Skulduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy
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kept walking.
They drew closer. The gun felt slippery in his grip. He went left and so did she, and it was only when they passed each other that he glimpsed a face he didn’t recognise. She gave him a courteous nod and he returned it, and they walked on and he breathed in relief.
“Excuse me,” the woman said behind him, and he turned just as a shadow detached itself from their surroundings and snapped the woman’s neck. She crumpled and Razzia stepped over her body.
“Thirteen,” Razzia said in her broad Australian accent. “Thirteen innocent bystanders. I’m not saying I’m breaking any records, but you gotta admit that’s impressive.” She looked up, smiling brightly. Beautiful, blonde, always dressed in tuxedos, Razzia was also completely and utterly insane. “You have been a naughty boy.”
Her hand flashed up and Temper ducked, hearing tiny teeth snapping beside his ear. He glimpsed the black tendril retracting into Razzia’s palm like a nightmarish tape measure and fired at her, but she was already sliding back into the shadows. There was someone behind her, striding up. A bald woman with a gun. Quibble.
She opened fire and he kicked a door open and fell inside, more bullets peppering the doorframe after him. Inside there was a man leaping off a couch and a woman with two mugs of coffee in her hands, staring at him in shock as he barged past her. Temper ran into the next room, saw two men through the window and turned back, took the stairs. The couple shouted and raced after him, and now he could hear a baby starting to cry. He ignored it, hurried to the master bedroom, and through the wide-open curtains glimpsed a young man on the rooftop opposite. Thin, with shockingly platinum hair. Nero. Temper blinked and the young man was gone.
“Dammit,” Temper muttered.
He sprinted to the window and then Nero was beside him, sticking his foot out, and Temper tripped and collided with the wall. He twisted, bringing the gun up, but Nero was suddenly right next to him, snatching the weapon from Temper’s hand before vanishing again.
Temper had a full second to get to his knees before Nero teleported back into the room, gun aimed squarely at Temper’s chest. This time he’d brought a friend, dressed in black, a uniform of rubber and leather. The mask he wore covered his whole head. Not even his eyes were visible behind those tinted lenses.
“Hey, Lethe,” said Temper, slumping back and offering a feeble wave. “What’s going on?”
Lethe observed him for a long few seconds. When he spoke, his voice was that familiar hollowed whisper that picked over every word with undisguised relish. “I knew you were never truly one of us.”
Temper shrugged. “Easy to say with hindsight …”
“I could see it in your eyes,” Lethe said. “Despite your protestations, despite your wild claims, you didn’t hate the mortals nearly enough.”
“Well,” Temper said, resting his back against the wall and crossing his legs at the ankles, “I’ve always had trouble hating people because they’re different than me. It’s a black thing; you wouldn’t understand. Or maybe you would. Could there be a brother hiding beneath that freaky mask of yours?”
There was movement out on the landing, and Lethe stepped aside as Razzia sidled in. Memphis and Quibble shoved the young couple into the room behind her.
“Look who we found downstairs,” Razzia said. “More innocent bystanders.”
“Please,” the guy said. “I … I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re not a threat to you, I swear we’re not. I’m – listen to me, we’re both Arborkinetics. We have a child in the other room, please let us—”
“What’s an Arborkinetic?” Memphis asked, his lip curling while he pressed his gun against the young woman’s head.
“Plants,” said Quibble. “He talks to plants. Makes them grow.”
Memphis laughed and said, “Man, that’s dumb,” which was rich coming from a guy who dressed like Elvis.
“Plants,” said the young man. “Exactly. We can’t hurt you. If you let us go, we’ll—”
Quibble raised her gun to shoot him in the head, but Lethe held up a hand. “Ah-ah,” he said. “They may talk to plants, but they’re still sorcerers. They’re still part of the family. We don’t kill family unless we absolutely have to.”
“Thank you,” the guy said. “Thank you so much.”
“Hey,” Lethe said, “we’re all on the same side.” The baby started crying again, and Lethe glanced at Quibble. “Kill the child.”
The young couple immediately tried to break free, but Razzia hit the guy so hard his legs gave out and then grabbed the girl, held her in a choke.
Lethe didn’t take his gaze off Quibble. “You’re still standing here. The child is annoying me. Kill it.”
Quibble had now gone quite pale.
“I’ll do it,” Razzia said happily, but Lethe shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I instructed Quibble to do it, so Quibble will do it.”
Quibble didn’t want to do it. “Please,” she said, her voice soft. “It’s just a baby.”
Lethe observed her through the tinted lenses of his mask. “I see.”
Tears in her eyes. “Lethe … come on, please …”
“You, ah, are refusing to obey, Quibble?” Lethe asked.
Memphis glanced away, refusing to meet Quibble’s eyes. Nero looked bored, while Razzia watched with growing enjoyment, completely oblivious to the fact that the young woman she was choking had passed out.
“I can’t kill a kid,” Quibble said quietly.
Lethe took a moment. “Oh, dear.”
She was dead. She knew it. Temper had seen that look before, that doomed expression on a slackening face. In his experience, there were only three possible options open to her at this point. The first was to run, but Lethe had a Teleporter on his side, which kind of ruled that out. The second was to give up: to accept what was coming or start begging. But begging wasn’t Quibble’s style. Quibble was an Option Three kind of girl.
She raised the gun, aimed it straight at Lethe’s face. Immediately, Memphis raised his, pressing the muzzle to Quibble’s temple.
“Don’t,” Memphis whispered. “Don’t you do it.”
“This is exciting,” Razzia said, and clapped her hands. The young woman slumped to the floor, unconscious.
“This is unfortunate,” said Lethe. “Very, hugely, unfortunate.”
“I can’t murder a baby,” Quibble said.
“Babies are just people who haven’t grown up yet. You’ve killed loads of people. Loads.”
“So let’s wait eighteen years and I’ll kill this one,” said Quibble.
“Oh,” said Lethe. “Oh, this is one of those … principle things, isn’t it? That’s … that’s sad. I’m sad now. You’ve made me sad. Because now I’ll have to kill you, Quibble, and … and I would prefer not to.”
His hands flashed, stripping the gun from Quibble’s grip and turning it back on her, pulling the trigger before she knew what was happening.
Her body toppled backwards. The wailing from the other room got louder, and Lethe handed the gun to Razzia. She looked at it like it was a piece of rotting fruit, and tossed it away.
“I’m sorry,” Lethe said to Memphis. “I know you were close.”
“She was