“He was very romantic,” the Armourer said firmly.
“We can’t simply appoint a Matriarch,” said the Sarjeant. “If we must have one, and I think we must, then tradition demands she be part of the line of descent, no matter how . . . fractured. Traditions are all we have to hold the family together.”
“My aunt Helen was Mother’s sister,” said the Armourer. “And she had a daughter, Margaret. I suppose . . .”
“Don’t recognise the name,” I said. “The family’s getting far too big. . . .”
“I could always organise a cull,” said the Sarjeant.
We all looked at him. He didn’t appear to be joking.
“Moving on,” I said. “Uncle Jack, what does Margaret do in the family?”
“Wait a minute!” said the Sarjeant. “You mean Capability Maggie! She’s in charge of landscaping the Hall grounds, maintaining the lawns and the lake and the woods, and all the creatures that live in them.”
“That’s her,” said the Armourer. “Devoted to her job. Raised a hell of a fuss when I dug up half an acre to bury that massive dragon’s head you sent back from Germany, Eddie. I mean, I covered it over again. . . . I think a new barrow adds personality to the garden. And it is the only part of the garden that can actually have a conversation with you when you walk past it.”
“Does she have Matriarch potential?” said Harry.
“She runs the gardeners with a rod of iron,” said the Sarjeant. “Sometimes literally. And she chased me twice around the Hall with a pitchfork that time I walked across her new seedlings.”
“Now, that I would have loved to see,” I said. “Hell, I’d have sold tickets.”
“I still say she should have put up a sign,” said the Sarjeant. “I’ll have a word with her. From a safe distance. Sound her out, see how she feels.”
“Are we still talking about a constitutional Matriarch?” I said. “Because I’m damned if I’m having some new Matriarch ruling over me with a pitchfork. What exactly would her powers and responsibilities be?”
“To be decided by the family, I suppose,” said the Armourer. “Or whoever the family elects as its new leader.”
“What’s she like, this Margaret?” I said, trying to hold the Armourer’s gaze, even as he seemed not to want to.
“Downright vicious, if you tread on her seedlings,” said the Sarjeant.
“Very . . . forceful,” said the Armourer. “Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all, really.”
“Exactly the right sort,” said Harry.
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Will you be standing for leader in this new election, Harry?”
“Of course. I live to serve the family. How about you, Eddie?”
“The only reason I’d stand would be to prevent your taking command again, Harry.”
“How very unkind,” said Harry.
“The next item on the agenda,” said the Sarjeant quickly, “is the continuing problem of the Librarian.”
Everyone looked at William, still sitting quietly at his end of the table, lost in his own little world, as always. Even allowing for the dressing gown and bunny slippers, he looked fairly presentable. His hair and beard were neatly trimmed these days, because his new assistant Librarian, Ioreth, did it for him. But he still looked like he wasn’t eating nearly enough. William had a first-class mind some of the time, but he couldn’t always remember where he put it. He worked best when left alone with his beloved books in the Old Library, but here and now . . . He raised his great grey head suddenly and looked at me . . . and he had the cold thousand-yard stare of a soldier from some terrible forgotten war.
He hadn’t contributed a single word to the council meeting so far.
“How are you feeling, William?” I said, a bit loudly.
“Who can say?” William said sadly. “I’m here, because the Sarjeant said I was supposed to be here. Settle for that.”
I looked up into the rose red glow that marked Ethel’s presence. “I had hoped springing him from that asylum and bringing him home to the family might help him.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” said Ethel, her calm and kind voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I’m doing all I can to soothe his troubled brow, but someone has done a real number on this man’s mind. I can barely see into his head, and I can see into dimensions you don’t even have names for yet. Trying to sort through his thoughts is like drowning in a bucket of boiling cats. There’s a lot going on inside his mind, but it’s all going on at the same time. It’s a wonder to me he can even see the real world. He is fighting it, Eddie; but I think he’s losing. And . . .”
“Yes?” I said, after the pause had gone on a little too long for my liking.
“There’re . . . other things in his head, too,” Ethel said reluctantly. “Shadows . . . things I can’t even identify. I’ve no idea what they are.”
“Terrific,” said Harry.
“I do wish people wouldn’t talk about me as though I weren’t here!” said William, sitting suddenly upright. “All right, some of the time I’m not. I know that. But it’s the principle of the thing! I shouldn’t be here. . . . Put me back in the Old Library. I can focus there. I can cope. I can contribute to the family. Nothing else matters.”
“I really thought you’d feel better once I got you home,” I said.
“Oh, it is better here,” said William. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Eddie. I am, I am. . . . But the Heart broke me, you see, and even though I ran away from the Heart and the Hall and the family . . . I couldn’t run away from what it did to me. I’m still broken. . . . And all the Droods’ horses and all the Droods’ men couldn’t put me back together again.”
I looked around the table, glowering at everyone. “This has gone on long enough! William is family, and he needs our help. And now that the Matriarch’s no longer here to block it, I say it’s time to hire a professional telepath and see what he can do to put William’s mind right.”
