Property of a Lady Faire

CHAPTER SIX

I’d told the Merlin Glass to take me straight to Molly, and I can’t say I was completely surprised when I stepped through the Glass into an area of almost entirely devastated Drood grounds. A great circle of scorched and blackened grass stood before a copse of trees, all of which were on fire. The heat from the flames was enough to stop me in my tracks, while a thick cloud of black smoke boiled up into the sky from what had been a favoured picnicking spot for young Droods. All around the scorched grass, the wide-open lawn was pockmarked with impact craters, heavy-duty bullet holes, and signs of extensive use of high explosives. All the usual local wildlife was conspicuous by its absence. Except for the wild witch herself, Molly Metcalf, standing quietly and demurely to one side. She smiled innocently at me.

“Can’t take you anywhere,” I growled.

“Wasn’t my fault!” she said immediately. “This was all done by the lab assistants doing their level best to take out a dragon that wasn’t really there, with enough firepower to win a war. They can be very enthusiastic, those lab assistants. Especially when they’ve got all kinds of guns and a really big target.”

“Why didn’t you just drop the illusion, once you were safely out of the Armoury?” I said.

She shrugged. “I wanted to buy you some time. And the lab assistants were having so much fun . . .”

I shook my head slowly. “Capability Maggie is not going to be pleased.”

“You made that name up!” said Molly.

“I wish,” I said. “She’s in charge of looking after the Drood grounds. Or at least she was; she’s just been made the new Matriarch of all the Droods.”

“All right,” said Molly. “Now your family has another Matriarch I’m not going to listen to.”

“Could you at least put out the trees?” I said. “As a sign of goodwill, and a personal favour to me?”

“Oh well,” said Molly. “If you’re asking nicely . . .”

She glared at the burning copse, and all the flames snapped off in a moment, revealing the dead, spiky remains of half-consumed trees. The copse now looked, if anything, rather worse. Molly saw the look on my face, and heaved her best martyred sigh. She gestured broadly with one hand, and all the charred bark jumped off the trees, falling to the ground like so much soot, revealing fresh new growth underneath. The elm trees jerked and swayed in an unfelt breeze, twisting and stretching themselves back to full size again. New leaves flourished everywhere.

The huge circle of scorched grass jumped into the air, and by the time it had reseated itself in the earth, everything was a vibrant shade of green again. The blast holes and exploded craters healed in a moment, with nothing left to show they had ever been there. And a whole bunch of new flowers burst up out of the earth, like so many Technicolor exclamation points.

The last few vestiges of black smoke drifted away on the breeze. Birds started singing again.

“You see?” said Molly. “I’m not just here for the bad things in life.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sure that will go a long way towards helping with your current status in my family.”

She looked at me. “My current status? I thought this was all about you?”

“Unfortunately, as it turns out, not,” I said. “They’ve put you back on the supernatural terrorist list.”

Molly smirked, actually flattered. “Been a long time since I thought of myself as that. Happy days . . . All right, what am I supposed to have done now? And it had better be something particularly stylish and impressive, or I’ll walk right back in there and demand to know why they thought it was me. I mean, I have my standards.”

“We’re supposed to have murdered everyone at the Department of Uncanny,” I said. “Including my grandfather, the Regent of Shadows.”

Molly stared at me for a long moment. “Who the hell thinks that? I have only ever killed people who needed killing! Everyone knows that.”

“Pretty much everyone in our line of work believes we’re guilty,” I said. “Very definitely including my family. So I think we should get the hell out of Dodge. Right now.”

“Fine by me,” Molly said immediately. “You should never come home, Eddie. This place has always been bad for you. Let’s go back to my forest. No one can track us there, and we can talk freely without fear of anyone listening in.”

I looked back at the Merlin Glass, still floating on the air in full Door mode. The opening was full of quietly buzzing static, as it waited for new instructions. I looked at it for a long moment, before subvocalising the coordinates for Molly’s wild woods. I wasn’t entirely confident about trusting Molly to the Glass, after everything the Armourer had said, but it didn’t seem I had much of a choice. The Glass was the only real option I had for staying ahead of my enemies. My many enemies. I could have asked Molly to teleport us, but I didn’t like to. That kind of spell was a major drain on her magical reserves, and I was pretty sure we were going to need those in the not-too-distant future. So I waited for the woods to appear on the other side of the Glass, and then strode quickly through, with Molly right behind me.

• • •

It was good to be back in the wild woods again. The moment I stood among the huge and ancient trees, I felt half my cares just slip away, like a weight I no longer needed to carry. I stood a little taller, and breathed more easily. Tall and vast and heavy with foliage, the great trees spread away in all directions, as far as the eye could see . . . and farther. The primordial forest, of Olde Englande. From when life was new and free, and we all lived in the woods because there was nowhere else.

The air was heavy with rich and pungent scents, of earth and grass, leaves and flowers and other living things. A low wind gusted through the trees, carrying the songs of all sorts of birds, only some of which I recognised. Creatures large and small moved in the shadows among the trees, going about their business, entirely unconcerned with human visitors but preferring to keep their distance nonetheless. Just as well. They usually made rude remarks when they saw it was me. The forest wildlife was very protective when it came to Molly.

The Merlin Glass quickly shrank back down to hand-mirror size the moment Molly and I had passed through. As though it was limited by the old magics working in the wild woods. Or perhaps it just wanted to be put away and not thought about for a while. Until it was needed again. Looking back, it surprised me how quickly I’d become . . . not dependent upon the Glass, but certainly used to it. I don’t normally like relying on devices, even the Armourer’s ingenious little toys. Better to depend on your wits in the field; they’re less likely to let you down at a critical juncture. But the Glass was just so useful . . . I should have distrusted it long before this. Unless it was somehow influencing me. I tucked the hand mirror away in my pocket. It felt like storing a live grenade . . . that was just waiting for the right moment to go off.

Molly slipped her arm through mine and we strolled along together, through the tall trees. There were no open paths, as such, but Molly always knew which way to go, and the heavy vegetation seemed to just lean back out of the way, to let her pass. The trees’ branches bent ponderously together overhead, forming a thick, dark canopy, through which golden shafts of sunlight dropped down like shimmering spotlights. Birdsong rose up on either side of us, close and sweet and tuneful. A breeze caressed my face, filling my head with restful scents and a pleasant sense of languor. I could feel the day-long tension seeping slowly out of my muscles. It occurred to me then that it was always summer here in the wild woods, no matter what time or season it might be anywhere else in the world. Whenever Molly brought me here, it was always summer.

“One of these days,” I said, as casually as I could, “you’re going to have to trust me enough to tell me exactly where your private forest really is. Or perhaps the more proper question would be when it really is.”

“One of these days,” said Molly just as casually, looking straight ahead. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, sweetie. It’s just that some secrets aren’t mine to share. I don’t own this place; I just get to visit. I’m a guest here, just like you.”

“Then who does own the wild woods?” I said. “Who do you need to ask, for permission to come here?”

“You see?” said Molly, squeezing my arm against her side companionably. “Questions just lead to more questions, with no guarantee of an answer. Or at least, an answer you could live with.”

“We lead such complicated lives,” I said, after a moment.

“You need to tell me what’s been happening,” Molly said sternly. “What did you talk to your uncle Jack about? And how did we end up as fall guys for the Uncanny massacre?”

I brought her up to date, and not surprisingly she jumped on the one thing that really mattered to her.

“So, no one in all your family knows, any more, who gave the Regent his orders to kill my parents? Or even why?”

“Uncle Jack doesn’t believe so,” I said carefully. “I suppose it’s always possible there could be a record somewhere, tucked away in some vault in the family archives, and I promise we will look later, when this current mess is finally over, but I wouldn’t put any money on it. This is all deniable operations stuff, and the people involved would have been bound to cover their tracks. Destroy all the paper trails, and there’s no incriminating evidence . . .”

“I need to know,” said Molly.

“I know,” I said.

I hadn’t told her about the Merlin Glass. Partly because I didn’t want her distracted from our current mission until my parents were safe again. And partly because I was worried that the Glass might be listening. I didn’t want to put Molly in danger from the Glass. Or from whatever might be lurking inside it.

“I have heard of the Lady Faire,” said Molly. “As a name, and a legend. One of those renowned personages always popping up on the edges of things. Up in Really High Society, where the air isn’t just rarefied, it’s designer, and only the very best and the very worst kind of people get to mingle. I haven’t a clue where she is right now. I’ve never mixed in those kinds of circles, even before I met you and got civilised. It’s not like she and I had anything in common, after all. The Lady Faire used seduction and fascination to destroy her enemies and achieve her ends, whereas I always favoured . . .”

“Destruction?” I said.

“You say the nicest things, sweetie. I never met the Lady Faire because I never got invited to those sorts of parties. I’m a simple girl at heart. I couldn’t even tell you what she looks like . . .”

“I should have asked the Armourer for a photo, before I left,” I said. “I don’t know much more than the legend, myself.”

“There might not be any photos,” said Molly. “If she’s as secretive as everyone says.”

“Oh, there’s bound to be one somewhere,” I said. “My family has files on everyone who is anyone.”

“And yet they’re saying they don’t know where she is right now?”

