Property of a Lady Faire: A Secret Histories Novel

by Simon R. Green

“What?” said Molly.

  “Hush,” I said. “Keep your voice down. We don’t want to wake him.”

  “Your family history never ceases to appal me,” said Molly.

  But there must have been something in my face . . . because she stopped asking questions. We both have our pasts, and our secrets, places we cannot go. Molly looked out at the empty landscape again, resting her chin on her hand.

  “How are we supposed to find this Gateway?” she said morosely. “How are we supposed to find anything, in all this . . . wilderness?”

  “The Doormouse said we’d just know,” I said. “That we’d sense where it was, the moment we were close enough, whether we wanted to or not. Which is, of course, not in the least worrying.”

  “What can you do?” said Molly. “He’s a Mouse.”

  We stopped talking, as the food finally arrived. So much food, in fact, that it had to be wheeled to our table on several large trolleys, by several large waiters hoping to share in a really big tip. Or perhaps because they wanted to see what kind of idiots would order so much more food than they could possibly eat. The waiters took it in turn to lay out plates and bowls, dishes and tureens, and all kinds of steaming-hot food, until they ran out of room on the table and had to start overlapping things. I just sat back and let them get on with it. I have to say, everything smelled pretty damned good. Molly started making cute little hungry sounds, and clapping her hands together. When the waiters finally finished, they stood back and stared respectfully at the magnificent repast they’d delivered, and then they all looked expectantly at me and Molly. Molly looked right back at them, and they all suddenly remembered they were needed urgently somewhere else, and ran away as slowly as their dignity would allow.

  Molly and I tried bits and pieces of everything, stabbing things with forks or just picking them up with fingers. To the accompaniment of appalled noises from people around us, who couldn’t believe what they were seeing. I chewed enthusiastically at this and that, only occasionally spitting things out. Because there are limits. A lot of what we’d ordered turned out to be regional specialities, and strange delicacies from local cultures. Mostly hotly spiced meats, and unfamiliar vegetables beaten and boiled to within an inch of their lives. Some was just unidentifiable bits of animal, whole organs swimming in sauces thickened with fresh blood. More like a road accident than a meal.

  “I think this . . . is yak,” I said, chewing determinedly on something purple, served on a bed of bright pink rice and grey peas. “On the grounds that just eating this fills me with an overwhelming impulse to shout Yak! in a loud and carrying voice.”

  “I think what I’ve got here is Mammoth,” said Molly. “It’s certainly big enough. Could this be its trunk, do you think?”

  “No,” I said judiciously. “That looks like a much more intimate part of its anatomy. You’re going to eat it, aren’t you?”

  “Damn right I am!” said Molly. “I’m hungry! You sure I can’t tempt you to try just a little bit?”

  “No,” I said. “I would wince with every bite.”

  “I wonder if they had to tenderise it first, with a mallet?” said Molly, smiling wickedly, and I had to cross my legs and look the other way.

  We ended up eating a hell of a lot of the food, and drinking all of the Champagne, before finally throwing in the napkin and leaning back in our seats, happily replete and more than a little stuffed. Molly fixed me with a sly grin.

  “You know, I could probably use my magics to convince the conductor we have reservations for a first-class sleeping compartment. How would you like to join the Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Club?”

  “Nice thought,” I said. “But I am so full right now, all I’d want to do with a bed is sleep in it. My body is completely preoccupied with digestion.”

  “Getting old, Eddie,” said Molly. “But we could just sleep, if you like. It has been a long, hard day . . . We could take it in turns, one sleeping while the other stays on guard. If we really are in any danger, this far from everyone and everything . . .”

  “We’re in danger wherever we are,” I said. “And perhaps especially here. If word has got out that we’re going after the Lazarus Stone, they’ll expect us to go through Ultima Thule. So there are bound to be people lying in wait along the way . . . Hoping to intercept us, or follow us, or just pick us off from a distance. People who would just love to catch us napping . . . No, Molly, we can’t sleep, we can’t take it easy, and we can’t take our eye off the ball. Even for a moment.”

