The Maleficent Seven
Derek Landy
A brilliant, hilarious one-off novel in the Skulduggery Pleasant universe, from number-one-bestselling author Derek LandyThis time, the bad guys take the stage.Tanith Low, now possessed by a remnant, recruits a gang of villains – many of whom will be familiar from previous Skulduggery adventures – in order to track down and steal the four God-Killer level weapons that could hurt Darquesse when she eventually emerges. Also on the trail of the weapons is a secret group of Sanctuary sorcerers, and doing his best to keep up and keep Tanith alive is one Mister Ghastly Bespoke.When the villains around her are lying and scheming and plotting, Tanith needs to stay two steps ahead of her teammates and her enemies. After all, she's got her own double-crosses to plan – and she’s a villain herself…
Copyright (#ulink_c6072b45-1ab0-5c9a-9a58-0c7f737b736b)
First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2013
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Visit Skulduggery Pleasant at
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Derek Landy blogs under duress at
www.dereklandy.blogspot.com
Copyright © Derek Landy 2013
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Illuminated letters © Tom Percival 2012
Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy
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Source ISBN: 9780007500925
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007512393
Version: 2014-11-04
This book is dedicated to Brendan Bourke.
I am brash, arrogant, egotistical and incredibly narcissistic. Brendan was none of these things. Brendan was nice, and modest, and friendly, and he didn’t have one bitter bone in his body.
He was so completely weird.
He gave me my start as a writer and for that alone the world owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.
I may be the Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived™, I may be the Golden God, but Brendan? Brendan was the Golden God’s uncle.
Contents
Title Page (#u28f1348d-0949-5972-9136-69b266c28020)
Copyright (#ulink_0b3ed341-caa8-522a-82a7-279b100b35f2)
Dedication (#u6238f595-2d94-5217-83c1-0012729d8544)
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About the Publisher
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t had seemed like a good idea at the time, hiding out at her old place in London. Only an idiot would return to a known residence, she figured, and since she wasn’t an idiot, it would naturally follow that they’d never think to look for her there. The fact that they’d been lying in wait offended her more than anything else.
Tanith sprinted across the rooftop, boots splashing through a puddle as big as a lake, and leaped off the edge. The lane whipped beneath her and the night air stung her eyes. She collided with the building on the other side and clung there for a moment, then got her feet against the bricks and ran on, sideways. She jumped a string of windows one at a time, got round the corner and crouched there to catch her breath.
She hadn’t seen Sanguine escape, but he’d probably just slipped through the floor and burrowed away. Of course, there was the distinct possibility that they’d got to him before he could do that. If that had happened, he’d be dead by now. You didn’t arrest someone like Billy-Ray Sanguine, she knew, someone who could escape from any cell and slip out of any restraint. You killed him when you had the chance. Tanith hoped he wasn’t dead. He was useful to her.
She edged closer to the corner, had a peek round. The rooftops were clear. She’d lost them. Her hand, which had been gripping the hilt of her sword, relaxed, and she felt the reassuring weight of the blade return to its natural balance across her back. She straightened her legs and stood out from the wall, her blonde hair falling in front of her face as she looked at the cars passing below. The safest thing would be to get down to street level, hail a taxi or get the Tube. But in order to do that, she’d have to dump her sword. Her coat was still lying on the floor of her apartment. She loved that coat. When she wore it, it concealed the sword. She loved her coat, but she was in love with her sword. She could no more abandon it than any other woman could abandon her own arm.
She turned, walked up the wall, made sure no one was waiting for her, and climbed on to the roof. If poor old Billy-Ray was dead, she’d need to find someone to replace him, which wasn’t going to be easy. He was a fully functional sociopath, which made him useful in all sorts of fun ways. And she had a plan. She needed him for her plan to succeed. It was a good plan, too. Sneaky. She was proud of it, and looked forward to seeing how it would work out. She really hoped Sanguine wasn’t dead.
Tanith stopped moving. On the building opposite, a man stood. Dressed in grey, with a visored helmet and a scythe in his hands. He hadn’t seen her yet. She stepped backwards, started to turn, saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
Another Cleaver, leaping at her, the blade of his scythe darkened with fire to stop it glinting in the streetlights.
Tanith threw herself back, felt the scythe whisper past her throat. The Cleaver landed and came forward and she rolled and got up, her sword clearing its sheath. She met the next swipe and kicked, but he twisted his body out of the way as he spun the scythe so that the long handle cracked against her head. Cursing, Tanith stumbled, swung wildly with her sword to keep him back. The scythe handle hit her knee and she howled, and barely managed to fend off the blow that would have separated her pretty head from her pretty body.
The other Cleaver jumped across the chasm between the buildings, his legs tucked under him. Tanith wished she were an Elemental, so she could send a gust of wind to throw him back, let him fall to his death. But she wasn’t, and he landed, and now she had two Cleavers to deal with.
There was a time when they’d been on the same side, but that was back before the Remnant had squirmed its way into her soul. That dark little creature had taken her conscience, ripped it away from her, but in its place she had been given so many extraordinary gifts, as twisted as they were terrible. One of these gifts was a brand-new purpose, and this purpose meant that she could not allow these Cleavers to beat her here, tonight, on this rooftop. Darquesse depended on her.
They closed in. Tanith could see her own reflection in their visors. Her lips were black, and black veins riddled her face, the only outward signs that she had a Remnant inside her. She bared her teeth in a crazy-woman smile and said, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.”
They definitely thought they were hard enough, and they came in strong and fast. Tanith didn’t even have time to curse as she rolled and spun and defended. As her blade clashed with theirs, she started to wonder if she needed a new battle cry, something that wasn’t so goading. I like your shoes, perhaps.
She dipped to the side and ran her sword across the first Cleaver’s arm. She drew blood, but not a lot. Their uniforms were reinforced against attacks, both physical and magical. Unlike her outfit – boots and brown leather trousers and a nifty little waistcoat. She backed up, defending without thinking, letting her instincts control her arms, letting her legs go where they wanted. Her body was her survival tool. It would do its job with no help from her, allowing her mind to plan and strategise and scheme. Tonight, though, with the crescent moon somewhere behind her and light pollution blinding her to the stars above, the only thought that ricocheted around her head was, if you don’t end this, you’re going to die.
Tanith waited for an opening and dropped her sword as she lunged forward, through the first Cleaver’s guard. She hugged him, pressed her head into his shoulder so he couldn’t headbutt, and forced him back. He used her own momentum against her in order to hip-throw her to the roof’s surface, but she held on to him, landed on her feet and reversed the throw. His scythe clattered down as he spun over her hip, then it was his turn to throw her. Closer and closer they got to the edge, reversal after reversal, grappling all the while, trying to gain the upper hand as the edge grew nearer. Maybe the Cleaver expected her to throw him one final time, then immediately try to disentangle herself to stop him from pulling her over the side with him. Instead, she tightened her hold and kicked off, and they both went over.
The moment the Cleaver realised what was going on he let go of her, flailed about, tried to grab something where there was nothing to grab. Tanith was already bringing her knees up, pressing her feet against his belly. She released her hold and kicked herself away from him. She twisted, grabbed the edge of the roof and swung up, leaving him to fall. He didn’t scream on the way down, and she didn’t hear a splat or a crash, but she heard tyres squealing and horns blaring.
One down.
She cartwheeled to the side to avoid the second Cleaver’s attack. The curved blade came for her again and she slipped, recovered quickly, scrambled away, searching for her sword, her lovely sword. His boot smashed into her foot, taking both her legs from under her, and she hit the ground hard and gracelessly. She turned on to her back, froze as the Cleaver stood over her, scythe centimetres from her throat. Her chest rose and fell quickly. The Cleaver wasn’t even out of breath. Her body sucked the black veins down out of sight, sucked the blackness from her lips. She looked up at him, her face flushed but clear.
