The trees seemed to crush in around us, with no obvious path or way out. The air was thick with the stench of rotting mulch. Wrinkled bark on the trees looked like the faces of mad old men, with staring eyes and hungry mouths. Long, gnarled branches reached out incredibly far, their curling ends seeming to clutch and grasp. They moved restlessly, though there wasn’t a breath of wind in the forest to disturb them. Roots churned slowly in the dark earth, like great dreaming worms.
We were surrounded.
“Really don’t like the feel of this,” said Molly. Her voice was hushed, little more than a murmur. As though the trees might be listening. “Can you get us out of here, Eddie? Maybe back to Oxford Street?”
“I’m not even sure how we got here,” I said. “I didn’t call these woods. Did you?”
“Of course not!” Molly turned up her nose at the surrounding trees. “Wouldn’t be seen dead in a place like this. Could you summon another door?”
“Can’t you?”
“I can’t think straight!” Molly scowled unhappily, avoiding my gaze. “Something about these trees just . . . gets to me.”
I could hear a definite note of fear in her voice. And that worried me. I wasn’t used to seeing Molly afraid, or this close to panic. I had to wonder whether the Powers That Be might have . . . damaged her when they took her magic away. It was so much a part of who and what she was . . . Unless this was what she was really like, without her magics . . . No. I couldn’t believe that. I tried to concentrate on a door, to get us out of the forest . . . but I just couldn’t seem to visualise a door in this setting. It didn’t belong here, didn’t seem right. And if I couldn’t believe in it . . . I turned to Molly.
“This is more your kind of world than mine. Can’t you reshape it, turn it into something more pleasant?”
“This is nothing to do with me!” said Molly. “It’s not my woods, not my world.”
“No,” said Tarot Jones. “It’s mine.”
We both looked round sharply, and there he was, lounging at his ease between two tall and twisted trees. He was smiling at us, with his big, horsey grin, and not in a good way. Tarot Jones, the Tatterdemalion, the Totem of the Travellers. A raggedy man, with an air of the wild things about him, he looked perfectly at home in the dark forest. As though this was where he belonged. I wondered if this was how he saw all wild places, all the time.
He looked down his long nose at Molly. “You know nothing of the true wildness of the woods. The sleeping power of the dark face of Mother Nature, red in tooth and claw and loving every moment of it. There was a time I didn’t; but I had to give up my innocence, put it aside and leave it behind so I could become wise enough, and strong enough, to protect my people. To defend my Tribe from all those who threatened them.”
“We’re no threat to your people,” I said carefully.
“Of course you are. You’re a Drood.”
“Try not to be so literal in your thinking,” I said. “You’re the hero of your story, and I’m the hero of mine.”
He looked suddenly older, and oddly sad, for a moment. “I’m no hero. Not any more. I wanted to be, but I had to give all that up to become the guardian and protector my Tribe needed. When they come with weapons to move us on, I have to face them with worse things than weapons. I stand between my people and a cruel and vicious world, and they must never know, never find out, all the awful things I’ve had to do on their behalf. To keep them safe. I am teeth and claws in the night, the fever that burns in dark places, the terror and horror of abandoned places. There is blood on my hands, but I do not regret one drop of it. You’d understand that, being a Drood.”
I nodded slowly. “Like I said, we have some things in common. So why don’t we put our differences aside, just for the moment, and work together to get out from under the hands of the Powers That Be? You can go back to your Tribe, and I can go back to my family. We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to fight and kill, play the Game, for the amusement of others.”
He cocked his head on one side, studying me with bright eyes. “Fine words, for a Drood. When did you ever turn away from violence? You kill for your family. I kill for my Tribe.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t do that any more.”
“Good,” said Tarot Jones. “That will make this so much easier.”
He gestured with his left hand, and all the trees around us tore themselves free of the dark earth. They rose up on their roots, lurching and swaying, and plunged towards us, thrashing branches reaching out with clawed and clutching fingers, to rend and tear. A savage power moved in the trees, ancient and unstoppable. There was a harsh anger in their movements, as though this was what trees dreamed of all the time, in their long, deep sleep. Of revenge on men, for what they did with saws and axes and fire . . . The trees advanced from every side, with deafeningly loud creaks and cracks, their roots churning up the dead earth. I looked quickly about me, but there was still no way out.
“I have had enough of this!” said Molly. “I am never defenceless! Never!”
She produced an aboriginal pointing bone from somewhere about her person. That nasty old night magic that can kill with a gesture. She stabbed the discoloured bone at the nearest tree. Anywhere else, the kind of curse magic bound into that bone would have been enough to blast the tree into kindling, but nothing happened. Molly swore briefly, and threw the bone aside. Her left hand was immediately full of an ancient arthame, a witch dagger. The leaf-shaped blade was deeply scored with old runes and sigils. Molly spoke a Word of Power over it, but the blade didn’t burst into flames as it should have. Molly looked shocked. She shook the blade hard, as though that might help, and tried again, but it remained just a knife. Molly threw that away too, and pulled a leather pouch out of her pocket. She poured a purple powder out into her hand and scattered it on the air before her, but it didn’t glow, or scintillate, or do terrible things. It just fell harmlessly to the ground and lay there. The pouch fell from Molly’s trembling hand. She looked at me, and her eyes were full of frustrated tears she wouldn’t give in to.
