Scapegrace stared and Tanith had to clap her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing. Valkyrie struggled to keep the smile off her face, and really wished she was anywhere but in Scapegrace’s line of sight.
“She can’t do that,” he said. “That’s illegal!”
“I’m afraid it’s not. It’s a loophole she’s been exploiting for years. She sucks out the brain and swallows it, thereby digesting and absorbing the knowledge.”
“But that’s horrible,” Scapegrace said weakly.
“You’ve left us with little choice. Tanith, if you wouldn’t mind?”
From her position behind Scapegrace, Tanith held up her hands in a what-do-you-expect-me-to-do? gesture. Her hands dropped when Scapegrace tried to look back at her and she became deadly serious. The moment he took his eyes off her again she went back to helpless gesturing.
Scapegrace righted himself in his chair and made his hands into fists, and screwed his eyes shut. “You’re not going to suck out my brains!” he yelled.
Skulduggery sat back and didn’t offer Tanith any advice. She pointed a finger at him, wagged it slightly and then turned her attention to Scapegrace. She sighed, walked up beside him and held her hands over his head. His eyes were still screwed shut.
Tanith changed her mind about the hands thing and leaned over, putting her mouth next to his ear. His body went rigid. Her lips parted, and the barest sound of skin leaving skin made Scapegrace scream and jerk back and topple over sideways. He crashed to the floor.
“I’ll tell you!” he squealed. “I’ll tell you everything I know! Just keep her off me, you hear? Keep her away from my brains!”
“Is the Torment still alive?” Skulduggery asked, standing over him.
“Yes!”
“When was the last time you had contact with him?”
“Two years ago, I swear!”
“What was the nature of the meeting?”
“I just wanted to talk to him!”
“What did you talk about?”
Scapegrace peeked up, made sure Tanith wasn’t about to start with the brain-sucking. “Nothing. He walked away. He wouldn’t talk. I don’t think he likes me.”
“Why doesn’t he like you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s my smell.”
“What do you know about the Grotesquery?” Valkyrie asked.
“Nothing, not a thing, honest.”
“Tanith,” Skulduggery said wearily, “suck his brains.”
“No! Wait! I don’t know anything, but he does! During the war – the war with Mevolent. He was tracking Baron Vengeous.”
“Why?” Skulduggery asked.
“He was going to kill him. During that whole thing, the war, he was on your side. I was on your side too.”
“I never saw you fight.”
“I was somewhere near the back,” Scapegrace said weakly. “But the fact is, we were all fighting the same enemy – that counts for something, right?”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.”
“The Torment, he told me once that he’d been watching Vengeous and he’d been about to strike when, when you showed up. You fought, and you took Vengeous away, and the Torment decided it was time to retire. He’s an old guy. He was around long before Mevolent even arrived on the scene. But he told me, while he’d been watching Vengeous, he’d seen where he’d stashed the Grotesquery.”
“Where?”
“Well, he didn’t tell me that. Said something about me being unable to keep a secret or something.”
“Where is he?”
Scapegrace looked up, eyes wide. “You swear you’ll keep her away from my brains?”
“You have my word.”
“Roarhaven,” Scapegrace said after a hesitation. Valkyrie had heard of Roarhaven. It was a town of sorcerers, a dark little town that didn’t take kindly to strangers. “He’s in Roarhaven.”
Scapegrace sat in the back of the Bentley, wrists and ankles shackled and a gag over his mouth. He had got into the car with the shackles, but the gag had been a recent addition. Skulduggery had grown tired of his conversation.
They drove east out of the city, left the streets for the suburbs, then left the suburbs for the countryside. After half an hour of driving along the narrow winding roads, pulling over occasionally to let massive tractors rumble by, they came to a small town beside a dark lake that shimmered in the early afternoon sun.
The Bentley came to a stop in the shade of a large tree that stood on the outskirts of the town, and Valkyrie and Skulduggery got out. It was warm and strangely quiet.
“No birds are singing,” Valkyrie said.
“Roarhaven’s not the kind of town to inspire song,” Skulduggery responded. “Unless it’s the dirge variety.”
She could see people on the street, but they passed each other without a word.
Skulduggery pulled Scapegrace out after them and removed the gag. “Where do we find the Torment?”
“Give me a moment, OK?” Scapegrace said, looking over at the town. “I haven’t been back here in years. I’m home again, you know? This is a big personal thing for me.”
Skulduggery sighed. “Either you start being useful or we stuff you in the trunk and go looking ourselves.”
“There’s no need to threaten me,” Scapegrace said, annoyed. “You’re in a hurry, I get it. That’s no excuse for being rude to me in my own home town.”
“Are you going to be useful?”
Scapegrace glowered. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“But can you at least take my shackles off?”
“No.”
“Even around my ankles? This is my first time home in twenty years – I don’t want everyone to think I’m some kind of criminal.”
“You are some kind of criminal,” Valkyrie said.
“Yeah, but …”
“The shackles stay on,” Skulduggery said.
Scapegrace muttered, but did as he was told. His shackles clinking as he walked, taking baby steps so he wouldn’t trip over himself, he led them into town, staying away from the main street and sticking to the narrow alleys between buildings.
“Where does he live?” asked Skulduggery.
“Right over there.”
Scapegrace nodded to the building right in front of them.
Valkyrie frowned. “In a pub? The Torment lives in a pub?”
“Not just any pub,” Scapegrace snapped. “My pub. Well, it was my pub before I lost it. I took it as a sign, you know? A sign to move on, to see what else the world had to offer. Sometimes I regret it, leaving all this behind, going where I didn’t have family, didn’t have friends. There have been times when I’ve been so, so lonely …”
“It must have been awful for you,” Valkyrie said. “Of course, maybe if you didn’t