Nightside 10 - The Good the Bad and the Uncanny

all those important, necessary, but very unpleasant situations that sometimes have to be dealt with quietly, by expendable people like yourself, John. Quite a name in his time, was Somerset; had a hell of a reputation. But then he tried to bring me down, and I broke him. A lot of my enemies end up in places like this. So much more satisfying than simply killing them.”
    “Are you warning me?” I said. “Or threatening me?”
    “What do you think, John?” said Walker.

    Everywhere we went, people noticed Walker. They smiled and bowed, glared and turned their faces away ... but no-one ever ignored him. Walker was the Man. Everyone knew who he was, and what he did. But the one thing they all had in common, when you looked past the smiles and pleasant words, was that no-one was ever genuinely pleased to see Walker. A lot of them faked it remarkably well, so well that perhaps only a trained and experienced eye like mine might have spotted the falseness; but I knew. And I was pretty sure Walker did, too. I had to wonder if Walker had any real friends any more, or if he’d only see that as a weakness others would exploit. He kept his wife and his sons outside the Nightside, in an entirely separate life.
    I knew, though, that he used to have friends. Good friends. There were three of them, tight as brothers and thick as thieves, three young men determined to get on in the world and change it for the better. Henry, who became Walker. Mark, who became the Collector. And Charles, my father.
    I said as much to Walker, but he just shrugged.
    “I don’t have time for my family, let alone friends. The job is everything: my life, my wife, my mistress ... It’s very demanding. The thing about duty and responsibility is that they’re like the Old Man of the Sea. Once you pick them up, you can’t put them down again. Ever. You carry the weight of them until you drop in your tracks, and the best you can hope for is that there’ll be someone to take up the burden for you. I thought I knew what I was taking on, when I started; but I didn’t. You can’t know, you can’t understand, how big the job is until you’re carrying the whole weight of it on your shoulders. You think this is the life I wanted, John? The life I would have chosen for myself? I don’t run the Nightside; it runs me.”
    “You’re not exactly selling me on taking over,” I said. “What about Hadleigh? He was in charge before you. How did he cope?”
    “Arguably, he didn‘t,” said Walker. “He gave it all up and ran away to the Deep School, and now he’s the Detective Inspectre. Whatever the hell that is. No-one gets to retire from this job, John. We go crazy, or get killed, or drop in our tracks. But ... it’s the only job worth doing. There’s nothing else like it.”
    We were walking through Uptown now, where the very best and the very worst came to wine and dine, to see and be seen. Walker moved easily amongst the celebrities and the Major Players, greeting them all by name and putting them in their places if they got too familiar. All he had to do was murmur his wishes, and people jumped to obey. I never got that, for all my hard-won reputation.
    “You see, John?” Walker said finally. “My job isn’t to punish the guilty or strike down the wicked. Or even to rescue and preserve the good. It’s all about maintaining the status quo. Dealing with all the stresses as they arise, playing one faction against another, encouraging this individual or slapping down that one. I keep the lid on, maintain a steady balance, so that the wheels of business can turn smoothly, and everyone who comes here can get everything they think they want. The Nightside exists to cater to and contain all the darker elements in the world; and it’s my responsibility to prevent any of it from spilling over into the unsuspecting everyday world.
    “If it were up to me, I’d nuke the whole sick freak show and be done with it. But since the Powers That Be won’t let me, I walk the night and do my best to keep the freaks in their cages.”
    I stopped, and Walker stopped with me. I gave him my best hard look.
    “Enough. Enough, Walker. I don’t need to hear any more. And I’ve seen everything I need to see.”
    He smiled briefly. “You haven’t seen anything yet. The Nightside is bigger than you know, bigger than you ever suspected, and so are my duties and responsibilities. I can’t hand this over to just anyone.”
    “How many times do I have to say it,