The Maleficent Seven (From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant) (5 page)

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.”

“So we nick each one,” said Jack, “and replace it with a forgery that Sabine here has already charged up with magic? How long will they stay charged?”

“The longest I can charge something for is a little under four days – about ninety hours,” said Sabine.

“Ninety hours,” Tanith repeated. “That gives us plenty of time to operate before anyone realises something’s not right. No one will even know the real weapons have gone missing until we’ve collected all four. It is, if I do say so, a flawless plan where absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong, ever.”

“The other three weapons,” said Dusk. “Where are they?”

“The bow is in Chicago,” Tanith said, “in the hands of mortal gangsters. Should be pretty straightforward, that one. The spear is in Poland, currently in the possession of a mad old hermit living in a cave. And the sword is here in London, and that’s the one we’ll be leaving till last.”

“Whereabouts in London?” Jack asked.

Tanith hesitated for only an eyeblink. “Deep down in the dank recesses of the heavily fortified English Sanctuary. Should be a
doddle
. Now then, boys and girls, I hope your bags are packed, because we’re off to Germany. Let’s get this party started!”

Tanith jumped up and pumped her fist in the air when she said that. Everyone else just looked at her. But she left the room with an excited grin on her face like she hadn’t even noticed.

Dear God
, thought Sabine.
She’s nuts.

aracen was late – as usual. This didn’t surprise Dexter Vex. Back when they had been in the Dead Men together, the only times when Saracen Rue
wasn’t
late was when you needed him to step in and save your life. Not a bad habit to have, all things considered, but every now and then Vex just wished his friend would be a little more organised in the day-to-day running of things.

Everyone else was here, sharing space in the Gulfstream V that was sitting on the airfield, waiting for its one remaining passenger to finally turn up. Frightening Jones sat across from Aurora Jane. Born and raised in Africa, his deep baritone contrasted with Aurora’s Californian lilt as they swapped stories about mutual acquaintances and laughed quietly. Where Frightening was immense and powerful, Aurora was small and fragile, and seemed like a stiff breeze could break her in half. Looks were, of course, deceiving. Vex had seen this little brunette with the heart-shaped face in battle. It was why he’d recruited her, after all.

Why Vex had recruited Wilhelm Scream, however, very much remained a mystery, even to himself. He watched as the young man sat on his own, nervously sipping from a bottle of flavoured water, spilling some on to his shirt and looking dismayed. Tall and lanky and pale with black hair that sat on his head like a dead crow, Wilhelm was not an immediately impressive person. But, unlike some other people who were not immediately impressive when you first met them, Wilhelm didn’t get any more impressive the more you got to know him. In fact, if it were possible, he got a little
less
impressive as time wore on. Which was actually impressive in itself.

Still, he had his uses. Aside from having a passing knowledge of the language of magic, Wilhelm still had a lot of contacts within the German Sanctuary, of which he used to be a junior Administrator before he was sacked for not being very good at it. So far he had successfully steered them clear of the authorities. Vex’s little group may have been made up of sorcerers from around the world, but this was an entirely unofficial mission they were embarking upon.

Gracious O’Callahan looked back from the cockpit. Not the tallest gentleman Vex had ever known, Gracious made up for his lack of height with cool hair and a relentlessly sunny outlook on things.

“Where’s this eejit got to?” he asked. “If we don’t take off soon, someone will realise we’ve stolen their jet.”

Aurora broke off her conversation with Frightening, and frowned. “This is stolen? We’re in a stolen jet?”

“Not stolen,” said Donegan Bane from the co-pilot’s seat.

“Almost stolen,” Gracious corrected.

“Semi-stolen,” said Donegan.

“Quasi-stolen,” said Gracious.

Aurora’s frown did not turn upside down. “So is it stolen or not?”

Donegan and Gracious hesitated.

“Yes,” they both said together.

Aurora sagged. “Why is it,” she asked, “that every time I’m around you two we end up stealing something big?”

