Tales of the Hidden World (3 page)

He descended steadily, following the curved bank beneath his armored feet, until finally he was walking along the bottom of Lake Walchensee. He’d left the light from above behind long ago, and now he moved through dark, still waters. He made his armor glow brightly, to give him some light to move in, but even so he was lucky to see more than ten feet in any direction. The bottom of the lake was scattered with objects, none of them particularly unusual or important, and he couldn’t see a scrap of gold anywhere. His heavy armored feet sank deep into the muddy bottom, every step disturbing dirt and sediment, sending it rising up into the dark water, before falling slowly back again.

Jack carried a special device of his own invention, set into the armor of his left hand. He’d promised the family it would detect gold bullion at up to a hundred yards radius, but so far the damned thing wasn’t reacting at all. Jack shook his hand a few times, just on general principles, but it made no difference. He moved slowly, steadily forward, covering a grid of the lake bottom he’d memorized previously. Looking carefully about him and doing his best not to trip over things.

He’d been underwater for more than an hour, supported and protected by his armor, not feeling the cold or any need for air, when he suddenly became aware that he wasn’t alone down there. He’d been getting glimpses of things moving, just on the edge of the light his armor radiated, but he only knew for sure he had company when a steel harpoon came flying at him out of nowhere at incredible speed. It ricocheted harmlessly off his armored chest and fell slowly away through the water. Jack concentrated, and his armor blazed up, spreading new golden light through the dark waters. And there they all were, suddenly revealed in the new light, standing huddled together in their little groups, surrounding him. Caught completely unaware.

For a while they all just stood there, looking blankly at one another. Three different groups of half a dozen men each, wearing various kinds of underwater gear. Bubbles rose up in sudden bursts, as the divers talked to one another. And off on the very edge of the golden light; , a small yellow submersible. Probably the Americans; , they always had the budget to do things in style. Most of the divers were holding pressurized harpoon guns, and a few had over-sized guns adapted for underwater warfare. The various groups tried out every weapon they had on Jack, because they all knew they had to take out the Drood agent first, before they could turn on one another. Most agents would have had the sense to turn and run, rather than annoy a Drood, but the possible proximity of so much gold had turned their minds.

Jack just stood where he was, at the bottom of Lake Walchensee, and let the harpoons and bullets bounce uselessly off him. He hoped they’d get the hint and just go away, once it became clear they couldn’t hurt him. He still believed in playing the game and doing the right thing. But even after the yellow submersible had fired an explosive rocket at him, and he’d had to catch the thing and hold it against his armored chest, to smother the explosion . . . When the waters calmed down again, and it was clear he hadn’t been forced back so much as a step . . . Even then, they wouldn’t give up. Duty, or greed, had got a hold of them.

They came at him from all sides, with vicious knives in their hands. Big, heavy blades with serrated edges. They stabbed and cut at him and got nowhere, and Jack realized he had no choice but to deal with them. Because they weren’t going to go away and leave him alone, and abandon the gold. So he killed them all. He smashed in heads and ribs with his heavy golden fists. He punched holes in their scuba tanks, and ripped away their breathing tubes, and held them in place till they drowned. He grabbed the knives out of their hands and stabbed them through their black rubber diving suits. He had to chase after the last few when they finally turned to run. He caught them easily, his golden armor driving him through the dark waters at superhuman speed.

Bodies floated everywhere, falling slowly to the lake bottom in awkward, spread-eagled poses. Blood rose up here and there in drifting streams.

The yellow submersible tried to flee while he was occupied. He soon caught up with it, pulled himself up onto its roof, and punched great holes in its sides with his golden fists. Air bubbled out thickly. The motors strained to lift the small craft, even with Jack’s extra weight, until he ripped them away. The submersible sank slowly back through the dark waters to settle on the muddy bottom. Jack found the escape hatch and held it closed, until he was sure everyone inside was dead. He didn’t feel good about it. The family had warned him what being a field agent could mean, but he hadn’t realized it would feel like this. So . . . easy.

