Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel

  The shadows retreated for a moment, shaken.

  Molly filled the chamber with all manner of fierce and dangerous light, throwing mystic attacks at every moving shadow. Terrible energies flared around her hands, and the close air trembled with the impact of the Words she spoke. Dark leaping things exploded as her energies overpowered them, but most of the shadows just opened up holes inside them so that her magics flashed right through them without touching or affecting them at all. They came at her again and again, but she’d already surrounded herself with a shimmering screen that kept them back. The shadows beat at it with their dark fists and cut at the screen with their barbed claws, and none of them even came close to breaking it. I could feel the presence of the protective screen even through my armour. A tingling, not unpleasant sensation.

  The shadow shapes seemed only to have a physical presence when they chose to. I lashed out at them and my golden gauntlets passed right through them, as though they were just the shadows they seemed. I couldn’t touch them, couldn’t hurt them, and when I tried to grab them in my golden hands, they squeezed out like inky tar. And all the time they were hitting me again and again, harder and harder. And I couldn’t help noticing that Molly’s protective field was slowly shrinking under the outside pressure, closing gradually but inexorably in on her.

  “Eddie! This is not going well!” said Molly. “I say we use the Merlin Glass and get the hell out of here! We’ve got what we came for!”

  “Already ahead of you,” I said, thrashing wildly around me. “But, unfortunately, some outside force is interfering with my access to the pocket dimension I keep the Glass in. I can’t reach the damn thing!”

  “Typical! I told you to leave it open in case we needed to make a sudden exit!”

  “No, you didn’t!”

  “Well, you should have thought that I would!” said Molly.

  “That makes no sense!”

  “Can we argue about this later? Only I’m just a bit busy at the moment.”

  The shadows lunged forward, falling on us both from all sides at once, wrapping themselves around us like huge shadowy snakes. They lashed our arms to our sides before we even realised what they were doing, and both of us staggered back and forth around the chamber, crashing into the walls and each other, struggling to break free. I set all the strength of my armour against the shadow snakes, but they didn’t give an inch. I could see them tightening remorselessly around Molly’s shimmering screen, forcing it right back against her body, so she had no room to move or manoeuvre. If not for the screen, the sheer pressure of the shadow snakes would have killed her. They tightened even further about me like constrictors. I heard my armour creak and even groan under the inhuman pressure, and I felt the touch of real danger. Because while physical force has limits, magic has none. The rogue armour was good, but it wasn’t the impenetrable strange matter I was used to.

  My mind flashed back to the half-melted Drood armour I’d found at the entrance doors of the ruined Hall. He probably thought his armour would save him, right up to the moment when it didn’t.

  “Sorry, Eddie,” said Molly, just a bit breathlessly. “Normally I’d leave it to you to save the day with some last-minute miracle.…I know how much you love to do that.…But I don’t think my shields will last much longer. I’m going to have to try something.…”

  “Go for it!” I said. “I’ve got nothing. If you’ve got something, hit them with it, with my blessing!”

  “You’re so sweet. Okay, here’s an old trick Walker taught me,” said Molly. “And no one knows the darkness like Henry. Fiat Lux!”

  Brilliant light sprang up out of nowhere, blinding and incandescent, filling the whole chamber and throwing back all the darkness. The shadows couldn’t stand against it and were blasted out of existence in a moment. Molly’s shimmering screen was gone, replaced by pure light, and there wasn’t a bit of darkness anywhere. The light reached a peak almost unbearable to human eyes, even through my face mask, and then began to fade. At the farthest edges of the chamber, shadows started to stir again.

  “The Glass!” Molly said urgently. “We need the Merlin Glass!”

  “I know!” I said. “I’m on it!”

  I concentrated on the Merlin Glass, reaching out to it through my torc, and with no shadow attacks to distract me, my trained mind punched right through the barriers that had been put in my way. All Droods are trained in psychic as well as physical attacks. Or we wouldn’t last ten minutes in the Hall, never mind out in the field. We’ve always been a boisterous family. I thrust my hand through the golden metal at my side, into my pocket, and grabbed the hand mirror. I brought it out and shook the Glass to door size. Once again, bright sunlight poured through the doorway from the Drood grounds. Molly went straight through the Glass, with me hot on her heels. The moment I hit the grassy lawn beyond, I turned around and shut down the Merlin Glass. It shrunk to hand size and flew back to nestle cosily into my hand. I put it away. The Drood grounds were full of sunshine, not a shadow anywhere.

  “Where’s the compass?” said Molly. “Tell me after all that, you’ve still got the bloody compass!”

  “Panic not,” I said. “Of course I’ve still got the compass. I’ve been holding it clenched in my hand all this time.”

  She didn’t relax until I opened my hand to show her. I put it away in the same pocket as the Merlin Glass, while Molly breathed heavily and then stretched slowly in the sun, like a cat.

  “Good. Well done. Because I am never going back to that place, not ever. I hate mummies!”

  “There weren’t any mummies.…”

  “There might have been!”

