And one by one they faded away, unable to face the certainty in my gaze.
“Harsh words, Eddie,” said one final familiar voice. “Hard and harsh, even cold-blooded. I always knew you were an agent, but I never knew you were such a successful assassin.”
Philip MacAlpine of MI-13 stood before me, middle-aged and rumpled, but still every inch the professional spy.
I glared right back at him. “What the hell are you doing here? Did someone in your own department finally shoot you in the back?”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know? You must allow me my little secrets, even if you can’t be allowed to hang onto yours. It’s your own fault, Eddie; you shouldn’t have led such an interesting life. Or acquired so many fascinating secrets. You must have known you couldn’t hang onto them forever. You mustn’t be greedy, Eddie. You must be a good boy and learn to share. Tell Walker what you know. Or you can tell me, if that’s easier.”
I laughed in his face. “Yeah, right. That’ll be the day. At least Walker has some integrity in him. You sold your soul long ago, to any number of masters. I wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
“How very hurtful,” murmured Philip. “We’re not really so different, Eddie. Both of us secret agents, operating in the shadows because we don’t belong in the light. You served an ancient family with its own hidden agenda, while I was a blunt instrument for government policy. Doing all the hard and dirty things that needed to be done to hold the world together. And perhaps manage a few good deeds along the way, when we could.”
“The difference between us is that I took the bigger view,” I said. “I never let politics get in the way of what needed to be done. I protected Humanity from those who would prey on it. Which, as often as not, turned out to be politicians.”
“We don’t all have that luxury,” said Philip. “Must be nice to look down on us like gods and decide what’s best for us, while the rest of us scrabble around in the gutter, getting our hands dirty from all the rotten little jobs you can’t be bothered with. You can make as big a mess as you like, with your marvellous golden armour, stepping in to save the day and then disappearing, leaving the rest of us to clean up after you. Well, now all your sins have come home to roost, Eddie. You’ve upset a lot of very important persons, and now that you’re . . . vulnerable, they’re determined to wring you dry. They want everything you know, and they will get it, sooner or later. You’re a prisoner here, with no armour and no family to protect you. You’re on your own, Eddie, facing a legion of tormentors.”
“And if I don’t feel like talking?” I said.
“It’s the only way you’ll ever get out of here,” said Philip. “Wouldn’t you like to be free of all this? Free to lie down and rest, and be at peace at last?”
“Peace is overrated,” I said. “And why should I want to leave? This is my home, isn’t it? My family home, Drood Hall. Needs a bit of cleaning up, got to fix the boiler, and there’re a whole bunch of gate-crashers I have to give the bum’s rush to. . . .”
Philip scowled at me. “You are in the hands of your enemies, Eddie. You can’t stop them. They are endless, they are multitudes, they are legion. They will be at your back and at your throat and they will never stop coming for you, forever and ever and ever. By hook or by crook, they’ll tear every secret you know out of you, even the ones you didn’t know you knew, and they will laugh at your screams as they do it.”
“Over my dead body,” I said.
I punched him in the face. I meant it as a gesture of defiance, expecting my clenched fist to pass straight through him, but it collided with solid flesh and bone. I heard his nose break, and saw blood fly from his pulped mouth, and it felt good, so good. Philip fell backwards, crying out in shock and pain. I laughed out loud as I strode past him and out of the Sanctity. For the first time, I felt like I was getting a handle on the situation.
The moment I left the Sanctity I was back in the entrance hall again, approaching the firmly closed doors. Walker was still there, smiling easily at me, leaning on his rolled umbrella. He stood between me and the doors, blocking my way. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
“I’ll never talk,” I said. “You of all people should understand. My secrets don’t belong only to me; they belong to the family. Our secrets keep people safe, keep people alive, help protect them from people like you and your secret lords and masters. I wouldn’t let my family down while I was alive, and I’m damned if I’ll do it now. Droods stand between Humanity and their enemies, alive or dead.”
“I have my Voice,” said Walker. “The Voice that commands and cannot be disobeyed. I could make you tell me.”
