Until the End, page 13
But then Jenan sat opposite.
The chatter in the dining hall dropped to a low murmur. All eyes swivelled.
“What are you expecting?” Jenan asked, his voice low.
Omen kept his mouth shut. He put his phone down.
“You expecting me to take this plastic knife in my hand and dive on you? Stab you till you’re dead? You know, if I was gonna do it with a knife – a real knife, I mean, not school cutlery – I wouldn’t stab you in the back, yeah? I’d want to see your face. I’d want to see the look on your stupid face. The fear.” Jenan smiled. “But that’s way too quick, see? I want it to take a bit longer. I want it to hurt a little bit longer. Besides, I already stabbed you once – you and your brother. I kinda want to try something new.” He leaned closer. “You’re not saying a whole lot. What’s wrong? Do I scare you that much?”
“You don’t scare me at all,” Omen said.
“Liar,” said Jenan, relishing the word.
“We don’t have to do this. I’ve got other things to be worrying about, and I’m sure you do, too. We both have school, for God’s sake. This is our final year. We’ve got exams and then college to think about.”
“Exams,” Jenan said, laughing. “Like you’re going to make it that far. Like you’re going to live to sit them. Darkly, I’m going to kill you. You get me? I came back to this place for one thing and one thing only. You know what that is?”
“Maths?”
“No.”
“Home economics?”
“Tell one more joke and I’ll kill you right now,” Jenan said. “Say one more annoying thing and I’ll beat you to death in this room. I heard you fancy yourself as a bit of a fighter these days. You think you’d stand a chance against me?”
“I beat you once.”
“You and your brother, yeah – but your brother’s not here any more. He’s out there, showing everyone what a weak, pathetic loser he is.”
Omen had a response ready to go, but a message came through on his phone. He tapped the screen, then put the phone away. “Nice talking to you, Jenan, but I have to go.”
“You know your problem?” Jenan asked before Omen could stand. “You think you’re a good guy, you think you’re nice, but you came to visit me in prison. Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to understand.”
“No. You wanted to gloat.”
“Is that seriously what you think?”
“You wanted to see me in my prison clothes, wanted to see me behind that little bullet-proof screen, and then you wanted me to watch you walk out of there. When you left, you know what I did? I went back to gen pop. That’s general population, where you mix with all the other inmates. Did you know that Abyssinia wasn’t popular with some people? Did you know that some of those people kept beating me to a pulp before I finally learned that you’ve got to fight to survive in that place? I went through hell in there, and it was all because of you.”
“I didn’t gloat, Jenan.”
“If you want to tell yourself that, go right ahead, but I know the truth. I know everything you did. And you’re gonna pay for it all.”
“So you’re here for revenge, are you?”
Jenan’s smile was unnerving. “That’s exactly why I’m here. I want you to know that it’s coming. I want you to live with that. I want you to be thinking of it every minute of every day.”
Omen couldn’t help it: he laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I’m so sorry. That was rude. Sorry.”
“You won’t be laughing when I—”
“Jenan, seriously, dude, you want to kill me, you know what? Get to the back of the queue. People have been trying to kill me every couple of weeks for the last year. You had to fight to survive? Well, so did I.”
“Then I guess we’ll see who’s tougher.”
Omen stood up. “I guess we will,” he said, and walked away.
He sent a message on his phone and got a reply a few seconds later with a place to meet. He went to the West Tower, stepped out on to the balcony that circled the very top. The man waiting for him was tall and slender, dressed in a checked suit that was either the height of fashion or outrageously, ridiculously awful. The bow tie had little skulls on it and his pork-pie hat matched his purple shirt.
“Let’s see it,” Crepuscular Vies said.
Omen extended his arm and Crepuscular examined the bracelet. The bottom half of his face was fixed in a permanent rictus grin, his mouth lipless, his gums merging with his skin. It was only the top half of his face – those bulging eyes, those sharp brows – that were capable of any expression. One of his eyebrows arched. “And it’s tracking your location now, you say?”
“If I go anywhere I’m not supposed to go, it sets off an alarm and they come looking for me. Duenna says it’s tamper-proof.”
“Well, she would,” Crepuscular replied, “but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I’d say you’d be able to find out how to deactivate it completely if you knew where to look in your magic-science textbooks – but the people who write those textbooks have probably done their very best to hide that information from you. No one in a position of authority wants the people they control to know how to wield their own strength.” He took a leather strap from his pocket and wrapped it round Omen’s wrist so that it covered the bracelet. “In the meantime, I soaked this in brahmi and then a mixture of feverfew and henbane, so it should block the signal. Do not lick it.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
Crepuscular tied the strap tight. “If someone’s tracking you in particular, then you’re in trouble, because right now you’ve just disappeared from their system. But if they’re just using the bracelet to set off alarms if you stray, you’ll be fine.”
“You’re pretty handy to have around.”
“It has been said. Are you ready to go?”
Omen hesitated. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Not at all,” said Crepuscular. “But my very good friend is in danger, Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are bound to be there, and the truth needs to come out before the world ends.”
