Casino Infernale

by Simon R. Green

  “Because this is the part we really aren’t going to like,” I said.

  “The Summit Meeting has been called to help us decide how best to defuse this situation,” the Armourer said smoothly. “I am going, as Drood representative, and you two are going because you killed Crow Lee, and therefore have more immediate information about him than anyone else. And because it’s all your fault, remember?”

  “I thought we’d get back to that,” I said.

  “I gave up guilt for Lent,” said Molly. “And never took it up again. You should try it, Eddie, it’s very liberating.”

  “Molly and I were there when the family investigated Crow Lee’s country house,” I said. “They tore the place apart, and didn’t find a single damned thing worth a second look.”

  “Or at least, nothing important,” said Molly. “I mean, yes, there was a whole load of really weird shit, scattered all over the place, but nothing of any worth.”

  “Or you’d have taken it,” I said.

  “Exactly!” said Molly. “The point being, all Eddie and I know for sure about Crow Lee was that he was a complete bastard and an utter shit, and the world is better off without him. So what can we contribute to this Summit?”

  “The house was empty because it had already been emptied of anything that mattered, before you got there,” said the Armourer. “Which suggests . . . that perhaps he saw his death coming, and made plans. Possibly involving a comeback. So as the last people to see Crow Lee alive, you become vitally important. You have to talk to the Summit.”

  “Will the Regent be there, at this meeting?” Molly said suddenly. “Representing the Department of the Uncanny?”

  “No,” said the Armourer. “Given his past, and his past reputation, and his closeness to the Establishment these days, it was felt his presence would be . . . divisive. You and Eddie can represent the Department.”

  I nodded. “Yes. I can do that. Since I’ve left the family.”

  “No one ever really leaves the family,” said the Armourer. “You should know that, Eddie. Anything, for the family.”

  I deliberately turned my back on him, to look at Molly.

  “You don’t have to do this, Molly. But, I don’t want you facing the Regent on your own. So I think you should wait this one out, in the wild woods. I could join you there, once the Summit is over.”

  “No,” said Molly. “I’m going with you. Someone has to watch your back.”

  We shared a smile. The Armourer smiled fondly on us. Ethel was singing Love is in the air . . .

  “That’s the trouble with you and your damned family,” said Molly. “There’s always some crisis going on. Never a chance to catch your breath around here.”

  “Never a dull moment,” the Armourer said brightly. “Ethel, will you please knock that off!”

  There was a pause. “I do requests,” said Ethel.

  “How long before everyone gets here?” I said quickly. “And we can get this Summit started?”

  “Oh, the Summit isn’t being held here, at Drood Hall,” said Ethel, sounding faintly scandalised. “No, we’re not considered neutral ground. Or even safe ground.”

  “You mean there are people out there who don’t trust the Droods?” said Molly. “I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.”

  “That’s all right,” said the Armourer. “We don’t trust most of them, either. Just because we’re on the same side, mostly, it doesn’t mean we aren’t all ready to stab each other in the back first chance we get. We spend more time spying on our allies than we do on the enemy. You know where you are, with the enemy. It’s the friends and partners you have to keep an eye on.”

  “It’s all about survival. . . .” said Molly.

  “Exactly!” said the Armourer, beaming.

  “I like you better in the Armoury, Uncle Jack,” I said. “Let you loose in the world, and you get downright devious.”

  “I was a field agent before you were born, boy,” said the Armourer. “Mostly I prefer to forget all that, and hide away in my Armoury. Where all I have to worry about is the lab assistants . . . but sometimes, the world just won’t leave you alone.”

  “What about the Nightside?” said Molly, suddenly. “That’s been neutral ground, for all sides, for thousands of years!”

  “No,” the Armourer said immediately. “Droods aren’t allowed in the Nightside. By long compact and binding agreements.”

  “I never did get the full story on that,” I said. “If there are these ancient agreements, requiring us to leave the Nightside strictly alone, what do we get out of it?”

