From a Drood to A Kill: A Secret Histories Novel
Page 21
“I don’t want that!” Nicolai said, so angry he was almost spitting the words. “I don’t care about that! Stop playing games!”
“I’m not!” I said. “I swear I’m not! Just tell me, please; what is it you want?”
“I want the Star of St Petersburg!” said Nicolai Vodyanoi.
“What?” I said. “That . . . thing? It’s just a useless piece of crystal! Why would you want that?”
“Please, Eddie,” Molly said carefully. “Let’s not upset the excitable psychopath with a knife at my throat . . .”
“That wasn’t Jack!” I said to Nicolai. “That was James! He took the Star of St Petersburg! Just . . . picked it up, because it was there. He did things like that. The Star . . . it’s no big deal! My grandmother used it as a paperweight. It’s probably still in the Matriarch’s office. Somewhere. Has been for years . . . What’s so special about the Star of St Petersburg?”
“You’re lying,” said Nicolai. “Stop your lying! I’ll kill her!”
“I’m not! I swear I’m not!” Cold sweat rolled down my face as I tried desperately to make him understand I was telling the truth. “The Grey Fox took the Star, not my uncle Jack. It’s just a crystal! No special powers; we checked. Why do you want it so badly?”
“Because I put my soul inside it,” said Nicolai. “I thought I was being so clever . . . I hid it there, years and years ago, for safekeeping. The way witches hide their hearts so they can’t be killed. Yes, you thought you were safe, didn’t you, Molly? That you were never in any real danger from my nasty little knife. But this is a very special blade. A blade so sharp it will kill you no matter where your heart is!” He laughed suddenly, and it was a harsh, bitter sound. “All these years, you Droods had my soul in your keeping . . . and you never even knew it.”
“Look, you can have it,” I said. “We don’t need it. Let me talk to my family, arrange something. We can still make a deal, a trade. Our lives for the Star. You know my family knows all about making deals . . .”
Nicolai took the knife away from Molly’s throat, got up from his barstool, and came over to stand beside me. My stomach muscles unclenched a little, now that Molly was no longer in danger. Nicolai advanced on me, holding the knife out before him. The blade shone supernaturally bright in the gloom. He held the knife up before my face, so close I could almost feel it. But I couldn’t recoil. Couldn’t pull back a single inch.
“Very well, Eddie,” Nicolai said slowly. “I’ll trade you and Molly, for the Star. Your family might not care so much about the witch, but they’ll want to save one of their own. No tricks, Eddie; your torc can’t protect you from this blade, as long as the Hand of Glory still burns.”
“I’m going to reach into my pocket,” I said. “To get my phone. It’s in my pocket dimension.”
“Get it out slowly,” said Nicolai.
I reached carefully into my right-hand pocket and brought out the Colt Repeater I kept there. Nicolai couldn’t see it from where he was standing until it was far too late. I brought the gun up quickly and shot the Hand of Glory. The bullet hit it square in the palm and sent the Hand tumbling backwards. All the flames on the fingers went out, and just like that I could move again. I jumped up from the bar-stool and aimed the Colt Repeater at Nicolai as he stumbled back away from me.
“You really shouldn’t have threatened my Molly,” I said.
He didn’t try to attack me, or Molly; he just turned and ran for the door. I shot him in the left buttock, and the impact sent him crashing to the floor. The silver blade flew from his hand. He gave up then. Just lay on the floor, on his side, an old man weeping angrily. He turned his head back to glare at me.
“Go on, then!” he said through his tears. “Kill me! You know you want to, Drood!”
“No,” I said. “I don’t do that any more. I’ll have my family come here and pick you up. You can have your Star back; we don’t want it. And then I think we’ll hand you back to your own people. I wonder what we’ll get from them for you? A thief, and a traitor . . . Molly, are you all right? Molly?”
I looked around, and saw that Molly wasn’t there. Her bar-stool was empty. There was no sign of her anywhere the club. She was just . . . gone. I turned back to Nicolai. He saw the look on my face and tried to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood behind him. I moved quickly forward and bent over him.
“Where is she?” I said. “Where’s Molly? What have you done with her?”
“I haven’t done anything!” he said, cringing away from me. Holding his hands up before his face, as though that might protect him.
I slapped his hands away with the Colt and stuck the gun right in his face. I pressed the barrel into his left eye. He screwed his eye up and cried out as I pressed harder.
“Where’s Molly?”
He was crying openly now, an old man with all his dignity stripped away, broken by what he heard in my voice.
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything! This is nothing to do with me! Please . . .”
He was so scared, he wet himself. Whatever had happened to Molly, it wasn’t down to him. I took the gun out of his eye and backed away. I might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t threatened Molly. I went back to the bar, bent down, and picked up the Merlin Glass from the floor. I looked it over carefully, but it wasn’t damaged. The Merlin Glass can look after itself. I held the mirror out before me.
“Find Molly,” I said. “Wherever she is.”
My reflection disappeared from the mirror and was replaced by a grey blur of buzzing static. I stared at it for a long moment. The Glass had never done that before. The Merlin Glass had always been able to find anyone, anywhere, even in places that were completely out of this world.
