Simon Green - Daemons Are Forever

I had to talk to her, but I wasn’t ready yet. So I looked at the other people in the room. I recognised some of them as acknowledged or supposed supporters of the Zero Tolerance faction. Hardly surprising they’d be here. The only chance they had of regaining influence, if not control, over the family lay in persuading the Matriarch to endorse their cause. I nodded calmly to a few familiar faces, and then stopped abruptly at one very familiar face.

“Penny?” I said.

“Eddie,” she said, in a calm, cool, and entirely neutral voice.

“Good to see you again, Penny.”

“Wish I could say the same, Eddie.”

Which was par for the course. Penny had been my official contact in the family while I was still an agent in the field. I reported back to her after every mission, and she passed on any instructions or information the family thought I might need. I always liked Penny. She never let me get away with anything. Penny Drood was a tall cool blonde, in a tight white sweater over slim gray slacks. Cool blue eyes, pale pink lips, Penny was sweet and smart and sexy, and sophisticated as a very dry martini. She was about my age, but I didn’t remember her from my school days. There were a lot of us.

Even after ten years as my contact, I couldn’t tell you whether she liked me or not. Penny never shared that kind of information with anyone.

“All right, people!” I said loudly. “Nice of you to look in, but, gosh, look at the time, you must be going. Visiting hours are over until I’m through here. Hopefully you’re more intelligent than the crowd outside, so we can dispense with the usual threats and menaces…Good, good. Head for the door, single file, no pushing or shoving or there’ll be tears before bedtime.”

They left with their heads erect and their noses in the air, ignoring me as thoroughly as they could. Penny went to follow them, but I stopped her with a gesture.

“Hang about for a minute, Penny. I need to talk to you.”

“What makes you think I want to talk to you?”

“Because unlike most of that crowd, you’ve actually got a brain in your head. Because you’ve always had the good of the family at heart. And because what I have to say is linked directly to the continued survival of the Drood family. Interested?”

“Maybe. You always did like the sound of your own voice too much, Eddie.”

“You wound me deeply.”

“I notice you’re not denying it.”

“How’s the Matriarch?” I said quickly, deftly changing the subject.

“As well as can be expected.”

“And Alistair?”

“How do you think?”

It was clear she wasn’t going to give me an inch, so I gestured for her to stay where she was, while I went over to stand beside the Matriarch. I waited for her to at least glance at me, but she just kept on spooning soup into the dark gap in Alistair’s bandages. I couldn’t see any sign of him swallowing it. If it hadn’t been for the slight but definite rise and fall of his bandaged chest, I would have wondered if he might be dead, and no one had had the heart to tell Martha.

“Hello, Grandmother,” I said finally. “I would have come sooner, but I’ve been very busy. Working for the family. How is he?”

“How do you think?” Martha Drood said flatly, still not turning around. Her voice was tired, but still cold as steel, sharp as a razor blade. “Look at him. Maimed. Crippled. Disfigured. My lovely Alistair. All thanks to you, Edwin.”

“How did he ever get his hands on the Salem Special?” I said. “Awful weapon. We should have destroyed it long ago. And Alistair never knew anything about guns. So someone must have given it to him. Did you give him the gun, Grandmother, to use against my Molly?”

She looked at me for the first time, her face cold and implacable as stone. “Of course not! Alistair was never a fighter. He abhorred guns. It was one of the things I loved most about him. No…He just wanted to protect me. So he showed some initiative, for the first time in his life. He had to know how dangerous the Salem Special was, but all he could think of… was that I was in danger.”

“Turned out you were right about him after all, Grandmother,” I said. “He was a good man and true, when it mattered. That’s why you never told him the secret of the golden torcs. Never told him about the generations of Drood babies sacrificed to the Heart, so we could wear the golden armour. You never told him, because you knew a good man like that would never have stood for such an abomination.”

“He didn’t need to know! It was my burden, not his! And I did what I had to, to keep the family strong. Stronger than all the enemies who would have dragged us down in a moment if we had ever stumbled!”

“Martha?”

Alistair’s bandaged head turned slowly, blindly, back and forth, disturbed by her raised voice, or perhaps just because the soup had stopped. His voice was light and breathy, like a child’s. “Is there someone here, Martha?”

“It’s all right, darling,” Martha said quickly. She went to pat him on the shoulder, and then stopped for fear of hurting him. “Hush now, dear. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“I’m cold. And my head hurts. Is there someone here?”

“It’s just Edwin.”

“Is he back visiting us?”

“Yes, dear. You rest quietly, and you can have some more nice soup in a minute.” She looked at me. “He doesn’t remember any of it. Probably for the best. Except… he doesn’t seem to remember much of anything anymore. He knows who he is, and who I am; and that’s about it. Maybe someday he’ll have to forget even that, to forget what you did to him. Damn you, Edwin, what are you doing here? Haven’t you done enough harm? You killed my son James. The very best of us, and a better man than you’ll ever be! You’ve destroyed my husband. And you’ve neutered the family, by taking away its torcs. Left us defenceless in the face of our enemies, and the whole of humanity undefended. I should never have let my daughter marry that man. Should never have let you run away. I should have had you killed years ago, Edwin!”

“Can’t say any of this comes as much of a surprise to me, Grandmother,” I said after a while. “I always knew you felt more duty toward me than love. Children can tell.”

“What do you want, Edwin?”

“I want your help, Grandmother. Yes, I thought that would get your attention. I need your help and cooperation to rebuild the family, and make it strong again. Strong and united… A divided family cannot stand, and the vultures are already gathering. I’m doing what I can to provide leadership, but everywhere I look there’s a new faction springing up. Your endorsement would go a long way towards unifying the family behind me. So I’m asking you to put aside all hurts and grievances, old and new, and help me. For the sake of the family.”

“No,” said Martha, quite calmly, enjoying the disappointment in my face. “I won’t fight you, Edwin, but I won’t help you either. I’m going to let you run this family, and when you’ve messed it all up and run the family into the ground, they’ll come to me…and beg me to lead the family again; and I will. And I’ll undo everything you’ve done and put the family back the way it was. The way it’s supposed to be.”

“People will die, Martha.”

“Let them. Let them pay the price for disloyalty.”

Penny stepped forward. She actually looked shocked. “But…Matriarch? What about anything for the family ?”

“Leave me,” said Martha Drood. “I’m tired.”

Penny and I walked back through the antechamber, side by side. The people waiting looked startled at seeing the two of us together, but had the good sense to say nothing. The ones I’d booted out of the bedroom couldn’t wait to rush past me, desperate to ask the Matriarch what had just happened. I wondered how much she’d tell them. Out in the corridor, I shut the suite’s door firmly behind me, started to speak to Penny, stopped, and then led her a little farther down the corridor. Just in case someone had their ear pressed to the door. I wouldn’t put it past them. It was what I would have done.