I let him lead me through the brightly lit stone corridors and passageways, most of them still lined with burning Nazi flags and banners from where Molly had expressed her displeasure earlier. No sprinkler systems in medieval castles. I could still hear signs of fighting, but way off in the distance. The main party of Droods hadn’t caught up with me. MacAlpine warned me not to armour up just yet; golden feet make a hell of a racket on marble floors, and he didn’t think we should advertise our approach. If the leader thought the Droods were almost upon him, he’d probably run. As we drew closer, small groups of Satanists would run past, heading for the battle, and MacAlpine would give them the proper password and they’d keep going.
“You’re a useful person to have around after all, Phil,” I said.
“You have no idea,” he said. “Really.”
I was starting to be seriously impressed with him. It was too easy to forget that this middle-aged, passed-over man had been a pretty decent spy in his day, and had worked with both my uncle Jack and uncle James. The fact that he’d tried to kill me and failed shouldn’t be held against him. A lot of people came into that category.
“Droods may be flashy,” said MacAlpine, “but MI-13 is thorough. You never even knew we were investigating the conspiracy, did you? I always was a better field agent than you ever gave me credit for.”
“Stop fishing for compliments,” I said. “I’m impressed, all right?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But you will be.”
Finally we came to a great oaken door with a huge Nazi swastika carved into it in brutal bas-relief. MacAlpine eased up to the door, listened for a moment and then carefully turned the handle and opened it a crack. He slipped me a quick wink and then pushed the door all the way open. He strode in, and I moved quickly in after him. Beyond the door was a great auditorium packed with people sitting in row upon row of raked seating, facing an open stage. The door closed quietly behind me.
“All the upper echelons of the new satanic conspiracy,” MacAlpine murmured. “Safe and protected here behind layer upon layer of defences too strong for even Droods to break through.”
I stayed by the door, studying the people in the raked seating, surprised at how many I recognised. Familiar faces from politics, big business, the media, and all kinds of celebrities. And there on the stage was Alexandre Dusk himself, smiling broadly and looking right at me. He made a welcoming gesture in my direction, and everyone in the auditorium turned to look at me and smile. Except they weren’t looking at me. They were looking and smiling at Philip MacAlpine. And when I turned to look at him, he smiled at me and held up one hand. With a clicker in it. He snapped it sharply. I tried to call my armour and couldn’t. MacAlpine gestured to two waiting guards, big muscular types in SS uniforms, and they moved quickly forward to take me by the arms. I didn’t struggle. I had my pride.
“Typical Drood,” said MacAlpine. “Always ready to believe the best of people. I thought I’d had it when you burst in and found me with Isabella, but I always could think on my feet. And you couldn’t believe a small man like me could put one over on a big man like you.”
“I couldn’t believe you’d sink this low,” I said.
“How does it feel?” he said. “To be alone and helpless, naked without your armour, among your worst enemies? How does it feel to know that all the things we did to Isabella Metcalf are nothing compared to what we’re going to do to you?”
I said nothing. Why give him the satisfaction? MacAlpine laughed in my face and walked down the main aisle to take his place on the stage, the guards hustling me along behind him. MacAlpine nodded to Alexandre Dusk, who moved aside to let MacAlpine take centre stage. The guards held me securely to one side, where everyone could get a good look at me. There was no booing or taunts; they looked at me with hot, greedy eyes. MacAlpine smiled out over the assembled Satanists, and then grinned happily at me.
“Yes,” he said. “I am the leader of the new satanist conspiracy. I put it all together, arranged the Great Sacrifice and led you poor old Droods around by the nose. You never saw this one coming, did you? Even when you found me tormenting poor Isabella, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. You believed everything I told you, even though it must have been clear I was making it all up as I went along.”
