Until slowly I became aware that someone was walking through the crowd, heading straight for me. And the crowd was falling back to let him pass. I raised my head slowly, against the pain, and concentrated, and a great rush of relief passed through me. I knew his face. It was the Armourer, my uncle Jack. The one person in my family I knew I could depend on to never let me down. The feeling of relief faded away as the Armourer drew closer, leaving me confused. It seemed to me that something was wrong. That there was something I should remember . . .
Uncle Jack came to a halt right in front of me and smiled at me. Warmly, and kindly. I smiled back. I wondered if I was dreaming. I started to say something, and then my legs buckled and I almost fell. Jack was immediately there to grab my good arm and hold me up. I leaned on him heavily, unashamedly. He felt reassuringly real and solid. I almost cried out with relief. My legs grew stronger, and I straightened up again. I stepped back to study his face.
The Armourer looked just as I remembered him from the last time I’d seen him. Standing tall and steady in his stained and burned white lab coat. But now he had all his old strength and vitality back. He didn’t look tired, or worn out . . . And it was only then, as a slow chill moved through me, that I remembered why that had been the last time I’d seen him.
“Uncle Jack?” I said. “Aren’t you . . . dead?”
“Aren’t you?” said the Armourer.
I thought about it. “No,” I said decisively.
“Well, that’s a start,” Jack said cheerfully. “Come with me, Eddie, if you want to live.”
He started off back down the street, and I went along with him, leaning heavily on his supporting arm. Wondering if I was so ill I’d started hallucinating. I could be imagining it all. But no; if this was all just in my head, I wouldn’t hurt so much.
“I went to your funeral, Uncle Jack,” I said.
“Did you? That was kind of you, Eddie. Good turnout, was it?”
“So you are quite definitely dead?”
“Oh yes . . .”
I thought about it. “Is . . . Uncle James here too?”
“I’m afraid not,” said the Armourer. “Only one guardian angel to a customer. That’s how it works. I don’t make the rules.”
“Who does?”
Jack looked at me. “Do you really want to know?”
“Possibly not,” I said.
“It’s all right to lean on me, Eddie,” said Jack. “You’re in a bad way. Someone put the really hard word on you.”
“Am I dying?”
“Maybe,” said the Armourer. “That’s up to you.”
“Where are you taking me, Uncle Jack?”
“We’re going underground,” said the Armourer. “Where all the dead things go. How long you stay there will depend on you.”
And then he stopped abruptly, and I had no choice but to stop with him. Up ahead, two large and very determined-looking men were heading towards us. I recognised them both immediately. The Vodyanoi Brothers, Gregor and Sergei. Thugs and bully-boys, villains for hire, werewolves. Tall and leanly muscled, in expensive long black leather coats, with shaven heads and nasty smiles. They crashed to a halt before me, and looked me over with hot, anticipatory eyes. Even standing still they looked violent, and vicious with it. Gregor gave me his best menacing sneer.
“Yes! It is being you! Eddie the Drood, you remember us. Gregor and Sergei Vodyanoi. Very dangerous people!”
“Incredibly dangerous!” said Sergei, determined not to be left out.
“Yes, little brother, but you will be remembering that we did agree I would be the one to do all the talking,” said Gregor. “Because I am best at.”
“Then get on with it!” said Sergei.
“You always did bolt your food,” said Gregor. “It is no wonder you are being a martyr to your digestion.” He glared at me. “Our grandfather called us in. Because of what you did to him, at the Wulfshead. The way you treated him!”
“And we are being glad to come here!” said Sergei, unable to contain himself. “Come to make you pay, Eddie Drood, for the way you have always treated us.”
“For getting us thrown out of the Lady Faire’s Ball!” said Gregor. “We had to walk home! The long way!”
“And when we heard you are being hurt, and injured,” said Sergei, “weak and vulnerable, at long last, well! It is all our birthdays come at once.”
“Icing on the cake,” said Gregor.
Sergei looked at him. “What cake? No one said anything about cake.”
