Roxie shrugged. “Okay, but he doesn’t look to me like he wants to be talked out of it.”
“I have to try,” I said.
“Of course you do,” said Roxie. “You’re one of the good guys.”
I put myself between Jack a Napes and Roxie, holding my hands out placatingly.
“Don’t do this, Jack. You can’t hurt me. I have armour.”
“I know,” said Jack a Napes. “So do I now.”
He ripped open his shirt collar to reveal a dully glowing brass torc at his throat. It was old, really old, and a thing of power. I could feel its presence, as though some ancient predator long thought extinct had just stepped into a jungle clearing and showed its teeth.
“That’s not a Drood torc,” said Roxie. “What is that, Eddie?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You should know Druid magic when you see it,” said Jack a Napes. “This is Lud’s Ward. Lost for centuries, but I tracked it down. Just so I could use it against you, Drood. As long as I wear Lud’s Ward, any attack on me is automatically turned back against the attacker. The best kind of defence; you don’t dare hurt me.”
“You always were the most passive-aggressive terrorist I ever knew,” I said. “But how is that thing going to help if I just stand here and refuse to attack you? You can’t make me fight you.”
“I don’t care what you do,” said Jack a Napes. “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, for what you did. I’ve waited so long for this . . . to make you pay for what you put me through.”
“I haven’t done anything to you! This is all some stupid mistake!”
“No mistake,” said Jack a Napes. “Your family destroyed my love, and my life. I can’t get to them, but I can get to you.”
“Jack,” I said, “this isn’t like you.”
“It is now,” he said.
He launched himself at me, still smiling that fixed, hateful smile. I just had time to think there was something wrong in the way he moved, and then Jack a Napes’ clawed hands were reaching for my throat. Roxie stabbed one hand at him, and the air between them crackled with unnatural energies. I tensed for a moment, before recognising it as a simple immobilization spell. But the magic didn’t even reach Jack a Napes; it rebounded and blasted Roxie right off her feet. She hit the ground hard. Jack a Napes laughed softly; it was a satisfied, happy sound. And I finally accepted this wasn’t the Jack a Napes I’d known. That gentle soul was gone, replaced by a killer. And I’d had enough of him.
I armoured up, and almost gasped as new strength and a marvellous sense of well-being slammed through me. I hadn’t realised how run-down I’d been feeling, until I didn’t feel it any more. I pushed that thought aside for later and went to meet Jack a Napes. I still didn’t want to hurt him, but he wasn’t giving me any choice. I couldn’t let him hurt Molly.
I punched him in the face with a golden fist. A blow hard enough to ensure any normal man would sleep through the rest of the day. It felt like I’d punched a mountain; something implacably hard and unyielding. My fist was stopped dead, just short of Jack’s face. He grinned at me, savouring the moment, as I took a punch in the face so hard, I cried out in spite of myself.
I staggered backwards, my head ringing inside my armour. I hadn’t realised how literal Lud’s Ward was. My face pulsed with pain. I looked up to find Jack a Napes lunging at me, hands outstretched and his face full of a terrible anticipation.
Both hands fastened around my throat. Steel-hard fingers, inside my armour, choking the breath out of me. That shouldn’t have been possible, but Lud’s magic was old magic, predating the Droods. I threw myself back and forth across the alley, trying to break his grip, but I couldn’t. He thrust his face into my featureless golden mask, still smiling, and he didn’t look like Jack at all. I grabbed hold of his wrists with my golden hands and tried to crush them, and then cried out and had to stop as my own wrists were crushed. I tripped him, and we both crashed to the ground. I’d hoped the impact would shake him free, but it didn’t. I wound up flat on my back, with him kneeling on my chest and strangling the life out of me.
His face was very close now, twisted with hate. I hit him again and again in the ribs, but only I felt the blows. My lungs strained. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t believe this was how I was going to die. In a filthy back alley, at the hands of an old friend, for reasons that made no sense at all. The thought infuriated me, so much it cleared my head and I knew what to do.
