impudentsongbird | let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

Entry tags:

let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

Book Four: Dark Days
1 | into the breach
2 | finding skulduggery
3 | retreat to the tunnels
4 | into the cacophony
5 | sanctuary in the cathedral
6 | reuniting old friends
7 | kenspeckle's new patient
8 | holy water and disinfectant
9 | objecting to china sorrows
10 | the roadtrip
11 | baffling guild
12 | shenanigans at the safehouse
13 | reassuring fletcher
14 | valkyrie's intervention
15 | solomon's revelation
16 | visiting the edgleys
17 | recalled to the sanctuary
18 | guild's confusion
19 | gabe is busted
20 | the psychic tattoist
21 | envisioning the cacophony
22 | angel's first migraine
23 | the morning after
24 | china and solomon
25 | detectives' council of war
26 | china's foolishness
27 | the collector dethroned
28 | finding crux
29 | skulduggery's vileness revealed
30 | sorrows in aftermath
31 | finding equilibrium
32 | the devil's number
33 | at the carnival
34 | meeting authorities
35 | solomon's confession
36 | the stray soul
37 | sanguine unsettled
38 | solomon's choice
39 | a cowboy underground
40 | in scarab's basement
41 | striking midnight
42 | craven contested
43 | emergency services
44 | on your feet
45 | and don't stop moving
46 | easy recognition
47 | a deuce of an evening
48 | engines roaring
49 | compromising judgements
50 | solomon's conflict
51 | axis turning
52 | thinking circular
53 | blasting the past
54 | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
55 | sanctuary unsanctified
56 | shudder unravelling
57 | catching an angel
58 | layering dimensions
59 | dead men meeting
60 | when it rains
61 | power plays
62 | sing on gold
63 | the valley of death
64 | grand aspersions
65 | no evil feared
66 | new days rising
67 | angelic neuroses
68 | step-brothers working
69 | the many sorrows of china
70 | peacefully wreathed
71 | tarnished gold
72 | the secret in darkness
73 | magical intent
74 | scars worth keeping
75 | benefits of a beau
76 | grand magery
77 | lighting the darkness
78 | old dogs and new tricks
79 | flouting traditions
80 | drawing lines
81 | brothers and sisters in arms
82 | channelling angels
83 | return of the carnies
84 | the death bringers
85 | meriting agelessness
86 | knick knack, paddy
87 | give a dog a bone
88 | americans propheteering
89 | the right side of honour
90 | tailored shocks
91 | hosting angels
92 | elders anonymous
93 | rediscovered strays
94 | changings and changelings
95 | a state of reflection
96 | adding hope
97 | the devil's truth
98 | dead mens' hospitality
99 | lives half lived
100 | next to godliness
101 | devilish plans
102 | beached angels
103 | lights of revelation
104 | heroes worshipped
105 | new devilries
106 | angels under the yoke
107 | brains frozen
108 | father, mother, daughter
109 | parental guidance recommended
110 | driven round the bend
111 | ongoing training
112 | privileged information
113 | reasonable men
114 | passing the buck
115 | gifting magicks
116 | strengths and weaknesses
117 | immaturity's perks
118 | priests and prophets
119 | scaling evil
120 | blowing covers
121 | marring an afternoon
122 | lie detection
123 | five-dimensional pain
124 | reliving nightmares
125 | taking stock
126 | sampling spices
127 | sleeping prophets lying
128 | rueful returns
129 | dead men reunion
130 | medically-approved hugs

The life of an angel was a contradiction in changes and stability. On one hand, they understood very well the way the cosmos was shaped by events within it. On the other, they stood at one step apart from it—or at least had, for a very long time, up until their Master's recent wager with Lucifer. Changes in the recent past had, even for angels, been fast and turbulent, but there were none that concerned Raphael more than Gabriel's abrupt reserve.

In the aftermath of the wager Gabriel had been almost the only one to know where their Lord was at any given time, a fact which had put the Archangel very firmly under Lucifer's radar. Raphael had joked that Gabriel ought to arm himself with more jokes or worse clothes to drive the fallen angel away; Michael had offered the peace of the Garden Coast. (Rafe thought his idea was better.)

Either way, even though their Master was fair hidden, every angel knew that they had only to ask Gabriel and the Archangel would pass on a message.

Then Gabriel had simply blipped off the radar himself. Poof! Gone! No one had noticed at first, because, well, they weren't exactly in constant connection. It was just when Raphael had taken a whim to seek out his younger brother that he'd noticed it, and let it be, because there was absolutely a reason for it. Gabe did not just off and vanish, except that once with his self-exile, and that didn’t count.

But when Gabriel had come back, he had been strangely agitated and yet close-mouthed. The younger Archangel had vanished off to wherever their Master was hidden for a long chat Raphael was dying to have listened into, and yet couldn't (but only partly because it would have been rude). Now he was here, floating among the stars and examining a black hole with unnerving intensity.

For a time Raphael watched without letting on that he was there, but eventually Gabriel spoke. “I’d rather you came to join me instead of lurking, brother.”

Absolutely refusing to feel chagrined, Raphael let himself manifest with an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and ruffled the younger angel’s hair. Gabriel threw a fond, longsuffering glance up at him, but there was something in his eyes, something distracted and sharp, which indicated that Gabriel still wasn’t truly present. Raphael only wished he knew where the other Archangel was.

“Just wondering what you’re doin’ all the way out here,” he said teasingly. “There’s a party going on down there on Earth, Gabe.” There was always a party going on down on Earth. “You oughta be down there bobbin’ for apples and switching up party-hats!”

“I can’t,” Gabriel said quietly, with a sort of seriousness Raphael had, for all Gabriel’s literalness, rarely heard from him. So Raphael fell into the same seriousness, lost his playful accent, and spoke directly.

“Why not, brother? You’ve been reserved of late. I conf—I’m worried for you.”

For a very long time Gabriel said nothing and stared into the slow-turning swirl of the black hole. Raphael waited patiently, his arm still companionably across the other Archangel’s shoulders. Eventually Gabriel spoke. “Did you know, Raphael,” he said, “that the universe you see around you here isn’t the only one our Master has created?”

Raphael was so startled that he couldn’t answer. That wasn’t what he was imagining. He hadn’t been sure what he’d been imagining, but that wasn’t it. “I’m not sure what you mean, Gabriel,” he said after a moment. “Our Lord told me the story of Creation not all that long ago, and he never mentioned anything of the kind.”

Gabriel nodded. “He told me that story as well. And then He asked if I really wanted to know details.” He hesitated. “I … admit, I declined. It’s something He said—about faith. I decided I didn’t need to know details. But it’s true, nevertheless. Just beyond this …” The Archangel reached out his hand and touched that gossamer and unbreakable fabric that supported reality. “There are other universes, even with different versions of us.”

“Different versions of us?” Raphael repeated, appalled and uncertain and entirely confused. How could that be possible? What could their Master want with more than one of any of them? What was going on? Where had Gabriel gone in that time he’d vanished? Then something occurred to him and he smiled with relief. “This is a joke, right?”

Gabriel looked up at him and smiled back with such a gentle understanding that for a moment Raphael felt very small indeed. “No, Rafe. I’m not joking. It was a shock to me too. That isn’t the point, though.”

“Isn’t it?” Raphael asked, feeling as dazed as an angel possibly could, especially when he wasn’t even inhabiting an actual physical body.

“No.” Gabriel returned to watching the black hole intently. “I met some people from other realities. One of them is in a kind of Hell, and he very much does not deserve it. I promised him that, if I could, I would save him from it.”

Which did not in the least explain why Gabe was staring at a black hole, let alone a million other questions Raphael would have liked to ask and for which he couldn’t find the words. Finally he found one. “How?”

“First,” Gabriel said with a sort of tranquillity Raphael had heard in his brother’s voice a million times but never after delivering so turbulent a piece of news, “I’m going to jimmy open a crack in the door through this hole.”

Raphael stared at Gabe, and then at the black hole, and then back at Gabe. He opened his mouth to ask whether their Master knew he was planning this and then closed it, because that was a stupid question. He opened it again to query if Gabriel had asked whether he could go around lifting the sheets and then realised that was also a stupid question, because whether he had or not, their Master probably would have told him to do what he felt was best.

It was equally clear that Gabriel very much planned to go through with this, no matter what Raphael said, and really, did Raphael have the right to object? Surely if this carried a risk, their Master would have already forbidden Gabriel from making the attempt?

“I’ll come with,” Raphael said at last, and this time when Gabriel glanced back the younger Archangel’s expression was startled. A moment later that expression shifted into grateful apology.

“I’m sorry, Rafe, but I’m not entirely certain I’ll make it through, and we can hardly leave Michael here alone.” He grinned. “Did you see what he was wearing last festival day on the Garden Coast? He hasn’t moved out of the eighteenth century yet. How would he possibly handle the rest of the world?”

Raphael laughed out loud, warm but startled, and the sound of it rang through space. Gabriel chuckled quietly beside him, and for a few minutes there was just companionable humour that faded into an equally comfortable silence.

Still, Raphael had a lot of questions. How did Gabriel plan to find his friend, let alone the universe he was in? How was he going to get back? What would he do if he met another version of himself? Or, worse, Lucifer? Finally the Archangel just asked, “Have you figured out how to crack open the door?”

