For Heaven's Eyes Only

CHAPTER THREE Hell Hath Fury

As offices went, this one hadn’t even made an effort. Just an ordinary, everyday business office with characterless furniture and all the personality of a brick wall. Not even a potted plant in the corner to cheer the place up. When Molly and I arrived, Isabella was busily thumbing through a thick sheaf of papers. She didn’t have the grace to look even a little bit guilty, and glared at Molly and me as though we were the ones who had no right to be there.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” she said, keeping her voice down.

“Oh, we happened to be passing,” I said easily. “Thought we’d drop in, say hello. . . .”

I busied myself shutting down the Merlin Glass and stowing it safely away while Molly advanced on her sister to give her a big hug. Isabella dropped the papers on the desk and stopped Molly in her tracks with an icy glare.

“What’s the matter with you? It’s not my birthday.”

Molly then launched into an impassioned account of what had been happening. She hit only the high points, but it still took a while. I used the time to take a good look round the office. It was all very neat, very tidy, and everything had that sheen of newness, as though everything had been moved only that day. The office felt . . . strange, incomplete, unfinished. As though someone had put everything in this room that they thought an office should have, but no one had actually moved in yet. The computer was the very latest model, the monitor was wide-screen and HD, and the keyboard didn’t have a speck of dust on it. I considered the computer thoughtfully, wondering whether it was safe to try cracking its systems open with my armour. Luther Drood, the Los Angeles field agent, had shown me a neat little trick using Drood armour that could make any computer roll over on its back, begging to have its belly rubbed. I reluctantly decided not to try anything just yet, on the grounds that Isabella would have already cracked the computer if it were that easy. The bad guys do love their booby traps. And if I set off an alarm while Molly was busy persuading her sister what a great guy I was, I’d never hear the end of it.

So I leafed quickly through the papers on the desk, looking for whatever had caught Isabella’s attention. Damned if I could see what she’d found so interesting. Pretty standard business correspondence: job openings and opportunities, accounts and invoices and memos covering the upcoming week’s meetings. But all very bland, very vague, almost too generic to be true. What was more interesting was what wasn’t on the desk: namely, not a single personal touch. No photographs, no coffee mug with an amusing saying on the side, not a mark out of place. Nothing on the walls, either: not a portrait or a print . . . or a window. Only a featureless box for someone to sit in and do . . . businesslike things. No, this wasn’t an office. It was something set up to look like an office, enough to fool an outsider.

Molly was rapidly approaching the end of her story, so I took the opportunity to quietly study her sister Isabella. The crimson biker leathers looked well lived in and hard used, like she’d done a lot of travelling in them, and she looked muscular enough to bench-press a Harley-Davidson without breaking a sweat. Even standing still she burned with vitality, as though she couldn’t wait to be out and about doing things. And, given that she was one of the infamous Metcalf sisters, probably wild and destructive things. She was handsome rather than pretty, had a hard-boned face stamped with character and determination, and wore surprisingly understated makeup. She had a certain dark glamour about her. A dangerous glamour, certainly, but there was something about Isabella that suggested she could be a whole lot of fun, if you could keep up with her.

She was the only woman I knew who had a worse reputation than my Molly. A supernatural terrorist, a twilight avenger, the Indiana Jones of the invisible world, been everywhere and done everyone. Isabella had given her life to the uncovering of mysteries and the pursuit of truth, and she didn’t give a damn whom she had to walk through or over to get where she was going. Always out in the darker places of the world, digging up secrets and things most people had enough sense to leave undisturbed. Just to ask questions of the things she dug up, and kick them in the head if they didn’t answer fast enough. She was looking for something, but I don’t think anyone knew what. Maybe not even her. I think she liked to know things. And if Molly was the wild free spirit of the Metcalf sisters, Isabella was by all accounts the tightly wrapped control freak who always had to be in charge.

I knew we weren’t going to get on. But she was Molly’s sister, so . . .

Having finally understood why Molly was so pleased to see her alive and well, Isabella grudgingly allowed Molly to hug her, but only briefly.

“So,” she said coldly, fixing me with an implacable gaze, “someone impersonated me? Someone actually dared? My reputation must be slipping. I did hear there was a rumour going around that I might have mellowed, and I can’t have people saying things like that about me. I can see I’m going to have to go out and do something appalling. Even more appalling than usual, I mean. Can’t have people thinking I’ve got soft; they’ll take liberties.”

“Trust me, Iz,” said Molly, “no one thinks you’ve got soft. There are still religions in some parts of the world where they curse your name as part of their regular rituals.”

“Well,” said Isabella, “that’s something. You have to keep the competition on their toes in this game. There’s never any cooperation when it comes to digging up graves, despoiling tombs and desecrating churches. It’s every girl for herself, and dog-eat-dog. Or perhaps that should be god-eat-god. . . . It’s all based on fear and loathing and a complete willingness to take risks no sane person would even contemplate. You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here, interrupting my work.”

“I thought you’d want to know that the Droods now know you know how to get past their defences,” said Molly. “I hate sentences like that; they’re always trying to get away from you. I had to tell them, Iz; they wanted to know how your duplicate was able to penetrate Drood security so easily. I had to tell them that to avoid telling them other things.”

“Other things?” I said suspiciously. “What kind of other things?”

“Later, sweetie,” said Molly.

Isabella looked at me, and then shrugged briskly. “Don’t take it personally, Drood. I don’t give a damn about you or your family; I wanted access to your Old Library. I did ask nicely, but when that snotty, stuck-up, dog-in-the-manger family of yours turned me down, I had no choice but to find my own way in. Partly because no one tells me to get lost and gets away with it, but mostly because I wanted to read some of the wonderful old books you’re supposed to have. You Droods sit on all kinds of information that would make my job a lot easier—because you can.”

“You’ve been strolling around the Old Library?” I said.

There must have been something in my voice or my face, because Isabella actually looked away for a moment.

“Well, I haven’t personally been in there, as such. Not yet. But I’m working on it!”

“You’re welcome to try,” I said. “But once you’re in there, watch your back. There’s something living in the Old Library: something very powerful and very scary. It almost killed an Immortal who was masquerading as our assistant Librarian.”

“You see!” said Isabella. “That’s the kind of secret I want to know about!”

“Let us change the subject,” I said, “on the grounds that I have been here for what seems like ages, and I still don’t know why. What are you doing here, Isabella? And where is here, anyway?”

“Can we please all try to keep our voices down?” said Isabella. “This really isn’t the kind of place where you want to attract attention to yourself. This is Lightbringer House, deep in the financial area of Bristol. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Lightbringer House is only another ugly, anonymous office building, where businesspeople do business things. Except they don’t. This whole building is a front, a place for people to come and do things in private that would get them hanged from the nearest lamppost if they even mentioned them in public. This office, and all the others, are for show, something for people in authority to see if they have to be given the grand tour. Everyone here works on the same thing: a purpose so secret even I haven’t been able to scare up a whisper of what it might be.”

“Yes,” I said patiently. “But what are you doing here? Who are these people? What makes them so important?”

Isabella looked at Molly. “Just once, I wish you’d go out with someone who doesn’t need everything spoon-fed to him.” She looked back at me. “I’ve spent over a year now investigating a secret underground Satanist conspiracy. And don’t look at me like that, Drood! There are still such things. I’m talking about a worldwide, highly organised cabal involving very highly placed people from all walks of life. All of them worshipping the Devil, and dedicated to the destruction of civilisation as we know it.”

“I thought that kind of stuff was an urban legend,” I said. “Something for the tabloids to get excited about on slow news days.”

Isabella smiled smugly. “That’s what they want you to think. And who do you suppose owns most of the tabloids these days? If people could see the birthmark on the back on Rupert Murdoch’s head, they’d shit themselves. All right, I can see you’re not convinced. Quick history lesson. Pay attention and don’t make me repeat myself, or I will slap you a good one, and it will hurt.”

“She will, too,” said Molly. “I’d stay out of reach, if I were you.”

I sat down on the edge of the desk, conspicuously within reach of Isabella, and smiled politely. “Go ahead. I love being lectured by strict women wearing leathers.”

“Oh, Eddie,” said Molly. “You never said. . . .”

“Later, sweetie,” I said.

“Young love,” said Isabella. “The horror, the horror. Anyway, the last really big Satanic conspiracy took place during the nineteen twenties and thirties, back when all those bright young things were looking for something new to believe in. Most of them had the good taste to become Communists or sexual deviants; the rest sold their souls to the Devil because they were bored. . . . The whole thing crashed to a halt when they backed Hitler and the Nazis, and everybody else backed the Allies. After the war, people had too much else to think about. There were some brief surges in the sixties, but it’s hard to get people excited about sin when nothing’s a sin anymore.”

“What about the eighties?” I said.

“No,” said Molly. “The Satanists weren’t behind that. It only seemed that way.”

