Live and Let Drood

trace or fell through some hole in space and time…as long as one of us remained, there would still be a chance to get the family back. A way to locate them, wherever they were.”
    Molly sniffed loudly. She didn’t seem particularly convinced. “How are we supposed to get to Egypt, with every bad guy and his dog out looking for us? We can’t just book a weekend in Cairo in some backstreet bucket shop and just hop on the nearest plane. We should go to Brighton and talk to my friend. See if she can get us in to see the Regent of Shadows.”
    “The Regent can wait,” I said. “What good will it do to have the Regent’s support if we’ve no way of finding my family? Besides, who needs a plane when we have the Merlin Glass?”
    I retrieved the hand mirror from the pocket dimension I kept it in and held it out before me. The silver frame shone almost supernaturally bright in the sunshine. Molly looked at the Glass and then back at me, and if anything, looked even more dubious.
    “I don’t know, Eddie. That’s not our Merlin Glass. It’s from a whole different place. You really think we can trust it?”
    “I’m still not convinced we could trust the original,” I said. “But it’s not like we have much choice in the matter. Unless your teleportcapabilities have improved a hell of a lot since the last time we had to use them…”
    “My teleport capabilities are deliberately limited,” Molly said sternly. “You’ve never understood the risks involved in travelling through the spaces that connect spaces. The farther the trip, the more you open yourself up to all kinds of dangers. Physical and spiritual. There are things that live in the places between places, and they’re hungry. You have no idea how powerful the Merlin Glass must be to keep you safe as it transports you back and forth.”
    “We have to go to Egypt,” I said patiently. “To pick up the special little something my family hid there. We need it, Molly. Think of it as a form of insurance, put aside for a very rainy day. And before you ask again, Why Egypt? …my family wanted it hidden as far from the Hall as possible, where no one would ever think to look for it.”
    “You have moved beyond cryptic into seriously annoying,” said Molly. “ What is it? A weapon of some kind?”
    “Something far more useful,” I said.
    “Something useful, hidden in Egypt,” said Molly, thoughtfully. “I used to be so good at crossword puzzles.…Is it contained in a mummy’s sarcophagus? Or perhaps an old oil lamp that needs cleaning? An ancient flame that bestows eternal youth? Tana leaves?”
    “You’re just being silly now,” I said.
    “Wait, wait—don’t tell me. I’ll get it! Is it a special kind of torc connected to all the other torcs?”
    “Nice try, but no. We changed all our torcs—remember?—when we replaced the Heart with Ethel. My ancestors always knew that might be a possibility someday. Even if they were very careful never to mention such a thing anywhere, the Heart might overhear them. No. My family decided, quite rightly, that we needed something more…basic.”
    “Other families have skeletons in their closets,” said Molly. “Your family has whole boneyards. All right. Say we go to Egypt and pick up this…thing. Will it enable us to go get your family?”
    “Think of it more as a compass,” I said. “Something to point us in the right direction.”
    “It’s not strong enough to get us there on its own?” Molly considered the question for longer than I was comfortable with. “Is there anyone else that you know of who has anything like Alpha Red Alpha? A dimensional engine powerful enough to take us where Alpha Red Alpha took your family?”
    “Not that I know of,” I said. “There are all kinds of dimensional doors and hellgates scattered around that can give you access to all kinds of other worlds and far-off realms…some of them in the hands of friends, like the London Knights, some in the hands of enemies, like the Crimson Brotherhood of Peng Tang, and a hell of a lot more in the hands of private individuals with more money than sense. But we can’t approach any of them without revealing why we want them, and we can’t have the whole world finding out what’s happened to the Droods. Looters would be just the start of it. And, anyway, I doubt very much anything out there would be as powerful as Alpha Red Alpha. It’s always been thought of as unique, because no one else would be crazy enough to