Tales of the Hidden World Read online

  Timothy Drood . . . or Tiger Tim, the name he took for himself when he went rogue, and disappeared into the African jungles. What they used to call a bad seed. Bad to the bone. Or could it all have been the Armourer’s fault, did Timothy Drood become Tiger Tim because of parental neglect? The Armourer thought he’d done his best, but he’d never known what to make of his odd, unruly son. A strange child, even from an early age. The Armourer never knew how to be a father to him. Timothy had always been resistant to every form of authority, or affection. And so more and more the Armourer just left him to his own devices and buried himself in his work. Because he understood his work. Was it because of that turning away, that his son had gone to the bad?

  “Still blaming yourself, after all these years?” said Timothy. He sounded pleased at the idea. “Hello, Daddy. Here I am, back again, like the traditional bad penny. You’re looking old.”

  He sat in the chair opposite the Armourer, where his mother had been, lounging bonelessly, almost arrogantly relaxed. A man heading into middle age and fighting it all the way. He had that kind of aesthetic musculature that only comes from regular workouts with professional equipment in expensive private gyms, and the skin on his face, especially just around the eyes, looked suggestively taut. He was wearing a rich cream safari suit, topped off with a white snap-brimmed hat, complete with tiger-skin band. He looked very inch the Great White Hunter and gloried in it. He smiled a lot, but it never reached his cold blue eyes.

  “Why did you always prefer the jungles, boy?” said the Armourer. “Dangerous places, jungles.”

  “Not for me,” said Tiger Tim, smiling easily. “When I walk through a jungle, you can always be sure that I am the most dangerous thing in it.”

  “Well?” said the Armourer. “Tell me, was it my fault that you turned out bad? Did I let you down?”

  “Typical you,” said Tiger Tim. “Everything has to be your responsibility. It’s a form of arrogance, really.”

  “Answer me!”

  “I never thought of myself as bad. . . . I just wanted to have fun.”

  “Did you ever love me, son?” said the Armourer. “I tried to love you. I really did.”

  “Love . . .” said Tiger Tim. “Sorry. Never really got the hang of love.”

  “You nearly killed me,” said the Armourer. “Trying to force me to open the family’s Armageddon Codex for you.”

  “So I did,” said Tiger Tim, nodding cheerfully. “Now that one was your fault. You didn’t have to fight me.”

  The Drood family keeps its most secret depository of its most dangerous weapons, the Armageddon Codex, locked away in a pocket dimension only loosely linked to the Armory. For security reasons. Only the Armourer can even approach it, let alone enter it, without setting off all kinds of alarms. But Timothy Drood, not yet Tiger Tim, wanted in. So he lured his father off to a private place, with an urgent message, and beat the crap out of him. Timothy had laid his plans well, found all the right loopholes in the security measures that would let him access the pocket dimension, but he still couldn’t open the Codex without the knowledge locked away in his father’s head.

  Timothy kicked his father in the ribs, again and again, and then knelt down beside him. “Come on, Daddy dearest! I’m on a deadline here! Give me the secret! Tell me how to unlock the Lion’s Jaws!”

  The Armourer lay curled up in a ball on the cold stone floor. He ached all over from the beating he’d taken. He spat out a thick mouthful of blood and glared up at his son. Above and behind the two of them stood the Lion’s Jaws, a great stone carving of a lion’s head, complete with mane, perfect in every detail. Twenty feet tall and almost as wide, it towered over them, carved out of a dark blue-veined stone that made the head seem eerily alive. Timothy drew back his foot to kick his father again, and the Armourer flinched despite himself. Timothy laughed breathily.

  “I know I need a brass key, Daddy,” said Timothy. “The key opens the Jaws, but everyone knows that. I need to know how to open the Jaws so I can pass though them safely! Just give me the key and tell me how to use it, and I’ll stop hurting you. Won’t that be nice? Why do you always have to fight me, Daddy? You don’t think I’m enjoying this, do you?”

  “Yes,” said the Armourer.

