For Heaven's Eyes Only sh-5 Page 4

  “My people are here to take away the dead Immortal,” said the Sarjeant, accurately interpreting my thoughts. “It’s important we examine the body thoroughly.”

  “You mean dissect him?” I said.

  The Armourer smiled happily, rubbing his bony hands together. “Know thy enemy . . . and make bloody sure he’s dead. We don’t know nearly enough about how the Immortals change their shapes to take on other people’s identities. I always assumed it was some form of projective telepathy, making us see what they wanted us to see, but this flesh-dancing thing they do seems more like shape-shifting: actual physical change, right down to the DNA. Now, I could provide you with any number of useful devices that could do that, but the Immortals did it through sheer willpower and inherited ability. . . . All right, I’ll stop talking now.”

  “Some Immortals still remain at large, out in the world,” the Sarjeant said heavily. “Watching us with bad intent and no doubt plotting their revenge against us. We didn’t kill them all at Castle Frankenstein. Unfortunately.”

  “I need to know everything there is to know about the Immortals,” the Armourer said briskly, “if I’m to build a reliable detector to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. And to make sure that everyone in this family is exactly who and what they’re supposed to be. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said solemnly.

  I moved over to look down at the dead Immortal. Molly stayed close beside me. The man who’d tried to murder me looked very young now. Almost harmless. Just another teenage boy, like all the Immortals who never aged. Black froth had dried and crusted round his mouth, from where he’d taken poison rather than be captured. His eyes were still bulging; his face was contorted, his body racked by muscle spasms. He’d fouled himself in death, and the smell was pretty bad.

  “I usually know the people who try to kill me,” I said finally. “But I never saw that face before. Presumably he wasn’t at the castle when we went in; and that’s how he survived when the others didn’t.”

  “He looked like my sister,” said Molly. “Moved and sounded like Isabella. I was completely fooled. He couldn’t have managed such a close match . . . unless he’d had access to the original. He must have known my sister.”

  “Perhaps the remaining Immortals are holding her prisoner,” I said.

  Molly grabbed hold of my arm so hard it hurt. “We have to go find her, Eddie!”

  “Of course we do,” I said. “You came and found me. But where do we start? Any surviving Immortals will have scattered across the world by now. If they’ve got any sense. The only base we ever knew about was Castle Frankenstein, and that’s in the hands of the Bride now, and the Spawn of Frankenstein.” I stopped as a thought hit me. “Molly, could you use your magics on this body, and get some information out of him?”

  “Not really,” said Molly, which I had to note wasn’t an unequivocal no. “My powers are life-based. Mostly. I was never that interested in necromancy.”

  “I am,” said Roger. “Death and damnation are my business.”

  I looked at him. “You can raise the dead?”

  “I can make a corpse sit up and talk,” Roger said carefully. “There’s a difference. And only with the very recently departed, where the soul is still close by.”

  “Walker could do it,” said the Armourer.

  “He only did it that one time!” said Roger. “And he had the Voice. I’m only a poor half-breed hellspawn, so I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  He looked around at all of us, making sure he had everyone’s agreement. Not that he gave a damn for our approval; he wanted to make sure we were all implicated in the unnatural and condemned thing he was about to do. None of us said no. My family has always been able to do the hard, harsh, necessary things. Roger crouched over the dead Immortal, smiling down at the corpse and muttering something under his breath in a language I didn’t even recognise. The air seemed to slowly darken around him, as he revealed the side of himself he usually kept hidden. His other, perhaps even truer self: his demonic aspect. Stubby horns thrust up out of his forehead. His eyes caught fire, sulphurous yellow flames leaping up from glowing eyeballs. His fingers grew sharp, vicious claws, and his feet were suddenly rough cloven hooves. Where he stood, the wooden floor began to smoke and smoulder. Dark shadows seemed to wrap themselves around Roger Morningstar, despite Ethel’s rose red glow. Where Roger was, the light seemed bloodred.

