Daemons Are Forever

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Peace and War

All Droods are fighters. It’s in the blood, and the training. We’re all born to the torc, and raised to fight the good fight from childhood on, even if most of us never get to leave the Hall, or ever see a hand raised in anger. Because the family has always known that a day like this might come, when all the Droods must go to war in defence of humanity, and the world.

Cry Havoc, and let loose the Droods of war.

Janissary Jane taught us a lot, but Giles Deathstalker taught us something else. Under his harsh instruction, we learnt not just how to be warriors, but soldiers in an army. When Jane was running things, she put us through war games. Giles ran his manoeuvres like the real thing, with half the family set against the other half, so we could learn how to fight as part of a group. It wasn’t enough for us to be warriors any more, nor even heroes; we had to be an army. Giles taught us strategy, and tactical thinking, instead of relying on our usual one-on-one philosophy. To think of the operation as a whole, and not just our own individual part of it. We caught on quickly. We’re used to training.

And so there we all were, out on the great grassy lawns, shining bright and savage in our golden armour as we all did our level best to kill each other. Every Drood man and woman, save for the absolute minimum specialists necessary for running Operations, the War Room, and the infirmary, charging this way and that under Giles’s strict commands. We slammed together, body against body, pushing our muscles and nerve to their limits. The sound of combat was deafening as golden blades sought golden chests, and armed fists hammered into armoured heads, and voices rose in fury and passion and eager exhilaration. The gryphons hauled themselves up off their haunches and sulked away in search of somewhere more peaceful, soon followed by the peacocks and other wildlife. Even our resident undine poked her head up out of the lake to see what the hell was going on before quickly disappearing again. Ranks of children excused from lessons watched us make war, and cheered and applauded excitedly from a safe distance. They were there so they could learn too.

Because we all knew, though no one ever said it out loud, that even if we won this war a hell of a lot of us probably wouldn’t be coming back. And the next generation of Droods might have to step into our shoes a lot earlier than any of us had intended.

I was there, right in the middle of the action, training alongside everyone else. Running back and forth on the increasingly churned-up lawns, taking turns leading and being led in the various battle groups. I was far too used to being a lone wolf, and that was a luxury I could no longer afford. So I charged again and again, running madly till my lungs ached and black spots flickered in front of my eyes, growing long golden blades from my armoured hands, and throwing myself into yet another savage, brutal mêlée.

I ached in every limb, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might leap right out of my chest. And this was just a rehearsal for the real thing.

Apparently Giles had known something very like living battle armour in his far future time, because he had all kinds of ideas on how to make our armour a weapon in itself. During the short breaks between his carefully choreographed campaigns, he lectured us on how limited the family had always been in its thinking, where the armour was concerned. It didn’t have to be just a defence, a second skin to protect us and boost our strength and speed. James’s trick with the blades showed the armour could be made to respond to our thoughts and needs. If a sword, then why not a battle-ax? If I could raise spikes on my knuckles, why not all over my body? The armour was the shape it was only because it had never occurred to us that it could be anything else.

If you already have a miracle, why try to improve on it?

It took an outsider like Giles to make us see the armour’s true capabilities; that the possibilities were limited only by our lack of imagination. Once the idea took hold, there was no stopping us. It took a lot of concentration, but the strange matter of our armour moulded itself under the force of our various desires. Golden hands grew all kinds of weapons, and gleaming faces became scowling gargoyles, howling wolves, monsters, and angels. Pliable body shapes twisted and transformed, taking on mystical shapes and legendary forms. A few even grew golden wings from their backs and flapped awkwardly into the air. We couldn’t hold our new shapes for long, not yet; it took too much concentration. But who knew what might become possible after long practice?

I watched the fierce shapes and impossible transformations strut back and forth before admiring audiences, and wasn’t sure I entirely approved. Right now we needed an army with every weapon at its command. But what would become of us, after the war? When there was no more need for golden monsters and gleaming gladiators? Under normal conditions, all the family ever needed to keep the peace was a limited number of specially trained field agents, like I used to be. Would these golden soldiers be ready to give up these exciting new possibilities?

And what if… what would happen if the armour itself started responding to unconscious impulses as well as conscious commands? Might we all become monsters from the id, ravening creatures driven by personal demons? Perhaps even trapped inside our own armour, as it responded to deep unconscious needs and ignored our conscious, horrified pleas to stand down?

Nightmares for another day. Right now, my job was to make sure the world would see another day. First win the war, then worry about the peace. So back to battle I went, armour clashing against armour, all through the long hot day. And before my eyes the Drood family quickly became something else, something fiercer and finer and more concentrated in its purpose. Giles Deathstalker was cranking the family up to eleven.

And we loved it.

During another brief break, I sat exhausted on the grass drinking a wonderfully chilled Becks straight from the bottle. The Matriarch had come out to observe how the manoeuvres were going, and had very thoughtfully brought a picnic hamper with her. I got first crack at it because rank has its privileges. So I chewed on cold chicken legs, enjoyed my nice Becks, and ostentatiously ignored the cucumber sandwiches. Sometimes I think Grandmother takes the whole county aristocracy bit far too seriously.

She sat beside me, perched confidently on a shooting stick in her usual tweeds and pearls, watching everything with great interest. She made a point of consulting with me at regular intervals, and agreeing with everything I said. This was all for public consumption, of course, so that the whole family could see I had her full backing. After a while, Giles Deathstalker came over to join us. He’d been working himself harder than any of us, but didn’t seem to be sweating or even out of breath. He looked like he did this every day, and for all I knew maybe he did. He was a Warrior Prime, whatever the hell that was. Giles bowed courteously to the Matriarch, and nodded cheerfully to me.

“Doing good, Eddie. Strong form and a fierce will to win. I’m impressed. So, what say you and I put on a bit of a show, demonstrate to your family just what two experienced fighters can really do? Nothing too strenuous, just a mock duel. What do you say?”

I sighed inwardly, while carefully keeping my face calm and composed. It seemed like every time I brought someone new in, they had to fight me, to see if I was fit to lead them. To test themselves against me, preferably in full view of everyone else. Everyone always wants to know if the legendary gunslinger really is as fast as his legend. And I was getting pretty damned tired of it. If Molly had been there, she would have snorted loudly and said Men! Why don’t you both just get them out and measure them? in a loud and carrying voice.

But Molly wasn’t there. She was off wandering the grounds again, communing with her inner self. Whoever or whatever that might be these days.

“Of course,” Giles said easily, “if you’re too tired, Eddie, or don’t feel up to it, I’d quite understand. And so would everyone else.”

“That’s quite enough of that,” the Matriarch said briskly. She rose smartly up from her shooting stick, leaving it standing there looking just a little lost and abandoned. She advanced on the startled Giles, fixing him with her cold stare. “I don’t know how they run things in your time, Giles Deathstalker, but we don’t choose our leaders through right of challenge. We’re all warriors here. You have to be far more than just a fighter to lead the Droods. But if you’re really so desperate for a duel, I’ll oblige you.”

“You?” said Giles, not even bothering to hide his surprise. And then he smiled condescendingly at her.

“Oh no,” I said quietly. “Don’t smile.”

“I’m sure you were quite the warrior woman, in your day,” said Giles, and Martha cut him off right there.

“I am the Drood Matriarch,” she said, every word chipped out of ice. “And any Drood is a match for some jumped-up future mercenary.”

Giles raised one hand in a conciliatory gesture. Martha grabbed his arm, spun him around into an arm lock, and then slammed him face-first down onto the grass. He hit hard enough to force a groan out of him. And then she kicked him so hard in the ribs that people twenty feet away winced. Giles scrambled away from her and rose quickly to his feet. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He started to say something, and then broke off as Martha advanced purposefully. He took up a standard defensive pose, and a hell of a lot of good it did him. Martha beat the crap out of him, parrying his increasingly desperate blows with casual skill, threw him this way and that, and made the whole thing look easy. All of it without ever once having to armour up.

Giles really should have known better. You don’t get to be Matriarch of the Droods just by inheriting it. Martha taught unarmed combat for thirty years, and only gave up because she finally found someone better at it than she was.

Giles wasn’t stupid. Once it became clear he couldn’t hope to beat her, or even hold his own, he surrendered. Martha immediately stepped back and allowed him to rise painfully to his feet.

“I take your point, Matriarch,” said Giles, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m impressed.”

“You should be,” Martha said coldly. “I do hope we don’t have to do this again. And Giles, if you were entertaining any ambitions, you could never hope to lead us. You’re not family.”

She turned her back on him, dismissing him, and he was smart enough to accept it. He yelled at everyone watching to get back to their training, and they did. Martha retrieved her shooting stick and looked at me consideringly.

“I defeated three sisters to claim my position as Matriarch. You run things because I allow it. Don’t you ever forget that, Eddie.”

“Of course, Grandmother,” I said, and she strode off back to the Hall. I watched her go, and when I was sure she was out of earshot I said, “There are more ways of fighting and winning than just throwing people around, Grandmother.”

“I heard that!” she said, not looking back.

“Yes, Grandmother.”

The organised mayhem resumed, with Giles barking his orders perhaps just a little more loudly than before, but I felt I’d earned myself a rest. I raided the abandoned picnic hamper for some caviar and toast, and wandered off to find a little peace and quiet. I ended up back in the old chapel again. Quiet and peaceful, and still no sign of the ghost Jacob. I was beginning to worry about that. He was up to something. I sat down in his great cracked leather chair and fished the Merlin Glass out of my pocket. Using the thing to see what was going on around me, and find out things I wasn’t supposed to know, was becoming just a bit addictive. But they were always things I needed to know, for the good of the family, so … I commanded the Glass to show me the present, and reveal what Molly was doing. I wanted to trust her, to believe in her instincts and self-control, but she wasn’t just Molly any more. There was something else inside her now, something alive, and enemy. I had to be sure of her. For all our sakes.