  Timothy considered the point. “Well, all right, yes; you’ve got me there. I always enjoy punishing things that get in my way. But I promise you, I’d enjoy kicking the crap out of whoever had the key to the Lion’s Jaws. Don’t take this personally, Daddy.”

  “You sure you want to pass through the Jaws?” said the Armourer. Slowly, painfully. “You must know the legend, that only the pure in heart and pure in purpose can pass safely through to the Codex. Anything else, and the Jaws will slam down. And eat you.”

  “Oh, please,” said Timothy. “That’s just family fairy tales, to keep the weak of spirit from trying to do something like this. I am not so easily put off. I want the weapons from the Armageddon Codex, Daddy. I want the Time Hammer and the Juggernaut Jumpsuit. I want Oathbreaker, and Sunwrack, and Winter’s Sorrow. I want to walk up and down in the world and make it dance to my tune.”

  “Why?” said the Armourer.

  “I just want to have some fun,” said Timothy.

  “But these weapons are powerful enough to destroy the whole world!”

  “What could be more fun?” said Timothy. “Oh, the things I will do . . .”

  Except he didn’t, in the end, because the Gray Fox appeared out of nowhere to save the day. As he so often did. He saved the Armourer’s life, that day, although he let Timothy get away. Because the Armourer asked him to. That small piece of kindness had come back to haunt him many times, down the years. As he heard of some new slaughter, with his son’s name attached to it. As Timothy Drood turned himself into Tiger Tim, slowly and deliberately, one cruel decision at a time. Spreading his evil like a plague, laughing delightedly as he walked through rivers of blood. Until finally, he went up against Eddie Drood, and Eddie killed him. Far and far away from home, in the icy wastes of the Antarctic. Eddie said afterward that Tiger Tim had died well, and the Armourer had pretended to believe him.

  Timothy wasn’t there anymore, and neither was the chair he’d been sitting on. The Armourer was surprised to find he was crying. For places and people lost. For things that might have been. He hauled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. His hand shook.

  “I always tried to do my best for the family,” he said. “I tried. . . . Doesn’t that count, for something?”

  “Of course it does,” said James.

  The Armourer looked up, and there was the Gray Fox, standing before him, smiling broadly. James Drood, in his prime. Tall and darkly handsome, effortlessly elegant in his expertly tailored tuxedo, wearing his usual sardonic expression. He looked every inch his legend.

  “Come along, Jack,” said James. “No time to be lounging around when there’s important work that needs doing.”

  “Oh James,” said Jack. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Of course you have,” said the Gray Fox. “But now, we’re back together. The old team! And we’ll never be parted again.”

  The Armourer looked at him and nodded slowly. “It’s over here, isn’t it?”

  James smiled. “You’ve done all you can, here. Time to go. You didn’t think I’d leave you to make the last great journey on your own, did you?”

  “Do I get to rest at last?” said the Armourer.

  “Where would be the fun in that?” said James. “We have better and far more important work waiting for us now! And far more fun than you’ve ever known. . . . Come along, James. It’s time to do things that really matter.”

  He put out a hand to the Armourer, who clasped it with his own. And just like that Jack and James stood together, both of them young and in their prime again. They laughed out loud and hugged each other fiercely.

  “Good w
ork?” said Jack. “Work that really matters? Lead me to it!”

  And then he paused, and looked at his brother.

  “What is it?” said James.

  “Can you answer the question?” said James. “Did I do more important work as a field agent, or working here in the Armory?”

  “You already know the answer,” said James, kindly. “Anything, for the family. You always did good work, Jack, and everything you did was designed to save people’s lives, in the long run. And that is all that matters.”

  The two young men walked forward through the Armory, and lab assistants came forward from all sides to form two great crowds for them to walk through. Ranks and ranks of faces, smiling and waving to the Armourer as he passed. And he knew all their faces, and all their names, even the ones who’d left the Armory long ago. They were all there to say good-bye to him. The Armourer hadn’t realized how many lives he’d touched.

