by Derek Landy
This time of the morning, from 3 am to 5:30 am, was Eamon’s. He was the only one up, the only one awake, the only one active. And then this eejit, lit up like a lanky Christmas tree, started interrupting his routine. A nod and a smile. Eamon didn’t want anyone nodding and smiling to him, especially not some bloody gobsheen they could probably see from space.
Eamon’s reaction was to simply ignore the man. For the first few weeks, this worked fine. The jogger jogged by, nodded and smiled, and Eamon looked down at his milk, or looked up at the stars, or looked across at a hedge. The jogger must have realised he was being ignored, because he started to run as near to Eamon as he could, and when that didn’t work, he added a wave to his repertoire, and then a “Howyeh”. It was getting harder and harder to ignore him, but Eamon was determined that this blow-in would not beat him.
Eamon filled his arms with milk cartons and glanced up, noting that the jogger wasn’t doing his usual prancing gazelle run. He was sprinting. Eamon could understand sprinting. You ran fast because you had somewhere to get to. He didn’t understand this jogging lark. It was a run, only slower, so obviously you were in no hurry to get where you were going. So why not walk?
Still muttering to himself, Eamon crossed the road, heading for Number 9. He happened to glance at the jogger again, whose quick feet crunched over the frost-covered grass. Sprinting. Not like a gazelle, but like a lion. Like a lion, closing in on its prey.
The jogger left the grass and ran on to the road. He ran straight into Eamon and took him off his feet. The cartons flew through the cold air, hitting the ground and bursting. Spilt milk. Eamon almost cried.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled, shoving the jogger off him. “You could have killed me!”
He picked himself up off the road, fuming. The jogger was already on his feet. There was something wrong with his face.
The jogger’s hands closed around Eamon’s throat, tightening to a choke that instantly made the blood pound in Eamon’s head. He squawked and slipped backwards, taking the jogger with him. They slipped and slid, but the choke stayed on, the grip impossibly strong. The jogger’s face was mottled with dark veins and his lips were black.
“I never liked you, old man,” the jogger said with a grin.
Eamon hit the side of his truck and felt around for a weapon. Smashing a milk bottle into his attacker’s head would have stopped him. Smashing a milk carton wasn’t going to have the same effect.
Eamon pushed back, propping himself against the truck to gain whatever purchase he could. The jogger’s running shoes, the heels of which flashed with pretty lights, slipped on the ice, and once Eamon had a bit of momentum going, he piled on the pressure, steering his attacker towards the puddle of milk. The jogger’s legs went from under him, and the choke was lost. The jogger hit the ground and Eamon reeled back, gasping for breath. The jogger laughed, and opened his mouth wide.
Eamon watched as a black shadow pulled itself out of the jogger’s mouth and flitted through the air, to the door of Number 9. It opened the letter box and disappeared through.
Eamon stared. Never, in all his years’ delivering milk, had he seen anything like that before.
He looked back at the jogger, who seemed to have fallen asleep. He lay there, all those stupid lights still flashing, the dark veins gone, no more a threat to Eamon than a baby duck. But that thing, the shadow thing, was in Number 9, and Eamon had a responsibility to help the people he delivered milk to. He started across the road, hands balled into fists.
Before he was halfway over, the hall light turned on, and a moment later, the door to Number 9 opened. A bare-footed girl, maybe twenty-five years old, stood there in her pyjamas. Eamon took off his hat, and was about to speak when the girl bolted out of her house, straight at him.
He had time to see those same dark veins on her face as he turned to run, but she leaped on to his back. He tried to throw her off, but she was strong, stronger than him, and she nothing but a slip of a girl. She laughed as he struggled, her hands gripping his head, so tight he felt his skull might burst. He knew if he fell, he was finished. He had to stay on his feet. So long as he stayed on his feet, he had a chance of dislodging her and getting out of there.
