If you already have a miracle, why try to improve on it?
It took an outsider like Giles to make us see the armour’s true capabilities; that the possibilities were limited only by our lack of imagination. Once the idea took hold, there was no stopping us. It took a lot of concentration, but the strange matter of our armour moulded itself under the force of our various desires. Golden hands grew all kinds of weapons, and gleaming faces became scowling gargoyles, howling wolves, monsters, and angels. Pliable body shapes twisted and transformed, taking on mystical shapes and legendary forms. A few even grew golden wings from their backs and flapped awkwardly into the air. We couldn’t hold our new shapes for long, not yet; it took too much concentration. But who knew what might become possible after long practice?
I watched the fierce shapes and impossible transformations strut back and forth before admiring audiences, and wasn’t sure I entirely approved. Right now we needed an army with every weapon at its command. But what would become of us, after the war? When there was no more need for golden monsters and gleaming gladiators? Under normal conditions, all the family ever needed to keep the peace was a limited number of specially trained field agents, like I used to be. Would these golden soldiers be ready to give up these exciting new possibilities?
And what if . . . what would happen if the armour itself started responding to unconscious impulses as well as conscious commands? Might we all become monsters from the id, ravening creatures driven by personal demons? Perhaps even trapped inside our own armour, as it responded to deep unconscious needs and ignored our conscious, horrified pleas to stand down?
Nightmares for another day. Right now, my job was to make sure the world would see another day. First win the war, then worry about the peace. So back to battle I went, armour clashing against armour, all through the long hot day. And before my eyes the Drood family quickly became something else, something fiercer and finer and more concentrated in its purpose. Giles Deathstalker was cranking the family up to eleven.
And we loved it.
During another brief break, I sat exhausted on the grass drinking a wonderfully chilled Becks straight from the bottle. The Matriarch had come out to observe how the manoeuvres were going, and had very thoughtfully brought a picnic hamper with her. I got first crack at it because rank has its privileges. So I chewed on cold chicken legs, enjoyed my nice Becks, and ostentatiously ignored the cucumber sandwiches. Sometimes I think Grandmother takes the whole county aristocracy bit far too seriously.
She sat beside me, perched confidently on a shooting stick in her usual tweeds and pearls, watching everything with great interest. She made a point of consulting with me at regular intervals, and agreeing with everything I said. This was all for public consumption, of course, so that the whole family could see I had her full backing. After a while, Giles Deathstalker came over to join us. He’d been working himself harder than any of us, but didn’t seem to be sweating or even out of breath. He looked like he did this every day, and for all I knew maybe he did. He was a Warrior Prime, whatever the hell that was. Giles bowed courteously to the Matriarch, and nodded cheerfully to me.
“Doing good, Eddie. Strong form and a fierce will to win. I’m impressed. So, what say you and I put on a bit of a show, demonstrate to your family just what two experienced fighters can really do? Nothing too strenuous, just a mock duel. What do you say?”
I sighed inwardly, while carefully keeping my face calm and composed. It seemed like every time I brought someone new in, they had to fight me, to see if I was fit to lead them. To test themselves against me, preferably in full view of everyone else. Everyone always wants to know if the legendary gunslinger really is as fast as his legend. And I was getting pretty damned tired of it. If Molly had been there, she would have snorted loudly and said Men! Why don’t you both just get them out and measure them? in a loud and carrying voice.
But Molly wasn’t there. She was off wandering the grounds again, communing with her inner self. Whoever or whatever that might be these days.
“Of course,” Giles said easily, “if you’re too tired, Eddie, or don’t feel up to it, I’d quite understand. And so would everyone else.”
“That’s quite enough of that,” the Matriarch said briskly. She rose smartly up from her shooting stick, leaving it standing there looking just a little lost and abandoned. She advanced on the startled Giles, fixing him with her cold stare. “I don’t know how they run things in your time, Giles Deathstalker, but we don’t choose our leaders through right of challenge. We’re all warriors here. You have to be far more than just a fighter to lead the Droods. But if you’re really so desperate for a duel, I’ll oblige you.”