I looked at Jack. “Normally I’d find them funny. But today I’m just not in the mood.”
“Understandable,” said the Armourer.
Gregor Vodyanoi turned the full force of his glare on Jack. “You do not wish to be a part of this, whoever you are. Go now, or we will not be answering for the consequences. We are being werewolves, and very hungry.”
“Always hungry,” said Sergei. “Go, and let us be about our business. And maybe we won’t chase you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Not funny at all.”
I straightened up and moved away from the Armourer, standing on my own, unsupported, doing my best to seem dangerous. I armoured up my right fist and held it out before me. Nasty golden spikes rose from the knuckles. The Vodyanoi Brothers stood very still, looking at the golden glove as though fascinated. And then they looked at me, and from the expressions on their faces I knew that to them at least, I didn’t look tired or hurt or vulnerable any more. I looked like a Drood. The Vodyanoi Brothers looked at each other.
“It is still only the one of him,” said Gregor. “We will never be getting a better chance, little brother.”
“Got to be worth a try,” said Sergei.
And then the Armourer stepped forward, putting himself between the Vodyanoi Brothers and me. And just like that, all the colour dropped out of Gregor’s and Sergei’s faces, replaced by looks of utter shock. They fell back, clutching at each other in their panic, frightened and appalled by what they were seeing. The Armourer was suddenly an overpowering presence in the night, terrible and threatening. I was behind him, so I couldn’t see what the Vodyanoi Brothers were seeing, but I could still feel enough of it that all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. This wasn’t the Uncle Jack I remembered. What had happened to him when he died? The Vodyanoi Brothers suddenly turned and bolted, plunging back into the crowd and shouldering people out of their way, until they disappeared in the distance. No one else seemed affected by the Armourer’s presence, and when he turned around to smile at me, he was just my uncle Jack again.
“Come along, Eddie. We must be going.”
I pulled the golden strange matter back off my fist and into my torc, and almost collapsed. I hadn’t realised how much difference just a little of my armour could make, but without its support there was hardly enough of me left to stand upright. I hadn’t realised . . . how bad my condition was. I nodded slowly to the Armourer.
“We need to get the hell out of here, Uncle Jack,” I said. “Get off the street, disappear, go to ground. Until we can find someone willing to help us.”
“No one can help you now but me,” said the Armourer.
“All right; I’m hurt! I’m hurt badly, I get it! But there are hospitals, secret underground medical centres, for all the people, and other things, of the hidden world. Places people like us can go when we need help. Somewhere you can be sure no one will ask awkward questions. I’m thinking of institutions like the Sisters of Conditional Mercy, the Hidden Hospice, Médecins Sans Frontières . . .”
I stopped, trying to think where the nearest of these sites might be, and then realised I didn’t know. I knew of them—everyone in our line of work did, or at least knew stories about them—but I’d never needed to visit one before. Thanks to my marvellous armour. I knew the odd place or two in Harley Street, because of a case I followed ther
e some years back . . . assuming the Hospice of Saint Baphomet was still there, and that someone had rebuilt Dr Dee’s House of Exorcism. . . . but I had no idea how far away they were. I had no idea where I was any more. I looked at Jack, and he shook his head slowly and deliberately.
“None of those places can heal you, Eddie. You’re beyond any help they could offer.”
“I wish you’d stop saying things like that!”
“Would you rather I lied to you?”
“I’m starting to think so, yes.”
“It wouldn’t help. You need to come with me, Eddie. I’m your only hope.”
“Oh hell,” I said. “I’m too tired to argue. Let’s go. Before something really nasty turns up to take a bash at me. There’s lots of things worse than the Vodyanoi Brothers; the kind who’d give their left nut, or more likely someone else’s, for a chance to take down an injured Drood. The kind who won’t give a damn about manifesting their unnatural abilities in the normal world and freaking out the natives. I don’t want that. First rule of our kind: don’t let the innocent bystanders get caught up in our battles.”
