Nightside 01 - Something From the Nightside

in the Nightside. I had to take Joanna by the arm as she drifted unrealisingly too close to the edge of the pavement.
    "Careful!" I said loudly in her ear. "Some of those things aren't really cars. And some of them are hun-
    gry."
    But she wasn't listening to me. She'd looked up at the sky, and her upturned face was full of wonder and awe. I smiled, and looked up too. Deep deep black,
    the sky, falling away forever, blazing with the light of thousands and thousands of stars, far more than you'd ever seen above any earthly city, dominated by a full moon a dozen times larger than the poor pallid thing Joanna was used to seeing. I've never been sure whether the moon really is bigger in the Nightside, or whether it's just closer. Maybe someday someone with serious money will hire me to find out.
    I looked back at Joanna, but she was still clearly struggling to find her equilibrium, so I just stood there and looked mildly about me. It had been five years, after all. But it all seemed much as I remembered it. The same quietly desperate people, hurrying down the same rain-slicked streets, heading eagerly into the same old honey traps. Or perhaps I was just being cynical. There were wonders and marvels to be found in the Nightside, sights and glories to be savoured and clutched to your heart forever; you just had to look that little bit harder to find them, that was all. The Nightside is really just like any other major city, only amplified, intensified, like the city streets we walk in dreams and nightmares.
    There was a kiosk beside the station entrance selling racks of shrink-wrapped T-shirts. I studied some of the legends on the shirtfronts. Good boys go to Heaven, bad boys go to the Nightside. My mother took thalidomine, and all I got was this lousy hammer toe. And the perennial Michael Jackson died for our sins. I snorted quietly. The usual tourist stuff.
    Joanna turned suddenly to look at me, her mouth snapping shut as though she'd only just realised it was hanging open.
    "Welcome to the Nightside," I said, smiling. "Abandon all taste, ye who enter here."
    "It's night," she said numbly. "What happened to the rest of the day? It was only just starting to get dark when we left."
    "I told you; it's always night here. People come here for the things they can't find anywhere else; and a lot of those things can only thrive in the dark."
    She shook her head slowly. "We're really not in Kansas any more, are we? Guess I'll just have to try and keep an open mind."
    "Oh, I wouldn't do that," I said solemnly. "You never know what might walk in."
    She gave me a hard look. "I can never tell when you're joking."
    "Neither can I sometimes, in the Nightside. It's that kind of place. Life, death and reality are all flexible concepts here."
    A street gang came whooping and hollering down the street towards us, shouldering people out of their way, and playfully pushing some out into the road to dodge the traffic, which didn't even bother with horns, let alone slowing down. The gang members laughed and elbowed each other and drank heavily from bottles they passed back and forth between them. They were loud and obnoxious and loving
    every minute of it, and the threat of sudden violence hung about them like bad body odour. There were thirteen of them, wearing polished leathers and hanging chains, with bright tribal colours on their faces. Their teeth came to sharp points, and they wore strap-on devil's horns on their foreheads. They came roaring and swaggering down the street, swearing nastily at anyone who didn't get out of their way fast enough and looking eagerly round for some trouble to get into. Preferably the kind where someone got hurt.
    And then one of them spotted Joanna, recognising her immediately as a newcomer. Easy target, money on the hoof, and a woman as well. He clued in his brothers, and they surged forward, moving with a purpose. I stepped forward, out of the shadows, and put myself between them and Joanna. The gang lurched to a sudden halt, and I could hear my name on their lips. Their hands were quickly full of knives, long slender blades gleaming sullenly in the neon light. I smiled at the gang, and some of them started backing away. I let my smile widen, and the gang turned abruptly and walked away. Mostly, I felt relieved. I hadn't been sure whether I was bluffing or not.
    "Thank you," said Joanna, her voice quite steady. "I was concerned there, for a moment Who were they?"
    "Demons."
    "Is that the name of their