of sight, then she holstered the gun with one swift motion, and turned to me. 'What was that all about, Taylor? Who is our client?'

'The Vatican, supposedly.' I scowled thoughtfully. 'Represented by an undercover priest called Jude.'

'Like in St. Jude's?'

'Presumably. It occurs to me now that I never did check out his credentials properly. I don't usually slip up like that. There's just something about the man... that makes you want to trust him. Which in the Night-side should be automatic grounds for suspicion. If we do get our hands on the Unholy Grail, I think I'll make a point of asking some really awkward and pointed questions before I hand it over to anyone. Come on, Suzie. Let's get over to the Fourth Reich's headquarters. Before someone else does.'

The old assembly room currently hosting the last great hope of the Fourth Reich was situated at the end of a quiet side street, in a largely residential area. The kind of place where people kept to themselves, minded their own business, and watched the world from behind drawn curtains. The street was empty, the night unusually quiet. Suzie and I strolled down the deserted street, our footsteps sounding unusually loud and carrying. No-one appeared to challenge us as we approached the assembly room. Which was also not usual. Suzie and I stopped outside the front door. It was standing slightly ajar. Suzie unholstered her shotgun, and scowled at the door. I looked at her enquiringly.

'What is it, Suze?'

'Don't call me that. It's too quiet. Those Nazi freaks always have their martial music running full blast, so they can puff out their chests and march up and down to it and shout Heil! at each other. This is their usual meeting time, but I can't hear a damned thing.' She stepped cautiously forward and put her face to the crack of the door. She sniffed a few times. 'Cordite. Smoke. Someone's been firing guns in there.'

She looked at me, and I nodded. Suzie kicked the door in and charged on in, gun at the ready. I followed after her, at a more sedate pace. I don't carry a gun. I've never felt the need. I soon caught up with Suzie. She'd stopped not far inside. We stood together and looked around the old assembly room, taking our time. There was no need to hurry any more.

The long hall the Fourth Reich used as their headquarters and meeting place was a fair size. Far too big for the small-scale rallies that were all they could manage these days. And every inch of the great open floor was covered with dead bodies. Dozens of dead Nazis, all in full uniform, all of them soaked in blood and riddled with bullet holes. They lay where they had fallen, outstretched hands reaching out for help that never came, like so many discarded toy soldiers. The walls had taken a lot of hits too. The swastika flags and Nazi memorabilia and old curling photos covering the walls had been torn apart by sustained gun-fire. Most hung in tatters, pitiful remnants of a dead empire. And there was blood everywhere, splashed and splattered across the walls, running down to form thick pools between the bodies on the floor.

Suzie was on full alert, raking every inch of the hall with savage eyes, swiveling her shotgun back and forth, searching for an enemy or a target. Suzie only ever really came alive when there was a chance of killing someone. But there was nothing moving in the assembly room but us. The Fourth Reich was over before it even got started. This was a place of the dead now.

'Whatever happened here, we missed it,' said Suzie.

'Someone else looking for the Unholy Grail got here first,' I said, stepping carefully forward, over and around the piled-together bodies. 'And whatever questions they asked, they sure as hell didn't like the answers they got.'

'Whoever that someone was, they had a hell of a lot of firepower,' said Suzie, moving cautiously forward after me. 'You couldn't do this much damage with handguns. We're talking heavy-duty weaponry. Given the fire patterns, at least a dozen automatic weapons, maybe more. If the Nazis had any weapons, it doesn't look like they got the chance to use them. I don't see anyone dead not wearing a uniform.' She knelt beside one corpse and checked for a pulse in the neck. She shook her head briefly and stood up. 'Still warm, though. This all happened fairly recently.'

I looked around me, estimating the numbers. 'We're looking at... at least a hundred dead people here. Most of their organization. Maybe all of it.'

Suzie sniggered suddenly. 'Hey, Taylor, what do you call a hundred dead Nazis? A good start.'

'Cheap, Suzie, even for you. You'll be doing knock-knock jokes next.' I stopped and looked at a huge poster of Adolf Hitler on the wall beside me. Blood had splashed across half his face. Some symbols are just too obvious, even for me. 'They say he owned the Holy Grail.'

'Didn't do the silly bugger a lot of good in the long ran, did it?'