They had to die, because it was our duty to make sure they could never harm anyone again.
It didn’t take all that long. The Sarjeant-at-Arms’ guns finally fell silent, and only Droods were left standing. A few armoured figures moved carefully among the fallen bodies, but there were no merely wounded. The Sarjeant was very efficient. He looked round him at all the bodies lying slumped and piled across one another and nodded once, contemplating a job well-done. The guns disappeared from his hands. And then we all turned to look at the only two people left standing in the room who weren’t us. Philip MacAlpine and Alexandre Dusk stood together on the stage, looking defiantly back at us. I started toward them, and the Sarjeant and the Armourer came with me. MacAlpine looked quickly around, but there was nowhere for him to go. Alexandre Dusk smiled smugly at me. The bullet wound in his forehead was almost completely healed. He lifted his hands, and dark energies spit and swirled around them.
“I have my power, and I have my shields,” he said. “You can’t kill me, and you can’t stop me.”
“Wrong,” said the Armourer. He raised his clicker, snapped it once, and the magics surrounding Dusk’s hands disappeared. He looked at his hands dumbly for a moment, and then looked back at us. The Armourer smiled. “There are all kinds of clickers. Eddie, would you care to . . . ?”
I stepped forward and jumped up onto the stage. MacAlpine backed quickly away, but Dusk was still too stunned to move. He opened his mouth to say something, and I grew a long golden sword from my right hand and cut off his head. The body slumped to the stage, gouting blood. The head fell to the stage, rolled over the edge and ended up at the Sarjeant’s feet. The mouth was still moving, until the Sarjeant stamped on it. And that was the end of Alexandre Dusk.
I looked at Philip MacAlpine and he snarled back at me. “You can’t have me!” he said, his voice high and ragged. “I don’t care what you’ve got. I made a deal! It was promised to me that nothing in the world can harm me.”
“Hell always lies,” I said. “Except when a truth can hurt you more. You should know how deals with the Devil always work out.”
“I can’t be harmed! My own people tried to kill me in a hundred different ways, hoping to replace me as leader. I have drunk poison, soaked up bullets, laughed at curses! Nothing can touch me anymore. Your armour is worthless against me.”
“Yeah, right,” said the Sarjeant, behind me. He strode forward across the stage and launched a golden fist at MacAlpine’s head with enough force to tear it clean off the man’s shoulders. Except suddenly, impossibly, MacAlpine’s hand came up to intercept it. The golden fist slammed harmlessly into MacAlpine’s palm, stopped dead. And while everyone watched, MacAlpine closed his hand hard and crushed the serjeant’s hand inside his armour. He couldn’t break the golden strange matter, but he could destroy the hand inside it. We all heard the bones break and shatter. The Sarjeant grunted once. MacAlpine let go, and the Sarjeant fell back a step, nursing his injured hand to his chest. He didn’t cry out.
The Armourer looked at MacAlpine thoughtfully. “I wonder what a golden ax would do to his neck?”
“Don’t,” I said. “He really is protected. Sarjeant, have all the wounded been evacuated? Is there anyone else left in the castle?”
“All gone,” said the Sarjeant.
“Then let’s get the hell out of Schloss Shreck, and leave MacAlpine here. Sealed inside the Timeless Moment forever.”
“Ah,” said the Armourer. “We have a slight problem there. As I tried to tell you . . .”
I looked at him. “What?”
“When we smashed the teleport systems, we accidentally set off a self-destruct mechanism,” said the Armourer. “Designed to seal off the Timeless Moment so nothing could get in or out. One last dog-in-the-manger stratagem . . . We found the destruct mechanism, but its workings are protected by powerful shields. We can’t get at it. The best we can do is keep resetting the timer every sixty seconds. There’s a Drood doing that right now. The trouble is . . . the self-destruct mechanism is so powerful it’s affecting Alpha Red Alpha. Basically, if the destruct mechanism goes off, our machine will be destroyed, too. And Alpha Red Alpha takes a lot more than sixty seconds to fire up. We’d be stuck in here forever. Which means . . .”
“One of us has to stay here,” said the Sarjeant. “To keep resetting the timer until after the Hall has safely gone.”
