When the light died away, I was back in my own world. It was night, but the moon was bright and full, and the sky was packed full of stars that might last for millennia yet. My wounds were healed, and I felt strong again. The air was bracingly cool, rich with scents, a pleasure to breath. I stamped my feet on the dewy grass, delighting in its solid presence beneath me. The whole night felt alive, and so did I.
I looked around, and realised for the first time that the others weren’t even looking at me. They were gathered around a body lying on the ground. I hurried over to them. Molly was kneeling on the grass beside Subway Sue, who was dead. No mark on her; the scavengers didn’t get her. But dead, just the same. Molly looked up at me.
“Sue didn’t make it,” she said dully. “Too much strain, too much magic; she never was strong.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Not your fault,” said Molly. “She volunteered.” She rose awkwardly to her feet. “We’ll come back for you, Sue. Later. We have work to do.”
“She’ll be fine here,” I said, because you have to say something.
Molly looked at me sharply. “Sue was my friend. She wasn’t always like this. You never saw her in her prime, rich and glamorous and a name to be reckoned with.”
“I know,” I said.
“She was my friend,” said Molly. “She only got involved in this because I asked her to.”
“Yes,” I said. “Lot of that going around.”
“The Sarjeant was a good man,” said Giles Deathstalker. “He knew his duty, and he stood his ground.”
“Of course,” I said. “He was a Drood.”
I looked around again. We were in a great grassy field looking out over Stonehenge, about half a mile away. There was no sign of Harry or Roger, or any of Truman’s Accelerated Men.
“We have arrived only a moment after we departed,” said Giles.
“How can you tell?” said Molly. “Even I can’t read the night sky that accurately.”
“I can tell because the clock implanted in my head just started working again,” said Giles.
“Smart arse,” said Molly. She looked at me. “I wonder how Jacob and Jay are getting on?”
“I doubt we’ll ever know,” I said. “It was one hell of a long shot. Either way, we can’t depend on them to save the day; we’re here, so it’s up to us.”
“There’s an entrance to an underground bunker, not far away,” Mr. Stab announced suddenly. He pointed confidently out into the gloom. He realised we were all staring at him and smiled briefly. “I have many abilities,” he said calmly. “I just don’t choose to display them unnecessarily. Shall we go?”
“By all means,” I said. “Lead the way.”
He nodded and strode off across the great open field, and we all followed. I was quite happy to have him lead. With the Sarjeant gone, I didn’t want Mr. Stab behind me. He might be a part of this mission, but I was never going to trust him. Not after Penny. He stopped abruptly, staring down at a part of the field that appeared no different than any other. And then he stamped twice, hard, and a large section of grass lifted slowly upwards as he stepped back, revealing a dark tunnel leading down. Mr. Stab started forward, but I stopped him and took back the lead, while giving Molly a significant look. If this really was a way into Truman’s bunker, I didn’t want Mr. Stab up front, making decisions for the rest of us. Molly could keep an eye on him.
Electric lights came on as we entered the tunnel, triggered by some hidden sensor. The walls were curving beaten steel, gleaming dully. Truman had a thing about steel. Personally, I figured he’d just seen too many James Bond movies. But then, so had I. We walked down the steel corridor, which gave way to another, equally stark and bare and unadorned. Our feet clattered loudly on the grilled floor, and I half expected armed guards to appear at any moment, but no one came to investigate. No alarms, no raised voices . . . nothing. The whole place was unnaturally quiet. Molly pushed in beside me, glaring about her, so close I could feel the tension in her too.
“This isn’t right,” she said quietly. “Truman’s last base was crawling with people. Where is everyone?”
“Good question,” I said. “Bear in mind, this isn’t just a Manifest Destiny base; it’s also a Loathly Ones nest.”
She didn’t look at me. She had to know what I was thinking. There was a Loathly One inside her, growing and developing. Who knew what it might do, now it was among its own kind at last.
I hoped we’d come across some armed guards soon. I really felt like taking out my frustrations on a whole bunch of poor helpless armed guards.
