“The Regent killed an awful lot of people who needed killing. And I’m afraid that includes your mother and father, Molly Metcalf. They did do so many awful things as part of the White Horse Faction, that you never knew about. Because they never wanted you to know what kind of people they really were.”
“Shut up!” said Molly. “Shut up!”
She turned away from the bars, hugging herself tightly, as though to hold herself together. Laurence’s soft laughter drifted out of the cell.
“You see, Eddie? People come to me and they say they want the truth, but they don’t. Not really. You’d better go now. People are coming. And they really won’t be happy to see you here.”
“Will you tell them I was here?” I said.
“Only if they ask.” He laughed happily. “I know everything there is to know, but you need to know the right questions to ask. And you didn’t ask the right questions, Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Molly looked at me. “I don’t hear anyone coming. Do you hear anyone coming?”
“No,” I said. “But given this is a man who is supposed to know everything about my family, I am completely prepared to take his word for it. And if there really are Drood security forces on their way here, I don’t think we should be here when they turn up. They are not going to be in a good mood, or even a little bit understanding about this.”
“Let them come,” said Molly. “I can take them.”
I had to smile. “That’s why we’re leaving. Because I don’t want to have to watch members of my family being seriously damaged. I might want to come back here, someday.”
“Don’t see why,” said Molly. “You know this place is bad for you.”
In Cell 13, Laurence Drood was quietly singing, “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when . . .”
I shook the Merlin Glass out to door size, subvocalised a new set of coordinates, and then pushed Molly through the moment the Door opened. I rushed through after her, not giving her time to argue, and immediately closed the Door down again. I tucked the hand mirror away in my pocket, and looked quickly about me. We’d arrived in a dark, shadowy corner, surrounded on all sides by high banks of machinery. There was enough dust around to suggest that this particular location was as overlooked now as it had been when I was a lot younger. Molly glared at me, but had enough sense to keep her voice down even as she yelled at me.
“Don’t ever push! I hate being hurried! Where the hell are we now?”
“In the Armoury,” I said, just as quietly. “Tucked away in an area that isn’t much used. I used to hide here all the time when I was just a kid, avoiding lessons so I could watch my uncle Jack at work. Because whatever he was up to was always going to be more interesting than whatever school was trying to cram down my throat that day. I’m pretty sure Uncle Jack knew I was here all along, but he never said a word.”
“What are we doing in the Armoury?” said Molly, just a bit dangerously.
“You heard the Living Loony,” I said. “Ask your Uncle Jack, he said, which means he knows Uncle Jack knows something about the Lazarus Stone. Of course he would-if it’s a weapon, the Armourer always knows about it. So I need to talk to him, quietly and very privately.”
“The Voice said you weren’t to talk to your family,” Molly said carefully.
“I know,” I said. “I’m banking on the fact that the Armoury’s shields and protections are the most powerful in the Hall. Just to make sure that whatever happens in the Armoury stays in the Armoury. No matter how appalling, destructive, or violently explosive it might be. I really can’t see how the Voice could eavesdrop on us here. Even God probably has to concentrate to listen in . . . Anyway, I need to talk to Uncle Jack.”
“Hold it,” said Molly. “If the Armoury’s protections are that good . . . How did we get in? How could the Merlin Glass . . . Oh, wait a minute. Is this another of your secret back doors?”
“No,” I said. “One of the Armourer’s. He’s never trusted the Merlin Glass. Especially since it merged with its duplicate from the Other Hall. So he took measures, to ensure I could always bring the Glass straight to him if it started misbehaving.”
“Your family is seriously paranoid,” said Molly.
“With good reason,” I said. “Most of the universe really is out to get us.”
“True.”
I peered cautiously round the corner of the nearest machine, and looked out across the Drood family Armoury. As always, it was a busy place, with dozens of experiments going on simultaneously, a whole bunch of complicated machines doing inscrutable things, and lab assistants running wild everywhere. Rows upon rows of work-benches, design tables, and assembly points, and all kinds of weapons being tried out for the very first time, nearly always without any reasonable safety precautions. Uncle Jack’s assistants were always so eager for a chance to prove how clever they were, it often seemed genius had taken up a lot of the space in their brains that was normally reserved for self-preservation instincts.
One assistant with two heads was arguing coldly with himself as to whose fault that was. Something large and wolfish in the ragged remains of a lab coat ran happily back and forth on all fours, pursued by several other assistants with nets and Tasers. And a young lady with far too much frizzy red hair walked calmly across the stone ceiling, upside down and apparently entirely unconcerned, as she pursued a giant eyeball equipped with its own flapping batwings. And all she had was a really big butterfly net.
Just another day in the Armoury.
There were loud bangs, even louder shrieks and curses, and several slowly dispersing clouds of smoke. Off in the distance I could just make out the Armourer himself, watching approvingly while some of the younger lab assistants blew the hell out of what was left of the firing range, with really big guns.
I pulled my head back in, and gave Molly my best serious look. “I need you to set up a distraction. Something that will grab everyone’s attention, and pull all the lab assistants away from Uncle Jack so I can get him to myself. Something loud and scary and dangerous, but preferably also something that isn’t actually going to damage anyone.”
Molly snorted loudly. “Come on, Eddie, these are your uncle Jack’s assistants we’re talking about. You couldn’t upset them with any less than a nuclear grenade. You can’t damage them! They’re like cockroaches. They always bounce back.”
“This would be a really bad time to prove otherwise,” I said. “I need the Armourer’s help, and willing cooperation.”
“Oh, all right. Something highly scary and threatening but not actually deadly coming straight up, just for you.”
Molly reached down and plucked a single silver shape from the delicate charm bracelet around her left ankle. She stood up, peered around the corner of the machinery, and threw the charm the whole length of the lab. A dragon suddenly appeared inside the Armoury. A massive creature, with a huge golden-scaled body and vast flapping membranous wings. It shrieked harshly, and lowered a horrid horned head on the end of a long snakelike neck. Its clawed feet dug deep furrows in the concrete floor, and a barbed tail lashed back and forth behind it, throwing heavy equipment this way and that. Its eyes glowed blood-red, and its gaping mouth was packed full of large serrated teeth. It was actually very impressive, given that it wasn’t real. As such.
The dragon filled all the available space at the far end of the Armoury, its curved back slamming up against the stone ceiling, while its great head swept this way and that to menace everyone in reach. The wings flailed wildly, creating heavy gusting winds to blow away everything that wasn’t actually nailed down. But the lab assistants didn’t stop to gape at the dragon, even for a moment. They took one look at the thing and immediately grabbed the nearest weapon and opened fire. They blasted away at the dragon with guns, energy weapons, magical artefacts and a whole bunch of strange things I didn’t even recognise. The dragon soaked it all up, without taking any damage.