Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men

by Derek Landy

  “Nixion,” he said. “Status?”

  His earpiece crackled into life. “A half-dozen people, all in shackles,” said Nixion. “This area’s secure. Want us to check the lower levels?”

  Ghastly’s eyes stayed on Mist. “Not yet,” he said. “Hold for further instructions.”

  “Can we finish this now?” Portia asked. “I’m bored.”

  Mist shook her head. “This is a moment to be savoured, my sweetling. Not rushed over. Not fumbled. But look. You’ve spoiled it now. You’ve robbed it of its fun.”

  “Wasn’t fun for us,” said Syc.

  “Of course not,” Madame Mist said. “Because you’re young, and impetuous, and have yet to learn such subtleties as patience. When you have learned this subtle art, then you will never want moments like this to end. Elder Bespoke, we never got along, you and I. You distrusted me from the start – wisely, as it turned out. Do you have anything else to charge me with?”

  “You were behind the Warlock killings,” Ghastly said. “You were framing the mortals.”

  “Of course. But I assure you, the Warlocks are merely a means to an end. Once they attack Dublin City, Sanctuaries around the world will unite, and we will save the mortals from these evil, evil beings and be hailed as heroes. We’ll take over, and the mortals won’t even get to set off one of those bombs they love so much. An elegant plan. Not my own, I have to admit. But an elegant plan nonetheless, don’t you think?”

  She was building up to something. Ghastly had found it wise over the years to never let his enemies build up to something.

  He took another step forward, raising his gun. “Hands on your head, all of you. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “One moment, please,” said Mist.

  “Hands on your head now,” said Ghastly.

  “Indulge me, if you will, as one Elder to another. My final request before I am led away in disgrace. Your associates, elsewhere in this building. Call them.”

  “What?”

  Mist said nothing more.

  Frowning, Ghastly pressed his headset again. “Nixion. Any change? Nixion? Zathract?”

  There was movement behind Mist, and something came flying through the air to land wetly in the space before Ghastly. Nixion’s head rolled to a stop, joined a moment later by Zathract’s.

  “Oh, dear,” said Madame Mist. “Oh, I have been unforgivably rude. I seem to have forgotten to introduce you to our new bodyguard that Doctor Nye has generously donated to our cause.”

  A figure stepped into the light. Dressed all in black, carrying a scythe, his face hidden behind a visored helmet.

  “He’s darkened his colour since the first time you met,” said Mist, “but the Black Cleaver is still the same man who almost killed you six years ago. I think it only fitting that he be here to witness your death.”

  Something cold and sharp thudded into Ghastly’s back and he took a step forward, his gun dropping from his suddenly numb fingers. He looked round, saw the Cleavers falling upon Shudder, their scythes piercing the unarmoured sections of his clothes as easily as they did the flesh beneath. They knew exactly where to strike. The Gist burst from Shudder’s chest, screaming in pain and fury, but a scythe took Shudder’s head and the Gist dissipated like smoke in a breeze.

  Ghastly fell to one knee. He reached behind his back, clumsy fingers searching for the scythe blade. Instead, he found a knife. It was pulled free before he could grip it, and he toppled, turning over to land on his back.

  “I am sorry, my friend,” Erskine Ravel said, bending over him. Ghastly closed his hand around Ravel’s wrist, tried to keep the blade away – “No,” he whispered, “no, don’t” – but his strength was gone and Ravel easily disentangled himself and pushed the knife into his throat.

  In that moment, Ghastly became aware of a great many things. He became aware of how cold he suddenly was, and how hot his blood felt, splashing on to his skin. He became aware of Anton Shudder’s head lying on the floor, turned away from him. He became aware of how many regrets he’d stored up over the years, and despite them all and despite his age, he still wasn’t ready to die. And he became aware of Ravel’s eyes, brimming with tears, those eyes of his that had many a lady swooning over him down through the centuries. Those golden eyes.

  inding Tanith was the only thing that Sanguine cared about, but after an hour of searching he had to return to the small primary school with nothing to show for his efforts. The school was in the middle of nowhere, with doors that were easily forced and windows that gave them a good view in all four directions. A good temporary base – providing they didn’t have to defend it.

