For Heaven's Eyes Only

CHAPTER TWO No Place Like Home

And I woke up safe in my Molly’s arms, bursting back into consciousness like a swimmer rising up from the depths and breaking the surface of the sea. I was back in the real Hall, back in the real Sanctity, basking in Ethel’s rose red glow, sitting up on the floor beside Molly, surrounded by my family. The Armourer was there, my uncle Jack, a middle-aged man in a stained lab coat, looking shocked and concerned but trying to hide it. The Sarjeant-at-Arms, big and brutal and permanently angry. My cousin Harry, slick and supercilious in his neat grey suit and wire-rimmed glasses. And my other cousin, Roger Morningstar, the half-breed hellspawn, dark and sardonic in his Armani suit. And Molly. My sweet, wild witch and free spirit, a delicate china doll with big bosoms, bobbed black hair, and a mouth red as sin. My own true love, for my sins.

She looked intently into my eyes, trying to keep the anxiety out of her smile, one arm round my shoulders, the other hand patting my chest comfortingly. I managed a shaky smile for her, and we leaned forward so our foreheads touched, resting against each other. I felt safe and happy, and so damned alive I might burst apart into clouds of sheer joie de vivre at any moment. Brief shivers and shudders came and went, and I was breathing hard, but the cold was slowly seeping out of me, replaced by Molly’s warmth and the uncomplicated comfort of Ethel’s rose red light.

I was home again.

I remembered everything now. Remembered the Immortal bursting into the Sanctity, disguised as Molly’s sister Isabella. A transformation so perfect it even fooled the Hall’s many layers of defences. I remembered the Immortal stabbing me. How the knife felt as it sank into my flesh and pierced my heart. Remembered the pain and the blood, and falling, and dying . . . I clutched at my chest, and fresh blood ran down my wrist as I crushed the torn shirtfront with my hand. The whole of my shirt was soaked in blood. But when I pushed the material aside, the skin underneath was undamaged. I ran my fingers over my chest, searching for the deep wound I remembered, but it was completely healed. I felt fine. I looked at Molly.

“It’s all right, Eddie,” she said, reassuring me with her eyes and her smile as well as her words. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine now.”

“Look at this shirt,” I said numbly. “Ruined. And it was my favourite shirt, too.”

“I never liked it,” said Molly.

“You never said. . . . All right. I’m back. Now, what the hell just happened?”

The Armourer moved in and offered me his hand. I grabbed onto it, and he hauled me to my feet. My legs threatened to shake for a moment, and then steadied. Molly stood close beside me, in case I needed her. The Armourer looked me over closely, and then pulled me into his arms and hugged me fiercely.

“I thought we’d lost you, Eddie; I really did. And I couldn’t bear the thought of your being dead. I’ve lost too many already.”

I hugged him back, awkwardly. We’ve never been a touchy-feely family. He let go of me abruptly and stood back, in control again.

“Do you remember what happened, Eddie? While you were . . . gone?”

“I was in Drood Hall,” I said slowly, “but it wasn’t the real Hall. It was a cold, empty place . . . full of dead people. Walker was there, and Grandmother, and Uncle James.”

“A near-death experience?” said Harry. “How very fashionable.”

He shut up as the Armourer glared at him. “Fascinating,” Uncle Jack said briskly. “I’ve always wanted to record one of those. What did James have to say to you? Did he forgive you?”

“We forgave each other,” I said.

“You weren’t really dead, as such,” Molly said quickly. “Your spirit was in Limbo. And not everyone you encountered there was necessarily who or what they appeared to be. And Walker almost definitely wasn’t Walker.”

“Might have been,” said the Armourer. “He’s dead, all right. I got a letter.”

“What happened to him?” I said.

“Someone killed him. An old enemy, or an old friend. Possibly both. It’s like that in the Nightside. So I’m told.”

“He still shouldn’t have been there with you, Eddie,” said Molly. “Not if you were in a semblance of Drood Hall. He’s never been here.”

Roger Morningstar sniffed loudly. “You don’t understand Limbo any more than I do, Molly. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell, not a place for the living or the dead: more of a spiritual waiting room . . . a place between places. Who knows who has access to it? If the living can enter, why not the dead? It could be that everyone you saw there, Eddie, was exactly who they seemed to be.”

