Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“So you were there,” said Diment. “Thank you for confirming that. Makes this so much easier. I will say I was surprised to learn you were responsible for a mass murder, Eddie. You were always an agent first, and only ever a reluctant assassin. But you’re a Drood, and she’s the wild witch, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at all, really.”

“Who saw us leaving the scene?” I said.

“Presumably someone trustworthy,” said Diment. “Look, the Government has tasked MI 13 to bring you in, dead or alive. I would prefer alive, but if you insist on resisting . . .”

“Kill a Drood?” I said. “You’re really ready to go to war with my family?”

“You’re not listening, Eddie,” Diment said patiently. “You have been officially disowned by your family. Declared rogue, and no longer protected. Surrender, Eddie. Do it now, while you’re still in a position to strike some kind of deal.”

“What kind of deal?” I said.

“Eddie?” said Molly, looking at me sharply.

“I’m just curious,” I said.

“If you’ll stand down and go willingly, you’ll be allowed to hand over your armour on your own terms,” Diment said carefully. “It is the armour my current lords and masters want, after all. Imagine what MI 13 could do with its own armoured agents.”

“That is never going to happen,” I said. “After what I saw at the Wulfshead today, it’s clear your current lords and masters can’t be trusted.”

“That may or may not be the case,” said Diment. “It doesn’t make any difference. You don’t have a choice, do you, Eddie?”

“I always have a choice,” I said.

“Damn right,” growled Molly. “And right now I am choosing to be completely unreasonable, and downright violent with it.”

I smiled at her, behind my mask. “Exactly, Molly. Time to put these uniformed little snots in their place. But we need to do it fast and get the hell out before my family turns up to complicate things. Because you can bet one of our people inside MI 13 will have contacted them by now.”

“You have people inside MI 13?” said Molly.

“We’ve got people inside every secret organisation,” I said. “How else do you think we stay on top of everything?”

“That does explain a lot,” said Diment.

“Are you still here, Alan?” I said pointedly.

“Your family wouldn’t side with this bunch of creeps, would they?” said Molly. “I mean, they wouldn’t allow you to be handed over to the Government. Would they?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But they would let MI 13’s troops wear us down, so they could move in afterwards once we were exhausted. And then . . . at the very least they’d demand to know what was really going on. And we can’t tell them.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Diment. “What do you mean, what was really going on ? What am I missing?”

“Almost everything, Alan,” I said. “Now hush-grown-ups talking.”

“Oh . . . shit ,” said Molly.

I looked at her. “What?”

“Something’s happening,” said Molly. “And I really don’t like the feel of it.”

The black-uniformed soldiers all tilted their heads at the same time, receiving a new communication, and then they all turned and ran for the ends of the street as fast as they could move in their heavy body armour. Diment hurried after them, not even glancing back at Molly and me. Molly made as though to stop him, but I intervened. Diment was just a messenger boy. The soldiers hurried behind the roadblocks and then stood their ground, covering the street with their automatic weapons.

“They’re waiting for something,” said Molly.

“Seems likely,” I said. “I wonder what . . . I mean, what could MI 13 have that they think could bring us down? That their own people are afraid of?”

“I love the way you keep asking me questions, like you think I’ve got any answers,” said Molly. “I’m as much in the dark as you are!”

“Probably even more so,” I said generously.

And then I broke off, and studied the street ahead of me carefully, through my mask. The natural energies of the world had just changed. Something was forming in the air. I could See strange lights, pulsing, and there was a growing sense of presence . . . of something from Outside forcing its way into our reality. Forcing the edges of the world apart, so it could shoulder its way through. Molly saw it too, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Okay . . .” she said. “That doesn’t look or feel like anything I’m familiar with . . . Feels nasty, though.”

“This is high tech, not magic,” I said. “Though admittedly, beyond a certain point it gets really hard to tell them apart. MI 13 is establishing some kind of Gateway, to let something through. And something pretty damned big too, given the size of the opening. Where the hell is MI 13 getting the kind of power they’d need, to open a Gateway this size? And what would they be bringing here, that they believe can take on a Drood in his armour?”

“Are you talking to somebody else?” said Molly. “Because I know for a fact I already told you I don’t know anything!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking out loud and trying not to panic . . . Given everything that you and I have already tackled, from Hungry Gods to a worldwide Satanic Conspiracy, what could MI 13 be bringing to the table on a Government department budget? Hold everything . . . Do you See those energies bleeding out from the edges of the Gateway?”

“Are you asking me, or is this just another . . . ?”

“Do you See them?”

“Yes! What are they?”

“Tachyons. Time particles . . . We’re looking at a Time Gate! A transfer point, connecting one period in Time with another. Bringing something here, from the Past or the Future.”

“Now that’s just cheating,” Molly said briskly. “And just a tiny bit alarming on any number of levels . . .”

“This kind of technology is way beyond anything MI 13 should have access to,” I said, honestly shocked. “My family has always kept a very close eye on anyone messing around with Time. And there are Certain Others, who have been known to step in and make certain organisations and individuals never happened, just to put a stop to things like this.”

“Could Black Heir be helping MI 13 out?” said Molly. “They’re responsible for cleaning up all the weird tech left behind after alien incursions.”

“Black Heir know better than to meddle with things beyond their remit,” I said. “They survive by being useful, and not at all threatening. Oh, wait a minute . . . Yes! Got it! When MI 13 abducted those people from the Wulfshead Club earlier, one of them must have been an alien or a time traveller! There’s always one or the other passing through. MI 13 must have confiscated their tech before throwing them back. The bloody fools . . . messing around with things they can’t hope to understand or control, all in the name of ambition . . . This is what made Diment’s bosses brave enough to take on a Drood. And the wild witch, yes. But what have they found, what are they summoning through that Gateway . . .”

“Brace yourself,” said Molly. “The energies are changing. The Gateway’s opening. Looks like the show’s about to start.”

“I wonder if they’ve got a T. rex,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to have a go at a T. rex.”

“You go right ahead,” said Molly. “I’ll stand way over there, and watch.”

The Gateway hung on the air, halfway down the street, like a hole in reality itself. Strange lights flickered in and around it, while even stranger energies radiated away from the razor-sharp perimeter. Odd emanations pulsed and flared as the Gateway stabilised, enforcing and embedding itself in the world. Weird things began to happen in the street-other-dimensional fallout, warped probabilities. Half a dozen soldiers at the far end of the street turned suddenly inside out, flowering in bloody messes. Others melted, running away like candle wax. A few simply exploded. More disappeared, forced out of reality by the Gateway’s overpowering presence.