Another panel slid open in the wall beside me. A gun barrel started to roll out. I grabbed it and forced it back inside. The gun emplacement exploded, flames and black smoke belching out into the corridor. None of which troubled me inside my armour. Back down at the other end of the corridor, the Satanists were all bunched together, maintaining a safe distance from Molly and Isabella and me. They’d given up on guns. Something in their faces seemed to suggest that they felt that what I was doing was somehow unfair. I shouldn’t have been able to shrug off their no doubt very expensive weaponry.
I was so busy looking for more sliding panels in the walls, I was completely caught by surprise when trapdoors started dropping suddenly open the whole length of the corridor. Great squares of flooring fell away, silently and without warning, and apparently at random. I braced myself, legs akimbo, and looked quickly to Molly and Isabella.
I shouldn’t have worried. Several trapdoors opened beneath the two witches as they strolled unconcernedly back to join me; but Molly and Isabella walked right over the open spaces as though they weren’t even there, tripping lightly across the deep drops without even looking down. Isabella sniffed loudly as she rejoined me by the elevator doors.
“Trapdoors? What is this, amateur night?”
“Right,” said Molly. “I mean, please. That’s one of the first tricks I learned.”
“Can you walk on water, too?” I said, honestly curious.
Molly laughed. “Hell, sweetie, I can tap-dance on swimming pools! For a while, that was my favourite party piece.”
“A great improvement over the old one,” said Isabella. “And a lot less trouble cleaning up after. You always were a show-off. She was the same as a girl, Drood. She and her precious unicorn.”
I had to look at Molly. “You rode a unicorn?”
She grinned briefly. “Not for long.”
I looked back up the corridor. It seemed safest. The satanic business types had regrouped, many of them now carrying really big guns, and what looked like grenade launchers and flamethrowers. The only reason they hadn’t already come after us was that they were too busy arguing among themselves as to who should have the honour of approaching us first. Everyone seemed very keen to give that honour to someone else. It’s nice to feel appreciated. Some bright spark produced a grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it along the floor towards us. The trapdoors immediately snapped shut, one after another, to help the grenade along its way. I waited till it had almost reached us, to be sporting, and then bent over, picked the grenade up and held it to my chest with both hands. The grenade went off, and my armour absorbed all of the blast and most of the smoke. I looked back up the corridor and waved cheerfully to the one who’d lobbed the grenade; and he actually stamped his foot in frustration, turned away and had to be comforted by the other Satanists. I don’t think they’d encountered Drood armour before. Certainly, it wasn’t doing their self-confidence any good. Several looked like they wanted to burst into tears.
“Stop showing off and open the elevator doors!” said Isabella.
“No sense of fun,” said Molly. “She was the same as a girl. She and her enchanted motorbike.”
I turned back to the elevator doors and considered them thoughtfully. And while I was doing that, a horrifically bright light flared up in the corridor: a fierce, incandescent and definitely unnatural glare brighter than the sun. Almost bright enough to overpower my armoured mask, which had to cloak my vision in darkness for a few moments to protect my eyes. Molly and Isabella cried out in shock and clung to each other, momentarily blinded. And while we were all disoriented, new panels slid open in the corridor walls, revealing dark, concealed places full of things very like trapdoor spiders.
Large, hairy things the size of cats, with far too many legs and eyes, and snapping fanged mouths. They came swarming out of the walls, poison dripping from their mouths, eager to get at us while we were still helpless. But my mask was already back to normal. I moved quickly forward to block their way, and they swarmed all over me, clinging to my armour with their sticky legs, trying to force their fangs through the strange matter. I shuddered and squirmed inside my armour. I’ve never liked spiders. I made myself stand still till they were all over me, surging and pushing and pressing their deadly mouths against the outside of my mask; and then I seized them in my golden hands, crushing their pulpy bodies and tearing them away from my face. I slapped at them, and they fell away dead. Some dropped off and tried to run, and I stamped them all underfoot. When I finished, I was breathing hard, and my heart was going like a trip-hammer. Never liked spiders. I looked at the openings in the walls, and they all slid swiftly shut. Molly and Isabella blinked gingerly around themselves as their vision cleared.
