Property of a Lady Faire

CHAPTER TEN

The Lady Faire took me by the hand. She had long, feminine fingers, with a man’s strength. She led me through the wide corridors of the Winter Palace like an older woman seducing a teenager, with the promise of knowledge of what it means to be a man. And I let her do it. It all seemed very quiet, away from the Ballroom, calm and peaceful after the roar of the crowd. Such close proximity to the Lady Faire was dizzying. I felt . . . many things, but mostly vulnerable. As though I was no longer in command of the situation. Perhaps the Lady Faire sensed what I was feeling, because she took her own sweet time taking me to where we could talk in private.

She turned suddenly down an unmarked side corridor, and just like that we seemed to have left the Winter Palace and were moving along an elevated walkway on the exterior of the building, with the ground far and far below. I knew we couldn’t be, because the Winter Palace was after all a giant snowflake, with no smooth exterior anywhere . . . and because I already knew the extreme cold of Ultima Thule would have killed us both in moments. But the illusion was complete and convincing as we walked high in the sky, looking out over the great mountain ranges, set against the purple sky with its dying red sun. Like looking out on the last evening of the world, with the sun getting ready to go down for the last time. A feeling of loss and melancholy settled over me, as if I were saying good-bye to an old friend.

I made myself concentrate on the mechanics of the situation. Either it was just an illusion or we were being protected from the outside by some hidden force shield. It seemed to me that I was feeling some of the cold. Perhaps that was the intention, to titillate the guests with just a touch of what they were being protected from. The Lady Faire glanced back at me, to see how I was taking it all. I flashed her a meaningless smile. I couldn’t help noticing that her breath was steaming thickly on the chilly air, far more heavily than mine. As though she was warmer than me, inside. I wasn’t sure where that thought was going.

We left the outer walkway, and went back inside the Winter Palace. Into a bare and featureless corridor that seemed almost uncomfortably warm. I didn’t have a clue where we were now, in relation to the Ballroom. The Lady Faire led me on, keeping just a little ahead of me, never once letting go of her grip on my hand. Every now and again she would squeeze my fingers lightly, and my heart would beat just that little bit faster. She stepped it out, elegantly, every movement more than usually sensual, sexual, and enticing. She walked like a man but moved like a woman. I could feel my hand sweating inside hers. Her hand wasn’t sweating at all. She seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease, as though she’d done this many times before. As though it came to her as naturally as breathing. My heart was pounding hard in my chest, and my breath was coming more and more quickly. I tried to think of Molly, and my mission, my missing parents and why I was there, but it was hard to think of anything but the Lady Faire when she was this close.

I could tell she knew what I was feeling. She found it amusing.

Finally, we came to her room. The door swung open before us as we approached, apparently entirely of its own accord. And once we’d passed through, into the room beyond, the door closed itself quietly but firmly behind us. I listened for the sound of a lock engaging, but didn’t hear it. That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, though. Just as I’d expected, the Lady Faire’s room was a bedroom. The great circular bed in the middle was so big it seemed to take up half the available space. The Lady Faire finally let go of my hand, and I stumbled to a halt just inside the door. As though only her encouragement had kept me moving. She moved over to the bed, still not looking back at me.

“Nice place.” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm and steady.

“It suits me,” said the Lady Faire. “Though I’ve known better.”

“Why choose the Winter Palace for your Ball?” I said, just to be saying something.

“I rented it, from the Wulfshead Club management,” said the Lady Faire. “We go way back. They always do me a good deal. And they do have access to such unusual properties.”

“You know who they are?” I said. “The actual people?”

She finally turned around, and looked at me. Her glance, and her smile, was like a caress on my face. “Is that what you came here to talk about, Eddie Drood?”

“No,” I said.

She wandered around her room, quite casually, trailing her fingertips across the various surfaces. Like a cat rubbing its body against the fixtures and fittings, to remind them who was in charge. She smiled at me, quite easily, as though I was just an old friend who’d happened to drop by. Her body seemed to press out against the restrictions of her white tuxedo, as though all the buttons might burst open at any moment, unable to handle the strain of containing everything that lay within.

“Relax, Eddie,” she said. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

Disturbed that my voice didn’t sound as assured as I thought it should, I deliberately looked away from the Lady Faire, and took an interest in her room. It was large and open and almost unbearably sybaritic, with every conceivable luxury and comfort to hand. Lots of soft surfaces, in soft pastel colours. Modern furniture, in smooth organic shapes. Bare walls, without a single print or painting, and not even the smallest decorative object on any of the furniture tops. The bed dominated everything. The bed was what the room was for.

And yet there was no personality to the room. Nothing to show that the Lady Faire had any interest in impressing her character on it. You couldn’t say it was a woman’s room, or a man’s. No personal touches anywhere, to suggest the kind of person the Lady Faire was, in private. Perhaps there was no private person. Perhaps what you saw was what you got. God knew, that was impressive enough. Perhaps for the Lady Faire, being the ultimate honey trap that she was, a bedroom was just somewhere she did business.

When I looked at her again, she was bent over the mini-bar in the far corner. The gleaming white fabric of her trousers stretched tight across her bottom. And I caught my breath despite myself. She straightened up, taking her time, poured herself a tall glass of Perrier water, and slammed the door to the mini-bar shut with a careless bump of her hip. She took a long drink, her Adam’s apple moving up and down sensuously slowly. She put down the glass, and looked at me again, and I knew immediately from her smile that she knew I’d been watching. Her golden-pupiled eyes were sparkling, teasing. She stood there, not saying anything, to put the pressure on me to talk, to break the silence. An old agents’ trick. I didn’t say anything.

She moved over to the huge circular bed. The fitted sheets had already been folded back invitingly. Waiting. The sheets were a dark pink, almost blood colour. Almost . . . organic. Presumably the Lady Faire just liked to have everything ready, for whatever the night might bring. Or whoever. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked at me. I looked around the room, at anything but the bed. She started to say something, and then stopped herself. I could still see her, out of the corner of my eye. She sat with her back straight, and her legs elegantly crossed. I couldn’t help but feel I was in the presence of a practised performance. For an audience of one. Something she had done so often, she’d refined it down to just the barest necessary essentials. Much reduced, but still a display intended only for me. Aimed at me, like a weapon.

Her interest in me seemed real enough, but I was still sufficiently in control of myself to know I couldn’t trust it. She let her hand move slowly across the taut bedsheet, as though stroking a favoured pet. She caught my glance, and leaned forward a little, to show off her smile and her eyes. I still couldn’t get a sense of what her body might be like, under that expertly fitted white tuxedo. It curved out well enough, to suggest breasts and hips, but there was a masculine strength in the long arms and legs. Broad shoulders, but a swan’s neck. A woman’s grace, but a man’s power. Ladything, omnisexual, male and female and everything in between. Up close, that was just words. She was simply magnificent. Desirable. Turned up to eleven.

“Come and sit beside me, Eddie,” said the Lady Faire. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the boys,” I said. And I made myself pull up a smoothly curved chair and sit down on it, facing the bed. I sat carefully upright, with my legs firmly crossed. Trying not to look too defensive. I had an erection so hard it was almost painful, and I was pretty sure she knew that, though she’d never looked. I suspected the Lady Faire wasn’t fooled by anything I said or did. She really had seen it all before. I couldn’t help feeling that the only reason I wasn’t completely captivated by the Lady Faire, the legendary Ice Queen, was that she wasn’t really trying.

