The Maleficent Seven (From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant) (3 page)

he key to any successful heist was the team assembled to do the job. That was the first law of thievery. The second law, of course, was that thieves, by their very nature, were an untrustworthy lot – and if team members couldn’t trust each other, then what was the point of being a team?

Tanith felt she had the answer. Sanguine wasn’t so sure.

“This has been tried,” he said. He was sitting at the small table in the small kitchen. “Me and my daddy tried it, got together a group of like-minded individuals and did our level best to kill everyone, yourself included. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be alive and kicking despite our best efforts.”

Tanith stood by the window, mug of coffee in her hand. The safe house was drab and barely furnished, but at least they weren’t going to be surprised by an army of Cleavers any time soon. “Your little Revengers’ Club had a very basic flaw, though,” she told him. “You all wanted the same thing.”

“How was that a flaw? It brought everyone together, united for a common goal.”

“And how long did they
stay
together? By the end of it, everyone was betraying everyone else, because you all wanted to be the one to kill Valkyrie or Skulduggery or Thurid Guild... Your little club unravelled, Billy-Ray. Having a common goal is not always a good thing.”

“And you have the answer, I take it?”

She turned to him, smiling. He had his sunglasses off, and she looked into the dark holes where his eyes should have been. “Of course I do. The trick is to have everyone wanting something different – so that they’re all taking part for their own unique reasons.”

“Which means that we need to have something that each one of them wants.”

“And what do you think I’ve been doing these past few weeks? I’ve been collecting our incentives. Really, Billy-Ray, you’re just going to have to accept that I do know exactly what I’m doing.”

He laughed. “Oh I believe you, darlin’. You’ve been proving yourself to be quite the cunning little minx lately.” He shrugged. “I’m behind you all the way, and you know it. So Springheeled Jack is the first team member to be recruited, is he?”

“No, actually. We’re going to talk to an old friend of his first. Old friend of yours, too.”

Sanguine’s grin soured. “Aw, hell. Not him. You know he creeps me out.”

“Dusk is a harmless little puppy once you get to know him.”

“Dusk is a vampire. There ain’t nothing harmless, little or puppyish about him.”

Now it was Tanith’s turn to shrug. “Then he’ll be our rabid, bloodthirsty attack dog instead. Either way, he’s getting a cuddle. Does someone else want a cuddle? Someone who is in this room with me right now?”

“I hope you don’t think you can sway me from every argument with the promise of a cuddle.”

Tanith put on a sad face, and turned back to the window. “Shame,” she said.

A moment later she felt Sanguine’s arms wrap round her. “Just this once,” he said, and she laughed.

The vampires stood looking at the bones of the dinosaur and Dusk wondered what it would have been like to kill such a magnificent beast. Certainly it would have been more of a challenge than that posed by the mortals. He watched them hurry from exhibit to exhibit, either chasing after their squealing young or dragging them along behind, every sound they made amplified by the museum’s cavernous halls.

“The boy?” asked Isara.

“Dead,” said Dusk. “A year ago.”

Isara nodded. Apart from that, she didn’t move. No words slipped by her lips. No emotions slipped on to her face. Even her eyes were calm. But Dusk knew that inside her, twisting within her, were feelings alien to him. Love and loss and sorrow. The only feeling he could recognise was anger. And she had that, too.

“Did you kill him?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

The ghost of a smile. “Of course not,” she echoed. “You would not break the code, not even to punish one who had. How, then, did he die?”

“He had developed another unhealthy attachment to a girl,” said Dusk, “but this one proved too much for him. She drowned him in salt water.”

“Her name?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. The boy is dead, that’s all I really care about. In its way, justice has been served. You must feel some satisfaction also.”

He looked at her. “Must I?”

“Hrishi was your only friend in the world,” said Isara, “and when you involved him in business that was not his own, the boy broke the code and took his head. Surely you feel some sense of responsibility for what happened?”

“No,” said Dusk. “Hrishi knew the boy was young and impetuous and violent, and he still let his guard down. Hrishi paid for his foolishness.”

“Be careful how you speak about him,” Isara said, and looked at Dusk with fire and ice in her eyes. “It’s your fault he died. You should have killed the boy when you found him.”

“The code—”

“No one would have
known
. The boy was a danger to us all. He stalked and he tortured and he murdered every woman he became enamoured with. You should have killed him the instant you realised what he was. Hrishi’s blood is on your hands.”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you even care?”

Dusk didn’t see the point of stirring Isara’s anger any further, so he stayed quiet. After a moment she turned, walked away, left him alone.

He looked at the dinosaur bones for a while longer, and then he too left the museum. The sun was warm on his skin as he walked. He got back to the house and found Tanith Low sitting on the cage in the living room, Billy-Ray Sanguine standing beside her.

