Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (25 page)

The smell wasn’t getting any easier to take.

There were rats everywhere, scuttling and scurrying and pausing
now and then to bare their yellow teeth at us. Many were bigger by far than any
rat had a right to be, and they didn’t seem nearly scared enough of us to suit
me. I’ve got a bit of a thing about rats. Most just watched us pass from their
holes and lairs, dark beady eyes gleaming malevolently. Molly amused herself by
pointing her finger at those who got too close, whereupon they immediately
exploded wetly in all directions at once. Girl Flower squeaked loudly every time
this happened and finally stopped to pick up most of a dead rat and hold it
close to her bosom.

"Poor little ratty."

"Oh, ick," said Molly.

"I am flowers, darling," Girl Flower said stubbornly. "And all
dead things are compost to my pretty petals."

She slipped the rat carcass inside the front of her dress, and
it immediately disappeared. Molly looked at me. "Think about that, the next time
she invites you to unbutton her blouse."

I looked determinedly in another direction. "If she starts
coughing up owl pellets, she’s going back."

We moved on, into the darkness. Tunnel led to tunnel, twisting
and turning deep under London’s streets. Others had been here before us, leaving
their marks upon the brick walls. Some were hopeful; some were despairing
messages to loved ones they never hoped to see again. There were arrows,
pointing in varying directions, and even the occasional crude map scratched into
the brick. Masonic symbols, odd phrases in old forgotten languages…I half
expected to find Arne Saknussemm’s initials. Or Cave Carson’s. We pressed on,
following Molly’s glowing arrow. Her protective field kept the filth at bay,
even when we occasionally had to wade through the revolting waters to get to
another tunnel. Pity it couldn’t do anything about the smell.

We stopped abruptly as Mr. Stab broke away from us to study a
particular section of brick wall close up. I moved in beside him for a look, but
it seemed no different from any other wall we’d passed. The curving surface ran
with damp, as though sweating in the uncomfortable heat, and the original colour
of the brick was lost under layers of accumulated filth and clumps of bulging
white fungus. Mr. Stab ran his fingers caressingly over the surface, ignoring
the thick residue that appeared on his expensively tailored gloves. My first
thought was that it seemed there were definite limits to Molly’s protective
field, and not to touch anything with my hands, but I was quickly distracted by
the look on Mr. Stab’s face. He was smiling, and it wasn’t a very nice smile.

"I remember this place," he said, and something in his soft
voice raised all the hackles on the back of my neck. "It’s been a long time
since I was down here. I think they were still building this section then…I used
to come here all the time, to get away from the bustle and noise of
Humanity…Yes, I remember this place."

He pressed a particular brick, and it sank inwards with a loud
click. Mr. Stab put all his weight against the wall, and a large section swung
slowly inwards on concealed hinges. Only darkness lay beyond, and silence. Mr.
Stab gestured sharply for Molly to come forward, and she thrust her illuminated
hand into the new opening. We all crowded around, to see what was to be seen,
but Mr. Stab couldn’t wait. He took Molly by the shoulder and urged her inside.
They moved forward into the gloom, and Girl Flower and I followed close behind.

There was a room behind the brick wall, a very secret room. I
stood still, just inside the entrance, held there by what I saw. I felt
appalled, and sickened, and terribly angry. My first thought was that it looked
like a ghastly doll’s house. The room had been fitted out as an old Victorian
parlour. Heavy furniture, thick carpeting, stiff-backed chairs on either side of
a long dining table, complete with heavy tablecloth, silver settings, and
candlesticks. Even framed portraits on the walls.

Dead women sat in the chairs on either side of the long table,
dressed in the fashions of widely varying times, all of the bodies in varying
stages of decay. The enclosed setting had preserved them to some degree, but
that only added to the horror. The dead women stared across the table at each
other. Some had eyes; some did not. Some had faces; some did not. They all
carried their death wounds openly, and there were so many of them…Some had the
front of their dresses cut open, revealing bodies that had been hollowed out. A
few held teacups in their clawed hands, as though they were all attending some
hideous tea party.

"Hi, honey," said Mr. Stab. "I’m home."