“You’re wondering what they all wonder,” she said. “What lies beneath, when the outer trappings are discarded. Who and what the Lady Faire really is, when she’s at home. The answer is, everything you could ever want. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of, especially the ones you never tell anyone about. I was designed to appeal to every taste, to be open to everything. I could take your breath away, Eddie. My body was made to quicken the heart and madden the senses, in every way there is. I could make you love me, Eddie Drood. Make you serve me and worship me, and make you enjoy every moment of it. You’ve never had a lover like me. I could make you mine, forever.”

“Bet you couldn’t,” I said. My mouth was dry, but my voice was perfectly steady. “I already have a lover. My own true love. And she is more to me than you’ll ever be. Because she gives a damn.”

“The witch? Dear little Molly Metcalf? I don’t think so.”

“She would rip your heart out with her bare hands,” I said. “And I hate to think what she’d rip off me . . .”

“It’s all right, Eddie. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t tell her if you won’t. Come here, and sit with me on the bed. How can we really understand each other, if we don’t know each other intimately? How can we discuss anything, if we’re not open with each other? You do want something from me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But for what I have in mind, we don’t need to understand each other that well. I’m just here to do some business.”

“So am I!” said the Lady Faire. “I’ve been trying to tell you that all along, darling. For me, it’s always about the give-and-take.”

“I’m not here for you,” I said.

“Don’t you want me, Eddie?”

“You know I do,” I said. “But what I want doesn’t matter. You’d be surprised how often in my life what I wanted has never mattered.”

“Now that’s just sad,” said the Lady Faire. “Come to me, and I’ll make it feel all better. That’s what I’m for.”

I think I surprised her then, by laughing briefly. “You need new material, Lady. The old lines are getting worn out.”

She sighed, and leaned back on the bed. “Very well, Eddie. We’ll play it your way. What do you want from me? Why did you come all this way, to Ultima Thule and the Winter Palace, and my annual Ball, if not for me?”

“Tell me what you know,” I said. “About my uncle, James Drood.”

She shrugged quickly, just a little irritated, as though she didn’t like to think about the past. Or her past lovers. Because the past, and everything in it, didn’t matter to her.

“Of course I remember James. He wasn’t everything his legend suggested, but he was a perfectly adequate lover. Of course he was getting on a bit, when I knew him. I don’t age as normal people do. But then I don’t do anything as normal people do. The Baron Frankenstein saw to that. You do know he was responsible for my creation . . . Of course you do. You’re a Drood. Droods know everything. Many people have told me that I should have known the Grey Fox when he was younger, in his prime. And I did try! But he was always so very busy, and so very elusive . . . I had to wait for him to come to me. And of course he did, in the end, like everyone does. It is possible he had almost as many lovers as I did . . .”

“He certainly had more children,” I said.

“I don’t have children,” the Lady Faire said coldly. “The Baron saw to that too. I was made from dead things, in his laboratory, made from pieces of old life, stitched together. And while every part of me functions perfectly, I remain dead inside. It’s not important. Children would only have got in the way for what I was made to be.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” said the Lady Faire. “I’m not. James . . . Yes. He was fun to have around, for a while. We had a very pleasant time together while it lasted. What do you want from me, Eddie? You must have known him better and longer than I ever did. Or do you want me to tell you what your precious Uncle and I did in bed? What he liked me to do to him?”

“No,” I said. “This isn’t about that. He gave you something. Something he really shouldn’t have. I’m here because I want it back.”

She sat up straight on the bed, giving me her full attention for the first time. Her face was expressionless, her golden eyes utterly cold.

“So that’s why you’re here! The Lazarus Stone! I should have known . . . Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine. Mine! James gave it to me!”

“You must have known he wasn’t supposed to do that. You must have known you wouldn’t be allowed to keep it.”

“You think you can just walk in here and take it?” said the Lady Faire, and her voice was deadly cold.

“Well, yes,” I said. “I’m a Drood. That’s pretty much what Droods do.”

“My security people . . .”

“Are currently scattered to the farthest reaches of the Winter Palace,” I said. “On my direct orders, as your Head of Security. And whilst you undoubtedly have many . . . abilities, I don’t think you’ve got anything that would stand against Drood armour. So, where is the Lazarus Stone?”

The Lady Faire put her arms behind her and leaned back on the bed, giving me her best languorous, heavy-lidded look. “Are you planning to beat the information out of me? I might enjoy that.”

“The word is out, in all the important places, that you have the Lazarus Stone,” I said patiently. “I’m just the first to come after it. The first to find you. There will be others. A never-ending stream of others. And you can bet they won’t be nearly as polite as me. You could go into hiding, I suppose. Dig yourself a really deep hole, drop in, and pull it in after you. But you’re not ready to turn your back on the world and all its pleasures, to live the solitary life of the hermit. Come, my Lady. Be reasonable. You don’t need the Stone that badly. So give it up. I mean, what would you use it for, anyway? Is there really anyone you would want to bring back, out of Time?”

“The Baron, of course,” said the Lady Faire. “Because he was . . . my first. And no one does it like Daddy.” She laughed softly then, at the look on my face, and something in the sound of that laughter raised all the hackles on the back of my neck. “Yes . . . I’d bring the Baron back, out of the dead Past. Just so I could thank him properly, for making me what I am. I’d keep him alive in constant agony for years, before I finally let him die.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I’m afraid . . . Afraid that if I did bring him back . . . even after all these years, he would control me again. And no one controls the Lady Faire.”

“You’re never going to use the Stone,” I said. “Because if you were, you would have done it by now. So give it back. And put temptation behind you.”

“No,” said the Lady Faire. “You can’t have it. It’s mine. My property. And I never give up anything that’s mine. Why do you think the Ballroom is full of my ex-lovers? Because I just can’t bear to let anything go.”

She stood up abruptly, and advanced on me. I stood up to face her, and didn’t retreat. She strode right up to me, and I put up a hand to stop her. She took my hand in both of hers and clutched it tightly. Her hands felt very soft, and very warm, and very strong. She was standing close to me now, only our linked hands separating our two bodies. I could feel the breath from her mouth on mine. Feel the forceful pressure of her breath on my lips. Her eyes stared into mine. She hit me with the full force of her influence, and whether it was the pheromones or her personality, it didn’t matter. I could feel my willpower withering, like a moth in a flame. And there, in that moment, I wanted her like I’d never wanted anything else in my life. But I’d had a lot of experience in wanting things I knew I could never have.

So I did what I always do when I feel threatened. I called up my armour, and it flowed out of the torc at my throat and covered me from head to toe in a moment. Sealing me off from the world, and all the things in it that were a danger to me. The golden strange matter closed over my hand, gently forcing her hands away. And just like that, her power over me was gone. Swept away like a bad dream. She could tell. She stayed where she was, looking at her own face reflected in the featureless golden mask.

“So lovely,” she said. “So lovely.”

And then we both looked round sharply, as a whole bunch of alarms and sirens went off at once.

“Something’s happened, back at the Ballroom!” snapped the Lady Faire, immediately all business again. “That’s the general alarm. Is this more of your doing, Drood?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m here with you.”

“Is it the witch?”

“Which part of I am here with you so I don’t know anything more than you do, are you having trouble grasping?” I said. “I don’t think Molly would start anything on her own, though.”

“Then it’s more thieves!” The Lady Faire actually stamped a foot in frustration. “While I’m wasting my time here with you! And I don’t even have a Head of Security to protect my guests, do I?”

I armoured down again. It was clear we’d have to go back to the Ballroom to see what was happening, and I didn’t think it would calm all the notable guests to know there was a Drood in the house. The Lady Faire headed for the door, and it swung quickly open before her. I went after her.

