For Heaven's Eyes Only by Simon R. Green Read Free Book Online

fascinated and appalled in equal measure, as Roger Morningstar pulled back one elegant shirt cuff and cut open a vein in his wrist with one clawed fingertip. Steaming-hot, dark blood streamed down into the corpse’s open mouth, quickly filling it and spilling out over the sides. Roger sealed the wound in his wrist with a touch, and then he leaned forward over the body. He was smiling a happy, satisfied smile, as though he was enjoying doing something he didn’t often get to do these days.
    “Blood of my life for you, Immortal, for a time. My life to move within you and raise you up to do my bidding and my will. Sit up and speak, little dead man, and tell me what I want to know.”
    The corpse’s mouth snapped suddenly shut, and its throat worked convulsively as it swallowed. The eyes turned to stare unblinkingly at Roger, and then the corpse sat up, the body making loud complaining sounds as it fought the stiffening of rigor mortis. The corpse looked into Roger’s burning eyes. And then the dead man screamed horribly, a lost, terrified, trapped sound.
    “Stop that,” said Roger, almost casually, and the scream cut off immediately. The corpse worked its mouth, stained with the poison it had taken and Roger’s dark blood, and when the dead Immortal finally spoke, its voice sounded as though it travelled some unimaginable distance. It sounded like something trying to remember what a human voice sounded like.
    “Who calls me back?” it said, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear whatever else it might have to say.
    “I do,” Roger said briskly. “Talk to me, Immortal.”
    The corpse’s mouth moved slowly, adopting an awful smile. “Do you want to know the secrets of life and death? Shall I tell you the awful knowledge of the Shimmering Plains and the Courts of the Holy, or perhaps the Houses of Pain, in the Pit?”
    “Don’t waste my time,” said Roger. “I probably know more of that than you do, at this point. Stop showing off and tell me: Who sent you here to murder Eddie Drood? Are there other Immortals out there in the world plotting attacks on Drood Hall?”
    “There are only a few of us left now,” said the corpse, still looking only at Roger. “Scattered. Hiding. I don’t know where they are. This was all my idea. If I couldn’t be a real Immortal anymore, a man of privilege and power, I decided I’d rather die, taking my hated enemy with me.” He turned his head slowly to look at me, and it was all I could do not to flinch back from the sheer hatred in that look. “We were masters of the world, and you took it all away. The barbarian at the gates of Rome. The savage who didn’t even understand the glory he destroyed. I wanted you dead, Drood, and I came so very close. . . .” He tried to spit at me, but nothing came out of his black-crusted mouth.
    The Sarjeant-at-Arms moved forward to stand between me and the dead man. He was capable of small kindnesses, when he chose.
    “How did you get in here,” he growled, “past all the Hall’s defences?”
    “Rafe was one of us,” said the corpse. “He told us everything. Do you really think he was the only one?”
    “I have got to get that detector working properly,” said the Armourer. “Sort out who’s who once and for all.”
    Molly pushed forward to glare coldly into the dead man’s face. “You made yourself look like my sister Isabella. Where is she? Are you holding her somewhere? Where is she? Where’s Isabella?”
    “Damned if I know,” said the corpse. “I never had her. Didn’t need her. I could duplicate anyone I ever met, and I knew Isabella of old. She worked with us several times on matters of mutual interest.”
    “Your sister worked with the Immortals?” I said to Molly.
    “Oh, hell, Eddie,” said Molly, “Iz has walked along with everybody, one time or another.”
    “Even worked with us, on a few occasions,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “On matters of mutual benefit. I made some very useful devices for her,