“Let me rephrase the message,” said Callan. “The Inner Circle needs to see you right now, and I have been instructed not to take
No, Go to hell
, or even
Fuck off and die
for an answer.”
“The Circle has already demonstrated that it can make decisions without me,” I said flatly. “Let them get on with it.”
“Sulking doesn’t become you,” said Callan. “So cut it out, or I’ll slap you somewhere painful. Right here, in public. This is important.”
“This bluff-but-honest act of yours is really starting to get on my tits,” I said. “How important?”
“Sphincter-clenching, testicle-shrivelling, end-of-the-world-and-everything-turning-to-shit important,” said Callan. “They’re waiting for you down in the War Room. Probably crying and wetting themselves and trying to hide under things.”
“Oh,” I said. “That important.”
So we went down to the War Room, threading our way through all the security checks, until finally we passed through the specially reinforced doors and into complete bedlam. The usual hushed air was gone, replaced by a tense, charged, and very noisy atmosphere, in which people ran from station to workstation, held rapid conversations, threw up their hands, and then hurried on somewhere else. The giant display screens covering the black basalt walls, showing maps of every country in the world, were thickly dotted with flashing red lights, indicating realtime emergencies and disaster spots. The farcasters and computer technicians were all shouting into their hands-free headsets while waving sheets of paper for messengers to pick up and take wherever necessary.
I actually stopped and stared for a moment. The War Room was always the cold, calm, and collected heart of family decision-making. I’d never seen the place so distracted, so openly close to panic. What used to be my Inner Circle was standing around the main mission table, waiting impatiently for me to join it. Or at least most of them. There was no sign of Jacob, of course, nor of Molly or Penny. Presumably those two were still off somewhere private, having their little girl-to-girl chat. The Sarjeant-at-Arms was there, and the Armourer, and Harry…and Roger Morningstar. I did wonder whether I should object to a known hellspawn being allowed into the Drood family War Room, but that was after all the kind of thinking I was trying to overturn. If he had anything useful to contribute, I’d listen to him.
We could always kill him later.
Still, with Molly and Penny absent, and both the living and the dead Jacob off about their business, it meant the only real ally I had in the Circle was the Armourer. Good old Uncle Jack. Who was, to be fair, glowering at Roger.
“What is that half-breed demon doing down here?” he demanded as I approached the main mission table with Callan at my side.
“Roger’s with me,” said Harry.
The Armourer sniffed loudly. “Don’t know what the family’s coming to.”
“Hi guys,” I said. “What’s happening?”
The Armourer immediately turned his glare on me. “Where the hell have you been, Eddie? Look at the world maps! Information has been flooding in ever since your little exercise in South America; all of it bad. There are brush fires breaking out across the globe, all because there aren’t any agents left in the field to stamp them out. The staff here are being run ragged just trying to keep track of what’s going on.”
“I’ve brought in some extra people, from intelligence and the media pit, and basically anyone else who didn’t look too busy or who couldn’t run away fast enough,” Callan said briskly. “We’re just about staying on top of things, for the moment. But world events are definitely accelerating, as world leaders give spectacularly good impressions of lemmings with a really bad hangover and no inhibitions.”
I had to raise an eyebrow at him. “Since when have you been in charge of the War Room, Callan?”
“Since you and your precious Inner Circle decided you’d rather spend your time squabbling with each other, instead of getting your hands dirty with the day-to-day running of the family. I used to work here, before I had delusions of being a field agent, and when I got back from that major clusterfuck in South America, I felt a need to be doing something useful, so I looked in here and was appalled to see how lax things had become in my absence. So I just walked right in, rolled up my sleeves, and took over. No one else was volunteering. The people here were actually grateful for someone to tell them what to do. You don’t like the way I’m running things, fine, boot my arse out of here; if you can find anyone dumb enough to take over. I’ll bet you lot don’t even know the precedence protocols, do you? And what are you smiling at, Edwin?”
“For a moment there,” I said, “you reminded me of me.”
“Now you’re just being nasty,” said Callan.
