“About time!” it said in a harsh and strident female voice. “Come on. Get in, park your arse and let’s get moving! I haven’t got all day!”
I just stared at the sat nav for a moment. “We’re not going to get on, are we?”
“Like I care,” said the sat nav.
I straightened up and looked at Diana. “Would the Regent be very upset if I was to rip out the sat nav and throw it under the next passing heavy-goods vehicle? It’s not as if we’re going to need it. We’re not driving down to Surrey.”
“We’re not?” said Molly.
“We are going directly to Crow Lee’s place through the Merlin Glass,” I said. “You have heard of the Glass, Diana? Yes, of course you have.”
“We maintain up-to-date files on everyone,” Diana said carefully. “On friends and enemies and everyone in between. I’m sure the Droods are in there somewhere. Though I don’t think our researchers believe half of what they’ve heard when it comes to the Merlin Glass. Some have been heard to suggest that it’s all just Drood misinformation, designed to demoralise people like us.”
“Believe every bit of it,” Molly said sweetly. “Especially the really disturbing parts.”
“The clue is in the name,” I said. “Merlin Satanspawn always believed that weapons should be double-edged. But we’re not going to Crow Lee’s place in Surrey straightaway.”
“You’re not?” said Diana.
“Molly and I have already discussed this at some length,” I said carefully. “If we just drop in on him now, he’ll have all kinds of defences ready and waiting for us. I’ve got a better idea. The Merlin Glass operates in time as well as space. You might remember, Molly, that during out recent side trip to foreign parts, the Glass returned us to the exact moment in time and space that we left from. Therefore…”
“Hold everything,” said Molly. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Time travel!” said Diana, clapping her hands together excitedly. “You’re talking about time travel, aren’t you?”
“I was going to say that!” said Molly, sulking. She glared at Diana. “Don’t you have somewhere else you ought to be?”
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” said Diana.
Molly glowered at me. “Since when did you start discussing family secrets in front of strangers? You might trust the Regent, Eddie, but we’ve no reason to extend that to his whole damned organisation. If Crow Lee has people inside your family, you can bet he’s planted even more inside the Department of the Uncanny. Probably back when they were just Shadows.”
“I suppose that is always possible,” said Diana, in an entirely reasonable tone of voice she must have known would put Molly’s teeth on edge. “I wouldn’t put anything past Crow Lee. The treacherous little shit. But you can trust me, Eddie. The Regent specifically chose me to come here and talk with you because he had no doubt that you could trust me. Do you trust me, Eddie?”
I looked at her. I knew I shouldn’t trust her, that I had no good reason to, but somehow I did. Molly could see what was happening on my face, and made a point of tutting loudly and rolling her eyes.
“You always were too trusting, Eddie Drood. And always far too ready to be impressed by mutton dressed as lamb. All right, what’s the plan with the Merlin Glass?”
“Simple,” I said. “I’ll arrange the arrival coordinates so that although we enter the Glass here and now, we’ll arrive at Crow Lee’s estate twenty-four hours in the future. That should give him more than enough time to become worried about all kinds of things—where are we, why haven’t we arrived yet, what we’re planning. It should also provide enough time for his private army to get tired of standing guard for a threat that never comes, and get bored and complacent and sloppy.”
“I don’t know,” said Molly. “This is Crow Lee we’re talking about.”
“It gives us an advantage we wouldn’t otherwise have and that he won’t suspect,” I said patiently. “Unless you actually want to drive all the way down to Surrey. Arriving worn-out in the early hours of the morning, having driven all through the night, being nagged all the way by the sat nav?”
“I heard that!” said the sat nav.
“You were meant to,” I said.
“Why only twenty-four hours into the future?” said Diana.
“Because I don’t trust the Merlin Glass any further than that,” I said. “There are far too many things that can go wrong with time travel. And, besides, I just can’t stand the thought of Crow Lee having any more time than that. I am going to destroy his house and his grounds and everything he owns, bring his whole world crashing down about his ears and then…I’m going to make him bring my family back. Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll help,” said Molly.
