It’s Not a Proper Wake Until Someone Does Something They Shouldn’t
The Bentley was still waiting patiently outside the main entrance to Drood Hall. I’d broken all kinds of rules by leaving her there, but no one was going to mess with one of the Armourer’s best-known and much-loved creations. In fact, quite a large admiring crowd had gathered around the car, and I received a great many jealous and downright envious looks as I settled down behind the wheel again. I smiled happily on one and all, in a not at all smug way, and then fired up the engine and drove away, scattering the fans like a flock of chickens. I drove round the side of the Hall, then round the back, and straight into the Drood garage.
The heavy doors in front of me were quite definitely closed. I put my foot down hard and the Bentley leapt forward. She’s a lot like me; tell her you can’t go somewhere, and nothing on earth will stop her going there. The garage doors slid smoothly aside at the very last moment, providing just enough room for the Bentley to pass between them without actually scraping the paint off her bodywork. I could have stopped outside, sounded my horn, and waited politely, like a good little Drood, but I really wasn’t in the mood. I rarely am, when I’m home. Being around my family does that to me. And I absolutely wasn’t in the mood so soon after Jack’s funeral.
I brought the Bentley to a sudden halt just inside the doors, because there wasn’t anywhere left to go. The Drood garage is really just a long, wide shed, packed from end to end and from side to side with more assorted forms of transport and death on four wheels than the human mind can comfortably cope with. And not just the famous ones, of which there are always a few. Just sitting there in the Bentley, I could see the Nineteen Sixties Black Beauty, a shocking pink Rolls-Royce, and the only occasionally successful Lotus submersible. Thick shafts of golden sunlight dropped down from massive skylights in the vaulting roof, shining brightly back from the highly polished metallic exteriors of hundreds of exotic vehicles, all of them ready for use at a moment’s notice. Provided you could show the garage chief all the proper paperwork and a chit personally signed by the Matriarch.
I shut down the Bentley’s engine, wrestled my way out of the seat belts, and got out of the car. I leaned back against the long green bonnet and waited for someone to notice me. I really should have gone through proper channels and bowed down to the mechanics and engineers until they were satisfied I had a right to be there, and then let them summon the garage chief . . . But I didn’t trust my self-control. All it would take was one wrong word, or even a look, and there would be harsh language, arse-kickings, and bad temper all over the place. Goodwill and cooperation would go right out the window. No. Much better to start as you mean to go on—stubborn and intractable, with a side order of pigheaded.
I looked around me, taking in rows and rows of cars and motorbikes, rescue vehicles and attack craft, tanks and field ambulances and camouflaged surveillance trucks. We’ve got at least one of everything you can think of because you never know from day to day just what the family is going to need in order to stay on top of everything. My family has always worked on the principle Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
But the garage isn’t there just for the field agents; the family is always ready to hire out specialized vehicles and equipment to other people and organisations in our line of work. For a suitably eye-watering fee, of course; along with secret information, or the promise of future favours. We could afford to do it for free, out of the goodness of our hearts, but then no one would respect us.
The garage chief came striding through the parked rows to join me. Frowning so hard it must have hurt her face. Sandra used to be one of my uncle Jack’s lab assistants, until it became clear she was interested in working only on things that went really fast. So the then Matriarch made a virtue out of a necessity and promoted Sandra sideways, to work in the garage. It took only a few years before Sandra was garage chief, and very much in charge. Tall, statuesque, and burning with far more nervous energy than was good for her, Sandra had a face that would have been pleasant enough if she ever stopped scowling, under an unrestricted mop of curly red hair. Her dungarees were covered in fresh and old oil stains along with a great many other less easily identifiable discolourations. She believed in running things from the ground up, and positively delighted in getting her hands dirty. She planted herself in front of me, stuck both fists on her hips, and glared at me meaningfully.
“You’ve got some nerve, Eddie.”
“So they tell me,” I said pleasantly. “Hello, Sandra. You’re looking . . . very yourself. Blown up anything interesting recently?”
“What do you want, Eddie?”
“Just dropping off the Bentley.”
“You haven’t broken her already?” Sandra pushed past me to look the car over, like a mother whose child has just returned from school in the company of an axe murderer. “Jack should never have left you this car! You don’t appreciate her! I would have looked after her properly. Respected her! You’ve never respected anything in your life!”
“That is one of my more appealing qualities,” I murmured. “Unclench, Sandra, before you strain something. The Bentley’s fine. She just needs a good look-over. I did push her pretty hard, racing back here for the funeral.”
Sandra sniffed loudly, to make it clear I was not in any way forgiven. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the mess you made of the Bentley the last time the Armourer let you drive her. Took us weeks to beat the dents out of the bodywork.”
“Cars are meant to be used,” I said. “And the world can be a very unforgiving place when you do the kind of work I do. If it was up to you, none of these vehicles would ever leave the garage in case someone breathed on them the wrong way.”
“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days,” growled Sandra. She patted the Bentley’s bonnet encouragingly. “Don’t worry, baby; Mama’s here to protect you from the nasty man.”
She yelled to her people, and a whole bunch of them came hurrying forward from all sides at once. They crowded round the Bentley, making excited noises and muttering barbed comments they only thought I couldn’t hear. They soon had the car up on the hydraulic ramp, so Sandra could check the underside for damage. I stood back and let them get on with it. I have all the mechanical aptitude of King Kong in boxing gloves. I can break things just by looking at them wrong.
Sandra darted back and forth underneath the Bentley, shining a hand torch into all kinds of nooks and crannies I hadn’t even known were there. The first thing she found was a long-stemmed rose, wrapped round and round the rear axle. She put on a pair of really heavy leather gloves, took a firm hold on the thorny stem, and pulled the thing free with a series of harsh, vicious jerks. I leaned in close for a better look, curious to see what I’d picked up. You’re bound to acquire the odd hitchhiker when you take short cuts through the side dimensions. Sandra made a pleased, satisfied sound as she pulled the rose free, and then said something really unpleasant as the thorn-covered stem lashed out at her. It whipped tightly round her arm and did its best to force jagged thorns through her reinforced sleeve. The blood-red rose hissed loudly at Sandra, its thick, pulpy petals curling back to show vicious teeth. Sandra glared right back at it, entirely unimpressed. She took a firm hold on the stem with her other hand, unwound the thing one curl at a time, and then broke its neck just below the flower. The long stem stopped thrashing immediately, and the rose screamed shrilly. Sandra threw the flower on the floor and stamped on it, hard. The rose went quiet, and Sandra nodded stiffly.
“I’ve seen worse,” she said. “Let’s see what else you picked up along the way, Eddie.”
“It’s not like I offered it a lift,” I said.
She ignored me. Further inspection turned up an extra exhaust pipe that had no business being where it was. Sandra looked at it thoughtfully, and gestured for two of her people to pry the thing loose with long-handled screwdrivers. It took them a while, because it really didn’t want to budge; but when the pipe finally came away it immediately changed shape, becoming a long metallic snake that shot straight for the throat of the nearest mechanic. Sandra stabbed it neatly through the head with her screwdriver, piercing it in mid-air, and then threw it down and pinned it to the hard stone floor. The metallic snake refused to die, whipping back and forth, but it couldn’t escape . . . as long as the cold iron of the screwdriver held it firmly in place.
“Another hitchhiker,” said Sandra. She wasn’t even breathing hard. “Just pretending to be a length of pipe, hoping not to be noticed, until it got a chance to drop quietly off and make a run for it. Hugh! Denny! Get the blueprints for the Bentley! We’re going to have to go over this car inch by inch to make sure everything is what and where it’s supposed to be.”
While they were waiting for the blueprints to turn up, Sandra had her people spray the metallic snake with freezing nitrogen. The snake fought the foam’s effects till the last moment, turning into half a dozen increasingly impossible things, until the terrible cold finally knocked all the fight out of it. Sandra then pulled her screwdriver free, and her people moved quickly in to deposit the snake in a reinforced container with a lead-lined interior, before taking it away for further study. Sandra then turned back to me, and glared at me accusingly.
“Where the hell have you been, Eddie?”
“The subtle realms,” I said.
“Then you’ve only yourself to blame. Some places should be declared permanently off-limits to all sane and rational beings. Hello, what have we here?”
Everyone else surrounding the Bentley took several steps back, upon hearing those words. Sandra crouched down, looking closely at the mud dripping off the underside of the car. Not to be outdone, I crouched down beside her. Bits of mud on the floor were writhing and seething, humping slowly and deliberately away from the car.
