Daemons Are Forever

CHAPTER FOUR Sons and Lovers

“It’s good to have you home again, Harry,” said the Armourer. “And your…friend. Come with me and I’ll find you someplace to stay. Don’t quite know where I’m going to put you, though. The Hall is so crowded these days you couldn’t swing a cat without taking someone’s eye out.”

“We could always put them in the dungeons,” I said.

The Armourer looked at me coldly. “You know very well we don’t have dungeons anymore, Eddie. They were converted into billiards rooms long ago.”

“You have billiards here?” said Molly, brightening up.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “They’re very popular. In fact, you have to queue to get in.”

“One more joke like that, and I’ll rack your balls,” said Molly.

“What’s wrong with putting me in my father’s old room?” said Harry. “The Matriarch hasn’t got around to reassigning it yet, has she? Thought not. Dear Grandmother always was very sentimental…where her son was concerned. And who has a better right to the Gray Fox’s room, than his only legitimate son?”

“Well, yes … I suppose so,” said the Armourer. “Yes, James would approve. Come along with me, Harry, and…Roger, and I’ll get you settled in.”

“See you later, Cousin Eddie,” said Harry.

“Yes,” I said. “You will.”

The Armourer led the two of them away across the lawns and towards the Hall. Molly and I watched them go, while the gryphons wandered back to crouch beside us, snorting and growling unhappily. I patted a few heads and tugged a few ears, and they wandered off again, happily enough. It bothered me that they hadn’t been able to predict Harry and Roger’s arrival in advance. Made me wonder what else the hellspawn might be able to hide from us.

“And this was starting out to be such a good day,” I said finally. “Now Harry’s back, just itching for a chance to stick a knife in my back, and if that weren’t enough he’s brought a half-breed demon with him. I mean, I’m not prejudiced, but…dammit, he’s a thing from Hell!” I looked at Molly. “Did you really go out with him?”

“Not one more word out of you, Eddie,” she said coldly. “Or you will never see me naked again.”

We went back to my room in the Hall. I felt an urgent need for a little down time. When I decided I was going to have to move back into the Hall, so I could keep a proper eye on things, I had to decide where I was going to stay. My old room was long gone, given over to someone else in the family when I left to be a field agent. (Crying Free! Free at last! all the way.) And it wasn’t like I had any fond measures of the pokey little garret room. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and every time the wind blew in the night, I had to get out of bed and jam a handkerchief into the gap between the window and the frame to stop it from rattling. (The family has never believed in central heating; makes you soft.)

Since I was running the family now, I could have just taken any room I fancied. I could have thrown the Matriarch out of her special suite, and no one would have stopped me. But I didn’t have the heart. It would have been cruel… to Alistair. You big softy, Molly said later, when I told her, but she was only partly right. Even then, I knew I didn’t want to make an enemy of Martha Drood because I might need her help…

In the end, I just chose one of the better situated rooms in the west wing and booted out the poor beggar who was living there. He in turn picked someone lower down on the food chain and evicted them, and moved into their room. And so it went, for several days, until you couldn’t move in the corridors for people hauling their belongings from one room to another. Presumably the poor bastard at the bottom of the pile ended up moving back into the communal dormitory with the children.

(There are no guest rooms in the Hall. Only family gets to live in the Hall.)

Even so, Molly wasn’t especially impressed when she saw where she’d be staying with me. She just couldn’t get her head around the fact that members of the most powerful family in the world only got one room to live in. But that’s what happens when a family’s numbers expand faster than we can build on new wings. Another generation or two and we’ll have to find or build a new home, but no one was ready to talk about that yet.

I let us into our room, and Molly immediately ran over to the bed and threw herself onto it. She sank half out of sight into the deep goose-feather mattress and sighed blissfully.

“Still don’t care much for the room, but I do love this bed. I feel like I could sink all the way down to China.”

“What’s wrong with the room?” I said patiently.

“Far too much like a hotel room,” Molly said firmly. “All very luxurious, I’m sure, but it has no character. It’s…cold, impersonal.”

I smiled at her. “When did you ever stay in hotels, oh wicked witch of the woods?”

