“I think we’ve done enough for one day, don’t you? I think we’re owed a little downtime, before we have to report back. What shall we do?”
“Well,” said Molly, linking her arm through mine, “I did promise you a good meal, and since we’re in London for the evening…What say we take in a West End show, and have dinner afterwards at the Ritz?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “But we’ll never get tickets for anything decent at such short notice.”
“I’m a witch, sweetie, remember? Trust me, tickets are not going to be a problem.”
I thought it best to give the family time to adjust to their new tutors before I showed my face at the Hall again, so a show and a nice meal it was. We went to see the new production at Shaftesbury Avenue:
Prince of Thieves: The Musical
. Starring Robbie Williams as Robin Hood, Paris Hilton as Maid Marion, and Ricky Gervais as the Sheriff. Music, book, and lyrics by no one you’ve ever heard of. Tickets were not a problem; Molly did a Jedi mind trick with the theatre staff, and we ended up in a private box. Afterwards we went to the Ritz and ordered the very best of everything, secure in the knowledge that we had no intention of paying for any of it.
Hey, I keep the world safe and humanity protected. I’m entitled to a few perks and privileges.
“An interesting production,” I said to Molly over pieces of lightly browned toast piled high with Beluga caviar.
“Yes…but why is there such a preoccupation with translating successful films into stage shows? And why didn’t they sing the Bryan Adams song? It’s all most people remember about the film anyway.”
Several bottles of really good champagne later, we stiffed the waiter with an imaginary credit card, tangoed giggling down the Ritz steps, and used the Merlin Glass to take us home. We stepped through into the Armoury, where the Armourer was waiting for us. He did not look at all happy.
“What the hell did you think you were doing, landing me with those four psychopaths? I have enough trouble looking after the psychopaths who work under me! And I have more than enough work to do, without babysitting your special-needs friends!”
I looked around, but there was no sign of any of my tutors. I fixed the Armourer with an only slightly owlish look.
“Uncle Jack, what have you done with them?”
He sniffed loudly. “I handed them over to Penny, and let her take care of them. You know she loves organising things. And people.”
I looked at him, shocked suddenly stone cold sober. “You did
what
? She’ll never be able to handle a dangerous bunch like that! The Blue Fairy alone could walk all over Penny without even raising a sweat, never mind Mr. Stab! Where are they now?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Ask Penny. Now get out of here. I’ve got a pocket universe that needs stabilising.”
I activated my mental link with Strange, in the Sanctity.
“Red alert, emergency, emergency!”
“Oh, hello Eddie! Welcome back. Did you have a nice time in town? Did you bring me back a present?”
“Never mind that now…”
“You didn’t, did you. You forgot all about me.”
“Where’s Penny, and the four tutors she’s supposed to be looking after?”
“At the lecture auditoriums, of course. She’s already got the first tutorials up and running. It’s all terribly exciting!”
I cut contact with Strange, before I said something one of us would regret, and used the Merlin Glass to transport Molly and me straight to the lecture halls in the south wing. I had this horrible mental picture of a lecture hall full of dead Droods, with blood running down the aisles while Janissary Jane and Mr. Stab played football with their severed heads…But when we arrived in the lobby outside the auditoriums, all seemed calm and quiet. Penny was walking unhurriedly back and forth, listening at first one door and then the next. She jumped a little as Molly and I appeared through the Glass, and then hurried over to us, making shushing gestures.
“Thanks a whole bunch for dropping those four on me!” she said, the effect somewhat limited by her hushed tone.
“Blame the Armourer,” I said automatically. “Where are they, Penny? Has there been any trouble?”
“None at all,” said Penny. “I thought the best thing to do was put them all to work straightaway. Let the family see what they could do. So I gave them an auditorium each, told them to talk about what the hell they liked, and…much to my surprise, they took to it like ducks to water. It’s all worked out rather well. It’s standing room only, for all four lecture halls, and when was the last time that happened?”
“And there haven’t been any…incidents?” said Molly.
“Not yet,” said Penny. “A part of me keeps waiting for the other bomb to drop.”
“Why are we whispering?” I said.
