Daemons Are Forever

CHAPTER ELEVEN About Time

When it came to my using the Time Train, the Inner Circle was right behind me. Fortunately, I was able to shake them off thanks to some fast running, and my superior knowledge of the Hall’s shortcuts and side passages. They really should have known better than to order me not to use the Time Train, under any circumstances. I’ve always had this problem with authority figures, even now that I am one. I left their raised voices behind me, and headed quickly for the rear of the Hall, and the old hangar where the family keeps those past mechanical marvels we have more sense than to try and use nowadays.

I reached out with my thoughts through my silver torc, and made mental contact with Strange.

“Hi there!” said Strange. “Did you know the Sarjeant-at-Arms is looking for you? And the rest of your Inner Circle?”

“The fact has not escaped me,” I said. “I need you to run a diversion for me. You game?”

“Of course! I could use a little fun. Your family is all very worthy, Eddie, but a lot of them really are very solemn.”

“Trust me; I had noticed. All right, I need you to broadcast the news that everyone in the family is to get their new torcs. The Inner Circle and I just decided. You still okay with that?”

“Oh sure; the more the merrier, I say.”

“Good. Then spread the good news, and tell everyone they need to come to the Sanctity right now.” I grinned. “That should block the corridors nicely, and keep the Circle from interfering with what I’ve got planned.”

“Oh dear,” said Strange. “Are you about to do something desperate and dangerous again?”

“Of course. Mind the store while I’m gone, Strange.”

“Please, call me Ethel.”

“Over my dead and lifeless body.”

To my surprise, when I finally got to the rear of the Hall, avoiding the main corridors that were already filling up with cheering family members, Molly was already there waiting for me. She greeted me with a fond embrace and a smug smile.

“How did you know I was going to be here?” I said.

“Honestly, sweetie, I am a witch, remember? Sorry it took me so long to get away, but Penny took a lot of talking to. I think I finally managed to beat some sense into her pretty little head. There’s no one more stubborn than a secret romantic. Especially one who’s taken it on herself to redeem the unredeemable.”

“Has she agreed to stop seeing Mr. Stab?” I said.

“Well, not as such,” said Molly. “The best I could get out of her was an agreement never to meet with him alone.”

I nodded reluctantly. “Penny always was stubborn. Runs in the family. Baffles me what she sees in him anyway.”

“I suppose it’s like those sad, desperate women who want to marry serial killers in prison,” said Molly. “Women always believe they can change a man, bring out the good in him through the power of their love. Some just like more of a challenge, I suppose. And Mr. Stab does have that dark, dangerous, vulnerable thing going for him. I know, I know, don’t look at me like that; I do know he’s been slaughtering and butchering women for over a century… but there is more to him than that, Eddie. I have seen him do … good things. So have you.”

“He’s Mr. Stab,” I said. “He kills women. That’s what he does. If he hurts Penny…”

“He won’t,” said Molly. “He’s never hurt a friend of mine.”

“If he kills her, I’ll kill him. Friend of yours or not.”

“If it comes to that, I’ll help you,” said Molly. “So, why are we here, Eddie?”

I gestured at the long steel-and-glass hangar, standing tall and proud at the rear of the Hall, though set a discreet distance away. It was a wide, steel-girdered construction, with an arching glass roof, big enough to hold several football matches in simultaneously. The family never does things by halves, even when it comes to museums hardly anyone visits anymore. I took Molly’s arm in mine and led her towards the open entrance.

“I’ve located a very useful ally in the future,” I said. “Unfortunately, he’s so far ahead of us that we’re going to have to go and get him in person. And for that, we need the Time Train.”

“Just the two of us?” said Molly.

“Well,” I said, “I did ask for volunteers, but the response was disappointing. Apparently everyone else had more sense. Time travel is always dangerous, and no one’s actually used the Time Train in ages. Probably with good reason. It’s not the most… reliable device the family ever built. If you’d prefer to stay behind, I’d quite understand. I’d stay behind if I could find anyone daft enough to go in my place.”

Molly hugged my arm firmly to her side. “Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere without me?”

I grinned at her. “I really like this being an item thing.”

“You romantic devil, you. Flatter me with your silver tongue, why don’t you?”

“Together, forever,” I said. “How about that?”

“Forever and ever and ever,” said Molly.

I led her into the long hangar. It’s a huge place, packed full of all the early technological wonders produced down the ages by family Armourers with a bee in their bonnet. It had to be said: Both the museum and its exhibits had known better days. The inner walls were cracked and discoloured, and dull yellow sunlight fell through glass panels left cloudy and spotted by age and neglect. This was just a storage space now, for things whose time had moved on. Strange and wondrous artefacts that had once been ahead of their time, now overtaken and forgotten.

Like the 1880s Moon Launch Cannon, only used once. And the oversized Moleship, basically just a steel cabin with a bloody big diamond-studded drill head mounted on the front. It had been constructed to investigate the interior of the earth, back in the days when people still believed in the Hollow Earth theory. The hulking exhibit before us was actually Mole II, built so the family could go looking for whatever had happened to Mole I. In the end it never got used, because we had to fill in and block off the original tunnel after something big and nasty from the lower depths tried to crawl back up it.

“And we used to have a giant mechanical spider,” I said, leading Molly through the exhibits. “We confiscated it from some American mad genius, back in the Wild West. Not entirely sure what happened to it. I think it ran away.”

“Boys and their toys,” said Molly, smiling sweetly. “You’ll be boasting about the size of your engines next. Why keep all this stuff if you never use it anymore?”

“Because the family never lets go of anything that belongs to it,” I said. “Besides, this is history. It’s… interesting. Not to mention instructive. And you never know when you might need something again. Better to have a thing and not need it, than need it and not have it. Like the Time Train… I only remembered it was here because I used to love reading about things like that when I was a kid, and sloping off from my lessons.”

We weren’t alone in the hangar. A dozen or so men and women in scruffy overalls fussed around various exhibits, tinkering with the machinery or just polishing and cleaning them to within an inch of their lives. None of them looked at us, as long as we were careful to maintain a respectful distance. Molly gestured at them, and raised an eyebrow.

“Enthusiasts,” I said. “They all volunteer to work here in their spare time. All obsessed with a particular period, or device. They keep the exhibits in order, just for the joy of it. Express the slightest interest in their particular pride and joy, and they’ll talk your ear off.”