  Roger’s father may have been my uncle James, the legendary Grey Fox, but his mother had been a lust demon out of Hell. I never did get the full story on that. But looking at Roger now, with all his evil aspect up front and in your face, it was hard to see how we’d ever been able to take him in as one of us. I’d accepted his presence in the family because he was Harry’s love and partner, and because Roger had fought on our side in the past . . . but now, seeing all the darkness in him let loose, I had to wonder if perhaps we’d made a terrible mistake.

  He looked like what he was: a hellspawn set free from the Pit to walk up and down in the world, spreading horror and evil among us like some spiritual cancer.

  Harry looked at Roger with something very like shock, and I realised Harry had never seen this side of his lover before. He watched, fascinated and appalled in equal measure, as Roger Morningstar pulled back one elegant shirt cuff and cut open a vein in his wrist with one clawed fingertip. Steaming-hot, dark blood streamed down into the corpse’s open mouth, quickly filling it and spilling out over the sides. Roger sealed the wound in his wrist with a touch, and then he leaned forward over the body. He was smiling a happy, satisfied smile, as though he was enjoying doing something he didn’t often get to do these days.

  “Blood of my life for you, Immortal, for a time. My life to move within you and raise you up to do my bidding and my will. Sit up and speak, little dead man, and tell me what I want to know.”

  The corpse’s mouth snapped suddenly shut, and its throat worked convulsively as it swallowed. The eyes turned to stare unblinkingly at Roger, and then the corpse sat up, the body making loud complaining sounds as it fought the stiffening of rigor mortis. The corpse looked into Roger’s burning eyes. And then the dead man screamed horribly, a lost, terrified, trapped sound.

  “Stop that,” said Roger, almost casually, and the scream cut off immediately. The corpse worked its mouth, stained with the poison it had taken and Roger’s dark blood, and when the dead Immortal finally spoke, its voice sounded as though it travelled some unimaginable distance. It sounded like something trying to remember what a human voice sounded like.

  “Who calls me back?” it said, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear whatever else it might have to say.

  “I do,” Roger said briskly. “Talk to me, Immortal.”

  The corpse’s mouth moved slowly, adopting an awful smile. “Do you want to know the secrets of life and death? Shall I tell you the awful knowledge of the Shimmering Plains and the Courts of the Holy, or perhaps the Houses of Pain, in the Pit?”

  “Don’t waste my time,” said Roger. “I probably know more of that than you do, at this point. Stop showing off and tell me: Who sent you here to murder Eddie Drood? Are there other Immortals out there in the world plotting attacks on Drood Hall?”

  “There are only a few of us left now,” said the corpse, still looking only at Roger. “Scattered. Hiding. I don’t know where they are. This was all my idea. If I couldn’t be a real Immortal anymore, a man of privilege and power, I decided I’d rather die, taking my hated enemy with me.” He turned his head slowly to look at me, and it was all I could do not to flinch back from the sheer hatred in that look. “We were masters of the world, and you took it all away. The barbarian at the gates of Rome. The savage who didn’t even understand the glory he destroyed. I wanted you dead, Drood, and I came so very close. . . .” He tried to spit at me, but nothing came out of his black-crusted mouth.

  The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved forward to stand between me and the dead man. He w
as capable of small kindnesses, when he chose.

  “How did you get in here,” he growled, “past all the Hall’s defences?”

  “Rafe was one of us,” said the corpse. “He told us everything. Do you really think he was the only one?”

  “I have got to get that detector working properly,” said the Armourer. “Sort out who’s who once and for all.”

  Molly pushed forward to glare coldly into the dead man’s face. “You made yourself look like my sister Isabella. Where is she? Are you holding her somewhere? Where is she? Where’s Isabella?”

  “Damned if I know,” said the corpse. “I never had her. Didn’t need her. I could duplicate anyone I ever met, and I knew Isabella of old. She worked with us several times on matters of mutual interest.”

  “Your sister worked with the Immortals?” I said to Molly.

  “Oh, hell, Eddie,” said Molly, “Iz has walked along with everybody, one time or another.”

  “Even worked with us, on a few occasions,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “On matters of mutual benefit. I made some very useful devices for her, none of which she ever returned. You went out with her for a while, didn’t you, Cedric?”

