As I've said before, I expect the main storyline to go on hiatus after volume one, though I will try to post sidestories and apocrypha in the meantime. The former will mostly deal with plot threads not directly related to Stark's, but which still affect and are affected by it (for example, what's happening in the Nightside, or other settings, when he's not there?), while the latter will be non-canon one-shot crossover between various urban fantasy settings, or UF and other genres.
I'll be reading more UF in the meantime, and thinking about interesting ways to continue the main plotline.
Volume one of this story is a crossover between Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey, and Deacon Chalk, by James R. Tuck. It starts during the vents of the Circus of Blood Chalk short story, and continues dealing with those of the third novel, Blood and Magick (with changes caused by Stark's presence, obviously).
* * *
Hanging around the Nightside, as confusing as the neon pile of bullshit is, actually helps dispel several rumors, though obviously at the cost of raising a fuckton more.
You know that saying, God gives with one hand and takes with the other? Well, the big guy has me to thank for his ambidexterity practice, because he's always eager to bitchslap me with both.
The Nightside is kind of like God, even though Taylor's mom supposedly shat out the wreck so people could get their rocks off without being peeked at by either God or Old Scratch. Kinda reminds me of that drawing that shows politics as a horseshoe, with extremes meeting in the middle. Turns out, when you try to make your playground safe to one of the worst dads in existence, you have to use measures that he would, even just in terms of power.
Because, imagine my shock, Lilith is also a self-fellating control freak. God has a knack for making those, though at least my version of him (depending on which part of his split personality I sometimes hate myself enough to ask, it's either unintentional, or part of this 4D chess play I'll always be to0 dumb to understand, so shut up) is too weak to put together anything like her nowadays.
But I'm getting sidetracked, thinking 'bout all the Yahwehs out there, with not even another Stark to kick around. I bet they get lonely, sometimes. Who knows? Maybe one day, I'll discover I have an evil twin, and mail him to them.
When I was still studying at the Deep School, because I was bored and I do dumber stuff than usual when bored, I used to hear people complain about how time travel is oh so confusing, you don't even know what tenses to use anymore!
They're liars. That, or they only hop around one timestream. Multiversal travel gives you way, way bigger headaches, and not just because time travel is intertwined with it.
See, despite, say, Dresden's universe moving at the same pace at mine, time flows faster in mine when you're outside them. A year compared to a few, shit, weeks? Months? In Wolfe's universe, time moves slower; in others, it moves at roughly the same rate I experience it at home.
Then there's the Nightside, where around a decade has passed in the year my world has been through. Now normally, that tidbit would've gone in one ear and out the other like an anti-smoking ad, but the Nightside is supposed to be disjointed from its world's timestream, and this synchronization is weird as shit. Nothing really surprised me about the city itself anymore, but that's only because being orderly or similar to anything else is unlike it.
As I continue my internal rambling, the would-be killer gribbly that's been stalking me for what feels like miles begins to reluctantly slink away. Things like that little shit are the rats in the multiverse's walls, though people like me see them more as hallways. Traveling means you bump into 'em more often than not, so I've learned a way to keep them at bay while not having to get my thumb outta my ass.
Hunters like it mostly prey on new or weak travelers: people who've never set foot outside their realities before and are scared out of their wits, or who are too wounded or tired to defend themselves.
Or think properly.
While Outsiders differed in both power and temperament, most of the fugly bastards, at least the roamers, preferred their prey deaf, dumb and bleeding. They were made of unreality, so order and structure stuck in their craw-which was why steadily going over my thoughts had convinced poor Elmer out there that it wasn't Stark season yet.
Sure, I coulda blasted the asshole back to whatever void it had crawled out of, but why bother? I don't have enough fucks to give.
As I approached the universe I set out for, something from inside or close to it scratched at the edges of my perception. I smell death and blood, under a sickly-sweet stench, like that of an open grave. I swear, if I show up in a cemetery again...
A graveyard wasn't the classiest place to make an entrance, as I'd decided after dropping in the Hollywood Forever cemetery in my world's 2008. Leaving Hell behind only to wake up surrounded by stiffs? No thanks.
The carnival reminds me of Hell.
