“The Heart is gone,” I said firmly. “Gone and destroyed. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
He just shook his head slowly, wringing his hands together and muttering under his breath. I started to get up. Whatever information William had found, or thought he’d found, clearly couldn’t be relied on. Maybe Rafe could dig some sense out of it later. And then I stopped short as William rose abruptly to his feet and glared right into my face.
“And where do you think you’re going, boy? Just because I have a bad moment? You wanted to know about the Kandarians, and the Invaders, and I know everything you need to know. Everything the family needs to know. So you just sit back down, and listen.”
His eyes were clear and sharp again, and his presence was almost overwhelming. As though some inner switch had been thrown, and the old William had woken up again and resurfaced. I sat back down, and William took up a lecturer’s stance.
“The Kandarians made themselves powerful by voluntarily giving themselves over to temporary possession by forces from Outside,” he said crisply. “As a result their warriors were inhumanly strong, and fast, and incredibly resistant to pain or injury. Remind you of anything? Yes, just like our family, the Kandarians made a deal with a greater power, but they were never satisfied. Always wanting more, always making new deals with new hosts . . . As they conquered all the lands and civilisations around them, and spread their vicious empire of slaughter and torture and terror over wider and wider territories, the stronger they needed to be, to hang on to what they’d taken. In the end, their enemies banded together to put a stop to Kandarian expansion. The Kandarians found that unacceptable. They were having far too much fun. And so they determined to become even stronger and more powerful. Whatever the cost. They wanted to be gods on earth. So they made one more deal, with what we now know as the Loathly Ones, who in turn introduced the Kandarians to the Invaders. Very powerful Beings, from outside space and time. And that was the Kandarians’ first mistake. Contact with the Invaders drove the Kandarians insane. All of them. They turned on each other, and wiped out their entire race and civilisation in one terrible night of death and destruction. Doing to themselves what they had spent so many years doing to everyone else.
“Not one of them survived.
“They didn’t know what we know now. That there aren’t really any Loathly Ones, as such. Not as separate entities. They’re just the protrusions into our reality of much bigger entities. The fingertips, as it were, of the Invaders. Think of the Loathly Ones as Trojan horses, through which the Invaders can gain a foothold in other realities. The Invaders have many names, in many cultures, and are feared by everyone with two brain cells to rub together. The Many-Angled Ones, the Horror From Beyond, the Hungry Gods. Beings from a higher reality than our own, who descend into lesser realities like ours in order to feed, to consume us. They feed on life, on every living thing, from the biggest to the tiniest. They eat worlds, wipe out whole realities, always moving on to the next, like cosmic locusts.
“When our family first made a deal with the Loathly Ones, bringing them through into our world as a weapon to use against the Nazis, we unknowingly brought our world, our reality, to the attention of the Invaders. And though we were careful to bring through only a small number of Loathly Ones, small enough to control, we thought . . . still, we opened a door that was never properly closed. And of course the Loathly Ones did break free from our control, and down the years have grown in numbers and power, until finally they’re ready to summon the Invaders through. So they can feed on us. On everything. All life, all creation. We have to stop this, Edwin, because we started it.”
William finally stopped, standing straight and tall, looking at me expectantly. I looked at Rafe.
“He’s not exaggerating,” said Rafe. His voice was steady, though his face was pale and sweating. “I’ve checked all the references. It’s all there, in the books. It’s just that no one ever put it all together, before William.”
“All right,” I said, just a bit unsteadily. “This is much bigger than we thought. How do we fight these . . . Invaders?”
“You don’t,” William said flatly. “If they ever break through, it’s all over. You have to prevent the Loathly Ones from building their towers. Wipe them out, down to the last one. Or we’ll never be safe.”
“And . . . there are some books missing,” said Rafe. “Important books. I’m assuming the Zero Tolerance fanatics removed them, maybe to hand them over to Truman and Manifest Destiny. Or maybe they destroyed them, so no one would know the truth. You see, these books described the original deal the family made with the Loathly Ones. What we promised them, and they promised us. And just maybe, some knowledge on how to undo the deal.”
