“I don’t know! None of us know! We’re all only ever told what we need to know, just like your field agents.” He studied the Armourer, with something of his old cold arrogance back in his face. “Basic security measure. You can’t be made to tell what you really don’t know.”
“Did you kill my mother?” said the Armourer. “Are you responsible, for the murder of the Matriarch?”
“Were you responsible for the death of my Molly?” I said. “Or Sebastian, back during the Hungry Gods War?”
He tried to shrug, inside the restraint of the straps. “Not me personally, but yes . . . that was all down to us. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Not my mission. I was just told to take advantage of the chaos, grab as much as possible, and then get the hell out of Dodge before my cover was blown.”
“Molly,” I said. “Tell me about what happened, to Molly.”
“Ah yes,” said Rafe, smiling unpleasantly. “They did tell me about that. We wanted to see what Doctor Delirium’s addition to the Acceleration Drug would do to the Droods, on its own. So one of us dropped a little into the air-conditioning system. It’s amaz ing what people will do, what they’re capable of, if you give them just a little push in the right direction. Even goody little two-shoes Droods can be made to run wild, if you push the right chemical buttons in their brains. Shame it didn’t last longer . . . but then, you can’t have everything.”
“You killed my Molly,” I said, leaning in close. “You Immortals. I will kill you all, for that. I will cut you down and trample you underfoot, and make you extinct.”
Rafe looked at me, but though he met my gaze steadily enough, he had nothing to say. The Armourer took me by the elbow, and pulled me gently away so he could talk to the Immortal.
“How were you able to masquerade as Droods?” he said bluntly. “How could you pretend to have torcs, and armour?”
“Because we did, for a long time,” said Rafe. “The Heart remembered the Immortals, and indulged us. I think we amused it. We’ve been inside the Droods, working both for and against you, for centuries now. Of course, that all changed after the Heart was destroyed. A definite setback there, thanks to you, Eddie. Who knew one man could make so much trouble for everyone?”
“It’s a gift,” I said. “But flattery will get you nowhere. What did you do, after Ethel gave the family new torcs and new armour?”
“We learned to fake it,” Rafe said easily. “We’ve had centuries to learn how to hide in plain sight. Our scientists produced new torcs, good enough to hide us from Ethel, unless she looked really closely, and why should she? We made it easier on ourselves by only substituting Droods who would probably never be called on to armour up.”
“But we’re a family,” I said. “We’re all so close, living on top of each other in the Hall. How could you fool everybody? How could we not notice?”
“Because we’ve been doing this forever, and we’re really good at it. We can fool anyone, because deep down you want to be fooled. You don’t want to believe that the high and mighty Droods could ever be infiltrated, and played for fools. It’s not difficult to replace a Drood. Just catch one on their own, pose as someone they trust, then abduct and kill them, and replace them before anyone even knows they’re missing. And taking on a new face, even a whole new body, is never a problem. We’re flesh dancers. Shape-changers. Just one of the many arcane abilities we’ve acquired down the centuries. We can look like anyone . . . and we do! We can be your friend, your mother, your child . . . you’ll trust us right up to the point we stick the knife in, and twist it. Look around you. Anyone could be an Immortal. And if we live a little too long, and people start noticing, we can always fake our own death and come back as our own bastard offspring. Always lots of Drood bastards turning up . . .”
“Like Harry, and Roger,” said the Armourer, frowning.
“Exactly!” said Rafe. “Isn’t paranoia wonderful? A game for the whole family!”
“You’re everything we exist to fight,” said the Armourer. “Heartless, soulless, all the evil in the world in one place.”
“Evil is such a subjective term,” said Rafe, yawning widely. “So . . . situational. Immortals see the long game. Compared to us, all Humanity, and yes that includes you Droods as well, are just . . . mayflies. Come and gone in a moment. You’re just there to be used, because after all, you’re not around long enough to make any real difference in the world.” He stretched slowly, within the chair’s restraints. “I’ve had enough of this. My superior flesh has metabolised your stupid drug. I don’t need to justify myself, to the likes of you.”