  We all looked at the Sarjeant-at-Arms, but he had nothing to say.

  “If we could stick to the matter at hand, people,” said Roger. “You don’t think what I’m doing is easy, do you? The body is already starting to fall apart. Anything else you want to ask, ask quickly. He won’t last much longer.”

  We all looked at the dead Immortal. His skin was blotched and cracking, thick fluids seeping out of him as Roger’s dark blood burned him up from the inside out. His eyes had sunk right back into their sockets, nothing but a mess of black jelly now. The corpse moved his head blindly back and forth.

  “Don’t leave me like this. Please. Don’t leave me here, trapped in a decaying body.”

  “Why not?” said Roger. “You deserve it.”

  “No,” said Molly. “Let him go.”

  Roger looked her and raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Mercy, from the wild witch of the woods?”

  “No,” said Molly. “Not mercy. Why keep him from Heaven’s judgement, and Hell’s punishments, one moment longer?”

  “Hard-core,” said Roger, smiling.

  “You tried to murder my Eddie,” Molly said to the dead man. “Burn in Hell.”

  I looked at her, disturbed by the savage and uncomplicated hatred in her face and in her voice. I liked to forget that my Molly had her own dark side, like Roger; but sometimes she wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t my sister the Immortals had used.

  Roger straightened up and stepped back, snapped his fingers lightly, and just like that the dead man was simply a corpse again. We all watched it carefully for a while, but it lay there, cracking slowly open, leaking all kinds of unpleasant fluids and stinking the place out. The Armourer sniffed loudly.

  “You haven’t left me much to dissect, Roger.”

  I looked at Molly. “The Immortal lost most of his family. I think it was grief that moved him, as much as revenge. God has mercy.”

  “I don’t,” said Roger. He was still maintaining his demonic aspect, defying any of us to say anything. Perhaps because it felt so good not to have to pretend anymore. He smiled widely at Harry, showing rows of pointed teeth. “This . . . is who and what I really am, Harry, my dear. It’s as real and as relevant as the human face I usually wear to show the world.”

  “We all have our dark sides,” Harry said steadily.

  “Not like mine,” said Roger.

  He took on his human aspect again, resuming the dark, sardonic and lightly mocking face he’d always shown before. And then he turned his back on all of us, including Harry, and walked away to be on his own. Where he’d been standing, his cloven hooves had scorched deep hoofprints into the wooden floor. Smoke curled slowly up from them, and on the air there was the smell of blood and sulphur and sour milk. The stench of Hell.

  “Damn,” said the Armourer. “I’ll have to get the industrial sander out again.”

  It’s hard to impress my uncle Jack.

  “All right,” I said. “What now?”

  “An attack on you is an attack on the family,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “I’ll have the family psychics run some tests on you, see if they can pick up some traces of who or what might have been threatening you in Limbo.”

  “Later,” I said. “I’m tired.”

  The Sarjeant sighed heavily. “You’ve never had any faith in the family psychics, have you, Edwin?”

  “Well, they didn’t predict my bloody death, did they? I wouldn’t trust that bunch of poseurs and wannabes to guess my weight!”

  “Later, then,” said the Sarjeant, entirely unfazed. “In the meantime, I will organise the family’s resources to search for the missing Isabella Metcalf. We have people everywhere, Molly. We will find your sister for you.”

  “Eventually,” I said.

  The Sarjeant didn’t actually shrug, but he looked like he wanted to. “It’s a big world.”

  I looked at Molly. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  She frowned. “My younger sister, Louisa, could find Iz easily, but last I heard, she was off exploring the Martian Tombs.”

  I had to blink. “Really?”

  Molly did shrug. “With Louisa, who knows?”

  “I’ve got it!” said the Armourer. “The Merlin Glass, Eddie! It can find anyplace you needed to get to, so technically there’s no reason why the Glass shouldn’t be able to locate any individual person you want to find and show you where they are! Try it!”