“No, you couldn’t,” I said. “Because if you could, you would have done it by now. You can’t con a con man, Walker.”
“Perhaps,” said Walker. “But I was always so much more than just a man with a commanding Voice. I have always known a great many unpleasant ways to make people tell me what I need to know.”
I believed that. I backed slowly away as Walker advanced on me. I was thinking hard, looking all around me, trying hard to call up any information I had about the Hall that Walker couldn’t possibly know. Something I could use against him. The painted portraits on the walls caught my attention. The images were moving, changing, faces with crazy eyes and distorted expressions. Becoming nightmare images, glimpses into Hell, as though all my ancestors were trapped and damned and suffering. I turned my head away, refusing to believe that.
Matthew and Alexandra appeared again, walking down the long hall towards me.
“Go on,” said Alexandra. “Kill us again. You know you want to. But you can’t. Tell Walker what he wants to know.”
“I didn’t kill either of you,” I said, and then stopped and stared at them both as that thought struck home. I hadn’t killed them; Jacob had. But these two hadn’t known that, so they couldn’t be who they appeared to be. Jacob and Uncle James had both said not everyone in this Hall was who or what they appeared to be. . . .
“You’re not real,” I said firmly. “I don’t believe in you.”
I glared at Matthew and Alexandra, and they faded away in the face of my certainty. I turned and looked at Walker.
“Just you and me now, Walker. Or perhaps it always was. If you are Walker.”
He considered me thoughtfully, as we stood facing each other. Two men in an empty hall, the prisoner and his inquisitor. Walker sighed briefly, and adjusted one spotless cuff.
“There’s nowhere you can go, Eddie. And I have all the time in the world to break your will and learn what I need to know. Everyone talks, eventually.”
“Use your Voice,” I said. “Go on. But you can’t, can you? Because you’re not really Walker. And this isn’t Drood Hall. Is anything here real? Is anyone? Or is this all just a clash of wills between me and whoever you really are? You can’t get anything out of me unless I offer it freely, and I’ll never do that.”
“Never is a long time,” said Walker. “I can walk out of here, go about my business, and come back whenever I please. Might be a few days, or a few years, maybe even a few centuries. Or perhaps I’ll stay away until you’re so desperate for another human voice, for human contact, that you’ll beg me to come back. Beg to tell me everything you know, to relieve the awful solitude. Hell isn’t other people, Eddie. Hell is an empty house, forever and ever and ever.”
“And I will always defy you,” I said. “Forever and a day. Remember the Drood oath: ‘Anything for the family.’ We mean it, Walker. That’s what makes us strong, not our armour.”
“Anything for the family?” said Walker. “I think I believe you, Eddie. Ah, well.” He tipped his bowler hat to me and started to turn away.
“Hold it,” I said. “Are you really Walker? Are you really dead? Am I?”
He smiled vaguely. “Who can say, in a place like this?”
“If I am dead,” I said, “and this is a place of the dead . . . why haven’t I seen my parents?”
??
?Charles and Emily?” said Walker. “Whatever makes you think they’re dead?”
He opened the doors, stepped through them, and was gone. I started after him, and then stopped short as a great blaze of pure white light swelled up before me. And out of that light stepped Molly: my sweet, wild witch, Molly Metcalf. She smiled widely at me, rushed forward, and threw her arms around me, holding me tight, so tight I thought she’d never let me go. I held her just as tightly, even as a terrible sadness stabbed my heart like a knife.
“Oh, Molly,” I said finally. “How did you die? Who killed you, to send you here?”
She let go of me immediately, and pushed me back so she could stare into my eyes. “I’m not dead, sweetie. Neither are you. Though you came bloody close.”
“So this isn’t Drood Hall? Or some cold place in Hell?”
“Not even close,” said Molly. “This is Limbo. And I am here to take you home.”
She embraced me again, and the light blazed up, and finally I felt warm again.
