“William is a better Librarian crazy than most other men sane,” the Armourer said stubbornly. “It’s amazing how much that man knows, when he can remember it. No one knows the Old Library like he does. But he is only a part-time member of the Council now, Eddie. We’ve been forced to consider bringing in new members.”
“Fresh blood,” said Harry, with entirely too much relish in his voice.
“Howard has been in charge of Operations for some time now,” said the Matriarch. “And done an excellent job. All right, he is over-bearingly arrogant, and his company is best enjoyed in very small portions, but he’s very good at thinking outside the box. We can always insist he sits next to the Sarjeant, and issue the Sarjeant with a Taser. Being part of the Council might actually help teach him how to play nicely with others. Then there’s Callan, who’s been a real success as Head of the War Room. And yes, I’ll admit that some days it does seem like he fell out of the sarcasm tree and hit every branch on the way down, but we can live with that. We’ve lived with worse.” She glared at me. “I’ve allowed you to distract us long enough, Edwin. It is time to talk about what happened in Los Angeles. Why didn’t you report here directly?”
“I needed some downtime,” I said.
“So you could think up some excuses for your many failures on this mission?” said Harry.
“You always expect everyone to think like you, Harry,” I said. “I was only supposed to infiltrate an auction before it started, and liberate a single item. No one said anything about having to take on two heavily armed armies, and the Lampton Wyrm! I had to improvise. All right, the Apocalypse Door has disappeared, but this is Doctor Delirium we’re talking about! A mad scientist going through a midlife crisis. Anyone else would have bought a Porsche. How serious can this be?”
“The total destruction of the Magnificat Hotel is extremely serious!” said the Matriarch. “If only because so many people outside the family will have to be involved in explaining it away and cleaning up the mess! You and Luther not only failed to stop the two armed forces from reaching the Apocalypse Door, you couldn’t even identify one of them!
˚
And the Door has to be important, Edwin, and dangerous, or so many people wouldn’t be ready to risk so much just to get their hands on it. There aren’t many important and dangerous devices in this world that the family doesn’t know about, and that is in itself disturbing. Armourer!”
“Just resting my eyes, Matriarch!” He grinned at me. “Did you really turn the Lampton Wyrm inside out?”
“Yes, Uncle Jack.”
“Good boy. Love to have seen it. Yes, Matriarch, I’m getting to it . . . Ah. Yes. There’s no information at all about the Apocalypse Door in either of the family libraries. Of course, William and Rafe are still busy cataloguing and indexing the contents of the Old Library, so there’s still a good chance something will turn up . . . But given the sheer scale of the Old Library, that could take some time. And time is what we don’t have; yes, Matriarch, I am aware of that. Where was I? Oh yes. The two of them are making important new finds all the time, but we need to know what this bloody Door is now, or at least before Doctor Delirium makes use of it.”
“We have some time,” I said. “Doctor Delirium always makes threats first, just to show he has the power. And so he can demand his pay off in postage stamps. Not a bad investment, given the current economic conditions. Unless his midlife crisis is really kicking in, and he wants respect more than he wants payment. He might make use of the Door briefly, just to show he can.”
“We need to have an answer in place before he tries anything,” the Matriarch said heavily.
“Normally we’d just grab someone low down in his organisation, and squeeze the information out of them,” said Harry. “But he’s called all of his people back to his main base in the Amazon rain forest, nailed all his doors shut and set fire to the moat. Full security measures and state-of-the-art defences. We took over a CIA surveillance satellite, and tasked it to give us coverage of the area for forty minutes. Got some really good images. No one can get anywhere near his base now without setting off all kinds of alarms and booby traps. No one’s allowed in or out, until this business is over. We could try bombing him again . . .”
“No we couldn’t,” the Armourer said firmly. “If you’d studied the satellite images properly, you’d have seen the brand-new force field generators. I don’t know who sold him the offworld tech, but it’s prime stuff. Very powerful. Doctor Delirium may be delusional, but he isn’t stupid. He knew we’d be coming after him, and he’s clearly learned from past mistakes.”
“I want to know where and how Doctor Delirium learned of the Apocalypse Door,” said the Matriarch. “Who could have told him of a device so obscure even we’ve never heard of it? The Doctor rarely leaves his base in the Amazon, and the only research he’s ever shown any interest in concerned his own field of expertise . . . So someone from outside must have contacted him, told him about the Door, and where he could find it.”
“Take it a step further,” said the Armourer, scowling fiercely. “Why didn’t these people make use of the Door themselves? Did they intend for the Doctor to do all the dirty work of grabbing the Door from the auction, with the intention of taking it away from him later? Did they know the other army was going to show up?”
“Maybe the auction people set it up themselves, for the insurance?” I said.
The Matriarch looked at me. “If you don’t have anything
useful
to contribute, Edwin . . .”
“Who is there out there,” said the Armourer, “who knows more than we do?”
“Even though the family doesn’t like to admit it,” said Harry, “there are a number of well-informed people and organisations, some almost as experienced as us. Do I really need to mention the Carnacki Institute, the London Knights, or the Deep School, the Dark Academy? And there’s always the Regent of Shadows . . .”
“We don’t talk about him,” said the Matriarch, very sternly.
There was a short pause, as we all avoided each other’s eyes.
“These people are all long shots and you know it,” I said finally. “I say we need to look closer to home. Inside the family.”
“Paranoia doesn’t suit you, Edwin,” the Matriarch said patiently. “The days of Zero Tolerance and Manifest Destiny are over. Those traitors have been executed, expelled from the family, or very forcibly shown the error of their ways. The family is united again. I have seen to that. If the Droods are to thrive and prosper again, and take their place on the world stage, it is vital we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.”
“I do like a good male voice choir,” said the Armourer wistfully.
