Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (15 page)

I armoured down and gasped as the smoky air hit my bare face. I
looked at my left arm hanging limp at my side. Blood soaked the whole length of
my sleeve and dripped from my numb fingertips. I studied the arrow shaft
protruding from the meat of my shoulder. The metal was a brilliant silver,
shimmering and shining even in the bright sunlight. There were no feathers; an
arrow like this wouldn’t need them to fly true. I had to tell the family: the
Fae had found a weapon that could pierce our armour. Only I couldn’t tell them.
The moment I called home, the Matriarch would know I was still alive and send
more people to kill me. I looked at the arrow shaft again. Strange matter, from
some other dimension. Probably poisonous. Had to come out. Oh, shit, this was
going to hurt.

I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket, wadded it up, and bit
down hard. Then I gripped the shaft firmly and pushed it farther in, so that the
barbed head punched out my back. The handkerchief muffled my scream, but I still
nearly fainted at the pain. I reached up and around and awkwardly pulled the
shaft all the way through and out. Blood was pouring down my chest and back by
the time I’d finished. My face ran with sweat, and my hands were shaking. It had
been a long time since I was hurt this bad. I spat out the handkerchief and took
the arrow shaft in both hands. It seemed to squirm in my grasp. I broke it in
two, and it screamed inside my head. I dropped the pieces on the ground, and
they tried to turn into something else before falling apart into sticky smears
of something that couldn’t survive in this world.

I sat down in the driver’s seat before my legs collapsed under
me. After a while I pulled out the first aid box, opened it, and took out a
basic healer. Just a blob of preprogrammed simple matter, full of all kinds of
things that were good for me. I said the activating Word and slapped it against
the wound in my shoulder. The blob sealed it off immediately and pumped some
wonderful drug into me, cutting off the pain like a switch. I groaned aloud at
the sudden relief. The blob penetrated the wound with a narrow tendril,
repairing as it went, and emerged to seal off the wound in my back. I could feel
all this, but only in a vague and distanced way. I was sort of interested. I’d
never had to use one before. But I had other things on my mind.

I needed to know why my own grandmother had betrayed me. Why
she’d sent me to my death with a lie on her lips. I couldn’t go back to the Hall
for answers. Even if I did get past all the defences, she’d just call me a liar,
declare me rogue and apostate, and order the family to kill me. And everyone
would believe her, and no one would believe me, because she was the Matriarch
and I was…Eddie Drood. Whom could I still talk to, whom could I still trust,
after everything that had happened? Maybe just one man. I took out my mobile
phone and called Uncle James on his very private number. He cut me off the
moment he recognised my voice.

"Stay where you are. I’ll be right with you."

And just like that, he was standing before me, his mobile phone
still in his hand. The air rippled around him, displaced by the teleport spell.
We put away our phones and looked at each other. Concern filled his face as he
took in my condition and the blood still soaking my left arm. He started towards
me, but I stopped him with a raised hand. He nodded slowly.

"I know, Eddie. It’s always hard to learn you can’t trust
anyone. You look like shit, by the way."

"You should see the other guys, Uncle James."

He looked beyond me, at the carnage and wreckage I’d left
stretched down the length of the motorway, and he actually smiled a little.

"You did all that? I’m impressed, Eddie. Really."

"How did you get here so quickly, Uncle James?" I said slowly.
"Teleport spells need exact coordinates. How did you know exactly where to find
me on this long stretch of motorway, when even I’m not entirely sure exactly
where I am? What’s going on, Uncle James?"

"The homing device told us where you were, before you destroyed
it." Uncle James’s voice was calm, conversational. "The Matriarch sent me here,
Eddie. She gave me specific orders…said that if somehow you had survived all the
ambushes, I was to kill you myself. No warnings, not a word; just shoot you down
in cold blood. Why would she tell me to do that, Eddie? What have you done?"

"I don’t know! I haven’t done anything! None of this makes any
sense, Uncle James…"

"You’ve been officially declared rogue," he said. "A clear and
present danger to the whole family. Every Drood is authorised to kill you on
sight. For the good of the family."