“Now, let me be sure I’ve got this right,” said Molly. “This Time Train you want to use… No one’s actually taken it out of the hangar in ages, it’s pretty damned dangerous even when it’s working properly, and the only guarantee we have it’ll work at all is some dedicated amateur technician? Have I missed anything? You are not filling me with confidence here, Eddie.”

By now we’d reached the Time Train, and the sheer size of the thing dwarfed all the other exhibits. The Time Train itself was a big, black, old-fashioned steam engine, gleaming and glistening like the night, with luxurious silver and brass fittings, all of them buffed and polished to a cheery warm glow. Haifa dozen luxury Pullman coaches, in the familiar milk chocolate and cream livery, stretched away behind the coal tender. A quick peek through the coaches’ curtained windows revealed a whole other world of seats and fittings whose quality would have shamed the Orient Express in its heyday. The family never did believe in doing things by half. The huge black engine towered over us like a sleeping beast, only waiting to be roused. A tall gangling individual appeared suddenly in the cab and smiled bashfully down at us.

“Oh hello,” he said. “Visitors, how nice. We don’t get many visitors, old Ivor and me. Ivor is the engine, you see.”

“Yes,” I said. “I had a hunch it might be. Molly, allow me to present to you the family’s one and only expert steam train engineer: Tony Drood. Latest in a long line of such enthusiasts, right Tony?”

“Oh yes,” he said, clambering agilely down the gleaming steel ladder on the side of the cab to join us. He had to be in his late fifties, though his hair was still suspiciously jet-black. He wore a set of grubby overalls, and his hands and face were covered with dirty smudges from whatever he’d just been working on. He finally stood before us, smiling and bobbing his head just a bit shyly. “An honour to meet you both, Edwin and Miss Molly. Can’t remember the last time anyone of quality came to see us, eh, Ivor, old thing?”

He reached up and fondly patted the bulging black steel chamber.

“Ivor really is very…impressive,” said Molly, and Tony beamed at her as though she’d just taken a thorn out of his paw.

“Impressive he is indeed, Miss Molly, and that is no lie. I have made it my business to see that he is kept spotless, and in perfect working order, ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Ready to go anywhere, anywhen?” I said. “Even into the far future?”

“All of time is at your disposal,” said Tony, just a bit grandly. “Ivor can take you back to the dawn of the world, or up any of the future timetracks. You do understand about parallel future histories… of course you do, we’ve all seen Star Trek. Though I always preferred the original series. Where was I? Oh yes, Ivor is fully functional and raring to go! He can do the Kessel run in under five centuries!”

“He’s still a bit… ancient, though, isn’t he?” said Molly.

Tony glowered at her. “Do not listen to her, Ivor! She is a philistine, and knows no better. I will have you know, Miss Molly, this engine was built back in the days when they still valued skill and craftsmanship, as well as efficiency. This is no modern soulless device; this is Ivor, the Time Train! A comfortable and civilised way to travel in time. I tell you, Miss Molly, Ivor could still do the family proud, given half a chance.”

“Funny you should say that, Tony,” I said. “As it turns out, you are in a position to do me and the family a great service. I think it’s well past time Ivor was allowed out for a little trip.”

Tony grinned so broadly it must have hurt his cheeks, and actually wrung his hands together in his enthusiasm. “Just say the word, Edwin! I’ve waited all my life for a chance to take the old boy out and show what he can do! No one in the family’s authorised use of the Time Train since my grandfather took her out, at the end of the nineteenth century.” His face fell, and he looked at Molly and me just a little guiltily. “An unfortunate business, that… Bit of a disaster all around, really. The last Matriarch but three, Catherine Drood that was, got a bee in her bonnet that one of the Old Ones was waking up, down on some obscure little island in the southern hemisphere. And nothing would do but that grandfather take the newly invented Time Train back into the recent past, with a team of expert specialists, to shut the Old One down before it could properly awaken. Of course it all went horribly wrong. Turned out that it was the energies generated by Ivor’s arrival that woke the Old One up in the first place… One thing led to another, and in the end grandfather and his team had no choice but to blow up the whole damned island to seal the Old One back in its tomb.

“Krakatoa, the island was called. Anyway, Ivor got all the blame, which was really quite unfair, and he’s been out of favour ever since.”

“Hold everything,” said Molly. “If no one’s taken the Train out since the nineteenth century, does this mean you’ve never actually driven the thing yourself?”

“Well, no, not as such,” said Tony. “But I know all I need to know! The care and handling of Ivor is a sacred trust, miss, handed down from father to son for generations. A family within the family, you might say. Rest assured that I have read every one of the manuals, and my grandfather’s journals, and I know all the workings of Ivor inside and out. Don’t you worry, miss! Old Ivor’s just straining at the traces, raring for the off! Aren’t you, old boy!”

He slapped the black steel familiarly, and Molly and I both jumped a little as Ivor let loose a sudden blast of steam from his funnel, as though in response. Maybe it was. Wouldn’t be the first time the family built something that turned out to have a mind of its own.

Don’t even get me started about the sentient water cooler that was supposed to know when you were thirsty; drowned three people before we could wrestle it to the ground.

“Let’s get going,” I said briskly. “Build up your pressure, or whatever it is you need to do, and full steam ahead to the future!”

Tony looked at me just a bit blankly. “You mean…right now?”

“No time like the present,” I said. “And…there are a few people who might want to have a word with us before we go, and I really don’t feel like talking to them, so the sooner we can get under way, the better. That isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”

“Oh no, Edwin! Not at all! In fact, the principles of time travel will allow us to return just a few seconds after we depart, and that way you won’t have to miss out on talking to anyone!”

“Oh joy,” I said. “Let’s go, Tony.”

“Say no more, sir!” said Tony, saluting me enthusiastically. He scrambled back up the ladder into the cab, all but exploding with pleasure and nervous energy. This was his moment, his great chance, come round at last, and he couldn’t wait to get under way. I’d rather been counting on that. Anyone just a bit less enthusiastic might have asked a whole bunch of awkward questions, to which I didn’t have any good answers. I felt a bit guilty at taking advantage of Tony, but only a bit. I had too many other things to feel guilty about. I needed the warrior called Deathstalker, the family needed him, and that was all that mattered. Molly and I followed Tony up the narrow steel ladder and into the surprisingly spacious cab. Molly and I stood well back as Tony hurried from one long steel lever to another, throwing them back and forth with infectious enthusiasm and good cheer. Nothing like watching an enthusiast show off at what he does best. He leaned forward to check a row of old-fashioned gauges on the main bulkhead, and tapped a few with a forefinger before turning around to smile brightly.

