For Heaven's Eyes Only

  “Don’t see why not,” said Molly. “Silicon sorcery’s always been a specialty of mine.”

  “You haven’t gone back to cloning credit cards, have you?” said Isabella.

  “Of course not!” said Molly. “I’m into a much higher class of lawlessness now.”

  “If you could concentrate on the computer, Molly . . .” I said.

  “Oh, sure! No problem!”

  I half expected her to work some dramatic chaos ritual over the computer, or sprinkle fairy dust on it, but she sat down before the machine, fired it up and worked some subtle magic through the keyboard, until the computer dropped its pants and showed her everything it had. Molly pushed back the chair, grinned at me and got up so I could take her place.

  “There you go. Ask it anything you want. I’ve got the security systems eating out of my hand. You could pry this computer open with a crowbar and piss in the back, and it wouldn’t shed a single tear.”

  “You always did have a delicate touch,” I said.

  “Later, lover,” said Molly.

  I subvocalised my activating Words, and sent a tentacle of golden armour racing down my arm from my torc, until it formed a gleaming golden glove on my right hand. Isabella watched, fascinated. Not many outside the family get to see Drood armour at work. And live to tell of it. I set one golden fingertip against the computer, pressing lightly, and delicate golden filaments shot through the computer’s silicon guts, bending them to my will. I had no idea how my armour’s strange matter did this; I supply the willpower, and the armour does everything else. Which has been known to bother me now and again. When I got the chance, I was going to have to ask Ethel some very pointed questions, though I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answers.

  I asked the computer some blunt questions, and the answers appeared on the monitor screen in swift succession. Of course, there was so much information in the computer that the trick lay in asking exactly the right questions, and I was operating pretty much in the dark. But with Molly and Isabella leaning over my shoulders and yelling suggestions in my ears, it didn’t take me long to scare up a whole bunch of records and secret files I wasn’t supposed to be able to get at. Passwords and encryptions are no match for Drood armour.

  And it turned out, everything Isabella had said was true. Lightbringer House was the central meeting place for Satanist groups from all over the world. This anonymous office building was where policy was decided and all important decisions were made. This was where they came to talk to one another, to boast and brag of all the awful things they’d done and the worse things they planned to do. This was where they came to kneel in dark churches and worship the Devil, and celebrate evil in appalling ways. Lightbringer House organised everything and was the motivating force behind a horribly large number of plots and conspiracies buried deep within all the governments of the world.

  I jumped from file to file, my stomach muscles tensing painfully as I took in the sheer size and scale of the operation. These people wanted to rule the world, and they were going about its slow and certain corruption with cold, focused precision. It soon became clear that there had been a lot of comings and goings from Lightbringer House recently. Really important people, familiar names and faces from politics and big business and a dozen other spheres of influence, were in the building right now, discussing . . . something. There was no specific information in the computer about this, only a sealed file name: “the Great Sacrifice.” And a whole bunch of serious new security measures that had been placed throughout the building to keep this meeting secure and very private. Molly leaned forward suddenly, pointing at the screen.

  “There! What was that? Go back, go back. . . . Yes! The big meeting is being held in the main boardroom, directly down the hall from here! And given the sheer number of high-level Devil-worshipping scumbags attending, I think it behooves us to go and take a look and listen in.”

  “And possibly slaughter the whole lot of them, on general principle,” said Isabella.

  “Given the sheer amount of magical and technological weaponry that’s been installed, specifically to keep people like us out, I don’t think we can afford to start anything,” I said firmly. “We need to discover exactly what’s going on, and then concentrate on getting that information out of this building and into the hands of those who can best decide what to do about it.”

  Isabella looked at Molly. “Is he always this stuffy?”

  “A lot of the time, yes,” said Molly. “It’s one of his more endearing qualities.”

  “Let us go look in on this meeting,” I said resignedly. “But nobody is to start anything until we’ve found out what this Great Sacrifice is all about.”

  I retracted the golden strange matter into my torc and shut the computer down. Molly quickly removed her interventions, and when we went to leave the office there was no sign the computer had ever been tampered with. I’m a great believer in not leaving any traces behind; you never know when they might turn up again to bite your arse. Isabella eased the office door open a crack, looked out and then nodded quickly. We moved out into the corridor, shut the door carefully behind us and strode down the corridor towards the boardroom as though we had every right to be there.

  I’d half imagined the Satanists’ building would be all dark shadows and gothic gloom, but the corridor was as anonymously banal as the office. The lights were almost painfully bright, the carpet was a dull grey and the walls were bare. There were a few people about, presumably too low-level to be allowed into the big meeting: regular-looking businesspeople in neat suits, going about their business and paying us no attention at all. First thing a field agent learns: Act like you belong somewhere, and most people will assume you do. Simple confidence will take you farther than even the best fake documents. But even so, it was a bit odd that no one paid any attention to Isabella’s crimson biker leathers and my torn and bloodstained shirt. Presumably Satanists were used to seeing strange things on a regular basis.

  And . . . there was something about these ordinary, everyday businesspeople, as though they weren’t necessarily people at all. But maybe something else, pretending to be people.