“Right,” said Isabella. “Back then, people were throwing their souls away every day, of their own free will. The Devil didn’t have to do a thing.”

“I’m not always sure I believe in the Devil, as such,” I said.

“You’d better,” said Isabella. “He believes in you. Where was I? Oh, yes, the Satanists are back now, and organising with a vengeance. They see the Droods as dithering, without real leadership, and preoccupied with other things. Like the Loathly Ones and the Immortals. So the Satanists have quietly launched a major comeback, while you’re too busy to notice.”

“Pardon me if I’m not too impressed,” I said. “I can’t help seeing Satanists as so . . . old-fashioned. And what are they doing here? Planning bad business practices? Plotting better ways to avoid paying taxes?”

“It’s a really good cover,” said Isabella. “But it’s still just a cover.”

“What brought you here?” said Molly, attacking the question from another front.

“You know me,” said Isabella. I need to know things. Secret things. Especially when someone else doesn’t want me to know them. I was looking for something and found something else, which is always the way. I was investigating a local legend of a town where everyone was a werewolf, in Avignon, France, which led me to the abandoned Danse Academie in Germany’s Black Forest that had been a feeding ground for one of the Old Mothers; and that in turn brought me to an outbreak of ancient forces around a circle of standing stones in darkest Wales. But in each case, by the time I got there, someone else had already been there and put a lot of effort and a lot of money into cleaning it all up so that not one trace remained of what had happened there. Everyone I talked to smiled and shook their heads and lied right to my face. Someone had spread some serious money around in a major cover-up that would probably have fooled anyone else.

I didn’t know who these people were, or what they’d wanted in these places, and I hate not knowing things, so I started digging. I went underground, into the city subcultures, showing my face in the kinds of places the powers that be like to pretend don’t exist, because people aren’t supposed to want such things. . . . And there I asked a whole bunch of awkward questions, stirring up the mud to see what was underneath. A word here and a name there put me on the trail of something unusually big and organised, and after that it was a case of ‘follow the money. . . .’ I followed the bribes through the corrupt officials and the compromised authorities, rising higher and higher, until it led me here, to an office building that had nothing to do with business. Lightbringer House may be only the tip of the iceberg, but this is where the Satanists come to get their orders. This is where things are decided and things are sworn in Satan’s name.

“One interesting side note: According to the official records, all the businesses in this building are subsidiaries of Lightbringer Incorporated. Which, if you look back far enough, was once known as Fallen Star Associates. The main front for the nineteen thirties Satanist conspiracy. These people are back, and this time they mean business. They have a plan, and I want to know what it is.”

“Okay,” I said. “All very interesting, and possibly convincing, but I don’t see anything in this office to back it up. The papers on the desk are boring to the point of bland, and it’s not like there’s a knitted sampler on the wall reading, ‘I Love Lucifer.’ Are you sure this isn’t paranoia and scaremongering? We see a lot of that in the Droods. In fact, it’s pretty much business as usual.”

“If Iz says there’s evil here, there is evil here,” Molly said firmly. “No one knows evil better than Iz. She’s never wrong about things like this. Except when she’s wrong.”

“Molly, do me a favour,” said Isabella. “Stop trying to help. Look, the evidence is here somewhere! I just haven’t found it yet. They’d hardly leave it lying around, would they? The trail I followed led me to this floor, and this office. Orders come from here, and payments, and even a few not very discreet threats.”

“If this really is as big a conspiracy as you believe,” I said, “I don’t think we should do anything to let them know we know. I think we should all return to Drood Hall and discuss a more . . . organised response.”

“Put myself in the hands of the Droods?” said Isabella. “Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen! Never trust a Drood!”

“Why not?” I said, genuinely taken aback by the anger in her face and the venom in her voice.

“Your family killed our parents, remember?” said Molly. “Isabella isn’t as forgiving as I am.”

“I still don’t know what you’re doing with this one,” said Isabella. “I mean really, Molly, a Drood?”

“He’s different,” Molly said stubbornly. “He’s . . . special.”

“You always say that,” said Isabella. “And you always end up sleeping on my couch, crying your eyes out. You have the worst taste in men. . . .”

“Molly and I have something in common,” I said. “It’s possible that my family was responsible for the death of my parents, too.”

Isabella looked at me sharply and then shook her head. “None of this is important. The truth is here, and I will find it, even if I have to tear this whole office apart.”

“Oh, not again . . .” said Molly.

Isabella glared at both of us. “Get out of here. Both of you. Go back to your precious Drood Hall. I don’t need your help, and I don’t want you here.”

“Too late,” I said cheerfully. “I’m intrigued now. The return of the Satanists! It’s all so very Dennis Wheatley. . . . Molly, my dear, do you think you could keep a lid on any booby traps I might set off by persuading this computer to talk nicely to me?”

“Don’t see why not,” said Molly. “Silicon sorcery’s always been a specialty of mine.”

“You haven’t gone back to cloning credit cards, have you?” said Isabella.

“Of course not!” said Molly. “I’m into a much higher class of lawlessness now.”

“If you could concentrate on the computer, Molly . . .” I said.

“Oh, sure! No problem!”

I half expected her to work some dramatic chaos ritual over the computer, or sprinkle fairy dust on it, but she sat down before the machine, fired it up and worked some subtle magic through the keyboard, until the computer dropped its pants and showed her everything it had. Molly pushed back the chair, grinned at me and got up so I could take her place.

“There you go. Ask it anything you want. I’ve got the security systems eating out of my hand. You could pry this computer open with a crowbar and piss in the back, and it wouldn’t shed a single tear.”

“You always did have a delicate touch,” I said.

“Later, lover,” said Molly.

I subvocalised my activating Words, and sent a tentacle of golden armour racing down my arm from my torc, until it formed a gleaming golden glove on my right hand. Isabella watched, fascinated. Not many outside the family get to see Drood armour at work. And live to tell of it. I set one golden fingertip against the computer, pressing lightly, and delicate golden filaments shot through the computer’s silicon guts, bending them to my will. I had no idea how my armour’s strange matter did this; I supply the willpower, and the armour does everything else. Which has been known to bother me now and again. When I got the chance, I was going to have to ask Ethel some very pointed questions, though I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answers.

I asked the computer some blunt questions, and the answers appeared on the monitor screen in swift succession. Of course, there was so much information in the computer that the trick lay in asking exactly the right questions, and I was operating pretty much in the dark. But with Molly and Isabella leaning over my shoulders and yelling suggestions in my ears, it didn’t take me long to scare up a whole bunch of records and secret files I wasn’t supposed to be able to get at. Passwords and encryptions are no match for Drood armour.

And it turned out, everything Isabella had said was true. Lightbringer House was the central meeting place for Satanist groups from all over the world. This anonymous office building was where policy was decided and all important decisions were made. This was where they came to talk to one another, to boast and brag of all the awful things they’d done and the worse things they planned to do. This was where they came to kneel in dark churches and worship the Devil, and celebrate evil in appalling ways. Lightbringer House organised everything and was the motivating force behind a horribly large number of plots and conspiracies buried deep within all the governments of the world.

I jumped from file to file, my stomach muscles tensing painfully as I took in the sheer size and scale of the operation. These people wanted to rule the world, and they were going about its slow and certain corruption with cold, focused precision. It soon became clear that there had been a lot of comings and goings from Lightbringer House recently. Really important people, familiar names and faces from politics and big business and a dozen other spheres of influence, were in the building right now, discussing . . . something. There was no specific information in the computer about this, only a sealed file name: “the Great Sacrifice.” And a whole bunch of serious new security measures that had been placed throughout the building to keep this meeting secure and very private. Molly leaned forward suddenly, pointing at the screen.

“There! What was that? Go back, go back. . . . Yes! The big meeting is being held in the main boardroom, directly down the hall from here! And given the sheer number of high-level Devil-worshipping scumbags attending, I think it behooves us to go and take a look and listen in.”

“And possibly slaughter the whole lot of them, on general principle,” said Isabella.

“Given the sheer amount of magical and technological weaponry that’s been installed, specifically to keep people like us out, I don’t think we can afford to start anything,” I said firmly. “We need to discover exactly what’s going on, and then concentrate on getting that information out of this building and into the hands of those who can best decide what to do about it.”

Isabella looked at Molly. “Is he always this stuffy?”

“A lot of the time, yes,” said Molly. “It’s one of his more endearing qualities.”

“Let us go look in on this meeting,” I said resignedly. “But nobody is to start anything until we’ve found out what this Great Sacrifice is all about.”

I retracted the golden strange matter into my torc and shut the computer down. Molly quickly removed her interventions, and when we went to leave the office there was no sign the computer had ever been tampered with. I’m a great believer in not leaving any traces behind; you never know when they might turn up again to bite your arse. Isabella eased the office door open a crack, looked out and then nodded quickly. We moved out into the corridor, shut the door carefully behind us and strode down the corridor towards the boardroom as though we had every right to be there.