“I think so,” Gabriel said, considering the black hole. “Once I figured out what to look for. I wouldn’t have gotten even that far if it weren’t for some things our Master said.”

Which meant that, in some fashion, this expedition was sanctioned by their Master, Raphael translated, and something tense in him relaxed. “Something do to with this drain here, I’ll bet,” he said, falling into his casual accent once more. “Gonna rip out the kitchen sink, li’l brother?”

“Just to see what’s hiding underneath,” Gabriel said with a grin.

“I’ll try’n keep it open for ya,” Raphael promised, and Gabriel sent him a smile which lit up the very space around them with its brilliance.

“Thank you, Rafe,” he said, and straightened. Raphael took his arm away as Gabriel lifted his hands, not exactly stepping back so much as giving Gabriel space. The youngest Archangel didn’t often reveal his power, but it was always a sight to see, a song to hear, when he did.

As it was now. Gabriel’s voice started deep, lifted high, split and wove and became more melodies than one would think a single being could possibly sing at once. The sound of it made Raphael’s heart soar, made him want to fly and laugh. It was so deep, so light, so resonating that it was physical; it touched the slow turn of the black hole and made it, for just the briefest of moments, still. In that moment Gabriel sent a carefully-aimed bolt of energy into the heart of it.

It was the kind of sight Raphael hadn’t seen in thousands of years, a play of physics and metaphysics which he hadn’t thought possible, let alone imagined. There was an eruption in the centre of the black hole, where gravity was condensed; the cascade of energy plumed upward and was dragged back down as quick, a tear in the fabric of the reality not allowed the time to widen or become a danger.

Raphael didn’t even know Gabe had moved until the younger Archangel was gone, he was so busy staring in awe. With a start the Archangel stretched out his senses and just barely managed to catch a glimpse of his brother shooting toward the hole at speeds few angels could have achieved through such a gravity well. Raphael certainly couldn’t have.

How, he suddenly wondered, was he meant to keep that open if he didn’t even have the speed of thought to track Gabriel’s movements through it?

Desperately the Archangel cast about for something to jam in the door, as it were. There was some dark matter nearby and with a thought he fashioned it into a spear and pitched it toward the centre of the black hole. It struck just as Gabriel flitted through the crack nearly wholly collapsed in on itself; the star’s gravity caught it, pulled it in, and plugged the opening like a metaphysical sink.

Slowly Raphael made every part of himself relax. For good or ill, Gabe was gone on this quest of his, and now Raphael should probably go and round up some of their younger siblings to guard the area. Just in case.

Book Four: Dark Days
into the breach | finding skulduggery | retreat to the tunnels | into the cacophony | sanctuary in the cathedral | reuniting old friends | kenspeckle's new patient | holy water and disinfectant | objecting to china sorrows | the roadtrip | baffling guild | shenanigans at the safehouse | reassuring fletcher | valkyrie's intervention | solomon's revelation | visiting the edgleys | recalled to the sanctuary | guild's confusion | gabe is busted | the psychic tattoist | envisioning the cacophony | angel's first migraine | the morning after | china and solomon | detectives' council of war | china's foolishness | the collector dethroned | finding crux | skulduggery's vileness revealed | sorrows in aftermath | finding equilibrium | the devil's number | at the carnival | meeting authorities | solomon's confession | the stray soul | sanguine unsettled | solomon's choice | a cowboy underground | in scarab's basement | striking midnight | craven contested | emergency services | on your feet | and don't stop moving | easy recognition | a deuce of an evening | engines roaring | compromising judgements | solomon's conflict | axis turning | thinking circular | blasting the past | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
sanctuary unsanctified | shudder unravelling | catching an angel | layering dimensions | dead men meeting | when it rains | power plays | sing on gold | the valley of death | grand aspersions | no evil feared | new days rising | angelic neuroses | step-brothers working | the many sorrows of china | peacefully wreathed | tarnished gold | the secret in darkness | magical intent | scars worth keeping | benefits of a beau | grand magery | lighting the darkness | old dogs and new tricks | flouting traditions | drawing lines | brothers and sisters in arms | channelling angels | return of the carnies | the death bringers | meriting agelessness | knick knack, paddy | give a dog a bone | americans propheteering | the right side of honour | tailored shocks | hosting angels | elders anonymous | rediscovered strays | changings and changelings | a state of reflection | adding hope | the devil's truth | dead mens' hospitality | lives half lived | next to godliness | devilish plans | beached angels | lights of revelation | heroes worshipped | new devilries | angels under the yoke | brains frozen | father, mother, daughter | parental guidance recommended | driven round the bend | ongoing training | privileged information | reasonable men | passing the buck | gifting magicks | strengths and weaknesses | immaturity's perks | priests and prophets | scaling evil | blowing covers | marring an afternoon | lie detection | five-dimensional pain | reliving nightmares | taking stock | sampling spices | sleeping prophets lying | rueful returns | dead men reunion | medically-approved hugs

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"To be fair," Ghastly pointed out, warming up to the plan once he saw the effect everyone else was having on the chalked lines of the circle, "Descry was the only one to father a child that we know about. We wouldn't have known about Saracen if he hadn't found us."

"I think I object to being called a child," Saracen grumbled while Ghastly lowered himself slowly into a cross-legged position.

"Son, then," he amended without a fight. "How many of your conquests do the rest of you keep in touch with?"

"Hey." Erskine wagged a finger at Ghastly. "Not 'conquests.' There are ladies in the room."

Tanith, who had burst out laughing when she heard about Saracen's reaction to Skulduggery and was only barely getting her breath back, waved a hand at them in response. "Oh, don't mind me..."

"She isn't a lady, either," Saracen objected. "Come on, you can't still be laughing at me for that. How did you all react when you first met him?"

"Descry kept forgetting I existed," Skulduggery remembered with the faintest trace of a smile in his voice. "I don't think he liked that I was the only person in existence who could sneak up on him. Otherwise, no one's put their fists through my ribcage before." He hesitated. "Ghastly pulled my skull off, though."

"I did no such thing."

"You tried to. If I hadn't screamed, you probably would have done it."

Ghastly was about to argue, and then stopped. "True. But in my defence, you appeared out of nowhere trying to tell me that you were my dead best friend. I thought I'd gone mad."

"You tried to pull my skull off, Ghastly."

"Yes, well, if I hadn't gone mad, then you had to be a spell. I needed to dismantle it."

"My skull."

"I helped Valkyrie get it back for you. Doesn't that count for something?"

Skulduggery drifted off into a wordless grumble, but if Ghastly had to guess, the non-words in the grumble were something along the lines of 'I suppose.' And, if Ghastly was feeling particularly generous, 'Thank you, I would never have managed to track it down without you, you're the best friend a man could ever ask for.'

Then again, maybe not. But a man could dream.

Erskine's brow was furrowed in thought. "You know, technically speaking, Ghastly managed it in the end."

Ghastly blinked. "I did what?"

"Remember the last time he jumped off a waterfall and you refused to put him back together? Wasn't it your idea to use his skull as a candleholder?"

"Don't remember," he readily lied as Skulduggery looked in his direction.

"It's hard to remember someone exists when you can't hear them," Descry grumbled. "And I still maintain you took fiendish delight in reminding me. Like by sitting beside me in my tent and then saying hello when I woke up and rolled over. That was highly uncalled for."

Dexter was cracking up. "That was the first time I ever heard you swear!"

"I remember you leapt so hard you tore through the wall of your tent," Rover added gleefully. Descry scowled at both of them, but his mouth was flickering too much with humour for the scowl to actually work.

By now the circle looked like a pastel shade of gold and silver, visible but still light-toned. When Ghastly lied his circle chimed pleasantly and a wave of dusky light spread from it in a lazy ripple. It bounced off the other lines, collecting and pooling and not in the least bit detracting from the connections, but tinging them.

"Oh, right," Gabe said innocently. "Did I forget to mention that part? The lines reflect your words and intent. The spell won't mess up unless someone does something with malicious intent, but ..." He shrugged, grinning. "... you might find it hard to lie."

"Ghastly," Rover admonished, wagging his finger at the tailor, "of all the people to discover this fact, I am stunned and shocked that it was you. And appalled! Did I mention appalled? I'm the one who's meant to lie first!"

"Besides which, it was his idea to use Skulduggery's skull as a candleholder," Descry added.

Anton looked at him. "I thought it was yours."

"Ghastly had the idea. I simply voiced it."

"You're the only man I know who can claim something wasn't your idea when you're the one who brought it up," Corrival said.

"I didn't see you complaining," Descry noted. "In fact, I seem to recall your first words, upon finding us playing cards around a table lit by Skulduggery's candled skull, were 'deal me in'."

"How often does a man get to play poker while the lamp gives hints on who's bluffing? And you're wrong. They were playing cards around a table lit by Skulduggery's candled skull. You were banned from the game for cheating."

"I never cheated," Descry said with great dignity. "I was a monk. I was a man of God. We don't cheat."

"You took unfair advantage of your particular skill-set, then."

"Wait," Dexter said, shaking his head. "Descry was playing with us, though. I remember because we ran out of booze and we were all in on the hand, so no one could go get some more."

"That's how," Rover said with a laugh. "We got him drunk. I'd like to know how often he sampled the holy wine before he met us, because it took us way too long to get him drunk enough to be a horrible player."

