From Hell with Love

CHAPTER TEN Assault on Castle Frankenstein

I could have just walked up to the main entrance, banged on the door and demanded to be let in, but somehow I just didn’t like to. There had to be more than getting into Castle Frankenstein than just having the right face. So I made my approach slowly and cautiously, sticking to the shadows wherever possible. I wasn’t used to sneaking up on things without the benefit of my armour to fall back on, if things went seriously wrong in a hurry. The Castle seemed to grow bigger and bigger the closer I got, its vast stone face looming over me, impossibly tall and foreboding. Lights burned fiercely in all the many windows, though here and there unhealthy glows seeped past the outlines of closed shutters. And still, not a sign of a human guard anywhere. Not up on the high crenellated battlements, not peering out of any window, not even standing guard outside the main entrance. Did the Immortals really feel that safe, that secure? I suppose if no one’s dared attack you where you live for centuries, you just come to assume no one ever will. Especially if you’ve got the kind of protections in place that can keep out gods and monsters and Droods. But after the failed attack on Drood Hall, and the rout of the Accelerated Men, they should have been expecting some kind of re sponse, or counterattack . . . Could they really be that arrogant, that complacent?

First rule in the field: when events seem too good to be true, they probably are too good to be true.

Still, the Castle’s quite remarkable protections had failed only because I had access to the false Rafe’s DNA, and that was a very recent development. Even the best of protections need regular updating. I kept checking around me with my Sight raised, looking for new levels of protection, disguised booby traps, land mines or trapdoors, but there was nothing. It was almost completely dark now, the only light shining down from the Castle’s long rows of windows. Which left me plenty of shadows to take advantage of, right up to the Castle itself. But the approach to the main door was sharply illuminated, with harsh white electric light. Presumably backed up by modern surveillance systems, because nobody’s that secure. I kept well away from the lit door, and sneaked along the front wall, my shoulder pressed hard against the cold rough stone. I kept my head well down, ducking under each of the lit windows, listening carefully.

The night was eerily silent, but through the closed windows I could hear conversations, raised voices, laughter. They sounded just like ordinary people, not the evil murdering bastards they were. But I suppose even monsters aren’t always monsters, when they’re at home. Did they plot to murder my Molly, in one of these bright and cheerful rooms? I had to stop for a moment, as a cold hand closed around my heart, and squeezed. Not now. Not now . . . I’d mourn my love later, when I had time. I made myself move on, darting from window to window, until finally I came to one where there was no sound at all. I crouched there a while, motionless, until I was sure the room was deserted. And then I held my right hand up before me, and studied the golden ring gleaming on my finger. The Gemini Duplicator. It was time to try out the Armourer’s new toy. I pressed hard against the ring with the fingers on either side of it, and just like that there were two of me.

And the duplicate was standing on the other side of the wall, inside the room. I’d spotted that possibility early on, when the Armourer first explained the rings’ extended range to me.

At first, being two of me felt really freaky. All my senses were registering in duplicate, in a weird stereo effect. I was in the light and in the dark, in the cold and in the warm, inside and out. I swayed on two sets of feet, unbalanced in a whole new way, and concentrated fiercely until I could separate out the two sensory streams. I found the trick of it surprisingly quickly; like patting yourself on the head while simultaneously rubbing your stomach. I’d always known that talent would come in handy one day. At first, my consciousness kept switching back and forth from one head to the other, but I soon learned to keep both sets of thoughts going at once, holding one set in the foreground while pushing the other back.

Still; really freaky.

I pushed down the outside me and took a good look around the room I was in. (While thinking, Was the one outside the original me, with the one inside a duplicate? Or had the Gemini Duplicator projected me where I needed to be, while generating a duplicate to stay outside? And, where did all the extra mass come from, to make a whole second body?) My heads started to hurt. When this was all over, and I got back to Drood Hall, I was going to have to sit the Armourer down, and ask him a whole bunch of seriously pointed questions.

I concentrated on the room I was in. It was cheerfully lit with perfectly modern electric lighting, comfortably appointed, and no one was home. I padded quickly over to the door, eased it open a little, and listened. A few people were coming and going, talking quietly. I waited till they were gone, gave it a few more moments just in case, and then opened the door and slipped out into the main hall.

Pretty impressive, at first look. Old style Baronial, all eighteenth-century features carefully preserved, parquet flooring and exposed stone walls, and a really high ceiling with half a dozen cut glass and diamond chandeliers. Probably draughty as hell, and a pain to heat in the winter. I grew up in Drood Hall; I know about these things. I thought wearing long underwear most of the year round was normal. I hurried over to the main door, and then hesitated, and studied it thoughtfully. Fashioned from a single huge slab of some dark wood, reinforced with steel bands, but . . . no hidden surprises that I could See. Just a perfectly ordinary brass lock, and two sets of heavy bolts, top and bottom. The bolts weren’t even in place, and when I checked, the door wasn’t even locked. Arrogant, complacent, and stupid . . . Some people deserve everything that’s coming to them. I pulled open the heavy door, and there I was, waiting for me.

Freaky, weird and very disturbing. My consciousness ricocheted back and forth between my heads, me seeing me seeing me, and the only coherent thought I could manage was, Is that really what I look like? I concentrated, bearing down hard, and then it occurred to the me looking in from outside that I had to be the original because I was still wearing the Gemini Duplicator ring. I held up my hand to prove it, and the me standing inside held up my hand. We both had rings. I decided enough was enough, and both of me squeezed my fingers against the ring. And just like that there was only me, standing in the open doorway. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum where the other me had been standing just a moment before, like an explosion in reverse. I rocked on my feet, struggling to reconcile two sets of memories from the same period, but it all came together surprisingly easily. I hurried forward, and closed the door quietly behind me.

I put my back to the door and scowled at the long empty hall stretching away before me. My skin crawled in anticipation of sudden alarms, but there was nothing. I couldn’t quite believe how easy they were making this for me. Powerful protective shields are all very well, but you can’t beat the human touch when it comes to spot ting intruders. In the end I just shrugged, and allowed myself to breathe a little more easily. I might not be able to call up my armour here, but my torc’s basic nature should still be enough to hide me from any and all inner surveillance systems. The Immortals might or might not have had systems in place to detect the presence of old torcs, but I was betting they didn’t have anything that could deal with the new strange matter torcs. The Immortals might have infiltrated the Droods, but they didn’t understand Ethel.

Nobody did.

I pulled up my collar a little, to hide the torc from a casual glance, and strode down the long hall like I was thinking of renting it out. When penetrating an enemy stronghold, confidence is everything. Look like you belong there, and no one will challenge you. So far, Castle Frankenstein was everything it should be: old stonework, marvellously carved and ornate; standing suits of armour, burnished to within an inch of their lives; elegant medieval tapestries and hanging cloths; and rows of dark frowning portraits. Old Frankensteins or old Immortals, I didn’t know or give a damn. It was all very Gothic, apart from the electric light chandeliers and the hidden central heating, the benefits of which I was currently enjoying after so long in the cold, cold night.

The Castle so far reminded me a lot of Drood Hall. Of long and not forgotten history, held over into the modern day. The Immortals were as old as we were, and the two of us had a lot more in common than I liked to admit. Two ancient families, their present still dominated by their past, who never threw anything away. The Immortals were the one thing we’d always feared the most, our darkest nightmare: the Anti-Droods. Everything we could have been, if not for our role as shamans, defenders of the Human tribe. Be sure your nightmares will find you out . . .

I stopped, some distance down the hall, and looked thoughtfully about me. It had just occurred to me that everything in the hall was perfectly clean, polished, and waxed . . . For all the Gothic look, there wasn’t a cobweb in sight. And I had to wonder about that. Surely the Immortals wouldn’t allow humble cleaning staff to enter their secret sanctorum? Who could they trust, to come in and do for them? They couldn’t employ the local townspeople as servants; like everyone else, the locals had been programmed to see Castle Frankenstein as nothing more than ancient ruins. And surely the great and secret masters of the world wouldn’t lower themselves to get out the bucket and mop and do it themselves?

A quiet, subtle sound caught my attention, and I looked sharply round. And there behind me was a short, squat creature, almost as broad as it was tall, wearing simple blue overalls, with a bucket and mop . . . slowly but thoroughly cleaning up the trail of scuffed muddy footprints I’d left behind me. (I couldn’t believe I’d done that. Footprints? I was far too used to my armour looking after me.) I recognised what the cleaner was; I’d seen his people at work, in and around London. This was a kobold, one of the underfolk, from under the ground. Ancient inhabitants of the Hidden World, like Pixies, Brownies, Trolls. Mostly gone now, to other more hospitable realities, like the Elves. But the kobolds I’d encountered before had been proud, hardworking creatures, always paid the best rates because they were the only ones brave enough to do the really hard work. So what was a kobold doing here, working as a cleaner for the Immortals?

I strolled back to the creature, smiling on it in what I hoped was a friendly and not at all threatening way. It looked up from its work, but didn’t stop, slowly and methodically removing all traces of my presence. Up close, it looked more like a Neanderthal than anything else: brutal but still basically humanoid, heavy browed and heavy boned, with a wide face, no chin, and sharp crafty eyes. It nodded briefly to me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” it said, in a low growling voice. “Come to take on the Immortals, in their own place of power, have you? Be welcome, fool. Try to die well, with honour.”

“I’m a Drood,” I said calmly. “Other people do the dying.”

The kobold looked at me sharply. “Then you should know better than to be here. You might stand a better chance than most, but you’re still a damned fool to break into Castle Frankenstein. And a doomed one. Doomed . . . No one can beat the Immortals. They go on forever, because they can.”

“Everything comes to an end eventually,” I said, with a confidence I wasn’t entirely sure I felt. “You’re a kobold, aren’t you? What are you doing here, working for the Immortals?”

“Kobold. Yes. Very old people. We were here before the Immortals. Before this Castle. We were miners, then. Digging deep, deep under the earth. Left to ourselves, and liked it that way. We stayed on after so many of the other underfolk left, because no one bothered us, down in the depths of the earth. There was still a lot of gold left, and we like gold. They built a Castle above us, and we didn’t care. Until he came. The one everyone talks about. The Frankenstein, the living god of the scalpel. He discovered us, brought us up into the light, made us his servants. And after he left the Immortals moved in, and they made us their slaves. Put these yokes upon us.”

He lifted his head to show me the cold iron collar around his throat, etched with runes. He was careful not to touch it.

“The Immortals own us now. Generations of kobolds have been born in this cold stone tomb, never to know the comforts of the dark, and the earth, the mines and the gold. Once there were thousands of us, then hundreds, now less than one hundred. We do not belong in this world. And we were never meant to be slaves.”

“I can rip that yoke right off you,” I said. “If you want.”

“No you can’t. The yoke will kill me, rather than let me go. The Immortals never let go of anything they own.”

“Then I will bring down the Immortals,” I said. “And make them free you. All of you.”

“Why should you?” said the kobold. “Why should you give a damn about the underfolk? You’re human.”

“Because I’m a Drood,” I said. “And that’s what Droods do.”

The kobold leaned forward, fixing me with its cold, bright eyes. “Kill them all, Drood. They’ve earned it.”

