She was good-looking enough, in an undemanding way, her long lean body positively burning with thwarted nervous energy. Her clothes were expensive, though somewhat disheveled. She was clutching a white leather shoulder bag as though she would never let it go, and her whole stance screamed stress and tension. Her mouth was compressed into a thin dark red line, and she held herself very stiffly, as though she might fall apart if her control lapsed for just one moment. And yet, behind the clear anger in her eyes, I could see an awful, unfocused fear.
"Hi," I said, as kindly as I could. "I'm John Taylor." "Yes," she said jerkily, the words coming out clipped, in sudden bursts. "I know. You were described to me. The man in the white trench coat. The knight in cold armor. He said you'd help me.
Sorry. I'm not making myself clear… I've had something of a shock. My name is Liza Barclay. I'm lost. I don't know what I'm doing here. I've lost all memory of the last twenty-four hours of my life. I want you to find them for me."
I sighed again, still inwardly, and handed her my glass. "Take a sip of brandy," I said, doing my best to sound kind and helpful and not at all threatening.
She grabbed the brandy glass with both hands, took a good gulp, and immediately pulled a face and thrust the glass back into my hand.
"God, that's awful. You drink that for fun? You're tougher than you look. But then, you'd have to be. Sorry. I'm rambling."
"It's all right," I said. "Take your time, get your breath back. Then tell me how you got here. This isn't an easy place to get to."
"I don't know!" she said immediately. "I've lost a day. A whole day!"
I slipped off my bar stool and offered her a seat, but she shook her head quickly. So I just leaned back against the long wooden bar and studied her openly as she looked around Strangefellows, making it very clear with her face and body language that not only had she never seen anything like it, but that she was quite definitely slumming just by being there. I was impressed. The oldest bar in the world isn't for just anyone. Most people take one look and run away screaming, and we like it that way. Strangefellows is a place of old magic and all the very latest sins and indulgences. This is not the kind of bar where everyone knows your name; it's the kind of bar where you can wake up robbed and rolled in someone else's body.
Liza Barclay deliberately turned her back on the disturbing sights and the appalling patrons, and fixed her full attention on me. I did my best to look tall, dark, and handsome, but I couldn't have been that successful because after only a moment she nodded briskly, as though I'd passed some necessary test, but only just. She switched her gaze to Dead Boy, who smiled vaguely and toasted her with his glass. The graveyard punch made a valiant attempt to escape, and he had to push the stuff back in with his fingers.
Dead Boy was tall and adolescent thin, wrapped in a long purple greatcoat spotted with various food and drink stains, and topped with a fresh black rose on his lapel. Scuffed black leather trousers over muddy calfskin boots completed the ensemble. He let his coat hang open, to reveal a bare torso covered with old injuries, bullet holes, and one long Y-shaped autopsy scar. Dead Boy might be deceased, but he still took damage, even if he couldn't feel it. He was mostly held together with stitches and staples and superglue, along with a certain amount of black duct tape lashed around his middle. His skin was a pale gray, and dusty-looking.
He had the face of a debauched and very weary Pre-Raphaelite poet, with dark fever-bright eyes, a sulky mouth with no colour in it, and long dark curly hair crammed under a large floppy hat. He didn't smile at Liza Barclay. He didn't care. Her tears hadn't touched him at all.
Liza shuddered, but didn't look away. She was impressing me more and more. Most people can't stand being around the dead, and that goes double for Dead Boy. Liza glanced around the bar again, at its various strange and unnatural patrons, and rather than being scared or appalled, she just sniffed loudly and turned her back on them again. They were no help to her, or her problem, so they didn't matter. Liza Barclay, it seemed, was a very single-minded lady.
"How can you stand being in a place like this?" she said to me, quite seriously.
"What, Strangefellows?" I said. "There are worse places to drink in. The ambience isn't up to much, I'll grant you, but…"
"I don't mean just here! I mean… everywhere! This whole area!" A tinge of hysteria had entered her voice. Liza heard it, and clamped down hard on it. She hugged herself suddenly, as though a cold wind had blown over her grave. "I've been walking back and forth in the streets for ages. This terrible place. I've seen things… awful things. Creatures, walking right out in the open, with normal people, and none of them batted an eye! Where am I? Am I dead? Is this Hell?"
"No," I said. "Though on a good day you can see Hell from here. As far as I can tell, you are a perfectly normal woman who has had the misfortune to somehow find her way into the Night-side."
"The Nightside." She grabbed on to the word, considered it, and then looked to me for more information. And it wasn't a request; it was a demand. I was liking her more and more.
"The Nightside," I said, "the dark secret hidden in the heart of London. The longest night in the world, where the sun has never shone and never will. Where it's always three o'clock in the morning, and the hour that tries men's souls. This is where all (he secret people come, in search of forbidden knowledge and all the pleasures people aren't supposed to want, but still do. You can pursue any dream here, or any nightmare. Sell your soul or someone else's. Run wild in the streets and satisfy any fantasy you over had. As long as your credit holds out. This is the Nightside, Liza Barclay, and it is not a place for normal people like you."
"It's not an easy place to find your way into," said Dead Boy. "I low did you get here?" "I don't know! I can't remember!" Her shoulders slumped, and her strength seemed to seep out of her. I understood. She was having to take in a lot at one go. And the Nightside does so love to break people… I thought for a moment she might start crying again, but her chin lifted, her eyes flashed, and just like that she was back in control again. "I live in London, have done all my life. And I never heard of the Nightside. I just… came to, and found myself here. Lost, and alone."
"And now you're among friends," I said. "More or less," said Dead Boy.
"I am John Taylor," I said, ignoring Dead Boy with the ease of long practice. "And I'm a private eye. Yes, really."
Her mouth twitched in a brief smile. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, to find one more mythical creature, among so many." "And my appalling friend here is Dead Boy. Yes, really." "Hi," said Dead Boy, leaning forward and offering a pale dead hand for her to shake. "Yes, that is formaldehyde you're smelling, so get used to it. I'm dead, I'm wild and exciting and extraordinarily glamorous, and you're very pleased to meet me."
"Don't put money on it," said Liza. "What's it like, being dead?"
"Cold," said Dead Boy, unexpectedly. "It's getting hard for me to even remember what being warm feels like. Though I think I miss sleep the most. Never being able to just lie down and switch off. No rest, no dreams…"