“He’s just down the road?” said Molly. “The Most Evil Man in the World is just hanging out at his club?”
“Do you by any chance have an armoury here?” I asked the Regent.
He grinned broadly. “Funny you should ask…”
The Armoury of the Department of the Uncanny turned out to be the complete opposite of what I was used to at Drood Hall. It was small, tidy, compact, with a place for everything and everything in its place. It was more of a storeroom and repository than a research lab. There were all kinds of weapons stacked on shelves, including a few things even I didn’t recognise, and I’ve been around. Just a couple of basic workstations, complete with state-of-the-art computers and assorted scattered technology presided over by Uncanny’s very own Armourer. No lab rats, no assistants; just one man and his tech in charge of providing Uncanny’s agents with everything they needed to make a proper nuisance of themselves, as the Regent liked to put it.
“This is Patrick,” he said. “Best weapons master Uncanny’s ever had.”
Patrick smiled briefly. “You’re only saying that because it’s true. Would this be a good time to mention the raise in budget I was promised?”
“You can mention it,” the Regent said generously.
Patrick was a calm, middle-aged man. Completely bald, but boasting a bushy salt-and-pepper beard. He had sleepy eyes and an easy smile, but there was still a definite presence to the man when he stepped forward to greet Molly and me. The Regent said Patrick had been one of his Special Agents once, and I had no trouble believing that. There was something about Patrick, for all his ease and calm, that suggested he could still be very dangerous if the need should arise. He wore a basic lab coat that reminded me immediately of Uncle Jack, probably because some things are just constants, wherever you go. Though Patrick was wearing a heavy pullover under his coat, complete with high roll-neck collar. No accounting for taste.
“Are you on your own down here?” said Molly, looking around her with larcenous interest. I made a point of standing right next to her, to make sure no unauthorised weapons went walkabout under her sticky fingers.
“Uncanny is still basically an information-gathering organisation,” said the Regent. “We watch and listen and make many notes. Correlation is our life. Weapons are what we use only when everything’s gone wrong in a hurry. We prefer to err on the sneaky side whenever possible. Right, Patrick?”
“If you say so, your bossness,” said Patrick. “But when things do go pear shaped, I am here to ensure that our people are in a position to Do Unto Others in a sudden and violent way, before the others can do unto them. Don’t touch that!”
Molly snatched her hand back from an innocent-looking crystal thing, and tried to look innocent. The Regent looked reproachfully at Patrick.
“You promised me you’d got the bugs out of that. We’re still cleaning up the mess from last time.”
“I have!” said Patrick. “But then, there’s bugs and then there’s bugs.…” He smiled easily at Molly and pushed the crystal thing well out of her reach. “Not much money in the budget for research these days. But I do like to potter around, see if I can improvise something useful and horribly destructive out of the various interesting things our agents pick up in the field and bring back with them. I swear, if it weren’t for their basic light-fingeredness, we’d have nothing but empty shelves on these walls.…”
“We don’t have anything like the Droods’ budget,” the Regent agreed. “We have to scrimp and save and make do.”
“And steal anything that isn’t actually nailed down,” said Patrick.
“You’d fit right in here, Molly,” I said solemnly.
“One more word and I’ll smooth out your balls with Botox while you sleep,” said Molly.
Patrick smiled. The Regent looked pained.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Patrick. “We really should have introduced ourselves. I’m Eddie Drood, and this…”
“Oh, I know who you are,” said Patrick. “Both of you.”
“You do?” said Molly.
“Of course,” said Patrick, his dark eyes twinkling cheerfully. “Everyone in our line of work knows all about the redoubtable Eddie Drood and the infamous Molly Metcalf. Your exploits are already the stuff of legend.”
Molly looked at me. “How is it you get to be redoubtable, but I’m always infamous?”
“Sounds right to me,” I said.
“These two incredibly brave young people are about to go up against Unholy Crow Lee,” said the Regent. “What can you offer them, Patrick, to make the job a little less suicidal? In an unofficial, off-the-books and totally deniable way, of course.”
