“All right, Eddie. You’re still looking dangerously smug. Drop the other shoe. Who or what did the mirror find for you in the future?”
“Ah,” I said. “This is where it gets just a bit complicated. I have located a superb future warrior, and distant descendant of ours, called Giles Deathstalker.”
“Deathstalker?” said Harry. “What kind of a name is that?”
“It suited him,” I said. “The point is, I’ve seen the man fight, and he’s death on two legs and nasty with it. Just what we need. He’s quite ready to help us out. Unfortunately…”
“I just knew there’d be a catch,” said the Armourer.
“Unfortunately, he’s so far ahead of us in the potential timelines that the Merlin Glass couldn’t just bring him through, like Jacob. I’ll have to go get him. And that means using the Time Train.”
The Armourer didn’t actually sink to the floor and bury his face in his hands, but he looked very much like he wanted to.
“The Time Train? Have you finally lost every last little bit of your senses, Eddie? You can’t use the Time Train! It’s far too dangerous!”
“By all means, try it,” Harry said generously. “Either way, we win.”
“Smugness is very unflattering, Harry,” I said loftily. “I know what I’m doing, Uncle Jack.”
The Armourer snorted loudly. “Be the first time. Well, if you must go … be sure and bring back as many future weapons as you can.”
“Deathstalker,” said Roger Morningstar. “Hell of a name.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
About Time
When it came to my using the Time Train, the Inner Circle was right behind me. Fortunately, I was able to shake them off thanks to some fast running, and my superior knowledge of the Hall’s shortcuts and side passages. They really should have known better than to order me not to use the Time Train, under any circumstances. I’ve always had this problem with authority figures, even now that I am one. I left their raised voices behind me, and headed quickly for the rear of the Hall, and the old hangar where the family keeps those past mechanical marvels we have more sense than to try and use nowadays.
I reached out with my thoughts through my silver torc, and made mental contact with Strange.
“Hi there!” said Strange. “Did you know the Sarjeant-at-Arms is looking for you? And the rest of your Inner Circle?”
“The fact has not escaped me,” I said. “I need you to run a diversion for me. You game?”
“Of course! I could use a little fun. Your family is all very worthy, Eddie, but a lot of them really are very solemn.”
“Trust me; I had noticed. All right, I need you to broadcast the news that everyone in the family is to get their new torcs. The Inner Circle and I just decided. You still okay with that?”
“Oh sure; the more the merrier, I say.”
“Good. Then spread the good news, and tell everyone they need to come to the Sanctity right now.” I grinned. “That should block the corridors nicely, and keep the Circle from interfering with what I’ve got planned.”
“Oh dear,” said Strange. “Are you about to do something desperate and dangerous again?”
“Of course. Mind the store while I’m gone, Strange.”
“Please, call me Ethel.”
“Over my dead and lifeless body.”
To my surprise, when I finally got to the rear of the Hall, avoiding the main corridors that were already filling up with cheering family members, Molly was already there waiting for me. She greeted me with a fond embrace and a smug smile.
“How did you know I was going to be here?” I said.
“Honestly, sweetie, I am a witch, remember? Sorry it took me so long to get away, but Penny took a lot of talking to. I think I finally managed to beat some sense into her pretty little head. There’s no one more stubborn than a secret romantic. Especially one who’s taken it on herself to redeem the unredeemable.”
“Has she agreed to stop seeing Mr. Stab?” I said.
“Well, not as such,” said Molly. “The best I could get out of her was an agreement never to meet with him alone.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Penny always was stubborn. Runs in the family. Baffles me what she sees in him anyway.”
“I suppose it’s like those sad, desperate women who want to marry serial killers in prison,” said Molly. “Women always believe they can change a man, bring out the good in him through the power of their love. Some just like more of a challenge, I suppose. And Mr. Stab does have that dark, dangerous, vulnerable thing going for him. I know, I know, don’t look at me like that; I do know he’s been slaughtering and butchering women for over a century… but there is more to him than that, Eddie. I have seen him do … good things. So have you.”
“He’s Mr. Stab,” I said. “He kills women. That’s what he does. If he hurts Penny…”
“He won’t,” said Molly. “He’s never hurt a friend of mine.”
“If he kills her, I’ll kill him. Friend of yours or not.”
“If it comes to that, I’ll help you,” said Molly. “So, why are we here, Eddie?”
I gestured at the long steel-and-glass hangar, standing tall and proud at the rear of the Hall, though set a discreet distance away. It was a wide, steel-girdered construction, with an arching glass roof, big enough to hold several football matches in simultaneously. The family never does things by halves, even when it comes to museums hardly anyone visits anymore. I took Molly’s arm in mine and led her towards the open entrance.
“I’ve located a very useful ally in the future,” I said. “Unfortunately, he’s so far ahead of us that we’re going to have to go and get him in person. And for that, we need the Time Train.”
“Just the two of us?” said Molly.
“Well,” I said, “I did ask for volunteers, but the response was disappointing. Apparently everyone else had more sense. Time travel is always dangerous, and no one’s actually used the Time Train in ages. Probably with good reason. It’s not the most… reliable device the family ever built. If you’d prefer to stay behind, I’d quite understand. I’d stay behind if I could find anyone daft enough to go in my place.”
Molly hugged my arm firmly to her side. “Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere without me?”
I grinned at her. “I really like this being an item thing.”
“You romantic devil, you. Flatter me with your silver tongue, why don’t you?”
“Together, forever,” I said. “How about that?”
“Forever and ever and ever,” said Molly.
I led her into the long hangar. It’s a huge place, packed full of all the early technological wonders produced down the ages by family Armourers with a bee in their bonnet. It had to be said: Both the museum and its exhibits had known better days. The inner walls were cracked and discoloured, and dull yellow sunlight fell through glass panels left cloudy and spotted by age and neglect. This was just a storage space now, for things whose time had moved on. Strange and wondrous artefacts that had once been ahead of their time, now overtaken and forgotten.
Like the 1880s Moon Launch Cannon, only used once. And the oversized Moleship, basically just a steel cabin with a bloody big diamond-studded drill head mounted on the front. It had been constructed to investigate the interior of the earth, back in the days when people still believed in the Hollow Earth theory. The hulking exhibit before us was actually Mole II, built so the family could go looking for whatever had happened to Mole I. In the end it never got used, because we had to fill in and block off the original tunnel after something big and nasty from the lower depths tried to crawl back up it.
“And we used to have a giant mechanical spider,” I said, leading Molly through the exhibits. “We confiscated it from some American mad genius, back in the Wild West. Not entirely sure what happened to it. I think it ran away.”
“Boys and their toys,” said Molly, smiling sweetly. “You’ll be boasting about the size of your engines next. Why keep all this stuff if you never use it anymore?”