Casino Infernale sh-6

by Simon R. Green

  “God save all here, and call the Devil a bastard to his face,” he said loudly. “No . . . can’t say I know any of you. Don’t much care, either. Sorry if I’m not much on manners, but it’s hard to sweat the small stuff when you’re dead. Let’s get this over with, so I can get back to some serious smiting of the ungodly I’ve got lined up in the Nightside. Got to take your pleasures where you can find them, when your senses are a sometime thing. I was told there were refreshments. . . .”

  The Armourer explained the glass container to Dead Boy, who studied it thoughtfully, with a most unpleasant smile. He produced a silver pillbox, and dry swallowed half a dozen pills, of various Technicolor hues.

  “Got this marvellous Obeah woman, whips up these little treasures for me,” he said. “Builds a fire in the cold, cold flesh so I can experience bodily pleasures. For a while.”

  He then ordered some of the most revolting food and drink I’ve ever heard of, piled it all up on the same plate, and pounded it down with great enthusiasm. He bent right over the table from his chair, pushing the stuff in with both hands, and everyone else edged their chairs a little bit farther away. Dead Boy studied us all with his burning eyes, and grinned.

  “So, you two are Droods. I recognise the torcs. You’re a London Knight; I recognise the armour. And you’re a Ghost Finder; I recognise the complacency. And you’re. . . . No. Sorry, girlie. Don’t know you at all.”

  “I’m Molly Metcalf! The wicked witch of the wild woods!”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing. Don’t really keep up with the tabloids any more.”

  “You’ll have to excuse our friend,” said a warm and fuzzy voice. “Because it’s either that or hit him a lot, and he wouldn’t feel it anyway.”

  Bruin Bear came forward to greet us, and we all had some kind of smile for him. He was that sort of Bear. Dead Boy laughed out loud and jumped to his feet. He ran over to hug the Bear fiercely. By then we were all on our feet, and Bruin Bear made a point of shaking hands with everyone. His paw was warm and furry and very firm in my hand. He smiled at me, and I had tears in my eyes. It’s not every day you greet an old childhood friend of your early reading days, made real. I wanted to hug him too, but I had my dignity. Afterwards, I wished I had. I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded. Molly patted his head and tugged at one of his ears, and he let her. Even Sir Parsifal had a real smile for the Bear, leaning right over to carefully enclose the fuzzy paw in one great steel gauntlet.

  “Oh, no, don’t mind me,” said a figure in the doorway. “Ignore me, overlook me, I’m used to it. My lot in life, these days. It’s just hard . . . when you’re not a star any more. Unlike some people . . .”

  The Sea Goat raised a bottle of vodka to his oversized mouth, and took a good long swig. He’d fallen far and fallen hard, and didn’t care who knew it. Dead Boy laughed, threw an arm around the Sea Goat’s shoulders, grabbed the vodka bottle away from him, and drank deeply.

  “You think it’s hard being dead,” said the Sea Goat. “Try being fictional! I was a beloved hero of childhood fantasies, along with Bruin Bear. And now, no one gives a damn. Bloody kids don’t read any more. . . . They should be made to read! I was big, I tell you! Big! It’s just the books that got small. . . .”

  “Why isn’t Old Father Time here?” said the Armourer, just a bit plaintively.

  “Apparently there’s a major backup in the Chronoflow,” said Bruin Bear. “And no, I don’t understand that either. But he couldn’t get away, so we volunteered. I’ve always wanted to see Mars!”

  “I wanted to see Disneyland,” said the Sea Goat, wrestling his vodka bottle back from Dead Boy. “But apparently they only let in their own characters.” He grinned suddenly, showing large blocky teeth. “So I sneaked in! I had Snow White! Standing up on a roller coaster!”

  “Is there anything more embarrassing than a legend that doesn’t know when it’s time to lie down and shut up?” said the final arrival, in a polished, very private finishing school tone of voice. We all turned to look.