He didn’t examine any of the bodies, or the submersible, to discover who they’d been working for. It didn’t matter. His orders had been clear. No one else could be trusted with that much gold. The other agents could have been CIA, KGB, or any of the many alphabet soup groups operating all over divided Europe, in those days. So many organizations, operating on either side of the Iron Curtain. Searching for treasure, or power, or just something they could turn to their advantage. Except . . . Jack spent hours, walking back and forth on the bottom of the lake, and he never found so much as a single gold coin. The only gold in those dark waters was the armor he was wearing.

He left the dead behind and walked up out of the dark waters, and that was Jack Drood’s first mission as a field agent.

East Berlin was the dark side of that separated city, and Jack Drood sent his car racing through the back streets, hitting the brakes at the very last minute so he could screech around corners. This was some years later, after he’d made a reputation, if not a legend, for himself. Nothing to match his brother, James, the Gray Fox, but enough that he could still rely on being given the more interesting missions.

Jack glanced quickly at the rearview mirror. He was still being pursued by half a dozen official cars at speed. They swayed back and forth behind him as the gray anonymous men took it in turns to lean out the side windows and open fire on him. Jack grinned. They were having to go all out just to keep up over treacherously uneven roads, and even when they did manage to hit him, the bullets just bounced off his specially reinforced chassis. He felt so safe; he didn’t even bother to armor up. Just kept his head down, kept his foot down hard, and sent his car hammering through the narrow back streets and alleyways of East Berlin, heading for Checkpoint Charlie and safe passage back to civilization.

Jack was driving one of his favorite cars, his very own lovingly restored 1933 open-topped, four-and-a-half-liter Bentley, in racing green with red leather interiors. Not exactly an inconspicuous car, for a secret agent out in the field. Just smuggling it into East Berlin had been a real pain in the ass. But when it came to holding its own in a car chase, the Bentley had no equal. Jack liked a car he could depend on. The Bentley had a bulletproof chassis and windows, hidden machine guns, front and back, and a whole bunch of other nasty little secrets tucked away about its person, which Jack had designed and installed himself.

There was a long waiting list at Drood Hall, just to look at the specs.

Jack sent the Bentley racing up and down the back streets and alleyways, some of them so narrow the sides of the car brushed against the cheap concrete and brickwork. Dark streets under a dark sky, no moon up above, and hardly any working streetlights. Only the Bentley’s headlights, blazing fiercely before him, showed Jack the way through East Berlin. He hung onto the steering wheel with both hands, laughing aloud as the car bounced and jumped. Nothing like a good old-fashioned hot pursuit to get the adrenaline going. He concentrated on the city map he’d memorized and sent the Bentley slamming around sudden corners, hitting the supercharger now and again, when he needed to open up a little more space between him and his pursuers. The sound of so many roaring engines in the confined spaces was almost unnaturally loud in the night, but no one looked out a window to see what was going on. Jack peered ahead into the glare of the headlights. Either the map he’d been given was wrong, or someone had been doing a lot of unauthorized building around here. A whole bunch of turnings he’d been relying on just weren’t there.

He kept his foot down, gunning the motor. He was heading in the right direction, and that was all that mattered.

It didn’t help that most of East Berlin looked the same. Dull, faceless, characterless buildings on every side, thrown up in a hurry to hold a subservient population in place. Hardly any lights in the windows, and no one about on the streets. Not at that hour. The only people out and about at this time of the night in East Berlin were agents like him, and the East German secret police following him. The cars behind were catching up, despite everything Jack could do to throw them off, and more and more bullets were slamming into the rear of the Bentley. Jack kept his head well down and grinned across at his companion, curled up in a ball in the passenger seat.

Greta was a pretty young secretary who worked for the secret police because she liked eating regularly. She’d managed to get word to a Drood representative that she would tell them everything she knew (and it promised to be quite a lot, and worth the knowing) if the Droods would get her safely out of the country. And save her soul from Hell.

“So,” he said, raising his voice just a bit to be heard over the roar of the car’s engine and the sound of bullets hammering into the rear. “How long have you and your friends been allowing yourselves to become possessed by demons?”