“This is all your fault!” she said loudly, not looking back. “Whatever it is, whatever’s happened, I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned it’s all your fault!”

“Of course,” I said, hurrying out into the corridor after her. “It always is. I’m a Drood.”

• • •

I have to tell you, when the Lady Faire feels like it, she can really run. She pounded down the corridors, arms pumping at her sides, taking turns apparently at random without ever slowing down, and it was all I could do to keep up with her. She never once looked back to see if I was still there. We ran at full pelt through a warren of interconnecting anonymous corridors, with all the bells and sirens still screaming their heads off. Whatever bad thing had happened, it was clearly still happening. I’d lost track of exactly where we were in the Winter Palace long ago, so I stuck close behind the Lady Faire, determined not to be left behind. The comm unit in my ear was full of raised voices, all shouting at once. I got the impression all the security people were heading back to the Ballroom at speed, but that no one knew why yet.

I got my answer soon enough, when a dozen blood-red men in their full face masks burst out of a side corridor and spread quickly out to block our way. The Lady Faire crashed to a halt so suddenly I nearly slammed into the back of her. The blood-red men stood very still, all of them looking squarely at me. The Lady Faire looked them over, and then turned to glare at me.

“Are they with you?”

“Very definitely not,” I said. “We don’t get on. Be careful; they’re dangerous.”

The Lady Faire threw back her head, shook her Jean Harlow hair defiantly, and glared at the blood-red men arrayed before her. “They all look exactly the same. What are they? Clones?”

“Probably,” I said. “You try asking; I haven’t been able to get a word out of them so far. But I have seen them kill a whole bunch of people, so maintain a cautious distance.”

The Lady Faire sniffed loudly. “Dangerous . . . They’re only men.”

She stepped forward and smiled at the blood-red men, hitting them with the full force of her presence. Even standing behind her, I could feel some of it. Incredibly, the blood-red men didn’t. They just stood their ground and stared right back at her. Entirely unmoved, and unaffected. The Lady Faire fell back a step, and looked at me, actually shocked. I don’t think she’d ever encountered such a situation before. She looked . . . lost. As though the world had suddenly stopped making sense to her. I moved carefully forward, to put myself between her and the blood-red men. And she was so shocked, she let me do it. Immediately, all the blood-red men snapped their attention back to me.

“What are you doing here?” I said to them. “How did you even get here? Did you use the Siberian Gateway?”

“Gateway?” the Lady Faire said immediately. “What Gateway?”

“Later, dear,” I said. “Hush now. Drood working. Please don’t distract me while I’m trying to negotiate with the bloodthirsty and quite possibly criminally insane clone people.”

The blood-red men surged forward, their hands reaching out with clawed fingers. I armoured up again and punched in the face of the nearest man with such force I heard his neck snap, as his head spun round to face in the opposite direction. But he didn’t fall. His head just turned back again, with a loud ratcheting of repairing neck bones. So I grabbed him and threw him at the blood-red men behind him. They all went down in a great tangle, and immediately started getting up again. I grabbed another blood-red man and threw him at the nearest wall so hard the sound of the wood panels breaking was actually louder than the sound of broken bones. The rest of the blood-red men came straight for me. I could hear the Lady Faire breathing heavily behind me, but she didn’t run. She had confidence in me. Which made one of us.

I threw myself at the advancing blood-red men, lashing out with spiked golden fists, putting all my armoured strength into every blow. I hit them hard, smashing in skulls and punching out hearts, snapping arm and leg bones. I knew I couldn’t kill them, so I concentrated on major damage. I broke them with my armoured hands, threw them to the floor, and trampled them underfoot. They never cried out, never made a sound of pain or protest. I threw them the length of the corridor, and they just picked themselves up and came back at me. So I picked them up and smashed them into the corridor walls, one at a time, wedging them into the holes they made. And while they were still struggling to pull themselves free, I grabbed the Lady Faire by the hand and we ran down the corridor, leaving them behind. The Lady Faire didn’t say anything, but she held on to my gloved hand really tightly.

• • •

It didn’t take me long to remember that I didn’t know where we were going, so I armoured down and let her take the lead again. We were both breathing hard now, and not just from the exertions of the fight. There was something seriously disturbing about enemies who wouldn’t stay down, and wouldn’t stay dead. It turned out we were only a few corridors short of the Ballroom. As we approached the open door, all the alarms suddenly shut down, and I could hear cries and shouts and sounds of violence. I slowed to a halt, and the Lady Faire slowed with me. She realised she was still holding on to my hand, and let go. She looked more angry than upset at having her Ball ruined.

“How many of these red men are there?” she demanded.

“Usually as many as it takes to get the job done,” I said.

“Are they an army?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Don’t you know anything about them?”

“They kill people,” I said steadily. “And they just keep coming, until they get what they’re after.”

“Why are they here?” said the Lady Faire, almost plaintively. “Are they after you?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “But I think it’s more likely they’re here because they want what I want. The Lazarus Stone. I told you people would be coming for it.”

“I should have cancelled the Ball,” said the Lady Faire. “My horoscope said it was going to be a bad day.”

“I do not believe in the stars,” I said.

“They believe in you.”

I took a deep breath and headed for the open entrance. Some conversations you just know aren’t going to go anywhere useful.

• • •

When we finally crashed through the door and into the Ballroom, we found there was a riot going on. Security people, in their white uniforms and masks, were pouring into the great ice cavern through all the entrances at once, and going head to head with any number of blood-red men. The security people had all kinds of really nasty weapons, but the blood-red men had numbers, unnatural strength, and their awful unstoppability. Guns could damage them, but not kill them. Even the most terrible wounds healed almost immediately. And one by one they were wearing the security people down; when one of them fell, with blood staining their white uniforms, they didn’t get up again.

The voices in my earpiece were going out, one by one. I wanted to shout at them, to warn them, but what could I tell them that they couldn’t already see for themselves? They weren’t my people, weren’t even really on my side, but I was still proud of them. They could have run and saved themselves. But they stood their ground and fought on, to protect the guests. Because that was their job.

The guests were mostly hanging back, sticking to the far walls and the farthest reaches of the ice cavern. Keeping well out of the way, and basically treating the whole bloody struggle as just more free entertainment. Some were cheering one side, some the other. Many were placing bets. They hadn’t realised yet the danger they were in. They thought they were exempt. The Lady Faire glared at the bloody debacle her Ball had degenerated into, and then turned abruptly to glare at me.

“Do something!”

“I’m open to suggestions!”

I looked around, and spotted a surprisingly familiar face standing alone. Unnoticed by the other guests, the security people, and the blood-red men . . . because he wasn’t really there. And since I couldn’t do anything about the blood-red men, I thought I might as well check out the one thing that stood out. I gestured for the Lady Faire to stay put by the doorway, and moved cautiously forward. For the moment both sides in the fight seemed too busy to notice I’d arrived, and I wanted to keep it that way until I’d figured out something useful to do. I quietly approached the shimmering figure by the wall, and its head came slowly round to look at me. The Phantom Berserker nodded slowly, and waited for me to join him.

For a ghost, he looked surprisingly solid, but then, my armour gives me amplified Sight on many levels. To everyone else he was probably just a shadowy figure, unclear and insubstantial, unless you looked at him directly. To me, he was a tall, bulky Viking figure with the traditional horned helmet and a bear-skin cloak. His deathly pale face was drawn and gaunt. He had haunted eyes. Word was, agents from the Department of Uncanny had dug him up out of some ancient burial mound in Norway, back in the Sixties, and he’d followed them home. They didn’t have the heart to kick him out, so they made him an honorary agent, and he’d been with them ever since.