“You’re actually going to tell Skulduggery that you’re his long-lost partner?”
“Yes, I am,” Crepuscular said, a smile in his voice. “And I cannot wait to see the look on his expressionless skull.”
They waited inside Walter Egmont’s Los Angeles apartment for him to return home. It wasn’t a particularly nice apartment and the AC was broken, so it was hot and uncomfortable, even at night.
When Walter returned home, they hung back until he had shut and locked his door and was halfway to the kitchenette before Skulduggery said, “Boo.”
Walter screamed, whirled, staggered and fell, then tried to turn the fall into a roll that quickly became a crawl. He was a short man with a moustache and he had wide, buggy eyes – though his eyes might only have been buggy because he was suddenly confronted by a skeleton in a suit.
“Stop!” Walter screamed, clambering to his feet. “Don’t take one step closer!”
Skulduggery took plenty of steps closer, forcing Walter to back up against the wall.
“Stop! I’m commanding you to stop!”
“You just tried to have someone murdered,” Valkyrie said, sauntering after them. “You don’t get to command anyone.”
“The Lord God compels you!” Walter shrieked.
“Oh, dear,” said Skulduggery.
“You are demons!” Walter cried. “You’re just like the other one!”
“You mean Eraddin Tomb,” Skulduggery said.
“He is Death,” responded Walter, pointing. “The same as you. You are Death, too!”
Skulduggery took hold of Walter’s outstretched hand and snapped a cuff on to the wrist, then secured the other one to a pipe on the wall.
“Hey,” said Walter.
“Am I Death?” Valkyrie asked.
Walter tried pulling his arm free, then snarled. “You’re a demon!”
“No, I’m just a regular person, more or less, doing regular things, more or less – like you, without the attempted-assassination part.” She shrugged. “I mean, yeah, we were going to assassinate someone not too long ago – an attempted attempted-assassination, if you will – but we decided against it because we’re good people.”
“I’m a good person!” Walter screeched.
“You say that, but you did hire a guy to kill a guy, so that kind of calls your judgement into question.”
“Death,” Walter growled. “Eraddin Tomb is Death.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“He is the God of Death!”
“Yes, he is, but he isn’t Death itself. We had a whole discussion about it – it involved microwaves – you should have been there.”
“Is that why you tried to kill him?” Skulduggery asked.
“I’m not speaking to you. You’re Death, too. But yes, that’s why I wanted to kill him. To save the world!”
“So by killing the God of Death,” Valkyrie said, “you thought you’d be stopping anyone from dying from now on? Who told you all this?”
“I’ll never tell you. He’s a giant – he would smash you.”
“How big a giant? Like as tall as a mountain?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Walter sneered.
“As tall as a lamp post?”
“A small lamp post, maybe, or a tall bus shelter.”
“How tall is that? I’m six foot. How tall is he compared to me?”
“I don’t know – maybe three foot taller than you. But way wider, like he’s built of muscles. He would destroy you.”
Valkyrie frowned. “Wait a minute – is it Ragner? Is his name Ragner?”
“I don’t know who that is,” said Walter, “and I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.”
“Not Ragner,” Skulduggery said. “His brother, then. Was it Jagett?”
Walter clamped his mouth shut, and nodded.
“Jagett told you to kill Eraddin?”
“You won’t get anything out of me, demon,” Walter said. “He said I’d be saving the world!”
“And he put you in contact with an assassin?”
“None of this matters!” Walter sneered. “The God of Death won’t even see his own death coming!”
“You’re planning an ambush?” Skulduggery asked.
“No,” Walter said, going suddenly pale.
“More than an ambush, then.” Skulduggery tilted his head. “A trap – and he’s walking into it, isn’t he? It can’t be at his apartment – that’s already been blown up. So Ragner’s place. You found where Eraddin is staying, didn’t you? Do you have another assassin waiting for him? Maybe not. You tried shooting him, but that didn’t work. Another bomb, then. Is that what it is, Walter? Is it a bomb?”
“I’ll never tell you!”
“That’s a yes,” said Valkyrie, and they walked to the door. “Stick around, Walter – someone will be here to pick you up in a few hours.”
“I have to use the bathroom!” he shouted after them as they left, but they were already lifting into the air.
Tyler brought Mr Jones some toast and a coffee to get his strength back, and Mr Jones sat up in the bed in the spare room and ate the toast and drank the coffee as Tyler’s folks talked to him and asked him questions. He answered whatever they asked, but skimmed over the truth. He didn’t mention the stream of purple light that had given him that burn that Tyler’s mom had bandaged up, and he didn’t mention the fact that he could shoot laser beams out of his eyes.
“We got a Sheriff’s Department in town,” Tyler’s dad said. “We know you’d rather stay anonymous, but I really do think that calling them in would be the best bet.”
“The police don’t like me much,” said Mr Jones, smiling regretfully. He had an interesting accent. South African, Tyler’s mom had guessed. “I made some bad decisions in my youth, decisions I’m trying to make up for now, and I’m afraid they’ll come back to haunt me once you alert the authorities. I understand that you may feel you need to inform them and I respect that, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be here when they arrive.”
