I looked out the taxi window, and the familiar London streets rolled past. Places I knew, locations I remembered, all of them looking safe and secure. And all the ordinary people, going about their ordinary business, with no idea of who and what they shared their world with. I could have raised my Sight, and looked on the world as it really was, but I didn’t. Sometimes I just liked to pretend that this was it, that this was all there was. At least I have the privilege of choice. These people, with their everyday jobs and ordinary lives, keeping the machinery of the world turning, were my responsibility. My job, to stand between them and the dangers they didn’t even know existed. As Droods, we’re encouraged to see the world’s populations as our children, who must be protected. And if we do our job right, they’ll never have to know their nightmares are real.
Until the day they finally grow up enough that we can trust them with our knowledge. And then we’ll all get together and kick the Bad Things right off our world. On that far future day, we’ll all be Droods.
When I gave up the leadership of the family, and went back to being just a field agent again, I left the Hall and returned to London. But I didn’t feel like going back to my old place in Knightsbridge. Too many bad memories, from the time when I’d been falsely declared rogue, and the whole family turned on me. They’d trashed my flat, looking for secrets or stolen goods or any evidence they could use against me, but really just as an excuse to take their anger out on me. Someone spray painted the word
Traitor!
all across one wall. So I didn’t go back.
My nice new flat in Kensington was big, open and very comfortable. The family coughed up for all the best fittings and furnishings, as a way of saying sorry. My new place is not easy to get to, at the end of a cul-de-sac, and I have seen to it that it is very well defended. Against everyone and everything; very definitely including members of my family.
˚
Though I hadn’t actually got around to telling them that. I thought I’d just let it come as a nice surprise. Besides, they definitely wouldn’t approve of some of the nasty, vile and downright unpleasant things I’d put in place to make my new home safe and secure. Right down to the smallest detail. It’s not everyone who’s got a banshee for an alarm bell.
I also have a preprogrammed poltergeist in residence; it clears things up while I’m out, does the dirty dishes, deals with the laundry and even disposes of the garbage for me. My girlfriend Molly Metcalf gave it to me as a moving-in present. She’s very thoughtful about things like that. Though I did have to have words with her later, after I discovered she’d set the poltergeist to remove from my collection all the CDs that she didn’t approve of.
How can anyone not like Abba?
Once home, I took a while to just walk around the flat, checking all the defences were in place, and none of the booby traps had been triggered. I sorted through the post and checked my e-mails, opened some windows to let the fresh air in, and retrieved the Merlin Glass from its hiding place. These days, I keep my very special hand mirror in a subspace pocket dimension, tied to my torc. Only I can reach in and retrieve the Glass; even if you could detect the subspace pocket, which you can’t. I called to the Glass, and immediately it appeared in my right hand, looking innocently normal and ordinary. Just a standard old-fashioned hand mirror with a silver backing. But Merlin Satanspawn never made an ordinary or an innocent thing in his life. I said the proper activating Words, and the Glass shook itself back and forth, growing quickly in size, until finally it jumped out of my hand and made itself into a Door, right in front of me. Through this new opening I could see Molly’s wildwoods, the hidden place she lived in when she couldn’t be with me.
Through the Merlin Glass I could see rank upon rank of huge trees, falling away before me, heavy with foliage of so bright a green it practically glowed, interspersed with shady glens and tumbling waterfalls. Dust motes danced in long golden shafts of light. Fresh air gusted through the doorway, carrying with it rich scents of grass and greenery and living things. I stepped through the Glass into the forest, and the doorway closed behind me.
The wildwoods stretched off into the distance in every direction I looked. Massive trees with huge trunks, so tall you could crane your neck right back and still not see the tops of them. Bustling untamed vegetation, that had never known the touch of axe or saw, sprang up everywhere. These were old woods, ancient woods, from primordial times when we all lived in the forest, because the forest was all there was. The air was full of sound; of birds and beasts and insects. These were the woods of Olde Englande, when forests stretched unbroken from coast to coast, and bears and boars and wolves roamed freely, along with other rarer creatures that have long since dropped out of history and into legend. I have seen kelpies and bogles and fenendrees in this place; and they have seen me. Other shapes moved warily among the trees, maintaining a safe distance; large dark shapes that studied me with bright unblinking eyes from the deepest of the shadows. I can come to this place only because Molly loves me; the wild things of the woods are still a long way from trusting me. They were only ever comfortable around me when Molly was there too.
There was no sign of her now, which was odd. The Merlin Glass always sends a warning ahead of itself, just for her, so she knows I’m coming. Most of the time she’s already there, waiting for me. But not now. I called out her name, and it was as though the whole forest was suddenly struck dumb. Every living sound shut off, even the breeze among the branches, as though the whole wood was still, and listening. I called again, my voice echoing on and on through the trees, but there was no reply. A cold chill ran down my neck. The woods didn’t feel in any way welcoming, or inviting. And then a squirrel dropped down onto a branch right next to me, and I gave an entirely undignified jump of surprise. The squirrel sniggered loudly, its long russet tail snapping back and forth. It sat up on its haunches and studied me disdainfully.
“Hey rube,” it said. “Keep the noise down; some of us have important nuts to be gathering. Molly’s not here. Why are you here? You’re disturbing the wildlife with your presence, and that after-shave of yours is doing absolutely nothing for the local ambience. I mean, yes, we’re all happy she’s finally found a boyfriend she can bring back to meet the extended family, and all that, but did it have to be a human? She could have done so much better for herself. Still, she’s not getting any younger. Her biological clock is getting pretty damned deafening. Have you got her pregnant yet? Well, why not? You humans are too damned complicated for your own good. I could have been born human if I wanted, but I passed the intelligence test. Little squirrel humour there. Have you met her sisters yet?”