CHAPTER TWO
No Place Like Home
And I woke up safe in my Molly’s arms, bursting back into consciousness like a swimmer rising up from the depths and breaking the surface of the sea. I was back in the real Hall, back in the real Sanctity, basking in Ethel’s rose red glow, sitting up on the floor beside Molly, surrounded by my family. The Armourer was there, my uncle Jack, a middle-aged man in a stained lab coat, looking shocked and concerned but trying to hide it. The Sarjeant-at-Arms, big and brutal and permanently angry. My cousin Harry, slick and supercilious in his neat grey suit and wire-rimmed glasses. And my other cousin, Roger Morningstar, the half-breed hellspawn, dark and sardonic in his Armani suit. And Molly. My sweet, wild witch and free spirit, a delicate china doll with big bosoms, bobbed black hair, and a mouth red as sin. My own true love, for my sins.
She looked intently into my eyes, trying to keep the anxiety out of her smile, one arm round my shoulders, the other hand patting my chest comfortingly. I managed a shaky smile for her, and we leaned forward so our foreheads touched, resting against each other. I felt safe and happy, and so damned alive I might burst apart into clouds of sheer joie de vivre at any moment. Brief shivers and shudders came and went, and I was breathing hard, but the cold was slowly seeping out of me, replaced by Molly’s warmth and the uncomplicated comfort of Ethel’s rose red light.
I was home again.
I remembered everything now. Remembered the Immortal bursting into the Sanctity, disguised as Molly’s sister Isabella. A transformation so perfect it even fooled the Hall’s many layers of defences. I remembered the Immortal stabbing me. How the knife felt as it sank into my flesh and pierced my heart. Remembered the pain and the blood, and falling, and dying . . . I clutched at my chest, and fresh blood ran down my wrist as I crushed the torn shirtfront with my hand. The whole of my shirt was soaked in blood. But when I pushed the material aside, the skin underneath was undamaged. I ran my fingers over my chest, searching for the deep wound I remembered, but it was completely healed. I felt fine. I looked at Molly.
“It’s all right, Eddie,” she said, reassuring me with her eyes and her smile as well as her words. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine now.”
“Look at this shirt,” I said numbly. “Ruined. And it was my favourite shirt, too.”
“I never liked it,” said Molly.
“You never said. . . . All right. I’m back. Now, what the hell just happened?”
The Armourer moved in and offered me his hand. I grabbed onto it, and he hauled me to my feet. My legs threatened to shake for a moment, and then steadied. Molly stood close beside me, in case I needed her. The Armourer looked me over closely, and then pulled me into his arms and hugged me fiercely.
“I thought we’d lost you, Eddie; I really did. And I couldn’t bear the thought of your being dead. I’ve lost too many already.”
I hugged him back, awkwardly. We’ve never been a touchy-feely family. He let go of me abruptly and stood back, in control again.
“Do you remember what happened, Eddie? While you were . . . gone?”
“I was in Drood Hall,” I said slowly, “but it wasn’t the real Hall. It was a cold, empty place . . . full of dead people. Walker was there, and Grandmother, and Uncle James.”
“A near-death experience?” said Harry. “How very fashionable.”
He shut up as the Armourer glared at him. “Fascinating,” Uncle Jack said briskly. “I’ve always wanted to record one of those. What did James have to say to you? Did he forgive you?”
“We forgave each other,” I said.
“You weren’t really dead, as such,” Molly said quickly. “Your spirit was in Limbo. And not everyone you encountered there was necessarily who or what they appeared to be. And Walker almost definitely wasn’t Walker.”
“Might have been,” said the Armourer. “He’s dead, all right. I got a letter.”
“What happened to him?” I said.
“Someone killed him. An old enemy, or an old friend. Possibly both. It’s like that in the Nightside. So I’m told.”
“He still shouldn’t have been there with you, Eddie,” said Molly. “Not if you were in a semblance of Drood Hall. He’s never been here.”