I reached through my armoured side with my armoured hand. The two surfaces melded seamlessly together, allowing my bare hand to reach deep into my pocket, and the pocket dimension I keep there. It was hard to concentrate, with Jack a Napes’ hands closing my throat and his laughter in my face, but I pulled out the handful of small plastic boxes the Armourer had given me. I dropped two, but kept hold of the green one. Then all I had to do was hit the button on the top and activate the neural inhibitor.
Jack a Napes howled miserably, his whole body convulsing as the field generated by the box scrambled his thoughts. His hands jumped away from my throat, and he fell backwards off my chest, scrabbling helplessly on the ground beside me. I sat up, breathing hard and fighting to get air into my lungs again. The box worked because Lud’s Ward didn’t recognise the electro-magnetic field as a physical attack. It was too old to know about science. I grabbed up all the plastic boxes and thrust them back into my pocket. And then I went after Jack a Napes. Because the neural inhibitor’s effects wouldn’t last much longer.
I grabbed hold of the brass torc round his neck, and crushed it in my golden hand. The torc shattered and fell apart. Because up close and personal, old Drood magic was never going to be a match for Ethel’s new strange matter. Jack a Napes sat up suddenly, and pushed me away. His face was clear, his thoughts working again. For a moment he didn’t realise what had happened, and then he put a hand to his torc, found the crushed remnants of Lud’s Ward, and let out a wordless cry of rage.
He scrambled back up onto his feet, and I got up to face him. He reached behind his back, and brought out a glowing dagger. I really hadn’t expected that. Jack a Napes never used weapons. Never. Where the hell could he even have got such a thing? Presumably, the same place he got Lud’s Ward. Someone else must have provided him with both. Whoever was behind his attack, and that of the Manichean Monk.
Dr DOA?
Normally, I would expect any enchanted weapon to shatter against my armour, or skid harmlessly away. But after Lud’s Ward . . . it was always possible Jack a Napes had found the one enchanted weapon that could hurt me. He lunged forward, the glowing dagger leaping for my heart, and I had no choice but to defend myself. With my armour on, he might as well have been moving in slow motion. I had all the time I needed to move inside his reach and punch him hard in the chest. Crushing his heart.
I felt it convulse under my fist. Jack a Napes’ hand opened, and the glowing dagger fell to the ground. He looked surprised, and then all the expression just dropped out of his face. He fell to his knees, fell back, and lay still. I armoured down and knelt beside him. He looked up at me, barely breathing. He was already dead; he just didn’t know it yet. All the hate and rage had left his face; he looked like the Jack a Napes I remembered. The man I thought I knew. His dying eyes struggled to focus on me. I leaned over him as he said his last words.
“Shaman? Why . . . ?”
And then he died.
I sat down hard on the alley floor. I’d just killed a man I respected, and he died not even understanding why I’d done it. I felt tired, worn-out, and this wasn’t just because I was no longer wearing my armour. I felt like I’d lost my way. Every breath hurt my bruised throat, and my sides ached from the punishment I’d taken from my own attacks. I tried to work out what had just happened, and couldn’t. Was that what happened when you knew you were dying? Everything just stopped making sense?
Roxie knelt beside me. “Taken
out by my own spell. I’ll never live it down. Are you all right, Eddie?”
“Not really, no,” I said.
She looked me over quickly. “Are you injured anywhere?”
“Probably.”
She tried to work a simple healing spell on me, and swore harshly when nothing happened.
“It’s the torc,” I said. “It’s working so hard now to protect me from the poison, it won’t allow anything to affect me. I’ll be okay in a minute. I’ve had worse. Just let me . . . get my breath.”
She sat down on the ground beside me and leaned against my shoulder. She looked like Roxie, but she felt like Molly. We sat together for a while, saying nothing. My breathing slowly eased, and my various aches and pains retreated a little. I looked at the dead Jack a Napes.
“What am I going to do now, Jack?”
Roxie misunderstood me. “Leave him here. Our business in the Wulfshead won’t wait. The club Management will see the body is taken care of.”
