The Faceless Ones

  She watched, wondering what martial art he knew that was good enough to make up for the fact that he couldn’t use his hands. She was expecting some jumping around, maybe a few flips and definitely a lot of kicking. What she witnessed was more along the lines of Weeper trying to butt his head into Skulduggery’s chest. He charged, Skulduggery stepped out of the way, and Weeper hit his knee against the desk and fell to the ground in pain.

  “Keep an eye out,” Skulduggery said, hauling Weeper up and dragging him to the cells. He left him curled up against the wall and moved to the first of the steel doors, opened the small hatch, and peered in. He closed the hatch again and moved to the next door.

  Valkyrie stood at the corner, making sure they weren’t going to be interrupted. She glanced back to see Skulduggery guiding Weeper into a cell and then beckoning the prisoner out. Her gaze returned to the corridor. At the junction a sorcerer strode by but didn’t look her way. She waited without breathing, but he didn’t reappear.

  The cell door closed, and Valkyrie turned to see which prisoner Skulduggery had chosen. The prisoner glared at her defiantly. She knew him. He saw himself as the Killer Supreme, the man to make murder into an art form, even though he had yet to successfully kill anyone. The first time they’d met, he had tried to throw her off a building. He was not a very smart man.

  “We meet again,” Vaurien Scapegrace snarled, snapping his handcuffs.

  Valkyrie laughed.

  His snarl vanished and his shoulders sagged. “I wish, just once, people would see me and not laugh.”

  “Quiet now,” Skulduggery said, prodding him forward. Valkyrie did her best to stifle her grin as they headed back to the Repository.

  “I was framed,” Scapegrace said, walking slightly ahead of them. “I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “That’s right,” Skulduggery said. “You should be in a proper prison for attempted murder.”

  “I broke out,” said Scapegrace with a shrug.

  “That’s not strictly true though, is it? To break out implies something dynamic and adventurous. You were being transported to another facility, and they simply forgot about you at the rest stop.”

  “I escaped.”

  “You were left behind.”

  “I was a free man. And then I was accused of a crime I didn’t commit and got rearrested. I shouldn’t even be here. You call that justice?”

  “I call that amusing,” Valkyrie murmured.

  Scapegrace ignored her. “Where are you taking me? This isn’t the way to the interrogation rooms. Why do you want me?”

  “Because you’re great company.”

  Scapegrace slowed and all the color drained from his face. “You’re going to execute me, aren’t you?”

  “We’re not going to execute you,” Skulduggery said.

  “That’s why this is all hush-hush. Oh, God, you’re going to execute me.”

  “We’re not, I promise.”

  “But why? Why am I going to be executed? You fear me, don’t you?”

  “That’s not exactly what’s happening here.”

  Scapegrace’s legs gave out, and Skulduggery caught him and kept him walking.

  “You fear my wrath,” Scapegrace said weakly.

  Skulduggery stopped him, undid the handcuffs, and gave him a small push. “Run away now.”

  Scapegrace spun to face them. “Why? So you can have your bit of sport? That is cruel.”

  “We’re not going to execute you,” Valkyrie insisted.

  Scapegrace fell to his knees. “Please don’t kill me.”

  Skulduggery shook his head. “I should have picked someone else.”

  “We just want you to distract some people,” Valkyrie told him. “We need you to divert their attention.”

  “I don’t want to die,” Scapegrace sobbed.

  “Vaurien, seriously, get up. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Once I turn my back …”

  “We’re not going to do anything. We need you to distract some people, but this isn’t just about us. This is your chance to escape. Look at yourself. No handcuffs. No injuries. What’s to stop you from just running out of here?”

  “Okay,” said Scapegrace, getting back to his feet. “So I just run, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what about if—”

  Scapegrace bolted past them halfway through his question, hoping to take them by surprise.

  “Wrong way,” Valkyrie called.

  Scapegrace staggered to a stop and turned.

  “If you go that way, you’ll just arrive back at the holding cells.”

  Scapegrace looked around, getting his bearings, then nodded and walked back.

