From Hell with Love

CHAPTER ELEVEN Knock Knock Knocking on Heaven’s Door

“S o,” I said. “Molly and I have to to get to to Area 52, the most heavily shielded and guarded military base in the world, stop Doctor Delirium or Tiger Tim from opening the Apocalypse Door and unleashing all the horrors of Hell upon the world, and also stop the Immortal leader Methuselah from transforming the Door into the Paradise Door, so he can open it and go through to take Heaven by storm.”

“And give everyone present a good kicking, just on general principles,” said Molly. “And then afterwards, I thought we might have a little light supper, with some of that nice peach brandy you like.”

“I could eat,” I said wistfully. “Seems like ages since I had the chance to sit down and tuck in. But, needs must when the Devil’s peering over your shoulder and sniggering. The Merlin Glass can’t take us directly into Area 52; the place has far too many shields and protections. But I think I’ve persuaded it to drop us off close to a main entrance. So, let’s to it. Busy, busy, busy, and never a moment to rest.”

“You can’t just run off and leave me to deal with transporting a dragon’s head the size of a mountain!” said the Armourer, just a bit shrilly.

“Of course I can,” I said. ˚ “Watch me.”

I moved over to one side with Molly, while the Sarjeant-at-Arms did his best to restrain the Armourer. We both knew he’d cope; this was just his little way of telling me not to take him for granted. I summoned up the Merlin Glass, and instructed it to show me the hidden entrance it had found for Area 52. But when I looked into the hand mirror, all I could see was an endless vista of snow and ice, without a single structure or a living thing for as far as the eye could see. I gave the mirror a good hard shake, but the view didn’t change. At least it wasn’t an aerial view this time. Either the base was invisible behind its shields, or it was underground, or this was just as close to the entrance as the Glass could get us. I shrugged, and commanded the Merlin Glass to open a doorway.

It leapt out of my hand, and then hung on the air before me, growing rapidly in size until it was big enough for Molly and me to walk through. And then the door opened, connecting here with there, and brilliant light shone out, throwing back the darkness of the German night. I had to look away for a moment, dazzled, and then shuddered suddenly as a bitter cold wind came howling out of the doorway, shot through with snow and ice crystals. Molly squeezed in close beside me, and with our eyes narrowed against the Antarctic light, we stepped through the doorway.

The terrible cold stopped me dead in my tracks, piercing my flesh and sinking into my bones. The wind cut me like a knife, and my lungs filled with razor blades as I tried to breathe the frozen air. Snow swirled around me, driven this way and that by the blustering wind. I armoured up, and cried out in relief inside my golden mask as my armour shielded me from the bitter cold. It took me a moment to stop shaking and clear my head, and then I looked quickly around for Molly. Who was quite happy, inside a personal shield so powerful I could actually see it shimmering on the air around her. She stood hands on hips, looking about her with an infectious grin.

“Isn’t this the most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen, Eddie?” She had a point. We’d come a long way from the grim surroundings of Castle Frankenstein. The sky was a sharp, almost painful blue, and the sun burned like a demon’s eye. Snow fields stretched away for miles, rising and falling, capped to one side by a jagged range of snow-covered mountains. The heavy winds lifted sudden clouds of snow off the mountain peaks and threw them this way and that. Not a single living thing moved anywhere on the icy panorama, for as far as the eye could see. For all its snow and ice and cold, the Antarctic was really just another desert.

Molly stretched slowly, as unselfconscious as any cat, grinning widely. “Now this is more like it! There’s a whole load of local magic here for me to draw on, and replenish my batteries. Pretty much untapped, as far as I can tell. I guess not many people get out this far.”

“Most people have got more sense,” I said. “What are you picking up from the Hidden World?”

“Oh, there’s lots going on round here, but nothing to do with people, or Area 52.”

I raised my Sight and looked around me, and discovered the empty Antarctic scene was anything but. Huge semitransparent snakes the size of subway trains writhed and curled slowly through the snow deep below us, vast blind creatures following their own unknowable instincts. The sky above us was full of wind-walkers, air elementals the size of blue whales, swimming languidly through the coruscating aurora, far too big to take any notice of the tiny mortals watching from below. And off in the distance, standing inhumanly still on the horizon: dim and vaguely humanlike shapes. Hundreds of them, just standing, and watching. There was something vague and insubstantial about them, as though they weren’t totally solid or completely real. Images out of Time, perhaps, from the Past or even the Future. There have always been legends of another tribe of Man, another species, waiting patiently in the empty places of the world, ready to come forward and take over, should Humanity fail. Our replacement, if things should go very wrong.

I’m not sure whether I find that comforting or not.

But even with my Sight I still couldn’t make out any sign of Area 52, or the entrance we were supposed to be near. Really well shielded. So I lowered my Sight, and breathed a little more easily. (You can’t See too much of the world as it really is, for too long. It wears you out.) The Merlin Glass had disappeared, immediately after dropping us here, as though ashamed. I called it back out, and it slipped almost apologetically back into my hand. I told it to show me the way to Area 52’s entrance, and the mirror immediately presented me a whole new view of unbroken snow and ice. I swept the Glass back and forth, and it tugged insistently in my hand in one particular direction, like a hound on a scent. So I set off into the snow and the cold, following the mirror, and Molly moved happily along beside me, merrily singing an old song called

“Eskimo Nell.”

I ploughed through the deep snow, my armoured legs sinking in deep with every step, until finally I was trudging along in a low trench of my own making. The weight of my armour pulled me down, but its strength enabled me to blast right through the packed snow as though it wasn’t even there. Brief flurries of snow shot up into the air, flying left and right, as I stomped and kicked through the snow, forcing my way through by sheer brute force. Common sense told me that Doctor Delirium and Tiger Tim wouldn’t do anything with the Apocalypse Door until Methuselah showed up, and we had to be close on the Immortal’s trail. But I wasn’t sure I believed common sense. There was a feeling in the air, in the atmosphere, a sense of imminence. Of something terrible and implacable and horribly irreversible, getting ready to happen.

The Door. The Apocalpyse Door. I shall break the bolts and shatter the locks, and unleash Hell upon the Earth, and the dead shall outnumber the living, and the damned shall take their vengeance on the innocents . . .

Molly floated serenely along beside me, hovering a good foot or so above the snow on the ground, hardly exerting herself at all as she just drifted along. Every now and again I made a point of flinging some snow in her direction, but somehow she was never there when it arrived. At least she’d stopped singing that damned song. I’m sure she made up some of the verses herself.

After a while it occurred to me to reshape my armoured feet into snowshoes, even if they did look rather like golden waffles. They spread my weight more easily and allowed me to walk on top of the snow. I made much better speed, with far less effort. Molly said nothing, in a loud sort of way.

The landscape didn’t seem to change much, as we pressed on. The jagged mountains took up half the horizon now, rising high into the fierce blue sky, sunlight reflecting painfully bright from their snowy sides. The snow fields rose and fell before us, and brief flurries of snow still blew this way and that, never really amounting to anything. Every now and again I’d stop and raise my Sight, hoping for some glimpse of Area 52 in the distance, or at least its entrance, but the base remained stubbornly elusive. Strange energies flared up and collapsed, dancing on the high mountain peaks, but never to any purpose or effect I could understand. And sometimes I’d See strange creatures scurrying in the distance, or burrowing deep in the snow. Some had shapes so abstract I wasn’t sure whether they were real or not, or just manifestations of some unknown phenomenon. As we drew closer to one particular mountain, I Saw within it an entire city, engulfed and entombed by millennia of snow and ice. Huge and alien, made up of monstrous shapes and weirdly made structures that my mind tried to grasp, and failed. They were too big, too strange, and possessed far too many angles for any truly solid shape. Nothing human had gone into the making of this ancient monstrous city, never meant for human eyes or sensibilities. I had no idea at all of what kind of creature could have lived in it, without going utterly mad.

I hadn’t realised I’d stopped to stare at it, until Molly moved in close beside me, and waved a hand in front of my mask.

“We really don’t have time for sightseeing, Eddie.”

“I know! I know, but . . . look at it. I’ve never seen anything like that. Ugly as sin and twice as old. When we’re finished with Area 52, and assuming we and the world are still around, we have got to come back here. Get the family archaeologists on the job.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Molly. “You might wake what’s in there.”

I looked at Molly, and then back at the frozen city. “Ah . . . You mean that’s . . . Hmm. I think I’ll ask the Armourer if he’s got any of those thermonukes left.”

Maybe half an hour later, I walked right into an invisible force shield, bounced off, and fell backwards onto my arse in the snow. Molly laughed so hard she hurt herself, and ended up curled into a ball, turning slowly in midair. I got to my feet with as much dignity as I could muster, and prodded the air with a golden fingertip. I could feel the shield but not see it, even with my Sight. And it didn’t take me long to figure out that the field extended a long way in every direction, presumably surrounding Area 52 completely. The shield was entirely scientific in nature, as far as I could tell. My Sight wasn’t showing me any magics, and when Molly finally got her giggles under control, she confirmed it. She did blast the shield a few times, with various nasty spells, just to please me, but everything she threw at the shield just slid off. Magic and science really don’t get on. Most of the time they just pretend the other doesn’t exist.

