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Last Stand of Dead Men
“You must be ready at all times,” Ping said in that heavy Chinese accent. “How can you see your enemies clearly when you cannot even take your eyes off yourself?”
Scapegrace didn’t answer. He was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.
Ping’s hands moved like flowing water, and he stepped back into a deep fighting stance. “Come,” he said. “Attack me.”
“But you don’t have a sword,” Scapegrace said.
Ping smiled. “That does not mean I am unarmed.”
Scapegrace let out a yell and ran forward, slashing his sword at the air, and then he leaped, spun, landed and twisted his ankle. He cried out, dropped the sword as he stumbled to one knee in front of Ping, who looked down at him and punched him on the nose.
“Ow!” Scapegrace yelled.
Ping brought his hands together again, and he bowed. “Ask yourself, my student, how did I beat you?”
“You hit my nose!”
“Exactly. If you can hit your opponent’s nose more than he can hit yours, you too will taste victory.”
“I’m bleeding!”
“You might need a tissue.”
Thrasher came forward, a box of tissues in his big, stupid, masculine hands. Scapegrace yanked a handful free and held them to his face as he glared at Ping. “When will I be ready?”
“Soon, my student.”
“You keep saying that. How soon is soon?”
“Soon is when the moment passes,” Ping answered.
Scapegrace was certain that made no actual sense, but he knew better than to press it. Thrasher helped him to his feet. The idiot’s new body was all muscle and chiselled jawline – a chiselled jawline that should have been Scapegrace’s own.
“You seem frustrated,” Ping said.
“Of course I’m frustrated,” said Scapegrace. “I have one way of gaining the respect of the people who have mocked me all my life – to become the greatest warrior the world has ever seen. You were supposed to teach me the deadly arts, but all you do is hit me when I fall down.”
“I see,” said Ping. “You do not think you are learning, is that it? Tell me something, my student. Have you ever seen The Karate Kid? The original, starring Ralph Macchio, not the remake, starring the son of Will Smith. Have you seen it?”
“Of course.”
“In that movie, Daniel-san does not believe he is learning, either, does he? And yet Mr Miyagi is teaching him without him even being aware of it. That is sort of what I am doing.”
“So what am I learning?”
“When the time comes, you will know.”
Scapegrace narrowed his eyes. “In that movie, Mr Miyagi has Daniel doing all these mundane tasks like painting the fence and waxing the car, then later Daniel does the same moves and finds out it’s karate. You have me doing all of these fighting moves … if I find out later that what you’re actually doing is teaching me how to paint fences and wax cars, I’m not paying you, you understand?”
Ping chortled. “Very funny, you are, Miss Scapegrace.”
“Mr!” Scapegrace roared. “I am a man!”
“Of course,” Ping said, bowing. “Of course you are. Our lessons begin again in the morning.” And with that, he stepped backwards into the shadows, and silence settled like autumn leaves falling from the trees.
Thrasher peered closer. “Are you still there?”
From the shadows, the aforementioned silence. Then, “No.”
“You are,” said Thrasher. “I can see you.”
Scapegrace could see Ping, too, but he didn’t say anything as the wise old grandmaster shuffled sideways until he reached the doorway, then went down on his hands and knees and crawled out. A few seconds later, the back door opened and closed. Thrasher murmured something.
Scapegrace glared. “What? What did you say?”
Thrasher sighed. “I just don’t see why you have to become a warrior, Master. Why put yourself in harm’s way? We have healthy new bodies and new lives to live and, OK, your body might not be ideal, but who cares about what we look like? It’s who we are inside that counts.”
“Tell me something – when Nye was putting your brain in that head, are you sure he didn’t drop any on the floor?”
“Oh, Master, please don’t be mean.”
“Don’t be mean? Don’t be mean? You’re an idiot! My new body isn’t ‘ideal’? It’s not even the same gender as my old one! Do you know what it’s like to be one gender trapped in another gender’s body?”
“I … I might,” said Thrasher.
“You have no idea! Look at you! You’re an Adonis! You walk down the street and people stare in admiration! But when I walk down the street …”
“Well, maybe if you started wearing underwear …”
“Underwear?” Scapegrace screeched. “Underwear? You think that’s the solution? Everything I wear is either too tight or too loose! I have pains in my back, did you know that? Do you know how hard it is to even stand upright in this body? How do women do it?”