"Just because I was a monk doesn't mean I'm a lightweight."

Skulduggery shook his head. "I don't remember being able to give hints. The most I can remember doing is rocking what was left of my spine into the table so my skull would tip forward and set fire to the cards. I wasn't very happy with any of you."

"But you never jumped off a waterfall ever again," Ghastly pointed out.

"You're meant to be able to trust your friends. I do remember that Descry claimed I was giving him hints. I was amazed he remembered that the lamp was sentient at all."

"Oh, he was used to you by that point," said Erskine dismissively. "I think it was around about that point that we all got used to you. You'd be surprised, Paddy, how long it takes men who are supposed to be open-minded about magic to stop staring at a living skeleton every time he's in the room."

"Would I, now?" Paddy responded faintly. His face was crinkled with laughter.

"Skulduggery, sit down," said Ghastly. "You're making me nervous."

"God forbid anyone become nervous during this," Skulduggery mumbled, but he obediently sank onto the floor. "Better?"

"Better."

It was a simple act and a simple regard, but Ghastly could watch the rippling effect throughout the circle. It was mesmerising. Gold gave way to silver, melding and convalescing and glowing, rippling out from where Skulduggery sat like he was a pebble dropped into a still lake. Ghastly couldn't feel anything yet, and was quietly grateful for the fact. He couldn't pretend to know how much anger Skulduggery was burdened with, but he was glad he didn't have to know it before he could properly appreciate this spectacle.

"While we're on the topic of things addling someone's mind," said Erskine, "does anyone else think Meritorious suspected the place he was sending us to was an opium den? And he never said a word?"

"Too much faith in Skulduggery," Ghastly said with a nod.

"Too much faith?" Skulduggery's skull twisted towards the tailor. "It wasn't just a matter of escaping, you know. I had to defeat the entire drug cartel on the way out. Alone."

"I seem to vaguely recall having a very involved conversation with you, actually," Descry told Skulduggery as he sat. "Although most of that recollection is in third-person from the rest of you. I would have sworn you were talking back, if I didn't have six other memories as proof otherwise."

"I always figured it was a ploy by Corrival to give us some vacation time," Rover put in. "That mission was fun. Although I did wake up with bite-marks, and I have no idea where they came from."

"I think Anton got hungry again," Dexter said, straight-faced.

"I may have thought Rover was dog," Anton answered, equally blandly.

"We did help," Descry corrected Skulduggery. "Somewhat. Mostly by causing so much drugged chaos the cartel didn't see what you were doing until it was too late."

"You looked like you were having so much fun when you got back, I was almost jealous none of you thought to bring a sample as proof," Corrival said deadpan.

Their individual circles were the densest with sigils. They were beginning to saturate too, now, illuminating each of the Dead Men as if from within. The gold and silver saturated those sigils, weighting each of the circles. As if those anchors were, slowly, peeling the grime off Skulduggery's soul, the silver lines connecting him to each of the Dead Men were traced with discordant red.

"How many noise complaints did you get?" Dexter asked, eyeing that tint warily.

"I lost count," Corrival said, "but the next time we held a council of war with Meritorious, I did have someone trying to have me removed for allowing the number of mollies I was luring into my unit. Only he used the other word. Necrophilia was also mentioned, now that I recall."

"What happened? I don't remember this." Rover looked intrigued, and Corrival smiled lazily like an old bulldog still with a trick under its paw.

"He was reassigned. No one messes with my harem."

The red tint reached their individual circles. It bled into the inner sigils, the ones nearest them personally. It started like a prickle in their skin, a catch in their breath, a sudden pound in their heart. It would continue as seeping unease develop into a downright, background irritant, and segue into a head-pounding sort of dizziness.

Paddy would have been able to tell something was different, even without the tinge of red in the circles. He saw it in Ghastly first, a slight change in the expression he'd been wearing until that point. Surprise, sliding almost immediately into a faintly annoyed frown. And then, if Paddy wasn't mistaken, that frown became coloured by a hint of fear.

"No one except Corrival himself," Erskine countered, stubbornly ignoring the prickle of red in the circle and what he was no doubt feeling, despite a small crinkle in his brow. "Remember what he did for Christmas that one year?"

"He did a lot of things for Christmas." Ghastly stopped, surprised by the annoyance in his own voice, and spoke again with a concerted effort to clear it. "Are you talking about the time he became Rue, or the time he released live turkeys into Rover's tent?"

"Rue." Erskine grinned. "Although now that you mention it, Rover did refuse to eat turkey ever again, didn't he?"

"What do you mean?" asked Saracen. "I've seen him eating turkey. I saw him eating turkey a week before he died."

"Are you sure? He wasn't just picking at it? Or staring longingly at it? Or flicking pieces of it at the rest of us all evening?"

Saracen hesitated. "You know, he might have been."

"He probably was," Skulduggery nodded. "There were at least three Christmas dinners where I was picking bits of cooked turkey off of my bones for the next month."

"To be fair," said Ghastly, "you delighted in saying how ridiculous Christmas was."

"It is ridiculous. It highlights good deeds and feelings and goodwill that needs to exist all year round, not just one day a year. No one ever has childhood Easter stories, but when you mention Christmas, suddenly everyone has a fond memory."

It was one of the more reasonable reasons Paddy had ever heard for disliking Christmas, but it still made him laugh as he leaned forward in the pew. He wasn't quite sure why. "If I were you, Skulduggery, I'd take what goodwill from humanity I could get."

"Of course I refused to eat turkey ever again!" Rover protested. "How would you like waking up to a turkey pecking your ear? And other things?" He stopped and mulled that over. "You know what? I need revenge. I need to eat turkeys. I need to get them back for pecking my ear and ruining a perfectly nice dream."

It would have been light-hearted, except that it wasn't--quite. Right now, thoughts of revenge took an edged overtone and for good reason.

"To be fair, people tend to misappropriate Christmas to being about presents," Descry pointed out. His eyes had closed and he was sitting up, rolling a knot of his prayer-rope between his fingers. He was even managing to smile, a little, though anyone who knew him would recognise his bearing as being one of focus. "People don't tend to think of Easter as being a gift when it involves having to admit getting the gift means you're a failure." He opened his eyes and grinned at Skulduggery. It wasn't a forced smile, but it wasn't the sort of smile he wore when it was drawn out of him by the thoughts and amusements of others. "Well, unless you're biased in the opposite direction, like some people I know, but they have their own issues with the event."

"Besides, he deserved the turkeys," Corrival mumbled. His face was creasing, his brow furrowed and mouth drawn tight. "He wandered into my briefing with Meritorious tarred and feathered. Twice. Fool me once and all that."

Dexter, so far had said nothing since the red tinge had come to light. Instead he was watching the circle silently, his knuckles white because he was gripping his knees. "I think this needs to stop being funny," he said suddenly, looking up. His face was pale, the skin around his eyes tight. "Skulduggery, I've known you were Vile since two days after the mission at the pass. I think the most afraid I've ever been is the night you vanished right after Descry died. I followed you, remember? You didn't show up the next day and I was terrified you'd up and left again, and I followed you all the way to Cork. I still don't know what the Hell you were doing there, but I was about ready to cry when you looked at me and tilted your head and asked--" His voice cracked. "--asked if I'd somehow lost the road into Dublin."

"Of course I have my own issues with the event," said Skulduggery, returning Descry's look. He made no attempt to deny being biased in the opposite direction. "It's marked by searching for chocolate eggs supposedly left behind by a giant rabbit. Still, it's better than Christmas. People don't get unnecessarily sentimental over Easter. No offence, Paddy."

Offence was the last thing on Paddy's mind, but he still bowed his head in gratitude. "None taken."

Ghastly remembered the night Dexter was talking about. How couldn't he? He hadn't given a single thought to Skulduggery's sanity that whole time, worried more about Saracen's in the immediate aftermath. It wasn't until the next morning, when Skulduggery vanished, that he put two and two together the way the skeleton must have - Serpine. If anyone would have had the capability, desire, and downright stupidity to pick off the Dead Men one by one, it was him.

At the time, Ghastly had hoped Skulduggery would return with news of Serpine's death. Now, with Dexter's story, the tailor's breath caught in his throat at the fresh realisation of what Skulduggery's disappearance that night actually meant.

Skulduggery looked long and hard at Dexter, perfectly still in the way that only a living skeleton could be. When he suddenly moved again, leaning his weight back on his hands, it was startling. "Do you remember when I told you that he wasn't a she?"

Ghastly frowned, but said nothing. Skulduggery wouldn't be glib about this. Ghastly had to be missing something.

"Well, he wasn't. He was a mortal potato farmer by the name of James. I needed distance from civilisation directly after I buried the armour, but I wasn't counting on his farm. I think I scared him half to death. If it wasn't for James, I wouldn't have come back to find any of you."

A memory surfaced. Skulduggery standing at the grave of someone named James Walsh, almost a century after Lord Vile disappeared. He carried a single bottle of olive oil, and placed it near the tombstone. Ghastly never did find out who James was, and had given up hope of ever finding out without Skulduggery feeling much more like sharing. And he never had.

"I went to go visit his farm outside of Cork after Descry died," the detective continued. "The farm was empty. I regained myself there once; I was hoping it would stop me from making the same mistake again. And it did, with some help. You can thank Descry for that. I thought he was a hallucination at the time."

