“So,” said Molly, looking right past the doorman as though he weren’t there, “what kind of a place is the Establishment Club, Eddie? What can we expect once we get inside? Any kinky stuff?”
“Don’t ask me,” I said. “I’ve never been in there.”
Molly turned and gave me a hard look. “You’re always saying that London is your territory! That you were Drood field agent for the whole of London!”
“Not quite all of it,” I admitted reluctantly. “This kind of place, and this kind of area, was always more Matthew’s territory than mine. It’s not like I was actually banned from circles like these, but I never got to see the inside of any of these clubs. Matthew didn’t think I could be trusted to behave properly in front of those who like to think of themselves as our betters, and he was probably right. He knew how to talk to these people, to lay down Drood authority without ruffling too many feathers. Because sometimes, when you’re in a hurry, you have to give some to get some. I am a great believer in diplomacy; right up to the point where someone pisses me off, and then it’s time to dispense beatings and shout at people. Matthew knew how to get these people to do what we wanted and make them think it was all their idea in the first place. But then, Matthew could charm the birds down out of the trees, when he could be bothered. He was always so much better at being a secret agent than I ever was.”
I stopped there, surprised by a sudden rush of memories of the man that weren’t all bad. “I do miss him…sometimes. He was harsh and arrogant and a royal pain in the arse…but he did teach me an awful lot about how to be a field agent when I first came to London.”
“He was a creep,” Molly said succinctly, and I had to smile.
“Well, yes. I don’t think anyone would argue with that,” I said. “But he was a very professional creep. You have to make allowances. He was family.”
“If I hear that bullshit one more time,” Molly said ominously, “there is going to be a very unfortunate incident. Right here and now. Shit is shit, whether you’re related to it or not. Take my sisters…”
“I’d rather not,” I said.
It was Molly’s turn to smile. “Lots of people say that.…Wait a minute! I’ve just had an idea!”
“Oh no,” I said. “That’s never good.”
“When all this is over, why don’t I join up with you, and we can be field agents in London together? We could patrol the streets, side by side. That should throw a scare into all the right people.…And according to all the women’s magazines I read, relationships work much better when you’ve got shared interests in common.”
“I think London needs a regular field agent who’s at least heard of diplomacy,” I said carefully.
“You’re a fine one to talk!”
“True. But at least I can fake it when I have to. For you, diplomacy is just something you’ve heard of that other people do.”
“I can fake it if I have to,” Molly said darkly.
“I’d really rather not go there,” I said. “Let us consider the external protections of the Establishment Club, before we go any further.”
We both looked the club’s exterior over carefully. My Sight immediately revealed that the whole front of the building was crawling with defence spells, and energy fields and layer upon layer of really heavy-duty protections. Intertwining and overlapping force shields and shimmering screens, with built-in weapons both magical and technological, along with all kinds of curses, bombs and booby traps. Some of the protections shone so brightly they almost blinded my inner eye. Just trying to make sense of the various patterns and structures made my head ache.
“Okay,” I said, after a while. “Some of these defence systems are seriously old. Laid down centuries ago, going right back to Londinium times. Hell, some of them go back so far I’ve only ever read about them in old books. To be honest, the word overkill is coming to mind. Even Buckingham Palace doesn’t have some of the orders of protection I’m Seeing here. Layers upon layers, supporting and reinforcing one another. Something this intricate doesn’t just happen. This was planned.…”
“Can you break through it?” Molly said bluntly. “Is your new armour up to it?”
“Maybe. Eventually. But not without drawing a lot of attention and probably the arrival of major reinforcements.”
“The Regent did say Crow Lee had his own private army.…”
“Well, yes, but I doubt he brings them with him when he comes to visit his club. He’d expect the club to protect him. Probably has his own bodyguard, though.”
“Hah!” said Molly. “I laugh in the face of bodyguards! And then I do really awful things to them and make them cry for their mothers.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve seen you do it. Let us try the straightforward way first.”
I nodded significantly at the doorman, who was still standing stiffly at attention before the club’s doorway, pretending he wasn’t giving his full attention to every word we were saying.
“Ah!” Molly said happily. “The old way! The bullying and intimidation of stuck-up flunkies! Oh, Eddie, you’re so good to me.…”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “And don’t you forget it.”
“I get to go first!”
“Of course.”
Molly strode up to the doorman so she could glare right into his face. Though she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. He met her gaze levelly, giving every indication of being entirely unmoved. Which was, of course, the worst thing he could have done. Molly will stand for a lot of things, but being ignored definitely isn’t one of them.
“We are coming in,” Molly said firmly. “That can be past you, or over your beaten and broken body. It’s up to you. Guess which I’d prefer.”
“No trainers,” said the doorman. “And definitely no witches that don’t know their place. No entrance here ever, unless you’re a member in good standing, which you aren’t and never will be. Now piss off, girlie, or I’ll set the hellhounds on you.”
“You haven’t got any hellhounds,” said Molly, grinning really quite unpleasantly. “I’d know. So get the hell out of my way, or I’ll turn you into a small squishy thing with your testicles floating on the top.”