Thrasher cleared his throat. “Well, sir, not all women are as … physically impressive as you are.”
Scapegrace narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you be getting any ideas.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
Thrasher looked horrified. “Master, no! I assure you, I do not find your present body to be attractive in the slightest!”
“Oh, really? You think you could do better?” Scapegrace sagged, turned away. “What am I saying? Of course you could do better. Look at you. You could have any woman you want.”
“But I don’t want any woman, Master.”
“You say that now …”
“I’ll say that until the end of time, sir. I’m yours.”
Scapegrace turned slowly, looked Thrasher in the eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Uh,” said Thrasher.
“That was an odd thing to say.”
“Was it?”
“Very.”
“Oh.”
“Very odd.”
“We could ignore it, if you want.”
Scapegrace looked at him. Thrasher was acting weird. Even weirder than usual. He appeared to be blushing, for God’s sake. Scapegrace frowned. “What was I saying before?”
“Becoming a warrior, Master.”
“Yes. Soon, I will unlock the secrets of the deadly arts and I will become the greatest warrior the world has ever known.”
Thrasher looked at him. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why become a great warrior? What are you going to do afterwards?”
Scapegrace sneered. “You ask an awful lot of questions.”
“I just … I was just wondering what—”
“I don’t pay you to wonder.”
“You don’t pay me at all.”
“I am a sorcerer, Thrasher. Among the many things that separate us, that is but one. There is no magic in you, but in me? Magic seethes within me. And now that I’m no longer a zombie, I can feel it again. It is reawakening.”
“What kind of magic is it? I’ve always wanted to ask.”
“But you haven’t asked, have you? Not until right now. Why is that, I wonder? Is your new body giving you confidence, Thrasher?”
“What? No, Master!”
“Is it filling you with self-worth? With self-respect?”
“Never! I swear to you!”
“Because if I find out it is …”
Thrasher fell to his knees. “Master, I hate my new body. I do. Granted, it’s perfect in every physical way, but it’s … it’s not the body you attacked and killed on that warm September afternoon, those few short years ago. It’s not the body you bit. It’s not the body that came back, that opened its eyes and saw you, gazing at it …”
“This is getting weird again,” Scapegrace muttered.
Thrasher stood up. He was so tall and good-looking it was stupid. “Master,” he said, “we’ve been through a lot, you and I, and if I could switch bodies with you I would. I really would. Maybe then you could see me the way I see you.”
Scapegrace tried to ponder that one and quickly gave up.
“You are the only important thing in my life,” Thrasher continued, “and I … sir, I …”
“This conversation is boring me,” Scapegrace announced. “Take out the rubbish bins.”
Thrasher sagged. “Yes, Master.”
While Thrasher trudged out with the bins, Scapegrace picked up his fallen sword and returned it to its sheath. Back in olden times, a Samurai would never put his sword away until the blade had tasted blood. But that was the olden times, back when they didn’t understand things like basic hygiene. These days, Scapegrace was sure, a Samurai would much rather break this nonsensical little rule than risk a variety of unfortunate infections.
He heard a scream and, before he knew what he was doing, Scapegrace was running for the door, his sword once more in his hand.
Thrasher was struggling with something in the gloom behind the pub, his back jammed up against the wall while he tried to keep the creature at bay. It was big, as big as a Doberman but with longer hair, and it had a snout and sharp teeth and it snarled and snapped and Thrasher squealed.
“Hey!” Scapegrace shouted, because he could think of nothing else.
The creature turned its head, its eyes flashing. From this angle, the face almost looked human. Then it leaped at Scapegrace and Scapegrace slipped on fallen bits of rubbish and the creature impaled itself on the sword as he fell.
Scapegrace blinked as the creature gave a last rattling breath before it died. He pushed it off him and got to his feet.
Thrasher looked up at him. “Master!”
“What?”
“You saved me!”
“No I didn’t.”
“You rescued me!”
“It was an accident.”
“You saved my life!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Thrasher bounded to his feet. He was so happy he looked like he was about to cry. “Master, you have no idea how much this means to me. I am a pathetic mortal, not worthy of being saved—”
“I know.”
