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Remus Crux was the ex-Sanctuary Detective, now a raving lunatic who didn’t bother washing. He was a recent convert to the Faceless Ones, according to Billy-Ray, and he’d developed a murderous fixation on the girl called Valkyrie Cain after she’d killed a couple of his Dark Gods with the Sceptre of the Ancients. Scarab had always believed the Sceptre to be a fairytale, and he’d never had much time for the Faceless Ones. He’d agreed to Crux’s inclusion, however, because while having a madman on board was a risk, sometimes risk was all you had.
The dark-haired man beside Crux was pale and dressed in black. Cain, a girl who was sounding more and more like a real and viable threat, had cut a slash across Dusk’s face with Billy-Ray’s straight razor, scarring him for life. Vampires were known for their grudges. Dusk was another unpredictable entity, for a vampire was more creature than man. But for sheer physical power he was an asset that could not be discounted.
Sitting across from Dusk was the self-proclaimed Terror of London, Springheeled Jack. His lanky frame curled into the chair, one knee drawn up to his chest. His suit was old and ragged, and his top hat was perched at an unsteady angle on his head. Hardened fingernails drummed a slow rhythm on the tabletop. Scarab didn’t know what manner of monster this was, but he knew that Jack had been driven out of England and was being hunted across Europe. Scarab liked people that had nowhere else to turn. Those were people he could rely on.
The fourth member of this little society, this Revengers’ Club, was the one about whom they knew the least. Billy-Ray had informed Scarab that this man claimed to be a killer beyond compare, who had suffered at the hands of the skeleton detective and his partner, but that was all they knew about the mysterious and deadly Vaurien Scapegrace.
Scarab stood at the head of the table and summoned all the dreadful authority he could muster.
“You’ve heard of the things I’ve done,” he said. They looked at him without speaking. “You’ve heard of the people I’ve killed. Most of these stories are true. I have killed and laughed and killed again. As have all of you.
“Gentlemen, we are a dying breed. A hundred years from now, people like us will be taken down before we’ve done anything wrong. We will be put in prison for the thoughts we think and the things we feel. We are the last of the truly great and the truly free. And they want to take that away from us.
“Sanguine was talking to you about a bond we share, a burning desire that lights within us all. We are free men, and to be free we must reject the rules and the laws that do not define us and do not apply to us. We must strike against our enemies, bring them down and grind them beneath our boots.”
“I am here because I am curious,” Dusk said. He spoke calmly, without effort or emotion. “Why should I help you?”
“I busted you out of prison for this,” Billy-Ray said. “You owe me, vampire.”
“I owed Baron Vengeous,” Dusk said. “But to you, I owe nothing. So I ask again – why should I help you? Why should I help any of you? I don’t think everyone here can be trusted anyway. Seated at this very table is someone who saved the life of Valkyrie Cain, after all.”
Springheeled Jack smiled. His teeth were narrow and sharp and many. “I stopped you from killin’ her cos I didn’t like you lot lyin’ to me, and I didn’t like your boss. The chance to mess up your plans, therefore, was too sweet to resist. Tell me, you still sore from that hidin’ I gave you?”
Dusk met his eyes. “If we were to meet on equal ground, I’d tear you to bloody, quivering pieces. Here for instance.”
“It ain’t even night yet,” Jack grinned. “You sure you can be let off your leash so early?”
Dusk launched himself across the table and Jack laughed and rose to meet him. They crashed to the ground, knocking Scapegrace out of his chair. They flipped and rolled and went at each other again, snarling deep in their throats.
“Quit it!” Scarab roared and the scuffle broke. He pressed on before they had a chance to resume. “We’re fighting ourselves? That’s how you want this to go? This is an opportunity to shake the world to its foundations, and you want to kill each other? Let me tell you – and I’m speaking from experience here – there are always more deserving people out there to kill.
“This is our opportunity to strike back against our enemies. We have a chance to succeed where everyone else has failed. We’ve seen those failures. We’ve seen where people like Mevolent and Serpine have gone wrong, and we have learned from their mistakes.”
“I nearly killed Valkyrie Cain last night,” Crux announced.
They all stared at him.
“You what?” said Billy-Ray.
“My hands,” Crux said, “around her throat. Squeezing. I could see fear in her eyes. Real fear. Almost had her.”
Dusk turned to him. “You know where she lives?”
Crux nodded. “Can’t get there now though. Saw a lot of mages marking symbols around the town. Got a perimeter there now. Can’t get in without alerting the Cleavers. Don’t like the Cleavers.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Billy-Ray snarled. “We could’ve gone in, got her, torn her to pieces—”
“I kill Cain,” Crux said, pointing a finger back at himself. “Me. Not you, not the vampire, not the idiot.”