  There’s no answer to a statement like that, or at least none that won’t get you into serious trouble with your girlfriend. I armoured down. And maybe it was only my imagination that seemed to feel a slowness, a slight reluctance, in the armour’s return to the torc. I stretched, too, enjoying the warmth and light of the open grounds.

  And then Molly and I sank down abruptly onto the good green grass and just sat there quietly, getting our spiritual breath back. I think if Molly hadn’t been there, I might well have given myself over to the shudders. The grounds were very peaceful and the quiet was a comfort. Molly and I sat side by side, shoulder to shoulder, leaning companionably against each other. Drawing strength from each other.

  “It’s been a long time since it’s been that close,” I said finally. “If you hadn’t had that last trick up your sleeve…I don’t know what those shadow things were, but they were hellishly powerful. I think they might actually have been able to crush my armour, and me in it, given enough time. And there’s not much that can do that.”

  “We’ve won too many wars,” said Molly. “Got too used to winning. Too many victories make you soft, make you sloppy.…”

  “Crow Lee had to have been behind them,” I said. “Backing them up with his power. We still kicked their shadowy backsides, though.”

  “What’s this we? I was the one who called down the Light.…You really think Crow Lee was behind them?”

  “I hope so. I hate to think we might have another enemy that powerful after us.” I looked at her thoughtfully. “Walker? You know Walker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Henry?”

  “Yes!”

  “And?”

  “And nothing! We worked together some years back…on certain matters of mutual interest and profit. Cash up front, of course.”

  “Of course. You never said…”

  “You never asked,” said Molly in her most infuriatingly reasonable tone.

  Some conversations, you just know they’re not going to go anywhere good. I let it drop.

  “What time is it, Eddie?” said Molly. “It’s starting to feel distinctly dinnerish.”

  I looked at my watch and then sat up straight. “That can’t be right.…”

  “What?” said Molly, immediately sitting up straight, too. “What can’t be right?”

  “I checked my watch r
ight before we went through the Merlin Glass. Old habit from working in the field. And this…is almost exactly the same time. We’ve been back a few minutes, and my watch says this is just a few minutes after the last time I looked at it. The Merlin Glass brought us back to the exact moment in time and space that we left.”

  “Okay,” said Molly. “That…is spooky. If we returned to the exact moment we left, then right now…we’re also deep underground in the Valley of the Kings.”

  “Yeah…” I said. “That is spooky.”

  “Could the old Merlin Glass do time travel?” said Molly.

  “I never tried,” I said. “I don’t think so, but then, I never did get around to reading all of the instruction manual Uncle Jack gave me. There was an awful lot of it.…I think we should be very cautious about how we use this otherworldly Merlin Glass, from now on.”

  “Suits me,” said Molly. “Can we go to Brighton now?”

  “I should think so. Why do you want to go to Brighton?”

  “So I can look up my old friend. Brighton will make a nice change. I can cope with Brighton.”

  “And there are no mummies there,” I said.

  “Lot you know,” said Molly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When the Seas Give up Their Dead

  And so we drove down to the coast in the Rolls Royce Phantom V, heading for that famous seaside place called Brighton, and its famous pier. The Phantom was another of the Armourer’s lovingly restored classics, made over into death on four wheels for family use. A very smooth ride, very quiet. There used to be an old story about the Rolls Royce range, that when you were driving one of their cars the loudest noise you’d hear would be the clock on the dashboard. To which a Rolls Royce engineer is supposed to have said, “Yeah, we’re going to have to do something about that clock.” This being one of the Armourer’s cars, the dashboard clock was probably a timer for something explosive. I drove the Phantom in my usual fashion, everything forward and trust in the Lord.

  I knew for a fact that the Armourer had built in more than enough shields to ensure no one would be able to detect our presence, let alone track our journey, and to give any speed camera that tried to lock on to us a nervous breakdown. Droods go unseen in the world. It’s the only way we can get things done. Let Crow Lee look in vain for my torc or my new armour, and let him worry about where Molly and I were going and what we were up to. I needed him off balance until I had some kind of plan to throw at him.

  I sent the Phantom V charging down the motorway, speeding past the slower-moving vehicles and weaving in and out of the rest, leaving shocked and startled drivers in my wake and intimidating the hell out of everyone who didn’t get out of my way fast enough. I wasn’t concerned about police cars. Let them try to chase us. After what the Armourer had done to the Phantom’s engine, it could probably hit Mach 2 without straining. While going sideways.

  “I thought we didn’t want to attract attention,” said Molly, amused.

  “They don’t start none, there won’t be none,” I said wisely. “We’re a lot safer doing the Brighton run the hard way than by popping through the Merlin Glass. That much power in one place really would call all the eyes of the hidden world down upon us.”

  “And you don’t trust it,” said Molly.

  “That, too,” I said. “Besides, I can use the time it’ll take us to get to the coast to do some thinking. There’s a lot that needs thinking about.”

