The Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped out of the Matriarch's suite, and took up a stand in the middle of the corridor, between Molly and me and the mob. The Armourer came out and stood by his side. The Sarjeant had two big guns in his hands. He fired a series of warning shots over the heads of the mob, and it didn't even slow them down. So the Sarjeant and the Armourer armoured up, and the moment they did, a great roar went up from the mob, as though they'd just been given permission to do what they wanted all along. They armoured up, every one of them. The Sarjeant shouted a powerful Word, and swore briefly when nothing happened. Under normal circumstances, the Sarjeant had the ability to take control of torcs and force Droods to armour down, that he might discipline them. But for whatever reason, the Word wasn't working. He opened fire again, but his bullets had no affect. His weapons had only ever been intended for use against enemies of the Droods. The Armourer produced his latest toy, something he'd still been testing the last time I was home: a tanglefield grenade. He lobbed it along the floor towards the mob, and it exploded in a shower of shimmering energy filaments that wrapped themselves around the first row of the mob, and brought them crashing to the ground. But the maddened rows behind just vaulted over the struggling bodies and kept coming. I hadn't realised just how many of them there were-dozens of Droods in full armour, coming to murder my Molly.
They hit the Sarjeant and the Armourer like a vicious tidal wave, and the sheer weight of so many bodies slammed the two men aside, throwing them back against the corridor walls. They struck out fiercely with their golden fists, felling man after man, but they could do nothing to stop the horde that rushed past them.
It all happened in a few moments, while Molly and I stood frozen in place, watching. I never really thought they'd get past the Sarjeant and the Armourer so easily. I'd never seen so many armoured figures coming at me, with murder on their minds. I'd never understood before how scary a blank golden face can be. Time… seemed to slow right down, giving me all the time I needed to study them.
Their golden armour was changing shape and form even as they advanced, becoming strange and awful, taking on the individual characteristics of their maddened owners. Changes that were usually only achieved after much thought and with great concentration were now thrown up in moments, imprinted on the armour by the sheer intensity of so many enraged minds. Their helms took on the shapes of strange beasts and unnatural insects, of horrid forms born out of nightmares. They weren't in control of their armour anymore; it was responding to their emotions, their instincts, and all their darker impulses. Monsters from the id.
New arms sprouted from golden sides, ending in jagged claws and pincers. Some of the mob dropped forward, and ran on all fours, while others became utterly inhuman, horrid creatures from the worst parts of the imagination; nightmares forged in gold and let loose in the waking world. All the things Droods are never supposed to be. The Armourer cried out in shock, to see such violation of the armour, and the Sarjeant swore fiercely as he fought against the rushing mob, but even as his fists rose and fell, striking men down left and right… he was just one man, and they were many.
The Armourer crashed to the floor, buried under a pile of flailing armoured figures. The rest of the mob vaulted right over them, intent only on Molly. The sounds they made… were not human sounds.
By this time Molly and I were running full pelt down the corridor, heading for my room, the mob ravening at our backs. It felt like we were running in slow motion. I could have armoured up, just grabbed Molly up and ran with her. But she needed to be free to use her magics, if it came to that. When we rounded the corner that led to my room, more of the mob were already there, waiting for us. Some were already inside my room, between me and the Merlin Glass. It sounded like they were smashing the place up. And even in the midst of all that was happening, I thought, Why do they always break my things? I reluctantly armoured up, ready to make a stand. I concentrated, and long golden blades protruded from my hands. I yelled to Molly to run, to run anywhere, just get away, already knowing there was nowhere she could run. And the Hall's protections wouldn't let her teleport out.
"Hell with that," she said crisply. "You think I'd leave you here, to face these crazy bastards alone? They'd kill you too, just for loving me. And I won't have that."
