Moonbreaker

  “Magic!”

  “Almost certainly,” I said.

  The dragon flew on, over snow-covered heights and all the wild glory of the Scottish countryside. His great head moved back and forth, searching, and then he plunged down so suddenly my arse actually left the dragon’s spine for a moment before slamming back into place again. He straightened out at a much lower level, and we flew leisurely over purple-heathered moorland, dark stretches of peat bog, and wide-open areas that had never known the cultivating hand of man. It was still freezing cold. I shuddered convulsively, and I could feel Molly shivering too as she pressed against my back.

  “Get us down!” I yelled to the dragon. “Before we freeze to death!”

  “You’re perfectly safe,” he said calmly. “You’re protected from the elements just by being with me.”

  “It doesn’t bloody well feel like it!” Molly said loudly. “I think my nipples just dropped off!”

  “Humans,” said the dragon. “Look down to your right, about two o’clock.”

  I leaned out a little to get a look past the dragon’s muscular shoulder, and there, alone in the middle of nowhere, stood a single great structure.

  “That’s it!” I yelled. “That’s the Museum of Unattached Oddities! Now get us down there before frostbite sets in!”

  Molly peered past me. “Are you sure that’s it?”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I just want to be on the ground again. I’ll walk the rest of the way if I have to.”

  “Please fasten your seat belts and return all seats to the upright position,” the dragon said cheerfully. “We are going in.”

  And then he dropped like a stone, the ground hurtling up to meet us. I wanted to close my eyes, but didn’t dare. It didn’t help that Molly was whooping loudly behind me and beating out a happy rhythm on my shoulders with both hands as she delighted in the ride. At the last moment the dragon’s wings spread out to cup the air, and our speed slowed to practically nothing. The deceleration alone should have been enough to rip me and Molly right off the dragon’s back, but I hardly felt a thing. So perhaps we were protected, after all. The ground loomed up beneath us, grey and hard and unforgiving. The dragon eased to a halt, hovering just a few feet above it, not even breathing hard, which was more than I could say for myself. He lowered his feet and we settled into place right in front of the Museum so gently, it took me a moment to realise we’d actually landed.

  The dragon retracted his wings, and turned his head right round so he could look at me. It was hard to tell with a dragon, but I was pretty sure he was smiling.

  “Welcome to bonny Scotland! Do try the haggis, don’t let them put salt on your porridge, and always remember to tip your waitress.”

  “Where are all these cultural references coming from?” said Molly. “You spent most of your life buried under a mound of earth.”

  “The lab assistants set up a television for me,” said the dragon. “It had cable and a voice-activated remote and everything! I love television.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “My family has corrupted a dragon. Like we don’t have enough sins to answer for.”

  “You’ve arrived,” the dragon said loudly. “Now get off me, before I decide to play buckaroo. What are you waiting for—a step-ladder?”

  I disembarked first, slowly and carefully, and then helped Molly down. We both shivered violently at the cold wind skidding across the open ground, and huddled together beside the dragon.

  “I don’t care whether that’s the Museum or not,” said Molly. “I am going inside even if I have to kick a hole in the wall. It is so cold out here, I can feel ice crystals forming inside my bladder.”

  “More information than I really needed,” I said. “But that is quite definitely the Museum of Unattached Oddities. I’ve been here before, remember?”

  “Will there be hot drinks inside?”

  “Almost certainly not.”

  “I hate this place.”

  “You haven’t even seen it yet,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Molly. “I have an infallible instinct about these things.”

  “If I’d known you were going to complain this much, I’d have just shrugged you off and let you drop through the roof,” said the dragon. “I transport you hundreds of miles in under a minute, and do I get a word of thanks?”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Molly looked at me. “Actually, if you’d armoured up, just dropping in might have worked.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “The Museum has protections and defences like you wouldn’t believe. At best, I might have bounced.”

  “At worst?” said Molly.

  “Really not interested in finding out the hard way.”

  I took a deep breath, braced myself against the bitter wind, and moved out from the dragon to study the Museum’s exterior. Molly stuck close behind me so she could use me as a wind-break. We’d arrived on what might have been a large open patio, once upon a time. It had definitely never been a car park, because there weren’t any roads. The Museum of Unattached Oddities stood entirely alone in the middle of nowhere, as though it had been dropped there and abandoned. The great open space in front of the Museum was covered in stained and weathered flag-stones, with weeds sprouting up between the cracks. Most of the old stones had splits and cracks, and some had sheared clean in half. As the courtyard of an important and significant museum, it made a very bad first impression, which was, of course, the point. This wasn’t the kind of place where strangers were supposed to linger.

  “How long has it been since anyone even thought about doing some basic maintenance here?” said Molly.