Molly looked back at me. "I never knew about this, Eddie, I
swear."

I stepped forward to stand between her and Mr. Stab. "This is
sick! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now!"

"How many have you killed down the years, young Drood?" said Mr.
Stab, not even looking at me. He moved slowly down the line of corpses, smiling
slightly, trailing his fingers above the bowed heads, not quite touching them.
"Could a room this size even contain all those you’ve cut down? I know; you were
only obeying orders. You did what you did out of cold duty; at least I’m honest
enough to enjoy what I do." He leaned over one gray shoulder to peer into a
desiccated face. "I keep stashes of my victims all over London. In my secret
hidden places, where no one will ever find them. I like to visit them, and…play
with them. I enjoy the ambience, and the smell…Like coming home."

I looked at Molly. Her face was taut and strained, but the
illuminated hand she held aloft was still steady. "What was that you said?" I
murmured. "About monsters not being monsters all the time?"

"I never knew," she said. "Never even suspected…"

"You know nothing about me," said Mr. Stab.

He stood at the far end of the table, tall and proud like a
typical Victorian patriarch, his chin held high and his eyes alight with a
terrible regard. "You know nothing about what drives me to do the things I do.
Once women fascinated me, and then they horrified me. Teasers, liars, betrayers.
I took a proud vengeance upon them, hurting them as I had been hurt, and gained
much in return…But now the only intimacy I can ever know is with my victims.
That moment when their eyes meet mine, that little sigh as the blade
penetrates…is all I have, now. When I was just beginning, when everyone called
me Jack, I had no way of knowing that the immortality I bought would be as an
immortal killing machine. Driven to kill and kill, and never know peace or rest.
I go on and on, in a world that makes less and less sense to me, and all that is
left to me is to take what pleasure I can, from my endless work…"

"You can’t kill him, Eddie," Molly said quietly. "You can’t. Not
even your armour could undo what he did to himself."

"What about your magic?" I said.

"Don’t ask me that, Eddie. He has been my friend. He has
done…good things, because I asked him to."

"Enough to make up for this? And all the other stashes we don’t
know about?"

"Don’t ask me that. Not here."

Girl Flower floated prettily around the room, bending over
withered shoulders to stare into corrupt faces, humming a happy song to herself.

"You shouldn’t let this get to you, darlings. All living things
have their roots in dead things. It’s the way of the world." She slipped a hand
inside her dress and frowned prettily for a moment, and when she brought her
hand out again it was piled high with seeds. She walked up and down both sides
of the long table, dropping a few seeds into the gaping mouths and empty eye
sockets of every corpse. "Let new life bloom," she said. "It’s nature’s way."

Mr. Stab looked at her, and Girl Flower smiled happily back at
him, entirely unafraid. And the man who was once called Jack by a whole
horrified city nodded slowly.

"Perhaps I’ll come back, in some future time," he said. "To see
what strange new life has blossomed here."

I didn’t kill him. As an agent in the field, you learn that
sometimes you have to settle for little victories.

Mr. Stab sealed up his private place, and we moved on through
the sewers until finally we came at last to Manifest Destiny’s hidden domain,
their underground kingdom. I’d come a long way in search of a credible
resistance to my family’s newly exposed tyranny, and they had better not
disappoint me. I needed them to be something I could depend on in this
treacherously changing world. I needed them to be a weapon I could throw at the
family who’d betrayed me. The entrance point was a huge circular portal of solid
steel set flush with the old brick wall. Four very large and muscular men stood
before the portal, wearing stark black uniforms with discreet silver piping and
covering us with heavy automatic weapons as we approached.

"Cold iron," said Molly, indicating the portal. "Keeps magic
out. They’re very security conscious."

Mr. Stab sniffed loudly. "It would take more than that to keep
me out, if I wanted in."

"Oh, get over your bad self," said Girl Flower, and Mr. Stab
surprised us all with a brief bark of laughter.

