Roger looked round suddenly and saw Harry and me. He nodded slowly. His assistants and the two guards looked round. The guards went for their guns, and Harry and I killed them quickly. The assistants bolted out the back door, and I let them go. I could have caught them, but I’d had enough of killing. Let the Sarjeant deal with them. They weren’t what we’d come here for. Harry advanced on Roger. I stayed back by the doorway.
“You did come,” Roger said to Harry. “I wondered if you would. Hello, Harry.”
“Hello, Roger,” said Harry. “I think we need to have a serious talk about where our relationship is going.”
Roger looked at me, and I looked back. I wasn’t ready to leave Harry and Roger on their own together, not yet. Roger got up from his chair before the display screens to stand before Harry. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
“I’ve missed you, Harry,” said Roger.
“I’ve missed you, Roger. Now tell me what the hell this has all been about.”
“A test,” said Roger. “I’m afraid, in the end, this has all been about me. I knew you’d come here with the Drood army, and so did my superiors. This is my final test of my loyalty to Hell. I have to kill you, Harry, here and now, to prove to them and to me that the emotions of this world no longer have any hold over me. That my only allegiance is to the forces of Hell.” He held up one hand to show off a small device. “Our new weapon designers made this for me. A simple toy, based on something the Armourer once used. A clicker that can temporarily force Drood armour back into its torc, against the wearer’s wishes. Leaving the wearer helpless and vulnerable. All I have to do is use this and then kill you, Harry. And you, too, Eddie; I wouldn’t want you to feel left out. And then . . . I will finally have proved which side I’m on. I will be made one of the generals of Hell, and when the Gates of Hell are finally thrown open, and all the damned come forth to tread the Earth and all its peoples under our cloven hooves, I shall be a prince of the Earth and have dominion over mankind. Everything I ever wanted, in return for killing you, Harry. It’s not much of a choice, is it?”
“But you never wanted any of those things, Roger,” said Harry.
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I said nothing and stayed where I was. I wanted to see how this was going to work out. The forces of Hell had retreated before Harry’s conviction; that had to mean something. And I . . . had faith in Harry and Roger.
Roger looked at the simple device in his hand, and then back at Harry. He held the clicker up and all my stomach muscles tightened, and then Roger opened his hand and let the clicker fall to the floor. He stepped on it hard, and I heard it break and breathed a lot more easily.
“How about that?” said Roger. He seemed honestly shaken. “I couldn’t do it. I thought I could, but I couldn’t. I thought I wanted power, and prestige, and to take my revenge on a world that’s always rejected me . . . but in the end, all I wanted was the only thing I’ve ever really wanted. And that’s you, Harry.”
He moved forward, and Harry took him in his arms, and they stood together, holding each other.
“I do so love a happy ending,” I said after a while. “If Molly was here, she’d be in tears. Really. You’re not listening, are you?”
They finally turned to face me, standing casually arm in arm. Harry was smiling broadly, while Roger favoured me with a small, only slightly sardonic smile.
“Thank you for not interfering,” he said. “Now do me a favour and get Harry out of here. Get back to Drood Hall with the rest of your people. While you still can.”
“I’m not going without you,” Harry said immediately.
“You don’t get it,” said Roger. “This is still a trap for all of you. The army outside was only the beginning—expendable troops to hold your attention. And a chance to try out their precious new plastic armour. The real army is on its way. Thousands of them, armed with powerful new weapons. Strong enough to blow the armour right off you. They will kill you all and tear the torcs from your agonised corpses. The only reason they aren’t already here is because they wanted to watch you fighting, see what you’re capable of. Now that they know, they’ll be here any minute. So you have to go now. I’ll shut down the blocks on the Merlin Glass, and you can retreat back to Drood Hall.”
“Come with us,” said Harry.
“I’m sorry,” said Roger, and I could see he meant it. “I can’t. Someone has to stay here with the machines, prevent the conspiracy from reestablishing the blocks and shutting down the Glass again. My superiors already know I’m not going to be what they wanted me to be.” He glanced at the display screens. “They’re watching now. Everyone watches everyone in the conspiracy. They know by now that I’ve betrayed them. By choosing you, Harry, I’ve signed my own death warrant. So you have to go; you have to live, or everything I’ve done will have been for nothing.”
