Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men (43 page)

“Open this door immediately.”

“I don’t have the key.”

“I’ll fetch the Cleavers.”

“I found the key. It was in the keyhole. It’s always the last place you look, isn’t it? I’m unlocking the door now. Here we go.”

Skulduggery relaxed the air pressure, opened the door, and pulled Oscar Nightfall inside. Valkyrie stuck out her foot and Oscar stumbled over it and Vex shoved him to Ghastly and Ghastly punched him. Oscar fell down and didn’t get up again. Skulduggery closed the door once more.

“Sigil?” he asked.

Ravel and Saracen walked over.

“Disabled,” Ravel said, pressing a flat piece of black metal he’d taken from his pocket. A moment later, Fletcher appeared, wincing at the volume of the alarm.

“That is loud,” he said. “Everyone ready?”

“Down!” Skulduggery barked, swinging his gun round. Fletcher vanished and Valkyrie saw the Cleaver behind him, climbing from the hidden compartment in the floor. Skulduggery thought better of firing his gun and he pushed at the air. The Cleaver wove through the rippling space and Skulduggery sprang at him, even as two more Cleavers emerged from the compartments on either side.

One of them dodged Vex’s energy stream and the other slashed at Ghastly as he ran up. Valkyrie hurried to the Elders, making sure they didn’t run off. Fletcher was beside her. Three more Cleavers climbed through.

Behind them the doors burst open. Sorcerers spilled into the Chamber.

Valkyrie grabbed the Grand Mage and spun him round, kicked at the back of his leg to bring him to his knees. Her fingers curled, sharpened shadows pressing into his throat beneath the hood. “Nobody move!” she shouted.

The fighting froze. All eyes turned to her.

“Anyone tries anything,” she said, “and I’ll take his head off and Fletcher will teleport us out of here before you can blink. Skulduggery. Gentlemen.”

Skulduggery picked himself up, his fallen gun drifting into its holster. The other Dead Men backed away from their opponents, taking the Elders with them. A sorcerer Valkyrie had met once stepped forward slowly. His name was Scarecrow something. Severn, she remembered.

“We can’t allow you to take them,” said Scarecrow Severn. “The Elders would rather die than be used against their own people. And I don’t believe you’d kill the Grand Mage, Valkyrie. We all know you. We all know you’re a decent and honourable person.”

“Desperate times,” said Fletcher. “We can all go a little crazy.”

Skulduggery moved closer to Valkyrie and all around the room weapons were raised.

“Not one more step,” said Scarecrow, “any of you. One more step means we attack.”

“Then we seem to be at an impasse,” said Ravel. “If you move, violence erupts. If we move, violence erupts also. That’s a lot of erupting violence.”

“You can leave,” said Scarecrow. “The Elders remain with us, but you can teleport out of here. That way, nobody gets hurt.”

“Oscar’s a little hurt,” said Vex.

“But nobody likes him.”

Beneath his hood, Palaver Graves was shaking his head quickly. He was ignored.

“How about a compromise?” Skulduggery said. “We’ll leave you with Elder Graves and we’ll just take the other two.”

Scarecrow gave a little smile. “Sorry, Skulduggery. No compromises.”

Ravel sighed. “But we’ve gone to all this trouble. We got in here, split up, sneaked around, got all three of your bosses … If we leave empty-handed, what’s the point? It’s a tad anticlimactic, is all I’m saying.”

“You won’t be leaving here empty-handed. You’ll be leaving here with your lives. And you won’t even have to kill any of us along the way. We’re friends, Erskine. You don’t want to kill me, do you?”

“I’m not sure,” said Ravel. “You are pretty smug right now.”

Palaver Graves tried standing, but Shudder put one hand to his shoulder and kept him down.

Scarecrow lowered his weapon. Everyone else kept theirs raised. “I don’t like what the Supreme Council is doing,” he said, “but I agree with what they say. Ireland is too unstable. It needs help. I’m not going to get into an argument with you because I know I won’t win. I don’t like this war, as necessary as it may be. I don’t like fighting my friends. I’ll fight and I’ll kill if I have to, but, if I’m given a fair chance to avoid it, I’ll take it.”

Someone was making their way through the crowd. Valkyrie tensed. A slender woman appeared by Scarecrow’s side.

“Pardon the intrusion,” she said.

Scarecrow glanced at her, frowning. “Uh, this is our Administrator, Merriwyn Hyphenate-Bash. Merriwyn, can this wait? We’re kind of in the middle of a stand-off.”

“I understand that, Mr Severn,” said Merriwyn, “but I have just heard some news that may facilitate the departure of the Dead Men at their earliest convenience. If I may?”

Scarecrow hesitated, then, “Sure … go ahead.”

Merriwyn’s eyes moved over the Dead Men. “You will, of course, doubt what I am about to tell you, but I assure you it is the truth. Your allies, the Councils of both the Australian and African Sanctuaries, have been killed. It was the result of no military action undertaken by us or our colleagues on the Supreme Council, although my knowledge of their plans is admittedly limited.”

Ghastly stared at her. “What?”

“Grand Mage Karrik and his Elders were caught in a bomb blast as they met with their military advisors. Grand Mage Ubuntu and his Elders were slaughtered in their beds. Nobody has been arrested or detained for the assassinations.”

“When?” Skulduggery asked.

“Less than five minutes ago,” Merriwyn said. “Both sets of assassinations occurred within moments of each other.”

Ravel’s frown deepened. “Something this sneaky, this brutal, has Renato Bisahalani’s fingerprints all over it. And if Bisahalani was involved, then Ode was involved.”

“You don’t know that,” Scarecrow said.

“If the Supreme Council didn’t do this, then who the hell did?”

