Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA

by Simon R. Green

  Outside, Molly and I moved quickly to stand back to back as we looked up and down the mine tunnel. It was all rough-hewn stone walls and timbered supports, in a tunnel barely wide enough for three men to walk abreast. And a ceiling so low, it made me want to duck my head. Everything looked solid and safe enough, but the only light was what came spilling from the room behind us, and it didn’t have the strength to travel far. Both ends of the tunnel were lost in darkness. Anyone could have been watching us from out of that dark. I listened hard, but all I could hear was my own harsh breathing, and Molly’s. I armoured down. Molly raised one hand and summoned her magical light again. It pushed the darkness back in both directions, but there was still no sign of anyone. Molly lowered her hand, the light snapped off, and the darkness surged forward again.

  There were footprints in the thick layer of dust on the floor. I knelt down to inspect them more closely, and Molly crouched down beside me.

  “Clues!” she said happily. “I love it when there’re clues!”

  “I’m seeing more than one shoe size here,” I said. “So, more than one person. Some prints appear to be a lot older than others . . .” I stood up slowly, grimacing at sudden pains in my back and thighs. I must have made a sound, because Molly put out a hand to help me. I let her.

  “Lots of footprints here, Molly. For a supposedly abandoned meeting place. You’d better brace yourself.”

  She batted her eyelids at me flirtatiously. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

  “I’m about to put my mask on,” I said patiently. “And I don’t want you beating me up again.”

  “I should hit you more often,” said Molly. “You’re not usually this considerate.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  I masked my face, carefully checked with Molly to make sure she wasn’t freaking out, ignored the face she pulled at me, and boosted my senses. I peered into the darkness at both ends of the tunnel, using infrared and ultraviolet, but the empty mine shaft just stretched away into the distance. I focused on my hearing, and all kinds of sounds came clearly to me, from all directions. From above and beyond, as well as in adjoining tunnels. None of what I was hearing sounded in any way human, but things were definitely moving around, in the deep-down tunnels. The slow, steady tread of something impossibly heavy, every footfall crashing down like a jackhammer. Low insect chitterings like a swarming tide of cockroaches. And something that might have been a huge worm, squeezing through a mine shaft that was only just big enough. It’s amazing the images your mind can produce to explain the sounds you hear, in a dark tunnel miles underground, far away from sunlight and sanity.

  I tried to tune out everything but human sounds, and found I couldn’t. It required a skill at fine-tuning that was simply beyond me. I made a mental note to put in some practice later. You never know what you’re going to need out in the field. I shut down my enhanced senses, sent the golden face mask back into my torc, and turned to Molly.

  “There’re a lot of things down here with us that aren’t in any way people. And not good things, from the sound of it. Was it always like this?”

  “I have no idea what it’s like now,” said Molly. “I haven’t been down here in ages.”

  Which wasn’t, I couldn’t help but notice, exactly an answer to my question.

  And then we both fell back, as a wild other-earthly light blasted suddenly out of a side tunnel I would have sworn wasn’t there just a moment before. A dark human figure came drifting down the tunnel towards us, half-hidden in the dazzle. It was a woman, advancing steadily along the new passageway, her every movement invested with intimidating purpose. A woman with murder on her mind. You learn to recognise things like that, working in the field. If you want to keep on working in the field.

  Molly and I stood together, and stood our ground. Facing the light and ready for anything, we thought.

  The woman with a killer’s eyes finally stepped out of the light and into our tunnel, as though emerging out of a dream and into reality. The entrance disappeared behind her, cutting off the other-worldly light. Molly made a soft, almost shocked sound of recognition. The new arrival was tall and gaunt and no longer young. She would have been good-looking if her face hadn’t been deeply carved with harsh lines of pain and loss, rage and resolve. She wore long robes of stark black and white, perhaps chosen to match her pale face and night-dark hair. Her thin-lipped mouth was stretched in a mirthless grin, and she had a cold, dangerous presence, backed up by those dark fanatic’s eyes. She looked only at me, ignoring Molly.

