The Man with the Golden Torc sh-1 Read online

  I turned my back on the front door, humming aloud in an unconcerned sort of way, and strolled past the many arched and stained-glass windows at the front of the house. I could feel their presence, like the pressure of so many watching eyes, so I kept my own gaze resolutely straight ahead. The gravel crunched loudly under my feet as I headed past the east wing, rounded the corner, and smiled for the first time as I beheld the old family chapel. Tucked away out of sight and set firmly apart, the chapel was a squat stone structure with crucifix windows. It looked Saxon but was actually an eighteenth-century folly. The family had its own chapel inside the Hall now, pleasant and peaceful and graciously multidenominational, and the old building had been left to rot. It is currently occupied by the family ghost, Jacob Drood, cantankerous old goat that he is. He’s my great-great-great-grandfather, I think. Genealogy never was my strong point.

  On the whole, my family discourages ghosts, otherwise we’d be hip deep in the things. If any do come bleating back to the Hall after being killed in the field, they get dispatched on to the Hereafter pretty damned sharply. The family looks strictly forward, never back, and there just isn’t room in the Hall for anyone to be sentimental. Jacob is allowed to linger on in the chapel through some technicality I’ve never really understood, mostly because the few people who do know are just too embarrassed to talk about it. All families have the odd skeleton in the closet, and ours is Jacob. The family ostentatiously hasn’t been on speaking terms with him for years, and he couldn’t care less. Mostly he just sits around in his ghostly underwear, watching the memories of old television shows on a set with no insides in it. Now and again he keeps a spectral eye on what the family’s up to, just because he knows he’s not supposed to.

  Jacob and I have always got along fine.

  I first found out about him when I was eight. Cousin Georgie dared me to go peek in the window of the forbidden chapel, and I never could resist a dare. I was caught (of course) and punished (of course) and told that the chapel and its occupant were strictly off-limits. After that, I couldn’t wait to meet him. I just knew we’d be kindred spirits. So I sneaked out that night and basically ambushed the old ghost in his den. He made a few halfhearted attempts to scare me off, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’d waited a long time for the family to throw up another black sheep like him. We quickly warmed to each other, and after that no one could keep us apart. The family did try, but Jacob came striding out of the chapel and right into the Matriarch’s private chambers, and whatever was said there, after that the two of us were left strictly to ourselves.

  Jacob was perhaps the only real friend I had, then. Certainly the only one I could trust. He encouraged all my early rebellions and was the only one who was always on my side. He was the one who told me to get out, first chance I got. He approved of me; said I reminded him of himself as a teenager. Which was rather worrying, actually.

  The chapel looked as squat and ugly as ever; rough stone buried under thick mats of ivy that stirred and twisted threateningly as I approached the open front door. Part of Jacob’s early warning system. I patted the ivy and spoke to it in a friendly fashion, and it relaxed again as it remembered and recognised my voice. The door was stuck halfway open, as always, and I put my shoulder to it. The heavy wood scraped loudly across the bare stone floor, raising a cloud of dust. I coughed and sneezed a few times and peered into the gloom. Nothing had changed.

  The pews were still stacked up against the far wall to make room for Jacob’s giant black leather reclining chair, and beside it sat an old-fashioned refrigerator that was somehow always full of ethereal booze. A massive old television stood before the chair, with real rabbits’ ears piled on top to help with the reception. Jacob didn’t look around as I approached. He sprawled bonelessly in his great chair, a gray wispy figure who flickered in and out as his concentration wavered. He looked older than death, his face a mass of wrinkles, his bony skull graced with just a few long flyaway hairs. He was currently wearing faded Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt bearing the legend Ghosts Do It from Beyond. He chugged down the last of his beer and threw the can away. It disappeared before it hit the floor. Jacob waved a gray hand jerkily in my direction, leaving thin trails of ectoplasm on the air.

  "Come in, Eddie, come in! And shut the door behind you. The draughts play havoc with my old bones."

  I stood my ground beside his chair, my arms folded across my chest. "And what bones would those be, you disgusting old revenant?"

