Daemons Are Forever

by Simon R. Green

  “You ask him,” said the Hungry Heart. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  The Merlin Glass transported us instantly to a gloomy, overgrown, and deserted cemetery in Woolwich Arsenal, down in the dark heart of the East End, on the far side of the Thames. The cemetery was dominated by Victorian styles, with oversized tombs and mausoleums, and fancy graves. That whole period was fascinated with death and all its trappings, and the graveyard was positively littered with statues of weeping angels, mourning cherubs, and enough morbid carvings and engravings to make even an undertaker shout Jesus! Get a life, dammit! Long exposure to the elements had scoured away the angels’ faces, giving the statues a sour, surrealistic look. The cherubs still looked like dead babies, though. In fact, I think that was the name of a cartoon series I saw as a kid: Casper the Dead Baby.

  Molly and I set off down the single gravel path, heading deeper into the extensive cemetery grounds. The place looked abandoned. The grass had been left to grow and there were weeds everywhere, even pushing thick tufts up though the gravel path. There were no flowers on any of the graves, and the headstones were so weathered it was hard to make out the inscriptions. A cold wind was blowing, light was fading as evening descended, and shadows were creeping everywhere.

  “I like this place,” said Molly.

  “You would,” I said.

  “No, really; it’s . . . restful. Modern cemeteries are far too busy for my tastes. Once I’m gone, I don’t want to be bothered with visitors or flowers. Just bury me deep, set up perimeter mines to discourage the body snatchers, and let me rest easy till Judgement Day. I’m going to need the peace and quiet to think up some good excuses.”

  “All Droods get cremated,” I said. “Just to make sure none of our enemies can play unpleasant tricks with our remains.”

  “Maybe you could have your ashes shot into outer space, like Timothy Leary,” said Molly.

  I had to smile. “Anything, to get away from my family.”

  “I don’t see Mr. Stab anywhere,” said Molly. “And I don’t see what he would be doing in a place like this anyway.”

  “We’re not that far from his original killing grounds,” I said. “Back when he first made a name for himself, in 1888.”

  “Maybe some of his victims are buried here.”

  “Somehow, I don’t see Mr. Stab as the sentimental kind,” I said. “And anyway, from what I’ve been able to make out on these tombstones, most of them date from long before Jack the Ripper.”

  We walked up and down and back and forth in the cemetery, and still no sign anywhere of Mr. Stab. Given the sheer size and scale of the cemetery grounds, it would take hours to cover it all, and besides, I was getting impatient. And cold. I’d dropped my armour when I left Café Night, but now I subvocalised the Words, and called up just enough of my armour to cover my face. With a little concentration, I can see infrared though the mask, and it didn’t take me long to locate the only other human heat source in the darkening graveyard. I armoured down again, rather than risk putting Mr. Stab on the defensive, and led the way over to where he was standing, doing my best to appear calm and unthreatening and not in any way worried. He doesn’t like it when people he’s trying to have a conversation with are clearly scared shitless of him. In fact, for an immortal serial killer, Mr. Stab could be quite remarkably touchy.

  He was dressed in the formal clothes of his original period, all stark black and white, with a top hat and even an opera cloak. When stalking his victims he could blend in just like anyone else, but when he was off duty, so to speak, he preferred the clothes he was most comfortable with. He was a tall and powerful man, with broad shoulders and long arms. He had a broad, paternal face, like a kindly old family doctor . . . until you looked into his eyes. And saw all the horrors of Hell looking back at you.

  He turned slowly to face us as we drew nearer. “Molly,” he said. “How nice. And Edwin Drood, again. An honour.”

  “What are you doing in a place like this?” said Molly, blunt as ever.

  “Just . . . visiting,” said Mr. Stab. He smiled vaguely, showing large, blocky teeth grown brown with age. He gestured at the graves around him. “Once this was a fashionable place, with people just dying to get in. Special trains brought the fortunate deceased here from all over the country. Long ago now, and no one remembers anymore. Except me. I have friends and family here, people who knew me when I was just a man. The last people to remember me as I was, before I became a name to frighten people with.”