“Hello!” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the general bedlam. “Eddie Drood, remember me? The Regent’s grandson. I thought you were dead? I saw your body lying among all the others, at the massacre at the Department of Uncanny.”

“I was dead,” said the Phantom Berserker. His voice was hollow, and strangely distant, as though it had to travel a long way to reach me. “For a while I was alive again. But it didn’t last. Now I’m a ghost again. I’m surprised you can see me; no one else here can. But then, you’re a Drood, and the rules don’t apply to you, do they? It was all my fault, you know. What happened at Uncanny. All those deaths. All my fault.”

“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was the traitor inside the Department,” said the Phantom Berserker. “I opened the door, to let them in. This Voice came to me, out of nowhere, and it promised me things. Said it could provide me with flesh and blood, in a new body, so that I could breathe and move and feel again. A real live body, after so long as only a drifting spirit from another age. And I wanted that so very badly. I could materialise, from time to time, just long enough to be useful to the Department. But not for long. Never for long. And those brief flashes of feeling, of simple sensation, just made it so much worse when I had to go back to being immaterial again. My people knew what they were doing, all those centuries ago, when they cursed me to be the Phantom Berserker. I was so desperate to feel again, to live again, that I said I’d do whatever the Voice wanted. In return for a body.”

“Whose Voice was it?” I said. “Who did you make a deal with?”

“I don’t know,” said the Phantom Berserker. “The Voice put me to sleep, and when I woke up again, I was alive. I had a heart that beat and lungs that moved, and blood that coursed through my veins. I had hands that could touch, and a mouth that could taste. I think I went a little crazy then, for a while, indulging all my senses. After all the years of just watching people enjoy life and take it for granted. But it didn’t last. I’d been alive less than a day when the Voice came to me, inside the Department of Uncanny. And told me it was time to pay the price for what I’d been given. All I had to do was shut down the Department’s security systems and unlock the doors, and my debt would be paid. It didn’t seem like much to ask. Just an information grab, I thought. Such a small thing, to pay for this new body, and all its pleasures. I wish I could say I hesitated. I opened the door and let them in. I didn’t know what they were going to do. How could I?

“The bloody men swarmed in, an army of them. And the first thing they did was kill me, standing at the door. They struck me down with their bare hands, and just like that I was a ghost again. So weakened there was nothing I could do but watch . . . as they killed everyone in the Department. Everyone who’d been so kind to me . . . I watched them kill your grandfather. Watched them rip Kayleigh’s Eye right out of his chest. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.”

“Why are you here?” I said.

“Because the Voice still has power over me. Because I said yes to it, I have to serve it. Even though I swore to serve and protect your grandfather all my days. Do you know what it means, for a Norseman to betray his oath? I am in Hel, Eddie Drood. Still under the control of the man who ruined me.”

“You don’t have to serve him,” I said. “Death breaks all oaths, all bonds.”

“If only that were true,” said the Phantom Berserker.

“I think I know a way out of Hel,” I said. “Wait, and watch for your chance. And when you see an opportunity, take it. Whoever’s behind the Voice, I don’t think he’ll be able to resist turning up here, in person. And then . . .”

“And then?” said the Phantom Berserker.

“That’s up to you,” I said.

The Phantom Berserker turned away from me, not saying anything. And I couldn’t give him any more time, because I’d just seen Molly Metcalf, fighting fiercely in the middle of the crowd. I went to join her.

She’d conjured up a long sword of vivid blazing energies, and was using it to cut off heads as fast as she could get to them. Headless bodies of blood-red men went staggering this way and that, in pursuit of their lopped-off heads. No blood spurted from their necks. The heads went rolling here and there along the floor, kicked around like footballs. Now and then a body would find a head and clap it back into place, whereupon the wound would seal and fuse immediately. I wasn’t sure the right bodies were finding the right heads, but since the blood-red men were all identical, I didn’t suppose it mattered. All this was keeping a lot of blood-red men occupied, and taking them out of the fight, but not for long. And more of the blood-red figures were pouring into the Ballroom through all the entrances and exits. Dozens and dozens of them. They already far outnumbered the remaining security people, because all of the white-uniformed security staff who were coming had already arrived, and there seemed no end to the numbers of blood-red men.

Molly looked around and grinned briefly as I moved in to cover her back, and then we both went to work, cutting off heads and smashing in skulls with grim joy and great efficiency. The blood-red men should have learned to keep their distance from us, but something drove them on to attack us anyway.

“Where the hell have you been?” Molly said loudly. “As if I couldn’t guess. So what does the Lady Faire look like, in the flesh? Does she have both sets of bits?”

“I have no idea,” I said, wrapping myself in my armour and striking down blood-red men with vim and vigour. “She never undid a button while I was with her. All we did was talk.”

“Did she tell you where the Lazarus Stone is?”

“No.”

“Then maybe you should have undone some of her buttons,” said Molly.

It’s amazing how much damage you can do to people, with spiked armoured fists and a blazing energy sword. It was also amazing, and not a little disturbing, how fast the blood-red men could come back from so much damage. I scowled, under my featureless golden mask, thinking hard. There had to be a way to stop them . . .

The last of the security people were still fighting, well and bravely, but they were vastly outnumbered by blood-red men. The security staff had been forced into small defensive clumps, scattered across the Ballroom, firing bullets and poisoned needles and the occasional energy blast. But the blood-red men were still pouring in through all the doors, leaping across the bodies of their own fallen to get at the security people. Blood spread thickly across the ice cavern floor.

The mood of the watching guests quickly turned against the blood-red men. They shouted and jeered and threw things, and when it became clear that wasn’t going to stop the slaughter of the security people, many of the guests decided it was time to do something.

Some guests tried to teleport out, only to look shocked and startled when they discovered they couldn’t, because someone had reinstalled the anti-teleport shields. Some tried to run, only to find there was nowhere to run to. All the doors were full of blood-red men. Some tried to impress the masked invaders with their names and status, only to find the blood-red men didn’t give a damn. And some of the guests fought fiercely, just because it was in their nature.

Dead Boy got stuck right in, wading into the fighting where it was fiercest, beating up blood-red men with his unfeeling fists, and happily ripping arms out of their sockets with his unnatural strength. His deep purple greatcoat flapped around him as he received and handed out appalling punishment. Dead Boy was almost as hard to stop as the ones he fought. But in the end they came at him from every side at once, piled on top of him, and just dragged him down by sheer weight of numbers. He went down still fighting, and continued to struggle even under a weight of bodies that would have held down an enraged rhino.

The Bride fought with more than human strength, breaking bones and smashing in skulls with effortless ease, while Springheel Jack guarded her back with two nasty-looking straight razors. The Bride tore blood-red men limb from limb, and Springheel Jack cut them up like joints of meat. Until finally they too fell under the weight of so many attackers, and disappeared from view.

Jimmy Thunder struck his enemies down with Mjolnir, and whoever the hammer hit did not rise again. Even the blood-red men were no match for that mighty and ancient weapon. The Norse godling strode through the chaos with contemptuous ease, sending broken bodies crashing to the floor, singing some old Norse song on the joys of blood and slaughter. But in the end, the blood-red men found his weakness. They ganged up on the costumed adventurer Ms. Fate, despite all her fighting skills, and beat her savagely. Jimmy lost his temper and threw his hammer at them. Mjolnir flashed through the air, and just the impact of its arrival killed half the blood-red men, but then the hammer dropped to the floor and lay there. Jimmy called desperately for it to return to his hand, but either the hammer didn’t hear him or it had forgotten how. The blood-red men hit Jimmy Thunder from every side at once, and eventually they pulled him down. For all his strength and fury.