“It all started out as a game,” she said. “Just a few of us, doing it for fun. For the thrill of it all. We called out to spirits, through the Ouija board, and they came. And then we called out to other things, and they came, too. We let them in, just for a while, and it felt good, so good. With a thing from Hell inside us, we weren’t afraid to do anything. You don’t understand how powerful a feeling that can be, not to have to be afraid . . . And then the demons spoke to us and encouraged us to do things, and we did. I liked being possessed. I liked it so much I let seven demons come inside me, and then I couldn’t get them out. I can feel them, squirming inside me, like barbed wire slicing through my thoughts . . . I’m holding them down for the moment, but every day it feels like there’s less and less of me, and more and more of them. I was told you can help me.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jack, in his best calm and reassuring voice. “We have people standing ready, who know how to deal with things like this. What about your friends?”

“What about them?”

“Well, what happened to the other people who were possessed by demons?”

“I killed them,” said the little secretary, still curled up in a ball in the passenger seat. “I had to clean up after myself, before I could leave.”

And then the Bentley was suddenly slammed to one side, right across the road and into the far wall, as a hidden gun emplacement opened up. The heavy bullets hammered all along the length of the car, and Jack had to fight the steering wheel for control. The Bentley bounced back off the wall, hardly damaged by the impact, and swerved back and forth across the road. Jack laughed out loud and kept going, hitting the supercharger for all it was worth. He’d designed the Bentley to be a tank, unstoppable. But when he looked around at his passenger, to say something cheerful and reassuring, he found the gun emplacement must have been specially designed, too. Its unusually heavy bullets had punched right through the Bentley’s reinforced side, leaving a long series of jagged holes. In the car and in the passenger. The little secretary sat slumped in her seat, almost torn in half. Blood soaked her whole side of the car. She was dead. With that much damage, she had to be. But she still turned her head around to look at Jack and smile at him with bloody teeth.

Jack checked the road ahead was clear and looked back at her. Demons from Hell looked back at him through her unblinking eyes.

“Get us out of here,” said the secretary, with her dead mouth. “Get us back to Drood Hall, and we will teach you all the secrets of Hell.”

“I don’t think so,” said Jack. “We know all we need to know about the Pit.”

He hit a large red button set into the dashboard and filled the car with a blast of exorcist radiations. A bit basic, a bit down and dirty, but it did the job. The secretary’s body shook and shuddered, horrible screams emerging from her slack mouth, and then she was still. The car stank of blood and brimstone, the stench of Hell. Jack reached across, opened the opposite door, and pushed the body out. It hit the ground hard, in a flail of limbs, and was quickly left behind. The door shut itself, and Jack drove on.

He tried to feel sorry for the poor little secretary, but he hadn’t known her long enough. Nobody told her to play with fire.

Jack drove on through the empty East Berlin night, roaring through the deserted streets. No one was chasing him anymore. They’d all stopped to check the body. Jack hoped they’d be properly appreciative that he’d cleaned up for them, but he rather doubted it. He drove on, heading for Checkpoint Charlie and home, and he never looked back once.

Jack went walking in solitary silence, on the gray dusty surface of the Moon, surrounded by mountains and craters, snug and secure inside his golden armor. The dimensional Door had dropped him off exactly where he was supposed to be. He was there to retrieve Professor Cavor’s last mooncraft, crash-landed back in Victorian times, so its presence wouldn’t embarrass the Americans when they landed their ship in a few years’ time. Jack took his time, looking around him, grinning broadly behind his featureless mask. Enjoying the magnificent scenery by Earthlight.

He found the crashed vehicle easily enough, right where it was supposed to be. He peered through the porthole at the mummified body inside, and then dragged the craft back to the Door, great clouds of dust billowing up around him, and then falling slowly back again. He forced the craft through the expanded Door, and then turned away, and walked back across the gray land to one particular crater, mentioned in Cavor’s last communication. He found the stone stairway, cut into the interior side of the crater, and proceded carefully down the rough steps, following them around and around and down and down, until finally he came to the abandoned ruins of the Selenite city. They were all long gone, of course. All that remained of Selenite civilization was rot and ruin. He walked cautiously on through the great stone galleries, past massive crystal installations, feeling very small against the sheer scale of the surrounding structures. He had hoped to find some last remnants of their unearthly science, but everything he touched crumbled to dust under his golden fingers.