“When you stare into the Abyss,” said Molly, “remember that the Abyss stares also into you.”
“The trick is not to blink first,” said the Soul Witch.
“How long do you expect this investigation of yours to last?” said the Bishop.
“Exactly,” said the Soul Witch. “Some of us have important work to be getting on with.”
“Not long,” I said. “In fact, I’m almost done.”
“What?” said the Bishop.
“I know who the murderer is,” I said.
“You do?” said the Soul Witch.
“Do tell,” said Melmoth.
“It had to be someone really high up,” I said. “With access to all areas, including the security centre. Someone who knew the surveillance system inside out, so they could avoid the cameras and be in a position to give orders so the security people would stay away from the right places at the right time. Which meant it had to be one of you three. And you forgot, Dr Melmoth; I may be dying, but I’m still a Drood. We don’t trust anyone, even when they seem to be doing their best to help us. Thanks to my torc, I have the Sight, and while you’ve been studying me, I’ve been studying you.”
Molly and the Soul Witch looked intently at Melmoth, and their eyes widened.
“Yes!” said Molly. “I can See it!”
“Dear God,” said the Soul Witch. “Melmoth, how could you?”
“I’m feeling very left out,” said Bishop Beastly. “What are all of you Seeing that I’m not?”
“Dr Melmoth is saturated with life energies,” I said. “I saw them earlier. Far too many for one man to have come by honestly. I might not have understood the significance of that if I hadn’t just had an interesting experience with something similar. When you said the bodies were found dead with no obvious wounds or injuries, Dr Melmoth, it all made sense. You’ve been killing people by sucking out their life energies and storing them inside you.”
“Why?” said the Soul Witch. “Why would you do this, Melmoth?”
He smiled suddenly; it was a happy and entirely unrepentant smile. He stood up behind his desk and looked uncaringly around him, like a great man being bothered by questions unworthy of him.
“I came here to find a cure for death, to save my own life. Because one human lifetime seemed such a pitifully small thing, when there was so much waiting to be learned and mastered. I came to Under the Mountain with the highest of hopes, only to find that for all the techniques being practised here, for all the endless studies and research . . . none of you had come up with anything I could use to save myself. So I found a shortcut. A way to take life from others, and make it my own. It wasn’t as if they were doing anything useful with it . . . The stolen energies extended my life. The years my victims would have had became my years. And I went on killing because . . . Well, you can never have enough life, can you? No matter how many years I took, it wasn’t immortality. I knew I would use up all the energies eventually, and still die. Which was, of course, completely unacceptable.”
“Dear Lord,” said Bishop Beastly. “How could we have had such a monster in our midst, and not have known it?”
“Oh please,” said Melmoth. “Like there’s any shortage of monsters here.”
“What do we do now?” said the Soul Witch. She seemed genuinely stunned.
Melmoth turned his smile on her. “You can share in my discovery. You and the Bishop. Through me, you can live lifetimes, enjoy far more years than you ever anticipated. All you have to do is hold Eddie and Molly in this room while I make my escape. I’ll come back, after they’ve left, and show you how to live. Really live.”
“Yeah, right,” said Molly. “Like they’re going to fall for that one . . .”
“How do we know you’ll be back?” said the Soul Witch. Her voice was flat and harsh.
“Well,” said Melmoth, smiling more engagingly than ever. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?”
He came out from behind his desk. Molly and I started forward, and then had to stop as the Soul Witch and Bishop Beastly moved to block our way. Melmoth waggled the fingers of one hand in a quick good-bye, and then was out the door and gone. The Bishop moved quickly to fill the doorway, while the Soul Witch stared challengingly at Molly.
“You can’t trust him!” I said. “Hasn’t what you’ve just heard proved that? He’s got to be heading for the teleport station, and once he’s gone, you’ll never see him again!”
The Bishop and the Soul Witch glanced at each other, and shrugged pretty much simultaneously.
“It’s nothing personal, I assure you,” said the Bishop. “But faced with such an opportunity . . .”
“We’d be mad not to take it,” said the Soul Witch.
“Quite,” said the Bishop.
“We can’t risk losing out on the prize we’ve been chasing all our lives,” said the Soul Witch. “There’s nothing like being around the dying all day to make you even more concerned with living.”
I took a step towards the Bishop, and he seemed to expand to fill the doorway even more completely. His smile had become unbearably smug. “Once I have set myself in place, my dear Drood, I am very hard to move. I’m actually very holy, you know, and protected by the powers above.”
“You’re protecting a murderer,” I said.
“No one’s perfect,” said the Bishop.
I considered armouring up and forcing my way past him, but something in his pose gave me pause. He might be bluffing, or he might not. In a place like this, who knew? But then, a man of the cloth wouldn’t last long in a place like this unless he knew how to defend himself . . .
While I was still thinking that, Molly took a step forward, and she and the Soul Witch stood face-to-face; like two gunslingers meeting in the middle of Main Street. There was a sudden tension in the air, as powerful forces gathered. The two witches moved their hands slightly and adjusted their postures; professional fighters taking the measure of each other. And then the Soul Witch seemed to suddenly unfold, as all the souls stacked within her came forth, superimposing their presence upon and around her. Smoky ghosts, uncertain presences, made up of mists and tatters. The Soul Witch gestured, and the ghosts sprang forward like attack dogs, half of them heading for Molly and the others for me.
