Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

onto the floor and looked at me haughtily.
    “I know you, Mr. Taylor. You might have learned a few tricks, but you haven’t changed. You won’t kill an unarmed man.”
    I looked at him thoughtfully. Russell would never stop coming after me all the time I was in London Proper. He wouldn’t stop until he was dead, or I was. Unless I did something about him. The sword on my back wanted me to kill him, to execute him. My hand rose to the invisible hilt behind my shoulder, then I pulled it back again. I was not an executioner. And all that fighting, all the action stuff, diving into danger with a smile on my face and letting the chips fall where they may—that wasn’t me. I have more sense. The sword had been influencing me. And it stopped there. I’d deal with Russell in my own way.
    I strode briskly forward, grabbed him firmly by one ear, and dragged him out of my old office, down the stairs, back through the lobby, and out onto the street. I then stripped him naked, quickly and efficiently, and left him hanging upside down from the nearest lamp-post. Tied firmly by one ankle with a handy piece of cord from my coat-pocket. Russell struggled weakly, but there was no way he’d be able to work himself loose. He flopped upside down before me, his skin already grey from the cold, his mouth working weakly.
    “I’ve thrown things back that looked less disgusting than you, Russell,” I said. “And you really do have a remarkably small willy. Which explains a lot. Let’s see who’ll work for you now, after this. Even the most basic thugs draw the line somewhere. Good-bye, Russell. If I should see you again ... I’ll think of something even worse to do to you.”
    Enough nostalgia, I thought, walking off down the street. Time to find the London Knights.

FOUR
    A Knight to Remember
    The late evening was darkening into night as I hit Oxford Street, and I was starting to feel more at home. I could feel that little extra bounce in my step as I headed for a Door that was only there when it felt like it. The street was packed with people coming and going, shop lights blazed, and neon glared, but it all seemed somehow faded and subdued compared to the Nightside. The moon in the sky looked small and far away, and the stars were only stars. As though the real world couldn’t be bothered to put on a decent show.
    Oxford Street had changed a lot in the years I’d been away. Lots of rebuilding and general cleaning up, tearing down the older and dodgier enterprises to replace them with safer and more comfortable brands and franchises. All the local colour was gone, and much of the character, and cold camera eyes watched every little thing you did. Though the messenger boys darting in and out of traffic and pedestrians on their stripped-down cycles were just as obnoxious.
    After living so long in the Nightside, the real world seemed like a foreign place, where even the most obvious and everyday things seemed subtly different. To start with, no-one paid me any attention. I really wasn’t used to that. At first I quite liked just walking along, amongst people who didn’t have a clue as to who and what I was. Who didn’t stare or point, or turn and run. But I soon got tired of that when no-one gave way for me, or stepped aside to let me pass, and even jostled me when I didn’t get out of their way fast enough. How dare they treat me like everyone else? Didn’t they know who I was? Well, no ... That was the point. I had to smile, and even tried being polite and courteous for a while, if only to see what it felt like.

    When I got to the Green Door, it wasn’t there. A bleak expanse of yellowing wall separated two perfectly respectable businesses, with no trace of any door or opening, or indeed anything to suggest there was anything special about the wall. Except, this was perhaps the only stretch of wall in London not covered with graffiti, posters, or dried streams of urine. I raised my Sight and studied the wall closely, and still couldn’t See the damned Door. I could See rough markings in dried troll blood, from some Scissorboys gang marking its territory, and a reptiloid alien hidden behind a human mask as it strode briskly past me, but the wall remained stubbornly a wall. The Green Door that provided the only entrance point to the London Knights’ headquarters remained thoroughly hidden. Which meant ... really powerful protections.
    I knew the bloody thing was there because I’d once tracked a man all the way to it,