Dexter had been terrified he'd arrive in Cork only to find Lord Vile, and he never breathed a word to anyone else. Not once. Ghastly felt a surge of incredibly righteous anger, chalky in his throat and on his tongue, but he fought it back down. In Dexter's shoes, Ghastly would have done the exact same thing. And it wouldn't have made one blind bit of difference, because Skulduggery came back. He was at Descry's funeral. He was there, next to Dexter, when Saracen turned sharply around and started lecturing them both out of nowhere about being idiots.

'I don't blame either one of you,' he'd snapped with a tremor in his voice. 'So stop blaming yourselves.'

Would it have changed anything, if Ghastly knew back then?

No. If anything, it would have made things worse.

Edited 2013-08-16 13:54 (UTC)

"I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get through to you," Descry admitted. "I didn't want to let go until I was sure you wouldn't fall again, but until you spoke back I couldn't tell if you heard me or not. Or if you'd believe it enough to take it to heart." He gave Dexter a tight, slightly wobbly smile. "That was one of the most frightening times of my existence too."

"You should have told me," Corrival said, with that stiff blankness of someone with a point to make and trying not to be angry about it, even though they were. Descry was already shaking his head.

"I shouldn't have," he corrected, his tone steelier than it usually ever got. "You trusted me with the entirety of your self, Corrival, you have to trust me when I say that I couldn't have told anyone. I wouldn't have told Dexter if I could've avoided it, but if I had to tell anyone, he's the only one it could have been. That's why I did." He'd started directing his words at Corrival, but he ended looking at Anton. Anton looked back without blinking.

"It was dangerous," he pointed out. "If Skulduggery had turned at any time, we would have been unprepared."

Descry's mouth quirked up at a corner. "That's why I was minimising the potential triggers. People knowing about Skulduggery would have made his turning more likely, not less."

"So it was a practical issue."

"It can be, if you want to think of it like that," Descry said with a shrug. "Just like this spell right now is one. But you and I both know that's not all it is."

Anton declined to answer, but he did look at Skulduggery with narrowed, piercing eyes. Of them all, it was Anton and Descry who were having the least trouble with the red anger slowly saturating the lines around them. The gold and silver sigils buffered them from being overwhelmed by it, but it was still there, tangible and inescapable. Of them all, Anton and Descry were the ones with the most experience with self-control--either as a result of their selves or others.

"What is it?" Rover demanded suddenly, looking between them. "I want to know. I want to know why Anton's not a pile of goo or a possessed werewolf."

Anton's gaze slid sidelong to Descry. Descry shrugged. "Under the circumstances, withholding details seems counter-productive."

"I don't even know the answer."

"I was just waiting on your permission. Rover, don't you remember what happened with Anton's family?"

"Ten sibs who thought he was a demon once he saved his older sister from being raped by the King's guard by using his Gist for the first time," Rover said promptly. His eyes widened. "Ooooh. I getcha. I think."

Anton did too, and more than Rover did just because he knew, better than Rover--better than anyone except Descry--the terms of his Geas. He looked up at the ceiling, and didn't look back. He'd been outcast by his own family, labelled a demon. In some fashion, he was. But his Gist was fed with despair, so he had to have hope that he wasn't completely lost, or else he would be.

He had to have hope that Skulduggery wasn't lost either. He couldn't help it. Skulduggery was family, and Anton had created his Gist to protect family, no matter how much they tried him. There was really no way he could have said no to being part of the leash.

Paddy was impressed by Descry, and for more reasons than one. Part of it was definitely how strong a man had to be, when they were in the minds of everyone around them. Privy to details and answers even the person themselves didn't have. Witnessing firsthand the selfishness and selflessness and cruelty and kindness of humanity, often in coexistence. Paddy could only barely imagine that.

But that wasn't all. It wasn't just how Descry must have laboured alone for so many years trying to save a friend from darkness. It was how level he was, when everyone else in the circle was struggling. How even his voice was, how still his body - almost as if he was meditating. The years of experience he spoke from. Not just experience of life, but experience of people. 'It can be, if you want to think of it like that. Just like this spell right now is one. But you and I both know that's not all it is.'

It was the love he still had, and the love he knew everyone else had too.

At the same time, Paddy could see quite clearly what the lives of sorcerers were like from the get-go, and it sent shivers down his spine to hear Rover talk about such a horrific event as matter-of-factly as if he was listing off Anton's birthday.

"Really?" asked Skulduggery. "Because I don't."

Paddy smiled sadly. Of course, the only man who wouldn't understand it would be the one usually silently acknowledged as the smartest of them. "Family, Skulduggery," he spoke up. It was as much as he felt comfortable saying, coming from a position of such little context, but Skulduggery's head tilted to the side and then Ghastly picked up the tangent.

"Like it or not, Skulduggery, we're all family," he said. "You don't get to choose who's in your family, and you definitely don't get to decide the terms of it."

"Anton nearly gave up when I found his Hotel in Siberia," Erskine added. "And that wasn't because he was angry."

Skulduggery didn't say anything else, but the discordant red in the lines around him surged for a brief moment. Erskine closed his eyes against it, and Saracen brought his legs under him so that he could sit up properly. "Can we talk about something funny now?" he asked. "Or are we doomed to sit here and wallow for the next hour?"

"Is it wallowing, or is it clearing the air?" Corrival countered, his gaze on Skulduggery. "You weren't there for it, but way back when the unit was formed I gave everyone the chance to come out with things that might put them, or others, in danger if the rest of the squad didn't know it. Not everyone took me up on that like they should have."

He looked hard at Descry, who had the grace to look sheepish even with his eyes closed, as he threaded his prayer-rope between his fingers.

"Either way, I agree with Saracen," Rover objected, stretching and reclining back. "I think that's more than enough doom and gloom. No offence, Dex, I get that you needed to get that off your back, but--" He mustered a somewhat strained grin. "I think we should talk anger-management tactics, myself. I think we should talk about some glitter and sparkly wings and playing dress-ups."

Anton lifted an eyebrow. "That's the best you can come up with?"

"Sue me, I don't have Skulduggery's capacity to be funny in the face of wrath. When did I ever give you the impression I could multitask?"

"Given that you held Erskine and Dexter back with a cold shoulder for weeks on end for something they did to me, absolutely never."

"Can we have puppies?" Rover asked plaintively. "I want puppies. I'd ask for hugs too, but I don't think I can leave my circle."

Something, coming from the direction of one of the angels--it was impossible to see which--came sailing over the span of the circle and landed on his head, tumbled off, and hit the ground with a soft thud. It was a big, very fluffy and very cuddly dog-plushie. Rover snatched it up and looked skyward. "Cheers, Man!"

"I want puppies too," Dexter muttered. "Does everyone remember the week Rover asked for maternity leave and then came back with an armful of newborn puppies? It'd been a while since I saw Corrival splutter like that."

Erskine was the first to take up Dexter's story, though his eyes never left Rover's new dog-plushie. Anyone who didn't know any better might have thought Erskine was jealous. "Corrival wouldn't give him the maternity leave," he remembered. "Rover had to sneak away. The rest of us were taking bets on what he would come back with, and we all lost a lot of money over that litter of puppies."

"Except for those of us smart enough to keep our money in our pockets," Ghastly pointed out. He, Skulduggery, and Descry were the only ones smart enough, as he recalled. Even Anton ended up putting some money on a living and breathing newborn.

"There were eight puppies," Erskine added for the benefit of everyone in the room who didn't know the story. "All different breeds, different sizes, different temperaments. He was actually expecting each of us to raise one. Wasn't yours an albino, Skulduggery?"

"A dalmatian." Skulduggery shook his head. "A dalmatian whose coat pattern made it look remarkably like a skeleton. You never did tell me how you managed that, Rover."

"He used soot," Descry said, blank-faced except for the twitching corner of his mouth.

"They were cute," Rover whined. "Who could not love them? They were puppies. Everyone loves puppies. Except for Skulduggery, who is cat-biased, so nyeh." The Elemental stuck out his tongue at the skeleton. "And even you kept yours, even if I had to feed her so the poor thing didn't starve to death when you forgot living things need food."

"They were cute," Dexter agreed nostalgically. He looked ceiling-ward. "Hey, can I order a puppy-plush? Constraints available to the judicious mind-read--oh, good." A puppy-plush landed on his head and fell off into his arms. He laid it down and sprawled on top of it, using it as a pillow. (It was a golden retriever. A very fluffy one.)

"They made good guards," Corrival said. "I actually managed to cut down on foot-traffic for the couple of decades I had guard-dogs at my tent. Except for the part where they had a soft-spot for Rover and let him in anytime he wanted."

"Of course they did. I was their daddy. Why wouldn't they give their daddy toll-free travel into your tent?"

"I think I got my best nights' sleep in those two decades," Descry murmured. "Inside a literal puppy-pile. I also happen to know you were deliberately shutting them inside my tent so they'd sleep in there with me, Rover."

Rover just grinning at him over his puppy-plush's head. (It was a beagle.) "It worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, but it was far more comfortable when I didn't have the Dane, the Newfie and the rottweiler trying to jostle for space on top of me. Anton, for a man who doesn't like cuddling, your vicious raiding dog quite liked cuddling."

