Last Stand of Dead Men

“Could I be blamed for forgetting that? It’s not like we’ve done anything with it. We haven’t released it or sold it. We’ve hung on to it.”

“You know why. We need more than that. We need something so concrete that no one will even try to tell us it’s faked. We’re dealing with sorcerers who can make you believe whatever they tell you. We can’t afford to go public until we have overwhelming evidence.”

“And how are we going to get it?”

Kenny sat back.

“You need the evidence to write that book you’re always on about,” said Slattery. “You need the evidence to make that documentary that I’m apparently going to film. Where’s that evidence, Kenny? Where do we find it?”

“We stick to Valkyrie.”

“Here we go again.”

“We stick to Valkyrie Cain and she will take us to the evidence eventually.”

“She’s a teenage girl and you want us to follow her around again? We’ve spied on her enough, don’t you think? We tailed her for months, and she led us to people and places that are up on that wall, and that’s it. That’s all we’ve been able to get.”

“Then we have to dig deeper.”

“With what resources?”

“Well, what do you suggest? That we give up on the single most important story in the history of the world? I’m not exaggerating here, and you know I’m not.”

“I never said you were. I’m just saying we can’t do it alone.”

“We have to keep this between ourselves.”

“We can trust—”

“We can’t trust anyone. A careless word here and there and somehow it gets back to Geoffrey Scrutinous or Finbar Wrong or Valkyrie or Skulduggery, and they’ll come for us. They’ll take all this, all our work and research, and they’ll wipe our minds and do a better job of it than they did with me last time.”

“It’s risky. I know it is. But we don’t have a choice. We need support, we need money, we need help.”

Kenny shook his head. “We do this alone.”

“You know your problem? You don’t want to share the glory.”

“This isn’t about who gets the by-line.”

“Isn’t it?”

“What are you going to do?” Kenny asked. “If I say no, if I say we don’t need anyone, what are you going to do?”

“You mean if you refuse to see sense? I don’t know yet. I might just have to take what I know and go somewhere else.”

“I brought you in on this. This is my story.”

“See? It is about the by-line.”

Kenny sighed. “Just give it a little time, OK? All this crazy stuff that’s been happening, it’s been leading to something, I know it has. We just have to wait. Just a little longer.”

Slattery stood up. “You have till October.”

“You can’t expect—”

“Two months, Kenny. Then either we get some help, or I leave with what I have.”

he news came through the normal channels, but it came quietly, buried in among everything else, like it was trying to sneak by without anyone noticing. An Irish sorcerer, arrested but not charged with any crime, killed in an American cell. Ghastly had never met the man – Caius Caviler, his name was – and to the best of his knowledge he had never had any particular involvement with the Sanctuary, past or present. As far as he could tell, Caviler’s death was the tragic result of casual brutality. It was awful. It was criminal. It was the one piece of good news they’d had in weeks.

There was a knock on his door and Ravel stepped in. He looked tired. “Mind if I sit?” he asked.

Ghastly motioned to the chair, and Ravel sank into it. “I just spoke with Bisahalani,” he said. “He assures me that a thorough investigation is under way to determine what exactly happened to Caviler. He said the operative responsible for the ‘accident’ has been suspended pending further inquiry. He apologises for the unfortunate timing.”

“He apologises for the timing?” said Ghastly. “What about the death?”

“He stopped short of apologising for that. He said a formal apology could be forthcoming once it has been determined that Caviler was not sent to America as a spy.”

“Caviler has nothing to do with us,” Ghastly said. “He’s not an operative and never was. That’s a matter of public record.”

“Grand Mage Bisahalani likes to be sure.”

Ghastly narrowed his eyes. “He’s bluffing. Remember Prussia, right after Hopeless died? Shudder and I fell in with Bisahalani and his group of American mages. The area was completely overrun by Mevolent’s forces. They were hunting us down. Relentless. They finally had us surrounded in this old farmhouse. We were exhausted, starving, injured … it wouldn’t have taken much to finish us off. Bisahalani walked out, he actually walked out the front door, walked across the yard to where Mevolent’s soldiers were crouched behind cover. No one fired at him because they were all too stunned at what was happening. He went up to whoever was in charge and he stood there and informed him that he was to take his squad of killers and madmen and scurry away before the people in that farmhouse grew irritated.”

