Secret Histories feats (The Spy Who Haunted Me)

A description of the Sight:

You wouldn’t be able to see them, because you don’t have the Sight; the practiced ability to See the world as it really is, in all its awful glory. Even I can’t bear to See it for long. The Sight is one of the advantages of being a Drood. It comes from the golden collar I wear around my throat: a torc, in the old language. The torc is the secret weapon of the Droods. It makes us strong enough to go head-to-head with monsters and demons and kick their nasty arses. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Ethel (A.K.A. Strange from Book 2) says she can mess with the laws of the material world quite easily:

“We need to talk with William,” said the Matriarch. “Ethel, establish a communication link, please.”

“Oh, sure! No problem! I love doing stuff like this. You know the material laws of your dimension are really easy to mess with. Basically because they’re not so much laws as local agreements. I could—”

“No, you couldn’t,” I said quickly. “Contrary to anything you may hear us say, we actually do like things the way they are. Just give us a window to the old library, please.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Remember the flux fog that appears in The Good, the Bad and the Uncanny? Well, another one appears in Spy, and we're given more information on how they work:

I couldn’t see a damned thing. The fog churned around me, thick and deep, like water at the bottom of a great gray ocean, and I had a strong feeling there was something else there in the fog with me. It wasn’t real fog; I could tell by the way it glowed. This was flux fog: the pearly shades that mark where the barriers of the world have grown thin and possibilities are everything.

I definitely wasn’t alone. There were dim, dark shapes moving in the mists around me, circling unhurriedly like sharks hoping for the taste of blood in the water. There were faraway voices, like the echoes of old friends and enemies talking in forgotten rooms, and a constant sense of something important about to happen. I stood still, refusing to be tempted or intimidated into unwise action, while slow heavy footsteps sounded all around me and dark shapes drifted in and out of focus as though struggling to become firm and fixed. In a flux fog, the harsh and solid places of the world become soft and malleable, and all kinds of things become possible. I stood my ground, holding my calm before me like a shield. Make a sudden move in a flux fog, and you could end up someone else before you knew it. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker (yes, he's in this book) confirms that he used his Voice to make a corpse sit up and answer to him:

We joined Honey and Walker just as she stuck her face right into his and demanded he use his legendary Voice to summon the monster to the surface of the loch. Walker, not one bit intimidated, stood his ground and gave her back stare for stare. Peter and Katt hurried over, not wanting to be left out of anything.

“Voice?” said Peter just a bit breathlessly. “What Voice?”

“They say many things about Walker, in the Nightside,” I said. “Most important, they say he has a Voice no one can resist, that can compel anyone to say or do anything. A Voice so powerful even the high-and-mighty gods and monsters of the Nightside must bow their arrogant heads and answer to it. There are even those who say Walker once made a corpse sit up on its mortuary slab and answer his questions.”

“It was just the once,” said Walker. “I wish everyone would stop making such a big fuss about it.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker's Voice in action again:

“Well,” said Walker. “I was hoping to save the last vestiges of my Voice for a real emergency, but . . .” He stepped forward and addressed the dark directly in front of the Blue Fairy. “You. Come here.”

I shuddered at the sound of his Voice. I think we all did. It was Walker’s legendary Voice that could not be argued with or disobeyed. Some say it contained vestiges of the original Voice. The one that said, Let there be light. I didn’t like to believe that. It would have opened too many questions as to just where Walker got his Voice from . . . The dark itself seemed to hesitate, as though struggling, and then the Hyde came lurching forward into the firelight, drawn forth against his will like a dog on a leash or a fish on a hook. He lurched forward another step, fighting every inch of the way, hating us all, but still he came and stood before us. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker has an Aboriginal pointing bone:

Walker was pulling an Aboriginal pointing bone from his waistcoat pocket. Peter was drawing a large handgun from a concealed holster. The Blue Fairy was chanting a curse at the Hyde, old elf magic . . . but his voice was a deep slow crawl. Because I had armoured up the moment the Hyde started moving, my golden armour sealing me in and insulating me from the almost subliminal effects of the Hyde’s presence, I could think clearly now, no longer blinded by the impact of his foul nature.

I still hated him just as much. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

The Tunguska Event of 1908 was estimated to have yielded around 10-20 megatons:

In 1908, at 7:17 a.m. on the 30th of June, something hit northern Siberia with enough force to shake the world. There was a huge explosion in the remote and largely uninhabited territory of Tunguska, later estimated to be between ten and twenty megatons—more powerful than any nuclear bomb ever exploded. The force of the explosion felled some eighty million trees, uprooting them and knocking them flat over a range of eight hundred and thirty square miles. The light generated by this impact was so bright and lasting that men in London were able to read a newspaper in the street at midnight. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

(This will be important later)

First statement regarding Grendel Rex:

“That’s all very well and groovy,” said Peter. “But that’s there, and we are here. What is this place? Why doesn’t it have a proper name? And, most important, why the Oh, shit?”

