“You have got to be joking!” Molly made a seriously disgusted and appalled noise. “I wouldn’t touch them with an exorcised barge pole! Those people are seriously weird. I worked alongside one of their agents. Just the once. Called himself Demonsbane. Because it turned out we were working the same case from different ends. Something had been snatching foetuses, teleporting them right out of the womb and leaving only simulacra behind. The two of us ended up chasing Hagges through the sewers under Liverpool. We got the poor things back eventually, but Demonsbane…freaked me out big-time. That’s not even a code name, you know. That’s what he calls himself! Hate to think what the other choices were…The point is, he was seriously spooky, like all the Soulhunters.”
“And you know spooky,” I said.
“Damn right I do. Trust me, Eddie. There is something seriously wrong about the Soulhunters. Every damned one of them.”
“You know how sometimes this job can drive you crazy?” I said. “The Soulhunters have always dealt with the darkest, nastiest and freakiest areas of the hidden world. Word is, when you’re too weird, too disturbed or just too broken for any of the other supernatural organisations, that’s when you’re ready for your Soulhunters interview. In fact, I think this is how it goes: Are you crazy? Yes, I am! Welcome to the Soulhunters! If we let them take over from the Droods, the world won’t know what’s hit it. Certainly the hidden world wouldn’t remain hidden for very long.”
“I love how you mention things and then immediately talk yourself out of it,” said Molly.
“Years of practice.”
“There’s always the lone guns,” said Molly. “The heroes and adventurers, the rogues and the headbangers. Maybe we could put together our own version of the Magnificent Seven. ‘Have bad attitude; will travel’—that sort of thing. We could start with the Walking Man.…”
“No, we couldn’t,” I said immediately. “Him? The wrath of God in the world of men? He’s not exactly subtle, is he? Never met a scorched-earth policy he didn’t like. No. I suppose…there’s always Augusta Moon, the monster hunter.…”
“She’s getting on a bit,” Molly said doubtfully. “There’s the English Assassin.…”
“No, there isn’t,” I said. “He’s dead again. Look. There’s never been any shortage of adventurers in the supernatural, the heroes and the differently sane, but there’s nearly always a reason why they work alone. I’m sure we could round up any number of reputable names and maybe even get them to play nice together as long as we were there to crack the whip, but none of them could carry the weight of the world on their backs for long. They don’t have the training, the organisation or even the big guns to get the job done. That’s why the Droods are so important and why it’s so vital we get them back as soon as possible. Come on, Molly. There’s only one place we can go, and that’s to the Regent of Shadows.”
Molly scowled fiercely, considering the matter. “The Shadows are a secretive bunch,” she said finally. “Even for the usual secret organisations. I mean, yes, I’ve heard of them—everyone has. But that’s it. They deal in information. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them wading in and getting their hands dirty. I always thought they were part of the Establishment, like the Carnacki crowd.”
“Not…as such,” I said. “They tend more towards working with the Establishment, rather than for them. An important distinction in this day and age. Sufficiently independent for our purposes, and not likely to spread around the information we’ll be giving them. And once they’ve told me what I need to know, hopefully I can persuade the Regent to jump in and become far more active than he’s used to.”
“Why would he want to?” Molly said bluntly.
“Because he’s still a Drood, even if he is a rogue,” I said. “He’s still family, which means he understands duty and responsibility. If they’re dropped onto him from a great enough height.”
“But you’ve never even met the man!” said Molly. “Your family wouldn’t even talk about him!”
“That is a point in his favour,” I said.
We reached Brighton late in the day, with the afternoon already heading into evening, though the sun still shone brightly as it sank down the perfect blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen or a breath of breeze anywhere. The Phantom’s speed dropped abruptly as we hit the city traffic, and I bullied my way as best I could through the narrowing streets of the city centre. There was quite a lot of traffic, this being the height of the tourist season, with whole families packed into cars and pointed at the seaside. There wasn’t the room for my usual driving tactics, so I just hunched down in my seat and cruised along, resisting the impulse to open up with the front-mounted machine guns.