  I found it hard to think of Mr. Stab as ever being normal, with a normal life, and he must have sensed it, because he made a brief dismissive gesture and looked at me coldly.

  “What do you want with me, Edwin Drood?”

  I explained the situation, but he was shaking his head even before I finished. “What makes you think I would be so foolish and trusting, to place myself into the hands of my long-time enemies? More importantly, even if you could manage to convince me of my safety, why should I go to the one place where I would never be allowed to kill? I must murder, Edwin. It is my nature.”

  “After the tutoring is done,” I said, “you can murder as many Loathly Ones as you like.”

  “The Droods have opened up their old library,” said Molly. “Packed full of forgotten and forbidden texts from centuries back. Somewhere in that Library there must be information on how to . . . if not reverse, at least moderate the conditions of your immortality. Give you some control over it. So you wouldn’t have to kill all the time.”

  Mr. Stab considered her thoughtfully. “And what makes you think I want that?”

  “Because you’ve refrained from killing me, and my friends,” said Molly. “And I’ve never known you do that for anyone else.”

  He nodded slowly. “You want me to do this thing, Molly? Even though you must know it can only end in tears?”

  “I want you to do this, so it won’t,” said Molly.

  “Then so be it,” said Mr. Stab.

  I opened the Merlin Glass to the Armoury, and waved Mr. Stab through. He was greeted by a very harried-looking Armourer, and I shut the mirror down quickly before Uncle Jack could say anything. He looked very much like he wanted to say something, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything I wanted to hear. I put the Glass away and turned to Molly.

  “I think we’ve done enough for one day, don’t you? I think we’re owed a little downtime, before we have to report back. What shall we do?”

  “Well,” said Molly, linking her arm through mine, “I did promise you a good meal, and since we’re in London for the evening . . . What say we take in a West End show, and have dinner afterwards at the Ritz?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “But we’ll never get tickets for anything decent at such short notice.”

  “I’m a witch, sweetie, remember? Trust me, tickets are not going to be a problem.”

  I thought it best to give the family time to adjust to their new tutors before I showed my face at the Hall again, so a show and a nice meal it was. We went to see the new production at Shaftesbury Avenue: Prince of Thieves: The Musical. Starring Robbie Williams as Robin Hood, Paris Hilton as Maid Marion, and Ricky Gervais as the Sheriff. Music, book, and lyrics by no one you’ve ever heard of. Tickets were not a problem; Molly did a Jedi mind trick with the theatre staff, and we ended up in a private box. Afterwards we went to the Ritz and ordered the very best of everything, secure in the knowledge that we had no intention of paying for any of it.

  Hey, I keep the world safe and humanity protected. I’m entitled to a few perks and privileges.

  “An interesting production,” I said to Molly over pieces of lightly browned toast piled high with Beluga caviar.

  “Yes . . . but why is there such a preoccupation with translating successful films into stage shows? And why didn’t they sing the Bryan Adams song? It’s all most people remember about the film anyway.”

  Several bottles of really good champagne later, we stiffed the waiter with an imaginary credit card, tango
ed giggling down the Ritz steps, and used the Merlin Glass to take us home. We stepped through into the Armoury, where the Armourer was waiting for us. He did not look at all happy.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing, landing me with those four psychopaths? I have enough trouble looking after the psychopaths who work under me! And I have more than enough work to do, without babysitting your special-needs friends!”

  I looked around, but there was no sign of any of my tutors. I fixed the Armourer with an only slightly owlish look.

  “Uncle Jack, what have you done with them?”

  He sniffed loudly. “I handed them over to Penny, and let her take care of them. You know she loves organising things. And people.”

  I looked at him, shocked suddenly stone cold sober. “You did what? She’ll never be able to handle a dangerous bunch like that! The Blue Fairy alone could walk all over Penny without even raising a sweat, never mind Mr. Stab! Where are they now?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. Ask Penny. Now get out of here. I’ve got a pocket universe that needs stabalising.”