Not the fire and brimstone crap people expect from Downtown, though there's stuff like that there, too. Not the forests of barbs and spikes where Hellions chased me for years after Mason Faim booted my ass downstairs. The subtler parts. The freakshows with shiny facades, the honeytraps that fooled some poor bastards into thinking they'd somehow found their way back on Earth.
Clawing your way out of Hell took some fucking luck, though, even if you had major hoodoo up your sleeve. Look at me-and I'd never really believed it could happen until after I found myself in LA again. I'd just been rattling my cage's bars.
All around me were small circus tents and carnival rides, surrounded by a six-foot wood and canvas wall. It would've been pretty to vanillas, I suppose, the kinda people without the senses to tell how ugly the world they live in is. All bubble lights and neon, just to distract the kids so mommy and daddy could get a breather.
I narrowed my eyes, glancing behind me and pouring some power into my sight. The parking lot beyond the wall was full of cars, and that gave me a bad feeling. Not because I'm allergic to good vibes-though I am, keep that shit away from me-, but because it reminded me, if anything, of flies gathering around one of those carnivorous plants.
My instincts hadn't been this good before I'd become Assistant Inspectre, nor had my senses. But, as I trained them on my surroundings, I couldn't spot anything that would usually bring me running to kick its ass.
Not that I'm a good Samaritan or anything-it's just that, back home, with Kasabian running Max Overdrive like clockwork, Candy and Alessa hitting it off and Vidocq dead at that goddamn bitch's hands, what reason did I have to keep hanging around? Samael showing up with some odd job that totally isn't a request for me to cover his ass, or his dad's? Thomas Abbott sending me to run errands because he couldn't be bothered to drag his Augur ass outta his yacht? Forget it.
Hadleigh's tricks let me find and kill people who deserved it, things that should've never been. They also let me go wherever and whenever I needed to go-or wanted to, not like I had a schedule.
'But Stark,' he asked me once. 'Then why are you so hellbent on kicking Lilith out of the Room of Thirteen Doors?'
Hadleigh, like Walker, is one of those people who think that since they're so smart, they might as well stop listening to their hearts, or their guts. Me, I'm too dumb to give up something that is mine. Not to mention, who the hell knew what the bitch is scheming in there? Not like I could check. The last time I tried entering the room to check (the hag leaked so much damn power I couldn't look from outside. It would've been like looking at the sun through a telescope), she nearly kicked my metaphysical dick off, and I'm really not that into cougars.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Not enough to forgive that, at least. 'Course, I've been trying to evict her-and wasn't it a damn shame the Room had no windows to throw her through?-ever since I'd locked her up because I could see no other way to stop her from razing the Nightside, or remaking it into her image.
Potato, potato.
I stick my hands in my trench coat's pockets, making myself look like some random asswipe to whoever happens to see me. Bland face, blander hair, jeans and some cheap leather jacket. No guns, obviously, no weapons in sight. Nothing like the Colt I certainly aren't fingering right now. I don't know how people feel about openly packing heat here, but it's not like my permits would work in a different universe, if they existed.
I whistle some half-remembered ditty, from before mom started trying to drown herself in a bottle and my stepdad began looking for ways to bump me off and make it look like an accident-just because I was a miserable kid, doesn't mean a suicide would've been credible, necessarily.
I looked around while my glamor made me look like I was staring forward, a dumb grin plastered on my face, and debated adding some ooh's and aah's for effect, but I can't be assed to fake enthusiasm for a fucking carnival. Especially when it smells like vampires.
I doubt any human could spot it beneath the thick smell of peanuts and buttered popcorn, but to my nose, it reeks of dead snake and stale blood. I'm not sure whether it's my sense of smell at work or my eldritch senses making themselves felt through it, and I care even less. Whether I'm seeing some vamp's spiritual footprint, or smelling its stench, I can find it. Them. They tend to flock together, back home.
The annoying thing about my Inspectre hunches, aside from the fact they're unannounced and unpredictable, it's that they're so vague they might as well be fortune cookie messages, sometimes. They don't always lead to me dropping in to kick some Cthulhu wannabe's face in with both feet as it's tearing reality apart. Sometimes, they send me on a wild goose chase: find this one doohickey that will lead you to the guy who knows who can stop the upcoming apocalypse, etc. I hate that Rube Goldberg stuff.
