Live and let Drood sh-6 Read online

  It was all over quickly. The ape looked around at the piled-up broken bodies and sniffed loudly, in a satisfied kind of way.

  All right! All right! said Chapman, miserably.

  Call it off! We surrender!

  Molly snapped her fingers, the ape disappeared and a small silver charm reappeared in her hand. She delicately reattached the charm to her ankle bracelet and smiled sweetly at me.

  A big ape, throwing his weight around, I said.

  Were you by any chance making a comment there, Molly?

  Perish the thought, sweetie.

  I looked around me. There were bodies everywhere, scattered across the grounds. Some moving, some not. It was all very calm and peaceful, apart from some quiet moaning and whimpering here and there. The threat was over. I forced my armour back into my torc. I could remember the savage satisfaction I d taken in reducing the Road Rats to bloody ruin, but it seemed like something that happened a long time ago, to somebody else. I looked at Chapman. He was crying.

  You brought it on yourself, I said. I gave you every chance to walk away.

  What am I going to say to their mums and dads? said Chapman.

  Don t mess with the Droods, I said.

  Pick up your boys and get out of here. You make the place look untidy.

  If we d known the place was this well protected, we wouldn t have come here, Chapman said bitterly.

  We were promised the Hall would be empty and abandoned.

  Spread the word, I said. Drood Hall and its grounds are still protected. Be grateful you didn t get to meet the scarecrows.

  But the Hall s a ruin! Chapman said wildly. Look at it! What s left inside might as well do someone some good! It s no use to anyone just sitting there! All right, all right. I m going.

  Not quite yet, I said. I still want to know who sent you here. Who made you all these promises? Who knew the Hall was a ruin, and provided you with a bloody sat nav?

  Crow Lee, said Chapman. It was Crow Lee, the bastard. He swore this would be an easy one, quick in and out, no problems. He lied.

  Well, that s what you do, said Molly, when you re the Most Evil Man in the World.

  But Chapman was already walking away, calling out to his less-damaged boys to help load the others into the back of the trucks. I was a bit relieved to see I hadn t done quite as much damage to them as I d imagined. Molly looked at me thoughtfully.

  There were an awful lot of the little shits, and I have no sympathy for them. But

  Yes, I said. But. I am an agent, not an assassin. I do what s necessary to take control of a situation. I was never that bloodthirsty before, when I put on my armour. Moxton s Mistake was in my head. I couldn t hear it, but it was there.

  Can you learn to control it? said Molly.

  I ll learn, I said. I have to. Because I really can t do the job without it. Not if Crow Lee s involved.

  We walked back up the drive to the wrecked and burnt-out Hall. Knowing it wasn t my Hall really didn t help much. It was still Drood Hall. Part of me was listening to the trucks revving up and departing my grounds at speed, but I was thinking more about Crow Lee. The Beast. The Devil s Own. The Most Evil Man in the World and there s a lot of competition. Everyone in my line of work has heard of Crow Lee. He hadn t joined the Great Satanic Conspiracy because he thought they weren t extreme enough. He dealt in death curses, human sacrifice, human trafficking, blackmail on a small and large scale and in slaughter and suffering just for the fun of it. He d run any number of cults just because he could.

  He worked as a magical assassin for a while, as much for the experience as the money. Killing the rich and the powerful by order. He had mastered necromancy, the magic of murder, and could make the living and the dead do his bidding. These days he worked mostly from the shadows and was often accused of atrocities and abominations but nothing had ever been proved. Crow Lee, the man who could do anything, anything at all.

  Why have the Droods never done anything about the Most Evil Man in the World? said Molly.