“Find Isabella and Louisa,” I said. “Where are they?”
The grey blur disappeared immediately, as the Glass showed me Molly’s sisters, talking animatedly together. They broke off abruptly as they turned to stare at me. They both looked startled, and not a little angry. Their faces filled the mirror, but I could hear the sounds of another party going on in the background. Isabella glared out of the mirror at me.
“Eddie? What do you want? And how did you find us here?”
“The Merlin Glass,” I said. “It can find anyone. Except it can’t find Molly. She’s been kidnapped, right out of the Wulfshead, and the Glass can’t find her anywhere.”
“What?” said Isabella. “She’s been taken? How could you let that happen?”
“I was distracted!” I said. “Nicolai Vodyanoi just tried to kill both of us. And while I was dealing with that, Molly vanished. Gone, in a moment. No warnings, no signs, no clues. Look, just come back to the Wulfshead. I need your help.”
“We’re on our way,” said Isabella.
“Damn right,” said Louisa. “No one messes with the Metcalf Sisters.”
“Allow me,” I said.
I shook the Merlin Glass out until it was the size of a Door, and Isabella and Louisa strode through it. There was a brief roar of raised voices and raucous music from whatever party they were leaving, cut off sharply as the Door closed itself. Isabella looked back at the Glass, hovering on the air behind her.
“Okay, that was . . . more than usually weird. Your Glass isn’t just a Door, Eddie.”
“A definite sense of transition,” said Louisa. “And it felt like there was someone in there with us . . .”
The Merlin Glass shrank back down to hand-mirror size, shot across the intervening space, and all but forced itself back into my hand. As though it was afraid of the Metcalf Sisters. Which was a common enough reaction to Isabella and Louisa. I slipped the Glass back into my pocket.
“Help me find Molly,” I said. “Please.”
“Are you sure the Merlin Glass didn’t show you anything useful?” said Isabella.
“Just a grey blur, thick with static,” I said. “I don�
�t even know what that means.”
“It means Someone, or Something, is blocking it,” said Louisa.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I said.
“I could do it,” said Louisa.
“Look, before we all start panicking, why don’t I just try the obvious thing?” said Isabella.
She produced her mobile phone and called Molly. While I called myself all kinds of an idiot for not thinking of that myself. We all waited, and waited, but Molly didn’t answer. Isabella shook her head, shook the phone harshly a few times just on general principles, and then put the phone away.
“That should be impossible too,” she said. “My phone is spelled to find Molly and Lou, wherever they are. In or out of this world. It’s the only way I can keep track of them.”
“It was worth a try,” said Louisa. “Now it’s my turn.”
She lifted both her feet and sat cross-legged in mid-air, frowning hard, concentrating. Her presence was suddenly overpowering, as though she filled the whole club. One of the many good reasons why so many people are scared of Louisa Metcalf is because no one’s sure exactly who or what she is, or what she can do. But in the end, she just shook her head and lowered her feet onto the floor again.
“Sorry. I can’t See her anywhere. And that should be impossible as well. There shouldn’t be anywhere, in or out of this world, that I can’t See into if I put my mind to it.”
“Unless Molly has been taken completely out of this reality,” said Isabella.
“How could she have been taken at all?” I said. I could tell my voice was rising, which is never a good idea with Isabella and Louisa, but I was so worried I was past caring about anything but Molly. “Who could even touch her, with all her protections? And from inside the Wulfshead, with all its defences?”
“She could only have been taken by something extremely powerful,” said Isabella.
“We were talking about the Big Game earlier,” I said slowly. “Someone said that it wasn’t wise to attract the attention of those who run the Game. The Powers That Be. Could they be behind this?”
“Let’s hope not,” said Louisa. “Because if they are, I don’t have a clue where to start looking.”
I looked around for Nicolai Vodyanoi, to try out some more questions on him, but he was gone. Not disappeared, like Molly. Nicolai had left a smeared trail of blood all the way across the floor to the door. He’d made his escape while we were distracted. Let him go. I’d find him later if I needed to. He wasn’t important now. I turned back to Isabella and Louisa.
“What do you know about the Big Game? I mean, really know?”
“Supposedly,” Isabella said carefully, “the Big Game . . . is only played by people who have made too many Pacts and Agreements, with too many Powers and Dominions. For people who owe far more than they can ever hope to repay. The Big Game offers a way out; beat everyone else—and by that I mean kill everyone else in the Game—and the Powers That Be will pay off all your debts for you.”
“But nobody knows for sure,” said Louisa. “Because no one has ever come forward to boast of having won the Big Game. But then, I suppose they wouldn’t, would they?”
“Molly would never talk to me,” I said slowly, “about all the things she thought she had to do, early on in her career; to acquire enough power to strike back at the Droods. To make herself a creditable enemy. She did once say to me, when we were talking about Heaven and Hell, You’d be surprised who owes me favours.”
“She never actually sold her soul to anyone,” said Isabella. “But she did make a whole series of very unwise deals, with various Powers. Paying for what she got with years off her life. From an old age she never expected to reach anyway.”
