Midnight

  “Does no one speak Latin any more?”

  Temper scooped up one of the fallen hatchets as the Axe-Man stepped further into the shack.

  Little Cadaverous whimpered in the corner.

  Skulduggery adjusted his cuffs, and took a single step towards the Axe-Man. He said something Temper didn’t understand. He waved his hands. The tone of his voice indicated that he was making a joke. The Axe-Man, however, appeared immune to Skulduggery’s charms, and Skulduggery had to dodge back to avoid the blade that cut deep into the floorboards.

  “Get him!” Temper shouted, leaping forward. “While his axe is—”

  The Axe-Man pulled his axe out easily.

  “Never mind,” Temper said, leaping away again.

  The Axe-Man turned his sack-covered head in his direction.

  “That,” Temper said to him, “is a really nice sack. Skulduggery?”

  “Lovely sack.”

  “Abyssinia?”

  “It’s a sack,” she said. “I’m not going to say it’s anything special when it’s just a sack.”

  The Axe-Man turned to her.

  She folded her arms. “Don’t act offended. You wear a bag on your head.”

  The Axe-Man swung, impossibly fast, and Abyssinia barely ducked in time. Skulduggery snapped his palm against the air and the air rippled and the Axe-Man stumbled backwards. But then he charged, knocking Skulduggery off his feet. Abyssinia crashed into him, tried to suck out his life force, but the Axe-Man’s massive arm swept her into the wall like a tidal wave. She fell to her knees, gasping.

  Temper turned, grabbed the little boy, and ran for the door.

  The Axe-Man immediately lost interest in Skulduggery and Abyssinia, and started thundering after them.

  Temper ran round the corner of the shack, plunging into the trees before the Axe-Man caught sight of him again. The kid clung to him, terrified.

  Temper moved quickly, staying low and keeping to the treeline. He waited for the sounds of the Axe-Man crashing through branches before he crept back out of the trees and raced over to the second shack. The door was open and he ran through, put the boy down, put his finger to his lips.

  The kid, Cadaverous Gant as a child, nodded. He had big eyes.

  They were in a small barn. There was a table laden with rough farming tools and a few cloth sacks in the corner. There were more tools leaning up against the wall, but nowhere to hide if the Axe-Man came looking. Temper turned back to the door to peek out, saw the Axe-Man coming straight for them.

  Cursing, he jumped back, reached for the kid and couldn’t find him. The little creep was digging his way under a gap in the far wall.

  The Axe-Man had to turn sideways to fit through the door.

  Temper backed off, but the Axe-Man went straight for the boy. Grabbing a pitchfork, Temper ran up behind him and sank the prongs into his back. He got an elbow in the face for his trouble and that knocked him to the ground, too stunned to do anything but register the Axe-Man turning in his direction. At the last moment, he noticed the axe rising, and his brain kicked into gear and he rolled under the table. The axe came straight through, sent the farm tools clattering, but Temper had already got to his feet on the other side.

  The Axe-Man pulled the pitchfork from his back and flipped it in his free hand. He kicked the remains of the table to one side and Temper backed off, his avenues of escape cut off. The Axe-Man thrust the pitchfork at him and Temper skipped sideways, almost fast enough to dodge it.

  Almost.

  Two prongs sliced into him and he gasped as the Axe-Man forced him backwards. He hit the wall and stayed there, eyes wide, the pain just beginning to blossom. The Axe-Man let go of the pitchfork and strode across the shack, grabbing the kid by the ankles and hauling him back. The little boy screamed and struggled. Temper went to help, but the pitchfork was pinning him to the wall.

  The Axe-Man lifted the sack on his head, exposing a huge, misshapen mouth that seemed to grow as it widened –

  – and he dropped the kid into it.

  Temper stared. The Axe-Man let the sack cover his head again, and adjusted the rope that secured it. Then he paused, and looked at the wall. Cocked his head.

  He strode out of the shack.

