Daemons Are Forever sh-2 Read online

  “A shortcut,” I said, peering suspiciously under a front bumper.

  “You take me on the best rides, Eddie!”

  I straightened up, and she threw her arms around me and hugged me. I let her.

  “Welcome to my garage,” I said. “It’s small, but pokey. Now come on up and see my flat. Try not to be too underwhelmed. We can’t all live in a forest.”

  I studied the door to my flat carefully. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of place, but the door wasn’t locked. I could tell. And I always lock the door behind me when I leave. Secret agents really can’t afford to forget things like that. So I stood a safe distance away from my door and looked at it thoughtfully, while Molly looked at me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s been here.”

  “Your enemies?”

  “More likely my family. As soon as I was declared rogue, the Matriarch would have sent a team here to turn my flat over, looking for evidence she could use against me. And my family is never subtle about such things.”

  “You think they left a booby trap behind?”

  “No. I’d See a trap. More likely they just trashed the place, to leave a message. It’s what I would have done, when I was a field agent.”

  I took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and went in. They’d trashed my home, and been very thorough about it. All the furniture had been overturned, where it hadn’t been smashed. They’d torn up the carpeting to lever up the floorboards. My possessions had been tossed all over the place, all the drawers pulled out and emptied, their contents scattered everywhere. My computer had been torn apart to get at the hard drive, and the monitor had been smashed.

  They’d even ripped the posters off the wall and torn them up.

  Every room was the same. Nothing had been spared. They’d even dragged the covers off my bed and cut open the mattress, to search inside it. And on the bedroom wall, above the headboard, someone had spray-painted the word traitor. The word hit me like a punch in the gut. A cold fist closed around my heart, and it was all I could do to get my breath. Molly came in beside me and saw the word on the wall. She slipped an arm through mine and hugged it to her side.

  “Oh, Eddie, I’m so sorry. I’m sure this was a lovely place before…”

  “I was never a traitor,” I said. I didn’t recognise my own voice. “I was the only one who stayed true to what the family was supposed to be.”

  “I know, Eddie. Come away.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right.”

  It wasn’t, but I let her lead me away.

  Back in the living room, I looked around me, trying to make some sense of the mess. They hadn’t actually broken much. Probably didn’t have the time.

  “They really did a job on you,” said Molly. She was trying hard not to step on things, but it was impossible. I loved her for making the effort, though.

  “It’s what I expected,” I said. “I did worse, in my time, when I was a field agent. Turning over some villain’s lair in the search for clues, or evidence. Or just because I could. It was all part of the game, then. But…cosmic payback’s a bitch. Do you believe in karma, Molly?”

  “My karma ran over my dogma,” Molly said briskly. “Didn’t you think to put any protections around your home?”

  I snorted. “Tons of the bloody things. You’d have a better chance of breaking into Bill Gates’s private porn stash. But nothing my family couldn’t get through. I never thought I’d need to protect myself against my own family.”

  Molly frowned. “Wouldn’t the neighbours have heard something, and called the police?”

  “No one ever hears a Drood at work,” I said. “Or if they do, we make them forget it.”

  “For their own good, of course.”

  “Mostly, yes. Oh, I see; you were being ironic. Sorry. I’m not always very good at picking up on that.”

  “You and your whole family,” muttered Molly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing…What do you suppose they were looking for here?”

  “The usual,” I said. “Objects of Power, unauthorised grimoires and forbidden texts, information I shouldn’t have had access to … maybe even records of payments from outside the family. Anything they could use to condemn, pressure, or blackmail me. My family has always preferred to negotiate from a position of strength. Fools… As though I’d leave anything that important just lying around here, for anyone to find…”

  “Right,” said Molly, smiling mischievously. “Where do you keep your really secret stuff, Eddie? Your embarrassing photos of yourself as a kid, your old teenage crush love letters, and your own personal naughty films? Any particular favourites you might want to bring along with you? I can be very broad-minded…”

  “I don’t have any of those things,” I said with some dignity.

  Molly sighed and shook her head. “For a secret agent, you’ve led a very sheltered life. Not to worry, Eddie. I’ll be your porn.”

  I smiled. “And they say romantic banter is dead.” It didn’t take me long to gather up the few things I wanted to take with me. Some battered old Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat books that were my favourites when I was a kid. A framed photo of my parents, taken just before they went off to die on one last mission for the family. Molly studied the photo curiously.

  “They look so young,” she said finally. “Not even as old as we are now. Much the same age as my parents, when they were murdered by the Droods.”

  “We have so much in common,” I said, dropping the photo into a carrier bag along with the books. “I promise you; I will find out the truth about what really happened to your parents, and mine.”

  “If you like,” said Molly. “I told you; I don’t believe in looking back.”

  I rescued a dozen or so of my favourite CDs from the mess on the floor. (Molly drew the line at any of my Enya albums, which I thought was a bit mean. I don’t object to her playing her Iron Maiden in the car.) And that…was that. I looked around, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted to take with me. I looked down at the carrier bag. Not much to show, for ten years in one place. Not much to show, for a life.