“I think it’s more . . . they don’t want to know.”

“Ah,” Molly said wisely. “There’s a story there. I can smell it.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.

I had told her about Uncle James, but neither of us mentioned him. Of such small concessions and agreements are relationships made.

“The Lady Faire does get around,” said Molly. “According to the stories, barroom gossip, and general character assassination I’ve heard . . . she’s set up shop in every major city on the planet at one time or another. Chasing the Intelligence community from one hotspot to another, like the glamorous little parasite she is. And even to a few dark and disturbing neighbourhoods that aren’t on any official map. The Lady Faire goes where the action is. She was the toast of San Francisco society through most of the Seventies, and Queen of the Night in Bangkok in the Nineties. And you don’t even want to know what she got up to in the Nightside, for almost two years.”

“I know what she got up to in Soho, in the Sixties,” I said. “I was the Drood field agent in London for several years, remember. And they were still telling stories about her conquests and exploits, some fifty years after she left. Most of which I prefer not to believe, for my own peace of mind.”

“Believe them all,” said Molly. “Especially the really bad ones. Because they’re the ones she’s most proud of. I used to be a real party animal, back in the day . . . But the word was and is that no one can party like the Lady Faire.”

I frowned. “She’d been around for quite a while, even before Soho in the Sixties . . . So how old do you suppose she is?”

“She’s one of the Baron Frankenstein’s creations,” said Molly, shrugging. “She could be alive, or dead, or any number of states in between.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But where do we look for her now? Where can we go where they’d know?”

“The Wulfshead,” said Molly. “They always know the very best gossip. And I could use a drink.”

“Never knew you when you couldn’t,” I said. “But I was just there, remember? They’ve got their own problems, cleaning up after the MI 13 intrusion. I doubt there’ll be many patrons around for a while.”

“Strangefellows!” said Molly, clapping her hands together delightedly. “Everyone goes to Strangefellows!”

“Only because no one else will have them,” I said. “I keep telling you: Droods can’t go into the Nightside. And I’m not letting you go in there alone.”

“Why not?” said Molly, immediately bristling. “I can look after myself!”

“Wouldn’t doubt it for a moment,” I said. “But you are just a little bit too prone to temptation and getting distracted, in the Nightside.”

“Well, yes,” said Molly. “That’s what it’s for . . . But there are a great many powerful and determined people and organisations looking for us right this minute. And the Nightside is the one sanctuary and neutral ground that everybody recognises.”

“I can’t go in as a Drood,” I said. “People would notice. And the whole point of our current situation is that we don’t want to be noticed. By anyone. Not until we’ve got our hands on the Lazarus Stone, and got my parents back safely.”

Molly pouted sulkily. “You could always go in as Shaman Bond.”

“No, I couldn’t,” I said. “They’d know.”

“You’re right,” said Molly. “They would. It’s the Nightside.”

“Wherever we go, someone is bound to recognise one or both of us,” I said. “Shaman Bond’s reputation might be smaller than yours, but it’s just as widespread. And no matter how fast an in and out we make it, word will get back to my family, and they’ll come after us. Along with all the other organisations in our line of work, everyone from the London Knights to the Soulhunters. I’m not sure it’s safe for us to show our faces anywhere.”

Molly smiled, and rested her head against my shoulder. “Takes you back, doesn’t it? To when you and I first got together? On the run from everyone, with the whole world at our backs and at our throats?”

“Only you could get nostalgic about that part of our lives,” I said. “I really hoped we’d put that behind us. I’m not built for running. No, we need a plan. And for that, we need information. And for that we need . . . the OverNet.”

“Oh bloody hell,” said Molly, stepping away from me and looking down her nose in disgust. “Really?”

The OverNet is the dark, shadowy side of the Internet, a secret overlay unsuspected by even the fiercest hackers, dealing exclusively with supernatural and super-science matters. The kind of sites even the most feral conspiracy nuts have never dreamed actually existed. All the information on the hidden world is there, somewhere, on the OverNet. If you can find it, if you can find your way in, and if you can get back out again with your mind and your soul still attached. An endless repository of strange facts, unnatural gossip, and really secret shit, everything you ever wanted to know that most people have enough sense to leave strictly alone.

“The OverNet can be very useful,” Molly said carefully, in her best tactful tone, “but it’s not exactly reliable, now is it? I mean, a lot of it is just nasty people, and other things, dishing the dirt on one another.”

“I know,” I said, “But it is a very good place to ask questions. Someone will know something about the Lady Faire, or point us in the direction of someone who does. It’s the best place to start. Now, I can’t log on through any of my usual Drood connections, and even the most secure underground cybercafes won’t be safe for us, under current conditions. I can’t even use the computer in my London flat; the family will be looking up all my known addresses and setting people to watch for us. The Voice said no talking to my family. I think I’ve already pushed that as far as I dare.”

“We could always go back to my old place in Ladbrook Grove,” said Molly. “I sublet it to myself, under an assumed identity, just in case I ever needed to go back. Or one of my sisters needed somewhere to crash in a hurry. Because I didn’t want them staying with us. There’s a Door here in the wild woods that will take us right there.”

“No,” I said. “We can’t do that. My family has that address on file; it’s how I found you in the first place. They’re bound to have the place staked out by now.”

“Hold everything, hit the brake, go previous,” said Molly, just a bit dangerously. “Your family has a file on me?”

“Of course,” I said. “We keep files on everyone who is anyone.”

“But I’m almost a part of your family now! I’m with you!”

“We keep files on everyone. Especially members of the family.”

“Droods are weird,” said Molly.

“Why do you think I left, first chance I got?”

“All right, where do you think we should go?”

“I think we need to go to one of my underground safe houses,” I said. “One of my off-the-map and under-the-radar addresses that aren’t in any file. Very secure bolt-holes that I maintain just for occasions like this. When I don’t want anyone to know where I am, very definitely including my family.”

“Are we talking deniable operations again?” said Molly.

“Yes,” I said. “Because the world’s like that sometimes. Especially the world of the secret agent. When the left hand mustn’t know who the right hand’s killing.”

“Like my parents?” said Molly.

I just looked at her. I had nothing to say. There was nothing I could say. In the end, Molly looked away.

“Am I to understand that you still have several of these . . . safe houses?”

“Yes,” I said. “Scattered here and there and all over the place. Because you never know when you can’t go home again. Like right now.”

And then I stopped, and looked thoughtfully at Molly. She looked right back at me.

“What?” she said suspiciously. “You’ve got that I’m only doing this for your own good look on your face. You should know by now it’s not going to get you anywhere.”

“This mission is all about getting my parents back,” I said steadily. “And the only way to do that is by stealing a major Object of Power from a living legend. Even if we do bring it off, the odds are we’ll end up paying for that crime for the rest of our lives, one way or another. You don’t have to be involved in this, Molly. I’d understand, I really would. You could sit this one out, safe here in your forest, till it was all over. I can take the blame, for the death of my grandfather and of everyone else who died at the Department of Uncanny. For once it really is all about me, and my parents. You don’t have to take the fall with me.”

Molly sighed heavily, and stepped forward to stand right in front of me. And then she slapped my face, hard.

“I go where you go,” she said fiercely. “Now and forever. You should know that.”

My face stung, and my ears were ringing, but I still couldn’t help smiling. “I do know that,” I said. “I just need to be reminded now and again.”

“Kiss it better!” Molly said brightly, and kissed me happily on the mouth. “So!” she said, bouncing eagerly up and down on her toes. “Where are we going?”

“You won’t like it,” I said.

I took the Merlin Glass out again, doing my best to treat it perfectly normally. I gave it the coordinates for a particular safe house I hadn’t used in years, and the Glass immediately jumped out of my hand and swelled up to Door size, hanging on the air before me. A grim grey street scene showed on the far side of the Glass, and Molly and I stepped through the Door and into the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the far North of England.

• • •

The first change I noticed was the light. The golden summer of the wild woods was cut off abruptly, replaced by the dour, overcast, and somehow grimy light of a city street on a dark and gloomy autumn afternoon. A cold wind went scudding down the street, blowing leaves and other small things along the pavements. Two long terraces of mostly anonymous housing swept up and down the street.

Molly and I were standing in the middle of Bayswater Road. Rumbling sounds of distant traffic replaced the wild birdsong. The only bird noises you were likely to hear in this neighbourhood were the pigeons, coughing consumptively. Molly shuddered suddenly. I understood. It wasn’t the grey light or the cold wind; it was how dark and oppressive and claustrophobic the city felt, after the wild, open freedom of the forest.

“Everything’s so grey,” said Molly. “Even the air. We’re up North, aren’t we?”

“Newcastle,” I said cheerfully. “A big bustling modern city, with impressive nightlife and a thriving cultural scene.” I looked around. “Not here, particularly, which is part of what makes it such a perfect place to hide.”

I looked carefully up and down the street. Everything seemed calm and normal enough. No traffic, and just a few nondescript individuals trudging along the pavements, intent on their own business and paying no attention at all to their surroundings. Not even a twitch of a curtain at any of the windows, from someone looking out.

“This is an area mostly occupied by students,” I said to Molly. “So people here are used to seeing new faces all the time. Just another reason why I chose this place. This way.”

