Molly shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t do that. My place is at your side, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. You’re going to need me.”
“But in your heart,” said Eddie. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” said Molly.
He put his arms around her, and they held each other tightly, like two children lost and abandoned in a dark wood, with no way home. In the end, Eddie let go first. He had to be strong, for both of them.
“At least if I’m there, I can be their conscience,” said Eddie. “Help keep them focused. Keep the collateral damage to a minimum. But a lot of what we do will depend on what the Authorities have waiting for us. You saw what happened at the Wulfshead Club. If the Matriarch is right, and the Authorities are behind the Nightside’s expansion, that means everyone inside the Club was sacrificed in order to bring this situation about. Someone condemned all our friends to death. And that means something has gone very wrong with the Authorities. That has to be put right, or no one inside or outside the long night will ever be safe again.”
“You must be feeling better,” said Molly. “You’ve started making speeches again.”
“You have to admit, the world will be a much safer place once the Nightside comes under Drood control.”
“I don’t have to admit any such thing!” said Molly. “The one truly free place on Earth is the last place Droods should be. They might discover that all they need to do is cut their apron strings, and they could live their own lives.”
“After all this time, you still don’t understand my family,” said Eddie. “Our duty has never been to the family but to Humanity. We serve because we choose to, because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Then why did you have to run away from home to live your own life?” said Molly.
“You’d think I would have learned not to argue with you by now,” said Eddie.
“Damn right,” said Molly, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Once we’re inside the long night, stick close to me,” said Eddie. “And I’ll stick close to the Matriarch and the Sarjeant. Make sure they don’t deviate from this swift, decisive strike they’re supposed to be so keen on. Maybe we can bring about a bloodless coup after all and save lives on both sides.”
“You really believe that?” said Molly.
“I have to believe that,” said Eddie.
* * *
• • •
Sometime later, Eddie and Molly sat side by side in his room at the top of the Hall. Staying out of everyone’s way, lost in their own thoughts. Eddie sat on the edge of his bed, leaning forward over his clasped hands, staring at the floor. Molly sat beside him, saying nothing because she didn’t know what to say. Eddie had decided he didn’t want to be any part of the Matriarch’s planning process. That was as far as he could go, to distance himself from what was happening. He would be a soldier in this war but not a general. As though that way he could avoid taking any responsibility for what happened.
Molly had to wonder how long that decision would last once the fighting started and the killing began. She’d already drawn her own line in the sand, in her mind. She would go so far and no further, and if the family crossed that line, if they tried to make her or Eddie cross it . . . she would do something. She hadn’t decided what, yet. She felt trapped, like Eddie. He felt bound by his duties, to his family and to Humanity, while she was torn between her need to stand by her man and protect him and her obligations to all her friends and allies in the Nightside.
Whatever happened, someone was going to get hurt.
Ethel’s voice sounded suddenly in the room. “Eddie, Molly . . . The Matriarch is assembling the family out in the grounds. It’s time.”
“Can’t you stop this, Ethel?” said Molly.
“No,” said Ethel.
“Where do you stand on this?” said Eddie, raising his head at last.
“I don’t,” said Ethel. “I’m not involved. This is a human thing, done for human reasons. I can’t make this decision for you or I’d be running the family. I would be your ruler, not your friend. And you really wouldn’t want that.”
“Will you be with us, in the Nightside?” said Eddie.
“No,” said Ethel.
They waited, but she had nothing more to say. Eddie got to his feet, and so did Molly. They looked around the room, taking in its familiar details, wondering if they would ever see it again. Wondering if they would ever see the Hall again. Or if they’d be able to see it in the same way, after everything they’d done. Because they both knew that war changes everything, whether you win or lose.
They left the room, and Eddie closed the door quietly and turned his back on it.
* * *
• • •
They walked down through a quiet, echoing Hall. No one else was about, and nothing was moving anywhere. It reminded Eddie eerily of the Other Drood Hall, that he and Molly had discovered in a different dimension. Where all the Droods were dead because they’d fought a war they couldn’t win.
“Are we the last people here?” said Molly.
“No,” said Eddie. “We’ll be leaving a skeleton staff behind, to oversee the Hall’s defences. So it can’t be taken away from us while we’re gone. Most of the defences and protections are computer-controlled, but my family hasn’t survived this long by relying on the efficiency of machines. Everyone who can fight is going, but not the old and the young, the sick and people like William . . . Who wouldn’t be any help anyway. Don’t worry about the Hall. It’ll be fine.”
“Trust me,” said Molly. “That isn’t what I’m worrying about.”
They managed a small smile for each other, then hurried on through the heavy silence of the deserted Hall. Finally they strode out of the front door, to find the Drood family assembled on the lawns. Standing proudly in their golden armour, gleaming brightly under the grey sky, in endless ranks and rows. It occurred to Eddie that the last time he’d seen so many Droods together, it had been for the late Armourer’s funeral. Not a good omen.
