Live and Let Drood

protections in place. But they were just doors leading into a room. I stood there before them for a while, bent over and breathing harshly, trying to force some air back into my straining lungs. My back and my legs ached and sweat dripped down from my face. I could hear Mollycatching up, but I didn’t look back. I straightened myself up through sheer force of will and strode forward into the Sanctity, slamming the doors back out of my way with both hands. I didn’t even feel the impact.
    Inside the great open chamber, the walls stood upright and untouched and the ceiling was free from signs of assault or damage. The marble floor was dusty but unmarked. As though the enemy had never come here. But still the damage had been done. The great auditorium was empty, deserted; just a room. There was no trace of the marvellous rose red light that usually suffused the chamber when Ethel was manifesting her presence. The light that could soothe and rejuvenate the most hard-used spirit. Ethel, the other-dimensional entity I’d brought to the Hall to replace the corrupt Heart…to be a new source of power for the Drood family. A source of new, strange matter armour.
    “Ethel!” I said her name as loudly as I could, so harshly I hurt my throat. My voice echoed in the great open chamber and then died reluctantly away. There was no response. “Ethel?” I said, and even to me my voice sounded like that of a small child asking for its mother. I stood alone in the Sanctity and no one answered me. I heard Molly behind me, at the door, but I didn’t look around.
    “If she was anywhere, anywhere in the Hall, she’d hear and answer you,” said Molly. “You know that. She’s gone, Eddie. Gone, like everyone else.”
    “If she were anywhere in the world, she’d hear me,” I said. “No wonder my armour’s gone.”
    “I can’t believe there is anyone or anything in this world that could destroy or even damage an other-dimensional entity like Ethel,” said Molly, moving cautiously forward to stand beside me, careful not to touch me. “Except perhaps another other-dimensional entity, and what are the odds of that?”
    “They could have driven her away,” I said. I felt empty. “Forced her back out of this world. With all the Droods dead, what reason would she have to stay? And if she’s gone, so is the source of our armour. No more Drood armour, forever. Perhaps that’s why she chose to leave—so ourenemies couldn’t force or coerce her into giving them her strange matter. Maybe…that’s why we’ve only seen one armoured corpse. Because she took the rest of her strange matter with her when she left. After all, the Droods were dead.”
    “Then why have you still got your torc?” said Molly.
    My hand rose to touch the golden collar at my throat again, and then I shook my head slowly. “So many questions; so few answers. How can I be a Drood, the Last Drood, without my armour?”
    “You still have your knowledge and your training,” said Molly, practical as ever. She moved forward so she could look me in the face. “I know you’re going through a lot, Eddie, but if you don’t snap out if this fast and start acting like yourself again, I am going to slap you a good one and it will hurt.”
    A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. “You would, too. Wouldn’t you?”
    “Damn right I would,” Molly said briskly. “You still have all your experience, all your old contacts…there’s still a lot you can do in the world. Though getting your hands on some really big guns probably wouldn’t hurt, either. Is there any chance you could get us into the family Armoury? See if anything useful got left behind?”
    “Of course,” I said. “Large parts of the Hall have always been underground. And heavily shielded and protected. If only to protect the rest of the family from what they did down there. The attackers might not have known about the underground installations or how to access them. Maybe they survived intact.…”
    “And maybe there are survivors down there,” said Molly.
    “You’ve always been such an optimist,” I said. “One of the things I’ve always admired most about you.”
    So we went down.
    I started with the War Room. It lay underneath the North Wing, or what was left of it. Access was only possible through a heavily reinforced steel door. I found the door easily enough underneath the shattered ground floor. The door was still intact, but it was standing partly open. The