Edited 2013-08-17 14:05 (UTC)

"I'm cat-biased?" Skulduggery asked in the incredulous tone of someone who had just raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't even know it was possible not to like cuddling in the Dead Men," Saracen complained. "I tried to put my foot down a couple of times, and Rover kept telling me that wasn't allowed."

"To be fair, you did make a promise to him," Erskine pointed out. "Something about getting untied in exchange for cuddles?"

"Taking unfair advantage of the newbie, that's what that was."

"Really?" Erskine's grin turned mischievous. "Because Anton, right when he first met Rover, already knew better than to make blanket promises with him. Especially in regards to cuddling."

"I'd only just learned sorcerers exist," Saracen objected. "Cut me some slack, Erskine. I was terrified. You all thought I was there to assassinate Descry."

"Cat-biased?" said Skulduggery.

Ghastly, ignoring the skeleton's confusion, shook his head. "No we didn't. We just thought you were dangerous. That can mean all manner of things."

"And your way of finding out was to tie me up and put make-up on my face?"

Erskine raised an eyebrow in a way that Skulduggery couldn't. "Of course. You've been with us for how long now?"

You've been. Present tense. Ghastly doubted he was the only one to notice, even if the distinction wasn't actively brought up by anyone else. It helped, he found, to keep some of the mounting irritation at bay. Something else that helped was remembering that for Skulduggery, this level of irritation was below normal. This was what he felt, even on a good day.

"Exactly what do you mean by 'cat-biased?'" Skulduggery repeated. "I've never given any animal more preference over another. How long have I been cat-biased?"

"He promised me unrestricted access to his tent," Rover clarified, grinning wickedly at Saracen. "With the way he jumped the first few nights, either he was cold or he'd never had a cuddle before. Either way, it was a situation that needed to be rectified! Besides." He pouted. "Why are you complaining about my cuddles? My cuddles before I died were amazing. Now they're just awesome."

Descry had already let out a short, sighing laugh. "Rover. What did I say about using puns I've heard before a thousand times before?"

"Hey, they haven't!" Rover made a sweeping gesture to the rest of the circle. "They need to hear all the Heavenly puns!"

"Don't make me tie you up and put make-up on your face."

"I'd ask if that's a promise, but I've seen you try to give a man a makeover before, and no thanks." The Elemental gave a theatrical shudder. "Just because you're a mind-reader doesn't mean you have any talent."

"You've been cat-biased since we have pictures of you stroking a kitten in your lap and with a cat riding your shoulders," Dexter told Skulduggery. "You're officially a cat person. You're just going to have to deal with that. In fact, here." He conjured something in his palm and then lobbed the small melodic bell on a ribbon into Skulduggery's circle. "Present for your angelic kitty. Now at least you'll know when he's coming."

The words were said with complete deadpan innocence, without any intended meanings attached. Rover still snorted into his puppy-plush's head, his shoulders shaking.

"I object to that thought," Gabe grumbled from outside the circle.

Descry winced. "So do I. Rover, really?"

"Dex said it, I didn't!"

"Dexter at least managed to restrain himself from falling into the gutter in his brain."

"And it wasn't easy, let me tell you."

Their words, while typical, had a faint edge of desperation, like they were clinging to the humour. The circle was saturated red as much as gold and silver now, red all around the inner circle like a seething ocean. But it hadn't overwhelmed the gold and silver, not even close; simply condensed the light, like it had been forged and sharpened, so that it was all the more intense around each of the Dead Men. With the red as a backdrop, the thin, twining filaments of the gold and silver threads still binding each of them to each other looked brighter than before.

And still they drew it out.

Ghastly would not - could not - be as lucid as this without Rover's antics. Without the jokes being passed around, the nostalgic reminiscing, the reminder that there was more to life and more to them than the creeping red filaments in the circles around them. That wasn't a guess, or a prediction. It was pure fact, as clear to Ghastly as the knowledge that they were all trying their best to grasp at rapidly diminishing straws. Straws of humour, of laughter, many of them sitting in the gutter.

For the first time, Ghastly could understand why Skulduggery snapped. And, once he came back, why he needed so desperately to be able to laugh again.

He wasn't laughing now. Ghastly didn't know if that was a good sign or not. His empty eye sockets were on the bell Dexter had lobbed into the inner circle, but it seemed like a bit too long before the skeleton actually reached out and picked it up. Were they meant to feel if he was angry? Or was that an ability that would only come with practice?

Maybe Skulduggery was so used to the clinging everyone else was now doing that the decreased need for it was startling him.

He held the ribbon between two fingers and let the bell drop, so that the loud tinkling noise was all that could be heard for a few moments. Then, very suddenly, he laughed. "Thank you, Dexter. I'm sure it'll come in handy, if it doesn't disappear tomorrow."

Erskine's grin was just as sudden as Skulduggery's laughter, but if he'd been planning on saying something, it died on the way up his throat. Instead, he looked at Descry. "And for the record, Rover is completely free to make as many terrible puns as he wants. You've had him for the last century. It's time the rest of us had a turn."

Ghastly nodded. "Agreed."

"Hey!" Dexter sat up suddenly. "Are you saying my constructs are second-rate? Are you saying they barely last the night? Are you saying I can't put my stamina into my magic? I'm insulted, Skulduggery. I'm insulted and I demand satisfaction."

"He does have a skin now," Rover pointed out, and then jabbed a finger at Descry. "Hah. I win! I get to hold a Dead Men rodeo again! What, you thought that because I'm not a mind-reader I wouldn't get bored of only having you for the last century? I need some variety in my physical life, Descry. You've been clingy. You've been demanding. Finally I'm free to pursue whom I like, when I like!"

"just make sure your husband gets the first turn," Descry told him mildly, his eyes closed again and with that persistent quirk at the corner of his mouth, "or else you might be forced to take the couch. It's not a very big couch, Rover. You won't have the room to offer up as much fun for everyone as you'd like."

Then he opened his eyes and shook his head. "I have been with you for too long. You've infected me. I'm corrupted. I'm lost. I need help."

"All night long, Hopeless," Corrival said dryly, just as the redhead laughed.

"We've been a bad influence on you, too, our general."

"If you can't beat 'em." Corrival shrugged easily.

"Yes, well, for the record, I'm probably the only one here--angels aside--for whom you're not too old."

"I'll keep that in mind for when Ravel and Wreath start making me jealous."

"I think I object to that," Solomon murmured from outside the circle, barely audible. His face was turned away, though not enough that he couldn't see, and his eyes were slits. The sear of Skulduggery's anger wasn't a Scream, precisely, but it had more in common than Solomon had expected. He should have; that anger was the reason Skulduggery was tied, through Necromancy, to his skeleton. His anger was the sound of his own soul screaming.

Even through the wards, it was bright and shrieking at once, enough to make his head throb. For all that, he wasn't actually barred from watching. Merlin had one hand on his elbow, and Solomon could see the soothing coolness of his magic adding to Solomon's wards. He was grateful for it, because he himself could either add to the wards or watch what was happening--not both.

If he could ignore the irritant, it was fascinating. He could see ropes being woven between each of the individual souls, see the way they unconsciously reflected each other in thought and habit just because they'd known each other for that long. It was reminiscent of what he'd seen that day in Shudder's Hotel, except brought to the fore and woven into something with intent.

The bindings were growing to a point where they would have a weight all their own, but Solomon could see they weren't quite there yet. Not enough to metaphysically hold their own gravity--almost like it was its own soul.

The thought made a chill run down Solomon's spine.

"I think I second that objection," Erskine jumped in. "For multiple reasons, but the first and foremost being that I most certainly am not too young for you, Grand Mage. Any gap in the years can easily be made up for by the fact that I'm clearly mature enough for someone to believe I'd make a good Elder."

"It is right there in the name," Saracen agreed with a smile that only barely could be called patronising. "And if it means not having to be subjected to my father's frightening new exploits, I'm all for it."

"Your father," said Skulduggery, "has spent the last century with no one but Rover for company. What makes you think you won't be?"

Saracen groaned and fell back against the floor, only belatedly careful not to accidentally move out of his circle; he twitched back up with a start when he realised, but nothing happened. The chalked lines were still saturated with shades of red in amongst the gold, and Ghastly could still feel his irritation mounting. One of the only things that made that irritation bearable was looking at Skulduggery and knowing that the change in him was so prominent as to be visible, even in his skeletal frame. Something about the way he held himself; his skull was higher, his movements came more easily.

Skulduggery's head turned questioningly toward him. It was easier than Ghastly would have thought to smile back. "How does it feel?"

The fact that Skulduggery didn't even need to pause before answering was all the answer Ghastly needed. "Freeing. Very freeing."

"Well, to pose as one, anyway," Dexter mused. "I don't know about actually being one. Doesn't that imply wisdom of some kind? I'm not sure how well you can fake that. Isn't that the opposite of wise?"

"There is a way to fix that," Anton pointed out. "We'll just have to separate Descry and Rover for a while. Perhaps send Rover back, and keep Descry here on Earth."

"Hey!" Rover sat upright very quickly, extending a finger toward Anton. "You're implying you like Descry better than me! I object to this! How can you like Descry better than me?"

"Descry doesn't try to break into my tent for a snuggle every night."