  I activated my mental link with Strange, in the Sanctity.

  “Red alert, emergency, emergency!”

  “Oh, hello Eddie! Welcome back. Did you have a nice time in town? Did you bring me back a present?”

  “Never mind that now . . .”

  “You didn’t, did you. You forgot all about me.”

  “Where’s Penny, and the four tutors she’s supposed to be looking after?”

  “At the lecture auditoriums, of course. She’s already got the first tutorials up and running. It’s all terribly exciting!”

  I cut contact with Strange, before I said something one of us would regret, and used the Merlin Glass to transport Molly and me straight to the lecture halls in the south wing. I had this horrible mental picture of a lecture hall full of dead Droods, with blood running down the aisles while Janissary Jane and Mr. Stab played football with their severed heads . . . But when we arrived in the lobby outside the auditoriums, all seemed calm and quiet. Penny was walking unhurriedly back and forth, listening at first one door and then the next. She jumped a little as Molly and I appeared through the Glass, and then hurried over to us, making shushing gestures.

  “Thanks a whole bunch for dropping those four on me!” she said, the effect somewhat limited by her hushed tone.

  “Blame the Armourer,” I said automatically. “Where are they, Penny? Has there been any trouble?”

  “None at all,” said Penny. “I thought the best thing to do was put them all to work straightaway. Let the family see what they could do. So I gave them an auditorium each, told them to talk about what the hell they liked, and . . . much to my surprise, they took to it like ducks to water. It’s all worked out rather well. It’s standing room only, for all four lecture halls, and when was the last time that happened?”

  “And there haven’t been any . . . incidents?” said Molly.

  “Not yet,” said Penny. “A part of me keeps waiting for the other bomb to drop.”

  “Why are we whispering?” I said.

  Penny raised an eyebrow. “Well, we don’t want to interrupt them, do we?”

  I moved over to the nearest door and slipped quietly through to stand at the back of the lecture hall. Molly was quickly there at my side. Subway Sue was up on the stage, striding back and forth, hitting the fascinated packed audience with what it was like to live on the very edges of society. To be in the city, but not part of it, alone and unsupported, surviving entirely on your wits.

  “You don’t know how easy it is, to fall off the edge,” she said. “All it would take is one really bad day, and any one of you could end up just like me. I had a home and job and a life, once. I had friends and family. And then I lost them all, one by one. Lost them, or had them taken from me. And so I ended up a homeless person, living on the streets, because even after everything else is gone, the streets are always there. In time I became a luck vampire, and made a new life for myself. I could have had my old life back, but I didn’t want it anymore. I’d become somebody else, and my old life wouldn’t have fit. But, once again, all it took was one really bad day, and I lost it all again. The one thing you have to learn is never to depend on anyone but yourself. Because there’s nothing you can have that the world can’t take away.”

  The audience were transfixed, breathless. They’d never encountered anyone like Subway Sue before. I slipped back out the door, Molly behind me, and we went to look in on Mr. Stab. He stood entirely at ease on the stage, glaring calmly out at his equally packed audience, as he lectured them on the skills of murder, the stalking of victims, the joys of slaughter . . . and how even the smallest seeds of evil can flower in a man and corrupt him. He talked of hunting prey, of tracking a target unsuspected for days or even weeks, if necessary.

  “You need to know these things,” he said. “You don’t have your legendary armour anymore. You cannot be invincible warriors, so you must learn to become hunters. You must acquire the techniques of ambush and fighting and killing. And no one knows more about that than me. Learn from me, and I guarantee that most of you will survive the great war that’s coming.”

  In the next auditorium, the Blue Fairy was sitting relaxed on a bar stool on the stage, drinking a cocktail with a little umbrella in it, while he lectured on elves, and their often unsuspected interventions in the modern world.

