The Man with the Golden Torc

CHAPTER FOUR Home Is Where the Heart Is

The sun had only been up an hour or so when I finally left my comfortable little flat tucked away in an enclosed square in one of the better parts of Knightsbridge. The place cost more in rent every week than the family sent me in a year, but I once did the owner a favour, and now he picks up the tab. And in return I keep very quiet about exactly what the succubus had been doing in that flat before I exorcised her. (Let’s just say I had to burn the bed and scrub down the walls with a mixture of holy water and Lysol.) The brightening sky still had streaks of crimson in it, the birds were singing their little hearts out, the noisy bastards, and the day felt fresh and sharp with the anticipation of things to come.

I’m not normally a morning person, but it had been a really good night, thanks to Silicon Lily. She’d vanished from my bed in a crackle of discharging tachyons about an hour ago, leaving me with the memory of a wink and a smile and the scent of her perfumed sweat on my sheets. Damn, they know how to live in the twenty-third century. I took a few deep breaths of crisp morning air, yawned abruptly, and brushed vaguely at my blue jeans, white shirt, and battered black leather jacket. Good enough for the family. I don’t normally believe in getting up at the same time as everyone else, people who actually have to earn a living, but I had a long day ahead of me. I unlocked the garage under my flat with a Word and a gesture, and then backed my car out into the cobbled courtyard. I revved the engine and it roared cheerfully, and I had to grin as I thought of heads jerking up off pillows in flats all around the square. I have to get up early, everyone gets up early.

I swept through the almost empty streets of London, ignoring red lights and speed limits and marvelling at all the empty parking spaces. London just after dawn is a whole different place. A few partygoers were still stumbling home, clutching empty champagne bottles and the occasional traffic cone, and I waved cheerfully to them as I passed. We twilight people have to stick together.

I was driving my Hirondel sports car, the powder blue convertible model, with the top down, and the wind ruffled my hair affectionately as I headed out of London and aimed for the southwest countryside, going home to meet the family. I’d had hardly any sleep and only a rushed breakfast of milky cereal and burnt toast, but there’s nothing like a night of really good sex to stave off a hangover. I powered down the M4 motorway, through grasslands and open fields and cultivated countryside, enjoying the run. I sang lustily along to the Eurythmics’ Greatest Hits in the CD player, doing harmonies when I couldn’t hit the high notes. That Annie Lennox has got a hell of a range.

The Hirondel is a 1930s model, perfectly restored, but it also has many modern extras and some extraordinary options, courtesy of the family Armourer. Who firmly believes in every member of the family being prepared for enemy attack at all times. He also believes in doing unto others before they get the chance to do it unto you. As a result of his very talented work, speed cameras can’t see me, my license plate is Corps Diplomatique so the cops don’t bother me, and any car that makes the mistake of getting too close can suddenly find itself experiencing severe engine problems. For those who insist on getting too close, I have fore and aft electronic cannons capable of firing two thousand explosive fléchettes a second, flamethrowers, and an EMP generator. If you ask me, the Armourer’s seen too many spy movies. I prefer to put my faith in driving like a bat out of hell and leaving my enemies behind to eat my exhaust.

I turned off the M4 near Bristol, by now crooning along to Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man, and quickly left the main roads behind me as I headed deep into the countryside. I drove down increasingly narrow roads until I was well off the beaten track, and the roads became lanes, without even any road markings or cat’s-eyes down the middle. The morning air was sharp and fresh, filled with the scents of recently cut grass and the unmistakable presence of cows. The southwest is dairy country. Small towns gave way to even smaller villages and hamlets until finally the lane I was following just petered out into a dirt track, deeply churned by heavy farm vehicles. I kept going, slower now, following a winding way through dark and brooding woods, golden shafts of sunlight forcing their way through the general gloom like spotlights full of dancing dust motes. I braked sharply to avoid hitting a badger the size of a pig as it wandered across the road, and it actually had the nerve to give me the evil eye before scurrying off into the undergrowth. Deer watched me silently from the sides, their eyes gleaming in the shadows.

I rounded a sharp corner, and the track ended abruptly in a high stone wall buried under centuries’ growth of creeping ivy. Anyone else would have slammed on their anchors and prayed for their souls, but I just kept going. The stone wall loomed up before me, terribly solid and unforgiving, filling my view, and then I was upon it and through it, the illusion dissipating harmlessly around me, trailing wisps of ghostly stonework across my face like chilly fingertips.

(To a Drood, it’s an illusion. To everyone else, it’s a solid stone wall. And if you crash into it, don’t come crying to us. Serves you right for trying to find us.)

Bright sunlight splashed over the car as I left the illusion behind me and followed the long gravel path between two long rows of elm trees and on into the extensive grounds of the Hall. There were perfectly laid out lawns, expertly trimmed and long enough to land a plane on. Sprinklers tossed their liquid bounty around, filling the summer air with a moist haze. Beyond the lawns there were hedge mazes and flower gardens, ornamental fountains in the grand Victorian style with water gushing tastefully from classical statues, and even our own lake with swans drifting on it.

As I approached the Hall, peacocks paraded across the manicured lawns, announcing my arrival with their harsh and raucous cries. An old wishing well stood to one side, its red roof rusting and flaking away. We filled it in with concrete for getting too cocky. Winged unicorns grazed outside the adjoining stables, tossing their noble heads at me, their coats so perfect a white they seemed almost to glow. Watchful gryphons patrolled around the Hall, keeping an eye on the near future, ready for any attack. The perfect guardians and watchdogs. Unfortunately, they only eat carrion, and they like to roll in it first, so no one ever pets them and they are never allowed inside.

