The Man With The Golden Torc Part 5

Question was: Were they just after a Drood agent, or did someone know what I was carrying?

I subvocalised the Words, and the living metal swept over me in a moment, sealing me off from all danger behind my golden armour. I checked that the Colt Repeater was comfortably loose in its shoulder holster under the armour, and I looked around me. Still nothing ahead and nothing behind, and only empty fields on either side of the road. An alarm blared suddenly inside the car, making me jump, and a flas.h.i.+ng red arrow appeared on my dashboard, pointing straight up. I looked up, and there were half a dozen black helicopters flying in close formation right above me in complete silence. If it hadn't been for my car's detection system, I'd never have known they were there until it was too late. I hadn't actually known my car could do that. Score one for the Armourer, and thank you, Uncle Jack.

I braked hard, and the black helicopters shot on ahead, caught off guard. They spun around in a wide circle, still utterly silent, and headed straight for me. They looked like nasty ungainly insects. Two of the leading helicopters opened up with machine guns, raking the road on either side of the Hirondel, throwing up debris, trying to frighten me into stopping. I put my foot down again, and the Hirondel responded eagerly, surging forward. The helicopters were behind me now as I raced along, but already they were circling around to follow me, still holding perfect attack formation. One launched a missile, and it swept past me to explode in the road ahead. I snapped the wheel around to avoid the crater, and the car punched right through the smoke and flames and out the other side. The armour protected me from the heat and from smoke inhalation, but that was all it could do, for the moment. The armour's strengths were mostly defensive in nature. Unless and until I got my hands on someone.

I pressed the pedal to the metal so hard my foot ached, and the Hirondel hammered down the motorway, the engine roaring joyously. More missiles exploded on either side of me, the blasts rocking the car, but I refused to be bluffed. They couldn't afford to just blow up the car, in case they damaged the Soul. The black helicopters kept up with me easily, taking up formation all around me. My thoughts were racing, trying to find a way out of this trap, but mostly I couldn't help thinking, Why are the b.l.o.o.d.y Men in Black after me? It was more than three years since I'd burgled Area 52 on the family's behalf. And I took only a few things...Could it be that Mr. President was still mad over the Harley Street affair and had called in a favour from his American counterpart? How very small-minded of him. You try to help someone out...

Bullets raked along one side of the Hirondel, punching through the thick metal, slamming me back and forth in the driving seat, and forcing the car right across into the other lane. I had to fight the wheel for control, all the time screaming obscenities at the helicopter pilots. Didn't they realise the Hirondel was a cla.s.sic car, a genuine antique and a work of art in its own right? You don't put bullet holes in a work of art! b.l.o.o.d.y philistines. Right. Enough was enough. I was angry now. Who the h.e.l.l did they think they were messing with? I hit one of the Armourer's concealed switches, and a panel flipped open, revealing a big red b.u.t.ton. I pressed my thumb down firmly, and an electromagnetic pulse radiated out from the car, swatting all six black helicopters from the sky like the hand of G.o.d.

They plummeted clumsily to the ground as all their electrical systems crashed and fried, and it was a credit to their pilots that only two of them exploded on impact. Thick black smoke curled up into the pale blue sky as I hammered on down the motorway, punching the air with one golden fist. I don't normally celebrate my kills, but they had got me seriously angry. Killing me was one thing, stealing the Soul of Albion another; but vandalising a cla.s.sic like the Hirondel...h.e.l.l was too good for them.

(Do I really need to explain that the car was s.h.i.+elded from its own EMP pulse? The Armourer's not an idiot, you know.) Half a dozen cars came shooting onto the motorway from a side entrance, and I actually relaxed a little, a.s.suming their presence meant the attack was over, and normal traffic was resuming. I should have known better. I noticed almost immediately that each of the cars was a sharp scarlet in colour, glistening like lipstick, and none of them were any make or model I was familiar with. There was something odd, something off, about the six scarlet cars as they crept up behind me. I was still driving the Hirondel flat out, but they had no trouble catching up. They were all long limousines with old-fas.h.i.+oned high tail fins, and they moved smoothly up and alongside me, pacing me effortlessly like hunting cats. For the first time I got a good look at them, close up, and my skin crawled. The hackles stood up on the back of my neck. I could see the driver of the car on my right, and the car was being driven by a dead man. He'd been dead for some time, his gray face shrunken and desiccated, almost that of a mummy. His shrivelled hands had been nailed to the steering wheel, which moved by itself.

These weren't cars. None of them were cars. These were CARnivores.

I'd read about them, heard about them from other agents, but I had never seen one close up before, and had never wanted to. CARnivores are sentient, meat-eating cars with att.i.tude. Some say they came originally from some other dimension, where cars evolved to replace humans, and some say they evolved right here, ancient predators who'd learned to look like cars so they could prey on humans unnoticed. They stalk the motorways, following tired souls who drive alone in the early hours of the morning. The CARnivores close in, cut them off from the pack, and then choose a secluded spot and force their prey off the road. And then they feed...

But what the h.e.l.l were this many CARnivores doing travelling together in bright sunlight, in the middle of the day? I supposed even demon cars could be tempted by a prize like the Soul of Albion. My mission wasn't a secret any longer; there was a traitor in the family, and he had sold us all out.