  “Eddie Drood,” the woman said in a voice like a knife cutting into flesh. “You’re mine at last. I will kill you for what your family did.”

  “Angelica?” said Molly.

  “Not now, Molly. I’m working.”

  “Hold everything,” said Molly. “You know her, Eddie? You know Angelica Wilde, the Fury?”

  “We’ve met,” I said. “Though not what you’d call personally. There was a time the Fury worked alongside my family. In common cause, against common enemies. I was there when she took down the Cannibal Colonels. I was in the background, but I was there.”

  “So you know what she is,” said Molly.

  “Only what I read in the files,” I said. I looked to Angelica, to see if she wanted to interrupt, but she seemed content to just glare her hatred at me for the moment, so I went on. “A long time ago, Angelica Wilde went to Greece and slept overnight in an old tomb. She had a vision, and came out of that tomb blessed with ancient power. People called her the Fury after that, because of who she was and what she did. Like the old-time relentless pursuers of sinners, she tracked down bad guys the law couldn’t touch, and handed out her ideas of justice. Give me that old-time religion . . . She did good work. Until it all went wrong.”

  “But Angelica used to be one of my closest friends!” said Molly. She couldn’t seem to decide which of us she wanted to glare at more. “She brought me here, to the Deep Down Pit, when we’d both made the world too hot for us.” She stepped forward, putting herself between me and the Fury, and forcing Angelica to look at her. “I never knew you knew Eddie!”

  “Only professionally,” I said, wondering just how I’d been put on the defensive.

  Angelica Wilde ignored me now, her cold gaze fixed on Molly. “Don’t wait for any more of the old gang, Molly. No one else is coming. Nobody trusts you any more. You betrayed the Cause. The Droods murdered your parents, and you ended up sleeping with one!”

  “Life is complicated,” said Molly. “Love, even more so. If you hate Eddie so much, and I’m still waiting to hear why, exactly, why did you answer my call? You and I, we haven’t been that close in years.”

  “I’m not here for you!” said Angelica. Her mad gaze snapped back to me. “I’m here for the Drood. Who do you think has been organizing all the attacks on him? I sent them! I possessed the Manichean Monk, and Jack a Napes, and the Demon Demoiselle. I filled them with the Fury, took control of them, and sent them to kill you, Eddie Drood!” She laughed at the look on my face. An ugly sound, full of bitter satisfaction. “I watched you fight them, through their eyes; heard them scream as they died . . . and I laughed and laughed. I didn’t just make you kill again, Drood; I made you kill innocents.”

  For a moment I couldn’t speak, honestly shocked. “Why? Why would you do that? I barely know you!”

  “A chance to kill a weakened, vulnerable Drood? To make your relatives suffer, as they made me suffer? I jumped at the chance!”

  “Why?”

  “Your family murdered my husband!”

  Molly looked at me. “Okay, lost again. I never even knew she was married.”

  “Armin del Santos,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Angelica, “you remember that name, Drood. The only truly good man I ever knew. Honest, honourable, and completely dedicated to the Cause, so your relatives killed him. Just because they cou
ld. It’s time for you to die, Eddie; to pay for your family’s sins.”

  She struck a mystical pose, and magical energies snapped into place around her. Molly quickly struck her own pose, surrounding herself with crackling magics. I didn’t armour up; I didn’t want to escalate things. Or attract attention to myself. The two women glared into each other’s faces, making subtle adjustments in their stances and gestures. Barely restrained forces seethed in the narrow tunnel. Two equally matched, equally dangerous women met each other’s gaze unflinchingly. Neither of them prepared to back down; both ready to fight to the death over me.

  I didn’t feel the least bit flattered.

  The Fury turned her glare on me and gestured sharply. Dozens of snakes rose up out of the unbroken stone floor, writhing and coiling. Some big enough to crush a man, others small enough to have really nasty neurotoxins in their poison. I grabbed Molly by the arm and hauled her back, out of range. She didn’t even look at me. I armoured up, and Angelica’s face became even colder.

