Simon Green - From Hell with love

More and more of late I'd been considering who I was, and who I'd turned out to be… as opposed to the kind of man I'd always wanted, or intended, to be. This wasn't how I thought I'd end up. How I expected my life to turn out. I'd never been happy running the family. I did it only because it was thrust upon me. The first chance I got to return to my old life as a field agent, I grabbed it with both hands and never looked back. But now… having once embraced responsibility for my family, I found it hard to let go.

I never wanted to be important, or significant. Never wanted to be responsible for anyone but myself. That was why I'd run away from the Hall to be a field agent in the first place. But now I worried about the Matriarch, and the family, because I wasn't there to keep an eye on them. It would be so easy for them to slip back into the bad old ways, one very reasonable step at a time. The terrible Heart with its awful bargain was gone, destroyed, but the Matriarch, dear Grandmother, was born with iron in her soul. If she decided that it was in the world's best interests that the Droods should rule the world again, could I stop her? Did I have the right to overrule a freely elected leader?

I needed my freedom and my privacy, and I loved my Molly, but how could I be my family's conscience at a distance?

And, could I really take the family away from the Matriarch a second time? I'd had surprise and all kinds of good luck on my side the first time. She'd have all kinds of new defences in place now, just for me. But if the Matriarch did try to return to the old ways, would Ethel allow it? I liked to think she was my friend, but who knows what an other-dimensional entity will do, or think, or decide?

I forced myself up and out of my chair, and headed for the front door. I can take only so much brooding and existential angst before I have to get up and do something. When in doubt, face your problems head on. And head butt them in the face. I called the Merlin Glass back to my hand, and had it open a particular door to Drood Hall. Bright light flared through the opening, and I stepped through. Onto the roof of Drood Hall.

I arrived a safe distance away from the various landing pads, surrounded by a wide sea of tiles, shingles, gables and antennae. We've always been ones for just adding things on, as necessary. And pulling them down again when they weren't. We're not sentimental. I was very high up, below a sky so solidly blue I felt like I could reach up and touch it. I should have made my arrival through the main door, as tradition demanded when summoned by the Matriarch, but I was in no mood to cross swords with the Sarjeant-at-Arms. He represented authority and discipline within and over the family, and I've always had problems with authority figures. Even when I was one.

Up on the Hall roof, all kinds of unusual flying objects were coming and going, heading in for textbook landings and not always making it. Half a dozen autogyros buzzed around like oversized insects, marvellous baroque creations of brass and copper, pumping black smoke and drifting cinders behind them. They'd first appeared in the 1920s, been superseded by the '40s, and then brought back again just recently by steampunk enthusiasts in the family. Beautifully intricate and scientifically suspect, the splendid art deco machines seemed to force their way through the air by sheer brute effort.

Then there were those really brave individuals who were still trying to make jetpacks work. They flew well enough, except for when they abruptly didn't. They didn't care for sudden changes in direction, and they didn't have much of a range. But there are always a few bright young things in the family with more optimism than sense, who never got over the urge to just strap on a jetpack and go rocketing up into the wild blue yonder. Just for the thrill of it. Even though the only thing jetpacks do really well is plummet.

The Armourer keeps promising to provide us with antigravity, but he's always got some excuse.

The usual cloud of hang gliders swept by overhead, circling majestically round the roof, taking their time and showing off, held up by magic feathers. And, of course, there were a few young women riding winged unicorns. (Because some girls just never get over ponies.) A few moments after I arrived, a? flying saucer came slamming into the landing pads with its arse on fire, and went skidding towards the far edge, throwing multicoloured sparks in all directions. Proof, if proof were needed, that the Armourer's lab assistants will try absolutely anything once. They know no fear. They also have trouble with fairly simple concepts like common sense, knowledge of their own limitations, and anything approaching self-preservation instincts.

I also couldn't help noticing that some members of the family were still trying to get their armour to grow big enough wings so that they could fly. I could tell this because of the great dents and holes in the lawns surrounding the Hall.

I looked out over the wide-open lawns, enjoying the view. Beyond the neatly cropped grassy extents lay the lake, with swans gliding unhurriedly back and forth on its still waters. There's an undine in there somewhere, but she keeps herself to herself. What looked like a collection of dull grey statues, of people standing in strange awkward poses at the far end of the lake, were actually Droods from the nineteenth century, who'd got caught up in a Time War. Their life signs had been slowed down to a glacial scale, far beyond our ability to help or restore. They were still alive, technically speaking, so we set them out in the open air, with a view that didn't change much. Photographs of the statues, taken over a period of decades, show they are still moving, very, very slowly.

Beyond the lake lies the woods and copses that make up the far boundaries of our estates. Nice places for a walk or a picnic, provided you're one of us. Anyone else walks those woods at their own peril. Not all of the trees are sleeping. Peacocks and griffins stalked across the lawns, dodging in and out of the sprinklers and the misty haze they spread on the air. For such a beautiful bird, peacocks have a really ugly cry. Griffins start out ugly, and their behaviour borders on the disgusting, but since they can see a short distance into the future they make marvellous watchdogs. Just give them enough raw meat, and something nasty to roll about in, and they're perfectly happy.

I frowned as I considered the great hedge maze. It was constructed some time back, to contain Someone or Something that desperately needed containing, but it was all so long ago that no one now remembers who or why. When your family is as constantly busy as ours, it's only to be expected a few things are going to fall through the cracks. Looking down from above, I could see a strange metallic construct, right in the middle of the maze, but absolutely no sign of life. Or movement. If you just stick your head into the opening of the maze, nothing happens. But it doesn't happen in a very menacing sort of way. People who actually venture in don't come out again. Now and again the family throws someone in that we don't like very much, just to see what will happen. Sometimes we hear a scream, sometimes we don't. So mostly we leave the maze alone.

The Armourer wants to set fire to it, just to see what would happen. But that's the Armourer for you.

I enjoyed the view for as long as I could justify it, but I knew I was only putting off reporting in… so eventually I sighed heavily, and went down into the Hall via the winding back stairs. The Matriarch was waiting for me, and the Advisory Council. Of which I was a member, and a fat lot of good it had ever done me.

Walking through Drood Hall is like walking through History, with all the centuries jumbled together. The long corridors are packed with tribute (and/or loot) from all the ages of Man. We've accumulated important and valuable prizes from every period of human civilisation you can think of, including several that never officially happened. We've got Sir Gawaine's suit of armour from the Court of King Arthur; a section of the Beayue Tapestry that had to be confiscated because it showed a Drood in action (Harald would have won that war if so many of the family hadn't been busy with an extra-dimensional incursion); and a whole bunch of family por traits daubed by important masters. Nothing but the best for the Droods. We also have the Koh-i-noor diamond, the original Mountain of Light from India. And very definitely not the one Prince Albert ruined with constant recutting. That was just a duplicate. The real thing was far too important to be trusted to royalty. The last few Matriarchs have used the diamond as a paperweight, and for throwing at people. I've ducked it several times.