Darren Craske - The Eleventh Plague

'Tonight?' Quaint cursed the word.

'Nastasi?' asked Faroud.

Sir George looked over at Lady Jocasta and waved her to continue.

'Nastasi is not the man he once was. He has seen his former glory slip through his fingers, and so when we offered him a chance to reclaim what was rightfully his, the old fool practically bit our hands off!' she said. 'The Hades Consortium has given Nastasi the necessary support to gain control of all the nine regions…in exchange for his conformity to my plan. Tonight, on the stroke of midnight, those Scarabs unified under his reign will deploy the poison into the River Nile.'

Sir George smiled thinly. 'And their fate once this deed is done, Jocasta?'

'Purged, Sir George, just like the contagion they are,' Lady Jocasta answered. A tiny, sadistic giggle escaped the corner of her mouth. 'Every…single…one of them!'

'You forced my hand, Cornelius,' said Dray. 'All you have done is cement Egypt's fate that much quicker. I've been waiting all week just to see that look on your face!'

'All week? How did you know I was in Egypt?' asked Quaint.

'Because I organised the whole thing – why else do you think you failed?' snorted Sir George, shaking his head as if it were glaringly obvious. 'When I heard that you were sniffing around London asking questions about our organisation, I arranged for one of my contacts to find himself in your company and give you some very specific information.' Dray let this knowledge permeate for a moment. 'Mr Ferris is a loathsome individual, to be sure…but give him a few quid and he's as loyal as a terrier.'

Quaint's eyes narrowed. 'Ferret?'

'You followed my little trail of breadcrumbs so willingly. How else was I to make sure you came to Egypt? I knew that I couldn't prevent you from getting involved, so if you were going to come, I wanted it on my terms.' Dray grinned at the effect his words were having, and he turned the screw one more rotation. 'Since I knew that you were sailing on the Silver Swan it was simplicity itself to arrange for my man Nadir to join you onboard, the same gent that babysat our little consignment of poison. His attempts to kill you failed…clearly…so he engineered events so that dear old Madame would come to Mr Joyce's attention. I knew that you would go to the ends of the earth for her – it was your predictability that I was relying on, laddie…and you didn't let me down!'

'You toyed with me,' said Quaint, with not a tinge of surprise in his voice.

'And you were fantastic!' replied Dray, inching himself forward on his cane. 'I may look like a foolish old man, but we both know I am anything but.'

'That's true,' said Quaint. 'You are Satan himself clothed in the ragged old shell of a crippled body!'

Dray curled his lips. 'That's mildly insulting at best, Cornelius – you can do better than that.'

'You used me! You used Joyce…and you're using Nastasi too? Is that all people are to you? Currency to barter with?' yelled Quaint.

'Joyce's ambition brought about his fate, not me. He thought he was a big spider in the middle of his web, catching flies left, right and centre. But little did he know that he was just another fly…in a web much larger than he could possibly imagine. And look where it got him.'

'Ever the puppeteer…just like you were with Oliver, always in control, your word above everyone else's – even to your own flesh and blood! Your filthy Consortium was pulling his strings for years!'

'My son has nothing to do with this!' barked Dray. He caught the eyes of the head guard gripping Quaint's arms. 'Take him and his Aksak friend to Jailer Agnafar! Secure them…and do it properly or I'll have your head on my mantelpiece! Break them…make them bleed, but do not kill them…not just yet.'

Faroud's eyes flicked to Kulfar and Nehmet at his side. 'What about my men here? I am their Aksak and they are merely following my orders. They mean nothing to you!'

'That is very true,' said Dray. 'Guards, release the Aksak's men.'

'So you do have some dignity, after all,' said Faroud.

'You interrupted me, Aksak,' said Dray. 'I was going to say release them…of their lives.'

Faroud watched helplessly as the guards holding Kulfar and Nehmet removed their blades from their scabbards in unison and thrust them into the Scarabs' bodies. Once more, wailing screams echoed around the cavern – and then promptly ceased.

'Remove these two from my sight!' said Sir George to his guards.

'George, wait!' shouted Quaint as he was dragged away. 'Think about what you're doing. Think about Oliver! Would he have wanted you to go this far?'

Sir George watched Quaint and Faroud disappear from his sight into the belly of the Consortium's sanctum sanctorum. He turned his head slowly to Lady Jocasta.

'You see what I mean, lass? Like a lit torch in a haystack!'

'But an intriguing foe, nonetheless,' replied Lady Jocasta.

'Oh, he's intriguing all right,' Dray muttered, nodding his agreement. 'I wonder what he meant.'

'By what, sir?'

'His parting shot about my son. He said: "Would he have wanted you to go this far?"' replied Dray. 'Seems an odd choice of last words, don't you think?' He pondered this, tugging at his large earlobes thoughtfully. 'Before Mr Quaint is executed, I think that perhaps he and I should have one last chat.'

Lady Jocasta felt her nerves constrict inside her stomach. If Cornelius Quaint was implicated in the failure of her plot in London, she could not possibly allow him to speak to Sir George.

She watched the old man drag his racked body from the chamber. When she was certain he had left, and she could no longer hear his grunting groans, she slowly set off towards the detention block. Cornelius Quaint would be dead long before he had a chance to open his mouth.

The Beacon of Hope

MADAME DESTINE MADE her way along the carved stone corridors. She was barefoot and the many skirts of her long dress trailed snakelike behind her. The Hades Consortium guard had thought it perfectly reasonable to lead her directly to the holding cells, and had even unlocked the main gate for her before returning to his duties with a vague scratch of his head, as if enchanted by a spell. Entering through the main gate, she heard muffled voices close by. The corridor was populated with an array of cells – some large enough to hold many men, and some no bigger than a wardrobe. Every so often she would freeze as the voices rose in anguish, her nerves on a knife's edge. Finding Cornelius was Destine's primary objective, and her sensitivity to emotions gave her an advantage. All she had to do was close her eyes and focus on the soul in the most torment and her gifts would surely lead her right to him.

But in the Hades Consortium detention block, torment was a common emotion.

She heard a man cry out in pain.

Moving unerringly towards the sound, the closer that she got, the more obvious it was that someone was at the receiving end of a vicious beating. Her sensory gifts were working overtime trying to compensate for such raw emotion – fear, pain, anger, misery. They were everywhere within the jail, but none more so than in a cell less than ten feet away from her. With her curiosity driving her onwards, Destine slipped into the empty cell next door and pressed her ear against the wall.

'Scream for me, Scarab pig!' yelled a man's voice, followed by another man's forced exhalation. The victim wheezed, desperate to catch a breath. 'Jailer Mullah, this will take some time!' he called to his colleague in the adjoining cell.

'My one is not talking either, Jailer Veriz,' snarled the Consortium jailer. 'Come on, dog – plead for your miserable life…what is left of it! Lady Jocasta has ordered you to die quickly – and I am more than happy to accommodate!'