CHAPTER TWO

Families: Can’t Live with Them, Can’t Take Them Down to the River and Drown Them All in Sacks

The Hall has been home to the Drood family for generations. Even though, officially, it doesn’t exist. You won’t find it on any map, and you can’t get to it by any ordinary route. The Hall stands alone, apart from the world, and it likes it that way. Don’t come looking for us or something really nasty will happen to you; we’re protected by sciences and magic and nightmares worse than both. The family has always taken its privacy and its security very seriously.

Especially after the Chinese tried to nuke us, back in the sixties. Just because we protect the world, it doesn’t mean the world is always grateful.

The Hall has raised, nurtured, and indoctrinated Droods for centuries. Trained us relentlessly to fight the good fight, and taught us everything we needed to know about the world except how to live in it. Most Droods never leave the Hall all their lives. Only approved field agents get to go out into the world and walk up and down in it, fighting our endless, secret, invisible wars, and smiting the ungodly till they cry like babies. The Hall is mother and father to us all; the Hall is family. I ran away first chance I got, and never looked back. Now, for my many sins, I was home again. Ostensibly to run the family in its hour of need, and redeem its soul from the evil ways it had fallen into, down the long centuries. When we moved from protecting humanity to running it.

The Hall stands alone in the middle of its extensive grounds, brooding jealously over its idyllic domain. I drove the Bentley down the long winding gravel path, and machine guns rose silently up out of hidden emplacements on either side of the road and followed us as we passed before sinking grudgingly back down beneath the grass again. Sprinklers spread their gentle haze across the sweeping lawns, and wandering peacocks called out their welcomes and warnings. Gryphons patrolled the grounds, their gazes fixed firmly on the near future, the perfect guardians and watchdogs. When they weren’t looking for something really foul and smelly to roll around in. I could sense force shields and magical screens snapping on and off ahead and behind us, as the Hall security systems recognised Molly and me, and let us pass. No one gets in uninvited.

I slowed the Bentley down so Molly could enjoy the hedge mazes and the flower gardens, and the swans floating serenely on the lake. I liked showing off my home to her, even though she always went out of her way to seem unimpressed. And besides, I was in no hurry to get back to the Hall, and all the work and responsibilities that awaited me there. Why do you think I ran away in the first place?

The Hall loomed up before us, dominating the horizon, the guardian at the gates of reality. The long-standing abode of the Drood family, and humanity’s last defence against the forces of darkness. It’s a miserable old dump, truth be told, draughty as hell and entirely innocent of modern innovations like central heating. I grew up thinking wearing long underwear from September to April was normal. The Hall is a huge sprawling old pile of a manor house, knocked up in Tudor times and much added to down the centuries. Currently home to some three thousand souls, all of them Droods. You can marry into the family, but not out of it. We’re like the Mafia; once in, never out. Unless you want to wake up with a unicorn’s head in bed next to you.

I slammed the Bentley to a halt in a spray of flying gravel and parked right outside the Hall’s front door, mostly because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I always say. Molly jumped out over the closed side door while I was still turning off the engine, and I scrambled out after her before she could start any trouble. If anyone was going to start any trouble, I wanted it to be me. First impressions are so important. We’d hardly made it through the front door and into the vestibule before a mob of angry family members descended upon us. It appeared they’d been waiting for some time to have a determined word in my ear, and they weren’t prepared to take No, Not now, or even Go to hell as an answer. They all started shouting questions and demands the moment they clapped eyes on me, constantly raising their voices to be heard, and actually pushing and shoving at each other in their eagerness to get to me first.

Which was almost unheard of, in the disciplined, tightly structured, and almost feudal system that our family has followed for centuries. It seemed when I challenged authority and got away with it, I unleashed a flood tide of repressed resentments. The family wanted change, and it wanted it now, but unfortunately it couldn’t agree on just what should be changed, and how. Molly and I stood close together with our backs pressed up against the closed front door, as everyone in the crowd did their best to outshout each other. The din was appalling, and the faces before me were strained and ugly with anger, impatience and determination.

I did my best to concentrate, trying to sort out some of what they were going on about. Some had questions about the new family policy, others wanted to know when they were going to get the new silver torcs, and a lot of them wanted to denounce other people as being against progress, or in favour of the wrong kind of progress, or just guilty of the sin of not agreeing with the speaker’s ideas. Some of the questions and demands were just flat-out impossible, no doubt designed to embarrass me and make me look indecisive in front of the family. Did I mention I have enemies inside the family? Hard-core traditionalists and surviving members of the Zero Tolerance faction, still mad as hell that their little putsch hadn’t succeeded, and determined to sabotage and undermine me.

Hell hath no fury like a Drood with a grudge.

I did try to be polite, and answer the questions of those nearest me, but no one could hear me in the general bedlam of voices. And no one in the crowd was willing to quieten down in favour of someone else. It’s times like this I wish my armour was equipped with pepper sprays. Or water cannon. In the end I looked at Molly, and she grinned mischievously. She muttered a few Words and made a sharp gesture, and suddenly everyone in the angry mob was entirely naked and wondering where the cold breeze was coming from. The bedlam died quickly away to a shocked silence, followed by a few squeaks and squeals as a hundred or so naked Droods did their best to cover themselves with their hands or hide behind each other. Molly glared about her, her smile entirely unpleasant.

“Right; everyone pay attention and stay quiet, or I’ll send you where I sent your clothes. And your clothes aren’t coming back. Or at least, not in any condition where you could hope to wear them again. Ye gods and little fishes, look at the state of you. Living proof that most people look better with their clothes on. Now be good little naked people and run away terribly quickly, before I decide to do something really amusing to you. Probably involving Möbius strips and your lower intestines.”

I never saw so many people disappear so quickly, or so many entirely unattractive arses. I looked at Molly, and she smiled sweetly.

“You see—you just have to know how to talk to people.”

“You haven’t even heard of diplomacy, have you?”

“No. And aren’t you glad?”

“Well, yes.”

And that was when the Sarjeant-at-Arms finally deigned to make an appearance. He was supposed to be guarding the front door; that was his job, to be the first and last face any outsider ever sees if they come through the front door without an invitation. The Sarjeant is in charge of Hall security and family discipline, which means he gets to hit people a lot; and he’s never happier than when he’s found an excuse to really lay the law down. He made my life hell when I was a child, beating me till the blood flew for the smallest infringement of the rules; and when I finally came back to the Hall to put the family in order, one of the first things I did was to beat the crap out of him. And then he had the nerve to say he only did it to toughen me up and prepare me for the world outside. He actually said he was proud of me, before he lapsed into unconsciousness. I’ll never forgive him for that.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms was tall and broad, with muscles in places where you and I don’t even have places. And though he affected the stark black-and-white formal uniform of a Victorian butler, it never fooled anyone for a moment. The man was a thug and a bully and proud of it, and therefore perfectly suited to his job. He had that stiff-backed, steely-eyed military look that promises you blood, sweat, and tears in the future, and every bit of it yours. His impassive face always seemed as though it had been carved out of stone, but now it looked like someone had been at it with a chisel. The last time we went head-to-head, Molly hit him with a plague of rats, and now one side of his face was a mass of scars and his left ear was missing. I gave him a stern look.

“I thought I told you to get your face fixed. The cosmetic sorcerers could put you right in an afternoon, and you know it.”

“I like the scars,” the Sarjeant said calmly. “They add character. And they’re very good for intimidating people.”

“What about the ear?”

“Pardon?”

I scowled at him. “Where the hell were you when we got ambushed by that mob?”

“Right,” said Molly. “Taking it easy in your cubicle, were you, with the latest issue of Big and Busty and the door locked?”

The Sarjeant ignored her, his cold gaze fixed on mine. “About time you got back, boy. Whole place has been going down the crapper since you left. Family discipline is falling apart, without the old certainties to keep them in line. They need you here, setting an example. Not gallivanting about back in the world, on personal business.”

“You know, just once it would be nice to hear Welcome home when I come through the door,” I said wistfully. “So stop bugging me, Sarjeant, or I’ll have Molly turn you into a small steaming pile of something. You’re not telling me that angry mob just happened . . . They couldn’t have got near the front door without your cooperation.”

“Wanted you to see how bad things had got,” the Sarjeant said calmly. “I’d have stepped in, if things started getting ugly.”

“I only put up with you so you can keep the pests off my back,” I said flatly. “It’s bad enough I just got attacked outside my old flat by a whole bunch of MI5 goons, without being ambushed by my own family the moment I walk through the door. You let this happen again, and I will slam you against the nearest wall until your eyes change colour! Do I make myself clear?”