My family home has always been colourful as all hell. The waterfall feature has an undine in it, the old chapel has a ghost (though my family isn’t on speaking terms with it), and there are occasionally faeries at the bottom of our garden. Though if you’re wise you’ll give them plenty of space.

The Hall loomed up before me like a dentist’s appointment; it might be necessary, but you just know it’s all going to end in tears. My feelings on seeing the old homestead again after so long were so mixed I didn’t even know where to start. Everywhere I looked, familiar sights leapt to my eyes, assaulting me with nostalgia for times past, when the world seemed so much simpler. This was the place of my childhood, my formative years. I remembered sailing across the lake in a boat made of cobwebs and sealing magics under the kind of blue sky and brilliant sun you only get in memories of childhood summers. I remembered being four years old, chasing the peacocks on my stubby legs and crying because I couldn’t catch them. I remembered dancing on the roof in elfin boots, and flying on the unicorns, and…just lying on the lawns with a good book, dozing through endless summer afternoons…

I also remembered endless lessons in crowded schoolrooms, endless harsh discipline and cold courtesy, and the silent sullen resistance of my teenage years as I stubbornly refused to be led and moulded and dictated to. The never-ending arguments with increasingly senior members of the family over the way my life should go, and the terrible feeling of being crushed and limited by their rigid expectations of who and what a Drood should be. My need to be my own man, in a family where that could never be permitted. In the end I didn’t so much leave as run away, and to the Matriarch’s credit, she let me go.

I remembered the beatings, the angry raised voices, and, worse, the cutting cold words of disappointment. The withholding of treats and privileges and affection, until I learned to do without them, just to spite the family. I learned to be self-sufficient the hard way. You temper a sword by beating the crap out of the steel; and I have one hell of a temper.

Now I’d been summoned back, without explanation or warning, and a cold knot of warning and paranoia twisted in the pit of my stomach. Nothing good could come of this. Nothing good for me, anyway. Part of me wanted to just crash the car to a halt, turn it around, and drive back out. Just keep driving and driving, leave England, and lose myself in the darker parts of the world, forget I ever was a Drood. But I couldn’t do that. The family wouldn’t forget. They would declare me rogue, apostate, security risk, and they would never stop until they had hunted me down.

And besides, even after all the arguments and disagreements, I still believed in what the family stood for. I still believed in fighting the good fight.

I turned the car through a long, drawn-out curve, and the Hall swung into place before me, dominating the scene. A huge sprawling old manor house, the Hall dated back to Tudor times originally, but had been much added to down the centuries. The central building still had the traditional black-and-white boarded frontage, with heavy leaded-glass windows and a jutting gabled roof. Surrounding it were the four great wings, massive and solid in the old Regency style, containing some fifteen hundred bedrooms, all of them currently occupied by family members. Everyone here is a Drood. The roof rose and fell like a gray tiled sea, complete with gables, gargoyles, and ornamental guttering. Not forgetting the observatory, the aerie, the landing pad, and more aerials and antennae than you could shake a gremlin at. There are many rooms in my family’s mansion, and there’s room for everyone. As long as you toe the line.

The Hall is also a real swine to heat, draughty as all hell in the winter, and the family doesn’t believe in central heating because they think it makes you soft. I grew up thinking wearing long underwear half the year was normal.

And in the Hall’s most secret chambers, my family decides the fate of the world. Seven days a week, no time off for good behaviour.

This isn’t my family’s first home, of course. The Droods were an old, old family even back in Tudor times. We moved on and moved up as we grew in size and status and influence. But the Hall has been our home and centre of operations for so long now it’s hard to think of us anywhere else. You won’t find the Hall on any official map, nor will you find any of the routes that lead to it. I’d felt the many layers of scientific and magical defences sliding aside to let me pass as I drove down the long graveled drive, rising and falling before me like a series of shifting veils, and then sealing themselves behind me again. Someone was watching me from the moment I passed through the stone wall, and would continue to watch until I left again. Robot guns actually rose up out of the lawns to track my car at one point before reluctantly burying themselves again. They were new. But of course, it’s always the defences you can’t see or sense that will really screw you over. Anyone who comes looking for us, uninvited and unexpected, risks being killed in any number of increasingly distressing ways.

The family has always taken its privacy very seriously. When you’ve been protecting and policing the world for as long as we have, you can’t help but accumulate serious enemies. The Hall and its extensive grounds are surrounded and suffused with layer upon layer of protections, including a whole bunch of scarecrows. We make them out of old enemies. If you listen in on the right supernatural frequency, you can hear them screaming. Don’t mess with the Droods. We take it personally. We get mad and we get even.

I brought the Hirondel to a crashing halt right before the front door, in a swirl and a spray of churned-up gravel, and parked right there just because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I turned off the engine, and then sat there for a while, staring at nothing and tapping my fingertips on the steering wheel, listening to the cries of the peacocks and the slow ticking of the cooling engine. I didn’t want to do this. By not leaving the car I was putting off the moment when I would have to enter my old home and walk back into the cold, distant embrace of my family. But…sooner or later you have to walk into the dentist’s surgery and just get it over with.