“You?” said Giles, not even bothering to hide his surprise. And then he smiled condescendingly at her.
“Oh no,” I said quietly. “Don’t smile.”
“I’m sure you were quite the warrior woman, in your day,” said Giles, and Martha cut him off right there.
“I am the Drood Matriarch,” she said, every word chipped out of ice. “And any Drood is a match for some jumped-up future mercenary.”
Giles raised one hand in a conciliatory gesture. Martha grabbed his arm, spun him around into an arm lock, and then slammed him face-first down onto the grass. He hit hard enough to force a groan out of him. And then she kicked him so hard in the ribs that people twenty feet away winced. Giles scrambled away from her and rose quickly to his feet. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He started to say something, and then broke off as Martha advanced purposefully. He took up a standard defensive pose, and a hell of a lot of good it did him. Martha beat the crap out of him, parrying his increasingly desperate blows with casual skill, threw him this way and that, and made the whole thing look easy. All of it without ever once having to armour up.
Giles really should have known better. You don’t get to be Matriarch of the Droods just by inheriting it. Martha taught unarmed combat for thirty years, and only gave up because she finally found someone better at it than she was.
Giles wasn’t stupid. Once it became clear he couldn’t hope to beat her, or even hold his own, he surrendered. Martha immediately stepped back and allowed him to rise painfully to his feet.
“I take your point, Matriarch,” said Giles, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m impressed.”
“You should be,” Martha said coldly. “I do hope we don’t have to do this again. And Giles, if you were entertaining any ambitions, you could never hope to lead us. You’re not family.”
She turned her back on him, dismissing him, and he was smart enough to accept it. He yelled at everyone watching to get back to their training, and they did. Martha retrieved her shooting stick and looked at me consideringly.
“I defeated three sisters to claim my position as Matriarch. You run things because I allow it. Don’t you ever forget that, Eddie.”
“Of course, Grandmother,” I said, and she strode off back to the Hall. I watched her go, and when I was sure she was out of earshot I said, “There are more ways of fighting and winning than just throwing people around, Grandmother.”
“I heard that!” she said, not looking back.
“Yes, Grandmother.”
The organised mayhem resumed, with Giles barking his orders perhaps just a little more loudly than before, but I felt I’d earned myself a rest. I raided the abandoned picnic hamper for some caviar and toast, and wandered off to find a little peace and quiet. I ended up back in the old chapel again. Quiet and peaceful, and still no sign of the ghost Jacob. I was beginning to worry about that. He was up to something. I sat down in his great cracked leather chair and fished the Merlin Glass out of my pocket. Using the thing to see what was going on around me, and find out things I wasn’t supposed to know, was becoming just a bit addictive. But they were always things I needed to know, for the good of the family, so . . . I commanded the Glass to show me the present, and reveal what Molly was doing. I wanted to trust her, to believe in her instincts and self-c
ontrol, but she wasn’t just Molly any more. There was something else inside her now, something alive, and enemy. I had to be sure of her. For all our sakes.
Even in the few hours since yesterday, I’d noticed physical and mental changes in Molly, almost despite myself. She looked taller, stronger, her movements somehow stranger . . . though that could all just have been my imagination. But there was no denying she held herself differently, and now and then I caught her standing unnaturally still, blank-faced, as though listening to some inner voice. She said she was getting glimpses of the Loathly Ones’ massmind, on the edge of her thoughts. It was still mostly a gabble, she said, but she was starting to understand parts of it. She began identifying specific locations for Loathly Ones nests, including some we’d never even suspected before. I passed these new coordinates on to the War Room, and they quickly confirmed them and told me to press Molly for more. (I told them she was finding these nests through her magics, and with her reputation they had no trouble believing it.) And every time Molly found a new nest she would look at me almost challengingly, as though to say See? I’m still me. Still Molly. Still on your side. And what could I do but nod and smile and congratulate her, even as it proved that her mind was changing, to understand more and more of the alien gabble of the massmind.
