Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel (25 page)

Out of nowhere Heather produced an aboriginal pointing bone. Molly slapped it out of her hand. The bone flew away across the office. Heather grabbed Molly’s wrist and flipped her right over with a swift judo move. Molly barely had time to get out a surprised obscenity before she was flying through the air, upside down, and heading for the nearest wall. She managed to turn enough to take most of the impact on her shoulder, but the impact was still hard enough to knock all the breath out of her. She slid slowly down the wall, her eyes half-closed and her mouth slack.

I advanced on Heather. She snapped her fingers and the pointing bone reappeared in her hand. The bone was old cold brown, steeped in time and accumulated power. She stabbed the nasty thing at me, and the whole front of my golden armour reverberated like a struck gong, and I slammed to a halt as though I’d just been hit in the chest by an invisible battering ram. To my utter astonishment, circular fingernail cracks radiated across my golden chest, a whole series of widening rings like ripples on a pond. I froze for a moment and then the cracks healed themselves, vanishing away as the golden metal re-formed. Heather froze when she saw that, and that was all the time I needed to surge forward and snatch the pointing bone out of her hand. I must have hurt Heather’s fingers when I did, but she didn’t make a sound. I crushed the bone in my armoured grasp. The bone cracked loudly and then collapsed in on itself. I opened my golden hand, and only dust and a few very small bone fragments fell out.

While I was busy showing off, Heather turned away and retrieved something else from her overturned desk. It turned out to be a shillelagh, a huge gnarled club made from black oak and decorated with all kinds of carved runes and sigils. Given the size and weight of the thing, I was frankly astonished Heather could even heft it. She came straight at me, and when I went to take the club from her, she avoided me expertly and hit me really hard around the head and shoulders. My armour made loud booming noises of distress with every hit, and while
I couldn’t feel the impact, the sheer ferocity of her attack drove me back several steps.

She flailed away at me as though the shillelagh was weightless to her, hitting me from this side and from that until finally I was sure my armour could take it. And then I snapped a golden hand forward into just the right place to stop the shillelagh in midblow. I held it firmly, and Heather’s hands skidded off her end of the club. That must have hurt her, too. She looked at me with something like shock as I hefted the shillelagh easily in one golden hand and then tossed it across the room to Molly, who was already back on her feet. She caught the club easily, hefted it appraisingly and then advanced on Heather with the light of battle in her eyes. Heather looked at her and then at me, and then headed for her desk again. Molly got there first and held the shillelagh threateningly over Heather’s work computer.

“Hold it right there! Or I’ll kill your files!”

Heather glared at her. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Trust me,” I said. “She will. This is Molly Metcalf.”

“Oh, poot,” said Heather.

Things then took a turn for the weird. All four walls of the enclosed office were covered in portraits: professionally painted and photographed faces of old Carnacki Institute agents who had fallen in the field. There were an awful lot of them, men and women who had covered themselves in glory, if not renown. I had heard them referred to as the Honoured Members. It reminded me of the long gallery of Drood portraits back at the Hall. All of them gone now, of course.

All the faces on the office walls suddenly came alive in their frames, and one by one opened their mouths to roar and howl in fury, sounding the alarm at our intrusion. The sound was deafening, overpowering. Even Heather flinched, and she had to be protected. My armour took most of the brunt, but the sound was still so loud and so harsh I couldn’t hear myself think. Molly’s face screwed up with pain, but she still managed to stride right up to the nearest wall and glare right into the howling faces.

“Shut the hell up! Or I will make your paint run and your colours fade!”

And just like that the sound shut off and all the faces went back to being portraits and photos again. They must have been listening when I said Molly’s name. Of course, they wouldn’t know her power levels were at an all-time low.…Molly smiled brilliantly, stepped back and shouldered her shillelagh. I armoured down and smiled at Heather.

“Dear God! It’s you, Eddie!” Heather actually relaxed a little, and sank back onto her chair. “I should have known; if anyone could survive the complete destruction of Drood Hall, it would be you. We all thought the Droods were gone forever! I’m so glad you’re all right!” She broke off to run one hand quickly through her dishevelled hair, took a deep breath and then fixed me with her best professional smile. “So, Eddie. Do you have an appointment?”

