Molly looked around and grinned briefly as I moved in to cover her back, and then we both went to work, cutting off heads and smashing in skulls with grim joy and great efficiency. The blood-red men should have learned to keep their distance from us, but something drove them on to attack us anyway.
“Where the hell have you been?” Molly said loudly. “As if I couldn’t guess. So what does the Lady Faire look like, in the flesh? Does she have both sets of bits?”
“I have no idea,” I said, wrapping myself in my armour and striking down blood-red men with vim and vigour. “She never undid a button while I was with her. All we did was talk.”
“Did she tell you where the Lazarus Stone is?”
“No.”
“Then maybe you should have undone some of her buttons,” said Molly.
It’s amazing how much damage you can do to people, with spiked armoured fists and a blazing energy sword. It was also amazing, and not a little disturbing, how fast the blood-red men could come back from so much damage. I scowled, under my featureless golden mask, thinking hard. There had to be a way to stop them . . .
The last of the security people were still fighting, well and bravely, but they were vastly outnumbered by blood-red men. The security staff had been forced into small defensive clumps, scattered across the Ballroom, firing bullets and poisoned needles and the occasional energy blast. But the blood-red men were still pouring in through all the doors, leaping across the bodies of their own fallen to get at the security people. Blood spread thickly across the ice cavern floor.
The mood of the watching guests quickly turned against the blood-red men. They shouted and jeered and threw things, and when it became clear that wasn’t going to stop the slaughter of the security people, many of the guests decided it was time to do something.
Some guests tried to teleport out, only to look shocked and startled when they discovered they couldn’t, because someone had reinstalled the anti-teleport shields. Some tried to run, only to find there was nowhere to run to. All the doors were full of blood-red men. Some tried to impress the masked invaders with their names and status, only to find the blood-red men didn’t give a damn. And some of the guests fought fiercely, just because it was in their nature.
Dead Boy got stuck right in, wading into the fighting where it was fiercest, beating up blood-red men with his unfeeling fists, and happily ripping arms out of their sockets with his unnatural strength. His deep purple greatcoat flapped around him as he received and handed out appalling punishment. Dead Boy was almost as hard to stop as the ones he fought. But in the end they came at him from every side at once, piled on top of him, and just dragged him down by sheer weight of numbers. He went down still fighting, and continued to struggle even under a weight of bodies that would have held down an enraged rhino.
The Bride fought with more than human strength, breaking bones and smashing in skulls with effortless ease, while Springheel Jack guarded her back with two nasty-looking straight razors. The Bride tore blood-red men limb from limb, and Springheel Jack cut them up like joints of meat. Until finally they too fell under the weight of so many attackers, and disappeared from view.
Jimmy Thunder struck his enemies down with Mjolnir, and whoever the hammer hit did not rise again. Even the blood-red men were no match for that mighty and ancient weapon. The Norse godling strode through the chaos with contemptuous ease, sending broken bodies crashing to the floor, singing some old Norse song on the joys of blood and slaughter. But in the end, the blood-red men found his weakness. They ganged up on the costumed adventurer Ms. Fate, despite all her fighting skills, and beat her savagely. Jimmy lost his temper and threw his hammer at them. Mjolnir flashed through the air, and just the impact of its arrival killed half the blood-red men, but then the hammer dropped to the floor and lay there. Jimmy called desperately for it to return to his hand, but either the hammer didn’t hear him or it had forgotten how. The blood-red men hit Jimmy Thunder from every side at once, and eventually they pulled him down. For all his strength and fury.
Most of the other guests didn’t last long. And when they saw the blood-red men tear the Living Shroud apart, unravelling and scattering its rags and tatters until there was nothing left . . . they surrendered. The Lady Alice Underground sat down and put her hands on her head. The Last of Leng retreated to a corner and crouched there, snarling. Everyone else put their hands in the air, or ostentatiously dropped their weapons to the floor. Surprisingly, the Replicated Meme of Saint Sebastian hadn’t got involved at all. They just stood together by a far wall, watching silently from behind their impenetrable metal masks.
Molly and I stood back to back in the middle of the room, not actually surrendering but no longer fighting. There just didn’t seem any point. We were surrounded by rank upon rank of blood-red men. A dozen or more came forward, encircling the Lady Faire and urging her on. She didn’t appear to be hurt, but there was no doubt she was no longer in charge. She went where the blood-red men indicated for her to go. She strode along with her head in the air, projecting icy dignity. She shot me a cold and angry look, as though I’d betrayed her by not fighting to the death. Molly made her blazing sword disappear, and I armoured down, to keep her company. Fighting against the odds had taken us as far as it was going to. All that remained now was to stand down and see what happened next.
The Ballroom was still and quiet, with blood-red men in control everywhere. I couldn’t see a single white-uniformed security person still standing. I hoped they weren’t all dead. They’d fought well. I realised I was still wearing the white face mask of the Head of Security. I peeled it off and threw it away, along with the comm earpiece. Voices rose on every side from among the guests, as some of them recognised me. Or at least the torc at my throat. The voices died quickly away again as the blood-red men stirred dangerously. The guests were split up into small groups, surrounded by silently watching blood-red men. The Ball was over; it remained to be seen what would replace it.
