“Sorry about that. I thought I’d disabled the gong function.”
I sighed heavily. “I’m a bit busy at the moment, William. Is this really important?”
“Of course!”
“Of course,” I said. “Everything’s important these days. Always breaking news, and never any time for the heartwarming stuff, about a badger that’s learned to skateboard. Don’t mind me, I’m just babbling, because it’s either that or start throwing things. What do you want, William?”
He smiled distantly, looking, it had to be said, even more twitchy and distracted than usual. “Rafe is looking after your friend. I have some new and quite probably vital information on the nature and intentions of the Loathly Ones. You need to hear this, Edwin, before you go making any plans.”
“All right,” I said resignedly. “The Inner Circle’s here with me. Fill us in.”
The Armourer stepped forward suddenly, standing beside me to stare into the opening. He smiled broadly at the librarian. “William!” he said. “My God, but it’s good to see you again! I didn’t know you were back in the Hall. Why didn’t you come and find me? You’re looking…good. Come on through and join us here! We’ll have a good long talk about old times, once this is over.”
William looked sadly at him. “I’d rather not…come through. I’m not ready yet. It’s Jack, isn’t it? Hello, Jack. It has been a while, hasn’t it… Though I couldn’t tell you how long. I rather lost track of things, like time and…things.”
The Armourer looked at me, lowering his voice. “What’s the matter with him? I thought you said he was…”
“Cured?” said William. “A bit optimistic, that, I’m afraid. And I’m crazy, not deaf. Let’s just say…I’m slowly getting back to who I used to be.”
“Why did you stay away for so long?” said the Armourer. He was trying to talk calmly, naturally, but it was clear how much his old friend’s condition was affecting him. “Why didn’t you say good-bye to anyone? To me? You didn’t even leave a note! Didn’t you realise how worried we’d be? I spent years trying to track you down, long after everyone else had given you up and labelled you a rogue. I never gave up on you. Why didn’t you tell me you were going, William? We’ve been friends since we were kids.”
“The Heart drove me out,” said William. You could tell he was trying hard to concentrate, to hold his straying thoughts together. “It hurt me. Bad Heart. I had to run, get away from the Hall, and the family, run for my life and what was left of my sanity. Yes. I had to go to ground where no one would think to look for me, and then hide deep inside myself, so even the Heart couldn’t find me. I went so very deep inside, Jack, and coming back is … difficult. We’ll talk later, Jack. Yes. Catch up, just the two of us. Just…not yet.
“For now, I need you all to listen to what I have to tell you. And pay attention; I don’t think I’m up to going through this twice.”
His face firmed, his voice becoming clearer and more authoritative, as he took on his old role as expert lecturer. Perhaps because it was just another role he could hide behind, that required nothing of him but his expertise.
“The family knows the Invaders of old. We fought them long ago, when the Druidic Droods were still supporting the Romans in their occupation of old Britain. According to the Latin texts, it took the whole might of the Roman Empire, along with the first Drood field agents, to destroy towering structures being built all across the known world, by possessed primitive peoples. The Roman military stamped these early nests out with their usual brutal efficiency, but more kept springing up. There is evidence to suggest that in the end the Heart stepped in and intervened directly, destroying the remaining structures and preventing the Invaders from entering our reality. Presumably because it wasn’t prepared to lose its new property. This was the Heart’s world, and it didn’t feel like sharing. Anyway…many centuries later, the last Matriarch but one, Sarah Drood, took the knowledge from those times from the supposedly lost old library, and used it to summon the Loathly Ones back into our reality. Supposedly to be used as weapons against the Nazis.”
“Supposedly?” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms sharply. “I’ve seen the records. The soul-eaters made excellent weapons against the Nazi war machine, before the Vril Force came in on the other side and balanced the scales again.”
“Oh, I’m sure they did a lot of damage,” said William. “But I don’t think that was why they were brought back.”
“I’ve never understood why we chose them,” said the Armourer. “I mean, soul-eaters? There had to have been better, safer options we could have pursued.”
“Oh, there were,” said William. “But someone, someone fairly high up in the family, insisted on the Loathly Ones. The more I read in the unexpurgated family records, the more I am forced to the conclusion that someone in the family was a traitor. Perhaps already possessed by some demon.”
“But…how was that possible?” spluttered the Sarjeant. “The torcs protect us from all forms of possession or soul peril!”
“Only one way it could have happened,” said William. “Someone gave themselves up willingly to possession. Just like the Kandarians.”
That stopped us all in our tracks for a while.
“A traitor in the family,” I said finally. “That’s easier to believe now, after all we’ve discovered about the Heart, and the Matriarchs, and the Zero Tolerance faction, but still… a Drood giving themselves up to a demon, and allying with soul-eaters? Why? What could they hope to gain?”
“More importantly,” Harry said slowly, “could there still be traitors, or possessed Droods, still operating inside the family? That could explain how we were so easily ambushed down on the Nazca Plain…”
William nodded sadly. “I was better off when I was crazy, and didn’t know what was going on… One thing seems regrettably clear. Ever since the Loathly Ones were let back in, for whatever reason, sixty years ago, they’ve been possessing victim after victim, slowly building their power and influence to the point where they could start building their structures again, and summon the Invaders.”
“There are reports coming in of more of these structures, in various stages of completion, from all across the world,” said Callan. “It’s like they’re not even trying to hide them anymore.”
“How many?” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
“Hundreds, so far. Wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up with thousands.”
“Let us discuss what we know of the Loathly Ones,” said William, in full lecture mode now. “They don’t just move in and take over their victims like most demons, or devils from Hell.” There was a slight pause while everyone looked at Roger, but he had nothing to say. William sniffed a few times, and then plunged on. “No; these demons infect their victims, through simple proximity. They implant a mental/spiritual embryo into the human body and soul. The invading presence then uses the human as food while the embryo gestates, before finally hatching into a complete Loathly One.
“Demonic cuckoos, as it were.
“First come physical changes. Warpings of the flesh, strange mutations in the body, all concerned with making the host strong enough to hold and contain the Loathly One embryo that’s forming. As this grows inside the host, it eats into the mind and soul, changing the thoughts and personality of the human host, who can feel themselves going mad, becoming alien…but is helpless to stop or even slow the change. We can only imagine the kind of hell these poor unfortunates go through. Thoughts, emotions, beliefs, all change…until nothing is left but a new Loathly One drone. The human is gone, replaced.”