He pulled the car over and got out to open the Bentley’s boot. Stephanie had never been to this part of town before. The streets were quiet and empty. She could see the bridge over the canal in the distance. Moments later Skulduggery was back behind the wheel, they were driving again and Stephanie had a leather bound book on her lap.
“What’s this?” she asked, opening the clasp and flicking through the pages.
“Our most popular myths and legends,” said Skulduggery. “You just passed the Sceptre.”
She flicked back and came to a reproduction of a painting of a wide-eyed man reaching for a golden staff with a black crystal embedded in its hilt. The Sceptre was glowing and he was shielding his eyes. On the opposite page was another picture, this time of a man holding the Sceptre, surrounded by cowering figures, their heads turned away. “Who’s this guy?”
“He’s an Ancient. In the legends, they were the very first sorcerers, the first to wield the power of the elements, the first to use magic. They lived apart from the mortal world, had no interest in it. They had their own ways, their own customs and their own gods. Eventually, they decided that they wanted to have their own destinies too, so they rose up against their gods, rather nasty beings called the Faceless Ones, and battled them on the land, in the skies and in the oceans. The Faceless Ones, being immortal, won every battle, until the Ancients constructed a weapon powerful enough to drive them back – the Sceptre.”
“You sound like you know the story well.”
“Tales around the campfire might seem quaint now, but it’s all we had before movies. The Faceless Ones were banished, forced back to wherever they came from.”
“So what’s happening here? He’s killing his gods?”
“Yep. The Sceptre was fuelled by the Ancients’ desire to be free. That was the most powerful force they had at their disposal.”
“So it’s a force for freedom?”
“Originally. However, once the Ancients no longer had the Faceless Ones to tell them what to do, they started fighting among themselves, and they turned the Sceptre on each other and fuelled it with hate.”
The streetlights played on his skull as they passed in and out of darkness, flashing bone-white in a hypnotic rhythm.
“The last Ancient,” he continued, “having driven his gods away, having killed all his friends and all his family, realised what he had done and hurled the Sceptre deep into the earth, where the ground swallowed it.”
“What did he do then?”
“Probably went for a snooze. I don’t know, it’s a legend. It’s an allegory. It didn’t really happen.”
“So why does Serpine think it’s real?”
“Now that is puzzling. Like his master before him, he believes some of our darker myths, our more disturbing legends. He believes the world was a better place when the Faceless Ones were in charge. They didn’t exactly approve of humanity, you see, and they demanded worship.”
“The ritual that he’s been looking for – is it to bring them back?”
“It is indeed.”
“So he might think that the Sceptre, which drove them away, could somehow call them home, right?”
“People believe all kinds of things when it comes to their religion.”
“Do you believe in any of it? The Ancients, Faceless Ones, any of it?”
“I believe in me, Stephanie, and that’s enough for now.”
“So could the Sceptre be real?”
“Highly unlikely.”
“So what does any of this have to do with my uncle?”
“I don’t know,” Skulduggery admitted. “That’s why they call it a mystery.”
Light filled the car and suddenly the world was bucking, the only sounds a terrifying crash and the shriek of metal on metal. Stephanie lurched against her seatbelt and slammed her head against the window. The street outside tilted wildly and she realised the Bentley was flipping over. She heard Skulduggery curse beside her and for an instant she was weightless, and then the Bentley hit the ground again and jarred her against the dashboard.
It rocked back on to its tyres. Stephanie looked at her knees, her eyes wide but her brain too stunned to think. Look up, said a faint voice in her head. Look up to see what’s happening. The Bentley was still, its engine cut out, but there was another engine. A car door opening and closing. Look up. Footsteps, running footsteps. Look up now. Skulduggery beside her, not moving. Look up, there’s someone coming for you. Look up NOW.
A window exploded beside her for the second time that night, and the man from the house was grabbing her and hauling her out of the car.
A MAN APART
“You will die,” he hissed, “right here and now if you do not give me that damned key.”
Her hands were on his, trying to break his grip. Her head felt light, blood pounding in her temples. “Please,” she whispered, trying to breathe.
“You’re going to make me look bad,” the man growled. “My master is going to think I’m a fool if I can’t get one stupid little key off one stupid little girl!”
The street was empty around them. Shopfronts and businesses, closed for the night. No one was going to hear her. No one was coming to help her. Where was Skulduggery?
The man lifted her off the bonnet and slammed her down again… Stephanie cried out in pain and the man leaned in, his right forearm pressed beneath her chin. “I’ll snap your scrawny neck,” he hissed.
“I don’t know anything about a key!” Stephanie gasped.
“If you don’t know anything you’re of no use to me and I’ll kill you here.”
She looked up at that horribly twisted face and stopped trying to pull his hands away. Instead she dug her thumb into the bullet hole in his shoulder. He screamed and let her go and staggered back, cursing, and Stephanie rolled off the car and ran to the Bentley. Skulduggery was pounding at the door but it had buckled under the impact, trapping his leg.
“Go!” he shouted at her through the broken window. “Get away!”
Stephanie glanced back, saw a figure loom up, and pushed herself away from the car. She slipped on the wet road but scrambled to her feet and ran, the man right behind her, clutching his injured shoulder.
He lunged and she ducked, caught a streetlight and swung herself from her course, and the man shot by her and sprawled on to the pavement. She took off the opposite way, passing the two cars and running on. The street was too long, too wide, and there was nowhere she could lose him. She turned off into a narrow lane and sprinted into the shadows.
She heard him behind her, heard