Last Stand of Dead Men

Gepard chuckled. “I’m afraid your advanced years and lack of a physical brain have led to some confusion. I have superior numbers on my side. The outcome of this day is not in any doubt – the only question is how much you want it to hurt.”

“Do you know whose cottage this is? Cassandra Pharos’s. She’s already seen this happen. We win. You lose. Walk away.”

Gepard shook his head. “You think I want to be here? You think I want to fight you? What the hell are Erskine and Ghastly thinking? The Supreme Council has a point, for God’s sake. They’re making sense. They don’t want to take over, they just want to help you maintain order.”

“And to show us just how eager they are to provide this help, they’ve sent you over to kill a few of us. No, Gepard, this isn’t about maintaining order. The Supreme Council sees an opportunity to snatch up a Cradle of Magic and they’re seizing it with both hands. You may not want to admit this, but you are an invading force.”

Gepard sighed. “You can’t win. You know that, right? So I’m giving you a chance. Walk away. The report I hand in will say you fought valiantly, but were outnumbered, so you had to retreat. You’re going to lose, but that doesn’t mean we have to fight.”

“Actually,” Skulduggery said, “your report will detail an exciting battle of legendary proportions in which we prevail despite overwhelming odds. It will be quite a stirring read, I assure you. Many will be moved to tears.”

“We fought Mevolent side by side.”

“And now we’ll fight face to face.”

Gepard looked at him for a long moment and, at his nod, the guns were raised.

Skulduggery went one way, Valkyrie went another, diving behind Cassandra’s car as the air was filled with gunfire. She hated bullets. She much preferred it when they fired magical beams of energy. At least they were pretty and colourful. But bullets were too small and moved too fast to see. One of them could smack right into your head and you’d never know anything about it.

One of the men had sneaked round behind the cottage. She saw him waddling behind an old tractor, trying to keep out of sight, and she pushed herself up and ran for him. He peeked out, saw her coming and his eyes widened. He jerked his gun-hand up, but she pushed at the air and he went backwards. She crashed into him as he tumbled, both of them fighting for control of the gun. She held it away from her and he fired – a gunshot so loud it almost deafened her. She hit with her elbow, again and again, and when she hit him hard enough to knock him out she hauled herself off, and realised she was holding his gun.

Skulduggery was walking and shooting, his revolver in a two-handed grip. Bullets whipped by him and energy streams sizzled. He responded to each one in turn, firing methodically. Valkyrie saw a big guy go down, caught dead centre in the chest. A smaller guy opened up with eyeblasts. Skulduggery spun behind an old trailer, reloaded and leaned out, one-handed, squeezed off a shot that flipped the guy over backwards like some kind of acrobat. For Skulduggery, killing was easy.

Valkyrie threw her gun down, clicking her fingers and summoning fireballs into her hands. She hurled them as she sprinted, keeping a man pinned behind a van. She was very calm as she moved to his position. She could feel the blood coursing and the energy flowing – she was practically high on adrenaline – but her mind was a calm place of practical things. One step after another. No panicking. Haste makes waste. Use the fireballs to get in close.

The man stepped out and she whipped the shadows at him, sent them slicing into his arm. He dropped his gun and she clicked her fingers, threw a fireball at his legs, then seized hold of the air as he screeched and yanked him off his feet. He hit the cottage wall face first.

She turned to see Skulduggery dismantle a fat guy with bad hair. He was unconscious even before he started to topple, and Skulduggery was already darting to his next target.

Something thumped Valkyrie in the chest and she stepped back. Another bullet whizzed by her ear. A third struck her shoulder. She didn’t even know who the hell was shooting her. She should have ducked, dodged, done something, but instead she glared, searching for the shooter. She saw him, crouched and firing with a startled look on his face, wondering why she wasn’t going down. He shifted his aim and fired at her head, obviously figuring it out.

Move, you stupid girl, said the voice in the back of her mind.

She moved. He kept firing. Hitting someone in the head was not an easy thing to do. Hitting a moving target in the head was even harder. He emptied his gun and threw it down, fired an energy stream that missed, then ran at her. She ran at him. Dumb thing to do. He was a grown man. They collided and he flung her right over his shoulder. She crunched to the ground, tried to roll to her knees, but he grabbed her head from behind, dragged her backwards. Valkyrie wriggled and kicked, scratched at his hands, tried bending one of his fingers back. He let go and dumped her, dropped to his knee and his fist came down on her cheek. There was that moment of disorientation that comes with being hit hard, and then he was pulling her hair, lifting her painfully so he could slip an arm round her throat, the opening move to a neck-break.

Let me out. I can help. Let me out.

She turned her head away, tucked her chin down, dug her fingers into his arm and brought her feet in. She got purchase then pushed, heard him grunt as they went backwards. He lost his hold and she was free. They got to their knees at the same time and she hit him, caught him in the hinge of his jaw. Lucky shot. He stopped himself from collapsing, but his face went slack. She threw herself back, giving herself room to swing her leg. She had good legs. She had good, long, strong legs. Her boot smashed into him and he went down and didn’t get up.

