Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men (48 page)

He’d dreamed of being the greatest killer the world had ever seen. He’d dreamed of having a horde of zombies at his command. He’d dreamed of being Roarhaven’s masked protector. But now, as he swept, a great sadness came over him, for he realised he was a failure. He’d lost his pride, his honour … even his magic was reluctant to return to him. He had nothing left.

Well, apart from the pub. A smile broke through his sadness. That was the one thing he hadn’t messed up yet. So what if he wouldn’t be a notorious villain or an adored hero? He could still be a good person. He could still live a good life, now that he’d thrown the mask away.

The door opened behind him and three men walked in, looking around like they owned the place.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Scapegrace said. “What can I get you on this fine evening?”

“Hello, Vaurien,” said the man in front.

“Do I know you?”

“What matters is that I know
you
, Vaurien Scapegrace. I have to say, you’re looking good these days. If I hadn’t heard so many reports on what you looked like in your old body, well … you and me might have had a shot.”

“I’m sorry??”

“Unfortunately,” the man continued, “I
did
hear all those stories. I know what you were like both as a disgusting zombie and as a pathetic human. You talked big. You boasted. You never did anything. You’re a coward, Mr Scapegrace, and you’re just not very bright.”

Scapegrace stood his ground. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Mud,” the man said, “and these are my friends, Shun and Bagatelle. We’ve been sent to give you a warning.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really,” said Mud, and at his nod the bigger of the other two men, the one called Bagatelle, picked up a chair and threw it over the bar. The mirror cracked, bottles smashed, and the shelf collapsed.

“Hey!” Scapegrace cried out, but Shun grabbed him, pulled him back, while Bagatelle threw another chair that demolished the freshly cleaned glasses.

“Master!” Thrasher shouted, charging out from the backroom. A stream of energy erupted from Mud’s hand, caught Thrasher full in the chest and launched him across the room.

Scapegrace tore himself free and stumbled, looking up to find himself surrounded.

“You’ve been going out at night and getting yourselves in trouble,” Mud said.

Scapegrace hesitated. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You wear silly little masks.”

“Then how do you know it’s us?”

Mud raised a fist and Scapegrace recoiled sharply. “OK, OK! It’s us!”

Mud lowered his fist into his other hand, started rubbing his knuckles in a threatening manner. “We’re here to tell you that you’re going to want to stop doing all that stupid stuff.”

“We’ve stopped! We’ve already stopped! When you walked in, I was thinking about that, how we’ve stopped. Because we have! We’re not even looking for him any more.”

“Looking for who?”

“Silas Nadir.”

“Silas Nadir isn’t even in the country, you moron. No one knows
exactly
where he is, but he’s not in Ireland and he’s definitely not in Roarhaven. You’re also going to want to forget you ever saw Creyfon Signate.”

“Who?”

Mud smiled. “Good man.”

“No,” said Scapegrace, “who’s Creyfon Signate? Is he the other Shunter? Did he bring the dog-creature here? A dog-creature attacked Thrasher. Did he bring it here on purpose, or did it sneak through on one of the shunts? Why is he shunting? What’s he doing here anyway? Where is everyone disappearing to?”

“You’re asking questions you shouldn’t be asking.”

“Am I?”

“I was told to make sure you stayed out of everyone’s business. I asked around, mentioned your name, and they all said you were a coward and a moron. They said some stern words and a little destruction of property and you’d fall right in line. But something tells me they’ve all misjudged you. I was instructed to kill you only as a last resort.”

“Wait,” said Scapegrace. “Kill me?”

“You picked the wrong time to have a change of heart.”

Scapegrace narrowed his eyes. “And you picked the wrong time to threaten me.”

With the speed of a cobra, Scapegrace lashed out at Bagatelle, catching him on the ear with a vicious chop. He ducked as Shun reached for him, and spun with a kick that came dangerously close to landing. Mud fired off a punch that Scapegrace blocked with his chin, and Scapegrace countered with a flailing hand to the air as he fell. He landed on the floor and the three thugs glared down at him.

Then the door opened, and everyone looked round.

“Forgive me,” Grandmaster Ping said, “but today I have business with Miss Scapegrace.”

“Get out of here, old man,” said Mud.

Ping shuffled forward. “I am so sorry, but my ears are not what they used to be. Could you repeat that, please?”

Bagatelle stepped in front of him. “He said leave.”

Ping peered up at Bagatelle, his curious eyes blinking. “My, my. You are a tall one. Still, as my honourable father used to say, the taller the tree, the further the fall.”

Bagatelle took hold of Ping’s bathrobe, and Ping’s liver-spotted hand closed gently round Bagatelle’s. He twisted and leaned in and Bagatelle cried out and fell to his knees. Before Mud or Shun could react, Ping struck Bagatelle with a lazy slap and Bagatelle lurched sideways and crumpled.

Shun ran at him and Ping avoided the kick and swept the supporting leg from under him. As Shun fell, Mud fired, and Ping stepped sideways and shoved the falling man into the path of the energy stream.

Mud cursed, tried backing away, but Ping was already too close to avoid. Mud tried punching, but that didn’t work. He tried kicking and that, too, failed. Then he tried being flipped through the air and landing on his head. That seemed to do the trick.

Scapegrace got to his feet as Ping turned. “That was amazing,” he said.

“That,” Ping said, “was kung fu. You are all right?”

“I am,” said Scapegrace.

“I’m OK, too,” moaned Thrasher.

“Nobody cares,” said Scapegrace. “They came here to kill me because we’re getting too close to the truth. We’ll … we’ll have to go into hiding.”