“OK,” she said, “I surrender.”
The Cleaver didn’t respond. She didn’t expect him to. He adjusted his grip on the scythe, preparing to ram it down. Her hands flew up, grabbed the staff just above the blade, held it at bay. He pushed down and she pushed back. Her muscles stood out, her biceps and triceps, tendons working like thin cables beneath the skin of her forearms. She had been strong when she’d been Tanith Low, Adept sorcerer and all-round good girl. Now that she was Tanith Low, Adept sorcerer and Remnant host, she was even stronger. But it didn’t seem to be doing her much good against the blade that was steadily dropping towards her carotid artery.
In order to kick out she’d need to move her hips, which would weaken her hold, which would kill her. In order to force the blade to one side she’d need to move it off her centre line, which would weaken her hold, which would kill her. The more she thought about it, the longer the list grew of the things that would end up killing her.
Her eyes focused on where the blade met the staff, at the tight screw that held the scythe together. With breath hissing through her clenched teeth, Tanith moved her left hand down slowly, until she could feel the screw beneath her palm. She concentrated on it, the same way she would with a door, feeling the tumblers within the lock, moving them, getting them where she wanted them to be. It was the same principle. She was opening something that had been locked to her. She felt the screw turning. She felt it pressing into her palm.
The screw came away and Tanith pulled the scythe apart, taking the blade into her left hand and letting the tip of the staff hit the roof’s surface by her right ear. She swiped, the blade cutting through the Cleaver’s leg, and he fell back as she got up. He reached for her, but she used the blade to bat his hand away. The tips of his fingers fell like confetti. With her next swing, she took his head off, and his body crumpled. She heard the sound his helmet made as it rolled away, and she looked over just as it disappeared off the edge of the building. A few seconds later she heard it smash through someone’s windscreen, and a horrified scream drifted up from the street.
She made sure no one else was about to jump out at her, then she dropped the scythe blade and walked over to her sword, returned it to its sheath. Then she went to look for Sanguine.
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anguine had returned to the apartment to grab Tanith’s coat – he knew how much she loved it – and on the way back he’d snagged himself a prisoner. The man whimpered and cried a little, but otherwise didn’t do a whole lot, especially when Sanguine’s straight razor pressed against his throat. Beyond them, where the alley met the brightly lit street, a sorcerer called Clagge hurried by, talking into his phone, doing his best to co-ordinate the hunt from ground level. Sanguine would have loved nothing more than to step out after him and snap his scrawny neck, were it not for the fact that the street was probably filled with sorcerers and plain-clothed Cleavers. The sorcerer he had now, this whimpering little pipsqueak, was not integral to the Sanctuary operation, which was the only reason Sanguine hadn’t killed him yet. That, and he’d probably work adequately well as a human shield, should the need arise.
Sanguine moved back, away from the street, taking his captive with him. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Please don’t kill me,” the man blurted.
“You mind if I call you Jethro? You don’t particularly look like a Jethro, but I knew a fella who had that name, back in Texas. Ever been to Texas, Jethro?”
“No, I... I haven’t.”
“I’m from East Texas myself, but Jethro, the other Jethro, he was a West Texas boy. It’s drier there. I prefer the east, around Nacogdoches. Ever heard of Nacogdoches?”
“No.”
“Well, no matter. Point is, I’m calling you Jethro on account of how I once held this self-same blade to the throat of the first Jethro, the other Jethro, and he sounded an awful lot like you do now. Like he was scared I was gonna start cutting. Know what happened to him, Jethro?”
“You... you let him go?”
Sanguine chuckled. “I like you, boy. You got optimism in those bones. I like you so much that I ain’t gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head. I’m gonna let you hold on to that little sliver of hope you got burning inside you, that I let him go, that he lived out the rest of his life in happiness and harmony.”
“Th-thank you...”
“He’d have to live it out without his head though, which wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do, but I’m gonna leave that little story open-ended for you. Because I like you. Because I want you to think you might survive this, as laughable as that seems. This your first time out, is it?”
“Sorry?”
“Out in the field, boy. You don’t seem like the battle-hardened type to me.”
“No,” Jethro said, “I’m not. I... I usually sit behind a desk all day.”
“Been passed over for promotion a few times, that it? Finally figured you ought to be climbing that corporate ladder, taking on a position of authority in the Sanctuary − would I be about right?”
“Yes. Yes, you would.”
“So you requested this assignment, did you? Figured with that many agents and Cleavers around, you’d never even have to get close to the action. Right?”
“Right,” he said, and sobbed.
“You figured hey, it’s only two people. Only two fugitives we have to apprehend, and you wouldn’t have to actually do anything, but it’d still be down on your record, yeah? You’d still be part of it. You’d still share in the glory.”
“Please don’t kill me, Mr Sanguine.”
“Don’t ruin the ending,” Sanguine snarled, and threw Jethro against the wall. Jethro covered up, expecting an attack. Instead, Sanguine just stood there.
“What do you do in the Sanctuary?” he asked.
“Different things,” Jethro answered, keeping his eyes down. “Administrative work. Nothing glamorous or... dangerous.”
“You know what I heard? I heard all you guys were planning on declaring war on the Irish Sanctuary, that’s what I heard. I heard the English Council and the German Council and the Americans and the French and most everyone else was planning on going in there and taking over.”
“I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“No? Pity. It’d have been something to talk about to delay the inevitable.”
Jethro swallowed thickly. “Inevitable?”
Sanguine nudged his sunglasses further up on the bridge of his nose. “Seems to be an awful lot of activity around here lately, and not just cos of us. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“Just to inform you, lying right now would not be the best move you could possibly make.”
Jethro hesitated. “There’s a... It’s...”
Sanguine gave a little sigh. “Let me make it easy on you. It’s something to do with a prisoner, isn’t it?”
Jethro nodded. “An escaped prisoner.”
“Why, that just happens to be one of my favourite kind. The escaped prisoner in question wouldn’t happen to be Springheeled Jack, now would it?”
“You... you know?”
“Of course we know. Why d’you think we’re in town? Now, a guy like you, Jethro, an up-and-comer, if you will, he’d be inclined to keep abreast of developments in the search for said escaped prisoner, now wouldn’t he?”
“He would. I mean, I would. Yes. Please don’t kill me.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Jack’s on the run, and you folk are closing in on him. I wanna know where the search is being concentrated. And don’t bother lying. As you can see, some facts I already know, so you better be sticking to them ’less you want me in a bad mood.”
Jethro swallowed, and did his best to stand a little straighter. “Let me go. You let me go and then I’ll tell you. You can’t... you can’t threaten me. I have the information you want and… and you’re not going to kill me before I tell you. You’re just trying to scare me.”
“People scare better when they’re dying.”
Jethro stopped trying to stand straight. “The East End,” he croaked. “Spitalfields. We have it closed off. Nothing can get by the cordon without us knowing about it. He’s trapped. He’s got no way out.”
Sanguine grinned. “Jethro, you have been a most helpful captive.”
“Are you... are you going to let me live?”
Sanguine’s grin grew wider. “Not even remotely.”
With Jethro, the second Jethro, lying dead in the alley amid the junk and the debris of London, the ground cracked and crumbled beneath Sanguine’s feet and he sank into the cold embrace of the earth. He moved down to absolute pitch-black, to a darkness no human eye could penetrate, and he watched the dirt and rock shift before him, the individual grains undulating in streams, like a school of fish, flowing round him and allowing him through.