She looked round. Skulduggery strolled towards her. Everything was suddenly quiet and still and peaceful. Valkyrie’s chest and shoulder ached. The left side of her face had that dull, not unpleasant buzz of oncoming numbness. Her left eye was beginning to close as it started to swell. She could smell cordite. The smell of gunfire and carnage.

Skulduggery’s revolver drifted through the air into his gloved hand, and he put it away.

“We’re at war?” she asked.

“So it would seem,” he said.

“They were trying to kill us. Yesterday they would have been on our side. What do we do now?”

“First, we shackle the ones who are still alive. Then I get my hat back. And then we drive to Roarhaven and hope nobody we know has been killed in the meantime.”

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he meeting was already under way by the time Illori Reticent stepped into the room. Palaver Graves heard the door close and glanced back, a shallow smile on his narrow face. She ignored him, focusing instead on adjusting her robes. The Elders from the other Sanctuaries couldn’t see her yet, but she could see them. They were all here, Elders from the fourteen Sanctuaries who had made up the initial Supreme Council, before it had grown even bigger. The sigils that were glowing on the walls generated what were officially known as Incorporeal Visitations. These days, even though it had nothing to do with light manipulation, everyone used the mortal term holograms. It was just easier.

Illori stepped up beside Grand Mage Cothernus Ode, and her image appeared in twenty-three rooms just like this one around the world.

“They’ve already raised their shield,” the German Grand Mage, Wahrheit, was saying. “From initial scans, it appears to run the entire length of the Irish coastline and forms a dome two kilometres high.”

Renato Bisahalani, the American Grand Mage, nodded. They had expected this. “No matter. We have one hundred and thirty-two operatives in Ireland already, all briefed and ready for the go-ahead. Everything is going according to plan.”

“It’s one thing to make plans,” said Kribu, the head of the Estonian Sanctuary. “Quite another to go to war. The world has changed. We are a global community, and yet we have just ordered friend to attack friend? We have fought by the side of the Irish mages since before the war with Mevolent.”

“And so we know their weaknesses,” said Bisahalani.

“As they know ours.”

“They have one single Sanctuary,” Ode said, and all eyes shifted to the source of his deep, rumbling voice. “We already have another nine Sanctuaries willing to add their might to ours. They’re not going to hold out for long.”

“You seem to be forgetting that Ireland is a Cradle of Magic,” said Kribu.

“Not at all – but I don’t view Cradles with the same superstitious awe as the rest of you. They’re stronger, yes, but not by much. And twenty-two Sanctuaries against one Cradle will crush them no matter how strong they are.”

“And how about twenty-two Sanctuaries against three Cradles?” Kribu asked, her voice calm. “If Australia and Africa get involved—”

“Why would they? This has got nothing to do with them. They’re stable and they always have been.” Ode shook his head. “Ireland is a mess. One catastrophe after another. They will understand that this needs to be done.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” said Kribu. “I’ve heard that the Australians have told their sorcerers that an attack against one Cradle is an attack against them all.”

“Grand Mage Karrik is not so naive,” Bisahalani said. “He’s not going to plunge headlong into a conflict if he can help it. He’s going to observe the situation, make some noise and delay as much as possible. He’ll be praying that we finish the job before he has to make any kind of decision.”

“And Ubuntu? You realise that he and Eachan Meritorious were close friends, yes?”

“And if Meritorious were still alive, that might be a problem for us. Ubuntu is like Karrik – he’ll say things to save face, but eventually, if he has to side with someone, he’ll side with us. You think they don’t agree with our view on this? You think they don’t share our concerns? Of course they do.”

“And what about the legal implications?” asked the Russian Grand Mage, a big man called Dragunov.

“Ireland cannot be allowed to hide behind a rule that was agreed upon to fulfil another purpose,” said Ode. “The rule-makers didn’t foresee a situation like this arising. No one did.”

People started speaking over each other until Illori cut through them. “My friends,” she said, “we can debate these matters for the rest of the night, but nothing will change the fact that we are at war, and we have already acted. We must press forward. If we can make the Irish Sanctuary falter before it’s even taken its first steps, victory will be swift.”

Wahrheit looked at her. “You’re talking about the plan to take out the leaders.”

“Not only the Council,” said Illori, “but other sorcerers of note also. If Ravel and his Elders are dead, the Irish will look to Skulduggery Pleasant for leadership, or Dexter Vex, or any one of the Dead Men. They will look to their heroes – so it is the heroes who must fall first.”

“We’ve already given Gepard the green light to kill Pleasant and Cain,” said Zafira Kerias. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

“Then we had better assume he failed,” said Illori. “Annoying, but not unexpected. I also propose the elimination of China Sorrows. By all accounts, her influence has been weakened of late, but she is still too unpredictable to have running loose.”