Nightside 02 - Agents of Light and Darkness

a painfully thin presence in an oversized grey coat that had seen better days, a really long time ago. It was torn and ragged, and apparently only held together by accumulated filth and grease. His long gaunt face was unhealthily pale, all dark hollows and fever-bright eyes. His voice was low, controlled, almost ghostly. And he smelled really bad, all the time. There are sewer rats dying of the Black Death that smell better than Razor Eddie. The only reason he didn’t attract flies was because they tended to drop dead if they got too close to him. His slender pale hands moved slowly and methodically through the papers before him, now and again setting one aside in a separate pile.
    “The Warriors of the Cross are an extreme, far-right Christian sect,” Eddie said finally, still not looking up from what he was doing. “Widespread, very well funded, and very much into fire and brimstone and Crusades against… well, anything with even the faintest hint of fun about it. This particular branch of the Warriors was planning a full-scale invasion of the Nightside, in search of the Unholy Grail. Big Sergei apparently sold them everything from left-over Tiger Tanks to shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, and more guns and ammunition than the mind can comfortably comprehend, then disappeared sharpish before the shit could hit the fan. Nasty bastards, the Warriors. According to what I’ve found here, they were planning to set the Nightside on fire, then shoot everything that moved until someone handed over the Unholy Grail. But they got lucky. Someone just walked in here and offered to sell them the bloody thing. They, of course, tortured its location out of the poor bastard, then went and got it.
    “And then I came here and took it from them. After a certain amount of unpleasantness.
    “The Warriors of the Cross have done a lot of really nasty things in the past, and I had been looking for an excuse to make clear how displeased I was with them. It’s extremists like this who give religion a bad name. They were only a small branch, of course, but I like to think I’ve sent a message.”
    “A message?” I said.
    “Stay out of the Nightside, for starters.” He looked up for the first time, and a smile moved briefly over his pale lips. “Wish I’d known the angels were coming. They’d probably have been even more unpleasant to the Warriors than I was. Not that I like the angels much better.”
    Suzie came back to join me, her jacket bulging with accumulated cash. She gave Eddie a hard look. “What did you do with the bodies, Eddie?”
    He smiled again, just as briefly. “I sold them. Got a good price, too.”
    There are some conversations you know you don’t want to pursue any further. I coughed politely, to draw Eddie’s attention back to me. “You said you knew where we could find the Collector, Eddie. I really do need to see him rather urgently.”
    “Ah yes. The great mystery of the Nightside; the location of the Collector’s secret lair. I’ve been there. No doubt you’ve been wondering why he should chose to reveal his greatest secret to the likes of me. Simple really. I didn’t give him any choice. A quick tour of his collection was part of the price I demanded for retrieving the Unholy Grail from the Warriors and handing it over to him.” Eddie laughed softly, a thin ghostly sound, like the wind gusting through dead branches. “I had him over a barrel, and he knew it. He was desperate at the thought of losing out on such a unique item, and I wanted to see his collection. I hadn’t known he possessed the Speaking Gun, until he told me he’d lost it. Nasty weapon. I understand you have it now. If you’re sensible, you’ll get rid of it. The Speaking Gun has never made anyone happy or wealthy or wise. It was made to destroy, and that’s all it does. Anyway, it occurred to me that if the Collector had one such weapon, he might well have others, and I wanted to know what. After all someday he might try to use them against me.”
    There were many things I might have said, but I chose not to. “We did try to use the Speaking Gun,” I said. “It wasn’t a success.”
    “Bloody thing’s alive,” said Suzie. “And vicious.”
    “In which case, I’m amazed you’re still alive,” said Eddie. “Hell, I’m impressed you’re still sane.”
    “What was the Collector’s place like?” said Suzie, sticking to the point as always.
    “Big,” said Eddie. “Bigger than the human mind can