  “I’ll put in some music,” said Molly, producing a CD out of thin air.

  And she put in Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Night Castle. Which may or may not have contributed to my mental processes. Those guys crank it up to eleven just to shake off the cobwebs. I was still working on how best to attend to Crow Lee when Molly abruptly shut off the music to raise a pertinent question.

  “There’s no telling how long this is going to take, is there?” she said. “I mean, to track down your missing family and locate a mechanism strong enough to take us there and bring us back. It could take weeks, months…maybe even years.”

  “Yes, it could,” I said, staring straight ahead and concentrating on putting the wind up everything in my way. “It’ll take as long as it takes.”

  “And we have to face the possibility,” Molly said carefully, “that we might never find them. There’s no telling just how far Alpha Red Alpha might have thrown the Hall, across the worlds beyond the worlds. We might never find another mechanism as powerful as Alpha Red Alpha to take us after them.”

  “It’s a big world,” I said steadily. “Bound to be something out there. I hear what you’re saying, Molly, but I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. My family isn’t dead, just lost, and I will find them…if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  “I understand, Eddie. I really do. I’d feel the same if someone had taken my sisters. And I love Isabella and Louisa a lot more than you love your family.”

  “Well,” I said. “Love’s a complicated word. And the Droods…are a complicated family.” I glanced across at her. “You never talk about your family, Molly. Apart from your sisters. I know your parents were killed in the field, like mine. But what about your other relatives?”

  “There is no one else,” said Molly. Her voice was calm enough, even matter-of-fact, but she wouldn’t turn her head to look at me. “My family have always been rogues, outlaws, troublemakers…supernatural freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on who you talk to. And a tradition like that comes with a built-in high mortality rate. You don’t die in bed in my family. Or at least not in any acceptable way. And the world…has been very hard on us, in recent times. The world and the Droods. So now there are just the three infamous Metcalf sisters to keep the world on its toes. The only survivors of a once-thriving line, because we have learned to be very hard to kill.”

  “There’s a chance my parents are still alive,” I said. “So maybe…”

  “No,” said Molly. “Beyond a certain point, hope is more than self-indulgence. It’s self-harm.”

  “You still have me,” I said. “Forever and a day. And through me you have my family. Please take them.”

  We looked at each other and managed a small smile.

  “I’m still thinking about that, to be honest,” said Molly. “I want you, but I’m not sure about them.”

  “A perfectly reasonable attitude,” I said, slamming the gear stick through its paces with the palm of my hand and sending a poncy-looking Porsche swerving uncontrollably in my slipstream. “I’m not sure I’d belong to my family if I had any say in the matter. The Droods do good work. They’re necessary. But…”

  “Yeah,” said Molly. “But.”

  I shrugged. “They’re still my family. Good and bad and in between and the Librarian. After all the changes I’ve put them through recently, I feel responsible for them. And, anyway, we have to get them back. The world needs them.”

  “That’s sort of what I was getting at,” said Molly. “Someone is going to have to look after business, protecting the world and all that, until you can find the Droods again. Someone’s going to have to take up the slack and do all the heavy lifting in the Droods’ absence. And who is there? I mean, really?”

  “The London Knights,” I said.

  “All right, yes. Ten out of ten for Mr. Obvious here. But…really? The last defenders of Camelot, noble knights and true, under the returned King Arthur; fair enough. No one doubts they’re the good guys, in a very martial and smiting-the-ungodly way, but they’re hardly ever here! They mostly involve themselves with otherworldly and even other-dimensional threats. And since they believe very firmly in taking the fight to the enemy and making a mess where they live, they just aren’t around much of the time.”

  “I did do some work with the Carnacki Institute back when I was just a London field agent,” I said. “But the Ghost Finders…are just too limited, both in their scope of activity and in terms of manpower. And far too closely linked to the establishment, for my liking.”

  “You se
e?” said Molly. “I suppose we could always approach the new authorities in the Nightside, with their new Walker, John Taylor.…”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust any of that crowd farther than I could throw a wet camel into the wind. There’s a reason why we keep them locked up in the Nightside, and I’m not going to be the one to let them out on an unsuspecting world. The Nightside…always has its own agenda. I mean, have you met Dead Boy?”

  “Yes,” said Molly. “Louisa went out with him for a while.”

  “There used to be MI-13,” I said, more because I was still thinking out loud than because I had any faith in them. “They’ve done good work in their time, but after the Great Satanic Conspiracy revealed how infiltrated and compromised they were, it’ll be a long time before anyone trusts them with anything that matters. In fact, the more I think about it…part of what makes the Droods so important is that there just isn’t anyone else like us.…”

  “There are a great many other…perhaps not as reputable groups and individuals,” Molly said carefully. “Certain known names whom I may or may not have done certain things with in the past, probably best not discussed in present company…And it could be that I might know how to get in touch with them. Eddie, somebody’s got to do it!”

  “Who did you have in mind?” I said, equally carefully. “The Soulhunters, perhaps?”