Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel

  The three surviving Eton Irregulars turned and ran, sprinting down the hallway. Molly pointed the small box after them, and hit the button again. Three more soft, almost soundless explosions, and once again a fine pink mist filled the hallway for a long moment, before slowly dispersing. And three more neat little piles of human bones. Molly raised the protein exploder to her lips and blew away imaginary smoke from an imaginary gun barrel.

  “I think I’m getting the hang of this,” she said. “Bit messy, though.”

  “What did you expect?” I said. “From something called a protein exploder? It really does do what it says on the tin.” I looked at her carefully. “Does it…bother you? What you just did? I mean, they did look like boys.…”

  “Yes,” said Molly. “They did. But they weren’t. Hadn’t been anything human for a long time. Nothing left inside them but Hell’s business. I could tell.”

  I armoured down and looked up the hallway ahead of us. Everything seemed calm and quiet and very empty.

  “Does it bother you?” said Molly.

  “What?”

  “You just crushed the heads of two things that still looked like children,” said Molly. “You didn’t even hesitate. You would have once. Before you put on the rogue armour.”

  “You said it yourself,” I said. “They were just hellspawn. I could tell.”

  Except I hadn’t even looked. Didn’t even occur to me to raise my Sight to study their true aspect. I just killed them because they were an immediate threat and they needed killing. And because…it felt good. I listened carefully, but I couldn’t hear the voice of the rogue armour, couldn’t even feel its presence, peering over my mental shoulder. I had to wonder how much of this new iron in my soul was the influence of wearing the rogue armour…and how much was just me, a man grieving over his lost family and slowly losing his mind. Just needing to take out his anger on the world. Was I losing control or losing my mind? I told myself it didn’t matter. I would do whatever needed doing for my family. Deal with the problems in front of me. Move on…and worry later.

  It wasn’t like anyone was going to grieve over the loss of the Uptown Razor Boys.

  I strode forward, stepping carefully past the piles of bones, leaving Molly to hurry after me.

  “Is it too much to ask?” I said. “For someone to design a weapon that cleans up after itself?”

  “It would be nice,” said Molly. “Not having to be careful where you tread after a fight.”

  And then we both stopped, as a tall cocky figure came slouching down the hall towards us. He just appeared out of nowhere, smiling easily, in a scruffy combat jacket and grubby jeans. Big and rangy, with the kind of muscle that comes from regular hard living rather than hard workouts in the gym. He had a square head, close-cropped dark hair and a cool, thoughtful gaze. There was an easy built-in menace to his every movement. He swayed to a halt a respectful distance away.

  “Hello, squire. And lady. I’m Bunny Hollis, at your service. Ex-SAS combat sorcerer. No job too big; no killing too small. I got thrown out of the SAS for sadistic excesses, which is ironic, as that’s how most of us get in. These days, I’m strictly freelance. Cash up front, no questions asked and I’ll even make the bodies disappear at no extra charge.” He looked meaningfully at the mess in the hall, between him and Molly and me. “Got to say, you made a real mess of those kids. Good thing, too. It’s animals like that give hardworking professionals like us a bad name. So, you’re Eddie Drood. I’ve always fancied my chances against a Drood.”

  “So did the Uptown Razor Boys,” I said. “And look what happened to them.”

  Hollis just smiled his easy smile. “Got to say, I’m just a bit surprised to see you here, Eddie Drood. Little bird told me you and all your family were dead and gone.”

  “Rumours of our destruction have been greatly exaggerated,” I said.

  Hollis grinned at Molly. “And a Metcalf sister! Ah, the stories I’ve heard about you girls…Molly, Molly, quite contrary, how does your body count grow? I thought I was bad till I read your file. A Drood and a Metcalf…Just for the record, how the hell do you have the nerve to claim you’re the good guys? I’ve fought actual wars for queen and country and I haven’t killed nearly as many as you.”

  “I only kill people who need killing,” I said steadily.