  A dog ran forward to greet them and danced eagerly in front of Jack.

  “Is that you, Scraps?” said Jack.

  “Of course,” said James. “Everyone you ever lost is waiting to meet you again.”

  Jack and James Drood, reunited at last, walked on together and never looked back once.

  Maxwell and Victoria found the Armourer sitting slumped in his chair at his desk. Quite dead. Maxwell checked for life signs, didn’t find any, and sent the nearest lab assistant hurrying off to inform the Matriarch. Maxwell and Victoria looked at the dead man.

  “At least he died still working,” said Maxwell.

  “He gave his life to the Armory,” said Victoria.

  It must have seemed like a nice thing to say.

  What better way to start off a collection of stories than with an upbeat piece about death? The Armourer, Jack Drood, is a long-standing character from my Secret Histories novels first introduced some ten years ago, in The Man with the Golden Torque. He was an old man even then and has grown increasingly frail ever since, and it just seemed the right time to let him go. Jack Drood never really got the same respect as his more famous brother, James Drood, the Gray Fox, but he was a major player in the Cold War and a great secret agent in his own right. I wanted to show him at the end of his life, looking back and trying to decide whether he did more good for his family, and Humanity, as a field agent fighting the bad guys, or as an Armourer producing weapons and devices to keep other agents alive. I wanted to give him one last big adventure.

  Street Wizard

  I believe in magic. It’s my job.

  I’m a street wizard, and I work for the London City Council. I don’t wear a pointy hat, I don’t live in a castle, and no one in my line of work has used a wand since tights went out of fashion. I’m paid the same money as a traffic warden, and I don’t even get a free uniform. I just get to clean up other people’s messes and prevent trouble when I can. It’s a magical job, but someone’s got to do it.

  My alarm goes off at nine o’clock sharp every evening, and that’s when my day begins. When the sun’s already sliding down the sky toward evening, with night pressing close on its heels. I do all the usual things everyone else does at the start of their day, and then I check I have all my bits and pieces, before I go out. The tools of my trade: salt, holy water, crucifix, silver dagger, and wooden stake. No guns. Guns get you noticed.

  I live in a comfortable enough flat, over an off license, right on the edge of Soho. Good people, mostly. But when the sun goes down and the night takes over, a whole new kind of people move in: the tourists and the punters and every other eager little soul with more money than sense. Looking for a good time, the fools. They fill up the streets, with stars in their eyes and avarice in their hearts, all looking for a little something to take the edge off, to satisfy their various longings.

  Someone has to watch their backs to protect them from the dangers they don’t even know are out there.

  By the time I’m ready to leave, two drunken drag queens are arguing shrilly under my window, caught up in a slanging match. It’ll all end in tears and wig pulling. I leave them to it and head out into the tangle of narrow streets that make up Soho. Bars and restaurants, nightclubs and clip joints, hot neon and cold hard cash. The streets are packed with furtive-eyed people, hot on the trail of everything that’s bad for them. It’s my job to see they get home safely, or at least, that they only fall prey to the everyday perils of Soho.

  I never set out to be a street wizard. Don’t suppose anyone does. But, like music and mathematics, with magic it all comes down to talent. All the hard work in the world will only get you so far, to be a Major Player, you have to be born to the Craft. The rest of us play the cards we’re dealt. And do the jobs that need doing.

  I start my working day at a greasy spoon café called Dingley Dell. There must have been a time when I found that funny, but I can’t remember when. The café is the agreed meeting place for all the local street wizards, a stopping-off place for information, gossip, and a hot cup of tea, before we have to face the cold of the night. It’s not much of a place; all steamed-up windows, Formica-covered tables, plastic chairs, and a full greasy breakfast if you can stomach it. There’s only ever thirteen of us, to cover all the hot spots in Soho. There used to be more, but the budget’s not what it was.