“I’m not talking about traitors within the family,” I said doggedly. “I’m more concerned with
infiltration
. A dying mercenary in the ruins of the Magnificat claimed to be part of an organisation that’s always been our greatest bogeyman: the Anti-Droods. Another family, dedicated to everything we oppose. He used the phrases
wolf in the fold
and
serpents at our bosom
. That implies an enemy who is someone we trust, someone who’s worked their way inside this family, just to work against us. It has happened before. Remember Sebastian? He was one of us, until he was possessed by a Loathly One. We never did find out who killed him, presumably to keep him from talking. We have to face up to the possibility that someone inside the family is not what they appear to be.”
“But maybe . . . that’s what he wanted you to think,” said Harry. “A dying man’s last chance to mess with your head, and spread distrust inside the Droods. There can’t be an Anti-Droods. There just can’t. We’d know.”
“We didn’t know about the Apocalypse Door,” said the Sarjeant. He was frowning thoughtfully, clearly considering certain names. And I didn’t like the way he looked at me.
“If these Anti-Droods really are as good as us,” said the Armourer, “as old and as experienced and as practiced as us . . . We wouldn’t know. That’s always been our greatest fear; that some where out there were people just like us, but opposed to everything we believe in.”
We all sat and looked at each other for a while, and there was no telling where the conversation might have gone if we hadn’t all been distracted by the sounds of sudden violence outside the Sanctity doors. Violence, heavy thuds and screams, followed by muffled moans of pain and the sounds of heavy bodies slumping to the floor. The doors burst open, and Molly Metcalf came storming into the Sanctity.
My sweet Molly, a precious china shepherdess with bobbed black hair, dark eyes, and really big bosoms. She was wearing a glorious white silk creation that clung to her like a second skin in places, emphasising her curves—like they needed any help—spotted here and there with fresh blood. She was wearing . . . shoes. Don’t ask me what kind; expensive, probably. Men don’t understand shoes.
I stood up to greet Molly, and she flashed me a wide grin. The wild witch, the laughter in the woods, the eternal rebel. Molly fought for a better world, on her terms, and often in disturbingly violent ways. My love, my everything. She threw herself into my arms, slamming me back against the end of the table, and kissed me like we’d been apart for years, instead of a few weeks. I lifted her off the ground and held her above me, and she shrieked delightedly, kicking her legs. I laughed along with her. Sometimes it seems to me the only times I get to laugh are with my Molly.
I put her down, and she punched me lightly on the chest and gave me her special low growl, that means
later . . .
And then she pushed me away, and glared at the Matriarch.
“I know now why my parents were killed! And Eddie’s! And it’s all down to the Droods!”
And it had all been going so well . . . I moved in beside her. “You have proof?” I said. “Evidence, and I mean hard evidence?”
“Not yet,” said Molly, still scowling at the Matriarch. “But I’m getting close. Isabella and I are right on top of it. I came straight here to tell you, Eddie. There’s a
˚
definite link between the murder of my parents and yours! Don’t trust any of these people.”
“You’re wrong,” said the Matriarch, her cold composure utterly unmoved. “No one in this family would have ordered the execution of Eddie’s parents. Certainly not without my knowing.”
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Molly.
“Do you really think I’d order the death of my own daughter? Do you really think me capable of such a thing?”
“You had no problem ordering the death of your grandson,” I murmured. “Sending me to my death didn’t seem to bother you at all, Grandmother.”
Her face didn’t give an inch, but when she spoke she chose her words carefully. “That was different, Edwin. I thought it was necessary, for the good of the family. It has been made clear to me that I was wrong about that . . . and other things. Emily was my dearest daughter. And I approved of Charles, your father. A bit of a rogue, but a good man with a good heart. Did you think I’d let just anyone marry my daughter? I liked Charles, and trusted him implicitly. He and Emily made a formidable team as field agents. Until that unfortunate business in the Basque area . . . I investigated their deaths thoroughly, Edwin. If there’d been even a hint that anyone had intended their deaths, I would have torn the family apart to find the culprits, and executed them myself. But it was just a stupid, regrettable accident. The result of bad intelligence and worse planning. These things happen, even in the best-regulated families.”
“Nothing just happens, where the Droods are concerned,” said Molly.
“Your parents died in the middle of a firefight,” the Matriarch said calmly. “They should never have sided with the White Horse Faction. Those people were extremists, terrorists, and always far too ready to shoot first. They were a bloodbath waiting to happen.”
“They were freedom fighters,” said Molly. “Idealists. And you had them all killed, including my mother and father.”
“We offered them every chance to surrender. Causes like that are always half in love with Death, one way or another.”
“You killed my mum and dad,” said Molly.
“You could have found another way,” I said to the Matriarch.
“You know that isn’t always possible,” she said flatly. “Did you take the time to consider all the possibilities, when you murdered your Uncle James? My son? The legendary Grey Fox?”
“That wasn’t Eddie’s fault!” Molly said immediately. “You sent James to kill Eddie! And you’re still trying to manipulate him, even now, working on his emotions, and the sense of blind duty you pounded into him! It’s all you know how to do.
Anything, for the family.
You’re already responsible for the deaths of so many; what are a few more, even if they have familiar faces? I’ll see you dead for what you’ve done, you coldhearted bitch!”
The Sarjeant-at-Arms was already on his feet and armoured up, two oversized guns appearing out of nowhere in his hands. The Armourer was up and on his feet only a second later, moving to put himself in front of the Matriarch, protecting her from all harm with his own body. But he hadn’t armoured up. Uncle Jack liked Molly. He didn’t really believe she would hurt the Matriarch, but he knew his duty. Harry hadn’t budged at all. He just sat there, entirely at his ease, watching the drama before him with cheerful detached interest.