Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (38 page)

“I’d hate to end up like that,” said Molly.

“You won’t,” I said. “Not while you’ve still got me.”

Her head whipped round sharply. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Something just changed,” said Molly. “I felt it. Angelica changed something.”

“Would I be correct in assuming that is not good?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay . . . ,” I said. “Any idea what, or where?”

“This way,” said Molly.

She led me back the way we’d already come. Moving quickly, as though worried it might already be too late to do whatever needed doing.

“We’re going back to the arrival room?” I said. “How the hell did she slip in behind us?”

“She always did know these tunnels better than me,” said Molly, not looking round.

“Now you tell me,” I said.

We hurried down tunnel after tunnel, plunging out of one and into another, until finally Molly crashed to a halt, breathing harshly. I looked quickly round, but couldn’t see anything. I was getting really tired of that. Molly pointed to a section of the tunnel wall up ahead. I moved carefully forward, and there in the rough stone was a dimensional Door. I didn’t need to put on my mask to sense the fierce dimensional energies surging around the ordinary-looking wooden door, with no frame or hinges. I could feel the limitless possibilities, of all the places it could
take me, tingling against my skin like background radiation. A small brass combination lock had been set into the wood of the Door, just where you’d expect a handle, to select the Time/Space coordinates for wherever you wanted to go.

“What the hell is something that powerful doing down here?” said Molly. “And before you ask, yes, I’m sure it wasn’t here before. This is new. Angelica’s doing.”

“The only way to discover the Door’s current setting would be to open it,” I said. “And I am ready to class that as a really bad idea.”

Angelica Wilde appeared, just suddenly standing in the tunnel, from where she faced Molly and me. As though she’d been there all along and we hadn’t noticed her because she wouldn’t let us. She was smiling that awful cold smile again, reminding me uncomfortably of the death’s-head grins on the skeletons she’d sent against us. If anything, she looked even crazier.

“The Door is my bait, my trap,” she said. “I knew it would bring you here. To me.”

“All you had to do was stand still,” said Molly. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Of course you have!” said Angelica. “You want to kill me. You have to kill me, because you know that’s the only way you can stop me from killing Eddie. But I won’t go down alone. This Door opens onto the bottom of the North Sea. Just think of all the pressure, all the tons of water, pressed up against the other side of that Door. Ready to flood into this tunnel the moment I open it! Even you and your armour couldn’t survive that, Eddie Drood. And don’t think you can use your Glass to escape; I’m suppressing it.”

“But you’d drown with us!” said Molly.

“It’ll be worth it,” said the Fury. “To have my revenge at last. You think I want to go on living without my husband?”

“What if I could give him back to you?” I said.

She looked at me. Thrown completely, by the one thing I could say that she wasn’t expecting. I moved over to the Door, armoured up my hand, and sent golden tendrils surging into the lock. I entered the access codes for the Dreamtime, which were still fresh in my armour’s memory from a recent case I worked with the Soulhunters. The combination lock spun frantically, and then slammed to a halt. I whipped out the golden tendrils, and the Door opened, onto the Dreamtime.

It swung back into the wall, and light blasted out into the mine tunnel. A glorious illumination, like no other light in the world. Older, purer; primordial. Sounds rang out from behind the Door, wild and free, like mountains singing to one another at the dawn of the world. I raised my voice and addressed the Dreamtime.

“Armin del Santos, come out! Your wife is waiting for you.”

And out he came, stepping through the Door and into the tunnel, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. A tall, handsome young man, in a checked shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. His face was full of a wonderful calm. He smiled at Angelica, and she tried to smile back as tears ran down her face. She didn’t look crazy any more.

“They told me you weren’t dead,” she said numbly, “but I wouldn’t believe them. Oh, my love, my love, you haven’t aged a day in all these years . . . And I have. Don’t look at me. I’m not the woman you knew.”

“That’s why I’m here,” said Armin. “Come with me, Angel.”

Angelica looked into the marvellous light spilling out from beyond the Door, and slowly shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t belong in a place like that. Not after everything I’ve done.”

“Yes you do,” said Armin. “Because of everything you’ve done. That’s the point. The beginning of the world is a new beginning for everyone.”

He took her by the hand and led her through the Door, into the Dreamtime. To learn a better way, like him. The Door closed itself behind them. I grabbed the combination lock with my golden hand and ripped it right off the Door so it could never be opened again. From this side.

Molly threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “I do love a happy ending!” And then she let go and stepped back, smiling just a little shakily. “Now all we have to do is find one for you.”

