“You need to go back to work.”
“I am working.”
“You need to work on a story that will get you paid. You’re living on scraps, for God’s sake. I need to get paid, too.”
Kenny frowned. “That’s what this is about? You want money?”
“I don’t want money, I need money. I have bills to pay.”
“When we release what we have, we’ll be rich beyond our—”
“Release what?” Slattery said, barking a laugh. “We have photographs of people and coloured thread on a wall.”
“You seem to be forgetting the recorded footage we have of Valkyrie Cain and Fletcher Renn fighting a monster.”
“Could I be blamed for forgetting that? It’s not like we’ve done anything with it. We haven’t released it or sold it. We’ve hung on to it.”
“You know why. We need more than that. We need something so concrete that no one will even try to tell us it’s faked. We’re dealing with sorcerers who can make you believe whatever they tell you. We can’t afford to go public until we have overwhelming evidence.”
“And how are we going to get it?”
Kenny sat back.
“You need the evidence to write that book you’re always on about,” said Slattery. “You need the evidence to make that documentary that I’m apparently going to film. Where’s that evidence, Kenny? Where do we find it?”
“We stick to Valkyrie.”
“Here we go again.”
“We stick to Valkyrie Cain and she will take us to the evidence eventually.”
“She’s a teenage girl and you want us to follow her around again? We’ve spied on her enough, don’t you think? We tailed her for months, and she led us to people and places that are up on that wall, and that’s it. That’s all we’ve been able to get.”
“Then we have to dig deeper.”
“With what resources?”
“Well, what do you suggest? That we give up on the single most important story in the history of the world? I’m not exaggerating here, and you know I’m not.”
“I never said you were. I’m just saying we can’t do it alone.”
“We have to keep this between ourselves.”
“We can trust—”
“We can’t trust anyone. A careless word here and there and somehow it gets back to Geoffrey Scrutinous or Finbar Wrong or Valkyrie or Skulduggery, and they’ll come for us. They’ll take all this, all our work and research, and they’ll wipe our minds and do a better job of it than they did with me last time.”
“It’s risky. I know it is. But we don’t have a choice. We need support, we need money, we need help.”
Kenny shook his head. “We do this alone.”
“You know your problem? You don’t want to share the glory.”
“This isn’t about who gets the by-line.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What are you going to do?” Kenny asked. “If I say no, if I say we don’t need anyone, what are you going to do?”
“You mean if you refuse to see sense? I don’t know yet. I might just have to take what I know and go somewhere else.”
“I brought you in on this. This is my story.”
“See? It is about the by-line.”
Kenny sighed. “Just give it a little time, OK? All this crazy stuff that’s been happening, it’s been leading to something, I know it has. We just have to wait. Just a little longer.”
Slattery stood up. “You have till October.”
“You can’t expect—”
“Two months, Kenny. Then either we get some help, or I leave with what I have.”
There was a knock on his door and Ravel stepped in. He looked tired. “Mind if I sit?” he asked.
Ghastly motioned to the chair, and Ravel sank into it. “I just spoke with Bisahalani,” he said. “He assures me that a thorough investigation is under way to determine what exactly happened to Caviler. He said the operative responsible for the ‘accident’ has been suspended pending further inquiry. He apologises for the unfortunate timing.”
“He apologises for the timing?” said Ghastly. “What about the death?”
“He stopped short of apologising for that. He said a formal apology could be forthcoming once it has been determined that Caviler was not sent to America as a spy.”
“Caviler has nothing to do with us,” Ghastly said. “He’s not an operative and never was. That’s a matter of public record.”
“Grand Mage Bisahalani likes to be sure.”
Ghastly narrowed his eyes. “He’s bluffing. Remember Prussia, right after Hopeless died? Shudder and I fell in with Bisahalani and his group of American mages. The area was completely overrun by Mevolent’s forces. They were hunting us down. Relentless. They finally had us surrounded in this old farmhouse. We were exhausted, starving, injured … it wouldn’t have taken much to finish us off. Bisahalani walked out, he actually walked out the front door, walked across the yard to where Mevolent’s soldiers were crouched behind cover. No one fired at him because they were all too stunned at what was happening. He went up to whoever was in charge and he stood there and informed him that he was to take his squad of killers and madmen and scurry away before the people in that farmhouse grew irritated.”
“Did it work?”
“Astonishingly, yes. He was so convincing, he was so bull-headed and strong-willed, that Mevolent’s soldiers decided to cut their losses and leave. That’s what he does. When he’s backed into a corner, Bisahalani will talk big and talk tough and all the time he’ll be crossing his fingers and hoping that you don’t stand your ground. They murdered an innocent man in their custody. The core elements of the Supreme Council will stick together, but what of everyone else? We know the Scottish Sanctuary is already asking questions. The Estonians, too. Tipstaff just told me that Grand Mage Kribu is calling for all Irish prisoners to be released in the wake of what happened.”
“We have the advantage,” Ravel said. “We have them over a barrel for the first time since all this began.”
“If we play this right,” said Ghastly, “support for the Supreme Council will crumble, and the Supreme Council itself could even dissolve.”
“We have to be careful. They’re going to try to shift focus away from their mistake on to one of ours.”
“Then