"You soppy old softy, you," said Molly. She reached cautiously
over and scratched one of the gryphons behind its long pointed ear, and it
snuffled loudly in gratitude.
"Down!" I said suddenly.
Molly and I crouched down with the gryphons, just a gray
silhouette in the growing dusk, while I watched the Sarjeant-at-Arms stalk out
of the Hall’s main front entrance. He looked around the grounds, taking his
time, but his gaze swept over Molly and me and the gryphons without slowing. Of
course he wouldn’t believe the guns blowing each other up was just a
malfunction. He lived to defend the Hall. More members of the family poured out
of the entrance behind him, and the Sarjeant directed them this way and that
with curt instructions. They swarmed around the exterior of the house, looking
for signs of an attack or a breakin, while others fanned out across the
grounds. A few even took off from the landing pads on the roof, in those clumsy
old da Vinci helicopter chairs that the Armourer’s been trying to get the bugs
out of for years. Rather them than me. They roared by overhead, spotlights
stabbing down through the gathering gloom. I hadn’t expected such a dramatic
response to a single incident. Presumably everyone was still on edge after the
attack on the Heart. Or perhaps it was because I’d phoned and told them I was
coming home…I liked to think so.
"You had to tell them you were coming," said Molly.
"The grounds defences have all been activated," I said to avoid
answering her. "But as long as the Confusulum’s operating, they shouldn’t be
able to lock on to us."
"Why are they all carrying weapons?" Molly said suddenly. "I
thought you people mostly relied on your armour."
"Mostly, yes. But just recently there’ve been some serious
attacks on the Hall. Really nasty ones. No one feels like taking chances
anymore."
"Attacks?" said Molly. "By anyone I might know?"
"We don’t know who’s behind them," I said. "And if my family
doesn’t know, no one knows. But that’s why they’re pulling out all the stops.
The very thing I’d hoped to avoid, by sneaking in. Bloody Alistair and his
stupid bloody robot guns."
"Should we leave?" said Molly. "Maybe come back some other
time?"
"We don’t have the time," I said. "For better or worse, this is
the only chance we’ll get. You still game?"
"Always," she said, grinning. "Let’s go start some trouble."
"Let’s," I said, grinning back at her.
We gave the gryphons a few last pats, and then pushed them
firmly away and sprinted across the open lawns towards the house. In the growing
dusk, we should look like just two more moving figures. If the family were
bracing themselves for an attack by the kind of thing that had broken into the
Sanctity, they shouldn’t be looking for merely human targets. I could feel the
grounds’ defences trying to kick in: all the hidden trapdoors and deadly
weapons, all the scientific and magical devices in their underground silos, but
none of them could lock on to Molly or me as long as we were protected by the
Confusulum. Force shields snapped on and off all around us, magical energies
manifested and dispersed in a moment, and none of them could touch us. The
grounds’ defences were baffled. But there were still far too many people around,
too many Droods between us and the Hall. Someone would be bound to challenge us
soon.
"We need a diversion," I said to Molly. "Something big and
dramatic, to draw people away from the front of the house."
"No problem," said Molly, breathing just a little hard from the
running. "Watch this."
She muttered under her breath and gestured sharply, and suddenly
a huge dragon was hovering over the Hall. A massive creature, with a long
golden-scaled body and vast, flapping membranous wings. It shrieked horribly as
it descended on the Hall, a horrid horned head thrusting forward on the end of a
snakelike neck. It was impossibly big, half the size of the house, and it tore
great holes in the outer wall of the east wing with casual blows from its clawed
hands. It breathed fire across the landing pads on the roof, sweeping away all
the vehicles there in one great blast of flames. It screamed in triumph and
slammed into the Hall with one great shoulder so hard that the whole building
shook.
"Will that do?" said Molly.
"Where the hell did you find a dragon that size?" I said. "I am
officially impressed, Molly. Honest. But that is my home, and I would rather
like to have some of it left at the end of the day! Does the word overkill ring
any bells with you? Are you sure you can even control it?"
"Of course," said Molly. "I once took a thorn out of its paw.
Relax, Eddie, it’s not a real dragon. Just another charm off my bracelet."