“That would be nice,” I said solemnly.

And that was when a voice spoke to us, from beyond the Door. It didn’t sound like anything that belonged in the Dreamtime. A professionally warm and confident voice, like a cold-calling salesman.

“Hello there! Do I have the honour of addressing Roxie Hazzard?”

Molly looked at me.

“Whatever you do, do not say,
Come in,
” I said. “Don’t even think it loudly.”

Molly put on her Roxie voice, and addressed the Door. “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”

“Yes, that sounds like Roxie Hazzard,” said the Voice. “Word has reached me that you have been trying to locate Dr DOA. I’ve been trying to contact you for some time to discuss this, but you’re very hard to pin down.”

“Yeah, well, I get around,” said Roxie. “I’ve been busy. How did you find me here?”

“I didn’t,” said the Voice. “Someone else did. Now, why are you so keen to talk to Dr DOA?”

“Because I want to hire him,” said Roxie.

“And who do you want killed?”

“Molly Metcalf,” said Roxie.

“Ambitious,” said the Voice. “And expensive. Luckily for you, the Doctor is in. Go to the Hiring Ground in London and ask for the Psychic Surgeon. He’ll be there for the next two hours. He can put you in touch with Dr DOA.”

The Voice fell silent. Roxie called after him, yelled at him, even kicked the Door, but the Voice was gone.

“Interesting,” Molly said finally, in her own voice. “He knew enough to find me here, but he didn’t know Roxie is Molly. And the Hiring
Ground? That’s pretty down-market for someone as supposedly exclusive as Dr DOA.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” I said. “Who’d expect to find someone like him in a place like that? Still; the Psychic Surgeon? That scumbag . . . Do you know him?”

“Not personally,” said Molly, “but like a great many people in our line of work, I know of him. Scumbag pretty much sums him up.”

“Basically a con man,” I said. “Though a lot of his powers are supposed to be the real deal. The man who can cut bad things out of your soul. Molly, this has to be some kind of trap.”

“We have to risk it!” said Molly. “Because it’s the only lead we’ve got, and because we’ve nowhere else to go . . .”

I nodded. “Then it looks like this is a case for Shaman Bond and Roxie Hazzard!”

“Damned right!” said Roxie.

Hard Times Make for Hard Choices

D
r DOA. The man who murdered me. In my sights at last.

After getting sidetracked by so many distractions, it felt good to have a solid lead at last. Assuming nothing else went wrong, of course. I retrieved the Merlin Glass from its pocket dimension and held it out before me. The hand mirror stared innocently back, as though the thought of misbehaving had never even occurred to it. But there was still something about the way my reflection was looking back at me that I really didn’t like. It seemed to be smirking rather than smiling, and there was something about the eyes . . . I looked like I knew something I didn’t. On an impulse, I pulled several extreme faces, and my reflection duplicated them all perfectly.

“Eddie, what are you doing?” said Molly. “Trying to break it?”

“Just testing,” I said.

I looked around, and found Molly had transformed herself into Roxie Hazzard. The tall muscular redhead in a black leather jacket, with a length of steel chain wrapped around her waist. Every inch a warrior woman. She grinned at me cheerfully, and I nodded back respectfully.

“Yes,” I said. “Where we’re going, that’s the kind of look that will get us answers.”

“You negotiate,” said Roxie, “and I’ll intimidate.”

“I can be intimidating,” I said.

“Of course you can, dear,” said Roxie.

“I’m a Drood!”

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. It’s just that you’ve been trained, while I have natural talent.” She stopped, and looked at me seriously. “We’re getting close to Dr DOA, Eddie. I can feel it.”

“We’ve been invited to meet a go-between,” I said. “A meeting that will almost certainly turn out to be a trap.”

“Then we’ll just have to make sure that it’s our trap,” said Roxie. “Because I have the bit between my teeth, and I am not letting this lead get away from me.”

I hefted the Merlin Glass in my hand. “I hate depending on this, when it’s so important . . . but I take it you don’t have enough magic in you to transport us to the Hiring Ground?”

“I’ve barely got enough left to teleport us to the surface,” said Roxie. “Never mind all the way to London. Physical transport is hard; it takes a lot of power. You’re basically slapping the universe in the face to get its attention, telling it you’re not where it thinks you are but somewhere else, and then slapping it again if it looks like arguing. You can do that only so many times before the universe starts slapping back.”

“I don’t know why I ask you questions,” I said. “I’m never any happier for knowing the answers.”

“What’s the best way into the Hiring Ground these days?” Roxie said briskly. “It’s been a long time since I showed my face there, as Molly or Roxie. Is it still a major shithole?”

