We might protect you from all the monsters in the dark, but we don’t like to be bothered. We’re your bodyguards, not your mother.

My new car, a Rover 25, had been carefully chosen to be anonymous and everyday. It was bright red; in fact, it was so red it was Red! Every time I got into it I was reminded of the old adage about a car being just a penis extension. I was tempted to paint the bonnet purple and sculpt some veins down the sides. Do I really need to tell you I didn’t choose this car?

Still, it came complete with all the usual extras, courtesy of my uncle Jack. Armed, armoured, and faster than a rat up a drainpipe, this particular Rover 25 could do 300 mph in reverse, fly at Mach 2, and even, in an emergency, go sideways. The Armourer was very keen for me to try that out, but I didn’t like the look in his eye when he said it. He’s still mad at me for messing up his beloved racing Bentley. The Rover 25 had all the usual hidden weaponry, protections, and nasty surprises for the ungodly, plus an ejector seat that could blast an unwanted passenger straight into the next dimension but three.

The gateway to the massive grounds surrounding the Hall is only there if you’re a Drood; to the rest of the world it’s a very solid stone wall. I aimed the Rover 25 at the wall and put my foot down, and the car sailed through, the ancient stonework brushing briefly against my face like so many cobwebs; and then I was driving up the old familiar path that led through the long rolling grounds to the Hall . . . and everything that was waiting for me.

The sweeping green lawns stretched away in all directions for as far as the eye could follow, maintained by sprinkler systems that contained more than a touch of holy water, just in case. My family has a lot of enemies, but anyone who comes after us where we live deserves every nasty thing that happens to them. Robot machine guns rose smoothly up through the grass from their concealed bunkers to track the Rover 25 as it passed, but I didn’t take it personally. I was being considered and identified by a hundred invisible security systems all the way to the Hall. We Droods haven’t survived as a force for good all these centuries by taking anything for granted.

Winged unicorns frolicked gracefully overhead in the clear blue sky, so pure a white they left shimmering trails behind them, while down below aristocratic swans drifted unconcerned across the smooth dark waters of the lake. There are undines in there too, but they mostly keep themselves to themselves. Two really ugly gryphons were humping enthusiastically up against a large Henry Moore statue, and getting muck and mess all over it. I didn’t give a toss. Never did like that statue: ugly great thing. And the roses were out again, blossoming red, white, and blue.

The Hall stood tall and broad and firm on the horizon, heavy with the weight of history and obligation and sacred cause. A huge manor house in the old Tudor style, with four great wings added on somewhat later, plus other things too. Strange lights burned in many of the windows, accompanied no doubt by the usual odd noises and the occasional rumble of an explosion. We’re a lively family. I passed the old hedge maze, giving it plenty of room and a distrustful glance. It covers half an acre and is fiendishly intricate in its layout, but we never use it. The maze was designed and built in Georgian times to hold and contain Something, but no one now remembers who or what or why. When your home contains as many marvels and wonders as ours, a few things are bound to fall through the cracks. Sometimes literally. Now and again we throw into the maze someone we don’t like very much, just to see what will happen. So far, none of them have ever come out again.

A rocket-assisted autogyro blasted off from one of the landing pads on the roof, leaving a long contrail behind it, while someone in a jet pack glided in for a landing. And no, in case you were wondering: no one in this family has used a broomstick for centuries. The Droods live very firmly in the present, not the past.

I slammed the Rover 25 to a halt in a shower of flying gravel and parked the car right outside the front door just because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I stepped out of the Rover and looked the old place over. It hadn’t changed in the six months I’d been away, but that was the point of the Drood family home: it never changed. Like the family, it maintained, sometimes in the face of everything the world could send against it. The car door locked itself behind me, and I heard the defences powering up. Good luck to anyone who tried to move it; my car had a few protections even the family didn’t know about.

I like to keep my family on their toes; it keeps them from taking me for granted.

I headed for the front entrance, and the huge door immediately swung open before me, revealing the cold, grim face of the new Serjeant-at-Arms. The old Serjeant went out in a blaze of glory during the Hungry Gods War, and the new guy just didn’t have his brutal and despised predecessor’s effortless air of menace and imminent violence. He tried hard, though. The new Serjeant-at-Arms was squat and broad and muscular and, in his immaculate formal butler’s outfit, looked very much like a nightclub bouncer at a funeral. His face was dark and craggy and had clearly never once been bothered by a smile. Not surprising, when you considered the importance of his duties. Not only was he the first line of defence against any attack on the Hall; he was also responsible for internal discipline within the family. A good Serjeant-at-Arms may be respected, even feared, but never liked. It’s probably part of the job description. Thou shalt not be popular. The Serjeant maintains family discipline by enforcing every law with open brutality.

He does not spare the rod with the children.

The new Serjeant-at-Arms’ name, never used anymore in public, was Cedric. There’s something about certain names that pretty much ensures that particular child will be teased and bullied by his peers all through childhood. Sometimes I think the parents do it on purpose, to ensure their precious progeny will grow up tough and hard. With a name like Cedric, the guy was destined to be Serjeant-at-Arms someday. That, or a serial killer.

He stood firmly in the doorway, deliberately blocking my way. He glowered at me, his arms folded tightly across his impressive chest. I considered him thoughtfully. While I was running the family I was exempt from family discipline, but now I was just a field agent again . . . I was still exempt, as far as I was concerned. I’ve never got on with authority figures. Even when I was one. I’m a firm believer in rules and discipline within the family, as long as they don’t apply to me. I was tempted to hit the Serjeant with my one remaining mellow bomb, just to see what would happen. I quite liked the idea of seeing Cedric sitting naked on the lawns, hugging the gryphons and singing show tunes to them. But . . . I had promised myself I’d be good, at least until I’d found out just what was so important I had to be summoned back so urgently.

And how deep I was in it.

“Hello, Cedric,” I said. “Getting much?”

“Move the car,” he said. His voice was little more than a whisper and all the more menacing for it. His cold, unwavering gaze would have reduced a lesser man to tears.

“You move it,” I said cheerfully. “Really; I’d love to see you try. Anyone who tries to shift that motor against its will, dear Serjeant, will almost certainly find bits of themselves raining down all over the lawns, covering a wide area.”

“Parking in front of the Hall is against the rules,” said the Serjeant. He really did have a very impressive stare. Probably would have worked on anyone else.

“So am I,” I said. “Now shift your incredible bulk out of my way, or I’ll tell the Matriarch you were mean to me. I’m here to meet with her and the council.”