Live and Let Drood

fly about the room, but the ruby just cracked and splintered in his grasp, and when he opened his hand, brilliant red fragments fluttered sadly to the floor.
    “I’ve never allowed myself to become dependent on such toys,” he said. “So why leave it lying around for someone else to make use of it?” He smiled happily down at Molly, slumped in place before him, dripping blood on his expensive carpet. “Welcome to my pleasure dome, my country retreat, my private world. Everything here is exactly how I want it. Right down to the books on my shelves, bound in the flayed skin of ruined enemies, and the antique furniture, spoils of war from my feuds with…well, I won’t call them my peers. My now-deceased competitors. And did you see my door knocker? Of course you did. Ah, the old blasphemies are the best. Don’t you agree? It’s actually a bit of a strain sometimes, keeping up with what’s required of me as the Most…you know. He would have been my son, you see, the door knocker. If his stupid sow of a mother hadn’t tried to blackmail me. It’s not that I begrudged her the money, you understand. It’s just that I can’t stand ingratitude.
    “But before we begin the hard talking, Edwin Drood…A surprise! A little divertissement! Behold!”
    He waved one large hand, and the concealing illusion at the side of his chair disappeared, revealing two naked women wrapped in glowing chains, held in place by a cold iron chain that stretched from Crow Lee’s chair to the collars round their throats. They were Isabella and Louisa Metcalf. They both looked like they’d taken hard beatings and hadn’t been fed in some time. Molly looked at her sisters for a long moment.
    “No wonder I couldn’t make contact with you,” she said finally. “No wonder no one knew where you were. How the hell did Crow Lee capture you?”
    “Oh, I didn’t,” Crow Lee said immediately, leaning back in his chair and clearly enjoying himself. “Your sisters came to me of their own free will, the little darlings. Tell your dear sister the story, my pretties.”
    Molly looked at me. “Eddie, stop looking at my sisters while they’re naked.”
    “I’m flattered you think I’m in any state to give a damn,” I said.
    “It’s the principle of the thing,” she said.
    “I can have you both gagged, if you prefer,” said Crow Lee. He’d stopped smiling. We weren’t playing the game the way he wanted. “No? Then behave yourselves. Isabella, tell them why you came to me and begged for my help.”
    “I talked with Louisa,” said Isabella, steadily meeting Molly’s cold gaze. “We agreed we needed new help and support if we were to punish the Droods and bring them down. Because you didn’t care anymore, Molly. They killed our parents! And you were living there in the Hall! With one of them!”
    “I’m not with them,” said Molly. “I’m just with Eddie.”
    “We couldn’t rely on you anymore,” said Isabella. “You’d gone over to the enemy. So we needed a new, powerful ally. Someone who hated the Droods as much as we still did. I remembered you saying you’d worked with Crow Lee in the past, so I used your name to get invited here. Louisa insisted on coming along. She thought it would be fun.”
    “And you told him all about Alpha Red Alpha,” I said.
    “Oh no,” Crow Lee said easily. “I already knew all about that. I told you:There is a traitor in your family who serves me very well. Of course, I encouraged Isabella and Louisa to confide in me, to tell me everything they knew about Molly and the Droods and the Hall. And when there was nothing else they could tell me, when I had no more use for them…I took away their magic and chained them up and kept them in my kennels! Just because I could! What fun we’ve had. Haven’t we, girls?”
    “Nasty little man,” Louisa said calmly. “He has no manners at all.”
    “I will kill you for this,” Molly said to Crow Lee, and her voice was cold and flat and completely matter-of-fact. Crow Lee leaned forward in his chair, which creaked loudly as his great weight shifted, just so he could laugh right into her bloody face.
    “No, you won’t, Molly. I think I’ve enjoyed about as much of the Metcalf sisters as I can stand.”
    He waggled his fingers at the ground before him and a great hole opened up—a hole in the world, full of darkness, sucking all the air from the room. Isabella and Louisa didn’t even have time to scream before they were sucked into the