Night Fall Page 16

  “Even though my last little trip didn’t exactly go to plan?” said Eddie. “I’m the reason Walker paid his first-ever visit to Drood Hall.”

  “You are the only agents I can send who stand a good chance of going unrecognised,” said the Matriarch. “Because you both have well-established cover identities that the Nightside will accept. Shaman Bond and Roxie Hazzard.”

  Eddie and Molly looked at each other.

  “She may be a pain, but she has a point,” said Eddie. “Shaman has a reputation for turning up anywhere, and you’ve spent a lot of time in the Nightside as Roxie.”

  “You honestly think this is a good idea?” said Molly.

  “We need more information,” said Eddie.

  “That’s not what I asked,” said Molly.

  “I know,” said Eddie.

  And he thought, but didn’t say: As long as it’s us getting the information, we can decide how much of it to share with the Matriarch.

  “Walker will have alerted his people to watch for any evidence of Drood actions,” said the Sarjeant. “So you really can’t use your armour this time, Eddie. Under any circumstances. Walker must not know you’re there.”

  Eddie looked at the Armourer. “Any new toys on offer, to help us?”

  “Against the kind of things you’ll be facing in the Nightside?” said Max.

  “We provide guns and gadgets, not miracles,” said Vicky.

  “Probably not a good idea to carry anything into the Nightside that could identify you as Drood agents,” said the Sarjeant.

  “What about his torc?” said Molly. “You already said it wouldn’t be enough on its own; that’s why you gave him the psychic crown.”

  Eddie sat up straight. “I am not going into the Nightside without my torc. I don’t do suicide missions.”

  “No one is asking you to,” said the Matriarch. “The crown was just insurance. I have faith in the torc to keep your true identity obscured, and so should you.”

  “Ethel?” said Eddie.

  Her calm and reassuring voice issued from the air right in front of him. “I designed the torcs to hide this family from all prying eyes, as requested. It’s strange matter, like your armour; weird stuff I brought with me from my own dimension. I’d back it against anything in this world. But, this is the Nightside we’re talking about, which is very definitely not of this world . . . So, basically, all bets are off.”

  “Terrific,” said Eddie.

  “You can’t expect us to fool John Taylor,” said Molly. “He’s sneaky.”

  “We’re sneakier,” the Sarjeant-at-Arms said calmly. “And we’ve been at this a lot longer than he has. I’ll have half-a-dozen field agents do loud and threatening things right on the borders of the Nightside. That should hold his attention long enough for you to get in without being noticed. After that, you’re on your own.”

  “No change there,” said Molly. She looked steadily at Eddie. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

  “I have to,” said Eddie.

  “I swear, if you say Anything, for the family, I will punch you out, and everyone else in this room.” Molly sighed heavily and scowled at the Matriarch. “What are we supposed to be looking for, exactly?”

  “Somebody must know something,” the Matriarch said steadily. “I need to know why the Nightside has broken its borders and who is behind it. You are authorised to buy this information, make any deal necessary; or beat it out of people. I don’t care. But I have to know.”

  “You’d feel right at home in the Nightside,” said Molly.

  The Matriarch turned her attention to the Armourer. “While Eddie and Molly are gone, I want everyone in the Armoury focused on coming up with something that will stop the Nightside from expanding any farther.”

  “That could take years!” said Max.

  “Decades!” said Vicky.

  “The Nightside was created by Lilith!” said Max. “A being so old and so powerful, her very existence can only be described in terms of parables.”

  “No one knows how or why she did it,” said Vicky.

  “No one even knows for sure where or when the Nightside really is.”

  “We don’t know how the boundaries were put in place or what maintains them.”

  “And Lilith . . . is John Taylor’s mother,” said Max.

  “We don’t do miracles,” said Vicky. “But she did.”

  The Armourer stared jointly at the Matriarch with the closest Eddie had ever seen to open mutiny.