Penny raised an eyebrow. “Well, we don’t want to interrupt them, do we?”
I moved over to the nearest door and slipped quietly through to stand at the back of the lecture hall. Molly was quickly there at my side. Subway Sue was up on the stage, striding back and forth, hitting the fascinated packed audience with what it was like to live on the very edges of society. To be in the city, but not part of it, alone and unsupported, surviving entirely on your wits.
“You don’t know how easy it is, to fall off the edge,” she said. “All it would take is one really bad day, and any one of you could end up just like me. I had a home and job and a life, once. I had friends and family. And then I lost them all, one by one. Lost them, or had them taken from me. And so I ended up a homeless person, living on the streets, because even after everything else is gone, the streets are always there. In time I became a luck vampire, and made a new life for myself. I could have had my old life back, but I didn’t want it anymore. I’d become somebody else, and my old life wouldn’t have fit. But, once again, all it took was one really bad day, and I lost it all again. The one thing you have to learn is never to depend on anyone but yourself. Because there’s nothing you can have that the world can’t take away.”
The audience were transfixed, breathless. They’d never encountered anyone like Subway Sue before. I slipped back out the door, Molly behind me, and we went to look in on Mr. Stab. He stood entirely at ease on the stage, glaring calmly out at his equally packed audience, as he lectured them on the skills of murder, the stalking of victims, the joys of slaughter…and how even the smallest seeds of evil can flower in a man and corrupt him. He talked of hunting prey, of tracking a target unsuspected for days or even weeks, if necessary.
“You need to know these things,” he said. “You don’t have your legendary armour anymore. You cannot be invincible warriors, so you must learn to become hunters. You must acquire the techniques of ambush and fighting and killing. And no one knows more about that than me. Learn from me, and I guarantee that most of you will survive the great war that’s coming.”
In the next auditorium, the Blue Fairy was sitting relaxed on a bar stool on the stage, drinking a cocktail with a little umbrella in it, while he lectured on elves, and their often unsuspected interventions in the modern world.
“The elves are long gone,” he said easily. “They walked sideways from the sun centuries ago, dropping out of our world forever. Everyone knows that; but, like most things everyone knows, it’s a crock of shit. Most of the elves are gone, but some remain, intent on revenge. They hate humanity, for ruling the world that was once theirs, and they live to do us harm and bring us down. They’ll side with anyone, or anything, that will help them in their endless, bitter cause.”
And finally, we listened to Janissary Jane tell the family how to fight demons. She marched back and forth across the stage, her cold, practical voice making what she had to say even more disturbing, and scary.
“Demons,” she said flatly, “cannot be reasoned with, or bought off. You can’t negotiate with them. They see us only as a commodity, something to be used. Some come from Hell, some from the past or the future, and some from other worlds or dimensions. It doesn’t matter. All you have to remember is that they only exist to destroy everything you care about. They’ll take your lives, your world, your souls, and use them for their own purposes. And never give a damn. They’re locusts, sweeping through a field until nothing is left. Unless you fight them, with everything you’ve got. And you’re going to have to learn to fight as an army, because this is a war. You can’t be warriors anymore, fighting individual duels. You can’t be heroes. You have to be soldiers, fighting in a great cause. You have to learn to be an army, because there’s armies of them.”
Penny smiled as Molly and I wandered, just a little dazed, back into the lobby.
“Well, Eddie,” she said. “Looks like you finally did something right.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“Bitch,” said Molly.
“You’re welcome, bitch,” I said.
I
t was early afternoon on a bright and breezy summer day, and the grounds of the Hall rang with the merry sound of organised mayhem. Janissary Jane had half the family out doing military exercises again. Separated into groups with terse, efficient names like Alpha, Beta, and Omega, men and women charged up and down the lawns yelling their battle cries and frightening the gryphons. Group attacked group with blank ammunition, wooden batons, and even bare hands, and generally ran themselves ragged under Janissary Jane’s barked orders. Watching happily from a comfortable deck chair, in the shade of a broad parasol, I thought they looked pretty good. Even if they were making a hell of a mess of the carefully cultivated lawns. The team of gardeners had already thrown a major wobbly, and slouched off for a collective sulk and brew up in their shed.