To discover what this had all been about.
“Really don’t like the odds here, Eddie,” Molly murmured. “Please tell me you’ve got something up your sleeve.”
“Just my arm,” I said quietly. “On the bright side, I think we’re finally about to find out who’s been running the blood-red men all this time. The villain behind the Voice. Hopefully, we’re about to get some answers to a whole lot of questions. You know how bad guys love to boast.”
“He’s going to make a speech, isn’t he?” Molly said gloomily. “I hate speeches.”
“Even when I make them?”
“Especially when you make them!”
“Oh, that hurts,” I said.
And then a man came walking through the crowd towards us, wearing James Drood’s face. The blood-red men fell back, to open up a wide aisle for him to walk through. The closer he got, the less like Uncle James he looked, though the face stayed the same. He didn’t move like James, or act like him. The face . . . was just another mask, in a Ballroom full of masks. And yet . . . there was something familiar about this man. I did know him from somewhere. He walked right up to me, ignoring Molly standing at my side, and stopped right in front of me.
“You’re not James Drood,” I said roughly. “Nothing like him. Who are you, really?”
The face flickered and disappeared, like the illusion it was, and standing before me was Laurence Drood. The Drood from Cell 13, free at last. He laughed softly at the look of surprise on my face.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “I can’t believe you didn’t guess it was me all along. I mean, who else was there? Who had better reason than me to want the Lazarus Stone?”
“How did you get out?” I said numbly.
“I could have left any time,” said Laurence. “I know everything the family knows, remember? How could they build any jail that could hold me? I just never had a reason to leave before.”
“Why did you choose to look like my uncle James?” I said, and he grinned again at the anger in my voice.<
br />
“Because he was the Drood I always wanted to be. Oh yes. The man who got to go out into the world and have adventures, and beautiful women, and make a legend of himself. I always wanted to be the Grey Fox. Didn’t you, Eddie? He got to live the life, while I remained stuck in my Cell, living my half life . . . But I don’t want to talk about that now. I want to talk about us, Eddie! Because this has all been about you and me.”
“I told you,” Molly said resignedly. “He’s going to make a speech. Boast about his triumphs, and explain his motives. Like we care. We know why you did all this, you miserable little scrote! It’s because you’re a sick scumbag who gets off on hurting people!”
“If she speaks again,” Laurence said to me, “I will have my people sew her lips together. It’s up to you.”
“She’ll be quiet,” I said quickly. “Talk to me, Laurence. Because there’s a lot going on here that I don’t understand.”
“Hoping to buy some time, Eddie?” Laurence said cheerfully. “Thinking perhaps that while I’m talking, people aren’t dying? Or just hoping you can use the time to put together some brilliant plan to defeat me, at the very last moment? I don’t think so. I know everything the family knows. Including you. That’s why I’ve been one step ahead of you all along. Now shut up and listen. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I would say when I finally got out.”
Molly growled under her breath, but said nothing. The blood-red men stood very still, all around, every single one of them fixing me with the same intent glare I saw in Laurence’s eyes. That meant something. Though I wasn’t sure what, yet. So I just stood there and looked interested, while Laurence talked. His voice rose and fell and he waved his arms around a lot, because he wasn’t used to talking to people face-to-face.
“I wanted to be put away, to be locked up securely, all those years ago,” he said earnestly. “When the accident first happened. When I suddenly knew everything, all at once. It was such a powerful experience, horrifying and overwhelming. It took me a long time to get my head back together again, to think only my own thoughts. And by then I’d been the Drood in Cell 13 for such a long time that most of the family had forgotten I’d ever been a person in my own right. I’d become just a cautionary tale for those who ran the family. Don’t let anyone try to know too much . . . I could have left Cell 13 at any time once I was back in control of my own mind, but where would I go? What could I do? The world had moved on and left me behind. And it wasn’t like I could put my burden down and walk away from it. The whole of the family’s knowledge filled my head, and it kept flooding in, more and more, never ending. Even if I did leave, the family would be bound to send agents after me, to track me down and drag me back. For fear of the damage my knowledge might do in enemy hands. So I stayed in Cell 13, studying all the information in my head, and planning my revenge. And finally I learned about the Lazarus Stone. And saw a way out of my horrible half life.”
He suddenly pulled open the front of his shirt, to show me Kayleigh’s Eye, fused to the flesh of his chest. A great glowing amulet, with a golden alien eye set in its centre. Staring at me unblinkingly. Just as it had once stared at me from my grandfather’s chest. Tears stung my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not in front of the enemy. I glared at Laurence, and when I finally trusted my voice again, I let him hear the rage and contempt that burned within me.
“You killed the Regent of Shadows,” I said. “You murdered my grandfather, you crazy piece of shit. I will make you pay . . .”
