Free Nightside 04 - Hex and the City by Simon R. Green

pinpoint your exact location. But the damn things are just so bloody useful... Cathy had promised me this new version came with all kinds of built-in protection charms and defences, so I just mentally crossed my fingers every time I had to use it and hoped for the best.
    I kept Madman close at hand as we descended into the depths of the Library, and found Sinner at his usual place in the Research Section, sitting alone and poring over an old leather-bound volume. Tall stacks of books led off in every direction, like a literary maze, and the air was heavy with that distinctive old-book smell. The lighting was clear and distinct but never overpowering, and there were signs everywhere admonishing SILENCE! Discreet signs also pointed you in the direction of books on every subject under the night, some of them adding pointedly AT YOUR OWN RISK. Scholars sat at study at their separate desks, ignoring each other, immersed in their work, as devoted in their attention as old-time monks in their cells. I headed straight for Sinner, down the narrow book-lined aisles, Madman ambling along behind me. Sinner looked up as I loomed over him, and nodded thoughtfully. He was a short, compact, and very neat man in his mid forties, looking very much like a civil servant doomed always to be passed over for promotion. Middle-aged, middle weight, almost anonymous. But as his eyes met mine, his gaze was unnervingly bright, and his smile was actually disturbing.
    Sinner had been around, and it showed. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and polite.
    "Well, well, John Taylor. I had a feeling I'd be seeing you today, so I just sat here, reading an old favourite, and waited for you."
    I looked at the book open on the table before him. It was a Bible, the old King James edition. I raised an eyebrow.
    Sinner smiled. "As a wise man once said, Looking for loopholes."
    All around us, people were getting up, gathering up their books and papers, and heading for the exit. It could have been Madman's presence, or mine, or perhaps the two of us and Sinner were just too worrying to bear. I couldn't honestly say I blamed any of them. A handful of really hard-core scholars held their ground, hunched protectively over their learned tomes, determined not to be driven off. You have to be pretty tough-minded, to be a scholar in the Nightside. Madman strolled off through the stacks, and the spines of the books on the shelves rippled, changing shape and texture as he passed, affected by his proximity. I had to wonder what new information those transformed books held now; and if I were to take them down and open them, would I find nonsense and gibberish, or perhaps awful wisdom and terrible secrets? I decided I didn't want to know, either way.
    And then I was distracted as a lovely young thing came tripping out of the stacks, hugging a tall pile of books in her arms. She was a tall blonde teenager in an English public school uniform, complete with starched white blouse, black miniskirt and stockings, sensible shoes, and a straw boater perched on the back on her perfect head. She was bright and cheerful, heart-stoppingly pretty, far too shapely for her own good, or anyone else's, and moved with all the unrealised elegance of youth. She had a pink rosebud mouth, and eyes so dark they seemed to fall away forever. I stood up straighter and pulled my stomach in, but she flashed me only the briefest of smiles before swaying past me to put the books down on Sinner's desk. I suddenly realised Madman's sound track was playing 'Tubular Bells."
    "Allow me to introduce you," said Sinner, in his soft patient voice. "This is my girl-fiend. The demon succubus I fell in love with, all those years ago. I have no idea what you see when you look at her, because it is her nature to appear to everyone as the image of what they secretly most desire."
    I wasn't sure if I liked what that said about me. Too many St. Trinians films in my impressionable youth, I suppose. I nodded and smiled