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"We’re learning by doing," said Nathanial more than a little smugly.
"Because anything has to be better than the world we’re forced to live in. That’s why you have to join us, Edwin. Because we’re not the enemy your family says we are. We’re the good guys. We’re humanity’s last hope."
"I don’t think so," I said. "I’ve read the family’s reports on what you’ve done and tried to do. The changes you’ve tried to bring about. Every single one of them was concerned with remaking the world in your image, not God’s. Changes to further your beliefs, your wishes, your needs. To make the Sceneshifters powerful and important and a mighty voice in the affairs of man."
"Of course," said Nathanial. "How else can we bring about real change? Permanent change?"
"Your dreams are so small," I said. "So petty. No wonder you never achieved anything that mattered. I’ll never join you."
"Of course you will," said Nathanial. "In fact, you already have. All the time you were chatting so pleasantly with Bert, we were down here murmuring in the professor’s ear, and the Red King dreamed his little dream and made the change so smoothly you didn’t even feel it happening. You’re one of us, Edwin. You’ve always been one of us."
I looked down, and I was wearing a long red robe, just like him. Just like Sister Eliza. Of course I was wearing it. It was the same robe I always wore when I came here to visit my dear friends in the Sceneshifters. I’d been working for them for years, ever since I first came to London, their very own mole in the Drood family. It was good to be back among my friends, in my old familiar robes, in this familiar place. I smiled at Nathanial and Eliza, and they smiled back at me. It was good to be home again.
The only thing that seemed out of place…was my wristwatch. I looked at it stupidly. Something about it nagged at my mind. Nathanial spoke to me, but I wasn’t listening. There was something about the watch, something important, something…special about it that I was supposed to remember. My torc burned coldly around my throat, as though trying to protect me, though I couldn’t think from what. I touched the wristwatch with my right hand, trailing my fingertips across it, ignoring Nathanial’s increasingly angry words. The watch the Armourer gave me, before I left the Hall. The reverse watch, that could rewind time…
I hit the button, and time stopped in its tracks and shifted into reverse. Light and sound strobed painfully around me as the watch reversed recent time, taking me back to just before Nathanial told me I’d been changed. And in that moment, while the future was still pliable and in flux, I drew my Colt Repeater and shot Professor Redmond right between the eyes.
The bullet slammed through his head, blowing bits of broken tubing and spattered brains out the back of his skull. His eyes snapped open, and for the first time in years the Red King was awake at last. His mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream of rage and horror, and it was clear from his face and from his eyes that he knew what had been done to him, and with him. And in the last few moments of his u
I was already heading out the door when the dream chamber started to disappear around me. The walls painted to look like the night skies became transparent and faded away, and I could feel the professor’s power following me as I sprinted up the long stone corridor. There was something behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. I burst out into the room of chemical vats, and Bert looked around sharply in surprise. He cried out in shock as the great vats began to fade away, but I was already out of the room and scrambling back up the spiral staircase. Behind me, Bert’s voice cut off abruptly.
The wooden steps began to feel increasingly soft and insubstantial under my feet, but I made it to the top, gasping for breath. I couldn’t spare the time it would take to call up my armour, and I didn’t believe it could protect me from Professor Redmond’s wrath anyway. I just kept ru
I crashed through and out into the street, panting harshly for breath, and only then turned and looked back. The church was gone; nothing left but a hole between the two modern buildings, like a pulled tooth. The Sceneshifters were gone, never had been. The Red King had woken at last from his long sleep; and he had not woken up in a good mood.
CHAPTER TEN
Cutting out the Middleman
My next stop was on Shaftesbury Avenue, deep in the busy heart of London. I was looking for the legendary Middleman. Shaftesbury Avenue is a long road in two parts. Walk one way and all you’ll see is posh restaurants, top-rank hotels, and theatres with old and even famous names. (Sad to say, one of these venerable establishments currently boasted a large ba
I’d never met the Middleman before, but everyone knew he could be found right in the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue, where good meets bad, and often combines into something deliciously sinful. I was pretty sure the Middleman would know something useful, if I could get him to talk to me. The Man had been around, on and off the scene, ever since the sixties, and he knew everybody, good and bad and especially in between. His great skill and passion was in putting people together for mutual profit. If you were pla
You find the Middleman behind a sleazy, deliberately run-down Thai restaurant. From the outside, it looks decidedly appallingly grimy and off-putting, the kind of place only a truly desperate or naïve tourist would try. In fact, the Thai language above the door supposedly translates as Piss Off, Foreigner, and Take Your Stupid-Looking Eyes with You. I peered in through the fly-specked window, past the indecipherable cardboard menu, and wasn’t surprised to find the restaurant was completely empty at a time of the evening when it should have been at its fullest. The rickety tables were covered in Formica, the chairs were cheap plastic and none too clean, and the linoleum floor was unspeakable. Somehow I just knew that if you were foolish or brave enough to enter, you’d never get anything you ordered, and if you tried to eat it anyway, the staff would lean out the kitchen door watching you, giggling and elbowing each other and going, Look! He’s actually eating it!