Simon Green - Daemons Are Forever

“Where’s Truman?” I said finally. “I don’t see anything about him here. Don’t we have any recent updates about Manifest Destiny? They must be regrouping by now, so why don’t I see anything on their new base, their new centre of operations? Come on, people; I’ll settle for a best guess. An organisation that big can’t hope to start up again without leaving all kinds of telltale traces. Follow the leader, follow the money, follow the threads on the message boards; but find them! They can’t just have vanished!”

“Intelligence is working on that,” Penny said calmly. “We haven’t all forgotten how to do our jobs, just because you’re not here to hold our hands. But Manifest Destiny gives every indication of having climbed into a deep hole and then pulled it in after itself. They may be weakened, after what you did to them, and well done you, but their security is still first rate. And Truman…was and is a genius. You should have killed him when you had the chance.”

“I never had the chance,” I growled.

“What do you think he’ll do now?”

“Hard to tell. He’s a genuine fanatic, dedicated to his cause; running the world the way he thinks it should be run, and everyone else eliminated. He was held back in the past by the Zero Tolerance faction…Without them to rein him in, God alone knows what atrocities he’s planning now.”

“His old base, down below the Underground train system, is completely deserted,” said Penny. “We’ve got a few people there, looking around, hoping to turn up something useful.”

“Hold it,” I said. “There were only two field agents in London: me, and Matthew. I’m here, and he’s dead, so who have you got running around under London?”

“Volunteers,” Penny said sharply. “The work has to go on, even if you’re…distracted. Not everyone wants to hide here in the Hall until you get around to handing out new torcs. Some of us still understand about duty and responsibility.”

“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “Just…don’t. Not after everything I’ve seen, and done. But you’re quite right, of course. The work does have to go on. The world won’t stand still, just because we’re having a crisis in the family. Volunteers, eh? It’s good to know we’ve got a few brave souls left. Have they turned up anything useful?”

“Ask them yourself,” said Penny. “We’ve got a direct video feed set up. Fully secured, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” I said. “All right, patch me through.”

Penny nodded to the communications board, and remarkably quickly one of the great display screens cleared to show shifting views of a dark, shadowy chamber, with details picked out by jumping flashlight beams. Silhouetted figures moved jerkily among banks of silent equipment. It took me a long moment to recognise the usually bright, shining steel corridors of Manifest Destiny’s high-tech headquarters. All the electric lights were out, and all the equipment shut down. Loose papers fluttered here and there, left behind in the rush to leave. It was like looking at the excavation of some recently opened tomb in the Valley of the Kings. A shadowy figure approached the camera.

“Will you please stop bugging me?” said a harsh voice. “We’ll contact you when we’ve got anything worth reporting. Whole place is a mess. We’re having to move carefully because the bastards found time to leave a whole bunch of booby traps behind, before they scarpered. Trip wires and grenades, mostly. Wouldn’t bother us if we had our torcs, but as it is… We’re moving deeper into the heart of the bunker, but it looks like they took everything of value with them and trashed the rest. A localised EMP took out all their computers; we’ll bring back the hard drives just in case, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Oh, and we’ve found some bodies. Too far gone to identify, unless you want us to take DNA samples. Looks like they were setting one last trap when it went off in their faces.

“That’s it; end of report. Except to say it’s cold, and damp, and I’m sure I’m coming down with something. Now go away and bother someone else, we’re busy. I want us finished and out of here before some other organisation gets the bright idea to come down here and see if there’s anything worth salvaging.”

“This is Eddie Drood,” I said.

“Well, whoop de doo. Colour me impressed. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“Let’s keep it that way. We’ll be home soon; put the kettle on.”

And he shut down the video feed from his end. Everyone was looking at me, so I was careful to smile. “I don’t know who he is, but I like his style. He reminds me of me. See to it I get a full report from him, the moment he turns up here. In the meantime, keep working on tracking down Truman’s new base of operations. He’s got to be planning something nasty, to reestablish himself, and I want to know all about it well in advance.”

“You see?” said Penny. “You can act like you’re in charge, when you put your mind to it.”

All meetings of my Inner Circle took place in the Sanctity, the huge open chamber that once held the damned Heart, before I destroyed it. The Circle met in the Sanctity because it was the only place in the Hall I could be sure of absolute privacy. The Sanctity had been designed to contain the dangerous other-dimensional emissions of the Heart, and nothing could penetrate the Sanctity’s powerful shields. The other-dimensional strange matter that I had brought to the Hall occupied the Sanctity now. It manifested as a warm, happy crimson glow, radiating from a single silver pearl of strange matter. Just standing in the glow made you feel good. Calm and relaxed and secure, in body and thought and soul. In fact, it felt so good that access to the Sanctity had to be strictly limited, for fear of people becoming addicted. The strange matter swore that couldn’t happen, but I’ve learned not to believe everything I’m told.

The point is that thanks to the Sanctity’s shielding, and the strange matter’s unusual emissions, no one can listen in on the Inner Circle’s meetings. And there’s always someone trying to listen in, in the Hall. It’s the only way you ever learn anything that matters.

Penny came to a halt just inside the Sanctity’s door as she took in the full effect of the scarlet glow. Her face softened, and she smiled a real smile, quite unlike her usual cool effort. She looked calm, and happy, and at peace with herself. It didn’t suit her. She made a deliberate effort to push the effect away and regained some of her usual composure.

“Remarkable,” she said. “Reminds me of standing in front of one of Klein’s famous Blue paintings, in the Louvre.” She noted my surprise and raised a supercilious eyebrow. “I do have some culture, you know.”

“Then you should put yoghurt on it,” said Molly.

Penny and I looked around, and there were the rest of my Inner Circle, staring at us suspiciously. The good feeling from the crimson glow vanished from me immediately. I hadn’t expected this to be easy, but the grim faces on the assembled Circle made it clear this was going to be an uphill battle all the way. I took Penny by the arm and led her forward, glaring right back at the Circle.

“Penny is one of us now,” I said firmly. “A full member of the Inner Circle. And I don’t want to hear any more insults. I trust her, and so should you.”

“Just like that?” said Molly dangerously.

“Yes,” I said.

Molly looked at the rest of the Circle. “I’ll knock him down, you get the straightjacket on him.”

“I need advisors from all parts of the family,” I said patiently. “Including the traditionalists.”

“You mean the ones who wanted you and me dead?” said Molly. “The ones who declared you rogue, and secretly ran Manifest Destiny behind the cover of the Zero Tolerance faction?”