"Today started out with a knife at my throat and yet still has managed to go steadily downhill. Where the h.e.l.l are we?"

"Paddington railway station."

"Really?" I said. "I remember it as being somewhat bigger."

"Fool. We're in the ladies' toilet at Paddington. Which means...someone tried to intercept my portal spell."

Getting out of the cubicle took some cooperation and a certain amount of brute force, as the door opened inwards, but eventually we spilled out into the main toilet area. Half a dozen women stopped adjusting their dress and repairing their makeup to stare at us. Molly glared right back at them.

"Come on; don't tell me you've never thought about doing it in a cubicle."

"I feel like such a s.l.u.t," I said. "Promise me you'll spank me when we get home, mistress?"

The half dozen women couldn't get out of the toilet fast enough. I grinned at Molly, but she wasn't in the mood.

"All right," I said. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad is this?"

"Oh, I think this one goes all the way up to eleven. Someone must have tried to override my spell's coordinates to make us arrive at a destination of their choosing. Where they could be waiting for us. But, being the happy paranoid little soul that I am, I long ago preprogrammed my spell to be prepared for such an eventuality and, at the first sign of outside tampering, drop me off at a predesignated emergency arrival point."

"G.o.d, I love it when you talk technical."

"Shut up. I chose this place because a toilet cubicle is one of the few places where you can just appear out of nowhere without being noticed. Do I really need to add that I did not have two people in mind when I chose this arrival point?"

"Why Paddington?" I said.

"It's a central London station, with trains always going somewhere. You can just pick one at random, hop on, and disappear without a trace. Now, let's get out of here. The only people powerful enough to intercept a portal spell would have to be major league sorcerers. Which could mean your family."

"Why not Manifest Destiny?" I said, just to be contrary.

"You heard Truman. They put their faith in science, not magic. My kind are only allowed in as fellow travellers. What interests me is how your family could know that you're travelling with me now."

I shrugged. "We probably have agents buried deep within Manifest Destiny. We have people everywhere, in every kind of organisation, so we won't be surprised when they try to start something nasty. How else do you think we know everything that's going on?"

Molly looked at me. "And you didn't think to tell me this before?"

"Sorry; I thought you knew how my family operates. Besides, I've been distracted. I've had a lot on my mind, just recently."

"Is there anything else I ought to know?"

"There's something squelching in my shoe."

"I should have stabbed you while you were still asleep," said Molly.

We made our way up and out and onto the Paddington station main concourse. The wide-open s.p.a.ce was full of people bustling back and forth as though their lives depended on it or just standing together like sheep, staring vacantly at the changing displays on the information screens. Train engines roared loudly, people spoke loudly into mobile phones, doing their best to look as though their calls were vitally important, and every now and again the station loudspeakers would blast out some deafening but totally incomprehensible statement.

I relaxed a little. I like crowds. Always somewhere to hide, in a crowd. Molly and I pretended to examine the menu on a nearby fast-food stall while taking a surrept.i.tious look around. It all seemed normal enough. Two armed policemen wandered by, burdened down with flack jackets and equipment, alert for everyday problems. They weren't interested in Molly and me. They didn't know people like Molly and me even existed, the lucky devils.

"I liked this place a lot better before they gave it a makeover," I said to Molly. "There used to be a restaurant here where you could order chili con carne and chips, and beans and bacon and sausages, and pile it as high as you liked. Now, that was a meal and a half. I used to call it the cholesterol special. You could feel your arteries hardening just looking at it."

Molly regarded me with distaste bordering on disgust. "I'm amazed your heart didn't just explode."

"I always did like to live dangerously. Speaking of which, don't turn around too quickly, but spot the two guys approaching from four o'clock. I think we've been made."

"Already? d.a.m.n." Molly sneaked a look in the direction I'd indicated. Two men in anonymous dark suits were striding towards us, holding their hands up to their faces and talking to their wrists. Either they had radios up their sleeves or they were Care in the Community. Molly scowled. "They could just be plainclothes policemen..."

The two men produced automatic weapons from slings under their jackets and opened up, actually shooting through the packed crowd to get at us. Men and women crashed to the ground, bleeding and screaming and dying. People were thrown this way and that by the bullets' impact, and one man's head exploded. The woman with him sank to her knees beside his kicking body, howling her grief and horror. People ran screaming in every direction and dived for what little cover there was. And the two men with automatic weapons ran straight at Molly and me, firing without pause. The armed police came running, and the two men shot them down, hosing them with bullets till they stopped moving.

