"You used Torc Cutter on your own uncle?" Alistair looked at me with horror. "Dear God; what have you become, Edwin?"
"I don’t know," I said honestly. "Awake, perhaps, to all the lies and betrayals…It’s time to cut the rotten heart out of the family."
"I have a weapon too," Alistair said abruptly, and just like that there was an old-fashioned pistol in his right hand. It would have looked primitive, even pathetic, if I hadn’t recognised it. If I hadn’t known it for what it was. Alistair nodded grimly, seeing the knowledge in my face. Even Martha was shaken out of her grief by the sight of the gun.
"Alistair! Wherever did you get that? You can’t use it! I forbid it!"
"I’ll do whatever I have to to protect you, Martha." Alistair was looking at me, but the gun was trained steadily on Molly. "You stand very still, Edwin. Or I’ll hurt your woman, just as you’ve hurt mine. I know none of you ever really thought of me as one of the family. Never thought I had it in me to fight the good fight like the rest of you. But I love this family and all it stands for, just as I’ve always loved you, Martha. And this is where I prove it."
"Please, Alistair," said Martha, trying for a calm and reasonable voice.
"Put away the gun. Let me handle this."
"How can you love the family?" I said to Alistair. "Knowing what you do about the Heart? About the price we pay to be what we are?"
He frowned, suddenly uncertain. "Martha? What’s he talking about?"
I looked at Martha. "He doesn’t know, does he, Grandmother? You never told him. Never told him why he can’t ever wear the golden torc."
"He’s not part of the council," she said dully. "He never needed to know, so I never told him. It would have been…cruel. You always were too softhearted, Alistair."
"Not here, not now," he said. "Not when he dares to threaten you and the whole family. You do know what this gun is, don’t you, Edwin? Of course you do. Why don’t you tell your little witch friend what it is?"
"Yes, Eddie," said Molly. "You know I hate to be left out of things."
"That…is a Salem Special," I said. "It’s a witch killer. It shoots flames summoned up from Hell itself. Or so the records say. No one’s used the awful thing in centuries." I glared at Alistair. "I can’t believe you’re even thinking of using a Salem Special. You put your soul at risk just by handling it."
"It’ll stop you, and that’s all that matters," he said. He smiled briefly, nervously. "Fight fire with fire, eh? Oh, I know it won’t hurt you, Eddie. You’ll get your armour up in time to protect you. But it’ll do terrible things to your pretty girlfriend…So you’re going to stand very still, Edwin, until the rest of the family get here, take your weapons away, and put you under arrest. Or I’ll burn your woman alive before your eyes."
"Don’t be a fool, Alistair!" snapped the Matriarch, some of her old authority returning. "You’re not a field agent! I protected you from all that!"
"I never asked you to protect me, Martha."
"He’ll kill you!"
"You never did have any faith in me," said Alistair. "But this is where I prove you all wrong. You thought you could stop him with your authority, thought you could intimidate him into just giving up. I never believed that. He was never intimidated by authority in his life. But look at him now. Look at him! Afraid to move a muscle because of me!"
He took his eyes off me to glare at her, and that was all I needed. In the moment when he was distracted, I whipped Oath Breaker out from under my belt, and brought it around in a swift arc. He started to turn back, raising the Salem Special, but the long ironwood staff undid the binding seals on the ancient pistol, and it exploded, all its stored hellfire bursting out at once. Supernaturally bright flames consumed Alistair’s hand and arm, burning the meat down to the bone in seconds. The stench of brimstone and burnt flesh filled the air. Alistair fell back, howling and shrieking. He flapped his arm wildly, as though he could shake off the flames. What remained of his right hand fell away as the hellfire consumed the small connecting bones in his wrist. It fell to the floor, still wrapped around what was left of the Salem Special.
Alistair screamed horribly as the flames leapt up to take hold of his right shoulder. Martha beat at the flames with her bare hands, crying out at the pain but still trying to help. I armoured up and moved quickly forward to smother the flames with my golden hands, but even though the flames couldn’t burn me, I couldn’t beat them out. In the end Molly stepped forward and reeled off some Latin, and all the flames disappeared in a moment. Alistair’s cries fell away to shocked moans, and he sat down suddenly on the floor, looking dully at what little was left of his right arm. Martha sat there with him, holding him in her arms, trying to comfort him. I armoured down and looked at Molly.
"Those were hellfires…How did you—"
"Please," she said. "Remember who you’re talking to."
Alistair’s moans stopped as he finally, mercifully, passed out. Less than half of his upper right arm remained, charred down to the blackened bone. It would have to be removed; it would never heal. Martha rocked him back and forth, crooning to him like a sleeping child. She was crying. I’d never seen her cry before. I tried to feel sorry for Alistair, but this was what he would have done to my Molly if I hadn’t stopped him.
"Martha…" I said.
"Don’t. Don’t pretend you care, you unnatural child."
"So many tears," I said. "For Uncle James, for Alistair. But how many tears would you have shed over my death, Grandmother, if I had died on that motorway? Or if Uncle James had killed me like you ordered? Did you cry over my twin brother when he was sacrificed to the Heart? He was your grandson too. How did you choose between us? Flip a coin, perhaps? Or did you just leave it up to the Heart so you wouldn’t have to feel accountable?"
But she wasn’t listening. All she cared about was her Alistair and what I’d done to him. Molly gently pulled me away.
"We have to go, Eddie. Others will be coming. You know that."
I let her lead the way to the far end of the room. I always thought that in the end the traitor within the family would turn out to be Alistair. Because he never was one of us, really. I wanted it to be him. But in the end…he fought well and valiantly to protect the woman he loved from my anger. I admired him. The poor damned fool. I didn’t need to smash through the far wall. Just opened the door and stepped through into the next room, leaving Martha and Alistair behind.
The next room was huge, all gleaming white tiles on the walls and hygienically clean surfaces packed full of assorted computers and other advanced technology in an hermetically controlled environment. A whole room full of machines just to monitor and regulate conditions inside the Sanctity. They protected the Heart from all outside influences and protected those who lived in the Hall from the various disruptive energies and dangerous forces that emanated from the Heart. Normally there’d be half a hundred technicians scattered across the massive room, carefully tending the equipment and making constant small but necessary changes and adjustments to the Sanctity’s delicate balance…but the place was deserted. Presumably they’d been evacuated once it was clear I was coming here. I threaded my way through the bulky machinery, heading for the door at the other end of the room. Beyond that door lay the Sanctity, and the Heart, and my revenge.
Molly and I were almost there when the door suddenly opened and Matthew and Alexandra stepped through. I stopped abruptly, and Molly moved in close beside me again. Matthew looked sharp and smooth as always, the family’s blue-eyed boy in his immaculate Armani suit. He smiled dazzlingly at me. Alexandra’s smile was cold, and so were her eyes. I nodded briefly to them both, doing my best to look entirely unimpressed.