Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (34 page)

They were all firing at me now, bullets bouncing off my chest
and golden face mask. The bike slammed this way and that as we shot in and out
of a traffic jam. The extra pain in my arm made me cry out, and tears ran down
my face under the mask. But the Colt Repeater in my right hand was steady as
hell when I trained it on the pursuing cars.

I tried shooting out the tyres first. That always worked in the
movies. But though I hit every tyre I aimed at, not one of them blew. The
armoured cars were running on solid rubber tyres. Manifest Destiny must have
seen those movies too. So I aimed at the driver of the nearest car. He laughed
at me, through his bulletproof glass windscreen, right up until the Colt
Repeater sent a bullet through the windscreen and blew his head apart. The car
swerved wildly, mounted the pavement, and rammed through three parking meters
before sliding to a halt. I aimed carefully and shot dead the other four
drivers, and their cars skidded and crashed and slammed into storefronts.

But more black cars were already joining the chase, screeching
around corners from every side street we passed. Soon there were a dozen new
cars on our trail, swerving back and forth to make my aiming harder. I kept
blowing away their drivers, one at a time. Such aim would have been impossible
under normal conditions, but luckily the Colt Repeater did most of the work for
me. Thank you, Uncle Jack. Still more cars joined the pursuit, seeming to come
from everywhere at once, ploughing through the civilian traffic like it wasn’t
even there, tossing lighter cars aside or grinding them underneath. There was a
chaos of crashed and burning vehicles behind us for as far back as I could see.
Wide-eyed men and women huddled in shop doorways, yelling into mobile phones as
we shot past.

The gunfire was constant now, slamming into me and the bike,
trying to bring us down with sheer pressure of bullets. Most of them ricocheted
away, chewing up storefronts and cutting down pedestrians. Manifest Destiny were
using me to kill innocent people. I couldn’t let that go on.

A black car came roaring out of a side street and drew alongside
us. The man in the backseat shot me in the face at point-blank range, crying out
angrily as the bullet glanced off the golden mask. They were on my left side, so
I couldn’t shoot them. I risked letting go of Molly’s waist with my left arm,
punched through the car’s windscreen, pulled the driver out, and threw him into
the road ahead. The black car ran over him, skidded away, hit a parked car, and
flipped end over end before crashing to a halt. I put my aching arm back around
Molly’s waist.

A police car tried to get involved. It came screaming around a
corner, siren blaring, lights flashing. Two of the big black cars closed in on
either side of it, and then both drivers jerked their steering wheels over at
the same time. The heavily armoured cars crushed the police car between them,
crunching up the standard steel chassis like so much tinfoil. The black cars
roared on as the police car skidded out of control and smashed through a glass
storefront, its siren still wailing forlornly. I felt bad for the cops in the
car. The police aren’t supposed to get involved in our wars. They’re not
equipped to deal with the likes of us.

I turned back to yell in Molly’s ear. "There’re actually more
cars after us now than when we started! Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"Yes! Away!"

I had to laugh. "I’m so glad we’ve got a plan…"

"Anything else, Eddie, only I’m a bit busy at the moment…"

"Too many civilians are getting hurt! Maybe we should just stop
and fight it out."

"Don’t even think that! The odds suck. You can bet the moment we
stop moving, they’ll have long-range sharpshooters in place to target us. Your
armour can’t protect me from that. They’d threaten to kill me, until you agreed
to armour down. Then they’d shoot you full of tranks, take you back to
headquarters, and dissect you alive to get at all your family secrets and the
armour in particular. They’d probably do the same to me for turning traitor on
them. I’d rather go down fighting. Or at least escaping."

"You’ve really thought this through," I said.

"Hell," said Molly. "It’s what I’d do. Now hang on. Our only
real hope is to lose these bastards."