"Maybe I wouldn't try so hard if you didn't lock me out of your tent. What, you flaunt a challenge like that in front of my nose and expect me not to take advantage?"

The red hadn't actively grown for a while now. It felt more like it was settling, sliding into all the cracks, seething and seeking out flaws. There weren't any, but that didn't mean it couldn't test those bindings, push them with its never-ending presence, with its weight. Descry wasn't speaking, only because he was looking toward Solomon.

Solomon was looking back, and there was a metaphysical tether of understanding between them. Solomon, who could see properly every steadily shining leash, every vibration of the red overlay. It wasn't a contest, but the circle glowed red like flowing lava, still needing to harden into stone before it could burn anything else in its path.

They could wait it out. They could wait it out and feel every searing edge for the time it took. Descry decided there was no need. All they had to provide was the right impetus to cool it all down, and he had just the thing.

"I remember the festival day the week Skulduggery came home," he said quietly. "I remember the look on Ghastly's face. I remember how Skulduggery looked in Rue's high-heeled shoes. I remember how long it took for Rover to do all of our makeup. By the time he got around to doing his own, his arms were so tired he could only do the basics."

"I remember Descry almost combusted with trying not to laugh," Rover said with a grin. "It was a good thing I did his makeup so thick, or his red face would've given us all away."

"I remember the wedding dress Ghastly made me," said Dexter wistfully. "Almost made me wish I could've worn it on the actual day. Also makes me wish cameras had been invented then."

"I remember the look on Corrival's face when we all walked in," Anton put in.

Corrival was shaking his head, but he was chuckling, almost laughing, as he did. "I remember being ready to tear you each a new one, until I looked at Meritorious and saw him busting a gut laughing at the head of the table."

The red started to cool to blackness. Slowly, not quite done yet, but on the way to settling.

"Meritorious." Erskine gave a half-laugh, one edged with a sad sort of nostalgia. "Our get-out-of-jail-free card." He straightened up. "I remember when I first encountered Skulduggery at the pub, and he first spoke. The nasal part of Rue's voice was so good that it took me a full minute to actually recognise him."

Ghastly's gaze was drawn to the circles on the floor, to the way the red had faded away. No, not faded away - he could still feel it, far too strongly, for it to have faded away. Settled, perhaps. Found its way into every possible nook and cranny, then calmed to the point where its physical effects, at least, were fading away.

He tried to imagine what he was currently feeling, multiplied nine fold. He quickly stopped when a headache began pounding at his temples in objection.

Saracen shook his head remorsefully. "Do multiple renditions of stories count as memories? Because then I've got one. I remember looking up to the whole lot of you for being heroes, and then hearing the proper story later from someone else and finding out that half of you were cross-dressers and the other half deliberate enablers and upstarts. I lost my innocence that day."

"You mean you didn't when you first met us?" Erskine tsked in disappointment. "We must not have been on top form, gentlemen. Maybe I should have gone a day longer without sleeping."

"I would have stopped you," Skulduggery reminded him.

"Maybe I should have actually set my tent on fire, then."

"I definitely would have stopped that."

"I remember something we were called heroes for," Ghastly murmured. "Taking that dangerous risk at the pass. It turned out that Mevolent was relying on our having false information. We saved a lot of lives that day."

Skulduggery tilted his head and opened his jaw; Ghastly, anticipating an objection, cut him off. "I also remember that saving all those lives would have been impossible if Skulduggery wasn't with us, if he didn't come back after five years of us believing he was dead. That - " and here he spoke directly to Skulduggery " - is something worth being proud of."

Skulduggery didn't speak for a minute, and when he did, he looked down at the ground. His voice was soft. "I couldn't leave you all in the lurch."

"What I want to know is who this 'someone else' was," Rover said. "If he didn't figure out that we were cross-dressers the moment I tied him to a chair to put his makeup on, then I'm starting to wonder whether he's the one who's always been blind."

"It's not like we didn't have other tents," Dexter pointed out. "It's not like I couldn't have made everyone new tents. And I remember that mission too. I remember having to hold back a rockslide with conjurations."

"I remember forcing a performance of 'bad guys on ice'," Rover put in, grinning. "Only there was a cliff involved."

"I remember keeping watch for Lord Vile," Descry said, looking at Skulduggery with an edge of a smile on his lips, "knowing all along he was ten feet further down, fighting for our side."

Anton's head had bowed when Ghastly brought up the pass, but now he stirred and his head lifted. "I remember being lured in and cut off," he said quietly, "and my Gist tapping out. And I remember Skulduggery was the first person who reached me and dragged me back behind the line."

The circle had flushed gold and silver, glowing so brightly it was felt like it should have been blinding but wasn’t. It sizzled in the air, almost a tangible being on the cusp of a release. Except that it didn’t. Something, Ghastly realised, was wrong. The sigils sparked on the lines connecting them, and as he followed their vague pattern he realised—Erskine.

Erskine’s circle was fluctuating, sparking. It was heavy like a weight on an electrical wire, threatening to bring down everything else. He was looking down at it, his face grey and drawn in the light, afraid and sad and resigned.

Descry got to his feet. “It’s time. No one leave the circle, and if you must, walk on the lines. Tell them, Erskine.”

Erskine jerked like he was a marionette and someone had yanked at his strings. “Tell them what?”

“Erskine,” said Descry again, and his voice was stern but his face was gentle, excruciatingly gentle, the sort of gentle of a man who knew others’ innermost and their darkness secrets. “Tell them.”

“Why?” Erskine said sharply, and looked almost surprised at the words that had come out of his own mouth, at the fact he’d gotten to his feet. His fists were clenched. He loosened them, consciously, his voice relaxing and becoming even. “There’s no point. It’s done. It’s over. I couldn’t change it even if I—”

“Lying to me and lying to yourself are the same things, Erskine, and you can’t do either.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” Saracen asked Rover.

“Yeah,” Rover said softly, but his eyes were on Ravel, and when Ghastly followed his gaze he saw Ravel had stiffened. The look made something in Ghastly clench, and the irritation came with it. What had Erskine done? Why was he trying to hide it? Didn’t he understand how important this soul leash was for Skulduggery’s sanity? “We’ve been watching that too.”

“Ravel?” Corrival asked gruffly. Erskine looked down at his feet, at the red circle spitting and hissing at him.

“You still remember how not to lie, Erskine,” said Descry, and now his voice was as gentle as his face, that sad face. “You still remember—”

“I did it.” Erskine’s voice came out abrupt, like a whipcrack so loud it almost silenced the hum of magic in the air. His circle settled, but it seethed with red and black and green. Corrival looked startled.

“Did what?”

“All of it,” said Erskine, and his face was pale, deathly pale. Like a dead man. “I hired Tesseract.” Skulduggery shifted suddenly but said nothing. “I hired Davina Marr.”

The circle changed, the red suffusing the rest of it until it buttressed the green in Erskine’s. There was silence in the room, but not in Ghastly’s ears. His pulse was roaring in his ears. If he could have moved, he might have forgotten Descry’s order and left the circle, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. It was Corrival who spoke first, the whole of his being radiating disbelief.

“You did what?”

Erskine swallowed. “I—”

“There were dozens of innocent people in the Sanctuary!” Corrival was on his feet now, pale and shaking and his voice rising. “There were dozens of innocent people who would have died! Who would have been—”

His voice cut off suddenly, but the word he didn’t say still rang in Ghastly’s ears. Murdered.

Ravel looked on the verge of hunching in, but then he didn’t. Instead his demeanour seemed to solidify, not as if he was straightening but as if he’d bunkered down for a fight. “I had to. The Sanctuary had to be moved to Roarhaven for—”

“Roarhaven?” Dexter repeated incredulously. “Roarhaven? A town filled with sorcerers who believe the Sanctuaries are inept governments which should be done away with? A town full of sorcerers who believe sorcerers are a superior being and should—”

Now he was the one who cut off, the dawning horror in his eyes matching the way the circle rippled wildly.

“Say it,” Ravel snapped. “That sorcerers should rule over mortals? Well, they’re right.”

Dexter had started laughing, a nearly hysterical laugh filled with bitterness. “You don’t believe that. You can’t believe that. You’re Erskine Ravel. You’re a Dead Man. A good man. You can’t believe mortals should be enslaved.”

Ravel took a deep breath and let it out. “Of course not. Of course I don’t. Enslaved, no. But you’ve seen what they’ve done with the world in the last century. They’re in need of guidance. Look at their technology. Look at their Internet and phones. We’re an urban myth. There are websites dedicated to sorcerer sightings. How long do you really think it’s going to be before someone finds something they can’t explain away? How long do you think it will be before magic is splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in the world? Before mortals panic and take up their arms, and before we know it we’re at war? They would kill us, Dex. What’s fair about that?”

He was getting angry, now, passionate in a way he had only been a handful of times. When his friends were hurt. When he wanted justice.

“You know the way we live. You’ve seen Ghastly’s neighbourhood. You’ve seen Roarhaven. We live in squalor, Dex. We live in fear and skulk about in the darkness, and leave mortals to destroy and pollute the planet. Why? Why should we have to hold back from being free and open to protect their feelings, their safety?”

Edited 2013-09-03 12:57 (UTC)

“Listen to yourself!” Dexter shouted, taking a step forward. The circle hissed. “You’re talking subjugation!”