Most of the other guests didn’t last long. And when they saw the blood-red men tear the Living Shroud apart, unravelling and scattering its rags and tatters until there was nothing left . . . they surrendered. The Lady Alice Underground sat down and put her hands on her head. The Last of Leng retreated to a corner and crouched there, snarling. Everyone else put their hands in the air, or ostentatiously dropped their weapons to the floor. Surprisingly, the Replicated Meme of Saint Sebastian hadn’t got involved at all. They just stood together by a far wall, watching silently from behind their impenetrable metal masks.

Molly and I stood back to back in the middle of the room, not actually surrendering but no longer fighting. There just didn’t seem any point. We were surrounded by rank upon rank of blood-red men. A dozen or more came forward, encircling the Lady Faire and urging her on. She didn’t appear to be hurt, but there was no doubt she was no longer in charge. She went where the blood-red men indicated for her to go. She strode along with her head in the air, projecting icy dignity. She shot me a cold and angry look, as though I’d betrayed her by not fighting to the death. Molly made her blazing sword disappear, and I armoured down, to keep her company. Fighting against the odds had taken us as far as it was going to. All that remained now was to stand down and see what happened next.

The Ballroom was still and quiet, with blood-red men in control everywhere. I couldn’t see a single white-uniformed security person still standing. I hoped they weren’t all dead. They’d fought well. I realised I was still wearing the white face mask of the Head of Security. I peeled it off and threw it away, along with the comm earpiece. Voices rose on every side from among the guests, as some of them recognised me. Or at least the torc at my throat. The voices died quickly away again as the blood-red men stirred dangerously. The guests were split up into small groups, surrounded by silently watching blood-red men. The Ball was over; it remained to be seen what would replace it.

To discover what this had all been about.

“Really don’t like the odds here, Eddie,” Molly murmured. “Please tell me you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

“Just my arm,” I said quietly. “On the bright side, I think we’re finally about to find out who’s been running the blood-red men all this time. The villain behind the Voice. Hopefully, we’re about to get some answers to a whole lot of questions. You know how bad guys love to boast.”

“He’s going to make a speech, isn’t he?” Molly said gloomily. “I hate speeches.”

“Even when I make them?”

“Especially when you make them!”

“Oh, that hurts,” I said.

And then a man came walking through the crowd towards us, wearing James Drood’s face. The blood-red men fell back, to open up a wide aisle for him to walk through. The closer he got, the less like Uncle James he looked, though the face stayed the same. He didn’t move like James, or act like him. The face . . . was just another mask, in a Ballroom full of masks. And yet . . . there was something familiar about this man. I did know him from somewhere. He walked right up to me, ignoring Molly standing at my side, and stopped right in front of me.

“You’re not James Drood,” I said roughly. “Nothing like him. Who are you, really?”

The face flickered and disappeared, like the illusion it was, and standing before me was Laurence Drood. The Drood from Cell 13, free at last. He laughed softly at the look of surprise on my face.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “I can’t believe you didn’t guess it was me all along. I mean, who else was there? Who had better reason than me to want the Lazarus Stone?”

“How did you get out?” I said numbly.

“I could have left any time,” said Laurence. “I know everything the family knows, remember? How could they build any jail that could hold me? I just never had a reason to leave before.”

“Why did you choose to look like my uncle James?” I said, and he grinned again at the anger in my voice.

“Because he was the Drood I always wanted to be. Oh yes. The man who got to go out into the world and have adventures, and beautiful women, and make a legend of himself. I always wanted to be the Grey Fox. Didn’t you, Eddie? He got to live the life, while I remained stuck in my Cell, living my half life . . . But I don’t want to talk about that now. I want to talk about us, Eddie! Because this has all been about you and me.”

“I told you,” Molly said resignedly. “He’s going to make a speech. Boast about his triumphs, and explain his motives. Like we care. We know why you did all this, you miserable little scrote! It’s because you’re a sick scumbag who gets off on hurting people!”

“If she speaks again,” Laurence said to me, “I will have my people sew her lips together. It’s up to you.”

“She’ll be quiet,” I said quickly. “Talk to me, Laurence. Because there’s a lot going on here that I don’t understand.”

“Hoping to buy some time, Eddie?” Laurence said cheerfully. “Thinking perhaps that while I’m talking, people aren’t dying? Or just hoping you can use the time to put together some brilliant plan to defeat me, at the very last moment? I don’t think so. I know everything the family knows. Including you. That’s why I’ve been one step ahead of you all along. Now shut up and listen. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I would say when I finally got out.”

Molly growled under her breath, but said nothing. The blood-red men stood very still, all around, every single one of them fixing me with the same intent glare I saw in Laurence’s eyes. That meant something. Though I wasn’t sure what, yet. So I just stood there and looked interested, while Laurence talked. His voice rose and fell and he waved his arms around a lot, because he wasn’t used to talking to people face-to-face.

“I wanted to be put away, to be locked up securely, all those years ago,” he said earnestly. “When the accident first happened. When I suddenly knew everything, all at once. It was such a powerful experience, horrifying and overwhelming. It took me a long time to get my head back together again, to think only my own thoughts. And by then I’d been the Drood in Cell 13 for such a long time that most of the family had forgotten I’d ever been a person in my own right. I’d become just a cautionary tale for those who ran the family. Don’t let anyone try to know too much . . . I could have left Cell 13 at any time once I was back in control of my own mind, but where would I go? What could I do? The world had moved on and left me behind. And it wasn’t like I could put my burden down and walk away from it. The whole of the family’s knowledge filled my head, and it kept flooding in, more and more, never ending. Even if I did leave, the family would be bound to send agents after me, to track me down and drag me back. For fear of the damage my knowledge might do in enemy hands. So I stayed in Cell 13, studying all the information in my head, and planning my revenge. And finally I learned about the Lazarus Stone. And saw a way out of my horrible half life.”

He suddenly pulled open the front of his shirt, to show me Kayleigh’s Eye, fused to the flesh of his chest. A great glowing amulet, with a golden alien eye set in its centre. Staring at me unblinkingly. Just as it had once stared at me from my grandfather’s chest. Tears stung my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not in front of the enemy. I glared at Laurence, and when I finally trusted my voice again, I let him hear the rage and contempt that burned within me.

“You killed the Regent of Shadows,” I said. “You murdered my grandfather, you crazy piece of shit. I will make you pay . . .”

He smiled easily, entirely unmoved, and rebuttoned his shirt with quick, fussy movements.

“Well,” he said, “I didn’t kill him personally . . . Though it was my will that moved the hands that killed him, and tore the Eye from his chest through brute force. The only way it could be taken. So, yes, I suppose you could say I am responsible. It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t! I’ve killed lots of people, just recently. Indirectly. To get here, to this place and this moment. I just wanted you to understand, Eddie, that there’s no point in attacking me. You can’t hurt me and you can’t stop me. You must understand, I will do anything, absolutely anything, to get what I want.”

“Well, what do you want?” said Molly.

I tensed, half expecting the blood-red men to attack her for interrupting their master. But Laurence just laughed, and waggled his fingers in her face mockingly.

