The Indigo Spirit looked at me expressionlessly, and then he moved unhurriedly forward to stand before me. He did look like the real thing: lithely muscular under the costume, every calculated movement showing extensive training and hard-won skill. A man who became what he believed in, and made it real, because he believed it was the right thing to do. He did much of his work in the Nightside, because this world has become too cynical to believe in good dreams.
He’d have made a good Drood.
“Whatever Joe’s done,” said Indigo, “there must be some way to put it right. . . .”
“No,” I said. “Not this time.”
“It can’t be that bad,” said Indigo. “I mean, come on: This is Charlatan Joe we’re talking about! What did he do? Stiff a Drood on a deal? Try to sell your family some Florida swampland?”
“Droods are dead,” I said. “Because of him.”
“Oh, God,” said Joe miserably. “I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t!”
Indigo looked back at him sharply, and he must have seen something of the truth in Joe’s face. But give Indigo his due; it didn’t alter his determination in the least. There was a principle at stake—sanctuary for the needy—and he would not stand aside. I knew there was a reason we were friends. He looked at me steadily.
“I can’t let you have him, Drood.”
“He doesn’t have to die,” I said. “Just tell me what I need to know.”
“He’s lying!” Joe said immediately. “I don’t know anything! Don’t let him hurt me!”
“Your reputation does precede you, Drood,” said Indigo. “And I really can’t stand by and let a shark like you chew on a small fish like him.”
Charlatan Joe and the Indigo Spirit had both been friends of Shaman Bond for years. I’d worked cons with Joe, fought bad guys with Indigo. Spent more time in their company than I had with most of my family. But this . . . was more important than friendship.
Indigo must have sensed that the time for words was over. His gloved hand moved too swiftly to follow, and a razor-edged shuriken flashed through the air towards me. I snatched it out of midair and crumpled the solid steel in my golden hand. But Indigo had planned for that. The shuriken was a distraction, something to hold my attention while he grabbed a handful of useful items from his utility belt.
Of course he has a utility belt. What’s the point of embracing a fantasy if you don’t go all the way?
He threw a capsule onto the floor before me, and a thick grey fluid splashed everywhere, lapping against my golden feet. I knew what it was; I’d seen Indigo use it before: a specially engineered frictionless fluid, designed to cut off all contact between a bad guy and the floor he was standing on. I’d seen whole crowds of villains lose their footing and crash to the floor and not be able to get up again. Very useful stuff. Indigo gets it from some military source. I walked right through it and didn’t miss a step. Indigo backed away, startled. The frictionless fluid had never failed him before. But strange matter follows its own rules. Or imposes its own rules on the material universe. Just like a Drood, really.
Indigo threw another capsule at me, and it smashed against my golden chest. Thick, steaming fluid ran down my golden armour, and again I recognised it. Acid strong enough to eat through steel. It ran harmlessly down my armour and pooled around my feet, hissing and spitting as it ate holes in the floor.
The Indigo Spirit was still backing away, but he hadn’t given up yet. He held up a large, blocky piece of tech in one hand. There was a loud, uneasy murmur from the crowd, as many of them recognised it. I knew what it was, because I’d had the Armourer make it for Indigo as a Christmas present: a handheld EMP device. Indigo made sure I got a good look at it and, when I still didn’t stop, activated the thing with a dramatic gesture. The electromagnetic pulse swept out across the Wulfshead in under a second, and all the lights went out at once as every piece of technology stopped working. In the sudden darkness there were brief flashes of light from small explosions in the crowd, hidden bits and pieces going bang. A few fires broke out. Dull amber lighting came on as the emergency generators kicked in. The new subdued lighting made the club look like a cave with far too many shadows in it.
“Sorry,” I said to Indigo. “But my armour isn’t technology. As such.”
