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  “There is a war coming,” Harry said, his voice loud and confident. “The nests of the Loathly Ones must be destroyed, and the Invaders prevented from entering our reality. But we can’t just wait around for new torcs…coming as soon as possible. We need them now. Right now! What’s to prevent our many enemies from launching an attack, while we’re perceived to be weak and vulnerable after such a major defeat? What’s to stop the Loathly Ones from hitting us right now, in retaliation for the destruction of their towers, or to prevent us from attacking other nests? We need our torcs. The family must be protected. It must be made strong again. And for that…we need a new leader.”

  He stared right at me, his face cold and unyielding. “I demand that Edwin step down! His half-baked ideas and incompetent leadership have cost us too much already. He’s a threat to us all. He has proved himself a failure in the field, got most of his people killed, and doesn’t even have the decency to apologise or admit his fault. It’s time to undo all the damage he’s done to the family, and return us to traditional control. We must restore the Matriarch to power. She alone has the experience to wage a war successfully.”

  “No,” I said flatly, and my voice stopped him dead. All faces turned back to me again. I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. “Are your memories really so short? The Matriarch betrayed this family. Have you forgotten the price she made you pay for your old armour? The deaths of your twin brothers and sisters? All those babies, sacrificed to the Heart? She sanctioned that practice, and kept it a secret from you, because she knew you’d never go along with it once you knew the truth. Will you sell your souls again, so easily? The torcs I will provide you, from Strange, will have no price tag attached. The armour I will give you, you can wear proudly.”

  I looked at Harry. “I can guarantee the family new torcs. Can the Matriarch do that? Can you, Harry?”

  “So, Strange belongs to you, does he?” said Harry.

  “Strange belongs to no one,” I said. “But he knows an arsehole when he sees one.” I looked back at the sea of watching faces. “It’s up to you. Make your own decision. Don’t be told what to do, by the Matriarch, or Harry, or me. I can’t lead you into a war against your will, and I wouldn’t if I could. I’m not your Patriarch. I’m just a Drood, determined to do what’s right. To be what I was raised to be. To fight the good fight against all the enemies of humanity.”

  There was a long pause, during which I could almost hear my heart hammering in my chest. I had nothing else to say. And then, in ones and twos, and then in groups, my family applauded, accepting my words. They bowed their heads to me and then turned away and dispersed, heading back into the Hall. Not an overwhelming response, but it would do. For now. I looked around, but Harry had already disappeared. Running off to report back to the Matriarch, no doubt. I did see the Armourer, taking time out for a quiet cigarillo, and he gave me a cheerful thumbs-up. I nodded, and went back to join Molly.

  “Fight the good fight?” she said. “As opposed to the bad fight, I suppose. What the hell’s a bad fight?”

  “The kind where you lose two hundred and forty good men and women,” I said. “I can’t do this alone, Molly. I need help. Professional help. People who know how to fight a war.”

  “The clock’s ticking,” said Molly. “Where are you going to find these people in time?”

  “Precisely,” I said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Out of Time

  Penny came marching towards us with a determined look in her eyes. “Keep going,” I said to Molly.

  “We could run,” she said.

  “Lacks dignity.”

  By which time Penny had caught us up anyway. She planted herself right in front of us, hands on hips, glaring at me. I smiled pleasantly back, like I hadn’t a care in the world, knowing that would annoy her the most.

  “We have a problem,” Penny said flatly.

  “Really?” I said. “You do surprise me. And let me guess: It’s all my fault, right?”

  “Maybe,” said Penny. “Janissary Jane has gone missing. Disappeared without trace. There isn’t even any record of her leaving the grounds, which is supposed to be impossible with all the new security systems we’ve had put in place since your return.”

  “Jane’s a professional,” I said calmly. “She comes and goes as she pleases. Still, it’s odd she should just disappear, without saying anything. Any clues?”