  Because he s protected, I said. And I don t just mean because he s made pacts with Hell, though he has. He has connections inside every political party, every religious organisation, and he has powerful friends, or, perhaps more properly, allies, in every circle you can think of. The whole family would have had to go to war against Crow Lee and his people, with no sure knowledge of how it would turn out. He s been stopped, defeated, many times, by us and others but he just disappears and turns up somewhere else, as powerful and protected as ever. His front men and his allies go down, but he never does. The decision was made in the family, sometime back, to just let him grow old and die. Because he s just one man, and the family goes on forever. If we can t take him down, we can always outlive the bastard. And we ll settle for stopping his various schemes until the evil old scrote grows weak and falls apart. At least that was the plan. It would seem he decided to get his retaliation in first.

  You re sure he s the one? Molly said carefully. The one who took remote control of Alpha Red Alpha?

  It has to be him! Only he would have the power to do it and the arrogance to get away with it! The moment I heard his name, I knew. So. Now my enemy has a face and a name. That helps. And so will the Regent of Shadows, one way or another. This informant of yours; you re sure they can put us in touch with the Regent?

  Almost certainly, said Molly.

  Good, I said. But first, we have to go to Egypt.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There Are Worse Things Than Mummies in the Undiscovered Tombs of Old Egypt

  Egypt? said Molly, a bit dangerously. And just why do we have to go to Egypt so damned urgently? What could there possibly be in Egypt that s so important we have to go there right now?

  Something we need, I said. Something that will help me track down my missing family. Something that the Armourer once told me about, in an unguarded moment, in strict confidence so rare and secret and important that it should only ever be sought after in a real emergency. I m pretty sure this qualifies.

  What, exactly, are we talking about here? said Molly.

  A particularly useful item that my family put to one side and hid somewhere very remote and very safe, for just such an occasion as this, I said. You have to understand, Molly; my family has plans drawn up for every conceivable emergency that might ever arise.

  You re saying your family even had a plan in place for something like this?

  Oh, especially for something like this. Even when everything seems lost and all hope gone, you can be sure the Droods still have something in hand to fall back on. When a family has been around as long as ours has, we have time to consider all the possibilities. So we always have one last ace up our sleeve to confound our many enemies. A hidden weapon, one last dirty trick, or an unexpected ally waiting in the wings. Or in this case, a very useful item, hidden away.

  I might have known, said Molly. Your family is too sneaky and underhanded for words. But even assuming this hidden item can help us, why do we have to go to Egypt, of all places?

  Because that s where it is.

  I hate it when you go all cryptic, said Molly severely. You re never more smug than when you re being cryptic.

  The item in question is tucked away safe and secure in Egypt, I said patiently. So that even if the entire family was abducted, snatched away, disappeared without trace or fell through some hole in space and time as long as one of us remained, there would still be a chance to get the family back. A way to locate them, wherever they were.

  Molly sniffed loudly. She didn t seem particularly convinced. How are we supposed to get to Egypt, with every bad guy and his dog out looking for us? We can t just book a weekend in Cairo in some backstreet bucket shop and just hop on the nearest plane. We should go to Brighton and talk to my friend. See if she can get us in to see the Regent of Shadows.

  The Regent can wait, I said. What good will it do to have the Regent s support if we ve no way of finding my family? Besides, who needs a plane when we have the Merlin
Glass?

  I retrieved the hand mirror from the pocket dimension I kept it in and held it out before me. The silver frame shone almost supernaturally bright in the sunshine. Molly looked at the Glass and then back at me, and if anything, looked even more dubious.

  I don t know, Eddie. That s not our Merlin Glass. It s from a whole different place. You really think we can trust it?

  I m still not convinced we could trust the original, I said. But it s not like we have much choice in the matter. Unless your teleport capabilities have improved a hell of a lot since the last time we had to use them

  My teleport capabilities are deliberately limited, Molly said sternly. You ve never understood the risks involved in travelling through the spaces that connect spaces. The farther the trip, the more you open yourself up to all kinds of dangers. Physical and spiritual. There are things that live in the places between places, and they re hungry. You have no idea how powerful the Merlin Glass must be to keep you safe as it transports you back and forth.

  We have to go to Egypt, I said patiently.