I ducked behind the fast-food stall, and Molly was right there with me. Above us, bowls of soup shattered and blew apart, spraying hot liquid everywhere. The staff inside the stall shrieked and ducked down, their screams almost drowned out by the chaos and the roar of gunfire. The whole stall rocked and shuddered as bullets pounded into it again and again. How many guns did these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have? Shouldn't they be running out of ammo by now? I risked a quick peek around the corner of the stall. The two men were coming right at us, firing steadily, followed by a dozen more men in dark suits from all across the concourse, running to join them. There were dead bodies everywhere in spreading pools of blood.

"We can't stay here," I said to Molly. "I can armour up, but that won't protect you."

"I don't need protecting," said Molly. "I'll arrange a diversion, and then we both run like h.e.l.l for the nearest street exit. Sound good to you?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. What kind of diversion?"

"Close your eyes and put your hands over them."

I did so, and a moment later came an incandescent flare that hurt my eyes even through tightly squeezed eyelids. Raised voices cried out in shock and pain, and Molly grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me out from behind the bullet-riddled fast-food stall. I forced my eyes open as I stumbled after her. Black spots blurred and jumped in my vision, but at least I could see. The armed men were staggering around, tears streaming from half-open eyes, firing their guns at any sudden sound or movement. And since most of the civilians were gone, that mostly meant they were shooting at each other. I could live with that. I pa.s.sed right by one gunman as I followed Molly to the nearest street exit, and I paused just long enough to break his neck with one blow. Never involve civilians in our wars, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

I would have liked to kill more of them, but there wasn't time. I'm not an a.s.sa.s.sin, but sometimes the only right thing remaining is to just kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds until there aren't any left. I hate it when innocents get caught up in my world. That's why I became an agent in the first place: to protect innocents from what lives in my world.

The gunmen had to be Manifest Destiny. My family would have been more subtle. And, I still believed, more sparing of the innocent. But how had Manifest Destiny found us so quickly? Maybe they had all the railway stations staked out, just in case. Made sense. My bad arm yelled at me as I ran after Molly, and I told it to shut the h.e.l.l up. I was busy. A few bullets flew past me, not even close. Some of the gunmen were getting their sight back. I could have armoured up, but I couldn't trust the stealth factor to work under these conditions, with so many watching eyes, and I was still reluctant to expose my family's greatest secret to public gaze. Unless I had to.

I caught up with Molly as she stumbled to a halt halfway up the steep slope that led out into the main traffic. We were both breathing hard. Cars and vans roared past unknowing, as though it was just another day. I looked at Molly.

"What do we do now? Hail a taxi?"

"I wouldn't. You can never be sure whom the drivers are really working for. I've got a better idea."

She bent over and hiked up her dress, revealing a dainty silver charm bracelet around her left ankle. She snapped one of the charms free and held it up: a delicate little silver motorcycle. Molly muttered a few Words in a harsh language that must have hurt her throat and breathed on the charm. It wriggled eerily on her palm, and then leapt off, growing rapidly in midair until standing on the slope before us was a Vincent Black Shadow motorbike. A big black beast of a bike, and a cla.s.sic of its kind. I was impressed.

"I'm impressed," I said to Molly. "Really. You have excellent taste in motorcycles. If a tad nostalgic."

"Don't talk to me about modern bikes," said Molly. "No character."

More bullets flew past us. They were getting closer. I looked back down the slope. Men with guns were staggering in our direction, tears still rolling down their cheeks. Their aim wasn't that accurate yet, but with automatic weapons it didn't need to be.

"Get on the d.a.m.n bike!" said Molly.

I looked around. The Vincent roared to life as she kick-started it, and then swung onto the leather seat.

"Hold everything," I said. "I do not ride pillion."

"My bike, my ride. Get on."

"I am not riding pillion! I have my dignity to consider."

More bullets whined past us. They really were getting closer. Molly smiled sweetly at me.

"You and your dignity can always run alongside, if you like, but I am leaving..."

