Eddie Drood's Abilities (Daemons Are Forever)

Eddie's new car can take "shortcuts" by travelling through adjoining spatial dimensions:

I shut down my Sight. You can’t See the world as it really is for too long; the human mind just isn’t equipped to cope. Luckily, none of them could See me, as long as I wore the torc. They had to wait for me to reveal myself . . . I grinned. It was time to use one of the Bentley’s really special features.

“Eddie, what are you planning?” said Molly.

I smiled at her beatifically. “Brace yourself, sweetie. I’m taking this car up to eleven!”

I pushed the pedal to the floor, let go the clutch, and the Bentley surged forward, its engine howling like a wolf on the hunt. We shot past the hundred mark in a few seconds as I slammed through the gears, and then I hit the hidden switch and threw her into Overdrive. Molly and I were forced back into our seats by the terrible acceleration, and the world blurred around us as we left it behind. The Bentley punched through the walls of the world, and just like that we were somewhere else.

Freed from the everyday restrictions of time and space, the Bentley tore through the dimensions, day and night flickering on and off like a stroboscope. Stars blazed in somewhere else’s night skies, in constellations never seen from Earth. There were strange sounds and incandescent lights, and a city singing in a million inhuman voices. Visions and vistas flickered on and off as we shot through them like a bullet, intangible and unsubstantial, though whether they were the ghosts or we were is probably just a matter of opinion. Molly shrieked and howled with delight, and only the need to concentrate on the steering kept me from joining in. Drunk on speed, crazed on velocity, we hammered through the dimensions until I saw the sign I was looking for and took a sharp right turn back into our reality.

Different worlds Dopplered past us as I slammed on the brakes, and when the Bentley finally shuddered to a halt, we were sitting inside my garage, underneath my flat. I quickly shut down the engine and took my hands off the steering wheel. They were shaking, and not just from the exhilaration. Taking sideways journeys through adjoining dimensions is always dangerous. You can never tell what might notice you, and decide to follow you home. I got out of the car on only slightly unsteady legs and checked the car over carefully, to make sure we hadn’t picked up any unwanted hitchhikers. Paying special attention to the undercarriage.

Molly was already out of the car and dancing around it, punching the air with her fist. “That was fantastic! Let’s do it again! What was that?”
“A shortcut,” I said, peering suspiciously under a front bumper.

“You take me on the best rides, Eddie!” - Daemons Are Forever

Eddie's new armour flat out absorbs bullets, rather than deflecting them:

Alpha finally screamed an order through his bullhorn, and all the armoured men opened fire at once, concentrating their aim on me. I’d already moved to cover Molly, and I stood firm as a storm of bullets slammed into me. Instead of ricocheting harmlessly from my armoured form, as they used to with the golden armour, the silver strange matter absorbed both the impact of the bullets and the bullets themselves. Just swallowed them right up, as fast as they came. Safer on innocent passersby, I supposed, but I did wonder whether the armour would have to crap the bullets out again, later. I made a mental note not to have Molly standing behind me after the battle was over.

The armoured men realised their bullets were having no effect on me, and the fusillade died raggedly away. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie puts the smackdown on a bunch of Manifest Destiny agents:

I charged forward into the mass of the remaining soldiers, moving at superhuman speed, driven by the inhuman strength of my armoured legs. I was in and among the armoured men faster than they could react, striking out at them with appalling augmented strength. My spiked silver knuckles stove in reinforced helmets and smashed through Kevlar as though it were paper. Blood flew on the air, and men fell screaming. Still alive. I prefer not to kill if I don’t have to. I’m an agent, not an assassin.

They crowded in around me, hoping to overwhelm me and drag me down through sheer force of numbers. They beat at me with gun butts and shot me in the face at point-blank range. I picked them up and threw them this way and that, sending them flying the length of the street with my more-than-human strength. Men crashed into walls that cracked under the impact. More and more armoured men came running to face me, and I had to admire their courage, if nothing else. I went to meet them with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. The good thing about fighting real scumbags like Manifest Destiny is that you never have to feel bad about the awful things you do to them. And it felt good to have a solid enemy to strike back at, to take out the frustrations of the day on. I waded right into the thick of them, fists flying.

