corridors because things did try and make a grab for Henry and me. Soft, pulpy things, like big fat worms, slippery and smelling like rancid meat. I swept them aside, my hands slick with their juices, sticky and gelatinous. The Raggedy Man got us through and we came out into a wider chamber, the light barely fit to pick out its minimal details. At least there were none of the clutching horrors here.
“Where the hell is this place?” I growled, towering over our bizarre guide.
“It’s where the broken things come to be mended,” he whispered, almost whistling the words through the last of his crumbling teeth. Seemed like the place hadn’t worked for him.
“What broken things?”
“Evil things. Dark powers that have been crippled by their betters. Things that serve the lords of the night, damaged things. Some can be healed through twisted magic. Others, like me, can only wander, searching for freedom.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Can’t remember my name. I had powers once, bestowed on me by servants of Satan. In conflict, I was bettered. I crawled here. Thought I was going to die, but a life of sorts still flickers within me. If I help you, will you take me back when you go?”
I would have weighed up my answer before entering any kind of bargain, but Henry’s youth burned brightly again. “Sure,” he said. “It’s a deal.”
“Why are you here?” said the Raggedy Man.
“Two young women were brought here recently,” Henry said, evidently having tossed circumspection aside. “Singers. With great voices.”
“There have been many such singers. The Cold Lady has them. She is grooming them. She had powers lately, but lost them. Now she uses the singers to act for her. She imbues them with dark gifts from the ones she serves. The Angels of Malice.”
The air got much colder. I’d met one of these things before. In fact, with a little help from a bunch of very talented Hungarians, I’d trapped one of them and seen to its imprisonment. If the Angels of Malice got wind of me, they’d be out for a whole lot more than my blood. Blood which, right now, was running about as cold as it could get without actually coagulating in my veins.
“Where are the singers?” said Henry.
The Raggedy Man pointed up into the darkness. “In the upper halls of this edifice. They are well protected and besides, they would not welcome you.”
“Two of them would,” insisted Henry.
“I think not. They are changed. They are her creatures now.”
Henry’s expression soured, a mark of the grim determination that burned within him, a powerful drive that those who didn’t know him would have been surprised at. He was erratic and more than a shade gung-ho, but he was no fool.
“I guess we’ll just have to put that to the test.” He looked at me and I nodded. We’d paid for the ticket, so we may as well see the show.
Somewhere in that endless maze, there were steps, a narrow, winding set that corkscrewed up into the shadows overhead. The Raggedy Man led the way, followed by Henry and his blue guitar, with me at the rear. My hands were itching. I really missed my guns.
We came to a level area, almost blanketed by darkness, although there were lights of some kind high up as if we’d come to the nave of a building the size of a cathedral. There were no dramatic gothic columns, but more great slabs of rock soared upwards, like no place I’d ever seen in my own world, or any other for that matter. Also, there were no sculptured motifs, or weird sigils, or carved monstrosities that looked like they’d been dredged up from the sea bottom.
But the place felt wrong. Alien, haunted, the air thick with the suggestion of pain, oppressive and soul-destroying. I’m getting a little melodramatic here, but I tell you, that was an evil place.
To top it, we heard singing, echoing from some nearby but invisible chasm, as if a pit into Hell itself had opened. The sounds, deep and seemingly male, were bass and disturbing, suggesting unspeakable things. Rising.
Things were moving in the dark spaces at the base of the stone pillars, flitting about like aerial spirits, or ghosts. The Raggedy Man watched them, apparently unmoved. “Some of the singers are here,” he said.
“What does the Cold Lady use these things for?” said Henry.
“Spells,” said our guide. “To trap the unwary. And also to control the Pullulating Tribe.”
I never heard of this Tribe, but it sounded like bad news.
“The Tribe sleeps out in the great wastes that surround this labyrinth. The Cold Lady wants to rouse it and unleash it on the enemies of the Angels of Malice.”
“Who would they be?” Henry asked I thought a little naively.
“Humanity,” said the Raggedy Man. “The powers of darkness hunger for its enslavement. A time is coming—”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “We’ve seen the trailers. Let’s just cut to the chase. Where are the girls we’re looking for? Are they among those things?”
The bundle of rags shook, nodding but drawing back. “Find them if you can. When you flee, take me out of this place.”
Henry and I were conscious of a swirling movement around us. Whatever these spirit-things were, they had surrounded us and seemed to be closing in on us, like we were at the heart of a vortex. I looked upwards and in the vague light thought I could make out a balcony, or some kind of higher level, cut into the stone. And she was there, that extraordinarily beautiful creature I’d tangled with once before—Carmella Cadenza, now going by the handle of the Cold Lady. I had a brief glimpse of her face—unmasked here—before the shadows covered her. She had been smiling, but there was no warmth in it. Her undeniable beauty couldn’t make up for the maliciousness that fuelled her.
It would have washed over me. I’ve had more than a few withering glances from disgruntled dames in my time. What poured the ice back into my veins was the other shadow I’d seen up there. I’d only had a brief glimpse—a shape that was as hunched over and obscure as the Raggedy Man. Pure darkness, congealed and imbued with warped life, and with an unhealthy spread of limbs, jointed and elongated, as if a man had been fused with some other life form—a spider maybe. A particularly big spider.
This place was where broken things came to be mended. So I knew what that was up there, hugging the shadows beside the Cold Lady.
Spiderhead. An old nemesis of mine. Just as I’d fouled up Carmella’s plans once, so had I put a big spoke in Spiderhead’s wheel. I had a feeling at the time he’d limped away to fight another day. That being today by the look of it.
“They’re here!” called Henry, snapping me out of my daze. He was indicating the faces that were glaring at us from the swirl of creatures around us. I peered into that human whirlpool and saw two faces I recognised from photos Ariadne had shown me. Suki Yosimoto and Maria Mozzari. They were smiling, idiotically, like part of their brain was on hold. That would be the work of the Cold Lady.
As the blurred crowd closed in, their arms reached out for us, slender and pale, making the whole thing look like one unified beast, intent on absorbing us. Which I didn’t think would be a good idea. Their unholy singing
