Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel (24 page)

“I had noticed,” said Molly. “You never did replace Matthew, did you?”

“I kept meaning to,” I said. “London’s been without a proper field agent for far too long. I know that. It’s probably why Philip MacAlpine and MI-13 were able to get so out of hand with no one noticing. I thought I could just come back here and take over again once I stepped down as head of the family.…”

“They booted you out, the ungrateful bastards!”

“They voted me out,” I said with some dignity. “And I was happy enough to get out from under the burden of command and run away back to London. But it’s been just one damned thing after another. I kept being called back to the Hall to deal with things no one else could. They’re never going to let me be just a field agent again. I’m going to have to put someone else in charge of London. Someone I can trust…It’s right there on my list of things to do the moment I get my family back. If they were still here, I could have just asked where to find this Department. Someone would have known. I haven’t a clue.”

“Madame O said to go to Big Ben,” Molly said stubbornly.

“Yes, but obviously she didn’t mean that literally! It has to be some clever allusion or riddle or something equally irritating, and I don’t have the time or the patience to work it out. No, the best way to find one secret organisation is to ask another. They love to rat each other out and show off how much they know that they’re not supposed to know. And as it happens, I do know exactly where the secret headquarters of the Carnacki Institute are to be found. I know where their boss is, the very powerful, very forbidding Catherine Latimer. Her office is tucked away at the end of a corridor that doesn’t officially exist, right at the back of Buckingham Palace.”

“Oh, that is seriously cool!” said Molly. “I’ve always wanted to burgle Buck House!”

“One,” I said, very firmly, “we are not breaking in. We will be using the Merlin Glass to sneak in. And two,
we are not stealing anything.
Do you hear me, Molly Metcalf?”

“You are no fun sometimes,” said Molly, slumping down in her seat and pouting just a bit. “I’ve got to do
something
to show I was there. I’m the supernatural anarchist. Remember? I have an appalling reputation to uphold.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll let you scrawl some really hateful graffiti in the Institute toilets. How about that?”

“You are so good to me, Eddie.”

“Yes, I am. And don’t you forget it.”

“Any corgis that get under my feet will regret it,” Molly said darkly. “How is it you know where to find Catherine Latimer’s office?”

“Because I did a few jobs with the Institute back in the day,” I said. “A little cooperation here and there helps to keep the wheels turning. A favour for a favour. Matthew always looked down on those, always said he had more important things to deal with, and left them to me.”

“Is there anyone you haven’t worked with at one time or another?” said Molly.

I had to smile. “I could ask you the same question.”

She grinned. “We do get around, don’t we?”

I found a very illegal place to park, right in front of the Buckingham Palace railings. We both got out of the car and stood together, staring at the guards and the sights just like any other tourists. Scarlet-garbed Horse Guard soldiers paraded up and down in their traditional bearskin hats. They looked very efficient and very dangerous, as well they should. But the real guarding forces watched from concealment, behind very sophisticated camouflage equipment. I could just See them out of the corner of my eye. They were the real hard men of the regiment. In fact, I think you have to bite the head off an SAS officer just to be allowed to apply.

“Why don’t we just drive in?” said Molly, not unreasonably. “I mean, you’re a Drood! Who’s going to say no to you?”

“Yes, I am a Drood, but I don’t want just anyone knowing that,” I said. “Most people think my family are all dead, and I’m quite happy for them to go on thinking that, right up to the point where I find it necessary to shout,
I’m here!
and then punch them in the head.”

“You can’t ask the Carnacki Institute for help without revealing who you are,” said Molly. “And the same with the Department of the Uncanny and the Regent of Shadows…”

“One thing secret organisations are good at,” I said, “is keeping secrets. Especially from each other. Because you never know how valuable such information might become. And then you can trade it.…”

Molly started to snap her fingers, and then stopped. “Damn. I don’t even have enough power left to magic up a Disabled sticker.”

“This is London,” I said. “They’re not so easily impressed here. I think I’ll put my faith in the Armourer’s security measures. This car can look after itself. If anyone does try messing with it, they’ll wake up somewhen next year.”

But Molly had already gone back to studying Buckingham Palace. “Why is the Carnacki Institute based here, of all places? I mean, I know they’re part of the Establishment, but…Is the queen an honorary ghostbuster? Is Prince Philip bothered by poltergeists?”