  He scowled at me from under bushy white eyebrows. "You get to be as ancient as me, lad, you’ll suffer a few aches and pains too. It’s not easy, being this old. Or everybody would be doing it."

  "How can you have aches and pains? You’re dead. You don’t have an actual body anymore."

  "That’s right! Rub it in! Just because I’m dead, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. The way the family treats me these days makes me spin in my grave."

  "You were cremated, Jacob."

  "All right, I’ll turn in my urn!" He shut down his ghostly television set with a snap of his fingers and finally turned to smile at me. "Damn, it’s good to have you back, lad. None of the current generation have the spunk to come out and talk to me. How long has it been, Eddie? I lose track in here…"

  "Ten years," I said.

  He nodded slowly. "You’ve filled out nicely, lad. Good outfit, rotten attitude, and you look like you could punch your weight. A credit to my teachings. But what the hell are you doing back here, Eddie? You did the one thing even I couldn’t do; you escaped."

  "The family called me home," I said, trying hard to keep my voice light and unconcerned. "I was kind of hoping you might know why."

  Jacob sniffed and settled back in his reclining chair. The ghost of a pipe appeared in his hand, and he sucked thoughtfully on the stem, releasing thick puffs of ectoplasm that drifted up to the cobwebbed ceiling. "Not much point in asking me, lad. The family’s been keeping me even more at arm’s length than usual, of late. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from keeping a watchful eye on them…" He grinned nastily at me. "You want all the latest gossip, Eddie lad? You want to know who’s having who, who messed up in the field again, and who came back stoned out of her mind and crashed the autogyro on the roof landing pad?"

  "Tell me everything," I said. "I think I need to know everything."

  Jacob waved his pipe away, and it disintegrated into drifting streams of ectoplasm. He sat up straight in his chair and fixed me with a steady gaze, his ancient eyes pinning me where I stood. "To start with, there’s a new faction in the family. Gaining a lot of support, especially among the youngsters. Basically, it boils down to a Let’s get them before they get us strategy. This new faction is talking very loudly about the virtues of preemptive strikes and a zero tolerance for all identified bad guys. No more dealing with problems as they arise; stick it to the bad guys with extreme prejudice, whether we can prove anything or not."

  "If we were to declare open war," I said slowly, "our enemies would just band together for protection against a common threat, and we’d be vastly outnumbered. We’ve survived as long as we have only because we understand the virtues of divide and conquer."

  Jacob shrugged. "Youngsters today; no patience. No taking the long view. It’s all instant gratification now. I blame MTV and video games. So far, older and wiser heads in the family are keeping the new faction firmly in its place, but everyone’s talking about it…Also, your cousin William’s been stirring things, just so he can get plenty of good footage for the documentary he’s been making about the family. Though God alone knows who he thinks is going to see it. Could be a big hit, mind, with all those people who watched The Osbournes. Meet the Droods: an even more dysfunctional family, only far more dangerous…

  "The Matriarch’s stepped up security around the Hall. Again. You probably noticed the extra measures on your way in. Of course, they can’t keep me out. It’s hard to keep secrets from the dead. We’re natural voyeurs. Shall we take a look at what our beloved leader
is up to at the moment?"

  He snapped his fingers at the empty television set before him, and the old episode of Dark Shadows that had been running with the sound off was replaced by an impressively sharp image of the family Matriarch in her study, talking with her husband, Alistair. He was pacing up and down, looking distinctly worried, while she sat straight-backed in her chair, all icy calm and dignity.

  "He’ll be here soon," said Alistair. "What are we going to tell him?"

  "We’ll tell him what he needs to know, and no more," said the Matriarch. "That’s always been the family way."

  "But if he even suspects…"

  "He won’t."

  "We could tell him the truth." Alistair stopped pacing and looked directly at the Matriarch. "We could appeal to his better nature. To his duty, to his love of the family…"

  The Matriarch sniffed loudly. "Don’t be a fool. He’s far too dangerous. I have determined what needs to be done, and that’s all there is to it. I have always understood what’s best for the family. Wait…Someone’s listening in! Is that you, Jacob?"