The Indigo Spirit had stopped backing away. He stood defiantly between Charlatan Joe and me, his leather gloves creaking as he clenched his fists. “Sorry, Drood,” he said calmly. “But you’ll have to strike me down to get to him. And I don’t think you can do that without killing me. And I don’t think you’re the kind of man who could do that to a man who’s only doing what’s right.”
“On any other day you’d be right,” I said. “But not today.”
“Then let’s dance,” said the Indigo Spirit.
I did try to take him down easily and relatively painlessly, but Indigo wasn’t having any of it. He attacked me with every skilled move, practiced blow and dirty trick he knew, moving faster than I could, even in my armour. He struck at me again and again, searching for weak spots in my armour, trying to turn my own strength against me. But he only damaged his hands against the hard, unyielding strange matter. I tried to take him down, but somehow he was never there when my fists sailed through the air. He was so very skilled. I kept speeding up, drawing more and more on my armour, until finally . . . his skill didn’t matter anymore.
I crowded him up against the bar so he had nowhere to go, and then he took a terrible beating from my golden fists. I hit him again and again, but he wouldn’t fall. I beat him horribly, saw his blood fly and heard his bones break; but he wouldn’t cry out and he wouldn’t stop fighting. There were no spikes on my gloves, no extruded blades. I didn’t want to kill him. But in the end, because he wouldn’t give in, I ran out of patience. I moved in close, broke his ribs and his collarbone and then both his arms. And as his arms hung uselessly at his sides, I clubbed him to the ground with blow after blow to the head. His cowl protected him from the worst. At least, I hoped it did.
He made one hell of a good showing, like the hero he was. But he never should have got between a Drood and his prey.
I looked at him, sitting slumped on the floor with his back to the bar, his chin resting on his chest, blood streaming from his crushed nose and mouth. Blood bubbles formed from one nostril, and I hoped a rib hadn’t pierced his lung. He was my friend, but I was too angry, too coldly determined, to be stopped. I’d apologise to him later. I’d care about what I’d done later. I had to have some measure of revenge for what had been done to Harry and Roger. Because I’d left them there to die. Because I hadn’t gone back to rescue them, like I promised. Because I’d never liked them. And because revenge was all that was left. All I could do for them. I had to do something. . . . If you can’t hurt the ones you hate, hurt the ones you can reach.
I looked around at the remaining patrons of the Wulfshead Club, huddled together in tight little groups, staring at me as though I were the monster.
“Go,” I said. “Leave. I’m not here for you.”
They left as fast as they could. Charlatan Joe called pitifully after them, but no one even looked back. They’d seen a Drood in his anger, the monster was loose, and they wanted nothing to do with him. Joe made a small move toward the nearest exit, but I was already there, blocking his way. He cringed back against the bar. I looked over the bar, at the staff hiding there.
“Don’t interfere,” I said.
“No danger of that,” said the nearest bartender. “But you’d better be quick. The management knows what’s happening here. They’ll have already put in a call to the real security people. And you know who they are.”
I nodded. I knew. “The Roaring Boys.”
I turned to face Charlatan Joe, so close now I could reach out and touch him whenever I felt like it. He was so close his breath could have fogged up my mask. He was a pitiful sight: terrified, trembling, his features white and pinched, his eyes huge and rolling like those of a panicked animal. Whe
n I placed one golden hand on his shoulder, he cried out sharply and wet himself. The sudden smell of urine was shockingly clear on the still air. His legs started to buckle, and I had to hold his shoulder more firmly to keep him from collapsing.
He’d been my friend for years. We’d known good times together. And I had reduced him to this.
“Who gave you the information about the satanic conspiracy gathering at the Cathedral Hotel?” I said. “And who told you to pass it on to Isabella Metcalf?”
“Oh, God,” Charlatan Joe said miserably. “You know I can’t talk about that. They’d kill me!”
“What do you think I’ll do if you don’t?” I said. “Good Droods, good men, are dead because of you.”
“I didn’t know!” said Joe. “I just did what I was told! That’s what people like me do. I can’t tell you. . . .”