  Temper pulled the pitchfork from his side, cursing in pain as he did so. With his hands over the wounds, he stumbled to the hole the kid had been trying to escape through and dropped down. He could see across the clearing to where Abyssinia was approaching the third shack. The Axe-Man’s boots passed in front of the hole and Temper jerked back, stifling a moan. He got up as Skulduggery appeared at the door.

  “You’re hurt,” Skulduggery said.

  “He stuck a fork in me. I’m done.” Temper laughed without humour. “He’s going after Abyssinia.”

  “Where’s the child?”

  “He swallowed him.”

  “He ate him?”

  Temper shrugged. Even that was painful. “I didn’t see any chewing. I just saw swallowing.”

  From outside, the sound of a fight, but Skulduggery wasn’t moving from the doorway.

  “Are we going to help?” Temper asked. He had a packet of leaves somewhere on him. He knew he did.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Skulduggery said.

  Blood was soaking through Temper’s clothes as he searched his pockets. “You want the big guy to kill her.”

  “I doubt he’d be able to kill her,” Skulduggery said, “but he might be able to injure her enough so that I can cut out her heart again.”

  Temper found the leaves, stuffed them in his mouth. The pain lessened. “Man,” he said, “that is cold.”

  “You object?”

  “Me? Naw. But that doesn’t warm it up any.”

  “I suppose not.”

  There were crashes now. The sound of wood splintering.

  “And what do we do if he does beat her?” Temper asked. The pain was nothing more than an irritation now. “How do we stop him?”

  “We don’t have to stop him,” Skulduggery said. “We avoid him. We walk away. He hasn’t actually killed anyone – not anyone real anyway. If he doesn’t pose a threat to innocent life, why would it be our problem?”

  “I guess so. Course, now I feel stupid for risking my life to save a kid that doesn’t exist.”

  “He existed once.”

  “Not like this, though. I mean, this can’t be a memory if Cadaverous’s younger self gets swallowed whole by the big guy. Unless he manages to tunnel out somehow. Which is just weird.”

  “This isn’t pure memory,” Skulduggery said. “I think it’s a reinterpretation of the day his father was killed.”

  “So who’s the Axe-Man?”

  “Right now I’m thinking it might be the physical manifestation of his own violent urges.”

  “Man, I hate those,” said Temper, and then Abyssinia came crashing through the wall in an explosion of wood and splinters.

  61

  Valkyrie used Omen’s jacket to wipe the mud from her face and arms as she drove. She handed his jacket back to him and he thanked her unenthusiastically. Her T-shirt was soaking, and clung to her, and the jodhpurs were stained black. She turned on to the road that swept by the pier and up to her family’s house – but slowed as she came to the turn. The pier wasn’t a pier. In Cadaverous’s world, it was a wooden bridge that crossed the water, linking up with the island in the distance.

  She manoeuvred the car on to the bridge – it was narrow, with no railings – and drove slowly, the dark water lapping on either side. She glanced up through the windscreen. The sun hadn’t moved its position, but, when the clock hand ticked over to 11.15, the sun immediately darkened to a burning amber that infected the sky, and a multitude of blazing reds and oranges washed over and banished the blue.

  “Cool,” Omen whispered.

  Forty-five minutes left. Forty-five minutes to save her sister.

  62

  Abyssinia dusted herself off and, without looking at either of them, sa
id, “One for all and all for one, huh?”

  “We were just about to go and help,” Skulduggery said.

  She looked at Temper. “And you?”

  He showed her all the blood. “I’m injured. I need medical attention.”

  “I’m disappointed in you both. I thought we were a team.”

  “We were making plans,” said Temper. “Discussing theories. Skulduggery thinks the Axe-Man is a metaphor.”

  “So I was thrown through a wall by a metaphor?” Abyssinia asked. “Well, that’s nice.”

  “Speaking of whom,” Skulduggery murmured, and walked to the hole Abyssinia had made.

  Temper joined him, and they peered out. The sky had become a painting of bleeding red and burning orange. The sun was darker, too, but still in the same position. They watched the Axe-Man walk back to the cabin. He started swinging the axe into the front door again.

