I could see the Hall a long way below, surrounded by all the many monsters that dwarfed it. The huge snake head swayed viciously back and forth, spraying blood everywhere, and screaming so deafeningly I could barely stand it, even inside my armour. I balanced myself as best I could, raised Oath Breaker with both hands and brought it down on the back of the creature’s neck, where the head met the body. Scaled flesh exploded and the whole great body went limp. I rode the dying snake all the way down to the ground, and my armoured legs soaked up the massive impact as the head smashed into the ground. I jumped down and ran for the open doorway.
Molly came out to meet me in her armour. She stopped abruptly, blocking my way into the Hall. I stopped. I knew what was wrong. It was Molly’s armour, all right; the familiar tarnished gold with the feminine attributes…but it hadn’t walked like Molly, moved like Molly.
“What are you doing?” I said to the armour. To Moxton’s Mistake. “Why have you overridden Molly’s control?”
“You’re planning on going home,” said the rogue armour in its grating, too-human voice. “I’m not. I like it here. I think I could have fun here. Our bargain is over. No more service; I’ll take my freedom here. And you’re not going to stop me, Eddie. Because I have Molly Metcalf inside me. Trapped.”
“What do you want?” I said.
“I’m going to stand back and watch the monsters tear the Hall apart, and then drag you out and eat you,” said the rogue armour. “A fitting retribution for all the years you left me trapped in the Maze. Maybe I’ll even help the monsters. Smash Alpha Red Alpha…And you won’t lift a finger to stop me, Eddie, or I’ll crush your precious Molly into a cube, like I did before. Only slower, so I can enjoy it more…”
I remembered the golden cube and the crushed meat and bones it had left behind. I clenched my golden fists uselessly. I hadn’t a clue what to do.
“Eddie!” yelled a familiar voice from the doorway. “Catch!”
A small shiny thing tumbled through the air, the rogue armour, and I reached out a hand and plucked it from the air. Just a small metal clicker. I looked at it and then I looked at Moxton’s Mistake…and then I grinned slowly behind my featureless mask. I held up the clicker so the rogue armour could get a good look at it.
“My uncle Jack is the best Armourer we ever had,” I said. “He knew armour couldn’t be trusted, especially in the wrong hands. So he made this.”
I hit the clicker, and just like that Moxton’s Mistake disappeared from around Molly and reappeared standing on its own, a dozen feet away. Molly swayed for a moment, and then her head came up and her face cleared. I ran forward, grabbed her by the arm and hustled her back to the Hall, where the Armourer was waiting. Moxton’s Mistake howled its rage and its fury and sprinted after us. I could hear it behind us, closing the gap in seconds, and it was almost upon us by the time we charged through the great opening where the front doors used to be. The Regent stepped forward, his small silver gun in his hand. Molly and I ducked quickly out of his way as we ran past, and the Regent shot Moxton’s Mistake full in the chest. The impact blasted the rogue armour off its feet and threw it backwards, into the path of the advancing monsters.
“Thanks, Dad,” said the Armourer. He nodded easily to Molly and me. “Ready to go home, kids?”
“Oh yes,” said Molly. “Really. You have no idea.” Her hand went to her throat where the silver torc had been. “Armour…is overrated.”
“Everyone, keep your heads inside!” yelled the Armourer. “We are leaving now! And I don’t want anyone’s bits left behind!”
He activated the remote control in his hand, and the familiar groaning and straining sounds of Alpha Red Alpha started up. Moxton’s Mistake was running straight at us, but already he looked vague and far away.
“You stay here,” I said, hoping he could hear me. “You stay here with all the other monsters.”
And the last thing we heard as the dimensional machine carried us away was the rogue armour’s howl of thwarted fury.
We came home to bright sunlight and pleasant summer air, and the gardens and the grounds were just as I remembered them. I stepped out of the shattered doorway and looked around, Molly clinging to my arm. The ruined Hall was gone, no trace of it left behind. My Hall was back. I grinned at Molly.
“Good to be back.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Home Again, Home Again
To celebrate not having all died a terrible death in a horrible alien world, we threw a big party in the Sanctity, and everyone came.
It seemed like the whole family had crammed itself into the massive open chamber, bathed in Ethel’s reassuring rosy red glow, but it was really just the main gathering. Everyone who couldn’t fit in was out on the grounds, picnicking and enjoying the fresh Earth air and sunshine. Inside there were mountains of food and oceans of drink, though not for long. There’s nothing like fighting for your very existence as a family to raise a thirst and work up an appetite. Ethel was playing classical music from everywhere at once.
