For Heaven's Eyes Only sh-5 Page 3

I believed that. I backed slowly away as Walker advanced on me. I was thinking hard, looking all around me, trying hard to call up any information I had about the Hall that Walker couldn’t possibly know. Something I could use against him. The painted portraits on the walls caught my attention. The images were moving, changing, faces with crazy eyes and distorted expressions. Becoming nightmare images, glimpses into Hell, as though all my ancestors were trapped and damned and suffering. I turned my head away, refusing to believe that.

  Matthew and Alexandra appeared again, walking down the long hall towards me.

  “Go on,” said Alexandra. “Kill us again. You know you want to. But you can’t. Tell Walker what he wants to know.”

  “I didn’t kill either of you,” I said, and then stopped and stared at them both as that thought struck home. I hadn’t killed them; Jacob had. But these two hadn’t known that, so they couldn’t be who they appeared to be. Jacob and Uncle James had both said not everyone in this Hall was who or what they appeared to be. . . .

  “You’re not real,” I said firmly. “I don’t believe in you.”

  I glared at Matthew and Alexandra, and they faded away in the face of my certainty. I turned and looked at Walker.

  “Just you and me now, Walker. Or perhaps it always was. If you are Walker.”

  He considered me thoughtfully, as we stood facing each other. Two men in an empty hall, the prisoner and his inquisitor. Walker sighed briefly, and adjusted one spotless cuff.

  “There’s nowhere you can go, Eddie. And I have all the time in the world to break your will and learn what I need to know. Everyone talks, eventually.”

  “Use your Voice,” I said. “Go on. But you can’t, can you? Because you’re not really Walker. And this isn’t Drood Hall. Is anything here real? Is anyone? Or is this all just a clash of wills between me and whoever you really are? You can’t get anything out of me unless I offer it freely, and I’ll never do that.”

  “Never is a long time,” said Walker. “I can walk out of here, go about my business, and come back whenever I please. Might be a few days, or a few years, maybe even a few centuries. Or perhaps I’ll stay away until you’re so desperate for another human voice, for human contact, that you’ll beg me to come back. Beg to tell me everything you know, to relieve the awful solitude. Hell isn’t other people, Eddie. Hell is an empty house, forever and ever and ever.”

  “And I will always defy you,” I said. “Forever and a day. Remember the Drood oath: ‘Anything for the family.’ We mean it, Walker. That’s what makes us strong, not our armour.”

  “Anything for the family?” said Walker. “I think I believe you, Eddie. Ah, well.” He tipped his bowler hat to me and started to turn away.

  “Hold it,” I said. “Are you really Walker? Are you really dead? Am I?”

  He smiled vaguely. “Who can say, in a place like this?”

  “If I am dead,” I said, “and this is a place of the dead . . . why haven’t I seen my parents?”

  “Charles and Emily?” said Walker. “Whatever makes you think they’re dead?”

  He opened the doors, stepped through them, and was gone. I started after him, and then stopped short as a great blaze of pure white light swelled up before me. And out of that light stepped Molly: my sweet, wild witch, Molly Metcalf. She smiled widely at me, rushed forward, and threw her arms around me, holding me tight, so tight I thought she’d never let me go. I held her just as tightly, even as a terrible sadness stabbed my heart like a knife.

  “Oh, Molly,” I said finally. “How did you die? Who killed you, to send you here?”

  She let go of me immediately, and pushed me back so she could stare into my eyes. “I’m not dead, sweetie. Neither are you. Though you came bloody close.”

  “So this isn’t Drood Hall? Or some cold place in Hell?”

  “Not even close,” said Molly. “This is Limbo. And I am here to take you home.”

