LITMIR.BIZ

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      lsie stood behind the lamp post and tried to work up the courage to talk to the construction supervisor. Most of the work in the street was already done. The café had a new window, the wrecked car had been taken away, all the damage was being patched up. According to the first news reports this street had seen some kind of gang battle, with people shooting at each other and blowing up cars. Then the reports changed to indicate that someone had been using a flame-thrower and, bizarrely, some kind of “laser beam”. But the latest news cleared up all the confusion, stating that it had merely been a boring old car crash. The eyewitnesses came back on air, apologised for their mistakes and the newsreaders chuckled about it. The important thing was that nobody was hurt, and nobody was suing anybody.

      Elsie had listened to all of it and she just knew that Kitana and the others were responsible, and that the people that Xebec had been talking about, the magic cops, were hiding what had really happened.

      “Excuse me?”

      She turned as two men approached, journalists, one of them holding a camera. The other one glanced around quickly, and gave her a furtive smile. “Were you here?” he asked. “Did you see it? Did you see what really happened?”

      She blinked into the camera lens. “Are you from the news?”

      “We’re making a documentary,” said the man. “We’re exposing the truth behind the cover-ups. Are you a witness? Would you be willing to tell us what you saw?”

      “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know what... I wasn’t here. Sorry.”

      The man looked at her. “Did they get to you, too?”

      She frowned, and the cameraman tugged on his colleague’s arm. “Come on, Kenny, let’s go.”

      “She knows something.”

      “We’ll be seen. Come on.”

      The cameraman hurried off. The other man, Kenny, gave her a business card. “If you remember anything,” he said, walking backwards, “call this number.” And then he was gone.

      Elsie waited a few moments, then went to the skip by the side of the road and dropped the card in among the debris and broken glass. She took a deep breath, then approached the construction supervisor. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’d like to talk to someone in charge.”

      The supervisor smiled at her. “That’d be me.”

      “Uh,” she said. “No, I mean... someone who’s really in charge. You know. Of the secret thing.”

      “The secret thing?”

      She nodded. “With the... stuff.”

      He frowned at her. “Were you hit on the head recently, Miss? Maybe we should get a doctor to take a look at you.”

      “I’m fine,” Elsie said quickly. “Well, no I’m not, but I just want to help. I know this wasn’t a car crash. And I don’t think it was gangs with laser beams, either. I... I think I might know the people who did this.”

      The supervisor looked at her, and gave her another smile. “What’s your name?” he asked.

      She told him.

      “You know what?” he said. “I think I might call my boss. Do you mind hanging around for a bit?”

      “I’ll stay,” she said.

      He nodded, stepped away and made a call. Half an hour later, a beautiful black car pulled up and a tall, thin man in a black suit got out. He took off his hat and smiled at her as he shook her hand. He wore gloves.

      “Elsie,” he said, “thank you for getting in touch.” He had such a nice voice. Smooth and comforting. “We’ve been looking for you over the past few days. Your mother is worried.”

      “I can’t go home,” Elsie said. “Not yet. I just need help.”

      “I know you do. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. Unusual name, I know, but then I’m an unusual person. As are you, it seems.”

      “You... you know about the... stuff?”

      “If by stuff you mean your powers, yes I do.”

      “I just want this whole thing to stop,” she blurted. “Can you do that? Can you take away my powers?”

      “We can’t,” he said. “Not yet. But we’re working on it.”

      “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

      “I know. But your friends do.”

      Elsie’s smile was anything but happy. “I don’t think they’re my friends any more. I’ve known Sean since we were kids. Our mums are best friends, so we grew up around each other. I don’t really know Doran. I mean, we’ve been in the same class for years, but I don’t know him well. He’s a bully, and he was arrested last year for assaulting a college student. He got away with it, though. He’s… angry. I think he intimidates everyone. Except Kitana.”

      “Tell me about her.”

      “She’s always been popular. All the guys do whatever she says. I suppose everyone does whatever she says, even me. The only thing we’ve got in common is Sean. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think she’d even know my name. Kitana is… there’s something wrong with her. Like, even before we got these powers she was always… wrong.”

      “And these powers – you all have identical abilities?”

      “I think so, yes.”

      “What did you do when you got them?”

      “What did I do? I don’t know. I suppose I panicked. We were behind the school, mitching off maths. That’s where we went when we were supposed to be in class, behind the sheds out the back. We were all normal. The lads were trying to impress Kitana and I was just sitting there, and then I felt sick. Like, hot and sweaty but also really cold, you know? Like I had the flu or something. And I looked up and the others were the same. We just thought it was a bug. We went home, and we all had the same dream, about Argeddion. I can’t remember much of it, just this man in white and he was giving me something. A gift. I woke up the next morning and... and I just knew. I knew there was power inside me.”

      “How did it make you feel?”

      “I didn’t like it. Kitana said it was amazing but... I don’t know. It was like there was a part of me that wasn’t me. It was – what’s the word? Unsettling.”

      “So all four of you suddenly had powers,” Skulduggery said. “What did you do?”

      Elsie shrugged. “We messed about for a few days. The more we used the powers, the stronger they got. Sean was really excited, he was talking about being superheroes and whatever. Doran called him stupid, he said we should rob all the banks in the country. Kitana said this was going to make her famous. She’d always wanted to be a model or be in the movies or something. It was going to make her a star.”

      “What about you? What did you want to use your powers for?”

      “I liked Sean’s idea the most,” she mumbled.

      “So what happened?”

      “I don’t know. We were all getting along great, we were all laughing and trying to decide what to do, and then...”

      “Then?”

      Elsie hesitated. “There was a bouncer in a nightclub who never let Doran in, because he was underage. Doran was always talking about him, about how he was going to go up one of these nights and kick his teeth in. And that’s what he did. He went up, the bouncer told him he wasn’t getting

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