“All in good time . . . I have so much to tell you, Eddie. My story has been going on a lot longer than you realise. So hush now. Listen, and consider. After the attack on Drood Hall by the Accelerated Men . . . you do remember that, don’t you? Of course you do . . . One of the Armourer’s precious lab assistants found his way down to Cell 13 to talk with me. What was his name . . . Oh, I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He was very bright, but not very sensible. He thought he was using me, the poor fool.

“He had been struck by the idea of creating Accelerated Droods, you see. The perfect, unstoppable field agents. He couldn’t find the information he wanted in any of the official family files, or in the Library. The Council had suppressed the information for reasons of its own, that I probably don’t need to explain to you, Eddie. Anyway, the lab assistant wondered if the Drood in Cell 13 might know . . . So he came down into the depths to talk to me, to make his deal with the Droods’ very own Devil. Typical lab assistant, ready to risk everything in the pursuit of knowledge. And never really thinking about the price he’d have to pay in return.

“I didn’t know anything about the Accelerated Men, as it happened. But I did know many other fascinating things that I could use to bewitch a simple lab assistant. You don’t need to know what those things are, Eddie. Secret things! Hidden things! Oh, if you only knew! The family has always had more sides to it, more levels within levels, than you ever suspected. But they were just the thing to enchant and seduce a young lab assistant’s mind. More than enough to sucker him in, and keep him coming back for more.

“I persuaded him to contact the Doormouse, using secret Drood code phrases, so it seemed my orders came from the old Matriarch, Martha. I never liked her. She came all the way down to Cell 13 the day she was made Matriarch, just to tell me to my face that she would see to it I was never released. Awful person. Anyway these orders, apparently from the highest authority within the Droods, instructed the Doormouse to create a number of very special Doors, giving access to the Hall grounds from outside. And then sell them on, to an approved list of customers. Not to any actual official enemies of the Droods, of course. That would have raised suspicions. Just to certain interested parties, who could be trusted to make use of the gift so suddenly dropped into their laps.”

“Like the Wulfshead Club management,” I said.

“Yes! Exactly! Though it seems I outsmarted myself there.” He stopped for a moment, to scowl and sulk like a thwarted child. “I’ve spent so long rehearsing this speech! Don’t interrupt me! I won’t have you taking any of the fun away! Now. Where was I . . . Ah yes. The orders told the Doormouse that the Droods wanted these Doors made, and used, to test their defences and security measures. All quite reasonable. Actually, I just wanted the Doors used to keep the family distracted. The idea being that so many unexpected incursions from outside would seize the family’s attention so they wouldn’t notice what I was up to behind the scenes. But the Wulfshead Club management had to go and be clever, didn’t they? How could I know they’d be smart enough and suspicious enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, and tip you off to the existence of the Doors?

“But it didn’t make any difference, in the end. I’d also had the Doormouse create a private Door, so the lab assistant could visit me directly, without attracting unwanted attention. And so I could get out, whenever I chose, without anyone knowing. You know the first thing I did? I went for a walk in the Hall grounds. They’d changed so much since my day, but there were still many things and places I recognised. From when I was just another Drood. It felt so good, the wind and the sun on my face, and the green grass under my feet . . . I walked all the way across the lawns to the front gates and that was where I stopped. I stood there, looking through the heavy iron bars, looking out at the world. I could have just left, but I didn’t. I realised . . . It had been so long since I’d seen the outside world, that it frightened me. I knew everything about the family, but nothing about the world. I was so scared . . . and I couldn’t have that. I turned around, went quietly back across the lawns, and returned to Cell 13.

“Where I felt safe.

“I had the lab assistant take a sample of my DNA down to the Armoury, where he used it to make a whole bunch of adult clones. To serve me directly, to walk about in the world on my behalf, so I could experience the world through them. They were designed to be mindless, you see, just blank slates with nothing inside their heads but me. I controlled them all, my mind in their bodies. I was, after all, used to thinking about a lot of things at once. I sent my clones out into the world in my place, to make the world frightened of me.

“The lab assistant had his own assembly line running there, tucked away in the deepest recesses of the Armoury, and no one ever noticed. You’d be amazed at what goes on in the Armoury every day that never gets officially noticed. Or perhaps amazed isn’t the right word. Horrified-that’s closer.

“I sent my clone army to the Department of Uncanny, where my very own suborned traitor let them in. You can always find someone . . . and I used one clone’s hands to tear Kayleigh’s Eye out of your grandfather’s chest, Eddie. To make me invulnerable and untouchable. And my clones too, to a lesser degree, because of the spiritual distance . . . or something. Injure and damage them all you like, but they’ll always bounce back. As you’ve no doubt noticed. Aren’t they splendid?” He leaned forward, conspiratorially. “That’s why the masks, of course. Because they’ve all got my face. Bit of a giveaway there . . .”

“Why did you kill everyone at Uncanny?” I said.

He shrugged. “Exuberance? Once you start, you just can’t stop . . .”

“But why were you still in your Cell, when we came to see you?” said Molly.

“She’s talking again,” Laurence said to me. “How do you put up with her?”

“I think she’s posed a perfectly reasonable question,” I said carefully.

“Is it? Oh, very well . . . What was the point in leaving, back then? If I left Cell 13 and didn’t go back, the family would be bound to notice and start looking for me. And I couldn’t afford to be noticed. Not with so many things left undone, or unfinished. Do try to keep up, Molly! It’s all about the Lazarus Stone, you see. From the moment I knew of it, I knew it was what I needed to escape my fate. I waited years for the damned thing to show up. I didn’t know James had given it to the Lady Faire. Because the Grey Fox had such excellent mental shields. Oh yes. He put a lot of hard work into them, because he had so much he needed to hide from his family. Including what really happened to his wife . . . He never told the family who he’d given the Stone to, because he knew they wouldn’t approve. Well, I mean, would you? Unnatural creature . . . Even the Armourer didn’t know, back then. Until he met up with someone in the Nightside, at the oldest bar in the world, and they told him, I think just to see the look on his face. And even then, I didn’t know! Because the Armourer has his own very powerful mental shields. If you think the Grey Fox had secrets, they were nothing to what dear old Jack Drood has hidden away from the family all these years. It’s hard to hide anything from me, you know. Secrets leave holes in the information stream, and it’s amazing what I can deduce, just from the shape of the holes.

“But, finally, the Armourer mentioned the Lazarus Stone, within the hearing of my pet lab tech. Who misheard that the Regent had it. He couldn’t wait to tell me all about it. I knew I had to have the Lazarus Stone, the one thing that could put an end to my endless half life. That’s why I sent my clones to Uncanny, to get the Stone from the Regent. I was heartbroken when it turned out he didn’t have it. And then you and Molly showed up there, and I saw a way to blackmail you into finding where the Stone really was, and getting it for me. And it worked!”

“Hold it,” said Molly. “What happened to this lab assistant you’ve been talking about? Why isn’t he here, with you?”

Laurence sighed loudly, and dropped me a wink. “Women, eh? Always focusing on the one little detail that doesn’t really matter. Very well-once I had my Door, and my clones, and my information on the Lazarus Stone . . . I didn’t need him any more, did I? So now he’s sitting in Cell 13, thinking he’s me, looking like me, so no one in the family will know I’ve left until it’s far too late.”

“At least you didn’t kill him,” I said.

“Why should I?” said Laurence. “I wasn’t in a merciful mood.” He giggled briefly. “And now! It’s time to put an end to all this . . . I have enjoyed making my little speech. I knew I would. Thank you for leading me here, Eddie. I’ll take over now.”