As I walk around, I think this is going to be one of the latter cases, the dumb list of steps I have to complete to get anywhere, because nothing here feels like it's about to end spacetime. Just lives.
A discordant note filled the air, dragging nails down the chalkboard of my soul. Hnn. Am I just becoming sensitive, or is it the fact that pipe organ sounds like Kas when I bully him? Better get closer.
Eventually, I reach a sign. The pole it's on has been driven into the ground with inhuman strength, judging by the disturbed ground. Probably by the same tryhard who left claws on it, at about chest level.
'Cirque du Sangre.' This is so fucking subtle, I'm almost convinced Wolfe trudged his way here to name the circus with his usual flair for originality, but nah. I bet the bloodsuckers are having a lark, luring in poor sods who don't believe in them so they can have a drink.
Well, shit. If I was really concerned about predatory leeches, I'd start hunting politicians, but offing some vamps will at least give me something to do before I find the real reason I'm there.
Who knows? Maybe once I rip their guts out through their asses, they'll spell out some instructions.
I walk past game booths, ping-pong tables with balls that look like tiny tumors and fish bowls filled with murky water. Ugly little freaks move inside them, in a motion that has as much in common with swimming as they do with fish. Sneering, I burn them from the inside out, turning them into not-fish sticks. The Whac-A-Mole holes and hammers are crusted with thick gore, and something that looks like a real mole is twitching, stuck halfway in one of the holes. It claws blindly at the air, feebly trying to crawl out. I stop its heart with a thought.
A good deed, Saint James, my angel half, remarks in my mind.
Gargle my balls, I reply. Furry little bastard could've been some vamp's pet, what are they called, familiars?
You're coming out of this looking either nice or scaredy, the faceless shithead smirks. Your choice.
I hope some of the vamps look like he did when he had a body, so I don't have to waste energy imagining it. I have a black belt in kicking my own ass.
As I continue, the smell of the food becomes worse, or maybe I notice how bad it is, with no distractions. Spoiled meat, moldy peanuts, something fried and rancid I can't place. All the while, the ear rape is going on in the background. I wonder if it sounds pleasant to the hapless bums who stumble in here. Unless the vamps plan to make people kill themselves so they can drink from the corpses, I don't see the 'music's' point.
Taking a better look, the rides don't look like anything kiddies would like to fool around with. There's a Tilt-A-Whirl with eye-covered chairs, and it's only my instincts that let me tell it's not literally watching me. A Scrambler with cars molded in the shape of faces, that look like they wanna eat whatever I have in place of a heart. A rickety-looking Ferris wheel, nooses hanging under the chairs.
A big tent rises at the end of the row I'm walking, red like flayed skin. James' smirk fades away in my mind, replaced by that stern frown he always wears when civilians are being hurt.
Rolling my eyes, I grab the slippery canvas, lift the flap, and walk in.
It's full of people, and now I'm convinced there's some mind control involved here, because there's no way so many people would come somewhere this shady of their own volition. There are parents and kids in the row, teens on dates, a handful of old farts-I even sport a fucking Girl Scout troop, and have to stifle a huff.
And they're all chained, unable to even get up, much less run. For a moment, I think that's why they look so scared: the helplessness, the feeling of being prisoner, something not quite like claustrophobia, even if you feel the world closing in around you.
It's not the chains. It's what they can't run away from.
The vampire is dressed in a dirty red coat with black tails, lace trailing from his sleeves and throat, held at the collar by a ruby that looks like a crystallized blooddrop. He's wearing tight black pants, making him look even skinnier than the gangly turd is, and a stovepipe hat like a cartoon villain. I look around for tied-up chicks. Huh. No train tracks.
Snidely Whiplash looks away from his captive audience, whirling at me. In one hand, he's clutching a bulky cordless mic. As he speaks, curved fangs making his sneer even uglier, I see his vampiric power carry his voice through the air. It's a smooth, raspy tenor I'm sure has his mom saying she has such a charming boy, but anger and shock twist it.
"You're not Chalk," Snidely says, surprise quickly giving way to contempt.
"No shit." I point my gun at his chest, conjuring an identical copy in my free hand and pointing it at his head. Akimbo is actually practical when you can will ammo into existence, and I'll just bet my lily-white ass it's gonna help against the twisted shapes I see stalking out of the shadows behind Dick Dastardly.