So, when in doubt, hit it. I retracted my snowshoes, planted my golden feet firmly in the heavy snow, reared back and hit the invisible force shield with all my strength. I gave it everything I had, everything the armour had, and the force shield didn’t react in the least. I hit it again and again, summoning up all the strength in my armour and delivering it through one heavy golden fist, and the shield began to resonate, like a struck gong. Great ripples spread out across the snow, digging themselves deeper and deeper with every blow, until finally . . . I just stopped. I wasn’t tired, and my hand didn’t hurt, but it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere. I growled and shook my head, and took a moment to get my breath back.

“Very therapeutic, I’m sure,” Molly said kindly. “But that was never going to work. Also, I feel I have to point out that such a blatant attack on the shield is almost certainly going to tell everyone in Area 52 that we’re here.”

“They know we’re here,” I said. “Methuselah will have told them by now. But if my armour can’t break this shield, and your magics can’t even touch it, how the hell are we going to get through?”

“We could tunnel under it,” Molly said brightly. “Or rather you could; I don’t do manual labour.”

“You don’t even do dusting,” I said. I looked thoughtfully at where the field should be. “Has to be a way in . . . We didn’t come all this way just to be stopped by a stupid force shield.”

“Right,” said Molly. “So do something, Eddie!”

“I’m thinking!”

I pulled out the Merlin Glass. It nestled comfortably into my armoured hand, still showing a snowy scene very different from the one before me, and still subtly urging me on. I weighed the Glass in my hand, and then stepped forward and slapped it hard against the force shield. The Glass hung in midair, shaking and shuddering, and then it grew suddenly in size to a doorway, breaking through the shield by making itself part of the shield. I took Molly by the hand and led her through, and then the doorway slammed shut behind us and the Merlin Glass shot back into my hand, like an obedient dog. I put it away, and set off again, with Molly just a few steps behind me.

“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days,” she said finally.

“I’m sure you’d have thought of it,” I said generously. “Eventually.”

We headed on across the great plateau of snow and ice, stopping occasionally so I could take out the Merlin Glass and use it like a compass, to make sure were still heading in the right direction. Still no sign of Area 52, or anything like an entrance. We’d been walking for almost an hour now, though I had to check my armour’s internal clock to be sure. With so few real landmarks, it was hard to be sure of space or time. I was growing dangerously tired. I’d done so much today, and there was still so much more to do. And then I stopped suddenly, and looked sharply about me. Molly hovered beside me, her eyes bright and alert.

“You feel it too,” she said. “We’re not alone. I can’t See anything, but I can feel it, in my bones and in my water. Something else is here with us, and it knows we’re here. It’s watching us.”

“Guard dog,” I said flatly. “Has to be. If you had a secret base set up here, you’d invest in a guard dog or two, wouldn’t you? But what kind of creature could survive on its own, in this environment? Without my armour and your protections, we’d have been dead within minutes of arriving. So whatever it is . . . would have to be seriously tough and nasty, able to survive where nothing else could. Feel free to disagree with me, Molly, because I am starting to depress myself . . .”

“Wendigo?” said Molly, looking quickly about her. “Giant polar bears? Didn’t Superman have some of those guarding his secret fortress in one of those films? Or did I just dream that?”

“I did once send a Russian werewolf here,” I said thoughtfully.

“You’ve lived, haven’t you, Eddie?”

And that was when the robot guard dog erupted from under the snow right in front of me, a huge steel shape with glowing red eyes, snapping steel teeth and flailing steel claws. It hit me hard in the chest, throwing me backwards, and I had to struggle to keep my feet under me. It was bigger than me, and heavier, a huge steel hound with moving parts showing clearly through its latticeworked steel hide. It clung to me, scrabbling at my shoulders with its fore-paws, whilst its lower paws came up to claw at my belly, trying to disembowel me. Steel claws scrabbled uselessly against my golden armour, while steel teeth shattered and broke on my golden throat. I grabbed the guard dog by the forearms, and forced the snapping steel jaws away from my face.

Molly darted back and forth around me, trying for a clear shot, and yelling what she thought was helpful advice. I concentrated on forcing the killer robot dog away from me, until finally it hung helplessly in my grasp, the lower legs still scrabbling for something to attack. And then I tore the dog apart, first limb from limb, and then piece by piece, until there wasn’t enough left of it to function. It lay scattered across the snow, just so many intricate steel parts and glimmering tech, still moving and twitching as the last of its energy ran out. The red glowing eyes took a long time to fade away. I knelt down and studied the mess thoughtfully, while Molly floated at my side.

“This wasn’t just some stupid robot,” I said finally. “There was definitely intelligence at work. Primitive AI. I should have tried to communicate with it.”

“Like what?” said Molly. “Down boy? Stop trying to kill me? Good dog?”

“How long was it lying here, under the snow?” I said. “Waiting patiently in the dark, for months or maybe even years . . . For something, anything, to come along? And when someone does turn up, all its programming will allow it to do, is attack. Was it lonely, do you think? Poor thing. Poor doggie.”

“Poor doggie?” said Molly. “It would have quite happily ripped us apart, and probably pissed machine oil on our bits and pieces afterwards. Honestly, Eddie, you can get sentimental about the strangest things.”

I stood up. “I’m surprised there aren’t more of the things. Who bets all their money on a single guard dog?”

Molly shrugged. “Too expensive, probably. Did you see that tech? Alien derived. I’m betting they found the original and then reverse engineered it into a guard dog.”

“Poor doggie,” I said. “When this is all over, I think I’ll come back and collect up the pieces. The Armourer will have a great time putting it back together again. He’s always wanted a pet that didn’t die easily.”

Molly rolled her eyes at the heavens. “Look—all of this is just slowing us down. We have to move faster than this!”

“All right,” I said patiently. “What have you got in mind?”

“Oh right, put the pressure on me! Leave it to me to come up with something to save the day!” She scowled heavily. “There’s any number of magics I could use here, or at least tap into, but I can’t help feeling I’m going to need every nasty spell I’ve got, once we’re inside Area 52. That business at Castle Frankenstein took a lot out of me, and I’m nowhere near back to full strength.”

“What about what happened at the Hall?” I said carefully. “Are you fully recovered from that?”

“It’s sweet that you worry about me, Eddie, but stop it or I will slap you. I’m fine. Really. In fact, I can’t wait to get this all over and done with, so I can get you back to our bedroom and show you just how fine I am.”

I grinned. “You do know how to motivate a man.” And then I broke off and looked sharply around. “Hold everything; I think it’s time for round two.”

A mist formed around us, grey tendrils coalescing out of the cold air, thickening into a grey sea of churning, roiling mists, that cut us off completely from the rest of the world. Sounds became increasingly distant and diffuse, as though we were underwater. Or as though the world was drifting farther and farther away. Molly and I moved instinctively to stand back to back, searching about us for some sign of an enemy. The thick grey fog had an unnatural chill to it, that made me shudder even inside my armour.

“Unnatural,” I said, just to show I was keeping up.

“Very,” said Molly. “Look! You see that?”

I did. Dark shapes were moving in the fog, circling slowly, keep ing their distance for the moment. Their movements were awkward, strange, not human, for all their basically human shape. I tried counting them, but the number always came out different, as though they were fading in and out. Over a dozen, certainly, maybe twenty. There was something horribly abstract about them; their details kept changing, like the menacing shapes we see in dreams, or just briefly out of the corner of an eye. My skin crawled under my armour, and sweat ran down my face. I could hear Molly breathing heavily behind me, feel her back shaking where it pressed against mine. The shapes circled faster and faster, closing in on us from every direction at once.

I struck out at the first dark shape to come within reach, but my spiked golden fist shot right through without touching anything. I stumbled forward, caught off balance. And the shape grabbed me by the shoulders with two dark hands, lifted me up and threw me a good thirty feet. I shot through the air, tumbling ungracefully, and then hit the packed snow hard, half burying myself. I lay still for a moment, getting my breath back. I hadn’t expected that. I wasn’t used to being physically dismissed that easily. I shook my head hard, rolled over onto my side, and forced myself up onto my feet again. My armour had protected me, but I was still shaken. But then I saw Molly, blazing brightly in the fog, surrounded by fast-moving dark shapes, and that was all I needed to get moving again. I charged forward, ploughing through the snow at speed, sending it flying left and right in sudden flurries.

Molly threw spitting fiery magics at the dark shapes, attacks so powerful they crackled and roiled on the freezing air, but none of it did any good. Magics powerful enough to crack open mountains passed through the shapes without affecting them in the least, as though they weren’t really present in our world. Except when they chose to be. Molly’s magics were keeping the things at bay, for the moment, but they were pressing in closer all the time. Snow exploded several feet beyond the shapes as the magics passed harmlessly through, blasting out deep craters and leaving them full of steaming water.

The dark shapes swarmed around Molly, reaching out with dark hands to drag her down, but they couldn’t touch her either. Her protective shields flared up viciously whenever dark hands came near her, and the shapes fell back, thwarted. But Molly’s shields were only powerful enough when she gave them her full concentration, when she was facing the shapes attacking her. Which meant she had to keep turning, circling, twisting sharply this way and that, frustrating one attack after another, never able to relax her concentration for a moment. The dark shapes were packed around her now, crowding in, reaching out with dark eager hands.

