The Man with the Golden Torc

CHAPTER EIGHT Seduction of the Not Entirely Innocent

Uncle James disappeared without even saying good-bye, air rushing in to fill the space where he’d been. I should have told him about the faerie arrow that pierced my armour, but he hadn’t given me a chance, and anyway, I was still in shock. My family wanted me dead. After everything I’d done for them, after ten long years of fighting the good fight on their behalf, this was my reward: to be declared rogue. Traitor. Outcast. I might have had my disagreements with them, but they were still my family. I would never have betrayed them. It’s one thing to run away from home; quite another to be told you can’t go back because if you do they’ll kill you on sight. I looked at the lead-lined container that should have held the Soul of Albion, staring into its empty red plush interior as though it might have some answers for me. It didn’t, so I threw it away.

I went back to the Hirondel and slid painfully in behind the wheel again. I might be hurting in all kinds of ways, but I was still a professional, so I had the car’s defence systems run a complete diagnostic, to make sure there weren’t any more bugs or tracking devices anywhere on board. Or indeed any other nasty and possibly fatal surprises. The car muttered to itself for a bit, and then gave itself a clean bill of health. I relaxed a little and started up the engine. Even after all she’d been through, the Hirondel roared smoothly and immediately to life, ready to take me anywhere I wanted. It was good to know there were still a few things left in my life that wouldn’t let me down.

I headed the Hirondel back up the M4, away from the south, back towards London. My home territory. If they were going to come for me, I wanted it to be on home ground. I passed dead bodies and crashed vehicles, blazing fires and black smoke and all the other damage I’d done. There seemed to be quite a lot of it. Poor damned fools, dying for nothing, over a prize that was never there. And if there were similarities in that to how my life had turned out, I tried not to think about it. The Hirondel laboured along, reluctant to hit high speeds anymore, but I was in no hurry anyway. The family’s remote viewers couldn’t see or find me as long as I wore the torc. Slowly my shock crystallised into anger, and then into something colder and more determined. I wanted answers. My whole world had just been turned upside down, and I needed to know why. According to James I had been officially declared a rogue, so none of the other family out in the world would talk to me. Hell, most of them would try to kill me the moment they set eyes on me. Droods have no mercy for traitors.

Which meant there was only one place left I could go for answers, for the truth: the people I’d been fighting all my life. The bad guys.

I left the M4 by the first exit I came to. I needed to lose myself in country roads and back lanes before the family’s search hounds came sniffing up the motorway after me. I hadn’t gone half a mile down the exit before I was forced to slow down and stop by a police barricade. It wasn’t a particularly impressive barricade; just a few rows of plastic cones backed up by the presence of two uniformed officers and a squad car. A long line of stationary vehicles faced me in the other lane, and a small crowd of impatient drivers had gathered on the other side of the cones, taking it in turns to loudly berate the police officers. They all looked around as I approached in the Hirondel, and they all seemed pretty surprised to see me. I stopped the car a respectful distance away, and the police officers came over to talk to me. I think they were quite pleased for an excuse to get away from the drivers. They both did distinct double takes as they took in the condition of my car, and they stopped a respectful distance away from me and ordered me to turn off my engine and get out of my car. I smiled and did as I was told. They had answers, whether they knew it or not.

I sat on the bonnet of the Hirondel and waited for them to come to me. They approached cautiously, pointing out the bullet holes and the shattered windscreen to each other. They hadn’t expected to see anything like that on traffic duty. One of them started writing down my license plate number in his little notebook, for all the good that would do him, while his colleague came forward to interrogate me. I gave him a nice, friendly smile.

"Why is this section of the motorway sealed off?" I said innocently, getting my question in before he could ask me for ID that I had absolutely no intention of providing.

"Seems there’s been a chemical spill, sir. Very serious, so they tell me. Are you sure you haven’t seen anything, sir? This whole section of the M4 has been officially declared a hazardous area."