“You do so love to stir it, don’t you?” said Molly. “Trust you to play Devil’s advocate.”

“And trust you, Eddie, to have a near-death experience that’s completely unlike everyone else’s,” said Harry.

“Back to life for only a few minutes, and already you’re annoying the crap out of me, Harry,” I said. “Now button your lip while the grown-ups talk, or I’ll supply you with a near-death experience of your own. Ethel? Are you there?”

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!” said the disembodied voice of our very own other-dimensional entity. “Where did you go? I couldn’t see you anywhere, and I can see into dimensions you people don’t even know exist!”

“The Hall was very different without you,” I said. “So cold . . . I called, but you couldn’t hear me.”

“How terrible for you,” said Ethel, completely sincerely.

“Yes,” I said. “It was.”

I started to shake again. Molly quickly slipped an arm through mine and squeezed it against her. The Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped forward and glared at both of us.

“I demand an explanation as to what exactly happened! Why aren’t you dead, Eddie?”

“Try not to sound so disappointed, Cedric,” I murmured. “Though I think I could use an explanation myself. Molly?”

“You were stabbed through the heart,” said Molly. “But you were never completely dead. Try not to be too mad at me, Eddie. I did it for your own good.”

“Did what?” I said. “Tell me.”

“Like every other witch,” Molly said carefully, “at the start of my career I worked a very special magic to store my heart somewhere else, technically separate from my body, but still connected. And then I hid my heart somewhere very safe and secure and secret, so my enemies could never find it. And as long as my heart remains separate, I am very hard to kill. I can recover from every wound, every attack, no matter how apparently deadly. That’s how I survived that assault by the Drood mob stirred up by the Immortals.” She glared at the Sarjeant there, and he had the grace to look a little guilty. He’s supposed to prevent things like that from happening. Molly took a deep breath. “I performed the same magic on you, Eddie, some time ago.”

“What? Without even telling me?” I said, rather loudly.

“Yes!” said Molly, meeting my fierce gaze with her own. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this! I knew you wouldn’t agree if I suggested the idea to you, even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do . . . and I wasn’t prepared to risk losing you. So I did it while you were asleep. Because I needed you to be safe.”

“When, exactly, did you do this?” I said. “How long ago?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” said Molly, folding her arms firmly below her breasts. “Not until you’ve calmed down a little. Or perhaps even a lot.”

“I can’t approve of this,” the Sarjeant said flatly. “A Drood’s heart in the hands of an outsider? Completely unacceptable! As long as the witch knows where your heart is hidden and you don’t, she’ll always have power over you.”

“He does have a point,” said the Armourer. “What if the two of you had a big row? Or even split up?”

I looked at Molly. “The things we do for love . . . My heart belongs to the family. That’s the way it has to be. You have to put it back.”

“Oh, all right,” said Molly, pouting. “Men. Never appreciate anything you do for them. There. It’s back.”

I looked down at my chest. “Just like that?”

“Of course! It’s no big deal. One of the first magics I learned. Your heart was never actually missing, after all. It was . . . separate. And safe.”

“Did you check it for cholesterol?” said the Armourer.

Molly glared at him. “I’m a witch, not a cardiologist!”

“All right, all right! Only asking! We do have a problem with cholesterol levels in the family, and I was just wondering if . . . Shutting up right now. Sorry.”

I didn’t feel any different. A thought occurred to me, and I looked consideringly at Molly. “Where exactly did you put my heart? Tell me you didn’t hide it in that private forest of yours, with all those overintelligent and highly curious animals. What if one of the squirrels had dug it up while looking for nuts? You know the squirrels have never approved of me!”

Molly gave me her best haughty glare. “We are definitely not discussing this until you are in a much calmer state. And don’t even think of raising your voice to me like that if you ever expect to see me naked again.”

Women never fight fair.

“I will agree to change the subject,” I said. “But only because I’m still waiting to hear what happened to me after I was stabbed!”

