Tales from the Nightside (A Nightside Book) - Hardcover

Green, Simon R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0425270750 ISBN 13: 9780425270752

Verlag: Ace Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green returns to the “bizarre and gleefully dangerous backdrop” (Jim Butcher, #1New York Times bestselling author of the Dresden Files) of the Nightside with this landmark collection of short fiction.

Welcome to the Nightside. It’s the secret heart of London, beating to its own rhythm, pumping lifeblood through the veins of its streets and alleys hidden in eternal darkness, where creatures of the night congregate and where the sun is afraid to shine. It’s the place to go if you’re looking to indulge the darker side of your nature—and to hell with the consequences.

Tales from the Nightside presents ten macabre mysteries that shine a dim beam into the neighborhood’s darkest corners to reveal things that shouldnever come to light. Take a walk with such deadly and dangerous denizens of the Nightside as Razor Eddie, Dead Boy, and Larry Oblivion as they encounter things even more inhuman and inhumane than they are. And join John Taylor, the PI with a knack for finding lost things, as he confronts Sir Francis Varney, King of the Vampires, in a never-before-published novella-length adventure.

There may be nothing to be afraid of in the dark, but there’s plenty to be afraid of in the Nightside…

Includes “The Big Game,” a Never-Before-Published Nightside Novella and Nine Other Favorite Nightside Stories

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Simon R. Green is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels of the Nightside (The Bride Wore Black Leather,A Hard Day's Knight, The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny), the Secret Histories novels (Property of a Lady Faire,Casino Infernale, Live and Let Drood), the Ghost Finders novels (Spirits from Beyond,Ghost of a Dream, Ghost of a Smile), and the Deathstalker novels (Deathstalker Coda,Deathstalker Return, Deathstalker Legacy). He lives in England and writes full-time.

Simon R. Green is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels of the Nightside (The Bride Wore Black Leather,A Hard Day's Knight, The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny), the Secret Histories novels (Property of a Lady Faire,Casino Infernale, Live and Let Drood), the Ghost Finders novels (Spirits from Beyond,Ghost of a Dream, Ghost of a Smile), and the Deathstalker novels (Deathstalker Coda,Deathstalker Return, Deathstalker Legacy). He lives in England and writes full-time.

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INTRODUCTION

THE NIGHTSIDE, NEEDLESS TO SAY

The Nightside is the secret, sick, magical heart of London. A city within a city, where the night never ends and it’s always three o’clock in the morning. Hot neon reflects from rain-slick streets, and dreams go walking in borrowed flesh. You can find pretty much anything in the Nightside, except happy endings. Gods and monsters run confidence tricks, and all desires can be satisfied, if you’re willing to pay the price. Which might be money and might be service, but nearly always ends up meaning your soul. The Nightside, where the sun never shows its face because if it did, someone would probably try to steal it. When you’ve nowhere else to go, the Nightside will take you in. Trust no-one, including yourself, and you might get out alive again.

Some of us work there, for our sins. Or absolution, or atonement. It’s that kind of place.

•   •   •

Larry! Larry! What’s wrong?

The sharp, whispered voice pulled me up out of a bad dream; something about running in the rain, running from something awful. I sat up in bed, looked around, and didn’t know where I was. It wasn’t my bedroom. Harsh neon light flickered red and green through the slats of the closed shutters, intermittently revealing a dark dusty room with cheap and nasty furniture. There was nobody else there, but the words still rang in my ears. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to remember my dream, but it was already fading. I was fully dressed, and there were no bedsheets. I still had my shoes on. I had no idea what day it was.

I got up and turned on the bedside light. The room wasn’t improved by being seen clearly, but at least I knew where I was. An old safe house, in one of the seedier areas of the Nightside. A refuge I hadn’t had to use in years. I still kept up the rent; because you never know when you’re going to need a bolt-hole in a hurry. I turned out my pockets. Everything where it should be, and nothing new to explain what I was doing here. I shook my head slowly, then left the room, heading for the adjoining bathroom. Explanations could wait, until I’d taken care of something that couldn’t.

