Nightside 06 - Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth

friendship. It's just business."
    "Damn right," said Alex. He beckoned for Suzie and me to join him behind the bar. "I wouldn't want people to get the idea that I was going soft. That I could be taken advantage of."
    "Perish the thought," I said.
    "There is… one small drawback," said Alex.
    "I knew it," Suzie said immediately. "I knew there had to be a catch. We don't have to go out through the sewers, do we? I'm really not in the mood to wrestle alligators again."
    "Even worse," said Alex. "We have to go down into the cellars."
    Suzie and I both stopped short and looked at each other. Strangefellows's cellars were infamous even in the Nightside; they were so dangerous and generally disturbing that most sane and sensible people wouldn't enter them voluntarily without the holy hand grenade of St. Antioch in one hand and a tactical nuke in the other. Merlin Satanspawn was buried in the cellars, and he really didn't care for visitors. Alex was the only one who went down there on a regular basis, and even he sometimes came back up pale and twitching.
    "I've got a better idea," said Suzie. "Let's go out the front door and fight our way through Walker's people."
    "He could have a whole army out there," I said.
    "Somehow that doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did a few minutes ago," said Suzie. "I could handle an army."
    "Well, yes, you probably could, in the right mood," I said. "But we can't rescue Cathy if Walker knows we're coming. We need to stay under the radar, keep him off-balance. Lead the way, Alex."
    "Have I got time to go to confession first?" said Suzie.
    "You leave that priest alone," I said firmly. "He still hasn't got over your last visit."
    Alex produced an old-fashioned storm lantern from underneath the bar, lit the wick with a muttered Word, and then hauled open the trap-door set in the floor behind the bar. It came up easily, without the slightest creak from the old brass hinges, revealing smooth stone steps leading down into pitch-darkness. Suzie and I both leaned over and had a good look, but the light from the bar didn't penetrate past the first few steps. Suzie had her shotgun out and at the ready. Alex sniffed loudly.
    "This is an ancient family secret I'm entrusting you with. Whatever you see down there, or think you see, it's private. And don't show me up in front of my ancestors, or I'll never live it down."
    He led the way down the steps, holding the lantern out before him. Its pale amber light didn't travel far into the dark. Suzie and I followed him, sticking as close as possible. The steps continued down for rather longer than was comfortable, and the roar of voices from the bar was soon left behind. The air became increasingly close and clammy, and the surrounding darkness had a watchful feel.
    "There's no electricity down here," said Alex, after a while. His voice sounded small and flat, without the faintest trace of an echo, even though I could all but feel a vast space opening up around us, "Something down here interferes with all the regular means of power supply."
    "Don't you mean someone?" said Suzie.
    "I try really hard not to think about things like that," said Alex.
    The stone steps finally gave out onto a packed-dirt floor. The bare earth was hard and dry and utterly unyielding under my feet. A blue-white glow began to manifest around us, unconnected to the storm lantern or any other obvious source. It rapidly became clear we were standing at the beginnings of a great stone cavern, a vast open space with roughly worked bare stone walls and an uncomfortably low ceiling. I felt like crouching, even though there was plenty of headroom. And there before us, stretching out into the gloomy distance, hundreds of graves set in neat rows, low mounds of earth in the floor, with simple, unadorned headstones. There were no crosses anywhere.
    "My ancestors," said Alex, in a soft, reflective, quietly bitter voice. "We all end up here, under the bar we give our lives to. Whether we want to or not. Merlin's indentured servants, bound to Strangefellows by his will, down all the many centuries. And yes, I know everyone else who dies in the Nightside is supposed to have their funerals handled by the Necropolis, by order of the Authorities, but Merlin's never given a damn for any authority other than his own. Besides, I think we all feel safer here, under his protection, than any earthly authority's. One day I'll be laid to rest here. No flowers by request, and if anyone tries to sing a hymn,