The Spy Who Haunted Me

I looked back at Queen Mab. “You’ve been gone so long, you’ve forgotten the first rule of the universe. Don’t mess with the Droods.”

I concentrated, and my armour glowed and glared like an angry golden flame. Razor-sharp blades rose up out of my armoured arms and legs, thick spikes protruding from my knuckles. My featureless face mask became a savage demonic visage topped with curling horns. Strange exotic weapons burst out of my back on long golden streamers, covering the elves in their ranks, and rose up over my shoulders to threaten Queen Mab on her Ivory Throne. This was the battle form the Deathstalker had taught me to make from the malleable strange armour of my new torc. I didn’t have time to perfect it before the war with the Hungry Gods was over, but I’d spent a lot of time working on it since.

The elves stood very still. This was a new thing, and the elves have always been cautious of change. They don’t know how to react to new things.

“Meet the new boss, even more of a bastard than the old boss,” I said to Queen Mab, my voice amplified to a deafening roar, filling the whole vast chamber. Honey and the others actually flinched away from me, and Queen Mab sat back on her throne.

“You dare to threaten us, in our own court, in our own land?” she said, but she didn’t sound nearly as certain as she had before.

“Why not?” I said. “Who are you?”

“What are you?” whispered the Herald. “What have the Droods become?”

“Shamans,” I said. “Protectors of the tribes of man. Threaten humanity, and you threaten us. Threaten one of us, and the whole family stands ready to go to war. Is that what you want, Queen Mab? War in the Sundered Lands between all of your people and all of mine? To throw away your word and your honour and everything you’ve recovered here in a quest for torcs you couldn’t use and a world you couldn’t live in? Is that what you want?”

“No,” said Queen Mab, slowly and reluctantly. “But speak not to us of honour, Drood. Your family is corrupt, rotten from within, riddled with traitors. We have heard this even here.”

“We’re cleaning house,” I said. “And then let all the worlds tremble and all that lives beware.”

I allowed my armour to return to its usual smooth and gleaming human form, blades and spikes and weapons sinking smoothly back into the golden surface. My devil’s face had become a featureless mask again. Maintaining the battle form took a hell of a lot out of me, so much that I’d never been able to use it in training for more than a few minutes, but of course Queen Mab didn’t know that.

“We’re leaving now,” I said. “We’ve learned what we needed to know. Open the door for us, assist our departure, and then close the door and seal it shut behind us. My people will check, at regular intervals, to make sure it stays closed.”

“Why should we assist you in even the smallest of ways?” said Queen Mab. It was meant to be a threat, but it sounded more like the sullen, sulky tones of a disappointed child.

“Well, put it this way,” I said. “You wouldn’t want us to stick around and spoil the rest of your day, would you?”

“Go,” said Queen Mab.

We sailed the Hope Street back through the green mists, back through the gateway to our own world, and no one tried to stop us. We all cheered as the green mists fell away, dissipating rapidly to reveal a reassuringly normal river and sky. We all took great lungfuls of sharp fresh air, and laughed, and clapped each other on the back. Honey jumped up and down at the wheel, and then poured on the speed, putting as much space as possible between us and the gateway, just in case.

“I don’t believe it!” she said. “You stared down Queen Mab! You went eyeball to eyeball with the Queen Bitch Psycho herself, and she blinked first!”

“I have to say I’m impressed,” said Walker, reclining comfortably in his leather chair again. “To see elves back down, confronted by nothing more than words and nerve, is . . . unprecedented. Were you bluffing, Eddie?”

“I’ll never tell,” I said, letting the breeze flow soothingly over my unarmoured face. It felt good, natural . . . everything the Sundered Lands were not.

“But no, really; how did you get away with it?” said Honey.

I sighed, suddenly tired. “Because the elves . . . are not what they were. They’re finally getting old. Couldn’t you feel it? In the air, in the land, in the ships, and in the buildings? Time is finally catching up with them.”

“But they’re . . . if not immortal, then near as dammit,” said Walker.

“Did you see any children there?” I said. “Any signs of children? The elves are always proud of their rare offspring and never miss a chance to show them off. And we didn’t see a single child anywhere in the whole city. I can’t prove it, but I can feel it in my bones: the elves we saw today are all the elves there are now. I think they stopped breeding completely when they left our world. That’s why they’re so desperate to return. Because they’re dying out in their splendid sterile new land. And it’s a shame.”

“A shame?” said Honey, actually turning around from the steering wheel to look at me.

“Yes,” I said. “Because then . . . there would be one less wonder in the universe.”

Walker nodded slowly. “They are very beautiful. And you can’t have the rose without the thorns.” He stopped suddenly and looked around. “Where’s Peter?”

We searched the boat from stem to stern, but he wasn’t on it. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before, but Peter had not returned with the rest of us. We reconvened in the cabin and studied each other soberly as the Hope Street drew steadily closer to the Philadelphia docks.

“Did we leave him behind?” said Honey. “We couldn’t have left him behind in the Elven Lands! We would have noticed!”

“Would we?” I said. “When did you last see him? Did you see him get on board, before we left? I thought he was with us, but I had my mind on other things, like a last-minute attack from a spiteful Elven Queen.”

“Maybe Mab kept him,” said Walker. “As punishment for your insolence to her.” His mouth compressed, and he stood very straight.

“Turn this boat around. We have to go back. We can’t leave him there.”

“We can’t go back,” I said. “The elves sealed the doorway behind us, remember? That was the deal.”

“We don’t know he’s there,” said Honey. “He could have disappeared anywhere . . .”

“And he has his teleport bracelet,” I said. “He could just turn up at the next location.”

“If it still works in the Sundered Lands,” said Walker. “We have to go back! There are other ways, other entrances! We can’t leave him in their hands!”

“No!” I said with such force that both of them looked at me sharply. I made myself sound calm and reasonable. “If they’ve got Peter, and that’s if—we don’t know—they’ll be waiting for us. He’ll be the bait in a trap. We’d have to force our way in past strongly defended doorways, and that would take all the resources and most of the manpower of the Drood family. It would mean war between the Fae and the Droods, with the fate of all humanity hanging in the balance. I won’t risk that . . . on an if.”

“What else could have happened to Peter?” said Honey.

I looked at her steadily. “You could have killed him. Or Walker. While my attention was distracted. Stuck a knife between his ribs and tipped him over the side. In the thick green mists, no one would have seen or suspected anything.”

“How can you say that?” said Honey.

“Someone killed Katt and Blue,” I said. “And may have tried to kill Walker back in Tunguska. If he’s to be believed.”

“You could have killed the others,” said Walker. He sounded quite reasonable, not at all accusing. “You could have killed Peter. You’re a Drood. That’s what Droods do.”

“Any one of us could be the killer,” I said. “There can be only one to return for the prize, remember? And we all want that prize so very badly.”