“What do you know about the Merlin Glass?” I said bluntly.
“I have been aware of it for some time,” said the Doormouse, not looking away. “Your uncle Jack and I do consult, from time to time, on occasion. On matters of . . . mutual interest. And I know something of the Glass’ history, of course. It is one of the great Mysteries of the world, after all. You didn’t know? I am surprised . . . The London Knights had the Merlin Glass under lock and key for centuries, until one of them returned it to your uncle Jack a few years back.”
“Wait a minute!” I said. “The London Knights had it? But Merlin gave the Glass to my family! Why did the Knights have it for so long? And why would they give it back?”
“Ask your uncle Jack,” said the Doormouse.
“No, wait, hold on just a minute,” I said. “I looked this up, in the family archives. Merlin Satanspawn made a gift of the Glass to my family, not the London bloody Knights!”
“Oh, he gave the Glass to the Droods, right enough,” said the Doormouse. “But your family knew, better than most, that you should always beware sorcerers bearing gifts. At some point, they chose to give the Glass to the London Knights. For safekeeping, perhaps? Or in return for . . . something else? I really don’t know. Perhaps you should go back and check your family archives more carefully . . .”
“Do you know why Merlin gave the Glass to my family in the first place?” I said.
The Doormouse looked at me, and if there was any expression on his furry face, I couldn’t read it. “If you don’t know, young Drood, I certainly don’t.”
He turned back to his work-bench, and reached out a fuzzy paw to the hand mirror. It slid smoothly away from him, across the bench. The Doormouse blinked a few times and then tried again, with his other paw. The hand mirror jerked back several inches, refusing to be touched. The Doormouse muttered something quite astonishingly obscene, and grabbed at the Glass with both paws. It shot back and forth across the bench, like a drop of water on a hot surface, avoiding his grasp no matter how quickly he moved. The Doormouse finally gave up and stood back, breathing hard.
“It has been acting up, just lately,” I said. “Almost as though it has a mind of its own. I was told . . . there might be something alive or aware, hiding or imprisoned, inside the mirror’s reflection. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything, but . . .”
“That’s Merlin Satanspawn for you,” said the Doormouse. “Always thinking three steps ahead of everyone else. I think . . . we need to take a closer look at this. Yes . . .”
He turned abruptly away from the work-bench, and hurried off to trot back and forth among the larger pieces of scientific equipment cluttering up his laboratory. He peered closely at some, patted others familiarly like old friends, rejecting one after another as he searched for something specific. There was something about the Doormouse’s laboratory that reminded me irresistibly of the Armourer’s workplace. Though thankfully there weren’t any little mouse lab assistants scuttling around. I took the opportunity to look closely at several half-finished Doors standing off to one side. Bits and pieces protruded, strange tech that made no sense at all to me. Some of the Doors’ insides were so complicated I couldn’t even seem to focus on them properly. As though they possessed too many spatial dimensions for the human mind to cope with.
Molly wandered around, prodding things, until I asked her very politely not to.
The Doormouse came back, huffing and puffing as he pushed a huge piece of equipment ahead of him. It looked a bit like one of those really big telescopes you see in observatories, except for all the ways in which it didn’t. The Doormouse pushed one end right up to the Merlin Glass, which was resting on the work-bench, apparently at peace for the moment, and then he retreated some distance, to peer through an eyepiece on the far end of the apparatus.
“What is that thing?” I muttered to Molly.
“Beats the hell out of me,” she murmured back. “Just looking at half the stuff in this place gives me a headache. Why did you have to get him started on the Glass? We could have been out of here by now!”
I shrugged. I didn’t really have an answer, except that I didn’t like not being able to trust something I’d come to depend on so much. I glared at the Merlin Glass, hoping it would stay put if I just kept my attention fixed on it. I half expected it to jump up off the work-bench, and try to force itself back into my pocket. The Doormouse had his furry face screwed right up, his eye jammed against the eyepiece of the thing that wasn’t a telescope. All the while muttering to himself and pulling distractedly at his whiskers. He finally came out from behind the thing and hurried over to stand with Molly and me. He glowered at the Merlin Glass, but didn’t try to touch it again.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What is?” said Molly. “What?”