He stopped for a moment, listening to the vibrations that spoke to him louder than any voice, then burrowed sideways. He slowed as the ground parted, opened for him like a door, and harsh light spilled in against his sunglasses. Sanguine had no eyes to hurt, and he stepped on to the train platform, feeling the wall close up behind him. The platform was almost empty, five people waiting there, not one of them having noticed his arrival.
The rumbling beneath his feet intensified, told him where the train was, how fast it was moving. Then he heard it approach, and moments later, he watched it appear, brakes whining as it slowed. The doors opened. People got off, people got on. Sanguine brushed a few flecks of dirt from his shoulder and slipped through the doors before they closed. The carriage was empty, and he sat.
He looked at the leather coat in his hands. He wasn’t worried about Tanith. She’d get away. He knew she would. She’d probably led those Cleavers a merry dance, then disappeared, leaving them floundering, with only her mocking laugh to assure them she’d been there at all. He’d meet up with her soon enough and he’d give her back her coat, and they’d kiss, and he’d stroke her hair, and she’d tell him about all the Cleavers she’d killed. She was everything he’d always wanted in a woman. Beautiful, smart, tough, twisted.
Sure, she was utterly devoted to this Darquesse person, this woman that all the psychics had dreamed about, the one that was going to end the world. Tanith had glimpsed the future, and the Remnant part of her was looking forward to all the devastation and destruction that was on the horizon. Was it healthy, loving someone who wanted to help end the world? He freely admitted that it probably wasn’t. And he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Some little nugget of information she’d been holding back about who this Darquesse was or where she’d be coming from. He let that go. He didn’t mind that. People have secrets, after all. He had secrets. But apart from all that, they were a match made in heaven. Soulmates. Partners in crime.
And when this little caper of hers was over, he was going to ask her to be his wife.
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he steps leading down were stone, old and cold and cracked. The walls were tight on either side, and curved with the steps as they sank into darkness. The girl’s parents didn’t say much. Her father led the way, her mother came behind and the girl was in the middle. The air was sharp and chill and not a word was spoken. Her mother hadn’t been able to look at her since they’d arrived at the docks. The girl didn’t know what she’d done wrong.
When the steps had done enough sinking, they came to a floor, and it was as good a floor as any, she supposed. It was flat and solid and wide, even if it was just as cold and old as the steps had been, and the walls, and the low ceilings that kept the whole place from caving in around them. The girl didn’t like being underground. Already she missed the sun.
Her father led them through a passage, turned right and walked on, then bore left and kept going. They walked on and on and turned one way or the other, and the girl quickly lost track of where they’d been. It was all sputtering torches in brackets, feeble flames in the gloom.
“Remain here,” her father said once they’d come to an empty chamber. She did as she was told, as was her way, and watched her parents leave through another passage. Her father held himself upright and seemed suddenly so frail. Her mother didn’t look back.
The girl stood in the darkness, and waited.
And then she waited some more.
Eventually, a man wandered in, dressed in threadbare robes and broken sandals.
“Hello,” he said. Even with that one word, he didn’t sound English. The girl had never met a foreign person before.
“Hello,” she answered, and then added, “pleased to meet you,” because that was what you said to strangers upon first making their acquaintance.
He stood there and looked at her, and the girl waited for him to say something else. It wouldn’t have been right for her to speak. She was a child, and children had to wait for their elders to initiate a conversation. Her father had been very strict about that, and it was a lesson she’d learned well.
“Do you have questions?” the man asked in that strange accent that clipped every word.
“Yes. Thank you. Where am I, if I may ask?”
“You do not know?”
“I’m here with my parents. They—”
“Your parents are gone,” said the man. “They went away and left you here. This is where you live now.”
The girl shook her head. “They wouldn’t leave me,” she said.
“I assure you, they have.”
“My apologies, but you’re wrong. My parents would not leave me.”
“They got back on the boat an hour ago. This is your home now.”
He was lying. Why was he lying? The girl had inherited her manners from her father. From her mother, she had inherited other attributes. “Tell me where they are or they’ll be very cross,” she said, using a voice that brooked no argument. “My brother will come looking for me, too. My brother is big and strong and he’ll pull off your arms if he thinks it would make me smile.”
The man sat on a step. He had an ordinary face. Not handsome, but not ugly. Just a face, like a million others. His dark hair drew back from his temples and was flecked with grey. His nose was long, his eyes gentle and the corners of his mouth turned upwards. “Did they give you a name?” he asked. “They didn’t? Nor a nickname? Well, that might get annoying in the next few years, but you’ll pick a name for yourself sooner or later and then we’ll have something to call you.”
“I’m not staying here for the next few years,” said the girl, firmly acknowledging that the time for manners was at an end. “I’m not staying here at all.”
The man continued like he hadn’t heard her. “My name is Quoneel. It’s an old name from a dead language, but I took it for my own because of what it means, and what it meant, and it is my name now and it protects me. Do you know how names work?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m eight, not stupid.”
“And you have magic I take it?”
“Lots,” said the girl. “So tell me where my parents are or I’ll burn you where you sit.” She clicked her fingers and flames danced in her hand.
Quoneel gave her a smile. “You are indeed a fierce one, child. Your mother was right.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone, as I have said. I have not lied to you. They have left you here, as they once left your brother.”
The girl let the flames go out. “You know my brother?”
“I trained him. We all did. As we will train you. You will live here and train here and grow here, and when your Surge comes, you will leave as one of us.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Quoneel.”
“But what do you mean? Who will I be when I leave?”
“Who you will be, I do not know. But what you will be... If you survive, if you are as fierce as you seem, then you will be a hidden blade. Invisible. Untouchable. Unstoppable. You will be as quick and as strong as your brother, and as skilled and as deadly. Do you want that, little girl?”
It was as if he could see into her dreams, into her most private thoughts. She found herself nodding.
“Good,” said Quoneel, and stood up. “Your training starts today.”
They called her Highborn, the other children. They used it as a weapon to wound her. One of them, a girl with dull brown hair, but a sharp cruel tongue, was too vindictive to cross, so the others flocked to her side. The cruel girl was the first one of them to take a name, and she chose Avaunt.
Quoneel took the girl for a private lesson one day. “Do you know why they call you Highborn?” he asked.
“Because they don’t like me,” the girl said. The practice sword was heavy in her hands.
“And why don’t they like you?”
“Because Avaunt doesn’t like me.”
“And why doesn’t Avaunt like you?”
The girl shrugged, and attacked, and Quoneel stepped out of the way and struck her across the back of the knees.
“Avaunt doesn’t like you because of the way you speak and the way you look and the way you walk.”
The girl scowled and rubbed her legs. “That seems to be a lot of things.”
“It does, doesn’t it. You are well-spoken, and that points to breeding and education and privilege. You are pretty, and that means men and women will notice you. You walk with confidence, and that means people will know to take you seriously. All of these are admirable qualities in a lady. But we do not train you to be a lady here. Attack.”
The girl came forward again, careful not to fall into the same trap as last time. Instead, she fell into an altogether different trap, but one which was just as painful.
“We are the hidden blades, the knives in the shadows,” said Quoneel. “We pass unnoticed amongst mortals and sorcerers alike. The privileged, the educated and the beautiful cannot do what we do. You must lose your bearing. You must lose your confidence. You must lose your poise.”
His sword came at her head and she blocked, twisted, swung at him, but of course he was not standing where he had been a moment ago. He kicked her in the backside and she stumbled to the centre of the room.
