Sell you a Bridge chapter 240 (Patreon)

June 2nd 2016 The Nightside 8:00 PM EDT

The  train ride wasn't great. I managed to nap through more than a bit of it but even then the howling and scratching resulted in some less than  pleasant dreams. Zee and Drea were there with me though, and woke me up  when things got dicey in dreamland. We didnt talk much, the atmosphere  not conducive to any sort of discourse, and the whole trip had the air  of someone holding their breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When  we finally reached The Nightside we made our way off the train and I  was surprised by how normal the train station on this side looked. The  same beau up aesthetic with odd underlying themes as the one we came  from. The only difference was the crowd over here. Though the station  itself was business as usual for anywhere I'd ever seen, the crowd here  was much more unusual than even the one on the platform we had come  from.

While the first crowd had some weirdos, they were  mainly keeping a low profile. They people over there were odd sure, but  they were subtle odd. The girl with the white eyes from the Deep School  and the old blindfolded priest were weird, but they were the kind of  weird you could see anywhere. The weirdos in this station were much more  open. The phrase "let your freak flag fly" seemed to be as good as  gospel in this place.

Tall, short, fat, thin, pale, dark,  human, alien, machine, every color of the rainbow, every style of dress,  every possible combination of features you could imagine, all of them  were on display here. The whole place was packed with the widest variety  of beings I had ever even imagined and every one of them was here to  party. Some with dead eyes looking to drown out the monotony, some  predatory and looking for a victim, but no matter what it was clear  every person or thing in this place wanted a good time, and they would  do anything to get it.

When we emerged onto the street the  visual noise cranked up to eleven. The Nightside was a blazing tapestry  of neon and bold colors, the buildings just as loud as the people  wandering in and out of them. The brightness only seemed to highlight  the darkness around it though, deepening the shadows of the alleys and  creating a wall of shadow that even I was hesitant to push through. My  aura sight remained off here, because I did NOT want to see what the  things here were feeling or thinking. Some things it's better not to  know.

The sky above was mostly obscured by towering  buildings and clubs, though the moon was easily visible, taking up ten  times more room in the sky than it ought to, with no obvious reason  behind why that might be the case. The whole thing was bizarre and  terrifying and monstrous and...amazing. Despite the noise and the  disturbing nature of some of the shops and clubs, this place felt...like  home. The Nightside was like Gotham on steroids, people letting their  worst out proudly and not giving a shit what anyone thought about it.

Something  about all these people just being themselves was inspiring, even if it  was awful in some ways, and I couldnt help but get caught up in the  enthusiasm and the energy. I wasnt the only one either. The girls seemed  enthralled too, and Artemis was obviously a bit energized too. The only  one who seemed genuinely uncomfortable was Wally, who looked incredibly  upset and disturbed by some of the awful displays around us. I wasnt  really sure why at first, but I wanted to make sure he was ok, so I  tried talking to him about it.

I put a hand on his  shoulder. "We talked about this man. It was one of the things you had to  agree to before coming. I get that you're not ok with some of this  stuff, but the local government knows about all of it. The laws here are  almost nonexistent, and if you start a fight were going to end up  screwed. These people all knew what was going on when they showed up,  and while some of the things happening suck, starting a fight is going  to get all of us killed and not actually help anyone." Wally looked  around at all the bustle, focusing on some of the worst things before  tearing his eyes away, seeming almost sick with disgust.

Taking  a second look I could understand why. Between the crazy clubs and the  sex and the gambling and the drugs I could see even worse atrocities,  terrible things fading into the background I hadnt noticed. On one  corner a street vendor was selling tiny fairies in cages, their dead  eyes too broken to even plead for help. Under a large sign advertising  fresh kebabs a man was carving chunks off an impaled, shaved werewolf  and putting them on a grill even as the beast's regeneration regrew the  flesh.

Suddenly the energy and mania didnt seem quite so  infectious. I could understand why Jim hadnt wanted us to come here.  This was a bad place. Wally clearly thought so too, but he shook it off.  "I'm fine. This is...sick, but the League is a UN affiliate. They teach  us about the need to respect the local order even if the laws arent  something we agree with. If...THIS is allowed here then I can deal. I  hate it, but we came here to save your cousin. I wont screw things up by  dragging us into a suicidal fight."

More than anything  that showed how much Wally had grown in his time with us. New Genesis,  the OZ, he'd learned to accept the world as it was and do what he could,  learned that black and white were much less common than shades of grey.  It was sad in some ways, to see him lose that stubborn heroic streak,  but I couldnt help but be glad for it now because he was right. Starting  something with anything here could have been suicide. Still, staying  here seemed like a bad idea we needed to move before this became too  much for him. Hell for any of us. I turned to John. "Ok, where are we  headed now?"