  “We don’t know anything that matters about the Nightside,” said Max.

  “Nobody does,” said Vicky.

  “Then you’d better start working on it, hadn’t you?” said the Matriarch.

  “I think that’s our cue to leave,” Eddie said quietly to Molly.

  “Just when it was getting interesting . . .” said Molly.

  They got to their feet.

  “We’ll report back when we know something,” Eddie said to the Matriarch.

  “Try not to get noticed this time,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

  * * *

  • • •

  Eddie and Molly walked back through the Hall, taking their time, not going anywhere in particular, just walking. Eddie was glad to get away from the Matriarch and her Council, so he could think more clearly, without interruptions. He had a lot to think about. Molly strode along at his side and said nothing. She could see Eddie was thinking hard and waited patiently for him to share his thoughts with her. After they’d been walking for some time, and he still hadn’t, Molly thought she’d better prompt him.

  “So,” she said. “We’re going back into the Nightside. I can show you some of my favourite drinking haunts.” When that didn’t get a reaction, she tried again. “Do you have a plan? Please tell me you have a plan, because I’ve never been any good at those. Unless they involve hitting people, setting fire to things, or blowing up whole neighbourhoods.” Still no response. “All right, how are we going to get into the Nightside? We can’t use the Merlin Glass. Walker will have people looking for that.”

  “We’ll have to use one of the more traditional routes,” said Eddie. “Something Shaman and Roxie would know about.”

  “Good thinking,” said Molly, relieved he was speaking again. “Which one do you fancy? I know several.”

  Eddie smiled at her. “Of course you do. The Nightside’s always been a home away from home for you, hasn’t it?”

  “Can I help it if I feel more comfortable there than in this control-freak establishment? No wonder you left home the first chance you got.”

  “And yet, I keep coming back,” said Eddie. “What does that say about me?”

  “That you need me around, to remind you there are other options,” Molly said cheerfully. “What are we going to do, once we get to the Nightside?”

  “Ask questions and see where the answers lead us,” said Eddie. “Like the Matriarch said, someone must know something.”

  “In other words, you don’t have a plan. We’re just going to make it up as we go along.”

  “Yes,” said Eddie.

  “So we do know what we’re doing,” said Molly. “Good. I was worried there, for a moment.”

  They left Drood Hall through a side-door, without being noticed. Everyone else was too busy running their very important errands, looking out for the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and excitedly discussing Walker’s visit, all without slowing down. Eddie and Molly were old news now, and therefore invisible. Eddie was quite pleased about that. Molly wasn’t. She didn’t like being taken for granted.

  “Maybe I should give all the statues Tourette’s,” she said grimly.

  “What? Again?” said Eddie.

  “All right, you think of something!”

  “Later,” said Eddie.

  * * *


  • • •

  Out in the grounds, Eddie had the Merlin Glass open a door onto a grimy back alley off Oxford Street. No one noticed their arrival, one of the Glass’ more useful side-effects. After the pleasant quiet of the Drood grounds, the roar of London traffic and the constant babble of raised voices was almost deafening. Eddie shook the Glass down and put it away, while Molly took the opportunity to work a quick transformation on herself.

  Roxie Hazzard was a tall, muscular redhead in a black leather jacket, a T-shirt bearing the legend DIE SCUM DIE, battered old jeans, scuffed cowboy boots . . . and a length of steel chain wrapped loosely around her waist. A well-known adventurer and trouble-maker in her own right, Roxie was almost as well-known in the hidden world as Molly Metcalf. Originally created as an alternative persona for when Molly wanted to party in the Nightside without dragging her reputation along with her, Roxie Hazzard soon developed her own history and legend. Which did come in handy when Molly felt the need to do things she didn’t want Eddie to know about.

  He liked to think he’d reformed her.

  She struck a pose for Eddie, in the stained light of the alley-way, and grinned invitingly. “So, what do you think?” she said, in a low, sultry voice. “Am I as good-looking as Molly?”

