Ammonia glared at the rabbit, but couldn’t find anything to say.
“Is that it?” said William. “Are we all done now? Is this what sanity feels like? It’s been such a long time. . . . What do I do now?”
“Put the Old Library in order,” said Ioreth. “You’re the Librarian.”
“Of course,” said William. “Come along, Ioreth. Lots of work to do . . .” He got up out of his chair, and then stopped to look at the rabbit. “You will still be . . . around, won’t you?”
“Of course,” said Pook. “We still have so much to talk about.”
“I’m going to have to discuss this with the family council,” I said.
Pook inclined his great white head to me, grinning broadly. “You really want to tell them there’s a possibly imaginary giant white rabbit haunting the Old Library? Good luck with that one. Especially since I guarantee I won’t be around if they come looking. I’m very choosy about whom I reveal myself to. Even Ethel can’t see me, not least because I am of this world, and she isn’t. Let me become a rumour, a whisper, a family legend. One final family secret, and a last line of defence.”
He walked off into the Old Library and disappeared between the tall stacks with William on one side and Ioreth on the other. They all seemed very happy together. And I . . . was left alone with Ammonia Vom Acht.
“Take me to the Armourer,” she said. “I want the crown we talked about. The one strong enough to keep out the whole damned world.”
“You can wait here,” I said. “I’ll have someone bring it down to you.” I considered her thoughtfully for a long moment. “You know, there is something else you might be able to help us with. . . .”
Ammonia grinned at me nastily. “The true name and identity of the traitor hiding inside your family? Oh, yes, I could find him for you. No problem. But you’d have to give me access to every living mind in Drood Hall. And your family would never allow that, even though it’s clearly in your best interests, and those of all Humanity.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s in Humanity’s best interests,” I told Ammonia. “Only Droods get to do that.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The One True Thing
It was all happening at Drood Hall. I was saying good-bye to Ammonia Vom Acht when the next great steaming pile of ordure hit the fan. Or at least, I was trying to say good-bye. For someone who hadn’t wanted to come to Drood Hall in the first place, Ammonia was displaying a marked reluctance to leave. She stuck both fists on her hips, stuck out her chin, tilted her head back and did her best to glare right into my face.
“I am not leaving here without the psychic protection crown I was promised! I know all about you Droods; promise me the world and everything in it to get what you want, but the moment I’ve done your dirty work, it’s all, ‘Thank you kindly; we’ll be in touch!’ ”
“Let me contact the Armourer again,” I said, as patiently and politely as I could manage through gritted teeth. “See what he has to say.”
I used the Merlin Glass to contact my uncle Jack in the Armoury. His face appeared immediately, filling the hand mirror. “Eddie! Listen . . .”
“I’ve still got Ammonia here,” I said loudly, overriding him. “She’s saying she won’t leave without her crown.”
“She’ll have to wait,” said the Armourer. “We have an emergency on our hands, Eddie, and I mean a first-class, fire-in-the-hole, circle-the-wagons-and-call-in-the-reserves type emergency. Kick her out, and get your arse down here to the War Room.”
His face disappeared from the mirror, and I shut it down. I looked at Ammonia. She was opening her mouth to say something I knew I didn’t want to hear it, so I shook the Merlin Glass out to full size, locked it onto her house in Cornwall, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and tossed her through. Some days you don’t have the time to be diplomatic. Ammonia spun round and glared back at me through the Glass, sputtering with rage and offended dignity.
“I want my crown!”
“We’ll mail it to you when it’s ready,” I said.
“You can’t just throw me out! I know things you need to know!”
“Thank you,” I said quickly. “Good-bye; write if you get work.”
“We’ll meet again! I’ve seen it!”
“Don’t you threaten me,” I said, and shut down the Merlin Glass.
I never like working with psychics. The trouble with telepaths is that they always want to tell you what’s going on in other people’s minds, and it’s nearly always things you’re better off not knowing. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone else knowing what was going on in my mind most of the time. Especially if it involved Helen Mirren in her prime. I looked at the Glass and frowned. Why did the Armourer want me to join him in the War Room? He never went there. In fact, I was a bit surprised he was able to find it without a sat nav. Must be a real emergency, after all. I opened up the Merlin Glass and stepped through into the Drood family War Room.
All hell seemed to have broken loose, accompanied by every manner of siren, alarm, ringing bells and flashing lights. People were running back and forth like someone had just announced the Second Coming and we’d forgotten to book our seats. Men and women at their workstations were yelling into comm mikes, or bent over their computers, and none of them looked at all happy at the answers they were getting. I spotted the Armourer, turning dazedly from one display screen to another and looking very out of place in his stained lab coat. I put the Glass away and moved over to tap him firmly on the shoulder. He almost jumped out of his skin, and when he turned to face me he looked drawn and tired, even shocked, like someone had hit him.
“What’s happened, Uncle Jack?” I said. “What’s the big emergency? And why didn’t you tell me something bad was happening until it got this out of control?”
