Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel

  I looked the mechanism over. Damned if I could make head or tail of what it was. A made thing, certainly, from metal, but I hadn’t a clue what it was or what it was supposed to do. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life, and I’d seen a lot of strange things in the Armoury in my time. I walked slowly round the thing, looking at it from different angles, trying to get my head round it. Its shape made no sense, with many of its details changing subtly even as I looked at them. Parts of the machine seemed to blur in and out, as though aspects of it were only sometimes in this world. Given that its purpose was to induce eternally changing patterns inside the Maze, I had the horrible suspicion that quantum was involved. I’ve never understood quantum. The few times the Armourer insisted on explaining it to me, I had headaches that weren’t even limited to my head.

  When I finally reached out to touch the mechanism, the thing actually evaded my hand. It seemed to recede suddenly, in all directions at once, without actually moving. As such.

  “It does that,” said the rogue armour. “You can’t touch it, you can’t harm it and you can’t break it. And believe me, I’ve tried down all the long years. But if the two of us were to work together…”

  “Worth a try,” I said, trying hard to sound confident. “So, how do you want to do this? Do I just put you on, or…”

  “A test first,” said the armour. “To see if we’re…compatible.”

  It reached out inhumanly quickly and laid a golden gauntlet on my hand before I could snatch it away. The metal was horribly cold to the touch, and it took all I had not to cry out. It was like being touched by a dead thing or something that had never been alive. The golden metal lost all shape and rigidity and flowed like liquid across my hand, covering and containing it, becoming a glove. I worked my fingers slowly and the golden fingers moved. And so, bound together, hand in hand, the armour and I moved forward. And I raised a golden fist and brought it savagely down on the mechanism. It smashed into a thousand pieces, as though it had been terribly fragile all along, protected only by its built-in evasiveness. It shattered like glass and fell apart, leaving tiny glistening pieces on the grass at my feet.

  The rogue armour took its golden hand back and stared fascinated at all that remained of the thing that had held it prisoner for so long. I flexed my freed fingers surreptitiously as warmth and sensation slowly returned. Moxton’s Mistake raised its golden head like a hound that had just caught the scent and looked around. I did, too. Something had changed in the Maze. An overlaying tension was gone from the air.

  “The Maze is still a Maze,” said the rogue armour. “But the hedgerows no longer move. We can leave now. Theoretically. If we can find our way out.” It turned its blank face to look at me. “I can see the mark of magic laid upon you, Drood. Is that our way out?”

  “Could be,” I said. “It’s certainly my way out. So…”

  “So,” said the armour. “It’s time to find out just how much we trust each other.”

  It leaned sharply forward, and a mouth appeared in the golden face mask, stretching wider and wider…until a dead body came slipping out of it. The rogue armour vomited up the body it had held inside it for so long. The desiccated head and shoulders came first and then the body, falling faster under its own weight, until finally the legs and feet slipped out and the dead body sprawled inelegantly on the grass before me. The mouth closed, disappearing into the golden mask.

  Moxton’s body was a withered, shrivelled thing, its bleached face stretched around an endless scream of horror. I wondered how long it had taken the old Armourer to die, trapped inside his greatest creation. Mourning his mistake. I made myself look away from what might yet be my future. I looked steadily at the rogue armour.

  “Do it.”

  It surged forward, too fast for human eyes to follow. I raised an arm in self-defence in spite of myself, and the armour flowed over the arm in a golden wave and hit me in the face. The rogue armour engulfed me in a moment, encasing me from head to foot. I think I screamed. It was nothing like what happened when I called my armour. I can’t remember most of what happened that first time, though sometimes there are hints in certain nightmares I try very hard not to remember. I know it was cold, terribly cold, not just of the body, but of the soul. There was cold and then there was darkness as the armour cut off my senses, replacing them with its own. I was alone in the dark, and then there was a presence with me. Not human, but more than just inhuman. Something that had no nature of its own and so had made one for itself; a personality ripped from the darker parts of its creator’s mind, born of hate and rage, refined into a delight in such things for its own sake. It could feel how I felt about that. It found it…funny.