Some days, the hits just keep on coming.
“I’ll stay,” the Sarjeant said. “I know my duty. My job is to protect the family.”
“No,” I said. “It has to be me.”
“Why?” said the Armourer. “Why does it always have to be you, Eddie?”
“Because I led us in here,” I said. “I know my duty. Anything for the family. Take me to the self-destruct mechanism, Uncle Jack. Sarjeant, get everyone else out of here.”
“Fair enough,” said the Sarjeant.
“No!” said MacAlpine. “You’re not going anywhere!”
He surged forward, his hands reaching for my throat. I whipped out the Merlin Glass, activated it and slapped it over MacAlpine. And the Glass sent him away.
“Where did you send him?” said the Sarjeant.
“Back to the cryogenic chambers,” I said. “To play with the other monsters.”
“The Glass!” said the Sarjeant. “You could wait till the last minute, then use it to transport you to the Hall just as we’re leaving!”
“No,” said the Armourer. “I’ve shut down the shields here, but the castle’s main protections still hold. They won’t let the Glass transfer anything out of the castle. I’m sorry, Eddie, if that’s what you were counting on. . . .”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “But we can use it to jump to the mechanism, can’t we?”
“Of course,” he said. “Take the family home, Sarjeant. Prepare Alpha Red Alpha. As soon as I return, we’re leaving.”
The Merlin Glass followed the Armourer’s instructions and delivered the two of us to a small back room full of strange old-fashioned equipment: great bulky stuff, with lots of vacuum tubes and heavy wiring. One large grey box was ticking down the seconds. The armoured Drood standing next to it hit the reset button, and the timer returned to counting down the minute. The Armourer gave the Drood his marching orders, and sent him back to the Sarjeant through the Glass. Which left him and me and the box.
“Don’t ask me what it is, or how it interferes with Alpha Red Alpha,” said the Armourer. “The people who worked here originally let their minds run in some pretty strange directions. I could spend months here taking things apart. . . . But we haven’t got months.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I know what to do. Time for you to go, Uncle Jack.”
He armoured down to show me his face. He looked like someone grieving at a funeral. “It isn’t fair, Eddie. You’ve done so much for the family. . . . I’m an old man. I should stay.”
“No,” I said immediately. “They need you to work Alpha Red Alpha. And besides, you’re far too valuable to the family. What would the Droods do without their Armourer? Someone has to do this. And I need to do it.”
“Why?”
“Penance,” I said. “And no, you don’t get to ask what for.”
“You were always my favourite nephew,” said the Armourer. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what to say to you, Eddie.”
“Say good-bye to Molly for me,” I said. “Make sure she knows how much I always loved her.”
“She knows,” said Uncle Jack. “Eddie . . .”
“Yes?” I hit the reset button.
“I have to take the Merlin Glass with me. It’s no use to you here, and it’s far too valuable to the family to leave behind.”
“Of course,” I said. “Molly will be able to use it to help Alpha Red Alpha get you home safely.”
I handed the Glass over. The Armourer took it reluctantly.
“It was the best toy you ever gave me, Uncle Jack,” I said.
He looked like he desperately wanted to say something, but couldn’t. So we shook hands, very formally.
“You did good, Eddie,” he said. “You’re a credit to the family. You will be remembered.”
“Then make sure they remember the real me,” I said.
The Armourer nodded quickly, activated the Merlin Glass, stepped through it and was gone. I finally got to see what that looked like, as an observer, and it was every bit as freaky and disturbing as people said it was. And I was left alone in Schloss Shreck. Castle Horror.
I pulled up a chair and sat down beside the stubbornly counting self-destruct mechanism. I wondered how I’d know when the Hall was gone. . . . Best give it an hour, and then . . . What we do in Heaven’s gaze matters most. And one time pays for all.
I sat in my chair, looking round the room. I didn’t armour down; its strength was all that was holding me together. I kept an eye on the descending countdown, making a little game out of how late I could leave it, and looked back over my life. Enjoying my triumphs, cataloguing my sins, regretting all the things I’d meant to do but never got round to doing. I wished I’d made a better fist of running the family, while I had the chance. Wished so many good Droods hadn’t died in action, following my plans. And then there were all the many things I’d meant to say to so many people, because you always think you’ll have more time. Molly and I never talked enough. Not about the things that really mattered. I’d always meant to marry her, eventually, but it never seemed to be quite the right moment. I hoped she’d understand why I had to do this. Probably not. She never did have much time for guilt or penance.