“If I took the time to tell you everything I know that you don’t, we’d never get anything done,” snapped the Armourer, regaining some of his composure. “This is bad, Eddie, really bad. Very nasty, all-handsto-the-pump kind of bad. The Satanist conspiracy has made its first moves. One indirect but troubling, and one very direct and downright scary.”
“Never a moment’s peace,” I said resignedly. “And the pay’s lousy. I’ll bet the Satanists offer their people really wicked fringe benefits.”
“Will you listen, Eddie! We’ve lost an entire town! The whole population’s . . . gone!”
“You have my undivided attention,” I said. “How can the Satanists have taken out an entire town?”
The Armourer shook his head slowly, seemingly lost for words. Which wasn’t like him. “The family psychics all went crazy some twenty minutes ago. All of them saying Something Bad had happened. And then the details started coming in. . . . Hold on. Hold on a minute while I check something.”
And he was off, moving swiftly along the workstations, his gaze jumping from one monitor screen to another. I took the time to look around me. The War Room had never seemed this busy, not even when we were fighting the Loathly Ones in their nests during the Hungry Gods War.
The family War Room is a vast auditorium carved out of the solid stone under the north wing of Drood Hall. Normally you have to pass through a heavily reinforced steel door, a retina scan and a very thorough frisking before you’re even allowed to descend the old stone stairs that lead down to the vault. Which are in turn guarded by a whole bunch of cloned goblins noted for their utterly vile natures and a complete lack in the sense-of-humour department. The Merlin Glass had allowed me to bypass all that nonsense, which is one of the reasons the rest of the family keeps trying to take it away from me. They think it makes me too powerful. They are, of course, absolutely right. Which is one of the reasons I have no intention of ever giving it up.
All four walls of the War Room, tall and broad as they are, are covered with state-of-the-art display screens showing every country in the world, including a few that aren’t supposed to exist, but unfortunately do. All of them dotted with variously coloured lights to indicate tr
ouble spots, ongoing missions, certain individuals on the family’s “of interest” list, and the current locations of every Drood field agent, active or not. The War Room was currently packed to bursting with family members of every rank and station, crowding round the workstations, darting back and forth with urgent messages, and shouting at one another with a complete lack of professional calm and composure. Much of the activity and commotion seemed to be gathered around the communication systems and the far-seeing stations. The family has raised remote viewing to something of an art form, using every kind of high tech and old magic the Armourer and his staff could come up with; but I’d never seen it reduce the War Room to such sheer chaos before. A chill ran down my spine. To panic the family this thoroughly, the emergency had to be something really special.
As I looked around I realised the Armourer wasn’t the only familiar face in the War Room. Cousin Harry was there, bent over a comm screen and peering intently through his wire-rimmed spectacles. He was discussing the situation with the Sarjeant-at-Arms, who was only half listening as he leafed through a thick handful of urgent memos, more of which were constantly being handed him by hurrying messengers. Both of them were so focussed on the situation they’d apparently forgotten how much they hated having to work together. And the head of the War Room, Callan Drood, stood at the conference table, reading through one important report after another and barking out a series of orders. And yet for all the deafening noise and hurried motion, there was a sense that things were being done. The family trained hard for emergencies, so that everyone would know what to do when the time came. Except me. I still hadn’t a clue what I was doing there. And then Molly emerged from the crowd and hurried over to join me. She gave me a quick hug to show all was forgiven, if not actually forgotten, and then she stepped back to look at me with real concern in her face.
“Tell me later,” she said. “Tell me everything later. Because you need to concentrate on what’s happening right now.”
“What is happening?” I said plaintively. “Why is everyone running around like their backsides are on fire?”
“The Satanist conspirators have launched their campaign,” said Molly. “Come with me; I’ll get you to Callan, and he can bring you up-to-date.”
She took me by the arm and led me to the conference table by the quickest route, which basically involved intimidating everyone else into getting out of our way. Molly’s always been very good at that. Callan looked up as I arrived and actually seemed glad to see me. Which wasn’t like him. He gestured sharply for his people to stand back and give us some room, and beckoned for me to stand next to him, so we wouldn’t have to shout to be heard over the general bedlam.
“It all started half an hour ago,” he said flatly. Came out of bloody nowhere. The comm stations began picking up television broadcasts from every country in the world. Government leaders, individual leaders, religious leaders . . . all preempting television time to make a special announcement. Often during prime time, which doesn’t come cheap. You can look at the recordings later, if you want, but they’re all singing the same tune: all of them talking a lot, but not actually saying much. Talking about the great future that’s coming for everyone, and not the usual pie-in-the-sky stuff. They’re talking about good times for all by the end of this year . . . as a direct result of the Great Sacrifice that the people of every country are going to make. No details as yet, not even a hint as to who or what is going to have to be sacrificed. Perhaps the conspiracy hasn’t told the leaders yet.
