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“Her shape and form.
“It’s called a tulpa. A spirit made flesh, a doppelgänger that embraces all the impulses we normally control. And this tulpa went out into the city to happily do all the appalling things the woman had ever dreamed of but would never have admitted even to herself. Avenging every slight, every perceived fault, and indulging its endless appetite for blood and slaughter.
“I called in a few favours, mastered a few new tricks, and tracked the tulpa half across London and back. It ran before me, spitting and cursing, lashing out at anyone who got in its way. But I was always right there on its trail, closing in all the time, preventing it from doing any real damage or horror, and finally it did the only thing it could. It went home. I crashed through the front door of the nice little house only minutes behind it and found the woman standing over the tulpa’s unconscious body. She’d hit it over the head with a vase of flowers.
“They really did look exactly the same. The woman came to me and nestled into my arms, sobbing like a small child, desperate for me to tell her that the horror was finally over. Except it couldn’t be as long as the tulpa existed. It had to die. The woman didn’t protest. But . . . she couldn’t do it herself. Not to something that looked so like her. She begged me to do it for her. Kill the tulpa and set her free, at last.
“She really was very good. She would have fooled anyone else. But you can’t work in this business for as long as I have and not be able to tell the difference between a human being and a spirit form. The woman was unconscious on the floor; the thing with the tearstained face looking up at me so beseechingly was the tulpa. Begging me to kill its original, so it could run free at last.
“I killed the woman. Because I knew the one thing the tulpa didn’t. Once freed, there was no way of putting a tulpa back into its host. It would just go on, killing and killing forever, until it was stopped in the only way a tulpa can be stopped. By destroying the host that birthed it.
“I killed the woman quickly and efficiently. She never woke up. And the tulpa faded away into nothing, screaming its rage to the last. I like to think of myself as an agent, not an assassin. But sometimes, that’s the job.”
When I finished, they were all looking at me in a new way. I wasn’t sure I liked it. But I’d told that particular story for a reason. They needed to understand what I would do if I had to.
“Well, Eddie,” said the Blue Fairy. “That was pretty . . . hardcore. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Of course he does,” said Walker. “He’s a Drood.”
“You did what you had to,” said Honey. “Like you said, it’s the job.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Stories like that are why I decided to specialise in industrial espionage,” said Peter.
We sat around the campfire, staring into the flames rather than look at each other. The storytelling hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, and I wasn’t sure what I’d learned from them. That we were all hard, focused professionals, quite capable of making harsh necessary decisions when we had to? That we were all potential killers? That any one of us was capable of stabbing any other in the back to be sure of getting Alexander King’s prize? I already knew that. I was a little relieved that all the stories had demonstrated a certain amount of moral responsibility. Or at least an awareness of it.
Least of all Peter’s, surprisingly enough. Though maybe that was just big business for you.
“You know,” the Blue Fairy said suddenly, “even though we all work, or have worked, for different masters . . . we all operate in the same greater, magical world. Maybe that’s why Alexander King chose us rather than . . . better-known names. It’s not even as though we’re complete strangers to each other. I know you, Eddie, and I even worked with Walker once, on that Heir to the Throne business.”
“Which you took a very solemn oath not to discuss with anyone,” Walker said coldly.
“I’m not discussing it! I’m just mentioning it to make a point! Do you know anyone here, Walker?”
“I know Honey Lake,” he said, just a bit surprisingly.
“What was the CIA doing in the Nightside?” I said.
“Meddling,” said Walker.
“Nothing that need concern the Droods,” Honey said quickly.
We all looked at Peter, but he just shrugged. “I’ve heard of the CIA, and the Droods, and the Nightside, but that’s about it. I never needed or wanted to be part of your greater, magical world, Blue. I wanted a life as far from Grandfather’s as possible. But . . . he was a spy, and I’m a spy. Maybe it is in the blood.” He looked around the fire, studying all of us thoughtfully. “Why did you become spies? Or agents, if you prefer?”
“For me, it was the family business,” I said. “I was filled full of duty and responsibility from my school days on. Indoctrination starts early in the Droods. I was raised to fight the good fight, to be a soldier in a war with no end. There were many ways you could choose to serve humanity, but doing anything outside the family was never an option. I found a way to leave the Hall and be a fairly independent field agent, but I never left the family. I am a Drood, for all my many sins, and always will be. We exist to protect humanity, and once you find out just how many things it needs protecting from that the rest of you couldn’t hope to cope with . . . it’s hard to turn your back on it.”
“Yes,” said Walker. “Duty and responsibility. Stern taskmasters, but not without their rewards. Someone has to stand their ground against all the forces that would drag the world down. Someone has to crack the whip and keep the lid on things. And I’ve always been very good at that.”
“I wouldn’t know duty and responsibility if I fell over them in the gutter,” said the Blue Fairy. “I play the game for thrills and money and any pretty young things I might encounter along the way. I am an agent for the sheer damned glamour of it. Once you discover just how big and marvellous and strange the world really is, how could you not want to wade in it up to your hips?”
“For me it has always been about serving my country,” Honey said firmly. “Doing the dirty, necessary jobs because someone has to.”
“Money,” Peter said flatly. “For me it’s always been show me the money. I take a certain pride in my successes, in a job well done, but if I could find anything that paid better I’d change occupations so fast it would make your head spin. There’s no glamour in industrial espionage, no good guys or bad guys. Just varying amounts of greed, deceit, and betrayal.”
There didn’t seem much to say about that, so I turned to the Blue Fairy. “When you were a major player, who did you work for, apart from my family?”
He shrugged. “Anyone who could meet my price or had an intriguing case. I always was a sucker for a pretty face with a sob story . . . I was a regular at the Hiring Hall for many years. Had my own stall for a while. Go anywhere, do anyone . . . But nothing lasts, particularly not in this business. Soon enough they want to be rescued by a younger agent with less mileage on the clock; someone whose glamour isn’t quite so faded.”
And then he broke off and sat up straight. He cocked his head slightly to one side, as though listening to something only he could hear.
“It’s out there,” the Blue Fairy said quietly. “In the dark. Watching us.”
We all looked around us, trying not to be too obvious about it, but the dark held its secrets to itself. But gradually, bit by bit, the shrieking and shouting from the local wildlife died away, birds and beasts going to ground in the presence of something more dangerous than themselves. The night seemed suddenly larger and more threatening. A tense, brittle silence, as though everything in the world was holding its breath to see what would happen next. The only sound left was the quiet crackling of the fire. Almost without realising it, the five of us stood up and formed a circle around the fire, standing shoulder to shoulder staring out into the night so nothing could come at us undetected. The Blue Fairy stood to my left, almost quivering with eagerness.