Something from the Nightside

I led her down the platform, and it was a mark of how shaken she was that she didn't have a single comment to make. She didn't even object to my holding her arm again. Without looking round, without interrupting their conversations or in any way acknowledging my presence, the people ahead of us moved back out of the way to let us pass. A few made the sign of the cross when they thought I wasn't looking, and older warding signs against evil. It seemed I hadn't been forgotten after all. A vicar in a shabby grey cloak, with a pristine white collar and a grey blindfold over his eyes, was hawking his wares before us, a much-travelled suitcase open at his feet.

"Crow's feet!" he yelled, in a harsh, strident voice. "Holy water! Hexes! Wooden stakes and silver bullets! You know you need them! Don't come crying to me if you end up limping home with someone else's spleen instead of your own!"

He broke off as Joanna and I approached. He sniffed the air suspiciously, cocking his great blind head to one side. His fingers worked busily at a rosary made from human fingerbones. He stepped forward suddenly to block our way and stabbed an accusing finger at me.

"John Taylor!" he snapped, almost spitting out the words. "Damnation's child! Demonspawn and Abomination! Bane of all the Chosen! Avaunt! Avaunt!"

"Hello, Pew," I said easily. "Good to bump into you again. Still working the old act, I see. How's business?"

"Oh, not too bad thanks, John." Pew smiled vaguely in my direction, putting aside his official Voice for the moment. "My wares are like travel insurance; no-one ever really believes they'll need it, until it's too late. It can't happen to me, they whine. But of course, in the Nightside it can, and it will. Suddenly and violently and usually quite horribly too. I'm saving lives here, if they'd only pay attention, the fools. So; what are you doing back here, John? I thought you had more sense. You know the Nightside isn't good for you."

"I'm working a case. Don't worry; I won't be stopping."

"That's what they all say," growled Pew, shifting his broad shoulders uneasily inside his threadbare

cloak. "Still, we all do what we have to, I suppose. Who are you looking for this time?"

"Just a runaway. Teenager called Catherine Barrett. Don't suppose the name means anything to you?"

"No. But then, I'm pretty much out of the loop these days, by my own choice. Hard times are coming ... word of advice, boy. I hear things, bad things. Something new has come into the Nightside. And people have been mentioning your name again. Watch your back, boy. If anyone's going to kill you, I'd much rather it was me."

He turned away abruptly and took up his piercing cry again. There's no-one closer, more like family, than old enemies.

The platform shook, there was a blast of approaching air, and a train roared into the station and slowed to a stop—a long shining silver bullet of a train, with no windows anywhere. The carriages were solid tubes of steel, with only the heavily reinforced doors standing out against their shimmering perfection. The doors hissed open, and people poured in and out. I was ready to take Joanna by the arm again, but it wasn't necessary. She strode into the carriage before her without hesitating, her head held high. I followed her in and sat down beside her.

The carriage was almost empty, for which I was grateful. I've never liked being crowded. All kinds of things can hide in a crowd. The man sitting opposite

us was reading a Russian newspaper with great concentration. The date below the masthead was from a week in the future. Further down the immaculately clean carriage sat a young woman kitted out in full Punk regalia, right down to the multiple face piercings and fierce green mohawk rising up from her shaved head. She was reading an oversized leather-bound Holy Bible. The pages appeared to be blank, but the white on white of her unblinking eyes marked her as a graduate of the Deep School, and I knew that for her and her alone, the pages were full of awful wisdom.

Joanna was looking around the carriage, and I tried to see it through her eyes. The complete lack of windows made it feel more like a cell than a conveyance, and the strong smell of disinfectant reminded me irresistibly of a dentist's surgery. There was no map anywhere. People who took this train knew where they were going.

"Why aren't there any windows?" said Joanna, after a while.

"Because you don't want to see what's outside," I said. "We have to travel through strange, harsh, places to reach the Nightside. Dangerous and unnatural places, that would blast the sight from your eyes and the reason from your mind. Or so I'm told. I've never felt like peeking."

"What about the driver? Doesn't he have to see where he's going?"

"I'm not convinced there is a driver," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know anyone who's ever seen one. I think the trains have been running this route for so long now that they're quite capable of running themselves."