“What the hell just happened?” sad Isabella. “What’s all this mess on the floor? And what is that dripping from your hands, Drood?”
“Trust me,” I said. “You really don’t want to know.”
“I’ve had enough of this place and its nasty little surprises,” said Molly, knuckling one watering eye. “Time we were leaving. Open those elevator doors, Eddie, and don’t be polite about it.”
“Love to,” I said.
I jammed one set of golden fingers between the two doors, making a gap big enough to get both hands in, and then I forced the doors apart. Metal shrieked and crumpled under my armoured strength. I looked down what should have been the elevator shaft, and swore mildly. I hadn’t expected the elevator to actually be there; I’d been thinking more along the lines of grabbing one of the elevator cables and then sliding down it with Molly and Isabella hanging on. I could do that. Unfortunately, there were no cables and no shaft. The whole mechanical business was gone, and the shaft itself had been replaced by a long, pulsing pink throat, complete with thick purple veins, a handful of staring eyes and several rows of swiftly rotating teeth. A curling acidic haze filled the throat, suggesting some kind of stomach at the bottom. Dropping into the throat would be like passing through a meat grinder. And a hungry one, at that. I was pretty sure my armour would survive, but I couldn’t say the same for Molly and Isabella. A series of low sucking sounds drifted up the throat. Something was feeling peckish.
“If I had the time, I’d piss down you,” I told the throat, and then turned back to Molly. “We’re taking the stairs.”
“That’s still a bad idea,” said Molly. “But apparently the lesser of two evils.”
“I hate this place,” said Isabella.
We headed for the door to the stairwell. I insisted on going first. I stood before the door for a few moments, looking it over carefully and checking for any new surprises, and then slammed it open with one heave from my armoured shoulder. The door slammed back against the inside wall, making a hell of a din that echoed down the long stairwell. There was nothing obviously dangerous waiting, so I started down the rough cement steps, with Molly and Isabella close behind. I didn’t hear any sounds of pursuit, which rather worried me. If they weren’t coming after us, it could only be because they didn’t need to. Because something was waiting for us.
We made it down the first few floors without incident, the only sound that of our feet pounding on the bare steps. And then I stopped and held my hand up for silence. We stood and listened, and from below came the sound of feet ascending the stairs. There was something not quite right about the sound. Flat, unhurried, almost shuffling. And not a word, not a human voice, to accompany them. The Satanists we’d encountered before hadn’t been at all diffident about expressing themselves. I leaned out over the drop and peered down the stairwell. And up the stairs came twenty or thirty naked men and women.
I looked at Molly. “Why are they wearing no clothes? I don’t think I like the idea of being attacked by naked people. I mean, satanic nudists? What’s that all about?”
“You don’t get it, Eddie,” said Molly, not even smiling. “They’re not wearing clothes because they don’t need any. They’re dead. They’re all dead.”
I leaned out and looked
again. They were closer now, close enough for me to see the terrible wounds that had killed them. Great holes in their chests from where their hearts had been ripped out. Ragged nubs of bone protruded from the gaping wounds, and long streaks of dried blood crusted their pale grey torsos. Their faces were blank and staring, their eyes unblinking. They were dead, and they were coming for us.
“These are what’s left over from human sacrifices,” said Isabella. “Not even zombies, really, because there’s nothing left in them. Just bodies raised up and moved around by an external will. I don’t know why the Satanists kept them. Waste not, want not, I suppose. The raised dead do make excellent shock troops against the living. Very psychologically effective. Shock-and-awe troops, if you like.”