“Interesting . . . ,” said Sandra. “Psychegeography; living materials, from a world where every part of it is alive and conscious . . . Usually with bad intent. You do get around, don’t you, Eddie? Come on, people! Get your arses back here! I want every single bit of this unnaturally mobile shit caught, collected, and locked up in seriously secure containers so it can be sent away for analysis. And God help any of you if you miss one little bit.”
Her people made themselves very busy. Secretly, I think they quite liked being shouted at. Sandra straightened up again, so I did too. She shook her head slowly.
“We are not here to provide you with a cleaning service, Eddie.”
“Come on,” I said. “Admit it. You’re having fun.”
She looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then shot me a quick grin. “You do tend to brighten up an otherwise dull day, Eddie.”
“How long before I can have the car back?” I said.
“Oh, she’ll be ready by the time you’re back from the wake,” said Sandra. “Sink a few cold ones for me. He was the best, your uncle Jack; you know?”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
I nodded a quick good-bye and headed for the garage doors. Sandra yelled after me.
“Hey, Eddie! You’re supposed to be close to the new Matriarch! Talk to her! Tell her we need a decent budget to do a proper job. You can’t work miracles every day on the cheap! Are you listening to me, Eddie?”
I kept walking. Some fights you just know you shouldn’t get caught in the middle of.
* * *
Once I was safely outside the garage, I retrieved the Merlin Glass from the pocket dimension I keep in my pocket, shook the Glass out to Door size, and stepped through. The Glass dropped me off in a very familiar dark alleyway outside the Wulfshead Club. I shivered despite myself, moving from the warmth of a Summer’s day to the chilly twilight of a London evening. The Glass worked perfectly, for once, which was just as well, because I wasn’t in the mood to be messed with. Perhaps the Glass could sense that. It shrank down to a hand mirror again, and I tucked it away in my pocket. I looked carefully around me. There was no one about in the alley to note my arrival; the Merlin Glass is always very good about choosing just the right moment.
The alley was full of shadows, lit only by the single amber street light at its far end. It all seemed very quiet; even the roar of passing city traffic sounded eerily muffled, suppressed. Harsh neon from the adjoining streets barely penetrated a few inches into the alley. It was a lonely, separate place, by design. The alley existed only to give access to the Wulfshead Club.
The narrow passageway was a mess, as always, with piles of genuinely disturbing garbage scattered the length of it. Deliberately never cleaned up, to discourage the wrong sort of people. Some of the garbage seemed to be moving, and not in a good way. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be anything as obvious as rats. I gave the garbage plenty of room as I headed for the only door, set flush in the left-hand wall.
The shiny wet brickwork was covered with layer upon layer of old overlapping graffiti—the usual threats and warnings, boasts and sarcasm. Names of old gods and new street gangs, monsters and messengers. The usual gossip and intelligence, from the hidden world. From the ones who know . . . There was one example of very recent graffiti, right next to the door. The paint still looked wet. Eye Can See You. Oddly ominous, and just a bit worrying . . .
I stood before the dully gleaming metal door. Solid silver, with no sign or name; either you knew this was the entrance to the Wulfshead Club, preferred drinking hole and gathering place of like-minded souls in the supernatural and super-science community, or you had no business being there. The silver was deeply etched with threats and warnings in angelic and demonic script. You can find all kinds at the Wulfshead. The Management don’t care which side you’re on; they just want your money. The door had no handle. I placed my left hand flat against the metal, which felt uncomfortably warm to the touch. Organically warm. The door swung slowly back, and I retrieved my hand with a certain amount of relief. If your name isn’t on the club’s approved list, the door will bite your hand off. I didn’t think it could get to me past my Drood armour, but I wasn’t in any hurry to find out the hard way.
I strode through the open door with my head held high and my nose in the air, as though I wasn’t bothered at all. Never show weakness in front of your enemies. Or your friends.
* * *
Inside the Wulfshead Club, it was all bright lights and loud noise, the cheerful roar of a great many people determined to have a good time. It’s almost obligatory to be cheerful at a wake, or you’d never get through it. I was pleased to see the place looking so crowded; I always knew my uncle Jack had a great many friends and colleagues, but it was good to see so many of them had turned out for the occasion. It isn’t always possible, given the kind of lives we lead. Music from the Fifties and Sixties—Jack’s favourite period—pumped out of hidden speakers. I recognised a compilation of John Barry themes, from old James Bond movies. Someone’s idea of a sense of humour.
The walls were covered with a series of massive plasma screens, usually showing secret and embarrassing scenes from the lives of the rich and powerful, just for a laugh; but they’d all been turned off. Tonight was all about Jack Drood, not the outside world. I headed for the long bar, which took up half the far wall. A gleaming high-tech structure, it looked more like a modern art installation than anything functional. But if you can name a drink, or even describe it, you can be sure you’ll find it at the Wulfshead. Everything from Atlantean Ale to Angel’s Urine, from sparkling holy water with a mistletoe chaser to Chernobyl Vodka (for that inner glow). From the frankly perverse to the seriously terrifying, from the entirely illegal to the utterly unnatural. Rumour has it the Wulfshead’s mysterious Management keep their bar stock securely locked up in a separate dimension. Because they’re afraid of it. The dozen or so barmen serving behind the bar all looked exactly the same, because they were. The Management clone them.
I spotted Molly half-way down the bar, chatting with her sisters, Isabella and Louisa. The world’s most dangerous hen party. I called out Molly’s name, and even through the loud music and raucous chatter, she heard me immediately. She spun round, saw me, and yelled my name joyously. She headed straight for me, barging through the packed crowd with simple determination and much use of her elbows. No one objected. Because even the kind of people who drink at the Wulfshead have more sense than to annoy a Metcalf sister. Molly broke through the last few people, hugged me hard, kissed me harder, and grabbed my arm so she could drag me back to the bar.
“Have a drink!” she said loudly. “Hell, have several! I am! All drinks are on the house, courtesy of your family, for the duration of the wake. I hope you brought a toothbrush and a change of clothes because I plan on being here for some time!”
We finally made it to the bar, and Molly drank thirstily from the glass in her hand before banging it down on the bar top, in front of the nearest barman.
“Another Hemlock Wallbanger, if you please, barman! With a mandrake chaser. And another bag of pork scratchings. What are you having, Eddie?”
I had already decided that one of us was going to have to pace ourself, and since experience suggested it definitely wasn’t going to be Molly, I settled for my usual bottle of chilled Beck’s. My family had hired this club for as long as needed, and this particular crowd looked determined to do Jack Drood’s memory justice and see him off in grand style.
“We should really have held this do at Strangefellows,” said Molly. “Your uncle always did most of his drinking in the Nightside. But I suppose there are limits . . .”
“Oh, there are,” I said. “Really. You have no idea. I did once visit Strangefellows, with Walker. As Shaman Bond. Can’t say I cared much for the place . . .”
“Of course not,” said Molly. “Far too much fun going on there for you.”
“I know how to have fun!”
“Only since you met me.”
I decided it was probably safer not to disillusion her. I put my back to the bar, alongside Molly, and looked out over the club. There were lots of familiar faces present, many of them the kind of people you meet only at weddings or wakes. Or when you’re trying to kill each other. I took a long pull at my nice cold Beck’s and smiled easily on one and all. I was the only Drood present, because people like these wouldn’t have felt at all safe or comfortable about discussing the Jack Drood they knew in front of his family. Because Uncle Jack . . . got around. I was allowed in only because everyone there knew how close I’d been to the Armourer. So, no Droods. My family can be tactful when we have to.
But almost immediately I saw one face that shouldn’t have been there. Cedric Drood, the family’s Serjeant-at-Arms. The only Drood who could break the rules with impunity, because he was responsible for enforcing them. He was dressed so casually I almost didn’t recognise him; instead of his usual traditional butler’s outfit, he was wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt over very distressed jeans, and Doc Martens boots. Much about his personality suddenly became clear. But he actually did have every right to be at Jack’s wake; I knew for a fact that he was one of the few other Droods who regularly went off the reservation, to meet and drink with people he shouldn’t. I was sure that if pressed, Cedric would claim he did such things only so he could gather useful gossip and intelligence for the family. But then, as a wise woman once said, he would say that, wouldn’t he? I could remember a time when I was the only Drood who got out and about; but perhaps I only thought that.
