Live and let Drood sh-6

by Simon R. Green

  Molly gave me a thoughtful look. It s really up to you, Eddie. You can stop being Mr. Snotty, or I can punch you somewhere painful.

  The gates are electrified, I said, staring straight ahead. Touch any of those bars and there wouldn t be enough left of you to bury.

  I had noticed that, thank you, said Molly.

  Would you like me to reverse some distance back down the road? said the sat nav. Suddenly I don t feel as safe as I did a moment ago.

  I looked back at the Plymouth Fury. You can drive yourself?

  Damn right, I can. In emergencies. Which this is looking more and more like, all the time.

  You stay where you are, I said sternly.

  Molly peered past the gates at the grounds beyond. There are two really high stone walls leading off from the gates to surround the grounds. We could climb over Ah. No, we couldn t. More protections.

  Touch any part of those walls, and the built-in destructive energies would scatter you across several counties, I said. In fact, don t even look at them funny.

  Molly scowled. Why couldn t he just settle for barbed wire and broken glass, like anyone else?

  Because he s the Most Evil

  Hell with it, said Molly. Let s go in through the Merlin Glass. This short a jump; the Glass should be able to punch right through the protections.

  Given that Crow Lee has to have been contemplating that very possibility for some time, I said, I think not. He could interrupt our journey and send us somewhere else. Or just hold us there, trapped between places, forever.

  Yeah said Molly. That s what I d do. So, how are we going to get in?

  Simple, I said.

  I armoured up, took Molly in my arms and jumped right over the tall iron gates. We soared easily over them, my golden feet coming nowhere near the black iron, and then I dropped down into the wide-open grounds beyond. Behind us, the sat nav called miserably after us.

  Don t leave me here on my own! Bastards! I ll tell the Regent on you!

  I landed on the far side of the gates, my armoured legs absorbing the impact. Though the landing did drive my feet a good three or four inches into the rich green grass. I straightened up and put Molly down. She immediately stamped away from me, brushing fiercely at her dress, and glared about her, ready for action. I took a good look around, but there was no one there. It appeared we had the grounds all to ourselves. I armoured down and tugged my feet carefully out of the depressions I d made. Molly glared at me.

  Next time, a little warning!

  You might have said no, I pointed out reasonably.

  And, besides, you re always telling me I need to be more spontaneous.

  We took our time looking around us, checking out the pleasant open grounds surrounding Crow Lee s old-fashioned manor house. Huge lawns, massive flower beds with neatly regimented rows of colour and a whole zoo of hedge sculptures of fantastic animals. Rearing unicorns with flailing hooves and vicious horns, manticores with roaring lions heads and stingers on the tails, giant killer apes beating at their massive chests, and a huge tyrannosaurus towering over all the others, its great wedge head full of spiky green teeth.

  Really don t care for hedge animals, I said. They re not moving now, but they ve got that look about them especially the T. rex.

  Far too obvious, said Molly. Probably just a distraction to keep us from noticing the real threat.

  I know a real threat when I see one, and I am looking at one right now, I said firmly. I don t suppose you thought to bring any weed killer?

  Why is it always my job to think of things like that?

  Because you re the practical one. Or so you keep telling me.

  Look at the size of that greenhouse, said Molly, pointing off to one side. What have they got in there their own private jungle?

  I looked where she was pointing, and she was right. I d never seen a greenhouse that big. It was packed full of strange and wondrous plants, thrashing and beating against the insides of the glass panels. Massive flowers with thick pulpy petals that opened and closed as though shouting green threats at us, while thorns like knitting needles stabbed wildly at everything around them. The colours were rich and overpowering, almost hypnotic in their intensity.

  Let s not go in there, I said.

  Molly sniffed. You never give me flowers.

  Scattered across the wide-open lawns were any number of large abstract sculptures, all holes and curves and sudden turns. The shapes seemed to shift and change subtly when you weren t looking at them directly. None of the shapes made any obvious sense, but still somehow gave the impression that they might, if you stared at them long enough. And got close enough I didn t think I would.