  “You’re always Molly to me,” said Eddie, diplomatically. “You know, I’m never sure . . . Is that just a glamour, or is there an actual physical transformation?”

  “Get close enough and find out,” said Roxie.

  “Later,” said Eddie.

  Roxie strode out of the alley-way, taking the lead, and Eddie let her. Of such small compromises are relationships made. They emerged into the bright lights and packed pavements of Oxford Circus, and headed for the tube station. People gave Roxie Hazzard lots of room, almost without thinking about it, but scarcely noticed Eddie. Which was just the way he liked it. Back when he’d been the Droods’ main field agent in London, streets like this had been his domain. To protect and police. Eddie missed the simple anonymity of those days, before he became . . . whatever he was now. A legend, perhaps? He hoped not. He didn’t want to end up in Shadows Fall.

  He used his torc to raise his Sight, to show him all the secret inhabitants of the hidden world. And there they were, walking unseen and unsuspected right in the middle of a modern metropolis. Alien Greys in smart suits and sun-glasses, because they thought it helped them blend in. Light Beings, shimmering and scintillating as they danced through the crowds on their unknowable missions. And all the other kinds of abhumans and semi-humans, just getting on with their lives. You don’t have to visit the Nightside to mix with the unreal and the uncanny; you just need to open your eyes.

  If Humanity knew who and what they shared their world with every day, they’d go out of their minds. Which is why the Droods go to such trouble to ensure most people never know just what it is they’re being protected from.

  * * *

  • • •

  Eddie and Roxie descended into the Underground, and Eddie started to search his pockets for his Oyster Card, to work the ticket barriers. Roxie just sniffed and snapped her fingers, and the barriers sprang open obligingly. Eddie and Roxie went down into the depths for as far as they could go, then looked around until Roxie pointed out a small sign over a carefully unobtrusive door. The words were in Enochian, that artificial language created back in Elizabethan times specifically so men could talk with angels. Basically it read THIS WAY. It didn’t say, Abandon all hope; that was understood.

  The door opened to reveal an elevator with featureless brass walls and no control panel. Once Eddie and Roxie were inside, the door slammed shut, and the elevator went sideways, at some speed. The door finally opened again, onto a long, white-tiled passageway, curving steeply downwards. Heavy claw-marks had been gouged into the wall ahead of them, cutting through a thick display of arterial spatter that was still dripping. More fresh blood was scuffed along the floor, from where something heavy had been dragged away.

  “It’s way past time for another culling of the trolls,” said Roxie.

  Eddie shrugged. “Budget cutbacks . . .”

  They followed the passageway down, being careful where they put their feet, until a sudden sharp turning shepherded them onto a brightly lit platform that looked much like any other. Except that the destinations board said: SHADOWS FALL, HACELDAMA, ARCADIA, and NIGHTSIDE. Spread along the length of the platform, waiting for the next train to arrive, were a shaggy werewolf in a Hawaiian T-shirt, a group of headless monks and their seeing-eye velociraptors, half-a-dozen old-school punks with tall Mohicans and satanic circuitry implanted in their flesh instead of tattoos. And one tall, powerful, and extremely naked warrior woman covered from brow to toe in blue woad markings, reading the Financial Times with great concentration. The battle-axe on her hip was singing something wistful in old Gaelic.

  A busker with multiple personality disorder was singing a cappella versions of West End show tunes, in close harmonies with himself. The cap at his feet held spare change from places that didn’t even exist any longer. Eddie contributed a few coins because karma can be a pain. Two white-faced mimes were beating the crap out of a recalcitrant vending machine with invisible hammers, sending cans of soft drink flying in all directions.