I led Molly down the street, counting off the terraced houses in my head, until I came to a door that looked familiar. It also looked cheap and shabby and uncared for, which was sort of the point. I didn’t want anything that would stand out or attract attention. Best of all, who would look for a Drood in a setting like this? I produced a key ring I didn’t use every day, and searched through the assorted keys until I found the one that unlocked the waiting front door. The lock turned easily enough, but the door had settled into its frame and didn’t want to budge. Molly looked on, smirking, as I had to put my shoulder to it. The door finally stopped resisting, and let us in. I hit the switch just inside, and was quietly relieved when the light came on. I had set up direct debits for everything through a shell company, but you never know.

The long, narrow entrance hall was gloomy, quiet, and dusty. It clearly hadn’t been used for quite a while. Which was as it should be. The air was still and dry. I looked carefully at the bare wooden floorboards and saw that the thick layer of dust was entirely undisturbed, apart from some rat scratchings and what looked like recent droppings. No one had been here.

I moved quickly from room to room, slamming open the doors and checking out the rooms. My footsteps sounded loud and carrying on the quiet, as though the house resented its long peace being disturbed. I came back out into the hall, and Molly was standing exactly where I’d left her, looking around in a way that made it very clear she had no wish to go anywhere else until somebody did some serious cleaning. I didn’t blame her. There was no carpeting on any of the floors, no prints or posters or decorations on any of the bare plaster walls, and the secondhand furniture had been chosen for its cheapness and utility.

“Yes, it’s a dump!” I said cheerfully. “You’d probably have to spend serious money on an upgrade before it was good enough to be condemned. That’s the point.”

“How can you stand to live in a place like this?” said Molly.

“I don’t,” I said. “This isn’t a home, it’s a bolt-hole. A place to hide out that no one would want to look inside. It has four walls and a roof, and a door I can barricade. That’s all you need in a bolt-hole.”

“I don’t like to think of you living in places like this,” said Molly. “The cold and seedy side of the secret agent life.”

“For years, places like this were all I knew,” I said. “Hiding in unlit rooms, watching unobserved, checking out secrets or people, until it was safe to move on. Not a lot of glamour in the life of a Drood field agent. Until I met you.”

She smiled briefly, and then wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”

“Any number of really unpleasant answers cross my mind,” I said. “I find it best not to inquire. Don’t get comfortable. We’re not staying here long.”

“Best news I’ve had so far,” said Molly.

I armoured up and looked around through my golden mask, checking the house’s security settings. None of the booby-traps had been tripped, and none of the shields and protections had been forced. Everything seemed to be just as I’d left it. I had to stop and think for a moment to work out that it had been eight years since I was last here, bodyguarding an art historian who’d found something nasty living in an old painting. Eight years . . . probably not a good idea to look inside the fridge. I armoured down again.

Molly made her way steadily down the hall, peering through the open doorways and quietly expressing extreme disgust for everything she saw. I didn’t blame her. It was all cheap and cheerful, where it wasn’t damp and dusty. There were cobwebs in the corners, and the sound of small scuttling things.

“It is a bit of a mess, I agree,” I said. “Just a little more than I was expecting . . . I used to have this cheerful little Pixie who kept the place spic and span, but as I haven’t paid her in years . . . Look, we won’t be here long. I just need to access the computer, and then we’ll be on our way. Hold your nose if you think that will help. Or your breath. I can’t open a window; that would tell the whole world someone was here.”

Molly stood in the middle of the hallway, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Never a good sign.

“I am not sitting down anywhere,” she said. “The whole place looks unhealthy. I might catch something.”

“Come into the study, Molly,” I said encouragingly. “You’ll like the study.”

I led her to the end of the hall, and sent a tendril of golden strange matter down my arm from my torc to form a golden glove over my right hand. And then I carefully extruded a key from one finger and unlocked the study door. I waited a moment, just to be sure the key had shut down all the various nasty deathtraps protecting the room, and then pushed the door open. The study seemed calm and quiet, so I led Molly inside. She looked around and sniffed loudly, but I could tell she was impressed, really.

The walls were all spotless white tiles, with not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere. The floor was so clean you could have performed major surgery on it. The computer system set up on the only table looked just as it had the day I’d left it. I pulled out the only chair and sat down at the keyboard. Molly moved in close behind me, so she could peer over my shoulder.

“I programmed this room to look after itself,” I said. “And protect and defend the computer, of course. If the wrong key tried the door’s lock, the room would have blown up the whole building. Drood tech must never be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Aren’t you glad I told you that after I tried the key? Thought so.”

“Blow up the house and to hell with the neighbours,” said Molly. “That’s the Drood way, all right.”

I fired up the computer and logged in, using one of my old Shaman Bond online identities. Just in case someone tried chasing the connection. The monitor screen showed me a screensaver of a Soho street at midnight, with something odd lurking in the background.

“We’re going to have to be quick,” I said, tapping away at the keyboard with my usual two fingers. “Just my being online will attract the attention of my family. And then they’ll wonder what Shaman Bond is doing in Newcastle, and someone will come running to find out. And this will be another of my secret bolt-holes I can’t come back to. I really must find the time to set up some new ones. You can never have enough hiding places. Okay, let’s do this. Get the info and get out.”

“Fine by me,” said Molly, her chin on my shoulder and the side of her face pressed against mine as she studied the monitor screen. I found her presence comforting. I slipped easily into the OverNet and moved rapidly from one site to another, following one promising link to the next. Images came and went quickly on the screen, as I went looking for the Lady Faire.

“You know,” said Molly, “you don’t need all these safe houses and bolt-holes any more, Eddie. You can always stay in my forest. No one can get to you there. You’d be safe with me. Not even Droods can enter my wild woods without my permission.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed on the screen. “But I’ve never liked to be dependent on the kindness of others. Besides, your forest doesn’t have computers.”

“Lot you know,” Molly said easily. “You’d be amazed at what I’ve got there, tucked away. The wild woods are a lot bigger than you think.”

“How on earth can you have computers in the woods? Where’s your power supply, and your connections? How could . . . No. No, I’m not going to be distracted. You can tell me all about it later, and I’ll disbelieve you then.”

“Suit yourself,” said Molly.

I went rummaging roughly through the OverNet, searching for information on the Lady Faire. I did get distracted by a few things along the way, because you can’t help it. Even Drood tech can’t protect you from all the unwanted pop-ups and unnatural ads that infest the OverNet. Would you like to meet other pagans in your area? said one insistent message. I had to wonder, what did they mean, other? What sort of list was Shaman Bond on? Another ad wanted me to Join the Satanic Swingers Club! You’ll have a Hell of a good time! There were photos attached, but I didn’t have the time. And then there was Hello, I am an Elven Prince with a large fortune in fairie gold that I need to transfer into your reality. If you will just give me all your bank details . . . I’m amazed anyone still falls for that one.

I finally left the distractions behind and moved on, in hot pursuit of the Lady Faire. There was no shortage of stories about her past exploits, most of them wildly contradictory in the details. That’s legends for you. The Lady who’s been everywhere and had everyone . . . A lot of the accounts tended to quickly degenerate into He said, She said, They said . . . And there was no shortage of fan sites for the Lady Faire, all unofficial. Some were even set up to worship her, quite literally, as a living goddess. These people were praying to her, even sending her gifts and supplications, pleading for intervention in their personal lives and solutions to their problems.

It didn’t look like the Lady Faire ever responded to their entreaties, or talked directly to any of them. In fact, I couldn’t find a single instance of her communicating with anyone. There were just as many sites condemning her as everything from a Bad Example to a female Antichrist. Angry accusations, death threats, calls for jihad . . . It did seem that some sites were actually at war with one another, with mounting real-life casualties. These people took the Lady Faire very seriously. And yet, strangely, there wasn’t a single photo of her to be found anywhere. Not even on the most rabid and obsessive fan sites. Instead, there were any number of artist’s impressions, everything from court sketches to fully painted portraits.

And every single one of them different.

I finally ended up on the message boards. As Shaman Bond, naturally. Because the whole point of my cover identity was that Shaman could turn up anywhere and no one was ever surprised. I chatted with a lot of people who claimed to know the Lady Faire, or more usually knew people who knew her, but while everyone had heard about her annual Ball, none of them had any idea where it was being held. Until finally I made contact with Dead Boy.

Dead Boy came to the Nightside as a teenager and was immediately mugged and murdered. He made a deal he still won’t talk about, to come back from the dead and avenge his murder. But he should have read the small print. He’s stuck in his risen corpse, unable to leave, possessing his own dead body. At least until his body wears out. He’s something of a party animal, and he does get around.

I know where the Lady Faire’s Ball is being held, he said. I just got my invitation.

“Okay,” said Molly, her chin still resting comfortably on my shoulder. “The Lady Faire only gives out invitations to her lovers. Which means she, he, or it has had sex with Dead Boy. Who is, after all, dead. Now that’s just creepy. I mean, I like to think I’m open-minded about most things, especially if I haven’t got around to trying them yet, but even I draw the line at sleeping with someone who smells strongly of formaldehyde. Even if they are still moving around.”