Poor bastards never stood a chance. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie throws a man so hard that he catches on fire from the air friction:

Molly scowled with concentration, so intent on the mischief she was working she didn’t even see the armoured man closing in on her. Somehow he’d fought his way forward through the blustering winds, and approached her in her blind spot. He raised a gun to shoot her in the head at close range, and she didn’t even know he was there.

I grabbed the nearest man and threw him at the gunman sneaking up on Molly. The man flew screaming through the air with unnatural speed, driven by the awful strength of my armoured arm. He actually caught on fire from the friction of the air, and was a mass of flames when he slammed into the man threatening Molly. The gunman just had time to look around, and then the burning man hit him so hard I heard bones break under the impact. Molly looked at the two bodies lying on the ground some distance behind her, and then looked at me.

“I knew he was there.”

“Of course you did,” I said. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie throws a man hard enough to smash a helicopter rotor:

Bullets chewed up the street all around me, and fires sprang up fiercely on all sides. A thousand rounds a minute slammed into my silver chest and just disappeared. I didn’t even rock on my feet. The explosions didn’t move me, and the fires couldn’t reach me. A Drood in his armour is an unstoppable force, and a terror to his enemies. I grabbed the nearest injured man up off the street and threw him at the nearest helicopter. He hurtled screaming through the air and slammed into the helicopter’s rear rotor. His scream cut off abruptly as blood and offal flew across the sky. The helicopter swung back and forth drunkenly, its rotor smashed, and then it fell to earth like a crippled bird. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie tanks a helicopter falling on him and exploding:

The pilot made a last desperate attempt to aim the crashing helicopter right at me. I stood my ground, braced for the impact. The helicopter loomed up before me, trailing smoke and flames. I could see right into the cockpit, see the pilots screaming hate and defiance at me. And then the machine smashed right into me, and exploded. For long moments there were only fire and sound and thick black smoke, but none of it touched me. I stood unscathed in the middle of the inferno, and then strode calmly out of it, kicking bits of wreckage aside. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie walls a Hellfire missile:

I looked up, and the other helicopter was coming in for another strafing run. They were firing wildly now, half out of their minds with shock and desperation. The bullets chewed up the street and the houses, and even some of their own men. And then the bastards fired a Hellfire missile at me. Right in the middle of civilian territory. I stood my ground, braced for the impact, and caught the missile in my arms. The armour absorbed all the impact, and I bent over, hugging the missile to my chest. It exploded, and my armour absorbed most of the energy. A whole lot of windows shattered all around me, but no one was hurt. -Daemons Are Forever

Eddie jumps onto a helicopter from the ground, punches through the cockpit windshield, then no-sells it falling to the ground:

I glared up at the helicopter. I’d had enough of those idiots. They were losing it, big time. I jumped up into the air as the helicopter swept towards me and, driven by the strength in my armoured legs, I soared up and grabbed onto the front of their cockpit. The helicopter swayed and lurched wildly under the extra weight. I drew back a silver fist and punched right through the reinforced cockpit glass.

“Get out,” I said coldly to the two pilots.

They pushed open the cockpit doors and bailed out. I didn’t blame them. All the training in the world can’t prepare you to face a Drood field agent in his armour.
The helicopter slammed down onto the street and skidded along, throwing up sparks and smoke. I rode it the length of the street, waited till it finally screeched to a halt, and then stepped calmly down from the shattered cockpit. Some days, it’s good to be an agent. Molly strolled over to join me.

