Live and Let Drood

with the feminine attributes…but it hadn’t walked like Molly, moved like Molly.
    “What are you doing?” I said to the armour. To Moxton’s Mistake. “Why have you overridden Molly’s control?”
    “You’re planning on going home,” said the rogue armour in its grating, too-human voice. “I’m not. I like it here. I think I could have fun here. Our bargain is over. No more service; I’ll take my freedom here. And you’re not going to stop me, Eddie. Because I have Molly Metcalf inside me. Trapped.”
    “What do you want?” I said.
    “I’m going to stand back and watch the monsters tear the Hall apart, and then drag you out and eat you,” said the rogue armour. “A fitting retribution for all the years you left me trapped in the Maze. Maybe I’ll even help the monsters. Smash Alpha Red Alpha…And you won’t lift a finger to stop me, Eddie, or I’ll crush your precious Molly into a cube, like I did before. Only slower, so I can enjoy it more…”
    I remembered the golden cube and the crushed meat and bones it had left behind. I clenched my golden fists uselessly. I hadn’t a clue what to do.
    “Eddie!” yelled a familiar voice from the doorway. “Catch!”
    A small shiny thing tumbled through the air, the rogue armour,and I reached out a hand and plucked it from the air. Just a small metal clicker. I looked at it and then I looked at Moxton’s Mistake…and then I grinned slowly behind my featureless mask. I held up the clicker so the rogue armour could get a good look at it.
    “My uncle Jack is the best Armourer we ever had,” I said. “He knew armour couldn’t be trusted, especially in the wrong hands. So he made this.”
    I hit the clicker, and just like that Moxton’s Mistake disappeared from around Molly and reappeared standing on its own, a dozen feet away. Molly swayed for a moment, and then her head came up and her face cleared. I ran forward, grabbed her by the arm and hustled her back to the Hall, where the Armourer was waiting. Moxton’s Mistake howled its rage and its fury and sprinted after us. I could hear it behind us, closing the gap in seconds, and it was almost upon us by the time we charged through the great opening where the front doors used to be. The Regent stepped forward, his small silver gun in his hand. Molly and I ducked quickly out of his way as we ran past, and the Regent shot Moxton’s Mistake full in the chest. The impact blasted the rogue armour off its feet and threw it backwards, into the path of the advancing monsters.
    “Thanks, Dad,” said the Armourer. He nodded easily to Molly and me. “Ready to go home, kids?”
    “Oh yes,” said Molly. “Really. You have no idea.” Her hand went to her throat where the silver torc had been. “Armour…is overrated.”
    “Everyone, keep your heads inside!” yelled the Armourer. “We are leaving now! And I don’t want anyone’s bits left behind!”
    He activated the remote control in his hand, and the familiar groaning and straining sounds of Alpha Red Alpha started up. Moxton’s Mistake was running straight at us, but already he looked vague and far away.
    “You stay here,” I said, hoping he could hear me. “You stay here with all the other monsters.”
    And the last thing we heard as the dimensional machine carried us away was the rogue armour’s howl of thwarted fury.
    We came home to bright sunlight and pleasant summer air, and the gardens and the grounds were just as I remembered them. I stepped out of the shattered doorway and looked around, Molly clinging to my arm. The ruined Hall was gone, no trace of it left behind. My Hall was back. I grinned at Molly.
    “Good to be back.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Home Again, Home Again
    T o celebrate not having all died a terrible death in a horrible alien world, we threw a big party in the Sanctity, and everyone came.
    It seemed like the whole family had crammed itself into the massive open chamber, bathed in Ethel’s reassuring rosy red glow, but it was really just the main gathering. Everyone who couldn’t fit in was out on the grounds, picnicking and enjoying the fresh Earth air and sunshine. Inside there were mountains of food and oceans of drink, though not for long. There’s nothing like fighting for your very existence as a family to raise a thirst and work up an appetite. Ethel was playing classical music from everywhere at once.
    “Mozart was clearly one of us,” she said loudly. “Far too intelligent to come from anywhere around