“Did it work?”

“Astonishingly, yes. He was so convincing, he was so bull-headed and strong-willed, that Mevolent’s soldiers decided to cut their losses and leave. That’s what he does. When he’s backed into a corner, Bisahalani will talk big and talk tough and all the time he’ll be crossing his fingers and hoping that you don’t stand your ground. They murdered an innocent man in their custody. The core elements of the Supreme Council will stick together, but what of everyone else? We know the Scottish Sanctuary is already asking questions. The Estonians, too. Tipstaff just told me that Grand Mage Kribu is calling for all Irish prisoners to be released in the wake of what happened.”

“We have the advantage,” Ravel said. “We have them over a barrel for the first time since all this began.”

“If we play this right,” said Ghastly, “support for the Supreme Council will crumble, and the Supreme Council itself could even dissolve.”

“We have to be careful. They’re going to try to shift focus away from their mistake on to one of ours.”

“Then we’ve got to be sure we don’t make any mistakes.”

Ravel frowned. “Where’s Skulduggery?”

“Skulduggery and Valkyrie have gone to talk to Moloch like we asked, and then they’re off to see Cassandra Pharos. Hopefully, that’ll keep them out of trouble.”

“OK, good.” Ravel tapped his chin. “The Supreme Council arrests our people and they treat them so badly they kill one of them. We need to show that, when we arrest their people, they’re treated well. We can arrange a Global Link broadcast to every Sanctuary around the world.”

Ghastly stood. “I’ll get Sult ready for his close-up.”

“No hitting him.”

“Any assault will be to his ego, I swear.”

They left Ghastly’s office. Ravel went one way, escorted by his Cleaver bodyguards, and Ghastly went the other, heading for the cells.

The guard on duty was snoring in his chair. Ghastly strode forward, sending a blast of air to wake him. The young man’s hair ruffled and he was almost pitched sideways to the ground, but he didn’t wake. What was his name?

“Weeper,” Ghastly said, remembering. “Staven Weeper. Wake the hell up.”

When Weeper continued to snore, Ghastly gripped his shoulder and shook him. As he was released, Weeper slumped over and collapsed slowly to the ground. Ghastly’s eyes widened.

He ran to the first cell, opened the viewing hatch, saw Adrasdos reading a book on her bunk. He went to the next cell, and the next, and the next, all of which were occupied. Then he opened the hatch on the cell that should have been occupied by Bernard Sult.

He ran back to Weeper’s corner, pressed the communication sigil on the desk. “Lock the Sanctuary down,” he snarled. “We have an escaped prisoner.”

The conference room was humming with activity by the time Ghastly reached it. Huge screens had been set up, showing CCTV footage of the corridor leading to the cellblock. Mages chattered on phones and hurried in and out of the doors, and Ravel stood in the middle of it all with a frown etched on his brow.

He turned to Ghastly. “Anything?”

Ghastly shook his head. “I sent the Cleavers into the lower levels, but I doubt Sult would have headed down there. He’ll want to get out of Roarhaven as soon as possible. If he’s in the area, we’ll find him. Any luck with the cameras?”

Ravel swivelled his head, like he was catching the question and passing it on to the mage at the huge screens.

“We’re watching the footage now,” said Susurrus. “So far, we’ve seen no movement at … wait a second …”

The screen flickered, flickered again, went fuzzy, and then the picture was replaced by static.

“Mr Susurrus,” said Ravel, “what happened to our picture?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Susurrus, furiously tapping the keyboard. “It looks like someone jammed the signal.”

“Those cameras are protected, are they not?” Ravel asked, his hands curled into fists. “When we installed them, I was told they were unjammable, was I not? So will someone please tell me how this happened?”

The chatter in the conference room died for a moment while sorcerers looked away and looked at their feet and looked at each other, no one daring to posit an answer. After a moment, the silence went away, and once more the room was plunged into a chattering mess of barked orders and ringing phones.

Ravel looked over at Ghastly, gave him an exasperated shrug, and Ghastly turned as Doctor Synecdoche approached.