We stood looking at each other. Neither of us wore our armour.
Neither of us had a weapon. His face was cold, even calm, but in his eyes I
could see a torment I’d never seen before. For perhaps the first time in his
life, James Drood didn’t know what to do for the best. He was torn between what
he’d been ordered to do and what was in his heart. Remember, this was the Gray
Fox, the most loyal and dependable agent the family had ever had. Uncle James.
Who’d been like a father to me. Who in the end wouldn’t, couldn’t, kill me.

We both sensed that at the same moment, and we both relaxed a
little.

"So," I said. "What do we do now?"

"I go back to the Matriarch. Tell her you were already gone when
I got here," Uncle James said flatly. "You…you run. Run, and keep running. Hide
yourself so deep that even I won’t be able to find you. Because if we meet
again, I will kill you, Eddie. I’ll have to. For the good of the family."

Uncle James disappeared without even saying good-bye, air
rushing in to fill the space where he’d been. I should have told him about the
faerie arrow that pierced my armour, but he hadn’t given me a chance, and
anyway, I was still in shock. My family wanted me dead. After everything I’d
done for them, after ten long years of fighting the good fight on their behalf,
this was my reward: to be declared rogue. Traitor. Outcast. I might have had my
disagreements with them, but they were still my family. I would never have
betrayed them. It’s one thing to run away from home; quite another to be told
you can’t go back because if you do they’ll kill you on sight. I looked at the
lead-lined container that should have held the Soul of Albion, staring into its
empty red plush interior as though it might have some answers for me. It didn’t,
so I threw it away.

I went back to the Hirondel and slid painfully in behind the
wheel again. I might be hurting in all kinds of ways, but I was still a
professional, so I had the car’s defence systems run a complete diagnostic, to
make sure there weren’t any more bugs or tracking devices anywhere on board. Or
indeed any other nasty and possibly fatal surprises. The car muttered to itself
for a bit, and then gave itself a clean bill of health. I relaxed a little and
started up the engine. Even after all she’d been through, the Hirondel roared
smoothly and immediately to life, ready to take me anywhere I wanted. It was
good to know there were still a few things left in my life that wouldn’t let me
down.

I headed the Hirondel back up the M4, away from the south, back
towards London. My home territory. If they were going to come for me, I wanted
it to be on home ground. I passed dead bodies and crashed vehicles, blazing
fires and black smoke and all the other damage I’d done. There seemed to be
quite a lot of it. Poor damned fools, dying for nothing, over a prize that was
never there. And if there were similarities in that to how my life had turned
out, I tried not to think about it. The Hirondel laboured along, reluctant to
hit high speeds anymore, but I was in no hurry anyway. The family’s remote
viewers couldn’t see or find me as long as I wore the torc. Slowly my shock
crystallised into anger, and then into something colder and more determined. I
wanted answers. My whole world had just been turned upside down, and I needed to
know why. According to James I had been officially declared a rogue, so none of
the other family out in the world would talk to me. Hell, most of them would try
to kill me the moment they set eyes on me. Droods have no mercy for traitors.

Which meant there was only one place left I could go for
answers, for the truth: the people I’d been fighting all my life. The bad guys.

I left the M4 by the first exit I came to. I needed to lose
myself in country roads and back lanes before the family’s search hounds came
sniffing up the motorway after me. I hadn’t gone half a mile down the exit
before I was forced to slow down and stop by a police barricade. It wasn’t a
particularly impressive barricade; just a few rows of plastic cones backed up by
the presence of two uniformed officers and a squad car. A long line of
stationary vehicles faced me in the other lane, and a small crowd of impatient
drivers had gathered on the other side of the cones, taking it in turns to
loudly berate the police officers. They all looked around as I approached in the
Hirondel, and they all seemed pretty surprised to see me. I stopped the car a
respectful distance away, and the police officers came over to talk to me. I
think they were quite pleased for an excuse to get away from the drivers. They
both did distinct double takes as they took in the condition of my car, and they
stopped a respectful distance away from me and ordered me to turn off my engine
and get out of my car. I smiled and did as I was told. They had answers, whether
they knew it or not.

