It was a traditional, old-school demon, twice the size of a man, with blood-red skin, goat’s horns and hooves, and very sharp teeth. It had the shape of a man, and the proportions of a man, but there was nothing human in its stance or in its glowing slit-pupilled eyes. Steam rose up from its scarlet skin, the air all around it heated past endurance by its very presence. It stank of shit and blood and brimstone, because it chose to. The Walking Man looked at me and Chandra Singh.
“You deal with it,” he said. “I’m busy.”
And he went back to looking for hidden prey, shooting them where he found them.
I was giving serious thought to finding some cover of my own when Chandra Singh started forward, swinging his long blade casually before him. The demon considered the monster hunter with interest, its long spade-tipped tail swinging lazily. Chandra shouted a challenge in his own tongue and brought his sword round in a long, sweeping arc that would have sliced most things in two, only to see his blade rebound harmlessly from the demon’s scalding skin. The vibrations almost tore the sword from Chandra’s hands, but he hung on stubbornly and struck at the demon again and again, grunting with the effort of his blows. The demon stood there and laughed at him soundlessly.
I searched frantically through my coat pockets for anything that might help, but I had nothing on me that could stop a demon from the Inferno. This was no ordinary demon, this was the real deal, a Lord of Hell. Where had the Boys Club found the power to summon something like this? Unless the founder of the Club really was who some people swore he was . . . You could hurt a demon like this with holy water, or give it pause with a crucifix, provided you had the faith to back it up, but nothing short of a full-scale exorcism could banish it from this plane. I racked my brain . . . and then shouted at Chandra, as he paused in his attack, bent over and breathing harshly.
“Chandra! The pentacle! It’s a gateway between this place and the Pit! That’s how they summoned it here! Break the pentacle, and the gateway will close!”
Chandra raised his sword and brought it slamming down on the nearest pulsing blue line. His enchanted blade sheared clean through the blue line, breaking the connection and short-circuiting the summoning. The gateway began to close, and the demon sank back into the darkness below, pulled inexorably back to where it belonged. It turned its horned head unhurriedly to look at the Walking Man.
“We know you in Hell,” it said, in a voice like screaming children. “We will meet again, Walking Man. All murderers end up in Hell. Even the ones who say God told them to do it.”
The Walking Man shot the demon dispassionately between the eyes. Its horned head snapped back under the impact, then it shook its head, gargled for a moment, and spat out the bullet. It was still laughing as it disappeared back beneath the floor, a terrible, soul-destroying sound. It cut off abruptly as the last of the pentacle lines faded away, and the floor was a floor again, though with a bloody big hole in it now. The Walking Man looked at it for a while, his face unmoved. But he wasn’t smiling any more.
I went over to Chandra, and he leaned heavily on me, his sword hanging down as though it had become too heavy to lift.
“Nice call, John,” he said faintly.
“Nice cut,” I said.
The Boys Club was still and silent. There was blood and dead bodies everywhere, even in the swimming pool, where the perfect bodies of young men and women floated facedown in bloody waters. The Hellsreich brothers stood together, holding their hands high in the air in surrender. The Walking Man regarded them thoughtfully.
“You’ve killed hundreds of men and women,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” said the Walking Man. “It’s never enough.”
“We’re just businessmen!” protested Paul Hellsreich. “We provide a service, we protect our customers from the vicissitudes of fate!”
“We’re insurance men!” said Davey Hellreich. “We never killed anyone!”
“We’ll go legitimate!” said Paul. “We’ll pay taxes! We promise!”
“You don’t have to kill us!” said Davey. “We’re not worth it!”
“It’s always worth it,” said the Walking Man.
“You should turn them over to Walker,” I said quickly, as he started to raise his guns again. “They have surrendered.”
“To Walker?” said Paul. “And end up in Shadow Deep? I think I’d rather be shot.”
“No problem,” said the Walking Man.
“To hell with that,” said a new voice. “I’ve never let a client down yet.”
We all looked round in surprise as the owner of the charming French accent came forward. God alone knew where she’d managed to hide, but Penny Dreadful had survived the massacre without a drop of blood on her. She moved carefully through the carnage, stepping daintily over dead bodies, and came to a halt facing the Walking Man.
“Penny,” I said carefully. “Get out of the way. You don’t have anything that can stop the Walking Man.”
“I took their money,” she said. “Swore to guard them against all dangers, to put my body between theirs and all harm. That’s the job.”
“She took their money,” said the Walking Man. “Even knowing where it came from. That makes her as guilty as them.”
“No it bloody doesn’t!” I said. “She’s a professional, that’s all! Just like me. And Chandra.”
“You side with the sinners, you die with the sinners,” said the Walking Man. “It really is that simple.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. “Not here. Not in the Nightside. We do things differently here.”
“I know,” said the Walking Man. “That’s the problem. Sin is sin. You’ve lived here so long you’ve forgotten that.”
“She is brave, and honourable, and trustworthy, in her way,” I said. And I moved slowly and deliberately forward, to stand between Penny and the Walking Man. “She’s done good things.”
“I’m sure God will take that into consideration,” said the Walking Man. And he shot right past my ear. I spun round, but it was already too late. Penny was falling to her knees, a dark and bloody third eye in the middle of her forehead. I caught her before she hit the floor, but she wasn’t breathing any more. I knelt before the Walking Man, holding my dead friend in my arms. I heard two more shots, but didn’t look round to watch the Hellsreich brothers fall. I didn’t want to let Penny go, even though I knew there was nothing I could do. Her body leaned heavily against me, like a sleeping child. She didn’t deserve to die like this. Even if she had been the infamous Penny Dreadful, and done all the things she’d done, she didn’t deserve to die like this.
I finally put her aside, got back on my feet, and glared at the Walking Man, who stared impassively back. I started towards him, and Chandra was quickly there to grab my arm and stop me.
“No, my friend! Not now. We’re not ready.”
“Let go of my arm,” I said, and he let go immediately.
I was breathing hard, my whole body tense with the need to do . . . something. I knew he’d kill me if I took another step forward, but right then, I wasn’t sure I cared, as long as I took him down with me.
“What about God’s mercy?” I said finally, in a harsh voice I barely recognised. “What about his compassion?”
“Not my department,” said the Walking Man. He decided I wasn’t going to do anything after all and put away his guns.
“What gives you the right to condemn anyone to Hell?”
“I don’t send anyone to Hell. I send them to judgement.”
“Who are you, to take such responsibility upon yourself?” said Chandra Singh.
The Walking Man smiled; and for the first time it was a simple, human smile. “About time you asked. Very well, just for you; the secret origin of the Walking Man. My name is, or more properly was, Adrien Saint. No-one special. Just a man with a job and a wife and two small children. Mr. Average, I suppose. No great ambitions. All I wanted was to get on with my life and look after my family.