“Wait!” I said. “You’ve got what you want. You don’t need my parents any longer. Please, let them go.”

“Oh, I don’t have your parents, Eddie. I never did.” Laurence grinned broadly. “That was just bluff, so I could motivate and control you.”

A cold hand clenched around my heart, and I looked at him stupidly. “But you must know where they are! You know everything. Tell me!”

He waggled a finger at me. “Don’t shout at me, Eddie,” he said mildly. “I have no idea where your parents might be. Which is just a bit odd, I’ll admit. I should know, shouldn’t I? I can only assume your parents are so very thoroughly lost that no one in the family knows . . . Never mind, Eddie. Don’t be a nuisance! I’m busy.”

He beckoned to the Lady Faire, and when she didn’t come forward quickly enough to suit him, two of the blood-red men grabbed her by the arms and hustled her roughly forward. They forced her into position before Laurence, and held her firmly in place while Laurence looked her over, thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to be at all affected, or impressed, by her presence.

“Don’t waste your dubious charms on me, Lady,” he said finally, almost absently. “I am fully in control of myself. I have to be, when there are so many of me running around at once. And besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with you. That part of me died long ago.”

“Don’t you miss it?” said the Lady Faire.

Laurence surprised me then, by taking the time to consider her question. But in the end, he shook his head firmly.

“No,” he said. “There are many things I do miss, but that isn’t very high on the list.”

“I could make you remember how sweet it was,” said the Lady Faire.

“No thank you,” Laurence said politely. “You have only one thing I want.”

“No wonder I had no effect on your clones,” said the Lady Faire. “They’re all just like you. No one home, inside.”

Laurence laughed in her face, quite suddenly, and it was a nasty, mocking sound. Many of the watching guests stirred, affronted by his contempt for their beloved Lady. Some of them actually started forward, intent on doing something, and the nearest blood-red men clubbed them viciously to the ground. Dark pools of blood spread slowly across the floor. I wanted to do something, and I could feel Molly tensing at my side, but I stopped her with an unobtrusive hand on her arm. This wasn’t the time to start anything.

Laurence glowered at the Lady Faire. “You have only one thing I want. Give me the Lazarus Stone. Now.”

“You didn’t really think I’d bring it with me to the Ball, did you?” said the Lady Faire.

“I know you did,” said Lazarus. “You couldn’t trust it, away from you. Not with so many powerful people here. And besides, I can feel its presence. So hand it over. Or would you rather I have my clones tear your clothes off, until they find it?”

“Anywhen else, I might have enjoyed that,” said the Lady Faire. “But you have a way of taking all the fun out of things. There is such a thing as dignity, I suppose.”

She reached carefully into an unobtrusive pocket on her tuxedo jacket, and brought out a small shiny object. Everyone in the Ballroom leaned forward for a better look. They just couldn’t help themselves. I did too, and was disappointed to discover that the legendary and much-sought-after Lazarus Stone . . . was just a small sphere of unimpressive alien tech. Nothing glamorous or impressive about it. A pockmarked ball of some unfamiliar metal, two or maybe three inches in diameter. Except, the more I looked at it, the more it seemed to me that there was something . . . slippery about it. Something that made the Lazarus Stone strangely hard to look at, hard to pin down in any of its details. As though it had too many spatial dimensions for this world. Perhaps because it had been made by a species with far more than human senses, or less limitation in their thinking. All I knew was that just looking at the Stone made my head hurt.

Laurence reached out an eager hand to take the Lazarus Stone, and the Lady Faire drew back her hand.

“Why do you want the Stone?” she said. “What would you use it for?”

“I will use the Stone to reach back in Time, and grab myself,” said Laurence. “Rescue myself from History, before the awful accident happens. Save myself, so I won’t have to spend all those horrible years being the Drood in Cell 13. Being me.”

“I thought the Stone could only be used to save people from the point before they died?” said the Lady Faire.

“You people,” said Laurence quietly, contemptuously. “Always so limited in your thinking. And besides, I’m as good as dead anyway, aren’t I? You couldn’t say that I’ve had a life. But I will have.”

“You would undo centuries of History,” said the Lady Faire. “The world as we know it would just disappear!”

“I know,” said Laurence. “And I don’t care. Why should I? When did anyone in the whole world ever care about the Drood in Cell 13? That’s why I keep saying it doesn’t matter. Because nothing does, because I will make it all never happened. All the lives lost, all the lives ruined . . . won’t matter at all. Let the whole world vanish, if that’s what it takes for me to have a real life. Now give me the Lazarus Stone, Lady, or I’ll have my clones take it. And you really won’t like how I’ll have them do it.”

The Lady Faire put forward her hand, offering him the alien tech, and then she opened her hand and let the Stone fall on the floor between them. Laurence sneered at her, and bent forward to pick up the Lazarus Stone. And the Lady Faire kicked him square in the left eye, with the tip of her elegant white boot. A lot of people in the room winced, and some cried out despite themselves as they saw and heard the boot strike home. I was one of them. Laurence fell backwards, crying out abjectly as he clapped both hands to his face. The Lady Faire laughed at him.

“Didn’t see that one coming, did you? I am not predictable!”

But what interested me was that all around the great ice cavern of the Ballroom, all the blood-red men had clapped their hands to their crimson masks. They had felt in their eyes what Laurence had felt in his. Slaved to his will, what he experienced, they experienced. And while Laurence might have Kayleigh’s Eye fused to his chest, like my grandfather the Regent . . . it didn’t protect Laurence as well as it had protected the Regent. My grandfather had been immune to all pain and damage; Laurence just repaired himself. As long as he felt pain, he was vulnerable. And through him the blood-red men . . .

I was just getting ready to jump Laurence, and try out a whole bunch of violent theories, when a glowing form appeared out of nowhere, right in front of Laurence. He lowered his hands, and looked at the ghostly figure through watering eyes. The Phantom Berserker smiled at his erstwhile master, and it was not a good smile.

“Time for me to perform one last act of penance, Laurence Drood. To pay for my betrayal of all those who were so kind to me, at Uncanny. One last act of vengeance, on the one who betrayed me.”

The Phantom Berserker thrust a glowing hand into Laurence’s chest. It plunged in deep, and then materialised just enough for the glowing fingers to close around the glowing amulet. The Phantom Berserker tore Kayleigh’s Eye out of Laurence’s chest, by brute force. The only way it could be taken. Laurence screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the Phantom Berserker’s triumphant laughter. He held the amulet up, so everyone in the Ballroom could see it, still dripping with its previous owner’s blood. And then the ghost just vanished, taking Kayleigh’s Eye with him. There was a long pause. Laurence slowly straightened up, panting harshly. The great wound in his chest was still bleeding heavily. He looked . . . like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

All around the Ballroom, the blood-red men were clutching at their own fresh wounds.

“Well,” I said loudly, “this is interesting, isn’t it? You’re not untouchable any more, Laurence. And neither are your clones. When you get hurt now, you stay hurt. And so do they.” I looked around the Ballroom. “Ladies, gentlemen, others . . . I think it’s time for a little violent revenge. Don’t you?”

Laurence glared around him. “Stay where you are! I still outnumber you!”

“What are numbers?” said a new and very familiar voice, “in the face of retribution?”

The Replicated Meme of Saint Sebastian strode forward, together, all six of them. And something in their natural authority made everyone else fall back to let them pass. They strode forward to join us, Molly and me, Laurence, and the Lady Faire. And then, one by one, they removed their stylised metal masks, and immediately I understood why they’d all seemed so familiar. They weren’t the Replicated Meme at all. They were my uncle Jack, the Armourer; the Sarjeant-at-Arms; William the Librarian; Callan, Head of the War Room; and Capability Maggie, the new Matriarch. And the most powerful telepath in the whole world, joined to us by marriage, Ammonia Vom Acht. Uncle Jack smiled at me cheerfully.