“I doubt very much that it’s changed for the better,” I said. “But I haven’t been there in ages either. Assuming the old entrance points are still valid . . . I think our best bet would be around the corner from Kings Cross railway station.”

Roxie pulled a face. “Not the most salubrious of areas.”

“Then Shaman Bond and Roxie Hazzard should fit in nicely,” I
said. “I’m told parts of the area are very nice these days, thanks to recent regeneration. Mind you, they keep saying that about most of London, and I’m rarely impressed.”

“Just being near the Hiring Ground probably lowers the area’s tone,” said Roxie.

I held the hand mirror out before me. “Give me a view of the Kings Cross area, near the Hiring Ground.”

My reflection disappeared immediately, replaced by a bustling scene of London at night. Bright lights and loud traffic, and all kinds of people surging back and forth, hurrying on their way to somewhere important. Every single one of them staring straight ahead, to make it clear they were minding their own business. Taxi drivers leaned constantly on their horns, while big red London buses pulled out in front of everyone and bounced slower-witted cyclists off their heavy sides, just because they could. Trucks weighed down far beyond the legal limits carried the kind of goods you were never going to get a receipt for. And everyone else just tried to stay out of everyone else’s way.

“Some years back, I remember watching a BBC documentary about Kings Cross,” I said. “They claimed the station area was rife with prostitution and drug trafficking. I used to go through there on a regular basis when I was a London field agent, and I never saw anything. Mind you, I was probably too busy looking for monsters and aliens and the like.”

“I suppose that world is a lot like ours,” said Roxie. “Unless you know what to look for, you’re never going to see it. Two worlds existing side by side, barely touching. Parallel, but separate.”

“A lot like our world, and the everyday world,” I said.

“Except the hidden world is much more glamorous,” said Roxie.

“Well of course,” I said. “We’re in it.”

I shook the hand mirror out to Door size, and the view became an open window. A breeze blew through from Kings Cross, bringing with it enticing scents from a dozen ethnic restaurants and the smell of
massed vehicle emissions. The roar of the traffic almost drowned out the roar of the crowds. I strode through the Door, with Roxie right on my heels. Out of the dark of the Deep Down Pit, and into the darkness of Kings Cross at night. No one noticed our arrival. I shook the Glass down and put it away.

“At least the Glass is behaving itself,” said Roxie.

“For now,” I said.

Roxie linked her arm through mine, and we set off down the street. People moved quickly to get out of our way, without quite seeming to realise they were doing it. Perhaps because sheep can always sense wolves in their midst. No one looked twice at Roxie’s colourful outfit; in this part of London, she was almost dowdy, compared to some of the fashions on display. Sharp suits and pretty frocks; punks and hippies; every subculture you could think of and every fetish under the moon.

“I never knew the leather-and-straps look was so in,” I said.

“You need to get out more,” said Roxie.

I laughed briefly. “I was always a lot more innocent than was good for me. For years, I thought BDSM stood for ‘Belle Dame sans Merci.’”

“Not a million miles off,” said Roxie. “Where are we going, Eddie?”

“Down here,” I said.

I took a sudden side turning, and just like that, the whole nature of the area changed. The crowds disappeared, while the general ambience made a rude gesture and lurked in corners. Boarded-up and whitewashed windows to every side, shops that were never open, and shadowy people just standing around for no obvious reason. I walked straight past them as though I belonged there, and they just assumed I did. It’s all in the walk. A few people glanced at Roxie, and she glared right back at them. No one looked twice. Wolves can always recognise an alpha predator.

I stopped before an old-fashioned red public telephone box, pressed up against a stained brick wall. The box had seen better days, some forty years ago. The glass panes were cracked or broken, the paintwork was
chipped and grubby, and the phone had been ripped out. Some of the locals had been using the box as a toilet. Quite recently. Roxie turned up her nose.

“I thought all these old telephone boxes had been taken away, long ago?”

“Most have,” I said. “But not this one. Partly because it still serves a purpose, but mostly because it never was on any official list. I doubt there was ever a working phone in the box; it’s just protective camouflage.”

I pulled open the door, stepped inside, and gestured for Roxie to join me. Together, we filled all of the available space. Roxie wriggled deliberately and gave me a bright smile.

“Okay, now what?”

I gave the back of the box a good hard shove, and it swung open into the brick wall, accessing a great open hall. I stepped into the building beyond, and Roxie hurried after me. I let go of the door, and it swung quietly shut again.

“Welcome to the Hiring Ground,” I said.

