Playing With Fire

Chapter Eleven THE TERRIFYING BRAIN SUCKER OF LONDON

V aurien scapegracesat at the table across

W from Skulduggery. Tanith stood directly behind him, and Valkyrie stood in the corner beside the door, her arms folded.

Skulduggery looked up from the folder he was reading. "Vaurien, you haven't been very cooperative with your interviewers, have you?"

"Don't know what any of them are talking about."

"You are a known associate of a man they call the Torment."

He shrugged. "News to me."

"What is?"

"That I know him."

"Know who?"

"What?"

"That you know the Torment?"

"Yeah."

"Then you do know him?"

"Yeah." Then, quickly, "No."

"You don't know him?"

"I, no, I, no. Never heard of him."

"I hate to say this, Vaurien, but that's astoundingly unconvincing."

He shook his head. "Who is he? I've never heard of him. Torment who?"

"Do you recognize the pretty lady behind you?"

Scapegrace tried to turn in his chair, but the shackles meant he could only crane his neck.

He looked back to Skulduggery and shrugged. "Should I?"

"That there is Tanith Low. Perhaps you've heard of her. Tanith is a renowned interrogator, known the world over for her one-hundred-percent success rate in getting the information she needs."

Valkyrie saw Tanith arch an eyebrow, but she said nothing.

"Oh yeah?" Scapegrace said. He was looking a little worried. "And how does she manage that?"

"Well, to put it delicately, she has the power to suck out people's brains."

Scapegrace stared, and Tanith had to clap her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing.

Valkyrie struggled to keep the smile off her face and really wished she was anywhere but in Scapegrace's line of sight.

"She can't do that," he said. "That's illegal!"

"I'm afraid it's not. It's a loophole she's been exploiting for years. She sucks out the brain and swallows it, thereby digesting and absorbing the knowledge."

"But that's horrible," Scapegrace said weakly.

"You've left us with little choice. Tanith, if you wouldn't mind?"

From her position behind Scapegrace, Tanith held up her hands in a what do you expect me to do? gesture. Her hands dropped when Scapegrace tried to look back at her, and she became deadly serious. The moment he took his eyes off her again, she went back to helpless gesturing.

Scapegrace righted himself in his chair and made his hands into fists, and screwed his eyes shut. "You're not going to suck out my brains!" he yelled.

Skulduggery sat back and didn't offer Tanith any advice. She pointed a finger at him, wagged it slightly, and then turned her attention to Scapegrace. She sighed, walked up beside him, and held her hands over his head. His eyes were still screwed shut.

Tanith changed her mind about the hands thing and leaned over, putting her mouth next to his ear. His body went rigid. Her lips parted, and the barest sound of skin leaving skin made Scapegrace scream and jerk back and topple over sideways. He crashed to the floor.

"I'll tell you!" he squealed. "I'll tell you everything I know! Just keep her off me, you hear?

Keep her away from my brains!"

"Is the Torment still alive?" Skulduggery asked, standing over him.

"Yes!"

"When was the last time you had contact with him?"

"Two years ago, I swear!"

"What was the nature of the meeting?"

"I just wanted to talk to him!"

"What did you talk about?"

Scapegrace peeked up, made sure Tanith wasn't about to start with the brain sucking.

"Nothing. He walked away. He wouldn't talk. I don't think he likes me."

"Why doesn't he like you?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's my smell."

"What do you know about the Grotesquery?" Valkyrie asked.

"Nothing, not a thing, honest."

"Tanith," Skulduggery said wearily, "suck his brains."

"No! Wait! I don't know anything, but he does! During the war, the war with Mevolent. He was tracking Baron Vengeous."

"Why?" Skulduggery asked.

"He was going to kill him. During that whole thing — the war — he was on your side.I was on your side too."

"I never saw you fight."

"I was somewhere near the back," Scapegrace said weakly. "But the fact is, we were all fighting the same enemy — that counts for something, right?"

Skulduggery tilted his head. "The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend."

"The Torment, he told me once that he'd been watching Vengeous and he'd been about to strike when, when you showed up. You fought, and you took Vengeous away, and the Torment decided it was time to retire. He's an old guy. He was around long before Mevolent even arrived on the scene. But he told me, while he'd been watching Vengeous, he'd seen where he'd stashed the Grotesquery."

"Where?"

"Well, he didn't tell me that. Said something about me being unable to keep a secret, or something."

"Where is he?"

