"He likes you."

"No, I mean, he likes me."

"How, if you've never been here before?"

"Oh, I've been in his lair lots of times, just not in the flesh. I've dreamwalked here a dozen times, astral travelling. That's how I knew the way. And we talk on the phone a lot. He can be very chatty, as long as you keep your distance. I really was pretty sure he'd let us in."

"Because he likes you."

"Yes. I do him favours..."

"I'm almost afraid to ask. What kind of favours?"

"I find him these dodgy p.o.r.n sites on the Net..."

"I was right. I didn't want to know."

The tunnel opened up abruptly into a huge cavern carved out of the bedrock deep under London. It was vast, almost overpowering in its scale, but the Mole had clearly had a lot of time to make himself comfortable. The great open floor s.p.a.ce was packed with every modern appliance, every conceivable luxury and convenience. Along with mountains of piled-up computer equipment. Huge flat plasma screens covered the walls, showing fifty different views at once, with the sound turned off. And in every gap and s.p.a.ce there were computer monitors showing dozens of different sites all at once. Molly led me through the maze of equipment and into the centre of the Mole's lair, and there in the very heart of the labyrinth sat the Mole himself in a great bright red leather swivel chair. He kept his back to us until the very last moment, and then he reluctantly swung the chair around to glare at us. He put up a hand to stop us coming any closer, and we stopped a good dozen feet away. He looked us over, making no move to rise from his chair to greet us.

I'd expected the Mole to be a dumpy little guy with squinty eyes behind huge spectacles, and that was exactly what he was. He was very pale, with long flyaway hair around a podgy face, and he blinked and twitched quite a bit. He wore Bermuda shorts, grubby trainers, and a T-shirt bearing the legend Tarzan, Lord of the Geeks. He also wore a Buddhist charm on a chain around his neck: the All-Seeing Eye. And above that, the golden collar of the Droods. One plump hand rose to touch it as he looked at me and the torc around my throat, and finally he relaxed a little. He smiled briefly at me and nodded to Molly.

"h.e.l.lo, my dear. So good to see you again. And in person, at last. Yes. But please, both of you, don't come any closer. I'm not used to company anymore. No. No. h.e.l.lo, Edwin. Fellow Drood, fellow rogue. Yes. I don't normally allow visitors. They're too hard on my nerves. But if I can't trust a fellow rogue...So, welcome to my lair. Edwin, Molly. Yes."

"Nice chair," I said for want of anything else polite and nonthreatening to say.

"It is, isn't it?" said the Mole, brightening a little. "I ordered it specially. Through a whole series of cutouts. I have to be very careful. The armrests hold coolers for soft drinks. Would you care for one?"

"Not just now," I said.

"Good, because I'm running a bit short just at the moment. I must put a new order in. Yes. I have very good people who smuggle all sorts of things down here to me, for a consideration, but of course it's not easy, getting things delivered. No. No. I have to be...circ.u.mspect. About everything. I'm safe here, protected, and I intend to stay safe. Cut off from the world. It isn't just the family who want me dead, after all. Oh, no."

"Really?" I said. "Who else is after you?"

"Pretty much everybody," the Mole said sadly. "I know so many secrets, you see. So many things that some people don't want other people to know. Oh, the things I know! You'd be amazed! Really. Yes."

"How do you power all this equipment?" I asked, genuinely curious.

The Mole shrugged. "I tap all the energy I need from the Underground. And the city. They don't notice. I have all the utilities down here, and I've never paid a bill. Though I could, if I chose. I'm really quite remarkably wealthy. Oh, yes. So, Edwin; you're the new rogue. Let me look at you...I know you by reputation, of course. The only field agent to keep the family at arm's length for almost ten years. Unprecedented! Always knew it couldn't last...The family doesn't trust anyone or anything it can't control. I used to be Malcolm Drood, you know."

He said the name as though he expected me to recognise it, but I didn't. We're a big family. He studied my face intently, and then frowned and pouted as he realised the name meant nothing to me.

