Light blazed fiercely from the dozens of windows. More light spilled from the open front door. A sick, yellow, feverish light. Unhealthy. I could see human forms standing silhouetted against the windows, outlined by the fierce light. Moving slowly, ominously. And someone, or perhaps something, stood in the open doorway to watch me pass. It was big, filling the whole doorway, and there was something really wrong about the way it stood and held itself. Not human. Or at least, not human enough. Again, I felt an almost overwhelming impulse to stop and get out of the car, to go inside the house and find out what the hell was going on in there. I forced the impulse down, sped up, and drove on. Getting out while the getting was good.
Only this time, the house came running after me.
It seemed to just sweep along beside the Bentley, shooting silently over the moorland, maintaining the same distance from the car. I slammed my foot down hard, and the Bentley surged forward. The house kept up with me, racing along, the figures still standing silhouetted in the blazing windows, the dark presence still filling the open front door. A whole house moving like a ship under sail. Pursuing me silently, menacingly, as though we had unfinished business. I was just starting to think about reaching for the car’s weapons systems when the house began to lose speed, and just like that it fell behind me as the Bentley roared on. When I looked for the house in my rearview mirror, it wasn’t there any more. No sign to show it had ever been.
It occurred to me then that someone was trying to scare me. That this moor, this whole world, had been set up just to terrorise me. As though I was driving through an old Hammer horror movie. The standing stones, and the cemetery, and the old dark house—they were all standard horror icons. I laughed out loud. I had seen far scarier things in my time as a Drood field agent. And besides, I used to love all those old Hammer movies. Used to really enjoy staying up late of an evening when I was a kid, watching a horror double bill on late-night television. Sitting on that battered old sofa, with Uncle Jack on one side and Uncle James on the other. Feeling scared and excited and utterly safe. We must have watched every film Hammer ever made, along with most of the Amicus and Tyburn films too. I can still remember my uncle Jack getting quite excited when he saw that Quatermass and the Pit was coming on; and saying to me You’re in for a real treat with this one, Eddie. And how right he was.
I used to love watching Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, as Frankenstein and Dracula and the Mummy. And not forgetting that amazing classic The Abominable Snowman. Which I later discovered to be a lot closer to the truth than most people realise. You wouldn’t think Droods would go in for fantasy horrors, given the truly weird shit we have to deal with every day . . . but there was a certain comfort to be found in watching Hammer’s old-fashioned morality plays. Where Good and Evil were always so clear-cut . . .
So I just drove along, across the open moor, under the strange stars and the unfeasibly large full moon, listening to the wolves howling in the distance . . . and quite enjoying myself. Until a young woman ran desperately into the glare of my headlights. The mists seemed to curl back, to show her to me more clearly. A young woman, running with all the speed that terror and desperation could lend her. Tall and slender, with long dark hair, wearing a ragged white gown that shimmered in the moonlight. How very traditional, I thought. Until she turned her head to look at me, gazing wide-eyed into the light of my car’s headlights, and I saw how scared she was.
She looked back over her shoulder at what was chasing her. I looked too, and finally I saw what it was that had been howling. A great pack of oversized hounds were chasing the girl, pursuing her across the uneven ground with appalling speed. Closing in on her. The young woman looked at me pleadingly and ran on. I changed direction and sent the Bentley hurtling forward, putting the car between her and the approaching wild things.
The moment the Bentley got between the hounds and their prey, the pack turned on me. They moved quickly to surround the car, running silently alongside, matching the car’s speed effortlessly. Up close I could see they were huge, monstrous things, with taut, veiny skin and bulging muscles, jumping and leaping effortlessly over the mires and the ditches. And because they were so close I was finally able to see what was most monstrous about them. They had no heads. An old joke bubbled up inside me, almost hysterically. How do they smell? Hell, how did they see, to follow their prey?
They surrounded my car in moments, pressing in close from all sides.
The dogs in front looked to be getting too close to the running woman, so I opened fire with the Bentley’s machine guns. The front-mounted cannon hammered deafeningly on the quiet, explosive fléchettes slamming into the hounds over and over. The impacts hit the dogs hard, throwing them this way and that, slowing them down but not stopping them. No blood flew up from any of the hits, and I couldn’t make out any wounds or injuries. At this range the explosive shells should have blown the damned creatures apart. I switched to silver bullets, and then blessed and cursed ammo, all to no effect.
The headless hounds pressed in even closer now, threatening the car from every side. I reminded myself that the Bentley’s chassis was spell-proof. If these things were the magical creatures they seemed, they shouldn’t be able to get inside the car. They must have sensed that, because none of them tried to leap over the low-slung doors. Instead, they threw themselves against the sides of the car, hurling their great bodies into the metalwork with appalling force. The impacts shook me like a rag doll in the driving seat, as the hounds slammed the car back and forth, trying to force the Bentley away from their prey. I heard the sides of the car buckle, and then groan loudly as the metal forced itself back into shape. The Armourer does good work.
