Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men (27 page)

Two massive, beautiful, electric-blue wings sprouted from the horse’s sides and the bikers cursed and one of them crashed and the horse ran and leaped and lifted away from the ground, over the hedge, his great wings beating at the air. China hugged his neck as they flew, directing him across the fields and ditches. She looked back, saw the bikers turn, speeding back to the road.

She took the horse in low, slowing as they reached the yard, and the ground came up beneath them and all at once the fast rhythm of galloping hooves replaced the beat of wings. She ran her fingers over the patterns and the wings dissolved, leaving streaks in the air. She took hold of the reins, pulled them up and slid off the saddle, calling for assistance. She kissed the horse’s neck and gave it a few heavy pats, then gave the reins to the stablehand and ran for her car. The engine roared, tyres spun, and she peeled out on to the road, the bikers right behind her.

hen it came down to it, the Monster Hunters were really nice guys. Sure, Tanith was pretty certain they had orders to kill her and Sanguine if they stepped out of line, but apart from that things were going swimmingly. On the drive to the Midnight Hotel they joked and laughed, and only Sanguine was left out of the fun. He was sulking again.

They parked by the side of the road, and crept through the trees. Little by little the joking stopped, until finally all four of them were creeping silently.

Donegan held up a closed fist, then motioned to the rest of them to join him. Tanith moved low, dropping to the ground beside him. Sanguine lay on her other side.

Ahead of them was a clearing in the woods. At the edge of that clearing, in a wide circle, armed men and women stood guard. About thirty of them.

“Flip,” whispered Gracious. “That is just flippin’ great, that is. What are we meant to do now?”

Donegan looked at his watch. “Seven seconds till noon,” he said. “Four. Three. Two. One.”

In the clearing ahead, wooden beams sprouted from the ground, latched on to each other while bricks and concrete bloomed and grew walls and floors. Glass stretched in window frames and colour seeped into everything. The Midnight Hotel gave one final groan of growth, and settled into place. A moment later, the front door opened.

Sorcerers filed out, each with a duffel bag over their shoulder. A dozen collected in the open space before the hotel, and they kept coming. Two dozen. Three. When the flow finally stopped, there were maybe fifty men and women standing there, talking quietly among themselves. Before the door closed over, Tanith glimpsed Cleavers within. Fifty plus the thirty standing guard, plus however many were still inside …

“I think we may be slightly outnumbered,” Donegan said softly. “Unless Gracious has any new invention on his person that will even the odds …?”

“Funny you should say that,” Gracious responded, “because no, I don’t. Unless you count a phone as a new invention. I vote we use that to call for reinforcements.”

Tanith scanned the windows. “No reinforcements. They’d take too long, our forces are stretched thin as it is, and we are not going to ask for help. We were sent to do a job and that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Four against eighty? We don’t even know how many more there are inside.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have to fight them. That’s not our primary objective. Ghastly said we’re to deactivate the teleportation system to stop more of them coming. That’s what we focus on.”

“I can get us past them,” Sanguine said, “but I’d probably be better going alone.”

Donegan frowned. “That’s uncharacteristically brave of you.”

“Not at all. Lugging you idiots around would slow me down and get me killed. Where’s the off switch?”

“Upstairs,” Donegan said. “There’s a clock on the wall. Press your hand against the face and turn it very slightly to the left. There’ll be a click to tell you it’s done.”

“Sounds easy enough,” said Tanith.

“Yes it does,” said Sanguine. “Kiss for good luck?”

“Maybe later,” said Gracious.

“How about a handshake?” asked Donegan.

“Ignore them,” said Tanith, and pulled Sanguine in for a deep, long kiss. “Now go. But don’t take any stupid chances.”

“Me?” Sanguine said. “Never.” And then he sank into the ground.

Tanith looked at the Monster Hunters. “If he can’t get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?”

“With great care,” Donegan suggested.

“How about we run off shouting and they follow?” said Gracious. “Then, just when they think they’ve caught us, they fall into our trap.”

“OK,” said Tanith. “And the trap would be?”

“A big hole that we’d dug earlier and covered with branches.”

Tanith frowned. “I thought you were meant to be smart.”

Gracious frowned back at her. “Who told you that?”

“Gracious is book-smart,” said Donegan. “He leaves the real-world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets.”

“The innocent are often the wisest.”

The sound of smashing glass whipped Tanith’s eyes back to the hotel in time to see Sanguine falling from a top-floor window. The sorcerers below scattered and he landed in the clearing between them amid a hailstorm of glass shards. Tanith stared. Sanguine lay face down, and didn’t move for the longest time. Then he coughed.

Moments later, the door opened. The sorcerer called Mantis emerged from the hotel, unfolding its body as it straightened in the open air. Tanith knew a little of the general’s history. The same genderless species as Doctor Nye, its arms and legs were just as long but not quite as narrow. It stood at twice the height of any of the sorcerers around it, its skin pale and puckered and clumsily wrapped in something that looked like cellophane. Only its head was hidden, encased as it was in a helmet like an oversized gas mask. It looked like a giant insect as it peered down at Sanguine.