"Well, yes," I said, allowing myself another smile. "I did find it rather hazardous in places…"

The police officer didn’t like the smile at all. "I think you’d better stay here with us for a while, sir. I’m sure my superiors will want to ask you some more detailed questions down at the station. And the hazmat people will want to make sure you haven’t been exposed to anything dangerous." He stopped. I was smiling again. He looked at me coldly. "This is a very serious matter, sir. Please move away from your vehicle. I need to see some identification."

"No, you don’t," I said. I drew my Colt Repeater from its shoulder holster. The police officer put his hands in the air immediately, palms out to show they were empty. His colleague started forward, and I raised the gun just a little.

"Stay where you are, Les, and don’t be a fool!" said the other officer.

"Remember your training!"

"It could be a replica," said Les, staying back but still scowling at me.

I aimed casually at the squad car, and the Colt shot out all four of the tyres. The small crowd of drivers by the cones cried out in shock and alarm. People aren’t used to guns in England, which on the whole I approve of. I gestured for both police officers to remove the cones from the road, and they did so slowly and reluctantly. I kept a careful eye on them, making sure they stuck together so I could cover both of them with the Colt. I had no intention of shooting anyone, but they didn’t need to know that. The crowd of drivers was starting to get restive. I needed to get under way before one of them decided he was a hero type and did something stupid. Innocent bystanders can be a real pain in the arse sometimes. I backed away and slid behind the wheel of the Hirondel. I was breaking the first rule of the field agent; I was being noticed. So, when in doubt, confuse the issue.

"Tell your decadent government that the Tasmanian Separatist Alliance is on the move!" I announced grandly. "The oppressor will be forced to bow down before our superior dogma! All dolphins shall be freed, and no more penguins will be forced to smoke cigarettes!"

Which should give them something to think about. By the time they’d picked the bones out of that and wasted even more time trying to track down a terrorist group (and a license plate) that didn’t actually exist, I should have had plenty of time to go to ground. I was going to have to lose the Hirondel. It had become too visible, too noticeable. I gunned the engine, annoyed, and roared past the police officers, the crowd of drivers, and the long queue of waiting vehicles. I had to get to London, and fast. Some people leaned out of their car windows to try to photograph me with their mobile phones. I smiled obliging at them, secure in the knowledge that my torc hid me from all forms of surveillance, scientific and magical. How else could field agents like me operate in a world where someone is always watching you?

I left the queue behind and quickly disappeared into side roads and bypasses. I had a secret hideout on the outskirts of London, one of several I maintained for emergencies. The one I was thinking of was nothing special, just a rented garage in a perfectly respectable residential area. But it had everything I needed to go underground. To become invisible. I always kept my hideouts up-to-date and stocked with useful items for those rare but inevitable occasions when my cover was blown and I had to disappear in a hurry. I could go into any of my boltholes as one man and come out as someone entirely different, complete with totally new look and ID. The family didn’t know about these places. They knew nothing about the way I operated. They’d never wanted to know.

I reached the outskirts of London without incident, though I sat tense and hunched behind the wheel most of the way, in anticipation of a challenge or an attack that never actually materialised. The battered and bullet-holed Hirondel drew many stares, but no one said or did anything. This was England, after all. I headed into the respected residential area, and my very respectable neighbours watched openmouthed as I brought the car to a halt before my rented garage. I nodded and smiled to one and all, and they quickly looked the other way. I’d ruined my reputation here, but it didn’t matter. I’d never be coming back. I opened the garage door with a palm print, a retina scan, and a muttered Word, and then drove the Hirondel inside. I got out and sealed the door behind me, and only then finally allowed myself to relax.

I spent a good ten minutes just sitting on the bonnet, hugging myself tightly, too worn out even to move. I was tired, bone-deep tired, and weary of spirit. So much had happened in such a short time, and nearly all of it bad. But in the end I forced myself up and onto my feet again. I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of a rest, or even a good brood. My family would already have people out looking for me. Clever people, talented people. Dangerous people. I was the enemy now, and I had good reason to know how the Droods treat their enemies.