  “I find it best not to ask questions like that,” said the Armourer. “The answers would only upset you.”

  “So where is this neutral ground?” said Molly.

  The Armourer beamed happily again. “We’re going to Mars!”

  “What?” said Molly.

  “What?” I said.

  “Hold everything, go previous, hit rewind,” said Molly. “Mars, as in the planet Mars? You mean the Martian Tombs? My sister Louise was just there!”

  “We know,” said the Armourer, scowling. “And we’re really not happy about that. If you ever find out how she got there, and how she got inside the Tombs, we’d really like to know. So we can stop her ever doing it again.”

  “There’s no stopping Louise,” said Molly. “That’s what makes her so . . . disconcerting.”

  “Moving on . . .” I said, firmly.

  “We use the ancient Martian Tombs for Summit Meetings,” said the Armourer, “because there’s nowhere left on Earth that’s truly neutral ground. Every group and organisation lays claim to some territory. So we go to Mars, when we have to.”

  “Are you saying the family has its own rocket ship?” I said. “Blast off to Mars, and all that? Something worryingly old and unusual, like Ivor the steam Time Engine?”

  “Well, I have been working on something like that,” said the Armourer, not at all modestly. “Though it doesn’t have rockets, and isn’t really a ship, as such. . . . But no. We have a Door. A good old-fashioned dimensional doorway. Takes us straight to Mars, no stopping off along the way, no passport control, no chance to lose your luggage.”

  I looked at Molly. “He wants someone to make Ooh! and Aah! noises. You do it; I’m too tired.”

  “Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction,” said Molly.

  “All right,” I said. “Where is this Door? Back in the Armoury?”

  “Actually, no,” said the Armourer. “We felt we needed to keep it somewhere more secure than that.”

  • • •

  Uncle Jack led Molly and me out of the Sanctity, and then out of the Hall, passing through the main entrance and on into the massive grounds that surround Drood Hall. Sweeping lawns, hedge mazes and ornamental lakes, peacocks and gryphons, and robot guns sleeping under the grass in case of unwanted visitors. A peaceful retreat for a family that’s always at war with someone. The Armourer led us briskly along the gravel pathway, past the East Wing and round the corner . . . and for the first time I realised where he was taking us.

  The old family chapel looked just as I remembered from all the times I’d sneaked out of the Hall at night, against all the rules and regulations, to visit with the disreputable old family ghost, Jacob Drood. The chapel was tucked away out of sight, though not always out of mind, and didn’t look particularly religious. An ugly stone structure with crucifix windows and a grey slate roof with holes in it, the chapel didn’t even try to look inviting. It gave every appearance of being Saxon, with maybe a touch of Norman, but it was really just a nineteenth-century folly. Back when it was all the rage to erect brand-new buildings that already looked like they were falling apart. The Gothic tradition has a lot to answer for.

  These days, the family has its own peaceful and restful and thoroughly multi-denominational chapel inside the Hall. For th
ose who feel the need. When you have to deal with Heaven and Hell’s cast-offs and spiritual droppings on a daily basis, it makes you more thoughtful than anything else. We all believe, we have no choice, but we reserve the right to have serious doubts about just what it is we’re believing in. The old chapel is a left-over from more traditional times, and strictly out of bounds. Not that such limited thinking ever stopped me, of course.

  “Isn’t this where . . . ?” said Molly.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “This is where I used to meet with the only member of the family who was more of an outcast than me. Mostly because he was dead, but damned if he’d depart. With a family as old as ours, you have to take a tough line on ghosts and the causes of ghosts, or we’d be hip deep in the bloody things. But Jacob was . . . different.”

  Uncle Jack paused by the door to let me look the old place over. For a man who claimed never to look back, the Armourer could be very understanding with those who did. Most of the few happy memories I have from my childhood concern the times I escaped from my family, with Uncle Jack in the Armoury, or Jacob the ghost in the chapel. It seems like every time I come home, I get my past pushed in my face. Like the family can’t even leave my memories alone. . . .