“—and yet you saved me anyway. You risked your life, which is vastly more important than mine—”
“Vastly.”
“—and you rushed into danger, into the jaws of death … I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the words to … Oh, sir, forgive me, I may cry.”
“Well, do it somewhere else,” Scapegrace said, scowling. “What the hell is that thing anyway? Some kind of dog?”
Thrasher was too busy crying to answer.
Scapegrace pressed his foot against the creature’s body, rolled it into the light. “That’s no dog,” he said. “It looks like a monkey and a dog fell in love and had babies and this is the ugly one they didn’t want.” He crouched down. “Maybe it’s an alien. Maybe we’re being invaded by aliens.”
“Oh, I hope not, sir,” Thrasher sobbed.
“Shut up. Look at that face. It’s definitely an alien. Maybe. It’s not from here, that’s for sure.”
Thrasher sniffled. “Maybe it’s from an alternate dimension.”
“From a what?”
“An alternate dimension, Master. You know, like the one Valkyrie Cain was pulled into.”
Scapegrace stood up. “What the hell are you blubbing about?”
“Last April, sir, when we were waiting for these bodies, there was all this drama going on with Valkyrie being in a parallel dimension and this gentleman called Argeddion running around and … you missed all of this?”
“I was a head in a jar,” Scapegrace said. “I had other things on my mind.”
“Yes, sir, of course. But maybe this creature is from an alternate dimension just like that one. Maybe someone shunted back and brought that with them accidentally.”
“Shunted?”
“That’s what they call it, sir. The Shunter who caused all the trouble for Valkyrie was a man called Silas Nadir.”
“Nadir,” Scapegrace said. “Where have I heard that name before?”
“From what I gathered, he is a rather notorious serial killer, sir.”
Scapegrace’s eyes widened. “A serial killer? Where is he now? Did they catch him?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. He escaped the cells and—”
“He was in the Sanctuary?” Scapegrace interrupted. “So he escaped the cells, disappeared, and a few months later there’s a … thingy …”
“Shunter.”
“… Shunter, active in Roarhaven?”
Thrasher paled. “Oh, sir. You don’t … you don’t think he’s still here, do you?”
Scapegrace turned away from him, eyes on the street. “I know the criminal mind, Thrasher. I know the mind of a murderer. Once upon a time, I was the Killer Supreme. I was the Zombie King. But I have changed my ways since then. I will now channel my inner darkness into fighting evil, not being evil, in an epic tale of redemption and quiet dignity. And if there is one thing I know, if there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that Silas Nadir has never left Roarhaven, and this town needs a protector. Which makes it two things I know.”
“Should we call Skulduggery?”
“No. We should call me.”
“You?”
“This town cries out for a hero.”
“You?”
“Let Pleasant and Cain save them from obvious threats. Let them stand in the spotlight. I will stand in the shadows. I will fight in darkness.”
“You’ll need a torch, sir,” said Thrasher, rushing over to stand beside him. “Please – let me hold that torch.”
“You can be my sidekick.”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“I will be this town’s champion, its unsung hero, its Dark and Stormy Knight.”
“Yes, sir!” Thrasher squealed, clapping his hands.
Scapegrace narrowed his eyes. He could practically smell the evil. “We’ll need masks.”
He’d valued every moment he spent with her when she was alive, and he cherished every memory he had of her when she was gone. Along with his father, she was responsible for the man he became, for the man he was now. A fighter.
But fighting takes its toll. It took its toll on his mother. She’d entered into a fight she hadn’t a hope of winning. And all this fighting, all this arguing and confrontation and playing politics, it was taking a toll on Ghastly now, too. He’d needed his few days off. He’d needed a lot more.
He wondered sometimes what person he would have been if he had chosen running instead of boxing. He could have run from the bullies, then, instead of turning and fighting them. He could have left their taunts far behind. He could have tuned the world out and just focused on his breathing and the rhythm – not of fists on leather, but of feet on track. If he’d been a runner, would he have fought in the war? Would he have become a Dead Man? Would he have lost a year of his life as a blank, unthinking statue? Would he have lost Tanith Low to a Remnant, and then lost her again to a killer?
