Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth (Nightside, Book 6) by Simon R. Green

Author:Simon R. Green
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9780441013876
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2006-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Walker sat at a table pushed right up against the long bar in Strangefellows, poring over reports brought to him by a series of runners, deathly tired men and women only kept going by duty and honour and the pills Walker passed out by the handful. Walker looked in really bad shape; but still he studied his reports and gave orders in a calm, unhurried voice, and his agents went straight back out into the night again, to do what was needed.

The bar had the look of a place under siege. It was dark and overcrowded, with people sitting slumped at tables or on the floor, nursing their drinks and their hurts and their remaining strength. A healer was running a rough-and-ready clinic in one corner, doing meatball sorcery on the worst wounds to get people on their feet, so they could be sent out again. The floor was stained with blood and other fluids. People were coming and going all the time, and most of them had that driven, damned, defeated look in their faces. A few were sleeping fitfully on pushed-together mattresses, twitching and crying out miserably in their sleep.

An unseen band was playing the old Punk classic "He Fucked Me with a Chainsaw and It Felt Like a Kiss." Which was worrying. Alex only ever plays Punk when he's in a really bad mood, and then wise men check their change carefully and avoid the bar snacks. Alex was behind the bar, as usual, making Molotov cocktails out of his reserve stock and complaining loudly about having to use some of his better vintages. He comforted himself by adding a splash of holy water to every bottle, to give the mixture that little extra bite. Alex had a particularly unpleasant sense of humour when he put his mind to it.

Betty and Lucy Coltrane stood poised in the centre of the bar, their bulging muscles distended, each of them holding a really vicious-looking shillelagh carved out of blackthorn root and covered in deeply etched runes. Now and again some poor damned fool would force his way past Merlin's defences and teleport blindly into the bar, hoping to impress Lilith with feats of daring, and each and every time Lucy and Betty Coltrane would pound the living shit out of him, with extreme prejudice. I didn't see what they did with the bodies afterwards, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Walker got up from his table, stretched slowly and painfully, and leaned wearily against the bar. Alex sniffed loudly.

"Taking a break again, your high-and-mightyness? More Benzedrine with your champagne, perhaps, you heathen?"

"Not just now, thank you, Alex. Still no chance of Merlin's manifesting, I suppose?"

Alex shrugged. "I can't feel his presence, though I have no doubt he's keeping a watchful eye on things. Either he's biding his time, or he's keeping his head well down till it's all safely over. Trust me, when he finally does decide to Do Something, you'll almost certainly wish he hadn't. Merlin has always favoured a scorched-earth policy when it comes to dealing with problems.

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