“I can’t even command my armoury any more! What have they done to me?”
“Take it easy,” I said. “And stay back. I’ve got this.”
“Of course you have,” she said, smiling slightly. “You’re a Drood.”
I armoured up and went to meet the trees. Wrapped in my golden armour, I felt strong and fast and sharp, more than a match for a bunch of trees with bad attitude. I laughed aloud as they reached for me with their long, gnarled hands, because their woody strength was nothing compared to my armour. I snapped off branches and threw them aside, stamped on roots until they broke, punched great holes in tree trunks until they split from end to end. I kicked trees out of the way and pushed them over, tore them to pieces with my golden hands. Heavy branches closed around me, snapping tight with inhuman strength, crushing me. But they couldn’t hurt me, and they couldn’t hold me. I shrugged and the branches broke; I ripped them from me and threw the pieces away, and went on. I grabbed one tree with both hands, tore it out of the dead earth, and upended it, swinging it effortlessly like a great club, striking down all the other trees and smashing them apart, until I’d opened up a great clearing all around me.
Trees toppled silently, and thrashed helplessly on the ground. Branches broke and roots snapped, none of them of any use against me. I knocked over trees and shattered others, and when I finally stopped, not even breathing hard, I had opened up a great wound in the heart of the forest. I looked around and the remaining trees stood back. Afraid to approach me. I dropped the tree I was holding, and looked at Tarot Jones. Standing on his own.
“I knew it,” he said. His voice was flat and cold, not from lack of emotion but because what he was feeling was too big to put into words. “Just another Drood bully-boy. The despoilers of the forest, destroyers of the wild. But I have more than trees to set against you. I command
the elements.”
He drew himself up and raised both hands to the heavens. He spoke Words I didn’t understand, older than any language I knew, and massive storm winds blasted into the clearing I’d made from a dozen different directions at once. They hit me hard, battering and bludgeoning me, but I stood my ground in my armour, and they couldn’t move me. Broken and fallen trees were lifted up and thrown around, and many of them slammed into me, but they couldn’t knock me off my feet. I didn’t even bother to slap or shoulder them aside; I just stood there and took it, staring implacably at Tarot Jones from behind my featureless golden mask. Molly crouched behind me, for shelter from the storm, both arms wrapped around my golden legs to keep her from being carried away.
The winds died down, and lightning struck. Long, jagged lines of elemental power, fierce and vivid, blasting sharp electric illumination through the forest gloom. Lightning bolts hit me again and again, but my armour just soaked them up. Scraps of lightning crawled over and around my armour, crackling and spitting, trying to force a way in, only to fall away, defeated. I glanced down, to make sure Molly had retreated out of range, and of course she had.
Tarot Jones actually danced on the dark earth, out of his mind with rage, and then he stopped abruptly and made a series of gestures. Heavy roots burst out of the dark earth, white as corpses, and wrapped themselves around me, trying to pull me down. I tore them apart with my golden hands and let the pieces fall back to the ground.
Tarot Jones turned his back on me to show off the stick figures that clung there. And one by one they turned their shapeless heads to look at me, before dropping down from his back and landing lightly on the forest floor. Strange twisted shapes, just twigs bound together into almost human things. Full of dark malignant passions. They scampered across the broken earth towards me, and then changed direction at the last moment and went for Molly. Because if they couldn’t hurt me, they could still hurt the thing I cared for most. They saw her as an easier target. They should have known better.
Molly grabbed up the stick figures and wrenched them apart with her bare hands, dismantling their knotted shapes, and scattering the pieces around her. She stamped them under her feet; smiling nastily all the while. Even without her magics, Molly Metcalf was still a very dangerous person. A few of the figures escaped her, and I ground them to pieces under my armoured feet. They broke easily.
I don’t know whether they were really alive, in any way. I hope not.
Rain slammed down, thick and cold and heavy, soaking Molly immediately. I moved quickly to stand over her, sheltering her as best I could. The ground beneath our feet was quickly waterlogged, becoming deep mud in moments. My armoured feet sank into it, but I had been there before. I visualised a solid surface underneath Molly and me, to hold us up, and it was there in a moment. And all the rain in the world couldn’t affect it.
The rain cut off. Molly crouched beside me, gasping for breath, soaked from top to bottom and looking like a drowned rat. I made the moisture disappear from her with a single hard thought, and she grinned at me, gave me a thumbs-up, and then glowered fiercely at Tarot Jones, who was still standing alone in his rags and tatters, among the ruins of his forest. I started towards him. I’d had enough of being reasonable and holding back. He really shouldn’t have attacked Molly. Tarot Jones held his ground as I advanced on him, and shot me his best arrogant grin.
“I am the Totem of the Travellers, and the Spirit of the Woods! I am the Green Man!”
