Free Just Another Judgement Day by Simon R. Green Page A

long way. I think that honour goes to Tommy Squarefoot. Of course, he’s a Neanderthal.”
     
    Walker led us right up to the Adventurers Club Doorman, who stood tall and broad and very large before the closed Club doors. He was supposed to be a were sabre-tooth tiger, and given the sheer size of him, I was perfectly prepared to believe it. He stood aside for Walker, because everyone does, but gave first Suzie and then me his best cold, assessing look as we passed. Suzie glared right back at him, and he actually blushed a little and looked away.
     
    “He likes you,” I said solemnly to Suzie.
     
    “Shut up,” said Suzie.
     
    “He likes you. He’s your special Doorman friend.”
     
    “I have a gun.”
     
    “Never knew you when you didn’t.”
     
    “Children, children,” murmured Walker as he led us into the gorgeously appointed lobby. “Try not to show me up . . .”
     
    I decided immediately to piss in the first potted plant I
     
    saw, on general principles, but I got distracted. The interior of the Adventurers Club was as impressive as I’d always thought it would be. The Club proper was all gleaming wood-panelled walls, waxed floors, portraits and chandeliers, and proudly antique furnishings. Familiar faces passed by on every side, or gathered together to chat happily in the luxurious meeting rooms, or consult the leather-bound volumes of Club history in the huge private Library, or just brag to each other in the Club bar about their latest exploits.
     
    Chandra Singh, the monster hunter, and Janissary Jane, the demon killer, were discussing new tracking techniques in the Library. They completely ignored me as I peered in through the open door. Jane was wearing her usual battered combat fatigues, which I knew from personal experience would smell of smoke, blood, and brimstone up close. Because they always did. She’d fought in every major demon war in the last twenty years, in as many different time-lines and dimensions, and while she’d been on as many losing as winning sides, she was a true professional, feared and respected by all who knew her. Especially when she had a few drinks in her.
     
    Chandra Singh was tall, dark-skinned, and distinguished, with a sophisticated style and a truly impressive black beard. He was wearing his usual height-of-the-Raj finery, all splendid silks and satins, topped with a jet-black turban boasting the biggest single diamond I’d ever seen. Chandra hunted monsters in and around the Indian subcontinent, with a passion and enthusiasm unmatched anywhere in the world. His wall of trophies was legendary. He says he does it to protect the innocent and keep them safe, but I think he just likes killing monsters.
     
    Well hell, who doesn’t?
     
    Walker dropped Suzie and me off in the bar while he went upstairs to tell the new Authorities we’d arrived. I didn’t argue. I felt like I could use several large drinks, with an even larger drink for a chaser. The bar itself was almost overpoweringly luxurious, and I was impressed despite myself. No expense had been spared to make the Adventurers Club bar the envy of all lesser mortals, and it openly boasted every comfort known to man. The bar itself was a work of art, in gleaming mahogany and brightly polished glass and crystal, with a whole world of extraordinary potables lined up, just waiting to be ordered by some hero who’d worked up a serious thirst slaughtering everything in sight. Suzie, who had never been impressed by anything in her entire life, marched straight up to the bar, ordered a bottle of Bombay Gin, and put it on Walker’s tab. I drifted in beside her, studied the bottles on display, and ordered an heroic measure of the most expensive brandy I could see. Also on Walker’s tab. Having thus happily attended to the inner man, I put my back to the mahogany bar and took a good look at my fellow imbibers.
     
    A dozen good men and women stood scattered about the oversized bar, in various garb from various