I slammed the car door loudly, enjoying the echoes, and then locked it. Not because it was necessary, or even because it would stop whomever they sent to move it. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone that I didn’t trust anyone here. The Hall rose up before me like a tidal wave cast in stone. It looked even bigger than I remembered, up close, and even more forbidding. I could feel its mass, its centuries of accumulated duty and responsibility, trying to suck me in like a black hole, but I balked at the front door. I was supposed to walk straight in and present myself to the Matriarch, as custom and tradition demanded…but I’ve never been big on doing what I’m supposed to do. And since I was still more than a bit resentful at being summoned back so abruptly, I decided that the Matriarch could wait while I went for a little walk.

I turned my back on the front door, humming aloud in an unconcerned sort of way, and strolled past the many arched and stained-glass windows at the front of the house. I could feel their presence, like the pressure of so many watching eyes, so I kept my own gaze resolutely straight ahead. The gravel crunched loudly under my feet as I headed past the east wing, rounded the corner, and smiled for the first time as I beheld the old family chapel. Tucked away out of sight and set firmly apart, the chapel was a squat stone structure with crucifix windows. It looked Saxon but was actually an eighteenth-century folly. The family had its own chapel inside the Hall now, pleasant and peaceful and graciously multidenominational, and the old building had been left to rot. It is currently occupied by the family ghost, Jacob Drood, cantankerous old goat that he is. He’s my great-great-great-grandfather, I think. Genealogy never was my strong point.

On the whole, my family discourages ghosts, otherwise we’d be hip deep in the things. If any do come bleating back to the Hall after being killed in the field, they get dispatched on to the Hereafter pretty damned sharply. The family looks strictly forward, never back, and there just isn’t room in the Hall for anyone to be sentimental. Jacob is allowed to linger on in the chapel through some technicality I’ve never really understood, mostly because the few people who do know are just too embarrassed to talk about it. All families have the odd skeleton in the closet, and ours is Jacob. The family ostentatiously hasn’t been on speaking terms with him for years, and he couldn’t care less. Mostly he just sits around in his ghostly underwear, watching the memories of old television shows on a set with no insides in it. Now and again he keeps a spectral eye on what the family’s up to, just because he knows he’s not supposed to.

Jacob and I have always got along fine.

I first found out about him when I was eight. Cousin Georgie dared me to go peek in the window of the forbidden chapel, and I never could resist a dare. I was caught (of course) and punished (of course) and told that the chapel and its occupant were strictly off-limits. After that, I couldn’t wait to meet him. I just knew we’d be kindred spirits. So I sneaked out that night and basically ambushed the old ghost in his den. He made a few halfhearted attempts to scare me off, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’d waited a long time for the family to throw up another black sheep like him. We quickly warmed to each other, and after that no one could keep us apart. The family did try, but Jacob came striding out of the chapel and right into the Matriarch’s private chambers, and whatever was said there, after that the two of us were left strictly to ourselves.

Jacob was perhaps the only real friend I had, then. Certainly the only one I could trust. He encouraged all my early rebellions and was the only one who was always on my side. He was the one who told me to get out, first chance I got. He approved of me; said I reminded him of himself as a teenager. Which was rather worrying, actually.

The chapel looked as squat and ugly as ever; rough stone buried under thick mats of ivy that stirred and twisted threateningly as I approached the open front door. Part of Jacob’s early warning system. I patted the ivy and spoke to it in a friendly fashion, and it relaxed again as it remembered and recognised my voice. The door was stuck halfway open, as always, and I put my shoulder to it. The heavy wood scraped loudly across the bare stone floor, raising a cloud of dust. I coughed and sneezed a few times and peered into the gloom. Nothing had changed.

The pews were still stacked up against the far wall to make room for Jacob’s giant black leather reclining chair, and beside it sat an old-fashioned refrigerator that was somehow always full of ethereal booze. A massive old television stood before the chair, with real rabbits’ ears piled on top to help with the reception. Jacob didn’t look around as I approached. He sprawled bonelessly in his great chair, a gray wispy figure who flickered in and out as his concentration wavered. He looked older than death, his face a mass of wrinkles, his bony skull graced with just a few long flyaway hairs. He was currently wearing faded Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt bearing the legend Ghosts Do It from Beyond. He chugged down the last of his beer and threw the can away. It disappeared before it hit the floor. Jacob waved a gray hand jerkily in my direction, leaving thin trails of ectoplasm on the air.

"Come in, Eddie, come in! And shut the door behind you. The draughts play havoc with my old bones."

I stood my ground beside his chair, my arms folded across my chest. "And what bones would those be, you disgusting old revenant?"

He scowled at me from under bushy white eyebrows. "You get to be as ancient as me, lad, you’ll suffer a few aches and pains too. It’s not easy, being this old. Or everybody would be doing it."

"How can you have aches and pains? You’re dead. You don’t have an actual body anymore."

"That’s right! Rub it in! Just because I’m dead, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. The way the family treats me these days makes me spin in my grave."

"You were cremated, Jacob."

"All right, I’ll turn in my urn!" He shut down his ghostly television set with a snap of his fingers and finally turned to smile at me. "Damn, it’s good to have you back, lad. None of the current generation have the spunk to come out and talk to me. How long has it been, Eddie? I lose track in here…"

"Ten years," I said.

He nodded slowly. "You’ve filled out nicely, lad. Good outfit, rotten attitude, and you look like you could punch your weight. A credit to my teachings. But what the hell are you doing back here, Eddie? You did the one thing even I couldn’t do; you escaped."