  I reached into the dimensional pocket I store the Merlin Glass in, at least partly because the damned thing creeps the hell out of me, and held the hand mirror out before me. The image in the Glass quickly cleared to show Isabella Metcalf, her own bad self: a tall muscular woman in crimson biker leathers, with short-cropped black hair and an intense, sharp-featured face. She was lurking in a fairly ordinary-looking business office, leafing through papers on a desk in a way that suggested she didn’t have anyone’s permission to do so. She looked up, startled, to see Molly and me watching her through the Merlin Glass.

  “Iz!” said Molly. “You’re all right!”

  “Of course I’m all right! And keep your voice down,” Isabella said urgently. “No one’s supposed to know I’m here!”

  “We’re coming through to join you,” said Molly.

  “Don’t you dare!” said Isabella. “You’ll blow my cover!”

  But I’d already shaken the Glass up to its full size, and Molly and I were stepping into the office with her.

  “Eddie!” roared the Sarjeant-at-Arms behind me. “You can’t just rush off! You have responsibilities here!”

  But Molly and I were already gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hell Hath Fury

  As offices went, this one hadn’t even made an effort. Just an ordinary, everyday business office with characterless furniture and all the personality of a brick wall. Not even a potted plant in the corner to cheer the place up. When Molly and I arrived, Isabella was busily thumbing through a thick sheaf of papers. She didn’t have the grace to look even a little bit guilty, and glared at Molly and me as though we were the ones who had no right to be there.

  “What the hell are you two doing here?” she said, keeping her voice down.

  “Oh, we happened to be passing,” I said easily. “Thought we’d drop in, say hello. . . .”

  I busied myself shutting down the Merlin Glass and stowing it safely away while Molly advanced on her sister to give her a big hug. Isabella dropped the papers on the desk and stopped Molly in her tracks with an icy glare.

  “What’s the matter with you? It’s not my birthday.”

  Molly then launched into an impassioned account of what had been happening. She hit only the high points, but it still took a while. I used the time to take a good look round the office. It was all very neat, very tidy, and everything had tha
t sheen of newness, as though everything had been moved only that day. The office felt . . . strange, incomplete, unfinished. As though someone had put everything in this room that they thought an office should have, but no one had actually moved in yet. The computer was the very latest model, the monitor was wide-screen and HD, and the keyboard didn’t have a speck of dust on it. I considered the computer thoughtfully, wondering whether it was safe to try cracking its systems open with my armour. Luther Drood, the Los Angeles field agent, had shown me a neat little trick using Drood armour that could make any computer roll over on its back, begging to have its belly rubbed. I reluctantly decided not to try anything just yet, on the grounds that Isabella would have already cracked the computer if it were that easy. The bad guys do love their booby traps. And if I set off an alarm while Molly was busy persuading her sister what a great guy I was, I’d never hear the end of it.

  So I leafed quickly through the papers on the desk, looking for whatever had caught Isabella’s attention. Damned if I could see what she’d found so interesting. Pretty standard business correspondence: job openings and opportunities, accounts and invoices and memos covering the upcoming week’s meetings. But all very bland, very vague, almost too generic to be true. What was more interesting was what wasn’t on the desk: namely, not a single personal touch. No photographs, no coffee mug with an amusing saying on the side, not a mark out of place. Nothing on the walls, either: not a portrait or a print . . . or a window. Only a featureless box for someone to sit in and do . . . businesslike things. No, this wasn’t an office. It was something set up to look like an office, enough to fool an outsider.

  Molly was rapidly approaching the end of her story, so I took the opportunity to quietly study her sister Isabella. The crimson biker leathers looked well lived in and hard used, like she’d done a lot of travelling in them, and she looked muscular enough to bench-press a Harley-Davidson without breaking a sweat. Even standing still she burned with vitality, as though she couldn’t wait to be out and about doing things. And, given that she was one of the infamous Metcalf sisters, probably wild and destructive things. She was handsome rather than pretty, had a hard-boned face stamped with character and determination, and wore surprisingly understated makeup. She had a certain dark glamour about her. A dangerous glamour, certainly, but there was something about Isabella that suggested she could be a whole lot of fun, if you could keep up with her.