The CARnivores pressed in on either side, b.u.mping me hard, first from the left and then from the right. The Hirondel absorbed the impact and just kept going. St.u.r.dy old car. I could see dead men swaying in their driving seats, their eyeless heads lolling back and forth. Another CARnivore rammed the Hirondel from behind, jolting me forward in my seat. Two more b.u.mps, left and right, harder now. CARnivores like to play with their food. The one on my left slowly opened its hood, the bloodred steel rising tauntingly to show me a pink glistening maw within and rows of churning steel teeth. It was hungry, and it was laughing at me.

Underneath the protection of my golden armour, I was sweating. I could feel it running down my face. I was pretty sure the living metal would be a match for the CARnivores, but it couldn't do anything to protect the Hirondel. And I needed the car if I was to get the Soul safely to Stonehenge, still a good hour's hard driving away. I could see the effects of the CARnivores' proximity already manifesting in the Hirondel. Every part of the car looked older, dimmed, even shabby. CARnivores could leech the vitality right out of any car, aging it at an accelerated rate until it malfunctioned or fell apart from metal fatigue. And then the CARnivores would drive it off the road and feed on the driver and any pa.s.sengers. CARnivores exist by draining other cars dry, but even more than that, they love their human prey.

They're meat junkies.

The Hirondel had a lot of extra options built in, but at the end of the day it was still just a car and as vulnerable as any other. And the CARnivores were getting awfully close. They b.u.mped and barged me from both sides almost constantly now, jostling me like bullies in a playground, just for the fun of it. Time to show them who was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla around here. I let my left hand drift over the Armourer's special control panel. I doubted the EMP would work on the CARnivores, even if it had recharged itself yet; they were too different, too alien, too alive. So I used the rear-mounted flamethrowers instead. Twin streams of raging fire blasted out of the back of the Hirondel, and a thick rush of flames enveloped the CARnivore behind me. The demon car screamed shrilly, thras.h.i.+ng wildly from side to side as it fell back. The fires had taken hold, and the CARnivore blazed brightly, flames and smoke leaping up into the sky.

I hit my brakes hard, the Hirondel's tyres screeching as my speed dropped by half. The two CARnivores on either side of me shot forward, caught unawares, and I opened up on them with the electric cannon mounted just above the front b.u.mper. Pumped out at a thousand rounds a second, explosive flechettes raked both cars, chewing up the demon metal. One CARnivore exploded, flipping end over end down the motorway before finally skidding to a halt. The other surged back and forth across the lanes, leaking long trails of blood and oil. I kept tracking it with both cannon until it too exploded, shooting off over the hard shoulder and embedding itself in the gra.s.s verge beyond.

Three down, three to go.

But the other CARnivores had had enough. They slowed right down and took the next exit, not used to prey who fought back. I swept on, checking my inventory. The flamethrowers had exhausted most of their fuel, the cannon were almost out of ammunition, but the EMP was fully recharged and ready to go again. I rummaged in my glove compartment for my maps. Now that my cover was blown I needed to get off the motorway as quickly as possible. Use the side roads and the roundabout routes that an enemy might not know. And I needed to stop and find a landline phone so I could contact my family, let them know what was happening. I couldn't trust my mobile. My enemies might tap into the GPS. In an almighty c.o.c.k-up situation like this, I wasn't too proud to beg for reinforcements. And then the car's alarms went off again, and I looked up to see elf lords flying towards me on their dragon mounts.

I should have expected elves. They'd sell the souls they didn't have to get their hands on the Soul of Albion, so they could use it to destroy the humans who'd driven them from their ancient ancestral holdings. Not through war or attrition, but just by outbreeding them. The elves hate us, and they always will, because we won by cheating. I could hear their laughter on the wind, cold and cruel and capricious.

There were twenty dragons, and none of them were the graceful, romantic beasts of myth and legend. These were great worms, thirty to forty feet long, with wet, glistening, segmented bodies, and vast membranous bat wings. They forced themselves through the sky by brute effort, ugly and inglorious, their flat faces made up of a ring of dark unblinking eyes surrounding a sucking mouth like a lamprey's. Astride their thick necks, on ancient saddles upholstered in tanned human skin, sat the elf lords and ladies. Beautiful and magnificent, vicious and vile, human in shape but not in thought, they rode to the slaughter with laughter on their colourless lips, singing ancient hunting songs on the glories of suffering and the kill.

They came straight at me, moving so fast they were over me and then behind me before I even had time to react. They swooped around, the hunting pack in full cry, and the lords and ladies threw lightning bolts at me with their bare hands. The bolts exploded in the road ahead of me, blasting out craters and cracking the surface. I put my foot down and kept going, swerving the car back and forth to avoid the larger holes. The dragons pounded through the air above and beside me, taking their time, enjoying the hunt. Seeing how close they could get to the car, without actually touching it. The continuous explosions of the lightning bolts were deafening, and the flaring lights were bright enough to dazzle me momentarily, even through the armour's protection. I could hear the Hirondel's engine straining. I tried to think what I had that could reach the elves and their dragons, safe up in the sky. A lightning bolt hit the bonnet of the Hirondel, blasting all the paint away in a moment, and the car slammed this way and that under the impact, swerving blindly across the lane divider and back again. Only the armoured strength in my hands kept the steering wheel under control, even as the wheel itself crumpled slowly out of shape.