I walked the whole length of the hall, looking vaguely around for a map of some kind, or a floor plan of the Castle. Preferably something set out neatly on a wall, with YOU ARE HERE, and all the important areas clearly marked. But of course, there was nothing like that. The people who lived here didn’t need a map, and they actively discouraged tourists. I had no idea of what I was looking for, and where I should be going; that’s what happens when you plan a mission in a hurry. All my thoughts had centred around how I was going to get in, and not enough about what I’d do afterwards. We should have got more specific information out of Rafe, but I was too impatient. Now I was here, I wanted information, which meant records, which meant computers. While I was standing at the foot of a long sweeping set of stairs, at the end of the hall, looking vaguely around in search of inspiration, a side door opened, and out came a teenager with long floppy hair, in sweatshirt, jeans and trainers. He stopped abruptly, and looked at me.

I smiled and nodded easily, secure behind my Rafe face. The teenager glared at me, and opened his mouth to shout a warning. I sprinted forward, crossing the space between us in a few moments, and hit the teenager a savage straight finger jab under his sternum. All the air shot out of his lungs before he could shout a single word, and the force of the blow sent him staggering backwards. All the colour dropped out of his face as he struggled to get his breath. I hustled him quickly backwards into the room he’d just left, checked it was empty and then closed the door behind us. The teenager reached out to me with a shaking hand, perhaps to grab me, maybe just to ask for help. I hit him once, expertly, and he slumped forward into my arms, unconscious. The whole scuffle was over in a few moments, hardly long enough to qualify as a fight. I dropped him into the nearest chair, and considered him thoughtfully.

Why hadn’t my disguise worked? Why hadn’t he accepted me as an Immortal? Maybe . . . they didn’t keep track of all the people they replaced. He was young, maybe he didn’t have access to information like that. I arranged him in his chair so he looked like he was just dozing, and then paused as another thought struck me. Rafe’s face might not be familiar here, but this teenager’s had to be . . . So I used the Chameleon Codex again, and suffered the shudders that ran through my flesh, as I became him.

I did consider changing clothes with the teenager—but there are limits.

With all the changes I was putting myself through, I was in danger of suffering a real identity crisis, but that’s business as usual for an agent in the field. I considered the unconscious teenager in his chair. He looked so young, to be part of such a family of monsters. Given how hard I’d hit him, he shouldn’t wake up for ages, but who knew what his shape-changing flesh was capable of? He could wake up any time, and sound the alarm. The sensible and prudent thing to do was kill him, and put an end to the problem. Part of me wanted to kill him. For what his people had done to me, to Molly, and Rafe, and all the Droods who’d fallen to the Accelerated Men. But I couldn’t bring myself to kill him in cold blood. I’d executed Rafe without a second thought, but this was different.

I am an agent, not an assassin.

So I left him, apparently sleeping in his comfortable chair, and went back out into the hall, shutting the door carefully behind me.

I trotted up the long sweeping staircase, which gave out onto the next floor, and strolled down the wide passage. And almost immediately I started bumping into people, Immortals coming and going, and every single one of them was a teenager. They were dressed in a curious mixture of fashions and styles, from the past to the present: everything from Elizabethan ruffs and tights to Edwardian dandies to seventies punk. A little thought suggested that this was because they were all most comfortable in the periods they grew up in. They all had the same arrogant poise, the same aristocratic ease, an almost palpable sense of entitlement. And they were all teenagers because . . . that was when the Immortal genetic inheritance kicked in, and they stopped aging. No wonder the one downstairs hadn’t accepted me. Rafe was too old.

I nodded and smiled perfectly casually to the people I passed, and they just smiled and nodded back to me. Because I was acting like I had a perfect right to be where I was, they all just assumed I had. I must be one of them or I wouldn’t be there. Attitude can get you a long way, as a field agent. I studied them all carefully, behind my borrowed teenage face. They didn’t look like monsters. But they didn’t exactly seem like teenagers, either. There was something wrong, in the way they moved, and talked, and acted. They had none of the usual teenagers’ awkwardness or high energy; instead, they all moved with a certain cold confidence, presumably the result of living lifetimes. And in their eyes I caught a glimpse of more experience than anything human should ever have.

I got to the end of the corridor without anyone shouting out or pointing at me, and then I looked about me, wondering where to try next. Or whether I should pick one Immortal out from the pack, drag him into an empty room, and beat the information out of him. I was getting impatient again. And then I saw another kobold, peering round a far corner. It gestured to me urgently, and I set off towards it as though I’d meant to go that way all along. The kobold was indistinguishable from the one I’d met downstairs, wearing the same blue overalls.

“Drood,” it said, in the familiar low growling voice. “You have come to free us.”

“Well, I’d like to,” I said. “But I have to complete my mission first. I need information. Records, computers . . . you know computers?”

“Of course I know computers,” it growled. “I’m a slave, not stupid. We keep informed, up to date. How else could we serve our hated masters efficiently? You want the computer rooms, down in what used to be the dungeons. Better for the machines, down there. Temperature controlled. I know all about computers. I read Wired magazine. Every month.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Follow these back stairs, all the way down. Watch out for the guard on duty. And the alarms. Did you really break in here, without first doing some reconnaissance?”

“I was in a hurry,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster.

It gave me a long hard look. “And you’re our great hope for liberation. I think I’ll go and have a little lie down.”

It sniffed loudly, pointed out the back stairs with quite unnecessary thoroughness, and shuffled off. Almost immediately, a door to my right swung open, and a whole crowd of teenagers rushed out, talking loudly. I stood back to let them pass, and although they all did so, several of them looked at me oddly, as though I hadn’t said or done something they expected. One of them actually paused and looked back at me, the look on his face clearly suggesting that he thought something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. I couldn’t get past them to the back stairs, so I just turned casually away and made a point of going into the room they’d just come out of.

It turned out to be some kind of common room, with more teenagers standing around in groups, sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking and talking. There was a bar in one corner, manned by yet another kobold. I drifted over to the bar and acquired a Beck’s in a bottle, and the kobold actually slipped me a sly wink as it served me. God save us all from amateur conspirators. Even if they did have one hell of a gossip network. I was a bit concerned I might be promising the underfolk more than I could deliver. I was here for information to take back to my family, not to start a revolution of the downtrodden. If I found the kind of information I was looking for, I might have to grab it and run. My duty to the family came before anything else. I fully intended to come back, sometime, preferably at the head of a large army of armoured Droods, and bring down the Immortals in blood and fire. And then, of course, we’d free all the kobolds. But that wouldn’t be today or tomorrow. Might even be years. The Immortals were the deadliest and most devious enemy we’d ever faced; any attack would have to be carefully planned. And there was still the problem of the Apocalypse Door, and the end of the world. I had a lot to do, before I could even think about freeing the kobolds.

But it still didn’t feel right, to take their help under false pretensions.

I wandered round the common room, sipping from the bottle when anyone got too close, nodding and smiling and listening in on as many conversations as possible, without seeming like an eavesdropper. Everyone in the room was a teenager, fifteen or sixteen years old at most. And they all had the same cold, ancient eyes, as though they’d seen everything there was to see, and put their mark on it. None of them were particularly handsome, or beautiful; striking would be a better word. Long experience had put its stamp on their faces, but not in wrinkles or sagging flesh; more in their expressions, and the way they held themselves. They all had perfect skin, perfect teeth, and not a blemish among them. They all looked to be in good shape, though that could be flesh dancing. None of them would need to be fat for long, and they could just grow what muscles they needed . . . or that terrible bone armour I’d seen down in the Hotel. They could be anything, so why hadn’t they made themselves attractive? All of these teenagers were defiantly ordinary.

All the better to walk among you . . .

The common room itself had the air of a peculiarly old-fashioned Gentleman’s Club; nothing like a teenage hangout. It was all very calm, and ordered, and tidy, and no one raised their voice. They all seemed very relaxed, and comfortable in their own skins, and there was a basic ease you get only among people who’ve known each other forever. And maybe they had . . . That was why I was still getting glances. I wasn’t acting like one of them. I didn’t immediately recognise faces, or say someone’s name; I didn’t know catchphrases and familiar gestures established over long years. I sat down in a chair in the corner, away from everyone, and did my best to radiate I want to be alone with my body language. I was wasting time here, but I was fascinated by the Immortals. Know thy enemy . . .

Two teenagers sat at a chess board, the pieces flying back and forth at incredible speed. Half a dozen more were playing some complicated game with human knucklebones. Others were playing a word game that made no sense to me at all. There was a huge wide-screen television on one wall, tuned to a twenty-four-hour rolling news channel, and no one was watching it. And all through the room I heard a dozen different languages spoken simultaneously, along with others I didn’t even recognise. Dialects and special patois so obscure they sounded almost alien. Could it be that the Immortals remembered and still used languages that had actually died out in the outside world?

But even as I listened in, while pretending to sulk in my chair, I slowly realised that everything I could understand was just simple social chatter. Nothing about world events, or the great things they’d done or were planning to do, nothing about the recent attacks on my family . . . It was all just gossip. Who was with who, who’d fallen out with who, who was two-timing who and what would happen when everyone found out . . . All the Immortals cared about, was themselves. Because the world might change, but the Immortals went on forever. So they were the only things that mattered.

I looked up sharply as a young woman marched right up to me. From the glare she was giving me, it was clear she knew the face I was wearing, and not in a good way. Which meant I had to know her. She was tall and blond, dressed to the height of nineteen thirties fashion. She folded her arms and glared at me, clearly waiting for me to say something. Other people were starting to pay attention. I rose to my feet and gave her my best disdainful glare.

“I’m not talking to you,” I said flatly, stuck my nose in the air, and brushed past her as I strode from the room. Knowing laughter followed me, so it seemed I’d struck the right note. At least she didn’t try and follow me. I decided I’d pushed my luck quite enough, and headed straight for the back stairs, and the computer rooms below.

The corridor was completely empty, with no sign of Immortals or kobolds. I clattered down the back stairs, still marvelling at the complete lack of security guards. These people were asking for it. The back stairs went on and on, falling away, descending into the depths under the Castle. Given the bare stone walls and the rough stone steps, I guessed this wasn’t a route used by the Immortals very often. They would have put in a handrail, and maybe even carpeting. This was more likely a maintenance way, for the underfolk. The hard stone steps slammed against my feet all the way down, and when I finally got to the bottom, it was just one long cavern, dug out of the bedrock. The dungeons themselves were gone, replaced by simple offices and storerooms, and as I made my way cautiously forward, even my quietest steps seemed unnaturally loud, carrying on the still air. Harsh electric lighting filled the long cavern from end to end, leaving no shadows anywhere. I felt more exposed here than I had above.

So I marched down the cavern like I was there on inspection, and soon came to the two large glass cubicles at the end. One was quite clearly the computer room, while the other was a communications and security office, with a single guard. He wasn’t even looking in my direction. An Immortal, of course, because they couldn’t trust an important task like this to the underfolk, but quite clearly one very bored Immortal. He was sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk, sulking, because he’d been lumbered with this job he didn’t feel was necessary. No one could ever get into the Castle, never mind all the way down here . . . He was slowly flipping through the pages of a magazine, and from the look on his face I had a pretty good idea of what kind of magazine it was. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard me approaching, but when I got closer I could see he had phones in his ears. He was listening to music on his iPod. While he was on guard. Some people just deserve every bad thing that happens to them.

