CHAPTER FOUR
Life Goes On, Whether You Want It To Or Not
With Molly gone, the madness of the mob quickly subsided. Men and women stood around the length of the corridor, looking dazedly at one another, armouring down. Most couldn’t remember what they’d just done, or even how they got there. A low murmur of confused voices rose and fell, as they asked each other the same questions, over and over again. Some vaguely remembered their armour taking on awful shapes, but flinched away from knowing what they did with them. A few did remember, so traumatised they ended up sitting on the floor with their heads in their hands, shaking and sobbing as tears ran down their cheeks. One kept saying But I liked Molly, I did! And another knelt before the splintered and bloodstained wall where Molly died, and smashed his face against it, over and over again, reducing his features to a bloody pulp, until someone came and gently led him away.
I didn’t give a damn what they felt. It was nothing, compared to what I felt.
None of them could remember what it was that had got them so worked up, or what it was that had persuaded and encouraged them into such an extreme state ˚ of mind. They all had a vague belief it was one particular person, but no one could remember a name, or even a face. But they were all very sure it was someone they trusted, someone they had reason to trust. One of the family? Oh yes, they all said, in their shaken broken voices, quite definitely a Drood. The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved among them, slamming people up against walls and shouting his questions right into their faces, almost incandescent with rage; but no one had any answers for him.
And I sat on the floor, armoured down, hands lying helplessly in my lap, staring at nothing. Men and women who’d been parts of the mob only minutes before came listlessly forward and tried to talk to me, to explain themselves and apologise, or just to try and comfort me. I didn’t hear them. The world was just a blur. A small part of me wanted to kill every one of them, just rise up and strike them all down for what they’d done, but I didn’t have the energy. All I wanted to do was just sit there, and not think or feel anything.
After a while, the Armourer came over and crouched down before me. His knees made loud cracking noises. He was asking me things, in a quiet concerned voice, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t have answered anyway; my throat pulsed with a raw, vicious pain. I’d damaged it from screaming so hard. I could feel tears drying on my face. I couldn’t remembered when I’d stopped crying. I finally realised the Armourer was asking me if I had any idea where Isabella might have taken Molly. I wondered about that, in a vague drifting way. Would Isabella have taken Molly back to the wildwoods, to bring her home, so she could be buried there among her beloved trees and animals? And if so, might I be allowed to visit her there? Or would the beasts of that ancient forest rise up and kill me on sight, for taking her away from them to the place where she was killed? And if so . . . would I just stand there and let them do it?
I struggled to my feet, with the Armourer’s help, and looked desperately around me. I needed to be doing something, anything. I said something about going after Isabella, forcing the words past my ruined throat. The Armourer talked me out of it, with slow, kind, soothing words. Molly was beyond my help now, but I could still track down the bastard who’d created the mob that killed her. Molly wasn’t the only victim here; many people in that mob would be seriously traumatised for years to come. My responsibility to Molly was over, said the Armourer, but I still had duties and responsibilities to the family. To find Molly’s killer, and the Matriarch’s. And make them pay in blood and suffering.
Just like Grandmother always said, Anything, for the family.
I looked around at the remains of the mob, already dispersing, or being led away, stumbling and crying, shaking their heads violently as though they could deny what had just happened. The Armourer followed my gaze, but misinterpreted my feelings.
“It wasn’t their fault, Eddie. They weren’t responsible for what they did. Someone deliberately drove them out of their minds, and aimed them at you like a bullet.”
“Not me,” I said. “They could have killed me, if they’d wanted. Someone wanted my Molly dead, at the hands of Droods.”
The Armourer winced at the sound of my voice. Perhaps because it sounded so painful, or perhaps because of the cold harsh emotions he heard in it.
“Do you have any ideas who might be behind this, Eddie?” he said finally.
I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to talk to him about the Immortals, not just yet. Not when I couldn’t be sure who was who, or who might be listening. I felt cold, so cold, like I’d never feel warm or alive again. All the horror and loss and heartbreak had sunk right down, buried deep within me, so I could be focused and determined on what I had to do. I would find out who was responsible for this atrocity, and I would make them pay. Every damned one of them. I would make the Immortals die slow and hard, wade in blood up to my knees, and do terrible, unforgivable things, if that was what it took to avenge Molly Metcalf. Grieving could come later.
It was what Molly would ˚ have wanted.
The Armourer winced at what he saw in my face, and patted me gently, awkwardly, on the shoulder with his large engineer’s hand.
“Come with me, Eddie,” he said. “We’ll go down to the Armoury. We can talk properly there. I put in my own wards and protections, after that Zero Tolerance business.”
“All right,” I said. “But I have to stop off somewhere first.”
It still hurt to talk. My voice sounded to me like a dead man’s. God alone knew what it sounded like to the Armourer. But he just nodded, and let me lead him into my room. The door was hanging open, half wrenched off its hinges. The mob had overturned and smashed my furniture, and broken everything else. It didn’t matter to me. Not now. There was only room for one hatred in my head. I found the Merlin Glass, just lying on the floor, unnoticed and unbroken. It had its own inbuilt protections, like everything Merlin created. I picked it up and said the activating Words, and the Glass jumped out of my hand, growing in size to become a doorway. The Armourer and I stepped through into the Armoury.
The Armoury never changes much. A long series of interconnected stone chambers, with high arching ceilings, packed with scientific equipment, magical apparatus, and more weird shit than you could shake a Hand of Glory at. The air-conditioning system gurgles loudly to itself, when it feels like working. Multicoloured wiring, following a colour code nobody really understands, lies tacked haphazardly across the walls, you have to be really careful where you step, and there’s always something seriously dangerous, unpleasant or suddenly explosive going on in the testing area.
But this was four o’clock in the morning, and the place was practically deserted. The Armourer sat me down in his favourite chair, and bustled around making us both a nice cup of tea. Always good for what ails you, he said briskly. He always felt better when he was doing something practical. He used proper tea leaves, from an old tea caddy with the willow pattern on the sides, and got out the good china, and a silver tea strainer presented to us by Queen Victoria. Because this wasn’t an occasion for a tea bag in a plastic mug, and find your own milk and sugar. I just sat in the chair and let him get on with it. The moment I sat down, all my strength seemed to run right out of me.
I looked vaguely round the Armoury. Most of the lights had been turned off, giving the deserted labs a calm, reflective ambience. A few lab assistants were still working quietly, here and there. They should have been tucked up in bed at this ungodly early hour of the morning, but there are always a few night owls. They tapped away at computer keyboards, or scribbled frantically on oversized writing pads, lost in their own little worlds. One of them appeared to have a halo, but I decided not to mention it.