  Light filled my eyes, dispersing the darkness, and I was open to the world again. I stood in the Maze, panting hard, trembling, forcing calm and self-control. I looked down at myself and saw only gold. I lifted my hands and turned them back and forth before me, and they were the heavy golden gauntlets I had seen before on Moxton’s Mistake. The armour felt as much a second skin as my old armour had, but there was…a distance now between me and the world. As though I was receiving all my impressions of it secondhand. The presence was gone, but I still had the sense of someone looking over my shoulder. There was no trace of the metal voice in my head, but I knew it was still there. Watching and waiting.

  I felt strong and vital, more than human, but also full of anger for my enemies, for those who had dared strike at my family. I ached for revenge, for the chance to get my hands on my enemy and make him pay…feelings that might not have been entirely mine.

  I turned and strode quickly through the hedgerows. With my golden armour about me, I could now clearly see the shining, shimmering lifeline that fell away before me, stretching off into the distance. The connection Molly had made between us. It was lovely to look at, but I had no time for that. I hurried on, moving faster and faster, following the thread out of the Maze. It took me a while to get my balance, training my new armour to move in a human way. But soon enough I was running headlong, my long legs eating up the distance while my arms pumped tirelessly at my sides. My heavy feet tore open the grass beneath me and threw up earth divots in my wake. It felt good to be running so freely, to be exceeding human limitations again, after being limited to merely human moves for so long. And soon, soon I came to the entrance to the Maze and burst through and out of it, back into the world again, where my Molly was waiting for me.

  Molly Metcalf took one look at me and hit me with every bit of magic at her command. Terrible energies flared and spat on the air around her upraised hands, striking out to pound against my armoured chest and head, forcing me to an abrupt halt and then slamming me backwards, step by step, impact by impact, forcing me back towards the Maze entrance. But whatever its origin, this was still Drood armour, and I quickly recovered my balance and dug in my heels. I stood my ground, actually leaning forward into her magical attack, and her vicious energies broke and burst against my golden metal, detonating harmlessly about me. Molly scowled fiercely, her flashing dark eyes focused and determined, and hit me again and again with her best sorcerous attacks. And I just stood there and took it.

  And then I raised one hand and wagged a single pointed golden finger at her, more in sorrow than in anger. Molly froze. And while her assault was stopped, I concentrated in a certain way and the new armour retreated into my torc. Leaving me open and revealed to the world and my Molly. Her look of surprise was actually comical, but I had enough sense not to laugh. I looked about me. The world seemed a duller and flatter thing now, perceived only through my human senses, but it was still a warm and lovely place and I was glad to be back in it. I fell to my knees as the day’s burdens rushed in upon me, and I thrust my fingers deep into the grass and earth before me, rooting myself in the world. It was good to be back. The steady warmth of the summer’s day drove the armour’s cold out of my body, out of my heart and soul, but my torc still burnt coldly about my throat, as though in warning. I realised Mol
ly was kneeling beside me, saying my name over and over, and I finally found the strength to turn and smile at her.

  “Eddie! Talk to me, dammit! Are you all right? Do you need me to rip that torc off your throat and throw it back into the Maze?”

  “No,” I said immediately, if only to stop the relentless flow of her words. “I’m fine, Molly. Really. The armour’s…safe inside my torc. We came to an arrangement inside the Maze. It will serve me. For now.”

  I slowly got to my feet again, with Molly’s help. The experience had taken a lot out of me. Molly was looking at me anxiously, clearly waiting for details of the arrangement I’d agreed to, but I didn’t tell her. I knew she wouldn’t approve.

  “You were in there for ages,” said Molly. “It’s been almost three hours!”

  I blinked a few times at that. Time must have moved differently inside the Maze.

