by Derek Landy
Valkyrie sighed. “Fine. I’ll wear it. Is it cool?”
“It’s very cool. It’s pink, though.”
“I’m not wearing it.”
“It’s a very cool shade of pink.”
“Skulduggery … you’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“Slightly.”
“I hate you so much.”
He left her for a moment, came back with a long bag. From this he drew her gauntlet – black like his own – and held it out while she slipped her left arm through. Once in place, the fastenings tightened till it was snug but not uncomfortable. She flexed her arm, testing the hinge. It moved with her, like a second skin. “Do I get a sword?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “but I did get you this.”
He reached into the bag, and took out a stick.
She looked at it. “What?”
“Did you really think I’d forgotten my promise to get you a stick for Christmas?”
“It’s not Christmas.”
“Happy birthday.”
She took it from him. It was some kind of dark wood, a little over an inch thick and hexagonal in shape, with symbols carved into it. It was oddly cold in her hand.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Skulduggery said.
“It’s a stick.”
“It’s a special stick.”
“It’s a stick.”
“Well, yes, but it is, as I say, a special stick. The sharpest Cleaver blade couldn’t cut through this. Probably. I’ve trained you in stick-fighting. Tanith trained you in staff-fighting. All you have to do to turn the stick into a stun baton is press your thumb against this symbol here.”
He showed her, and she pressed, and the stick remained a stick.
“Hmm,” said Skulduggery.
“It’s broken,” Valkyrie said.
“It does appear to be not working.”
“You got me a broken stick for my birthday.”
“A broken stick is still a stick.”
“Which brings us back to the fact that you got me a stick for my birthday. I want a sword.”
“You don’t want a sword. Swords are sharp. Especially these swords. You’d lose a finger on these swords. There’d be no chance of you losing a finger on that stick. It’s not sharp, for one thing. It doesn’t work, for another. It’s perfectly safe.”
“I don’t want a perfectly safe weapon. I want a dangerous weapon that hurts people.”
He took the stick from her, rapped it against her head. She howled and he nodded.
“See? It hurts people.”
She grabbed it off him, smacked it against his skull.
“Ow,” he said.
“Not so funny now, is it?”
“Of course not. It’s only funny when it happens to other people. I’d have thought that was obvious.”
She went to hit him again and suddenly the sigils started glowing. “Woah.”
“There you go,” Skulduggery said. “On its first time out, it just needed a few moments to warm up. It recharges itself just by being in contact with your skin. The shock it delivers is enough to incapacitate an average-sized person. Don’t worry, the effects aren’t permanent. They’ll wake up with a headache, nothing more.”
“Well,” she said grudgingly, “I suppose that’s pretty cool. So where do I keep it? Do I get a scabbard or do I have to carry it around with me?”
“Neither,” he said, taking something from his pocket. It was a small disc, no bigger than a contact lens. He motioned to her to turn round, then he pressed it into her jacket near her shoulder blade. “Think of this as a kind of magnet,” he said. “Go on. Put the stick away.”
She moved the stick over her shoulder and let go when she felt the pull. The stick stayed there, tight against her back. She reached for it, pulled it loose, and returned it to her back. It slapped in and didn’t move. “Nice,” she said.
Shudder came over. “We should start now if we want to make our first camp by nightfall,” he said, and without waiting for a reply he moved off.
Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery. “Last chance to give me a piggyback.”
“Sorry, Valkyrie. You’re one of the Dead Men now, and no one ever said it was easy.”
he sounds of people talking drifted up from the floorboards, filling the dark room with the low murmur of half-formed words. Tanith sat on the ground, cuffed to the radiator. So much for her wonderful plan.
The worst thing about the shackles wasn’t that they bit into her wrists or that they robbed her of her magic. The worst thing about them was that they kept her magic just out of reach, like an itch she couldn’t scratch, or a sneeze that wouldn’t come. It was so close, so eye-wateringly close, and yet she had no way of getting to it.
A shudder went through her body, and Tanith closed her eyes. She’d never been good with things like this.
She heard footsteps stop outside her door. There was a moment’s hesitation, long enough for a decision to be made, and then the handle turned and a small, dark-haired woman stepped inside.
“Be still my beating heart,” Tanith said.
Aurora Jane shut the door quietly behind her. The last time Tanith had seen the pretty American, they’d been fighting a horde of rage-zombies in the London Sanctuary. Aurora had been there with Vex and the others, trying to steal the last God-Killer weapon to use against Darquesse when Valkyrie finally accepted the inevitable and gave in. Tanith, naturally, had been there with her gang to destroy the weapons before that could happen. Good times.
“How you doing, Tanith?” Aurora asked. “Shackled to a radiator, huh?”
“So it would appear. So did you get lonely out there or something?”
Aurora gave a little smile. “Yeah, you go on flattering yourself, see where that gets you. Sanguine’s awake, by the way. Still hanging upside down with three guns pointed at him. If he even looks like he’s planning on escaping, they’ll shoot him.”
“He’s been hanging upside down for hours,” Tanith said. “I bet he’s so numb he can’t even feel his legs any more. Does that Habergeon guy still have the force field up?”
