Simon Green - Daemons Are Forever

“He hates you because he believes you killed his father,” said Molly. “He doesn’t know I killed James Drood.”

“No one can ever know that! It’s one thing for me to kill him in a duel. I’m family. But you’re an outsider; they’d kill you on the spot if they even suspected. And me too, for hiding the truth, and daring to care more about you than the family.”

Molly smiled at me. “Every now and again, you remind me of why I fell for you so hard. Come over here and sit down beside me.”

I sat down on the bed, by her side, and we put our arms around each other and snuggled close, and for a long time we didn’t want to say anything.

“You are allowed to hold me when you’re feeling down, you know,” said Molly. “It’s allowed, when you’re in a relationship.”

“So we are definitely in one of those relationship things, are we?” I said.

“Yeah. It sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking. You can squeeze my boobies, if you like.”

“Good to know.”

“Roger and I were never close,” she said, not looking at me. “And we weren’t together long. I was just at the time in a girl’s life when she really feels like being mistreated by someone big and rough. Even though you know it’s bound to end in tears.”

“And did it?”

“Oh, yes. I caught him in bed with my best friend. And her brother. Something of an eye-opener … I set the bed on fire while they were all still in it, and walked out on him. I’m pretty sure I never really loved him. It was just…one of those things, you know?”

“I once had a brief relationship with a sex android from the twenty-third century,” I said. “Damn, but we’ve known some interesting times, haven’t we?”

We laughed together quietly. Our bodies moved easily against each other. I never really felt at home the way I did in Molly’s arms. Like I’d finally found out where I was supposed to be.

“Never leave me,” I said suddenly.

“Where did that come from?” said Molly.

“I don’t know. I just need to hear you say it. Say it for me, Molly.”

“I will never leave you, Eddie. I’ll always be with you, forever and ever and ever. Now you say it.”

“I will love you every day of my life, Molly Metcalf, and after I die, if you’re not there in Heaven with me, I will go down to Hell to join you. Because Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven without you.”

“You smooth-talking devil, Eddie Drood.”

Some time later, when I’d got my second wind, I got dressed again and opened the bag I’d brought back from my London flat. I set about distributing my few possessions around the room. It didn’t take long. A row of CDs on one shelf, my favourite books lined up on another. In alphabetical order, of course. I’m very strict about things like that. And some favourite clothes that didn’t even come close to filling the massive mahogany wardrobe. I looked at Molly, who was attacking her tousled hair in the mirror.

“Don’t you have any clothes you want to hang up? Women always have clothes. And shoes…and things.”

She shrugged easily. “Whenever I get bored, I just magic up a new outfit. I only have to see something I like, and I can duplicate it with a thought. I never paid for a new outfit in my life, and they always fit perfectly. I’ve been recycling the same material for years.”

I hope you take time out to wash it now and again , I thought, but had enough sense not to say out loud.

I stepped back and looked at my possessions scattered around the room. They looked…sort of lost. They were present-day, transitory things, in a room that had been here before I was born and would still be here after I was gone. There weren’t any of my parents’ old possessions still here. They would have been thrown out or redistributed long ago, when the next occupant moved in. The family has never encouraged sentiment. We aren’t supposed to care about possessions, because only the family is important. Look forward, never back. And never get too attached to anything or anyone, because the enemy will use that against you.

They don’t tell you the enemy sometimes includes the family.

“Don’t you want to bring anything here from your old place?” I said to Molly.

She shrugged lazily. “I have my magical iPod, full of my favourite music. Endless capacity, no batteries to run down, and it can pick up any tune from any period. It can even sing harmonies with me on karaoke nights. But that’s it, really. I’ve never cared much about things… You can always get more things… With my magic I’ve raised beg, borrow, and steal to an art form.”

“So,” I said. “What do you think of the infamous Drood family home, now you’ve been here for a while? Is it everything you thought it would be?”

“All that and more,” said Molly. “It’s certainly…impressive.”

“You don’t like it,” I said, and was surprised at how disappointed I sounded.

“Don’t be upset, sweetie,” said Molly. She came over and slipped an arm around my waist. “It just isn’t me, that’s all. I feel…shut in, oppressed, all the time I’m inside. I’m the spirit of the wild woods, remember? I need…nature, and open space, and room to breathe! Not all this dead wood and cold stone…”

“You don’t mind hotels…”

“Only because I know I can walk out of them whenever I feel like it. I’m stuck here, with you. Not that I don’t want to be with you, I do, I do, but…”

“We do have extensive grounds,” I said. “You could walk in them all day and all night, and still not see everything there is to see. And you know I wouldn’t want to keep you here if you were unhappy.”

“Of course I know that, Eddie!” She kissed me quickly. “This is coming out all wrong … I want to be with you, and you have to be here. I know that.”

“We won’t always have to be here. As soon as the new Council’s ready to take over running things, I will demote myself to field agent and be out of here so fast that anyone watching will end up with whiplash.”

“But how long will that take, Eddie?”

“I don’t know. It’ll take … as long as it takes. Molly…”

“Hush. It’s all right. We’ll work something out.”

“Yes,” I said. “We will.”

And all the time I was holding her, I was thinking, If she couldn’t stay here…If she left, would I go with her ? And leave my family to tear itself apart ? Risk the whole future of humanity, because I left my job unfinished ? Would I damn the world, to be with her ? Would I do that ? Could I do that ?

In the end, she let go first and went to check the state of her makeup in the bedside hand mirror.

“So,” she said brightly. “What’s the story with the Time Train?”

“I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,” I said.

“Is it really a time machine?”

“Oh yes. Well, sort of. It started out as someone’s pet project. Sooner or later every Armourer gets a bee in his bonnet about something…some favourite theory, some great idea they’re convinced will make their name immortal within the family. If they can just convince their Matriarch to fund it. One guy was convinced he could build a bomb powerful enough to blow up the whole world.”

“What happened?” said Molly, fascinated.

“When the Matriarch couldn’t make him see what a really bad idea that was, she had him put in suspended animation.”

“Why not just kill him?”

“Because someday we might need a bomb powerful enough to destroy the whole world.”

Molly shuddered. “Your family can be downright scary sometimes, Eddie. So the Time Train is one of these obsessions, is it?”

“Pretty much. I don’t think we’ve used the thing a dozen times in the two centuries since it was constructed.”