“Your concern does you credit, Eddie,” said Jack, “but we haven’t been a part of the ordinary world for some time now. That’s how I’m able to be here.”
I looked around me. It did seem to me that the people passing by were subtly altered, out of focus. And the roar from the passing traffic seemed strangely muted, distanced. I looked back at the Armourer.
“How did you get here? I mean . . .”
“Because you needed me,” said Jack. “Come along, Eddie. You can’t put it off any longer. We have miles to go before we can sleep; and one of us has promises to keep.”
* * *
He started off again. I walked along beside him. It took me only a few moments to realise I was feeling a lot better. As though all my pains and injuries and weakness had been . . . moved away. Not gone, as such, but not troubling me any longer. Jack turned suddenly and strode briskly out into the open road, plunging straight into the oncoming traffic. I hesitated at the curb, automatically, and then just thought What the hell, six impossible things before breakfast just to give you an appetite . . . before striding defiantly out into the busy traffic myself.
Jack and I walked straight through the speeding vehicles, passing through cars and taxis and buses as though they were all insubstantial, nothing more than mist. We reached the other side of the street, untouched and unharmed, and I couldn’t resist a loud whoop of delight.
“That was fun! Let’s do it again!”
“Maybe later, Eddie,” said Jack, in that voice uncles use when dealing with the young and easily distracted. “We have somewhere we need to be.”
He strode off, and I hurried to catch up with him. The people on this side of the road were still giving us both plenty of room.
“Is the traffic really insubstantial?” I said after a while. “Or is it us?”
“Does it make any difference?” said the Armourer.
I considered the matter. “It might . . .”
Jack chuckled. “You see? You’re learning . . .”
He finally brought me to an Underground Station. One I didn’t know—though before today I would have sworn I’d at least heard of all of them. It looked old, maybe even Victorian in its style. Lots of grimy bare stone and polished metal. The sign above the entrance simply read ARBITER. No one else was going in, or out, which was . . . odd. Jack marched straight in and started down the bare stone steps. I wandered along behind him, taking my time so I could have a good look around me. The moment we were away from the roar and clamour of the traffic, an eerie silence took hold. Our feet didn’t make the smallest sound on the bare stone steps. I stamped one foot hard, experimentally, and I heard nothing. Not a whisper of sound, not even a hint of an echo. The steps still felt entirely real and solid under my feet, though.
Are they insubstantial? Or is it us?
At the bottom of the steps we moved forward into a deserted vestibule, and the ticket barriers opened obligingly before us, even though neither I nor Uncle Jack had a ticket, or an Oyster card. Normally, I would have used my armour to fool the system, but here I didn’t need to. Jack and I seemed to be operating under new rules. As though we were expected, invited. A moving stairway took us smoothly down into the station’s depths. In fact, the ride was so completely smooth, without the slightest bump or jolt, that this more than anything convinced me we were no longer in the world I knew. We reached the bottom, and moved on through featureless tunnels of a dull grey stone. No posters or ads on the walls, anywhere.
We passed through a tunnel mouth and out onto a platform, and suddenly there were people everywhere, crowds of them, all around us. Well, I say people . . . There were men with the heads of birds and animals. Women with no faces. Egyptian mummies with clay-baked features, wrapped in yards and yards of rotting gauze. Young men and women clinging together, weeping hot, bitter tears. And men and women standing alone, with dried blood caked around terrible self-inflicted wounds at their wrists and throats. Staring straight ahead of them with sad, angry eyes.
Through another tunnel mouth, to another escalator, that seemed to just go on descending forever. I leaned out as far as I dared, but I still couldn’t see the bottom, or where we were going. So I just straightened up and stuck close to my uncle Jack. Because I trusted him.