Cedric was drinking and laughing openly with people who genuinely didn’t seem to care that he was a Drood. It’s not often that that happens. In fact, the Serjeant seemed to be on friendly and even familiar terms with a great many people. I was actually shocked to see Cedric abandoning his dignity and letting his hair down, so openly and so enthusiastically. It was like finding out your strict old maiden aunt wore erotic underwear. Cedric looked around, caught me looking at him, and dropped me a heavy wink. I looked away.
The more I peered around the Wulfshead, the more I seemed to be surrounded by familiar faces. The current Seneschal of the London Knights was there: Sir Perryvale. A large Falstaffian gentleman, he was holding forth to a rapt audience on some of the more secret rituals the Knights got up to when no one else was around. Some of these rituals were extremely old; and some, he freely admitted, he and Jack just made up to see if the Knights would notice the difference. Sir Perryvale had a great mane of silver-grey hair, and a broad ruddy face with huge bristling side whiskers. He was wearing a deafeningly loud Hawaiian shirt over a pair of shorts that were far too short. Especially for a man with legs that hairy. He interrupted himself regularly to drink vintage Champagne straight from the bottle, despite the winces and vigorous protests from more civilised types around him.
He finished off the bottle and tossed it casually over his shoulder. One of the barman snatched it easily out of mid-air and supplied Sir Perryvale with a fresh bottle, already opened. The Seneschal saw me watching, and called for me and Molly to come over and join him, his great booming voice full of good cheer. I looked at Molly, and she nodded, so we made our way through the packed crowd. Sir Perryvale struck me as a useful person to know. You never know when you might need a friend or a favour, among the London Knights. Particularly now that King Arthur was back.
Sir Perryvale clapped me heavily on the shoulder with a big, meaty palm and made a point of kissing Molly’s hand. I was a bit surprised she let him; she doesn’t normally have much time for the formal stuff. It might have been the man’s wide smile, or the roguish glint in his eyes; or she might also have decided she could use a future favour from the London Knights. It’s hard to be truly spontaneous in our crowd. You always have to be thinking about what these people might have meant to us in the past, or how they might be useful in the future.
We chatted easily together about the usual inconsequential things, until the crowd Sir Perryvale had acquired drifted away, disappointed that he wasn’t telling tales out of school any more. Once he was sure they were all gone, he leaned forward and fixed me with a knowing eye.
“Your uncle Jack and Cedric and I used to go out drinking together all the time,” he said. “More often than not in the sleazier parts of the Nightside, just because we knew we weren’t supposed to be there. If you’re going to break the rules, go all the way, that’s what I say . . . And we used to have regular meetings with all the other servants and factotums, from all the other secret groups and organisations. To share useful information, and to say the things we couldn’t say to our own people . . . It’s always the most disciplined people who feel the need to let off a little steam, now and again. You wouldn’t believe some of the gossip that went back and forth between us . . . But what gets said in the Nightside stays in the Nightside. Mostly. Your uncle Jack always told the best stories. Hell, he starred in a lot of them! I will miss him. I really will. I’m sure some of us will still get together for our little meetings, off the script and under the radar, but it won’t be the same without Jack.”
“I used to wonder how the Armourer got in and out of Drood Hall so easily, and so often, without being noticed,” I said. “Of course, he was who he was, so . . . Now that I know about Cedric, much becomes clearer.”
More familiar faces, everywhere I looked. From the Nightside, Dead Boy and Julien Advent. Dead Boy was wearing his usual deep purple greatcoat, with a black rose at the lapel, the coat deliberately left hanging open to show off his autopsy scar. He was drinking something that steamed and bubbled, and telling everyone who would stand still long enough about the times he and Jack went fishing for mermaids in the River Styx, deep down under the Nightside. Might have been true, might not; that was the Nightside for you. And, indeed, Dead Boy . . .
Julien Advent, that time-lost Victorian Adventurer, was dressed in the formal mourning wear of his own period, right down to the opera cloak and the silver-topped walking cane. It suited him, perhaps because he was one of the few people left alive who could still wear such clothes naturally. He made a point of paying his regrets to me and Molly, while also giving the firm impression that Dead Boy was nothing to do with him. Apparently Julien once talked Jack into giving him a lengthy, no-holds-barred interview for publication in the Night Times. I gather drink was involved. Quite a lot of it. Anyway, after Julien sobered up and listened to the recordings he’d made, he quickly realised there was no way he could publish it without starting several wars, so he buried it. “Would have made a hell of an impact,” he said wistfully.
From Shadows Fall came those wonderful fictional characters Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. Shadows Fall is a small town in the back of beyond, where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them. Once upon a time, every child read the many adventures of the Bear and the Goat in the Golden Lands, but the books were no longer published and no longer popular, so Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat now lived only in Shadows Fall. Having marvellous new adventures, of a kind their old readers could only dream about.
Bruin Bear was a four-foot-tall teddy bear, with golden-honey fur and dark, knowing eyes. He wore a bright red tunic and had a bright blue scarf wrapped tightly round his neck. He also had a single gold earring and a Rolex on his wrist. He drank old-fashioned Coke from an old-fashioned glass bottle, and regaled us with happy tales of his times with the Armourer.
Apparently, Jack had once rescued the Bear and the Goat from kidnappers sent by their old publishers, who wanted them permanently disposed of so they could replace them with more modern and relevant versions. Bruin Bear shuddered delicately at the thought, and I felt like joining in. A lot of people paused as they passed, to nod and smile fondly at Bruin Bear. He was just that sort of Bear.
Which was more than you could say about the Sea Goat. Wrapped in a filthy ankle-length trench coat with half the buttons missing, he looked human enough from the shoulders down. Tall and angular, with broad shoulders, he had a huge blocky goat’s head, with long curling horns and a permanent nasty grin. His grey fur was soiled and matted, and his eyes were seriously bloodshot. He’d fallen far from grace as a children’s favourite, and it showed. He carried a bottle of vodka, which by some kind magic was never empty, and he was cramming his mouth full of the snacks left out in bowls along the bar top. He caught Bruin Bear looking at him and said indistinctly, “But it’s the best kind of food! It’s free!”
“I’d tell him to pace himself,” said Bruin Bear, “but it would only be a waste of breath. Restraint is not a word the Sea Goat understands, along with other everyday terms like dignity, self-control, and self-preservation instincts. It wasn’t supposed to be us, you understand, representing Shadows Fall; it should have been Old Father Time. Apparently he and Jack go way back . . . But at the last moment, there was a crisis in the chronoflow. No, me neither. He does hope to look in later, if he can get away. And the universe still exists. Shadows Fall was determined someone should be here to pay the town’s respects to Jack’s memory, and the Sea Goat volunteered the two of us.”
“Did he know my uncle well?” I said politely.
“He saved your uncle’s life!” said the Bear. “Didn’t Jack ever tell you about that?”
He would have said more, but the Sea Goat chose that moment to pick a fight with the Soulhunter called Demonbane, and the Bear had to hurry over to break it up. Molly and I looked at each other. Sometimes there just aren’t any words.
Representing the Ghost Finders of the Carnacki Institute was the Boss herself, the intimidating Catherine Latimer. Sitting quite calmly on a bar-stool, sipping an old-fashioned cocktail complete with a little parchment parasol. Chatting quite happily with Monkton Farley and Waterloo Lillian.
Catherine had to be in her late seventies by now, if not more (and some gossip suggested a lot more), but she still gave every indication of being unnaturally strong and vital. She looked like she could rip your head off and spit down your neck if you were dumb enough to offer to help her across a busy street. Medium height, of stocky build, she wore a smartly tailored grey suit, and smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long ivory holder. She wore her grey hair cropped short in an unflattering bowl cut, and her face was all hard edges and icy-cold eyes.
Monkton Farley, that renowned consulting detective, shouldn’t really have been at the wake. Given that he was the illegitimate son of Jack’s brother James, and therefore half Drood. But it was hard to keep him away from any gathering where there was a chance for him to show off. I didn’t mind that he solved impossible cases with style and elegance; I just wished he’d stop talking about them. He was dressed in the same old-fashioned outfit he’d worn to the funeral, complete with a starched high collar and immaculate white spats on his shoes. Because he had to make an impression wherever he went. He did look a little bit lost at the Wulfshead without his usual crowd of adoring followers, always ready to listen intently to his latest story and hang on his every word and tell him what a genius he was. Like he didn’t already know that.