“How many books are missing?” I said.
“We’re still compiling a list,” said Rafe. “One whole section of family history is missing. Including, not all that surprisingly, all those volumes that might have told us who originally suggested we contact the Loathly Ones, and why.”
“I always assumed that was down to the previous Matriarch,” I said slowly. “Great-grandmother Sarah.”
“I think it was more complicated than that,” said Rafe. “I’ve been ploughing through some of the associational texts, unofficial family history, personal diaries, and the like, and it does seem that other, more sensible, alternate choices were put aside in favour of the Loathly Ones.”
“Like who?” I said.
“The Kindly Ones,” said William. “The Infinity Brigade, the Time Masters. All the usual suspects, all far more friendly to humanity than a bunch of degenerate soul-eaters. But someone high up in the family insisted on the Loathly Ones, against all reason. I have to wonder . . . if perhaps there was a traitor in the family. Perhaps someone already infected by the Loathly Ones.”
My skin crawled. “An infected Drood, at the very heart of the family? Could there be others, still moving among us?”
“It’s possible,” said Rafe. “We’ve grown complacent down the years. Maybe the Armourer could come up with something we could use as a test . . .”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. “A traitor in the family . . . maybe that’s why there were so many unexpected drones waiting for us at Nazca. They knew we were coming. Someone tipped them off.”
“Has anyone gone missing, since you returned?” said Rafe.
“Just Janissary Jane, but . . . No. Wait a minute.” I scowled, not liking where my thoughts were leading me. “She’d just got back from a demon war when I found her. She said she was the only survivor . . . and now I have to wonder why.”
All our heads snapped around sharply as we heard a faint, furtive noise among the stacks, not far away. I was up on my feet in a moment, plunging through the towering shelves, with Rafe and William not far behind me. And there, not even trying to hide or run away, was the Blue Fairy, caught with a pile of books in his arms. He smiled quickly at the three of us, while being careful to stand very still.
“Hello!” he said. “Don’t mind me. Just here to pick up a little light reading.”
“This is the old library,” I said. “Off limits to everyone, but especially you.”
“How very unkind,” said the Blue Fairy. “Anyone would think you don’t trust me.”
“Those are forbidden texts,” growled William. “Rare and important, very valuable. Put them down. Carefully.”
“Of course, of course!” said the Blue Fairy, still smiling his bright and easy smile. He lowered the pile of books slowly and cautiously to the floor, and then held up both hands to show they were empty, before stepping back from the pile. “Can we all just calm down a little, please? I mean, we’re all friends here, aren’t we? All on the same side?”
I gave him my best withering glare. I’d always assumed the Blue Fairy mostly came back to the Hall because he felt in need of protection from his many enemies. Like the Vodyanoi Brothers. And only secondly to do good works for the redemption of his chequered soul. After all, when all was said a
nd done, the Blue Fairy was still half elf, and you can never trust an elf.
“What . . . precisely, where you looking for?” I said.
“I was interested in your family’s past dealings with the elves,” the Blue Fairy said immediately. “I don’t really know much about Daddy’s side of the family. Full blood elves don’t talk to half-breeds. Our very existence is taboo to them. But seeing you here, Eddie, among your own kind, made me sort of curious about mine. You know your roots, who and what you came from. I never have.”
I would have believed anyone else, but this was the Blue Fairy, so . . .
“Next time, ask permission first,” I said. “How did you get in here, anyway? The shields I had put in place around the portrait should have eaten you alive.”
“Oh please,” said the Blue Fairy, with an airy wave of one slender hand. “I am a professional, after all. I’ve been getting in and out of better-guarded places than this since before you were born.” And then he hesitated, and looked at me oddly. “I couldn’t help overhearing the librarian’s fascinating discourse on the Kandarians . . . It seems to me that I read something about them, and their connection with the elves. The Fae Court was already ancient when the Kandarians began building their very unpleasant empire, and it is said . . . that the elves introduced the Kandarians to the Loathly Ones, as a way of destroying them. Beware of elves, Eddie, they always have a hidden agenda.”