“I’m talking government!” Ravel shouted back. “We can change the world! We can unify the mortal and magical worlds—”

“With sorcerers on top!”

“To guide the mortal world! We can help them, improve their technology and their lives, end all the wars and conflict—”

“You can’t possibly believe things would stay like that!”

“If we did it right, it would have!”

“Erskine.” Descry’s voice was soft, but so final that it shut everyone up at once. His face was lowered, but when he raised it there were tears on his cheeks. “That isn’t what I meant. You used to know that.”

“What does that mean?” Dexter demanded, whirling on him. “You couldn’t have—”

His words choked him and he couldn’t finish, but Saracen lifted his head from where it had been resting on his arms. “Of course he knew, Dex. He’s Descry.”

“But then why didn’t he—”

“Say anything?” Descry asked without even a hint of a smile in sight. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Erskine asked me not to, and I couldn’t afford to do anything that would make him shut me out—and that would have. Of course I knew.” He was speaking to Dexter, but his gaze shifted, one by one, from Ghastly to Skulduggery to Anton to Corrival. “Who remembered every cut and every scream when he was back in Mevolent’s dungeon? Who saw the conditions in which the Children of the Spider lived as he recuperated?” Dexter’s mouth opened as if to object, but Descry overrode him. “Who felt his betrayal when he realised we’d stopped looking? When he realised he’d been replaced? When he saw how far we’d go to hide from the mortals, all the while giving up our own comfort and safety to do so? Of course I knew. I know why he’s done everything he’s done.”

“You said that you’d help me,” Ravel said.

Descry nodded. “But not like this, Erskine. I said that too. We could change the world, but we’d do it the right way, the honourable way, the way you don’t have to be alone.”

Ravel’s mouth thinned. “What was I meant to do? You died. The Children of the Spider were the only allies I had left.”

“You could have come to us,” Saracen pointed out, but Ravel shook his head.

“You wouldn’t have understood.”

“Not understood?” That was Anton’s voice this time, Anton’s voice low and calm as he got to his feet. He was looking at Erskine. He hadn’t stopped looking at Erskine this whole time. “Not understood what, merchant’s son?”

Ravel actually flinched before he went on. “The way the Children of the Spider lived—”

“Is no different to the way serfs lived in the days gone by,” Anton cut in. “You were with them a year. A year, Ravel. I was raised in such a way. I saw my mother turning from maid to whore to dead from disease. I saw my father crushed under the weight of a nobleman’s carriage and no one stop to help him. I worked in pub, in the field, in the mine, just to keep my siblings fed when all the while they lived in a hovel. I was the one who caught them rats to eat when we had no food. Who built the wall to make the sewerage go around our home instead of through it. Who sewed blankets out of rags for them to wear. Who saw my sisters and brothers victimised by the King’s guard. Who—”

“Stop!” Ravel was trembling now, shaking his head, his hands fists as if to keep himself from trying to block out Anton’s voice.

“Why?” Anton demanded coldly. “Why should I? You were raised a son of weavers. What would you know about living in death and squalor, Ravel?”

“Then you should be with me!”

“Men of honour do not murder innocents for the sake of their agenda!”

Ravel opened his mouth. Descry cut in before he could say what he meant to say. The words were harsh, but Descry’s voice was soft and gentle. “You did have choices, Erskine. You still do.” He took a step out of his circle, but he walked along the line between his and Erskine’s, and it hummed gold and silver, beads of light moving under him. “Do you remember when I first walked beside you because you couldn’t stand to be in company? Do you remember when I said I’d help you, I said there was another way? Remember that you believed me, that you agreed with me, that you wanted to do things right?”

“I had no other options,” Ravel whispered, his voice coming out raw. He looked like a trapped man, a man on the verge of running except that there was nowhere to run. There was only the fight left.

“What you think you have doesn’t matter.” Descry came to the edge of his circle and stopped, and the light flickered and flashed, the gold and silver making the green and red ring discordantly. “Nothing else matters except that you want to change the world and you want to do it right.” He tilted his head. “Do you want to do it right, Erskine Ravel?”

Ghastly wanted to ask why he was even bothering to ask. Descry was a mind-reader. He should know what Ravel wanted. But Ghastly couldn’t move, could only watch as Ravel gripped his fists and looked at Descry’s knees and then, very quickly, nodded.

“Say it,” said Descry.

Ravel lifted his head, and his eyes, those golden eyes, were red-rimmed. “I want to do it right.”

Descry smiled and held out his hand. “Good. So do I. We can do this together, Erskine. We can do this together as brothers, as Dead Men. All of us.”

“They won’t,” said Ravel hoarsely, but he took Descry’s hand and stiffened as Descry stepped forward to pull him into a hug.

“That’s what you said a century ago.” Descry put his arm across Ravel’s shoulders and turned, and looked at the rest of them. “Is it true?”

“Well, it’s not for me,” Larrikin chirruped, walking on the line as if he was walking a tightrope and hopping into Ravel’s circle to clap him on the shoulder. “Although, for the record, I wasted bowls and bowls of peanuts on you.”

Ravel almost smiled, even while looking down at the floor. But of course, that was Larrikin. The one who hadn’t had a family before the Dead Men. The one who’d been dead, who’d known for a century, who’d seen Ravel’s spiral downward. How must have that felt, knowing what one of his brothers planned and being helpless to do anything about it? He and Descry couldn’t possibly count.

For a long moment there was silence. It was the longest moment of Ghastly’s life, a moment in which he could do nothing to move or even think. Parts of him still hadn’t even caught up with what was happening. Parts of him were hazed red with anger. Then, without a word but with a lot of rustling fabric, Saracen crawled along the line to Ravel’s circle and sat at his feet, without once looking at anyone’s face.

A moment later Dexter moved too, one ponderous step after another. He was shaking his head as he went. “If I can keep Skulduggery’s secret this long in the hope he’ll turn into someone I still want to forgive, I can work on keeping you until you’ve gotten over this stupid idea of yours.”

He didn’t look entirely convinced, but he also looked determined, and Ravel wisely didn’t try to defend his ‘stupid idea’.

Ghastly looked at Skulduggery, but he was completely motionless. Anton shifted past him, not quite stepping away. “What would you have done if you had won?” he asked. “Set yourself up as the ruler of the world? Supreme Ruler Ravel?”

Ravel laughed bitterly, and the sound of it was so unexpected that Ghastly jerked. “Of course not! I didn’t even want to be Elder.” He shook his head. “This was never about me and power. This was about improving things for everybody, and doing it in a way that meant as little loss of life as possible. At the end of it—at the end of it I would have turned myself in. I’d have taken whatever punishment they decided for my crimes. Imprisonment, execution, exile. I don’t care.”

Shudder nodded, slowly and just once. “You weren’t seeking power for yourself.”

“Never,” said Ravel. “Never. I knew what I was doing. The hard thing. There’s a special hell for traitors, and I’d have—” He faltered, glancing back outside the circle. “I’d have gone there. Willingly. If it meant I could see this through.”

For a long moment Shudder said nothing, but he looked at Skulduggery. Then he nodded again. “If we do this right, no one will have to go to that kind of Hell.”

He crossed the floor toward them, and Ghastly stared because Anton was the one who had problems with traitors, the one who had nearly turned his back on them because of Skulduggery’s crimes. Now he was willing to give Ravel the chance? He had tried to murder a Sanctuary full of people. Tesseract could have killed Corrival. He could have killed Solomon. He had betrayed the Dead Men and everything for which they stood, because this was obviously something he’d been planning for years, and—

And Skulduggery murdered your mother, and now you’re trying to help him.

When Skulduggery had first left, during the war, Ghastly had had the chance to stop him. And he’d let him go. The one thought on Ghastly’s mind since he’d found out was, ‘what if I had gone after him?’ If there was one thing he could have gone back to tell his past self to change, it would have been to go after him.

In fifty years, what would his future self want to come back to tell him?

He already knew what his future self would say. His future self would say not to step out of that circle.

The problem was, would the circle accept him going to Ravel if it was just for Skulduggery’s sake? Was it just for Skulduggery’s sake? He couldn’t tell anymore. His emotions were too confused, too intense.

Abruptly he was aware he was moving, and for a moment he was terrified he had ruined everything, ruined Skulduggery’s chances at having his rage leashed. Then he realised he was moving forward, toward the others, and even though he didn’t look at any of them in the face he stationed himself beside Dexter.

Then he looked back. Skulduggery and Corrival were the only ones left. If either one of them left now, the circle would break, and Ghastly wasn’t sure if they could put it back together a second time.

Skulduggery spoke first. He didn’t move, but he spoke first and abruptly. “Did you tell Marr that Gabe, Valkyrie and I had to be inside the Sanctuary when she blew it up?”

Ghastly stiffened and almost couldn’t look over at Ravel. He managed it, somehow, and was rewarded with Ravel looking sick. “No! Skulduggery, I swear—”

“I’m not sure how much your word means to me right now.”

Ravel looked at him, closed his eyes, took a breath and opened them again. “Like your word should mean something to us, from Lord Vile?” Skulduggery didn’t answer. “I will swear on whatever you want me to. Marr added that part in herself. When I heard what she’d done …” He trailed off and shook his head, and Ghastly felt a jolt in his stomach at the tears in his eyes. “I didn’t want it to come to that,” Erskine said softly. “At the end of everything, you were the ones I was counting on to make sure my allies didn’t turn guidance into subjugation. No matter what happened to me. I knew you’d stop this from turning into the same thing Mevolent wanted.”