  In fact, the whole corridor was making me feel distinctly uneasy. It was all too bright and cheerful, with not one thing out of place. More like a film set than somewhere people actually lived and worked. Even as I strode along, nodding and smiling to the men and women who nodded and smiled at me, something was making all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My flesh crawled. There was a growing sense of threat and menace, unfocused but very real, and very near, as though something might jump out at me at any moment. Walking down that corridor towards the boardroom felt like walking along a tightrope knowing someone was right behind you, waiting for a chance to push you off. Or like walking across a series of trapdoors, any one of which might drop open at any moment, letting you plummet into some awful trap, or perhaps letting you fall and fall forever. . . . My problem is I’ve got far too good an imagination. Well, one of my problems . . .

  Still, even my torc was tingling uncomfortably, as though trying to warn me of some imminent danger. The closer I got to the boardroom and the people waiting in it, the more worried I became that not only was I in danger from the building’s many weapons and protections, but I was heading into an area of actual spiritual danger.

  I murmured as much to Molly, who nodded vigorously. “Yeah, something about this place is creeping me out big-time, too. Which is weird; it’s usually the other way round. This is a bad place, Eddie. I don’t think these Satanists are using the name for shock value. I think they’re playing this for real. I’d raise my Sight and take a proper look at what’s going on here, but I’m pretty sure it would set off every alarm in the building.”

  “Took you long enough to work that out,” said Isabella. “I felt that the moment I got here, which is why I was reduced to checking out papers that happened to be lying around. This is a bad place full of bad people with bad intentions. Can we take t
hat for granted and move on?”

  If Isabella was feeling the same sense of threat and danger I was, it didn’t seem to be bothering her much. She led the way right to the closed door of the main boardroom. There were no guards, or at least no obvious ones. I tried the handle on the off chance, but the door was locked.

  “Don’t try to force it,” Molly said quickly.

  “I know,” I said. “Alarms. I have done this secret-agent thing before, you know. It bothers me there aren’t any guards.”

  “They must think their defences are so good they don’t need human guards,” said Isabella. “Either that, or the real guards are invisible and waiting to pounce on us.”

  “Really wish you hadn’t said that,” said Molly, looking quickly about her. “I feel naked without my Sight.”

  There was a single sign, saying MEETING. ONE P.M. START. NO ADMITTANCE AFTER THE MEETING HAS BEGUN.

  “One p.m.,” said Molly. “The thirteenth hour. Satanists are always big on tradition. Probably because their greatest victories are all in the past.”

  “We have to get in there,” said Isabella. “Find out what this is all about. I hate not knowing things! Eddie, can you use that golden-finger trick on the lock?”

  “Almost certainly,” I said. “But again, I’m guessing the presence of strange matter this close to the movers and shakers would set off every alarm there is. I think we’re better off doing this low-tech.”

  I produced a single golden brown skeleton key from my pocket, made from real human bone by the Armourer. (I didn’t ask whose bone. One learns not to ask questions like that around the Armourer.) Molly and Isabella moved quickly to cover me while I worked on the lock, blocking the view of anyone who might happen by. Though this end of the corridor was disturbingly quiet and empty. The skeleton key had the lock open in a moment, and I tucked it away again before carefully turning the handle. Isabella glared at me.

  “I want one of those! It’s not fair. You Droods have all the best toys.” I gestured for her to be quiet, and then eased the door open a few inches. I waited, braced for any alarm or attack, but nothing happened. I peered through the narrow gap. The main boardroom was big enough to pass for a meeting hall, and was packed from wall to wall with rows of chairs, every single one of them occupied by rich and powerful and famous people. Names and faces you’d know, along with a whole bunch only people like me are supposed to know about. They were all staring with rapt attention at the man standing on the raised dais before them, commanding the room with fierce authority. Everyone there seemed absolutely fascinated by what they were hearing, hanging on his every word. But there was also something about them that suggested they were scared—either of the man on the dais or of what he was saying. What could he be suggesting? What could be so extreme that it could frighten even hardened Satanists? I pushed the door open a little more, and when no one reacted I squeezed through the gap and stood at the back of the hall, behind the rows of chairs. Molly and Isabella moved quickly in after me, leaving the door ajar, just in case. We stood very still, hardly breathing, but no one looked back. All their attention was fixed on the man on the dais.

  Tall, dark and compelling, he strode confidently back and forth on the dais. In his expensively tailored suit, he looked and sounded a lot like one of those well-rehearsed motivational speakers, working his way through a series of points and positions on his way to the bit where we all get rich. He smiled a lot, showing perfect teeth, and his regular handsome features had that slightly stretched look of subtle plastic surgeries. His hair was suspiciously jet-black for a man well into his forties. But his voice was rich and sure and utterly compelling, holding his audience in the palm of his hand. I leaned in close to Molly and Isabella and murmured in their ears.

  “Either of you know this guy?”

  “The face is familiar,” said Molly, frowning.