He turned and walked away. I watched him go, and wondered whether he’d been trying to tell me, in his own indirect way, something very important about himself.
I left the old library with a lot on my mind. I’d learned a lot of important things, most of which horrified me, all of which made me just that much more determined to go ahead with my secret plan. If I was going to have to fight a war against Hungry Gods, with all of reality at stake, I wanted some seriously heavy backup. First, I needed a place where no one would bother me, where I could use Merlin’s Glass in a way I was sure absolutely no one in the family would approve of. So I left the Hall and went to the old chapel, tucked away around the side of the house. Jacob’s old haunt, before I brought him back into the family. The chapel had been officially off limits to the whole family for centuries, because Jacob was there, and while he might have left the chapel, no one had got around to reversing the ban.
I approached the chapel cautiously, but the thick mat of ivy half covering the heavy wooden door didn’t even twitch. While Jacob was in residence, the ivy had acted as his early warning system, to ensure he remained undisturbed . . . but now he was gone, and the ivy was just ivy. The door was stuck half open, as always, and I had to put my shoulder to the heavy wood to shift it. The door scraped loudly across the bare stone floor, raising acrid clouds of dust. I coughed a few times, and called out Jacob’s name. I still half hoped . . . but there was no reply.
Jacob was gone.
The pews were still stacked up against the far wall, shrouded in dusty cobwebs. The huge black leather reclining chair still stood in front of the old-fashioned television set. It was only too easy to remember Jacob, slouched at his ease in the chair, watching the memories of old television programmes on a set with no working bits in it. The old refrigerator still stood beside the chair, but when I opened it, it was empty. I closed the door and sat down on the chair. The old leather creaked mournfully under my weight.
I wished Jacob were still around. I could always talk to him. And, just maybe, he would have been the only one I trusted enough to talk me out of what I intended to do. I wasn’t up to running a war. I didn’t have the experience. The Nazca Plain nest had proved that. I was damned if I’d see any more of my family killed because of me. I needed expert help and support, from real warriors and tacticians, to help me plan the battles in the war that was coming. And since it didn’t seem likely that I’d find such experts here in the present, I’d just have to look for them in the past, and the future.
The Armourer had forbidden me to do that. But I never was any good at listening to what my family told me.
I took out Merlin’s Glass and just looked at it for a while, turning it over and over in my hands. I wasn’t blind to the risks of what I was planning. But the family had to be protected. I shook the mirror out to full size, and it hung before me on the air, its surface a shimmering blank.
“Open yourself to the past,” I said firmly. “And find me the best warrior, the best planner, to help me in the war that’s coming. Find me a man good and true; someone I can trust. Find me the one perfect individual, to do what’s needed.”
The mirror snapped into sharp focus, showing me a clear image of . . . Jacob Drood. At first I thought the mirror had misunderstood me, and just located the ghost of Jacob because he was most on my mind. But the more I looked at the image, the clearer it became that this wasn’t any ghost. This was the real Jacob, the living man . . . from long, long ago. He looked so much younger, and . . . less complicated. As I watched, the image burst into movement, and I was looking through a window into the past, as the living Jacob chased a giggling young woman around the chapel. Grinning cheerfully, he pursued her in and out of the properly positioned pews, the girl staying just enough ahead to encourage him. Their clothing suggested late eighteenth century, though I was never very good on dates and history.
I must have made some kind of noise, because they both stopped what they were doing and looked sharply in my direction. They didn’t cry out, or seem particularly scared or startled; they were Droods, after all. I could see the gold collars around their throats.
Still, Jacob moved quickly to put himself between the young woman and the man staring at them through a hole in midair. I held up my hands to show they were empty, and gave them my most reassuring smile.
