Read Online Book 3 - The Spy Who Haunted Me by Simon R. Green - Free Book Online Page B

stood tall and broad and firm on the horizon, heavy with the weight of history and obligation and sacred cause. A huge manor house in the old Tudor style, with four great wings added on somewhat later, plus other things too. Strange lights burned in many of the windows, accompanied no doubt by the usual odd noises and the occasional rumble of an explosion. We’re a lively family. I passed the old hedge maze, giving it plenty of room and a distrustful glance. It covers half an acre and is fiendishly intricate in its layout, but we never use it. The maze was designed and built in Georgian times to hold and contain Something, but no one now remembers who or what or why. When your home contains as many marvels and wonders as ours, a few things are bound to fall through the cracks. Sometimes literally. Now and again we throw into the maze someone we don’t like very much, just to see what will happen. So far, none of them have ever come out again.
    A rocket-assisted autogyro blasted off from one of the landing pads on the roof, leaving a long contrail behind it, while someone in a jet pack glided in for a landing. And no, in case you were wondering: no one in this family has used a broomstick for centuries. The Droods live very firmly in the present, not the past.
    I slammed the Rover 25 to a halt in a shower of flying gravel and parked the car right outside the front door just because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I stepped out of the Rover and looked the old place over. It hadn’t changed in the six months I’d been away, but that was the point of the Drood family home: it never changed. Like the family, it maintained, sometimes in the face of everything the world could send against it. The car door locked itself behind me, and I heard the defences powering up. Good luck to anyone who tried to move it; my car had a few protections even the family didn’t know about.
    I like to keep my family on their toes; it keeps them from taking me for granted.
    I headed for the front entrance, and the huge door immediately swung open before me, revealing the cold, grim face of the new Serjeant-at-Arms. The old Serjeant went out in a blaze of glory during the Hungry Gods War, and the new guy just didn’t have his brutal and despised predecessor’s effortless air of menace and imminent violence. He tried hard, though. The new Serjeant-at-Arms was squat and broad and muscular and, in his immaculate formal butler’s outfit, looked very much like a nightclub bouncer at a funeral. His face was dark and craggy and had clearly never once been bothered by a smile. Not surprising, when you considered the importance of his duties. Not only was he the first line of defence against any attack on the Hall; he was also responsible for internal discipline within the family. A good Serjeant-at-Arms may be respected, even feared, but never liked. It’s probably part of the job description. Thou shalt not be popular. The Serjeant maintains family discipline by enforcing every law with open brutality.
    He does not spare the rod with the children.
    The new Serjeant-at-Arms’ name, never used anymore in public, was Cedric. There’s something about certain names that pretty much ensures that particular child will be teased and bullied by his peers all through childhood. Sometimes I think the parents do it on purpose, to ensure their precious progeny will grow up tough and hard. With a name like Cedric, the guy was destined to be Serjeant-at-Arms someday. That, or a serial killer.
    He stood firmly in the doorway, deliberately blocking my way. He glowered at me, his arms folded tightly across his impressive chest. I considered him thoughtfully. While I was running the family I was exempt from family discipline, but now I was just a field agent again . . . I was still exempt, as far as I was concerned. I’ve never got on with authority figures. Even when I was one. I’m a firm believer in rules and discipline within the family, as long as they don’t