First the Bride of Frankenstein, and now werewolves in the night. It was liking walking through one of the old Universal monster movies.
Cool.
But even as I kept a cautious eye on my surroundings, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen anything moving, anything living, ever since I left the Hotel behind me. Which was . . . unusual. I raised my Sight, and then stopped dead in my tracks. The world around me was completely empty, and that never, ever happens. There’s always something: ghosts from the Past, elementals, otherworldly entities . . . they’re everywhere. Part and parcel of the Hidden World, that most people don’t even know exists. The unnatural world, of which the natural world is only a part, like the tip of the iceberg. But, not here.
And then finally my Sight showed me something, something I’d overlooked simply because it was so very big. The hill was alive, and it was watching me. I couldn’t make out any actual eyes, even with my Sight, but I could feel their regard. The whole hill . . . either was something, or covered something, very huge and very old. The steady gaze didn’t feel particularly dangerous, or menacing. Just . . . interested. So I faced the hill, bowed politely, and raised my voice on that empty silent night.
“Good evening. I am Edwin Drood. May I inquire, whom do I have the honour of addressing?”
The answering voice rolled around inside my head like a long crash of thunder, ancient and powerful, but strangely . . . wistful.
Drood . . . Yes, I know that name. Though it has been long and long since any of that name came to talk with me. I am a dragon, Edwin Drood. Or at least, a dragon’s head. Cut off long ago, by the Baron Frankenstein. Left here to rot, as a warning to others. But I am a dragon of the old blood, and we do not die easily. I did not rot. I watched him with my eyes, and I cursed him with my voice, and eventually he had his people cover me over with earth and stone, and I became a hill. And so . . . I remain, slowly dying, slowly passing from this world of men.
“All right,” I said. “That . . . is just unfair. I have business with the current occupants of Castle Frankenstein, but after I’ve dealt with them . . . Would you like to come home with me? You’d be welcome at Drood Hall, for whatever time you have left.”
I couldn’t tell you why I made the offer. I never met a dragon that didn’t deserve killing on general principles, like the one at the Magnificat . . . but I felt sorry for this one. Just left lying here, alone and ignored, fading away down the years . . . It didn’t sit right with me. I know; it’s stray dog syndrome with a vengeance, but . . . the family could learn a lot from talking to a dragon. We don’t normally get the chance.
Home . . . Yes, Drood. I think I would like that. The world is very quiet here, and empty. I would enjoy having something new to look at.
“I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Where is everything? What happened to all the inhabitants of the Hidden World?”
They killed them. Killed them all. From the greatest to the smallest, from the most dangerous to the most insignificant, they wiped them all out. In the space of one long bloody night.
I didn’t have to ask who they were. The Immortals had protected their privacy and their security by destroying everything that surrounded them. Just because they could. And I thought my family was ruthless . . .
“I have business with those murderous sons of bitches,” I said. “When it’s all over, I’ll send a message to my people, and we’ll see about getting you out from under this hill. Talk to you later.”
Good-bye, Drood. It is a kind offer, and I wish you good fortune. But honesty compels me to inform you that in my experience, no one comes back from Castle Frankenstein.
I followed the increasingly rough road up the side of dragon hill, and finally came to a halt atop a tall bluff, looking down at the ruins of Castle Frankenstein. Even this close, the illusion was perfect. Just a couple of stumpy stone towers, a few tumbledown walls, crawling ivy and dark shadows; all of it standing starkly against the dark sky. It would have been convincing . . . but even with my foreknowledge of its true nature, I would have known something was wrong. There was no trace of any of the wildlife that would normally have infested such a ruin. I couldn’t See a single life sign anywhere. No rats, no wild dogs or feral cats, not even a single bat. And that . . . was a real giveaway. I looked the ruins over carefully with my Sight, but couldn’t See a single gap or weakness anywhere in the illusion. Which meant I was going to have to do it the hard way.
I started down the steep crumbling path that led to the Castle, wincing every time I dislodged a few small rocks, but I hadn’t got far before I had to stop abruptly. The way was blocked by the Immortals’ first line of defence: a simple but incredibly powerful force field. It hung on the air before me, invisible, intangible, but carrying enough energy to fry me on the spot if I so much as touched it with a fingertip. There was a built-in avoidance ward, a basic go away nothing to see here influence, enough to keep out the tourists; but I was concentrating so hard on not making any noise that my Sight only caught it at the last moment. I’m pretty sure my torc would have saved me by automatically armouring up, but that would have set off God alone knew how many alarms. So I stood very still, feeling the cold sweat bead on my face, as I realised how close I’d just come to blowing my whole mission.
Time to use the Chameleon Codex. I touched a single fingertip to the silver cuff link, muttered the activating Words, and the stored DNA data rushed into my system, rewriting me from within.
My flesh crawled, surging and rippling all over my body, like a terrible itch I couldn’t scratch, and then I swayed on my feet as everything suddenly snapped into place. I held up my hands, turning them back and forth, but in the gloom they looked just the same. Hard to tell with hands, really. I started to call up the Merlin Glass, so I could study my new face in its mirror, but again stopped myself just in time. Just the proximity of such a powerful artefact would undoubtedly trigger its own set of alarms. I had to trust that I was Rafe now, right down to his Immortal DNA.
And people say their lives are complicated.
I walked forward, into the force field, and it opened up before me, its subtle energies trailing across my bare face like caressing fingers. And then I was through, and moving on, and Castle Frankenstein lay open and defenceless before me.
CHAPTER TEN
Assault on Castle Frankenstein
I could have just walked up to the main entrance, banged on the door and demanded to be let in, but somehow I just didn’t like to. There had to be more than getting into Castle Frankenstein than just having the right face. So I made my approach slowly and cautiously, sticking to the shadows wherever possible. I wasn’t used to sneaking up on things without the benefit of my armour to fall back on, if things went seriously wrong in a hurry. The Castle seemed to grow bigger and bigger the closer I got, its vast stone face looming over me, impossibly tall and foreboding. Lights burned fiercely in all the many windows, though here and there unhealthy glows seeped past the outlines of closed shutters. And still, not a sign of a human guard anywhere. Not up on the high crenellated battlements, not peering out of any window, not even standing guard outside the main entrance. Did the Immortals really feel that safe, that secure? I suppose if no one’s dared attack you where you live for centuries, you just come to assume no one ever will. Especially if you’ve got the kind of protections in place that can keep out gods and monsters and Droods. But after the failed attack on Drood Hall, and the rout of the Accelerated Men, they should have been expecting some kind of re sponse, or counterattack . . . Could they really be that arrogant, that complacent?