“Not officially. It’s because the Institute is a royal charter, not a political department, like Uncanny. Apparently Elizabeth I wanted the Institute where she could keep an eye on it, and subsequent monarchs continued the tradition. It does mean that Catherine Latimer’s private office is protected not only by its own shields, but also by the palace’s. Of course, the Merlin Glass should be able to punch right through them.…”

“Should?” said Molly, immediately. “I really don’t like that word in this context, Eddie. What if it can’t?”

“Bugs on a windshield,” I said. “Raise your Sight, Molly. Take a good look at the palace, and See what I’m Seeing.”

With the Drood torc at my throat, I can See the world as it really is and not as most people think it is. Though mostly I choose not to, for my own peace of mind. With the Sight, Buckingham Palace and its immediate surroundings all but disappeared under layer upon layer of powerful protections: overlapping screens and shields and deadly defences laid down over centuries.

“Okay,” said Molly, after a while. “Those…are serious protections. How the hell did that burglar get in? You know, the one who just wandered around till he ended up in the queen’s bedroom and she had to call for help?”

“Simple answer: He didn’t,” I said. “They let him in. To make the rest of the world think they only had standard protections. Anyone who tried to follow in that guy’s footsteps got flash-fried into free-floating atoms for some time afterwards.”

Molly gave me a stern look. “And the Merlin Glass
should
get us past all that?”

“Oh, almost certainly,” I said cheerfully. “If I understand how the Glass works, and I’m perfectly ready to be told I don’t, I think it opens a door on this side of the shields and another door on the other side. And then we step through without bothering the shields at all. They don’t even know anything’s happened.”

“But if they do detect us?”

“It’s been fun knowing you, Molly.”

“Let’s go somewhere else.”

“If there was somewhere else, I’d be there,” I said. “But we need access to the Regent of Shadows, and Catherine Latimer is the only one I know who can get us there. And as long as Crow Lee is on our trail, the clock is ticking. He can’t let even one Drood live, for fear I’ll find a way to bring the rest back. And then everything he’s risked will have been for nothing. Now grit your teeth and be a brave little witch, and there shall be dark chocolate Jaffa Cakes for tea.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Molly. “We’re dropping in on the very dangerous boss herself, in her very own private and heavily defended office? Because you’ve been there once before? Colour me officially uneasy, Eddie. Not many get in there and get out again with all their favourite parts still attached.”

“I did her a favour once on a case I still don’t care to talk about. She wasn’t exactly happy with the way I handled it, because the Droods got more out of it than the Institute did, but we still parted on…pretty good terms.”

“So she isn’t necessarily going to be pleased to see you?”

“Is anyone?”

“What if she point-blank refuses to help you,” said Molly, “now that the rest of your family isn’t around to intimidate her into playing nice?”

“She doesn’t get to say no,” I said. “I’m a Drood.”

“My tough guy,” Molly said admiringly. “Still, weren’t we worried that using something as powerful as the Merlin Glass might attract all the wrong kinds of attention?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “But not until it’s far too late. I’m not planning on sticking around here that long.”

“They might try to stop us leaving.”

“Like to see them try.”

“Okay,” said Molly. “We have now officially crossed the line from tough guy into cocky and downright arrogant. That’s not like you, Eddie.”

“I’m the Last Drood,” I said. “I can’t afford to be stopped by anything or anyone. Not even myself. Not when my whole family is depending on me.”

“You can’t help them if you’re dead or stripped of your torc in some underground prison!”

“Well, then,” I said. “I’d better not let that happen. Had I?”

“Cocky and arrogant,” Molly said sadly. “I am a bad influence on you, Eddie.” She looked dubiously at the Merlin Glass as I held it up before us. “Was the Glass we knew ever this powerful? I’m not sure I would have trusted the old Glass in this situation.”

“It got you into the Timeless Moment to rescue me from Castle Shreck,” I said. “But it doesn’t really matter. Needs must, when the Devil is breathing heavily down the back of your neck. One thing on our side: once we’re in the boss’s office, her shields should be more than enough to hide us from our enemies.”

“Including Crow Lee?”

“Let us both fervently hope so.”

