Molly lived in Ladbrook Grove, in what had once been quite a
trendy area that had now fallen upon reduced circumstances. Her house was a
simple two up, two down, in the middle of a long terraced row. From the outside
it appeared no different from any of the others: a bit shabby, a bit neglected,
and in urgent need of a new coat of paint. The street was full of squabbling
kids riding their bikes back and forth, kicking a football around, or just
hanging about in the hope something would happen. None of them paid me any
attention as I went up to Molly’s front door and leaned on the bell. There were
always strangers coming and going on a street like this. There was a long pause,
long enough to make me consider ringing again, and then the front door opened
just enough to allow Molly to peer out.
"Shaman?" she said in her usual dark and sultry voice. "What
brings you to my door, uninvited? I wasn’t aware you even knew where I lived.
Not many do, and I’ve killed most of them. I hate being bothered."
I gave her my best charming smile. Molly Metcalf looked like a
delicate china doll with big bosoms. Bobbed black hair, huge dark eyes, ruby
rosebud mouth. She wore a gown of ruffled white silk, possibly to lend a touch
of colour to her pale skin. She was beautiful, in an eerie, threatening, and
utterly disturbing way.
"Sorry to bother you, Molly," I said when it became clear the
charming smile wasn’t having any effect. "I need to talk to you. About the new
rogue Drood, Edwin. I know something about him that I think you need to know.
May I come in? It is rather urgent."
She thought about it for a long moment, studying me with her
dark unblinking eyes, but finally nodded and stepped back, opening the door just
a little wider. I squeezed in past her, and she immediately shut the door behind
us and locked it. I barely noticed. I was standing in a vast forest glade, with
my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know what I’d expected to find behind the
facade, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. Molly lived in style.
Towering trees surrounded me on every side, heavy with summer
foliage. The clearing rose and fell in grassy mounds, and a nearby waterfall
tumbled down a jagged rock face into a wide crystal clear pool. Out among the
trees, deer watched solemnly from a safe distance, while birds sang sweetly and
heavy shafts of golden sunlight dropped down through the overhead canopy.
Dappled shadows gave the clearing a drowsy, cosy feel, and the air was thick
with the rich damp and earthy smell of woodland.
Molly ignored me, walking among a small stand of trees. She
talked to them in a soft whispered language I’d never heard before, and I swear
they bowed down their heads to listen. Wide-eyed deer came forward to nuzzle her
with their soft mouths, and she rubbed their muzzles with gentle hands. A russet
squirrel dropped out of the overhead branches to land lightly on her shoulder.
It chattered urgently in her ear, and then looked straight at me.
"Hey, Molly," it said. "Who’s the rube? New boyfriend? About
time; you get really moody when you’re not getting your ashes hauled regularly."
"Not now, dear," Molly said indulgently. "Run along and play
while I speak to the nice man. And don’t eavesdrop or I’ll do something
unpleasant to your nuts."
The squirrel pulled a face at her and leapt back up into the
safety of the trees. Molly came unhurriedly back to stand before me, beside the
pool. I decided not to ask about the talking squirrel. I didn’t want to get
sidetracked into what promised to be a very long story.
"Talk to me, Shaman Bond," Molly said. "Tell me this thing you
know. And it had better be good, or there’ll be another cute little talking
animal in my garden paradise."
"It’s about Edwin Drood," I said. "The new rogue. He’s in real
trouble. Outlawed by his family, forsaken by his friends, all alone and on the
run. He has been given good reason to doubt his family, or at least some part of
it, and he wants to know the truth. He believes you can tell him things that
others couldn’t, or wouldn’t. In return for your help, he’s prepared to offer
you the one thing you want more than his head on a spike: a chance to bring down
the whole corrupt Drood family."
"Works for me," Molly said easily. She sat down on the edge of
the pool and trailed her fingers lazily through the lily-pad-covered waters.
Fish came to nibble at her fingertips. I stayed on my feet. I would have felt
too vulnerable sitting. Molly looked up at me with her dark, thoughtful eyes.
"Where do you fit into this, Shaman? This is way out of your usual league. Why
should I believe you when you say these things?"
"Because I’m Edwin Drood," I said. "And I always have been."