A dragon and its rider came flying straight at me, only a few feet above the road. I wondered at first if he was planning to ram me, but then I saw him fitting an arrow to his bow, and I smiled. An arrow against my armour. Yeah, right. I reached for the switch to activate the electric cannon and blow him out of my way. The elf lord loosed his arrow. And while I was still reaching for the switch, the arrow punched right through my winds.h.i.+eld and through my glorious golden armour, and buried itself in my left shoulder. I slammed back in my seat, crying out in shock and pain, and actually let go of the wheel for a moment to grab at the arrow shaft with both hands. It wouldn't budge. The car skidded across the lanes. I tugged at the arrow again, crying out in agony, but I couldn't move it. The extra pain cleared my head like a shock of cold water in the face, and I grabbed the steering wheel and brought the Hirondel under control again.

I was panting harshly, and sweat poured down my face under my golden mask. I could feel blood coursing down my arm and chest, under my armour. Every movement, every breath, brought me a new pulse of pain. I gritted my teeth until my jaws ached. I was still in shock, and not just from the pain. My armour was invulnerable. Impregnable. Everyone knew that. The strength of the living armour was the strength of the family. It made our work possible, because none of our enemies could touch us while we wore the living metal. Only, the silver shaft sticking out of my shoulder was a pretty convincing argument to the contrary. Trust the elves to find a way to hurt us. The pain beat in my head, interfering with my thoughts, and it took all my self-control to push it aside and concentrate. There had to be a way out of this. I couldn't surrender the Soul of Albion. And anyway, I was d.a.m.ned if I'd be beaten by a bunch of snotty, arrogant elves.

I kept driving, foot hard down, blinking sweat out of my eyes. I'd lost all feeling in my left arm, and it hung limply at my side. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from my armoured shoulder. It was a strange silvery metal, glowing faintly. G.o.d alone knew from what far dimension the elves had plundered it, desperate to find the one thing that would pierce Drood armour. I looked up and around. The dragons were still keeping up with me, flailing their vast wings into a blur, even though the Hirondel was pus.h.i.+ng its top speed. I couldn't outrun them, couldn't shake them off. So I stamped both feet down on brake and clutch and brought the car to a screeching halt, leaving long smoking trails of burned rubber behind me. The dragons and their riders swept on, caught off guard, but quickly circled around to come back at me again. Some of them were already stringing arrows to their bows.

I forced the bullet-holed door open and stumbled out of the car, crying out despite myself as every new jolt of movement brought me fresh pain. I strode out into the middle of the road, facing the oncoming dragons, my left arm useless at my side. I could see the elves' faces now, their cold, cruel smiles. They were laughing at me. I reached through my golden armour with my golden hand and drew the Colt Repeater from its holster. There was blood on it from my shoulder wound, and I shook a few drops off. I aimed the Colt at the nearest dragon rider, and the gun took care of the rest.

The cold lead bullet hit the elf lord right between the eyes and blew the back of his head off. For good measure I shot the dragon in its ugly head too, and it crashed to the motorway in an ungainly sprawl of flapping wings. I shot all the elves and all the dragons, all the vicious lords and vile ladies and their ugly mounts, and they didn't have the time to fire off a single arrow at me. I just fired the Colt Repeater again and again and again, and the bullets just kept coming, and the gun never missed. A triumph of the Armourer's art. The dead dragons piled up before me, twitching and shuddering as the last of their unnatural life leaked out of them, and not a single elf escaped my cold anger. G.o.d bless you, Uncle Jack.

I sat down carefully on the Hirondel's bonnet and got my breath back. The arrow in my shoulder still hurt like h.e.l.l. I had to contact the family. Get them to send a clean-up crew to remove the dragons and elves before Joe Public turned up to see them. And then the Matriarch would have to send a stiff and very formal complaint to the Fae Court, telling them to keep their arrogant noses out of Drood business, or else. It slowly occurred to me that I'd been driving for some time while fighting for my life, and I still hadn't seen any traffic. Someone had to have arranged for this whole section of the motorway to be sealed off. To close all the exits and shut down all the CCTV coverage would take serious clout. How high up was this traitor in the family, that they could arrange something like this? Yes, I had to get to a safe phone. Tell the family. About the traitor...

My head was actually nodding, my thoughts fading in and out, when the car's alarms went off again. My head jerked up and I slid off the bonnet and looked around me. A thick fog covered all the motorway behind me, a dirty gray mist that churned and boiled, with nothing natural about it. I climbed back into the driving seat, gritting my teeth against the pain, and then pounded my left arm with my right fist until some sensation returned, so I could slam the car into first gear. I took off again, and out of the mists behind me came the phantom fleet.

My first thought was This isn't fair. Not after everything I've already been through... But I was too tired even to maintain a good sulk, so I just concentrated on building up some speed. My injured arm shrieked at me as I raced through the gears, but that was better than the scary numbness. The pain cleared my head and kept me angry. I was going to have to be sharp, in top form, to take out the phantom fleet.