  Molly and I wandered through the grounds, taking our time. No one had arrived to challenge our right to be there. There was just the one great fountain in the midst of everything: a tall statue of a young woman fashioned from some old dark stone, endlessly screaming, arms outstretched, as though pleading for help that never came. Discoloured water poured from her distorted mouth, falling into a great circular pond full of murky water in which very large fish darted back and forth. Molly and I strolled over to peer into the pond.

  Piranha, said Molly.

  What else would you expect in a place like this? I said. Koi?

  Molly ignored me, leaning forward for a better look. A piranha the size of my fist jumped right up out of the water and flashed through the air, heading straight for Molly s face with an open mouth stuffed full of jagged teeth. Molly barely had time to react before I armoured up my hand, snatched the flying fish out of midair, and crushed it in my golden gauntlet. It never got anywhere near Molly s face. Pulped fish guts squeezed between my golden fingers as I ground the nasty thing in my fist, just to make sure, and then I opened my hand and shook off the mess. It fell back into the pond, whose waters became briefly very agitated as the other piranha fought one another over the fresh food. I pulled the armour back into my torc.

  Nice reaction time, said Molly, stepping carefully back from the pool.

  I thought so, I said modestly.

  I would have stopped it in time, said Molly.

  I was never in any real danger. But it s nice to know you re paying attention.

  Anytime, I said.

  And then, because we d looked at everything else, we turned and looked across the great open lawns at Crow Lee s manor house. It looked very nice. A pleasant and peaceful old-fashioned stone house with a half-timbered front and a sloping grey-tiled roof. Ivy on the walls; flowers round the door. The kind of thing you see on jigsaw-puzzle box covers. It looked cosy and comfortable, the only slightly off note being the closed curtains at every window, so you couldn t see in. The front door was very firmly closed.

  I can t believe the Most Evil Man in the World lives in a cosy nook like this, I said finally. Are you sure we re not looking at some kind of illusion?

  Molly shook her head immediately. I already checked it out with my Sight. It s just a house. I can t See inside, though; there are some heavy-duty privacy spells in place. Hello. I spy movement.

  From every side, dark figures were appearing out of nowhere. Armed guards came running across the lawns at us, from every direction at once. Professional-looking mercenary soldiers in bluff uni-forms, all of them very heavily armed. They moved quickly to surround us, cutting us off from any possible exit. I had to smile. Like we had any intention of going anywhere

  Fun time! I said loudly.

  That s usually my line, said Molly.

  The mercenary soldiers took up their positions in silence, levelling weapons on us from every side. They didn t call out to us to stand still or raise our hands or surrender. Which sort of suggested they weren t that interested in taking prisoners. There were a hell of a lot of them, armed to the teeth, clearly expecting a fight. So it seemed a shame to disappoint them. I armoured up, the golden metal flowing all over me in a moment. My armour glowed brightly in the early-evening light, and there were startled gasps and muttered blasphemies all arou
nd me. Some of the younger soldiers just froze where they were, eyes wide and mouths slack, as they got their first good look at a Drood in his armour. But others pressed forward, guns at the ready, so I went swiftly forward to meet them. Molly was right there with me, sorcerous energies spitting and crackling in the air around her fists.

  If they had any sense, they d run, I said loudly. Even a professional soldier should have more sense than to go up against Drood armour.

  They don t look all that impressed, said Molly.

  They re about to be, I said. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.

  The soldiers looked at me and at Molly, and decided Molly was the easier target because she didn t have any armour. They all opened fire at once, the roar of gunfire shockingly loud in the quiet. I moved automatically to stand between Molly and the soldiers, and the bullets ricocheted harmlessly away from my armour, flying this way and that, making some soldiers duck frantically, and chewing up a nearby hedge sculpture of a giant boar. Its curving tusks were shot away in a moment, and its shaggy head just exploded. It did occur to me that if I d been wearing my usual strange-matter armour, it would have absorbed all the bullets rather than let them prove a danger to innocent bystanders. But I was wearing Moxton s Mistake, and the rogue armour didn t care. And, besides, there were no innocent bystanders on the grounds of Crow Lee s house.