"So the damage it’s doing to the Hall isn’t real either?"
Molly frowned. "Well, yes and no."
"Let’s get inside quick," I said. "Before the family works out
what’s happening."
Most of the family had gone around to the back of the house by
now to deal with the most obvious threat, leaving the front of the Hall
undefended. Just open lawns between me and the front entrance. And then the
scarecrows appeared out of nowhere, blinking in to block my way. First one, then
two, and finally an even dozen. I grabbed Molly by the arm, and we skidded to a
halt well short of them. They moved stiffly to take up defensive positions
between us and the front entrance, their gloved hands stiff as claws.
Unnaturally still, impossibly strong. Twelve scarecrows come down off their
crosses, wearing battered clothes from various periods all the way back to the
seventeenth century. The Drood family’s most hated enemies, made over into
scarecrows to guard the Hall they’d threatened. Just because we could. The
scarecrows’ faces were weather-beaten, taut, brown as parchment, and just as
brittle. Tufts of straw protruded from the ears and from the mouths, but their
eyes remained still alive, endlessly suffering.
"Are those the…?" said Molly.
"Yes," I said. "Someone in the Hall has panicked and let the
scarecrows loose. Our fiercest enemies, defeated and put to use. Their bodies
hollowed out and filled with straw while they were still alive, and then bound
by unbreakable pacts to defend the Hall, to their destruction if necessary. Not
dead, any of them. They couldn’t still suffer, if we let them die. If you listen
in on the right supernatural frequency, you can hear them screaming."
"Oh, my God," said Molly. "That’s Laura Lye, the water elemental
assassin, the one they called the Liquidator. And that’s Mad Frankie Phantasm. I
always wondered what happened to them."
"No one attacks the family where we live and gets away with it,"
I said.
"We take that personally. And we always did like a splash of
irony with our revenge. So now you know what waits for us, if we get this
wrong."
"Why isn’t the Confusulum dealing with them?" said Molly.
"Good question. I think…because the scarecrows exist on the
border between life and death, neither one nor the other. Their nature is
already so confused the Confusulum probably couldn’t make it worse if it tried."
"Are we in trouble here?" Molly said carefully.
"Absolutely," I said. "Because of what they are, and what was
done to them, the scarecrows can’t be hurt, stopped, or turned aside."
"So what do we do?"
"We take them down hard," I said. "Because in the end they’re
just scarecrows, while we’re Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf."
"Damn right," said Molly.
I armoured up, the living metal sweeping over me, and I went to
meet the scarecrows as they lurched forward. The golden armour made me strong
again, despite the pain stabbing through all of my left side now. I slammed into
the first scarecrow and tore it apart with brute armoured force. I ripped its
arms off, smashed in its chest, and then tore the head right off its shoulders
and threw it away. The other scarecrows crowded around me, beating at me with
their stone-hard fists, pulling at my shoulders, but even their unnatural
strength was no match for my armour.
(It was never intended that they should be able to take down a
Drood. We never take the chance that our own weapons might be used against us.)
They pulled at my golden legs, trying to overturn me, pressing
in from all sides, but I stood firm and would not fall. I tore them apart, limb
from limb, and no blood ever flowed, just more straw sticking out of ragged
sockets. I ripped their hollow bodies apart, throwing the pieces this way and
that. Heads rolled across the grass, the eyes still alive, still suffering and
hating.
When this was over, the family would just put them back together
again. No rest for those who dared to be wicked against us.
Molly took out her fair share of the scarecrows. She hit them
with the four elements, all at once. Hurricane winds whipped up out of nowhere,
picked up the scarecrows, threw them high into the sky, and then slammed them to
the ground again. Sudden downpours targeted individual scarecrows and soaked
them so heavily they could hardly move. Others burst into flames that burned so
fiercely that the straw-filled bodies were consumed in seconds. And finally the
earth itself cracked open, swallowed up all the scarecrows left standing, and
then slammed itself together again, trapping the scarecrows underground. Molly
looked around her and nodded once, satisfied.
"Damn, we’re good."
"Yes," I said. "We are."