She was having serious mood swings too, but I didn’t know if I could blame that on the infection.
The Merlin Glass showed her to me, standing in a small copse of trees looking out at the old abandoned waterwheel on the far side of the lake. Her face was drawn and thoughtful, her dark eyes far away, ignoring the swans that circled hopefully before her on the still waters of the lake, hoping for bread crumbs. I looked at her for a long time. She still looked like Molly. My Molly. But I had to wonder how long that would last. How long before the inner Molly changed so much that she couldn’t pass for the real thing any more. I felt so helpless. Sick with it. Here I was, leader of the most powerful family in all the world, and there wasn’t a single damned thing I could do to save the woman I loved. Except lead her into battle, and hope she died honourably.
So I wouldn’t have to kill her myself, when she turned. Could I do that? I thought so. It was what she wanted, what she’d asked me to do. And besides, I’d done worse, in my time, for the family.
As I watched, Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar wandered along the bank of the lake to join her. Harry was smiling cheerfully, as though he was just out for a stroll, and had just happened to bump into Molly. Roger smiled meaninglessly, his eyes dark and watchful as always. The grass scorched and blackened where he put his feet, and the swans headed hurriedly away. A bird flying overhead fell suddenly dead out of the air and landed at his feet. Roger picked it up and bit into it thoughtfully, as though it was just another snack. Blood ran down his chin. Harry looked at him reproachfully, and Roger immediately threw the dead bird aside. Molly had to know they were there, but she ignored them until they were almost upon her. And then she stopped them both in their tracks with a single hard look.
Their voices came clearly to me, from far away.
It was clear to me, from the way she was looking at them, that she was wondering if they knew about her. After all, Roger had more than human senses, and Harry had years of experience as a field agent. But she quickly decided they didn’t and nodded briefly to Harry, ignoring Roger.
“Molly,” said Harry, smiling easily. “You’re looking good.”
“What do you want, Harry?”
“What I always want,” said Harry, still smiling, absently adjusting his wire-framed glasses. “I want what’s best for the family. Which these days means my being in charge of things, and not Eddie. The family needs my calm, considered decisions, not Eddie’s mad impulsiveness. He’ll screw it all up, get us all killed. You must know that, Molly; you know him better than any of us. Can you really trust him to do the right thing, under pressure? And if we go down . . . who’s going to be left to save the world?”
“What do you want, Harry?” said Molly.
“You are our only means of getting to Eddie,” said Roger. “If we could win you over to our cause, that is, Harry’s reclaiming of the family leadership; we feel there’s a very good chance Eddie would just fall apart without you.”
Molly smiled suddenly. “You really don’t know Eddie at all. He’s always been stronger than people think. He’s had to be. He doesn’t rely on me. He doesn’t need me. And he’ll carry on just fine when I’m gone.”
Harry and Roger glanced quickly at each other. “Are you . . . planning on leaving us, Molly?” said Harry.
“Don’t say you’ve finally had enough of Eddie’s goody-goody ways,” said Roger. “Well, it’s about time. You and I were close once, but I never did understand what you saw in him.”
“You and I were never that close,” said Molly.
“How can you say that?” said Roger, pouting playfully. “I took it ever so badly when you walked out on me. Took me weeks to get over you.”
“I walked out on you because you tried to sacrifice my soul to Hell!”
“Details, details. We all have our little family obligations.”
Molly sniffed. “So, you’re with Harry now. Bit of a surprise; you were always such a major tit man. Am I to take it you’re gay now?”
Roger shrugged. “I’m half demon. I don’t accept any human limitations, least of all in my sexuality. I want to try it all . . . and mostly I do.”
Molly looked at Harry. “And you’re not in the least jealous of what Roger and I used to have?”
“All you ever had in common was a bed,” said Harry. “Roger and I are in love.”