“I always maintain a good working head of pressure,” he said proudly. “Partly because it’s good for the boiler, partly just in case the call should ever come… Allow me a few minutes to shovel in some more fuel, and then we can be on our way! Oh yes!”

“Where are the tracks?” said Molly, leaning dangerously far over the side of the cab before I pulled her back.

“As I understand it, there aren’t any,” I said. “Ivor travels in time, not space.” I looked at Tony. “You can leave the carriages behind. We won’t be needing them.”

His face fell. “But…they’re very comfortable! Downright cosy, in fact. Polish the brass every day, I do!”

“Nevertheless,” I said firmly.

Tony pouted, and then went back to unhitch the carriages. I took a look at the various gauges, but they meant nothing to me. And yet, I could feel something… a sense of pressure building, of controlled power gathering itself. Standing in Ivor’s cab was like standing in the mouth of a great beast as it finally came awake. Tony jumped back into the cab, opened the tender door, and started shovelling what looked very like coal into the open chamber. Molly and I watched for a while.

“Excuse me,” said Molly, “but… how exactly does building up a head of steam help us to travel in time?”

“Oh, this isn’t coal, miss,” said Tony, shovelling energetically. “This is crystallised tachyons.”

Molly’s scowl deepened. “But… tachyons are particles that can’t travel any slower than the speed of light, so…”

“Don’t ask,” I said kindly. “I always find it better not to ask when faced with something like this. The answers will only upset you. Just considering the problems involved with time travel makes my head hurt. I really don’t want a lecture on quantum steam mechanics, and neither do you.”

It didn’t take long to build up a full head of what passed for steam, and Tony finally put away his shovel, slammed the chamber door shut, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a red-spotted handkerchief.

“All clear, sir and miss. But now we need an exact destination, Ivor and I, if we’re to navigate the future timelines. We need proper spatial and temporal coordinates.”

I took out the Merlin Glass and instructed it to show Ivor where and when to find Giles Deathstalker. The Glass immediately pulled itself out of my hand and shot through the air, growing in size as it went, until finally it hung hovering at the end of the hangar, filling the whole entrance.

“I think it’s trying to tell us it knows the way,” I said.

“That thing is really starting to creep me out,” said Molly. “Nothing should be able to do all the things that hand mirror can do. Not even if it was made by Merlin Satanspawn.”

“Hush,” I said. “It might hear you.” I turned to Tony. “Aim Ivor at the gateway the Glass has just opened up, and it should give him all the coordinates he needs.”

“I don’t know,” Tony said dubiously.

“Just do it,” I said. “What’s one more crazy thing in the midst of all this weirdness?”

“A man after my own heart!” said Tony. “Full steam ahead, Ivor! Warp Factor six and don’t spare the tachyons!”

The Time Train lurched forward, sending us all staggering for a moment. Ivor chugged loudly with effort, venting something very like steam from his funnel, and Tony darted back and forth, throwing the long steel levers this way and that, while keeping a watchful eye on all the various gauges. There was no real feeling of forward movement, but slowly the hangar began to slip away behind us, left behind as we moved forward into time. Molly and I clung to the sides of the cab and looked out past Ivor’s pointed prow as we headed inexorably toward Merlin’s Glass, still hovering before us and seeming to grow larger and larger, far past the point where the hangar should have been unable to contain it. There was nothing in the mirror’s surface; no reflection, no sign of the future we wanted…only an endless night, untouched by moon or stars. And then the Time Train surged forward, Tony hooting loudly with excitement, and we plunged into the Merlin Glass, which swallowed us up in a moment. At first, it was just like being in a tunnel. Darkness all around, while a single old-fashioned spirit lamp filled the cab with a warm golden glow. The only sound was the roar of Ivor’s powerful engine as we plunged on into darkness. And then, one by one, the stars began to come out; in ones and twos, then in dozens, then in thousands, until we were surrounded by great surging oceans of light. Now it was like passing through outer space, but nowhere any astronaut had ever seen. Instead of familiar constellations, there were great seas of stars, blazing with a light almost too pure and beautiful to bear. Comets sailed past Ivor, brightly coloured, like the sweets we loved as children, sweeping past in elegant arcs that contrasted sharply with the steady surging progress of Ivor the Time Train.

Strange planets passed us by, weird and uncanny, that had no place in any natural solar system.

“If this is outer space,” Molly ventured, “and I’m quite prepared to be told that it isn’t… how come we’re able to breathe?”

“Ivor has many talents and many secrets,” Tony said grandly. “You are quite safe, Miss Molly, as long as you stay inside the cab.”

“But where…exactly, are we?” I said.

Tony shrugged. “I’ve read all the books, but I have to say no one seems too sure of exactly what it is Ivor travels through. My grandfather, the last man to actually take Ivor out, said that this is what time and space look like, seen from the other side. Whatever that means. There are other theories, suggesting that Ivor travels through the universe below ours. Or possibly the one above. Believe whatever makes you feel safest, that’s what I say.”

I looked at Molly. “Conversations like this are why the family prefers to leave time travel strictly alone.”

“Pah!” said Tony. “They have no sense of adventure!”

“Hold everything,” said Molly. “What is that?”

We all looked where she was pointing. A great yellow shape was sweeping rapidly through the starry night, heading straight for us. As it grew closer, it revealed itself to be a huge yellow dragon. Disturbingly large, a hundred times the size of Ivor, it was a garish banana yellow in colour, with sickly pink markings up and down its long body. The head was blunt and bony, with a row of glaring red eyes set above a gaping maw packed with jagged, sharklike teeth. Vast membranous yellow wings bellowed out on either side of the bulging midsection. It had short grabbing arms set on the neck below the mouth, armed with vicious, curving talons. The dragon shot past us, silent as a nightmare, the massive wings barely flapping. The head turned to follow us, on the end of a long serpentine neck, and up close the head alone was bigger than Ivor.

“I’m still waiting for an answer,” said Molly. “Any answer. What the hell is that thing?”

“Well blow me,” I said, just a little testily. “I didn’t think to bring my Observer’s Book of Space Dragons with me. It’s obviously something that lives…here, and it doesn’t look too happy to see visitors. Let’s all hope very fervently that it’s eaten recently.”