But as we rounded the last steel corner, and glimpsed at last the first open space of the bunker, a huge metal slab slammed down from the ceiling, shutting off the corridor and blocking our way with two tons of solid steel. It hit the floor with a hell of a bang, so loud I actually winced, but still no alarms sounded, and still there was no clamour of raised voices demanding to know what the hell was going on. Where had everyone gone? What was Truman doing down here?
I subvocalised my activating Words, and then punched the air with joy as the golden armour flowed smoothly over me. It was good to have it back. Good to feel fast and strong and fully alive again. I hit the steel slab, putting all my armoured strength into it. My golden fist sank a good three inches into the steel, but that was all. I had to jerk my hand back out, an inch at a time. I crouched down and slammed both hands into the bottom edge of the slab, forcing my golden fingers deep into the metal, and then strained with all my strength to lift the massive slab. It shook and groaned but hardly raised an inch off the floor. I just didn’t have the leverage. My golden fingers slipped slowly through the solid steel like thick mud, unable to find a purchase. I pulled my hands out and stepped back to glare at the slab, baffled and frustrated.
“I do have an energy gun,” Giles Deathstalker said diffidently.
“No,” I said immediately. “There’s no telling what kind of defences or booby traps Truman might have set up here. Let’s not make things worse than they already are.”
Molly sniffed and elbowed me aside. “Men,” she said scathingly. “If you can’t hit it or shoot it, you’re lost for an alternative.”
She stabbed an imperious finger at the steel slab, said two very old and potent Words of Power, and the slab actually shook all over before reluctantly rising back up into its slot in the ceiling. Molly smiled condescendingly back at me and Giles, no doubt ready to say something extremely cutting, and that was when the machine guns opened up. Giles grabbed Molly and threw her to the floor, covering her body with his own, ignoring her startled curses. I moved quickly to block the way, shielding everyone with my armoured form. Bullets sprayed the corridor, but my armour absorbed everything that hit it. I didn’t even feel the impact. I strode slowly forward into the hail of bullets, and almost immediately realised there weren’t any guards. Just two automated machine guns, set to cover the end of the corridor with suppressing fire, swivelling slowly back and forth on their gimbals. It looked like they were almost out of bullets, but I was in the mood to hit something, so I ripped them both off their supports and crumpled them in my golden hands. They both made satisfying squealing noises, and I threw them aside. A blessed silence fell across the corridor, apart from Molly cussing out Giles Deathstalker as he tried to help her to her feet.
“I can protect myself, thank you very much,” she snarled. “I do not need to be slammed into the floor by an overanxious, overmuscled drama queen!”
“Fine by me,” said Giles. “I’ll just leave you to die, next time.”
“I should,” I said. “It’s less trouble, in the long run.”
“I’m fine, by the way,” said Mr. Stab.
“Never doubted it,” I said, not looking around.
We made our way slowly and cautiously through the guts of Truman’s underground base. Everything was a mess: furniture overturned, papers scattered, doors left open to secure areas. There were no people anywhere. Just empty rooms and a
bandoned corridors. Half the lights weren’t working, and strange shadows loomed up everywhere. As we got deeper in, we found workstations where computers and other technology had been ripped apart and gutted. Great rents began appearing in the steel walls, long and jagged as though made by claws, with wiring and cables hanging out like entrails from open wounds. And the only sounds we heard in the whole base were the ones we brought with us.
Finally, as we neared the centre of operations, we started finding bodies piled up in careless heaps, as though they’d just been dragged there and dumped, out of the way. The were signs of struggle now, to show they hadn’t gone quietly to their deaths. Bullet holes in the walls, scorch marks from grenades, the remains of improvised barricades. They’d put up a fight, only to end up like their computers, torn apart, gutted; harvested. Broken open for their parts. Whole organs were missing, and hands, and eyes. Blood and discarded offal lay all around, still steaming and stinking on the cool, still air.
Mr. Stab checked the bodies for details. No one else wanted to get close enough.
