“I knew we could rely on you, John. What have you found that will stop the Walking Man?”
“He’s found something,” said Walker. “But you’re really not going to like it.”
“Oh bloody hell,” said Larry Oblivion. “He hasn’t got Merlin up and walking around again, has he?”
“Worse than that,” I said, savouring the moment despite myself. “I bring the Speaking Gun, and all that goes with it.”
It went very quiet in the room. They all knew of the Speaking Gun, what it was and what it could do. I watched them considering the possibilities of whether it might actually be the one thing that would slap down the Walking Man, against whether just using it would go against everything they were trying to achieve. And damn all their souls in the process.
“Maybe we should have asked Chandra Singh to find something,” said Annie Abattoir.
“No,” Chandra said simply. “I have tested myself against this Walking Man and failed. John Taylor is your only hope.”
“Then we are in deep trouble,” said Count Video.
“You have got to be kidding!” said Larry Oblivion, striding forward on his silent feet so he could glare right into my face with his dead blue eyes. “We can’t risk using the Speaking Gun! It’s . . . evil! More dangerous than the Walking Man himself!”
“Yes,” said King of Skin, giggling suddenly. “It is. And that’s why it will work.”
“Oh, it’ll work all right!” said Count Video, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “It’ll kill him, then kill everyone else! That’s what it does!”
“I remember the Speaking Gun,” said Jessica Sorrow, and everyone stopped to listen. She knew more about the unseen world than we ever would. “I can hear it, drawing closer. It moans and sings and hates. It is a hunger that can never be satisfied, a rage that can never be eased. Because that is how it was made. It has murdered angels and delighted in the destruction of God’s work.”
“But can it stop the Walking Man?” said Annie Abattoir, and we all waited to hear what Jessica would say.
“The Walking Man is both more and less than an angel,” she said finally. “He was designed to perform a function, just like the Speaking Gun. Who can say what will happen when the divine and the infernal come face-to-face?”
“Well, that was about as helpful as we had any right to expect,” said Count Video.
“No-one’s ever killed a Walking Man,” said King of Skin. “But they can be broken. It seems to me that a gun constructed to kill God’s messengers should be just what we need to do the job.” He sniggered suddenly, his sleazy glamour beating on the air like musty wings. “I can’t wait to see . . .”
“You disgust me,” said Larry Oblivion.
King of Skin smiled. “It’s what I do best.”
“Going head to head with the Walking Man is our last resort,” Julien Advent said firmly. “I don’t want any killing unless it’s absolutely necessary. There’s still a chance we can reason with the man, make him understand that we’re not what he thinks we are. Make him understand what it is we’re trying to achieve.”
“I think he already knows,” I said. “And I don’t think he gives a damn.”
“We can’t allow ourselves to be destroyed,” said Larry. “We are the last hope of the Nightside.”
“Whether we want to be or not,” said Count Video.
“I knew your father,” said Julien. “This is what he wanted for you. He would be so proud of what you’re doing.”
“You always did know how to fight dirty, Julien,” said Count Video. But he smiled a little as he said it.
“I just want to see a Walking Man go down,” said Annie. “To do what no-one else has ever done.”
“It doesn’t have to come to that,” Julien insisted. “I refuse to believe that God would allow His servant to wage war against the Good once its nature had been made clear to the Walking Man.”
“I’ve met the man,” I said. “And I think the God he serves is strictly Old Testament. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and to hell with repentance. Mercy and compassion, and just possibly reason, too, are not in him any more. He gave all that up long ago, for a chance to punish the guilty.”
“We have to make a stand,” said Julien. “We’re all of us powerful people, in our own way. Perhaps together we can do what no-one else has . . .”
“Right,” said Larry. “And hey, I’m dead. What else can he do to me, after all?”
“You really don’t want to know,” said Annie.
“We have to make a stand,” Julien said doggedly. “To prove we are worthy to be the new Authorities.”
“And all those adventurers and rogues gathered down below?” I said. “Are you ready to let them fight and die, sacrificing themselves to defend you?”
“No-one asked them to do this,” said Julien. “They are volunteers, every last one of them. It’s about faith, John.”
“Right,” said Larry. “They wanted to do this. You couldn’t drive them out of here with sticks.”
“Of course,” said Chandra. “We are adventurers. Heroes and warriors and defenders of the Light. It is what we are here for.”
“At least half the people I saw down there wouldn’t fit that description if you used a tire iron to squeeze them in,” I said. “In fact, some of them are exactly the kind of people you and your kind formed this Club to fight.”
Chandra smiled. “What is it you people say—needs must when the Devil drives?”
“You’ve grown cynical,” I said. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s what comes of hanging around with you,” said Chandra, and we both smiled.
“I still have hope that seeing so many men and women of good faith come together will shock the Walking Man back to sanity,” said Julien.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
“He’s here,” said Jessica Sorrow, and we all stopped and looked at her. Her gaunt face was blank, her eyes empty and far away. “He is at the door. And the rage that burns within him is cold... so very cold.”
“Stay here!” I snapped at Julien. “Let us test the waters first, see if he can be talked down. Or stopped. Having you people there would only concentrate him on his mission.”
“Give it your best shot, John,” said Julien Advent. “But preferably not with the Speaking Gun.”
“We’re relying on John Taylor to reason with the Walking Man,” said Larry Oblivion. “We’re doomed.”
Walker and Chandra and I scrambled back down the stairs at speed and charged through the bar into the lobby. All the heroes and the rogues and the morally undecided were standing together, tense and silent, their eyes fixed on the closed front door of the Club. Walker gestured for Chandra and me to stay with him at the back of the crowd and observe how things went before we committed ourselves, and I was happy to go along with that. I really didn’t want to do what I was there to do. The tension in the air was almost unbearable, like waiting for the bullet to come your way, knowing your name is on it. The front door shook suddenly in its frame, as some massive force slammed against it. Like God himself knocking on the door and demanding entry. There was another great impact, and the huge door flew inwards, blasted right off its hinges. It slammed flat against the floor, and in came Adrien Saint, the Walking Man.
Just a man in a long coat, with worn-down heels on his shoes from walking up and down in the world, doing good the hard way. He hadn’t even drawn his guns. But still he was the most dangerous, the most frightening man in the Club, and we all knew it. He walked in Heaven’s way, and Death walked with him. He was as inevitable as an earthquake or a flood, as implacable as cancer or heart failure. He was smiling his insolent smile, his gaze openly mocking as he contemplated the rows of adventurers gathered against him. He had come here to do a thing, and he was going to do it, no matter what we might set against him.
He walked forward, and all the Club’s built-in security defences went to work. Force shields sprang into being before him, fierce energy screens generated by salvaged alien machines down in the Club basement. The Walking Man strode through the force shields, and they popped like soap bubbles. Protective magics and potent sorceries snapped and crackled on the air, bending the very laws of reality to get at him, and none of them could touch him. Even the mechanical booby-traps failed to slow him down. Trap-doors opened beneath him, and he just kept walking. Spikes protruded from the wall, only to break in half against his long duster as though it was armour. Man-traps snapped together around his ankles, and he kicked them away.