Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

was currently wearing the very best suit Savile Row had to offer, complete with an old-school tie I was pretty sure he wasn’t entitled to wear. He’d painted his face stark white with arsenic; his smiling mouth was crimson with heavy lipstick, and his dark shining eyes never blinked once. His jet-black hair had been slicked down so fiercely it looked painted on, and a small silver ankh hung from his left ear-lobe. His every movement and gesture were elegance personified, and he moved through the world as though everyone in it was merely a supporting player to his star turn.
    The Host could get you anything, anything at all. And the worse it was for you, the wider he smiled. The Host was always delighted to be of service. He’d been only too happy to supply me with what I thought I needed, all those years ago. He drifted to a halt before me, bowed ever so politely, and clasped his pale, long-fingered hands together across his sunken chest.
    “Well, well,” he said, in a happy, breathy voice positively brimming with artificial bonhomie and fake sincerity. “Back again, Mr. Taylor? How nice. We’re always happy to welcome back one of our straying sons. What can I get you, Mr. Taylor ? Your usual?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not here for that. I’m here to meet someone.”
    His dark red smile widened, just a little. “That’s what they all say. Don’t be shy, Mr. Taylor; you’re amongst friends here. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in the Dragon’s Mouth. Indulge yourself. It’s what we’re here for.”
    “It’s not what I’m here for,” I said steadily. “I’m here on business. So stand aside.”
    He didn’t move, his unblinking eyes fixed on mine, his gaze full of a malign intensity. “No-one ever leaves the Dragon’s Mouth, Mr. Taylor. Not really. They only pop out for a while, then they come back. Who else knows you as well as us; who else can provide you with what you really need? You belong here, Mr. Taylor; you know you do. Come with me. Let me lead you to your old cubicle. It’s still here. Nothing’s changed. Let me prepare the needle for you and pop up a vein. You never really left; the world outside was just a cruel dream. You’ve always been here, where you belong.”
    I laughed right in his face, and he actually fell back a step. “Dream on,” I said. “I’m a lot more than I used to be.”
    The Host rallied almost immediately. “Are you sure I can’t offer you a little taste, Mr. Taylor? On the house, of course.”
    “Don’t tempt me,” I said.
    The Host stepped gracefully to one side, bowing his head, admitting defeat. For the moment.
    “Be seeing you, Mr. Taylor.”
    “Not if I see you first,” I said to his elegantly retreating back.
    I looked around the chamber, and various significant details loomed up out of the slowly swirling smoke. The old place hadn’t changed since I was here last. Hiding from a world that had broken and defeated me, in pretty much every way there was. I hadn’t so much lost hope, as thrown it away; because hope hurt too much. The sheer weight of my life had become too much to carry, and I couldn’t stand to see my reflection in the eyes of my friends. I’d failed; at everything that mattered and a few things that didn’t. So I came here, to the Dragon’s Mouth, asking only for pain’s ease and forgetfulness. For the one thing drugs could give you that was better than pleasure—the cold, quiet comfort of feeling nothing at all.
    There were hanging silk curtains and embroidered standing screens, to provide privacy for those who still cared about such things. Tables and chairs and camp beds, scattered in little clusters. Shadowy grottos and cells cut deep into the dark stone walls. Blood and piss and vomit on the floor. And all around me, men and women and other things, lost in dreams and might-have-beens. Dying, by inches ... but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel much for any of them. No-one comes to the Dragon’s Mouth by chance. Everyone knows what happens here. You have to want it, and choose it, in the same way you’d choose a gun or a noose or the razor’s blade.
    And I had wanted it so very badly once upon a time.
    I shook my head hard. I’m not normally one for dwelling in the past or regretting old mistakes. The tainted smoke curling on the still air was getting to me. I moved forward, making my way carefully between the packed tables and chairs, and stepping over the occasional dim shape on the floor; looking