I growled something under my breath, and swung aboard the seat behind her. Molly slammed the Vincent into gear and we shot off up the slope, pursued by bullets, and straight out into the main flow of traffic. Outraged horns and voices greeted us from every side as we appeared out of nowhere and just bullied our way in. Fortunately, the average speed of London traffic is rarely more than about ten miles per hour between traffic lights, so we were able to dodge and weave in and around the slower-moving vehicles and build up a healthy acceleration. I held Molly tightly around the waist with my right arm. I tried to use the left as well, but it was just too painful, so I let my forearm rest on Molly's left thigh. She didn't seem to mind. Even tucked in close behind her, the air still hit my face like a slap and tugged at my hair. I put my mouth next to Molly's ear.

"Would it have killed you to conjure up a couple of crash helmets too?"

"Helmets are for sissies!" said Molly, shouting back over the roar of the Vincent's engine. She laughed joyously. "Hold on, Eddie!"

"I'll just bet you're not insured," I said.

We weaved in and out of moving cars as though they were standing still, steadily building up speed. Taxi drivers shouted insults, and shop fronts blurred past on either side. We'd already taken so many turns I hadn't a clue where we were any longer. A big red London bus pulled out in front of us, because London buses don't give way to anything, and my heart practically leapt out of my chest as Molly gunned the throttle and shot us through the narrowing gap like a lemming on amphetamines. I may have screamed, just a little.

"Try to lean with me on the curves, Eddie!" Molly shouted back cheerfully. "It makes manoeuvring so much easier."

We howled across intersections at scary speeds and treated stoplights with contempt. The bike swayed this way and that, dodging and weaving as it plunged in and out of traffic, slowing for no one. It would have been quite exhilarating, if I'd been driving. As it was, I just clung on with my good arm and threw a series of hopeful prayers up to Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. He's been officially decommissioned these days, but no one asked my permission, so...

The first I knew that we were being pursued came when a bullet whined right past my ear. I grabbed Molly tightly and risked a look back. Two big black cars were coming up fast behind us. They must have been really heavily armoured, because they built up speed by just shunting and slamming aside everything in front of them. When there wasn't any room, the big black cars would drive right over whatever was in front of them, crushing the lesser vehicle like a tank. Other cars were driven right off the road or intimidated into taking sudden side turnings they hadn't intended to. The traffic between the black cars and us thinned rapidly, and men leaned out of the cars' shaded windows to fire automatic weapons at us. Luckily, that's a lot harder than it seems in the movies.

I turned back and yelled into Molly's ear. "Manifest Destiny, right behind! And they're shooting at us!"

"I had noticed, actually. You sure it's not your family?"

"Positive. They wouldn't use guns. They'd use something much more extreme."

Molly sent the bike flying around a tight corner, leaning right over. I did my best to help, leaning with her, but it was all I could do to hang on with just the one arm. The ground did look awfully close there for a moment. Molly wrestled the Vincent upright again and opened the throttle all the way. We roared down the street, flashing in and out of startled cars, sometimes close enough to sc.r.a.pe their paintwork with our wing mirrors, all the time dodging gunfire from behind. They were starting to get our range. I risked another look back, turning right around on the leather seat. The black cars were smashing through everything in their path, ramming cars out of their way. Skidding civilian cars slammed into each other, some overturned, and there were pileups the length of the street behind us. The black cars just kept coming, and the bullets got closer and closer, no matter how much we dodged and weaved.

I armoured up. The living metal flowed smoothly over and around me in a moment, sealing me off from a hostile world. Bullets. .h.i.t my back and just ricocheted away. They couldn't touch me or Molly now. The rate of gunfire increased as the black cars drew nearer, bullets spraying across my back, my shoulders, and the back of my head. I didn't feel the impact, but I could hear it. Armouring my left arm had made it strong again, if no less painful. I slipped it carefully around Molly's waist, and felt a little more secure.

The Vincent was really hammering along now, the pa.s.sing world just a blur. Molly was laughing out loud, whooping with the joy of speed. I was more concerned about what would happen if just one of the bullets happened to hit the Vincent's fuel tank. I mentioned this to Molly.

"Don't worry!" she yelled back. "This isn't really a motorbike. It just looks like one."

"Not a real bike? Not a real Vincent Black Shadow?"

