Then he stumbled through the line of black, and disappeared into the cave behind them.
Pleasant leaped from the saddle, using his magic to propel himself through the air like he’d been shot from a cannon. He landed a couple of strides from the line of Necromancers.
“Move,” he said.
The Necromancers, being the contrary lot that they were, showed no intention of budging an inch. The one in the middle, the one who’d stepped aside to allow Serpine pass, gave Pleasant a smile.
“Welcome to our Temple,” he said. “Ours is a place of peace and learning. Do you have business here?”
“Move,” Pleasant said again. His voice, usually so smooth, was coarse as the sand they’d travelled across to get here. The Dead Men dismounted behind him, walked slowly up till they formed a wedge at his back. They kept their hands close to their guns.
“Nefarian Serpine is a guest,” said the talkative Necromancer. “He has provided us a service in the past, and so he is under our protection. I’m afraid I can’t let you through.”
“If you side with our enemy,” said Pleasant, “you become our enemy.”
To his credit, the Necromancer didn’t seem all that intimidated by a walking skeleton with guns on his hips. He gave Pleasant another smile. “That’s a rather simplistic view of things, isn’t it? There’s really not much room for manoeuvring around that little philosophy. I prefer, personally, to take each moment as it comes, and to treat every obstacle as an opportunity to do something different. It makes life interesting.”
His patience worn to a frayed thread already, conversing with a smiling flannel-mouth such as this one was enough to snap it clean. Pleasant went to push by, and suddenly there was a wall of shadows looming over their heads. The Dead Men went for their guns, but froze before drawing. Once those guns cleared leather, death would come flying and there’d be no turning back.
“You think you scare us?” the Necromancer asked. “They call you the Dead Men, but it is my brothers, my sisters and I who wield the true death magic. You think we’re afraid to die? Really?”
“I think you talk big,” said Pleasant. “I think you talk about death like it’s your friend. But if you really want to get acquainted, we can help you with that.”
“Then kill us,” the Necromancer said. “But be warned. We stand at the mouth of a Temple. Beneath our feet, there are more of us than you can imagine. They’ll tear you to pieces and you still won’t be any closer to your quarry.”
“Then we’ll wait,” Bespoke said. “We’ll make camp right here and we’ll wait.”
“As much as I would enjoy seeing you waste your time in such a fashion,” the Necromancer replied, “our Temple has hidden entrances and exits leading far and wide. You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Serpine is out of your reach, get on your horses, and trot away.”
“We don’t give up that easily,” said Ravel.
“Then you should start,” said the Necromancer. “Because you’ve lost this little game. The skeleton knows it. That’s why he’s gone so quiet. All this time, all this effort, all this building of hatred and anger … all for nothing. You were a few seconds too late, gentlemen. That can’t be easy for you. You have my commiserations. But the game is done. It’s over. You can pick it up again in another country, maybe. But when Mevolent does fall – and he will – there will be a treaty, and an amnesty, and then Mr Serpine will be able to walk free without a care in the world, and there won’t be a single thing you can do about it.”
The Dead Men took their hands from their guns. They’d been alive long enough to know when they were beaten, and they had enough wisdom between them to know there was no shame in it. Sometimes the cards flipped right, and sometimes they didn’t.
At Pleasant’s nod, they got back on their horses. The Necromancers began to file into the cave, and the wall of shadows became little more than black smoke in the wind. Finally, there were just Pleasant and the Necromancer left standing there.
“What’s your name?” Pleasant asked.
That smile again. “Cleric Solomon Wreath, at your service,” said the Necromancer. He even gave a little bow.
“Mr Wreath, today you have prevented me from doing my duty.”
“On the contrary, I have prevented you from exacting your revenge.”
“Which amounts to the same thing. I won’t forget this.”
“I don’t expect you to,” said Wreath, but Pleasant had already turned his back on him.
That night they rested their horses by a stream and didn’t talk a whole lot.
Pleasant sat by himself, looking out into the darkness. To say he had a peculiar anger would of course be something of an understatement, but a peculiar anger it was, as it wasn’t the sort any normal folk could understand. It was a slow-burning heat, capable of firing up at a whim, but never in any danger of puttering out. It kept him. It sustained him. Maybe there was even a part of him that was glad Serpine had wormed his way free.
As long as the man who’d killed him and his family was alive, somewhere out there across the dark plain, Pleasant had a reason to fight, a reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But kill the killer, and what was left? Something cold and uncertain. Could be he hung on to what he had – his hate, his anger, his job – because hanging on was all he had. The war was coming to an end. His time as a soldier was coming to an end.
What then? Was there something else out there, something he had yet to discover, that could keep him going when he’d used up everything else? Some thing or some person that would give him a purpose again, that would light a different kind of fire within him?
Most likely, he didn’t know. He probably didn’t care to think that far ahead.
The Dead Men slept. But not Skulduggery Pleasant.
No, Skulduggery Pleasant just hung on, waiting.
Because it was all he had.
The costumed guests mingled and laughed, sipped champagne and wine and plucked tasty but pointless canapés from the trays of passing waiters. A string quartet played from the darkened gallery, as if they’d been shunted to one side to make room in the light for the chosen few. And the chosen few they really were; invitations to Sebastian Fawkes’s parties were rarer than an honest coin in a politician’s pocket.
That wasn’t a bad line, actually, Gordon realised. Needed work, but it had potential.
“Invitations to these parties are rarer than an honest coin in a politician’s pocket,” Gordon said to his companion, and waited for the response. When none came, he frowned, stored the line away and vowed to play around with it later.
He recognised a few of the faces – the moustachioed face, for instance, of R. Samuel Keen, an American whose every book had to have either an unnaturally wise child or a psychic dog. His latest one, which Gordon had tried to listen to