For Heaven's Eyes Only

“Oh, please,” said Dusk. “There’s nothing about you that couldn’t be cured with the right kind of can opener.”

“And there’s nothing about all the people in this lobby that a good kicking couldn’t help to put right,” I said. “Shall we get started?” I looked about me, and people actually fell back. “I mean, come on! Worshipping the Devil? When has that ever been a good idea? I put it all down to poor toilet training, myself.”

Dusk looked at Molly and Isabella. “Since your companion seems impervious to good sense, have you anything useful to say?”

“Fuck off and die,” said Molly.

“Apparently not,” said Dusk.

“Why are we still talking?” I said. “Are we waiting for your marvellous secret weapon to make its appearance? Or has one of its wheels come off?”

“No,” said Dusk. “I’m curious. I’ve never met a Drood before. Don’t know anyone who has. You’re the urban legends of the invisible world. How did you come to be here? How did you know I was going to be here today? Which of my people betrayed us?”

I had to smile behind my mask. I could have told him it was all down to chance, but he wouldn’t have believed it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said, to sow a little mischief.

“At least my power is my own,” said Dusk. “How does it feel, knowing that your only power comes from your armour? That you can have power over the world only by sealing yourself off from it? We glory in our power, and know sensations you can only dream of.”

“It’s not the armour,” I said. “It’s never the armour. It’s the Drood inside it. And to attack one of us is to attack the whole family. Are you really ready to declare open war on the Droods?”

There was a long pause. He was actually thinking about it. I really wasn’t sure what he would do next. He had the numbers and the weapons . . . but he wasn’t sure. I was still a Drood in my armour, and Molly and Isabella both had reputations for blood and mayhem. It would be a brave bookie who’d set the odds on this one. I was ready to fight if I had to, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to.

“Let them go,” Dusk said finally. “It’s not as if they know anything important. Run back to your family, Drood. Tell them their time is almost over.”

He gestured with his left hand, and his people obeyed him immediately, falling back to open up a narrow aisle between us and the lobby entrance. Molly and Isabella and I moved slowly but steadily over to the doors, not dropping our guard for a moment. Molly pushed the doors open, and she and Isabella slipped quickly out onto the street beyond. I paused to look back at the watching crowd.

“You did a lot of damage while you were here, Drood,” said Dusk. “There will be a reckoning.”

“Send the bill to Drood Hall,” I said. “And we’ll all take turns officially ignoring it.”

I left the lobby, and the doors slammed shut behind me. There was the sound of a great many locks slamming shut. I quickly armoured down, before any passersby could notice, and then Molly and Isabella and I strode perfectly normally down the street, away from Lightbringer House. It felt good to be back in the real world again, in the natural sunshine and the easy calm of everyday life. I could feel my muscles slowly unbunching as I was finally able to relax. That had all been a lot closer than I cared to think about.

“I could have taken him,” Isabella said suddenly.

“We could have taken him,” said Molly.

“You want to go back in and try?” I said. “I’ll hold your coats.”

“Not right now,” said Isabella.

“Maybe later,” said Molly. “There were an awful lot of them, weren’t there?”

“I counted three Hands of Glory, several death charms and something that looked very like a monkey’s paw,” I said. “Drood armour’s good, but it does have its limits.”

“If we hadn’t been there,” Molly said slowly, “and if you hadn’t had to worry about us, would you have fought them anyway, and to hell with the consequences?”

“No,” I said. “The important thing was to get out of there alive with the information we gathered. My family doesn’t know anything about this, and they need to know. I’m more concerned about you now. They’ve seen your faces; they know who you are. They’ll never stop coming after you. I think you both need to come back to Drood Hall with me. You’ll be safe there. My family doesn’t take any shit from jumped-up Devil worshippers.”

“Put myself in the hands of the Droods?” said Isabella. “I don’t think so!”

“Then what will you do?” said Molly.

“I have my own leads to follow,” said Isabella. “This was my case, and my business, long before you stuck your noses in.”

“And if they do come after you?” I said.

Isabella smiled briefly. “I could always go spend some time with Louisa.”

She strode off down the street, head held high, not looking back. People moved quickly to get out of her way.

“Well,” said Molly. “That was . . . interesting. Whose great idea was this, anyway?”

“Yours,” I said.

“Why do you listen to me?” said Molly. “I wouldn’t.”

CHAPTER FOUR Too Many Secrets for One Family

Back at Drood Hall, I walked into the Sanctity to find the ruling council already assembled and waiting for me. Somehow, I’m always the last to arrive. I’d like to take the credit and say I do it deliberately, so I can make a big entrance and be sure everybody’s attention is fixed on me . . . but the truth is that no matter how hard I try, they’re always there first. I sometimes think they must all get together secretly beforehand and agree to actually start the meeting ten minutes earlier, so they can all look at me disapprovingly for being late again. But, truth be told, I’m always late. For everything. It’s a gift.

And these days nobody glares at me too much when I walk in late with Molly Metcalf on my arm, because Molly glares right back at them. And it’s never a good idea to upset someone who can turn you into something small and squishy with warts on your warts by looking at you in a Certain Way. I, of course, do not have to worry about this happening to me, because I have learned the magic words, Yes, dear.

They were all there, sitting round the great table in the middle of the Sanctity. The ruling council of the Droods, self-appointed on the run after the Matriarch’s murder, because someone had to keep the wheels turning while the family got on with its job. Family politics come and go, but duty and responsibility go on forever. My uncle Jack, the Armourer, was sitting at the head of the table in his usual lab coat, fresh that day but already marked with scorch marks and chemical burns, over a grubby T-shirt bearing the legend, Give Me a Lever and a Place to Stand, and I’ll Beat the World into Submission. The Sarjeant-at-Arms sat stiffly in his chair, back straight and head erect, big and muscular in his black suit and spotless white shirt, like a bouncer who’d muscular in his black suit and spotless white shirt, like a bouncer who’d taken over the nightclub. A thug and a bully and proud of it, the Sarjeant was a very busy man who could still find the time to be disappointed in me.

William the Librarian sat slumped in his chair, wearing a battered dressing gown that must have had a pattern on it once upon a time, and a pair of sloppy bunny slippers. It was immediately clear that he wasn’t wearing anything under the dressing gown, and even before I reached the table, the Armourer had to tell the Librarian to keep the damn thing closed. There was something about the bunny slippers that disturbed me. They were white, and most bunny slippers are pink. In fact, I was pretty sure that the last time I’d seen them, they had been pink. But now they were white. Which felt like it should mean something . . . that I should remember something . . . but the memory remained elusive, so I let it go.

And finally there was cousin Harry, looking more like a defrocked accountant than ever in his neat grey suit and wire-rimmed spectacles. Quiet, clever, dangerous cousin Harry. And his partner, Roger Morningstar. Who, by long tradition, was not allowed to actually sit at the main table with the council. Because although he had much to