They swept down the deserted motorway after me, ghosts of crashed vehicles driven and possessed by spirits from the vasty deep. Half-transparent cars and trucks and articulateds, and everything else that ever came to a nasty end on a motorway. Some looked real as real could be, while others were just misty shapes, all of them still bearing the damage and burn marks of their previous ends. Too many to count, they came howling after me in a vicious pack, their ghostly engines supernaturally loud. Black brimstone smoke issued from their exhausts, and h.e.l.lfire burned around their squealing tires. The phantom fleet, the wild hunt of modern times; hungry for souls.

The lead car drew up alongside me, matching my speed effortlessly. It was a Hillman Minx from the sixties, the front smashed in, the long bonnet concertinaed. Through the cracked side windows, I could see the car was packed to bursting with grinning ghouls and demons and mutant creatures. They writhed together like maggots infesting a wound, churning and s.h.i.+fting and pressing their awful faces against the windows to laugh at me. None of the Hirondel's weapons would touch these things, because they weren't really there. Just memories of vehicles that once were, and the things from beyond that had repossessed them.

Another car came forward, filling my rearview mirror. Some big boxy foreign job, driven by a hunched-over demon with huge bulging eyes and a mouth full of needle teeth. It hit the horn again and again, and the dead car howled like something in pain. The demon pounded on the steering wheel with its th.o.r.n.y hands, caught up in the excitement of the chase. And then the ghost car surged forward, pa.s.sing through the back of the Hirondel, penetrating my s.p.a.ce with its dead shape. A wave of supernatural cold preceded its progress, freezing the blood in my veins. The dead car drew level, its ghostly outline superimposed on mine, and then the demon driver dropped a th.o.r.n.y hand on my shoulder, ghosted right through my armour, and grabbed hold of my soul. I screamed, just at the touch of it. The demon pulled, trying to haul my soul out of my body, to be prey for the pack, for the phantom fleet. Another stolen soul, to drive the engines of the d.a.m.ned cars.

But my soul was linked to my armour, from the moment I was born. You couldn't have one without the other. And together they were stronger than any d.a.m.ned dead thing. The gripping ghostly fingers slipped slowly away, unable to maintain their hold. I goosed the accelerator, and the Hirondel jumped forward. The ghost car fell back, the demon howling in outrage at being cheated out of its rightful prey. Pain surged up in my left arm again, and I embraced it. It meant I was alive. I forced my left hand forward and hit the emergency default b.u.t.ton on the CD player. The system immediately began broadcasting a recording of the ritual of exorcism, read by the last pope in the original Latin. The sonorous words boomed out of the car's speakers, and the ghost car was driven right out of the Hirondel. Around and behind me, the phantom fleet shrieked horribly and fell back. Some were already breaking up under the impact of the holy words, drifting away in long ghostly streamers. The thick curling mists reappeared in my rearview mirror, and the phantom fleet vanished back into them.

I drove on, half dead behind the wheel myself, and for a while I had the motorway all to myself.

And then, from up ahead, came the Flying Saucerers. And I was so hurt and tired and generally p.i.s.sed off that I didn't even slow down. Let them come. Let them all come, every d.a.m.ned thing from above and below and in between. I was on a roll and mad enough to take on the whole b.l.o.o.d.y world. The Flying Saucerers are high-level magic users who swan around in flying saucershaped artefacts made up of ionised plasma energies, for reasons best known to themselves. Personally, I think they just like to show off. They're the vultures of the paranormal world, darting down to pick up the spoils of other people's battles and carry off whatever isn't actually nailed down. Which is actually pretty pathetic behaviour, if you ask me, for a group who claim they're out to rule the world.

I peered wearily through my cracked windscreen and scowled at the saucers shooting through the sky towards me. There had to be a whole fleet of the b.l.o.o.d.y things. Twenty, maybe thirty, their wide saucer shapes as insubstantial as soap bubbles, condensing into weird rainbow colours around the pilots sitting cross-legged in the centre of the craft. A whole fleet slamming towards me in broad daylight. Made bold at the prospect of a prize like the Soul of Albion. And knowing them, they'd waited for everyone else to take a crack at me, and weaken me, before they tried for the Soul themselves. I could feel my smile widening into a death's-head grin under my golden mask. I might be down, but I wasn't out. And I had weapons and tactics and dirty tricks I hadn't even tried yet.

The Flying Saucerers are dangerous because, like the family, they take science and magic equally seriously. They embrace both schools of knowledge, two very different doctrines, and combine them in unnatural and unexpected ways to produce a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Like the plasma saucers: science devised, magic driven. They came howling in, one after the other, targeting computers zeroing in on my car. Energy bolts cracked and exploded in the road ahead of me, and I threw the Hirondel this way and that, ducking and dodging as best I could. Fierce energies crackled all around me, chewing up the road in long ragged runs. One whole gra.s.s verge was on fire, and I had to jump the Hirondel over a wide crevice that opened up in front of me.

Anywhen else, I would probably have been scared s.h.i.+tless in the face of so much superior firepower, but after everything I'd already been through, the saucers were more annoying than anything.