“We always return it,” Donegan said, a little defensively. “Maybe not always in one piece, or necessarily to the right person, but return it we do, and so it is not stealing, it is merely borrowing.”

Gracious looked at him. “It’s a little bit stealing.”

“Anyone who leaves a private jet just lying around
deserves
to have it stolen.”

“It wasn’t lying around,” said Gracious. “It was locked up tight. It took us an hour to dismantle the security system and get inside.”

Donegan looked at him. “You’re not helping.”

Donegan Bane and Gracious O’Callahan – the Monster Hunters. Adventurers, inventors, authors of
Monster Hunting for Beginners
and its sequels,
Monster Hunting for Beginners is Probably Inadvisable
and
Seriously, Dude, Stop Monster Hunting
. Vex had first met the short, powerfully built Irishman and the tall, skinny Englishman when he was tracking a vampire through Hong Kong at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They’d saved his life, he’d saved theirs and the vampire was humanely put down by driving a train over its head. They’d all been firm friends ever since. Well, except for the vampire.

Gracious looked out on to the tarmac. “Here he comes,” he said. “Sauntering, as usual.”

Vex turned, watched his friend climb the steps into the plane. Saracen Rue had put on a little weight since the last time he’d seen him, but otherwise he looked fit and healthy. He wasn’t as tall as Vex, but he had a glint in his eyes and a smile that seemingly no woman could resist.

Vex broke into a smile of his own as they clasped hands and bumped shoulders. “You’re late.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” said Saracen, dumping his bag on one of the tables. “I had a thing with a thing. It got complicated. But it’s over now and here I am, and who do we have here? Bane and O’Callahan, you roguish devils, you. Nervous-looking chap I’ve never seen before, how are you doing? Frightening, don’t get up, my ego couldn’t take it. And Aurora. My one true soul mate. My darling. Remind me, have you and I ever fallen in love?”

Aurora sighed. “No, Saracen, we haven’t.”

“Do you want to change that?”

“What, now?”

“It’s a long plane ride.”

“You don’t even know where we’re going.”

“That’s a good point,” said Saracen. “Dexter, where are we going? What’s the plan? Why am I here?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as we’re airborne,” said Vex, settling into his seat and buckling up. “Captain O’Callahan?”

Gracious nodded, started flicking some switches. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said over the speakers, “welcome aboard this recently liberated Gulfstream V. If I could have your attention for just a few moments, I’d like to go over the safety features of this aircraft. It has an engine, to make us go, and wings, to keep us in the air. There are seatbelts, which won’t do you an awful lot of good if we fly into the side of a mountain.”

The jet began its taxiing to the runway with a sudden lurch, and Gracious chuckled.

“Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve actually never flown one of these before, but I’m sure it’s just like falling off a bike.”

Donegan’s voice came over the speakers now. “I think you mean riding a bike.”

“What did I say?”

“Falling off a bike.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You want me to tell you the difference between riding a bike and falling off one?”

“I just meant that once you’ve flown one plane you can pretty much fly them all. Oh look. Wonder what this button does?”

“Don’t touch it.”

“What does it do?”

“I don’t know, but don’t touch it.”

“It must do something, though.”

“Of course it does something. It wouldn’t be there if it didn’t do something. But since we don’t know what it does, don’t touch it.”

Vex raised an eyebrow at Saracen as they picked up speed. Saracen laughed, opened his mouth to talk...

“I’m going to press it,” said Gracious over the speakers.

“Do not do that,” said Donegan.

“It might be important. It might be the fly button.”

“There is no fly button.”

“On these new jets, how do you know? It might be a button that stops us from blowing up, or crashing.”

“Don’t say crash,” said Donegan, “not when we have passengers.”

“They can’t hear me,” said Gracious. “They can only hear me if I keep this mic button here pressed. I could be calling them all the names under the sun and they wouldn’t have any idea.”

“Still,” said Donegan.

Outside, the runway blurred past the windows and Vex’s head was pressed back into his seat.

“Hey,” said Gracious over the tannoy, “you think Aurora has a boyfriend?”