She wriggled cosily on the bed. “Oh, I get around. You’d be surprised, some of the places I’ve been. And it’s not like I can take my forest everywhere with me… Still, I’ll say this for hotels… I love room service. You just pick up the phone and they bring you food, every hour of the day and night. I always pig out at hotels. Particularly because I never stick around to pay the bills…”

“There’s no room service to be had here,” I said sternly. “And you’re expected to clean up your own mess. There are no servants among the Droods, or at least, not as such. We’re all encouraged from an early age to look after ourselves… Builds character and self-reliance.”

“How very worthy,” said Molly. “Let it be clearly understood between us that I do not do worthy. Was this really the best room you could have chosen, out of all those available?”

“I chose this room because it used to be my parents’,” I said. “Back when I was a child. I can just about remember visiting them here… It’s hard to be sure. Memories from that age are never reliable. My mother and father weren’t often here, you see. As field agents they lived outside the Hall.”

“And you weren’t allowed to live with them?” said Molly, sitting up and propping her back against the wooden headboard.

“No. All Drood children are raised here, in the dormitories. So they can be properly trained and indoctrinated. Loyalty is to the family, not our parents.”

“Harry wasn’t raised here,” Molly said thoughtfully.

“No. Which gives you some idea of how much the Matriarch disapproved of Uncle James marrying without permission, to an unsuitable woman. Anyone else would have been declared rogue.”

“I like the furnishings and fittings,” said Molly, tactfully changing the subject. “Everything in here’s an antique, but in splendid condition. Hey, if there aren’t any servants here, who polishes all the wood and brass?”

“We take turns, when we’re young,” I said. “Character building, remember? I hated it. I can still remember my hands going numb from the cold as I cleaned the outside windows in the depths of winter, because the water in the bucket always went cold before you were finished. And don’t even get me started about trying to scrub brass with Duraglit when your fingers have all gone numb… Bugger character building. All it taught me was never to own anything made of brass, and be sure to tip my window cleaners very generously.”

“Feel free to vent, Eddie,” said Molly. “Don’t hold anything back.”

“At least I talk about my past,” I said pointedly.

“Oh look,” said Molly. “I’m changing the subject again. I like the television. That is one seriously big fuckoff widescreen television. And five speakers, for surround sound…Cool.”

“Only the best for the family,” I said. “But I wouldn’t have thought you watched much television, in the woods.”

“I’m a witch, not a barbarian. I like the cooking shows… Love Masterchef. I suppose you watch the sci-fi channels?”

“No,” I said. “I like to leave my work behind when I relax. I prefer the comedy channels.”

Molly hugged her knees to her chest and looked at me thoughtfully.

“What are we doing here, Eddie? Why are we hiding out in your room?”

“Not hiding,” I said. “It’s just…sometimes it all gets a bit too much for me, and then I need to get away from it all. I took on running this family because I had to. But… I don’t know what I’m doing. I lived alone for ten years, and never had to worry about anyone but myself. Now I have all these people depending on me, and looking to me for answers and decisions that will shape the rest of their lives … I don’t want to let them down.”

“They let you down,” said Molly.

“They’re still keeping secrets from me,” I said. “Harry’s only the latest. And he’s all I needed; a rival pretender for the throne.”

“He hates you because he believes you killed his father,” said Molly. “He doesn’t know I killed James Drood.”

“No one can ever know that! It’s one thing for me to kill him in a duel. I’m family. But you’re an outsider; they’d kill you on the spot if they even suspected. And me too, for hiding the truth, and daring to care more about you than the family.”

Molly smiled at me. “Every now and again, you remind me of why I fell for you so hard. Come over here and sit down beside me.”

I sat down on the bed, by her side, and we put our arms around each other and snuggled close, and for a long time we didn’t want to say anything.

“You are allowed to hold me when you’re feeling down, you know,” said Molly. “It’s allowed, when you’re in a relationship.”

“So we are definitely in one of those relationship things, are we?” I said.

“Yeah. It sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking. You can squeeze my boobies, if you like.”

“Good to know.”