All the Droods looked different. They’d moulded their armour into new shapes, to fit their individual needs. Some of the changes were subtle, while others were downright grotesque. Everything from stylised knights in medieval armour, to technological battle suits bristling with weapons, to demonic gargoyles with fangs and claws. The armour’s strange matter could be reshaped by an effort of will, but it took a lot of concentration to maintain the new form. So the Droods’ chosen shapes were mostly for psychological effect, to strike fear and horror into the hearts of the enemy when they first met. Once the fighting began, the armour would quickly revert to its standard form.
“Damn . . .” said Molly. “You really are an army.”
“When Droods go to war, let the world beware,” said Eddie.
The Matriarch and the Sarjeant-at-Arms were standing together by the front door, facing the massed ranks of the armoured Droods. They hadn’t put on their armour yet, so everyone could see their faces. They looked out of place: the Matriarch in her smart suit and the Sarjeant in his butler’s outfit. Eddie and Molly strode past them and took up positions beside the front row. Eddie armoured up, and Molly looked at him as if she’d lost him. The man she loved had become just another faceless Drood. The Matriarch started talking, and everyone paid attention.
“You all have your orders, and your objectives. You know what this is about. Don’t let anything stop you. Make the family proud.”
The Droods all spoke at once. “Anything, for the family!”
Eddie added his voice. Molly didn’t.
The Matriarch and the Sarjeant armoured up, and he gave the nod to the Armourer. Maxwell and Victoria were standing off to one side, backed up by their own armoured ranks, in stylised golden lab coats. The lab assistants were going to war.
A control column appeared in front of Maxwell and Vi
ctoria, all shining steel and blinking lights, and they bent over it to work the controls. That great dimensional engine, Alpha Red Alpha, stirred to life deep beneath Drood Hall. A strange juddering vibration ran through the armoured ranks, building steadily in their bodies and in their souls; and then, just like that, Drood Hall and all the Droods disappeared from the world. And reappeared in the Nightside.
CHAPTER EIGHT
First Blood
It quickly became clear that Drood Hall wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Instead of materialising in the heart of the long night, surrounded by important people and vulnerable targets, the Hall was standing among grimy terraced houses on a deserted street.
“Where the hell are we?” said the Matriarch.
“We’re on Blaiston Street,” said Eddie. “Where the predatory house used to be before I killed it. You remember, the house that ate the Wulfshead Club.”
“This is not where we were supposed to arrive!” said the Matriarch.
“Yeah, well, that’s the Nightside for you,” Molly said sweetly. “Always full of surprises.”
Drood Hall stood tall and imposing and very out of place under a star-speckled sky, looming over the mean and stunted buildings surrounding it, bathed in the shimmering light of the oversized full moon. The two long rows of shabby terraces that Eddie remembered from his last visit had been warped and twisted into a great circle surrounding the Hall. As though they’d been pulled in by the fierce gravity of the Hall’s importance. The Matriarch turned to the Sarjeant-at-Arms to demand answers, but it was obvious he was just as thrown as she was.
“Something would appear to have gone wrong with Alpha Red Alpha,” offered Eddie. Doing his best not to sound pleased, amused, or even a little bit I told you so.
The Sarjeant looked around for the Armourer, but it was hard to identify anyone in the golden crowd milling confusedly around in the street.
“Maxwell, Victoria!” he said loudly. “Get your arses over here, right now! I want to know what’s happened, and why, and you had better have an answer I can understand!”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Eddie. Molly nodded solemnly.
The Matriarch turned on them angrily. “If I thought you had anything to do with this . . .”
“Grow up, Maggie,” said Eddie. “It’s not us; it’s the Nightside.”
What had been an impressive army of armoured Droods was now scattered the whole length of Blaiston Street. Most of them were stumbling around, staring numbly this way and that, as they tried to orientate themselves in their new setting. They’d prepared themselves for the strange new sights and neon-lit temptations detailed in their briefings, braced themselves for resistance and even open violence, but this ratty neighbourhood in the middle of nowhere had thrown them completely. A lot of them looked as though they were afraid to touch anything in case they caught something. Their carefully sculpted battle suits collapsed as their concentration shattered, reverting to the basic golden form. Which would still have been pretty impressive if they hadn’t all looked so obviously lost. A few had grown weapons from their hands and were looking around hopefully for someone to use them on, but the street remained completely silent and utterly deserted.
Maxwell and Victoria hurried forward to present themselves to the Matriarch and the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and all four of them armoured down so they could see one another’s faces clearly. This was not a moment for misunderstandings.
“We don’t know why we’re here,” Max said quickly, before the Matriarch could say anything.
“And we don’t know what went wrong,” said Vicky. “But this is, after all, the Nightside. Where standard science and basic logic famously don’t apply all of the time. Or even if they just don’t feel like it.”
“But look on the bright side!” said Max. “We have quite definitely arrived inside the long night!”
“Yes!” said Vicky. “Look at that moon!”
