Scepter of the Ancients

  “He has ordered the attacks on my companion.”

  “You have no proof.”

  “He murdered Gordon Edgley!”

  “But you have no proof.”

  “He is after the Scepter!”

  “Which doesn’t even exist.” Meritorious shook his head sadly. “I am sorry, Skulduggery. There is nothing we can do.”

  “As for the girl,” said Morwenna, “we had hoped her involvement in all this would be minimal.”

  “She’s not going to tell anyone,” Skulduggery said quietly.

  “Maybe so, but if she takes one more step deeper into our world, it may be impossible for her to step out again. We want you to consider this carefully, Detective. Consider what it would mean.”

  Skulduggery gave a slight nod of acknowledgment but said nothing.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Meritorious said. “You may leave.”

  Skulduggery turned and walked out, Stephanie right behind him. The Administrator hurried over.

  “I know the way out,” Skulduggery growled, and the Administrator backed off. They passed the Cleavers, standing as still as the wax models above them, and climbed the staircase out of the Sanctuary.

  Skulduggery donned his disguise, and they walked back to the Canary Car in silence. They had almost reached it when he stopped and turned his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Stephanie asked.

  He didn’t answer. She couldn’t see anything beneath his disguise. Stephanie looked around, paranoid. It appeared to be a normal street, populated by normal people doing normal things. Granted, the street had potholes and the people were scruffy, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. And then she saw him: a tall man, broad and bald, his age impossible to gauge. He walked toward them like he had all the time in the world, and Stephanie stood by Skulduggery and waited.

  “Mr. Pleasant,” the man said when he had reached them.

  “Mr. Bliss,” Skulduggery responded.

  Stephanie looked at the man. He radiated power. His pale-blue eyes settled on her.

  “And you must be the girl who attracts all sorts of attention.”

  Stephanie couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what she would have said, but she did know that her voice would have been thin and reedy if she had tried. There was something about Mr. Bliss that made her want to curl up and cry.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while,” Skulduggery said. “I heard you’d retired.”

  There was something peaceful about Mr. Bliss’s eyes, but it wasn’t the calming kind of peaceful. It wasn’t a peaceful that comforted you and made you feel safe. It was another kind of peaceful, the kind that promised you no more pain, no more joy, no more anything. Looking at him was like looking into a void with no beginning and no ending. Oblivion.

  “The Elders asked me to return,” Mr. Bliss said. “These are troubling times, after all.”

  “Is that so?”

  “The two men who had Serpine under surveillance were found dead a few days ago. He is up to something, something he doesn’t want the Elders to know about.”

  Skulduggery paused. “Why didn’t Meritorious tell me this?”

  “The Truce is a house of cards, Mr. Pleasant. If it is disturbed, it will all come down. And you are known for your disturbances. The Elders hoped my involvement would be enough of a deterrent, but I fear they have underestimated Serpine’s ambition. They refuse to believe that anyone would benefit from war. And of course, they still think the Scepter of the Ancients is a fairy tale.”

  Skulduggery’s voice changed, but only slightly. “You think the Scepter’s real?”

  “Oh, I know it is. Whether it can do everything the legends claim, that I do not know, but as an object, the Scepter is quite real. It was uncovered during a recent archaeological dig. As I understand it, Gordon Edgley had been searching for the Scepter for some time, as part of his research for a book about the Faceless Ones, and he paid a substantial amount of money to gain possession of it. I imagine he worked to verify its authenticity, and once he had done so, he realized he couldn’t keep it. Nor could he pass it on. Gordon Edgley, for all his faults, was a good man, and if there was a chance that it did have the destructive capabilities we’ve all heard about, he would have felt that the Scepter was too powerful for anyone to possess.”

  “Do you know what he did with it?” Stephanie asked, finding her voice at last.

  “I don’t.”

  “But you think Serpine’s willing to risk war?” Skulduggery asked.