He looked out over the auditorium, at his people hanging on his every word. “Let the Droods have Schloss Shreck! Let them waste their time wading through all the defences and booby traps we set in place! We don’t need this castle anymore. I’ve already given the orders to activate the influence machine, powered by dear Ammonia’s amazing brain. What was that, Eddie? Did you want to say something? No? Then shut up and listen. You’ll find this both interesting and informative.” He turned back to the audience. We’ll leave here through the teleport gates, taking the machine and its room with us, and then we’ll seal all the entrances to the Timeless Moment. Leave the Droods locked in here. What could be a better revenge? While out in the world we shall set the Great Sacrifice in motion and watch and laugh as the adult populations of the Earth slaughter their own children and damn themselves forever. And then we shall break down the doors of Hell, and our lord Satan shall rise up with all his fallen, and we shall be made kings of the Earth!
“We can always come back here when we feel the need for fresh meat to torment. Why should the Droods miss out on Hell on Earth?”
He broke off then, because I couldn’t keep the grin off my face any longer. The guards forced my arms up painfully behind my back, but I laughed at them, and at Philip MacAlpine, and all the sheeplike faces in the auditorium.
“Typical MacAlpine,” I said loudly. “Too busy boasting about the things you’re planning to do to concentrate on the job at hand. We’ve already found Ammonia Vom Acht and freed her from the machine, and smashed all the teleport gates. My family is coming here, and you’re not going anywhere. You’re trapped in here with us.”
There was commotion then amongst the assembled Satanists; famous men and women jumped to their feet, shouting and arguing, yelling to MacAlpine to do something. He turned away to talk quietly with Alexandre Dusk, and then turned back to stare and shout his people down.
“It doesn’t matter!” he said. “The influence machine was never necessary; it was something to give us an edge! We don’t need it. What we’ve set in motion in the world can’t be stopped now. The Great Sacrifice will go ahead anyway, as planned. And I doubt very much that the Droods have found all our teleport gates. However, I do think that before we take our leave, we should take time out for a little entertainment, and express our displeasure at this poor, helpless Drood in our midst. Because I think we’ve all had quite enough of his meddling and interference in our affairs!”
The audience cheered. They liked the sound of that.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You know you’re dying to tell me. How did a little nobody like you end up leader of the satanic conspiracy?”
“Because of you, Eddie,” said MacAlpine. This is all your fault. None of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for you. I was happy in my job, away from the field, coasting along. I’d had a good career, if somewhat unappreciated, and was actually looking forward to an early retirement. Go down to the coast, somewhere quiet, grow roses . . . And then you ruined all that by screwing up what was left of my career and humiliating me in front of my bosses! You made me look old and useless, and that . . . kicked me awake. Made me realise that my life wasn’t over until I said it was over, and that if I wanted to be great I’d have to make myself great.
“So I used my old contacts to make a new life for myself, and let my ambitions run wild. I had access to all kinds of information at MI-13, and I used it to hunt down the last vestiges of the old satanic conspiracy. There were still quite a few of them around, deep underground, waiting for someone to provide them with a new vision. Britain’s ruling classes have always had a dark side. . . . And so over the past few years, while you and your precious family were busy with the Hungry Gods and the Immortals, I quietly used the contacts I’d made through a long and mostly successful career to put like-minded people together. It was actually remarkably easy to assemble a new satanic conspiracy; I’ve always known people on every side of the fence. All part of doing business in the spy trade. Of course, I had help. Alexandre Dusk was the last of the old-school Satanists, and a bit wary until I explained my remarkable new scheme to him. And then he couldn’t get on board fast enough. He was happy to be the public face of the new conspiracy, while I put everything together beside the scenes. Until I was ready to launch my revenge on a world that never properly appreciated or rewarded me, despite everything I’d done to protect it.”
“Molly was right,” I said, when he finally paused for breath. “It’s always the sad, embittered little men you have to watch out for. . . . I think counselling would probably have helped.”
He glared down from the stage at me. “You don’t get it, do you? Everything you and your fellow Droods have been put through was done at my command. Planned, designed to push you to the edge, provoke you into more and more extreme reactions, to drive you step by step out of the Light and into the Dark. Everything we did was intended to provoke increasingly extreme reactions from you, until you . . . were as bad as us. Look back at everything you’ve done since you started fighting us, Eddie; were you ever so vicious, so violent before? I think that’s what’s pleased me so much about all this: watching the prim and proper Droods become another bunch of thugs.”
I remembered Molly saying,
You can’t fight evil with evil methods. Fighting evil is supposed to bring out the best in us, not the worst.