I slammed into them at full speed, sending some of them flying. I lashed about me with my golden fists, but they were quickly gone again, as insubstantial as the fog that thickened around us. I flailed about me, desperate to drive them back from Molly, and then one of the shapes grabbed me from behind, lifted me up and threw me thirty feet in the other direction. I turned over and over in midair, trying desperately to get my feet under me, and then I hit the packed snow hard, much harder than before.

I had to dig my way out, throwing great handfuls of snow in all directions, and then went charging back again. I wasn’t hurt; hell, after that fall into the Amazon rain forest, I didn’t think any fall would ever worry me again. But I was angry, and worried, because every time I was thrown away it left Molly to fight on her own.

I couldn’t let her be hurt again. I’d die before I let her be hurt again.

This time I thought it through. I slowed to a fast walk as I approached the crowd of jostling shapes, and when one turned to face me I thrust out one arm, tantalisingly, and when the shape grabbed it I grinned inside my mask. Because that meant the shape had made itself solid. I punched it hard in the face with my other hand, and my golden fist sank deep into its head. I pulled my hand out, and it was like pulling back toffee, with streamers of dark stuff following my hand. The shape fell apart, slumping into a dark sticky mess at my feet.

The other shapes forgot about Molly, and turned on me. They hit me from all sides at once, their fists very real and very solid, hammering me with a terrible unnatural strength. I hit back, but they were never where my fists were. I staggered back and forth in the snow, lashing about me but never connecting, while they beat me viciously with a strength and ferocity I’d never encountered before. I spun round and round, keeping my shoulders hunched and my head well down, because I could feel every blow, inside my armour. I had no doubt it was still protecting me; those dark shapes would have beaten me to a pulp in a minute without it. But I’d never been hit so hard before, and there were so many of them . . . and there was nothing I could do to protect myself. I had to wonder if the strange matter of my armour had finally met its match, and if it might actually split and crack and break open under such a relentless assault, such never-ending punishment.

I raised my head for a moment, and saw Molly hovering desperately on the outer edge of the dark shapes.

“I can’t call up enough power to hurt them, without dropping my shields!” she cried out to me.

“Don’t do it!” I yelled back immediately. “That’s what they want!”

Their attack intensified, heavy fists crashing into me from all sides at once, and I was driven down onto one knee. I could feel blood trickling down my face under my mask, feel its bad copper taste in my mouth. I don’t think I cried out, but as I reared up again, flailing savagely about me, I saw the shimmer on the air disappear from around Molly, as she dropped her shields. Immediately, all the dark shapes spun around, ready to go for her. But I realised that I could see Molly more clearly than before. The mists were thinner where she was, away from the shapes. And the dark shapes had only appeared after the fog materialised . . .

“It’s the fog!” I yelled to Molly. “Disperse the fog! That’s what gives them a hold on this world!”

Even as a dozen of the dark shapes fell upon her, Molly raised both hands and blasted the fog with a sheet of blisteringly hot flames. The fog was blown away in a moment, consumed by the intense heat, and along with the fog went all of the dark shapes. The air was clear and distinct and utterly empty, and Molly and I were left alone on the snowy prospect.

I sat down hard. I couldn’t tell how badly hurt I was without lowering my armour, and I wasn’t about to do that and expose myself to the cold. I hurt all over, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. I flexed my fingers and my toes, and tried to probe my ribs through my armour, but had to stop that because it hurt too much. Molly came crashing through the deep snow to join me. She wasn’t hovering anymore, from which I deduced that the fight had taken a lot out of her too. I forced myself up onto my feet again. We stood facing each other, like two fighters fresh out of the ring, trying to hide how hurt we were.

“You okay?” I said finally.

“Down, but not out,” she said. “You?”

“Shaken, but not stirred. What the hell were they?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Molly. “Some kind of demon. Clearly someone at Area 52 didn’t place all their faith in science.”

“Magical attack dogs,” I said. “Hate to think what Area 52 paid for their services . . .”

“Come on,” said Molly. “We have to get out of here. There’s always the chance the fog could re-form, and then the demons would be back again.”

“Moving right along,” I said. “Moving right bloody along.”

Finally, at a point in the snowy landscape that looked just like every other, the Merlin Glass appeared in my hand without waiting to be summoned, and shook and shuddered like a divining rod in the presence of an underground lake. I held it firmly, and the scene in the hand mirror exactly matched the scene before me. Molly peered over my shoulder into the Glass, and sniffed loudly.

“I’m starting to think that thing’s alive.”

“Funny you should say that,” I said. “The Armourer thinks there’s someone trapped inside the Glass, hiding in the background of its reflections.”

“Okay, seriously creeping me out now,” said Molly. “As long as it doesn’t turn out to be a young Victorian girl with long blond hair.”

“I said that!”

“You would.”

I put the Glass away, and studied the scene before me with my Sight. And there, buried deep under the snow, was a circular steel door, maybe ten feet in diameter. I pointed it out to Molly, and she whooped loudly as she confirmed it. I dug away the snow with great handfuls, and then looked back to see Molly watching me.

“You could help, you know,” I said.

“I just like watching you work,” she said. “Or maybe I just like the thought of you all sweaty.”

“Oh good,” I said. “I knew there had to be a reason. Want me to build you a snowman, when I’m done here?”

“Did you bring any carrots?”

“Damn,” I said, clearing the last of the snow away. “Knew I forgot something.”

“Why did they bury the entrance so deep?” said Molly, coming in close for a better look. “It’s like no one’s used it for years.”

“From the look of it, this was never intended for use as an entrance,” I said. “This has all the appearances of an emergency exit. For getting out of Area 52 in a hurry, when the brown stuff is hitting the revolving blades.”

I crouched down in the hole I’d made, and studied the steel door carefully. Molly pressed in close, peering over my shoulder. The door was solid steel, inches thick, with a really complicated locking system. Reminded me very much of an airlock.

“I could probably smash through this,” I said finally. “It’s only steel. But given the sophistication of the locking systems, I’d bet good money that any break in the door’s integrity would result in a complete shutdown of the access systems. Not to mention setting off all sorts of alarms and security systems. Which means . . . either we figure out how to open all those locks, or we don’t get in.”

“When in doubt, cheat,” Molly said cheerfully. “Lend me that Chameleon Codex thing of yours, for a minute.”

I reached through my golden armour at the wrist, carefully undid one of my cuff links by touch, brought it out and handed it to Molly. I watched interestedly as she pressed the cuff link carefully against the various sensors, picking up the latent DNA traces left by whoever touched them last, preserved, hopefully, by the snow and the cold. She then held the cuff link up, muttered over it for a while, and suddenly a small cloud of dust motes was flying around her hand. They leapt up and coalesced into a vaguely human shape, becoming gradually clearer and more distinct as Molly shaped them with her muttered Words. She was putting together what we in the trade call a smoke ghost: a mindless, soulless re-creation of a human body, made from discarded DNA, skin flakes and other human remnants, mixed with whatever happened to be floating about in the air at the time. Not real, not even the memory of a person, just a flimsy spectre created from what men leave behind them. They don’t tend to last long, but you can do all kinds of interesting things with them.

Molly’s first few attempts at smoke ghost sculpting weren’t too successful—deformed and misshapen, bits missing or wildly out of proportion . . . but eventually she put together something that would pass. It crouched in the hole with us, bent over the steel door, made of shades of grey so fine it was hardly there. It had no sense of presence, of anyone actually being there with us, which was actually quite disturbing. I gestured sharply for Molly to get a move on, and the smoke ghost moved jerkily as Molly moved it with her mind. It presented its grey eye to the retina scanner, touched the fingerprint lock with a grey fingertip, and even managed a few words for the voice recognition circuits. And then it collapsed, returning to the dust from which it was made.

“Freaky,” I said.

“Lot you know,” said Molly. “I knew this guy who used to put together smoke ghosts just so he could have sex with them . . .”

“Far too much information,” I said.

The steel door revolved slowly beneath us, making low grinding noises, and then fell away, revealing a bleak steel chamber below. A light snapped on, illuminating the chamber. It had no details, no controls, just a single red button on one wall. Molly drew back, shaking her head.

“No way. There is no way on this good earth that I am trusting myself to that. I mean, come on; it looks like a coffin!”

“Emergency escape capsules are not usually noted for their frills and fancies,” I said patiently. “It’s the only way in, Molly.”

She scowled. “Damn thing hasn’t been used for years. Suppose it gets stuck halfway down? Or we can’t open the door at the other end?”

“Then you’ll just have to teleport us the rest of the way.”

“Jump blind? In a base crawling with all kinds of shields and protections? Are you crazy?”

“I was hoping for a rather different response,” I said. “Look—this is the only way into Area 52 that we know of. And time, as you have already pointed out, is getting tight.”

“I really don’t want to get into that thing,” muttered Molly.

“I’ll hold your hand,” I said. “You’ll be fine. Come on, be a brave little soldier and you can have a sweetie afterwards.”

“You want a slap?”