I stayed back, pressed against one wall, out of his direct line of sight. I used the Gemini Duplicator to make another me, and once again I was thrown by the sudden doubling of my senses. I quickly pulled it back under control, and the two of me looked at each other closely, studying our new teenage face through two sets of eyes. I gestured for me to stay put, while I strode down the cavern to the glass-walled security booth. The guard didn’t look up until I was almost on top of him, and even then he didn’t get out of his chair. He just glared at me sullenly, and reluctantly pulled the phones out of his ears. I gestured imperiously for him to leave the booth and come out to talk to me. He acquiesced to my assumed authority, but made a big deal out of putting aside his mucky magazine and slouching out to join me. He’d probably been instructed never to leave the booth without checking first, but boredom can be a terrible motivator. He glared at me.

“What do you want?”

“Look who’s come to see you!” I said brightly, and gestured down the cavern.

The other me stepped out into the clear light, and waved cheerfully. The guard gaped at the second me, and while he was doing that I slipped in behind and got him in a choke hold. After a few moments, I dragged his unconscious body back into the booth, and arranged him neatly in his chair so it looked like he was dozing. I was getting quite good at that. I hurried down the cavern to join me, and we both looked around the security booth. Neither of us talked about killing the guard, though it was on both our minds. I’d already had this conversation with myself.

“I’m going into the computer room,” I said. “You go back down the cavern and keep watch.”

I scowled back at me. “Who put you in charge?”

“I did. You did. What does it matter, I’m the original, so . . .”

“You don’t know that. You can’t be sure. I have all the same memories you do.”

“I can’t believe I’m arguing with myself. I get to go into the computer room because I’m nearest. Now go!”

“All right, all right! God, I can’t believe I’m this bossy . . .”

I hurried back down the cavern, while I turned my attention to the door into the computer room. I concentrated on bringing my thoughts to the front, while keeping my duplicate’s in the background. It was easier when I wasn’t talking to myself. I took out the skeleton key the Armourer had given me. One ordinary-looking key, but fashioned from old yellowed human bone. The door between the booth and the computer room had a complicated electronic lock, with a numbered keypad. I just pressed the skeleton key against the pad, and it cycled quickly through its functions and opened the door for me. Skeleton key. The Armourer does like his little jokes. I waited for an alarm to go off, but there was nothing. I strode into the computer room, pulled up a chair and sat down before the main terminal.

It all looked pretty straightforward. Of course, I didn’t know any of the passwords, or file names, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I was just starting to armour up, so I could use the golden fingertip trick that Luther taught me, when I remembered and stopped myself. I couldn’t use the armour here. That would quite definitely set off every alarm they had.

So I took out the skeleton key again, and waved it vaguely back and forth in front of the computer, hoping it might act like a Hand of Glory, but it didn’t. The computer just stared back at me, smugly mute. I looked at the bone key. Since it was a key, perhaps it needed to be inserted and turned . . . I pushed the key against the computer, and it sank into and through the plastic casing. The surface just seemed to soften and open up, and the key disappeared inside, almost sucked in. I was so startled I almost let go of the key and lost it inside the computer. But I held on, until my hand was pressed right up against the computer casing. It felt disturbingly warm, almost organic . . . I turned the key, and the computer started up. The monitor screen turned itself on, and all kinds of passwords and secret protocols flashed on and off. I gingerly withdrew the key, but the computer just kept going, all but rolling over on its back and showing me all it had. Records going back centuries, trivial and ultra secret, were all right there at my fingertips.

First things first: where were Doctor Delirium and Tiger Tim, and the Apocalypse Door? The computer didn’t even hesitate: all three were now located at Area 52, in the Antarctic, out past the McMurdo Sound. I grimaced, despite myself. There were harder places to get to and get into, but not many. Area 51 has always been a government joke, a public distraction, all smoke and mirrors to hold the world’s attention, while all the real secret research goes on in Area 52. That’s where America keeps all the dangerous and exotic weird stuff it’s accumulated down the years, trying to reverse engineer something useful out of it. Far and far away from anywhere civilised, of course, so that if something does go wrong . . . they can always blame it on global warming. Of course, they never get their hands on the really dangerous stuff. We always get there first, and grab the good stuff for ourselves. Droods aren’t big on sharing. But we let America find enough to keep them happy, and occupied. And who knows, maybe one day they’ll create something really neat. And then we’ll probably step in and steal it. Droods aren’t big on playing well with others, either.

I found an attached and encrypted file that looked interesting, so I opened it. Turned out to be a recent communication between Tiger Tim and the Immortals, in the form of a video recording. So I set it running, and sat back to watch it. The screen showed Tiger Tim, sitting at ease in an office I didn’t recognise. So this had to have been sent after he left the Doctor’s Amazon base. The rogue Drood looked very relaxed, and almost indecently pleased with himself, like the cat who’s just licked cream off the caged bird. He smiled casually at the camera.

“Hello, my secret masters. My hidden partners. Or whatever you see yourselves as this week. As far as I’m concerned, you just exist to get me what I want, and don’t you forget it. If you choose to think you’re in charge, that’s fine by me, but don’t get uppity. My family, the high and mighty Droods, thought they were in charge of me, right up to the point where I decided to prove them wrong. Anyway, you asked for an update, so here it is.

“Dear Doctor Delirium is still in the dark about our relationship. He still thinks he’s in charge. Though he doesn’t do much of anything, anymore. Just sits there in his very private office, weirding out over the Apocalypse Door. Won’t let anyone else near it. They say he talks to it, but until it starts actually answering him, I don’t think I’ll worry. I’m having him carefully watched, round the clock, just in case he suddenly decides to try and open the Door ahead of schedule. In which case my people will jump on him with heavy boots on.

“On your orders, oh my masters, I persuaded him to move everyone here to Area 52, and we’re settling in nicely. Taking control meant using up most of our remaining Accelerated Men, but that was to be expected. I’ve got my people running everything now. Everyone else is dead. The Doctor ordered them dumped outside in the ice, so he could use them for experiments later, but his heart wasn’t in it. He only really cares about his precious Door, these days. So I just have a few bodies brought in, now and then, for snacks.

“The Doctor did show some interest in the wide variety of strange and unusual objects stored in the Area Armoury. He was like a kid with new toys there, for a while. I kept an eye, just to make sure he didn’t press the wrong big red button. However, the Doctor now seems convinced that he’s found something he can use to keep himself safe and protected, after he opens the Apocalypse Door. So he can be King of the Earth, with all the hosts of Hell at his command. I am not convinced. He won’t let me see what it is, so I can’t be sure of what he’s found, or indeed if it exists at all outside of his increasingly addled mind. While we’re on the subject, take a look at this.”

The image on the screen changed abruptly, to show surveillance coverage from a presumably hidden camera in Doctor Delirium’s office. The mad scientist was dancing in front of the Apocalypse Door, which stood quietly upright on its own. The Doctor stopped abruptly and railed at the Door, waving his hands about. His voice was loud and harsh. I hit the pause button, and then zoomed in on the Door itself. I’d never seen it before. It did look quite remarkably ordinary, and everyday, except for the fact that it stood upright entirely unsupported. But given what just simple proximity had done to the Doctor . . . I started the message running again, and listened to the Doctor rant.

“It didn’t have to be like this! It didn’t! I was just going to blackmail all the governments of the Earth, and have them all bow down to me, and give me everything I ever wanted, but not now. Not now! You showed me. You were right all along. They laughed at me. They laughed at me! Never took me seriously! Well, now I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! No. No. I will open the Door of Hell, smash all the locks and break all the bolts and the dead shall come forth to take their revenge on the living. Oh yes! And all the peoples of the Earth shall be outnumbered by the damned . . . Yes. People. Why should I care about people? What did they ever do, but laugh at me . . .”

He disappeared, his image replaced by Tiger Tim, slouched almost bonelessly in his comfortable chair. “See what I mean? Loony tune, big time. It’s a wonder to me he can still dress himself. Do we really need to indulge him anymore? Can’t I just kill him? As long as I don’t actually do it in front of his people, they’ll carry on taking orders from me. I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet on this. It’s not like we need him for anything . . . Except as a possible scapegoat, in case the Door turns out to be a dud, and we all need to disappear hastily into the background . . .” He smiled suddenly. “No. It’s real. The Door is very definitely everything they say it is. You can’t be around it for more than a few moments, and not know that. You can feel it, right down in your bones, in your soul. I’m quite looking forward to the opening. Let loose the Dogs of Hell, rain darkness down upon the Earth . . . Cull Humanity back to a more manageable level, just as I always wanted. And unlike the dear Doctor, I will be in control of the Door. I’ve done my research, quite separate from the Doctor’s. It should be simple enough to reverse the process, and have all the devils and all the damned just sucked back through the Door into Hell. And then I will slam the Door shut in their faces, and laugh at them. All right, yes, I admit it, that is just a theory. But then everything is, where the Apocalypse Door is concerned. But it all seems straightforward enough. As though whoever originally created the Door intended for it to be easy to use.”

And all the time I was thinking, You fool. You bloody fool. Easy to open and easy to close? That’s what the Door wants you to think.

“We have to do something soon,” said Tiger Tim. He was suddenly quite serious, and all business. “The American military has to know that something’s gone wrong at their precious Area 52. All communications are down, and all the security protocols have been compromised. But they can’t know exactly what’s happened, so they’re going to be cautious. They’ll take their time looking us over, before they try and break in. But you can bet their best military units are already on their way here. They’ve got a lot of golden eggs locked away in this place that they won’t give up without a fight. I’d say we’ve got twenty-four hours at most, before someone comes banging on our door. So we’ve got to be prepared to open the Door before that, or be ready to move it somewhere else. Your call, Immortals.”

The screen went blank.

So. I had a new deadline. I had to get this information out of Castle Frankenstein in a hurry, and then use the Merlin Glass to transport me straight to Area 52. Someone in the family would know exactly where it was. We know where all the secrets are buried. Still—Area 52. In the Antarctic. I should have dressed warmer.

I reached out to my duplicate at the far end of the cavern, and immediately his sensory input crashed into prominence. I was standing at the foot of the back stairs, watching and listening, but so far no one had come down. I could feel my other self calling me, and immediately I was back in the computer room. I concentrated, and called my dupe back into me. I just had time to grab hold of the desk to steady myself, and then the two of me slammed back together. The two sets of memories were harder to reconcile this time. The longer two of me existed, the more different we inevitably became. Gradually, my mind settled down again. My head hurt viciously, and I had to struggle to remember what I meant to do next. I was going to need a hell of a lot of downtime, when this was all over.

But for now, I’d had enough sneaking about. I had the computer download all its secrets onto a number of discs, and slipped them into pockets about my person. Centuries of knowledge, secrets and essential information. The Drood archivists would be studying this for years. Maybe even centuries . . . Time to go. Time to get the hell out of Castle Frankenstein, and head for Area 52. Busy, busy, busy. I laughed briefly, subvocalised my activating Words, and my armour slid smoothly into place around me.