  Molly looked out the window again. “There’s no one out there, Eddie.”

  “No one we can see.”

  Molly sniffed, and gestured rudely at the other diners. “I can’t see much of a threat coming from any of these overprivileged nostalgia freaks. Unless they plan to smug us to death.”

  And then we both sat up straight, as shouts and screams and sounds of open violence suddenly exploded from beyond the closed door at the end of the restaurant carriage. The door we’d come in through. The other diners looked up, startled, and began to babble nervously among themselves. One large gentleman stood up, rather officiously, and started toward the door to investigate. He’d almost reached it when the door was smashed inwards with such force that the whole thing was blasted off its hinges and out of its frame. It flew down the aisle to slam into the large gentleman, knocking him off his feet and onto his back. He lay groaning on the floor, with the door on top of him.

  One of the white-uniformed stewards came flying through the gap where the door had been, tumbling bonelessly down the narrow aisle between the tables, until finally he crashed to a halt. There was blood all over the torn white uniform, and it was suddenly horribly clear that the body had no head. The ragged wound at the neck suggested the head had been torn off by brute force.

  Blood from the severed neck had been thrown everywhere as the body tumbled down the aisle, splashing the furnishings and fittings, and soaking into the expensive clothing of those diners sitting in the aisle seats. Their cries went flying up like startled birds, and they shrank back in their seats, away from the awful thing that had so violently invaded their comfortable lives. I looked at Molly, and we both got up from our seats and moved out into the aisle, to face whatever might be coming. We stood side by side, confronting the dark opening. Molly shot me a quick grin, ready for anything, and I had to smile back at her.

  It would feel really good to hit something. To take out the day’s frustrations on whatever poor fool was stupid enough to interrupt our downtime.

  The first man to step through the doorway was dressed all in red. Blood-red leather jacket and trousers, with a dark red mask covering his entire face, with just the eyes showing. There was something about the eyes . . . Too fixed, too fierce, too intent. He stood in front of the doorway with fresh blood dripping from his bare hands, his long lean body almost quivering with nervous energy. You had only to look at him to know that he was here to fight, and kill . . . and that he would enjoy every bloody moment of it. He wasn’t a soldier, or even a mercenary; he was a killer.

  He stepped quickly forward, and half a dozen more men came quickly through the doorway after him. Six more lean and hungry men, dressed in blood-red.

  “Why are they all wearing masks?” Molly said quietly. “Are they afraid we might recognise them?”

  “There’s something odd about the way they all look,” I said. “The way they move. They all have exactly the same body language. Weird.”

  And then we glanced behind us, as the rear door to the carriage slammed open. Two armed security guards, in much the same black uniform as the conductor, came running in. They shouted at Molly and me in Russian, telling us to get the hell out of their way. They were both big muscular types, carrying heavy machine pistols. They looked like they knew how to use them.

  Molly and I moved hastily back out of the way, and they ran straight past us, training their guns on the men in red and yelling for them to surrender. One of the blood-red men stepped forward, raising his
bloody hands, and both security men opened up on him at once. The bullets raked him from chest to groin and back again, but he just stood there and took it. I saw the bullets go in, but he didn’t bleed at all. Didn’t even stagger back, from the repeated impacts.

  He came forward, incredibly fast, and hit the nearest security man in the head so hard it broke the man’s neck and sent his head swinging all the way round to stare over his shoulder with empty eyes. The body was still crumpling to the floor when the blood-red man turned on the other guard, who was still emptying his gun into the quickly moving target. The blood-red man snatched the machine pistol out of the security guard’s hand, reversed it, and smashed the stock of the gun into the man’s chest so hard, it sank half its length into his body. Blood flew out in a jet, soaking the blood-red man’s jacket. The security man let out a single agonised grunt. The blood-red man pulled the gun back out, in a fresh flurry of blood, and the security man fell to the floor. The blood-red man tossed the gun carelessly aside, and looked at me again. With those mad, fierce eyes.

