The only thing that seemed out of place…was my wristwatch. I looked at it stupidly. Something about it nagged at my mind. Nathanial spoke to me, but I wasn’t listening. There was something about the watch, something important, something…special about it that I was supposed to remember. My torc burned coldly around my throat, as though trying to protect me, though I couldn’t think from what. I touched the wristwatch with my right hand, trailing my fingertips across it, ignoring Nathanial’s increasingly angry words. The watch the Armourer gave me, before I left the Hall. The reverse watch, that could rewind time…
I hit the button, and time stopped in its tracks and shifted into reverse. Light and sound strobed painfully around me as the watch reversed recent time, taking me back to just before Nathanial told me I’d been changed. And in that moment, while the future was still pliable and in flux, I drew my Colt Repeater and shot Professor Redmond right between the eyes.
The bullet slammed through his head, blowing bits of broken tubing and spattered brains out the back of his skull. His eyes snapped open, and for the first time in years the Red King was awake at last. His mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream of rage and horror, and it was clear from his face and from his eyes that he knew what had been done to him, and with him. And in the last few moments of his unnaturally extended life, using power brought back from some terrible other place, the professor set himself to wiping out everything that had been done in his name. He looked at Brother Nathanial with his awful eyes, and Nathanial disappeared. Winking out of existence, not real, never had been. Sister Eliza turned to flee, but the professor looked at her, and she was gone too.
I was already heading out the door when the dream chamber started to disappear around me. The walls painted to look like the night skies became transparent and faded away, and I could feel the professor’s power following me as I sprinted up the long stone corridor. There was something behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. I burst out into the room of chemical vats, and Bert looked around sharply in surprise. He cried out in shock as the great vats began to fade away, but I was already out of the room and scrambling back up the spiral staircase. Behind me, Bert’s voice cut off abruptly.
The wooden steps began to feel increasingly soft and insubstantial under my feet, but I made it to the top, gasping for breath. I couldn’t spare the time it would take to call up my armour, and I didn’t believe it could protect me from Professor Redmond’s wrath anyway. I just kept running, through the library and on into the church. The medieval stained-glass windows had already faded away to ordinary glass. The walls were disappearing too, revealing something behind them too terrible to look at. There were great gaps in the floor, and I jumped desperately over them, racing for the door.
I crashed through and out into the street, panting harshly for breath, and only then turned and looked back. The church was gone; nothing left but a hole between the two modern buildings, like a pulled tooth. The Sceneshifters were gone, never had been. The Red King had woken at last from his long sleep; and he had not woken up in a good mood.
CHAPTER TEN
Cutting out the Middleman
My next stop was on Shaftesbury Avenue, deep in the busy heart of London. I was looking for the legendary Middleman. Shaftesbury Avenue is a long road in two parts. Walk one way and all you’ll see is posh restaurants, top-rank hotels, and theatres with old and even famous names. (Sad to say, one of these venerable establishments currently boasted a large banner proclaiming their next big show. Jerry Springer, the Opera—On Ice. How are the mighty fallen; but anything to bring in the tourists.) Walk the other way, and it’s all cheap cafés, betting shops, and adult video stores with walk-in knocking shops on the top floor. The kind of place where a card tacked on the door advertises the friendly availability of the lovely Vera. It doesn’t tell you that there are in fact three lovely Veras, working eight-hour shifts, which is why the bed is always warm. Not to mention the basement clubs where underdressed and overly made-up hostesses encourage you to buy overpriced "champagne" for the privilege of enjoying their company. Though usually it’s just the foreign tourists who fall for that one these days.
I’d never met the Middleman before, but everyone knew he could be found right in the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue, where good meets bad, and often combines into something deliciously sinful. I was pretty sure the Middleman would know something useful, if I could get him to talk to me. The Man had been around, on and off the scene, ever since the sixties, and he knew everybody, good and bad and especially in between. His great skill and passion was in putting people together for mutual profit. If you were planning a bigger than usual heist, an underground conspiracy, or just to take over the world some day, the Middleman could put you in contact with every kind of specialist you’d need. He could arrange meetings, put together a team of like-minded professionals, or organise every step of an assassination. For a percentage. He’d never been known to get his hands dirty himself or take a risk that hadn’t been calculated to the smallest degree. Whatever happened, you could be sure there were always more than enough cutouts in place so that nothing ever came back to lodge at his door. Word was, the Middleman was so unbelievably rich these days, after so many industrious years, that he didn’t need to do it for the money anymore. He did it strictly for the thrill and for the challenge.
You find the Middleman behind a sleazy, deliberately run-down Thai restaurant. From the outside, it looks decidedly appallingly grimy and off-putting, the kind of place only a truly desperate or naïve tourist would try. In fact, the Thai language above the door supposedly translates as Piss Off, Foreigner, and Take Your Stupid-Looking Eyes with You. I peered in through the fly-specked window, past the indecipherable cardboard menu, and wasn’t surprised to find the restaurant was completely empty at a time of the evening when it should have been at its fullest. The rickety tables were covered in Formica, the chairs were cheap plastic and none too clean, and the linoleum floor was unspeakable. Somehow I just knew that if you were foolish or brave enough to enter, you’d never get anything you ordered, and if you tried to eat it anyway, the staff would lean out the kitchen door watching you, giggling and elbowing each other and going, Look! He’s actually eating it!
No one is ever supposed to eat there. It’s just a front for the Middleman. Even the staff send out for takeaways.
I tucked my head down so no one would get a good look at my face, slammed the door open, and strode briskly in. I ignored the startled Thai staff and headed straight for the kitchen door at the back. The waiters were too surprised to stop me, only just starting to react as I pushed the door open. I heard their cries behind me as I marched into the kitchen like I’d come to condemn it on health grounds, and then I armoured up, overriding the stealth function. The kitchen staff took one look at me in my golden armour and fell back with shocked cries, like so many startled birds. The waiters burst in after me, having armed themselves with knives and hatchets, only to lurch to a sudden halt as I turned unhurriedly to look at them. My family’s reputation goes a very long way. The headwaiter put down a butcher knife and gestured for everyone else to lower their weapons.
"Sod this for a lark," he said in decidedly East End accents. "Marcus isn’t paying us enough to take on a Drood. You want to see the Middleman, golden boy? Follow me."
He led me through the surprisingly neat and clean kitchen, while the Thai staff watched me pass with expressions that weren’t in the least inscrutable. There are places where looks can kill, but fortunately this wasn’t one of them. The headwaiter took me out the back of the kitchen and down a long narrow corridor with lighting so subdued it was positively gloomy. The carpet was bloodred, and the deep purple walls pressed in from either side. The only decorations were stuffed and mounted heads of various animals, peering down from everywhere. Big cats and African wildlife, mostly. The eyes in the heads moved slowly to follow me as I passed. Now, I’m used to weird shit; I grew up in the Hall, after all. But something about those eyes seriously freaked me out.