"Come on," said Molly. "What did you expect from a charm bracelet?"

"Just as long as it doesn't turn back to a pumpkin at midnight..."

Molly laughed again and pushed the bike's speed even harder. I took my right arm away from Molly's waist and drew the Colt Repeater from its shoulder holster. It took me a while, and hurt my shoulder like h.e.l.l, but I finally wrestled the gun out. I breathed hard for a moment, controlling the pain and bracing myself for what I had to do next. I tightened my hold around Molly's waist with my strengthened left arm, turned around on the seat, and looked back at the cars behind me. There were four of them now, with a fifth catching up, ploughing their way through any traffic that didn't get out of their way fast enough. Men were leaning out of the car windows and firing at me with a whole a.s.sortment of weapons. One even had a rocket launcher. He fired the thing, and the rocket shot out, slammed into my armoured side, and ricocheted away to blow up a Gap store. I hoped there was n.o.body inside, but I had no way of knowing. Manifest Destiny didn't care who got hurt or killed. And that was when I decided that just escaping these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds wasn't good enough.

They were all firing at me now, bullets bouncing off my chest and golden face mask. The bike slammed this way and that as we shot in and out of a traffic jam. The extra pain in my arm made me cry out, and tears ran down my face under the mask. But the Colt Repeater in my right hand was steady as h.e.l.l when I trained it on the pursuing cars.

I tried shooting out the tyres first. That always worked in the movies. But though I hit every tyre I aimed at, not one of them blew. The armoured cars were running on solid rubber tyres. Manifest Destiny must have seen those movies too. So I aimed at the driver of the nearest car. He laughed at me, through his bulletproof gla.s.s windscreen, right up until the Colt Repeater sent a bullet through the windscreen and blew his head apart. The car swerved wildly, mounted the pavement, and rammed through three parking meters before sliding to a halt. I aimed carefully and shot dead the other four drivers, and their cars skidded and crashed and slammed into storefronts.

But more black cars were already joining the chase, screeching around corners from every side street we pa.s.sed. Soon there were a dozen new cars on our trail, swerving back and forth to make my aiming harder. I kept blowing away their drivers, one at a time. Such aim would have been impossible under normal conditions, but luckily the Colt Repeater did most of the work for me. Thank you, Uncle Jack. Still more cars joined the pursuit, seeming to come from everywhere at once, ploughing through the civilian traffic like it wasn't even there, tossing lighter cars aside or grinding them underneath. There was a chaos of crashed and burning vehicles behind us for as far back as I could see. Wide-eyed men and women huddled in shop doorways, yelling into mobile phones as we shot past.

The gunfire was constant now, slamming into me and the bike, trying to bring us down with sheer pressure of bullets. Most of them ricocheted away, chewing up storefronts and cutting down pedestrians. Manifest Destiny were using me to kill innocent people. I couldn't let that go on.

A black car came roaring out of a side street and drew alongside us. The man in the backseat shot me in the face at point-blank range, crying out angrily as the bullet glanced off the golden mask. They were on my left side, so I couldn't shoot them. I risked letting go of Molly's waist with my left arm, punched through the car's windscreen, pulled the driver out, and threw him into the road ahead. The black car ran over him, skidded away, hit a parked car, and flipped end over end before crashing to a halt. I put my aching arm back around Molly's waist.

A police car tried to get involved. It came screaming around a corner, siren blaring, lights flashing. Two of the big black cars closed in on either side of it, and then both drivers jerked their steering wheels over at the same time. The heavily armoured cars crushed the police car between them, crunching up the standard steel cha.s.sis like so much tinfoil. The black cars roared on as the police car skidded out of control and smashed through a gla.s.s storefront, its siren still wailing forlornly. I felt bad for the cops in the car. The police aren't supposed to get involved in our wars. They're not equipped to deal with the likes of us.

I turned back to yell in Molly's ear. "There're actually more cars after us now than when we started! Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"Yes! Away!"

I had to laugh. "I'm so glad we've got a plan..."

"Anything else, Eddie, only I'm a bit busy at the moment..."

"Too many civilians are getting hurt! Maybe we should just stop and fight it out."

