My current mission was important but frustratingly vague. The safety of all England hung in the balance, but no one could tell me why. Something important was being planned by foreign elements, some dark and dangerous scheme aimed at the very heart of London, but no one could tell me what or who or when. And of course
foreign
could mean just that, or it could mean elves or aliens or unnatural forces from outside our reality. The family precogs are always right, but they see the future through a glass darkly, and they’re always vague when it comes to useful details. Some warnings have been so obscure they only became clear in hindsight.
The Tower of London,
they said.
Our greatest treasure is at risk. England endangered. The crime of the century . . .
Vague, or what?
But the family takes all this stuff very seriously, so I was sent to investigate. London is my territory. London, also known as the Smoke, and everyone knows there’s no smoke without fire. So there I was, Shaman Bond again, out and about to talk to people in the know and hopefully discover what the hell was going on and put a stop to it. I couldn’t just call up the golden armour from my torc and go crashing into places as Eddie Drood, field agent, protector of the innocent and brown-trouserer of the ungodly. They’d all just scatter and head for the hills. But people would talk to Shaman Bond. They like him.
I’ve gone to great pains to make him likable.
You get to London’s infamous Hiring Hall by walking down a side street that isn’t always there, knowing the right passWords to say in the right places so the guard dogs won’t turn into hellhounds and rip the soul right out of you, and finally going through a left-handed door that will open only if it likes the look of your face. You’ll soon know if you’ve been blacklisted; the door handle will bite your hand off. And no, you don’t get to complain. No one asked you to come.
The Hiring Hall’s been around since the time of Elizabeth I; indeed, supposedly the first stalls were set out on the frozen surface of the River Thames in 1589. They had real winters in those days. Like all successful businesses, the Hiring Hall has grown tremendously down the centuries, and though the jobs and services on offer in the Hiring Hall may have changed some since those early days, they haven’t changed in principle. It’s still all about money and power and influence. Love and hate and especially sex. At the infamous and just a bit scary Hiring Hall, jobs are available, services and skills are on offer, deals are made, and people are screwed over on a regular basis.
The Hiring Hall has been owned by the same family since Shakespearean times. No one ever says the name out loud, but here’s a clue. The company is called Pound of Flesh Inc. and their motto is
We always take our cut.
I walked down the side street, said all the right Words (including
good doggy
), and pushed open the nicely anonymous door. The handle recognised Shaman Bond and remained just a handle. Inside the hall it was all noise and chaos and the raucous clamour of business being done. The Hiring Hall is long and large and contains wonders, and everyone who is anyone has had a stall there at one time or another. The stalls are packed tightly together, constantly jostling for those extra few inches, lining all four walls for as far as the eye can see and just a bit farther. The great open space in the middle was packed with a deafening, jostling mob of the unnatural and the ungodly, the criminal and the rogue and the defiantly free-thinking, all looking for temporary gainful employment, certain very select and secret services, and the chance to do somebody else down. The din was appalling, the smell not much better, and the sheer spectacle of both people and prospects more than enough to overwhelm the unseasoned visitor.
Want to hire a murderer or arrange your own death? Sell your soul or someone else’s? Do you have a plan to steal fabulous items or an urgent need to dispose of them? Then you’ve come to the right place. But watch your back, always read the small print, and count your testicles afterwards.
All around me there were ghosts looking for suitable houses to haunt, werewolves offering to track down the missing or gone to ground, vampires hidden behind romantic glamours offering themselves as gigolos or assassins or means of assisted suicide, and the usual cluster of ghouls, amiable as always, ready to clean up natural disasters or chemical spills. (Ghouls can stomach anything.) Shaman Bond has been known to pick up the odd job here, so no one was particularly surprised to see me. Shaman specialises in supplying secrets and unusual information for an only slightly extortionate fee. The family research department tells me what I need to know, I pass it on to my customers, and everybody’s happy. And if the family occasionally wants to distribute some false information or black propaganda where it’ll do the most damage, well, everyone knows you take your chances when you come to the Hiring Hall. Shaman Bond has a better reputation than most, and that’s all that matters.