“Love?” Molly said incredulously. “He’s a hellspawn! A thing of the Pit, dedicated to dragging all humanity down into eternal damnation!”
“Criticism?” said Roger. “From the infamous Molly Metcalf? The woman who once lay down with demons in the Courts of Hell, to buy power she couldn’t acquire any other way? Does Eddie know about that? Have you told him all the things you used to do, oh wild and wicked witch of the woods? Do you really think he’d feel the same way about you if he did know?”
Molly met his gaze squarely, chin slightly lifted. “I was a different person, then. I had sworn vendetta against the Droods for the murder of my parents. I needed all the power I could get, to take them on. But . . . that was then, and this is now, time changes all things . . . pick whichever cliché you prefer. I’m not at all the person I used to be.”
“You think Eddie will care about that?” said Roger. “I think you’ll find he’s still very traditional, very old-fashioned, about certain things.”
“He doesn’t have to know what we know about you,” said Harry. “We don’t have to tell him. Not if you could find it in your heart to help us out, just a little.”
“In return for your guaranteed silence?” said Molly.
“Exactly,” said Roger. “All we ask is that you speak on our behalf. Support our position. Help persuade Eddie that it is in everyone’s best interests for him to step down and allow Harry to replace him as family leader. No big speeches, no big deal. Just a word in his ear, at the right moments.”
And then he broke off, because Molly was smiling at him, and it really wasn’t a very nice smile. Molly took a step forward, and Roger fell back a pace. Harry moved quickly to put himself between the two of them.
“Once,” said Molly, “it might have mattered to me, what you might say to Eddie. But things have changed. Tell him anything. I don’t care, and I don’t believe he will, either. Neither of us are concerned with the past anymore, only the future. But even so, Harry, Roger, I’d be very careful about doing anything that Eddie might perceive as a threat to me. He’s become very protective of me, the sweetie. And you really don’t want him to kick your arse in front of everyone again, do you, Harry?”
“We’re going to war!” said Harry. “The family needs me as leader!”
“No,” said Molly. “You had your chance, and you blew it. You let things g
et this bad. If I were Eddie, I’d kill you for what you’ve done to the family. And you know what? I might just kill you both anyway. On general principles. I could use something to cheer me up.”
She smiled brightly at Harry and Roger, and then turned and walked away. They watched her go.
“Women,” said Roger, and Harry nodded.
I closed down the lakeside scene, but I wasn’t finished with the Merlin Glass just yet. Part of me wanted to go and find Molly, and hold her to me, and tell her . . . nothing mattered. Nothing mattered to me, except her. But I still had responsibilities to the family, and there were things I needed to know. So I told the Glass to show me where Mr. Stab was, and what he was doing, right now. I should have remembered that not only do eavesdroppers rarely hear good of themselves, they also rarely hear anything good about anyone else.
To my surprise, the Merlin Glass showed me Mr. Stab sitting at his ease among the towering book stacks of the old library, while the under-librarian Rafe served him tea. Mr. Stab had changed out of the casual suit he’d been wearing the last time I saw him. Presumably because it was still soaked with Penny’s blood. Instead, he was back in the formal dress of his original Victorian times. He sat quietly and calmly as Rafe added milk but no sugar, and then handed him the delicate china cup. Mr. Stab blew gingerly on the tea to cool it, but his eyes never left Rafe’s face as the young librarian sat down opposite him.
“You’re not drinking your tea, Rafe,” said Mr. Stab.
“I’ll let it cool a bit first. You go right ahead.”
Mr. Stab looked at Rafe almost sadly, and then took a long drink from his cup. He made a slight moue of civilised distaste and put the cup down on a bookshelf beside him.
“If you’re going to work with poison, Rafe, you need to make the tea a lot stronger, to disguise the taste. And you put enough strychnine in that cup to see off a dozen normal men. But I haven’t been that easy to kill for a long time now. Poison is as mother’s milk to such as I. Why, Rafe? Is it Penny? Was she a friend of yours? Or perhaps something more?”