I turned on the car’s emergency force shield. Powerful energies sparked and shimmered on the night air all around the car, but they didn’t even slow the hounds down. The creatures just charged in again and again, slipping effortlessly through the force shield. So I turned it off. It used up a lot of power, and I couldn’t risk draining the battery so far from home.
The headless hounds hit me hard, from both sides at once, and I had to fight to control the steering wheel and keep the car on course. I’d almost caught up with the running woman. And so had the first of the hounds. I hit the cigarette lighter, and fierce yellow flames belched out of the front of the car, enveloping the nearest dogs. They fell away, rolling on the soaked ground to put out the flames, and then they were up and running again, entirely unharmed. What kind of creatures were these?
One of them put on a burst of speed and got in ahead of me. It turned abruptly, and came straight at me. I put my foot down, intending to run the thing over, but it leapt into the air at the last moment and gained a purchase on the long green bonnet. Its heavy clawed paws scrambled for purchase, but somehow it held its balance, and advanced towards me. Up close, the lack of a head wasn’t the least bit funny. The creature reeked of menace, and bloodlust. I slammed on the brakes, and then jerked the steering wheel hard left and hard right, but it didn’t throw the hound off.
It forced its way forward, jumping up onto the windscreen and blocking my view, its massive front paws holding it in place. The metal frame buckled under the hound’s weight, but the windscreen glass held. I armoured up one hand and arm, and grabbed hold of the hound’s left leg, just above the paw. It felt reassuringly hard and solid and real, in my grasp. I clamped down with all my armoured strength, and the dog howled horribly. I hauled the hound off the bonnet and threw it away. It went tumbling through the air and crashed to the ground yards away, somewhere behind me. And even as I drove on, I couldn’t help but think, How can it howl, when it doesn’t have a head?
I grinned despite myself. These things might be disturbing, and really tough, hard-to-kill sons of bitches, but my armour could still deal with them. It was good to know there was something I could depend on in this ever-changing world.
I realised I’d lost track of the running woman, and looked frantic
ally around for her. She was right ahead of me, running headlong with the complete lack of grace that showed she was on her last legs. As I looked, she fell suddenly, sprawling full length on the muddy ground. I slammed on the brakes and hauled the wheel right round, and the Bentley screeched and churned to a halt just short of her. I had to armour up to protect myself, to keep the seat belts from cutting me in half. I shouted to the young woman to get up and get in the car. She tried to get up, then cried out and fell again. She’d broken something. And the headless hounds were almost upon us.
“They’re coming!” I yelled. “Get in the car! I’ll get you out of here!”
“I can’t!” she yelled back miserably. “Please! I’m hurt! Help me!”
I threw open the driver’s door, the seat belts retracting automatically. I got out of the Bentley and hurried forward to stand between the fallen young woman and the advancing hounds, ready to take them all on, if necessary. And just like that, everything changed. The woman stopped her piteous crying and looked at me with a cold triumph. I stared at her stupidly as she rose easily and unaided to her feet. The headless hounds came running forward to surround us, forming a great circle, cutting off all hope of escape. They didn’t look like pursuers any more. They looked like they’d caught what they were really after. The young woman in her long, shimmering white gown stood before me, tall and arrogant and in command. And I realised at last that she was the bait in the trap, and I was the sucker. I looked back at the Bentley, but several of the headless hounds had already moved in to block the way.
“Kate?” I said, through my torc, “can you hear me?”
But there was no response from my handler. I’d broken the connection when I left the reality generated inside the Bentley. I should have remembered. Never leave the car.
* * *
The young woman seemed to shrug, and her appearance changed in a moment. She was still tall and slender, but now she was wearing black motorcycle leathers—jacket and jeans and boots—covered with steel studs. Her face was high-boned and narrow, with her long, straight black hair hanging down on either side of it, and her skin was unnaturally pale. Her eyes glowed golden, without any trace of pupil, and her ears were pointed. If all that hadn’t been enough, the aristocratic arrogance that she radiated would itself have marked her as an elf. She smiled at me with slow, cold satisfaction at having put something over on a mere human. Elves live to mess with humans; it’s all they’ve got left.
The headless hounds stood up suddenly on their hind legs, and all of them were immediately elves. No transformations, no shape-shifting; just the dropping of a glamour. They were all smiling, and not in a good way. Which is pretty much what you’d expect from an elf. They smirked at one another and sneered at me, but it was still hard for me to take them too seriously . . . because they were all dressed in the height of Elizabethan fashion. Tights and doublets and thick pleated ruffs. Probably because that was the last time anyone had taken elves seriously. They all wore enchanted weapons at their sides. Glowing swords, and axes, and wicked daggers. I thought about the Colt Repeater on my hip, and then thought better of reaching for it. At least until I had a better idea of exactly what was going on here.
I folded my armoured arms across my golden chest and stood as tall as I could. “I should have known!” I said loudly. “You do so love to play games, don’t you? So, whose little elves are you? To whom do you owe allegiance? Queen Mab? Or King Oberon and Queen Titania? Are you of the Sundered Lands, or Shadows Fall? And I feel I should point out that Mab is quite definitely dead. And this time she won’t be coming back.”