I concentrated on the Merlin Glass through my torc, visualising the exact coordinates for Catherine Latimer’s very private office, and the Glass just sat there in my hand and refused to budge. I kept telling it where to go, and it just kept refusing. The shields around the office were so powerful the Glass couldn’t find anything to lock on to. Buckingham Palace’s shields weren’t the problem, just the office’s. Which told me rather more about the nature of the Carnacki Institute’s shields than I was comfortable knowing. I looked reluctantly at Molly.

“Problem…We can’t go straight to the boss after all. She’s protected by something so powerful it even spooks the Merlin Glass. You know…it might actually be safer if you were to stay here, Molly. In the car. Uncle Jack’s protections will look after you, and you can always do a runner if necessary.”

“No way in hell,” Molly said flatly. “You’re not going anywhere without me. Not while you’re still pretending to be all cocky and arrogant to hide the fact that you’re still grieving for your family. Someone’s got to be there with you, to be reasonable on your behalf. And, yes, I do know that by volunteering myself in that department I am indulging in cosmic levels of irony, but…How about this: If you can’t go directly to the boss, can you get to her indirectly?”

“Of course! Yes! Molly, you’re a genius. I had to wait in the secretary’s office before I got to see Catherine Latimer, her own bad self, last time I was there.” I concentrated on the Glass again, and it locked onto the secretary’s office immediately. “There you go! A definite weak spot in the Institute’s security, Molly, which I shall be quite sure not to mention to the boss. In case I need to use it again.”

“You see?” said Molly. “You’re getting smarter all the time just from being around me. Come on, let’s do this. Before we have a rush of common sense to the brain. I’m just in the mood to bully a functionary.”

“Ah,” I said. “Clearly you have never heard of the boss’s secretary. Heather does not just type and file; she is also the boss’s last line of defence. In that you have to get past Heather to get to the boss. Heather is the most heavily armed person in the whole place. She’s not just there to smile politely at visitors; she’s there to be very, very dangerous. So be prepared.…”

“Oh, I am,” said Molly. “Really. You have no idea.”

“Cocky, and arrogant with it,” I said.

“You know you love it.”

I armoured up. The golden metal swept over me in a moment, sealing me off from the world. The bitter cold was still there, but I was getting used to that. Which would have worried me if I’d had the time to be worried. Molly looked at me dubiously.

“Is that really necessary? Just for a quick drop-in and a chat?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Really. You have no idea.”

“Shut up and get on with it.”

“Yes, mistress.”

I shook the hand mirror out to door size, and immediately I could
see Heather’s office through it. I stepped quickly through, Molly all but treading on my heels in her eagerness, and the Merlin Glass immediately slammed itself shut behind me, pushed through my armoured side, and hid in my secret pocket. Out of harm’s way. It occurred to me that if the Glass was that scared, then I ought to be, too. But I just didn’t have the time.

The office itself was small and cramped and drab; just a close, windowless room with Heather the secretary sitting quietly at her desk, leafing through some paperwork. She looked up, startled, as Molly and I appeared out of nowhere, right in front of her, and she actually gaped for just a moment at the sight of a Drood in his armour. Which is one of the helpful things Drood armour is psychologically designed to do.

Heather herself was a calm, professional-looking sort, pretty in a pleasantly blond, curly-haired sort of way. She wore a white blouse over a navy skirt and had a really big silver ankh hanging round her neck. Anyone else would have seen her as sweet and harmless, just another secretary. Which was, of course, the point. I knew better, but I was still caught off guard when Heather threw off her surprise in a moment, pulled a really big gun out of nowhere and opened fire on me. The damned thing—some kind of energy weapon I didn’t even recognise—was so big she needed both hands to aim it. She just blasted away without even saying a word to me or Molly, and the energy blast hit me right in the centre of my golden chest. The impact was enough to send me staggering back a step. I dug in my heels, regained my balance, while Heather fired at me again and again, the energy beams vividly bright in the enclosed space, leaving shimmering trails of Cherenkov radiation hanging on the air behind them. I leaned forward into the energy fire and advanced slowly and deliberately into the concussion blasts. My armour soaked up the deadly energies and the impacts with increasing ease. It was like wading forward against a strong chest-high tide, but it took me only a few steps to reach the desk, sweep it out of my way with one blow and then snatch the energy gun right out of Heather’s hands. I crumpled it easily in my golden gauntlets, and all the little lights
flashing on the weapon went out. I dropped the scrunched-up mess to the floor, and it dented the floor when it hit.