“They call you Highborn because that is what will get you noticed,” Quoneel told her. “You must learn to mumble your words, to shuffle your feet, to stoop your shoulders. Your eyes should be cast down in shame at all times. You are to be instantly forgettable. You are nothing to the mortals and the sorcerers. You are beneath them, unworthy of their attention.”
“Yes, Master Quoneel.”
“What are you waiting for? Attack.”
And so she did.
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he key to any successful heist was the team assembled to do the job. That was the first law of thievery. The second law, of course, was that thieves, by their very nature, were an untrustworthy lot – and if team members couldn’t trust each other, then what was the point of being a team?
Tanith felt she had the answer. Sanguine wasn’t so sure.
“This has been tried,” he said. He was sitting at the small table in the small kitchen. “Me and my daddy tried it, got together a group of like-minded individuals and did our level best to kill everyone, yourself included. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be alive and kicking despite our best efforts.”
Tanith stood by the window, mug of coffee in her hand. The safe house was drab and barely furnished, but at least they weren’t going to be surprised by an army of Cleavers any time soon. “Your little Revengers’ Club had a very basic flaw, though,” she told him. “You all wanted the same thing.”
“How was that a flaw? It brought everyone together, united for a common goal.”
“And how long did they stay together? By the end of it, everyone was betraying everyone else, because you all wanted to be the one to kill Valkyrie or Skulduggery or Thurid Guild... Your little club unravelled, Billy-Ray. Having a common goal is not always a good thing.”
“And you have the answer, I take it?”
She turned to him, smiling. He had his sunglasses off, and she looked into the dark holes where his eyes should have been. “Of course I do. The trick is to have everyone wanting something different – so that they’re all taking part for their own unique reasons.”
“Which means that we need to have something that each one of them wants.”
“And what do you think I’ve been doing these past few weeks? I’ve been collecting our incentives. Really, Billy-Ray, you’re just going to have to accept that I do know exactly what I’m doing.”
He laughed. “Oh I believe you, darlin’. You’ve been proving yourself to be quite the cunning little minx lately.” He shrugged. “I’m behind you all the way, and you know it. So Springheeled Jack is the first team member to be recruited, is he?”
“No, actually. We’re going to talk to an old friend of his first. Old friend of yours, too.”
Sanguine’s grin soured. “Aw, hell. Not him. You know he creeps me out.”
“Dusk is a harmless little puppy once you get to know him.”
“Dusk is a vampire. There ain’t nothing harmless, little or puppyish about him.”
Now it was Tanith’s turn to shrug. “Then he’ll be our rabid, bloodthirsty attack dog instead. Either way, he’s getting a cuddle. Does someone else want a cuddle? Someone who is in this room with me right now?”
“I hope you don’t think you can sway me from every argument with the promise of a cuddle.”
Tanith put on a sad face, and turned back to the window. “Shame,” she said.
A moment later she felt Sanguine’s arms wrap round her. “Just this once,” he said, and she laughed.
The vampires stood looking at the bones of the dinosaur and Dusk wondered what it would have been like to kill such a magnificent beast. Certainly it would have been more of a challenge than that posed by the mortals. He watched them hurry from exhibit to exhibit, either chasing after their squealing young or dragging them along behind, every sound they made amplified by the museum’s cavernous halls.
“The boy?” asked Isara.
“Dead,” said Dusk. “A year ago.”
Isara nodded. Apart from that, she didn’t move. No words slipped by her lips. No emotions slipped on to her face. Even her eyes were calm. But Dusk knew that inside her, twisting within her, were feelings alien to him. Love and loss and sorrow. The only feeling he could recognise was anger. And she had that, too.
“Did you kill him?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
The ghost of a smile. “Of course not,” she echoed. “You would not break the code, not even to punish one who had. How, then, did he die?”
“He had developed another unhealthy attachment to a girl,” said Dusk, “but this one proved too much for him. She drowned him in salt water.”
“Her name?”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. The boy is dead, that’s all I really care about. In its way, justice has been served. You must feel some satisfaction also.”
He looked at her. “Must I?”
“Hrishi was your only friend in the world,” said Isara, “and when you involved him in business that was not his own, the boy broke the code and took his head. Surely you feel some sense of responsibility for what happened?”
“No,” said Dusk. “Hrishi knew the boy was young and impetuous and violent, and he still let his guard down. Hrishi paid for his foolishness.”
“Be careful how you speak about him,” Isara said, and looked at Dusk with fire and ice in her eyes. “It’s your fault he died. You should have killed the boy when you found him.”
“The code—”
“No one would have known. The boy was a danger to us all. He stalked and he tortured and he murdered every woman he became enamoured with. You should have killed him the instant you realised what he was. Hrishi’s blood is on your hands.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you even care?”
Dusk didn’t see the point of stirring Isara’s anger any further, so he stayed quiet. After a moment she turned, walked away, left him alone.
He looked at the dinosaur bones for a while longer, and then he too left the museum. The sun was warm on his skin as he walked. He got back to the house and found Tanith Low sitting on the cage in the living room, Billy-Ray Sanguine standing beside her.
“Nice place,” Tanith said. “I have to admit, I didn’t see you as the suburbanite type. I figured you’d be at home in a nice crypt somewhere, surrounded by candles and tapestries. The cage is a nice touch, though. Homey.”
He’d heard what had happened, of course. He’d heard that a Remnant had taken up permanent residence inside Tanith’s mind and body. But that still didn’t mean he liked her.
“We’re here to make you a proposition,” said Sanguine.
“I’m not interested.”
“We’re putting a team together,” said Tanith.
“It’s been tried. It didn’t work.”
“We need your help.”
“You can kill people without me.”
“This isn’t about killing anyone,” Tanith said. “Quite the opposite, in fact. We want to save someone. We want to save Darquesse. A group of Elementals and Adepts has formed, a small team who are working on a way to stop her when she appears. Our aim is to stop them from stopping her.”
“Why would I want to stop that? When she comes, she’ll destroy the world.”
“Not all of it,” said Tanith. “Just the civilised part. And we’re going to help her. Won’t that be wonderful? She’ll kill sorcerers and mortals and burn cities to cinders and sink entire continents into the sea, and you’ll be free to hunt and kill the survivors. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“I don’t care about any of this.”
“We know you don’t,” Sanguine said, and nodded. “We know you’re looking out for number one. And hey, buddy, I get that. I do. But we need you on our side. It’s gonna be you, us, a few others... and Jack.”
“Then I cannot be on your team. The last time I saw Springheeled Jack I was abandoning him to the Sanctuary authorities in Ireland.”
“So you betrayed him,” Tanith said. “So what? A little betrayal never hurt anyone. Listen, I know I can convince Jack to play nice. I have something he wants, after all. Just like I have something you want.”
“And what is that?”
“Dusk, I look at you, and I see a soul without purpose. I mean, here you are, living in a very nice house with a time-locked cage where the couch should be. I don’t know how you came to own this place – I’m sure the story is suitably entertaining – but you don’t belong here. You’ve lost your focus.”
“You think you can provide that focus?” Dusk asked. “I don’t care about Darquesse. I don’t care about anything.”
“But that’s a little bit of a lie, isn’t it? See, Dusk, you do care about something. You care about one thing. You’ve always cared about this one thing, because you’re a vampire – and this one thing plagues all vampires who were not turned willingly.”
Dusk frowned.
“I know who turned you, Dusk.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. I know your story. Out walking one night, you were attacked; a nearby farmer came to your aid − he frightened off the beast... You recovered at his cottage, under the watchful eye of the farmer and his wife. And on the third night, you tore off your skin and devoured them. By then, of course, the one who had turned you was long gone.”
“And how do you know who it was?”