The road blew up, right in front of me. I punched the Hirondel through the smoke and flames, but the left front wheel dipped into a crack and s.n.a.t.c.hed the steering wheel out of my hands. The car spun around and around, spiralling down the motorway at sickening speed, before finally skidding to a halt. I sat limply in my seat while my spinning head settled, feeling really grateful I'd had seat belts installed, even though it was a cla.s.sic car. My armour had protected me from the sudden deceleration and probably a really nasty case of whiplash, but I was still pretty dazed. And my wounded arm felt worse than ever. G.o.d alone knew what damage the faerie arrow was doing to my system.

I checked the car over. Smoke was rising from under the bonnet, which is never a good sign, but everything seemed still to be working. I considered using the EMP generator, but I was pretty sure the Flying Saucerers would have s.h.i.+elded their craft against that. I would have. Which just left...taking out the trash the old-fas.h.i.+oned way.

I undid my seat belt, forced open the door, and half crawled, half fell out of the car. I levered myself upright by leaning most of my weight on the car door, and the heavy metal crumpled under the strain of my golden fingers. I winced. That was going to be h.e.l.l to beat out later. I stood up, straight and tall, using all the armour's support, and strode off down the motorway towards the approaching saucers. The first dropped towards me and opened up a strafing run with its energy weapons. And I drew my Colt Repeater and shot the Flying Saucerer in the head. He'd protected his craft against EMPs, energy weapons, and magic attacks, but he'd never expected to face a simple cold lead bullet. Guided by the gun's unnatural nature, the bullet punched through all the pilot's s.h.i.+elds and blew his head apart before he even knew what was happening. The saucer dropped like a stone, skidded across the motorway, leaving deep scars in the road behind it, and finally exploded in a rainbow of dissipating energies. I turned slowly, and then shot every other Flying Saucerer out of the sky, one at a time. Even the ones that turned and ran.

I aimed my last bullet very carefully, and the Colt shot the pilot in the gut. His saucer came down in swoops and rolls and finally crashed just a few yards away from me. The saucer shape flickered on and off, colours whorling around and around its surface like an oily film, and then the shape collapsed, no longer held together by the pilot's will. And all that was left was a surprisingly ordinary-looking man lying crumpled on the verge, soaked in blood and curled around his wound.

I walked over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and slammed him over onto his back. He cried out miserably at the pain, and then cried out again in shock and horror as he saw the golden armoured form standing over him. I'd overridden the stealth function. I wanted him to see me. The whole of the front of his tunic was soaked in his blood. I placed one armoured foot on his stomach, just lightly. Not pressing, not yet. He lay very still, looking up at me with wide, frightened eyes. Like a deer brought down at the end of the chase.

"Talk," I said. "And I'll let you call for help."

"I can't..."

"Talk. You don't have to die here. You don't have to die slowly and horribly..."

"What do you want to know?"

I'm pretty sure I was bluffing. Pretty sure. But the Drood reputation goes a long way. I pressed my foot down a little, and he yelled, blood spurting from his mouth.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think I want to know?" I said.

"All right, all right! Jesus, take it easy, man. Fight's over, okay? Look; we just wanted the Soul of Albion, you know? We got directions, all the details, everything we needed on where to find you, and a guarantee that no one would come to help you. The information came from...inside the Drood family. Don't hurt me! I'm telling the truth, I swear I am! We got the word from someone high up in the family. I don't know why, exactly; I'm not high enough in the organisation to be trusted with information like that. I'm just a pilot!"

I considered this, while the pilot lay very still under my armoured foot. He was breathing heavily, sweat soaking his colourless face. Too terrified to lie. Someone in my family wanted me dead, wanted it badly enough to sacrifice the Soul of Albion itself...Why? I'm not that important. I looked down at the pilot, ready to question him some more, but he was dead. I couldn't bring myself to feel bad about it. He would have seen me dead without a second thought.

I went back to the Hirondel. It was scorched and blackened from fire and smoke, riddled with bullet holes, and most of the paint was gone from the bonnet...but she still seemed basically intact. Much like me, really. I leaned in through the open door and retrieved the Soul's lead-lined container. So much death and destruction over such a small thing. I opened the box to check it was okay, and the Soul wasn't there. Lying in the red plush velvet was a simple homing device broadcasting my location to one and all. I took it out and crushed it in my golden fist.

I'd never had the Soul of Albion. Somewhere along the line, someone had worked a switch. And the only way that could have happened...was with the Matriarch's sanction. She would have known immediately if anything had happened to the Soul. And if she knew about the homing device, she knew about everything. It all made sense now. Only the Matriarch could have arranged for this much motorway to be sealed off and be sure of clearing up all the mess afterwards. The Matriarch had sent me off on a wild-goose chase, sent me out here to die. My own grandmother had thrown me to the wolves. But why? Why would she do that?

I armoured down and gasped as the smoky air hit my bare face. I looked at my left arm hanging limp at my side. Blood soaked the whole length of my sleeve and dripped from my numb fingertips. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from the meat of my shoulder. The metal was a brilliant silver, s.h.i.+mmering and s.h.i.+ning even in the bright sunlight. There were no feathers; an arrow like this wouldn't need them to fly true. I had to tell the family: the Fae had found a weapon that could pierce our armour. Only I couldn't tell them. The moment I called home, the Matriarch would know I was still alive and send more people to kill me. I looked at the arrow shaft again. Strange matter, from some other dimension. Probably poisonous. Had to come out. Oh, s.h.i.+t, this was going to hurt.

