We walked on across the wide-open lawns. On a pleasant evening, with the last of the light dropping out of the day. Shadows slowly lengthened, as though they were creeping up on something. Birds were singing and insects were buzzing, and all felt right with the world. Lord, the day thou givest us is almost over . . . And no one knew that better than me. It all felt so calm and easy. Just Nature getting on with things in her own quiet way. I had hoped some of the peace might rub off on me, but it didn’t. I still had so much to do, and not enough time left to do it in.
For all my carefully nurtured resignation, I couldn’t help feeling it was all so unfair. To have to die now, when I had so much to live for. But, then, I chose to be a field agent, knowing few of us ever survive long enough to retire. Anything for the family. The Droods and the Hall, lifetimes of work and duty, action and adventure, and a chance to do something worth doing. Edmund had to die for taking all of that away from me. And from Molly. Part of me wondered if I wanted to fight Edmund just so I could be killed taking him down. So I could die on my feet, doing something that mattered. I could be happy dying as Edmund died . . . as long as I could hold on long enough to watch him go first.
“How much farther, Eddie?” said Molly. “If I’d known we were going for a nature ramble, I’d have put on my heavy boots.”
“We’re almost there,” I said. “See that small grove of trees up ahead?”
“The one that looks almost exactly like all the others we passed to get here? Yes, I can see it.”
“Those are yew trees.”
“Oh, those ones you recognise?”
“Yew trees are historically important,” I said. “They supplied wood for the longbows that changed the history of warfare at Crecy and Agincourt.”
“Were Droods there?”
“Depends on who you talk to.”
I led her into the small, shadowy grove, and the trees opened up to reveal a pleasant clearing with cushions scattered across the grass, and a picnic hamper standing open on a chequered tablecloth. Charles and Emily, my father and my mother, were already waiting there, just as the Matriarch had said they’d be. Smiles lit up their faces as they hurried forward to greet me.
Charles was middle-aged and completely bald, with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. Sleepy-eyed, with an easy smile, but it only took one look to see the presence and power in the man. He wore a rumpled sports jacket over an open-necked shirt and grey slacks. Charles had been a field agent for any number of subterranean organisations, and never talked about any of it. I got the feeling he thought I might not approve of some of the things he’d done in the name of the greater good.
Emily was a cool, poised middle-aged lady, in a lemon silk dress and a creamy white panama hat crammed down on her long grey hair. Still strikingly good-looking, in an I don’t give a damn about looking my age kind of way. The only use she had for Botox would be to poison someone’s tea. She radiated quiet grace and a sense of danger, like a great cat dozing in the sun.
They both greeted me warmly, Charles with his rough-and-ready voice, Emily with her cut-glass finishing-school accent. She hugged me hard and then stepped back to let Charles hug me. I responded as best I could; I wasn’t used to family who cared. Growing up in Drood Hall without parents hadn’t equipped me to deal with physical demonstrations that didn’t involve punishment. Molly hung back, not wanting to intrude on the moment, but Charles and Emily called for her to come forward so they could hug her too.
“You’re the woman our son loves,” Emily said firmly. “That makes you family.”
“In every way that matters,” said Charles.
“The Matriarch doesn’t seem to agree,” said Molly.
“Screw the silly bitch,” Emily said cheerfully.
We sat down on the cushions, and Emily produced chilled wine from the picnic hamper. Good food of all kinds piled up on paper plates as she went back to the hamper again and again, until Molly felt she had to raise an eyebrow.
“Is this another of those bigger-on-the-inside-than-it-is-on-the-outside deals?”
“Something like that,” said Emily.
“It’s a family hamper,” said Charles. “They can be very persuasive when it comes to keeping their contents in line.”
He uncorked a wine bottle with practiced ease and smiled at Molly. “Red or white, my dear?”
“Red,” said Molly.
He poured her a glass of dark red wine and then turned to me. I grinned, because I knew what was coming.
“White wine, please,” I said.
And my father poured me a glass of white wine from the same bottle.
“One of Jack’s better ideas,” said Emily.
She waited till we each had a glass of wine in hand, and then raised her glass in a smiling toast.
“Here’s to you, my darlings. And let the rest of the world beware!”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said.
We all did, and then we sank back on our cushions and talked quietly for a while.
“I always liked it here,” said Charles. “Within the grounds, but far enough away from the Hall that no one will bother you.”
“We used to sneak away to this copse all the time when we were first courting,” said Emily. “It’s hard to find any real privacy inside the Hall.”
The two of them exchanged a smile, sharing memories, and I looked away. It’s never easy to consider your parents being . . . romantic. Molly picked up on my discomfort and seemed quietly amused. Her parents were hippies and probably went around being nude and uninhibited all the time. I looked at Charles, who met my gaze steadily.
“Sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner.”
“We were both out in the field, interviewing persons of interest for the new Department of Uncanny, when the Matriarch’s message reached us,” said Emily. “We dropped everything to come home.”
And then they both stopped, uncertain what to say next. I didn’t help them. They had to find their own way through this.
