“I called in a few favours, mastered a few new tricks, and tracked the tulpa half across London and back. It ran before me, spitting and cursing, lashing out at anyone who got in its way. But I was always right there on its trail, closing in all the time, preventing it from doing any real damage or horror, and finally it did the only thing it could. It went home. I crashed through the front door of the nice little house only minutes behind it and found the woman standing over the tulpa’s unconscious body. She’d hit it over the head with a vase of flowers.
“They really did look exactly the same. The woman came to me and nestled into my arms, sobbing like a small child, desperate for me to tell her that the horror was finally over. Except it couldn’t be as long as the tulpa existed. It had to die. The woman didn’t protest. But . . . she couldn’t do it herself. Not to something that looked so like her. She begged me to do it for her. Kill the tulpa and set her free, at last.
“She really was very good. She would have fooled anyone else. But you can’t work in this business for as long as I have and not be able to tell the difference between a human being and a spirit form. The woman was unconscious on the floor; the thing with the tearstained face looking up at me so beseechingly was the tulpa. Begging me to kill its original, so it could run free at last.
“I killed the woman. Because I knew the one thing the tulpa didn’t. Once freed, there was no way of putting a tulpa back into its host. It would just go on, killing and killing forever, until it was stopped in the only way a tulpa can be stopped. By destroying the host that birthed it.
“I killed the woman quickly and efficiently. She never woke up. And the tulpa faded away into nothing, screaming its rage to the last. I like to think of myself as an agent, not an assassin. But sometimes, that’s the job.”
When I finished, they were all looking at me in a new way. I wasn’t sure I liked it. But I’d told that particular story for a reason. They needed to understand what I would do if I had to.
“Well, Eddie,” said the Blue Fairy. “That was pretty . . . hardcore. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Of course he does,” said Walker. “He’s a Drood.”
“You did what you had to,” said Honey. “Like you said, it’s the job.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Stories like that are why I decided to specialise in industrial espionage,” said Peter.
We sat around the campfire, staring into the flames rather than look at each other. The storytelling hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, and I wasn’t sure what I’d learned from them. That we were all hard, focused professionals, quite capable of making harsh necessary decisions when we had to? That we were all potential killers? That any one of us was capable of stabbing any other in the back to be sure of getting Alexander King’s prize? I already knew that. I was a little relieved that all the stories had demonstrated a certain amount of moral responsibility. Or at least an awareness of it.
Least of all Peter’s, surprisingly enough. Though maybe that was just big business for you.
“You know,” the Blue Fairy said suddenly, “even though we all work, or have worked, for different masters . . . we all operate in the same greater, magical world. Maybe that’s why Alexander King chose us rather than . . . better-known names. It’s not even as though we’re complete strangers to each other. I know you, Eddie, and I even worked with Walker once, on that Heir to the Throne business.”
“Which you took a very solemn oath not to discuss with anyone,” Walker said coldly.
“I’m not discussing it! I’m just mentioning it to make a point! Do you know anyone here, Walker?”
“I know Honey Lake,” he said, just a bit surprisingly.
“What was the CIA doing in the Nightside?” I said.
“Meddling,” said Walker.
“Nothing that need concern the Droods,” Honey said quickly.
We all looked at Peter, but he just shrugged. “I’ve heard of the CIA, and the Droods, and the Nightside, but that’s about it. I never needed or wanted to be part of your greater, magical world, Blue. I wanted a life as far from Grandfather’s as possible. But . . . he was a spy, and I’m a spy. Maybe it is in the blood.” He looked around the fire, studying all of us thoughtfully. “Why did you become spies? Or agents, if you prefer?”
“For me, it was the family business,” I said. “I was filled full of duty and responsibility from my school days on. Indoctrination starts early in the Droods. I was raised to fight the good fight, to be a soldier in a war with no end. There were many ways you could choose to serve humanity, but doing anything outside the family was never an option. I found a way to leave the Hall and be a fairly independent field agent, but I never left the family. I am a Drood, for all my many sins, and always will be. We exist to protect humanity, and once you find out just how many things it needs protecting from that the rest of you couldn’t hope to cope with . . . it’s hard to turn your back on it.”
