He made some sound of shock and surprise, and then my hands closed, and I cut it off. He bucked and struggled under me, but he couldn’t shift my hands. He choked and convulsed, and I wouldn’t let him breathe.
Until finally he stopped fighting me and slapped the ground at his side. The old signal of a fighter who yields. I let go, and he started breathing again. I stayed crouched over him, ready to go again if he was faking. For a while we stayed there, him on the floor, me over him, both of us breathing hard. I would have killed him if he hadn’t yielded, and he knew it.
“Was that how you killed my father?” he said finally.
“Typical of you, Harry,” I said. “Always fixated on the past. A leader has to look to the future. I could have killed you, but I didn’t want to. First, because it would probably have caused more problems than it solved, and secondly, the family needs experienced field agents like you. Now more than ever. So forget this Patriarch crap. Go back to being part of my Inner Circle. Give me your word that you’ll follow me, obey my orders, for the good of the family…and this is over.”
“And if I say no?”
“You know the answer to that. It’s all or nothing, Harry. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said quietly, bitterly. “For the good of the family.”
We both armoured down. I gave him my hand and helped him to his feet.
“No!” Roger said suddenly, stepping forward. “You don’t have to give in to him, Harry! You don’t have to take any crap from anyone, not while I’m here!”
And just like that, he took on his Infernal aspect, wrapping it around him like a cloak, and he didn’t seem in any way human anymore. Shadows gathered around him, a living darkness that seemed to eat up the crimson light. There was a thick stench of blood and sulphur on the air, and a rush of almost unbearable heat sent all of us stumbling back, even Harry. Roger smiled, and his mouth was full of pointed teeth. His eyes were black pits in his face. His presence was heavy in the Sanctity, like an unbearable weight pressing down on the world. He looked like what he really was; something from the Pit. Even Harry couldn’t bear to look at him directly. Roger laughed softly, an evil, hateful sound that had no human humour in it, and we all winced. Roger rose up into the air, defying the natural laws of the world as though they were nothing, and hung on the air with his arms mockingly outstretched as though nailed to an invisible cross.
“Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam,” he said in a voice like an animal grunting. “You think you’re so much, Eddie Drood…Let me show you true power.”
Before I could even say anything, Molly rose up into the air to face him, levitating effortlessly. Her face was set and cold as she put herself between me and the hellspawn. I wanted to call out to her, but I had no voice. Unnatural energies coalesced around both of them, felt as much as seen, spitting and crackling like beads of water on a hot surface. Something was gathering between them, something awful…Just being this close to the two of them felt like razor blades slicing into my soul. Mortals weren’t supposed to see things like this, feel things like this. Forbidden magics and inhuman practices…
Roger waved a hand, and a hole opened up in the floor of the Sanctity. The wooden floorboards seemed to just rot away into nothing, and the hole grew steadily, like a cancer in the body of the world. Barbed brass tentacles, already slick with spilled blood, shot up out of the hall and snapped around Molly, pinning her arms to her sides. She cried out, as though fouled by their touch, and struggled fiercely, blood spurting on the air as the metal barbs dug into her flesh. And then the tentacles snapped back into the hole, taking her with them, and the hole disappeared. The floor was solid again, untouched, as though nothing had happened. Roger turned slowly, still hanging unsupported on the air, and smiled his awful smile at me.
“I am of Hell,” he said, “and I carry it with me everywhere. So I’m never far from home. I just sent your girlfriend to Hell, Eddie Drood. Damned her forever, to eternal suffering, to the lake of flames and the torments of the Pit, just because I felt like it. How do you feel about that, Eddie Drood?”
“After I’ve killed you, I will go down into Hell and bring her back,” I said. “Whatever it takes, whatever it costs. But first I will break your body with these golden hands, and make you scream, and after all the terrible things I do to you, falling back into Hell will seem like a relief.”
“Wow,” said Molly. “Hard core, Eddie.”
We all looked around, startled, and there she was, standing untouched and unharmed where the hole had been. I ran over and took her in my arms, and we held each other tightly and nothing else mattered.
“I really thought I’d lost you,” I said.
“You really think I’d go anywhere and leave you behind?” she said.
When we finally broke apart and looked around, Roger was staring at us incredulously. And for all his Infernal presence, he didn’t look half as threatening anymore.
“You can’t be here!” he said. “You can’t! I sent you to Hell!”
“Been there, done that,” said Molly.
She snapped her fingers crisply and a hole opened in the high ceiling above us. A celestial light slammed down through the hole, shouldering its way into the mortal world like a holy spotlight, transfixing Roger where he was like a bug on a pin. He screamed horribly, thrashing helplessly in agony in the grip of that Heavenly light, and we all had to turn our heads away. The light was just too dazzling, too pure, for human eyes to look on. Just being in the same room with it hurt, as though it was burning away my imperfections. Molly snapped her fingers again, and the light snapped off, the hole in the ceiling gone in a moment. Roger fell to the floor and lay still, breathing harshly. He looked like just a man again. Harry hurried forwards to kneel beside Roger and take him in his arms. He rocked him back and forth like a hurt child, murmuring soothing words. Roger’s face was blank with shock and suffering and an indescribable horror. I looked at Molly.
She shrugged. “I’ve been around. You’d be surprised at who owes me favours. Really.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” I said. “Everybody else okay?”
I looked around. Sebastian and Freddie were huddled together in a far corner, trying to climb into each other’s pockets. The Sarjeant-at-Arms looked pale and shaken, but not even the sight of Heaven and Hell could break his composure. Jacob the ghost had disappeared. And Giles Deathstalker…was grinning widely, as though he’d just watched a really good show.
While I was still considering that, the Sanctity doors flew open and a whole bunch of Droods came running in, led by the thugs who used to guard the doors. They seemed to have got their second wind and, emboldened by reinforcements, they were back to teach us all a lesson. Unfortunately, they made the tactical error of bursting in unarmoured. Giles was off the spot and heading right for them the moment they appeared, moving impossibly quickly for someone who didn’t have Drood armour. He didn’t bother to draw his sword, just slammed into the newcomers, stopping them in their tracks, and taking them all down with swift, almost clinical precision. He struck about him with amazing skill, and every blow sent a man flying. In just a few moments he was the only man standing, surrounded by moaning and unconscious bodies. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Now that is what I call a fighter,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. I’d never heard him sound impressed before. “You did well, Edwin. This is exactly what we need.”
“Thank you for not killing them,” I said to Giles. “They’re family.”