  “I did have some good times here,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” said Molly. “I’ll bet you were a real party animal at weekends.”

  “No,” I said. “I hardly ever brought people back here. Because people only knew me as Shaman Bond, and this was the only place I could be Eddie Drood. The family discourages field agents from having close friends, or anything else. Close associations might dilute our loyalty to the family. And you can’t ever be really close to anyone, when the life you share is a lie. Agents in the field live solitary lives, because we have to. Because when you care for someone, you don’t want to endanger them.”

  “And your family encouraged this?” said Molly.

  “Of course. They wanted the family to be the most important thing in our lives, so we might never be tempted to turn away from them. I had more freedom than most, and I still toed the family line…right up to the point where they turned on me. I had friends…but I could never tell them anything that mattered. I had lovers, but never loves. It wasn’t allowed. All I had…was the work.”

  “If you start getting maudlin on me,” Molly said firmly, “I will slap you, and it will hurt. I told you; never look back. All you ever see are mistakes, failures, and missed opportunities. Concentrate on the here and now! You’re running your family, you have all the best toys to play with, and you have me! What more could mortal man desire?”

  “My Enya CDs.”

  “One slap, on its way.”

  We both laughed. I took her in my arms and held her close. She nuzzled her face into my shoulder and rubbed my back with her hands. I bent my head over hers and breathed deeply the perfume from her hair. I felt…like I could have stayed there forever. But I had things to do.

  “My world used to be so simple,” I said. “I knew who I was, and what I was, and what I was supposed to do with my
life.”

  “No,” said Molly, not raising her head from my shoulder. “You only thought you did. Welcome to the real world, Eddie. Hateful place, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I said. “It has you in it.”

  We left the flat and made our way down into the enclosed courtyard below, and then stopped as we realised the wrought-iron gates were standing wide open. I looked out into the street, and a whole army of heavily armed and armoured men looked right back at me. Molly moved in close beside me. Two black attack helicopters filled the early morning with their clamour as they manoeuvred into position overhead. I lifted my head and squared my shoulders. First rule of a field agent; never show fear. I sauntered over to the open gates for a better look.

  There had to be at least fifty armed men, anonymous in body armour and dark-visored helmets, every one of them pointing their oversized guns right at me. Automatic weapons, too; top of the line. They weren’t taking any chances. I looked up and down the street. They’d blocked off both ends with armoured vehicles. Frightened faces peered out from closed windows, up and down the street. You didn’t expect scenes like this in civilised Knightsbridge.

  One armoured figure moved forward to face me, still careful to maintain a safe distance. He pushed his visor up just enough to get an electric bullhorn under it.

  “Edwin Drood, Molly Metcalf; you are ordered to surrender yourselves. Failure to do so will be met with all necessary force.”

  I looked at Molly. “So, how do you want to play this?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Oh, the usual, I think. Extreme violence and unpleasantness, visited upon one and all, suddenly and horribly and all over the place.”

  “My kind of woman,” I said.

  “Surrender or die!” said the spokesman through his bullhorn.

  “Do you mind?” I said witheringly. “We’re talking, here. We’ll get to you in a moment.” I turned back to Molly. “I’m a bit reluctant to go head-to-head with them here. Right out in the open, surrounded by innocent bystanders.”

  Molly shrugged. “They chose the setting. We could make a run for the Bentley, I suppose, and shortcut our way out of this…but I don’t do the running thing.”

  “Same here,” I said. “It does so tend to give the wrong impression. These scumbags need to be reminded of what it means to challenge a Drood.”

  “And the wild witch of the woods, darling.”

  “Of course, my dear.”

  “If you don’t surrender right this minute…”

  I had to laugh. “He doesn’t know us very well, does he? Who do you think they are?”

  “Big display of force, even bigger guns, and not a grain of common sense among the lot of them…got to be Manifest Destiny. The I-Can’t-Believe-They’re-Not-Fascists brigade. Truman must have got his act back together again. Who knew he’d still be mad at us, just because we destroyed his underground base and scattered his whole repellent organisation to the winds?”

  “All-powerful cult leaders with delusions of godhood are often funny that way,” I agreed.

  The spokesman threw his bullhorn onto the ground and stalked forward to confront us. Molly and I turned around and fixed him with a thoughtful gaze, and he slammed to a halt. He was carefully not pointing his automatic weapon at us, just yet.

  “Look,” he said, in the strained tones of someone trying to be reasonable under very trying circumstances. “We both know you don’t have your golden armour anymore, Eddie. None of the Droods do. If I have to order my men to open fire, you’ll end up riddled with so many bullets your family will be able to use your corpse as a colander. You’ll have so much lead in you, your coffin will have to be labelled toxic waste, and even your DNA will end up in pieces. So will you please just do the sensible thing and surrender, and we can all get out of here!”

  “I think you pushed those metaphors a bit too far,” I said.

  “Definitely reaching there, at the end,” said Molly.

  “Nobody does really good villainous threats anymore,” I said. “In the old days, a real villain could make your blood run cold with just a simile.”

  “Hell, I could make someone wet themselves with just a baleful glare,” said Molly.