He smiled easily, entirely unmoved, and rebuttoned his shirt with quick, fussy movements.
“Well,” he said, “I didn’t kill him personally . . . Though it was my will that moved the hands that killed him, and tore the Eye from his chest through brute force. The only way it could be taken. So, yes, I suppose you could say I am responsible. It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t! I’ve killed lots of people, just recently. Indirectly. To get here, to this place and this moment. I just wanted you to understand, Eddie, that there’s no point in attacking me. You can’t hurt me and you can’t stop me. You must understand, I will do anything, absolutely anything, to get what I want.”
“Well, what do you want?” said Molly.
I tensed, half expecting the blood-red men to attack her for interrupting their master. But Laurence just laughed, and waggled his fingers in her face mockingly.
“All in good time . . . I have so much to tell you, Eddie. My story has been going on a lot longer than you realise. So hush now. Listen, and consider. After the attack on Drood Hall by the Accelerated Men . . . you do remember that, don’t you? Of course you do . . . One of the Armourer’s precious lab assistants found his way down to Cell 13 to talk with me. What was his name . . . Oh, I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He was very bright, but not very sensible. He thought he was using me, the poor fool.
“He had been struck by the idea of creating Accelerated Droods, you see. The perfect, unstoppable field agents. He couldn’t find the information he wanted in any of the official family files, or in the Library. The Council had suppressed the information for reasons of its own, that I probably don’t need to explain to you, Eddie. Anyway, the lab assistant wondered if the Drood in Cell 13 might know . . . So he came down into the depths to talk to me, to make his deal with the Droods’ very own Devil. Typical lab assistant, ready to risk everything in the pursuit of knowledge. And never really thinking about the price he’d have to pay in return.
“I didn’t know anything about the Accelerated Men, as it happened. But I did know many other fascinating things that I could use to bewitch a simple lab assistant. You don’t need to know what those things are, Eddie. Secret things! Hidden things! Oh, if you only knew! The family has always had more sides to it, more levels within levels, than you ever suspected. But they were just the thing to enchant and seduce a young lab assistant’s mind. More than enough to sucker him in, and keep him coming back for more.
“I persuaded him to contact the Doormouse, using secret Drood code phrases, so it seemed my orders came from the old Matriarch, Martha. I never liked her. She came all the way down to Cell 13 the day she was made Matriarch, just to tell me to my face that she would see to it I was never released. Awful person. Anyway these orders, apparently from the highest authority within the Droods, instructed the Doormouse to create a number of very special Doors, giving access to the Hall grounds from outside. And then sell them on, to an approved list of customers. Not to any actual official enemies of the Droods, of course. That would have raised suspicions. Just to certain interested parties, who could be trusted to make use of the gift so suddenly dropped into their laps.”
“Like the Wulfshead Club management,” I said.
“Yes! Exactly! Though it seems I outsmarted myself there.” He stopped for a moment, to scowl and sulk like a thwarted child. “I’ve spent so long rehearsing this speech! Don’t interrupt me! I won’t have you taking any of the fun away! Now. Where was I . . . Ah yes. The orders told the Doormouse that the Droods wanted these Doors made, and used, to test their defences and security measures. All quite reasonable. Actually, I just wanted the Doors used to keep the family distracted. The idea being that so many unexpected incursions from outside would seize the family’s attention so they wouldn’t notice what I was up to behind the scenes. But the Wulfshead Club management had to go and be clever, didn’t they? How could I know they’d be smart enough and suspicious enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, and tip you off to the existence of the Doors?
“But it didn’t make any difference, in the end. I’d also had the Doormouse create a private Door, so the lab assistant could visit me directly, without attracting unwanted attention. And so I could get out, whenever I chose, without anyone knowing. You know the first thing I did? I went for a walk in the Hall grounds. They’d changed so much since my day, but there were still many things and places I recognised. From when I was just another Drood. It felt so good, the wind and the sun on my face, and the green grass un
der my feet . . . I walked all the way across the lawns to the front gates and that was where I stopped. I stood there, looking through the heavy iron bars, looking out at the world. I could have just left, but I didn’t. I realised . . . It had been so long since I’d seen the outside world, that it frightened me. I knew everything about the family, but nothing about the world. I was so scared . . . and I couldn’t have that. I turned around, went quietly back across the lawns, and returned to Cell 13.
“Where I felt safe.
“I had the lab assistant take a sample of my DNA down to the Armoury, where he used it to make a whole bunch of adult clones. To serve me directly, to walk about in the world on my behalf, so I could experience the world through them. They were designed to be mindless, you see, just blank slates with nothing inside their heads but me. I controlled them all, my mind in their bodies. I was, after all, used to thinking about a lot of things at once. I sent my clones out into the world in my place, to make the world frightened of me.
“The lab assistant had his own assembly line running there, tucked away in the deepest recesses of the Armoury, and no one ever noticed. You’d be amazed at what goes on in the Armoury every day that never gets officially noticed. Or perhaps amazed isn’t the right word. Horrified—that’s closer.
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