Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (23 page)

"The new cabal is called Manifest Destiny," said Molly, just a
little grandly, after it became clear I had nothing to say for the moment.

"They, we, want humanity to be free from all outside control; by
the Droods or anyone else. Free to make its own destiny. The leaders of the
cabal have brought together powers from across the whole spectrum of opposition:
the Loathly Ones, the Cult of the Crimson Altar, the Dream Meme, Vril Power
Inc., even the Lurkers on the Threshold."

"Ah," I said. "The usual unusual suspects."

"Well, yes; plus a whole army of powerful and committed fellow
travellers. Like me. More than you ever dreamed possible, determined to break
the Droods’ stranglehold on humanity, once and for all. Not to gain power for
themselves, but just to set humanity free. That’s what makes this cabal so
different; for the first time it’s not about us."

"This…cabal," I said. "Were they behind recent attacks on my
family home?"

Molly shrugged. "I don’t get involved in day-to-day decisions. I
told you: I only work with them when I feel like it, on matters of mutual
interest."

"So I suppose you don’t know the identity of the traitor in my
family, either? Or why I was declared rogue?"

"I know there is a traitor. That’s old knowledge. And if it
matters, word is he or she approached Manifest Destiny, not the other way
around." She looked at me coolly, almost compassionately. "Poor little Drood;
they’ve taken away your innocence, and now you have to think for yourself. I
don’t know why your family threw you to the wolves, Eddie, but I know a few
people who might. Why don’t you come with me and meet some of my friends and
associates? See what they’re really like, when you and they aren’t busy trying
to kill each other. Not all of those condemned by your family are one hundred
percent dyed in the wool bad guys. Even monsters aren’t monsters all the time,
you know."

I nodded, too numb to muster any arguments. I wasn’t up to speed
yet. There was a great hole in my gut where my family used to be, and I hadn’t
figured out what to fill it with. Molly helped me to my feet, and then let go of
my arm immediately. She still wasn’t used to being this close to me. She turned
abruptly and headed off deeper into the forest. I hurried after her. We walked
together, maintaining a comfortable distance, for quite some time. Wherever this
forest was, it wasn’t inside her house. The door must have been spelled to
transport me straight here, wherever here was.

I’d just about worked this out when we came to another door,
standing on its own, upright and unsupported. Molly stood before it, muttering
Words under her breath. I wondered where this door would lead; what charming
underworld dive Molly wanted to show me. Café Night, perhaps, where vampires
flocked together to feast on willing victims. It started out as a fashionable
salon, but of late had lapsed into an S and M parlour. Vampires added whole new
shades of meaning to the phrase tops and bottoms. It might be the Black
Magicians’ Circle, which once upon a time was the place to be, if you worshipped
dark forces and could boast your very own demonic familiar. These days it was
more of a self-help and support group. The Order of the Beyond was still going
strong, in marvellous new high-tech premises down on Grafton Way, where people
offered themselves as temporary hosts to outer-dimensional beings in return for
forbidden and outré knowledge. Of course, conversations in that place did tend
towards the seriously weird…Molly pushed the door open and stepped through, and
I hurried in after her. And then I stopped abruptly and looked around me.

"Wait a minute! This…this is the Wulfshead Club!"

And it was. Just as big and bold and brassy and hellishly noisy
as it always was. Molly looked at me pityingly.

"Of course. Where else? The Wulfshead has always been the
hottest spot on the scene. Everyone comes here; good and bad and in between. You
never noticed the bad guys because you always mix with your own crowd, and we
all mix with ours. That’s what makes the club’s truce workable. Come on; come
and meet some of my friends. Looks like we have an interesting crowd in
tonight."

I was still a little dazed, so she grabbed me by the arm and
dragged me through the crowd in the direction of the bar. I let her. I felt I
could use a whole bunch of very large drinks. Several people nodded to Shaman
Bond, and several more nodded to Molly Metcalf. Some of them looked quite
surprised and not a little intrigued at seeing the two of us so openly together,
but no one said anything. The Wulfshead crowd understands the need for
discretion and the occasional blind eye. Molly and I ended up at one end of the
high-tech bar, where the professionally uninterested bartender served us drinks.
I had a very large brandy, Molly had a Southern Comfort, and I ended up paying
for both. She gestured for certain personages to come and join her, and they
drifted warily over.

