pending further inquiry. He apologises for the unfortunate timing.”
“He apologises for the timing?” said Ghastly. “What about the death?”
“He stopped short of apologising for that. He said a formal apology could be forthcoming once it has been determined that Caviler was not sent to America as a spy.”
“Caviler has nothing to do with us,” Ghastly said. “He’s not an operative and never was. That’s a matter of public record.”
“Grand Mage Bisahalani likes to be sure.”
Ghastly narrowed his eyes. “He’s bluffing. Remember Prussia, right after Hopeless died? Shudder and I fell in with Bisahalani and his group of American mages. The area was completely overrun by Mevolent’s forces. They were hunting us down. Relentless. They finally had us surrounded in this old farmhouse. We were exhausted, starving, injured … it wouldn’t have taken much to finish us off. Bisahalani walked out, he actually walked out the front door, walked across the yard to where Mevolent’s soldiers were crouched behind cover. No one fired at him because they were all too stunned at what was happening. He went up to whoever was in charge and he stood there and informed him that he was to take his squad of killers and madmen and scurry away before the people in that farmhouse grew irritated.”
“Did it work?”
“Astonishingly, yes. He was so convincing, he was so bull-headed and strong-willed, that Mevolent’s soldiers decided to cut their losses and leave. That’s what he does. When he’s backed into a corner, Bisahalani will talk big and talk tough and all the time he’ll be crossing his fingers and hoping that you don’t stand your ground. They murdered an innocent man in their custody. The core elements of the Supreme Council will stick together, but what of everyone else? We know the Scottish Sanctuary is already asking questions. The Estonians, too. Tipstaff just told me that Grand Mage Kribu is calling for all Irish prisoners to be released in the wake of what happened.”
“We have the advantage,” Ravel said. “We have them over a barrel for the first time since all this began.”
“If we play this right,” said Ghastly, “support for the Supreme Council will crumble, and the Supreme Council itself could even dissolve.”
“We have to be careful. They’re going to try to shift focus away from their mistake on to one of ours.”
“Then we’ve got to be sure we don’t make any mistakes.”
Ravel frowned. “Where’s Skulduggery?”
“Skulduggery and Valkyrie have gone to talk to Moloch like we asked, and then they’re off to see Cassandra Pharos. Hopefully, that’ll keep them out of trouble.”
“OK, good.” Ravel tapped his chin. “The Supreme Council arrests our people and they treat them so badly they kill one of them. We need to show that, when we arrest their people, they’re treated well. We can arrange a Global Link broadcast to every Sanctuary around the world.”
Ghastly stood. “I’ll get Sult ready for his close-up.”
“No hitting him.”
“Any assault will be to his ego, I swear.”
They left Ghastly’s office. Ravel went one way, escorted by his Cleaver bodyguards, and Ghastly went the other, heading for the cells.
The guard on duty was snoring in his chair. Ghastly strode forward, sending a blast of air to wake him. The young man’s hair ruffled and he was almost pitched sideways to the ground, but he didn’t wake. What was his name?
“Weeper,” Ghastly said, remembering. “Staven Weeper. Wake the hell up.”
When Weeper continued to snore, Ghastly gripped his shoulder and shook him. As he was released, Weeper slumped over and collapsed slowly to the ground. Ghastly’s eyes widened.
He ran to the first cell, opened the viewing hatch, saw Adrasdos reading a book on her bunk. He went to the next cell, and the next, and the next, all of which were occupied. Then he opened the hatch on the cell that should have been occupied by Bernard Sult.
He ran back to Weeper’s corner, pressed the communication sigil on the desk. “Lock the Sanctuary down,” he snarled. “We have an escaped prisoner.”
The conference room was humming with activity by the time Ghastly reached it. Huge screens had been set up, showing CCTV footage of the corridor leading to the cellblock. Mages chattered on phones and hurried in and out of the doors, and Ravel stood in the middle of it all with a frown etched on his brow.
He turned to Ghastly. “Anything?”
Ghastly shook his head. “I sent the Cleavers into the lower levels, but I doubt Sult would have headed down there. He’ll want to get out of Roarhaven as soon as possible. If he’s in the area, we’ll find him. Any luck with the cameras?”
Ravel swivelled his head, like he was catching the question and passing it on to the mage at the huge screens.
“We’re watching the footage now,” said Susurrus. “So far, we’ve seen no movement at … wait a second …”
The screen flickered, flickered again, went fuzzy, and then the picture was replaced by static.
“Mr Susurrus,” said Ravel, “what happened to our picture?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Susurrus, furiously tapping the keyboard. “It looks like someone jammed the signal.”
“Those cameras are protected, are they not?” Ravel asked, his hands curled into fists. “When we installed them, I was told they were unjammable, was I not? So will someone please tell me how this happened?”
The chatter in the conference room died for a moment while sorcerers looked away and looked at their feet and looked at each other, no one daring to posit an answer. After a moment, the silence went away, and once more the room was plunged into a chattering mess of barked orders and ringing phones.
Ravel looked over at Ghastly, gave him an exasperated shrug, and Ghastly turned as Doctor Synecdoche approached.
“Staven Weeper has just regained consciousness,” she said. “He claims to have no memory of anything unusual. One moment he was doing his duty with his customary alertness, his words, and the next he’s waking up with Doctor Nye staring down at him.”
“You believe him?”
“We’ve found traces of a toxin in his blood. We should be able to identify it within minutes.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ghastly said, nodding for the next sorcerer to approach.
“We’ve set up a perimeter around Roarhaven,” said Petrichor, a fresh-faced mage of ninety-three. “We’ve also been viewing any outside CCTV footage that might yield results. So far, nothing. We don’t even know how he got out without being seen.”
“There are dozens of secret tunnels beneath this place that we don’t know about,” Ghastly said.
“Um,” said Susurrus.
Ghastly looked round.