Waterloo Lillian was dressed as a showgirl, looking almost unbearably sexy and glamorous in dark fishnet stockings, a sparkling basque, and a tall feathered headdress. Presumably because he’d come straight from work. And, as he was wont to say, Glamour is my life, darlings. He was currently sipping absinthe from a champagne flute, with his little finger suitably extended.
Catherine Latimer saw me looking, and left the other two talking together so she could come over and join me and Molly. She was a good foot shorter than me, but I still felt like I should be looking up at her. Even Molly seemed a little unsettled in such overpowering company.
“I knew your grandmother Martha well, back in the day,” said Catherine. “Girls together, and all that. I watched Jack and James grow up. And your mother, Emily, too, of course, Eddie. Now Martha and James and Jack are gone, and I’m still here. Don’t ask me why. The good die young, perhaps. I shall miss Jack. He did a little work for me, you know, on the quiet. Always ready to help out the Ghost Finders with the odd weapon or device, in an emergency. The family never knew, I take it?”
“I’m pretty sure not,” I said. “They tend to frown upon such things.”
“Jack did have a life outside the family,” said Catherine.
“So I’m finding out,” I said.
I circulated through the Wulfshead, mingled, made conversation. And the more I heard about Jack, the less I felt I’d ever really understood him. I’d only known him as the Armourer, the old man in his lab coat who hardly ever seemed to leave the Armoury. I’d heard about his earlier career as a field agent, of course, but that had seemed like some other person. More and more, it was becoming clear that I’d known him only at the end of his life, when most of his activities were over. I felt . . . honoured to have shared a few of his last adventures with him. I wished I’d listened to him more, asked more questions when I had the chance.
And finally, because I could no longer avoid it, I just happened to bump into the Soulhunter called Demonbane. I could feel Molly tense at my side. No one really likes or trusts the Soulhunters; they’re all crazy. But then, if you had to do their job . . . you’d want to be clinically insane too. Everyone else was giving him plenty of room. Demonbane was a scrawny, wild-eyed, almost feral presence who could have been any age. Wearing a pale lavender suit of eccentric cut, with big padded shoulders and no shirt underneath. His gaze was unblinking, and his constant smile actually disturbing. He bounced up and down on his bare feet before me and Molly and cocked his head to one side, the better to observe us.
“Hello, Eddie! Commiserations on your loss. Let’s just hope he stays dead, eh? Molly, darling! Haven’t seen you since that nasty business with the Notional Man and the Sleeping Tygers of Stepney. What a night that was . . . You know, you promised you’d call me, but you never did. Why not?”
“Is that a trick question?” said Molly.
I looked at her. “Another of your dodgy exes? Why am I not surprised?”
“Because you’ve got a nasty suspicious nature,” said Molly.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m a Drood.” I fixed Demonbane with a thoughtful gaze. “How did you know my uncle Jack?”
Demonbane grinned. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to nuke the planet from orbit, just to make sure.”
“That can’t be your real name,” I said. “Demonbane . . .”
“Of course it isn’t, Shaman. In our game, to know the true name of a thing is to have power over it. And that kind of knowledge in the wrong hands can get you killed. Or worse. So I chose Demonbane as my username. It’s harsh, it’s brutal, it’s . . . me.”
“But it’s so obvious!” I said. “It’s not exactly original, is it?”
“It’s still a name you can use to make people wet themselves, in certain circles,” he said complacently. “And some things that aren’t even a little bit people.”
“You’re showing off now,” I said.
“This, from a Drood?” said Demonbane. “Ooh! Look at me, wearing my bright shiny armour!” He prodded me hard in the chest with one finger. Still smiling his unwavering and really unsettling smile. “You need the Soulhunters. To do the dirty work your family doesn’t want to soil their precious hands with. And given some of the things you admit to doing, that says a lot . . .”
“Retrieve your finger,” I said. “Or I’ll tie it in a knot.”
Molly moved quickly forward, to stand between us. “What are you doing here, Demonbane? You never gave a damn about the Armourer.”
“The Soulhunters wished to express their regret at his passing,” said Demonbane. “His death means there’s one less of Us. So They are winning.”
“You’re weird,” said Molly.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Demonbane. “Besides . . . our precogs said one of us needed to be here. Because something’s going to happen. Right here, at the Armourer’s wake.”
He turned abruptly and walked away. Molly and I watched him go, and then looked at each other.
“Precogs?” I said. “Since when have the Soulhunters had precogs?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Molly.
“Even my family knows better than to depend on visions of the future,” I said.
“But . . . ,” said Molly.
“Exactly,” I said. “But . . . this is the Soulhunters we’re talking about. Even my family doesn’t know much about what goes on inside that group. Though given the kind of work they do, it’s probably just as well. I can’t believe anything could happen here, though. Not inside the Wulfshead, with all its famous defences and protections.”
“Maybe his people just wanted an excuse to get him out of the way for an evening,” said Molly.
“Now that I’ll buy,” I said.
Perhaps fortunately, Molly’s sister Isabella called out to us, so we went over to join her and Louisa at the end of the long bar. Isabella was wearing her usual tight blood-red leathers, plus a black choker round her throat that positively bristled with pointy steel things. She’d dyed her spiky hair a flaming red to match her leathers. Her face had the same beauty as Molly’s, but in a harsher style. Louisa was wearing a pastel-coloured Laura Ashley outfit, finished off with white plastic stilettos. She was the baby of the family, and her sweetly pretty face looked pleasant enough, until you made the mistake of looking into her eyes. And saw just how deep they went. Louisa was the really dangerous Metcalf sister, and it showed. Her hair was currently peroxide white and fluffed out like a dandelion.
“We could have made it to the funeral,” said Isabella, “but we thought it more tactful not to.”
“You thought that,” said Louisa, sipping delicately at her Bacardi Breezer. “I’ve never gotten a handle on this whole tact thing.”
“Trust me,” said Isabella, “we’ve all noticed.”
“One Metcalf witch was enough,” said Molly. “To say good-bye.”
“We can say our good-byes to Jack more properly here,” said Isabella. “Over drinks.”
“Over many drinks,” said Molly.
“I want a mouse!” Louisa said loudly.
“You’ve already had three,” Isabella said crushingly.
Louisa looked at her sister with big, pleading eyes, until Isabella sighed deeply and produced a small white mouse from out of nowhere. It peered around from Isabella’s hand, twitching its whiskers in a charming sort of way. Louisa made delighted sounds, snatched the mouse away from Isabella, crushed it in her hand, and greedily inhaled its essence. Blood dripped thickly between her fingers. She smiled dazzlingly back at all of us—and when she opened her hand, it was empty.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” said Isabella.
“Did the two of you know Jack well?” I said, just a bit desperately.
Isabella and Louisa smiled. I decided I really didn’t like those smiles.
“Your uncle Jack got around,” said Isabella. “And not just as a field agent. That man knew how to have a good time. He had his own life, outside your family.”
“So everyone keeps telling me,” I said. “I’m starting to feel like an underachiever.”
Molly quickly cut in, launching into some seriously sisterly discussions, about people and places of interest only to them. I took the hint and moved off on my own. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s the importance of family secrets. The club seemed more packed and crowded than ever. There was still no sign anywhere of Charles or Emily. I’d been sure they’d turn up for Jack’s wake, even if they couldn’t show their faces at the funeral.
While I was looking around, I suddenly spotted a distinguished-looking old gentleman making his way steadily through the crowd towards me. I didn’t recognise him. He was average height, average weight, in a smart city suit, and he looked professionally anonymous. He seemed old enough to have been a contemporary of Jack’s, but a very well-preserved one. His faultless civilised smile was undermined only by his cold eyes, which wanted nothing to do with it. He seemed polite enough, and not obviously dangerous, but I tensed despite myself as he drew nearer. I can always recognise another agent when I see one.
The old man came to a halt a respectful distance from me and gave me a polite bow. Molly drifted forward to stand beside me. I’d been concentrating so much on the new arrival, I hadn’t even noticed her, but she’d noticed what was happening. The old man inclined his head to Molly, a bow carefully calculated to be polite without being in any way deferential. He turned his attention back to me, and when he finally addressed me his English was the perfect kind you learned only from books; it had no discernible accent.
“Do I have the honour of addressing the estimable Eddie Drood? And the illustrious Molly Metcalf? Good! Good . . . I am Nicolai Vodyanoi. Retired, ex-KGB, a counterpart of your dear departed uncle Jack. Back during the Cold War. You know my grandsons, I believe?”