They were only a floor or so below us now, close enough that I could see other things that had been done to the dead bodies. Some had missing hands; some had no feet and stomped along on what was left of their ankles. Some had no eyes, or teeth, or lips. And all of this had clearly happened before they died.
“Why do that?” I said.
“Satanists just want to have fun,” said Isabella.
I looked at her. “You think this is funny? Torture and mutilation and human sacrifice?”
Molly put a gentle hand on my arm. I couldn’t feel it, but I could see it. “You know how it is, Eddie. We have to laugh in situations like this, or we’d go mad.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know. It . . . got to me, for a moment there.”
“That’s the idea,” said Isabella. “One thing about Satanists; they really know how to push your buttons.”
“You don’t have to worry about hurting them, Eddie,” said Molly. “There’s no one left inside them to hurt. It’s only . . . bodies.”
“You take care of them,” I said. “I can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm.”
“Sure, Eddie,” said Molly. “No problem. You stand back and let the Metcalf sisters get to work.”
The two witches leaned over the stairwell, chanted something in unison and extended their hands. Great waves of fire burst from their fingertips, gushing blasts of hot yellow flames that shot down the shaft and incinerated the dead bodies coming up. Fire filled the shaft, so hot the air rippled around it and the stairwell walls blackened. There was a brief stench of burnt meat, and then even that was gone. The flames snapped off. The air still shimmered with heat haze, and I had to wait a few moments before I could take a look. All the dead men and women were gone. Nothing left behind to mark their presence but some scorch marks on the steps below, and a few ashes floating on the air.
“Fire purifies,” said Molly. “If you do it right.”
“I’m wondering where they stored the bodies,” said Isabella. “Maybe they have really big freezers in the basement.”
“I think they kept them around to gloat over,” said Molly. “That’s Satanists for you. You all right now, Eddie?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s just that . . . some things are wrong.”
“Hold everything,” said Isabella. “Something else is coming up the stairs.”
“Of course there is,” I said. “It’s been that kind of day. Are they at least wearing clothes this time?”
“Yes and no,” said Molly, leaning too far out over the stairwell for safety. I pulled her back, and she glared at me. “What’s coming up next isn’t really real, as such. Though they are quite definitely present.”
I leaned out for a look. A whole group of human shapes were marching up the stairs in perfect lockstep. They were like . . . plastic impressions of people: the right shape but no detail, with grey and colourless, blank faces. There was something really odd about them, though it took me a moment to realise what. You could see them only from the front. From the side, they were barely an inch or so thick. And from behind, they were only a concave gap. I leaned back to look at Molly.
“Okay, ten out of ten for weird. What the hell are they?”
“Husques,” Molly said succinctly. “Experienced sorcerers can shed them, like a snake sheds its skin. Really experienced sorcerers can throw off ten or twenty husques at a time, and send them out to do their bidding. A physical extension of the sorcerer’s will. Better than zombies, because the sorcerer can experience what his husque experiences, but more dangerous, because what happens to the husque can affect the sorcerer who throws it. They’re inhumanly strong, and there do seem to be rather a lot of them.”
“So, if we damage enough of these husques, we can hurt, maybe even kill the sorcerers?” I said.
“Got it in one,” said Molly. “You want me and Iz to fry them for you?”
“No,” I said. “I have some serious anger issues to work off, and I feel the need to vent.”
So I strode down the steps and waded right into the husques. They swarmed forward like rabid dogs, eager for the kill, and I was ready for them. I punched the first one to reach me right in the face. My golden fist smashed through and out the other side. The husque was only an inch or so thick. The husque flapped about on the end of my arm, its hands flailing uselessly against my armour. I tore it apart with hardly an effort, and it shredded like paper. I made my way steadily down the stairs, beating the husques down and tearing them apart. They were all over me, clawing at me with inhuman strength and perseverance, even as I destroyed them, but they couldn’t touch me through my armour. I ripped them to pieces, smashing them down and trampling them underfoot, and it felt good, so good. I thought of Satanist sorcerers screaming and dying; and I smiled inside my golden mask. It wasn’t a good smile. It took me three flights of stairs before I finally came to a halt, because I’d run out of husques. Molly and Isabella came tripping down the stairs to join me. The air was full of something very like confetti.