  Natasha Chang stood facing the end of the table, sweet as cyanide and twice as deadly. The door to the entrance tunnel slid smoothly and very firmly down behind her. Natasha didn’t even look back. A beautiful and exotic young lady in her pink leather cat-suit, with artfully bobbed black hair, heavy makeup to exaggerate her slanting eyes, and a teasing smile. Elegant and stylish, and aristocratically poised, but I couldn’t help noticing that she was wearing enough heavy rings on the fingers of both hands to qualify as knuckle-dusters. Molly sniffed, quietly and dangerously, beside me.

  “Try to force your eyeballs back into their sockets, Eddie. First rule when it comes to dealing with anyone from the Crowley Project is never relax for a moment. Because they’ll steal your soul first chance they get, just to keep their hand in.”

  “Or eat it?” I murmured.

  “Well, well!” said Natasha, deepening her smile to bring out the dimples in her cheeks. “The amazing Eddie Drood and the infamous Molly Metcalf . . . how nice! Are you here representing the Droods, or your new masters, the Department of the Uncanny?”

  “Both,” I said. “We get around.”

  “So I’ve heard,” murmured Natasha, batting her heavy eyelids at both of us.

  “Don’t push your luck, darling,” said Molly.

  “How rude,” pouted Natasha. She turned away, dismissing both of us, and swayed forward to stand before J. C. Chance. Who, to do him justice, stood his ground. He bowed to her sardonically, but something in his face, and perhaps his gaze, stopped her short. She pretended it was her own idea, and turned to Dead Boy.

  “Love the look, darling,” she said. “I could just eat you up.”

  “I’d only make you ill,” said Dead Boy.

  Natasha looked at Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. “Oh, I see you’ve brought your pets you with. . . . Bless.”

  “Nasty woman,” said Bruin Bear.

  “Oh, yeah,” said the Sea Goat, grinning unpleasantly. “Hey there, bad girl, want a suck on my Stoli?”

  “Can’t take you anywhere,” sighed the Bear.

  “As host of this Summit Meeting, I suggest we all take our seats at the table,” the Armourer said loudly. “We have a lot to discuss, and not much time to do it in. For the moment no one knows we’re here, but that won’t last. The Martian Tombs are proof against eavesdropping, but there’s nothing to stop other interested parties from dropping in to crash the party, once they realise something’s going on here.”

  “I was going to mention that,” I said. “I can’t help noticing that all the groups gathered here are based in England. Where are the Americans, and the Russians? Not to mention the Chinese, the Indians, and so on and so on? This is a worldwide threat we’re here to discuss.”

  “The word went out,” said the Armourer. “It’s not our problem if they don’t take it seriously.”

  “They can play catch-up later,” said Sir Parsifal. “I prefer smaller gatherings; decisions get made faster.”

  “I was hoping the Regent of Shadows would be here,” said J.C. “A very useful person to have around when there’s sudden death in the offing, by all accounts.”

  “His reputation does precede him,” said the Armourer. “But it was thought his presence here might prove . . . divisive.”

  “Because so many of us would kill him on sight, for good reason,” said Sir Parsifal. “Penance and good works in his old age are all very well, but some of us remember why he really had to leave his family.”

  I looked at the London Knight sharply, but he had nothing more to say. The Armourer looked uncomfortable, but remained silent. We all chose a chair and settled ourselves around the long table, allowing plenty of room between our various spheres of influence. The Armourer sat at the head of the table, as host, and looked hopefully about him . . . but nobody seemed to want to get the ball rolling. And then J.C. took his sunglasses off again, and glared about with his terrible glowing eyes. We all started, and looked quickly around.

  “Is
anyone else Seeing what I’m Seeing?” said J.C.

  I called my armour out of my torc and fashioned a pair of golden sunglasses to look through, and glared all around me . . . but I couldn’t See anything new. I glanced at Molly, and she shrugged quickly.

  “This whole place looks weird to me,” said Dead Boy. “I do feel sort of . . . at home, here, but then I would. What are you Seeing, Ghost Boy?”

  “We’re not alone here,” said J.C.

  “You can See Martians?” said Bruin Bear.

  “Not . . . as such,” said J.C. He put his shades back on. “I think the sooner we make our decisions and get the hell out of here, the better. And no, I’m not going to say anything else.”