“Show-off.” -Daemons Are Forever

With his armour, Eddie can see in infrared if he wants:

We walked up and down and back and forth in the cemetery, and still no sign anywhere of Mr. Stab. Given the sheer size and scale of the cemetery grounds, it would take hours to cover it all, and besides, I was getting impatient. And cold. I’d dropped my armour when I left Café Night, but now I subvocalised the Words, and called up just enough of my armour to cover my face. With a little concentration, I can see infrared though the mask, and it didn’t take me long to locate the only other human heat source in the darkening graveyard. -Daemons Are Forever

More scaling feats involving buildings:

Visions appeared, emerging from Strange’s crimson glow. Shifting scenes of golden-armoured family in running fights with Loathly One drones, in the nightmarish streets of ghoulvilles. I saw dozens of armoured forms taking on hundreds of drones and killing everything that moved that wasn’t family. The drones were often horribly misshapen, monsters with only the barest touch of humanity left in them. The Droods beat them down with golden fists and tore the drones limb from limb. A quick death was the only mercy they had left to offer. They stormed through the narrow streets, their golden armour shining bright in the sharp, painful light of the ghoulville. They destroyed buildings, tearing them apart and pulling them down through brute strength, to be sure they hadn’t missed anyone hiding inside, and afterwards they set fire to the ruins. -Daemons Are Forever

Drood armour shapeshifting capabilities can be used to form the keys to locks:

“The door is locked. And I don’t have a key.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “All right, Grandmother. I’ll soon have the door open. Stand back.”

“Don’t you dare break my door down, Edwin Drood! It’s a valuable antique!”

I sighed quietly, just to myself. “All right, Grandmother. Give me a moment.”

I knelt down and studied the lock. Old-fashioned, sturdy, no problem at all. I armoured up my right hand, concentrated, and a thin extension of the golden strange matter slipped forward into the lock, shaping itself to fit the interior exactly, moulding itself into a key. The tasks and skills of a Drood field agent are many and varied. I unlocked the door, armoured down, pushed the door open, and entered into the Matriarch’s waiting room. -Daemons Are Forever

Under the tutelage and instruction of Giles Deathstalker, Eddie and the other Droods learn new and creative ways to use their armour:

Apparently Giles had known something very like living battle armour in his far future time, because he had all kinds of ideas on how to make our armour a weapon in itself. During the short breaks between his carefully choreographed campaigns, he lectured us on how limited the family had always been in its thinking, where the armour was concerned. It didn’t have to be just a defence, a second skin to protect us and boost our strength and speed. James’s trick with the blades showed the armour could be made to respond to our thoughts and needs. If a sword, then why not a battle-ax? If I could raise spikes on my knuckles, why not all over my body? The armour was the shape it was only because it had never occurred to us that it could be anything else.

If you already have a miracle, why try to improve on it?
It took an outsider like Giles to make us see the armour’s true capabilities; that the possibilities were limited only by our lack of imagination. Once the idea took hold, there was no stopping us. It took a lot of concentration, but the strange matter of our armour moulded itself under the force of our various desires. Golden hands grew all kinds of weapons, and gleaming faces became scowling gargoyles, howling wolves, monsters, and angels. Pliable body shapes twisted and transformed, taking on mystical shapes and legendary forms. A few even grew golden wings from their backs and flapped awkwardly into the air. We couldn’t hold our new shapes for long, not yet; it took too much concentration. But who knew what might become possible after long practice?

I watched the fierce shapes and impossible transformations strut back and forth before admiring audiences, and wasn’t sure I entirely approved. Right now we needed an army with every weapon at its command. But what would become of us, after the war? When there was no more need for golden monsters and gleaming gladiators? Under normal conditions, all the family ever needed to keep the peace was a limited number of specially trained field agents, like I used to be. Would these golden soldiers be ready to give up these exciting new possibilities?

And what if . . . what would happen if the armour itself started responding to unconscious impulses as well as conscious commands? Might we all become monsters from the id, ravening creatures driven by personal demons? Perhaps even trapped inside our own armour, as it responded to deep unconscious needs and ignored our conscious, horrified pleas to stand down?

Nightmares for another day. Right now, my job was to make sure the world would see another day. First win the war, then worry about the peace. So back to battle I went, armour clashing against armour, all through the long hot day. And before my eyes the Drood family quickly became something else, something fiercer and finer and more concentrated in its purpose. Giles Deathstalker was cranking the family up to eleven.

And we loved it. -Daemons Are Forever