I looked at Molly, and she looked at me. Oh yes, we knew them well enough. Thugs, bully-boys, werewolves. We both smiled politely at Nicolai.
“We’ve met,” I said. “Most recently at the Lady Faire’s annual do, at Ultima Thule.”
He shook his old head sadly. “Ah yes. I understand they disgraced themselves . . . ?”
“You could say that,” I said. “They were asked to leave and had to walk home. Did they get back safely?”
“Eventually,” said Nicolai. “Such boisterous boys!”
“Boisterous . . . ,” I said. “Yes.”
“We were always bumping into each other, Jack and I,” Nicolai said carefully. “In this city, or that. In this country, or that. Some of which don’t even exist any more . . . In secret science cities, or hidden underground bunkers, usually trying to kill each other as we fought it out for the same prize. For what seemed like perfectly good reasons at the time.”
Molly and I looked at each other and shared a smile.
“We’ve been there,” I said. “Molly and I were often at each other’s throats when we weren’t fighting back to back.”
“The good old days,” said Molly. “Before we settled down and got civilised.”
“Well, almost,” I said.
I returned my attention to Nicolai, who was waiting patiently. I gave him my best meaningless smile. “So, you and Jack knew each other during the Cold War. Did you know his brother James as well?”
“Oh yes!” he said immediately. Glad to be back on familiar ground. “I knew the Grey Fox. Everyone did, in our line of work. One way or another. James had the reputation, but Jack did good work too. Getting things done in his own quiet way.”
He reached inside his jacket, with a heavily wrinkled but still very steady hand, and I tensed for a moment until he brought out a battered leather wallet, from which he produced an old black and white photo. He handed it to me, and I held it carefully so Molly could see it too. The photo showed a much younger Nicolai and Jack, standing side by side in tuxedos, at some glittering ambassadorial ball. They were both smiling for the camera, but their body language suggested a wary and even watchful feel, as though they’d been brought together only by circumstance, in roles that they were required to play in public. They both looked as though they might draw a weapon at any moment. And they both looked so young, and in their prime, with that indefinable glamour so many secret agents had, back in the day, almost despite themselves. When the sides were clear, everybody’s reasons were clear-cut, and everyone knew what they were doing, and why.
“This is from the Sixties?” I said to Nicolai. “Thought so . . . I have to say, you don’t look nearly old enough for this to be you . . .”
“State secret,” he said smoothly, smiling fondly at the old image of himself. “We still have a few left in my country.”
“Who’s that?” Molly said suddenly, pointing at a figure standing behind the young Jack and Nicolai. “I feel I should know him . . .”
Nicolai studied the image carefully. “Yes . . . I remember him! Something of a mystery man, as I recall. Such an unusual name . . . Deathstalker.” He saw me and Molly react, and raised an eyebrow. “You know this man?”
“I know the name,” I said.
“So,” said Nicolai, taking the photo back from me and slipping it carefully back into the wallet before making it disappear inside his jacket again. “I heard about Jack’s wake through the usual unusual channels, so I knew I had to be here. They tell me he died at his work. It’s what he would have wanted.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “He wanted to live forever. He was working on something in that line, but . . .”
“He ran out of time,” said Nicolai. “Yes. It comes to us all, in the end.”
* * *
The evening wore on. Many drinks were drunk, many songs were sung, and a great many toasts were made. Men made passes at women holding glasses. Isabella backed Monkton Farley up against a wall. The general mood became emotional, even wistful, as people looked back on their pasts and found they went back further than they realised. Dead Boy and Waterloo Lillian slow-danced together to an old Frank Sinatra song. The Sea Goat cut in, and Dead Boy stepped politely back. Julien Advent and Catherine Latimer sat side by side at the bar, so deep in conversation that no one dared interrupt them. A few people tried to listen in, but were driven away by two sets of very cold eyes. Demonbane had taken up a position behind the bar, preparing very complicated, very dangerous, and very popular concoctions. Sometimes the stigmata in his palms would drip blood into the drinks he was preparing, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. It was, after all, a very cosmopolitan crowd.
People told increasingly indelicate stories about Jack Drood, from his days in the field right up to the present day. I think most of us would have been shocked at what emerged if we hadn’t all been laughing so hard. Nicolai drank neat vodka and smiled and nodded a lot, but it wasn’t until I asked him point-blank for his memories of Jack that he smiled and shrugged and looked at me thoughtfully.
“Did you know about Jack’s little fling with the Lady Faire?”
“You mean James,” I said.
“No, I don’t,” said Nicolai. “She had both of them! Though not at the same time. As far as I know . . .”
“And let us not forget Jason Royal, back in the Seventies,” said Sir Perryvale. “That most debonair of spies . . . There was a lot of talk, you know, as to whether James or Jack was really his father. James took the credit; but then, he always did. Does anyone here know what Jason’s up to these days?”
“Last I heard, he was retired,” said Catherine Latimer. “Living in San Francisco.”
“I suppose he must be of an age to retire by now,” said Nicolai. “Though I still remember him as that handsome young man, a peacock of the London scene . . .”
“Didn’t I hear he disappeared, rather mysteriously, sometime last year?” said Monkton Farley.
“I thought I heard something like that,” said Dead Boy.
“Was it Jack who went looking for the Holy Grail in Old Shanghai?” said Julien Advent. “Or was that James?”
“No, that was Charles and Emily,” said Catherine. “Back when they were still doing fieldwork for the Droods. They never had the reputation, but they always did good work. You should be proud of your parents, Eddie.”
“I am,” I said.
“Though I sometimes wonder why,” said Molly.
“Hush,” I said.
“But did they ever find the Grail?” said Sir Perryvale.
“I think I would have heard, if they had,” said Isabella.
“No,” said Dead Boy. “It turned out to be just a false sighting of John the Baptist’s head. The Merovingians were always chasing that . . . But in this case it was just Herod’s head. Didn’t Elvis have the Grail at Graceland?”
“No,” said Molly very firmly. “You’ve been reading those supermarket tabloids again, haven’t you?”
Dead Boy shrugged easily. “These days it’s the only way to find out what’s really going on.”
“Here’s to Jack!” Sir Perryvale said loudly. He held up his Champagne bottle, and we all raised our glasses in the toast. “To the Armourer, and all his marvellous toys! Including all the ones that did what they were actually supposed to do! And to a few that should never even have been tried. Remember the gun that fired miniature black holes? And the nuclear grenade?”
“That would have worked,” I said, “if he could have only found someone who could throw it far enough.”
People knocked back their drinks, ordered more, and swapped happy memories of the Armourer’s amazing creations. Which led, naturally enough, to stories about some of the more unusual obsessions and enthusiasms of previous Armourers. I couldn’t help but smile at discovering that so many of my family’s secrets weren’t quite as secret as they thought. There was mention of the Time Train, and Moxton’s Mistake, and a great many others. No one mentioned Alpha Red Alpha, so I didn’t either.
“I’ve never really understood why you Droods need all these wonderful guns and gadgets, when you already have such powerful armour,” said Sir Perryvale.
“Because the armour can only do so much,” I said. “For long distance, for a whole range of other possibilities, and for subtlety . . . you need specialized equipment.”
“Besides,” Cedric said wisely, “it’s never good for a field agent to get too dependent on the armour. To rely on it to do everything for them, and get them out of tight corners. There’s always going to be times when the armour just isn’t the right tool for the job. Or it might not be functioning . . .”
“Really?” said Nicolai.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said, to general laughter.
“Oh, perish the thought,” said Nicolai. “The Cold War is over, and we are all good friends now, yes?” And then he looked at me and said, very casually, “Did your uncle Jack leave you anything, Eddie? Any special bequest, to remember him by?”
“The reading of the will won’t be for some time,” I said, just as casually. “But he did say he wanted me to have the Bentley.”
“Marvellous car, of course,” said Nicolai, nodding solemnly. “But nothing else?”
“No,” I said. “Why do you ask? Did you have something specific in mind?”
“Not really,” said Nicolai. “How was the funeral?”
“Very respectful,” I said. “We did the old boy proud. I just wish my parents could have been there to see it.”
“Have they still not turned up?” said Sir Perryvale, frowning. “There are too many people going missing these days.”
“Like Jason Royal?” said Catherine Latimer.
And then other people started chiming in, offering names of agents and adventurers, and even Major Players, who’d just vanished down the years.