“It is true, then?” said Charles.
“You’ve been poisoned?” said Emily.
“Yes,” I said.
“Fatally?” said Charles.
“Yes,” I said.
“Don’t you give up on the family doctors, Eddie,” Emily said firmly. “They have been known to work the odd miracle from time to time.”
“Trust the family,” said Charles. “They’re bastards, but they never give up on one of their own.”
They both looked like they wanted to hug me again, to hold me and keep me safe, but they didn’t. I understood. It wouldn’t help any of us to lose our self-control. If we gave in to our feelings, we wouldn’t be able to talk . . . and I could only spare so much time for this before I had to be going. Molly looked back and forth between us and made an exasperated noise.
“Why do you always have to be the tough guy, Eddie? Would it kill you to show an honest emotion to your own parents?”
“It’s all right, Molly,” said Emily. “We understand.”
“He’s a Drood,” said Charles.
“We’re trained from an early age to be masters of our emotions, and never the other way round,” said Emily. “It’s necessary, when any one of us could pull on our armour at any moment and smash up the world.”
“Or use the armour to hide inside?” said Molly.
Charles chuckled and nodded to me. “I like her. She’s smart. You chose well, son. How did you meet?”
“You must have read the family file on Molly,” I said.
“Of course,” said Charles. “First thing we did when we found out you were an item. Bit of an eye-opener, actually.”
“But files can only tell you so much,” Emily said firmly. “I’m sure there’s another side to the story.”
“There would have to be,” said Charles.
“Mol
ly really was the greatest supernatural terrorist of her day,” I said. “We spent years on opposite sides, trying to kill each other for reasons that seemed good at the time. But when the family declared me rogue and I had to go on the run, the only people I could turn to for help were those I’d previously considered enemies. Starting with the wild witch Molly Metcalf, because she was the only one strong enough to defend me from my family. She proved to me that not everything I’d been brought up to believe was necessarily true. We learned to work together, with the family as our common enemy, and much to our mutual surprise . . . we clicked.”
“Now I’m a retired supernatural terrorist who works alongside the Droods,” said Molly. “Sometimes I think this whole world runs on irony. Either that, or it’s got a really warped sense of humour.”
And then Charles just couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Who was it, son? Who did this to you?”
I told my father and mother about Edmund. Who and what he was. They took the idea of a Drood from another world in stride, though the thought that another version of me could have gone so bad took more getting used to.
“Does the family know where this Edmund is?” said Charles.
“We have some leads,” I said carefully. Because if Charles and Emily knew Molly and I were going after Edmund, they’d insist on coming along. And I couldn’t put them at risk too. I just couldn’t. And there was always the chance I might have to do things I didn’t want them to see me doing. They shouldn’t have to remember me that way. I shot a glance at Molly.
“The Sarjeant is working on it,” she said.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” said Charles.
“Talk to me,” I said. “We’ve hardly had a moment to ourselves since we found each other again. We’re always racing off on some world-saving mission or another.”
“That’s life for a Drood,” said Emily.
We sat back on our cushions and talked, while I pretended I couldn’t hear the clock ticking. I had to have this moment, because I could never have it again.
“How did you two get together?” Molly asked my parents.
“My family were never part of the hidden world,” said Charles. “Never even knew it existed. I was brought up to be an engineer, like my father and grandfather. But I got involved in a factory haunting when I was sent in for what was supposed to be a routine inspection. No one would work there because of all the stories about glowing figures appearing and disappearing inside the factory late at night. The watchmen wouldn’t even make their rounds, once darkness fell.
“Of course, I didn’t believe a word of it. I staked the place out myself, and no one was more surprised than me when all these glowing figures turned up and tried to kill me! And then this amazing mysterious woman appeared out of nowhere to save me, and kick their glowing arses.”
“They weren’t ghosts,” said Emily, sipping her wine with one finger daintily extended. “Just a bunch of timeline-hopping freebooters, looking to establish a dimensional Door so they could loot this world till it bled. They didn’t know about Droods, the poor bastards.”
“We took them down together, and sent them packing,” said Charles.
“Your father was very brave,” said Emily.
“And your mother was a Drood,” said Charles. “They never stood a chance. And afterwards . . . Well, we clicked.”
“Yes,” said Emily. “We did. All through the weekend.”
They both laughed lightly at the look on my face.
“It wasn’t an easy courtship,” said Charles. “The family likes to say it’s in favour of new blood, but they don’t make it easy for outsiders to get in.”
“I think the idea is that if you can be frightened off by the family, by who we are and what we do, it’s best to find out early,” said Emily. “But your father . . . persevered.”
They reached out to hold hands. Rather more naturally than Maxwell and Victoria, to my mind.