“Yes,” said Walker. “Duty and responsibility. Stern taskmasters, but not without their rewards. Someone has to stand their ground against all the forces that would drag the world down. Someone has to crack the whip and keep the lid on things. And I’ve always been very good at that.”
“I wouldn’t know duty and responsibility if I fell over them in the gutter,” said the Blue Fairy. “I play the game for thrills and money and any pretty young things I might encounter along the way. I am an agent for the sheer damned glamour of it. Once you discover just how big and marvellous and strange the world really is, how could you not want to wade in it up to your hips?”
“For me it has always been about serving my country,” Honey said firmly. “Doing the dirty, necessary jobs because someone has to.”
“Money,” Peter said flatly. “For me it’s always been show me the money. I take a certain pride in my successes, in a job well done, but if I could find anything that paid better I’d change occupations so fast it would make your head spin. There’s no glamour in industrial espionage, no good guys or bad guys. Just varying amounts of greed, deceit, and betrayal.”
There didn’t seem much to say about that, so I turned to the Blue Fairy. “When you were a major player, who did you work for, apart from my family?”
He shrugged. “Anyone who could meet my price or had an intriguing case. I always was a sucker for a pretty face with a sob story . . . I was a regular at the Hiring Hall for many years. Had my own stall for a while. Go anywhere, do anyone . . . But nothing lasts, particularly not in this business. Soon enough they want to be rescued by a younger agent with less mileage on the clock; someone whose glamour isn’t quite so faded.”
And then he broke off and sat up straight. He cocked his head slightly to one side, as though listening to something only he could hear.
“It’s out there,” the Blue Fairy said quietly. “In the dark. Watching us.”
We all looked around us, trying not to be too obvious about it, but the dark held its secrets to itself. But gradually, bit by bit, the shrieking and shouting from the local wildlife died away, birds and beasts going to ground in the presence of something more dangerous than themselves. The night seemed suddenly larger and more threatening. A tense, brittle silence, as though everything in the world was holding its breath to see what would happen next. The only sound left was the quiet crackling of the fire. Almost without realising it, the five of us stood up and formed a circle around the fire, standing shoulder to shoulder staring out into the night so nothing could come at us undetected. The Blue Fairy stood to my left, almost quivering with eagerness.
“Are you sure about this?” said Peter. “I can’t see a damned thing.”
“Oh, sure,” said Honey. “The whole forest has fallen quiet just because it can’t wait to hear your next story.”
“It’s out there,” said Blue. “I can feel its presence like a weight on the world, a disturbance in the night. But . . . I can’t tell what it is. It’s natural and unnatural, both at the same time. Strange . . .”
“Is it human or animal?” said Walker, practical as ever.
“It has elements of both,” said Blue. “But if I was pressed, I think I’d say neither . . .”
“Is it dangerous?” said Honey.
“Oh, yes,” said Blue. “I can smell fresh blood on it.”
“As long as it doesn’t turn out to be some kind of ape or missing link,” said Peter, his voice just a little too loud and carrying for my liking. “Probably end up throwing its poop at us.”
“It’s not an ape!” Blue snapped, not looking around. “Nothing so ordinary . . . Something about this creature puts my teeth on edge. Just making mental contact with it makes me want to wash my soul out with soap.”
“But all the descriptions of Sasquatch agree on a large, hairy, manlike figure,” said Honey. “If not actually an ape, at least some kind of protohuman.”
“No,” the Blue Fairy said flatly. “Not an ape. Not human. Nothing like that. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if this is a Sasquatch at all. Perhaps this is something else, something different . . . and that’s why Alexander King sent us here instead of to the more usual Bigfoot locations.”
“Okay,” I said. “No one make any sudden moves. We don’t want to frighten it off after waiting so long for it to put in an appearance. If it retreats into the dark, we might never find it again.”
“Quite,” said Walker. “Last thing we want is to go rushing off into the dark after it. Only too easy to split us up and pick us off one at a time.”
“Are you worried about the Sasquatch, or one of us?” said Peter.