“All those old science cities had bad reputations,” I said. “But X37 was in a class all its own. And, it may be coincidence or it may not . . . but we’re not that far from one of the great Drood secrets. Some miles from here, something very old and unspeakably powerful lies sleeping, buried deep under the permafrost. We need to be really careful while we’re here that we don’t do anything that might waken it.”

“Just for the sake of argument,” said Walker, “what would happen if we did?”

“The end of everything,” I said. “The destruction of the world and humanity as we know it. Hell on earth, forever and ever.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

A description of what Grendel Rex did, and how powerful he became:

“It’s time for the truth, Eddie,” said Walker. “We need to know. Who, or what, did your family bury here, all those years ago?”

“One of us,” I said. “He’s family. A Drood, put to sleep like a dog that’s gone bad, buried so deep he’s already halfway to the Hell he belongs in. Bound with iron chains, wrapped in potent spells and curses, left to sleep till Judgement Day and maybe even longer. Our greatest shame, our greatest failure. The Drood who tried to eat the world.

“Our torcs and our armour make us powerful beyond anything you’ve ever imagined, but for one of us, one Gerard Drood of the eleventh century, that wasn’t enough. He explored the possibilities of the torc, studied its nature more deeply than any of us had ever done before. He . . . upgraded his torc, using certain forbidden techniques and ancient machines, and used his torc to absorb the torcs of others. Hundreds of them: men, women and children. He became . . . unspeakably powerful. An eater of souls. A living god.
“Having defeated and subjugated the family, he set out to subdue all humanity to his will and remake the world in his own image. He very nearly succeeded. Whole countries fell beneath his influence; millions of people bent the knee and bowed the head and praised his unholy name. He carved his features into the surface of the moon so that the whole world could look up and see him smiling down on them.

“But there have always been more Droods than are officially acknowledged; field agents and . . . the like. The Matriarch called them in, all the Droods who still held out against the traitor’s will. She bound them into a Drood mass mind, hundreds of torcs working together against Gerard’s stolen torcs. And in the end, even that wasn’t enough to defeat him. All that power, and all they could do was put him to sleep, bind him tight, and bury him deep.

“Gerard Drood. Grendel Rex. The Unforgiven God.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

This is what will happen if he wakes up:

“Eddie, what is the worst that could happen if he did rise again?”

“He’d finish what he started,” I said. “Subjugate all humanity, reshape the continents according to his whim, absorb the souls of every living thing into himself, and leave us just enough of our minds to love and worship him. Hell on earth, forever and ever and ever. That’s what could happen, if I get this wrong.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

The Sight is especially good for finding biological family members:

And so I let her go. Turned my back on them all, drew on the power of my torc and my armour, and made contact with Grendel Rex, the Unforgiven God. The devil in his cold dark Hel, deep and deep under the permafrost.

Finding him was easier than I expected. My mind shot across the miles separating us in a moment, my Sight drawn like a magnet by the bond we shared. Of family. My vision sank down into the frozen earth, and immediately I was hit by the impact of his ancient presence, huge and forbidding and still impossibly powerful. I felt like a scuba diver, swimming through the cold night of the ocean and coming unexpectedly upon a blue whale or a giant squid. I felt so small, overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of him. Just a mote in his eye. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Grendel Rex pushes right through the telepathic defenses of Eddie's armour, reading his mind:

So the sheep still have their shepherds. Why come to me, the old pariah, for help?

“Because what I’m doing is important and necessary. Because I’ve nowhere else to go. And because . . . I’m family.”

Ah, yes. Of course. Anything for the family. What is this threat you fear so much that you’re prepared to make a deal with the devil?

I started to explain, but he pushed effortlessly past my defences and took what he needed from my mind.

Yes. I see. Very well, little Drood. Take what you need. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Grendel knows the true nature and potential of human DNA, the same knowledge which drove a man named Grigor:

I should have just taken the energy and left, but I had to know. “What did Grigor see in the depths of our DNA? What could he have seen to terrify him so completely? Do you know?”

Perhaps. Here is the truth, for those that have the strength to hear it.

