Agents Of Light And Darkness by Simon R. Green Page B

come to say, sowed all the right doubts, and now wild horses couldn’t drag another word out of him. I shook my head slowly. No-one can mess with your mind like Walker.
    Suzie continued to cover him with her shotgun until he rounded a corner and was safely out of sight, then she holstered the gun with one swift motion, and turned to me. “What was that all about, Taylor? Who is our client?”
    “The Vatican, supposedly.” I scowled thoughtfully. “Represented by an undercover priest called Jude.”
    “Like in St. Jude’s?”
    “Presumably. It occurs to me now that I never did check out his credentials properly. I don’t usually slip up like that. There’s just something about the man… that makes you want to trust him. Which in the Nightside should be automatic grounds for suspicion. If we do get our hands on the Unholy Grail, I think I’ll make a point of asking some really awkward and pointed questions before I hand it over to anyone. Come on, Suzie. Let’s get over to the Fourth Reich’s headquarters. Before someone else does.”

    The old assembly room currently hosting the last great hope of the Fourth Reich was situated at the end of a quiet side street, in a largely residential area. The kind of place where people kept to themselves, minded their own business, and watched the world from behind drawn curtains. The street was empty, the night unusually quiet. Suzie and I strolled down the deserted street, our footsteps sounding unusually loud and carrying. No-one appeared to challenge us as we approached the assembly room. Which was also not usual. Suzie and I stopped outside the front door. It was standing slightly ajar. Suzie unholstered her shotgun, and scowled at the door. I looked at her enquiringly.
    “What is it, Suze?”
    “Don’t call me that. It’s too quiet. Those Nazi freaks always have their martial music running full blast, so they can puff out their chests and march up and down to it and shout Heil ! at each other. This is their usual meeting time, but I can’t hear a damned thing.” She stepped cautiously forward and put her face to the crack of the door. She sniffed a few times. “Cordite. Smoke. Someone’s been firing guns in there.”
    She looked at me, and I nodded. Suzie kicked the door in and charged on in, gun at the ready. I followed after her, at a more sedate pace. I don’t carry a gun. I’ve never felt the need. I soon caught up with Suzie. She’d stopped not far inside. We stood together and looked around the old assembly room, taking our time. There was no need to hurry any more.
    The long hall the Fourth Reich used as their headquarters and meeting place was a fair size. Far too big for the small-scale rallies that were all they could manage these days. And every inch of the great open floor was covered with dead bodies. Dozens of dead Nazis, all in full uniform, all of them soaked in blood and riddled with bullet holes. They lay where they had fallen, outstretched hands reaching out for help that never came, like so many discarded toy soldiers. The walls had taken a lot of hits too. The swastika flags and Nazi memorabilia and old curling photos covering the walls had been torn apart by sustained gunfire. Most hung in tatters, pitiful remnants of a dead empire. And there was blood everywhere, splashed and splattered across the walls, running down to form thick pools between the bodies on the floor.
    Suzie was on full alert, raking every inch of the hall with savage eyes, swiveling her shotgun back and forth, searching for an enemy or a target. Suzie only ever really came alive when there was a chance of killing someone. But there was nothing moving in the assembly room but us. The Fourth Reich was over before it even got started. This was a place of the dead now.
    “Whatever happened here, we missed it,” said Suzie.
    “Someone else looking for the Unholy Grail got here first,” I said, stepping carefully forward, over and around the piled-together bodies. “And