I was happy to find the Armoury back to its usual raucous and very dangerous self, complete with bangs, bright lights, and the occasional unfortunate transformation. Happy chaos and mayhem went on around me as I wandered through the Armoury in search of Molly and Uncle Jack. Now that the lab interns had their armour back, they had once again embraced their old daredevil practices, and were clearly back in their usual productive and self-destructive mind-sets.
In the firing range, half a dozen armoured forms were taking it in turn to test new guns on each other. The armour soaked up all kinds of punishment from projectile guns, curse throwers, and handheld grenade launchers. The noise in the confined space was appalling.
I still remembered the time the Armourer created a gun that fired miniature black holes. It took six people to wrestle him to the ground and sit on him, and then prize the damned thing out of his hand before he could demonstrate it.
One young lady was trying out the latest version of a teleportation gun. I stopped to watch. The family’s been trying to get the bugs out of that for years. Basic idea is very simple; you point the gun at something and it disappears. In practice, it tended to backfire a lot, and we lost a lot of interns. This particular intern was chained firmly to a bolt in the floor as she fired her gun at a target dummy. The dummy’s left leg disappeared and it fell over sideways. The intern whooped in triumph, did a little victory dance, and then the leg reappeared, flying straight at her with some force. Wherever the teleport gun had sent the leg, they clearly hadn’t wanted it.
Someone else was trying to get an invisibility cloak to work, but all it was doing was making the wearer partially transparent, so we could see all his insides working. Beauty really is only skin deep. A large explosion sent half a dozen armoured figures flying through the air. No one looked around. Two of the braver or perhaps more suicidally minded, interns were duelling with atomic nunchaku behind a portable radiation shield. Rather them than me. And one guy with a third eye in the middle of his forehead was flipping urgently through his notes trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
Business as usual, in the Armoury.
I found Molly talking with the Armourer at his usual workstation. Or at least, Molly was listening while the Armourer talked. Apparently Uncle Jack was taking it very badly that his test to uncover drones in the family had failed. He broke off to glower at me as I joined them.
“About time you got back. I warned you; nothing good ever came of messing about with time travel.”
“I brought you back an energy gun,” I said.
He sniffed loudly. “I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish. I’ve dreamed up more destructive things during my tea break. And I don’t care what anyone says; my test was perfectly competent!”
“How did it work?” I said patiently.
He sniffed again, even more disparagingly. “Oh, like you’d understand, even if I explained it to you in words of one syllable, accompanied by a slide show.”
“Try me.”
“It checked, very thoroughly, for the presence of other-dimensional energies in the test subject. Basically, looking for anything that didn’t belong in our reality.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that should have worked.”
The Armourer scowled, fiddling absently with an oversized grenade on the table before him, until I took it away from him.
“We’ll just have to run everyone through the test again,” he said unhappily. “And this time, make allowances for the new torcs! Being other-dimensional things themselves, I should have realised they could be used to hide or distort the results…” He shook his head slowly. “I must be getting old. I never used to miss things like that.”
“You still build the best toys in the world, Uncle Jack,” I assured him.
He smiled briefly. “So, did you get a chance to try out my new teleport bracelet, this time?”
“Ah…” I said.
“It’s not fair!” the Armourer said bitterly. “I work every hour God sends, and a few he doesn’t know about, creating weapons and devices for this family, and then no one can be bothered to give them a decent bloody field test!”
“Look, I’ve been busy, all right?” I said. “There were an awful lot of people trying to kill me in the future.”
“Good,” said the Armourer.
“The important thing,” I said quickly, before he could slide into one of his sulks, “is why didn’t Sebastian’s torc protect him from the Loathly One in the first place? Even if it happened before he received his new torc, it should still have detected the infection within him and worked to destroy it. Instead, it seems Sebastian was able to use the torc to hide his infection from your test and the rest of the family.”
“Don’t look at me,” the Armourer said stiffly. “The family armour has always been a mystery. No one’s ever been too sure exactly how it does all the things it does. The old or the new. The Heart wouldn’t talk about it. Maybe Strange would… You should ask him, Eddie.”
