Live and Let Drood

said quietly to Molly. “You never used to do that.”
    “It’s my new style,” said Molly. “It’s bold, it’s dramatic, it’s…me. What do you think?”
    I was saved from having to answer that when one of the freed men approached me. He wore the tatters of what had once been anexpensive suit, and his eyes were haunted. The woman clinging to his arm wore what remained of an expensive evening gown, and looked at me with wide unblinking eyes.
    “Is he really gone?” said the man. He didn’t have to say the name.
    “Dead and gone,” I said. “I punched his head clean off. And what’s left of him will be ashes by morning.”
    “He’ll be back,” whispered the woman sadly. “He always comes back.…”
    The man patted her hand comfortingly, and they drifted away.
    Molly and I walked off across the grounds, and there, coming towards us, were the Regent of Shadows, the Armourer Patrick and Special Agent Diana. They nodded easily at us and the Regent actually grinned.
    “I’ve been keeping an eye on you through the car. We’re going with you to help rescue the family. Because they’re my family, too.”
    “Oh, hell,” I said. “Why not? The more, the merrier.”

CHAPTER TEN

    Where the Monsters Are, and a Not Entirely Unexpected Surprise
    I was ready to go straightaway, but Molly would have none of it. She folded her arms tightly and gave the Regent her very best I see right through you look, before bestowing an equally harsh glare on Patrick and Diana. All of whom, to their credit, stood their ground and smiled pleasantly back at her.
    “I am really not happy that you’ve been spying on us all this time,” Molly said flatly to the Regent. “Why would you do that?”
    “Because Eddie is my grandson,” said the Regent, entirely unfazed. “I wanted to see him in action, to see if he really was everything the reports made him out to be. And I have to say, I am very impressed, Eddie. Allowing yourself to be taken prisoner like that so you could get close to Crow Lee…And, of course, now that you have a real chance of going after our family, I have to go with you.”
    “Why?” said Molly bluntly.
    The Regent smiled and spread his hands, almost helplessly. “Anything for the family.”
    “All right,” Molly said reluctantly. “I’ve been around Eddie long enough that sort of makes sense, but…what are they doing here?”
    She jerked her head at Patrick and Diana, who just smiledpleasantly back at her. I looked at them, too. At the way they stood together, like they belonged together and always had. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew them from somewhere, that there was something…familiar about them.
    “These are my two top Special Agents,” said the Regent. “There’s no one else I’d trust more to watch my back in a perilous situation. After all, it’s been a long time since I was out in the field. I might be a bit rusty.”
    Patrick and Diana both started to laugh at that, only to turn their laughter into entirely unconvincing coughs as the Regent looked at them sternly.
    “Exactly!” said Molly. “No offence, Regent, but you’re a bit long in the tooth for this. We don’t know what kind of dangers we’ll be heading into. We can’t carry passengers.”
    “She does have a point,” I said. “We have no idea what kind of world Crow Lee has sent the Hall into, except, knowing him, it’s hardly likely to be anywhere pleasant. There’s no telling what kind of opposition we’ll be facing.”
    “In our game,” the Regent said calmly, “in the hidden world of secret agents and unnatural enemies, you get to be as old as me only by proving very hard to kill. I think you’ll find I can keep up and look out for myself.”
    Molly gave up on him and turned her glower on me. “Are you sure you want to do this, Eddie? Take an old man and two strangers into an unknown situation?”
    “I know,” I said. “You’re completely right, of course. But I just have this feeling…that they belong here. That they have a right to be included.”
    Molly threw both hands up in the air and actually stamped a foot. “Oh, well! That’s fine! Everything’s going to be all right because you have a feeling!”
    I had to grin. “You’re always telling me I need to get in touch with my feelings.…”
    “This isn’t what I had in mind! Oh, hell. Just get on with it. Before I get a rush of common sense to the head.”
    “So!” the Regent said cheerfully, rubbing his old