Nightside 06 - Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth

out, but it was all very far away. The War had come and gone here, and left nothing behind but the church.
    "I'm trying very hard to be existential about this," Tommy said finally, "But this really is a god-awful place. I'd like to say something like… from the ashes of the old shall arise a brave new Nightside… but my heart isn't in it."
    "If a new Nightside does arise, I doubt it would be anything you or I would recognise, or would want to," I said. "Not if Lilith has her way."
    "God, you're depressing to be around, Taylor. My brother's more cheerful than you, and he's dead. Who are we here to see, anyway?"
    "The Lord of Thorns."
    "Right," said Tommy. "I am leaving now. Good-bye. Write if you get work. I am out of here…"
    "Tommy…"
    "No! No way in Hell! There is absolutely nothing you can say or do or threaten me with that would persuade me to have anything to do with Him! I would rather eat my own head! The Lord of Thorns is the only person who actually scares me more than Lilith! She only wants to kill me; he wants to judge me!"
    "You could leave," I said. "But it's a really long walk to anywhere civilised. All on your own, in the dark. And if you try to teleport back using your gift… I'll just have the Lord of Thorns drag you back again."
    "You know the Lord of Thorns?"
    "I know everyone," I said airily.
    Tommy kicked at the dusty ground. "Bully," he muttered, not looking at me.
    "You're my ride home, Tommy," I said, not unkindly. "You don't have to come into the church with me, if you don't want to. You can guard the door."
    "It'll all end in tears," said Tommy.
    I tried the church's only door, and it opened easily at my touch. I left Tommy sulking outside, and went in. The bare stone walls were grey and featureless, with only a series of narrow slits for windows. Short stubby candles that never went out burned in old lead wall holders, casting a cold judgemental light. Two rows of blocky wooden pews, without a cushion in sight. The altar was just a great slab of stone, covered with a cloth of spotless white samite. A single silver cross hung on the wall over the altar. And that was it. You didn't come to St. Jude's for frills and fancies.
    This was a place where prayers were answered, and if you didn't like the answers you got, that was your problem.
    A single ragged figure sat slumped on the cold stone floor, leaning against the altar, embracing it with desperate arms. It was the Lord of Thorns. He looked like he'd been crying. He also looked like he'd been dragged through Hell backwards. Instead of the grand Old Testament Prophet I remembered, he looked like one of the homeless, like a refugee. The Overseer of the Nightside had been reduced to a man in torn and bloodied robes. His long grey hair and beard had been half-burned away. He didn't look up as I walked down the aisle towards him, but he flinched at the sound of my footsteps, like a dog that's been kicked once too often. I knelt before him, took his chin in my hand, and made him look at me. He trembled at my touch.
    "What are you doing here?" I said. I didn't mean for it to come out as harshly as it did, but that's St. Jude's for you.
    "It's all gone," he said, in a distant, empty voice. "So I'm hiding. Hiding out, in the one place where even Lilith's power can't touch me. I believe that. I have to believe that. It's all I've got left."
    I let go of his chin, and made an effort to soften my voice. "What happened?"
    His eyes came up to meet mine, and a Vision appeared in my mind's eye, showing me Lilith's descent into the World Beneath. She came in force, with all her monstrous Court, smashing through ancient defences and protections as though they weren't even there, and set her people to destroying everything and everyone. As above, so below. Just because she could. She wiped out the Eaters of the Dead, the Solitudes in their cells, the Subterraneans in their sprawling city of catacombs. A warning went out ahead of her, echoing from gallery to gallery, and some came out to fight and some dug themselves in deeper; but none of it did any good. Lilith and her terrible offspring pushed relentlessly on, destroying whole nests of vampires and ghouls and Elder Spawn, and even the worms of the earth in their deep deep tunnels.
    The Lord of Thorns came forth from his crystal cave, wrapped in power and a cold, awful anger, to set his faith and authority against Lilith. For he was the Voice of God, and she was but a name out of the past. He had his