  Molly shouldered me aside. How many times do I have to tell you, Eddie Drood, that I am quite capable of looking after myself?

  She strode deliberately into the hail of bullets. All the soldiers were firing at us now, the roar of automatic weaponry deafening at such close range. Molly had a protective screen firmly in place that gathered up all the bullets that came at her and held them in midair, hovering before her. One by one the soldiers stopped firing, lowered their weapons and just stood there, looking at her in a dazed and demoralised sort of way. Molly snapped her fingers once and all the bullets dropped out of the air to bounce lightly on the grass at her feet.

  And while the mercenary soldiers were coping with that, Molly raised her hands in the stance of summoning, forced out a few really nasty Words, and a great storm wind rose out of nowhere and came sweeping across the open lawns, howling and buffeting and blasting through anything that got in its way. It picked up the soldiers and threw them about like an angry child. They went flying this way and that, tumbling end over end before crashing to earth again some distance away. The roaring wind picked up the abstract sculptures and smashed them against one another, uprooting the smaller hedge creatures and sending them bobbing and tumbling across the lawns. Molly brought her arms down sharply, and the wind broke off abruptly.

  Half a dozen soldiers had dug in, hanging on to the heavier statues. Molly snapped her fingers briskly and lightning bolts stabbed down to incinerate the mercenaries. Black smoke and the smell of roast pork carried across the grounds on a gusting breeze. Molly turned to look at me.

  Are you going to give me a hard time over killing a few professional soldiers who were quite definitely prepared to kill you and me?

  No, I said.

  Ah said Molly. You know, I had a response ready for pretty much everything except that. Are you sure you re not upset?

  No, I said. They weren t interested in taking prisoners, and neither am I. Every one of these mercenary bastards gave up all their human rights when they signed on to work for the Most Evil Man in the World. They re standing between me and the rescue of my lost family. Kill them all and let the Devil sort them out.

  This isn t like you, Eddie, said Molly.

  I never had my whole family taken away before, I said.

  Molly looked like she wanted to say something else, but a whole new army of mercenary soldiers suddenly appeared out of nowhere, just blinking into existence in large groups all around us. Molly and I moved quickly to stand back-to-back. It was the same professional types in the same bluff uniforms, but this time much better armed. They had glowing swords and axes, shining bitterly with dangerous energies; Hands of Glory with sulphur-yellow flames dancing at the end of waxed fingers; even a few elven wands. Though given how gingerly their owners were handling them, the wands clearly hadn t come with an instruction manual. I almost felt sorry for the poor bastards holding them. Elves live to screw humans over, and they never sell anything they don t booby-trap first. Their sense of humour isn t ours.

  The soldiers carrying glowing axes and swords advanced on me, and I went cheerfully forward to meet them. The heavy blades smashed and shattered against my armour, and the metal pieces stopped glowing before they even hit the grass. I didn t feel a thing, and my armour wasn t even scratched. On the few occasions where the blades just rebounded, I snatched the weapons out of their shocked owners hands and broke them in two with my golden gauntlets.

  They retreated rapidly, and a soldier stepped forward holding his blazing Hand of Glory out before him. A Hand of Glory can uncover any secret, open any lock, take command of any magic. The soldier tried to use the Hand s power to take control of my armour away from me and force it back into my torc. To leave me revealed and vulnerable. But mine was a Drood torc, and more than a match for a dead man s hand with candles for fingers. The magic rebounded, all the yellow flames blew out in a moment and the Hand just withered and closed in on itself, forced into a harmless fist. The soldier shook the dead Hand hard a few times, like that was going to help, and then fell quickly back to hide behind some other soldiers.