Ghastly put his head down and ran.
The Sanctuary had so many long, winding corridors in its depths that he could run here for an hour and not see one other person. That’s the way he liked it. Up there, where the corridors were brighter and warmer, he was Ghastly Bespoke the Elder, who had to wear that damn robe and appear respectable at all times. Down here, he was Ghastly Bespoke, the scarred tailor, the man who put on a tracksuit to go running and could sweat and push himself as hard as he damn well wanted.
He ran until he wasn’t thinking of the Supreme Council. He ran until he wasn’t thinking of the Warlocks. He ran and ran and tried to outrun the idea of Tanith Low and Billy-Ray Sanguine, but it caught up with him, ran alongside, and he lost his rhythm and his feet became clumsy and he slowed to a graceless stop.
He stood there, bent over, hands on his knees, sucking in air, and then he straightened, controlled his breathing, started walking. He shook out his arms and legs with each stride. No one would miss him for another twenty minutes or so. Plenty of time to cool down, shower, and pull on that stupid … robe …
He stopped, waiting for the air around him to settle. Once it had fallen back to its natural pattern, he concentrated on the currents and the draughts against his skin, and felt something else, a slight nudging, almost too gentle to notice. Someone was reading the air, keeping track of him. Someone skilled.
Raising his hands, Ghastly formed a vacuum, roughly the size of his own body, and pressed it outwards. Staying very, very still, he sent it rippling down the corridor at walking pace. The gentle nudging moved away from him, following the human-sized disruption. Once the Elemental, whoever he was, was satisfied that the threat had passed, he withdrew his probing little tentacles of awareness.
Ghastly took the stairs slowly down, both hands out to subdue the ripples he was making in the air and to prevent the sounds of his footsteps from travelling. In Ireland, running shoes were called runners. In Britain, trainers. In America, sneakers. The American term was the most sinister, in his opinion, but definitely most appropriate for this situation. At the bottom of the stairs there was a man, standing with his back to him. Now it was Ghastly’s turn to read his surroundings, but he made sure to do it at an even gentler level than the Elemental had managed. Slowly, he used the air to reach past this man with the silenced pistol in a shoulder holster, then round the corner, and down the corridor. He ignored the open spaces he passed, the doorways, and focused on who was standing in the corridor itself. One person, halfway down. Big. Probably male. Another one, at the end, moving around. Fidgeting. Nervous.
Well, OK then.
Ghastly stepped up and wrapped his right arm round the Elemental’s throat, gripped the bicep of his other arm and pressed his left hand against the back of the man’s head. All of this in an instant. All of this before the man could even make a sound, let alone react physically.
Ghastly pulled him back away from the wall so that he couldn’t kick out, make a noise to alert his friends. The man didn’t go for his gun. He didn’t even try to use magic. He just panicked and grabbed Ghastly’s arm and tried to pull it away. But of course he couldn’t, and all Ghastly had to do was tighten up and a moment later the man was unconscious.
Ghastly laid him on the ground. Nothing in his pockets. No ID. No money. Nothing. Ghastly took the pistol, removed the silencer and moved to the corner. He knelt and peeked round.
The big man in the middle of the corridor was looking into the Accelerator Room, the only room that had a light on. Plenty of activity in there, it seemed. Beyond him, at the junction at the other end of the corridor, a second man couldn’t seem to stand still. He had a sub-machine gun on a strap hanging from his shoulder. Like the Elemental’s, it too was silenced. Ghastly stood, stuck the pistol into the pocket of his tracksuit, and stepped into the corridor.
The Big Man was at the midway point, roughly fifty metres away. The Fidgeter was at the end. That meant a hundred-metre dash with two opponents to dispatch without alerting anyone inside the Accelerator Room. Ghastly tried to stop the grin from spreading, but failed miserably.
He gripped the air around him, and broke into a run. He dived forward, brought his hands in and out in front, shot down the corridor like a bullet. The Big Man turned and Ghastly took him off his feet, one hand clamped to his mouth and the other arm wrapped round him, and he piled on the speed. The Fidgeter didn’t even get to look round before the Big Man’s head cracked against his. Both men went down and Ghastly twisted away from them, found himself hurtling towards the far wall. He brought the air in, formed a cushion, bounced off and stumbled only a little when he landed. His first thought was that he had just come close to smashing every bone in his body. His second thought was not to mention that part to Skulduggery, or else the flying lessons would start to concentrate on how to stop instead of how to go faster.
