They left with their heads erect and their noses in the air, ignoring me as thoroughly as they could. Penny went to follow them, but I stopped her with a gesture.
“Hang about for a minute, Penny. I need to talk to you.”
“What makes you think I want to talk to you?”
“Because unlike most of that crowd, you’ve actually got a brain in your head. Because you’ve always had the good of the family at heart. And because what I have to say is linked directly to the continued survival of the Drood family. Interested?”
“Maybe. You always did like the sound of your own voice too much, Eddie.”
“You wound me deeply.”
“I notice you’re not denying it.”
“How’s the Matriarch?” I said quickly, deftly changing the subject.
“As well as can be expected.”
“And Alistair?”
“How do you think?”
It was clear she wasn’t going to give me an inch, so I gestured for her to stay where she was, while I went over to stand beside the Matriarch. I waited for her to at least glance at me, but she just kept on spooning soup into the dark gap in Alistair’s bandages. I couldn’t see any sign of him swallowing it. If it hadn’t been for the slight but definite rise and fall of his bandaged chest, I would have wondered if he might be dead, and no one had had the heart to tell Martha.
“Hello, Grandmother,” I said finally. “I would have come sooner, but I’ve been very busy. Working for the family. How is he?”
“How do you think?” Martha Drood said flatly, still not turning around. Her voice was tired, but still cold as steel, sharp as a razor blade. “Look at him. Maimed. Crippled. Disfigured. My lovely Alistair. All thanks to you, Edwin.”
“How did he ever get his hands on the Salem Special?” I said. “Awful weapon. We should have destroyed it long ago. And Alistair never knew anything about guns. So someone must have given it to him. Did you give him the gun, Grandmother, to use against my Molly?”
She looked at me for the first time, her face cold and implacable as stone. “Of course not! Alistair was never a fighter. He abhorred guns. It was one of the things I loved most about him. No…He just wanted to protect me. So he showed some initiative, for the first time in his life. He had to know how dangerous the Salem Special was, but all he could think of… was that I was in danger.”
“Turned out you were right about him after all, Grandmother,” I said. “He was a good man and true, when it mattered. That’s why you never told him the secret of the golden torcs. Never told him about the generations of Drood babies sacrificed to the Heart, so we could wear the golden armour. You never told him, because you knew a good man like that would never have stood for such an abomination.”
“He didn’t need to know! It was my burden, not his! And I did what I had to, to keep the family strong. Stronger than all the enemies who would have dragged us down in a moment if we had ever stumbled!”
“Martha?”
Alistair’s bandaged head turned slowly, blindly, back and forth, disturbed by her raised voice, or perhaps just because the soup had stopped. His voice was light and breathy, like a child’s. “Is there someone here, Martha?”
“It’s all right, darling,” Martha said quickly. She went to pat him on the shoulder, and then stopped for fear of hurting him. “Hush now, dear. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“I’m cold. And my head hurts. Is there someone here?”
“It’s just Edwin.”
“Is he back visiting us?”
“Yes, dear. You rest quietly, and you can have some more nice soup in a minute.” She looked at me. “He doesn’t remember any of it. Probably for the best. Except… he doesn’t seem to remember much of anything anymore. He knows who he is, and who I am; and that’s about it. Maybe someday he’ll have to forget even that, to forget what you did to him. Damn you, Edwin, what are you doing here? Haven’t you done enough harm? You killed my son James. The very best of us, and a better man than you’ll ever be! You’ve destroyed my husband. And you’ve neutered the family, by taking away its torcs. Left us defenceless in the face of our enemies, and the whole of humanity undefended. I should never have let my daughter marry that man. Should never have let you run away. I should have had you killed years ago, Edwin!”
“Can’t say any of this comes as much of a surprise to me, Grandmother,” I said after a while. “I always knew you felt more duty toward me than love. Children can tell.”
“What do you want, Edwin?”
“I want your help, Grandmother. Yes, I thought that would get your attention. I need your help and cooperation to rebuild the family, and make it strong again. Strong and united… A divided family cannot stand, and the vultures are already gathering. I’m doing what I can to provide leadership, but everywhere I look there’s a new faction springing up. Your endorsement would go a long way towards unifying the family behind me. So I’m asking you to put aside all hurts and grievances, old and new, and help me. For the sake of the family.”
“No,” said Martha, quite calmly, enjoying the disappointment in my face. “I won’t fight you, Edwin, but I won’t help you either. I’m going to let you run this family, and when you’ve messed it all up and run the family into the ground, they’ll come to me…and beg me to lead the family again; and I will. And I’ll undo everything you’ve done and put the family back the way it was. The way it’s supposed to be.”
“People will die, Martha.”
“Let them. Let them pay the price for disloyalty.”
Penny stepped forward. She actually looked shocked. “But…Matriarch? What about anything for the family?”
“Leave me,” said Martha Drood. “I’m tired.”
