Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel (39 page)

A surly-looking gunman raised a hand, and Molly punched him in the head so hard that everyone around him winced in sympathy.

“Any other questions?” Molly said sweetly. “I love answering questions.”

I armoured down, and we got off the bus and strode unhurriedly back to the Plymouth Fury, ignoring the screeching of brakes and hooting of horns from the resumed traffic. First rule of being a pedestrian in London: Never let the traffic intimidate you. I opened the driver’s door and then paused.

“Diana’s probably making a report on us to the Regent right now,” I said. “She seemed…disappointed in me.”

“She doesn’t know you like I do,” said Molly. “And, anyway, why should you care what she thinks about you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I shouldn’t care, but I do. She…reminds me of someone.”

I shrugged quickly, slipped into the driver’s seat and settled myself comfortably behind the steering wheel, and then slammed the door shut. The sat nav immediately raised its strident female voice again.

“Don’t slam the door! You’ll damage something! And can I remind you that
you’re supposed to be looking after me? The Regent made me your responsibility! What were you thinking of, letting me be shot at like that? I’m a classic!”

I looked at the sat nav thoughtfully. “Are you speaking for the car, or are you the voice of the car itself?”

“I’ll never tell!” the sat nav said smugly.

“Is there any way to turn that thing off?” said Molly as she settled into the passenger’s seat beside me and deliberately slammed her door shut.

“Is there any way to turn you off?” said the sat nav.

“Shall I go back to the bus and get a gun?” said Molly. “Or perhaps a really big hammer?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” said the sat nav. “I’m a loaner!”

“I know something that’ll shut it up,” I said.

I took the Merlin Glass out of its pocket dimension and fed it the revised time and space coordinates for Crow Lee’s place through my torc. The Glass jumped out of my hand, ghosted straight through the Plymouth’s windscreen, and shot forward to hover in the air ahead of us. It grew quickly in size until it was more than big enough for the Plymouth to drive through. On the other side of the opened doorway, I could just make out a leafy country lane. The sunlight there was subtly different. It felt odd to know I was looking at tomorrow.

“What is that?” said the sat nav nervously. “What the hell is
that
? I don’t like it. Just looking at it makes me feel funny.”

“No one else is paying any attention to the big dimensional door hanging in midair,” said Molly, peering quickly about her. “The Glass is pumping out a really heavy-duty, don’t-look-at-me aversion field. I didn’t know the Merlin Glass could do that. Could the old Merlin Glass do that?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “But this new version is certainly keen to show off all the clever tricks it can do. Very eager to please…”

“Do you find that as worrying as I do?” said Molly.

“Oh, at least,” I said.

“What? What?” said the sat nav. “What do you mean,
worrying
? What is there to worry about? Okay, forget it! I’m not going anywhere!”

“Oh yes, you are,” I said.

“Heh heh,” added Molly.

I fired up the Plymouth’s engine, set the car rolling forward and aimed her right at the Merlin Glass hovering before us. The sat nav made loud whining noises of distress. I put my foot down hard and drove the Plymouth Fury through the gateway and into tomorrow.

I
don’t know what all the fuss is about over time travel. I drove through twenty-four hours in a moment, and didn’t feel the slightest twinge of time sickness. From the city to the countryside, from today to tomorrow in one great jump. Though I couldn’t quite decide whether I’d lost a day or gained one. Molly took it all in stride, of course, as she does most things that don’t involve incest, morris dancing or eighties revivals. The sat nav stopped screaming as soon as we left the Merlin Glass behind, and quickly subsided to low whimpering sounds and muttered swear words.

“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” the sat nav said piteously. “I’ll be good!”

“I’d settle for you being quiet,” said Molly.

The Merlin Glass shrank down behind us, shaking itself down to hand-mirror size, and then hurried after the car, shooting down the road to ghost through the rear window and slip straight into my pocket dimension. Without being asked.

“All right,” I said loudly. “You’re showing off now.”