Even in the few hours since yesterday, I’d noticed physical and mental changes in Molly, almost despite myself. She looked taller, stronger, her movements somehow stranger… though that could all just have been my imagination. But there was no denying she held herself differently, and now and then I caught her standing unnaturally still, blank-faced, as though listening to some inner voice. She said she was getting glimpses of the Loathly Ones’ massmind, on the edge of her thoughts. It was still mostly a gabble, she said, but she was starting to understand parts of it. She began identifying specific locations for Loathly Ones nests, including some we’d never even suspected before. I passed these new coordinates on to the War Room, and they quickly confirmed them and told me to press Molly for more. (I told them she was finding these nests through her magics, and with her reputation they had no trouble believing it.) And every time Molly found a new nest she would look at me almost challengingly, as though to say See? I’m still me. Still Molly. Still on your side. And what could I do but nod and smile and congratulate her, even as it proved that her mind was changing, to understand more and more of the alien gabble of the massmind.

She was having serious mood swings too, but I didn’t know if I could blame that on the infection.

The Merlin Glass showed her to me, standing in a small copse of trees looking out at the old abandoned waterwheel on the far side of the lake. Her face was drawn and thoughtful, her dark eyes far away, ignoring the swans that circled hopefully before her on the still waters of the lake, hoping for bread crumbs. I looked at her for a long time. She still looked like Molly. My Molly. But I had to wonder how long that would last. How long before the inner Molly changed so much that she couldn’t pass for the real thing any more. I felt so helpless. Sick with it. Here I was, leader of the most powerful family in all the world, and there wasn’t a single damned thing I could do to save the woman I loved. Except lead her into battle, and hope she died honourably.

So I wouldn’t have to kill her myself, when she turned. Could I do that? I thought so. It was what she wanted, what she’d asked me to do. And besides, I’d done worse, in my time, for the family.

As I watched, Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar wandered along the bank of the lake to join her. Harry was smiling cheerfully, as though he was just out for a stroll, and had just happened to bump into Molly. Roger smiled meaninglessly, his eyes dark and watchful as always. The grass scorched and blackened where he put his feet, and the swans headed hurriedly away. A bird flying overhead fell suddenly dead out of the air and landed at his feet. Roger picked it up and bit into it thoughtfully, as though it was just another snack. Blood ran down his chin. Harry looked at him reproachfully, and Roger immediately threw the dead bird aside. Molly had to know they were there, but she ignored them until they were almost upon her. And then she stopped them both in their tracks with a single hard look.

Their voices came clearly to me, from far away.

It was clear to me, from the way she was looking at them, that she was wondering if they knew about her. After all, Roger had more than human senses, and Harry had years of experience as a field agent. But she quickly decided they didn’t and nodded briefly to Harry, ignoring Roger.

“Molly,” said Harry, smiling easily. “You’re looking good.”

“What do you want, Harry?”

“What I always want,” said Harry, still smiling, absently adjusting his wire-framed glasses. “I want what’s best for the family. Which these days means my being in charge of things, and not Eddie. The family needs my calm, considered decisions, not Eddie’s mad impulsiveness. He’ll screw it all up, get us all killed. You must know that, Molly; you know him better than any of us. Can you really trust him to do the right thing, under pressure? And if we go down… who’s going to be left to save the world?”

“What do you want, Harry?” said Molly.

“You are our only means of getting to Eddie,” said Roger. “If we could win you over to our cause, that is, Harry’s reclaiming of the family leadership; we feel there’s a very good chance Eddie would just fall apart without you.”

Molly smiled suddenly. “You really don’t know Eddie at all. He’s always been stronger than people think. He’s had to be. He doesn’t rely on me. He doesn’t need me. And he’ll carry on just fine when I’m gone.”

Harry and Roger glanced quickly at each other. “Are you… planning on leaving us, Molly?” said Harry.

“Don’t say you’ve finally had enough of Eddie’s goody-goody ways,” said Roger. “Well, it’s about time. You and I were close once, but I never did understand what you saw in him.”

“You and I were never that close,” said Molly.

“How can you say that?” said Roger, pouting playfully. “I took it ever so badly when you walked out on me. Took me weeks to get over you.”

“I walked out on you because you tried to sacrifice my soul to Hell!”

“Details, details. We all have our little family obligations.”

Molly sniffed. “So, you’re with Harry now. Bit of a surprise; you were always such a major tit man. Am I to take it you’re gay now?”

Roger shrugged. “I’m half demon. I don’t accept any human limitations, least of all in my sexuality. I want to try it all… and mostly I do.”

Molly looked at Harry. “And you’re not in the least jealous of what Roger and I used to have?”

“All you ever had in common was a bed,” said Harry. “Roger and I are in love.”

“Love?” Molly said incredulously. “He’s a hellspawn! A thing of the Pit, dedicated to dragging all humanity down into eternal damnation!”

“Criticism?” said Roger. “From the infamous Molly Metcalf? The woman who once lay down with demons in the Courts of Hell, to buy power she couldn’t acquire any other way? Does Eddie know about that? Have you told him all the things you used to do, oh wild and wicked witch of the woods? Do you really think he’d feel the same way about you if he did know?”

Molly met his gaze squarely, chin slightly lifted. “I was a different person, then. I had sworn vendetta against the Droods for the murder of my parents. I needed all the power I could get, to take them on. But… that was then, and this is now, time changes all things… pick whichever cliché you prefer. I’m not at all the person I used to be.”

“You think Eddie will care about that?” said Roger. “I think you’ll find he’s still very traditional, very old-fashioned, about certain things.”

“He doesn’t have to know what we know about you,” said Harry. “We don’t have to tell him. Not if you could find it in your heart to help us out, just a little.”

“In return for your guaranteed silence?” said Molly.

“Exactly,” said Roger. “All we ask is that you speak on our behalf. Support our position. Help persuade Eddie that it is in everyone’s best interests for him to step down and allow Harry to replace him as family leader. No big speeches, no big deal. Just a word in his ear, at the right moments.”

And then he broke off, because Molly was smiling at him, and it really wasn’t a very nice smile. Molly took a step forward, and Roger fell back a pace. Harry moved quickly to put himself between the two of them.

“Once,” said Molly, “it might have mattered to me, what you might say to Eddie. But things have changed. Tell him anything. I don’t care, and I don’t believe he will, either. Neither of us are concerned with the past anymore, only the future. But even so, Harry, Roger, I’d be very careful about doing anything that Eddie might perceive as a threat to me. He’s become very protective of me, the sweetie. And you really don’t want him to kick your arse in front of everyone again, do you, Harry?”

“We’re going to war!” said Harry. “The family needs me as leader!”

“No,” said Molly. “You had your chance, and you blew it. You let things get this bad. If I were Eddie, I’d kill you for what you’ve done to the family. And you know what? I might just kill you both anyway. On general principles. I could use something to cheer me up.”

She smiled brightly at Harry and Roger, and then turned and walked away. They watched her go.

“Women,” said Roger, and Harry nodded.

I closed down the lakeside scene, but I wasn’t finished with the Merlin Glass just yet. Part of me wanted to go and find Molly, and hold her to me, and tell her… nothing mattered. Nothing mattered to me, except her. But I still had responsibilities to the family, and there were things I needed to know. So I told the Glass to show me where Mr. Stab was, and what he was doing, right now. I should have remembered that not only do eavesdroppers rarely hear good of themselves, they also rarely hear anything good about anyone else.

To my surprise, the Merlin Glass showed me Mr. Stab sitting at his ease among the towering book stacks of the old library, while the under-librarian Rafe served him tea. Mr. Stab had changed out of the casual suit he’d been wearing the last time I saw him. Presumably because it was still soaked with Penny’s blood. Instead, he was back in the formal dress of his original Victorian times. He sat quietly and calmly as Rafe added milk but no sugar, and then handed him the delicate china cup. Mr. Stab blew gingerly on the tea to cool it, but his eyes never left Rafe’s face as the young librarian sat down opposite him.

“You’re not drinking your tea, Rafe,” said Mr. Stab.

“I’ll let it cool a bit first. You go right ahead.”

Mr. Stab looked at Rafe almost sadly, and then took a long drink from his cup. He made a slight moue of civilised distaste and put the cup down on a bookshelf beside him.

“If you’re going to work with poison, Rafe, you need to make the tea a lot stronger, to disguise the taste. And you put enough strychnine in that cup to see off a dozen normal men. But I haven’t been that easy to kill for a long time now. Poison is as mother’s milk to such as I. Why, Rafe? Is it Penny? Was she a friend of yours? Or perhaps something more?”

Rafe stood up abruptly, throwing his cup aside. He stood towering over Mr. Stab for a long moment, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Mr. Stab rose easily to his feet to face him. Rafe couldn’t get the words out at first, he was breathing so hard. His face was twisted with hatred and loathing.

“We were never close,” Rafe said hoarsely. “But we might have been. She never knew I cared about her. And now, thanks to you, she never will. Damn your soul to Hell.”

“Already done,” said Mr. Stab.

Rafe attacked him, throwing himself at the calm and unmoving immortal. He beat at Mr. Stab with his fists, while hot tears ran down his face, and Mr. Stab just stood there and took it. Rafe armoured up, and his golden fists hammered at Mr. Stab’s impassive face. The armoured strength behind the blows must have been hideous, but Mr. Stab took no obvious damage from them. And if he felt any pain, he didn’t show it. In the end, Rafe stood before Mr. Stab with his arms hanging heavily, armoured down, his face wet with sweat and tears. Mr. Stab looked at him.

“Cry, boy,” he said. “It’s all right. I would too, if I could.”

William Drood came along then, to see what all the noise was about, and took in the scene in a moment. He looked fiercely at Mr. Stab, who immediately stepped back, and William came forward and took Rafe away. Mr. Stab stood very still, not even looking around him, until William returned on his own. I watched Mr. Stab’s face all the time. It never changed once. I had no idea at all what he was thinking, or feeling. If he felt anything at all. There were times… when I wished I could be like that, and not have to feel all the things that hurt me so. William gestured for Mr. Stab to sit down, and he did so. William sat opposite him. He looked sadly at the discarded tea things.

