Book 3 - The Spy Who Haunted Me (6 page)

They were screaming and howling and crying out, ghostly voices from far away, thick with rage and despair and horror at what had been done to them. And some wept, never to be comforted, troubled forever by their crimes and betrayals. They burst out of the high stone wall like maggots from a wound and crawled headfirst down the cracked gray stone like shimmering lizards.

Half a dozen of them had grabbed hold of Coffin Jobe’s soul and were preventing it from returning to his body. Jobe looked quite different in spirit: a large, even muscular form. The man he remembered being before his affliction ate away at him. He fought the ghosts fiercely, his soul blazing brightly on the night, stronger than it had any right to be, but still he was no match for the ghostly defenders of the Towers of London. They seemed more like beasts than men, tearing at his soul with hands like claws. And more ghosts were coming. Coffin Jobe looked right at me and cried out for help, and then the ghosts Saw me too.

A great astral shout went up as the ghosts all looked in my direction and Saw me Seeing them. The closest ones surged right for me, mouthing ancient curses, though their voices seemed to echo from miles or years away. Their eyes burned with more than human hatred and misery, their horrid forms radiating menace. I stood my ground and reached into my coat pocket for the weapon the Armourer had provided for just such a situation. I took the jade amulet out and showed it to the ghosts, and another great shout went up. They knew what it was.

I said the activating Word in a loud carrying voice, and the mellow bomb detonated in my hand. And for fifty feet straight ahead of me, the world was full of happy thoughts, good intentions, and positive emotions. Enforced mellowness saturating the night. I was immune, of course, but it hit the ghosts like a hurricane, driving them back. They just couldn’t stand the happiness. They fled, shrieking horribly. Some were crying. Even the ones holding on to Coffin Jobe fled back to the safety of the Towers, and he looked at me, smiled briefly, and then dropped back into his body. I shut down my Sight, slamming all my mental barriers back into place. I’d Seen enough for one night.

I bent down over Coffin Jobe as he started breathing again and surreptitiously hit him with a nerve pinch. He’d sleep for a good hour or more now. I smiled inwardly. One down, more or less unhurt. Three to go. I shut down the mellow bomb and slipped it back into my coat pocket.

“Well, at least he’s breathing again,” said the Dancing Fool just a bit dubiously. “I suppose that’s an improvement.”

“What, rather than not being even a little bit alive?” said Strange Chloe. “Yes, I’d say so. But he’s no use to us like that. Maybe I should . . .”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Big Aus said quickly. “Kicking the hell out of him does not help.”

“It helps me.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Big Aus said determinedly.

“I said,
It helps me!
”

“Can we hold back on the whole shouting thing?” I said. “My device is keeping us unseen and unheard, but only as long as you don’t push it. There’s no need to panic; just leave him here. I can See well enough to get us inside.”

The Dancing Fool looked at me suspiciously. “And you never mentioned this before, because?”

“Because we had Coffin Jobe,” I said. “And you know I don’t like to reveal my secrets unless I have to.”

Big Aus looked down at the unconscious Coffin Jobe. “I’m not sure I like the idea of just leaving him here . . .”

“We can pick him up again on the way out,” I said. “And besides, what’s the worst that could happen to him? Someone might kill him? I think he’s pretty used to that by now. So, are we going in or not?”

“We go in,” said Big Aus. “No way are we giving up, not when we’re so close. Show us the way, Shaman.”

I led them towards Traitor’s Gate, indicating which flagstones they should avoid treading on. We had to approach the gate by a slow, indirect route to avoid the protective magics floating unseen in the air. I made the others hop on one foot, crouch down and rise up, and even walk backwards. Mostly for my own amusement, but occasionally because there were real traps to be avoided. Coffin Jobe would never have been able to get them in. There were wards present that would have fried his mind just for looking at them and places where only knowledge of the right passWords kept us all alive. But eventually we came to Traitor’s Gate, and I led the way through the great stone maw that was the only entrance into the castle complex. A gateway into horror, death, and worse than death for all too many people. I kept my Sight strictly focused so I wouldn’t have to See things I didn’t want to, but even so my skin crawled all the way. It’s not easy walking through a place you know can kill you horribly in a hundred ways if you let your concentration drop.

