Daemons Are Forever

CHAPTER SIX Four Tutors and a Cemetery

Janissary Jane has fought armies of demons in indescribable Hell dimensions, and the Blue Fairy has battled countless demons within himself, but they both looked distinctly worried when I told them I was sending them back to the Hall alone, while Molly and I continued our search for more tutors. My family’s home does have a certain reputation, mostly by our own choice. Guests are rare, and trespassers are eaten. So in the end I used the Merlin Glass to open a gateway between a quiet corner of the Wulfshead and the family Armoury, and sent Janissary Jane and the Blue Fairy through into the Armourer’s somewhat surprised care. In fact, Uncle Jack looked distinctly startled as I pushed Janissary Jane and the Blue Fairy through the gap, and then closed it quickly before he could object. I’m a great believer in letting people sort out their own problems.

Molly looked thoughtfully at the Glass as I shook it back down to normal size. “That is a seriously useful item, Eddie. Many possible uses occur to me. What say, when we get back, we use it to transport a whole bunch of piranha into the Matriarch’s bidet?”

I had to smile. “You have the best ideas, Molly.”

“Is that yes or no?”

I turned back to the bar and summoned the nearest bartender. “Subway Sue and Mr. Stab; have they been in recently?”

The bartender considered, while conspicuously polishing a glass that didn’t need it. “No…Come to think of it, I haven’t seen either of them in here for some time now. Some weeks, at least. Which is … unusual.”

“Damn right it is,” said Molly, frowning. “Sue must have gone to ground after that nasty business with Manifest Destiny. But Mr. Stab? Nothing upsets him.”

“Any idea where we should look for them?” I said.

“Of course!” she said immediately. “I always have ideas. I am Idea Woman! Give the Glass a shake, sweetie. We’re going underground.”

To be exact, Molly had the Glass transport us to the Underground tube station at Cheyne Walk, which was apparently one of Subway Sue’s favourite haunts. We stepped out into the shadows at the end of a platform, and no one noticed because no one pays any attention to anyone but themselves when they’re waiting for a train. Molly and I strolled through the various tunnels and platforms and finally discovered Subway Sue working her way down a crowded platform. I almost didn’t recognise her at first. An aged, bent-over woman wrapped in the rags and tatters of charity clothes, she shuffled slowly along and people drew back rather than make contact with her. She looked like just another homeless person, begging for spare change. Even Molly had to look twice before she recognised her old friend, and then hurried up to her, horrified. Subway Sue looked around sharply when Molly called her name, and then she flinched and turned away, as though she didn’t want Molly to see what had become of her.

Molly grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her firmly round, and then pulled a face and rubbed her hand vigorously against her hip to clean it. I didn’t blame her. Up close, Subway Sue smelled pretty ripe. Molly glared into Subway Sue’s grimy face.

“Jesus, Sue, what the hell happened to you?” said Molly, blunt as ever. “You look like shit.”

“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,” said Subway Sue. “Ah, the old jokes are still the best. Hello, Molly, Edwin. What are you doing down here?”

“Looking for you,” I said.

“Well now you’ve seen me, so you can go away again,” Subway Sue said firmly.

“Not until you tell us what happened,” said Molly, just as firmly.

Subway Sue sighed, and it was a very tired sound. “My luck finally ran out. All of it.”

“But you’re a luck vampire,” I said. “Why not just steal yourself some more?”

She gave me a long, martyred look. “If it were only that simple… Looking like this, it’s hard to get close enough to anyone for long enough for me to drain off any serious luck. And besides… Oh, hell, you’re not going to go away until you’ve heard the whole sad story, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” said Molly.

“Then come with me. We can’t talk here. Not in front of civilians.”

She led us down to the end of the platform, while everyone else politely looked away from her, as though her poverty might be catching. Subway Sue stopped before an unobtrusive door marked Maintenance Staff Only, opened the heavy padlock with a frankly filthy brass key, and then led us into an empty cupboard. She pulled the door carefully shut behind us, and then pushed at the far cupboard wall. It slid back jerkily under her urging, revealing a large stone cavern beyond, lit by a single electric light that sprang to life as we entered. And this was where Subway Sue lived.

It was really just a hole, decorated with bits of junk she’d salvaged. There were empty cans and plastic bottles, to hold water. Plastic containers to store bits of food in. And a pile of blankets to sleep on. The place looked like somewhere animals lived. Molly looked around her, openly horrified.

“Sue, what happened? You’re one of the most famous luck vampires in London. I thought you had this great place in the West End, where you lived in comfort and luxury?”

“Everyone thinks that,” said Subway Sue, sitting down heavily on her pile of blankets. “And for a time, it was true. I had the best of luck, stolen from the rich and the powerful, and what I didn’t use myself I sold for enough money to bring me everything I ever wanted. But…I used it all up. And when luck turns against you, it really goes bad. As though there’s some…balance, that must be maintained. How do you think someone as lucky as me got captured by Manifest Destiny in the first place?”

“I did wonder about that,” I said.

“One of my own betrayed me,” said Subway Sue. “Not actually a friend, at least, but someone I knew. He swallowed the lie of Manifest Destiny, and believed everything Truman promised him, the fool. He sneaked up on me, while I was distracted during rush hour, and drained off most of my luck before I knew what was happening. And Truman’s thugs were ready and waiting to hustle me off.”

“What happened to the bastard?” said Molly. “Want me to hunt him down for you?”