  “I’ve been walking up and down outside the entrance, working on my magics, waiting for you to come out,” Molly went on, when it became clear I had nothing to say. “I wanted to be sure I had something useful in hand, just in case the armour had taken you over. So when you just came rushing out, not even talking to me, I sort of assumed the worst.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I got a bit carried away. I hadn’t realised how much I missed wearing armour.”

  “Anyway,” said Molly. “Some of what I hit you with should have strengthened your torc, giving you more control over your new armour. So it can’t come and go as it pleases or deny you when you need it.”

  “Good,” I said. “Good idea, Molly. The strange matter in the torc should also help to keep the rogue armour in its place.”

  “But, Eddie, listen to me! This is important. I’ve no idea how long your torc will be able to control the armour, even with my magics’ support. We are in unknown territory here.…It could last for days or weeks or just a few hours.”

  “Got it,” I said. I didn’t tell her it didn’t matter. That I would wear the armour for as long as I needed to find my family. And worry about everything else afterwards.

  “So,” said Molly. “What does it feel like…wearing Moxton’s armour?”

  “Cold,” I said immediately, before I could stop myself. “Very cold…and inhuman…But it’ll do the job and that’s all that matters.” I realised Molly was looking at me oddly. “What?”

  “When you came out of the Maze, wearing that armour…You didn’t look anything like you usually do. You didn’t even look like a Drood. I don’t know what Moxton based his designs on, but I don’t think it was anything human.” She scowled, searching for the right words. “The way you were moving, the impression you gave—I wasn’t sure there was anything inside the armour.”

  “It’s still me, Molly,” I said. “I’m still here.”

  “Not when you’re wearing that armour, you’re not. I can tell.”

  “I need it, Molly. Can’t do the job without it.”

  “I know. But once this is over, first chance you get, ditch the bloody thing.”

  “Hush,” I said quietly. “I think…it’s listening.”

  “Things just get better all the time,” said Molly. “So, what now?”

  “We need answers,” I said. “We need hard information as to exactly what went down here and who was behind it. Someone out there will know. Someone always knows. But where do we go to ask? Time was, we’d have just dropped into the Wulfshead Club, that celebrated supernatural watering hole, paid for a round for the house, and they’d have been lining up to tell us everything we needed to know. But I’m pretty sure I’m persona non grata there, after the…recent unpleasantness.”

  “You mean when you completely lost control, beat up everyone who got in your way and half killed your old friend the Indigo Spirit?” said Molly. “Oh, hell, yes, Eddie. They’re still talking about that, and not in a good way. You are banned from the Wulfshead for life, Eddie Drood, and possibly even longer than that.”

  “But that’s just Eddie Drood,” I said, craftily. “I could still sneak in as Shaman Bond, couldn’t I?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Molly. “I really wouldn’t. Take it from me: That boat has sailed. Far too many people in that place now know Eddie and Shaman are the same man. No one’s actually given you up yet, but you can bet good money there’d be a race to drop you right in it if you were to push your luck. Give them time to calm down, and they might let you back in as Shaman. But right now the very least they’d do is set the hellhounds on you and blow your secret identity right out of the water.”

  “But they will calm down?” I said. “Eventually?”

  “Who can say?”

  I looked at her thoughtfully. “You could always…”

  “No, I couldn’t,” said Molly. “I’m banned, as well, just for knowing you.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be! I’m not. Never cared much for the Wulfshead, anyway. Bit too elevated for my tastes. And it’s gone so upmarket these days…so up itself it’s practically staring out its own nostrils. And the bar prices suck big-time.”

  I smiled. Molly can be very loyal in her own way. “So, where do we go for answers?”

  “There’s always the Nightside.…”

  “No there isn’t,” I said, very firmly.

  “Oh, come on, Eddie! I know there are long-standing pacts between your family and the Nightside, keeping you all out…for reasons I have never had properly explained. But that can’t apply now, when you’re the only Drood left!”