“It’s all right, Jacob,” I said quickly. “It’s all right; I’m family. I’m Edwin Drood, speaking to you from the future. The twenty-first century, to be exact. The family has need of you, Jacob.”
“If thou be family, show me thy torc,” said Jacob.
I pulled open my shirt to show him the collar around my neck. Jacob raised an eyebrow.
“A silver torc, and not gold. Has the family’s mettle become so debased, in your future time?”
“There have been some changes,” I said. “But the family goes on. You’d still recognise who we are, and what we do. The world still needs protecting, from many dangers.”
Jacob nodded slowly, then turned the young woman around, smacked her firmly on the bottom, and urged her towards the chapel door. “Get thee gone, girl. This is man’s business.”
She giggled, gave him one last saucy wink, and trotted quite happily out of the chapel. I made a mental note to tell this Jacob not to try that in my time.
“Best bit of bum in the Hall,” Jacob said cheerfully.
“That may be,” I said, “But . . . why the chapel?”
“Because the family’s chased me out of everywhere else,” said Jacob. “It seems the morals of this age are changing, and fun is out of fashion.” Jacob looked at me shrewdly. “From the future, you say . . . Might I inquire how it is that thou art here, speaking with me?”
“Merlin’s Glass,” I said, and Jacob nodded immediately.
“I had thought that devious and dangerous device long lost, and rightly so. Thy need must be desperate indeed, to put faith in such a thing.” Jacob regarded me thoughtfully. “How is it that a man of such future times recognises my face, and hails me by name? Am I to become famous, and a legend in the family?”
“Sort of,” I said. “I need you to come to me, Jacob, into the future, to help the family. Will you come?”
“Time travel is forbidden, without the express order of the Matriarch, ” Jacob said slowly. “But tell me, young sir, how goes the world in your time? What new wonders and marvels?”
“Come and find out,” I said.
“Tempter!” said Jacob, smiling. “And yet it must be said, the family is not entirely happy with me, just now. I am out of sorts with my own times
. . . so perhaps some time apart might enable the family to look on me more happily, through the kinder eyes of absence . . . So! Anything for the family, young Edwin!”
I reached out my hand, through the gateway, across the years, and Jacob took it. It was actually a shock, to be able to feel his flesh-and-blood hand in mine. I brought him through Merlin’s Glass, out of his time and into mine, and the gateway immediately snapped shut. Jacob let go my hand and looked around him, clearly shocked at the state of the chapel, gone (for him) in a moment from the tidy sanctuary he knew to the grubby, abandoned derelict of now. He started to say something . . . and the ghost of Jacob appeared out of nowhere, a fiercely glowing presence with wild eyes, hovering above us. He pointed a shaking, shrivelled hand at me, his voice howling inside my head like a damned soul.
What have you done? What have you done!
He vanished. Jacob grabbed me firmly by the arm. “What in sweet Jesu’s name was that?”
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” I said after a moment. “I think . . . I’m going to have to work up to that.”
I pried his fingers off my arm, and then used the Merlin Glass to open a gateway between the chapel and the old library. I called for Rafe, and he came trotting up immediately.
“This is Jacob Drood,” I said briskly. “Yes, that Jacob. I brought him forward, out of the past, to help us. I need you to look after him, bring him up to speed, tell him anything he needs to know, and no, I’m not going to answer any questions at this time. Just . . . do it, all right?”
“You just love making trouble for yourself, don’t you?” said Rafe. “Why don’t you just shoot an albatross and get it over with? Come with me . . . Jacob, and I’ll do my best to explain the unholy mess you’ve just been dropped into.”
“Ah, brave new world, that has such secrets in it,” Jacob said dryly. “It would appear the family of this time is not so different from the family I know, after all.”
I pushed him through the gateway and shut down the Glass before either of them could ask any awkward questions. I’d asked the Glass for the most suitable candidate, and it chose Jacob. So he had to be the right man for the job. He just had to be. I sighed heavily, looked round the empty chapel, and raised my voice in the dusty silence.