“No need,” said Subway Sue. “His extra luck enabled him to escape Truman’s goons when they came looking for him, but he’s been on the run ever since. From them, and his own kind. He’s alone now, for as long as he lives.

“I used up every last bit of luck I had helping us all break free from Truman’s concentration camp. And after I escaped, in my desperation, I made the mistake of trying to drain the luck from an interdimensional traveller passing as human. It felt my touch immediately, and knew me for what I was. It… did something to me, and now my luck is always bad.” She smiled humourlessly. “After all these years of passing as a homeless person so I could get closer to my prey, now I’ve become what I pretended. Payback’s a bitch. What are you doing down here, Molly? I never wanted you to see me like this. What do you want from me?”

“I want to hire you as a tutor for the Drood family,” I said. “Teach them about the real world, and the things they don’t even know they don’t know. You’ll have to live at the Hall, and you’ll have to curb your…inclinations, but the pay will be more than good enough to buy you a whole new life once you leave us.”

“You see,” Molly said to Subway Sue, beaming widely. “Your luck has changed.”

“No,” said Subway Sue. She looked away from us and seemed to shrink in on herself. “Look at me. I’m no use to you like this.”

“Things will be better at the Hall,” I said. “We can fix you up, no matter what’s been done to you. We’ll make a new person out of you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Subway Sue. “I’ve heard stories of what happens to people who get taken to the Drood family home.”

“Only some of them are true,” I said.

“Trust me,” said Molly. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“But what can I offer to the high and mighty Droods?” said Subway Sue. “What can I teach them that they don’t already know?”

“The strategies of survival,” I said. “How you survive, when you’ve lost everything you ever depended on.”

Subway Sue looked at me, and then at Molly. I did my best to smile reassuringly.

“Eddie’s running things at the Hall these days,” said Molly. “Things are different there now.”

“I need to open my family’s eyes to the kind of lives they don’t even know exist,” I said. “Come and be a tutor. Share your experience. Help shape how the Droods see the world.”

Subway Sue smiled briefly, but didn’t look convinced. “You and your family have been hunting me and my kind for centuries. Hunting us down like vermin, for the sin of being what we are. You have the blood of my family and my friends on your armoured hands, Drood. And you want me to work for you? I’m not that bad off.”

“Yes, you are, dear,” Molly said kindly. “You must believe me when I tell you I’ll see you safe, at the Hall. I don’t know if you can trust the whole family, but you can trust Eddie. He’s taken his family by the scruff of the neck, and seriously shaken up the way they do things. He wants to change the way they think, and see the world, and that’s why I suggested you as one of his outside tutors. You won’t be alone there. We’re going after Mr. Stab next.”

“Oh wonderful,” said Subway Sue. “That’s supposed to make me feel safe? But… anywhere has to be better than here. You have no idea how much you miss plumbing till you don’t have it anymore. And I do owe you, Edwin, for helping free me from Truman. You do know he’s reorganised, at a new location?”

“Nothing specific,” I said. “Do you know where we can find him?”

“I hear rumours, that’s all… He’s supposed to have a new secret underground base, outside London, in a place of ancient power. You should have killed him when you had the chance, Drood.”

“I’ll try harder next time,” I said. “You ready to go?”

“Hell, yes. It’s not like I’ve got anything to keep me here, is it? Or anything I want to take with me.”

I did the business with Merlin’s Glass, and pushed her through the opening into the Armoury, where Uncle Jack was waiting. He glared through the gateway at me.

“Eddie! Wait just a damned minute!”

“Sorry, Uncle Jack! No time! Catch you later!”

And then I shut the Glass down, cutting him off before he could come up with lots of good reasons why I couldn’t keep lumbering him with the job of looking after my new tutors. Molly looked at me.

“What do you suppose that was about?”

“Nothing that can’t wait till we get back,” I said airily. “Now for Mr. Stab.”

“I wish you wouldn’t pull faces like that, Eddie. I’m sure they’re not good for you.”

“I am taking a hell of a risk on your say-so,” I said. “If anything goes wrong, once we’ve got him back to the Hall…”

“It will all be my fault; yes, we’ve established that. Look, Eddie, I know how dangerous he is. I know that better than anyone. But I’ll be there to keep a very stern eye on him, and…well, just how much damage can he do, in a house full of Droods? Even his old magic is hardly a match for Drood armour. I need you to trust me on this, Eddie.”

“I do trust you,” I said. “I just don’t trust him. But if this is so important to you…”

“It is,” said Molly. “I need to believe that people can change. Even the worst of us.”

“All right,” I said. “Where do you think we should look first, for the most notorious uncaught serial killer of Old London Town?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Molly. “And I think we should start with the Order of Beyond.”

“You have got to be kidding,” I said. “You mean that place down Grafton Way, where possessed people sit around and spout gibberish at each other? What would Mr. Stab be doing in a place like that?”

“Listening,” said Molly. “He thinks if he listens long enough, he might learn some ancient secret or knowledge he could use to alter the conditions of his immortality.”

“To cure him?”

“Or make him a better killer.”

“You are not filling me with confidence about this, Molly.”

“Let’s go.”

“Before or after we have a rush of sense to the head?”

“Oh hush. Be a good boy and I’ll buy you a nice dinner afterwards.”

“I am so easily bribed.”