Give the man his due; even though no one had dared to speak to him like that in decades, and even though he knew I meant every word of it, he didn’t flinch one bit.

“I needed to see who would act, instead of just talk,” he said. “Now they’ve identified themselves as troublemakers, I can go after them, and there will be spankings. Don’t try to teach me my job, boy. You might run the family now, but I run the Hall. Now what was that about you being attacked by MI5? No one attacks us and gets away with it.”

“Trust me,” I said. “They didn’t. But they knew exactly where and when to find me, which means someone in the family must have ratted me out to the prime minister. So make yourself useful and find out who.”

His cold eyes brightened at the thought of authorised violence. “Any restrictions on my methods?”

“I want answers, not bodies,” I said. “Otherwise, anything goes. Make them cry, make them talk. The family can’t afford to be divided right now.”

“Hardcore, Eddie,” said Molly. “What’s next; loyalty oaths and public executions?”

The Sarjeant-at-Arms inclined his head slightly to me. “Welcome home, sir. Welcome back to the family.”

“Get my Inner Circle together,” I said. “And have them wait for me in the Sanctity. We have urgent new business to discuss. I’ll be along as soon as I can. I have to talk to the Matriarch first. How is she?”

“Still in mourning,” said the Sarjeant.

“Alistair isn’t dead,” I said.

“Might as well be.”

The Sarjeant bowed stiffly to me, ignored Molly, turned on his heel, and strode off into the labyrinthine depths of the Hall. He was never going to warm to me, and I wouldn’t have known what to do if he had.

“You’re really getting into this leadership thing, aren’t you?” said Molly. “Barking orders and handing out beatings. I guess breeding will out. You’re every inch a Drood, Eddie.”

I shrugged apologetically. “I swear I used to be so much calmer and easygoing, before I came back to the Hall. There’s just something about having to deal with my family that makes me want to spit and curse and throw things. Preferably explosives. But I have to be seen to be in charge, Molly; I have to be hard on the family and make it toe the new line, or they’ll turn on each other, and the family will devour itself. I’ve taken away everything they depended on; now it’s up to me to give them something else to live for. A new cause to follow.” I sighed tiredly. “I hate all this, Molly. Not least because I have a horrible suspicion I’m not up to the job. But I have to do it . . . because there’s no one else.”

Molly put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I could always turn more people into things . . .”

“Could you turn them into reasonable people?”

“Be real, darling. I’m a witch, not a miracle worker.”

We both managed a small smile. “I don’t like what I have to do,” I said. “I don’t like what I’m becoming. But I have to fight for every inch of progress. It’s not me; it’s them. My family could have Mother Teresa drinking straight from the bottle and calling for the return of hanging in a week. Look, I’ve got to go and see the Matriarch, and you can’t come with me. It’s going to be difficult enough for me to get in to see her. So, you pop along to the Sanctity and keep the others amused till I can get there.”

“I see,” Molly said sweetly, and very dangerously. “I’m your court jester now, am I?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m still getting the hang of this being in a relationship thing. I meant, of course, take charge of things till I can get there. We are, after all, equal partners.”

“Well,” said Molly. “I might settle for that. But only because I’m so fond of you.”

I went striding through the long corridors and hallways, the great circular meeting places and wide airy chambers, heading for the Matriarch’s private rooms in the west wing. People stopped what they were doing to watch me pass, and I smiled at those who smiled at me, and glared at everyone else to make sure they kept their distance. I wasn’t in the mood to answer any more questions, particularly since I didn’t have a whole lot of answers. Centuries-old wood panelling gleamed on every side with a comfortable patina of age and beeswax, and paintings by famous names hung on every wall. Everywhere I looked there were statues and busts and ornaments of great worth and antiquity; the accumulated tribute of the Droods. Presented to us by the governments of the world because they were so grateful to us, and not at all because they were scared of us.

The whole wing had that calm assurance that comes from seeing generation after generation pass through its rooms and corridors. That slightly smug calm that says I will be here long after you are gone. From earliest childhood it’s drilled into every Drood child that we are only here to serve the family in its never-ending fight against evil. Soldiers in a war that never ends. Our motto: Anything, for the family. And I believed it. We had a holy cause and a holy duty, and our foes were dark and terrible indeed. Even after all the lies I uncovered in the dark and secret heart of the family; I still believe. The Droods have to go on, because humanity couldn’t survive without us. I just had to get the family back to what it used to be; to what it was originally meant to be.

The shamans of our tribe; standing between the people and the forces that threaten them. Fighting for them, dying for them. The protectors, not rulers, of humanity.

The Matriarch had the very best quarters in the Hall, of course. A whole suite of rooms just for herself and her husband, on the top floor of the west wing. A whole suite, even though most of us had to make do with one room, and the youngest members lived in communal rooms and dormitories. In a place as crowded and packed to the seams as the Hall, the only real luxury is space. The Hall is big, but the family is even bigger.

As the new leader of the family, I could have thrown the Matriarch out and taken the suite for myself and Molly, but I didn’t have the heart. Not after what I’d done to the Matriarch’s husband, Alistair.

I could feel my heart beating faster as I approached the Matriarch’s door, and my breathing tightened in my chest. I’d only ever been here once before, back when I was just twelve years old. I’d been summoned by the Matriarch herself for a personal interview; an unheard-of thing. The Sarjeant-at-Arms took me there, a large hand ever ready to smack me around the head if I dawdled. I was half out of my mind with worry. What had I done wrong this time? All kinds of things came to mind, but nothing bad enough to warrant the Matriarch’s personal attention. The Sarjeant knocked on her door, opened it, and pushed me in. And there she was, Martha Drood, sitting bolt upright on a chair, fixing me with her unrelenting gaze.

She had my latest schooling report in her hand, and she was very disappointed in me. Apparently it was full of comments like Must Try Harder, Could Do Better, and, most damning of all, Intelligent, but Lacks Discipline. Even at twelve, my character was pretty much set. The Matriarch scolded me in her coldest voice, while I stood sulking and stubborn before her. It wasn’t my fault if I asked questions the teachers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer. I wouldn’t be told, you see. I’d do anything if I was asked, but I wouldn’t do a damned thing I was told if I couldn’t see a good reason for it. And a family built on duty and responsibility could never accept an attitude like that. They’d tried beating respect into me, and when that didn’t work, they sent word to the Matriarch, who now condemned me as lazy and uncooperative, and told me I’d come to a bad end.

I think she was mostly angry because we were so closely related, and my failures reflected badly on her. More was expected of me, because of that. Even at twelve I was old enough to feel that was distinctly unfair, but I didn’t have the capacity to put it into words. So I just stood sullenly before her, and said nothing. Even when she tried to question me. In the end she threw me out, back to the tender mercies of the teachers and the Sarjeant-at-Arms. I think she was resentful at having to take time away from more important business, just to deal with me. I never was important to her, and then she wondered why she was never important to me.

I stopped before the suite’s door, took a deep breath, pushed it open, and walked in without knocking. Start as you mean to go on, or they’ll walk all over you. The luxuriously furnished antechamber was full of people, all of them suddenly silent and staring at me with cold and unfriendly faces. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see the Matriarch, now that she’d retreated into seclusion to nurse her injured Alistair. No one in the antechamber looked at all pleased to see me, but I was getting used to that. I just scowled right back at them and strode forward like I intended to trample underfoot anyone who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. Usually that works, but this time no one budged an inch. They just stood their ground, blocking the way between me and the door to the Matriarch’s bedroom, on the other side of the antechamber. Openly defying me to get past them. Some were her friends, some were her allies; most were just determined to deny me anything they could. They’d all been people of power and position, before I overturned the applecart. I stopped. It was either that or resort to throwing punches and head-butting, and I wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. Not just yet.

“Well, look who’s here,” I said. “All the paid-up members of the Let’s Turn the Clock Back and Pretend Nothing’s Happened Society. It’s times like this that make we wonder if we haven’t been getting a little too slack over the rules governing inbreeding. Hands in the air, anyone who can count to eleven on their toes.”

A woman of a certain age stepped forward to confront me. I didn’t know her, but I recognised the type.

“How dare you?” she said, loudly. “After everything you’ve done to the family, and to Martha and Alistair . . . How dare you show your face here?”

“That’s right, dear. You tell him,” said a man just behind her. Had to be the husband. He had that well-trained look. “Have you no shame, Edwin?”

“Sorry, no,” I said. “I’m right out. I’ll have to send down to the shops for some more. Now get the hell out of my way or . . .”

