Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay

in Hell, John. All your friends and family are here…
    I laughed right back in their faces. “Save your mind games for someone who gives a damn. What were you planning to do with all these bits and pieces? Nudge us to death?” I looked at Sister Josephine. “Don’t let the bastard get to you. He’s only messing with us, hoping to break our spirit. I can deal with this.”
    I fired up my gift, and straightaway found the very basic magic that was reanimating the dead nuns. We’d triggered the spell by entering the chapel, and it was the easiest thing in the world to push the switch back into the off position. The spell shut itself down, and the dead bits and pieces were still again, their dignity restored. Sister Josephine put her machine pistols away. She was breathing hard, but otherwise seemed unmoved.
    “Who could have done this?” she said, sounding very dangerous indeed. “And where do I have to go to find him and make him pay?”
    “Griffin Hall’s probably your best bet,” I said. “But since my gift seems to operate fine here, why don’t I make sure?”
    I forced my inner eye all the way open, and my Sight showed me a vision of the recent past. I saw who it was who had come here, and done all this, and taken Melissa Griffin away…and just like that, a whole lot of things suddenly made sense.

ELEVEN
    Hell to Pay
    I t’s never easy arguing with a nun, but it’s harder than usual when she’s waving a machine pistol around to emphasize her point. Sister Josephine was mad as hell because I wouldn’t tell her what I’d seen in my Vision, but I couldn’t tell her. Not until I had proof to back it up. Some things are just too weird to say out loud, even for the Nightside. Sister Josephine finally settled for insisting on coming back to Griffin Hall with me, and I couldn’t find it in me to say no. Not while we were surrounded by the dismembered bodies of her fellow Sisters. Besides, she had the Hand of Glory, the only way of getting us all the way across the Nightside to Griffin Hall in a single moment. So I agreed, and Sister Josephine made me wait while she loaded herself up with extra guns, grenades, and incendiaries, just in case. I had to smile.
    “I really must introduce you to my girl-friend. You have so much in common.”
    The nun snorted loudly. “I seriously doubt it. Right, that’s it. I’m ready. Time to go.”
    She looked around the deserted chapel one last time, making herself look at every dead and mutilated body so that she’d be in a proper frame of mind when she arrived at Griffin Hall. And then she lit the candles on the Hand’s waxy fingers, and stabbed them at the door before her. The heavy wood bulged and rippled, shaking in its frame as though scared of what was being asked of it, and it swung open abruptly, revealing only darkness beyond. I walked through with Sister Josephine close on my heels.

    But when I reappeared, I was still a long way short of Griffin Hall. I was right in the middle of the jungle surrounding the Hall, and there was no sign of Sister Josephine anywhere. My first instinct was to retreat back through the door, but when I looked behind me it was gone, too. Thin shafts of shimmering moonlight drifted down through the thick overhead canopy, painting silvery highlights on the trembling leaves and slowly stirring vegetation. There were strange lights in between the trees, and slow, heavy sounds deep in the earth. And all around me, slow, malevolent movement in the jungle, as it realised who it had at its mercy.
    The Hall’s defences must be working overtime. They couldn’t stop a powerful working like the Hand of Glory, but they could keep me out of the Hall itself, by dumping me here. In the jungle. Where the plants are always hungry…
    The vegetation was rising up all around me now, flowers opening out to reveal sharp teeth and spiny maws, barbed branches reaching towards me, lianas uncurling like strangling ropes. Even the trees were wrenching their roots up out of the wet earth in their eagerness to get at me. The jungle remembered me and hated me with all of its parts in a slow, cold rage.
    I was surrounded by enemies and a long way from help. Situation normal in my line of business. I fished a couple of basic incendiaries out of my coat-pockets, primed them quickly, and tossed them where I thought they’d do the most good. Explosions rocked the jungle and lit up the night, and rustling vegetation everywhere flared up into wildly burning