We can all be gods, or devils. We can all shine like the stars. We were never meant to stay human. We’re just the chrysalis from which something greater can emerge. I think perhaps your Grigor caught a glimpse of what we really are, and could be, and he couldn’t cope. There is so much more to reality than man and woman, gods and devils. So much more.

The great eye slowly closed, like an eclipse moving across the face of the sun. I’m tired. It’s not time to wake up yet. Tell the family . . . I’ll be seeing them. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

With a mere portion of Grendel Rex's power, Eddie strips a genius loci city of all of its psychic energy, fires it into the sun (where more of the psychic energy had gathered), then send the collected psychic energy into the past:

I ran, holding myself together through sheer force of will. The power I’d taken burned inside me, demanding release. Already it was consuming me from within. If I didn’t let it loose soon, it would consume me. I left the permafrost behind, my mind streaking over the frozen forest, and the city loomed up before me like a bug on a windshield. The streets were full of unspeakable things. Buildings rose and fell or melted into each other. A tidal wave of screaming faces swept down a street like so many possessed and terrified masks.
The sun was a giant face, screaming with rage. Grigor’s face.

I called up all the power I’d taken and bent it to my will. I held it in one hand, spitting and fizzing like a million lightning bolts, and then I threw it at the city. A great cry went up from the milling streets of rage and defiance and soul-deep horror, but I was riding the lightning with my mind. I slammed it down into the dark heart of X37 and drove the nightmares out; up and out, into the sun with Grigor’s face. For a moment I held all the writhing horror of X37 in one place, every last bit of Grigor’s revenge . . . and then I sent it away. Threw it in the one direction it could never return from.

Into the past.

I watched with godlike eyes as the compressed psychic energy shot back through time, screaming and howling all the way, until finally it couldn’t hold itself together any longer and it exploded into nothingness over the empty plain of Tunguska, on 7:17 a.m., June 30, 1908. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

By the way, yes, this is what caused the Tunguska Event of 1908:

“A Drood did it,” said Honey. “I should have known.”

“Proving it to my grandfather is going to be a tad difficult, though,” said Peter.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “You can’t hide something like this! Psychics and telepaths across the world will have been deafened by what I just did. You won’t be able to stop them talking about it, though my family will undoubtedly try. Luckily only the four of us know the details, and I think it’s better we keep it that way.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker is protected from...well, a lot:

Walker fell back to walk with me, and we talked quietly together. He deliberately slowed our pace, allowing some distance to develop between us and Honey and Peter.

“While you were gone,” he said, quietly and entirely matter-of-fact, “someone tried to kill me. Even in the midst of all that was happening. With so much madness running loose it’s hard to be sure, but someone quite definitely tried to remove my head from my shoulders from behind. Would have succeeded with anyone else, but fortunately my years in the Nightside have made me very hard to kill.”

“Even with the Authorities gone?” I said.

“Especially now they’re gone. I’m protected in ways you can’t imagine. But the point is, we now know who killed Lethal Harmony and the Blue Fairy. It has to be either Honey or Peter.”

“Always assuming,” I said, “that you’re telling the truth.”

“Ah,” said Walker. “There is that, yes.”

“None of us can be trusted,” I said. “We’re all agents.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Elves can regenerate from having their heads smashed:

“I am the Herald,” he said, fixing me with his one golden eye. “Mab’s Herald. I speak for her to lesser things. And yes, I am being punished, for sins beyond your comprehension. Or appreciation. Still, it is good to have you here, Drood. It’s been so long since we had anything human to torment.”

I armoured up and took him out with one punch to the head. His skull broke audibly under the impact of my golden fist, and he sat suddenly down, as though someone had pulled the floor out from under him. Start as you mean to go on, I always say. The massed ranks of elves stirred again, and the four favourites hissed with rage, but Queen Mab raised one perfect hand and immediately all was still and silent again. The Herald rose slowly to his feet, the bones of his head creaking and cracking as they moved slowly back into place. Golden blood ran steadily down the side of his face and dripped off the lobe of his pointed ear. The blow would have killed anyone else, but elves are hard to kill. You couldn’t slow an elf down with a wrecking ball. Not in their own world. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Elves can bullet-time, to the point that they can easily avoid gunfire from WWII era naval machineguns:

Huge three-masted sailing ships surged out after the Eldridge and soon overtook it, though there was scarcely wind enough to stir the massive sails. They circled lazily around the Eldridge, taunting the ship and its crew until the sailors manned the deck guns and opened fire. The cold iron of their ammunition punched through the sliver-thin hulls and made ragged messes of the spread sails. Elves danced and shimmered on their decks, moving too fast to be hit but unable to stay still long enough to operate their weapons. The Eldridge kept up a steady fire, blowing the elven ships apart inch by inch. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Apparently Walker is mentally protected:

I looked back at the mound. “There don’t seem to be any obvious defences; no force shields, proximity mines, energy weapons . . . No chemical or biological agents. Nothing to stop us walking right in. They do have a really strong avoidance field, so maybe they’re depending on that.” I looked at Walker. “Why isn’t the field affecting you? You shouldn’t even be able to tell the mound is here.”

