Big Aus shrugged quickly, stuffed the pointing bone back into his pocket, and gabbled something in a language I didn’t understand. Which worried me just a bit, because my torc was supposed to translate every language I heard, or at the very least supply best-guess subtitles. These words were so old, so ancient and separate, that they predated the Druids who eventually became the Droods. Big Aus really had done his homework.
I was almost within arm’s reach of him. I showed him a golden fist, with spikes rising up from the golden knuckles. He wasn’t smiling anymore, his voice strained by the uncivilised words, his broad red face shining with sweat. He backpedaled so fast he was almost running, but he still stayed close to the Crown Jewels, refusing to be driven away. And then he spat out the last few words, and a snake big as all the world appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself around me.
It was huge beyond bearing, its coils big as tube trains, superimposed on the Jewel House but no less real for that, twisting slowly as the coils tightened around me. It wasn’t a real snake, of course. This was the spirit of a Snake, an ancient ur-spirit in snake form, called back out of the Dreaming by Words that should never have been spoken. I couldn’t believe any Aboriginal shaman would have willingly surrendered these Words to Big Aus, no matter what he was promised. Spirits like this should never be summoned back into our limited physical world; they always have their own agenda.
Big Aus was chanting more Words now at the iron bars surrounding the Crown Jewels. Protective spells sparked and sputtered and went out, and the metal bars dropped and ran away like melting candle wax. I could See it all through the coils of the snake, and I had had enough. It might be an ancient spirit made flesh, perhaps even an elder god let back into the world from which it had been driven long ago, but it was still just a snake, and I was a Drood. Through the golden mask I could See its life force flowing through the massive coils like a river of burning light. I thrust my armoured hand deep into the unnatural snake flesh, closed my golden fist around the life force, and
squeezed
. The snake screamed once, and then vanished, disappearing back into the safety of the Dreamtime.
And I was left alone in the Tower with Big Aus.
He looked at the Crown Jewels, defenceless before him, and then at me. “You can’t stop me,” he said defiantly. “I’ve prepared too long for this. I have weapons and devices enough to stop even a Drood in his tracks and a teleport spell already set up to take me and the jewels right out of here.”
“You might have the weapons,” I said. “But I know the right Words.”
And I spoke aloud the Words the family Armourer had sent me, written in his own hand on a one-time-only sheet of parchment. Words that disappeared even as I memorised them, because they were too dangerous to be read by anyone who wasn’t family and protected. Old Words, powerful Words. I’d really hoped I wouldn’t have to use them, because they were a summoning to forces best left undisturbed. And the first principle of magic is, do not call up what you cannot as easily put down.
But needs must, when the Devil drives. I spoke the Words, and one by one they came; the old Kings and Queens of England. Their spirits bound by their own will to answer the call, in this place, to serve England again in her time of need. Kings from Athelstan to Canute, Henries and Richards, Queens Mary and Elizabeth and even poor Anne of the Thousand Days. They stood tall and proud in their crowns and regal robes, surrounding Big Aus. He looked from face to pititless face, mumbling his useless words of power, and then they closed in on him, and he screamed. And just like that, I was alone in the Jewel Room.
The Kings and Queens of England had returned to their rest with one new ghost condemned to defend the Towers of London for all eternity.
I went back down the curving stone stairs, back through the stone passageways and across the open courtyard, and then out through Traitor’s Gate. No one tried to stop me or ask questions. If a Drood field agent was leaving, then the trouble was over, and that was enough. Outside on the causeway, the sun was up and morning had come. It looked like being a good day, for England.
CHAPTER TWO
Summoned to Judgement, Summoned to Tourney
S
o; previously, in the Secret Histories . . . My family used to be ruled by a Matriarch, my grandmother Martha Drood. But I discovered that the family had become corrupt and divided under her rule and that she was party to an old and terrible secret at the heart of the Droods’ So power. So I turned against my family, brought my grandmother down, destroyed the awful Heart from which our power came, and took over running the family myself. I replaced the alien Heart with an interdimensional traveller that preferred, for inscrutable reasons of its own, to be called Ethel, and I did my best to change the way the family did things, introducing democracy for the first time.