Merlin’s Glass took us straight to Grafton Way, in one of the older, more traditional parts of the West End. You can find all sorts in that area: embassies for the smaller countries, company houses, literary agencies…And the Order of Beyond, located in the middle of an ordinary, unassuming terraced row, with nothing to mark its presence but a simple brass plaque on the wall, giving the name of the place and the stern admonition No Revenants, Reincarnations, or Repo Men. I hit the buzzer, and when a cold voice from the intercom demanded my name and business, I just said Shaman Bond, and after a pause the door clicked open. My cover identity has a long and carefully established reputation for turning up anywhere, and for being basically harmless. Just another face on the scene, with a keen interest in anything illegal, immoral, or unnatural. Shaman Bond was a chancer, a small-time operator, and nothing at all like Eddie Drood. Which was what I liked most about him.

The reception area turned out to be deliberately blank and anonymous, with no clue as to what lay in wait below. Bare walls, bare floor, and a very professional receptionist sitting behind a very simple reception desk. The receptionist seemed typical enough, with the usual blankly attractive face, eyes of pure ice, and a smile that meant nothing at all. The kind who lived and died by her appointments book, and who wouldn’t make an exception for anyone, even if you set her heavily lacquered hair on fire. I just knew we weren’t going to get along. Molly and I strode over to the desk as though we were slumming it just by being there, and planted ourselves directly before the receptionist. She ignored us, of course, giving all her attention to the papers spread out before her, to properly put us in our place. So I leaned over, grabbed all her papers and threw them up into the air, smiling easily into her horrified face as the papers fluttered down around us.

“Hi,” I said. “Shaman Bond, at your service. The very dangerous person standing beside me is Molly Metcalf, the rightly legendary wild witch of the woods. She has expressed an interest in seeing what goes on at the Order of Beyond, and since I’m far too scared of her to say no, I said I was sure you’d let her in.”

“Because if you don’t, I will take names and kick arse,” Molly said cheerfully.

The receptionist struggled to regain her calm. “Do you have a reservation?”

“No,” said Molly. “I’m going to thoroughly enjoy it. Starting with you, if you don’t get a move on.”

I saw the receptionist reach for an alarm button under the desk and I wagged a warning finger in her face. “Molly Metcalf? Turns people into things? Has a very nasty sense of humour… Is any of this ringing any bells?”

“Go right down,” said the receptionist. “Never wanted this job anyway.”

She moved her hand across to press another button under her desk, and a large trapdoor opened on the floor on the other side of the room, rising slowly and silently of its own accord. Molly and I wandered over to it and looked down. A long stone stairway fell down before us, leading deep into the earth. There was a strong smell of blood and brimstone, and a distant murmur of voices. I insisted on leading the way down, and Molly made me pay for that by crowding my back all the way. The trapdoor slammed shut behind us with a loud, solid, and very final-sounding thud. The bare stone walls beaded with water like sweat, and the air grew hot and close as we descended. I could feel presences below, like heavy weights pressing down on the world and making it cry out. We were going into a bad place, where bad things waited.

Finally, the stone steps curved suddenly round to one side and deposited us into a great natural stone cavern, deep beneath the street. The stone floor stretched away in all directions, covered with blue-chalked pentacles, circles of salt, and rows of squat solid cages made of steel and silver and brass. All designed to safely hold and contain the poor possessed creatures who were the whole reason and purpose of the Order of Beyond. There were men and women and even children, trapped like animals. Some sat and talked calmly, reasonably, arguing that they really didn’t belong in a place like this. Others howled and raged and threw themselves at the cages that held them prisoner, beating at the solid bars with hands that felt no pain. And others just sat and watched sullenly, hatefully, with unblinking eyes, waiting for someone to make a mistake.

Sitting before every possessed prisoner was a member of the order, coaxing and cajoling the possessor into speaking to them. It usually didn’t take much. The possessors do love to talk, to tease and threaten and horrify the listener with lies, half-truths, and terrible facts.

No one in the Order of Beyond was interested in helping any of these people. They didn’t give a damn for the victims. They just wanted to listen, and record everything they heard. There were microphones everywhere, and the most sophisticated recording equipment, and a whole bunch of scribes with pen and paper, to set down what was said by those voices that couldn’t be recorded because technology wouldn’t accept their existence. And sitting comfortably all around, listening intently, were the invited guests, the very well-paying clientele of the Order of Beyond. Who came hoping to hear bits of forbidden knowledge, or hints of the secrets of Heaven and Hell. The Order of Beyond sent full transcripts of everything heard to an extensive mailing list, for an extortionate fee, of course, but there was nothing like being there in person, to hear it for yourself. And just maybe to get the jump on everyone else.

Molly and I stood cautiously at the bottom of the stone steps, letting our eyes adjust to the dim lighting, the rise and fall of harsh overlapping voices, and the stench of hate and fear and things that shouldn’t be allowed in our supposedly sane and rational world. Not all the voices sounded human, though they came from human lips.

There is a river in Hell, made up of the tears of suicides. Tears are wine, among the damned.

Beware the Many-Angled Ones, the Hyperbreed! Beware the Black Sun and what incubates inside it! Beware the howling that never ends, and the teeth that rend men’s souls! Even death is no escape from what lies waiting, in the worlds beyond the worlds!

They watch you from the other side of your mirrors, only pretending to be your reflection, waiting and biding their time. And then, in the dead of night, they come out while you’re sleeping, grab you, and force you back into the other side of the mirror, so they can take your place, and do terrible things in your name. Just because they look like you, it doesn’t mean they are you.