  “Well, thanks a whole bunch for that,” said the Sea Goat. “Unnerve us all, why don’t you? Martians? Hah! Bug-eyed Monsters . . . I eat stranger things than that for breakfast in Shadows Fall!”

  “It’s true,” said Bruin Bear. “He does.”

  I looked around, one last time. The crystal walls blazed brightly . . . and maybe it was just my imagination that made me think I glimpsed huge dark shadows moving beyond them. The Armourer said the Martians were dead and gone, long gone. But that didn’t mean there was no one else here in the Tombs.

  Louise wouldn’t have come here for no reason. . . . I made the golden sunglasses disappear, and deliberately turned my back on the walls.

  “Hold everything,” said Molly. “Isn’t there going to be anyone here from Bradford-on-Avon? It is supposed to be the most important town in the world.”

  “I thought that was Shadows Fall,” said the Sea Goat.

  “No, we’re outside the world, strictly speaking,” said Bruin Bear.

  Sir Parsifal leaned forward, the joints of his armour creaking loudly. “The town you just mentioned . . . is best left to itself.”

  “We leave the town alone,” said the Armourer, “and they leave the world alone. It’s safer that way.”

  “Boring . . .” said Dead Boy.

  Sir Parsifal glared at him. “Since when do we allow walking corpses to attend our Summits? We used to have standards. . . . The business of the living should be determined by the living. Not by dead bodies with delusions of grandeur.”

  Dead Boy punched Sir Parsifal in the head. The Knight’s head whipped round under the force of the blow, and we could all hear the bones in Dead Boy’s hand breaking. When Sir Parsifal turned back, his cold expression hadn’t changed at all. Dead Boy snarled defiantly at him, and quietly pushed the bones in his hand back into place again.

  The Armourer was on his feet. “Behave yourself, Dead Boy! Or I will throw you out of this meeting! You know I can do it. And then you can explain to the Nightside Authorities why you weren’t present when the important decisions were made. And Sir Parsifal—apologise.”

  “He started it,” said the Knight.

  “You deserved it. You know the rules of the Summit. We all leave our personal feelings behind, the better to concentrate on the matter at hand. Now apologise to Dead Boy, or I’ll put you out. And you know I can do it.”

  “Of course,” said Sir Parsifal. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

  “We’re Droods,” I said. “We can do anything. Everyone knows that.”

  Sir Parsifal nodded. “Of course. You are quite right, Sir Armourer. I was forgetting. I apologise, Dead Boy.”

  “Fair enough,” said Dead Boy. “Let’s all be friends! Group hug?”

  The Armourer sat down again. I was still watching Sir Parsifal. My uncle Jack had warned me about head-butting and jockeying for position, but I hadn’t thought it would be so obvious. The Knight had pushed things, to see what he could get away with, and now he was sitting there quite calmly, looking around him, waiting for his next chance.

  “The Meeting will come to order,” said the Armourer, harshly. “First order of business: does anyone here know exactly what the Crow Lee Inheritance is?”

  There was a lot of glancing back and forth, but no one said anything. Until finally Natasha Chang cleared her throat in a meaningful sort of way.

  “No one in the Crowley Project has had anything to do with the nasty old scrote himself, since we booted him out all those years ago. Are you saying you don’t know, Drood?”

  “We know the Inheritance exists,” said the Armourer. “We know that a great many powerful organisations and individuals are preparing to go to war over it. So whatever it might or might not turn out to be, we have to decide what to do about it, now. Before things get really out of hand.”

  “We’ve heard our fair share of rumours at the Institute,” said J.C. “The Inheritance could consist of all the riches, secrets, unique items he acquired down the years. More than enough there to go to war over. The Boss allowed me to take a quick look through Crow Lee’s file before I left. You wouldn’t believe how many pages it runs to. . . . But there’s nothing about an Inheritance. I don’t think any of us expected him to die so suddenly. . . .”

  He looked at Molly and me, almost accusingly. I looked right back at him. I wasn’t going to let myself be ruffled. I was too busy keeping an eye on everyone else. I was starting to feel the undercurrents in the Meeting, all the dark and dangerous shapes moving just beneath the surface. I was beginning to get the feeling that not everyone present was singing from the same song sheet.