I peeled off my bloodstained jacket and shirt, to check my shoulder wound. The first aid blob had almost dried up, a shrivelled and puckered thing that only just covered the wound. I peeled it carefully away and found the hole was now sealed behind a new knot of scar tissue. The blob had used up its pseudolife to heal and repair me, and now it was just a lump of undifferentiated protoplasm. I dropped it on the floor and said the right Word, and it dissolved into a greasy stain on the bare concrete. First rule of an agent: leave no evidence behind. Useful things, those blobs. I’d have felt easier if I’d had a few more, but if you’re going to start wishing for things…I flexed my shoulder cautiously. It was stiff, and it still ached dully, but it seemed sound enough. My hands drifted up to touch the golden collar around my throat. My armour was no longer invulnerable. The protection and security I had taken so casually all my life had been stripped away from me, all in a moment. I wondered if I’d ever feel safe and confident again.

I sat down before the computer in the corner, fired it up, and pulled together a list of addresses and general locations of various old enemies who might know something about what was happening. Some of them might agree to help me, for the right consideration. Or intimidation. There’s never any shortage of bad guys in and around London, but only a select few would have access to the kind of information I was after. And most of them were very powerful people, often with good reason to kill me on sight, once I revealed who I was. I worked on the list, crossing out a name here and there where the risk was just too great, and finally ended up with a dozen possibles. I printed out the revised list, shut down the computer, and then just sat there for a while, gathering my courage. Even with my armour operating at full strength, these were still very dangerous people. Daniel walking into the lions’ den had nothing on what I was going to have to do.

But I had to get moving. My very respectable neighbours were bound to have called the police by now. So I called a certain notorious taxi firm on my mobile phone; anonymous black cabs whose drivers would take anyone anywhere and never ask awkward questions. You learn how to find firms like that, in my game. They were reliable but expensive, and I realised for the first time that money was going to be a problem. The family would have put a stop on all my credit by now and flagged my name everywhere else. All I had was the cash in my wallet. Fortunately, I’ve always been paranoid, and I think ahead. A small metal safe at the back of the garage held half a dozen fake IDs and ten thousand pounds in used notes. Enough to keep me going for a while.

I changed into a new set of clothes. They smelled a bit musty from hanging in the garage for so long, but they were nicely anonymous. So typical and average, in fact, that any witnesses would be hard-pressed to find anything specific about them to describe. I piled my old bloodstained clothes on the floor, and then broke an acid capsule over them. Shame. I’d really liked that jacket. One more stain on the floor.

I looked sadly at the Hirondel. I could never drive that marvellous old car again. It had become too visible, too remembered; and I couldn’t let such a car, with all the Armourer’s additions, fall into mundane hands. I smiled grimly. Even after all that had happened, I was still protecting family security. Saying good-bye to the Hirondel was like leaving an old friend, or a faithful steed, but it had to be done. I patted the discoloured bonnet once, and then said the Words that would trigger the car’s auto-destruct. Nothing so blunt and capricious as an explosion, of course; just a controlled elemental incendiary that would leave nothing useful behind and scour the garage clean of all evidence. Police forensics could work their fingers to the bone and still find nothing they could trace back to me.

I’m paranoid, I think ahead, and I’m very thorough.

I left the garage, locking the door behind me, and sure enough the taxi with no name was already there waiting for me. I walked over to it and got in, and never once looked back. It’s an important part of a field agent’s job: to be able to walk away from anyone or anything at a moment’s notice and never look back.

The taxi took me back into London proper and dropped me off at the first Underground Tube station we came to. I rode up and down on the trains, switching from one line to another at random, until I was sure no one was following me. There was no way my family, or anyone else, could have tracked me down so quickly, but I needed to be sure. I got off at Oxford Street and went up and out into the open air. It was early evening now, and crowds of people surged up and down the street, in the course of their everyday lives, as though this was just another day. No one paid me any attention. That at least was normal, and reassuring.