Scapegrace frowned. “Who’s the idiot?”
“She killed the Dark Gods,” Crux continued, “but they will rise again.”
Scarab could see the anger growing in Billy-Ray and Dusk. He could use his own knowledge of the language of magic to bypass this magical perimeter, but in doing so he’d lose most of his team before they’d even started on his mission. He needed them to stay thirsty for revenge. He spoke quickly to calm the situation. “Mr Crux, if you want the Faceless Ones to return, you’ve got to make it happen. And the first thing we do is get rid of the opposition. And we have a plan to do just that.”
Dusk took his eyes off Crux. “You have a plan,” he said.
“Yes, it is my plan,” Scarab said, “but it belongs to all of us. We’re going to steal the Desolation Engine.”
Three of the men smiled. One of them looked confused.
“What’s a Desolation Engine?” asked Scapegrace.
“It’s a bomb,” Billy-Ray said. “There’s no big explosion or loud bang, just the instant disintegration of every single thing in its radius. It all turns to dust. So we’re goin’ to steal it an’ we’re goin’ to use it to destroy the Sanctuary.”
“The other Sanctuaries around the world have always looked at Ireland with envy,” Scarab took over. “They’d like nothing better than to come in here and take over, ransack everything magical from this little pipsqueak of a country and take it all back home with them. We’re going to make sure they get their wish, and we’re going to kill a few of our most annoying enemies right along with it.”
“They’ve dismissed us in the past,” Billy-Ray said. “They don’t rate us – not compared to Vengeous or the Diablerie, any of those guys. We’re the hired help. But we’re goin’ to show ’em. We’re going to show ’em that they should’ve been scared of us all along.”
“They think they know what’s coming?” Scarab asked. “They think they know what to expect? They have no idea.”
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kulduggery had once told Valkyrie that the best plans are the simple ones. Her plan was not a simple plan, but it was the only one they had, so they were stuck with it.
“Here’s what we do,” Valkyrie said as she paced the floor of Ghastly’s shop. “We go to the Sanctuary and ask to see Guild. Guild will keep us waiting, as he always does, because he won’t want anything to appear different until he knows for sure that we know he has the skull.”
Tanith, Ghastly and Fletcher looked at her and nodded.
“However,” she continued, “he’ll also be assuming that we do know, so he’ll be waiting for us to make a move. Fletcher won’t be with us, which will make Guild suspect that he’s already teleported in.”
“And where will I be?” Fletcher asked excitedly.
“I don’t know, fixing your hair or something. The point is his attention will be in two places – where we are and where the skull is.”
“And how do we find out where the skull is?” Tanith asked.
“The reasonable place to put it would be the Repository,” Ghastly said. “Put it with all the other artefacts and magical objects and keep it there. But he’s not going to do that.”
“It’s too obvious,” agreed Valkyrie. “That’s the first place we’d look. It’s also the first place we’re going to look.”
Fletcher frowned. “But it’s not going to be there.”
“No, but the cloaking sphere is.”
“The invisibility ball?” said Fletcher.
“Cloaking sphere,” insisted Valkyrie.
“Invisibility ball sounds better.”
“Invisibility ball sounds stupid.” She turned to the others. “Once we get it, we call Fletcher. He arrives, we let them close in on us and then we use the sphere.”
“And they think we’ve teleported out,” Tanith finished, smiling.
Valkyrie nodded. “And then, hopefully, Guild sends someone to check on the skull. We follow, grab it and then we teleport out. If it doesn’t pan out like that, we can at least search for it without being seen.”
“China will have to be ready,” said Ghastly. “Once they realise what’s happened, Davina Marr and the Cleavers will come after all of us.”
“Can I just point something out?” Fletcher asked. “That is an awful plan. On a scale of one to ten – the Trojan Horse being a ten and General Custer versus all those Indians being a one – your plan is a zero. I don’t think it’s a plan at all. I think it’s just a series of happenings that are, to be honest, unlikely to follow on from each other in the way in which everyone’s probably hoping.”
“Do you have a better plan?” Valkyrie asked.
“Of course not. I’m a man of action, not thought.”
Valkyrie nodded. “You’re definitely not a man of thought.”
“Why are you in charge anyway? What do you know about organising something like this?”
“I have faith,” Tanith said.
“As do I,” said Ghastly.
Valkyrie smiled at them gratefully. “So you think the plan will work?”
“God, no,” said Ghastly.