  She turned abruptly and stared right out of the screen at us. Jacob gestured quickly and the picture disappeared, replaced by an old episode of The Addams Family.

  "Told you she’d stepped up security," said Jacob. "What do you suppose that was all about?"

  "I don’t know," I said. "But I don’t like the sound of it."

  "Something’s going on," Jacob said darkly. "Something the Matriarch and her precious inner circle don’t want the rank and file to know about. There’s something in the air…Something Big is coming. I can feel it, gathering like stormclouds in the future. And when it finally breaks, it’s going to be a monster…There have been several direct attacks on the Hall just recently."

  "Hold it," I said. "Attacks? No one’s told me anything about any attacks. What kind of attacks?"

  "Powerful ones." Jacob stirred uncomfortably in his chair. "Even I didn’t see them coming, and that’s not like me. Nothing got through, of course, but just the fact that someone or something felt confident enough to launch a direct attack on where we live speaks volumes. In my day, no one would have dared. We’d have tracked them down, ripped their souls out, and nailed them to our outer walls. But it’s all politics now; agreements and pacts and truces. The family isn’t what it was…I don’t know why they’ve called you back, Eddie, but it sure as hell isn’t to pin a medal on your chest. Watch your back, lad."

  "Always," I said. "Anything I can do for you, Jacob?"

  He leered at me in a frankly unsettling way. "If that headless nun is still haunting the north wing, tell her to get her ectoplasmic arse down here, and I’ll teach her a whole new way to manifest."

  "But…she hasn’t got a head!"

  "It’s not her head I’m interested in!"

  And he wonders why the rest of the family won’t talk to him.

  Out in the bright sunlight again, under a perfect blue sky, with gryphons prowling watchfully on the perfect lawns, while butterflies big as my hand fluttered through the flower gardens, I found it hard to believe that the family could be in any real danger. Or that I might be. I might not always have been happy here, but I always felt safe in the Hall. The power of the Droods depended on the fact that no one could touch us. I looked up at the Hall towering over me, ancient and powerful, just like us. How could anything be wrong in such a perfect place, on such a perfect day?

  I walked in through the main entrance, and there in the vestibule was the Sarjeant-at-Arms, waiting to meet me. Of course he was waiting; hours before the gryphons would have told him the exact moment I’d arrive. The Sarjeant was never surprised by anything or anyone. That was his job. He inclined his head stiffly to me, which was about as much welcome as I’d expected. In the Drood family, the prodigal son was always going to be in for a rough ride. The Sarjeant-at-Arms wore the stark black-and-white formal outfit of a Victorian butler, right down to the stiff and starched high collar, even though he had the build and manner of an army sergeant major. I knew for a fact he always carried half a dozen concealed weapons of increasing power and viciousness somewhere about his person. If the Hall ever was attacked and breached, he’d be the first line of defence and very likely the last thing the attackers ever saw.

  He had a face that might have been chiselled out of stone. He didn’t looked at all pleased to see me, but then, he never looked pleased about anything. Gossip had it smiling was against his religion.

  "Hi there, Jeeves," I said just to wind him up, because we both knew he was far more than just a butler. (There are no servants, as such, in the Hall. We all serve the family, in our own way.) (Or at least, that’s the official line…)

  "Good morning, Edwin," said the Sarjeant in his voice like grinding gravel. "The Matriarch is expecting you."

  "I know," I said. "I wish I could say I was glad to be home again."

  "Indeed," said the Sarjeant. "I wish I could say I was glad to see you again, boy."

  We sneered at each other for a moment, and then, honour satisfied, I allowed him to lead the way through the shadowy vestibule and on into the great hallway. Light streamed in through hundreds of stained-glass windows, filling the extended hallway with all the colours of the rainbow. Old paintings and portraits showed honoured members of the family: Drood men and women sitting and standing in fixed and formal poses, in the dress and fashions of centuries past, staring out at their descendants with stern, unwavering eyes.

