Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay

kill you both right there, on the spot. For all we know, that could be what this has all been about—to get you so rattled you’d leave your security and walk into an obvious trap. No, I’ll go. See if I can negotiate a better deal.”
    “They might kill Melissa immediately once they see you coming, instead of me!”
    “No,” I said. “These are professionals. They’d know better than to get me angry at them.”

NINE
    One Dead Griffin
    E veryone knows that the traffic in the Nightside never stops. That all the cars and trucks and vehicles, some of which are so much more than they appear, are only passing through on their way to somewhere more interesting. But like most of the things that everyone knows, it’s only partly true. Some of these anonymous vehicles ferry important people to important places in the Nightside, and there has to be somewhere for these very important people to leave their very dangerous cars while they attend their extremely private meetings. So there are car-parks in the Nightside, but they’re limited to the business area so that when, rather than if, things go horribly wrong…the damage and loss of life can be restricted to one confined area.
    I persuaded Dead Boy to drive me over to the business area. I couldn’t tell him why I needed to get there so urgently, but he was used to that from me. And he must have seen something in my face because for once he didn’t give me a hard time about it. We drove in silence through the busy Nightside streets, and all the other hungry and dangerous vehicles recognised the futuristic car and took great pains to maintain a safe and respectful distance. I was still trying to decide what to do for the best. This could all go terribly wrong, in any number of distressing ways, but…it wasn’t like I had any other leads. All this time I’d spent looking for Melissa, and now I was handed her location on a plate. Had to be a trap. And the kidnappers had to know that I’d know…So either they had something really nasty lined up and waiting for me, or…I was missing something, and the situation wasn’t at all what I thought it was. It didn’t matter. If there was even the smallest chance of rescuing Melissa from her captors, I had to take it, no matter what the risk.
    That was what I signed on for.
    There was always a chance the kidnappers would shoot me on sight for not being the Griffin, but I was counting on my reputation to make them hesitate long enough for me to get the first word in. There are lots of stories floating around the Nightside of really nasty things that have happened to people who pulled guns on me. Most of these stories aren’t true, or at least greatly exaggerated, but I make a point of encouraging them. It helps to keep the flies off. Sometimes a scary rep can be better protection than triple-weave Kevlar. If I could just get them talking, I was pretty sure I could get them to negotiate. I can talk most people into anything, if I can just get them to stop trying to kill me long enough to listen.
    Dead Boy found the address easily enough, in spite of my directions, and brought his marvellous car gliding to a halt a sensible distance away. We looked the place over from the safety of the car. Business operations and warehouses with steel-shuttered windows and reinforced doors, guarded by heavily armed security men and magical protections so powerful they all but shimmered on the air, filled the area. Not many people on the streets. People only come here to do business, and they wouldn’t be seen dead just walking. No hot neon here, none of the usual come-ons. This was where sober people met to make sober deals, and money changed hands so often it wore the serial numbers off. Tourists were firmly discouraged from lingering, and you could be shot on sight for looking scruffy.
    The underground parking area looked like all the others—a single entrance, a long, sloping ramp down to an underground concrete bunker, and lots of heavily armed rent-a-cops in gaudy uniforms hanging around trying to look tough. Dead Boy stirred uncomfortably beside me.
    “I could come with you,” he said. “I could help. With whatever this is. No-one would have to know I was there. I could hide in the shadows. I’m really good at hiding in shadows. It’s all part of being dead.”
    “No,” I said. “Too many things could go wrong. They’re going to be upset enough at seeing me instead of the Griffin. So I think we’ll keep the shocks to a