Blood shall rain down, and offal, and the great Beast that is Babalon shall come again, and all Hell shall rise up with her, and…

The Celestials are coming to judge us all, in their million-mile-long spaceships, and we shall be as ants before them…

Please, I don’t want to be here, I shouldn’t be here, there’s something running up and down inside me, and it hurts it hurts it hurts…

You can hear broadcasts from Heaven and Hell every day, on certain designated frequencies. To hear a recording, phone any of these numbers…

“Okay,” said Molly. “Most of this is bullshit, and I should know.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” I said. “I find it very disturbing to be constantly reminded that I’m in love with the original girlfriend from Hell.”

Molly shrugged. “You can’t be a witch of any standing unless you’re prepared to make deals with both sides. And I have to tell you, Eddie, that which side is which depends very much on where you’re standing.” She studied the shadowy figures in their various cages and sniffed loudly. “People pay good money to listen to this shit? I half expected one of them to start spouting pea soup, yelling, Your mother knits socks in Hell! Demons lie. It’s what they do.”

“Except when a truth can hurt you more,” I said.

And then a grossly fat man with a purple birthmark covering half his face called me by name. My real name, not my cover identity. In the great babble of voices I was pretty sure it had gone unnoticed, for now, but I moved quickly over to the silver-barred cage before he could use the name again. My torc would keep the recording devices from picking up anything concerning me, but I didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention. I needed to be just Shaman Bond, here. The possessed man was entirely naked, with strange designs daubed all over his dead white skin in dried blood and shit and vomit. He giggled softly and patted his fat hands against the bars of his cage, so I could see he’d bitten off all his fingers. His unblinking eyes were full of blood, and when he spoke his voice was like a child gargling with razor blades, like your best friend telling you he’s slept with your wife, like a cancer growth would if it had vocal cords.

“Edwin Drood, sweet prince of a ruined family, we meet again. Do you remember me? We spoke once before, in the cellars under Dr. Dee’s House of Exorcism. I promised you the world and everything in it, and you turned me down. Too good to listen to the likes of me. But here you are now, searching for wisdom in the strangest of places. Shall I tell you what you need to know, sweet Drood?”

“You don’t know anything I need to know,” I said.

“But I do, I do! Nothing is hidden, from Heaven or Hell. You seek the undying killer, the saint of slaughter, Mr. Stab. And I know where he is.”

“And you’ll tell us, for a price?” said Molly, standing close beside me, as though to protect me. “What are we supposed to do, break you out of here? I don’t think so.”

“No charge, no charge at all, little witch,” crooned the awful presence behind the fat man’s unblinking eyes. “Because getting what you want won’t make you happy, or free, or wise. You humans make your own way to Hell, with every step you take. And so I give you Mr. Stab. My very own poisoned chalice, a gift from Hell to clutch to your family’s bosom.”

“You demons are so full of yourselves,” said Molly. “If you’re going to tell us, tell us.”

“As you wish, dear little indentured soul. Go you now to the Café Night, and someone there will tell you exactly where to find dear Mr. Stab.”

He was still laughing loudly when we left, a horrible, dirty, disturbing sound, even though the attendants shocked him again and again with cattle prods to try to shut him up.

And so by Merlin’s Glass we went straight to Café Night, a deliberately dark and gloomy establishment tucked away in a corner of Kensington you can’t get to without trying really hard. From the outside, the café looked like just another coffeehouse, a place for suburban mums to sit down after a hard day’s shopping and catch up on the latest gossip…but that was just a simple glamour, with an attached Move along, nothing to see here spell, to keep the uninformed from entering. Café Night has a strict entrance code, and nonmembers enter strictly at their own risk. The place started out as meeting place for vampires and those foolish romantic types who longed to be their victims. It was called Renfields back then. These days the Café Night catered to the kind of immortals whose presence wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else.

I kicked the door open and strode in like I was there to condemn the place on moral health grounds. The café was distinctly gloomy, with artfully arranged track lighting to keep it that way while still allowing you to see who or what you were talking to. The background music drifted from the Cure to the Mission to Gregorian chants, and the air was perfumed with the sickly reek of rotting lilies. Café Night was big on atmosphere.

Shadowy faces glared at me from every table, but nobody moved and nobody said anything, because I’d taken the precaution of armouring up before I crashed my way in. No one here would say a word to a small-time operator like Shaman Bond, so it was time to be Eddie Drood again and command respect the hard way. My silver armour might not be as familiar yet as the golden, but it still marked me for who and what I was, and what I might do if I didn’t get the answers I wanted. So all the various immortals, dark and dangerous creatures in their own right, were quite happy to just sit still, keep their heads down, and hope I’d pick on someone else.

A few did get up to leave, heading for the rear door the moment I entered. But I’d already sent Molly around the back, and the fleeing immortals stopped dead in their tracks as they found Molly lounging threateningly at the rear door. The immortals retired sullenly to their seats, and Molly came forward into the café to smile at me. Everywhere, cold eyes moved quickly from me to Molly and back again, but still no one had anything to say. They hadn’t lived for so very long without learning to keep their mouths shut until they knew what was happening.

I studied the various faces unhurriedly from behind my featureless silver mask (there’s something about the lack of eyeholes that really freaks people out), and finally settled on the few major players present. The only ones who might admit to knowing Mr. Stab, and where he might currently be found. They weren’t exactly top drawer, any of them. An elf lord in delicate filigreed brass armour, chased and etched with protective spells in old elvish. A monk in a tattered red robe, with a face so lined it was almost impossible to make out his features, marked as significant only by the Sumerian amulet around his neck. A couple of Baron Frankenstein’s more successful creations, dressed in black leather from head to toe, to hide their many scars. And a painfully thin presence in a grubby T-shirt and faded jeans who I only knew by reputation, the Hungry Heart. He had a plate full of steaming raw meat set out before him, and he was cramming it down as fast as he could shove it into his mouth. Blood dripped down his working chin, unnoticed.