“I already did,” I said. “He wasn’t much help.”
“Hmmm.” The Armourer leant back in his chair, scowling thoughtfully. “Well, theoretically… The infection by a Loathly One is as much mental and spiritual as it is physical. The mind is changed, reprogrammed if you like, and the body adapts to accommodate the changed mind’s needs. The torcs have always protected us from telepathic attack, and demonic possession…but this is something else. The Loathly Ones are, after all, merely the three-dimensional protrusions into our reality of much more powerful entities. The Many-Angled Ones, or Hungry Gods, come from a place where the rules of reality are very different…perhaps even superior to ours. If the Loathly Ones really are from a higher reality, so to speak, their presence might be enough to actually
overwrite
our natural laws with their own, though of course only in a limited way. You could see each new infection as a beachhead into our reality; every new drone helping to weaken local laws in favour of their own… Hmmm. Yes. A very worrying thought, that. But it does give me some new ideas I can add to my test. Now I know what to look for.”
“We don’t have much time, Uncle Jack,” I said.
“I know, I know! You always expect me to work miracles to an impossible deadline! It’s a wonder I’ve got any hair left at all. I’d have an ulcer, if I only had the time. You’ll have the new test by the end of the day. Now go away and bother someone else.”
“Actually,” said Strange, his voice booming suddenly out of somewhere close at hand, “now that I know what to look for, I can perform the test for you.”
“Jesus, Strange, don’t do that!” I said, as we all jumped. “Have you been listening in again? Even after we had that long chat about human concepts like
privacy, good manners
and
minding your own business so as not to royally piss off everyone else
?”
“But this is important, Eddie, really it is! I promise! I’ve already checked your whole family and its guests, and identified a number of infected drones.”
“How many?” I said, a sudden premonition sending a chill running through me.
“Twenty-seven,” said Strange.
Molly and I looked at each other, and then at the Armourer. He seemed to shrink in on himself. “That can’t be possible,” he said numbly. “I couldn’t have missed that many.”
“Are you sure, Strange?” I said. “You have to be really sure about this.”
“It’s not something I can be wrong about,” Strange said sadly. “The other-dimensional impact is really quite distinct. My torcs couldn’t protect you because the Hungry Gods come from a higher reality than mine. They scare me, Eddie. They could eat me up like a party treat.”
“Will everyone please stop panicking?” I said. “It’s very unnerving. I am in charge, therefore I am officially the only one allowed to panic. Everyone else; I’ll tell you when. Get a grip on yourself, Strange, or I’ll start to think you’re aren’t as important an entity as you like to make out. What matters is we can still win this. Now, Strange, talk to the Sarjeant-at-Arms, give him the relevant names, and have him take all the drones into custody. Very secure custody. Tell him to do it quietly and discreetly; no public violence unless absolutely necessary. We don’t want the rest of the family upset. I want all twenty-seven taken alive, and capable of answering questions.”
“Yes, Eddie. About Molly…”
“Not now, Strange,” I said steadily. “We’ll talk about that later.”
“Yes, Eddie.”
“Is something wrong with you, Molly?” said the Armourer. “You look very pale. And Strange sounded worried about you.”
“Oh, it’s just something that happened during our trip through time,” Molly said easily.
She distracted him with details about the yellow dragon and the Starbow, while I wandered off to do some thinking of my own. I’d hoped to find some way of discussing Molly’s problem with Uncle Jack, but this new emergency had to take precedence. Twenty-seven infected family, all working secretly to undermine and betray us? No wonder the war had been going so badly in my absence. There had to be an original traitor, embedded deep within the family, passing on his infection… Or could it be a Typhoid Mary, not aware of what they were doing? Something in that thought reminded me of an old worry that I hadn’t checked in on since I returned. I looked around me. Molly had Uncle Jack chuckling at her stories. The lab interns were all engrossed in their own dangerous business. So I found a quiet corner, hidden away behind a blast shield, and took out Merlin’s Glass. I commanded it to show me the present.
“Show me Penny Drood and Mr. Stab,” I said. “Where are they, right now?”