Immediately, every alarm in the world went off at once. Bells and sirens and flashing lights; not just down here in the cavern, but up above as well, from the sound of it. Steel shutters slammed down all around me, covering the glass walls and closing off the only door. I was locked in. I snorted, inside my golden mask. It would have worked on anyone else. I smashed my way out in a few moments, tearing the heavy steel shutters like paper napkins. I stepped out into the cavern, and headed for the back stairs. I did some damage along the way, just to show I’d been there. The Immortals needed to take the Droods more seriously. There was still no sign of any security guards. What did I have to do, to earn their attention? No doubt the Immortals upstairs were still arguing about whose turn it was to do something. They’d grown soft and complacent in their Castle refuge, never dreaming anyone would dare to break in and menace them where they lived.

I ran up the back stairs, taking them three steps at a time, and burst back onto the second floor. The alarms were more muted here, so as not to upset anyone. But there was no one around. No one running, or panicking, or shouting orders. I moved swiftly along the passage, looking curiously about me and listening at doors, but there was nothing, nothing at all. Until I came to one door that was standing just a little ajar. I heard raised voices. Curious, I eased the door open a little and looked inside.

It was a massive lecture hall, packed full of hundreds and hundreds of Immortals. Every single one of them, for all I knew. They were giving their full attention to one teenager, standing alone on a raised dais in the middle of the room, addressing them all in a calm, reasonable and only slightly mocking voice. Everyone else sat in circles of seats, surrounding the dais, radiating out to the sides of the hall. Given how many Immortals were here, this had to be seriously important. Especially if they were ignoring the alarms. So I armoured down, revealing my fake teenage self, eased the door open and slipped inside. I stood at the back of the hall, and concentrated on what the Immortal in the centre was saying. I knew I should be getting out of the Castle and heading for Area 52, but . . . I was curious. I had been sent here to get information, after all . . .

The teenager on the raised dais stared calmly about him, and spoke commandingly to his audience. It took me only a moment to understand that this was, this had to be, the Leader of the Immortals. The oldest of them all, who’d first made contact with the extra-dimensional Heart, when it first descended into this world all those years ago. It was the way he stood, the way he held himself, and in every word he spoke. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.

He didn’t look like much. Just another teenager, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt bore a simple message: EAT THE WORLD. He was short and squat, barely five feet tall. Broad shouldered and well muscled, with dark shaggy hair, a broad face, dark eyes and a quick wolfish grin. He had the look of a man who’d be able to bargain with a god fallen to earth.

I tore my gaze away from the Leader and studied the teenagers sitting in circles around the dais. Those in the closest circles looked the most like the Leader. These would be the Elders, all that was left of the Leader’s family and friends of that time. As the circles spread farther out, the genotype grew more diluted, spreading through generations of children bred with non-Immortals.

“Call me Methuselah,” the Leader said smoothly. “The old jokes are always the best, aren’t they? I am the oldest of us all. I met the Heart as a teenager, and made my deal with it, and here we all are. Forever. Or as near to forever as makes no difference.”

I glanced around the packed lecture hall. The Immortals were all sitting very still, hanging on his every word.

“I remember everything,” said Methuselah. “Every year, every century, every day since I made my way slowly and disbelievingly through miles of burned and shattered trees, across blackened earth and through smoke-filled air, treading past the bodies of blown-apart animals and birds that had fallen dead from the heavens. It was early morning, and the sky had changed colour. I thought it was the end of the world. Just a teenager then, but already a man as far as my tribe was concerned, because no one lived long in those days. I pressed on, when no one else would, when no one else dared, because I was too fascinated to be properly afraid. Centuries ago . . . but only yesterday to me.

“I found the Heart. It was still deciding on a shape then, and what I saw made my eyes bleed and my head hurt. I should have taken it for a god, or some great being fallen from the starry sky, I should have fallen to my knees and worshipped it, but I was a contrary soul even then, and had problems with authority figures. So I just stood there, watching it twist and turn in the great crater it had made, and it talked to me. I think . . . I amused it.

“Later, the Drood ancestors came and found it, and asked it to make them shamans and protectors of the Human tribe. The Heart gave them their wonderful armour, in return for sanctuary and sacrifice. The Droods never knew I got there first. And I didn’t want to be anyone’s protector. I wanted to live forever, along with some of my family, and a few friends. So the Heart made us Immortals. The Droods got to be shepherds, and we got to be lords of all we surveyed. Can’t help thinking we got the better deal.

“And so we survived and prospered, down the ages. Discovering along the way that if you live long enough, you can learn to do all sorts of amazing things with your body. Make your flesh do anything, become anyone. Change your face, change your shape, change your identity. Become a man, become a woman, an old man or a young girl, anything you can imagine.”

His face shifted suddenly, his features slipping and sliding across his bone structure, until abruptly he looked just like Doctor Delirium. His audience laughed, and applauded. His face changed again, all the details of his flesh rising and falling, until suddenly . . . he looked like me. Eddie Drood. The audience really liked that one. Methuselah let them enjoy it for a while, and then took back his own face again, and continued with his speech. I wasn’t sure where he was going, what this was all about. And, why was his audience so intent?

“We are everywhere,” said Methuselah. “We are everyone. Or at least, everyone who matters. We supply a word here and a push there, and the world goes the way we want it to. Always remember the Creed I gave you. Words to live forever by. Greed is good. Contempt is good. Hate is good. The crushing of the weak and glorying in their plight is good. Anything that profits us is good. Because we . . . are all that matters. No one else lasts long enough to matter. They come and they go but we go on. Everyone else in the world is just there to serve us, or for us to play with. They are mayflies. We are Immortals. Now, my special guest tonight is the man you’ve all been waiting for . . .”

He gestured to one side, and suddenly Tiger Tim was there, standing right beside Methuselah. He was still wearing his Great White Hunter outfit, down to the tiger-skin band on his bush hat. He smiled and waved condescendingly to the assembled Immortals, as though he was slumming just by joining them. They rose as one from their seats and booed and hissed him, hurling abuse and angry words. The sound was deafening, but it didn’t bother Tiger Tim in the least. Methuselah let it go on for a while, and then gestured sharply at his audience, and they all fell silent and sank back into their seats again.

“Hush,” he said, with just a hint of mockery. “We must all be very grateful to this rogue gentleman, who has done such good work for us. He may be a Drood, but he is our Drood. He set us on our present course, when he saw the potential in the Apocalypse Door, and brought it to our attention. He is our inside man at Area 52. We can’t put one of our own in there; Doctor Delirium has seen to that. So I want you all to listen to what Tiger Tim has to say. Because we are very near the point of no return, when with a single act, I shall change the world forever.”

“Why have I been summoned here?” Tiger Tim said bluntly. “You know I hate teleporting; it always makes my fillings ache. I have to get back to Area 52 soon, before I’m missed. Not by Doctor Delirium; he’s still obsessed with the Door. But some of his peo ple are getting seriously suspicious about me. Some have actually started questioning my orders, and I can’t kill them all. Rumours are beginning to circulate about what happened to the people left behind at the Amazon base. I get the feeling that when the truth finally comes out, these people won’t see the funny side.”

“You’re here to listen, while I explain the grand scheme to everyone,” said Methuselah, just a bit sharply. “I felt you deserved that honour, after all you’ve done for us. Once I’ve finished here, you can return to Area 52 and kill Doctor Delirium. Take control of the Apocalypse Door, destroy any of your people who cannot be controlled, and then drop all the protections and let me in. It’s time to put this show on the road.”

“That’s it?” said Tiger Tim. “I’m not standing around listening to anyone. There’s work to be done.”

And he disappeared, gone in a moment. The Leader of the Immortals shrugged easily, and turned back to face his children.

“Some people have no sense of drama. Mayflies get so impatient . . . Anyway, I thought you should see him. The rogue Drood who made all this possible. Yes, I thought you’d enjoy the irony . . . As soon as he’s carried out his orders, and he will for all his impertinence . . . I shall go to Area 52, along with all those who choose to accompany me. And once there I shall dispose of our dear rogue Drood, since we won’t need him anymore, and then I shall take control of the Apocalypse Door and transform it. And for the suspicious among you, yes, I do have the power to do that. The answer, once I’d thought about it for a bit, turned out to be surprisingly simple. A Hand of Glory, properly prepared, can open any door, any lock, even potential ones. Of course, it would have to be a very special Hand . . .”

He was teasing them now, dealing out little titbits of information, and we were all lapping up every word. This was what it was all about. Methuselah smiled calmly upon us all, and then suddenly produced and held up a large mummified Hand. Its skin was so white it blazed, and the long tapering fingers were still intact, though they’d been made into candles, with wicks protruding from the fingertips. Even at the very back of the lecture hall, I could still feel the incredible power and presence radiating from the thing. It beat on the air, like the wings of a great captured bird, fighting in its rage to be let loose. Those Immortals nearest the dais shrank back in their seats from it. Methuselah held the Hand high, enjoying the shocked gasps and protests all around him. It was all I could do to stop myself armouring up, fighting my way through the crowd, storming the stage and taking the Hand from the Leader. I thought I knew what he’d made his Hand of Glory from. His blasphemous Hand.

“There was an angel war in the Nightside, not so long ago,” said Methuselah, when all was quiet again. “Agents of light and darkness, angels from Above and Below, raged against each other in that place where the night never ends . . . and against the morally dubious powers that live there. Some angels fell, struck down, and had their heads impaled on spikes. Dangerous place, the Nightside. Dangerous people . . . I was there, going about my private business, when I found one of the destroyed angels. I cut off its hand, and took it away with me. And eventually I made a Hand of Glory out of it. Because I just knew it would come in handy some day. Do I hear the word blasphemy? Abomination? An outrage against Heaven and Hell? What better way to overpower and transform the Apocalypse Door, and make it over into what I want it to be?”

He looked around, clearly anticipating applause and acclamation from his audience. Instead, they sat there silently, looking at each other. There was a general sense of unease, and even blank disbelief. No one thought any part of this was a good idea. Finally, someone roughly halfway through the circles stood up, urged on by many around him.

“Yes?” Methuselah said sweetly, with only a hint of danger. “You have a question, perhaps?”

“Not everyone here believes in this,” the younger Immortal said bluntly. “And even among those who do, not everyone here wants to do this. You want to pass through this Door in search of Heaven? Fine. Off you go. We’ll all stand here and wave you good-bye. Most of us have a good life, and no intention of giving it up.”

“You don’t have to,” Methuselah said patiently. “Once I’ve turned the Door, and reversed its nature, I shall open it. And then those who wish can follow me through, and enjoy all the pleasures that can be found in Paradise. None of you will be forced through. Heaven is not for the timid. I offer you all a gift, a chance, for those who’ve earned it through long service to the family.”

He looked about him, more impatiently now; he could tell he hadn’t convinced them. They either didn’t understand him, or halfway understood and wanted no part of it. Only a few of the Elders, in those circles nearest the dais, were nodding slowly. Methuselah sighed loudly.

“Very well! One more time, for the hard of thinking! I have been searching for the Apocalypse Door for centuries. I first read about it in an illuminated manuscript, a piece of apocrypha recorded by the Venerable Bede. Then again, in a sixteenth-century manuscript that turned up during Henry VIII’s dissolving of the monasteries. I almost got my hands on the Door during the Great Fire of London, but it disappeared in the general confusion. Imagine my surprise when it finally reappeared in the Really Old Curiosity Shoppe’s auction catalogue, in LA. Of course, I couldn’t risk being outbid, so I sent in a few of my more deniable people to pick it up.

