Skulduggery summoned fire and hurled two handfuls into the Cleaver. The flames didn’t catch but they did throw him back, and Skulduggery threw a lightning-fast jab that he followed up with a right hook. He didn’t seem to mind that he was hitting a helmet, and Stephanie noted with satisfaction the way their opponent was sent stumbling.
The Cleaver recovered quickly, however, and they started trading punches and kicks, elbows and knees, and she watched them block and lock and counter-lock, all the while moving around each other in an elaborate and brutal dance.
“Stephanie!” Skulduggery called out as he fought. “Get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to! I don’t know how to stop him!”
Tanith snatched her sword off the ground and grabbed Stephanie’s arm. “We have to go,” she said firmly and Stephanie nodded.
They ran back the way they had come. As they were passing into the office, Stephanie glanced back, saw the Cleaver spin with a kick that sent Skulduggery to the floor. In one fluid movement, he got a toe under the staff of the scythe, flicked it up and caught it, and then he was running after her.
Stephanie burst into the dark alleyway and Tanith pressed her hand against the door as she closed it – Stephanie heard her mutter “Withstand” – and a polished sheen spread across its surface.
“That’ll hold him for a minute,” she said.
They ran for the Bentley. The Cleaver pounded on the door behind them, but it wouldn’t open and it wouldn’t break. The pounding stopped.
They reached the Bentley and Tanith looked at Stephanie. “Do you have the key?”
A window exploded, high up near the warehouse’s roof, and the White Cleaver dropped and landed in a crouch in the middle of the alley, shards of glass raining down with him. He straightened up, unfolded his arms and raised his head.
Tanith stood between the Cleaver and Stephanie, holding the sword in her left hand. She cradled her injured right arm by her side. The Cleaver twirled his scythe slowly.
Skulduggery and Ghastly leaped through the broken window. The Cleaver turned and Ghastly crashed into him.
“Start the car!” Ghastly yelled.
Skulduggery pressed the keyring and the locks sprang open with a beep, and they all jumped in. The engine roared to life.
“Ghastly!” Skulduggery shouted. “Let’s go!”
Ghastly slammed a punch into the Cleaver and rolled to his feet but the Cleaver kicked out and Ghastly stumbled. The scythe flashed, the staff whacking against Ghastly’s jaw. He dropped to his knees.
“Ghastly!” Stephanie screamed. Skulduggery opened his door, went to get out, but Ghastly raised his eyes, shook his head.
“We’re not leaving you!” Skulduggery shouted.
The Cleaver stepped up to Ghastly, ready to swing the scythe.
“You’ve got to,” Ghastly said, ever so softly.
He lowered his head and clenched his fists, his eyes closed. As the Cleaver swung, the ground seemed to latch on to Ghastly’s knees. It spread instantly, turning his legs to concrete, then his torso, his arms, his head, his entire body in the time it took the scythe to cross the space between them, and when the Cleaver tried to take his head, he could only chip at the neck. Stephanie instinctively knew what he’d done – this was the last Elemental power, earth, the power Skulduggery had described as purely defensive, and purely for use as a last resort.
The White Cleaver looked directly at Stephanie as Skulduggery put the car in gear. They left them there – the White Cleaver and Ghastly – and sped through the city streets.
THE LAST STAND OF…
Morwenna Crow walked up, her dark robes flowing over the grass. She was as clean and as elegant as the day he had first met her.
“It’s not like Skulduggery Pleasant to be late,” she remarked.
“Sagacious said he sounded urgent,” Meritorious said. “He may have run into some difficulty.”
Morwenna looked around the corner of the cathedral, to the busy street beyond the railing. The bright lights, amber and yellow, framed her face. She seemed almost angelic. “I don’t like meeting out in the open like this. We’re too exposed. He should know better.”
“Skulduggery picked this place for a reason,” Meritorious said gently. “I trust his judgement. He’s earned that much at least.”
They turned as Sagacious Tome appeared beside them, fading up from nothing.
“Sagacious,” Morwenna said, “did Skulduggery say why he wanted to meet us here?”
Sagacious looked nervous as the materialisation completed and he became solid. “I’m sorry, Morwenna, he just told me to make sure both of you were outside the cathedral.”
“This had better be good,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of time to spare these days. Serpine could strike anywhere, at any time.”
Meritorious watched Sagacious smile sadly. “That’s very true,” Sagacious said. “And if I may, I just want to take this opportunity to let you both know, in the times when we were friends, they were great times indeed.”
Morwenna laughed. “We’re not dead yet, Sagacious.”
And then he looked at her and the smile turned to something else. “Actually, Morwenna, you are.”
The Hollow Men converged and Sagacious faded to nothing. Meritorious didn’t even have time to register the betrayal before he saw Serpine, striding towards them, holding the Sceptre. He instinctively conjured a protective shield that made the air glimmer, but when the crystal flashed the black lightning came right through the shield like it wasn’t even there and then there was—
Nothing.
*
The Administrator charged through a crowd outside the Olympia Theatre, drawing a chorus of angry shouts and curses. He stumbled but managed to stay up, managed to keep