Tyler’s mom, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, looked conflicted. “Mr Jones, you were injured saving our son from whoever these people were, so you can stay with us until you’re healed and we won’t call the sheriff if you don’t want us to. But you’ve got to be honest, because if your presence here is putting our children in any danger, we need to know about it.”
“Thank you,” said Mr Jones. “And your family isn’t in any danger. The men who went after Tyler won’t be missed for another few days, by which time I’ll be long gone and leading the others away from here.”
“So there are others?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Tyler’s dad shook his head. “I have to ask – what is it you’re messed up in? Is it criminal stuff? You got no reason to feel ashamed if it is – we understand that times are tough. Hell, the bank is threatening to foreclose on the farm even as we speak, so we understand that sometimes good people are forced to do bad things just to keep their heads above water.”
“It’s criminal stuff,” Mr Jones confirmed, “but I, myself, am not a criminal. You have nothing to fear from me.”
Tyler’s parents glanced at each other and seemed to believe him. They talked a little more and then left Mr Jones to rest, but Tyler didn’t follow them out.
Mr Jones looked at him. “You didn’t tell them about what you saw.”
“No, sir. I don’t think they’d believe me.”
“That’s no reason not to tell them.”
“I don’t think they’d help you if they did believe me.”
Mr Jones nodded. “Those men, the ones I was fighting – they were bad guys. You can believe that.”
“How did they do what they did? How did you?”
“It’s magic.”
“Proper magic?”
Mr Jones smiled. “Proper magic.”
“Is Jones your real name?”
“Frightening Jones is my real name, yes. Sorcerers pick our own names when we’re old enough.”
“Why were you fighting?”
“There are good sorcerers and bad sorcerers. They were bad sorcerers. You know, if you hadn’t come by when you did, they’d have killed me. I owe you my life, Tyler.”
Tyler shrugged, and blushed. “It’s OK.”
Frightening smiled.
They flew to Ragner’s house in Malibu and landed on the roof. Valkyrie scanned the building and couldn’t detect any auras, but one of the skylights was wide open.
“Booby-trapped,” Skulduggery said, taking a look. “Sigils on the west and south walls – see them? – set up to trigger a presumably indecent amount of explosives once someone even touches that floor.”
Valkyrie stuck her head in. It took her a while to find the sigils, but they were there, waiting to blow her to pieces.
Skulduggery was already tapping out a message on his phone. “Just making sure Ragner and Eraddin stay away until we’ve defused the bomb.”
“And can you defuse it?” she asked.
“There isn’t a bomb that exists today that I can’t defuse,” he responded, pocketing the phone.
“That’s good, that’s good,” Valkyrie said, nodding. Then, “Wait, is that because all the bombs that you tried to defuse but couldn’t have gone off, and that’s why they don’t exist any more?”
“I have to be honest with you: yes, that’s exactly why.”
“Then we shouldn’t try to defuse this one.”
“Valkyrie, show a little faith, will you? I am relatively sure that I can manage this without the bomb exploding. There is definitely a forty-forty chance of success.”
“That only adds up to eighty per cent.”
Skulduggery made a seesawing gesture with his hand. “There’s always a twenty per cent chance that something unexpected will happen in any given situation. I’m simply honest enough to be open about the possibility.”
“I don’t think that’s how maths works. We should wait. The Sanctuary here in America has some great bomb-disposal people. They’ll take care of this.”
“They’re all busy.”
“Oh, really? Doing what?”
“Disposing of bombs.”
“Of which this is one.”
“But we don’t need them,” Skulduggery said. “Not when we have these.” He waved his hands in front of her.
“Stop doing that,” she said.
“The safest pair of hands in the west, that’s what these are.”
“Skulduggery, this looks like a lovely house. I’m sure Ragner adores it. Did you see the piano down there? That’s a huge piano. If we try to defuse this bomb and we mess up and it doesn’t kill us, it will, at the very least, destroy this lovely house and that very nice piano. Ragner will be very upset, won’t he?”
“I don’t think he’d be that upset. It’s only a house.”
“Would you like it if your house was blown up, with all those spare bones in it? You’re building your collection back up, aren’t you, after Cadaver stole the best parts to make himself a body? What if you lost them?”
“That would be most unfortunate.”
“And what about your suits?”
His head tilted. “My suits?”
“Losing the new ones would be bad enough, but what about all the suits that Ghastly made for you? The exquisite ones? All of them blown up, along with those shirts, those ties … those wonderful hats.”
“My hats, too?”
“You wouldn’t like to lose all that, would you?”
“I would not.”
“Then we should call the bomb-disposal people, shouldn’t we?”
There was a moment of silence.
“I don’t think Ragner wears hats, though,” Skulduggery said, and started for the skylight.
“Um,” someone said behind them, and they turned as Omen stepped out from behind one of the large vents that criss-crossed the roof. “Hi.”