  I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and looked the chapel over. Ugly as ever—rough stone walls buried under thick mats of ivy. The heavy greenery was already stirring and murmuring restlessly, disturbed by our presence. I stepped forward and spoke to the ivy in a calm and friendly way, and it soon settled down again. Jacob’s personal early warning system . . . still operating long after he was gone. The heavy door still stood half open, wedged in place. Swollen wood in a contorted frame. I put my shoulder to it, and the door creaked loudly as it slid reluctantly inwards. I led the way in.

  The interior was the same old mess. All the pews had been pushed over to one side long ago, and stacked up against the wall. Dust and cobwebs and desiccated leaves scattered everywhere. The far end of the chapel was taken up with Jacob’s old great black leather reclining chair, set before a massive old-fashioned television set on which Jacob liked to watch the memories of old television programmes. I could feel old memories welling up, like tears I was damned I would shed. Molly sensed my mood and moved in close beside me.

  The Armourer looked around, and sniffed loudly. “Horrible old place. Horrible old man. But he was still family . . . and he did finally go to his end in an honourable fashion. Destroying the Hungry Gods. I come in here, from time to time, hoping he might have found some way to escape his doom. . . . Hoping against hope that he might find his way home again . . . But he never has.”

  “Why are we here?” said Molly, impatiently.

  “Because this is where we keep the Door,” said the Armourer, immediately all business again. “It’s been here pretty much forever. That’s why the family suffered Jacob to remain here all those years, instead of just exorcising him. He guarded the Door for us. Family ghost, family watchdog . . . Certainly no one was going to bother the Door while he was here.”

  “Are you going to get another guardian, now Jacob’s gone?” I said.

  “How do you know we haven’t?” said the Armourer.

  He spoke a Word of Power and gestured vaguely, and just like that the Door appeared before us. Standing still and alone, and completely unsupported, in the middle of the chapel. A heavy elm wood door with no handle or hinges, no knocker or ornamentation of any kind. No mystic symbols carved into the wood, nothing to suggest it was anything more than an ordinary, everyday door. Apart from the fact that just looking at it, you knew it was old. Really old. And that, just possibly, it was looking back at you. I studied the Door carefully from what I hoped was a safe distance. Molly strode right up to it, stuck her face close to the wood, and inspected it thoroughly. Did everything, in fact, but sniff and lick the damn thing. Molly never let caution get in the way of satisfying her curiosity.

  “Old,” she growled, not looking back. “And I mean really old. I can feel Deep Time in this, going back more centuries than I’m comfortable with. And . . . I think it knows we’re here.”

  She backed away from the Door, not taking her eyes off it for a moment.

  “How the hell did the family get its hands on this?” I said to the Armourer. “It doesn’t have the feel of something one of our old Armourers might have cobbled together, while not in spitting distance of their right mind. This came from Outside. . . .”

  “Forget Saxon or Norman,” said Molly. “I’d say Celtic. Maybe even Druidic. It’s got some of that old-time religion to it, that Nail his guts to the old oak tree vibe.”

  “Very good, Molly,” said the Armourer, beaming. “Gold star on your report card, and extra honey for tea. We acquired this Door from the same place we got the Merlin Glass. From the same benefactor.”

  “What?” I said. “Merlin made this Door? Merlin knew about Mars?”

  “Merlin knew about everything,” said the Armourer. “That’s what made him so dangerous.”

  “He gave us the Glass, and he gave us this Door?” I said. “Come on, Merlin Satanspawn was never known for his generosity. This doesn’t feel like gifts, or even tribute; it smells a lot more like payment for services rendered. So what exactly did the family do for him, all those centuries ago? That he felt obliged to craft us such matchless gifts? What did we do, or what did we promise him, in return?”

  “Excellent questions,” said the Armourer. “If you ever find out, do let us know. I’d love to have one less thing to worry about. There’s always the chance he might turn up in person one day, to present us with the bill.”

