Last Stand of Dead Men

“Already have,” Skulduggery said, and held up a small, felt-covered box. He opened it and withdrew a purple crystal the size of a peanut.

“Hmph.”

He tilted his head. “Hmph?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “It’s not very impressive, is it? I was expecting … I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was expecting something less … meh.”

“I have never admired your professionalism more than right at this moment. Anyway, this is the amethyst crystal China told you about – though, to be honest, I didn’t know it could be used to affect the memory in such a selective way. It’s usually wielded with such clumsiness, used to wipe a mind clear. Whoever our mystery man is, he knows what he’s doing.”

“If they’re so powerful,” Valkyrie said, “it couldn’t be easy getting your hands on one.”

“It’s not – certainly not one as loaded with power as this is. A lot of them have been destroyed. Most of the others have been locked away in vaults and Repositories around the world.”

“So our mystery man has a crystal of his very own,” said Valkyrie.

Skulduggery nodded slowly. “Either that or he uses this one.”

She looked at him. “Are you being serious?”

“They’re really not easy to get hold of.”

“So he borrows this one whenever he needs it, then puts it back when he’s done? But then … I mean, if that’s true, then we’ve probably passed him in the corridor a hundred times.”

“Maybe.”

“So we’re pretty sure now that not only is he a Roarhaven mage, he’s also a Sanctuary mage. That means he’s one of us.”

He looked at her. “Yes.”

“Well … that’s just creepy. Can we take fingerprints or something?”

“Crystals of this nature don’t hold any oily residue,” Skulduggery said, “and the box is covered in felt. We’ll have someone go over the CCTV footage for this room, but I doubt we’ll find anything useful. The one lead we have, though, that we didn’t have before, is the description of the old man with the long grey beard. Take that description, combine it with Roarhaven, and who springs to mind?”

“The Torment.”

“That being the case, what do you think our next move should be?”

Valkyrie smiled. “Scapegrace.”

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hen they walked into the pub, it was empty except for Thrasher behind the bar and Scapegrace sweeping up. Scapegrace brightened when he saw them. When she saw them. He saw them. God, this was confusing.

Scapegrace threw the sweeping brush away and came forward, clasped Skulduggery’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “My friend,” he said. “It is good to see you again.”

“Uh,” Skulduggery said. “Right.”

“And Valkyrie,” Scapegrace said, turning to her, smiling broadly. “How goes the fight?”

She had to look past the impressive figure, the pretty face, the dazzling smile, and remember the brain that lurked within that head. “What fight would that be?”

“The fight against evil,” said Scapegrace. “How goes it? Does it go well?”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said, a little doubtfully.

“I heard there was an explosion in the Sanctuary. Do you have any leads?”

She frowned. “Yeah.”

“Any suspects?”

“The people who set the bomb were arrested at the scene.”

Scapegrace nodded thoughtfully. “I see, I see. Convenient. A little too convenient, wouldn’t you say? Almost as if they wanted to be caught.”

“I don’t think so …”

“Well, maybe not, I know nothing about it. But if you need our help, just give us the sign. We’ll need to work out a sign. Then you can give it, and we’ll come and help. Some kind of signal, or alarm, or, I don’t know, maybe I could give you my phone number, or you could pop by, I suppose. We’re only up the road from you, so that’d probably be handiest.”

“You feeling OK?”

Scapegrace laughed, and stepped back. “Me? I’m fine. Better than Thrasher, that’s for sure.”

Thrasher walked up, a sheepish look on his handsome face. “Hi, Valkyrie. Hi, Skulduggery.”

“You’re not feeling well?” Skulduggery asked.

Before Thrasher could answer, Scapegrace did it for him. “He’s constipated.”

“Master!” Thrasher said, horrified.

“Oh, shut up. We’re all friends here. We can talk about these things. It’s just like Doctor Nye told us. We each got a blast of magic to reanimate these bodies, and that magic has been keeping us going for the past few months. But now our own biological processes are starting to reawaken and take over.”

“I got hungry for the first time on Tuesday,” Thrasher said, somewhat guiltily. “So I ate something.”

Scapegrace grinned happily. “But while his stomach has reactivated, his bowels are still asleep.”

“It’s very uncomfortable,” Thrasher confessed.

“As zombies, we didn’t feel anything,” Scapegrace said, “but now that we’re human again, something like constipation is a real problem. For some of us.”

Thrasher blushed and Scapegrace’s grin widened. Valkyrie felt the need to step in.

“How about you?” she asked. “Have all of your biological processes reawakened yet?”

Scapegrace’s grin faded immediately. “Not yet,” he said. “I can feel my magic beginning to reawaken, but the biological processes are … taking their time. But it … it should be fine. I have a book about it. About what to expect. Actually, now that you’re here, I was wondering … If I have any questions about, you know, certain aspects of womanhood, could I ask you?”

“No,” she said.