Simon Green - Daemons Are Forever

The Sarjeant-at-Arms was tall and broad, with muscles in places where you and I don’t even have places. And though he affected the stark black-and-white formal uniform of a Victorian butler, it never fooled anyone for a moment. The man was a thug and a bully and proud of it, and therefore perfectly suited to his job. He had that stiff-backed, steely-eyed military look that promises you blood, sweat, and tears in the future, and every bit of it yours. His impassive face always seemed as though it had been carved out of stone, but now it looked like someone had been at it with a chisel. The last time we went head-to-head, Molly hit him with a plague of rats, and now one side of his face was a mass of scars and his left ear was missing. I gave him a stern look.

“I thought I told you to get your face fixed. The cosmetic sorcerers could put you right in an afternoon, and you know it.”

“I like the scars,” the Sarjeant said calmly. “They add character. And they’re very good for intimidating people.”

“What about the ear?”

“Pardon?”

I scowled at him. “Where the hell were you when we got ambushed by that mob?”

“Right,” said Molly. “Taking it easy in your cubicle, were you, with the latest issue of Big and Busty and the door locked?”

The Sarjeant ignored her, his cold gaze fixed on mine. “About time you got back, boy. Whole place has been going down the crapper since you left. Family discipline is falling apart, without the old certainties to keep them in line. They need you here, setting an example. Not gallivanting about back in the world, on personal business.”

“You know, just once it would be nice to hear Welcome home when I come through the door,” I said wistfully. “So stop bugging me, Sarjeant, or I’ll have Molly turn you into a small steaming pile of something. You’re not telling me that angry mob just happened…They couldn’t have got near the front door without your cooperation.”

“Wanted you to see how bad things had got,” the Sarjeant said calmly. “I’d have stepped in, if things started getting ugly.”

“I only put up with you so you can keep the pests off my back,” I said flatly. “It’s bad enough I just got attacked outside my old flat by a whole bunch of MI5 goons, without being ambushed by my own family the moment I walk through the door. You let this happen again, and I will slam you against the nearest wall until your eyes change colour! Do I make myself clear?”

Give the man his due; even though no one had dared to speak to him like that in decades, and even though he knew I meant every word of it, he didn’t flinch one bit.

“I needed to see who would act, instead of just talk,” he said. “Now they’ve identified themselves as troublemakers, I can go after them, and there will be spankings. Don’t try to teach me my job, boy. You might run the family now, but I run the Hall. Now what was that about you being attacked by MI5? No one attacks us and gets away with it.”

“Trust me,” I said. “They didn’t. But they knew exactly where and when to find me, which means someone in the family must have ratted me out to the prime minister. So make yourself useful and find out who.”

His cold eyes brightened at the thought of authorised violence. “Any restrictions on my methods?”

“I want answers, not bodies,” I said. “Otherwise, anything goes. Make them cry, make them talk. The family can’t afford to be divided right now.”

“Hardcore, Eddie,” said Molly. “What’s next; loyalty oaths and public executions?”

The Sarjeant-at-Arms inclined his head slightly to me. “Welcome home, sir. Welcome back to the family.”

“Get my Inner Circle together,” I said. “And have them wait for me in the Sanctity. We have urgent new business to discuss. I’ll be along as soon as I can. I have to talk to the Matriarch first. How is she?”

“Still in mourning,” said the Sarjeant.

“Alistair isn’t dead,” I said.

“Might as well be.”

The Sarjeant bowed stiffly to me, ignored Molly, turned on his heel, and strode off into the labyrinthine depths of the Hall. He was never going to warm to me, and I wouldn’t have known what to do if he had.

“You’re really getting into this leadership thing, aren’t you?” said Molly. “Barking orders and handing out beatings. I guess breeding will out. You’re every inch a Drood, Eddie.”

I shrugged apologetically. “I swear I used to be so much calmer and easygoing, before I came back to the Hall. There’s just something about having to deal with my family that makes me want to spit and curse and throw things. Preferably explosives. But I have to be seen to be in charge, Molly; I have to be hard on the family and make it toe the new line, or they’ll turn on each other, and the family will devour itself. I’ve taken away everything they depended on; now it’s up to me to give them something else to live for. A new cause to follow.” I sighed tiredly. “I hate all this, Molly. Not least because I have a horrible suspicion I’m not up to the job. But I have to do it… because there’s no one else.”

Molly put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I could always turn more people into things…”

“Could you turn them into reasonable people?”

“Be real, darling. I’m a witch, not a miracle worker.”

We both managed a small smile. “I don’t like what I have to do,” I said. “I don’t like what I’m becoming. But I have to fight for every inch of progress. It’s not me; it’s them. My family could have Mother Teresa drinking straight from the bottle and calling for the return of hanging in a week. Look, I’ve got to go and see the Matriarch, and you can’t come with me. It’s going to be difficult enough for me to get in to see her. So, you pop along to the Sanctity and keep the others amused till I can get there.”

“I see,” Molly said sweetly, and very dangerously. “I’m your court jester now, am I?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m still getting the hang of this being in a relationship thing. I meant, of course, take charge of things till I can get there. We are, after all, equal partners.”

“Well,” said Molly. “I might settle for that. But only because I’m so fond of you.”

I went striding through the long corridors and hallways, the great circular meeting places and wide airy chambers, heading for the Matriarch’s private rooms in the west wing. People stopped what they were doing to watch me pass, and I smiled at those who smiled at me, and glared at everyone else to make sure they kept their distance. I wasn’t in the mood to answer any more questions, particularly since I didn’t have a whole lot of answers. Centuries-old wood panelling gleamed on every side with a comfortable patina of age and beeswax, and paintings by famous names hung on every wall. Everywhere I looked there were statues and busts and ornaments of great worth and antiquity; the accumulated tribute of the Droods. Presented to us by the governments of the world because they were so grateful to us, and not at all because they were scared of us.

The whole wing had that calm assurance that comes from seeing generation after generation pass through its rooms and corridors. That slightly smug calm that says I will be here long after you are gone . From earliest childhood it’s drilled into every Drood child that we are only here to serve the family in its never-ending fight against evil. Soldiers in a war that never ends. Our motto: Anything, for the family . And I believed it. We had a holy cause and a holy duty, and our foes were dark and terrible indeed. Even after all the lies I uncovered in the dark and secret heart of the family; I still believe. The Droods have to go on, because humanity couldn’t survive without us. I just had to get the family back to what it used to be; to what it was originally meant to be.