was enough to set my teeth on edge.
A huge arm came swinging round out of nowhere and hit me like a club. I managed to get a shoulder round in time to take the worst of the impact, but the flesh seemed to just keep coming and slammed into the side of my face. The strength went out of my legs, and I hit the floor hard, driving the breath from my lungs. My left shoulder blazed with pain, and I could barely move my left arm. The whole left side of my face ached fiercely. There was blood in my mouth, and I spat it out. I sensed as much as saw Kid Cthulhu looming over me, and I rolled to one side as his great fist came slamming down like a pile-driver, cracking and splintering the floor where I’d been lying. I got my legs under me and forced myself back up onto my feet again. I didn’t feel too steady, and I was breathing hard. Kid Cthulhu wasn’t.
I backed away. My left eye was puffing shut, and it felt like my nose might be broken. I checked my teeth with my tongue. I didn’t seem to have lost any, this time. I hate it when that happens. There was more blood in my mouth. Probably a cut on the inside of my cheek. I spat the blood in Kid Cthulhu’s direction, but his flat dark eyes never wavered.
I couldn’t fight a man like this. I had to be smarter than that.
I backed away some more, glancing round to make sure I was leading Kid Cthulhu away from Bettie, and then made myself concentrate past the pain. I called up my gift, and looked at Kid Cthulhu with my inner eye. If I couldn’t fight the man, maybe I could fight what was inside him. I used my gift to find the taint, the inhuman corruption deep within his flesh, the thing from Outside that was slowly suffusing his human form. And having found it, it was the easiest thing in the world to rip the taint right out of him.
Kid Cthulhu screamed; and for the first time, he sounded human. He fell to his knees, no longer able to sustain his massive weight once the taint from Outside was gone. He fell forward onto his face, his flesh moving in great ripples of fat. And beside him stood the taint, a horrid twisting shape that made no sense at all in only three spatial dimensions. It howled its fury, in a voice I heard more with my mind than my ears. It didn’t belong in this world, stripped of the host it had been transforming into something suitable to birth its new form. I wondered briefly what that might have been. Nothing like Kid Cthulhu, certainly. It hurt just to look at the taint. Like a colour too vile for our spectrum, a shape like a living Rorschach blot that suggested only nightmares. Its very presence in this world was like fingernails scraping down the blackboard of my soul.
It came after me, moving in ways unknown in my comfortable, three-dimensional world. I ran for the raised stage at the back of the club, and it followed. It moved more like energy than anything physical, and that gave me an idea. Up on the stage, I backed slowly away. A bolt of vivid energy snapped out, and I had to throw myself to one side to avoid it. The taint came after me, rising and falling in the air. My back slammed up against a steel dancer’s pole. The taint fired another energy bolt. I ducked to one side, and the energy bolt hit the steel pole. The taint screamed as its energy grounded through the pole, discharging into the earth below, its howl rising and rising till it seemed to fill my head, and then the sound broke off as the taint disappeared, gone.
Now that I was out of danger, my arm and my shoulder and my face all hurt worse than ever, but I made myself get down from the stage and go over to where Bettie was still lying sprawled on the floor. As I approached, she raised her head a little, looked at me, then sat up easily.
“Is it over?” she said brightly. “I thought I’d better keep my head down, and not get in your way.” And then she saw the state of my face and scrambled to her feet. “Oh, John, sweetie, you’re hurt! What did he do to you?”
She produced a clean white handkerchief from somewhere, licked it briefly with a pointed tongue, and dabbed cautiously at my face, wiping the blood away. It hurt, but I let her do it. My left eye was puffed shut, but at least I’d stopped spitting blood.
“Looks worse than it is,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as Bettie.
“Hush,” she said. “Stand still. My hero.”
When she’d finished, she looked at the bloody handkerchief, pulled a face, and tucked it up one black leather sleeve. I looked thoughtfully at Kid Cthulhu, still lying where he’d fallen like a beached whale. I walked slowly over to him, Bettie trotting at my side. She managed to make it clear she was there to be leaned on, if necessary, but was considerate enough not to say it out loud. I stood over Kid Cthulhu, and he rolled his flat black eyes up in his stretched face to look at me.