  Mr. Bliss nodded. “I think he views the Truce as having outlived its usefulness, yes. I imagine he has been waiting for this moment for quite some time, when he can seize all the power and plunder every secret, and invite the Faceless Ones back into the world.”

  “You believe in the Faceless Ones?” Stephanie asked.

  “I do. I grew up with those teachings, and I have carried my faith through to this day. Some dismiss them, some view them as morality tales, some view them as stories to tell children at night. But I believe. I believe that once we were ruled by beings so evil, even their own shadows shied away from them. And I believe they have been waiting to come back, to punish us for our transgressions.”

  Skulduggery cocked his head. “The Elders would listen to you.”

  “They are bound by their rules. I have learned what I can, and I have passed it on to the only person who would know what to do with it. What you do next is up to you.”

  “With you on our side,” Skulduggery said, “things would be a lot easier.”

  A small smile appeared on Mr. Bliss’s face. “If I have to act, I will.”

  Without even a “Good day,” Mr. Bliss turned and walked away. They stayed where they were for a few moments, then got into the Canary Car. Skulduggery pulled away from the curb. They drove for a bit before Stephanie spoke.

  “He’s kind of scary.”

  “That happens when you rarely smile. Mr. Bliss is, physically, the most powerful individual on the face of the planet. His strength is beyond legendary.”

  “So he is scary?”

  “Oh yes, very much so.”

  He drove on, and they settled into silence. She let a few more moments drift by.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He gave a small shrug. “Lots of clever little things.”

  “So do you believe that the Scepter is real?”

  “It certainly looks that way.”

  “I suppose this is a big deal for you, huh? Finding out that your gods really existed?”

  “Ah, but we don’t know that. If the Scepter is real, its true history could have been mixed up with the legends. Its existence does not prove that it was used to drive away the Faceless Ones.”

  “Funny. I wouldn’t have thought that a living skeleton would be such a skeptic. So what’s our next move?”

  He was silent for a bit. “Right, well, we’ve got to work out what we need. We’ve got to work out what we need, how we get it, and what we need to get to get what we need.”

  “I think I actually understood that,” Stephanie said slowly. The car went over a bump. “No, it’s gone again.”

  “We need the Elders to take action, so we need proof that Serpine has broken the Truce. We need to find the Scepter, and we also need to find out how to destroy the Scepter.”

  “Okay, so how do we do the first one?”

  “We’ll get the proof once we find the Scepter.”

  “And how do we find the Scepter?”

  “We find the key.”

  “And how do we destroy the Scepter?”

  “Ah,” he said. “That’ll be the little bit of crime that we’ll have to embark on.”

  “Crime,” she said with a smile. “Finally.”

  Eleven

  THE LITTLE BIT OF CRIME

  FROM THEIR VANTAGE point, parked across the road, they watched the vampires, once again in their blue overalls, walk up the steps and enter the gleaming art gallery. The vampires were chatti
ng, and didn’t look intimidating at all. A few minutes later the staff and day-shift security started to trickle out of the building. When every one of them was accounted for, Skulduggery reached into the backseat and brought the black bag into his lap.

  “We’re going now?” Stephanie asked, looking up into the evening sky. “But it’s still bright.”

  “And that’s precisely why we’re going now,” he said. “Twenty minutes from now, there’ll be two full-fledged vampires prowling around in there. I want to get in, find out how to destroy the Scepter, and get out before that happens.”

  “Ah. Probably wise.”

  “Very probably.”

  They got out of the horrible Canary Car and crossed the street, then moved through the garden area to a tall tree behind the gallery. Making sure they wouldn’t be seen, Skulduggery put the bag over his shoulder and started to climb. Stephanie jumped for the lowest branch, grabbed it, and started climbing up after him. She hadn’t done anything like this in years, but climbing a tree was like falling out of one—easy. The tree’s limbs were long and strong, and they quickly came adjacent to the gallery’s roof, which was ridged with a dozen skylights. Stephanie hoisted herself up onto a branch and sat there, regarding the large gap between building and tree with curiosity. It looked too far to jump.

