Live and Let Drood

thetrucks farther down the line. He pulled it out of the queue, revved the engine and drove the truck straight at me.
    I stood where I was, to give him a sporting chance. The oversized rig loomed up before me, growing larger and larger, as he gunned the accelerator for all it was worth. I could see Chapman’s pale, determined face glaring at me through the windshield. At the last moment I turned and showed him my golden shoulder. The truck smashed right into me. The grillwork collapsed under my shoulder. I’d dug my heels into the gravel, but even so the sheer impact pushed me backwards, my heels leaving deep furrows in the ground. I didn’t feel a thing inside the armour. The truck skidded to a halt despite itself, the engine still roaring, until I drove a golden fist right through the collapsed grillwork and smashed the engine.
    A sudden silence fell across the grounds. I carefully withdrew my arm, stepped around to the side of the cab, ripped the door right off and threw it away. I beckoned to Chapman to get out. He dropped down onto the ground and stood shaking before me. His face was bloody from where it had smashed against the windshield, for all the inflated airbag had been able to do to protect him. He looked at me with wild, shocked, startled eyes.
    “What are you?” he said, in a cracked, almost hysterical voice. “You’re not human! Look what you did to my boys! Look what you did to my truck! Nothing human could have done that!”
    “Yes,” said Molly, coming forward to join us. “How do you feel about that, Eddie? About what you did to his boys?”
    I looked around me at the broken, bloodied bodies. “They had it coming. I didn’t kill any of them.”
    “Oh, well, then,” said Molly. “That makes it all right, then.”
    I frowned behind my mask. “What are you so upset about? I’ve seen you do far worse in your time!”
    “Yes, but that’s me. Not you.”
    “Are you defending these scumbags? After what they came here to do? What they would have done to you?”
    “No,” said Molly. “They had it coming. Deserved everything theygot. I’m just interested in how you feel about what you did. Because I am reminded of what you did in another place. In the Wulfshead, not so long ago.”
    “I didn’t lose control here,” I said. “I didn’t…Oh, hell. It’s the armour, Molly. It’s affecting me.”
    “Is it?” said Molly. “Or is that what you want to think?”
    “I don’t have time for this,” I said. I turned my featureless gold mask to Chapman, and he scrunched up his face as though he wanted to cry. “Pick up your boys and leave here, Road Rat. And don’t ever come back. If you meet any more of your kind along the way, tell them what happened here. Show them what I did to your boys. Because if I have to do this again, I’ll make a real example out of the next bunch.”
    “Don’t think you’ve stopped me,” said Chapman defiantly. “We’re a big organisation. A big family. I’ll set an army against you, if I have to. You can’t stop an army, just the two of you.”
    “He doesn’t know us very well, does he?” said Molly.
    “And there’s still the scarecrows,” I said.
    “We’ve got weapons for things like that!” said Chapman. “There’s all kinds of good stuff waiting in the Hall, and we’re not giving up on it!”
    “No one steals from my family and lives to boast of it,” I said. “I stand between the Hall and all who would violate it.”
    “And, for all my many reservations, I stand beside him,” said Molly.
    “Thank you, dear,” I said.
    “You’re with him,” said Chapman. “And they’re with me!”
    I looked beyond him at a small army of Road Rats hurrying up the drive towards us. Dozens of them, with more weapons and magically charged things. They must have been kept in reserve until Chapman could work out the lay of the land and call them. They all looked pretty annoyed at what I’d done to their fellow Rats.
    I looked at Molly. “Since I am clearly far too violent to be trusted with this encounter, perhaps you’d like to…”
    “Love to,” said Molly.
    She reached down and pulled up her dress just enough to revealthe gold charm bracelet around her ankle. And for a moment, I actually felt sorry for what was about to hit the Road Rats army. I’d seen Molly pull charms off that bracelet before and make highly destructive use of them. Everything from a Vincent motorbike to a full-sized dragon. Molly pulled one delicately carved