He stepped into the puddle of milk beside the unconscious jogger and slid on the wet ice. Eamon fell to the road, the girl laughing all the way down.
35
SCRUTINOUS
Geoffrey Scrutinous looked into the eyes of the hysterical woman and said, “No, you didn’t.”
She grabbed his arm, tears running down her face. “I did, I swear! I know it sounds insane, but I saw these… these things, these shadow things, climb inside people’s mouths!”
“You didn’t see that,” Scrutinous said, speaking calmly and maintaining eye contact. His hair was especially wild and frizzy tonight, but he was hoping she’d ignore that and keep looking into his eyes. “And you’re not panicking right now. You’re feeling much calmer.”
She nodded, and took a deep breath. “I am, actually. But I still saw—”
“You saw people turn violent,” Scrutinous interrupted, “and then you got out of there. That was quite shocking to see, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, it was.”
“You’re glad you left when you did.”
“You have no idea how glad I am,” she told him.
“You’re going to go home now, get into bed, and in the morning you won’t remember any of the bad stuff that happened tonight.”
She released his arm and gave him a shaky smile. “I really have to go. Thank you for your help, but I…”
“Not at all, not at all. Safe home now.”
The woman smiled, pulled her coat tighter around her, and hurried away. Immediately, Scrutinous started walking for his car. He pulled out his phone and dialled.
“This is bad,” Philomena Random said upon answering the call.
“It sounds like Remnants,” Scrutinous said. “Break it off. We’re not going to be able to contain this and it’s too dangerous out here. Get back to the Great Chamber. I’ll meet you there.”
He hung up and heard a cry. Cursing under his breath, he moved to the corner and peeked around, as a fat man threw a Guard against a shop window. The window cracked and the cop rebounded off. He was battered and bloody, and could barely stand.
“I hate people,” the fat man told him. “Bags of meat, that’s all you are. Disgusting bags of meat.”
Not for the first time, Scrutinous really wished his chosen Adept discipline had been combat-based – then situations like these would not be as daunting as they were now. The plain fact of the matter was, he hated violence, he always had, but that was mainly because he was so rubbish at it.
The cop did his best to throw a punch. It hit the fat man, but failed to do any damage.
“Look at what I’m wearing,” the fat man said, and hit him back. The cop folded, gasping. “It smells. Can you smell it? It stinks. You stink. You all stink.”
But what was Scrutinous going to do? Stand here at this corner and watch a Remnant kill a mortal – just because he didn’t want to get into a fight? That was against his code, wasn’t it? Well, it would have been, if he’d had a code. He really wished that he’d bothered to come up with a code, then situations like this would be much easier to resolve.
The fat man closed one chubby, meaty, sweaty hand around the Guard’s throat, and pinned him to the wall. The Guard struggled and kicked, but his face was already turning purple.
Scrutinous scowled, and sprang into action.
“Excuse me?” he said.
The fat man turned his fat head. “What? Who’s there?”
Scrutinous peeked out from behind the corner, and gave a little wave. “Uh, me. I’m going, um, I’m going to have to ask you to put down that mortal.”
“Is that so?” the fat man sneered.
“I’m… I’m sorry, but I have to insist.”
The fat man laughed and tightened his grip on the Guard. Sc
rutinous took a few quick breaths to get the blood pumping, and then he leaped out and sprinted towards them. But his sandals had no grip, and so he slipped on the icy road and fell, skinning his knee and cracking his elbow.
As he rolled around on the road in pain, the fat man shook his head. “You’re rubbish.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Scrutinous said through gritted teeth.
The fat man let the now unconscious Guard drop, and walked over. “You’re a sorcerer, then? What can you do?”
Scrutinous forced himself up. “I’m a trained fighter,” he lied. “Come one step closer and I’ll tear out your larynx with my Tiger Paw Technique.”