I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket, wadded it up, and bit down hard. Then I gripped the shaft firmly and pushed it farther in, so that the barbed head punched out my back. The handkerchief m.u.f.fled my scream, but I still nearly fainted at the pain. I reached up and around and awkwardly pulled the shaft all the way through and out. Blood was pouring down my chest and back by the time I'd finished. My face ran with sweat, and my hands were shaking. It had been a long time since I was hurt this bad. I spat out the handkerchief and took the arrow shaft in both hands. It seemed to squirm in my grasp. I broke it in two, and it screamed inside my head. I dropped the pieces on the ground, and they tried to turn into something else before falling apart into sticky smears of something that couldn't survive in this world.

I sat down in the driver's seat before my legs collapsed under me. After a while I pulled out the first aid box, opened it, and took out a basic healer. Just a blob of preprogrammed simple matter, full of all kinds of things that were good for me. I said the activating Word and slapped it against the wound in my shoulder. The blob sealed it off immediately and pumped some wonderful drug into me, cutting off the pain like a switch. I groaned aloud at the sudden relief. The blob penetrated the wound with a narrow tendril, repairing as it went, and emerged to seal off the wound in my back. I could feel all this, but only in a vague and distanced way. I was sort of interested. I'd never had to use one before. But I had other things on my mind.

I needed to know why my own grandmother had betrayed me. Why she'd sent me to my death with a lie on her lips. I couldn't go back to the Hall for answers. Even if I did get past all the defences, she'd just call me a liar, declare me rogue and apostate, and order the family to kill me. And everyone would believe her, and no one would believe me, because she was the Matriarch and I was...Eddie Drood. Whom could I still talk to, whom could I still trust, after everything that had happened? Maybe just one man. I took out my mobile phone and called Uncle James on his very private number. He cut me off the moment he recognised my voice.

"Stay where you are. I'll be right with you."

And just like that, he was standing before me, his mobile phone still in his hand. The air rippled around him, displaced by the teleport spell. We put away our phones and looked at each other. Concern filled his face as he took in my condition and the blood still soaking my left arm. He started towards me, but I stopped him with a raised hand. He nodded slowly.

"I know, Eddie. It's always hard to learn you can't trust anyone. You look like s.h.i.+t, by the way."

"You should see the other guys, Uncle James."

He looked beyond me, at the carnage and wreckage I'd left stretched down the length of the motorway, and he actually smiled a little.

"You did all that? I'm impressed, Eddie. Really."

"How did you get here so quickly, Uncle James?" I said slowly. "Teleport spells need exact coordinates. How did you know exactly where to find me on this long stretch of motorway, when even I'm not entirely sure exactly where I am? What's going on, Uncle James?"

"The homing device told us where you were, before you destroyed it." Uncle James's voice was calm, conversational. "The Matriarch sent me here, Eddie. She gave me specific orders...said that if somehow you had survived all the ambushes, I was to kill you myself. No warnings, not a word; just shoot you down in cold blood. Why would she tell me to do that, Eddie? What have you done?"

"I don't know! I haven't done anything! None of this makes any sense, Uncle James..."

"You've been officially declared rogue," he said. "A clear and present danger to the whole family. Every Drood is authorised to kill you on sight. For the good of the family."

We stood looking at each other. Neither of us wore our armour. Neither of us had a weapon. His face was cold, even calm, but in his eyes I could see a torment I'd never seen before. For perhaps the first time in his life, James Drood didn't know what to do for the best. He was torn between what he'd been ordered to do and what was in his heart. Remember, this was the Gray Fox, the most loyal and dependable agent the family had ever had. Uncle James. Who'd been like a father to me. Who in the end wouldn't, couldn't, kill me.

We both sensed that at the same moment, and we both relaxed a little.

"So," I said. "What do we do now?"

"I go back to the Matriarch. Tell her you were already gone when I got here," Uncle James said flatly. "You...you run. Run, and keep running. Hide yourself so deep that even I won't be able to find you. Because if we meet again, I will kill you, Eddie. I'll have to. For the good of the family."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Seduction of the Not Entirely Innocent U ncle James disappeared without even saying good-bye, air rus.h.i.+ng in to fill the s.p.a.ce where he'd been. I should have told him about the faerie arrow that pierced my armour, but he hadn't given me a chance, and anyway, I was still in shock. My family wanted me dead. After everything I'd done for them, after ten long years of fighting the good fight on their behalf, this was my reward: to be declared rogue. Traitor. Outcast. I might have had my disagreements with them, but they were still my family. I would never have betrayed them. It's one thing to run away from home; quite another to be told you can't go back because if you do they'll kill you on sight. I looked at the lead-lined container that should have held the Soul of Albion, staring into its empty red plush interior as though it might have some answers for me. It didn't, so I threw it away.

