“The family knows the Invaders of old. We fought them long ago, when the Druidic Droods were still supporting the Romans in their occupation of old Britain. According to the Latin texts, it took the whole might of the Roman Empire, along with the first Drood field agents, to destroy towering structures being built all across the known world, by possessed primitive peoples. The Roman military stamped these early nests out with their usual brutal efficiency, but more kept springing up. There is evidence to suggest that in the end the Heart stepped in and intervened directly, destroying the remaining structures and preventing the Invaders from entering our reality. Presumably because it wasn’t prepared to lose its new property. This was the Heart’s world, and it didn’t feel like sharing. Anyway . . . many centuries later, the last Matriarch but one, Sarah Drood, took the knowledge from those times from the supposedly lost old library, and used it to summon the Loathly Ones back into our reality. Supposedly to be used as weapons against the Nazis.”

“Supposedly?” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms sharply. “I’ve seen the records. The soul-eaters made excellent weapons against the Nazi war machine, before the Vril Force came in on the other side and balanced the scales again.”

“Oh, I’m sure they did a lot of damage,” said William. “But I don’t think that was why they were brought back.”

“I’ve never understood why we chose them,” said the Armourer. “I mean, soul-eaters? There had to have been better, safer options we could have pursued.”

“Oh, there were,” said William. “But someone, someone fairly high up in the family, insisted on the Loathly Ones. The more I read in the unexpurgated family records, the more I am forced to the conclusion that someone in the family was a traitor. Perhaps already possessed by some demon.”

“But . . . how was that possible?” spluttered the Sarjeant. “The torcs protect us from all forms of possession or soul peril!”

“Only one way it could have happened,” said William. “Someone gave themselves up willingly to possession. Just like the Kandarians.”

That stopped us all in our tracks for a while.

"A traitor in the family,” I said finally. “That’s easier to believe now, after all we’ve discovered about the Heart, and the Matriarchs, and the Zero Tolerance faction, but still . . . a Drood giving themselves up to a demon, and allying with soul-eaters? Why? What could they hope to gain?”

“More importantly,” Harry said slowly, “could there still be traitors, or possessed Droods, still operating inside the family? That could explain how we were so easily ambushed down on the Nazca Plain . . .”