Slowly, a bigger picture began to emerge. As everyone threw in a name, or two or three, the number began to add up. Whatever happened to Tarot Jones, the Tatterdemalion, the Totem of the Travellers? Or the Which Doktor, who specialized in supernatural illnesses? Or Chrome Delilah, the combat cyborg from the future? Name after name, of powerful people who’d just dropped out of sight, without any sign of struggle or foul play. And other, less illustrious names, but still well-known people, even significant ones, in their own spheres of influence. More people gathered around us as the conversation became louder and more worried, and even more names were put forward. It quickly became clear that none of us had realised just how many people had gone missing down through the years. Until we started putting the picture together . . .
Now, people in our line of work have been known to just drop out of sight, for a time, for any number of good or necessary reasons, but . . . I began to wonder if there might be a more disturbing reason behind it all.
“Could someone,” I said, “or even some organisation, be culling the super-secret society? Or securing useful people for their own purposes?”
“If it was anyone but you asking, I’d say it was probably the Droods,” said Isabella.
“No,” I said, “we don’t kidnap people.”
“No . . . ,” said Molly, in a way that made it sound more like Yes, but. “On the other hand, your family has been known to disappear certain people, when they’ve convinced themselves such action would be in the greater good. We’ve all heard stories . . .”
There was a general murmuring of agreement from all present.
“It’s not us,” I said firmly. “I’d know.”
“It’s not us,” said Cedric. “I’d definitely know.”
The crowd went quiet, as everyone looked at one another and realised we really didn’t know what was going on. Until Sir Perryvale cleared his throat, just a bit self-consciously.
“I have heard . . . something,” he said, almost reluctantly. “Just a whisper. About a secret and very exclusive Big Game.”
“Oh, come on!” I said. “Another Spy Game? I’ve already been through one of those, courtesy of the Independent Agent. How many of these games are there?”
“More than you’d think,” said Isabella. “Casino Infernale isn’t the only place where people like us come together to play games. People with powers and abilities like ours do love to show off what we can do. And who better to test ourselves against than each other? How else could we find proper competition? I’m amazed we don’t have our own Olympics, with medals and everything . . .”
“I have heard of this Big Game,” Nicolai said slowly. “Though not through any official channels . . . It is, as you say, a whisper, a rumour . . . One of the darker mysteries of our hidden community. A contest of champions, they say, where the competitors are secretly abducted and forced to fight each other to the death. No one knows how long it has been going on.”
The crowd was very quiet now, everyone frowning hard, thinking. About things they’d seen, or heard, or heard of, that suddenly made a lot more sense.
“How could something this important have been going on for so long, and I never heard of it?” I said finally. “Why hasn’t my family heard about it? I mean, we know everything! I’m pretty sure that’s in our job description.”
“Someone in your family probably does know,” said Nicolai. “At some level. But like most of us who think we might know something, we don’t like to talk about it.”
“Why not?” Molly said immediately.
“Because the Big Game is protected,” Nicolai said flatly. “By the people who run it. The Powers That Be.”
There was a pause, as everyone looked at everyone else.
“What kind of a name is that?” I said. “It’s so vague; it could be anybody! Who the hell are these people?”
Sir Perryvale shrugged uncertainly. “Nobody knows. I think that’s the point. In a community like ours, where you can be sure somebody knows something about everything . . . Even so, nobody knows. And that should tell you something. It’s not even wise to talk about the Big Game, because you don’t want to attract the attention of . . . whoever it is that’s in charge of running the Big Game.”
“I’m not sure I believe any of this,” I said.
Nicolai nodded quickly. “Probably the wisest course.”
“I need a drink,” said Molly. “I need a really big drink, with an even bigger chaser.”
This quickly became a very popular notion, and the crowd broke up as everyone besieged the long bar, shouting their orders to Demonbane and the barmen. Drinking and talking started up again, loud voices competing to drown each other out, as the subject of the Big Game was deliberately left behind. If not necessarily forgotten.
* * *
Finally, after hours of heavy talking and even heavier drinking, the wake began to break up. People started leaving. Heading off to their various homes, in their various ways. Julien Advent went off with Catherine Latimer, still deep in conversation—which raised a few eyebrows. Waterloo Lillian departed with a giggling Dead Boy slung over his shoulder. And Demonbane looked at me, muttered something rude about precogs, and departed as sober as he’d arrived. At the end, no one was left in the club but me and Molly. Even the bar staff had disappeared. Literally blinked out when I wasn’t looking, now that they were no longer needed. Maybe the Management just put them back in their box. The piped music cut off in the middle of a Deep Fix medley, and a quiet calm settled over the club.
Molly and I sat side by side at the bar, still somehow perched on bar-stools, leaning companionably against each other. Savouring our last drinks before we headed out into the cold, cold night. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d allowed myself to get this drunk outside of safe environs. I felt . . . mellow. Decidedly mellow. The funeral hadn’t seemed like a proper good-bye to my uncle Jack, and neither had clearing out his room, but this . . . this wake had been more like it. A proper farewell to a man who had always been so much more than just the family Armourer. I turned to Molly to say as much, and saw that she was very mellow. So mellow, in fact, that it was a wonder to me she was still perched on her bar-stool. I smiled at her fondly. I hadn’t been trying to keep up with her, because I knew from experience that I couldn’t. Nobody could, when she had her drinking boots on.
“I think we gave Jack a good send-off,” I said slowly. “I wish he could have been here to see it.”
“Now, that,” said Molly, “would have been creepy. Also macabre.”
“I mean,” I said, speaking slowly and clearly to show I wasn’t in any way befuddled by the booze, “so he could see just how well loved and admired and respected he was. In the greater community. Not just . . . at the Hall. Or in the Armoury.”
“I think he knew,” said Molly, nodding wisely.
“I hope he knew,” I said.
“Eddie?” said Molly.
“Yes, love?”
“Something’s wrong. I can’t move. Why can’t I move? What the hell have I been drinking?”
“It’s not just you,” I said steadily. “I can’t move either.”
“Eddie, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
And just like that I felt stone-cold sober. As though someone had thrown a bucket of icy water in my face. Shock can do that to you. I struggled to move, or even turn my head to look at Molly, but I couldn’t move a muscle.
“We’ve been spelled!” said Molly. “Frozen in place!”
“But my torc is supposed to protect me from all kinds of attack!” I said. “What kind of spell could be powerful enough to overpower Drood armour? And why are we still able to talk?”
“Good questions,” said Molly. “I think we’re about to learn the answers.”
I saw something moving, out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t turn my head to see clearly, but the lights in the Wulfshead Club seemed to just fade away as shadows gathered around us. Bright electric lights guttered and went out, replaced by a bruised, unhealthy candlelight as Nicolai Vodyanoi came forward out of the dark, holding a Hand of Glory. A severed human hand whose fingers had been made into candles. Eerie green flames rose from wicks set into the fingertips, rising straight up, untouched by any breeze or movement. They were the only light in the Wulfshead now. Nicolai walked up to me, and then past me, to sit down at the bar beside Molly. I still couldn’t turn my head to look at him, to see what he was doing. All I could do was follow him out of the corner of my other eye. I’d never felt so helpless. I seethed and struggled, pitting all my willpower, and all the power of my torc, against the power of the Hand of Glory, and still I couldn’t move. Couldn’t protect my Molly from the old monster sitting so casually beside her.
“Normally, not even a Hand of Glory would be enough to hold a Drood in place against his will,” said Nicolai quite calmly. He didn’t sound the least bit drunk. It occurred to me that while I’d often seen him with a glass of vodka in his hand during the evening, I’d never actually seen him drink from it. Had he been planning this all along? A cold anger surged through me. This was a wake! Neutral ground for all, by long tradition . . . I realised Nicolai was still talking, and made myself pay attention.
“This is no ordinary Hand of Glory. It was made from the severed hand of a dead Drood. Don’t ask me his name. This all took place long before my time. Some Drood field agent came to Moscow, overconfident or really unlucky, and my people took him down. Very carefully, so your family never suspected we were involved. He just . . . disappeared. As we were saying earlier, such things do happen, in our community.
“So . . . after he was dead, my people tried to take his torc, to learn the secrets of your armour; but I understand the torc just disappeared. Right in front of them. Very vexing. So they dissected the young man’s body, very thoroughly, to see what secrets it held. This was back before the days of DNA, you understand, so in the end they discovered little of any actual use. But they did cut off one of his hands and make it over into this Hand of Glory. Because even then they thought Drood flesh might be used against Drood armour . . .”
“You see?” I said to Molly. “This is why it’s so important to completely dispose of a Drood body.”
