Listen for the beat of
Shut up!
We looked carefully around us, Molly holding her left hand high to spread the witchlight evenly around the chamber. She even raised the intensity of the light, making the shadows seem very deep and very dark. Molly moved her hand jerkily back and forth, and shadows jumped violently all around us. But there was definitely no one else in the chamber.
When I broke into the adjoining chamber, I said slowly, it is entirely possible that I broke all the original Drood seals and protections. In which case none of this is hidden anymore from the eyes of the world. The whole place probably lit up like a beacon. If someone was lying in wait, keeping an eye on things here
Then they just got an eyeful, said Molly.
Any chance this watching someone might be Crow Lee or one of his people?
Seems likely, I said. If he d learned enough about my family s secrets to remotely control Alpha Red Alpha, who knows what else he knows? You don t get to be the Most Evil Man in the World without keeping three steps ahead of everyone else. Whoever s watching knows what s just happened. They might not know exactly what was hidden here, but they must know it s out in the open now and vulnerable.
So they ll be coming for it, said Molly.
Seems likely, I said.
They re already here, said Molly.
That s what we heard. It s mummies. I just know they ve sent mummies after us.
Look on the bright side, I said. Might not be mummies; could be daddies.
Really not helping here, Eddie! I hate mummies! They re going to come crashing through the walls, I just know it, dusty old things wrapped in rotting bandages, and they ll wrap their horrible arms around me, and
Easy, girl. Easy! I can see years of therapy starting right here. I put my hands on her shoulders and gripped them comfortingly. Molly What are you so scared of? You re the wild witch of the woods, free spirit of anarchy and queen of all the wild places!
If fears were rational, said Molly, with some dignity, they wouldn t be fears. Would they?
How old were you when you first saw this mummy film?
Five. Maybe six.
Well, you re not five or six anymore. You re not a helpless child anymore. You are a very grown-up, very powerful, very adorable and only sometimes scary adult. Anything in bandages turns up, you set fire to it and I will stamp it into the floor. Okay?
Okay, said Molly. Thanks, Eddie. What are you afraid of?
Losing you.
She smiled. You say the nicest things, sweetie. And then she stopped and held herself very still, only her eyes moving. Look around you, Eddie. Are you seeing what I m seeing? Our shadows are moving and we re not.
In fact, I said, holding myself very still, too, there are far too many shadows in this chamber. The enemy is with us, Molly. On guard.
I armoured up, the cold metal rushing over me in a moment. I kept the compass enclosed with one hand inside the armour. Molly sent up a ball of witchlight from her hand to bob against the low ceiling, providing illumination while leaving her hands free to do more destructive things. We moved quickly to stand back-to-back, without having to discuss it. We d danced this dance before. I actually felt a lot better now that I had a proper enemy to confront. Shadows danced wildly all around the stone chamber, deep and dark and menacing. Full of an awful, inhuman life. They took on human shapes, distinct but distorted, the better to terrify us, and entirely separate from Molly and me leaping and jumping, stretched across the bare stone walls. They had nothing to do with Molly s witchlight; they were something from outside. No faces on their dark heads, not even any eyes, but still the shadows seemed to know exactly where Molly and I were.
They whipped around the chamber, circling us like sharks, darting in and out, peeling themselves away from the walls to threaten Molly and me with sudden sharp movements. Dancing like demons, jumping and stretching and moving closer to us with every attack. They swirled around us, leaping and looming. Mocking, maddening things.
Can I just quietly remind you that self-control would be a very good thing right now, I said quietly to Molly. One destructive blast in the wrong place might well bring this whole place down on our heads. And we really are a very long way underground.
Like I need you to tell me that, said Molly.
Self-control, carefully aimed destruction and brutality and viciousness at close quarters; that s what s needed here. Look at the stupid things jumping up and down and trying to be scary. We can handle a bunch of shadows.
I smiled briefly behind my mask. Of course we can. We are, after all, professionals.
And then all the shadows attacked at once, plunging in at us from every direction, striking like solid things with solid blows and supernatural strength. Suddenly they all had huge brutal fists and clawed hands and a lot of good that did them against my armour. Jagged claws clattered loudly across my golden face and neck and raised showers of sparks as they skidded across my armoured chest; doing no damage at all. I actually relaxed a little. I hadn t been entirely sure the rogue armour would be as strong and secure as the strange matter I d grown used to. Shadows smashed and slammed into me from every direction at once, and one dark force hammered into my chest like a battering ram, making my armour sound like a great bell. But they couldn t even rock me back on my feet.
The shadows retreated for a moment, shaken.
Molly filled the chamber with all manner of fierce and dangerous light, throwing mystic attacks at every moving shadow. Terrible energies flared around her hands, and the close air trembled with the impact of the Words she spoke. Dark leaping things exploded as her energies overpowered them, but most of the shadows just opened up holes inside them so that her magics flashed right through them without touching or affecting them at all. They came at her again and again, but she d already surrounded herself with a shimmering screen that kept them back. The shadows beat at it with their dark fists and cut at the screen with their barbed claws, and none of them even came close to breaking it. I could feel the presence of the protective screen even through my armour. A tingling, not unpleasant sensation.
The shadow shapes seemed only to have a physical presence when they chose to. I lashed out at them and my golden gauntlets passed right through them, as though they were just the shadows they seemed. I couldn t touch them, couldn t hurt them, and when I tried to grab them in my golden hands, they squeezed out like inky tar. And all the time they were hitting me again and again, harder and harder. And I couldn t help noticing that Molly s protective field was slowly shrinking under the outside pressure, closing gradually but inexorably in on her.
Eddie! This is not going well! said Molly.
I say we use the Merlin Glass and get the hell out of here! We ve got what we came for!
Already ahead of you, I said, thrashing wildly around me. But, unfortunately, some outside force is interfering with my access to the pocket dimension I keep the Glass in. I can t reach the damn thing!
Typical! I told you to leave it open in case we needed to make a sudden exit!
No, you didn t!
Well, you should have thought that I would! said Molly.
That makes no sense!
Can we argue about this later? Only I m just a bit busy at the moment.
The shadows lunged forward, falling on us both from all sides at once, wrapping themselves around us like huge shadowy snakes. They lashed our arms to our sides before we even realised what they were doing, and both of us staggered back and forth around the chamber, crashing into the walls and each other, struggling to break free. I set all the strength of my armour against the shadow snakes, but they didn t give an inch. I could see them tightening remorselessly around Molly s shimmering screen, forcing it right back against her body, so she had no room to move or manoeuvre. If not for the screen, the sheer pressure of the shadow snakes would have killed her. They tightened even further about me like constrictors. I heard my armour creak and even groan under the inhuman pressure, and I felt the touch of real danger. Because while physical force has limits, magic has none. The rogue armour was good, but it wasn t the impenetrable strange matter I was used to.
My mind flashed back to the half-melted Drood armour I d found at the entrance doors of the ruined Hall. He