“All would have been well, if Doctor Delirium hadn’t turned up with his people, and not one but two Drood field agents. Some days things wouldn’t go right if you twisted their arm. Ever since dear Eddie reorganised the Droods, it’s been very difficult to get reliable information out of Drood Hall.”

“Why don’t we just kill Edwin?” It was the same younger Immortal, on his feet again. There was a loud murmur of agreement.

“We’re working on it,” said Methuselah. He gave the other Immortal a hard look, until he sank back into his seat again. Methuselah continued. “We will take care of Eddie, the moment a decent opportunity presents itself. For the moment, he and his family are preoccupied with digging out all the doppelgangers we placed inside Drood Hall. We knew this was inevitable, the moment Eddie started reorganising things, that’s why I ordered the Matriarch murdered, and tried out the Acceleration Drug’s addition on them. Always such fun, spreading chaos among one’s enemies. The witch’s death . . . was unfortunate. It’s made Eddie more dangerous than ever. But, assaulting the Hall with Doctor Delirium’s Accelerated Men distracted them all nicely, and killed a satisfying number of Droods along the way. And that is the most we can hope for, for now. Strike directly against Eddie, or those closest to him, and they will strike back. That can be your problem, for the future. Once I, and whoever chooses to join me, have passed through the Door . . . you can choose a new Leader, and a new direction, if you wish. The family will be yours to run and shape.”

The young Immortal was back on his feet again, waving a hand angrily to be acknowledged. It was clear Methuselah was growing angry with this open challenge to his authority, but he still kept his calm, and finally gestured for the Immortal to speak.

“What if Doctor Delirium opens the Door before you get there, and all Hell is set loose on the world? Why are you waiting?”

“This is Area 52 we’re talking about,” Methuselah said flatly.

“The most secure, and most heavily guarded, military base on the planet. All of its security measures and protections are still very much in place, along with Doctor Delirium’s personally designed anti-Immortal measures. If we even try to break in through brute force, you can bet Doctor Delirium will open the Door, if only to spite us. We have to wait to be invited in, by our man on the inside.

“Once Tiger Tim has assassinated Doctor Delirium, he will shut down all the defences, and we can just stroll right in and take what we want. Starting with our dear rogue Drood’s head. Never trust a traitor, even when he’s your own. Perhaps we’ll send his head back to Drood Hall; I understand they can be terribly sentimental about such things. Of course, once I’ve turned the Door, and passed through it, all of you who choose to remain behind can help yourselves to whatever goodies lie hidden away in Area 52’s forbidden armouries.” He smiled briefly. “You see how good I am to you? New toys to play with! Won’t that be nice?”

“But how soon are you planning to go?” the younger Immortal said stubbornly.

“Eight hours, maximum,” said Methuselah. “So you’d all better prepare yourselves, hadn’t you?”

Eight hours . . . it seemed I had an even tighter deadline than I’d thought.

“Any more questions?” said Methuselah, just a bit pointedly. “Any other little thing I can do, to put your Immortal minds at ease? I swear, it’s like working with a bunch of whiny little children. I should have kicked you all out of the nest long ago, and let you learn to fly the hard way. You’ve got soft, all of you. Soft and complacent, and stupidly arrogant! The world is yours; get out there and trample all over it! I can’t hold your hands forever! I swear, it’s youngsters like you, with no real ambition, that will make me glad to leave all this behind . . .”

Someone else in the audience stood up, an Immortal from a circle closer to the stage. “You haven’t been a real leader in years, and you know it. You’ve let our plans for world domination lapse, excused yourself from all the strategy meetings, just so you could concentrate on your damned Door, and your dreams of Paradise. You’re abandoning us, to chase your own fantasies!”

“So?” said Methuselah. “Choose a new leader, make new plans. It’ll be your world, once I’m gone. Make of it what you will. Use it up, eat it up, spit it out. It’s all yours to play with. While some of us go on to better things.”

And that was when the door behind me burst open, and the Immortal I’d knocked out and replaced staggered in. He was unsteady on his feet and his eyes were still somewhat dazed, but sheer rage kept him moving. It was strange to see his face, after I’d been using it for so long. He clung to the door and yelled almost hysterically at the faces turning to look at him.

“We’ve been infiltrated! Someone’s got into the Castle!” He saw me then, looking back at him with his own face, and he almost went into meltdown with sheer outrage. He pointed at me with a shaking finger. “There! That’s him! He’s made himself look like me, but he’s not one of us! He’s a Drood! A Drood!”

That’s what you get for being merciful. Ungrateful little scrote. I jumped up, punched him out, leapt over his falling body, and raced out of the lecture hall while the general cry of outrage from within was still building. I ran down the hallway, and already doors were opening everywhere, with angry Immortals spilling out. I could hear more of them fighting each other to get out of the lecture hall and get after me. They sounded like they wanted my blood, and weren’t too fussy how they got it. I pounded down a side corridor, and Immortals appeared from everywhere, in front and behind me. So I squeezed the ring on my finger, and made a duplicate of myself. And then both of me squeezed my rings, and there were four of me.

The sudden rush of extra sensory input would have been overwhelming, but all I had to concentrate on was running. And every time I came to a corner, or a turning point, all of me chose different directions. I couldn’t keep track of who was who, or which had been the original me, so I just kept on running. It seemed like every Immortal in the Castle was after me now, numbers beyond counting, so every time I came to a corner or a change in direction, I made more of me. Soon there was a crowd of me, running and running full pelt, back and forth, up and down the Castle. It was all just a blur of stone walls, narrow corridors, and screaming angry faces wherever I looked. I ran and ran, lost in the crowd of me, losing all track of where and who I was. Dozens of me, running endlessly, running blindly, swamped by too many details, maddened by my own chattering thoughts and impulses, driving me in a hundred different directions at once.

I ran on, lost in myself, everywhere at once, unable to concentrate on anything. Immortals jumped me, hit me, dragged me down, over and over, and I fought back, lashing out at everyone who wasn’t me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t plan, lost in the horror of endlessly branching possibilities, lost in the crowd, lost . . . I panicked, and called all of me back into myself.

Suddenly there was just me, alone in my head, and it felt good, so good. I stumbled to a halt, as I struggled to assimilate a whole host of conflicting memories. I leaned against a cold stone wall, breathing harshly, sweat running down my face, trembling from exhaustion, and other things. A terribly personal nightmare, to be drowning in a sea of you, your very identity diluted by duplication . . . I shuddered, and forced the memories back until I was just me again. I looked around, and found I was back down in the dungeons under the Castle, outside the computer rooms.

Presumably because it was the one place I thought I knew best. I shook my head. I’d been so confused I hadn’t even thought to armour up, and protect myself from the various attacks my various selves had experienced. Though I had to wonder . . . each of me must have had a torc, but what would have happened if I’d tried to call up so much strange matter at once, enough for dozens of suits of armour? This was all getting really complicated . . . and quite definitely a problem for another day. I had eight hours to stop Methuselah from getting to Area 52, then get there myself and stop anyone from opening the Apocalypse Door.

I checked myself for damage, but I didn’t seem to have taken any, even though I could clearly remember being hit and attacked any number of times . . . I could only assume the sheer number of me I’d made had diluted the effects, when they all slammed back into me. Could have been worse; I could have ended up with all the damage that all of me had taken, expressed in the one body. Nasty.

I smiled slightly as I took in the state of the computer room, with its torn steel shutters and kicked-out door. I really had made a mess of the place, the last time I was here. The guard I’d taken out was still slumped unconscious in his chair. But, I couldn’t hide out here for long. I had a lot to do . . . The mission was escalating wildly out of control, so many players . . . Doctor Delirium, Tiger Tim, Methuselah, all with their own different plans for the Apocalypse Door . . . All I could be sure of was that I had to get to Area 52 in a hurry, before somebody did something we’d all regret.

I heard footsteps approaching. So I slipped into the security booth, and knelt down beside the unconscious security guard, hidden in the shadows. The footsteps kept coming, just the one person, calm and unhurried. Not someone chasing me. But once they saw the state of the trashed computer room, they’d know I’d been here. I’d have to wait for the right moment, then jump out and strike them down before they could cry out. I raised my head cautiously, and looked down the corridor.

And there, coming towards me, was Molly Metcalf.

I stayed very still, crouched in the shadows, and watched silently as Molly came to a halt before the computer room. She looked at the damage, and her mouth twitched briefly, in a smile I knew all too well. Undamaged, unhurt, utterly perfect, my Molly. My heart hammered in my chest, and I couldn’t move, paralysed by surging emotions. Wanting to believe, not daring to hope. My chest was hitching silently, and tears burned in my eyes. It could be her, she could be . . . I wanted to run out and run up to her, and hold her in my arms and never ever let her go, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because in this rotten and corrupt Castle, not everything was always as it seemed, and not everyone was who they seemed to be. You couldn’t trust a face. Not here. This could be an Immortal, pretending to be my poor dead Molly, to bring me out into the open. After all, how could Molly, my Molly, have survived such terrible wounds? I saw the blades slam into her, again and again, saw her blood spill . . . My hands were clenched so hard they hurt, and I could hardly get my breath, but I couldn’t look away.

I stayed where I was, and watched her silently as she stepped casually over the torn steel shutters, entered the computer room and looked around her. Even though I ached to go to her, I held myself still, because I had a duty to my family. I couldn’t afford to get caught, not with the safety of all Humanity riding on me, and yet . . . I had to be sure. I needed to be sure. Molly pulled up a chair and sat down before the computers, still open and running from where I’d left in a hurry. It occurred to me that I was still wearing the face and body of a teenage Immortal . . . So I stood up abruptly, and strode into the computer room. Molly glared at me, without getting up.

“What do you want?” she said. It was her voice, it was . . .

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

She gave me a hard withering stare that would have worked on anyone else. “Stay out of this, and don’t get in my way. I have work to do. And I’m just in the mood to kick the crap out of any Immortal who gets in my way.”

I took a chance. “You’re not one of us,” I said. “You’re not an Immortal.”

“Damn right I’m not,” said Molly Metcalf, and my heart leapt in my chest. She looked me over, and sniffed loudly. “I wouldn’t be a teenager again for all the chocolate in the world. I’m here on my own business, and if you’re wise you won’t interfere. I’m looking for records of the deal I made with you people, all those years ago, when I was making all kinds of unwise agreements, in return for power. I’m here to destroy all the files with my name on them; my little way of saying I wash my hands of the whole pack of you. I’m a good girl now, and I can’t have any evidence to the contrary left in unfriendly hands.”

“You were never one of us?” I said. “Never worked for us? You knew nothing about the infiltration of the Droods?”

“Of course not! I wouldn’t work for scum like you; hell, I haven’t exchanged two words with any of you since we made our deal. I do have standards. And all the promises I had to make, in return for power, were all used up years ago. I don’t owe you scumbags anything, especially after you nearly killed me in the Hall. Oh yes, I know that was you. I should kill you all, for what you’ve done. But I don’t have the time, right now. So run away, little Immortal, before I turn you into something distressing.”