“Roger and I were never close,” she said, not looking at me. “And we weren’t together long. I was just at the time in a girl’s life when she really feels like being mistreated by someone big and rough. Even though you know it’s bound to end in tears.”

“And did it?”

“Oh, yes. I caught him in bed with my best friend. And her brother. Something of an eye-opener … I set the bed on fire while they were all still in it, and walked out on him. I’m pretty sure I never really loved him. It was just…one of those things, you know?”

“I once had a brief relationship with a sex android from the twenty-third century,” I said. “Damn, but we’ve known some interesting times, haven’t we?”

We laughed together quietly. Our bodies moved easily against each other. I never really felt at home the way I did in Molly’s arms. Like I’d finally found out where I was supposed to be.

“Never leave me,” I said suddenly.

“Where did that come from?” said Molly.

“I don’t know. I just need to hear you say it. Say it for me, Molly.”

“I will never leave you, Eddie. I’ll always be with you, forever and ever and ever. Now you say it.”

“I will love you every day of my life, Molly Metcalf, and after I die, if you’re not there in Heaven with me, I will go down to Hell to join you. Because Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven without you.”

“You smooth-talking devil, Eddie Drood.”

Some time later, when I’d got my second wind, I got dressed again and opened the bag I’d brought back from my London flat. I set about distributing my few possessions around the room. It didn’t take long. A row of CDs on one shelf, my favourite books lined up on another. In alphabetical order, of course. I’m very strict about things like that. And some favourite clothes that didn’t even come close to filling the massive mahogany wardrobe. I looked at Molly, who was attacking her tousled hair in the mirror.

“Don’t you have any clothes you want to hang up? Women always have clothes. And shoes…and things.”

She shrugged easily. “Whenever I get bored, I just magic up a new outfit. I only have to see something I like, and I can duplicate it with a thought. I never paid for a new outfit in my life, and they always fit perfectly. I’ve been recycling the same material for years.”

I hope you take time out to wash it now and again, I thought, but had enough sense not to say out loud.

I stepped back and looked at my possessions scattered around the room. They looked…sort of lost. They were present-day, transitory things, in a room that had been here before I was born and would still be here after I was gone. There weren’t any of my parents’ old possessions still here. They would have been thrown out or redistributed long ago, when the next occupant moved in. The family has never encouraged sentiment. We aren’t supposed to care about possessions, because only the family is important. Look forward, never back. And never get too attached to anything or anyone, because the enemy will use that against you.

They don’t tell you the enemy sometimes includes the family.

“Don’t you want to bring anything here from your old place?” I said to Molly.

She shrugged lazily. “I have my magical iPod, full of my favourite music. Endless capacity, no batteries to run down, and it can pick up any tune from any period. It can even sing harmonies with me on karaoke nights. But that’s it, really. I’ve never cared much about things… You can always get more things… With my magic I’ve raised beg, borrow, and steal to an art form.”

“So,” I said. “What do you think of the infamous Drood family home, now you’ve been here for a while? Is it everything you thought it would be?”

“All that and more,” said Molly. “It’s certainly…impressive.”

“You don’t like it,” I said, and was surprised at how disappointed I sounded.

“Don’t be upset, sweetie,” said Molly. She came over and slipped an arm around my waist. “It just isn’t me, that’s all. I feel…shut in, oppressed, all the time I’m inside. I’m the spirit of the wild woods, remember? I need…nature, and open space, and room to breathe! Not all this dead wood and cold stone…”

“You don’t mind hotels…”

“Only because I know I can walk out of them whenever I feel like it. I’m stuck here, with you. Not that I don’t want to be with you, I do, I do, but…”

“We do have extensive grounds,” I said. “You could walk in them all day and all night, and still not see everything there is to see. And you know I wouldn’t want to keep you here if you were unhappy.”

“Of course I know that, Eddie!” She kissed me quickly. “This is coming out all wrong … I want to be with you, and you have to be here. I know that.”

“We won’t always have to be here. As soon as the new Council’s ready to take over running things, I will demote myself to field agent and be out of here so fast that anyone watching will end up with whiplash.”