“Or what?” snapped the woman, folding her arms across her impressive chest. “You can’t bully us.”

“Actually, I think you’ll find I can,” I said. “Remember, I have a torc and you don’t. But what I was going to say was: Get out of my way or I’ll call the Sarjeant-at-Arms to come in here, to take names, and kick heads in.”

It was a bluff, but they didn’t know that. They all looked at the door behind me, as though expecting the Sarjeant to come crashing through at any moment, and you could just see the defiance leaking out of them.

“Well!” said the woman of a certain age, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her husband was already hiding behind her. I strode forward, and the crowd parted before me like the Red Sea. I kept my back straight, my head up, and my gaze straight ahead. When you’re walking through a pack of dangerous animals you can’t show weakness for a moment, or they’ll go for your throat. I opened the door to the bedroom, stepped through, and closed the door quietly but firmly behind me.

I sighed inwardly. It bothered me that they didn’t respect me the way they respected the Sarjeant-at-Arms. I was going to have to work on that.

The Matriarch’s bedroom was surprisingly intimate and cheerful, for all its size. Comfortable furnishings, lots of light from the big window, flowers everywhere. Cards and messages of support stood propped up on every surface. There was a handful of people in the bedroom, there to give comfort and pay their respects. They hadn’t expected to see me, but none of them said anything. They looked to Martha for their lead, but she didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

Alistair was sitting propped up by pillows in the great four-poster bed. He didn’t look good. Even now, weeks after what had happened, he was still swathed in bandages like a mummy. He had the blankets pulled up to his chest as though he were cold, though a blazing fire had the room hot as a sauna. The bandages I could see were spotted with blood and other fluids seeping through. His right arm was gone. The surgeons couldn’t save it, so they amputated it all the way back to the shoulder. His whole face was wrapped in gauze, with dark holes left for his eyes and mouth. I couldn’t see his eyes or his mouth.

That’s what you get, for messing about with Hellfire. He should never have tried to use the Salem Special. That weapon never did anyone any good. And I might have been more sympathetic to his condition if I hadn’t known that this was what he’d intended to do to my Molly.

Martha sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband, feeding Alistair soup from a bowl, one spoonful at a time. As though he was a child. I could remember her doing that for me, once, when I was very small and the doctors thought the fever was going to carry me off. She sat with me day and night, and fed me soup, and I survived. Maybe Alistair would be lucky too. Martha was dressed all in black, as though in mourning. Normally she was tall, proud, aristocratic, and intimidatingly composed. Now she seemed somehow . . . smaller, as though something important had broken inside her. I didn’t like to see her look that way. Her long gray hair, that she usually wore piled up on top of her head, was now allowed to fall just anywhere, hiding most of her face. But her hand was steady as she fed Alistair his soup, and the back she showed me so firmly was almost painfully straight.

I had to talk to her, but I wasn’t ready yet. So I looked at the other people in the room. I recognised some of them as acknowledged or supposed supporters of the Zero Tolerance faction. Hardly surprising they’d be here. The only chance they had of regaining influence, if not control, over the family lay in persuading the Matriarch to endorse their cause. I nodded calmly to a few familiar faces, and then stopped abruptly at one very familiar face.

“Penny?” I said.

“Eddie,” she said, in a calm, cool, and entirely neutral voice.

“Good to see you again, Penny.”

“Wish I could say the same, Eddie.”

Which was par for the course. Penny had been my official contact in the family while I was still an agent in the field. I reported back to her after every mission, and she passed on any instructions or information the family thought I might need. I always liked Penny. She never let me get away with anything. Penny Drood was a tall cool blonde, in a tight white sweater over slim gray slacks. Cool blue eyes, pale pink lips, Penny was sweet and smart and sexy, and sophisticated as a very dry martini. She was about my age, but I didn’t remember her from my school days. There were a lot of us.

Even after ten years as my contact, I couldn’t tell you whether she liked me or not. Penny never shared that kind of information with anyone.

“All right, people!” I said loudly. “Nice of you to look in, but, gosh, look at the time, you must be going. Visiting hours are over until I’m through here. Hopefully you’re more intelligent than the crowd outside, so we can dispense with the usual threats and menaces . . . Good, good. Head for the door, single file, no pushing or shoving or there’ll be tears before bedtime.”

They left with their heads erect and their noses in the air, ignoring me as thoroughly as they could. Penny went to follow them, but I stopped her with a gesture.

“Hang about for a minute, Penny. I need to talk to you.”

“What makes you think I want to talk to you?”

“Because unlike most of that crowd, you’ve actually got a brain in your head. Because you’ve always had the good of the family at heart. And because what I have to say is linked directly to the continued survival of the Drood family. Interested?”

“Maybe. You always did like the sound of your own voice too much, Eddie.”

“You wound me deeply.”

“I notice you’re not denying it.”

“How’s the Matriarch?” I said quickly, deftly changing the subject.

“As well as can be expected.”

“And Alistair?”

“How do you think?”

It was clear she wasn’t going to give me an inch, so I gestured for her to stay where she was, while I went over to stand beside the Matriarch. I waited for her to at least glance at me, but she just kept on spooning soup into the dark gap in Alistair’s bandages. I couldn’t see any sign of him swallowing it. If it hadn’t been for the slight but definite rise and fall of his bandaged chest, I would have wondered if he might be dead, and no one had had the heart to tell Martha.

“Hello, Grandmother,” I said finally. “I would have come sooner, but I’ve been very busy. Working for the family. How is he?”

“How do you think?” Martha Drood said flatly, still not turning around. Her voice was tired, but still cold as steel, sharp as a razor blade. “Look at him. Maimed. Crippled. Disfigured. My lovely Alistair. All thanks to you, Edwin.”

“How did he ever get his hands on the Salem Special?” I said. “Awful weapon. We should have destroyed it long ago. And Alistair never knew anything about guns. So someone must have given it to him. Did you give him the gun, Grandmother, to use against my Molly?”

She looked at me for the first time, her face cold and implacable as stone. “Of course not! Alistair was never a fighter. He abhorred guns. It was one of the things I loved most about him. No . . . He just wanted to protect me. So he showed some initiative, for the first time in his life. He had to know how dangerous the Salem Special was, but all he could think of . . . was that I was in danger.”

“Turned out you were right about him after all, Grandmother,” I said. “He was a good man and true, when it mattered. That’s why you never told him the secret of the golden torcs. Never told him about the generations of Drood babies sacrificed to the Heart, so we could wear the golden armour. You never told him, because you knew a good man like that would never have stood for such an abomination.”

“He didn’t need to know! It was my burden, not his! And I did what I had to, to keep the family strong. Stronger than all the enemies who would have dragged us down in a moment if we had ever stumbled!”

“Martha?”

Alistair’s bandaged head turned slowly, blindly, back and forth, disturbed by her raised voice, or perhaps just because the soup had stopped. His voice was light and breathy, like a child’s. “Is there someone here, Martha?”

“It’s all right, darling,” Martha said quickly. She went to pat him on the shoulder, and then stopped for fear of hurting him. “Hush now, dear. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“I’m cold. And my head hurts. Is there someone here?”

“It’s just Edwin.”

“Is he back visiting us?”

“Yes, dear. You rest quietly, and you can have some more nice soup in a minute.” She looked at me. “He doesn’t remember any of it. Probably for the best. Except . . . he doesn’t seem to remember much of anything anymore. He knows who he is, and who I am; and that’s about it. Maybe someday he’ll have to forget even that, to forget what you did to him. Damn you, Edwin, what are you doing here? Haven’t you done enough harm? You killed my son James. The very best of us, and a better man than you’ll ever be! You’ve destroyed my husband. And you’ve neutered the family, by taking away its torcs. Left us defenceless in the face of our enemies, and the whole of humanity undefended. I should never have let my daughter marry that man. Should never have let you run away. I should have had you killed years ago, Edwin!”

“Can’t say any of this comes as much of a surprise to me, Grandmother, ” I said after a while. “I always knew you felt more duty toward me than love. Children can tell.”

“What do you want, Edwin?”

“I want your help, Grandmother. Yes, I thought that would get your attention. I need your help and cooperation to rebuild the family, and make it strong again. Strong and united . . . A divided family cannot stand, and the vultures are already gathering. I’m doing what I can to provide leadership, but everywhere I look there’s a new faction springing up. Your endorsement would go a long way towards unifying the family behind me. So I’m asking you to put aside all hurts and grievances, old and new, and help me. For the sake of the family.”

