“It all started half an hour ago,” he said flatly. Came out of bloody nowhere. The comm stations began picking up television broadcasts from every country in the world. Government leaders, individual leaders, religious leaders . . . all preempting television time to make a special announcement. Often during prime time, which doesn’t come cheap. You can look at the recordings later, if you want, but they’re all singing the same tune: all of them talking a lot, but not actually saying much. Talking about the great future that’s coming for everyone, and not the usual pie-in-the-sky stuff. They’re talking about good times for all by the end of this year . . . as a direct result of the Great Sacrifice that the people of every country are going to make. No details as yet, not even a hint as to who or what is going to have to be sacrificed. Perhaps the conspiracy hasn’t told the leaders yet.
“Anyway, all the speeches sounded remarkably similar, once we’d translated them from the original languages. Almost as though they’d been written by the same person. And for all we know, they were. . . . You have to understand, Eddie; this is unprecedented. This kind of agreement and cooperation, from every country in the world, regardless of politics or religion . . . simply doesn’t happen. Even we couldn’t arrange something like this without years of planning, a hell of a budget and a whole lot of assassination threats. . . . It’s hard to believe the conspiracy could have this much influence over so many important people. . . . Hell, we didn’t even know the conspiracy existed this time last year. All right, we’ve been a bit busy, what with the Hungry Gods and the bloody Immortals, but even so . . . Could these bastards really have this much control over so many different kinds of government? I’d like to think most of them don’t actually know who and what they’re dealing with, but these are politicians we’re talking about, after all. . . . I have to wonder if it would make any difference if they did. . . . You should never have let them out from under our control, Eddie! The world was a lot safer when we still had our boot on their necks!”
“Except for when we didn’t,” I said. “Two world wars and an endless cold war; I don’t call that being in control. I have to believe that some good will come from giving Humanity their freedom. Or what’s the point of going on?”
“No one was at all clear about what this Great Sacrifice might involve,” said Molly, tactfully easing us onto a new subject. “Either their leaders think their people aren’t ready to be told yet, or their new lords and masters haven’t told them yet.”
“When we lost control of the world’s politicians, it was inevitable that someone would move in to take our place,” murmured Harry, casually joining us at the conference table. “So you could say this is all your fault, Eddie.”
“That’s what you say, Harry,” I said. “But then, that’s what you always say, isn’t it? Learn a new tune; that one’s getting old. Now, I can see this is all distinctly worrying, but why was I called here in such a rush? What’s the emergency?”
“I’m sure we could have coped without your help,” said Harry. “But . . . something else has happened. It would appear that a small country town in the southwest of England has been attacked by the Satanist conspiracy.”
“It could be the first part of their Great Sacrifice,” said Callan. “The news isn’t officially out yet. British authorities have slapped a D Notice on the whole affair. On the grounds of national security. Though God knows how long that will last in this electronic day and age . . .”
“But what’s happened, exactly?” I said. “What have the Satanists done?”
“The town of Little Stoke has vanished,” said Harry. “The whole population is just . . . gone.”
“It all happened so quickly,” said Molly. “I was killing some time down here, waiting for you. . . .”
“And pestering the life out of me,” said Callan.
“Shut up, Callan,” said Molly. “It must have happened pretty much instantaneously. Not a word of warning or a cry for help. There was this . . . massive energy surge that set off every alarm in the War Room, and by the time we’d zeroed in on the exact location, it was all over. There have been no communications in or out of where Little Stoke used to be, ever since.”
“We knew about it before the authorities,” said Harry. “But then, we’re Droods. We know everything. That’s our job.”
“Don’t you have a job you should be doing?” Callan said pointedly. “This is my War Room; I’ll do the briefings. Make yourself useful. Get me some tea. Milk, two sugars.”
Harry drifted away from the conference table as though he’d remembered somewhere he’d meant to be. Callan glared after him.
“And some Jaffa Cakes!” He sniffed loudly and turned his attention back to me. “Irritating little tit. Thinks he’s such a big deal because his dad was your uncle James. I could put together a brigade of the Grey Fox’s various bastards. . . . Anyway, as soon as we were sure something bad really had happened, we hacked into a CIA satellite orbiting over the area, and this is what we got. . . .”
He pushed his way through a crowd of messengers shifting impatiently from foot to foot with important-looking messages in their hands, opening up a path by sheer angry presence, and stopped before one particular display screen locked onto a set of coordinates in southwest England. Callan gestured angrily at the screen.
“See that black spot, that circle of impenetrable darkness exactly five miles in diameter . . . ? That’s where the small town of Little Stoke used to be. No light gets in or out, no communications in or out. Just . . . that.”
“What is it?” I said. “Oh, hell, it’s not a black hole, is it?”
“Of course it’s not a black hole!” snapped Callan. “Or the sheer gravitational pull would have sucked the whole country in by now. Am I the only one who paid attention during science lessons?”
“Probably,” I said. “You always were a science geek.”
“Science geeks are in!” Callan said defiantly. “Look at all those CSI television shows. Geek chic!”
“Boys, boys,” murmured Molly. “If we could concentrate on the matter at hand . . .”
“Ah . . . yes,” said Callan. “Little Stoke. Population under eight thousand. Nothing important or significant about any of them, as far as we can tell. Even the local history is particularly dull. But after the energy surge that caught our attention, and before the darkness set in . . . the entire population of Little Stoke vanished. Eight thousand men, women and children . . . all gone in a moment. The town buildings are still there, under the darkness. Don’t ask me how.”
“Look at the location,” I said. “Little Stoke is only up the road from the far more important and significant town of Bradford-on-Avon. Could the Satanists have been after that, and . . . missed?”
“I don’t think so,” said Callan. “Even they wouldn’t have the stones to attack that town. Not given who lives there.”
“I’ve been there,” Molly said brightly. “They do a lovely cream tea. . . .”
“Really?” said Callan. “How very nice. Now shut up; grown-ups are talking. No, Eddie, Little Stoke was quite definitely the target. The black circle covers the town’s boundaries exactly. What lies there now . . . is a little bit of Hell on Earth.”
I gave him a hard look. “How can you be so sure about what’s going on underneath all that darkness?”
Callan gave me a pitying look. “We’re not dependent on other people’s spy satellites; we’ve got the best far-seers in the business working right here in this room. They’ve been keeping an eye on everything that’s happened through their scrying pools and crystal balls. Come with me.”
He led Molly and me into the heart of the communications section. A harried-looking young man stood in Callan’s way and refused to move.
“We’ve been monitoring world communications for mentions of what’s happened in Little Stoke,” he said urgently. “And after the first flurry of rumours it’s all gone very quiet. No one’s talking about it, because word’s come down from on high that they’re not to talk about it. And there’s no sign at all that the British authorities are intending to do anything.”