“That is one big bastard,” said Tony. “Do you really think it might try and harm my Ivor?”

“Maybe it’s never seen tinned food before,” said Molly.

“It’s bigger than us, and it’s got really nasty teeth and claws,” I said. “I would lay good odds on its probably not being a vegetarian.”

“Is Ivor armed?” said Molly. “Do you have any weapons aboard?”

“There are any number of defence systems,” said Tony, looking at me. “Unfortunately, they are all situated back in the carriages.”

“Somehow I just knew it would all turn out to be my fault,” I said.

The dragon swung around and came flying straight at us again, the huge jaws grinning wider and wider as though it planned to swallow Ivor whole. It might have been roaring or howling, but I couldn’t hear anything. The utter silence made the situation even more nightmarish. I drew my Colt Repeater and fired the gun again and again, aiming for the massive head. Every shot hit home, but the bullets were just too small to do the monstrous creature any real harm. Tony slammed a long steel lever all the way home, using both hands to do it, and Ivor lurched forward with a new burst of speed. The dragon shot past us, impossibly large, and one yellow hand raked down Ivor’s black steel side. Great showers of silent sparks flew off into the darkness, as diamond-sharp claws dug long furrows in Ivor’s side.

He vented a long blast of steam like a scream.

The cab rocked from side to side, and Molly and I had to cling to the sides of the cab to keep from being thrown out. Tony shouted obscenities, and worked his levers furiously. Molly yelled at me.

“Distract the bloody thing, while I work on a spell!”

“Distract it? What do you want me to do, drop my trousers and moon it?”

“Just do something!”

I grabbed the side of the cab with both hands, and leant out for a better look. The huge yellow dragon was already turning around and heading back for another attack. I drew the Colt Repeater again, aimed carefully, and shot out the dragon’s glowing eyes, one after another. The terrible jaws stretched even wider in a howl of rage and pain I could sense, even if I couldn’t hear it. It was like fingernails down the blackboard of my soul. The dragon shook its head back and forth, as though trying to shake off the sudden pain and blindness, but still it kept coming, heading right for us. It just kept getting bigger and bigger, blocking off the view ahead, until its great yellow form filled the view before us.

And then Molly leaned right out over her side of the cab, stabbed a single finger at the dragon, and pronounced several very unpleasant Words of Power. The awful sound of the Words seemed to echo endlessly on the quiet, and the dragon suddenly didn’t seem quite so big or imposing. In sharp jerks and shudders, it shrank rapidly in size, becoming smaller and smaller, until by the time it reached Ivor’s cab it was no bigger than an insect. It fluttered around our heads, buzzing angrily, until Molly reached out and crushed it between two fingertips. And that was that.

Molly wiped her hand on her hip and smiled sweetly at me. “You should have remembered,” she said. “In space, all size is relative.”

“You scare me sometimes,” I said.

We carried on, through the space that wasn’t space, and saw many strange and wondrous things. Planets came and went all around us. One planet opened like an eye and stared at us coldly as we passed. Another had a dozen rings spinning around it, all circling madly at different speeds and in different directions. It looked like a great clockwork toy set in motion at the beginning of the universe, slowly winding down. Another planet suddenly opened up like a flower, and hundreds of long tentacles burst out of it, groping and grasping at Ivor, trying to lock on and pull us in. Tony sent Ivor plunging this way and that, with judicial use of his long steel levers, and skillfully evaded every tentacle that tried to curl around us. A few slapped harmlessly against Ivor’s sides, and Ivor seemed to shudder at the touch. But we soon left the planet behind, and it closed slowly up again, sulkily pulling its feeding tentacles back inside.

Another planet disappeared entirely as we approached, only reappearing after we were safely past.

I couldn’t tell you how long the journey took. There were sights and incidents enough to mark the passing of time, but there was no real sense of duration. It might have been minutes or days or weeks. I never felt tired or hungry or bored. But finally the stars ahead of us began to dance and swirl, churning around us in complicated patterns, finally coalescing into a giant rainbow below us, of such rich and vivid colours that they dazzled the eye. There were even hues and shades that had no counterpart in the dull and ordinary everyday world. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Molly and I clung together for comfort in the face of something so inhumanly glorious, while Tony clung to Ivor.

“What is it?” Molly said finally, breathlessly.

“It’s the Starbow,” said Tony, his voice faint and awed. “I read about it in grandfather’s journal, but I never imagined…”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said, “but never expected to ever see it. They say you can follow it to the end of the universe, and maybe even to your heart’s desire.”

“Oh Eddie,” said Molly. “Could we…”

“Yes,” I said. “We could. But we have somewhere else we have to be. We have duties, and responsibilities.”

“Yes,” said Molly, not looking away from the Starbow. “If only…”

“If only,” I said. “Always the cruellest words. Tony, get us out of here.”

He poured on the speed, and slowly we left the Starbow behind us. And sometimes I think that was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

Finally Merlin’s Glass reappeared before us and we roared through it, and just like that we were back in the reality we knew, back in the future I’d seen before. The Time Train seemed to drop like a stone for a long moment, and then a great icy plain rose up beneath us, and the next moment Ivor was churning along through thick snow. Molly and Tony and I were thrown this way and that as Ivor’s speed cut back in vicious shocks and jerks. Tony wrestled his controls with both hands, shouting and cursing, and finally the Time Train slammed to a halt.

It was suddenly very cold, our breath steaming thickly on the air before us. My bare face and hands smarted from the sudden exposure, and I peered out the side of the cab, looking for familiar details. We were actually on the alien world this time, with its pink sky and three fiercely shining suns. The snowy wastes stretched away as far as I could see in every direction. Thin twists of mist turned this way and that on the freezing air.

“You bring me to the nicest places, Eddie,” said Molly, beating her frozen hands together and blowing on them.

“Hey, this is a whole new alien world!” I said.

“You couldn’t have picked a warmer one?”

“Well, we’re in the right place,” I said.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I recognise the bodies,” I said.

They were just as I remembered them, dozens of dead men and women, scattered across the bloodstained snow.

“Giles Deathstalker’s work,” I said. “He’s a hell of a fighter.”

“Could be a hell of a mass murderer, for all you know,” said Molly. “Where is he, anyway?”