The slow progress made me uneasy. Made me feel more and more as though there were targets painted all over the bodywork. I trusted the Armourer’s shields to do their job, but, on the other hand, Crow Lee didn’t get to be number one in the Bastard Business without being able to locate his enemies.…I checked the surrounding cars and their drivers carefully, but I didn’t see anything or anyone I could honestly identify as showing inappropriate interest.
Molly was just pleased to be back in Brighton. She bounced up and down excitedly in her seat, peering happily out of all the windows, pointing out the sights and interrupting herself to beat a fast paradiddle on the dashboard with both hands.
“I love Brighton!” she said loudly. “Good food, good bars and bad company! If you’re a girl who likes to drink, dance and debauch, and wallow in everything that’s bad for you, Brighton is the place to be! Used to be Blackpool, but that’s gone very down-market of late.”
“I never knew you to be such a happy camper, Molly,” I said solemnly.
“My glass may be half-empty, but I am half-full! Can’t we get a move on?”
“Not without actually driving right over the cars in front of us, no.”
Molly looked like she was seriously considering it. “We need the Pier. That’s where we’ll find my old acquaintance. Brighton Pier. You know, one time I…”
“Never mind your disreputable past,” I said. “How do we get there?”
Molly shifted uneasily in her seat, looking around for signposts and landmarks. “I don’t know! Give me a chance—it’s been a few years.…Honestly, Eddie, all the extras your uncle Jack built into this car, and he didn’t think to include a sat nav? And don’t ask me to check the maps. I do not do the map thing. Look. Just head for the seafront. Listen for the sound of the waves, and if that doesn’t work, stick your head out the side window and sniff out the tang of the sea!”
“World’s worst navigator,” I said, and she punched me in the shoulder.
“I have other talents,” she said, grinning.
“So you do.”
After some back-and-forthing and a certain amount of going round and round in circles, we finally found our way to the seafront and Brighton Pier. A large and impressive structure stretching away from the beach and out into the sea, so people could go walking across the ocean and get a sense of the sea without actually having to go in it. The Pier looked to just go on and on, but then I supposed it had to be that long to fit in all the overpriced souvenirs, games and tourist traps that paid for its continued existence. Hell of a lot of seagulls flying around, making a lot of noise. Molly lowered her window and stuck her head right out, the better to savour the sea air.
I looked around for a parking place, which was naive of me. Of course there wasn’t one. All the parking places in Brighton are probably full by dawn’s earliest light, or inherited and passed on within the family. So I just brought the Phantom V to a halt directly in front of the Pier’s main entrance, right next to a NO PARKING sign. One of life’s little pleasures. I turned off the engine and powered up the car’s defences, while Molly conjured up an official DISABLED sticker and slapped it on the inside of the windscreen. I looked at her reproachfully.
“You are very definitely not in any way disabled,” I said. “Not as long as you can still get your an
kles behind your ears like you did last night…”
“Anyone messes with this car while we’re away, they will find themselves suddenly and violently disabled,” said Molly. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“Can’t take you anywhere,” I said sadly.
“You know you love it, really.”
We left the Phantom V to fend for itself and strolled towards the Pier’s main entrance. Molly surprised me by taking my hand in hers. She’s not usually one for public displays of affection. Presumably she was just trying to blend in. A seagull dive-bombed us, and Molly shot it out of the air with her free hand. When she makes a gun with her hand, she’s not kidding. The seagull plummeted from the sky with feathers flying off it and crashed into the sea. Molly smiled happily. I hurried her through the main entrance and onto the Pier proper.
“I hope Madame O is still doing business here,” said Molly. “Because if she isn’t, I haven’t a clue where to find her.”
“We came all this way and you’re not even sure she’s here?” I said.