  No one paid Eddie and Roxie any attention after the first quick glance. Most people in the hidden world knew Eddie as Shaman Bond: a familiar face on the scene, a con man and a chancer, always on the look-out for some profitable trouble to get into. Eddie had put a lot of effort into establishing that affable and acceptable persona, to the point where he often felt more comfortable being Shaman Bond. If only because Shaman didn’t have to carry around Eddie’s family history. And no one gave Roxie Hazzard a second look in case she took offence and kicked the crap out of them. Eddie and Roxie found a quiet space for themselves and stood together, waiting for the next train.

  It wasn’t long before a blast of uncomfortably hot compressed air slammed past the platform, ruffling clothes and scorching faces, running ahead of an approaching train. It blasted out of the tunnel-mouth and stormed into the station, screeching like a demon let out of Hell on day release. A long, shining, silver bullet with no windows anywhere.

  The train screeched to a halt, rocking slightly. Just one extremely long carriage whose heavily reinforced doors hissed open to reveal pleasantly illuminated and surprisingly comfortable compartments. Eddie and Roxie stepped aboard through the nearest door, while everyone else went out of their way to choose other doors. Eddie said nothing. Roxie took it as her right.

  Once they were inside, and the door had hissed shut, Eddie looked carefully up and down the compartment. All the seats were empty apart from one young woman with a shaved head and a third eye tattooed on her forehead. She was wearing nothing but thin black leather straps with chunky silver spikes that stood out starkly against skin with the dead white pallor of someone who hadn’t seen the sun for a long time. She was reading a large leather-bound volume with completely blank pages. Except Eddie knew they weren’t blank, to her. The unblinking white-on-white eyes marked her as a graduate of the Deep School, the Dark Academie. The one place you can go when even the Nightside can’t deliver the kind of forbidden knowledge you’re looking for.

  Eddie and Roxie sat down facing the young woman, in the middle of the compartment. So they could keep a watchful eye on her and anyone entering the compartment from either direction. The price of safety is eternal vigilance, and a constant readiness to kick off big time. The train pulled out of the station with a resigned sigh, and the carriage rocked from side to side in a not-unpleasant way as it picked up speed. There were no windows because the train had to pass through the kind of places you really wouldn’t want to see. The steel walls had been specially reinforced to keep things out. The train would get them where they were going, but no one ever said it was the safest way to travel. The Nightside isn’t supposed to be easy to get to.

&nb
sp; After they’d been travelling for a while, Roxie leaned forward to address the young woman sitting opposite, but she started talking before Roxie even opened her mouth.

  “Eddie Drood: field agent, torc bearer, a legend in his own lunch-time. And Molly Metcalf, the wickedest witch that ever was, and a spanner in the works of the world machine. Also known as Shaman Bond and Roxie Hazzard. What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “I just wanted to ask about your fellow Dark Academie graduate Hadleigh Oblivion,” said Roxie. “I’ve a feeling we might be bumping into him in the Nightside.”

  “What do you want to know?” said the young woman, still not looking up from the blank pages of her book.

  “What does his title mean?” said Roxie. “Detective Inspectre?”

  “It’s his responsibility to investigate crimes against reality itself.”

  “Okay,” said Roxie. “But what does that mean?”

  “Hadleigh Oblivion knows what’s real and what isn’t,” said the young woman. “Everyone else only thinks they do. Even Walker and the Authorities bow down to the Detective Inspectre when they must. Just as you will if you go up against him.”

  “You think we’re going to?” said Eddie.

  “You want to know who’s behind the changes in the Nightside,” said the young woman.

  “And Hadleigh knows?” said Roxie.

  “The Detective Inspectre knows everything.”

  “What if we don’t want to meet him?” said Eddie. “Our last encounter didn’t go at all well. He wanted to drag me down to the Dark Academie, so they could take my armour away.”

  “And you stopped him,” said the young woman. “A lot of people are still talking about that.”

  “But what is it that makes him so special?” said Roxie.

  The young woman smiled for the first time. “Some say . . . he’s realer than we are.”

  Eddie and Roxie looked at each other.