Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “In fact, that’s probably my family’s unofficial motto.”

“You have an official motto?”

“Of course: Don’t fuck with the Droods .”

“I thought it was Anything, for the family. ”

“Same thing. It’s us versus the world, and the world had better beware.”

“I can believe that.” Molly scowled at the door. “How are we supposed to get in?”

“We can’t,” I said. “No one can. That’s the point. No one gets in, no one gets out. Food and drink are teleported in. Uncle Jack told me how to gain access to the Drood in Cell 13, back when I was briefly running things around here. Just in case I needed to know something only Laurence Drood knows.”

I armoured up my left hand, and then stopped and tensed, expecting all kinds of alarms to go crazy. But this close to Cell 13, different protocols took precedence. I placed my golden palm flat against the door, and said my name aloud. The wood of the door seemed to shudder under my touch, and then the whole door just faded away, replaced by a series of criss-crossing steel bars. Molly and I moved closer, together, to peer into the room beyond.

It seemed comfortable enough, for a cell in the depths of Drood Hall. Just a simple stone-walled room, with no window and only the most basic furniture. A man was lying on his back on the narrow single bed, wearing just a grubby white shirt and faded blue jeans. He ignored us, staring up at the ceiling. I said my name again, and he jumped up off the bed and stood quivering in the middle of the room. A small, slight man, who could have been any age at all, with a shock of white hair and wild, staring eyes. He looked at me, and then at Molly, his head cocked to one side like a bird.

And then he ran round and round the small room, his arms pumping at his sides, vaulting over the furniture and bouncing off the walls, building up speed. He went skittering up one of the walls like some terrible huge insect, dropped back down again, and ran round and round in tight circles, his arms flailing wildly. And then he launched himself at the steel-barred doorway, only stopping himself at the very last moment, to stare through the bars at Molly and me.

He wasn’t even breathing hard.

His eyes were large and luminous, and didn’t blink often enough. Up close, it was clear he was inhumanly thin, his shirt and jeans flapping loosely about him. The bones of his face pressed out against the taut skin. His smile was so wide it looked actually painful, revealing teeth like yellow-brown chisels. He all but vibrated with barely suppressed nervous energy. And above all, he had a strange, unnerving presence, as though there were more than one man standing before us.

When he finally spoke, the words seemed to just tumble all over each other in their eagerness to get out.

“Well well well, what have we here? Visitors! Oh yes . . . Don’t often get visitors, down here. Not allowed, oh no, very very rarely allowed. Because I upset people. Well! If they don’t want to know the answers they shouldn’t ask the questions. Should they? Don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question. Still, I’m going to have to be on my very best behaviour with you two, aren’t I? Hmmm? For Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf? No nasty little head games, for the infamous wild witch and the most respected Drood of all. I shall tell you everything you want to know.”

“Everything?” said Molly bluntly. “No lies, no evasions, no misleading half-truths?”

He grinned at her easily. “I do have a bit of a reputation, don’t I? But you mustn’t worry, you dear little thing you, you sisterly witch. I never lie. Not when a truth can do so much more damage.”

“My Eddie needs your help,” said Molly. “You mess with him, and I swear I will find a way to get to you.”

“Nothing but the unvarnished and entirely unembellished truth for you!” said the Drood in Cell 13. “All for you! I love visitors . . . They always want to know things, but they’re never happy when I tell them. I think it’s because the world isn’t what they think it is, and no one ever likes being told that.”

He broke off, and fixed me with his burning gaze. “Do you know who and what I really am, Eddie Drood? The result of an accident, is that what they’re still saying? Oh no no no . . . the real and secret truth, the sad sad reality is . . . that I did this to myself. I am the author of my own tragedy. The idea was for the family to have its own Living Library, just in case they lost the real thing. Like they did with the Old Library. I was family Armourer back then, all those years ago, and I worked with the Heart to find a way to download all the contents of the family Library into a single human mind. A living repository for all Drood knowledge. Except that the human mind was never meant to contain so much information . . .

“There were six volunteers, including me. I used to remember their names but now I choose not to . . . Anyway, the result of the experiment was three dead, two insane and later dead, and me. Poor poor Laurence . . . Of course, I’m not the only one of my kind, these days. Once word got out that the idea was possible, was in fact doable, all kinds of other organisations had to try. With . . . differing results. You met one, Eddie! Remember the Karma Catechist? You bumped into him in Saint Baphomet’s Hospital, in Harley Street! He knew all there was to know about magical systems, rituals, and forms of power. And much good it did him. He killed himself, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I was there when he did it.”

Molly looked at me sharply. “I didn’t know that. You never told me about that.”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said.

“But . . .”

“Hush,” I said. “He’s just trying to distract us, and turn us against each other.”

Laurence laughed breathily. “Stick to what you’re best at, that’s what I always say.”

“Do you really know everything?” I said.

“Well, not everything, no. I didn’t know you were coming. I don’t know why you’re here, Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf . . . and I don’t know what you want with me. Go on. Surprise me, I dare you.”

“What do you know about the Lazarus Stone?” I said.

Laurence stepped back from the bars, folded his arms tightly across his sunken chest, and looked at me curiously. “Well well well . . . It’s been ever such a long time since anyone mentioned that name to me. The Lazarus Stone . . . possibly the single most dangerous individual item in the whole damned world. Yes . . . It’s usually thought to be a small piece of the great stone that was rolled away from Lazarus’ tomb, so Jesus could raise him from the dead. People think the Lazarus Stone can bring loved ones back from the dead, and make them live again. Because people are stupid. All nonsense, of course. Just romantic religious bullshit. A fake exotic history, to conceal the Stone’s far more dangerous nature.

“The Lazarus Stone isn’t actually a stone, and it doesn’t really bring the dead back to life . . . As such. No no no . . . It’s some kind of mechanism, almost certainly alien in origin, and it’s all to do with Time Travel. Supposedly, and I say this because I don’t know anyone who’s actually used the thing successfully . . . Supposedly the Lazarus Stone can reach back through Time, and pluck any person from the Past, just before History says they died. Then bring them forward into the Present Day. So that someone who was dead can live again. This of course rewrites History. Often in unexpected and highly disturbing ways. So it is possible that the Lazarus Stone has been used and I just didn’t notice. No one would, except for the people involved. I wonder if they thought it was worth it, in the end . . . I loathe Time Travel. You put butter in a pocket watch and it’s bound to mess up the works even if it is the very best butter. Our family did possess the Stone briefly, but the Regent of Shadows took it with him when he left.”