I armoured up as we approached the armed guards. I wasn’t ready
yet to trust Manifest Destiny with the secret of my Shaman Bond identity. The
guards were visibly impressed at the sight of my armour, gleaming golden in the
gloom, and they quickly got on their radios to check for instructions from
someone higher up. Whatever they heard through their earpieces clearly impressed
them even more, and then they couldn’t open the portal fast enough for me. I
strode up to them as though I expected such treatment as my right, and they fell
back, raising their weapons in salute. All except for one, still blocking the
way but not looking especially happy about it.

He smiled nervously at my featureless golden mask, his eyes
darting back and forth. The lack of eyes on the mask really throws people. The
guard swallowed hard. "Your pardon, sir, Sir Drood, but…We have orders to admit
you and the witch Molly Metcalf, but no one said anything about your…companions.
Perhaps they could wait here while you—"

"No," I said. "I don’t think so. This is Girl Flower and Mr.
Stab. Upset them at your peril."

"Get out of my way or I’ll fillet you," said Mr. Stab in his
most cold and sepulchral voice. The watching guards retreated even farther, one
of them making small squeaking noises. The guard before us looked like he’d like
to make some noises of his own. I gestured for him to lead us in, and he nodded
jerkily. Molly extinguished her witchfire, and the four of us strode into
Manifest Destiny’s most secret headquarters as though we were thinking of buying
the place. Of course Girl Flower had to spoil the moment by giggling.

A short tunnel led into a vast chamber whose walls and high
ceiling were covered entirely with gleaming steel. Presumably originally added
to protect against the effects of atomic blast, but useful now to keep magic at
bay. No wonder my family had never suspected their existence. You couldn’t hope
to scry or remote view through this much cold iron. The guard led us on through
more gleaming steel corridors and chambers, and everything bristled with urgent
efficiency. There were banks of computers and monitor screens, maps and clocks
and operations tables, and any amount of cutting-edge communications equipment.
It reminded me of the Drood War Room, on a somewhat smaller scale. And
everywhere there were tall and splendid men and women in their black uniforms,
sitting at workstations or crowded around tables or just striding back and forth
with important messages. The men were all perfect masculine specimens, glowing
with health and vitality and purpose. Perfect soldiers. The women were tall and
lithe, and just as heavily armed as the men. Valkyries, warrior women. They all
nodded respectfully to me as I passed. A few nodded familiarly to Molly. None of
them so much as looked directly at Mr. Stab or Girl Flower. I glanced across at
Molly. She didn’t seem very happy.

"Have you ever been here before?" I asked quietly.

"No. I was never important enough to be invited here. And I have
to say…it isn’t what I thought it would be. I don’t like the feel of this
place…"

The guide led us on and on, through endless branching corridors,
escorting us deeper and deeper into this unexpected labyrinth far below the
streets of London. A steel maze, with the head of Manifest Destiny at its
unknown heart.

"What do you know about this man we’re going to see?" I said
quietly to Molly.

"Not much," she said just as quietly. "His name is Truman. Never
met him. Don’t know anyone who has. You should feel honoured, Eddie."

"Oh, I do," I said. "Really. You have no idea. How did you hook
up with these people in the first place?"

"I was recruited four years ago," said Molly. "By Solomon
Krieg."

"Now him I have heard of," I said. "The Golem with the Atomic
Brain, right? A Cold War attempt at combining magic and science, to produce a
Cold War supersoldier. Deadly in his time, and a legend in those secret wars the
public never get to hear about; but last I heard, he’d been retired from the
field."

"He was," Molly said. "Over ten years ago. His old masters
didn’t need him anymore, but he couldn’t be allowed to run loose, so they sent
him down here to guard the bunkers. Word is, they locked him in here and then
changed all the combinations, just in case. Manifest Destiny found him when they
moved in, still standing guard, and Truman took him in and gave him a new
purpose. The Golem with the Atomic Brain has a new cause and a new faith, and
he’d die for Truman. You can’t buy loyalty like that.

"So now Solomon Krieg walks abroad in the world’s hidden places,
its secret haunts and clubs, recruiting people like me as allies to his new
cause. He found me at the Wulfshead. He can be…very persuasive. And there he is,
right ahead, guarding his master’s lair."