“No,” said Martha, quite calmly, enjoying the disappointment in my face. “I won’t fight you, Edwin, but I won’t help you either. I’m going to let you run this family, and when you’ve messed it all up and run the family into the ground, they’ll come to me . . . and beg me to lead the family again; and I will. And I’ll undo everything you’ve done and put the family back the way it was. The way it’s supposed to be.”

“People will die, Martha.”

“Let them. Let them pay the price for disloyalty.”

Penny stepped forward. She actually looked shocked. “But . . . Matriarch? What about anything for the family?”

“Leave me,” said Martha Drood. “I’m tired.”

Penny and I walked back through the antechamber, side by side. The people waiting looked startled at seeing the two of us together, but had the good sense to say nothing. The ones I’d booted out of the bedroom couldn’t wait to rush past me, desperate to ask the Matriarch what had just happened. I wondered how much she’d tell them. Out in the corridor, I shut the suite’s door firmly behind me, started to speak to Penny, stopped, and then led her a little farther down the corridor. Just in case someone had their ear pressed to the door. I wouldn’t put it past them. It was what I would have done.

“Penny,” I said. “You see how things are. I need your help. I’m asking you for the same reason I asked the Matriarch; because I can’t do this alone. Help me run things. For the sake of the family.”

Penny looked at me thoughtfully, her cool regard as unreadable as always. “What precisely did you have in mind? As a secretary?”

“Join my Inner Circle. Help set policy. Help make the decisions that matter.”

She looked genuinely shocked for a moment, and I had to smile. Whatever she’d been expecting to hear, that hadn’t been it. Membership in the Inner Circle would give her real power in the family, and a real chance of influencing me. She took a deep breath, which did interesting things to her tight white sweater, and was immediately her old cool and composed self again.

“Why in hell would you want someone like me, a hardcore traditionalist?”

“To keep me honest,” I said. “To tell me the things I need to know, whether I want to hear them or not. To rein me in when I go too far, try to make changes too quickly. Or to spur me on if I start dithering. You’ve always been the sensible one, Penny. A terrible thing to hear, I know, but facts are facts. If I can’t convince you something is right or necessary, maybe it isn’t. And . . . you know a hell of a lot more about running things and organising people than I do.”

“Pretty much anyone knows more about those things than you do,” said Penny. “I had to spend hours cleaning up your mission reports before I could pass them on.”

“So what do you say? Are you game?”

“Would I have an official title? I’ve always wanted an official title.”

“How about, my conscience?”

“Yes,” said Penny. “I could do that.”

“But first,” I said carefully, “I have to ask, Penny. Were you a part of the Zero Tolerance faction?”

“No,” Penny said immediately. “They had some good ideas, but I don’t believe in factions within the family.”

“Another good reason why I want you on my side.”

“What makes you think I’m on your side?”

It was my turn to consider her thoughtfully. “You were my contact for years,” I said finally. “You know me better than most. You know the things I’ve done for the family; the missions they gave me because they were too dangerous or too dirty for anyone else. You know I’ve always believed in what this family is supposed to stand for. I want to rebuild the family in its own image, not mine.”

“Against my better judgement, I think I believe you,” said Penny. “I’m not sure I believe in you; we’ll have to see what happens. But I’m . . . prepared to be persuaded. Someone has to pull this family together, and if the Matriarch won’t . . . But let me make one thing very clear, Eddie. I never fancied you. Not ever.”

“Of course not,” I said. “You know me better than most.”

We both managed a small smile. I looked at my watch and winced.

“The Inner Circle is waiting for me in the Sanctity right now,” I said. “Come along, and I’ll introduce you.”

“There’s somewhere else we need to go first,” Penny said firmly. “Trust me, Eddie; you really need to see what’s happening down in the War Room.”

“Oh hell,” I said. “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?”

So we went down into the War Room. Which meant going all the way over to the north wing, and down underground past all the security measures and the goblin watchdogs, and finally into the huge steel-lined stone chamber that holds the family War Room. It’s always a sight to set you back on your heels; the nerve centre of all our secret wars, and the invisible armies who clash by night and by day. Huge display screens covered all the walls, showing every country and major city in the world, along with a whole bunch of places that only people like us know are important. Bright coloured lights indicated people we were watching, and ongoing problems in which we had an interest.

Family members sat in long rows at their workstations, concentrating on their work so they wouldn’t have to look at me. Farseers covered potential trouble spots with their thoughts, while technicians worked their more-than-state-of-the-art computers for up-to-the-moment intelligence. Most of our secret wars are won in this room before a shot is fired, due to our superior planning and knowledge. And yet something was definitely wrong in the War Room. I walked slowly around the workstations, peering over people’s shoulders, and scowling at the display screens on the walls. Penny strolled along beside me, saying nothing, letting me work it out for myself.

“Nothing’s happening,” I said finally. “The maps on the walls should be lit up like Christmas trees, and the operations-planning table should be a hive of activity, but nothing’s happening. This is . . . unprecedented.”

“Which is why I wanted you to see this for yourself,” said Penny. “So you’d have some idea of how the world is coping, without the family looking over its shoulder. The threat boards are quiet because everyone else is too confused and too scared to start anything. They don’t know why we’ve gone so quiet, and why so many of our field agents have suddenly dropped off the board. Are we hurt, are we weak; or are we running one of our fiendishly complicated and intricate operations, designed to suck people in and then stamp on their heads once they’ve foolishly taken the bait? We’ve done it before, after all. But look around you, Eddie. See how tense everyone is?”

“I thought that was just my presence.”

“Oh, get over yourself. Everyone here is running on hot tea and adrenaline, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to see which country or organisation or individual will finally start something, just to see how much they can get away with.”

“None of the lights show agents in the field,” I said suddenly. “No ongoing operations.”

“That’s because there aren’t any,” said Penny. “After you took away the family’s golden torcs, the agents in the field had no choice but to go to ground. They’d been left helpless, vulnerable, without their armour, and we can’t afford for any of our enemies to know that. Not yet. No one’s been killed, as yet. But it’s only a matter of time.”

I realised people all around me had looked up from their workstations to stare at me accusingly. I glared back, and they quickly returned to their work. I stood still, scowling furiously, thinking hard. This was all my fault. I hadn’t thought it through. When I discovered the family’s golden armour was powered by the trapped souls of sacrificed children, all I could think of was to put a stop to it. I hadn’t stopped to consider that I was putting other lives at risk. I don’t think it would have stopped me anyway, but I hadn’t thought. And ever since, I’d been too caught up in running the Hall to think about the big picture. That the world depends on the agents in the field to keep it safe, and the agents depend on the Hall.

“All right,” I said to Penny. “Put out the call. All field agents to come home.”

“That could be dangerous for some of them,” said Penny. “Staying out of sight is all that’s keeping some of them alive.”

“Well, tell them to use their best judgement,” I said impatiently. “But unless they come back to the Hall to be vetted, they won’t be considered for one of the new silver torcs. Tell them they can use the old secret paths; I’ll authorise the extra expense.”

I moved over to the main operations table, picked up a sheaf of the latest reports, and thumbed quickly through them. People around the table looked scandalised. Such material was only for the eyes of the Matriarch. Everyone knew I’d replaced Martha as head of the family, but it clearly still hadn’t sunk in for a lot of people.

“Where’s Truman?” I said finally. “I don’t see anything about him here. Don’t we have any recent updates about Manifest Destiny? They must be regrouping by now, so why don’t I see anything on their new base, their new centre of operations? Come on, people; I’ll settle for a best guess. An organisation that big can’t hope to start up again without leaving all kinds of telltale traces. Follow the leader, follow the money, follow the threads on the message boards; but find them! They can’t just have vanished!”

“Intelligence is working on that,” Penny said calmly. “We haven’t all forgotten how to do our jobs, just because you’re not here to hold our hands. But Manifest Destiny gives every indication of having climbed into a deep hole and then pulled it in after itself. They may be weakened, after what you did to them, and well done you, but their security is still first rate. And Truman . . . was and is a genius. You should have killed him when you had the chance.”

“I never had the chance,” I growled.

“What do you think he’ll do now?”

“Hard to tell. He’s a genuine fanatic, dedicated to his cause; running the world the way he thinks it should be run, and everyone else eliminated. He was held back in the past by the Zero Tolerance faction . . . Without them to rein him in, God alone knows what atrocities he’s planning now.”

“His old base, down below the Underground train system, is completely deserted,” said Penny. “We’ve got a few people there, looking around, hoping to turn up something useful.”

“Hold it,” I said. “There were only two field agents in London: me, and Matthew. I’m here, and he’s dead, so who have you got running around under London?”

