Daemons Are Forever

She kissed me, and then pushed me away. “Go and talk to Harry. I’ll go for a wander round the grounds. Where shall we meet up?”

“At the Armoury, in an hour,” I said. “If we’re going after Janissary Jane, the Blue Fairy, Subway Sue, and Mr. Stab … I want to be really well armed.”

I checked with the Sarjeant-at-Arms, just to make sure Harry had ended up where he was supposed to be, in Uncle James’s old room. The Sarjeant always knows where everyone is. That’s part of his job. The Sarjeant allowed that the new arrival was indeed in the Gray Fox’s old room. He seemed to find that appropriate, but I could tell something was bothering him.

“Something’s bothering you, Sarjeant,” I said. “Don’t you approve of Harry returning home at last?”

“He seems a pleasant enough gentleman,” the Sarjeant said slowly. “But his … companion; that’s something else. Never thought I’d live to see the day when we allowed a hellspawn under our roof.”

“Harry vouches for him,” I said. “As is his right. But feel free to keep a very watchful eye on anything Roger Morningstar gets up to while he’s here.”

The Sarjeant nodded. “Like I needed you to tell me that, boy.”

“Don’t push your luck, Cyril. What can you tell me about Harry?”

“Nothing you don’t already know.”

“My Uncle James never spoke about him to you?”

“No. He never did. The Gray Fox never discussed his relationships outside the family.”

“Did you ever know James’s wife, Melanie Blaze?”

The Sarjeant’s mouth twitched briefly in something that might almost have been a smile. “I had the honour of meeting that lady on a few occasions. A most remarkable personage.”

I waited, but that was all he had to say. I nodded to the Sarjeant, and he turned and walked briskly away. I shrugged and made my way through the winding corridors of the west wing to what used to be Uncle James’s room. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, enjoying his company when he was resting at home, in between assignments. In many ways, he was the father I never had. I was like a son to him, so why did he never talk to me about his real son, Harry?

I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn’t think to knock, just opened the door and barged right in, like I used to when it was Uncle James’s room. And then I crashed to a halt as I saw Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar. They were together, in each other’s arms. They were kissing. They broke apart immediately and stared coldly at me, standing shoulder to shoulder. I turned unhurriedly and closed the door carefully behind me.

“You really should learn to lock your door around here,” I said.

“You saw,” said Harry.

“Yes,” I said. “I saw.”

“Are you going to tell everyone?”

“Why should I?” I said. “It’s no one’s business but your own.”

“If you were to inform the Matriarch,” Harry said slowly, “and the family…You know they’d never accept me as their leader. The family is still very old-fashioned about some things.”

“That’s their problem,” I said. “I don’t give a damn. Is this…why you never came home?”

Harry and Roger looked at each other, and relaxed slightly. Harry took Roger’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“This … is why my father never spoke to you about me,” said Harry. “Though he often spoke to me about you. He had great faith in you, Eddie. Said you had it in you to be as great a field agent as him. He never said that about me, even though I tried so hard to impress him. He was everything I ever wanted to be … But he could never come to terms with the fact that his only legitimate son was gay. It meant so much to him, you see, to continue his line within the family. And for that he needed a legitimate child…The Droods have always been very big on bloodlines. The Matriarch gave him hell for marrying my mother; you can image what she would have said if she’d ever found out about me…

“To be fair, he could have disowned me, but he didn’t. But it meant we were never as close as we might have been. And it meant… he could never allow me to come home. No one from the family could ever know that the famous womaniser James Drood had sired a bum boy. He had his reputation to think of.”

“He protected you,” I said.

“Yes,” said Harry. “But he never accepted me.”

“Look,” I said. “I don’t give a wet slap whether you’re gay or not. But I have to ask. How can Roger be your…partner, when he’s also your stepbrother?”

Harry smiled crookedly. “If his being a hellspawn doesn’t bother me, why should anything else? We knew we were meant for each other, the moment we met in that awful little nightclub in Paris.”

“Even hellspawn have hearts,” said Roger.

“You still stink of the Pit,” I said bluntly. “He’s a demon, Harry. You can’t trust him or anything he says. Demons don’t love anyone. They can’t.”

“I’m only half demon,” said Roger. “I’m half human, and very bothersome that can be, at times. I have all the usual run of human emotions, though I never let them get in the way before. I was there in that nightclub on purpose, sent to seduce Harry as away of getting at James, and through him the Droods…but instead, our eyes met, and that was that. I was in love, much to my alarm. We fell for each other right then and there, and we’ve never been apart since.”

“Are you complaining?” Harry said fondly.

“No,” said Roger. “Never. But it does mean I can never go home again. They’d never understand…”

“I know the feeling,” said Harry, and squeezed Roger’s hand.

“You can’t trust him, Harry,” I said, trying my best to get through to him. “He’s a hellspawn! They lie like they breathe; it’s natural to them!”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Harry said flatly. “Not this family, and least of all the man who murdered my father.”

“It wasn’t murder,” I said. “It was a fair fight. Neither of us wanted it, but…”

“Yes,” said Harry. “It always comes down to the family, doesn’t it, and the awful things we do because of it. Tell me this much, at least—tell me my father died well.”

“Of course he did,” I said. “He went down fighting to the last.”

Harry looked at me thoughtfully, his head cocked slightly to one side. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Cousin Eddie.”

“There’s a lot of things I’m not telling you,” I said easily. “I keep my secrets to myself. So should you. I won’t tell the family you’re gay…”

“How very noble of you,” said Roger.

“But the longer you two stick around, together, the sooner someone will realise. And the holding hands is a dead giveaway.”

Harry glanced down at the hand holding Roger’s, but didn’t let go.

“Thank you for the kind advice, Cousin Eddie. And your reticence on our behalf. More than I had any right to expect from you, I’m sure. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that we’re ever going to be friends.”

“I’ll settle for allies,” I said. “We’re going to have to find a way to work together in the bad times that are coming. For the good of the family, and the world.”

“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “Anything, for the family.”