“Staven Weeper has just regained consciousness,” she said. “He claims to have no memory of anything unusual. One moment he was doing his duty with his customary alertness, his words, and the next he’s waking up with Doctor Nye staring down at him.”

“You believe him?”

“We’ve found traces of a toxin in his blood. We should be able to identify it within minutes.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ghastly said, nodding for the next sorcerer to approach.

“We’ve set up a perimeter around Roarhaven,” said Petrichor, a fresh-faced mage of ninety-three. “We’ve also been viewing any outside CCTV footage that might yield results. So far, nothing. We don’t even know how he got out without being seen.”

“There are dozens of secret tunnels beneath this place that we don’t know about,” Ghastly said.

“Um,” said Susurrus.

Ghastly looked round. “What is it?”

Susurrus frowned. “The Sanctuary Global Link, sir.”

Ravel came forward. “What about it, for God’s sake?”

“Uh … it just activated.”

Ravel glared down at him. “Do you really think we’re in the mood to watch Supreme Council propaganda right now?”

“Well, that’s just it, Grand Mage. They didn’t activate the link. We did.”

The screen pulsed, showing Bernard Sult on his knees. His mouth was gagged and his hands were cuffed behind his back.

Ravel’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is going on?”

“Elder Bespoke,” Doctor Synecdoche said, hurrying back to Ghastly’s side. “We’ve identified the toxin in Weeper’s blood. It’s venom, sir.”

“What?”

“Spider venom.”

The doors opened behind him and Madame Mist glided in, in perfect synchronicity with Syc and Portia’s arrival onscreen.

Ravel looked at Mist. “What are they doing?”

“I have nothing to do with this,” Mist said, after a moment. “Whatever their plan is, it is theirs alone.”

Ravel turned to Susurrus. “Trace the signal. Find out where they are.”

Syc kept one hand on Sult’s shoulder, keeping him on his knees, while Portia turned to the camera. “The actions of the Supreme Council have led to this. Their repeated breaches of the accepted Rules of Law and Sanctuary Conduct have resulted in the death of an Irish sorcerer while in their custody. This cannot go unpunished.”

Syc took hold of Sult’s hair and pulled his head back. Sult’s eyes were wide and wet with fear. In Syc’s other hand, he held a knife.

“They can’t,” Synecdoche whispered.

Ghastly seized Mist’s arm. “Tell them to stop. Make them stop!”

With a rare show of anger, Mist pulled free. “I don’t know where they are, Elder Bespoke. I assure you, they do not have my authorisation.”

“Well, do they have phones? Call them, damn it!”

“I have been trying, sir,” Tipstaff said from another desk. “Their phones are turned off, and hidden from all scans.”

“You,” Mist said, looking at Susurrus, “disable the link.”

“I can’t,” Susurrus said. “Not from here.”

“So every Sanctuary around the world is watching this?”

“I—I’m sorry, but yes.”

Back onscreen, Portia was talking again. “No doubt our own Sanctuary will publicly condemn us for what we are about to do, even though they will understand why it is necessary. For too long, Grand Mage Ravel has entertained the Supreme Council’s excessive demands. For too long, he has indulged their whims and forgiven their sins. This latest sin cannot be forgiven. And so we offer a life for a life.”

“Don’t do it,” said Ravel, but the words had barely left his mouth when Syc drew the knife across Bernard Sult’s throat.

Ghastly stiffened and there was no sound in the room except for the sound of Sult dying onscreen.

“Let it be known,” said Portia, “that if one of ours is harmed, one of yours will die.”

The screen went blank.

“Turn it off,” said Ravel, his voice low, his jaw clenched. “Tipstaff. Activate the shield.”

“The shield is up, sir.”

“Out. Everyone out.” The room emptied quickly, until there were only the Elders left. “We’ll go to war over this,” he said. “This is everything they needed. This is the excuse they were looking for. A public execution of one of their people. Any sympathy we may have had, any, was washed away the moment that blade touched his skin.” Ravel turned to Mist. “Those two don’t do anything without your permission.”

“So I had thought,” said Mist. “Obviously, I was wrong. You are suspicious of me?”