I looked around, but there was no sign of the future warrior. I had to wonder just how accurate Ivor and Merlin’s Glass could hope to be. We’d come a long way, and just a few day’s difference after…who knew how many centuries, was only to be expected. A lot could happen to a man on the run in just a few days, most of it bad. But…Ivor and the Glass were all I had, so I was in no position to complain. Molly and I climbed down from the cab and strode out across the blindingly white plain, our feet sinking deep into the thick snow with every step. It was bitterly cold, almost unbearable, away from the protection of Ivor’s cab, but the sheer effort involved in forcing my way through the snow soon had me sweating. Every breath seared my lungs, and my forehead ached like someone had punched it.

But it was still an alien world, with three suns burning bright in the garish pink sky. I pointed this out to Molly, but she just grunted, unimpressed, and hugged herself tightly, as though to keep any warmth from leaking out. I waved cheerfully at Tony in the cab, and he waved back, but showed no sign of wanting to leave his beloved engine.

I trudged through the snow towards the dead bodies. They were everywhere, hundreds of them, lying sprawled in awkward poses in the blood-soaked snow. Some were missing limbs, some were missing heads. Some had been gutted, hacked open. But up close, it soon became clear that my earlier identification had been wrong. These weren’t men in futuristic armour; their armour was a part of them. These people were some kind of cyborg. Man/machine composites. Steel cables and jagged pieces of technology projected from dead white flesh. Cameras in eye sockets, guns built right into the hand. No two of the bodies were exactly the same, but they were all clearly the result of the same process. They looked ugly as sin. Whoever had put them together had valued function over aesthetic. The faces seemed human enough, and the blood was all too familiar.

“Nasty injuries,” said Molly, lurching to a halt beside me. She leaned over one body for a better look, careful not to touch. “But no bullet wounds. These poor bastards have been hacked to pieces. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Mr. Stab had beaten us here.”

“Giles does seem to prefer the sword, believe it or not,” I said. “He was carrying a bloody big one the last time I saw him.”

“They’re using swords in the future?” said Molly incredulously. “When they have the technology to produce cyborgs like these?”

I shrugged. “Who knows what’s normal around here?”

I spotted a discarded gun lying in the snow, and bent down to pick it up. The gun was eerily light in my hand, for all its bulky size. It was mostly a dull green metal, crusted with glowing crystals and blinking coloured readout lights. But it had a barrel, and a trigger, so I aimed it out across the plain and fired. A searing bolt of energy blasted from the gun and blew a massive crater out of the snow a good hundred yards away. The ground shook under our feet for a moment, and Molly grabbed at my arm. All the snow above the crater had been vaporised, leaving thick spirals of mist twisting in the air.

I hefted the energy gun, grinning. “Oh, Uncle Jack is just going to love this.”

“If you can keep from blowing us all up,” Molly said dryly. “Put it away, Eddie. You can play with it later.”

I looked for a safety catch, but the gun didn’t seem to have one, so I just slipped it carefully into my jacket pocket. Molly knelt down beside one of the cyborg bodies.

“Do you think we should take one of these back with us? The Armourer could probably learn all kinds of things from the technology.”

I considered it, but shook my head firmly. “Feels a bit too much like body snatching, I think.”

“Wimp,” said Molly. She started to straighten up, and the cyborg grabbed her suddenly by the arm with one dead hand.

Molly yelled, despite herself. She tugged fiercely, but the cyborg had a death grip on her arm. I stepped quickly forward, and stamped hard on the cyborg’s chest. The armour bruised my heel even through my shoe, but the impact tore the cyborg’s hand away from Molly’s arm. It grabbed for my leg, but I’d already stepped back. Molly backpedalled away from the cyborg as fast as the thick snow would let her, cursing loudly. The cyborg sat up in the bloody snow and looked at us both with a dead, expressionless face. Silvery circuit patterns covered his brow and trailed down one side of his face. He raised one arm and pointed at us, and a thin black barrel slid smoothly out the back of his hand. I threw myself down into the hard-packed snow, and an energy bolt flashed through the air where I’d been standing, close enough that all the hair on my body stood up at once.

I rolled to one side and struggled to my feet. The cyborg rose up out of the snow in swift, jerky movements, already turning his head back and forth, checking for a new target. And yet for all of this, I never once got the feeling that the cyborg was alive. The man was clearly dead, his eyes fixed and unblinking; it was just the built-in machinery that kept him going, probably set off by Molly’s proximity.

I subvocalised the activating Words and armoured up, the silver strange matter flowing all over me in a moment. At once I was insulated from the alien world’s cold, and I felt stronger, faster, sharper. I ran easily through the deep snow, heading straight towards the cyborg. It turned quickly and shot me at point-blank range. The energy beam hit me square in my armoured chest, and ricocheted harmlessly away. I relaxed a little. I’d been pretty sure the armour would protect me, but it was nice to know. I reached out, grabbed the cyborg’s gun arm, and ripped it right out of the socket with one burst of armoured strength. The cyborg rocked on its feet, but didn’t cry out and didn’t fall. It started to raise the other arm, so I tore that one off too. It still didn’t fall, so I grabbed its head with both hands and yanked it clean off.

The eyes stared up at me, unblinking. The mouth moved a few times, and then was still. I looked at the cyborg body. It stood in place, unmoving. I threw the head away.

Molly applauded, the sound flat and small in the empty quiet. “Hardcore, Eddie.”

“He was already dead,” I said. “Or at least, I hope so. Tell you what; let’s give the other bodies plenty of room, okay?”

Molly sniffed loudly, still hugging herself against the cold. “I don’t like this place. Really. My senses are supernaturally attuned to the natural world, to the energies generated by all living things…and I’m not getting anything. I know, I know, this is an alien world, but even so … I ought to be picking up something. I’m telling you, Eddie, there’s not a living thing here. Nothing. And not just here, in this place…you’ve brought us to a dead world, Eddie. These cyborgs, or whoever they were fighting, killed everything on this planet.”

“You can’t know that,” I said. “Might have been a dead world before they got here.”

“No,” said Molly. “I can tell. They killed every living thing here, just so they could use this world as a battlefield. What kind of future have you brought us too, Eddie? And what kind of man would it produce?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know! You can’t judge a whole future civilisation by just one world.”

“I wonder who these people were?” said Molly. “And who they were fighting?”

“Giles said something about serving an emperor,” I said.

“Then I suppose these must be the Rebel forces,” said Molly, smiling slightly for the first time.