Penny and I walked back through the antechamber, side by side. The people waiting looked startled at seeing the two of us together, but had the good sense to say nothing. The ones I’d booted out of the bedroom couldn’t wait to rush past me, desperate to ask the Matriarch what had just happened. I wondered how much she’d tell them. Out in the corridor, I shut the suite’s door firmly behind me, started to speak to Penny, stopped, and then led her a little farther down the corridor. Just in case someone had their ear pressed to the door. I wouldn’t put it past them. It was what I would have done.
“Penny,” I said. “You see how things are. I need your help. I’m asking you for the same reason I asked the Matriarch; because I can’t do this alone. Help me run things. For the sake of the family.”
Penny looked at me thoughtfully, her cool regard as unreadable as always. “What precisely did you have in mind? As a secretary?”
“Join my Inner Circle. Help set policy. Help make the decisions that matter.”
She looked genuinely shocked for a moment, and I had to smile. Whatever she’d been expecting to hear, that hadn’t been it. Membership in the Inner Circle would give her real power in the family, and a real chance of influencing me. She took a deep breath, which did interesting things to her tight white sweater, and was immediately her old cool and composed self again.
“Why in hell would you want someone like me, a hardcore traditionalist?”
“To keep me honest,” I said. “To tell me the things I need to know, whether I want to hear them or not. To rein me in when I go too far, try to make changes too quickly. Or to spur me on if I start dithering. You’ve always been the sensible one, Penny. A terrible thing to hear, I know, but facts are facts. If I can’t convince you something is right or necessary, maybe it isn’t. And…you know a hell of a lot more about running things and organising people than I do.”
“Pretty much anyone knows more about those things than you do,” said Penny. “I had to spend hours cleaning up your mission reports before I could pass them on.”
“So what do you say? Are you game?”
“Would I have an official title? I’ve always wanted an official title.”
“How about, my conscience?”
“Yes,” said Penny. “I could do that.”
“No,” Penny said immediately. “They had some good ideas, but I don’t believe in factions within the family.”
“Another good reason why I want you on my side.”
“What makes you think I’m on your side?”
It was my turn to consider her thoughtfully. “You were my contact for years,” I said finally. “You know me better than most. You know the things I’ve done for the family; the missions they gave me because they were too dangerous or too dirty for anyone else. You know I’ve always believed in what this family is supposed to stand for. I want to rebuild the family in its own image, not mine.”
“Against my better judgement, I think I believe you,” said Penny. “I’m not sure I believe in you; we’ll have to see what happens. But I’m…prepared to be persuaded. Someone has to pull this family together, and if the Matriarch won’t…But let me make one thing very clear, Eddie. I never fancied you. Not ever.”
“Of course not,” I said. “You know me better than most.”
We both managed a small smile. I looked at my watch and winced.
“The Inner Circle is waiting for me in the Sanctity right now,” I said. “Come along, and I’ll introduce you.”
“There’s somewhere else we need to go first,” Penny said firmly. “Trust me, Eddie; you really need to see what’s happening down in the War Room.”
“Oh hell,” I said. “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?”
So we went down into the War Room. Which meant going all the way over to the north wing, and down underground past all the security measures and the goblin watchdogs, and finally into the huge steel-lined stone chamber that holds the family War Room. It’s always a sight to set you back on your heels; the nerve centre of all our secret wars, and the invisible armies who clash by night and by day. Huge display screens covered all the walls, showing every country and major city in the world, along with a whole bunch of places that only people like us know are important. Bright coloured lights indicated people we were watching, and ongoing problems in which we had an interest.
Family members sat in long rows at their workstations, concentrating on their work so they wouldn’t have to look at me. Farseers covered potential trouble spots with their thoughts, while technicians worked their more-than-state-of-the-art computers for up-to-the-moment intelligence. Most of our secret wars are won in this room before a shot is fired, due to our superior planning and knowledge. And yet something was definitely wrong in the War Room. I walked slowly around the workstations, peering over people’s shoulders, and scowling at the display screens on the walls. Penny strolled along beside me, saying nothing, letting me work it out for myself.
“Nothing’s happening,” I said finally. “The maps on the walls should be lit up like Christmas trees, and the operations-planning table should be a hive of activity, but nothing’s happening. This is … unprecedented.”
“Which is why I wanted you to see this for yourself,” said Penny. “So you’d have some idea of how the world is coping, without the family looking over its shoulder. The threat boards are quiet because everyone else is too confused and too scared to start anything. They don’t know why we’ve gone so quiet, and why so many of our field agents have suddenly dropped off the board. Are we hurt, are we weak; or are we running one of our fiendishly complicated and intricate operations, designed to suck people in and then stamp on their heads once they’ve foolishly taken the bait? We’ve done it before, after all. But look around you, Eddie. See how tense everyone is?”
“I thought that was just my presence.”
“Oh, get over yourself. Everyone here is running on hot tea and adrenaline, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to see which country or organisation or individual will finally start something, just to see how much they can get away with.”
“None of the lights show agents in the field,” I said suddenly. “No ongoing operations.”