"So, I've been erased from the official family history. Scrubbed out. I suspected as much. Yes. You will have been wiped out too by now, Edwin. As far as the next few generations of the family are concerned, you will never have existed. All your history gone, oh, yes. Everything you ever did for the family, all your battles and successes and achievements, will be parcelled out and attributed to others. To agents who still toe the family line and bow down to family authority. Matthew will probably get most of it. He always was hard-core family, the humourless little p.r.i.c.k. He'll always be a good little soldier...Not like us, eh, Edwin? We have minds of our own. Souls of our own. Yes. Yes!"

"Can they really do that?" Molly said to me. "Just write you out of history, as though you never even existed?"

"Of course!" said the Mole. "It's always been that way. As decided by the higher echelons of the family. Of which I was once a valued member."

"What is it you do down here, exactly?" I said bluntly. "And what, if anything, can you do to help me?"

He blinked and twitched at me for a while, not used to being so openly challenged in his own private kingdom. One hand reached for remote controls set into his armrest, and then he pulled the hand away again. He smiled nervously at me, and then at Molly. She gave him her best cheerful, rea.s.suring smile, and he calmed down a little.

"I watch the world," said the Mole just a little smugly. He turned back and forth in his chair, indicating the many screens with one plump hand. "Down here I can see everything that goes on, or at least everything that matters. I have hidden cameras in places you wouldn't believe. I spy, I eavesdrop, and I make notes. If you knew what Bill Gates was planning to do next, you'd s.h.i.t yourselves. Yes. Yes...I live on the Net, you know. Studying conspiracy theories, searching for evidence of our family at work, and then pa.s.sing the information on to whomever I think will make best use of it. Wherever it will do the most good, or the most harm to the family." He looked at me very solemnly. "Our family has to be stopped, Edwin. Broken, humbled, brought down. For everything that's been done to you and me and all the others just like us. And I belong to a hundred different subversive organisations, under a hundred different ident.i.ties. Oh, yes! Nothing happens, nothing is planned that I don't get to know about in advance. I need to know everything, to make sense of what's happening in the world. Yes...A difficult job. An endless job...But someone's got to do it."

"Do you by any chance belong to a group called Manifest Destiny?" said Molly.

"Of course. Paranoid, xenophobic, and definitely in thrall to the cult of the personality, and downright sloppy when it comes to operations in the field...But I had great hopes of them originally. I mean, yes, they were and are complete and utter b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in many ways, but at least they have an organisation that seems capable of taking on the Droods. I support them, from a distance, trying to encourage them into more practical pursuits on the grounds that anyone who opposes the family deserves supporting. Yes. Would you like to see the battle that's going on between their people and the three Drood field agents in the streets above us?"

"That's still happening?" said Molly.

"Oh, yes. Manifest Destiny are throwing everything they've got against the field agents. The poor fools. You'll never bring down the family through direct conflict. No. No..."

"Show me," I said.

The Mole worked the remote controls on the arm of his chair, and the biggest plasma screen before us suddenly blared into new life, showing Manifest Destiny forces attacking three golden armoured figures right out in the open. The depth and definition of the image was outstanding, complete with full surround sound. It was just like being in the thick of the battle. I could almost smell the blood and smoke. Truman must have sent half an army to bring down the Drood field agents who'd dared defy him; and much good it had done him. Armoured cars, armoured soldiers, attack helicopters raining down fire from above...The street was full of thick black smoke from burning buildings, and burnt-out armoured cars, but still the three golden figures moved through the thick of it, untouched.

They slammed through the advancing soldiers with supernatural speed, killing with a touch and moving on. The dead and the dying lay in piles up and down the street. The golden figures overturned armoured cars with a single heave, moving unscathed through a hail of bullets and explosions. A black helicopter came in low for a strafing run, and one golden figure leapt straight up into the air, propelled by the strength in his golden legs. He clung onto the side of the helicopter, ripped the door off with one hand, and disappeared inside. He threw the crew out one at a time, and they fell screaming to their deaths. The agent stayed on board just long enough to aim the crashing helicopter at an armoured vehicle, and then he jumped free at the last moment, landing easily and gracefully as his armoured legs soaked up the impact. Manifest Destiny had every advantage of modern warfare on their side, and it didn't do them a d.a.m.ned bit of good against three Drood field agents.

It almost made me proud to be a Drood, to see so few standing firm against so many. Almost.