Aurora nodded. “I’m afraid the Monster Hunters won’t be shooting anyone tonight.”
Tanith shrugged. “Didn’t expect them to. They don’t even have any rifles.”
A genuine smile from Aurora. The Monster Hunters had been on her side when they went after the God-Killers. “That sounds like them, all right. Regis and Ashione have been tracking them for hours, but O’Callahan and Bane know what they’re doing. They won’t be found if they don’t want to be.”
“So what’s it like,” Tanith asked, “to be going up against them after fighting by their side only a few weeks ago?”
That got to Aurora, even though she did her best to hide it. “You’d be the expert on fighting your friends, wouldn’t you?”
“Ah, but I have a Remnant inside me,” said Tanith. “I have an excuse. I’m surprised to see you, actually. How did you even get a place in Mantis’s army after what you did?”
“You make it sound so sordid. All I did was join a few friends to try and make the world a safer place.”
“A few friends meaning Vex and Rue and the Monster Hunters out there. The enemy, in other words.”
“They weren’t the enemy a few weeks ago. At least not officially.” Aurora went to the window, looked out. “But the Supreme Council might not entirely trust me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Yet you signed up for the war anyway.”
“Someone sensible had to.”
“And now you’re here, fighting against your friends.”
“I am American, in case you’d forgotten, and I have more American friends than I do Irish.”
“Yeah … but the Irish aren’t the ones picking the fight, are they?”
Aurora turned to her. “If you didn’t have a Remnant inside your head, you could take the moral high ground. As it is, you’re not going to make me feel bad, so don’t bother trying.”
Aurora looked at her and didn’t say anything for a while. Then she came over, hunkered down in front of her. If she had wanted, Tanith could have kicked her right in the face. Aurora knew that. She didn’t care.
“If it was just you and Sanguine,” she said, “I’d let you rot in shackles and leave him to be shot the moment he tried to run. But Gracious and Donegan are out there, and they’re stupid enough to try to rescue you, and Mantis is just too good and too smart to let that happen. So, when they come for you, they’ll probably die.”
“So I’ll ask you again. Why are you here, Aurora?”
“Wipe that smirk off your face and I’ll tell you.”
“Consider it wiped.”
Aurora sighed. “I’m going to help you escape.”
“About time you got to the point.”
“I’m assuming you sent your boyfriend in to disable the hotel’s transportation system, right? Do you know if he succeeded?”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to tell me.”
“We have fifteen minutes until midnight. If the hotel stays where it is, Mantis will start questioning both of you to figure out how to reverse what you did. If that happens, I won’t be able to get to you.”
“So take these shackles off, give me my sword, and let me scram before that happens.”
“And how are you going to get to Sanguine?”
“I need a diversion,” Tanith said. She frowned, then brightened. “I know, I’ll chop your head off and throw you from the roof. That’s worked before.”
“Amazingly, I’m not too keen on that idea.”
“Then what do you suggest, Aurora?”
“You take my coat, pretend to be me. I’ll tell Mantis I was overpowered. Meanwhile, you get to Sanguine and escape.”
“I prefer my plan. In your plan I don’t get to decapitate anyone, and it’s a Tuesday. Tuesday is decapitation day.”
“Are you going to do this or not?”
“Fine,” Tanith said, holding out her hands so that Aurora could undo the shackles. “What about my sword?”
“You’re pretending to be me. I don’t carry a sword.”
Tanith stood up, her hands free. “Maybe you could start. I’m not leaving without my sword.”
“It won’t be much of a disguise if—”
“I’ll leave Billy-Ray before I leave my sword.”
“Fine,” Aurora said irritably. “You get Sanguine free, I’ll see what I can do about getting you your sword.”
Tanith smiled. “See? Now we have a compromise that suits everyone.”
Sanguine’s sunglasses and straight razor were on the ground beneath him. The three sorcerers around him were clearly bored, but didn’t dare take their eyes off their captive as he hung there. Their guns didn’t waver. Their fingers were held against the trigger guards, in case a twitch ended his life prematurely. Professionals.
Tanith took in all this with one glance. She had Aurora’s hood pulled up to hide her face. So far, things were going well. She mingled with the enemy soldiers and kept her head down. They chatted and joked and didn’t pay her any attention. Habergeon’s force field was now a dome that covered the entire hotel. He sat cross-legged on the ground with his open hands resting on his knees, and he yawned. Such a useful power, but such a boring one.
Somewhere out there, in the trees, Bane and O’Callahan were being hunted. She hoped they were staying close to the rendezvous point. The only thing worse than coming back without Sanguine would be coming back without the Monster Hunters.
As she casually made her way over to her fiancé, she passed sorcerers glancing at their watches. Only seconds left. She skirted round a man softly strumming his guitar, got to within five paces of the tree from which the Texan hung, and midnight struck. When the hotel didn’t disappear, all heads turned to Sanguine.
Tanith seized her opportunity. She barged past the guards and kicked Sanguine in the gut. “What did you do?” she snarled in her best American accent as he swung, gasping. “Tell us how to fix it!”