“Volunteers,” Penny said sharply. “The work has to go on, even if you’re . . . distracted. Not everyone wants to hide here in the Hall until you get around to handing out new torcs. Some of us still understand about duty and responsibility.”

“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “Just . . . don’t. Not after everything I’ve seen, and done. But you’re quite right, of course. The work does have to go on. The world won’t stand still, just because we’re having a crisis in the family. Volunteers, eh? It’s good to know we’ve got a few brave souls left. Have they turned up anything useful?”

“Ask them yourself,” said Penny. “We’ve got a direct video feed set up. Fully secured, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” I said. “All right, patch me through.”

Penny nodded to the communications board, and remarkably quickly one of the great display screens cleared to show shifting views of a dark, shadowy chamber, with details picked out by jumping flashlight beams. Silhouetted figures moved jerkily among banks of silent equipment. It took me a long moment to recognise the usually bright, shining steel corridors of Manifest Destiny’s high-tech headquarters. All the electric lights were out, and all the equipment shut down. Loose papers fluttered here and there, left behind in the rush to leave. It was like looking at the excavation of some recently opened tomb in the Valley of the Kings. A shadowy figure approached the camera.

“Will you please stop bugging me?” said a harsh voice. “We’ll contact you when we’ve got anything worth reporting. Whole place is a mess. We’re having to move carefully because the bastards found time to leave a whole bunch of booby traps behind, before they scarpered. Trip wires and grenades, mostly. Wouldn’t bother us if we had our torcs, but as it is . . . We’re moving deeper into the heart of the bunker, but it looks like they took everything of value with them and trashed the rest. A localised EMP took out all their computers; we’ll bring back the hard drives just in case, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Oh, and we’ve found some bodies. Too far gone to identify, unless you want us to take DNA samples. Looks like they were setting one last trap when it went off in their faces.

“That’s it; end of report. Except to say it’s cold, and damp, and I’m sure I’m coming down with something. Now go away and bother someone else, we’re busy. I want us finished and out of here before some other organisation gets the bright idea to come down here and see if there’s anything worth salvaging.”

“This is Eddie Drood,” I said.

“Well, whoop de doo. Colour me impressed. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“Let’s keep it that way. We’ll be home soon; put the kettle on.”

And he shut down the video feed from his end. Everyone was looking at me, so I was careful to smile. “I don’t know who he is, but I like his style. He reminds me of me. See to it I get a full report from him, the moment he turns up here. In the meantime, keep working on tracking down Truman’s new base of operations. He’s got to be planning something nasty, to reestablish himself, and I want to know all about it well in advance.”

“You see?” said Penny. “You can act like you’re in charge, when you put your mind to it.”

All meetings of my Inner Circle took place in the Sanctity, the huge open chamber that once held the damned Heart, before I destroyed it. The Circle met in the Sanctity because it was the only place in the Hall I could be sure of absolute privacy. The Sanctity had been designed to contain the dangerous other-dimensional emissions of the Heart, and nothing could penetrate the Sanctity’s powerful shields. The other-dimensional strange matter that I had brought to the Hall occupied the Sanctity now. It manifested as a warm, happy crimson glow, radiating from a single silver pearl of strange matter. Just standing in the glow made you feel good. Calm and relaxed and secure, in body and thought and soul. In fact, it felt so good that access to the Sanctity had to be strictly limited, for fear of people becoming addicted. The strange matter swore that couldn’t happen, but I’ve learned not to believe everything I’m told.

The point is that thanks to the Sanctity’s shielding, and the strange matter’s unusual emissions, no one can listen in on the Inner Circle’s meetings. And there’s always someone trying to listen in, in the Hall. It’s the only way you ever learn anything that matters.

Penny came to a halt just inside the Sanctity’s door as she took in the full effect of the scarlet glow. Her face softened, and she smiled a real smile, quite unlike her usual cool effort. She looked calm, and happy, and at peace with herself. It didn’t suit her. She made a deliberate effort to push the effect away and regained some of her usual composure.

“Remarkable,” she said. “Reminds me of standing in front of one of Klein’s famous Blue paintings, in the Louvre.” She noted my surprise and raised a supercilious eyebrow. “I do have some culture, you know.”

“Then you should put yoghurt on it,” said Molly.

Penny and I looked around, and there were the rest of my Inner Circle, staring at us suspiciously. The good feeling from the crimson glow vanished from me immediately. I hadn’t expected this to be easy, but the grim faces on the assembled Circle made it clear this was going to be an uphill battle all the way. I took Penny by the arm and led her forward, glaring right back at the Circle.

“Penny is one of us now,” I said firmly. “A full member of the Inner Circle. And I don’t want to hear any more insults. I trust her, and so should you.”

“Just like that?” said Molly dangerously.

“Yes,” I said.

Molly looked at the rest of the Circle. “I’ll knock him down, you get the straightjacket on him.”

“I need advisors from all parts of the family,” I said patiently. “Including the traditionalists.”

“You mean the ones who wanted you and me dead?” said Molly. “The ones who declared you rogue, and secretly ran Manifest Destiny behind the cover of the Zero Tolerance faction?”

“That’s the ones,” I said. “Except that Penny was never Zero Tolerance. She told me so.”

“And you believed her?” said Molly.

“Of course,” I said. “She’s family.”

“So,” said Penny. “This is the infamous Inner Circle? This is what has replaced the Matriarch’s Council, sanctified by centuries of tradition?”

“Yes,” I said. “Eventually the Inner Circle will give way to a new Council, to be elected by the family. About time we had some democracy around here.”

“Democracy?” said Molly.

“Shut up, dear, I’m talking,” I said. “The old Council had to go, Penny. They were all corrupt. They knew the truth about the torcs, and they never did anything about it. They knew the truth about the family’s true role in the world, and they just went along with it.”

“Elected . . .” Penny said thoughtfully. “By the whole family, or just the ones you end up giving new torcs?”

I grinned at the Inner Circle. “You see? That’s why she’s here; to ask the necessary awkward questions.”

I looked round the Circle, but it didn’t seem that impressed. My Inner Circle consisted of Molly Metcalf, my uncle Jack the family Armourer, the ghost Jacob Drood, the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and now Penny. I could have ruled the family on my own—declared myself Patriarch, or something—but I’d seen where that led. Power tends to corrupt, and the Droods are the most powerful family in the world. So I chose people to advise me who I could trust to tell me the truth, whether I wanted to hear it or not; and who together might just be a match for me, if I looked like getting out of control. Penny nodded formally to the other family members of the Circle, though she couldn’t bring herself to look Jacob in his ghostly eyes; but she had only a cold, distant stare for Molly.

“I might have known you’d stick your girlfriend in a position of power,” she said sweetly. “You always were a soppy romantic, Eddie. You must know she can’t be allowed authority over the family. She just can’t. I mean, she’s an outsider.”

“She’s with me,” I said flatly. “Accept it, and move on. Or there’ll be tears before bedtime.”

The Armourer made his usual impatient harrumphing sound, meaning he had something important to say, and he was going to say it whatever anybody else felt. He was wearing his usual chemical-stained and lightly charred lab coat; a stick-thin middle-aged man with far too much nervous energy, and not nearly enough self-preservation instincts. He designed and built weapons and gadgets for agents in the field, aided by a fiercely questing intellect and a complete lack of scruples. He wore a grubby T-shirt under his coat bearing the legend Weapons of Mass Destruction; Ask Here. He once created a nuclear grenade, but couldn’t find anyone who could throw it far enough. Two great tufts of white hair jutted out over his ears, the only hair on his head apart from bushy white eyebrows. He had calm gray eyes, a brief but engaging smile, and a somewhat jumpy manner. Plus a pronounced stoop, from far too many years spent hunching over the designing board, working on really dangerous things.

He was my uncle Jack, and I would have died rather than disappoint him.

“I can’t stay long,” he said abruptly, scowling fiercely about him in his usual manner. “I’ve had to leave my interns alone and unsupervised in the Armoury, and that’s always dangerous. To them, as well as their surroundings. And of course they’re so much more vulnerable these days, without torcs to protect them. Though it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down any. I had to take a superstring away from one of them the other day. How did the Overdrive work on the Bentley, Eddie? I’m rather proud of that . . . I’m pretty sure I’ve got all the bugs out now.”

“Only pretty sure?” said Molly. “Now he tells us . . .”

“It worked fine,” I said. “I’ve put the Bentley into the Armoury for some minor repairs.”

“What? What?” said the Armourer, bristling. “What do you mean, minor repairs? What have you done, Eddie? What have you done to my lovely old Bentley? You crashed it, didn’t you? You crashed the Bentley after I told you I was only loaning it to you!”