  Hollis sneered at me. “Yeah, that’s what they all say, squire. They’ve always got their excuse ready. It wasn’t me, your honour. It was the voices in my head. Read it in the Bible; I answer to a higher calling! I’ve heard it all before…and it always comes down to bodies on the ground and blood on the hands. At least I’m honest enough to admit up front I’m only in it for the money. I’m a professional soldier, because that’s what I do best. I fight strictly for hard cash, not some nebulous cause.…”

  “Bit chatty for an ex-squaddie, aren’t you?” I said. “But then, I never met an ex-soldier who didn’t feel the need to justify himself for how far he’d fallen. Look…Hollis, was it? You can still step aside. We’re not here for you. We’re here for Crow Lee.”

  “Well, you can’t have him,” said Hollis.

  “You work for him, and you have the brass nerve to lecture us?” said Molly. “Or did no one explain the whole Most Evil Man in the World bit to you?”

  “You say potato, I say hard cash,” said Hollis. “His money will spend as easily as anyone else’s.”

  “But the things he’s done…” I said, but Hollis cut me off before I could go any further.

  “Compared to what you Droods have done, he’s just a beginner.”

  “It’s not what you do,” I said. “It’s why you do it.”

  “Oh, come on!” said Hollis. “That’s your justification? The terrorists’ favourite excuse? That the end justifies the atrocities?”

  “You really don’t know my family,” I said.

  “Don’t argue with him, Eddie,” said Molly. “He doesn’t really care. He’s just making conversation to hold us here while Crow Lee escapes out the back door.”

  Hollis flashed her a quick grin. “You’re smarter than you look, girlie. Come on. Let’s do it. You know you want to.”

  I armoured up, the golden metal surging out and over me, and Hollis snapped upright out of his slouch and actually fell back a step. He frowned uncertainly.

  “There’s something…wrong with your armour, Drood. I’ve seen Drood armour before, and it never looked like that. I don’t like the look of it.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, through my featureless face mask. “It doesn’t like the look of you.”

  “No, he’s right, Eddie,” said Molly, and there was something in her voice that made me turn to look at her. She was staring at me as though she’d never seen me in my armour before. “Something’s wrong, Eddie. Your armour looks different. It looks…tarnished.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just shrugged and looked back at Hollis. Just in time to see him raise his right hand and make the shape of a gun with it, pointing the finger at me the way children do when they’re pretending. And then he shot me in the chest. The impact sent me staggering backwards and left a great crater in the centre of my chest. But the armour protected me from the impact and repaired itself in seconds. I quickly recovered my balance and started forward. Hollis was using a conceptual gun, shaped and focused psychokinesis. I’d heard of it, but never encountered it in the field before. Hollis took careful aim and fired again, three times in swift succession, his pointing finger jerking each time with the recoil. But I just strode forward into the invisible bullets, my armour booming loudly with each impact, shrugging the conceptual bullets off increasingly easily.

  Hollis looked distinctly put-upon. He opened his hand, dismissing the conceptual gun, and gestured sharply with his other hand. A bottomless hole opened up directly beneath me, carpet and floorboards disappearing in a great circle to reveal a long drop with shimmering silver sides, falling away forever. And while Drood armour can do many marvellous things, flying i
sn’t one of them. Luckily, I was blessed with really good reflexes. Even as the hole appeared and I started to fall, I was already throwing myself forward. I grabbed onto the edge of the hole as I fell past it. My metal fingers sank deep into the wooden floor, crunching and splintering the floorboards. My fall stopped abruptly, my whole weight hanging from the single handhold.

  I looked down and immediately wished I hadn’t. The terrible endless drop seemed to grab hold of my gaze, hypnotising me. It took a real effort of will to jerk my gaze away and look up at my handhold. Hollis was standing right over me, grinning. He stamped down hard on my golden hand and hurt his foot. He fell back from the hole, cursing loudly. Molly leaned over the hole from the other side.

  “I don’t like to intrude…but do you by any chance need a hand?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I can manage.”

  I hauled myself up by brute strength, until I could get a second handhold, and then pulled myself up and out of the hole. The moment I had my feet back on the floor again, the hole disappeared. Inside the armour I was shaking just a bit, but no one else could tell. I nodded quickly to Molly and then looked over at Hollis. He scowled at me and plucked something out of the air. He held it up triumphantly before him, a shiny sparkling thing I couldn’t seem to look at properly, even with all the filters and amplifications built into my mask. The thing seemed to twist and turn in Hollis’s hand, as though its shape and nature were constantly changing. Hollis laughed aloud.

