Nightside 06 - Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth

you have my permission to defenestrate the bastard."
    "How many graves are there?" I said.
    "Not as many as you'd think," said Alex. He put his lantern down on the bottom step and glowered around him. "We all tend to be long-lived. If we don't get killed horribly somewhere along the way. Only useful thing we inherited from our appalling ancestor."
    He started out across the cavern floor. Despite the limited lighting, he was still wearing his sunglasses. Style had never been a sometime thing with Alex Morrisey. Suzie and I followed, trying to look in all directions at once. We passed by great barrels of beer and casks of wine, and bottles of rare and vicious vintage, laid out respectfully in a wine rack that looked even older than its contents. There were no cobwebs, and not even a speck of dust anywhere. And somehow I knew it wasn't because Alex was handy with a feather duster.
    "It occurs to me," I said carefully, "that there's no sign anywhere of the people Walker insisted on sending down here. Not any bodies. Not even any bits of bodies."
    "I know," said Alex. "Worrying, isn't it?"
    We stopped again, to consider a grave set some distance away from the others. Just another low mound of earth, but with no headstone or marker. Instead, there was a massive silver crucifix, pressing down the length of the earth mound. The silver was pitted and corroded.
    "Presumably put there in the hope it would hold him in his grave and keep him from straying," said Alex. "They should have known better. You couldn't keep Merlin Satanspawn down if you put St. Paul's Cathedral on top of his grave."
    "You have to wonder exactly what's in there," I said. "After all these centuries."
    "You wonder," said Suzie. "I like to sleep soundly at night."
    "Just bones?" I said. "No different from anyone else's?"
    "No," said Alex. "I think, if you dragged away the crucifix and dug him up… he'd look exactly like he did the day he was buried. Untouched by time or the grave. And he'd open his eyes and smile at you, and tell you to cover him up again. He was the Devil's son after all, the Antichrist in person, even if he did refuse the honour to make his own path. You really think the world is finished with him yet? Or vice versa? No… the bastard's still hoping some poor damned fool will find his missing heart and return it to him. Then he'll rise out of that grave and go forth to do awful things in the Nightside… and no-one will be able to stop him."
    "God, you're fun to be around, Alex," I said.
    We moved on, giving the grave plenty of room. The blue-white light moved with us, cold and intense, and our shadows seemed far too big to be ours. The darkness and the silence pressed in around us. Finally, we came to a bare and undistinguished-looking door, set flush into the stone wall. A gleaming copper latch, inscribed with blocky Druidic symbols, held it shut. I reached out a hand to the latch, then snatched it quickly back again. Some inner voice was shouting loudly that it would be a very bad idea for anyone but Alex to touch it. He smiled at me tiredly.
    "This door will open out onto anywhere you want, within a one-mile radius of the bar," he said. "Announce your destination out loud, and I'll send you on your way. But be really sure of where you want to go, because once you're through the door, that's it. It's a one-way door."
    "Who put it here?" said Suzie.
    "Who do you think?" said Alex.
    "You mean this door's been here for fifteen hundred years?" I said.
    Alex shrugged. "Maybe longer. This is the oldest bar in the world, after all. Now get the hell out of here. I've got customers waiting upstairs with my money burning a hole in their pockets."
    "Thank you, Alex," I said. "You didn't have to do this."
    "What the hell," said Alex. "You're family. In every way that matters."
    We smiled briefly at each other, then looked away. We've never been very good at saying the things that matter.
    "Where do we want to go to?" said Suzie, probably not even noticing the undercurrents. She'd never been very good at emotions, even hers. "You can bet Walker's people will be guarding all the approaches to the Necropolis."
    "Not if we go directly there," I said.
    "Not possible," Alex said immediately. "I told you, nothing over a mile radius."
    I grinned. "I was thinking of paying the Doormouse a visit."
    Suzie winced visibly. "Do we have to? I mean, he's so damned… cute. I don't do cute."
    "Brace yourself," I said kindly. "It'll be over before you know it."
    I