“Guess,” I said.

“Catherine Latimer doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.…”

“She’ll see us,” said Molly.

Heather’s gaze flickered from me to Molly and then back again. She was still smiling, but I could sense the effort.

“We have to see the boss, Heather,” I said. “And I mean right now. If you’ve heard what’s happened to my family, you know how urgent this is. And how upset I am.”

“I really thought you were dead,” said Heather. “When you just appeared here, I thought your enemies must have taken the armour for themselves.…Why didn’t you use the main entrance and the proper protocols?”

“Too many eyes and ears,” I said. “I’m the Last Drood, but I don’t want just anyone knowing that.”

“The boss has already arranged for formal wreaths from the Institute,” said Heather. “To show our respect. Not that we could send them anywhere, of course, but we will find somewhere suitable to put them. Is this really the infamous Molly Metcalf? I always thought she’d be taller. Please ask her not to kill my computer; I have a lot of vitally important typing to finish before the day’s over.”

I looked at Molly and she sniffed loudly, in an I’m-making-no-promises sort of way.

“I am keeping this shillelagh!” she said loudly. “I like it and it’s mine now. Just in case anyone starts getting snotty. Always wanted one…”

“Let her have it,” I said to Heather. “She’ll only make a fuss.”

“I can always get another one from the armoury,” said Heather. “One of our janitors hand carves them on his own time. You still can’t see the boss without making an appointment. Even if you do trash my office and murder my filing system.”

I looked thoughtfully at the door behind her desk. The very heavily reinforced steel door with no handle or electronic lock on this side that led into the boss’s office. I didn’t have to raise my Sight to know it was crawling with powerful protections. I grinned at Heather.

“Get out your camera phone. I think I’m about to make history.”

“Yeah!” Molly said happily. “Someone phone Guinness! Go, Drood. Go!”

And then we all stopped and looked round as the intercom lying beside Heather’s desk buzzed loudly. A cold, calm voice sounded clearly in the office.

“Heather, if Edwin Drood and Molly Metcalf have quite finished striking dramatic poses, ask them if they’d like to come through. I can give them ten minutes.”

“Yes, boss,” said Heather.

“How did she know we were here?” Molly said suspiciously. “How did she know it was us? I don’t see any surveillance cameras here.”

“The boss knows everything,” Heather said scornfully. “In fact, that’s probably part of her job description.”

The highly impressive door swung smoothly and silently open on its own. I nodded briskly to Heather and strode into Catherine Latimer’s very private office. Molly hurried after me, determined not to be left out of anything, her shillelagh still slung casually over one shoulder.

The grand old boss of the Carnacki Institute, Catherine Latimer, her own very bad and intimidating self, sat stiff-backed behind what I
immediately recognised as a genuine Hepplewhite desk. Latimer had to be in her late seventies, but she still burnt with severe nervous energy, even while sitting still. She was medium height, medium weight and handsome in a way that suggested she had never been pretty because she’d always had too much character for that. She had a grim mouth and cold grey eyes and looked like she’d never been pleased to see anyone in her life. She wore a smartly tailored grey suit and was smoking a black Turkish cigarette in a long ivory holder, supposedly an affection that went all the way back to her student days.

While I was busy looking her over and working on my best opening gambit, Molly just sauntered round the office, displaying a keen avaricious interest in everything on display. There was a lot to look at. She made a series of loud
ooh!
and
aah!
noises as she cooed over the various intriguing objects in their display cases, many of which I remembered from my last time in the office. Catherine Latimer wasn’t much for change for the sake of change.

There were reminders of past triumphs, famous cases ancient and modern, and souvenirs of people and places best not discussed in polite company. Molly ignored the many valuable books and folios crammed onto shelves all over the office, and had no time at all for the endless locked and sealed case files in their colour-coded folders. She bent over a goldfish bowl full of murky ectoplasm in which the ghost of a goldfish swam slowly, solemnly backwards, flickering on and off like a faulty lightbulb. Next to that a crimson metal gauntlet with two broken fingers, twitching unhappily inside a brass birdcage, was labelled
THE SATAN CLAW
. Farther along, a badly stuffed phoenix posed awkwardly inside a hermetically sealed glass case, to keep it from smouldering. And finally, on open display on a black velvet cushion, the Twilight Teardrop. Molly actually crouched down before it so she could set her face on the same level and study it better. The fabled ruby stone was actually composed of fossilised vampire blood made into a polished gem in the shape of an elongated teardrop, some four inches long and two wide, set in an ancient gold clasp and chain, supposedly taken from a dragon’s hoard. I say
supposedly
; there’s a whole lot said about the
Twilight Teardrop, most of it contradictory and all of it upsetting. All anyone knows for sure is that it’s a major magical depository for unnatural energies, mad, bad and dangerous to own.