  She stabbed a long finger at me, and the snakes surged forward. Shooting across the stone floor with incredible speed, launching themselves at me before I could even react. The largest specimens wrapped themselves around my legs, while others shot up my armoured frame and snapped into place around my waist and back, my neck and head. They seethed all over me, clamping down like the grip of death itself. And all the time dozens of smaller snakes butted their blunt heads against my armour, striking again and again with fanged mouths.

  If I’d been scared of snakes, it would probably have been fairly upsetting, but I’ve never been bothered by them. Spiders, now, that might have been different. And it wasn’t like the snakes could get through my armour. They could crush and constrict all they liked; I barely felt their presence. The ones trying to bite me were lucky they hadn’t broken their fangs. I’d already studied the snakes carefully through my mask to make sure they weren’t illusions or magical constructs, but they gave every appearance of being just snakes, compelled by the Fury’s will. So I just pulled them off me, a few at a time, and threw them as far as I could down the tunnel.

  “Eddie, what are you doing?” Molly said from a cautious distance behind me. “Kill the damned things!”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not their fault.”

  “You always choose the oddest times to get sentimental, Eddie,” said Molly.

  “You’re not bothered by snakes, are you?”

  “Maybe just a bit.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll protect you.”

  She sniffed loudly, and stabbed one finger at the snakes still crawling all over me. Half of them disappeared, and the others jumped off, hit the ground, and streaked away as fast as they could go. Molly smiled smugly. I turned my featureless golden face to the Fury, who glared defiantly back at me. She held out an open hand, revealing a palm full of small ivory pieces.

  “I will show you fear in a handful of teeth,” she said. “Behold the Hydra’s children . . .”

  She scattered them across the floor between us with one sweep of her hand. And everywhere a tooth hit the stony ground, a human skeleton sprang up. More and more of the bony things just appeared out of nowhere, standing straight and tall; a complete collection of bones with nothing connecting them but the will of the Fury. The bones were old and brown, cracked and pitted, as though they’d been in the ground a long time. The grinning skulls turned slowly to orientate on me, fixing me with their dark, empty eye sockets.

  “Molly?” I said, not taking my eyes off the skeletons for a moment. “What am I looking at? Exactly?”

  “I think . . . those are the remains of all the miners who ever died in this mine,” said Molly. “They have that feel about them.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

  More and more appeared, until there were dozens of them; a skeletal army for the Fury, packing the tunnel from wall to wall. Bony feet clattered noisily on the stony ground as they stirred restlessly in place. And then the Fury spoke a single Word, and they all came charging forward at once, smiling their death’s-head grins and reaching out for me with clawed, bony fingers. And I had a sudden flashback to being terrified by a similar scene in a movie I saw as a kid, Jason and the Argonauts. I grinned behind my golden mask. Time for some payback, and just maybe a little serious therapy.

  I launched myself right into the midst of the skeleton army, and hit them so hard with my golden fists that skulls shattered, bones flew on the air, and splintered pieces fell to clatter on the floor. I scattered the skeletons with great sweeps of my golden arms, breaking them up and throwing them this way and that. But the bones just leapt up off the floor and re-formed themselves, while the ones I threw away came swarming back, driven on by the Fury. They hit me from every direction at once, swarming all over me, bony hands pounding and clawed fingertips scratching harmlessly across my armour. Just the sound sent hackles rising on the back of my neck. The skeletons beat at me with their bony fists, tried to crush me in their skeleton arms, even tried to bite me with their bared teeth. Doing their best to drag me down through sheer strength of numbers.

  The overwhelming proximity of so much death had a cold, numbing effect, even past my armour’s protection. Everywhere I looked, fleshless faces grinned back at me. A sudden panic rushed through me as I thought, Is this what death is? Is this what’s waiting for me? And then, just as quickly, anger rose up to push back the panic. Hell with that. I’m not ready to die. Not yet.

