The Man with the Golden Torc

"Give that back!" he said, scowling fiercely. "That’s my lucky hammer!"

"Lucky?" I said, holding it carefully out of reach.

"I’m still here, aren’t I?"

I put the hammer down at the opposite end of the bench. "What’s the problem, Armourer?"

He sighed as he realised he was going to have to talk to me after all.

"Seems like everyone in the Hall is trying to draw power from the Heart, all at the same time. Every damned department at once. I’m supposed to have priority, but it’s all I can do to elbow my way into the queue. If I have to go upstairs and complain, there’ll be tear gas and shrapnel flying through the common rooms…"

"Why is there so much demand for power?"

"Don’t ask me. Ask bloody Alistair!"

I recognised the tone. "All right; what’s Alistair done now?"

The Armourer gave me his best put-upon expression. "First the Matriarch increases my budget, and my workload, and tells me my projects have top priority until further notice; and then bloody Alistair comes poncing in here and a

I couldn’t help smiling and nodding. Typical Alistair: pe

"What the hell are you doing down here, Eddie?"

"Hello, Alex," I said easily. "Good to see you again too. You’re looking deliciously stern, but then you usually do. Especially in certain dreams I’ve been having, involving you in leathers in a dungeon…Don’t look at me like that. I’m here to pick up something in the small but deadly line, for my next mission. What are you doing down here?"

She stood squarely before me, fists planted on her hips. "I run this place now. I’m in training to take over from the Armourer, when he retires."

I looked at the Armourer. "Retiring? You? Really?"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "Comes to us all, Eddie. I’m not getting any younger, despite all my experimenting in that area, and the family depends on the armoury for new ideas and new approaches, as well as new weapons. Maybe it is time for a change. I just oversee things, these days. Paperwork, remember? Alexandra takes care of all the day-to-day business. And does it very well."

He actually managed a real smile for her, which she ignored, her fierce glare fixed on me. I considered Alexandra thoughtfully. She was a cousin of mine, from the same year as me. We’d attended a lot of classes together, and she always was teacher’s pet. A first-class student, and the first to tell you so. Alexandra was tall and blond, with a balcony you could do Shakespeare from. Every inch the Aryan ideal, and twice as scary. Her lab coat had been starched to within an inch of its life and was dazzlingly white. She was pretty enough, in a totally intimidating sort of way, but she always gave the impression that she was about to lunge forward and bite you. And not necessarily in a good way. She glared at me with more than her usual ferocity, and I instinctively looked around for some raw meat to throw her. She prodded me hard in the chest with a forefinger.

"Careful, dear," I said. "In some cultures, that means we’re engaged."

"I am not your dear!"

"You have no idea how safe and secure that makes me feel, Alex."

She took a few deep breaths to steady herself, which did very interesting things to her balcony. I had to look away for a moment. When Alexandra spoke again, her voice was icily calm and controlled.

"I’d heard you were back, Eddie. I don’t know how you have the nerve to show your face in the Hall. You turned your back on the family, after everything they did for you."

"Because of everything they did to me. I still serve, but in my own way."

"There can be only one way! You betrayed the family trust; the old traditions of duty and responsibility. You ran away from the Hall. Away from me."

"I’d have died by inches if I stayed here, Alex. You know that."

"You should have stayed away. You have no place here any more. No one in the family wants you here. No one. Now get the hell out of my armoury before I have security throw you out."

"Ah, Alex; it’s good to see position and authority hasn’t mellowed you. How’s the work here going? Bitten the heads off any more white mice recently?"

"That was just the once! And it was a perfectly reasonable scientific experiment!"

"Of course it was, dear. You still cried like a girly when I had to give you all those rabies shots afterwards."

I couldn’t say I was all that surprised to discover Alexandra was the new Armourer in training. She always was ambitious. Not to mention almost viciously focused and driven to excel. Alexandra was hard-core family, utterly dedicated to the good fight, with no time at all for people on the edge, like me.

"I’m here to pick up some new weapons for my mission," I said, putting on my best let’s-all-be-calm-and-reasonable face. "I have a chitty, from the Matriarch."

Alexandra gave me a look that plainly said she didn’t believe a word of it, and stuck out a hand for the paperwork. I handed it over, and she made a point of scrutinising it very thoroughly, line by line, looking for some subclause she could use to turn me down. I favoured her with my most confident and beneficent smile, which made her scowl ever harder. She’d give herself a headache soon, if she wasn’t careful. In the end, she had no choice but to approve my chitty. It came direct from the Matriarch, with her seal and signature. Alexandra reluctantly put her initials in the space provided, and then thrust the papers ungraciously back at me.

"It all seems valid enough," she growled. "But I don’t want you in my armoury one moment longer than necessary, Eddie. You’re a troublemaker. You breed dissent, and you undermine proper authority. You stand for everything I disapprove of in the family. We should have eliminated you years ago. You’re a security risk, and you always will be."

I had to smile. "And to think I sent you a Valentine’s Day card, when we were both fourteen."

Her mouth twitched briefly. "So it was you. I did wonder."

At which interesting point, we were interrupted by the arrival of another field agent. It was Matthew Drood, and Alexandra was suddenly all smiles for him. Matthew was another cousin from my year, and everything the family had wanted me to be. He’d grown up to be everything I’d always thought he would: very slick, very smart, very smooth. And not half as good in the field as he liked to make out. I’d worked a few cases with him in London, and somehow he ended up with all the credit after I’d done all the real work. He stood casually before me in his expensively cut suit, everything a field agent shouldn’t be: tall, dark, and handsome, and effortlessly charming when he chose to be. Good luck trying to hide him in a crowd. (All right, Uncle James was all those things too, but James had style.)