Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA (4 page)

“We are now flying directly over the airship,” said Elliot. “Matching its speed exactly. All the Blackhawke’s security measures are functioning perfectly, but even so, I don’t feel like hanging around here one moment longer than I absolutely have to. So please take up your position by the rear door, and wait for the green light. Then feel free to get the hell off my plane as soon as humanly possible.”

I couldn’t help noticing that the easy-going element to his voice had disappeared. I stood before the rear door, with Molly tucked in close at my side. I ran through the Matriarch’s plan in my mind again, and still thought I should have insisted on something better. Or even something else. A red light glared fiercely above the door, and a whole bunch of alarms sounded as Elliot rapidly reduced the air pressure in the cabin. There was a prolonged shrieking sound, and everything not strapped down flapped around like dying fish. I subvocalised my activating Words, and golden armour shot out from the torc round my neck, covering me from head to toe. Immediately I felt stronger and faster, more awake and more alive. Like I’d just been jolted out of the
ordinary doze of living. My armour is the great family secret; it makes us untouchable and unstoppable. Mostly. I wasn’t sure just how well it could protect me in the unfortunate event of my falling out of a plane and slamming into the deck of a flying airship at high velocity.

I glanced at Molly. She’d surrounded herself with a mystical shield, its crackling and coruscating energies protecting her from earthly and unearthly dangers while also supplying her with air to breathe. Again, I had no idea how much help the shield would be when it came to jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. She seemed cheerful enough, even smiling in anticipation. But then, that was Molly.

We waited before the rear door as the pressure dropped, equalizing itself with the rarefied atmosphere outside. My golden hands clenched into fists. Molly stared unblinkingly at the red light over the door, willing it to change. Red became green, all the alarms shut down, and the rear door blasted open. The great roar of air rushing past came clearly to me as I stepped up to the opening to look down. And there it was, Cassandra Inc’s Secret Headquarters, cruising through the skies some two hundred feet below us.

“I’ve brought the Blackhawke down as much as I dare!” said Elliot. “Any lower and someone would be bound to notice.”

“This will do,” I said.

“Can’t really miss at this range,” said Molly.

“Can I have that in writing?” I said.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Eddie?” said Elliot. For the first time, he sounded honestly concerned. “I mean, just jump and hope for the best?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m a Drood field agent. We can do anything. It says so in our job description.”

“But what if you should miss? You wouldn’t believe how strong the winds are out there . . . You could even be shot out of the sky! My sensors are showing me some appallingly big guns . . .”

“Really not helping my peace of mind, Elliot.”

“Sorry. Go when you’re ready.”

“Are you sure about this?” said Molly.

“Of course not,” I said. “Where would be the fun in that?”

Molly laughed. “A man after my own heart. Let’s do it.”

I concentrated, and grew a pair of sturdy golden handles out of the back of my armour, right between my shoulder blades. So Molly would have something to hang on to. I stepped into the open doorway, and looked down at the long drop. The airship seemed very small and very far away. Just a small grey object in the wide-open sky. Molly clapped me on one golden shoulder to let me know she was ready, and took a firm grip on the two handles. I threw myself out the door and plummeted down. The Blackhawke roared away, leaving Molly and me behind.

*   *   *

The freezing air rushed past me. I could hear it even if I couldn’t feel it. I kept my arms close to my sides and my head pointed down, aiming myself at the flying airship like a golden arrow. Molly clapped her legs around my hips and hung on tight as the turbulence buffeted both of us. She was whooping with glee so loudly, I could hear her above the rushing wind. I fixed my gaze on the ship below, which was growing steadily larger.

We dropped like a golden stone, building up speed, and the Secret Headquarters came rushing up to meet us. Really big gun positions took up a lot of the deck, along with any amount of sophisticated sensor tech. We’d better be hidden inside my family’s psychic null, or those guns would have no trouble at all shooting me out of the sky. I didn’t think they could actually hurt me inside my armour, but they could certainly blow me off target. And then it would be a really long way down to the ground. But the gun stations didn’t react at all as I drew closer, and I breathed a little more easily.