“Crow Lee? Really?” said Patrick. His smiled broadly, and just like that he seemed as dangerous as I’d suspected he could be. It felt like being trapped in an enclosed space with a huge grizzly bear who’d just woken up from hibernation with fresh meat very much on his mind. Patrick turned away abruptly and moved purposefully along his shelves, pickings things up and putting them down again. “Well…No point in trying a heads-on attack. Not with the size of the private army he’s gathered about himself. No…You need to go the sneaky route, come at him in unexpected ways. Lateral thinking and all that. Personally, I’d recommend giving up on the whole idea and taking a nice vacation somewhere really far away. You can’t get more lateral than that. But you wouldn’t do that, redoubtable and infamous as you are.…Don’t touch that!”
I took my hand carefully away from a crystal thing sitting on a pile of papers. “Sorry,” I said. “I thought it was a paperweight.”
“It’s designed to look like a paperweight,” Patrick said darkly. “Here—try this. It’s a skeleton key made from real human bone. And, no, you don’t get to ask whose. This useful little item can open any lock, mechanical, magical or electronic.”
“The Drood Armourer gave me one of these once,” I said, accepting the yellowed bone thing gingerly.
“I know!” said Patrick. “Who do you think I stole the idea from? Now, this…is a hearing aid. Just stick this little beauty in your ear, and you’ll be able to listen in on any conversation from any distance. Even in other rooms and in other languages! I’m still working on the immediate-translation tech, but if it doesn’t kick in, you can always read the subtitles.”
He turned to Molly and offered her a pair of spangly glitterball earrings. She hefted the ugly items on her palm and looked dubiously at Patrick.
“What do I do with these?”
“You throw them,” said Patrick. “And they go Boom! And all the people who were bothering you suddenly aren’t.”
“Groovy!” said Molly. She whipped off the silver Celtic rose things she’d been wearing, stuffed them into a pocket, and clipped on the new earrings. I looked severely at Patrick.
“Tell me those things have a safety catch.”
“Of course!” said Patrick. “They’re perfectly harmless until you say the magic Word.” He leaned over and whispered the Word in Molly’s ear, and she actually giggled and pushed him away. He looked pleased with himself. “I’d throw them pretty damn far, though, if I were you. And I wouldn’t play with them, either. Just in case.”
Molly looked at the expression on my face and patted me fondly on one cheek. “Will you relax, Eddie? I’m wearing the Twilight Teardrop, remember? Guaranteed personal protection, on levels even Kayleigh’s Eye has never heard of! You could set off a thermo nuke right in front of me, and I wouldn’t even be bothered by the bright light.”
“That’s the Twilight Teardrop?” said the Regent, leaning forward to inspect the ruby stone pendant with new interest. One look into its bloodred depths was enough, and he immediately retreated to a safe distance. “Such a small thing,” he said, “to be so powerful and so thoroughly cursed. I’ve always said the best way to make use of that thing would be to make a gift of it to someone you really didn’t like. And then leave the country until all the unpleasantness was over.”
I looked at the bon
y key and the earplug in my hand. “I could use something a little more dangerous, and preferably long-range.”
“You’ve got your armour,” said Molly. “That’s dangerous enough for anyone. Though I could lend you my charm bracelet, if you like. If you’re really feeling in need of something to throw.”
“I am not wearing that on my ankle,” I said firmly. “I have my dignity to consider.”
Molly then said something very coarse about my dignity, and Patrick, the Regent and I pretended not to have heard her.
Patrick distracted Molly with a small flat black-lacquered box with a big green button on the top. “This,” he said proudly, “is a protein exploder. Does what it says on the box. It’s alien tech. Or possibly tomorrow tech. One of our people brought it back from the Nightside. He bought it from a street trader. Fell off the back of a Timeslip…No instruction manual, of course, which is why he got it so cheap. It’s taken me almost a year to work out how to use it, and I still don’t have a clue how it works. Just point it at your enemies, and wave good-bye to what’s left of them.”