“An Elemental was in the area around the time all of this was happening. He reported back to the Sanctuary like a good little operative, and in his report he mentioned the name of a vampire he had met. I know the name, Dusk. And I’ll tell you – providing you help us.”
“Tell me now.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I try not to lie to vampires.”
“Tell me who it was.”
Tanith hopped down off the cage. “No. Here’s the deal. You help us. You get along with everyone else in the team, even Jack, and when it’s over, I give you the name, and you go off and do whatever you want to do. Vampires hold grudges, don’t they? I’d imagine you’ve been holding this grudge for a good long time.”
“This might be it,” said Sanguine. “This might be the one thing to make you break your precious little vampire code – never kill another one of your kind. What do you think, Dusk? Might this be what tips you over the edge?”
Dusk said nothing.
(#ulink_cf49f863-a222-543f-98d5-3372c0810ab3)
ooftops and chimneys, that’s all there was to see from up here. The whole thing reminded Sanguine of that scene from Mary Poppins where Dick Van Dyke starts dancing about with all those chimney sweeps high over London town. He wondered if Springheeled Jack ever took the time to dance about with chimney sweeps, singing as they went. Probably not, if he were being honest. Still, it was something to wonder as he waited there, whistling ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ and keeping watch for Cleavers.
Not even twenty minutes later, a long-fingered hand scuttled over the ledge like an unsettlingly ugly spider, followed by an arm and then a battered top hat with a lined, drawn, misshapen face beneath. Jack stayed down there, chin level with the roof, eyes on Sanguine.
“No one else here,” Sanguine told him.
Jack’s voice was high and strained. “’Cept for Cleavers,” he said. “Cleavers’re everywhere.”
“Not here. Not right now. I’ve been here a whole half-hour and I haven’t seen a single one.”
“They’re about.”
“That I know. This whole area’s one big search zone for them. But if you’ve got the skills, sneaking in and out isn’t much of a problem. Come on up. We have time for a chat, don’t we?”
Jack stayed put for a moment, and then with a grace so effortless it would have widened Sanguine’s eyes had he not scooped them out long ago, he pulled himself up and stood there on the edge. His feet were bare, his clothes – top hat and tails – worn and musty.
“How’d you know where to find me?” Jack asked.
“I didn’t,” said Sanguine. “I reckoned you’d be keeping an eye out, though. Figured you’d find me if I waited long enough.”
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“That so? You’re lookin’ pretty calm for someone who should be worried.”
“And why should I be worried? We’re two old friends, standing on a rooftop, chatting.”
“Last time I chatted to you, you had all these plans to set off the Desolation Engine, remember that? And then that sneaky vampire git turned and ran, left me to get pummelled and thrown in a cell.”
Sanguine shrugged. “And how is that my fault? You know full well never to give a vampire good reason for revenge, and yet you still stopped him from killing Valkyrie Cain on that beach, four years ago.”
“There were, what do you call them? Extenuatin’ circumstances. You’d all lied to me.”
“You can’t take any of this personally, Jack.”
“I can, and I do. It was because of Dusk, and because of you and your dear old dad, that I’ve been in a gaol cell for the last two years. I’d still be there right now if I hadn’t escaped.”
“Nonsense. We’d have come to get you out.”
A sneer crossed Jack’s face. “Not bloody likely.”
“I’m serious. We were all set to mount a daring rescue attempt when we heard you’d managed it all on your own.”
“And why would you want to get me out? Need my help, do you? Another dangerous little mission?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Yeah, knew it. Get lost.”
“Jack...”
“Not interested.” Jack turned, knees bending, ready to leap away.
Sanguine stepped forward. “Where are you going? Where is there to go? They’ve got the area sealed off, Jack, and they’re closing in. They’re going to get you, drag you back and throw you in a cell so deep you’ll never even breathe fresh air ever again.”
“And let me guess,” said Jack, turning his head slightly, “the alternative to all that is hookin’ up with you and your dad and the vampire again, is it?”
“Not my dad. They have him locked away and no one knows where. As for Dusk, though, yeah, he’s onboard.”
“Forget it.”
“Ask me who’s leading this little mission.”
“No.”
“Tanith Low.”
Jack turned fully now. “You what?”
“You’ve been out of the loop, Jack, so you won’t have heard. She’s got a Remnant inside her now. It’s changed her outlook on a whole load of things. She’s one of us.”
“You bein’ serious?”
“Would I joke about a woman who wears leather that tight?”
“Tanith Low’s possessed by a shadowy little Remnant and has gone all evil on us, has she?” Jack said, then considered it. “And what, exactly, would this mission entail?”
“It would entail, exactly, the retrieval of four God-Killer level weapons from around the world. We have all the locations – we just lack the manpower.”
“And what’ll you be usin’ these weapons for, may I ask?”
“Well, that’s a little bit of a secret at this juncture. If you sign on, though, everything will be explained.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “And the risk?”
“Apart from the resistance we’ll face in the actual retrieval of the weapons from their current owners, there’s also a little group of sorcerers who are going after the same things. Our aim is to get to the weapons first, swap them with some clever forgeries and slip out before anyone realises something is wrong.”
“Who’s in this little group of sorcerers?”
“Dexter Vex and a few others. Seven in all. Tanith’s recruiting her own team to match it. You’re our number-one pick.”
“I won’t be on any team with Dusk. If we leave him out, I’m in.”
“That’s great news. Tanith will be delighted. One slight problem. Dusk is already in.”
“You said I was your number-one pick.”
“And you are. In our hearts. Alphabetically, though, Dusk comes before you.”
“And what do I get out of all this?”
“For a start, we burrow away from here and get you out of London and away from the search teams. If they do find you, you’ll have our little group fighting by your side. But more than that – Tanith’s been doing some research.”
“Oh, yeah? About what?”
“About you, and what you are, and where you come from. If you help us find these weapons, she’ll tell you everything you’ve always wanted to know.”
“You’re lyin’. She knows nothin’ about any of that. No one does.”
“Jack, you’ve been a killer all your life pretty much, right? You’ve been a villain. She’s been a hero. She’s had access to things you can only dream about.”
“She knows what I am?”
“Yes, she does. Are you in?”
“Tex, if you’re lying to me...”
“Jack, she needs her team. She’s done her research. When this is over, you’ll have your reward. So what do you say? Are you in?”
Jack raised a hand to his mouth, and his sharp little teeth worried the skin of his knuckle. It didn’t, in fairness, take him all that long to think it over. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m in.”
“Wonderful news,” Sanguine said, and smiled.
“So where is she? I can’t wait to see the all-new, all-evil Tanith Low.”
“You’ll be seeing her soon enough, don’t you worry. Right now she’s recruiting the third member of our little group, someone who comes before both you and Dusk alphabetically, but a distant third in our hearts.”
“Yeah?” Jack said. “And who might that be?”
Black Annis had had an ignominious end. There weren’t many who could survive an encounter with her, not once she was mad and her skin was turning blue and her teeth were growing long and jagged. Her fingernails had silenced many a last scream and her jaws had clamped round many a throat. She was a people-eater, and had never seen anything wrong with that, and for most of her life she’d lived in one ditch or other, or a cave if she was lucky, its ground littered with the bones of her victims. Apart from one particular idiot who used to scurry around after her, no one who entered her lair had ever emerged.
Until the blonde. Until the blonde in the brown leather. And before Annis had known what the hell was happening, she was hog-tied and helpless and the blonde in the brown leather was smiling down at her.
Just like she was now.
Annis sat up in her narrow bed, in her cell that was far too cramped and far too bright. There was a toilet against one wall and a sink against another. She’d never needed a toilet or a sink when she was living in her ditch. That, she supposed, was the sole advantage of living in a ditch.