Janissary Jane had been putting the family through its paces for over two weeks now, and I had to say, the family was taking to military training and discipline like a duck to water. We are all trained to fight the good fight from an early age, but the torcs made it easy. It’s not difficult to play at soldiers when you have the armour to make you fast and strong, and keep you from getting hurt. But not many actually have the aptitude for it. Which is one of the reasons why field agents have always been such a small part of the family.
Training without a torc was a whole different matter. You could get hurt, and so could your opponent. Surprisingly, that hadn’t put off as many of the family as I’d expected. If anything, they embraced the new training. Because it felt more…real. So their achievements felt more real. And they practically worshipped Janissary Jane, who’d done everything the Droods had and more, without the aid of the family armour.
Penny came strolling across the lawns to join me, looking cool and collected in a blindingly white summer outfit, despite the heat of the afternoon. She stood over me, and I offered to pour her a glass of champagne from the bottle I had cooling in an ice bucket. She sniffed disdainfully.
“Are you sure you’re comfortable enough there, Eddie? Got everything you need? Perhaps you’d like me to rush back and bring you out a footstool?”
“Oh, would you?” I said. “I’d be ever so grateful.”
“Blow it out your ear.” Penny looked at the men and women dashing excitedly back and forth in their groups, and throwing themselves upon each with much enthusiasm and violence. “They do seem to be getting into it, don’t they?”
“Damn right,” I said. “I’m exhausted just sitting here watching them. More importantly, it’s doing a hell of a lot for family morale. Everything they’re accomplishing comes from themselves, not from their armour. It’s doing wonders for their self-confidence.”
Penny looked at me. “And that’s why you brought Janissary Jane here.”
“To set an example, yes. I cut the family off at the knees, when I took away their golden torcs. Took away their pride, their self-esteem, and their confidence. Janissary Jane is beating it back into them the hard way, and they love it.”
“I take it you’ve noticed Harry is also watching it all from a safe distance, along with several of his traditionalist chums?”
“Of course,” I said. “He never wants to be a part of anything I organise, but he never misses out on anything that’s happening. He’s probably making notes for his regular report to the Matriarch. She can’t be seen to be taking an interest personally, but Harry’s been her eyes and ears ever since he got here.”
“I told you we should have brought him into the Inner Circle,” said Penny. “Keep your enemies close, and all that.”
“No,” I said flatly. “I don’t trust him.”
“You keep saying that, but you won’t say why.” Penny waited, but I had nothing more to say. She sighed heavily. “All right, his best friend is a hellspawn, but you’re shacked up with the infamous witch of the wild woods. And you let her into the Inner Circle.”
“I trust Molly,” I said. “Hell, I even trust you, Penny dear. Harry, on the other hand … is perhaps a little too much like me. Crafty and devious and following his own flag.”
“You brought the Sarjeant-at-Arms into the Circle,” said Penny. “And you hate his guts. And you know very well he reports everything we say back to the Matriarch.”
“Cyril’s different,” I said. “I can trust him to put the good of the family first. Even over the Matriarch.”
“Well, much as I hate to interrupt this important bit of loafing about you’re so involved in, I have been sent to remind you very firmly, up to and including the use of violence if necessary, that it’s time for the Inner Circle meeting in the Sanctity. We’ve finally got a list of prospective candidates for the new torcs for you to take a look at.”
“About time,” I said, heaving myself gracelessly out of the deck chair. Not that far away, two teams of warriors in training lost their temper and jumped each other, brawling back and forth across the lawn with much flailing of fists, kicking, and occasional biting. Janissary Jane hurried over to bawl them out, and I decided it was time to leave them to it. They’d just have to manage without my moral support.
We all met in the Sanctity again, under the comforting crimson glow of the manifesting Strange. We’d all settled on that for his name, even though he kept plaintively insisting he felt much more like an Ethel. You have to draw the line somewhere. The Armourer was already there, of course, along with the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Molly was waiting at the door when Penny and I arrived. She gave Penny a long, hard look, and made a point of taking my arm in hers as we joined the rest of the Inner Circle.