Proof, if proof be needed, that immortality isn’t everything.

The elf lord looked vaguely familiar, so I started with him. He sneered openly as I strolled over to his table, disdain written all over his arrogant, high-boned features. He made no move to get up or reach for a weapon, but even sitting still with both empty hands resting on the tabletop, he was still the most dangerous thing in the café, and both of us knew it.

“I know you,” I said. “Where do I know you from, elf lord?”

“I was there,” he said in his sweet, sick, magical voice. “Leading the attack on you, in our ambush on the motorway. After your own family betrayed you to us. We came at you on our dragon mounts, singing our battle songs, with our brave new weapons. We had you outnumbered, we had our arrows of strange matter, and still you triumphed. Elf lords and ladies of ancient lineage, friends and family I had known for centuries, all fell beneath the thunder of your terrible gun. I am the only survivor of that day, but rest assured, foul and cursed Drood…the Unseeli Court does not forgive or forget.”

“Good,” I said. “Neither do I.”

“We shall be at your throat all the days of your life!”

“Of course you will,” I said. “You’re an elf.”

And then I turned my back on him, and ignored him. Knowing that would piss him off the most. There was no point in questioning an elf. He’d cut his own tongue out before taking the risk he might say anything that would help me. I looked thoughtfully at the monk in the scarlet robe, and he straightened self-consciously under my silver gaze.

“Know, O mortal,” he said, in a surprisingly rich, deep, and commanding voice, “that I am Melmoth the Wanderer, that original lost soul upon whom the legend is based. Long have I wandered, across all the world, through lands and peoples whose very names are now forgotten.”

And then he stopped, because everyone else in the café was laughing at him. I couldn’t really blame them. I’d already met a dozen Melmoths in my time, all claiming to be the original, along with as many Draculas, Fausts, and Count St. Germaines. Even immortals have their wannabes. I leaned in close for a better look at the Sumerian amulet, and the monk flinched back in his chair. Up close, the thing was clearly a fake, and I turned my back on the monk too, and looked at the Frankenstein monsters.

They were both tall and on the large size, but they could still have just about passed as human, as long as they kept well wrapped up. Here at the Café Night, among their own kind, they didn’t bother, and their black leather motorcycle jackets hung brazenly open, revealing long Y-shaped autopsy scars on their torsos. One had started out as male, and one as female, but such subtle distinctions had not survived their surgical rebirth. They were monsters, with nothing human in their faces or thoughts. Their faces were gray, their lips black, their eyes yellow as urine, the eyelids drooping slackly away from dry eyeballs. Long rows of stitches showed on their foreheads, where the baron had sawed open their skulls before dropping new brains in. Unlike everyone else in the café, these two weren’t scared of me, or even impressed. They had left such emotions behind them, in the grave. Their thoughts and their hearts were cold, and they didn’t care about anything I might threaten to do to them, because the worst possible thing had already been done to them. No point in asking them anything.

That just left the Hungry Heart, sitting alone at his table, set well aside from everyone else, because some things are just too disturbing, even for an immortal. A man so thin he was hardly there, but driven by a terrible energy. He looked up at Molly and me as we approached his table, but kept on stuffing his face with the raw meat, chewing desperately, even pushing pieces back into his mouth with his long, bony fingers. He managed a sort of smile, and blood trickled down his chin.

I knew his story. Everyone did. It’s one of the great cautionary tales of our time, the gist of which is: never piss off a voodoo priest with a mean sense of humour. The Hungry Heart lives forever in the grip of an unrelenting hunger, never satisfied, and he can only survive by eating his own body weight in flesh every twenty-four hours. He has to dope himself heavily just to get a few hours of sleep, every now and again. So, never sleep with a voodoo priest’s daughter, never get her pregnant and then abandon her, and never do a runner afterwards, thinking fleeing halfway across the world will put you out of the voodoo priest’s reach.

Good thing he wasn’t a vegetarian, I suppose. That would have been really terrible.

No one knows how old the Hungry Heart is. Or how long the poor bastard might live. Depends on his strength of will, I suppose. He finished the last scrap of raw meat on his plate, licked his bloody fingers, looked sadly at the empty plate, and only then looked at me and Molly.

“Any meat will do,” he said, in a surprisingly soft and ordinary voice. “As long as it’s raw. Human flesh is the best. It’s like a drug…Got a real kick to it. Wonder how much of a jolt I’d get…from eating a Drood?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Tinned meat isn’t on the menu today.”

“What do you want here?” said the Hungry Heart, all the tiredness of the world in his voice. “No one here wants any trouble. We all have enough of our own. All we want is to nurse our wounds in private, among our own kind.”

“Just looking for a little information,” Molly said breezily. “We’re trying to locate Mr. Stab, and we’ve been given to understand that he frequents this place.”

“Now that really is an insult,” said the elf lord, rising gracefully to his feet, a slender, shimmering dagger in his hand. “As if even we would tolerate such an abomination as Mr. Stab in our select little circle. We do have our standards.”

“Yes,” said the monk, rising to his feet, pulling back the sleeves of his crimson robe to reveal arms corded with muscle. “You come in here and insult us to our faces? Associate us with the likes of Mr. Stab? There’s a limit to the abuse even we will take.”