“I’m not going,” Harry said stubbornly. “I’m staying here with you. Eddie, go tell the Droods what’s happening, and get them all safely home. Then put together a real army and come back here and save the day.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.
“You’re not ready to face the army that’s coming!” said Roger. “They have weapons beyond your worst nightmares! Harry, you have to go!”
“You think I’d leave you here to die alone?” said Harry.
“I’m going,” I said. “I have to get my people out of here. Harry, link your torc to the Drood War Room, so it can broadcast real-time images of what’s happening here. Hold the fort, boys; I’ll be back with reinforcements before you know it.”
“Of course you will,” said Harry. “That’s what you do, Eddie.”
I ran back through the hotel corridors as fast as my armoured strength could drive me. The walls blurred, the floor cracked and shattered under the pounding of my feet, and the world became just so many smearing colours until I burst out of the hotel and into the car park and slammed on the brakes. The Sarjeant-at-Arms looked up sharply as I seemed to materialise right in front of him. I had to pause for a moment to get my breath back, and the Sarjeant gestured easily at the dead bodies piled around him, broken and bloody.
“All dead,” he said. “Poor bastards never stood a chance. Good training for the troops, though.”
“They were expendable,” I said. “The real army’s on its way.”
I ran quickly through the situation, and the Sarjeant got the implications immediately. We both looked at the Merlin Glass, and a sharp sense of relief ran through me as I saw a clear view of Drood Hall and its grounds on the other side of the mirror.
“Get everyone back to the Hall,” I said. “Then make me an army so big it won’t matter what the conspiracy is sending.”
“For Harry and Roger?” said the Sarjeant.
“They’re Droods,” I said.
“Of course they are,” said the Sarjeant. “Anything for family.”
He rounded his people up and drove them through the Merlin Glass with barked orders and harsh language. I waited right till the end, hoping I’d come up with some last-minute desperate plan, but I didn’t. Sometimes there isn’t anything you can do. Molly stayed with me, and in the end I had to go, because she wouldn’t go without me. We passed through the Merlin Glass, and I shut it down so nothing could follow us through.
I ran through the Hall to the War Room, leaving raising the army to the Sarjeant. I needed to see what was happening with Harry and Roger. When I got there, they already had the transmissions from Harry’s torc up on the biggest display screen. We could see them in the hotel function room, hear every word they said, but there was nothing we could do to help. We could only watch, and wait for the Sarjeant to tell us the army was ready.
Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar sat quietly together, watching their own display screens showing endless scenes of an empty car park. They seemed easy, comfortable in each other’s company.
“We’ll see Hell’s army when they teleport in,” said Roger. “Actually, it’ll be pretty hard to miss them.”
“Thousands of them?” said Harry. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. No shortage of soldiers in the satanic conspiracy. It does tend to attract people who like obeying orders. And killing people.”
“With terrible new weapons? More powerful than Drood armour?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It had to happen eventually. The Droods couldn’t stay cutting-edge forever.”
“Can’t you . . . do something, with your infernal powers?”
“No,” said Roger. “Everything I had was stripped from me the moment I chose to side with you and embrace my human heritage.”
“I still have my armour,” said Harry.
“It won’t help you,” said Roger. “The army that’s coming will strip it off you like an old coat. I told you: They’ve been planning this for a long time.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” said Harry.
“The hotel still has all its protections, provided by these machines,” said Roger. “And as long as I’m here to keep changing the passwords, they can’t override the defences from outside. If we can hold them off long enough, maybe Eddie will get here with reinforcements. Though he’d have to bring the whole family with him, and every weapon in the Armoury. I hope you’re listening to this, Eddie.”
“So we do have a chance?” said Harry.
“No,” said Roger. “I was being optimistic. It’s a human thing.”
Harry thought for a while. “The conspiracy can’t stay here long—not with an army that big. They’d be noticed by the authorities.”
“Harry, dear, they own the authorities,” said Roger. “They could perform a mass slaughter of the innocents, right here, with flamethrowers, and it would all be covered up.”
