Verwandte Artikel zu Moonbreaker (Secret Histories, Band 11)

Moonbreaker (Secret Histories, Band 11) - Softcover

Buch 11 von 12: SECRET HISTORIES

Green, Simon R.

 
9780593101865: Moonbreaker (Secret Histories, Band 11)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593101863 ISBN 13: 9780593101865
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Ride shotgun with a “James Bond–of-the-supernatural”* as the Secret Histories Novels take you careening through an alternate London where around every corner a new kind of danger awaits....

My name is Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, the very secret agent. And I am a dead man walking.

I’ve been poisoned by Dr. DOA. There is no cure, no treatment, no chance of a last-minute miracle. So all that is left to me and my love, Molly Metcalf, is to track down my killer and stop him before he can murder anyone else.

So whether that means fighting a secret army on another world; or searching for a forgotten weapon in the Museum of Unattached Oddities; or facing off against Grendel Rex, the Unforgiven God, in the hidden heart of the Moon, for the terrible secret that is Moonbreaker...I will do whatever it takes, while I still can. Because the game isn’t over till I say it’s over—and I still have one last card to play.

*SFRevu

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author. He lives in England.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE

When Your Back's against the Wall, When Everything Looks Lost, Find Someone to Take It Out On

It wasn't my family's Armoury, but it looked enough like the one I knew to send a chill down my spine. The same long series of stone cellars, with colour-coded wiring tacked haphazardly to the walls. But here the workstations were abandoned, the firing ranges were empty, and wreckage and rubble lay everywhere. The Armourer and his white-coated lab assistants, who should have been running wild with out-of-control experiments and weapons that endangered the lives of everyone around them, were gone-long gone. Slaughtered by the Droods' many enemies, after my other self shut down the Hall's protections and sabotaged its defences. The Armoury was still and silent now, its many wonders trashed or looted. Like some ancient burial chamber despoiled by grave-robbers who could never hope to appreciate the treasures they carried away or left trampled underfoot.

The only sounds disturbing the graveyard quiet came from Molly. Her language started out bad and quickly escalated, as she swept her hands back and forth through the empty space where the dimensional gateway had been just a few moments before. She was trying to find some trace of it with her magics, so she could call it back and force it open, but she wasn't getting anywhere.

"Molly," I said thoughtfully.

"What? I'm busy!"

"Look what's back."

She turned around, and there was Alpha Red Alpha, towering over us. The great dimensional engine itself. Molly glared at it.

"That wasn't there a moment ago."

"I know."

"So what was it doing? Hiding from us?"

I shrugged. "That's Alpha Red Alpha for you."

I looked carefully at the massive and never fully understood mechanism, designed to be the Droods' last line of defence. So that if the Hall ever found itself faced with a threat that couldn't be stopped, the engine would translate the whole building into another dimension, another earth, where it could safely remain until the threat was over and the Hall could be brought back again.

Either the family here never got a chance to use it, or Edmund did something to it.

Alpha Red Alpha: a gigantic hour-glass shape immersed inside a frozen waterfall of gleaming crystal, shot through with sprawling circuits, like ragged veins. It was hard to make sense of, hard even to look at, as though it existed in more than three dimensions . . . And if there were any controls, I couldn't make them out. Only my uncle Jack, when he was Armourer, really understood Alpha Red Alpha.

"Can your magics get us home, Molly?" I said. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear her say it.

"Not a hope in hell!" Molly scowled at Alpha Red Alpha as though she was seriously considering giving it a good kicking, just on general principle. "I don't even know where home is from here! You can't navigate all the different Earths and all their different histories without being really sure of the exact Space/Time coordinates involved."

"And there's no trace left of the dimensional Door we came through?"

"No." Molly's shoulders slumped, and she suddenly looked tired and worn-down. We'd put a lot of effort into chasing Edmund, and it was catching up with both of us. "Edmund must have locked the Door from his side, using the other Alpha Red Alpha." She looked at me sharply. "If he's smart enough to operate it, why can't you?"