  She embraced me again, and the light blazed up, and finally I felt warm again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  No Place Like Home

  And I woke up safe in my Molly’s arms, bursting back into consciousness like a swimmer rising up from the depths and breaking the surface of the sea. I was back in the real Hall, back in the real Sanctity, basking in Ethel’s rose red glow, sitting up on the floor beside Molly, surrounded by my family. The Armourer was there, my uncle Jack, a middle-aged man in a stained lab coat, looking shocked and concerned but trying to hide it. The Sarjeant-at-Arms, big and brutal and permanently angry. My cousin Harry, slick and supercilious in his neat grey suit and wire-rimmed glasses. And my other cousin, Roger Morningstar, the half-breed hellspawn, dark and sardonic in his Armani suit. And Molly. My sweet, wild witch and free spirit, a delicate china doll with big bosoms, bobbed black hair, and a mouth red as sin. My own true love, for my sins.

  She looked intently into my eyes, trying to keep the anxiety out of her smile, one arm round my shoulders, the other hand patting my chest comfortingly. I managed a shaky smile for her, and we leaned forward so our foreheads touched, resting against each other. I felt safe and happy, and so damned alive I might burst apart into clouds of sheer joie de vivre at any moment. Brief shivers and shudders came and went, and I was breathing hard, but the cold was slowly seeping out of me, replaced by Molly’s warmth and the uncomplicated comfort of Ethel’s rose red light.

  I was home again.

  I remembered everything now. Remembered the Immortal bursting into the Sanctity, disguised as Molly’s sister Isabella. A transformation so perfect it even fooled the Hall’s many layers of defences. I remembered the Immortal stabbing me. How the knife felt as it sank into my flesh and pierced my heart. Remembered the pain and the blood, and falling, and dying . . . I clutched at my chest, and fresh blood ran down my wrist as I crushed the torn shirtfront with my hand. The whole of my shirt was soaked in blood. But when I pushed the material aside, the skin underneath was undamaged. I ran my fingers over my chest, searching for the deep wound I remembered, but it was completely healed. I felt fine. I looked at Molly.

  “It’s all right, Eddie,” she said, reassuring me with her eyes and her smile as well as her words. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine now.”

  “Look at this shirt,” I said numbly. “Ruined. And it was my favourite shirt, too.”

  “I never liked it,” said Molly.

  “You never said. . . . All right. I’m back. Now, what the hell just happened?”

  The Armourer moved in and offered me his hand. I grabbed onto it, and he hauled me to my feet. My legs threatened to shake for a moment, and then steadied. Molly stood close beside me, in case I needed her. The Armourer looked me over closely, and then pulled me into his arms and hugged me fiercely.

  “I thought we’d lost you, Eddie; I really did. And I couldn’t bear the thought of your being dead. I’ve lost too many already.”

  I hugged him back, awkwardly. We’ve never been a touchy-feely family. He let go of me abruptly and stood back, in control again.

  “Do you remember what happened, Eddie? While you were . . . gone?”

  “I was in Drood Hall,” I said slowly, “but it wasn’t the real Hall. It was a cold, empty place . . . full of dead people. Walker was there, and Grandmother, and Uncle James.”

  “A near-death experience?” said Harry. “How very fashionable.”

  He shut up as the Armourer glared at him. “Fascinating,” Uncle Jack said briskly. “I’ve always wanted to record one of those. What did James have to say to you? Did he forgive you?”

  “We forgave each other,” I said.

  “You weren’t really dead, as such,” Molly said quickly. “Your spirit was in Limbo. And not everyone you encountered there was necessarily who or what they appeared to be. And Walker almost definitely wasn’t Walker.”

  “Might have been,” said the Armourer. “He’s dead, all right. I got a letter.”

  “What happened to him?” I said.

  “Someone killed him. An old e
nemy, or an old friend. Possibly both. It’s like that in the Nightside. So I’m told.”

  “He still shouldn’t have been there with you, Eddie,” said Molly. “Not if you were in a semblance of Drood Hall. He’s never been here.”

  Roger Morningstar sniffed loudly. “You don’t understand Limbo any more than I do, Molly. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell, not a place for the living or the dead: more of a spiritual waiting room . . . a place between places. Who knows who has access to it? If the living can enter, why not the dead? It could be that everyone you saw there, Eddie, was exactly who they seemed to be.”

  “You do so love to stir it, don’t you?” said Molly. “Trust you to play Devil’s advocate.”