  “Just because I’m helping you,” he warned, “does not mean we are allies.”

  “We know that,” Skulduggery said.

  “The next time I see you, I will be trying to kill you.”

  “We know that, too.”

  “How do I get out of here?”

  “Go straight ahead and turn left. Follow your nose from there.”

  Scapegrace stopped beside them and snarled. “Until we meet again.”

  He jogged to the corner and glanced right, shrieked, and sprinted left.

  “We probably should have told him he’d be running from Cleavers,” Skulduggery said, as they watched both Cleavers blur past the intersection.

  They hurried to the Repository doors, and just before they slipped inside, Valkyrie looked back as the Cleavers pounced on Scapegrace and he squealed.

  Sixteen

  STEALING THE GROTESQUERY

  SKULDUGGERY TOOK a small spool of thread from his pocket and started wrapping it around the door handles.

  “That’ll hold?” Valkyrie asked skeptically.

  “This is Resolute Thread. The more pressure applied, the stronger it gets. It’s very rare. They say it was made from the stomach lining of an emperor dragon, over two thousand years ago.”

  “Was it?”

  “No, it’s just really strong thread.” The door handles tied together securely, they walked deeper into the room. The Repository was vast and dark, with rows of shelves and tables groaning under the weight of the magic artifacts it contained. In the center, where once the Book of Names had stood on its pedestal, there was now a cage of black steel, about the size of a small truck. The remains of the Grotesquery, little more than a torso and head wrapped in soiled bandages, hung suspended off the ground by a dozen taut chains. There were symbols carved on each of the cage bars, and they started to glow as Valkyrie and Skulduggery neared.

  “Don’t touch the cage,” Skulduggery warned.

  “How do we open it?”

  “Very, very carefully, I’d imagine. I’m not as fluent in the language of these symbols as China is, but I know enough to recognize a death field when I see one. It’d kill anyone who even put a hand inside those bars.”

  “Can we turn it off?”

  “If we knew the right symbol to touch, yes. Unfortunately, if we touch the wrong symbol, the field will swell and kill everything in the room.”

  “Would it kill you?”

  “Seeing as how I’m already dead?”

  “Well, would it? Serpine used his red right hand on you, and it didn’t have any effect. Maybe this would be the same.”

  “If I knew a little more about how I ended up as a living skeleton with impeccable fashion sense, I could give it a try. But there is every chance that the death field would kill whatever’s left of me.”

  “So how are we going to get the Grotesquery?”

  Skulduggery walked in among the shelves. “There has to be something here that will help us,” he said.

  Valkyrie followed, browsing the artifacts on display, although she really had no idea what she was looking for, let alone how they could use any of it to open the cage.

  She picked up a wooden sphere, about twice the size of a tennis ball. It had a thin groove run
ning all the way around its circumference.

  “And this is … ?” she asked, holding it up for Skulduggery to see.

  “Cloaking sphere,” he said. “Not very many of those around, actually.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It makes magic people invisible.”

  “Cool.”

  Valkyrie replaced it and turned to follow him, but Skulduggery was gone.

  She heard a sound from somewhere in the stacks and saw movement. There was a grunt, and Skulduggery came flying over the shelves. He hit a table and smashed the vials that had been sitting there, then rolled off the edge, hit the ground, and groaned. A big man with long silver hair strode out after him. Valkyrie recognized him from the description she’d been given. Gruesome Krav.

  The Diablerie were here to steal the Grotesquery before them.

  Valkyrie backed off, her heart suddenly slamming against her chest, and then there were footsteps behind her.

  She turned to see Sanguine approach, smiling that wicked smile. She clicked the fingers of both her hands, and flames filled her grip, but cracks spider-webbed at Sanguine’s feet and he sank into the floor. Valkyrie turned, wary, ignoring the sounds of Skulduggery’s fight, listening for the telltale crumbling that signified Sanguine’s movements underground.

  She heard it and knew he was rising up out of the ground directly behind her. She lashed out a back kick and felt it connect. She turned to see Sanguine sprawling, hands at his face, his sunglasses broken neatly in two and his nose pumping blood. His eyeless face contorting in pain and fury, he scrambled up and made a grab for her.