I armoured up, the living gold covering me in a moment. Molly
scrambled onto her feet, glaring at me with wild, dangerous eyes. Her ruby mouth
contorted with rage as she raised one hand into a spell casting position. I made
myself stand very still, my arms limp at my sides, my hands conspicuously open
and empty. She stood there, breathing harshly, and then slowly she pulled back
from the edge and lowered her hand.
"Take off the armour," she said harshly. "I won’t talk to you
while you’re wearing the armour."
With the armour off, I’d be defenceless. She could kill me,
torture me, or mindwipe me into her slave; all things she’d threatened to do in
the past. But I had come to her, so I had to make the gesture of trust. Of
vulnerability. I subvocalised the Words, and braced myself as the living gold
disappeared back into my torc. Molly looked me over, as though searching for
signs of treachery, and I looked back at her as calmly as I could. Molly nodded
slowly and moved a single step closer.
"I heard about what happened, on the motorway. About all the
things your family sent after you. People all over town are having a hard time
believing you fought them all off. I mean, no offence, Edwin, but…no one on the
scene ever thought you were that good. Did one of the Fae really shoot you with
an arrow?"
Moving slowly and carefully, I unbuttoned my shirt and pushed it
back to show her the arrow wound in my shoulder. Molly took another step forward
to study the healed wound more closely. She didn’t touch me, but I could feel
her warm breath on my bare skin as she leaned in close. She pulled back again
and met my gaze squarely. She was taller than I remembered, her eyes almost on a
level with mine. She smiled suddenly, and it was not a pretty smile.
"So; Drood armour can be breached, after all. That’s a thing
worth knowing. I could kill you now, Shaman. Edwin."
"Yes," I said. "You could. But you won’t."
"Really? Are you sure about that?"
"No," I admitted. "You’ve never been…predictable, Molly. But I’m
not your enemy anymore. I’m not Drood: I’m rogue. That changes everything."
"Maybe," said Molly. "Convince me, Edwin. I can always kill you
later, if I get bored."
I relaxed just a little and buttoned up my shirt again. Give me
an inch, and I can talk anyone into anything. "You’ve tried to kill me often
enough, in the past," I said. "Remember the time you blew up the whole Bradbury
building, just to get me? The look on your face when I walked unharmed out of
the ruins! I thought you were going to pop an artery."
Molly nodded, smiling. "Do you remember the time you stuck me
through the chest with three feet of enchanted steel? Only to discover that like
all good magicians, I keep my heart safe and secure somewhere else? I thought
you were going to have a fit."
"We’ve lived, haven’t we?" I said dryly, and she laughed
briefly. "We can work together," I said. "We want the same things in this, and
who else has shared as much history as we have?"
"That makes sense," said Molly. "In a warped kind of way. Who
knows us better than our enemies? Though I have to say the Shaman Bond thing
came as a bit of a surprise." She cocked her head to one side, like a bird,
considering me. "Why did you come to me as Shaman? You could have burst in here
in your damned armour, safe from all my magics, smashed through my defences, and
demanded I help you."
"No, I couldn’t," I said. "You’d have told me to go to hell."
"True, very true. You do know me, Edwin."
"Please; call me Eddie. And besides, I wanted to make a point.
That I would share my secrets with you, if you would share yours with me. You
know things, Molly, things few other people know; things you’re not supposed to
know. And there are things I need to know about my family. Things that have been
withheld from me." I looked around.
"And I really would like to know how you got a forest inside
your house."
"Because I am the wild witch! I am the laughter in the woods,
the promise of the night, the delight of the soul, and the dazzle of the senses.
And because I hired a really good interior decorator. You never did appreciate
me, Edwin."
"Eddie, please."
"Yes…You look like an Eddie. Now, if answers are truly what you
want, look into my scrying pool. But don’t blame me if the truth you learn is a
truth you’d rather not know."
Molly sat down beside her pool again, gathering her long white
gown around her, and I crouched cautiously down beside her. The whole thing was
a scrying pool? It had to be twenty feet across, easy, which would make it
hellishly powerful. Molly slapped the flat of her left hand onto the surface of
the waters, and the ripples spread out, pushing the lily pads to the borders of
the pond. The crystal clear water shimmered, and then blazed bright as the sun,
dazzling my eyes, before clearing abruptly to show me a vision of a man and a
woman, in two different rooms, talking on the phone. I leaned forward as I
recognised them. The man was the British prime minister; the woman was Martha
Drood.