I eased my way through the milling crowd, nodding and smiling to familiar faces, showing my best face to friends and enemies. The Hiring Hall is neutral ground to one and all, strictly enforced by the dozen or so animated brass golems standing around the walls. (And by other, less obvious but quite spectacularly nasty devices hidden away in unexpected places.) It doesn’t matter whether it’s blood feuds, tribal hatreds, centuries-long vendettas, or dogmatic diversity; they all get left at the door if you want to do business in the Hiring Hall.
I allowed the currents in the crowd to take me where they wanted while I took a good look around. It seemed like everybody had a stall out today: governments and religions, independent contractors and middlemen, service providers and every kind of bad business you could think of. Including some Very Big Names you’d almost certainly recognise. There were even a few stalls representing the smaller countries in the world, offering specialised services and opportunities . . . desperate for a chance to play with the big boys.
And, of course, there were stalls for every spy and intelligence agency in the world. Not the Droods, of course. We’re urban legends, remember?
But the CIA was there, and the KGB (or whatever initials they’re hiding behind these days), Vril Power Inc., the Vatican (represented by a big butch nun from the Salvation Army Sisterhood), the Tracey Brothers, Druid Nation (
Let’s put the fear back into Halloween!
), and a rather familiar face manning the MI13 booth. I wandered over and smiled easily at the balding, middle-aged figure of Philip MacAlpine, once one of England’s top spies. He saw me coming and if anything looked even more put-upon. I came to a halt before him, and he actually sighed loudly.
“Hello, Phil,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question,” he growled. “I take it you are here as Shaman Bond and not—”
“Quite,” I said. “Please don’t mention the name on the tip of your tongue, or I will be obliged to rip out that tongue, throw it on the ground, and stamp on it.”
He sniffed loudly. “That’s right. Kick a man when he’s down. This is all your fault, you know. I had a perfectly good position at MI5, with seniority and tenure. I had my own office,
with a window!
And then they sent me after you . . .”
“And I kicked your arse all over the place,” I said pleasantly. “I remember.”
He glared at me. “You killed over a hundred of my people. Good men and women, just doing their job.”
“They were trying to kill me at the time,” I said. “I’ve always taken that very personally.”
He sniffed again. “Thanks to you and the failure of that mission, I got promoted sideways into MI13. No seniority, no tenure, and I have to share an office with three other operatives and a rubber plant. Overseeing all the weird shit that none of the other MI offices want to deal with. You know what they’ve got me doing here? Public relations. Handing out leaflets and badges and application forms. Shoot me now, you bastard.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I said.
“I had a career! I did important things! I couldn’t tell anybody about them, but still . . . It’s not fair.”
“I let you live, didn’t I?” I said reasonably. “What’s MI13 up to these days? Anything interesting?”
He shrugged. “Same old same old. Watching the aliens watching us, making sure they play nice and don’t stray outside the negotiated limits. There’s word of a Mothmen breakout down in Cornwall . . . I think they’re attracted to the lighthouses. When I’m finished here, I’m supposed to be putting together a team to go down to reason with them and/or kick their heads in. Don’t suppose you’d be interested . . .”
“I’m spoken for,” I said. “Don’t suppose you’ve heard of any current threats to the Tower of London, have you?”
“Nothing recent.” MacAlpine studied me thoughtfully. “Is this something I should be concerned about?”
“Of course not,” I said, smiling. “I’m on the case.”
I could tell he was about to say something indiscreet, so I nodded good-bye and let the currents of the crowd carry me away. I don’t like to spend too much time with any of the intelligence agencies when I’m being Shaman. Part of his usefulness as a cover identity is that Shaman never allies himself with any cause or faction for long and therefore is welcome anywhere. Shaman Bond is a chancer, a hustler, a useful extra hand, and a reliable backup. Always on the scene, but never aspiring to be a major player. A man who knows things, and people, but can be relied on to keep his mouth shut. And . . . just a bit dull and boring, when necessary, so no one ever wants to get too close.