“Your spirit went to Limbo,” said Molly. “You weren’t, properly speaking, alive, but I’d seen to it that death couldn’t claim you. So Limbo took you until my magics could supercharge the healing process and repair your body enough for your spirit to return. You were in . . . spiritual shock. Neither in one condition nor the other. Limbo isn’t a place, as such. When you go there, your mind creates its own setting. It’s perfectly possible”—and here she broke off to scowl at Roger for a moment—“that all the people you saw there were really only parts of your own mind, talking to one another. Working out old issues and unresolved conflicts. Psychotherapy for the soul.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Some of them, maybe. But there was definitely another presence there. Walker . . . was very much Walker. He wanted to know things. Secrets . . . mine, and those of the family. He said he represented someone else. That he had new lords and masters now, and they were determined to rip every secret I had out of me. Whatever it took.”

“Walker is quite definitely dead,” said the Armourer. “I’ll show you the letter, if you like.”

“I want to see that letter,” the Sarjeant-at-Arms said immediately. “I never knew you had such close contacts with the Nightside.”

“Later, Cedric,” said the Armourer. “And don’t pout like that. It’s unbecoming in a man of your age.” He nodded to Molly. “Carry on, my dear. We’re all listening.”

“While you were in Limbo, Eddie,” said Molly, “and spiritually vulnerable, it is possible that some enemy of yours could have launched an attack on your spirit, trying to overpower your defences.”

“Did you tell them anything?” said the Sarjeant.

“No,” I said steadily. “I know my duty to the family.”

“Of course you do, Eddie,” said the Sarjeant. “My apologies. But we have to know; we need to find out: Who were these enemies? And how did they know you were in Limbo, and therefore vulnerable to this kind of attack?”

He turned his stern gaze on Molly, who actually stirred uncomfortably.

“Look,” she said, “I’m no expert on Limbo, all right? Don’t know anyone who is. But to reach Eddie, and enter the construct his mind had made there, and push him around . . . they’d have to be really powerful.”

“As powerful as the Droods?” I said.

“I thought we’d killed off everyone as powerful as us,” said Roger.

“There’s always someone,” said the Sarjeant darkly.

“Anyway,” said Molly, “as soon as I’d repaired your heart, Eddie, and got your body back in good working order, I was a bit surprised your spirit didn’t return immediately. That’s what’s supposed to happen. So I went after you. I’ve been to Heaven and to Hell; Limbo doesn’t scare me. I spent some time there myself, recovering from what the Drood mob did to me. I don’t remember what it was like, though. You won’t either, after a while. It’s not something the living are supposed to know about.”

I didn’t say anything, but I hadn’t forgotten a thing. The whole experience was as fresh and clear to me as when I was there. Every detail, every moment, every word. Because it was important that I remember. Someone had tried to steal my secrets, and those of my family, and I was determined to find out who. And . . . there was something else.

Charles and Emily? Walker had said. Whatever makes you think they’re dead?

Harry was talking. “You always have to be the centre of attention, Eddie. You can’t even die in an ordinary way. Though I did think we really might have lost you, for a while.”

“Disappointed?” I said.

“Oh, perish the thought,” said Harry.

“What was it like in Limbo?” said Roger. “I’ve never been there. I’m banned.”

Molly looked at him incredulously. “Banned? How the hell do you get banned from Limbo?”

“Boisterousness,” Roger said vaguely. “Bad behaviour. You know how it is.”

“The memories are slipping away,” I said carefully. “I have to say, I’m happy to see most of them go.”

“What do you remember?” said Molly.

“Cold,” I said. “So very cold . . .” I shuddered briefly, and Molly moved quickly back to hold my arm again. I smiled at her. “How long was I gone? It seemed like ages. . . .”

“Maybe twenty minutes,” said Molly. “Longest twenty minutes of my life.”

I had to fight not to shudder again.

There was a polite and very deferential knock on the Sanctity doors, which then opened to reveal two of the Sarjeant’s security men. I looked quickly at him, and he gestured for his people to close the doors and stay put. They did so, quietly and efficiently. The Sarjeant taught his people well. I glared at them anyway, on general principle, in case the Sarjeant had summoned them to take me away for interrogation. He can be very single-minded when it comes to the security of the family. That’s his job.

“My people are here to take away the dead Immortal,” said the Sarjeant, accurately interpreting my thoughts. “It’s important we examine the body thoroughly.”

“You mean dissect him?” I said.