“Not as such,” I said, jamming a word in edgeways in self-defence. You might think a talking squirrel is cute, but trust me, they really get on your nerves after a while. “I’ve heard about Isabella, of course. Who hasn’t? Supernatural terrorist, twilight avenger, and so hardcore in her convictions she could scare the wings off an angel. Practically every secret organisation in the world has her on its kill list, and vice versa.”
“What about Louisa?” said the squirrel, knowingly. “She’s the one you have to watch out for. She’s really scary.”
“Well,” I said. “Something to look forward to.”
The squirrel cocked its head on one side, and considered me thoughtfully with a dark beady eye. “You do know this isn’t going to work?” it said, almost kindly. “You and Molly? Love doesn’t conquer all, and happy endings are just something you humans made up, to help you get through the nights. Molly is at war with the Droods, and always will be.”
“You see?” I said. “We have so much in common.”
The squirrel shrugged. “None so blind as those who’ve shoved two fingers in their eyes. Look, Molly’s gone off gallivanting with Isabella, and no I don’t know where, or when she might be back. She didn’t leave any messages, and she didn’t talk to anyone before she left. Our Molly’s been playing her cards very close to her chest, ever since she met you. You’re a bad influence on her, which is strange, because it’s usually the other way round. You can hang around here and wait, if you want, but frankly I wouldn’t. You make the wildlife uneasy, and there’ll probably be an incident.”
I had to smile. “I’m a Drood, remember? Untouchable comes as standard.”
“Like that means anything, in a place like this. Don’t push your luck, Drood. You’re only here on sufferance.”
The squirrel leapt up into the higher branches, and was gone. I sat down on a nearby grassy bank in an ostentatiously casual manner, just to show I wasn’t going to be pushed around. The air seemed to blow distinctly colder, and there were ominous noises and movements in the darker shadows between the trees. I studiously ignored it all, and did some hard thinking. Molly kept saying she was going to introduce me to her older sister, Isabella, but something always came up. I knew Isabella’s legend. Everybody did. Molly was a wild free spirit, as dedicated to having fun as fighting all forces of authority. Isabella was more cold, focused, unyielding in her determination to search out all the dark secrets in the world, and then Do Something about them. Molly was cheerful, capricious, and at war with the world in general. Isabella wanted to know everything other people didn’t want her to know, and was quite ready to do terrible things to anyone who got in her way.
They know Isabella in the Nightside, and in Shadows Fall. She’d worked both with and against the Droods, and gone head to head with the London Knights on more than one occasion. But then, they’ve always been a bit stuffy.
Louisa, the youngest of the Metcalf sisters, was a mystery. You heard lots of stories, but never anything definite. But the stories were always scary, and so was she. There were those who said she’d been dead seven years now, and it hadn’t slowed her down one bit.
Molly’s dark opinion of the Droods was no secret to me. She loathed and disapproved of my family, and all it stood for. She was a free spirit, and the Droods have always been about control. She’d only agreed to fight alongside us in the past because the alternatives were so much worse. She put up with them for my sake, but we both knew that wouldn’t last. I might have problems with how my family did things, but I still believed we were necessary. We fought the good fight because someone has to. Molly and I would have to find some common ground we could agree on, or our beliefs and our consciences would drive us apart.
Would I place my love for Molly before my duties, my responsibilities—my family? I hoped so. But you can never be sure about things like that. I could not love thee half so much, my dear, loved I not honour more . . .
I got up and activated the door again. The Merlin Glass hung before me on the air, my flat in Kensington clear and distinct beyond it. I sighed quietly, took up my burden again, and went home. Behind me, I could hear the woods slowly coming alive again, as the threat to their peace disappeared.
I shut down the Merlin Glass, thrust it back into its subspace pocket, and took a quick shower. Normally I like to soak and relax in a hot steaming bath; but needs must when the Devil pisses on your shoes. I pulled on some fresh clothes, started for my front door, and then hesitated. I slumped into my favourite chair, and looked at nothing in particular. The poltergeist sensed my mood, and thoughtfully faded the lights down. Brooding is always best accompanied by lengthening shadows.
More and more of late I’d been considering who I was, and who I’d turned out to be . . . as opposed to the kind of man I’d always wanted, or intended, to be. This wasn’t how I thought I’d end up. How I expected my life to turn out. I’d never been happy running the family. I did it only because it was thrust upon me. The first chance I got to return to my old life as a field agent, I grabbed it with both hands and never looked back. But now . . . having once embraced responsibility for my family, I found it hard to let go.
I never wanted to be important, or significant. Never wanted to be responsible for anyone but myself. That was why I’d run away from the Hall to be a field agent in the first place. But now I worried about the Matriarch, and the family, because I wasn’t there to keep an eye on them. It would be so easy for them to slip back into the bad old ways, one very reasonable step at a time. The terrible Heart with its awful bargain was gone, destroyed, but the Matriarch, dear Grandmother, was born with iron in her soul. If she decided that it was in the world’s best interests that the Droods should rule the world again, could I stop her? Did I have the right to overrule a freely elected leader?
I needed my freedom and my privacy, and I loved my Molly, but how could I be my family’s conscience at a distance?
And, could I really take the family away from the Matriarch a second time? I’d had surprise and all kinds of good luck on my side the first time. She’d have all kinds of new defences in place now, just for me. But if the Matriarch did try to return to the old ways, would Ethel allow it? I liked to think she was my friend, but who knows what an other-dimensional entity will do, or think, or decide?
I forced myself up and out of my chair, and headed for the front door. I can take only so much brooding and existential angst before I have to get up and do
something
. When in doubt, face your problems head on. And head butt them in the face. I called the Merlin Glass back to my hand, and had it open a particular door to Drood Hall. Bright light flared through the opening, and I stepped through. Onto the roof of Drood Hall.