"The family called me home," I said, trying hard to keep my voice light and unconcerned. "I was kind of hoping you might know why."

Jacob sniffed and settled back in his reclining chair. The ghost of a pipe appeared in his hand, and he sucked thoughtfully on the stem, releasing thick puffs of ectoplasm that drifted up to the cobwebbed ceiling. "Not much point in asking me, lad. The family’s been keeping me even more at arm’s length than usual, of late. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from keeping a watchful eye on them…" He grinned nastily at me. "You want all the latest gossip, Eddie lad? You want to know who’s having who, who messed up in the field again, and who came back stoned out of her mind and crashed the autogyro on the roof landing pad?"

"Tell me everything," I said. "I think I need to know everything."

Jacob waved his pipe away, and it disintegrated into drifting streams of ectoplasm. He sat up straight in his chair and fixed me with a steady gaze, his ancient eyes pinning me where I stood. "To start with, there’s a new faction in the family. Gaining a lot of support, especially among the youngsters. Basically, it boils down to a Let’s get them before they get us strategy. This new faction is talking very loudly about the virtues of preemptive strikes and a zero tolerance for all identified bad guys. No more dealing with problems as they arise; stick it to the bad guys with extreme prejudice, whether we can prove anything or not."

"If we were to declare open war," I said slowly, "our enemies would just band together for protection against a common threat, and we’d be vastly outnumbered. We’ve survived as long as we have only because we understand the virtues of divide and conquer."

Jacob shrugged. "Youngsters today; no patience. No taking the long view. It’s all instant gratification now. I blame MTV and video games. So far, older and wiser heads in the family are keeping the new faction firmly in its place, but everyone’s talking about it…Also, your cousin William’s been stirring things, just so he can get plenty of good footage for the documentary he’s been making about the family. Though God alone knows who he thinks is going to see it. Could be a big hit, mind, with all those people who watched The Osbournes. Meet the Droods: an even more dysfunctional family, only far more dangerous…

"The Matriarch’s stepped up security around the Hall. Again. You probably noticed the extra measures on your way in. Of course, they can’t keep me out. It’s hard to keep secrets from the dead. We’re natural voyeurs. Shall we take a look at what our beloved leader is up to at the moment?"

He snapped his fingers at the empty television set before him, and the old episode of Dark Shadows that had been running with the sound off was replaced by an impressively sharp image of the family Matriarch in her study, talking with her husband, Alistair. He was pacing up and down, looking distinctly worried, while she sat straight-backed in her chair, all icy calm and dignity.

"He’ll be here soon," said Alistair. "What are we going to tell him?"

"We’ll tell him what he needs to know, and no more," said the Matriarch. "That’s always been the family way."

"But if he even suspects…"

"He won’t."

"We could tell him the truth." Alistair stopped pacing and looked directly at the Matriarch. "We could appeal to his better nature. To his duty, to his love of the family…"

The Matriarch sniffed loudly. "Don’t be a fool. He’s far too dangerous. I have determined what needs to be done, and that’s all there is to it. I have always understood what’s best for the family. Wait…Someone’s listening in! Is that you, Jacob?"

She turned abruptly and stared right out of the screen at us. Jacob gestured quickly and the picture disappeared, replaced by an old episode of The Addams Family.

"Told you she’d stepped up security," said Jacob. "What do you suppose that was all about?"

"I don’t know," I said. "But I don’t like the sound of it."

"Something’s going on," Jacob said darkly. "Something the Matriarch and her precious inner circle don’t want the rank and file to know about. There’s something in the air…Something Big is coming. I can feel it, gathering like stormclouds in the future. And when it finally breaks, it’s going to be a monster…There have been several direct attacks on the Hall just recently."

"Hold it," I said. "Attacks? No one’s told me anything about any attacks. What kind of attacks?"

"Powerful ones." Jacob stirred uncomfortably in his chair. "Even I didn’t see them coming, and that’s not like me. Nothing got through, of course, but just the fact that someone or something felt confident enough to launch a direct attack on where we live speaks volumes. In my day, no one would have dared. We’d have tracked them down, ripped their souls out, and nailed them to our outer walls. But it’s all politics now; agreements and pacts and truces. The family isn’t what it was…I don’t know why they’ve called you back, Eddie, but it sure as hell isn’t to pin a medal on your chest. Watch your back, lad."

"Always," I said. "Anything I can do for you, Jacob?"

He leered at me in a frankly unsettling way. "If that headless nun is still haunting the north wing, tell her to get her ectoplasmic arse down here, and I’ll teach her a whole new way to manifest."

"But…she hasn’t got a head!"

"It’s not her head I’m interested in!"

And he wonders why the rest of the family won’t talk to him.

Out in the bright sunlight again, under a perfect blue sky, with gryphons prowling watchfully on the perfect lawns, while butterflies big as my hand fluttered through the flower gardens, I found it hard to believe that the family could be in any real danger. Or that I might be. I might not always have been happy here, but I always felt safe in the Hall. The power of the Droods depended on the fact that no one could touch us. I looked up at the Hall towering over me, ancient and powerful, just like us. How could anything be wrong in such a perfect place, on such a perfect day?

