Nero said immediately.
Razzia frowned. “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?”
Nero looked around for help. With none forthcoming, he swallowed thickly. “Uh … you’re just … You’re not very stealthy.”
“Bull dust! I take off these heels and I barely make a sound when I walk. My feet are tiny. Look at them. It’s amazing I don’t fall over more often.”
“Well, it’s not really the stealth that’s the problem,” Nero said. “You just, in certain circumstances, you tend to go a little … crazy.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“At times.”
“Crazy?”
“A little.”
“I go crazy?”
“No,” Nero said. “No, you don’t. At all.”
She snarled. “Then you’ll let me go with you?”
Nero paled. “Of course.”
“Yay!” Razzia said, happy again.
Lethe held up a hand. “Nero may have a point, Razzia. This infiltration requires a certain deft touch that you may be lacking.”
Razzia bit her lower lip while she pondered. “Well,” she said, “I suppose I do go a little crazy sometimes.”
“I’ll take Memphis,” said Nero, but Memphis shook his head.
“Hell, no, I ain’t going.”
Nero looked dismayed. “Why not?”
“You might get it wrong, man,” Memphis said, running a comb through his hair. “Or you might teleport us into a group of Cleavers. I’ll stay here until I know the coast is clear, thank you very much.”
Cadaverous sighed. “I’ll go with him.”
Nero scowled. “I don’t want him to come.”
“You’ve already turned down one and been rejected by another,” Cadaverous said. “It’s me or it’s no one. I’m sick of listening to you complain about not being appreciated for who you are or what you contribute to the team. That’s all I’ve heard from you for the last few weeks. If you’re too scared to go alone, then I shall hold your hand. Is that acceptable to you, Mr Nero?”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me.”
“I somehow fail to care.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Lethe said, holding up his hands, “there’s no need for hostility. Cadaverous has made a kind-hearted offer. Nero, will you accept?”
“Sure,” Nero said grudgingly.
“Beautiful,” Lethe said. “Razzia: what is the time?”
Razzia nodded. “Time is a social construct designed to derive order from chaos.”
“Well put, Razzia. And do you have the time?”
“Oh,” she said. “No, I don’t wear a watch. I don’t believe in them. Time’s never done me any favours, and that’s fair dinkum.”
“I see. Smoke?”
“It’s twelve oh four,” Smoke said. “Twenty seconds to go.”
Lethe rolled his shoulders. “Nero, Cadaverous, prepare yourselves. The rest of us will stand ready.”
Cadaverous took hold of Nero’s wrist.
“We don’t need to be touching,” Nero complained.
Cadaverous gave him a smile. “I’m just making sure you don’t forget about me in all the excitement.”
Nero took a moment to roll his eyes before looking straight ahead, at the patch of thin air he was aiming to arrive at. As the seconds ticked away, Cadaverous used his tongue to pick a piece of meat from between his teeth. He spat it out.
“Go,” said Smoke.
Suddenly they were 1,100 metres off the coast and falling towards the churning, freezing sea. Cadaverous’s body released a bolt of adrenaline. Nero tried to snatch back his arm. He was about to panic, about to teleport away. Cadaverous tightened his grip.
And then his feet vanished.
The rest of him followed, almost too quick to register – his knees, thighs, hips, chest – and then they had dropped through the cloaking shield and Coldheart Prison burst into existence beneath them, a floating island of rock on which sat the walls, the fences, the watchtowers and the prison buildings themselves.
They teleported lower and flipped, so that their momentum took them upwards and then cancelled out. When they stopped rising, Nero teleported them once more, straight down to solid ground. They landed gently and crouched, waiting for the alerts to be called. When they heard no shouts, heard no alarms, they dared to raise their heads.
They were on the very edge of the island, perched on the slippery rocks. Before them was a fence. Beyond that, another fence. Towers, manned by Cleavers, stood at regular intervals – eight towers to a side. Walls and more fences separated the yard into sections for prisoner recreation and sections for staff. The buildings were big and blocky and imposing. Small windows and few of them. Solid doors.
The main prison building was a massive tower with broad shoulders. Slanted windows at the very top gave it its scowl. The inmates called this building the Brute.
“Fetch the others,” Cadaverous said, the wind whipping away his words. Nero vanished.
As irritating as Nero could be, he was also the key to taking this prison. So long as his enemies were within a certain range, he could teleport them away without having to lay a finger on them. The sigils and safeguards that kept out others of his ilk had no effect on him. He was, to all intents and purposes, virtually unstoppable. That reason, and that reason alone, was enough to keep him alive.
He arrived back with Lethe and the others.
“Cleavers in every tower,” Cadaverous told them. “Electrified fences. Cameras covering the yard. Just as we were warned.”
“And we’re not yet fighting for our lives,” said Lethe, “which means we are indeed in the one blind spot the island offers.”
“Our information was correct,” Smoke said.
Lethe looked at him. “You doubted it?”
“I don’t like spies,” he said, pulling at the braids in his goatee. “Theirs or ours.”
“Well,” Lethe said, “I for one am grateful for our spy. It bodes well for what is to come. You all know what to do. You all know where to go. We want the Cleavers and all Sanctuary personnel dead or gone. This is to be a clean sweep. Ignore the convicts. They’ll beg you to open their cells, but we’re not here for them. We’re here for her. We’re here to find the box.”
“And while we’re all risking our lives,” Nero said, “what are you going to be doing?”
Lethe nodded towards the Brute’s slanted windows. “I’m going to be in the control room,” he said. “Someone’s got to steer this thing, after all.”
Skulduggery and Valkyrie watched as Omen Darkly, his schoolbag slung over his shoulder, failed utterly to take his leave with anything resembling dignity. He tried two locked doors before finding the one that led off the balcony and into the tower. He waved, blushing madly,