  “You sure I can’t come with you?” Stephanie asked.

  “I need you out here in case something goes terribly, terribly wrong.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, any one of a number of things.”

  “Fills me with confidence, that,” she muttered.

  Skulduggery maneuvered himself onto the longest branch and then walked, bent legged and stooped over, along its length. His balance was unnatural. But there was still that gap. Without pausing, he sprang forward off the branch. He brought his arms up, and a tremendous gust of wind buffeted him over to the rooftop.

  Stephanie promised herself that one day she’d get him to teach her how to do that.

  Skulduggery looked back. “The gallery is outfitted with the most elaborate security system,” he said as he opened the bag. “But because of the vampires, the alarms on the outer corridors are never set, so once I get by the main hall, it should be smooth sailing, as they say.”

  “As who say?”

  “I don’t know. People who sail, presumably.” He opened the bag and took out a harness, which he started to strap himself into. He looked up at her. “Where was I?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Oh yes, my cunning plan. I need to access a control panel on the east wall. From there, I can disable everything. The floor is pressure-sensitive, so I’m going to have to stay off it, but that shouldn’t be a problem for someone of my natural grace and agility.”

  “You’re very impressed with yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Exceedingly so.” He secured a thin wire onto a ventilation duct, looped it through his harness, and led it back to one of the skylights.

  Stephanie frowned. “You’re going to lower yourself down from here?”

  “Yes. That’s the fun bit.”

  “Right. But you’re going to have to open the skylight, yes? Won’t that set off an alarm?”

  “Only a small one,” he said with confidence.

  She stared at him. “And wouldn’t that be enough?”

  “It’s a silent little thing, hooked up to the nearby police station. Or it was hooked up. I passed by their transformer box before I collected you this morning. Oddly enough, it happened to short out at the exact same time. Something to do with a large amount of water mysteriously manifesting inside. I think they’re baffled. They certainly looked baffled. …”

  “And your entire plan hinges on the hope that they haven’t restored electricity yet?”

  “Well, yes,” he said after a slight hesitation. “But anyway …”

  He looked over at the setting sun, then looked back at Stephanie.

  “If you hear any screaming,” he said, “that’ll be me.”

  He passed his hand over the lock, and it broke apart; then he opened one of the halves of the skylight and climbed over the side. She watched him disappear into it, and then heard a slight whirring as he used a handheld control to lower himself in the harness.

  Stephanie sat back against the trunk, keeping an eye out for … whatever she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for. Anything unusual. She frowned to herself, not entirely certain of what constituted “unusual” anymore, and then she heard an unsettling scraping noise. She looked up.

  The wire Skulduggery had attached to the ventilation duct was slipping.

  She watched in horror as it slipped again, getting closer to the edge, closer to slipping off entirely. She thought of the pressure-sensitive floor, thought about Skulduggery crashing down and setting off every alarm in the place and the vampires running in and catching him. Although he didn’t have any blood for them to drink, she was sure they’d be able to find some other ways to punish the trespass.

  The wire slipped again, and Stephanie knew she didn’t have a choice. She crawled along the same branch Skulduggery had jumped from, and it groaned beneath her weight. Skulduggery was nothing but bones, she reminded herself in an effort not to feel fat.

  The gap was gaping. It was a gaping gap.

  Stephanie shook her head—she couldn’t make it. There was no way she could jump that. With a decent run at it, she might have had a chance, but from crouching on the end of an unsteady branch? She closed her eyes, forcing the doubts from her mind. It wasn’t a choice, she reminded herself. It wasn’t a question of whether she could jump, or would jump. Skulduggery needed her help, and he needed it now, so it was a question of when she did jump, and of what would happen then.

  So she jumped.