“But how long will that take, Eddie?”

“I don’t know. It’ll take … as long as it takes. Molly…”

“Hush. It’s all right. We’ll work something out.”

“Yes,” I said. “We will.”

And all the time I was holding her, I was thinking, If she couldn’t stay here…If she left, would I go with her? And leave my family to tear itself apart? Risk the whole future of humanity, because I left my job unfinished? Would I damn the world, to be with her? Would I do that? Could I do that?

In the end, she let go first and went to check the state of her makeup in the bedside hand mirror.

“So,” she said brightly. “What’s the story with the Time Train?”

“I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,” I said.

“Is it really a time machine?”

“Oh yes. Well, sort of. It started out as someone’s pet project. Sooner or later every Armourer gets a bee in his bonnet about something…some favourite theory, some great idea they’re convinced will make their name immortal within the family. If they can just convince their Matriarch to fund it. One guy was convinced he could build a bomb powerful enough to blow up the whole world.”

“What happened?” said Molly, fascinated.

“When the Matriarch couldn’t make him see what a really bad idea that was, she had him put in suspended animation.”

“Why not just kill him?”

“Because someday we might need a bomb powerful enough to destroy the whole world.”

Molly shuddered. “Your family can be downright scary sometimes, Eddie. So the Time Train is one of these obsessions, is it?”

“Pretty much. I don’t think we’ve used the thing a dozen times in the two centuries since it was constructed.”

“Why not?” said Molly. “I mean, I can think of a dozen really good uses for a time machine, any one of which could make us impossibly rich…”

“Thought you didn’t care about things?”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. “The possibilities for really appalling cock-ups, disasters, tragedies, and paradoxes are enough to give anyone nightmares. Don’t even ask me how the Time Train works, or I’ll start to whimper. Time travel, theory and practice, makes my head hurt. Do me a favour, Molly, and change the subject again.”

“All right…Let’s talk about the people we suggested bringing in as tutors. And don’t pull a face like that, Eddie Drood. The wind might change and then you’d be stuck that way. You know we have to discuss this.”

“Only because my choices were sane and practical, and you chose two monsters!”

“They are not monsters! Or at least, not all the time…And really, Eddie, sane and practical? Yeah, right…Janissary Jane has a good reputation as a fighter, especially when she’s got a few drinks in her, but let’s be real about this; she is way past her prime.”

“She’s a veteran demon fighter,” I said. “Do you have any idea how rare that is? She’s been killing demons for longer than most demon fighters live. There’s a lot she could teach us, if we can persuade her to come here.”

“All right, what about the Blue Fairy?” Molly pulled a sour face. “He’s weak, Eddie, and always will be. And he’s a risk. He’s half elf, and you can never trust an elf. They always have a hidden agenda. Trust me, I know.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you about to tell me of another old boyfriend?”

“An elf? Please!” Molly shuddered theatrically. “I’d sew it up first.”

“Pushing that unexpected mental image firmly to one side,” I said, “my choices are defendable. Yours are completely unacceptable. I mean, come on … a psycho killer and a luck vampire?”

“They’ve been good friends to me,” Molly said firmly. “And they can tell your family about a world they know nothing of. Weren’t you the one who said that there was more to this world than just good guys and bad guys? Subway Sue and Mr. Stab can open your family’s eyes to a whole new way of looking at things…That is what you wanted, isn’t it? To break wide open the Droods’ narrow worldview, and teach them new ways of thinking? Like I did with you?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“No buts. They’ll make excellent tutors. As long as they’re watched carefully. And maybe even excellent warriors in our upcoming war against the demons.”

“If Mr. Stab even looks at a girl in a way I don’t like, I will kill him,” I said.

“You can try,” said Molly. “And trust me, I’ll kill that Roger bloody Morningstar first chance I get. You should never have allowed him inside your home. I don’t care what he says, or who vouches for him; his first allegiance will always be to Hell.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He won’t be here long. The family doesn’t allow outsiders to move into the Hall.”

“I’m an outsider,” said Molly.