I’d half imagined the Satanists’ building would be all dark shadows and gothic gloom, but the corridor was as anonymously banal as the office. The lights were almost painfully bright, the carpet was a dull grey and the walls were bare. There were a few people about, presumably too low-level to be allowed into the big meeting: regular-looking businesspeople in neat suits, going about their business and paying us no attention at all. First thing a field agent learns: Act like you belong somewhere, and most people will assume you do. Simple confidence will take you farther than even the best fake documents. But even so, it was a bit odd that no one paid any attention to Isabella’s crimson biker leathers and my torn and bloodstained shirt. Presumably Satanists were used to seeing strange things on a regular basis.

And . . . there was something about these ordinary, everyday businesspeople, as though they weren’t necessarily people at all. But maybe something else, pretending to be people.

In fact, the whole corridor was making me feel distinctly uneasy. It was all too bright and cheerful, with not one thing out of place. More like a film set than somewhere people actually lived and worked. Even as I strode along, nodding and smiling to the men and women who nodded and smiled at me, something was making all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My flesh crawled. There was a growing sense of threat and menace, unfocused but very real, and very near, as though something might jump out at me at any moment. Walking down that corridor towards the boardroom felt like walking along a tightrope knowing someone was right behind you, waiting for a chance to push you off. Or like walking across a series of trapdoors, any one of which might drop open at any moment, letting you plummet into some awful trap, or perhaps letting you fall and fall forever. . . . My problem is I’ve got far too good an imagination. Well, one of my problems . . .

Still, even my torc was tingling uncomfortably, as though trying to warn me of some imminent danger. The closer I got to the boardroom and the people waiting in it, the more worried I became that not only was I in danger from the building’s many weapons and protections, but I was heading into an area of actual spiritual danger.

I murmured as much to Molly, who nodded vigorously. “Yeah, something about this place is creeping me out big-time, too. Which is weird; it’s usually the other way round. This is a bad place, Eddie. I don’t think these Satanists are using the name for shock value. I think they’re playing this for real. I’d raise my Sight and take a proper look at what’s going on here, but I’m pretty sure it would set off every alarm in the building.”

“Took you long enough to work that out,” said Isabella. “I felt that the moment I got here, which is why I was reduced to checking out papers that happened to be lying around. This is a bad place full of bad people with bad intentions. Can we take that for granted and move on?”

If Isabella was feeling the same sense of threat and danger I was, it didn’t seem to be bothering her much. She led the way right to the closed door of the main boardroom. There were no guards, or at least no obvious ones. I tried the handle on the off chance, but the door was locked.

“Don’t try to force it,” Molly said quickly.

“I know,” I said. “Alarms. I have done this secret-agent thing before, you know. It bothers me there aren’t any guards.”

“They must think their defences are so good they don’t need human guards,” said Isabella. “Either that, or the real guards are invisible and waiting to pounce on us.”

“Really wish you hadn’t said that,” said Molly, looking quickly about her. “I feel naked without my Sight.”

There was a single sign, saying MEETING. ONE P.M. START. NO ADMITTANCE AFTER THE MEETING HAS BEGUN.

“One p.m.,” said Molly. “The thirteenth hour. Satanists are always big on tradition. Probably because their greatest victories are all in the past.”

“We have to get in there,” said Isabella. “Find out what this is all about. I hate not knowing things! Eddie, can you use that golden-finger trick on the lock?”

“Almost certainly,” I said. “But again, I’m guessing the presence of strange matter this close to the movers and shakers would set off every alarm there is. I think we’re better off doing this low-tech.”

I produced a single golden brown skeleton key from my pocket, made from real human bone by the Armourer. (I didn’t ask whose bone. One learns not to ask questions like that around the Armourer.) Molly and Isabella moved quickly to cover me while I worked on the lock, blocking the view of anyone who might happen by. Though this end of the corridor was disturbingly quiet and empty. The skeleton key had the lock open in a moment, and I tucked it away again before carefully turning the handle. Isabella glared at me.

“I want one of those! It’s not fair. You Droods have all the best toys.” I gestured for her to be quiet, and then eased the door open a few inches. I waited, braced for any alarm or attack, but nothing happened. I peered through the narrow gap. The main boardroom was big enough to pass for a meeting hall, and was packed from wall to wall with rows of chairs, every single one of them occupied by rich and powerful and famous people. Names and faces you’d know, along with a whole bunch only people like me are supposed to know about. They were all staring with rapt attention at the man standing on the raised dais before them, commanding the room with fierce authority. Everyone there seemed absolutely fascinated by what they were hearing, hanging on his every word. But there was also something about them that suggested they were scared—either of the man on the dais or of what he was saying. What could he be suggesting? What could be so extreme that it could frighten even hardened Satanists? I pushed the door open a little more, and when no one reacted I squeezed through the gap and stood at the back of the hall, behind the rows of chairs. Molly and Isabella moved quickly in after me, leaving the door ajar, just in case. We stood very still, hardly breathing, but no one looked back. All their attention was fixed on the man on the dais.

Tall, dark and compelling, he strode confidently back and forth on the dais. In his expensively tailored suit, he looked and sounded a lot like one of those well-rehearsed motivational speakers, working his way through a series of points and positions on his way to the bit where we all get rich. He smiled a lot, showing perfect teeth, and his regular handsome features had that slightly stretched look of subtle plastic surgeries. His hair was suspiciously jet-black for a man well into his forties. But his voice was rich and sure and utterly compelling, holding his audience in the palm of his hand. I leaned in close to Molly and Isabella and murmured in their ears.

“Either of you know this guy?”

“The face is familiar,” said Molly, frowning.

“So it should be,” said Isabella. “That is the one and only Alexandre Dusk. Big man in computers. A millionaire before he was twenty, and a billionaire before he was twenty-one. No one knows how rich he is now, but when he talks, governments listen. If they know what’s good for them. But . . . he hasn’t been seen in public for years. People have to put up millions just to ask him questions over the phone. Most have to settle for an e-mail. So what the hell is he doing here, in person?”

“If you’d belt up and let us listen, we might find out,” said Molly.

So we shut up and listened. Dusk could talk, though he sounded more like a politician than some self-made computer geek. He spoke well and fluently, pinning his audience to their seats. He was selling them a vision. He’d clearly already been talking for some time, getting his audience worked up. They really wanted what he was selling. Dusk prowled back and forth before them, his voice rising and rising as he gestured with increasing assurance. And when I realised what he was talking about, I was fascinated, too, even as a slow, cold horror crept over me.

“The Droods have removed themselves from the game,” said Alexandre Dusk. “They’re effectively leaderless now, and fighting among themselves. They may have marvellous new armour, but they don’t know what to do with it. They are yesterday’s men; we are the future. The Immortals are a dead end. Most of them are gone, the few survivors scattered and on the run. The Droods did us a favour there by removing the one organised and influential force that might have been able to stand against us. Right now, every government and leader in the world is looking for a chance to struggle out from under the Droods’ oppressive heel, looking to seize the chance to think and act for themselves. They want to be powers in their own right, and they’ll listen to anyone who can show them a new way. And that’s going to be us.”

“You see?” Molly murmured in my ear. “You set the governments of the world free, for the first time in history, and the first thing they do is plot to stab you in the back.”

“Of course,” said Isabella. “They’re politicians.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” I said.

“This is our time, come round again!” said Dusk. It is our duty to take advantage of this situation, all this marvellous chaos and confusion, and take the reins of power for ourselves, as it was always meant we should. But not by replacing these governments and leaders. We’ve tried that, and it’s never worked. The sheep always rebel when they realise they’re headed for the slaughterhouse. No, my friends, we’ve always made better kingmakers than kings. The power behind the throne. Harder to detect, harder to fight, harder to find out what our true agendas are until it’s far too late. You can get much more done when you’re not in the public eye, and there’s no one to be horrified by the methods we use. And it’s always good to have a leader around to use as a fall guy if it all goes wrong and we have to make a swift exit by the back door.

“So we have become the latest generation of advisers, political consultants, focus groups, lobbyists, personal assistants. . . . We are the people who really decide what gets done. And now that the politicians have come to rely on us, now that they’re ready to listen to anything we have to say as long as it keeps them in power . . . it’s time for the Great Sacrifice. The final willing degradation of Humanity, a spiritual crime so great it will damn all their souls and give our lord Satan his final victory over mankind. Then we will dispose of the leaders and take their place as kings of the new Earth!”

The crowd went mad. They rose to their feet, shouting and screaming, pounding their hands together, almost out of their minds with excitement and anticipation. The whole room was full of a wild, vicious, malignant hysteria.

I looked at Molly and Isabella. “Is he serious? Are they serious?”

“Sounds like it,” said Isabella.

“What the hell is this Great Sacrifice?” said Molly. “Whom are they planning on sacrificing?”