“That’s nice,” I said. “I’m Eddie Drood, and I’m mad as hell.”
He reached out to two trees still somehow standing on either side of him. Their branches dropped down and wrapped around him again and again, like a cocoon, and then lifted him up into the air, until he was lost to view. The two trees slammed together, fusing themselves into one great living thing. A tree forty or fifty feet high, with a roughly human shape and powerful arms and legs. A face appeared in the wrinkled bark that was very like Tarot Jones. A massive tree with the face of a man and all the strength of the forest, driven on by one man’s fury. It stomped heavily towards me, and the ground jumped and shook under the weight and impact of every step.
I concentrated on my armour, and turned my golden gloves into buzz saws. The vicious blades roared loudly as they spun, and I walked forward to meet the Green Man. My howling blades dug deep into his wooden body, ripping and tearing, sending splinters flying. The great face in the bark screamed. The huge wooden hands beat at me, and I didn’t even feel them inside my armour. One hand tried to pick me up, and I cut it off with my saws. I dug deep into the wide trunk, splitting it open and carving it out, and all the ancient strength of the wood was nothing, set against my armour. I opened up the heart of the Green Man, and there was Tarot Jones, nestled within. I turned my saws back into gloves, and tore him out of the wood. I clubbed him down with a single blow, and he fell unconscious to the ground before me. The Green Man fell backwards, stiff and unwieldy, no longer animated by one man’s will, to ponderously measure its great length on the forest floor. The sound of the impact carried on and on, but the massive shape did not move again.
I armoured down, and stood over Tarot Jones’ motionless body. I looked at him for a while, and then I raised my head and addressed the unseen watching audience.
“I won’t kill him! Do you hear me, you Powers? I don’t kill! Not for you, or anyone!”
I waited, but there was no response. I didn’t think there would be. I just wanted to make a point. Presumably, as long as I was playing the Game, for whatever reasons, the Powers That Be were happy. As long as I was providing a show . . . Molly came forward to join me.
“He would have killed you,” she said finally. “And me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“Not dancing to someone else’s tune. I did what I had to, but I don’t feel good about it. You know, Molly . . . it’s not enough, just to escape from the Shifting Lands. I am going to put a stop to this Game, hunt down the Powers That Be and bring them down. Hard.”
“Of course you are,” said Molly. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from Eddie Drood. But can we at least try to get out of this Game alive first?”
“Perfectionist,” I said.
Molly looked at the unconscious form on the ground before us. She gave it a good hard nudge with her boot, just in case.
“What about him?”
“He’ll keep,” I said.
* * *
The light darkened as the forest shut down all around us. Wood cracked and creaked loudly, as the remaining trees slumped and sagged forward, rotting and decaying, falling apart. The forest was dying without the will of Tarot Jones to sustain it. What golden light remained shrank in on itself, darkening like spoiled treacle. Somewhere up above the forest, the sun was going out. It was already growing cold, as the life bled out of Tarot Jones’ world. Molly shot me a concerned look.
“What happens to us if we’re still a part of this world when it dies?”
“I think we’re probably better off not knowing,” I said. “We need to move on. Replace this world with one of our own choosing. Something we decide on.”
“We?”
“I think we’ll stand a better chance of getting what we want if we both concentrate on the same thing.”
“Too late,” said Molly. “I’ve already thought of something.”
The forest disappeared in a moment, swept away like a passing fancy. I expected Molly to replace the dark forest with her own preferred wild woods, but instead, we were suddenly standing on a street that could only have been part of the Nightside. Hot neon, night sky, good and evil rubbing shoulders and stabbing each other in the back. Business as usual, in the night that never ends. I looked reproachfully at Molly, and she shrugged briefly, not even a little bit embarrassed.
“It’s what came to mind . . .”
A thought struck me. I looked down at my feet, but Tarot Jones’ unconscious form hadn’t made the transition with us. We’d left him behind, in his dying world. I hoped he’d get out okay.
I looked around me, trying not to appear too openly disapproving. All kinds of people, and some things not even pretending to be people, hurried up and down the rain-slick pavement, carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. All in search of the driving passions that might not have a name in polite company, but most certainly had a price list. The night sky was still crammed full of unfamiliar stars, and the huge, overbearing full moon. Traffic rushed by without ever stopping, or even noticeably slowing down. Not everything on the road looked like a vehicle; in fact, some of them were eating each other. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the same street I’d walked down with Walker and the Somnambulist earlier, but it looked pretty damned similar.
Something large flapped slowly across the night sky, so huge the moon actually disappeared from view for a moment as the creature passed in front of it. I looked away. Nothing in the material world should be that big. A shuddering bass beat caught my attention, blasting out of the open door of a nearby nightclub. Music reduced to its most basic, seductive and compelling. A barker in a chequered suit strode back and forth before the open door, loudly proclaiming the joys to be found inside. I really hoped he was exaggerating. Molly noticed my interest, and grinned.
“We could pop in for a moment, if you like. It’s been ages since we went dancing.”
From a Drood to A Kill: A Secret Histories Novel Page 36