The Armourer smiled happily, rubbing his bony hands together. “Know thy enemy . . . and make bloody sure he’s dead. We don’t know nearly enough about how the Immortals change their shapes to take on other people’s identities. I always assumed it was some form of projective telepathy, making us see what they wanted us to see, but this flesh-dancing thing they do seems more like shape-shifting: actual physical change, right down to the DNA. Now, I could provide you with any number of useful devices that could do that, but the Immortals did it through sheer willpower and inherited ability. . . . All right, I’ll stop talking now.”

“Some Immortals still remain at large, out in the world,” the Sarjeant said heavily. “Watching us with bad intent and no doubt plotting their revenge against us. We didn’t kill them all at Castle Frankenstein. Unfortunately.”

“I need to know everything there is to know about the Immortals,” the Armourer said briskly, “if I’m to build a reliable detector to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. And to make sure that everyone in this family is exactly who and what they’re supposed to be. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.”

“Hear, hear,” I said solemnly.

I moved over to look down at the dead Immortal. Molly stayed close beside me. The man who’d tried to murder me looked very young now. Almost harmless. Just another teenage boy, like all the Immortals who never aged. Black froth had dried and crusted round his mouth, from where he’d taken poison rather than be captured. His eyes were still bulging; his face was contorted, his body racked by muscle spasms. He’d fouled himself in death, and the smell was pretty bad.

“I usually know the people who try to kill me,” I said finally. “But I never saw that face before. Presumably he wasn’t at the castle when we went in; and that’s how he survived when the others didn’t.”

“He looked like my sister,” said Molly. “Moved and sounded like Isabella. I was completely fooled. He couldn’t have managed such a close match . . . unless he’d had access to the original. He must have known my sister.”

“Perhaps the remaining Immortals are holding her prisoner,” I said.

Molly grabbed hold of my arm so hard it hurt. “We have to go find her, Eddie!”

“Of course we do,” I said. “You came and found me. But where do we start? Any surviving Immortals will have scattered across the world by now. If they’ve got any sense. The only base we ever knew about was Castle Frankenstein, and that’s in the hands of the Bride now, and the Spawn of Frankenstein.” I stopped as a thought hit me. “Molly, could you use your magics on this body, and get some information out of him?”

“Not really,” said Molly, which I had to note wasn’t an unequivocal no. “My powers are life-based. Mostly. I was never that interested in necromancy.”

“I am,” said Roger. “Death and damnation are my business.”

I looked at him. “You can raise the dead?”

“I can make a corpse sit up and talk,” Roger said carefully. “There’s a difference. And only with the very recently departed, where the soul is still close by.”

“Walker could do it,” said the Armourer.

“He only did it that one time!” said Roger. “And he had the Voice. I’m only a poor half-breed hellspawn, so I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

He looked around at all of us, making sure he had everyone’s agreement. Not that he gave a damn for our approval; he wanted to make sure we were all implicated in the unnatural and condemned thing he was about to do. None of us said no. My family has always been able to do the hard, harsh, necessary things. Roger crouched over the dead Immortal, smiling down at the corpse and muttering something under his breath in a language I didn’t even recognise. The air seemed to slowly darken around him, as he revealed the side of himself he usually kept hidden. His other, perhaps even truer self: his demonic aspect. Stubby horns thrust up out of his forehead. His eyes caught fire, sulphurous yellow flames leaping up from glowing eyeballs. His fingers grew sharp, vicious claws, and his feet were suddenly rough cloven hooves. Where he stood, the wooden floor began to smoke and smoulder. Dark shadows seemed to wrap themselves around Roger Morningstar, despite Ethel’s rose red glow. Where Roger was, the light seemed bloodred.

Roger’s father may have been my uncle James, the legendary Grey Fox, but his mother had been a lust demon out of Hell. I never did get the full story on that. But looking at Roger now, with all his evil aspect up front and in your face, it was hard to see how we’d ever been able to take him in as one of us. I’d accepted his presence in the family because he was Harry’s love and partner, and because Roger had fought on our side in the past . . . but now, seeing all the darkness in him let loose, I had to wonder if perhaps we’d made a terrible mistake.

He looked like what he was: a hellspawn set free from the Pit to walk up and down in the world, spreading horror and evil among us like some spiritual cancer.

