From Hell With Love: A Secret Histories Novel

by Simon R. Green

  “A workable plan,” said Luther. “And at least this way, we don’t have to face the bloody dragon.”

  I subvocalised my activating Words, and my golden armour leapt out of my torc, insulating me from the world in a moment. I flexed my arms and breathed deeply, feeling strong and sure and more than ready to kick the arse of Evil and make it cry like a baby. Luther armoured up beside me, his golden form blazing brightly in the LA sun. For a moment he looked like the Oscar statue come to dangerous and vicious life, and then the armour shifted and stirred about his body, the strange matter flowing into new shapes and forms as he concentrated. The torc provides a basic suit of armour, like a second skin, and for centuries that was good enough for the Droods; but then a soldier from the distant future showed us how to reshape and personalise our armour, the better to strike terror into our enemies and suit our individual needs and capabilities. It takes a lot of concentration to make a new shape, and hold it, but we’re learning by doing.

  Given the shape of Luther’s armour, it was clear he’d spent entirely too much time watching old Transformers cartoons. His armour was large and bulky, padded out with gun emplacements that might or might not actually do anything. I was ready to bet good money that his armour would revert to standard the moment the mayhem started, and he needed all his concentration for the fight. I still kept to the basic shape, just jazzing it up a little here and there. I favour the old knightly style, with hints of greaves and a breastplate. I still kept the featureless golden face mask. Nothing like a blank eyeless face to freak out the bad guys.

  “So,” said Luther. “A traditionalist. This is the city of the future, Eddie. Only the very best will do here. Try and keep up.”

  “Funny,” I said. “I was about to say the same to you.”

  “Oh shit,” said Luther, abruptly.

  Once again, he was staring up at the top of the hotel. I craned back my head and followed his gaze. Another dimensional doorway had opened up, hovering in the sky above the roof of the Magnificat. And this time, it was very much the real deal. A state-of-the-art, all-the-bells-and-whistles gateway; a perfect circle some hundred feet in diameter, with edges so sharply defined you could almost hear the air splitting as it hit them. I caught just a glimpse of a whole different sky through the circle, before it dropped down over the chained dragon. The Lampton Wyrm looked up, startled, its hideous gargoyle head rising up and up on its long neck, and the circle just sucked the dragon up off the roof and into itself. The circle then collapsed and disappeared, taking the dragon with it. All that remained on the roof was a short length of glowing chain.

  “Happy as I am to see the dragon gone,” I said, “I find myself seriously disturbed. That . . . had to take a hell of a lot of power. Which means . . . someone else has come early to the auction.”

  “Why does everything have to be so complicated?” said Luther, wistfully.

  The dimensional gateway returned, just as large and twice as impressive, and a whole army of armed and armoured men fell out of it onto the hotel roof. They were all dressed in basic leathers and body armour, with no identifying patches or tags. They moved quickly to rehearsed positions on the roof, while a core group set up explosive charges.

  “So, the Doctor goes in through the backdoor, and this bunch goes in through the roof,” said Luther. “Should be interesting . . . Any idea who these new boys are, Eddie?”

  “Not a clue. No one should have been able to organise an operation this extensive without our knowing something in advance. I shall have some serious words with the family pre-cogs when I get back.”

  “The new boys aren’t local,” said Luther. “Do we assume they are also here for the Apocalypse Door?”

  “Would seem likely,” I said. “Though I really hate the idea that there are two sets of people who know more about it than we do.”

  The new arrivals blew a hole right through the roof with a shaped charge, dropped a bunch of ropes through, and rappelled down into the top floor. And at pretty much the same time, Doctor Delirium’s plastique charge blew the stairwell door clean off its hinges, and they all charged through into the auction site. Both sides took one look at the other, and opened up with all guns blazing. Bullets filled the air, mowing down the auction’s security guards in a moment. The remote-control zombies were punched this way and that by the impact of the bullets, staggering back and forth, with dust and bone fragments erupting from their bullet-riddled bodies. One by one they went down as their legs were blasted out from under them, and they lay thrashing or crawling on the floor, ignored by both sides.