She gestured sharply, and a great storm wind hit the advancing mobs like a hammer. The raging winds blew in both directions at once, hitting both mobs head on. The smaller mob was completely blown away, tumbling head over heels back down the corridor. The main mob was stopped in its tracks, as winds of hurricane strength picked them up and threw them this way and that, golden bodies slamming against the walls and ceiling. Wood panelling cracked and fell apart. But some in the mob just bowed their misshapen golden heads and refused to be moved, trudging slowly forward into the face of the hurricane, driven on by the amazing strength of their armour. And soon enough, the storm blew itself out. There wasn't enough air on the top floor to support it. The mob started forward again, and Molly considered them thoughtfully.
"Please," I said. "Don't kill them. I don't think they're in their right minds. Droods aren't like this!"
"Oh Eddie," she said. "Always so charitable. Always so forgiving."
"Please, Molly! They don't know what they're doing!"
"I do."
She thrust out both her hands, and blasted them with hellfire, with a heat so vicious I actually flinched back from it, even inside my armour. The floor and the walls and the ceiling burst into flames, as great waves of searing liquid fire rolled over the advancing mob. It splashed across their golden forms, seemed to hesitate, and then dropped thickly away. The armour held, and the Droods walked through hellfire to get to us.
Molly cut off the flames with a gesture, though the rest of the corridor still burned fiercely. Priceless? paintings and tapestries were reduced to ashes, and ancient marble statues blackened and cracked. The air shimmered with heat haze. Molly's hands closed into small determined fists, and she said a Word that sickened me just to hear it. Crackling energy beams shot from her eyes, and every Drood she hit was blasted right off his feet. But they always got up again, and the mob just kept coming. They weren't howling anymore. They moved slowly, in a terrible silence, as though they meant to enjoy their triumph.
"Ethel!" I cried out desperately. "You gave the Droods their torcs! Take them back! They were never meant to be used like this! Take them back!"
I can't, Eddie, she said sadly, compassionately. You know I can't. The torcs were freely given and freely accepted, joined to every one of you at the genetic level. To take the torcs back now would kill them. Do you want me to kill them all, to save Molly?
Tears were streaming down my face, inside my golden mask.
"Get into my room!" I yelled to Molly, as the last of her energy bolts crackled and died. "Take out the Droods there, find the Merlin Glass, and use it!"
"I don't know how! Only you know the Words to make it work!"
"You're a witch! Make it work! I'll hold them off!"
And I ran forward, right into the awful faces of the mob. I hit them hard, my hands rising and falling like hammers, beating them down and throwing them aside with savage force and all the terrible skills of an experienced field agent. Anywhen else, I would have littered the floor with bodies, but these were Droods, in their armour. I stopped them for a moment, because they'd never faced anyone like me before, but only for a moment. There were just too many of them. They swarmed all over me, grabbing on to my arms and hanging off me, dragging me down by sheer weight of numbers. I hit the floor hard, still struggling with all my strength. I forced myself back up on one knee, and that was as far as I got.
I saw the rest of the mob? rush past me, just as Molly came racing back to help. She was screaming at the Droods to leave me alone, threatening them in an almost incoherent voice, energy trails flaring around her hands. The mobs hit her from both sides at once, yelling her name, baying for her blood. Golden hands formed into spikes, swords, and axes.
They slammed her back against the wall, even as she spat defiance at them. And I cried out as the first golden spike slammed into her stomach. Blood flew, but she wouldn't cry out. She gritted her teeth, while blood spurted between them. The spike pinned her to the wall, holding her in place as more blades cut and hacked at her. Blood sprayed on the air. Golden blades pierced her flailing arms, forcing them aside so more blades could slam into her chest, again and again and again. An axe sheared clean through her shoulder blade, and Molly finally screamed. She sounded like an animal, driven beyond all endurance. I was screaming too.
And then she stopped screaming. Her head lolled forward, blood spilling from her slack mouth. The mob fought each other to get at her. She still moved a little, as golden blades thrust in and out of her, but that was all. I couldn't scream anymore. I was sobbing too hard. I couldn't even get to her. They were still holding me down.
