Simon Green - From Hell with love

"I'm not arguing," the Armourer said mildly. "If anyone can take on the Immortals where they live, it's you. I just don't want you going in there in the wrong frame of mind. That gets more field agents killed than anything else. Come over here, Eddie, and let's take a look at the place."

We pulled up chairs before his main workstation, and he put his whole computer network online. Screens lit up one after another in a long row, and the Armourer cracked his prominent knuckles noisily as he bent over the main keyboard. It took him only a minute to lock on to a Chinese surveillance satellite, and task it to cover the exact location Rafe had given us. (I still thought of him as Rafe. Even though he wasn't.) A remarkably clear image appeared on the screen before us, but the image was that of a ruin, fallen down and beaten into submission by the erosive forces of time and rough weather. A few stubby stone towers, some crumbling inner walls, and a bunch of uneven stone boundaries half buried under ivy. Desolate and destroyed, open to all the elements, it was clear no one had lived there for centuries.

"He lied to us!" I said. "If the Immortals ever were there, they moved out long ago."

"Not so quick, not so quick," said the Armourer, checking the information on his other screens. "Rafe couldn't have flat out lied to us-not after everything I'd pumped into him. This is the right location, and it matches what we have on file for the infamous Castle Frankenstein. So let me try a few things here… slip in a few filters… Ah. Now that's more like it. I'm picking up major energy spikes, and definite traces of scientific and magical protections. Layer upon layer of the things… not unlike Drood Hall, actually. We're looking at a carefully designed and maintained illusion; the same kind of thing we use to hide the Hall from prying outside eyes. Yes, very professional work. But not good enough to keep me out."

"Can you slip in past these defences, without setting off any alarms?" I said, leaning in for a closer look.

"Teach your grandmother to suck oranges," he said absently, his hands flying over the keyboard. "It's all about matching resonances and reversing the polarity… Look, Eddie, you wouldn't understand it if I did explain it to you. Just trust me when I say this is going to be very tricky, and don't disturb me while I'm working." He gave all his attention to the computers, and I sat back and let him get on with it. The side screens were going crazy displaying cascades of incoming information, and the computers were making a series of high-pitched noises I was sure couldn't be good for them. I tend to forget that my Uncle Jack doesn't just make things with his hands; he makes them with his mind and his computers. He finally sat back in his chair, grunting loudly with satisfaction.

"All right, that's taken care of the scientific protections: the force shields, the intelligence systems, the subspace generators. The magical protections… are pretty straightforward, actually. Just what you'd expect. They're all based on existing pacts and treaties, backed up by the usual Objects of Power. All very potent and respectable, but nothing out of the ordinary. They'd keep out anyone else… but we are Droods, which means we have our own pacts and treaties, and even more powerful Objects of Power. You know, I don't think the Immortals have updated their protections in years, maybe even centuries. Could be arrogance, or complacency. Either way, they haven't got a damned thing I can't deal with."

The image of the ruin on the main screen disappeared abruptly, and something altogether different took its place. I leaned in close again, for my first look at the real Castle Frankenstein. A huge, grim, overpowering medieval edifice, a fortress set on a cliff overlooking the River Rhine far below. Tall towers, high stone walls with crenellated battlements, and massive doors heavy enough to stand off an invading army. All kinds of light blazed in the windows, from clear and clean electric light to the kind of murky glares you normally see only underwater. There were eerie glows and unhealthy illuminations, that flared up briefly and then sank down to flickering glimmers. Dark shadows crawled slowly across the towering stone walls. But there was no sign anywhere of human activity, and not a single human guard in place.

"I'm impressed," said the Armourer. "Damned good illusion, behind powerful protections. Would have fooled anyone else. And now this… of course, they're bound to have improved the place since the Baron's time. Amazing, when you think of what that man achieved, with the limited knowledge and resources of his time. All right, the Baron was undoubtedly ten parts crazy to ten parts genius, and he ran away from his responsibilities every chance he got, and he had the moral compass of a deranged sewer rat, but still, you have to admit… he did it. He brought the dead back to life, right there in his laboratory."

"I know," I said. "I've talked to some of his creations. Most of them weren't at all happy about it."

"Yes, well," the Armourer said vaguely. "That's progress for you." He stopped, and looked at me. "Eddie, what are you thinking?"

"Frankenstein defeated death," I said slowly. "Out of all the stories, and all the legends that have grown up around him, that's the one thing we can be sure of. He took dead bodies and made them live again. And I'm wondering… if his knowledge is still there, somewhere, preserved by the Immortals."

"No, Eddie," the Armourer said firmly. "That's not a road you want to go down. Whatever Frankenstein's techniques might bring back, it wouldn't be your Molly. Or my mother. All that bastard ever really did was make the dead stand up and walk around, and I don't remember anyone ever thanking him for it. There's nothing in that Castle or anywhere else that can help us. Dead is dead, Eddie, even in our world. Because all of the alternatives are worse."

"I know, Uncle Jack. I know."

"Stick to what you can do," the Armourer said kindly. "The good thing about our work is that it never ends, so we always have something to distract ourselves with. Now, there's no way you can teleport directly into Castle Frankenstein. Not through all those shields. Whatever got through would eventually arrive as a small pile of steaming red and purple blobby bits."

"The torc couldn't protect me?" I said. "Not even if I went through in full armour?"

"That's the problem," said the Armourer. "The shields would let you through, but stop the torc. Your body would pass through… probably piece by piece. And no, you can't use the Merlin Glass, either. If an artefact that powerful were to come tap tap tapping on the Castle's shields, it would set off every alarm in the place. You can't sneak past defences like these."

"All right," I said. "Let's see what the Glass can do."

I summoned it into my hand, and had it show me a view of Castle Frankenstein. But all the mirror could manage was an aerial view, from fairly high up. I winced.

"Forget it," I said. "I am not falling for that again."

The Armourer's ears pricked up. "Again?" he said innocently.

"Don't ask," I said. "No, I mean it. Don't ask. Glass, zoom in and give me the closest image you can."

The image in the hand mirror loomed swiftly up before me, and then slammed to a halt still some way out. The image flickered back and forth between the real Castle Frankenstein and the Immortals' illusion, and then the Merlin Glass abruptly shut itself down, and I was left with just a mirror in my hand, showing me my own confused reflection. I shook the mirror hard a few times, and tried half a dozen different command words, but faced with the Immortals' levels of protection the Merlin Glass had given up, and was now clearly sulking. I sent it back to its subspace pocket to think things over.