quickly about me. Most of the watching crowd had disappeared, gone in search of something more interesting to look at. Never any lack of that to be had, in the Nightside. And . . . “Why aren’t there any naked people here?” I said suddenly.
Cathy gave me a sideways look. “Should there be? Were you expecting naked people; or are you at a funny age, boss?”
“I mean the Tantric Troops,” I said. “The Authorities’ new attack dogs. They were all over the place here before.”
“Oh, them,” Dennis said wisely. “The Fuck Buddies. Oh yes, my dears, we’ve all heard about them. Talk about making a virtue out of a necessity . . . Last I heard, the remaining Authorities had scattered them across the Nightside, looking for you, Mr. Taylor. After all; it’s not like there’s much here for them to guard . . .”
I nodded and went back to looking into the hole. “I was here before, with Julien. Talking about the Bar’s sudden disappearance. And I can’t help feeling I’m missing something . . .”
I took the book out of my inside pocket, and leafed quickly through it. Cathy frowned slowly.
“Does that book, by any chance, come from where I think it does?” she said. “From, in fact, the much- respected and even-more-feared HPL?”
“I borrowed it, for a while,” I said. “Unofficially. Without telling anybody. Though they’ve probably noticed by now.”
Cathy was already shaking her head. “You’re a lot braver than I am, boss. They’ll send the Library Policemen after you. The big men, with hammers.”
“I have more pressing things to worry about,” I said, still flipping quickly through the pages. It was all very familiar. I’d read it all before. I knew everything that was in the book; so what was I missing? And then I stopped, as a very familiar phrase jumped out at me. The Bar burned down in 1970, possibly in self-immolation as a protest against the breaking up of the Beatles, then came back as a ghost of itself. The Hawk’s Wind
I slammed the book shut, put it away, and quickly explained my thinking to Cathy and Dennis. They both nodded quickly—Cathy excitedly, Dennis reluctantly. I looked out over the empty hole.
“Den-Den; can you . . . ?”
“I’ve been trying ever since we got here, Mr. Taylor; and I can’t feel a thing. Wherever the Bar’s gone, it’s way out my reach.”
So I had no choice but to raise my gift again. It didn’t come easily. It was like lifting a dead weight, then forcing it to do tricks. But I made it work, through sheer will-power, and reached out with my gift to find the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille and call it back.
It really was only a ghost, this time. A grey, semi-transparent shape, its colours a faded memory, with transparent walls, through which could be seen dark human figures, standing or sitting at tables, very still. All the people trapped inside when the Bar was forced out of Time and Space. It was a very tenuous, very flimsy manifestation; but it was quite definitely there, right in front of me. I could sense its presence, feel its living, conscious thoughts . . . but I couldn’t understand them. The Bar might be a sentient thing, but it wasn’t in any way human. How the hell was I going to get any answers out of it?”
I turned to Dennis, but he was already shaking his head. “Wery sorry, Mr. Taylor, but I only work with deceased peoples.”
“Try!” I said, very coldly. “Because every damned soul in the Nightside is depending on us, right now, and if we screw this up . . .”
And then I stopped, as one of the dark figures inside the ghostly Bar rose abruptly from its table, then walked slowly through the Bar to the front door. None of the other figures moved, or even acknowledged it. The front door opened of its own accord, and the dark figure stood there, in the doorway. It looked at me. A cold hand took hold of my heart, and squeezed it tight. I knew that face. I hadn’t known Julien Advent back in the sixties, but he hadn’t changed at all. I wasn’t even born then, but he looked exactly the same. He spoke to me; but it was the voice and words of the Hawk’s Wind, speaking through the sixties incarnation of the Great Victorian Adventurer.
I could tell.
“The Sun King didn’t remove me from this reality,” said the Bar, through Julien’s mouth. “The Entities from Beyond did it.”
“The Aquarians?” I said. My mouth was very dry.
“That’s not their name. They removed me from the world because I’m the only part of the Nightside that the Sun King cares about. He went along with it because the Entities said it was important to remove the people held within me; but they lied.”
“How do you know what the Entities want?” I said carefully.
“Because you can’t hide the truth from the dead,” said the Bar. “Many things about the world become so much clearer, once you’re dead. Especially if you’ve chosen not to depart, just yet.”
“How did you become . . . conscious?” I said.
The sixties Julien actually smiled, briefly. “You should have been here, in the sixties. It was all going on.”
“Why is the Sun King so determined to bring about the end of the night, and the Nightside?” I said.
“Because he wants to bring back the great Dream of the sixties, and the Nightside is everything he disapproves of. He’s always had a very limited perception of what Dreams are. You can’t force them on people. He also wants everyone else to bow down to him, and admit that his Dream is better than theirs. Even if he won’t admit it to himself. He’s still very human.”
I nodded slowly. So far, it all sounded plausible enough. Ghosts know everything because the world can’t hide anything from them, any more. The trick is to get ghosts to tell you the truth. Because the dead always have their own agendas. Hopefully, the Hawk Wind’s interests were the same as mine, in this case.
“The Entities are lying to the Sun King,” said the Bar, in Julien Advent’s voice. “They always were. And they never were what he thought they were. Everything he does, he does to serve them and their true instincts. They will destroy me, and everyone trapped inside me, eventually. They’re only holding on to us now in case the Sun King should waver. We are hostages to his fortune. The Entities aren’t what he thinks they are.”
“Then what are they?” I said. “Really?”
“Hungry,” said the Hawk’s Wind.
“Boss?” Cathy said quietly. “What’s it saying? I can’t hear anything!”
I looked at her, then at Dennis, who shook his head quickly. “I can see the ghost but not hear it,” said Dennis, sounding more than a little put-out. “A wery fascinating presence, quite unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before. And I’ve been around. In more ways than one. So I am moved to ask, How is it you can hear it, Mr. Taylor, and I can’t?”
“I told you,” I said. “I trained with old Carnacki. And he knew all sorts of things he never shared with the Institute that took his name.” I looked back at the Julien Advent shade in the doorway. It hurt to look at him, knowing he was as dead as the Bar now. Thanks to me. “Why did the Entities allow the Sun King to return?”
“Because he’s ready. Programmed and primed, to do what they want. And, because the Droods are gone. The whole family, gone in a moment. Only Eddie remains, the last Drood. Arthur Pendragon and the London Knights are also gone, off fighting the good fight in another dimension. When they try to return, they will find the Entities have closed and sealed the dimensional gates behind them. And the Carnacki Institute . . . is preoccupied with its own problems. There are still certain individuals who might hope to stand against the Entities: the Walking Man, the Regent of Shadows, the Detective Inspectre. But by the time they can come together, it will be too late. The Entities will be in control. That leaves only you, John Taylor.”
“How do I stop them?” I said urgently. “How do I stop the Sun King?”
“Show him what the Entities really are,” said the ghost. “Show him what they really mean to do with this world. And what they really think of his precious Dream. He’s still asleep. Wake him up.”
The sixties Julien Advent turned his back on me and walked into the Bar. The door closed itself. And despite everything I could do to hold on to it, the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille slowly and silently vanished, and was
