Agents of Light and Darkness

whenever any of the movers and shakers look like they're getting out of hand. Walker is a calm and quiet sort, in a neat city suit, and he never raises his voice because he doesn't have to. He doesn't approve of lone operatives like me, but he throws me the odd job occasionally, because no-one else can do the things I can. And because as far as he's concerned, I am entirely expendable.

Which is why I make him pay through the nose for those jobs.

I can find anything. It's a gift. From my dear departed mother, who turned out not to be human. She's really not dead; that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Anyway, I found what Jessica Sorrow was looking for, and now it lay in the shoe box I was crushing to my chest. She knew it was here, and she was coming to get it. My job was to present it to her in exactly the right way, so that it would defuse her anger and send her back to wherever she went when she wasn't scaring the crap out of the rest of us. Assuming, of course, that I had found the right thing. And that she didn't just storm right in and unbelieve me out of existence. She was outside the church now. The solid flagstones under my feet vibrated strongly, echoing to the tread of her approaching feet, crashing down heavily on the world she refused to believe in. All the candle flames were dancing wildly, and the shadows leapt around me, as though they were frightened too. My mouth was very dry, and my hands were crushing the shoe box out of shape. I made myself put it down on the pew, then straightened up and thrust my hands deep into my coat pockets. Looking casual was out of the question, but I couldn't afford to seem weak or indecisive in the presence of Jessica Sorrow the Unbeliever. I had hoped that St. Jude's accumulated centuries of faith and sanctity would offer me some protection against the force of Jessica's unbelief, but I wasn't so sure about that any more. She was coming, like a storm, like a tidal wave, like some implacable force of nature that would sweep me effortlessly aside in a moment. She was coining, like cancer or depression, and all the other things that cannot be denied or negotiated with. She was the Unbeliever, and compared to that St. Jude's was nothing and I was nothing ... I took a deep breath, and held my head up. To hell with that. I was John Taylor, dammit, and I'd talked my way out of worse scrapes than this. I'd make her believe in me.

The heavy oaken door was reinforced with heavy bands of black iron. It must have weighed five hundred pounds, easy. It didn't even slow Jessica down. Her thunderous feet marched right up to the door, then her fingers plunged through the thick wood and tore it like cloth. The whole door came apart in her hands, and she walked through it like a hanging curtain. She came striding down the aisle towards me, naked and emaciated and corpse pale, the heavy flagstones exploding under the tread of her bare feet. Her eyes were wide and staring, as focused as a feral cat's, and as impersonal. Her thin lips were stretched wide in something that was as much a snarl as a smile. She had no hair, her face was as drawn and gaunt as the rest of her, and her eyes were yellow as urine. But there was a force to her, a terrible energy that drove her on even as it ate her up. I held my ground, giving her back glare for glare, until finally she crashed to a halt right in front of me. She smelled... bad, like something that had spoiled. Her eyes didn't blink, and her breathing was unsteady, as though it was something she had to keep reminding herself to do. She was hardly five feet tall, but she seemed to tower over me. I could feel my thoughts and plans disintegrating in my head, blown away by the sheer force of her presence. I made myself smile at her.

'Hello, Jessica. You're looking... very yourself. I have what you need.'

'How can you know what I need?' she said, in a voice that was frightening because it was so nearly normal. 'How can you, when I don't know myself?'

'Because I'm John Taylor, and I find things. I found what you need. But you have to believe in me, or you'll never get what I have for you. If I just disappear, you'll never know ...'

'Show me,' she said, and I knew I'd pushed it as far as I could. I reached carefully down into the pew, picked up the shoe box, and presented it to her. She snatched it from me, and the cardboard box disintegrated under her gaze, revealing the contents. A battered old teddy bear with one glass eye missing. Jessica Sorrow held the bear in her dead white hands, looking and looking at it with her wild unblinking eyes, and then, finally, she held it to her shrunken chest and cuddled it to her, like a sleeping child. And I began to breathe once more.

'This is mine,' she said, still looking at the bear rather than at me, for which I was grateful. 'It... was mine, when I was a small child. Long ago, when I was still human. I haven't thought of him in ... so long, so very long...'

