Simon Green - From Hell with love

We pressed forward, forcing our way into and through the Immortals, stepping over bodies and splashing through blood. I cut them down and hauled them aside, and plunged on again, with nothing in my heart for them but a terrible coldness. For all the things they'd done, and for all they intended to do, there could be no quarter, no mercy. And after a while I hardly heard the screams, and the pleas, and the horror.

It was still slow, hard, bloody business. They fought us every inch of the way, with all kinds of? weapons, and they took a lot of killing. And for a family built on treachery and striking from the shadows, they weren't cowards. They could fight, when they had to. I was glad of that. It made killing them easier. Less like butchery. More like execution than slaughter. Molly pressed in close beside me, when she could, when there was space enough, and threw energy bolts and vicious magics from behind me when she couldn't. She was having to change her spells more frequently now, as she used up her reserves. There were limits to what even she could do, though she went to great pains to hide that from people. Her magic was running out, and by the time we made it to the top of the stairs she was breathing hard, and blood was seeping from her eyes, from the strain of what she'd done to herself.

I paused in the doorway, looking quickly around the open space before me. The wide corridor was packed with howling Immortals, crying out for our deaths, and if Molly and I moved forward, it would leave us open to attack from all sides at once. We had to get off this floor, and down into the hall below, with a chance at the main door. But there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of Immortals between us and the great stairway. I might make it, protected by my armour, but Molly almost certainly wouldn't. She had to see the situation as clearly as I did, but she didn't say anything. She was waiting for me to come up with a plan, and then she'd back me up, whatever it was. The Immortals were waiting too, grinning and yelling mockingly at me, daring me to step out from the protection of the doorway, so they could fall on Molly and me like the pack of wolves they were. But I had no intention of fighting my way through that crowd to the great stairs. I'd had a better idea.

Well, better, relatively speaking. I looked at Molly.

"Trust me?"

"Always."

"Good."

I grabbed her round the waist, held her tightly to me side, and using all my armoured strength I leapt right over the crowd of Immortals, over the balcony, and out into open space. Everyone fell silent. Molly and I fell through the air, and the hall lay below us, a very long way below us. Molly whooped with enthusiasm as we dropped to the floor below. We hit hard, the parquet flooring exploding under my armoured feet. My armoured legs absorbed most of the impact, and I didn't fall back a step. Molly took the sudden stop rather harder, all the breath knocked out of her, her head snapping back on her neck. I held her up as the strength went out of her legs. I looked quickly to the front door, at the far end of the long hall.

There were still a lot of Immortals down here in the hall, between me and that door. And more spilling out of adjoining rooms, and plunging down the main stairs. I had only a few moments before battle would be joined again. From all sides, now. But… I could feel something. There was a sense of… pressure, of something pressing hard against the Castle's shields with growing, resolute strength, fighting its way towards me. The power of the Immortals might be ancient and forbidding, but what was coming had been made by Merlin Satanspawn himself, and it would not be denied. I called to it, and the whole Castle seemed to cry out, as something primordial and inviolate suddenly shattered, broken by something greater than itself. And just like that I held the Merlin Glass in my golden hand.

Not all my luck is bad.

Molly finally stirred, got her feet under her, and pushed herself away from me. Her face was pale, and she was breathing hard, but her eyes were tracking and she knew what was happening.

"Okay, mind the first step, it's a bastard. Next time, a little warning, perhaps?"

"If I'd told you what I was going to do, you wouldn't have let me do it," I said reasonably.

"True. Can you get us out of here through the Glass?"

"Not as such, no. The Glass broke through the main shields to get here, but my armour's telling me the remaining protections are still functioning. No living thing can pass through them, either way. But, I think I've got an idea."

"Should I go and stand somewhere else?"

"No, trust me, you're going to like this one. I think I can get us some reinforcements. Very special reinforcements."

I held the Glass up before me. A few Immortals shouted out, as they recognised it. But none of them were worried. No living thing could pass through Castle Frankenstein's shields. But we live in a big world, and it contains far more than just the living. I used the Glass to make an opening between the hall and the Castle Hotel, and the Merlin Glass leapt out of my hand, growing rapidly to provide a door between me and the Castle Hotel ballroom. The Spawn of Frankenstein were still partying. They all stopped abruptly and looked round, as the door appeared out of nowhere in the midst of them. The Bride stepped forward, and then bowed respectfully as she recognised my armour.

"Who calls on us? What can the Spawn of Frankenstein do for the mighty Drood family?"

I couldn't call on her as Shaman Bond; no one must ever know he was a Drood. Luckily the mask disguises my voice.

"Eddie Drood, at your service. And it's more what I can do for you. I'm speaking to you from inside Castle Frankenstein. Yes, the real one, currently occupied by the Immortals. I've opened a door between here and you; no living thing can pass through the Castle shields, but you're not living, are you? If you'll come through, and fight alongside me against the Immortals, the Droods will give you Castle Frankenstein for your own. The whole place will be yours, along with whatever secrets you can find here."

Give her credit, she didn't hesitate, not even against the terrible Immortals themselves.

"Deal," the Bride said crisply. "Stand back and give us some room; we're coming through."

She charged through the doorway, all seven foot of her, spiked silver knuckle-dusters gleaming on both hands again. And right behind her came Springheel Jack, with his cloak and top hat and gleaming straight razors. And behind him came all the Spawn of Frankenstein; all the creatures and creations, ready to fight for the home they'd never known, and the secrets of their creation. Not the living but the living dead, come to fight the Immortals on their behalf as well as mine, laughing as they came, because death held no terror for any of them. They'd been there, done that, and were all too ready to hand it out to those who'd kept them from their ancient home for so long.

The Immortals cried out in shock and horror as the monsters came surging out of the doorway I'd opened, realising at last that their hidden retreat was no longer inviolate. They opened up on the Spawn with all kinds of weapons, but most of those had been designed to work on the living, not the living dead. The Spawn fell on their hated enemies, and blood and horror filled the hall.

The Bride paused briefly to look at me. "How can we best serve you, Drood?"

"Hold these bastards off, till I can get to the front door," I said. "I've had another idea."

"Wonderful," said Molly.

The Bride threw herself at the nearest Immortals like a wrecking ball, sending bodies flying this way and that with the unnatural strength of her long slender arms. She just strode right into them, lashing about her with casual grace, her spiked silver knuckle-dusters ripping off faces and smashing in skulls. She towered above them, her black beehive hair clearly visible at all times, her face stark and cold with years of fury. The Immortals fought back as best they could, and could not hurt her dead flesh. The Bride threw them all back, with contemptuous indifference.