  She stretched out and the ground moved far beneath her and the edge of the building rushed at her and then she started to dip. Her right hand thudded against the edge and her fingers gripped it and the rest of her body slammed into the side of the building. She almost fell, but she shot her left hand up to join her right and held on. She pulled herself up, little by little, until she could get an arm over the edge, and soon she was safe. She had made it.

  The wire slipped again. It was about to snap from the duct, and then it’d all be over. She ran to it, got her fingers around the wire, and tried to tug it down again, but it was no use. She stood up, put the sole of her boot against the wire, and used all her weight to try and push it down, but she didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. She looked around for something to use, saw Skullduggery’s bag, and snatched it up. Nothing inside but more wire.

  She grabbed the wire and dropped to her knees, tying a new piece to the wire already attached to the harness. Her father had taught her all about knots when she was little, and although she couldn’t remember the names of most of them, she knew which knot suited this occasion.

  With the new length of wire added, she looked around for something to secure it to. There was another skylight right in front of her. She ran to it, wrapping the wire around the entire concrete base and getting it tied off just as the first piece of wire shot off the duct. There was a sudden snap as the wire went taut again, but it stayed secure.

  Stephanie hurried over to the open skylight and looked down. Skulduggery was hovering right above the floor, trying to stay horizontal after the sudden drop. The motion control for the harness was still in his hand, but both arms were outstretched for maximum balance, and he couldn’t move himself back up.

  There was a second control on the roof beside Stephanie, attached to the harness with a lead that twisted down around the wire through the skylight. Stephanie grabbed the control and jammed her finger against the up button, and Skulduggery started whirring upward.

  When he was safe, he raised his head, saw her, and gave her the thumbs-up. He took over the controls, positioning himself next to the wall, by the panel that he had already opened. Stephanie watched him flick a few switches, and then he spun himself g
ently. His feet touched the floor. No alarms went off.

  He undid the latch on the harness and stepped out of it, then looked up. A moment passed, and he motioned for her to come down. Grinning, Stephanie recalled the harness, strapped herself in, climbed over the edge, and lowered herself. Skulduggery helped her unlatch it.

  “I suppose I could do with some backup,” he whispered, and she smiled.

  The gallery was big and spacious and white. There were huge glass sections in the walls. The main hall was full of paintings and sculptures, artfully arranged so that it was neither cluttered nor sparse.

  They moved to the double doors and listened intently. Skulduggery opened one of the doors, checked outside, and nodded to Stephanie. They crept out, closing the door behind them. She followed him through the white corridors, around turns and through archways. She caught him glancing out the windows as they passed. Night was coming.

  They got to a small alcove, away from the main hub of the gallery. Within this alcove was a heavy wooden door, crisscrossed by a grid of bolted steel. Skulduggery whispered for her to keep watch and then hurried to the door, taking something from his pocket.

  Stephanie crouched where she was, peering into the ever-increasing gloom. She glanced back at Skulduggery as he worked at picking the lock. There was a window next to her. The sun had gone down.

  She heard footsteps and shrank back. The man in the blue overalls had appeared around the corner on the far side of the opposite corridor. He was walking slowly, like any security guard she’d see in a mall. Casual, uninterested, bored. She felt Skulduggery sneak up behind her, but he didn’t say anything.

  The man’s hand went to his belly, and then he doubled over as if in pain. Stephanie wished she was closer. If he sprouted fangs, she’d hardly be able to see them from here. The man straightened up and arched his spine, and the sounds of his bones cracking echoed through the corridor. Then he reached up and grabbed his hair and pulled his skin off.

  Stephanie stifled a gasp. In one fluid movement he had pulled it all off—hair, skin, clothes—and he was pale underneath, and bald, and his eyes were big and black. He moved like a cat, kicking off the remnants of his human form. She didn’t have to be closer to see his fangs; they were big and jagged and hideous, and now she was quite content to be viewing them from a distance. These weren’t the vampires she’d seen on TV; these weren’t sexy people in long coats and sunglasses. These were animals.