Read Book 2 - Daemons Are Forever for Free Online

make me look indecisive in front of the family. Did I mention I have enemies inside the family? Hardcore traditionalists and surviving members of the Zero Tolerance faction, still mad as hell that their little putsch hadn’t succeeded, and determined to sabotage and undermine me.
    Hell hath no fury like a Drood with a grudge.
    I did try to be polite, and answer the questions of those nearest me, but no one could hear me in the general bedlam of voices. And no one in the crowd was willing to quieten down in favour of someone else. It’s times like this I wish my armour was equipped with pepper sprays. Or water cannon. In the end I looked at Molly, and she grinned mischievously. She muttered a few Words and made a sharp gesture, and suddenly everyone in the angry mob was entirely naked and wondering where the cold breeze was coming from. The bedlam died quickly away to a shocked silence, followed by a few squeaks and squeals as a hundred or so naked Droods did their best to cover themselves with their hands or hide behind each other. Molly glared about her, her smile entirely unpleasant.
    “Right; everyone pay attention and stay quiet, or I’ll send you where I sent your clothes. And your clothes aren’t coming back. Or at least, not in any condition where you could hope to wear them again. Ye gods and little fishes, look at the state of you. Living proof that most people look better with their clothes on. Now be good little naked people and run away terribly quickly, before I decide to do something really amusing to you. Probably involving Möbius strips and your lower intestines.”
    I never saw so many people disappear so quickly, or so many entirely unattractive arses. I looked at Molly, and she smiled sweetly.
    “You see—you just have to know how to talk to people.”
    “You haven’t even heard of diplomacy, have you?”
    “No. And aren’t you glad?”
    “Well, yes.”
    And that was when the Sarjeant-at-Arms finally deigned to make an appearance. He was supposed to be guarding the front door; that was his job, to be the first and last face any outsider ever sees if they come through the front door without an invitation. The Sarjeant is in charge of Hall security and family discipline, which means he gets to hit people a lot; and he’s never happier than when he’s found an excuse to really lay the law down. He made my life hell when I was a child, beating me till the blood flew for the smallest infringement of the rules; and when I finally came back to the Hall to put the family in order, one of the first things I did was to beat the crap out of him. And then he had the nerve to say he only did it to toughen me up and prepare me for the world outside. He actually said he was proud of me, before he lapsed into unconsciousness. I’ll never forgive him for that.
    The Sarjeant-at-Arms was tall and broad, with muscles in places where you and I don’t even have places. And though he affected the stark black-and-white formal uniform of a Victorian butler, it never fooled anyone for a moment. The man was a thug and a bully and proud of it, and therefore perfectly suited to his job. He had that stiff-backed, steely-eyed military look that promises you blood, sweat, and tears in the future, and every bit of it yours. His impassive face always seemed as though it had been carved out of stone, but now it looked like someone had been at it with a chisel. The last time we went head-to-head, Molly hit him with a plague of rats, and now one side of his face was a mass of scars and his left ear was missing. I gave him a stern look.
    “I thought I told you to get your face fixed. The cosmetic sorcerers could put you right in an afternoon, and you know it.”
    “I like the scars,” the Sarjeant said calmly. “They add character. And they’re very good for intimidating people.”
    “What about the ear?”
    “Pardon?”
    I scowled at him. “Where the hell were you when we got ambushed by that mob?”
    “Right,” said