We are coming in, Molly said firmly. That can be past you, or over your beaten and broken body. It s up to you. Guess which I d prefer.
No trainers, said the doorman. And definitely no witches that don t know their place. No entrance here ever, unless you re a member in good standing, which you aren t and never will be. Now piss off, girlie, or I ll set the hellhounds on you.
You haven t got any hellhounds, said Molly, grinning really quite unpleasantly. I d know. So get the hell out of my way, or I ll turn you into a small squishy thing with your testicles floating on the top.
The doorman lowered himself to sneer at her. I hear worse than that from the members every day if I don t move fast enough. You can t touch me; I m protected by the club. Now get out of my sight, before I make you cry.
I stepped forward then to stand beside Molly. You try to be nice to people, but then they have to go and cross the line. No one threatens my Molly and gets away with it. So stand aside, Uniformed Flunky with an Unfortunate Attitude, or I ll rip your dickey off.
Eddie! said Molly, amused but just a bit shocked.
Not in public
A dickey, I explained patiently, is another name for the bow tie.
Ah, said Molly. I hadn t noticed he was wearing one. Now, that is distinctly unappealing. Downright ugly, in fact.
Bow ties are cool, I said. The Travelling Doctor said so.
And he should know, said Molly. He s been around. Mr. Doorman isn t moving, Eddie. Feel free to do your very worst.
I armoured up my right hand, grabbed a handful of the doorman s starched shirtfront and ripped it right off him. Along with his waistcoat and his dickey. The doorman stood there, bare-chested, and gaped at my golden gauntlet. He seemed to shrink in on himself just a little.
Oh, fuck. You re a Drood.
Language, Jeeves, said Molly, highly amused.
I dropped the wreckage of his shirtfront onto the pavement, and held up my golden fist before his face, so he could get a good look at it.
Who are you people? said the doorman. He was deeply upset. I could tell.
I am Eddie Drood, and this delightful yet dangerous young lady is Molly Metcalf, I said just a bit grandly.
A Drood and a Metcalf sister? Oh, shit, said the doorman miserably. I m going home early.
I would, I said.
The doorman turned and ran back into the club, leaving the door standing half-open. His voice gradually faded away as he receded into the club s interior, calling for help and protection. It was nice to know my name still meant something. And Molly s, too, of course.
The protections are still in place, Molly observed pointedly.
So they are, I said. Good for them. And good for us that I have this.
And I held up the skeleton key Patrick had given me. Just a yellowed piece of human bone, carved into a universal key, that could unlock anything. Including some things that were only technically or symbolic locks. I leaned carefully forward and eased the bone key into the door s keyhole. It didn t want to go in, but some applied pressure from my golden hand did the job. And it really didn t want to turn, either, until my golden gauntlet provided the necessary motivation. And then all the protections just disappeared, gone in a moment. I carefully retrieved the bone key and tucked it away about my person.
Definitely knows his stuff, I said to Molly.
All right, don t make a big deal out of it, she said with a sniff. I was learning how to carve skeleton keys while you were still learning how to pick the lock on the Drood tuckshop.
Trust me, I said. Drood Hall has never possessed any such thing.
Don t interrupt me when I m on a roll. Come on. Let s get in there and make some trouble before they get a reception committee organised.
I kicked the front door all the way open and strode inside with Molly sauntering along at my side. It s important to make the right kind of entrance on these sort of occasions. A wide-open hallway fell away before us, discreetly lit and completely empty. There were heavily wood-panelled walls, in the old style, that looked like they could stop cannonballs, plus a parquet floor and a whole bunch of tall potted plants of an almost primordial nature.
I heard soft running footsteps up ahead, approaching at speed. I stopped where I was, and Molly reluctantly stopped with me. I didn t need to look back to know the front door had already closed behind us. I could feel it. I stared carefully into the civilised gloom at the end of the corridor and winced, just a bit, as I recognised the half dozen small and slender figures pattering forward to confront Molly and me.
They stopped a cautious distance away to look Molly and me over with their overbright eyes. Six half-starved teenage boys wrapped in the rags and tatters of what had once been expensive school uniforms. The oldest of them couldn t have been more than fourteen. They crouched rather than stood, a pack of wild animals rather than a group of boys. Dangerous animals, fierce and feral. Pale faced, floppy haired, with thin, pinched faces, disturbing smiles and eyes that were so much older than they should have been. They grinned quickly at each other, laughing silently, hefting the sharp and shiny things they held in their hands.
Children? said Molly. They re sending kids out to stop us?
These aren t children, I said steadily.
Or at least they aren t now and haven t been for some time. These, Molly, are the Uptown Razor Boys. The Eton Irregulars. The delinquent toffs who never grew up.
I summoned my full armour about me, and the golden metal gleamed brightly in the gloom. The Eton Irregulars drew a sharp breath, their eyes shining to reflect the new light, and they spread out quickly to form a semicircle before us, staring unblinking at Molly and me. They looked like boys, but they didn t move or hold themselves like anything human. They had given themselves over to older, darker instincts. They were feral things now, and they gloried in it.
Talk to me, Eddie, said Molly quietly but insistently. Who or what are we facing here?
Surprised you never heard of them, I said.
Though perhaps you don t move in the right circles.
Eddie
Thrown out of Eton School, I said. Expelled back in the sixties after being disturbed in the middle of a black magic ceremony designed to call up the Devil. They might have got away with it, but they d already sacrificed two younger boy, in return for power. They should have been more specific in what they asked for. The boys parents were important enough that they were able to get it all hushed up, but it was too late for the boys. The changes had already begun. They ran away from home first chance they got, and by then the parents were probably relieved to see them gone. Look at them, Molly. All these years and they haven t aged a day. They ll never grow up or grow old; they don t feel things anymore and whatever thoughts move in their heads are nothing we would recognise. They have given themselves over to the delights of slaughter. Can you see what they re holding in their hands?
Yes, said Molly. Old-fashioned straight razors.
Immortal killers with a taste for cutting, I said. Courtesy of Hell. Remind you of anyone?
Mr. Stab, said Molly. The uncaught serial killer of Old London Town.
Hell likes to stick with things that work, I said. The Eton Irregulars are the urban legends that serial killers talk about. They exist on the fringes of the hidden world, hiring themselves out to people with no scruples who still have ties to the Old School. The Uptown Razor Boys: bodyguards, assassins, frighteners and occasionally the first line of defence. I think someone at the club knew we were coming.