Roger Morningstar sniffed loudly. “You don’t understand Limbo any more than I do, Molly. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell, not a place for the living or the dead: more of a spiritual waiting room . . . a place between places. Who knows who has access to it? If the living can enter, why not the dead? It could be that everyone you saw there, Eddie, was exactly who they seemed to be.”
“You do so love to stir it, don’t you?” said Molly. “Trust you to play Devil’s advocate.”
“And trust you, Eddie, to have a near-death experience that’s completely unlike everyone else’s,” said Harry.
“Back to life for only a few minutes, and already you’re annoying the crap out of me, Harry,” I said. “Now button your lip while the grown-ups talk, or I’ll supply you with a near-death experience of your own. Ethel? Are you there?”
“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!” said the disembodied voice of our very own other-dimensional entity. “Where did you go? I couldn’t see you anywhere, and I can see into dimensions you people don’t even know exist!”
“The Hall was very different without you,” I said. “So cold . . . I called, but you couldn’t hear me.”
“How terrible for you,” said Ethel, completely sincerely.
“Yes,” I said. “It was.”
I started to shake again. Molly quickly slipped an arm through mine and squeezed it against her. The Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped forward and glared at both of us.
“I demand an explanation as to what exactly happened! Why aren’t you dead, Eddie?”
“Try not to sound so disappointed, Cedric,” I murmured. “Though I think I could use an explanation myself. Molly?”
“You were stabbed through the heart,” said Molly. “But you were never completely dead. Try not to be too mad at me, Eddie. I did it for your own good.”
“Did what?” I said. “Tell me.”
“Like every other witch,” Molly said carefully, “at the start of my career I worked a very special magic to store my heart somewhere else, technically separate from my body, but still connected. And then I hid my heart somewhere very safe and secure and secret, so my enemies could never find it. And as long as my heart remains separate, I am very hard to kill. I can recover from every wound, every attack, no matter how apparently deadly. That’s how I survived that assault by the Drood mob stirred up by the Immortals.” She glared at the Sarjeant there, and he had the grace to look a little guilty. He’s supposed to prevent things like that from happening. Molly took a deep breath. “I performed the same magic on you, Eddie, some time ago.”
“What? Without even telling me?” I said, rather loudly.
“Yes!” said Molly, meeting my fierce gaze with her own. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this! I knew you wouldn?
??t agree if I suggested the idea to you, even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do . . . and I wasn’t prepared to risk losing you. So I did it while you were asleep. Because I needed you to be safe.”
“When, exactly, did you do this?” I said. “How long ago?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” said Molly, folding her arms firmly below her breasts. “Not until you’ve calmed down a little. Or perhaps even a lot.”
“I can’t approve of this,” the Sarjeant said flatly. “A Drood’s heart in the hands of an outsider? Completely unacceptable! As long as the witch knows where your heart is hidden and you don’t, she’ll always have power over you.”
“He does have a point,” said the Armourer. “What if the two of you had a big row? Or even split up?”
I looked at Molly. “The things we do for love . . . My heart belongs to the family. That’s the way it has to be. You have to put it back.”
“Oh, all right,” said Molly, pouting. “Men. Never appreciate anything you do for them. There. It’s back.”
I looked down at my chest. “Just like that?”
“Of course! It’s no big deal. One of the first magics I learned. Your heart was never actually missing, after all. It was . . . separate. And safe.”
“Did you check it for cholesterol?” said the Armourer.
Molly glared at him. “I’m a witch, not a cardiologist!”
“All right, all right! Only asking! We do have a problem with cholesterol levels in the family, and I was just wondering if . . . Shutting up right now. Sorry.”
I didn’t feel any different. A thought occurred to me, and I looked consideringly at Molly. “Where exactly did you put my heart? Tell me you didn’t hide it in that private forest of yours, with all those overintelligent and highly curious animals. What if one of the squirrels had dug it up while looking for nuts? You know the squirrels have never approved of me!”
Molly gave me her best haughty glare. “We are definitely not discussing this until you are in a much calmer state. And don’t even think of raising your voice to me like that if you ever expect to see me naked again.”