Harry looked at Roger with something very like shock, and I realised Harry had never seen this side of his lover before. He watched, fascinated and appalled in equal measure, as Roger Morningstar pulled back one elegant shirt cuff and cut open a vein in his wrist with one clawed fingertip. Steaming-hot, dark blood streamed down into the corpse’s open mouth, quickly filling it and spilling out over the sides. Roger sealed the wound in his wrist with a touch, and then he leaned forward over the body. He was smiling a happy, satisfied smile, as though he was enjoying doing something he didn’t often get to do these days.

“Blood of my life for you, Immortal, for a time. My life to move within you and raise you up to do my bidding and my will. Sit up and speak, little dead man, and tell me what I want to know.”

The corpse’s mouth snapped suddenly shut, and its throat worked convulsively as it swallowed. The eyes turned to stare unblinkingly at Roger, and then the corpse sat up, the body making loud complaining sounds as it fought the stiffening of rigor mortis. The corpse looked into Roger’s burning eyes. And then the dead man screamed horribly, a lost, terrified, trapped sound.

“Stop that,” said Roger, almost casually, and the scream cut off immediately. The corpse worked its mouth, stained with the poison it had taken and Roger’s dark blood, and when the dead Immortal finally spoke, its voice sounded as though it travelled some unimaginable distance. It sounded like something trying to remember what a human voice sounded like.

“Who calls me back?” it said, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear whatever else it might have to say.

“I do,” Roger said briskly. “Talk to me, Immortal.”

The corpse’s mouth moved slowly, adopting an awful smile. “Do you want to know the secrets of life and death? Shall I tell you the awful knowledge of the Shimmering Plains and the Courts of the Holy, or perhaps the Houses of Pain, in the Pit?”

“Don’t waste my time,” said Roger. “I probably know more of that than you do, at this point. Stop showing off and tell me: Who sent you here to murder Eddie Drood? Are there other Immortals out there in the world plotting attacks on Drood Hall?”

“There are only a few of us left now,” said the corpse, still looking only at Roger. “Scattered. Hiding. I don’t know where they are. This was all my idea. If I couldn’t be a real Immortal anymore, a man of privilege and power, I decided I’d rather die, taking my hated enemy with me.” He turned his head slowly to look at me, and it was all I could do not to flinch back from the sheer hatred in that look. “We were masters of the world, and you took it all away. The barbarian at the gates of Rome. The savage who didn’t even understand the glory he destroyed. I wanted you dead, Drood, and I came so very close. . . .” He tried to spit at me, but nothing came out of his black-crusted mouth.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved forward to stand between me and the dead man. He was capable of small kindnesses, when he chose.

“How did you get in here,” he growled, “past all the Hall’s defences?”

“Rafe was one of us,” said the corpse. “He told us everything. Do you really think he was the only one?”

“I have got to get that detector working properly,” said the Armourer. “Sort out who’s who once and for all.”

Molly pushed forward to glare coldly into the dead man’s face. “You made yourself look like my sister Isabella. Where is she? Are you holding her somewhere? Where is she? Where’s Isabella?”

“Damned if I know,” said the corpse. “I never had her. Didn’t need her. I could duplicate anyone I ever met, and I knew Isabella of old. She worked with us several times on matters of mutual interest.”

“Your sister worked with the Immortals?” I said to Molly.

“Oh, hell, Eddie,” said Molly, “Iz has walked along with everybody, one time or another.”

“Even worked with us, on a few occasions,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “On matters of mutual benefit. I made some very useful devices for her, none of which she ever returned. You went out with her for a while, didn’t you, Cedric?”

We all looked at the Sarjeant-at-Arms, but he had nothing to say.

“If we could stick to the matter at hand, people,” said Roger. “You don’t think what I’m doing is easy, do you? The body is already starting to fall apart. Anything else you want to ask, ask quickly. He won’t last much longer.”

We all looked at the dead Immortal. His skin was blotched and cracking, thick fluids seeping out of him as Roger’s dark blood burned him up from the inside out. His eyes had sunk right back into their sockets, nothing but a mess of black jelly now. The corpse moved his head blindly back and forth.

“Don’t leave me like this. Please. Don’t leave me here, trapped in a decaying body.”

“Why not?” said Roger. “You deserve it.”