  “Crow Lee made himself into a legend, in his own extended lifetime,” Bruin Bear said slowly. “The Most Evil Man In The World. Now he’s dead; I suppose it’s always possible he might turn up at Shadows Fall. And then we could just ask him.”

  “No,” said the Sea Goat. “Not going to happen. Shadows Fall is for legends that no one believes in any more. People still believe in Crow Lee.”

  “I don’t understand Shadows Fall,” said J.C.

  “Not many do,” said the Bear.

  “Why are you here, Bear?” said Dead Boy.

  “Because if the Inheritance is what some people think it is,” said the Sea Goat, sounding suddenly sane and sober, “it’s worth going to war over. A war that would threaten all of us. Shadows Fall is a refuge for the spiritually walking wounded, and we don’t want its existence threatened.”

  “How very lucid of you,” said Sir Parsifal.

  “Up your poop chute, Knight,” said the Goat.

  “I may be able to contribute something useful here,” said Natasha. Something in her voice made us all settle down and look at her. She smiled demurely. It wasn’t very convincing. “Crow Lee left a . . . living will. The Project got its hands on a copy. Best not to ask how. I brought it with me. So, if you’re all sitting comfortably . . . brace yourselves, darlings.”

  She produced something I immediately recognised as a memory crystal, and muttered over it; and just like that Crow Lee himself was standing at the far end of the table, smiling ghoulishly. A large and overbearing presence in a long white Egyptian gown, with a shaven head and bushy black eyebrows, and hypnotically fierce eyes. Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, huge hands folded together before him. A nasty, despicable, fascinatingly ugly man, with a presence that wouldn’t let you look away, even in death.

  “If you are hearing this, then I have been murdered,” said Crow Lee’s image. “So, I leave the world my Inheritance. My greatest achievement, for those with the guts to go after it, and the will to master it. Whoever gains control of my Inheritance will have control over the world. Or, the means for its destruction. I have no way of knowing who will hear this—hopefully a great many people, and organisations. By all means, fight for the prize I give you. Tear civilisation apart to get your hands on my Inheritance. I promise you—it will be worth it.”

  He was still laughing when the image snapped off.

  “Typical of the man,” said the Armourer. “Do you have any further information, Natasha?”

  “Not as such,” she said, making the memory crystal disappear. “We have been assembling files on those most likely to go after the Inheritance.”

  “Including yourself, of
course,” said J.C.

  “Well, of course, darling. But all we really have are theories, and educated guesses. We have interrogated a great many people, but to little useful effect. The possibilities do seem . . . seriously scary.”

  “But what is Crow Lee’s greatest achievement?” I said. “Something he made, or had made for him, perhaps? We could be talking magic, or technology, or just his personal cache of secrets. I mean, he dabbled in everything at one time or another.”

  I looked to the Armourer, but he just shrugged. “Given some of the things Crow Lee’s been known to use, the possibilities are worryingly endless. Information bombs, to rewrite reality. Words of Power, that could blow the whole world apart like a firecracker in a rotten apple. Blackmail information, to manipulate the movers and shakers in power. And let us not forget, he was responsible for the removal of Drood Hall from this world, for a time. No one’s ever been able to do that before. Of course, we have since put new protections in place to ensure that can never happen again.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Natasha. “Perish the thought.”

  “I can promise this much,” said Sir Parsifal. “I can declare, on behalf of the London Knights, that anyone found in possession of the Crow Lee Inheritance will be punished severely.”

  “Typical Knight,” said Dead Boy. “Still trying to bully the world into playing nicely.”

  “I’m sure the direct approach of the London Knights will be enough to put off all the right people,” said the Armourer, diplomatically, “but, you’re hardly ever here, are you? The Knights are always riding off to do battle, in worlds and dimensions beyond our own. You can make as many threats as you like, Sir Parsifal, but I fear it will fall to the Droods to back them up. And as you already said, we’re all stretched a bit thin, these days. We can’t be everywhere.”