  “Just the one. A note, pinned to her door with a knife. It said, Gone to get really big guns.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like Jane, all right.”

  “She must have taken the losses at Nazca personally,” said Molly.

  “Jane’s a soldier,” I said. “She’s fought in demons wars, seen whole civilisations die around her…If Janissary Jane thinks we need bigger guns, we must be in even more trouble than we thought. Still, she’ll be back.”

  “Hopefully with really big guns,” said Molly.

  “Anything else?” I said to Penny.

  “While I’m here, I would like to remind you about the decisions the Inner Circle made in your absence.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” I said.

  Penny sighed. “I told them you’d take it personally. Look, Eddie, this really isn’t about you. It’s about what’s best for the family. No one’s talking about deposing you; we just want you to consult with us more.”

  “Trust me, Penny,” I said. “I understand.”

  Penny sighed again. “If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So, in the interests of peace and good will and not smacking you around the head in public, I will change the subject. Nice speech you just made. You said all the right things. And unlike Harry, what you said clearly came from the heart. Keep that up, and you might just take the family with you after all.”

  “Only might?” I said.

  “There’s more to being a leader than being right,” said Penny. “You have to inspire, to motivate…and to know when to play politics with the right people.”

  “And there I thought you were changing the subject,” I said. “Let me try. How’s Mr. Stab?”

  She looked at me sharply, immediately on guard. “He’s doing well. Settling in. His lectures are always standing room only, though as yet no one’s worked up the nerve to attend a personal tutorial. He’s a fascinating man. Very…deep. Why are you asking me, Eddie?”

  “Because you’ve been spending a lot of time with him,” I said.

  “I won’t even ask how you know that,” Penny said coldly.

  “Best not to,” I agreed.

  “What I do in my private time is my business, Eddie. Don’t go poking your nose in where it isn’t wanted or needed. Or Mr. Stab might cut it off.”

  She stalked away, her stiff back radiating anger. Molly looked after her. “What was that all about?”

  “It seems that Penny and Mr. Stab are something of an item, these days.”

  “You’re joking! Really? Doesn’t she know who he is? How can she not know who and what he is?”

  “She knows,” I said. “She just doesn’t want to believe it. She thinks she can change him. And maybe she can. You always said he was a good friend to you…”

  “Well yes, but only because he knows I can kick his arse in a dozen different ways…Oh hell, I’d better get after her. Time for some serious girl talk, and perhaps even an intervention. See you later, sweetie.”

  A quick peck on the cheek, a waggle of the fingers, and she was off after Penny, moving at speed. I hoped the intervention worked out. I could use one less thing to worry about.

  I wandered through the Hall, not going anywhere in particular, just thinking. If I couldn’t trust the advisors in my own Inner Circle anymore, then I’d just have to get some new advisors. Preferably ones who understood more about the realities of fighting a war. And I had a really great idea on where to find them, made even more fun by the certain knowledge that this was one idea the Inner Circle definitely wouldn’t approve of. I was still grinning a
t the thought when my left jacket pocket started jumping around like a wild thing. I grabbed at it with both hands, wrestled it still, and finally pulled out Merlin’s Glass, shaking and shuddering like a vibrator in heat. It jerked itself out of my hands, grew rapidly in size, and then hung there on the air before me, a gateway though which I could see the old library. Shelves and shelves of books, in a warm golden glow, accompanied by the definite sound of someone muttering to himself. William Drood appeared suddenly in the frame and nodded brusquely to me.

  “Don’t panic, it’s only me. I needed to talk to you privately, so I activated the Glass from a distance.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

  He snorted loudly. “Lot of things you don’t know about the Merlin Glass, boy, and I haven’t enough time to warn you about all of them. Suffice to say that this is a device constructed by the infamous Merlin Satanspawn. The clue is in the name.”

  “Next time, ring a little bell or something,” I said. “Scared the hell out of me.”

