And while the mercenary soldiers were coping with that, Molly raised her hands in the stance of summoning, forced out a few really nasty Words, and a great storm wind rose out of nowhere and came sweeping across the open lawns, howling and buffeting and blasting through anything that got in its way. It picked up the soldiers and threw them about like an angry child. They went flying this way and that, tumbling end over end before crashing to earth again some distance away. The roaring wind picked up the abstract sculptures and smashed them against one another, uprooting the smaller hedge creatures and sending them bobbing and tumbling across the lawns. Molly brought her arms down sharply, and the wind broke off abruptly.
Half a dozen soldiers had dug in, hanging on to the heavier statues. Molly snapped her fingers briskly and lightning bolts stabbed down to incinerate the mercenaries. Black smoke and the smell of roast pork carried across the grounds on a gusting breeze. Molly turned to look at me.
“Are you going to give me a hard time over killing a few professional soldiers who were quite definitely prepared to kill you and me?”
“No,” I said.
“Ah…” said Molly. “You know, I had a response ready for pretty much everything except that. Are you sure you’re not upset?”
“No,” I said. “They weren’t interested in taking prisoners, and neither am I. Every one of these mercenary bastards gave up all their human rights when they signed on to work for the Most Evil Man in the World. They’re standing between me and the rescue of my lost family. Kill them all and let the Devil sort them out.”
“This isn’t like you, Eddie,” said Molly.
“I never had my whole family taken away before,” I said.
Molly looked like she wanted to say something else, but a whole new army of mercenary soldiers suddenly appeared out of nowhere, just blinking into existence in large groups all around us. Molly and I moved quickly to stand back-to-back. It was the same professional types in the same bluff uniforms, but this time much better armed. They had glowing swords and axes, shining bitterly with dangerous energies; Hands of Glory with sulphur-yellow flames dancing at the end of waxed fingers; even a few elven wands. Though given how gingerly their owners were handling them, the wands clearly hadn’t come with an instruction manual. I almost felt sorry for the poor bastards holding them. Elves live to screw humans over, and they never sell anything they don’t booby-trap first. Their sense of humour…isn’t ours.
The soldiers carrying glowing axes and swords advanced on me, and I went cheerfully forward to meet them. The heavy blades smashed and shattered against my armour, and the metal pieces stopped glowing before they even hit the grass. I didn’t feel a thing, and my armour wasn’t even scratched. On the few occasions where the blades just rebounded, I snatched the weapons out of their shocked owners’ hands and broke them in two with my golden gauntlets.
They retreated rapidly, and a soldier stepped forward holding his blazing Hand of Glory out before him. A Hand of Glory can uncover any secret, open any lock, take command of any magic. The soldier tried to use the Hand’s power to take control of my armour away from me and force it back into my torc. To leave me revealed and vulnerable. But mine was a Drood torc, and more than a match for a dead man’s hand with candles for fingers. The magic rebounded, all the yellow flames blew out in a moment and the Hand just withered and closed in on itself, forced into a harmless fist. The soldier shook the dead Hand hard a few times, like that was going to help, and then fell quickly back to hide behind some other soldiers.
The two soldiers with elven wands stepped forward to take his place, stabbing the wands at me while shouting something in badly accented elvish. Massive energies blasted me, burning so brightly in the space between us that my mask had to shut itself down for a moment to protect my eyes. I stood my ground in the dark, untouched and untouchable inside my armour, until the attack was over. My mask cleared, I looked around and discovered I was standing in a large circle of dead grass, surrounded by burning hedge creatures and shattered statues. I let the two soldiers with wands take a good look at all the destruction they’d caused and then at me, completely untouched; then I started purposefully towards them. They threw away their wands and turned and ran, and I let them go.
Next up were a whole bunch of soldiers with futuristic high-energy weapons. You can get your hands on anything these days, if you know where to look. The soldiers hosed me down with all kinds of energy beams, some so powerful they left sparkling trails in the air behind them, but they still washed harmlessly over my armour. One bounced off and set fire to a hedge sculpture of a towering minotaur. It burnt fiercely, but didn’t move in the least, for which I was quietly grateful. Other soldiers hit me with sub- and supersonic frequencies, and I just stood there and let them do it, until they got a bit upset and gave up.
