Hell's Army

Chapter Twelve- Bad Behaviour

"Twelfth Night," Ingleseid said. "Twelfth Night." He looked into the blank little faces staring back at him and vaguely wondered if he should wave his hands around to make sure they were still alive. "Shakespeare." He couldn't remember the last time he'd read Shakespeare. He'd been really into it when he was in University, back when he'd had time and patience and wasn't busy saving the world every second weekend. "You know what? Why don't you lot tell me about Shakespeare? Training exercise. Any volunteers?"

Silence skittered across the room. Ingleseid pointed at a ginger haired, squinty-eyed boy. "You," he said. "Freckly one. You're volunteering."

The boy shrugged his shoulders and slouched back in his chair. "Nah, man."

"Detention," Ingleseid said.

The boy sat up so fast the legs of the chair scraped across the ground. "You can't do that."

"Can't I? Two detentions."

"Dude, what the hell?!" he snapped.

"Three," Ingleseid said over him. "Four, because your face annoys me." He pointed at a girl with messy brown hair and a ridiculously baggy jumper. "You. Tell me what happens."

She looked like he'd just ordered her to jump into a bear enclosure. "There- there's this shipwreck," she said, trying very hard not to look at anyone. "And Viola and Sebastian, they survive, but they think each other's dead. Then Viola goes to this town and dresses up as a boy and starts working for Orsino, the duke, and he likes Olivia, this countess, so he sends Viola to, like, flirt with her. But Olivia starts liking Viola, and then Sebastian comes along, and Olivia thinks he's Viola, and she's all 'I love you.' Oh, they're twins, by the way. Probably should have mentioned that. Anyway, it all works out, and everyone gets married in the end."

Ingleseid nodded at that slightly incomprehensible history and said, "Right. Good. You get a gold star."

"We don't really do stars here," she mumbled.

"Oh." He pointed at a pale boy with dark eyes and a biker's outfit. "Oi, leather. Key idea. Go."

"Ingratitude," he said softly.

"Care to elaborate?"

"None of the characters are grateful for what they have. Viola isn't grateful for surviving the ship wreck. She just pines after Orsino. The servants aren't grateful for their friendship, just resentful of Malvolio, and Olivia isn't grateful for her wealth, just miserable because she can't have Cesario." His eyes narrowed. "They all have everything. They're all alive. And they couldn't care less about it."

"And what do you think would make them care about their lives?" Ingleseid asked carefully.

His dark eyes glowed like an abyss. "If they lost them."

"Interesting," Ingleseid murmured. Something told him Leather Boy had just made the suspect list.

****

Ingleseid snuck into the file room that afternoon. He scanned the shelves until he until he found Leather's, whose real name was Ian Mansfield, records. He flipped them open. Five days absent last week. Explained. Ingleseid frowned. Mansfield's address had changed during his absence. So had his legal guardian. He slipped the file back in place, the book case shuddered as something crashed in the locker. He wandered over and examined the lock. It was hanging limply, almost snapped in two.

Ingleseid pried open the door tentatively.

And a pale, wrinkled corpse fell out.

It clattered onto the floor with a wet a sound, glassy eyes fixed on the ceiling. It was a he, Ingleseid could see that now. His face was wrinkled and so still and bloated it could have been carved out of clay, the throat bloody and torn, rotting flesh eating away at the rest of his skin. Ingleseid fell backwards, heart pounding. He dragged himself up again. Threw up. Those dead eyes just kept on staring into nothingness. With shaking hands, Ingleseid dug his phone out and dialled the police. The person on the other end had demanded in a robotic voice that he stay on the line and report any change, which Ingleseid thought was fairly ridiculous. It wasn't like the man was going to get up and walk away.