“Hi,” said the blonde. She stood there in the open doorway, smiling, with that sword strapped to her back and all that brown leather barely keeping her in.
“You’re looking well,” said the blonde. Tanith Low, her name was. “Better than the last time I saw you, anyway. At least you’re not wearing a sack.”
Annis looked at her, but didn’t move to get off the bed. “They starve me here.”
“No, they don’t. They feed you.”
“I eat people. They don’t give me people to eat. They give me animals. That’s barbaric. At least people have a fighting chance to get away. The animals they give me are already dead. It’s sickening, is what it is.”
“Annis, you’re a unique individual, which is why I’m here.”
“I should rip your throat out.”
“And if you could grow those sharp nails of yours, I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem for you. But you can’t. You’re stuck here in this little cell, your powers bound and your life drifting away from you. And let’s face it, Annis, you’re not getting any younger.”
“Is that why you’re here? To gloat?”
“Not at all. You see, the last time we met, I was the old me. But now I’m the new me, and the new me sees things differently from the old me. The new me would never have arrested you and dragged you from that ditch. And what a splendid ditch it was. Tell me something – did you like living in ditches?”
Annis glowered.
“I’m not trying to poke fun, honest I’m not. I don’t think you did like living in ditches. I think it’s just something you had to do because of your... condition.” Tanith smiled gently. “What if I told you that I knew of a cure?”
Annis frowned. “Cure for what?”
“For what ails you. For your curse.”
“A cure for my curse? There is no cure for my curse. I don’t have a curse. I was born this way. This is natural.”
“Annis, you don’t know what you are, do you? You don’t know why your skin turns blue or why your nails grow long and you don’t know why you’d turn to stone if sunlight hit you.”
“Yeah?” Annis said with a sniff. “And I suppose you do?”
“Actually, yes,” Tanith said, “I do.”
“You’re lying.”
“I have access to certain files and documents, and one of these files is about you. You were cursed, Annis. It’s why you’re the way you are. And there is a cure. But if you want it, you have to do something for me first.”
“Like what?”
“I’m putting together a group of special individuals with unique talents, and I want you to be part of it.”
“You want me to be in your gang? I eat people.”
“The new me doesn’t care,” Tanith said. “Eat whomever you want. Apart from the other members of the team, obviously. That would be inconvenient. Just do what I say, and when our job is done, you’ll be set free and you’ll get the cure. The rest of your life is yours to live, however you want to live it. May I suggest not living it in a ditch?”
Annis stood. She wasn’t a tall woman, so still had to look up. “You say you’ve changed. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Do you know what a Remnant is, Annis? I’ve got one of them inside me, permanently bonded to my soul. I’m a changed woman.”
“So you’d be breaking me out of here, is that it?”
“That’s it exactly. Providing you agree to my conditions.”
Annis looked at her for a long while. “If you bust me out of here, you have a deal.”
“Oh, good,” Tanith said, grinning. “Come on.”
She turned and walked out, and Annis hesitated. If this was some sort of trap, she couldn’t see the point of it. So she followed.
“We’re lucky,” Tanith was saying as she walked. “They didn’t put you in a top-security gaol. Don’t get me wrong, Annis, you’re a dangerous lady, you truly are. But prisons like these are designed to keep in prisoners who aren’t really smart enough to try to escape.”
Annis was barely listening. Her body tingled as her magic returned. It was such a wonderful feeling it almost took the breath from her. She could grow her fingernails and swipe that pretty blonde head from those pretty broad shoulders if she so wanted. But then what? She didn’t know where the hell she was. She didn’t know how the hell she’d get out.
They passed a man on the ground with his throat torn open. Another up ahead, and beside him, a woman. Annis’s stomach rumbled.
“You kill all these?” she asked, salivating.
“Not all of them,” said Tanith. “I have a friend with me. You’ll meet him later. I think you’ll like him. His name’s Dusk. He’s been cursed, too, in a way, so you’ll probably have lots in common if you... oh, Annis, please. We really don’t have time.”
Annis looked up from where she was kneeling beside the dead sorcerer, but didn’t answer. Even though she had a habit of living in ditches, she still didn’t like to speak with her mouth full. Some things were just rude.
Sabine put the ring on the table, and watched Badstreet’s eyes widen.
“Is that it?” he asked, his voice hushed. Around them, mortals laughed and joked and drank, and music played, and occasionally someone would nudge past Sabine on their way to the bar. Sabine didn’t mind. The only thing she cared about was convincing the man before her that the metal band on the table was the Ring of Salumar.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “Forged in shadow and fire by the seventh son of a seventh son, a blind man who spoke with the dead. He made that ring for the great sorcerer Salumar, but on the eve of delivery, the dead came to him, and told him Salumar was going to kill him. So he hid the ring, refused to hand it over and Salumar therefore killed him. A cautionary tale for those who don’t believe that dead people can have a sense of humour. Pick it up.”
Moving slowly, reverently, Badstreet did as she told him.
“It’s heavy,” he said. “And powerful. I can feel the magic, even holding it...”
He went to put it on, but Sabine’s hand flashed, snatching the ring back. “Sorry,” she grinned. “You break it, you buy it. You know how it is.”
Badstreet’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t expect me to buy it without testing it.”
“You don’t need to test it,” she laughed. “Badstreet, come on. A sorcerer of your ability doesn’t need to slip the ring on to his finger to know the power it holds. You said so yourself, you could feel it.”
He rubbed his hand along the stubble on his jawline. “It’s like it’s calling to me.”
Sabine nodded, and did her best not to laugh. “Do you have the money?”
He hesitated, and she saw the debate going on behind his eyes. To pay, or not to pay, that was the question, and it was a debate Sabine was used to seeing. The outcome, of course, was never in question.
Badstreet passed an envelope to her beneath the table. Keeping it out of sight, Sabine opened it up and quickly counted. It certainly seemed to be all there. She nodded, pocketed the envelope, and put the ring into a small wooden box. Then she stood up, handed the box to Badstreet, and gave him her best smile.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said.
She walked to the back of the pub, squeezing through the throngs of people. It would take Badstreet fifteen to twenty seconds to figure out how to open the box, another ten seconds of examining the ring and savouring the power, and then a full two to three minutes before the power started to fade and he was left with a useless trinket she’d picked up from a dingy shop on the way there. Plenty of time.
She had already deactivated the alarm, so she left quietly through the fire escape door, stepping into the alley behind the pub. She turned away from the street, because that would be the direction in which Badstreet would eventually sprint, and instead walked deeper into the darkness. Another job done. Another sucker suckered. All in a night’s work.
“Such a naughty girl.”
Sabine whirled, looked up. Standing straight out from the wall above her was a blonde woman in a long leather coat.
“Good to see some things haven’t changed, though,” the woman said, slowly strolling down to street level. “You were a sneaky little thief thirty years ago and you’re a sneaky little thief now.”
Sabine tried a smile. “Hi, Tanith. Been a while.”
“It has at that,” Tanith said, hopping to the ground. She was taller than Sabine. “To be honest, I never thought you’d live this long. Sneaky little Sabine, always conning the wrong people, always getting the wrong people mad with her. I thought you’d have ended up dead in the gutter a long time before this.”
“Is that why you’re here, then? To kill me?”
“Kill you?” Tanith laughed. “Now why would I do something as mean-spirited as that?”
“I heard you’ve got a Remnant inside you.”
“True enough, but while my insides may be rotten, I still like a good reason to kill someone. It has to be either business, personal or out of sheer boredom. Do I look bored to you, Sabine?”
“So what do you want?”
Tanith’s smile was as bright and radiant as ever. “You.”
