All the time I was considering Dr. Fell, he studied me through the eyes of his people.
I started forward and an aisle opened up, a narrow passage through the crowd to lead me right to Dr. Fell. Ms. Fate and Lord Screech strode along beside me, but Dr. Fell only had eyes for me. A hand reached out from the crowd to tug at Ms. Fate’s cape. She punched the man out without even looking round. He made no sound as he fell, and no-one else showed any reaction. A hunchbacked girl lurched forward into the aisle, blocking our way, and we had to stop or run over her. She was bent almost in two by the gnarled mass that ran the length of her spine, clearly visible thanks to her backless dress. She raised her head as high as she could, to smile at Screech.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said, in a voice like a little girl’s.
Screech smiled upon her. “Yes,” he said. “I am. You, however, are not a natural hunchback. This was done to you. Why?”
“Because it amused Dr. Fell,” she said. “There is no greater purpose, no greater reward. He looks upon us with his divine Sight, and we become what he Sees, what we truly are. He says it is only fitting that our exteriors match our interiors. He lets us be ... what we really are.”
“Typical human bullshit,” Screech said briskly. “You’re like this because he can’t bear to be the only monster here. And that is not acceptable to me.”
He took the young woman by the shoulders and shook her hard. She convulsed in his grip and cried out as the bones in her back snapped and cracked loudly, rearranging and restoring themselves. The hunch sank down into her flesh and was gone, all in a moment. Screech let go of the woman and she straightened up, slowly and disbelievingly, until she stood straight and tall before us all. She looked at Screech with awe and wonder and naked gratitude in her eyes, but he just waved her away. The chorus of whispers around us rose briefly, then fell back to its usual disturbing background noise. I looked at Screech, and he shrugged.
“I can’t abide small cruelties,” he said, to no-one in particular. “Only the greatest sins are worthy of indulgence.”
He sounded as arrogant as ever, but I liked him rather better in that moment. Not that I’d ever tell him.
A hulking figure appeared suddenly before us, blocking the narrow aisle. He wore a ruffled silk shirt over knee-length shorts, and his face was painted like a debauched clown. Rattles and dollies and clutches of blood-stained children’s finger bones hung from his belt. Two ugly horns thrust up out of his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak, but Screech cut him off.
“You, on the other hand, aren’t nearly ugly enough for what you really are. In fact, your entire existence offends my aesthetic sensibilities.”
He snapped his fingers crisply, and the man exploded. Bits of flesh and bone flew over a distressingly large area, spattering the clothes of pretty much everyone in the crowd. Interestingly, although many of them pulled disgusted faces and made appalled sounds, not one of them fell back by so much as a single step; and though the general whispering rose up loudly on every side, no-one protested. I wondered if they could. Ms. Fate looked at Lord Screech.
“Nice trick. You couldn’t have used it on the werewolves?”
“Only works on people,” said Screech. “The wolves are too far from baseline Humanity to be affected.”
“Leaving aside why you’d want a spell that only worked on people ... do you think you could teach me that trick?”
“Not if you want to remain human. Though I can’t think why anyone would want to. You are such small and limited things.”
“Still kicked your arse in the last war,” said Ms. Fate.
“Children, children,” I murmured. “You’re not at home now ...”
“John Taylor,” said Dr. Fell, and everything stopped. The whispering cut off sharply, and his dry, dusty voice seemed to echo unpleasantly in the new silence. He leaned forward slightly, and I couldn’t tell if the soft, creaking sounds came from him or his awful chair. “Approach me, John Taylor. We have so much to talk about.”
“We do?” I said, not moving.
“We are both men of vision. Men of power, and of destiny. Fate brought you to me, John Taylor.”
“No,” I said. “A Fatemobile.”
I strode forward to stand at the base of the raised dais. Ms. Fate and Lord Screech had to hurry to keep up with me. I’d had enough of Dr. Fell and his corrupt court, and I wanted this over and done with. Up close, he looked like a museum exhibit. A preserved specimen of something really nasty, only kept around to remind us of past mistakes. He smelled faintly of burned meat, as though some part of his scarred face was still burning. He smiled slowly at me, ignoring my companions. I didn’t smile back.
“Dr. Fell,” I said flatly. “Not at all pleased to meet you. Sorry if it’s taken me a while to get around to you, but you know how it is ... Things to see, people to do, and complete and utter scumbags to put in their place. Busy, busy, busy.”
“Calm, polite, and diplomatic, remember?” Ms. Fate murmured in my ear. “We’re here to beg a favour unless you want to start a war.”
“Haven’t decided yet,” I said. I looked Dr. Fell over, unhurriedly. “So, from rogue vicar to crime lord. I don’t know why you people keep coming here; you must know it isn’t good for you.”
“I came here to test my faith,” said Dr. Fell, apparently undisturbed by any of the things I’d said to him. “And I fell from my high station. Sometimes it feels like I’m still falling and always will be.”
“I never know what to say when people say things like that to me,” I said. “So, moving right along ... I will be passing through your territory. I thought it only right and proper to pop in and tell you.”
“You wish to beg my permission and pay tribute?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t do the begging thing, and I don’t have any loose change on me. I’m just here to be polite.”
“You come into my court, into my domain, you speak roughly to me, and you bring with you a deviant and an elf,” said Dr. Fell, his dry, scratchy voice entirely without emotion. “You mock me, Lilith’s son.”
“Why does everyone keep going on about Mommie Dearest?” I said. “All right, my mother’s a Biblical myth, and she nearly killed everyone in the Nightside, but can we please all get over that and move on? I have achieved a great deal in my own right, you know.”
“We are aware of your sins,” said Dr. Fell. His pursed, dried-up mouth moved in something that might have been a smile. “Did you really think we would allow one such as you ... to travel unmolested in our territory? Sinner ...”
“If there’s a sinner here, I’m looking at him,” I said. “The more I see of you and your people and your operation, the more I think you need shutting down with extreme prejudice. I will get around to you, but it doesn’t have to be now. Look the other way while I pass through your territory, and you can live to intimidate the impressionable another day.”
“Which part of Let’s not piss off the complete and utter loony because he’s got his own private army did you have trouble grasping?” Ms. Fate hissed in my ear. “If this is your idea of diplomacy, you should write the Diplomatic Mail Order School and demand your money back.”
“I had hoped for more from you,” said Dr. Fell. “We are both men of vision, Mr. Taylor, men who have learned to See the world for what it is rather than what most people would have it be. I had hoped, after all this time, to find a kindred soul ... but no matter.” He turned his head slightly, so that his blind eyes fixed on Ms. Fate. “You can be reconstructed, deviant, returned to what you were meant to be. You shall earn redemption here, through long and painful penance. But the elf ... is an abomination. It has no soul. Destroy it.”