The Frankenstein monsters were on their feet too, looking even larger and more imposing. And the Hungry Heart sighed, pushed his empty plate to one side, and rose to his feet.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “Anyone here got a can opener?”

“I might have,” said the monk. He produced a short knife from under his robe. “This is the blade that cut Judas Iscariot down from the tree where he hanged himself, in Haceldama, the Field of Blood. Legend has it this blade can cut through anything. Maybe even Drood armour.”

He lunged forward incredibly quickly for one so old. The dagger slammed into my side, skidded across the silver armour in a flurry of sparks, and continued on, leaving my armour entirely undamaged. The monk staggered forward, caught off balance, and I hit him in the head. The whole left side of his face flattened, bone crunching and splintering, but he didn’t fall. He raised the knife to cut at me again, so I grabbed his head with both silver hands and turned it all the way around, so that he was looking backwards. His neck broke loudly, but he still didn’t fall. I pushed him away, and he staggered off around the café, lost and bewildered.

By now everyone else in the café had run for the doors, not wanting to tangle with a Drood in full armour, and I was happy enough to see them go. They would only have got in the way. The two Frankenstein creatures had closed in on Molly, reaching out for her with their large, mismatched hands. Molly laughed in their ugly faces, and hit them with a simple spell that made all their stitches come undone at once. The two monsters cried out in harsh, hopeless voices as ancient cat gut exploded like rows of firecrackers in their skin, undoing them like zippers. They fell apart, bit by bit, their separate pieces pattering to the floor, slowly at first and then in a rush. Hands fell from arms, arms from elbows and then from shoulders. Legs collapsed. Torsos hit the floor hard and opened up, spilling long-dead preserved organs onto the floor. The heads were the last to go, features slipping one by one from the faces, until finally the skulls cracked open and the dry, gray brains fell out.

By then I had my own problems. The elf lord was closing in on me, smiling his nasty, superior smile. He waved his long, shimmering dagger meaningfully before me, and I knew what it was, what it had to be. The blade was made of strange matter, presumably put together from bits left over after the forging of the silver arrows that so nearly killed me in the motorway ambush. Could a blade of strange matter cut through armour made of strange matter? I decided I didn’t want to find out. I concentrated, and the armour around my hands extended into long silver killing blades. Just like my Uncle James taught me, when he was trying to kill me.

The elf lord and I circled each other slowly, taking our time, looking for weaknesses in stance and style, for hesitations and openings. Finally we darted in and out, cutting at each other with gleaming blades, come and gone in a moment. The armour made me supernaturally strong and fast, but he was an elf, so we were fairly matched. And for all my family’s extensive training, he had centuries of experience, so he struck the first blow. His dagger came flying in out of nowhere, slipped gracefully past my defence, and slammed into my ribs. I cried out despite myself, but when the blade met my armour, the armour just absorbed the blade into itself. The elf lord was left standing there with only a knife hilt in his hand.

I ran him through. You get a chance with an elf, you take it. You might not get another. My hand slammed against his chest, my extended blade splitting his heart in two. He grabbed my arm with both hands, as though that might hold him up. I twisted the blade, and he fell down and died.

I retracted the silver blades into my hands, flexed my shining fingers, and looked around to see how Molly was doing. She was staring disgustedly at the Hungry Heart, who was squatting over the disassembled Frankenstein creatures, feasting on their ancient flesh. He looked up and smiled apologetically.

“Tastes like dust, but flesh is flesh and beggars can’t be choosers. If you really must find Mr. Stab, and I can’t think of any good reason why you’d want to… I suggest you try the old Woolwich Cemetery.”

“What would he be doing there?” said Molly.

“You ask him,” said the Hungry Heart. “I wouldn’t dare.”

The Merlin Glass transported us instantly to a gloomy, overgrown, and deserted cemetery in Woolwich Arsenal, down in the dark heart of the East End, on the far side of the Thames. The cemetery was dominated by Victorian styles, with oversized tombs and mausoleums, and fancy graves. That whole period was fascinated with death and all its trappings, and the graveyard was positively littered with statues of weeping angels, mourning cherubs, and enough morbid carvings and engravings to make even an undertaker shout Jesus! Get a life, dammit! Long exposure to the elements had scoured away the angels’ faces, giving the statues a sour, surrealistic look. The cherubs still looked like dead babies, though. In fact, I think that was the name of a cartoon series I saw as a kid: Casper the Dead Baby.

Molly and I set off down the single gravel path, heading deeper into the extensive cemetery grounds. The place looked abandoned. The grass had been left to grow and there were weeds everywhere, even pushing thick tufts up though the gravel path. There were no flowers on any of the graves, and the headstones were so weathered it was hard to make out the inscriptions. A cold wind was blowing, light was fading as evening descended, and shadows were creeping everywhere.

“I like this place,” said Molly.

“You would,” I said.

“No, really; it’s…restful. Modern cemeteries are far too busy for my tastes. Once I’m gone, I don’t want to be bothered with visitors or flowers. Just bury me deep, set up perimeter mines to discourage the body snatchers, and let me rest easy till Judgement Day. I’m going to need the peace and quiet to think up some good excuses.”

“All Droods get cremated,” I said. “Just to make sure none of our enemies can play unpleasant tricks with our remains.”

“Maybe you could have your ashes shot into outer space, like Timothy Leary,” said Molly.

I had to smile. “Anything, to get away from my family.”

“I don’t see Mr. Stab anywhere,” said Molly. “And I don’t see what he would be doing in a place like this anyway.”

“We’re not that far from his original killing grounds,” I said. “Back when he first made a name for himself, in 1888.”

