real Drood grounds. Walker and I might have been allies on occasion, and even worked together once, to bring down the Independent Agent, but even so, he had no right to be here. Walker was far too dangerous a man to ever be allowed in Drood territory. And besides, if my family were banned from the Nightside by long-established Pacts and Agreements, it seemed only right and proper that all the creatures of the Nightside should be banned from setting foot in Drood territory.
“Hello, Eddie,” Walker said easily. “Welcome to the Shifting Lands. So good of you to join us.”
I glared at him. “Doesn’t anyone stay dead any more? This seems to be my day for being bothered by ghosts with familiar faces. Memories from my past. Am I supposed to be glad to see you? It’s been a long time since you and I were on the same side . . .” And then I broke off as a sudden insight struck me. I stabbed an accusing finger at him. “Except, you’re not really him, are you? You’re not Walker! You’re whoever or whatever pretended to be Walker, back when I was caught hovering between Life and Death, trapped in the Winter Hall, in Limbo’s waiting room. You tried to pressure me into giving up important information, personal and family secrets . . .”
“Perhaps,” said Walker, entirely unmoved by my accusations or my anger. “But I feel I should warn you, Eddie; you don’t come to the Shifting Lands for certainties. This face will do as well as any other.”
“All right,” I said. “What are you doing here, Walker? I don’t have time for games. I have business of my own to be about.”
“I am here because the Powers That Be require me to be here,” said Walker. “And now they want you.”
“Where’s Molly?” I said.
“Oh, she’s around, somewhere,” said Walker.
“Where?”
“Around,” said Walker. “Somewhere. Don’t get testy with me, Eddie. You’re in no position to make demands; not here. You’re on the same footing as everyone else in this place. Molly is . . . waiting, preparing to take her place in the Big Game.”
“Molly was kidnapped!” I said, and the cold anger in my voice would have been enough to warn off anyone else. “Taken from the Wulfshead and brought here against her will.” I gave Walker my best slow, threatening smile. “What makes you think you can hold Molly Metcalf? Especially now I’m here.”
Walker sighed, as though faced with a particularly difficult, and not very bright, small child. “It doesn’t matter how anyone gets here, Eddie; they all stay of their own free will. Ready, and indeed eager, to participate in the Big Game in the hope of winning a way out of the terrible and awful obligations they agreed to when they first made Pacts and Agreements at the beginning of their career. Obligations that are now coming due; promises made that must be paid. And your Molly did agree to so many things, to acquire the power she needed to take on your family. She wanted, needed, revenge for the Droods’ murder of her parents. And she didn’t care what she had to do, or agree to, as long as it would get her the power she needed.
“And then . . . she fell in love with you. A Drood. Funny how things work out, isn’t it? Of course she must have known, even if she never discussed it with you, that she could never hope to pay off everything she owed in one lifetime. So what do you think will happen to her after she dies? And all those debts come due? I really don’t like to think about it. She made promises to Heaven and to Hell, to so many Powers and Dominations. They’ll tear her soul apart, arguing over who has the best right to it.”
He stopped as he saw the look on my face. “Of course, if you were to support her, she would stand a much better chance in the Big Game.”
I took a step towards Walker, my hands clenched into fists, and then stopped myself. This was what Walker wanted, what he did; he got people angry, and off balance, so they’d be that much easier to out-think and manipulate. For his own ends. So I stood my ground and stared coldly at him.
“You always did have a taste for blackmail, Walker.”
He shrugged easily, unmoved. “Stick with what works, that’s what I always say.”
“I have been told,” I said