  “The door’s been fixed,” Temper said. “How did the door get fixed?”

  “I doubt that’s the only thing that’s been reset,” Skulduggery said.

  “You think the gentleman with the hatchets and the child are in there, don’t you?” Abyssinia asked.

  “I think they’re on a loop, yes,” Skulduggery said.

  “Good,” said Abyssinia. “Now that he’s distracted, I can take a look inside that revolting little shed.”

  She walked out. Skulduggery and Temper followed.

  They crossed the clearing to the smallest shack. Abyssinia led the way in. Temper went last, and immediately gagged at the smell of rotting meat and congealing blood.

  The shack was split into two rooms. In the first one, animal carcasses hung from chains and black clouds of flies rose from mounds of furs and pelts. A large table, stained with blood and scarred with notches, took up most of the space. Despite the history of death carved into it, the table was neat. Orderly.

  Not so the smaller table, for the smaller hunter, that sat in the corner. This table was littered with the butchered remains of animals. There was no evidence of the practical, pragmatic skinning and preparing of prey. Here was evidence of a psychopath’s delight.

  Abyssinia ignored all this. She went straight to the other room like she was pulled there.

  “Caisson!” she cried.

  Temper and Skulduggery glanced at each other, and followed her in.

  63

  The bridge narrowed even further, and Valkyrie had visions of the tyres slipping off the side and the car plunging into the sea. She took a deep breath and continued on.

  The island was a flat, grassy pebble. There were no trees, no other vegetation.

  She stopped the car. The two-storey house at the island’s exact centre was tall and dark and pointed. The porch was wide, supported by square columns. There was a rocking chair beside the door, which stood open.

  “I suppose I should stay here,” said Omen from the back seat.

  “No,” Valkyrie said. “I might need your help.”

  “Really?”

  She turned to him. “Omen, if we find Alice and you get the chance, you grab her and get the hell out, OK? You forget about me and you run. Do you understand?”

  Omen hesitated, then nodded.

  They got out of the car. Valkyrie raked her fingers through her hair, coming out with fistfuls of drying mud that she flung at the ground as they entered the house.

  Most of the doorways on the ground floor were arched, and lacking any actual doors. Valkyrie could see straight through to the corridors that stretched to the rear of the deceptively large building. Corridors lined with too many closed doors for all of them to actually lead anywhere.

  A wide staircase rose lazily along the wall to her left, its bottom step beginning just beyond the doorway to the living room – a wood-panelled room with a large fireplace and a single armchair.

  To their right, through a corridor, the kitchen.

  “Alice?” she called. “Alice, where are you?”

  For a moment, there was nothing, and then—

  “Stephanie?”

  “Alice!” Valkyrie shouted, striding for the stairs.

  “Stephanie! I’m here!”

  Valkyrie took the stairs two at a time, Omen right behind her. “Where are you? Describe where you are!”

  “I’m in a room!” Alice shouted back from far away. “It has a bed and a chair and a bedside table with a lamp!”

  Valkyrie got to the landing. “Is there a window?”

  “No! But there’s a door!”

  “Bang on the door, Alice! Let me hear you!”

  Somewhere in the house, she heard little fists beating upon a door.

  “Keep doing that!” she shouted, moving again. “I’ll find you!”

  They followed the sound down a corridor, picking up speed, running now, feet on floorboards that creaked sharply with each step, now on to a thin rug, then back to floorboards, then back to a rug that gave way beneath her and Valkyrie dropped, her momentum slamming her into the side of the pit. She hung there, fingers digging in for purchase, legs dangling as the pit swallowed the rest of the rug. She glanced down, saw another hole beneath her, revealing a drop right into the basement.

  Omen reached down, grabbed her, and pulled her up.

  “Traps,” he said.

  She nodded. “This house will be full of them.”

  They moved on, more cautiously this time, and followed Alice’s voice to a door.

  Valkyrie tried the handle. It was locked. “Alice, I’m here.”

  “Stephanie! Let me out!!”