I waited patiently while the soldiers shut down their various weapons and had a quiet but agitated discussion. I was fascinated to see what they’d do. Their next effort turned out to be a remote-control teleport device, which did its very best to send me somewhere else. But the process couldn’t get a hold on my armour, so it bounced back and sent the device’s owner somewhere else. Given the man’s brief anticipatory scream before he disappeared, I had to assume that wherever he’d intended to send me, it hadn’t been anywhere nice.
I looked across at Molly. Soldiers were surrounding her from a distance, and using exotic tech weapons to form a cage of pulsing energies around her. Molly calmly took off the spangly earrings Patrick the Armourer had given her, primed them with a muttered Word and tossed them casually between the energy bars of her cage. Both earrings exploded noisily, generating big black clouds of smoke, through which soldiers were thrown screaming with their uniforms on fire. Surprised and caught off guard, most of the soldiers maintaining the cage were blown away in a moment, and the energy bars just collapsed. Molly stepped casually out of the fading trap and looked happily about her. The black smoke cleared to reveal two large charred craters in the lawns, and quite a lot of dazed and damaged mercenary soldiers. Half the soldiers who’d been standing there threatening her weren’t standing there anymore, and the rest were retreating for safer ground at quite a pace.
More soldiers pressed forward, grim faced and determined, carrying a variety of impressive-looking weapons. Molly smiled and produced a flat box with a single button on the top. I winced just a bit as I recognised it. The protein exploder. Molly pointed the box at the soldiers advancing on her and pressed the button, and most of the soldiers just disappeared. A great cloud of pink mist rolled slowly through the air while bones clattered quietly to the grassy lawn.
The surviving soldiers turned and ran, scattering across the grounds, presumably in the hope it would make them harder to hit. Molly picked them off with the box, one at a time, smiling reflectively. Her sharp-shooting skills were improving.
With Crow Lee’s private army either dead or deserting, the grounds themselves took up the fight. Massive robotic guns rose from inside hidden bunkers, straight up through the flower displays, long barrels moving quickly to target Molly and me. I pointed an accusing golden finger at the gun positions.
“That’s another thing he stole from my family!”
All the robotic guns opened fire at once, pumping out bullets at a rapid rate of fire, raking me from head to foot. There was enough firepower to punch a hole through steel plating, but it was still no match for my armour. I walked deliberately forward into the bullets and then moved from one gun position to the next, ripping the robotic guns out of their housing and throwing them aside. Not because they posed me any real threat, but because I was getting really tired of being shot at. I wanted to make a point.
And then, of course, inevitably, the remaining hedge creatures all came to life and closed in on me. I’d been expecting it all along, but it was still an eerie and disturbing spectacle as the heavy green sculptures ripped their rooted feet out of the ground and turned their blind green heads to look at me. The T. rex’s mas
sive jaws opened wide in a silent roar of rage.
“I knew it!” I called across to Molly. “Never trust hedge sculptures!”
“Ugly bloody things, anyway,” said Molly.
She said a Word and snapped her fingers, and just like that, all the moving hedge creatures burst into flames. Fires roared up from inside their green bodies, consuming them in moments. They lurched this way and that, sweeping their burning heads back and forth as though they could leave the flames behind. They banged into each other and fought briefly before finally collapsing to burn listlessly in awkward poses. Molly and I had to keep moving, darting this way and that to stay out of their way, but none of them got anywhere near us. We laughed breathlessly as we dodged the burning shapes. And soon enough they were all down and lying still, little bursts of flames still jerking through them, sending sweet-smelling smoke up into the early-evening sky. Molly and I stood together, looking happily around us. The whole grounds had become one big battlefield, with fires and craters and dead and broken bodies to every side.
“Wherever we go,” I said, “we make an impression.”