The bathroom’s bright fluorescent light was harsh and unforgiving as I studied my face in the medicine cabinet mirror. Pale and washed-out, under straw-blond hair, good bone structure, and a mouth and eyes that never gave anything away. My hair was a mess, but I didn’t need a shave. I shrugged, dropped my trousers and shorts, and sat down on the porcelain throne. There was a vague uneasy feeling in my bowels and then a sudden lurch as something within made a bid for freedom. I tapped my foot impatiently, listening to a series of splashes. Something bad must have happened, even if I couldn’t remember it. I needed to get out of here and start asking pointed questions of certain people. Someone would know. Someone always knows.

The splashes finally stopped, but something didn’t feel right. I got up, turned around, and looked down into the bowl. It was full of maggots. Curling and twisting and squirming. I made a horrified sound and stumbled backward. My legs tangled in my lowered trousers, and I fell full length on the floor. My head hit the wall hard. It didn’t hurt. I scrambled to my feet, pulled up my shorts and trousers, and backed out of the bathroom, still staring at the toilet.

It was the things that weren’t happening that scared me most. I should have been hyperventilating. My heart should have been hammering in my chest. My face should have been covered in a cold sweat. But when I checked my wrist, then my throat, there wasn’t any pulse. And I wasn’t breathing hard because I wasn’t breathing at all. I couldn’t remember taking a single breath since I woke up. I touched my face with my fingertips, and they both felt cold.

I was dead.

Someone had killed me. I knew that, though I didn’t know how. The maggots suggested I’d been dead for some time. So, who killed me, and why hadn’t I noticed it till now?

•   •   •

My name’s Larry Oblivion, and with a name like that I pretty much had to be a private investigator. Mostly I do corporate work: industrial espionage, checking out backgrounds, helping significant people defect from one organization to another. Big business has always been where the real money is. I don’t do divorce cases, or solve mysteries, and I’ve never even owned a trench-coat. I wear Gucci, I make more money than most people ever dream of, and I pack a wand. Don’t snigger. I took the wand in payment for a case involving the Unseelie Court, and I’ve never regretted it. Two feet long, and carved from the spine of a species that never existed in the waking world, the wand could stop time, for everyone except me. More than enough to give me an edge, or a running start. You take all the advantages you can get when you operate in the Nightside. No-one else knew I had the wand.

Unless . . . someone had found out and killed me to try and get their hands on it.

I found the coffeemaker and fixed myself my usual pick-me-up. Black coffee, steaming hot, and strong enough to jump-start a mummy from its sleep. But when it was ready, I didn’t want it. Apparently the walking dead don’t drink coffee. Damn. I was going to miss that.

Larry! Larry!

I spun round, the words loud in my ear, but still there was no-one else in the room. Just a voice, calling my name. For a moment I almost remembered something horrid, then it was gone before I could hold on to it. I scowled, pacing up and down the room to help me think. I was dead, I’d been murdered. So, start with the usual suspects. Who had reason to want me dead? Serious reasons; I had my share of enemies, but that was just the price of doing business. No-one murders anyone over business.

No; start with my ex-wife, Donna Tramen. She had reasons to hate me. I fell in love with a client, Margaret Boniface, and left my wife for her. The affair didn’t work out, but Maggie and I remained friends. In fact, we worked so well together I made her a partner in my business. My wife hadn’t talked to me since I moved out, except through her lawyer, but if she was going to kill me, she would have done it long ago. And the amount of money the divorce judge awarded her gave her a lot of good reasons for wanting me alive. As long as the cheques kept coming.

Next up: angry or disappointed clients, where the case hadn’t worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. There were any number of organizations in and out of the Nightside that I’d stolen secrets or personnel from. But none of them would take such things personally. Today’s target might be tomorrow’s client, so everyone stayed polite. I never got involved in the kinds of cases where passions were likely to be raised. No-one’s ever made movies about the kind of work I do.

I kept feeling I already knew the answer, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. Perhaps because . . . I didn’t want to remember. I shuddered suddenly, and it wasn’t from the cold. I picked up the phone beside the bed, and called my partner. Maggie picked up on the second ring, as though she’d been waiting for a call.

“Maggie, this is Larry. Listen, you’re not going to believe what’s happened . . .”

“Larry, you’ve been missing for three days! Where are you?”

Three days . . . A trail could get real cold in three...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Ace Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0425270750
• ISBN 13: 9780425270752
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 308
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Bear Family Records GmbH; 49474882160; info@bear-family.de; ; Grenzweg 1; Holste; 27729; Deutschland