“Nice place,” Tanith said. “I have to admit, I didn’t see you as the suburbanite type. I figured you’d be at home in a nice crypt somewhere, surrounded by candles and tapestries. The cage is a nice touch, though. Homey.”

He’d heard what had happened, of course. He’d heard that a Remnant had taken up permanent residence inside Tanith’s mind and body. But that still didn’t mean he liked her.

“We’re here to make you a proposition,” said Sanguine.

“I’m not interested.”

“We’re putting a team together,” said Tanith.

“It’s been tried. It didn’t work.”

“We need your help.”

“You can kill people without me.”

“This isn’t about killing anyone,” Tanith said. “Quite the opposite, in fact. We want to save someone. We want to save Darquesse. A group of Elementals and Adepts has formed, a small team who are working on a way to stop her when she appears. Our aim is to stop
them
from stopping
her
.”

“Why would I want to stop that? When she comes, she’ll destroy the world.”

“Not all of it,” said Tanith. “Just the civilised part. And we’re going to help her. Won’t that be wonderful? She’ll kill sorcerers and mortals and burn cities to cinders and sink entire continents into the sea, and you’ll be free to hunt and kill the survivors. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“I don’t care about any of this.”

“We know you don’t,” Sanguine said, and nodded. “We know you’re looking out for number one. And hey, buddy, I get that. I do. But we need you on our side. It’s gonna be you, us, a few others... and Jack.”

“Then I cannot be on your team. The last time I saw Springheeled Jack I was abandoning him to the Sanctuary authorities in Ireland.”

“So you betrayed him,” Tanith said. “So what? A little betrayal never hurt anyone. Listen, I know I can convince Jack to play nice. I have something he wants, after all. Just like I have something you want.”

“And what is that?”

“Dusk, I look at you, and I see a soul without purpose. I mean, here you are, living in a very nice house with a time-locked cage where the couch should be. I don’t know how you came to own this place – I’m sure the story is suitably entertaining – but you don’t belong here. You’ve lost your focus.”

“You think you can provide that focus?” Dusk asked. “I don’t care about Darquesse. I don’t care about anything.”

“But that’s a little bit of a lie, isn’t it? See, Dusk, you do care about something. You care about one thing. You’ve always cared about this one thing, because you’re a vampire – and this one thing plagues all vampires who were not turned willingly.”

Dusk frowned.

“I know who turned you, Dusk.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. I know your story. Out walking one night, you were attacked; a nearby farmer came to your aid − he frightened off the beast... You recovered at his cottage, under the watchful eye of the farmer and his wife. And on the third night, you tore off your skin and devoured them. By then, of course, the one who had turned you was long gone.”

“And how do
you
know who it was?”

“An Elemental was in the area around the time all of this was happening. He reported back to the Sanctuary like a good little operative, and in his report he mentioned the name of a vampire he had met. I know the name, Dusk. And I’ll tell you – providing you help us.”

“Tell me now.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“I try not to lie to vampires.”

“Tell me who it was.”

Tanith hopped down off the cage. “No. Here’s the deal. You help us. You get along with everyone else in the team, even Jack, and when it’s over, I give you the name, and you go off and do whatever you want to do. Vampires hold grudges, don’t they? I’d imagine you’ve been holding this grudge for a good long time.”

“This might be it,” said Sanguine. “This might be the one thing to make you break your precious little vampire code – never kill another one of your kind. What do you think, Dusk? Might this be what tips you over the edge?”

Dusk said nothing.

ooftops and chimneys, that’s all there was to see from up here. The whole thing reminded Sanguine of that scene from
Mary Poppins
where Dick Van Dyke starts dancing about with all those chimney sweeps high over London town. He wondered if Springheeled Jack ever took the time to dance about with chimney sweeps, singing as they went. Probably not, if he were being honest. Still, it was something to wonder as he waited there, whistling ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ and keeping watch for Cleavers.

Not even twenty minutes later, a long-fingered hand scuttled over the ledge like an unsettlingly ugly spider, followed by an arm and then a battered top hat with a lined, drawn, misshapen face beneath. Jack stayed down there, chin level with the roof, eyes on Sanguine.

“No one else here,” Sanguine told him.

Jack’s voice was high and strained. “’Cept for Cleavers,” he said. “Cleavers’re everywhere.”

“Not here. Not right now. I’ve been here a whole half-hour and I haven’t seen a single one.”

“They’re about.”

“That I know. This whole area’s one big search zone for them. But if you’ve got the skills, sneaking in and out isn’t much of a problem. Come on up. We have time for a chat, don’t we?”