My reflection in the mirror vanished, replaced by a view of Penny in her room. She was sitting elegantly on the edge of her bed, idly kicking her long legs. She was wearing her usual tight white sweater over tight gray slacks, and looked her usual cool and collected self. And then the view seemed to pull back, showing me Mr. Stab, standing on the other side of the room, considering Penny thoughtfully. He was wearing a casual dark suit, and looked almost normal and everyday, until you took in his face, and his eyes. Even in repose, Mr. Stab looked like what he was. He might as well have had the mark of Cain branded on his brow. But Penny smiled at him, as though he were just another man.
“You don’t need to stand so far away. I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” said Mr. Stab.
“After all the time we’ve spent together? If you were going to hurt me, you would have done it long ago. But you’ve been here in the Hall for over a year, and you haven’t hurt anyone. You’re stronger than you think you are; I wish I could make you believe that.”
Mr. Stab smiled briefly. “If anyone could, it would be you.”
“Why won’t you tell me your real name? Mr. Stab isn’t a name; it’s a title, a job description.”
“You could always call me Jack.”
“No I couldn’t,” Penny said firmly. “That’s who you used to be, not who you are. I don’t think you realise how much you’ve changed during your time here. You have students and followers, your lectures are always packed; you have a place here, with us. With me. You’ve shown me sides of yourself you’ve never shared with anyone else. You’ve let me get closer than anyone else.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Stab. “I have.”
He moved over and sat down beside her on the bed. His back was straight and stiff, and he kept his hands together in his lap. Penny forced an arm through his, hugged it to her side, and then leant her blond head on his shoulder. He sat very still.
“I do care for you,” he said. “In my way.”
“It’s all right for you to care,” said Penny. “You’re allowed to care, to love.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Stab. “I can love. I have. But it always ends badly.”
Penny lifted her head and glared playfully at him. “You are the gloomiest person I know! It doesn’t always have to end badly. We’re the Droods, and we exist just to make sure that things don’t have to end badly! That’s our job.”
“My job is very different,” said Mr. Stab. “I have done…such terrible things, Penny.”
“Anyone can change,” said Penny. “Anyone can be saved. I’ve always believed that. The Mr. Stab I’ve come to know, and love … is very different from the stories I’ve heard. I love you, and you can love me.”
“I wish it was that simple, Penny.”
“It is that simple! And part of being in love is being together. Like this. How long has it been since you allowed yourself to be … close, to a woman?”
“A long time. I don’t want to hurt you, Penny.”
“You won’t! This is love, two people together. Just…let yourself go. Do what you want to. I want you to. It’s all right, really.”
“I love you, Penny,” said Mr. Stab. “Let me show you how much I love you.”
Penny smiled and turned to take him in her arms, and then stiffened, and looked down at the long blade Mr. Stab had eased into her gut. There was hardly any blood yet. He turned the blade, and pulled it across, cutting deeper, and she cried out and grabbed his shoulders with both hands. The expression on her face was pure disbelief. She tried to push him away, but she didn’t have the strength, so she just hung onto his shoulders as he pulled the long blade out and stabbed her again. Blood spurted from the first wound, soaking the front of her sweater and splashing across the front of Mr. Stab’s jacket. His face was…quietly sad. Penny convulsed and cried out again. Blood flew from her mouth, spraying across Mr. Stab’s face.
I grew the Merlin Glass to full size the moment I first saw the knife, and I was already through the Glass and heading for Mr. Stab by the second attack, but already I knew I was too late. Mr. Stab let go of Penny and backed away as I headed for the bed. I let him go, intent only on Penny. I was already screaming mentally to Strange for help, and he was telling me help was on the way, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I leant over Penny and tried to close the wounds with my hands. Blood quickly soaked my arms to the elbow. She looked at me, jerking and kicking, and tried to say something, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was more blood. The bed was soaked in it now. She died in my arms, still trying to say something. I let her go. I stood up and moved away from the bed. There was blood all over me. I looked at Mr. Stab, still standing silently by the door. He could have left, could have run, but he hadn’t.