“I am very pleased to hear that,” I said.

Get you to the Winter Palace, said Dead Boy. And beware the Ice Queen.

He withdrew completely from the OverNet before I could ask any questions.

I sat back in my chair, and Molly put her arms around me. I was thinking hard. The monitor hummed impatiently before me.

“Okay,” said Molly. “The Winter Palace . . . That name definitely rings a bell, but I can’t place it.”

“The Winter Palace is very exclusive,” I said. “Very elite. In fact, I think you have to own or run a small country just to get past the doorman. Never been there myself, but I have heard stories about it. From my uncle James.”

“He’s been there?”

“The Grey Fox has been everywhere.”

“Well, where is the Winter Palace?”

“Ultima Thule,” I said. “The last really cool place in the world. I hope you packed your thermal underwear.”

And then I broke off, as the monitor screen suddenly went blank. My first thought was some Trojan must have got past my filters, but then a gleaming golden Drood mask appeared on my screen, featureless and implacable, seeming to stare right out at me, as though it could see everything.

“What is that?” said Molly. “Eddie, what is that thing?”

“My family have found us,” I said numbly. “They’ve hacked into the OverNet connection. I didn’t think they could do that.”

“Then do something!” said Molly. “Shut down the computer!”

“I can’t!” I said. “It should have shut itself down the moment it realised something was wrong. My family have overridden the security protocols from their end.”

I hammered away at the keyboard, trying to call up something that would protect me, and as I did, the golden face started to talk to me.

“Where are you, Eddie? The family needs you to come home. You need to come home. Now. Eddie needs to come home now.”

I hunched my shoulders against the hypnotic words. “No, he bloody doesn’t,” I said.

“What is that awful voice?” said Molly. “It doesn’t even sound human . . .”

“Psychological warfare,” I said. “Don’t listen to it.”

I gave up trying to shut down the computer, and pulled the plug. Everything went dead, but the golden face was still on the screen, still talking. So I armoured up my fist and smashed the computer with one vicious blow. Sparks flew, and black smoke curled out of the collapsed sides of the machine. The golden face disappeared from the monitor screen, its voice cut off in mid-sentence. I hit the computer again, just to be sure. Broken pieces scattered across the desk.

I retrieved the glove to my torc, pushed back my chair, and got to my feet. Molly stayed with me, her hands on my shoulders, talking calmly but urgently, but I wasn’t listening. My family had found me. They’d be here soon to take me home. By force, if necessary. And this time I would never get away. Never be free again. They’d see to that. Even if it meant I ended up as the Drood in Cell 14.

All the house’s security alarms went off at once. Bells and sirens and flashing lights, in every room throughout the house. I hadn’t realised I’d installed so many. I shouted the various suppressing words, and one by one the alarms shut down. I turned to Molly.

“My family can’t be here already,” I said. “They just can’t.”

“Are you sure they didn’t know about this place?” said Molly.

“No one knew!” I said. “That’s the whole point of an underground bolt-hole! I only ever brought one other person here. And she wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s dead.”

“What happened to her?”

“A painting ate her.”

I hurried over to the study’s only window and looked down into the street. Molly crowded in beside me. Dozens of soldiers in dark uniforms were moving quickly from house to house, calling out the occupants and then hurrying them away. Soldiers with body armour and automatic weapons, being very professional, and not taking no for an answer from anybody. There had to be at least a hundred of them, a very efficient small army, anonymous behind black-visored helmets. Some of the people didn’t want to be evacuated from their homes, but when faced with even the slightest opposition or resistance, the soldiers went straight to brute force. Some of the students started shouting about their rights, and I winced as I saw rifle butts connecting with heads and ribs, and limp bodies being dragged away. Most people went quietly. Having an automatic weapon shoved right in their face does tend to take the fight out of most people.

Someone wanted the street emptied. Someone didn’t want any witnesses for what was going to happen next.

As fast as people spilled out of their houses, soldiers led or dragged them away to the far ends of the street, where more soldiers were waiting to move them on to a secure area. It was all very well organised. The whole terrified populace was emptied out in minutes, with no one left behind. Except Molly and me. My safe house was being conspicuously avoided by the soldiers. Left until last. But eventually the dark-uniformed soldiers came, and formed a crowd bristling with weapons before my door. Someone leaned heavily on the doorbell, and followed it up almost immediately with a loud, hammering fist.

“Who are these people?” said Molly. “SAS?”

“No,” I said. “Come on, Molly, we’ve seen these uniforms and tactics before. These are MI 13 shock troops. Remember when they attacked us outside my old flat in Knightsbridge?”

“Of course,” said Molly. “Silly buggers. They came in mob-handed, complete with helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles. Didn’t do them a whole lot of good against us.”

“We kicked their arses,” I said. “You’d think they’d know better than to annoy us again . . . Will you listen to the noise they’re making at my front door? Idiots. With the shields I put in place, they couldn’t break that door down with a depleted-uranium battering ram. But I suppose we’d better go down and talk to the uniformed thugs, if only to find out what they want. And how they knew we were here. I also wish to make a very strong complaint about how they’ve been treating the innocent people of this street. First rule of fights in the hidden world: it’s not supposed to spill over into the real world, and affect innocent bystanders. I will not have civilians hurt because of me.”

“You tell them, Eddie,” said Molly. “Be firm.” And then she kissed me hard.

“What was that for?” I said.

“Because you immediately assumed that this was all your fault. It isn’t. Everything bad that’s happening here is down to the uniformed thugs. So let’s go kick their nasty arses. I’m just in the mood to punch people in the face, knock them down, and stamp on their throats.”

“Never knew you when you weren’t,” I said generously.

We sauntered down the hall to the front door, and I yanked it suddenly open, surprising a large burly type in mid-knock. I thrust my face right into his visored helmet and gave him my best You’re in trouble, pal glare. There were several black-uniformed soldiers at my door, and they all backed quickly away, covering Molly and me with their automatic weapons. I stepped outside, with Molly right beside me, and the door quietly shut itself. Which meant all the house’s shields were now back in place and fully armed. If anyone did try to break in, the whole place would go Boom! in a loud and thorough manner. I smiled easily at the soldiers crowded together before me.

“Yes?” I said loudly. “Can I help you? You’re not the armed wing of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are you?”

“Oh shit,” said the first solider. “It is them!”

“It’s them!” said a second solider.

“I said that!” said the first.

“But it really is them!” said the second. “It’s Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf!”

“They are why we’re here,” said the first.

“Well, yes,” said the second. “But I really was sort of hoping someone else would find them.”

“This is the correct address,” said the first. “Where the boss said they’d be.”

“I was really hoping they wouldn’t be home,” said a gloomy third voice. “She turns people into things.”

“You are all seriously letting the side down!” said the first. “Pull yourselves together! We have our guns, and we have the drop on them!”

“It won’t help,” said the second.

I looked at Molly. “No one does a decent threat any more. I can remember when armoured thugs had style.”

“You just can’t get the help, these days,” said Molly. “I blame bad toilet training.”

“Hands up!” said the first soldier, jerking his gun at me, his voice probably a little higher-pitched than he intended. “Put your hands in the air, now! Then kneel down, and lie face down on the ground!”

“Yeah, right,” said Molly. “Like that’s going to happen.”

“I really don’t like the way you’ve been treating the people who live on this street,” I said sternly. “There’s no excuse for unnecessary brutality.”

“We know who you are!” said the first soldier. “We know what you are! Your armour doesn’t scare us. We’re prepared. We’ve all been issued specially prepared ammunition!”

“Heard that one before,” I said.

I subvocalised my activating Words, and my golden armour exploded out of my torc and swept over me in a moment, enclosing me from head to toe. The soldiers cried out in shock as a gleaming gold statue appeared before them, the face a featureless golden mask. There’s something about there not being any eyeholes that always puts the wind up people. I raised one golden fist, concentrated, and thick spikes rose from the knuckles. The soldiers fell back several steps despite themselves. And then Molly stepped forward, smiling sweetly, and wrapped herself in a shield of swirling magics, stray energies spitting and sparking on the air. The soldiers fell back even farther. They were right out in the middle of the street now, huddling together for comfort.

One of them panicked and opened fire, and suddenly all the soldiers were firing at once, blasting Molly and me with everything they had. The roar of so many automatic weapons all firing at once was deafening. Bullets slammed into my armour, raking me from head to foot, and I didn’t flinch. I felt no impact, and the armour soaked up all the bullets. With my old armour, the bullets would have ricocheted, going everywhere. The new strange matter armour was more responsible, absorbing all the bullets as fast as they arrived. I wasn’t entirely sure where my armour stored them, or what it did with the bullets afterwards. Did it perhaps crap them out the back later, when I wasn’t looking? I wouldn’t like to leave a trail . . . The soldiers kept firing, and the bullets did me no harm at all; it was like firing into a bottomless golden pool.

Some of the soldiers targeted Molly, and found that even more upsetting. Their bullets turned into pretty butterflies in mid-air, which then flew away. And given the rate at which the automatic weapons were pumping out bullets, it wasn’t long before the sky above us was full of clouds of brightly coloured butterflies, weaving pretty patterns in the air.

