Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men (44 page)

“What do you people want?”

“Justice,” said Scapegrace. “A world where the innocent are free to enjoy their lives, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be horribly killed by a crazed, dimension-hopping serial killer.”

“You … you think I’m Silas Nadir?”

“I
know
you’re Silas Nadir.”

“I’m not Silas Nadir.”

“That’s something only Silas Nadir would say.”

“No it isn’t! That’s something that anyone who
isn’t
Silas Nadir would say!”

Scapegrace frowned. That made sense. Then he shook his head. “Nice try, Nadir, but you won’t defeat me with logic. I am the Dark and Stormy Knight, I am Roarhaven’s protector, and logic holds no sway over me.”

“I’m not Nadir, you idiot.”

“Then who are you? And where did you send Madame Mist?”

The man glared. “You saw that?”

Scapegrace sneered again. “I see all.”

“Then you’re a dead woman.”

The sneer dropped. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t know who you are, but if you’ve been spying on Madame Mist, then you don’t have long to live. Once she hears about this, she will hunt you down. There is nowhere you can run that she won’t be able to find you.”

“Now just hold on a second …”

“You think they’re going to let two morons in masks ruin their plans? Do you have any idea what they’ve done to get this far? Do you have any idea what they’re willing to do?”

“What
who
are willing to do?”

“Master,” Thrasher said, “I think I should get up. He’s scaring me.”

“They’ve been planning this for a hundred years,” the man continued, breathing easier now that Thrasher had moved off him. “Their reach stretches around the globe. They have people
everywhere
.” The man stood, still glaring. “You have no idea, you could not even begin to
fathom
, the depths to which they have sunk. You don’t know what they’re prepared to risk.”

“What
are
they prepared to—?”

“Annihilation,” the man said. “Extinction. You’re looking for Nadir, is that it? He’s not here. But what you’ve found instead is your own destruction.”

“We haven’t found that,” Scapegrace insisted. “And we haven’t been following Madame Mist. We just saw her once. That’s all. There’s really no need to tell her, or anyone, about this. It was a mistake. We thought you were Silas Nadir. Obviously, you’re not. Huge, gigantic apologies. Still, no harm done. We’ll part ways here, go about our lives, and never speak of this again.”

“Please don’t kill us,” Thrasher said.

“It’s too late for that,” said the man.

Then Scapegrace had an idea. “Run!” he said to Thrasher, and sprinted away.

As they raced through the back alleys of Roarhaven, he tore the mask from his face and hurled it into the darkness.

Let them try and find him now.

s with everything lately, there was good news and there was bad news.

The good news was that Doctor Nye was already at work in the Keep, installing the new memory-processing unit in the Engineer. Once it was in, the Engineer could shut down the Accelerator before it drove insane everyone who had even the slightest spark of magic in them. This was good. This was something to be celebrated.

The bad news was that Merriwyn Hyphenate-Bash had not been lying about the African and Australian Councils being hit. Suddenly Ireland’s only allies were reeling against the ropes, and there was nothing they could do about it. Valkyrie didn’t like feeling helpless. She much preferred having something to hit.

“Ow,” said Myosotis Terra.

“Sorry,” Valkyrie said, breathing hard and grinning as they circled each other.

Myosotis came in low then switched high with a kick that turned out to be a feint. When Valkyrie swerved to avoid it, Myosotis spun, her foot crashing into Valkyrie’s legs. She hit the ground and Myosotis dropped on to her. They rolled. Myosotis found her back and Valkyrie tried to turn into her, but the choke was on and Valkyrie had no choice but to tap.

They sat up. Valkyrie wiped the sweat away.

“Are you all right?” Myosotis asked. Valkyrie had known her for years, but only remembered her when she was in sight. A handy trick for a thief and a spy. Not so handy for maintaining friendships. “You don’t seem like your usual self.”

“I’m fine,” Valkyrie said. “Well, maybe I’m still a little annoyed that that Ivy girl beat the hell out of me.”

“Ah.” Myosotis smiled. “Wounded pride.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s … Well, OK, maybe it is that. But I’m supposed to be the cool one. I’m the youngest, the strongest, the most special …”

“And then this little upstart,” said Myosotis, “this little
neureiche
, comes in and shows you up by being younger and stronger and cooler than you.”

“Well,” Valkyrie said, frowning, “I don’t know about cooler …”

“Face it, Val,” Myosotis said, lying back on the training mat. “You’re getting old.”

“Shut up. I’m only eighteen.”

“And she’s seventeen. You’re over the hill. Yesterday’s news.”

“I swear to God, the only reason I’m not pounding your face into smush right now is because I’d hate to embarrass you in your home country.”

Myosotis laughed. They got up, used the hotel showers, and Valkyrie went to look for Skulduggery. He was heading to Ravel’s makeshift office when she found him.

“You look freshly scrubbed,” he said as she fell into step.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just had a workout.”

“Did Myosotis kick you around the place again?”

She frowned. “Who?”

Ravel looked up when they walked in. Skulduggery took a seat. “You look dreadful.”

Valkyrie glared. “Skulduggery. Be positive.”

“Sorry,” said Skulduggery. “You look positively dreadful.”