As he knelt by the men, his eyes were on the Accelerator Room door. No one ran out. No one shouted an alarm. His luck was holding. He checked that both men were unconscious, then took the sub-machine gun, made sure it was loaded and ready to fire, and crept back up the corridor. He could hear voices now, snippets of what was being said. Three different people, two male, one female. American accents. One voice he recognised – the one issuing the orders.
He reached the Accelerator Room, and peered in. The man in charge was hidden by the Accelerator itself. The other was tall and thin and Ghastly didn’t know who he was. He’d seen the young woman before, though. She was a Necromancer. What was her name? Adrasdos, or something? He’d seen her with Vex, decades ago, back when everything was nice and friendly between Sanctuaries. She was attaching something to the right side of the Accelerator while the thin man did the same on the other side. They had duffel bags open all around them. Explosives. The man in charge stepped into view, trailing wires behind him. Bernard Sult.
“Nobody move,” said Ghastly.
Naturally, they moved. They spun in shock, but managed to hold still when they saw the gun pointed at them. That was wise.
“Put it down,” said Ghastly, stepping inside. “All of it. Very slowly, very gently, put it all down on the floor. You, too, Bernard. We wouldn’t want any of this to go off, now would we?”
Sult’s face was tight, but he obeyed, and rested the loop of wires at his feet. He straightened, hands up, and the other two did the same. They were all armed with silenced pistols. Ghastly raised his free hand and those pistols floated from their holsters to land gently behind him.
“You kill anyone getting in here?” Ghastly asked.
“We had to render one or two of your people unconscious,” said Sult, “but we don’t take lives if we can help it.”
“Terrorists with principles,” said Ghastly. “I like it.”
“You’re the terrorists,” said Adrasdos, glaring at him with fire in her eyes. “You’re the ones terrorising the world with your casual ineptitude and gross indifference to—”
“Adrasdos,” said Sult, “don’t bother. Elder Bespoke has heard it all before and he remains unmoved.”
Ghastly gave a little shrug. “So what’s the plan here, Bernard? Destroy the Accelerator and vanish before anyone knows you paid us a visit? You weren’t even going to say hi, after everything we’ve been through? You were there when we joined forces to take down Argeddion’s psycho teenagers. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“No, Elder Bespoke, it doesn’t, because I was also here when you allowed Grand Mage Strom to be decapitated in his own quarters.”
“By an English mage.”
“By your would-be girlfriend.”
“Who is possessed by a Remnant. And yet you lot still manage to blame that on us.”
“Oh, it’s not just that, Elder Bespoke. It’s also the fact that you had falsely imprisoned the Grand Mage to keep him from reporting your mistakes back to the Supreme Council. These are not the actions of Elders who can be trusted to run the most volatile country in the world.”
“Mistakes were made, I freely admit that. But no laws were violated. No rules were broken. But this … Breaking into a foreign Sanctuary, assaulting Sanctuary operatives, attempting to destroy Sanctuary equipment … Adrasdos, I know you don’t like the word, but these are acts of terrorism. And you’re all under arrest.”
“I’m afraid we can’t allow that to happen,” said Sult. “And we can’t allow anyone to find out we were here. We’re going to have to kill you, Elder Bespoke.”
Ghastly gave him a little smile. “I’d like to see you try.”
Adrasdos and the thin man rushed him. Ghastly waved his hand and Adrasdos crashed into the wall, but the thin man was too close. Ghastly pulled the trigger. The bullets riddled the thin man’s shirt, but bounced off his skin, and a single push sent Ghastly hurtling back into the corridor. He hit the wall, fell to the floor, left the gun there as he scrambled up. He ducked under the thin man’s punch, and sent a left hook to the body in return. As expected, it was like hitting a boulder. He dodged a wild swipe and curled his fingers, felt the air forming battering rams around his knuckles, and when he punched again he sent a column of air into the thin man’s jaw.