(#ulink_b692e3f2-9342-5aa0-bd64-251af7f4838d)
own there, in the dark and the cold, all the girl did was train.
In the mornings she trained her mind – languages and numbers and histories both known and hidden. She sat with the others in a semi-circle around the tutor, ignoring the whispers and the smirks and the laughs if ever she got a question wrong.
The afternoons were for training of a different sort. That was when they fought and climbed and ran and swam. That was when their muscles were stretched and torn and built up again, when their bodies were taught how to move independently of their minds. Muscle memory, the tutors called it. Making fighting second nature. Making killing an instinct.
The girl didn’t like the idea of killing, even while she recognised it would have to be a necessary part of her training. The others claimed they didn’t mind it. Avaunt even insisted she was looking forward to her first kill – then she’d always glance at the girl and everyone else would laugh. Avaunt kept up the act until the morning when she was called away by Quoneel.
When she returned, her robe was drenched in blood and her face was pale. Her eyes were wide and wet. The girl found her later, sobbing quietly in a dark corner. Avaunt looked up and called her Highborn again, called her worse names until the girl walked away and left her to her tears.
The girl wasn’t looking forward to her first kill.
Quoneel took her out of lessons one day, and the girl followed dutifully after him, her belly in knots. They came to a small room where a woman was chained to a wall. She was the first person not dressed in robes that the girl had seen in a long, long time.
“Who are you?” the woman asked, frightened. Her hair was brown. She was slightly overweight. She looked the same age as the girl’s own mother. “What do you want? If you let me go, I won’t tell the police, I swear.”
Quoneel handed the girl a dagger. “Kill her,” he said.
The woman’s eyes widened. The girl looked at the dagger.
“I can’t,” she said.
“But this is what you’ve been training for,” said Quoneel. “When you are a hidden blade, you will claim many lives. This will be your first.”
“But I don’t even know this woman,” said the girl.
“Your name,” said Quoneel. “Loudly now, so the girl can hear.”
“Tanith,” said the woman. “Tanith Woodall. I have a son and daughter and they need me. Please. Please let me go back to them.”
“There,” said Quoneel. “Now you know her. Will taking her life be easier now?”
The girl shook her head. “She hasn’t done anything to me. She hasn’t hurt me. I can’t just kill her.”
“You can. It’s quite easy.”
“But why?”
“Because, as a hidden blade, you must kill those you are told to kill. And I am telling you to kill this woman.”
Quoneel clicked his fingers and the chains holding the woman to the wall sprang open. The woman stumbled a little, rubbing her wrists, free but still terrified.
“Master, please...”
“I ask you, child, what use is a killer who cannot kill?”
The girl swallowed. “No use, Master.”
“No use indeed. Since you joined us, you have been tested every day in every way. Every question we ask is a test. Every task you are given is a test. But none of those tests would end in your death were you to fail them. This is the first real test you’ve been given. Think carefully on how you wish to proceed.”
“If... if I could just have a little more time,” said the girl.
“To do what?”
“To prepare. To get myself ready.”
“I see. So if we were to delay this test for six months or so, maybe a year, do you think you would be ready then?”
“Maybe,” said the girl. Then she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“Well,” said Quoneel, “it wouldn’t be much of a test then, would it?”
The woman was sobbing now, quiet little sobs that moved her shoulders.
“I can’t kill her,” the girl explained.
“Then I will,” said her master. “And before her heart has stopped beating I will have killed you, also.”
The girl gripped the knife. “I’d fight you.”
“You’d lose. This woman will die today whatever you decide. Make the right choice and kill her quickly. If I have to do it, I’ll chop her into little bits and she’ll die screaming.”
The girl looked at the sobbing woman, and tears came to her own eyes. “Please don’t make me...”
“I am sorry, child,” said Quoneel. “But this is something you must do.”
The woman lunged suddenly for the door, knocking Quoneel to the side, and barrelled straight towards the girl, her face twisted in desperation and rage. She ran into the girl and stopped, and the girl stepped away, her hand empty. The woman looked down at the dagger in her belly. She sobbed again, and her legs collapsed from under her. She sat on the ground and shook her head.
“No,” the woman said quietly. “No, please... not me...”
She sobbed, and took a short, rattling breath, and when she breathed out, she leaned over until her head rested on the ground. She didn’t move, and she didn’t take another breath.
The girl looked at her hands. No blood on them. All the woman’s blood was leaking to the floor. She could hear it drip. But none on her hands. Her hands were clean. She didn’t think that was right. They should be stained red. She thought about kneeling down, putting her hands in the growing pool of blood, but the idea, the very idea, was making something rise up in her mind, something dark and ugly and scared, and it made her body shake and the tears flow.
“You’ve done well,” said Quoneel. “Your lessons for today are at an end. You are dismissed.”
She ran from the room, tears blurring her vision.
The next morning Quoneel sat next to her as she ate. The girl wasn’t used to people sitting next to her.
“Some of the children said they heard you crying last night,” he said, his voice quiet but casual, like he was just asking her to pass the bread.
The girl said nothing.
“Is this true?” Quoneel asked. “Were you crying in your room, child?”
“You made me kill someone.”
“Yes, I did. Is that why you wept?”
“I thought we only killed bad people. That’s what you said. That’s what you told me.”
Quoneel shook his head. “I said we kill people for a reason. If you chose to understand that as only killing the wicked, then how can I be held responsible?”
“But if we kill good people, then we can’t be good.”
Quoneel smiled. “We have a code. We have guidelines. We kill people who deserve death. But sometimes those who deserve death are not wicked people.”
“My brother would never kill an innocent person.”
“You don’t know your brother.”
“I know him better than you,” she said, anger flushing her face. “He’s good and he’s a hero and he helps people.”
“He helps people, this is true. As do we all. That is why we’re here, we knives in the shadows. To help people.”
“Then why did you make me kill an innocent person?”
“To see if you would. To see if you could. You passed that test. The first time is always the hardest. It will be easier from now on.”
“I’m not killing any more innocent people.”
Quoneel smiled again. “You haven’t killed any innocent people, child. That woman murdered her husband.” A long pause. “You look surprised. You think all murderers look like murderers? You think they plot and scheme and twirl moustaches? She poisoned her husband to be rid of him and to get his money. She deserved death.”
“What... what will happen to her children?”
“The mortals know how to deal with things like this. The children will be taken care of.”
The girl looked down at her plate. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would it have made it easier to kill a murderer?”
The girl paused. “Yes.”
“Then what kind of test would it have been?” Quoneel asked.
(#ulink_17fdbcd5-1db2-599b-b72d-9c79efd31f45)
nnis had never been a people person, unless ‘people person’ was defined as a person who ate people. She had spent most of her childhood miserable and alone while the other children in her village threw stones at her and called her names. Her teenage years had been typically awkward as a result, and then she ate everyone in her village so the opportunity for decent conversation became decidedly slimmer. When she was sixteen, the sun started to turn her to stone, so her entire adult life was spent in a variety of caves and ditches where her only source of friendship had been Scrannal, an idiot. So being in a room with other people was an unusual and unsettling development, and one which she hadn’t planned on... and then he walked in.
Annis felt her heart surge in her chest. Her belly squirmed like it was filled with a hundred undigested snakes. She felt blood rush to her face and hoped desperately that she wasn’t turning blue. Was this it? Was this what so many of her screaming victims referred to as ‘love’? Was this what they felt for the names they cried out as she devoured them?
He was tall, dark, and handsome. He had a quality about him, a mysterious, brooding quality that she found intoxicating. She could stare into his eyes and be lost forever. He didn’t bother sitting. She saw that he wasn’t wearing shoes. Another thing to love about this beautiful creature, this thing, this Springheeled Jack.