“They did this to complete their tower,” I said, because someone had to put it into words. “Technology and . . . organic components, to finish the job. Because they were in a hurry. Because they knew we were coming.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” Molly said immediately. “None of this is your fault. Manifest Destiny brought this on itself by allying with the Loathly Ones. Come on, let’s find Truman.”
“How do you know he’s still alive?” said Giles.
“Because rats like him always find a hole to hide in,” said Molly.
It didn’t take long to track him down. We just followed the signs on the walls to his private office, and sure enough there were more dead men piled up outside the locked and no doubt barricaded door. A green light showed above the door, indicating that the leader was IN. And a single security camera swivelled back and forth, looking us over with its little red light. I pounded on the door with my fist.
“You know who this is, Truman. Surprisingly enough, I’m not here to kill you. In fact, I’m probably your best chance of getting out of this mess alive. Open up, so we can talk about the Loathly Ones.”
“Go away!” screamed a voice from inside, shrill and cracked. “You can’t fool me! You’re not people! Not anymore!”
“This is Edwin Drood, Truman. Now let me in, or I’ll rip the door clean off its hinges.”
There was a long pause, followed by something that might have been a chuckle. “A Drood has come to save me. That it should come to this . . .”
There was the sound of furniture being dragged away from the door, and then after a bit the door unlocked itself. I pushed it open, and we all filed into Truman’s office. Once it might have been luxurious, even impressive, but now it looked like a bolt hole. The place was a mess, and it stank of sweat and fear. Truman was sitting stiffly behind his desk, half a dozen guns set out before him, though he had the sense to keep his hands well away from them. He held his head erect, no doubt braced by implants, to support what he’d done to himself, to his head and his brain. Truman believed in the gains to be made from extensive trepanation, or the making of holes in the skull to allow the brain to expand. So he’d drilled a dozen holes in his skull and then inserted long steel rods deep into his brain. The great steel spikes protruded from his head, radiating in a wide circle connected by a steel hoop, like a metal halo. This was supposed to make him smarter than the average human, but I couldn’t say I’d ever seen any evidence of it. Truman looked pale and drawn, with eyes like a hunted animal. He managed a shaky smile for me and Molly.
“Just when I think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, you two turn up.”
“Tell us what happened,” Molly said flatly. “And then we’ll decide whether your miserable arse is worth saving. What have you done here, Truman?”
“I never wanted to ally Manifest Destiny with the Loathly Ones,” he said, looking at his hands so he wouldn’t have to look at us. “They are everything I hate and despise. But after you destroyed my old organisation, I had to go underground, and my advisors insisted that we needed powerful support if we were to protect ourselves while we rebuilt. And they came to me, the Loathly Ones, and said all the right things, and promised me the world and everything in it, if I would just let them build one of their damned towers here. I knew the risks, can’t say I didn’t, but I was so sure I could control them, use them, and then destroy the tower before they could do anything with it . . . I was a fool. They infected my people one by one, starting with my advisors, so I only heard what they wanted me to hear. The first I knew something was wrong was when the infected drones suddenly attacked the rest of my people, right here in my own base.” He smiled suddenly, an odd, crooked smile. “They even infected me. Oh yes. One of my oldest friends did it, putting their filthy presence inside me. But I killed him, and then I killed it. Killed it dead. My augmented brain was more than a match for the small, weak thing they put in my head. I ate it, and savoured its dying screams in my mind.”
He actually laughed out loud then, enjoying the memory, and only sobered as he took in the expressions on our faces. “Of course, by then it was too late. My people had been taken over or butchered, my base had been torn apart to provide the final material for their stinking tower. But I shall still have the last laugh! Oh yes! I have a secret weapon, secretly prepared for the day they might rise up against me. The Soul Gun . . . Only I have the access codes. No one else can get to it, or fire it. Let them activate their tower! I shall activate my Soul Gun, drain all the power out of the Soul of Albion, and use it to banish the Loathly Ones from this world forever!”
He glared around at us triumphantly, but Molly and I were already shaking our heads.