John, who had been staring almost  nostalgically around us, shook off the reverie. "Sorry mate. Lost my  train of thought there for a moment. Strangefellows. My teacher is  usually there when hes around at all." He shot us a wink. "Figure you  lot could use a drink to settle the nerves, and theres no place like the  oldest bar in the world to wet your whistle." Ignoring the fact that I  was pretty sure John was an alcoholic, I couldnt deny that the place did  sound interesting at least. Plus a drink really might help. Alcohol  wasnt really my bag mostly, but after some of the things I was starting  to notice now that I was paying attention I could probably use it.

So  we followed behind him in the crowd. I made sure to keep the girls next  to me and Zee had a hold on Artemis who was dragging Wally. We didnt  need to get separated out here. Honestly where I had at first been a  little psyched up by the atmosphere of this place it was starting to get  to be a little overwhelming. Sort of the place version of eating too  much candy and getting sick, the longer I was exposed the more over the  top and cloying the street around us seemed. It was loud and noisy and  garish and then, suddenly...it wasnt.

We'd been walking  down the road, avoiding the cars (some of which John insisted weren't  actually cars and most of which apparently ran on something unpleasant  and were usually hungry) when suddenly John took us down a sharp turn.  Not into one of the black as night alleys, not at first, but down a  small side street. The place was packed with squat dark buildings, lit  with dim and flickering gas lights and paved with actual cobblestones as  opposed to the blacktop the rest of the roads were made from. John  looked around casually but intently as we walked down the road, until we  came to an alley.

Given the lack of neon to provide a  contrast the darkness here was much less oppressive. Still heavy but not  nearly as much as it had been back outside the train station. Our eyes  were able to adjust pretty easily as we stepped into the space between  two of the rustic looking buildings. The whole place made me feel like I  was going to a thieves guild in a medieval city or something, and I was  relieved to be away from the garish lights at this point. The novelty  of the Nightside wore off pretty quickly, and I was already pretty ready  to get the hell out of here once we found Kit.

As  we entered the alley I saw another neon sign, not a big one, it was dim  and understated, that was in some language I'd never seen before. The  red glow cast a soft light down onto a massive slab of steel set flush  with the wall, a slab with no knob or handle. John strolled casually up  to the door and rapped on it smartly, banging out shave and a hair cut  on the metal, which swung inward at the touch of his last knock, showing  us into the entrance to the bar. He turned to us with a grin. "Glad  that worked, this thing only opens if the owner likes you, and he's a  moody git some nights."

We  stepped inside, the door slamming itself behind us as we looked around.  The parlor of Strangefellows was...strange, like everything else in the  Nightside. It looked kind of fancy and posh at first glance, Tudor  furniture, persian rug, bas relief paintings and murals on the walls and  ceilings. But the furniture had drunk people draped across it, the rug  was stained in places with who knew what, and the paintings were all of  obscene acts that even renaissance italians would have considered  gauche.

The  pair of metal stairs in the corner lead down to the stone pit that the  actual bar was held in, and a sign at the bottom said 'Enter at your own  risk', this time in English. John stopped us as we got to the top.  There was old school rock playing in the background. "Alright, ground  rules. We're here to find my teacher. His name is John Taylor, and he  kind of has a rep around here. So, a quick list of do's and don'ts. Do:  stick close to me, avoid engaging with the bar patrons, and be careful  what you order. Don't: start any fights, eat the bar snacks, or mention  Taylor's name to anyone unless I do it first."

He  seemed genuinely worried, as opposed to the general sense of fatalism  he clearly felt about the Nightside as a whole. He lowered his voice as  he spoke again. "The protections on this place are serious business.  Merlin is buried under the wine cellar. He still shows up once in a  while, raises himself from the grave to keep everyone honest. Being dead  doesn't stop you from being a major player in the Nightside. I've never  seen him manifest, but I know people who have, and trust me it's  nothing you want to see. He isn't as cuddly as the King Arthur stories  make him sound. There's a reason they called him Satanspawn."

That...wasn't  a name I'd ever heard applied to Merlin, but if he was actually here, I  guessed it was true. Whatever the hell he was I doubted I wanted to  meet him. Though I had to pinch Zee who face was starting to glow with  excitement at the possibility. Sensing my discomfort and worry through  our bond she sighed as I glared at her pouting but giving me a nod. Once  that was out of the way I told John we understood, and we all mounted  the stairs to head down into the oldest bar in the world.