“Don’t drink the tea,” Mr. Stab said calmly.

“So I gather,” William said dryly. “Sorry about that. He’s young. They take things so personally, at that age. Still, nothing you haven’t encountered and deserved before, I expect. What do you want here?”

“Molly Metcalf said I might find answers here,” said Mr. Stab. They might have been discussing the weather. “Old knowledge, unavailable anywhere else. Perhaps even the means to a cure for my condition. Or at least, to ameliorate certain aspects of it.”

William considered him thoughtfully. “You chose to make yourself what you are. Have you now come to regret it?”

“You know this library better than anyone,” said Mr. Stab. “Can you help me?”

“Why should I?” William said bluntly. “After all you’ve done, why shouldn’t I delight in the prospect of your inevitable descent into Hell?”

“To save future lives?” Mr. Stab said calmly. “So that there might be no more Pennys, and no more Rafes.”

William sniffed. “I suppose there might be something here. We have books on every subject under several suns; from the unusual to the improbable, the unlikely to the downright impossible. I’m pretty sure you’re in there somewhere. It depends… on exactly what it is you want me to find.”

“I made myself what I am,” said Mr. Stab. “Everything I am and everything I have ever done… is my responsibility. But for the first time… I wish to change things.”

“That would depend on who or what you made your original deal with,” William said carefully. “Some deals can be… renegotiated. Do you wish to become human again?”

“I’ve always been human,” said Mr. Stab. “That’s the problem. I want… something else. I want to find a way to bring back my victims. All of them. To raise from the dead all the woman I have slaughtered, down the many years, and give them life again. Right back to those five poor women who made it all possible, back in that unseasonably hot autumn of 1888.”

“I’m sorry,” said William. “But it can’t be done.”

Mr. Stab surged forward impossibly quickly, a long, gleaming blade suddenly in his hand. Before William could even react, the razor-sharp edge was pressed against his throat, just above his Adam’s apple. Mr. Stab stared coldly into William’s face, his cold breath beating on William’s wide-open eyes. The blade pressed against the skin of his throat, and a single slow trickle of blood ran down his neck as the skin parted just a little under the sharp edge. William sat very still.

“That is not the answer I wanted to hear,” said Mr. Stab.

“We all have things in our life that we would wish undone,” William said carefully. He clearly wanted very much to swallow, but didn’t dare. “But sins can never be undone. Only pardoned.”

“It’s not enough,” said Mr. Stab.

“I know,” said William. He kept looking right into Mr. Stab’s unwavering gaze, unnerving as that was, because it was better than looking down at the blade at his throat. “But there’s nothing here in this library, no book or knowledge, that will let you bring the dead back to life. Only one man could ever do that, and I think we can definitely agree that you’re not him. I could help you raise the spirits of those poor unfortunate women, so you could commune with them, or raise up their bodies as zombies; but that isn’t what you want. What you need.”

Mr. Stab thought about that for a long moment, while William scarcely breathed, and then he stepped back abruptly and made his long blade disappear again. William put a hesitant hand to his throat, and breathed a little more easily as he only saw a few drops of blood on his fingertips.

“What else is there?” said Mr. Stab. He wasn’t looking anywhere in particular, and William clearly wondered if Mr. Stab was still talking to him.

“Else?” said William.

“I can’t undo what I did, can’t stop being who I am. Can’t even stop or escape through death. What does that leave?”

“There’s always atonement,” said William. “Perform enough good deeds to balance out your sins.”

Mr. Stab considered that. “Would killing in a good cause count?”

“I would say so, yes.” Mr. Stab smiled for the first time. “Good thing there’s a war on, then.” He turned and walked away. William watched him go, and then looked again at the blood on his fingertips.

Some time later I stood in the rose-coloured glow of the Sanctity with the Matriarch at my side, waiting for the others I had summoned to arrive. I didn’t know whether it was me, or the times, but Strange’s ruddy glow no longer calmed or comforted as it once had. Strange himself was very quiet. Perhaps he didn’t approve of the things I was having the family do, with the armour and power he so selflessly provided. I couldn’t allow myself to care. I had a war to win. I’d care later, if I was still alive.

Or at least I hoped I would.

“It’s never easy,” Martha said suddenly, her harsh, cold voice echoing in the great empty chamber. “Never easy, sending agents out into the field, possibly or even quite probably to their deaths. We do it because it’s necessary, for the good of the family and the world. But it never gets any easier.”

“Thanks for the thought,” I said. “But knowing that doesn’t help.”

“It will,” said Martha. “In time. I’m glad you came home, Edwin. Who could have known we’d have so much in common?”

“Eddie,” Strange said abruptly. “Sorry to intrude, but your meeting will have to wait. I’ve just been informed by the security people at the holding cells that Sebastian has been murdered.”

“What?” said the Matriarch. “That’s impossible! Not under our security!”

“What happened?” I said, cutting across the Matriarch. “Did he try to escape?”

“No,” said Strange. “He was just found dead in his cell.”

“How could this have happened?” said the Matriarch. She sounded honestly outraged. “Our security is the best in the world. It has to be.”

“Details are still coming through,” said Strange. He sounded subdued, almost distant. Not at all his usual exuberant self. I suppose a constant supply of bad news will do that. And I couldn’t help thinking that our material world must have been such a disappointment to him. I made myself concentrate on what Strange was saying. “At first the guards thought it might be suicide. Until they got inside the isolation tank, and discovered the extent of his wounds, which were…extensive. It seems he’d been cut open, from throat to crotch. But there’s no record of anyone entering the tank. No sign that anyone entered or left. The security cameras show nothing. Which I gather is supposed to be impossible.”

“Keep us updated on the investigation,” I said after a moment. “And double the number of guards at the doors of all the holding tanks.”

“That’s it?” said Martha. “Edwin, we need to go down there and see this for ourselves!”

“No we don’t,” I said. “We’d just be in the way. Let security get on with their job. They’re very good at it.”

“But…”

“They already know how impossible it is. They don’t need us looking over their shoulders. We have to concentrate on what’s really important, not let ourselves be distracted. That could be why Sebastian was killed now, to distract us on the eve of launching our attack. After all; why kill Sebastian? What could he possibly have told us?”

“The identity of the long-term traitor in the family,” said Martha. “Only one of us could have evaded our security. Someone who knew it, inside and out. But you’re right, Edwin. We can’t let ourselves be distracted from what really matters.”

One of us. Yes. I wanted it to be one of us, bad as that was. Because it could have been Molly. I didn’t want to think that, but I couldn’t stop myself. Molly could have got to Sebastian, using her magics. She wanted him dead, because of what he did to her. Or … could the thing inside her have influenced her thoughts, and had her kill him for the Loathly Ones’ own purposes?

“Strange,” I said. “Where’s Molly, right now?”

“I’m afraid I’ve no idea, Eddie,” said Strange after a pause. “I don’t seem able to locate her anywhere. Which is odd…”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not important. I’ll talk to her later.”

The meeting finally got under way, as the various necessary people arrived. Giles Deathstalker was first, of course, with a soldier’s sense of punctuality. He looked calm and relaxed and incredibly dangerous, as always. He bowed to me and to the Matriarch, and it would have been hard to say which was the more respectful nod. I was beginning to think that maybe I should have duelled with him after all. Soldiers only respect strength. But if I’d lost…I’d seen Giles fight, and he really was very good indeed.

Next to arrive were Harry and Roger, both smiling easily and innocently, as though they hadn’t just been trying to persuade my Molly to betray me. The Matriarch glared daggers at them both, but restricted her acid tongue for the good of the family. I could think of lots of things I wanted to say, but I restricted myself to a polite nod. I needed Harry and Roger. The family needed them.

Mr. Stab strolled in, accompanied by the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and it felt like the temperature in the Sanctity dropped several degrees. We all looked at him, but none of us had anything to say. Mr. Stab smiled coolly back at us, as though he was used to awkward situations like this. He had volunteered for the mission I was putting together as soon as I explained it to him, and I was glad to have him on board. As long as the Sarjeant-at-Arms was there to keep an eye on him.

The next to arrive was another volunteer, the Blue Fairy. Who might have agreed in order to make up for his plan to steal a torc, but still didn’t have the grace to look in any way guilty. He was dressed in his best, all flashing colours and elaborate cuts, and he had a smile for everyone. It was hard to dislike the man, but worth the effort.

The Armourer wandered in and stood off to one side, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his charred and stained lab coat, fidgeting and avoiding eye contact with anyone. He knew the mission I planned was dependant on the new weapon he’d devised, and clearly resented spending time here explaining it to the meeting when he could have been working to perfect it. Ever since he retired from field work, Uncle Jack had not so much lost his people skills as thrown them away.

And the last to arrive, as always, was Callan Drood. For him, showing up on time was something other people did. He wore a long leather duster and a floppy wide-brimmed hat, and looked like he’d come straight from a cattle roundup. Callan always liked to give the impression that you’d just dragged him away from something far more important, that he couldn’t wait to get back to.

“Right,” I said loudly, once they were all assembled. “This is it. The big attack, the big push, to stop the Loathly Ones in their tracks and prevent them from bringing the Invaders through into our reality. Intelligence has finally pinpointed the location of every nest throughout the world, with Molly’s help. We have to hit them all, and destroy them and their towers. And we have to get this right first time, people, because the odds are we won’t get a second chance. You will be leading carefully selected strike forces of our best fighters against the biggest and most important ghoulvilles; those whose towers intelligence believes are closest to completion. Once they’re wiped out, we will proceed from ghoulville to ghoulville, nest to nest, wiping them out in order of importance. Until they’re all gone. Not one nest, not one tower, not one drone can be allowed to survive. And we have to do this fast, people. Once we begin, the news will flash from nest to nest, transmitted through the Loathly Ones’ massmind, and after that they’ll be expecting us. Uncle Jack, tell the nice people about the nasty new thing you’ve developed for them to play with.”

