Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (9 page)

"Is that why everyone’s been so conspicuously giving me the cold
shoulder?" I said eventually. "Is that why I’ve been called back?"

"I don’t know, Eddie. The Matriarch…hasn’t been taking me into
her confidence like she used to. So…watch your back, while you’re here. Paranoia
breeds suspicion. Because if the family can’t identify their traitor, they might
just choose one…"

We walked on together, back through the many rooms and
passageways of the Hall, past magnificent works of art that we all just took for
granted. Rembrandts. Goyas. Schalckens. The Hall is stuffed with priceless
paintings and sculptures and precious items, donated by princes and powers and
governments down the centuries. They’ve always been very grateful for everything
the family does for them. And then there were the displays of weapons and all
the other spoils of war we’ve accumulated. The family might not be very
sentimental about its past, but it never throws away anything useful.

"Someone is testing us," said James after a while. "Testing
their traitor’s information, seeing how far they can get before we stop them.
But who? The Stalking Shrouds? The Loathly Ones? The Cold Eidolon? The Mandrake
Recorporation?" He shook his head slowly. "There’s so many of them, and so few
of us." And then he smiled at me, his old damn-them-all-to-hell smile, and
clapped me on the shoulder again. "Let them come. Let them all come. We’re
Droods, and we were born to kick supernatural arse. Right?"

"Damn right," I said.

When the Sarjeant-at-Arms finally came looking for me, Uncle
James and I were standing before an old caricature by Boz of good old Jacob in
his prime, sharing a conversation with Gladstone and Disraeli, outside
Parliament. (One of those revered prime ministers was actually a Drood, on his
mother’s side, but I can never remember which.) God alone knows what the three
of them were discussing, but given the expressions on Disraeli’s and Gladstone’s
faces, Jacob was almost certainly telling them one of his famously filthy jokes.
Jacob could shock the knickers off a nun at forty paces. Both James and I heard
the Sarjeant approaching, but we deliberately kept our attention fixed on the
piece of art until the Sarjeant was obliged to announce his presence with a
somewhat undignified cough. James and I turned unhurriedly and looked down our
noses at him.

"Well?" James drawled in that infuriatingly snotty polite voice
of his. He’d been known to start bar fights with less. He even threw in a raised
eyebrow. "Do you have any information yet as to how such an appalling assault
was able to get past all of our legendary security systems to attack the Heart?"

Give the man his due; the Sarjeant just stared impassively back.
"An investigation into the security breach is ongoing, sir."

"That’ll be a No, then. Anything else?"

The Sarjeant-at-Arms gave James a meaningful look, and James
nodded, knowing he’d pushed the situation as far as he could. He turned his back
on the Sarjeant and smiled warmly at me. "It’s time I was on my way, Eddie. The
ungodly await, and there shall be beatings. Another exciting adventure lies
ahead in the scurrilous backstreets and bars of fabulous Shanghai."

"I could spit," I said feelingly. "I never get missions like
that. I suppose it’s going to be all good booze, bad women, and lots of
gratuitous violence?"

"Ah, yes," said James. "The same old, same old…"

We laughed, he crushed my hand in his, and off he went, striding
grandly down the gallery in search of danger and diversion like the accomplished
adventurer he was. The Gray Fox always was the best of us. The Sarjeant-at-Arms
reminded me of his presence with another of his weighty coughs, and reluctantly
I allowed him to lead me back through the Hall to meet with the family
Matriarch.

It turned out she was down in the War Room, deciding the fate of
the world again, so we had to tramp through most of the north wing to reach the
heavily reinforced steel door at the back of what used to be the old ballroom.
It took us three passWords, a retina scan, and a not entirely unfriendly
frisking before the Sarjeant and I were even allowed to approach the door, but
eventually it opened and we descended a very basic stairway cut into the stone
wall itself, with no railing and a frankly intimidating open drop on the other
side. The electric lighting was almost painfully bright, and extra security
measures were already in place, so that glowing force fields and shimmering
mystical screens opened before us as they acknowledged our torcs, and then
sealed firmly behind us. The usual guard goblins were in place, sitting in their
stone recesses; squat and ugly things with a face like a bulldog chewing on a
wasp. They weren’t much bigger than a football, with long spindly arms and legs,
but they could be quite spectacularly vicious when roused. I’d once seen a
goblin run down a werewolf and eat it alive, and you don’t forget things like
that in a hurry.