“It shouldn’t be that size, should it, dear?”
“Much bigger than it should be, dear.”
“We really must look into that while we’re here.”
“When we get the time.”
The Sarjeant made an impatient sound, and Maxwell and Victoria quickly looked back at him.
“We have most definitely made it past any and all defences the Authorities might have put in place to stop us,” said Max, smiling weakly at the Matriarch.
“And they certainly won’t expect us to be here,” said Vicky. “So we still have the advantage of surprise!”
The Armourer kept talking, piling on the information and the theories, at least partly because as long as they were talking, the Matriarch and the Sarjeant couldn’t shout at them. Eddie and Molly moved off a little way, to have a quiet discussion of their own.
“This is Blaiston Street, isn’t it?” Eddie asked. He armoured down, because wearing his armour in an empty street felt like an over-reaction. “I mean . . . it’s changed a lot since we were last here. It looks so much older . . .”
“I had noticed,” said Molly. “The houses aren’t just dirty and shabby; a lot of the brickwork is actually crumbling and falling apart. The whole street looks . . . decayed. Decades older, maybe more . . .”
“And no sign of life anywhere,” said Eddie. “Have we arrived at the right time? Could Alpha Red Alpha have sent us into the future? Could that have been the Authority’s defence, to deflect our transition so we passed through Time as well as Space on our way here?”
“If they had anything powerful enough to interfere with Alpha Red Alpha, I think I’d have heard about it,” Molly said doubtfully.
Eddie looked up at the night sky. “The moon is still the same. Far too big and far too close, like a giant eye watching everything. But the stars . . . I don’t recognise any of those constellations . . .”
“You wouldn’t,” said Molly. She looked up at the flaring stars, which burned fiercely in huge clusters, shot this way and that in vivid displays, and occasionally just blinked out, as though they’d simply got bored with the whole thing. “This is normal for the Nightside. The stars are always changing, reassembling themselves into new patterns. Just another hint that you’ve left the everyday world behind. Trust me, we haven’t moved in Time. This is still the same day as when we left.”
Eddie looked at her. “How can you be sure?”
“All part of a witch’s Sight,” Molly said airily. “To See the world as it really is and to know exactly where and when we are.”
“So what happened to the buildings?” said Eddie.
“Well,” said Molly. “If you want a wild stab in the dark, which is rather appropriate considering where we are, maybe Alpha Red Alpha’s energies did something . . .”
“No,” said Eddie. “If the dimensional energies were that out-of-control, we would have been affected.”
Molly looked at him sharply. “Hold everything, go previous, throw it into reverse. You mean that machine could have aged us too?”
“Or delivered us here in any number of little pieces,” said Eddie. “Uncle Jack and I used to have long and quite disturbing conversations about Alpha Red Alpha, back when he was Armourer. About all the things that could go wrong and why using it was such a bad idea except in the gravest of emergencies. We don’t understand that machine nearly as well as the Matriarch thinks Maxwell and Victoria do.”
“Why didn’t you say any of this before?” said Molly.
“I did,” said Eddie. “Loudly and repeatedly. But the Matriarch didn’t want to hear it, and the Sarjeant didn’t give a damn. They couldn’t have their precious invasion without the dimensional engine, so they just closed their eyes and hoped for the best.” He looked around him, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I think . . . what’s happened here is nothing to do with us. It’s the result of the boundaries changing. The Nightside was never supposed to be any larger than it was
originally created to be.”
Molly looked around her and nodded slowly. “So the territory itself has become strained, and weakened . . . Could this change spread, do you think? To the rest of the long night?”
“If the Nightside itself has become unstable . . . Who knows?” said Eddie. “More than ever, we need to find out who was responsible for the change and make them put things back the way they were. Before it’s too late.”
* * *
• • •
The Droods clustered unhappily together before Drood Hall. If only because there was some feeling of security in numbers. They milled around aimlessly, talking loudly over each other. They weren’t used to being caught so completely wrong-footed. All their careful planning and detailed briefings had come to nothing, and their usual Drood confidence was off in a corner crying its eyes out. They weren’t scared, as such, but they were shaken. They looked to the Matriarch and the Sarjeant-at-Arms for answers, but they were too busy arguing with the Armourer, so the Droods argued with each other, just for the comfort of hearing their own voices in the eerie hush of the deserted street.
Eddie watched their discipline deteriorate and thought he understood. They’d never encountered anything like the long night before. This wasn’t just another place, or even another world; the Nightside had a spiritual ambience all its own. The usual certainties were gone, and what remained felt more like a dream. The kind you were grateful to wake up from. There was an especially oppressive feeling to Blaiston Street that was affecting the Droods despite the protections built into their armour. They were in the night that never ends, where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, that time when you lie awake in your bed and wonder what happened to the life you meant to have. If anything you’d achieved meant anything, and if what lay ahead was worth the struggle of getting there.
If there was any point at all in going on . . .