A black car emerged from a side alley and lurched out onto the
street ahead of us. It spun around on squealing wheels and came charging
straight at us. We were blocked in by cars on either side, with no room to
manoeuvre. I could have jumped off. The armour would have protected me. But that
would have left Molly on her own…I was still trying to figure out what to do
when Molly revved the engine for all it was worth and aimed the bike right at
the gleaming radiator of the approaching black car. I could hear her chanting
something, but the rushing wind ripped her words away. The black car loomed up
before us, close enough that I could see the driver laughing at us, and then, at
the very last moment, the Vincent rose up into the air and sailed right over the
top of the black car. We landed behind the car with only the faintest of bumps
and kept on going. I looked back just in time to see the Manifest Destiny car
smash into another black car that had been following right behind us. The two
cars slammed together, head to head, and then blew apart with a satisfying large
explosion.

I turned back and hugged Molly tightly so I could yell in her
ear. "I didn’t know the bike could do that!"

"It can’t! But I can. Though not very often, so you’d better
hope that doesn’t happen again."

I sent up some more prayers to St. Christopher.

Molly swung the bike around a sharp corner, and then hit the
brakes so hard it would have knocked all the breath out of me if I hadn’t been
wearing my armour. The street ahead of us was completely empty, cleared of all
traffic and pedestrians. The only people who could have arranged that so quickly
were my family. And sure enough, there they were. I looked over Molly’s shoulder
and saw what she had already spotted. Halfway down the street three golden
figures stood like statues, the morning light gleaming brightly on their armour.

I was actually a little flattered. Three field agents, just to
bring me in. I had no doubt they could do it. So I put the Colt Repeater away
and hit the stud on my reverse watch. God bless you, Uncle Jack. Time rewound
itself, spinning the world back thirty seconds, so that once again Molly and I
were just approaching the corner. As Molly started to turn, I yelled urgently
into her ear, and she brought the bike to a skidding halt, the back wheel
sliding back and forth as it locked. We both bailed off the bike, and she said
the Words that turned it back into a silver charm. I armoured down, and we both
disappeared into the nearest side alley.

The three golden field agents were already sprinting towards us,
but a dozen black cars came screeching around the corner. They saw the field
agents and drove their armoured cars right at them, the fools. Molly and I
watched from the shadows of the side alley as the first car reached the first
agent. He just stood his ground, and then slammed his golden fist down onto the
black car’s bonnet at the very last moment. The whole front of the car
compacted, ramming into the ground, the back came up, and the car somersaulted
over the agent’s head before crashing to the ground behind him.

The second agent launched himself through the windscreen of the
next car, killed everyone inside, and burst out the back of the car and onto the
bonnet of the car following. The third agent picked up one armoured car and used
it to hit another. Black cars screeched to a halt, and men spilled out, firing
all kinds of weapons. Soon the whole street was full of men in golden armour
doing terrible things to men of ill will.

Made me feel proud to be a Drood.

"Time we were going," I said quietly to Molly.

"Damn, your people are good," she said.

We sneaked quietly away, just two more terrified pedestrians
fleeing the carnage. I suddenly realised there was blood on Molly’s face. It was
dripping from her nose and spilling down her chin from her mouth. She dabbed at
it with a small silk square from up her sleeve, but all she succeeded in doing
was moving the blood around. I stopped her and took out my own handkerchief.
Molly stood quietly and allowed me to mop the blood from her face.

"What happened?" I said. "Were you hit? Did a bullet get you?"

"No," said Molly. "I did this to myself. I told you: spatial
portals are serious magic. They take a lot out of me. And then, what I did with
the bike, on top of that…Magic always has to be paid for, one way or another.
That’s why rituals and preparation are so important; they raise the energies
necessary to power the spells I use. So I don’t have to draw on the energies of
my own body. And I have been doing a lot of quick and dirty magics for you just
lately, Eddie."

"I’m sorry," I said. "I didn’t know. Didn’t realise what I was
asking of you. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. There. You look better now."

"Thanks."

"That’s okay. I couldn’t have you drawing attention to us, could
I?"

"You are such a gentleman." She looked at me. "You look…pretty
shit yourself, Eddie. How’s the arm?"

"Worse without the armour."

