sorry?”
“You’re sorry what?”
“The Vengeance Brigade? That’s what you’re calling it?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s … Nothing. It’s grand. Sanguine called it the Revengers’ Club, that’s all.”
“Club sounds stupid,” Scapegrace said defensively. “Brigade sounds better.”
“Actually,” said Thrasher, “a brigade usually consists of two to five army regiments, so maybe it isn’t really that accurate.”
Scapegrace glowered. “But the Vengeance Regiment doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be accurate either,” Thrasher told him, “seeing as how a regiment is composed of a number of battalions. It could be the Vengeance Battalion, I suppose, but really a battalion usually has around a thousand soldiers in it, and there aren’t a thousand people in your group.”
“How about the Vengeance Squad?” suggested Valkyrie.
“That might work,” Thrasher nodded.
“I prefer Brigade,” Scapegrace snapped. “And now I’ve lost my train of thought.”
“You were about to tell me where Tanith and the Professor are being held,” said Valkyrie.
“No,” Scapegrace said, “I’m pretty sure I was about to start killing you.”
“Don’t even try it.”
“I’ve dreamed about nothing else for the last two years.”
“You need better things to dream about.”
“Valkyrie Cain, welcome to death.”
“That is such a stupid thing to say.”
Scapegrace ran at her and Valkyrie threw the ball of fire she’d been holding for the past few minutes. Scapegrace was instantly enveloped in flame. He wheeled around, screaming.
“Master Scapegrace!” Thrasher yelled, horrified.
Valkyrie frowned. “I thought he couldn’t feel pain.”
Scapegrace immediately stopped screaming and running about. He just stood there and continued to burn.
“You’re burning quite easily,” she said. “Is that a zombie thing or something?”
“He has been using an awful lot of skin creams lately,” Thrasher mused. “Maybe the mixture is especially flammable.”
Valkyrie waved her hand and the fire went out.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Scapegrace said without enthusiasm, as he turned and walked out of the hotel, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Thrasher gave her a parting growl and quickly followed the trail out of the door.
The aroma of charred flesh forced Valkyrie to go looking for Skulduggery. She found him in the back room, helping Shudder to his feet. The walls were decorated with bits of zombie.
“Shudder did this?” she said, stunned at the sheer violence of what she saw. “Alone? Without a weapon?”
“Technically,” Skulduggery said, “Anton is a weapon. Or at least his gist is.”
“What’s a gist?”
“It’s the bad part of me,” Shudder said, speaking like every word was painful. “When I need it, I let it come out. Every time I do, however, it takes me a little longer to recover.” He frowned. “Sanguine was here. He came in and …” He grasped his sleeve and yanked it up. There was a metal band on his forearm, and hanging from it was a short link of a cut chain. “He has the key.”
Valkyrie followed Skulduggery up the two flights of stairs. They got to the twenty-fourth room. The door was closed and the key was in the lock.
“He has it,” Skulduggery said.
“How do you know? He might still be in there.”
Skulduggery shook his head. “He didn’t set one foot inside that room. He opened the door less than a centimetre and the nearest Remnant was sucked into the Soul Catcher. If he’d stepped in, they’d have swarmed him and then they’d have swarmed the hotel. After that, they’d have gone on and swarmed the country. We failed.”
“So now what?”
“Now we find Scarab’s castle before Kenspeckle repairs the Desolation Engine. I know someone who might be able to help us – it’s a long shot, but what isn’t these days? We’ve run out of options.” Skulduggery turned the key until they heard the lock clicking into place, then he withdrew it. “And we kick the living daylights out of anyone who stands in our way.”
Once it had satisfied its curiosity about its surroundings, the Remnant turned its attention to the old man chained to the wall. The Professor kept his eyes on the Remnant as it darted in and out of his line of sight. It came close and the Professor jerked away instinctively. It was playing with him.
It whipped by him again and the Professor cursed at it. Then it struck. It darted to his open mouth and the Professor’s eyes widened in panic as the Remnant forced its way down. His throat bulged, then the bulge moved and disappeared. Kenspeckle Grouse went limp.
Billy-Ray shook his head. “Hate those things,” he muttered.
Scarab walked back into the room and Professor Grouse looked up.
“You know why you’re here,” Scarab said. “We went to a whole lot of trouble to get you out of that room you were stuck in. If you do what we want, we’ll release you after. If you don’t, we’ll put you back where we found you and collect one of your brethren. I’m sure the next one we bring here will welcome a chance for freedom. What do you say?”
“I don’t trust you,” Grouse said in a voice that picked over the words like a carrion bird picking at meat. The Remnant inside him was unused to speaking aloud.
“Well,” said Scarab, “I don’t trust you either. But we are in a situation where we can help each other. As you know by now, we’re hoping that the old man you’re wearing like a bad suit has the all the knowledge and know-how we need. Does he?”
“Oh, he does,” Grouse said. “Oh, I do. And I have so much more.”
“Then do we have a deal?”
The old man looked at him and a smile drifted across his face like a seeping wound. “We have a deal, Mr Scarab.”