Live and Let Drood

things only about the Department’s previous incarnation, when it was run by the Shadowy Cabinet. Political appointees, the lot of them, and living proof that it’s who, rather than what, you know that gets you ahead in government circles. They’re all gone now, of course; the entire Shadowy Cabinet was killed off during the Great Satanic Conspiracy.”
    “Whose side were they on?” said Molly.
    “No one knows,” I said. “The Satanists wiped them all out, apparently for not making up their minds quickly enough. To my mind, the very fact they were considering the question was good enough reasonto stamp them all into the ground with extreme prejudice. The Regent of Shadows was invited to come in and do the whole new-broom thing shortly afterwards, and that was when Catherine Latimer’s information stopped. Which suggests, if nothing else, that the Regent runs a tight ship and holds his secrets close to his chest.”
    “Good for him,” said Molly. “He’ll talk to us, though. Won’t he?”
    “Oh yes,” I said. “He’ll talk to us.”
    “If he knows what’s good for him.”
    “Exactly! Can I lecture you some more?”
    “Oh, go on, then. You know that professorial voice gets me all hot. And it’ll help cheer you up for being so totally and utterly wrong about Big Ben. If you start to get boring, I can always heckle and throw things.”
    “The Department exists to keep an eye on the hidden world,” I said. “To find out and know everything that matters about those aspects of the supernatural world that might pose a threat. Or at the very least, to know as much as possible. Because everything is always changing in the hidden world. Which is why the Department’s agents are always so busy, overworked and just a bit twitchy. The Department then passes the relevant data on to those best able to make use of it, or at least to those the government of the day approves of. The Ghost Finders, the SAS combat sorcerers, the London Knights…even the Droods; after they’ve tried everything else, including prayer, and closing their eyes and just hoping it all goes away. Governments have always hated going cap in hand to my family.”
    “Gosh,” said Molly, “I can’t think why. Could it be because you always want something really hefty in return?”
    “Who’s telling this?” I said. “The Department of the Uncanny is part of the Establishment, though they like to say they’re separate from it. But then, everyone in the Establishment likes to think that. Helps them sleep better at night. Catherine Latimer told me that Big Ben is the real London Eye, the Eye on the outer worlds. That the clock faces are just a disguise, a distraction. Because apparently someone or something lives at the top of the tower and Sees all and knows all.”
    “Like Madame O?” said Molly.
    “Rather more clearly, one hopes,” I said. “The Department gathers most of its information through field agents. They work in the shadows, as shadows, entirely undetected. No one knows who they are.”
    “Not even each other?”
    “Must make for some stilted conversations in the staff canteen. And then there are the special agents, not unlike Drood field agents, for when something must be done. Usually in a hurry.”
    “I suppose no one knows who they are, either,” said Molly.
    “Got it in one! In fact, there are those who have been known to suggest that these Special Agents may not exist at all. Just smoke and mirrors to fool all the other secret organisations into taking the Department of the Uncanny more seriously.”
    “Don’t the Droods know?”
    “Oh, I’m sure someone in the family did,” I said, and then stopped to correct myself. “I’m sure someone does. We always make it a point to know the things that no one else knows. Knowledge is ammunition in the hidden world of secret organisations.”
    I glanced casually about me. Night was falling, the lights were coming on and tourists strolled up and down the pavements, stopping now and then to take photos of one another before places of interest. And to peer uncertainly across the River Thames at the Houses of Parliament and wonder if anything important might be going on. And all the time they had no idea a door stood before Big Ben, unseen and unknown, that could have delivered them right into the heart of the secret world. But then, that’s always the way. Wherever you are and wherever you go, you’re never far from someone or something you’re better off not