“Sorry, Val,” said Tanith.
Valkyrie stood with Tanith outside the old Waxworks Museum, letting the rain drench her hair. The windows were boarded up and there was a rusted gate pulled across the door. Even before the museum had closed down, it had never been impressive. She remembered school visits, trudging through dark corridors, gazing blankly at wax statues of boring politicians. She often wondered how things would be now if, as a little girl, she had wandered away from the tour group and found the hidden door.
If she had entered the Sanctuary then, would she have been taken under Skulduggery’s wing that much earlier? Or would the Cleavers merely have chopped her head off the moment they saw her? Probably the latter.
At least, back then, Eachan Meritorious had been Grand Mage of the Council of Elders. These days they didn’t even have a Council, only the Grand Mage, Thurid Guild, whom Skulduggery had once suspected of treason. Even now that Valkyrie knew he wasn’t guilty of that charge, she still viewed him as a dangerous individual with his own agenda.
And Guild had the skull.
Needing a replacement for Remus Crux, Guild had poached Davina Marr and her subordinate, Pennant, from one of the American Sanctuaries, and provided them with whatever they needed to do their job. Guild’s first decree had been that the portal never be opened again, lest more Faceless Ones come through. He had known Valkyrie and the others were hunting for the skull, and until today they had managed to stay one step ahead of him. But now, it seemed, Guild had overtaken them at the last hurdle.
The wind took the rain in at an angle and Valkyrie pulled her collar tight. She had called China, who had listened to the plan, such as it was, and assured her that if it did in fact work, then she would be available to help. She also said that there were two Sanctuary agents watching her at all times, and another two at Aranmore Farm. She had barely been able to send out her students to set up that perimeter around Haggard without the agents noticing. Valkyrie didn’t care. Only one thing mattered.
A bald man in a nice coat smiled as he passed them. Tanith ignored him, but Valkyrie returned the smile politely. There was something very familiar about him. He walked on and she looked around, wary of anyone trying to sneak up behind them.
“Ladies.”
She looked back. Ghastly stood where the bald man had been a second ago. Valkyrie was about to ask him what was going on, but Tanith figured it out before she spoke. “The façade tattoo,” she said, astonished. “It works!”
Ghastly smiled. “No more hat and scarf disguises for me, thank you very much. I can only use it for half an hour each day, but China’s working on a way to extend that.”
“Show me!” Valkyrie demanded, unable to stop her own smile from spreading.
Ghastly pulled apart the collar of his shirt and she saw the small tattoos, freshly burned into either side of his neck. He touched them and unblemished skin flowed upwards, rippling over his scars until it covered his whole head.
“Oh my God,” she said.
Ghastly smiled. “What do you think?”
“Oh my God,” she said again.
His features were strong, his jaw square and his skin, though slightly waxy, was clear and unscarred.
“China wanted to give me hair, but I thought that would be just a little too much, you know?”
“Oh my God.”
“You keep saying that. Tanith, what do you think?”
“I like it,” Tanith said. “But I dig scars too.”
He smiled, and touched the tattoos, and the perfect skin melted back into them, revealing the scars once again.
“Are we ready?” he asked, looking at the Waxworks Museum.
“I don’t like going anywhere without my sword,” Tanith grumbled. “You do realise that if the Cleavers come for us, they won’t care that we’re on the same side. They’ll cut us into itty-bitty pieces just because they can.”
“If that happens,” Ghastly said, “you’ll at least die comforted by the fact that you had the moral high ground.”
“Well, that’ll be nice,” she muttered.
They went around the back of the Waxworks Museum and entered through the open door. It was dark and the corridor they walked along was narrow. They passed three wax statues. Valkyrie wasn’t surprised they’d been left here when the museum closed down. They weren’t very good and only one of them had a head.
They finally came to a wax statue that looked like the person it was supposed to be – Phil Lynott from the band Thin Lizzy. It turned its head as they approached.
“Hello,” it said.
“Hi, Phil,” replied Valkyrie.
Tanith, who had actually known the real Phil Lynott when he was alive, found the figure too unnerving, so she stayed at the back and didn’t look at it.
“We request an audience with the Grand Mage,” Ghastly said.
“Do you have an appointment?” the figure said, looking down at a page it had stuck to the back of its guitar. “You’re not on the list.”
“We don’t have an appointment, but we request to be seen.”
The wax head of Phil Lynott frowned. It didn’t like its new role. It was originally supposed to only open and close the door, but now that the Sanctuary didn’t have an Administrator, its job description had expanded.
“I’ll tell him you’re here,” it said and closed its eyes.
