“Sure,” said the Elegant Profundity. “I’ve been releasing CDs on a regular basis ever since I got here. Rock and Roll Heaven won’t build itself, you know.”
“Yes, yes!” said Bettie Divine. “The Unnatural Inquirer could give away a new DVD every week, with the Sunday edition! Build your own collection!”
“We don’t want the faithful sitting at home in front of their televisions,” Dagon said firmly. “We want them here, in our Churches.”
“We already sell religious statues, and reliquaries, and blessed artifacts,” Stack! said reasonably. “DVDs are the future. For now. Does anyone here know about this Extra Definition thing?”
“New formats are the invention of the Devil,” said the Elegant Profundity. “He’s always been big on temptation. But people would pay through the nose for teachings direct from their God! And even second-hand faith is better than none.”
“Royalty cheques outweigh collection plates any day,” Stack! said. “I want you all to concentrate on one word: franchise…”
“Oh, come on!” said Dagon. “Where’s that going to lead, the McChurch? You’ll be talking about bringing in image consultants and focus groups next.”
“Why not?” Stack! replied. “We have to move with the times. Faith is fine, but wealth lasts longer.”
“Heretic!” said Dagon, and punched Stack! out with a very unpriestly left hook.
I took Bettie firmly by the arm, and we hurried away. Believers were coming running from all directions, eager to join the fray, and you really don’t want to get caught in the middle of a religious war on the Street of the Gods. Especially not when the smiting starts. Someone always ends up throwing lightning bolts, and then it’s bound to escalate. We headed back to the Underground station, discussing what we knew about previous attempts to communicate with the Other Side, so we wouldn’t have to listen to the rising sounds of conflict and unpleasantness behind us.
It was already raining frogs.
“Surprisingly, Marconi is supposed to be the first man to use technology to try and make contact with the Hereafter,” I said. “Some sources claim he only invented radio because he was trying to find a way to talk to his dead brother. There are even those who say he succeeded; though reports of what he heard are… disturbing.”
“Then there are people who approach dying people in hospitals,” said Bettie. “And persuade them to memorise messages from a bereaved family, to pass on to people already dead. There’s usually money involved —to pay hospital bills or look after the dying person’s family. The Unnatural Inquirer paid good money for a dozen messages to Elvis, but we never got a reply. What was that?”
“Don’t look back,” I said. “Then there are the Death-walkers. A disturbing bunch of action philosophers with a very hands-on approach to the Near Death Experience. They kill themselves, a necromancer holds them on the very brink for a while, and then he brings them back to life. The briefly departed are then questioned on what they saw, and who they spoke to, while they were dead. I’ve read some of the transcripts.”
“And?”
“Either the dead lie a lot, or they have a really nasty sense of humour.”
“I once did a piece on people who hear messages on radios trained to dead stations, or tape recorders left running in empty rooms,” said Bettie. “I listened to a whole bunch of recordings, but I can’t say I was convinced. It’s all hiss and static, and something that might be voices, if you wanted it badly enough. It’s like Rorschach ink- blots, where people see shapes that aren’t really there. You hear what you want to hear. Was that a Church blowing up?”
“It’s the pillars of salt that worry me,” I said. “Just keep walking and talking.”
“Then there’s psychic imprinting,” said Bettie, staring determinedly straight ahead. “You know, when a person stares at a blank piece of film and makes images appear. I did this marvellous piece on a man who could make naughty pictures appear on bathroom tiles, from two rooms away! The paper did a full colour supplement on most of them. You could only get the full set by mail order, under plain cover.”
“Psychic imprinting is more common than most people like to think,” I said. “That’s where most ghost images come from. And genius loci, where bad things happening poisons the surroundings, to produce Bad Places. Like Fun Faire.”
“Wait just a minute, darling,” said Bettie. “I heard about what just happened there! Was that you?”
I simply smiled.
“Oh, poo! You’re no fun at all sometimes.”
“That augmented television set bothers me,” I said. “Could Pen Donavon have accidentally invented something that allowed him to Listen In, however briefly, on something Humanity was never supposed to know about? Stranger things have happened, and most of them right here in the Nightside. This place has always attracted rogue scientists and very free thinkers, come here in pursuit of the kinds of knowledge and practices that are banned everywhere else, and quite properly, too. Walker has a whole group of his people dedicated to tracking these idiots, then shutting them down, with extreme prejudice if necessary. Unless what they’re doing looks to be unusually interesting, or profitable, in which case their work gets confiscated for the greater good. Which means the scientists get to work exclusively for the Authorities, somewhere very secure, for the rest of their lives.”
“Except there aren’t any Authorities, any more,” said Bettie. “So who do these scientists work for now?”
“Good question,” I said. “If you ever find out…”
“You’ll read about it in the Unnatural Inquirer.” Bettie smiled cheerfully. “I love the way you talk about these things so casually. I only get to hear about stuff like this at second or third remove, and there’s rarely any proof. You’re right there in the thick of things. Must be such fun…”
“Not always the word I’d use,” I said. “And you are not to quote me. I don’t care what you print, but Walker might. And he’d be more likely to come after you than me.”
“Let him,” Bettie said airily. “The Unnatural Inquirer looks after its own. John, you’re frowning. Why are you frowning? Should we start running?”
“If Pen Donavon had found a way to Listen In and got noticed,” I said slowly, “he might have attracted the attention of Heaven or Hell. Which is rarely a good thing. They might send agents to silence him, and destroy the Recording.”
“Oh, dear,” said Bettie. “Are we talking angels? The Nightside’s still putting itself back together after the last angel war.”
“I wish people would stop looking at me like the angel war was all my fault,” I said.
“Well, it was; wasn’t it?”
“Not as such, no!”
“You can be such a disappointment, sometimes,” said Bettie Divine.
FOUR -
Back in the Nightside proper, I headed for Uptown, that relatively refined area where the better class of establishments and members-only clubs gather together and circle the wagons, to keep out the riff-raff. People like me, and anyone I might know. I had a particular destination in mind, but I didn’t tell Bettie. Some subjects need to be sneaked up on, approached slowly and cautiously, so as not to freak out the easily upset. Bettie clearly thought she’d been around and seen it all, but there are some people and places that would make a snot demon puke, on general principles.
“Where exactly are we going?” said Bettie, looking eagerly about her.
“Well,” I said, “when you’re on the trail of something rare and unique, the place to start is with the Collector. He’s spent the best part of his life in pursuit of the extraordinary and the uncommon, often by disreputable, underhanded, and downright dishonest means. He’s a thief and a grave-robber, a despoiler of archaeological sites, and no museum or private cabinet of curiosities is safe from him. He’s even got his own