The soldiers kept on firing until they ran out of ammunition, and then they just sort of stood there, like they didn’t know what to do. So I stepped forward and punched out the first solider, hitting him so hard in the face that his black visor split neatly in two. He fell backwards, hit the ground hard, and didn’t move again. And while the others were looking at him, Molly stepped forward and kicked the second soldier so hard in the nuts it actually lifted him up into the air for a moment. He hit the ground hard, curled into a ball around his pain, and made high-pitched noises of distress. I was pretty sure he was wearing protective armour down there, because I heard it break. Molly looked at me.

“They have to learn respect.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re both feeling very respectful,” I said. I looked at the remaining soldiers. “I expect you’d like to surrender now, wouldn’t you?”

And then Molly and I looked round, as more soldiers came running towards us from both ends of the street at once. Dozens of black uniforms, heavily armed and armoured, crashing down the street with grim determination. The soldiers who had been firing on us turned and ran to join the others. Or perhaps to hide behind them. I looked past the approaching soldiers. Both ends of Bayswater Road had been completely sealed off by parked military vehicles and barricades. But I couldn’t see any helicopter gunships, or attack vehicles, of the kind MI 13 had used before. Just black-uniformed cannon fodder. What were they planning?

“Do they really think sealing off the street is going to stop us leaving?” said Molly.

“I think it’s more to keep other people out than to keep us in,” I said. “They don’t want any witnesses for whatever it is they have planned.”

“I don’t like the feel of this,” said Molly, looking back and forth uncertainly. “Something is heading our way, apart from these idiots. Something . . . bad. I can feel it, crawling on my skin. You know what, Eddie? This might be a good time to exercise the better part of valour and leg it through the Merlin Glass. Before the bad thing gets here.”

“You want to leave?” I said. “And miss a good scrap? A chance to beat the stuffing out of a bunch of smug, obnoxious thugs? Are you sickening for something?”

“No,” said Molly, with quiet dignity. “I am just pointing out that MI 13 is showing every indication of having planned all this very thoroughly. They’ve got something else up their sleeves, and I can’t help feeling we would both be a lot better off if we weren’t here when it arrived.”

“Hell,” I said, “it’s come to something if you’re being the voice of reason.” I looked up and down the street. “I can’t See anything unnatural. No sign of any high tech or magical energies. Come on, Molly, this is MI 13 we’re talking about. They couldn’t organise a hand job in a brothel. Their specially prepared ammunition didn’t amount to much, did it?”

“Oh, go on then,” said Molly. “Mindless violence and extreme behaviour it is. Twist my arm . . .”

The approaching soldiers slowed their pace as they drew near, spreading out to surround us. Molly and I moved unhurriedly to stand back to back. The soldiers formed quickly into ranks, covering us with their automatic weapons and barking orders at us from behind their anonymous black-visored helmets. I turned my golden mask back and forth, and soldiers flinched away from its eyeless gaze. It was one thing to hear all the stories about Drood armour, and quite another to have to face it in the real world. The soldiers in the front ranks tried to back away, but the ones behind were having none of that, and held them there. A few scuffles broke out, until their officers got them back under control.

And Molly and I hadn’t even done anything yet. I just stood there, my spiked golden fists held out before me, while Molly’s magics flickered dangerously around her, full of nasty possibilities. Finally, one of the officers came forward to face me. His uniform had no markings, but there was a silver badge on his helmet, just above the visor. He stopped a more than respectful distance away, his automatic weapon trained on my armoured face. For psychological value, no doubt. His back was stiff, his head held high, and when he finally spoke his voice was sharp and authoritative.

“Eddie Drood, surrender yourself and your woman, and give yourselves over to the authority of MI 13. Do it now, before things get ugly.”

“You’re already ugly,” I said. “I’ve seen how your people handle innocent bystanders.”

“And what’s this your woman crap?” Molly said loudly from behind me. “I am Molly Metcalf, wild witch of the woods and a supernatural terrorist in my own right! And a serial transformer of piggy little men who annoy me into squelchy little snot things!”

“She really is,” I said. “I’d back away now and ask for new orders from someone higher up the food chain, if I were in your shoes.”

“I don’t take orders from rogue agents and witches with delusions of grandeur,” snapped the MI 13 officer.

“I do not have delusions!” said Molly very loudly.

“You’ve upset her now,” I said to the officer. “I’d start running if I were you. Not that it’ll do any good, of course . . .”

“We have orders to take both of you in, dead or alive,” said the officer. “Guess which we’d prefer.”

“Why can’t people just be reasonable?” I said plaintively to Molly.

“No good asking me,” said Molly. “I never did get the hang of reasonable.”

I smiled, and shrugged at the officer. “Sorry, but you see how it is. Tell you what-why don’t you and your uniformed bully boys just put down your weapons and surrender to Molly and me? And then we won’t have to do terribly unpleasant things to all of you, that will make the survivors scream when they wake up at the hospital.”

“Survivors,” said Molly. “Always the optimist, Eddie.”

The officer stepped back, and gestured sharply to a nearby soldier, who stepped smartly forward out of the ranks and aimed a rocket launcher directly at me. I started to say something, and he fired the thing at me, at point-blank range. The shell shot across the few yards separating us at incredible speed, the sound of its rocket blast almost overpowering. The sensors in my mask kicked in immediately, speeding up my sight and reflexes till the world and everything in it seemed to be moving in slow motion. I grabbed the shell out of mid-air and cradled it in my arms, hugging it to my chest. It exploded almost immediately, and my armour soaked up every bit of it. There wasn’t even a shock wave to affect the soldiers around me. I’m considerate like that, sometimes. I’d crouched a little, to be sure of smothering the blast, and when I straightened up again, the soldiers made low, shocked sounds as they saw that my armour was entirely unmarked and unaffected.

The officer gestured quickly again, and another soldier came forward, this time armed with a flame-thrower. The fuel tank had all kinds of magical symbols scrawled across it, so I assumed the flames had been specially treated. Given the effect of the specially prepared ammunition earlier, I decided not to be impressed. So I just stood there, my arms casually folded, and let the soldier get on with it. He bathed my armour in a blast of roaring flames, sweeping the jet back and forth across me, and I didn’t even feel warm.

Good to be a Drood.

The soldier gave up, turned the flame off, and stomped back into the ranks, where some of his friends patted him consolingly on the shoulder. There then followed something of a pause, as the officer quietly debated with his troops over what to do next. I don’t think they’d expected there to be a next. There was even more discussion going on in the ranks at the back, most of it of a somewhat dispirited nature.

“You might have warned me about the flames,” said Molly, behind me. “I mean, yes, I have been to Hell and back and there isn’t a fire on this world that could actually get to me, but a warning would still have been the polite thing to do.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking . . . whoever sent these herberts out to annoy us must not have known much about Drood armour, or your magics. And given that this is MI 13, who have tangled with us before, to their cost . . . you’d expect them to know better.”

I broke off, as Molly started chanting behind me. I could feel magical energies tingling on my armoured back. There then followed a series of explosions, and a whole bunch of screams, and then it all went quiet again. The soldiers in front of me looked past me and Molly, saw what she had just done, and appeared very upset. Several ripped off their helmets so they could be suddenly and violently sick.

“Well?” I said.

“Fine, thank you,” Molly said cheerfully.

“You’re being extreme again, aren’t you?” I said.

“They started it,” said Molly. “I believe in getting my overreaction in first.”

“I have a strong feeling,” I said thoughtfully, “that this-all of this-is just a distraction. Expendable foot soldiers, never expected to actually bring us in or take us down. They’re just . . . something to keep us occupied until the really heavy shit turns up.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Molly. “I wonder whose it is . . . Who’s in charge of MI 13 these days?”

“Officially, Alan Diment,” I said. “But he made it clear to me, back at the Wulfshead, that he’s not much more than a figurehead. Being steered and pressured by people higher up.”

“I think we should find those people and give them a good talking-to,” said Molly.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said. “Hello . . . something new is coming our way.”

Molly came round to stand beside me as the ranks of soldiers parted to allow Alan Diment to approach us. He still looked like a minor civil servant, out for an afternoon walk and not at all happy about it. He kept his back straight and his head high, but he still gave the impression that he should be waving a large white flag. He passed through the soldiers, and stopped a very respectful distance away from me and Molly. He looked from me to Molly and back again, and when he finally spoke he sounded scared but determined.

“You know I didn’t want any of this,” he said. “None of it was my idea. I’d have known better.”

“But you’re here,” I said. “Why is MI 13 so determined to take us down, dead or alive?”

“Because you destroyed our operation at the Wulfshead Club,” said Diment. “And embarrassed my current lords and masters. You’ve made them lose face in the Intelligence community, and made them seem weak and useless to the Government that funds them. You must have known my masters would be just waiting for a chance to get back at you, and you gave them the perfect opportunity when you invaded the Department of Uncanny and slaughtered everyone there. What were you thinking? Did you really believe you could get away with that, just because of who you are? Every organisation in the hidden world is after you. Because if you’d turn on Uncanny, and your own grandfather . . . Well, nobody’s safe. The word is, whoever takes you down gets a free pass from the Droods. And everyone wants that. Your family is really disappointed in you, Eddie. You let the side down by getting caught. Now the British Government wants you. And you too, Molly; don’t feel left out. Both of you have been declared fair game. And MI 13 got here first.”