  To pick up the special little something my family hid there. We need it, Molly. Think of it as a form of insurance, put aside for a very rainy day. And before you ask again, Why Egypt? my family wanted it hidden as far from the Hall as possible, where no one would ever think to look for it.

  You have moved beyond cryptic into seriously annoying, said Molly. What is it? A weapon of some kind?

  Something far more useful, I said.

  Something useful, hidden in Egypt, said Molly, thoughtfully. I used to be so good at crossword puzzles. Is it contained in a mummy s sarcophagus? Or perhaps an old oil lamp that needs cleaning? An ancient flame that bestows eternal youth? Tana leaves?

  You re just being silly now, I said.

  Wait, wait don t tell me. I ll get it! Is it a special kind of torc connected to all the other torcs?

  Nice try, but no. We changed all our torcs remember? when we replaced the Heart with Ethel. My ancestors always knew that might be a possibility someday. Even if they were very careful never to mention such a thing anywhere, the Heart might overhear them. No. My family decided, quite rightly, that we needed something more basic.

  Other families have skeletons in their closets, said Molly. Your family has whole boneyards. All right. Say we go to Egypt and pick up this thing. Will it enable us to go get your family?

  Think of it more as a compass, I said. Something to point us in the right direction.

  It s not strong enough to get us there on its own? Molly considered the question for longer than I was comfortable with. Is there anyone else that you know of who has anything like Alpha Red Alpha? A dimensional engine powerful enough to take us where Alpha Red Alpha took your family?

  Not that I know of, I said. There are all kinds of dimensional doors and hellgates scattered around that can give you access to all kinds of other worlds and far-off realms some of them in the hands of friends, like the London Knights, some in the hands of enemies, like the Crimson Brotherhood of Peng Tang, and a hell of a lot more in the hands of private individuals with more money than sense. But we can t approach any of them without revealing why we want them, and we can t have the whole world finding out what s happened to the Droods. Looters would be just the start of it. And, anyway, I doubt very much anything out there would be as powerful as Alpha Red Alpha. It s always been thought of as unique, because no one else would be crazy enough to build something that dangerous. And then live over it. Alpha Red Alpha was designed to send you beyond space and time, into dimensions and realities we don t even have proper names for. That s why we never used the damned thing until I persuaded my family we needed it.

  It s supposed to have been reverse-engineered from the stardrive of an alien ship that crashed in a field in Wiltshire in 1855. Personally, I ve always thought that if you re going to reverse-engineer alien tech, pick it from something that hasn t actually plummeted from the sky and crashed. Doesn t exactly fill you with confidence, does it?

  We re proposing to send you through unknown dimensions, using an engine derived from something that fell from the skies and we had to dig out of a field. Yeah, right after you.

  Do you know which alien species the ship belonged to? said Molly. Your family is supposed to keep track of all the aliens currently playing tourist behind what they think are cunning disguises. Maybe you could contact them, and

  Rather worryingly, we have no idea who the ship belonged to, I said. No bodies anywhere on board, no record systems we could recognise or understand, and nothing in the tech that looked at all familiar. There are always a few Visitors who don t want to play nice. This particular starship was apparently like nothing we d ever encountered before. Word is, just looking at the ship too long or studying the technology too closely was enough to drive unprepared human minds right over the edge. After we d ripped out the stardrive, my family broke up the ship into small pieces and then dropped them in the deepest parts of the various oceans. Just to be on the safe side

  Could anyone else have gained access to this technology? said Molly. Through the traitor in the family, perhaps? Yes, I know you don t like to talk about him, but think, Eddie. Could someone else have their own version of Alpha Red Alpha that we could make use of?

  Unlikely, I said. The family Armourer who designed Alpha Red Alpha was half-crazy when he started, and all crazy by the time he d finished it. Supposedly the family had to lock him away for everyone s safety. They left him alone to die, but there are stories that he didn t die. Couldn t die after what exposure to the stardrive had done to him. That he s still locked up somewhere in the Hall

  None of this is filling me with confidence, said Molly. Though I will take a moment to say Your family in a very disapproving voice. Eddie, if they were the only ones to possess a dimensional engine that powerful how can we hope to go get them, even if we do get our hands on this compass of yours?