“Easy there,” one of the sorcerers said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Tanith shrugged it off, careful to keep her back to them all, and then the front door of the hotel burst open and Aurora Jane ran out, Tanith’s sword in her hands, Mantis right behind her.
“Seize Miss Jane,” Mantis announced, “and secure the prisoner.”
Tanith grabbed the straight razor, flicking it open as she whirled. She kicked the sorcerer who’d laid his hand on her while the straight razor sliced through the rope. Sanguine crashed to the ground, Tanith dodged an energy stream, and Sanguine’s hand closed round her ankle and she let herself be pulled down into the cold and the black.
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me,” he said once the rumbling had stopped.
“Aurora Jane,” she said immediately. “She helped us. We have to help her.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine his expression.
“Seriously? Darlin’, my legs are numb and I am quite light-headed. I need a few minutes to stay down here and get my bearings.”
“Billy-Ray, she’s got my sword. I am not leaving here without my sword.”
“Sometimes I think you love that sword more than you love me.”
Tanith said nothing.
He grabbed her, pulled her close, and the earth shifted and rumbled around them and they were moving again, and then there was a sliver of light above. She saw stars, and legs, and Sanguine’s hand reaching up, and then the stars were blocked from view and they were going down again, into the cold.
“Aurora,” Tanith said loudly, “don’t panic. It’s just us.”
From the darkness right beside her, Aurora’s voice. “Mantis found me,” she said, speaking quickly. “I went to get your sword and Mantis found me. I said I just wanted a look at it. I guess I’m not a very good liar. I got it, though. Your sword. Got it.”
“Aurora,” Tanith said, “are you doing OK?”
A laugh, as sharp as it was abrupt. “A bit claustrophobic. Just a tad. A smidge. Trying not to panic, that’s all. So, looks like I’ll be defecting, then. Yay for me. OK. I’m going to stop talking now.”
“Billy-Ray,” Tanith said, “get us back to the car. Bane and O’Callahan should be waiting there for us.”
They picked up speed. The rumbling got even louder. Tanith didn’t mind. They’d succeeded. They’d successfully cut off the Supreme Council’s only way to transport troops into the country. She grinned. Mission accomplished. This would have to prove to Valkyrie that Tanith was one of the good guys.
alkyrie had never noticed this before, but walking was really, incredibly boring.
She’d watched those Lord of the Rings films where they all went walking up and down mountains and it seemed so adventurous and purposeful, and they didn’t look too tired and no one really complained and that Aragorn guy really looked sexy with his stubble and his long hair and what had she just been thinking about? Beards? Lord of the Rings?
Walking, that was it. Walking and boredom.
God, she was bored.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“We know,” said Skulduggery.
“This looked a lot more fun on Lord of the Rings.”
“So you’ve said.”
Dexter Vex jumped up on a rocky outcrop and looked at the mountains that surrounded them. “Check out this view. I mean, seriously. How could you ever get tired of this view?”
“I’ve managed it,” Valkyrie said, passing him with her head down. “It’s the same view we had this morning. The same view we had yesterday. I bet it’s the same view we’ll have this evening.”
Vex jumped down, walked beside her. “You’re just grumpy.”
“I’m not just grumpy. There is no just here. I am grumpy on an epic scale. I’m used to driving
around in Bentleys and flying through the air. This walking thing is … silly.”
“I’d have to agree with that,” said Saracen from up ahead, shifting his bag on his back. “I’m evidently not as young as I used to be.”
“You mean you’re not as fit as you used to be,” Ravel said.
“Fitness has nothing to do with the soreness of my feet or the ache in my legs.”
“You’ve been spoiled,” said Shudder. “Too much soft living. You used to be tough.”
Saracen frowned. “I did? When?”
Shudder looked at Valkyrie. “He jokes. They all do. But Saracen is one of the strongest men I have ever had the honour of knowing. We were in Siberia—”
“Not this story again,” Saracen said, visibly squirming.
“Shut up,” said Shudder. “We were in Siberia. Our mission was to assassinate a man so terrible his own soldiers called him the Butcher. We tried, and we failed. We were forced to run, and got separated. When we regrouped, Saracen was missing. We waited at the rendezvous point. Nothing. The Teleporter came to take us home – we didn’t go. Our friend had been captured by the Butcher. We had to go back for him.”
“Can we just stop the story there?” Saracen asked. “Leave it on a cliffhanger?”
“Nonsense,” Shudder replied. “Valkyrie should know the calibre of the people she now serves with. The Butcher had him for three days, Valkyrie. No one endured the Butcher’s interrogations for more than twenty-four hours. But, not only did Saracen endure, he found a way to escape. When we found him, he had tracked the Butcher back to his home, had subdued his wife and was waiting there for the Butcher to return. We found him, convinced him to leave with us that very night. He was almost reluctant, Valkyrie. He didn’t care that the Butcher now had a dozen of his best soldiers around him at all times – he wanted to stay and see the job through to the end. That is the kind of man Saracen Rue is.”
Vex was grinning. “Don’t you think you should tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Shudder asked.