“And Roger Morningstar,” I said. “The infernal, the half-demon . . . He once told me to my face that Molly . . . lay down, with demons in the Courts of Hell. To buy powers she couldn’t acquire any other way.”
“And you believed him?” said Isabella. “Hell always lies.”
“Except when a truth can hurt you more,” I said.
Isabella looked at Louisa, who just shrugged. “I don’t know. Molly always was the most secretive of us.”
“Often with good reason,” said Isabella.
“But did she ever talk to you . . . about how she meant to pay back what she owed?” I said.
“She said . . . some things,” Isabella said carefully. “But it’s not our place to talk about that, Eddie. Not ever. Not even to you. Still, you might want to consider the question of just how she was able to acquire title to the Wood Between the Worlds. And what that cost her.”
“Things just keep getting better all the time,” I said. “Look, I know she made bargains with the Immortals. Those shape-changing bastards were at my family’s throat for centuries. You worked with them, didn’t you, Isabella?”
“You know I did,” she said coldly. “I also went out with your Serjeant-at-Arms for a while. I don’t take sides, Eddie. And why bring the Immortals into this? Your family destroyed them. The few that still exist are a broken force. There’s no way they could be involved in this.”
“No,” I said. “But they might have sold Molly’s debt to someone else.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” said Louisa, jumping up and down suddenly. “I’ve just thought of something! Isn’t your Merlin Glass supposed to be able to travel through Time? Why don’t we just go back, and stop this all happening?”
“The Glass has very limited abilities,” I said. “And that’s when it’s cooperating. Right now, I wouldn’t trust it to send a letter into the Past.”
“I know! I know!” Louisa was bouncing up and down again. “I know what we need! We need answers—so we need an oracle! I know a really good one in the Nightside that will tell you the absolute truth about anything! If you only threaten it a bit . . .”
“Eddie’s banned from the Nightside,” said Isabella.
“You really think that would stop me?” I said.
Something in my voice made both sisters stare at me for a moment.
“I do know of another oracle,” Isabella said carefully. “Far more reliable, if a little more difficult to get to. At Castle Inconnu, home to the London Knights. Louisa and I couldn’t hope to gain access to it, short of a declaration of war . . . But do they by any chance owe you or your family a favour, Eddie?”
“Let’s find out,” I said.
I took out the Merlin Glass again and told it to find Sir Perryvale, Seneschal to the London Knights. The Glass found him immediately and showed him wearing a long white nightgown, with a floppy white nightcap on his head. He looked out of the mirror at me, startled and a little shocked.
“How the hell did you get past the Castle’s defences? Can’t a gentleman call his private quarters his own any more? Oh . . . it’s you, Eddie. Can’t this wait? I’m about to go to bed and work on my hangover.”
“I need your help,” I said.
I quickly brought him up to speed on what had happened, and he made all the right noises of concern and alarm.
“Poor Molly . . . What can I do to help, Eddie?”
“I need to talk to your oracle,” I said.
“Strictly forbidden, where the Droods are concerned,” Sir Perryvale said immediately. “But what the hell. Jack was a good friend; I know he’d want me to help. So come on through. But just you, Eddie. Not the Metcalf Sisters. Sorry, ladies, but there are limits. And I think you pretty much define them.”
“Understood,” said Isabella. “Lots of people feel that way.”
“Lots and lots,” said Louisa. “Like we care.”
“Understand me, Seneschal,” said Isabella. “If we find out you didn’t do everything you could to find our missing sister . . .”
“Yes, yes, I think we can take the threats and menaces as real,” said Sir Perryvale. “When you’re ready, Eddie.”
I nodded, shook the Merlin Glass out into a Door, and strode through into Castle Inconnu.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Knight to Remember. And an Owl.
I arrived in a simple bedroom, just big enough to hold an old-fashioned four-poster bed and some elegant if rather battered furniture. The well-used kind, with scratches in the veneer and the sheen worn off, that usually gets handed down as heirlooms because you can’t find anyone to buy it. There were no windows in the bare stone walls, and the warm, cheerful butterscotch light came from a single lamp.
There’s always a certain element of surprise the first time you enter someone else’s bedroom. In this case, the surprised party was the Castle’s Seneschal. Sir Perryvale sat on the edge of his bed in his long nightie and floppy nightcap and stared back at me with studied dignity. Defying me to make any remark concerning his choice of nightwear. I just nodded respectfully to him, as befitted his station, and reduced the Merlin Glass down to hand-mirror size, then put it away.
“So,” said Sir Perryvale, “the legendary Merlin Glass in action . . . Brought you straight here, without setting off a single alarm. Incredible.”
I looked at him sharply. “You didn’t shut down the Castle’s security systems to let me in?”
“Hardly, old boy. Can’t have the Castle left vulnerable, not even for a moment. The London Knights have far too many enemies just waiting for us to put a foot wrong. Besides, I wanted to see what would happen. Don’t worry—no one’s going to bother us if we take a swift walk round the Castle. Not tonight. But we’d better be quick about our business. We have our very own top-rank telepath in residence, the Lady Vivienne de Tourney. I have reason to believe she’s . . . somewhat occupied just at the moment, but that won’t last. You need to be done with your business and gone before she notices you.”