Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

ingredient.”
    “This is an Outsider?” said Oliver, past the hand he’d clapped over his mouth and nose to try to keep out the smell.
    “No, I told you: this is one of their messenger boys. Hey, you! Yes, you, puke face! Knock off the special effects and take on a more traditional form, or I’ll turn the fire hose on you! I am John Taylor, and I don’t take no shit from demons!”
    I did my best to sound confident, like I knew what I was doing, and the demon must have fallen for it because the horror show disappeared in a moment though the horrid smell still lingered. In its place stood a man in a white trench coat, with a familiar face. It was meant to be me, except it had bulging compound insect eyes, and blood dripped steadily from its ragged mouth. The thick blood fell down onto the white trench coat, leaving stains. Its wrists were stuffed deep into the pockets, and something about the way the figure held itself made me think I wouldn’t want to see what it had instead of hands.
    I looked it up and down and sniffed loudly.
    “I suppose that’s an improvement. What do you want?”
    Its mouth moved uncertainly, as though it wasn’t used to human speech. When it finally spoke, it sounded like it was choking on blood.
    “We are coming here, and you can’t stop us, John Taylor. Little human thing. When my masters finally manifest, in all their awful glory, the sight of them will blast the vision from your eyes and drive all you little human things howling into madness and misery. And they shall feast upon your suffering and make you worship them until you can’t stand it any more.”
    “Ah,” I said. “The usual. What is it about you demons that you always want to be loved and worshipped? Definite self-confidence problems there, and probably abandonment issues, too. Like I give a shit. What brings you to the Nightside?”
    “My masters are not coming for the Nightside. They come for the whole world and everything in it. They have been offered an opening here, and they will use it to destroy everything that lives. You disgust us. Your very existence offends us. Meat that dares to think and dream. My masters will tear your upstart flesh apart and eat your souls, and even after you are dead, we will still find ways to make you suffer. Your torment will never end. For ever and ever and ever.”
    “I never get a straight answer, but I’ll try one more time,” I said. “Why?”
    “Because we can. Because we want to. Because you can’t stop us.”
    “Demons,” I said. “I swear, you’re worse than five-year-olds. Want want want and stamp your cloven feet if you can’t get your own way. But ... while you talk a good game, I think you’re running scared. Your masters wouldn’t waste all the power it takes to force a messenger into our reality unless you were worried something might go wrong. You can’t come in ... unless Oliver here blows the doors open; and your masters are shit scared I might talk Oliver out of it. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re afraid his resolve is weakening. You’re trying to bully him into serving you. How do you feel about that, Oliver? Now you know what your death would really bring about?”
    Oliver took his hand away from his mouth, staring at the messenger with revulsion. “I never knew,” he said. “I never even realised things like this existed. What good would it do, to die for my children, if it let things like this into their world? Can you stop this, Mr. Taylor?”
    “Oh,” I said, smiling easily. “I’m sure I can find a way.”
    I raised my gift, and it only took me a moment to find the dimensional rift that had let the messenger manifest in our reality. It took a complicated lattice of strange energies to hold the rift open, and it only took me a moment to find a fatal flaw in their arrangement. And then it was the easiest thing in the world to hit those energies in exactly the right place, and the whole thing collapsed. The messenger shrieked once, in shock and horror and surprise, and the collapsing rift sucked it back through and out of our reality. There was nothing left in the mall corridor but bright lights everywhere and the last vestiges of a really nasty smell.
    I smiled confidently at Oliver and let myself relax a little, reaching for my psychic second wind. I really hadn’t thought it would be that easy.
    I took a deep breath and clapped Oliver on the shoulder. “Okay, I’ve got an idea. If you are going to blow yourself up, there