“Stand ready, my boy. The cavalry just arrived.”

“How the hell did you get in here?” It wasn’t much, but it was all I could think to say.

“I still had James’ old invitation,” said the Armourer. “I was able to use that, to track down the Ball’s current location. And then it was easy enough for us to get in, hidden behind the masks of the Replicated Meme of Saint Sebastian. Who were only too willing to give up their current invitation and let us come in their place, after the Sarjeant had a few quiet words with them. Threatening, vicious, brutal words, I’m sure. Sorry we couldn’t let you know, Eddie, but . . . we had to save the element of surprise for just the right moment. You didn’t think we really believed all that nonsense about you being responsible for the killings at Uncanny, did you? You didn’t really think we’d leave you out in the cold again? We know you better than that.”

“We just let the world think we saw you as rogue,” said Capability Maggie. “So we could operate quietly in the background, working out what was really going on, while everyone else was watching you.”

“You did good work against the False Knights, boy,” growled the Sarjeant. “You must have seen me look at you, and let you go?”

“And we brought a little something with us!” William said brightly. “Something to even up the odds!”

“Don’t boast, darling,” said Ammonia. “You’re better than that.”

William nodded quickly. “It’s true. I am.”

“We brought a Door,” said Callan, smiling unpleasantly about him at the blood-red men. “A dimensional Door, to link the Winter Palace to Drood Hall. The Doormouse was most eager to make amends.”

The Armourer snapped his fingers imperiously, and a Door appeared in the middle of the Ballroom. Just an ordinary-looking wooden door, standing tall and wide and upright, and apparently completely unsupported. It swung open and a whole army of Droods in full armour came storming through into the Ballroom. Dozens, hundreds of golden-armoured Droods. More than enough to match the numbers of the blood-red men.

The Lady Faire’s guests fell back, hugging the far walls. They could see a massive clash between two armies about to happen, between golden masks and crimson masks, right in front of them . . . And they really didn’t want to be involved. They knew a grudge fight when they saw one. Laurence glared around him. He straightened up, his hands clenching into fists, and all the blood-red men did the same. And just like that, it was on.

The Droods and the clones slammed together, no quarter asked or given. Laurence tried to snatch the Lazarus Stone away from the Lady Faire, who had it clasped firmly in both her hands. She backed quickly away from him, losing herself in the crowd, and he went after her. I went after him.

Golden fists clubbed down blood-red men, and extended golden swords cut and hacked. The blood-red men fought fiercely, but they had no weapons. They’d never needed them before. And even their unnatural strength was nothing when set against Drood armour. The clones fell in bloody heaps all across the Ballroom, and they did not rise again. Some of them turned on Ammonia Vom Acht, seeing her as an easier target. She just looked at them, and they all fell dead. You don’t mess with the world’s most powerful telepath.

The Droods beat the hell out of the blood-red men, all across the room. I pushed my way through the fighting, ignoring the various struggles. I wasn’t even armoured up. I followed Laurence, until finally he caught up with the Lady Faire again by one of the exits, already blocked by Droods. He wrestled with her, crying angry tears of frustration as he tried to pry the Lazarus Stone out of her grasp. She fought him off, with a man’s strength. I grabbed Laurence by the shoulder and pulled him away from her. He jerked free, and spun round to face me. He had the red puffy face of an angry, thwarted child.

“It’s over, Laurence,” I said. “Time to go home. I’m sure they’ve still got your old Cell waiting for you.”

“I can’t go back,” he said. “I can’t.”

I sighed, despite myself. “We left you alone too long. So in a sense, we made this rod for our own backs. Time to let the Armourer and his lab assistants have a look at you. We’ve come a long way, since you were first locked up. There must be something we can do for you, by now.”

Laurence shook his head slowly, fixing me with his bright, fierce eyes. “They want me dead. Because I know things. All the awful secrets, all the hidden deals, all the terrible compromises . . . Let me go, Eddie, and I’ll tell you something you need to know. Something the whole family needs to know.”

“Laurence . . .”

“Let me go and I’ll tell you who’s really looking out from inside the Merlin Glass!”

Molly moved in beside me. “You can’t trust him, Eddie. He’d say anything. Kill him.”

“I can’t,” I said. “Not in cold blood.”

“Why not?” said Molly. “He killed your grandfather, and he lied about your parents. He would have messed up the whole world and not given a damn as long as he got what he wanted. And he’d do it again, first chance he got.”

“Yes,” said Laurence, nodding quickly. “Oh yes . . . They can’t hold me in Cell 13 any more. I’ll get out, and I’ll kill you all, kill everyone. You’ll see!”

“Put him out of everyone’s misery,” said Molly.

I could hear the fighting dying down behind me. I looked back, just in time to see the last few blood-red men go down. Laurence was all that was left now. If I was going to do something before my family did, I had to do it quickly. I reached into my pocket and the Merlin Glass leaped eagerly into my hand, snuggling against my fingers. I took out the hand mirror and Laurence looked at me oddly, his head cocked slightly on one side.

“For everything you’ve done, and for what you would do, given the chance,” I said. “For all our friends at the Department of Uncanny, and all the innocent bystanders on the Trans-Siberian Express. For all the blood on your hands, directly and indirectly, it’s time for judgement.”

“You won’t kill me, Eddie,” said Laurence. “You haven’t got it in you. Think of all the knowledge that would die with me.” He waited, and when my face didn’t change he spat at me. “I’m not sorry! I’m not! I only wish I could have killed more Droods. Because it was never an accident. There was no accident! They did this to me on purpose! I’m the victim here! You can’t kill me!”

“Anywhen else, you might have been right,” I said. “I like to think of myself as an agent, not an assassin. But after everything I’ve seen, I’m not in a merciful mood.”

I activated the Merlin Glass, and held the hand mirror out before Laurence. He looked into the Glass and froze at what he saw looking back. A slow, terrible horror filled his face. And as he stood there, I shook the Merlin Glass out to full size and slammed it down over him, and sent him away.

I brought the Glass back down to hand-mirror size and put it away. There were shocked gasps all around the great Ballroom as all the blood-red men, the wounded and the dead, suddenly disappeared, leaving only dark scorch marks on the floor. The Droods looked around them, and started to armour down.

“Eddie?” said Molly. “What did you just do?”

“I sent Laurence into the sun,” I said. “I needed to be sure he was dead and gone, and all his secrets with him.”

“Ashes to ashes, and less than ashes,” said Molly.

“We Droods have always known how to clean up our own messes,” I said.

I turned to consider the Lady Faire, and then put out my hand. “Give me the Lazarus Stone, please, my Lady. It’s over. The Stone belongs to the Droods. And just like you, my family never gives up anything that’s rightfully ours.”

The Lady Faire nodded slowly, and dropped the small pockmarked metal sphere onto my hand. It felt heavy, more than naturally solid, as I closed my fingers around it. The Lady Faire gave me an enigmatic smile.

“I’ll always remember you, Eddie. The one who got away.”

She smiled sweetly at Molly, and then turned and walked away, to talk with her guests. Molly looked after her, and then at me.

“I won’t ask,” she said.

“Best not to,” I agreed.

And then Molly snatched the Lazarus Stone out of my hand, and teleported away.