The Street of the Gods was being its usual strange and unnatural self, with weird shit on every corner and more manifestations than you could shake a crucible at. Chandra enjoyed the sights, like any other tourist on his first grand tour, but every now and again he’d catch himself as he remembered he wasn’t supposed to approve of things like this. Organised religions are always jealous of the up-and-comers. But there was a lot to look at and enjoy. Self-appointed saints with neon halos looked disapprovingly on other-dimensional entities playing croquet with the heads of heretics, while rival congregations shouted rap sermons at each other from the safety of their church doors.
And a long line of sad furry animals followed a large scruffy bear as he trudged down the Street, holding up a crucifix to which was nailed a small green frog.
I pointed out some of the more interesting faiths and beliefs to Chandra as they presented themselves, at least partly in the spirit of self-defence. It pays to watch your back in the Street of the Gods. You never knew when some of the more aggressive Ideas will sneak up behind you and mug your subconscious. But there are many sights to be seen in the Street of the Gods, and I enjoyed showing them off to Chandra. It was all so new to him. The glamour rubs off fast after you’ve cleaned a fallen god’s blood off your shoes, as he’s viciously ejected from his temple to make way for someone more popular.
I showed him the Church of the Blood Red God—a tall Gothic structure with spiked towers and barbed parapets, a gloomy crimson edifice made entirely out of blood. Blood and nothing but blood, gallons of the stuff shaped and held in place entirely by the will of the Blood Red God. Impressive to look at, though up close it smelled pretty bad. Attracted flies like you wouldn’t believe. The God’s disciples provide the blood, mostly voluntarily.
“And what, precisely, does the Blood Red God get out of all this?” said Chandra suspiciously. “Apart from a church that smells like a slaughterhouse?”
“Well,” I said. “He feeds off his flock, transmutes the blood in his own divine body, then feeds the supercharged blood back to his devotees, a few drops at a time. Their worship makes him a God, and they get to feel divine, for a time. Do I really need to tell you that the process is addictive and that it burns out the human system pretty damn quickly? Not that it matters. There’s a believer born every minute.”
“But...that means he’s nothing more than a glorified leech! Feeding off his followers!”
“I could say something very cynical and cutting here about the nature of most organised religions,” I said. “But the Street says it all, really.”
Chandra sniffed loudly. “What does he look like, this Blood Red God?”
“Good question,” I said. “No-one knows. Like many of the Beings on the Street, he rarely walks abroad in person. Probably because if their flocks ever got a good look at what they were actually worshipping, they’d go off the whole idea. However, the Blood Red God has been known to send out humanoid figures composed entirely of blood to take care of day-to-day business. Some of the more adventurous vampires like to sneak up behind and stick straws in them.”
“Show me something else,” said Chandra. “Before I projectile vomit every meal I’ve eaten in the last three months.”
“Well,” I said. “If you’re looking for something more spiritual . . . over there we have the Hall of Entropy. A dour-looking place for a congregation of real gloomy buggers. They believe that since the whole universe is winding down, and everything that lives is going to die, it’s up to us to evolve into a higher order of Being and get the hell out of here in search of a better class of universe. They offer courses in how to become a higher order of Being. Very expensive courses.”
“Ah,” said Chandra. “And have any of these people ever actually transcended?”
“Funnily enough, no,” I said sadly. “According to the people who run the courses, it’s because the students aren’t trying hard enough. Or because they haven’t taken enough courses. There’s a pool running on the Street as to how long it will take before the students wise up and rebel, and tear the whole place apart. Probably only to find that the organisation’s leaders have already absconded with all the cash. In search of a better universe, presumably.”
“Why is everyone staying well away from that one?” said Chandra, pointing entirely unselfconsciously. “Even the tourists are taking their photos from the other side of the Street.”
“Ah,” I said. “That is the Church of Sacrifice. Its priests have an unnerving tendency to rush out of their church without warning, grab anyone handy, or anyone who doesn’t run away fast enough, and drag them into their church to sacrifice to their god. Usually singing psalms very loudly, to drown out the screams and objections. Their god, who has no name but I think we can all take a pretty good guess at his nature, sucks up the souls and shares the life energy with its followers. No-one on the Street objects, as such. They think he adds colour and character to the Street. And besides, he helps keep the tourists moving. The Church’s worshippers wear masks at all times. Because if any of them do get identified, everyone else kills them. Just on general principles.”
“This whole Street is a disgrace!” said Chandra, rather more loudly than I was comfortable with. “None of these Beings are gods! Powerful creatures, yes, but not gods! Nothing worthy of worship. In fact,” he said, his voice suddenly thoughtful. “Many would seem to me to qualify as monsters . . .”
“Let us not go there,” I said quickly. “We really don’t want to start anything. We’re here to stop the Walking Man.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?” insisted Chandra.
“Well, yes, quite probably,” I said. “But it’s still not something you want to actually announce out loud unless you like having your testicles expand suddenly and violently, then blow up in slow motion. Some of the gods here have very old-fashioned ideas when it comes to smiting unbelievers.”
“You think that will stop the Walking Man?” said Chandra.
“No. But then, his god is bigger than everyone else’s god.”
“I am a khalsa,” said Chandra. “I do not believe . . . that this Walking Man can do anything that I cannot.”
“You can believe anything you like, on the Street of the Gods,” I said. “But that doesn’t necessarily make it true.”
There was the sudden sound of loud and angry confrontation, from further down the Street. I started running again, with Chandra pounding along behind me. He was in better shape than I, but he was carrying more weight, so I kept a comfortable lead. I felt a very definite need to encounter situations or Beings before Chandra did. He had a disturbing tendency to say exactly what he was thinking, and that can get you into a whole lot of trouble on the Street of the Gods.
Lots of other people were running right alongside me, including a whole bunch of tourists with their cameras at the ready. We do love our free entertainment in the Nightside, especially if it promises to be dramatic, violent, and quite spectacularly bloody. And given that this involved the Walking Man, it promised to be all three. He was standing quite calmly in the middle of the Street, his long duster hanging open to reveal the guns still holstered on his belt. He was surrounded by proponents of a whole bunch of belief systems, singing the praises of their gods and denouncing the Walking Man as a heretic, an unbeliever, or worse still, a fake prophet. Even more were shouting insults from the safety of their church doors. And yet, nobody wanted to get too close to him. Even the fiercest of believers, the most fanatical wide-eyed extremists, could sense the power and the threat of the Walking Man. Even standing still, he was more frightening and more dangerous than any of the Beings on the Street of the Gods.