“Maybe some of his victims are buried here.”

“Somehow, I don’t see Mr. Stab as the sentimental kind,” I said. “And anyway, from what I’ve been able to make out on these tombstones, most of them date from long before Jack the Ripper.”

We walked up and down and back and forth in the cemetery, and still no sign anywhere of Mr. Stab. Given the sheer size and scale of the cemetery grounds, it would take hours to cover it all, and besides, I was getting impatient. And cold. I’d dropped my armour when I left Café Night, but now I subvocalised the Words, and called up just enough of my armour to cover my face. With a little concentration, I can see infrared though the mask, and it didn’t take me long to locate the only other human heat source in the darkening graveyard. I armoured down again, rather than risk putting Mr. Stab on the defensive, and led the way over to where he was standing, doing my best to appear calm and unthreatening and not in any way worried. He doesn’t like it when people he’s trying to have a conversation with are clearly scared shitless of him. In fact, for an immortal serial killer, Mr. Stab could be quite remarkably touchy.

He was dressed in the formal clothes of his original period, all stark black and white, with a top hat and even an opera cloak. When stalking his victims he could blend in just like anyone else, but when he was off duty, so to speak, he preferred the clothes he was most comfortable with. He was a tall and powerful man, with broad shoulders and long arms. He had a broad, paternal face, like a kindly old family doctor…until you looked into his eyes. And saw all the horrors of Hell looking back at you.

He turned slowly to face us as we drew nearer. “Molly,” he said. “How nice. And Edwin Drood, again. An honour.”

“What are you doing in a place like this?” said Molly, blunt as ever.

“Just…visiting,” said Mr. Stab. He smiled vaguely, showing large, blocky teeth grown brown with age. He gestured at the graves around him. “Once this was a fashionable place, with people just dying to get in. Special trains brought the fortunate deceased here from all over the country. Long ago now, and no one remembers anymore. Except me. I have friends and family here, people who knew me when I was just a man. The last people to remember me as I was, before I became a name to frighten people with.”

I found it hard to think of Mr. Stab as ever being normal, with a normal life, and he must have sensed it, because he made a brief dismissive gesture and looked at me coldly.

“What do you want with me, Edwin Drood?”

I explained the situation, but he was shaking his head even before I finished. “What makes you think I would be so foolish and trusting, to place myself into the hands of my long-time enemies? More importantly, even if you could manage to convince me of my safety, why should I go to the one place where I would never be allowed to kill? I must murder, Edwin. It is my nature.”

“After the tutoring is done,” I said, “you can murder as many Loathly Ones as you like.”

“The Droods have opened up their old library,” said Molly. “Packed full of forgotten and forbidden texts from centuries back. Somewhere in that Library there must be information on how to … if not reverse, at least moderate the conditions of your immortality. Give you some control over it. So you wouldn’t have to kill all the time.”

Mr. Stab considered her thoughtfully. “And what makes you think I want that?”

“Because you’ve refrained from killing me, and my friends,” said Molly. “And I’ve never known you do that for anyone else.”

He nodded slowly. “You want me to do this thing, Molly? Even though you must know it can only end in tears?”

“I want you to do this, so it won’t,” said Molly.

“Then so be it,” said Mr. Stab.

I opened the Merlin Glass to the Armoury, and waved Mr. Stab through. He was greeted by a very harried-looking Armourer, and I shut the mirror down quickly before Uncle Jack could say anything. He looked very much like he wanted to say something, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything I wanted to hear. I put the Glass away and turned to Molly.

“I think we’ve done enough for one day, don’t you? I think we’re owed a little downtime, before we have to report back. What shall we do?”

“Well,” said Molly, linking her arm through mine, “I did promise you a good meal, and since we’re in London for the evening…What say we take in a West End show, and have dinner afterwards at the Ritz?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “But we’ll never get tickets for anything decent at such short notice.”

“I’m a witch, sweetie, remember? Trust me, tickets are not going to be a problem.”

I thought it best to give the family time to adjust to their new tutors before I showed my face at the Hall again, so a show and a nice meal it was. We went to see the new production at Shaftesbury Avenue: Prince of Thieves: The Musical. Starring Robbie Williams as Robin Hood, Paris Hilton as Maid Marion, and Ricky Gervais as the Sheriff. Music, book, and lyrics by no one you’ve ever heard of. Tickets were not a problem; Molly did a Jedi mind trick with the theatre staff, and we ended up in a private box. Afterwards we went to the Ritz and ordered the very best of everything, secure in the knowledge that we had no intention of paying for any of it.

Hey, I keep the world safe and humanity protected. I’m entitled to a few perks and privileges.

“An interesting production,” I said to Molly over pieces of lightly browned toast piled high with Beluga caviar.

“Yes…but why is there such a preoccupation with translating successful films into stage shows? And why didn’t they sing the Bryan Adams song? It’s all most people remember about the film anyway.”

Several bottles of really good champagne later, we stiffed the waiter with an imaginary credit card, tangoed giggling down the Ritz steps, and used the Merlin Glass to take us home. We stepped through into the Armoury, where the Armourer was waiting for us. He did not look at all happy.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, landing me with those four psychopaths? I have enough trouble looking after the psychopaths who work under me! And I have more than enough work to do, without babysitting your special-needs friends!”

I looked around, but there was no sign of any of my tutors. I fixed the Armourer with an only slightly owlish look.

“Uncle Jack, what have you done with them?”

He sniffed loudly. “I handed them over to Penny, and let her take care of them. You know she loves organising things. And people.”