  The two soldiers with elven wands stepped forward to take his place, stabbing the wands at me while shouting something in badly accented elvish. Massive energies blasted me, burning so brightly in the space between us that my mask had to shut itself down for a moment to protect my eyes. I stood my ground in the dark, untouched and untouchable inside my armour, until the attack was over. My mask cleared, I looked around and discovered I was standing in a large circle of dead grass, surrounded by burning hedge creatures and shattered statues. I let the two soldiers with wands take a good look at all the destruction they d caused and then at me, completely untouched; then I started purposefully towards them. They threw away their wands and turned and ran, and I let them go.

  Next up were a whole bunch of soldiers with futuristic high-energy weapons. You can get your hands on anything these days, if you know where to look. The soldiers hosed me down with all kinds of energy beams, some so powerful they left sparkling trails in the air behind them, but they still washed harmlessly over my armour. One bounced off and set fire to a hedge sculpture of a towering minotaur. It burnt fiercely, but didn t move in the least, for which I was quietly grateful. Other soldiers hit me with sub- and supersonic frequencies, and I just stood there and let them do it, until they got a bit upset and gave up.

  I waited patiently while the soldiers shut down their various weapons and had a quiet but agitated discussion. I was fascinated to see what they d do. Their next effort turned out to be a remote-control teleport device, which did its very best to send me somewhere else. But the process couldn t get a hold on my armour, so it bounced back and sent the device s owner somewhere else. Given the man s brief anticipatory scream before he disappeared, I had to assume that wherever he d intended to send me, it hadn t been anywhere nice.

  I looked across at Molly. Soldiers were surrounding her from a distance, and using exotic tech weapons to form a cage of pulsing energies around her. Molly calmly took off the spangly earrings Patrick the Armourer had given her, primed them with a muttered Word and tossed them casually between the energy bars of her cage. Both earrings exploded noisily, generating big black clouds of smoke, through which soldiers were thrown screaming with their uniforms on fire. Surprised and caught off guard, most of the soldiers maintaining the cage were blown away in a moment, and the energy bars just collapsed. Molly stepped casually out of the fading trap and looked happily about her. The black smoke cleared to reveal two large charred craters in the lawns, and quite a lot of dazed and damaged mercenary soldiers. Half the soldiers who d been standing
there threatening her weren t standing there anymore, and the rest were retreating for safer ground at quite a pace.

  More soldiers pressed forward, grim faced and determined, carrying a variety of impressive-looking weapons. Molly smiled and produced a flat box with a single button on the top. I winced just a bit as I recognised it. The protein exploder. Molly pointed the box at the soldiers advancing on her and pressed the button, and most of the soldiers just disappeared. A great cloud of pink mist rolled slowly through the air while bones clattered quietly to the grassy lawn.

  The surviving soldiers turned and ran, scattering across the grounds, presumably in the hope it would make them harder to hit. Molly picked them off with the box, one at a time, smiling reflectively. Her sharp-shooting skills were improving.

  With Crow Lee s private army either dead or deserting, the grounds themselves took up the fight. Massive robotic guns rose from inside hidden bunkers, straight up through the flower displays, long barrels moving quickly to target Molly and me. I pointed an accusing golden finger at the gun positions.

  That s another thing he stole from my family!

  All the robotic guns opened fire at once, pumping out bullets at a rapid rate of fire, raking me from head to foot. There was enough firepower to punch a hole through steel plating, but it was still no match for my armour. I walked deliberately forward into the bullets and then moved from one gun position to the next, ripping the robotic guns out of their housing and throwing them aside. Not because they posed me any real threat, but because I was getting really tired of being shot at. I wanted to make a point.

  And then, of course, inevitably, the remaining hedge creatures all came to life and closed in on me. I d been expecting it all along, but it was still an eerie and disturbing spectacle as the heavy green sculptures ripped their rooted feet out of the ground and turned their blind green heads to look at me. The T. rex s massive jaws opened wide in a silent roar of rage.

  I knew it! I called across to Molly. Never trust hedge sculptures!

  Ugly bloody things, anyway, said Molly.