Molly snatched it up and held it dangling before her eyes before flipping the gold chain over her head and round her neck, so that the glowing bloodred gem hung over her bosom.

“Mine!” she said loudly. “I’m taking it.”

“Put it back!” I said.

“Shan’t!”

“Molly, I don’t want that nasty thing anywhere near me, never mind you. And need I remind you, we’re trying to make a good impression here?”

“Don’t care. I want it. Pretty, pretty.”

“I’ll take your pony away.…”

“You wouldn’t! All right, you probably would. You big bully, you. Oh, but, Eddie…I really do need this. There’s enough magical energy stored in here to replenish all my spells and abilities! And you know I have to be strong if we’re going after You Know Who.…”

I looked apologetically at Latimer. “Sorry about this.…”

“Oh, let her have the bloody thing,” said Latimer. “Given the sheer number of curses and bad vibes associated with the thing, she’s welcome to it.” She ignored Molly as she preened over her new toy, and fixed me with a cold glare. “Is she always like this?”

“Mostly,” I said.

“It’s all part of my charm,” Molly said easily.

Latimer and I exchanged a look but said nothing.

“I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you here, Edwin,” said the boss. “I have heard about what’s happened to Drood Hall. I really thought all you Droods were dead and gone. I should have known the reports were too good to be true. And don’t you raise your eyebrow at me like that, Edwin. You know very well your family has always been as big a threat to freedom as most of the threats you take on.”

“An argument for another day,” I said. “Right now I’m here to ask for your help.”

It was Latimer’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really? And just why would I want to do that?”

I leaned forward across her desk and showed her my hand encased in a golden gauntlet. Vicious barbed spikes rose out of the clenched metal fingers.

Catherine Latimer smiled briefly. “Typical Drood.”

She didn’t speak a Word or even gesture, just looked at me in a certain way and an invisible force snatched me up and held me tightly in its grasp. I fought against it but couldn’t move a muscle. I was picked up off my feet, lifted up into the air, spun around several times and then slammed, spread-eagled, against the ceiling, looking down. I called for my armour but it didn’t come. The boss had cut me off from my torc. I hadn’t thought that was possible.

Molly started forward the moment she saw what was happening to me. The boss fixed her with a certain look, and Molly froze in place, locked between one movement and the next, in a stance that looked excruciatingly uncomfortable. Her face strained, her eyes full of silent fury, but she couldn’t move a muscle. Any more than I could. The shillelagh slipped out of her paralysed hand and fell to the floor. Catherine Latimer allowed herself a brief smile.

“You don’t spend as much time as I have operating in the hidden world, in any number of influential capacities, without picking up a useful trick or two. Never bait the bear in her cave, children. If I let you both down, will you behave?”

“Almost certainly,” I said from the ceiling.

Molly managed a more or less compliant grunt.

The boss sat back in her chair and drew deeply on her cigarette holder. I fell down from the ceiling, only just managing to get my feet under me in time. I also only just managed to grab Molly by the shoulder as she lunged forward again. I wrestled her to a halt, murmuring urgently in her ear, and she finally stopped. She shrugged sulkily and turned her back on the boss and me. I looked at Catherine Latimer.

“I’m pretty sure Crow Lee was behind the attack on my family,” I said.

“Unholy Crow Lee?” said the boss. “Could be. He’d have the power and the gall, if anyone would.…I was at Cambridge with him, you know. Back in the day. Had no doubt he was a bad sort even then. Cheated at cards, wouldn’t pay his debts and insisted on reciting his own poetry in public. And now he’s the Most Evil Man in the World…or so people in a position to know say.…Why should I help you against him?”