  “And trust you, Eddie, to have a near-death experience that’s completely unlike everyone else’s,” said Harry.

  “Back to life for only a few minutes, and already you’re annoying the crap out of me, Harry,” I said. “Now button your lip while the grown-ups talk, or I’ll supply you with a near-death experience of your own. Ethel? Are you there?”

  “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!” said the disembodied voice of our very own other-dimensional entity. “Where did you go? I couldn’t see you anywhere, and I can see into dimensions you people don’t even know exist!”

  “The Hall was very different without you,” I said. “So cold . . . I called, but you couldn’t hear me.”

  “How terrible for you,” said Ethel, completely sincerely.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was.”

  I started to shake again. Molly quickly slipped an arm through mine and squeezed it against her. The Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped forward and glared at both of us.

  “I demand an explanation as to what exactly happened! Why aren’t you dead, Eddie?”

  “Try not to sound so disappointed, Cedric,” I murmured. “Though I think I could use an explanation myself. Molly?”

  “You were stabbed through the heart,” said Molly. “But you were never completely dead. Try not to be too mad at me, Eddie. I did it for your own good.”

  “Did what?” I said. “Tell me.”

  “Like every other witch,” Molly said carefully, “at the start of my career I worked a very special magic to store my heart somewhere else, technically separate from my body, but still connected. And then I hid my heart somewhere very safe and secure and secret, so my enemies could never find it. And as long as my heart remains separate, I am very hard to kill. I can recover from every wound, every attack, no matter how apparently deadly. That’s how I survived that assault by the Drood mob stirred up by the Immortals.” She glared at the Sarjeant there, and he had the grace to look a little guilty. He’s supposed to prevent things like that from happening. Molly took a deep breath. “I performed the same magic on you, Eddie, some time ago.”

  “What? Without even telling me?” I said, rather loudly.

  “Yes!” said Molly, meeting my fierce gaze with her own. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this! I knew you wouldn’t agree if I suggested the idea to you, even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do . . . and I wasn’t prepared to risk losing you. So I did it while you were asleep. Because I needed you to be safe.”

  “When, exactly, did you do this?” I said. “How long ago?”

  “I’m not going to tell you,” said Molly, folding her arms firmly below her breasts. “Not until you’ve calmed down a little. Or perhaps even a lot.”

  “I can’t approve of this,” the Sarjeant said flatly. “A Drood’s heart in the hands of an outsider? Completely unacceptable! As long as the witch knows where your heart is hidden and you don’t, she’ll always have power over you.”

  “He does have a point,” said the Armourer. “What if the two of you had a big row? Or even split up?”

  I looked at Molly. “The things we do for love . . . My heart belongs to the family. That’s the way it has to be. You have to put it back.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Molly, pouting. “Men. Never appreciate anything you do for them. There. It’s back.”

  I looked down at my chest. “Just like that?”

  “Of course! It’s no big deal. One of the first magics I learned. Your heart was never actually missing, after all. It was . . . separate. And safe.”

  “Did you check it for cholesterol?” said the Armourer.

  Molly glared at him. “I’m a witch, not a cardiologist!”

  “All right, all right! Only asking! We do have a problem with cholesterol levels in the family, and I was just wondering if . . . Shutting up right now. Sorry.”

  I didn’t feel any different. A thought occurred to me, and I looked consideringly at Molly. “Where exactly did you put my heart? Tell me you didn’t hide it in that private forest of yours, with all those overintelligent and highly curious animals. What if one of the squirrels had dug it up while looking for nuts? You know the squirrels have never approved of me!”

  Molly gave me her best haughty glare. “We are definitely not discussing this until you are in a much calmer state. And don’t even think of raising your voice to me like that if you ever expect to see me naked again.”

  Women never fight fair.

  “I will agree to change the subject,” I said. “But only because I’m still waiting to hear what happened to me after I was stabbed!”