I sat on the bonnet of the Hirondel and waited for them to come
to me. They approached cautiously, pointing out the bullet holes and the
shattered windscreen to each other. They hadn’t expected to see anything like
that on traffic duty. One of them started writing down my license plate number
in his little notebook, for all the good that would do him, while his colleague
came forward to interrogate me. I gave him a nice, friendly smile.

"Why is this section of the motorway sealed off?" I said
innocently, getting my question in before he could ask me for ID that I had
absolutely no intention of providing.

"Seems there’s been a chemical spill, sir. Very serious, so they
tell me. Are you sure you haven’t seen anything, sir? This whole section of the
M4 has been officially declared a hazardous area."

"Well, yes," I said, allowing myself another smile. "I did find
it rather hazardous in places…"

The police officer didn’t like the smile at all. "I think you’d
better stay here with us for a while, sir. I’m sure my superiors will want to
ask you some more detailed questions down at the station. And the hazmat people
will want to make sure you haven’t been exposed to anything dangerous." He
stopped. I was smiling again. He looked at me coldly. "This is a very serious
matter, sir. Please move away from your vehicle. I need to see some
identification."

"No, you don’t," I said. I drew my Colt Repeater from its
shoulder holster. The police officer put his hands in the air immediately, palms
out to show they were empty. His colleague started forward, and I raised the gun
just a little.

"Stay where you are, Les, and don’t be a fool!" said the other
officer.

"Remember your training!"

"It could be a replica," said Les, staying back but still
scowling at me.

I aimed casually at the squad car, and the Colt shot out all
four of the tyres. The small crowd of drivers by the cones cried out in shock
and alarm. People aren’t used to guns in England, which on the whole I approve
of. I gestured for both police officers to remove the cones from the road, and
they did so slowly and reluctantly. I kept a careful eye on them, making sure
they stuck together so I could cover both of them with the Colt. I had no
intention of shooting anyone, but they didn’t need to know that. The crowd of
drivers was starting to get restive. I needed to get under way before one of
them decided he was a hero type and did something stupid. Innocent bystanders
can be a real pain in the arse sometimes. I backed away and slid behind the
wheel of the Hirondel. I was breaking the first rule of the field agent; I was
being noticed. So, when in doubt, confuse the issue.

"Tell your decadent government that the Tasmanian Separatist
Alliance is on the move!" I announced grandly. "The oppressor will be forced to
bow down before our superior dogma! All dolphins shall be freed, and no more
penguins will be forced to smoke cigarettes!"

Which should give them something to think about. By the time
they’d picked the bones out of that and wasted even more time trying to track
down a terrorist group (and a license plate) that didn’t actually exist, I
should have had plenty of time to go to ground. I was going to have to lose the
Hirondel. It had become too visible, too noticeable. I gunned the engine,
annoyed, and roared past the police officers, the crowd of drivers, and the long
queue of waiting vehicles. I had to get to London, and fast. Some people leaned
out of their car windows to try to photograph me with their mobile phones. I
smiled obliging at them, secure in the knowledge that my torc hid me from all
forms of surveillance, scientific and magical. How else could field agents like
me operate in a world where someone is always watching you?

I left the queue behind and quickly disappeared into side roads
and bypasses. I had a secret hideout on the outskirts of London, one of several
I maintained for emergencies. The one I was thinking of was nothing special,
just a rented garage in a perfectly respectable residential area. But it had
everything I needed to go underground. To become invisible. I always kept my
hideouts up-to-date and stocked with useful items for those rare but inevitable
occasions when my cover was blown and I had to disappear in a hurry. I could go
into any of my boltholes as one man and come out as someone entirely different,
complete with totally new look and ID. The family didn’t know about these
places. They knew nothing about the way I operated. They’d never wanted to know.