  “Sorry,” I said to the spokesman. “We don’t do reasonable. Do we, dear?”

  “Certainly not,” said Molly. “Bad for the image. Hey, what do you want to bet I can turn this creep into some kind of dripping snot creature before he can give the order to open fire?”

  “You can’t take on a whole army!” said the spokesman. His voice was becoming just a bit hysterical. “Extreme measures have been authorised!”

  “Well,” I said. “That’s always nice to know. Now we won’t have to hold back. I count fifty-seven armed men, Molly.”

  “Probably more in hiding, as reinforcements,” said Molly. “He looks the sneaky type. Nice to know they’re taking us seriously, at least.”

  “Who are you?” I said bluntly to the spokesman, leaning forward to try to peer through his dark visor. “Your voice is familiar…”

  “Codename Alpha!” he snapped, actually shying back a little. “Are you going to come quietly, or not?”

  “Oh, definitely not,” said Molly. “We have a reputation to live down to.”

  I gestured at the two black attack helicopters hovering overhead, stirring our hair with their downdraft. “I really don’t approve of those, Alpha. We’re supposed to fight secret wars, behind the scenes of the world. The general public is never supposed to know about us, and the things we have to do.”

  Alpha shrugged. “It’s a new world now. You saw to that. Surrender. Now. This is your last chance.”

  I looked at Molly. “I feel like a little light exercise,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I feel like kicking some heads in and stamping on some throats,” said Molly.

  “Never knew a time when you didn’t,” I said. “Let’s dance.”

  I armoured up, all in a moment. I subvocalised the old activating Words, and the silver strange matter held in the collar around my neck flowed suddenly forth, encasing my whole body from top to toe. Alpha stared blankly for a moment, and then actually screamed before turning and retreating rapidly back to his men. He’d been told I didn’t have my armour anymore, and he was wrong. I’d upgraded. I knew what I looked like. A gleaming silver statue, the perfect protective armour, seamless, without any joints or vulnerable points. Even my face was a featureless silver mask, through which I could see and hear and breathe perfectly naturally.

  I flexed my arms, and the silver armour flowed smoothly with me. I felt stronger, faster, sharper, like coming suddenly awake after a long doze. This was the great secret of the Drood family; the marvellous armour that makes us so much more than human, that lets us do our job no matter what the bad guys throw at us. Once it was gold; now it is silver. The details change but the war goes on. I closed my hands into armoured fists, and heavy spikes appeared on the silver knuckles as I concentrated. I was looking forward to seeing what the new armour could do under battle conditions.

  Alpha finally screamed an order through his bullhorn, and all the armoured men opened fire at once, concentrating their aim on me. I’d already moved to cover Molly, and I stood firm as a storm of bullets slammed into me. Instead of ricocheting harmlessly from my armoured form, as they used to with the golden armour, the silver strange matter absorbed both the impact of the bullets and the bullets themselves. Just swallowed them right up, as fast as they came. Safer on innocent passersby, I supposed, but I did wonder whether the armour would have to crap the bullets out again, later. I made a mental note not to have Molly standing behind me after the battle was over.

  The armoured men realised their bullets were having no effect on me, and the fusillade died raggedly away. Molly immediately stepped out from behind me, raised her arms in the stance of summoning, and called down the elements.

  “Awake, awake, ye northern winds…”

  A great stormwind came howling down the road.
It picked the armoured men up and sent them tumbling head over heels the whole length of the street. Some hid in doorways or behind cars and concentrated their fire on Molly. The bullets punched through the raging wind, only to turn into rose petals before they got anywhere near her. She was protected by all the magics of the wild wood, and nothing from the material world could touch her. She only let me protect her because she knew it made me feel better. She gestured sharply, and lightning stabbed down from the darkening skies, picking out armoured men in their hiding places and incinerating them.

  New men arrived from concealing positions, carrying heavier weapons. They forced their way forward against the howling winds, step by step. Molly stabbed a finger at them, and the street was suddenly full of a dozen or so very confused-looking llamas.

  Molly was on a roll.

  But that kind of magic took it out of her, so I decided it was time for me to get hands-on. I charged forward into the mass of the remaining soldiers, moving at superhuman speed, driven by the inhuman strength of my armoured legs. I was in and among the armoured men faster than they could react, striking out at them with appalling augmented strength. My spiked silver knuckles stove in reinforced helmets and smashed through Kevlar as though it were paper. Blood flew on the air, and men fell screaming. Still alive. I prefer not to kill if I don’t have to. I’m an agent, not an assassin.

  They crowded in around me, hoping to overwhelm me and drag me down through sheer force of numbers. They beat at me with gun butts and shot me in the face at point-blank range. I picked them up and threw them this way and that, sending them flying the length of the street with my more-than-human strength. Men crashed into walls that cracked under the impact. More and more armoured men came running to face me, and I had to admire their courage, if nothing else. I went to meet them with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. The good thing about fighting real scumbags like Manifest Destiny is that you never have to feel bad about the awful things you do to them. And it felt good to have a solid enemy to strike back at, to take out the frustrations of the day on. I waded right into the thick of them, fists flying.