Mantis looked up suddenly, as if it had heard something. Tanith lowered herself further, holding her breath. She risked another peek, only breathing again when she saw the ground cracking and Sanguine sinking down into it. Mantis moved impossibly fast, its long fingers closing round Sanguine’s ankle. It hauled him out of the ground, throwing him behind it. Sanguine smacked into the hotel wall and fell in a crumpled heap.

At Mantis’s instruction, its soldiers tied a rope round Sanguine’s ankles, looped the other end round a branch, and hoisted him up off the ground. He dangled there, unconscious.

Tanith observed the scene, and Donegan asked her, “Would you be opposed to just … running away?”

She wouldn’t be. They didn’t even have to call it running away. They could call it a strategic retreat or a withdrawal or a regrouping. But when Valkyrie and the others heard that Tanith had abandoned Sanguine to the enemy without even trying to get him back, they’d look at her and all their suspicions would be confirmed. In their eyes, she’d be the cold, inhuman psychopath that they couldn’t trust. And a part of Tanith wanted them to trust her. She didn’t know what part, and she didn’t know where it was located, but it was there.

“We’re not leaving him,” she said. “He’s my fiancé, and we’re going to get him back.”

“Any idea how?”

“That depends,” she said. “Did you bring any guns with you?”

Tanith held her hands up high and announced herself loudly, so that no one would try to take her head off in surprise. The sorcerers parted for her and she walked into the clearing, and General Mantis peered down at her.

“Hello,” she said. “I just want to talk.”

Mantis’s small yellow eyes were magnified by the lenses of its gas mask. “Are you turning yourself in?”

“Now why would I do that?”

Its voice was strangely accented, but not as high-pitched as Nye’s. “Because you are wanted for the murder of Grand Mage Quintin Strom. As is Mr Sanguine.”

Tanith smiled. “Billy-Ray just got me into the room. I was the one who cut his head off. But no, I’m not here to turn myself in. I’m here to negotiate for the release of my fiancé, the aforementioned Billy-Ray.”

“And what do you have to negotiate with?”

“Information. I could be a double agent. I know all the Irish Sanctuary’s secrets and plans.”

“Tell us how to dismantle the shield and I will let Sanguine go.”

“Ah, now
that
information, unfortunately, I do not possess. But anything else. Their favourite TV shows, breakfast cereals, anything.”

“Give me the current location of the Dead Men.”

Tanith winced. “I would if I could, but they didn’t tell me where they were going. To be honest, they don’t trust me a huge amount. I can’t say I blame them. I mean, here I am, offering to be a double agent. That’s not exactly trustworthy behaviour, now is it?”

“Do you have any information which could be useful to us?”

“Loads,” Tanith said. “For example, you haven’t even asked why we’re here in the first place.”

“I imagine you were tasked with stopping the hotel from being used as a transportation device.”

“Oh. Yeah, OK.”

“If you have nothing more to share …”

“Now just wait a second. Just let me think here, OK? Here, how about this? I’m not alone. I’m here with the Monster Hunters.”

“Bane and O’Callahan?”

“You know them?”

Mantis nodded. “I’ve read their books.”

“Then how about an exchange? You give me Billy-Ray, I give you Bane and O’Callahan. You can imprison them, kill them, get a photograph with them, whatever you want.”

“You would betray your allies?”

“My loyalties are fluid.”

“That is tempting,” said Mantis. “The Monster Hunters could be a fly in the ointment. Left to their own devices, they could pose a credible threat to our operations.”

“So we have a deal?”

“But you and Mr Sanguine would also pose a threat – and we already
have
both of you. Exchanging you for the Monster Hunters strikes me as somewhat illogical.”

“I haven’t finished negotiating yet.”

“Yes you have.”

“I’ve got some cash in my pocket.”

“Place Miss Low under arrest.”

A Cleaver made a move.

“If you take one step closer,” said Tanith, “Bane and O’Callahan will open fire.”

Mantis’s small eyes blinked behind its mask. “You want me to believe they are close enough to be effective?”

“They don’t have to be close,” Tanith said. “You know their reputations. They’re both top-class snipers. Right now they’re each up a tree, with you and you alone in their scopes.”

Mantis sounded amused. “A moment ago, you were about to betray them.”

“That was a bluff.”

“How do I know this is not also a bluff?”

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

Mantis looked at her for a few seconds, then turned its head. “Mr Habergeon, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Habergeon was a bearded man with a shotgun. He walked to the edge of the clearing, put the shotgun at his feet, and rolled his shoulders. Then he held up his hands. For a moment, nothing happened. A sudden jolt passed through his body and a shield of blue energy sprang up before him, high enough and wide enough to protect the hotel and everyone standing outside.

“Habergeon’s force field will protect us all from pesky bullets,” Mantis said to Tanith, motioning to a pair of Cleavers. They came forward, shackles open, and Tanith drew her sword. All around her, energy crackled and rounds were chambered.

“If your next move is a foolish one, you will die,” said Mantis.

Tanith hesitated, then forced a smile on to her face, and let the Cleavers take her sword.

“An excellent decision,” said Mantis. It turned to a man and woman. “Regis. Ashione. Take twenty sorcerers each and track down the Monster Hunters. Take no chances.”

Regis and Ashione nodded and moved out, and Mantis turned back to Tanith. “This,” it said, “is probably the most ill-advised rescue attempt I have ever witnessed.”

“Funny,” Tanith said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”