I walked in through the main entrance, and there in the vestibule was the Sarjeant-at-Arms, waiting to meet me. Of course he was waiting; hours before the gryphons would have told him the exact moment I’d arrive. The Sarjeant was never surprised by anything or anyone. That was his job. He inclined his head stiffly to me, which was about as much welcome as I’d expected. In the Drood family, the prodigal son was always going to be in for a rough ride. The Sarjeant-at-Arms wore the stark black-and-white formal outfit of a Victorian butler, right down to the stiff and starched high collar, even though he had the build and manner of an army sergeant major. I knew for a fact he always carried half a dozen concealed weapons of increasing power and viciousness somewhere about his person. If the Hall ever was attacked and breached, he’d be the first line of defence and very likely the last thing the attackers ever saw.

He had a face that might have been chiselled out of stone. He didn’t looked at all pleased to see me, but then, he never looked pleased about anything. Gossip had it smiling was against his religion.

"Hi there, Jeeves," I said just to wind him up, because we both knew he was far more than just a butler. (There are no servants, as such, in the Hall. We all serve the family, in our own way.) (Or at least, that’s the official line…)

"Good morning, Edwin," said the Sarjeant in his voice like grinding gravel. "The Matriarch is expecting you."

"I know," I said. "I wish I could say I was glad to be home again."

"Indeed," said the Sarjeant. "I wish I could say I was glad to see you again, boy."

We sneered at each other for a moment, and then, honour satisfied, I allowed him to lead the way through the shadowy vestibule and on into the great hallway. Light streamed in through hundreds of stained-glass windows, filling the extended hallway with all the colours of the rainbow. Old paintings and portraits showed honoured members of the family: Drood men and women sitting and standing in fixed and formal poses, in the dress and fashions of centuries past, staring out at their descendants with stern, unwavering eyes.

Drood service and tradition goes back a long way, and none of us are ever permitted to forget it. By the time we got to the end of the hallway, the paintings had given way to photographs. From the first shadowy images to sepia tones to the garish colours of modern times, the fallen dead stared proudly out at the world they made.

I stopped to consider one photo in its silver frame, and the Sarjeant stopped reluctantly beside me. The photo held two faces I knew like my own. A man and a woman stood together, proudly erect as befitting Droods, but there was a clear warmth and affection in their smiles and in their eyes. He was tall and elegant and handsome, and so was she, and they looked every inch the roistering adventurers everyone said they were. Charles and Emily Drood; my father and my mother. Murdered on a family mission in the Basque region, while I was still just a small child. Looking at them, so young and full of life, I realised I was older now than they were when they died.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms hovered silently close beside me, making me aware of his impatience with his proximity, but I wouldn’t let myself be hurried. Hello, Dad, I thought. Hello, Mum. I’ve come back. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just nodded to them and moved on.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms finally ushered me into the library, to wait there until the Matriarch was prepared to see me. He inclined his head again, very stiffly, and withdrew, shutting the door firmly behind him. I pulled a face at the closed door and relaxed a little. Walking with the Sarjeant always felt like you were being marched with a gun at your back. I wandered slowly through the many towering stacks and shelves of the family library, inhaling the old familiar smells of leather bindings, paper, and ink and dust. On these shelves, in these books, is recorded the true history of the world. All the secret deals and treaties, the private promises and betrayals, and all the secret wars that take place behind the scenes that normal people never get to hear about. The subtle moves on the invisible board, in the greatest game of all.

I was born, raised, and educated here in the Hall, like every other Drood son and daughter, but I was one of the very few who ever bothered to read any book that wasn’t part of the official curriculum. I discovered the library when I was ten, and after that they couldn’t keep me out. The family teaches you what it thinks you need to know and nothing more. I, on the other hand, ploughed through books like others devoured junk food, and what the family called education I came to see as indoctrination. I wanted to know it all, the context as well as the bare facts. And the more I read, the more I wanted to get out into the real world and see it as it really was.

For a long time, I couldn’t see why this was such a problem for my teachers. I was being trained to fight evil, to know who humanity’s real enemies were and how to defeat them; so surely the more I knew about them, the better. Whenever I challenged anything, I was always told to just shut up and go along like everyone else, because only my elders and betters could see The Big Picture. So I just kept reading, trying to see it too.

The problem with the Drood family library is the sheer bloody size of the thing. Miles and miles of stacks and shelves taking up the whole lower floor of the south wing, every shelf packed tight to bursting with the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of centuries. Books written in every language under the sun, and some from darker places, including a few dialects so arcane that human vocal cords can’t pronounce them out loud. So I read what I could in the original and badgered the librarian endlessly to find translations for those I couldn’t. A decent old stick, the librarian. Wore gaudy pullovers, even in the summer, and went motorbike scrambling every weekend. He disappeared suddenly, years before I left. We never did find out what happened to him.

I wandered aimlessly through the racks, trailing my fingertips lightly along the leather spines. We believe in books. Computer files can be hacked; paper can’t. The only way to access the information in this library is to come here in person. And the only way to do that is to be part of the family.

"Hello, Eddie. It’s good to see you again."

I turned around, already smiling because I knew who it was, who it had to be. There was only one living member of the family who’d actually be pleased to see me again. Uncle James strode forward to greet me, one hand outstretched to give me a firm, manly handshake. He looked great, as always, perfectly outfitted in the most stylish three-piece suit money could buy, looking every inch the rakish gentleman adventurer he was. Uncle James was tall, darkly handsome, effortlessly elegant and sardonic, and in really good shape for a man in his late fifties. His striking face had more than its fair share of character lines, but his hair was still jet-black. His welcoming smile was broad and genuine, but even with me, there was still a touch of the ingrained iciness that never left his eyes.

