Live and Let Drood

have better reasons than most to know that most rogues…are rogues. There was still one thing I couldn’t let go.…
    “Do you know the truth about what happened to my parents?” I said bluntly.
    “To my daughter, Emily, and her husband, Charles? Of course I know. I made it my business to find out, and to hell with whoever got in my way. And I promise I will tell you the whole story one day, but not until the current crisis is over. You can’t afford to be…distracted.”
    “Tell me!” I said, putting all my anger and authority into my voice. “Tell me right now!”
    “I can’t,” he said steadily, meeting my harsh gaze with unwavering eyes. “I’m sorry, Eddie. You’ll understand in time.”
    “Typical Drood,” said Molly. “Never give away anything that matters, except on your own terms. Do you know what happened to my parents? Jake and Dana Metcalf? Supposedly killed by the Droods for fighting alongside the White Horse Faction.”
    “I remember that,” said the Regent.
    Molly and I waited until it became clear he had nothing to more to say on the subject. The wild upsurge of emotions I’d felt on discovering who he was were beginning to die down. He might be my grandfather, but he was also the Regent of Shadows, and his duties and responsibilities were bound to be different from mine.
    “My parents’ deaths are supposed to be linked to those of Emilyand Charles,” said Molly, studying the Regent closely. “Because they saw something they shouldn’t have. Because they knew too much…”
    “There’s nothing I can tell you about that,” the Regent said carefully. “Not right now. It’s…complicated.”
    “But you do know what happened to them?” insisted Molly, glaring fiercely at the Regent.
    “Of course I know,” he said. “I was there. Are you any happier for knowing that, Molly? Knowing that I can’t tell you any more for the moment?”
    I looked at the Regent in a new way, seeing for the first time the cold, hard professional who’d survived leaving the Droods and his wife to found his own secret army. The Regent of Shadows. You don’t get to be head of a secret organisation like that unless you’ve got true Drood grit in you.
    “When this is all over,” I said to him, and something in my voice snapped his head right round to look at me, “then we are going to talk about this. And I will not walk away until you’ve told Molly and me everything you know about how our parents died.”
    The Regent surprised me then by smiling approvingly at me. “That’s the way, Eddie! It’s good to see you’re everything the files say you are.”
    He sat down behind his desk again. Molly and I sat down facing him. I needed something else we could talk about or I was going to end up shouting at him.
    “How did the Regent of Shadows, with his own organisation of specially trained and independent spies, end up here, running the Department of the Uncanny and part of the Establishment?”
    “Not by choice,” said the Regent. “I was happy enough on my own, but Catherine Latimer approached me personally and asked me to take over Uncanny, because MI-13 had been proven not just infiltrated, but completely corrupt. Someone had to take up the slack, and Uncanny couldn’t do it on their own. I couldn’t say no. Even when you’re not a Drood any longer, duty and responsibility still weigh heavy on you.…I did make it clear that I would split us up again, as soon as MI-13 hadbeen properly restored…but I doubt I will. There’s nothing more seductive than fire-rate resources and a decent budget. I can do more here at Uncanny than I ever could with all my shadows.…”
    “Why should the Carnacki boss approach you personally?” I said.
    “Oh, she and I go way back,” said the Regent. He laughed quietly at the surprise on my face. “We were all such chums together back in the day. Out in the field, fighting the forces of evil with cunning and charm, a quip on the lips and a sword blade hidden inside a furled umbrella. Like-minded souls, from many different areas. Martha and me, the Independent Agent and the Walking Woman, Catherine Latimer and Crow Lee…Oh yes, they were quite the couple back then, fresh out of Cambridge and looking for supernatural trouble to get into. Though she never talks about it anymore, she really was quite sweet on him at the time. It’s always the bad boy who makes a good girl’s heart beat that little bit faster.…And he did throw the very best