Nightside 09 - Just Another Judgement Day

me, and many of the heavily armed men and women actually flinched, but none of them fell back. That’s the trouble with real professionals; it takes more than a bad reputation to hold them off. Chandra moved round to protect our rear, his long, curved sword ready in his hand.
    “What am I to do, John Taylor?” he murmured in my ear. “I can’t fight women! It would be . . . unseemly!”
    “Then you’re going to be at a serious disadvantage in the coming unpleasantness,” I said. “Because these women will quite definitely kill you, given half a chance.”
    “Really?” said Chandra, tugging at his long black beard and beginning to smile. “How very . . . exotic.”
    The Walking Man stepped forward and struck a dramatic pose, and it was as though a great spotlight had fallen upon him. Everyone forgot all about me and Chandra, and turned their complete attention to the Walking Man. I don’t think they could have looked away if they’d wanted to. Suddenly he was the most important, significant, and dangerous man in the room.
    “Hello boys, hello girls, anyone else see me afterwards,” he said, smiling happily about him. His hands weren’t anywhere near his guns, but his stance dared anyone to start anything. “Sorry to put such a crimp in your celebrations, but I’m afraid the party’s over. No more good times for bad little boys and girls.”
    He paused, looked at the table beside him, took a firm hold on the edge of the tablecloth and whipped it off the table with a dramatic snap. Everything on the table flew through the air and crashed to the floor. The Walking Man smiled brilliantly, and dropped the table-cloth.
    “I meant to do that. Now, where was I?”
    He strolled between the tables, and the body-guards fell back despite themselves, giving him plenty of room to go wherever he wanted. His every movement made it clear he’d known they would. The sheer confidence in the man was unsettling, even disturbing. He stopped at every table to talk with every Boy, and he always had something to say about them.
    “I am the Walking Man,” he said grandly. “Latest in a long line of utter bastards, completely dedicated to slapping down villains and scumbags and brown-trousering the ungodly. I am the wrath of God in the world of men, walking in straight lines to punish the guilty, wherever they may be found. And there are so many guilty faces here tonight! Let’s start with you, Big Jake Rackham.”
    He stopped right in front of the big man and shook his head sadly, like a teacher disappointed by a determinedly under-achieving student.
    “Big Jake. Self-made man and proud of it. Everyone knows you run the sex trade in the Nightside. Everyone knows you take a cut from every sordid little transaction: every blow from every pimp; every disease from every hooker; every mugged and rolled client. Every woman driven to an early grave . . . But, does everyone know what you do to your gorgeous wife, Jezebel, because you can’t do anything else with her?”
    He moved on to Marty DeVore, also known as Devour, though never to his face, of course. Marty with a thin, weaselly figure with an endless appetite for acquiring new businesses. Whether the original owners wanted to sell or not. The Walking Man clapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and DeVore shrank away from the touch.
    “Dear old Marty DeVore,” said the Walking Man happily. “Such an unrelenting sinner. Your sheer enthusiasm for awfulness never ceases to impress me. You made your original money in slavery, of course, selling anyone and anything to anyone and anything. Everyone knows that. But do they know what you like to do for a bit of relaxation, Marty? How you bribe mortuary staff to let you lie down with dead bodies, with the prettiest corpses, and have your wicked way with them? Especially if they’re the wives and daughters of your friends and enemies?”
    He moved on to the Hellsreich brothers, the twins, Paul and Davey. Big blond blue-eyed Aryan types, young and healthy and rotten to the core. Heading right to the top, through endless alliances and very secret behind-locked-doors deals. Everyone wanted to hang on to their coat-tails.
    “Paul and Davey,” said the Walking Man, moving suddenly between them so he could put an arm across both their shoulders. “Does my heart good to see such young men striving for success. You deal in insurance, or more properly protection, taking money to pay yourselves not to do nasty things to your