Something from the Nightside - By Simon R. Green Page 0,61

is. It's hungry. That's all it ever is. And you're just food, like all the other victims it's absorbed."

Cathy smiled at me, dying by inches and not caring, because the house wouldn't let her care. Suzie moved in beside me and hauled me bodily to my feet. She held me upright by brute strength until my legs stabilised again, and stuck her face right into mine.

"Talk to me, John! What's happening here? What is this house, really?"

I took a deep breath. It didn't steady me nearly as much as I'd hoped, but at least the shakes were starting to wear off now. Like so many times before in the Nightside, I had found the truth at last, and it didn't please or comfort me one bit.

"The house is a predator," I said. "An alien thing, from some alien place, far outside our own space, where life has taken very different forms. It makes itself into what it needs to be, taking on the colour of its surroundings, hiding in plain sight, calling its prey to it with a voice that cannot be resisted. Its prey is the lost and the lonely, the unloved and the uncared for, the discarded flotsam and jetsam of the city that no-one ever misses when it washes up here, on Blais-ton Street. The house calls, in a voice that no-one ever disbelieves, because it tells them just what they want to hear. It even sucked in a few supposedly important people, people perhaps a little too susceptible for their own good. Being important doesn't necessarily protect you from the secret despairs of the hidden heart."

"Stick to the point, John," said Suzie, shaking me

by the shoulder. "The house lures people into it, and then?"

"And then it feeds on them," I said. "It sucks them dry, absorbing all they are into itself. It grows strong by feeding on their strength, keeping them happy while they last, so they won't try to escape. So they won't even want to."

"Jesus," said Suzie, looking down at Cathy's emaciated body. "From the look of the kid, the house has already taken most of her. Shame. We have to get out of here, John."

"What?" I said, not understanding, or perhaps not wanting to.

"There's nothing we can do," Suzie said flatly. "We got here too late. Even if we could maybe cut the kid free from the floor, odds are she'd bleed to death before we even got her to the street. She's already as good as dead. So we leave her, and get the hell out of here while we still can. Before the house turns on us."

I shook my head slowly. "I can't do that, Suzie. I can't just walk away and leave her here."

"Listen to me, John! I don't do lost causes. This case is over. All that's left to us is to give the kid a quick death, maybe cheat the house out of some of its victory. Then we get out of here, and come back with something heavy in the explosive line. You get Joanna moving. I'll take care of the kid."

"I didn't come all this way, just to abandon her! She's coming back with us!"

"No-one's leaving," said Cathy. "No-one's going anywhere."

Behind us, the door groaned loudly in its frame. Suzie and I looked round sharply, just in time to see the door slam shut and then vanish, its edges absorbed into the surrounding wall. The door's colours faded out, and within moments there was only an unmarked, unbroken expanse of wall, with no sign to show there'd ever been a door there. And all around us, the four walls of the enclosed room rippled suddenly, expanding and contracting in slow sluggish movements; becoming steadily more organic in appearance, soft and puffy and malleable. Thick purple traceries of veins spread across the walls, pulsing rhythmically. And a great inhuman eye opened in the ceiling above us, cold and alien, staring unblinkingly down at its new victims like some ancient and unsympathetic god. A sickly phosphorescent glow blazed from the walls, and I finally knew where the light had been coming from all along. There was a new smell on the air, thick and heavy, of blood and iron and caustic chemicals.

"No-one's going anywhere," said Cathy. "There's nowhere to go." There was another voice under hers now, harsh and deliberate and utterly inhuman.

Suzie stalked over to where the door had been, reversed her gun and slammed the butt of the shotgun

against the wall. The awful pulsing surface gave