  Valkyrie ducked under his right arm and kicked at his leg, and he went down on one knee; she followed through with an elbow to the back of his head. He dropped forward, onto his hands, and swung his leg back viciously, catching both of her ankles. She crashed to the ground, and his hands were on her as he got to his feet. She tried to break his hold, but he was too strong, and he hurled her into a row of shelves. The shelves toppled, artifacts smashing, and Valkyrie followed them to the floor.

  She got up and tried to push at the air, but Sanguine was too fast. He punched, and her head snapped around and white light exploded in her vision, and even as she was falling, she tasted the blood. Suddenly she was on the ground, her left hand covering her mouth, aware that one of her front teeth was broken. Her body was leaden, drained of its strength, and all she could think about was that her tooth had been damaged and the hassle it would be to explain that to her mother.

  A brown shoe appeared beside her face, and Sanguine knelt, opening his straight razor, the blood from his nose flowing freely onto her coat.

  “You deserve this,” he snarled, bringing the blade to her throat.

  There was a gunshot, and he screamed and fell to one side, clutching his leg. Behind him, Skulduggery switched targets, but Krav slapped the gun out of his hand.

  Cursing in pain, Sanguine got up and, ignoring Valkyrie, lurched to the cage. He pressed his hand against a symbol, and it flashed. Valkyrie rolled away, expecting the death field to envelop them all as Skulduggery had warned. But the symbol faded, as did all the others. The cage door opened and Sanguine dragged himself inside. He reached for the Grotesquery, and at his touch, the chains released their hold and the bandaged torso fell heavily.

  “I have it!” he snapped.

  Krav snarled at Skulduggery, cheated out of his kill, and strode for the cage. The ground crumbled beneath them as Sanguine took Krav and the Grotesquery down and away.

  Skulduggery snatched up his gun and hurried to Valkyrie. She became aware of the pounding on the double doors. The Resolute Thread was holding, but even as she watched, the blade of a scythe pierced the door and withdrew. The Cleavers were hacking their way in.

  “Let me see,” Skulduggery said, helping her to sit up. He took her face in his gloved hand and tilted her head back. Blood was running down her chin, and she was doing her best not to swallow. “Open your mouth.”

  Valkyrie shook her head. She had tears in her eyes—partly from shock, partly from distress. Billy-Ray Sanguine had taken her smile with one vicious punch.

  Skulduggery pulled her to her feet. A sliver of cold air hissed past her tooth, and she moaned in pain. She kept her lips pressed tightly together.

  The double doors fell apart, and Thurid Guild stormed into the Repository, flanked by two Cleavers. He saw the empty cage.

  “Get them!” he thundered.

  Skulduggery grabbed Valkyrie’s hand and dragged her into the maze of shelves. One of the Cleavers bounded from Guild’s side and leaped high, landing in front of them, scythe swinging to block their way. Skulduggery thrust at the air, but the Cleaver moved through the ripples. The other Cleaver was coming in from behind, moving to trap them.

  They couldn’t afford to be arrested. The Diablerie had the Isthmus Anchor, which meant their next move would be to track down and snatch Fletcher Renn. Valkyrie and Skulduggery had to get out of here.

  Skulduggery’s gun was still in his right hand, and he fired, point-blank, into the first Cleaver’s chest. The Cleaver staggered, his uniform protecting him, and Skulduggery added to his backward momentum with a kick. The Cleaver went down, and they jumped over him.

  They ran to the end of the row, and Skulduggery grabbed the cloaking sphere, then rammed a shoulder into the shelf, and the whole thing toppled over. Artifacts crashed to the ground, unnatural smoke billowed, and there were cries, like a dozen trapped souls suddenly released. In the confusion, Valkyrie ducked low and followed Skulduggery on a course through the shelves, heading for the door. She could hear Guild barking orders as reinforcements arrived.