“There are plenty of suspects,” said Scarecrow. “What about the Warlocks? They’ve been making trouble, right? It could have been them.”

“If the Warlocks were behind this,” Skulduggery said, “it wouldn’t be just the Elders who were killed. Their entire Sanctuaries would be devoid of life and dripping with blood.”

Ode shook his head. Valkyrie hesitated, then pulled off the hood.

“We didn’t do this,” Ode said immediately. “I give you my word, I had no knowledge of any planned action against Karrik or Ubuntu and I am willing to bet my life that Bisahalani didn’t, either.”

“You’re on your knees in the hands of your enemies,” Shudder murmured. “Your word means little.”

Ode shifted round to look at Skulduggery and Ravel. “Damn it, we didn’t do this. We didn’t want them dead. We just wanted them to stay out of the fighting. How does this help us? Their sorcerers are going to be calling for our blood now. Their deaths mean we now have three Cradles of Magic fully invested in this war and that is
not
what we wanted.”

“We’ll have our Sensitives pick through your mind,” said Ghastly. “They’ll get to the truth.”

Scarecrow took another step forward. “I told you,” he said, “you’re not taking them. Release them and we will let you leave – on that you have
my
word. Anton Shudder, is my word good enough for you?”

Shudder observed Scarecrow for the longest time, and nodded. “Aye,” he said.

Valkyrie stayed where she was, and only stepped away from Ode when Skulduggery nodded to her. The Elders were left where they were, and the Dead Men surrounded Fletcher. Palaver scrambled to his feet, shaking his head violently, until someone pulled the hood off.

“They’re not after us!” he screeched. “They took something from the Science Archive! Stop them!”

And then they teleported.

eeping the town safe, Scapegrace embarked on his nightly patrol with narrowed eyes and a keen sense of smell. Evil had an aroma, a stench, and if there were anything that would lead him to Silas Nadir, it would be his nose. Maybe.

He quite liked having a nose. But he had spent so long without one, as a head in a jar, that there was perhaps a slim chance that he was putting too much faith in his new one. Could noses smell evil? He didn’t know.

“We should probably hold hands,” said Thrasher.

Scapegrace scowled at him. “What?”

“We’re undercover, sir. We’re a loving couple, out for a midnight stroll. That’s what loving couples do.”

“We’re not holding hands.”

“It might look suspicious if we don’t, sir.”

Against his better judgement, Scapegrace allowed Thrasher to take his hand, and they walked on.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” said Thrasher.

“Shut up.”

“Oh, but we should talk, sir. It might look suspicious if we don’t talk.”

Scapegrace glowered. “Fine. Yes, it’s a nice night. The moon is nice. The stars are nice. The town is nice. Everything is nice.”

“Do you see yourself settling down here, Master?”

“What?”

A car approached. “We should kiss, sir.”

“We are not kissing.”

“It might look suspicious if we don’t kiss.”

The car was getting closer, and Thrasher turned to him and leaned in, lips pursed, and Scapegrace leaned back, lips in a tight line. Thrasher’s eyes were closed, his eyebrows raised. Scapegrace put a hand to the idiot’s face and pushed back. The car passed and, in the swoop of the headlights, Scapegrace saw something.

A figure stole through the shadows ahead of them. Slim, dressed in black. A woman. Scapegrace shoved Thrasher away and crept after his quarry. An acolyte of Silas Nadir, perhaps? Scapegrace had heard stories about the kind of lunatics who were drawn to serial killers. Maybe this woman wasn’t the only one. Maybe there were dozens. Hundreds. Could this entire town be one big cult, obeying Silas Nadir’s every poisonous word?

Scapegrace forced himself to keep going. Fear had no place in the heart of Roarhaven’s protector.

With Thrasher stumbling around behind him, Scapegrace followed the woman to a clearing behind a short row of houses. He squatted down as the woman stopped walking.

Thrasher hunkered down beside him and stared at the woman. “Is that … is that Madame Mist?” he whispered.

Even as he asked the question, Scapegrace saw the black veil, and he sagged. Madame Mist was an Elder. She was scary and made his insides go cold, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with someone like Nadir. Disappointed, he was about to turn round and head back when a man appeared before Mist, his image flickering.

“That’s shunting!” Thrasher whispered excitedly. “That’s what it looks like! That must be him, sir! That’s Silas Nadir!”

The man stopped flickering. He was small, slim, wearing a long coat and carrying an umbrella that was dripping wet, as if he’d just been in a rainstorm. Scapegrace gazed into the face of his arch-nemesis. He couldn’t really see a whole lot because of the distance and the fact that it was dark, but that in no way detracted from the drama of the moment.

Some words were said, and the man handed the umbrella to Mist, who held it over her head despite the clear night sky. Then the man took hold of her other hand and she flickered, and vanished, leaving him alone in the clearing.

Scapegrace pulled on his mask, and Thrasher did the same.

As the man started walking, they crept after him, keeping low and sticking to the shadows.

They moved parallel to him for the most part, then Scapegrace gave a series of sharp hand signals.

“Is there something wrong with your hand, Master?” Thrasher whispered.

Scapegrace scowled. “Let’s rush him.”

“Oh,” said Thrasher, suddenly sounding even more nervous than usual. “OK. If you think that’s wise.”

Scapegrace didn’t bother answering him. They crept closer, and closer, and then Scapegrace led the charge, slamming into the man from behind. Thrasher came with him, roaring in fear, and they all went down. Scapegrace rolled clear of the scuffle, then shoved Thrasher on top of the struggling man.

“Get off me!” the man cried.

Scapegrace sneered down at him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes!” the man gasped.

“Village Idiot, stay where you are.”

Thrasher whimpered something about Muscle Man, but did what he was told. Scapegrace put a foot on Thrasher’s back, pressed down, and the man gasped again.