“Oh, come on,” he said. “I can’t believe you didn’t guess it was me all along. I mean, who else was there? Who had better reason than me to want the Lazarus Stone?”
“How did you get out?” I said numbly.
“I could have left any time,” said Laurence. “I know everything the family knows, remember? How could they build any jail that could hold me? I just never had a reason to leave before.”
“Why did you choose to look like my uncle James?” I said, and he grinned again at the anger in my voice.
“Because he was the Drood I always wanted to be. Oh yes. The man who got to go out into the world and have adventures, and beautiful women, and make a legend of himself. I always wanted to be the Grey Fox. Didn’t you, Eddie? He got to live the life, while I remained stuck in my Cell, living my half life . . . But I don’t want to talk about that now. I want to talk about us, Eddie! Because this has all been about you and me.”
“I told you,” Molly said resignedly. “He’s going to make a speech. Boast about his triumphs, and explain his motives. Like we care. We know why you did all this, you miserable little scrote! It’s because you’re a sick scumbag who gets off on hurting people!”
“If she speaks again,” Laurence said to me, “I will have my people sew her lips together. It’s up to you.”
“She’ll be quiet,” I said quickly. “Talk to me, Laurence. Because there’s a lot going on here that I don’t understand.”
“Hoping to buy some time, Eddie?” Laurence said cheerfully. “Thinking perhaps that while I’m talking, people aren’t dying? Or just hoping you can use the time to put together some brilliant plan to defeat me, at the very last moment? I don’t think so. I know everything the family knows. Including you. That’s why I’ve been one step ahead of you all along. Now shut up and listen. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I would say when I finally got out.”
Molly growled under her breath, but said nothing. The blood-red men stood very still, all around, every single one of them fixing me with the same intent glare I saw in Laurence’s eyes. That meant something. Though I wasn’t sure what, yet. So I just stood there and looked interested, while Laurence talked. His voice rose and fell and he waved his arms around a lot, because he wasn’t used to talking to people face-to-face.
“I wanted to be put away, to be locked up securely, all those years ago,” he said earnestly. “When the accident first happened. When I suddenly knew everything, all at once. It was such a powerful experience, horrifying and overwhelming. It took me a long time to get my head back together again, to think only my own thoughts. And by then I’d been the Drood in Cell 13 for such a long time that most of the family had forgotten I’d ever been a person in my own right. I’d become just a cautionary tale for those who ran the family. Don’t let anyone try to know too much . . . I could have left Cell 13 at any time once I was back in control of my own mind, but where would I go? What could I do? The world had moved on and left me behind. And it wasn’t like I could put my burden down and walk away from it. The whole of the family’s knowledge filled my head, and it kept flooding in, more and more, never ending. Even if I did leave, the family would be bound to send agents after me, to track me down and drag me back. For fear of the damage my knowledge might do in enemy hands. So I stayed in Cell 13, studying all the information in my head, and planning my revenge. And finally I learned about the Lazarus Stone. And saw a way out of my horrible half life.”
He suddenly pulled open the front of his shirt, to show me Kayleigh’s Eye, fused to the flesh of his chest. A great glowing amulet, with a golden alien eye set in its centre. Staring at me unblinkingly. Just as it had once stared at me from my grandfather’s chest. Tears stung my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not in front of the enemy. I glared at Laurence, and when I finally trusted my voice again, I let him hear the rage and contempt that burned within me.
“You killed the Regent of Shadows,” I said. “You murdered my grandfather, you crazy piece of shit. I will make you pay . . .”
He smiled easily, entirely unmoved, and rebuttoned his shirt with quick, fussy movements.
“Well,” he said, “I didn’t kill him personally . . . Though it was my will that moved the hands that killed him, and tore the Eye from his chest through brute force. The only way it could be taken. So, yes, I suppose you could say I am responsible. It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t! I’ve killed lots of people, just recently. Indirectly. To get here, to this place and this moment. I just wanted you to understand, Eddie, that there’s no point in attacking me. You can’t hurt me and you can’t stop me. You must understand, I will do anything, absolutely anything, to get what I want.”
“Well, what do you want?” said Molly.
I tensed, half expecting the blood-red men to attack her for interrupting their master. But Laurence just laughed, and waggled his fingers in her face mockingly.
“All in good time . . . I have so much to tell you, Eddie. My story has been going on a lot longer than you realise. So hush now. Listen, and consider. After the attack on Drood Hall by the Accelerated Men . . . you do remember that, don’t you? Of course you do . . . One of the Armourer’s precious lab assistants found his way down to Cell 13 to talk with me. What was his name . . . Oh, I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He was very bright, but not very sensible. He thought he was using me, the poor fool.
“He had been struck by the idea of creating Accelerated Droods, you see. The perfect, unstoppable field agents. He couldn’t find the information he wanted in any of the official family files, or in the Library. The Council had suppressed the information for reasons of its own, that I probably don’t need to explain to you, Eddie. Anyway, the lab assistant wondered if the Drood in Cell 13 might know . . . So he came down into the depths to talk to me, to make his deal with the Droods’ very own Devil. Typical lab assistant, ready to risk everything in the pursuit of knowledge. And never really thinking about the price he’d have to pay in return.
“I didn’t know anything about the Accelerated Men, as it happened. But I did know many other fascinating things that I could use to bewitch a simple lab assistant. You don’t need to know what those things are, Eddie. Secret things! Hidden things! Oh, if you only knew! The family has always had more sides to it, more levels within levels, than you ever suspected. But they were just the thing to enchant and seduce a young lab assistant’s mind. More than enough to sucker him in, and keep him coming back for more.
“I persuaded him to contact the Doormouse, using secret Drood code phrases, so it seemed my orders came from the old Matriarch, Martha. I never liked her. She came all the way down to Cell 13 the day she was made Matriarch, just to tell me to my face that she would see to it I was never released. Awful person. Anyway these orders, apparently from the highest authority within the Droods, instructed the Doormouse to create a number of very special Doors, giving access to the Hall grounds from outside. And then sell them on, to an approved list of customers. Not to any actual official enemies of the Droods, of course. That would have raised suspicions. Just to certain interested parties, who could be trusted to make use of the gift so suddenly dropped into their laps.”
“Like the Wulfshead Club management,” I said.
“Yes! Exactly! Though it seems I outsmarted myself there.” He stopped for a moment, to scowl and sulk like a thwarted child. “I’ve spent so long rehearsing this speech! Don’t interrupt me! I won’t have you taking any of the fun away! Now. Where was I . . . Ah yes. The orders told the Doormouse that the Droods wanted these Doors made, and used, to test their defences and security measures. All quite reasonable. Actually, I just wanted the Doors used to keep the family distracted. The idea being that so many unexpected incursions from outside would seize the family’s attention so they wouldn’t notice what I was up to behind the scenes. But the Wulfshead Club management had to go and be clever, didn’t they? How could I know they’d be smart enough and suspicious enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, and tip you off to the existence of the Doors?