We helped each other down into the steel chamber. It was big enough to hold maybe half a dozen people, if they were all on really friendly terms. It was the lack of details that made it so claustrophobic; this wasn’t a place people were supposed to be in, unless they absolutely had to. I pressed the red button firmly, and the heavy steel door lifted back up into place, revolved a few times, and was still. For a worryingly long moment nothing happened, and then the chamber descended slowly into the depths. There was no sound of any motor, no sense of speed, only the sense of falling into an unknowable pit.

The descent went on for rather longer than was comfortable, and I had to wonder just how deep they’d buried Area 52, under the concealing snow and ice of the Antarctic. Just what were they hiding here, that needed to be imprisoned so deep in the earth? Were they worried about something getting in, or something getting out?

“They built this place deep,” said Molly, echoing my thoughts.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” I said reasonably. “Given some of the truly dangerous things they’re supposed to have stored away here?”

“Like what?” Molly said immediately. “Come on; you’re the one who’s read all your family’s files on this place; what exactly are they sitting on here?”

“Ah,” I said. “Nothing too important or frightening, of course, because we always get to those first. But they are supposed to have squirreled away a fair collection of very interesting pieces . . .”

“You don’t know!” said Molly. “You haven’t got a clue what’s down here, have you?”

“Be fair,” I said. “No one in my family has even been to Area 52 before. Never felt the need, until now. We’ve always relied on reports from people on the inside. But don’t worry, sweetie, I’m sure we’ll find something nice you can take home as a souvenir.”

The steel chamber finally came to a halt deep underground, and a door opened that I would have sworn wasn’t there a moment before. I stepped quickly out and looked around, ready for any response. Molly was right there with me; but the shining steel corridor was completely empty. The door slid shut behind us, and then the corridor was utterly still and silent. Fierce electric light meant there were no shadows, and there wasn’t even a whisper of air-conditioning. Nothing moved. The steel corridor stretched away in both directions, empty and deserted.

“You know, I thought for sure someone would be expecting us,” said Molly. “I had some really unpleasant transformation spells lined up, just waiting to be unleashed on the wicked and deserving.”

“I thought those took a lot out of you,” I said.

Molly smiled. “The look on people’s faces makes it all worthwhile. Your trouble is, you just don’t know how to have fun.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” I said.

“You always have a really bad feeling,” said Molly.

“And I’m usually right.”

Molly looked up and down the long steel corridor. “So, which way do we go?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Your guess is as good as mine. I told you—no one in my family has ever seen the inside of this place. Even the floor plans in our files are years out of date. And the regular reports we get usually just consist of Everything’s fine, nobody panic. I have to say, I’m not entirely sure we’re getting value for money there.”

“And there’s no one here to ask,” said Molly. “Funny, that. There ought to be somebody around. Especially as we’ve just arrived out of nowhere, riding an emergency exit in reverse. You’d have thought someone would have noticed that.”

“Yes,” I said. “Spooky, isn’t it?”

I armoured down. There was always the chance Doctor Delirium, Tiger Tim, Methuselah, or any of the base’s security people might be able to detect the presence of strange matter. I turned to look at Molly, and she actually gasped, her hands rising to her mouth.

“Oh Eddie, what have they done to you?”

I looked at my blurred reflection in the steel wall. Even in that distorting surface, I looked pretty bad. I raised a hand to my face, and winced as I touched swollen eyes and nose, and a pulped mouth. When I took my hand away, there was blood on my fingers. As though seeing made it suddenly real, my whole face pulsed with pain. Those dark shapes really had done a number on me, even inside my armour. Suddenly it was all I could do to stand up straight, as the pain kicked in; all the damage, from torn muscles to cracked ribs, the sharp aches flaring up from a hundred injuries, inside and out. Molly must have seen something of it in my bloodied face, because she stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on my chest.

“My hero,” she said. “My knight in shining armour. Sometimes I forget how brave you are, Eddie. Because you try so hard to seem as strong and invulnerable as your armour. Look at what they’ve done to you . . .”

“Don’t fuss,” I said. “I’ve had worse. Comes with the job, and the territory.”

“Not while I’m around,” said Molly. “Hush. Hush, my darling.”

She pressed her hand hard against my chest, and a subtle thrilling energy ran through me. I cried out despite myself as the pain blazed up, and then was suddenly gone. I could move without wincing, breathe without hurting, and when I put my hands to my face all the damage was gone.

“There,” said Molly. “All better now.”

She produced a clean handkerchief and dabbed at the blood on my face. But her voice hadn’t been entirely steady, and neither was her hand, and there was a grey cast to her face that hadn’t been there before. The healing had taken a lot out of her.

“I know,” she said, before I could say anything. “But it’s my choice to pay the price, instead of you. If I’d told you what it would cost me, you wouldn’t have let me do it, so I didn’t ask. You can be too bloody noble for your own good, sometimes.”

I just nodded, kissed her briefly, chose a direction at random and set off down it. Molly bounced along beside me, smiling hap pily, quite ready to lash out at someone she didn’t know and do terrible things to them. After a while the corridor branched out into junctions and side turnings, and I just kept changing directions at random. But even as we penetrated deeper and deeper into Area 52, we never saw another living soul. The whole base gave every indication of being deserted, abandoned. No sign of any struggle, or violence, nothing to suggest any sudden emergency. It was as though everyone had just . . . walked out. Except there was nowhere to walk out to—just the bitter and unforgiving cold of the Antarctic above. So where had everybody gone?

I remembered Tiger Tim boasting that all the Base personnel were dead; but where were Doctor Delirium’s people?

We found a canteen. The door was wide open, and when we looked in the long tables had all been set out for a meal. Plates and cutlery, jugs and glasses of water; but no food. And no one there to eat it. We kept on walking, pushing open doors along the way that led to offices and living quarters, and there was every sign of life except people.

“This whole base has gone Marie Celeste,” said Molly. “Spooky . . .”

“Déjà vu all over again,” I said. “And not in a good way.” I filled her in quickly on what I’d found at Doctor Delirium’s Amazon base. On what Tiger Tim had done there. Molly shook her head in slow disbelief.

“What a bastard. All right, no way are we taking him in alive.”

“No,” I said immediately. “You have to leave him to me, Molly. He’s family. That makes him my responsibility.”

“Okay, I’ll take the Doctor and the Immortal.”

I had to smile. “Self-confidence has never been a problem for you, has it?”

Some time later, we came to the Area 52 Armoury. Carefully sign-marked, with a whole bunch of not at all veiled warnings and threats, about not opening the Armoury door without all the proper instructions and authorisations, and a whole army of heavily armed security to back you up. The massive door was the kind you usually only find in banks, in maximum security vaults.

“Just a quick look,” pleaded Molly. “Come on, Eddie; you know you want to. We can get in there, no problem.”

“Yes,” I said. “We probably could. But . . . later. We’ve work to do first, and we can’t let ourselves be distracted.”

But just down from the Armoury we stopped again, at a door labelled simply RED ROOM. The signs surrounding the door were just as ominous, just as self-important; but here the heavy bank vault door was hanging half open. And since I had never even heard of a Red Room in Area 52, I thought I had a duty to at least take a quick peek inside. So Molly and I squeezed through the gap, and went in. Into the Red Room.

At first, I couldn’t figure out what the place was for. White-tiled walls, bright electric lights, clean as clean could be. And then I noticed the runnels in the floor, to carry away liquids to the drains at the side, and the sharp astringent smell of antiseptic. There were long steel tables, bolted to the floor, with trays bearing surgical instruments. Some of the tables had heavy restraining straps.

“It’s a dissecting room,” I said, and my voice came out cold and flat in the white-tiled room. “They cut things up here. And I don’t think everything that came in here was dead to begin with.”

“But . . . why, for God’s sake?” said Molly. “What did Area 52 want with a dissecting room?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can guess. Area 52 was all about getting at secrets. Whatever it took. I didn’t know about this, Molly. I swear no one in my family knew; or we would have come here in force and put a stop to it. There wasn’t supposed to be anything here like this.”

“You’re right,” said Molly. “Look . . .”

She was looking around a corner at the end of the room. I went forward to join her, so I could see what she was seeing.

The long hall stretched away before us, lined with rows and rows of tall transparent tubes, lit from within. Display cases. Inside the tubes: aliens. A hundred different species of aliens, cut open and investigated in the Red Room, and then brought here as specimens to be studied. There were other, smaller containers, holding alien organs, limbs, other items of interest. I walked slowly down the hall, between the illuminated display cases, Molly moving quietly along beside me.

“I know most of these species,” I said. “None of them are threats to the Earth! None of them were any danger! Some are our allies, with pacts and treaties going back generations. And those . . . they’re just tourists! None of them did anything to deserve being cut up like this . . . Some of them, if their worlds ever find out what happened here . . . No. That can’t be allowed to happen, for all our sakes. We’re going to have to burn this whole place out, destroy the evidence, and then bury the ashes deep. Make the whole thing never happened.”

“The people who did this must be punished,” said Molly.

“I’m pretty sure that’s already happened,” I said. “Oh no . . . Oh Molly, look at this.”

In a tall refrigerated tube, lit with a merciless light that allowed for no shadows, hung the gutted corpse of an elf.

