Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

I always meant to do a tour of all the big city names, and put the fear of God into them. But I’d barely made a start, only got as far as Ashtree, when the Hungry Gods war kicked off . . . and then there were the Immortals, and I was so busy. . . . City cases, business cases, seemed such small fry compared to the end of the world. Of course, that was before we found out what the bankers were really up to. . . .

Sir Terrence Ashtree, also known as Terry the Toad because of his complete willingness to screw over anybody in pursuit of a deal or because they were in his way. Not that his ruthlessness had ever done him much good, as such. Until recently . . . Word was, Terry the Toad was on the way up, a man to be reckoned with, which, at his middle age, was something of a surprise. Cutthroat business is a young man’s game. I’d been vaguely aware of changes in the city recently, but hadn’t paid it much attention. I hadn’t known about the satanic conspiracy then.

I turned my attention back to Charlatan Joe. He’d almost stopped crying. His eyes were red and puffy, his mouth loose and trembling.

“Where’s Isabella Metcalf right now?” I said.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I swear, I don’t! The conspiracy has her; everyone knows that . . . but I don’t know anything! They don’t tell people like me things like that. If only so people like you can’t beat it out of people like me.”

He had a point. I stepped away from him, lowering my hand, and he almost collapsed in sheer relief. He smiled and nodded at me, eager to show his gratitude, and I almost wanted to hit him for being so pathetic. For making me feel like such a monster.

“Why?” I said. “Why did a small-time con artist like you get in bed with the Satanists in the first place?”

“For the money,” said Charlatan Joe. “That’s what I do. And the money was really good. . . .”

Yes, I thought. That is what you do, what you’ve always done. The clue is in the name. I always knew what kind of man you were, all those years we were friends. What right have I to feel angry now?

“Vanish,” I said. “Go on; get out of here. Lose yourself somewhere in the great wide world where no one will think to look for you. Until the Droods and the Metcalf sisters finally forgive you.”

“But . . . that could take forever!” said Charlatan Joe.

“Yes,” I said. “But that’s all the mercy I have in me today.”

I took him to the nearest exit. Forced the door open with my armoured strength, so that it opened onto some back alley somewhere. Joe gaped at me.

“That isn’t supposed to be possible,” he said. “No one can open those doors, except the club owners. Everyone knows that.”

“You’d be surprised what a Drood can do when he’s mad enough,” I said.

Charlatan Joe hurried through the open door, and I forced it shut behind him. I never saw him again.

I took out the Merlin Glass, activated it and opened up a doorway between the club and Drood Hall. Molly came straight through and I shut the Glass down. I didn’t want anyone else to see what I’d done. What I’d become. Molly looked quickly about her as I put the Glass away, taking in the dimly lit club, the wreckage, the bloody, unconscious forms of Bishop Beastly and the Indigo Spirit.

“Well,” she said. “You can always tell where a Drood’s been. . . . Eddie, what happened here?”

“I did,” I said. “You wanted answers, remember?”

Molly came forward to stand before me, and I armoured down. She put a hand to my face, and her fingers came away wet. I hadn’t realised I’d been crying.

“Oh, Eddie, what have you done?”

“Bad things,” I said. “Necessary things.”

“You did this to them? I thought they were your friends.”

“I’m not always a very good friend. Comes with the job.”

“Eddie,” said Molly, “this isn’t like you. I don’t like you like this.”

I looked at her, a sudden anger flushing my face. “I did this for you! You want your sister back, don’t you?”

“I want my Eddie back!”

“When it’s over,” I said. “I’ll be back when it’s over. Until then . . . it’s all about the conspiracy. I will do what I have to do to stop them. To save Humanity. To save the children.”

“You can’t fight evil with evil methods,” said Molly. “I should know. Fighting evil is supposed to bring out the best in us, not the worst.”

I managed a small smile. “Shouldn’t we be on opposite sides of this argument? Shouldn’t I be lecturing you on excessive behaviour?”

She came into my arms and hugged me tightly, and I hugged her back like a drowning man clinging to a straw. Molly finally pushed me away.

“We’ve been through a lot,” she said. “We need drinks. We need really big drinks.” She leaned over the bar and scowled down at the hiding bartenders. “You! Serial face! I want the finest wines in creation, all mixed together in one bloody big glass, shaken not stirred, with two curly-wurly straws.”

The bartender she was addressing shrugged helplessly. “If it were up to me, you could have one of everything, on the house, with a little parasol. But when the electromagnetic pulse went off, it shut down all the machinery. Management keeps all the booze in a pocket dimension attached to the bar, and with the systems down we can’t reach it. We can’t serve anything until management turns up and hits the reset button.”

“I hate you,” said Molly.

To take her mind off that, I filled her in on everything I’d learned from Charlatan Joe. It didn’t take long.

“That’s it?” said Molly. “Just one name? What about Isabella? Where are they holding her?”

“He said he didn’t know anything about that,” I said.

“And you believed him?”

“After what I did to him? Yes. You can’t make people tell you what they don’t know.”

“I can come bloody close,” Molly growled. “I can’t believe you let the little creep go.”

“We’ve got a new name,” I said. “A new lead, a new way into the conspiracy. Terry the Toad was an important member of the business establishment, even before he joined the conspiracy. Odds are he knows all kinds of important things. And names. Want to go have a word with him?”

“Try to stop me,” said Molly.

And then her head snapped round as she tried to look in every direction at once. “Did you feel that? What the hell was that? The whole atmosphere in this place changed. The temperature’s dropped; something’s sucking all the energy out of the room. . . . Something’s coming. Something bad.”

“The Wulfhead’s security,” I said. “The Roaring Boys.”

“Oh, shit,” said Molly. “Eddie, get the Glass working. Get it working right now, because I really don’t want to be here when they arrive. Even I have enough sense to be scared of the Roaring Boys.”

I already had the Merlin Glass out and activated. “I’m pretty sure I could take them,” I said. “But I think I’ve probably done enough damage here for one day.”

“This is no time to be getting cocky, Eddie! Get us the hell out of here!”

I opened a door between the club and a certain office deep in the city, and we both stepped quickly through into the outer office of Sir Terrence Ashtree. A terrible roaring sound filled the club on the other side of the mirror, wild and awful and full of fury, as something awful downloaded into the Wulfshead. I shut down the Glass. It almost seemed to fight me for a moment, as though something were trying to force it open from the other side; but the connection was quickly broken, and the Glass was only a hand mirror again. I put it away and joined Molly in checking out where we’d arrived.

My family would make apologies to the Wulfshead management. And they would accept, because we all have to do business together sometime.