I could still feel the screams, even if I couldn’t hear them.

Once through the gate and into the enclosed cobbled courtyard, it was all calm and quiet. The ghosts were outside, the Yeomen Warder patrols couldn’t see or hear us, and all that stood between us and the ravens was the locked door of their lodging house. I froze as I heard approaching footsteps and gestured urgently for the others to stand still and silent. Half a dozen Yeomen Warders came walking out of the shadows, chatting quietly. I cursed them silently. Dealing with the ghosts had taken longer than I’d thought, and the patrol had come around again. The bright red and gold uniforms looked quaintly old-fashioned, but the men inside them looked hard and competent and experienced. One of them had a raven perched on his shoulder and was feeding it grapes that looked very much like eyeballs.

“That’s a raven?” Strange Chloe said quietly. “That’s it? I was expecting something a bit more special. Not just an oversized crow!”

“Don’t show your ignorance,” I said firmly. “Ravens are the Rolls-Royce of the crow family.”

“Are you sure they can’t see or hear us?” said the Dancing Fool, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot.

“Are they rushing towards us, yelling terrible oaths and shooting at us with great big shooty things?” I said. “Then no, they can’t see or hear us.”

“Let the Yeomen open the lodging house for us,” said Big Aus. “And then we kill them all.”

“Ravens, or Yeomen Warders?” said the Dancing Fool.

“Just the ravens,” I said quickly. “Spill human blood in this place, and you’ll set off every alarm they’ve got.”

“No,” Big Aus said flatly. “Kill them all, ravens and men, and anyone else who gets in our way.”

I decided that this had gone far enough. I would have liked more time to take care of my friends before I had to take down Big Aus, but the secret of a field agent is to be flexible. So I pulled my concealing glamour back into my torc and let the others suddenly appear in the courtyard. The Yeomen Warders reacted immediately, producing really big guns out of nowhere and yelling for us to surrender. The Dancing Fool howled an ancient Scottish battle cry and charged the guards, moving so quickly I could barely follow him. He was in and among them in a moment, somehow never where their guns were pointing. With déjà fu, he could actually dodge bullets. I’d seen him do it.

At close combat, the Yeomen Warders never stood a chance.

They couldn’t lay a hand on the Dancing Fool, for all their skill. He knew what they were going to do almost before the thought had entered their heads, and he moved like the trained dancer he was, every move calculated and graceful, fast and brutal. But the sounds of combat brought more Yeomen Warders running into the courtyard, charging forward to join the fray.

The Dancing Fool really was one of the best fighters I’d ever seen, but in the end he never stood a chance. Outnumbered and surrounded, the only futures left for him to see were the ones where the Yeomen Warders inevitably beat the shit out of him. He went down still fighting, but he went down and did not rise again. Battered and bruised, the Yeomen Warders stood over his unconscious body, breathing hard.

Strange Chloe might have saved him. With her anger raised, her terrible scorching stare could have raked through the massed guards like a machine gun. But of course, I couldn’t allow that. So I just moved in behind her while her whole attention was fixed on the fight, and then showed her the same nerve pinch I’d shown Coffin Jobe. Strange Chloe sighed once, her knees buckled, and I caught her and lowered her carefully to the cobbled ground. I didn’t want her hurting herself. I straightened up, feeling rather pleased with myself. All three of my colleagues safely taken out of the game, with none of them realising it was due to me.

I could probably have taken the Dancing Fool down too, before he got to the Yeomen Warders, but I never liked him much.

It was only then that I looked around for Big Aus, and the smile froze on my lips as I discovered he was nowhere to be seen. I raced over to the ravens’ lodging house, but the door was still firmly locked. The ravens were safe. But Big Aus wasn’t there. Well, of course he wasn’t there; he’d never really been interested in the ravens. Everything he’d said, everything he’d done, had just been cover for something else.

His crime of the century.

I glared quickly about me and caught a glimpse of a dark figure slipping silently into the stone passageway that led to Whitechapel Tower. Immediately I was off and running after him, knowing for sure now what it was he was after. And I’d made it possible, through my involvement. I got us in here, past the ghosts and the traps. I gave the Dancing Fool to the Yeomen Warders, thus holding their attention. But even so . . . I still couldn’t believe Big Aus thought he could get away with this.

