Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“The lab assistant had his own assembly line running there, tucked away in the deepest recesses of the Armoury, and no one ever noticed. You’d be amazed at what goes on in the Armoury every day that never gets officially noticed. Or perhaps amazed isn’t the right word. Horrified -that’s closer.

“I sent my clone army to the Department of Uncanny, where my very own suborned traitor let them in. You can always find someone . . . and I used one clone’s hands to tear Kayleigh’s Eye out of your grandfather’s chest, Eddie. To make me invulnerable and untouchable. And my clones too, to a lesser degree, because of the spiritual distance . . . or something. Injure and damage them all you like, but they’ll always bounce back. As you’ve no doubt noticed. Aren’t they splendid?” He leaned forward, conspiratorially. “That’s why the masks, of course. Because they’ve all got my face. Bit of a giveaway there . . .”

“Why did you kill everyone at Uncanny?” I said.

He shrugged. “Exuberance? Once you start, you just can’t stop . . .”

“But why were you still in your Cell, when we came to see you?” said Molly.

“She’s talking again,” Laurence said to me. “How do you put up with her?”

“I think she’s posed a perfectly reasonable question,” I said carefully.

“Is it? Oh, very well . . . What was the point in leaving, back then? If I left Cell 13 and didn’t go back, the family would be bound to notice and start looking for me. And I couldn’t afford to be noticed. Not with so many things left undone, or unfinished. Do try to keep up, Molly! It’s all about the Lazarus Stone, you see. From the moment I knew of it, I knew it was what I needed to escape my fate. I waited years for the damned thing to show up. I didn’t know James had given it to the Lady Faire. Because the Grey Fox had such excellent mental shields. Oh yes. He put a lot of hard work into them, because he had so much he needed to hide from his family. Including what really happened to his wife . . . He never told the family who he’d given the Stone to, because he knew they wouldn’t approve. Well, I mean, would you? Unnatural creature . . . Even the Armourer didn’t know, back then. Until he met up with someone in the Nightside, at the oldest bar in the world, and they told him, I think just to see the look on his face. And even then, I didn’t know! Because the Armourer has his own very powerful mental shields. If you think the Grey Fox had secrets, they were nothing to what dear old Jack Drood has hidden away from the family all these years. It’s hard to hide anything from me, you know. Secrets leave holes in the information stream, and it’s amazing what I can deduce, just from the shape of the holes.

“But, finally, the Armourer mentioned the Lazarus Stone, within the hearing of my pet lab tech. Who misheard that the Regent had it. He couldn’t wait to tell me all about it. I knew I had to have the Lazarus Stone, the one thing that could put an end to my endless half life. That’s why I sent my clones to Uncanny, to get the Stone from the Regent. I was heartbroken when it turned out he didn’t have it. And then you and Molly showed up there, and I saw a way to blackmail you into finding where the Stone really was, and getting it for me. And it worked!”

“Hold it,” said Molly. “What happened to this lab assistant you’ve been talking about? Why isn’t he here, with you?”

Laurence sighed loudly, and dropped me a wink. “Women, eh? Always focusing on the one little detail that doesn’t really matter. Very well-once I had my Door, and my clones, and my information on the Lazarus Stone . . . I didn’t need him any more, did I? So now he’s sitting in Cell 13, thinking he’s me, looking like me, so no one in the family will know I’ve left until it’s far too late.”

“At least you didn’t kill him,” I said.

“Why should I?” said Laurence. “I wasn’t in a merciful mood.” He giggled briefly. “And now! It’s time to put an end to all this . . . I have enjoyed making my little speech. I knew I would. Thank you for leading me here, Eddie. I’ll take over now.”

“Wait!” I said. “You’ve got what you want. You don’t need my parents any longer. Please, let them go.”

“Oh, I don’t have your parents, Eddie. I never did.” Laurence grinned broadly. “That was just bluff, so I could motivate and control you.”

A cold hand clenched around my heart, and I looked at him stupidly. “But you must know where they are! You know everything. Tell me!”

He waggled a finger at me. “Don’t shout at me, Eddie,” he said mildly. “I have no idea where your parents might be. Which is just a bit odd, I’ll admit. I should know, shouldn’t I? I can only assume your parents are so very thoroughly lost that no one in the family knows . . . Never mind, Eddie. Don’t be a nuisance! I’m busy.”

He beckoned to the Lady Faire, and when she didn’t come forward quickly enough to suit him, two of the blood-red men grabbed her by the arms and hustled her roughly forward. They forced her into position before Laurence, and held her firmly in place while Laurence looked her over, thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to be at all affected, or impressed, by her presence.

“Don’t waste your dubious charms on me, Lady,” he said finally, almost absently. “I am fully in control of myself. I have to be, when there are so many of me running around at once. And besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with you. That part of me died long ago.”

“Don’t you miss it?” said the Lady Faire.

Laurence surprised me then, by taking the time to consider her question. But in the end, he shook his head firmly.

“No,” he said. “There are many things I do miss, but that isn’t very high on the list.”

“I could make you remember how sweet it was,” said the Lady Faire.

“No thank you,” Laurence said politely. “You have only one thing I want.”

“No wonder I had no effect on your clones,” said the Lady Faire. “They’re all just like you. No one home, inside.”

Laurence laughed in her face, quite suddenly, and it was a nasty, mocking sound. Many of the watching guests stirred, affronted by his contempt for their beloved Lady. Some of them actually started forward, intent on doing something, and the nearest blood-red men clubbed them viciously to the ground. Dark pools of blood spread slowly across the floor. I wanted to do something, and I could feel Molly tensing at my side, but I stopped her with an unobtrusive hand on her arm. This wasn’t the time to start anything.

Laurence glowered at the Lady Faire. “You have only one thing I want. Give me the Lazarus Stone. Now.”

“You didn’t really think I’d bring it with me to the Ball, did you?” said the Lady Faire.

“I know you did,” said Lazarus. “You couldn’t trust it, away from you. Not with so many powerful people here. And besides, I can feel its presence. So hand it over. Or would you rather I have my clones tear your clothes off, until they find it?”

“Anywhen else, I might have enjoyed that,” said the Lady Faire. “But you have a way of taking all the fun out of things. There is such a thing as dignity, I suppose.”

She reached carefully into an unobtrusive pocket on her tuxedo jacket, and brought out a small shiny object. Everyone in the Ballroom leaned forward for a better look. They just couldn’t help themselves. I did too, and was disappointed to discover that the legendary and much-sought-after Lazarus Stone . . . was just a small sphere of unimpressive alien tech. Nothing glamorous or impressive about it. A pockmarked ball of some unfamiliar metal, two or maybe three inches in diameter. Except, the more I looked at it, the more it seemed to me that there was something . . . slippery about it. Something that made the Lazarus Stone strangely hard to look at, hard to pin down in any of its details. As though it had too many spatial dimensions for this world. Perhaps because it had been made by a species with far more than human senses, or less limitation in their thinking. All I knew was that just looking at the Stone made my head hurt.