  “You’re lucky I was able to improvise a vibrate mode,” said William. “The original version called for a really loud gong sound. Now pay attention, Edwin. I need to talk to you. Here, in the old library, where we won’t be overheard. Come on, just step through the doorway. I haven’t got all day.”

  I sighed inwardly. It didn’t seem all that long ago when I was the one giving orders around here. I stepped through the opening, into the old library, and the Glass immediately shrank down to normal size again and tucked itself back into my pocket. I didn’t know it could do that, either. I resolved to spend more time reading the instruction manual, first chance I got.

  William heaved an oversized leather-bound book onto a brass reading lectern and leafed through the pages rather more quickly than was probably safe for such ancient paper. He soon found the right page and began reading it to himself in a fast murmur, following the line of words with a fingertip. I waited for him to fill me in on whatever was so important that he’d had to summon me so urgently, but he seemed to have forgotten I was even there. I found a chair and sat down to wait.

  Every time I thought William was getting better, he fell back into Oddly John mode.

  The younger librarian Rafe appeared from between the towering stacks with a cup of steaming tea, which I accepted gratefully. Rafe looked fondly at William and leaned forward to murmur in my ear.

  “You have to make allowances for the old codger. We’ve both been up all night, searching for the information you wanted. The old library has copies of books I never dreamed still existed, some of them so dangerous we had to perform low-level exorcisms before we could even get near them. William is a marvel, he really is. Jumping from one clue to the next, following the trail from volume to volume, from parchment scrolls to palimpsests to one ancient treatise actually inscribed on thin plates of beaten gold. I’ve been trying to get him to take a rest, but he’s been a driven man ever since you showed him that Kandarian artefact.”

  “Damn,” I said. “It wasn’t that urgent. Has he really been up all night and this morning?”

  “Yes he has,” said William, not looking up from his reading. “And actually, it is that urgent. I’m not deaf, you know. I can hear everything you’re saying. Now then, Eddie, I’ve turned up a great many references to Kandar, and the Invaders. Most of them distinctly worrying, and all of them things you need to know right now. Which is why I brought you here. Rafe, where’s that cup of tea I asked for?”

  Rafe looked at me, but I’d already drunk most of it.

  “I’ll go get another cup,” said Rafe.

  “Never mind, never mind; stick around, Rafe. I want you to hear this as well as Edwin. Make sure I don’t miss anything out. I’m not as sharp as I once was…Pay attention, Edwin! This is important! The whole family needs to know this.”

  His voice was getting querulous. Rafe brought forward a chair and William sank gratefully into it. He rubbed tiredly at his forehead. He looked suddenly older, distracted, and worryingly vague about the eyes. When he lowered his hand it was shaking visibly.

  “I meant to go to the funeral,” he said suddenly. “Rafe?”

  “We missed it,” said Rafe. “I did tell you…but you said the work was more important.”

  “And so it is! I did mean to go, but…What was I saying?”

  “Perhaps you should go to your room and have a little lie down,” I said. “Get your strength back.”

  “No!” William said immediately. “Nothing wrong with me! And there’s no time, no time! Besides … I like it here. I’m not really…ready, to meet people yet.”

  “But you’re home now,” I said. “Among family.”

  “Especially not family,” William said firmly. “I don’t want any of them to see me like this. I’m not… all the way back, yet. I wore Oddly John as my cover for a long time, and he’s very hard to put down. Sometimes I wonder if he’s the real me now, and William is just a memory of someone I used to be, long ago … I don’t want to go to my room. I like it here. I find the books…comforting. And Rafe. You’re a good boy, Rafe. Make a fine librarian, one day.”

  “You’ll be fine, William,” I said reassuringly. “You just need a little time, to adjust.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me, looking around him in a vague, troubled way. “I hear things. See things. Always off to one side, where I can’t pin them down. I thought that would stop once I left Happy Daze. Maybe they followed me here.” He put his hands together in his lap, to stop them trembling, and then he looked at me. “I think the Heart did something, to my mind. To keep me from telling what I knew. And I think…whatever it did…it’s still happening.”