Subway Sue I already knew. She drifted unseen among passengers
using the Underground trains, quietly leeching off a little luck from everyone
she brushed up against. Which is why so many people miss their trains or end up
on the wrong platform. To look at her, you’d think she was only one step up from
homeless, buried under layers of charity clothes, but that was just so that no
one would notice her. There was always someone willing to pay her good money for
the stolen luck she hoarded. On the quiet, Subway Sue lived very well.

Girl Flower was an ancient Welsh elemental, made up of rose
petals and owls’ claws long and long ago by an ancient travelling sorcerer who
might or might not have been Merlin. The story changed every time she told it.
She looked human enough, most of the time. Treat her right, and she’d be soft as
rose petals for you. Mistreat or wrong her, and the owls’ claws would come out.
And then the best you could hope for was when the authorities finally found what
was left of you, your relatives would be able to find an undertaker who was
really into jigsaw puzzles. Girl Flower had very high standards, which was why
she was always so very disappointed in men. But she remained optimistic, and the
police kept fishing body parts out of the Thames. Girl Flower dressed in bright
pastel colours, in gypsy styles, and wore so many bracelets they clattered
deafeningly every time she gestured. She’d had one glass of champagne and was
already more than a bit tipsy.

Digger Browne was a short, stocky personage, in an old-fashioned
wraparound coat with mud stains on the sleeves. He wore heavy woollen gloves
when he was out in public, to hide his long horny fingernails made for digging
and tearing. He also wore a wide-brimmed hat that hid most of his face in
shadow. Digger was a ghoul and smelt strongly of carrion and recently disturbed
earth.

"I’m just a part of nature," he said easily. "I take out the
trash, clean up the garbage, and generally keep the world tidy. So I enjoy my
work; is that a sin? Not everyone has a taste for the kind of work I do, but it
has to be done. Someone’s got to eat all those bodies. Remember the undertakers’
strike, back in the seventies? People couldn’t do enough for me then…"

And finally, there was Mr. Stab. I didn’t need to be introduced
to him. Everyone knew Mr. Stab, if only by reputation: the notorious uncaught
serial killer of old London Town. He’d operated under many names, down the long
years, and I don’t think even he knew for sure exactly how many people he’d
murdered since he started out with five unfortunate whores in the East End in
1888. He gained something, some power, from what he did then. A ceremony of
blood, he called it; a celebration of slaughter. And now he goes on and on and
no one can stop him. When he was just being himself at the Wulfshead, he still
dressed in the formal dark clothes of his time, right down to the opera cloak
and top hat.

Most of these people knew or at least knew of Shaman Bond, and
it came as quite a shock to them when Molly introduced me as Edwin Drood. Subway
Sue looked around for the nearest exit, Digger Browne chewed nervously on his
finger snack, and Girl Flower giggled at me owlishly over her glass. Mr. Stab
smiled slowly, showing large blocky teeth stained brown with age.

"So you’re Edwin Drood. The man behind the mask. You probably
have a body count nearly equal to mine."

"I kill to put an end to suffering," I said. "Not to celebrate
it."

"I serve a purpose, just as you do."

"Don’t you dare try to justify yourself to me!" I said, and my
voice was cold enough that everyone except Mr. Stab fell back a step.

"Why not?" said Mr. Stab. "I am a part of the natural order,
just like Mr. Browne here. I cull the herd, thin out the weak and helpless,
improve the stock. Someone has to do it, if the herd is to stay healthy."

"You do it because you enjoy it!"

"That too."

I started to subvocalise the Words that would call up my armour.
The only reason I hadn’t killed Mr. Stab before this was because I’d never known
where to look for him. I’d seen some of his victims, or what he’d left of them,
and that was enough for me. Molly guessed what I was about to do, grabbed me by
the arm, and pulled me around to glare right into my face.

