Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

“Never a moment’s peace,” I said resignedly. “And the pay’s lousy. I’ll bet the Satanists offer their people really wicked fringe benefits.”

“Will you listen, Eddie! We’ve lost an entire town! The whole population’s . . . gone!”

“You have my undivided attention,” I said. “How can the Satanists have taken out an entire town?”

The Armourer shook his head slowly, seemingly lost for words. Which wasn’t like him. “The family psychics all went crazy some twenty minutes ago. All of them saying Something Bad had happened. And then the details started coming in. . . . Hold on. Hold on a minute while I check something.”

And he was off, moving swiftly along the workstations, his gaze jumping from one monitor screen to another. I took the time to look around me. The War Room had never seemed this busy, not even when we were fighting the Loathly Ones in their nests during the Hungry Gods War.

The family War Room is a vast auditorium carved out of the solid stone under the north wing of Drood Hall. Normally you have to pass through a heavily reinforced steel door, a retina scan and a very thorough frisking before you’re even allowed to descend the old stone stairs that lead down to the vault. Which are in turn guarded by a whole bunch of cloned goblins noted for their utterly vile natures and a complete lack in the sense-of-humour department. The Merlin Glass had allowed me to bypass all that nonsense, which is one of the reasons the rest of the family keeps trying to take it away from me. They think it makes me too powerful. They are, of course, absolutely right. Which is one of the reasons I have no intention of ever giving it up.

All four walls of the War Room, tall and broad as they are, are covered with state-of-the-art display screens showing every country in the world, including a few that aren’t supposed to exist, but unfortunately do. All of them dotted with variously coloured lights to indicate trouble spots, ongoing missions, certain individuals on the family’s “of interest” list, and the current locations of every Drood field agent, active or not. The War Room was currently packed to bursting with family members of every rank and station, crowding round the workstations, darting back and forth with urgent messages, and shouting at one another with a complete lack of professional calm and composure. Much of the activity and commotion seemed to be gathered around the communication systems and the far-seeing stations. The family has raised remote viewing to something of an art form, using every kind of high tech and old magic the Armourer and his staff could come up with; but I’d never seen it reduce the War Room to such sheer chaos before. A chill ran down my spine. To panic the family this thoroughly, the emergency had to be something really special.

As I looked around I realised the Armourer wasn’t the only familiar face in the War Room. Cousin Harry was there, bent over a comm screen and peering intently through his wire-rimmed spectacles. He was discussing the situation with the Sarjeant-at-Arms, who was only half listening as he leafed through a thick handful of urgent memos, more of which were constantly being handed him by hurrying messengers. Both of them were so focussed on the situation they’d apparently forgotten how much they hated having to work together. And the head of the War Room, Callan Drood, stood at the conference table, reading through one important report after another and barking out a series of orders. And yet for all the deafening noise and hurried motion, there was a sense that things were being done. The family trained hard for emergencies, so that everyone would know what to do when the time came. Except me. I still hadn’t a clue what I was doing there. And then Molly emerged from the crowd and hurried over to join me. She gave me a quick hug to show all was forgiven, if not actually forgotten, and then she stepped back to look at me with real concern in her face.

“Tell me later,” she said. “Tell me everything later. Because you need to concentrate on what’s happening right now.”

“What is happening?” I said plaintively. “Why is everyone running around like their backsides are on fire?”

“The Satanist conspirators have launched their campaign,” said Molly. “Come with me; I’ll get you to Callan, and he can bring you up-to-date.”

She took me by the arm and led me to the conference table by the quickest route, which basically involved intimidating everyone else into getting out of our way. Molly’s always been very good at that. Callan looked up as I arrived and actually seemed glad to see me. Which wasn’t like him. He gestured sharply for his people to stand back and give us some room, and beckoned for me to stand next to him, so we wouldn’t have to shout to be heard over the general bedlam.

“It all started half an hour ago,” he said flatly. Came out of bloody nowhere. The comm stations began picking up television broadcasts from every country in the world. Government leaders, individual leaders, religious leaders . . . all preempting television time to make a special announcement. Often during prime time, which doesn’t come cheap. You can look at the recordings later, if you want, but they’re all singing the same tune: all of them talking a lot, but not actually saying much. Talking about the great future that’s coming for everyone, and not the usual pie-in-the-sky stuff. They’re talking about good times for all by the end of this year . . . as a direct result of the Great Sacrifice that the people of every country are going to make. No details as yet, not even a hint as to who or what is going to have to be sacrificed. Perhaps the conspiracy hasn’t told the leaders yet.

“Anyway, all the speeches sounded remarkably similar, once we’d translated them from the original languages. Almost as though they’d been written by the same person. And for all we know, they were. . . . You have to understand, Eddie; this is unprecedented. This kind of agreement and cooperation, from every country in the world, regardless of politics or religion . . . simply doesn’t happen. Even we couldn’t arrange something like this without years of planning, a hell of a budget and a whole lot of assassination threats. . . . It’s hard to believe the conspiracy could have this much influence over so many important people. . . . Hell, we didn’t even know the conspiracy existed this time last year. All right, we’ve been a bit busy, what with the Hungry Gods and the bloody Immortals, but even so . . . Could these bastards really have this much control over so many different kinds of government? I’d like to think most of them don’t actually know who and what they’re dealing with, but these are politicians we’re talking about, after all. . . . I have to wonder if it would make any difference if they did. . . . You should never have let them out from under our control, Eddie! The world was a lot safer when we still had our boot on their necks!”

“Except for when we didn’t,” I said. “Two world wars and an endless cold war; I don’t call that being in control. I have to believe that some good will come from giving Humanity their freedom. Or what’s the point of going on?”

“No one was at all clear about what this Great Sacrifice might involve,” said Molly, tactfully easing us onto a new subject. “Either their leaders think their people aren’t ready to be told yet, or their new lords and masters haven’t told them yet.”

“When we lost control of the world’s politicians, it was inevitable that someone would move in to take our place,” murmured Harry, casually joining us at the conference table. “So you could say this is all your fault, Eddie.”

“That’s what you say, Harry,” I said. “But then, that’s what you always say, isn’t it? Learn a new tune; that one’s getting old. Now, I can see this is all distinctly worrying, but why was I called here in such a rush? What’s the emergency?”