"The poison’s spreading, isn’t it?"

"Yes. The pain’s moved beyond my shoulder and into my chest as
well. Are we far from your next rogue agent?"

"Not too far. I was heading in the right general direction all
along. We can walk it from here."

"Good. Let’s go see the Mole in his hole."

"Funny you should say that," said Molly.

I wasn’t keen on going back down into the Underground train
system again, but Molly insisted. It did seem to me that every time I’d gone
underground recently, bad things had happened to me. But then, above ground
hadn’t been that safe either. Molly and I walked back the way we’d come, heading
for Blackfriars station, and it was like walking through a war zone. Crashed
cars, shops on fire, damage and wreckage everywhere. People stumbled around,
dazed and confused, crying and clinging to each other. And bodies, in the road
or dragged out onto the pavement from burnt-out premises, sometimes decently
draped with a coat, more often not. I felt stunned, sickened. This wasn’t
supposed to happen. In all the secret wars I ever fought, I never once let them
spill over into the real world. I never, ever let civilians get hurt.

"Stop that," Molly said quietly. "None of this was your fault.
Manifest Destiny is responsible for what happened here, the bastards."

"We let them chase us," I said.

"What was the alternative? Stand our ground and die quickly, if
we were lucky? I don’t think so. You can’t allow yourself to be taken, Eddie.
You can’t let Manifest Destiny get their hands on a weapon like your armour. And
besides, you have to stay free because you know the truth. You have a
responsibility to do something, to stop Manifest Destiny and your family from
running the world like their own private preserve. You’re the only hope these
people have."

"Then they’re in serious trouble," I said after a while.

"That’s better," said Molly. "Don’t let the bastards grind you
down, Eddie."

The entrance to Blackfriars station was crammed with people,
refugees hiding out from the mayhem on the streets. They were all gabbling and
yelling at each other, but it was clear none of them had a clue as to what was
really going on. Molly and I eased our way through the crowds on the stairs and
down towards the escalators. I had been concerned that Manifest Destiny or my
family might still have agents down in the stations, watching for us, but in a
crowd this size Molly and I were just two more people. Even the stalled
escalators were full of shocked and baffled people, some of them crying, some of
them comforting or being comforted. None of them understood what was happening,
only that something much bigger and nastier than them had intruded on their
peaceful, everyday lives. The very thing I’d spent my life fighting to prevent.

I felt like I’d failed them, and that mattered much more to me
than failing my family ever had.

Down on the crowded platform, Molly and I unobtrusively made our
way over to a soft-drinks vending machine with an OUT OF ORDER sign on it. We
glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and then I pulled the vending
machine forward. The machine moved smoothly and easily to show the hidden door
in the wall behind it. I had to smile. There are a great many hidden doors down
in the London Underground, many of them concealed behind OUT OF ORDER vending
machines. It’s a secret sign, for those in the know. That’s why so many of these
machines are always, apparently, out of order. The doors lead to all kinds of
interesting places that the general public are much better off not knowing
about. Molly muttered a few words at the concealed door in the wall, and it
swung smoothly open before us. Molly and I slipped through into the darkness
beyond, and the door quietly shut itself behind us.

Molly summoned up a handful of witchfire, and the shimmering
silvery light spat and crackled around her upheld hand. A dark, dank tunnel
stretched away before us, showing curving brick walls and a low ceiling sloping
steadily down into the earth. Molly’s witchlight didn’t penetrate far into the
gloom, and the shadows were very dark.

"Is that glimmer really the best you can do?" I said.

"No. But this is as much as I’m prepared to risk. This isn’t a
place where you want to attract undue attention."

"Where exactly are we going? Tell me we’re not going down into
the sewers again."

"We’re not going down into the sewers again."

"Oh, joy."

"You’re starting to get on my tits, Drood. This tunnel will lead
us down into the systems beneath the train system. Places left over and
abandoned by the railways. Old stations that no one goes to anymore,
discontinued lines, workings that were never completed. That sort of thing."