Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

"He won’t learn a thing from vivisection," Molly said flatly. "Except to remember what happened to the goose that laid golden eggs."

Archie shrugged with Jane’s shoulders. "I don’t think he cares that much. He just needs someone to take out his rage on. He really is very upset at what those three Droods did to his fine army. You should have heard him! I suggested he just kill Eddie and Sebastian, and then bring them back as zombies. Then he’d have two Droods with torcs who’d do anything he told them to. But apparently that wasn’t enough for him. The Droods have torcs, so he has to have them too. It’s a parity thing. But you shouldn’t feel left out, Molly; I gather he has quite detailed plans for you too. He keeps special torture cells for those of his own people who turn on him."

Strength flooded suddenly through me as Molly’s magics stamped out the last of the drug’s effects. Sensation flooded back through every part of me, and my thoughts were clear and sharp. I looked up at Molly, caught her eye, and mouthed the word Now. She grinned back at me and lashed out at the watching armed men with a simple tangle spell. All twelve of them crashed to the floor at once, their muscles spasming helplessly as witchy lightning crawled all over them, spitting and crackling. The spell hit Archie Leech too, but she just staggered backwards, fighting the spell with the strength the amulet gave him.

I was already up on my feet, heading for Archie. And thinking desperately on how to stop him without killing or even damaging Janissary Jane. I’d had to kill Archie’s last host body to stop him, but I couldn’t do that here. No more dead innocents on my watch. Unfortunately that gave him the advantage. He wouldn’t care what happened to Jane’s body; he could always jump to another. I slammed into Archie’s stolen body just as she shrugged off the last of the tangle spell, and the two of us hit the floor together. The gun flew from Archie’s hand, and she struggled fiercely under me, fighting to draw the knife at her belt.

I grabbed the Kandarian amulet in both my hands. It tried to evade me, twisting this way and that, but at such close quarters there was nowhere for it to go. I closed both my hands around the awful thing, squeezing them tightly shut, and the amulet burned my palms with a cold fiercer than any heat. I subvocalised my activating Words, and the golden armour surged around me in a moment even as Archie finally got her knife free and thrust it at my ribs. The heavy steel blade slammed and shattered against my armour as the living metal flowed over both my hands and what they contained. The Kandarian amulet was now inside my armour with me, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world. And that was all it took to sever Archie’s connection to the amulet.

I rolled away from Archie as he screamed like a damned soul, Jane’s body thrashing and kicking as his possessing spirit lost its hold on her, and she forced him out. Archie had nowhere to go; his original body had been destroyed long ago. I used my Sight and saw Archie’s real shape superimposed over Jane’s, just for a moment. And then his soul fell away from the world, howling horribly, summoned at last to the Hell that had been waiting for him for so long. I turned off my Sight. I didn’t want to See what was waiting for him.

Janissary Jane lay unconscious on the floor, twitching and shuddering. Physically exhausted and in psychic shock, probably. But she’d recover. She was a fighter and had known worse in her time.

The Kandarian amulet writhed inside my enclosing hands like a living thing, burning colder than the fiercest winter. A coldness of the heart, and of the soul. I could feel its presence inside the armour with me, fighting to impose its will on mine. The armour couldn’t protect me while the amulet was inside it. I seemed to a hear a dark inhuman chorus of voices drawing slowly closer: Join us. Join us. Just the sound sickened me, as though something had trailed slime across my mind. I armoured down, and the moment the living metal disappeared from my hands, I threw the nasty thing away from me.

The amulet skidded across the floor and Sebastian snapped out of his apparent stupor, rolled to one side, and snatched it up. He scrambled to his feet, smiling terribly as he clutched his prize to his heart. "You’re not the only one who can play possum, Eddie; I protected myself against all poisons years ago. And now…I have power beyond dreams. Because if you haven’t got the balls to use this, Eddie, I have. I shall enjoy hundreds of bodies, young bodies, and live lifetimes…"

"Throw it away," I said, rising slowly to my feet. "It’ll destroy you."

"Like that fool Archie Leech? I don’t think so. I can control it."

"No one can control it," I said. "It corrupts. That’s what it does. You’ll end up just like Archie, a spiritual rapist."

"I need a new body," said Sebastian. "This one’s getting old. It’s slower, and it lets me down. People like me shouldn’t have to grow old. Not when we enjoy life so much. Appreciate its pleasures and its qualities so much. It isn’t right that someone like me should die just because an old body is wearing out." He smiled at me, and it wasn’t his smile, not anymore. "Maybe I’ll take your body, Eddie, just for a little test drive. See what it can do. And maybe I’ll do awful, awful things with your body, just for the fun of it."

Molly hit him over the head from behind with the Manx Cat statuette, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious. He’d been so taken up in taunting me that he never even noticed Molly sneaking up behind him. The Manx Cat cracked into pieces, crumbled, and fell apart. Molly looked at me, shrugged and smiled, and brushed the last few bits off her hands. The Kandarian amulet had spilled out of Sebastian’s hand as he collapsed, and now it lay on the floor between us. Such a small thing, to be so evil. I stepped forward and stamped on it, and the ancient stone crumbled into dust under my heel.

But with the Manx Cat shattered, the power sustaining Molly’s tangle spell was gone too, and the dozen black-uniformed men scrambled to their feet again, raising their guns. Mad as hell at being taken out so easily, they all opened fire on Molly. The bullets hit her again and again, sending her staggering backwards under the repeated impacts. Blood spurted from dozens of wounds, snapping her head back and forth, and she couldn’t get enough breath to scream. Finally the men stopped firing, and Molly fell, as though that was all that had been holding her up. I fell to my knees beside her and grabbed her hand. She tried to say something to me, blood gushing and spraying painfully from her mouth, and all I could do was hold her hand until at last the life went out of her eyes. I looked up at the armed men, and they all fell back a step, afraid of whatever it was they saw in my face.

But I wasn’t going to kill them. That wasn’t enough.

I finally thought to hit the button on my reverse watch and rewind time. I’d almost left it too long. The watch didn’t want to take me far enough back, but I just hit it again and again and again, until finally it took me back to the point where the armed men were just starting to train their guns on Molly. I threw myself in front of her, between her and the bullets, armouring up as I went. The living metal swept over me even as the bullets flew through the air; and fast as the bullets were, the armour was faster. Every single shot that would have killed Molly ricocheted off me instead.

I threw myself upon the armed men, beat the crap out of them, and tossed them around the room for a while, until Molly finally stepped in and stopped me. Not for their sakes, but for mine. She knew I’d feel bad afterwards, if I killed them. I armoured down and smiled tremulously at her. I’d come so close to losing her.