  “The Heart is gone,” I said firmly. “Gone and destroyed. It can’t hurt you anymore.”

  He just shook his head slowly, wringing his hands together and muttering under his breath. I started to get up. Whatever information William had found, or thought he’d found, clearly couldn’t be relied on. Maybe Rafe could dig some sense out of it later. And then I stopped short as William rose abruptly to his feet and glared right into my face.

  “And where do you think you’re going, boy? Just because I have a bad moment? You wanted to know about the Kandarians, and the Invaders, and I know everything you need to know. Everything the family needs to know. So you just sit back down, and listen.”

  His eyes were clear and sharp again, and his presence was almost overwhelming. As though some inner switch had been thrown, and the old William had woken up again and resurfaced. I sat back down, and William took up a lecturer’s stance.

  “The Kandarians made themselves powerful by voluntarily giving themselves over to temporary possession by forces from Outside,” he said crisply. “As a result their warriors were inhumanly strong, and fast, and incredibly resistant to pain or injury. Remind you of anything? Yes, just like our family, the Kandarians made a deal with a greater power, but they were never satisfied. Always wanting more, always making new deals with new hosts… As they conquered all the lands and civilisations around them, and spread their vicious empire of slaughter and torture and terror over wider and wider territories, the stronger they needed to be, to hang on to what they’d taken. In the end, their enemies banded together to put a stop to Kandarian expansion. The Kandarians found that unacceptable. They were having far too much fun. And so they determined to become even stronger and more powerful. Whatever the cost. They wanted to be gods on earth. So they made one more deal, with what we now know as the Loathly Ones, who in turn introduced the Kandarians to the Invaders. Very powerful Beings, from outside space and time. And that was the Kandarians’ first mistake. Contact with the Invaders drove the Kandarians insane. All of them. They turned on each other, and wiped out their entire race and civilisation in one terrible night of death and destruction. Doing to themselves what they had spent so many years doing to everyone else.

  “Not one of them survived.

  “They didn’t know what we know now. That there aren’t r
eally any Loathly Ones, as such. Not as separate entities. They’re just the protrusions into our reality of much bigger entities. The fingertips, as it were, of the Invaders. Think of the Loathly Ones as Trojan horses, through which the Invaders can gain a foothold in other realities. The Invaders have many names, in many cultures, and are feared by everyone with two brain cells to rub together. The Many-Angled Ones, the Horror From Beyond, the Hungry Gods. Beings from a higher reality than our own, who descend into lesser realities like ours in order to feed, to consume us. They feed on life, on every living thing, from the biggest to the tiniest. They eat worlds, wipe out whole realities, always moving on to the next, like cosmic locusts.

  “When our family first made a deal with the Loathly Ones, bringing them through into our world as a weapon to use against the Nazis, we unknowingly brought our world, our reality, to the attention of the Invaders. And though we were careful to bring through only a small number of Loathly Ones, small enough to control, we thought… still, we opened a door that was never properly closed. And of course the Loathly Ones did break free from our control, and down the years have grown in numbers and power, until finally they’re ready to summon the Invaders through. So they can feed on us. On everything. All life, all creation. We have to stop this, Edwin, because we started it.”

  William finally stopped, standing straight and tall, looking at me expectantly. I looked at Rafe.

  “He’s not exaggerating,” said Rafe. His voice was steady, though his face was pale and sweating. “I’ve checked all the references. It’s all there, in the books. It’s just that no one ever put it all together, before William.”

  “All right,” I said, just a bit unsteadily. “This is much bigger than we thought. How do we fight these… Invaders?”

  “You don’t,” William said flatly. “If they ever break through, it’s all over. You have to prevent the Loathly Ones from building their towers. Wipe them out, down to the last one. Or we’ll never be safe.”