And I remembered all the things I’d done to the Indigo Spirit and to Charlatan Joe, two of my oldest friends . . . all in the name of revenge.
“You see?” said MacAlpine. “You’ve all done questionable things in your quest to stop us. You’ve used torture and intimidation; you’ve killed people to make yourselves feel better. You’ve demeaned yourselves, Drood. Oh, we went to a lot of trouble to work out schemes best suited to bring out your dark side. . . . And do you know why, Eddie? Because only those who stand in Heaven’s gaze have Heaven’s strength, and can hope to stand against the forces of Darkness. And you and your family aren’t qualified anymore.”
“You came close,” I said steadily. “But not close enough. We didn’t come here to fight evil men; we came here to rescue your prisoners. We didn’t come here to punish you for what you’ve done, but to prevent the Great Sacrifice and save a generation of children. It isn’t what you do, Phil; it’s why you do it.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Eddie,” said MacAlpine, smiling easily. “And try to remember which particular road is paved with good intentions.”
“That really was you in Limbo, wasn’t it?” I said. “That’s why I was able to hit you, when I couldn’t touch anyone else there.”
“Oh, yes,” said MacAlpine. “That was me. Once we discovered how vulnerable you were, I couldn’t resist taking a shot at you. A chance to know all your secrets . . . It would have made this all so much easier.”
“How did you get Walker to represent scum like you?” I said. “He spent most of his life shutting down operations like yours.”
“Walker?” said MacAlpine. “You saw Walker in there? I did hear he was dead. . . .”
And while he was thinking about that, I broke free from my guards with a few old and very unpleasant tricks every Drood learns from an early age. Both of them went crying and moaning to the floor, and I sprinted for the doorway. A great cry went up from the assembled Satanists as they rose up from their seats and scrambled after me. I could hear MacAlpine yelling at them, driving them on. I got to the door, hauled it open, stepped out into the corridor and then turned and stopped there, inside the doorway, and smiled nastily at the approaching Satanists. They all quickly stumbled to a halt, holding back. I was a Drood, after all. Even with so many of them and only the one of me, none of them wanted to go first. In fact, they all seemed very keen for someone else to have the honour of going first.
“What do you think you can achieve, Eddie?” said MacAlpine from the stage. “One unarmed Drood against an army of us?”
“This is the only way out of here,” I said loudly, so they could all hear me and understand. “This is the only exit, and I’m guarding it. Because there might still be some teleport gates my family missed, and I can’t risk your getting to them before my family gets here. So you’re going to have to get through me to get away, and as long as I’m standing in the doorway, you can come at me only a few at a time. So all I have to do is hold you here until the rest of my family turns up. They can’t be that far away; I heard fighting. And once they arrive and see what you’ve done to me . . . Oh, the things they’ll do to you . . .”
“Will somebody please shoot this arrogant little turd?” said MacAlpine.
“Guns won’t work in here,” said Alexandre Dusk.
MacAlpine looked at him. “What?”
“No guns, no weapons, no magics! It’s all part of the defences you had me put in place to keep out the Droods! You said you wanted every possibility covered!”
“Well . . . lower the protections!”
“I can’t! Not like that! It’ll take two, maybe three hours. . . .”
“You’re an idiot, Dusk.” MacAlpine looked back at me. “You can’t stand against us all, Eddie! Without your armour, you’re only one man.”
“One very specially trained man,” I said. “One Drood is a match for any number of amateur-night bottom-feeding scum like you.”
“We’ll drag you down and tear you apart!”
“What we do in Heaven’s name has Heaven’s strength,” I said carefully. “I might have strayed from the path, but I think I’ve found a way back. I choose to stand in Heaven’s gaze again, and pay in blood for what I did in blood. I think . . . when you know you’re going to die anyway, it’s all about being able to look God in the eye. I know you’ll drag me down eventually; enough jackals can always pull down a lion. . . . But all I have to do is hold you here long enough and then my family will avenge me. By slaughtering every one of you. Not for revenge or even for justice. But to make sure none of you can ever harm Humanity again. So here I stand. One last chance for atonement. And you’re right, Phil; I do have so much to atone for.”