I’d never had the Soul of Albion. Somewhere along the line, someone had worked a switch. And the only way that could have happened…was with the Matriarch’s sanction. She would have known immediately if anything had happened to the Soul. And if she knew about the homing device, she knew about everything. It all made sense now. Only the Matriarch could have arranged for this much motorway to be sealed off and be sure of clearing up all the mess afterwards. The Matriarch had sent me off on a wild-goose chase, sent me out here to die. My own grandmother had thrown me to the wolves. But why? Why would she do that?
I armoured down and gasped as the smoky air hit my bare face. I looked at my left arm hanging limp at my side. Blood soaked the whole length of my sleeve and dripped from my numb fingertips. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from the meat of my shoulder. The metal was a brilliant silver, shimmering and shining even in the bright sunlight. There were no feathers; an arrow like this wouldn’t need them to fly true. I had to tell the family: the Fae had found a weapon that could pierce our armour. Only I couldn’t tell them. The moment I called home, the Matriarch would know I was still alive and send more people to kill me. I looked at the arrow shaft again. Strange matter, from some other dimension. Probably poisonous. Had to come out. Oh, shit, this was going to hurt.
I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket, wadded it up, and bit down hard. Then I gripped the shaft firmly and pushed it farther in, so that the barbed head punched out my back. The handkerchief muffled my scream, but I still nearly fainted at the pain. I reached up and around and awkwardly pulled the shaft all the way through and out. Blood was pouring down my chest and back by the time I’d finished. My face ran with sweat, and my hands were shaking. It had been a long time since I was hurt this bad. I spat out the handkerchief and took the arrow shaft in both hands. It seemed to squirm in my grasp. I broke it in two, and it screamed inside my head. I dropped the pieces on the ground, and they tried to turn into something else before falling apart into sticky smears of something that couldn’t survive in this world.
I sat down in the driver’s seat before my legs collapsed under me. After a while I pulled out the first aid box, opened it, and took out a basic healer. Just a blob of preprogrammed simple matter, full of all kinds of things that were good for me. I said the activating Word and slapped it against the wound in my shoulder. The blob sealed it off immediately and pumped some wonderful drug into me, cutting off the pain like a switch. I groaned aloud at the sudden relief. The blob penetrated the wound with a narrow tendril, repairing as it went, and emerged to seal off the wound in my back. I could feel all this, but only in a vague and distanced way. I was sort of interested. I’d never had to use one before. But I had other things on my mind.
I needed to know why my own grandmother had betrayed me. Why she’d sent me to my death with a lie on her lips. I couldn’t go back to the Hall for answers. Even if I did get past all the defences, she’d just call me a liar, declare me rogue and apostate, and order the family to kill me. And everyone would believe her, and no one would believe me, because she was the Matriarch and I was…Eddie Drood. Whom could I still talk to, whom could I still trust, after everything that had happened? Maybe just one man. I took out my mobile phone and called Uncle James on his very private number. He cut me off the moment he recognised my voice.
"Stay where you are. I’ll be right with you."
And just like that, he was standing before me, his mobile phone still in his hand. The air rippled around him, displaced by the teleport spell. We put away our phones and looked at each other. Concern filled his face as he took in my condition and the blood still soaking my left arm. He started towards me, but I stopped him with a raised hand. He nodded slowly.
"I know, Eddie. It’s always hard to learn you can’t trust anyone. You look like shit, by the way."
"You should see the other guys, Uncle James."
He looked beyond me, at the carnage and wreckage I’d left stretched down the length of the motorway, and he actually smiled a little.
"You did all that? I’m impressed, Eddie. Really."
"How did you get here so quickly, Uncle James?" I said slowly. "Teleport spells need exact coordinates. How did you know exactly where to find me on this long stretch of motorway, when even I’m not entirely sure exactly where I am? What’s going on, Uncle James?"
"The homing device told us where you were, before you destroyed it." Uncle James’s voice was calm, conversational. "The Matriarch sent me here, Eddie. She gave me specific orders…said that if somehow you had survived all the ambushes, I was to kill you myself. No warnings, not a word; just shoot you down in cold blood. Why would she tell me to do that, Eddie? What have you done?"
"I don’t know! I haven’t done anything! None of this makes any sense, Uncle James…"
"You’ve been officially declared rogue," he said. "A clear and present danger to the whole family. Every Drood is authorised to kill you on sight. For the good of the family."
We stood looking at each other. Neither of us wore our armour. Neither of us had a weapon. His face was cold, even calm, but in his eyes I could see a torment I’d never seen before. For perhaps the first time in his life, James Drood didn’t know what to do for the best. He was torn between what he’d been ordered to do and what was in his heart. Remember, this was the Gray Fox, the most loyal and dependable agent the family had ever had. Uncle James. Who’d been like a father to me. Who in the end wouldn’t, couldn’t, kill me.
We both sensed that at the same moment, and we both relaxed a little.
"So," I said. "What do we do now?"
"I go back to the Matriarch. Tell her you were already gone when I got here," Uncle James said flatly. "You…you run. Run, and keep running. Hide yourself so deep that even I won’t be able to find you. Because if we meet again, I will kill you, Eddie. I’ll have to. For the good of the family."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Seduction of the Not Entirely Innocent
Uncle James disappeared without even saying good-bye, air rushing in to fill the space where he’d been. I should have told him about the faerie arrow that pierced my armour, but he hadn’t given me a chance, and anyway, I was still in shock. My family wanted me dead. After everything I’d done for them, after ten long years of fighting the good fight on their behalf, this was my reward: to be declared rogue. Traitor. Outcast. I might have had my disagreements with them, but they were still my family. I would never have betrayed them. It’s one thing to run away from home; quite another to be told you can’t go back because if you do they’ll kill you on sight. I looked at the lead-lined container that should have held the Soul of Albion, staring into its empty red plush interior as though it might have some answers for me. It didn’t, so I threw it away.
I went back to the Hirondel and slid painfully in behind the wheel again. I might be hurting in all kinds of ways, but I was still a professional, so I had the car’s defence systems run a complete diagnostic, to make sure there weren’t any more bugs or tracking devices anywhere on board. Or indeed any other nasty and possibly fatal surprises. The car muttered to itself for a bit, and then gave itself a clean bill of health. I relaxed a little and started up the engine. Even after all she’d been through, the Hirondel roared smoothly and immediately to life, ready to take me anywhere I wanted. It was good to know there were still a few things left in my life that wouldn’t let me down.
I headed the Hirondel back up the M4, away from the south, back towards London. My home territory. If they were going to come for me, I wanted it to be on home ground. I passed dead bodies and crashed vehicles, blazing fires and black smoke and all the other damage I’d done. There seemed to be quite a lot of it. Poor damned fools, dying for nothing, over a prize that was never there. And if there were similarities in that to how my life had turned out, I tried not to think about it. The Hirondel laboured along, reluctant to hit high speeds anymore, but I was in no hurry anyway. The family’s remote viewers couldn’t see or find me as long as I wore the torc. Slowly my shock crystallised into anger, and then into something colder and more determined. I wanted answers. My whole world had just been turned upside down, and I needed to know why. According to James I had been officially declared a rogue, so none of the other family out in the world would talk to me. Hell, most of them would try to kill me the moment they set eyes on me. Droods have no mercy for traitors.