I went back to the Hirondel and slid painfully in behind the wheel again. I might be hurting in all kinds of ways, but I was still a professional, so I had the car's defence systems run a complete diagnostic, to make sure there weren't any more bugs or tracking devices anywhere on board. Or indeed any other nasty and possibly fatal surprises. The car muttered to itself for a bit, and then gave itself a clean bill of health. I relaxed a little and started up the engine. Even after all she'd been through, the Hirondel roared smoothly and immediately to life, ready to take me anywhere I wanted. It was good to know there were still a few things left in my life that wouldn't let me down.

I headed the Hirondel back up the M4, away from the south, back towards London. My home territory. If they were going to come for me, I wanted it to be on home ground. I pa.s.sed dead bodies and crashed vehicles, blazing fires and black smoke and all the other damage I'd done. There seemed to be quite a lot of it. Poor d.a.m.ned fools, dying for nothing, over a prize that was never there. And if there were similarities in that to how my life had turned out, I tried not to think about it. The Hirondel laboured along, reluctant to hit high speeds anymore, but I was in no hurry anyway. The family's remote viewers couldn't see or find me as long as I wore the torc. Slowly my shock crystallised into anger, and then into something colder and more determined. I wanted answers. My whole world had just been turned upside down, and I needed to know why. According to James I had been officially declared a rogue, so none of the other family out in the world would talk to me. h.e.l.l, most of them would try to kill me the moment they set eyes on me. Droods have no mercy for traitors.

Which meant there was only one place left I could go for answers, for the truth: the people I'd been fighting all my life. The bad guys.

I left the M4 by the first exit I came to. I needed to lose myself in country roads and back lanes before the family's search hounds came sniffing up the motorway after me. I hadn't gone half a mile down the exit before I was forced to slow down and stop by a police barricade. It wasn't a particularly impressive barricade; just a few rows of plastic cones backed up by the presence of two uniformed officers and a squad car. A long line of stationary vehicles faced me in the other lane, and a small crowd of impatient drivers had gathered on the other side of the cones, taking it in turns to loudly berate the police officers. They all looked around as I approached in the Hirondel, and they all seemed pretty surprised to see me. I stopped the car a respectful distance away, and the police officers came over to talk to me. I think they were quite pleased for an excuse to get away from the drivers. They both did distinct double takes as they took in the condition of my car, and they stopped a respectful distance away from me and ordered me to turn off my engine and get out of my car. I smiled and did as I was told. They had answers, whether they knew it or not.

I sat on the bonnet of the Hirondel and waited for them to come to me. They approached cautiously, pointing out the bullet holes and the shattered windscreen to each other. They hadn't expected to see anything like that on traffic duty. One of them started writing down my license plate number in his little notebook, for all the good that would do him, while his colleague came forward to interrogate me. I gave him a nice, friendly smile.

"Why is this section of the motorway sealed off?" I said innocently, getting my question in before he could ask me for ID that I had absolutely no intention of providing.

"Seems there's been a chemical spill, sir. Very serious, so they tell me. Are you sure you haven't seen anything, sir? This whole section of the M4 has been officially declared a hazardous area."

"Well, yes," I said, allowing myself another smile. "I did find it rather hazardous in places..."

The police officer didn't like the smile at all. "I think you'd better stay here with us for a while, sir. I'm sure my superiors will want to ask you some more detailed questions down at the station. And the hazmat people will want to make sure you haven't been exposed to anything dangerous." He stopped. I was smiling again. He looked at me coldly. "This is a very serious matter, sir. Please move away from your vehicle. I need to see some identification."

"No, you don't," I said. I drew my Colt Repeater from its shoulder holster. The police officer put his hands in the air immediately, palms out to show they were empty. His colleague started forward, and I raised the gun just a little.

"Stay where you are, Les, and don't be a fool!" said the other officer.

"Remember your training!"

"It could be a replica," said Les, staying back but still scowling at me.

I aimed casually at the squad car, and the Colt shot out all four of the tyres. The small crowd of drivers by the cones cried out in shock and alarm. People aren't used to guns in England, which on the whole I approve of. I gestured for both police officers to remove the cones from the road, and they did so slowly and reluctantly. I kept a careful eye on them, making sure they stuck together so I could cover both of them with the Colt. I had no intention of shooting anyone, but they didn't need to know that. The crowd of drivers was starting to get restive. I needed to get under way before one of them decided he was a hero type and did something stupid. Innocent bystanders can be a real pain in the a.r.s.e sometimes. I backed away and slid behind the wheel of the Hirondel. I was breaking the first rule of the field agent; I was being noticed. So, when in doubt, confuse the issue.

"Tell your decadent government that the Tasmanian Separatist Alliance is on the move!" I announced grandly. "The oppressor will be forced to bow down before our superior dogma! All dolphins shall be freed, and no more penguins will be forced to smoke cigarettes!"

Which should give them something to think about. By the time they'd picked the bones out of that and wasted even more time trying to track down a terrorist group (and a license plate) that didn't actually exist, I should have had plenty of time to go to ground. I was going to have to lose the Hirondel. It had become too visible, too noticeable. I gunned the engine, annoyed, and roared past the police officers, the crowd of drivers, and the long queue of waiting vehicles. I had to get to London, and fast. Some people leaned out of their car windows to try to photograph me with their mobile phones. I smiled obliging at them, secure in the knowledge that my torc hid me from all forms of surveillance, scientific and magical. How else could field agents like me operate in a world where someone is always watching you?