  The two sets of soldiers dug in at opposite ends of the auction room, using overturned furniture and the shielded auction items for shelter. The firefight was doing a lot of structural damage, but there weren’t many bodies yet. Both sides were clearly professionals. The shooting gradually died down to occasional suppressional fire, as both sides considered what to do next. A remote control zombie rose up on one elbow, and denounced both sides with its dead voice. There was a single shot, and its head exploded.

  “So much for our original plan,” said Luther. “What do we do now?”

  “We go in,” I said. “We bestow beatings on one and all, take the guns away from both sides, and shut this nonsense down before it starts attracting attention. Then I will grab the Apocalypse Door and it’s head for the horizon time.”

  “Shouldn’t we take some prisoners, ask some questions?” said Luther.

  “If you must,” I said.

  “I feel I should remind you, there are two private armies in there, going head to head with extensive firepower, explosives and nerve gas grenades,” said Luther. “You really want to just charge right in?”

  “Two armies; one for each of us.”

  Luther shook his head slowly. “There is such a thing as overconfidence, even for a Drood.”

  “First problem,” I said. “Our armour should get us through the hotel’s outer defences okay, but we are going to set off all kinds of alarms . . . The last thing we need is for the two sides to discover who’s coming, and team up against us.”

  “Worry not,” said Luther. “I’ve got a basic can opener and alarm-suppressor that the Armourer sent through, just the other day. For testing. He thought I might find a use for it, given that LA has so many secrets to hide, and so many different ways of hiding them. It should open up the force shields and the magic screens, while shutting down the alarms. Notice my emphasis on the word should.”

  “The Armourer has always believed in the triumph of optimism over experience,” I said solemnly. “It’s not that his wonderful gadgets don’t work; it’s just that they will insist on working in unex pected ways. But you can’t complain, or he sulks. All right; let’s do it.”

  “Lock and load,” said Luther. “And God help the guilty.”

  “Native,” I said sadly. “Definitely native.”

  We moved forward, two golden statues striding across the plaza towards the Magnificat Hotel. No one noticed a thing; we were both in full stealth mode, our torcs transmitting telepathic You can’t see me! commands to all the passersby. Luther pulled something that still looked half finished from inside his armour and pointed it at the hotel. Looking through my golden mask I could clearly See the hotel shields split and break and vanish, dismissed almost casually by the Armourer’s new toy. Luther and I kept going, the last remnants of the more stubborn shields clinging and dragging at our armour as we strode through them. They broke and fell away like cobwebs, thrown off by the sheer power inherent in the armour. Shaped curses and proximity mines detonated harmlessly, and howling ghosts burst like soap bubbles as we marched right through them. Spirit bottles shattered under the patio, releasing their demons, and they reared up to grasp at our golden legs. We just kept going, dragging them along with us, and they soon broke up and fell apart, too fragile to last long outside their bottles. Defence magics shattered and spattered against our golden chests in rainbow bursts of dispersing energies.

  I k
icked in the front door, shattered glass falling like hail on my shoulders, and led the way into the lobby. Two armed guards opened up on us with automatic weaponry. The bullets stitched across the front of our armour, which absorbed all the impact and then swallowed up the bullets. We worry about ricochets, these days. This rather upset the guards, who turned to run. I picked up the nearest table and threw it at them, and it slammed the two guards against the far wall like a flyswatter. Luther looked at me.

  “Now that’s not fair. I never got to do anything.”

  “You can have the next two. Where are the elevators?”

  “At the back. But they’re all locked off, till the Grand Opening ceremony tomorrow. And you need a special key, to get you to the top floor. Watch and learn.”

  He moved over to the main desk, located the main computer, and instead of powering it up and using the keyboard, he just stuck one golden fingertip against the monitor screen. Golden filaments spread out from the fingertip, spiderwebbing the screen.

  “I’m accessing the hotel’s security protocols through its own operating systems,” said Luther, quite casually. “I’ve unlocked the elevators . . . shut down the alarm systems . . . and turned off all the CCTV cameras. We don’t want any record of our being here. The armour should render us electronically invisible, but this is LA—who knows what upgrades they’ve put in? Why take a chance you don’t have to, especially when we don’t know what the auction people have installed on the top floor?”