  Molly jumped back and forth behind me, blasting skeletons to pieces with quick mystical gestures. And the ones she blasted didn’t get back together again. But she could only take out one at a time while her magical resources were limited, and there were so many of them. I could hear her language getting worse. And Angelica Wilde just stood and watched, smiling. Savouring the thought of my death.

  I raised my Sight, and immediately made out a network of shimmering threads hanging on the air and connecting the skeletons to the Fury. I reached out, ignoring the bony things as they swarmed all over me, and it was the easiest thing in the world for me to break all the threads with one swift gesture. But nothing happened. I was so outraged, I just stood there for a moment. It should have worked. It worked the last time. It felt like the universe had cheated. The Fury laughed at me.

  “I filled my children with the power of the Fury, with my rage for revenge. Nothing can stop them now but your death, Drood. They’ll never stop coming for you, wherever you are. An army that will never grow tired, never give up; an army that can’t be killed because it’s already dead!”

  “Hell with that!” Molly said loudly. “Eddie, the power’s not in her; it’s in the teeth! The Hydra’s teeth!”

  She gestured sharply at the ivory pieces lying scattered across the stone floor, and every one of them glowed brightly in the tunnel’s gloom. With one great shrug, I threw off the skeletons still hanging on to me, and hurried forward before they could come at me again. I stamped on each glowing tooth as I came to it, crushing them to dust in a moment. The skeletons began snapping out of existence. I danced up and down the tunnel, my golden boots slamming against the stone, and when the last tooth was gone, so was the skeleton army. Angelica Wilde was so mad, she actually stamped her foot on the floor.

  “I have other weapons!” she screamed. “Other traps! You’ll never see them coming! And you’ll never get out of here alive!”

  She turned suddenly and ran off down the tunnel, disappearing into the darkness. By the time Molly could generate a handful of light, the Fury was gone. I started after her anyway, ready to pursue her into the dark, but Molly stopped me with a hand on my golden arm.

  “No, Eddie. We booby-trapped the hell out of these tunnels back in the day. Remember?”

  “I’m in my armour,” I said.

  “Some of these traps were designed with Droods in mind,” she said. “They’re seriously powerful and
seriously nasty. We all had a lot of enemies in those days, and a lot of time to sit around, thinking up new ways to maim and murder anyone dumb enough to come bother us where we lived. Angelica wants you to go chasing after her, straight into whatever she’s got waiting.”

  “She can’t have done much,” I said. “She hasn’t been here long.”

  “Time doesn’t mean anything where the Fury’s concerned,” said Molly. “She can bend the whole world to her will. If she stops being mad long enough to concentrate.”

  “If she was that powerful,” I said, “you and I would be dead by now.”

  “If you weren’t a Drood,” Molly said steadily, “and I weren’t the wild witch of the woods. Our basic natures protect us from the Fury’s gods-given abilities. You might say, when they look at us, they recognise one of their own. That’s why Angelica has been using snakes and skeletons, and possessing other people.”

  “She made weapons out of people,” I said. “Including one man I genuinely respected. She made me kill innocent bystanders . . .”

  “Try not to hold that against her,” said Molly. “You’ve seen her eyes, heard her speak. Losing her husband drove her crazy.”

  “I know,” I said. I armoured down so she could see my face. “She’s your friend. We could just leave. She’s not why we’re here, and if no one else is coming, we have no reason to stay. I feel . . . a certain responsibility for the way she is. You get used to feeling like that, with my family.”

  “No. We can’t do that,” said Molly. “She’ll never stop trying to kill you. She’d just find more innocents to possess and send after you. What happened with her husband? Why did your family kill him?”

  “We didn’t,” I said. “It’s a long story . . .”

  “We have time,” said Molly. “I need to know, Eddie.”

  “Armin del Santos called himself the Rage,” I said. “Because he hated all forms of authority. Good or bad. As a young man, he went walkabout in Australia and ended up at Ayers Rock. He fell asleep on top, and entered the Dreamtime. The underverse. When he came out again, he was changed, charged with old-time power. Determined to tear the world down, so he could replace it with something better.