  “The Museum doesn’t want to encourage visitors,” I said. “If by some unfortunate chance the odd hiker or seriously lost tourist should find their way here, nothing about this should give them any reason to hang around. Much better if they just assume the place is deserted and move on.”

  The dark and gloomy edifice before us was someone’s idea of a Gothic mansion, complete with spiked turrets, leering gargoyles, and thick mats of ivy crawling over the stonework. It wasn’t particularly large, as mansions went, but it had a certain heavy, languorous quality, as though it was sleeping. Or sulking. The upper windows were hidden behind closed wooden shutters, and no lights showed on the ground floor, where all the windows had been left filthy dirty so no one could look in. Tiles were missing from the roof, the chimney-stack had all but collapsed, and the gutters looked like they were only hanging on by their fingernails.

  “This is the kind of dump that gives dumps a bad name,” said Molly. “More disguise?”

  “No,” I said. “It really is that bad. On the outside. The interior . . . is a somewhat different matter. The building’s not as old as it appears; it was constructed to look old. To be the home away from home of a respected English businessman, who had it designed and built to conform to his own romantic specifications.”

  “You mean it’s a folly,” said Molly.

  “Got it in one. Made to resemble the setting of all his favourite novels so he could move here, get away from everything, and live the Gothic dream. Which would probably have turned out to be a lot draughtier than he expected. But, sadly, paying for all of this bankrupted our business friend, and he never got to spend a single night here. The mansion changed hands several times, a white or rather dirty grey elephant that no one knew what to do with, until finally it became home to the Museum of Unattached Oddities. You’re about to ask me who’s responsible for founding the Museum, aren’t you?”

  “No,” said Molly. “Couldn’t give a damn.”

  “I’m glad you asked. It’s a fascinating story.”

  “Eddie, get to the point or I will have the dragon sit on you until you do.”

  I glanced at the dragon, who stared calmly off into the distance, declining to get involved. I turned b
ack to Molly.

  “Are you at least interested in what’s inside the Museum?”

  “Maybe. Depends. Any of it valuable and easily transportable?”

  “The Museum contains all kinds of weapons, artefacts, and objets perdu, magical and scientific. Items of legendary importance and baffling obscurity, along with a whole bunch of stuff no one can identify with any certainty, or figure out what to do with. All the wonders and marvels, complete tat and utter rubbish, that fell off the back of a lorry in the hidden world. Brought here and dropped off by people who then ran away terribly quickly.”

  “Half-dead from poison and you’re still lecturing me.”

  “You love it.”

  “Eddie, why are we standing around out here when Edmund is inside?”

  “Because you need to understand just how dangerous it can get in there,” I said. “You go barging in with your magics at their current levels, and the Museum will take you down before you even catch a glimpse of Edmund. This whole place is one really big dog that doesn’t like strangers.”

  “And that’s your only reason for hesitating?”

  I sighed inwardly. She knew me so well. “Edmund got away from us at the Armoury because he caught us by surprise. I can’t risk him getting away again. So we do it right this time. We go in ready and prepared for anything.”

  “Think I’ll go for a bit of a fly around, while you’re busy,” announced the dragon. “There’s nothing like being a severed head buried under an earth mound for centuries to make you feel like stretching your wings. Call me when you’re ready to leave. Wherever I am, I’ll hear you.”

  He launched himself up into the looming grey skies without any sense of effort, and in moments he was just a speck in the distance, no larger than a bird on the wing.

  “His hearing had better be as good as he thinks it is,” said Molly. “Or it’s a really long walk home.”

  “I’m still convinced someone will spot him and raise the alarm,” I said. “He may be used to thinking of himself as invisible, but what does he know about radar and tracking systems?”

  “A Seven Forty-seven could fly right past him and no one on board would even know he was there,” Molly said firmly. “Unless he felt like playing chicken with it, to freak out the pilots. Dragons are psychically invisible, hidden from everything. You don’t know much about dragons, do you?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Never expected to meet one.”

  “The hidden world is a lot bigger than most people realise,” said Molly. “All kinds of myths and legends are still hanging on in the shadows, keeping their heads down and waiting for this whole civilization fad to pass.”

  “Now who’s lecturing?”

  I headed for the Museum’s front door, with Molly striding along beside me. Stepping carefully around and over the worst of the cracked and tilted flag-stones, to avoid tripping. Some split and broke apart under our weight, anyway, with loud echoing reports.

  “Let’s hope Edmund is so taken up with whatever it is he’s doing that he’s not supposed to that he isn’t listening out for visitors,” I said.

  “What do you think he’s after?” said Molly.

  “Could be any number of things,” I said. “But if Grendel Rex really was seriously weakened before my family took him down, it’s always possible that whatever did it is here in the Museum. Or Edmund thinks it is.”

  “I say we just kill the bastard the moment we see him, and worry about everything else afterwards,” said Molly.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.