"Don't even think that! The odds suck. You can bet the moment we stop moving, they'll have long-range sharpshooters in place to target us. Your armour can't protect me from that. They'd threaten to kill me, until you agreed to armour down. Then they'd shoot you full of tranks, take you back to headquarters, and dissect you alive to get at all your family secrets and the armour in particular. They'd probably do the same to me for turning traitor on them. I'd rather go down fighting. Or at least escaping."

"You've really thought this through," I said.

"h.e.l.l," said Molly. "It's what I'd do. Now hang on. Our only real hope is to lose these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

A black car emerged from a side alley and lurched out onto the street ahead of us. It spun around on squealing wheels and came charging straight at us. We were blocked in by cars on either side, with no room to manoeuvre. I could have jumped off. The armour would have protected me. But that would have left Molly on her own...I was still trying to figure out what to do when Molly revved the engine for all it was worth and aimed the bike right at the gleaming radiator of the approaching black car. I could hear her chanting something, but the rushing wind ripped her words away. The black car loomed up before us, close enough that I could see the driver laughing at us, and then, at the very last moment, the Vincent rose up into the air and sailed right over the top of the black car. We landed behind the car with only the faintest of b.u.mps and kept on going. I looked back just in time to see the Manifest Destiny car smash into another black car that had been following right behind us. The two cars slammed together, head to head, and then blew apart with a satisfying large explosion.

I turned back and hugged Molly tightly so I could yell in her ear. "I didn't know the bike could do that!"

"It can't! But I can. Though not very often, so you'd better hope that doesn't happen again."

I sent up some more prayers to St. Christopher.

Molly swung the bike around a sharp corner, and then hit the brakes so hard it would have knocked all the breath out of me if I hadn't been wearing my armour. The street ahead of us was completely empty, cleared of all traffic and pedestrians. The only people who could have arranged that so quickly were my family. And sure enough, there they were. I looked over Molly's shoulder and saw what she had already spotted. Halfway down the street three golden figures stood like statues, the morning light gleaming brightly on their armour.

I was actually a little flattered. Three field agents, just to bring me in. I had no doubt they could do it. So I put the Colt Repeater away and hit the stud on my reverse watch. G.o.d bless you, Uncle Jack. Time rewound itself, spinning the world back thirty seconds, so that once again Molly and I were just approaching the corner. As Molly started to turn, I yelled urgently into her ear, and she brought the bike to a skidding halt, the back wheel sliding back and forth as it locked. We both bailed off the bike, and she said the Words that turned it back into a silver charm. I armoured down, and we both disappeared into the nearest side alley.

The three golden field agents were already sprinting towards us, but a dozen black cars came screeching around the corner. They saw the field agents and drove their armoured cars right at them, the fools. Molly and I watched from the shadows of the side alley as the first car reached the first agent. He just stood his ground, and then slammed his golden fist down onto the black car's bonnet at the very last moment. The whole front of the car compacted, ramming into the ground, the back came up, and the car somersaulted over the agent's head before crashing to the ground behind him.

The second agent launched himself through the windscreen of the next car, killed everyone inside, and burst out the back of the car and onto the bonnet of the car following. The third agent picked up one armoured car and used it to hit another. Black cars screeched to a halt, and men spilled out, firing all kinds of weapons. Soon the whole street was full of men in golden armour doing terrible things to men of ill will.

Made me feel proud to be a Drood.

"Time we were going," I said quietly to Molly.

"d.a.m.n, your people are good," she said.

We sneaked quietly away, just two more terrified pedestrians fleeing the carnage. I suddenly realised there was blood on Molly's face. It was dripping from her nose and spilling down her chin from her mouth. She dabbed at it with a small silk square from up her sleeve, but all she succeeded in doing was moving the blood around. I stopped her and took out my own handkerchief. Molly stood quietly and allowed me to mop the blood from her face.

"What happened?" I said. "Were you hit? Did a bullet get you?"

"No," said Molly. "I did this to myself. I told you: spatial portals are serious magic. They take a lot out of me. And then, what I did with the bike, on top of that...Magic always has to be paid for, one way or another. That's why rituals and preparation are so important; they raise the energies necessary to power the spells I use. So I don't have to draw on the energies of my own body. And I have been doing a lot of quick and dirty magics for you just lately, Eddie."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know. Didn't realise what I was asking of you. Don't think I don't appreciate it. There. You look better now."

"Thanks."