  “Nothing’s changed,” I said. “If I did go in there, on my own, in defiance of the pacts, they’d come straight at me with malice aforethought. And, anyway, I don’t want anyone in the Nightside knowing my family isn’t around anymore. You couldn’t hope to ask questions and still keep it quiet. I don’t want the world knowing the Droods aren’t in charge anymore. When the Droods are away, the rats will run riot.”

  “I could go into the Nightside,” said Molly. “I’ve got lots of contacts there. Not very nice contacts, perhaps, but I’m sure they’d give me all kinds of help once I started banging heads against walls.”

  “No,” I said. “They’d only wonder why I wasn’t with you, start asking questions of their own and we’d be back where we started.”

  “You don’t trust me on my own in the Nightside, with all its temptations. Do you?”

  “No, I bloody don’t.”

  Molly smiled, satisfied.

  We both stood around for a while, trying to think of somewhere we could go, of people who might be persuaded to tell us useful things if we were insistent enough, in an intimidating sort of way. But approaching any of the usual unusual suspects would be bound to raise more questions than answers. The truth about my family’s…situation was bound to get out sooner or later, but I didn’t want to do anything that would make it sooner rather than later. I needed time to get to the truth—and whoever was behind it.

  “We could always go into London, down Grafton Way,” Molly said tentatively. “Pay a polite and very under-the-radar visit to the Order of Beyond. We did go there once before, remember, when we were trying to track down Mr. Stab.”

  “I remember,” I said. The Order of Beyond rounds up people who’ve been possessed by all the various forces from outside and then locks them up in cages and listens to them. Because the possessed do so love to talk. The Order slips in a few pointed questions from time to time, and sells whatever answers they get to the highest bidder. (You can subscribe to their monthly newsletter for the more basic stuff. I’ve never been tempted.)

  “I don’t think so,” I said finally. “We wouldn’t learn anything we wanted to hear from those sources. Hell always lies.”

  “Except when a truth can hurt you more.”

  “Exactly.”

  “All right. You suggest someone!”

  “How about the Middle Man?” I said, just a bit diffidently. “He wouldn’t know who was behind something as big as this, but he’d almost certainly be able to p
oint us in the direction of someone who would. For the right price, of course.”

  “Eddie, he hates your family. You know that. You even hint at what’s happened to them and he’d break every record there is getting the news out to absolutely everyone. He loathes and despises everything Drood, and with more good reason than most.”

  “We are a much-misunderstood family,” I said.

  “Oh no, you aren’t.”

  “Well, who is there we can safely talk to?” I said. “Who is there we can trust with this information?”

  “We need my sisters,” said Molly, in her best Yes, I know, but don’t argue with me tone of voice. “We need Isabella and Louisa. They might not know who’s behind all this, but they have contacts in places I wouldn’t even dare show my face. And they’d be more than happy to kick the crap out of people on our behalf. Well, on my behalf. I don’t think they’ve quite made up their minds about you yet. But they’d do it for me.”

  “Sisters, sisters, such devoted sisters…”

  “Shut up, Eddie. No one would suspect anything if Isabella and Louisa were to go looking for information about the Hall and your family. They’re always looking into things they’re not supposed to know about.”

  “I hate to say it,” I said. “But you may be right.”

  Molly frowned dangerously. “What’s wrong with getting my sisters involved?”

  “Since you ask, everything. Isabella, no problem. Arrogant and a pain in the arse, but she gets the job done. The Indiana Jones of the supernatural world, always sticking her nose in where it’s not wanted, digging up ancient history, hidden truths and things the world is not ready to know yet…while sneaking off with as much historical loot as she can carry. Isabella, I can deal with. But Louisa? She’s got a worse reputation than you. Or me. Or Mr. Stab, the as-yet-uncaught immortal serial killer of Old London Town. Everyone’s scared of Louisa Metcalf, and with good reason.”