Nightside 01 - Something From the Nightside

head height, and tore it away by brute strength. The horrid stuff clung stickily to my fingers, stretching unnaturally rather than breaking, and it took all my strength to open up a hole in the outer layer of the cocoon. There was a face underneath. A human face. The skin was grey, the eyes were closed. I hesitated, sure he must be dead, even though my gift was never wrong, and then the eyelids quivered, as though the eyes were trying to open.
    I thrust both hands into the hole I'd made and tore the material away from his face. It fought me, clinging to my fingers and the face, trying to repair the broken threads even as I tore them apart. I yelled for Joanna to help, and between us we broke open a larger gap, freeing the head and shoulders. I pulled the last of the stuff away from the face, the eyes finally opened, and I was forced to admit that I knew the face. It was older than I remembered, and much more lined, and the eyes held more horror than I ever want to think about, but it was still, clearly, Razor Eddie.
    His eyes slowly came into focus as they looked at me. I scrubbed the last sticky traces from his face with Joanna's handkerchief. The eyes were aware, but that was all. There was no recognition in them, no sense of self, of humanity. Joanna and I talked
    loudly and comfortingly as we forced open the cocoon, splitting it apart inch by inch, until finally we had an opening large enough to drag him out of. His whole body was limp, unresponsive. He was wearing his old grey coat, even more of a mess than I remembered, much holed and tattered, soaked with slime and darkened with what looked like a whole lot of bloodstains.
    We hauled him away from the cocoon, but his legs wouldn't work, so we had to lower him to the floor and set him down with his back against the wall to support him. He was breathing heavily now, great gasping breaths, as though he wasn't used to it. I didn't even want to guess how long he'd been in the cocoon, or what it had done to him. I had a hundred questions, but I kept talking calmly, trying to reach Eddie, bring him up out of the place he'd had to hide in, deep inside himself, for the sake of his own sanity. His eyes fixed on me, ignoring Joanna.
    "It's all right, Eddie," I said. "It's me. John Taylor. You're out of that... thing. You get your strength back, and your legs working, and we'll get you out of here and back to the Nightside. Eddie? Can you hear me, Eddie?"
    A slow knowledge came into his unblinking eyes, though the horror never quite left them. His mouth worked slowly. I leaned closer, to hear his quiet voice. It was rough and harsh, and painful, as though he hadn't used it in a long, long time.
    "John ... Taylor. After all this time. You ... bastard. God damn you to Hell."
    "What?" I jerked back, shocked, sure he must have misunderstood. "I'm going to get you out of here, Eddie. It's going to be all right."
    "It'll never be all right... Never again. This is all your fault. All of this."
    "Eddie..."
    "I should have killed you... when I had the chance. Before you ... destroyed us all."
    "What are you talking about?" Joanna said angrily. "We only just got here! He hasn't done anything! This is a Timeslip!"
    "Then damn you, John ... for what you will do."
    "You're blaming me for this?" I said slowly. "You're blaming me... for something I haven't even done yet? Eddie, you must know I'd never do anything to bring the world to this. The end of everything. Not by choice, anyway. You have to tell me. Tell me what to do, to prevent this happening."
    Razor Eddie's mouth moved in a slow, utterly mirthless smile. "Kill yourself."
    "You betrayed John to the Harrowing," said Joanna. "Why should we believe anything you say? Maybe we should forget about rescuing you. Just stick you back in the cocoon again."
    "That's not going to happen, Eddie," I said quickly, as the horror filled his eyes again. "Come with us. Help us prevent this. We're not far from the
    Timeslip's boundary. I can crack it open, get us home again. Back where we belong."
    "Back ... into the past?"
    That stopped me for a moment. If this Eddie had got here the hard way, the long way, could I risk taking him back? Would the Nightside accept two Razor Eddies? I pushed the thought aside. It didn't matter. There was no way I was going to leave Eddie here. In the dark. In the cocoon. Some things you just can't do and still call yourself a man.
    We got him on his feet, and this time his legs supported him. Even after all he'd