Molly called the last few images back to the monitor screen, goosing the thing with magical sparks when it tried to cut out on her.
Look at this, Eddie. According to what this screen is reluctantly showing us all the Hall s weapon systems and defences were off-line. Shut down before the attack. This has to be sabotage, Eddie; the work of the traitor inside the family. I m sorry; I know you don t want to hear this, but it s the only way this could have happened.
Callan was in charge here, I said. I didn t see him on the screen. I can t believe all the defence systems could have gone off-line at once without his noticing. Unless someone arranged for him to be distracted. Called away. So he wouldn t be here when this went down. I looked around the silent, deserted War Room. Still no bodies. You saw my family die on that screen. So why isn t there a single Drood body anywhere in this room?
Maybe they took your family away as prisoners, said Molly. Ethel was gone, so they didn t have their armour. Maybe your family just did the sensible thing and surrendered?
I suppose that s possible, I said. Droods stripped of their armour would have been in shock, especially after an attack like this. Some of them might have been captured.
So some of your family could still be alive somewhere! said Molly.
Why would our enemies want prisoners, if they hate us so much?
Don t be naive, sweetie. For information. Droods know things no one else does. Everyone knows that.
They could have got far more information from the computers, I said. And our enemies went out of their way to destroy them. No. The whole point of this was to destroy the Droods forever. To take us completely off the board.
You can hope, though, can t you?
We always say about the bad guys: If you don t have the body, they re probably not really dead. Maybe that works for the good guys, too. If there are any survivors, Molly, if there are any members of my family left alive anywhere I will find them.
We went back up and worked our way through the fallen Hall to what was left of the South Wing. To the Operations Room, a high-tech centre set up to oversee all the Hall s defences and protect the family from things like this. Once again the door was standing open, revealing a reasonably-sized room full of computer systems and workstations usually run by a cadre of specially trained technicians, under the head of ops, Howard. He wasn t there. Neither was anyone else. Everything in the room had been smashed to pieces with great thoroughness. Someone wanted to make sure that not one of these systems could ever be repaired or re-created. No way of telling whether anyone here had known the defences were off-line until it was far too late. There was a hell of a lot of blood, but no bodies.
I made my way carefully through the wreckage, looking for something to give me hope. Molly stuck close beside me, watching my back and comforting me with her presence. And at the very back of the room we found the little surprise the enemy had left for us, or for anyone else who came looking, to find. Twelve roughly severed heads set on spikes. Six male, six female. From the expressions on their faces, none of them had died well. Some were still silently screaming for help that never came. I studied the faces carefully but I didn t recognise any of them. I can t say whether that made it easier or harder to bear. I knelt down and closed the wildly staring eyes, one set at a time. Because I had to do something. There were no torcs at any of the raggedly cut necks.
The smell was pretty bad.
Did you know any of them? said Molly.
No, I said. But then, it s a big family. You can t know everyone. Howard isn t here.
Why leave the heads like this? said Molly.
As a warning to anyone who came looking? Or just to mark their territory, the bastards?
It s a sign of contempt, I said. To tell everyone that the Droods are nothing to be feared anymore. Well, they got that wrong. I m still here. I will find who did this. I will kill them all, and they will die hard and die bloody. And for that I m going to need weapons.
And so we went down again, into the family Armoury, set deep and deep beneath the West Wing. Except when I cleared the rubble away from the floor that should have held the entrance to the Armoury approach it wasn t there. I stared down at the bare dusty floorboards, which had clearly never been disturbed, and then looked around to make sure I was in the right room. But even with all the damage and destruction, I had no doubt I was in the right place. The entrance should have been here, but it wasn t and clearly never had been. I didn t know what to think.
The Armoury has always been in the same place ever since the family set it down below the Hall, centuries ago. Right down in the bedrock under the West Wing, as far away from the family as they could get, to protect the rest of us from the weapons development and explosives testing that went on every day, and the inevitable unexpected side effects produced by lab assistants with a whole lot of scientific curiosity and not nearly enough self-preservation instincts. Impossible.
I had to search through three other rooms to find a trapdoor in the floor that to my certain knowledge hadn t been there before. I kicked the last of the rubble aside, leaned over the steel-banded wooden square and studied it thoughtfully for a long moment, ignoring the threatening creaks and groans from the ceiling overhead. Molly stirred uneasily at my side.
This room is trying to tell us something, Eddie, and I m pretty sure Get the hell out of here while you still can would be a fairly accurate translation.
Hell with that, I said. It s taken long enough, but I think I ve finally found a clue. There s no way I could be wrong about how you get down into the family Armoury. I ve been sneaking down there to pester Uncle Jack since I was ten years old.
Maybe they made a new entrance while you were gone, said Molly, moving quickly sideways to avoid a stream of dust falling from the ceiling. Maybe they blew up the old one.
I haven t been gone that long, I said.
You couldn t rush a major change like that through the Works Committee in less than a twelve-month. You don t know what bureaucracy is until you ve been part of a family that s been around for centuries.
But the trapdoor is intact, said Molly. Which would suggest
Yes, I said. It would.
I grabbed the heavy iron ring set into the top of the wooden trapdoor and hauled it open with an effort. It started to slam backwards onto the floor, and Molly and I grabbed it at the last moment and lowered it carefully down. More dust was falling in thick streams from the ceiling, and I was getting a strong feeling that one good slam might be enough to bring the whole thing down. Once, I wouldn t have given a damn, but not having my armour was making me cautious. The trapdoor opening revealed an unfamiliar set of stone steps leading down into gloom. Old, scuffed steps, polished smooth by much hard use. The stairs had clearly been there a long time. I led the way down, with Molly treading close on my heels and peering over my shoulder. I was just as fascinated as she was. We were in new territory now, and for the first time I began to wonder if things really were as they appeared to be.
The stairs gave entrance to the Armoury, which looked exactly as I remembered it. The family had set up its Armoury in what used to be, centuries earlier, the old wine cellars. The heavy, specially reinforced blast-proof door was intact, but once again it hung partway open. I squeezed through the gap between the door and the frame, with Molly pressing so close behind me that she was breathing heavily down my neck.