  We sit around patiently, sipping blistering tea from chipped china, while the Supervisor drones on, telling us things he thinks we need to know. We hunch our shoulders and pretend to listen. He’s not one of us. He’s just a necessary intermediary, between us and the Council. We only put up with him because he’s responsible for overtime payments. A long, miserable streak of piss, and mean with it, Bernie Drake likes to think he runs a tight ship. Which basically means he moans a lot, and we call him Gladys behind his back.

  “All right! Listen up! Pay attention and you might just get through tonight with all your fingers, and your soul still attached!” That’s Drake. If a fart stood upright and wore an ill-fitting suit, it could replace our supervisor and we wouldn’t even notice. “We’ve had complaints! Serious complaints! Seems a whole bunch of booze demons have been possessing the more vulnerable tourists, having their fun and then abandoning their victims at the end of the night, with really bad hangovers and no idea how they got them. So watch out for the signs, and make sure you’ve got an exorcist on speed dial for the stubborn ones. We’ve also had complaints about magic shops—that are there one day and gone the next, before the suckers can come running back to complain the goods don’t work. So if you see a shop front you don’t recognize, call it in! And Jones, stay away from the wishing wells! I won’t tell you again. And Padgett, leave the witches alone! They’ve got a living to make, same as the rest of us.

  “And, if anybody cares, apparently something’s been eating traffic cops. All right, all right! That’s enough hanging around! Get out there and do good. Remember: you’ve a quota to meet.”

  We’re already up and on our feet and heading out, muttering comments just quietly enough that the supervisor can pretend he doesn’t hear them. It’s the little victories that keep you going. We all take our time about leaving, just to show we won’t be hurried. I take a moment to nod politely to the contingent of local working girls, soaking up what warmth they can from the café, before a long night out on the cold, cold streets. We know them, and they know us, because we all walk the same streets and share the same hours. All decked out in bright colors and industrial-strength makeup, they chatter together like gaudy birds of paradise, putting off the moment when they have to go out to work.

  Rachel looks across at me and winks. I’m probably the only one there who knows her real name. Everyone else just calls her Red, after her hair. Not much room for subtlety in the meat market. Not yet thirty, and already too old for the better locations, Red wears a heavy coat with hardly anything underneath it, and stilettos with heels long enough to qualify as deadly weapons. She crushes a cigarette in an ashtray, blows smoke into
the steamy air, and gets up to join me. Just casually, in passing.

  “Hello, Charlie boy. How’s tricks?”

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  We both smile. She thinks she knows what I do, but she doesn’t. Not really.

  “Watch yourself out there, Charlie boy. Lot of bad people around these days.”

  I pay attention. Prossies hear a lot. “Anyone special in mind, Red?”

  But she’s already moving away. Working girls never let themselves got close to anyone. “Let me just check I’ve got all my things: straight razor, brass knuckles, pepper spray, condoms, and lube. There, ready for anything.”

  “Be good, Red.”

  “I’m always good, Charlie boy.”

  I hold the door open for her, and we go out into the night.

  I walk my beat alone, up and down and back and forth, covering the streets of Soho in a regular pattern. Dark now, only artificial light standing between us and everything the night holds. The streets are packed with tourists and johns, in search of just the right place to be properly fleeced, and then sent on their way with empty pockets and maybe a few nice memories to keep them going till next time. Neon blazes and temptation calls, but that’s just the Soho everyone sees. I see a hell of a sight more, because I’m a street wizard. And I have the Sight.

  When I raise my Sight, I can See the world as it really is, and not as most people think it is. I get to See all the wonders and marvels, the terrors and the nightmares, the glamour and magic and general weird shit most people never even know exists. I raise my Sight and look on the world with fresh eyes, and the night comes alive, bursting with hidden glories and miracles, gods and monsters. And I get to See it all.

  Gog and Magog, the giants, go fist fighting through the back streets of Soho; bigger than buildings, their huge misty forms smash through shops and businesses without even touching them. Less than ghosts, more than memories, Gog and Magog fight a fight that will never end till history itself comes stumbling to a halt. They were here before London, and there are those who say they’ll still be here long after London is gone.