Live and Let Drood

charm off the bracelet and held it up for everyone to see. It was a charming little silver monkey. Chapman looked from Molly to me and back again. He couldn’t work out why we were both smiling.
    Molly threw the charm onto the ground before her. There was a puff of dark smoke (for purely dramatic reasons), and when it cleared, the drive now held a massive, monstrous killer ape. A good fifty feet tall, and muscular with it, the ape roared once and then charged down the drive at the advancing Road Rats. It was in and among them before they could get their wits together enough to run, and then the huge ape set about them, picking them up, crushing them and throwing them away. Beating them into the ground with huge fists and trampling them underfoot. Punching them so hard they travelled twenty feet and more through the air before they hit the ground. Road Rats tumbled end over end through the air, making piteous noises of distress. Before plummeting to earth with enough impact to make even me wince. The huge ape charged back and forth, doing horrible things to Road Rats and enjoying itself immensely.
    It was all over quickly. The ape looked around at the piled-up broken bodies and sniffed loudly, in a satisfied kind of way.
    “All right! All right!” said Chapman, miserably. “Call it off! We surrender!”
    Molly snapped her fingers, the ape disappeared and a small silver charm reappeared in her hand. She delicately reattached the charm to her ankle bracelet and smiled sweetly at me.
    “A big ape, throwing his weight around,” I said. “Were you by any chance making a comment there, Molly?”
    “Perish the thought, sweetie.”
    I looked around me. There were bodies everywhere, scattered across the grounds. Some moving, some not. It was all very calm andpeaceful, apart from some quiet moaning and whimpering here and there. The threat was over. I forced my armour back into my torc. I could remember the savage satisfaction I’d taken in reducing the Road Rats to bloody ruin, but it seemed like something that happened a long time ago, to somebody else. I looked at Chapman. He was crying.
    “You brought it on yourself,” I said. “I gave you every chance to walk away.”
    “What am I going to say to their mums and dads?” said Chapman.
    “Don’t mess with the Droods,” I said. “Pick up your boys and get out of here. You make the place look untidy.”
    “If we’d known the place was this well protected, we wouldn’t have come here,” Chapman said bitterly. “We were promised the Hall would be empty and abandoned.”
    “Spread the word,” I said. “Drood Hall and its grounds are still protected. Be grateful you didn’t get to meet the scarecrows.”
    “But the Hall’s a ruin!” Chapman said wildly. “Look at it! What’s left inside might as well do someone some good! It’s no use to anyone just sitting there! All right, all right. I’m going.”
    “Not quite yet,” I said. “I still want to know who sent you here. Who made you all these promises? Who knew the Hall was a ruin, and provided you with a bloody sat nav?”
    “Crow Lee,” said Chapman. “It was Crow Lee, the bastard. He swore this would be an easy one, quick in and out, no problems. He lied.”
    “Well, that’s what you do,” said Molly, “when you’re the Most Evil Man in the World.”
    But Chapman was already walking away, calling out to his less-damaged boys to help load the others into the back of the trucks. I was a bit relieved to see I hadn’t done quite as much damage to them as I’d imagined. Molly looked at me thoughtfully.
    “There were an awful lot of the little shits, and I have no sympathy for them. But…”
    “Yes,” I said. “But. I am an agent, not an assassin. I do what’s necessary to take control of a situation. I was never that…bloodthirsty before, when I put on my armour. Moxton’s Mistake was in my head. I couldn’t hear it, but it was there.”
    “Can you learn to control it?” said Molly.
    “I’ll learn,” I said. “I have to. Because I really can’t do the job without it. Not if Crow Lee’s involved.”
    We walked back up the drive to the wrecked and burnt-out Hall. Knowing it wasn’t my Hall really didn’t help much. It was still Drood Hall. Part of me was listening to the trucks revving up and departing my grounds at speed, but I was thinking more about Crow Lee. The Beast. The Devil’s Own. The Most Evil Man in the World—and there’s a lot of competition. Everyone in