I looked at him, shocked suddenly stone cold sober. “You did what? She’ll never be able to handle a dangerous bunch like that! The Blue Fairy alone could walk all over Penny without even raising a sweat, never mind Mr. Stab! Where are they now?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Ask Penny. Now get out of here. I’ve got a pocket universe that needs stabilising.”

I activated my mental link with Strange, in the Sanctity.

“Red alert, emergency, emergency!”

“Oh, hello Eddie! Welcome back. Did you have a nice time in town? Did you bring me back a present?”

“Never mind that now…”

“You didn’t, did you. You forgot all about me.”

“Where’s Penny, and the four tutors she’s supposed to be looking after?”

“At the lecture auditoriums, of course. She’s already got the first tutorials up and running. It’s all terribly exciting!”

I cut contact with Strange, before I said something one of us would regret, and used the Merlin Glass to transport Molly and me straight to the lecture halls in the south wing. I had this horrible mental picture of a lecture hall full of dead Droods, with blood running down the aisles while Janissary Jane and Mr. Stab played football with their severed heads…But when we arrived in the lobby outside the auditoriums, all seemed calm and quiet. Penny was walking unhurriedly back and forth, listening at first one door and then the next. She jumped a little as Molly and I appeared through the Glass, and then hurried over to us, making shushing gestures.

“Thanks a whole bunch for dropping those four on me!” she said, the effect somewhat limited by her hushed tone.

“Blame the Armourer,” I said automatically. “Where are they, Penny? Has there been any trouble?”

“None at all,” said Penny. “I thought the best thing to do was put them all to work straightaway. Let the family see what they could do. So I gave them an auditorium each, told them to talk about what the hell they liked, and…much to my surprise, they took to it like ducks to water. It’s all worked out rather well. It’s standing room only, for all four lecture halls, and when was the last time that happened?”

“And there haven’t been any…incidents?” said Molly.

“Not yet,” said Penny. “A part of me keeps waiting for the other bomb to drop.”

“Why are we whispering?” I said.

Penny raised an eyebrow. “Well, we don’t want to interrupt them, do we?”

I moved over to the nearest door and slipped quietly through to stand at the back of the lecture hall. Molly was quickly there at my side. Subway Sue was up on the stage, striding back and forth, hitting the fascinated packed audience with what it was like to live on the very edges of society. To be in the city, but not part of it, alone and unsupported, surviving entirely on your wits.

“You don’t know how easy it is, to fall off the edge,” she said. “All it would take is one really bad day, and any one of you could end up just like me. I had a home and job and a life, once. I had friends and family. And then I lost them all, one by one. Lost them, or had them taken from me. And so I ended up a homeless person, living on the streets, because even after everything else is gone, the streets are always there. In time I became a luck vampire, and made a new life for myself. I could have had my old life back, but I didn’t want it anymore. I’d become somebody else, and my old life wouldn’t have fit. But, once again, all it took was one really bad day, and I lost it all again. The one thing you have to learn is never to depend on anyone but yourself. Because there’s nothing you can have that the world can’t take away.”

The audience were transfixed, breathless. They’d never encountered anyone like Subway Sue before. I slipped back out the door, Molly behind me, and we went to look in on Mr. Stab. He stood entirely at ease on the stage, glaring calmly out at his equally packed audience, as he lectured them on the skills of murder, the stalking of victims, the joys of slaughter…and how even the smallest seeds of evil can flower in a man and corrupt him. He talked of hunting prey, of tracking a target unsuspected for days or even weeks, if necessary.

“You need to know these things,” he said. “You don’t have your legendary armour anymore. You cannot be invincible warriors, so you must learn to become hunters. You must acquire the techniques of ambush and fighting and killing. And no one knows more about that than me. Learn from me, and I guarantee that most of you will survive the great war that’s coming.”

In the next auditorium, the Blue Fairy was sitting relaxed on a bar stool on the stage, drinking a cocktail with a little umbrella in it, while he lectured on elves, and their often unsuspected interventions in the modern world.

“The elves are long gone,” he said easily. “They walked sideways from the sun centuries ago, dropping out of our world forever. Everyone knows that; but, like most things everyone knows, it’s a crock of shit. Most of the elves are gone, but some remain, intent on revenge. They hate humanity, for ruling the world that was once theirs, and they live to do us harm and bring us down. They’ll side with anyone, or anything, that will help them in their endless, bitter cause.”

And finally, we listened to Janissary Jane tell the family how to fight demons. She marched back and forth across the stage, her cold, practical voice making what she had to say even more disturbing, and scary.

“Demons,” she said flatly, “cannot be reasoned with, or bought off. You can’t negotiate with them. They see us only as a commodity, something to be used. Some come from Hell, some from the past or the future, and some from other worlds or dimensions. It doesn’t matter. All you have to remember is that they only exist to destroy everything you care about. They’ll take your lives, your world, your souls, and use them for their own purposes. And never give a damn. They’re locusts, sweeping through a field until nothing is left. Unless you fight them, with everything you’ve got. And you’re going to have to learn to fight as an army, because this is a war. You can’t be warriors anymore, fighting individual duels. You can’t be heroes. You have to be soldiers, fighting in a great cause. You have to learn to be an army, because there’s armies of them.”

Penny smiled as Molly and I wandered, just a little dazed, back into the lobby.

“Well, Eddie,” she said. “Looks like you finally did something right.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“Bitch,” said Molly.

“You’re welcome, bitch,” I said.