"That last one had to be Matthew," said the Mole. "Always was a show-off."

"How the h.e.l.l are they going to hush this up?" said Molly, staring fascinated at the carnage. "This much death and destruction, a war zone, right in the middle of London?"

"Do you see any media people present?" said the Mole. "Any television crews or news photographers? Any paparazzi even? No. These days, if it doesn't appear on the television news or in the tabloids, it didn't happen. Any civilian witnesses will have their memories altered, all CCTV footage will disappear, and the damage will be blamed on whatever terrorists are the latest bogeymen. Or perhaps on a gas explosion. Or a plane falling out of the sky. Whatever the family decides. Yes. Oh, stories will get out; they always do. The Net does so love its urban legends. But no one will ever know the truth. The family's had a lot of practice at burying the truth. Oh yes."

"How are we seeing this?" I said. "If there aren't any camera crews there..."

"I have cameras everywhere, remember?" said the Mole, blinking proudly. "I can tap into any CCTV, any and all security systems, plus a whole bunch of a.s.sorted surveillance technology that my people have planted in un.o.btrusive places. I have eyes and ears in every major city in the world. Plus all those smaller places that the world doesn't know are important. Though I'm still having trouble getting into Area 53...But nothing happens in London that I don't know about sooner or later. Oh, no...I knew you'd come down here looking for me, even before you did. Oh, yes! I had plenty of time to think about whether I was going to let you in here, Edwin. It helped that you brought Molly with you. A double agent would never have hooked up with the infamous Molly Metcalf."

He ignored Molly's bristling, intent on the mayhem filling the big screen. The Manifest Destiny soldiers were in full retreat, pursued by the three field agents. The Mole giggled.

"Good thing I'm recording this. I know people who'll pay good money to see Drood field agents in action. And others who'll pay even more to see Manifest Destiny getting their nasty a.r.s.es kicked so convincingly. Oh, that reminds me. Excuse me a moment while I make sure the machines are recording all my soaps properly. I hate it when I miss an episode because the machines have recorded the wrong channel again."

He gave all his attention to fussing with his remote controls while Molly and I took the opportunity to move a few steps away and talk quietly with each other. I kept my voice really low. I wouldn't put it past the Mole to bug his own lair, just in case.

"What do you think?" I murmured. "Can we trust him? I get the feeling he's not too tightly wrapped, to be honest."

"What did you expect?" said Molly just as quietly. "He's lived down here in seclusion for G.o.d knows how many years, his only contact with the world what he sees on his screens and hears on the Net. Like Oddly John: if he wasn't crazy when he came down here, he almost certainly is now."

"But he says he knows things."

"Oh, he does. But whether they're real things, or helpful things...It's up to you, Eddie, to get him to tell you what you need to know. I mean, the Mole's a sweetie, but he literally doesn't live in the same world as the rest of us anymore."

"Then why did you bring me down here?" I said just a little tetchily.

"Because the Mole genuinely does know some things that no one else knows."

"Whispering is very bad manners," the Mole said loudly. "And we are not at home to Mister Rude."

"Sorry," I said. "We didn't want to disturb you. I was hoping you might know some things I need to know."

"Try me," the Mole said grandly. "I am wise and know many things. Yes. Including a whole lot I'm not supposed to know."

"Do you know why I was declared rogue?" I said flatly. "Why the Matriarch wants me dead so badly?"

"Ah," said the Mole, his face dropping. He clasped his podgy hands across his protruding belly. "I'm not privy to our family's inner workings. Not anymore. No. I couldn't even tell you why I was made rogue." He blinked at me sadly through his heavy gla.s.ses and sighed wistfully. "Back then, I was a respected family scholar. Never been out in the world, never wanted to. I was working on an officially sanctioned history of the family. Full access to the library, access to all doc.u.ments, interview anyone I wanted. Lots of fascinating stories...The next thing I know I'm on the run, with the pack baying at my heels. Luckily I was something of a voyeur, even then." He sn.i.g.g.e.red. "Nothing malicious. Not really. I just liked knowing things...It paid off, though; I was already out of the Hall with as many valuables as I could stuff into a backpack before they'd officially given the order to detain me. Oh, yes...I went to ground here. I knew about this place. I'm not the first Mole under London, you know. There were others before me, for various reasons. I just built on what they started.