“How?” I said. “How did you know we were here?” My voice cracked like a whip on the silence, but give Diment credit; he didn’t flinch.

“Don’t be silly, Eddie. I’m hardly going to tell you, am I? Might need to use that source again, someday.”

“Molly and I didn’t kill all those people at Uncanny,” I said. “We’ve been set up.”

“Well, yes, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Diment. “The fact remains, you were seen leaving the scene of the crime.”

“No, we bloody well weren’t!” said Molly. “We teleported out!”

“So you were there,” said Diment. “Thank you for confirming that. Makes this so much easier. I will say I was surprised to learn you were responsible for a mass murder, Eddie. You were always an agent first, and only ever a reluctant assassin. But you’re a Drood, and she’s the wild witch, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at all, really.”

“Who saw us leaving the scene?” I said.

“Presumably someone trustworthy,” said Diment. “Look, the Government has tasked MI 13 to bring you in, dead or alive. I would prefer alive, but if you insist on resisting . . .”

“Kill a Drood?” I said. “You’re really ready to go to war with my family?”

“You’re not listening, Eddie,” Diment said patiently. “You have been officially disowned by your family. Declared rogue, and no longer protected. Surrender, Eddie. Do it now, while you’re still in a position to strike some kind of deal.”

“What kind of deal?” I said.

“Eddie?” said Molly, looking at me sharply.

“I’m just curious,” I said.

“If you’ll stand down and go willingly, you’ll be allowed to hand over your armour on your own terms,” Diment said carefully. “It is the armour my current lords and masters want, after all. Imagine what MI 13 could do with its own armoured agents.”

“That is never going to happen,” I said. “After what I saw at the Wulfshead today, it’s clear your current lords and masters can’t be trusted.”

“That may or may not be the case,” said Diment. “It doesn’t make any difference. You don’t have a choice, do you, Eddie?”

“I always have a choice,” I said.

“Damn right,” growled Molly. “And right now I am choosing to be completely unreasonable, and downright violent with it.”

I smiled at her, behind my mask. “Exactly, Molly. Time to put these uniformed little snots in their place. But we need to do it fast and get the hell out before my family turns up to complicate things. Because you can bet one of our people inside MI 13 will have contacted them by now.”

“You have people inside MI 13?” said Molly.

“We’ve got people inside every secret organisation,” I said. “How else do you think we stay on top of everything?”

“That does explain a lot,” said Diment.

“Are you still here, Alan?” I said pointedly.

“Your family wouldn’t side with this bunch of creeps, would they?” said Molly. “I mean, they wouldn’t allow you to be handed over to the Government. Would they?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But they would let MI 13’s troops wear us down, so they could move in afterwards once we were exhausted. And then . . . at the very least they’d demand to know what was really going on. And we can’t tell them.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Diment. “What do you mean, what was really going on? What am I missing?”

“Almost everything, Alan,” I said. “Now hush-grown-ups talking.”

“Oh . . . shit,” said Molly.

I looked at her. “What?”

“Something’s happening,” said Molly. “And I really don’t like the feel of it.”

The black-uniformed soldiers all tilted their heads at the same time, receiving a new communication, and then they all turned and ran for the ends of the street as fast as they could move in their heavy body armour. Diment hurried after them, not even glancing back at Molly and me. Molly made as though to stop him, but I intervened. Diment was just a messenger boy. The soldiers hurried behind the roadblocks and then stood their ground, covering the street with their automatic weapons.

“They’re waiting for something,” said Molly.

“Seems likely,” I said. “I wonder what . . . I mean, what could MI 13 have that they think could bring us down? That their own people are afraid of?”

“I love the way you keep asking me questions, like you think I’ve got any answers,” said Molly. “I’m as much in the dark as you are!”

“Probably even more so,” I said generously.

And then I broke off, and studied the street ahead of me carefully, through my mask. The natural energies of the world had just changed. Something was forming in the air. I could See strange lights, pulsing, and there was a growing sense of presence . . . of something from Outside forcing its way into our reality. Forcing the edges of the world apart, so it could shoulder its way through. Molly saw it too, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Okay . . .” she said. “That doesn’t look or feel like anything I’m familiar with . . . Feels nasty, though.”

“This is high tech, not magic,” I said. “Though admittedly, beyond a certain point it gets really hard to tell them apart. MI 13 is establishing some kind of Gateway, to let something through. And something pretty damned big too, given the size of the opening. Where the hell is MI 13 getting the kind of power they’d need, to open a Gateway this size? And what would they be bringing here, that they believe can take on a Drood in his armour?”

“Are you talking to somebody else?” said Molly. “Because I know for a fact I already told you I don’t know anything!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking out loud and trying not to panic . . . Given everything that you and I have already tackled, from Hungry Gods to a worldwide Satanic Conspiracy, what could MI 13 be bringing to the table on a Government department budget? Hold everything . . . Do you See those energies bleeding out from the edges of the Gateway?”

“Are you asking me, or is this just another . . . ?”

“Do you See them?”

“Yes! What are they?”

“Tachyons. Time particles . . . We’re looking at a Time Gate! A transfer point, connecting one period in Time with another. Bringing something here, from the Past or the Future.”

“Now that’s just cheating,” Molly said briskly. “And just a tiny bit alarming on any number of levels . . .”

“This kind of technology is way beyond anything MI 13 should have access to,” I said, honestly shocked. “My family has always kept a very close eye on anyone messing around with Time. And there are Certain Others, who have been known to step in and make certain organisations and individuals never happened, just to put a stop to things like this.”

“Could Black Heir be helping MI 13 out?” said Molly. “They’re responsible for cleaning up all the weird tech left behind after alien incursions.”

“Black Heir know better than to meddle with things beyond their remit,” I said. “They survive by being useful, and not at all threatening. Oh, wait a minute . . . Yes! Got it! When MI 13 abducted those people from the Wulfshead Club earlier, one of them must have been an alien or a time traveller! There’s always one or the other passing through. MI 13 must have confiscated their tech before throwing them back. The bloody fools . . . messing around with things they can’t hope to understand or control, all in the name of ambition . . . This is what made Diment’s bosses brave enough to take on a Drood. And the wild witch, yes. But what have they found, what are they summoning through that Gateway . . .”

“Brace yourself,” said Molly. “The energies are changing. The Gateway’s opening. Looks like the show’s about to start.”

“I wonder if they’ve got a T. rex,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to have a go at a T. rex.”

“You go right ahead,” said Molly. “I’ll stand way over there, and watch.”

The Gateway hung on the air, halfway down the street, like a hole in reality itself. Strange lights flickered in and around it, while even stranger energies radiated away from the razor-sharp perimeter. Odd emanations pulsed and flared as the Gateway stabilised, enforcing and embedding itself in the world. Weird things began to happen in the street-other-dimensional fallout, warped probabilities. Half a dozen soldiers at the far end of the street turned suddenly inside out, flowering in bloody messes. Others melted, running away like candle wax. A few simply exploded. More disappeared, forced out of reality by the Gateway’s overpowering presence.

Birds fell dead out of the sky, and it briefly rained blood.

Buildings on either side of the street began to slump, bulging out as though tugged forward by some strange new gravity. Windows exploded, under too much pressure. The ground shook and then cracked beneath our feet, and deep booming voices issued up from far below. The sky turned strange colours, and the air suddenly tasted sickly sweet. And then the Gateway firmed, a perfect circle, cut out of reality. Not as big as I’d feared-maybe thirty, forty feet in diameter . . . But just its presence here was seriously bad news. At least the world had stabilised around it now. Everything seemed back to normal, apart from the damage already caused. And of course the dead soldiers were still dead. I wondered if Diment’s bosses thought their losses were worth it. Or if they even cared.

I tried to see what was going on beyond the Gateway, but that was too much, even for my mask. It was like looking at a different kind of Space, where the most basic rules were utterly different. Like one of those pictures that were all the rage a while back, where if you focused your eyes just right, you could see another image inside the picture. Three dimensions, hidden inside two. What was inside the Gateway was simply too complicated, or perhaps too real, for me to make sense of, even with my armour’s help. Time has substance, but not any kind Humanity can comprehend. And then something stepped through the Gateway and into our world, and I stopped worrying about theoretical stuff.

I knew a real and present danger when I saw one.

“What the hell is that?” breathed Molly, pressing in close beside me.

“A blast from the past,” I said. “From the Droods’ past.”

“I should have known,” said Molly. “It’s always about your family, isn’t it?”

The new arrival was a man in full armour. Medieval plate armour, with strange curves and angles, gleaming bitter yellow like diseased candlelight. The figure was completely enclosed from head to toe, and carried a long sword on one hip and a battleaxe on the other. Its helm had a countenance as blank and featureless as mine. Nothing to give any indication of a human face behind it. The figure stood inhumanly still, but I had no doubt it was looking at me, and a terrible chill ran down my spine.

“I know what that is,” I said. “I’ve never seen one personally, just pictures in a very old book, but . . .”