“Come on, Blue,” I said. “We need information. What can you tell us about this creature?”
“It’s not natural,” the Blue Fairy said doggedly. “I can feel the wrongness in it, like teeth gnawing on my instincts. There’s a basic wrongness to it, an instability . . . Yes! That’s it! The damn thing’s a shape-shifter. Sometimes one thing, sometimes another. Sometimes human, sometimes something else.”
“You mean it’s a werewolf?” said Walker.
“Damn,” said Honey. “And me without my silver bullets. Did any of you ever wonder why the Lone Ranger only ever used silver bullets? I always felt Tonto knew more than he was telling . . .”
“If we could stick to the point, please,” said Walker.
“It’s not a werewolf,” said Blue. “I know what they feel like. This isn’t any kind of were.”
“If it is a shape-shifter,” Walker said thoughtfully, “that might explain why it’s never been successfully tracked or identified. At the end of its . . . hunt, it would just turn back into a man again and disappear back into its community with no one the wiser.”
“No . . . no!” said the Blue Fairy, practically talking over Walker in his excitement. “I’ve had this feeling before! I know what this is. That thing out there is a Hyde! Not some poor sad bastard bitten or cursed to be were, but a man chemically changed, transformed into something more and less than a man. I can almost smell the chemicals in him this close.”
“Rather you than me,” said Peter.
“I shall slap you in a minute,” said Walker. “And it will hurt. Pay attention.”
“What’s so impressive about a Hyde?” I said. “I’ve seen dozens of them working as bodyguards or thugs for hire. Oversized muscle freaks usually, and drama queens to a man.”
“The diluted serums that Harry Fabulous and his kind hawk around the Wulfshead Club aren’t a patch on the real thing,” said Blue. “The effects from those potions are as much psychological as physical. No one’s ever been able to duplicate Henry Jekyll’s original formula. The one to let loose all the evil in a man. Some mysterious impurity in the original salts . . .”
“Yes,” said Walker. “Even Jekyll couldn’t re-create his original dose. That was why he lost control over the change and Hyde kept reemerging even without the formula. Perhaps . . . there’s some plant or flower or vegetable growing naturally here that contains the original impurity. Local people would eat it, unknowing, and then succumb to its effects. Then either the affected ones go off into the woods on their own, to make sure they won’t hurt anyone . . . or more likely the community recognises the signs and drives the afflicted one out into the wilderness until it’s safe for them to return.”
“That’s why Grandfather sent us here,” said Peter. “The mystery of this creature solved; not a Bigfoot but a Hyde. Of course, we’ve still got to catch the thing on camera as proof.”
All our heads swivelled around as we heard something moving out in the dark. It was circling us, slowly and unhurriedly, making no effort to conceal its movements now. It wanted us to know it was there. It moved around us in a complete circle, always careful to stay just out of the firelight, as though it had already taken our measure and decided we were no threat to it. And then it stopped, and the heavy silence of the night returned. What could be so scary that every single beast and bird in the wood was afraid to draw its attention?
“It’s right in front of me,” the Blue Fairy said quietly. “Watching me.”
I strained my ears against the quiet, and gradually I made out a low, harsh breathing, more beast than man.
“This can’t be a Hyde,” I said. “Not the real thing. Jekyll was quite clear in his diaries. Edward Hyde was all the evil in a man, made physically manifest. Driven by instinct, ruled by his id, unconcerned with consequences or conscience. A thing of wants and needs and no self-control. A man with the mark of the beast upon him. Nothing but rage and lust and hate and the need to kill.”
“Like your tulpa?” said Peter.
“Worse,” said Blue. “Much worse.”
“Eddie has a point,” said Walker. “If this is a Hyde, why hasn’t he attacked us?”
“Let him try,” said Honey. “I’ll kick his nasty ass for him.”
“You’re missing the point,” I said. “Sasquatches don’t kill. There’s never been a recorded incident of a Sasquatch killing a man. Not here, not anywhere.”
“But if I remember what I saw on television correctly, this creature did terrorise a house full of people,” said Honey.