“These tough-guy bonding rituals are all very sweet,” said Harry, “but, Callan, as lord and master of the War Room do you think you could lower yourself to actually brief us on what’s happening now?”
Callan flared his nostrils. “Don’t push your luck, new boy. You and brimstone boy are only here on sufferance. Okay, everyone; bottom line. Politicians of every stripe and flavour are currently threatening each other with war, invasions, and all sorts of economic terrorism, because they believe the family is incapable of stopping them. Word of our lack of field agents, and maybe even lack of torcs, has clearly got around. So, all across the world lots and lots of old grudges, hatreds, and blood feuds are finally being paid off, with age-old enemies gearing up for some serious and long-delayed bloodletting.
“Added to that, all the usual unusual suspects are just itching to take advantage of the situation. While the cat’s away, the mice will inevitably get uppity. All the usual nasty organisations and individuals are operating more and more openly, just daring us to try and stop them. We’ve been enforcing the peace so long, we’ve forgotten just how much bad stuff was bubbling under the surface.”
He stopped to glare at me accusingly. Everyone else joined in. I glared right back at them.
“The more they come out into the open, the easier it will be for us to step on them,” I said. “They’ll all get what’s coming to them. Anything else, Callan?”
“Oh, loads. All of it bad, bordering on unnerving. Elf sightings are up. Significantly up. Current thinking from intelligence is that the elves may be planning to use the weakening of dimensional barriers by the Invaders to return at last from their long exile. Intelligence thinks we should try and make contact with the Fae Court, try and get them on our side, as allies against the Invaders. Because it’s not in the elves’ interests for the Invaders to destroy the very world the elves hope to return to rule.”
“Elves will never side with humanity,” I said flatly. “They hate us too much. They might side with the Invaders, just for the joy of seeing the Invaders do the one thing the elves never could: murder humanity.”
“Then there’s the aliens,” said Callan. “Most of the species we’re currently monitoring have up and disappeared. Presumably leaving while the leaving’s good.”
“Rats leaving the sinking ship,” growled the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
“Well, quite,” said Callan. “Do feel free to just chime in and interrupt my briefing whenever you feel like it, Cyril. Finally, there is patchy but convincing evidence that Heaven and Hell are taking a direct interest in what’s going on. There are reports of angels. From Above and Below.”
We all looked at Roger, who shrugged. “No good looking at me. Neither side would confide in a half-breed. In fact, they’d probably fight each other just for the privilege of killing me.”
“I know just how they feel,” I said.
At which point, the terrible sound of a really huge gong slammed through the War Room, so loud people clapped their hands to their ears to try to keep it out. Everyone looked frantically around, bracing themselves for an attack, but all that happened was the Merlin Glass hopped out of my jacket pocket, grew to full size while hanging in midair, and formed a gateway between the War Room and the old library. William Drood stared out of the opening at the panicked War Room and smiled weakly.
“Sorry about that. I thought I’d disabled the gong function.”
I sighed heavily. “I’m a bit busy at the moment, William. Is this really important?”
“Of course!”
“Of course,” I said. “Everything’s important these days. Always breaking news, and never any time for the heartwarming stuff, about a badger that’s learned to skateboard. Don’t mind me, I’m just babbling, because it’s either that or start throwing things. What do you want, William?”
He smiled distantly, looking, it had to be said, even more twitchy and distracted than usual. “Rafe is looking after your friend. I have some new and quite probably vital information on the nature and intentions of the Loathly Ones. You need to hear this, Edwin, before you go making any plans.”
“All right,” I said resignedly. “The Inner Circle’s here with me. Fill us in.”
The Armourer stepped forward suddenly, standing beside me to stare into the opening. He smiled broadly at the librarian. “William!” he said. “My God, but it’s good to see you again! I didn’t know you were back in the Hall. Why didn’t you come and find me? You’re looking…good. Come on through and join us here! We’ll have a good long talk about old times, once this is over.”
William looked sadly at him. “I’d rather not…come through. I’m not ready yet. It’s Jack, isn’t it? Hello, Jack. It has been a while, hasn’t it… Though I couldn’t tell you how long. I rather lost track of things, like time and…things.”