  And I just knew I’d seen them somewhere before.

  The other passengers scrambled up out of their seats, screaming and shouting, and ran for the rear door. Molly and I stayed back to let them pass, not taking our eyes off the blood-red men. The passengers slammed into one another in the narrow aisle, fighting hysterically as they tried to make their escape. Molly and I stood together in the aisle, blocking the blood-red men’s way. I could hear diners struggling to force their way through the far door. Finally the last shouts and cries died away as they disappeared into the next carriage. Molly and I were left alone with the blood-red men.

  I looked them over carefully, and the more I studied them, the more identical they seemed. Same height, same weight, same body language. The way they held themselves. And they all had the same intent, fanatic’s eyes . . .

  “Who are these guys?” Molly said quietly.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “But they’re not just uniformed thugs, like MI 13’s shock troops. They’re stronger than anything human should be, and faster, and from the way that one just soaked up bullets . . . Augmented men? Specially created soldiers? Clones?”

  “Ask them,” said Molly.

  “Worth a try, I suppose,” I said. I took one careful step forward, and all their eyes moved to follow me. “Who are you?” I said loudly. “What do you want with us?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious,” said Molly.

  “I have to ask,” I said, not looking back. “You know how the bad guys always love to boast. And it is always possible there’s been some terrible misunderstanding.”

  “You think?” said Molly.

  “Not really, no. But you have to cover every possibility . . . Look, do you want to come forward and take over the questioning? I don’t mind. Really.”

  “No, no, you carry on,” said Molly. “Though I would just point out that not one of these arseholes has answered you yet. Which is just rude. I say we forgo further questioning and move straight on to the arse-kicking. Just on general principles. We can always ask questions afterwards, to whoever’s still conscious.”

  The blood-red men surged forward, moving incredibly quickly. More of them came bursting through the open doorway, until a small crowd of blood-red men filled the end of the carriage. An army of fanatical killers, all dressed the same, all looking and moving exactly alike. They stood unnaturally still, their gaze fixed on me, ignoring Molly. Poised and ready, as though just waiting for the order to attack.

  “Okay, Molly,” I said steadily. “I count twenty-three of them now. And I have this horrible feeling there are probably even more of them on the other side of that doorway. They’re all looking at me, but I’m pretty sure they’d be just as happy to take you down too, so I have to ask, Molly, are you back to full strength?”

  “Are you?” said Molly. “You were the one complaining you were too full to do anything physical.”

  “I have my armour,” I said patiently. “Do you have all your magics back?”

  “Not all of them, no, but . . . enough. Come on, Eddie, there are twenty-three of them against two of us, so for all practical purposes we outnumber them. Let’s do it.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.

  I armoured up, and golden strange matter flowed all over me in a moment. I felt stronger, faster, my mind suddenly running at full speed. Putting on Drood armour is like suddenly emerging from a doze to full wakefulness, or like coming out of a dream to sharp reality. Like a blast of adrenaline to the soul. I always feel more alive, more aware, more me, when I’m in my armour. Ready to take on the whole damned world.

  Interestingly, not one of the blood-red men reacted at all. They didn’t even flinch. Which was unusual. Most people jump half out of their skin the first time they see a Drood armour up. It’s basically just self-preservation instincts kicking in, because if a Drood’s turned up, everyone else is in real trouble. The blood-red men just stood their ground and stared at me with their overbright eyes, as though this was what they’d been waiting for.

  Molly got fed up with being ignored, stepped forward, and thrust out a hand at the blood-red crowd. She spoke a couple of really nasty Words, and I winced inwardly as I recognised her favourite transformation spell. I have seen Molly turn whole armies of very rude unfortunates into so many confused-looking toads with that spell. Which made it all the more interesting, and upsetting, when nothing happened. The blood-red men just stood where they were, entirely unaffected. Molly slowly lowered her hand.

  “They must be protected,” I said.

  “No!” said Molly. “You think?”

  “Don’t get ratty with me,” I said. “It’s not my fault your spell didn’t work.”