“It looks old,” said Molly. “Or at least old-fashioned. Is it one of the London Knights?”

“No,” I said. “Arthur would never have suffered a thing like that to sit at his round table. I never actually thought they were real, just a cautionary tale, to scare impressionable young Droods . . .”

“Eddie! What is that thing?”

“That is a False Knight,” I said. “Magical armour-a living thing in its own right, permanently bound to its wearer. Metal forged from the pits of Hell, they say. Once put on, of your own free will, it can never be taken off. The wearer gives up being a man to become something more and less than a man. Made over, into a new and powerful thing. Unbeatable, untouchable. A False Knight.

“The armour feeds on blood and death and suffering. Everything it kills makes it stronger. It lives to kill, and kills to live. The False Knights were created centuries after Arthur’s fall at Logres, intended as an answer to the Droods. There’s a reason they call that period the Dark Ages. This was the last desperate gamble of the Order of Steel-bad guys, who believed Might Made Right and they were the mightiest of all. Only the Droods stood between them and a reign of blood and horror. To destroy the armoured Droods, the Order of Steel made a deal with the darkest force of the Dark Ages and gave themselves up, to be False Knights. A whole army of them.

“We destroyed them all, in one great battle. Over a thousand years ago, in Tintagel, in Cornwall.”

Molly looked at me uncertainly. “You can take a False Knight, can’t you?”

“One, probably,” I said. “But there was more to the story . . .”

And that was when a great company of False Knights came striding through the Gateway, from out of the Past and one of my family’s darkest legends. Row upon row and rank upon rank, filling the whole end of the street with their sickly gleaming armour. They marched in perfect lockstep, with inhuman timing and precision. The sound of their metal boots hammering down in unison filled the air, and echoed back from the surrounding buildings. Their arms swung heavily at their sides, their hands clenched into metal fists, and not one of them had a face on the front of his bitter yellow helmet. I’d never understood before just how disturbing that could be, even though I’d used the same trick myself, for so long. To look at something you know can see you, even though it doesn’t have any eyes . . . The False Knights crashed to a halt as the last of them emerged from the Gateway. Standing so still, in their ranks, looking straight at me, and Molly.

The surviving MI 13 soldiers at that end of the street turned to run. One look at the False Knights was all it took to persuade them they wanted nothing more to do with any of this. Even their officers couldn’t bully or threaten them into holding their ground. I couldn’t see Diment anywhere, or his secret masters. No doubt they were watching, from somewhere they thought was safe. But nothing and no one was safe now, not with False Knights in the world.

“I was afraid of that,” I said, as steadily as I could. My mouth was dry, my lips numb. I had to swallow hard a few times before I could continue. My skin was crawling under my armour, and I could feel my heart hammering painfully fast. “At the battle there was one company of False Knights who just vanished. My family never did find out what happened to them. Well, I guess we know now, don’t we? Those damned fools running MI 13 opened up a Time Gate and brought them here. They have no idea what they’ve unleashed on this world . . .”

The Gateway disappeared behind the False Knights. Gone in a moment. Presumably whatever MI 13 had been using to generate the Gate had just run out of power.

“Damn,” I said. “There goes one solution to the problem I was counting on . . .”

“Forcing them back through the Gateway and into the Past?” said Molly. “That was never going to work. You said yourself the company of False Knights vanished from the battle and your family never saw them again.”

“I can’t believe MI 13 thought they could control something like this!” I said.

“After what happened at the Wulfshead, and what they think happened at Uncanny, they probably panicked,” said Molly. “They must have thought we’d be coming after them next. Eddie, we have been set up, big time. So what are we going to do? Get the hell out of here, and let your family deal with the False Knights when they turn up?”

“You’d do that?” I said.

“I know my limitations,” said Molly. “And I am looking at a whole army of them right now.”

“We can’t leave,” I said. “We can’t let False Knights run loose in the world. We have to hold them here, keep them focused on us, keep any of them from escaping until my family gets here. If the Knights scatter, it could take the Droods generations to hunt them all down. And God knows how many people would die. The Knights need blood and death and suffering, to survive. And a company of False Knights could wipe out the entire population of this city in under an hour. I don’t even want to think how powerful that much blood and slaughter would make them . . . They were created to be an answer to the Droods. A final answer. And even our own history books say they came pretty damned close.”

“So!” Molly said brightly. “How did your family defeat a whole army of False Knights, back in the day?”

“The book didn’t say.”

“Terrific . . .”

“I’ve always supposed we used one of the Forbidden Weapons, from the Armageddon Codex,” I said. “The kind we’re only supposed to use when reality itself is under threat. They never get discussed in the history books, because we’re not supposed to have them.”

“And they’re a very long way away,” said Molly.

“And we couldn’t use them anyway, without the supernatural fallout killing off most of the city,” I said.

“Then think of something else!” said Molly. “Because I am getting seriously spooked just looking at those things! How are the two of us supposed to stop a whole army of Drood equivalents? I mean, I’m good, but I’m not that good. I’m not sure anyone is . . . Don’t ever tell your family I said that.”

“We can do this,” I said. “We have to do this. We have to keep them occupied, keep them all here. Until someone arrives to save us.”

“You really think we can take them?”

“You want the truth, or a comforting lie?”

“What do you think?”

“Yes, I think we can beat them,” I said.

“Then so do I!” said Molly.

We nodded to each other, and then walked steadily down the street, side by side, to where the False Knights stood waiting, their faceless gaze still fixed on us. They probably hadn’t thought the first thing they’d see in their new Time would be a Drood in his armour. Just as well; it was the only thing that would have held them here. The only thing in the world they had good reason to be afraid of. While the only thing I had on my side . . . was that they had experience of only the old Drood armour. They knew nothing of the strange matter armour Ethel had given my family. With its far greater properties.

MI 13 officers finally drove their remaining men out from behind the barricades and down the street to reinforce the False Knights. Or at least to observe what was happening. The moment they drew level, the False Knights turned on them and butchered them all. Swords and axes flared dully in the grey light, and blood splashed everywhere as severed limbs and heads flew through the air. The False Knights cut the soldiers down with ease, bitter yellow blades shearing clean through Kevlar armour without even slowing. The few rounds the soldiers got off ricocheted harmlessly from the Knights’ armour. It was all over in a few moments, the False Knights moving inhumanly fast, with appalling grace and precision. Spurting blood splashed across the bitter yellow armour, which soaked it up immediately, leaving not a drop behind. Some of the Knights picked up pieces of dripping flesh and wiped their metal helms with it.

As though they were thirsty.

And just like that, it was over. Mutilated bodies, and pieces of bodies, were kicked carelessly to the sides of the road, and the False Knights resumed their ranks and looked at me and at Molly again. As though daring us to do something, anything, about the awful thing they’d just done.

“Why did they do that?” said Molly. “Why kill the soldiers when they were on the Knights’ side?”

“No one is on the False Knights’ side,” I said. “That’s the point.”

The Knights held their gleaming swords and axes at the ready, and not one drop of blood fell from the heavy blades. The bitter yellow armour had soaked it all up. The Knights had had their first taste of their new world, and they liked it. I made myself move forward, and Molly was immediately there beside me. That helped. I was facing one of my family’s oldest and darkest nightmares, and I’m not sure I could have done it on my own.

One of the False Knights stepped forward out of the front rank. His metal boots slammed down hard as he came to meet me, and the ground cracked beneath his every step, as though he was too heavy, too real, for this world. He carried a long sword, with a hilt long enough for him to use both hands. I concentrated on my armour, and forced a change on it. Heavy collars rose up to protect my head and shoulders, while vicious spikes protruded from my elbows and knees. I even raised spikes on the knuckles of my golden gloves. The False Knight stopped and looked at me. He hadn’t been expecting that. Droods hadn’t been able to change their armour the last time he’d met them. For the first time he realised he wasn’t facing the kind of Drood he knew. I grinned behind my featureless mask. They might be an army, and they might be clad in armour out of Hell itself. But they’d never met a Drood like me.

I gestured for Molly to hold her ground, and she stopped, reluctantly, glaring fiercely at the watching Knights. I grew a long golden sword out of my right glove. It shone with a bright, healthy light. I nodded to the False Knight, and he nodded to me, challenge given and accepted. And then we ran forward, charging straight at each other. We slammed together in the middle of the street, our swords rising and falling. And my strange matter sword sheared right through his bitter yellow blade. The end fell away, clattering on the ground, and as the False Knight hesitated, caught off guard, I brought my sword swinging round in a viciously fast arc . . . and cut off his head. The bitter yellow helm fell to the ground, and rolled away. The headless body fell stiffly backwards, like a felled tree. It clanged hollowly as it hit the ground, and not a drop of blood came out of it.

I turned to face the waiting ranks of False Knights, and laughed at them. The simple, unintimidated sound seemed to fill the empty street. Molly whooped loudly, and punched the air with her fist. And the whole army of False Knights came striding down the street, right at me, and Molly, to do together what one Knight had so signally failed to do. The ground shook and trembled under their weight, and the very air seemed to curdle around them, as though their presence alone was enough to poison the world.