The first name on my list was the Chelsea Lovers. Very secretive, and very hard to find. They changed their location every twenty-four hours, and with good reason. The Chelsea Lovers were hated and feared, worshipped and adored, petitioned and despised. And the only way to find them was to read the cards. So I walked casually down Oxford Street till I reached the rows of public phone kiosks, and I checked out the display of tart cards plastering the interiors. Tart cards are business cards left in the kiosks by prostitutes advertising their services. Sometimes there’s a photo (which you can be sure will bear little or no resemblance to the real woman); more often a piece of suggestive art accompanied by a brief jaunty message and a phone number.

The cards have a long history, dating back to Victorian times, and down the years have developed a language all of their own. A girl who boasts an excellent knowledge of Greek, for example, will not possess actual academic qualifications; though a visit to her would almost certainly be an education in itself. But underneath all the euphemisms and double entendres there is another, more secret language, for those who can read it. A wholly different message, to be read in the placement of certain words and letters, telling you how to find the current locations for darker and more dangerous pleasures. I worked out that day’s message and phoned the indicated number, and a voice at the other end, which might have been male or female, both or neither, gave me an address just beyond Covent Garden and told me to ask for the Kit Kat Club. Nice to know someone still had a sense of humour.

The place wasn’t hard to find. From the outside it looked like just another building, behind a bland anonymous front. No advertising, no clues. Either you knew exactly what the place was, or you had no business being there. I studied the exterior thoughtfully, while people passed me by, unknowing. The Kit Kat Club wasn’t the sort of place you rushed into. You needed to gird your spiritual loins first.

The Chelsea Lovers were a group marriage of assorted mystical head cases, dedicated to the darker areas of tantric sex magic, channelled through cutting-edge computer technology. They organised orgies that ran twenty-four hours a day, with participants constantly coming and going. With the kind of mystical power they were capable of generating, they could have picked up the whole of London and spun it around a few times before dropping it again. Only they never did, because…well, apparently because they were concerned with something far more important. What that might be, no one knew for sure, and most were afraid to ask. The Chelsea Lovers had links to every necrotech, psycho fetish, and ceremonial sex club in the city, and were famous for knowing things no one else knew, or would want to. They supported themselves by practicing entrapment and blackmail on significant people: celebrities, politicians, and the like.

Which was why the Chelsea Lovers had good reason to want Edwin Drood dead. A year or so back the family had sent me in to destroy the Chelsea Lovers’ main computers, and all their files, after they’d made the mistake of trying to pressure someone sheltering under the family’s protection. So I’d armoured up, forced my way in, and taken out their computers with a tailored logic bomb fired from one of the Armourer’s special guns. The computers melted down so fast there was nothing left but a puddle of silicon on the floor.

They never saw my real face; only the golden mask. So they had no reason to suspect Shaman Bond. Except, of course, that the Chelsea Lovers were suspicious of everyone, and quite rightly too. They worried people.

I went up to the perfectly ordinary front door and knocked politely. A concealed sliding panel opened, and a pair of scowling eyes studied me silently. I gave them the password I’d received on the phone, and that was enough to gain me entry. The sliding panel slammed shut, and the door opened just enough to let me in. I had to turn sideways to squeeze through, and the door was immediately locked behind me.

The security man leaned over me. He was big as a wardrobe, with muscles on his muscles. I could tell this because he was entirely naked, apart from enough steel piercings in painful places to make him a danger to be near during thunderstorms. He wanted me to take my clothes off too (house rules), or at the very least submit to a thorough frisking. I gave him my best hard look, and he decided to pass the question upward. I told him I was here to see the founding quartet, and he raised a pierced eyebrow. I gave him their actual names, which impressed him, and after nodding slowly for a moment, he lumbered off to find them.