I subvocalised my activating Words, and the golden armour held inside my torc shot out to cover my whole body in a moment. To the Yeomen Warders I must have seemed to appear out of nowhere as I dropped the no-see-me glamour. A golden statue of a man, smooth and seamless, glowing in the night as I raced through the stone passageway faster than any normal man could have managed. When I wear the Drood armour I am supernaturally fast, and strong, and impervious to harm. The great secret weapon of the Drood family, whereby we are able to take on gods and monsters and beat the living crap out of them until they remember their place.

More human guards appeared before me, crying out startled orders to halt and be recognised, but I was through and past them before they could even react. Combat sorcerers waved their arms and shouted harsh Words, but their magics shattered harmlessly against my golden armour. An automatic weapon opened fire from an upper window, but my armour just absorbed the bullets, or let them pockmark the old stone wall behind me. Half a dozen guards came together to block the entrance to Whitechapel Tower, determined to keep me out, and I didn’t have the time to stop and reason with them. They didn’t know the Australian fox was already in the henhouse. So I ploughed right through them, throwing them aside with my armour’s more than human strength, hoping I didn’t hurt them too badly.

They really should have known better than to try to stop a Drood about his duty.

I pounded up the stone steps two at a time to the great chamber at the top of Whitechapel Tower, but by the time I got there Big Aus had already entered the Jewel House and was smiling happily at the Crown Jewels laid out behind the enclosing iron bars. He looked around as I lurched into the Jewel House, took in my golden armour, and laughed breathlessly. I stood very still just inside the doorway, peering about me through the featureless golden mask that covered my face. (I could have put eyeholes in the mask, but I never did. I could see perfectly well through the mask, and besides . . . a featureless face mask spooks the hell out of the bad guys. Mostly.) Big Aus gestured grandly for me to enter, and I did so, my golden feet thudding loudly on the bare stone floor. Big Aus backed away, putting the Crown Jewels between us. The crowns and the diadems, the diamonds and rubies, the glorious regalia of centuries past.

Enough wealth to make any man a king.

Big Aus grinned at me, his dark eyes full of mockery. “So; Shaman Bond is a Drood. Didn’t see that one coming. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve planned this all so very carefully, you see, that not even a Drood field agent can stop me now. I chose my team so very carefully: greedy enough to go where even angels would be too sensible to tread, and dumb enough to swallow all that nonsense about the ravens. After all, the Tower could always get more ravens . . . I talked enough about my plans in all the right places that I just knew one of my team would turn out to be a Drood in disguise. After all, I was the one who sent your family the anonymous tip in the first place, just to make sure you’d get involved . . . Didn’t think it would be you, though, Shaman. No offence, but you never struck me as smart enough . . .”

I didn’t say anything. Just kept moving around the great circular display so he had to keep retreating before me.

“I needed a Drood, you see,” said Big Aus. “I knew I’d never get past all the defences here without a Drood’s help. I really thought the Dancing Fool was the Drood. He was a fighter, after all, and surely no one could really be that dumb and that arrogant . . . Anyway, you played your part wonderfully. Got me past the defences, drew off all the human guards, and bought me enough time to get to the Crown Jewels. I’m obliged to you. Really.”

“The Jewels are defended,” I said. I couldn’t stand the smugness in his voice anymore. “And while you might have got in, you’ll never get out.”

“Of course I will,” said Big Aus. “You can’t stop me. I am prepared. Even for a Drood.”

And suddenly there in his hand was an Aboriginal pointing bone. A small discoloured human bone, baptised in blood and murder magic. An Aboriginal shaman who knew what he was doing could point it at things that shouldn’t be in this world and make them disappear. Big Aus stabbed the pointing bone at me, and something slammed against my armoured chest like a cannonball. The sound echoed through the Jewel House, as though someone had just struck a great golden bell, but I didn’t move. I felt no impact inside my marvellous armour. I advanced slowly on Big Aus as he stabbed the bone at me again and again, and every time the impact and the sound was less.