"No more waiting," said Methuselah. "I never was big on sharing. I was the first Immortal, so I suppose it's only fitting that I should be the last. And the first again, to transcend this appallingly limited world. I shall become glorious, and know pleasures beyond belief."

"Another loony tune," said Molly. "I'm starting to feel like the only sensible one here, and I'm not used to that."

Methuselah ignored her, staring out at the virtual view. "I suppose I'll be sorry to say good-bye. For all its many problems and imperfections, it has been a pleasant enough world, I suppose. You mayflies don't appreciate it.

"The things I've seen, since the Heart made me Immortal, all those centuries ago. The wild boars and hairy mammoths running wild in the primordial forests of Olde Englande. The pyramids up beyond Hadrian's Wall, (although the Sceneshifters made them never happened, the bastards.) I danced at Louis' Court at Versailles, sat with the first Queen Elizabeth, laughing at a production of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, complete with fireworks. I've talked with Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pol Pot. All of them surprisingly good company. Though they all had a taste for peasant's food. I've met great poets and painters, actors and authors, and lent most of them money. I've seen wonders and marvels, abominations and atrocities, and applauded them all. I never fought in a war, but I've profited from most of them. They all had their moments, as spectacle, if nothing else."

"But you never got your hands dirty," I said. "Never the hero or even the villain, just a voyeur."

"Do you interfere in a dog fight?" said Methuselah. "Or intervene in a war between two anthills? I've seen it all, done it all, and I'm bored. Time to move on, to trade up, to leave this grubby world behind in search of fresh new pleasures and indulgences."

"Were you ever at Camelot?" Molly said suddenly. "Did you ever visit the Court of King Arthur? I've always been fascinated by that period."

"No," said Methuselah. "By the time I realised just how important Arthur was going to be, Merlin had already got his claws into him. And relatively young as I was then, I still had enough sense not to get up against Merlin Satanspawn. I did get to meet Mordred, though. Very ambitious, in a single-minded sort of way. Completely dominated by his mother, of course."

"You wasted your life," I said, and the harshness in my voice brought his head jerking round. "All the things you could have done, all the things you might have achieved… and you wasted your years, your lifetimes, because you didn't know what to do with them. No great causes, no great achievements, because you didn't have it in you. You could have made a better world, you could have been greater than Arthur and Merlin, built a Camelot that would have endured for centuries, but all you cared about was yourself. You could have led Humanity out of the darkness, but you couldn't be bothered. And when you're finally gone, you'll leave nothing behind but a bad taste in the mouth of history."

I turned back to Doctor Delirium. "Give it up, Doctor. You've been lied to and used, all along. Timothy Drood is here to betray you, just as he betrayed his own family. He has his own plans for the Apocalypse Door. So does Methuselah."

The Doctor sneered at me. "Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn't you?"

"Oh Eddie," Tiger Tim said sadly. "Always putting your faith in the truth, when a lie can be so much more liberating."

"And you can wipe that smug smile off your face, Timothy," I said. "I'm taking you back to the family to stand trial at Drood Hall for all the evils you've done."

Tiger Tim laughed softly. "Dear Daddy got to you, didn't he? Asked you to go easy on me… Sentimental old fool. You're not taking me anywhere."

"I have the armour," I said. "And you don't."

"Funny you should say that," said Tiger Tim. "You'll never guess what I found, locked away in the vaults of Castle Frankenstein." And he opened the top of his shirt to show me the golden torc around his neck. "I don't know how the Immortals got their hands on this originally. Perhaps an Immortal murdered and replaced a Drood, and took the torc… Or maybe the old Baron himself cut it off one of his victims… Don't suppose we'll ever know. The point is, this torc had been locked away inside a box inside a vault, under the wrong description. No one even knew it was there, until I came across it quite by accident, while looking for something else. Isn't that always the way? I took the torc for my own, because I just knew the Immortals wouldn't appreciate it. And it settled around my throat quite happily, like it was coming home, like it belonged there."

"You might have asked," Methuselah said reproachfully.

"No I couldn't. You might have said no. I didn't want to put you in an awkward position. And besides, who has a better right to it, than me?"

"Knew I should have killed you when I had the chance," said Methuselah.

"You never had the chance," said Tiger Tim. He looked at me and smiled suddenly, a happy, anticipatory smile. "I haven't had a chance to try out my new torc; been a bit busy, you know how it is. And I was just a bit concerned that your armour might be able to detect mine, once I put it on. But now, all bets are off. We've come to the end of the line, Eddie, where it's just you and me, armour to armour, man to man. To the death."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," I said.

He armoured up, and so did I. And just like that there were two gleaming golden figures in the room, facing off against each other. Doctor Delirium cried out, and hid behind the Apocalypse Door, peering round the edge with wide eyes and an uncertain mouth. Methuselah fell gracefully back to a safe distance; and Molly moved quickly out of our way to give us room to fight. Her eyes were shining as she urged me on. It must have looked like a fair match and a fair fight, but I knew different.

Timothy Drood had the old armour, and I had the new.

I raised up a golden fist, and grew a set of heavy spikes from the knuckles. And then I concentrated, and extruded razor-sharp blades all the way up my arms to my shoulders. I reshaped my mask into a grinning devil face, complete with curling horns. Tiger Tim stood very still. He didn't know how to make his armour do any of those things. In fact, he'd been away from the family so long he probably didn't even know such things were possible now. I wondered if he was afraid, biting his lip behind his featureless golden mask. I hoped so. I was too angry to be afraid.

He lunged at me, striking out with a golden fist. I stood my ground, blocked the blow with a raised arm, and then we went head to head, battering each other fiercely with all our unnatural strength. The sound of armour beating on armour was deafening as we slammed each other all over the room, kicking the furniture out of the way, the floor cracking under our stamping feet. But neither of us could hurt the other, for all our strength and fury. The armour protected us. But my armour was strange matter, provided by the other-dimensional entity now known as Ethel. Tiger Tim's armour derived from the destroyed entity once known as the Heart.

I cut at Tiger Tim with razored fists, and the unnaturally sharp edges opened up long cuts and furrows across his chest. Which should have been impossible. The furrows healed quickly, filling themselves in, so I cut him again, and again, harder each time, gouging deep scars into his? mask and chest, and they took much longer to heal. I wondered if he was bleeding, inside. I pressed him hard, determined to tear open his armour and drag him right out of it.

We hammered each other back and forth across the lounge, fists rising and falling with inhuman speed, while the others scattered hurriedly to get out of our way. Because we were both so caught up in the fight that we had eyes only for each other. Both of us moving so swiftly it seemed like everyone else was moving in slow motion. If any of them had got in our way, I think either one of us might have swept them aside without thinking, our heads were so full of rage and fury. I would have been sorry afterwards, of course, but right then… Timothy Drood seemed to be responsible for all the evils I'd encountered since this all began, and I wanted him dead more than anything else in the world.