  “Your spirit went to Limbo,” said Molly. “You weren’t, properly speaking, alive, but I’d seen to it that death couldn’t claim you. So Limbo took you until my magics could supercharge the healing process and repair your body enough for your spirit to return. You were in . . . spiritual shock. Neither in one condition nor the other. Limbo isn’t a place, as such. When you go there, your mind creates its own setting. It’s perfectly possible”—and here she broke off to scowl at Roger for a moment—“that all the people you saw there were really only parts of your own mind, talking to one another. Working out old issues and unresolved conflicts. Psychotherapy for the soul.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Some of them, maybe. But there was definitely another presence there. Walker . . . was very much Walker. He wanted to know things. Secrets . . . mine, and those of the family. He said he represented someone else. That he had new lords and masters now, and they were determined to rip every secret I had out of me. Whatever it took.”

  “Walker is quite definitely dead,” said the Armourer. “I’ll show you the letter, if you like.”

  “I want to see that letter,” the Sarjeant-at-Arms said immediately. “I never knew you had such close contacts with the Nightside.”

  “Later, Cedric,” said the Armourer. “And don’t pout like that. It’s unbecoming in a man of your age.” He nodded to Molly. “Carry on, my dear. We’re all listening.”

  “While you were in Limbo, Eddie,” said Molly, “and spiritually vulnerable, it is possible that some enemy of yours could have launched an attack on your spirit, trying to overpower your defences.”

  “Did you tell them anything?” said the Sarjeant.

  “No,” I said steadily. “I know my duty to the family.”

  “Of course you do, Eddie,” said the Sarjeant. “My apologies. But we have to know; we need to find out: Who were these enemies? And how did they know you were in Limbo, and therefore vulnerable to this kind of attack?”

  He turned his stern gaze on Molly, who actually stirred uncomfortably.

  “Look,” she said, “I’m no expert on Limbo, all right? Don’t know anyone who is. But to reach Eddie, and enter the construct his mind had made there, and push him around . . . they’d have to be really powerful.”

  “As powerful as the Droods?” I said.

  “I thought we’d killed off everyone as powerful as us,” said Roger.

  “There’s always someone,” said the Sarjeant darkly.

  “Anyway,” said Molly, “as soon as I’d repaired your heart, Eddie, and got your body back in good working order, I was a bit surprised your spirit didn’t return immediately. That’s what’s supposed to happen. So I we
nt after you. I’ve been to Heaven and to Hell; Limbo doesn’t scare me. I spent some time there myself, recovering from what the Drood mob did to me. I don’t remember what it was like, though. You won’t either, after a while. It’s not something the living are supposed to know about.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I hadn’t forgotten a thing. The whole experience was as fresh and clear to me as when I was there. Every detail, every moment, every word. Because it was important that I remember. Someone had tried to steal my secrets, and those of my family, and I was determined to find out who. And . . . there was something else.

  Charles and Emily? Walker had said. Whatever makes you think they’re dead?

  Harry was talking. “You always have to be the centre of attention, Eddie. You can’t even die in an ordinary way. Though I did think we really might have lost you, for a while.”

  “Disappointed?” I said.

  “Oh, perish the thought,” said Harry.

  “What was it like in Limbo?” said Roger. “I’ve never been there. I’m banned.”

  Molly looked at him incredulously. “Banned? How the hell do you get banned from Limbo?”

  “Boisterousness,” Roger said vaguely. “Bad behaviour. You know how it is.”

  “The memories are slipping away,” I said carefully. “I have to say, I’m happy to see most of them go.”

  “What do you remember?” said Molly.

  “Cold,” I said. “So very cold . . .” I shuddered briefly, and Molly moved quickly back to hold my arm again. I smiled at her. “How long was I gone? It seemed like ages. . . .”

  “Maybe twenty minutes,” said Molly. “Longest twenty minutes of my life.”

  I had to fight not to shudder again.

  There was a polite and very deferential knock on the Sanctity doors, which then opened to reveal two of the Sarjeant’s security men. I looked quickly at him, and he gestured for his people to close the doors and stay put. They did so, quietly and efficiently. The Sarjeant taught his people well. I glared at them anyway, on general principle, in case the Sarjeant had summoned them to take me away for interrogation. He can be very single-minded when it comes to the security of the family. That’s his job.