I left the queue behind and quickly disappeared into side roads and bypa.s.ses. I had a secret hideout on the outskirts of London, one of several I maintained for emergencies. The one I was thinking of was nothing special, just a rented garage in a perfectly respectable residential area. But it had everything I needed to go underground. To become invisible. I always kept my hideouts up-to-date and stocked with useful items for those rare but inevitable occasions when my cover was blown and I had to disappear in a hurry. I could go into any of my boltholes as one man and come out as someone entirely different, complete with totally new look and ID. The family didn't know about these places. They knew nothing about the way I operated. They'd never wanted to know.

I reached the outskirts of London without incident, though I sat tense and hunched behind the wheel most of the way, in antic.i.p.ation of a challenge or an attack that never actually materialised. The battered and bullet-holed Hirondel drew many stares, but no one said or did anything. This was England, after all. I headed into the respected residential area, and my very respectable neighbours watched openmouthed as I brought the car to a halt before my rented garage. I nodded and smiled to one and all, and they quickly looked the other way. I'd ruined my reputation here, but it didn't matter. I'd never be coming back. I opened the garage door with a palm print, a retina scan, and a muttered Word, and then drove the Hirondel inside. I got out and sealed the door behind me, and only then finally allowed myself to relax.

I spent a good ten minutes just sitting on the bonnet, hugging myself tightly, too worn out even to move. I was tired, bone-deep tired, and weary of spirit. So much had happened in such a short time, and nearly all of it bad. But in the end I forced myself up and onto my feet again. I couldn't allow myself the luxury of a rest, or even a good brood. My family would already have people out looking for me. Clever people, talented people. Dangerous people. I was the enemy now, and I had good reason to know how the Droods treat their enemies.

I peeled off my bloodstained jacket and s.h.i.+rt, to check my shoulder wound. The first aid blob had almost dried up, a shrivelled and puckered thing that only just covered the wound. I peeled it carefully away and found the hole was now sealed behind a new knot of scar tissue. The blob had used up its pseudolife to heal and repair me, and now it was just a lump of undifferentiated protoplasm. I dropped it on the floor and said the right Word, and it dissolved into a greasy stain on the bare concrete. First rule of an agent: leave no evidence behind. Useful things, those blobs. I'd have felt easier if I'd had a few more, but if you're going to start wis.h.i.+ng for things...I flexed my shoulder cautiously. It was stiff, and it still ached dully, but it seemed sound enough. My hands drifted up to touch the golden collar around my throat. My armour was no longer invulnerable. The protection and security I had taken so casually all my life had been stripped away from me, all in a moment. I wondered if I'd ever feel safe and confident again.

I sat down before the computer in the corner, fired it up, and pulled together a list of addresses and general locations of various old enemies who might know something about what was happening. Some of them might agree to help me, for the right consideration. Or intimidation. There's never any shortage of bad guys in and around London, but only a select few would have access to the kind of information I was after. And most of them were very powerful people, often with good reason to kill me on sight, once I revealed who I was. I worked on the list, crossing out a name here and there where the risk was just too great, and finally ended up with a dozen possibles. I printed out the revised list, shut down the computer, and then just sat there for a while, gathering my courage. Even with my armour operating at full strength, these were still very dangerous people. Daniel walking into the lions' den had nothing on what I was going to have to do.

But I had to get moving. My very respectable neighbours were bound to have called the police by now. So I called a certain notorious taxi firm on my mobile phone; anonymous black cabs whose drivers would take anyone anywhere and never ask awkward questions. You learn how to find firms like that, in my game. They were reliable but expensive, and I realised for the first time that money was going to be a problem. The family would have put a stop on all my credit by now and flagged my name everywhere else. All I had was the cash in my wallet. Fortunately, I've always been paranoid, and I think ahead. A small metal safe at the back of the garage held half a dozen fake IDs and ten thousand pounds in used notes. Enough to keep me going for a while.

I changed into a new set of clothes. They smelled a bit musty from hanging in the garage for so long, but they were nicely anonymous. So typical and average, in fact, that any witnesses would be hard-pressed to find anything specific about them to describe. I piled my old bloodstained clothes on the floor, and then broke an acid capsule over them. Shame. I'd really liked that jacket. One more stain on the floor.

I looked sadly at the Hirondel. I could never drive that marvellous old car again. It had become too visible, too remembered; and I couldn't let such a car, with all the Armourer's additions, fall into mundane hands. I smiled grimly. Even after all that had happened, I was still protecting family security. Saying good-bye to the Hirondel was like leaving an old friend, or a faithful steed, but it had to be done. I patted the discoloured bonnet once, and then said the Words that would trigger the car's auto-destruct. Nothing so blunt and capricious as an explosion, of course; just a controlled elemental incendiary that would leave nothing useful behind and scour the garage clean of all evidence. Police forensics could work their fingers to the bone and still find nothing they could trace back to me.

I'm paranoid, I think ahead, and I'm very thorough.