“I’m sure! She’s here! Unless she isn’t…”
“An old friend of yours, this Madame O?” I said, as we promenaded along the Pier, doing our best to look like two more tourists. I was more successful at this than Molly, but then I’ve had training in how to look like nobody in particular. Molly’s never been much of a one for blending in.
“A friend?” said Molly. “Not…as such.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s going to be like that, is it?”
“Almost certainly. You just keep quiet and let me do all the talking,” said Molly. “And everything will be fine. Just fine. Be ready to dodge and duck, as necessary.”
“Would it perhaps go better if I was to introduce myself as Shaman Bond?”
“Wouldn’t work,” Molly said immediately. “She’d spot your torc the moment she set eyes on you and know you for a Drood. She’s the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, which is a lot rarer now in these days of family planning.”
“So she has the Sight?”
“Madame O can See things that no one else can See, that aren’t necessarily even there, and have conversations with them,” said Molly.
“Is she a witch?”
“Worse,” said Molly, grimacing. “She’s a fortune-teller.”
We took our time, strolling along the bare wooden boards of the Pier, taking in the sights. I was actually enjoying myself. I’d never been on a pier before. I walked over to the solid steel railings and peered over the side, looking out over the waters and the pebbled beach and the heavy swell of the waves coming in below. The afternoon was definitely over now, with evening settling in, but the sun was still bright and the air was pleasantly warm, interrupted now and then by sharp cool breezes gusting in off the sea. There were still quite a few tourists out and about, families enjoying the remains of the day and getting sucked into all the amenities the Pier had to offer. There were even a handful of retired senior citizens who looked like fixtures, happily reclining in their own personal deck chairs, just sitting back and watching the world go by. If there’d been anywhere to hire a deck chair, I might have joined them. I surprised myself by getting into the whole experience and enjoying it. Molly grinned broadly, enjoying seeing me enjoying myself.
“You’ve never been on a pier before. Have you, Eddie?”
“Never been to the seaside before,” I said. “It wasn’t allowed.”
“You’ve never done this before? Not even when you were a child?”
“Especially not then. The likes of this wasn’t for young Droods. We were never allowed out of the Hall’s grounds. You have to remember, Molly: Drood children out in the world, beyond the Hall’s protections, were seen as nothing more than kidnap victims waiting to happen. We would be targets for any number of people desperate to get their hands on a Drood torc and Drood secrets. And, of course, a kidnapped child could be used as leverage against us. Besides…the family has always believed in keeping its children close; the better to indoctrinate and control them. So holidays were out. Except on television, and all those Enid Blyton books I read as a kid. This…all this, is good. This is fun. I like this!”
Molly laughed aloud, squeezed my hand and led me down the full length of the Pier, over the dark sea waters, making sure I saw everything there was to see. The gift shops were of course packed wall to wall with overpriced tat, loud and gaudy and tacky with it, the kind of thing tourists buy because they think it’s expected of them. And then when they get it home, they look at it and say, What was I thinking? Some nice watches, though. Along with a whole bunch of miniature clocks shoehorned into every kind of objet d’art and objet trouvé you could think of.
What really caught my eye was the line of cans containing Brighton air. Really. Large and colourful containers full of fresh air from the seaside, sealed shut. Enjoy the breezy Brighton Air! Breathe in that ozone! And then take it home with you! said the sign on the front of every can. Molly got the giggles.
“They’re actually selling air to the tourists!”
“Reminds me of something I once saw on eBay,” I said. “Genuine Transylvanian Grave Dirt! Each in its own sealed container, of course. For vampire fanatics who only think they’ve got absolutely everything…My first thought was that the Eastern Europeans had finally figured out a way to sell dirt to foreigners, but it turned out to be more complicated than that. An old vampire count was shipping his ancestral estate to England, one bit at a time. We soon put a stop to that. I tracked down the location in London, got a few friends together, we all drank a lot of holy water and then pissed all over the new earthen plot. And that took care of that.”