“I can make you tell me,” I said.
“You’re going to beat the information out of me? Torture me? Is that what Droods do these days?”
I’d had enough. I placed the tip of one golden finger in his left ear.
“Talk to me, Joe,” I said. “Or I will send razor-sharp filaments of my armour through your eardrum and into your brain and tear the truth right out of you. You’ll still be alive afterwards, but what’s left inside your head won’t be much use to you.”
I was bluffing, but Charlatan Joe didn’t know that. After everything he’d seen me do, he believed me. He started crying, great, shuddering sobs that racked his whole body. Snot ran out of his nose. I told myself I’d make it up to him later. Shaman Bond would make it up to him. But I think I knew, even then, that some things can never be undone.
“The source for the information was Sir Terrence Ashtree,” said Charlatan Joe, in between crying and gasping for breath. “Big man in the city. He’s part of this new satanic conspiracy. Because it’s good for business. He told me what to say to Isabella Metcalf when she came around. And how to tell it to her in such a way that she wouldn’t remember it until the conspiracy wanted her to remember. Ashtree. He’s your man. He’s the man you want. Not me . . .”
I didn’t ask him whether he’d been paid, or pressured, or even threatened into doing it. It didn’t matter.
I knew Terrence Ashtree. Part of an old business family, all of them leading lights in the establishment. Except that Terrence had never been all that successful in his own right. I didn’t know much about the man himself. That had always been Matthew’s territory, back when he was the main field agent in London, and I mopped up the crumbs that fell from his table. But then Matthew betrayed the family, and was killed by the family, and I became the main London agent. Which I thought was what I’d always wanted. Our dreams betray us by coming true.
I always meant to do a tour of all the big city names, and put the fear of God into them. But I’d barely made a start, only got as far as Ashtree, when the Hungry Gods war kicked off . . . and then there were the Immortals, and I was so busy. . . . City cases, business cases, seemed such small fry compared to the end of the world. Of course, that was before we found out what the bankers were really up to. . . .
Sir Terrence Ashtree, also known as Terry the Toad because of his complete willingness to screw over anybody in pursuit of a deal or because they were in his way. Not that his ruthlessness had ever done him much good, as such. Until recently . . . Word was, Terry the Toad was on the way up, a man to be reckoned with, which, at his middle age, was something of a surprise. Cutthroat business is a young man’s game. I’d been vaguely aware of changes in the city recently, but hadn’t paid it much attention. I hadn’t known about the satanic conspiracy then.
I turned my attention back to Charlatan Joe. He’d almost stopped crying. His eyes were red and puffy, his mouth loose and trembling.
“Where’s Isabella Metcalf right now?” I said.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! I swear, I don’t! The conspiracy has her; everyone knows that . . . but I don’t know anything! They don’t tell people like me things like that. If only so people like you can’t beat it out of people like me.”
He had a point. I stepped away from him, lowering my hand, and he almost collapsed in sheer relief. He smiled and nodded at me, eager to show his gratitude, and I almost wanted to hit him for being so pathetic. For making me feel like such a monster.
“Why?” I said. “Why did a small-time con artist like you get in bed with the Satanists in the first place?”
“For the money,” said Charlatan Joe. “That’s what I do. And the money was really good. . . .”
Yes, I thought. That is what you do, what you’ve always done. The clue is in the name. I always knew what kind of man you were, all those years we were friends. What right have I to feel angry now?
“Vanish,” I said. “Go on; get out of here. Lose yourself somewhere in the great wide world where no one will think to look for you. Until the Droods and the Metcalf sisters finally forgive you.”
“But . . . that could take forever!” said Charlatan Joe.
“Yes,” I said. “But that’s all the mercy I have in me today.”
I took him to the nearest exit. Forced the door open with my armoured strength, so that it opened onto some back alley somewhere. Joe gaped at me.