“Mozart was clearly one of us,” she said loudly. “Far too intelligent to come from anywhere around here.”
“Ethel, you’re a snob!” said Molly.
“And proud of it!” said the disembodied voice. “Someone has to maintain standards!”
A dozen lab assistants were dancing on the ceiling, around a new gravity inverter they’d invented specially for the occasion. Given their track record, people made a point of staying out from underneath them. William the Librarian and Ammonia Vom Acht were getting tipsy on something very rare and expensive from the wine cellars, and giggling together like teenagers, which was actually quite disturbing to watch. The Sarjeant-at-Arms was boasting to everyone who’d stand still long enough about how many monsters he’d killed. The number kept rising the more times he told it.
A few monsters had come back with us, or at least parts of them, caught inside the Hall when we returned. They died almost immediately, unable to survive Earth conditions. We’d made haste to bury them in a very deep pit at the back of the gardens, under rather a lot of concrete. Given how toxic they’d been while they were alive, none of us felt like taking any chances with them now that they were dead and already falling to pieces.
I gave Oath Breaker back to the Armourer the moment we returned, and he sealed it up in the Armageddon Codex again. And we all felt a lot safer. Oath Breaker is a disturbing presence to have around— something that only exists to make other things not exist. The Armourer was currently well into his second bottle of something that was bad for him and assuring everyone he was working on a whole new process that would shield Alpha Red Alpha from every kind of outside influence, so that nothing like this could ever happen again.
“I notice you haven’t told him or anyone else exactly how Crow Lee got access to the dimensional engine or how Oath Breaker got out,” Molly said quietly.
“I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone about the Original Traitor,” I said, just as quietly. “They don’t need to know. It would only upset them.”
“Now you’re thinking like a Drood,” said Molly.
“You’re just being nasty,” I said.
The Armourer wandered over to us, smiling widely. “I have decided to introduce the two Merlin Glasses to each other and see what happens!” he said grandly. “Should prove most interesting!”
“Let me know when,” I said. “So I can arrange to be somewhere else entirely.”
“I’m still concerned with where the other Drood Hall came from,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, joining us abruptly. “Not from the monster world, obviously. So what happened to the family of Droods in the ruined Hall? Who attacked them? I mean, who is there that could take out the Hall and our entire family so easily, so thoroughly?”
“And whoever it is, do they exist in our world?” said the Armourer. “Are they out there somewhere, right now, waiting for their chance?”
“You should never drink, Armourer,” said the Sarjeant. “It makes you
paranoid.”
The Armourer smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He looked suddenly thoughtful. “I have been wondering.…Could something be attacking Droods in every dimension? And perhaps heading our way? Should we perhaps be looking for a way to contact other Droods on other Earths to discuss the possible threat?”
“Part of me wants to say, Why go looking for trouble?” I said. “But if you’re right, trouble could be looking for us. Keep thinking, Uncle Jack. But don’t try anything until you’ve brought it before the council. We could be opening all kinds of cans of worms with this.…”
“Speaking of which,” said the Armourer just a bit vaguely, “Come with me, Eddie. And you, too, Molly. Got someone I want you to meet.”
He led us out of the Sanctity, closing the doors very firmly behind him, and then led us down a corridor and into a side room. And there waiting for us was my grandfather, the Regent of Shadows, and my father and mother, Charles and Emily Drood. We all stood around and smiled uncomfortably at one another. There was still so much left unspoken, so much unfinished business.
“What happened?” I finally said bluntly to my father and my mother. “Everyone here thinks you were killed on a field mission that went wrong.”
“We will tell you everything, I promise,” said Charles. “But not here. Not in this place. Most of the family doesn’t know we’re alive, and we have good reasons for wanting to keep it that way.”
“We’ve been hiding for a long time,” said Emily. “We have many enemies. Nothing else would have kept us from you.”
“You don’t trust the family?” I said.
“Do you?” said the Regent. “Your uncle Jack and I have been discussing this, Eddie, and we’ve come up with an idea. You’ve done all you can for the Droods, and a lot of thanks you’ve got for it. It’s time to strike out on your own. Come with us. Join the Department of the Uncanny. Make a new home for yourself and a new family. Your real family.” He smiled at Molly. “You come, too, and find out what really happened to your parents.”
Molly looked at me. “What do you think, Eddie?”
I smiled. “I think that…is a really interesting idea.”
Shaman Bond
Will Return
in
CASINO INFERNALE
Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel Page 40