“Well, that was fun,” said Diana, adjusting the silk scarf at her throat and brushing herself down. “I was hoping I’d get the chance to see the two of you in action, and I have to say, you’re everything the reports said you were. I’m really quite impressed.”
“Not bad yourself for an old girl,” Molly said grudgingly. “Can all the Regent’s people do what you do, jumping in and out of shadows?”
“Oh yes,” said Diana. “The clue was always in the name. Apparently, the Regent acquired this very useful ability from the Hanged Man’s Clan, back when he was first on the run from his family. I say acquired; another version of the story says he stole it, and I wouldn’t put it past him. The Regent has never had any problem with being…practical about matters of morality. When necessary. The shadow thing is very useful in our line of work. Do keep it to yourselves, my dears.”
“I still want to know who was in charge of all this,” I said loudly. There was a certain amount of stirring among the beaten-down gunmen, but no one said anything.
“Got to be one of these scumbags,” said Molly.
“I don’t think so,” Diana said thoughtfully. “Take a look out the windows.…”
We all leaned over the nearest bodies, which did their best to flinch out of the way, and looked outside. The windows weren’t tinted from the inside, and we had a clear view of the street. The cars and other traffic were all exactly where we’d left them, not moving at all, fixed in place in their frozen moment held outside of time.
“So whoever stopped time is still in here with us,” I said. “Hiding in plain sight and hoping to go undiscovered. I can’t See him anywhere, even through my mask.”
Molly looked slowly and carefully about her, and even hardened assassins avoided her gaze. She scowled. “I’m not Seeing any glamours or illusions, and no dimensional door he could have escaped through.…So he’s definitely still here in the bus with us, the arrogant little scrote.”
“Hell with it,” I said. “I suppose I’ll just have to punch a hole in the petrol tank, set light to the whole bus and watch them all fry.”
“It’s the only way to be sure,” Molly said solemnly.
Diana looked at us sharply and was about to say something when a new voice spoke up suddenly from among the piled-up assassins.
“All right! All right. Don’t do anything dramatic! I’m right here.…”
And one of the most battered and bloodied-looking gunmen stood up abruptly. He shook himself briefly, and all his wounds disappeared, his whole shape changing as he became someone else. The hard-faced seasoned gunman was replaced in a moment by a sulky-looking teenage boy of no more than seventeen or eighteen. Wearing distressed jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend Revenge Is Forever.
“It’s an Immortal!” said Molly. “A flesh-dancer! No wonder I couldn’t detect his presence!”
Diana looked at him thoughtfully. “So that’s what they look like. I’d heard they never aged past their teens, but…Eddie, I thought your family killed off all the Immortals when you raided their secret base at Castle Frankenstein.”
“We got most of them,” I said.
“Evil, vicious little bastards that they were,” said Molly.
“But a few did get away,” I said. “Because they just deserted their own kind and ran, like rats deserting a sinking ship.” I walked up to the teenage Immortal, who flinched but didn’t back away. “So,” I said. “I thought the few of you who survived had gone to ground, hiding in squalid little bolt-holes in the armpits of the world. What brought you out of hiding to do something this dumb?”
“You did,” said the Immortal defiantly. “Your family’s dead and gone, Drood, just like mine! I thought it was finally safe to show my face again, to start up my life again and make the world march to my tune, as it should! And then you turned up, the Last Drood, alone and vulnerable. How could I resist? How could I resist the chance to avenge my murdered family?”
“One,” I said, “your family spent centuries exploiting and enslaving Humanity, just because you could, hiding behind your ever-changing faces. You tried to wipe out my family when we tried to stop you. Your family deserved everything it got, and then some. And two, a Drood is never vulnerable.”
“Why a bus?” said Molly. “And why this bunch of underachievers?”
The Immortal shrugged quickly. “Money was limited. I had to go with what I could afford. I took the Time Distorter with me when I left the castle. All of us took something, just grabbing whatever came to hand.…There was just enough energy left in the Distorter for one last time seizure. So I put together the best wild bunch I could, and came looking for you.” He glared about him. “I should have chosen more carefully. I’ll do better next time.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” said Molly. “I really don’t believe in killing in cold blood, but for an Immortal I’ll make the effort. Some enemies are just too dangerous and too treacherous to be allowed to live. Don’t look at me like that, Eddie. There isn’t a cell that can hold a shape-shifter like him, and you know it. And any word of surrender he gave you would be worthless. He’ll never stop coming after you.”
“It’s not just me! There are lots of us out there!” the Immortal said defiantly. “Not just the few Immortals who escaped your massacre; all the people you ever fought, Drood! Everyone whose lives your family has ever interfered with or tried to stamp out! All your enemies, all the ones with good reason to hate you, come home to roost at last! The word is out…and we’re all coming for you. To wipe out the Last Drood. To take our revenge on you for everything your family did. We’ll never stop coming for you!”
“Unless we send them a message,” I said, and something in my voice shut him up.
“What kind of message did you have in mind?” said Diana.
