Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

"Stop it!" James yelled. "Don’t let it touch the Heart!"

The Sarjeant-at-Arms had already opened fire, blazing away with both guns at once. James strode forward, pouring bullets into the bloody shape from close range, and I was right there with him, firing my needle gun. Everyone else in the Sanctity opened fire on the mass with whatever weapons they had, crowding forward, ignoring their own safety to protect the Heart. Magicians unleashed curses and damnations, and scientists fired strange energies from stranger weapons…and none of it did any good. The bloody shape absorbed our bullets, and everything else, with equal indifference, pressing slowly but inexorably towards the Heart. Golden armoured hands that could punch through walls or shattered steel flailed at the pulpy mass, and it just ignored us. One armoured man stood defiantly in its path. The scarlet shape sucked him in and spat him out the other side. He thrashed weakly on the floor, screaming like the newly damned.

I grabbed James by the arm and made him look at me. "Call them off! They’ll listen to you. I’ve got an idea!"

He looked at me, and then nodded curtly and ordered the family to disengage. Everyone fell back immediately. They trusted James, where they almost certainly wouldn’t have trusted me. James looked at me expectantly. I reached through the armour on my side, drew the portable door from my pocket, activated it, and tossed it into the path of the bloody shape as it surged forward, just as I had with the Hyde at the Wulfshead. The portable door slid neatly into position, sparked and sputtered a few times, and then just lay there, inert. I’d used it too often. The batteries were dead.

James was still looking at me. I couldn’t see his face behind the gleaming golden mask, but I could guess his expression. He’d trusted me, and I’d let him down. I looked back at the shape. It was almost upon the Heart. I thought hard, glaring desperately about the Sanctity in search of inspiration, and then my gaze fell upon the dozen torcs lying discarded on the floor, left behind when their owners were stripped of flesh to make the bloody shape. I lurched forward, grabbed a handful of the golden collars, raised my golden fist, and punched the torcs right through the dark-veined cancerous side of the thing. I forced them deep into the mass, let go of the torcs, and then tried to pull my hand out again; but it was stuck.

A terrible coldness, as much of the spirit as the body, crept up my arm. I think I cried out. And then James was there beside me, pulling at my trapped arm with all his strength. For a terrifyingly long moment even our combined strength wasn’t enough, and then my hand jerked out of the bloody mass, and we both staggered backwards. I yelled aloud the Words that activated the living armour, the Words we normally only ever subvocalised, and the five torcs within the bloody shape activated. All at once.

Inside the cancerous fleshy mass, the torcs did what they were programmed to do. They identified their owners, or in this case what was left of them, and encased them in living armour. Golden shards erupted out of the red and purple shape, slicing it apart. The bloody mass fought back, struggling to maintain the integrity of the form it had taken, but the torcs’ progress was inexorable. Once started, their transformation could not be stopped by anyone or anything. The bloody shape collapsed, and a soundless howl of fury filled all our heads for a moment as the thing from Outside snapped out of existence, its hold on our reality broken. Lying on the floor before the Heart, in awful unnatural attitudes, were five suits of golden armour surrounded by pieces of bloody meat. I didn’t want to think about what those suits contained.

The oppressive sense of the invading Presence was gone. The bells and sirens all snapped off, and a blessed silence filled the Sanctity. One by one we all armoured down, golden forms giving way to men and women with shocked, traumatised faces. James clapped me on the shoulder.

"Well done, Eddie. Good thinking."

People began slowly filing out of the room. The Heart was safe. Everyone went back to their normal, everyday duties. Some were in shock; some had to be helped. Some were openly angry or scared, because the Hall was no longer the safe place it always been before. Some were crying over the loss of friends or loved ones. You couldn’t blame them. Most of the family never see fieldwork, never see any kind of action, never see the blood and suffering and death that lies at the heart of what the Droods do and are. There’d be a lot of sleeping pills and bad dreams in the four wings tonight.

The Sarjeant-at-Arms had already collared a few of the harder-hearted souls and set them to work, and the clearing up had begun. He didn’t even look at me. I might have just saved the day, and the Heart, and maybe the whole family, but he still didn’t trust me. And none of the others congratulated me as they left. Most didn’t even look at me. None of them wanted to be seen talking to me, didn’t even want to get too close to the man who’d turned his back on family tradition and responsibility, in case some of my independence rubbed off on them. James made a point of standing next to me, his hand still on my shoulder.

Everyone respected the Gray Fox.

Finally, we left the Sanctity together and went out into the corridor. Away from the stench of spilled blood and meat and guts, the old familiar smells of wood and polish and fresh flowers was immediately restorative. I breathed deeply, and my head cleared. The ancient, solid walls, with their sense of long history and service, were actually reassuring for once.

"This assault is unprecedented," said James. He kept his voice low as we walked, but it still held a cold anger that was disturbingly near the surface. "Not only did something just hammer its way through the Hall’s defences, and the Heart’s; it actually killed Droods! Right here in the midst of the family! That’s never happened before. We’re supposed to be safe here, protected from all threats and dangers."

"This has never happened before?" I said. "I mean, ever?"

James looked at me for a long moment, as though deciding just how much he trusted me. "There have been two previous attacks on the Heart," he said finally, in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it. "No one was hurt, and neither of them got this close, but still…"

"Jesus…No wonder the Matriarch’s been busy punching up the Hall’s defences…"

James looked at me oddly. "How did you know that, Eddie?"

"I had a word with old Jacob. He doesn’t miss much."

"Oh, yes. Of course. You always were fond of that disgusting old reprobate. You must understand, Eddie…the Hall has been inviolate ever since we first moved in here. No one’s ever been able to crack our defences, let alone actually threaten the Heart. There can only be one answer…an inside man. A traitor in the family, giving up the secrets of our protections."

I was so shocked I actually stopped in my tracks and stared at him with my mouth hanging open. Members of the family had left in the past or been declared rogue and forced out, but no one had ever turned traitor, working from within to betray us to our enemies…It was unthinkable.

"Is that why everyone’s been so conspicuously giving me the cold shoulder?" I said eventually. "Is that why I’ve been called back?"

"I don’t know, Eddie. The Matriarch…hasn’t been taking me into her confidence like she used to. So…watch your back, while you’re here. Paranoia breeds suspicion. Because if the family can’t identify their traitor, they might just choose one…"

We walked on together, back through the many rooms and passageways of the Hall, past magnificent works of art that we all just took for granted. Rembrandts. Goyas. Schalckens. The Hall is stuffed with priceless paintings and sculptures and precious items, donated by princes and powers and governments down the centuries. They’ve always been very grateful for everything the family does for them. And then there were the displays of weapons and all the other spoils of war we’ve accumulated. The family might not be very sentimental about its past, but it never throws away anything useful.