“Won’t work,” I said. “Your trouble is, you never did take the trouble to work out what the Soul of Albion really is. It’s not just a thing, an object you can use. The Soul fell to earth from a higher dimension, just like the Drood Heart. It might even be a splinter that broke off from the Heart during its descent. Strictly speaking, the Soul is a baby crystal intelligence, only centuries old, too young to have developed a full personality. It protects England, because this is what it thinks of as home. You try and drain its power, suck all the life out of it, and it’ll just destroy you and your base, and go back to sleep again.”

“And even if you could make it work,” said Molly, “do you really think one baby crystal could hope to hold back the Invaders, the Many-Angled Ones, the Hungry Gods? You do know that’s what the tower is designed to bring here?”

“No,” said Truman. “No, no . . . You’re just trying to frighten me . . .”

“Trust me,” I said. “We’re already scared enough. We have to destroy the tower before the Invaders come through. Where is it?”

An alarm went off, deafeningly loud in the small office. We all jumped. Truman stabbed at the controls on his desktop, and a monitor screen flared into life on the wall, showing Harry Drood and Roger Morningstar moving cautiously through the underground base. They’d finally got here. I had to smile. Harry would so hate coming second.

“Damn,” said Molly. “In all the excitement I’d forgotten about them.”

“I haven’t forgotten about all the Droods they brought with them,” I said. I fixed Truman with a cold stare. “Your Accelerated Men, and your damned Soul Gun, killed hundreds of my family.”

He smiled spitefully at me. “I only wish it could have been more. You brought me to this, brought me so low I had to ally myself with alien scum! Everything that’s happened here is your fault, Drood!”

“Oh, shut up, you wimp,” said Molly, and the sheer distaste in her voice stopped him like a slap in the face. She moved around beside the desk, found the general address, and called Harry and Roger by name. They both looked up, startled, and Molly grinned as she gave them directions to join us in Truman’s office.

“Excuse me,” Giles Deathstalker said quietly, “but what is that thing on his head?”

“Cutting-edge technology,” I said solemnly.

Giles raised an eyebrow. “In my day we find it more useful to put the technology inside the head. Mind you, we also find it useful to shoot overambitious idiots like this on sight.”

Harry and Roger finally found their way to Truman’s office and barged right in without knocking. Harry looked at me and sniffed loudly.