“Cool,” said Molly, shaking the box in a far too casual manner. Everyone else in the room winced. Molly looked at Patrick. “What does it do?”
“I told you!” said Patrick. “It explodes people’s protein! Suddenly and violently and all over the place. Just don’t point it in the general direction of anyone you like. It’s not exactly pinpoint accurate.”
Molly stuffed the box up her sleeve. Patrick looked at me thoughtfully.
“Eddie…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve followed your exploits for years. First as a field agent here in London and then as head of the family, and then…Well, all the other things you’ve done. All the amazing things you’ve achieved. And I always promised myself that if I ever got to meet you, there was a question I wanted to ask. Are you happy, Eddie?”
I wasn’t quite sure where that had come from, but I did my best to consider the question seriously. “I’m happy…with Molly,” I said finally.
“Good,” said Patrick. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Me too, grandson,” said the Regent.
“You soft and soppy sentimental thing, you,” said Molly, slipping her arm through mine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some Unpleasantness at the Establishment Club
Every part of society has its own clubs to retreat to, private places where we can escape from the trials and stresses of the everyday world. We all like to know there’s somewhere we can go when it all gets a bit much; our very own private watering holes. Very private people have very private clubs, and Very Important People have Very Private Clubs. And then…there are the clubs that no one talks about. If they know what’s good for them. Membership strictly by invitation only. For people so important, so significant and so wealthy that no one in the everyday world has ever heard of them. Clubs for people who mix only with their own kind.
Which is how I came to be strolling down some very well-known streets in the better part of London, following the map the Regent of Shadows had given me. And a simple set of directions that should take me straight to the only kind of club that would accept the likes of Crow Lee as a member: the Establishment Club. Where the underworld can meet the elite, to sneer at everyone else. I kept Molly close beside me, where I could keep an eye on her, because I didn’t entirely trust the larcenous look in her eyes. We got all kinds of looks from the well-dressed people we passed, because neither of us seemed like the kind of people who had any business being in an area like this, but, of course, no one actually said anything. Because we’re British, after all, and we don’t like to make a fuss. There were security cameras everywhere; let the proper authorities do what needed doing. If anything needed doing. Some of the cameras rotated slowly to watch us as we passed. I pointed them out to Molly.
“They can’t see us,” I said just a bit smugly. “As long as I’m wearing my torc, there isn’t a surveillance system in the world that can see me. Or you, as long as you’re with me. What it means to be a Drood…we walk through the world unseen, so we can do necessary appalling things and get away with it every time.”
“Don’t get cocky,” said Molly. “I was learning how to dodge security systems while you were still planning how to run away from home. I really don’t like this area, Eddie. It stinks of money and privilege and entitlement…all the things I’ve spent a lifetime fighting. I feel like smashing a whole bunch of things, just on general principles.”
“Never knew you when you didn’t,” I said.
And that was when the security cameras all started exploding. The one right in front of us went first, blowing apart in a soft puff of black smoke and a short shower of plastic and glass splinters. Then all the others went up, one after the other, ahead and behind us. The quiet of the late evening was suddenly full of the soft sounds of small fires and frying electrical circuitry. Everyone else on the street jumped and looked about them, startled, and then took to their heels. In a polite and dignified way, of course. Soon enough they were all gone from a street where they didn’t feel safe anymore because no one was watching over them. I stopped and looked sternly at Molly, who shook her head demurely.
“It’s not me, Eddie…for once. I’m afraid it’s you. I can See swirls of energy coming off you, striking out at the cameras from your torc.…”
“It’s the rogue armour,” I said, one hand rising automatically to the golden torc at my throat and then falling back without touching it. “It’s overreacting.” I concentrated, imposing my will on the torc with blunt brute force, and the explosions stopped. I felt something stir inside the torc and then grow still again.