The Doormouse looked at me carefully. “You’ve been using the Glass as a Door, mostly?”
“Yes,” I said. That much I was sure of.
“The Merlin Glass has a great many other functions and capabilities built into it,” said the Doormouse. “Some of which have apparently never been accessed, never mind activated. This is a very intricate piece of work . . . I looked inside it, and it just seemed to fall away forever . . . There are layers upon layers, levels within levels. Merlin always was ahead of his Time. I can’t even say for sure what the original purpose of the Glass was. What he intended it to do for the Droods. Or to them . . .”
“Is it . . . I don’t know—alive, or aware?” I said.
“I didn’t see anything to suggest that,” the Doormouse said carefully. “Though it does seem to have a strong survival instinct built in. I suppose Merlin thought it would need that if it was going to hang around with Droods.”
“Is there anyone, or anything, present in the reflection?” I said.
“Oh yes,” said the Doormouse quite casually. He seemed to be concentrating on something else. “I saw it, briefly, looking back at me. Don’t know what it was, though. Or why it’s there. It seemed to be hiding from my equipment, though before today I would have said that was impossible. So! The Merlin Glass has been operating quite efficiently as a Door?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then I should just use it for that,” said the Doormouse.
“So there’s nothing to worry about, with the Glass?” said Molly.
“I didn’t say that,” said the Doormouse. “I’m just fed up looking at it. Damn thing’s given me a headache.”
I picked up the hand mirror from the work-bench. It didn’t try to avoid my touch. I looked into the mirror, and my reflection stared innocently back at me. I looked carefully at what lay behind me in the reflection, but I couldn’t see anyone, or anything, that shouldn’t be there. I put the Glass away.
And then we all looked round sharply, as a heavy iron bell began to toll loudly somewhere in the background. The Doormouse’s ears stood straight up, and he clasped his paws together in front of him, almost as though he was praying. His eyes were very wide.
“What is that?” said Molly.
“The cloister bell,” said the Doormouse. “General alarm. Panic stations. Something bad is coming, so run like hell while you’ve still got a chance.”
He sprinted out of his laboratory and into the Showroom, not even glancing back to see if Molly and I were following. I had to run at full pelt just to catch up with him, while Molly pounded determinedly along behind me. The Doormouse shot through the Storeroom and back into his reception area, and then slammed to a halt so suddenly I almost crashed into him. He stood very still, head up and whiskers at a slant. Molly caught up with me, clapped a hand on my shoulder, and leaned heavily on me.
“What?” she said breathlessly. “What the hell . . . is going on?”
“Someone is trying to force their way into my establishment,” said the Doormouse. He was staring down the length of the reception area, his gaze fixed on his front door. “Even though I put up the Closed sign! People have no manners these days . . .”
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He moved slowly forward, trembling and twitching. I gestured to Molly, and we moved forward on either side of him. The closed front door had a large section of frosted glass, through which I could just make out a single dark shape standing outside. It looked human, and it didn’t seem to be moving. But there was something about the shape . . . like one of those indistinct threatening figures you see in nightmares, full of awful significance. And the iron bell was still tolling mournfully in the background.
“Is this the Door that gives you access to the Nightside?” Molly said quietly to the Doormouse.
“Yes,” he said, staring transfixed at the shape outside his door. “I don’t care who that is. They can’t get in. They can’t! No one could get through all the layers of protection I’ve put in place! It’s just not possible . . .”
There was a loud, harsh sound, like a great pane of glass shattering. Followed by another, and another.
“He’s breaking through my shields!” said the Doormouse, almost hysterically. “Even Walker couldn’t do that!”
“Do you want to run?” said Molly, practical as ever. “Choose a Door and just disappear?”
“I can’t,” whispered the Doormouse. “This is my place. My shop, my home. I won’t be driven out of my own home.”