  Rue and Vex were already back, and Gracious O’Callahan was working away at the little school computer, tapping the keys by the dim light of the screen. A few minutes later, Pleasant dropped from the midday sky and strode into the classroom.

  “Any sign?” Vex asked.

  “Nothing,” Pleasant said. “We’ll have to expand our search.”

  “No,” said Rue. “Skulduggery, I know you’re worried, but Valkyrie’s a prisoner of war now. She’ll be treated well and she’ll be kept out of danger. If we keep looking for her, we’re going to run into the people who are looking for us. They’re closing in and you know it. We have to leave the area.”

  “We’re not going anywhere without Tanith,” Sanguine said quietly. “Valkyrie will be released when the war is over, but Tanith is a wanted fugitive. She’s gonna be thrown in prison for the rest of her life if we don’t get her back now.”

  Vex shook his head. “It’s too risky. I’m sorry.”

  “So that’s how it is, is it? You’ll let her fight for you, but the moment she needs help you cut her loose? I thought you were meant to be the good guys, all noble and honourable. I don’t see much nobility in leaving your people behind.”

  “We’re not leaving,” said Pleasant. “Once Mantis figures out who he has, he’ll set his Sensitives on them. They’re probably already at work. We have to get to Valkyrie before they push too deep.”

  Rue frowned. “Why? They don’t know where we are. They don’t know of our plans because we don’t have any plans.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “Then what, for God’s sake?”

  By the way he stood, it looked like Pleasant was about to say something he really didn’t want to say, but he was saved the trouble by O’Callahan.

  “There’s something you should see,” he said.

  Sanguine stepped forward. “You’ve found them?”

  O’Callahan shook his head. “This computer isn’t powerful enough to crack Mantis’s communication codes. Instead, I’ve been trying to find out why we can’t get in touch with Ghastly. Whatever else she’s done, Madame Mist hasn’t changed the codes for the security feed yet, so I’ve accessed the cameras in the Roarhaven Sanctuary.”

  “Let’s take a look,” Pleasant said, and Sanguine rushed forward before all the good places around the computer were taken. The monitor showed the empty Round Room.

  “At the moment nothing’s happening,” said O’Callahan, sitting at the keyboard. “So I … I went a few hours back. And I … I found this.”

  He clicked a file and they saw Madame Mist and a few other creepy-looking individuals facing off against Bespoke and Ravel and Shudder, plus a whole army of Cleavers at their backs. Words were being spoken.

  “Where’s the audio?” Vex asked.

  O’Callahan frowned, started opening and closing windows while the stand-off continued onscreen.

  “I know the pretty ones,” said Sanguine, “I know Syc and Portia, but who are the ugly people?”

  “The Terror and the Scourge,” said Rue. “Contemporaries of the Torment. They can turn into giant spiders, just like he could. If anything, though, they’re even less friendly and … wait, who the hell is this?”

  A man in black stepped into view. He looked like a Cleaver.

  “Got it,” said O’Callahan, a
nd there was a slight hiss and then Madame Mist’s voice drifted from the speakers.

  “—but the Black Cleaver is still the same man who almost killed you six years ago,” she was saying. “I think it only fitting that he be here to witness your death.”

  Ravel was the first one to move. But instead of moving against the Children of the Spider, he slipped a knife from his sleeve and plunged it into Ghastly Bespoke’s back.

  Pleasant stiffened and Vex cursed and Rue jerked away from the monitor, and Sanguine’s eyes would surely have widened if he’d had any.

  Rue found his voice and shouted as Bespoke fell and Anton Shudder was sliced from shoulder to sternum. The Cleavers hacked at Shudder with detached ferocity, not affording him a moment’s mercy, not even when they took his head. Bespoke was on his back by now, with Ravel crouched over him.

  “I am sorry, my friend,” Ravel said, and plunged the knife into his throat.