“But you’re with me. We’re a couple, sharing a room. Such things are…accepted, if officially frowned upon. Provided you’re senior enough to get away with it.”

“The more I learn about your family, the less I like it,” said Molly.

“You see?” I said. “We have so much in common. Come on, let’s get out of the Hall for a while, and away from the bloody family and its demands.”

“Right,” said Molly. “Let’s go pick up the tutors. They’re all going to take some persuading to come here, and who can be more persuasive than us?”

“Exactly,” I said. “I just need to look in on Harry first, before we leave. I want to make it very clear what will happen to him if he tries to stir up trouble for me with the family while I’m away.”

“You really think a few harsh words are going to stop him?” said Molly.

“No, but hopefully it will make him think twice, and by then we should be back again. Especially if I remind him that I have a torc, and he doesn’t.”

Molly considered me thoughtfully. “Are you planning on giving him one of the new torcs?”

“Of course,” I said. “He’s James’s son, and an excellent field agent in his own right. The family needs experienced men like him. But I don’t think I’ll tell him that, just yet.”

“And what if, after he gets his torc, he challenges you to a duel for the leadership of the family? What if he doesn’t even bother with a challenge, and just ambushes you?”

“Oh, I don’t think he’d do that.”

“Why not? He hangs around with a hellspawn!”

“Yes, but he’s a Drood. The family would never accept a backstabber as leader, and he knows it.”

Molly sighed. “You have such faith in your family, Eddie. Even after all the things they’ve done to you.”

“The Droods are good people, at heart. We’re all trained from childhood to fight the good fight. We just…lost our way, that’s all. And Harry does have an excellent reputation. If he can do a better job than me as leader, let him. I’d be quite happy to stand down and go back to my old job as field agent, with no responsibilities to anyone save myself.”

“You really think he’d let you go?”

I grinned. “He will if he knows what’s good for him.”

Molly laughed and hugged me hard. “That’s my Eddie! You could be the most powerful man in the world running the most powerful organisation in the world, and you really would give it all up, wouldn’t you?”

“First chance I got,” I said. “I never wanted any of this. I’ve always had issues with authority figures. I certainly never wanted to be one. All I want is you, and a life for us together.”

She kissed me, and then pushed me away. “Go and talk to Harry. I’ll go for a wander round the grounds. Where shall we meet up?”

“At the Armoury, in an hour,” I said. “If we’re going after Janissary Jane, the Blue Fairy, Subway Sue, and Mr. Stab … I want to be really well armed.”

I checked with the Sarjeant-at-Arms, just to make sure Harry had ended up where he was supposed to be, in Uncle James’s old room. The Sarjeant always knows where everyone is. That’s part of his job. The Sarjeant allowed that the new arrival was indeed in the Gray Fox’s old room. He seemed to find that appropriate, but I could tell something was bothering him.

“Something’s bothering you, Sarjeant,” I said. “Don’t you approve of Harry returning home at last?”

“He seems a pleasant enough gentleman,” the Sarjeant said slowly. “But his … companion; that’s something else. Never thought I’d live to see the day when we allowed a hellspawn under our roof.”

“Harry vouches for him,” I said. “As is his right. But feel free to keep a very watchful eye on anything Roger Morningstar gets up to while he’s here.”

The Sarjeant nodded. “Like I needed you to tell me that, boy.”

“Don’t push your luck, Cyril. What can you tell me about Harry?”

“Nothing you don’t already know.”

“My Uncle James never spoke about him to you?”

“No. He never did. The Gray Fox never discussed his relationships outside the family.”

“Did you ever know James’s wife, Melanie Blaze?”

The Sarjeant’s mouth twitched briefly in something that might almost have been a smile. “I had the honour of meeting that lady on a few occasions. A most remarkable personage.”

I waited, but that was all he had to say. I nodded to the Sarjeant, and he turned and walked briskly away. I shrugged and made my way through the winding corridors of the west wing to what used to be Uncle James’s room. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, enjoying his company when he was resting at home, in between assignments. In many ways, he was the father I never had. I was like a son to him, so why did he never talk to me about his real son, Harry?