Jack stayed put for a moment, and then with a grace so effortless it would have widened Sanguine’s eyes had he not scooped them out long ago, he pulled himself up and stood there on the edge. His feet were bare, his clothes – top hat and tails – worn and musty.

“How’d you know where to find me?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t,” said Sanguine. “I reckoned you’d be keeping an eye out, though. Figured you’d find me if I waited long enough.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“That so? You’re lookin’ pretty calm for someone who should be worried.”

“And why should I be worried? We’re two old friends, standing on a rooftop, chatting.”

“Last time I chatted to you, you had all these plans to set off the Desolation Engine, remember that? And then that sneaky vampire git turned and ran, left me to get pummelled and thrown in a cell.”

Sanguine shrugged. “And how is that my fault? You know full well never to give a vampire good reason for revenge, and yet you still stopped him from killing Valkyrie Cain on that beach, four years ago.”

“There were, what do you call them? Extenuatin’ circumstances. You’d all lied to me.”

“You can’t take any of this personally, Jack.”

“I can, and I do. It was because of Dusk, and because of you and your dear old dad, that I’ve been in a gaol cell for the last two years. I’d still be there right now if I hadn’t escaped.”

“Nonsense. We’d have come to get you out.”

A sneer crossed Jack’s face. “Not bloody likely.”

“I’m serious. We were all set to mount a daring rescue attempt when we heard you’d managed it all on your own.”

“And why would you want to get me out? Need my help, do you? Another dangerous little mission?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Yeah, knew it. Get lost.”

“Jack...”

“Not interested.” Jack turned, knees bending, ready to leap away.

Sanguine stepped forward. “Where are you going? Where is there to go? They’ve got the area sealed off, Jack, and they’re closing in. They’re going to get you, drag you back and throw you in a cell so deep you’ll never even
breathe
fresh air ever again.”

“And let me guess,” said Jack, turning his head slightly, “the alternative to all that is hookin’ up with you and your dad and the vampire again, is it?”

“Not my dad. They have him locked away and no one knows where. As for Dusk, though, yeah, he’s onboard.”

“Forget it.”

“Ask me who’s leading this little mission.”

“No.”

“Tanith Low.”

Jack turned fully now. “You what?”

“You’ve been out of the loop, Jack, so you won’t have heard. She’s got a Remnant inside her now. It’s changed her outlook on a whole load of things. She’s one of us.”

“You bein’ serious?”

“Would I joke about a woman who wears leather that tight?”

“Tanith Low’s possessed by a shadowy little Remnant and has gone all evil on us, has she?” Jack said, then considered it. “And what, exactly, would this mission entail?”

“It would entail, exactly, the retrieval of four God-Killer level weapons from around the world. We have all the locations – we just lack the manpower.”

“And what’ll you be usin’ these weapons for, may I ask?”

“Well, that’s a little bit of a secret at this juncture. If you sign on, though, everything will be explained.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “And the risk?”

“Apart from the resistance we’ll face in the actual retrieval of the weapons from their current owners, there’s also a little group of sorcerers who are going after the same things. Our aim is to get to the weapons first, swap them with some clever forgeries and slip out before anyone realises something is wrong.”

“Who’s in this little group of sorcerers?”

“Dexter Vex and a few others. Seven in all. Tanith’s recruiting her own team to match it. You’re our number-one pick.”

“I won’t be on any team with Dusk. If we leave him out, I’m in.”

“That’s great news. Tanith will be delighted. One slight problem. Dusk is already in.”

“You said I was your number-one pick.”

“And you are. In our hearts. Alphabetically, though, Dusk comes before you.”

“And what do I get out of all this?”

“For a start, we burrow away from here and get you out of London and away from the search teams. If they do find you, you’ll have our little group fighting by your side. But more than that – Tanith’s been doing some research.”

“Oh, yeah? About what?”

“About you, and what you are, and where you come from. If you help us find these weapons, she’ll tell you everything you’ve always wanted to know.”

“You’re lyin’. She knows nothin’ about any of that. No one does.”

“Jack, you’ve been a killer all your life pretty much, right? You’ve been a villain. She’s been a hero. She’s had access to things you can only dream about.”

“She knows what I am?”

“Yes, she does. Are you in?”

“Tex, if you’re lying to me...”

“Jack, she needs her team. She’s done her research. When this is over, you’ll have your reward. So what do you say? Are you in?”

Jack raised a hand to his mouth, and his sharp little teeth worried the skin of his knuckle. It didn’t, in fairness, take him all that long to think it over. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m in.”

“Wonderful news,” Sanguine said, and smiled.

“So where is she? I can’t wait to see the all-new, all-evil Tanith Low.”

“You’ll be seeing her soon enough, don’t you worry. Right now she’s recruiting the third member of our little group, someone who comes before both you and Dusk alphabetically, but a distant third in our hearts.”

