Live and Let Drood

hole and gone, nothing left behind but two lengths of severed iron chain dangling from Crow Lee’s chair. Molly was pulled in after them, snatched from my side before I could even react. Crow Lee waved his hand and the hole disappeared. Not a trace left behind, nothing to show it had ever been there. I fell forward, clutching at the carpet with my hands…but there was nothing there, nothing at all.
    I crouched there on the floor before Crow Lee, so full of shock and horror and loss and pain I couldn’t move, could barely think. Somehow I kept it all out of my face. Because I knew Crow Lee was watching, looking for tears or despair, for something he could gloat over. And I was damned if I’d give him the satisfaction. I could deny him that, at least. My Molly was gone. It felt like someone had just punched the heart right out of me. All that was left was the cold, hard need for revenge.
    When it became clear that I wasn’t going to put on a show for him, Crow Lee rose to his feet and sneered down at me.
    “You’ll have to excuse me for a while, little Drood. I do have other business to deal with. Someone important I just have to talk to in the next room. You can talk to Mr. Stab while I’m gone. I’m sure you’ve got so much to say to each other.”
    He laughed his happy laugh and strode heavily across the room to the side door and left, not looking back once. I watched him go, watched the door close quietly but firmly behind him and then I slowly turned my aching head to look at Mr. Stab. He met my gaze unflinchingly, even though he must have seen murder in it.
    “She was your friend,” I said. “Molly was your friend!”
    “Yes,” said Mr. Stab. “She was. It’s better this way, though. We would have had to kill each other eventually, I think.”
    “Help me,” I said.
    “Why should I do that?” said Mr. Stab.
    “Because,” I said, “if you help me to avenge my Molly and help me find my lost family, I give you my word that the Droods will find a way to put an end to your curse that doesn’t involve killing you. Think of the resources at our command! We’ll find a way to undo what you did to yourself.”
    “Crow Lee has already promised me that.”
    “But which of us do you trust to deliver on their promise?”
    “I like what I am,” said Mr. Stab. “I just want to be free of my…limitations. Crow Lee will make me a better monster.”
    “That’s what you want?” I said. “What you really want?”
    “That’s all that’s left for me to want, after everything I’ve done.”
    “All right,” I said. “How about this? You help me, and I promise I won’t kill you for everything you’ve done.”
    “Hush, Eddie,” said Mr. Stab. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
    He turned his back on me and walked away to stare out the window. I don’t know what it was he was looking at, but I doubt it was the gardens.
    I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t believe Molly was really gone. Not just like that. I couldn’t go after her with the Merlin Glass, because only Crow Lee knew where he’d sent her. Even if I did find a way to turnthe tables, he’d die before he told me, rather than let me win. I had to believe Molly was still alive somewhere…out there.…But for now, all that was left to me was survival and revenge. If I could just concentrate on that…maybe I wouldn’t feel the pain so much. I looked over at Mr. Stab, still standing stiff-backed at the window. I reached carefully into the pocket dimension where I kept the Merlin Glass. The soldiers could search me as much as they liked, but only I had access to the pocket. This time I wasn’t interested in the Glass. I couldn’t risk jumping through the Glass in the middle of Crow Lee’s many protections. And I wasn’t interested in escaping, anyway. No, I was after something small, so small that hopefully Crow Lee wouldn’t detect it. Something the Armourer Patrick had given me.
    The hearing aid.
    Just a little blob of flesh-coloured plastic with some really clever electronics hidden inside. I eased it out of my pocket, palmed it, and then snuck it into my right ear. I glanced quickly at Mr. Stab, but he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me. I surreptitiously adjusted the tuning on the hearing aid, and immediately I could hear everything Crow Lee was saying in the adjoining room. He was addressing someone else, in his usual arrogant and condescending way, but whomever he was speaking to would have none