out of one – easy. The tree’s limbs were long and strong, and they quickly came adjacent to the gallery’s roof, which was ridged with a dozen skylights. Stephanie hoisted herself up on a branch and sat there, regarding the large gap between building and tree with curiosity. It looked too far to jump.
“You sure I can’t come with you?” Stephanie asked.
“I need you out here in case something goes terribly, terribly wrong.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, any one of a number of things.”
“Fills me with confidence, that,” she muttered.
Skulduggery manoeuvred himself on to the longest branch and then walked along it, bent-legged and stooped over. His balance was unnatural. But there was still that gap. Without pausing he sprang forward, off the branch. He brought his arms up by his sides and out in front, and a tremendous gust of wind buffeted him over to the rooftop.
Stephanie promised herself that, one day, she’d get him to teach her how to do that.
Skulduggery looked back. “The gallery is outfitted with the most elaborate security systems,” he said as he opened the bag. “But because of the vampires, the alarms on the outer corridors are never set, so once I get by the main hall, it should be plain sailing, as they say.”
“As who say?”
“I don’t know. People who sail presumably.” He opened the bag and took out a harness that he started to strap himself into. He looked up at her. “Where was I?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, yes, my cunning plan. I need to access a control panel on the east wall. From there, I can disable everything. The floor is pressure sensitive, so I’m going to have to stay off it, but that shouldn’t be a problem for someone of my natural grace and agility.”
“You’re very impressed with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Exceedingly so.” He secured a thin wire on to a ventilation duct, looped it through his harness and led it back to one of the skylights.
Stephanie frowned. “You’re going to lower yourself down from here?”
“Yes. That’s the fun bit.”
“Right. But you’re going to have to open the skylight, yes? Won’t that set off an alarm?”
“Only a small one,” Skulduggery said with confidence.
She stared at him. “And wouldn’t that be enough?”
“It’s a silent little thing, hooked up to the nearby police station. Or it was hooked up. I passed by their transformer box before I collected you this morning. Oddly enough, it happened to short out at the exact same time. Something to do with a large amount of water mysteriously manifesting inside. I think they’re baffled. They certainly looked baffled…”
“And your entire plan hinges on the hope that they haven’t restored electricity yet?”
“Well, yes,” he said, after a slight hesitation. “But anyway.” He looked over at the setting sun then back at Stephanie.
“If you hear any screaming,” he said, “that’ll be me.”
He passed his hand over the lock and it broke apart, then opened up one of the halves of the skylight and climbed over the side. She watched him disappear into it, and then heard a slight whirring as he used the hand-held control to lower himself down in the harness.
Stephanie sat back against the tree trunk, keeping an eye out for… whatever she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for. Anything unusual. She frowned to herself, not entirely certain of what constituted “unusual” any more, and then she heard an unsettling scraping noise. She looked up.
The wire Skulduggery had attached to the ventilation duct was slipping.
She watched in horror as it slipped again, getting closer to the edge, closer to slipping off entirely. She thought of the pressure-sensitive floor, thought about Skulduggery crashing down and setting off every alarm in the place and the vampires running in and catching him. Although he didn’t have any blood for them to drink, she was sure they’d be able to find some other ways to punish the trespass.
The wire slipped again and Stephanie knew she didn’t have a choice. She crawled along the same branch Skulduggery had jumped from and it groaned beneath her weight. Skulduggery was nothing but bones, she reminded herself, in an effort not to feel fat.
The gap was gaping. It was a gaping gap.
Stephanie shook her head – she couldn’t make it. There was no way she could jump that. With a decent run at it, she might have had a chance, but from crouching on the end of an unsteady branch? She closed her eyes, forcing the doubts from her mind. It wasn’t a choice, she reminded herself. It wasn’t a question of whether she could jump, or would jump. Skulduggery needed her help, and he needed it now, so it was a question of when she did jump, what would happen then?
So she jumped.
She stretched out and the ground moved far beneath her and the edge of the building rushed at her and then she started to dip. Her right hand thudded against the edge and her fingers gripped. The rest of her body slammed into the side of the building and she almost fell, but she shot her left hand up to join her right and held on. She pulled herself up, little by little, until she could get an arm over the edge and soon she was safe. She had made it.
The wire slipped again. It was about to snap from the duct and then it’d all be over. Stephanie ran to it, got her fingers around the wire and tried to tug it down again but it was no use. She stood, put the sole of her boot against the wire and used all her weight to try and push it down, but she didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. She looked around for something to use, saw the bag and snatched it up. Nothing inside but more wire.
She grabbed the wire and dropped to her knees, tying a new piece to the wire already attached to the harness. Her father had taught her all about knots when she was little, and although she couldn’t remember the names of most of them, she knew which knot suited this occasion.
With the new length of wire added, she looked around for something to secure it to. There was another skylight right in front of her. She ran to it, wrapping the wire around the entire concrete base and getting it tied off just as the first piece of wire shot off the duct. There was a sudden snap as the wire went taut again, but it stayed secure.
Stephanie hurried over to the open skylight and looked down. Skulduggery was hovering right above the floor, trying to stay horizontal after the sudden drop. The motion control for the harness was still in his hand, but both arms were outstretched for maximum balance and he couldn’t move himself back up.
There was a second control on the roof beside Stephanie, attached to the harness with a lead that twisted down through the skylight around the wire. Stephanie grabbed the control, jammed her finger against the UP button and Skulduggery started whirring upwards.
When he was safe he raised his head, saw her and gave her the thumbs up. He took over the controls, positioning himself next to the wall, by the panel