“Feeling better now?” said Molly.
“Much,” I said. “It’s easier fighting monsters. They’re just what they are. But people shouldn’t make themselves into monsters.”
“Boy Scout,” said Isabella, not unkindly.
“Something else is coming up the stairs,” said Molly. “And it sounds . . . really nasty.”
“I have had enough of this,” I said. “They’re sending things against us to wear us down, so that when we finally have to face the big shots, down in the lobby, we won’t have anything left to hit them with. My armour is endlessly strong, but I’m not. And you’re using up your magics. You can bet they’ve got something really special waiting for us on the ground floor, and we need to be in shape to face it. So we can’t keep fighting these things.”
“I’m not ready to give up yet,” said Isabella, bristling.
“Neither is he,” said Molly. “Eddie’s pointing out that even our powers aren’t infinite. And if we use them all up fighting proxies, he isn’t sure he can defend us from what the Satanists will have waiting down in the lobby.”
“I’d die trying,” I said.
“Of course you would,” said Molly.
“All right, all right, I’m convinced,” said Isabella. “This one’s a keeper, Molly. Now tell me you have a better idea, Drood.”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t know about better, but it’s definitely an idea.” I looked down the stairwell. “It’s only seventeen floors or so. I think we should jump.”
“What?” said Molly. “That’s your great alternative? I take it all back. You’re crazy, Eddie, and dangerous with it.”
“I thought that was what you liked about me,” I said.
“I am not jumping seventeen floors! I can’t fly! And I do not want to hear any sentence from you that includes the word broomstick.”
“To make it completely clear,” said Isabella, “I don’t fly either.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, in that patient, manly tone that drives women absolutely insane. “It’s really very simple. I take you in my arms and jump. You cling tight to the armour, and the sheer proximity should protect you, too.”
“There’s that word should again,” Molly said dangerously.
�
�Things aren’t that desperate,” said Isabella.
“Something really nasty is coming up the stairs,” I said. “And there’s undoubtedly worse to follow.”
“All right, things are that desperate,” said Isabella. “I’m still not going to do it.”
“I think we have to, Iz,” said Molly.
“No!” said Isabella.
“Why not?” I said.
“I hate heights!”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “The fall will probably kill you.”
I grabbed them both, took a firm hold and jumped. We plummeted down the stairwell, the two witches clinging desperately to me with both hands. They chanted something more or less in unison, and I could feel subtle magics wrapping around us, bonding them to my armour. Good idea. Might even work. The stairways whipped past us faster and faster, Molly’s and Isabella’s voices Dopplering away above us. Various unpleasant things stared blankly at us as we dropped past them, and I was quite happy to give them a miss. I’d had enough of fighting the Satanists’ attack things. I wanted to slap the big guys down and then get the hell out, so I could pass on the information to my family. That was what mattered.
The last few floors swept past in a blur, and then the ground floor slammed up against my feet like a hammer blow. My armoured legs flexed, absorbing the impact, and the armour protected me from the shock. I hardly felt a thing. Molly and Isabella slumped bonelessly in my arms, but their magics seemed to have done the trick. I straightened up, holding the two witches to me until they could get their breath back and their legs under them. They finally straightened up and pushed me away, almost angrily. They made a point of standing unsupported on their own, and then giggled suddenly, and high-fived each other. A thought struck me.
“All this time I’ve been running back and forth, putting myself between you and all danger, but you’re both witches. You keep your hearts somewhere separate and safe. Have you really been in any danger, so far?”
“Don’t be silly, Eddie,” said Molly. “We can still be hurt, still die, if we’re hurt badly enough. You saw what happened to me when the Drood mob attacked me. I was ages getting over that.”
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