“I do understand, Eddie,” the Armourer said gently. “I remember how William was before he left. He was my friend, and I miss him. But I have to say . . . what if the Matriarch had a good reason for saying no?”
“Like what?” I said.
“I don’t know!” said the Armourer. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Eddie! I did discuss the matter with Mother on several occasions, but she always refused to explain her reasons. She didn’t have to, after all. She was the Matriarch.”
“I also raised the matter with her,” said the Sarjeant. “I was . . . concerned about my uncle. She also refused to explain her thinking to me. She said, very forcefully, that allowing a telepath access to William’s mind was completely unacceptable. She was . . . very curt about it. I assumed it was a security issue; that William must have something in his head, family secrets, that no outsider could be allowed to know.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I said. “What could William know that the rest of us don’t?”
“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said the Sarjeant. “But for once, you and I are in agreement, Edwin. This has gone on far too long. William is family and must be helped. Nothing else matters.”
“Who do we have in mind for the job?” said Harry. “The family’s psychics—”
“Aren’t up to the job,” I said firmly. “What’s inside William’s head would eat them alive. We need someone with real power, someone who can punch their weight.”
“The London Knights are always boasting about their first-class telepath, Vivienne de Tourney,” said the Sarjeant. “Apparently they use her to maintain communications among the Knights when they ride out to war in other worlds and dimensions, where our science doesn’t always work. She can maintain telepathic contact among hundreds of Knights simultaneously, so they can talk to her, and one another, and never once get muddled. A first-class brain. I could talk to her. . . .”
“You’ve been drinking with their seneschal again, haven’t you?” the Armourer said accusingly.
“I thought that was forbidden, on security grounds?” I said, amused despite myself.
“It is forbidden,” said the Sarjeant. “For everyone except me. I don’t have to worry about breaking security. I am security. And I can drink their seneschal under the table any day of the week.”
“Bloody London Knights,” growled the Armourer. “Do we really want to go cap in hand to those snotty, stuck-up little prigs? Always so high and mighty—last defenders of Camelot, my arse! They give themselves such airs and graces. . . . We’re the real defenders of Humanity! Because they’re always off fighting somewhere else!”
“What about the Carnacki Institute?” said Harry. “They have any number of telepaths working for them.”
“The Ghost Finders?” said the Sarjeant. “I don’t think so. They’d want payment in more than money. They’d want information, secrets, sources. . . . And I’ve never really trusted them. I don’t think anything we gave them would necessarily stay with them. They’ve always been too close to the Establishment for my liking, for all their protestations.”
“If we have to hire someone,” I said carefully, “I say we hire the best. And that means Ammonia Vom Acht.”
Everyone reacted, and none of them favourably. The Armourer pulled a sour face, and the Sarjeant shook his head firmly. Harry and Roger looked at each other, and neither of them looked pleased by the prospect. William was back to staring off into space again. I looked at Molly, and she made a point of being very interested in the remaining contents of her bag of popcorn.
“All right,” I said. “Agreed, she’s a poisonous, vicious and really quite appalling woman, and those are her good points. But you know you’re going to get your money’s worth with her.”
“I should hope so,” said the Sarjeant. “Given how much she charges.”
“How do you know how much she charges?” I said.
“I have made my own overtures,” said the Sarjeant. “Once it became clear that we were going to have to do something about William.”
“I’m still here!” said William.
“Only just,” said the Sarjeant. “But can we really risk allowing that woman into Drood Hall? She could rip the secrets out of everyone’s head in ten seconds flat.”
“I wasn’t thinking of letting her into the Hall, as such,” I said. “I thought perhaps something more like neutral territory—namely, the Old Library. Teleport her straight there, through the Merlin Glass. She’d be cut off from the rest of the Hall and the rest of the family. I’m sure Uncle Jack could whip up something I could wear to keep Ammonia out of my head.”
“What?” said the Armourer. “Oh. Yes. Of course, no problem. I’ll take it under advisement. I think I may go and hide somewhere the day she arrives.”
“Lot of people feel that way about Ammonia Vom Acht,” I said.
“I still want to know who or what is living in the Old Library, along with the Librarian,” the Sarjeant said determinedly. “I am referring to whatever it was that scared the crap out of the Immortal posing as Rafe. You were there, Eddie, when whatever it was stopped Rafe from killing the Librarian. What did you see?”
“I keep telling you,” I said, “I didn’t see anything. All I could feel was this . . . presence. Big and powerful and dangerous, but not like anything I’ve ever encountered before. William . . . William! Do you have anything you want to contribute?”
“Something’s there,” said William, nodding wisely. “Something very old, I think. Watching me, or watching over me. It’s so hard to be sure. . . . It steals my socks, you know.”
“We can’t have someone or something unknown running loose in the Old Library!” said the Sarjeant.
“We’ve already run the exorcism engine three times!” said the Armourer. “None of my equipment was able to detect anything!”
“Why not let the Vom Acht woman have a crack at it?” I said. “If she really is the top-ranking telepath she’s always claimed, she should be able to pin it down. Or at least tell us what it is we’re dealing with.”
“She might not survive such a close encounter,” said the Armourer. “You saw the state of the Immortal after we dragged him out of the Old Library.”