The fat man smirked, and Scrutinous stopped hobbling long enough to fall back into a t’ai chi pose he had seen once. A fat fist crunched into his nose and he reeled, staggering towards a bright light. Was that it? Had that single punch killed him? Was he leaving this world behind, travelling into the Great Unknown? And then he heard the engine, and a car door open, and knew he was stumbling towards a set of headlights.
“More bags of meat?” the fat man said. “Fine with me.”
“No meat here,” Skulduggery Pleasant said, stepping between Scrutinous and the fat man, “but plenty of bone.” He had his gun out, aimed directly at the fat man’s head.
The fat man smiled. “You wouldn’t shoot.”
“No?”
“I’m innocent. I’m mortal.”
“The man before me is innocent,” Skulduggery said, “and mortal, but the Remnant inside him is twisted and evil. And it has ten seconds to vacate.”
“Why bother? I’ll just find someone else to possess.”
“You do that. Find someone in better shape. You’re about to give that man a heart attack.”
The fat man looked down at Scrutinous. “You’re lucky.”
He threw back his head and the Remnant crawled out of his mouth, flying into the air, disappearing in the darkness. The fat man collapsed to the road, unconscious.
Skulduggery helped Scrutinous to his feet. “You OK?”
“I skinned my knee and hurt my elbow.”
“Poor you. Get in the car – we have to get to the Great Chamber.”
Scrutinous limped to the passenger side as Skulduggery got back behind the wheel. It was a nice car, the Bentley. It moved fast.
“How did it start?” Scrutinous asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Skulduggery replied. “Shudder, Ravel, Corrival Deuce – they’ve all been possessed. I’m quarantining the people who I know are unaffected until I have a better idea of what we’re up against.”
Scrutinous looked at him. “They got Deuce? Already? But… why? He’s not the most powerful sorcerer around, he’s just…”
“He’s our Grand Mage. This isn’t like the outbreaks we’ve had before, Geoffrey. This time, the Remnants seem to have a plan.”
Scrutinous paled. “If that’s the case, then… then one of their first ports of call would be the Great Chamber, to stop us organising the fight back.”
Skulduggery nodded. “No one at the Chamber is answering their phone.”
“Then why are we headed there?”
“Because every single sorcerer in the city will be on their way to help, and that’s where they’ll be going.”
“Into a trap.”
Skulduggery looked at him. “Aren’t you glad you got out of bed this morning?”
36
QUIET, PLEASE
China’s library never closed. No matter what time of the day or night, no matter what season, no matter the weather, the library stayed open. Knowledge did not take holidays, after all, and neither did China. There were no windows in the library – she hated the thought of the sun fading the spines of her books – but the windows of her apartment showed a Dublin that glistened with frost. It was cold and silver out there. It was warm and tastefully lit in her apartment. There were moments when China could not understand why anyone would ever want to go outside.
The man on the radio told her of police being called to a riot in North County Dublin. The man’s voice was too thin, too weedy for his chosen profession, but she forced herself to listen as he offered up the few meagre scraps of information he possessed. He mentioned the name of the nightclub, repeated the same eyewitness accounts, and generally got overexcited at the first real piece of news ever to come his way at this hour of the night.
China turned off the radio, then crossed the hall from her apartment and walked through the library, taking into account the shifting stacks that arranged themselves according to necessity.
It was an old trick, showy and gauche, and somewhat misleading. The stacks actually shifted in response to the mood of the room. If the mood was hostile, the books on combat would move to the front; if it was paranoid, the books on secrets and how to keep them would be foremost. It wasn’t a sophisticated trick, but China kept it because it reminded her of the library she’d had in her old family home.
She used to get lost in those stacks for hours, surrounded by books on the Faceless Ones. It had been a happy childhood. Completely insane, but happy. When she looked back on it now, she could see what a hollow comfort her faith in the old gods had been. From the day the first cracks in that faith had appeared, it had taken decades for her to break through.