  We finally reached the front door and paused to look it over respectfully. The huge slab of dark-stained oak was decorated with a great many iron studs laid out in intricate overlapping patterns. Molly frowned.

  “I don’t recognise any of that. I suppose it could be Celtic, or even Druidic.”

  “It’s fake,” I said. “Just there to make the door look impressive and authentic, and several other things it isn’t.”

  “Is the door locked?”

  “Always.”

  “Do you have a key?”

  “No.”

  “Is there any other way in?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Then what are we supposed to do—shout your family name at the door and hope it’s impressed?”

  “No, we’ll have to break in,” I said. “The Museum is closed. It’s always closed, unless you have special permission. Which I could probably have arranged before we left, using the family name, but there wasn’t enough time to go through proper channels.”

  “Permission?” said Molly. “Who from?”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in the back story?”

  “I’m not! All right, who?”

  “The Wulfshead Management Museum Trust. They’re responsible for overseeing lot of special-interest museums.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish. They have their finger in all sorts of pies.” I stopped and frowned. “A saying I’ve never properly understood.”

  “Who the hell are the Wulfshead Management?” said Molly. “You must have some idea. Your family knows everything!”

  “No,” I said. “We just like to give that impression. My family have been pursuing the identity of the Wulfshead Management with great vigour for some time now, and all we know for sure is who they aren’t. Haven’t you heard anything, Molly, given the kind of people you mix with?”

  She scowled. “Most people don’t even want to hear the question. Some actually stick their fingers in their ears and throw themselves out of windows.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “How many museums is the Management responsible for?”

  “Another question my family would really like to know the answer to.”

  Molly started to say something, and then stopped and shook her head firmly. “No. I don’t care. I am not being distracted.”

  “You started it . . .”

  “Look, just armour up and kick the bloody door in.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “It’s defended.”

  “Even against people like you?”

  “Especially against people like me. If only because my family has a long history of confiscating things they don’t believe other people should have.”

  “All right, ring the bloody door-bell,” said Molly. “Let the staff know we’re here and have them let us in. So we can tell them they’ve got a burglar sneaking around and playing with their precious things.”

  “There isn’t any staff,” I said patiently. “The exhibits are perfectly capable of looking after themselves.”

  “So no one’s in there to stop Edmund from doing anything he feels like?” Molly glared at the door. “No, wait a minute . . . If this door is the only way in, and it’s still locked and protected, how did Edmund get in?”

  “He has the Merlin Glass,” I said. “Which laughs in the face of locks and spits in the eye of protections. Which is why I always found it so very useful.”

  “Doesn’t anyone at least look in now and again?” said Molly. “To check everything’s okay?”

  “Most people have enough sense not to want to get in,” I said. “And given that most of the exhibits aren’t, strictly speaking, valuable . . .”

  “Then why are they here?”

  “Because they’re interesting. And dangerous. And so scholars can study them. There’s always some bright spark begging to be allowed access to the Museum, to examine its weirder items up close and personal. And occasionally poke them with the science stick, just to see what happens. Though, of course, given the exceptional nature of some of these obscure objects of desire, there are a lot more bad guesses than good ones. Some scholars get it so spectacularly wrong that their peers still make regular field trips to their graves, just so they can continue to point and mock. Academics can be very unforgiving in
the hidden world.”

  “I never knew there were any,” Molly said carelessly. “Not my thing, really.”

  “How did you learn to be a witch, then?”

  She grinned at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She gave the door a long, thoughtful look that would have been more than enough to send chills up the spine of anything animate, given the suggestion of sudden and dramatic violence in the near offing. “What security systems do they have here, specifically?”

  “Nothing you or I can’t handle once we’re inside. Unless they’ve been upgraded again, of course.”

  “Who by?” Molly said dangerously. “You said there weren’t any staff!”

  “The scholars do it,” I said. “The clever little dickens. They like to protect the things they think are important, especially from other scholars. And, of course, they never tell anyone about their little improvements, because that would ruin the surprise. It’s all just academics pissing to mark their territory, really.”

  Molly looked at me. “Were you by any chance ever turned down by one of these centres of learning?”

  “I am a graduate of the University of Drood,” I said grandly. “Specialising in weird shit, brown-trousering the ungodly, and general mayhem. My family knows things the academic world has never even dreamed of. Go, Droods, go.”

  “Spare me,” said Molly.

  She leaned in close and inspected the door thoroughly, being very careful not to touch anything, and made various noises of a thoughtful nature before standing back again.

  “I’m not Seeing anything out of the ordinary here. No. Hold it. That’s odd . . . There isn’t any lock, or even a handle! Why didn’t I notice that before?”

  “Because you’re not supposed to,” I said. “It’s an intangible lock, only there when the staff want it to be there.”