“They started it,” said Molly.
The sniper hidden in the row of trees at the other end of the grounds chose that moment to open fire on Molly. And, amazingly, the bullet punched right through all her protective fields, one by one. I didn’t even realise what was happening at first. I heard the gunshot, of course, but by then the bullet had already reached Molly and been stopped by her automatic protective shield. The bullet was held there in midair for a moment, and then it forced its way through the shield, only to be stopped by the next. Long ago Molly had preprogrammed her defences, a series of varying shields just waiting to be activated. But even so, it was a shock to see a bullet smash through one shield after another, hanging on the air before her face, inching inexorably towards her left eye. The last screen finally stopped it, just short of her eye, and the bullet hung there, snarling and biting at the invisible shield like a living thing, and then Molly’s left hand came up and snatched the bullet out of midair. She held the bullet in her closed fist, glowering as it forced her hand back and forth, still fighting to break free.
“It’s a biting bullet,” she said. “Made from the bone of an uncaught murderer, created to chew through anything that stands between it and its target.”
The ugly thing buzzed and growled inside her hand, shaking her hand viciously through sheer brute force. I saw Molly wince as it tried to eat its way through her hand. I started forward, ready to take and hold it in my golden gauntlet, but Molly stopped me with a look. She closed her other hand around her fist, concentrated, and then clamped down hard. There was the sound of bone cracking and breaking, and the bullet fell silent. She opened her hand, and tiny fragments of bone fell out.
“Nasty thing,” said Molly. “Now, where is that sniper? And why hasn’t he opened fire again?”
“I think he’s been watching to see what would happen,” I said. “And if he’s got any sense, he’s currently sprinting for the nearest horizon.”
“It came from that row of trees,” said Molly. “And he’s still there. The idiot.”
She strode determinedly towards the trees. I yelled after her, but I knew I was wasting my breath. The sniper fired again, but this time Molly was ready for him. She gestured dismissively, and the biting bullet exploded in midair, less than halfway towards her. Through my face mask I focused on the sniper, and saw him take a third bullet from a heavily reinforced box and fit it carefully into his rifle. He didn’t look pressed or hurried, just very professional. He fired again, but this time the bullet had barely left the barrel before it exploded.
Molly crossed the remaining ground at speed and hurled herself on the sniper while he was still trying to load another bullet. He tried to bring the rifle to bear as she loomed over him, but she just grabbed the rifle out of his hands with one swift movement, turned it around, and shot the sniper with his own gun. The biting bullet hit him square in the left eye, even though that wasn’t where Molly had aimed. The things must come preprogrammed. The impact sent the sniper flying backwards, and he crashed to the ground, dead. But he didn’t lie still. His dead head whipped back and forth as the bullet raged this way and that inside, eating up everything it found there. Whoever designed the bullets had been determined that whoever was shot by one would not recover. The head’s movements grew fainter and fainter, until finally the bullet was still, satisfied. Molly looked down at the dead sniper, studying him expressionlessly, and then threw the rifle aside.
And while she was preoccupied, one of the trees beside her threw off its disguising illusion and became a mercenary soldier.
He hit Molly round the back of the head with a heavy wooden staff, and she dropped to her knees. She cried out briefly. I ran forward, but I could tell I wasn’t going to get there in time. I’d let her get too far ahead. I’d just strolled along after her because I was sure she could handle the situation. More soldiers appeared out of nowhere, running forward to block my way. I ploughed into them, throwing their broken bodies aside. Molly needed me. I could hear the soldier who’d hit her talking to her. He didn’t even bother to look in my direction.
“Major Tim Browten at your service, dear Miss Metcalf. The wild witch herself…Sorry to have to come at you so ungallantly from ambush, but I’m not stupid. This staff in my hand, this very old item that just struck you down so easily and so completely, is the Witch’s Hammer of Matthew Hopkins, witch finder. Just one blow with this blessed wood is all it takes to rob a witch of her powers for a time. Now, you be a good little girl and just lie there, and let me kill you quickly and efficiently. So much better for both of us, eh? You’ll only make it worse for yourself if you struggle.”