"But I still don't know why I was outlawed. After all my years of digging and probing and listening at electronic keyholes, I'm still no wiser. No. I can only a.s.sume...I must have been on the edge of discovering something really important, some deep dark family secret that the Droods have to keep hidden at all costs...I just wish I knew what it was. I'd sell it to everyone, just to make the family pay for what they did to me."

Another dead end. I scowled, thinking. "That reminds me a lot of what happened to the old librarian," I said finally.

"Ah, yes," said the Mole. "Poor old William. You know what happened to him?"

"Yes," I said. "Molly and I went to visit him this morning. He couldn't tell us much."

"I'm amazed he told you anything," said the Mole. "I've been sending people in to talk to him for years, without success. You must tell me absolutely everything he said to you before you go, so I can record it. Everything, every word. Yes. I'll study the recordings later, see if I can cross-reference any useful connections."

"Do you know what it was he found out?" I said. "What it was that drove him crazy? He mentioned the Sanct.i.ty and the Heart..."

"Did he? Did he now? That is interesting...Means nothing to me, though. No. I'll have to think about that. Yes. Still, I can't help feeling we're probably better off not knowing. Look what knowing it did to a brilliant mind like his..." The Mole blinked rapidly several times, and then deliberately changed the subject. "I'm still working on a history of the Drood family, you know. From a safe distance. You'd be surprised how much information there is on the Droods out in the world, where they can't suppress it. Oh, yes. I'm constantly finding out all kinds of awful things our family has done, Edwin, down the centuries. Oh, some of the things we're responsible for...Terrible, terrible things! Yes. Just lately I've been concentrating on the real reasons behind certain important and well-known operations. For example, Edwin, do you know why our family is so determined to wipe out the Loathly Ones?"

"Well, yes," I said. "They eat souls."

"Apart from that," said the Mole. "The family needs to silence them so everyone else won't find out that we were the ones who originally opened the dimensional door and let the Loathly Ones into our reality. We brought them here to act as foot soldiers against Vril Power Inc. during World War Two. Vril had grown powerful enough under Hitler to pose a real threat to the family. Had their own army and everything. Oh, yes, there were a lot of secret wars going on behind and underneath the real conflict, that the world never knew about. Anyway, the Loathly Ones did the job all right, but when the time came for them to return to their own dimension, as had been agreed, the Loathly Ones reneged on the deal and refused to go. They liked it here. The feeding was just so good...The family's been trying to wipe them out ever since so no one will ever know we were the ones responsible for inflicting them on the world."

"Dear G.o.d," I said.

"Oh, that's nothing!" said the Mole, leaning eagerly forward in his chair. "That's nothing compared to some of the things I've found out! The family history that you and I were brought up on only records the official version of events, not the failures and foul-ups and the secret deals that went horribly wrong." The Mole paused, considering. "I have to say, I still believe that most of what we were taught was true...as far as it went...but you have to place it in the context of what it was all for in the end."

"So that we could be the secret rulers of the world," I said.

"Yes," said the Mole. "Sometimes I wonder...if perhaps there's another context, beyond that, that I don't know about yet. Some very secret reason why we have to be the secret rulers of the world, for everyone's good. I'd like to believe that. Yes."

"Have you found any evidence for that?" I said.

"No," the Mole said sadly. "If only I could access the family library. All the reserved volumes and the restricted books. Learn the whole true history of the Drood family...But not even my resources can hack the Drood library. No. That's why they've always kept everything on paper, because of people like me. And of course I've never been able to sneak a single surveillance camera into the Hall. No! No..."

"So you can't tell me anything about why I was outlawed?" I persisted.

"You must know something," the Mole said sharply. "It's always knowing things that make you really dangerous to the Droods. Knowing things they don't want anyone else to know. Secrets that have to be kept inside their precious inner circle. The Matriarch, her council, her favourites...The ones who really run the world."

"But I don't know anything!" I said. I could hear the desperation in my voice.

"They think you do," the Mole said simply.