While waiting for a chance to express their utterly vile and
nasty natures, the goblins whiled away the time by working on crossword puzzles
from the Times. Goblins love word games. One of them stopped me to ask for a
seventeen-letter word for bad government beginning with an m and got really
quite upset when I came straight back with maladministration. The poor thing
didn’t realise he was doing yesterday’s crossword.

At the bottom of the stairs, we both had to place our hands on
an electronic scanner before we were allowed into the great vault that held the
family War Room. The Sarjeant led me inside and then insisted I stay put by the
door while he went to inform the Matriarch that I’d arrived. I folded my arms
stiffly across my chest and sneered after him, but I didn’t push the point.
There was a gorgon squatting next to the door, head down, wrapped in leathery
wings like an enveloping cloak. She looked like she was sleeping, but I knew she
wasn’t, even though several of the snakes were making a game attempt at snoring.
Entering the War Room without following exact rules of procedure would lead to
the gorgon opening her eyes and looking at you, and then the family would have
another surprised-looking statue for the back gardens.

The War Room was a vast auditorium carved from solid stone. In
here we saw everything, or at least everything that mattered. All four walls
were covered with state-of-the-art display screens showing every country of the
world, with little lights blinking to indicate cities and other places where
members of the family were at work. Green lights for a successfully completed
mission, blue for certain individuals currently on the family hit list, and the
occasional purple signifying a major cock-up and its equally large cover-up
operation. Potential trouble spots were marked with amber lights, current
threats with red. There was a hell of a lot of amber and red showing all across
the world, and a lot more red than amber, compared to ten years ago. Hell, even
Lithuania had a red light.

The family sat in long rows, concentrating on their workstations
despite the hustle and bustle all around them. Dozens of farcasters caressed
crystal balls or peered into scrying pools, studying the world’s problems from
afar, while softly murmuring their findings into hands-free headsets.
Technicians worked their computers, worrying out useful data, fingers darting
across keyboards with dazzling speed. Agents may operate alone in the field, but
each and every one of us is backed up by a staff of hundreds. And not just in
the War Room. Information retrieval experts are constantly at work in the
newsroom (usually referred to by those who work their eight-hour shifts in that
windowless hole as the Pit), sifting through all the world’s media and
cross-referencing the official version with the mountain of information that
comes in every day from our worldwide web of spies and informers. The family
relies on these dedicated researchers to spot trouble forming before it gets out
of hand, as well as keep track of certain individuals who like to think they can
pass through the world without leaving a trace. These researchers could tell you
exactly where to find a needle in a haystack, and make a pretty good guess about
which way it would be pointing. They knew everything there was to know about the
world, except what it was like to live in it. They were far too valuable to ever
be allowed to leave the Hall.

At any given moment, hundreds of Droods are operating in hot
spots all across the world. And they work alone, because agents in the field
can’t be viewed from afar. Their torcs hide them from us, as well as our
enemies. That’s why only the most trusted in the family are ever allowed to
become field agents. And why I’m always kept on such a short leash. The War Room
has to wait for field agents to report in by traditional means, often on the
run, and then provide them with as much information and backup as possible.
Every agent is supported by thousands of researchers, advisors, experts in the
more arcane areas of science and magic, and an around-the-clock communications
staff.

Field agents gather information, defuse pressure points, and
take direct action when necessary. (We prefer to work with a quiet word and a
subtle threat, but the family’s never been afraid to get its hands dirty.) But
every one of us knows that it’s the backup people at the Hall who make our job
possible.

