“Then I’ll make him be reasonable,” said Gemma Markham.
Some people are more frightening than others. I carefully withdrew the long golden blade into my glove and looked at the laptop computer set out before her.
“You can’t have it,” said Gemma. She’d taken up her knitting again. “I don’t need rescuing, young man. I have decided to remain here, now that Commander Fletcher is no longer a threat. I’m actually very comfortable, and I am doing vital and important work. Which is nice at my age. I’m sure everyone here will be much more reasonable about letting my family visit and the like. After they’ve seen what I’ve done to Commander Fletcher.
“Now I can concentrate on what I came here to do—locating terrorists and putting a stop to their plans. I’m sure I can rely on you and your family to prevent the Government from sending in another bully like Commander Fletcher. Can’t I?”
“Of course,” I said. “Are you sure . . .”
“Yes,” she said. “Please don’t come here and bother me again, young man. I’m where I’m supposed to be. Doing good work.”
I had to smile. I do love it when a case works out for the best.
* * *
I went back down into the garage. The Bentley was waiting patiently, right where I’d left her. I contacted Kate to tell her I’d resolved the situation. Without major bloodshed, for once.
“You have to come home, Eddie,” said Kate. “Right now.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I agreed to help the family out on just the one case. What’s so damned urgent?”
“Come home, Eddie,” she said. “Please. There’s been a death.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Good-bye, Uncle Jack
And so I came home, for the Armourer’s funeral.
I drove the Bentley hard, following the shortest route through the side dimensions that the on-board computers could come up with. I kept my foot pressed down, my hands clenched tight on the steering wheel, not stopping for anything, and the old car smashed through world after world like so many curtains in stage plays I had no interest in watching. Through a place where mountains sang to one another, to another where great swarms of multicoloured manta rays swam through the sky, diving in and out of the clouds. A world where the trees walked was replaced by another where rainbows burst up out of the ground like fountains under pressure. Purple skies, green skies, dark skies, studded with blazing stars in insane patterns. I had no eyes and no time and no care for any of them. They were just things I had to get through, things that stood between me and getting home. The last of the spatial dimensions was suddenly shouldered aside by a great blast of familiar light, of brilliant Summer sunshine; as I returned at last to the world I knew.
I reappeared inside the Drood Hall grounds, just past the closed front gates, burning along the path at such speed that I sent showers of gravel flying in all directions. I finally eased up on the accelerator and hit the brake, and the Bentley slewed dangerously back and forth for several heart-stopping moments before I got it under control again. I continued on up the long entrance drive at a more civilised speed, and pulled out my mobile phone. I needed to talk to Molly. She’d spelled my phone a while back, so I could always be sure of reaching her, no matter where in the world or out of it she might be. She took her own sweet time answering, just to make it clear she wasn’t always at my beck and call. She never liked being interrupted when she was off on her own. But we had promised each other long ago that no matter what was happening in our lives we would always take each other’s calls.
“What is it, Eddie?” Molly said finally. “Can’t it wait? I’m busy. Seriously busy.”
“I need you to come back to the Hall, Molly. Right now.”
“What? You have got to be kidding. Why in hell would I want to do that?”
“The Armourer is dead.”
“Oh, Eddie.” Her voice changed in a moment. “Of course, sweetie. Don’t you worry. I’ll be right with you.”
Her voice cut off. I put the phone away and drove on. I rounded the last great curve and brought the Bentley screeching to a halt right in front of the main entrance. Molly was already standing there, waiting for me. I shut down the engine, shrugged out of the seat belts, and then just sat there, for a long moment. Breathing hard. It took real strength to summon up the determination to get myself out of the car. Because once I did that, I was admitting it was all real. That I had come home because Uncle Jack was gone. But I did it; because I knew Uncle Jack required it of me. The moment I stepped away from the Bentley, Molly was there in my arms. Pressing up against me, her cheek against my chest, holding me tight.
“It’s all right, Eddie, I’m here. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. I held on to her just as tightly. The only thing left in my life that I could depend on.
After a while, we let go of each other and stood back. I managed a small smile for Molly, to show her I was okay. Even though I wasn’t. She looked searchingly into my face, and then just nodded. We didn’t say anything. There’d be time for talk later. For now, there were things we had to do.
I headed out onto the great open lawns stretching away before the Hall, with Molly close beside me. She locked one arm through mine, so that even when I wasn’t looking at her I’d know she was still there. The lawns were covered with people, rank upon rank, row upon row. It seemed to me I’d never seen so many of my family assembled in one place before. It looked like every Drood in the Hall had turned out for the occasion. To pay their respects to the memory of the family Armourer. No one was wearing black, though. We don’t do traditional mourning. We follow our own traditions in death, as in everything else.
And it was only then that I understood why Melanie Blaze had let me go so abruptly from the subtle realms. The elf she sent to make contact with my family must have returned with the news that Jack was dead. Time moves differently in the subtle realms . . . So there was no point in Melanie holding on to me any longer. No Jack meant no Time machine. Her last chance to be reunited with James, gone forever. She could still have killed me or held me captive, but she let me go, sent me home. Perhaps as one last gesture to a man she respected.
