Nightside 02 - Agents of Light and Darkness

sense there were no defenses, and no booby-traps. Faced with an angel, this guy must have revoked all the case’s protections to try and get at the content faster. I shut down my third eye, and re-established all my mental shields.
    And then I opened the case.
    The smell hit me first. The smell of hardworking horses, the scent of dogs maddened on heat, the stench of freshly spilled guts. I pushed the lid all the way back. And there, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was the ugliest handgun I have ever seen. It was made of meat. Of flesh and bone, dark-veined gristle, and shards of cartilage, held together with strips of pale skin. Living tissues, shaped into a killing tool. Thin slabs of bone made up the handle, surrounded by freckled skin. The flushed skin had a hot and sweaty look. The trigger was a long canine tooth, and the red meat of the barrel glistened wetly.
    “Is that… what I think it is?” said Suzie.
    I swallowed hard. “It fits the description.” We were both speaking very quietly.
    “The Speaking Gun. The Collector had it after all.”
    “Yes.”
    “Is it… alive, do you think?”
    “Good question. No, don’t touch it. You might wake it.”
    Suzie leaned in close, wrinkling her nose at the smell, then frowned and turned her head to one side. Strands of her long blonde hair fell down, almost touching the thing as she listened. She straightened up again and looked at me. “I think it’s breathing.”
    “The Speaking Gun,” I said. “A gun created specifically to kill angels, from Above and Below. Damn… We are in deep spiritual waters here, Suzie.”
    “Who made it?” she said suddenly. “Who’d want to be able to kill angels?”
    “No-one knows for sure. Merlin’s name has been bandied about, but he gets blamed for a lot of stuff… There’s always The Lamentation or The Engineer, but they usually deal in more abstract threats…” Something on the bone handle caught my eye, and I leaned forward. Etched deep into the bone were lines of tiny writing. I struggled with it for a while, then admitted defeat. “Suzie, you take a look at this. You’ve got better eyes than me.”
    She leaned in close again, holding her long hair back, and slowly read out the words on the bone handle. “Abraxus Artificers. The old firm. Solving problems since the Beginning.” She straightened up again, frowned, and looked at me. “Any of that mean anything to you?”
    “Not much.”
    “So, are we going to take it with us?”
    I snorted. “I’m certainly not leaving something this powerful lying around here. It’ll be safer with us.”
    “Great!” said Suzie. “A whole new kind of gun for me to use!”
    “Hold everything, Suzie. I’m not sure we can afford to use a weapon like this. We kill an angel, even a Fallen one, and you can bet Someone is going to get really mad at us.”
    Suzie shrugged. “It’s got to beat getting turned into salt.”
    “There is that, yes.” I carefully closed the lid on the Speaking Gun, picked the case up, and slipped it carefully into my coat pocket, next to my heart. “Still, I think we should consider using this only as a very last resort.”
    Suzie pouted, but didn’t object. “Any idea how it’s supposed to work?”
    “Only roughly. According to the Voynich Manuscript, the Speaking Gun re-creates God’s Word. You know, in the Beginning was the Word? The great Sound at the start of Creation, that lives on in the real, secret, names of everything. The Speaking Gun recognizes the secret name of whatever you point it at, and then Says it backwards, uncreating it. Theoretically, this Gun could destroy anything. Or everything.”
    “ Cool …” said Suzie.
    “The Gun is also supposed to exert a very heavy price on whoever uses it,” I said sternly. “No-one today knows what. But given the fact that no-one’s dared use the awful thing in centuries, I think we should be extremely cautious.”
    “All right,” said Suzie. “No need to look at me like that. I can take a hint. I can be cautious, when I have to be. So, where do we go now?”
    “Well, given that the lid of this case bears the Collector’s mark, I think it’s fair to assume this guy and his friends worked for the Collector. Which make sense. He’d sell what’s left of his scavenging soul to get his hands on a unique item like the Unholy Grail. He’d certainly sell any number of other people’s souls for it. And you can bet good money he’ll have the very latest information on