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"So what?" she said. "What has the world ever done for us except lie to us? Better to die free than to live a lie one day longer. We’re going to make the world make sense, whether it wants to or not, whatever the price. This is our time, our destiny, and nothing can stop us."
"Wrong, as usual," said a familiar voice behind me.
We all looked around sharply, and there behind us was the Armourer, Uncle Jack himself, standing swaying on his own two feet. He wore a simple breastplate of an unfamiliar crimson metal over his lab coat. Caked blood had dried all down one side of his face from a vicious scalp wound on his bald pate. He nodded briefly to me and Molly, and then gri
"I thought you were dead!" Alexandra said loudly. "Damn you, why aren’t you dead?"
The Armourer sniffed loudly. "I was a field agent for twenty years, remember? I don’t die that easily, girl."
"We have other weapons," said Matthew too loudly. "There’s a whole army on its way here, armed to the teeth!"
"See this breastplate?" said the Armourer. "This is the Juggernaut Jumpsuit. Yes, that one, from the Codex. Bring on your weapons and your army. It won’t do you any good. Eddie, you go on, boy. You’ve got work to do."
"Listen," said Alexandra. "Hear those ru
And that was when the ghost of old Jacob Drood appeared. Out of his chapel at last, for the first time he looked truly frightening. We all shrank back from him as he manifested on the air before us in a rush of air cold as death itself. He didn’t look like a grumpy old ancestor anymore; he looked like what he was: a dead man hanging on to existence through a terrible act of will. A stark, spectral figure, more a presence than a person, his face was all hollows and shadows, his eyes burning with unearthly fires. Just looking at him froze the blood in my veins and closed a cold hand around my heart. We were in the presence of death now, stark and awful and utterly unrelenting.
Time for me to take a hand, said the ghost of old Jacob, in a harsh and terrible voice that resonated inside my head. This is what I’ve been waiting for all these years. Even though I often forgot for years at a time, still I hung on, just for this. Bring on your army, Matthew and Alexandra, and I will show them all the awful things I’ve learned to do since I died. He looked at me, and I flinched away despite myself. Go to the Heart, Eddie. That’s where all the answers are. And do…what you have to do.
Jacob and the Armourer headed towards Matthew and Alexandra, and they backed quickly away, leaving open the way to the Sanctity’s door. Molly and I hurried forward. A door to our right burst open, and a whole crowd of armoured Droods rushed in. They saw the Armourer and the terrible ghost of old Jacob, and they stumbled to a halt. Molly and I opened the door to the Sanctity and ran through, pulling the door shut behind us.
And as the door closed, the screaming began.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Heart Breaker
Standing there in the Sanctity, with the door slamming shut behind me, I felt like a vandal breaking into a cathedral. The Heart blazed before me, shining like the sun, so bright I had to force myself to look at it. A single massive, magnificent diamond, so big it filled most of the huge chamber my family had built to contain and protect it all those centuries ago. Just standing in the presence of the Heart took my breath away, made me feel small and insignificant in its presence. But I didn’t believe that anymore. I knew better now. I glared into the light, refusing to look away or bow my head, even as the simmering light seemed to blaze right through me, seeing everything in my mind and in my soul.
The feeling of awe snapped off just like that. The light was just as bright, the Heart was just as huge, but its presence wasn’t overpowering anymore. It was just a really big diamond. I heard Molly make a soft, relaxed sound at my side as she felt the sudden change too, and I started guiltily as I realised I’d forgotten she was even there. The Heart’s presence could do that to you. Molly and I advanced slowly on the Heart until we were almost close enough to touch it. The curving side of the diamond rose up before us like a multifaceted cliff face, but there was no trace of our reflections. The light blazing from inside the Heart overpowered everything else. I could feel the light on my skin, crawling slightly, like I had dived into an icy cold pond. And for the first time I got the impression that the Heart knew I was there, knew why I had come, and that it was looking directly at me.
"Hello, Eddie," said the Heart. Its voice was warm and friendly, male and female, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Normally I take great pains to maintain a suitably spiritual and refined atmosphere in here, manipulating the emotions of all who come before me, so as to keep everyone in a properly respectful attitude. But there’s no point with you, is there? You know my little secret, and you came here for the truth. Poor boy. As if your little mind could contain or appreciate all my truths."
"You can talk?" I said. A bit obvious, I know, but I was honestly shocked. The Heart had never spoken to any Drood that I knew of, not since it made the original bargain with my Druid ancestors.
"Are you really so surprised to find that I’m a living, thinking thing?" said the Heart. "Not all intelligence is based in meat."
"Did you really come here from another dimension?" said Molly, just to make it clear she wasn’t being left out of anything.
"From a higher dimension," said the Heart. "What can I say; I always did have a thing for slumming."
"Why have you never spoken before?" I said.
"I have," said the Heart. "But only to the ruling Matriarch of your tribe. By long tradition, each Matriarch has to agree to continue our long-standing bargain. Bind her family to me, body and soul. And in return, I grant you all just a little of my power. I speak to you only now, Eddie, because you carry Oath Breaker. Nasty little thing. I’ve been trying to persuade your family to get rid of it for generations."
"Because it could destroy you," said Molly.
"Of course," said the Heart.
"Why did you come here?" I said harshly. I was so close to answers now, I could barely stand it. I wanted to know everything. I’d come so far, lost so much, and I could feel Death herself tapping on my shoulder as the strange matter moved through me…but whatever happened here, I was to determined to know the truth at last. "You were on the run, weren’t you? Being chased across the dimensions by something that scared you. So what did you do, that you had to download yourself into this small, primitive dimension?"
"I was just having a little fun," said the Heart. Its voice had changed subtly. It still sounded warm and friendly and ingratiating, but underneath it sounded like it enjoyed pulling the wings off flies, or stamping on butterflies, just because it could. "I like to play. And if sometimes I play a little too roughly and break my toys, well…there are always more toys."
"Toys?" I said. "Is that all we are to you?"
"What else could you be? Such limited, short-lived things; you flicker in and out so fast I can hardly keep track of you. I have lived for mille
"And you can’t think of anything better to do than play with toys?" said Molly.
"To be loved and worshipped and obeyed without question," said the Heart happily. "What could be more important than that?"