Isabella glared at the howling crowd, her upper lip curled. “Look at them. Typical Satanists. The little men, the cheats and bullies who’d never rise to the top through their own abilities. They want to be king of Shit Heap, and take their revenge on the world and all those people who stand between them and the things they want, the things they think they deserve. The secret plotters and the backstabbers . . . They want power because at heart they’re cowards, afraid of everyone who has power over them.”

“The worst evil always comes out of small people,” said Molly. “Small-minded, small-souled, vicious little turds.”

“Satanists,” I said. “I do get it, Molly, really.”

And then the whole boardroom went quiet, and we looked up to find everyone in the crowd had turned around and was staring at us. Dusk pointed a dramatic finger in our direction.

“Intruders! Strike them down in Satan’s name!”

“Damn,” I said. “Ladies, I think it is time we took our leave.”

“Try to keep up,” said Isabella, already halfway out the door.

Molly and I were right on her heels. I slammed the door shut behind us and crushed the lock with an armoured hand. It wouldn’t hold off the crowd for long, but it should buy us some time. I spun round, and then swore dispassionately as a demon dog came pounding down the corridor towards us. I have encountered such things before, but this had to be the biggest I’d ever seen: a great mountain of night-black flesh almost filling the corridor from wall to wall, its hunched back brushed against the ceiling. The whole corridor shuddered under the thunder of its approach, great clawed paws slamming against the floor. Isabella glared at me.

“I told you not to come here! It must have smelled your torc!”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Put all the blame on me.”

“I’d run, if there were anywhere to run,” said Molly.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” I said, stepping forward to face the demon dog.

It was almost upon us now, great slabs of muscle moving smoothly under its dark hide. It had a flat, brutal face, with flaring hellfire eyes and a wide slash of mouth packed with more vicious serrated teeth than seemed physically possible. It snorted and grunted hungrily as it ran, and already it was close enough that I could smell the blood and brimstone on its breath.

It came straight at me like a runaway train, lifting its ugly head to howl its fury: a terrible, primitive sound, all hate and rage and spite for everything that lived. A disturbingly human sound, rather than anything animal, because a demon dog only looks like a dog. I armoured up, the golden strange matter covering me from head to toe in a moment. And like that I felt stronger, faster, sharper, like coming fully awake after dozing all day. I never feel more alive than when I’m wearing the family armour, boosted far beyond human limitations, to defend Humanity from all the things that threaten us. But even as I moved forward to face the demon dog, I wasn’t actually sure any of that would be enough to stop several tons of advancing demon dog.

They’re not real, not natural. They’re physical constructs: made, not born, in special labs, created to be strong enough to hold and contain a demon out of Hell. A muscular machine possessed by a demon, trained to go for the soul. Fortunately, the shape itself limits what a demon can do. Because they’re possessing a dog’s shape, they’re limited by the natural laws of this world to take on the nature of a dog. Which means they’re vicious as hell, but not terribly bright. They fight and attack like an animal, with no thought of strategy.

Still bloody strong and hideously powerful, though.

So I ran straight at the demon dog and punched it right in its ugly face. My golden fist sank deep into its night-dark forehead, piercing the flesh and cracking the heavy bone beneath. The demon dog howled with pain and shock, skidding to a halt as it pushed me ahead of it. Molly and Isabella scattered to get out of its way, pressing their backs against the corridor walls we as passed them. I held my balance till we both came to a halt, and then ripped my armoured hand out of its head. Dark, steaming blood ran down the demon dog’s face, briefly catching fire as it passed over the flaring eyes. It growled deep in its chest and swung its head back and forth, throwing the blood off. Where the dark blood hit the walls, the surface blistered and bubbled. The wound was already healing, the dark flesh knitting back together.

And while the dog was busy thinking about that, I extended my right hand into a razor-edged golden blade and jammed it into the dog’s flaring left eye. The flames snapped out as the eyeball exploded, drenching the front of my armour in stinking gore, which ran quickly down to pool on the corridor floor and eat holes in the carpet. The demon dog jerked its head back, howling miserably, shaking its great head back and forth as though it could shake off the pain that filled its simple mind. I stood poised, waiting for my chance, and then lunged forward and sank my golden blade deep in its remaining eye. The demon dog reared up, slamming its head and shoulders against the ceiling and lifting me right off my feet. I clung to the dog’s head with my other hand and pulled my blade out. Long strings of dripping musculature clung to my sword, and I flicked them away as I jumped back from the demon dog.

The dog surged forward again, and I backed quickly away from it. Even blind, it could still smell where I was. The flat, brutal face slammed into me like a runaway car, the force of the impact lifting me up off my feet and carrying me before it. I forced myself down until my golden feet made contact with the floor again, and then I dug them in, gradually forcing the dog to a halt. My feet left deep grooves in the wooden floor, but it still took all my armour’s strength to hold off the demon dog as it forced its way forward. I punched the demon dog’s head again and again, the sound of rending flesh and splintering bone horribly loud in the corridor. Stinking dark blood drenched my armour, only to fall helplessly away, unable to affect the golden strange matter. But the wounds I made kept healing, and an eye suddenly rose up to fill the empty left socket, and caught fire. The demon dog could see again.

It still couldn’t force me backwards, large as it was; it had no room to manoeuvre in the corridor. It flexed its great neck muscles and threw me backwards. I travelled several feet before I landed, and braced myself, but the dog stayed where it was, regarding me ominously with its one flaring eye. It was growling constantly now, like a never-ending roll of thunder. It charged forward, moving impossibly quickly, and its huge jaws closed with vicious strength on my chest and left shoulder. They closed like a steel press, bringing incredible pressure to bear; but it couldn’t breach my armour. Huge teeth broke and shattered as the jaws tried to break through. The demon dog whipped its head back and forth, flailing me around like a rat, and all I could do was hang on desperately with both hands, golden fingers sunk deep into its dark flesh. The massive jaws clamped down, but my armour held. There aren’t many things that can pierce Drood armour, and a demon dog’s teeth don’t even come close, I was relieved to discover.

The jaws opened to try another bite, and I jumped backwards, using the armoured strength in my legs to put a reasonable distance between me and the dog. It surged forward again, mouth gaping wide. I waited till the last moment, and then thrust my hand into the open mouth, grabbed its tongue, and tore the writhing thing out by the roots. Blood shot out like a fire hose as the dog dug all four paws in and skidded to a halt. It howled in outrage, the sound half-choked and interrupted by gushing blood, but still deafeningly loud in the confined space. The ripped-out tongue thrashed and squirmed in my hand, and then wrapped itself tightly around my arm. Serrated teeth on the underside of the tongue broke and fell away without even scratching my armour. I crushed the tongue in my hand into a bloody pulp, tore the rest away from my arm and stamped the remainder into a nasty mess under my feet. Some things can gross out even a hardened field agent.

But while I was preoccupied with that, the demon dog swung its wounded head against me, lifting me up off my feet and pinning me against the corridor wall. I hung there, feet dangling helplessly in midair, my arms trapped at my sides by the great weight of its bulk. The corridor wall cracked beneath me, ruptured by so many tons of pressure. My armour still protected me, but I couldn’t break free. All the demon dog had to do was hold me there until the Satanists got out of the locked room, and then . . .

Molly and Isabella popped up out of nowhere, glowing blades in their hands, and hit the demon dog from both sides at once. Their witch knives sank deep into the dog’s throat. Blood spurted thickly, steaming on the air, and Molly and Isabella moved quickly back to avoid it, without removing their knives. They forced the blades deeper in, and then jerked them across the dog’s throat until they met in the middle. The dog tried to howl, but they’d cut its voice out. Dark blood gushed across the floor, and the pressure on me began to weaken. Suddenly all the strength went out of it, and the demon dog collapsed. Molly and Isabella stepped back, regarding the dog warily. I pushed the body away from me. It didn’t react. It was panting harshly now, and the flames had gone out in its eye. It took one last snap at me, for spite’s sake, and then it stopped breathing.

Right on the edge of my hearing I heard a despairing scream as the possessing demon was forced out of the dead dog and sent plummeting back into Hell to face its punishment for having dared fail.

The dog lay still, nothing but a great slab of muscle now, dead and empty. Molly glared at it.

“Bad dog.”

I armoured down and stretched tiredly. Fighting the dog had taken a lot out of me. The armour has the strength, but I still have to operate it. Isabella scowled at me.

“Typical Drood. Had to armour up, didn’t you? That much strange matter has set off every alarm in the place!”

“Big dog,” I said a bit plaintively. “What was I supposed to do, let it use me as a chew toy? Hit it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper? And I don’t hear any alarms.”

Molly snapped her fingers, and I could hear all of Lightbringer House’s secret alarms going off at once. Bells, sirens, flashing lights, the works. And in the background, an endless inhuman howl that had nothing to do with any alarm system.

“I think we woke something up,” said Molly. “And I don’t think we should stick around to find out what.”