  “The answer to Drood armour: a supernatural can opener! I don’t know why no one’s ever thought of it before!”

  And before I could tell him why, he came surging forward to slam the shining thing against the side of my neck. It shattered immediately in Hollis’s hand, falling apart into a hundred shiny pieces. Hollis cried out, as much in shock and rage as pain, and darted backwards, shaking his stunned hand. I was grinning easily behind my mask.

  “People did think of it before,” I said. “Lots and lots of them. But this…is Drood armour. Why settle for less?”

  “Oh, well,” said Hollis, between gritted teeth as he shook his hand to get the feeling back into it, “Worth a try…Tell you what: Why don’t we try this sneaky little thing I’ve been saving for a rainy day? Specially designed to blast strange matter out of this world and back where it came from!”

  He raised his left hand again, and strange energies curled and whorled around it, twisting and turning in complex patterns. Hollis threw them at me, and the energies shot forward and splashed across my armour, only to sputter out and fade away almost immediately, unable to get a grip. Hollis just stood there and stared at me, blinking dazedly. I could have told him I was wearing rogue armour without a speck of strange matter in it, but why spoil the fun? Hollis said a few baby swear words that you wouldn’t expect from a hardened ex-SAS officer, and actually stamped his foot on the floor in frustration.

  “Bastard sold me a pup! Last time I buy anything from a Nightside street trader!”

  “Hell,” I said. “I could have told you that.”

  He looked at me. “Don’t you laugh at me, Drood. Don’t you do that.”

  Molly came forward to stand beside me, and fixed Hollis with a cold, considering stare. “You’ve been ignoring me, soldier boy. And that is never a good idea.”

  She threw a whole series of fireballs at him, one after the other. Big balls of yellow sulphurous flames, crackling fiercely on the still air. Hollis threw one arm up and the fireballs slammed up against an invisible barrier, stopping dead in their tracks. Molly sniffed briefly and switched to throwing balls of spitting and sizzling energies. Hollis didn’t stick around to find out whether his barrier would stop them; he was already off and moving, ducking and dodging. He jumped up onto the nearest wall and ran along it, and then switched to running upside down on the ceiling, laughing breathlessly. Molly pursued him with her energy balls, but he was moving so fast she couldn’t keep up with him. The energy balls just ran out of steam before they could reach him, and fell apart. Hollis jumped down onto the other wall and I was right there, matching his speed with my own. I grabbed one ankle with a golden hand and then pulled him off the wall and slammed him onto the floor. He hit hard and curled into a ball, fighting to get his breath back. Molly nodded to me.

  “Nice one, Eddie.”

  “I thought so.”

  And while we were busy congratulating ourselves, Hollis sat up abruptly and spoke a single powerful Word. The wooden floor exploded before us, solid floorboards flowing like water as they took on new shape and purpose under his augmented will. They formed themselves into two huge wooden hands that wrapped themselves around Molly and me in a moment, crushing us so tightly neither of us could move. It was all I could do to get my breath, even inside my armour’s protection, and with my arms pinned to my sides I had no leverage to use against the unnatural strength of the wooden fingers. The hands rose, holding Molly and me off the floor, our legs dangling helplessly, utterly helpless. Molly hung limply, eyes closed, in the hand. Either through shock or unconsciousness. I struggled fiercely to get to her, but couldn’t budge the wooden fingers in the least. Hollis got to his feet, took a moment to brush himself off and then smiled mockingly at me.

  “High and mighty Drood with his cheating armour, never underestimate the value of planning and preparation. Of checking out the scene in advance and setting a few booby traps before the enemy shows his face. I knew you were coming here. Crow Lee told me. And unlike those stuck-up devil boys of his, I think ahead. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking on how best to take down a Drood. Now, I’m sure that impressive armour of yours will break free eventually, but by then, it’ll be far too late. I’ve got something special here just for you. Supernatural Can Opener, Part Two. Try not to take what happens next personally, Drood. It’s just what I do.”