The Armourer looked at me, lowering his voice. “What’s the matter with him? I thought you said he was…”
“Cured?” said William. “A bit optimistic, that, I’m afraid. And I’m crazy, not deaf. Let’s just say…I’m slowly getting back to who I used to be.”
“Why did you stay away for so long?” said the Armourer. He was trying to talk calmly, naturally, but it was clear how much his old friend’s condition was affecting him. “Why didn’t you say good-bye to anyone? To me? You didn’t even leave a note! Didn’t you realise how worried we’d be? I spent years trying to track you down, long after everyone else had given you up and labelled you a rogue. I never gave up on you. Why didn’t you tell me you were going, William? We’ve been friends since we were kids.”
“The Heart drove me out,” said William. You could tell he was trying hard to concentrate, to hold his straying thoughts together. “It hurt me. Bad Heart. I had to run, get away from the Hall, and the family, run for my life and what was left of my sanity. Yes. I had to go to ground where no one would think to look for me, and then hide deep inside myself, so even the Heart couldn’t find me. I went so very deep inside, Jack, and coming back is … difficult. We’ll talk later, Jack. Yes. Catch up, just the two of us. Just…not yet.
“For now, I need you all to listen to what I have to tell you. And pay attention; I don’t think I’m up to going through this twice.”
His face firmed, his voice becoming clearer and more authoritative, as he took on his old role as expert lecturer. Perhaps because it was just another role he could hide behind, that required nothing of him but his expertise.
“The family knows the Invaders of old. We fought them long ago, when the Druidic Droods were still supporting the Romans in their occupation of old Britain. According to the Latin texts, it took the whole might of the Roman Empire, along with the first Drood field agents, to destroy towering structures being built all across the known world, by
possessed
primitive peoples. The Roman military stamped these early nests out with their usual brutal efficiency, but more kept springing up. There is evidence to suggest that in the end the Heart stepped in and intervened directly, destroying the remaining structures and preventing the Invaders from entering our reality. Presumably because it wasn’t prepared to lose its new property. This was the Heart’s world, and it didn’t feel like sharing. Anyway…many centuries later, the last Matriarch but one, Sarah Drood, took the knowledge from those times from the supposedly lost old library, and used it to summon the Loathly Ones back into our reality. Supposedly to be used as weapons against the Nazis.”
“Supposedly?” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms sharply. “I’ve seen the records. The soul-eaters made excellent weapons against the Nazi war machine, before the Vril Force came in on the other side and balanced the scales again.”
“Oh, I’m sure they did a lot of damage,” said William. “But I don’t think that was why they were brought back.”
“I’ve never understood why we chose them,” said the Armourer. “I mean, soul-eaters? There had to have been better, safer options we could have pursued.”
“Oh, there were,” said William. “But someone, someone fairly high up in the family, insisted on the Loathly Ones. The more I read in the unexpurgated family records, the more I am forced to the conclusion that someone in the family was a traitor. Perhaps already possessed by some demon.”
“But…how was that possible?” spluttered the Sarjeant. “The torcs protect us from all forms of possession or soul peril!”
“Only one way it could have happened,” said William. “Someone gave themselves up willingly to possession. Just like the Kandarians.”
That stopped us all in our tracks for a while.
“A traitor in the family,” I said finally. “That’s easier to believe now, after all we’ve discovered about the Heart, and the Matriarchs, and the Zero Tolerance faction, but still… a Drood giving themselves up to a demon, and allying with soul-eaters? Why? What could they hope to gain?”
“More importantly,” Harry said slowly, “could there still be traitors, or possessed Droods, still operating inside the family? That could explain how we were so easily ambushed down on the Nazca Plain…”
William nodded sadly. “I was better off when I was crazy, and didn’t know what was going on… One thing seems regrettably clear. Ever since the Loathly Ones were let back in, for whatever reason, sixty years ago, they’ve been possessing victim after victim, slowly building their power and influence to the point where they could start building their structures again, and summon the Invaders.”
“There are reports coming in of more of these structures, in various stages of completion, from all across the world,” said Callan. “It’s like they’re not even trying to hide them anymore.”