  One step at a time, Molly, I said. You have to have faith.

  How long ago was this Egypt thing set up? she said suddenly. How far back are we talking about?

  Oh, centuries, I said. At least. My family s been around long enough to think up plans and responses for pretty much every situation you can think of. Everyone knows some of them, and I know more than most because I used to run this family. But I d never heard anything about this particular backup plan until Uncle Jack took it upon himself to tell me. Apparently not everyone else thought I needed to know. They didn t think I d be in command long enough for it to matter. And as it turned out

  Are you sure this thing is still there? Molly said bluntly. I mean, hidden in Egypt for all this time?

  If it isn t, we re screwed, I said. So think positively.

  I held the Merlin Glass up before me, and Molly and I both regarded it thoughtfully. It looked very much like the hand mirror I remembered, but there was definitely something different, even off, about it. I remembered my uncle Jack telling me he was half-convinced there was something, and perhaps even someone, trapped inside the mirror. And that whatever it was could be glimpsed sometimes in the background of a reflected image. An extra face in a group, or peering out from behind something I looked carefully, but all I could see was Molly and me looking dubiously back at ourselves. So that was a problem that could wait for another day.

  Just as long as it didn t turn out to be some blond-haired Victorian child called Alice. I d already encountered a giant white talking rabbit in the Old Library.

  I reached out cautiously to the Merlin Glass through my torc and told it where we needed to go. My torc now had rogue armour in it, and this wasn t the Merlin Glass I was used to, so it did occur to me that all kinds of things could go wrong but in the end the Glass jumped out of my hand just like always, and grew to the size of a door in a moment. It hung on the air before Molly and me, dangling unsupported above the grass. Our reflections were gone. Instead the Glass showed nothing but an impenetrable darkness. Molly edged closer very cautiously and peered into the dark.
/>
  That is not exactly promising, said Molly. Where, exactly, are we going in Egypt, Eddie?

  To a very secret hiding place, I said. Which I don t feel comfortable naming out loud.

  Oh, come on! said Molly. Look around you! There s no one here. We re on our own, deep in the Drood grounds. Who could possibly be listening?

  You heard the Road Rat, I said. All our shields and protections are down. So, theoretically, anyone at all could be remote viewing the Hall and its grounds and listening in on our every word. Very definitely including Crow Lee.

  I think we should get going, said Molly.

  After you, I said.

  Through an unknown Glass, into complete darkness and a place you can t even bring yourself to name? Do you ever want to see me naked again, Eddie?

  I ll go first, I said.

  I stepped briskly over the bottom frame and through the Merlin Glass into pitch-darkness, and then stepped quickly to one side so I wouldn t be run over by Molly as she came storming through right after me. She liked to make her point, but she never wanted to be left out of anything. Immediately both of us began to cough and choke. The air was bad. It smelled strongly of spices and rot, and air that had been left undisturbed for far too long. I should have expected that. I called my golden face mask out of my torc, and the moment it slammed into place over my face, I could breathe again. I looked quickly round at Molly, but she d already conjured up a bubble of fresh air around her head. The edges of the magical field shimmered in the gloom. She glared at me, and I shrugged apologetically.

  Bright sunlight streamed through the open Merlin Glass behind us, summer sunshine falling through from the Drood grounds, illuminating an enclosed stone chamber no more than twenty feet square with no obvious door or other openings and an uncomfortably low ceiling. Dust thrown up by our sudden arrival swirled back and forth in the stream of light. I asked Molly to call up some witchlight, and she nodded quickly. A few muttered Words later and a warm and cheerful amber light radiated from her left hand, held up above her head. I immediately shut down the Merlin Glass. It fell back to its usual size, cutting off the sunlight, and I tucked the Glass away in my pocket. Molly s witchlight illuminated the chamber well enough.