Every disciple of the Faceless Ones knew that if the old gods returned, they would bring hell with them. And yet every single one of them hoped that they would be among the few to be spared, to be elevated to godhood alongside their masters. A ridiculous expectation, but one that was reinforced by centuries of brainwashing.
As intelligent as sorcerers like Serpine and Vengeous were, as intelligent even as Mevolent himself was, they could not break free of a dozen lifetimes worth of conditioning. Bliss had managed it, and China had followed, but it hadn’t been easy.
But it had been worth it. True, she had generally had more fun in the old days, but at least she was alive, and independent, and she didn’t have to spend half her day praying. She’d never liked the praying part. She’d never been able to understand why the Faceless Ones weren’t praying to her.
She slid a book from its place, catching sight of Flaring in the next aisle over. Flaring was an ideal patron of the library. She didn’t talk loudly, she didn’t leave books scattered around, and if she did have to borrow a work, she made sure to have it back within a reasonable amount of time. If only every library patron was as satisfactory as Flaring.
China opened the book in her hand, scanning the index, and something caught her eye. She looked back to the gap on the shelf. Flaring was out of sight now, but China knew she had seen a shadow move. She was not one to dismiss anything as her imagination playing tricks. China’s imagination was a wondrous thing, as every mage’s imagination needed to be, but it was also a disciplined, ordered thing. It was in many ways like a well-trained pet, and it did not, under any circumstances, trick her.
She became aware of a sound from the next aisle. It was Flaring. She sounded like she was retching. And then the sound suddenly stopped.
China was a logical woman, one not prone to jumping to conclusions, but two facts immediately surfaced in her thoughts. The first was that the Necromancers had a Remnant they’d been examining, and the second was a rumour she’d heard, just a few hours earlier, of an argument between Solomon Wreath and his High Priest.
Her mind flowed over the facts and the possibilities, and she replaced the book on the shelf and stepped slowly backwards. There was a Remnant loose. In fact, taking into account the nightclub riot so close to Haggard, there was probably more than one. A lot more.
China turned, walking smoothly and without unnecessary haste. If she could silently alert the other patrons and evacuate them all, then she could seal the library and trap Flaring, and the Remnant, within. If she couldn’t, or if she felt the odds were leaning even slightly out of her favour, she would abandon everyone and seal the library anyway. Skulduggery could be here within minutes, tak
e care of the problem, and the library would reopen without the loss of too much goodwill. A solution elegant in its cold simplicity.
But when she passed Jago Balance, and saw him struggling with a Remnant that was forcing itself down his throat, she knew her solution was no longer feasible.
She stepped back before he turned, taking a different route. She almost jumped when Hidalgo emerged from an aisle in front of her. He had that distracted look in his eye he always did, that seemingly only went away when he saw her. True to form, as soon as his gaze fell upon her, he straightened up and sucked in his belly.
“Hello, China,” he said quietly, a happy smile breaking out.
She put a finger to her lips, and he blushed.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and hurried down another aisle like a chastised schoolboy. He was acting completely normally he wasn’t acting like he was possessed.
She started down the aisle after him, and froze. His back was to her, his hands were at his face and he was gagging. Then he straightened up.
China walked on, forcing herself not to break into a panicked and undignified run. The door was close by. All she had to do was reach it and then she was out. Down the steps and into the car. Call Skulduggery as she was driving away. Once she knew she was safe.
But there were people by the door. China could see them through the narrow gaps between the books and the shelves. At least four of them, standing there, not talking. She heard someone behind her, but didn’t look round. Instead, she took a book from its place and moved onwards, flicking through the pages as she walked, pretending to read.
The material of her gorgeous skirt was soft and tight. Completely impractical for fighting. The heels of her gorgeous shoes were high and thin. Completely impractical for fleeing. For one dizzying moment, China found herself envying the rather vulgar style of Tanith Low, constantly attired as she was in the clothes of a common brawler – leather and boots and straps and buckles.