"Don’t go there," I said, and I could hear how cold my voice was.
He didn’t flinch. "My sister was one of the best field agents of her generation," said Uncle James. "Only makes sense that her son would be special too. I raised you, Eddie. Taught you everything I knew. I always saw you…as the son I never had."
"You raised me to know right from wrong," I said. "To fight evil wherever I found it. That’s what I’m doing, Uncle James."
"We keep the world safe," Uncle James said almost pleadingly. "We protect humanity from all the forces that would destroy them if we weren’t there."
"You are one of the forces that would destroy us," said Molly.
Uncle James still ignored her, concentrating only on me. "Someone has to be in charge, Eddie. You can’t trust politicians to do what’s right, not when it’s always so much easier to do what’s expedient. Do you have any idea how many wars we’ve prevented, down the centuries, by working behind the scenes? How many world wars that never happened thanks to us? There have been times when the family was all that stood between humanity and utter extinction. Our record may not be perfect, but the world would have been a far worse place without us."
"You don’t know that," said Molly. "Not for sure. Who can say what kind of a world we might have made for ourselves if we’d been forced to make our own mistakes and learn from them?"
"We’ve been a force for good," said Uncle James, holding my gaze with his.
"Yes," I said. "On the whole, I believe we have. But the price…is too high. You can’t be just a little bit corrupt, Uncle James. Maybe that’s why we went from serving and protecting the world to running it."
"Please," he said. "Surrender. Don’t make me kill you, Eddie. We can still work this out. It’s not too late. I’ll speak for you before the council. Your grandmother isn’t a monster, Eddie. If she can find a way to save you, she will. You know she will."
"I can’t let this go on," I said. "Not now that I know. I’m here to set the world free, Uncle James. To tear off all their shackles and let them run free. We were meant to be the world’s shepherds, not their jailors. We’ve become the very thing we were raised to fight. The family must fall for what it’s done to the world, and to itself; and to me. No more lies, Uncle James. No more dead babies. No more Droods walking around unknowing in the living skins of their murdered twins. This should be just between you and me, Uncle James. Will you let Molly go? If she agreed to just walk away?"
"I’m sorry," he said, and he sounded as though he meant it. "You know I can’t let her leave, Eddie. Not now that she knows the secret. If she stands with you, she dies with you. But…if you were to come back into the family, perhaps something could be arranged…As your wife, she’d be family too."
"Wait just a minute!" said Molly.
"Be quiet, child," said Uncle James. "I’m trying to save your life. The two of you could never leave the Hall again, Eddie, but you could still live long, useful, productive lives here."
"Serving the family," I said.
"Yes."
"Work for the Droods?" said Molly. "Screw that shit. I’d rather die. No offence, Eddie."
"I have to do what’s right," I said. "I have to fight evil wherever I find it. Just like you taught me, Uncle James."
"Eddie…" he said, taking a step forward.
"I’m sorry."
"So am I." Uncle James sighed heavily, but his voice was calm and his eyes were so cold as to seem almost disinterested. "Don’t bother armouring up, Eddie. This gun came from the Armourer, long ago. He made me some special armour-piercing bullets out of strange matter. They’ll punch right through your armour. Just like the arrow on the motorway."
"You knew about the ambush all along!" I said, almost surprised to find I could still feel shocked after so many secrets. "Did you know the arrow would leave some of itself in my body, poisoning me, killing me by inches?"
"No!" Uncle James said quickly. "It was supposed to be a clean kill. They promised me it would be quick, or I would never have agreed. You weren’t supposed to suffer…You were supposed to die valiantly on the motorway, facing the family’s fiercest enemies. It seems…I taught you better than I realised. I am proud of you, Eddie. And I promise it will be a clean kill this time. For you and your young lady."
"Like hell," said Molly.
All the time Uncle James had been talking so passionately, concentrating all his attention on me, I’d been quietly aware of Molly subvocalising Words of power, a trick she’d learned from me, struggling to raise just enough power to force one good spell through the security measures suppressing magic in the old library. And now the spell activated, opening one small spatial portal right beside Uncle James’s hand. It sucked the gun right out of his grasp and started to pull his arm in too before the security measures reasserted themselves and shut the portal down. It snapped out of existence, and Molly almost collapsed, exhausted by the strain. She grabbed at a heavy book stack to support herself and grinned at me.
"There you go, Eddie! Level playing field. Now kick his self-righteous, hypocritical arse!"
Uncle James looked at his empty gun hand as though he couldn’t quite believe it, and then he looked at me. I smiled, and suddenly so did he. That old familiar devil-take-the-hindmost grin.
"All right, Eddie. Let’s do it. Show me how much you’ve learned."
"You always were a big drama queen, Uncle James," I said.
We armoured up, the living golden metal enclosing both of us in a moment. The terrible pain in my left side was immediately muted, and I didn’t realise how bad it had got until it wasn’t there anymore. The golden armour made me strong and powerful again. My dead brother made me strong…but I couldn’t think about that now. I had to concentrate everything I had on Uncle James, or he would kill me. He was, after all, the most proficient and deadly field agent the family had ever produced.
But he’d never had to face someone like me. A semi-rogue who’d learned all his best tricks outside the family. Tempered in the fires of two appalling days, made stronger than ever before by what I’d had to do to survive. And Uncle James didn’t have my outrage, my anger, my righteous cause. No; he’d never met a Drood like me.
We circled each other slowly, warily, gleaming golden and glorious in the muted light of the old library. I didn’t know what weapons he might have under his armour, but the odds were he wouldn’t dare use them, for fear of damaging the old library. Just a few sparks in the wrong place could cause a terrible fire…And all I had left was the Colt Repeater, its everyday bullets useless against his armour. So it all came down to him and me, one to one, man to man.
I grew heavy spikes on the knuckles of my golden hands. Uncle James grew long slender blades out of his golden hands. The edges looked very sharp. I’d never known a Drood who could do that with his armour before, but the Gray Fox always was the best of us. Champion of a thousand undisputed victories against the forces of evil. He knew tricks no one else did, learned the hard way in thirty years of fighting in dirty secret wars. Deep down…I knew I couldn’t beat him. But I had to try. If only to buy Molly a chance to escape and take the truth with her. Uncle James stood between us and the only exit, the painting’s frame that led back into the main library. So I had to drive him back, drive him away, fight him to a standstill; die on my feet if that was what it took to buy Molly her chance.