I drew my Colt Repeater from its holster, and pointed it at Rafe’s face. “Tell me where the Headquarters of the Immortals is located. Tell me where to find you. Or I swear I’ll shoot you in the head. Right here, right now.”
Rafe looked at me, and saw I was completely serious. He tried to shrink back in the chair away from my gun, but the chair wouldn’t let him. I centred my aim on his left eye.
The Armourer cleared his throat. “I don’t think we should kill him, Eddie. Not when there’s still a lot more we could get out of him.”
“Nothing else matters,” I said. “Except this. Did you think I was joking, Rafe, when I said I’d kill you all? After what you did to my grandmother, and my Molly?”
Rafe looked past me at the Armourer. “You can’t just stand by, and let him shoot me in cold blood!”
“There’s nothing cold about my blood,” I said. “All I have to do is think about my Molly, and how she died, and my blood is blazing hot. Where do I find the Immortals? Where are Doctor Delirium and Tiger Tim and the Apocalypse Door?”
Rafe couldn’t meet my gaze, so he concentrated on the Armourer. “You’re a Drood. This isn’t what Droods do! Stop him!”
“Most Droods don’t do things like this,” said the Armourer. “That’s why we have field agents. He’s all yours, Eddie.”
“Is it any easier to die, having known centuries?” I said. “Or is it harder, knowing you could have had centuries more? You have so much more to lose than us mere mortals . . .”
“All right, all right!” said Rafe. There was sweat on his face, for the first time. “I’ll tell you, but only because it won’t do you any good. You can’t get in. No one can get in, who isn’t an Immortal.”
“Tell me anyway,” I said.
“We live in Castle Frankenstein,” said Rafe. “The real one, the original thirteenth-century fortress, set atop a great hill overlooking the River Rhine. The Baron Georg Frankenstein killed a dragon there, in fifteen thirty-one. These days, another castle stands in for the original; they’ve made it over into a hotel for tourists who love the legend, and the films. We took over the original facilities at the end of the nineteenth century, after the infamous Baron Viktor von Frankenstein went on the run. He was never one of us; we just liked the irony. The Baron hasn’t been seen since, but various of his offspring and his creations keep turning up, looking for knowledge, or revenge, or closure. The hotel takes them in, gives them the grand tour, and sends them on their way. No one ever bothers us. I told you. No one can get in, unless you’re one of us.”
I made him give us an exact location, and the Armourer checked his computer. He nodded briefly.
“Any more questions?” said Rafe.
“No,” I said. And I shot him in the left eye. His head slammed back against the chair. He kicked once, and then slumped in the restraints, and was still. I shot him twice more in the head, because I wanted to be sure. Above the chair, the display screens went out, one by one.
“For Rafe,” I said. “The real Rafe.” I looked at the Armourer. “See that this piece of shit is cremated. And then scatter the ashes in the grounds, just in case.”
CHAPTER NINE
Here Comes the Bride
The Armourer threw a sheet over Rafe’s body, and then we both turned our backs on it. The noisy hustle and bustle of the crowded Armoury went on around us, as though nothing unusual had happened. As
though I hadn’t just shot a defenceless man in the head. The Armourer’s lab assistants are a tough crowd to shock. I slipped the Colt Repeater back into its holster with a steady hand, and looked at the Armourer. He shrugged.
“Some of my people will take care of the body,” he said. “When they’re not so pushed.”
“I’m going to break into the Immortals’ base,” I said. “Right now, while they’re still trying to figure out what’s happening. One agent on his own has a far better chance of getting in, uncovering the necessary information and getting out again, than any larger force. And it has to be me, Uncle Jack. I’m the only one the family can spare. The rest of you have to concentrate on making the Hall and grounds secure again. Just in case there’s another assault on its way.”
“That isn’t why you want to do this,” said the Armourer. “It’s still all about revenge. Didn’t I teach you better than that? Never take it personally. You weren’t the only one who was lied to, and taken in.”
“But I’m the only one who can do something about it.”
The Armourer shook his head. “You always were good at finding reasons why you should be allowed to do something you’d already decided to do anyway.”