“After we were married,” said Emily, “your father turned out to be a first-class field agent.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Charles. “But you know I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”
We were interrupted by the sound of heavy flapping wings. We all looked up to see the dragon circle around the grove and then descend rapidly towards us. We rose quickly to our feet and retreated to the edges of the clearing to give him room to land. And then all the trees leaned backwards, creaking loudly, to make sure he had enough room. Either because they were that kind of tree, or just as further proof that no one argues with a dragon. He landed lightly in the exact centre of the clearing, tucked in his wings, and posed proudly to show off the magnificent new body the old Armourer had made possible. Seen up close, he seemed realer than real, as though he were too big for the small world he was gracing with his presence. His scales glowed, and his eyes blazed with fierce golden fires. And yet his clawed feet made hardly any impact on the grass, as though he wasn’t really there at all. A contradiction, but, then, that’s dragons for you.
Emily went straight up to the dragon, patted him on the neck, and spoke cheerful nonsense to him. Charles winked at me.
“Girls and their ponies . . .”
“I heard that!”
“Yes, dear . . .”
“Jack always did do good work,” said Emily, standing back to look the dragon over admiringly.
“Did you know your uncle Jack could do this?” Molly said to me. “When you brought the dragon’s head back from Castle Frankenstein?”
“No,” I said. “I just knew I couldn’t leave him there on his own.”
“You and your strays,” said Molly. And then she stopped. “Your family can give a dragon a new body, but they can’t save you. It’s not right.”
I went to put my arm round her shoulders, but she shrugged me away angrily, refusing to be comforted.
“Be grateful for what my family can do,” I said. “And make allowances for what they can’t.”
“What’s your name?” Emily said to the dragon.
“We don’t have names,” he said proudly. “We know who we are.”
“There are more dragons out there, in the world?” said Charles. “I thought you were all gone.”
“It is possible . . . that I am the last,” said the dragon. “We don’t belong here any more. Our time has passed, and the world has moved on.”
“There’s always Shadows Fall,” said Molly. “Where legends go when the world stops believing in them.”
“I am not ready to retire,” said the dragon, just a little huffily. He sniffed loudly at the very thought, and then turned his steady golden gaze on me. “You need to get to the Museum of Unattached Oddities in a hurry. I can take you straight there in no time at all. Right now, if you want.”
“You know where it is?” I said.
“I know where everything is,” he said calmly. “Dragons just do. It’s a gift. And I can get you there really quickly, because dragons fly between dimensions, passing directly from one place to another. And no, we won’t be noticed when we arrive, because no one ever sees a dragon unless we want them to.”
“Then how was Baron Frankenstein able to behead you all those years ago?” Molly said innocently.
“He sneaked up on me while I was sleeping!” the dragon said loudly, and two small jets of flame shot out of his nostrils. “Somehow that part never made it into his great heroic legend.”
“Will finding a landing space be a problem?” I said. “I understand it’s pretty rough country out there.”
The dragon looked meaningfully at the surrounding trees, still leaning obligingly back at uncomfortable angles.
“Wherever I decide to land, the landscape will accommodate me,” he said grandly. “Or else.”
I turned to Charles and Emily. “I’m sorry, but Molly and I have to go.”
/> “Right now?” said Charles.
“But we’ve hardly had any time!” said Emily. “Your father and I . . . There’s so much we wanted to say to you!”
“We can talk more when I get back,” I said.
I could tell from their faces that they didn’t believe I would be coming back. And I couldn’t say anything, because I didn’t believe I would either. So I hugged them both, and turned away before they could see the expression on my face. I climbed up onto the dragon’s back and settled myself as comfortably as possible on the broad arc of the dragon’s spine. Emily hugged Molly quickly.
“Look after him, dear.”
“Bring him home,” said Charles.
“And make sure you kill that little turd Edmund,” said Emily.
“Edmund’s already dead,” said Molly. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
I reached a hand down to her, impatient to get going. She scrambled up the dragon’s side and grabbed hold of my hand, and I hauled her up behind me.
“Hang on tight!” said the dragon.
Molly took a firm grip around my waist, pressing her face against my shoulder. I looked around for something to hold on to, but there didn’t seem to be anything. The dragon leapt into the sky, his wings stretched wide, and the world fell away beneath us. First the clearing, then the lawns, and finally the whole Drood grounds disappeared as we soared up into the clouds.
• • •
I expected the dragon to fly us through the side dimensions, like Uncle Jack’s racing Bentley. Instead the dragon flew steadily on through the freezing air, his wings barely moving, punching effortlessly through the clouds. I just had time to wonder how I could be bothered by the cold but not the lack of oxygen this far up, when a Rainbow suddenly appeared before us. It filled the sky, huge and magnificent, thundering down like a Niagara Falls of blazing colours, so bright and vivid I thought they would burn the eyes out of my head. An aspect of Nature writ large, a pure embodiment of an abstract concept, made real and more than real. Like the dragon.
He flew straight into the Rainbow, and I threw an arm up to shield my eyes, bracing myself. The Rainbow loomed up before us until it was all there was in the world, and the dragon plunged into it. There was no impact, not even a sense of transition, but suddenly the magnificent shades and hues were gone and we were flying serenely through a cloudless lead-grey sky. I looked back, past Molly’s bowed shoulders, but there was no sign of the Rainbow anywhere. We were alone in the sky. Molly raised her head and grinned at me cheerfully.