“No,” said Molly. “Let him go.”

Roger looked her and raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Mercy, from the wild witch of the woods?”

“No,” said Molly. “Not mercy. Why keep him from Heaven’s judgement, and Hell’s punishments, one moment longer?”

“Hard-core,” said Roger, smiling.

“You tried to murder my Eddie,” Molly said to the dead man. “Burn in Hell.”

I looked at her, disturbed by the savage and uncomplicated hatred in her face and in her voice. I liked to forget that my Molly had her own dark side, like Roger; but sometimes she wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t my sister the Immortals had used.

Roger straightened up and stepped back, snapped his fingers lightly, and just like that the dead man was simply a corpse again. We all watched it carefully for a while, but it lay there, cracking slowly open, leaking all kinds of unpleasant fluids and stinking the place out. The Armourer sniffed loudly.

“You haven’t left me much to dissect, Roger.”

I looked at Molly. “The Immortal lost most of his family. I think it was grief that moved him, as much as revenge. God has mercy.”

“I don’t,” said Roger. He was still maintaining his demonic aspect, defying any of us to say anything. Perhaps because it felt so good not to have to pretend anymore. He smiled widely at Harry, showing rows of pointed teeth. “This . . . is who and what I really am, Harry, my dear. It’s as real and as relevant as the human face I usually wear to show the world.”

“We all have our dark sides,” Harry said steadily.

“Not like mine,” said Roger.

He took on his human aspect again, resuming the dark, sardonic and lightly mocking face he’d always shown before. And then he turned his back on all of us, including Harry, and walked away to be on his own. Where he’d been standing, his cloven hooves had scorched deep hoofprints into the wooden floor. Smoke curled slowly up from them, and on the air there was the smell of blood and sulphur and sour milk. The stench of Hell.

“Damn,” said the Armourer. “I’ll have to get the industrial sander out again.”

It’s hard to impress my uncle Jack.

“All right,” I said. “What now?”

“An attack on you is an attack on the family,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “I’ll have the family psychics run some tests on you, see if they can pick up some traces of who or what might have been threatening you in Limbo.”

“Later,” I said. “I’m tired.”

The Sarjeant sighed heavily. “You’ve never had any faith in the family psychics, have you, Edwin?”

“Well, they didn’t predict my bloody death, did they? I wouldn’t trust that bunch of poseurs and wannabes to guess my weight!”

“Later, then,” said the Sarjeant, entirely unfazed. “In the meantime, I will organise the family’s resources to search for the missing Isabella Metcalf. We have people everywhere, Molly. We will find your sister for you.”

“Eventually,” I said.

The Sarjeant didn’t actually shrug, but he looked like he wanted to. “It’s a big world.”

I looked at Molly. “Do you have any better ideas?”

She frowned. “My younger sister, Louisa, could find Iz easily, but last I heard, she was off exploring the Martian Tombs.”

I had to blink. “Really?”

Molly did shrug. “With Louisa, who knows?”

“I’ve got it!” said the Armourer. “The Merlin Glass, Eddie! It can find anyplace you needed to get to, so technically there’s no reason why the Glass shouldn’t be able to locate any individual person you want to find and show you where they are! Try it!”

I reached into the dimensional pocket I store the Merlin Glass in, at least partly because the damned thing creeps the hell out of me, and held the hand mirror out before me. The image in the Glass quickly cleared to show Isabella Metcalf, her own bad self: a tall muscular woman in crimson biker leathers, with short-cropped black hair and an intense, sharp-featured face. She was lurking in a fairly ordinary-looking business office, leafing through papers on a desk in a way that suggested she didn’t have anyone’s permission to do so. She looked up, startled, to see Molly and me watching her through the Merlin Glass.

“Iz!” said Molly. “You’re all right!”

“Of course I’m all right! And keep your voice down,” Isabella said urgently. “No one’s supposed to know I’m here!”

“We’re coming through to join you,” said Molly.

“Don’t you dare!” said Isabella. “You’ll blow my cover!”

But I’d already shaken the Glass up to its full size, and Molly and I were stepping into the office with her.

“Eddie!” roared the Sarjeant-at-Arms behind me. “You can’t just rush off! You have responsibilities here!”

But Molly and I were already gone.