“If the Fae Court ever hears about this,” I said.

“They’d probably find it funny,” said Molly.

“True. The Fae are seriously weird. But we don’t want to start giving them ideas.”

I made myself turn around and walk back through the rows of the dissected dead. Molly had to hurry to keep up with me.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted,” I said. “We’re here for the Door.”

I called up the Merlin Glass, and ordered it to show me where Doctor Delirium, Tiger Tim and Methuselah were, right then. An image formed immediately in the hand mirror, showing all three standing together in the same room; all of them careful to main tain a respectful distance from each other. I opened a door with the Glass, and Molly and I stepped through into the room, to face the three men we’d come so far to stop. And, if need be, kill.

They were arguing heatedly when Molly and I arrived, but they all broke off instantly to stare at us with varying degrees of surprise. Doctor Delirium was so wide-eyed and startled he actually fell back a few steps, so he could stand protectively beside the Apocalypse Door. The Door stood still and upright and absolutely unsupported in one corner of the room. Tiger Tim nodded easily to me, one professional to another, but he did a definite double take as his gaze fell on Molly Metcalf. And Methuselah, the oldest of the Immortals, just folded his arms across his chest and looked at me with typical arrogance and disdain.

I took a moment to look around. We were all standing in a comfortable lounge, with easy furniture and a deep pile carpet, potted plants and relatively tasteful prints on the walls. It could have been anywhere. The only thing out of place was the Apocalypse Door. Even on the far side of the room, tucked away in one corner, I could still feel its presence. It was as though there was another person in the room with us, watching and waiting. The carpet at the base of the Door was blackened and charred, and there was a definite smell on the air, of blood and sour milk and sulphur. The stench of Hell. An unbroken chain of gold links circled the base of the Door, augmented here and there with delicate crystal technology. A teleport ring. No wonder Doctor Delirium was able to move the Door around so easily.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded hotly. “You shouldn’t be here! You’ll spoil everything! Get out! Get out!”

“What’s up, doc?” Molly said easily. “Visiting hours over?”

“Don’t tease the good Doctor,” said Tiger Tim. “He’s just crazy. So, Eddie . . . how goes it, cousin?”

“Your father sends his regards,” I said.

Tiger Tim smiled broadly. “I very much doubt it. But then, he always was a better Armourer than a father.”

“Hold everything,” said Molly. “Your father is the Armourer? That sweet old man produced a turd like you?”

Tiger Tim looked at her coldly. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“I got over it,” said Molly.

I gave my full attention to the former Leader of the Immortals, Methuselah. He was looking far too calm and collected for my liking.

“I’m pretty sure I already know the answer,” I said, “but how did you get here ahead of us?”

“A teleport circle, back in Castle Frankenstein,” said Methuselah. “The moment I realised my home’s integrity had been compromised, I went straight to the circle and came here. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with what I have planned for the Door, and myself.”

“You ran out on your family?” said Molly.

“The strong will survive,” said Methuselah. “The rest don’t matter.”

“You came here alone?” I said. “You didn’t even wait for the rest of the Elders? The ones who believed in you?”

“They know where the teleport circle is. It’s up to them to use it.”

“So that’s what immortality does,” said Molly. “It makes you a selfish little prick.”

“Let me fill you in on what happened, after you ran away,” I said. “I brought my family into your Castle, and the Droods went head to head with the Immortals. Your family is dead and gone.”

“All of them?” said Methuselah. “Not one of them got away?”

I shrugged. “Maybe half a dozen. They ran, like you. And I’m sure there are still a few out in the world, somewhere, pretending to be other people. It doesn’t matter. We’ll hunt them down and kill them.”

“Don’t,” said Molly. “Don’t smile like that, Eddie. Don’t gloat. It doesn’t become you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Methuselah, and his voice and his face were as calm as ever. “I’m moving on. I would have left them behind anyway.”

“I gave you that teleport ring,” said Doctor Delirium. “I created it. I’ve always been a lot smarter than anyone ever gave me credit for. I put it together originally so I could get into the Magnificat. And then I gave it to Tiger Tim, so he could attack Drood Hall with his new Accelerated Men. It kept him quiet, so I could concentrate on the Door. It’s given me so many good ideas . . .”

“It had to be you,” I said, looking at Tiger Tim. “Only you knew the secret codes and passwords that would shut down most of our defences, to make the attack possible. Have you any idea how many good men and women died in that attack, fighting your Accelerated Men?”

“Not enough, clearly,” he said. “You’re still here.”

I looked at Doctor Delirium, and he paled at what he saw in my eyes. “It serves you Droods right,” he said defiantly. “For all your interference. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

“There will be judgement,” I said. “There will be justice.”

“You can’t touch me!” said the Doctor. But he didn’t sound very sure about it.

“You are a lot smarter than we ever thought,” I said. “As a scientist. Otherwise, you’re really a bit dim, aren’t you? Or you’d never have put your trust in a rogue Drood and a selfish Immortal.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” said Doctor Delirium.

“What about the Apocalypse Door?” said Molly. “Do you trust the voices you hear, talking to you from beyond the Door? Do you believe the promises they make, and the lies they tell you?”

“You think I don’t know whose voice I’m listening to?” said the Doctor. “Of course I know. The voices tell me everything they think I want to hear; but in the end I’m the only one who can open the Door from this side. I’m the only one who can give them what they want, and I won’t, until I can be sure I’m going to get everything I want.” He glared at Tiger Tim. “I’m not crazy. I know what I’m doing. You’re just jealous because the voices only speak to me.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” murmured Tiger Tim. “The defence rests. Now hush, there’s a good Doctor. The big boys are talking.” He turned his back on the Doctor, so he could smile at me. “I have to say I’m impressed, Eddie. Still here, still hot on my trail, even after all the things I’ve thrown at you to slow you down. Tell me, how many of our family died at the hands of my glorious Accelerated Men? I want numbers, I want names, I want details. Was my father among the dead, by any chance?”

“You betrayed your family,” I said. “You put at risk the one real power that stands between Humanity and the darkness!”

“Why not?” said Tiger Tim. “What have they ever done for me? I thought you of all people would understand, Eddie. They made you a rogue too, just for wanting to be different. Of course, you weaselled your way back in. You probably even think you can save them. But the Droods are really no different from the Immortals, when it matters. All these generations of golden men and women—we should have been ruling the world by now, worshipped and adored! Why settle for being shepherds, when we should have been lords of all we surveyed . . . I’m tired of hiding my light under a bushel, Eddie. I want the throne that’s rightfully mine.”

“God, you Droods love the sound of your own voices!” said Molly. “Okay, everyone step away from the Door, before I decided to turn you into something small and squishy.”

“But you haven’t heard the best bit yet,” said Tiger Tim. “Haven’t you wondered why we’re here, in this particular room?” He snapped his fingers loudly, and one whole wall disappeared, replaced by a virtual view of an outside scene, of the snow and ice surrounding Area 52. The image was flawless; it could have been a window. I could almost feel the cold.

“We’re here,” said Tiger ˚ Tim, just a bit grandly, “because this room has the best view of what’s going to happen. Out there is where we’re going to place the Door and then open it by remote control. And then we can stand here and watch, as all the hordes of Hell break out, into the world of men.”

“The Door chose those particular coordinates,” said Doctor Delirium. “I confess I’m not entirely sure why. Sentimental value, perhaps? Did something important happen here long ago, before the poles shifted, and snow and ice came to cover everything that was here? It doesn’t matter. I would have chosen the centre of some great city, for maximum shock and maximum slaughter, but then, that’s just me.”

“Think what you’re saying!” said Molly. “Mass murder? Death and suffering and the slaughter of innocents? You’re just a mad scientist with a thing for rare postage stamps; when did you ever care about things like that?”

The Doctor paused, uncertain. “I have changed. I know that. I had to grow up. Become . . . cold. Because I couldn’t get the revenge I wanted so badly, if I stayed my old soft-hearted self. I never really wanted to destroy the world, before. It was all about power; about threatening the governments of the world with my wonderful plagues, just so that they would be forced to acknowledge my genius. But that was then, this is now. I will have my revenge. It’s all I’ve got left.”

Tiger Tim beamed happily at the virtual view before him. “Nothing like a ringside seat, for the end of the world.”

I advanced on Doctor Delirium, and then stopped as he put one hand on the Apocalypse Door. The room felt distinctly warmer, the smell of Hell more distinct. The Door’s presence seemed to beat upon the air like great membranous wings. The light was fading, slowly but surely, as darkness pressed in around us. Molly glared about her uncertainly, but none of the other three seemed to have noticed anything. Perhaps because they’d spent too much time in the presence of the Door.

“Is this really what you want, Doctor?” I said. “It’s not too late to turn away from the destruction of the whole world.”

Doctor Delirium drew himself up to his full height, and glared at me; but close up, more than ever he looked like a child playing dress-up. Not a mad scientist and supervillain, just a small podgy man in a grubby lab coat, standing next to something far more evil than he could ever hope to be.