I eased the car to a halt and looked carefully about me. Molly actually undid her seat belt to give her more freedom to twist back and forth and look in all possible directions. There was a definite sense of tension, of both of us waiting for something to happen, for some unpleasant reaction
to our sudden arrival…some sign that Crow Lee had people lying in wait for us. But everything was still and calm and peaceful. It was just a narrow country lane in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, there was no sign of Crow Lee’s manor house anywhere.

We were completely alone, with no sign of civilisation for as far as the eye could see. Birds were singing, there was a quiet background hum of insects; just quiet early evening in the countryside. Bounding the road on either side were low stone walls assembled in the traditional style, jagged stones placed tight together without benefit of mortar. Beyond the walls, great open fields stretched away, a massive chequer board of clashing primary colours from assorted crops. Separated here and there by more old walls, bristling hedgerows and the occasional line of trees on the horizon acting as a windbreak. No cows, no sheep, no other roads; not even a signpost to tell us where we were or other places might be.

“Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?” said Molly.

“I suppose…this is as close as the Merlin Glass could get us to the exact coordinates,” I said. “Without setting off Crow Lee’s alarms…I did instruct the Glass to err very much on the side of caution.”

“All right, sat nav,” said Molly. “Make yourself useful. Which way to Crow Lee’s lair?”

“Oh, now you need me!” the sat nav said bitterly. “Well, tough. I don’t feel like it. I’ve just been put through a terrible experience and my nerves are a mess. Call back later and see if I’m home.”

“Give me the proper directions,” I said, “or I’ll open up the Merlin Glass again and see if it can jump us any closer.”

“Bully!” hissed the sat nav. “All right, all right. Let me see.…I’ve got a map here somewhere.…Ah. Yes. Drive straight on, third turn on the left, and then watch for the hidden entrance. Which I shall alert you to the moment I can find the bloody thing. Or maybe not! It all depends on how I feel, and don’t you forget it.”

“See how easy that was?” I said.

“You wait,” said Molly. “That thing will be driving us down a crease in the map before you know it.”

“I heard that!”

“Good!” said Molly.

The sat nav made a loud sarcastic noise and then settled for something that sounded very like teeth grinding together.

I drove carefully down the long leafy lane, in and out dark shadows cast by out-leaning trees, and slowed cautiously as I approached every corner, just in case there might be something lying in wait. But there wasn’t so much as a slow-moving piece of farm machinery. No traffic at all, in fact; not a jogger on a health kick or some exercise fiend hunched over a bicycle. It was as though we had the whole road to ourselves.

“Where is everybody?” I said after a while. “Did the world come to an end during the twenty-four hours we just jumped?”

“Don’t say that!” the sat nav said immediately. “Never give the universe ideas; it can be malevolent enough as it is.”

“You really are paranoid, aren’t you?” said Molly.

“I knew you were going to say that,” muttered the sat nav.

“I think Crow Lee just likes his privacy,” I said. “Probably pays everyone to stay well away from his lair—good word, that, Molly—and use other roads that don’t go anywhere near his place. And if he really does have his own private army, he can probably put the hard word on anyone who doesn’t feel like cooperating. I doubt if Crow Lee’s actually told them he’s the Most Evil Man in the World, but the locals must have got the idea by now. Crow Lee has never been the sort to hide his awful light under a bushel.”

“What is a bushel?” said the sat nav.

“A dry measure containing eight gallons or four pecks,” said Molly, just a bit unexpectedly.

“I’m glad one of us knew that,” I said. “I’d hate for us to be outsmarted by a sat nav.”

“Turn left now!” screamed the sat nav. “Now! Right now!”

I glimpsed the disguised turn just in time and hauled the steering wheel over. The Plymouth Fury turned smoothly into the narrow opening, hardly slowing at all. The new road was only just wide enough for
one car to drive down at a time, and I quickly decided that if we met anyone coming our way they’d better be really good at reversing. The road was bounded on both sides by high hedgerows blocking out most of the light. It was as though we’d gone straight from midday to twilight. I made myself relax, unclenching my hands from the wheel.

