Daemons Are Forever

“Yes,” said the monk, rising to his feet, pulling back the sleeves of his crimson robe to reveal arms corded with muscle. “You come in here and insult us to our faces? Associate us with the likes of Mr. Stab? There’s a limit to the abuse even we will take.”

The Frankenstein monsters were on their feet too, looking even larger and more imposing. And the Hungry Heart sighed, pushed his empty plate to one side, and rose to his feet.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “Anyone here got a can opener?”

“I might have,” said the monk. He produced a short knife from under his robe. “This is the blade that cut Judas Iscariot down from the tree where he hanged himself, in Haceldama, the Field of Blood. Legend has it this blade can cut through anything. Maybe even Drood armour.”

He lunged forward incredibly quickly for one so old. The dagger slammed into my side, skidded across the silver armour in a flurry of sparks, and continued on, leaving my armour entirely undamaged. The monk staggered forward, caught off balance, and I hit him in the head. The whole left side of his face flattened, bone crunching and splintering, but he didn’t fall. He raised the knife to cut at me again, so I grabbed his head with both silver hands and turned it all the way around, so that he was looking backwards. His neck broke loudly, but he still didn’t fall. I pushed him away, and he staggered off around the café, lost and bewildered.

By now everyone else in the café had run for the doors, not wanting to tangle with a Drood in full armour, and I was happy enough to see them go. They would only have got in the way. The two Frankenstein creatures had closed in on Molly, reaching out for her with their large, mismatched hands. Molly laughed in their ugly faces, and hit them with a simple spell that made all their stitches come undone at once. The two monsters cried out in harsh, hopeless voices as ancient cat gut exploded like rows of firecrackers in their skin, undoing them like zippers. They fell apart, bit by bit, their separate pieces pattering to the floor, slowly at first and then in a rush. Hands fell from arms, arms from elbows and then from shoulders. Legs collapsed. Torsos hit the floor hard and opened up, spilling long-dead preserved organs onto the floor. The heads were the last to go, features slipping one by one from the faces, until finally the skulls cracked open and the dry, gray brains fell out.

By then I had my own problems. The elf lord was closing in on me, smiling his nasty, superior smile. He waved his long, shimmering dagger meaningfully before me, and I knew what it was, what it had to be. The blade was made of strange matter, presumably put together from bits left over after the forging of the silver arrows that so nearly killed me in the motorway ambush. Could a blade of strange matter cut through armour made of strange matter? I decided I didn’t want to find out. I concentrated, and the armour around my hands extended into long silver killing blades. Just like my Uncle James taught me, when he was trying to kill me.

The elf lord and I circled each other slowly, taking our time, looking for weaknesses in stance and style, for hesitations and openings. Finally we darted in and out, cutting at each other with gleaming blades, come and gone in a moment. The armour made me supernaturally strong and fast, but he was an elf, so we were fairly matched. And for all my family’s extensive training, he had centuries of experience, so he struck the first blow. His dagger came flying in out of nowhere, slipped gracefully past my defence, and slammed into my ribs. I cried out despite myself, but when the blade met my armour, the armour just absorbed the blade into itself. The elf lord was left standing there with only a knife hilt in his hand.

I ran him through. You get a chance with an elf, you take it. You might not get another. My hand slammed against his chest, my extended blade splitting his heart in two. He grabbed my arm with both hands, as though that might hold him up. I twisted the blade, and he fell down and died.

I retracted the silver blades into my hands, flexed my shining fingers, and looked around to see how Molly was doing. She was staring disgustedly at the Hungry Heart, who was squatting over the disassembled Frankenstein creatures, feasting on their ancient flesh. He looked up and smiled apologetically.

“Tastes like dust, but flesh is flesh and beggars can’t be choosers. If you really must find Mr. Stab, and I can’t think of any good reason why you’d want to… I suggest you try the old Woolwich Cemetery.”

“What would he be doing there?” said Molly.

“You ask him,” said the Hungry Heart. “I wouldn’t dare.”

The Merlin Glass transported us instantly to a gloomy, overgrown, and deserted cemetery in Woolwich Arsenal, down in the dark heart of the East End, on the far side of the Thames. The cemetery was dominated by Victorian styles, with oversized tombs and mausoleums, and fancy graves. That whole period was fascinated with death and all its trappings, and the graveyard was positively littered with statues of weeping angels, mourning cherubs, and enough morbid carvings and engravings to make even an undertaker shout Jesus! Get a life, dammit! Long exposure to the elements had scoured away the angels’ faces, giving the statues a sour, surrealistic look. The cherubs still looked like dead babies, though. In fact, I think that was the name of a cartoon series I saw as a kid: Casper the Dead Baby.

Molly and I set off down the single gravel path, heading deeper into the extensive cemetery grounds. The place looked abandoned. The grass had been left to grow and there were weeds everywhere, even pushing thick tufts up though the gravel path. There were no flowers on any of the graves, and the headstones were so weathered it was hard to make out the inscriptions. A cold wind was blowing, light was fading as evening descended, and shadows were creeping everywhere.

“I like this place,” said Molly.

“You would,” I said.

“No, really; it’s…restful. Modern cemeteries are far too busy for my tastes. Once I’m gone, I don’t want to be bothered with visitors or flowers. Just bury me deep, set up perimeter mines to discourage the body snatchers, and let me rest easy till Judgement Day. I’m going to need the peace and quiet to think up some good excuses.”

“All Droods get cremated,” I said. “Just to make sure none of our enemies can play unpleasant tricks with our remains.”

“Maybe you could have your ashes shot into outer space, like Timothy Leary,” said Molly.

I had to smile. “Anything, to get away from my family.”

“I don’t see Mr. Stab anywhere,” said Molly. “And I don’t see what he would be doing in a place like this anyway.”

“We’re not that far from his original killing grounds,” I said. “Back when he first made a name for himself, in 1888.”

“Maybe some of his victims are buried here.”

“Somehow, I don’t see Mr. Stab as the sentimental kind,” I said. “And anyway, from what I’ve been able to make out on these tombstones, most of them date from long before Jack the Ripper.”

We walked up and down and back and forth in the cemetery, and still no sign anywhere of Mr. Stab. Given the sheer size and scale of the cemetery grounds, it would take hours to cover it all, and besides, I was getting impatient. And cold. I’d dropped my armour when I left Café Night, but now I subvocalised the Words, and called up just enough of my armour to cover my face. With a little concentration, I can see infrared though the mask, and it didn’t take me long to locate the only other human heat source in the darkening graveyard. I armoured down again, rather than risk putting Mr. Stab on the defensive, and led the way over to where he was standing, doing my best to appear calm and unthreatening and not in any way worried. He doesn’t like it when people he’s trying to have a conversation with are clearly scared shitless of him. In fact, for an immortal serial killer, Mr. Stab could be quite remarkably touchy.