The Armourer stepped forward, scowling. He’d done everything he could to try to persuade me to let him lead one of the strike forces, but for all his field agent experience he was just too valuable now to put at risk. He didn’t take at all kindly to me pointing this out, and had used language quite unbefitting a man of his age and position.

“I have developed a new kind of bomb,” he said flatly. “A whole new kind, that basically turns a tower’s other-dimensional energies against itself. The result is a massive explosion that destroys the tower completely, and every living thing within a hundred-mile radius. So make damn sure you’re all outside the ghoulville before it detonates. All you have to do is set the bomb at the base of the tower, set the timer, and run like hell. Be sure to guard every way in and out of the ghoulville; we can’t let any drones escape. I’m sorry, Eddie. I know you were still hoping I could come up with some way of curing the infected, but there’s nothing I can do. Nothing anyone could do. Once someone is infected, they’re lost to us. To humanity. We all know the drones are the innocent victims in all of this, but we have to concentrate our efforts on saving those we can; the rest of the world.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to believe what he was saying. Didn’t want to believe my Molly was hopelessly lost. But for now I just nodded and went along. What else could I do?

“Your job is to cut a path through the drones to the tower, and activate the bomb,” I said to the others. “Don’t get distracted. Don’t waste time killing drones when you should be getting to the tower. This is about destroying whole nests, not individual drones.”

“No need to rub it in,” said Harry. “We’re not stupid. I notice you aren’t down to lead one of these strike forces, Eddie. Why is that?”

“Because he’s needed here,” the Matriarch said flatly. “As am I. Someone has to take the overview. Something, I am told, you were always remarkably bad at.”

“Of course,” murmured Harry. “I knew it would be something like that.”

And then we all looked round sharply as Subway Sue burst into the Sanctity. It had been so long since I’d last seen her I’d actually forgotten about her. She looked even more of a mess than usual, which took some doing. Her long flappy coat was torn and tattered and covered with assorted filth, and her long hair was a mess of greasy strings. But her mouth was firm and her eyes burned fiercely. She marched right up to me and planted herself in front of me.

“I’ve been searching for something useful to contribute,” she said in her rough, scratchy voice. “Something to justify Molly’s faith in me, and my presence here. And I think I’ve found it. I know more about hidden ways than anyone else. All the secret paths, dimensional shortcuts, and forbidden doors. In my various lives as luck vampire, subterranean, and down and out, I’ve had occasion to use most of them more than once. But I’ve found you something new, or at least, something so old and disused it’s new again.

“It’s taken me some time, travelling through the darker regions, talking with old friends and enemies and allies, but I’ve found a whole new secret way for you to use. An approach your enemy will never suspect, because no one’s used it in ages. Mostly because it’s too dangerous. But you’re Droods; you laugh at danger, right? You can use this way to get anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world, arriving entirely undetected. It’s the underside of the Rainbow Run; the Damnation Way.”

She finally stopped for breath and looked at me expectantly.

“The name doesn’t exactly fill me full of confidence,” I said carefully. “Might there be a reason why no one’s used it for so long? Something… specific, that makes it so very dangerous?”

“No one knows for sure,” said Subway Sue, doing her best not to sound defensive. “People just stopped coming out the other end when they used it. The best bet seems to be that something lives there now, and eats travellers. Something… really bad.”

“Who’s that trot-trotting across my bridge, said the troll,” murmured Harry.

Sue glared at him. “I will slap you in a minute, and it will hurt.”

“Well, thank you for all your time and efforts on our behalf, Sue,” I said. “But we already have our own instantaneous, undetectable means of transporting ourselves into the ghoulvilles. But should any problems arise, I’m sure we’ll all feel better knowing we have your Damnation Way to fall back on.”

I was being kind, and everyone there knew it. Including Subway Sue. She just nodded stiffly, turned her back on us, and stalked out of the Sanctity. I looked at the others.

“End of briefing. You all know everything you need to know. Stop off at the Armoury and pick up your bombs, and then get to know the people in your various strike forces, before reporting to the War Room for the off.”

“I have a few questions,” said Harry.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought you might have. What is it, Harry?”

“Well, to start with, where is the infamous Molly Metcalf? Shouldn’t a witch of her undoubted talents be one of the lucky people leading a strike force?”

“Oh, she’s around,” I said. “Making herself useful.”

Molly had wanted to go into the nests and work her infamous mayhem, but I had to say no. I couldn’t risk her infected nature suddenly surfacing, so close to a tower. She said she understood. I hadn’t seen her since.

“And this…remarkable new means of transport,” said Harry. “Have you some new miracle device, hidden in your pocket?”

I had to grin. “Funny you should say that, Harry…” Molly was waiting for us in the great stone cavern of the War Room when the Matriarch and I finally arrived, some time later. She smiled at us, but not with all her attention, as though she was thinking of something else. I deliberately looked away. The War Room was pretty much deserted, by normal standards. I hardly recognised the place. Most of the workstations and display screens had been shut down so the War Room could operate on a skeleton crew. It was strange to see all the world maps without their usual glowing coloured lights, but we no longer cared about what was going on in the rest of the world.

The Matriarch went straight to her operations table, and was immediately surrounded by a dozen runners bearing the latest reports and intelligence updates. I wandered round the room, checking out the remaining communications staff. We were down to the very basics there, too. Most of the War Room staff had joined the thousands of armoured figures waiting more or less patiently in the corridors outside, preparing themselves for the battles to come. Normally every agent operating out in the field could count on having hundreds of people at the Hall to back them up, ready to provide information, advice, or support; but we couldn’t afford that now. Everyone had to fight. This was to be slash and burn, cold killing, butcher’s work.

I circled the War Room and ended up back beside Molly. She looked…taut, under strain, like a piece of wire stretched so thin it might break at any moment. I wanted to put my arm around her, but I knew she wouldn’t want that. Molly always had to appear hard and confident, in public. She would have hated even the thought that anyone might see her as weak. So I just stood as close to her as I could, and kept my voice calm and easy, as though we did this whole battle for the fate of all humanity bit every day.

“So,” I said. “Looks like it’s all kicking off, at last. Marching into Hell for a Heavenly cause, and all that. Where have you been?”

“Out in the grounds,” she said. “It’s very peaceful out there.”

She didn’t say anything about Harry and Roger, and I didn’t feel like pressing her. But it did make me wonder if she might be keeping other secrets from me too. She could have killed Sebastian, for all kinds of reasons. How could I protect her if I didn’t know what to protect her from?

“Listen,” she said abruptly, still not actually looking at me. “Don’t get yourself killed, all right?”

“I’m not going out with the strike forces,” I said. “I’ll be running things from here. Safe and sound, far from any harm.”

“I know you, Eddie. The first time anything goes wrong, you’ll be off and running to play the hero one more time. You can’t help yourself. It’s who you are. So… watch yourself out there. Watch your back. There are traitors everywhere, these days. And… I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I didn’t have you anymore.”

“It’s all going to be all right,” I said. It didn’t sound convincing even as I said it, but I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t hold her in public, so I just took her hand in mine and squeezed it. She squeezed back, still not looking at me.

We stood together, watching the main display screens as they showed constantly shifting views of the golden army continuing to assemble in the corridors outside, standing in their ranks for as far as the eye could see. There was surprisingly little chatter; everyone seemed taken up with their own thoughts. The old and the young stood watching in the background, no doubt silently wondering if they’d ever see their loved ones again. I never got to see my parents off, on their last, fatal mission. Teacher wouldn’t let me out of class. By the time I managed to sneak off, it was too late; they’d already gone. I never saw them again.

It’s mattered to me more and more of late, that I never got to say good-bye.

Anything, for the family. Damn the family. And damn the world that makes us necessary.

The various strike force leaders turned up, having checked their people, the stress and the strain making them act like exaggerated cartoons of themselves. Giles Deathstalker strode in like the soldier he was, and crashed to attention before the Matriarch’s desk. She acknowledged him with a flick of an eyebrow, and went back to work. Harry and Roger sauntered in, ostentatiously hand in hand. The Matriarch wouldn’t even look in their direction. I don’t know quite when Mr. Stab arrived. I just looked up and there he was, a Victorian anachronism amidst so much twenty-first-century technology. The Sarjeant-at-Arms came rushing in a few moments later, clearly annoyed at Mr. Stab having slipped his leash. He glared hard at his elusive responsibility and moved forward to stand right beside him. Mr. Stab just nodded politely.

The Armourer bustled in carrying a big bag full of useful bits and pieces, with half a dozen lab techs scurrying after him like eager puppies. And Callan Drood arrived late, of course, complaining bitterly over something inappropriate with the Blue Fairy, who pretended politely to be listening.

And that was that. These people would lead the four main strike forces, dealing with the most dangerous situations, and the most nearly completed towers. All the other strike forces were being led by our most experienced field agents. I should have been leading one of the forces. Preferably with Molly at my side. But I had taken on all the duties of leadership when I took command of the family, and that included standing by and watching helplessly as others went off to fight and die at my command. Martha said it never got any easier. Which made it a lot simpler to understand how she’d ended up the way she was.

Harry strolled over to join Molly and me, Roger close at his side. Harry ostentatiously ignored Molly to smile at me.

“Well now, Eddie,” he said, making a brave stab at casual. “When are you going to whip your latest miracle out of your hip pocket and amaze us all? Just how are we going to burst into all these nests and ghoulvilles without being detected? I know you love to save your brilliant save-the-day ideas to the very last moment, but we really are getting terribly close to the off.”

I grinned, took the Merlin Glass out of my pocket, and shook it up to full size. It stood on end in the middle of the War Room, like a door to absolutely everywhere. Which, technically speaking, it was. Everyone crowded together before the Glass as I gave a brief rundown on its capabilities, and we all stared dubiously at the frowning faces of our reflections. We didn’t look much like the people who were going to save the world.

“The Merlin Glass sees the present,” I said. “Anywhere and everywhere. And it can function as a gateway to anywhere it sees. That is going to be our way in, people. We tell the Glass to tune in on a nest, it shows us the interior of the ghoulville, and then we, or rather you, go through the Glass with your strike force and kick the shit out of the Loathly Ones. What could be simpler?”

