“I didn’t know anyone would be that interested, so yeah, I mentioned it here and there, and someone came to me with a better offer.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Valkyrie made a fist and crunched it against Chabon’s hands. Tanith struggled to keep him standing upright.
“A woman,” he gasped. “I met with her an hour ago. She paid me triple. I didn’t think you’d ever know. It’s the Murder Skull. What’s so important about it?”
“What did this woman look like?” asked Tanith.
“Dark hair. Pretty enough. All business.”
“A name,” Valkyrie said. “A number, address, anything.”
“She called me. Kept her number private. We met in the arrivals area in the airport. She had the money so I gave her the skull. I brought a second one for you lot.”
“You’d better give us something we can use to find her,” Fletcher said, “or I’m teleporting you to the middle of the Sahara and I’m leaving you there.”
Chabon looked at him, like he was gauging whether or not the threat was serious. He obviously decided it was.
“She’s American – Boston by the accent. And she’s got that eye thing – one green eye, one blue.”
“Heterochromia,” Tanith said. “Davina Marr.”
Valkyrie’s stomach dropped. Davina Marr had been brought in by the Irish Sanctuary to assume the role of Prime Detective. Valkyrie had had a few run-ins with her already, and had found her to be ambitious, patronising and ruthless.
“If she bought the skull,” Valkyrie said grimly, “then Thurid Guild has it by now, and he’s going to lock it away to make sure Skulduggery never gets back.”
“So what do we do?” asked Fletcher.
“We steal it,” said Valkyrie.
Scarab didn’t like Ireland. Every great misfortune in his life had happened here. Every major defeat. Even though he had done his time in an American prison, he’d been arrested here in Ireland – and it had been raining then too.
The castle was cold and there were draughts everywhere. Most of the doors had recently been blocked off, sealing away the dungeons and various unsavoury places. They were still accessible through the many secret passages, but it was proving quite difficult to get around. Also the plumbing was terrible. The cell that had been his home for two centuries had kept him alive, kept him nourished, kept his body clean and his muscles from atrophying. For 200 years he had not even needed to visit a bathroom. Where did all the waste go? Was there any waste to begin with? He didn’t know and no one had come around to tell him.
And now, suddenly, he had to eat and wash and visit the bathroom at worryingly frequent intervals, and the toilet wouldn’t flush. He’d searched for another bathroom and had quickly got lost. He had stumbled around in the dark for half an hour before finding his way back to where he started.
“Where have you been?” Billy-Ray asked, hurrying by. “They’re here.” He disappeared into the next room.
Scarab shuffled to the door and heard Billy-Ray welcoming their guests. Scarab’s bladder was still full, and he wondered if he had time to find a potted plant or something. Not that a place like this would have a potted plant.
“You’re wonderin’ why I called you here,” he heard Billy-Ray say. “You’re lookin’ at the guy sittin’ next to you and you’re goin’, hey, don’t I hate that guy? Didn’t that guy try to kill me once? The fact is, yeah, we all probably tried to kill each other a few times over the years, but y’know what? So did plenty of other people.
“And that, gentlemen, is why we’re here. That is the bond we share. This is our common affliction and so it provides us with our common goal. I got someone I want to introduce. You may have heard of him. He’s the man who killed Esryn Vanguard. Boys, I’d like you to meet the man, the legend, Dreylan Scarab!”
Scarab straightened up and walked in, keeping his steps purposeful and strong.
Four men sat at a table, with Billy-Ray taking the fifth seat. Scarab strode forward but didn’t sit. He knew each of the men, though they’d never met. His son’s descriptions were more than adequate.
Remus Crux was the ex-Sanctuary Detective, now a raving lunatic who didn’t bother washing. He was a recent convert to the Faceless Ones, according to Billy-Ray, and he’d developed a murderous fixation on the girl called Valkyrie Cain after she’d killed a couple of his Dark Gods with the Sceptre of the Ancients. Scarab had always believed the Sceptre to be a fairytale, and he’d never had much time for the Faceless Ones. He’d agreed to Crux’s inclusion, however, because while having a madman on board was a risk, sometimes risk was all you had.
The dark-haired man beside Crux was pale and dressed in black. Cain, a girl who was sounding more and more like a real and viable threat, had cut a slash across Dusk’s face with Billy-Ray’s straight razor, scarring him for life. Vampires were known for their grudges. Dusk was another unpredictable entity, for a vampire was more creature than man. But for sheer physical power he was an asset that could not be discounted.
Sitting across from Dusk was the self-proclaimed Terror of London, Springheeled Jack. His lanky frame curled into the chair, one knee drawn up to his chest. His suit was old and ragged, and his top hat was perched at an unsteady angle on his head. Hardened fingernails drummed a slow rhythm on the tabletop. Scarab didn’t know what manner of monster this was, but he knew that Jack had been driven out of England and was being hunted across Europe. Scarab liked people that had nowhere else to turn. Those were people he could rely on.
The fourth member of this little society, this Revengers’ Club, was the one about whom they knew the least. Billy-Ray had informed Scarab that this man claimed to be a killer beyond compare, who had suffered at the hands of the skeleton detective and his partner, but that was all they knew about the mysterious and deadly Vaurien Scapegrace.
Scarab stood at the head of the table and summoned all the dreadful authority he could muster.
“You’ve heard of the things I’ve done,” he said. They looked at him without speaking. “You’ve heard of the people I’ve killed. Most of these stories are true. I have killed and laughed and killed again. As have all of you.
“Gentlemen, we are a dying breed. A hundred years from now, people like us will be taken down before we’ve done anything wrong. We will be put in prison for the thoughts we think and the things we feel. We are the last of the truly great and the truly free. And they want to take that away from us.
“Sanguine was talking to you about a bond we share, a burning desire that lights within us all. We are free men, and to be free we must reject the rules and the laws that do not define us and do not apply to us. We must strike against our enemies, bring them down and grind them beneath our boots.”
“I am here because I am curious,” Dusk said. He spoke calmly, without effort or emotion. “Why should I help you?”
“I busted you out of prison