“I was thinking about sticking his severed head on a spike and leaving it somewhere prominent,” I said.
“Eddie, you can’t!” said Diana.
“Pretty sure I can,” I said.
“Sounds good to me,” said Molly.
Diana stepped forward to look right into my face. Her gaze was cold, her voice flat. “It’s in your file, Eddie. That you always said you were an agent, not an assassin.”
“Yes,” I said. “Even now, after everything that’s happened, I still believe that. But sometimes you have to do something bad to prevent something worse. I have to put the fear of Drood into my enemies to keep them off my back while I get my family safely home again. You heard the little shit; they’re all out there, watching, waiting for me to show some sign of weakness. They think if they can drag me down, they can put an end to the Droods forever. And they might just be right. I’m the last hope my lost family has. If his severed head will hold them off, buy me some time…”
Diana was already shaking her head fiercely. “This isn’t the Eddie Drood I heard so much about. The man whose career I followed for so long. The man I wanted so much to meet…”
“Oh, my God,” said Molly. “She’s a fan.…”
“Please, Eddie,” said Diana, staring earnestly into my face mask. “Don’t do this. There are other ways.…”
“Such as?” said Molly.
“Hand him over to me,” Diana said steadily. “I’ll deliver him safely to the Regent, and he’ll hand the Immortal over to the Hush Squad. Those telepaths could get answers out of a stone. He’ll tell them everything he knows about everyone he’s met, and what they’re planning.…”
“No!” said the Immortal. “No! You’re not handing me over to them!”
He produced an oversized pocket watch from somewhere and cranked the handle quickly. The Time Distorter. He thrust his hand forward, aiming the thing right at me, and a huge blast of time energy shot out of the watch, shimmering in the air with a hundred different possibilities. Like a distorting heat haze generating glimpses of a hundred alternate Futures. The time energies hit my armour and immediately rebounded, unable to get a grip. They blasted right back at the Immortal an
d sank into him, suffusing his Immortal cell structure with concentrated temporal energies. And just like that, he began to age.
He became a young man and a middle-aged man and then an old man, all in the space of a few moments. The Immortal raised a shaking wrinkled hand in front of his sunken face and let out a low, sick cry of horror. Because the one thing Immortals can never do is age. They can change their shape to any appearance, young or old, but always with the knowledge that they can change it back again. They can die, but always as a teenager. It’s the way they’re built. Or cursed, depending on how you look at it. Either way, enforced aging was a hideous thing for an Immortal.
He threw the Time Distorter on the floor and stamped on it, but it didn’t break and it didn’t change the way he looked.
He glared at me with his old, shrivelled face, and for the first time there was something else in his eyes apart from hatred. He turned away, grabbed the nearest gun, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. The whole back of his head blew away, spattering across the window. His body slumped to the floor and lay still. The gunmen stared at him silently. Some of them had blood and brains on them, but none of them wanted to be noticed just then.
“This is the second time that’s happened to me today,” I said. “I wish I could say I’m getting used to it.”
“Damned fool!” said Diana. “They wouldn’t have hurt him at Hush; that’s the whole point.…” She broke off, unable to continue.
“He didn’t want to betray his family,” I said. “I can understand that.”
“He knew something he didn’t want us to know,” said Molly. “Probably something really unpleasant that the rest of your enemies are planning, Eddie. Something really bad, to be worth dying over.”
“What do we do now?” said Diana.
“We cut off the Immortal’s head and stick it on a spike and leave it somewhere prominent,” I said. “Or, at least, what’s left of his head. Waste not, want not.”
“You’re serious,” said Diana, looking at me like she’d never seen me before. “You’re really serious.”
“Of course,” said Molly. “You heard the scumbag; something bad is coming. We need to send them a hard message, now more than ever. Throw a real scare into them. They won’t know he shot himself.”
Diana shook her head slowly. “I’d forgotten how cold Droods can be.”
She turned her back on Molly and me, walked into a shadow and was gone.
Molly looked out the side windows of the bus. “Traffic’s started up again. The Time Distorter must have broken when it went up against your armour.”
“The Immortal threw his pocket watch on the floor,” I said. “But…I don’t see it anywhere.”
“I’ll bet you Diana took it with her,” said Molly. “You heard Patrick in the Armoury: The Regent’s agents are always picking up useful items and taking them home.”
“The Regent will send more agents to look after this lot,” I said, glaring about me at the assorted gunmen. “So stay put, all of you. Don’t make me come after you.”
There was much general nodding and mutterings of complete agreement.
“We need to get out of here,” said Molly. “Before someone official turns up and starts asking questions. I’m really not in the mood to deal with official questions.”
“Right,” I said. I looked at the dead Immortal. “You know, I’m really not in the mood to do the whole severed-head thing. I’m just not angry enough anymore. Let his body send the message.”
Molly glared quickly about her. “All right, everyone. Listen up! Do not take this as a sign that we’re getting soft! None of you are to leave this bus until the nice agents from the Regent of Shadows arrive to take care of you! Anyone tries to do a runner, we will find out and we will track you down and perform acts of massive unpleasantness on you! Any questions?”