  Vex turned from the monitor and Rue staggered against the wall. Only Pleasant stayed where he was, watching his scarred friend choke on his own blood and die. It was as if the skeleton were frozen in place. Sanguine felt the ridiculous urge to reach out and poke him, just to see if he’d react, but he’d seen that kind of anger before. It was the quiet kind. The dangerous kind.

  On the monitor, there was sudden silence. The Cleavers stepped away from Shudder, their scythes dripping. Ravel stood slowly, looked at the knife in his hand.

  Syc walked forward, peered down at Bespoke’s dead body and laughed.

  Ravel moved so fast it was almost scary. In an instant, Syc was on his knees with the blade that had killed Bespoke pressed into his throat. Portia cried out and the Terror and the Scourge moved, started to grow, their arms and legs lengthening.

  “Stand down!” Ravel roared. “Stand down or I’ll kill him and then I’ll kill every last one of you!”

  Sanguine leaned in, eager for more bloodshed, but the Terror and the Scourge stopped growing, and after a moment they returned to their original forms.

  “You let him go,” Portia said, her voice shaking with fury.

  Ravel ignored her. He hauled Syc to his feet, and leaned in. “You do not laugh at this man. You understand me? Compared to him, you’re nothing. You’re less than nothing. He was one of my friends, but you? You’re not worthy to even be killed by the same knife that’s marked with his blood.”

  Ravel shoved Syc away from him, and Syc glared but retreated to Portia’s side.

  Only Madame Mist seemed to have kept her composure. “We’ve had reports from the battle at the Keep. Our forces have been decimated by Mantis and his army. Some are dead. Most are captured.”

  Ravel looked at her, something unreadable in his face. “Good,” he said at last. “Skulduggery and the others?”

  “Escaped,” said Mist. “Although Mantis has Valkyrie Cain.”

  “OK. That should keep Skulduggery occupied for a while, at least. I want Vaurien Scapegrace rounded up. He helped us get in, so he’ll help others. Get Dacanay on it.”

  “Of course, Grand Mage.”

  “And get someone in to … clean up in here. I want these men given proper burials.”

  “Of course.”

  Ravel looked down at Bespoke and Shudder, and walked out. The Black Cleaver was the first to follow, and then the others, until only Syc and Portia remained behind.

  “Why do we take orders from him?” Syc asked when they were alone, anger bubbling beneath his words. “I should kill him for what he did. No one lays a finger on me. No one.”

  Portia took hold of his arm. “It’s just for a little while longer,” she said. “Then we won’t need him any more. We won’t need any of them. Come on. Come.” She took his hand, and led him out of the room. They had to step over Bespoke’s body to do so.

  O’Callahan hesitated, then pressed a key and the image froze.

  Sanguine stepped back, so he could watch all three Dead Men. He saw the horror in Rue’s eyes, the disbelief in Vex’s. It almost made him laugh, to see them in such distress. He’d never liked Ghastly Bespoke. His only regret was that he hadn’t been the one with the blade to his throat.

  There was a mirror on one wall with magnetic numbers stuck on to the surface. Pleasant walked over, cleared the numbers to one side and examined his reflection. He straightened his tie. Vex, Rue and O’Callahan watched him. It occurred to Sanguine that everything Pleasant was wearing had probably been made by Bespoke.

  “What do we do?” Rue asked.

  Pleasant took off his hat, adjusted the brim. “Replay the footage. We need to hear everything that was said. Then we release it over the Global Link. Our people need to know that Roarhaven is no longer a refuge.”

  “About Erskine,” said Rue. “What do we do about Erskine and Mist?”

  “Oh, that,” Pleasant said, putting his hat back on. “We kill them. We kill them all.”

  alkyrie was in her uncle’s house when the phone rang. She looked at it and listened to the ring until it filled her head, and then she picked it up.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Who is this?” a man asked.

  “My name is Valkyrie Cain,” said Valkyrie. “I’m twelve years old and my uncle has just died.”

  “I know Edgley’s dead,” said the man. He sounded angry. “What are you doing in that house? Why are you in his house?”