“If it’s all over,” I said, “what do you care about your files? You’re not here to destroy them; you’re here to destroy all the computer records, to strike back at the Immortals.”

“Oh hell,” said Molly. “A bright one. What were the odds? Too bad for you . . .”

She got up to face me, and she’d never looked more beautiful, or more dangerous.

“The Drood was here before you,” I said. “Edwin. Too stupid to get what he needed from our computers.”

“Don’t you talk about him,” she said. “Don’t you talk about my Eddie! He’s a better man than all of you put together!”

“I know,” I said. “But it’s good to hear you say it.” I used the Chameleon Codex to change my shape, and took on my own face and body again. I smiled at Molly. “Hi, sweetie. Miss me?”

“You bastard,” she said, and her gaze and her voice had never been colder. “You bloody bastard Immortal. How dare you take on my Eddie’s face? I’ll kill you for that!”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said, retreating rapidly as she advanced on me. “It’s me, Molly, it’s really me!”

Something in my face and voice stopped her. She looked at me for a long moment, with a cold, unwavering and quite deadly gaze.

“Prove it.”

“You’re convinced your left tit is smaller than your right one, even though I keep telling you they’re the same.”

“It is you! Eddie!” She stepped forward and slapped me hard across the face. “That’s for pretending to be someone else, to test me! Oh Eddie, my Eddie . . .”

I took her in my arms and we hugged each other tightly, clinging together like we’d never let each other go, like the whole world couldn’t pull us apart, now we’d found each other again. She buried her face in my shoulder, and I hid my face in her hair. We were both breathing hard, as though we’d run a long way to get here, to this moment. Our bodies pressed tight together, as though we wanted to touch every part of each other at once.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I said finally. “Oh God, Molly, I wanted to die. I didn’t want to go on living, without you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Molly. She pulled back a little, so she could look me in the eye. “I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t let you know I was still alive. I had to keep you in the dark, for your own protection.”

We let go of each other, but still stood close together, face-to-face. I could feel her breath on my mouth, and her gaze was like a caress.

“How?” I said finally. “How did you survive, Molly? I saw the blades . . . and the blood . . .”

She put her fingertips on my mouth to stop me talking. “I did tell you once, but you clearly weren’t paying attention. I’m a witch, Eddie. We all keep our hearts separate from our bodies, safely stored and hidden in a protected place. As long as they don’t actually cut my head off, I can survive anything. I always come back. Isabella got me out of the Hall, and then watched over me while I slowly healed myself.”

“But . . . why didn’t you come back to the Hall?” I said. “Why couldn’t you at least contact me, tell me you were still alive?”

“I had a lot of time to think, while my body was repairing itself,” said Molly. “Everything that had happened only made sense if the Droods had been infiltrated. And the only ones who could do that, were the Immortals. And that meant I couldn’t trust anyone, anymore. It was safer for both of us if our enemies thought I was dead. So I came here, to break into their computers and search out a list of everyone they’ve replaced inside your family.”

“Hold everything,” I said. “You knew about the Immortals? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“You never asked. I know all kinds of things, Eddie.”

“We will come back to that, at a later date,” I said. “For now, how did you get into the Castle?”

“I made a deal with these people, remember? And while I was here, I was allowed to come and go as I pleased; so I took the opportunity to set up my own little back door teleport. Just in case I needed to come back again, without their permission. It never even occurred to the smug little bastards that I might not be as completely taken in by them as they thought I was. How did you get in?”

I smiled. “The Armourer makes the very best toys.”

She grinned back at me. “I should have known you’d been here before me. Look at this mess. You never were the most subtle of secret agents.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said loftily. “I am a thing of mists and shadows.”

“How were you able to look like one of the Immortals?” she said abruptly. “That wasn’t an illusion; I would have Seen through that.”

I explained to her about the Chameleon Codex, and the Gemini Duplicator, and she grinned wickedly.

“So . . . you can make two of yourself, or even more? You can change to look like anyone at all . . . Including celebrities? Male and female? Oh, Eddie . . . we are so going to give these toys a workout in your bedroom when we get back!”

“How well we know each other,” I said.

The computer made a polite noise, to let us know it was done doing what Molly had told it to do, and we both looked round, and leaned over the monitor to study the long list of names scrolling down on the screen.

“You don’t look happy anymore, Eddie. In fact, you look like you want to kill someone. I know it’s a lot of names, but is it really that bad?”

“So many names,” I said. “Past, and present. People I’ve known all my life. Trusted faces. I can’t believe we were infiltrated this badly, and never knew. And from outside. We should have spotted them, we should have noticed something . . . But we were too arrogant. We just couldn’t believe it was possible . . .” And then I saw one particular name. “Damn. I know now. I know who killed the Matriarch. I know who murdered my grandmother, and how.”

“Who?” said Molly, peering past my shoulder at the screen. “Who was it?”

I set the computer to downloading the list onto a disc, and turned away from the screen. “It doesn’t matter now. That’s family business. It can wait. We have work to do, Molly. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with everything that’s happening here, but we only have eight hours or less to get to Area 52, and deal with the Apocalypse Door, before some poor fool opens it.”

“Damn right,” said Molly. “The old team, back in action again! I’ve missed you, Eddie.”

“I missed you, Molly. More than life itself.”

“All right, you’re pushing it now . . .”

We hugged each other again, but broke apart almost immediately as we heard a whole crowd of people approaching, at speed. Molly grabbed the disc with the list, and tucked it away about her person.

“Must have set off a silent alarm, this time,” I said. “You’ve got better long-range senses than me. How many are coming?”

Molly concentrated briefly, and then frowned. “At a conservative guess, I’d have to say . . . all of them. If I’m reading the signs right, and I am, every Immortal in the Castle is up in arms, loaded for bear, and headed this way with vengeance on their minds. All right, Eddie, what have you done this time?”

“Why is it always my fault?” I said innocently.

“Because it is always your fault!”

You can’t argue with logic like that. “How far to the nearest exit?”

“Eddie, they’ve blocked off every exit, including half a dozen I didn’t even know existed until now. And I’m very thorough about things like that.”

“So,” I said. “You and me, up against the whole family of Immortals. Not good odds . . .”

“Can’t you just open a doorway for us, with the Merlin Glass?”

“It won’t work inside the Castle’s protections. Nothing living can pass through their defences. What about your teleport spells?”

“Same problem,” said Molly. “We’re going to have to fight our way out.”

“Works for me,” I said. “Don’t suppose you happened to bring any really nasty and powerful magical weapons with you, by any chance?”

“I don’t normally need them,” said Molly. “I take it you can at least armour up?”

“Oh yes. Ready to rock and roll.”

“Oh good. I was almost worried there, for a moment.”

“Here they come,” I said. “Don’t hold back, Molly. They won’t.”

“The thought never even crossed my mind.”

“Of course. Don’t know what I was thinking of. Now, let us go forth and smite the ungodly with malice aforethought.”

“Let’s,” said Molly. “I can do malice. I am just in the mood to do appalling things.”

“Never knew you when you weren’t,” I said. “You’re a bad influence on me.”

“And you love it.”

We left the computer room and headed down the stone corridor to the back stairs. I was still sort of hoping the Immortals might have overlooked them. I didn’t want to fight down in the dungeons if I could help it. Not enough room to manoeuvre. But by the time we’d got to the foot of the stairs, I could already hear a host of angry voices hurrying down towards us. They sounded really quite upset about something. I smiled, and I could feel it was not a very nice smile. Now they knew how it felt to be infiltrated, violated, where they lived. I armoured up, gleaming golden strange matter sweeping around me in a moment. I felt stronger and faster and more focused, more alive. I was a Drood, in my armour and in my fury, and the Immortals were about to learn what that meant. I extended golden spikes from my knuckles, and took up a position blocking the foot of the stairs. I didn’t want anyone getting past me. I wanted them blocked in, only able to come at Molly and me a few at a time. Molly moved in beside me, disturbing energies already spitting and crackling around her hands, waiting to be unleashed. I reached inside my armour, and drew my Colt Repeater. I like to think of myself as an agent and not an assassin, but sometimes the enemy just doesn’t give you any choice. The first Immortals came charging round the corner and down the stairs, and I opened fire.

The first few were thrown back by the bullets’ impact, but you can’t kill an Immortal with lead. The fallen were already healing as the next few jumped over them, to get at us. They flesh danced in midair, growing their thick bony plates, and my bullets ricocheted away harmlessly. I tried silver bullets, to no better effect, and then called on cursed ammunition, and that did the job. The cursed bullets punched right through the bone protection, and the Immortals cried out in pain and horror as the curse took root in their Immortal flesh. Their skin cracked and burst apart, the meat beneath corrupting and rotting from the inside out, eating them up. The Immortals died horribly, screaming, and the ones coming next hesitated. I raised my Colt, but when I pulled the trigger nothing happened. I called for more bullets, for any kind of ammunition; but nothing came. The Immortals had found a way to block the Colt, so its bullets couldn’t reach it. Clever Immortals. I put the gun back inside my armour, and grew long golden blades from my fists. The Immortals found their courage again, and came forward, howling ancient war cries.

And Molly and I waited for them with death in our hands.

We hit the first few hard, striking them down and trampling them underfoot. My golden blades sliced and chopped through Immortal flesh, my armoured strength slamming the blades through skin and bone with equal ease. Blood spurted, staining the stone walls and running thickly down the stone steps. Immortals died screaming, and behind my featureless gold mask I was smiling a cold, cold smile. Let them die. Let them all die for what they had done to the world, and Humanity, and my family.

Crackling energy bolts flew from Molly’s upraised hands, blasting heads and bodies apart, exploding bone and flesh with bad intent. The Immortals were used to striking from hiding, from behind trusted faces; they weren’t used to going head to head and hand to hand, even with overwhelming odds on their side. The ones at the front hesitated, and even tried to back away, but the press of eager bodies behind wouldn’t let them. So they came at Molly and me with every kind of weapon, guns and blades, ancient and modern, scientific and magical, and none of it did them any good.

I pushed forward with Molly at my side, forcing our way up the stairs over the bodies of the dead and the dying. I punched a golden blade right through a bony chest plate and into the heart, twisted once and then withdrew, hauling the falling body out of the way so I could get at the next Immortal. Molly grabbed a man by the chin and ripped his face right off. And while he was screaming through the crimson mess, she blasted a fireball down his throat. Molly always did fight dirty. Side by side, step by step, we fought our way up the narrow stairway, and there was nothing the pack of Immortals could do to stop us.

Molly blasted them with Words that hit like shrapnel, tearing through flesh and ripping out eyes. She sent lightning bolts dancing among the packed bodies before us, and the stench of burning meat was thick on the close air. I cut the bastards down, and crushed their skulls with casual blows. And if I always seemed to position myself so that I stood between Molly and most of the attackers, that was my business. She would have been furious if she’d noticed, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t risk losing her again.

The Immortals came at us with swords and axes, in a dozen styles out of history, their blades glowing brightly, reinforced with terrible magics and sparkling plasma energies. Most of them rebounded harmlessly from my armour, and I dodged the rest. I could be hurt, even inside my marvellous armour, though it took a lot to do it. And if anyone could come up with a supernatural can opener, it would be the Immortals. Molly blew the more dangerous-looking weapons apart with a quick gesture, before they could get anywhere near her. Some of the Immortals had guns, firing bullets and explosive charges and all kinds of fierce energies. None of them could penetrate my armour, though the deadlier energies crackled around me like malevolent ivy for a worryingly long time, before falling reluctantly away. Molly had her own shields, magical protections established so long ago they kicked in automatically.