  “You can operate a computer with your armour?” I said, genuinely impressed. “I didn’t know it could do that.”

  “Have you ever tried? Just send a filament of strange matter into the computer, and let the armour do the rest. It is just an extension of our will, after all. It does what you tell it to do. I’ve used it as a contraceptive before now . . .”

  I held up a hand. “Far too much information. Let’s go.”

  Luther pulled his golden finger out, and we headed for the elevator doors at the rear of the lobby. They opened automatically as we approached, and once inside I jammed a golden finger into the lift controls, and concentrated on the top floor. The whole elevator shuddered, the doors slammed shut, and the elevator headed for the top floor like something was chasing it. When we got there the elevator’s doors flew open, as though it couldn’t wait to be rid of us. We stepped out, the doors slammed shut, and it headed for the ground floor again, at speed. I think I upset it. I stepped forward, Luther right beside me, and everyone in the world opened fire on us.

  It was an attack of quite staggering proportions. Bullets came flying at us from every direction, a storm so heavy and concentrated you could almost see it. Gunfire chewed up the walls on either side of us, and pockmarked the closed elevator doors from top to bottom. The roar was deafening, and smoke curled thickly on the air. Luther and I stood our ground as gunfire raked across our armour without doing the slightest damage. We didn’t even rock on our feet from the impact, and the armour just swallowed up the bullets. Behind my golden mask, I was grinning. There’s something really quite psychologically devastating about a foe who just stands there and allows himself to be shot, so Luther and I struck arrogant poses and made the most of it.

  They tried explosives and nerve gas grenades, and neither of them affected us in the least. You’d think they would’ve known better; I mean, they had to know we were Droods. This kind of low-level assault was almost an insult. The only way to win a fight with a Drood is to not be there when we turn up.

  The gunfire died away in spurts and coughs, and a slow awful silence settled across the top floor. Armed and armoured guards peered at us with big eyes from behind various places of cover. There was a lot of looking at each other, and general shrugging. I could just make out the podgy figure of Doctor Delirium, peering out from behind the protective shield of some auction item. The shield glowed dully, like a silver smear on the air, hiding the nature of the item. It might have been the Apocalypse Door. It was big enough.

  I moved forward, and again they opened up with every gun they had. I just walked right into the hail of bullets, not slowed or bothered in the least. Luther was right there with me. I had to say; I’d thought most of the soldiers would have had an attack of common sense and started running by now. That’s the normal reaction to Droods in their armour. I looked at Luther, nodded quickly, and we both surged forward, into the gunfire. In a moment we were in and among the armed men and ˚ throwing them this way and that. They flew screaming through the air, tossed half the length of the room. Luther took the mystery group, and I dealt with Doctor Delirium’s mercenaries. I was moving so quickly now I must have been just a golden blur to them, as I struck them down with my golden fists, for having the sheer nerve to try and kill me.

  It took me longer than I thought to clear the floor, due to the sheer press of bodies. I had to force my way through a crowd of armed soldiers, knocking them down and throwing them aside. Some clung to my arms and neck, trying to drag me down through sheer weight of numbers. It took time to shrug and peel them all off, or slam them against the nearest wall. I wasn’t trying to kill anyone, but they were, after all, killers for pay, hired thugs with uniforms. But eventually I ran out of people to hit, and looked around for Doctor Delirium. He was standing beside his auction item, crowing triumphantly. Somehow, he’d broken through the protective shield.

  It looked like just an ordinary door: a tall wooden oblong with no handles, or knocker. Ancient and unfamiliar runes had been carved around its edges. It stood upright on its own, entirely unsupported. And there was something about it . . . Like the feeling you get when you stare into an abyss, and know that death is only one small step away. It was the Apocalypse Door, and just the sight of it chilled the blood in my heart. There was something beyond that Door, and it wanted out, in the worst way. Doctor Delirium ran his podgy hands over it, crooning in delight.

