Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 11 - Help's moved in

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

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Chapter 11

"Tome has betrayed us," Crow said darkly when he came back through the door. Everyone was there except Bear and Wolf who had just dropped the Sceptre into the 'deep down, deep dark' as Wolf had told her on the phone, and were on their way back.

They had been gone for four days already. It would take at least three, if not four, to get back.

"How?" Panda asked immediately. "Do we need to move?"

"No but I want more protections on this house. Anti-teleportation definitely," he said, beginning to pace the room. "No one died but he tried to kill Morwenna and Meritorious. Many of the Cleavers and much of the staff is dead. The other Elders have gone into passive hiding. I know where they are but they have given us our orders already – search and destroy at all costs."

"They're finally taking this seriously at least." Weasel shook his head. "Would have been nice a few days ago."

"Would have been nice a few decades ago," Crow said under his breath. "We have bigger problems though. Mr Bliss was helping Tome and Serpine. He tried to find out if I had the key or the Sceptre and when I didn't talk he tried to fight me. I only got away because Serpine blasted the damn Sanctuary wide open with a bomb."

Stephanie's eyes widened. "Are we going to find him?"

"Yes." Crow looked at her then. "You can come on two conditions."

She hesitated. "What are they?"

"If any of us say to leave, you leave, you run, you do whatever we say without hesitation. Do you understand? Anything at all."

"I can manage that." She would not be doing that.

"Secondly, you have to know your name. Mr Bliss referred to you as Stephanie and that means Serpine knows. And I would put money on it being China who told him."

She frowned. "Why would she do that? I thought she was helping you."

Panda snorted. "China helps no one but herself. It's no surprise she gave away information. She will wait until the last moment as always and then make her move, no sooner or later than she wants to. To be honest, it might not have even been her. Gordon talked about you a lot, he probably slipped on your name a few times."

Stephanie nodded, thinking back to when Crow and Wolf had told her not to trust the woman. The Gordon theory seemed pretty likely too though. "Okay."

"It'll be four days before the other two get back," Weasel said. "We don't have enough time. We need to act fast if Serpine is acting this aggressively."

Crow nodded. "It'll be hard without them but we're not alone. Morwenna and Meritorious have given us ten Cleavers and Mr Bliss, for whatever reason, called a freelancer by the name of Tanith Low to help us. She should be meeting us here in the next few minutes. I want information on her."

"She's English, blonde, pretty and has a sword," Stephanie said immediately. They all looked at her and she felt a blush creep up her neck. Traitor. "She was the woman with me in the library, remember? She said it wasn't a good idea to learn magic at the moment because of all the bad stuff going on. She seemed really nice."