I was still fighting through a growing crowd of soldiers. They were throwing everything they had at me just to slow me down.
I saw Molly try to get up, anyway, and the major hit her again, slamming the heavy wood into the side of her head with calm efficiency. I heard her cry out again. I heard the sound the staff made as it hit her head. I saw the blood leap from her torn scalp and rush down one side of her face. Molly went down on one knee, staring dazedly at the grass before her as it turned red with her blood. And then she forced her face up again to glare at Major Browten.
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Miss Metcalf,” he said calmly. “You have no magic now, remember? I took it all away with my Witch’s Hammer.”
“I’ll see your Witch’s Hammer, you son of a bitch,” said Molly. “And raise you a protein exploder.”
She brought up the small box in a steady hand and pointed it at his groin at point-blank range. She hit the button, and I swear I actually saw the major’s testicles explode in slow motion. He sank heavily to his knees before Molly, and clutched desperately at the gaping wound between his thighs, blood spurting thickly past his hands. Molly looked at him with her bloody face and then put the protein exploder away. She forced herself back up onto her feet, now with the Witch’s Hammer in her hands. She hit Major Browten over the head with it, a blow so hard the staff broke in two. The major fell forward, dead before he hit the ground. Molly laughed at him breathlessly and threw the broken pieces of the staff aside.
I’d finally fought my way through the last soldiers and caught up to Molly. I was reaching out to her to make sure she was all right when another tree dropped its disguise, to become another mercenary soldier. Molly and I both turned to confront him, and then stopped abruptly as we saw what he was holding. It was a monkey’s paw made over into a Hand of Glory. Very illegal, very dangerous, completely bloody foolhardy. In some countries you can still be executed just for admitting you’ve heard of such a thing. The flames rising from the tiny wrinkled fingers were bloodred and didn’t tremble at all. Molly and I stood very still. A monkey’s paw is hideously dangerous in its own right, able to alter reality itself. But to add to that the gifts and power of a Hand of Glory? That’s like deciding a thermonuclear device isn’t dangerous enough an
d giving it leprosy. The soldier smiled at us and waggled the monkey’s hand in our faces.
“You don’t need to use that,” Molly said carefully. “Throw it away. You risk damning your soul just by holding such a thing.”
“I’m a professional soldier,” the mercenary said easily. “Major Mike Michaels. To a soldier, a weapon is just a weapon; they’re all just killing tools at the end of the day. Now, armour down, Drood. Make that nasty metal suit disappear, or I’ll have the monkey’s hand do something really nasty to your girlfriend.”
I pulled my armour back into my torc, and the mercenary soldier watched, fascinated, as the gold vanished and I appeared. I stood stiffly beside Molly. Blood was still dripping steadily off one side of her face. I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t dare move while Major Michaels was watching me so closely. He wanted an excuse to use the hand. I could tell. I felt naked and very vulnerable without my armour. I could feel it stirring resentfully inside my torc, disturbed by the power it sensed in the monkey’s hand. Moxton’s Mistake might or might not have been able to withstand the power contained in that nasty little object, but I couldn’t risk finding out while Molly was still in danger. The Witch’s Hammer had taken her magic, but the staff was broken now. So did she have her magic back? She wasn’t doing anything. I had no choice but to play along, and hope I could find a way out of this mess.
Major Michaels held up the monkey’s hand so Molly could see it clearly. “Give me that trinket you’re wearing round your throat, Miss Metcalf. The ruby pendant.”
Molly reached up slowly, removed the Twilight Teardrop’s chain from around her neck, and handed it over. Either because the monkey’s hand was affecting her, or because she had no power left to deny him what he wanted. The moment the pendant left her hand, she swayed and almost fell, as though the last of her strength had gone out of her. Without the Twilight Teardrop to power her magic, she was as helpless…as I was. The major smiled, and what I saw in that man’s face as he looked at Molly was enough to send me surging forward, calling for my armour.