I stayed put, by the door. I hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect. I mean, I’ve been around, comes with the job, but the Chelsea Lovers were a whole new area of depravity to me. The entire building had been hollowed out to form one large, open, and cavernous room. The Kit Kat Club was lit by rotating coloured lights, giving the scene a kaleidoscopic, trippy feel. Very fitting for a group whose origins lay in the sixties. Pretty much everywhere I looked there were naked people, or people dressed in the kinds of dramatic fetish gear that makes you look even more naked than naked. Leather and rubber, plastic and liquid latex, collar and chains, spikes and masks and every kind of restraint you’d rather not think about. There were no wallflowers here; everyone was involved with someone or something. They moved smoothly together, all across the huge room, flesh rising and falling, skin sliding over sweaty skin. There were no words, only moans and sighs and the sounds of a language older than civilisation. The faces I could see held a self-absorbed, animal look; all wide eyes and bared teeth.

Men and women everywhere, tangled together on the floor, up the walls, and on the ceiling, and even floating in midair. Sex beat on the air in an overpowering presence, hot and sweaty and pumped full of pheromones. I could smell sweat and perfumes and a whole bunch of psychotropic drugs. I wasn’t worried. My torc would filter them out. Even quiescent around my throat, my armour still protected me.

So much nakedness, so much sex, so much harnessed passion; but I couldn’t say I found it arousing. It was scary. They were working magic here, invoking strange and potent energies produced by people who had willingly driven themselves out of all control, people who would do anything, receive anything, and not give a damn. There was no love here, no tenderness; nothing but indulgence and transgression.

The wide cavernous room seemed much larger than the building should have been able to contain. This was spatial magic, fuelled by the tantric energies. The room expanded to contain the passion within. The walls, floor, and ceiling had taken on a puffy, organic look. All pinks and purples and bloody shades, patterned with long traceries of pulsing veins. The wall nearest me was sweating, as though turned on by the never-ending sex. The Kit Kat Club was alive and part of the proceedings. Where men and women bumped against the floor or walls or ceiling, they sank into the fleshy embrace as though into the arms of another partner.

I shifted my feet uncomfortably, and the floor beneath me gave subtly, as though I were standing on a water bed. People were drifting towards me, reaching out with inquiring hands. There was something in their faces that wasn’t entirely human; or perhaps more than human. Transformed by an emotion or desire so extreme I had no name for it. I was way out of my depth. So of course I put on my most confident face, and even sneered a little, as though I’d seen it all before and hadn’t been impressed then. I glared at anyone who came too close, and they turned away immediately, losing interest.

As my eyes adjusted to the flaring lights and colours, I began to recognise faces in the roiling throng: celebrities, footballers, politicians, even a few respectable businessmen from the City that dear prudish Matthew would probably have been horrified to discover in a place like this. I filed the faces away in my memory, for future thought. And perhaps a little blackmail, if money became tight.

The walking wardrobe returned with the four founding members of the Chelsea Lovers. They strolled with almost supernatural grace through the heaving crowds, which opened before them and closed after them without once stopping or even slowing what they were doing. The four founders walked on air, masters of their own space, touching nothing but each other. Their hands wandered constantly over each other’s bare flesh. They sank slowly down to hover before me, and the bouncer went back to his door. The four original Chelsea Lovers: Dave and Annie, Stuart and Lenny. Two men and two women, but far beyond anything so human now; instead they were as alien and other as anything I ever encountered from another dimension. They had to be in their late sixties, but they still had the smooth bodies of twenty-year-olds. Perfect as statues, lean and hungry, burning with unnatural energies, sustained by an endless appetite that had nothing to do with food.

They looked much as they must have done when they first met in Chelsea, back in the swinging sixties, when London swung like a pendulum. Two young couples, then, out on the town and hungry for new experiences. They found something, or it found them, and they were never the same afterwards. They started their first club in a little place just off Carnaby Street, and what they did there shocked even the most hardened souls of the permissive generation. The Chelsea Lovers hadn’t seen daylight since. They moved from location to location, known only to those in the know, travelling the secret subterranean routes beneath the city streets, flitting silently through the shadows of the undertown, with its ancient Roman arches, where all the bad things congregate, for fun and profit. Nothing ever touched the Chelsea Lovers. Even then, they were far too dangerous.

