So I did what I always do when I feel threatened. I called up my armour, and it flowed out of the torc at my throat and covered me from head to toe in a moment. Sealing me off from the world, and all the things in it that were a danger to me. The golden strange matter closed over my hand, gently forcing her hands away. And just like that, her power over me was gone. Swept away like a bad dream. She could tell. She stayed where she was, looking at her own face reflected in the featureless golden mask.
“So lovely,” she said. “So lovely.”
And then we both looked round sharply, as a whole bunch of alarms and sirens went off at once.
“Something’s happened, back at the Ballroom!” snapped the Lady Faire, immediately all business again. “That’s the general alarm. Is this more of your doing, Drood?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m here with you.”
“Is it the witch?”
“Which part of I am here with you so I don’t know anything more than you do, are you having trouble grasping?” I said. “I don’t think Molly would start anything on her own, though.”
“Then it’s more thieves!” The Lady Faire actually stamped a foot in frustration. “While I’m wasting my time here with you! And I don’t even have a Head of Security to protect my guests, do I?”
I armoured down again. It was clear we’d have to go back to the Ballroom to see what was happening, and I didn’t think it would calm all the notable guests to know there was a Drood in the house. The Lady Faire headed for the door, and it swung quickly open before her. I went after her.
“This is all your fault!” she said loudly, not looking back. “Whatever it is, whatever’s happened, I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned it’s all your fault!”
“Of course,” I said, hurrying out into the corridor after her. “It always is. I’m a Drood.”
• • •
I have to tell you, when the Lady Faire feels like it, she can really run. She pounded down the corridors, arms pumping at her sides, taking turns apparently at random without ever slowing down, and it was all I could do to keep up with her. She never once looked back to see if I was still there. We ran at full pelt through a warren of interconnecting anonymous corridors, with all the bells and sirens still screaming their heads off. Whatever bad thing had happened, it was clearly still happening. I’d lost track of exactly where we were in the Winter Palace long ago, so I stuck close behind the Lady Faire, determined not to be left behind. The comm unit in my ear was full of raised voices, all shouting at once. I got the impression all the security people were heading back to the Ballroom at speed, but that no one knew why yet.
I got my answer soon enough, when a dozen blood-red men in their full face masks burst out of a side corridor and spread quickly out to block our way. The Lady Faire crashed to a halt so suddenly I nearly slammed into the back of her. The blood-red men stood very still, all of them looking squarely at me. The Lady Faire looked them over, and then turned to glare at me.
“Are they with you?”
“Very definitely not,” I said. “We don’t get on. Be careful; they’re dangerous.”
The Lady Faire threw back her head, shook her Jean Harlow hair defiantly, and glared at the blood-red men arrayed before her. “They all look exactly the same. What are they? Clones?”
“Probably,” I said. “You try asking; I haven’t been able to get a word out of them so far. But I have seen them kill a whole bunch of people, so maintain a cautious distance.”
The Lady Faire sniffed loudly. “Dangerous . . . They’re only men.”
She stepped forward and smiled at the blood-red men, hitting them with the full force of her presence. Even standing behind her, I could feel some of it. Incredibly, the blood-red men didn’t. They just stood their ground and stared right back at her. Entirely unmoved, and unaffected. The Lady Faire fell back a step, and looked at me, actually shocked. I don’t think she’d ever encountered such a situation before. She looked . . . lost. As though the world had suddenly stopped making sense to her. I moved carefully forward, to put myself between her and the blood-red men. And she was so shocked, she let me do it. Immediately, all the blood-red men snapped their attention back to me.
“What are you doing here?” I said to them. “How did you even get here? Did you use the Siberian Gateway?”
“Gateway?” the Lady Faire said immediately. “What Gateway?”
“Later, dear,” I said. “Hush now. Drood working. Please don’t distract me while I’m trying to negotiate with the bloodthirsty and quite possibly criminally insane clone people.”
The blood-red men surged forward, their hands reaching out with clawed fingers. I armoured up again and punched in the face of the nearest man with such force I heard his neck snap, as his head spun round to face in the opposite direction. But he didn’t fall. His head just turned back again, with a loud ratcheting of repairing neck bones. So I grabbed him and threw him at the blood-red men behind him. They all went down in a great tangle, and immediately started getting up again. I grabbed another blood-red man and threw him at the nearest wall so hard the sound of the wood panels breaking was actually louder than the sound of broken bones. The rest of the blood-red men came straight for me. I could hear the Lady Faire breathing heavily behind me, but she didn’t run. She had confidence in me. Which made one of us.
I threw myself at the advancing blood-red men, lashing out with spiked golden fists, putting all my armoured strength into every blow. I hit them hard, smashing in skulls and punching out hearts, snapping arm and leg bones. I knew I couldn’t kill them, so I concentrated on major damage. I broke them with my armoured hands, threw them to the floor, and trampled them underfoot. They never cried out, never made a sound of pain or protest. I threw them the length of the corridor, and they just picked themselves up and came back at me. So I picked them up and smashed them into the corridor walls, one at a time, wedging them into the holes they made. And while they were still struggling to pull themselves free, I grabbed the Lady Faire by the hand and we ran down the corridor, leaving them behind. The Lady Faire didn’t say anything, but she held on to my gloved hand really tightly.
• • •
It didn’t take me long to remember that I didn’t know where we were going, so I armoured down and let her take the lead again. We were both breathing hard now, and not just from the exertions of the fight. There was something seriously disturbing about enemies who wouldn’t stay down, and wouldn’t stay dead. It turned out we were only a few corridors short of the Ballroom. As we approached the open door, all the alarms suddenly shut down, and I could hear cries and shouts and sounds of violence. I slowed to a halt, and the Lady Faire slowed with me. She realised she was still holding on to my hand, and let go. She looked more angry than upset at having her Ball ruined.
“How many of these red men are there?” she demanded.
“Usually as many as it takes to get the job done,” I said.
“Are they an army?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Don’t you know anything about them?”
“They kill people,” I said steadily. “And they just keep coming, until they get what they’re after.”
“Why are they here?” said the Lady Faire, almost plaintively. “Are they after you?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “But I think it’s more likely they’re here because they want what I want. The Lazarus Stone. I told you people would be coming for it.”