From Hell with love

"Normally I'd give the patient a local anaesthetic," said the Armourer, working away briskly. "But one, I don't have the time. Two, other people need it more than you. And three, you came here to kill my family, so I don't care."

"There's a fine line between interrogation and torture, Uncle Jack," I said.

"Not if you do it right," said the Armourer. "Do you really give a damn, Eddie?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, it matters. We don't torture, because that's what they do. We're supposed to be better than them. We have to be, or they've already won."

"Too late," said the Armourer. "I've started, so I'll finish. And stop whining, you. Be a big brave mercenary. It wasn't that bad."

"Yes, it was! I'm dying, remember?"

"Not anymore," said the Armourer. "Those tubes I've just introduced to various parts of your anatomy are now feeding you a whole series of things that are good for you, and working hard to neutralise the last traces of the Acceleration Drug in your system. Have you stable before you know it."

"For how long?" said the mercenary.

"For as long as I choose to keep you alive. So, feeling chatty, are you? Splendid. Tell me things I need to know."

"My name is Dom Langford," said the ancient man in the chair, with what dignity he had left. "The Drug isn't in my head anymore. I can think clearly. I'm me again."

"The chair can only do so much," said the Armourer. "You're still dying. The human body was never meant to handle such superhuman stresses. So earn yourself some good karma in the time you've got left, by telling us what we need to know."

"You've got a really lousy bedside ma

"There isn't time for politeness and false hopes," said the Armourer. "Talk."

"I don't remember much of what I did, when the Drug had me,"

Dom said slowly. "Just… horrible, nightmare images. I know I did… unforgivable things, and would have done worse if I'd got inside the Hall. But I swear, that wasn't me. That was the Drug."

"You killed a lot of good people out there," I said. A part of me still wanted to be harsh with him, but he looked so small now, so pathetic.

Dom tried to smile. "I'm a mercenary, soldier for hire. Killing's what I do. But before this, I was always a professional. The Drug changed all that. We were lied to, all of us. No one said the Drug would turn us into monsters. I don't owe those bastards loyalty anymore. Not after what they did. Ask me anything."

"Where did Doctor Delirium get so many people to dose with the Acceleration Drug?" said the Armourer. He didn't sound so harsh, anymore. I think he had been ready to coerce the dying man, if he had to, but Dom Langford was so clearly bitter and betrayed, and so clearly at death's door, that the Armourer just didn't have the heart. He fussed over the chair's controls, trying to make the mercenary as comfortable as possible, for what time he had left. I watched the information on the display screens steady some more, as the tubes delivered painkillers and sedatives. The mercenary seemed to settle a little more easily in the chair.

"Doctor Delirium's been raising a new mercenary army for years," said Dom. "Had us set up in several different bases dotted around the world, just waiting, so we'd be ready for the big score when it came. Some of us had been waiting so long we'd begun to wonder if the call would ever come. Or if he just liked having us around, as a status symbol. You're no one in the mad scientist game, if you haven't got your own private army. We'd taken his money, so we just lounged around, treated it like a vacation… But when the call finally came, it wasn't like anything we'd expected. We'd be fighting Droods, they said, so we'd need a little extra. Something to make us as good as Droods, maybe even better. That was the first time we heard about the Acceleration Drug. The Doctor made it sound wonderful. We were? all going to be superhuman, and live lifetimes. Should have known it was too good to be true."

"Who was giving the orders?" I said. "Was it just Doctor Delirium?"

"No. He had his partner with him, by then. A rogue Drood, called Tiger Tim. So full of himself you wouldn't believe it. But it was the Doctor who betrayed us. None of us ever trusted Tiger Tim; we'd all heard the stories. But the Doctor had always done right by us, till then-good pay, and the best of everything. That all changed… He changed, after he acquired that bloody Door."

"The Apocalypse Door," I said.

"Yeah. He brought it back from Los Angeles, and within a few hours he was a different man. He abandoned his old base in the rain forest without warning, and suddenly our base was the new centre of operations. And don't ask me where we were; I haven't a clue. We were brought in on planes with no windows, and put up in underground barracks. Could have been anywhere; we were never allowed outside. Most of us were glad when the Doctor arrived; extra security meant something to do, at last. But right from the begi

I looked at the Armourer. "Could the Doctor really be talking to it?"

"We don't know enough about the Door," said the Armourer, frowning. "Given what's supposed to be on the other side of it… Who knows?"

"William was supposed to be digging up some more information on the Door," I said.

"Haven't heard anything from him… Arthur! Front and centre!"

A long gangling type in a messy lab coat nowhere near big enough for him lurched forward out of the crowd, and swayed to a halt in front of the Armourer. He had a broad open face, wide owlish eyes, and a general air of bruised i

"What have I done now?" he said, in a tone of voice that suggested he'd said that many times before.

"For once, nothing obvious. Arthur, contact the Librarian, in the Old Library, and ask him what he's turned up about the Apocalypse Door."

"I already tried, sir, just before the incursion. There was no reply. But that's not unusual, for the Librarian. Do you want me to try again?"

"Rafe's probably convinced William to take some rest at last," I said. "I'll pop down and have a word with him later."

The Armourer dismissed Arthur, and we turned back to Dom Langford. He started talking immediately, as though he needed to talk to someone.

"I saw the Apocalypse Door, once. I'd been sent to the Doctor's private office, with an urgent message. He wasn't answering his phones again. When I got to the office the door was open, but he wasn't there. I thought I'd better wait. They wanted an answer to the message. So I went in, and waited. The Apocalypse Door was there, standing upright on its own, right next to the desk. I walked around it; it looked like just an ordinary, everyday wooden door. But… the office was hot. Unbearably, u

"I panicked. Turned and ran out of the office, dropping the message on the floor. I'd never panicked on a battlefield, never turned and run in any firefight; but I ran then. I never went back. No one ever said anything. But the Doctor was in there with that Door all the time! No wonder he changed. Being around that Door would change anyone."

"What about the rogue Drood, Tiger Tim?" I said. "Did you ever see him with the Door?"