  His crude dimensional door opened and swallowed up both him and the Apocalypse Door in a moment. Those of his men left behind, and still conscious, made a run for it. I had no time for them. I was trying to come to terms with the knowledge that for the first time in his life, Doctor Delirium was now a Major Player. And almost certainly in over his head.

  The mystery group’s soldiers hadn’t given up, even with their prize gone. They were still firing everything they had. Luther raged among them, slapping guns out of hands, and striking the soldiers down with rough efficiency. I didn’t have the patience for that, so I just picked up the nearest pieces of furniture and threw them at the thugs like missiles. Tables and chairs flew through the air, and struck down whole groups of men like the wrath of God.

  A few kept moving, dodging from one piece of cover to another, sniping at me with more exotic weapons. They had science things and magic things, and even a few unfamiliar objects that might have been both or neither. They kept trying one thing after another, looking for anything that might pierce my armour. The fools. One of them actually produced a collapsible bazooka. He loaded up a silver shell wrapped in mistletoe, and fired it at me. I felt like showing off, so I just stood my ground and caught the shell in my arms. Didn’t even knock me backwards. I hugged the shell to my chest, and my armour absorbed the whole of the blast as it exploded. When the smoke cleared, I was still standing there, completely untouched. The soldier looked like he was going to burst into tears. He threw the bazooka down, and stamped on it.

  Another soldier stepped up, and stabbed an Aboriginal pointing bone at me. Now those are pretty serious magic; a shaman who knows what he’s doing can kill you with a bad thought, throw your soul into the Dreaming, even rewrite reality itself on a small scale. Fortunately, most of that kind of magic has been lost, or forgotten. And this guy really hadn’t done his homework. The bone’s spell hit my armour, rebounded, and blasted the guy right out of existence.

  Another armed thug, with more courage than sense, stepped forward and showed me the glowing metal glove on his hand. It looked a lot like the old Roman cestus, nasty things
used in the Arenas by gladiators who liked to get in close and personal with their victims. This particular glove had been soaked in really nasty magics; it left long blazing trails on the air when it moved, as though just its existence stained reality. The poor fool using the glove clearly didn’t know that just wearing the thing was more than enough to kill him.

  Luther finished mopping up and stepped forward to face the boxer. The soldier struck a classic pose, and then lunged forward and punched Luther right in the throat. The glowing glove actually shrieked in rage and triumph as it slammed through the air, and then the awful sound was cut off abruptly as the glove hit Luther’s golden throat . . . and was immediately swallowed up by the armour. It sucked the glowing glove right off the man’s hand, absorbed it and made it nothing, nothing at all.

  The soldier fainted dead away at Luther’s feet. Though that was probably mostly due to the toxic radiations the glove had been giving off. I considered Luther thoughtfully.

  “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yes. Really. You have no idea.”

  We looked around us, taking our time. The long room was littered with unconscious bodies, and a dozen or so surrendered men, on their knees with their hands on their heads, looking very much like they wished they were somewhere else. There were a few dead men, which was a shame, but they should have known better than to attack Droods. I started rehearsing the questions I was going to ask, starting with What do you know about the Apocalypse Door? And that was when a dimensional gateway appeared above our heads, sucked up all the soldiers in a moment, the living and the dead, and then slammed shut again. I looked at Luther.

  “You know, that is getting really bloody annoying.”

  “Couldn’t agree more if you bribed me.”

  The dimensional gateway opened up again, and the Lampton Wyrm dropped out of it. The dragon was back from wherever the gate had taken it, and it clearly hadn’t enjoyed the trip. It filled more than half the floor, fifty feet long from snout to tail, its great membranous wings unfurling angrily. Its ugly head rose up on its long neck and slammed against the ceiling. Streams of broken plas ter and ceiling tiles rained down around it. The dragon’s spiked tail lashed back and forth, destroying everything it touched, and sending shielded auction items flying through the air. Clawed feet dug deep furrows in the carpeted floor. The Wyrm snatched up one of the more intact remote control zombies from the floor, chewed on it for a moment, and then spat the bits out. The dragon roared angrily, and the ghastly sound shook the whole floor.