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Sil waited till the truck thing was right behind us, then opened up with her rear-mounted flame-throwers. A great wave of harsh yellow flames swept over the truck, filling its gaping mouth. The whole truck caught fire in a moment, massive flames leaping up into the night sky. The truck screamed horribly, sweeping back and forth across the road as though trying to leave the consuming flames behind, while the rest of the traffic scattered to get out of its way. The truck thing exploded in a great ball of fire; and, after a moment, chunks of burning meat fell out of the sky. I lowered the side-window and inhaled deeply, so I could savour the smell. Take your fun where you can find it; that’s what I say.
* * *
Sil finally drew up outside the Literary Auction House, in the better business area of the Nightside, and pulled right up onto the pavement to park. Secure in the knowledge that absolutely no-one was going to dispute her right to be there. She opened the door for me, and I got out. I took a moment to adjust my purple greatcoat fussily, and be sure my floppy hat was set at just the right jaunty angle. Making the right first impression is so important when you’re about to march in somewhere you know you’re not welcome … probably make a whole lot of trouble, and almost certainly beat important information out of people.
The Literary Auction House is where you go when you’re looking to get your hands on really rare books. Not just the Necronomicon or the unexpurgated King in Yellow. I’m talking about the kind of books that never turn up at regular auctions. Books like The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene, The True and Terrible History of the Old Soul Market at Under Parliament, and 101 Things You Can Get for Free If You Just Perform the Right Blood Sacrifices. All the hidden truths and secret knowledges that They don’t want you to know about. Usually with good reason.
I swaggered in through the open door, and the two guards on duty took one look at me, burst into tears, and ran away to hide in the toilets. Not an uncommon reaction where I’m concerned. Inside the main auction hall, the usual unusual suspects were standing around, enjoying the free champagne and studying the glossy catalogues while waiting for things to start. I grabbed a
glass of champagne, drained it in one swallow, and spat it out. I never bother with domestic. Even my special pills can’t make that stuff interesting. There were platters of the usual nibbles and delicacies and flashy foody things, so I filled my coat pockets for later. And only then did I peer thoughtfully at the crowd, pick out some familiar faces, and head right for them. Smiling my most disturbing smile, just to let them know I was here for a reason and wouldn’t be leaving till I’d got what I wanted.
Deliverance Wilde was there, fashion consultant and style guru to the Fae of the Unseelie Court, tall and black and loudly Jamaican in a smartly tailored suit of eye-wateringly bright yellow. Jackie Schadenfreude, the emotion junkie, wearing a Gestapo uniform and a Star of David, so he could feed on the conflicting emotions they evoked. And the Painted Ghoul, the proverbial Clown at Midnight, in his baggy clothes and sleazy make-up. Chancers and con men, minor celebrities and characters for pay: the kind of people who’d know things and people they weren’t supposed to know. As I approached, they all moved to stand a little closer together, for mutual support in the face of a common danger. It would probably have worked with anyone else. I stopped right before them, stuck my hands deep in my coat pockets, and rocked back and forth on my heels as I looked them over, taking my time.
“You know something I want to know,” I announced loudly. “And the sooner you tell me, the sooner I’ll go away and leave you alone. Won’t that be nice?”
“What could we know that you’d want to know?” said Deliverance Wilde, doing her best to look down her long nose at me.
“You want a book?” said the Painted Ghoul, smiling widely to show his sharpened teeth. “I’ve got books that will make you laugh till you puke blood. All the fun of the unfair, with cyanide-sprinkle candy-floss thrown in…”
He stopped talking when I looked at him, the smile dying on his coloured mouth. Jackie Schadenfreude screwed a monocle into one eye.
“What do you want, Dead Boy? Please be good enough to tell us, so we can thrust it into your unworthy hands and be rid of you.”
“Krauss,” I said. “There’s a man here called Krauss, and I want him.”
“Oh him,” said Deliverance Wilde, visibly relaxing. “Don’t know why you’d want him, but I’m only too happy to throw him to the lions. Take him, and do us all a favour.”
“Why?” I said. “What is he?”
“You don’t know?” said Jackie Schadenfreude. “Krauss is the Bad Librarian. A booklegger. Specialises in really dangerous books, full of dangerous knowledge.”
“The kind no-one in their right mind would want,” said the Painted Ghoul, sniggering. “All the terrible things that people can do to people. Usually illustrated. Heh heh.”
I nodded slowly. I knew the kind of book they meant. After I came back from the dead and found I was trapped in my body, I did a lot of research on my condition, in many of the Nightside’s strange and curious libraries. I know more about all the various forms of death, and life in death, than most people realise. I’d acquired some of my more esoteric research materials from men like Krauss.
“Krauss is bad news,” said Deliverance Wilde, mistaking my thoughtfulness for indecision. “He deals in books that show you how to open dimensional doorways, and let in Things from Outside. Books that can teach you to raise Hell. Literally. The book equivalent of a back-pack nuke.”
“Books full of the secrets of Heaven and Hell,” said Jackie Schadenfreude. “And all the hidden places in between.”
“Pleasures beyond human comprehension,” said the Painted Ghoul, licking his coloured lips. “Practices to make demons and angels cry out in the night. Heh heh.”
“Knowledge of the true nature of reality,” said Deliverance Wilde. “That drives men mad because reality isn’t what we think it is and never has been. Take him and be welcome, Dead Boy. It’s bookleggers like Krauss that give people like us a bad name.”
“Where is he?” I said.
All three of them pointed in the same direction. None of their hands were particularly steady.
I headed straight for Krauss, and everyone along the way fell back to give me plenty of room. Krauss was a nondescript, elderly man in a tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows, wearing an old-school tie he almost certainly wasn’t entitled to. He was so immersed in his auction catalogue, circling things and making notes, that he didn’t even see me coming till I was right on top of him. He looked up abruptly, alerted by the sudden silence around him, and peered at me over the top of a pair of golden pince-nez.
“Hello,” he said, carefully. “Now what would the low and mighty Dead Boy want with a mere booklegger like myself? Can I perhaps be of service, help you locate something? Some suitable tome on the pleasures to be found in dead flesh, perhaps? Something explicit, on the delights of the damned? Satisfaction and complete discretion guaranteed, of course.”
“You don’t even recognise me, do you?” I said.
“But of course I do, my good sir! You’re Dead Boy! Everyone in the Nightside knows Dead Boy.”
“You only think you know me,” I said. “But then, it has been thirty years and more since you paid three young thugs to mug and murder me, down on Damnation Row.”
His jaw actually dropped, and all the colour fell out of his face. “That was you? Really? I can’t believe it … I helped create the legendary Dead Boy? I’m honoured!”