The Armourer and his lab crew scurried around the base of the Merlin Glass, connecting it up with a whole mess of rainbow colour-coded cables to the communication desks and the display screens; so we could follow what was going on in more than one nest at once. Molly hovered over them, beefing up the connections with an overlay of magical supports. Harry looked at me abruptly.

“This is how you knew about Mr. Stab and Penny, before anyone else. You were watching. You pervy little Peeping Tom, you. Who else have you been secretly observing all this time?”

“I lead the family,” I said calmly. “I watch everyone.”

Harry looked at Mr. Stab, standing off to one side. “We’re going to have to do something about him, Eddie.”

“When you’ve worked out what, and how, let me know,” I said. “For now, we need him.”

“We won’t always need him,” said Harry.

“No,” I said. “We won’t.”

“It’s time,” said the Matriarch, and we all turned to look at her. She stood tall and commanding before us, every inch the gray-haired warrior queen. She fixed her cold gaze on me. “All the troops are assembled and ready to begin. All preparations have been made. Give the word, Edwin.”

“Yes,” I said. I turned to the Merlin Glass. “Show me the present,” I said. “Show me the interior of the ghoulville with the most nearly completed tower.”

Our reflections disappeared from the mirror in a moment, replaced by swirling patterns of energy that hurt the eye to look at, and then the Merlin Glass punched through the dimensional barrier separating the Loathly Ones’ nest from the rest of the world, and there the infected town was, clearly visible through the Glass. I’d never seen one before, only heard descriptions and read reports. It wasn’t enough to prepare you for the real thing. For what had once been a human town, a human place, but wasn’t anymore.

The light in the ghoulville was painfully bright, fierce, almost intolerable to human eyes. It didn’t seem to bother any of the drones as they scurried and scuttled through the narrow streets. They didn’t talk to each other, or even look at each other. They didn’t need to. All their thoughts originated in the nest hive mind, the massmind. They didn’t look human any more, didn’t move in human ways. Either because they didn’t need to pretend, away from outside eyes, or because they’d forgotten how to. Even the buildings of the ghoulville looked alien, infected. They slumped at odd angles; the wood and stone and brick looked rotten, diseased, crawling with their own purulent life. Strange lights blazed in the windows, unhealthy lights, and alien silhouettes did awful, alien things.

“The gravity fluctuates too,” said Callan, standing beside me. For the first time he sounded subdued, almost unnerved. “Up and down, left and right, can snap back and forth without any warning. Directions mean nothing. Streets writhe and twist with a life of their own, and suddenly turn around and dump you right back where you started. Doesn’t affect the drones. Probably because they don’t think like us any more. The air… is barely breathable, even when filtered through the golden mask, and it stinks of blood and offal and decay. All the drones here are dead or dying, burnt up by the energies within them. When I finally die and go to Hell, for all the terrible things I’ve done for this family, at least it’ll look familiar.”

“You haven’t been taking your medication again, have you, Callan?” said the Blue Fairy. “Have some of mine, dear. Peps you up nicely.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Callan said angrily. “It’s the ghoulvilles that are wrong! And you have to be prepared for them, for everything they can throw at you. Or you’ll never get to the bloody towers.”

“The armour will help,” the Armourer said gruffly, having finished his work with the Merlin Glass. “Trust in the armour, and your training, and you’ll all do fine. Nerves are normal before a mission. Back when I was a field agent, I used to puke my guts up every time I had to go over the Berlin Wall into East Germany. I swear I looked down once and saw one of my kidneys floating in the toilet bowl.”

“Thank you, Uncle Jack,” I said.

“Intestine, I thought, that can’t really be intestine, can it?”

“Thank you, Uncle Jack!”

He sniffed and looked the Merlin Glass over with professional approval. “Whatever else you might say about Merlin Satanspawn, and whole books have been written on the subject, he did do good work.”

“The drones can’t see or hear us?” said Mr. Stab. “They have no idea we’re watching?”

“None at all,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “I have given you the perfect element of surprise. Don’t waste it.”

Giles Deathstalker drew his great sword, and almost unconsciously everyone fell back a little to give him more room.

“It’s time,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

“Not exactly El Cid, is he?” said the Blue Fairy. “Whatever happened to inspirational speeches? I very definitely feel I could do with a little inspiring, right now.”

Giles looked at him. “Don’t screw this up, or I’ll have you flayed.”

“He’s a Drood,” said the Blue Fairy.

I commanded the Merlin Glass to open a gateway into the four main nests, and one by one the great display screens flared into life, showing views inside the ghoulvilles. The Armourer’s connections were working. I looked around once, silently saying Good-bye and Godspeed, and then Giles walked straight into the Merlin Glass and through into the ghoulville beyond. Two hundred golden figures followed him through, filing quickly through the War Room, and then Harry and Roger went through, followed by their strike force, and so on and so on. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought to send all the leaders and their strike forces through, though my voice went harsh yelling commands to the Merlin Glass to lock onto new locations. The stamp and clatter of armoured feet was deafening in the War Room, and I had to shout above it to be heard. All the display screens were up and running now, showing strike force after strike force slamming into unsuspecting drones. And then the last Drood went through, and there was nothing more to be done except watch.

All the various attacks on the nests happened simultaneously, spread over all the display screens. You couldn’t watch them all if you tried. Too much was happening all at once. But this is how it happened, battle by battle, backed up by survivors’ tales.

The first thing the Armourer did was to help Molly seal off the Merlin Glass, so that Droods could still pass through, but no drones could get out. We couldn’t allow any of the Loathly Ones to escape. They all had to die. Even though what happened to the drones wasn’t their fault. They didn’t ask to be infected. No, it was our fault, the Droods’ fault, for bringing the Loathly Ones through into our reality in the first place. Our mess, for us to clean up.

Giles Deathstalker’s ghoulville used to be a small town in New Zealand, called Heron’s Reach. A very small town, surrounded by sheep country, so far off the beaten track no one had even noticed it was missing yet. We knew. We’re Droods. We know everything. It looked like it might have been a nice place, originally. Now infected drones streamed through its narrow streets like maggots in a wound, under an alien light so harsh it blasted away any trace of a shadow. Many of the drones were malformed, twisted and turned by the other-dimensional forces burning within their flesh, and they moved with eerie syncopation, like flocking birds.

They all stopped what they were doing the moment Giles and his strike force appeared out of nowhere, slamming into the nearest drones and cutting them down without a moment’s hesitation or mercy. The drones surged forward as one, throwing themselves at the invading force. Some had claws, or barbed hands. Some had tools or axes to use as weapons. They all had the same horrid alien look on their faces as they swarmed all over the golden armoured figures, trying to drag them down through sheer force of numbers.

Giles led from the front, swinging his long sword with impressive skill and strength. The heavy blade cut off heads, burst in chests, sliced through flesh and bone without even slowing. He cut down drones or swept them aside, always pressing forward, trampling bodies under his bloody boots. Golden armoured men and women urged forward after him, striking down drones with heavy fists, or extruded golden blades. Blood flew on the air, offal splashed in the streets. The drones didn’t scream as they fell, or beg for mercy. They just kept coming until their bodies failed them, and even then they tried to clutch at golden legs or feet until they died. Giles hacked and sliced and stabbed, swinging his heavy sword in long deadly arcs as though it was weightless. He laughed and cried out happily as he killed, and blood soaked his armour and spattered his grinning face. The Deathstalker was a warrior, doing what he was born to do, and loving every minute of it.

Not all his strike force felt the same. Though most fought on with the professional skill of their training, concentrating on the goal of their mission… some just couldn’t do it. They simply weren’t killers, and no amount of training could make them one. They did what they could, and then turned away from the slaughter and came home. No one said anything as they lurched back through the Glass. Medical staff were there, to lead them off to the infirmary. We understood.

Some didn’t make it. Drones swarmed all over them the moment they left the main force and buried them under sheer numbers, beating on their golden armour with misshapen fists.

The strike force couldn’t turn back to rescue them. Speed was of the essence in this operation. They had to reach the tower and take it out with the Armourer’s new bomb, before the drones could come up with some new alien weapon to stop them, as they had on the Nazca Plain. So get in, do the job, and get out. Nothing else could be allowed to matter. The Droods pressed forward, killing everything that wasn’t them, guarding each other’s sides and backs.

We could see the tower, on the far edge of town. A hundred feet tall and more, jagged and asymmetrical, built to alien specifications from strange technologies and organic components. It stood tall and arrogantly proud against an incandescent sky, blazing with unnatural lights. It looked alive and aware, as though it knew we were coming and was struggling to perform its awful function before we could stop it. To bring the Hungry Gods through, just to spite us.

The Loathly Ones drones were clogging the streets now, packing them shoulder to shoulder as they surged forward to attack the Droods. Giles and his people were having to cut and hack a path through them, like forging a path through thick jungle. Blood and bodies covered the ground, and slowed the strike force’s advance even further. But still Giles led the way, something almost inhuman in his fierce refusal to be stopped. He encouraged his people on with far-future battle cries that meant nothing to them, but stirred their blood anyway. They stuck right behind him, striking down the enemy with dogged determination.

The drones fought us with every weapon they had, from tools and axes they just picked up, to clawed and barbed distorted hands, to a handful of rifles and shotguns. None of them were any use against Drood armour, and Giles was just too good at what he did to be hurt. Blades couldn’t cut the gold, bullets were absorbed by it, and clawed hands scrabbled uselessly at golden face masks. But when Giles finally came in sight of the base of the tower, all that changed.

Up close, the tower seemed to be coming alive, like some great beast waking from a long slumber with murder on its mind. Powerful energies coalesced around it, as though other-dimensional aspects of the construct were imprinting themselves on our reality from outside. The tower looked… realer than its surroundings. Realer than the Droods. Several of the golden figures had to turn away, unable to face what was happening. Giles stood firm. Nothing in the ghoulville had phased him so far, even though he had none of the armour’s built-in protections. I had to wonder if the Deathstalker had far-future technology implanted within him, that he hadn’t got around to telling us about.

