Death Bringer by Derek Landy
Scapegrace hesitated. “No.”
“Do you have any skills, then? Could you be of use to me?”
“I honestly don’t see how.”
“Me neither. It looks like you’re destined to remain a zombie until your brain rots in your skull. Which, judging by the rate of your decomposition, should be in a year or so.”
Scapegrace stared. “A year? I only have a year left?”
“If you stay out of the sun.”
“But… but that’s terrible!”
Nye shrugged. “It’s not so bad for me.”
Scapegrace stumbled out of the Sanctuary, aghast, and Thrasher ran out after him, an idiot. Clarabelle was staying because Clarabelle had a job now, and details needed to be ironed out and suchlike. But Scapegrace had just been handed a death sentence for the already dead. He stopped by the water’s edge and looked out across the dark lake.
“What does it all mean?” he asked aloud.
Thrasher looked up at him, and didn’t answer.
“What is a life?” Scapegrace continued. “Is life merely living? Is it having a heartbeat? Or is life the effect you have on others? Is it the effect you have on the world around you? If so, what have I done with mine? How have I wasted it?”
Thrasher shook his head sadly.
“I was never that great a sorcerer,” Scapegrace said. “I can admit it now. My magic was never that powerful. But I thought my skills and my talents would make up for it. Even when I realised that I had no skills or talents to speak of, that still didn’t stop me. I was the Killer Supreme, and then I became the Zombie King. That, I thought, was a life worth having.”
Thrasher nodded in agreement.
“But now… now look at me. I barely have a face. Bits fall off me all the time. I have to keep them in jars in the ice-cream van. And I’m going to rot away to nothing within a year.”
“You still have me,” Thrasher said kindly.
Scapegrace shoved him in the lake, then marched back towards the town. “Unless I take action. Unless I seize the day! Nye won’t return me to life until I make it worth his while? Then I will make it worth his while!”
Thrasher splashed about.
Scapegrace avoided the main street, went instead down one of the alleys between buildings until he came to a pub. The doors were chained shut, fastened by a rusted old padlock. He smashed the padlock with a rock and walked in. The place was dark and dusty. Thrasher scurried in wetly behind him.
“This will be my base of operations,” Scapegrace said grandly. “From here I will build my power, make my plans and convince Doctor Nye to return me to life. I have a year to do it, and by God, do it I shall!”
Thrasher applauded. Scapegrace pointed to a bar stool beside him.
“Sit there and don’t annoy me.”
Thrasher hopped up on to the bar stool.
“Vaurien,” said a voice from behind.
Scapegrace turned. A man walked in, tall but thick around the middle. His hair was silver, and he had a stern look in his eye.
“McGill,” Scapegrace said.
Taciturn McGill walked right up to him. “Why are you here?”
“How are you?” Scapegrace smiled. “How have you been? You’re looking well. Better than me, anyway. But that’s not hard. I’m a zombie now. How are you?”
“Why are you here, Vaurien?”
“I, um…”
“Can I take it that you won’t be staying?”
“This bar is mine,” Scapegrace said, losing the smile.
McGill shook his head. “You lost this establishment to Deadfall ten years ago.”
“That was a gentleman’s agreement, that was. I lost that bet and I handed everything over, and I left without kicking up a fuss.”
“I recall some crying.”
“My point is, legal ownership never transferred. Technically, this place has always been mine. Now that Deadfall is dead, there’s nothing to stop me from picking up where I left off.”
“Actually,” McGill said, “there’s plenty to stop you. We don’t want you back, Vaurien.”
Scapegrace blinked. “What do you mean? Roarhaven is my home.”
“It was your home. But even back then, we didn’t want you here.”
“I have close ties to the community.”
“You owe me money.”
“That’s one of my ties.”
“It’s not a lot of money, though. It certainly isn’t enough for me to let you stay while you repay me.”
“I’ve done great things for this town!” Scapegrace protested. “I was here when it all started! I brought the Torment in, for God’s sake! Taciturn, please. I’ve got nowhere else to go. Look at me. I’m a zombie.”
“We don’t like zombies here.”
“You don’t like anything here! I’m looking for a cure. I think Doctor Nye can cure me. It works at the Sanctuary—”
“I know who Doctor Nye is.”
“It can help me, McGill. Once I’m human again, I’ll leave. I will. You’ll never see me again. But for now, let me stay. Let me have my bar back. I won’t cause any trouble, I promise. I know that if you say it’s OK, then everyone else will say it’s OK too.”
“That’s not how things work.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it is.”
“Not any more. There are things you don’t know about, Vaurien.”
“What things? The people of this town will still do what you tell them, right?”
“The Torment changed all that. He started talking, himself and his friends. They started telling people about their big ideas… You think it’s an accident the Sanctuary was relocated here? You think that wasn’t part of their plan?”
“Part of whose plan?”
McGill sighed. “Listen, Vaurien, I’ve known you a long time.”
“We’re friends.”