I organised free and fair elections to decide who should run the family, and they voted overwhelmingly for Martha Drood.
I did consider killing her, blowing up the family home, scattering the Droods to the four corners of the earth, and generally acting up cranky, but basically . . . I couldn’t be arsed. They’d made their choice; let them live with it. I had overthrown the Zero Tolerance faction within the family, destroyed the evil Manifest Destiny conspiracy outside the family, and saved all of humanity from the invasion of the Hungry Gods . . . and I just didn’t have it in me to fight another war.
Besides, Martha did have the experience, and she had mellowed, and the Heart was gone, so . . . I just let her get on with it. I went back to being nothing more than a field agent again, with no more crushing duties and responsibilities and decisions—which was, after all, what I’d always wanted.
I was still part of the Matriarch’s advisory council, to which she was, technically, obliged to explain herself and if necessary answer to. The family insisted. Thanks a whole bunch, family. And if Grandmother should go to the bad again, I could always kill her, burn the place down, scatter the family, etc.
The advisory council consisted of myself, my uncle Jack the Armourer, my cousin Harry, and William the Librarian. But not my girlfriend, the wild witch of the woods, Molly Metcalf, even though she had served with honour on the previous council, during the Hungry Gods War. In the end the Droods wouldn’t accept her in a position of authority over them, because she wasn’t family. If she were to marry me, that would be different, of course. But Molly is a free spirit and not the marrying kind. So she left the Hall and returned to her own private wood. I could have gone with her. I wanted to. But I had my duty, to my family and to the world, and through everything that’s changed I still believe in the importance and necessity of what I do.
Molly understands. She’d never been happy in the Hall anyway.
I have my own room in the Hall, with a good view, and I also happen to possess a handy little item called the Merlin Glass that allows me to jump straight to where I’m needed. It’s also a direct doorway to Molly’s wild woods. I spend as much time there as I can. Distance and family and duty are not enough to separate or divide us.
Molly and I love each other. In an ever-changing world, it’s the one certainty I can rely on.
I was always happiest working alone, as a field agent. My only responsibility to the job, and to the mission. All the time I was running the family, I couldn’t wait to put it all behind me and go back to my old job. Which only goes to show. Always be wary when the fates give you what you ask for. It means they’re setting you up for something really bad . . .
So, anyway, after the Tower of London affair, the family called me back from London.
Come home,
they said.
You’re needed. Most urgent, most secret, get your arse back here right now. But don’t use the Merlin Glass.
“Most urgent and most secret” means the fat is already in the fire and melting fast, and not using the Glass meant . . . someone was watching. I got my new car out of its garage and set course for the southwest countryside of England. It was a pleasant enough run down the motorway and then into the narrow roads and winding lanes that lead to a house you won’t find on any map. The Hall has been home to the Droods for generations, and we take our privacy very seriously. Anyone who comes looking for us won’t find us. Or if by some unfortunate chance they do, no one will ever see them again.
We might protect you from all the monsters in the dark, but we don’t like to be bothered. We’re your bodyguards, not your mother.
My new car, a Rover 25, had been carefully chosen to be anonymous and everyday. It was bright red; in fact, it was so red it was
Red!
Every time I got into it I was reminded of the old adage about a car being just a penis extension. I was tempted to paint the bonnet purple and sculpt some veins down the sides. Do I really need to tell you I didn’t choose this car?
Still, it came complete with all the usual extras, courtesy of my uncle Jack. Armed, armoured, and faster than a rat up a drainpipe, this particular Rover 25 could do 300 mph in reverse, fly at Mach 2, and even, in an emergency, go sideways. The Armourer was very keen for me to try that out, but I didn’t like the look in his eye when he said it. He’s still mad at me for messing up his beloved racing Bentley. The Rover 25 had all the usual hidden weaponry, protections, and nasty surprises for the ungodly, plus an ejector seat that could blast an unwanted passenger straight into the next dimension but three.