"Because he's spent ages learning how to work it," I said.

"If he could figure it out . . ."

"I don't have enough time," I said.

Molly nodded reluctantly. "Does this machine look the same to you as the one in our world?"

"Hard to tell," I said. "Just looking at the damn thing hurts my eyes. It's . . . different, but I couldn't tell you how. I am sure it wasn't standing here the last time we visited this Armoury."

"Edmund must have moved it," said Molly. "So he could set his trap."

"How?" I said. "Look at the size of it! You couldn't shift something this big with a power loader and a stick of dynamite!"

"I don't know," said Molly. "And don't you snap at me, Eddie Drood! Edmund's just another version of you, which means really this is all your fault!"

"Somehow I knew it would be," I said.

We shared a quick smile, and went back to studying the dimensional engine. It stared silently back at us, giving away nothing.

"Edmund must have been coming and going between the two Earths for some time," I said. "But how could he have used my Hall's Alpha Red Alpha without the Armourer or his staff noticing?"

"That still leaves the Merlin Glass," said Molly.

"Without my noticing?" I said. Molly started to bristle again, and I realised we were dangerously close to another argument we couldn't afford, so I changed the subject. "We have to get back to our world, Molly. My whole family is in danger from Edmund as long as he's running around our Hall, unsuspected."

Molly leaned in suddenly and kissed me.

"What was that for?" I said.

"Because that is just so typical of you, Eddie-thinking of others, instead of yourself. We have to get back because you're running out of time."

"Trust me," I said. "I hadn't forgotten."

"Any chance there might be a manual for Alpha Red Alpha in the Library?" said Molly.

"Unlikely," I said. "My uncle Jack was the only one who ever had any control over the machine. Max and Victoria like to say they do, now they're Armourer, but that always sounded like whistling in the dark to me. They're probably still trying to make sense of whatever notes Jack left behind. And he only ever partly understood how the damn thing operates, anyway."

Molly looked at me sharply. "How can your people not understand how it works, when you invented it?"

"Alpha Red Alpha was reverse-engineered from alien tech," I said patiently. "Like most Drood weapons and devices. That's why we're always a step ahead of everyone else."

"I thought it was because you had the best scientific brains!"

"We do," I said. "That's how we're able to reverse-engineer alien tech so successfully. We have come up with some amazing things on our own; science and the supernatural are our playthings. But we are all of us standing on the shoulders of giants. Sometimes alien giants."

"Hold it," said Molly. "I thought Black Heir was in charge of clearing up after alien incursions and salvaging all the tech that gets left behind?"

"It is," I said. "But Black Heir answers to my family. It makes sure we always get the good stuff. And, in return, we keep everyone else off its back."

"How does any of this help us now?" said Molly.

"It doesn't," I said. "But it has given me an idea . . ." I armoured up my right hand and extended it towards the dimensional engine. "You know how I use my armour to hack computers and make them do what I want? I'm hoping I might be able to do the same with Alpha Red Alpha. Enough to get us back home, at least."

"Go for it," said Molly. "I stand ready to applaud, jump up and down, and whoop with joy."

Golden tendrils eased out from my fingertips, only to stop well short of the machine's crystalline surface. They wavered uncertainly on the air and then snapped back into my glove. I looked at my hand, and even shook it a few times, as though that might persuade the armour to cooperate, but nothing happened. I let the golden strange matter disappear back into the torc around my throat.

"Okay," said Molly. "What just happened there?"

"Apparently, Alpha Red Alpha is so . . . different, my armour couldn't make any sense of it," I said slowly. "In fact, if I didn't know better-and I'm not sure that I do-I'd say my armour was afraid of it."

"Your torc has picked one hell of a time to have performance...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593101863
ISBN 13 
9780593101865
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Bear Family Records GmbH
49474882160
info@bear-family.de

Grenzweg 1
Holste
27729
Deutschland