“Nice driving,” said Molly, staring straight ahead.

“I thought so,” I said.

“Hah!” said the sat nav cuttingly.

“A little advance warning would have been helpful,” I said loudly. “Whatever happened to,
In a hundred yards you will come to… 
?”

“Not my fault,” the sat nav said with a sniff. “That hidden entrance would have been invisible to your eyes, entirely undetectable. We wouldn’t have found it except for my highly trained sensors. And even I couldn’t see it till I was right on top of it. In fact, I’m not sure that entrance is really there all the time, unless you know where to look.…”

“He stole that idea from the Droods,” I said.

“Well,” said Molly. “At least we can be fairly certain we’ve come to the right place. At last.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” said the sat nav. “Wait till I’m in charge around here, and then you’ll see some smiting.”

I slowed the car right down, making my way cautiously along the narrow winding way. There were too many blind corners, too little good light and far too many dark shadows for my liking. It was like driving out of the day and into the night, with the surety of bad dreams ahead. This was a private road, part of Crow Lee’s private world, and like everything else he owned, he’d put his stamp on it. The dark greenery of the high hedgerows seemed to stir slowly, right on the edge of my vision, only to fall still again the moment I looked at it directly.

We rounded a final long sweeping corner and I hit the brakes hard as the road ended in a set of heavy black iron gates. They blocked the road completely from side to side, and gave every appearance of being very definitely locked. I couldn’t see any chains or padlocks, but I had no doubt there were other, more dangerous, protections in place. I
tapped my fingertips thoughtfully on the steering wheel while I considered my next move.

“Have you noticed… ?” said Molly. “All the natural sounds have stopped. The birds aren’t singing here.”

“Do you blame them?” I said. “In a place like this? Do you feel like singing?”

“Don’t you get snappy with me, Eddie Drood!”

“I never get asked to sing,” the sat nav said sadly.

“Well, colour me surprised,” said Molly.

“I do a great Bruce Springsteen!”

“Hush, children,” I said. “Daddy’s thinking.…”

The more I looked over the tall iron gates, the less I liked them. Long, vertical, parallel bars painted black as sin, and overlaid on them a stylised figure of a huge dragon. With great fangs and claws and sweeping wings, its outline stretched across both gates.

“I think we’re looking at the first layer of protection,” I said. “At the first sign of trouble, that dragon shape probably comes to life and goes all flamethrower on whoever’s calling. Or maybe…this was a real dragon once, and Crow Lee trapped it in this form to be his own personal attack dog.”

“No,” Molly said immediately. “I’d See that if it were there. It’s just a gate. Nice workmanship, though.”

“Spend enough time tracking down crazy in the head villains, and you end up thinking like them,” I said. “Those gates do look very thoroughly locked. I suppose I could just reverse, build up some speed, and crash right through them.”

“Don’t you dare!” said the sat nav. “You’ll scratch my paintwork and dent my grille!”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Molly said sweetly.

“Philistines!” howled the sat nav. “There will be a reckoning. Oh yes…”

“The gates are bound to be reinforced,” I said reluctantly. “And this is a loaner from the Regent.…”

I turned off the engine and got out. Molly was quickly out of her
seat, too, and we moved forward together to study the tall iron gates, while being very careful to maintain a respectful distance. I raised my Sight and had to fight down the urge to retreat several steps in a hurry. Layer upon layer of protections hung in the air: protective screens and force shields, magic and science combining to create a defence greater than the sum of its parts. They crawled slowly over one another, glowing with the kind of attenuated soft colours you find sliding across the surface of soap bubbles. Only more dangerous. There were enough defensive energies stored in the shields to rule out any thought of defusing them. Get one step wrong and the resulting blast would wipe out half the surrounding countryside.