One Immortal hid behind others, and jabbed an Aboriginal pointing bone at me. The magic slammed against my chest, hitting me like a cannonball, stopping me dead in my tracks. The Immortal cried out in triumph, and stabbed at me again. The magic crashed against my armour, made a sound like the striking of a great golden gong, and then rebounded. The bone exploded in the Immortal’s hand, driving hundreds of bone splinters into the ruined flesh. The woman behind him hauled him back out of the way, ignoring his agonised screams, and smiled nastily at me as she held up a Hand of Glory. My heart missed a beat as I remembered Methuselah showing us all the Hand he’d made from an angel’s flesh, and then I breathed again as I realised this wasn’t that. It was a Hand of Glory all right, made from a dead man, with the fingers lit like candles, and presumably she thought she could use it to unlock my armour. She really should have known better. She thrust the dead Hand at me, and its fingers writhed briefly, and then it turned around, grabbed her by the throat and throttled her to death. She should have done her research.

The next Immortal pushed past her, making no attempt to help her, and trained on me the biggest machine gun I’ve ever seen, complete with trailing bands of ammo. I was frankly amazed he could even lift the thing. He sprayed me with bullets, trying to force me back so he could get at Molly. I stood my ground, and the armour absorbed every single bullet. Molly sheltered behind my armoured form until the shooting stopped abruptly, as the Immortal ran out of bullets. And then she just peeked past me briefly, snapped her fingers, and where the Immortal had been there was now a rather surprised-looking toad. It’s a neat trick, and not one Molly can do often, as it takes a lot out of her; but the psychological effect on the enemy is always outstanding. The Immortals at the front turned and fought those behind them, refusing to be pushed forward to a fate worse than death. They jammed together in the narrow stairway, and Molly and I cut and blasted our way through them like lumberjacks through virgin forest.

We pressed forward, forcing our way into and through the Immortals, stepping over bodies and splashing through blood. I cut them down and hauled them aside, and plunged on again, with nothing in my heart for them but a terrible coldness. For all the things they’d done, and for all they intended to do, there could be no quarter, no mercy. And after a while I hardly heard the screams, and the pleas, and the horror.

It was still slow, hard, bloody business. They fought us every inch of the way, with all kinds of ˚ weapons, and they took a lot of killing. And for a family built on treachery and striking from the shadows, they weren’t cowards. They could fight, when they had to. I was glad of that. It made killing them easier. Less like butchery. More like execution than slaughter. Molly pressed in close beside me, when she could, when there was space enough, and threw energy bolts and vicious magics from behind me when she couldn’t. She was having to change her spells more frequently now, as she used up her reserves. There were limits to what even she could do, though she went to great pains to hide that from people. Her magic was running out, and by the time we made it to the top of the stairs she was breathing hard, and blood was seeping from her eyes, from the strain of what she’d done to herself.

I paused in the doorway, looking quickly around the open space before me. The wide corridor was packed with howling Immortals, crying out for our deaths, and if Molly and I moved forward, it would leave us open to attack from all sides at once. We had to get off this floor, and down into the hall below, with a chance at the main door. But there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of Immortals between us and the great stairway. I might make it, protected by my armour, but Molly almost certainly wouldn’t. She had to see the situation as clearly as I did, but she didn’t say anything. She was waiting for me to come up with a plan, and then she’d back me up, whatever it was. The Immortals were waiting too, grinning and yelling mockingly at me, daring me to step out from the protection of the doorway, so they could fall on Molly and me like the pack of wolves they were. But I had no intention of fighting my way through that crowd to the great stairs. I’d had a better idea.

Well, better, relatively speaking. I looked at Molly.

“Trust me?”

“Always.”

“Good.”

I grabbed her round the waist, held her tightly to me side, and using all my armoured strength I leapt right over the crowd of Immortals, over the balcony, and out into open space. Everyone fell silent. Molly and I fell through the air, and the hall lay below us, a very long way below us. Molly whooped with enthusiasm as we dropped to the floor below. We hit hard, the parquet flooring exploding under my armoured feet. My armoured legs absorbed most of the impact, and I didn’t fall back a step. Molly took the sudden stop rather harder, all the breath knocked out of her, her head snapping back on her neck. I held her up as the strength went out of her legs. I looked quickly to the front door, at the far end of the long hall.

There were still a lot of Immortals down here in the hall, between me and that door. And more spilling out of adjoining rooms, and plunging down the main stairs. I had only a few moments before battle would be joined again. From all sides, now. But . . . I could feel something. There was a sense of . . . pressure, of something pressing hard against the Castle’s shields with growing, resolute strength, fighting its way towards me. The power of the Immortals might be ancient and forbidding, but what was coming had been made by Merlin Satanspawn himself, and it would not be denied. I called to it, and the whole Castle seemed to cry out, as something primordial and inviolate suddenly shattered, broken by something greater than itself. And just like that I held the Merlin Glass in my golden hand.

Not all my luck is bad.

Molly finally stirred, got her feet under her, and pushed herself away from me. Her face was pale, and she was breathing hard, but her eyes were tracking and she knew what was happening.

“Okay, mind the first step, it’s a bastard. Next time, a little warning, perhaps?”

“If I’d told you what I was going to do, you wouldn’t have let me do it,” I said reasonably.

“True. Can you get us out of here through the Glass?”

“Not as such, no. The Glass broke through the main shields to get here, but my armour’s telling me the remaining protections are still functioning. No living thing can pass through them, either way. But, I think I’ve got an idea.”

“Should I go and stand somewhere else?”

“No, trust me, you’re going to like this one. I think I can get us some reinforcements. Very special reinforcements.”

I held the Glass up before me. A few Immortals shouted out, as they recognised it. But none of them were worried. No living thing could pass through Castle Frankenstein’s shields. But we live in a big world, and it contains far more than just the living. I used the Glass to make an opening between the hall and the Castle Hotel, and the Merlin Glass leapt out of my hand, growing rapidly to provide a door between me and the Castle Hotel ballroom. The Spawn of Frankenstein were still partying. They all stopped abruptly and looked round, as the door appeared out of nowhere in the midst of them. The Bride stepped forward, and then bowed respectfully as she recognised my armour.

“Who calls on us? What can the Spawn of Frankenstein do for the mighty Drood family?”

I couldn’t call on her as Shaman Bond; no one must ever know he was a Drood. Luckily the mask disguises my voice.

“Eddie Drood, at your service. And it’s more what I can do for you. I’m speaking to you from inside Castle Frankenstein. Yes, the real one, currently occupied by the Immortals. I’ve opened a door between here and you; no living thing can pass through the Castle shields, but you’re not living, are you? If you’ll come through, and fight alongside me against the Immortals, the Droods will give you Castle Frankenstein for your own. The whole place will be yours, along with whatever secrets you can find here.”

Give her credit, she didn’t hesitate, not even against the terrible Immortals themselves.

“Deal,” the Bride said crisply. “Stand back and give us some room; we’re coming through.”

She charged through the doorway, all seven foot of her, spiked silver knuckle-dusters gleaming on both hands again. And right behind her came Springheel Jack, with his cloak and top hat and gleaming straight razors. And behind him came all the Spawn of Frankenstein; all the creatures and creations, ready to fight for the home they’d never known, and the secrets of their creation. Not the living but the living dead, come to fight the Immortals on their behalf as well as mine, laughing as they came, because death held no terror for any of them. They’d been there, done that, and were all too ready to hand it out to those who’d kept them from their ancient home for so long.

The Immortals cried out in shock and horror as the monsters came surging out of the doorway I’d opened, realising at last that their hidden retreat was no longer inviolate. They opened up on the Spawn with all kinds of weapons, but most of those had been designed to work on the living, not the living dead. The Spawn fell on their hated enemies, and blood and horror filled the hall.

The Bride paused briefly to look at me. “How can we best serve you, Drood?”

“Hold these bastards off, till I can get to the front door,” I said. “I’ve had another idea.”

“Wonderful,” said Molly.

The Bride threw herself at the nearest Immortals like a wrecking ball, sending bodies flying this way and that with the unnatural strength of her long slender arms. She just strode right into them, lashing about her with casual grace, her spiked silver knuckle-dusters ripping off faces and smashing in skulls. She towered above them, her black beehive hair clearly visible at all times, her face stark and cold with years of fury. The Immortals fought back as best they could, and could not hurt her dead flesh. The Bride threw them all back, with contemptuous indifference.

Springheel Jack was at her side and at her back, hopping and leaping, and sometimes jumping right over the heads of his enemies, somersaulting in midair. His razor-filled hands struck out with inhuman speed, never missing a target, and blood spurted everywhere. Immortals fell to the ground, clutching at new crimson mouths in their throats, or pawing feebly at where their eyes had been. Springheel Jack danced among them with deadly grace, spinning and pirouetting, his glowing razors shining with supernatural brilliance. The Immortals were the enemy of his Bride, so he was their enemy too.

The rest of the Spawn spread out to form a protective barrier between me and the Immortals, so Molly and I could head for the front door. The Immortals were trying desperately to block my way. They didn’t trust their shields to protect them anymore. The Spawn held them back easily, tearing and clawing, biting through centuries-old flesh, or just smashing in heads with blunt grey fists. If nothing else, the Baron had made sure his creations would always be able to protect themselves. The Spawn also opened fire with a surprisingly large number of really quite appalling weapons they just happened to have about their person. When you’re a Spawn of Frankenstein, the thought of mobs with pitchforks and flaming torches and modern firepower is never far away. And they’ve been trying to find or force their way into Castle Frankenstein for many years—centuries, for some of them. They didn’t hold their annual meeting in the Castle Hotel out of sentiment. They’d always hoped their day would come, and now they were delighted for this chance to bestow years of frustrated fury on their old enemy, the usurpers of Castle Frankenstein.

The Immortals came flooding into the hall from all directions, filling the long hall from wall to wall, flesh dancing desperately to make them strong enough to take on the Spawn of Frankenstein. They writhed and twisted, flesh rippling across bones and exploding into wild new shapes as they became ogres; with massive slabs of muscle, terrible fangs and claws, all their vulnerable parts hidden behind bony armour. They became gargoyles, and lizards, and even weird abstract shapes, as they struggled to find some form strong and vicious enough to match the Spawn of Frankenstein. Who, if anything, became even more furious, believing the Immortals were mocking them, becoming monsters to fight monsters. The Spawn fell on the Immortals with angry cries, tearing them limb from limb with their more than ordinary strength. And though their dead flesh took awful wounds, they did not bleed, or hurt, or cry out. They were beyond such things.

Molly and I fought our way down the long hall, heading for the front door. Molly was almost out of magic now, her protective shields flickering on and off. Only her pride kept her back straight as she staggered exhausted beside me. She held a glowing witchblade in one hand now, and enough basic viciousness to make her dangerous. Inside my gleaming armour, I was deathly tired too. I’d been on my feet and fighting for a long time now, moving from one battle to another with never a chance to rest. Every movement was difficult, every muscle ached, and sweat ran down my face behind my golden mask. The armour is only ever as strong as the man inside it. But still Molly and I pressed forward, striking our enemies down and kicking their bloody corpses out of our way. I’d lost count of how many Immortals I’d killed, men who should have lived forever; but it seemed like there were always more.