Giles glared up at the tower, reached inside his armoured jerkin, and brought out the bomb the Armourer had created for him. It didn’t look like much, just a steel box with a simple timer built into the lid. Giles brandished the box at the tower, shaking it fiercely as though to taunt it, and everyone in the War Room winced. It was never wise to shake things the Armourer had built. But even as Giles bent down to place the bomb in position, he had to straighten up suddenly as a whole army of new drones came rushing out of an opening in the base of the tower that hadn’t been there a moment before.

There was something new and different about these drones. They were all clearly dead, flesh rotting and falling away as they strode jerkily forward, only driven on by the alien will working within them. Their faces were eaten away and some of them didn’t even have eyes anymore, but they all headed unerringly towards Giles and his people. Each of the drones was carrying a rough sword of some unfamiliar metal that glowed disturbingly even in the harsh ghoulville light.

“We’re getting long-range readings on the swords,” said the communications officer. “They’re giving off massive amounts of radiation, but nothing we can easily identify. Best guess is, the metal for those swords comes from the same dimension as the Invaders. The radiation level is rising dramatically; just being so close to the swords is eating the drone bodies up.”

“Will the armour protect our people?” said the Matriarch, to the point as always.

“Unknown, Matriarch. Technically, since the strange matter of the new armour is also other-dimensional in origin…”

“If you don’t know, you’re allowed to say so,” said the Matriarch, not unkindly.

“We don’t know,” said the communications officer. “But the Deathstalker hasn’t got any protection. We should pull him out…”

“No,” said the Matriarch immediately. “He has to plant the bomb. He knew the risks when he went in.”

“And it’s not as if he’s family,” muttered Molly.

We watched the display screens. The whole strike force had come forward to stand between the Deathstalker and the drones so he could concentrate on planting the bomb and setting the timer. The first drone to reach a Drood swung his glowing sword around in a rough, unpractised arc. The Drood put up a golden arm to block the blow, and the glowing blade sheared right through the arm. The armour didn’t even slow it. The Drood screamed shrilly as his severed arm fell to the ground at his feet. Blood spurted from the stump for a moment, before the armour closed automatically over it, sealing off the wound. The Drood staggered backwards, moaning incoherently, and the drones pressed forward.

The Droods tried fencing with their extruded golden blades, but the glowing swords cut right through them. The Droods adapted quickly, using their superior strength and speed to avoid the sword blows, and closed in to wrestle with the drones. They ripped arms off, and heads, but more and more armed drones came streaming out of the opening at the base of the tower, overwhelming the strike force, and one by one the Droods fell, cut down by dead men with alien swords.

Giles worked as fast as he could, but he kept having to leave his work on the bomb to defend himself. His skill with his long sword was enough to keep the drones at arm’s length, but it was clear he was getting tired. For all his skill, he was just a man, without our armour to support him. He was slowing down, missing opportunities, and it was clear from his grim expression that he knew it. And all around him, the Droods were dying.

A few broke, and tried to run. The drones in the town swarmed all over them and dragged them down, holding them to the ground until the armed drones could reach them.

The last half dozen Droods, the six left alive out of the two hundred who had followed the Deathstalker in, formed a tight circle around him, and yelled at him to finish working on the bomb while they held back the drones. Giles nodded reluctantly, sheathed his sword, and knelt down beside the bomb, concentrating on the timer. The Droods fought fiercely, holding the armed drones at bay through sheer strength and speed, but we all knew the armour couldn’t support that level of exertion for long.

“He’s not going to make it,” said the Matriarch. “They’ll get to him before he can finish. Armourer, can we detonate the bomb from here?”

“Of course,” said the Armourer. “But he still has a chance. Don’t write him off yet. We have to give him every chance…”

I started towards the Merlin Glass. This had all been my idea, my plan. I couldn’t leave Giles to die when there was still a chance I could save him. But even as I started moving, Molly sprinted past me and threw herself through the Merlin Glass gateway. I cried out, but she was already gone. She reappeared on the display screens, deep within the New Zealand ghoulville, flying through the bright, unbearable air with dazzling speed. She shot over the town in a moment and dropped out of the overbearing sky like an avenging angel, and the impact of her landing broke apart the ground before the tower. Hundreds of drones fell this way and that. She rose up, lightning swirling and snapping around her hands, and blasted away every drone she could see. They exploded where the lightning touched them, scattering rotting flesh and body parts in a hundred different directions. The beleaguered Droods raised a ragged cheer for her, and she grinned fiercely.

Giles stood up abruptly. “It’s done! We have ten minutes to get the hell out of here.”

“Allow me,” said Molly. She picked up Giles and the six remaining Droods with her magic, and flew them all away through the painfully bright air, towards the Merlin Glass gateway.

Behind them, drones fell upon the bomb and tried to tear it apart, but the Armourer’s work defeated them. They beat at it with their rotting fists, and cut at it with their glowing swords, but the Armourer always did good work. On the top of the box, bright red numbers counted inexorably down to zero.

Molly flew Giles Deathstalker and the six Droods back over the ghoulville, her face a mask of desperate concentration. She dropped down to where the gateway hung unsupported on the open air, and flew them all through and into the War Room. I moved quickly to seal off the gateway to that particular location. Molly touched softly down beside me and looked proudly, almost triumphantly, at me, as though to say, See? I’m still me, still on the side of the angels. You can still trust me. I smiled reassuringly back at her. What else could I do? Even though her time in the ghoulville hadn’t affected her at all. Even though she didn’t even narrow her eyes against the unbearable light, or so much as cough at the unbreathable air.

The communications officer shouted that the bomb had exploded and the Heron’s Reach ghoulville was destroyed, and we all raised some kind of cheer. It didn’t feel like a victory with so many Droods dead.

Doctors and nurses rushed the six survivors away to the waiting emergency wards, to treat them for shock and check them for radiation damage. A couple tried to say they were ready to fight on, in other nests, but you could see their hearts weren’t in it. The Matriarch ordered them to stand down, and I think they were secretly grateful. I knew how they felt. I remembered the carnage on the Nazca Plain. It’s hard to fight an inhuman foe with only human resources.

Of course, I could almost hear Martha say. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and the world wouldn’t need Droods.

Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar took their two hundred armoured Droods and went to Siberia. Tunguska, to be exact, where something crashed into the Earth in 1908. The impact was so devastating it flattened trees for hundreds of miles in every direction, and the light generated by the impact was so bright that Londoners could read a newspaper in the streets at midnight. There are lots of theories about what it was that hit Tunguska all those years ago, everything from a meteor to a crashing alien ship to a miniature black hole…but no one knows anything for sure. Except us. We know. We know everything, remember?

As far as we knew, the Loathly Ones’ presence in Tunguska was just a coincidence. They had no idea what was still sleeping there, deep and deep under the permafrost, and we were all happy for things to stay that way. What if the drones should wake it up by accident? Molly had asked. Then we’d really be in trouble, I said.

The Loathly Ones had taken over a secret Soviet science city, X37, one of the highly classified research communities set up to run the kind of experiments the USSR just knew the rest of the world wouldn’t approve of. That’s why they set this one up in Siberia, so that, if things did go very badly wrong, there’d be hardly anyone around to object. X37 wasn’t on any official map, then or now, and had been pretty much deserted in recent years by the scientists and their families after the funding dried up. When the drones came, there was just a single troop of Russian soldiers, guarding a handful of scientists working on a new kind of food flavouring. They never stood a chance. X37 became a ghoulville, and no one even noticed. Except us.

Harry and Roger and their strike force passed through the Merlin Glass and arrived in a great open square in the middle of the secret city. The surrounding buildings seemed to have evolved, transformed themselves, in disturbingly organic ways. Wires and cables wriggled through the walls, threading through brick and stone like pulsing veins. More cables hung across the streets like spiders’ webs, or exposed nerve structures, pulsing slowly on the bright air. Strange combinations of technology and living things protruded from burst-out doorways and shattered windows, as though the buildings’ insides had grown too big for them. And, everywhere, the stark fierce light, and air so thick with unbreathable elements that it looked like the whole city was underwater. The armour protected Harry and the Droods; Roger didn’t seem to notice it at all.

They could see the tower from where they were, standing tall and grotesque and defiant above the blunt utilitarianism of the old Soviet architecture. Strange energies were crackling up and down the length of the tower, as though it were trying to force itself awake.

Harry and Roger looked quickly about them as a horde of demons came running right at them from every direction at once. They’d been alerted by the attack on the New Zealand ghoulville, and they were ready. But here, in this nest, all the drones were freaks and monsters. Whether it was a legacy of the old forbidden sciences practiced in X37 during the Cold War, or strange emanations from what lay sleeping under the permafrost, every drone here was oversized and monstrous. Terribly misshapen, with huge bones and long strings of muscle, stretched faces with slit mouths full of shark teeth, clusters of eyes, and even waving barbed antennae… they might have been human once, but they had left all that behind. The drones surged forward with fangs and claws, and improvised weapons, and Harry and Roger and the Droods went forward to meet them.

Fang and claw were no match for golden armour, and the Droods’ enhanced strength and speed made them a match for any monster. Harry wore the gold and fought alongside his people, striking down his enemies with brutal efficiency. Roger hung back from the main fighting, watching carefully. He was waiting. And when the first drones appeared with glowing swords clutched awkwardly in malformed hands, he was ready for them. He pointed a finger, and they exploded. He looked at them in a certain way, and blood burst from their mouths and eyes and ears. He spoke certain Words, and their rotting flesh melted and ran away down their bodies. Roger Morningstar wore his Infernal aspect openly, and even Harry couldn’t bear to look at him directly anymore.

For all the drones’ overwhelming numbers, without the radioactive swords they were no match for Drood armour and Hell magic. Harry and Roger took the point, and slowly but inexorably they fought their way out of the open square and headed for the tower. Every drone in the nest came running or sliding or hopping through the city streets, pressing together in the narrow intersections to block off the way to the tower, and it didn’t even slow the strike force down. They cut and hacked and hammered their way through the drones, killing everything that wasn’t them.