They swirled around Molly, circling her rapidly, unable to reach her. I armoured up, and they climbed all over me, trying and failing to force their way through my armour. They wrapped their smoky arms around me, holding me in place. They had the weight and gravity of unquiet souls with unfinished business. But when I tried to hit them, my golden fists passed right through them. They were only solid when they chose to be.
I still had my Sight. I could See the shining threads that connected each individual soul to the Soul Witch. And it was the easiest thing in the world for me to grab hold of the nearest shimmering threads with my golden hands and snap them. The souls convulsed as the strings that connected the puppets to their puppet master disappeared, and then I heard silent voices crying out, Free! Free at last! as the ghosts disappeared. The Soul Witch swore angrily, and pulled the remaining souls back from Molly and into her.
While the Soul Witch was distracted, Molly slammed her hands together. The whole office was suddenly full of a blindingly bright light. Even I was dazzled, inside my golden face mask. I could hear the Soul Witch and the Bishop crying out in shock and horror. The light hammered against my armour like a hailstorm of burning coals. When the light finally faded away and I could see again, it was all over.
The Soul Witch was curled up in a ball on the floor, murmuring, Don’t, please don’t . . . over and over again. The table and chairs had been burned to ashes, and all four walls showed heavy scorch marks. Molly was untouched. I nodded to her respectfully.
“Damn,” I said. “You’ve still got it, Molly. You are still professionally scary.”
“When I have to be,” said Molly. “Believe it.”
“How much magic have you got left?” I said.
“Maybe one or two spells. I’m back to running on fumes.”
“Hang in there,” I said. “We’ve still got work to do.”
We both turned to look at Bishop Beastly, standing in the doorway. Completely untouched by what had just happened. He smiled briefly.
“I really am very holy. Witchery can’t touch me.”
I raised one golden fist. I didn’t even have to do the spiky-knuckles bit before he raised both fat hands placatingly.
“But I know a lost cause when I see one.” He moved away from the door. “Feel free to go after Dr Melmoth, with my blessing.”
“If he’s escaped, because you’ve slowed us down . . . ,” I said.
“He won’t,” said the Bishop. “Trust me.”
“Yeah, right,” said Molly.
* * *
Out in the corridor there was no sign of Melmoth anywhere. Just a single technician, hurrying along. He took one look at us, and turned quickly to hurry off in some other direction. I caught up with him, took a hold of his coat, and picked him up off the floor.
“Which way to the teleport station?” I said.
“I can’t tell you that!” said the technician, trying hard to look everywhere but into my featureless golden mask. “Security must be preserved!”
Molly leaned in beside me and smiled unpleasantly at him.
“Hi! I’m Molly Metcalf!”
“It’s not far!” said the technician. “Down the right-hand corridor, take the elevators at the end, all the way to the top floor. Please don’t turn me into something.”
I dropped him, and we hurried down the right-hand corridor.
“Still scary,” I said.
“Damned right,” said Molly.
We found the elevators, and I armoured down while Molly hit the call button. And then we had to just stand there and wait. Elevators have no sense of urgency. The doors finally opened, and we stepped inside. I hit the top button, the doors took their own sweet time closing, and we started up. Molly and I stood together, watching the floor lights change.
“He could already have reached the teleport station,” I said. “He could already be gone. And we haven’t got time to go chasing after him. I don’t suppose you could . . .”
“No, I can’t just transport us there!” said Molly. “I told you; I’m wiped out. I couldn’t even produce a top hat from a rabbit. Isn’t there any way to make this elevator go faster?”
I studied the controls again, just on the off chance. “Apparently not.”
We waited, and waited, until the doors finally opened onto a wide-open space, with no one about and any number of corridors leading off. There was a sudden commotion down one of the corridors, so we ran towards it. We burst into what had to be the teleport station, a number of carefully delineated departure pads surrounded by unfamiliar equipment. And standing very still, his hands in the air and well short of the pads, was Dr Melmoth, guarded by a dozen heavily armed security men. Two seriously spooked technicians were staying well back, pressed up against the control panels. One of the security guards nodded to me.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Drood. Bishop Beastly phoned ahead and got us here in time to prevent Dr Melmoth from leaving. He’s not going anywhere. Unless he does something really stupid, and then my men will see just how many holes they can shoot in him before he hits the floor.”
“Of course,” said Molly. “Phones trump slow-moving elevators any day. Why didn’t we think of that?”
“Well?” I said. “Do you have Security’s phone number?”
“No one loves a smart-arse,” said Molly.
Melmoth glanced around him, careful not to lower his hands even a little bit. He looked the guards over, dismissed them with a sniff, and smiled at me.
“Tell you what, Eddie. I’ll share my discovery with you, if you’ll get me out of this. You want to live, don’t you, Eddie? What I’ve got can’t cure you, but it could give you many more years!”
