Live and Let Drood

Droods, under this grand-sounding alias or that. Good and bad and in between…The details and locations are always changing, scattered across the world. And the family just doesn’t care enough to check them all out. Besides, we might need them someday. The family can be very pragmatic about some things.…The whole point of being a rogue Drood is to never be who or what or where the family thinks you are. If only so they won’t send someone like me to come and drive a stake through your rotten heart.”
    “What about your late uncle James’s many and varied illegitimate offspring?” said Molly. “The Grey Bastards?”
    “Them? They’re never on anyone’s side but their own!” I did think about it for a moment, which only goes to show how desperate I was. “The family has always employed as many of them as we can, from a distance, if only to keep them from straying and falling under bad influences. But I wouldn’t trust a single one of them farther than I could throw them into the wind with both hands tied behind my back. No, Molly. Much as I hate to admit it, there’s only one rogue Drood we can go to. The most infamous rogue of all. The Regent of Shadows.”
    “What? Hold everything. Go previous. Wipe my face with a cold sponge,” said Molly. “ He ’s a rogue Drood? The Regent of Shadows, the secret master of hidden information…is just another member of your extended family? No one ever told me that! Of course, your family never tells me anything it doesn’t absolutely have to. I mean…I’ve heard of the Regent of Shadows—everyone has.…Runs his own secret organisation, beholden to no one, gathering information in all the areas no one else wants to admit even exist.…Tell me, Eddie: Why is it that whenever anyone in your family even mentions him, someone else always says, ‘We don’t talk about him!’?”
    “I don’t know!” I said. “They don’t talk about him! I only know he’s a rogue Drood because I used to run this family. Briefly. And even then you’d be surprised at the sheer number of things I’ve found out since that they thought I didn’t need to know.”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” said Molly. “Nothing surprises me about your family anymore.”
    “Smugness does not become you, Molly.”
    “How are we supposed to find the secretive and almost legendary Regent of Shadows, anyway? Put an ad in The Times ?”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea where to look,” I said. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”
    She thought about it, frowning fiercely. “We need a source of information that no one else would expect us to go to, who wouldn’t sell us out or spread the story to unfriendly ears. That narrows the field considerably…but if it’s just information you’re after, I may know someone. She’s a hell of a way off the beaten track, by her own decision, andreally small-time, because that’s the way she likes it…so we should be able to consult her without even being noticed.”
    “Sounds good so far,” I said. “Who are we talking about?”
    And then we both stopped and looked round sharply. There was the growing sound of approaching engines coming right up the main drive, by the sound of it. I was off and running immediately, with Molly right there at my side. I had no idea who it might be or what they wanted, but I didn’t care. A threat to the Hall and its grounds always takes precedence. And I was just in the mood to be distracted from my many problems.
    “Whoever it is, they’re not on the guest list,” I said to Molly. “No one is allowed in here until we’ve got the family back in residence again.”
    “Probably looters,” Molly said cheerfully.
    “Oh, almost certainly looters,” I said. “The poor bastards. I am just in the mood to beat the crap out of some bad guys.”
    By the time we got to the front of the Hall, a whole line of really big trucks was storming up the main gravel drive and heading for the front entrance. All the trucks were huge, oversized monster-storage jobs, the kind you hire to move the whole contents of really big houses. They were heading through the grounds like they had every right to be there, and I was really looking forward to making it clear to them that they didn’t. They had no right to be on Drood territory, menacing my home. They had to know what had happened to the Hall and my family, or they’d never have dared be so brave. Made my blood boil…Show one sign of weakness in this world, and before