* * *
We finally ended up on a small platform, this time entirely untroubled by other people. There wasn’t a sound from anywhere, and everything seemed almost unnaturally still. No posters or ads on the walls, and the single Destinations board was worryingly blank. Jack led me to a door set quietly away to one side, with a sign written over it in Enochian. The sign appeared to have been written in blood, and quite recently. Enochian is the artificial language created back in Elizabethan times, to allow men to speak directly with angels. Apparently, just speaking the words of this language aloud can lead to permanent changes in your brain chemistry. It seemed to me that I should be able to read and understand Enochian, but although I could recognise the language, the dripping crimson words made no sense to me at all.
Uncle Jack stood before the door and made a pleased sound as he checked out the sign. He gestured imperiously, and the door opened immediately, falling back before us. I followed him through, into a grim grey flickering light, revealing a dull grey tunnel. The door closed itself quietly behind us. Jack didn’t seem concerned about that, so I did my best not to be either. At the far end of the tunnel, we ended up standing before another closed door, this time simply marked Maintenance. Jack opened it, and we stepped through into what seemed to be a closet. Half full of scarecrows sitting slumped together, wearing British Rail uniforms.
“Don’t ask,” the Armourer said wisely.
So I didn’t.
He reached out a hand to the old-fashioned telephone set on the rear wall. A telephone I was sure hadn’t been there just a moment before. Jack lifted the receiver and spoke firmly into it.
“Going down.”
The dull grey wall split in two before us, from top to bottom, both sides grinding slowly apart in jerky, shuddering movements, to form yet another long narrow tunnel. The Armourer strode forward into it, but I hesitated. There was something . . . bad, up ahead. I could feel it. Something dangerous. Jack realised I wasn’t with him, stopped, and looked back.
“Come along, Eddie! This is where you have to go.”
“Why?” I said, not moving an inch.
“Because you have to go all the way down, and all the way through, before you can come out the other side.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense!”
“It will,” said the Armourer. “Probably. Trust me, Eddie. Please.”
And what could I say to that? I nodded and went after him.
The bare walls of this new tunnel were blood-red, hot and sweaty, and almost o
rganic. Like passing through an open wound in the body of the world. The sourceless light was dim and murky. The place smelled of ancient corrupt perfumes and flowers crushed underfoot. There was a constant background murmur of many voices, rising and falling, along with snatches of music that faded in and out, like so many competing radio signals from other worlds. Somewhere a cloister bell was ringing. It sounded like . . . a bell made of ice, ringing sadly in the middle of a deep dark forest. It sounded alone, so alone . . .
We emerged suddenly onto another platform. Another completely deserted scene, with nothing to show that people had ever been allowed access. I had the oddest feeling that dust was falling, silently, continuously, though I couldn’t see or feel it. The single Destinations board on the far wall was filled with names I didn’t know. Old stations, lost stations, forgotten stations. Ludd’s Gate, Darkchapel, Thamesfleet, Cemetery Wharf, Cain’s Causeway. None of them sounded like anywhere I wanted to go.
I moved forward, to the very edge of the platform, and looked down. And discovered something decidedly unique about this new station. A river ran through it. Dark waters filled the space where the train tracks should have been. Dark and impenetrable and completely still. Not a ripple, not a movement anywhere on the flat black surface. And no reflection at all. Without looking back at Uncle Jack, I raised my voice.
“What the hell is this?”
“The River Styx,” said the Armourer. “Some say, a river in Hell, made from the tears of suicides. Or a symbol of the way between the worlds. A transition point, between Life and Death. Don’t expect me to pin it down, Eddie; we’re in legendary territory here. This is your journey, so it’s up to you to decide what the symbols mean.”
“If three Christmas ghosts turn up,” I growled, “I am going to kick the crap out of all three of them. And that goes for Tiny Tim too. Never did like ukulele music. Uncle Jack, what am I doing here?”
“You’re on the brink, Eddie,” said the Armourer. “You could go one way, or the other. It’s up to you. I’m helping you as much as I’m allowed, but . . . if you want to be forgiven, you have to forgive yourself. If you want to move on, or be renewed, you have to leave your sins behind you.”
From a Drood to A Kill: A Secret Histories Novel Page 26