The doorman lowered himself to sneer at her. “I hear worse than that from the members every day if I don’t move fast enough. You can’t touch me; I’m protected by the club. Now get out of my sight, before I make you cry.”
I stepped forward then to stand beside Molly. “You try to be nice to people, but then they have to go and cross the line. No one threatens my Molly and gets away with it. So stand aside, Uniformed Flunky with an Unfortunate Attitude, or I’ll rip your dickey off.”
“Eddie!” said Molly, amused but just a bit shocked. “Not in public…”
“A dickey,” I explained patiently, “is another name for the bow tie.”
“Ah,” said Molly. “I hadn’t noticed he was wearing one.…Now, that is distinctly unappealing. Downright ugly, in fact.”
“Bow ties are cool,” I said. “The Travelling Doctor said so.”
“And he should know,” said Molly. “He’s been around. Mr. Doorman isn’t moving, Eddie. Feel free to do your very worst.”
I armoured up my right hand, grabbed a handful of the doorman’s starched shirtfront and ripped it right off him. Along with his waistcoat and his dickey. The doorman stood there, bare-chested, and gaped at my golden gauntlet. He seemed to shrink in on himself just a little.
“Oh, fuck. You’re a Drood.”
“Language, Jeeves,” said Molly, highly amused.
I dropped the wreckage of his shirtfront onto the pavement, and held up my golden fist before his face, so he could get a good look at it.
“Who are you people?” said the doorman. He was deeply upset. I could tell.
“I am Eddie Drood, and this delightful yet dangerous young lady is Molly Metcalf,” I said just a bit grandly.
“A Drood and a Metcalf sister? Oh, shit,” said the doorman miserably. “I’m going home early.”
“I would,” I said.
The doorman turned and ran back into the club, leaving the door standing half-open. His voice gradually faded away as he receded into the club’s interior, calling for help and protection. It was nice to know my name still meant something. And Molly’s, too, of course.
“The protections are still in place,” Molly observed pointedly.
“So they are,” I said. “Good for them. And good for us that I have this.”
And I held up the skeleton key Patrick had given me. Just a yellowed piece of human bone, carved into a universal key, that could unlock anything. Including some things that were only technically or symbolic locks. I leaned carefully forward and eased the bone key into the door’s keyhole. It didn’t want to go in, but some applied pressure from my golden hand did the job. And it really didn’t want to turn, either, until my golden gauntlet provided the necessary motivation. And then all the protections just disappeared, gone in a moment. I carefully retrieved the bone key and tucked it away about my person.
“Definitely knows his stuff,” I said to Molly.
“All right, don’t make a big deal out of it,” she said with a sniff. “I was learning how to carve skeleton keys while you were still learning how to pick the lock on the Drood tuckshop.”
“Trust me,” I said. “Drood Hall has never possessed any such thing.”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m on a roll. Come on. Let’s get in there and make some trouble before they get a reception committee organised.”
I kicked the front door all the way open and strode inside with Molly sauntering along at my side. It’s important to make the right kind of entrance on these sort of occasions. A wide-open hallway fell away before us, discreetly lit and completely empty. There were heavily wood-panelled walls, in the old style, that looked like they could stop cannonballs, plus a parquet floor and a whole bunch of tall potted plants of an almost primordial nature.
I heard soft running footsteps up ahead, approaching at speed. I stopped where I was, and Molly reluctantly stopped with me. I didn’t need to look back to know the front door had already closed behind us. I could feel it. I stared carefully into the civilised gloom at the end of the corridor and winced, just a bit, as I recognised the half dozen small and slender figures pattering forward to confront Molly and me.
They stopped a cautious distance away to look Molly and me over with their overbright eyes. Six half-starved teenage boys wrapped in the rags and tatters of what had once been expensive school uniforms. The oldest of them couldn’t have been more than fourteen. They crouched rather than stood, a pack of wild animals rather than a group of boys. Dangerous animals, fierce and feral. Pale faced, floppy haired, with thin, pinched faces, disturbing smiles and eyes that were so much older than they should have been. They grinned quickly at each other, laughing silently, hefting the sharp and shiny things they held in their hands.
“Children?” said Molly. “They’re sending kids out to stop us?”
“These aren’t children,” I said steadily. “Or at least they aren’t now and haven’t been for some time. These, Molly, are the Uptown Razor Boys. The Eton Irregulars. The delinquent toffs who never grew up.”
I summoned my full armour about me, and the golden metal gleamed brightly in the gloom. The Eton Irregulars drew a sharp breath, their eyes shining to reflect the new light, and they spread out quickly to form a semicircle before us, staring unblinking at Molly and me. They looked like boys, but they didn’t move or hold themselves like anything human. They had given themselves over to older, darker instincts. They were feral things now, and they gloried in it.
“Talk to me, Eddie,” said Molly quietly but insistently. “Who or what are we facing here?”
