Derek Landy - Last Stand of Dead Men

The Big Man was at the midway point, roughly fifty metres away. The Fidgeter was at the end. That meant a hundred-metre dash with two opponents to dispatch without alerting anyone inside the Accelerator Room. Ghastly tried to stop the grin from spreading, but failed miserably.

He gripped the air around him, and broke into a run. He dived forward, brought his hands in and out in front, shot down the corridor like a bullet. The Big Man turned and Ghastly took him off his feet, one hand clamped to his mouth and the other arm wrapped round him, and he piled on the speed. The Fidgeter didn’t even get to look round before the Big Man’s head cracked against his. Both men went down and Ghastly twisted away from them, found himself hurtling towards the far wall. He brought the air in, formed a cushion, bounced off and stumbled only a little when he landed. His first thought was that he had just come close to smashing every bone in his body. His second thought was not to mention that part to Skulduggery, or else the flying lessons would start to concentrate on how to stop instead of how to go faster.

As he knelt by the men, his eyes were on the Accelerator Room door. No one ran out. No one shouted an alarm. His luck was holding. He checked that both men were unconscious, then took the sub-machine gun, made sure it was loaded and ready to fire, and crept back up the corridor. He could hear voices now, snippets of what was being said. Three different people, two male, one female. American accents. One voice he recognised – the one issuing the orders.

He reached the Accelerator Room, and peered in. The man in charge was hidden by the Accelerator itself. The other was tall and thin and Ghastly didn’t know who he was. He’d seen the young woman before, though. She was a Necromancer. What was her name? Adrasdos, or something? He’d seen her with Vex, decades ago, back when everything was nice and friendly between Sanctuaries. She was attaching something to the right side of the Accelerator while the thin man did the same on the other side. They had duffel bags open all around them. Explosives. The man in charge stepped into view, trailing wires behind him. Bernard Sult.

“Nobody move,” said Ghastly.

Naturally, they moved. They spun in shock, but managed to hold still when they saw the gun pointed at them. That was wise.

“Put it down,” said Ghastly, stepping inside. “All of it. Very slowly, very gently, put it all down on the floor. You, too, Bernard. We wouldn’t want any of this to go off, now would we?”

Sult’s face was tight, but he obeyed, and rested the loop of wires at his feet. He straightened, hands up, and the other two did the same. They were all armed with silenced pistols. Ghastly raised his free hand and those pistols floated from their holsters to land gently behind him.

“You kill anyone getting in here?” Ghastly asked.

“We had to render one or two of your people unconscious,” said Sult, “but we don’t take lives if we can help it.”

“Terrorists with principles,” said Ghastly. “I like it.”

“ You’re the terrorists,” said Adrasdos, glaring at him with fire in her eyes. “ You’re the ones terrorising the world with your casual ineptitude and gross indifference to—”

“Adrasdos,” said Sult, “don’t bother. Elder Bespoke has heard it all before and he remains unmoved.”

Ghastly gave a little shrug. “So what’s the plan here, Bernard? Destroy the Accelerator and vanish before anyone knows you paid us a visit? You weren’t even going to say hi, after everything we’ve been through? You were there when we joined forces to take down Argeddion’s psycho teenagers. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“No, Elder Bespoke, it doesn’t, because I was also here when you allowed Grand Mage Strom to be decapitated in his own quarters.”

“By an English mage.”

“By your would-be girlfriend.”

“Who is possessed by a Remnant. And yet you lot still manage to blame that on us.”

“Oh, it’s not just that, Elder Bespoke. It’s also the fact that you had falsely imprisoned the Grand Mage to keep him from reporting your mistakes back to the Supreme Council. These are not the actions of Elders who can be trusted to run the most volatile country in the world.”

“Mistakes were made, I freely admit that. But no laws were violated. No rules were broken. But this … Breaking into a foreign Sanctuary, assaulting Sanctuary operatives, attempting to destroy Sanctuary equipment … Adrasdos, I know you don’t like the word, but these are acts of terrorism. And you’re all under arrest.”

“I’m afraid we can’t allow that to happen,” said Sult. “And we can’t allow anyone to find out we were here. We’re going to have to kill you, Elder Bespoke.”

Ghastly gave him a little smile. “I’d like to see you try.”

Adrasdos and the thin man rushed him. Ghastly waved his hand and Adrasdos crashed into the wall, but the thin man was too close. Ghastly pulled the trigger. The bullets riddled the thin man’s shirt, but bounced off his skin, and a single push sent Ghastly hurtling back into the corridor. He hit the wall, fell to the floor, left the gun there as he scrambled up. He ducked under the thin man’s punch, and sent a left hook to the body in return. As expected, it was like hitting a boulder. He dodged a wild swipe and curled his fingers, felt the air forming battering rams around his knuckles, and when he punched again he sent a column of air into the thin man’s jaw.

The thin man staggered.

Ghastly hit him again, and again, those battering rams crunching into the thin man’s ribs enough times to make him cover up, and then Ghastly went for the head. The thin man was too used to being the strongest person in the room. He’d never bothered to learn to fight. Ghastly went for the chin and then punched at the knee, and while the thin man was trying to work out what the hell was happening he snapped his palms against the air and the space between them rippled, and the thin man flew backwards.

Ghastly reached for the fallen sub-machine gun, but a shadow lashed at him, curled round his wrist and yanked him off his feet. He rolled, glimpsed Adrasdos running at him, shadows pouring from something she was holding. He lunged at her and they went down. She cracked an elbow into his nose and his vision went blurry. He found her right hand, keeping the weapon away from him as they rolled. He couldn’t even see what it was. It looked like a knife handle.

Adrasdos wriggled out from underneath him, went to kick him as she got to her feet, but he grabbed her foot, held it as he stood. The shadows writhed round the knife handle, grouping together to form a machete. She swung and he stumbled, letting go of her, barely dodging the black blade. The more shadows that writhed, the longer the blade got, and it nicked his shoulder and cut his arm and it was going to end up in his head if he didn’t stop this. She swung and he stepped in, trapped her arm under his and fired a right cross into her jaw. She collapsed, the blade of shadows melting away as the handle skittered across the floor.

Sult was pressing the last of the explosives against the Accelerator when Ghastly returned to the room.

“Not one more step,” the American said, holding out a grey box. His thumb rested against the silver switch. “There are enough explosives in this room to take out this machine five times over. You do not want to make me twitch.”

Ghastly kept his hands down by his sides. “We haven’t even completed our study of the Accelerator,” he said. “We know it supercharges sorcerers, we know it’s a source of energy, but we don’t know how to properly harness it yet. We don’t know what else it can do. And you want to destroy it?”