I waited as long as I dared, until I was heading for the ship like a golden bullet, looking for the one point on the deck I had been assured was a blind spot for the ship’s sensors; just in case. I concentrated, and
broad golden glider wings shot out from my armour’s sides. They immediately caught and cupped the air, slowing me down. I was still falling, but now I had at least some limited control over my speed and direction. I glanced back over my shoulder to check whether Molly was okay. She’d tightened her legs around my hips and let go of one of the handles on my back, so she could wave one arm in the air like a cowgirl riding a bronco. I had to smile.

I was close enough now to see that the airship really was a ship. A mothballed aircraft carrier, tons of steel, blatant and uncompromising, sailing through the skies as though it had every right to be there. The deck rushed up, filling my sight till I could no longer see both ends of the ship at once. Coming at me like a windscreen on the freeway. I stretched my glider wings as wide as possible, braced my legs, and finally touched down so gently, I barely had to bend my knees. Ethel’s armour never ceases to amaze me. I quickly pulled my glider wings back into my armour; it’s a strain to maintain any big change in the armour for long. Molly dismounted lightly from my back, dropped her mystical shield, and then danced triumphantly around me. I sucked the golden handholds back into my shoulder blades.

“That was fantastic!” Molly said loudly. “I want to do that again!”

“Later,” I said. “You unrepentant little thrill-seeker, you.”

I flashed up a map on the inside of my mask so I could see where we needed to go. The interior of the ship was a warren of narrow steel corridors, but the marked route seemed clear enough. How my family acquired this information, about what was after all supposed to be a rival organisation’s Secret Headquarters, hadn’t been made clear to me. But my family has a way of always knowing what it needs to know and then being smugly mysterious about it afterwards. As soon as I had the directions memorized, I dismissed the map and armoured down, sending the golden strange matter back into its torc. I didn’t want to risk drawing attention to myself, just in case the psychic chaff
turned out to be not entirely effective. Or even real. The buffeting wind hit me hard, and the cold was so vicious, I shuddered violently. I turned to Molly and pointed down the deck, shouting to be heard over the wind.

“That way!”

“Let’s do it!” she yelled back, stepping behind me so she could use my armoured form as a windbreak.

We crept forward along the steel deck, stepping around and over all kinds of technological protuberances and fighting our way into the teeth of the howling wind. I peered briefly over the nearest side. It really was a hell of a long way down. There were actually dark cloud banks between the ship and the ground. I glanced at Molly to see how she was coping with the thin air. She was shivering, but grinning broadly. For her, it was always going to be about the adventure. I looked up and down the great length of the ship, and wondered how Cassandra Inc had been able to launch such a huge flying fortress into the sky without anyone noticing. I said as much to Molly, shouting into her ear.

“Probably bribed all the right people to look the other way,” she shouted back. “Paying them off with future information. That’s what I would have done. And you have to admit, Eddie, this is the perfect place to hide a Secret Headquarters. Beats the hell out of a cavern inside a volcano.”

And then the wind dropped suddenly, and her last few words sounded loudly in the quiet. Her head came up sharply, and she looked quickly around her.

“We’re not alone here, Eddie. Someone just joined us.”

“Cassandra can’t have found us already!”

“I don’t think it’s Cassandra . . .” Molly pointed off to one side with a steady hand.

Standing alone on the far side of the deck, a tall, still figure in a grey monk’s robe was staring at us. His cowl was pulled well forward
to hide his face. His feet were bare, and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. The wind had dropped to almost nothing, and the cold was gone; I had no doubt that was all down to him. He had . . . an air about him, of cold intent and implacable purpose. I’d met his kind before. Such men are dangerous.

“Who the hell is that?” I said. “And what’s he doing here? Now?”

“I know him,” said Molly. “And not in a good way. That is the Manichean Monk. A spiritual enforcer, specializing in righteous retribution. Jumped-up thug with a halo.”

“You mean, like the Walking Man?” I said. “The wrath of God in the world of men?”

“Oh please; he wishes,” said Molly. “The Monk’s just a general troubleshooter. He mostly operates out of the Adventurers Club these days, in the Nightside. I worked with him on a few cases, some years back.”