I joined the crowd and people fell back, making room for me and Molly to walk through to the front row. Where the Matriarch was waiting. She nodded courteously to both of us, then stepped forward and patted me on the arm with surprising gentleness.
“Thank you for returning so quickly, Eddie. Sorry to rush you, but you know we couldn’t put this off.”
“Why not?” Molly said truculently. “Why did you have to drag Eddie back here in such a rush?”
“It’s the Drood way,” said the Matriarch, still looking at me.
“What happened?” I said. “I still can’t believe he’s dead. I was just talking to him in the Armoury, before I left. He seemed fine.”
“Did he?” said the Matriarch. “Are you sure?”
“Well . . .” I stopped, and thought back, and things I hadn’t understood at the time began to make a kind of sense. “He did seem . . . tired. And not entirely himself.”
“Talk to Maxwell and Victoria,” said the Matriarch. “They found him.”
She summoned them forward. They nodded quickly, to me and to Molly. They both looked pale and drawn, shocked—and so much younger outside of the Armoury. They were hanging on to each other in the same way Molly and I were. And probably for the same reason.
“We found him sitting at his work-bench,” said Maxwell. “Quite dead. He looked . . .”
“Very peaceful,” said Victoria. “No sign of any distress.”
They were trying to be kind. I let them.
“The doctors are quite sure it was a massive heart attack,” said Maxwell. “Very sudden. With any luck, he didn’t know anything about it.”
“No signs of foul play,” said Victoria. “T
he doctors checked very thoroughly. At the autopsy.”
“There had to be an autopsy,” said Maxwell, glancing at Molly. “Because a man like Jack Drood makes a great many enemies. As a field agent, and as Armourer. We wanted to be sure . . . But there was nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Then why are you rushing into his funeral so quickly?” said Molly. “If there’s nothing to hide?”
“Because things have to move forward when a Drood dies,” said the Matriarch. “I have already appointed Maxwell and Victoria as the new family Armourer. Because the work must go on.”
“You must know we didn’t want the job,” Maxwell said to me earnestly. “Vikki and I have never been . . . ambitious.”
“We were perfectly happy, just keeping things running,” said Victoria. “But we are ready to take over. It’s what we’ve been training for.”
“And it’s our duty,” said Maxwell.
“Anything, for the family,” said Victoria.
And I remembered the last thing my uncle Jack said to me before I left. Anything, for the family, Eddie. Because the family goes on, when we can’t. And I had to wonder whether Jack had been trying to tell me something . . .
“It was a heart attack,” said the Matriarch. “He was a lot older than he looked, you know. He . . . did things, to himself. Down through the years. Most of them entirely unauthorized. So he could carry on as Armourer. Long after anyone else would have retired.”
Molly kept a tight hold on my arm through all of this. Pressing it so tight against her side I could feel her breathing. It felt like she was the only thing holding me up. My head felt strangely light and far away, as though I might just drift off at any moment. And there was a simple great ache in my chest, as though someone had punched the heart right out of me.
The Matriarch and Maxwell and Victoria finally stopped talking and stepped back to give me some space. They looked at one another, but I couldn’t read the expressions on their faces. It did seem to me that there were things I should be saying, should be doing, but I couldn’t think what. I was just dazed. Lost. Molly moved in closer so she could stare into my face. She looked worried.
“It’s all right to cry, Eddie,” she said quietly. “It’s all right, if you need to. No one will stare.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t cry. Not ever. I just don’t. Because I discovered very early on that crying didn’t help. The bad things still kept happening when I was a child, and my parents never did come back, no matter how much I cried. So I just . . . stopped. What was the point?”
“It might be good for you,” said Molly. “Make you feel better.”
“No,” I said. “It wouldn’t.”
“Then I’ll cry for you,” said Molly. And she did, with quiet, respectful dignity. And apparently quite genuinely.
“I’ll never see my uncle Jack again,” I said. “Never talk to him again. Never have him place one of his big engineer’s hands on my shoulder when he wanted to make a point.”
“You’ve lost people before,” said Molly, sniffing back her tears.
“Not like this,” I said. “Uncle Jack was always there, from my earliest childhood. I could depend on him to always be there. I really thought he’d go on forever. That even after I was gone he’d still be the Armourer . . . He and Uncle James were the nearest things I had to father figures. And I killed one of them and disappointed the other.”
“James would have killed you,” Molly said carefully, “if I hadn’t finished him off first. And Jack was never disappointed in you.”
“That’s not what it feels like,” I said. “I have to find my parents now. Charles and Emily. They’re all I’ve got left.”
“You’ve got me,” said Molly.
I managed a small smile, for her. “Yes,” I said.
“Isabella and Louisa wanted to come with me, to pay their respects,” said Molly. Tactfully changing the subject. “But we all decided that probably wasn’t a good idea. All three of the Metcalf Sisters, in one place? We didn’t want to make your family feel nervous, at such a delicate time. Besides, somebody would be bound to say something, and Iz or Lou would be bound to overreact, and before you know it there’s frogs hopping everywhere. Which is bad, especially at a funeral.”