  “Might be,” said Molly. “You don’t know.”

  “Look, let’s go straight to the ultraviolence,” I said. “That’ll cheer you up. I’m going in. You watch my back.”

  “You got it,” said Molly.

  I surged forward with all the strength and speed my armour could provide, and the blood-red men came to meet me. There was a terrible vicious energy in their movements. I punched the first one in the head so hard I heard his neck break, but his masked face just seemed to soak up the punch, and he didn’t fall. In fact, I heard his neck bones crack and creak as they repaired themselves. So I kicked his feet out from under him, let him fall to the floor, and just walked right over him to get to the next target.

  I lashed about with spiked golden fists, and bones broke and shattered under my armoured strength. I punched in heads, punched out hearts, grabbed arms and shoulders and crushed them with my terrible hands, and not one of the blood-red men cried out, or made a single sound of pain or shock. I hit them hard, sending them flying this way and that, but they just kept coming, pressing silently forward, trying to overwhelm me and drag me down through sheer force and weight of numbers. I couldn’t seem to hurt or damage any of them, no matter how hard I tried. I knocked them down and they just got up again. I broke them, and they put themselves back together. They swarmed all over me, hitting me from every direction at once, clinging heavily to my arms and legs.

  It was like fighting in some awful nightmare, where nothing you do seems to have any effect and there’s no end to the silent, faceless enemy.

  I grabbed hold of the ones clinging to me, pulled them loose one at a time, and threw them away. They slammed into tables and chairs and partitions, but they always got up again. I grabbed one, picked him up bodily by the ankles and used him as a flail, swinging him round and round, smashing into the others. I had some vague idea his body might be able to affect those like him. But although I heard his bones break, and theirs, as I used him as a living club . . . when I finally dropped him to the floor neither he nor his targets had any problem putting themselves back together again.

  I took hold of a red-masked face with both golden hands, and ripped the head right off. No blood erupted from the ragged neck, and the fierce
eyes behind the mask still glared at me mockingly. I threw the head away, and its body went lurching after it, arms outstretched. I felt like laughing hysterically. You can’t see things like that, such brutal disregard and contempt for all natural laws, without losing some self-control. But when in doubt . . . If your tactics aren’t working, change your tactics.

  The Sarjeant-at-Arms taught me that.

  So I grabbed hold of the nearest blood-red man, and hurled him at the nearest window. The thick glass shattered and the body went flailing through, into the cold outdoors, to be left behind as the train roared on. One less enemy to fight . . . is one less enemy to fight. Freezing-cold air blasted in through the shattered wooden frame, so cold I could feel some of it even through my armour. Interestingly, I could see breath steaming on the carriage air, seeping out from behind the blood-red masks. Which suggested my attackers were still sort of human after all. I grabbed another one and threw him out the window too.

  The blood-red men pressed forward, and I struck them down, hauled them off me, and threw them out the broken window. I whittled the crowd down to less than a dozen, and suddenly a whole new crowd of blood-red men came charging through the open doorway, as though summoned by some unheard call. More and more of them, forcing their way into the restaurant car, squeezing through the narrow doorway, determined to get at me. All of them dressed in the same crimson leathers and full face masks, all of them looking exactly the same and packed full of the same endless energy. They never said a word and they never made a sound. I counted thirty of them before I lost track, with still more crowding in through the doorway.

  All the time I was fighting I could hear Molly behind me, chanting Words of Power. Her magics spat and crackled on the air as they fought to get some hold on the blood-red men’s impervious bodies. Half a dozen of them suddenly burst into flames. They didn’t seem to care, and it didn’t slow their attack. Their burning leathers gave off an awful stench, but the jumping flames didn’t seem to affect the flesh beneath. The blood-red men fought on, even as they burned, their flames setting light to tables and chairs and hanging curtains as the train’s motion sent them lurching this way and that. Soon both sides of the carriage were on fire at that end, flames leaping up eagerly. A dark smoke drifted down the carriage, whipped up by the cold air still blasting in through the smashed window.