Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

I armoured up, the golden strange matter flowing over me in a moment, encasing me from head to toe. Molly gestured sharply, and scintillating magics swirled around her, protecting her from all the dangers in the world. I studied the waiting room through my golden mask, using the expanded senses it provided, everything from infrared to ultraviolet. But whoever was responsible for all this madness didn’t leave a single clue behind. Everything was still, and quiet. I looked at Molly, and she shook her head quickly.

“I’m not picking up a damned thing,” she said. “No magical workings, no sorcerous radiations . . . Could it have been a bomb?”

“No chemical traces on the air,” I said. “This looks more like . . . brute force. So much blood, but no bodies . . .”

“Someone got here before us,” said Molly. “And it looks like they were even angrier than me. What do you think, Eddie?”

“We go on,” I said. “Search the place, top to bottom. There may still be survivors who need our help.”

“And if whoever did this is still here?”

“Then so much the worse for them,” I said.

• • •

I led the way out of the blood-soaked waiting room. Molly came quickly forward to walk at my side. She didn’t believe in being protected by other people. We moved cautiously through the silent corridors of Uncanny. The whole place had been smashed up, torn apart, in an almost inhuman display of sheer destruction. Almost immediately, we began to find bodies. Men and women lying twisted and broken, alone and in piles. Some had weapons still in their hands; none of them had died easily. They’d been butchered, slaughtered. Broken limbs and smashed-in heads. Bent in two until their spines snapped. Guts torn out, and thrown away. Violence and viciousness, almost for its own sake.

Whoever did this had to have superhuman strength.

We moved on, stepping over and around the scattered bodies, carefully checking every open doorway and corridor end, but there was never any sign of whoever was responsible. Just more and more bodies. So many good men and women left to lie where they fell, where they died, often with hands outstretched for help that never came. And blood, so much blood everywhere. The heavy coppery stench was almost overwhelming, so thick on the air I could taste it.

More and more of the dead were armed, for all the good it had done them. They died defending their territory, and each other.

“Do you recognise anyone?” said Molly quietly.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “We met a whole bunch of people, the last time we were here, but . . . I wasn’t really paying attention. I thought I had time . . . to get to know everyone. I can’t say anyone so far looks familiar. I don’t see my parents, or the Regent. Or his personal aide-you remember, the Indian woman, Ankani.”

“Maybe they got away,” said Molly.

“I’d like to think so,” I said. “But whoever did this was very thorough.”

“Look,” said Molly, pointing at a huge, burly figure that had been smashed half through a wall and left hanging out of it. “Is that . . . I think they called him the Phantom Berserker, didn’t they?”

“It’s what’s left of him,” I said.

I moved in, for a closer look. A massive Viking figure, complete with horned helmet and bear-skin cape, his whole body was broken and bloodied. He looked like he’d gone down fighting. There was blood dripping from his hands. But one side of his head had been completely caved in, and there was a great gaping wound in his chest where his heart used to be.

“I thought he was supposed to be dead,” said Molly.

“He is now,” I said, more harshly than I’d meant.

Molly stopped abruptly, and looked about her. “Shouldn’t there be alarms going off?”

“Yes,” I said. “There should. There should be all kinds of protections and defences in place, and my armour isn’t picking up any of them. Which suggests . . . someone must have shut all the systems down, to allow this to happen. I’d put my money on an inside job. A traitor, inside the Department.”

“I never wanted this,” said Molly. “I was mad, I was angry, but I never wanted this . . .”

“Of course you didn’t,” I said.

We moved on, through a silent world of blood and bodies and senseless destruction. Doors had been smashed off their hinges, or hung lopsided from splintered frames. Every room and office we looked into had been thoroughly searched, and then trashed.

“Maybe they were angry from not finding what they were looking for,” said Molly.

“Could be,” I said. “A lot of the Department people were armed, but I’m not seeing any bullet holes, or scorch marks from energy weapons. As though the invaders just soaked up all the firepower and kept on coming . . .”

“I’m not picking up even the smallest traces of offensive magics,” said Molly. “Everything we’re seeing here is the result of brute force. As though a whole army went rampaging through the corridors, killing with their bare hands.”

We moved on, very cautiously now. Looking and listening, and checking for booby-traps, or any other nasty surprise left behind by our unknown enemy. But there wasn’t anything. As though the invaders didn’t care what happened after they left. They were just here to do a job, and kill anyone who got in the way. Unless killing everybody was the job.

“They can’t all have been killed, can they?” said Molly, as much to break the awful silence as anything. “Some might have got away . . .”

“It looks like they all stood their ground, defending their positions, and died doing it,” I said. “Brave and honourable, to the last. My grandfather chose good people. But they had weapons! They must have taken down a hell of a lot of their attackers! So where are the enemy bodies?”

“Presumably the enemy picked up their dead and wounded and took them with them when they left,” said Molly. “To make sure no one could identify who they were. But . . . who could be powerful enough to do something like this, Eddie? Who is there left that’s got an army big enough to massacre everyone in Uncanny? I mean . . . we’ve wiped out most of the major bad guys, and their organisations, in the past few years. Who is there left, who could do this?”

“Good question,” I said. “Makes me wonder . . . did we miss someone?”

I stopped, and looked at her seriously.

“You can never tell where an attack will come from . . . I was at the Wulfshead Club earlier, remember? I’d been called in to help, because they were under attack from MI 13.”

“What?” said Molly. “Those useless X-Files wannabes? I’m amazed they had the nerve. No, hold on, wait a minute . . . MI 13 couldn’t have done this. They’re an officially sanctioned Government organisation, just like the Department of Uncanny. Unless some kind of departmental civil war has broken out.”

“No,” I said. “That doesn’t feel right. MI 13 lost most of its higher-ups, and its direction, during the Satanic Conspiracy. It’s just a ghost of its former self. They were only spying on the Wulfshead Club to pick up gossip they could use as leverage, to get back in the game.”

“All right,” said Molly, “How about this? Maybe some part of your grandfather’s murderous past finally came back to haunt him. Who knows how many other people he killed on your family’s orders?”

I wanted to say executed, not murdered, but it wasn’t the time.

• • •

We moved on, climbing over piled-up bodies, splashing through thick pools of blood. Most of it wasn’t even tacky yet. Whatever had happened here, we hadn’t missed it by much. I checked every room we passed, peering in through smashed-in doors. Computers had been ripped apart, safes torn right out of walls, their doors yanked clean off, and papers scattered everywhere. Someone had been looking for something . . . The entire Department of Uncanny had been systematically gutted. Everyone killed, everything destroyed, nothing spared. It was like walking through the ruins of a good man’s dream.