Free Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay by Simon R. Green Page A

should have read the small print in his contract, because now he can’t die. He just goes on and on, a trapped spirit possessing his own dead body. We’ve worked a couple of cases together. He’s very useful for hiding behind when the bullets start flying. I suppose we’re friends. It’s hard to tell—the dead have different emotions from the living.
    I left the car parked outside the Necropolis and walked away. It could look after itself until Dead Boy came to claim it at the end of his shift, and I had things I needed to be doing. I strolled along the dark neonlit streets, past sleazy clubs and the more dangerous, members-only establishments, and my reputation went ahead of me, clearing the way. There was still a lot of rebuilding going on, aftermath of the Lilith War. The good guys won, but only just. At least most of the dead had been cleared away now, though it took weeks. The Necropolis furnaces ran full-time, and a lot of restaurants boasted a Soylent Green special on their menus, for the more discerning palates.
    The streets seemed as crowded as ever, teeming with people busy searching for their own personal heavens and hells, for all the knowledge, pleasures, and satisfactions that can only be found in the darkest parts of the Nightside. You can find anything here if it doesn’t find you first.
    Buyer beware…

    I made my way to my usual drinking haunt, Strangefellows, the kind of place that should be shut down by the spiritual health board. It’s where the really wild things go to drink and carouse, and try to forget the pressures of the night that never ends. The bar where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, and there’s never ever been a happy hour. I clattered down the bare metal steps into the great sunken stone pit and headed for the long, wooden bar at the far end. I winced as I realised the background music was currently playing a medley of the Carpenters’ Greatest Hits. Music to gouge out your eyeballs to. Alex Morrisey, the bar’s owner, bartender, and miserable pain in the neck, must be in one of his moods again.
    (Last time I was in, he was playing the Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up,” with the lyrics changed to “Suck My Kneecaps.” I didn’t ask.)
    All the usual unusual suspects were taking their ease at the scattered tables and chairs, while half a dozen members of the SAS circulated among them, soliciting donations with menaces. The Salvation Army Sisterhood was on the prowl again, and if you didn’t cough up fast enough and generously enough, out would come the specially blessed silver knuckle-dusters. The SAS are hard-core Christian terrorists. Save them all, and let God sort them out. No compromise in defence of Mother Church. They burn down Satanist churches, perform exorcisms on politicians, and they once crucified a street mime. Upside down. And then they set fire to him. A lot of people applauded. The Sisterhood wear strict old-fashioned nun’s habits, steel-toed kicking boots, and really powerful hand guns, holstered openly on each hip. They’ve been banned and condemned by every official branch of the Christian Church, but word is they’ve all been known to hire the SAS on occasion, on the quiet, when all other methods have been tried, and failed. The Salvation Army Sisterhood gets results, even if you have to look away and block your ears while they’re doing it.
    We sin to put an end to sinning , they say.
    One of the Sisterhood recognised me and quickly alerted the others. They gathered together and glared at me as I passed. I smiled politely, and one of them made the sign of the cross. Another made the sign of the seriously pissed off, then they all left. Perhaps to pray for the state of my soul or to see if there was a new bounty on my head.
    I finally reached the bar, unbuttoned my trench coat, and sank gratefully down onto the nearest barstool. I nodded to Alex Morrisey, who was already approaching with my usual—a glass of real Coke. He was dressed