James had always been my favourite member of the family. After my father and my mother were killed, James became the closest thing to a parent I had. He took a sullen, silent, lost, and introverted boy and gave him a reason to live. He found things to interest and challenge me, encouraged my rebellions, and gave me a purpose in learning to fight all the evil people in the world responsible for orphaning so many children. He brought me back out of myself and made it possible for me to be happy again. If I ever had a hero, it was Uncle James. The last of the great adventurers, he went to the good war like a starving man to a feast. He had the most experience, and the most successful missions to his credit, of any member of the family. His use-name was a curse on the lips of the ungodly, and you could stop conversations with it in bars and dives all across the world. They called him the Gray Fox, and he was everything I ever aspired to be.

He was also the first one to advise me to leave and strike out on my own before the family’s insistence on duty and tradition crushed my spirit. I’ve always believed that the only reason I was ever allowed to operate at such a distance was because Uncle James went to bat for me with the Matriarch. Not that I’ve ever mentioned it, of course. It would only have embarrassed him.

"It’s good to see you again, Uncle James," I said. "Ten years it’s been, and yet still strangely there’s not even a hint of gray at your temples…"

"Clean living and heavy drinking," he said easily. "You’ve filled out since I last saw you. It suits you."

"Do you know why I’ve been summoned back here?" I said bluntly.

"Haven’t a clue, Eddie. I’m only looking in, in between missions. A soft bed, a good meal, and a wander through the wine cellars before they pack me off again. I’m just back from giving Dr. Delirium a bloody nose in the Amazon jungle, and as soon as I’ve done a little research here, I’m off to sort out the Shadow Boxers of Shanghai. You know how it is; one damned thing after another."

"I am so jealous," I said, grinning despite myself. "You get all the most glamorous assignments. I’ve never even been allowed out of the country."

He raised a single eyebrow as he lit a black Russian cigarette with his monogrammed gold lighter. "Now, you know why that is, Eddie. But you do good work. People notice. The more missions you complete successfully, the more trust you’ll earn, and the more leash they’ll give you."

"But they’ll never take the leash off, will they? I’ll never be free of the family."

"Why would you want to? You’re part of the most important heritage in the world." James looked me right in the eye, very seriously. "To be born a Drood is a privilege as well as a responsibility. We get to know the truth about the way things really are, and we get to fight the battles that really matter. And if in return we get the best of everything, it’s because we’ve earned it. And all the family has ever asked for is loyalty."

"We’re born drafted into a war that never ends," I said, meeting his gaze squarely. "And most of us die fighting that war, far from home and family. Some of us never get to know our parents, and some parents never get to know their sons. I know: it’s an honour to serve. But I would have liked to be asked."

And that was when the general alarm sounded, like every bell and siren in the world going off at once. James and I turned as one and ran back through the library. We charged out into the corridor and almost ran over the Sarjeant-at-Arms as he ran past, a gun in each hand. James grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him to a halt as family members came running from every direction.

"It’s the Heart!" yelled the Sarjeant, pulling away and racing off down the corridor. "It’s an attack on the Sanctity!"

He didn’t need to say any more. James and I were already running full pelt after him. James had a gun in each hand too now. And all I had was my needle gun. I didn’t draw it. I was pretty sure frozen holy water wasn’t going to be enough this time. The Heart was the source of the family’s power. Its stored energies made all our magics and super-sciences possible, including the living armour we all depended on. But the Sanctity, the great chamber that holds the Heart, was the single most heavily defended and protected part of the Hall. It’s supposed to be invulnerable, inviolate. A direct attack on the Hall was rare enough; an attack on the Heart was unprecedented, unthinkable.

James and I ran on, plunging through corridor after corridor at breakneck speed, both of us breathing steadily to conserve our wind, as we’d been trained. More and more members of the family came running from everywhere to join us, men and women with shocked, strained faces and all kinds of weapons in their hands. Young and old, fighters and researchers and even duty staff; people who should never have been needed, given the guaranteed safety of the Hall.

We were closing in on the Sanctity now, at the very centre of the Hall. I could feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck. There was a pressure, a presence, on the air, like the cold shadow of a place where bad things had happened. Something Big is coming, that’s what old Jacob had said. Something Big…Something Bad. And it was close now. Very close.

Uncle James and I caught up with the Sarjeant-at-Arms just as he slammed through the great double doors into the Sanctity, and there was the Heart: a single huge diamond shining like the sun, so big it filled the massive chamber the family had built to contain and protect it. A diamond bigger than a bus, a million facets blazing and shimmering so brightly none of us could bear to look at it directly. The room was full of its light, and entering the Sanctity was like diving into ice-cold water. It took your breath away, like a shock to the soul. The Heart blazed with an otherworldly light, holding and harnessing the power that made our family’s job possible. A light or an energy, a science or a magic; even after all the centuries it had been with us, we were no nearer to understanding it.

The Heart was surrounded by powerful protections. I could feel them even as I edged into the Sanctity, hammering on the shimmering air. Some of the family couldn’t even bring themselves to enter the room. But still the bells and sirens were shrieking, summoning the family to defend the Heart from an attack by someone or something unbelievably powerful. Only the most terrible of our enemies would dare launch so blatant an assault. I circled slowly around the gigantic diamond, one arm raised before my eyes to shield me from its overwhelming glare. The light seemed to blaze right through my fragile flesh, like an X-ray. James was there with me, and the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and I sensed as much as saw other members of the family moving slowly around the Heart, searching desperately for some sign of the enemy.