“Didn’t know you were a Star Wars fan,” I said, glad of a chance to change the subject.

“Just the original trilogy.”

“I never really understood about the rebel forces in those films,” I said. “I mean, they had rebel bases on rebel worlds, and starships and armies and weapons… but who was paying for it all? Where was the funding coming from? They couldn’t have had volunteers standing around on street corners, rattling collection tins and saying, Please support the rebellion. Darth Vader would have had them all shot.”

And then we both looked around sharply as the sound of approaching engines caught our ears. We looked out over the snowy waste to where the horizon disappeared in the mists, and there was Giles Deathstalker, plunging through the snow towards us at a terrific pace. Faster than I could have managed, even with my armour’s help. And above and behind him came a dozen airships, strange, elegant craft bristling with unfamiliar weapons, all of them aimed down at the running fugitive. But though crackling energy beams stabbed down from the airships again and again, somehow they never even came close to hitting the frantically dodging figure below. Giles Deathstalker was always somewhere else.

The airships swept past him, streaking through the soft pink sky, and pulled around in a wide arc that would bring them back again for another strafing run. Giles hadn’t seen me, or the Time Train, yet. He had his head down, just concentrating on running and evading his enemies. Out of the mists behind him came a small army of jade green armoured figures, trudging determinedly through the heavy snow, firing vivid energy beams after the man fleeing before them. They had no better luck than the airships, but craters were appearing all around Giles now, filling the air with a mist of vaporised snow.

I yelled at Giles, using the silver mask to amplify my voice. His head snapped around and he changed direction to head straight for me and the Time Train, ploughing through the deep snow like it wasn’t even there. His movements were almost inhumanly fast. But even with his speed and determination, it was clear that at least some of his pursuers would cut him off before he could reach us. And the airships were returning.

“Get back to Ivor,” I said to Molly. “Protect the Time Train, whatever happens. It’s our only way home.”

“Damn right,” said Molly. “This is a lousy place to visit, and I wouldn’t want to live here.”

She headed back to the engine, forcing her way through the snow, while I set off across the frozen plain towards Giles. My armoured legs slammed through the snow, sending it flying through the air to either side of me. The pursuing figures saw me coming, and yelled to each other. God knows what they thought I was. A few fired energy guns in my direction, but they didn’t even come close. And then there was an explosion behind me, and I stopped abruptly to look back.

The airships had spotted the Time Train and were attacking it with their energy weapons. A whole bunch of craters had been blasted out of the snow all around Ivor, getting closer and closer. A shimmering protective screen suddenly appeared around Ivor, and I grinned. Molly had finally got her act together. Energy beams glanced away from the screen, but every blow hit the screen like a hammer, sending ripples through the protective energies. And then several beams all targeted the screen at once…and one got through. It sliced across Ivor’s black steel side, and he screamed shrilly through his funnel.

I turned my back and ran on. There was nothing I could do to help. Either Molly would find a way to strengthen her shield, or she wouldn’t. I trusted her to do her job, so I got on with mine. I had to get to Giles and escort him safely back to the engine. I forced on the speed, my silver arms pumping at my sides, moving so quickly now that I couldn’t even feel the obstruction of the snow I was slamming through. Up ahead, Giles had come to a sudden stop. A whole group of his armoured enemies had manoeuvred to get between him and the Time Train. More were catching up from every side. There seemed to be hundreds of them, yelling triumphantly, their voices high and thin in the bitter cold air. Giles looked around him, calmly and unhurriedly, and then drew his long sword. He was surrounded now, by a whole army that clearly wanted him dead, but I couldn’t see the slightest trace of concern on his face.

Just something that might have been pleasant anticipation.

I charged forward, smashing my way through the weakest part of the circle, sending armoured men flying through the air. I finally crashed to a halt beside Giles, and he looked at me curiously, his sword at the ready.

“Hi,” I said. “Edwin Drood, at your service once again. Told you I’d be back.”

“Yes,” said Giles, “but I that was two days and three nights ago. I’ve been dodging my enemies ever since, waiting for you to show up.”

“Yeah, well, sorry about that,” I said. “Things to do, you know how it is. And time travel isn’t the most exact of sciences.”

“We know,” said Giles. “That’s why it’s forbidden.” He studied my armour. “Nice outfit. How do they get you out of it, with a can opener?”

“Show you later. Your carriage awaits; shall we go?”

Giles looked around him. “These gentlemen might have other ideas.”

“Hell with them,” I said.

Giles grinned. “My sentiments exactly.”

The armoured men finally got fed up listening to us talk and surged forward from all sides. There were ranks and ranks of them, but strangely they were all holding swords and axes now, instead of their energy guns. I really was going to have to talk to Giles about that later. At least these definitely were men in armour this time, and not cyborgs. So they should stay dead when I killed them. I grew long silver blades from my armoured hands, and Giles and I went to meet them.

There had to be over a hundred of them, all heavily armed, pressing in from every direction at once. They never stood a chance. Their swords and battle-axes glanced harmlessly away from my armour, and my strange-matter blades cut easily through every protection they had. I hacked about me with inhuman speed and strength, and blood flew on the freezing air, steaming in the moments before it hit the snow. Men fell screaming, dying, to every side of me, and I kicked them out of the way to get to my next victims. Giles stamped and spun and sliced about him with a speed and strength very nearly equal to my own. His long blade flashed through the air as he cut men down with almost clinical precision. No one could even get near him. We fought back to back, and sometimes side by side, and we were unstoppable. The dead piled up around us, the churned-up snow crimson with blood and guts. Screams and horrified cries filled the air, but always from them, not us.

It wasn’t a fight, for all their superior numbers. It was a slaughter.

I don’t usually kill on missions. Usually I don’t have to. The armour gives me all the edge I need. I’ve always thought of myself as an agent, not an assassin. The last time I had to fight and kill, on the Nazca Plain, I didn’t hesitate because the Loathly One drones weren’t human anymore. Killing them had felt like stepping on insects. This, here, was different. Giles and I were surrounded by a small army of enemies, intent on killing us. They’d already injured Ivor. In such circumstances, family training takes over. I did what I had to; I cut men down and ran them through, and all the time I did my best to feel nothing, nothing at all. I might have to kill, but no one had ever been able to train me to enjoy it.

Giles enjoyed it. He grinned cheerfully all the while, sometimes laughing aloud when he executed a particularly successful or graceful attack. Giles was a warrior, doing what he was born to do. That was what I’d come here for, after all.

