Live and Let Drood

him down first gets first go at the girl!”
    “Optimistic little soul, isn’t he?” I murmured to Molly.
    “And obnoxious about it,” said Molly. “Girl? Girl? I’ll give himgirl…I will make him wish he’d never been born. In fact, I may even make a raggedy-edged hole in the side of his truck and use it to reenact his birth, only in reverse.”
    “Poor bastards,” I said. “They haven’t a clue what’s about to hit them.”
    “I have,” said Molly. “And I’m going to really enjoy it.”
    “Me, too!” I said. “But I want Chapman alive and intact and still able to answer questions at the end of it. He knows who’s behind all this.”
    I looked the Road Rats over as they drew nearer. They looked surprisingly confident. They’d clearly heard enough about Droods to know our reputation, but not enough to take it seriously. A lot of them were carrying energy weapons, both magical and superscientific, presumably looted from some previous site, and they were carrying them like they knew how to use them. Others had really big guns that looked entirely capable of firing a hell of a lot of bullets in a short time. Others had knives and swords and glowy cutting things. With anyone else that would probably have been enough.
    I ran straight at them, gravel flying as I charged down the path at inhuman speed.
    I swept past Chapman in a moment, before he could even give the order to open fire. By the time he did, I was right there in and among his boys. They all opened fire at once, hitting me with everything they had. The bullets just ricocheted harmlessly off my armour. (My old strange-matter armour would have absorbed the bullets; less danger of any damage to innocent bystanders. Not that there were any of those here, of course.) The energy guns opened up, bathing me in a whole series of vicious and otherworldly destructive forces, and not one of them could touch me inside my armour. They glanced harmlessly off or detonated in the air around me. The knives and swords and glowy cutting things broke and shattered against me.
    I slammed into the midst of the Road Rats, slapping the energy weapons out of their hands, crushing their guns in my golden hands and lashing out at everyone within reach. I punched in faces, crackedheads and sent hard young thugs staggering backwards, desperately gasping for breath, because I’d caught them with a crafty back elbow under the sternum. I knocked them down and trampled them underfoot, and it felt good, so good. To be striking down my enemies.
    A lot of them just turned and ran rather than face me.
    Others produced new, heavy-duty magical weapons. One thrust a Hand of Glory at me, only to cry out as the Hand’s malign influence was reflected straight back at him and all the fingers rotted and fell off. Another of them had an aboriginal pointing bone. He pointed it at me and the bone exploded, filling his hand with sharp bony shrapnel. One of them even had an elven wand, but when he pointed it hopefully in my direction, the wand took one look at my armour and faded quietly away, disappearing out of the Road Rat’s hand rather than get involved.
    Lesser weapons took their turn and destructive forces and energies blazed and howled around me, none of them able to touch me.
    I kept moving, pressing forward, throwing nasty young thugs this way and that, breaking bones and smashing heads, raining savage blows on my enemies and loving every moment of it. I could hear bones breaking, see blood flying, and the screams of horror and suffering brought joy to my heart and a smile to my lips behind my featureless golden mask. They were no match for me, and they knew it. The drive was packed with horrified young thugs running for the gates. I took my time with those who didn’t, doing a good and thorough job on them. It felt so good to have an enemy I could get my hands on at last. They might not be the ones responsible for the destruction of the Hall and the loss of my family, but they were there. They’d do.
    In the end, I just ran out of people to hit. I stood alone in the middle of the drive, surrounded by the wounded and the unconscious. Blood dripped thickly from my heavy golden gauntlets. Molly was standing to one side, looking at me. It had all happened so quickly, she hadn’t had a chance to get involved. I didn’t recognise the expression on her face, but I didn’t like it. I looked round sharply at the sudden roaring of an engine behind me. Chapman had fired up one of