“No, I didn’t crash it,” I said calmly. You learn to keep your calm in conversations with the Armourer, on the grounds that he’ll be emotional enough for both of you, and one of you has to be calm and it certainly isn’t going to be him. “I just picked up a few very minor dents and scratches, during a trip through the side dimensions.”

“I’m going back to the Armoury.”

“No, you’re not!” I said quickly. “We have important matters to discuss.”

“Important matters, eh?” the ghost of Jacob said brightly. “That sounds important.”

Jacob tried hard, but he just wasn’t as focused as he used to be. When he lived, or rather existed, in exile in the old chapel around the back of the Hall, he used to sit around quite happily in his ghostly underwear, watching the memories of old television programmes on a set with no insides to it. Most of the family wouldn’t talk to him, but he and I had been good friends since I first sought him out as a child. (Because I knew I wasn’t supposed to.)

Now that he was officially a part of the family again, and had moved back into the Hall, Jacob had made something of an effort to smarten himself up. He still looked older than death, his face full of wrinkles and his bald pate graced with only a few flyaway silver hairs. But he had refined his ectoplasm into a smart tuxedo, even if the material tended more to navy blue than black, and he kept forgetting about the collar. But as a ghost of long standing, or at least a stubborn refusal to lie down, only his concentration held him together. And of late his thoughts had shown a distinct tendency to wander. Which was why every now and again he’d suddenly be wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt over baggy shorts, and a heavy red sash bearing the legend Mortally Challenged. He also left long trails of pale blue ectoplasm trailing on the air behind him when he made sudden movements.

Jacob the ghost was falling apart, body and soul, and he knew it.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms glared at Jacob. He disapproved of the old ghost’s very existence, and didn’t care who knew it.

“Why don’t you find yourself a nice grave and settle down?” he said pointedly. “You know you shouldn’t be here. Family policy on ghosts is very clear. Any ghost that shows up here gets sent on its way sharpish. No exceptions. Otherwise we’d be hip deep in the things by now.”

“I’m exempt,” Jacob said firmly.

“On what grounds?” said the Sarjeant.

“Because I say so, and don’t you bloody forget it. I’m exempt from anything I damned well feel like, on the grounds that I’ll kick anyone’s arse who says otherwise. Being dead is very liberating. You should try it, Sarjeant. Preferably soon.”

“Behave yourself, Jacob,” I said. “Remember, I’ve still got that exorcist on speed dial.”

“We need to talk about the witch’s presence here,” Penny said stubbornly.

“No we don’t,” I said.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Molly. “Let’s talk about your presence here, Penny dear. Are you another of Eddie’s old flames, like that appalling Alexandra person?”

Penny snorted loudly. “He wishes . . .”

“Are you going to introduce just anyone you want into the Circle?” said the Sarjeant. “Don’t we get a say in the matter?”

“If you’ve got anyone else in mind, suggest them,” I said. “I’ll take all the help I can get. I’m only running things now because I can’t find anyone else I can trust. I’m the only one in this family without an agenda. The whole point of this Inner Circle is to set things up for the formation of a new elected Council, so they can take over and I can go back to being just a field agent again, where I belong. Where I was happy.”

“Are you saying you haven’t been happy since you met me?” said Molly.

“You are the only good thing in my life and you know it,” I said. “So stop fishing for compliments.”

“Blow me a kiss right now,” said Molly. “Or I’ll tell everyone where you’ve got a funny-shaped mole.”

“We need to discuss Jacob’s position in the family,” insisted the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “He’s moved back into his old room in the Hall, the one he used to live in back when he was alive. He frightened the proper occupant so much he ran out screaming, and has refused to go back.”

“I know,” said the Armourer. “We’ve got the poor lad down in the infirmary. I don’t know what you did to him, Jacob, but he still hasn’t stopped twitching. And he can’t go to sleep unless someone holds his hand.”

Jacob sniggered. “He shouldn’t have been playing with himself when I materialised. And I am here because I’m supposed to be here. I like being back in the Hall, if only because it annoys so many of the proper people. Been a lot of changes since I was last here . . . I can’t believe how crowded the Hall is these days. Family’s been breeding like rabbits . . . We need to get more of the youngsters out into the world. Kick them out of the nest! Fly, little birdies! Yes, I know, I’m rambling; you’re allowed to when you’ve been dead as long as I have.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but why are you still here, Jacob? I thought you only hung around as a ghost so you’d be here to help me save the family from the Heart.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Jacob, scowling. His eyes disappeared, leaving only deep, dark pits in his face. “But something is still holding me here. Some force . . . like an undischarged promise. My job here isn’t over yet, dammit. Something is coming, Eddie. Something good, something bad . . . something.”

We all waited, but he had nothing else left to say. I decided it was very definitely time to change the subject, and since I wanted to remind everyone that I was in charge, I went with something that had been bugging me for some time. I stared sternly at the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

“What is your name? I can’t keep calling you Sarjeant, and I’m damned if I’ll go back to calling you sir, like when I was a kid.”

“Call me Sarjeant. It’s my title.”

“I could have Molly rip it out of your living brain,” I said. I was bluffing, but he didn’t know that. If the Sarjeant was so determined not to tell me, I wanted to know even more. It had to be something good. The Sarjeant sighed, just a little.

“My name is Cyril.”

Sometimes things are just too good to be true. I think the only thing that kept the whole Circle from collapsing into gales of hysterical laughter was our extensive knowledge of the Sarjeant’s brutality, and that he could summon weapons out of thin air when he felt like it.

“Cyril?” I said happily. “Bloody Cyril? No wonder you grew up to be a thug and a bully, with a name like that. You must have loved your parents.”

“They were fine, upstanding people,” the Sarjeant said firmly. “Now, if I may continue my report on the transgressions of the ghost, Jacob?”

“Oh by all means,” I said. “Don’t let me stop you, Cyril.”

“There have been numerous reports of Jacob haunting the ladies’ showers and changing rooms.”

“I keep getting lost.”

“You’re not fooling anyone, Jacob,” I said.

“And,” said the Sarjeant, “there have even been reports of him chasing the ghost of the headless nun through the catacombs.”

Jacob grinned. “Hey, she’s the only other ghost in the Hall. Can you blame me if I just want to swap a little ectoplasm? Nice arse, for a nun. Damn, she’s fast on her feet, especially considering she can’t see where she’s going.”

“You’re a member of the Inner Circle!” snapped the Sarjeant. “You’re supposed to set an example!”

“Oh, I am, I am . . .”

“Stop that,” I said quickly. “Your ectoplasm’s going all quivery. Let us move on. Are we any closer to establishing who was behind the recent attacks on the Hall, just before I was summoned home? Do we have any new information?”

“Nothing. Not a word,” said the Armourer.

“Perhaps we should ask the strange matter,” said the Sarjeant pointedly. “Since it did turn out to be responsible for the destruction of the Heart, in the end.”

“Wasn’t me,” said a calm and reasonable voice from inside the warm crimson glow. “I was still searching for the Heart at that stage, and didn’t even know it was in this dimension. You must remember; the Heart had made many enemies, from all the worlds and races it enslaved before it came here. Some of those enemies have been looking for the Heart almost as long as me.”

That sounded reasonable enough, but though I had much to thank the strange matter for, and it always said the right things . . . the fact remained that the strange matter was still very much an unknown factor. All we knew about it was what it had chosen to tell us. If it had been behind the other attacks, would it admit that? We had no way to compel the truth from it. I rubbed at my forehead as a slow, grinding headache began. Being paranoid is very tiring, but when you’re a Drood it’s the only way to stay one step ahead.

“Strange matter . . .” I said.

“Oh, please, call me Ethel.”

“We are not going to call you Ethel,” I said, very firmly.

“Why not? What’s wrong with Ethel? It’s a perfectly good name. I like it. It’s honest, it’s charming, it’s . . . me.”

“We are not calling you Ethel!”

“Nothing wrong with Ethel,” said the strange matter. “Winston Churchill had a pet frog called Ethel.”

“No he didn’t!”

“He might have. You don’t know.”

“I’m calling you Strange,” I said. “It’s the only name that fits.”

“You have no sense of fun,” said Strange.

“Actually . . .” said Molly.

“Hush,” I said quickly.

The Armourer produced another of his impressive throat clearings. “How did you get on with the Matriarch, Eddie?”

“Not good,” I admitted. “She told me to go to Hell. She’d rather see the whole family collapse than prosper with me in charge.”

