First rule in the field: when events seem too good to be true, they probably are too good to be true.
Still, the Castle’s quite remarkable protections had failed only because I had access to the false Rafe’s DNA, and that was a very recent development. Even the best of protections need regular updating. I kept checking around me with my Sight raised, looking for new levels of protection, disguised booby traps, land mines or trapdoors, but there was nothing. It was almost completely dark now, the only light shining down from the Castle’s long rows of windows. Which left me plenty of shadows to take advantage of, right up to the Castle itself. But the approach to the main door was sharply illuminated, with harsh white electric light. Presumably backed up by modern surveillance systems, because nobody’s that secure. I kept well away from the lit door, and sneaked along the front wall, my shoulder pressed hard against the cold rough stone. I kept my head well down, ducking under each of the lit windows, listening carefully.
The night was eerily silent, but through the closed windows I could hear conversations, raised voices, laughter. They sounded just like ordinary people, not the evil murdering bastards they were. But I suppose even monsters aren’t always monsters, when they’re at home. Did they plot to murder my Molly, in one of these bright and cheerful rooms? I had to stop for a moment, as a cold hand closed around my heart, and squeezed. Not now. Not now . . . I’d mourn my love later, when I had time. I made myself move on, darting from window to window, until finally I came to one where there was no sound at all. I crouched there a while, motionless, until I was sure the room was deserted. And then I held my right hand up before me, and studied the golden ring gleaming on my finger. The Gemini Duplicator. It was time to try out the Armourer’s new toy. I pressed hard against the ring with the fingers on either side of it, and just like that there were two of me.
And the duplicate was standing on the other side of the wall, inside the room. I’d spotted that possibility early on, when the Armourer first explained the rings’ extended range to me.
At first, being two of me felt really freaky. All my senses were registering in duplicate, in a weird stereo effect. I was in the light and in the dark, in the cold and in the warm, inside and out. I swayed on two sets of feet, unbalanced in a whole new way, and concentrated fiercely until I could separate out the two sensory streams. I found the trick of it surprisingly quickly; like patting yourself on the head while simultaneously rubbing your stomach. I’d always known that talent would come in handy one day. At first, my consciousness kept switching back and forth from one head to the other, but I soon learned to keep both sets of thoughts going at once, holding one set in the foreground while pushing the other back.
Still; really freaky.
I pushed down the outside me and took a good look around the room I was in. (While thinking, Was the one outside the original me, with the one inside a duplicate? Or had the Gemini Duplicator projected me where I needed to be, while generating a duplicate to stay outside? And, where did all the extra mass come from, to make a whole second body?) My heads started to hurt. When this was all over, and I got back to Drood Hall, I was going to have to sit the Armourer down, and ask him a whole bunch of seriously pointed questions.
I concentrated on the room I was in. It was cheerfully lit with perfectly modern electric lighting, comfortably appointed, and no one was home. I padded quickly over to the door, eased it open a little, and listened. A few people were coming and going, talking quietly. I waited till they were gone, gave it a few more moments just in case, and then opened the door and slipped out into the main hall.
Pretty impressive, at first look. Old style Baronial, all eighteenth-century features carefully preserved, parquet flooring and exposed stone walls, and a really high ceiling with half a dozen cut glass and diamond chandeliers. Probably draughty as hell, and a pain to heat in the winter. I grew up in Drood Hall; I know about these things. I thought wearing long underwear most of the year round was normal. I hurried over to the main door, and then hesitated, and studied it thoughtfully. Fashioned from a single huge slab of some dark wood, reinforced with steel bands, but . . . no hidden surprises that I could See. Just a perfectly ordinary brass lock, and two sets of heavy bolts, top and bottom. The bolts weren’t even in place, and when I checked, the door wasn’t even locked. Arrogant, complacent, and stupid . . . Some people deserve everything that’s coming to them. I pulled open the heavy door, and there I was, waiting for me.
Freaky, weird and very disturbing. My consciousness ricocheted back and forth between my heads, me seeing me seeing me, and the only coherent thought I could manage was, Is that really what I look like? I concentrated, bearing down hard, and then it occurred to the me looking in from outside that I had to be the original because I was still wearing the Gemini Duplicator ring. I held up my hand to prove it, and the me standing inside held up my hand. We both had rings. I decided enough was enough, and both of me squeezed my fingers against the ring. And just like that there was only me, standing in the open doorway. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum where the other me had been standing just a moment before, like an explosion in reverse. I rocked on my feet, struggling to reconcile two sets of memories from the same period, but it all came together surprisingly easily. I hurried forward, and closed the door quietly behind me.
I put my back to the door and scowled at the long empty hall stretching away before me. My skin crawled in anticipation of sudden alarms, but there was nothing. I couldn’t quite believe how easy they were making this for me. Powerful protective shields are all very well, but you can’t beat the human touch when it comes to spot ting intruders. In the end I just shrugged, and allowed myself to breathe a little more easily. I might not be able to call up my armour here, but my torc’s basic nature should still be enough to hide me from any and all inner surveillance systems. The Immortals might or might not have had systems in place to detect the presence of old torcs, but I was betting they didn’t have anything that could deal with the new strange matter torcs. The Immortals might have infiltrated the Droods, but they didn’t understand Ethel.
Nobody did.
I pulled up my collar a little, to hide the torc from a casual glance, and strode down the long hall like I was thinking of renting it out. When penetrating an enemy stronghold, confidence is everything. Look like you belong there, and no one will challenge you. So far, Castle Frankenstein was everything it should be: old stonework, marvellously carved and ornate; standing suits of armour, burnished to within an inch of their lives; elegant medieval tapestries and hanging cloths; and rows of dark frowning portraits. Old Frankensteins or old Immortals, I didn’t know or give a damn. It was all very Gothic, apart from the electric light chandeliers and the hidden central heating, the benefits of which I was currently enjoying after so long in the cold, cold night.
The Castle so far reminded me a lot of Drood Hall. Of long and not forgotten history, held over into the modern day. The Immortals were as old as we were, and the two of us had a lot more in common than I liked to admit. Two ancient families, their present still dominated by their past, who never threw anything away. The Immortals were the one thing we’d always feared the most, our darkest nightmare: the Anti-Droods. Everything we could have been, if not for our role as shamans, defenders of the Human tribe. Be sure your nightmares will find you out . . .