Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (10 page)

“Didn’t stop Jacob from occupying the Chapel,” said Molly.

“He had a special dispensation,” I said. “And what would I do, anyway, as a ghost? Stick around to watch you grow old? Watch you start a new life with someone else? Move on, and forget me?”

“I would never do that!” said Molly.

“Of course you would. That’s what the living do. You had a life before me, and you’ll have a life after I’m gone.” I stopped and looked at her. “Molly, that’s what I want.”

She looked into my face, searchingly. “Really?”

“Well,” I said. “If truth be told, what I really want is for my passing to break hearts and ruin lives. I want mass weeping and a month of national mourning. But then, after that, everyone should just get on with their lives.” I looked around. “It wasn’t that long ago I was here for Jack’s funeral. And soon they’ll be holding mine. I hope the weather’s nice.”

I looked back at the Hall, far behind me now. Just a great brooding presence on the horizon. Weighed down by history, and all the generations of Droods who’d lived and served in that hulking edifice to duty and responsibilities. So many stories, come and gone. And that’s all I would be now. Just another story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Which made me think of the Winter Hall, that cold empty place where I passed the time in Limbo, caught between Life and Death. A frost-covered shadow of my home, where I walked through empty corridors haunted by memories. Until Molly came and got me and brought me home. She wouldn’t be able to do that this time. She liked to boast she’d been to Heaven and Hell and everywhere in between, but she’d never brought anyone back from the dead. There are some limits even the wild witch of the woods has to respect.

The Winter Hall reminded me of the Other Hall, which briefly took the place of my Hall, thanks to the dimensional engine Alpha Red Alpha. The Other Hall had been home to a whole different family of Droods, on a different earth. Someone killed them all and blew up their home, leaving only burned-out ruins and dead bodies. Some still wrapped in half-melted golden armour. I never did find out who was
responsible for that. Another thing I’d always meant to get around to, but life kept getting in the way.

For a while there, I thought I was the last Drood. So many people have died on my watch. Friends and family, allies and enemies. Some I’d seen die; some I killed myself. For what seemed like good reasons at the time. More faces, more stories. So much death in my life.

I wandered on through the grounds, just going where my feet led me. Visiting various places Molly and I had been before. On the edge of the grounds, I found a place of dead earth and dark trees. I stopped.

“This was where we broke into the grounds, the first time I came here with you,” I said. “After my family had declared me rogue and wanted me dead.”

“Yes,” said Molly. “I remember.”

“This is where we met the scarecrows . . .”

“I know. I still have nightmares about them sometimes.”

“That’s my family for you.”

The scarecrows are part of my family’s outer defences. Stuffed and preserved human figures that look like they’ve just come down off their crosses with bad intentions on their minds. Unstoppable, unfeeling things driven to fight all intruders. My family makes them out of the bodies of our most hated enemies, to guard the family they tried to harm. Eternal punishment, or for as long as they last. I remembered how they looked, lurching out of the shadows to face us. Their clothes rotting and falling apart, their faces stretched taut, brown as parchment and as brittle. Tufts of straw protruded from their ears and mouths. Their eyes were still alive, still suffering. I remembered names . . . Laura Lye, the water elemental assassin known as the Liquidator. Mad Frankie Phantasm. And the Blue Fairy, who had been my friend, my ally, and my enemy. Half Drood and half elf, and never sure which was his true nature. In the end, he guessed wrong. My relatives have always found it hard to forgive those who betray them.

I led the way back across one of the biggest lawns, where once an
army of Accelerated Men had come spilling onto the grounds to attack us, through a dimensional Gate opened by our worst enemies, the Immortals. It seemed to me I could still see the ghosts of dark figures, running straight at the Drood defenders, superhumanly fast and strong, burning themselves out just to get at us. Used by the Immortals as supercharged attack dogs. Hundreds of Accelerated Men died on this open ground, lied to and betrayed, sacrificed on the altar of our enemies’ hatred. We killed them all. We had to.

“So much fighting,” I said finally. “So much blood and death on these grounds, and so few picnics and pleasant walks. That’s the Drood life for you.”