“You’re the second person to make me that offer today,” I said. “The price is still too high.”
“Wait,” said Molly. “What is it you’ve got, Melmoth?”
“Molly . . .”
“Hush, Eddie! Don’t you want to know?”
I nodded to the security guard. “Let him show us what he’s got. Unless it looks like a weapon, and then . . .”
“He’s dead meat,” said the guard.
Melmoth made a face at him. “You just can’t get good help these days.”
He lowered one hand, reached slowly and carefully into his coat pocket, and produced a small blood-red crystal. He held it out before him so we could all see. It didn’t look like much; just a gleaming crimson stone, in which dark shadows curled slowly.
“This is what I found, hiding unsuspected among a consignment of alien artefacts we received from Black Heir. I’ve no idea what it is, or what strange world it might have come from; but all you have to do is point it at someone, and their life jumps right out of them and into you. Just make a wish . . . and all their years are yours. Your problems could be over in a moment, Eddie . . .”
“And how many more people would have to die, to keep me going?” I said.
He gave me his best engaging smile. “Only little people.”
“Forget it,” said Molly. “I know what that is, and it’s not what Melmoth thinks. It’s not even alien; it’s a vampire jewel. What you get if you take a vampire and reduce it down to its basic essence. Nasty thing.” She looked coldly at Melmoth. “The jewel steals life energies, but that’s all. It can make you stronger, but it can’t grant you one extra day of life. You’ve been killing people for nothing . . .”
“No . . . ,” said Melmoth. For the first time, he looked genuinely upset. “No!”
He jabbed the blood-red stone at Molly, but before I or any of the guards could react, Molly gestured sharply, and the crimson jewel leapt out of Melmoth’s hand and into hers. He dropped to his knees and rocked back and forth, shaking his head.
“All those people I killed . . . and I’m still going to die! It’s not fair!”
The Soul Witch came in with Bishop Beastly. She looked pale, but back to herself again. She nodded to me, ignoring Molly.
“Leave Melmoth to us. He will be punished.”
“Are you going to kill him?” said Molly.
“No,” said Bishop Beastly. “I don’t think any of us are in the mood to be that merciful. Too many good people have died.”
“Thought you were very holy?” I said.
“Not all the time,” said the Bishop. He smiled at Melmoth. “Vengeance is mine.”
“Ours,” said the Soul Witch.
“Quite so, my dear,” said Bishop Beastly. “Dr Melmoth can serve as our latest guinea pig, for all the most dangerous and extreme experiments. For as long as he lasts. Who knows; maybe through him we’ll find something that does work.”
“Okay,” said Molly. “I can live with that.”
She tossed me the vampire jewel. “Be a love, Eddie, and destroy that thing. No one in this madhouse can be trusted with it.”
I armoured up one hand and crushed the bloodstone. When I opened my golden hand, just a little powder fell away. Bishop Beastly nodded to the security guards, and they grabbed hold of Melmoth and hauled him out of the chamber. He fought them all the way, kicking and screaming. Because he had better reason than most to know what lay in store for him.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us,” said the Soul Witch, “we need to make a report to the Overseers. And arrange for a new Head of the Science Division. The work must go on. Because there really aren’t any shortcuts.”
“The technicians will see you on your way,” said the Bishop. “Safe journey. Don?
??t feel you have to hurry back any time soon.”
They left, not looking back. The two technicians looked at Molly and me with shocked, vaguely traumatized eyes. And that was when Django Westphalion came storming in through a side corridor, bearing an energy weapon so big he needed both hands just to aim it. The technicians dived for cover again, while I armoured up and put myself between Molly and the Immortal. He opened fire, and a beam of energy shot out, so fierce it seemed to slice a path through reality itself to get to me. The beam slammed into my armoured chest, and the golden strange matter soaked it up like a sunbeam. Django cursed bitterly and threw the weapon to the floor.
“It’s not fair! It’s just not fair!”
Molly came out from behind me, and advanced on the Immortal with a determined look in her eye. “I have put up with enough shit for one day.”
Django saw her coming, and bent down to pick up the energy weapon again. Molly got there first, and kicked him in the face while he was still bent over. He fell backwards, and she was on him in a moment, beating the crap out of him. Just on general principles. I armoured down and watched her do it. After all, it wasn’t like she could do him any real damage. His shape-changing abilities would repair any injury. From the amount of noise he was making, it still hurt like hell. Served him right, the treacherous little toad. Molly finally stepped back, breathing hard, and I approached her cautiously.
“Feeling better now?”
“Much,” said Molly.
I nodded to the Immortal as he pulled himself back together again. “Sorry about that, Django. But she needed someone to take out the day’s frustrations on, and you were dumb enough to give her an excuse.” I picked up the energy weapon and crumpled it into scrap with my golden hands, before throwing it aside. “Why did you want to shoot me, anyway? You know I’m dying.”
“Not fast enough,” Django said spitefully, rising painfully to his feet.
“Tell me something,” I said. “That teleport bracelet of yours, the one you used to bring us here. Where did you get it?”
“Why should I tell you anything, Drood?”
I looked to Molly. “Ready for Round Two?”