  “So it should be,” said Isabella. “That is the one and only Alexandre Dusk. Big man in computers. A millionaire before he was twenty, and a billionaire before he was twenty-one. No one knows how rich he is now, but when he talks, governments listen. If they know what’s good for them. But . . . he hasn’t been seen in public for years. People have to put up millions just to ask him questions over the phone. Most have to settle for an e-mail. So what the hell is he doing here, in person?”

  “If you’d belt up and let us listen, we might find out,” said Molly.

  So we shut up and listened. Dusk could talk, though he sounded more like a politician than some self-made computer geek. He spoke well and fluently, pinning his audience to their seats. He was selling them a vision. He’d clearly already been talking for some time, getting his audience worked up. They really wanted what he was selling. Dusk prowled back and forth before them, his voice rising and rising as he gestured with increasing assurance. And when I realised what he was talking about, I was fascinated, too, even as a slow, cold horror crept over me.

  “The Droods have removed themselves from the game,” said Alexandre Dusk. “They’re effectively leaderless now, and fighting among themselves. They may have marvellous new armour, but they don’t know what to do with it. They are yesterday’s men; we are the future. The Immortals are a dead end. Most of them are gone, the few survivors scattered and on the run. The Droods did us a favour there by removing the one organised and influential force that might have been able to stand against us. Right now, every government and leader in the world is looking for a chance to struggle out from under the Droods’ oppressive heel, looking to seize the chance to think and act for themselves. They want to be powers in their own right, and they’ll listen to anyone who can show them a new way. And that’s going to be us.”

  “You see?” Molly murmured in my ear. “You set the governments of the world free, for the first time in history, and the first thing they do is plot to stab you in the back.”

  “Of course,” said Isabella. “They’re politicians.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” I said.

  “This is our time, come round again!” said Dusk. It is our duty to take advantage of this situation, all this marvellous chaos and confusion, and take the reins of power for ourselves, as it was always meant we should. But not by replacing these governments and leaders. We’ve tried that, and it’s never worked. The sheep always rebel when they realise they’re headed for the slaughterhouse. No, my friends, we’ve always made better kingmakers than kings. The power behind the throne. Harder to detect, harder to fight, harder to find out what our true agendas are until it’s far too late. You can get much more done when you’re not in the public eye, and there’s no one to be horrified by the methods we use. And it’s always good to have a leader around to use as a fall guy if it all goes wrong and we have to make a swift exit by the back door.

  “So we have become the latest generation of advisers, political consultants, focus groups, lobbyists, personal assistants. . . . We are the people who really decide what gets done. And now that the politicians have come to rely on us, now that they’re ready to listen to anything we have to say as long as it keeps them in power . . . it’s time for the Great Sacrifice. The final willing degradation of Humanity, a spiritual crime so great it will damn all their souls and give our lord Satan his final victory over mankind. Then we will dispose of the leaders and take their place as kings of the new Earth!”

  The crowd went mad. They rose to their feet, shouting and screaming, pounding their hands together, almost out of their minds with excitement and anticipation. The whole room was full of a wild, vicious, malignant hysteria.

  I looked at Molly and Isabella. “Is he serious? Are they serious?”

  “Sounds like it,” said Isabella.

  “What the hell is this Great Sacrifice?” said Molly. “Whom are they planning on sacrificing?”

  Isabella glared at the howling crowd, her upper lip curled. “Look at them. Typical Satanists. The little men, the cheats and bullies who’d never rise to the top through their own abilities. They want to b
e king of Shit Heap, and take their revenge on the world and all those people who stand between them and the things they want, the things they think they deserve. The secret plotters and the backstabbers . . . They want power because at heart they’re cowards, afraid of everyone who has power over them.”

  “The worst evil always comes out of small people,” said Molly. “Small-minded, small-souled, vicious little turds.”

  “Satanists,” I said. “I do get it, Molly, really.”

  And then the whole boardroom went quiet, and we looked up to find everyone in the crowd had turned around and was staring at us. Dusk pointed a dramatic finger in our direction.

  “Intruders! Strike them down in Satan’s name!”

  “Damn,” I said. “Ladies, I think it is time we took our leave.”

  “Try to keep up,” said Isabella, already halfway out the door.

  Molly and I were right on her heels. I slammed the door shut behind us and crushed the lock with an armoured hand. It wouldn’t hold off the crowd for long, but it should buy us some time. I spun round, and then swore dispassionately as a demon dog came pounding down the corridor towards us. I have encountered such things before, but this had to be the biggest I’d ever seen: a great mountain of night-black flesh almost filling the corridor from wall to wall, its hunched back brushed against the ceiling. The whole corridor shuddered under the thunder of its approach, great clawed paws slamming against the floor. Isabella glared at me.

  “I told you not to come here! It must have smelled your torc!”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Put all the blame on me.”

  “I’d run, if there were anywhere to run,” said Molly.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” I said, stepping forward to face the demon dog.

  It was almost upon us now, great slabs of muscle moving smoothly under its dark hide. It had a flat, brutal face, with flaring hellfire eyes and a wide slash of mouth packed with more vicious serrated teeth than seemed physically possible. It snorted and grunted hungrily as it ran, and already it was close enough that I could smell the blood and brimstone on its breath.