The armoured men began to fall back and resort to their energy weapons at last. They were losing, and they knew it. But the searing beams ricocheted harmlessly away from my armour, often taking out their own men, and none of them could hit Giles. He danced and pirouetted in the heart of the enemy, striking out with deadly grace, now and then catching an energy beam on his arm-mounted force shield. I’d never seen a fighter like him. And in the end…the last of the armoured men broke and ran, rather than face us. They scattered across the snowy plain, running in a dozen different directions, and we let them go. Giles calmly lowered his sword, and I retracted my blades back into my silver hands. We stood together, both of us breathing heavily from our exertions. Giles flicked heavy drops of blood from the end of his sword. The front of his armour was splashed with blood, none of it his. There was no blood on my armour, but only because it couldn’t stick to the strange matter. Giles nodded to me cheerfully. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“So, was it good for you too? Laugh, Edwin; the enemy is dead and we are alive, and there is no greater feeling in the world! You have the makings of a warrior, Edwin Drood. A bit slow and deliberate, but efficient enough for all that.”

“If you’ll follow me to the Time Train,” I said, just a bit breathlessly, “I think it’s time we were getting out of here.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Giles. “I could use a break.”

We headed back towards Ivor, still encased in Molly’s protective shield. The airships flew back and forth overhead, energy beams stabbing down on and around the engine. None of them seemed to be getting through. All the snow around the Time Train was gone now, blasted away right down to the bedrock.

“The sooner we can get out of here, the better,” Giles said conversationally. “The emperor will send reinforcements, as soon as word gets back that I am still alive. He’ll send a whole army, if that’s what it takes to bring me down.”

“I thought you said you served the emperor?”

“I did,” said Giles. “But I am currently out of favour, at court. It’s…complicated.”

“Somehow I just knew it would be,” I said. “Is there by any chance a woman involved?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

I had to smile. “There’s always a woman involved.”

Once we were close enough to the Time Train for Molly to spot us, she set about distracting the airships by broadcasting illusions. A dozen different Ivors appeared, scattered all around the real thing, each with its own apparent protective shield. But the airships must have had some kind of sensors because they weren’t fooled for a moment. They just kept pounding away at the screen surrounding the real Ivor. A dozen huge yellow dragons appeared above us, clashing horribly with the pink sky. They launched themselves at the airships, which fired back reflexively. Energy beams flashed right through the illusions and actually took out some of the other airships. There were explosions in the sky and broken airships fell out of the air like burning birds.

By now Giles and I had reached the Time Train, and Molly opened a door in her protective screen just long enough for the two of us to hurry through. I armoured down, and then paused as I reached for the ladder leading up to the cab. The one energy beam that had punched through the screen had gouged a deep furrow all the way along Ivor’s black steel side, and steam or something very like it was venting furiously from the open wound. I scrambled up into the cab, with Giles close behind me. Tony was bouncing from one gauge to another, worriedly studying the shifting readings, while Molly sat cross-legged on the floor, working on maintaining the protective screen.

“Greetings to one and all,” Giles said cheerfully. “Is my translator working now? Good. Allow me to present myself. I have the honour to be Giles VomAcht Deathstalker, Warrior Prime to the emperor Ethur, at your service.”

“Wonderful,” said Molly, not looking up. “Now shut up and let me concentrate on the only thing keeping us all from being blown to shit.”

“Ah,” said Giles. “You’re an esper!”

“No, I’m a witch.”

“Oh,” said Giles. “One of those…”

Given the way he said it, and the look on Molly’s face, I just knew this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere useful, so I turned to Tony.

“How bad is the damage to the engine?”

“Bad enough, bad enough. God alone knows what it’s done to Ivor’s containment fields…”

“Can you still get us out of here, and back home?”

“I don’t know! If we try, and the fields buckle, they’ll be finding bits and pieces of us all across history.”

“Never mind the if,” I said. “See those shapes, emerging from the mists on the horizon? They look very much like reinforcements to me, and lots of them, and I really don’t think we should still be here when they arrive. We need to go now, Tony.”

He glared at me, and then slammed home all the long steel levers, one after the other. Ivor shook and shuddered. Tony started shovelling his crystallised tachyons into the fuel chamber again. Giles considered this thoughtfully.

“I hadn’t realised you came from so far back in the past…”

“One more word out of you, and you can get out and push,” said Tony, shovelling for all he was worth.

“Don’t bother the engineer while he’s working,” I said to Giles. “He’ll just get tetchy.”

A whole bunch of energy beams hit the protective screen all at once, and Molly cried out in pain, her eyes squeezed shut with the strain of maintaining the field. A trickle of blood burst out from under her left eyelid. Tony slammed the fuel chamber door shut, and then threw the throttle all the way open, muttering a mixture of prayers, obscenities, and encouragements to Ivor under his breath. Ivor lurched forward, sending us all staggering, and then headed for the Merlin Glass, which was once again hovering in the air before us. One of the airships shot at it, and the energy beam rebounded straight back to blow the airship out of the sky. It figured that anything built by Merlin Satanspawn would be able to defend itself.

The other airships increased their fire on Ivor as he began to move, chugging unevenly through the thick snow, but none of the attacks got through, even as Molly’s face ran with sweat, and more blood ran from her clenched shut eyes. Ivor slowly built up speed, the snowy waste slipping away behind us, until the Merlin Glass seemed to sweep forward and swallow us up; and just like that we left the alien world behind us, plunging back through the other side of space and time, heading for home.

Molly relaxed with a great shuddering sigh and leaned exhausted against the inner cab wall. Her eyes were still closed, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. I sat down beside her, and gently cleaned the sweat and blood from her face with my handkerchief. She smiled slightly, just to let me know she was glad I was there.

Ivor was clearly straining. His speed seemed to rise and fall, and his insides made strange and worrying noises. Tony fussed endlessly over the various gauges, making constant small adjustments to his levers, while keeping up a monologue of encouraging, soothing words to his beloved engine. Giles stood patiently on his own, his arms folded across his chest, looking interestedly out at the oceans of stars around us. After a while, Molly was able to open her eyes again, and once I was sure they weren’t damaged after all, I got up to talk with Giles. I thought I ought to try and make him feel welcome…but it wasn’t easy. Although our translation was still working well enough, there was a hell of a lot of history between us, and it was sometimes hard to find words, or even concepts, we had in common. We couldn’t even be sure how many centuries separated us.