  The smoke reached her and smelled foul, and by instinct she took a breath through her mouth, immediately stumbling from the pain. Clamping both hands over her bloody lips, she blinked the tears away and saw Skulduggery disappearing behind another row of shelves. She hurried after him but froze as a Cleaver stepped in front of her.

  His visored helmet swept his surroundings. She stayed frozen. He’d see her in a matter of moments.

  Gloved hands emerged from the gloom behind the Cleaver and yanked him back out of sight.

  Valkyrie stayed where she was, waiting for the fight to erupt, but there was only stillness.

  She peered between the shelves and saw Guild, standing there with a furious look on his face. There was movement behind him, and Valkyrie realized that a Cleaver had been standing there only moments before.

  She moved forward, staying low and quiet. She darted across the gap between shelves and followed another row, which led her closer to the door. Another Cleaver ran in, and Guild waved to him to stop.

  “Stay there,” he ordered. “Make sure they don’t leave.”

  The Cleaver pulled out his scythe. He was the only thing between her and the door. The unnatural smoke trailed and sank and swept up, and it passed in front of her, obscuring her line of sight. When the smoke cleared, the Cleaver was gone.

  Skulduggery moved out of the darkness and waited by the door. Valkyrie checked to make sure no one was looking. She crept to the end of the row, and Skulduggery nodded to her; then she hurried by him and out into the corridor.

  They ran.

  A sorcerer Valkyrie vaguely recognized saw them and frowned, but Skulduggery pushed at the air, and the sorcerer shot off his feet. They took the corridor to their left, heading away from the busiest areas.

  “There’s another way out,” Skulduggery said as they sprinted. “Eachan Meritorious told me about it once. For emergency use only. Guild doesn’t know I know about it.”

  They burst into a large oval-shaped room with a single light source that kept the edges of the room in darkness. It was the room where Valkyrie had first met the Elders, two years before.

  Valkyrie turned to swing the door shut, but Remus Crux charged through, sending her to the ground. His gun was in his hand, and Skulduggery moved into him, trapping his gun hand against his ribs. Crux tried to protest, but Skuld
uggery caught him with a right hook. Crux’s knees wobbled, and Skulduggery disarmed him and flipped him to the floor.

  Valkyrie heard footsteps in the corridor and clicked her fingers to get Skulduggery’s attention. He took the cloaking sphere from his jacket and twisted its hemispheres in opposite directions. A bubble of haze erupted outward, enveloping them and Crux.

  Thurid Guild ran up to the door, followed by three Cleavers. Valkyrie tried to ignore the pain in her mouth and prepared to fight, but Skulduggery laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “They can’t see or hear us,” he said. “Everything magical is now cloaked.”

  The sphere in his hand was gently ticking, as the hemispheres slowly worked their way back into alignment.

  “Grand Mage,” Crux called weakly. “Help me.”

  But Guild couldn’t hear him. He turned to the Cleavers. “They must have doubled back. I want the exit sealed. Nobody in or out unless I say so. Go!”

  The Cleavers sprinted off, and Guild stalked back the way he had come. Crux moaned in misery, and Skulduggery looked down at him.

  “We didn’t steal the Grotesquery, Remus. The Diablerie did. That’s who is behind this. Jaron Gallow, maybe someone named Batu. Focus your investigation on them.”

  “I’m placing you under arrest,” Crux whimpered.

  “Guild is working with them. He told them which symbol deactivated the death field. You can’t trust him. You can only trust Bliss.”

  The cloaking sphere clicked one last time, and the bubble of haze withdrew. Skulduggery pocketed the sphere and led Valkyrie to the dark edges of the room. He clicked his fingers, summoning a bright flame.

  “Timing is everything,” he told her. “When we start running, we cannot stop, are we clear?”

  She murmured an affirmative, in too much pain from her broken tooth to open her mouth. Skulduggery leaned in and whispered so that Crux wouldn’t hear.

  “The moment we’re out of here, we’ll get Professor Grouse to fix up your tooth, okay? You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  She murmured again, and his head tilted sympathetically for a moment. Then he nodded to the wall. “Touch the wall and be prepared to run.”