  “Stand back from the door, OK? Stand against the wall.”

  Valkyrie stepped back.

  “OK!” Alice called. “I’m against the wall!”

  Valkyrie kicked and, although the door shuddered, it felt as sturdy as hell under her boot. She kicked again, and again, and then rammed her shoulder into it. That hurt.

  “Hold on, Alice,” she said, and turned to Omen. “Find something to—”

  A door opened behind Omen, and Valkyrie grabbed him, pulled him behind her as Cadaverous Gant stepped out. The real Cadaverous Gant.

  “You made it,” Cadaverous said. “And it’s not even midnight. But you seem to have broken the rules. Omen Darkly, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

  “Let Alice go,” said Valkyrie. “Whatever plans you have for me, let Alice go. She can’t hurt you.”

  Cadaverous smiled. “Neither can you, Valkyrie. Not in here. In here, you are as ineffectual as a five-year-old.”

  “I’m seven,” Alice said from behind the door.

  The smile widened. “Kids, eh?”

  64

  “Caisson,” Abyssinia whispered, kneeling by her son. “What have they done to you?”

  Caisson was unconscious on the floor, next to the rear wall of the shack, and was in no condition to answer. His silver hair was long and matted. His face was drawn, his skin an unhealthy pallor. He wore an old hospital gown, and his wrists were shackled.

  Temper and Skulduggery watched Abyssinia check her son for any obvious injuries.

  “He doesn’t look a whole lot like me,” Skulduggery said.

  “I wouldn’t take it personally,” Abyssinia responded. “My family’s genes have always been dominant. I hope you get to meet him properly one day – assuming you survive your encounter with Cadaverous.”

  “You’re leaving, I take it.”

  Abyssinia scooped Caisson into her arms, and stood. “As precious as this little team of ours is, yes, I am. I feel our special bond ended when you decided to let that monster with the axe try to kill me. I hope you find Valkyrie. I’d hate for her to miss that particular sensation of you betraying her the way you betrayed me.”

  “I thought you came here to rescue Caisson and kill Cadaverous.”

  “Oh, I did, but if you love someone you must prioritise, and our son is much more important to me than the chance to exact some childish revenge.”

  Skulduggery turned to Temper. “Go with her,” he said.
>
  Temper frowned. “What? Why?”

  “You’re hurt.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You’re hurt, and you’re losing too much blood. I can find Valkyrie on my own.”

  “Seriously, man, I can do this, and you need the back-up. I’ve got plenty of leaves to keep me going.”

  “Your packet is empty.”

  “No, it’s not,” Temper said, taking it from his pocket. “See?”

  Skulduggery plucked it from his hand and clicked his fingers and Temper watched the leaves flare and burn.

  “I cannot believe you did that,” he said softly.

  “There’s more leaves in the Bentley,” Skulduggery said, handing him the keys before walking to the door. “Better hurry or you won’t make it.”

  Temper watched Skulduggery leave the shack and rise off his feet, disappearing from sight.

  Abyssinia carried Caisson to the door and, too late, Temper saw a string that ran from Caisson’s shackles to the wall. It went taut, and he started to shout a warning when the string broke, and a tiny bell sounded.

  That’s all. No trap was sprung. No pit opened beneath them.

  Abyssinia kept on walking, and Temper frowned and followed.

  65

  Cadaverous halted, his head turning slightly, like he was listening to something in the distance.

  “Huh,” he muttered, “she’s early.” He smiled at Valkyrie. “I’m afraid I’ll have to divide my attention. But you will stay here, won’t you? You won’t find some way to escape? If you do, I promise I’ll tear your little friend’s arms off.”

  Moving impossibly fast, he grabbed Omen and shoved Valkyrie. She spun backwards, righting herself just in time to see him dragging Omen through a door that slammed shut after them.

  66

  Omen went stumbling forward, falling to his knees on the dirt as Cadaverous strode by him. He was outside, in a clearing with a few rickety old wooden shacks. He was in the mountains. He looked around. Definitely in the mountains.