Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

Indigo threw another capsule at me, and it smashed against my golden chest. Thick, steaming fluid ran down my golden armour, and again I recognised it. Acid strong enough to eat through steel. It ran harmlessly down my armour and pooled around my feet, hissing and spitting as it ate holes in the floor.

The Indigo Spirit was still backing away, but he hadn’t given up yet. He held up a large, blocky piece of tech in one hand. There was a loud, uneasy murmur from the crowd, as many of them recognised it. I knew what it was, because I’d had the Armourer make it for Indigo as a Christmas present: a handheld EMP device. Indigo made sure I got a good look at it and, when I still didn’t stop, activated the thing with a dramatic gesture. The electromagnetic pulse swept out across the Wulfshead in under a second, and all the lights went out at once as every piece of technology stopped working. In the sudden darkness there were brief flashes of light from small explosions in the crowd, hidden bits and pieces going bang. A few fires broke out. Dull amber lighting came on as the emergency generators kicked in. The new subdued lighting made the club look like a cave with far too many shadows in it.

“Sorry,” I said to Indigo. “But my armour isn’t technology. As such.”

The Indigo Spirit had stopped backing away. He stood defiantly between Charlatan Joe and me, his leather gloves creaking as he clenched his fists. “Sorry, Drood,” he said calmly. “But you’ll have to strike me down to get to him. And I don’t think you can do that without killing me. And I don’t think you’re the kind of man who could do that to a man who’s only doing what’s right.”

“On any other day you’d be right,” I said. “But not today.”

“Then let’s dance,” said the Indigo Spirit.

I did try to take him down easily and relatively painlessly, but Indigo wasn’t having any of it. He attacked me with every skilled move, practiced blow and dirty trick he knew, moving faster than I could, even in my armour. He struck at me again and again, searching for weak spots in my armour, trying to turn my own strength against me. But he only damaged his hands against the hard, unyielding strange matter. I tried to take him down, but somehow he was never there when my fists sailed through the air. He was so very skilled. I kept speeding up, drawing more and more on my armour, until finally . . . his skill didn’t matter anymore.

I crowded him up against the bar so he had nowhere to go, and then he took a terrible beating from my golden fists. I hit him again and again, but he wouldn’t fall. I beat him horribly, saw his blood fly and heard his bones break; but he wouldn’t cry out and he wouldn’t stop fighting. There were no spikes on my gloves, no extruded blades. I didn’t want to kill him. But in the end, because he wouldn’t give in, I ran out of patience. I moved in close, broke his ribs and his collarbone and then both his arms. And as his arms hung uselessly at his sides, I clubbed him to the ground with blow after blow to the head. His cowl protected him from the worst. At least, I hoped it did.

He made one hell of a good showing, like the hero he was. But he never should have got between a Drood and his prey.

I looked at him, sitting slumped on the floor with his back to the bar, his chin resting on his chest, blood streaming from his crushed nose and mouth. Blood bubbles formed from one nostril, and I hoped a rib hadn’t pierced his lung. He was my friend, but I was too angry, too coldly determined, to be stopped. I’d apologise to him later. I’d care about what I’d done later. I had to have some measure of revenge for what had been done to Harry and Roger. Because I’d left them there to die. Because I hadn’t gone back to rescue them, like I promised. Because I’d never liked them. And because revenge was all that was left. All I could do for them. I had to do something. . . . If you can’t hurt the ones you hate, hurt the ones you can reach.

I looked around at the remaining patrons of the Wulfshead Club, huddled together in tight little groups, staring at me as though I were the monster.

“Go,” I said. “Leave. I’m not here for you.”

They left as fast as they could. Charlatan Joe called pitifully after them, but no one even looked back. They’d seen a Drood in his anger, the monster was loose, and they wanted nothing to do with him. Joe made a small move toward the nearest exit, but I was already there, blocking his way. He cringed back against the bar. I looked over the bar, at the staff hiding there.

“Don’t interfere,” I said.

“No danger of that,” said the nearest bartender. “But you’d better be quick. The management knows what’s happening here. They’ll have already put in a call to the real security people. And you know who they are.”

I nodded. I knew. “The Roaring Boys.”

I turned to face Charlatan Joe, so close now I could reach out and touch him whenever I felt like it. He was so close his breath could have fogged up my mask. He was a pitiful sight: terrified, trembling, his features white and pinched, his eyes huge and rolling like those of a panicked animal. When I placed one golden hand on his shoulder, he cried out sharply and wet himself. The sudden smell of urine was shockingly clear on the still air. His legs started to buckle, and I had to hold his shoulder more firmly to keep him from collapsing.

He’d been my friend for years. We’d known good times together. And I had reduced him to this.

“Who gave you the information about the satanic conspiracy gathering at the Cathedral Hotel?” I said. “And who told you to pass it on to Isabella Metcalf?”

“Oh, God,” Charlatan Joe said miserably. “You know I can’t talk about that. They’d kill me!”

“What do you think I’ll do if you don’t?” I said. “Good Droods, good men, are dead because of you.”

“I didn’t know!” said Joe. “I just did what I was told! That’s what people like me do. I can’t tell you. . . .”

“I can make you tell me,” I said.

“You’re going to beat the information out of me? Torture me? Is that what Droods do these days?”

I’d had enough. I placed the tip of one golden finger in his left ear.

“Talk to me, Joe,” I said. “Or I will send razor-sharp filaments of my armour through your eardrum and into your brain and tear the truth right out of you. You’ll still be alive afterwards, but what’s left inside your head won’t be much use to you.”

I was bluffing, but Charlatan Joe didn’t know that. After everything he’d seen me do, he believed me. He started crying, great, shuddering sobs that racked his whole body. Snot ran out of his nose. I told myself I’d make it up to him later. Shaman Bond would make it up to him. But I think I knew, even then, that some things can never be undone.

“The source for the information was Sir Terrence Ashtree,” said Charlatan Joe, in between crying and gasping for breath. “Big man in the city. He’s part of this new satanic conspiracy. Because it’s good for business. He told me what to say to Isabella Metcalf when she came around. And how to tell it to her in such a way that she wouldn’t remember it until the conspiracy wanted her to remember. Ashtree. He’s your man. He’s the man you want. Not me . . .”

I didn’t ask him whether he’d been paid, or pressured, or even threatened into doing it. It didn’t matter.

I knew Terrence Ashtree. Part of an old business family, all of them leading lights in the establishment. Except that Terrence had never been all that successful in his own right. I didn’t know much about the man himself. That had always been Matthew’s territory, back when he was the main field agent in London, and I mopped up the crumbs that fell from his table. But then Matthew betrayed the family, and was killed by the family, and I became the main London agent. Which I thought was what I’d always wanted. Our dreams betray us by coming true.