I had my needle gun in my hand. I didn’t have a lot of faith in it, but just its presence made me feel better. I hadn’t armoured up. None of us had. We were all still thinking in terms of threats to the safety of the Heart. It never even occurred to us that we might be in danger. This was the Hall, and we had always been safe here.

I felt something approaching from a direction I could sense but not name. It was a Presence, something so vast and alien and utterly other that its terrible nature actually eclipsed and overwhelmed the Heart. It drew closer and closer, straining to materialise inside the Sanctity, trying to force its way in from some other dimension of reality. It seemed to be closing in on us from every direction at once, and just the sense of it was like shit smeared across my soul. Like a mountain of maggots, or the smile the razor blade leaves as it slices through a suicide’s wrists. It was almost upon us, and it hated us, just for being human.

The wood-panelled wall to my left groaned loudly as it bulged inwards, the old wood stretching impossibly, forced out of shape by some unnameable pressure from Outside our three-dimensional reality. The floor rose up at its centre like some monstrous boil, and the ceiling bulged down. All the walls were crying out now, straining inwards towards the Heart. Something was forcing its way into the Sanctity, from some higher or lower dimension, from some place we couldn’t even hope to comprehend. And one by one, all the many layers of protection the family had set in place around the Heart shattered and blew apart, like so many cheap firecrackers.

Family magicians were in the room now, crowding around the Heart, chanting spells and brandishing ancient talismans, trying to set up new defensive parameters. Family scientists worked right there beside them, operating esoteric constructions of weird technology, some of which looked like they’d dragged right in from the testing labs. All kinds of energy fields crackled on the air, but still the awful Presence surrounded us, descending on us from everywhere at once.

And finally, it broke through. Something was just suddenly there in the room with us; or rather, Nothing was. There was a Gap, an Absence, a horrible Void just hanging on the air before the Heart. I couldn’t see or hear it, but I could feel it on a level that had nothing to do with senses. It was as though some terribly old, perhaps even prehuman part of me recognised it. A great sucking pit of the spirit; a hole in reality itself. It pulsed, like some great malignant heart, and then it reached out and sucked the flesh right off those members of the family nearest it.

We lost a dozen men and women in a moment, meat and blood torn from their bones, whole organs flying through the air and into the Void to make it a body, to give it shape and form in this world. The bloody pulp of organs and muscles slammed together, flesh slapping upon flesh, building a body whose shape made no sense, to house and hold the awful thing that had forced its way in from Outside. Bloody bones lay scattered across the floor, unwanted, along with a dozen golden torcs. People were puking and retching everywhere, even as they backed away.

"Armour up!" James yelled. "Everyone! Now!"

We all subvocalised the Words, and living armour encased us, glorious and golden, sealing us off from the pull of the Void. For the first time I felt sane and human again, able to think clearly, my spirit no longer soiled by the presence of the thing before us. Where the Void had been, a huge new thing had taken shape. It looked like it was made out of cancers, like sickness and death made solid and vicious. It was scarlet and purple with bulging dark veins, and it glistened wetly. Uneven rows of human eyes stared unblinkingly out of a pulpy mass that might have been meant as a face. It rose up to the bowed ceiling, big as ten men, limbs of a sort radiating from its central mass, but its shape and dimensions and attributes made no sense at all. I felt its attention turn away from the family, towards the Heart, and I sensed a terrible emotion in the shape that might have been rage, or hunger, or a need to violate. It moved towards the Heart, surging forward like a snail, and the great diamond’s light seemed to flicker and diminish, just from the thing’s proximity.

"Stop it!" James yelled. "Don’t let it touch the Heart!"

The Sarjeant-at-Arms had already opened fire, blazing away with both guns at once. James strode forward, pouring bullets into the bloody shape from close range, and I was right there with him, firing my needle gun. Everyone else in the Sanctity opened fire on the mass with whatever weapons they had, crowding forward, ignoring their own safety to protect the Heart. Magicians unleashed curses and damnations, and scientists fired strange energies from stranger weapons…and none of it did any good. The bloody shape absorbed our bullets, and everything else, with equal indifference, pressing slowly but inexorably towards the Heart. Golden armoured hands that could punch through walls or shattered steel flailed at the pulpy mass, and it just ignored us. One armoured man stood defiantly in its path. The scarlet shape sucked him in and spat him out the other side. He thrashed weakly on the floor, screaming like the newly damned.

I grabbed James by the arm and made him look at me. "Call them off! They’ll listen to you. I’ve got an idea!"

He looked at me, and then nodded curtly and ordered the family to disengage. Everyone fell back immediately. They trusted James, where they almost certainly wouldn’t have trusted me. James looked at me expectantly. I reached through the armour on my side, drew the portable door from my pocket, activated it, and tossed it into the path of the bloody shape as it surged forward, just as I had with the Hyde at the Wulfshead. The portable door slid neatly into position, sparked and sputtered a few times, and then just lay there, inert. I’d used it too often. The batteries were dead.

James was still looking at me. I couldn’t see his face behind the gleaming golden mask, but I could guess his expression. He’d trusted me, and I’d let him down. I looked back at the shape. It was almost upon the Heart. I thought hard, glaring desperately about the Sanctity in search of inspiration, and then my gaze fell upon the dozen torcs lying discarded on the floor, left behind when their owners were stripped of flesh to make the bloody shape. I lurched forward, grabbed a handful of the golden collars, raised my golden fist, and punched the torcs right through the dark-veined cancerous side of the thing. I forced them deep into the mass, let go of the torcs, and then tried to pull my hand out again; but it was stuck.