“You work for the Droods,” I said. “That means you’re protected by the Droods. No one messes with anything that belongs to us. You stand your ground, Mouse. If they want to get to you, they have to get past me first.”
“I find that a perfectly acceptable arrangement,” said the Doormouse.
He reached inside his lab coat, and produced a monocle, a single gleaming lens set in old ivory. He screwed the thing into his left eye, and studied the door before him. And the dark figure standing motionless on the other side. The Doormouse scowled, concentrating, and then he straightened up suddenly, his eyes wide and staring. The monocle fell out, and he caught it absently and tucked it away again.
“Oh hell,” he said miserably. “It’s him.”
“Run?” said Molly.
“No point,” said the Doormouse. “There’s nowhere we could go where he couldn’t find us.”
The front door swung open, quite casually, and in walked a man I’d never met before, and never wanted to. There are people in my line of work, people who operate exclusively in the hidden world, that everyone knows about but no one ever wants to meet in person. Hadleigh Oblivion, the Detective Inspectre, was very definitely one of those people. He stopped just inside the reception area, and smiled politely at the Doormouse and Molly and me. As though he’d just dropped in to see how we were. The front door slowly closed itself behind him. I suddenly realised the iron bell had stopped tolling, as though it had realised there just wasn’t any point any more. The enemy was inside the gates, the wolf in the fold. I looked at Molly.
“I know who that is,” I said.
“So do I,” said Molly.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” I said.
“You have no idea,” said the Doormouse.
“He used to be Walker,” said Molly, staring steadily at Hadleigh. “He used to represent the Authorities, here in the Nightside. All through the Sixties and into the Seventies, Hadleigh Oblivion was The Man. And then something happened . . . that he has never been able to talk about. Something too extreme even for the Nightside. He was never the same afterwards. He went a bit strange, they say, and gave up being Walker to walk his own path. Strange and awful paths, forbidden even in the Nightside.
“And then, they say, Hadleigh went underground. All the way underground. He studied at the Deep School, the Dark Acadamie, the one place you can go to study the true nature of reality. He came back disturbingly powerful, and strangely transfigured. He walks in shadows now, between Life and Death, Light and Dark, Law and Chaos. The Detective Inspectre, who only ever investigates the very worst crimes, where reality itself is under threat.”
“You know a lot about him,” I said.
“Know thy enemy,” said Molly.
“But . . . do you really believe all that?”
“No one knows what to believe when it comes to Hadleigh Oblivion,” said Molly. “Except that he is seriously scary. And if I’m saying that . . .”
“We can stop him,” I said. “I mean, come on, you’re Molly Metcalf and I’m Eddie Drood!”
“Eddie, I don’t think you or I could even slow him down, on the best day we ever had.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s what comes of spending too much time in the Nightside. You start to believe all the weird shit they talk here. Besides, if he only turns up when reality itself is threatened, what the hell is he doing here?”
“I have a horrible suspicion we are about to find out,” said the Doormouse.
“I am still very much in favour of beating a hasty retreat,” said Molly.
“Molly . . .”
“This is Hadleigh Oblivion!” said Molly.
“No point in running,” the Doormouse said glumly. “Wherever we ran to, he’d already be there, waiting for us. No one escapes the Detective Inspectre. I’d wet myself if this wasn’t a new carpet.”
“Why?” I said, honestly baffled by their reaction. “All right, he’s got a bad rep. I’ve heard some of the things he’s supposed to have been involved in. But what’s so special about him? What can he do?”
“Anything he wants,” said the Doormouse.
I glared at the man still standing patiently before us. “Well?” I said loudly. “Is any of that stuff true?”
“Believe it,” said Hadleigh Oblivion. “I am the man who can’t be stopped, or turned aside. The man who will do whatever is necessary, whatever the cost. It says so on my business cards. I am the Detective Inspectre, Eddie Drood, and you should not have come here.”