“You were right,” I said. “Drood funeral services are always only for the family. There’ll be a wake later, somewhere else. For friends and colleagues.”
One of the family vicars came forward to start the service. Rather younger than I expected, but granted a certain gravitas by the old family robes and vestments, which hadn’t changed a bit since Tudor times. His voice was calm, confident, and reassuring, as he read from his Bible the old words of comfort and farewell. I didn’t recognise him, but then, we’re a big family. And I haven’t felt the need to attend family services since I got old enough to say no and make it stick. I pretty much gave up on prayer when I gave up crying, and for the same reason: because it didn’t help. These days, when I do feel the need to pray, I do it directly. I don’t feel the need for an intermediary. Ritual has never been a support or comfort to me. Probably because there’s always been far too much of that in the family.
Molly leaned in close beside me, so she could murmur in my ear. “I’m surprised your family has vicars.”
“We have everything we need,” I said quietly. “We have to be totally self-sufficient, because we can only trust and depend on each other. He’s Protestant, of course, because Droods won’t stand for any outsider having authority over us. But that’s as far as it goes. We don’t do denominations.”
“Are your family’s funerals always this . . . big?” said Molly.
“No,” I said. “This is special. A much-larger-than-usual gathering; for an important and much-loved member of the family.”
I couldn’t help but contrast this well-attended ceremony with the rush job the family had made of my grandfather’s funeral. Arthur Drood, the legendary Regent of Shadows, had been put to his rest with almost indecent haste. Because he committed the cardinal sin of walking out on the family, and being successful outside it. I had to wonder what kind of send-off I would get when my time came.
All the gryphons and peacocks who normally wandered the grounds had gathered together in small groups on the outskirts of the crowd, watching the proceedings with big eyes and quiet solemnity. Not a sound out of any of them, as though they understood what was happening. And perhaps they did. You don’t get ordinary gryphons and peacocks on Drood grounds.
I looked around me, at all the Droods, standing with heads bowed in their quiet, respectful ranks and rows. I didn’t know or even recognise most of them. It occurred to me, then, that I wasn’t even sure just how many Droods there were these days. So many had died in the recent wars and battles. Fighting the Hungry Gods, and the Accelerated Men, and the Immortals. And so many others. I looked from face to face . . . and a sudden thought struck me, squeezing my heart with a cold hand. Might some of them be the very secret agents Uncle Jack and I had talked about? The family within the family, specialising in deniable operations that only he had access to? Would it take something like the Armourer’s funeral to bring them out to show themselves in public?
And then an even worse thought came to me: could any of these very secret and secretive agents have been responsible for the Armourer’s death? If anyone could make a sudden death look like a natural heart attack, it would be them. Could they have done it to shut down our proposed investigation into them? Because he was ready to start asking awkward questions, on my behalf? Did I get my uncle Jack killed? That thought was too awful to bear. I couldn’t breathe for a moment; then I relaxed, just a little. No. They wouldn’t do that. I was almost sure they wouldn’t do that. Because the Armourer was their only link with the rest of the family. They needed him, to get the things they needed to do their jobs. Things only the Armourer could supply. So who would they turn to now? Maxwell and Vic
toria? Should I say something to them? Or might those very secret agents turn to me? As the only truly independent Drood left in the family?
I realised I was only thinking these things so I wouldn’t have to think about what was happening in front of me. So I pushed the thoughts aside and gave the funeral my full attention. Uncle Jack was what mattered. Everything else could wait.
I looked around the massed ranks of family mourners again and was relieved to see a few familiar faces. The Librarian, William, was standing not far away. All dressed up in his formal Sunday best, and looking very ill at ease in it. At least he wasn’t wearing his usual fluffy white bunny slippers. His assistant, Yorith, was right there at his side, keeping a watchful eye on him. Since I had brought William home from the Asylum for the Criminally Insane, he was a lot more together than he used to be, but his thoughts did still tend to wander, and so did he. Standing on William’s other side was his wife, Ammonia Vom Acht. A short, pugnacious bulldog of a woman. Except she wasn’t really there, of course. Just a sending, a telepathic projection. Ammonia would have been allowed in, as the Librarian’s wife, but she wouldn’t have been able to stand being among so many people for long. Crowds got past her mental defences, and then she couldn’t keep the voices outside her head.
“Hello, Eddie,” said a quiet, very familiar voice. I looked round and saw a short, rather plump young woman with straight black hair and heavy-framed spectacles smiling tentatively up at me. She held herself somewhat stiffly, as though to compensate for her lack of inches. Her formal clothes didn’t suit her, though I would have been hard-pressed to say what would. She took in my blank expression and smiled quickly.
“I’m Kate!”
“Of course you are,” I said. “Molly, this is Kate.”
“I’m Eddie’s controller,” said Kate, thrusting out a hand for Molly to shake. Molly looked at it for a moment and then clasped the hand briefly.
“She’s my contact,” I said. “New ruling from the Matriarch; all field agents have to have their own personal contact with the family. For information, backup, and the like.”