“You’ve lived, haven’t you, Eddie?” Molly said admiringly.
“You want me to buy you a can of air or not?”
“I’ll pass.” She frowned. “Am I remembering correctly—someone once tried to sell his soul on eBay?”
“Yeah, but they made him take it down. He couldn’t provide proof of ownership.”
We went through the games arcade next. All the usual noisy video stuff, of course, along with a surprising number of old-fashioned traditional games of no chance whatsoever. Clearly designed to painlessly separate a punter from whatever spare change he happened to have about his person. Whilst at the same time fooling said punter into believing he was having a good time.
“You miserable old scrote,” said Molly, when I explained my insights to her. “You don’t come here to win money. You come here to enjoy yourself! You really don’t understand being on holiday, do you?”
“Apparently not,” I said.
Molly squealed excitedly as she recognised an old favourite from her childhood, and then nothing would do except for her to drag me over to show it off to me. The game was a simple mechanical affair called The Claw. A tall plastic cylinder with toys piled up at its base and a claw that descended from the top. You paid your money, which gave you a measure of control over the claw and a limited amount of time for you to use the claw to grab the toy of your choice. Skill was apparently involved. What could be simpler? Except somehow the claw never did get a secure grip on any of the toys before the time ran out. Funny, that.
Molly jumped up and down excitedly before the clear plastic cylinder, regaling me with tall tales of the ones that got away…and then she went all quiet as she realised one of the toys she remembered was still on offer. She pointed it out to me: an overbearingly cute little stuffed pony in an unnatural shade of sky blue. With a purple mane. Molly slammed both hands against the cylinder, making it shiver, while growling, “I want it, I want it, I want it.” Several parents hustled their children away. I produced a handful of small change; Molly snatched it off my palm and the game was on. Molly took control of the claw, and several times got hold of her prey with it, but somehow it always came loose just as the time ran out. Funny, that.
I may not know much about holidays, but I know a con when I see one.
Molly scowled at the cylinder. I sensed tro
uble coming, and moved forward to block people’s view of her. She ghosted her hand through the clear plastic, grabbed the stuffed pony, took it out and hugged it to her. The greasy-haired teenager in charge of the game started to say something. I gave him one of my looks, and he didn’t. Molly cradled the pony to her bosom and looked at me defiantly.
“I’ve always wanted one! It’s mine!”
“Of course it is,” I said. “Anyone can see you two belong together. Can we please move along now?”
“I thought there’d be alarms,” Molly said vaguely. “Really rubbish security here. They didn’t deserve to keep it.”
She moved on through the games arcade, cuddling the stuffed pony to her chest and babbling cheerful nonsense to it. I followed behind. She wasn’t interested in holding my hand anymore. The pony was more important. I had to wonder if there was anything I wanted as much as Molly wanted that particular stuffed toy. I didn’t think so. My family gave us weapons to play with, not toys. And the only things I got to cuddle as a kid were the gryphons on the lawns. And they liked to roll in dead things. Childhoods; they really do mess you up. I hurried to catch up with the only thing I’d ever really wanted, and then we walked together through the arcade.
We wandered from game to game, indulging ourselves occasionally, and I looked them all over with great interest, fascinated by the loud noises and flashing lights. Reminded me of the Armoury. Eventually we passed through the games arcade and out the other side. The fresh sea air came as a relief after so much compressed body odour, and we strolled on, all the way to the end of the Pier. Where I was somewhat surprised to find a slouching, two-story wooden edifice passing itself off as a haunted house. There were a slumping doorway, gloomily backlit windows, and a general ambience of cheap and cheerful. It looked like a stiff breeze would knock it over.
“Okay,” I said. “That is never haunted. Not even a little bit.”
“It’s not meant to be,” Molly said patiently. “It’s just another game, Eddie. For the children. Like a ghost train.”
Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel Page 15