I could have used the Confusulum to interrupt the forces that
kept the scarecrows going. I could have used it to free the trapped spirits from
their scarecrow bodies. But I didn’t. Because they had attacked my family where
we live, and we never forgive that.
We were almost at the Hall when a voice in my ear suddenly said,
Sorry! That’s it! Business calls and I have to be going! It was fun; we must do
this again sometime! I looked down, and the badge on my lapel was gone. Just
like that, the Confusulum had abandoned me. About to enter the centre of my
family’s power, Molly and I were on our own. Which…was just typical of the way
my life had been going recently. I decided not to tell Molly. It would only
upset her.
I strode up to the main front entrance, pushed open the door
with a flourish, and marched on into the hallway beyond. Molly couldn’t wait to
get in, actually pushing past me in her eagerness. I shut the door carefully
behind us, and the background roar of my family fighting the dragon was
immediately shut off. Inside the house, everything was quiet and peaceful, just
like always. The slow ticking of old clocks; the smell of beeswax and polish and
dust. Home. And then the Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped out of his security alcove to
confront me, and I remembered why I’d been so happy to leave in the first place.
He stood solidly before me, blocking my way, stiff and formal as always in his
old-fashioned butler’s outfit. The man who had always been so much more than
just a butler. I stood very still. I was still wearing my armour. I looked like
any other Drood. There was a chance…
"I know it’s you, Edwin," said the Sarjeant. "I recognise the
way you move. You always were sloppy, undisciplined. When the defences in the
ground couldn’t lock on to anyone, I knew it had to be you. Always the lateral
thinker, the sneak, skulking in the shadows. And your companion is the infamous
Molly Metcalf? Didn’t take you long to fall into bad company. I always knew you
were no good, Edwin. Even when you were just a boy."
I armoured down to face him. I wanted him to be able to see my
face. "I haven’t been a boy for a long time, Sarjeant. I’m not afraid of you
anymore. You see this man, Molly? He made my life miserable when I was a child.
He made all our lives miserable. Nothing we did as children was ever good enough
for him. You see, all adult members of the family can override the collars of
the children. So they can discipline us, control us…Punish us. We’re a very old
family, very old-fashioned, and we never did believe in sparing the rod. And
this man…loved to punish children. For any reason, or none. Just because he
could. We all lived in fear of the Sarjeant-at-Arms when we were kids."
"It was for your own good," the Sarjeant said calmly. "You had
to learn. And you were always so very slow to learn, Edwin."
I armoured up again and held up my fist. Golden spikes rose up
out of the heavy knuckles. "Step aside, Sarjeant. I’m not going to be stopped
this time."
"It’s not too late," said the Sarjeant. "You could still
surrender. Submit to family discipline. Make atonement for your crimes."
"I never committed any crimes! Never! But the family has."
The Sarjeant sighed. "You never listen, and you never learn.
Lose your armour, Edwin. Or I’ll make your companion suffer."
He pulled weapons out of the air. His singular talent, given to
him so that he could protect the Hall. A gun appeared in one hand, a
flamethrower in the other. He aimed them at Molly, and I lunged forward to
protect her. Bullets hammered against my armoured chest and ricocheted away, but
the flames swept right past me to threaten Molly…only to turn aside at the last
moment, deflected by Molly’s magic. She jabbed out a hand at the Sarjeant, and
he staggered backwards from the unseen impact. Molly laughed at him.
"My companion can look after herself," I said to the Sarjeant.
"Damn right," said Molly.
The Sarjeant started to subvocalise the Words that would call up
his armour. He should have done that the moment he recognised me, but in his
pride he still saw me as a child to be chastised. But even as he started the
Words, Molly hit him with a rain of rats. They fell on him out of nowhere,
streams of big black rats swarming all over him, clawing and biting. He cried
out in shock and pain, slapping at the rats and trying to shake them off, unable
to concentrate long enough to say the Words that would have brought up his
armour to protect him. He staggered back and forth, beating at the rats with his
bare hands. One sank its teeth deep into his palm and hung there, kicking and
wriggling as he tried in vain to shake it off. Another ripped at his ear. Blood
ran down his face as they tore open his scalp.