The family has raised remote viewing, in all its forms, to
something of an art. And since we’ve always seen both science and magic as just
two sides of the same useful coin, we work hard to stay in the forefront of all
the latest advances. In fact, our research labs work every hour there is to make
damned sure we’re always one step ahead. We’ve turned out weapons, and answers
to weapons, that most of the world doesn’t even dream exist yet. We use whatever
we have to, to keep the world safe.

I was surprised, and just a little alarmed, to see how many red
alerts were showing; warnings of major threats not as yet narrowed down to any
particular country or group or individual. And when I say major threat, I mean a
clear and present danger to the world. I’d never known the War Room to seem so
busy, with people crowded around every display, every computer, every
paper-strewn table. There was a general susurrus of combined murmured voices,
almost like being in a church. (Raised voices are discouraged; they breed
agitation.) Messengers were constantly hurrying in and out, bearing notes and
reports and vital updates. And fresh pots of tea. The family runs on tea. And
Jaffa Cakes.

No one even glanced in my direction.

The Matriarch was sitting at the main mission table,
stiff-backed and coldly attentive as always, studying an endless series of
urgent reports as they were handed to her. Some she initialed, approving an
action; others she sent back for more detail. Messengers waited in line for a
chance to push a paper in front of her, or murmur confidentially in her ear,
before hurrying off with new instructions. The Matriarch never allowed herself
to seem hurried or worried, and she never raised her voice. If some especially
harried messenger did overstep the mark, by questioning a detail or insisting on
the importance of his message, one look from the Matriarch’s cold gray eyes was
all it took, and the messenger would practically break his back bowing and
scraping as he hurried away from her.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms advised the Matriarch of my arrival, and
she turned immediately to look at me. I stared calmly back, not even bothering
to unfold my arms. She beckoned imperiously, and I ambled across the War Room to
join her, deliberately not hurrying. The Matriarch gestured sharply for everyone
to withdraw, and they all fell back a decent distance so she and I could talk in
private. The Sarjeant looked actually outraged at being lumped in with everyone
else, but he went. One didn’t argue with the Matriarch. She stood up to greet
me, wearing her usual cold and disapproving expression.

The family Matriarch. Martha Drood. Tall, elegant, and more
royal than any queen. In her mid-sixties now, she dressed like country
aristocracy, all twinset tweeds and pearls and understated makeup. She wore her
long gray hair piled up in a sculpture on top of her head. She’d been beautiful
in her day, and her strong bone structure ensured she was striking even now.
Like the Ice Queen of fable, who drives a splinter of her ice into your heart
while you’re young and helpless, so you have no choice but to love her forever.
She didn’t offer me a hand to shake, and I didn’t offer to kiss her on the
cheek. Honours even. I nodded to her.

"Hello, Grandmother."

The family has always been led by a Matriarch; it’s a holdover
from our Druidic heritage. Martha is descended from a long line of warrior
queens, and it shows. Her word is law. When I was a child, in family history
class, I pointed out to the teacher that if she was our queen, the rest of us
were just her drones. I got shouted at a lot for that. Technically, the
Matriarch has absolute power over the family. In practice, she is very firmly
advised by a council of twelve drawn from the foremost members of the family.
You have to achieve something really quite remarkable for the family even to
make the short list. Matriarchs who don’t or won’t listen to their councils
don’t tend to last long. In extreme cases, accidents have been known to happen,
and a new Matriarch takes over. The family can be extremely ruthless, when it
has to.

Martha’s second husband, Alistair, stood diffidently at her
side, as always, ready for whatever she might need him to do. Tall and sturdy,
he dressed like a gentleman farmer; the kind that never ever gets his expensive
boots dirty. He was ten years younger than Martha and handsome enough, I
suppose, in a weak and unfinished sort of way, like the investment broker who
assures you that the deal he’s proposing is absolutely guaranteed to make you
rich. I nodded briefly to him.