The Armourer nodded reluctantly. “Mother always could be very stubborn . . . But you have to keep trying with her, Eddie. You need her on your side if you’re to get the whole family moving in the same direction. She represents the past, and tradition, and all those things that make the family feel safe and secure.”

“It isn’t going to be easy,” I said.

“Of course it isn’t going to be easy, Eddie! You killed her favourite son, my brother James! I know you had to do it, and I still have trouble forgiving you. The old Gray Fox . . . was the best of us, for so many years. And don’t forget; he had a lot of admirers, outside the family. Old friends and old enemies, who won’t be at all happy to hear he died at your hands. They could turn up here at any time, ready and willing to express their extreme displeasure . . . and then you’re going to need the whole family backing you up.”

“We could say James had gone rogue.” Penny suggested tentatively.

“Who’d believe that?” I said. “The Gray Fox always was the best of us. You’d better beef up the Hall’s defences, Uncle Jack; just in case.”

I finally got to the meat of the meeting, and told them about MI5’s ambush outside my old flat. The Armourer and the Sarjeant insisted I tell it all, in as much detail as I could remember. Molly chimed in here and there, sometimes helping and sometimes not. The Armourer and the Sarjeant both reacted very strongly when I told them who was behind the attack.

“The prime minister?” said the Sarjeant incredulously. “Who does he think he is, to take on the Droods? Man’s getting thoughts above his station. We can’t allow this to go unpunished, Edwin. People might think we were getting soft.”

“I’ve already sent him a very definite message,” I said.

“Killing a few MI5 agents won’t bother him,” said the Armourer. “As far as he’s concerned, they’re all expendable. We need to hit him where he lives.”

“Right,” said the Sarjeant. “Can’t have the prime minister getting cheeky. We need to slap him down hard, Edwin. Make an example of him.”

I shook my head slowly. “We can’t afford to show our hand yet, and risk revealing how weak we really are. And no one else in power seems to be feeling their oats. Penny took me down to the War Room; it was all very quiet.”

“Quiet before the storm,” said Penny. “Our researchers are all over the world’s media, official and unofficial, getting a feel for each government’s mood. And all our telepaths, scryers, and clairvoyants are working full time.”

I had to smile. Politicians only think they can keep secrets from the Droods.

“So far, everyone’s being very cautious, not wanting to rock the boat until they know whether or not there’s sharks in the water,” said the Armourer. “I don’t think they can believe their own reports about how weak and disorganised we are, at present. But that can’t last. They know all our field agents have gone to ground, and most of them know or suspect about the golden torcs’ disappearance. So sooner or later, somebody’s going to do something . . . just to see what happens. To see how much they can get away with. There might even be a direct strike against the Hall itself. Remember when the Chinese tried to nuke us, back in the sixties?”

“We have to do something about the prime minister,” the Sarjeant said firmly. “Something sufficiently unpleasant, to send a clear message to all the world leaders.”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “Come up with some options, and I’ll look at them.”

“I thought one of the reasons you took over running the Droods was to free the world from Drood control,” said Molly. “I distinctly remember you saying something about letting politicians make their own decisions.”

“I did,” I said. “Turns out things are more complicated than that.”

“Isn’t that always the first response of every dictator?”

“Look; survival first, politics second, okay?” I said.

“Just wanted you to be sure of what you’re getting into,” Molly said sweetly.

“Speaking of survival,” said Penny. “We need to get as many of the family as possible into the new silver torcs, as quickly as possible. We’re just too vulnerable to sudden attack, as things stand.”

I nodded reluctantly. “All right, you guys get together and draw up a list for me to consider. Those who should get their torcs right away, those who should but only after they’ve proved themselves worthy, and those who won’t ever be trusted with a torc again.”

“Such as?” said Penny, her cool eyes openly challenging me.

“Anyone who knew about the secret of the golden torcs and just went along with it,” I said sternly. “Any unrepentant Zero Tolerance, and anyone who’d more than likely use a torc to start a civil war within the family. Use your own best judgement. We’re only talking about a small percentage of scumbags, I hope. Strange, any problem with producing so much strange matter, for the torcs and armour, so quickly?”

“Please, call me Ethel.”

“Not if there was a gun to my head.”

“You can have as many silver torcs as you want, Eddie,” Strange said easily. “It’s just a matter of bringing more of me through from my home dimension. I am great and limitless, wise and wonderful . . . But you don’t really need torcs, you know. I could teach you all to be superhuman. You have such potential within you, you humans. To be far greater than any torc could ever make you. You could all shine like stars.”

I looked at the Inner Circle, and they looked at me.

“How long would this take?” I said.

“Years,” said Strange. “Generations, maybe. This whole consecutive time thing is a new concept to me.”

“I think we’ll stick with what we know, for now,” I said. “The family needs to be strong as quickly as possible. But by all means, consider the alternative, Strange, and let me know when you’ve got something more specific to tell me.”

“Oh goody!” said Strange. “This is going to be such fun!”

“Any other matters?” I said quickly.

“Just one,” said the Armourer. He produced a small object wrapped in white samite from under his lab coat and passed it to me. I accepted and then unwrapped it with great care and caution. Gifts from the Armourer have a tendency to be downright dangerous, if not actually explosive. The object turned out to be a simple hand mirror, with a silver frame and handle. I hefted it a few times cautiously, just in case, but nothing happened. And the face in the mirror was quite definitely mine, so . . . I looked inquiringly at the Armourer.

“Jacob and I have been studying in the old library,” said the Armourer. “When I can tear him away from his . . . other pursuits. And we’ve turned up some quite remarkable items. A number of books thought to be long lost, or destroyed, a number of ancient maps of dubious provenance but exciting possibilities . . . and a handful of lost and quite legendary treasures. That . . . is Merlin’s Glass. It disappeared from the Armageddon Codex in the late eighteenth century, under somewhat murky circumstances. Jacob discovered it inside a hollowed-out book about voles.”

“Don’t even know what made me look there,” Jacob said cheerfully. “I was just looking for something with dirty pictures.”

“Hold everything,” said Molly. “Though not literally in your case, Jacob. Merlin’s Glass. Are we talking about the Merlin?”

“Oh yes,” said Jacob.

“He was a Drood?” said Molly.

“Hardly,” said the Armourer. “We do have our standards. No, he was Merlin Satanspawn, the Devil’s only begotten son. Born to be the Antichrist, but he refused the honour. He always had to go his own way . . . But according to some quite fascinating records in the old library, he did work with the family, on occasion. When it suited him. And apparently he owed us a favour, and repaid it by gifting us that mirror.”

Molly reached out for it, and I handed it over. She muttered some Words over the mirror, made a few quick gestures, and even held it upside down and shook it in the hope something might fall out, but nothing happened. Molly sniffed and handed the mirror back to me.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll bite. What’s it supposed to do?”

“It can be used to make contact with other members of the Drood family, in the past or the future, to ask them for advice or information.”

There was a pause, and then Molly said, “No offence guys, but I think you got stiffed on the deal. I mean, it’s not the most useless magic object I’ve ever seen . . . but it comes pretty damned close.”

“You’re a witch,” the Armourer said kindly, “and therefore used to thinking mainly in terms of the here and now. The Glass has many uses. Vital information lost in this time can be found in the past, before it was lost. Or in the future, after it has been rediscovered. The greatest family tacticians, of the past or the future, are now ours to consult. We can even take specific advice from the future, on which matters to pursue and which are best left strictly alone . . .”

“If this Glass is so useful,” I said, “how did it happen to go missing for so long?”

“Ah,” said the Armourer reluctantly. “There are many stories about that. The one I tend to believe the most, because I dislike it the most, is that someone asked the Glass a very specific question, and got a very specific answer that disturbed the shit out of him. So he took the Glass and hid it, to prevent anyone else from asking the question, or learning the answer.”

“I can’t see this family giving up anything that useful so easily,” said Molly.

“I can,” I said. “The Droods have always been very cautious about anything involving time travel. Ever since the Great Time Disaster of 1217, when the family almost wiped itself out after inadvertently setting up a Möbius-strip time paradox. There’s still some rooms in the Hall we can’t find, because of what we had to do to break free. And we don’t even think about what might still be happening to the poor bastards we had to abandon in those rooms. The human mind just isn’t equipped to deal with all the possible complications and downright nasty ramifications of mucking about with time.”

And then I stopped short as an idea came to me, hitting me hard enough to stop my breath, while a cold hand curled around my heart. I looked into Merlin’s Glass, and my face stared back at me, so cold and harsh and determined I barely recognised it.