“Yeah?” Jack said. “And who might that be?”

Black Annis had had an ignominious end. There weren’t many who could survive an encounter with her, not once she was mad and her skin was turning blue and her teeth were growing long and jagged. Her fingernails had silenced many a last scream and her jaws had clamped round many a throat. She was a people-eater, and had never seen anything wrong with that, and for most of her life she’d lived in one ditch or other, or a cave if she was lucky, its ground littered with the bones of her victims. Apart from one particular idiot who used to scurry around after her, no one who entered her lair had ever emerged.

Until the blonde. Until the blonde in the brown leather. And before Annis had known what the hell was happening, she was hog-tied and helpless and the blonde in the brown leather was smiling down at her.

Just like she was now.

Annis sat up in her narrow bed, in her cell that was far too cramped and far too bright. There was a toilet against one wall and a sink against another. She’d never needed a toilet or a sink when she was living in her ditch. That, she supposed, was the sole advantage of living in a ditch.

“Hi,” said the blonde. She stood there in the open doorway, smiling, with that sword strapped to her back and all that brown leather barely keeping her in.

“You’re looking well,” said the blonde. Tanith Low, her name was. “Better than the last time I saw you, anyway. At least you’re not wearing a sack.”

Annis looked at her, but didn’t move to get off the bed. “They starve me here.”

“No, they don’t. They feed you.”

“I eat
people
. They don’t give me people to eat. They give me animals. That’s barbaric. At least people have a fighting chance to get away. The animals they give me are already dead. It’s sickening, is what it is.”

“Annis, you’re a unique individual, which is why I’m here.”

“I should rip your throat out.”

“And if you could grow those sharp nails of yours, I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem for you. But you can’t. You’re stuck here in this little cell, your powers bound and your life drifting away from you. And let’s face it, Annis, you’re not getting any younger.”

“Is that why you’re here? To gloat?”

“Not at all. You see, the last time we met, I was the old me. But now I’m the new me, and the new me sees things differently from the old me. The new me would never have arrested you and dragged you from that ditch. And what a splendid ditch it was. Tell me something – did you like living in ditches?”

Annis glowered.

“I’m not trying to poke fun, honest I’m not. I don’t think you did like living in ditches. I think it’s just something you had to do because of your... condition.” Tanith smiled gently. “What if I told you that I knew of a cure?”

Annis frowned. “Cure for what?”

“For what ails you. For your curse.”

“A cure for my curse? There is no cure for my curse. I don’t have a curse. I was born this way. This is natural.”

“Annis, you don’t know what you are, do you? You don’t know why your skin turns blue or why your nails grow long and you don’t know why you’d turn to stone if sunlight hit you.”

“Yeah?” Annis said with a sniff. “And I suppose you do?”

“Actually, yes,” Tanith said, “I do.”

“You’re lying.”

“I have access to certain files and documents, and one of these files is about you. You were cursed, Annis. It’s why you’re the way you are. And there is a cure. But if you want it, you have to do something for me first.”

“Like what?”

“I’m putting together a group of special individuals with unique talents, and I want you to be part of it.”

“You want me to be in your gang? I eat people.”

“The new me doesn’t care,” Tanith said. “Eat whomever you want. Apart from the other members of the team, obviously. That would be inconvenient. Just do what I say, and when our job is done, you’ll be set free and you’ll get the cure. The rest of your life is yours to live, however you want to live it. May I suggest not living it in a ditch?”

Annis stood. She wasn’t a tall woman, so still had to look up. “You say you’ve changed. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Do you know what a Remnant is, Annis? I’ve got one of them inside me, permanently bonded to my soul. I’m a changed woman.”

“So you’d be breaking me out of here, is that it?”

“That’s it exactly. Providing you agree to my conditions.”

Annis looked at her for a long while. “If you bust me out of here, you have a deal.”

“Oh, good,” Tanith said, grinning. “Come on.”

She turned and walked out, and Annis hesitated. If this was some sort of trap, she couldn’t see the point of it. So she followed.

“We’re lucky,” Tanith was saying as she walked. “They didn’t put you in a top-security gaol. Don’t get me wrong, Annis, you’re a dangerous lady, you truly are. But prisons like these are designed to keep in prisoners who aren’t really smart enough to try to escape.”

Annis was barely listening. Her body tingled as her magic returned. It was such a wonderful feeling it almost took the breath from her. She could grow her fingernails and swipe that pretty blonde head from those pretty broad shoulders if she so wanted. But then what? She didn’t know where the hell she was. She didn’t know how the hell she’d get out.

They passed a man on the ground with his throat torn open. Another up ahead, and beside him, a woman. Annis’s stomach rumbled.