"You can See into the Hall?" I said, my voice hardly more than a
breath. "That’s not supposed to be possible!"
"It’s all right," said Molly. "They can’t see or hear us. But
listen now, and pay attention. You need to hear this."
"Look, this is your mess!" the prime minister was saying
angrily.
"Drood agents, in full armour, fighting each other in full view
of the public? Thank God the media didn’t catch it. Do you even realise what
it’s going to take to put this right? The rebuilding, the witness intimidation
programme, the hush money? All because you couldn’t take care of your own dirty
work!"
"Stop whining," said Martha, her voice cold as a slap in the
face.
"Damage limitations is one of the few things you’re actually
good at. Probably because you’ve had so much experience at it. You will do
everything you have to, and you’ll do it efficiently and well and very quickly,
or I’ll have you killed and see if your replacement learns anything from the
experience. Remember your place, Prime Minister. I got you elected so you could
serve the family’s interests, just like your predecessors. The family knows
best. Always."
"All right! All right!" The prime minister said defensively.
"I’m on top of this, Matriarch. You don’t have anything to worry about."
"No, I don’t," said Martha. "But you do."
Molly took her hand off the water, and the vision disappeared. I
looked numbly at Molly. "How could she speak to him like that? How could he
grovel to her like that? She wouldn’t really have hurt him. We don’t do things
like that. The family serves the powers that be; we don’t interfere. That’s
always been our duty and our responsibility. To preserve—"
"Poor Eddie," said Molly. "You only wanted to know the truth
because you didn’t know how much it would hurt. Well, here it is, so brace
yourself. The family isn’t what you think it is, and it never was. Only those
Droods at the very top of the family tree know what the family is really for.
You protect the world, yes, but not for the people…for the establishment. The
Droods work to maintain the status quo, keeping everyone calm and controlled,
and the people in their proper place. Under the thumbs of those in authority.
Droods aren’t the world’s bodyguards, and never have been; you’re enforcers.
Bullyboys. Hammering down any nail that dares to stick its head above the rest.
"And after centuries of establishing power and control, along
with the odd assassination of those in power who wouldn’t or couldn’t learn to
go along to get along, even those who make up the official establishment have
learned to be afraid of your family. Politicians all across the world are
allowed to hold power only as long as they answer to Drood authority. Your
family, Eddie, are the secret rulers of the world."
I just sat there, shocked into silence. My whole world had just
been kicked away from under my feet. Again. I wanted to believe she was lying,
but I couldn’t. It all made too much sense. Too many things I’d seen and heard
that I wasn’t supposed to, so many hints and whispers on the scene, so many
little things that had never added up…till now. There is a reason why things are
the way they are; but it’s not a very nice one.
I think I might have swayed a little, because Molly tossed a
handful of icy pond water into my face. "Don’t you dare flake out on me, Eddie!
Not when I’m just getting to the interesting bit."
"My family runs the world," I said numbly, cold water dripping
unheeded from my face. "And I never knew. How could I have been so blind?"
"It’s not all bad news," said Molly. "There is a resistance. And
I’m part of it."
I looked at her. "You? I thought you always said you refused to
belong to any group that would accept the likes of you as a member. Especially
after what happened last time, with the Arcadia Project. As if that whole plague
of frogs thing wasn’t bad enough, you ended up pulling that Klan sorcerer’s
intestines out through his nostrils."
"He annoyed me," said Molly. "And anyway, I work with the
resistance, not for them, as and when it suits me."
I considered that, not liking the taste. One of the Drood
family’s greatest fears has always been that another organisation might arise to
work against them. An anti-family, as it were. There had been several attempts,
down the centuries, but the various bad guys had never been able to find enough
things in common to hold them together. They always ended up arguing over ends
and means, and matters of precedence, and who exactly was going to be in charge.
This led to factions and fighting, and it always ended in tears. Though
admittedly it didn’t usually involve intestines and nostrils.