“I won’t ask,” I said.

“Best not,” Molly agreed. “Except to say, in my own defence, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“So many unfortunate things do,” I said. “But the Adventurers Club? He’s one of the good guys? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.”

“He does try to be a good guy, in a frightening sort of way,” said Molly. “Manicheans are heavily into duality. Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Law and Chaos, and nothing at all in between. He hunts down heavy-duty sinners, on behalf of the Church of Last Resort. Humanity’s saviours, self-appointed. When you’ve tried everything and everyone else, they’re what’s left. If you’re sure your cause is just and your conscience is clear. Manicheans have a really unpleasant way of dealing with time-wasters.”

I shot her an amused glance. “Okay, how did an odd couple like you two end up working together?”

“I may have lied to him, just a little,” Molly said airily. “About who and what I was.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand. We’ve all got a dodgy ex or two somewhere in our past.”

“He is not an ex! He was never an ex! Oh hell, he’s coming over. Look penitent.”

The Monk came striding forward, stern and determined, like a force of nature on the move. For a man in a monk’s robe, with no obvious weapons, he still managed to look pretty damned threatening.

“Does he believe we’re here to stop him?” I said. “Or is he here to look you up, in a not-at-all friendly way?”

“We worked perfectly well together, thank you,” Molly said coldly. “And parted on good terms. I thought.”

“Could he be here for the same reason we are?” I said.

“I suppose it’s always possible, if Cassandra really pissed off his church with the wrong kind of prediction . . . but I wouldn’t have thought so. The Monk deals with individual sinners, not organisations.”

“Then I refer you to my previous question,” I said. “Why is he looking at us like that?”

“I’ll ask him,” said Molly. “He’ll listen to me. Unless he’s found out who I really am . . . Hey, Monk! Been a while. What’s going on?”

The Manichean Monk crashed to a halt, a cautious distance away. He ignored Molly, all his attention fixed on me. I still couldn’t make out his features inside the shadows of his pulled-forward cowl. When he finally spoke, his voice was harsh and grating.

“It’s time to pay for your sins, Drood.”

“Oh hell,” I said. “It’s family business. Look, Monk, I’m a bit busy right now. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time for this.”

“Don’t be flippant, Eddie,” Molly murmured in my ear. “The Monk has no sense of humour about what he does. I found that out the hard way.”

“Another story for another time,” I said. “Is he dangerous, do you think? To us, or our mission?”

“Could be,” said Molly.

I nodded politely to the Monk. “Okay, what sins are we talking about here?”

“The murder of innocents,” said the Monk.

“I never killed anyone who didn’t need killing,” I said coldly.

“Your family has.”

“I can’t answer for everything my family’s done.”

“Someone has to,” said the Monk.

“Something’s wrong here, Eddie,” Molly said quietly. “This doesn’t feel like the man I knew. There’s something . . . off about him.”

“Well!” I said loudly to the Monk. “We can’t stand around here chatting all day, or Cassandra’s security is bound to notice us. Hello? Monk? Why is he just staring at me, Molly? Why isn’t he saying anything? Can’t you just teleport him out of here? Answer that last question first.”

“He’s shielded!” said Molly. “And . . .”

“Why did I just know you were going to say that? And what?”

“Bad news, part two,” said Molly. “The Monk has a special gift, from God.”

“Really?”

“Apparently. He can shut down people’s powers and abilities. Doesn’t last long, just enough to give him an advantage. He’s already shut down my magics. Try your torc.”

I called for my armour, and it didn’t come. A chill ran through me. I’m not used to feeling unprotected.

“I knew this mission would turn out to be a pain in the arse,” I said. “I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly . . . Look; what do you want, Monk?”

“Your death,” said the Monk. “In payment for your sins. Your bloody-handed guilt.”

“Can’t we talk about this?” I said. “I’m working here! And just for the record, I have sworn never to kill again.”

“Too little, too late,” said the Monk. “You’re guilty. You’re a Drood.”

I looked at Molly. “What powers does he have? What weapons?”

“He doesn’t need any,” said Molly. “He can’t lose because he’s always in the right. Comes with the job.”