Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa

    Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

    This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

    Copyright © 2010 by Simon R. Green.

    All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    eISBN : 978-1-101-17145-5

    1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. City and town life—England—London—Fiction.
3. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6107.R44G66 2010
823’.92—dc22 2009040931

    http://us.penguingroup.com

The good, the bad, and the uncanny.
We’re all in there somewhere.

This is the Nightside.
    Hidden away deep in the hollow heart of London is another city, another world, another reality. Where it’s always night, always dark, always three o‘clock in the morning; the hour that tries men’s souls. Rain-slick streets, gaudy neon signs the exact colours of childhood candy we always knew was bad for us. Bars and clubs and private establishments, where you can find everything you’re not supposed to want. Love for sale on every street-corner, love, or something like it. And the constant roar of traffic that never, ever stops.
    Angels and demons lurk in shadowed alleyways, arranging deals and making decisions never to be shared with Humankind. Nightmares go walking in borrowed flesh, and not everything that looks back at you with human eyes is really human. Who watches the watchmen? Who preys on the predators? Who gives a damn, in the night that never ends?
    I’m John Taylor, private investigator. Tall, dark of eye, and handsome enough at a distance. I take the cases no-one else will touch, because I have a special gift for finding things. Most of my clients say they want me to find the truth; but they don’t always mean it. I wear a long white trench coat, like a knight in cold armour; and I have fought monsters, in my time.
    You can find monsters in the Nightside, and gods, too, if they don’t find you first. Forbidden knowledge, appalling pleasures, sex and death and everything in between; all yours for the asking. As long as you remember: buyer beware. If you can’t spot the patsy in the deal, it’s almost certainly you.
    This is the Nightside. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

ONE
    Into the Dragon’s Mouth
    I was out and about that night, taking my trench coat for a walk, when a sudden fog came rolling down the street towards me like a grim grey tidal wave. I stopped, and studied its progress cautiously. We don’t get many fogs, in the Nightside. We get lots of rain, and thunder-storms, and the occasional hail of frogs, but we don’t really do weather, as such. Weather and seasons are part of the natural order of the world, and we don’t really do natural either. So a sudden fog always means trouble for someone.
    People on the street were already running ahead of the fog, or disappearing into sheltering doorways, as