“This needs doing, Uncle Jack, and it needs doing now!”
“I’m not arguing,” the Armourer said mildly. “If anyone can take on the Immortals where they live, it’s you. I just don’t want you going in there in the wrong frame of mind. That gets more field agents killed than anything else. Come over here, Eddie, and let’s take a look at the place.”
We pulled up chairs before his main workstation, and he put his whole computer network online. Screens lit up one after another in a long row, and the Armourer cracked his prominent knuckles noisily as he bent over the main keyboard. It took him only a minute to lock on to a Chinese surveillance satellite, and task it to cover the exact location Rafe had given us. (I still thought of him as Rafe. Even though he wasn’t.) A remarkably clear image appeared on the screen before us, but the image was that of a ruin, fallen down and beaten into submission by the erosive forces of time and rough weather. A few stubby stone towers, some crumbling inner walls, and a bunch of uneven stone boundaries half buried under ivy. Desolate and destroyed, open to all the elements, it was clear no one had lived there for centuries.
“He lied to us!” I said. “If the Immortals ever were there, they moved out long ago.”
“Not so quick, not so quick,” said the Armourer, checking the information on his other screens. “Rafe couldn’t have flat out lied to us—not after everything I’d pumped into him. This is the right location, and it matches what we have on file for the infamous Castle Frankenstein. So let me try a few things here . . . slip in a few filters . . . Ah. Now that’s more like it. I’m picking up major energy spikes, and definite traces of scientific and magical protections. Layer upon layer of the things . . . not unlike Drood Hall, actually. We’re looking at a carefully designed and maintained illusion; the same kind of thing we use to hide the Hall from prying outside eyes. Yes, very professional work. But not good enough to keep me out.”
“Can you slip in past these defences, without setting off any alarms?” I said, leaning in for a closer look.
“Teach your grandmother to suck oranges,” he said absently, his hands flying over the keyboard. “It’s all about matching resonances and reversing the polarity . . . Look, Eddie, you wouldn’t understand it if I did explain it to you. Just trust me when I say this is going to be very tricky, and don’t disturb me while I’m working.” He gave all his attention to the computers, and I sat back and let him get on with it. The side screens were going crazy displaying cascades of incoming information, and the computers were making a series of high-pitched noises I was sure couldn’t be good for them. I tend to forget that my Uncle Jack doesn’t just make things with his hands; he makes them with his mind and his computers. He finally sat back in his chair, grunting loudly with satisfaction.
“All right, that’s taken care of the scientific protections: the force shields, the intelligence systems, the subspace generators. The magical protections . . . are pretty straightforward, actually. Just what you’d expect. They’re all based on existing pacts and treaties, backed up by the usual Objects of Power. All very potent and respectable, but nothing out of the ordinary. They’d keep out anyone else . . . but we are Droods, which means we have our own pacts and treaties, and even more powerful Objects of Power. You know, I don’t think the Immortals have updated their protections in years, maybe even centuries. Could be arrogance, or complacency. Either way, they haven’t got a damned thing I can’t deal with.”
The image of the ruin on the main screen disappeared abruptly, and something altogether different took its place. I leaned in close again, for my first look at the real Castle Frankenstein. A huge, grim, overpowering medieval edifice, a fortress set on a cliff overlooking the River Rhine far below. Tall towers, high stone walls with crenellated battlements, and massive doors heavy enough to stand off an invading army. All kinds of light blazed in the windows, from clear and clean electric light to the kind of murky glares you normally see only underwater. There were eerie glows and unhealthy illuminations, that flared up briefly and then sank down to flickering glimmers. Dark shadows crawled slowly across the towering stone walls. But there was no sign anywhere of human activity, and not a single human guard in place.
“I’m impressed,” said the Armourer. “Damned good illusion, behind powerful protections. Would have fooled anyone else. And now this . . . of course, they’re bound to have improved the place since the Baron’s time. Amazing, when you think of what that man achieved, with the limited knowledge and resources of his time. All right, the Baron was undoubtedly ten parts crazy to ten parts genius, and he ran away from his responsibilities every chance he got, and he had the moral compass of a deranged sewer rat, but still, you have to admit . . . he did it. He brought the dead back to life, right there in his laboratory.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve talked to some of his creations. Most of them weren’t at all happy about it.”