Harry stayed right at the head of his people, proving himself a magnificent fighter. The golden blades in his hands swept back and forth with supernatural speed, too fast for the unaided human eye to follow. Blood gushed over his gleaming chest and sprayed across his golden face mask, and just ran away, unable to get a grip. Drones attacked him singly and en masse, and never even slowed his advance. He had learned everything the Deathstalker could teach him about fighting with blades, and nothing could stop him now.

Roger strode along beside him, embracing his Infernal aspect, and the drones fell dead just for getting too close to him. Roger looked at last what he really was; a thing from the Pit walking arrogant and unleashed in the world of men, and poisoning it just by his presence. Wherever he looked, bodies exploded or burst into flames. Some he turned inside out and left to lie in the gutters. When he spoke, drones turned on themselves and tore each other apart.

He smiled a devilish smile; home at last.

The Droods forced their way along behind their leaders and killed everything that came within reach. The tower loomed up before them, a door opened at the base, and a whole new army of drones came staggering and lurching out, bearing hundreds of the glowing swords. Roger spoke a single dreadful Word, and they all exploded into flames, bright crimson fires that stank of blood and brimstone, and consumed the drones as fast as they could appear.

Harry put the bomb in place, set the timer for a comfortable margin, and then he and Roger led the way back through the ghoulville to the Merlin Glass. They all trooped through into the War Room, and I shut down the gateway. The bomb went off, X37 was destroyed, and everyone in the room went mad all over again. Harry and Roger hugged each other, Roger’s aspect now safely suppressed again. The Droods armoured down and clapped each other on the shoulder and on the back, and there were even some tears and kisses.

Victory can feel oh so fine. While it lasts.

Mr. Stab and the Sarjeant-at-Arms led their strike force into the Punjab, in India. A narrow fertile valley surrounded by mountains, supporting a small population; a perfect target for the Loathly Ones. The quiet settlement became a ghoulville and no one noticed. It was, after all, the kind of place where one tribe wouldn’t lower themselves to speak to another, and none of them would speak to outsiders because authority was never to be trusted. They might want you to pay taxes.

When the strike force passed through the Merlin Glass, the ghoulville turned out to be a collection of squat stone houses, half overgrown with slowly stirring vegetation, strangely mutated by the town’s other-dimensional energies. There were cracks in the bare stone ground that seemed to fall away forever, and the light was so bright it seemed to wash all the details out of everything.

It was a scene out of some bare, abstract hell, and Mr. Stab seemed quite at home there.

The drones were waiting again, but this time when they came surging forward to attack the invading force, the crowd seemed to split apart at the last moment, broken in two by an immovable object. They surged around this object, and did their best not to touch it, though they fell on the Sarjeant-at-Arms and the other Droods with all their usual ferocity. But they couldn’t touch Mr. Stab. Something about his no-longer-human nature actively appalled them. They couldn’t bear to be close to him.

So he just walked straight forward into the roiling mob and began killing with an elegant grace, using a long, shiny knife that just appeared in his hand out of nowhere. He walked unopposed through the surging drones and did awful, terrible things to them, and they couldn’t even touch him. Mr. Stab smiled slightly, possibly remembering other times…

The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved quickly in behind Mr. Stab, backing him up, and the strike force followed. The Sarjeant had never been one for swords and blades; he preferred to use the aspect granted him by the family to summon weapons into his waiting hands. All he had to do was gesture in a certain way, and a gun would pop into his hand, fully loaded. And the Sarjeant used these guns to shoot down any drone who showed up with a glowing sword, long before they could get close enough to do any damage. When a gun ran out of bullets, he just tossed it aside and summoned another. The rejected gun would disappear in midair, and there was never any shortage of replacements.

Mr. Stab sliced up the drones, and the Sarjeant mowed them down, and the strike force moved inexorably forward, towards the tower on the horizon. They almost made it look easy. Mr. Stab danced through the slaughter, killing with a touch, the Sarjeant emptied gun after gun, and the armoured Droods struck down anything that came within reach. They soon came to the base of the tower, and more drones appeared from within, bearing an assortment of entirely unfamiliar weapons. The Sarjeant-at-Arms took no chances and shot them all down from a distance. The few that couldn’t be stopped by bullets, protected by strange, glowing armours or energy fields, proved no problem for the smiling Mr. Stab.

The Sarjeant planted the bomb, set the timer, and then led his people safely back home. Another nest destroyed, another tower gone, with no losses or casualties. I started to relax. We’d just had a bad beginning. It looked like we were starting to get the hang of things now. Maybe we could pull this off. I said as much to Molly, and she nodded, smiling. I should have known better.

Callan and the Blue Fairy took their strike force into a small settlement just north of San Francisco. Officially, the Blue Fairy was there as a volunteer to support Callan and watch his back. In practice, I’d had a quiet word with Callan and told him to watch the Blue Fairy. I still wasn’t ready to trust Blue yet.

Their ghoulville had once been an integral part of the Summer of Love in the sixties; a central point for more sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll magic than any reality could comfortably bear. In these more hard-headed, materialistic days, the small town of Lud’s Drum was just a haven for shaggy old hippy types, burnt-out casualties of the drugs war, and a whole industry had grown up devoted to trading on the town’s disreputable past. Only people like us still kept a watchful eye on Lud’s Drum, because dimensional barriers in and around the town had been dangerously weak ever since Timothy Leary dropped a heroic dose of LSD and peyote there and tried to perform a remote exorcism on the Pentagon. As a result, the Loathly Ones took the town with hardly an effort. Lud’s Drum was one of the few places where drones could walk around openly without being suspected. Now Lud’s Drum was a ghoulville, and one of the last remnants of the sixties dream was now a living nightmare.

Callan led his strike force through the harshly lit streets, cutting down drones with cold, almost clinical precision. He didn’t allow himself to be distracted by the crumbling candy-coloured houses, the soft undulating streets, or the endless waves of drones that fell upon his people with vicious, malevolent glee. He cut a path right through them, heading with stern resolve straight for the nearly completed tower in the very centre of the town. Callan might have a smart mouth and an irreverent attitude when dealing with authority figures, but nothing distracted him from his focus when he was out in the field.

The Blue Fairy stuck close to him, guarding Callan’s back with surprising skill and purpose. He didn’t have a sword, or a gun; just a slender wand that he’d produced out of nowhere. Oh, this old thing, he said airily. Been in the family for ages. In the ghoulville he produced a series of small but surprisingly effective magics that kept the drones at arm’s length. It shouldn’t really have surprised me that Blue knew how to fight. He couldn’t have lasted all these years, with the kind of enemies he’d made, without having developed some survival skills.

Callan led his people by example, always pushing forward, not allowing himself to be stopped or even slowed by anything the demons could throw at him. His golden blades rose and fell, and blood flew on the air. Always moving doggedly forward, he brought them closer and closer to the tower through sheer martial expertise and an almost brutal determination. Watching him made me feel proud to be a Drood. This was what we were for; to fight the good fight, to strike down the bad guys, in humanity’s name.

The drones had their glowing swords, and other equally awful weapons, but the Blue Fairy saw to it that they never got close enough to do the Droods any harm. He stabbed the air with his wand, a slender length of bone carved with elven glyphs, and wherever he pointed it, things went wrong for the drones. Over and over again. Blue scowled fiercely as he concentrated, skipping this way and that to ensure he never even came close to being in danger himself, but I got the feeling he was enjoying himself, nonetheless.

He was half elf, after all, with an elf’s ingrained talent for death and destruction.

They made it all the way to the base of the tower before everything went wrong. The tower rose up before them, like a jagged lightning bolt of alien technology and organic components driven into the ground with godly force. Its shape made no sense, as though it had more spatial dimensions than the human mind could cope with, and once again there was a definite sense that the thing was in some way alive and aware, and knew they were there. Callan planted the bomb at the base of the tower, with the Blue Fairy looking over his shoulder, while armoured troops formed a barrier to hold back the swarming drones.

Callan set the timer, stood up, and nodded to the Blue Fairy, and then every single member of the strike force stiffened suddenly and crashed to the ground, and lay still. No warning, no obvious reason, no drone with a new weapon. Just two hundred armoured Droods lying motionless on the ground. I couldn’t even tell whether they were dead or alive. Callan glared about him, sweeping his golden blades this way and that. And then the Blue Fairy elegantly tapped Callan on the shoulder with his wand, and Callan fell to his knees.

“Sorry, old thing,” said the Blue Fairy. “But I never was very good at playing with others. And you have something I need.”

We all watched helplessly as Blue put his wand to Callan’s neck, and then somehow…whipped the torc away from Callan. His mouth stretched wide in a scream, but no sound came out of it. He was still kneeling, but now he was just a man again, ripped from his armour. The Blue Fairy looked at the torc in his hand, turning it back and forth, and then he looked out of the display screen right at us, smiling almost sadly.

“I know, Eddie,” he said. “You trusted me. Which was very nice, and all that, but this torc will buy me entry into the Fae Court. I told you; in the end, it’s always about family. And never, ever, trust an elf. We always have an agenda.”

He turned sideways, and kept on turning, until he had disappeared from sight. All the Droods snapped back to life again, save for Callan, who collapsed, twitching on the ground. The drones surged forward.

Somehow the Droods got Callan out of there. They battled their way out of Lud’s Drum, with the drones making them fight for every yard. And all the time the bomb was ticking. They came streaming back through the Merlin Glass, carrying an unconscious Callan, and I slammed the doorway shut just as the bomb went off. There was a moment of light so bright I could feel it, and the whole War Room shook, but the gateway closed in time to protect us. Lud’s Drum was gone, and with it the nest and its tower.

They took Callan away to the infirmary. Shock, they said. God knows what having his torc ripped from him felt like. I asked Strange if the elves could make the torc work for them, and he said, What are elves? Which didn’t exactly help matters. We would be revenged on the Blue Fairy later. No one steals from the Droods and lives to boast of it.