“Couldn’t do it without you,” I said.
We smiled at each other, and just like that everything was all right again between us.
“I hate to be the wet blanket here,” said Diana, “but won’t Crow Lee detect you approaching through the Merlin Glass? I mean, that thing gives off a hell of a lot of magical energies, and he’s bound to be looking for it. If we know you’ve got it, you can be sure he knows.”
“He’ll be looking for spatial travel through the Glass,” I said just a bit smugly. “Not time travel. He doesn’t know the Glass can do that. No one does.”
“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one day,” Molly said admiringly. “Death from Above, via the Timestream! I love it!”
And she did a little jig of joy, right there in the street.
“He’ll never see it coming,” I said solemnly.
And then all three of us looked up sharply and round as a big red double-decker London bus came thundering down the street towards us. It was really travelling, moving much faster than any London bus should, and it took me only a moment to realise all the windows were darkly tinted, so no one could see in. I couldn’t even see the driver at the wheel, never mind any of the passengers. The bus roared right down the middle of the road, its engine making a hell of a racket as it struggled to maintain its speed. Tinted windows? On a public-transport bus?
“That’s odd,” said Diana. “The route number on the front of that bus is all wrong. It shouldn’t be anywhere near here.”
We watched curiously as the bus drew nearer, straddling the middle of the road, and then the driver slammed on the brakes so that the bus slowed down as it passed us. The whole frame shuddered from the sudden strain, and the wheels made harsh squealing noises. And every one of the tinted windows just disappeared, replaced by dozens of assorted gun barrels. They targeted Molly and me and Diana as we just stood there gaping, and all of them opened fire at once.
I armoured up. Molly raised a protective field before her. And Diana just stepped smartly backwards into a handy shadow and disappeared. I knew there had to be a reason why the Regent’s agents were called Shadows, I thought as the first bullets found me. All the guns were firing at once, and the combined roar was like the wrath of God. A noise so loud it was actually physically painful, even inside my armour. The bullets issued from the side of the bus like a pirate galley’s broadside; thousands of bullets from dozens of guns, like a wall of death. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly from my armour and were swallowed by Molly’s shield, and chewed up the brick wall behind us, and, rather surprisingly, just bounced harmlessly off the Plymouth Fury without making a mark.
“Don’t you shoot at me, you bastards!” screamed the sat nav. “I’m a classic! Shoot at them; I’m just the ride! They’re the ones you want! Shoot the fleshy ones!”
“We will have words later,” I said to the sat nav.
I glanced quickly behind me. The door to the Establishment Club was firmly closed, and, amazingly, taking no damage at all from the massed fire raking back and forth across it. And the bullet holes in the brickwork were already repairing themselves. Bullets might be a bit of a low-class threat to a setup like the Establishment Club, but it was clear it could look after i
tself.
Whoever was giving the orders inside the bus soon realised that their armoury of guns wasn’t having the hoped-for effect. The assault shut off abruptly, and the bus’s engine roared as it sped up again. I ran out into the street and sprinted after the bus, my armour’s speed more than a match for its hurried departure. I quickly caught up with the bus and plunged both my golden hands, well past the wrists, into the rear of the vehicle. My golden fingers dug in deep. I took a firm hold and then forced my golden heels into the street. The bus screeched to a halt despite itself, skidding wildly, as my heels dug two deep furrows in the road. I grinned behind my face mask. Good to be a Drood.
I wrestled the bus to a reluctant halt, the whole rear wall bowing out towards me, stretched and distorted by my hold. The driver gunned his engine and the bus shook back and forth as it fought to pull free, black smoke billowing out from the tyres. But I had my hold, and the bus wasn’t going anywhere. I pushed my arms farther in and lifted the whole rear of the bus up off the road, so that the rear wheels just spun helplessly in midair.