“I’ve killed again,” I said.
“You had no choice!” Roxie said fiercely. “It wasn’t your fault!”
“He was almost a friend,” I said. “One of the good guys.”
“He didn’t act like one,” said Roxie. “Someone must have messed with his mind.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I started to get to my feet, and then stopped as I saw the dagger lying on the ground beside me. I armoured up my right hand, picked the knife up by the hilt, and looked the weapon over. The blade wasn’t glowing any more. It seemed like just an ordinary knife, one he could have got anywhere. I snapped the blade in two, just in case, and threw the pieces away. I made my armoured glove disappear. The temptation to wrap myself in my full armour, and feel strong and well again, was almost overwhelming, but I couldn’t afford to give in to temptation. Because if I hid away in my armour, I might never come out again. And I still had work to do that couldn’t be done by a Drood.
I got to my feet, slowly and carefully, making the odd pained noise as my injuries protested. Nothing was broken. It was just pain. Roxie got up too, standing close, ready to help if needed. She thought I didn’t see the concern in her eyes. I looked down at the dead man, one last time.
“He deserved a better death than this.”
“We all do,” said Roxie.
I looked at her. “Once we’re inside the Wulfshead, we need answers, but we can’t tell anyone why. No one can know Eddie Drood is . . . compromised.”
“If Jack a Napes is anything to go by, I think that ship has sailed,” said Roxie. “The word is out. People know.”
“We can’t afford to assume that,” I said doggedly. “The longer it takes for word to get around, the more time we’ll have to operate freely. Before the predators start circling . . .”
“Is that really it?” said Roxie. “Or is it that you just don’t want your friends to know that you’re dying?”
“I haven’t got time to deal with sympathy,” I said.
“But they could help! Go places we can’t, talk to people who wouldn’t talk to us!”
“Molly . . .”
“You have to be the hard man, don’t you, Eddie?”
“Yes!” I said. “I have to be! Because it’s the only way I can do this.”
“No one will think you’re weak,” said Roxie, “if you ask your friends for help. Are you really ready to risk your life, rather than have them think less of you?”
“That isn’t it,” I said. “You don’t understand.”
“What? What don’t I understand? Explain it to me!”
“Dr DOA got to me in my family home,” I said. “Where I should have been safest. The only way he could have done that was with the help of someone who knew how to get to me. Someone I thought I could trust.”
“Someone inside your family?” said Roxie.
“And if Dr DOA can get to my family, he can get to my friends. There’s only one person in my life I know I can trust, and that’s you.”
“All right,” said Roxie. “What do we say when people want to know why we’re asking questions about Dr DOA?”
“Shaman Bond always wants to know things,” I said. “I spent years establishing his insatiable curiosity. Everyone will just assume he’s working on some new con, or asking on someone else’s behalf. Because that’s what he does. I’ll concentrate on Dr DOA; you see what you can find out about the Survivors. Who they are, what they do, and how best to get in to see them, uninvited.”
“No problem,” said Roxie. “People will talk to Roxie Hazzard, because she has a well-established tendency to kick the crap out of people who give her a hard time.”
I smiled briefly. “Remind me; what is the difference exactly between Roxie Hazzard and Molly Metcalf?”
“Roxie wouldn’t put up with half the crap from you that Molly does.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s go crash the Wulfshead.”
* * *
I walked over to the opposite wall and growled certain Words at it. A silver door appeared, set flush with the brickwork and deeply etched with threats and warnings in angelic and demonic script. I could read most of them; there was nothing new, and nothing that bothered me. I was pretty sure some of the earliest examples had been written by members of my family.
“This is Shaman Bond,” I said to the door.
“And Roxie Hazzard!” Roxie said proudly.
I pressed the palm of my left hand against the silver slab. The metal felt hot and sweaty, like a living thing. I didn’t flinch. I’d encountered worse in my time. There was a worryingly long pause, and then the door swung open, acknowledging our right to enter, which was just as well. The door has been known to bite the hands off people whose names weren’t on the guest list. Probably just as well for the door. With the mood I was in, I was more than ready to armour up and kick the door right off its hinges if it gave me any attitude. Perhaps the door sensed that.
