now,” he said. “There’s a big empty space inside me, so why not use it for storage? It beats having unsightly bulges in jacket pockets. Ah, here it is.” He took out a wooden ball, and handed it to her. The cloaking sphere.
“You hold this,” he said. “You’ll have to adjust it accordingly, because we’re going in and bringing them out one at a time. Either that or we go in, get into position, and leap out at them. Or we do something else. I don’t know. It depends on what it’s like in there. Are you clear on the plan?”
“That’s not a plan.”
“Are you clear on what we’re hoping to do?”
“Barely.”
“Then let’s go.”
She twisted the sphere – one side clockwise, the other counter-clockwise – and they were enveloped in a bubble of haze that rendered them invisible to anyone standing outside it. She twisted the hemispheres back a little, drawing the bubble tighter around them. Sticking close together, they approached the door. Skulduggery turned the handle and pushed it open slowly.
“Who is it?” Kitana asked from the back of the class.
“No... no one...” the teacher said.
They stepped in. It was incredibly weird to be standing there in front of thirty people and not one of them able to see or hear them. Kitana and Doran were sitting beside each other at the very back, and Sean was lounging at his desk a little closer to the front. Everyone around them was terrified.
“Hey!” Kitana shouted. She was wearing Valkyrie’s jacket. “Come on in, whoever you are!”
“We’ll go for Sean first,” Skulduggery said.
Valkyrie nodded. She didn’t want to talk when they were being stealthy. It just felt wrong.
Kitana rolled her eyes. “Sean, would you please close the door? I want to get back to my speech. What was I saying? Hey, Mr Teacher, sir, what was I saying?”
Sean got up, started walking for the door while the teacher started stammering. “I... I don’t...”
“What was the last thing I said, Mr Teacher?” Kitana continued, her hand glowing with energy. “Don’t you remember? Weren’t you listening?”
The teacher looked at the open door and bolted, but Sean darted forward, caught him and threw him back over his desk. Kitana laughed and Doran whooped.
“Yay, Sean!” Kitana called. “You’re my hero! That’s a gold star for Sean in Teacher-Throwing, my favourite new subject!”
Sean laughed and Doran thumped his desk in amusement, but Kitana’s smile faded, and she leaned forward. “Hey, Sean... what’s wrong with your leg?”
Valkyrie looked down. The bubble curved over the side of Sean’s knee.
“Dude,” said Doran, “a chunk of your leg’s missing.”
Skulduggery nodded and Valkyrie twisted the sphere a bit more. The bubble grew, enveloping Sean completely. As everyone else in the classroom gasped at his apparent disappearance, Skulduggery slid an arm round his throat. Sean made a sound and his hands flailed as the sleeper hold tightened.
Doran leaped from his chair, eyes wide. “Seriously? We can turn invisible now? This keeps getting cooler!”
Skulduggery backed off and Valkyrie stayed with him. By the time they passed into the corridor Sean was unconscious. Skulduggery laid him on the floor and snapped handcuffs around his wrists.
“Sean?”
Kitana walked out of the classroom. “Sean?” she repeated. “Are you here?”
Skulduggery muttered a curse, picked Sean off the floor and dragged him further away.
Doran came out after her, his face red from straining. “Am I still here? Can you still see me?”
“I can still see you, you idiot,” Kitana said. “I don’t think he’s invisible.”
“Then where’s he gone?”
“I think he’s still here. I can feel him. He’s close. Can’t you feel him?”
Doran shrugged, then turned and looked right at Valkyrie. For a moment she thought he could actually see her, but his eyes moved on without focusing and she relaxed.
“They have him,” Kitana whispered.
Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery. “What do we do?” she asked, her voice sounding unreasonably loud.
“Who has him?” Doran whispered back to Kitana.
“Taking them by surprise seems to work,” Skulduggery said.
Kitana looked around and whispered, “The magic people.”
“If they can’t see us coming, their instincts can’t kick in to save them,” Skulduggery said. He left Sean on the floor and took out his gun, held it straight out, aimed right at Doran’s head.
Valkyrie blinked.
“You think they’re still here?” whispered Doran. “You think they can see us?”
Kitana didn’t answer. Doran waved his hand through the air, trying to feel for enemies. Skulduggery’s gloved finger rested on the trigger as Doran turned his way.
“You can’t just...” Valkyrie said, and faltered.
“You said I’d have to be my usual ruthless self,” Skulduggery replied. “If I take them both out now, they won’t get to harm another living soul. It’s better for everyone if they die right here.”
“You’re just going to shoot them?”
“This is life or death, Valkyrie.” He thumbed the hammer back. “Giving someone a fighting chance is giving them a chance to beat you. What have I taught you about combat?”
She looked at Doran and Kitana as they slowly backed away. “Never fight on someone else’s terms,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes. “Do it.”
She waited for the gunshot, hearing only Doran’s whisperings. She looked up. Skulduggery was putting his gun away.
“Dammit,” he said, then picked Sean up off the floor and threw him straight at Doran. To Doran, Sean suddenly appeared out of thin air and collided with him. They cracked their heads together and went down, and Kitana jumped back, cursing.
“Evacuate them,” Skulduggery said, and used the air to leap at Kitana. He grabbed her, arm round her neck, but a wave of energy rippled out from her centre, flinging him away.
Resisting the urge to jump into the fight, Valkyrie instead ran into the classroom. She slammed the door, deactivated the sphere, scaring the hell out of everyone inside.
“The windows,” she said. “Out the windows. Hurry!”
Windows