'It's what you need,' I said carefully. 'Something that matters to you. Something that's as real to you as you are. Something to believe in.'

Her head rose sharply, and she turned her unwavering regard on me. I did my best not to wince. She cocked her head to one side, like a bird. 'Where did you find this?'

'In the teddy bears' graveyard.'

She laughed briefly, but it surprised me anyway. 'Never ask the magician how he does his tricks. I know. I'm crazy, but I know that. And I know I'm crazy. I knew what I was buying with the price I paid. I'm always alone now, divorced from the world and everyone in it; because of what I did to myself, what I made of myself. La la la ... just me, talking to myself... It wasn't an easy or a pleasant thing, to cut away my humanity and become the Unbeliever. I walk through the world, and I'm the only one in it. Until now. Now there's me and teddy. Yes. Something to believe in. What do you believe in, John Taylor?'

'My gift. My job. And perhaps my honor. What happened to you, Jessica?'

'I don't know, any more. That was the point. My past was so appalling, I had to make myself forget it, had to make it unreal, had to make it never have happened. But in doing that I lost my faith in reality, or it lost faith in me, and now I only exist through a constant effort of will. If I ever stop concentrating, I'll be the one to disappear. I've been alone for so long, surrounded by shadows and whispers that mean nothing, nothing at all. Sometimes I pretend, just to have someone to talk to, but I know it's not real... But now I have my bear. A comfort, and a reminder. Of who and what I was.' She smiled down at the battered old bear in her stick-thin arms. 'I've enjoyed our little chat, John Taylor. Made possible by this place, and this moment. Don't ever try this again. I wouldn't know you. Wouldn't remember you. Wouldn't be safe.'

'Remember the bear,' I said. 'Just maybe, it can lead you home.'

But she was already gone, striding out of the church and back into the night. I let out my breath slowly and sat down on the front pew before I fell down. Jessica Sorrow was too damned spooky, even for the Nightside. It's not easy having a conversation with someone you know thinks she's only listening to voices in her head. And who can drop you out of existence on the merest whim. I got to my feet and went over to the altar to collect up my candles. And that was when I heard running footsteps approaching the church from outside. Not Jessica. Human footsteps, this time. I retreated to the very back of the church and hid myself in the deepest of the shadows. Apart from Jessica, and, of course, Walker, no-one was supposed to know I was there. But I have enemies. Their dread agents, the Harrowing, have been trying to kill me since I was born. And besides, I'd had enough excitement for one night. Whoever was coming, I didn't want to know.

A man in black came running through the gap where the door used to be. His dark suit was tattered and torn, and his face was slack with exhaustion. He looked like he'd been running for a really long time. He looked like he'd been scared for a really long time. He was wearing sunglasses, black and blank as a beetle's eyes, even though he'd come out of the night. He staggered down the aisle towards the altar, clutching at the pews with one hand as he passed, to hold himself up. His other hand pressed an object wrapped in black cloth to his chest. He kept glancing back over his shoulder, clearly afraid that whoever or whatever pursued him was close behind. He finally collapsed onto his knees before the altar, shaking and shuddering. He pulled off his sunglasses and threw them aside. His eyelids had been stitched together. He held out his parcel to the altar with unsteady hands.

'Sanctuary!' he cried, his voice rough and hoass, as though it hadn't been used in a long time. 'In God's name, sanctuary!'

For a long moment there was only silence, then I heard slow, steady footsteps approaching the church from outside. Measured, unhurried footsteps. The man in black heard them too, flinching at the sound, but he wouldn't look back; his mutilated face was fixed desperately on the altar. The footsteps stopped, just at the doorway to the church. A slow wind blew in from the night, gusting heavily down the aisle like someone breathing. The candles nearest the door guttered and went out. The wind reached me, even in my shadows, and slapped against my face, hot and sweaty like fever in the night. It smelled of attar, the perfume crushed out of roses, but sick and heavy, almost overpowering. The man in black whimpered before the altar. He tried to say sanctuary again, but he couldn't get his voice to work.

Another voice answered him, from the darkness beyond the church's doorway. Harsh and menacing, and yet