  “Merlin’s dead,” said Molly.

  “That never stopped him before,” said the Armourer, darkly. “So, everybody ready? Time to go to Mars, before the others get there.”

  “Why?” I asked bluntly.

  “We can survive the Martian conditions in our armour, so we get to open up the Martian Tombs and turn on the machines,” said the Armourer. “The old energy generators are still working, and can supply air and heat and gravity to Earth normal conditions, for the length of the Summit. And, we go first because it’s traditional. Doesn’t do any harm to remind the others that Droods always go first.”

  “Of course,” I said. “The family runs on tradition. Don’t smile, Uncle Jack. I didn’t say that was a good thing.”

  “The Droods are always the hosts of the Summit,” said the Armourer.

  “Okay, my turn,” said Molly. “Why?”

  “Because we found the Tombs,” said the Armourer. “And because we are best placed to keep the peace, if certain others start getting out of hand. Discussions have been known to get a bit . . . heated, in the past.”

  “So, everyone else goes along because they’re afraid of us,” I said.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” said the Armourer. “I’d prefer to be admired and respected, but I’ll settle for everyone else being shit-scared of us, if that means we can get the job done. Decisions have to be agreed on, one way or another. Now, ready yourselves, my children. Because once I open that Door, the red planet is waiting.” He looked dubiously at Molly. “Eddie and I have our armour; are you sure you’ll be all right . . . ?”

  “I go to worse places than Mars for my tea-break,” Molly said briskly. “I regularly visit clubs where you have to evolve into a more dangerous being just to use the toilets.”

  “It’s true,” I said solemnly. “She has. You wouldn’t believe the things she brings home as party favours.”

  The Armourer surprised me then by laughing, and fixing Molly with a twinkling gaze. “Always knew Eddie would bring home someone . . . interesting.”

  Uncle Jack and I subvocalised our activating Words, and armoured up. Two gleaming golden figures stood facing each other in the chapel, and the confined space seemed suddenly that much smaller, and more shabby. Interestingly, the Door felt more real, more solid. Th
ere were differences between the Armourer’s armour and mine. His was traditional, smooth, functional. Mine was more streamlined, detailed, personalised. There was a time all Drood armour looked the same, but since Ethel gifted us with her strange matter, we can shape our armour to fit our own needs and personalities. Uncle Jack was just a traditionalist.

  We both looked to Molly, to see what she would do, and then we both stepped back quickly as a great leafy tree burst up through the flag-stones of the chapel floor. The tree surged upwards, and stopped only when its leafy head slammed against the stone ceiling. The tree toppled forward over Molly, and engulfed her in a brown and green embrace, until it was gone and only Molly stood before us. Wrapped from head to toe in skintight living tree bark, decorated here and there with strings of mistletoe. She looked like a wood nymph, or a dryad of old, with an elemental Druidic feel. The hole in the floor was gone, as though it had never been there, and possibly it hadn’t. Molly turned to face Uncle Jack and me, and smiled. The gleaming bark stretched easily across her face, without cracking.

  “I got the idea from you, Eddie,” she said. “This way, I carry the strength and protection of the wild woods with me, wherever I go.”

  “You look amazing,” I said.

  “Treemendous,” said the Armourer.

  “Leaf it out,” I said.

  Molly shook her head sadly. “You don’t deserve me; you really don’t.”

  The Armourer turned to face the Door. “Mars!” he said loudly. The Door swung open, falling back before us, and a great red glare spilled through the Doorway and into the chapel. A whole new shade of red, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Warm, almost organic . . .

  “That’s it?” Molly said to the Armourer. “You just shout where you want to go?”

  “They liked to keep things simple, in Arthurian times,” said the Armourer. “Now stay close, and don’t go wandering off.”

  He led the way through the Door, and just like that . . .

  We went to Mars.

  • • •

  Everything changed.