The usual faces were making themselves known. I bumped into one of the scene’s main fixers: the infamous Middleman. Tall and elegant, wearing a bright green kaftan and smoking a slim black cigarillo in a long ivory holder. Handsome enough, in a ravaged-by-time sort of way, with flat black hair and more than a hint of mascara. His fingernails had been painted jet green. He was accompanied by two Thai teenagers in bright red leathers who might have been brother and sister or something even closer. The Middleman knew me as Shaman Bond and as Eddie Drood, but he didn’t know they were the same person. I know a lot of people like that. It would probably complicate things, if I were a complicated person.
“Shaman!” said the Middleman, gesturing lazily with one long, languid hand. “How nice! On the prowl for Madam Opportunity, are we? The creditors pressing close again? How very tiresome for you.”
“You know how it is,” I said. “It’s an expensive world, for those of us who just want a little fun out of life.”
“Oh, I know, I know, dear boy. I swear the money just evaporates out of my pockets when I’m not looking.”
“Particularly when you gamble as much as you do,” I said. “And so badly.”
The Middleman glared at his Thai boy. “Have you been telling tales out of school again, Maurice? I shall have to be very strict with you later. You know you like that . . .”
We chatted a while, but when he didn’t so much as raise an elegantly painted eyebrow when I mentioned the Tower of London, I made my excuses and moved on. The next familiar face made a point of bumping into me. Leo Morn might be good company but he’s always on the prowl and on the scrounge. I swear he came out of the womb trying to cadge a cigarette off the midwife. Leo is tall, slight, long-haired, pale, and interesting, and he looks like he ought to be starring in a particularly gloomy Tim Burton film. Dressed all in black, he looked so frail you half expected one good breeze would carry him away. But, as with so many of the people I know, appearances can be deceptive. Leo Morn has hidden strengths and a heart of solid granite.
He was looking for tracking work.
“Still playing bass with that punk folk band?” I said, and he grinned wolfishly.
“Of course! Got some really good gigs lined up.”
“Are you still having to change the name of the band regularly, so clubs will hire you twice?” I said innocently.
He scowled. “We are ahead of our time! We’re currently called Angel’s Son; got a sweet gig at Moles, in Bath, end of the month. Drop in, if you’re in the area. Catch us while you can. I doubt we’ll be there long . . .”
“No offence, Leo,” I said, “but on the whole I think I’d rather stick skewers in my ears.”
“For someone who didn’t want to give offence, I’d have to say you came pretty damned close there,” said Leo.
I wished him luck and he stalked off. People got out of his way; they could smell the wolf on him.
Next up was Harry Fabulous: handsome, charming, deeply fashionable, and all of it as fake as his constant smile. Harry showed no interest at all in the stalls, moving instead from one potential customer to another like a shark in good fishing waters. Harry would steal the shirt off your back but do it so charmingly you’d end up apologising to him that it wasn’t of better quality. Harry Fabulous: con man, thief, grifter, and your go-to man for absolutely everything that was bad for you.
“Shaman! Dear fellow!” said Harry, showing me all his teeth in his most professional smile. “Good to see you out and about again. Haven’t seen you since . . . ah, well, not in public, eh? What have you been up to?”
“You’d never believe me,” I said solemnly. “How about yourself, Harry? How’s business?”
“Oh, busy, as always.” His smile faltered for a moment, his eyes briefly far away. “Had a bit of bad business with an angel in the Nightside, and now I find it necessary to do good works for the sake of my soul . . . You know how it is. Could I interest you in something just a bit special, for an entirely reasonable price? I can get my hands on some very tasty smoked black centipede meat, or some full-strength Hyde, or even some prime Martian red weed: a very cool smoke . . . No? How about some Yeti’s Tears? Kirlian boost? Deep Speed, from the House of Blue Lights?”
“Think I’ll pass,” I said firmly.
“Then I must be off,” he said briskly. “You know how it is, old boy. Things to see, people to do . . . I think I spot a tourist over there, just begging to be relieved of everything he owns.”