Live and Let Drood

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Book: Live and Let Drood Read Online Free PDF
Author: Simon R. Green
Tags: Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery
with her presence. And at the very back of the room we found the little surprise the enemy had left for us, or for anyone else who came looking, to find. Twelve roughly severed heads set on spikes. Six male, six female. From the expressions on their faces, none of them had died well. Some were still silently screaming for help that never came. I studied the faces carefully but I didn’t recognise any of them. I can’t say whether that made it easier or harder to bear. I knelt down and closed the wildly staring eyes, one set at a time. Because I had to do something. There were no torcs at any of the raggedly cut necks.
    The smell was pretty bad.
    “Did you know any of them?” said Molly.
    “No,” I said. “But then, it’s a big family. You can’t know everyone. Howard isn’t here.”
    “Why leave the heads like this?” said Molly. “As a warning to anyone who came looking? Or just to mark their territory, the bastards?”
    “It’s a sign of contempt,” I said. “To tell everyone that the Droods are nothing to be feared anymore. Well, they got that wrong. I’m still here. I will find who did this. I will kill them all, and they will die hard and die bloody. And for that I’m going to need weapons.”
    And so we went down again, into the family Armoury, set deep and deep beneath the West Wing. Except when I cleared the rubble away from the floor that should have held the entrance to the Armoury approach…it wasn’t there. I stared down at the bare dusty floorboards, which had clearly never been disturbed, and then lookedaround to make sure I was in the right room. But even with all the damage and destruction, I had no doubt I was in the right place. The entrance should have been here, but it wasn’t and clearly never had been. I didn’t know what to think.
    The Armoury has always been in the same place ever since the family set it down below the Hall, centuries ago. Right down in the bedrock under the West Wing, as far away from the family as they could get, to protect the rest of us from the weapons development and explosives testing that went on every day, and the inevitable unexpected side effects produced by lab assistants with a whole lot of scientific curiosity and not nearly enough self-preservation instincts. Impossible.
    I had to search through three other rooms to find a trapdoor in the floor that to my certain knowledge hadn’t been there before. I kicked the last of the rubble aside, leaned over the steel-banded wooden square and studied it thoughtfully for a long moment, ignoring the threatening creaks and groans from the ceiling overhead. Molly stirred uneasily at my side.
    “This room is trying to tell us something, Eddie, and I’m pretty sure Get the hell out of here while you still can would be a fairly accurate translation.”
    “Hell with that,” I said. “It’s taken long enough, but I think I’ve finally found a clue. There’s no way I could be wrong about how you get down into the family Armoury. I’ve been sneaking down there to pester Uncle Jack since I was ten years old.”
    “Maybe they made a new entrance while you were gone,” said Molly, moving quickly sideways to avoid a stream of dust falling from the ceiling. “Maybe they blew up the old one.”
    “I haven’t been gone that long,” I said. “You couldn’t rush a major change like that through the Works Committee in less than a twelve-month. You don’t know what bureaucracy is until you’ve been part of a family that’s been around for centuries.”
    “But the trapdoor is intact,” said Molly. “Which would suggest…”
    “Yes,” I said. “It would.”
    I grabbed the heavy iron ring set into the top of the wooden trapdoorand hauled it open with an effort. It started to slam backwards onto the floor, and Molly and I grabbed it at the last moment and lowered it carefully down. More dust was falling in thick streams from the ceiling, and I was getting a strong feeling that one good slam might be enough
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