They stood before me, skin like chalk, eyes like pissholes in the snow. Colourless flyaway hair, purple lips, and endless smiles that meant nothing, nothing at all. They were entirely naked, untouched by piercings or tattoos or any such trappings. Such lesser things were not for them. Just hanging on the air before me, silent and inviting, they were still the most blatantly sexual things I had ever seen. They had all the impact of the first nude photos you ever saw, the first object of desire, the first boy or girl you ever wanted, and the first you ever lost. I wanted them and I was afraid of them, and God alone knows what I would have done if my torc hadn’t been there to protect me from the worst of their influence.

I knew the four names, but not which was who. I don’t think anyone does anymore. Perhaps not even them. One of the women spoke to me. Her voice sounded like she had ice in her veins and a fever in her head.

"What do you want here? What’s your pleasure?"

I had to clear my throat before I could speak, and even then my voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked. "I need to consult your computers. I need information, the kind only you might possess."

"What do you offer in payment?" said one of the men. His voice was calm, cheerful, confidential, and about as human as a spider scuttling across your arm. "Information in return, perhaps; or money, or your seed? You’d be surprised what we could make from your seed, freely given."

"Information," I said quickly. My mouth was very dry, and my legs were shaking. "First, a secret location used by a Drood field agent, on the outskirts of London." And I gave them the address of the garage I’d just abandoned. "Second, the name of the Drood field agent who’s just been declared rogue and is on the run here in London: Edwin Drood."

All four of them actually shivered with delight at the prospect of getting their hands on a new rogue Drood, the first in years. They rose and fell on the air, laughing silently, their chalk white skin shimmering brightly. If they could seduce and corrupt the rogue to their cause, they would have access to secrets and information no one else had. They commanded me to follow them and floated off towards the centre of the room, descending slowly until they walked on the bodies that moved unstoppably beneath them. I struggled after them, my feet slipping and sliding on the sweat-covered bodies. I stared straight ahead. You can’t keep glancing down and apologising. And finally, in the exact centre of the cavernous room, the four founding Chelsea Lovers impersonally levered people out of the way to reveal a large puckered orifice in the floor. They gestured, and it dilated open, revealing only darkness and a sudden pungent smell on the air, like supercharged cinnamon. One by one the four of them floated down into what lay below the floor, disappearing into darkness, until only I was left hesitating on the rim. In the end, I just shrugged and jumped in after them. This was what I’d come for, after all.

And found myself suddenly in a brightly lit, high-tech environment that was the complete antithesis of everything above. It was a circular room barely twenty feet in diameter, crowded with all the latest computer equipment. But the computers had burst open, their silicon contents spilling out like fruiting bodies, spreading themselves up the walls and across the ceiling like silver ivy, even dropping down in encrustations like silicon stalactites. The computers here were living things, growing things, fuelled by the sexual energies from above. Self-centred, self-perpetuating. The air-conditioning gusted like heavy breathing, and the monitor screens all around me could have been eyes or mouths or other orifices. The four Chelsea Lovers stood together in the middle of it all, looking at me expectantly.

"Word is, there’s a traitor inside the Drood family," I said. "I want to know everything you know about that."

They nodded in eerie unison, and one of them ran a hand caressingly over a computer console. It was a slow, sensuous lover’s touch. I could feel beads of sweat popping out on my forehead. Normal people weren’t supposed to be exposed to things like the Chelsea Lovers. Just their presence was toxic to ordinary humans. The computers hummed thoughtfully to themselves. The Chelsea Lovers stood together, in the same stance, even breathing in unison. Their eyes didn’t blink as they considered me. I could feel a presence, a pressure, forming in the room. A desire, a need, a physical imperative…

"What’s it all for?" I said abruptly. "I mean, all of this. The Chelsea Lovers. The Kit Kat Club. The sex magic and the computers. What’s the point of it all?"