“There are lots of things about me you don’t know,” said Walker. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker elaborates on the nature and function of his portable Timeslip:

“I am about to reveal one of the great secrets of the Nightside,” said Walker. “And to a Drood, of all people. What is the world coming to? . . . Anyway, here it is. Timeslips don’t just happen. Well, actually, they do. Suddenly and violently and all over the place. Bloody things are always opening up, forming temporary gateways to the past, the future, and any number of alternate Earths. Apparently it’s the result of a major design flaw in the original creation of the Nightside . . . But you don’t really think the powers that be in the Nightside—the poor bastards who think they actually run the place—would let such a thing happen without trying to take advantage of the situation? No; they found a way to tap into the basic energies involved and made the energies work for them. The Authorities didn’t just gift me with my Voice, you know; they also gave me my very own Portable Timeslip so I could come and go as I please and be wherever I need to be, whenever I need to be there. And sometimes just a little before.”

He produced a large gold pocket watch on a reinforced gold chain from his waistcoat pocket. He hefted the watch thoughtfully, and then held it out for me to see. The watch cover had an engraving of the snake Oroborus, with its tail in its mouth, surrounding an hourglass. Walker flipped open the cover, and inside there was nothing but darkness. Like a bottomless hole, falling away forever. I pulled my head back with a snap to keep from being sucked in. Walker smiled faintly.

“If you look into the abyss long enough, the abyss looks back into you. And sometimes it knows your name. I’ve been told there is someone or something trapped at the bottom of the watch, powering the Portable Timeslip. I’ve never felt inclined to pursue the matter.”

“My family has something similar,” I said, for pride’s sake. “A portable door. We’ve been using them for years.”

“Makes you wonder who had the idea first, doesn’t it?” said Walker. “And who sold what to whom? Droods may be banned from the Nightside by long tradition, but the intelligence community has always had its connections on many unofficial levels. Your portable doors operate in space and local time; my Portable Timeslip is more ambitious. The Authorities, in their various incarnations, have spent centuries studying Timeslips and slowly learning how to influence and manipulate them. Not the Authorities personally, of course; they have people to do that kind of thing for them. But this little watch can take me anywhere I need to be, and once it’s been there it never forgets. Which means the exact coordinates of Alexander King’s lair are safely tucked away in the watch’s memory core.

“Unfortunately, it’s running very low on power. It has just enough metatemporal juice left to transport both of us to a prearranged setting in the Nightside, where I can get it recharged.” -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Precognition and bullet-timing reflexes fail to save the Dancing Fool from getting shot in his kneecap by Walker:

The Dancing Fool laughed briefly. There wasn’t any humour in the sound. “You’ve robbed me of one of my colleagues. Seems only fair I should rob you of one of yours. Never did like you, Walker.”

His long lean body snapped into a martial arts stance as he turned on Walker, clearly expecting to take him by surprise, but Walker was already waiting, gun in hand. He smiled briefly and kneecapped the Dancing Fool, shattering his left kneecap with a single bullet. The Dancing Fool made a shocked, surprised sound as the impact punched his leg out from under him, and he fell to the floor. Tears streamed down his face as he clutched his bloody knee with both hands as though he thought he could hold it together by sheer force. His breathing came short and hurried as the pain hit him in waves, each one worse than the one before.

“How did you do that?” he said to Walker, forcing the words out. “I’m fast. I can dodge bullets. And I always know what’s coming! How could you do that?”
“Because you never met anyone like me before,” Walker said calmly. -The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker confirms that his Voice wasn't "given" to him by the Authorities, and that he can replenish it at any time as long as he has a sufficient source of power in order to do so:

“I think I’ll take a good look around before I leave,” said Walker. “Bound to be something here I can use to get my Voice up and running again.”

“Can you do that?” I said. “With the Authorities gone?”

Walker smiled. “The Voice isn’t something the Authorities gave me, Eddie; it’s something they did to me. All I have to do is find the right power source, and I can recharge it. Just like the Portable Timeslip.”

“Be my guest,” I said. “I don’t want anything. Not from him.”

“What could he have that the Droods wouldn’t already have?” said Walker generously. -The Spy Who Haunted Me