“Probably,” said Donegan.

“I don’t think she does,” said Gracious. “I think she’d have mentioned it. You think she’d go out with me?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“You’re short.”

“I’m the same height as she is.”

“Yeah, but you look like a hobbit.”

“She might like that.”

“She might like hairy feet?”

“My feet aren’t hairy. They’re masculine. So you think she’d go out with me?”

“Still no.”

The jet lifted off the ground, but over the roar of the engines Gracious kept talking. “Do you think she’d go out with Saracen?”

“Probably.”

“Yeah.” The plane climbed higher. “I would.”

“You’d go out with Saracen?”

“If I was going to date a guy, yeah. Wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t know. I don’t think he’d be my type. You know who I would date? Frightening.”

“Why Frightening?”

“I just think he’d be gentle, you know?”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t date Dexter?”

“I’d be afraid I might cut myself on his abs,” Donegan said, and they laughed until Gracious said, “Oh, wait,
this
is the mic button,” and then the speakers cut off.

Once the plane had levelled off, Vex stood up. “OK then,” he said, “as you may have guessed, the time has finally come to stop talking about collecting the four God-Killers, and just go do it. I appreciate that it’s pretty short notice, but the opportunity has arisen and we might not get a better one.”

“What has changed?” Frightening asked.

“Up until this point we’ve been waiting for the exact location of the dagger,” said Vex. “We knew Johann Starke had it in his possession, but didn’t know exactly where. Now we do. It’s on display at his house, along with a collection of other undoubtedly priceless trinkets. We have to get to it before he hides it away again. Once we have it, we go after the others.”

“It won’t be easy,” said Aurora.

“Which is why I have you people with me – people I would trust with my life. Apart from you, Wilhelm. No offence.”

Wilhelm shook his head quickly. “No, of course not. I’m just honoured to be part of the team, and I know that if you give me a chance I will prove myself worthy of—”

“Where’s the psychic?” Aurora interrupted. “Or, oh, sorry, the
clairvoyant
? Last time we were all together the air was filled with his ridiculous ramblings and pretentious claptrap. What was that he said?
I feel a great darkness, like unto a cloud upon a starless night.
Swear to God I wanted to hit him so hard.”

“Sadly,” Vex said, “Jerry Ordain is no longer with us. He died last year.”

“Oh,” said Aurora. “Oh, now I actually feel mean. Natural causes?”

“Decapitation.”

“So... not
too
natural, then.”

“Who killed him?” asked Saracen.

“I don’t know,” said Vex. “I looked into it with the time I had, but couldn’t find any leads.”

Aurora raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no offence or anything, Dexter, but what do
you
know about solving a murder?”

“Quite a lot,” Vex said. “Skulduggery Pleasant didn’t wait for the war to be over to suddenly
decide
to become a detective, you know. He’d always been one, even when he was a soldier. And Saracen and I were there. We saw him in action. Solving a mystery is fairly straightforward... mostly. You look for clues. Clues come in many forms.”

“Sometimes it’s a footprint,” said Saracen, “sometimes it’s a piece of dirt. Other times it’s a word, or a name, or a reference. Sometimes the reference is obvious, sometimes it’s hidden.”

Vex nodded. “So you take the word or the name or the reference, and if you find more than one, then you put them together, sort them into groups and you find the thing they share. Or you take the piece of dirt, and find where it came from. Or you take the footprint, and find the foot that made it.”

“And that’s how you solve a mystery, is it?” Aurora asked, unimpressed. “Dirt, footprints and references? That’s the grand total of what you’ve learned from Skulduggery?”

“Yes,” said Vex. “And I applied it all to Jerry Ordain’s murder, and found nothing overly suspicious.”

“Apart from the fact that he’d had his head chopped off.”

“You know what I mean. I couldn’t see how his death was linked to the four weapons. The place was ransacked. The TV was stolen. Judging by the state of the place, it was a gang of thugs. The only neat thing about it was Jerry’s head. It was a blade that did it, a sword of some kind.”

All eyes flickered to Frightening.