"You might have asked," Methuselah said reproachfully.
"No I couldn't. You might have said no. I didn't want to put you in an awkward position. And besides, who has a better right to it, than me?"
"Knew I should have killed you when I had the chance," said Methuselah.
"You never had the chance," said Tiger Tim. He looked at me and smiled suddenly, a happy, anticipatory smile. "I haven't had a chance to try out my new torc; been a bit busy, you know how it is. And I was just a bit concerned that your armour might be able to detect mine, once I put it on. But now, all bets are off. We've come to the end of the line, Eddie, where it's just you and me, armour to armour, man to man. To the death."
"Wouldn't have it any other way," I said.
He armoured up, and so did I. And just like that there were two gleaming golden figures in the room, facing off against each other. Doctor Delirium cried out, and hid behind the Apocalypse Door, peering round the edge with wide eyes and an uncertain mouth. Methuselah fell gracefully back to a safe distance; and Molly moved quickly out of our way to give us room to fight. Her eyes were shining as she urged me on. It must have looked like a fair match and a fair fight, but I knew different.
Timothy Drood had the old armour, and I had the new.
I raised up a golden fist, and grew a set of heavy spikes from the knuckles. And then I concentrated, and extruded razor-sharp blades all the way up my arms to my shoulders. I reshaped my mask into a grinning devil face, complete with curling horns. Tiger Tim stood very still. He didn't know how to make his armour do any of those things. In fact, he'd been away from the family so long he probably didn't even know such things were possible now. I wondered if he was afraid, biting his lip behind his featureless golden mask. I hoped so. I was too angry to be afraid.
He lunged at me, striking out with a golden fist. I stood my ground, blocked the blow with a raised arm, and then we went head to head, battering each other fiercely with all our unnatural strength. The sound of armour beating on armour was deafening as we slammed each other all over the room, kicking the furniture out of the way, the floor cracking under our stamping feet. But neither of us could hurt the other, for all our strength and fury. The armour protected us. But my armour was strange matter, provided by the other-dimensional entity now known as Ethel. Tiger Tim's armour derived from the destroyed entity once known as the Heart.
I cut at Tiger Tim with razored fists, and the unnaturally sharp edges opened up long cuts and furrows across his chest. Which should have been impossible. The furrows healed quickly, filling themselves in, so I cut him again, and again, harder each time, gouging deep scars into his? mask and chest, and they took much longer to heal. I wondered if he was bleeding, inside. I pressed him hard, determined to tear open his armour and drag him right out of it.
We hammered each other back and forth across the lounge, fists rising and falling with inhuman speed, while the others scattered hurriedly to get out of our way. Because we were both so caught up in the fight that we had eyes only for each other. Both of us moving so swiftly it seemed like everyone else was moving in slow motion. If any of them had got in our way, I think either one of us might have swept them aside without thinking, our heads were so full of rage and fury. I would have been sorry afterwards, of course, but right then… Timothy Drood seemed to be responsible for all the evils I'd encountered since this all began, and I wanted him dead more than anything else in the world.
I don't think I've ever been that angry before. Because he was a Drood.
Tiger Tim broke off, and backed away. He couldn't match my strength and speed, and he knew it. He had nothing with which to meet my armour's versatility. So he picked up heavy furniture and threw it at me. I slapped them away effortlessly, and laughed out loud, full of the exhilaration of my armour. Tiger Tim picked up the heavy couch and brought it sweeping down in an overhead blow. I put up a golden arm to block it, and the couch broke in two across it. We were moving like superhumans now, in a world made of paper, and things just broke when we touched them.
But we never went near the Apocalypse Door. We could both See it clearly now, and neither of us could bear to look at it.
In the end, Tiger Tim broke. He reached out and grabbed Molly, moving so swiftly she didn't even know what was happening till he had her in his golden arms. She started to struggle, and he crushed her briefly, driving all the breath from her lungs. Her legs sagged, until he was all that was holding her up.? I stood very still, knowing he could kill her easily before I could reach him.
"Armour down," said Tiger Tim. "Or I'll kill the witch. I'll crack her bones and crush her insides, and then I'll rip her head right off her shoulders."
"Don't hurt her," I said. "This is between you and me."
"Knew I'd find a way to hurt you eventually," said Tiger Tim. "There's always a way."
I was thinking furiously, but I couldn't see any way out. I had no doubt he'd kill her. I was just starting to subvocalise the activating Words that would send my armour back into my torc, when Molly laughed suddenly.
"Come on, Eddie. You know I don't do the damsel in distress bit."
Crackling energies surrounded her in a moment, coruscating in vivid flashes and boiling magics, blasting Tiger Tim's arms away from her. She moved quickly to one side, and yelled at me to get him, but I was already moving. I'd thought I'd been angry before, but it was nothing to the rage that moved me now. Now he'd threatened to kill my Molly again.
I fell upon him with all my strength and speed, my golden hands locking onto his golden throat. He fell backwards, tripped, and measured his length on the lounge floor. I followed him down, my grip on his throat never loosening for a moment. I knelt over him, forcing my hands closed with all my strength. He struggled and kicked and tried to throw me off. He grabbed my wrists with his hands and tried to break my stranglehold, but he couldn't. I saw my Molly, stabbed through again and again, dying at the hands of Droods maddened because of Timothy Drood. I saw good men and women dying on the grounds of Drood Hall, at the hands of his Accelerated Men. I saw him talking calmly of throwing Humanity to the wolves of Hell. I saw him threatening to kill my Molly, again, right in front of me. And there was no room left in me for anything but the need to kill.
I concentrated on my armour, moulding it with my will, and my fingers became impossibly sharp, cutting through the armour round his throat. I forced my hands through the gap I'd opened up, and my bare hands closed around his bare throat. I throttled him to death, inside his own armour.
After a while, I realised he wasn't breathing, wasn't moving. I pulled back my hands, releasing my hold on his armour, and it disappeared back into his torc. Tiger Tim stared blankly upwards, seeing nothing. There was a little froth around his distorted mouth. I knelt over him for a while, getting my breath back, and then I extruded a blade from one hand and cut his head off. So I could take the torc back to my family, where it belonged.
Doctor Delirium cried out as blood flooded across the lounge floor. He wasn't used to bloodshed. He always did his killing from a safe distance. Methuselah allowed himself a mild moue of distaste. I looked at Timothy's severed head, and wondered what I should tell his father. I would have brought his son back alive, if things had gone differently. I'm almost sure I would have. Though whether that would have been a kindness, in the end… I could tell the Armourer that his son had died fighting bravely. Or that Tiger Tim had somehow got away, and was still out there, somewhere. But I'd never been able to lie to my Uncle Jack.