The gunfire was constant now, slamming into me and the bike, trying to bring us down with sheer pressure of bullets. Most of them ricocheted away, chewing up storefronts and cutting down pedestrians. Manifest Destiny were using me to kill innocent people. I couldn’t let that go on.
A black car came roaring out of a side street and drew alongside us. The man in the backseat shot me in the face at point-blank range, crying out angrily as the bullet glanced off the golden mask. They were on my left side, so I couldn’t shoot them. I risked letting go of Molly’s waist with my left arm, punched through the car’s windscreen, pulled the driver out, and threw him into the road ahead. The black car ran over him, skidded away, hit a parked car, and flipped end over end before crashing to a halt. I put my aching arm back around Molly’s waist.
A police car tried to get involved. It came screaming around a corner, siren blaring, lights flashing. Two of the big black cars closed in on either side of it, and then both drivers jerked their steering wheels over at the same time. The heavily armoured cars crushed the police car between them, crunching up the standard steel chassis like so much tinfoil. The black cars roared on as the police car skidded out of control and smashed through a glass storefront, its siren still wailing forlornly. I felt bad for the cops in the car. The police aren’t supposed to get involved in our wars. They’re not equipped to deal with the likes of us.
I turned back to yell in Molly’s ear. "There’re actually more cars after us now than when we started! Are we going anywhere in particular?"
"Yes! Away!"
I had to laugh. "I’m so glad we’ve got a plan…"
"Anything else, Eddie, only I’m a bit busy at the moment…"
"Too many civilians are getting hurt! Maybe we should just stop and fight it out."
"Don’t even think that! The odds suck. You can bet the moment we stop moving, they’ll have long-range sharpshooters in place to target us. Your armour can’t protect me from that. They’d threaten to kill me, until you agreed to armour down. Then they’d shoot you full of tranks, take you back to headquarters, and dissect you alive to get at all your family secrets and the armour in particular. They’d probably do the same to me for turning traitor on them. I’d rather go down fighting. Or at least escaping."
"You’ve really thought this through," I said.
"Hell," said Molly. "It’s what I’d do. Now hang on. Our only real hope is to lose these bastards."
A black car emerged from a side alley and lurched out onto the street ahead of us. It spun around on squealing wheels and came charging straight at us. We were blocked in by cars on either side, with no room to manoeuvre. I could have jumped off. The armour would have protected me. But that would have left Molly on her own…I was still trying to figure out what to do when Molly revved the engine for all it was worth and aimed the bike right at the gleaming radiator of the approaching black car. I could hear her chanting something, but the rushing wind ripped her words away. The black car loomed up before us, close enough that I could see the driver laughing at us, and then, at the very last moment, the Vincent rose up into the air and sailed right over the top of the black car. We landed behind the car with only the faintest of bumps and kept on going. I looked back just in time to see the Manifest Destiny car smash into another black car that had been following right behind us. The two cars slammed together, head to head, and then blew apart with a satisfying large explosion.
I turned back and hugged Molly tightly so I could yell in her ear. "I didn’t know the bike could do that!"
"It can’t! But I can. Though not very often, so you’d better hope that doesn’t happen again."
I sent up some more prayers to St. Christopher.
Molly swung the bike around a sharp corner, and then hit the brakes so hard it would have knocked all the breath out of me if I hadn’t been wearing my armour. The street ahead of us was completely empty, cleared of all traffic and pedestrians. The only people who could have arranged that so quickly were my family. And sure enough, there they were. I looked over Molly’s shoulder and saw what she had already spotted. Halfway down the street three golden figures stood like statues, the morning light gleaming brightly on their armour.
I was actually a little flattered. Three field agents, just to bring me in. I had no doubt they could do it. So I put the Colt Repeater away and hit the stud on my reverse watch. God bless you, Uncle Jack. Time rewound itself, spinning the world back thirty seconds, so that once again Molly and I were just approaching the corner. As Molly started to turn, I yelled urgently into her ear, and she brought the bike to a skidding halt, the back wheel sliding back and forth as it locked. We both bailed off the bike, and she said the Words that turned it back into a silver charm. I armoured down, and we both disappeared into the nearest side alley.
The three golden field agents were already sprinting towards us, but a dozen black cars came screeching around the corner. They saw the field agents and drove their armoured cars right at them, the fools. Molly and I watched from the shadows of the side alley as the first car reached the first agent. He just stood his ground, and then slammed his golden fist down onto the black car’s bonnet at the very last moment. The whole front of the car compacted, ramming into the ground, the back came up, and the car somersaulted over the agent’s head before crashing to the ground behind him.
The second agent launched himself through the windscreen of the next car, killed everyone inside, and burst out the back of the car and onto the bonnet of the car following. The third agent picked up one armoured car and used it to hit another. Black cars screeched to a halt, and men spilled out, firing all kinds of weapons. Soon the whole street was full of men in golden armour doing terrible things to men of ill will.
Made me feel proud to be a Drood.
"Time we were going," I said quietly to Molly.
"Damn, your people are good," she said.
We sneaked quietly away, just two more terrified pedestrians fleeing the carnage. I suddenly realised there was blood on Molly’s face. It was dripping from her nose and spilling down her chin from her mouth. She dabbed at it with a small silk square from up her sleeve, but all she succeeded in doing was moving the blood around. I stopped her and took out my own handkerchief. Molly stood quietly and allowed me to mop the blood from her face.
"What happened?" I said. "Were you hit? Did a bullet get you?"
"No," said Molly. "I did this to myself. I told you: spatial portals are serious magic. They take a lot out of me. And then, what I did with the bike, on top of that…Magic always has to be paid for, one way or another. That’s why rituals and preparation are so important; they raise the energies necessary to power the spells I use. So I don’t have to draw on the energies of my own body. And I have been doing a lot of quick and dirty magics for you just lately, Eddie."
"I’m sorry," I said. "I didn’t know. Didn’t realise what I was asking of you. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. There. You look better now."
"Thanks."
"That’s okay. I couldn’t have you drawing attention to us, could I?"
"You are such a gentleman." She looked at me. "You look…pretty shit yourself, Eddie. How’s the arm?"
"Worse without the armour."
"The poison’s spreading, isn’t it?"
"Yes. The pain’s moved beyond my shoulder and into my chest as well. Are we far from your next rogue agent?"
"Not too far. I was heading in the right general direction all along. We can walk it from here."
"Good. Let’s go see the Mole in his hole."
"Funny you should say that," said Molly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Home Alone
I wasn’t keen on going back down into the Underground train system again, but Molly insisted. It did seem to me that every time I’d gone underground recently, bad things had happened to me. But then, above ground hadn’t been that safe either. Molly and I walked back the way we’d come, heading for Blackfriars station, and it was like walking through a war zone. Crashed cars, shops on fire, damage and wreckage everywhere. People stumbled around, dazed and confused, crying and clinging to each other. And bodies, in the road or dragged out onto the pavement from burnt-out premises, sometimes decently draped with a coat, more often not. I felt stunned, sickened. This wasn’t supposed to happen. In all the secret wars I ever fought, I never once let them spill over into the real world. I never, ever let civilians get hurt.