“Won’t work,” I said. “Your trouble is, you never did take the trouble to work out what the Soul of Albion really is. It’s not just a thing, an object you can use. The Soul fell to earth from a higher dimension, just like the Drood Heart. It might even be a splinter that broke off from the Heart during its descent. Strictly speaking, the Soul is a baby crystal intelligence, only centuries old, too young to have developed a full personality. It protects England, because this is what it thinks of as home. You try and drain its power, suck all the life out of it, and it’ll just destroy you and your base, and go back to sleep again.”
“And even if you could make it work,” said Molly, “do you really think one baby crystal could hope to hold back the Invaders, the Many-Angled Ones, the Hungry Gods? You do know that’s what the tower is designed to bring here?”
“No,” said Truman. “No, no . . . You’re just trying to frighten me . . .”
“Trust me,” I said. “We’re already scared enough. We have to destroy the tower before the Invaders come through. Where is it?”
An alarm went off, deafeningly loud in the small office. We all jumped. Truman stabbed at the controls on his desktop, and a monitor screen flared into life on the wall, showing Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar moving cautiously through the underground base. They’d finally got here. I had to smile. Harry would so hate coming second.
“Damn,” said Molly. “In all the excitement I’d forgotten about them.”
“I haven’t forgotten about all the Droods they brought with them,” I said. I fixed Truman with a cold stare. “Your Accelerated Men, and your damned Soul Gun, killed hundreds of my family.”
He smiled spitefully at me. “I only wish it could have been more. You brought me to this, brought me so low I had to ally myself with alien scum! Everything that’s happened here is your fault, Drood!”
“Oh, shut up, you wimp,” said Molly, and the sheer distaste in her voice stopped him like a slap in the face. She moved around beside the desk, found the general address, and called Harry and Roger by name. They both looked up, startled, and Molly grinned as she gave them directions to join us in Truman’s office.
“Excuse me,” Giles Deathstalker said quietly, “but what is that thing on h
is head?”
“Cutting-edge technology,” I said solemnly.
Giles raised an eyebrow. “In my day we find it more useful to put the technology inside the head. Mind you, we also find it useful to shoot overambitious idiots like this on sight.”
Harry and Roger finally found their way to Truman’s office and barged right in without knocking. Harry looked at me and sniffed loudly.
“Might have known you’d find a way to be here for the end, and grab all the glory for yourself.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Because I’m so like you, Harry.”
“Boys, boys,” said Molly. “Put them away or I’ll cut them off. We are on something of a deadline here . . . Truman’s going to take us to the tower.”
“You do know he’s infected?” said Roger.
“I used to be,” Truman said haughtily. “I destroyed it with my augmented brain.”
“Actually, no,” said Roger, looking thoughtfully at Truman. “With my amazing demon X-ray vision, I can See it’s still in there. Hell, I can practically smell it, it’s so advanced. It just let you think you’d destroyed it, so it could grow and influence you undetected. Sorry. There’s never any cure, once you’re infected.”
“Never?” said Molly.
“Not a chance in Hell,” said Roger, still looking at Truman.
Truman started to say something, and then stopped. He looked distracted, as though listening to some inner voice. And then he looked at us, looking at him, and his face firmed.
“Kill me,” he said. “I will die a human being, and myself; not some damned alien thing. Kill me!”
“Glad to,” said Roger Morningstar.
He leaned over the desk, grabbed the steel halo connecting Truman’s implanted spikes, and ripped it away. Truman screamed piteously, in pain and shock. Roger grabbed the spikes and pulled them, out one by one. They came out in sudden jerks, inch by inch, under his demonic strength, accompanied by gouting blood and bits of brain, and the sound of cracking, splintering bone. Truman was screaming constantly by now, an almost animal-like sound, his arms flailing helplessly, but none of us moved forward to stop Roger. I wanted to look away, but I made myself watch it all as punishment. By the time it was over, Truman was slumped forward over his desk, his head torn apart, twitching slowly as the last of his life went out of him. Roger studied the last spike closely, as though it might hold secrets, then just shrugged and tossed it aside.