“We serve no one,” said the elven lady; in a cold, harsh, thrilling voice. “We are all of us independent agents here. Free spirits, rogue elves.”
“Ah!” I said, as a sudden insight hit me. “That’s what you’re doing here, in the subtle realms, so far from the Courts . . . You’re on the run! You’re hiding out!”
“What’s that to you?” said the elven lady, smiling slowly, like a cat with a mouse caught between its paws. “What can it matter to you who we are, and who we once were? Do you think knowing such things will save you?”
“Do you really think you can kidnap a Drood and get away with it?” I countered. “To take on one of us is to take on all of us. And even Oberon and Titania in their place of power would hesitate to anger the entire Drood family.”
“We are elves! We dare anything! Especially when your precious family doesn’t have a clue where you are . . .”
I thought about mentioning Ethel, and then decided not to. You never know when you might need a trump card, or information to bargain with.
“There are long-standing pacts in place,” I said carefully, “Historical promises and agreements, made between the Drood family and elven royalty. Or can it be that you no longer acknowledge these pacts? Have the elves of this place forsaken honour?”
The elves standing around stirred angrily, only to fall still again as the elven lady glared quickly about her.
“Your family made those agreements with the old Courts, with Mab and Oberon and Titania,” she said. “We have all of us renounced those Courts, and are no longer bound by anything they may once have agreed to.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try something else. What am I doing here? Why bring me to this place, so far from anywhere?”
“Show me your face,” said the elven lady. “It has been a long time since I have seen your face.”
I was pretty sure I’d never seen her before, but I armoured down anyway. I could always bring it back if I needed it. But the moment my golden armour disappeared into my torc, and I stood revealed before them, a great roar of surprise went up from the elves, and the elven lady looked at me with something very like shock.
“You’re not Jack Drood!”
I had to raise an eyebrow at that. “Never said I was . . .”
The elven lady scowled at me dangerously. So did all the others. I glared right back at them. Never show any sign of weakness in front of an elf. They’ll only take advantage.
“What are you doing, driving Jack Drood’s car?” said the elven lady accusingly.
“I’m Eddie Drood, Jack’s nephew,” I said. “He gave me the car.”
She shook her head slowly. “You . . . are Edwin, son of Jack’s sister Emily? The last time I saw you, you were just a babe in arms.”
“What?” I said. “You knew me, as a child?”
“Yes. And here you are now, grown to a man’s estate.” The elf lady shook her head slowly. “How many years have passed, back on Earth?”
“Since when?” I said. “How long have you been here?”
“You were two years old,” she said. “I was there for your birthday. And that was the last time I saw Earth.”
“Ah,” I said. “Then it’s been thirty years.”
The elves all looked at one another, but I couldn’t read the expressions on their faces.
“Time moves differently in the subtle realms,” said the elf lady. “We forget that at our peril. I am Melanie Blaze, Eddie. I was married to your uncle James.”
I looked at her blankly for a long moment, honestly at a loss for what to say. Of course I knew her name, and her story. Of the one woman James truly loved; how she was never accepted by my family; and how she disappeared forever on a mission to . . . the subtle realms. At least now I knew why my family had never accepted the marriage. In the past, elves and Droods have defied tradition to get together in spite of all taboos and prejudice, the Blue Fairy being the most obvious result. But for the family’s greatest field agent, the legendary Grey Fox, to declare that he intended to marry a pure-blooded elf . . . No wonder they still wouldn’t talk about it. I realised that Melanie Blaze was still staring coldly at me, and I hurried to bring her up to date on the major changes in the family since she’d disappeared. Ending with the news that my parents, Charles and Emily, were missi
ng and I was looking for them.
“Would you happen to know where they are?” I said. “Have you seen them . . . here?”
“No,” said Melanie. “They’re not here.”
“I never knew you were an elf,” I said.
“Few ever did,” said Melanie. “Your family saw to that. Droods aren’t afraid of anything—except a scandal inside the family. Anything that might make them look weak—and human. Even though James and I were properly married. We had a special ceremony, at Saint Jude’s Church in the Nightside. Your uncle Jack was best man. Saint Jude is the patron saint of lost causes; it seemed appropriate. But your family would never accept that, so James could never take me home. Finally the family sent us on an urgent mission together. We thought that meant something. It did, but not what we thought. It should have been simple enough—a quick incursion into the subtle realms in pursuit of a rogue Drood who’d gone missing with a weapon she’d stolen from the Armageddon Codex.”
“I never heard anything about that either,” I said.
Melanie smiled briefly. “Your family does love its secrets. They sent us . . . because we were considered expendable. We tracked down the rogue Drood: Catherine. But if she ever had a Forbidden Weapon, she didn’t have it when we caught up with her, here. She had something else, though, something really nasty. And she didn’t hesitate to use it. Perhaps because she used it here, it nearly killed James, despite his armour. I had to send him home, and then stand my ground and duel Catherine to the death. When that was over, most of my power was gone, and I had drifted too far into the subtle realms. I was trapped here. I waited for James to return and rescue me. Or for the family to send help. But no one ever came.”