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"I’m sorry," he said, and he sounded as though he meant it. "You know I can’t let her leave, Eddie. Not now that she knows the secret. If she stands with you, she dies with you. But…if you were to come back into the family, perhaps something could be arranged…As your wife, she’d be family too."
"Wait just a minute!" said Molly.
"Be quiet, child," said Uncle James. "I’m trying to save your life. The two of you could never leave the Hall again, Eddie, but you could still live long, useful, productive lives here."
"Serving the family," I said.
"Yes."
"Work for the Droods?" said Molly. "Screw that shit. I’d rather die. No offence, Eddie."
"I have to do what’s right," I said. "I have to fight evil wherever I find it. Just like you taught me, Uncle James."
"Eddie…" he said, taking a step forward.
"I’m sorry."
"So am I." Uncle James sighed heavily, but his voice was calm and his eyes were so cold as to seem almost disinterested. "Don’t bother armouring up, Eddie. This gun came from the Armourer, long ago. He made me some special armour-piercing bullets out of strange matter. They’ll punch right through your armour. Just like the arrow on the motorway."
"You knew about the ambush all along!" I said, almost surprised to find I could still feel shocked after so many secrets. "Did you know the arrow would leave some of itself in my body, poisoning me, killing me by inches?"
"No!" Uncle James said quickly. "It was supposed to be a clean kill. They promised me it would be quick, or I would never have agreed. You weren’t supposed to suffer…You were supposed to die valiantly on the motorway, facing the family’s fiercest enemies. It seems…I taught you better than I realised. I am proud of you, Eddie. And I promise it will be a clean kill this time. For you and your young lady."
"Like hell," said Molly.
All the time Uncle James had been talking so passionately, concentrating all his attention on me, I’d been quietly aware of Molly subvocalising Words of power, a trick she’d learned from me, struggling to raise just enough power to force one good spell through the security measures suppressing magic in the old library. And now the spell activated, opening one small spatial portal right beside Uncle James’s hand. It sucked the gun right out of his grasp and started to pull his arm in too before the security measures reasserted themselves and shut the portal down. It snapped out of existence, and Molly almost collapsed, exhausted by the strain. She grabbed at a heavy book stack to support herself and gri
"There you go, Eddie! Level playing field. Now kick his self-righteous, hypocritical arse!"
Uncle James looked at his empty gun hand as though he couldn’t quite believe it, and then he looked at me. I smiled, and suddenly so did he. That old familiar devil-take-the-hindmost grin.
"All right, Eddie. Let’s do it. Show me how much you’ve learned."
"You always were a big drama queen, Uncle James," I said.
We armoured up, the living golden metal enclosing both of us in a moment. The terrible pain in my left side was immediately muted, and I didn’t realise how bad it had got until it wasn’t there anymore. The golden armour made me strong and powerful again. My dead brother made me strong…but I couldn’t think about that now. I had to concentrate everything I had on Uncle James, or he would kill me. He was, after all, the most proficient and deadly field agent the family had ever produced.
But he’d never had to face someone like me. A semi-rogue who’d learned all his best tricks outside the family. Tempered in the fires of two appalling days, made stronger than ever before by what I’d had to do to survive. And Uncle James didn’t have my outrage, my anger, my righteous cause. No; he’d never met a Drood like me.
We circled each other slowly, warily, gleaming golden and glorious in the muted light of the old library. I didn’t know what weapons he might have under his armour, but the odds were he wouldn’t dare use them, for fear of damaging the old library. Just a few sparks in the wrong place could cause a terrible fire…And all I had left was the Colt Repeater, its everyday bullets useless against his armour. So it all came down to him and me, one to one, man to man.
I grew heavy spikes on the knuckles of my golden hands. Uncle James grew long slender blades out of his golden hands. The edges looked very sharp. I’d never known a Drood who could do that with his armour before, but the Gray Fox always was the best of us. Champion of a thousand undisputed victories against the forces of evil. He knew tricks no one else did, learned the hard way in thirty years of fighting in dirty secret wars. Deep down…I knew I couldn’t beat him. But I had to try. If only to buy Molly a chance to escape and take the truth with her. Uncle James stood between us and the only exit, the painting’s frame that led back into the main library. So I had to drive him back, drive him away, fight him to a standstill; die on my feet if that was what it took to buy Molly her chance.
My one advantage over the Gray Fox: I was already dying. So I had nothing to lose.
I surged forward, driven by all the supernatural strength and speed my armour could produce, and still Uncle James was ready for me. He sidestepped gracefully, and his right-hand sword came sweeping around, the supernaturally sharp edge slicing right through the armour over my right side. My armour healed itself immediately, closing the cut, but I wasn’t so lucky. Pain flared across my ribs, and I could feel thick blood coursing down my right side under my armour. I’d never felt that before. I charged Uncle James again and again, knowing my only hope was to get in close and grapple with him, and every time he avoided me like a toreador with a bull, his impossibly sharp blades cutting through my golden armour again and again, cutting me, hurting me, slowing me down through accumulated shock and blood loss. The Gray Fox circled me, staying carefully out of my reach, watching for the first sign of weakness so he could move in for the kill.
So I gave him a sign. I pretended to stumble, almost going down on one knee, and he came gliding in for the kill, smooth as any dancer. Only to find me waiting for him. I lunged forward, forcing him backwards, off balance. He quickly got his feet back under him again and straightened up, but by that time I had both my hands around his throat, my golden fingers pressing down on his golden throat. I concentrated and grew sharp barbs on the insides of my fingers, digging them deep into the living metal around his neck. And Uncle James couldn’t grab my wrists to force my hands away without giving up his swords.
He drew back his right arm and slammed his right sword forward with all his armour’s strength behind it. The golden blade punched right through the armour over my left side, through me, and out my back. The pain was horrific. I cried out, and there was blood in my mouth. It coursed down my chin, under my golden mask. I almost passed out. I probably would have if I hadn’t been so angry.
I clung onto his throat with both hands, searching desperately for some last trick I could use against him; and that was when I remembered how I’d once fused both my golden hands together to contain and seal off Archie Leech’s Kandarian amulet. If I could fuse my armour together, why not mine and Uncle James’s? Just for a moment. Just long enough to do what I had to do. I concentrated, focusing all my willpower, sweat ru
He struggled fiercely, not understanding what was happening, throwing me this way and that by sheer brute strength, but I wouldn’t let go. He pulled his right hand back, jerking the sword blade out of me, and I cried out again as I felt things break and tear within me, but still I wouldn’t let go. Not even when he ran me through again, and again, sinking the blade deep in my guts and twisting it back and forth.