“Shut up, Eddie!” said Nicolai. “I am talking! We could have used the Hand against your family, but those in charge at that time suffered . . . a failure of nerve, a lack of will. They panicked, afraid of what your family might do to them if the truth ever got out. So they destroyed the body and locked the Hand away. Never even tried to use it. Such a wasted opportunity . . . The Hand remained in the KGB vaults for many years, forgotten—until I found it.
“While looking for something else entirely. Is that not always the way? But once I understood what I had stumbled across, I knew my moment had come. I broke into the vaults, took the Hand, and came here. I fear I have rather burned my bridges with my own people, but it was necessary. I had no choice. It was easy enough for me to get in here for your sentimental little gathering; your uncle Jack once brought me here as his guest. All I had to do, then . . . was wait for everyone else to leave. And now, Eddie. You know what I want.”
“I really don’t,” I said.
“Where is it?” said Nicolai. “Tell me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about? Where is what?”
“I want what your uncle Jack left you,” said Nicolai. “All these years I’ve wanted to get my hands on it, all these years I’ve waited, and this is my chance.”
“The Bentley?” I said. “It isn’t here.”
“Do not play the fool with me, Eddie.” There was a cold, very real danger in his voice. “I would hate to have to hurt your Molly. Hate to have to damage such a pretty face.”
“Don’t you touch her!” I said. “Please! What do you want?”
“You wouldn’t dare!” said Molly. “My sisters would hunt you down!”
“Shut up, witch!” said Nicolai. “Tell me where it is, Eddie, right now, or . . .” He slammed the Hand of Glory down on the bar top. It stood upright, balanced uncannily on the wrist stump, green flames still rising steadily from the fingertips. Nicolai produced a slender silver knife and set the edge against Molly’s throat. She couldn’t even flinch back from it. The edge of the blade was so sharp that contact alone broke the skin and sent a thin runnel of blood coursing down her throat. I almost went mad then, straining helplessly against the power that held me still.
“All right!” I said. “All right . . . Just, take it easy. Don’t hurt her. What you want is in my right-hand pocket, contained within a pocket dimension I keep there. You can’t just reach in and take it; only I can. That’s the way the Armourer made it.”
Nicolai considered the matter, still holding the knife to Molly’s throat. He could kill her in a moment, and we all knew it. Finally, he nodded slowly.
“Very well, Eddie. I restore to you the movement of your right arm.”
And just like that, I could move my arm again. Nothing else. I couldn’t even look down as I reached into my right-hand pocket and slowly, carefully brought out the Merlin Glass. I placed it on the bar top before me. Nicolai looked at it.
“What . . . ?” he said. “What is that?”
“It’s what you wanted,” I said. “The Merlin Glass. I know—you thought it would look more impressive. Everybody does. But that’s it. Now, please . . . Take the Glass and let Molly go. You must know that killing her, and me, would be a really bad idea. You’d have my family and her sisters at your back and at your throat, for the rest of your life.”
Nicolai surged forward and swept the Merlin Glass off the bar top with one blow from his hand. The Glass fell to the floor, and he pressed the knife back against Molly’s throat. Another thin line of blood ran slowly down her twitching skin.
“I don’t want that!” Nicolai said, so angry he was almost spitting the words. “I don’t care about that! Stop playing games!”
“I’m not!” I said. “I swear I’m not! Just tell me, please; what is it you want?”
“I want the Star of St Petersburg!” said Nicolai Vodyanoi.
“What?” I said. “That . . . thing? It’s just a useless piece of crystal! Why would you want that?”
“Please, Eddie,” Molly said carefully. “Let’s not upset the excitable psychopath with a knife at my throat . . .”
“That wasn’t Jack!” I said to Nicolai. “That was James! He took the Star of St Petersburg! Just . . . picked it up, because it was there. He did things like that. The Star . . . it’s no big deal! My grandmother used it as a paperweight. It’s probably still in the Matriarch’s office. Somewhere. Has been for years . . . What’s so special about the Star of St Petersburg?”
“You’re lying,” said Nicolai. “Stop your lying! I’ll kill her!”
“I’m not! I swear I’m not!” Cold sweat rolled down my face as I tried desperately to make him understand I was telling the truth. “The Grey Fox took the Star, not my uncle Jack. It’s just a crystal! No special powers; we checked. Why do you want it so badly?”
“Because I put my soul inside it,” said Nicolai. “I thought I was being so clever . . . I hid it there, years and years ago, for safekeeping. The way witches hide their hearts so they can’t be killed. Yes, you thought you were safe, didn’t you, Molly? That you were never in any real danger from my nasty little knife. But this is a very special blade. A blade so sharp it will kill you no matter where your heart is!” He laughed suddenly, and it was a harsh, bitter sound. “All these years, you Droods had my soul in your keeping . . . and you never even knew it.”
“Look, you can have it,” I said. “We don’t need it. Let me talk to my family, arrange something. We can still make a deal, a trade. Our lives for the Star. You know my family knows all about making deals . . .”
Nicolai took the knife away from Molly’s throat, got up from his barstool, and came over to stand beside me. My stomach muscles unclenched a little, now that Molly was no longer in danger. Nicolai advanced on me, holding the knife out before him. The blade shone supernaturally bright in the gloom. He held the knife up before my face, so close I could almost feel it. But I couldn’t recoil. Couldn’t pull back a single inch.
“Very well, Eddie,” Nicolai said slowly. “I’ll trade you and Molly, for the Star. Your family might not care so much about the witch, but they’ll want to save one of their own. No tricks, Eddie; your torc can’t protect you from this blade, as long as the Hand of Glory still burns.”
“I’m going to reach into my pocket,” I said. “To get my phone. It’s in my pocket dimension.”
“Get it out slowly,” said Nicolai.
I reached carefully into my right-hand pocket and brought out the Colt Repeater I kept there. Nicolai couldn’t see it from where he was standing until it was far too late. I brought the gun up quickly and shot the Hand of Glory. The bullet hit it square in the palm and sent the Hand tumbling backwards. All the flames on the fingers went out, and just like that I could move again. I jumped up from the bar-stool and aimed the Colt Repeater at Nicolai as he stumbled back away from me.
“You really shouldn’t have threatened my Molly,” I said.
He didn’t try to attack me, or Molly; he just turned and ran for the door. I shot him in the left buttock, and the impact sent him crashing to the floor. The silver blade flew from his hand. He gave up then. Just lay on the floor, on his side, an old man weeping angrily. He turned his head back to glare at me.
“Go on, then!” he said through his tears. “Kill me! You know you want to, Drood!”
“No,” I said. “I don’t do that any more. I’ll have my family come here and pick you up. You can have your Star back; we don’t want it. And then I think we’ll hand you back to your own people. I wonder what we’ll get from them for you? A thief, and a traitor . . . Molly, are you all right? Molly?”
I looked around, and saw that Molly wasn’t there. Her bar-stool was empty. There was no sign of her anywhere the club. She was just . . . gone. I turned back to Nicolai. He saw the look on my face and tried to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood behind him. I moved quickly forward and bent over him.
“Where is she?” I said. “Where’s Molly? What have you done with her?”
“I haven’t done anything!” he said, cringing away from me. Holding his hands up before his face, as though that might protect him.
I slapped his hands away with the Colt and stuck the gun right in his face. I pressed the barrel into his left eye. He screwed his eye up and cried out as I pressed harder.
“Where’s Molly?”
He was crying openly now, an old man with all his dignity stripped away, broken by what he heard in my voice.
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything! This is nothing to do with me! Please . . .”
He was so scared, he wet himself. Whatever had happened to Molly, it wasn’t down to him. I took the gun out of his eye and backed away. I might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t threatened Molly. I went back to the bar, bent down, and picked up the Merlin Glass from the floor. I looked it over carefully, but it wasn’t damaged. The Merlin Glass can look after itself. I held the mirror out before me.
“Find Molly,” I said. “Wherever she is.”
My reflection disappeared from the mirror and was replaced by a grey blur of buzzing static. I stared at it for a long moment. The Glass had never done that before. The Merlin Glass had always been able to find anyone, anywhere, even in places that were completely out of this world.
“Find Isabella and Louisa,” I said. “Where are they?”
The grey blur disappeared immediately, as the Glass showed me Molly’s sisters, talking animatedly together. They broke off abruptly as they turned to stare at me. They both looked startled, and not a little angry. Their faces filled the mirror, but I could hear the sounds of another party going on in the background. Isabella glared out of the mirror at me.
