Live and Let Drood

maintain its speed. Tinted windows? On a public-transport bus?
    “That’s odd,” said Diana. “The route number on the front of that bus is all wrong. It shouldn’t be anywhere near here.”
    We watched curiously as the bus drew nearer, straddling the middle of the road, and then the driver slammed on the brakes so that the bus slowed down as it passed us. The whole frame shuddered from the sudden strain, and the wheels made harsh squealing noises. And every one of the tinted windows just disappeared, replaced by dozens of assorted gun barrels. They targeted Molly and me and Diana as we just stood there gaping, and all of them opened fire at once.
    I armoured up. Molly raised a protective field before her. And Diana just stepped smartly backwards into a handy shadow and disappeared. I knew there had to be a reason why the Regent’s agents were called Shadows, I thought as the first bullets found me. All the guns were firing at once, and the combined roar was like the wrath of God. A noise so loud it was actually physically painful, even inside my armour. The bullets issued from the side of the bus like a pirate galley’s broadside; thousands of bullets from dozens of guns, like a wall of death. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly from my armour and were swallowed by Molly’s shield, and chewed up the brick wall behind us, and, rather surprisingly, just bounced harmlessly off the Plymouth Fury without making a mark.
    “Don’t you shoot at me, you bastards!” screamed the sat nav. “I’m a classic! Shoot at them; I’m just the ride! They’re the ones you want! Shoot the fleshy ones!”
    “We will have words later,” I said to the sat nav.
    I glanced quickly behind me. The door to the Establishment Club was firmly closed, and, amazingly, taking no damage at all from the massed fire raking back and forth across it. And the bullet holes in the brickwork were already repairing themselves. Bullets might be a bit of a low-class threat to a setup like the Establishment Club, but it was clear it could look after itself.
    Whoever was giving the orders inside the bus soon realised that their armoury of guns wasn’t having the hoped-for effect. The assault shut off abruptly, and the bus’s engine roared as it sped up again. I ran out into the street and sprinted after the bus, my armour’s speed more than a match for its hurried departure. I quickly caught up with the bus and plunged both my golden hands, well past the wrists, into the rear of the vehicle. My golden fingers dug in deep. I took a firm hold and then forced my golden heels into the street. The bus screeched to a halt despite itself, skidding wildly, as my heels dug two deep furrows in the road. I grinned behind my face mask. Good to be a Drood.
    I wrestled the bus to a reluctant halt, the whole rear wall bowing out towards me, stretched and distorted by my hold. The driver gunnedhis engine and the bus shook back and forth as it fought to pull free, black smoke billowing out from the tyres. But I had my hold, and the bus wasn’t going anywhere. I pushed my arms farther in and lifted the whole rear of the bus up off the road, so that the rear wheels just spun helplessly in midair.
    The tinted windows at the rear of the bus disappeared, replaced by a whole bunch of gun barrels moving quickly to target me at point-blank range. They opened up with everything they had, trying to blast me loose, but I just stood there and took it. Bullets hammered me from head to toe, ricocheting in every direction at once, even back into the bus, and I didn’t feel a single impact. Some of the guns fired directly into my face mask, and a lot of good it did them. I didn’t even blink. One by one the guns ran out of ammunition, and then they all suddenly withdrew. The tinted back windows reappeared, and the bus driver shut down his engine.
    It was very quiet in the street. No gunfire, no straining engine, no squealing tyres; not a single sound. I dropped the rear of the bus back onto the road, and it bounced a few times on its heavy tyres before settling. I wrenched my hands back out of the bus, and they emerged easily amid the shriek of ruptured and tearing metal. Molly came forward to join me, and stood beside me as we looked over the silent double-decker.
    “What the hell was that all about?” said Molly.
    “I think,” I said, “that we have just been the victims of the hidden-world equivalent of a drive-by shooting. What the hell did these silly bastards think they