He smiled calmly at me, not moving at all, wearing a long black leather coat so dark it seemed to have been made from a piece of the night itself. He had a bone white face, a long mane of jet-black hair, deep-set unblinking eyes, and a coldly cheerful, colourless mouth. He looked as though he was contemplating doing awful things in the name of the Good, and enjoying them. He looked starkly black and white, because there was no room left in him for shades of grey. He gave the impression that wherever he was, that was where he was supposed to be. He appeared surprisingly young, barely into his twenties, though if he’d been Walker in the Sixties, he would have to be in his eighties now.
Power burned in him. I didn’t need my mask to see it.
“What did they do to you, Hadleigh?” said Molly. “Down in the Deep School, in the Dark Acadamie?”
“They opened my eyes,” said Hadleigh Oblivion.
“What are you doing here?” I said bluntly. “What do you want?”
He ignored me, turning the full force of his dark eyes on the Doormouse, who shuddered suddenly.
“Hello, Mouse. Been a while, hasn’t it? Made any more Doors you shouldn’t have?”
The Doormouse looked startled. “How did you know about that?”
“I know everything,” said Hadleigh. “It’s in my job description.”
“Everything?” I said, not even trying to hide my scepticism.
“Well,” Hadleigh said easily, “everything I need to know.”
“Whatever Doors the Doormouse may or may not have made,” I said, “that’s Drood business. And we will deal with it.”
“We?” murmured Hadleigh. “But you have been declared rogue, Eddie Drood. Rejected and repudiated by your family. And you have entered the Nightside illegally, in defiance of long-standing pacts and obligations.”
“No, he hasn’t!” Molly said immediately, ready as always to defend me. “The House of Doors isn’t in the Nightside, not as such. In fact, by walking through that Door into the Doormouse’s establishment, technically speaking you have left the Nightside! So you don’t have any jurisdiction here, do you?”
“That is a technicality,” said Hadleigh. “But let us agree that we are all of us outside the Night
side. It doesn’t matter. Unfortunately for all of you, I have jurisdiction wherever I go.”
“Who gave it to you?” Molly challenged him.
“It was decided where all the things that matter are decided,” said Hadleigh. “In the Courts of the Holy, on the Shimmering Planes. And in the Houses of Pain, in the depths of the Pit.”
None of us had any answer to that. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about the situation.
“I won’t let you take me back to my family,” I said.
“Dear Eddie,” murmured Hadleigh. “Always so single-minded. That’s not why I’m here. It has been brought to my attention that you and the witch are looking to gain possession of that most unpleasant of Mysteries, the Lazarus Stone. And that is a threat to reality itself. Because it can rewrite and undo History. No man or woman was ever supposed to have such power. It always ends badly. You can’t be allowed to have it, Eddie Drood.”
“I don’t want it for myself,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Hadleigh. “No one can be allowed to possess the Lazarus Stone.”
“What about the Lady Faire?” said Molly.
“She never wanted to use it,” said Hadleigh. “So it was safe enough with her.”
“You don’t understand why I need it!” I said.
“I don’t care,” said Hadleigh. “No man or woman can be trusted with the Lazarus Stone.”
“Not even you?” said Molly.
“I would only want it to destroy it,” said Hadleigh. “Now, you must come with me, Eddie Drood.”
“So you can hand me over to the Authorities?” I said. “You think my family will stand for that? Rogue or no rogue?”
“I haven’t served the Authorities in a long time,” said Hadleigh. “You must come with me, to the Deep School.”
And something in the way he said that, and something in the way Molly reacted, sent a cold chill racing down my spine.
“Why?” I said. “Because your people have always wanted to get their hands on a Drood torc? On Drood armour?”
“No, Eddie,” said Hadleigh, still smiling that cold, calm smile. “Because we have always wanted to get our hands on a Drood. We have so much to learn—from your flesh, your armour, and your mind. Your history and your secrets. Your education is about to begin, Eddie. I can’t promise you’ll enjoy it, but it will . . . open your eyes. The Dark Acadamie will make a new man out of you.”