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He was weakening fast, but so was I, and God alone knows what might have happened if not for Molly.
We’d been so caught up in ourselves, fighting face to golden face, that we’d both lost track of Molly Metcalf. She came up behind Uncle James in his blind spot, and she had Torc Cutter in her hands. She jammed the ugly shears up against the back of his neck, yelled the activating Words, and cut through his golden armour, right where his collar should be. Uncle James screamed once, like a soul newly damned to Hell, and then his armour disappeared all in a moment, and his whole body went limp in my hands. It took me a moment to realise what had happened, and a moment more to armour down and unclench my hands from around his throat, but finally I let go, and his body fell to the floor and did not move again. I sat down suddenly beside him, my legs just giving way. I hurt so bad I could hardly breathe. There was blood all over me. My uncle James was dead. I wanted to hold him in my arms, tell him I was sorry, but my arms wouldn’t work. I would have cried, but somehow…I was just too tired. Too deathly tired.
Molly crouched down beside me and put her arm across my shoulders. "I had to do it," she said. "He could still have won. And he would have killed you, Eddie."
"Of course he would," I said. "He was the Gray Fox. He was the best. He knew the mission always comes first."
"I killed him," said Molly. "So you wouldn’t have to."
"I know," I said. "That was kind of you. But…he was my dad, in every way that mattered. The one Drood I always loved and admired. The man I most wanted to be."
I cried then, and Molly did her best to comfort me. After a while she retrieved Oath Breaker from where I’d left it and hauled me back up onto my feet so she could half lead, half carry me out of the old library, back through the painting, into the main library again. Blood poured down my sides with every movement, my face was slick with sweat, and my hands hung numbly at my side. Away from the old library’s magic suppressor field, she was able to run a whole bunch of healing spells over me, but though she closed my wounds and stopped the bleeding, I couldn’t say I felt any better.
"It’s the strange matter in you," she said finally, frowning. "It’s interfering with my magics. I’ve stabilised you, but that’s about all I can do for you."
"That’s all right," I said, smiling at her. It didn’t feel like much of a smile, but I did my best. "It doesn’t matter, Molly. I’m dying anyway. And none of that three or four days shit, either. Just…hold me together long enough for me to do what I need to do."
"What can we do?" Molly said desperately. "Against something like the Heart?"
"You have Torc Cutter, and I have Oath Breaker," I said. "I’m going to destroy the Heart, and bring the whole damned family down."
"Because they betrayed you," said Molly.
"Because they lied," I said. "They lied to all of us. About who we are and what we are. We were never the heroes of our story. All along, we were the real bad guys."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Family at War
There was only one way to fatally weaken the family. To break their hold on the world. Take away the power that made them strong, made them untouchable: their glorious golden armour. And the only way to do that was to destroy the source of the armour: the Heart. Only a few days ago I would have found that unthinkable; hell, I’d risked my life to defend the damned thing from outside attack. But step by painful step I had been driven to this place, this moment, forced to turn away from everything I’d been taught and brought up to believe in. All that was left to me now was to destroy the one thing I was raised to revere and protect above all others. The rotten, corrupt, lying Heart of the Droods.
Life’s a bitch sometimes.
I hefted Oath Breaker in my hand. Just a stick, really; a long wooden cane carved with symbols I couldn’t even read. It didn’t look like much, to destroy an invader from another dimension and bring an end to centuries of lies. But as with so many other things where my family was concerned, appearances were deceiving. I only had to glance at Oath Breaker with my Sight to see a power so great, so terrible, I had to look away or it would blast the eyes from my head. Oath Breaker was ancient and awful, made when the world was young specifically to undo things that could not be allowed to exist. There were stories that said Oath Breaker had thrown down cities and continents in its time, and killed old gods so thoroughly that no one even remembered their names anymore.
It occurred to me that by destroying the source of the family’s armour, I might be signing my own death warrant. And that of everyone else in my family. I’d seen Torc Cutter kill my uncle James by severing his collar. It could be that no Drood would survive if I took their armour away. But I’d come too far now to even consider turning back. The family that had bowed down to the Heart’s murderous demands for so long, that had chosen to rule humanity instead of protect it, that had embraced the ruthless aims of Zero Tolerance…was not a family I recognised anymore. All that was left to me was to save the family’s honour or put it out of its misery forever.
And what the hell; I was dying anyway.
At least with the Heart destroyed, there was a chance that all the sacrificed souls trapped inside the massive diamond would be freed at last to pass on to the afterlife denied them for so long. Perhaps they would speak for me at the gates of Heaven or Hell, and ask that I not be judged too harshly for all my crimes and sins. That I had done at least one good thing in my life.
"The only way to use Oath Breaker," I said to Molly, "is up close and personal. That means we have to get into the Sanctity, the most closely guarded chamber in the Hall, and stand before the Heart itself."
"Hold everything," said Molly. "Even assuming we can get there, which I’m not, but just for the sake of argument, isn’t there just the smallest possibility that destroying an alien life-form like the Heart could be extremely bloody dangerous? I mean, you use an unknown weapon like Oath Breaker on an unknown other-dimensional thing like the Heart, and God alone knows what kind of forces and energies might be released. You could blow up the whole house. Hell, you might even blow up the whole country."
"Why think so small?" I said. "We might blow up the whole world. But you know what, Molly? I just don’t care anymore. This is something I have to do, and it’s something I’m going to do. Whatever the cost. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to…"
"Oh, screw that," Molly said briskly. "I didn’t come this far to miss out on seeing the Droods’ power broken once and for all. This is what I signed on for, Eddie, and don’t you forget it. To have my revenge on the family who murdered my parents."
"The family killed my parents too," I said. "Though they would never admit it. So I suppose…this is my revenge too."
"Besides," said Molly. "You’d probably mess it up on your own anyway. You need me, Eddie."
I smiled at her. "Thank you," I said. "For everything."
"Wouldn’t have missed it for the world," she said, and smiled back at me.
"We’ve come a long way together," I said. "All those years we wasted, trying to kill each other…"
"Don’t get all sloppy and sentimental on me now, Eddie. We have things to do. Maybe later there will be time for…other things."
"If there is a later."
"Oh, look on the bright side: the odds are your family will kill us long before we get anywhere near the Heart."
We laughed quietly together, and then I took her in my arms and held her close. I couldn’t hold her tightly—it hurt my left side too much—but she understood. She held me like I was the most precious thing in her life, which might crack and break if handled too roughly, and buried her face in my shoulder. We stood like that for some time, and then we made ourselves let go. It was all the time we could allow ourselves. We kissed, quickly, and then we stepped back and took on our professional aspects again. The rogue Drood and the wild witch, determined to do or die and probably both.