The tinted windows at the rear of the bus disappeared, replaced by a whole bunch of gun barrels moving quickly to target me at point-blank range. They opened up with everything they had, trying to blast me loose, but I just stood there and took it. Bullets hammered me from head to toe, ricocheting in every direction at once, even back into the bus, and I didn’t feel a single impact. Some of the guns fired directly into my face mask, and a lot of good it did them. I didn’t even blink. One by one the guns ran out of ammunition, and then they all suddenly withdrew. The tinted back windows reappeared, and the bus driver shut down his engine.
It was very quiet in the street. No gunfire, no straining engine, no squealing tyres; not a single sound. I dropped the rear of the bus back onto the road, and it bounced a few times on its heavy tyres before settling. I wrenched my hands back out of the bus, and they emerged easily amid the shriek of ruptured and tearing metal. Molly came forward to join me, and stood beside me as we looked over the silent double-decker.
“What the hell was that all about?” said Molly.
“I think,” I said, “that we have just been the victims of the hidden-world equivalent of a drive-by shooting. What the hell did these silly bastards think they were doing? Battles in the hidden world are supposed to stay hidden from the everyday world! You don’t squabble in front of the children; everyone knows that!”
“Look around you,” said Molly.
It took me only a moment to see what she meant. There was traffic all around us; cars and taxis, white vans and cycle couriers…but not one of them was moving. Time had stopped around us. The drive-by and its intended victims were all caught in a single frozen moment, held between the tick and tock of the world’s clock. So the shooting could take place without anyone noticing, until time started up again. The bus would be gone, and all that remained would be the bullet-ridden corpses of the victims. Just another mystery in the busy heart of London. Probably put it down to gangs.
“A drive-by shooting,” I growled. “I hate them. I mean, come on. Is there anything more cowardly than a drive-by? Drive up at speed, spray bullets in every direction, hope you hit the right target among all the innocent bystanders and then run away. I want the creeps behind this, Molly. I want to explain to them the error of their ways. Let’s take a look inside the bus.”
“Let’s,” said Molly. “I feel we should have words with these scumbags.”
“Harsh words,” I said.
We walked along the side of the big red double-decker bus. The windows remained darkly tinted and very firmly closed. Not a sound or a movement from inside. I came to the cab door, well above the ground, reached up with one golden hand, and casually tore out the whole door and threw it aside. The sound of rending metal was very loud in the quiet, followed by an equally loud reverberating clang as the door hit the ground. A massive gun barrel protruded from inside the cab, aimed directly into my face mask. I didn’t give the gun’s owner time to fire, just grabbed the long barrel and jerked the whole thing right out of his hands. There was a howl of pain and upset from inside the cab, from the gun’s owner, who hadn’t let go of his gun fast enough.
I looked the gun over. Cheap Kalashnikov knock-off piece of shit. The assassin’s gun of choice when he hasn’t enough money for anything decent. I broke the thing in two and threw the pieces aside. Cheap guns and a drive-by shooting on a London double-decker didn’t really tie in with the sophistication of time control. Devices like that are hard to find, and they never come cheap. I peered into the cab, but there was no one at the wheel. The driver had retreated into the bus’s gloomy interior and was hidden among his fellow would-be assassins.
“It’s not like we’ve any shortage of enemies,” Molly said behind me. “But I can’t think of anyone dumb enough to organise such a low-rent attack on us. I say we board the bus and bounce people off the walls until someone feels like telling us what’s going on here.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.
“And me,” said Diana, stepping elegantly out of a nearby shadow. She didn’t look in the least troubled or disturbed by what had just happened. Molly and I both made a point of not jumping even a little bit when she reappeared, just on general principle.
“Regent of Shadows,” said Molly. “Much suddenly becomes clear. I take it you’re one of his Special Agents?”
“Of course,” said Diana. “One of his first, in fact. We go way back, the Regent and me. You think he’d entrust your safety to just anyone? I am rather annoyed at the crudity of the attack, though. I’m used to better, quite frankly. Fiendish master plans and complicated death traps; that’s more my sort of thing. I say we go inside the bus and kick bottom!”
“All right!” said Molly. “I’m starting to like you.…”
“So pleased,” said Diana.