“That’s because there aren’t any,” said Penny. “After you took away the family’s golden torcs, the agents in the field had no choice but to go to ground. They’d been left helpless, vulnerable, without their armour, and we can’t afford for any of our enemies to know that. Not yet. No one’s been killed, as yet. But it’s only a matter of time.”
I realised people all around me had looked up from their workstations to stare at me accusingly. I glared back, and they quickly returned to their work. I stood still, scowling furiously, thinking hard. This was all my fault. I hadn’t thought it through. When I discovered the family’s golden armour was powered by the trapped souls of sacrificed children, all I could think of was to put a stop to it. I hadn’t stopped to consider that I was putting other lives at risk. I don’t think it would have stopped me anyway, but I hadn’t thought. And ever since, I’d been too caught up in running the Hall to think about the big picture. That the world depends on the agents in the field to keep it safe, and the agents depend on the Hall.
“All right,” I said to Penny. “Put out the call. All field agents to come home.”
“That could be dangerous for some of them,” said Penny. “Staying out of sight is all that’s keeping some of them alive.”
“Well, tell them to use their best judgement,” I said impatiently. “But unless they come back to the Hall to be vetted, they won’t be considered for one of the new silver torcs. Tell them they can use the old secret paths; I’ll authorise the extra expense.”
I moved over to the main operations table, picked up a sheaf of the latest reports, and thumbed quickly through them. People around the table looked scandalised. Such material was only for the eyes of the Matriarch. Everyone knew I’d replaced Martha as head of the family, but it clearly still hadn’t sunk in for a lot of people.
“Where’s Truman?” I said finally. “I don’t see anything about him here. Don’t we have any recent updates about Manifest Destiny? They must be regrouping by now, so why don’t I see anything on their new base, their new centre of operations? Come on, people; I’ll settle for a best guess. An organisation that big can’t hope to start up again without leaving all kinds of telltale traces. Follow the leader, follow the money, follow the threads on the message boards; but find them! They can’t just have vanished!”
“Intelligence is working on that,” Penny said calmly. “We haven’t all forgotten how to do our jobs, just because you’re not here to hold our hands. But Manifest Destiny gives every indication of having climbed into a deep hole and then pulled it in after itself. They may be weakened, after what you did to them, and well done you, but their security is still first rate. And Truman…was and is a genius. You should have killed him when you had the chance.”
“I never had the chance,” I growled.
“What do you think he’ll do now?”
“Hard to tell. He’s a genuine fanatic, dedicated to his cause; running the world the way he thinks it should be run, and everyone else eliminated. He was held back in the past by the Zero Tolerance faction…Without them to rein him in, God alone knows what atrocities he’s planning now.”
“His old base, down below the Underground train system, is completely deserted,” said Penny. “We’ve got a few people there, looking around, hoping to turn up something useful.”
“Hold it,” I said. “There were only two field agents in London: me, and Matthew. I’m here, and he’s dead, so who have you got running around under London?”
“Volunteers,” Penny said sharply. “The work has to go on, even if you’re…distracted. Not everyone wants to hide here in the Hall until you get around to handing out new torcs. Some of us still understand about duty and responsibility.”
“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “Just…don’t. Not after everything I’ve seen, and done. But you’re quite right, of course. The work does have to go on. The world won’t stand still, just because we’re having a crisis in the family. Volunt
eers, eh? It’s good to know we’ve got a few brave souls left. Have they turned up anything useful?”
“Ask them yourself,” said Penny. “We’ve got a direct video feed set up. Fully secured, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” I said. “All right, patch me through.”
Penny nodded to the communications board, and remarkably quickly one of the great display screens cleared to show shifting views of a dark, shadowy chamber, with details picked out by jumping flashlight beams. Silhouetted figures moved jerkily among banks of silent equipment. It took me a long moment to recognise the usually bright, shining steel corridors of Manifest Destiny’s high-tech headquarters. All the electric lights were out, and all the equipment shut down. Loose papers fluttered here and there, left behind in the rush to leave. It was like looking at the excavation of some recently opened tomb in the Valley of the Kings. A shadowy figure approached the camera.
“Will you please stop bugging me?” said a harsh voice. “We’ll contact you when we’ve got anything worth reporting. Whole place is a mess. We’re having to move carefully because the bastards found time to leave a whole bunch of booby traps behind, before they scarpered. Trip wires and grenades, mostly. Wouldn’t bother us if we had our torcs, but as it is… We’re moving deeper into the heart of the bunker, but it looks like they took everything of value with them and trashed the rest. A localised EMP took out all their computers; we’ll bring back the hard drives just in case, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Oh, and we’ve found some bodies. Too far gone to identify, unless you want us to take DNA samples. Looks like they were setting one last trap when it went off in their faces.
“That’s it; end of report. Except to say it’s cold, and damp, and I’m sure I’m coming down with something. Now go away and bother someone else, we’re busy. I want us finished and out of here before some other organisation gets the bright idea to come down here and see if there’s anything worth salvaging.”
“This is Eddie Drood,” I said.
“Well, whoop de doo. Colour me impressed. You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Daemons Are Forever sh-2 Page 5