“Yeah,” Isabella said reluctantly. “I can always come back again.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I said.

“And satisfaction brought her back!” snapped Isabella. “Now how are we going to get out of here before that boardroom door finally gives way and lets loose a whole crowd of angry Satanists?”

“No problem,” said Molly. “Eddie has the Merlin Glass. We can step through it, out of this building and into Drood Hall, and then shut the Glass down before anyone can follow us. They won’t even know where we’ve gone.”

I already had the Merlin Glass out, and was shaking it up to full size. Isabella glowered at it jealously.

“The Merlin Glass? How the hell did you get your hands on that, Drood? I’ve been looking for the Glass for years. . . . Trust the Droods to keep all the best toys for themselves. You have to let me examine it!”

“Maybe later,” I said. “If you’re good.”

“You want a slap?” said Isabella.

“Hands off the boyfriend, Iz,” said Molly.

But I was concerned over a new problem. No matter what I tried, the Merlin Glass stubbornly refused to show me anything other than my own reflection. I tried shaking it back to its original size, and then shaking it hard, on general principle, but it remained just a looking glass. I finally said something harsh but justified, and put the Glass away again.

“Houston, we have a problem,” I said heavily. “It would appear this building has put up some really heavy-duty shields, now that the alarms have gone off, and the Glass can’t access the world outside. We’re not going to be able to leave that way, after all.”

“It’s been that kind of a day,” Molly said wistfully.

“Terrific,” said Isabella. “You’re a bloody jinx, you know that, Drood?”

And then we all looked round sharply. From somewhere not nearly far enough off came the sound of a great many raised and furious voices, heading our way at speed. The Satanists had finally got out of the boardroom. I looked quickly round the corridor. No turnings, no windows anywhere, and the corridor ended some twenty feet on in a blank wall. The other way was blocked by several tons of dead demon dog, frustrating us even in death. The sound of the oncoming mob was a lot closer. I looked at Molly and Isabella.

“I am open to suggestions.”

“I can’t teleport us out,” said Molly. “Not past these shields. Iz?”

“Took everything I had getting in here,” said Isabella. “I was expecting to stroll out unrecognised.”

“How high up are we?” I said. “How far is it to the lobby and the main exit?”

“We’re on the twenty-second floor,” said Isabella. “One elevator at our end of the hall, and a stairway.”

“Really don’t like the idea of being trapped in an elevator,” I said. “And the stairway is bound to be guarded.” I looked thoughtfully at the end wall. It didn’t look that tough. “I could punch through that wall, grab the pair of you and jump. . . . I’d survive the fall, and if you stuck close enough to the armour, it should protect you as well.”

“Have you actually tried this before?” said Isabella.

“Not as such, no.”

“Then I am not trusting my life to a should,” Isabella said firmly.

“We’ll take the elevator,” I said.

“Witches and sisters first,” said Molly.

We headed quickly for the end of the corridor. The shouts and howls were dangerously close behind us, but I didn’t look back. It wouldn’t help, and I didn’t want to be distracted. And then bullet holes exploded in the walls to either side of us, and I immediately armoured up again and fell back a little, so I could stand between the witches and the bullets. I did try to do it subtly, for their pride’s sake. I was pretty sure Molly wouldn’t allow herself to be taken out by some mere bullet, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I don’t, where Molly’s concerned, no matter how mad she gets afterwards. Some things are nonnegotiable. It’s a guy thing.

We got to the elevator, and Isabella hit the call button with her knuckle. (Old burglar’s trick: using the knuckle instead of a finger, so you don’t leave fingerprints.) I turned and looked back. Beyond the body of the demon dog the corridor was full of angry people with flushed red faces and snarling mouths. A dozen or so had guns, though luckily the bulk of the dead dog was protecting us from a straightforward attack. They had to shoot round the massive bulk, and they weren’t very good at it. But some had already reached the body and were trying to force their way past it, snapping off shots as they did. I stood facing them, trying to be as wide as possible. Half a dozen men and one woman opened fire on me from almost point-blank range, blasting away indiscriminately. I stood firm and my armour absorbed every bullet that hit me, soaking up the impact and sucking them in. The Satanists kept firing, but I could tell they were impressed. There’s something very off-putting and downright intimidating about an enemy who stands there and lets you shoot him. Especially when he’s staring back at you with a featureless metal mask that doesn’t even have any eyeholes.

But the Satanists kept firing, and I couldn’t move or even back away to get to the elevator without leaving Molly and Isabella vulnerable to a lucky shot. Bloody bullets can go anywhere in a firefight. Especially in a confined space like this. And then, as so often happens during extended firefights, they all ran out of bullets. The guns fell silent, and the Satanists stopped and looked dumbly at their empty weapons. One actually shook his gun, as though that might help. Such things never happen on television. People behind them yelled for them to get back out of the way and let someone else have a go. Presumably they had more guns, with bullets. I risked a look back over my shoulder.

“Is that elevator here yet?”

“Something’s wrong with it!” snapped Isabella. “I’ve hit the call button till it’s started whimpering, but the floor lights aren’t working and the door won’t open.”

“Buy me some time, Molly,” I said.

Molly stepped forward to stand beside me, snapped her fingers sharply and the Satanists closest to us suddenly disappeared, replaced by a dozen very surprised-looking toads. Really ugly, warty toads. The next-nearest Satanists fell back, ducking into doorways to give themselves cover.

Isabella sniffed loudly. “Toads. I thought you’d outgrown that, Molly.”

“Never mess with a classic,” said Molly. “And never argue with success. People will risk bullets, but show them a bunch of their friends suddenly catching flies with their tongues, and suddenly everyone’s very happy for someone else to go first. Eddie, I think we’ve waited long enough for that elevator. You get the doors open, while Isabella and I show these Devil-worshipping shit-stains what happens when you get the Metcalf sisters mad at you. Iz, you in the mood to do something awful and downright distressing?”

“Always,” said Isabella.

I expected them to smite the Satanists hip and thigh with destructive spells and really messy magics, but instead Molly and Isabella strode down the corridor side by side, walked straight through the dead dog as though they were ghosts and then threw themselves at the nearest Satanists. Basically, the witches beat the shit out of the poor sods, their small fists flying with appalling speed and precision. Blood flew, bones broke and the air was full of horrid sounds as the Metcalf sisters knocked the Satanists down with much malice aforethought and trampled them underfoot. The Satanists had braced themselves for a magical attack, but two fistfighting young witches were a bit too close and personal. Molly and Isabella pressed forward, laughing harshly in the face of the demoralised enemy.

Behind my golden mask I had to grin. Never get a Metcalf sister mad at you.

Some of the Satanists remembered they had guns, and opened fire again. Molly and Isabella stood their ground, whipping their hands back and forth in mystical patterns, and bullets turned into flowers and fluttered to the floor. Some Satanists ditched their handguns for automatic weapons, but it didn’t make any difference. Just meant more flowers. Still, while it was good to know Molly and Isabella could defend themselves, I also knew they couldn’t keep it up for long.

I’d started to give my full attention to the closed elevator doors when the building’s main security systems finally kicked in. Great sliding panels opened in the corridor walls, and I had to blink a few times. I would have sworn they weren’t there a moment before. Really large gun barrels emerged from gun emplacements inside the walls, and turned quickly to orient themselves on Molly and Isabella. I ran forward and put myself between the gun barrels and the witches just as the guns opened fire.

The bullets pounded away at me, targeting my head and chest and gut, and while my armour easily absorbed the bullets, the sheer intensity of the fire meant I daren’t move, for fear of exposing Molly and Isabella. This was serious weaponry, pumping out bullets in a steady stream. They chewed up the walls behind me on both sides, blasting jagged holes in the doors and blowing them off their hinges. Some hit the dog’s body and blew the dark flesh apart in a series of explosions. Meat confetti blew everywhere, and dark liquids splashed up and down the corridor. The smell was appalling, as the bullets blew away muscles to reach the organs within.

Wave after wave of bullets slammed into me and were absorbed, doing no damage. I was starting to feel a bit cocky, a bit Is that all you’ve got? when the gun barrels suddenly fell silent and retreated into the walls. To be immediately replaced by even bigger new guns, firing explosive flechettes at thousands of rounds a second. The dead dog blew up, blown to fragments in a moment. I stood my ground, bracing myself and leaning slightly forward into the solid stream of bullets, my armour sucking up the bullets with continued enthusiasm. When I was sure my armour could handle that much concentrated punishment, I advanced slowly forward into the pounding fire, grabbed each gun barrel in turn and ripped them right out of their emplacements. I tied the last few in knots, to make a point, before throwing them on the floor. Suddenly it was very quiet in the corridor. Followed by a wild round of applause from behind me, and a wolf whistle from Molly.

