Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

In fact, the whole corridor was making me feel distinctly uneasy. It was all too bright and cheerful, with not one thing out of place. More like a film set than somewhere people actually lived and worked. Even as I strode along, nodding and smiling to the men and women who nodded and smiled at me, something was making all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My flesh crawled. There was a growing sense of threat and menace, unfocused but very real, and very near, as though something might jump out at me at any moment. Walking down that corridor towards the boardroom felt like walking along a tightrope knowing someone was right behind you, waiting for a chance to push you off. Or like walking across a series of trapdoors, any one of which might drop open at any moment, letting you plummet into some awful trap, or perhaps letting you fall and fall forever. . . . My problem is I’ve got far too good an imagination. Well, one of my problems . . .

Still, even my torc was tingling uncomfortably, as though trying to warn me of some imminent danger. The closer I got to the boardroom and the people waiting in it, the more worried I became that not only was I in danger from the building’s many weapons and protections, but I was heading into an area of actual spiritual danger.

I murmured as much to Molly, who nodded vigorously. “Yeah, something about this place is creeping me out big-time, too. Which is weird; it’s usually the other way round. This is a bad place, Eddie. I don’t think these Satanists are using the name for shock value. I think they’re playing this for real. I’d raise my Sight and take a proper look at what’s going on here, but I’m pretty sure it would set off every alarm in the building.”

“Took you long enough to work that out,” said Isabella. “I felt that the moment I got here, which is why I was reduced to checking out papers that happened to be lying around. This is a bad place full of bad people with bad intentions. Can we take that for granted and move on?”

If Isabella was feeling the same sense of threat and danger I was, it didn’t seem to be bothering her much. She led the way right to the closed door of the main boardroom. There were no guards, or at least no obvious ones. I tried the handle on the off chance, but the door was locked.

“Don’t try to force it,” Molly said quickly.

“I know,” I said. “Alarms. I have done this secret-agent thing before, you know. It bothers me there aren’t any guards.”

“They must think their defences are so good they don’t need human guards,” said Isabella. “Either that, or the real guards are invisible and waiting to pounce on us.”

“Really wish you hadn’t said that,” said Molly, looking quickly about her. “I feel naked without my Sight.”

There was a single sign, saying MEETING. ONE P.M. START. NO ADMITTANCE AFTER THE MEETING HAS BEGUN.

“One p.m.,” said Molly. “The thirteenth hour. Satanists are always big on tradition. Probably because their greatest victories are all in the past.”

“We have to get in there,” said Isabella. “Find out what this is all about. I hate not knowing things! Eddie, can you use that golden-finger trick on the lock?”

“Almost certainly,” I said. “But again, I’m guessing the presence of strange matter this close to the movers and shakers would set off every alarm there is. I think we’re better off doing this low-tech.”

I produced a single golden brown skeleton key from my pocket, made from real human bone by the Armourer. (I didn’t ask whose bone. One learns not to ask questions like that around the Armourer.) Molly and Isabella moved quickly to cover me while I worked on the lock, blocking the view of anyone who might happen by. Though this end of the corridor was disturbingly quiet and empty. The skeleton key had the lock open in a moment, and I tucked it away again before carefully turning the handle. Isabella glared at me.

“I want one of those! It’s not fair. You Droods have all the best toys.” I gestured for her to be quiet, and then eased the door open a few inches. I waited, braced for any alarm or attack, but nothing happened. I peered through the narrow gap. The main boardroom was big enough to pass for a meeting hall, and was packed from wall to wall with rows of chairs, every single one of them occupied by rich and powerful and famous people. Names and faces you’d know, along with a whole bunch only people like me are supposed to know about. They were all staring with rapt attention at the man standing on the raised dais before them, commanding the room with fierce authority. Everyone there seemed absolutely fascinated by what they were hearing, hanging on his every word. But there was also something about them that suggested they were scared—either of the man on the dais or of what he was saying. What could he be suggesting? What could be so extreme that it could frighten even hardened Satanists? I pushed the door open a little more, and when no one reacted I squeezed through the gap and stood at the back of the hall, behind the rows of chairs. Molly and Isabella moved quickly in after me, leaving the door ajar, just in case. We stood very still, hardly breathing, but no one looked back. All their attention was fixed on the man on the dais.

Tall, dark and compelling, he strode confidently back and forth on the dais. In his expensively tailored suit, he looked and sounded a lot like one of those well-rehearsed motivational speakers, working his way through a series of points and positions on his way to the bit where we all get rich. He smiled a lot, showing perfect teeth, and his regular handsome features had that slightly stretched look of subtle plastic surgeries. His hair was suspiciously jet-black for a man well into his forties. But his voice was rich and sure and utterly compelling, holding his audience in the palm of his hand. I leaned in close to Molly and Isabella and murmured in their ears.

“Either of you know this guy?”

“The face is familiar,” said Molly, frowning.

“So it should be,” said Isabella. “That is the one and only Alexandre Dusk. Big man in computers. A millionaire before he was twenty, and a billionaire before he was twenty-one. No one knows how rich he is now, but when he talks, governments listen. If they know what’s good for them. But . . . he hasn’t been seen in public for years. People have to put up millions just to ask him questions over the phone. Most have to settle for an e-mail. So what the hell is he doing here, in person?”

“If you’d belt up and let us listen, we might find out,” said Molly.

So we shut up and listened. Dusk could talk, though he sounded more like a politician than some self-made computer geek. He spoke well and fluently, pinning his audience to their seats. He was selling them a vision. He’d clearly already been talking for some time, getting his audience worked up. They really wanted what he was selling. Dusk prowled back and forth before them, his voice rising and rising as he gestured with increasing assurance. And when I realised what he was talking about, I was fascinated, too, even as a slow, cold horror crept over me.

“The Droods have removed themselves from the game,” said Alexandre Dusk. “They’re effectively leaderless now, and fighting among themselves. They may have marvellous new armour, but they don’t know what to do with it. They are yesterday’s men; we are the future. The Immortals are a dead end. Most of them are gone, the few survivors scattered and on the run. The Droods did us a favour there by removing the one organised and influential force that might have been able to stand against us. Right now, every government and leader in the world is looking for a chance to struggle out from under the Droods’ oppressive heel, looking to seize the chance to think and act for themselves. They want to be powers in their own right, and they’ll listen to anyone who can show them a new way. And that’s going to be us.”