“Anyway, all the speeches sounded remarkably similar, once we’d translated them from the original languages. Almost as though they’d been written by the same person. And for all we know, they were. . . . You have to understand, Eddie; this is unprecedented. This kind of agreement and cooperation, from every country in the world, regardless of politics or religion . . . simply doesn’t happen. Even we couldn’t arrange something like this without years of planning, a hell of a budget and a whole lot of assassination threats. . . . It’s hard to believe the conspiracy could have this much influence over so many important people. . . . Hell, we didn’t even know the conspiracy existed this time last year. All right, we’ve been a bit busy, what with the Hungry Gods and the bloody Immortals, but even so . . . Could these bastards really have this much control over so many different kinds of government? I’d like to think most of them don’t actually know who and what they’re dealing with, but these are politicians we’re talking about, after all. . . . I have to wonder if it would make any difference if they did. . . . You should never have let them out from under our control, Eddie! The world was a lot safer when we still had our boot on their necks!”
“Except for when we didn’t,” I said. “Two world wars and an endless cold war; I don’t call that being in control. I have to believe that some good will come from giving Humanity their freedom. Or what’s the point of going on?”
“No one was at all clear about what this Great Sacrifice might involve,” said Molly, tactfully easing us onto a new subject. “Either their leaders think their people aren’t ready to be told yet, or their new lords and masters haven’t told them yet.”
“When we lost control of the world’s politicians, it was inevitable that someone would move in to take our place,” murmured Harry, casually joining us at the conference table. “So you could say this is all your fault, Eddie.”
“That’s what you say, Harry,” I said. “But then, that’s what you always say, isn’t it? Learn a new tune; that one’s getting old. Now, I can see this is all distinctly worrying, but why was I called here in such a rush? What’s the emergency?”
“I’m sure we could have coped without your help,” said Harry. “But . . . something else has happened. It would appear that a small country town in the southwest of England has been attacked by the Satanist conspiracy.”
“It could be the first part of their Great Sacrifice,” said Callan. “The news isn’t officially out yet. British authorities have slapped a D Notice on the whole affair. On the grounds of national security. Though God knows how long that will last in this electronic day and age . . .”
“But what’s happened, exactly?” I said. “What have the Satanists done?”
“The town of Little Stoke has vanished,” said Harry. “The whole population is just . . . gone.”
“It all happened so quickly,” said Molly. “I was killing some time down here, waiting for you. . . .”
“And pestering the life out of me,” said Callan.
“Shut up, Callan,” said Molly. “It must have happened pretty much instantaneously. Not a word of warning or a cry for help. There was this . . . massive energy surge that set off every alarm in the War Room, and by the time we’d zeroed in on the exact location, it was all over. There have been no communications in or out of where Little Stoke used to be, ever since.”
“We knew about it before the authorities,” said Harry. “But then, we’re Droods. We know everything. That’s our job.”
“Don’t you have a job you should be doing?” Callan said pointedly. “This is my War Room; I’ll do the briefings. Make yourself useful. Get me some tea. Milk, two sugars.”
Harry drifted away from the conference table as though he’d remembered somewhere he’d meant to be. Callan glared after him.
“And some Jaffa Cakes!” He sniffed loudly and turned his attention back to me. “Irritating little tit. Thinks he’s such a big deal because his dad was your uncle James. I could put together a brigade of the Grey Fox’s various bastards. . . . Anyway, as soon as we were sure something bad really had happened, we hacked into a CIA satellite orbiting over the area, and this is what we got. . . .”
He pushed his way through a crowd of messengers shifting impatiently from foot to foot with important-looking messages in their hands, opening up a path by sheer angry presence, and stopped before one particular display screen locked onto a set of coordinates in southwest England. Callan gestured angrily at the screen.
??
?See that black spot, that circle of impenetrable darkness exactly five miles in diameter . . . ? That’s where the small town of Little Stoke used to be. No light gets in or out, no communications in or out. Just . . . that.”
“What is it?” I said. “Oh, hell, it’s not a black hole, is it?”
“Of course it’s not a black hole!” snapped Callan. “Or the sheer gravitational pull would have sucked the whole country in by now. Am I the only one who paid attention during science lessons?”
“Probably,” I said. “You always were a science geek.”
“Science geeks are in!” Callan said defiantly. “Look at all those CSI television shows. Geek chic!”
“Boys, boys,” murmured Molly. “If we could concentrate on the matter at hand . . .”
“Ah . . . yes,” said Callan. “Little Stoke. Population under eight thousand. Nothing important or significant about any of them, as far as we can tell. Even the local history is particularly dull. But after the energy surge that caught our attention, and before the darkness set in . . . the entire population of Little Stoke vanished. Eight thousand men, women and children . . . all gone in a moment. The town buildings are still there, under the darkness. Don’t ask me how.”
“Look at the location,” I said. “Little Stoke is only up the road from the far more important and significant town of Bradford-on-Avon. Could the Satanists have been after that, and . . . missed?”
“I don’t think so,” said Callan. “Even they wouldn’t have the stones to attack that town. Not given who lives there.”
“I’ve been there,” Molly said brightly. “They do a lovely cream tea. . . .”
“Really?” said Callan. “How very nice. Now shut up; grown-ups are talking. No, Eddie, Little Stoke was quite definitely the target. The black circle covers the town’s boundaries exactly. What lies there now . . . is a little bit of Hell on Earth.”