“You assured me you had the rogue armour under complete control,” Molly said carefully.
“I have. Mostly. You have to remember: It’s not just armour. Moxton’s Mistake is a living thing. I think it just likes to remind me it’s still there occasionally.”
“Can we get moving?” said Molly. “I’m starting to feel just a bit conspicuous, standing alone in the middle of the street. Your torc can’t hide us from everyone.”
“Of course,” I said. “Moving right along.”
“You do know where we’re going?”
“Do you want to read the map?”
We moved on down the well-lit but now completely deserted street. Evening was fast fading into night. It had been a long hard day, and it wasn’t nearly over yet. I did my best to make sense of the hand-drawn map the Regent had scrawled for me, and carefully checked the numbers on the doors we passed. Not far now. Not long at all until I could finally get my hands on Crow Lee and force some straight answers out of him.
“What did you make of the Regent?” Molly said suddenly. “Your long-lost and suddenly found grandfather.”
“Seemed straightforward enough,” I said. “Given the game he’s playing. Decent enough stick…Played his cards a bit close to his chest, but then, you’ve got to expect that from someone who’s still technically a rogue Drood. What did you make of Patrick?”
“Something not quite right there,” Molly said immediately, frowning. “He didn’t come across to me as any kind of Armourer.…Not that I’ve known many.”
“He knew his stuff,” I said. “And the Regent did say that Patrick had been one of his Special Agents. Working out in the field, like us, getting his hands dirty…But even so, you’re right; there was something…off about him. He reminds me of someone, though I’m damned if I can think who.”
“Someone you’ve met before?” said Molly. “In the field?”
I shook my head uncertainly. “Are you happy?…That’s what he asked me. What kind of a question is that to someone you’ve only just met?”
“You gave a good answer, though,” said Molly, slipping her arm through mine and pressing the side of her body up against mine. “You earned yourself some major boyfriend brownie points there.”
“Can I cash them in later?” I said. “Let us not forget, the Department
of the Uncanny is part of the Establishment, and therefore no one in it can be fully trusted. On principle.”
“Well, quite,” said Molly. “But let us concentrate on taking down Crow Lee and getting your family back, and worry about everything else afterwards.”
“Good answer,” I said. “Sufficient unto the day are the scumbags thereof.”
We ended up strolling along beside a long tenement building, big and grand in the old Regency style, punctuated with a whole lot of barred and shuttered windows and really big doors bearing the gleaming brass nameplates of the very old, very long established private-members clubs they represented. I counted them off, comparing them to the Regent’s map, until finally I stopped before one particular door that didn’t look any different from all the others I’d already passed. In fact, it looked so ordinary I got Molly to check the map to make sure I’d got the numbers right. She snatched the thing out of my hand, glared at me, sniffed loudly, glanced briefly at the map and then snapped her fingers and set it on fire. It blazed up quickly, and Molly shook her fingers, letting the dark ashes fall to the street.
“We don’t want to leave any evidence behind, do we?” she said. “Nothing that might lead back to Uncanny, and the Regent.”
“Show-off,” I said.
A small brass plate set above the door gave the name THE ESTABLISHMENT CLUB in blunt and blocky letters. A club so well established it didn’t need to advertise. Either you knew how to find it or you didn’t belong there, anyway. The door itself was bland and uninteresting, with no letter box or door handle. The giveaway was that it stood half-open, the way in thoroughly blocked by a large and formidable doorman, resplendent in an old-fashioned bright scarlet frock-coat uniform, complete with fancy waistcoat, knee britches and well-polished boots. Plus a gleaming tall hat any stage magician would have been proud of. For all his finery, he was large and solid and openly menacing, and gave the impression he should really have been standing outside some downtown nightclub, snarling, No trainers! and You’re not on the list! He had a square, brutal face and looked like bullets would just bounce off him. Because they’d be afraid of him. He stood at attention and looked right through Molly and me as though we weren’t there.