“Typical Drood,” sneered the Doctor. “Still trying to save the world, even when it’s far too late. Why? It’s not like the world’s worth saving. It’s rotten, corrupt, and it doesn’t care. Let it burn. I wasn’t always Doctor Delirium, you know. I had a real name once, a real life in the real world. I was hired right out of college, given all the best equipment and really good money, and all I had to do was make bio weapons for the Government. Nasty new diseases, with which to smite our enemies.

“I wanted to work on cures, but it was made very clear to me that there were no resources, no money, for that. I wanted to achieve great things, but my Government just wanted me to be a mass murderer. And I went along with it . . . Until a lawyer told me my Uncle had left me a fortune, a secret base and a private army. I quit that very day, and chose a new name for myself, a new identity. And then I set out to make the world respect me, as it never had before. I wanted to be Louis Pasteur; but it was bullies like you Droods that made me Doctor Delirium.

“I gave my life to that cause. I gave up friends and family, all hope for love and happiness, in pursuit of my revenge. It’s all I’ve got left, and I will have it.”

“Who was this uncle of yours?” I said. “We never could work that out.”

“Oh, that was us,” said Methuselah.

“What?” said Doctor Delirium.

“Just standard meddling,” said the Immortal. “We regularly locate and identify useful embittered people, and give them funding. Just to see what will happen. I suppose it’s our equivalent of poking an ant’s nest with a stick . . .”

Doctor Delirium stared at him incredulously. “You started all this? You pushed me into this life? When I could have been happy? Then I suppose it’s only fitting that you should be here for the end. I could kill you; I do want to. But what’s coming will be far worse than anything I could do to you. Hell is coming, Methuselah, and all its horrors . . . And you will grovel at my feet and beg for mercy. And I’ll say no.”

Methuselah shrugged. “There’s just no pleasing some people.”

“Nasty little man,” said Tiger Tim.

I moved as close to the Apocalypse Door as the Doctor would allow, and studied it thoughtfully. Tiger Tim tried to join me, but Molly moved quickly to block his way. Methuselah stayed where he was, watching us all calmly. Up close, the Door’s presence was disturbing. It seemed more real, more there, than the rest of us . . . I could feel the Door watching me, studying me as I studied it. I started to raise my Sight, and then stopped. I didn’t want to See what lay beyond the Apocalypse Door.

The teleport chain lying in a circle around the Door looked familiar. I’d seen that crystal tech before, and there was nothing human about it. Doctor Delirium might claim he invented it, but his genius was with germs. More likely he’d adapted the ring from some alien leftover.

The Apocalypse Door dominated the room, just by being there. Like a ticking bomb, or a murderer with a fresh blade in his hand.

“Where is everybody?” I said, looking in particular at Tiger Tim. “Where are your scientists and soldiers, the mercenaries and the security guards? Why haven’t I seen a single living soul in this entire base, apart from you three?”

Methuselah smiled. “You didn’t really ˚ think we’d share this sublime moment with anyone else, do you?”

“We cleaned house,” said Tiger Tim. “Just like in the Amazon, only not as messy. We didn’t need anybody else, anymore. They’d only have got in the way.”

“Really quite a subtle organism,” said Doctor Delirium. “I released it into the base’s air supply, and it ate them all up. Flesh and bone and even their clothing. Hungry little bug, and very industrious. The Door gave me the idea. Of course, I took pains to inoculate myself and Tiger Tim in advance, just in case any of the bug happened to hang around after it was supposed to have dispersed.”

“And I don’t need any inoculation,” said Methuselah. “I am an Immortal and a flesh dancer; after all these years my immune system produces white blood cells like wrecking balls. Though I have to say, given that there could still be a few traces of the nasty thing floating about, for all your protestations, Doctor, I’m surprised you and the witch are still here, Drood.”

“I have my torc,” I said.

“And I’m Molly Metcalf. The most powerful witch you’ll ever meet.”

“Witch,” murmured Tiger Tim. “Not quite the word I had in mind . . .”

“Don’t push your luck, Timothy,” I said.

Molly went back to glaring at Doctor Delirium. “You killed everyone here? Your own people?”

“Why not?” said Tiger Tim. “We didn’t need them anymore, and who knows, they might have tried to stop us opening the Door.”

“They never cared about me,” said Doctor Delirium. “All they ever cared about was my money! They weren’t loyal. Mercenaries are never loyal; I’ve always known that. And they would have died anyway, after I opened the Door.” He giggled suddenly, a shockingly childlike sound. “Maybe I’ll see them again, running and leaping among the hordes of the damned . . . I don’t care. They were just people. And what have people ever done, but laugh at me? Do you hear anyone laughing now?”

Molly looked at me. “Total bugfuck weirdo, and nasty with it.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” I looked at Methuselah. “What about the other Elders, the ones who believed in you? Aren’t you going to wait, just in case any of them turn up? It’s always possible we missed a few.”

“No more waiting,” said Methuselah. “I never was big on sharing. I was the first Immortal, so I suppose it’s only fitting that I should be the last. And the first again, to transcend this appallingly limited world. I shall become glorious, and know pleasures beyond belief.”

“Another loony tune,” said Molly. “I’m starting to feel like the only sensible one here, and I’m not used to that.”

Methuselah ignored her, staring out at the virtual view. “I suppose I’ll be sorry to say good-bye. For all its many problems and imperfections, it has been a pleasant enough world, I suppose. You mayflies don’t appreciate it.

“The things I’ve seen, since the Heart made me Immortal, all those centuries ago. The wild boars and hairy mammoths running wild in the primordial forests of Olde Englande. The pyramids up beyond Hadrian’s Wall, (although the Sceneshifters made them never happened, the bastards.) I danced at Louis’ Court at Versailles, sat with the first Queen Elizabeth, laughing at a production of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, complete with fireworks. I’ve talked with Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pol Pot. All of them surprisingly good company. Though they all had a taste for peasant’s food. I’ve met great poets and painters, actors and authors, and lent most of them money. I’ve seen wonders and marvels, abominations and atrocities, and applauded them all. I never fought in a war, but I’ve profited from most of them. They all had their moments, as spectacle, if nothing else.”

“But you never got your hands dirty,” I said. “Never the hero or even the villain, just a voyeur.”

“Do you interfere in a dog fight?” said Methuselah. “Or intervene in a war between two anthills? I’ve seen it all, done it all, and I’m bored. Time to move on, to trade up, to leave this grubby world behind in search of fresh new pleasures and indulgences.”

“Were you ever at Camelot?” Molly said suddenly. “Did you ever visit the Court of King Arthur? I’ve always been fascinated by that period.”

“No,” said Methuselah. “By the time I realised just how important Arthur was going to be, Merlin had already got his claws into him. And relatively young as I was then, I still had enough sense not to get up against Merlin Satanspawn. I did get to meet Mordred, though. Very ambitious, in a single-minded sort of way. Completely dominated by his mother, of course.”

“You wasted your life,” I said, and the harshness in my voice brought his head jerking round. “All the things you could have done, all the things you might have achieved . . . and you wasted your years, your lifetimes, because you didn’t know what to do with them. No great causes, no great achievements, because you didn’t have it in you. You could have made a better world, you could have been greater than Arthur and Merlin, built a Camelot that would have endured for centuries, but all you cared about was yourself. You could have led Humanity out of the darkness, but you couldn’t be bothered. And when you’re finally gone, you’ll leave nothing behind but a bad taste in the mouth of history.”

I turned back to Doctor Delirium. “Give it up, Doctor. You’ve been lied to and used, all along. Timothy Drood is here to betray you, just as he betrayed his own family. He has his own plans for the Apocalypse Door. So does Methuselah.”

The Doctor sneered at me. “Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh Eddie,” Tiger Tim said sadly. “Always putting your faith in the truth, when a lie can be so much more liberating.”

“And you can wipe that smug smile off your face, Timothy,” I said. “I’m taking you back to the family to stand trial at Drood Hall for all the evils you’ve done.”

Tiger Tim laughed softly. “Dear Daddy got to you, didn’t he? Asked you to go easy on me . . . Sentimental old fool. You’re not taking me anywhere.”

“I have the armour,” I said. “And you don’t.”

“Funny you should say that,” said Tiger Tim. “You’ll never guess what I found, locked away in the vaults of Castle Frankenstein.” And he opened the top of his shirt to show me the golden torc around his neck. “I don’t know how the Immortals got their hands on this originally. Perhaps an Immortal murdered and replaced a Drood, and took the torc . . . Or maybe the old Baron himself cut it off one of his victims . . . Don’t suppose we’ll ever know. The point is, this torc had been locked away inside a box inside a vault, under the wrong description. No one even knew it was there, until I came across it quite by accident, while looking for something else. Isn’t that always the way? I took the torc for my own, because I just knew the Immortals wouldn’t appreciate it. And it settled around my throat quite happily, like it was coming home, like it belonged there.”

“You might have asked,” Methuselah said reproachfully.

“No I couldn’t. You might have said no. I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position. And besides, who has a better right to it, than me?”

“Knew I should have killed you when I had the chance,” said Methuselah.