“That’s it?” said Roxie. “No security guards or protections?”

“Getting in is easy,” I said. “Getting out again, alive and intact, is something else.”

Roxie looked around. “I was right. Still a shithole.”

The Hiring Ground was one big open area, with a tall arched ceiling. Packed from wall to wall with booths and stalls and trestle tables, and the occasional expensive commercial stand. People everywhere shouted their wares, while vendors at the booths competed to see who had the loudest sound systems. Crowds of extremely assorted people bustled up and down the narrow aisles, all of them talking at once. The volume was painfully loud, but no one seemed to give a damn. There was a certain grubby vitality to the place, but I didn’t care for all the greed and avarice on open display.

“Reminds me of the Nightside,” I said.

“No,” Roxie said immediately. “The Nightside is all about sin. The Hiring Ground specializes in commerce. Not that sin is excluded, you understand, as long as someone thinks they can make a profit from it. The Hiring Ground is all about money.”

“Just remember,” I said. “We’re not here looking for bargains.”

“There’s always time for shopping!” Roxie said cheerfully.

“You buy it; you carry it.”

The Hiring Ground goes back to Victorian times, though there are stories of earlier venues that go all the way back to the Roman city of Londinium. Unlike the much better-known and far superior Hiring Hall, which I’d visited not long ago on a case involving a plot to steal the Crown Jewels, the Hiring Ground is an altogether more desperate and sinister affair.

The Hiring Hall can boast stands and booths for any number of Governments, Spy Organisations, and important Special Interest Groups. A place to make the kind of deals that matter, with people who matter. The Hiring Hall attracts the upper crust and the upper levels—gods and monsters, rogues and villains, and creatures of the night. All very up-market, and no one ever makes any trouble because of the dozen or so big brass golems standing around the perimeter. Just waiting for a chance to make a nasty example of someone. The Hiring Hall is an ancient market for civilised people.

The Hiring Ground is where you go when you’re looking for dirty deeds done cheap and nasty. Neutral ground for mercenaries and adventurers, con men and killers, ghouls and ghosts . . . all of them desperate for a paying gig, and no longer in any position to be choosy about what it might involve.

Grubbily dressed vampires and shabby werewolves thrust flyers for specialized sex clubs into people’s hands as they passed. No one ever said no, but no one ever kept them. Blinking on and off like faulty light
bulbs, ghosts flickered from stall to stall, looking to hire themselves out with offers of everything from subsidized hauntings to pestering debtors. It’s a hard life when you’re dead, and your options are limited. Ghouls slouched around, showing their toothy grins, always ready to dispose of an unwanted corpse. Because they’ll eat anything, up to and including toxic waste spills. A bunch of alien Greys, in ill-fitting black suits and designer sunglasses, politely indicated their ability to make anyone disappear. Short term or long term.

There were stalls selling very special weapons to kill the kinds of things that shouldn’t exist in a sane and rational world. Or specialized burglary tools, for getting in and out of haunted houses. Coats made from the pelts of creatures that don’t officially exist. Wines so potent you could get drunk just reading the labels on the bottles. Sex toys for mutant women, surgical tools for operating on alien hybrids, and bodily by-products of the rich and famous (carefully bottled and authenticated, and useful in all manner of unpleasant ways).

Every single bit of it desperately down-market, sleazy, and disreputable; nothing you’d want to brag about buying afterwards. The Hiring Ground is where you go when no one reputable will let you past their doors. Do I really need to tell you that most of what’s on display is not what it claims to be? That most of it is going to be faked, adulterated, or a complete con? The Hiring Ground is home to the fraudulent, the forger, and the confidence trickster. Buyer beware, and be sure to count your fingers after you’ve shaken hands on the deal.

Roxie wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this place has gone even more down-market. I used to hang out here a lot in my younger days, as Molly and Roxie. When I was still finding my feet in the hidden world. Looking for causes worth fighting, causes that would pay enough for me to live on. Vendetta may satisfy the soul, but it doesn’t put a roof over your head or food on the table.”

“What kind of jobs did you end up doing?” I said, genuinely curious.

She shrugged. “Mostly strong-arm stuff. Bodyguarding and general security. For the kind of people and places no one else would touch. Overseeing the transport of very special items from one location to another. Helping collectors get their hands on the kinds of things that are never going to appear on the open market, and then keeping them alive afterwards. A lot of it was about keeping people alive, when someone else wanted them dead. Usually with good reason.” She stopped, and looked at me directly. “I never killed anyone for pay, if that’s what you’re asking.”