CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Journeys End in Enemies Meeting
And it was all going so well… relatively speaking. Now it looked like all our previous successes had been for nothing, and I was going to have to pull off one of my last-minute, odds-defying, race-against-time-and-save-the-bloody-day miracles. I don’t think people appreciate just how much those things take out of me. On the big main display screen, Harry Drood was helping a dazed and shaken Roger Morningstar to his feet. Roger had just saved Harry’s life at the risk of his own, and it was hard to tell which of them looked the most surprised or shocked. They leaned on each other tiredly and spoke for a while, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying. The communications people worked frantically to try to restore sound, urged on by the Matriarch’s unwavering glare, but without success. Apparently when the Soul Gun went off it supersaturated the aether with other-dimensional energies. We were lucky we were still getting a picture, though the communications officer had enough sense to imply that rather than state it openly to the Matriarch. On the display screen, Roger and Harry headed uncertainly across the grassy field towards Stonehenge, presumably in search of an entrance to Truman’s underground bunker.
Just the two of them, against Truman and all his armies. I suppose people can always surprise you, especially if one of them is a half demon.
I did try to call them back, tell them reinforcements were on their way, but they couldn’t hear me. I even tried contacting them through Strange, but he couldn’t help either.
“It’s the tower,” he said, sounding strangely subdued. “It’s complete, Eddie, and almost ready to activate. It’s alive and aware, though not in any way you would recognise, and I can hear it thinking. It knows I’m watching. It comes from a stranger place than I do, an even higher dimension… The sheer power locked up in this thing is frightening. The Invaders, the Many-Angled Ones, the Hungry Gods are coming… and I’m scared, Eddie.”
“You could leave,” I said. “Get out of our world, withdraw to your own dimension.”
“And leave you and your family defenceless? No. That’s not the kind of other-dimensional presence I am. I like this world, and you people, and your weird way of doing things. You’re fun. The Hungry Gods would just eat you all up, and never even know what it was they were destroying. They’re vicious, evil, and basically quite stupid gods, when you get right down to it. I won’t desert you and your family, Eddie. Some things deserve to be fought, just on general principles.”
“Thank you, Ethel,” I said.
“Ah hell,” said Strange. “What are friends for?”
And that was when Subway Sue scurried into the War Room. She’d made an effort to clean herself up, including a new set of clothes that had clearly been intended for a rather larger person, but she still looked like she’d come to steal something, and stress and strain had put twenty years into her furtive face. To her credit, she was also trying hard not to look too smug at being proved right and necessary after all.
“Got the feeling you were looking for me,” she said, “So here I am. Would I be right in assuming that all your plans have gone tits up, and using the Damnation Way has become the only viable option?”
“Got it in one,” said Molly.
“Damn,” said Subway Sue. “Then we really are in deep shit.”
Molly took Sue over to one side to bring her up to date on what had been happening, and just how deep in it we really were, and I took the moment to think about exactly who I was going to take with us. Molly, of course, for a whole bunch of reasons. Not the Armourer; Uncle Jack would be needed here if we screwed this up. Giles Deathstalker, because he was the most impressive fighting man I’d ever met. And Mr. Stab, because he was…what he was, and because he was so bloody hard to kill. I would have liked Callan, but he was still out of it. So the final member of this little death-or-glory team would have to be the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Partly because I wanted someone with me I could trust to follow orders, and partly because I needed someone I could depend on to fight to the last drop of his blood, for the family. Someone…expendable.
I never used to think things like that, before I became head of the family.
I looked over at Molly and Subway Sue, chatting and giggling together like the old girlfriends they were, and it was a nice touch of normality in a severely strained world. It gave my heart a bit of a lift, to see that such small happinesses were still possible. But I still wasn’t too sure what to make of Sue’s Damnation Way. The name really didn’t inspire confidence. But, if it could drop us off right inside Truman’s bunker…one forceful pre-emptive strike could still take out the tower and put an end to all this. No more nests, no more towers, no more Loathly Ones.
Except for the one remaining inside Molly. Still eating into her body, her mind, her soul. What good to save the world, if I couldn’t save the woman I loved? With Molly gone, all I would have left would be the family, and a lifetime’s cold duties and responsibilities. There had to be a way to save her. There had to be. Because I didn’t want to live in a world without Molly.
She looked around, saw me looking at her, and smiled brightly. I smiled back. She hugged Sue quickly and came back to join me. She hugged me, and I held her close. I didn’t want to ever let her go, but I did. I couldn’t have her suspecting what I’d been thinking.
“You looked like you needed a hug,” Molly said briskly. “Hell, practically everyone here does. But I’m not that sort of girl. These days. I’ve been talking to Sue; she says she can summon up an entrance point to the Damnation Way any time you’re ready, but…she’s exhausted, Eddie. I mean, really out on her feet. It’s only guts and determination that’s holding her up. I don’t know where she went, or who she had to deal with, to obtain the secrets of the Damnation Way, but she paid a high price.”
“Then we need to get this moving as soon as possible,” I said. “Molly, I need Subway Sue to go with us. Is she up to that?”
“She says she is.” Molly scowled and shrugged. “I can’t tell her no. And you wouldn’t, would you, Eddie?”
“We need her,” I said steadily. “The world needs her.”
“Funny,” said Molly. “It never needed her before.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “And what about me? Do you need me with you, on this? Can you trust me so close to a tower, given my…condition?”
I smiled at her. “I’ll always need you, Molly. Do you really think I’d go anywhere without you?”
“You always were a big softy, Eddie Drood.” And she kissed me hard, right there in front of everyone. Some clapped, a few cheered. Molly finally let go of me and smiled sweetly around her.
Luckily Mr. Stab arrived at that point, strolling casually into the War Room like an unexploded bomb, with the Sarjeant-at-Arms marching right beside him. The Sarjeant had a gun in one hand and his gaze fixed firmly on Mr. Stab, who politely pretended not to notice. After his many exertions in the field, the Sarjeant looked battered and bruised, and somewhat bulkily bandaged here and there, but his back was still straight and his head erect. For him, weakness would always be something that happened to other people. And to be fair, he still looked like he could take on a whole army single-handed and send the survivors running home crying to their mothers. Mr. Stab, it should be said, looked…exactly as he always had. Calm, cold, and completely unruffled. Not a spot of blood on him, or the slightest tear in his Victorian evening wear. Even his top hat gleamed with a smug and civilised air.
I felt like throwing something at it, on general principles.
Instead, I beckoned them both over and explained the situation to them. Mr. Stab frowned slightly at mention of the Damnation Way, as though the name rang a bell with him, but he had nothing to say. The Sarjeant-at-Arms all but crashed to attention before me, his eyes brightening at the prospect of further mayhem.