"Apocalypse," said one of the women, and they all smiled a little more widely. "The real sexual revolution, come at last. We want to turn the whole world on. Using sex magic, computer magic, ritual and passion, instinct and logic, flesh and silicon bonded together in unthought-of ways, to work a tidal change in reality itself. We will make the whole world sexual. Fetishize everything in it, the living and unliving, suffusing the whole world with a passion and an appetite that will never end. A great joyous sexual apocalypse, the climax of history. The biggest bang of all. Endless sensation, endless pleasure…And we shall all worship the new flesh, forever and ever and ever…"

She broke off as a face appeared on all the monitor screens at once. The computers had discovered the identity of the new rogue Drood, and it was me. My face was on every wall, with my real name beneath it. The family had released my true identity to the world. The Chelsea Lovers turned as one to orientate themselves on me. They weren’t smiling anymore. They each thrust one hand out at me, and sex hit me like a fist. I cried out, convulsing helplessly as passion burned in me like a fever, like the nightmares you have when your temperature rises and your blood boils in your brain. I wanted to go to them, on my hands and knees if necessary, and worship their flesh with my own. I would have begged, would have died, for their lightest touch, for the pleasure of their favour.

But there was still just enough Drood training and pride left in me to hold them off, just enough for me to be able to subvocalise the Words, and my armour flashed around me, golden and glorious, sealing me off from all attack. I staggered backwards, suddenly myself again, like a man who lurches back from the very edge of a cliff. The Chelsea Lovers cried out in one awful voice, full of rage at the sight of Drood armour. I jumped up, the strength of my legs amplified by my armour, and I went soaring up through the orifice and back into the Kit Kat Club above.

I erupted back into that fleshy, cavernous place, and people fell back from me, shouting and screaming. I had broken the mood, or the Chelsea Lovers had. I ran for the door, and all at once, in answer to some unheard signal, everyone in the room surged forward to attack me. Blows and kicks came from every direction, though I couldn’t feel them through the armour, and naked people grabbed at my arms and legs, trying to pull me down. I ran on, kicking and pushing people out of the way, and none of them could slow or stop me. They clutched at me with endless hands and crowded in before me, blocking the way to the door with their bare bodies. I focused on just moving forward, not striking out, though every instinct yelled in me to fight. With my armour’s strength I could kill these people, and I didn’t want to do that. Unlike some of my family, I still believed in (mostly) innocent bystanders.

I could see the door, up ahead. The huge bouncer came forward to stop me, his huge hands opening and closing eagerly. I hit him once, and he fell backwards, blood flying on the air, to be trampled underfoot by the packed crowds still pressing forward. Strange forces crackled on the air around me, sex magic and computer energies from the room below, crawling over my armour, trying to force a way in. There were screaming faces all around me now, desperate people clutching at me, wrapping their arms around my legs, reaching down from the ceiling to clatter their hands uselessly against my golden head. Naked men and women crawled all over me, slowing me down by sheer weight and press of bodies.

I reached through my armoured side and drew my needle gun. I still had it. Strictly speaking, I should have handed it in to the Armourer, but what with one thing and another I never got around to it. There were only a few needles left. I aimed the gun at the nearest wall and shot a holy-water ice needle into the nearest pulsing vein. The whole room convulsed, like a great fleshy earthquake. Everywhere, naked men and women were falling away from me, clutching at their heads, crying out in shock and horror. They forgot all about me as the room shook, and I ran for the door.

I pulled the door wide open, and daylight poured in. More screams, as much fear as anger. I looked back. The whole place was convulsing now, with great cracks opening up in the drying-out walls. People dropped out of midair as the magics fell apart, no longer sustained by the endless orgy. Men and women cried and howled and hit out at each other. I’d broken the mood. I nodded, satisfied. I might not have learned anything useful here, but at least the word would go out: that even though I no longer had the support of my family, I was still a force to be reckoned with.