For a moment nothing happened. Then all at once Skulduggery relaxed. “Well, okay then.” All of them stared at him wordlessly as he stepped out of his circle and crossed to Ravel’s. He saw their looks. “What? It’s actually somewhat comforting that I’m not the only one who can make world-shattering mistakes. Although I’m still holding it against you.”

Ravel was wearing an odd smile of combined disbelief and resignation and amusement. And something else, something Ghastly hadn’t even realised had been missing from his eyes: hope. “That’s fair.”

And then there was only Corrival left, standing rigid in his circle. He stood there for so long, so quiet, that Ghastly was certain he was going to walk away. Then he said, “Do you remember I told you about that woman I could have settled down with and didn’t? That she had a son and I didn’t know if he was mine?”

“I remember,” said Erskine. Skulduggery made a sound, and all at once Ghastly knew what Corrival was about to say.

“Her name was Branna Carmody.”

All the blood drained out of Ravel’s face. He no longer looked merely sick, but deathly. “No.”

“I never said anything,” said Corrival, “because I was never sure, and there was never any way to tell. I know they have blood testing and everything nowadays, but there still isn’t any point in finding out. You being related to me by blood stopped mattering to me a long time ago, boy. You were as good as a son to me.”

Ravel was shaking his head, but his body was shaking too, trembling under Descry and Rover’s arms. “It should matter,” he said, and his voice cracked. “It should matter.”

“Why? Because then you can tell yourself you haven’t really disappointed me, because you’re not really my son?” Corrival’s face could have been made of granite. “You have disappointed me, Erskine. I don’t care about you being my son or not, to feel that. You stood by me all those years, watched me negotiate with all those people, and all the while you were taking notes as to who was susceptible to your cause. You could have told me you disagreed. You could have come to me with other options. You didn’t.”

“I didn’t want—”

“You didn’t think,” Corrival snapped. “You were ashamed of what you believed even though you had to act on it. And you couldn’t even slow down enough to try and wonder if we might be able to help, if we would take your suggestions on board? You idiot. You damned foolish, broken idiot.”

There were tears in his eyes before he finished, and then abruptly he’d crossed the circle in two great strides and yanked Erskine into his arms. For a moment Ravel couldn’t answer back. Then his hands shifted upward and his face buried in Corrival’s shoulder, and his back trembled with the weight of weeping.

Saracen shuffled along the floor to lean back against their legs. Descry stepped forward to rest a hand on Ravel’s shoulder. Rover wrapped all three of them in a hug. Quietly Dexter sat beside Saracen, looking up toward the ceiling. Anton sat wordlessly on the opposite side, back as straight as if he was on sentry duty. Ghastly fell heavily beside him. Skulduggery leaned back against Ravel himself. Even angry, even hurt and betrayed, they were Dead Men. They didn’t abandon their brothers when they needed help the most.

“I think we need a new motto,” Rover said. “I mean, strike from the shadows, withdraw into darkness? Sure, it’s catchy and it’s effective for war-time, but this is peace! And obviously that motto has had a bad effect of certain people who hide secrets from their families.” He threw a mocking scowl at Skulduggery.

“So what should we change it to?” Dexter asked, tilting his head back as if he could see Rover through the others in the way. “Tally-ho?”

“It is short and catchy,” Saracen mused. “I don’t mind giving you all my catchphrase.”

“I was thinking something a little more dignified.”

Anton craned his head up. “You. Dignified.”

“Hey, I can be dignified!” Rover whined, and then stopped. “But maybe ‘meaningful’ is the better word here.”

“‘The Dead Men rule’?” Saracen suggested.

Anton shook his head. “What about ‘the Dead Men are all sentimental fools’.”

“Too long,” Ghastly objected.

“But accurate,” Skulduggery said.

“If you’d all shut your traps for a moment,” Rover grumbled.

“Why?” Saracen squinted up at him. “What were you thinking?”

Rover shrugged and laid his head on Erskine’s shoulder. “I was thinking ‘follow the sun’. I mean, we have to come out of the shadows at some point, right?”

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. “I like it,” Saracen announced. “It’s all hopeful and … sparkly."

Dexter nodded. “Being all vampire pale is overrated anyway. And God knows Ghasty and Shudder need to get out of their houses more often.”

“It is … somewhat appropriate,” Anton allowed.

“I do like being able to go out in the sun without comment,” Ghastly admitted. Skulduggery’s head turned toward him.

“There’s something quite alluring about it, isn’t there?”

“Especially when you’re actually inside the sun,” Descry added innocently.

“That doesn’t count. You cheated by using the angel service.”

“We’re standing in a mortal church,” Corrival said huskily. “There might be something to be said for coming out into the open.”

Rover nudged Ravel’s side. “And what better motto for a man with golden eyes?”

Erskine’s back quivered and for a moment Ghastly thought he had started crying again. Then he took a deep shuddering breath and tilted his head back with a scattered laugh, the light shining off his wet cheeks. “Tally-ho.”

The circle flared gold and silver, washing throughout the church in an array of light that sent rainbows beaming across the walls. Then all at once it vanished, and all that was left was the shine of Archangels casting the brothers of the Dead Men in silver light.

Edited 2013-09-03 13:02 (UTC)

The emotion, the betrayal, the love, and the forgiveness - or, if not quite forgiveness, then at least the ability to overlook and love regardless of the hurt - brought tears to Paddy's eyes. He didn't need the light show to see how beautiful everyone's souls were right at that moment. Although, he had to admit, the light show in and of itself was beautiful. It was a miracle, the purest form of God's love. The unconditional acceptance of someone so close as to be a brother. This was the most important part of anyone's recovery; knowing they still had people to lean on, people they could depend on, people who would help them whenever and however they needed it.

The spell solidifying meant more to Paddy than any of the men's jokes from before had. He didn't have to know exactly what Erskine Ravel's betrayal was to know that.

"I have a Dead Men story," Tanith murmured beside him, awestruck. "I am watching a Dead Men story unfold. This is... this is like meeting Gordon Edgley in person. This is amazing. This is the best story I will ever have... that I will never get to tell anyone else."

Paddy smiled. "The best stories are always the ones you're never able to repeat." The number of times he'd almost told his sister something about what her son was doing on the day Solomon and Dexter came over...

"How aren't you bursting?" Tanith asked. "You've just seen two people come back from the dead, and three Archangels, and all of this soul-leashing - and Lucifer. Don't you ever need someone to talk to?"

"About Lucifer? That wouldn't help anything, save making whatever poor soul I talk to needlessly panic."

"Needlessly?"

"Well, from what I've seen, you'll all have it well in hand. Am I wrong?"

Tanith's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and then she slumped. "I guess we do have a weird talent for saving the world."

"And as for the rest, I don't need to tell anyone else to justify what I'm seeing. If ever I needed to ask a question or get something off my chest..." Paddy thought about it. "I suppose I could always call Solomon."

"When did I become a confidential listener?" Solomon wondered out loud. "When did I become analogous to a priest?"

"You are a cleric, are you not?" Merlin pointed out. Solomon turned his face toward the man, just enough to feel the soft, gentle snowflakes on his face.

"Was," Solomon corrected. "I hardly think my institution would accept me under that title anymore."

"Perhaps you ought to find another," Merlin suggested with perfect equanimity. "How is your head?"

"Throbbing along nicely, now that they've turned some of the lights off. I didn't need to see any of them in that much detail, thank you."

"Now you're just being mean," Larrikin grumbled from the middle of the huddle of light. "Why wouldn't you want to see all of us? We're gorgeous. Especially me." The huddle wasn't as bright as before, which had been something akin to ...

'Kinda like the middle of a sun,' Rafe provided. Solomon squinted.

Was it?

'Yep. I can show ya sometime, when your head ain't so poundy.'

Pass.

"What do we look like?" Dexter wondered, in the tone of a man searching for some kind of distraction, something to put events on a track. Solomon squinted at them.

"Like a web," he admitted, a little reluctantly. A web. A spiderweb. Children of the Spider. Ravel, a traitor.

"I did it. All of it. I hired Marr. I hired Tesseract."

Solomon didn't know how he felt about that. An outsider, once again, looking in on an exceedingly intimate moment. An outsider Ravel had knowingly and consciously tried to have assassinated. Solomon had actually found himself liking Ravel over the last week. It wasn't impossible for Necromancers to like each other and still expect to be betrayed, but Ravel was a Dead Man, and they had standards about doing things like that.

Except he had. Solomon wasn't used to feeling betrayed. At the same time, the fact that the people to whom Ravel really was closest were doing their best to outright forgive him? Where was Solomon's right to feel betrayed at all?

He watched the silken bindings between the Dead Men seesaw with threads of light. The bindings themselves were golden, but the threads were red. Anger. Betrayal. The colours offset each other, as if the presence of the bindings in spite of the fury just made it brighter.

"Have you any questions, Solomon?" Gabe asked.

"Not right now," he said quietly. But he might, later, once he'd had a chance to take it all in and figure out where he stood.

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let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

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