  Valkyrie frowned. The ringing had made her head hurt. “Um … wait …”

  Someone pounded on the front door. “Open up!” the man shouted. “Open the damn door!”

  Valkyrie jumped up off the couch, ran to the fireplace and grabbed the poker. The pounding on the door stopped, and she turned to the window beside her. The curtains were open. Outside was pitch-black. She could see her own reflection in the glass. She didn’t look twelve years old. She was too tall, too broad, and her clothes were too small, too tight. They stretched across her.

  A hand knocked on the window. “Are you alone in there?” the man asked, but before she could answer, the window exploded and the man leaped in.

  She went to swing at him with the poker, but realised she wasn’t holding it any more. Instead, she wore a black ring that left a trail of shadows in its wake, so she used those shadows and sent them snapping into him. The man tumbled backwards, into the corner. She looked down at herself. She was wearing black now. Everything fitted. The man charged at her and she pushed at the air and he went hurtling into a bookcase.

  The door opened behind her and a skeleton in a nice suit walked in.

  “Hello, Skulduggery,” she said.

  He tipped his hat to her, and they watched the man get to his feet, and start to sweat, and then the man melted and disappeared between the floorboards.

  “Why are you here?” she asked Skulduggery. “Did you know I was going to be attacked? Were you using me as bait?”

  He turned his head to her. “The less you know about all this, the better. You’re a perfectly normal young lady, and after tonight, you’re going to return to your perfectly normal life. It wouldn’t do for you to get involved in this.”

  She frowned. “We’ve had this conversation before, about how involved I get.”

  “But we can limit that involvement.”

  “I don’t understand. Why am I twelve? I’m not twelve. I’m eighteen. That man didn’t dissolve here, he dissolved in the canal. You threw fire at him and shot him. I don’t … I don’t think this is real …”

  “But it’s what’s best for you.”

  She winced. “I’ve got a headache. I don’t understand this. It’s like déjà vu, but … but it’s staying with me. I don’t feel well.”

  “But it might—”

  “I’m going to be sick. I’m going to throw up. Why does my head hurt so much? This isn’t real. Something’s wrong. Don’t you feel it? What’s the last thing you remember? The last thing I remember is … fighting. I remember lots of people fighting and … We were at war. My God. How could I have forgotten? Skulduggery, we were a
t war and all the other Sanctuaries were trying to take over and somebody hit me and—”

  “Don’t you want to get back to that world?”

  “What world? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s safer there.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  He cocked his head. “Funny. When I first met your uncle, that’s what he said, too.”

  She stepped back. “You’re not Skulduggery. Who are you? This isn’t right. This isn’t how it happened. What’s going on? Who are you? I don’t know you.”

  She turned and ran into a vast library where bookshelves grew like great oaks, stretching towards the ice-blue sky. In the clearing of the forest of books stood China Sorrows.

  “He has anger in him like you have never seen,” said China. “He has hatred in him that you would never dream about. You should have been there during the war, you know. You should have seen him then.”

  Skulduggery emerged from the shadows beside China, his eyeless gaze fixed on Valkyrie. “You asked me what is my nature? It is a dark and twisted thing.”

  Valkyrie tried to focus, but it was hard with the pain in her head and the constant buzzing.

  “Has he corrupted you yet?” Solomon Wreath asked from behind her. She turned, squinting at him through the gloom. “He corrupts everyone he meets. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed how much you’re changing, simply by being around him?”

  The pain jabbed at her and her knees went weak and she fell back into a chair in Bespoke Tailor’s. She looked up and watched Ghastly working at the sewing machine.

  “Did Skulduggery ever tell you about my mother?” he asked without looking up. “She was a Sensitive, did he tell you that? She told me that Skulduggery would take a partner some time in the future, a girl with dark hair and dark eyes. She said there was an enemy you had to fight. A creature of darkness. She said Skulduggery fought by your side for some of it, but … She sensed things more than she saw them, you know? She felt terror, and death, and futility. She felt the world on the edge of destruction, and she sensed evil. Unimaginable evil.”