The Man with the Golden Torc

"All right! All right!" The prime minister said defensively. "I’m on top of this, Matriarch. You don’t have anything to worry about."

"No, I don’t," said Martha. "But you do."

Molly took her hand off the water, and the vision disappeared. I looked numbly at Molly. "How could she speak to him like that? How could he grovel to her like that? She wouldn’t really have hurt him. We don’t do things like that. The family serves the powers that be; we don’t interfere. That’s always been our duty and our responsibility. To preserve—"

"Poor Eddie," said Molly. "You only wanted to know the truth because you didn’t know how much it would hurt. Well, here it is, so brace yourself. The family isn’t what you think it is, and it never was. Only those Droods at the very top of the family tree know what the family is really for. You protect the world, yes, but not for the people…for the establishment. The Droods work to maintain the status quo, keeping everyone calm and controlled, and the people in their proper place. Under the thumbs of those in authority. Droods aren’t the world’s bodyguards, and never have been; you’re enforcers. Bullyboys. Hammering down any nail that dares to stick its head above the rest.

"And after centuries of establishing power and control, along with the odd assassination of those in power who wouldn’t or couldn’t learn to go along to get along, even those who make up the official establishment have learned to be afraid of your family. Politicians all across the world are allowed to hold power only as long as they answer to Drood authority. Your family, Eddie, are the secret rulers of the world."

I just sat there, shocked into silence. My whole world had just been kicked away from under my feet. Again. I wanted to believe she was lying, but I couldn’t. It all made too much sense. Too many things I’d seen and heard that I wasn’t supposed to, so many hints and whispers on the scene, so many little things that had never added up…till now. There is a reason why things are the way they are; but it’s not a very nice one.

I think I might have swayed a little, because Molly tossed a handful of icy pond water into my face. "Don’t you dare flake out on me, Eddie! Not when I’m just getting to the interesting bit."

"My family runs the world," I said numbly, cold water dripping unheeded from my face. "And I never knew. How could I have been so blind?"

"It’s not all bad news," said Molly. "There is a resistance. And I’m part of it."

I looked at her. "You? I thought you always said you refused to belong to any group that would accept the likes of you as a member. Especially after what happened last time, with the Arcadia Project. As if that whole plague of frogs thing wasn’t bad enough, you ended up pulling that Klan sorcerer’s intestines out through his nostrils."

"He a

I considered that, not liking the taste. One of the Drood family’s greatest fears has always been that another organisation might arise to work against them. An anti-family, as it were. There had been several attempts, down the centuries, but the various bad guys had never been able to find enough things in common to hold them together. They always ended up arguing over ends and means, and matters of precedence, and who exactly was going to be in charge. This led to factions and fighting, and it always ended in tears. Though admittedly it didn’t usually involve intestines and nostrils.

"The new cabal is called Manifest Destiny," said Molly, just a little grandly, after it became clear I had nothing to say for the moment.

"They, we, want humanity to be free from all outside control; by the Droods or anyone else. Free to make its own destiny. The leaders of the cabal have brought together powers from across the whole spectrum of opposition: the Loathly Ones, the Cult of the Crimson Altar, the Dream Meme, Vril Power Inc., even the Lurkers on the Threshold."

"Ah," I said. "The usual unusual suspects."

"Well, yes; plus a whole army of powerful and committed fellow travellers. Like me. More than you ever dreamed possible, determined to break the Droods’ stranglehold on humanity, once and for all. Not to gain power for themselves, but just to set humanity free. That’s what makes this cabal so different; for the first time it’s not about us."

"This…cabal," I said. "Were they behind recent attacks on my family home?"

Molly shrugged. "I don’t get involved in day-to-day decisions. I told you: I only work with them when I feel like it, on matters of mutual interest."

"So I suppose you don’t know the identity of the traitor in my family, either? Or why I was declared rogue?"

"I know there is a traitor. That’s old knowledge. And if it matters, word is he or she approached Manifest Destiny, not the other way around." She looked at me coolly, almost compassionately. "Poor little Drood; they’ve taken away your i

I nodded, too numb to muster any arguments. I wasn’t up to speed yet. There was a great hole in my gut where my family used to be, and I hadn’t figured out what to fill it with. Molly helped me to my feet, and then let go of my arm immediately. She still wasn’t used to being this close to me. She turned abruptly and headed off deeper into the forest. I hurried after her. We walked together, maintaining a comfortable distance, for quite some time. Wherever this forest was, it wasn’t inside her house. The door must have been spelled to transport me straight here, wherever here was.

I’d just about worked this out when we came to another door, standing on its own, upright and unsupported. Molly stood before it, muttering Words under her breath. I wondered where this door would lead; what charming underworld dive Molly wanted to show me. Café Night, perhaps, where vampires flocked together to feast on willing victims. It started out as a fashionable salon, but of late had lapsed into an S and M parlour. Vampires added whole new shades of meaning to the phrase tops and bottoms. It might be the Black Magicians’ Circle, which once upon a time was the place to be, if you worshipped dark forces and could boast your very own demonic familiar. These days it was more of a self-help and support group. The Order of the Beyond was still going strong, in marvellous new high-tech premises down on Grafton Way, where people offered themselves as temporary hosts to outer-dimensional beings in return for forbidden and outré knowledge. Of course, conversations in that place did tend towards the seriously weird…Molly pushed the door open and stepped through, and I hurried in after her. And then I stopped abruptly and looked around me.

"Wait a minute! This…this is the Wulfshead Club!"

And it was. Just as big and bold and brassy and hellishly noisy as it always was. Molly looked at me pityingly.

"Of course. Where else? The Wulfshead has always been the hottest spot on the scene. Everyone comes here; good and bad and in between. You never noticed the bad guys because you always mix with your own crowd, and we all mix with ours. That’s what makes the club’s truce workable. Come on; come and meet some of my friends. Looks like we have an interesting crowd in tonight."

I was still a little dazed, so she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me through the crowd in the direction of the bar. I let her. I felt I could use a whole bunch of very large drinks. Several people nodded to Shaman Bond, and several more nodded to Molly Metcalf. Some of them looked quite surprised and not a little intrigued at seeing the two of us so openly together, but no one said anything. The Wulfshead crowd understands the need for discretion and the occasional blind eye. Molly and I ended up at one end of the high-tech bar, where the professionally uninterested bartender served us drinks. I had a very large brandy, Molly had a Southern Comfort, and I ended up paying for both. She gestured for certain personages to come and join her, and they drifted warily over.