“Surprised you never heard of them,” I said. “Though perhaps you don’t move in the right circles.…”
“Eddie…”
“Thrown out of Eton School,” I said. “Expelled back in the sixties after being disturbed in the middle of a black magic ceremony designed to call up the Devil. They might have got away with it, but they’d already sacrificed two younger boy, in return for power.…They should have been more specific in what they asked for. The boys’ parents were important enough that they were able to get it all hushed up, but it was too late for the boys. The changes had already begun. They ran away from home first chance they got, and by then the parents were probably relieved to see them gone. Look at them, Molly. All these years and they haven’t aged a day. They’ll never grow up or grow old; they don’t feel things anymore and whatever thoughts move in their heads are nothing we would recognise. They have given themselves over to the delights of slaughter. Can you see what they’re holding in their hands?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “Old-fashioned straight razors.”
“Immortal killers with a taste for cutting,” I said. “Courtesy of Hell. Remind you of anyone?”
“Mr. Stab,” said Molly. “The uncaught serial killer of Old London Town.”
“Hell likes to stick with things that work,” I said. “The Eton Irregulars are the urban legends that serial killers talk about. They exist on the fringes of the hidden world, hiring themselves out to people with no scruples who still have ties to the Old School. The Uptown Razor Boys: bodyguards, assassins, frighteners…and occasionally the first line of defence. I think someone at the club knew we were coming.”
“But why them?” said Molly. “Why set them against us?”
“Because they still look like children,” I said. “Which makes it that much harder to fight them. Question is: Do they work for the club or Crow Lee himself?”
“What difference does that make?” said Molly.
“I don’t want to bring the whole might of the Establishment Club down on us,” I said. “Not while I’m the Last Drood. I can’t afford to let myself be stopped before I can reach my family and bring them home.…But, no, it doesn’t really matter. Some things are just too vile to be allowed to continue. Some vermin just need putting down.”
“Wow, Eddie,” said Molly. “Hard-core.”
The Uptown Razor Boys swept suddenly, savagely forward, heading right for us like the pack of wild things they really were. Half a dozen teenage boys who’d thrown away their Futures in return for the hideous strength that drove them and the supernaturally bright blades they brandished. They shouted and hooted gleefully, moving in perfect symmetry, six minds with a single thought. Their eyes glittered in the dim lighting as they circled Molly and me, jumping and leaping and addressing us with high, harsh voices, one after another.
“Drood. Thought you were dead. Should be dead. Always meddling in the affairs of your betters. Interfering in things that are none of your concern. Heavenly armour versus infernal blades. Good intentions versus Hell on Earth. Going down, Drood. All the way down.”
“It’s not enough that they’ve been made over into hellspawn,” Molly said steadily. “They’re still the worst part of boys. Did you notice they only addressed themselves to you, Eddie? Because they’re still scared of girls.…”
“Shut up! Shut up!” howled the Eton Irregulars, leaping and capering around us, brandishing their razors fiercely. “Nasty! Nasty thing! Cut you up! Eat you up! Wear your insides as scarves!”
“The more they speak,” said Molly, “the less scary they seem. Funny, that.”
“Take them seriously,” I said. “They’ve killed a lot of good people in their time. Probably people who didn’t take them seriously enough.”
“Drood,” said the Uptown Razor Boys, speaking together in one voice. “Cut you up. Kill you, and your little bitch, too.”
“Now, that’s just rude,” I said.
They surged forward, and I went to meet them with a cold rage in my heart. Because they stood between me and the rescue of my family. They swarmed all over me in a living wave, hitting me from every side at once, cutting and slicing at my head and throat with their shimmering razors.…But even these supernatural blades just skidded harmle
ssly off my golden armour in showers of sparks. Moxton had made his mistake well. The boys cried out like wolves as they cut at me again and again, cried out like thwarted children, but for all their speed and fury they couldn’t hurt me. I chose my timing carefully and punched one of the Eton Irregulars in the head with my golden fist. His whole head exploded, showering gore and fragments of bone across the nearby wall. The sheer force of the blow threw the headless body several feet down the hallway. The remaining Eton Irregulars cried out in shock and rage, a savage howl from human mouths. They only had one another. They threw themselves at me like feral cats, hitting me with all their Hell-given strength, as though they could force their blades through my armour.
I grabbed another of them and slammed his face into the nearest wall. His whole head collapsed and shattered under the force of the impact, and when I let go, the headless body just slid limply down the wall, leaving a heavy trail of blood and bone behind. More howls and screams from the remaining Uptown Razor Boys, and behind my featureless golden face mask I was smiling a fierce grin of my own. It felt good to be killing things that needed killing.
One of the Eton Irregulars broke away from me and went for Molly. She was waiting for him. She had a small flat box in her hand, with a single button on the top. She pointed it at the Razor Boy, who snarled savagely at her and went for her throat. Molly pressed the button and the boy just blew apart soundlessly. Every single bit of his flesh exploded in a moment, reduced to nothing more than a thick pink mist in the air, spreading slowly and silently before pattering to the floor in tiny pink droplets. The bones of his skeleton were left behind, left standing in perfect shape for a moment, and then they just clattered to the parquet floor in a neat little pile. All the bones picked perfectly clean, without a single fleck of meat left on them.
There was a pause as we all just stood where we were and looked at what had just happened. So, I thought coolly. That’s what happens when you point a protein exploder at someone.