Then there’s Pagan’s Place, for barbarian warriors who want to better themselves, and right next to that, the Adventurers Club. Older than all the others put together, the original Club was supposedly founded back in the sixth century, and has been a watering hole for heroes between quests ever since. You wouldn’t have thought any real hero would be seen dead in a place like the Nightside, but something about its reputation draws them here, possibly like moths to a flame, and the Adventurers Club is where they gather. Getting in is not easy. In fact, simply getting past the Doorman can be an adventure in itself. I think you have to slay an ogre and rescue a princess just to be allowed to use the rest rooms.

Still, every adventurer with a name or a reputation worth the knowing is supposed to have passed through its doors at one time or another. Why? Perhaps because the Nightside is the single greatest challenge any hero can face, the Mount Everest of challenges, and you can’t call yourself a real hero until you’ve tested yourself against it. I only know about the Club because my sometime friend Julien Advent has been a Member in good standing on two separate occasions. First, when he was the greatest hero and adventurer of the Victorian Age, then again after a Timeslip brought him here in the nineteen sixties. Julien’s a good man and a revered personage; I planned to drop his name at every opportunity and hope some of his respectability rubbed off on me.

I said as much to Suzie, but she just shrugged. She’s never cared about being respectable.

“Julien’s not the oldest Member in the Club, though, is he?” she said.

“Not by a long way. I think that honour goes to Tommy Squarefoot. Of course, he’s a Neanderthal.”

Walker led us right up to the Adventurers Club Doorman, who stood tall and broad and very large before the closed Club doors. He was supposed to be a were sabre-tooth tiger, and given the sheer size of him, I was perfectly prepared to believe it. He stood aside for Walker, because everyone does, but gave first Suzie and then me his best cold, assessing look as we passed. Suzie glared right back at him, and he actually blushed a little and looked away.

“He likes you,” I said solemnly to Suzie.

“Shut up,” said Suzie.

“He likes you. He’s your special Doorman friend.”

“I have a gun.”

“Never knew you when you didn’t.”

“Children, children,” murmured Walker as he led us into the gorgeously appointed lobby. “Try not to show me up . . .”

I decided immediately to piss in the first potted plant I

saw, on general principles, but I got distracted. The interior of the Adventurers Club was as impressive as I’d always thought it would be. The Club proper was all gleaming wood-panelled walls, waxed floors, portraits and chandeliers, and proudly antique furnishings. Familiar faces passed by on every side, or gathered together to chat happily in the luxurious meeting rooms, or consult the leather-bound volumes of Club history in the huge private Library, or just brag to each other in the Club bar about their latest exploits.

Chandra Singh, the monster hunter, and Janissary Jane, the demon killer, were discussing new tracking techniques in the Library. They completely ignored me as I peered in through the open door. Jane was wearing her usual battered combat fatigues, which I knew from personal experience would smell of smoke, blood, and brimstone up close. Because they always did. She’d fought in every major demon war in the last twenty years, in as many different time-lines and dimensions, and while she’d been on as many losing as winning sides, she was a true professional, feared and respected by all who knew her. Especially when she had a few drinks in her.

Chandra Singh was tall, dark-skinned, and distinguished, with a sophisticated style and a truly impressive black beard. He was wearing his usual height-of-the-Raj finery, all splendid silks and satins, topped with a jet-black turban boasting the biggest single diamond I’d ever seen. Chandra hunted monsters in and around the Indian subcontinent, with a passion and enthusiasm unmatched anywhere in the world. His wall of trophies was legendary. He says he does it to protect the innocent and keep them safe, but I think he just likes killing monsters.

Well hell, who doesn’t?

Walker dropped Suzie and me off in the bar while he went upstairs to tell the new Authorities we’d arrived. I didn’t argue. I felt like I could use several large drinks, with an even larger drink for a chaser. The bar itself was almost overpoweringly luxurious, and I was impressed despite myself. No expense had been spared to make the Adventurers Club bar the envy of all lesser mortals, and it openly boasted every comfort known to man. The bar itself was a work of art, in gleaming mahogany and brightly polished glass and crystal, with a whole world of extraordinary potables lined up, just waiting to be ordered by some hero who’d worked up a serious thirst slaughtering everything in sight. Suzie, who had never been impressed by anything in her entire life, marched straight up to the bar, ordered a bottle of Bombay Gin, and put it on Walker’s tab. I drifted in beside her, studied the bottles on display, and ordered an heroic measure of the most expensive brandy I could see. Also on Walker’s tab. Having thus happily attended to the inner man, I put my back to the mahogany bar and took a good look at my fellow imbibers.

A dozen good men and women stood scattered about the oversized bar, in various garb from various times and places, all intent on each other and thoroughly ignoring Suzie and me. So I just as deliberately ignored them, giving my full attention to the various displays and trophies and portraits that adorned the bar. The walls were positively crowded with portraits of old Club Members who’d distinguished themselves down the years. There were Admiral Syn, Salvation Kane, Julien Advent, Owen Deathstalker, in a whole series of clashing styles and periods. And the bar was positively lousy with impressive trophies.

The shadow of a Leopard Man, imprisoned in a great block of transparent lucite. A hollowed-out alien’s skull, put to use as an ash-tray. Something I didn’t recognise from the Black Lagoon, stuffed and mounted, and a severed demon head, unconsumed by ever-burning flames. Several of the Club Members lit their cigars off it. And up on the far wall, proudly presented, the withered and mummified arm of the original Grendel monster. Donated by Beowulf himself, apparently. (I told you the Club dated back to the sixth century.)

Most of the famous faces were quite happy to pretend Suzie and I weren’t there, but two braver adventurers made a point of coming over to say hello. Augusta Moon was a professional trouble-shooter, and a noted dispatcher of problem supernatural menaces. She was also an impressively large middle-aged woman who looked like she should have been running a girls’ finishing school somewhere in the Home Counties. Augusta was large and loud and famous for not giving a damn. She dressed like an old-fashioned maiden aunt, in a battered tweed suit, with a monocle screwed firmly into her left eye. She also carried a stout walking-stick topped with silver, and wasn’t above poking people with it to make her point. Augusta greeted me with a firm handshake, accompanied by her usual bark of a laugh, loud enough to shake the furnishings. She had the good sense just to nod to Suzie, who nodded back. Augusta shrugged cheerfully.

“What the hell are you doing here, John? Thought you had more good taste than to show up in a dump like this. Place has gone severely downhill, since they started letting in people like us. Eh? Eh? Bunch of stiffs for the most part, old thing, haven’t a clue how to have a good time. Had that Charlston Blue Blade in here the other day, really big noise by all accounts, but he damn near fainted away when I pinned him in a corner and inquired about the possibility of a little nookie!”