"Don’t you dare embarrass me in front of my friends!"

"This is a friend? Mr. Stab? Do you know how many women just
like you he’s killed?"

"But he’s never harmed me, or any of my friends, and he has been
there for me when I needed him. Not even monsters are monsters all the time,
remember? I’ve killed, in my time, for what seemed like good reasons, and so
have you. You really think the world sees you as any different from him? How
many grieving families have you left in your bloody wake, Edwin Drood?"

I took a long slow breath and forced myself into a kind of calm.
I’d come here looking for answers, and the kind I needed could only be freely
given. I nodded jerkily to Molly, and she let go of my arm. We turned back to
face the others.

"There’s a traitor in my family," I said stiffly. "I would be
grateful for any information you could give me."

"How grateful?" said Subway Sue. "Are we talking serious money?"

"If I had serious money, do you really think I’d be here talking
to you?" I said just a bit ungraciously. "I’m rogue, outcast, outlaw. All I have
is what I stand up in."

"I’m sure we could make some kind of deal," said Girl Flower in
her breathy voice, batting her eyelashes at me, and then spoiled the mood by
giggling.

"There is a traitor at the heart of the Droods," said Digger
Browne.

"That’s common knowledge. But I don’t think anyone knows who."

"Lots of people have put forward names," said Mr. Stab. "But
it’s all guesswork. Lots of people thought it might be you, Edwin. A field agent
operating on his own, far from Drood central control, the only Drood ever to run
away from home and not be hunted down like a dog by his family. The only reason
everyone didn’t think it was you was because that would have been too obvious."

"And none of you know why I was made rogue?" I said.

"I’ve done some work for your family on occasion," said Digger.
"I’d have sworn you were depressingly squeaky clean, like most of your family. I
mean, yes, you run the world and everything, but—"

"I too have done work for the Droods," said Mr. Stab. He smiled
crookedly at me. "Pretty much everyone here has, at one time or another. It’s
the Droods’ world; we just live in it."

"We would never deal with filth like you," I said, but my heart
wasn’t in it. I didn’t know what my family was capable of anymore.

"There are many like us," Molly said carefully. "Allowed to
operate as long as we don’t rock the boat too much. As long as we pay tithes, or
perform the occasional service for them. Dirty jobs, off-the-books cases; the
kind you regular field agents aren’t suited for. The kind you were never
supposed to know about, because it might stain your precious honour. We’ve all
done the Droods’ dirty work. That’s why we’re all so ready to bring them down."

My head was spinning. I felt sick. Could I really have spent my
whole life supporting a lie? Was there really anything left to me now, except to
bring down my own family?

There are times in every man’s life when the woman you’ve taken
up with suddenly disappears on business of her own, and you’re left to make
polite conversation with her friends. Personally, I’d rather stick needles in my
eyes, but it’s one of those things you just have to do. Molly Metcalf produced a
one-time-only mobile phone and headed for the women’s toilet so she could reach
her contact in Manifest Destiny without being glared at by everyone else in the
club. I approved of her sense of caution. One-time-only phones are phones you
can use only once, and then immediately discard and destroy. A call that can’t
be tapped and a phone that can’t be traced. It was good to know Manifest Destiny
operated in a professional way. But it did mean I was left alone with Molly’s
friends, most of whom I would have tried to kill on sight only a few days
before. And vice versa, quite probably. So we stood and smiled awkwardly at each
other, while the only thing we had in common disappeared into the ladies’.

"So," I said finally to the ghoul, Digger Browne, as the least
obviously disquieting of the bunch, "you say you’ve done work for my family, on
occasion?"

He shrugged easily. "I help out, when called upon to do so. The
price of existence, in these hard times. My clan’s status is not what it was in
the old days, when we had an honourable place in society, cleaning up the mess
left behind by man’s many battles…These days, your family only ever call us in
to devour those bodies deemed too costly or too dangerous to otherwise dispose
of. You know; the kind that might rise again, or regenerate, or melt down into
hazardous waste. There’s not much a ghoul can’t digest. Though admittedly our
toilets have to be rather more thorough than most…"