“You never cared much for picnics, or walks of any kind,” said Molly. “You were always more interested in a pie and a pint at the pub, or a good book in a comfy chair.”

“I might have developed a taste for such things if I’d had the time,” I said. “We were always so busy, always in such a hurry . . .”

“I could conjure us up a picnic hamper,” said Molly. “If you like. We never did get our Christmas meal. We could just sit down here, take a break . . .”

“No,” I said. “I’m not hungry right now. Maybe later.”

It occurred to me that I had to stop saying that. Stop putting things off. Because all too soon there wouldn’t be a later. A sudden horror took me, a despair at being caught in a trap with no escape, no way out. Trapped in a body that had turned against me. My heart lurched in my chest at the sheer unfairness of it all, and for a moment I couldn’t get my breath. Molly saw the panic rising in my face. She moved in close, placing her hands on my chest and murmuring comforting words until I had control again. I nodded slowly and smiled my thanks to her.

“Live in the moment,” I said. My voice sounded harsh, even to me. “I can do this. I have to do this. I’ve been close to death before; it comes with the job . . . Why does it bother me so much now?” I looked at Molly and knew why. “Because now I’m not just losing me; I’m losing you.”

We walked on, together.

“We never did get married,” I said after a while.

“I never asked you,” said Molly.

“I could have said something,” I said. “There would have been problems with my family, but . . .”

“Eddie, I never wanted it.” Her voice was firm. “I never felt the need. We had each other, and that was all that mattered.” She stopped suddenly, so I stopped with her. She looked at me. “I said
had . . .
Like it’s already over. I won’t accept that. I’ll never accept that.”

“At the end,” I said, “if it gets bad . . . I don’t want you around me. If I do end up dying by inches in some hospital bed . . . I don’t want you to see me like that.”

“I’ll never leave you,” said Molly. “You’ll always be my Eddie. Do you really think I’m that shallow?”

“I don’t want you sitting at my bedside, watching me die,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to go through that. I wouldn’t do it for you. I couldn’t . . . A man should die on his own. It’s the last important thing he has to do; he should be left alone, to concentrate on getting it right.”

“You do talk crap sometimes,” said Molly. “You know damned well you can’t do anything practical without me there to help.”

“Of course,” I said. “What was I thinking? The two of us, together . . . Not forever, after all. But together till the end.”

“I can live with that,” said Molly.

We smiled and walked on, arm in arm.

“How do you feel?” said Molly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all happened so quickly. I cheated death so many times, out in the field, that I stopped thinking about it. But I should have known . . . everyone’s luck runs out eventually.”

“You were ready to die for me earlier today,” said Molly. “Standing on the edge of that airship . . .”

“That was different,” I said. “There was a purpose to that. This feels so random . . . Like I just drew a bad ticket in some lottery. Mostly, I feel
angry. That I won’t have the life, the future, I thought I was going to have. With you.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, once you’re gone,” said Molly.

“You’ll think of something,” I said.

“Are you scared?” said Molly. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “I’ve had a good . . . Well, I don’t know about good, but I’ve certainly had an interesting life. And I had you. Finding you was enough good luck for any one life.”

“How can you be so accepting?” said Molly.

“I’m not,” I said. “But I can fake it, long enough to find Dr DOA. And put a stop to him. Not just for me, but for all his victims. Be strong for me, Molly. For when I can’t.”

“I’m here, Eddie. I’m here.”

We came at last to the great grassy mound at the rear of the Hall, under which was buried a dragon’s head. Struck off by Baron Frankenstein centuries ago, but still somehow living. I found it, alive and lonely, under a hillside overlooking the ruins of Castle Frankenstein. So I brought it back to Drood Hall, because it didn’t seem right to just leave it there. The dragon’s head seemed quite happy in its new home, always ready to chat with any passing Drood. It seemed to me that the mound was somewhat bigger than I remembered from the last time I visited.