“That isn’t supposed to be possible,” he said. “No one can open those doors, except the club owners. Everyone knows that.”
“You’d be surprised what a Drood can do when he’s mad enough,” I said.
Charlatan Joe hurried through the open door, and I forced it shut behind him. I never saw him again.
I took out the Merlin Glass, activated it and opened up a doorway between the club and Drood Hall. Molly came straight through and I shut the Glass down. I didn’t want anyone else to see what I’d done. What I’d become. Molly looked quickly about her as I put the Glass away, taking in the dimly lit club, the wreckage, the bloody, unconscious forms of Bishop Beastly and the Indigo Spirit.
“Well,” she said. “You can always tell where a Drood’s been. . . . Eddie, what happened here?”
“I did,” I said. “You wanted answers, remember?”
Molly came forward to stand before me, and I armoured down. She put a hand to my face, and her fingers came away wet. I hadn’t realised I’d been crying.
“Oh, Eddie, what have you done?”
“Bad things,” I said. “Necessary things.”
“You did this to them? I thought they were your friends.”
“I’m not always a very good friend. Comes with the job.”
“Eddie,” said Molly, “this isn’t like you. I don’t like you like this.”
I looked at her, a sudden anger flushing my face. “I did this for you! You want your sister back, don’t you?”
“I want my Eddie back!”
“When it’s over,” I said. “I’ll be back when it’s over. Until then . . . it’s all about the conspiracy. I will do what I have to do to stop them. To save Humanity. To save the children.”
“You can’t fight evil with evil methods,” said Molly. “I should know. Fighting evil is supposed to bring out the best in us, not the worst.”
I managed a small smile. “Shouldn’t we be on opposite sides of this argument? Shouldn’t I be lecturing you on excessive behaviour?”
She came into my arms and hugged me tightly, and I hugged her back like a drowning man clinging to a straw. Molly finally pushed me away.
“We’ve been through a lot,” she said. “We need drinks. We need really big drinks.” She leaned over the bar and scowled down at the hiding bartenders. “You! Serial face! I want the finest wines in creation, all mixed together in one bloody big glass, shaken not stirred, with two curly-wurly straws.”
The bartender she was addressing shrugged helplessly. “If it were up to me, you could have one of everything, on the house, with a little parasol. But when the electromagnetic pulse went off, it shut down all the machinery. Management keeps all the booze in a pocket dimension attached to the bar, and wi
th the systems down we can’t reach it. We can’t serve anything until management turns up and hits the reset button.”
“I hate you,” said Molly.
To take her mind off that, I filled her in on everything I’d learned from Charlatan Joe. It didn’t take long.
“That’s it?” said Molly. “Just one name? What about Isabella? Where are they holding her?”
“He said he didn’t know anything about that,” I said.
“And you believed him?”
“After what I did to him? Yes. You can’t make people tell you what they don’t know.”
“I can come bloody close,” Molly growled. “I can’t believe you let the little creep go.”
“We’ve got a new name,” I said. “A new lead, a new way into the conspiracy. Terry the Toad was an important member of the business establishment, even before he joined the conspiracy. Odds are he knows all kinds of important things. And names. Want to go have a word with him?”
“Try to stop me,” said Molly.
And then her head snapped round as she tried to look in every direction at once. “Did you feel that? What the hell was that? The whole atmosphere in this place changed. The temperature’s dropped; something’s sucking all the energy out of the room. . . . Something’s coming. Something bad.”
“The Wulfhead’s security,” I said. “The Roaring Boys.”
“Oh, shit,” said Molly. “Eddie, get the Glass working. Get it working right now, because I really don’t want to be here when they arrive. Even I have enough sense to be scared of the Roaring Boys.”
I already had the Merlin Glass out and activated. “I’m pretty sure I could take them,” I said. “But I think I’ve probably done enough damage here for one day.”
“This is no time to be getting cocky, Eddie! Get us the hell out of here!”