“Get her to work on William first,” the Sarjeant said wisely. “Then have her scan the Old Library. And she might die, you say? Excellent. A plan with no drawbacks.”
“You’ve got cold, Cedric,” said the Armourer.
“I was born cold,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
“Some days you can’t breathe in here for testosterone,” said Molly.
“Have we finally finished all the family business?” I said. “I really would like to talk about my encounter with the first well-organised, worldwide Satanist conspiracy in sixty years!”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it, Eddie?” said Harry.
“Far more often than it’s about you, Harry,” I said.
I ran through everything that happened at Lightbringer House, with Molly chipping in now and then to add details. There were certain parts I chose to leave out, mostly concerning Isabella, but I couldn’t leave her out entirely. I was pretty sure she’d be inviting herself back in again at some point. William actually brightened up a bit at the mention of her name.
“Very healthy young girl!” he said loudly. “Got a good pair of legs on her. They go all the way up to her arse. I don’t know why you insist on keeping her out of the Old Library, Sarjeant. She can come and visit me anytime. . . .”
“She can’t have access, because she isn’t family,” said the Sarjeant.
“Oh, let the girl in,” said William. “I could show her a few things. Oh, yes. I may be insane, but I’m not crazy.”
“Dirty old man,” said Molly, in a not entirely disapproving way.
“Moving on,” I said deliberately. “I’m mostly concerned about Alexandre Dusk, and the Great Sacrifice he was talking about.”
“It is a worry, yes,” said the Sarjeant. “But I don’t see anything serious enough in this that we should make it a top priority.”
“What?” I said. “Are you out of your mind, Cedric? A Satanist conspiracy involving every government in the world, talking about a satanic coup so big it could debase all Humanity, and let loose the Great Beast himself . . . and you don’t see that as a top priority?”
“It’s just Satanists,” said the Sarjeant. “They always talk big. We’ll keep an eye on them, certainly. Gather information, see who’s actually involved and what they might have going for them. . . . I’ll delegate one of our field agents to infiltrate Lightbringer House.”
“I could do that!” I said immediately. “I could go in as Shaman Bond!”
“The council has a far more important mission in mind for you,” said Harry. “Important and urgent. You’ll need to be ready for insertion first thing tomorrow morning.”
“What?” I said. “I’ve only just got back from being dead!”
“No rest for the wicked,” the Armourer said solemnly. “I can always whip up one of my special pep-you-up tonics, if you like.”
“No, I do not like,” I said. “Grandmother used to dose me with your tonics all the time I was growing up, and they always tasted vile.”
“That’s how you know it’s doing you good,” said the Armourer. “You always got a nice chocolate afterwards, didn’t you?”
“There isn’t a chocolate in the world that could take away the taste of your tonics!”
“It’s nice to be appreciated,” said the Armourer. He shook his head slowly. “An actual Satanist conspiracy, after all these years. I always have trouble taking them seriously. It’s all a bit too much Dennis Wheatley, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Who?” said Harry.
“You know,” said Roger. “The Devil Rides Out, that was him. The old Hammer hor
ror film we watched on DVD last week. Most of the people in my circles think it’s a classic. We all love Charles Gray as the coven leader, Mocata. Very sinister. He made being a Devil worshipper look so damned cool. Mocata was supposedly based on Aleister Crowley, but I am here to tell you, Crowley was never that impressive. Or even that dignified. Hell of a mountain climber, though.”
“Have you heard anything about this new conspiracy?” I said. “These are your people, aren’t they?”
“Oh, please! Hardly,” said Roger. “They’re nothing but wannabes, whereas I am the real thing. There have always been satanic conspiracies, but none of them were ever as powerful or as important as they liked to think.”
“Yes, well,” said Molly, “you would say that, wouldn’t you? Do you know anything about Alexandre Dusk and his proposed Great Sacrifice?”
“Haven’t heard anything,” said Roger.
We all waited, but he had nothing more to say. Even Harry was looking at Roger thoughtfully, but he didn’t seem to care.
“I have to ask,” I said, looking round the council. “Given that there is an unquestionably real satanic conspiracy, is there, in fact, a good-guy equivalent? Apart from us, obviously.”
“There are other organisations on the side of the Light,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “And any number of powerful individuals, like the Lord of Thorns, in the Nightside; and the Walking Man, the wrath of God in the world of men. . . .”
“I was thinking of something more specific,” I said. “Are there agents of good in the world, to match the agents of evil?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said the Armourer. “There is . . . the Emmanuel.”
Everyone seemed to sit up a little straighter. Even William was giving the conversation his full attention, such as it was.
“Emmanuel,” said William. “Literally, ‘God with us.’”
“Is that a person or an organisation?” I said.
“Good question,” said the Armourer. “Nobody knows. Or at least, no one knows for sure. This family has had dealings with the Emmanuel, down the centuries. When we knew for sure that we were in way out of our depth. According to family records, and these are very secret and very private records, the Emmanuel is extremely powerful, and not to be summoned lightly.”
For Heaven's Eyes Only sh-5 Page 10