“Kill you, Taylor. Kill you for this. Kill you, and all your friends, and everyone you know. I have people. I’ll send them after you, and I’ll never stop, never. Never!”
“I believe you,” I said. And I raised my foot and stamped down hard, right on the back of his fat neck. I felt as much as heard his neck break under my foot, and as easily as that the life went out of him. I stepped back. Bettie looked at me, horrified.
“You killed him. Just like that. How could you?”
“Because it was necessary,” I said “You heard him.”
“But…I never thought of you as a cold-blooded killer…You’re supposed to be better than that!”
“Mostly I am,” I said. “But no-one threatens me and mine.”
“I don’t know you at all, do I?” Bettie said slowly, looking at me steadily.
“I’m just…who I have to be,” I said.
And then we both looked round sharply. Someone new was there in the club with us, though I hadn’t heard him come in. He was standing on the raised stage, in a spotlight of his own, waiting patiently to be noticed. A tall and slender man with dark coffee-coloured skin, wearing a smartly cut pale grey suit, with an apricot cravat at his throat. He might have been any age, but there was an air of experience and quiet authority about him. As though he had so much power he didn’t need to put on a show. His head was shaven, gleaming in the spotlight. His eyes were kind, his smile pleasant; and I didn’t trust him an inch.
“You did well, in dealing with Kid Cthulhu,” he said finally, in a rich, smooth and cultured voice. “A very unpleasant fellow, destined to become something even more unpleasant. I would have taken care of him myself, in time, but you did a good job, Mr. Taylor.”
“And you are?” I said. “Though I have a horrible suspicion I already know.”
“I am the Removal Man. An honourable calling, in a dishonourable world. And I am here for the Afterlife Recording.”
“Of course you are,” I said. “It’s been that sort of a day. How did you know I was bringing it here?”
“Mr. Taylor,” the Removal Man said reproachfully, “I know what I need to know. It’s part of my function. Now be a good chap and hand over the DVD, and we can get through this without any…unpleasantness. It must be removed; it’s far too great a temptation for all concerned.”
“The Unnatural Inquirer owns exclusive rights to the Afterlife Recording,” said Bettie automatically, though I could tell she was getting tired of having to tell people that.
“I do not recognise the Law, or its bindings,” the Removal Man said easily. “I answer to a higher calling. Just hand over the DVD, Mr. Taylor, and I’ll be on my way. This doesn’t have to end badly. You must admit that the Nightside will be better off without the Recording. Look how much trouble it’s already caused.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” I said. I was trying very hard to sound casual and reasonable, like him. It’s not easy talking to someone who can probably make you disappear off the face of the Earth just by thinking about it. I added the probably as a sop to my pride, but I really didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with the Removal Man. I had the uneasy feeling that his legend might be a little bit more real than mine. “I’ve seen what’s on the DVD, and it’s nothing you need be concerned about. It’s a fake, the psychic imprinting of a disturbed mind.”
“You’ve seen it?” said the Removal Man, raising one elegant eyebrow. “Oh, dear. How very unfortunate. Now I have to take care of you as well.”
“But…I’ve seen it, too!” said Bettie. “It’s nothing! It’s a fake!”
The Removal Man shook his shaven head sadly, still smiling his kind smile. “Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”
“You can’t just make us disappear!” Bettie said defiantly. “I work for the Unnatural Inquirer! I have the full resources of the paper behind me. And this is John Taylor! You know who his friends are. You really want Razor Eddie or Dead Boy coming after you? And anyway, what makes you so sure you’re always right? What makes you infallible? What gives you the right to judge the whole world and everyone in it?”
“Ah,” he said, smugly. “The secret origin of the Removal Man; is that what you want, little miss demon girl reporter? Yes, I know who you are, Miss Divine. I know who everyone is. Very well, then; I sold my soul to God. In return for power over the Earth and everything in it. Not God himself, as such, one of his representatives. But the