Another panel slid open in the wall beside me. A gun barrel started to roll out. I grabbed it and forced it back inside. The gun emplacement exploded, flames and black smoke belching out into the corridor. None of which troubled me inside my armour. Back down at the other end of the corridor, the Satanists were all bunched together, maintaining a safe distance from Molly and Isabella and me. They’d given up on guns. Something in their faces seemed to suggest that they felt that what I was doing was somehow unfair. I shouldn’t have been able to shrug off their no doubt very expensive weaponry.

I was so busy looking for more sliding panels in the walls, I was completely caught by surprise when trapdoors started dropping suddenly open the whole length of the corridor. Great squares of flooring fell away, silently and without warning, and apparently at random. I braced myself, legs akimbo, and looked quickly to Molly and Isabella.

I shouldn’t have worried. Several trapdoors opened beneath the two witches as they strolled unconcernedly back to join me; but Molly and Isabella walked right over the open spaces as though they weren’t even there, tripping lightly across the deep drops without even looking down. Isabella sniffed loudly as she rejoined me by the elevator doors.

“Trapdoors? What is this, amateur night?”

“Right,” said Molly. “I mean, please. That’s one of the first tricks I learned.”

“Can you walk on water, too?” I said, honestly curious.

Molly laughed. “Hell, sweetie, I can tap-dance on swimming pools! For a while, that was my favourite party piece.”

“A great improvement over the old one,” said Isabella. “And a lot less trouble cleaning up after. You always were a show-off. She was the same as a girl, Drood. She and her precious unicorn.”

I had to look at Molly. “You rode a unicorn?”

She grinned briefly. “Not for long.”

I looked back up the corridor. It seemed safest. The satanic business types had regrouped, many of them now carrying really big guns, and what looked like grenade launchers and flamethrowers. The only reason they hadn’t already come after us was that they were too busy arguing among themselves as to who should have the honour of approaching us first. Everyone seemed very keen to give that honour to someone else. It’s nice to feel appreciated. Some bright spark produced a grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it along the floor towards us. The trapdoors immediately snapped shut, one after another, to help the grenade along its way. I waited till it had almost reached us, to be sporting, and then bent over, picked the grenade up and held it to my chest with both hands. The grenade went off, and my armour absorbed all of the blast and most of the smoke. I looked back up the corridor and waved cheerfully to the one who’d lobbed the grenade; and he actually stamped his foot in frustration, turned away and had to be comforted by the other Satanists. I don’t think they’d encountered Drood armour before. Certainly, it wasn’t doing their self-confidence any good. Several looked like they wanted to burst into tears.

“Stop showing off and open the elevator doors!” said Isabella.

“No sense of fun,” said Molly. “She was the same as a girl. She and her enchanted motorbike.”

I turned back to the elevator doors and considered them thoughtfully. And while I was doing that, a horrifically bright light flared up in the corridor: a fierce, incandescent and definitely unnatural glare brighter than the sun. Almost bright enough to overpower my armoured mask, which had to cloak my vision in darkness for a few moments to protect my eyes. Molly and Isabella cried out in shock and clung to each other, momentarily blinded. And while we were all disoriented, new panels slid open in the corridor walls, revealing dark, concealed places full of things very like trapdoor spiders.

Large, hairy things the size of cats, with far too many legs and eyes, and snapping fanged mouths. They came swarming out of the walls, poison dripping from their mouths, eager to get at us while we were still helpless. But my mask was already back to normal. I moved quickly forward to block their way, and they swarmed all over me, clinging to my armour with their sticky legs, trying to force their fangs through the strange matter. I shuddered and squirmed inside my armour. I’ve never liked spiders. I made myself stand still till they were all over me, surging and pushing and pressing their deadly mouths against the outside of my mask; and then I seized them in my golden hands, crushing their pulpy bodies and tearing them away from my face. I slapped at them, and they fell away dead. Some dropped off and tried to run, and I stamped them all underfoot. When I finished, I was breathing hard, and my heart was going like a trip-hammer. Never liked spiders. I looked at the openings in the walls, and they all slid swiftly shut. Molly and Isabella blinked gingerly around themselves as their vision cleared.

“What the hell just happened?” sad Isabella. “What’s all this mess on the floor? And what is that dripping from your hands, Drood?”

“Trust me,” I said. “You really don’t want to know.”

“I’ve had enough of this place and its nasty little surprises,” said Molly, knuckling one watering eye. “Time we were leaving. Open those elevator doors, Eddie, and don’t be polite about it.”

“Love to,” I said.

I jammed one set of golden fingers between the two doors, making a gap big enough to get both hands in, and then I forced the doors apart. Metal shrieked and crumpled under my armoured strength. I looked down what should have been the elevator shaft, and swore mildly. I hadn’t expected the elevator to actually be there; I’d been thinking more along the lines of grabbing one of the elevator cables and then sliding down it with Molly and Isabella hanging on. I could do that. Unfortunately, there were no cables and no shaft. The whole mechanical business was gone, and the shaft itself had been replaced by a long, pulsing pink throat, complete with thick purple veins, a handful of staring eyes and several rows of swiftly rotating teeth. A curling acidic haze filled the throat, suggesting some kind of stomach at the bottom. Dropping into the throat would be like passing through a meat grinder. And a hungry one, at that. I was pretty sure my armour would survive, but I couldn’t say the same for Molly and Isabella. A series of low sucking sounds drifted up the throat. Something was feeling peckish.

“If I had the time, I’d piss down you,” I told the throat, and then turned back to Molly. “We’re taking the stairs.”

“That’s still a bad idea,” said Molly. “But apparently the lesser of two evils.”

“I hate this place,” said Isabella.

We headed for the door to the stairwell. I insisted on going first. I stood before the door for a few moments, looking it over carefully and checking for any new surprises, and then slammed it open with one heave from my armoured shoulder. The door slammed back against the inside wall, making a hell of a din that echoed down the long stairwell. There was nothing obviously dangerous waiting, so I started down the rough cement steps, with Molly and Isabella close behind. I didn’t hear any sounds of pursuit, which rather worried me. If they weren’t coming after us, it could only be because they didn’t need to. Because something was waiting for us.

We made it down the first few floors without incident, the only sound that of our feet pounding on the bare steps. And then I stopped and held my hand up for silence. We stood and listened, and from below came the sound of feet ascending the stairs. There was something not quite right about the sound. Flat, unhurried, almost shuffling. And not a word, not a human voice, to accompany them. The Satanists we’d encountered before hadn’t been at all diffident about expressing themselves. I leaned out over the drop and peered down the stairwell. And up the stairs came twenty or thirty naked men and women.

I looked at Molly. “Why are they wearing no clothes? I don’t think I like the idea of being attacked by naked people. I mean, satanic nudists? What’s that all about?”

“You don’t get it, Eddie,” said Molly, not even smiling. “They’re not wearing clothes because they don’t need any. They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

I leaned out and looked again. They were closer now, close enough for me to see the terrible wounds that had killed them. Great holes in their chests from where their hearts had been ripped out. Ragged nubs of bone protruded from the gaping wounds, and long streaks of dried blood crusted their pale grey torsos. Their faces were blank and staring, their eyes unblinking. They were dead, and they were coming for us.

“These are what’s left over from human sacrifices,” said Isabella. “Not even zombies, really, because there’s nothing left in them. Just bodies raised up and moved around by an external will. I don’t know why the Satanists kept them. Waste not, want not, I suppose. The raised dead do make excellent shock troops against the living. Very psychologically effective. Shock-and-awe troops, if you like.”

They were only a floor or so below us now, close enough that I could see other things that had been done to the dead bodies. Some had missing hands; some had no feet and stomped along on what was left of their ankles. Some had no eyes, or teeth, or lips. And all of this had clearly happened before they died.

“Why do that?” I said.

“Satanists just want to have fun,” said Isabella.

I looked at her. “You think this is funny? Torture and mutilation and human sacrifice?”

Molly put a gentle hand on my arm. I couldn’t feel it, but I could see it. “You know how it is, Eddie. We have to laugh in situations like this, or we’d go mad.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know. It . . . got to me, for a moment there.”

“That’s the idea,” said Isabella. “One thing about Satanists; they really know how to push your buttons.”

“You don’t have to worry about hurting them, Eddie,” said Molly. “There’s no one left inside them to hurt. It’s only . . . bodies.”

“You take care of them,” I said. “I can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm.”

“Sure, Eddie,” said Molly. “No problem. You stand back and let the Metcalf sisters get to work.”

The two witches leaned over the stairwell, chanted something in unison and extended their hands. Great waves of fire burst from their fingertips, gushing blasts of hot yellow flames that shot down the shaft and incinerated the dead bodies coming up. Fire filled the shaft, so hot the air rippled around it and the stairwell walls blackened. There was a brief stench of burnt meat, and then even that was gone. The flames snapped off. The air still shimmered with heat haze, and I had to wait a few moments before I could take a look. All the dead men and women were gone. Nothing left behind to mark their presence but some scorch marks on the steps below, and a few ashes floating on the air.