Molly danced forward to face them, smiling unpleasantly. She raised both arms in the stance of summoning, and chanted a series of harsh ugly Words. A great raging wind blew up out of nowhere, and swept down the street to hit the Knights head-on. The wind overturned parked cars and sent them tumbling, and blew everything else around like leaves, but it didn’t even slow the False Knights.

Molly cut off the wind the moment she realised it wasn’t working. She summoned up fireballs and threw them at the Knights, fires hot enough to shimmer the air and melt everything in the mortal world . . . but the flames just splashed harmlessly against the bitter yellow armour, and fell away, and the Knights kept on coming. Molly lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, and hit the first rank with her strongest transformation spell. The air between them crackled with violent magical energies, but nothing in the spell could touch the False Knights in their armour.

Molly scowled fiercely, concentrating on one Knight right in front of her. She raised a hand, and then clenched it, hard. And the False Knight broke step, shuddering to a halt as his bitter yellow armour cracked and crinkled all around him. It scrunched up like tin foil, crushing the man within, collapsing in upon itself. The False Knight staggered, waved his arms wildly, and then fell to the ground as his armour closed in around him, crushing and compressing him, until there was just a crumpled ball of bitter yellow metal in the street.

Molly turned to look at me. Her face was drawn, and pale, and wet with sweat. She was shaking hard, only just able to keep her feet.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said, trying hard to smile. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. It took everything I had just to bring one of the bastards down.”

“That’s more than most could have managed,” I said. “It’s all right, Molly. You stand down, and let me go to work. I’ll take it from here. But if it looks like I’m losing, get the hell out of here.”

“I won’t leave you, Eddie.”

“You have to.”

“You can’t make me!”

“You don’t understand, Molly! If they take you, they’ll make you one of them! Wrap you up in their Hell armour, make you False too!”

“You go down, I go down with you,” said Molly. “Fighting to my last breath. Because I wouldn’t want to live without you anyway.”

She couldn’t see me smile behind my mask, so I nodded fondly to her.

“Together forever, my love,” I said.

“Forever and a day,” said Molly. “Now go kill those sons of bitches.”

“Love to,” I said.

I pulled the golden sword back inside my hand, strode over to the side of the street, and plucked the nearest street lamp out of the ground by its electrical roots. There was a shower of sparks as I hefted the long metal weight easily in my hands. And then I charged straight at the False Knights, using all the power of my armoured legs to close the gap between us in a few moments. I was in and among their front ranks before they even had time to react. Everyone always forgets that Drood armour is fast, as well as strong.

I swung the long steel lamp with all my strength, picking Knights up and throwing them this way and that. Their armour dented under the impact, but wouldn’t crack or break. More pressed forward, but I kept the lamp post swinging, and they couldn’t get past it. I slammed it into chests and heads, swept armoured legs out from under them, smashed them down, and swept them away. False Knights flew through the air, hit the ground, and rolled, then got up to come at me again. I couldn’t hurt them. The bitter yellow armour protected them, just like mine protected me.

I threw the street lamp into the mass of them, and grew my golden sword again. I swung it with both hands, striking down on the bitter yellow armour with all my strength, and the strange matter blade cut deep. It sliced through their armour and out again, sheared clean through shoulders to cut off arms, and decapitated bitter yellow helms, but not one drop of blood flowed. And still the Knights pressed forward. I had to cut off their heads to stop them, one at a time, and as more and more of them crowded in around me, it got harder and harder to find the room to swing my sword.

They hit me again and again, with their swords and axes and huge brutal fists. Their blades couldn’t penetrate my armour, but they were all so inhumanly strong that the sheer impact got through. Their attacks drove me this way and that, back and forth across the street, even as I fought them, and I cried out inside my mask as the blows hurt me, again and again. I hacked about me with my sword, doing what damage I could, overwhelmed by the crush of bodies.

I stabbed one False Knight right through his mask, my sword punching through his metal face and out the back of his helm, and even though the Knight fell, it didn’t make a sound and there was no blood. I began to wonder if there was anyone, or anything, left alive inside the bitter yellow armour. I yanked the sword out, back-punching a Knight behind me with my spiked elbow, and kicked the legs out of another Knight in front of me. This opened up a little room, and I swung my sword in short, vicious arcs, going for their throats. A metal fist slammed into the side of my head with incredible force, and the pain was so bad it blinded me. My legs buckled, but I wouldn’t let myself fall. I swung my sword relentlessly, panting harshly, until my vision cleared. My arms and back ached from the sheer effort of fighting, and for a moment all I could see were the faceless masks all around me, and the swords and axes rising and falling, trying to find a weak spot in my armour, or in me. As they beat me to death by inches.

I saw an opening, threw myself through it, and ran down the street, away from the overpowering numbers.

When I thought I’d opened up enough space, I lurched to a halt and turned to face them again. The False Knights were coming after me, taking their time. Savouring the moment. They knew I had nowhere to go. I glanced across at Molly. She hadn’t moved from where I’d left her, leaning on a street lamp, holding herself up with the last of her strength. She looked almost as bad as I felt, but she smiled steadily back at me. Waiting to see what I would do next, because she had faith in me.

“Get ready to run,” I said breathlessly. “I’ve got an idea, but if it doesn’t pan out . . . I’ve got nothing else.”

“Wait!” said Molly. “I’ve had an idea! What about the Merlin Glass?”

I looked at her stupidly, fighting to concentrate. My head ached like hell.

“What about the Glass?”

“Can’t you use it, to send the False Knights away? Send them somewhere they couldn’t survive?”

“That is a really good idea,” I said. “Better than mine. I’ll send the bastards to the Moon. One at a time, if I have to.”

But when I passed my hand through my armoured side, the Merlin Glass wouldn’t come out. The hand mirror jerked this way and that, avoiding my grasping fingers. As though . . . as though it was afraid of the False Knights. I swore briefly, and took my hand out.

“When this is over,” I told it harshly, “we are going to have a serious discussion about which one of us is in charge here.”

The False Knights were almost upon me. I put my hand back through my side, and drew my Colt Repeater from its hidden holster. The gun the Armourer gave me long ago. A very special gun, the Colt Repeater teleported ammo straight into the chambers so it could never run out, and I didn’t even need to aim it exactly. The gun never missed. This was my original idea. My golden blade had pierced the False Knights’ armour, so clearly strange matter trumped bitter yellow. If I surrounded every bullet I fired in golden armour, and punched a hole through their heads as I had with my sword . . . they should fall. I grinned coldly behind my mask, and aimed my Colt Repeater at the nearest Knight.

I shot it through its featureless face. The bitter yellow helm snapped back, and the False Knight crashed to the ground and didn’t move again. The other Knights paused for a moment, as though they couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and then they came on again. I shot them all down, one by one. Aiming and firing as quickly as I could, till my hand ached, picking off target after target. They didn’t even try to defend themselves with different tactics, because they didn’t understand what was happening. They couldn’t understand what was killing them. They’d never seen a gun before. By the time they started to get the idea, I’d already thinned the ranks out so much it didn’t matter. I shot them down without mercy or hesitation, because it was necessary. Not one of them got close to me. I backed away, step by step, still firing as the last of them tried to rush me, until the very last False Knight fell dead at my feet.

I laughed, shakily, at the piled-up bodies cluttering the street. “You really shouldn’t have come here. Things have changed since your time. We’re much better killers now.”

They hadn’t even tried to run. They knew they had nowhere to go. So they had just kept coming, kept trying to kill me. They were a lot like Droods, in their way.

I put the Colt Repeater away. My arm ached, and my hand shook as I held it out before me. The golden strange matter I’d used to coat my bullets ripped itself out of the fallen Knights, and shot back through the air into my waiting hand, melding back into the armour it had come from. I wasn’t going to leave it lying around for MI 13 to pick up.

I armoured down, and almost collapsed without the armour to support me. I swayed on my feet and Molly was quickly there to hold me, and hold me up. I leaned heavily on her, and she made a soft angry sound as she saw how bad a beating I’d taken.

“I’m okay,” I said, as much to myself as to Molly. “I just need to . . . get my breath.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Molly.

“I have to talk to Diment first.”

“Him? Really?”

“Yes.”

Molly looked around her. “How long before your family get here?”

“Not long. I can feel them, through my torc . . . So let’s do this quickly.”

I pulled myself away from Molly, and she watched me closely until she was sure I could stand unaided. I strode down the street, toward the barricade, keeping my back stiff and my head held high.

I caught Diment peeking round a corner of the barricade, and I gestured sharply for him to come out and talk to me. He didn’t want to, but he did. He wasn’t going to say no to me, after seeing what I’d done to the False Knights. He came forward and stood before me, doing his best not to look at all the armoured bodies.

“My family are on their way,” I said. “You stay here and make a full report to them. You know, this could be a really good opportunity for you to drop your current lords and masters right in it. My family are going to be really angry at seeing False Knights here, and you can honestly say it wasn’t your idea. You can point the finger at all those meddling little shits who’ve been messing you around. This could be your chance to actually run MI 13, with my family’s support.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Diment. “Where will you go now?”

“Away,” I said. “Far away.”

This time the Merlin Glass all but leaped into my hand, and Molly and I were gone in a moment.