Just like Grandmother always said, Anything, for the family.
I looked around at the remains of the mob, already dispersing, or being led away, stumbling and crying, shaking their heads violently as though they could deny what had just happened. The Armourer followed my gaze, but misinterpreted my feelings.
"It wasn't their fault, Eddie. They weren't responsible for what they did. Someone deliberately drove them out of their minds, and aimed them at you like a bullet."
"Not me," I said. "They could have killed me, if they'd wanted. Someone wanted my Molly dead, at the hands of Droods."
The Armourer winced at the sound of my voice. Perhaps because it sounded so painful, or perhaps because of the cold harsh emotions he heard in it.
"Do you have any ideas who might be behind this, Eddie?" he said finally.
I shook my head. I wasn't ready to talk to him about the Immortals, not just yet. Not when I couldn't be sure who was who, or who might be listening. I felt cold, so cold, like I'd never feel warm or alive again. All the horror and loss and heartbreak had sunk right down, buried deep within me, so I could be focused and determined on what I had to do. I would find out who was responsible for this atrocity, and I would make them pay. Every damned one of them. I would make the Immortals die slow and hard, wade in blood up to my knees, and do terrible, unforgivable things, if that was what it took to avenge Molly Metcalf. Grieving could come later.
It was what Molly would? have wanted.
The Armourer winced at what he saw in my face, and patted me gently, awkwardly, on the shoulder with his large engineer's hand.
"Come with me, Eddie," he said. "We'll go down to the Armoury. We can talk properly there. I put in my own wards and protections, after that Zero Tolerance business."
"All right," I said. "But I have to stop off somewhere first."
It still hurt to talk. My voice sounded to me like a dead man's. God alone knew what it sounded like to the Armourer. But he just nodded, and let me lead him into my room. The door was hanging open, half wrenched off its hinges. The mob had overturned and smashed my furniture, and broken everything else. It didn't matter to me. Not now. There was only room for one hatred in my head. I found the Merlin Glass, just lying on the floor, unnoticed and unbroken. It had its own inbuilt protections, like everything Merlin created. I picked it up and said the activating Words, and the Glass jumped out of my hand, growing in size to become a doorway. The Armourer and I stepped through into the Armoury.
The Armoury never changes much. A long series of interconnected stone chambers, with high arching ceilings, packed with scientific equipment, magical apparatus, and more weird shit than you could shake a Hand of Glory at. The air-conditioning system gurgles loudly to itself, when it feels like working. Multicoloured wiring, following a colour code nobody really understands, lies tacked haphazardly across the walls, you have to be really careful where you step, and there's always something seriously dangerous, unpleasant or suddenly explosive going on in the testing area.
But this was four o'clock in the morning, and the place was practically deserted. The Armourer sat me down in his favourite chair, and bustled around making us both a nice cup of tea. Always good for what ails you, he said briskly. He always felt better when he was doing something practical. He used proper tea leaves, from an old tea caddy with the willow pattern on the sides, and got out the good china, and a silver tea strainer presented to us by Queen Victoria. Because this wasn't an occasion for a tea bag in a plastic mug, and find your own milk and sugar. I just sat in the chair and let him get on with it. The moment I sat down, all my strength seemed to run right out of me.
I looked vaguely round the Armoury. Most of the lights had been turned off, giving the deserted labs a calm, reflective ambience. A few lab assistants were still working quietly, here and there. They should have been tucked up in bed at this ungodly early hour of the morning, but there are always a few night owls. They tapped away at computer keyboards, or scribbled frantically on oversized writing pads, lost in their own little worlds. One of them appeared to have a halo, but I decided not to mention it.
They probably didn't even know what had just happened in the Hall. They didn't know what had happened to the Matriarch, and my Molly.
The Armourer served me tea, with honey and lemon. I sipped at the tea automatically. It tasted good, soothing.
"No jaffa cakes, I'm afraid," said the Armourer, pulling up a chair and sitting down opposite me. "Damn lab assistants go through them like locusts. I've got half a packet of chocolate hobnobs around here somewhere, if you'd like… Ah. Well. Maybe later, eh?"
We sat quietly together for a while, drinking our tea, thinking… doing our best to come to terms with so much having happened so quickly, in such a short time. Both our worlds, overturned and destroyed, in just a few hours. Uncle Jack had lost his mother, I had lost my Molly, and just maybe the Droods had lost their innocence. Trained all their life to serve the good, they had been made to do an evil thing, and some of them might never get over it. We all have monsters within us, but most of us never have to see what happens when they get loose. Droods are taught from an early age to roll with the punches, to take what punishment you have to, to get things done, to carry on the? family business and mourn your losses later. But this… was hard.
"You never knew your Aunt Clara, did you, Eddie?" Uncle Jack said finally. His voice was calm, quiet, reflective. "My wife. She died when you were still a baby. Blood vessel just popped, in her brain. Dead before she hit the floor. It happens like that, sometimes. We're Droods, with every advantage, but we still get sick and die sometimes, just like everyone else. She was always so full of life… my Clara. I left the field to come back here. There was nothing I could do for her, but I still had a young son to raise. I never left the Hall again."
"You never talk about your son, Uncle Jack," I said.
"He let himself down," the Armourer said flatly. "He let all of us down. Not all sons turn out as well as you, Eddie. If his mother hadn't died… if I'd been around more when he was younger, instead of running around half of Eastern Europe stamping out political bushfires… Kipling was right. If is the cruellest word. The point is, don't bury yourself in work, like I did. You're still young. You can still find someone else."
"Not like Molly," I said.
"Well, no," said the Armourer.
We sat, and drank our tea, and thought some more. The tea soothed my throat, if not my heart.
"So," the Armourer said. "That… was the notorious Isabella Metcalf. Impressive."
"You know her?" I said.
"Well, of her. The female Indiana Jones of the supernatural world. Always looking for answers in strange places, digging up things any sane person would let lie. She always has to know, and to hell with the consequences. Not for any particular end, or purpose; knowledge has always been its own reward, with Isabella. She's petitioned me a dozen times for access to the Old Library. Had to turn her down, of course. She's not family."
There was another long pause, the Armourer making it clear with long looks from under his bushy white eyebrows that he was waiting for me to contribute something to the conversation. So I told him what I'd discovered about the Immortals, and their possible infiltration of our family. He took it surprisingly well; no furious outbursts, no insistence that such a thing couldn't be possible. He just leant back in his chair, sipping slowly from his cup, while his expression grew colder and colder, and his eyes became positively arctic. I'd never seen him look so dangerous. When I'd finished, draining my cup of tea to sooth my raw throat, he nodded slowly several times.