“Sorry it’s been a while,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”

“That’s all right,” said the dragon’s voice. Deep and resonant, rich as wine, old as the hills. “The Armourer and their lab assistants are always popping by. My condition fascinates them. They’re always bringing strange new machines to my mound to try out on me. And the Librarian often stops by, so we can discuss history. I’ve seen so much of it. I do miss the old Armourer, your uncle Jack. He kept saying he was going to grow me a new body, but . . . I have heard what’s happened, Eddie. I understand how you’re feeling. I wasn’t ready to die either, when the old Baron cut off my head.”

“But you’re still alive!” said Molly. Almost accusingly.

“You call this living?” said the dragon. “Sorry. That was an old joke, even in my time. The point is, I didn’t expect to survive my beheading. It had been such a long time since I’d seen any others of my kind, I had no idea we were so . . . durable. I really believed my time was up. And even though I’d lived for centuries, I still wasn’t ready. No matter how long you’ve had, it never seems enough. You’re never ready to let go. At least you have some time, Eddie, to put your affairs in order.”

“And get revenge on my murderer,” I said.

The dragon rumbled approvingly. “You would have made a good dragon.”

I said my good-byes to him, just in case we didn’t meet again. It occurred to me, I was probably going to be doing a lot of that. And then I carried on through the grounds. Molly was quiet for a long time.

“Promise me one thing,” she said finally.

“If I can.”

“Don’t ever say good-bye to me. I’ve never been any good at good-byes.”

“I’ll probably have other things on my mind,” I said kindly.

I was trying to look at everything, force every detail into my mind. Because once I left the Hall to go after Dr DOA, it was possible I might never get to come back. Never see any of this again. I could die, chasing the man with death for a name. It felt . . . like I was saying good-bye to my life. To my world.

I walked up and down and back and forth, and Molly followed along wherever I wanted to go. She didn’t say anything about the time passing. Until I realised I was just putting off going back to the Hall, to begin my last mission. I stopped, took a deep breath, and headed back to the Hall by the shortest route. I always felt better, and stopped worrying about things, once I’d settled on a course of action. Molly saw where we were heading and understood our break was over. That we were going back to work.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“Well, to start with, we don’t panic,” I said. “We work the possibilities. I don’t care who this Dr DOA really is; he can’t operate in a vacuum. He can’t do his work in our world without leaving traces. He has to arrange things, buy things, make travel plans . . . There’s got to be a trail somewhere. So we go out there and start leaning on people. Someone will talk. Someone always talks. Enough to point us in the right direction. What’s wrong, Molly? You look disappointed.”

“When you said
possibilities
, I thought you meant looking for a cure.”

“Molly . . .”

“We can’t just give up!”

“I’m not,” I said. “But I’ll leave the last-minute-miracle stuff to the experts. They have the resources, and the time. We have to concentrate on what we can do.”

“There’s still the Nightside!” said Molly. “There’s always someone in the long night who can do anything. If you’ve got the money.”

“Somehow that thought doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” I said.

“Money is a great motivator,” said Molly. “You know, if all else fails . . . I could always bring you back. Like Dead Boy.”

“No thank you,” I said firmly. “I don’t want to be like that.”

“You don’t know,” said Molly. “You’ve never met him.”

“I’ve heard about him. I’ve heard lots about him.”

“Or like Larry Oblivion, the dead detective!”

“Even more no thank you. I’ve met Larry. We worked a case together some years back.”

“You never said!”

“I don’t tell you everything.”

“There are other places, outside the Nightside!” Molly said desperately. “All kinds of extreme hospices, voodoo parlours, future-tech establishments . . . all the shadowy places on the borderlands, where they do things no one else can! I know places. I know people . . .”

“My time is limited, Molly. I’d rather spend what’s left of it hunting down the man who killed me and making him pay. Rather than risk his getting away because I was too busy chasing false hopes.”

“I still have friends in Heaven and Hell who owe me favours . . .”

“Not any more,” I said. “All your old Pacts and Agreements were rendered null and void when your debts were taken care of by the Powers That Be. Remember?”

“Damn,” said Molly. “Okay . . . Look, I’ll contact my sisters. See what Isabella and Louisa have to say. They know things and people I don’t.”

“If you like,” I said.