  He walked unhurriedly up to me, the wooden hand lowering me slowly until I was face-to-face with him. I still couldn’t move. He lifted his hands and placed them on either side of my face mask. The bones within his hands glowed fiercely, blazing right through the flesh, and then the glow seemed to seep slowly through the flesh to encase both his hands in the same brightly glowing light. Hollis set both hands carefully on either side of my head, and up close the glare almost blinded me.

  The shining fingers clamped onto the golden metal. It didn’t even occur to me to flinch. I trusted my armour to protect me, as it always had. The fingertips dug deep into my armour. I couldn’t move; paralysed, helpless. The glowing fingers sank in deep and then pulled back, stretching and distorting the face armour. I screamed despite myself as an agonising pain swept through me. I was bonded to the rogue armour as a living thing, and its pain was my pain. Hollis pulled his glowing hands this way and that, tugging at the face mask, and the armour stretched and deformed but wouldn’t break. I screamed again as the armour screamed, as Hollis struggled to pull the mask off me.

  I could hear Molly screaming at Hollis. “Leave him alone, you bastard! Stop it! I’ll kill you for this!”

  “Shut it, girlie,” said Hollis, not even looking at her. “I’ll get to you when I’m finished with him.”

  He moved in close, concentrating on me as he fought to break the face mask. I was screaming so hard now, it hurt my throat. And while Hollis was concentrating on me, Molly pulled her wits together and concentrated on a simple teleport spell. She jumped herself out of the wooden hand and reappeared right behind Hollis. He started to turn, but Molly had already picked up one of the heavy potted plants and broke it over his head. The sheer weight of the thing clubbed Hollis to the floor and tore his glowing hands away from my mask. I cried out one last time and hung limply in the wooden hand, while the golden metal of my face mask slowly reformed itself. I watched numbly as Molly kicked Hollis good and hard in the ribs, to make sure he was unconscious, and then she hurried over to stand before me. She grabbed hold of the Twilight Teardrop hanging from her throat and spat out a single powerful Word. The wooden fingers holding me rotted and f
ell apart, and I fell through them to collapse on the floor. I forced myself up onto my knees. Molly was quickly there beside me.

  “Eddie, are you all right? I never heard you scream like that before.…”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I had to say it again before it sounded like I meant it. “I’m fine, Molly. It was the armour that was hurt, not me.”

  I armoured down, and the golden metal retreated into my torc with something like relief. I think both of us were surprised to discover just how close a relationship we’d entered into. I stayed on my knees for a while, Molly crouching beside me, until I was sure I was back in control, and then I got to my feet. Molly got up with me, hovering at my side, but didn’t try to help me. I moved across to stand over Hollis. There was blood on his face from where the plant pot had cracked his scalp as it shattered, but he was breathing easily enough. His hands weren’t glowing anymore.

  “Why a potted plant?” I said to Molly.

  She shrugged. “Because it was there. What do we do with him now?”

  I kicked Hollis in the ribs, hard enough to pick him up and send his body skidding across the floor and slam into the opposite wall. I went after him again, but immediately Molly was blocking my way, staring intently into my face.

  “Don’t, Eddie.”

  “He tried to kill me. He would have killed you. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “You can’t just kill him in cold blood.”

  “Why not? You didn’t have any problems exploding the Eton Irregulars while they were running away.”

  “That’s different, and you know it. They weren’t human anymore.”

  “I’m not leaving this dangerous an enemy at our back. He dies.”

  “Eddie, this isn’t like you.”

  “Get out of my way!”

  “No!”

  I raised a hand to hit her, and then stopped it in midair. Molly didn’t move, still staring intently into my eyes. The golden gauntlet hung on the air between us, shining brightly. One blow would have been enough to crush her skull. I hadn’t called the armour. I hadn’t. I glared at it, willing it back into my torc. It didn’t want to go. The rogue armour had unfinished business with Hollis. I could feel it. The armour wasn’t talking to me, but I could feel its presence at the back of my mind. I overrode it through sheer force of will, and the golden gauntlet disappeared. I lowered my hand, my whole arm shaking with the effort. Molly moved in close, laying her hands on my chest, looking into my face, making sure it was just me.