A surly-looking gunman raised a hand, and Molly punched him in the head so hard that everyone around him winced in sympathy.
“Any other questions?” Molly said sweetly. “I love answering questions.”
I armoured down, and we got off the bus and strode unhurriedly back to the Plymouth Fury, ignoring the screeching of brakes and hooting of horns from the resumed traffic. First rule of being a pedestrian in London: Never let the traffic intimidate you. I opened the driver’s door and then paused.
“Diana’s probably making a report on us to the Regent right now,” I said. “She seemed…disappointed in me.”
“She doesn’t know you like I do,” said Molly. “And, anyway, why should you care what she thinks about you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I shouldn’t care, but I do. She…reminds me of someone.”
I shrugged quickly, slipped into the driver’s seat and settled myself comfortably behind the steering wheel, and then slammed the door shut. The sat nav immediately raised its strident female voice again.
“Don’t slam the door! You’ll damage something! And can I remind you that you’re supposed to be looking after me? The Regent made me your responsibility! What were you thinking of, letting me be shot at like that? I’m a classic!”
I looked at the sat nav thoughtfully. “Are you speaking for the car, or are you the voice of the car itself?”
“I’ll never tell!” the sat nav said smugly.
“Is there any way to turn that thing off?” said Molly as she settled into the passenger’s seat beside me and deliberately slammed her door shut.
“Is there any way to turn you off?” said the sat nav.
“Shall I go back to the bus and get a gun?” said Molly. “Or perhaps a really big hammer?”
“You wouldn’t dare!” said the sat nav. “I’m a loaner!”
“I know something that’ll shut it up,” I said.
I took the Merlin Glass out of its pocket dimension and fed it the revised time and space coordinates for Crow Lee’s place through my torc. The Glass jumped out of my hand, ghosted straight through the Plymouth’s windscreen, and shot forward to hover in the air ahead of us. It grew quickly in size until it was more than big enough for the Plymouth to drive through. On the other side of the opened doorway, I could just make out a leafy country lane. The sunlight there was subtly different. It felt odd to know I was looking at tomorrow.
“What is that?” said the sat nav nervously. “What the hell is that? I don’t like it. Just looking at it makes me feel funny.”
“No one else is paying any attention to the big dimensional door hanging in midair,” said Molly, peering quickly about her. “The Glass is pumping out a really heavy-duty, don’t-look-at-me aversion field. I didn’t know the Merlin Glass could do that. Could the old Merlin Glass do that?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “But this new version is certainly keen to show off all the clever tricks it can do. Very eager to please…”
“Do you find that as worrying as I do?” said Molly.
“Oh, at least,” I said.
“What? What?” said the sat nav. “What do you mean, worrying? What is there to worry about? Okay, forget it! I’m not going anywhere!”
“Oh yes, you are,” I said.
“Heh heh,” added Molly.
I fired up the Plymouth’s engine, set the car rolling forward and aimed her right at the Merlin Glass hovering before us. The sat nav made loud whining noises of distress. I put my foot down hard and drove the Plymouth Fury through the gateway and into tomorrow.
CHAPTER NINE
Facing Evil
I don’t know what all the fuss is about over time travel. I drove through twenty-four hours in a moment, and didn’t feel the slightest twinge of time sickness. From the city to the countryside, from today to tomorrow in one great jump. Though I couldn’t quite decide whether I’d lost a day or gained one. Molly took it all in stride, of course, as she does most things that don’t involve incest, morris dancing or eighties revivals. The sat nav stopped screaming as soon as we left the Merlin Glass behind, and quickly subsided to low whimpering
sounds and muttered swear words.
“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” the sat nav said piteously. “I’ll be good!”
“I’d settle for you being quiet,” said Molly.
The Merlin Glass shrank down behind us, shaking itself down to hand-mirror size, and then hurried after the car, shooting down the road to ghost through the rear window and slip straight into my pocket dimension. Without being asked.
“All right,” I said loudly. “You’re showing off now.”
I eased the car to a halt and looked carefully about me. Molly actually undid her seat belt to give her more freedom to twist back and forth and look in all possible directions. There was a definite sense of tension, of both of us waiting for something to happen, for some unpleasant reaction to our sudden arrival…some sign that Crow Lee had people lying in wait for us. But everything was still and calm and peaceful. It was just a narrow country lane in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, there was no sign of Crow Lee’s manor house anywhere.
We were completely alone, with no sign of civilisation for as far as the eye could see. Birds were singing, there was a quiet background hum of insects; just quiet early evening in the countryside. Bounding the road on either side were low stone walls assembled in the traditional style, jagged stones placed tight together without benefit of mortar. Beyond the walls, great open fields stretched away, a massive chequer board of clashing primary colours from assorted crops. Separated here and there by more old walls, bristling hedgerows and the occasional line of trees on the horizon acting as a windbreak. No cows, no sheep, no other roads; not even a signpost to tell us where we were or other places might be.
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