Ravel gave the briefest of smiles. “You know, I’m starting to think I may be in over my head here.”

“Really? You?”

“Do you think I am?”

“I’m going to be polite and encouraging, and say it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said.

“No,” Ravel said, “he’s right. I was never meant to be Grand Mage. Corrival Deuce was. He would have been a great Grand Mage. This wouldn’t have happened if he were in charge.”

“If only he hadn’t been bludgeoned to death by a Remnant,” said Skulduggery.

Ravel winced. “Don’t say bludgeoned. He was struck
once
on the head.”

“And it killed him,” said Skulduggery. “And that counts as a bludgeoning.”

“But bludgeoning makes it sound a lot more violent than it actually was. When I think about it, I like to think that he was taken by surprise. That he never even knew what hit him.” Ravel sighed. “He was a good man. I learned so much during the years I spent at his side. The people he met with … sorcerers who hated mortals, who wanted to rule over them, who wanted to enslave them … Corrival would meet and talk and listen and by the end he’d almost have them convinced that the only way forward was to step even further back into the shadows. I used to just stand there and watch in amazement. If he had lived, I’d say we’d already be in the middle of discussions on how to effectively curb the use of magic in our day-to-day lives.”

Valkyrie made a face. “I don’t much like the sound of that.”

Ravel smiled. “Corrival would have convinced you. Magic, he used to say, should only be used to protect the mortals. And look at us now. Will any of us even
think
about the mortals until this war is over?”

“Now that you’ve broached the subject,” said Skulduggery, and let his words hang.

“Our friends in Australia and Africa don’t know what to do. They’re … panicking, I suppose. Angry. Scared. They don’t want to hold elections – they want to hit something. They’ve asked me to appoint interim Elders from within their Sanctuaries until all this is over.”

“The files?”

Ravel lifted a folder from the pile and let it fall again. “All likely candidates. We know most of them. Some are astonishingly ill-suited to the task, but others are … possibilities. Ghastly’s helping me go through them, but it’s …”

“It’s not what you signed up for,” Skulduggery finished.

“We’re finding it hard enough to run our
own
Sanctuary. And now they want us to help run theirs? The new Elders, whoever they end up being, won’t have half the experience of Ubuntu or Karrik. They’ll be looking to us for leadership and we’ll be … flailing around, trying to look like we know what we’re doing.”

“You’ve managed to be pretty convincing so far.”

“I’ve led us into a war.”

“But you’ve done it convincingly. The best thing to do now is probably let the dust settle for a few days, see how everything lies—”

“No,” Ravel said.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “No what?”

“No, I can’t let you go. That’s what you’re going to say, right? You want a few days off so you can look deeper into this Warlock activity? The killings in Africa? I can’t spare you. Either of you. Not at this stage. Things are too … unstable.”

“If the Warlocks attack,” Valkyrie said, “things are going to get a lot worse.”

“We don’t know that they will attack. We don’t know that they even
want
to attack. The last time Charivari was even seen was a hundred years ago.”

Skulduggery nodded. “When he killed an entire town for the death of one Warlock.”

Ravel frowned. “You sound like you have something to say.”

“Someone has been killing Warlocks, Erskine. Dozens of them, over the last five years. If Charivari killed a town for one, what will he do for dozens?”

“Who’s killing them?”

“All the evidence points to Department X.”

“Department X doesn’t exist.”

“I didn’t say they did. I just said all the evidence points to them.”

“So … Someone’s setting up a non-existent organisation?”

“A non-existent
mortal
organisation.”

Ravel closed his eyes. “Oh, this just gets better. Dare I ask who is setting up the mortals?”

“The Torment.”

Ravel cracked one eye open. “He’s still dead, right?”

“Yes, but his associates aren’t. We’re looking for a mystery man who associates with Mist and other unsavoury characters.”

“And why the hell am I only hearing about this now?”

Skulduggery shrugged. “You’ve had a war to blunder through. We didn’t want to burden you unnecessarily.”

“But now you’ve decided to burden me anyway? Thanks. So where did you want to go?”

“I got a message from China,” Valkyrie said. “A Warlock’s been spotted in Africa.”

“Africa’s a big place.”

“Mozambique.”

“Mozambique is a big place.”

“This Warlock, we think it might have been Charivari himself. He killed eighteen sorcerers.”

Ravel blinked. “Eighteen?”

“Sixteen African, plus two foreign. We think they were Supreme Council operatives.”

“Do you have any idea where you’d even start looking?”

“We’re detectives,” Skulduggery said. “We follow the trail.”

“And how long would that take? I can’t let you go. You know I can’t let you go. If you didn’t already know it, you’d be convincing me right now to let you go. But you’re not, so …”

“The Warlocks are a threat, Erskine. And someone from Roarhaven is luring them towards the mortals, using Department X as bait. It’s tied up in this war somehow, we just haven’t figured out how yet.”

“Please don’t tell me we have to go to war with Roarhaven.”

“Not yet. Look, if you can’t send us, send someone else. Either way, we need to—”

The door opened and Ghastly walked in, lips set in a straight line. “They’ve taken the bait,” he said. “Mantis is attacking the Keep.”