A terrible coldness, as much of the spirit as the body, crept up my arm. I think I cried out. And then James was there beside me, pulling at my trapped arm with all his strength. For a terrifyingly long moment even our combined strength wasn’t enough, and then my hand jerked out of the bloody mass, and we both staggered backwards. I yelled aloud the Words that activated the living armour, the Words we normally only ever subvocalised, and the five torcs within the bloody shape activated. All at once.

Inside the cancerous fleshy mass, the torcs did what they were programmed to do. They identified their owners, or in this case what was left of them, and encased them in living armour. Golden shards erupted out of the red and purple shape, slicing it apart. The bloody mass fought back, struggling to maintain the integrity of the form it had taken, but the torcs’ progress was inexorable. Once started, their transformation could not be stopped by anyone or anything. The bloody shape collapsed, and a soundless howl of fury filled all our heads for a moment as the thing from Outside snapped out of existence, its hold on our reality broken. Lying on the floor before the Heart, in awful unnatural attitudes, were five suits of golden armour surrounded by pieces of bloody meat. I didn’t want to think about what those suits contained.

The oppressive sense of the invading Presence was gone. The bells and sirens all snapped off, and a blessed silence filled the Sanctity. One by one we all armoured down, golden forms giving way to men and women with shocked, traumatised faces. James clapped me on the shoulder.

"Well done, Eddie. Good thinking."

People began slowly filing out of the room. The Heart was safe. Everyone went back to their normal, everyday duties. Some were in shock; some had to be helped. Some were openly angry or scared, because the Hall was no longer the safe place it always been before. Some were crying over the loss of friends or loved ones. You couldn’t blame them. Most of the family never see fieldwork, never see any kind of action, never see the blood and suffering and death that lies at the heart of what the Droods do and are. There’d be a lot of sleeping pills and bad dreams in the four wings tonight.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms had already collared a few of the harder-hearted souls and set them to work, and the clearing up had begun. He didn’t even look at me. I might have just saved the day, and the Heart, and maybe the whole family, but he still didn’t trust me. And none of the others congratulated me as they left. Most didn’t even look at me. None of them wanted to be seen talking to me, didn’t even want to get too close to the man who’d turned his back on family tradition and responsibility, in case some of my independence rubbed off on them. James made a point of standing next to me, his hand still on my shoulder.

Everyone respected the Gray Fox.

Finally, we left the Sanctity together and went out into the corridor. Away from the stench of spilled blood and meat and guts, the old familiar smells of wood and polish and fresh flowers was immediately restorative. I breathed deeply, and my head cleared. The ancient, solid walls, with their sense of long history and service, were actually reassuring for once.

"This assault is unprecedented," said James. He kept his voice low as we walked, but it still held a cold anger that was disturbingly near the surface. "Not only did something just hammer its way through the Hall’s defences, and the Heart’s; it actually killed Droods! Right here in the midst of the family! That’s never happened before. We’re supposed to be safe here, protected from all threats and dangers."

"This has never happened before?" I said. "I mean, ever?"

James looked at me for a long moment, as though deciding just how much he trusted me. "There have been two previous attacks on the Heart," he said finally, in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it. "No one was hurt, and neither of them got this close, but still…"

"Jesus…No wonder the Matriarch’s been busy punching up the Hall’s defences…"

James looked at me oddly. "How did you know that, Eddie?"

"I had a word with old Jacob. He doesn’t miss much."

"Oh, yes. Of course. You always were fond of that disgusting old reprobate. You must understand, Eddie…the Hall has been inviolate ever since we first moved in here. No one’s ever been able to crack our defences, let alone actually threaten the Heart. There can only be one answer…an inside man. A traitor in the family, giving up the secrets of our protections."

I was so shocked I actually stopped in my tracks and stared at him with my mouth hanging open. Members of the family had left in the past or been declared rogue and forced out, but no one had ever turned traitor, working from within to betray us to our enemies…It was unthinkable.

"Is that why everyone’s been so conspicuously giving me the cold shoulder?" I said eventually. "Is that why I’ve been called back?"

"I don’t know, Eddie. The Matriarch…hasn’t been taking me into her confidence like she used to. So…watch your back, while you’re here. Paranoia breeds suspicion. Because if the family can’t identify their traitor, they might just choose one…"

We walked on together, back through the many rooms and passageways of the Hall, past magnificent works of art that we all just took for granted. Rembrandts. Goyas. Schalckens. The Hall is stuffed with priceless paintings and sculptures and precious items, donated by princes and powers and governments down the centuries. They’ve always been very grateful for everything the family does for them. And then there were the displays of weapons and all the other spoils of war we’ve accumulated. The family might not be very sentimental about its past, but it never throws away anything useful.

"Someone is testing us," said James after a while. "Testing their traitor’s information, seeing how far they can get before we stop them. But who? The Stalking Shrouds? The Loathly Ones? The Cold Eidolon? The Mandrake Recorporation?" He shook his head slowly. "There’s so many of them, and so few of us." And then he smiled at me, his old damn-them-all-to-hell smile, and clapped me on the shoulder again. "Let them come. Let them all come. We’re Droods, and we were born to kick supernatural arse. Right?"

"Damn right," I said.