“Yes, well,” the Armourer said vaguely. “That’s progress for you.” He stopped, and looked at me. “Eddie, what are you thinking?”
“Frankenstein defeated death,” I said slowly. “Out of all the stories, and all the legends that have grown up around him, that’s the one thing we can be sure of. He took dead bodies and made them live again. And I’m wondering . . . if his knowledge is still there, somewhere, preserved by the Immortals.”
“No, Eddie,” the Armourer said firmly. “That’s not a road you want to go down. Whatever Frankenstein’s techniques might bring back, it wouldn’t be your Molly. Or my mother. All that bastard ever really did was make the dead stand up and walk around, and I don’t remember anyone ever thanking him for it. There’s nothing in that Castle or anywhere else that can help us. Dead is dead, Eddie, even in our world. Because all of the alternatives are worse.”
“I know, Uncle Jack. I know.”
“Stick to what you can do,” the Armourer said kindly. “The good thing about our work is that it never ends, so we always have something to distract ourselves with. Now, there’s no way you can teleport directly into Castle Frankenstein. Not through all those shields. Whatever got through would eventually arrive as a small pile of steaming red and purple blobby bits.”
“The torc couldn’t protect me?” I said. “Not even if I went through in full armour?”
“That’s the problem,” said the Armourer. “The shields would let you through, but stop the torc. Your body would pass through . . . probably piece by piece. And no, you can’t use the Merlin Glass, either. If an artefact that powerful were to come tap tap tapping on the Castle’s shields, it would set off every alarm in the place. You can’t sneak past defences like these.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s see what the Glass can do.”
I summoned it into my hand, and had it show me a view of Castle Frankenstein. Bu
t all the mirror could manage was an aerial view, from fairly high up. I winced.
“Forget it,” I said. “I am not falling for that again.”
The Armourer’s ears pricked up. “Again?” he said innocently.
“Don’t ask,” I said. “No, I mean it. Don’t ask. Glass, zoom in and give me the closest image you can.”
The image in the hand mirror loomed swiftly up before me, and then slammed to a halt still some way out. The image flickered back and forth between the real Castle Frankenstein and the Immortals’ illusion, and then the Merlin Glass abruptly shut itself down, and I was left with just a mirror in my hand, showing me my own confused reflection. I shook the mirror hard a few times, and tried half a dozen different command words, but faced with the Immortals’ levels of protection the Merlin Glass had given up, and was now clearly sulking. I sent it back to its subspace pocket to think things over.
“Okay,” I said to the Armourer. “Defences strong enough to defy the Merlin Glass? I am seriously impressed.”
“Well, don’t forget, the Immortals are older than Merlin,” said the Armourer. “However, they might have the experience, but we are more up to date. Give me a few weeks, and I could put together a package that would let you stroll right through those shields.”
“We don’t have a few weeks,” I said. “I’m going to have to get as close to the Castle as the Glass can get me, and cover the rest of the distance on foot.”
“Only an Immortal can pass safely through the defences,” said the Armourer. “That’s what Rafe said.”
“And Rafe is going to get us in,” I said. “Because Rafe is going to make me into an Immortal. Remember those clever little cuff links you gave me, Uncle Jack? The Chameleon Codex?”
I went back to the diagnostic chair, and flipped back the sheet to reveal Rafe’s damaged head. Half of it had been blow away by my bullets, but the face was still mostly there. Blood was still dripping from his chin, and his remaining eye stared at me with cold accusation. Like I gave a damn. I looked at Rafe dispassionately for a moment, and then ran my right cuff link swiftly down one side of his face. Didn’t get a single blood spot on my cuff. I covered him up again, and when I looked, there wasn’t any blood on the cuff link either. It had eaten it all up, the necessary DNA information now stored and ready for use.