Nightside 06 - Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth

shoulders and backs with loud happy words. It was odd to see Charles Taylor looking so much younger than his contemporaries, but there was no denying how naturally they fit together. As though they belonged together, and always had. Eventually they stood back and studied each other.
    "It's good to have you back, Charles," said Walker. "You're looking good. Being dead clearly agreed with you."
    "I've missed you, Charles," said the Collector. "I really have. No-one could hold their own in an argument like you. So; what was it like, being dead?"
    "I really don't remember," said Charles. "Probably just as well. But look at you… both of you! Henry… what happened? You look so distinguished! And you always swore you'd rather die than be trapped in a suit and tie, like all the other city drones. Are you really part of the Establishment these days?"
    "Hell," said the Collector. "He is the Establishment."
    "And Mark… Ten out of ten for style, but when did you get so fat?"
    "Now don't you start," said the Collector. "Do you like the blazer? I got it from this retired secret agent. I got his weird car, too, while he was looking for his blazer. You have got to see my collection, when all this is over. I've acquired more fabulous, junk and kitsch than any man living!"
    "I always knew you had it in you, Mark," my father said solemnly, and all three of them laughed.
    "This is a new thing," Merlin said quietly to me. "Unforeseen and unexpected. Who knows what might come of this?"
    "You never foresaw what's happening here?" I said.
    "I don't think anyone ever foresaw this, boy! So many disparate elements needed, so many unlikely happenstances, to bring these three together again, after so many years. And all because of you, John Taylor."
    "So," I said. "We have a chance now?"
    "Oh no," said Merlin, turning away. "We're all still going to die, or be destroyed, along with the rest of the Nightside."
    "The Babalon Working," said Charles Taylor, and I immediately paid attention again. My father was frowning thoughtfully. "Our greatest achievement, and our greatest crime. Do we really dare start it up again?"
    "Do we have time?" said Walker. "Back then, it took us days to get the ritual up and working properly, nearly destroying ourselves in the process. And we were a lot younger and stronger and better prepared, back then."
    "We don't need to go through the whole ritual again," the Collector said confidently. "You never did listen when I explained the theory of it, Henry. The magic is still operating in infraspace, because we never shut it down. It's hanging there, suspended at the moment we were interrupted. That's why the door we opened is still ajar. All we have to do is make contact with the magic again."
    "And that should be easy enough," said Charles. "We're the only three keys that fit that lock."
    "On the other hand," said the Collector, "a lot could go wrong. It's always dangerous, picking up an interrupted magic. We could all be killed."
    "Dying would be vastly more pleasant than what Lilith has in store for us," said Walker.
    "True," said the Collector. "And I think… I'd like a chance to be the man I used to be, one last time. Let's do it."

    In the end, there was no need for any chalk circles, no chanting or invoking of spirits; the three old friends simply closed their eyes and concentrated, and a powerful presence filled the whole bar, beating on the air. There was a feeling of something caught on the edge, struggling to be free, to be finished. And after more than thirty years the three old friends stepped effortlessly back into their old roles, meshing like the parts of a powerful engine that had forgotten just how much it could do. Raw magic sparked and flared on the air around them, and the Babalon Working was up and running again, as though they'd never been away.
    But almost immediately another presence forced its way into the bar, slamming through Merlin's defences. A door appeared in a wall where there had never been a door before, a ragged hole in the brickwork like a mouth or a wound, and stretched out beyond it was a narrow corridor, impossibly long. It led off in a direction I couldn't identify, which had nothing to do with left and right, up and down, that my mind couldn't deal with or accept, except simply as Outside. And down that awful corridor, slowly but inexorably, a single figure came walking. It was too far off in that unacceptable distance to see clearly, but I knew who it was, who it had to be.