Nightside 03 - Nightingales Lament

door. The varnish cracked loudly as the face scowled at me. Wooden lips parted, revealing large jagged wooden teeth.
    "Forget it. Go away. Push off. The club is closed between acts. No personal appearances from the artistes, no autographs, and no, you don't get to hang around the stage door. If you want tickets, the booking office will be open in an hour. Come back then, or not at all. See if I care."
    Its message over, the face began to subside back into the door again. I knocked again on the broad forehead, and the face blinked at me, surprised.
    "You have to let me in," I said. "I'm John Taylor."
    "Really? Congratulations. Now piss off and play with the traffic. We are very definitely closed, not open, and why are you still standing there?"
    There's nothing easier to outmanoeuver than a pushy simulacrum with a sense of its own self-importance. I gave the face my best condescending smile. "I'm John Taylor, here to speak with Rossignol. Open the door, or I'll do all kinds of horrible things to you. On purpose."
    "Well, pardon me for existing, Mr. I'm going to be Somebody someday. I've got.my orders. No-one gets in unless they're on the list, or they know the password, and it's more than my job's worth to make exceptions. Even if I felt like it. Which I don't."
    "Walker sent me." That one was always worth a try.
    People were even more scared of Walker than they were of me. With very good reason.
    The face in the door sniffed loudly. "You got any proof of that?"
    "Don't be silly. Since when have the Authorities ever bothered with warrants?"
    "No proof, no entry. Off you go now. Hop like a bunny."
    "And if I don't?"
    Two large gnarled hands burst out of the wood, reaching for me. There was no way of dodging them, so I didn't try. Instead, I stepped forward inside their reach and jabbed one hand into the wooden face, firmly pressing one of my thumbs into one of its eyes. The face howled in outrage. I kept up the pressure, and the hands hesitated.
    "Play nice," I said. "Lose the arms."
    They snapped back into the wood and were gone. I took my thumb out of the eye, and the face pouted at me sullenly.
    "Big bully! I'm going to tell on you! See if I don't!"
    "Let me in," I said. "Or there will be ... unpleasantness."
    "You can't come in without saying the password!"
    "Fine," I said. "What's the password?"
    "You have to tell me."
    "I just did."
    "No you didn't!"
    "Yes I did. Weren't you listening, door? What did I just say to you?"
    "What?" said the face. "What?"
    "What's the password?" I said sternly.
    "Swordfish!"
    "Correct! You can let me in now."
    The door unlocked itself and swung open. The face had developed a distinct twitch and was muttering querulously to itself as the door closed behind me. The club lobby looked very plush, or at least, what little of it I could see beyond the great hulking ogre that was blocking my way. Eight feet tall and almost as wide, he wore an oversized dinner jacket and a bow tie. The ogre flexed his muscled arms menacingly and cracked his knuckles loudly. One look at the low forehead and lack of chin convinced me there was absolutely no point in trying to talk my way past this guardian. So I stepped smartly forward, holding his eyes with mine, and kicked him viciously in the unmentionables. The ogre whimpered once, his eyes rolled right back in their sockets, and he fell over sideways. He hit the lobby floor with a crash and stayed there, curled into a ball. The bigger they are, the easier some targets are to hit. I walked unchallenged past the ogre and all the way across the lobby to the swinging doors that led into the nightclub proper.
    Most of the lights were turned down here, and the cavern was all gloom and shadows. Bare stone walls under a threateningly low stone ceiling, a waxed and polished floor, high-class tables and chairs, and a raised stage at the far end. The chairs were stacked on top of the tables at the moment, and there were multicoloured streamers curled around them and scattered across the floor. The only oasis of light in the club was the bar, way over to the right, open now just for the club staff and the artistes. A dozen or so nighttime souls clustered together at the bar, like bedraggled moths drawn to the light.
    I stepped out across the open floor towards them. Nobody challenged me. They just assumed that if I'd got in, I was supposed to be there. I nodded politely to the cleaning staff, busy getting the place ready for the next shift - half a dozen monkeys in