Thunder roared and lightning blasted, and everything stopped. Golden masks turned, uncertainly, as Isabella Metcalf appeared in the corridor out of nowhere. Her face held a cold, cold fury. She raised one hand, and vivid energies seized the Droods and pulled them away from Molly. They went flying down the corridor, flailing helplessly. Isabella didn't even look at them. All her attention was on Molly, sliding slowly down the wall to the bloody floor. The rest of the mob were frozen in place, stunned.
Outsiders couldn't teleport into the Hall. It just didn't happen. Drood Hall has defences that would keep out gods and demons. The sheer amount of power she must have used was staggering… Whispers began, in the fragile silence.
It's her. It's Isabella…
She looked just like the photo in her file. A tall, muscular woman in crimson biker leathers, with black short-cropped hair and a sharp intense face. She walked over to her sister Molly, and I swear the floor shook with every step. The Droods just watched her. They weren't a mob anymore. Many of them were already armouring down. Their faces were dazed, confused, as though awakening from a nightmare. We all looked on in silence as Isabella picked up Molly's still body effortlessly, ignoring the blood that welled from so many wounds. She looked at me, and I almost flinched back from what I saw in her face.
"I should never have trusted you with my sister," said Isabella.
And then she disappeared, taking Molly with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Life Goes On, Whether You Want It To Or Not With Molly gone, the madness of the mob quickly subsided. Men and women stood around the length of the corridor, looking dazedly at one another, armouring down. Most couldn't remember what they'd just done, or even how they got there. A low murmur of confused voices rose and fell, as they asked each other the same questions, over and over again. Some vaguely remembered their armour taking on awful shapes, but flinched away from knowing what they did with them. A few did remember, so traumatised they ended up sitting on the floor with their heads in their hands, shaking and sobbing as tears ran down their cheeks. One kept saying But I liked Molly, I did! And another knelt before the splintered and bloodstained wall where Molly died, and smashed his face against it, over and over again, reducing his features to a bloody pulp, until someone came and gently led him away.
I didn't give a damn what they felt. It was nothing, compared to what I felt.
None of them could remember what it was that had got them so worked up, or what it was that had persuaded and encouraged them into such an extreme state? of mind. They all had a vague belief it was one particular person, but no one could remember a name, or even a face. But they were all very sure it was someone they trusted, someone they had reason to trust. One of the family? Oh yes, they all said, in their shaken broken voices, quite definitely a Drood. The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved among them, slamming people up against walls and shouting his questions right into their faces, almost incandescent with rage; but no one had any answers for him.
And I sat on the floor, armoured down, hands lying helplessly in my lap, staring at nothing. Men and women who'd been parts of the mob only minutes before came listlessly forward and tried to talk to me, to explain themselves and apologise, or just to try and comfort me. I didn't hear them. The world was just a blur. A small part of me wanted to kill every one of them, just rise up and strike them all down for what they'd done, but I didn't have the energy. All I wanted to do was just sit there, and not think or feel anything.
After a while, the Armourer came over and crouched down before me. His knees made loud cracking noises. He was asking me things, in a quiet concerned voice, but I didn't care. I couldn't have answered anyway; my throat pulsed with a raw, vicious pain. I'd damaged it from screaming so hard. I could feel tears drying on my face. I couldn't remembered when I'd stopped crying. I finally realised the Armourer was asking me if I had any idea where Isabella might have taken Molly. I wondered about that, in a vague drifting way. Would Isabella have taken Molly back to the wildwoods, to bring her home, so she could be buried there among her beloved trees and animals? And if so, might I be allowed to visit her there? Or would the beasts of that ancient forest rise up and kill me on sight, for taking her away from them to the place where she was killed? And if so… would I just stand there and let them do it?