After all that drama, everything else went pretty much as planned. The strike forces went into ghoulville after ghoulville, using the tactics we’d developed, and nest after nest was destroyed, along with their towers. The Armourer’s bombs never failed, and we didn’t lose one more Drood to the drones. No more nasty surprises, no more appalling new weapons, just Droods doing their job, making the world safe. The hours trudged slowly by, with golden figures constantly coming and going through the Merlin Glass. The drones still fought savagely, making us work for every victory. But still, step by step, we were winning. Fresh men and women came forward to replace those Droods exhausted by too many raids, and the work went on. The whole family was ready to fight, if need be. The infirmary coped well. Overall, losses were actually less than expected and planned for. We actually had the end in sight when it all went to rat shit again.

A communications officer stood up abruptly to shout his new information to the Matriarch, and the whole War Room went quiet to hear it.

“It’s Truman!” he shouted. “All this time he’s had Loathly One drones in his new underground base, building a tower, hidden behind his protective screens! It must be almost complete, because its presence just punched right through the screens! It’s so powerful Truman can’t hide it any longer. It’s almost ready to open a door and bring the Invaders through! This has all been for nothing!”

“Be calm, man!” snapped the Matriarch. “I will not have emotional displays in my War Room. Someone sit that man down and get him a strong cup of tea. Edwin, which of our major players are still capable of leading a strike force?”

I checked. The Sarjeant-at-Arms and Mr. Stab were still clearing out a nest in northern China. Callan was still in the infirmary. And Giles Deathstalker, having personally led over thirty missions, was lying on a cot right beside Callan, too exhausted to go on, though he’d never admit it. That just left Harry, and Roger Morningstar. They were catching a quick break between missions, and awing the younger Droods with exaggerated tales of their exploits. I had them brought back to the War Room and explained the situation. Harry looked very much like he wanted to spit.

“Just once, I’d like things to go the way they’re supposed to.”

“Are you up for this?” I said.

“Not like I have much of a choice, is it?” said Harry. “Okay, put together a strike force out of the best we’ve got that are still on their feet, and I’ll lead it in.” He looked drawn and tired, but his back was still straight and his eyes were still sharp. He dug Roger in the ribs with his elbow. “Who would have thought it, eh? Family pariah Harry Drood, stepping up to save the day. Would you have bet on that, Grandmother?”

Martha looked at him steadily. “Of course. You’re James’s son.”

Harry deliberately turned his back on her and grinned at Roger. “How about it, love? You up for one last mission, to save the world?”

“I’m not sure my mother’s side of the family would approve, but what the Hell… Why not? Can’t let you do this on your own. You never did learn to watch your back properly.”

I wasn’t so sure Roger’s going was a good idea. Basically, he looked like shit. With so much of his magic exhausted on earlier raids, a lot of his glamour was gone, and he looked… more of a man.

Harry made a point of looking down his nose at me. “Well, Eddie, aren’t you coming along on this little jaunt? You know how you love to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, at the very last minute…”

“I’m still needed here,” I said calmly. “Someone’s got to feed you the necessary information, and point you in the right direction. But, if it should all go horribly wrong, I’m your backup.”

“And me,” said Molly, digging me sharply in the ribs with her elbow.

“Of course,” I said, “If you feel you can’t do it without me…”

“We can handle it,” Harry said immediately.

“Damn right, lover,” said Roger Morningstar.

The Merlin Glass locked on to Truman’s new base of operations easily enough; the almost complete tower was dominating the aether. But for some reason the Glass couldn’t seem to show us a view of the base’s interior. Just a field, overlooking Stonehenge, with the ancient Stones looming tall and dramatic against the lowering evening sky. Harry pressed in close beside me, scowling.

“The Stones look to be almost half a mile away; is that really the closest you can get us?”

“This isn’t a nest, as such,” I said. “Not a ghoulville. Just an underground base surrounded by layer upon layer of the best scientific and magical protections money can buy. We wouldn’t even know it was there if the tower wasn’t poking out of it, so to speak. You’ll have to sneak up on them. Unless you’ve changed your mind about going…”

“Of course I haven’t! It’s just… I don’t like this. It feels like a trap.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “But what kind of trap could Manifest Destiny put together that could hold Harry Drood, Roger Morningstar, and two hundred good men and women in golden armour?”

Harry smiled slightly. “You really suck at the inspirational thing, you know that?” He looked at Roger. “Let’s go, bro.”

“Oh please,” said Roger. “You know I don’t do that macho stuff.”

Harry and Roger led their strike force through the Merlin Glass, and I immediately closed the gateway behind them. Truman was a sneaky bastard, and I wouldn’t put anything past him, including deliberately revealing his tower’s presence as a way of tricking us into opening a gateway he could then take advantage of. But… it all seemed quiet enough. Molly took my arm and hugged it tightly to her side as we watched Harry hiss orders to his strike force to spread out across the open, grassy field, to as not to make a single target. Their golden armour gleamed dully in the sparse evening light. As far as the display screens could tell, they were alone in the field. Everything was still and quiet. And then Roger’s head snapped up and he pointed off into the gloom. And all around the scattered strike force, dark figures appeared from every direction at once, moving at impossible speeds.

The figures were human, but moving supernaturally quickly, impossibly fast, streaking across the open field at a pace even armoured Droods couldn’t have matched. The Droods turned to face them, lifting their weapons, but they almost seemed to be moving in slow motion compared to their attackers. As the figures closed in, their every movement was so fast as to make them just a blur on the display screens. Even their faces were unclear. They were just shapes, flashing through the evening gloom.

They swarmed all over the Droods, attacking and falling back almost before the armoured Droods could react. The attackers didn’t seem to possess any weapons, they just beat repeatedly at the golden armour with their bare hands. When that didn’t work, glowing knives appeared in their hands, and they struck again. And this time Droods went down as glowing blades sliced right through their armour to the men and women beneath. The strike force fell, one by one, unable to match their attackers’ speed even for a moment. Harry called his people back to make a defensive circle, but by the time he’d finished speaking half of them were already dead.

There was a clamour of raised voices in the War Room as everyone tried to come up with an explanation or a theory at once. Communications yelled at intelligence, who yelled at information, who yelled at records…and that was where the answer finally came from. Droods know everything, but sometimes it takes us a while to find it. Turned out there had been a report filed about the possibility of these people, from a file Callan found in Truman’s old deserted underground base. The Accelerated Men. Surgically altered, technologically enhanced, and drugged to the eyeballs, they were fanatics, burning up a lifetime’s energy to feed their unnatural speed. Dying to be fast. But then, Manifest Destiny has never been short of fanatics.

Giles Deathstalker arrived in the War Room, looking half dead but still determined, and had to be almost physically prevented from going in to help. I decided that. No point in throwing away more lives till we had some idea of what we were facing. Giles watched the display screens with avid interest. I almost expected him to take notes. It seemed he’d finally found something he hadn’t seen before, that he thought he could take back to his future time.

On the field overlooking Stonehenge, Harry’s remaining people had retreated to form a tight ring around Harry and Roger. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they were better able to defend themselves, and pushing their armour’s speed to its limit meant they could take out the occasional Accelerated Man with a vicious sword thrust. When these human lightning bolts crashed to the ground, dead at last, they looked like old men, their faces blasted by a terrible strain. The Droods fought on, still losing a man or woman here or there, the defensive circle slowly shrinking… Until suddenly the Accelerated Men began to stumble and fall, and collapse on the ground. At first I thought Roger had finally got some of his magic working, but it soon became clear that the Accelerated Men had just used up all their lives. They ran themselves to death.

Harry and Roger and the dozen or so remaining Droods looked slowly about them. Piled up around them lay dozens of old men with time-ravaged faces. They could never have been intended to last long. They were just a means to an end; to forcing the Droods back into one easy target. A terrible blast of light slammed aside the darkness, a light so strong and fierce it had presence and impact. The Droods started to scream. Roger clung onto Harry, shouting Words of Power that were almost washed away by the terrible light. And then, just like that, the light snapped off. Evening returned, but all the Droods were gone. Only Harry and Roger were left, clinging to each other. Harry was holding Roger up. The hellspawn was almost out on his feet, exhausted of strength and magic.

Only two men left, to save the world.

The War Room went mad again. It took a bit longer to get the answer this time, but it was no less disturbing when the Armourer finally supplied it. He admitted he was guessing, but it rang true. Truman had set up his new base under Stonehenge in order to seize control of the Soul of Albion, that impossibly powerful scrap of starstuff that fell out of the sky millennia ago. Truman had taken it for his own and used Loathly One technology to turn it into a weapon, a Soul Gun. He’d found a way to release its energy in short bursts, and anything bathed in the angry light of the Soul was banished, blasted right out of this reality.

The Droods we’d lost wouldn’t be coming back.

Harry and Roger were calling desperately for help. It slowly went quiet in the War Room as everyone looked to the Matriarch, and then to me, for orders. Martha stood very still, wringing her hands together, staring at the display screens. I thought hard. And while I was thinking, the Soul Gun fired again.

Roger must have sensed it coming, because he straightened up abruptly and pushed Harry behind him. The terrible light flared up, destroying the night, an illumination so overpowering it was beyond colour; something you experienced with your mind and soul rather than your eyes. But Roger stood up to the light and faced it down, standing between the light and the man he loved, defying the light of the Soul Gun with every last thing he had in him. The Soul Gun blazed, and Roger met its awful power with unflinching will.

Survival couldn’t have done it, or fear or anger, but this was love. And in the end the Soul Gun faded first.

The light snapped off, and Roger fell to the ground like a dead man. Harry put his arms around the unresponsive body and rocked him back and forth, crooning like a child. In the War Room, everyone looked at me. I took a deep breath.

“Giles, Molly, you’re with me. Martha, locate Mr. Stab and the Sarjeant-at-Arms and get them here. And someone find me Subway Sue. We’re going into Truman’s bunker to take out the tower, and for that we need the Damnation Way.”