“Not to worry,” said Ping. “I will protect you.”

“Uh, I don’t think I can keep paying you.”

Ping chuckled, reached up, and pressed his long, bony finger to Scapegrace’s lips. “I do not help Miss Scapegrace for money. I help Miss Scapegrace for love.”

Scapegrace stared down at him. “
Whu?
”

hastly and Ravel had left with the Cleavers hours earlier. It was just gone four in the morning. The sky would be brightening soon, turning from black to blue, preparing for dawn.

The first strike came without warning. The enemy must have had a few cloaking spheres, because suddenly there were bullets and rockets and energy streams lighting up the shields. Someone behind Valkyrie launched a flare that illuminated the valley, casting the hundreds of charging sorcerers in a hellish red glow.

“Return fire!” Skulduggery roared, and the shout went up the line and things got louder. A writhing ball of energy slipped through the shield and exploded next to a truck, spinning it over on to its side.

An enemy Elemental used the air to propel himself high overhead. He landed on the curve of the shield, every touch lighting it up. He rolled until he found a gap and dropped off the edge, using the air to slow his descent. But the moment he hit the ground sorcerers jumped on him and he was lost to Valkyrie’s sight.

Skulduggery stuck his gun through a gap and fired. He pulled it back, reloaded. “Where the hell is Moloch?”

Valkyrie jumped back to let a trio of mages run by. Everyone had a job to do but her. She looked up to the ridge. Where the hell
was
Moloch?

Keeping low, she ran back and to the east, looping around out of the camp and towards the trees. She brought the shadows in to hide her as she sprinted across the open ground. She sank into the treeline, keeping her head turned away from the brilliant flashes of light from the battle. If Mantis had people creeping through here, she needed to be able to see them first.

She moved as quickly as she could, using the sounds of fighting to mask her footsteps. Every time she thought she saw someone in the dark, it turned out to be nothing. Which was odd. If she’d been in charge in place of Mantis, she would have sent a squad of her best fighters down here in an attempt to outflank the enemy. She knew that’s what Skulduggery was expecting. So where were they?

The ground turned steep and she slowed, creeping up the side of the hill towards the ridge. Up ahead she could hear snarling. Lots and lots of snarling. That low, guttural, savage snarling that could only tear itself from the throats of vampires.

She fought the irrational urge to rush forward, but it was her slow steps that prevented her from tripping over something lying in the undergrowth. She nudged it with her foot. It moved, then moved back, settling into its original position. She knelt, reached out. Felt a leg.

She cursed under her breath and fell on to her backside. Whoever it was didn’t move. She could see the outline of a shoulder. He was sitting up, resting against a tree.

Her mouth dry, Valkyrie got to her knees. When he still didn’t move, her hand went back to his foot. Soft rubber and laces. Running shoes. Her hand moved up. A tracksuit. Beneath it, a cold, cold leg.

Shielding one hand with the other, she clicked her fingers, summoned a small flame. Moloch’s tracksuit. She shuffled closer. Moloch’s blood. She raised her hand. Moloch’s dead body, sitting here in the woods, missing its head.

She let the fire go out before she saw too much, but had to fight to keep from throwing up. She stood, backed away, praying she didn’t kick anything head-shaped in the dark.

The white-skinned vampires were packed into a massive cage, climbing over each other for their chance to snarl and snap at the man in black pacing back and forward just out of their reach. Dusk. It took her a moment to realise he was snarling back at them.

He stopped suddenly, his head snapping towards her. Valkyrie turned to run, but he was on her in an instant. She felt a hand on her jacket and then she was flying through the air. She hit the ground and rolled and before she’d even come to a stop he was beside her, a hand closing round her throat. He lifted her off her feet and held her there. She kicked out, tried to breathe, his fingertips pressing into her arteries, stopping the blood supply to her brain, her head pounding, lights dancing before her eyes.

And then her let her go, and she fell to the ground.

The vampires were going crazy now. She was an arm’s length from the cage, the only thing stopping them from ripping her to pieces. She looked up at Dusk.

It was quite beautiful, the way the bursting light from the battle hit the angles of his face. The side with the scar was hidden in shadow. The scar she’d given him.

“Why?” Valkyrie asked.

He looked down at her. She knew the rule as well as anyone. There was only one cardinal sin when it came to vampires – the killing of one of their own. Caelan had broken that rule and was shunned. In order for Dusk to do the same, he would have needed a very good reason – and, in order to do it in front of all these other vampires, Moloch must have wronged him in some unforgivable way. But what did a vampire deem unforgivable?

“He stole my life,” Dusk said quietly. “Cursed me with undeath. I’ve been waiting for him to leave his squalid fortress ever since I found out. I suppose I owe you for drawing him into the open.”

“But we need him,” said Valkyrie. “We need the vampires. We’ll lose without them. Please. Help us.”

“If I open this cage, these vampires will kill me.”

“You said you owe me.”

“I do. And at some later date I will tell you a secret about yourself that even you do not know. But not tonight.”

He turned, started walking away.

“No, Dusk, please … Please!”

When the darkness had swallowed him, Valkyrie stood. The vampires howled in frustration. Some of them started to fight among themselves. She walked quickly away from the cage and looked down into the valley. Mantis’s forces were battering at the shields. It would only be a matter of minutes before they got through. Even if she could find the key to open the cage, there was no Moloch around to herd the vampires away once they’d done their job. Besides, once the cage opened, she’d be the first one to fall to their hunger.