“You could say that.”

Mist’s veil made it impossible to read her face. “That is unfortunate. Please allow me to repeat myself – I had nothing to do with this. They acted without my knowledge and certainly without my permission. I cannot, and I will not, be held responsible for their actions.”

“They’re Children of the Spider,” said Ghastly. “Just like you.”

“And that makes me culpable? Preposterous. Are you to be held responsible every time an Elemental commits a crime?”

“Children of the Spider are an especially tight-knit bunch.”

“We are no closer than family,” said Mist, “and yet siblings are not held accountable for each other, are they? I had no idea Portia and Syc were going to do what they did, and unless you have evidence beyond mere suspicion, we should be concentrating on bringing them to justice and dealing with the ramifications of this terrible act.”

She moved for the door, but Ghastly blocked her way. “You can’t just walk out of here.”

“On the contrary,” she said, “I can and I am about to. Administrator Tipstaff may not be able to track them, but someone has to, and by the looks of things the rest of you are too busy blaming me to do anything constructive. So if you will excuse me.”

She stepped round Ghastly and walked on, and he just stood there.

assandra Pharos greeted them from her front door with a warm smile. Her grey hair was pulled back in a plait today, and she wore a loose shirt over faded jeans. She hugged Valkyrie and ignored Skulduggery’s protests until he allowed her to hug him, too.

The inside of the cottage was just as Valkyrie remembered it – a bookshelf against one wall, a guitar tucked into the corner, a large rug on the wooden floor and a sofa that had seen better days. And hanging from the rafters, dozens of bundles of twigs, shaped like little men. Dream whisperers. Cassandra had given Valkyrie one as a present the first time they’d met.

“Do you still have yours?” Cassandra asked, catching Valkyrie’s uneasy look.

“Yes,” Valkyrie said automatically, before she even had a chance to consider telling the truth. She ignored Skulduggery’s tilt of the head, and motioned to the guitar. “Do you play much?”

“Not as much as I used to,” Cassandra said. “I was pretty good, once upon a time. I picked up an old one in the sixties and I was taught by one of the best guitarists of the era.”

“Jimi Hendrix?”

“Angelo Bartolotti. This was the 1660s.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

“It was a whole different instrument back then. But you didn’t come here to talk about my musical past as a Baroque chick, did you?”

“You’ve had a vision?” Skulduggery asked.

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “Or at least I will. In a few minutes.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You haven’t had it yet?”

“No. But I dreamed that I was going to have it, and that it involved the two of you.”

“Wait. So … you had a vision that you were going to have a vision?”

“Fortune-telling is a strange business. Come down to the cellar.”

She led the way downstairs to a large room with cement walls and a metal grille for a floor. Rusted pipes ran up the walls and across the ceiling like infected veins. It was cold and it was bleak. Cassandra sat in the straight-backed chair in the middle of the chamber, picked up the yellow umbrella and held it across her lap. “So how have you both been?”

“Uh, fine,” Valkyrie said. “Are you having your vision now?”

“It’ll come when it comes,” Cassandra told her. “How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“Fletcher?”

“No, the other one.”

Valkyrie felt a scowl rise. “Caelan?”

“No, the other one. Or … wait. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet.”

“What? You’ve seen a future boyfriend of mine? Who is he? What’s his name? Is he hot?”

Cassandra smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

“Just tell me if he’s hot.”

“If I give you any details about him at all, it could change what happens. The future is uncertain. It’s always changing. If you know who he is, he might never become your boyfriend.”

“She’s annoying when she has a boyfriend,” Skulduggery said. “Please do me a favour and tell us who it is.”

Cassandra laughed. “I’ve said too much already. The only reason I’m showing you this vision I’m about to have is because it relates to the one you’ve already seen.”

“The ruined city,” Valkyrie said.

“Aha,” Cassandra murmured, her eyes closing. “It’s starting. If you wouldn’t mind?”

Skulduggery clicked his fingers and Valkyrie did the same, and they each summoned a ball of fire into their hands. They dropped the fireballs to the grille – within seconds the coals underneath were glowing orange. Heat rose, filling the chamber. Valkyrie stood with her back against the wall.