“You never had the chance,” said Tiger Tim. He looked at me and smiled suddenly, a happy, anticipatory smile. “I haven’t had a chance to try out my new torc; been a bit busy, you know how it is. And I was just a bit concerned that your armour might be able to detect mine, once I put it on. But now, all bets are off. We’ve come to the end of the line, Eddie, where it’s just you and me, armour to armour, man to man. To the death.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

He armoured up, and so did I. And just like that there were two gleaming golden figures in the room, facing off against each other. Doctor Delirium cried out, and hid behind the Apocalypse Door, peering round the edge with wide eyes and an uncertain mouth. Methuselah fell gracefully back to a safe distance; and Molly moved quickly out of our way to give us room to fight. Her eyes were shining as she urged me on. It must have looked like a fair match and a fair fight, but I knew different.

Timothy Drood had the old armour, and I had the new.

I raised up a golden fist, and grew a set of heavy spikes from the knuckles. And then I concentrated, and extruded razor-sharp blades all the way up my arms to my shoulders. I reshaped my mask into a grinning devil face, complete with curling horns. Tiger Tim stood very still. He didn’t know how to make his armour do any of those things. In fact, he’d been away from the family so long he probably didn’t even know such things were possible now. I wondered if he was afraid, biting his lip behind his featureless golden mask. I hoped so. I was too angry to be afraid.

He lunged at me, striking out with a golden fist. I stood my ground, blocked the blow with a raised arm, and then we went head to head, battering each other fiercely with all our unnatural strength. The sound of armour beating on armour was deafening as we slammed each other all over the room, kicking the furniture out of the way, the floor cracking under our stamping feet. But neither of us could hurt the other, for all our strength and fury. The armour protected us. But my armour was strange matter, provided by the other-dimensional entity now known as Ethel. Tiger Tim’s armour derived from the destroyed entity once known as the Heart.

I cut at Tiger Tim with razored fists, and the unnaturally sharp edges opened up long cuts and furrows across his chest. Which should have been impossible. The furrows healed quickly, filling themselves in, so I cut him again, and again, harder each time, gouging deep scars into his ˚ mask and chest, and they took much longer to heal. I wondered if he was bleeding, inside. I pressed him hard, determined to tear open his armour and drag him right out of it.

We hammered each other back and forth across the lounge, fists rising and falling with inhuman speed, while the others scattered hurriedly to get out of our way. Because we were both so caught up in the fight that we had eyes only for each other. Both of us moving so swiftly it seemed like everyone else was moving in slow motion. If any of them had got in our way, I think either one of us might have swept them aside without thinking, our heads were so full of rage and fury. I would have been sorry afterwards, of course, but right then . . . Timothy Drood seemed to be responsible for all the evils I’d encountered since this all began, and I wanted him dead more than anything else in the world.

I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry before. Because he was a Drood.

Tiger Tim broke off, and backed away. He couldn’t match my strength and speed, and he knew it. He had nothing with which to meet my armour’s versatility. So he picked up heavy furniture and threw it at me. I slapped them away effortlessly, and laughed out loud, full of the exhilaration of my armour. Tiger Tim picked up the heavy couch and brought it sweeping down in an overhead blow. I put up a golden arm to block it, and the couch broke in two across it. We were moving like superhumans now, in a world made of paper, and things just broke when we touched them.

But we never went near the Apocalypse Door. We could both See it clearly now, and neither of us could bear to look at it.

In the end, Tiger Tim broke. He reached out and grabbed Molly, moving so swiftly she didn’t even know what was happening till he had her in his golden arms. She started to struggle, and he crushed her briefly, driving all the breath from her lungs. Her legs sagged, until he was all that was holding her up. ˚ I stood very still, knowing he could kill her easily before I could reach him.

“Armour down,” said Tiger Tim. “Or I’ll kill the witch. I’ll crack her bones and crush her insides, and then I’ll rip her head right off her shoulders.”

“Don’t hurt her,” I said. “This is between you and me.”

“Knew I’d find a way to hurt you eventually,” said Tiger Tim. “There’s always a way.”

I was thinking furiously, but I couldn’t see any way out. I had no doubt he’d kill her. I was just starting to subvocalise the activating Words that would send my armour back into my torc, when Molly laughed suddenly.

“Come on, Eddie. You know I don’t do the damsel in distress bit.”

Crackling energies surrounded her in a moment, coruscating in vivid flashes and boiling magics, blasting Tiger Tim’s arms away from her. She moved quickly to one side, and yelled at me to get him, but I was already moving. I’d thought I’d been angry before, but it was nothing to the rage that moved me now. Now he’d threatened to kill my Molly again.

I fell upon him with all my strength and speed, my golden hands locking onto his golden throat. He fell backwards, tripped, and measured his length on the lounge floor. I followed him down, my grip on his throat never loosening for a moment. I knelt over him, forcing my hands closed with all my strength. He struggled and kicked and tried to throw me off. He grabbed my wrists with his hands and tried to break my stranglehold, but he couldn’t. I saw my Molly, stabbed through again and again, dying at the hands of Droods maddened because of Timothy Drood. I saw good men and women dying on the grounds of Drood Hall, at the hands of his Accelerated Men. I saw him talking calmly of throwing Humanity to the wolves of Hell. I saw him threatening to kill my Molly, again, right in front of me. And there was no room left in me for anything but the need to kill.

I concentrated on my armour, moulding it with my will, and my fingers became impossibly sharp, cutting through the armour round his throat. I forced my hands through the gap I’d opened up, and my bare hands closed around his bare throat. I throttled him to death, inside his own armour.

After a while, I realised he wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving. I pulled back my hands, releasing my hold on his armour, and it disappeared back into his torc. Tiger Tim stared blankly upwards, seeing nothing. There was a little froth around his distorted mouth. I knelt over him for a while, getting my breath back, and then I extruded a blade from one hand and cut his head off. So I could take the torc back to my family, where it belonged.

Doctor Delirium cried out as blood flooded across the lounge floor. He wasn’t used to bloodshed. He always did his killing from a safe distance. Methuselah allowed himself a mild moue of distaste. I looked at Timothy’s severed head, and wondered what I should tell his father. I would have brought his son back alive, if things had gone differently. I’m almost sure I would have. Though whether that would have been a kindness, in the end . . . I could tell the Armourer that his son had died fighting bravely. Or that Tiger Tim had somehow got away, and was still out there, somewhere. But I’d never been able to lie to my Uncle Jack.

I armoured down, and rose slowly to my feet. I felt horribly weary; bone deep, soul deep. Molly came over and held me carefully, as though I was fragile, and might break. She understood what I was feeling; she understood about family. But she also knew there was still work to be done, so she let me go and stood at my side. I looked at Doctor Delirium, still half hidden behind his Door. He flinched away from my gaze, but I just stood where I was, and beckoned for him to come out.

“You don’t dare touch me!” he said, his voice high and shrill. His eyes kept going to Tiger Tim’s headless body, and then jerking away. “You’d better not even get too close! I’ve infected myself with every deadly disease known to man, and several I made up specially. I’m the universal carrier, for everything from typhoid to Ebola, from the black death to green monkey fever. Doesn’t affect me at all, but all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way, and my pores will sweat poison, releasing all the deadly germs into the air!”

I looked at Molly. “Does that even sound likely to you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Molly. She strode right over to Doctor Delirium. “I have been to Heaven and Hell and back again, and walked on alien worlds. You really think you’ve got anything that can touch me?”

As she moved in close the Doctor suddenly whipped out a spray aerosol and blasted its contents right into her face. Molly fell back a step, wiping at her face with a hand, while the Doctor crowed triumphantly.

“That was the Acceleration Drug! Full strength, with all the wonderful new extra ingredients! And you breathed it in! It’s running through your system now, speeding you up, faster and faster till it burns you up from the inside out! You’ll live a whole lifetime in just a few minutes, and I’ll watch you die of old age right in front of me!”

Molly swept the last few tears from her eyes. Doctor Delirium fell suddenly silent as he realised she was laughing.

“You need to get out and about more,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Molly Metcalf! I take nastier stuff than that for fun!”

“Don’t laugh at me,” whispered Doctor Delirium. “Don’t you laugh at me!”

Molly reached out and grabbed him by an ear. She hauled him out from behind the Door and walked him back to me. I looked at her, and she let go of his ear.

“Don’t be afraid, Doctor,” I said. “I think there’s been enough killing. It doesn’t always have to end in blood. Forget the Door, and its voices. They lied. It’s what they do. Give up on your revenge; what did it ever get you, except a life on your own? Come back with me to Drood Hall. Put your genius to work for us. Use our labs to create all those cures you used to believe in. Be the good man you originally wanted to be, before Methuselah gave you money, and made you into the kind of man he wanted you to be. Come with me, Doctor. It’s not too late.”

“I won’t give up the Door,” said Doctor Delirium. “It’s mine. It’s my revenge on you all. I can’t give that up. It’s all I’ve got.” He looked at Molly, and his face was utterly empty. “You shouldn’t have laughed at me.”

And he went for her, lunging forward with a knife in his hand. Molly snapped her fingers hard, and Doctor Delirium disappeared. A very warty green and yellow toad fell to the floor, and crouched there, looking around in a bemused kind of way. Molly nudged it with her foot, and it hardly reacted.