We both looked around sharply as loud music blasted suddenly through the cavern. It seemed Molly had grown bored and wandered off on her own while the Mole and I argued over family history. She'd found MTV on one of the screens and jacked up the volume. "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin filled the air, the loud salsa beat echoing back from the stone walls. And Molly danced joyously to the music, stamping her feet and shaking her head and swirling her long dress about her. The Mole and I both watched, too entranced to think of protesting, as the wild witch danced to the music. It felt good to see such a moment of happy innocence in the middle of such dark discussions. Molly understood that life was for living, and living in the moment. Anywhen else, I would have joined her, danced with her, but just the thought made my bad arm ache the more fiercely.

The song finally finished, and the Mole worked his remote control, cutting off the next number. Molly danced on for a moment, and then strode back to join us. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright and happy.

"Spoilsport!" she said cheerfully to the Mole, and actually leaned over him to kiss him on the cheek. The Mole blushed bright red. Molly looked at me.

"Are we finished here, Eddie?"

"Almost," I said. I turned back to the Mole. "What do you know about strange matter?"

"Ah," said the Mole. "Yes, yes! I heard about the elf lord's arrow! It really punched right through your armour? Interesting...That was, well, I won't say unprecedented-there are stories-but this is the first authenticated case I've ever encountered. All I can tell you for sure is that strange matter comes from another dimension of reality, where the laws of physics are subtly different. So that things which could never arise naturally here are possible there. Like strange matter, with its amazing unnatural properties."

"It's inside me," I said. "Poisoning me. Killing me. Is there a cure, an antidote? Something I could use to drive it out of me?"

"I don't know," said the Mole, and I could see it pained him to admit it. "I'd need to know exactly where it came from. Only the elf lord could tell us that, and elves don't talk to anyone who isn't an elf. I have some indirect contacts...Yes. Give me a few weeks, and I might have something to tell you."

"I don't have a few weeks," I said. "And I'm starting to think that the only place which could help me, the only place with the answers I need, is the library back at the Hall."

"They won't help you," said the Mole.

I smiled unpleasantly. It felt good. "I wasn't planning on asking them," I said. "I was thinking more about breaking into the Hall, ransacking the library, and taking what I b.l.o.o.d.y well need. And if that happened to involve beating some answers out of various people, like Grandmother's beloved consort, that would just be a pleasant bonus."

"Now, that's more like it!" said Molly, clapping her hands together gleefully. "Hard core, Eddie! No one's dared burgle the Hall in generations! Let me come too! Oh, please; I promise I'll make a real mess of the place!"

"Edwin, no; don't even think it," the Mole said urgently. "You know what kind of security protects the Hall. All the terrible things and forces our family rely on to protect their privacy. Any safe words you might have known will have been cancelled by now. You don't want to end up as one of the scarecrows, do you?"

"Wait a minute; those are real?" said Molly. "I thought they were just stories to scare people off."

"They're real," I said. "I've heard them screaming. My family really is just as vicious and vindictive towards uninvited visitors as all the stories say we are." I looked at the Mole. "You probably know more about the Hall's defences than anyone else who isn't actually an insider. If you were to come with us..."

"No! No. I couldn't."

"Not even for a chance to strike back at the people who ruined your life?"

"You don't understand," said the broken man who used to be Malcolm Drood. "I haven't left this place since I first came down here. All those years ago...This is the only place where I feel safe anymore. Just the thought of leaving here...is more than I can bear. You're the first real, in the flesh visitors I've allowed in here since I first shut the door behind me and sealed myself off from the world." He managed a small smile. "You should feel honoured."

"No company, ever?" said Molly. "I heard rumours, but I never really thought...How do you stand it?"

"Because the alternatives are worse," said the Mole. "I live through my screens now, and on the Net. A virtual life, but better than none."

"All those years," I said. "Gathering and collating information, but you've never done anything to expose the truth about our family to any of the world's media. Why not?"

"Because I'm not ready to die yet," said the Mole.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Time and Time Again "S o," I said to the Mole, "is there by any chance a back way out of this place? I'm really not too keen on fighting my way back through tunnels full of seriously p.i.s.sed-off trolls just to get back to Blackfriars station. Which is probably swarming with unfriendly people on the lookout for Molly and me anyway."