“Fire purifies,” said Molly. “If you do it right.”

“I’m wondering where they stored the bodies,” said Isabella. “Maybe they have really big freezers in the basement.”

“I think they kept them around to gloat over,” said Molly. “That’s Satanists for you. You all right now, Eddie?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s just that . . . some things are wrong.”

“Hold everything,” said Isabella. “Something else is coming up the stairs.”

“Of course there is,” I said. “It’s been that kind of day. Are they at least wearing clothes this time?”

“Yes and no,” said Molly, leaning too far out over the stairwell for safety. I pulled her back, and she glared at me. “What’s coming up next isn’t really real, as such. Though they are quite definitely present.”

I leaned out for a look. A whole group of human shapes were marching up the stairs in perfect lockstep. They were like . . . plastic impressions of people: the right shape but no detail, with grey and colourless, blank faces. There was something really odd about them, though it took me a moment to realise what. You could see them only from the front. From the side, they were barely an inch or so thick. And from behind, they were only a concave gap. I leaned back to look at Molly.

“Okay, ten out of ten for weird. What the hell are they?”

“Husques,” Molly said succinctly. “Experienced sorcerers can shed them, like a snake sheds its skin. Really experienced sorcerers can throw off ten or twenty husques at a time, and send them out to do their bidding. A physical extension of the sorcerer’s will. Better than zombies, because the sorcerer can experience what his husque experiences, but more dangerous, because what happens to the husque can affect the sorcerer who throws it. They’re inhumanly strong, and there do seem to be rather a lot of them.”

“So, if we damage enough of these husques, we can hurt, maybe even kill the sorcerers?” I said.

“Got it in one,” said Molly. “You want me and Iz to fry them for you?”

“No,” I said. “I have some serious anger issues to work off, and I feel the need to vent.”

So I strode down the steps and waded right into the husques. They swarmed forward like rabid dogs, eager for the kill, and I was ready for them. I punched the first one to reach me right in the face. My golden fist smashed through and out the other side. The husque was only an inch or so thick. The husque flapped about on the end of my arm, its hands flailing uselessly against my armour. I tore it apart with hardly an effort, and it shredded like paper. I made my way steadily down the stairs, beating the husques down and tearing them apart. They were all over me, clawing at me with inhuman strength and perseverance, even as I destroyed them, but they couldn’t touch me through my armour. I ripped them to pieces, smashing them down and trampling them underfoot, and it felt good, so good. I thought of Satanist sorcerers screaming and dying; and I smiled inside my golden mask. It wasn’t a good smile. It took me three flights of stairs before I finally came to a halt, because I’d run out of husques. Molly and Isabella came tripping down the stairs to join me. The air was full of something very like confetti.

“Feeling better now?” said Molly.

“Much,” I said. “It’s easier fighting monsters. They’re just what they are. But people shouldn’t make themselves into monsters.”

“Boy Scout,” said Isabella, not unkindly.

“Something else is coming up the stairs,” said Molly. “And it sounds . . . really nasty.”

“I have had enough of this,” I said. “They’re sending things against us to wear us down, so that when we finally have to face the big shots, down in the lobby, we won’t have anything left to hit them with. My armour is endlessly strong, but I’m not. And you’re using up your magics. You can bet they’ve got something really special waiting for us on the ground floor, and we need to be in shape to face it. So we can’t keep fighting these things.”

“I’m not ready to give up yet,” said Isabella, bristling.

“Neither is he,” said Molly. “Eddie’s pointing out that even our powers aren’t infinite. And if we use them all up fighting proxies, he isn’t sure he can defend us from what the Satanists will have waiting down in the lobby.”

“I’d die trying,” I said.

“Of course you would,” said Molly.

“All right, all right, I’m convinced,” said Isabella. “This one’s a keeper, Molly. Now tell me you have a better idea, Drood.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know about better, but it’s definitely an idea.” I looked down the stairwell. “It’s only seventeen floors or so. I think we should jump.”

“What?” said Molly. “That’s your great alternative? I take it all back. You’re crazy, Eddie, and dangerous with it.”

“I thought that was what you liked about me,” I said.

“I am not jumping seventeen floors! I can’t fly! And I do not want to hear any sentence from you that includes the word broomstick.”

“To make it completely clear,” said Isabella, “I don’t fly either.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, in that patient, manly tone that drives women absolutely insane. “It’s really very simple. I take you in my arms and jump. You cling tight to the armour, and the sheer proximity should protect you, too.”

“There’s that word should again,” Molly said dangerously.

“Things aren’t that desperate,” said Isabella.

“Something really nasty is coming up the stairs,” I said. “And there’s undoubtedly worse to follow.”

“All right, things are that desperate,” said Isabella. “I’m still not going to do it.”

“I think we have to, Iz,” said Molly.

“No!” said Isabella.

“Why not?” I said.

“I hate heights!”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “The fall will probably kill you.”

I grabbed them both, took a firm hold and jumped. We plummeted down the stairwell, the two witches clinging desperately to me with both hands. They chanted something more or less in unison, and I could feel subtle magics wrapping around us, bonding them to my armour. Good idea. Might even work. The stairways whipped past us faster and faster, Molly’s and Isabella’s voices Dopplering away above us. Various unpleasant things stared blankly at us as we dropped past them, and I was quite happy to give them a miss. I’d had enough of fighting the Satanists’ attack things. I wanted to slap the big guys down and then get the hell out, so I could pass on the information to my family. That was what mattered.

The last few floors swept past in a blur, and then the ground floor slammed up against my feet like a hammer blow. My armoured legs flexed, absorbing the impact, and the armour protected me from the shock. I hardly felt a thing. Molly and Isabella slumped bonelessly in my arms, but their magics seemed to have done the trick. I straightened up, holding the two witches to me until they could get their breath back and their legs under them. They finally straightened up and pushed me away, almost angrily. They made a point of standing unsupported on their own, and then giggled suddenly, and high-fived each other. A thought struck me.

“All this time I’ve been running back and forth, putting myself between you and all danger, but you’re both witches. You keep your hearts somewhere separate and safe. Have you really been in any danger, so far?”

“Don’t be silly, Eddie,” said Molly. “We can still be hurt, still die, if we’re hurt badly enough. You saw what happened to me when the Drood mob attacked me. I was ages getting over that.”

“Right,” said Isabella. “Keeping your heart separate is another ace up the sleeve. I’m a witch, not a goddess.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Molly. “What a ride! Let’s go back up and do it again!”

“Maybe later,” I said. “I think there are some people here who want to talk to us.”

We’d finally reached the lobby of Lightbringer House. It was packed with people. On most occasions, the lobby was probably a wide-open space, light and airy, big enough to impress without being actually intimidating. Just the place to put new arrivals in the right frame of mind. But now it was packed from wall to wall with businessmen and -women in smart power suits, loaded down with all kinds of really heavy-duty weapons, some so big it took two of them to aim the things.

There were security forces, in generic black uniforms, with guns. They all looked very professional. Scattered through the crowd were men and women with magical weapons, everything from pointing bones to glowing blades to Hands of Glory. Hundreds of people, all with weapons trained on Molly and Isabella and me. They had us outnumbered and outgunned, and they knew it. They were smiling: really nasty, unpleasant smiles. They didn’t want to kill us unless they had to. Not right away. They were looking forward to taking us somewhere private and doing awful things to us until we died of them. Maybe even sacrifice us to their lord and master. And then make use of our bodies afterwards. I looked around the lobby, and then laughed right in their faces.

“You know,” I said loudly, “the good thing about killing Satanists is that you never have to feel bad about it afterwards. There’s no such thing as too many dead Satanists.”

I struck a pose and held up an armoured fist. Sharp spikes extruded from the golden knuckles, gleaming brightly. There were a few shocked gasps from the watching crowd. Encouraged, I continued, concentrating on refining my armour, shaping it into a more aggressive form through sheer willpower. I couldn’t hold the changes for long; but they didn’t know that. Rows of thick, solid spikes rose up from my arms and shoulders, and heavy golden spikes jutted from my elbows. I turned slowly, so everyone could get a good look at how nasty Drood armour could be.

Not to be outdone, Molly struck an equally impressing pose beside me. Lightning flashed on the air, slamming down around her again and again, filling the lobby with its sharp actinic glare. Lightning danced around Molly Metcalf and never touched her once. And then it stopped as suddenly as it started, leaving harsh blue-white energies roiling around Molly’s hands, spitting and crackling on the still air.

Isabella stamped one foot down hard on the lobby floor. The heavy marble cracked and shattered under the impact, and a series of ripples spread out from her, distorting the marble floor, rising up in sharp ridges under the Satanists’ feet.

The three of us moved leisurely to stand back-to-back, so between us we could cover the whole lobby. To my right, the lobby ended in massive glass windows, but they were opaque now, to make sure no one outside could see in. I was pretty sure they’d be soundproofed, too. Whatever happened in the lobby stayed in the lobby.

