Hell to Pay Read Online Free PDF Page A

need to know which direction to look in before I can hope to pin her down. Still, I can try a basic search here, see if my Sight can reveal anything useful.”
    I concentrated, opening up my inner eye, my third eye, my private eye, and my Sight came alive as my gift manifested, showing me all the things in the conference room hidden from everyday gaze. There were ghosts all over the room, men and women reliving the moments of their murders over and over again, trapped in endless loops of Time. Jeremiah had been busy here. I grabbed his hand so he could see them, too, but his face showed no emotion. There were other creatures, too, not in any way human, but they were only passing through, using our dimension as a stepping-stone to somewhere else. They’re always there. And finally I got a glimpse of Melissa, running through the conference room. I couldn’t tell if she was running to someone, or from someone. Her face was cold, focused, intent.
    And then my Sight was blocked and shut down by some outside force.
    I staggered backwards, and almost fell. My Vision of the greater world was gone, closed off from me. I fought to force my inner eye open again, to See Melissa again, and was shocked when I discovered I couldn’t. This had never happened to me before. Only some incredibly powerful force could shut down my gift, like one of the Powers or Principalities. But that would mean the involvement of Heaven or Hell; both of whom were supposed to be barred from intervening directly inside the Nightside. Jeremiah grabbed my shoulder and thrust his face into mine, demanding to know what was happening, but I was listening to something else. There was a new presence in the conference room, something strange and awful, building and focusing as it struggled to find a form it could manifest through. The Griffin looked around sharply. Still linked to me, he could feel it, too.
    The temperature in the room plummeted, hoarfrost forming on the windows and the walls and the tabletop. The air was full of the stench of dead things. Somewhere someone was screaming without end, and someone else was crying without hope. Something bad was coming, from a bad place, smashing its way through the Hall’s defences with contemptuous ease.
    I reached into my coat-pocket and drew out a packet of salt. I never travel anywhere without condiments. I drew a salt circle around the Griffin and myself, muttering certain Words as fast as I could say them. You don’t last long in the Nightside if you don’t learn the basic defences pretty damned quickly. But spiritual protections can only defend you against spiritual attacks.
    All the television screens exploded at once, showering me and the Griffin with shrapnel. He started to flinch away, outside the salt circle, and I grabbed his shoulder, shouting at him to hold his ground. He jerked out of my hand, but nodded stiffly. Oddly, he didn’t look frightened, just annoyed. I looked back at the shattered televisions. The electronic innards were crawling out of the broken sets, spilling out in streams of steel and silicon and plastic. And from this possessed technology the invading presence made itself a shape.
    It stood up slowly as it came together, tall and threatening, manlike in appearance but in no way human. An unliving construct, made of jagged metal bones with silicon sinews, razor-sharp hands, and a plastic face with glowing eyes and jagged metal teeth. It lurched towards me and the Griffin, crackling with imperfectly discharging electricity. A purely physical threat, to which the salt circle would be no defence at all.
    “The Hall’s security defences should have kicked in by now,” said the Griffin, his voice strained, but even. “And my security people should be bursting in here any minute, armed to the teeth.”
    “I really wouldn’t bet on it,” I said. “We’re dealing with a major Power here. I’d bet every penny of the money you just gave me that it’s sealed off this room completely.