“Can I contact anyone in the past?” I said, and even I could tell that the voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded reckless, and even dangerous. Everyone looked at me sharply. I think Molly got it first, perhaps because her mind had already begun moving along similar lines. I looked at the Armourer, and I think anyone else would have flinched at what he saw in my eyes. “I know it’s dangerous, and I don’t care,” I said. “Tell me, Uncle Jack, can I use this Glass to talk to my parents in the past, before they were murdered?”

“I’m sorry,” the Armourer said gruffly, kindly. “I thought of that. There’s always someone we’d like to speak to in the past. Friends and relatives and loved ones, gone too soon, before we could say all the things we meant to say to them. The things we put off saying, because we always thought there’d be time . . . until suddenly there wasn’t. But the Glass doesn’t allow anyone to ask questions for personal gain. Only for the good of the family. And the Glass can always tell the difference. A built-in safety factor, perhaps, to prevent . . . abuse of time.”

“Or perhaps the sorcerer Merlin Satanspawn just had a built-in nasty streak,” said Molly.

“There is that,” said the Armourer.

“I need to know what really happened to my father and my mother,” I said. “I will find out the truth, whatever it takes.”

“I spent years trying to find out,” said the Armourer. “So did James. She was our sister, poor dear Emily, and we loved her dearly. We even approved of your father, or we’d never have let him marry her. But the truth is . . . no one seems to know. The odds are it was just a stupid mistake. Poor intelligence, insufficient briefing, too many things going wrong at once . . . It happens. Even on the best planned missions.”

“There’s always the Time Train,” said Penny unexpectedly.

“No there isn’t,” the Armourer said quickly.

“What the hell is a Time Train?” said Molly. “And why do I get the feeling I’m really not going to like the answer?”

“Must be your witchy senses working overtime,” I said. “Damn, I haven’t thought about the Time Train in years . . . It’s a means of travelling through time, though perhaps a little stranger than most. No one’s used it for ages. I suppose it is still functional . . . Armourer?”

“Well, yes, technically,” said the Armourer. “But some things are just too dangerous to mess with.”

I had to raise an eyebrow. “This, from the man who wanted our best telepaths to try setting off all the atomic warheads in China, just by having the telepaths think really nasty thoughts at them?”

“That would have worked, if the Matriarch hadn’t stopped me,” said the Armourer sulkily. “All my best ideas are ahead of their time.”

“I am changing the subject right now,” I said firmly. “One thing has to be clear to all of us: The family has to Do Something, something big and important and dramatic, to prove to the whole world that the Droods are still strong and nasty and a force to be reckoned with. We need to pick a target, some seriously important and unpleasant enemy, and then hit it with a really powerful preemptive strike force. Wipe them out, once and for all.”

“Now you’re talking, boy!” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

“Sounds good to me,” said the Armourer. “The family’s been terribly reactive for years, under the Matriarch.”

“Who did you have in mind?” said Molly. “Manifest Destiny?”

“No,” I said. “They’re still weak. Stamping on them wouldn’t impress anyone. We need something . . . bigger.”

“There are two main threats to humanity,” the Armourer said ponderously, slipping into his lecture mode. “Doesn’t matter whether they’re scientific or magical in origin, mythical or political or biblical; all of humanity’s enemies can be separated into two distinct kinds. Those who do us harm because they hope to gain something from it; these we call demons. And those who are too big to care about us, but who might do us harm just because we’re in the way; those we call gods, for want of a better word. The family is trained and equipped to deal with demons. The gods are best handled delicately, from a safe distance, and through as many intermediaries as possible.”

“I’ve already killed one god,” I said. “And the Heart screamed just like a human as it died.”

“I helped,” said Strange. “You couldn’t have done it without me.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But then you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

“Can we please put the delusions of grandeur to one side, just for the moment?” said Penny. “And concentrate on planning a strategy.”

“Not attacking any gods sounds like a really good strategy to me,” said Molly. “I’m voting for demons.”

“Demons sounds good to me,” said the Armourer. “Never any shortage of demons screwing over humanity.”

“All right,” I said. “Demons it is. Anyone want to throw some names onto the table, just to get us started?”

“The Stalking Shrouds?” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

“They were pretty much wiped out last year,” said Penny. “Fighting a turf war with the Cold Eidolon, in the back streets of Naples. Both sides are still recovering. Be ages before either of them can mount a decent threat again.”

“The Loathly Ones?” I said. “I hate soul-eaters.”

Penny frowned. “There has been some intelligence of late that they’ve been gathering together in big numbers, down in South America. No one seems to know what for, but that’s never a good thing.”

“I’d really like to do something about the Mandrake Recorporation, ” said Molly, “if only because they creep me out, big time.”

“Not really a good enough reason to go to war with someone, though, is it?” said the Armourer.

“The Cult of the Crimson Altar?” said Jacob. “Old-school satanists, offshoot of the original Hellfire Club. Never liked them. They turned me down for membership back when I was alive, the blackballing bastards.”

“Currently enduring a major schism,” Penny said briskly. “Over some piece of dogma so complicated and so trivial that no one outside the Cult can make head or tail of it. The Cult’s been killing itself off for the last six weeks, and at the rate they’re going I doubt there’ll be enough of them left at the end to make up a social club.”

“The Dream Meme?” said the Sarjeant hopefully.

“No!” said the Armourer. “We still don’t know for sure who or what they are, or even what they want. And yes, Cyril, I have heard all the latest conspiracy theories, and I’m not convinced by any of them. They’re just a supernatural urban legend, like the Sceneshifters.”

“Vril Power Inc?” said Molly. “Everyone’s favourite nightmare from World War Two?”

“Gone into politics since the reunification of Germany,” said Penny. “No surprises there.”

“Enough names,” I said. “We need to send a message. A strong message. So I say we take on the Loathly Ones. No one likes soul-eaters, so no one will ally with them, even against us. I say we track down this new gathering of theirs, send in an armoured force and either wipe them out for good or, at the very least, send them back to whatever hell they came from. It’s only right, when you consider this family was responsible for bringing them into this world in the first place.”

The Armourer and the Sarjeant-at-Arms scowled. They already knew that. Penny and Jacob looked shocked; they didn’t. Most of the family didn’t. Just another of those nasty little secrets the old guard liked to keep to itself.

“Think I’ll contact my old friend Janissary Jane,” I said. “She knows all there is to know about fighting demons. When she’s sober. Penny, since all our field agents are coming home, I want you to put out a call for all rogue Droods to come home too. All sins forgiven, if not forgotten. They’ve learnt the hard way how to survive in the world without family backup, and they have skills we can use and profit from. Besides, I’ve been a rogue and I’ve met rogues, and I don’t like to think of them left out there in the cold.”

“All the rogues?” said Penny.

“Well, obviously not the real shits, like the late and very unlamented Bloody Man, Arnold Drood,” I said. “But there aren’t many of the real bad seeds left, are there?”

“Only a few, thank the lord,” said the Armourer. “We’ve been weeding them out, down the years. Tiger Tim is still hiding out somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, because he knows anyone even halfway civilised will kill him the moment he shows his face . . . and Old Mother Shipton is finally running out of identities to hide behind. We’re pretty sure she’s running a baby cloning service in Vienna at the moment. Our agent there was actually closing in on her . . . before the present difficulties.”

“And they’re the only monsters left?” I said.

“The only ones we know of,” said Penny. “But really, Eddie, calling in the rogues? The scum we threw out, for being crooks or cowards or subversives? The family isn’t going to like this.”

“We often don’t like the things that are good for us,” I said calmly. “And as with so many other things, where the old Council was concerned, the rogues aren’t necessarily what you were told they were. Some were just troublemakers who insisted on telling the truth. The family needs new advice, new tricks, new ways of looking at things. The rogues can supply that in abundance. I’m also bringing in a few friends from outside, to help out in guest tutorials. Janissary Jane, of course. And I thought maybe the Blue Fairy.”

“Him?” said Penny. “He’s a drunk, a thief, and a lecher! He has no principles, no scruples . . . and he’s a half elf! You can’t trust him!”

“He’ll fit in perfectly,” I said. “Besides, I hear he’s a new person since his near-death experience.”

“If you’re bringing in your old friends, I want some of mine,” said Molly. “If only so I won’t feel so outnumbered.”

“Okay,” I said. “Who did you have in mind?”

“Subway Sue and Mr. Stab,” said Molly, smiling sweetly.

“Are you crazy?” I said. “A vampire who sucks the good fortune out of people, and the uncaught immortal serial killer of Old London Town? Over my dead body!”

There would probably have been heated words and raised voices at that moment, if all the alarms hadn’t gone off at once. The Hall was under attack.