  Drood service and tradition goes back a long way, and none of us are ever permitted to forget it. By the time we got to the end of the hallway, the paintings had given way to photographs. From the first shadowy images to sepia tones to the garish colours of modern times, the fallen dead stared proudly out at the world they made.

  I stopped to consider one photo in its silver frame, and the Sarjeant stopped reluctantly beside me. The photo held two faces I knew like my own. A man and a woman stood together, proudly erect as befitting Droods, but there was a clear warmth and affection in their smiles and in their eyes. He was tall and elegant and handsome, and so was she, and they looked every inch the roistering adventurers everyone said they were. Charles and Emily Drood; my father and my mother. Murdered on a family mission in the Basque region, while I was still just a small child. Looking at them, so young and full of life, I realised I was older now than they were when they died.

  The Sarjeant-at-Arms hovered silently close beside me, making me aware of his impatience with his proximity, but I wouldn’t let myself be hurried. Hello, Dad, I thought. Hello, Mum. I’ve come back. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just nodded to them and moved on.

  The Sarjeant-at-Arms finally ushered me into the library, to wait there until the Matriarch was prepared to see me. He inclined his head again, very stiffly, and withdrew, shutting the door firmly behind him. I pulled a face at the closed door and relaxed a little. Walking with the Sarjeant always felt like you were being marched with a gun at your back. I wandered slowly through the many towering stacks and shelves of the family library, inhaling the old familiar smells of leather bindings, paper, and ink and dust. On these shelves, in these books, is recorded the true history of the world. All the secret deals and treaties, the private promises and betrayals, and all the secret wars that take place behind the scenes that normal people never get to hear about. The subtle moves on the invisible board, in the greatest game of all.

  I was born, raised, and educated here in the Hall, like every other Drood son and daughter, but I was one of the very few who ever bothered to read any book that wasn’t part of the official curriculum. I discovered the library when I was ten, and after that they couldn’t keep me out. The family teaches you what it thinks you need to know and nothing more. I, on the other hand, ploughed through books like others devoured junk food, and what the family called education I came to see as indoctrination. I wanted to know it all, the context as well as the bare facts. And the more I read, the more I wanted to get out into the real
world and see it as it really was.

  For a long time, I couldn’t see why this was such a problem for my teachers. I was being trained to fight evil, to know who humanity’s real enemies were and how to defeat them; so surely the more I knew about them, the better. Whenever I challenged anything, I was always told to just shut up and go along like everyone else, because only my elders and betters could see The Big Picture. So I just kept reading, trying to see it too.

  The problem with the Drood family library is the sheer bloody size of the thing. Miles and miles of stacks and shelves taking up the whole lower floor of the south wing, every shelf packed tight to bursting with the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of centuries. Books written in every language under the sun, and some from darker places, including a few dialects so arcane that human vocal cords can’t pronounce them out loud. So I read what I could in the original and badgered the librarian endlessly to find translations for those I couldn’t. A decent old stick, the librarian. Wore gaudy pullovers, even in the summer, and went motorbike scrambling every weekend. He disappeared suddenly, years before I left. We never did find out what happened to him.

  I wandered aimlessly through the racks, trailing my fingertips lightly along the leather spines. We believe in books. Computer files can be hacked; paper can’t. The only way to access the information in this library is to come here in person. And the only way to do that is to be part of the family.

  "Hello, Eddie. It’s good to see you again."

  I turned around, already smiling because I knew who it was, who it had to be. There was only one living member of the family who’d actually be pleased to see me again. Uncle James strode forward to greet me, one hand outstretched to give me a firm, manly handshake. He looked great, as always, perfectly outfitted in the most stylish three-piece suit money could buy, looking every inch the rakish gentleman adventurer he was. Uncle James was tall, darkly handsome, effortlessly elegant and sardonic, and in really good shape for a man in his late fifties. His striking face had more than its fair share of character lines, but his hair was still jet-black. His welcoming smile was broad and genuine, but even with me, there was still a touch of the ingrained iciness that never left his eyes.