“So,” I said. “Who’s first?”

“I think that would have to be me,” said a familiar voice.

A narrow aisle opened up amid the packed Satanists, and Alexandre Dusk came strolling forward to face me. He looked calm and assured, and perhaps even a little bored: a great man called away from important business to deal with some trivial, minor matter. He stopped a safe distance away from me and gave me his best professional smile.

“You must realise this is over, Drood. You can’t kill us all.”

“Want to bet?” I said cheerfully. “I’m certainly ready to give it a bloody good try.”

A certain ripple of unease ran through the crowd. They may not have encountered Drood armour before, but they’d certainly heard things about it. There was a lot of looking at one another, and a general willingness to let somebody else be the first to start something. Some of them were even trying to hide behind one another. To his credit, Dusk didn’t seem at all impressed. He stood his ground and gave me his best smile.

“We might or might not be able to kill you, Drood. But we can quite definitely kill your companions, the infamous Metcalf sisters.”

“Watch your language, Dusk,” said Molly. “We are not infamous; we are legendary.”

“Right,” said Isabella. “Especially legendary when it comes to taking out the trash. Hands in the air, people; who wants to die first in an interesting and possibly explosive way?”

“I’m bored with turning people into toads,” said Molly. “What’s ickier than toads?”

“How about worms?” said Isabella. “They make such a satisfyingly squishy sound when you tread on them.”

“Locusts are good,” said Molly. “They go crunch!”

“You talk a good fight,” said Dusk. “But we have the numbers. And the weapons, and the magics, and all the powers of darkness. Armour off, Drood, and let us take you prisoner. Or you can watch us pull your little friends down, and kill them by inches right in front of you.”

“You’d kill them anyway,” I said. “You’re Satanists, and so by definition your word is worthless. But you won’t kill them, Dusk.”

“Really? Why not?”

“You really want Louisa Metcalf mad at you?” I said.

Another ripple ran through the crowd. They’d all heard of Louisa Metcalf. A general feeling of unease was making itself apparent in the crowd. They’d thought this was going to be easy. I don’t think any of them had ever been in a real fight before. Some were backing away; some were lowering their weapons and looking around for the exits. The confidence was oozing out of them. I had to fight an impulse to shout, Boo! just to see how many would faint or wet themselves.

Dusk must have realised what was happening. His voice cracked like a whip. “A witch is just a witch, and a Drood is only as strong as his armour! We . . . are so much more. We are the blessed children of the dark.”

“A few of you, maybe,” I said. “Most of your people look like they’re up way past their bedtime.”

Dusk shrugged. “You simply can’t get good followers these days. But there’s enough of us here to get the job done. Surrender now, and we’ll hold you somewhere secure till we can contact your family and make a deal. I’m sure they’ve got something we’d like that we can swap you and the witches for. I don’t want to have to kill you, not when you’re worth so much more to us as bargaining chips.”

I considered him thoughtfully. “Droods don’t surrender. You must know that. You’re stalling; buying time to hit us with some big secret weapon. You really think you can take us?”

“Anything will break, if you hit it hard enough and often enough,” said Dusk.

“It’s going to get messy,” I said. “Loud and messy. You ready to draw that much attention from outside?”

“The building is very thoroughly shielded,” said Dusk, confirming my suspicions. “I could sacrifice a busload of blind orphans in here, and no one outside would see or hear a thing. Don’t think we can’t hurt you inside that armour, Drood. We know all there is to know about hurting people.”

I had to laugh. “Droods have been honing their fighting skills for centuries. You’re amateur night.”

Dusk looked me over thoughtfully. “So which Drood are you, exactly?”

“Any Drood is every Drood,” I said.

“You think we fear the Droods?”

“You do if you’ve got any sense.”

A wild-eyed young man ran suddenly forward out of the crowd, screaming at the top of his lungs and wielding a long glowing sword. He brought the blade swinging round in a vicious arc, moving almost too fast to see. It hit me on the side of the neck and shattered into a dozen pieces. The young Satanist stood there with only the hilt in his hand. I leaned forward a little, so he could see his own reflection in my featureless golden mask.

“Run,” I said.

He sprinted back into the crowd and disappeared. I looked at Dusk, who shrugged.

“There’s always one.”

“There’ll be one fewer if he tries that again,” I said.

“I’m curious,” said Dusk. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

“Because I kill only when I have to,” I said. “That’s the difference between us.”

“Oh, I think we’re a lot closer than you care to admit,” said Dusk. “We’re both quite capable of doing whatever we consider . . . necessary. And you can’t stop us.”

“I wear the Drood armour,” I said. “You can’t stop me.”

“Oh, please,” said Dusk. “There’s nothing about you that couldn’t be cured with the right kind of can opener.”

“And there’s nothing about all the people in this lobby that a good kicking couldn’t help to put right,” I said. “Shall we get started?” I looked about me, and people actually fell back. “I mean, come on! Worshipping the Devil? When has that ever been a good idea? I put it all down to poor toilet training, myself.”

Dusk looked at Molly and Isabella. “Since your companion seems impervious to good sense, have you anything useful to say?”

“Fuck off and die,” said Molly.

“Apparently not,” said Dusk.

“Why are we still talking?” I said. “Are we waiting for your marvellous secret weapon to make its appearance? Or has one of its wheels come off?”

“No,” said Dusk. “I’m curious. I’ve never met a Drood before. Don’t know anyone who has. You’re the urban legends of the invisible world. How did you come to be here? How did you know I was going to be here today? Which of my people betrayed us?”

I had to smile behind my mask. I could have told him it was all down to chance, but he wouldn’t have believed it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said, to sow a little mischief.

“At least my power is my own,” said Dusk. “How does it feel, knowing that your only power comes from your armour? That you can have power over the world only by sealing yourself off from it? We glory in our power, and know sensations you can only dream of.”

“It’s not the armour,” I said. “It’s never the armour. It’s the Drood inside it. And to attack one of us is to attack the whole family. Are you really ready to declare open war on the Droods?”

There was a long pause. He was actually thinking about it. I really wasn’t sure what he would do next. He had the numbers and the weapons . . . but he wasn’t sure. I was still a Drood in my armour, and Molly and Isabella both had reputations for blood and mayhem. It would be a brave bookie who’d set the odds on this one. I was ready to fight if I had to, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to.

“Let them go,” Dusk said finally. “It’s not as if they know anything important. Run back to your family, Drood. Tell them their time is almost over.”

He gestured with his left hand, and his people obeyed him immediately, falling back to open up a narrow aisle between us and the lobby entrance. Molly and Isabella and I moved slowly but steadily over to the doors, not dropping our guard for a moment. Molly pushed the doors open, and she and Isabella slipped quickly out onto the street beyond. I paused to look back at the watching crowd.

“You did a lot of damage while you were here, Drood,” said Dusk. “There will be a reckoning.”

“Send the bill to Drood Hall,” I said. “And we’ll all take turns officially ignoring it.”

I left the lobby, and the doors slammed shut behind me. There was the sound of a great many locks slamming shut. I quickly armoured down, before any passersby could notice, and then Molly and Isabella and I strode perfectly normally down the street, away from Lightbringer House. It felt good to be back in the real world again, in the natural sunshine and the easy calm of everyday life. I could feel my muscles slowly unbunching as I was finally able to relax. That had all been a lot closer than I cared to think about.

“I could have taken him,” Isabella said suddenly.

“We could have taken him,” said Molly.

“You want to go back in and try?” I said. “I’ll hold your coats.”

“Not right now,” said Isabella.

“Maybe later,” said Molly. “There were an awful lot of them, weren’t there?”

“I counted three Hands of Glory, several death charms and something that looked very like a monkey’s paw,” I said. “Drood armour’s good, but it does have its limits.”

“If we hadn’t been there,” Molly said slowly, “and if you hadn’t had to worry about us, would you have fought them anyway, and to hell with the consequences?”

“No,” I said. “The important thing was to get out of there alive with the information we gathered. My family doesn’t know anything about this, and they need to know. I’m more concerned about you now. They’ve seen your faces; they know who you are. They’ll never stop coming after you. I think you both need to come back to Drood Hall with me. You’ll be safe there. My family doesn’t take any shit from jumped-up Devil worshippers.”

“Put myself in the hands of the Droods?” said Isabella. “I don’t think so!”

“Then what will you do?” said Molly.

“I have my own leads to follow,” said Isabella. “This was my case, and my business, long before you stuck your noses in.”

“And if they do come after you?” I said.

Isabella smiled briefly. “I could always go spend some time with Louisa.”

She strode off down the street, head held high, not looking back. People moved quickly to get out of her way.

“Well,” said Molly. “That was . . . interesting. Whose great idea was this, anyway?”

“Yours,” I said.

“Why do you listen to me?” said Molly. “I wouldn’t.”