I hauled myself up into the driver’s cab, looked into the gloomy interior and was immediately met with the roar of a heavy electronic cannon, one of those customised jobs that can pump out thousands of explosive fléchettes a second. Being a sporting sort, I braced myself and just stood there and took it. The bullets slammed into me like a solid mass, and the whole front of the bus, behind me, just disintegrated, blown away by the sheer concentrated firepower. My armour wasn’t bothered in the least.
The problem with this particular kind of gun is that by its very nature it goes through a hell of a lot of bullets really quickly. The gun fell silent abruptly, and someone said, “Oh, shit.” I stepped quickly forward into the bus’s interior, grabbed hold of the massive cannon, and ripped it right off its floor mounting. I then crumpled the heavy gun in my hands like it was made of paper, wadded it into a ball and let the metal mass drop to the floor with a loud and disquieting thud.
The man who’d been firing the cannon retreated quickly towards the rear of the bus, making choked noises of distress. All the bus seats were full, with row after row of hard-faced men in flak jackets, carrying all kinds of guns. They started to aim them at me…and then had a rush of common sense to their heads and changed their minds. Seeing Drood armour up close will do that to you. Which is, of course, the point.
The hard-faced fighting men lowered their guns to the floor and then put their hands as high in the air as they could get them. Which was only sensible, if a bit disappointing. It isn’t nearly as much fun to beat the crap out of people who aren’t fighting back. It wouldn’t necessarily stop me, though. I was still pretty annoyed about the whole driveby thing. And then a voice at the very rear of the bus spoke up, saying:
“Take him down or you don’t get paid!”
Just when everything was going so well…There’s always one. There was just the briefest of pauses while the gunmen looked at one another, and then they all reached inside their flak jackets and produced any number of magic amulets, glowing handguns, pointing bones and enchanted brass knuckles. The gunmen all surged forward at once, clearly hoping to achieve close up what they hadn’t
managed at a distance: bringing me down through sheer weight of numbers. I could have told them that was never going to work.
They punched and kicked at me, hitting me with every weapon they had, shouting fierce war cries to encourage themselves and one another, falling on me from every side at once…and none of them could touch me. Their various toys just broke and shattered against my armour, and in the limited space of the bus’s aisle they were more a threat to each other than they were to me.
I finally lost my patience and waded into them, slapping weapons out of their hands and striking the gunmen down with swift, efficient punches. I knocked them down and trampled them, bounced them off walls, picked them up and slammed them against the low ceiling. I was careful to control my armour’s strength. I wanted living prisoners capable of answering questions. So while they did their very best to kill me, I didn’t kill a single one of them.
Because I, not my armour, was in control.
Molly was quickly there with me, darting back and forth, smiling happily as she threw shaped curses that made guns blow up in their owners’ faces and punching in the odd head here and there, for the good of her soul. She whooped loudly as she ducked wild punches, kicked the legs out from under people and trampled them viciously underfoot. She dispensed much-deserved beatings to the ungodly, and loved every moment of it.
I laughed and fought alongside her, and that seemed to upset the gunmen even more. Especially when Diana joined the fight, darting in and out of the many shadows inside the bus, appearing and disappearing with bewildering speed as she dispensed elegant karate blows and fierce savate kicks and the odd elbow to the back of the neck to a victim who didn’t have the sense to hit the floor fast enough. Diana was a graceful, efficient fighter, her tweed skirt swirling about her as she moved with surprising speed for someone her age. And not one of the gunmen was able to point a weapon at her fast enough to save himself.
Eventually, the three of us just ran out of people to hit. We stood together, none of us breathing particularly hard, and looked around us. The inside of the bus was littered with battered and bloodied would-be assassins lying in piles, draped over the seats, gasping for air and staunching bloody mouths and noses and occasionally crying bitter tears. As professional assassins went, this bunch hadn’t travelled far. They never stood a chance, and they knew it. Molly and Diana and I looked hopefully around for someone else we could teach the error of their ways, but everyone kept their heads well down and avoided our eyes, hoping not to be noticed.