  “The elves are long gone,” he said easily. “They walked sideways from the sun centuries ago, dropping out of our world forever. Everyone knows that; but, like most things everyone knows, it’s a crock of shit. Most of the elves are gone, but some remain, intent on revenge. They hate humanity, for ruling the world that was once theirs, and they live to do us harm and bring us down. They’ll side with anyone, or anything, that will help them in their endless, bitter cause.”

  And finally, we listened to Janissary Jane tell the family how to fight demons. She marched back and forth across the stage, her cold, practical voice making what she had to say even more disturbing, and scary.

  “Demons,” she said flatly, “cannot be reasoned with, or bought off. You can’t negotiate with them. They see us only as a commodity, something to be used. Some come from Hell, some from the past or the future, and some from other worlds or dimensions. It doesn’t matter. All you have to remember is that they only exist to destroy everything you care about. They’ll take your lives, your world, your souls, and use them for their own purposes. And never give a damn. They’re locusts, sweeping through a field until nothing is left. Unless you fight them, with everything you’ve got. And you’re going to have to learn to fight as an army, because this is a war. You can’t be warriors anymore, fighting individual duels. You can’t be heroes. You have to be soldiers, fighting in a great cause. You have to learn to be an army, because there’s armies of them.”

  Penny smiled as Molly and I wandered, just a little dazed, back into the lobby.

  “Well, Eddie,” she said. “Looks like you finally did something right.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “Bitch,” said Molly.

  “You’re welcome, bitch,” I said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Thousand and One Damnations

  It was early afternoon on a bright and breezy summer day, and the grounds of the Hall rang with the merry sound of organised mayhem. Janissary Jane had half the family out doing military exercises again. Separated into groups with terse, efficient names like Alpha, Beta, and Omega, men and women charged up and down the lawns yelling their battle cries and frightening the gryphons. Group attacked group with blank ammunition, wooden batons, and even bare hands, and generally ran themselves ragged under Janissary Jane’s barked orders. Watching happily from a comfortable deck chair, in the shade of a broad parasol, I thought they looked pretty good. Even if they were making a hell of a mess of the carefully cultivated lawns. The team of gardeners had already thrown a major wobbly, and slouched off for a collective sulk and b
rew up in their shed.

  Janissary Jane had been putting the family through its paces for over two weeks now, and I had to say, the family was taking to military training and discipline like a duck to water. We are all trained to fight the good fight from an early age, but the torcs made it easy. It’s not difficult to play at soldiers when you have the armour to make you fast and strong, and keep you from getting hurt. But not many actually have the aptitude for it. Which is one of the reasons why field agents have always been such a small part of the family.

  Training without a torc was a whole different matter. You could get hurt, and so could your opponent. Surprisingly, that hadn’t put off as many of the family as I’d expected. If anything, they embraced the new training. Because it felt more . . . real. So their achievements felt more real. And they practically worshipped Janissary Jane, who’d done everything the Droods had and more, without the aid of the family armour.

  Penny came strolling across the lawns to join me, looking cool and collected in a blindingly white summer outfit, despite the heat of the afternoon. She stood over me, and I offered to pour her a glass of champagne from the bottle I had cooling in an ice bucket. She sniffed disdainfully.

  “Are you sure you’re comfortable enough there, Eddie? Got everything you need? Perhaps you’d like me to rush back and bring you out a footstool?”

  “Oh, would you?” I said. “I’d be ever so grateful.”

  “Blow it out your ear.” Penny looked at the men and women dashing excitedly back and forth in their groups, and throwing themselves upon each with much enthusiasm and violence. “They do seem to be getting into it, don’t they?”

  “Damn right,” I said. “I’m exhausted just sitting here watching them. More importantly, it’s doing a hell of a lot for family morale. Everything they’re accomplishing comes from themselves, not from their armour. It’s doing wonders for their self-confidence.”

  Penny looked at me. “And that’s why you brought Janissary Jane here.”

  “To set an example, yes. I cut the family off at the knees, when I took away their golden torcs. Took away their pride, their self-esteem, and their confidence. Janissary Jane is beating it back into them the hard way, and they love it.”