I strode in, with Roxie strutting proudly at my side. Not so much like conquering heroes, though; more like supplicants in the underworld.
Inside the Wulfshead Club, it was all mayhem and music. Neon strip lighting, furniture so modernistic, you couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be half the time, and a long high-tech bar that looked more like a modern art installation, designed by someone with a real fondness for absinthe. Giant plasma screens covered the walls, endlessly broadcasting intimate and indiscreet details from the lives of the rich and famous. Without their knowledge or approval. Glimpses into secret headquarters and hidden bunkers, film stars at play and politicians making deals, little gods and lesser demons lying down together. The very latest music slammed and pounded on the air, while girls with hardly any clothing on danced their hearts out on spot-lit miniature stages. Just because they could.
The Wulfshead is where the weird people go; the heroes and the villains, the living and the dead, and all the others stuck somewhere in between. To drink and gossip, draw up plans for the saving or damning of civilization, to look for a new con or pick one another up. Just like any bar in London, really, except that the clientele are a little more exotic. Laughter and tears, romance and death threats; all human and inhuman life is here, ready to embrace you. If you can stand the pace.
The usual familiar faces were making the scene. Waterloo Lillian, the transvestite showgirl, looking impossibly glamorous in her dark fishnet stockings, crimson basque, and tall ostrich feathers on her head, was arm-wrestling with Janissary Jane, the mercenary demon fighter. Up close, Jane’s combat leathers smelled of smoke and fire and dried blood, just like always. A man who claimed to be immortal was earnestly discussing quantum theory with a serial reincarnator, over a bottle of wine that was old before Atlantis sank. A nurse with a starched white uniform half-soaked in fresh blood chewed hungrily on a human heart, while a halo of flies buzzed round her head. And Monkton Farley, the fa
med consulting detective, stood with his back to the bar, holding forth to a crowd of adoring disciples while they hung on his every arrogant word.
The roar of conversation rose and fell as everyone swapped the latest news, hammered out dodgy deals, and plotted to throw some poor unfortunate to the wolves. Games were played, reputations were made and ruined, and a good time was had by all. I nodded to Roxie, and we split up, heading off through the packed crowd in different directions. I took my time, smiling and nodding to everyone and working the crowd with practised charm. I had questions, and I was determined to get answers, but I couldn’t afford for anyone to see how desperate I was. As long as I was the casual, easy-going Shaman Bond, people would tell me anything, just for the joy of spreading the news and a chance to do someone else down. But if they got the idea the information had a value, then the price would go up. And up. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to bargain, and I didn’t feel up to just beating the information out of people. Besides, that was what Eddie Drood did. Not Shaman Bond. Just another reason why I prefer being Shaman.
I looked round the club, taking a breather for a moment. I’d known good times and bad at the Wulfshead. With friends and enemies, and a whole lot of people who drifted back and forth between both. It seemed to me I should be feeling better because I was moving among my own kind, in so much good company. But if anything, the sheer seething vitality of the crowd just made me feel worse. Like I didn’t belong here any more. This was a place for people with plans, and hopes, and a future. Part of me just wanted to turn and leave, run away from something I couldn’t be a part of any more. But I didn’t. I had a job to do. So, as on so many occasions before, I put on a smile I didn’t feel and went to work.
I don’t think Roxie even noticed my moment of melancholy. She was too busy grinning at everyone and waving happily to old friends. Playing up to the crowd, laughing and sparkling effortlessly. Everyone seemed pleased to see her, and only too ready to buy her many drinks. She clapped people on the shoulder and on the back, kissed cheeks and mouths, and knocked back any drink anyone cared to put in her hand. She was loud and lewd, big and boisterous, and laughter followed wherever she went. It was a hell of a performance. A small part of me was angry that she could be having such a good time while I was dying.