“We’re not friends, but I’ve still known you a long time. If you stay here for a few weeks, I don’t think anyone will object too loudly.”
“Thank you, Taciturn. And I swear, we’ll only be here a few months. A year, tops.”
“Weeks, Vaurien.”
“Right. Yes.”
“Try not to annoy anyone, and try to, y’know, stay away from people. Nobody likes zombies.”
Scapegrace chuckled. “I know the feeling.”
“You are a zombie.”
“Yes, but I was talking about Thrasher.”
“Who’s Thrasher?”
Thrasher sat forward. “Hello.”
McGill jerked away. “Ahh! How’d he do that? I didn’t even see him there! Is he some kind of ninja?”
“No,” Scapegrace said sadly. “He just fades into the background really well. You have my word, McGill, we will not get into trouble. Thank you.”
“Yeah,” McGill said, and stood up. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Of course I won’t,” Scapegrace said, crossing his fingers behind his back. He must have crossed them too hard, though, because one of them came loose and fell to the floor. He waited until McGill had walked out before picking it up, then trudged away to find some ice.
Chapter 24
The Temple Siege
t a little past noon, the first truck pulled up to the gates of the cemetery. The rear doors opened and Cleavers slipped out quietly. They moved in easy formation through the rows of graves to the crypt that acted as the entrance to the Necromancer Temple. One of them twisted the hemispheres of a cloaking sphere, and a bubble of energy rippled outwards. Once the bubble had expanded to the outskirts of the graveyard, the second truck arrived. More Cleavers disembarked and took up positions around the perimeter.
Wreath and Tenebrae watched the Cleavers, viewing it all on a large screen broken into squares. Each of these squares was a different camera angle. The cameras wouldn’t last long, but at least they gave an indication of what the Necromancers were up against. From what Wreath could see, they were up against a lot.
Men and women joined
Seven minutes after the first Cleaver had stepped off the first truck, Wreath watched Valkyrie Cain follow Skulduggery Pleasant up the cracked path to the crypt. They stopped under a camera, looked right up into it.
“My name is Skulduggery Pleasant,” the skeleton said, his voice coming loud and clear through the speakers. “I have with me a warrant for the arrest of Melancholia St Clair, to be charged with the assault of a Sanctuary operative and detained by us until trial. If this door is not opened immediately, we will be forced to break it down.”
Pleasant waited a full five seconds, then nodded. Wreath’s gaze flickered to another feed, as a battering ram was brought up, held by two Cleavers, who swung it into the crypt door in a heavy rhythm.
The screens went blank. So much for technology.
“The doors won’t hold for ever,” Wreath said, as Quiver and Craven came in behind them.
“What about their Teleporter?” Tenebrae asked.
Wreath shook his head. “Fletcher Renn can only teleport to places he’s been or can see. He’s never even seen inside the Temple.”
Tenebrae sat back in his chair. “Reinforcements?”
“A dozen of our brothers and sisters are on their way from London,” Wreath said. “But whether they’ll make it in time, I don’t know.”
Tenebrae looked at Quiver. “Our escape routes?”
“Available,” Quiver said in his steady, measured tone, “for the moment. Sanctuary operatives are covering over half of them – more than we thought they knew about – but there are still plenty we could use to evacuate key personnel.”
“Speaking of key personnel,” Tenebrae said, turning to Craven, “how is she? Is she well enough to be moved?”
Craven took a deep breath, and for a long moment he didn’t speak. Just before Tenebrae opened his mouth to demand a response, Craven nodded. “She could make it if she had to, but I’d really rather keep her stationary. Her power ebbs and flows. If we can keep them out for five hours, maybe six, she should be back to full strength. Then we won’t need to run anywhere.”
Wreath frowned at him. “Six hours? We’ll be lucky if they don’t burst in here halfway through this conversation. The Temple is not a fort.”
“But it is well protected,” Craven said, hands clasped and looking off somewhere beyond Wreath’s elbow. It was a new habit Craven had picked up, and Wreath didn’t like it. It made Craven look like a holy man. “Once the barricades are in place, we could collapse the tunnels and seal ourselves in.”
“We don’t want to seal ourselves in,” Tenebrae said gruffly. “We want an escape route.”
“I understand, High Priest, but as I have said, once Melancholia regains her strength, we won’t need to run.”
“That, Cleric Craven, is your opinion.”
“Indeed it is, Your Eminence. And with all humility, may I remind you that it was I who guided Melancholia to the brink of the Passage. Without meaning to overstep my bounds, one might think I was entitled to a little faith in return.”
“I think,” Tenebrae growled, “that you have indeed overstepped your bounds.”
Craven bowed his head. “My apologies, High Priest.”
With Craven’s head still bowed, Tenebrae looked at Wreath.
“If we collapse the tunnels,” Wreath said reluctantly, “we could hold them off for twelve hours at the most. The barricades would need to be reinforced. We’d need to move people around. But make no mistake, we would be sealing ourselves in. If Melancholia doesn’t regain her strength, it could be disastrous.”