I hadn’t seen Methuselah anywhere, and tired as I was I was still alert enough that his absence worried me.

A group of maybe twenty Immortals, savage teenage men and women with ancient eyes and powerful guns, blocked our way, standing between us and the front door, determined not to be moved. The guns were energy weapons, alien by the look of them, and I lurched to a halt so I could study the situation. If those guns were what I thought they were, I could be in real trouble. Energy weapons of that design could blast the armour right off me, like a steam hose blasting paper off a wall. Even strange matter has its limitations, in this material ˚ world. And while I was still struggling desperately for something I could do that didn’t involve running or hiding in a corner, Molly drew herself up from where she’d been standing slumped against me, glared at the Immortals blocking our way, brought up both her hands, and slammed them together in a single almighty clap. The impact blew the Immortals away like a storm wind, sending them flying through the air to the left and to the right, slamming them into the walls on either side so hard that the walls cracked. The Immortals fell, and did not rise again.

For the moment, there was nothing between us and the front door. I grabbed Molly as her legs started to buckle, threw her over one golden shoulder and sprinted for the door with all the speed I had left in me. I ignored her muttered Eddie, you bastard, and yelled for the Bride and Springheel Jack to guard my back. I didn’t look back to see if they’d heard me. All of my concentration was fixed on that door. I got there in a few moments, grabbed the heavy door with both hands and ripped the bloody thing right off its hinges. I threw it to one side, and charged out into the night.

I put Molly down, and she sank into an exhausted heap, too tired even to curse me properly for offending her dignity. Outside the Castle, the cold fresh air seemed to revive her some. I knelt down before her, and she fixed me with bleary eyes.

“What? What do you want, Eddie? Because I am really very tired right now. I am running on fumes.”

“This Castle is surrounded by protective shields,” I said urgently.

“Even outside the front door. But when you made your deal with the Immortals, you were given a free pass to come and go. It was never revoked. That’s how you got in here. I need you to channel that invitation through the Merlin Glass, and open a door between here and Drood Hall. Can you do that, Molly?”

She looked used up. She looked like death warmed up and allowed to congeal. But she managed one of her old wild grins for me anyway.

“Of course I can do it. I’m Molly Metcalf.”

I helped her stand up, and then she pushed herself away from my supporting arm. I called the Merlin Glass into my hand again, and held it up before us. Molly glared around at the Castle’s shields as though she could see them, and maybe she could. She always had more of the Sight than I did. She thrust out a hand, the fingers splayed, and spoke aloud a single Word that shook her whole body. The Glass flared brightly against the night, and I felt rather than saw a great powerful force rush through it, blasting a hole right through the Castle’s protections. The Merlin Glass leapt from my hand, growing into the biggest door it had ever made. And through that doorway I could clearly see the Armoury, in Drood Hall.

All kinds of alarms went off, and lab assistants came running towards the opening I’d made with all kinds of weapons in their hands. They stopped when they saw me in my armour, and gaped at Molly, who was sitting on the ground beside me, resting her head on her drawn-up knees.

“It’s Eddie!” I yelled. “Get the Armourer! Now!”

I looked behind me. The Bride and Springheel Jack stood together in the gap where the front door had been, holding back any number of Immortals with a merry, vicious fury. I looked back through the Glass, and there was the Armourer, and the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

“Come on through!” I yelled to them. My voice was harsh, ragged. I barely recognised it. “This is Castle Frankenstein, home to the Immortals, and I’ve opened a door for you, right through all their shields! This is your chance to take out the Immortals, once and for all.”

The Armourer turned to his assistants. “Grab every weapon you can find, and follow me! Sarjeant, gather the family and bring them after us! All of them, every damned Drood who can stand and fight! Death to the Immortals!”

He charged through the Merlin Glass, armouring up as he came, and after him came thirty or forty lab assistants, also in full armour, carrying deadly and disturbing weapons.

“The Spawn of Frankenstein are on our side!” I yelled at them as they passed. “The Immortals are all teenagers! And if you see any kobolds, leave them alone! And above all, for God’s sake don’t mess with the Bride and Springheel Jack!”

I was shouting at golden backs. The first Droods had already shot past the pair defending the door, hammered into the waiting Immortals, and were doing terrible things to them. They had guns that melted people, or froze them from the inside out, and made their blood run out through their pores. The Armourer had his Kirlian gun again, and people exploded wherever he pointed the ghastly thing. And they all wore the armour of the Droods, against which the Immortals could not stand. The ancient teenagers fell back, scattering, running and screaming and shouting confusedly. They had never thought this could happen; to be invaded and attacked in their most private redoubt, by those who had most reason to hate them.

And then the Sarjeant-at-Arms came through the Merlin Glass, followed by an army of hundreds of armoured Droods, and the real slaughter began.

I got Molly up on her feet again, and helped her back through the empty doorway of Castle Frankenstein. I knew she’d want to see the end of the Immortals. The Bride and Springheel Jack were back fighting in the hall again, alongside the Spawn and the Drood. We were a terrifying sight, and the Immortals broke and ran before us. Their confidence had been shattered, destroyed, their ancient arrogance and certainty broken for the first time, and all they wanted to do now was run. But after everything they’d done, even that simple mercy could not be allowed to them. I saw one of the Spawn tear an Immortal apart like a chicken at the table. I saw a Drood rip off an Immortal’s head, and use it as a flail to smash in other skulls. I saw the Bride tear a glowing sword from an Immortal’s hand and run him through with it. I saw Springheel Jack dance among the screaming Immortals, doing awful, unforgivable things with his flashing razors. One by one, the Immortals died, their long lives ending in blood and fear and horror. For what they’d done. They screamed in agony, begged for help, pleaded for mercy, and no one listened. Because they had never listened, never cared, for all the suffering they’d caused.

We didn’t get them all. There was a teleport ring set up in an adjoining room, and maybe half a dozen got out before we found the ring and shut it down. There were a few hidden doors and secret passageways, and maybe a few got out that way, before we sealed them off. But that was it. We could hunt them down later, because no one would give a fallen Immortal sanctuary. The family of Immortals was destroyed, from the youngest to the Eldest. We cut them down and piled up the bodies, and moved on, searching through the Castle from top to bottom.

At the very end, one of them ran up to me, and sank to his knees before me. He was a teenager, like all the others. I didn’t recognise him. He could have just joined the family, or been one of those originally made immortal by Methuselah. I had no way of telling. There was blood on his face, and his eyes rolled wildly. He babbled tearfully on his knees, begging me for mercy. He tried to grab my legs, but his hands couldn’t get any purchase on my armour. I looked down at him, as the Bride and Springheel Jack stood watching. The Immortal was promising me anything, everything, money and hidden weapons, all the secrets of the Immortals and their plans for the future, if only I would spare him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I was, in a way. “I’m sorry, but we could never trust you.”

I took his head between my two golden hands, and twisted it hard. His neck broke and I let go, and he fell away, dead at my feet.

“Typical Drood,” said the Bride. Her voice was cold and flat, and she could have meant any number of things.

I showed her my featureless golden mask, and she stirred uneasily.

“Would you have done anything else?” I said.

“Probably not.” She shrugged and turned away, draping one long arm companionably over Springheel Jack’s shoulders. “Come on, Jack. Let’s take a walk around our new home.”

“Ifyou hadn’t killed him, I would have,” said Molly Metcalf. She was standing a little straighter now, absorbing strength and magic from the air around her. “Are you all right, Eddie? You should be happy. Rejoice; your greatest enemy has been defeated and destroyed.”

“I’m an agent,” I said. “Not an assassin. But sometimes . . . your enemy just doesn’t give you any choice.”

“I know,” said Molly. “I know.”

“Anything, for the family.”

“I know.”

Some of the remaining Immortals flesh danced, trying to pass themselves off as Droods, but we could always tell. And some tried to surrender, even though they must have known by now that we were taking no prisoners. It didn’t come easy to any of us, to kill the defenceless, but we did it anyway. Because we had to. Because we could never trust them. The Sarjeant-at-Arms came over to join me.

“You’re holding back, Edwin. This is war. They have to be stamped out. Because they’re not human; they prey on humans. We’re fighting for the safety and security of the human species. For our freedom, from our secret overlords. We can be sentimental later, when the work’s done.”

“What good does it do us to win?” I said. “If we have to act like Immortals to do it?”

The Sarjeant shrugged and turned away, and went off to finish his bloody work. I armoured down. Molly moved in close beside me, slipping an arm through mine.

“You’re a good man, Eddie, in a bad world. The Immortals made themselves into monsters, by their own choice. Look at the Bride, and her people. Made to be monsters, they chose to be people. Think of all the things the Immortals could have done, could have achieved, with all the years and experience and knowledge they acquired. They could have made a Golden Age for all Humanity, but they chose to be teenagers forever, and never grow up. We were their playthings, and they played with us till we broke, because there were always more. I love it that you care, Eddie, but I don’t. You kill monsters because you have to, because they don’t give us any other choice. People can change, but monsters will always be monsters.”

The hall was quiet now. Droods and Spawn moved slowly around, making sure none of the bodies were faking it by cutting off their heads. The last time I saw so many bodies piled up, it was at Drood Hall, after the incursion by the Accelerated Men. The air was so full of the stench of blood I could taste it in my mouth. The Armourer came over to join me, picking his way carefully through the bodies. He’d armoured down, and was beaming happily.

“Eddie, there you are! I found these wonderful little people, emerging from their hiding places! Slaves to the Immortals . . . They say they know you.”

“We are not little people!” said a kobold, peering suddenly out from behind the Armourer. “We are underpeople! Are we free now?”

“Yes,” I said. “To stay or to go, as you please. Your masters are dead. I’m afraid I had to promise the Castle to the Spawn of Frankenstein . . .”

“Our tunnels are waiting,” said the kobold. “Still, they’re going to need people, to help them settle in. We can do that. For gold . . . We like gold.”

“I’m sure we can negotiate a fair agreement between you and the Bride,” said the Armourer, still beaming happily. “It’s a big Castle; I’m sure there’s room for everyone.”

The Sarjeant-at-Arms came striding over to join us, also armoured down. He was frowning, which is never a good sign.

“There’s no sign of the Immortal Leader,” he said flatly. “We’ve checked all the bodies, and he’s not there. He could have got out through the teleport ring, before we destroyed it.”

“The ring,” I said. “He’s gone to Area 52, to get his hands on the Apocalypse Door. I have to go after him.”

“Me too,” said Molly. “I am never leaving you alone again.”

“Yes!” said the Armourer. “It is good to see you alive and well, Molly. May I ask, how exactly did you . . .”

“Later,” I said. “Oh, Uncle Jack . . . While I’m off saving the world one more time, there is something I need you to do for me. There’s something rather special living under the hill, on the road leading up from the Hotel. I promised him he could come back to the Hall, and live with us. Could you take care of that for me?”

“Of course,” said the Armourer. “No problem. Why are you smiling like that?”