“Eddie? What do you want? And how did you find us here?”
“The Merlin Glass,” I said. “It can find anyone. Except it can’t find Molly. She’s been kidnapped, right out of the Wulfshead, and the Glass can’t find her anywhere.”
“What?” said Isabella. “She’s been taken? How could you let that happen?”
“I was distracted!” I said. “Nicolai Vodyanoi just tried to kill both of us. And while I was dealing with that, Molly vanished. Gone, in a moment. No warnings, no signs, no clues. Look, just come back to the Wulfshead. I need your help.”
“We’re on our way,” said Isabella.
“Damn right,” said Louisa. “No one messes with the Metcalf Sisters.”
“Allow me,” I said.
I shook the Merlin Glass out until it was the size of a Door, and Isabella and Louisa strode through it. There was a brief roar of raised voices and raucous music from whatever party they were leaving, cut off sharply as the Door closed itself. Isabella looked back at the Glass, hovering on the air behind her.
“Okay, that was . . . more than usually weird. Your Glass isn’t just a Door, Eddie.”
“A definite sense of transition,” said Louisa. “And it felt like there was someone in there with us . . .”
The Merlin Glass shrank back down to hand-mirror size, shot across the intervening space, and all but forced itself back into my hand. As though it was afraid of the Metcalf Sisters. Which was a common enough reaction to Isabella and Louisa. I slipped the Glass back into my pocket.
“Help me find Molly,” I said. “Please.”
“Are you sure the Merlin Glass didn’t show you anything useful?” said Isabella.
“Just a grey blur, thick with static,” I said. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means Someone, or Something, is blocking it,” said Louisa.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I said.
“I could do it,” said Louisa.
“Look, before we all start panicking, why don’t I just try the obvious thing?” said Isabella.
She produced her mobile phone and called Molly. While I called myself all kinds of an idiot for not thinking of that myself. We all waited, and waited, but Molly didn’t answer. Isabella shook her head, shook the phone harshly a few times just on general principles, and then put the phone away.
“That should be impossible too,” she said. “My phone is spelled to find Molly and Lou, wherever they are. In or out of this world. It’s the only way I can keep track of them.”
“It was worth a try,” said Louisa. “Now it’s my turn.”
She lifted both her feet and sat cross-legged in mid-air, frowning hard, concentrating. Her presence was suddenly overpowering, as though she filled the whole club. One of the many good reasons why so many people are scared of Louisa Metcalf is because no one’s sure exactly who or what she is, or what she can do. But in the end, she just shook her head and lowered her feet onto the floor again.
“Sorry. I can’t See her anywhere. And that should be impossible as well. There shouldn’t be anywhere, in or out of this world, that I can’t See into if I put my mind to it.”
“Unless Molly has been taken completely out of this reality,” said Isabella.
“How could she have been taken at all?” I said. I could tell my voice was rising, which is never a good idea with Isabella and Louisa, but I was so worried I was past caring about anything but Molly. “Who could even touch her, with all her protections? And from inside the Wulfshead, with all its defences?”
“She could only have been taken by something extremely powerful,” said Isabella.
“We were talking about the Big Game earlier,” I said slowly. “Someone said that it wasn’t wise to attract the attention of those who run the Game. The Powers That Be. Could they be behind this?”
“Let’s hope not,” said Louisa. “Because if they are, I don’t have a clue where to start looking.”
I looked around for Nicolai Vodyanoi, to try out some more questions on him, but he was gone. Not disappeared, like Molly. Nicolai had left a smeared trail of blood all the way across the floor to the door. He’d made his escape while we were distracted. Let him go. I’d find him later if I needed to. He wasn’t important now. I turned back to Isabella and Louisa.
“What do you know about the Big Game? I mean, really know?”
“Supposedly,” Isabella said carefully, “the Big Game . . . is only played by people who have made too many Pacts and Agreements, with too many Powers and Dominions. For people who owe far more than they can ever hope to repay. The Big Game offers a way out; beat everyone else—and by that I mean kill everyone else in the Game—and the Powers That Be will pay off all your debts for you.”
“But nobody knows for sure,” said Louisa. “Because no one has ever come forward to boast of having won the Big Game. But then, I suppose they wouldn’t, would they?”
“Molly would never talk to me,” I said slowly, “about all the things she thought she had to do, early on in her career; to acquire enough power to strike back at the Droods. To make herself a creditable enemy. She did once say to me, when we were talking about Heaven and Hell, You’d be surprised who owes me favours.”
“She never actually sold her soul to anyone,” said Isabella. “But she did make a whole series of very unwise deals, with various Powers. Paying for what she got with years off her life. From an old age she never expected to reach anyway.”
“And Roger Morningstar,” I said. “The infernal, the half-demon . . . He once told me to my face that Molly . . . lay down, with demons in the Courts of Hell. To buy powers she couldn’t acquire any other way.”
“And you believed him?” said Isabella. “Hell always lies.”
“Except when a truth can hurt you more,” I said.
Isabella looked at Louisa, who just shrugged. “I don’t know. Molly always was the most secretive of us.”
“Often with good reason,” said Isabella.
“But did she ever talk to you . . . about how she meant to pay back what she owed?” I said.
“She said . . . some things,” Isabella said carefully. “But it’s not our place to talk about that, Eddie. Not ever. Not even to you. Still, you might want to consider the question of just how she was able to acquire title to the Wood Between the Worlds. And what that cost her.”
“Things just keep getting better all the time,” I said. “Look, I know she made bargains with the Immortals. Those shape-changing bastards were at my family’s throat for centuries. You worked with them, didn’t you, Isabella?”
“You know I did,” she said coldly. “I also went out with your Serjeant-at-Arms for a while. I don’t take sides, Eddie. And why bring the Immortals into this? Your family destroyed them. The few that still exist are a broken force. There’s no way they could be involved in this.”
“No,” I said. “But they might have sold Molly’s debt to someone else.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” said Louisa, jumping up and down suddenly. “I’ve just thought of something! Isn’t your Merlin Glass supposed to be able to travel through Time? Why don’t we just go back, and stop this all happening?”
“The Glass has very limited abilities,” I said. “And that’s when it’s cooperating. Right now, I wouldn’t trust it to send a letter into the Past.”
“I know! I know!” Louisa was bouncing up and down again. “I know what we need! We need answers—so we need an oracle! I know a really good one in the Nightside that will tell you the absolute truth about anything! If you only threaten it a bit . . .”
“Eddie’s banned from the Nightside,” said Isabella.
“You really think that would stop me?” I said.
Something in my voice made both sisters stare at me for a moment.
“I do know of another oracle,” Isabella said carefully. “Far more reliable, if a little more difficult to get to. At Castle Inconnu, home to the London Knights. Louisa and I couldn’t hope to gain access to it, short of a declaration of war . . . But do they by any chance owe you or your family a favour, Eddie?”
“Let’s find out,” I said.
I took out the Merlin Glass again and told it to find Sir Perryvale, Seneschal to the London Knights. The Glass found him immediately and showed him wearing a long white nightgown, with a floppy white nightcap on his head. He looked out of the mirror at me, startled and a little shocked.
“How the hell did you get past the Castle’s defences? Can’t a gentleman call his private quarters his own any more? Oh . . . it’s you, Eddie. Can’t this wait? I’m about to go to bed and work on my hangover.”
“I need your help,” I said.
I quickly brought him up to speed on what had happened, and he made all the right noises of concern and alarm.
“Poor Molly . . . What can I do to help, Eddie?”
“I need to talk to your oracle,” I said.
“Strictly forbidden, where the Droods are concerned,” Sir Perryvale said immediately. “But what the hell. Jack was a good friend; I know he’d want me to help. So come on through. But just you, Eddie. Not the Metcalf Sisters. Sorry, ladies, but there are limits. And I think you pretty much define them.”
“Understood,” said Isabella. “Lots of people feel that way.”
“Lots and lots,” said Louisa. “Like we care.”
“Understand me, Seneschal,” said Isabella. “If we find out you didn’t do everything you could to find our missing sister . . .”
“Yes, yes, I think we can take the threats and menaces as real,” said Sir Perryvale. “When you’re ready, Eddie.”
“I’ll take Louisa into the Nightside,” Isabella said to me. “See if we can scare some straight answers out of the oracle there. And don’t be proud. If you need backup, call.”
I nodded, shook the Merlin Glass out into a Door, and strode through into Castle Inconnu.