The gateway to the massive grounds surrounding the Hall is only there if you’re a Drood; to the rest of the world it’s a very solid stone wall. I aimed the Rover 25 at the wall and put my foot down, and the car sailed through, the ancient stonework brushing briefly against my face like so many cobwebs; and then I was driving up the old familiar path that led through the long rolling grounds to the Hall . . . and everything that was waiting for me.
The sweeping green lawns stretched away in all directions for as far as the eye could follow, maintained by sprinkler systems that contained more than a touch of holy water, just in case. My family has a lot of enemies, but anyone who comes after us where we live deserves every nasty thing that happens to them. Robot machine guns rose smoothly up through the grass from their concealed bunkers to track the Rover 25 as it passed, but I didn’t take it personally. I was being considered and identified by a hundred invisible security systems all the way to the Hall. We Droods haven’t survived as a force for good all these centuries by taking anything for granted.
Winged unicorns frolicked gracefully overhead in the clear blue sky, so pure a white they left shimmering trails behind them, while down below aristocratic swans drifted unconcerned across the smooth dark waters of the lake. There are undines in there too, but they mostly keep themselves to themselves. Two really ugly gryphons were humping enthusiastically up against a large Henry Moore statue, and getting muck and mess all over it. I didn’t give a toss. Never did like that statue: ugly great thing. And the roses were out again, blossoming red, white, and blue.
The Hall stood tall and broad and firm on the horizon, heavy with the weight of history and obligation and sacred cause. A huge manor house in the old Tudor style, with four great wings added on somewhat later, plus other things too. Strange lights burned in many of the windows, accompanied no doubt by the usual odd noises and the occasional rumble of an explosion. We’re a lively family. I passed the old hedge maze, giving it plenty of room and a distrustful glance. It covers half an acre and is fiendishly intricate in its layout, but we never use it. The maze was designed and built in Georgian times to hold and contain Something, but no one now remembers who or what or why. When your home contains as many marvels and wonders as ours, a few things are bound to fall through the cracks. Sometimes literally. Now and again we throw into the maze someone we don’t like very much, just to see what will happen. So far, none of them have ever come out again.
A rocket-assisted autogyro blasted off from one of the landing pads on the roof, leaving a long contrail behind it, while someone in a jet pack glided in for a landing. And no, in case you were wondering: no one in this family has used a broomstick for centuries. The Droods live very firmly in the present, not the past.
I slammed the Rover 25 to a halt in a shower of flying gravel and parked the car right outside the front door just because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I stepped out of the Rover and looked the old place over. It hadn’t changed in the six months I’d been away, but that was the point of the Drood family home: it never changed. Like the family, it maintained, sometimes in the face of everything the world could send against it. The car door locked itself behind me, and I heard the defences powering up. Good luck to anyone who tried to move it; my car had a few protections even the family didn’t know about.
I like to keep my family on their toes; it keeps them from taking me for granted.
I headed for the front entrance, and the huge door immediately swung open before me, revealing the cold, grim face of the new Serjeant-at-Arms. The old Serjeant went out in a blaze of glory during the Hungry Gods War, and the new guy just didn’t have his brutal and despised predecessor’s effortless air of menace and imminent violence. He tried hard, though. The new Serjeant-at-Arms was squat and broad and muscular and, in his immaculate formal butler’s outfit, looked very much like a nightclub bouncer at a funeral. His face was dark and craggy and had clearly never once been bothered by a smile. Not surprising, when you considered the importance of his duties. Not only was he the first line of defence against any attack on the Hall; he was also responsible for internal discipline within the family. A good Serjeant-at-Arms may be respected, even feared, but never liked. It’s probably part of the job description. Thou shalt not be popular. The Serjeant maintains family discipline by enforcing every law with open brutality.