Nightside 02 - Agents of Light and Darkness

others to bring something down in reach of his great spurred hands.
    And all through Time Tower Square there was a terrible sound of angels crying out in pain and rage, as magic moved in the night, denying them their rightful prey.
    The angels flew in great spirals overhead, moving faster and faster, spreading wider and wider as they gathered in ever greater numbers. Soon there would be so many of them that no amount of magics would be enough to hold them back, then they would descend. One had clearly been impatient, and had paid the price. It had ventured too low, too soon, and one of the major players had snatched it out of the air and crucified it against the side of the Time Tower. Dozens of cold iron nails pierced its outstretched arms and legs, pinning it to the wall like a frog in a science lab, ready for dissection. But the angel was still alive, its light flickering feebly like a fallen star. Its golden eyes wept slow, mystified tears, unable to understand what had brought it so low. It was finding out the limitations of the material world the hard way. Its severed wings lay on the ground beneath its broken feet.
    Further off in the night, in a direction that could not be named or pointed to, there was a sound like a great engine slowly turning, as older, darker, more powerful presences began to wake, to defend the Nightside. They stirred in ancient vaults, or long-forgotten graves, creatures and beings of power and legend, some of them almost as old as angels, and as dreadful.
    The Nightside is an old, old place.
    Suzie and I eased around the edges of the Square, scurrying from one place of relative safety to the next. The air was full of the stresses of great forces clashing, like icebergs grinding together in the night sea. I had no intention of getting involved. I knew when I was out of my depth, and for once Suzie had enough sense to follow my lead. There were powers abroad in the night now that could crush both of us like bugs and never even notice. It seemed to take forever to creep around two sides of the Square, my heart hammering painfully fast in my chest all the way, but finally we were able to slip away into a blessedly anonymous side street and run for our lives. Behind us someone was screaming, but we didn’t pause to look back. We weren’t far from Big Sergei’s Warehouse now.
    And, of course, Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. Possibly. Sometimes a friend, sometimes not. Saint and sinner, all wrapped up in one enigmatic and distinctly unhygienic bundle. Your connection to minor deities and divinity wannabes, and as much trouble as you can handle. An extremely disturbing agent for the good, and no, the good didn’t get any say in the matter. He lived a life of violent penance for earlier misdeeds. Lots of them. The last time I’d seen Eddie was in a possible future I’d accessed through a Timeslip, and I’d ended up having to kill him: It had been a mercy killing, made necessary at least partly because of the time-traveling Collector, but even so it wasn’t the kind of thing that came up easily in the conversation. I was still trying to decide just how much, if any, of this I should tell Eddie. The situation was complicated by Eddie’s future self blaming me for the eventual destruction of the world. If I told Eddie that, I could quite easily see him killing me on the spot, on general principle. Of course, the future I’d visited wasn’t inevitable. Nothing is set in stone where Time is concerned.
    As in so many things, I decided the best thing to do was wait and see what happened, and decide then, if at all. I’d always had a real talent for putting things off till later. Hell, I could dither for the Olympics.
    Suzie and I stopped at the edge of the warehouse district and looked cautiously about us. Fires were burning all around, some of them seriously out of control. The shadows danced and leapt, but the area seemed abandoned by mortals and angels. The fighting was over, and the struggle had moved on, leaving only flames and devastation behind. The air was tight and hot as a summer’s day, and twice as sweaty. I could see Big Sergei’s Warehouse at the end of the street, just another anonymous building among many. It seemed to have survived pretty much intact. The way to it seemed clear enough, but still I hung back, taking my time. Razor Eddie wasn’t above luring me into a trap if he felt it served a higher purpose. Suzie growled restlessly at my side, hefting her