Black Annis was a weird one. Sabine didn’t know what to make of her. She’d heard the stories, of course. Knew what Annis was capable of. But the stories she’d heard were of a wild woman with jagged teeth and jagged nails and impenetrable blue skin. The person seated across from her wasn’t blue. She was squat in both frame and face, and her long, untamed hair was streaked with grey. She was somewhere over two hundred years old and Sabine reckoned she could see every one of those years etched into the lines around her mouth and eyes and on her forehead and... good God, this woman’s lines had lines. She looked her age and then some, unlike sorcerers and certain other creatures who had a pleasing habit of retaining their youth. Like vampires.
Sabine didn’t like vampires. They were too still, like statues. And the way they moved was unnatural. No living thing should be that graceful. But there he sat, the vampire, with his beautiful face marred by a single scar. He wasn’t even breathing. At least, she didn’t think he was. It was hard to tell.
Her eyes drifted from Dusk to Springheeled Jack, a creature who couldn’t seem to stay still. When he was in his chair, the hardened nails of his long fingers beat a rapid rhythm against the tabletop, but only moments would pass before he was on his feet again, pacing up and down like he was waiting for someone to let him out of his cage. And he stank. His clothes, which looked like he’d robbed them off the corpse of a Victorian gentleman, were musty, and he smelled of stale body odour. His face was long and lined and his hair – when he finally took off that battered top hat – was lank and greasy. He’d only said a few words to her so far, but they were accompanied by breath so foul she thought she might gag. And he spoke in a London accent so ridiculous she thought he was having her on.
“Luv a duck,” he said, “is this meetin’ gonna come to bleedin’ order before or after we all die of old age?”
At the head of the table, Tanith sat and smiled. Billy-Ray Sanguine stood behind her with his square jaw and his sunglasses.
“Before we begin,” Tanith said, “I’d just like to tell you all how much I appreciate your help in this matter. I know you’re all going to receive a reward when it’s over, but I like to think that you’re helping me because you see a person who needs help, and out of the goodness of your hearts you decided to pitch in.”
The others looked at her, saying nothing. Undeterred, Tanith continued.
“What we have here is a mission. Missions are exciting. You should look on this whole thing as an adventure, and just have fun.”
Again, everyone looked at her. Like she was nuts.
Big, bright smile. “I have a friend who’ll be arriving sometime over the next year or so,” said Tanith. “She’s awesome, and she’ll do some pretty awesome things. But there’ll be a lot of people who will want to hurt my friend, and they’ll use four God-Killer weapons to do that.”
Sabine shifted in her seat. “Who’s your friend?”
“I’m glad you asked me that,” said Tanith. “Her name’s Darquesse and she’s lovely. You’ll love her, you really will. She’s so funny and nice and she’s great to hang out with.”
Sabine frowned. “Isn’t she the one they’re saying will destroy the world?”
“OK, Sabine, for a start, I don’t know why you’re being so negative about this. How about waiting until you’ve met her before you start judging her? Think you can do that? Secondly, it’s not destroying the world, it’s destroying some bits of the world. It’s like a sculptor chipping away at a rock until she gets it just right. That’s what Darquesse is going to do. That’s all I’m going to say about it right now, but I’m glad you asked because now the question has been answered and we can move on. Any more questions?”
Annis put up her hand.
“No questions till after,” said Tanith. “Where was I? Dexter Vex has assembled a group of seven sorcerers, including himself, from different Sanctuaries around the world – Frightening Jones, Aurora Jane, Wilhelm Scream, the Monster Hunters, and his old friend and Dead Men colleague Saracen Rue. I feel, in the interest of full disclosure, I should make it known at this point that I have had relationships with both Frightening and Saracen, and a little bit of a thing with Aurora. Aurora was lovely, but it didn’t work out, Frightening and I gradually drifted apart and, with Saracen, I assure you it was purely physical.”
“They probably don’t need to know all that,” Sanguine said from behind her, his face stony.
“Vex used to have another sorcerer on his team,” Tanith continued. “They had a Sensitive named Jerry. Just to let you know, I did not have a relationship with Jerry. Let’s be clear about that. He was a rubbish Sensitive, but that’s not why I didn’t have a relationship with him. For a start, he wasn’t my type. Reason number two, I was already in a relationship with Billy-Ray here, and I was trying my best to be monogamous.”
At that, Sanguine frowned. “You were trying?”
“Please don’t interrupt, darling,” Tanith said. “Back to Jerry. As I said, he was a rubbish Sensitive, and I cut his head off. If he’d been any good at looking into the future, he’d have ducked. But he didn’t, so... off with his head. Anyway, what Jerry did do was give us a list of possible locations where three of these weapons are being kept. We have since had these confirmed. We got the fourth from Christophe Nocturnal before he tragically died when I killed him. I’ll miss Christophe, I don’t mind telling you. Was he boyfriend material? Probably not, but we had a moment.”
“The four locations,” Sanguine prompted.
“Yes,” Tanith said, focusing on the task at hand. “The first weapon we’re going after will be the dagger, which is in the possession of Johann Starke. I know what you’re thinking – Johann Starke, Elder with the German Sanctuary, how can we possibly sneak in and steal what we’re there to steal? Well, let me just reassure you – I have a plan, and I’m fairly confident it stands a chance of not failing, if we’re lucky.”
“I have a question,” said Jack.
“Questions later.”
“You keep sayin’ sneak in and sneak out and stuff. My question is—”
“No questions.”
“—once this Starke bloke realises he’s been robbed—”
“I’m pretty sure I said no questions.”
“—the owners of the other weapons are gonna heighten security, so won’t that mess up our mission?”
“First of all,” Tanith said, “we have a no question rule. I literally just established it, like right there. I know you were here for that because it was two minutes ago. Now, I understand that you’re used to being my enemy so your natural inclination is to do the opposite of whatever I say, but you’re just going to have to get over that. Agreed?”
“I’m just askin’ a—”
“Jack, please. Wait till I’m finished talking.”
“You were finished talk—”
“Please stop interrupting me. We’re a team. We’re a squad. We’re a gang. There is no I in any of those words.”
“There’s an I in menagerie,” said Annis.
Tanith looked at her. “What?”
“We could be a menagerie,” Annis said. “Then there’d be an I. A menagerie of, you know... criminals.”
“We’re not a menagerie,” said Tanith. “What are we even talking about any more? We can’t afford to get sidetracked here, OK? A menagerie is for animals and birds. We’re not birds, Annis. We’re people. Birds have wings. Birds fly. Also, they’re birds. But, seeing as how the question has been asked, let’s answer it. If it’s so important. If you simply cannot live another moment without knowing the answer. By all means, let’s waste some more time on this. Sabine.”
Sabine looked up. “Yes?”
“Explain.”
Sabine looked at her. “Uh...”
“Your power,” Sanguine said. “Tell ’em what it is.”
“Oh, yeah, OK. Well, I’m a Magiphage.”
Jack frowned. “A what?”
“A Leech,” said Dusk.
Sabine almost glared at the vampire before she thought better of it. “Uh, yes, I... I’m what is commonly referred to as a Leech. I can temporarily drain a sorcerer’s power.”
“And how does that help us?” Annis asked.
“Because there’s another aspect to being a Magiphage that not a lot of people know about,” said Sabine. “I can transfer – again, temporarily – a portion of magic to another person or... object.”
Tanith leaned forward on her elbows, that bright smile back again. “You see? I’ve already had forgeries made, exact copies of these weapons – or as exact as we could get based on a couple of photographs.”
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