“He can go back to the Amazon rain forest,” Molly said briskly. “Where he’ll feel right at home.” She came over to join me, and prodded me in the chest with one finger. “Offering to take Tiger Tim back for trial? Offering the Doctor a job at the Hall? After everything they’ve done, and meant to do? You’re getting soft, Eddie.”

“There’s been enough killing,” I said. “I’m sick of it. I saw you die, and I have avenged you. But I never want to feel this way again.”

“I know,” said Molly. “I know. My knight in shining armour.” She caressed my face with one hand, and her touch was very gentle.

“How very sentimental,” said Methuselah. “You should have dealt with me first, you know. I always was the most dangerous.”

And when Molly and I turned to look at him, he was gone. And so was the Apocalypse Door in its teleport ring. Molly pointed abruptly at the virtual view on the wall, and there he was, standing in the snow and ice, one hand resting possessively on the Door.

“Oh shit,” said Molly.

“Can’t take your eyes off the bastard for a second,” I said. “Quick, Molly, teleport us after him before he can open the Door.”

“How?” said Molly. “I’ve no idea where that is! It’s just a view from a hidden camera; what we’re looking at could be just outside the base, or somewhere miles from here! I can’t jump blind!”

“Oh shit,” I said.

“The Glass!” Molly said quickly. “Remember how it got us through the invisible force shield?”

I grinned. “I always said you were the smart one.”

I called up the Merlin Glass and slapped it flat against the virtual view. The hand mirror clattered fiercely against the image, and then grew suddenly in size to make a doorway. The Glass was apparently a great believer in lateral thinking. Which I would have found worrying if I’d had the time, but I didn’t. I could feel the freezing cold rushing through the open door. I grabbed Molly by the hand, and we rushed through the door, back into the freezing Antarctic air.

I armoured up, and Molly raised her shields. I couldn’t help noticing they didn’t look as strong and certain as they had before. The Apocalypse Door was standing firmly upright, in a circle of steaming melted snow. Methuselah stood before the Door, holding up the awful Hand of Glory he’d made from the severed hand of an angel. The dead white skin glowed fiercely, brighter than the sun itself, and as the Immortal chanted something in a tongue so old I didn’t even recognise it, the candles made from the Hand’s fingers ignited one by one. Somehow I found the time to wonder whether that was the language the Immortal had originally spoken, when he bargained with the Heart for eternal life.

“Where the hell did the Hand come from?” said Molly. “He didn’t have it before. I would have noticed.”

“He must have a subspace pocket, like me,” I said.

“Oh, I want one of those . . .”

Methuselah let go of the Hand and backed away, and the brightly shining Hand hung on the air before the Door. Its fingers moved slowly, flexing through a series of mystical gestures, significant and compelling. It hurt just to watch them, as though they were moving through more than three dimensions.

“He’s preprogrammed the bloody thing!” said Molly. “All he has to do now is say the right Words, and it’s all over! From the Apocalypse Door to the Paradise Door, in a series of easy gestures. I think I’ll believe that when I see it, but . . . Look; you take the Immortal, I’ll take the Hand. I don’t care what it’s made from, it’s magic, and that puts it in my territory. If it’s magic, I can work my will on it. That’s what being a witch is all about.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” I said. “You or me? Just how much magic do you have left, after everything you’ve done?”

“Enough! Now be a good boy, and go hit the Immortal.”

“Love to.”

Molly charged forward, skipping lightly over the snow as though she was playing hopscotch. She grabbed the gesturing Hand of Glory with both of her hands, and tried to stop the fingers from moving. When that failed, she tried to pull the Hand away from the Door, but it wouldn’t budge so much as an inch. So she forced one of her hands inside the Hand, and arm-wrestled it. The brightly glowing Hand slammed shut, crushing Molly’s hand inside it. I heard the bones crack and break, saw blood fly on the air; but although Molly’s whole body convulsed, she never made a sound.

I charged forward, ploughing through the deep snow and sending it flying. The Hand of Glory slowly opened, and Molly fell to her knees on the snow, cradling her injured hand against her chest. Blood dripped steadily from her broken fingers, onto the accepting snow. I could hear Methuselah laughing. I moved quickly to put myself between Molly and the Hand, and knelt down beside her. She was breathing hard, her eyes wide with shock and pain. She hadn’t healed herself, and that told me all I needed to know about how much magic she had left.

Molly glared at me. “All right, you deal with the Hand. I’ll deal with Methuselah.”

“Works for me,” I said.

I heard heavy footsteps slamming through the snow, and looked round to see the Immortal coming right at us, wielding a glowing blade he hadn’t had earlier. Molly raised her good hand, and snapped her fingers fiercely. But though Methuselah flinched at the sound, it didn’t stop him. Either Molly had used up all her magic, or as an Immortal and a flesh dancer, he was immune. Either way, he was a lot closer now. So I rose up and went to meet him. I lashed out at him with a golden fist, but somehow he dodged it at the last moment. And while I was caught off balance, he lunged past me and ran on. It took me a moment to turn around in the heavy snow, and when I did, it was just in time to see Methuselah run Molly through with the glowing blade. It slammed in under her sternum, and punched out her back. Blood shot out of her contorted mouth. And then she grabbed the Immortal’s extended arm with both her hands, and broke it in two. The sound of the bone breaking was sharp and crisp on the still air. Methuselah screamed, and fell backwards into the snow. Molly grabbed the glowing blade, pulled it carefully out of her, and threw it away. She looked up to see me watching, and glared at me.

“How many times do I have to tell you? He can’t kill me! Now deal with the bloody Hand!”

Methuselah clutched his broken arm and gaped at Molly. “Cheat!” he said shrilly. “You’re all cheats!”

I ran through the snow towards him, and he scrambled back onto his feet again. His arm wasn’t broken anymore; the wonders of flesh dancing. He still backed away rather than face me. I knew I should be going after the Hand, but he’d tried to kill Molly. I hit him in the face with my golden fist, with all my strength behind it. The bones of his face collapsed inwards, and blood exploded out, steaming on the cold air. He didn’t fall, so I hit him again and again, until finally he did fall, into the blood-soaked snow. He glared up at me, eyes shining fiercely through the bloody mess I’d made of his face.

“It’s not fair! I’ve won, I’ve won! Look at the Door, you see? You’re too late! My Hand has done it!”

I turned and looked. The Door didn’t seem any different. Methuselah seized the moment to scramble back onto his feet, and run raggedly towards the Door. I went after him. And the Hand of Glory drifted slowly, almost thoughtfully, forward; and then knocked three times on the Door. The sound was impossibly loud, and carrying, reverberating on the air. And then the Hand closed, and fell out of the air like a dead bird. The Door started to open. It didn’t actually move, as such, but I could feel it opening. I put on a burst of speed, and ran right past Methuselah, sending snow flying in every direction. I slammed up against the Door, and put my golden shoulder against it. I dug my feet in, and strained against the Door with all my armoured strength. I could feel a growing pressure on the other side of the Door. None of the disturbing heat, or the voices Doctor Delirium had heard, just an increasing sense of pressure. Of something on the other side, moving slowly, relentlessly closer. Wanting out. I threw all my weight, all my strength, against the Door. I was a Drood, shaman to Humanity, and I would hold against all the hoards of Hell, or die trying.

And then Methuselah called my name. I looked around, and he was back with Molly. Only this time, he had the glowing blade pressed against her throat. He was grinning broadly, his eyes wide and no longer entirely sane.

“Get away from the Door!” he yelled. “Even a witch will die, if you cut off her head! Doesn’t matter where she keeps her heart then, does it? Get away from my Door, or watch your witch die, right in front of you.”

“She wouldn’t want me to do that,” I said.

“Yes I bloody would!” said Molly. “It’s all right, Eddie. Do as he says.”

“What?”

“Trust me, Eddie. You can’t stop the Door opening. So let Methuselah have what he wants.”

There was something in the way she said that. I looked at her closely, and she dropped me the briefest of winks. Okay, I thought, she must know something . . . So I pushed myself away from the Door, and backed away from it. Methuselah waited till I was a safe distance away, and then headed for the Door, dragging Molly along with him, the blade still pressed against her throat. He hesitated by the Door, clearly wondering if he could cut Molly’s throat and get away with it, but in the end he just threw her face forward into the snow, grabbed up the fallen Hand of Glory, and pronounced one final, irrevocable Word. I ran forward, grabbed Molly, and hauled her away from the Door. She struggled fiercely in my arms, so I put her down, and we both turned to look at the Door.

“I’ve done it!” yelled Methuselah, dancing hysterically before the Door. “I’ve turned it, I’ve transformed its nature, it’s the Paradise Door now! I will take Heaven by storm, and know pleasures beyond bearing! Paradise is mine!”

The Door opened, just the slightest crack, and a brilliant light blasted out, so pure and blindingly brilliant that Molly and I both cried out, wanting to turn our gaze away but held where we were. The light incinerated Methuselah where he stood, reducing him to ashes in a moment. The Door closed, and all that was left of the Immortal was a few final ashes, spiralling slowly to the snow below. And then the Door just disappeared, turning in a direction my eyes could not follow—gone forever, leaving nothing behind but the crater of steaming water it had been standing in.

“Well,” I said finally. “The light of Heaven is not for mortals. And . . . somebody really doesn’t like gate-crashers.”