Simon Green - Daemons Are Forever

“I have no idea,” said the Armourer. “Harry was always…distant.”

“Is he James’s only son?” said Molly.

“Hell no,” said the Armourer, chuckling. “Harry was James’s only legitimate son, but he has any number of stepbrothers and stepsisters, scattered across every country in the world, from all the women James had…relationships with, down the years.”

“He never could keep it in his trousers,” I said. “Got him into trouble more often than I care to think about.”

“James was just very romantic,” the Armourer said firmly. “Always falling in love with a pretty face, and usually living to regret it. The family has never officially recognised any of these…offspring, but to keep James happy we usually made arrangements to keep them gainfully employed, doing useful work for the family. On occasions when we needed more than usual distance, or deniability.”

“I thought your family didn’t approve of half-breeds?” said Molly.

“We don’t,” I said. “They’re never invited home, and we never send them Christmas cards. The Droods are a very old-fashioned family in some ways, but that’s what happens when you’ve been around for centuries.”

“But it’s still okay to make use of them, for dangerous jobs?” said Molly.

“The family can be very pragmatic, when it wants,” said the Armourer. “That’s how we’ve survived for centuries.”

We finally got to the lake. The dark blue-green waters stretched away before us, serene and undisturbed, the far shore so distant we couldn’t even see it from where we were. There’s an undine in it somewhere, but she keeps herself to herself. The first thing I noticed was that all the swans were gone, presumably fled to the other end of the lake. And when I saw the two men standing on the lakeshore before us, I understood why.

Harry Drood smiled briefly at the Armourer, gazed coolly at me, and nodded briskly to Molly. He looked tall and well built in his sharply cut gray suit, and behind his wire-rimmed glasses his face had that unremarkable look that made the Droods such natural secret agents. No one looks twice at us in the street, and we like it that way. Harry was holding a dead swan by its broken neck, as though it was just something he’d happened to pick up. For an intruder and a swan killer, he looked remarkably casual and at ease.

The half-breed demon beside him had all the calm and poise of a predator crouched and ready to launch an attack. He looked human enough, until you took in the details. He was a good six feet six tall, slender but powerfully built, with an unnaturally pale face, night black hair and eyes, and a mouth so thin he hardly had any lips at all. He wore an Armani suit and wore it well, along with an Old School tie I couldn’t believe he’d come by honestly. Both his hands were thrust deep in his pockets and he grinned at us all impartially. There was no humour in the smile, just a predator showing its teeth. Up close, he reeked of the Pit, a sour and sickening stench of sulphur and blood. The grass beneath his feet was blackened and smouldering. “Hello Uncle Jack,” said Harry in a light, pleasant voice. “I’ve come home. No need to prepare a fattened calf for the prodigal son, I think I’ll have swan. I was always very fond of swan.”

“You might have asked first,” said the Armourer.

“But then you might have said no,” said Harry reasonably. “And I really think I’m entitled to something special for my homecoming feast, after so long away.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce your unnerving companion?” I said.

Harry smiled briefly at me. “Oh yes. How very rude of me. This is my good friend and companion, Roger Morningstar.”

“I know who you are, you son of a bitch,” said Molly, and her voice was very cold. “I told you what I’d do to you if I ever saw you again.”

She threw up her arms in the stance of summoning. Dark clouds boiled in the sky overhead. Lightning bolts stabbed down, blasting the ground all around Roger, but they couldn’t touch him. He just stood there, smiling easily at Molly, while the rest of us dove for cover. Molly howled with fury and unleashed all the elements at once against the hellspawn.

Harry and the Armourer crouched down and scurried hurriedly out of range, while I armoured up. Hail hammered down, thick shards of ice with razor-sharp edges. I stood between Harry and the Armourer and the worst of it, protecting them as best I could. Roger wasn’t harmed at all. Gale winds blew, lightning struck, hail slammed down, and Roger Morningstar stood his ground, untouched and unmoved, smiling his maddening smile.

Molly quickly exhausted herself, and was soon reduced to throwing sputtering fireballs at Roger, none of which came close to hitting him. The dark clouds drifted away, and the elements settled themselves. I moved quickly over to Molly before she could move on to more dangerous methods, armoured down, and murmured calming, soothing words into her ear from a safe distance until she stopped glaring at Roger and turned sharply away, hugging herself tightly. I knew better than to bother her while she was in such a mood.

Harry and the Armourer came back to join us. “Would anyone care to explain to me what that was all about?” said the Armourer, just a bit testily.

“We used to date,” said Roger, in a surprisingly pleasant voice.

“It was a long time ago!” said Molly, still deliberately not looking at him.

“You never thought to mention this before?” I said.

She glared at me. “Do I quiz you about your old girlfriends?”

“Yes.”

She sniffed. “It’s different for a girl.”

“But he’s a hellspawn!” I said. “A half-breed demon!”

She shrugged. “It’s always the bad boy who makes a girl’s heart beat that little bit faster.”

Some conversations you just know aren’t going to go anywhere good, so I turned my attention back to Roger. “The last time I saw you, Truman had you trapped inside one of his holding pens. With your tongue cut out.”

“And you left me there to die,” Roger said easily. “How very Drood of you. But I escaped amid the general chaos. No one tried to stop me. No one dared. And I grew back my tongue. We hellspawn are very hard to kill.”

“Then how was Truman able to capture and mutilate you in the first place?” I said, perhaps a little pointedly.

Roger showed his teeth again in the smile that wasn’t a smile. “Oh please, like I’d be foolish enough to tell you.”

“All right,” I said. “Why are you here?”

“Revenge,” said Roger, and for just a moment bright crimson flames flared in his dark eyes. “Truman must pay for what he did to me…but even I can’t hope to take down an organisation the size of Manifest Destiny on my own. Which means I need allies, and your family seems the best bet. You want them destroyed almost as much as I do, and the enemy of my enemy can be my ally, if not my friend.”

“You expect us to trust you?” said the Armourer.

“Of course not. But as long as we have a cause in common, it’s in my best interests to be useful to you.”

“And he’s with me,” said Harry, very firmly. He was standing beside Roger again, as though he belonged there. “Roger and I go way back: old friends, old allies.”

“Dear Jesus,” said the Armourer. He sounded honestly shocked. “What have you been doing, Harry, what depths have you sunk to, that you could even consider befriending a thing of the Pit?”

“When your family turns its back on you, you have to find your friends where you can,” said Harry. “Right, Eddie? Now, no welcome home for me, Uncle Jack? After all these long years away, serving the family faithfully and well in foreign climes, with never even a thank you in return?”