Harry made a brief frustrated sound. “Talk to me, Roger. What have your leaders promised the world governments to get them to go along with the Great Sacrifice?”
“What Hell always promises: power. And the indulgence of secret needs and pleasures. Everything you think you want. They have been promised they will be kings of the world to come. The fools.”
“So,” said Harry, “answer me this, at least. Who are the leaders of this new satanic conspiracy? Who’s in charge?”
“Just one man, really,” said Roger. “And it’s a name you’d know. And, I think, one that would surprise you. It’s always the little men, the quietly resentful, secretly ambitious little men you have to look out for. But I can’t say his name. Not even now. I’m under a geas, a compulsion laid down by Hell itself, never to use his name outside the conspiracy.”
“I’d know the name . . .” Harry said thoughtfully. “It’s not a Drood, is it?”
“No,” said Roger. “That much I can say.”
Harry looked about him. “Can’t say I feel very secure in here. Couldn’t we barricade the room?”
“Yes, if you like,” said Roger.
“You think that would help?”
“No. But it’s something we could do while we’re waiting.”
“Hell with that,” said Harry. He folded his arms, tapped one foot on the floor and thought hard. “As Eddie is entirely too fond of saying, when in doubt, cheat. Or at least improvise with style. If I were to armour up and smash a hole in the floor . . . maybe I could excavate a tunnel and burrow past the conspiracy—Why are you shaking your head, Roger?”
“Because the hotel’s protections are still in place,” said Roger. “And I daren’t let them fall, even for a moment. We are sitting inside a bubble around and above and below. . . . Nice idea, though.”
They sat together side by side, happy in each other’s company. Waiting.
“I used to love walking with you through the Hall grounds,” said Roger. “All those endless lawns, and the woods, and the lake . . . I missed out on all that, growing up apart from the family. I felt at peace there. Like maybe I could belong, if I tried hard enough . . .”
“When did you first go rogue?” said Harry. “Turn against us, the Droods, Humanity?”
“Before Eddie was attacked and stabbed,” said Roger. “How else do you think that disguised Immortal got into the Hall so easily?”
“Were you happy as a Satanist?”
“Actually, yes,” said Roger. “It’s a very self-indulgent lifestyle. You really do get to do everything you ever wanted, indulge every sin, wallow in every pleasure, satisfy every need. . . . But self-indulgence gets very boring after a while. Because if you can do
anything
, then nothing really matters anymore. It’s all so . . . superficial.”
And then he broke off, leaned forward and looked at the display screens. Harry looked, too, and all the colour drained from his face.
“They’re here,” said Roger.
“How many of them?” said Harry.
“All of them.”
“Dear God . . .” Harry’s face was white with shock now. “I didn’t know there could be an army that big. Men and monsters and . . . Eddie! Listen to me! Don’t come! You wouldn’t stand a chance!”
“No one ever realises how powerful Hell can be, until it’s too late,” said Roger.
“What are we going to do?” said Harry. “We can’t fight that!”
“I was never planning on fighting,” said Roger. “I was planning on hiding out here long enough for the army to get bored and leave.”
“Eddie could still come,” said Harry, slowly recovering some of his composure. “There’s still the forbidden weapons in the Armageddon Codex.”
“Yes,” said Roger. “Do you see Alexandre Dusk out there any where?”
Harry looked hard, moving from screen to screen. “No.”
“Oh, good,” said Roger. “For a moment I thought we might be in trouble.”
And that was when all the machines exploded at once. The conspiracy had found it couldn’t override the passwords and protections, so they hit the self-destruct. The blast filled the War Room’s display screen, and for a long time all we could see was smoke, slowly clearing, to reveal rubble and wreckage and blazing fires. I saw Harry, on his hands and knees in his golden armour, digging frantically through the rubble. He hauled heavy pieces of broken machinery aside as though they were nothing, until finally he uncovered what was left of Roger Morningstar. The hellspawn was a mess. The man who had defied Hell itself for the man he loved had been torn apart by the explosion. Both his legs were missing, and his torso and half his face were burned and blackened by flames. Only one eye was still open; the other was seared shut. Somehow, he clung to life with more than human energy. He looked up at Harry with his one eye, and managed something like a smile with scorched and blackened lips.