LITMIR.BIZ

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stop us from putting an end to all of this right now, and kicking the hell out of the both of you while we’re at it?”

      Sanguine frowned. “Well, we’re, we’re up so high…” He brightened. “Oh, yeah and we’ve got reinforcements.”

      “See,” Scarab said, “we were planning to use the Hollow Men in our grand finale, but seeing as how you found our base here, we’ll just have to improvise a little. So we’re going to head off now and no doubt we’ll meet again to, you know, hit each other or whatever it is people like us do nowadays.”

      “It’s still hit each other,” Sanguine told him.

      “Well, there you go. You can’t beat the classics.”

      “You can try and stop us,” Sanguine said, “but I have a feelin’ you’ll be just a tad busy fending off the army of Hollow Men that are about jump out at you.”

      At that, a section of wall opened up and a single Hollow Man stumbled out and stood there. Sanguine pursed his lips. A moment passed.

      “Awkward,” he murmured.

      Another wall slid open and Hollow Men poured out, dozens of them, and Sanguine clapped his hands in delight and then disappeared from view with his father.

      Valkyrie stood beside Skulduggery and Ghastly, and they clicked their fingers and threw balls of fire. The flames caught the skin of the Hollow Men, taking a few seconds to burn through, and ignited the gases within. And still they came, dozens of them, swarming into the hall.

      “The Cleavers are on their way,” Skulduggery said, “but we don’t have time for this. Anton, we need them taken down fast.”

      Shudder nodded. He closed his eyes and his fists clenched. Then a head pushed through his chest.

      Valkyrie stepped back in shock. The head was hazy, like a ghost, and it was Shudder’s head, only different. The hair was longer and it had pointed teeth. It snarled as it pushed its way out. Its shoulders came next, then its arms, then its clawed hands. It was dressed in the same shirt and black jacket as the real Shudder. It stayed where it was for a moment then opened its eyes, which were narrow and black. It saw the Hollow Men, its face contorted with effort and it lunged, trailing a blurred stream of light and darkness from its torso back into Shudder’s chest. It flew to the nearest Hollow Man and slashed, its claws solid enough to rip through the papery skin.

      It moved on, the stream that connected it to Shudder lengthening, and it screeched as it went, tearing and ripping through the Hollow Men as they swiped at it. It looped and curled, swooped and whirled, the stream crossing over and under itself. This ghostly Shudder, this gist, was relentless. With each pass its visage became fiercer, and it was no longer so hazy, so transparent. It looked demonic. It looked evil.

      Shudder himself grunted. Valkyrie looked at him and saw the sweat on his face, saw the straining muscles on his neck. The stream that flowed from his chest became tight and taut, and the gist screamed in anger as it began to retract. Like a fish on a hook it twisted and writhed, but it could do nothing to stop itself from being pulled back into Shudder’s chest. The last Valkyrie saw of it was a flailing claw.

      Shudder took a heavy step back, his face pale, his breathing uneven. The Hollow Men were gone, nothing more than tatters and a foul smell that made her eyes sting again.

      “Are you OK?” Valkyrie asked.

      “It takes me a few minutes,” Shudder said quietly, “to regain my strength.”

      “What was that?” Fletcher asked.

      “It’s my gist,” he said. “It’s my anger, my hate, my determination. It’s the strongest part of me, but it needs to be carefully controlled. Gists can’t be allowed too much time out of the host body.”

      “Why not?”

      Shudder looked at them. “It would take over, and then I’d be reduced to something that lived inside it.”

      “Fletcher,” Skulduggery said, “take Anton outside. Wait there for Marr and the Cleavers. Tell them where we are.”

      Fletcher nodded, glanced at Valkyrie and disappeared with Shudder.

      “Let’s go,” Skulduggery said to Ghastly and Valkyrie.

      They used the air to rise to the broken mirror, then touched down and hurried on. There were more Hollow Men here, but they were dispatched easily.

      “Tanith’s this way,” Valkyrie said, taking the lead. “Kenspeckle’s with her. He’s been … She’s hurt.”

      They ran on, until Valkyrie pointed at a door and Skulduggery blasted it open.

      Kenspeckle Grouse leaped to his feet, snarling. Tanith could barely raise her head. Ghastly moved to Kenspeckle and hit him with a right cross. Kenspeckle laughed. He pushed Ghastly and Ghastly hit the far wall. Kenspeckle threw his chair at Skulduggery and used the distraction to get closer. He laughed again as he yanked Skulduggery’s arm from his shoulder. Skulduggery roared in pain and Kenspeckle shoved him away. Valkyrie splayed her hand against the air and Kenspeckle went tumbling backwards.

      There were footsteps behind her and Davina Marr burst into the room. “Do not move!” she commanded, gun aimed at Kenspeckle.

      Kenspeckle snarled again and turned on his knees, his mouth opening wide. Something bulged in his throat, something that was trying to crawl its way out. If that Remnant got loose in here, it could possess any one of them, or seize its chance to escape, and they’d never get it back. Valkyrie ran forward and kicked, the toe of her boot slamming into Kenspeckle’s chin. He lifted slightly with the impact and dropped on to his back.

      Marr hurried over, shackles in his hand. She cuffed Kenspeckle’s wrists behind him, sealing the Remnant back inside. Valkyrie looked around, realising there were Cleavers over by Tanith, freeing her from the seat.

      “This won’t hold me for long,” Kenspeckle said, spitting blood as Marr hauled him up. “I’ll get out. I’ll come for you. Every last one of you.”

      “Cleavers” Marr said, “take him away.”

      Fletcher came in as Kenspeckle was led out.

      “Fletcher,” Skulduggery said, stifling a groan as he fixed his arm into place, “take Tanith to the Sanctuary. She needs urgent medical attention.”

      “You got it,” Fletcher said, gently placing his hand on Tanith’s arm. They vanished.

      “Did you catch Scarab?” Ghastly asked Marr when he’d picked himself up off the floor.

      Marr shook her head. “All the major players are gone. All we’ve come across so far are Hollow Men.”

      “Look what I found,” Detective Pennant said as he walked in. He was smiling triumphantly, a strange stone hourglass in his hand. Green liquid sloshed inside the twin vials. “Looks like they left without their toy.”

      Valkyrie stared. “That’s the Desolation Engine?”

      “I found a bunch of other stuff,” Pennant continued. “Bits and pieces, junk really. One of the Cleavers is taking it to the boffins to make them happy. But this – this is the big one.”

      “That bomb is live,” Skulduggery said quietly.

      Pennant laughed. “It can’t be live. The old man didn’t have time to fix it. You’re talking days of work and he had, what, a few hours?”

      “There are three steps to setting that thing off. Do you see the way the liquid is slightly luminous? That tells us it’s live. That’s the first step. The second step is arming it. We’ll know that happens when the liquid turns red and starts to bubble. The third and final step is when it’s triggered. Detective Pennant, you are two steps away from obliterating us all. Maybe you should hand that over to me.”

      Skulduggery

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