“I’m taking you back to Earth,” I said. “At the beginning of the twenty-first century AD.”

Giles just shrugged. “Sorry, means nothing to me. I’m from the centre of the empire, Heartworld, in the thirty-second century of the New Age. And before that, from a small colony world out on the rim.”

“And you used to work for the emperor?” I said carefully.

“Well, still do, officially. I am Warrior Prime, by popular acclaim leader of the Emperor’s Host in battle. The emperor will take me back, once we’ve put this little…misunderstanding behind us.”

“Won’t he miss you?”

“Ethur? He’ll be glad to see the back of me, for a time. Give him a chance to cool down, let my supporters make reparations behind the scenes…and then he can summon me back to court without losing face. Some emergency will arise that only the Warrior Prime can deal with; something always does. And then he’ll welcome me back with open arms. He’ll have to. He needs me. He might rule the empire, but I’m the one who keeps the peace.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “You can get me back again, can’t you?”

“Oh sure,” I said immediately, trying hard to sound confident. “That’s the joy of time travel. We can return you to your exact departure point in space and time, give or take a few seconds.”

“I’d rather you allowed a few months,” said Giles.

“No problem,” I said. “Right, Tony?”

But he wasn’t listening to me, still crooning to his engine. I searched for something else to say, to change the subject.

“So…why a sword, Giles?”

“Because it’s an honourable weapon,” said Giles, as though the answer should have been obvious.

“Oh wonderful,” said Molly. “We’ve picked up a looney.”

After various incidents and adventures, we all came home again. The Time Train came roaring out of Merlin’s Glass and screeched to a halt back inside the hangar at the rear of the Hall. Home again, in a cloud of something very like steam. The engine shut itself down, shaking and shuddering, and was finally still, the black steel ticking loudly as the metal slowly cooled. The Merlin Glass shrank down to its usual size and tucked itself almost coyly back into my jacket pocket. I had to wonder which of us was making the decisions these days. I really needed to read the instruction manual, once I had a minute to myself. I helped Molly descend from the cab, and she leant tiredly against me. Tony was already down, worriedly studying the long rent in Ivor’s side. The engine was making sad little parp parp noises from his funnel. Giles jumped down from the cab and looked interestedly about him. I started to explain what the hangar was, and then stopped as I realised the place was even more quiet and deserted than usual. No enthusiasts working on their projects, no one fussing around a particular device; no trace of anyone, anywhere.

Which strongly suggested we hadn’t returned to the hangar just a few seconds after we left, after all.

Two men appeared in the hangar door and headed straight for us. They both looked very familiar, and then a chill ran through me as I realised they both had the same face. It was the living Jacob and the ghost of Jacob, walking side by side. Someone had clearly taken the living Jacob in hand and introduced him to modern clothes. He was now wearing faded drainpipe jeans, a T-shirt bearing the legend I’m Not Dead Yet, and a black leather motorcycle jacket. It seemed to suit him. The ghost of Jacob had given up on his suit, and was back to baggy shorts and a T-shirt saying Ghosts Do It With Spirit. He looked pretty solid, but bits and pieces of him seemed to fade in and out, and his flyaway hair still drifted as though he were underwater. Both the living and the dead Jacob looked very serious. They came to a halt before me, and I looked from one to the other.

“Okay,” I said. “This is seriously creeping me out.”

“What?” said the living Jacob, scowling. “Oh, us. Turns out I’m the only one I can trust around here.”

“Right,” growled the ghost of Jacob. “Things have seriously deteriorated in your absence, boy.”

“Where the hell have you been all this time?” said the living Jacob.

“How long have we been gone?” I said.

“Eighteen months,” said the ghost.

“What?” I spun around and glared at Tony. “You swore you could get us back only a few seconds after we left!”

“It’s not Ivor’s fault!” Tony yelled right back at me. “He was injured by the energy beam! It’s a wonder he got us back safely at all!”

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said. I turned reluctantly back to the two Jacobs. “Eighteen months? Really? Jesus wept…All right, fill me in on what’s been happening. No, wait a minute; what do I call you both? You can’t both be Jacob.”

“We worked that out ages ago,” said the ghost. “I’m Jacob. He’s Jay. And since you left, everything has gone to hell in a handcart. The Loathly Ones have worked with Truman’s new and invigorated Manifest Destiny organisation to build nests and towers all across the world. There are thousands of them now. The family, under Harry’s leadership, has been working hard to stamp them out, but for every one we destroy a dozen more spring up to take its place. Soon the Loathly Ones will begin their mass summoning and bring the Hungry Gods through into our reality.”

“And then we’re screwed,” said Jay.

“Hold it, hold it,” I said. “What was that about…under Harry’s leadership?”

“With you gone, he took control of the family,” said Jay. “With the backing of the Matriarch. They dismissed the Inner Circle, and Harry’s been running things pretty much single-handed ever since. Him and his friend, the hellspawn.”

“And the family is losing the war,” Jacob said grimly. “Tell me at least you brought back powerful new weapons from the future.”

“I’ve got an energy gun,” I said, just a bit defensively. “The Armourer should be able to reverse engineer something useful from it… And I have brought back this gentleman, to advise us; the Warrior Prime Giles Deathstalker. He knows a lot about fighting wars.”

“Never lost one yet,” Giles said cheerfully. He nodded to Jacob. “Pretty good hologram, that. Though I think your focus needs fixing.”

“Don’t tell him,” I said quickly. “I think we need to introduce him slowly and carefully to the stranger parts of our family. Now, how bad are things, really?”

“Really bad,” said Jay. “The family is scattered all over the world, stamping out nests as fast as we can locate them, but there are just too many of them. Even with our new armour, it’s a hopeless task. We had no idea just how many Loathly Ones there were, or how many underground nests. They’ve been planning this for decades.”

“How long before they can begin their summoning?” said Molly.

“Three, four days, tops,” said Jacob. “You got back just in time for the end.”

“Well…couldn’t we use the Time Train again, go back in time another eighteen months?” said Molly. “Stop all this happening?”

“Ivor’s not going anywhere,” Tony said flatly. “I’ve got months of work ahead of me before he’ll be fit to go out again.”

“So,” I said. “I am left with just a few days to stop the bad guys from destroying the world and save the family from itself. If I hadn’t already done this once before, I might be seriously worried.”