Cassandra opened the umbrella, and Skulduggery turned a little red wheel. Water gurgled through the pipes and sprayed from the sprinklers, and immediately clouds of steam began billowing. Cassandra sat in the middle of it all, the umbrella keeping her dry. When she was lost amid the swirling steam, Skulduggery cut off the water.

Valkyrie stepped forward, and Skulduggery joined her. It was quiet. The steam was as thick as fog. Even the slow dripping from the sprinklers sounded distant.

The first time she’d been down here, an image of Ghastly had run at her. But this was different. A shape moved. Staggered. There were walls around them now, in the steam, and a table, a big one. She knew this place. The conference room, in the Sanctuary. The figure stumbled into view. Erskine Ravel, dressed in his Elder robes, falling to his knees with his hands shackled behind his back, screaming in unimaginable agony.

He fell forward and the image swirled, and now they were in a city, smoke rising from the ruins. Valkyrie looked for something familiar, some way to identify what city this was – even a street sign – but the steam was lending everything a hazy quality. The city was an out-of-focus photograph, a blurred representation of reality.

Ghastly ran by, just like he had the first time, and then the street started moving around her like the whole thing, Ghastly included, was on a treadmill. It was hugely disorientating and Valkyrie had to hold Skulduggery’s arm to steady herself. Ghastly turned a corner and the corner whipped by so fast that Valkyrie jerked back. He eventually slowed his run and the street slowed its movement, and when he stopped the street stopped.

Ghastly glanced behind him, getting his breath back.

“That’s new,” Skulduggery murmured.

Ghastly had a scar bisecting the others along the left side of his head, just over his ear. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t old, either.

“Well now,” said a voice in the steam, “don’t I feel stupid?”

Steam billowed and now Valkyrie could see Tanith Low leaning against a streetlight, both hands pressing into the lower half of her torso, which was a mess of blood and ruined flesh. Ghastly rushed over to her, his eyes wide.

Steam hissed as Ghastly and Tanith talked, but their words were snatched away until Ghastly grabbed her and Tanith cried out.

“Bloody hell, that hurts!”

“I don’t care,” said Ghastly, and he pulled her into him and they kissed, long and hard, so long and so hard that Valkyrie began to feel vaguely uncomfortable watching them. She was saved from having to look away by fresh clouds of steam, and a new image solidified in front of her.

The first time she had seen her future self she remembered thinking how much older she looked in the steam. Her future self had been taller, with strong arms and strong legs. But now they were identical, apart from the tattoo on her future self’s left arm and the metal gauntlet on her right. For the first time, Valkyrie noticed a strap that crossed her future self’s chest. She had something slung across her back.

“I’ve seen this,” the Valkyrie in the steam said, the wind playing with her hair. “I was watching from …” She looked around, narrowed her eyes. “… there. Hi.”

Valkyrie frowned. This was different from last time. She hadn’t said “Hi” last time.

The other Valkyrie smiled sadly. “This is where it happens, but then you know that, right? At least you think you do. You think this is where I let them die.”

“Stephanie!”

Two shapes in the distance, running. Sprinting. The other Valkyrie shook her head. “I don’t want to see this. Please. I don’t want this to happen. Let me stop it. Please let me stop it.” She held something in her hand, something the steam was obscuring as she looked at it. “Please work,” she said, tears running down her face. “Please let me save them.”

And then her image was swept away as Valkyrie’s parents neared. Her mother turned on the spot, looking up at the sky. She was holding something.

“Oh, no,” Valkyrie said weakly, watching as her baby sister clung to her mother.

“Stephanie!” her father shouted. “We’re here! Steph!”

A figure in black dropped to the ground behind them, cracking the pavement with the force of her landing.

Darquesse. She smiled with Valkyrie’s smile. From neck to toe she was dressed in a black so tight it was like a second skin. Desmond Edgley stepped between his wife and the monster.

“Give our daughter back to us,” he said.

Darquesse continued to smile.

“Give her back!” her dad roared.

It was nothing but a moving image, it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened yet, but when Darquesse burned her family with black flame Valkyrie cried out nonetheless.