I struggled to my feet, with the Armourer's help, and looked desperately around me. I needed to be doing something, anything. I said something about going after Isabella, forcing the words past my ruined throat. The Armourer talked me out of it, with slow, kind, soothing words. Molly was beyond my help now, but I could still track down the bastard who'd created the mob that killed her. Molly wasn't the only victim here; many people in that mob would be seriously traumatised for years to come. My responsibility to Molly was over, said the Armourer, but I still had duties and responsibilities to the family. To find Molly's killer, and the Matriarch's. And make them pay in blood and suffering.
Just like Grandmother always said, Anything, for the family.
I looked around at the remains of the mob, already dispersing, or being led away, stumbling and crying, shaking their heads violently as though they could deny what had just happened. The Armourer followed my gaze, but misinterpreted my feelings.
"It wasn't their fault, Eddie. They weren't responsible for what they did. Someone deliberately drove them out of their minds, and aimed them at you like a bullet."
"Not me," I said. "They could have killed me, if they'd wanted. Someone wanted my Molly dead, at the hands of Droods."
The Armourer winced at the sound of my voice. Perhaps because it sounded so painful, or perhaps because of the cold harsh emotions he heard in it.
"Do you have any ideas who might be behind this, Eddie?" he said finally.
I shook my head. I wasn't ready to talk to him about the Immortals, not just yet. Not when I couldn't be sure who was who, or who might be listening. I felt cold, so cold, like I'd never feel warm or alive again. All the horror and loss and heartbreak had sunk right down, buried deep within me, so I could be focused and determined on what I had to do. I would find out who was responsible for this atrocity, and I would make them pay. Every damned one of them. I would make the Immortals die slow and hard, wade in blood up to my knees, and do terrible, unforgivable things, if that was what it took to avenge Molly Metcalf. Grieving could come later.
It was what Molly would? have wanted.
The Armourer winced at what he saw in my face, and patted me gently, awkwardly, on the shoulder with his large engineer's hand.
"Come with me, Eddie," he said. "We'll go down to the Armoury. We can talk properly there. I put in my own wards and protections, after that Zero Tolerance business."
"All right," I said. "But I have to stop off somewhere first."
It still hurt to talk. My voice sounded to me like a dead man's. God alone knew what it sounded like to the Armourer. But he just nodded, and let me lead him into my room. The door was hanging open, half wrenched off its hinges. The mob had overturned and smashed my furniture, and broken everything else. It didn't matter to me. Not now. There wa
s only room for one hatred in my head. I found the Merlin Glass, just lying on the floor, unnoticed and unbroken. It had its own inbuilt protections, like everything Merlin created. I picked it up and said the activating Words, and the Glass jumped out of my hand, growing in size to become a doorway. The Armourer and I stepped through into the Armoury.
The Armoury never changes much. A long series of interconnected stone chambers, with high arching ceilings, packed with scientific equipment, magical apparatus, and more weird shit than you could shake a Hand of Glory at. The air-conditioning system gurgles loudly to itself, when it feels like working. Multicoloured wiring, following a colour code nobody really understands, lies tacked haphazardly across the walls, you have to be really careful where you step, and there's always something seriously dangerous, unpleasant or suddenly explosive going on in the testing area.
But this was four o'clock in the morning, and the place was practically deserted. The Armourer sat me down in his favourite chair, and bustled around making us both a nice cup of tea. Always good for what ails you, he said briskly. He always felt better when he was doing something practical. He used proper tea leaves, from an old tea caddy with the willow pattern on the sides, and got out the good china, and a silver tea strainer presented to us by Queen Victoria. Because this wasn't an occasion for a tea bag in a plastic mug, and find your own milk and sugar. I just sat in the chair and let him get on with it. The moment I sat down, all my strength seemed to run right out of me.
I looked vaguely round the Armoury. Most of the lights had been turned off, giving the deserted labs a calm, reflective ambience. A few lab assistants were still working quietly, here and there. They should have been tucked up in bed at this ungodly early hour of the morning, but there are always a few night owls. They tapped away at computer keyboards, or scribbled frantically on oversized writing pads, lost in their own little worlds. One of them appeared to have a halo, but I decided not to mention it.
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