“The Death Bringer will be strong when we need her,” Craven said solemnly.
Tenebrae’s jaw clenched. “Cleric Wreath, see to it.”
“Of course, Your Eminence.”
Wreath left the room, a plan of his own forming. He ignored the barricades for the moment and went deeper into the Temple.
Despite the alarming turn of events, there was still protocol to be followed, still rules to obey and pay heed to. Wreath was a senior Cleric with the ear of the High Priest, but even he had to slow down and wait like everyone else if he wanted to see the Director of Storage. It was a mundane title that suggested pedantry and a multitude of lists, but the reality was much different. The Director of Storage was the person who oversaw and controlled equipment and food supplies, and as such, he acted within a bubble of his own authority. Wreath was kept waiting almost ten minutes before he was told that the Director would see him now.
Cleric Bertrand Solus didn’t bother to raise his eyes from the papers on his desk as Wreath walked in. He was a busy man. There was only one chair in the office, and Solus was sitting on it.
“Yes?” Solus said, his pen scratching ink on to parchment. Why these people couldn’t invest in a computer was beyond Wreath’s understanding.
“Sanctuary agents have us surrounded,” Wreath said.
“I am aware of the situation.”
“To keep them out until the Death Bringer regains her strength, we need to collapse the auxiliary tunnels and barricade the main door.”
“As I said, I am aware.”
“But there is one tunnel that we do not know the location of.”
Finally, Solus’s pen stopped scratching, and he raised his eyes.
“You have your own tunnel,” Wreath continued. “You use it to bring in supplies you don’t want anyone to know about. I’ve never had a problem with this. You do your job well, and if sometimes you feel that you are best served by secrecy, who am I to say different?”
“Why are you here?” Solus asked.
“I don’t want to collapse your tunnel. I want to use it. If things go bad, I want as many personnel as possible to get to safety. The Sanctuary agents know about some of our tunnels, but not all. I doubt they have any idea about a tunnel so secret that it doesn’t even exist in any official capacity.”
“It’s not wide,” said Solus, “and it’s long. If the Temple is breached, you could use it to evacuate perhaps ten or twelve people at a time. Any more, and it would be discovered.”
“Twelve people at a time, then,” Wreath said. “The first of which shall be the Death Bringer, the White Cleaver and ten senior Clerics. Yourself included, of course. Where is the entrance?”
Solus regarded him with cautious, wary eyes. “The small storage room below us,” he said. “The tunnel is two miles long. It emerges into a small warehouse the Temple owns through three different subsidiaries. There are vehicles in the warehouse, enough to take a substantial number to a safe house.”
“Thank you very much for your co-operation, Cleric,” Wreath said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have much to arrange.”
Solus waved him away, his pen already scratching as Wreath left his office.
Chapter 25
The Vivid Dead
he world felt different to her now, ever since the Surge. It even looked different: paler, more vague. Less real. The people looked different too. She could see, for the first time, how glassy and unfocused their eyes were, how translucent their skin. She thought, if she concentrated hard enough, that she’d be able to see through them, to the underneath, to the blood and the veins and bones. She wondered if that would reassure her that all this was real. She doubted it.
The White Cleaver was at the door. He stood like a statue, his scythe held in one hand. He was real to her. He was solid. He was as different to a zombie as humans were to apes, but he was still a dead thing. And as such, she didn’t even have to look at him to know he was there. She could feel him. She didn’t know how, she couldn’t explain it, but while everyone else had become vague and distant, he was the one clear thing she could latch on to for comfort.
The other man in the room, another guard, was so insubstantial he was almost a g
The White Cleaver turned his head slightly to look at the dead Necromancer, but made no move other than that. Melancholia stared at the dead man, marvelling at how vivid he seemed now that he was dead. She reached out, touched his leg. He was so solid, she almost laughed. She wasn’t alone. So long as there were dead people around her, she wasn’t going to drown in a sea of uncertainty. Her heart felt lighter than it had all day.
Chapter 26
Terminal Two
kulduggery’s phone rang, and Valkyrie stepped away while he answered it. Cleavers and sorcerers were gathered in groups around the cemetery – the largest group stationed at the crypt that housed the Temple door. She wondered for a moment if Wreath was down there, and felt a stab of guilt that her side was taking action against his side. Then she thought about Melancholia, and all feelings of guilt evaporated.
Skulduggery put his phone away. “A man answering Bison Dragonclaw’s description was spotted in Terminal Two at the airport a few minutes ago.”
Valkyrie made a face. “His first name is Bison?”
“He must be there to meet their reinforcements,” Skulduggery continued. “It stands to reason that the other Necromancer Temples around the world would send people over to help the Death Bringer. We’ll have to take care of this ourselves.”
“We will?”
“Unless you want to stay here. I feel I have to warn you, though, we’re probably not going to find a way past their barricades for another few hours.”