I wished I’d taken more time to talk with Uncle Jack about all the marvellous things he and Uncle James did. I could have talked with him about my parents . . . but I never did.
I thought about Philip MacAlpine. No doubt running screaming through the stone galleries, trying to find me and stop me before the Hall could leave the Timeless Moment. Fat chance. Would he die when the castle finally blew up, or would Satan’s little gift let him survive to drift endlessly in the silver void forever? I smiled, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a pleasant smile.
I kept hitting the reset, and the seconds kept on counting down.
The door slammed open, and Philip MacAlpine burst into the room. I stood up, keeping my place by the mechanism. He stood swaying before me, grinning broadly, his eyes blazing. He had something very like my Colt repeater in his hand, aimed right at my head.
“Get away from the machine, Eddie. If I’m going down, I’m taking all of you with me.”
“Sorry, Phil,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Took me a while to find this,” he said, brandishing the gun. “One of the first things I had my people put together for me. A Colt repeater that fires strange-matter bullets. Punch right through that flashy armour of yours. The traitor inside your family really was very helpful. He could provide only a few strange-matter bullets, but I’ve got enough here to do the job.”
“Better not miss,” I said.
“I won’t,” said Philip MacAlpine.
And that was when Molly Metcalf teleported into the room. She appeared right beside MacAlpine, saw what he was doing and, while he was still startled by her sudden arrival out of nowhere, she snatched the gun out of his hand and threw it to me. I caught it easily and turned it on MacAlpine, while Molly moved over to join me. I hit the reset button. MacAlpine glared at me defiantly.
“I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry for any of it. It would have been glorious. . . .”
“No, it wouldn’t,” I said.
He laughed at me. “You can’t hurt me. Nothing in this world can hurt me. I was promised!”
“Yes,” I said. “But strange matter isn’t from this world.”
I shot him twice in the head, and he crashed to the floor and didn’t move. I looked at Molly.
“How . . . ?”
“Did you really think I’d leave you here? I told you: I’ve been to Heaven and Hell and Limbo! Getting into the Timeless Moment was nothing compared to that! Come on; everyone got back home safely, so we can leave this awful place to its own mercy. Time to go home, Eddie.”
“Damn right,” I said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
All That Remains
W
hen I finally armoured down, back in my bedroom, and Molly saw what had been done to me, she put a hand to her mouth and did her best to keep the shock from her face. She helped me lie down on the bed, biting her lower lip every time I made a pained sound in spite of myself, and then spent the rest of the day sitting with me, working her healing magics. And by the early hours of the next morning, I was well again. So we spent the next few days in bed.
After that, all that was left was the cleaning up. Every field agent in the family went travelling across the world to explain to the various governments and leaders that the satanic conspiracy was gone, never coming back; forget any promises they might have made. And the Great Sacrifice was very definitely off the agenda. A handful of leaders and governments didn’t want to give up on such a great idea, and there followed a series of heart attacks and unfortunate accidents, followed by the appointment of new leaders and governments.
In between putting the fear of God into those who needed it, Molly and I travelled all over Europe, seeing the sights and having fun playing tourists. We had to do it the hard way, by plane and car, because the Merlin Glass was broken. The strain of interacting with Alpha Red Alpha had been too much for it, and now the mirror was cracked from side to side. The Armourer sort of thought it might still be possible to use it, but everyone else thought that was a very bad idea. So the Glass remained in the Armoury, under lock and key, because no one wanted to mess with an artefact created by Merlin Satanspawn. Not even my uncle Jack.
Molly and I returned to England some three months later, travelling in a perfectly restored Rolls-Royce Phantom V. Very smooth ride. Very tasty. It was a bright sunny day as Molly and I roared through the back lanes of the southwest countryside. Bright blue sky, not a cloud to be seen, birds singing their little hearts out. Kind of day that made you glad to be alive.