Simon Green - Live and let Drood

Not bad yourself for an old girl, Molly said grudgingly. Can all the Regent s people do what you do, jumping in and out of shadows?

Oh yes, said Diana. The clue was always in the name. Apparently, the Regent acquired this very useful ability from the Hanged Man s Clan, back when he was first on the run from his family. I say acquired; another version of the story says he stole it, and I wouldn t put it past him. The Regent has never had any problem with being practical about matters of morality. When necessary. The shadow thing is very useful in our line of work. Do keep it to yourselves, my dears.

I still want to know who was in charge of all this, I said loudly. There was a certain amount of stirring among the beaten-down gunmen, but no one said anything.

Got to be one of these scumbags, said Molly.

I don t think so, Diana said thoughtfully. Take a look out the windows.

We all leaned over the nearest bodies, which did their best to flinch out of the way, and looked outside. The windows weren t tinted from the inside, and we had a clear view of the street. The cars and other traffic were all exactly where we d left them, not moving at all, fixed in place in their frozen moment held outside of time.

So whoever stopped time is still in here with us, I said. Hiding in plain sight and hoping to go undiscovered. I can t See him anywhere, even through my mask.

Molly looked slowly and carefully about her, and even hardened assassins avoided her gaze. She scowled. I m not Seeing any glamours or illusions, and no dimensional door he could have escaped through. So he s definitely still here in the bus with us, the arrogant little scrote.

Hell with it, I said. I suppose I ll just have to punch a hole in the petrol tank, set light to the whole bus and watch them all fry.

It s the only way to be sure, Molly said solemnly.

Diana looked at us sharply and was about to say something when a new voice spoke up suddenly from among the piled-up assassins.

All right! All right. Don t do anything dramatic! I m right here.

And one of the most battered and bloodied-looking gunmen stood up abruptly. He shook himself briefly, and all his wounds disappeared, his whole shape changing as he became someone else. The hard-faced seasoned gunman was replaced in a moment by a sulky-looking teenage boy of no more than seventeen or eighteen. Wearing distressed jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend Revenge Is Forever.

It s an Immortal! said Molly. A flesh-dancer! No wonder I couldn t detect his presence!

Diana looked at him thoughtfully. So that s what they look like. I d heard they never aged past their teens, but Eddie, I thought your family killed off all the Immortals when you raided their secret base at Castle Frankenstein.

We got most of them, I said.

Evil, vicious little bastards that they were, said Molly.

But a few did get away, I said. Because they just deserted their own kind and ran, like rats deserting a sinking ship. I walked up to the teenage Immortal, who flinched but didn t back away. So, I said.

I thought the few of you who survived had gone to ground, hiding in squalid little bolt-holes in the armpits of the world. What brought you out of hiding to do something this dumb?

You did, said the Immortal defiantly. Your family s dead and gone, Drood, just like mine! I thought it was finally safe to show my face again, to start up my life again and make the world march to my tune, as it should! And then you turned up, the Last Drood, alone and vulnerable. How could I resist? How could I resist the chance to avenge my murdered family?

One, I said, your family spent centuries exploiting and enslaving Humanity, just because you could, hiding behind your ever-changing faces. You tried to wipe out my family when we tried to stop you. Your family deserved everything it got, and then some. And two, a Drood is never vulnerable.

Why a bus? said Molly. And why this bunch of underachievers?

The Immortal shrugged quickly. Money was limited. I had to go with what I could afford. I took the Time Distorter with me when I left the castle. All of us took something, just grabbing whatever came to hand. There was just enough energy left in the Distorter for one last time seizure. So I put together the best wild bunch I could, and came looking for you. He glared about him.

I should have chosen more carefully. I ll do better next time.

There isn t going to be a next time, said Molly. I really don t believe in killing in cold blood, but for an Immortal I ll make the effort. Some enemies are just too dangerous and too treacherous to be allowed to live. Don t look at me like that, Eddie. There isn t a cell that can hold a shape-shifter like him, and you know it. And any word of surrender he gave you would be worthless. He ll never stop coming after you.

It s not just me! There are lots of us out there! the Immortal said defiantly. Not just the few Immortals who escaped your massacre; all the people you ever fought, Drood! Everyone whose lives your family has ever interfered with or tried to stamp out! All your enemies, all the ones with good reason to hate you, come home to roost at last! The word is out and we re all coming for you. To wipe out the Last Drood. To take our revenge on you for everything your family did. We ll never stop coming for you!

Unless we send them a message, I said, and something in my voice shut him up.

What kind of message did you have in mind? said Diana.

I was thinking about sticking his severed head on a spike and leaving it somewhere prominent, I said.

Eddie, you can t! said Diana.

Pretty sure I can, I said.

Sounds good to me, said Molly.

Diana stepped forward to look right into my face. Her gaze was cold, her voice flat. It s in your file, Eddie. That you always said you were an agent, not an assassin.

Yes, I said. Even now, after everything that s happened, I still believe that. But sometimes you have to do something bad to prevent something worse. I have to put the fear of Drood into my enemies to keep them off my back while I get my family safely home again. You heard the little shit; they re all out there, watching, waiting for me to show some sign of weakness. They think if they can drag me down, they can put an end to the Droods forever. And they might just be right. I m the last hope my lost family has. If his severed head will hold them off, buy me some time

Diana was already shaking her head fiercely. This isn t the Eddie Drood I heard so much about. The man whose career I followed for so long. The man I wanted so much to meet

Oh, my God, said Molly. She s a fan.

Please, Eddie, said Diana, staring earnestly into my face mask. Don t do this. There are other ways.

Such as? said Molly.

Hand him over to me, Diana said steadily.

I ll deliver him safely to the Regent, and he ll hand the Immortal over to the Hush Squad. Those telepaths could get answers out of a stone. He ll tell them everything he knows about everyone he s met, and what they re planning.

No! said the Immortal. No! You re not handing me over to them!

He produced an oversized pocket watch from somewhere and cranked the handle quickly. The Time Distorter. He thrust his hand forward, aiming the thing right at me, and a huge blast of time energy shot out of the watch, shimmering in the air with a hundred different possibilities. Like a distorting heat haze generating glimpses of a hundred alternate Futures. The time energies hit my armour and immediately rebounded, unable to get a grip. They blasted right back at the Immortal and sank into him, suffusing his Immortal cell structure with concentrated temporal energies. And just like that, he began to age.

He became a young man and a middle-aged man and then an old man, all in the space of a few moments. The Immortal raised a shaking wrinkled hand in front of his sunken face and let out a low, sick cry of horror. Because the one thing Immortals can never do is age. They can change their shape to any appearance, young or old, but always with the knowledge that they can change it back again. They can die, but always as a teenager. It s the way they re built. Or cursed, depending on how you look at it. Either way, enforced aging was a hideous thing for an Immortal.