I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn’t think to knock, just opened the door and barged right in, like I used to when it was Uncle James’s room. And then I crashed to a halt as I saw Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar. They were together, in each other’s arms. They were kissing. They broke apart immediately and stared coldly at me, standing shoulder to shoulder. I turned unhurriedly and closed the door carefully behind me.

“You really should learn to lock your door around here,” I said.

“You saw,” said Harry.

“Yes,” I said. “I saw.”

“Are you going to tell everyone?”

“Why should I?” I said. “It’s no one’s business but your own.”

“If you were to inform the Matriarch,” Harry said slowly, “and the family…You know they’d never accept me as their leader. The family is still very old-fashioned about some things.”

“That’s their problem,” I said. “I don’t give a damn. Is this…why you never came home?”

Harry and Roger looked at each other, and relaxed slightly. Harry took Roger’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“This … is why my father never spoke to you about me,” said Harry. “Though he often spoke to me about you. He had great faith in you, Eddie. Said you had it in you to be as great a field agent as him. He never said that about me, even though I tried so hard to impress him. He was everything I ever wanted to be … But he could never come to terms with the fact that his only legitimate son was gay. It meant so much to him, you see, to continue his line within the family. And for that he needed a legitimate child…The Droods have always been very big on bloodlines. The Matriarch gave him hell for marrying my mother; you can image what she would have said if she’d ever found out about me…

“To be fair, he could have disowned me, but he didn’t. But it meant we were never as close as we might have been. And it meant… he could never allow me to come home. No one from the family could ever know that the famous womaniser James Drood had sired a bum boy. He had his reputation to think of.”

“He protected you,” I said.

“Yes,” said Harry. “But he never accepted me.”

“Look,” I said. “I don’t give a wet slap whether you’re gay or not. But I have to ask. How can Roger be your…partner, when he’s also your stepbrother?”

Harry smiled crookedly. “If his being a hellspawn doesn’t bother me, why should anything else? We knew we were meant for each other, the moment we met in that awful little nightclub in Paris.”

“Even hellspawn have hearts,” said Roger.

“You still stink of the Pit,” I said bluntly. “He’s a demon, Harry. You can’t trust him or anything he says. Demons don’t love anyone. They can’t.”

“I’m only half demon,” said Roger. “I’m half human, and very bothersome that can be, at times. I have all the usual run of human emotions, though I never let them get in the way before. I was there in that nightclub on purpose, sent to seduce Harry as away of getting at James, and through him the Droods…but instead, our eyes met, and that was that. I was in love, much to my alarm. We fell for each other right then and there, and we’ve never been apart since.”

“Are you complaining?” Harry said fondly.

“No,” said Roger. “Never. But it does mean I can never go home again. They’d never understand…”

“I know the feeling,” said Harry, and squeezed Roger’s hand.

“You can’t trust him, Harry,” I said, trying my best to get through to him. “He’s a hellspawn! They lie like they breathe; it’s natural to them!”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Harry said flatly. “Not this family, and least of all the man who murdered my father.”

“It wasn’t murder,” I said. “It was a fair fight. Neither of us wanted it, but…”

“Yes,” said Harry. “It always comes down to the family, doesn’t it, and the awful things we do because of it. Tell me this much, at least—tell me my father died well.”

“Of course he did,” I said. “He went down fighting to the last.”

Harry looked at me thoughtfully, his head cocked slightly to one side. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Cousin Eddie.”

“There’s a lot of things I’m not telling you,” I said easily. “I keep my secrets to myself. So should you. I won’t tell the family you’re gay…”

“How very noble of you,” said Roger.

“But the longer you two stick around, together, the sooner someone will realise. And the holding hands is a dead giveaway.”

Harry glanced down at the hand holding Roger’s, but didn’t let go.

“Thank you for the kind advice, Cousin Eddie. And your reticence on our behalf. More than I had any right to expect from you, I’m sure. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that we’re ever going to be friends.”

“I’ll settle for allies,” I said. “We’re going to have to find a way to work together in the bad times that are coming. For the good of the family, and the world.”

“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “Anything, for the family.”