Scapegrace looked up, eyes wide. "You swear you'll keep her away from my brains?"

"You have my word."

"Roarhaven," Scapegrace said after a hesitation. Valkyrie had heard of Roarhaven. It was a town of sorcerers, a dark little town that didn't take kindly to strangers. "He's in Roarhaven."

Scapegrace sat in the back of the Bentley, wrists and ankles shackled and a gag over his mouth. He had got into the car with the shackles, but the gag was a recent addition.

Skulduggery had grown tired of the conversation.

They drove east out of the city, left the streets for the suburbs, then left the suburbs for the countryside. After half an hour of driving along the narrow winding roads, pulling over occasionally to let massive tractors rumble by, they came to a small town beside a dark lake that shimmered in the early afternoon sun.

The Bentley came to a stop in the shade of a large tree that stood on the outskirts of the town, and Valkyrie and Skulduggery got out. It was warm and strangely quiet.

"No birds are singing," Valkyrie said.

"Roarhaven's not the kind of town to inspire song," Skulduggery responded. "Unless it's the dirge variety."

She could see people on the street, but they passed one another without a word.

Skulduggery pulled Scapegrace out after them and removed the gag.

"Where do we find the Torment?"

"Give me a moment, okay?" Scapegrace said, looking over at the town. "I haven't been back here in years. I'm home again, you know? This is a big personal thing for me."

Skulduggery sighed. "Either you start being useful, or we stuff you in the trunk and go looking ourselves."

"There's no need to threaten me," Scapegrace said, annoyed. "You're in a hurry, I get it.

That's no excuse for being rude to me in my own hometown."

"Are you going to be useful?"

Scapegrace glowered. "Yes."

"Good."

"But can you at least take my shackles off?"

"No."

"Even around my ankles? This is my first time home in twenty years — I don't want everyone to think I'm some kind of criminal."

"You are some kind of criminal," Valkyrie said.

"Yeah, but..."

"The shackles stay on," Skulduggery said.

Scapegrace muttered, but did as he was told. His shackles clinking as he walked, taking baby steps so he wouldn't trip over himself, he led them into town, staying away from the main street and sticking to the narrow trails between buildings.

"Where does he live?" asked Skulduggery.

"Right over there."

Scapegrace nodded to the building in front of them.

Valkyrie frowned. "In a pub? The Torment lives in a pub?"

"Not just any pub," Scapegrace snapped. "My pub. Well, it was my pub, before I lost it. I took it as a sign, you know? A sign to move on, to see what else the world had to offer.

Sometimes I regret it, leaving all this behind, going where I didn't have family, didn't have friends. There have been times when I've been so, so lonely. ..."

"It must have been awful for you," Valkyrie said. "Of course, maybe if you didn't go around trying to kill people ..."

"I am an artist," Scapegrace said proudly. "When I kill, I make messy art."

They ignored him and came to the side door. Skulduggery hunkered down to pick the lock.

"Tanith could open that just by touching it," Valkyrie chided.

Skulduggery turned his head to her, slowly, and a moment later the lock clicked and opened. He returned the lock pick to his pocket. "I like the old-fashioned way better."

"Only because you don't have a choice."

"I'm an Elemental," he reminded her. "Tanith is an Adept. I'd like to see her throw a fireball."

Scapegrace coughed nervously. "She's not going to be here, is she? That Tanith woman?"

"Don't worry," Valkyrie said, "your brain is safe. For now."

Skulduggery opened the door and peeked inside, then gripped Scapegrace by the elbow and pulled him in. The pub corridor was dark and smelled of stale beer and wet towels. There were a few voices coming from the front.

"Where does he stay?" Skulduggery asked quietly.

"Underground," Scapegrace said. "I converted the cellar into a living space, then he made his own additions."

They moved to the rear of the building.

"Back then," Scapegrace continued, "I was full of ideas. I was going to renovate the whole front of the pub, and extend out to the west, maybe get in a music system, a little dance floor. In the end, I decided not to. Too expensive, you know. And, like, there was the fact that nobody wanted to dance, so . . ."

Valkyrie kept an eye out behind them, to make sure no one was sneaking up.

"But those were good times," Scapegrace said, his voice tinged with regret. "All the old crowd used to come and meet in my pub — Lightning Dave, Hokum Pete, Hieronymus Deadfall. We used to drink and talk and laugh. Back in the day."

Skulduggery tilted his head. "Vaurien, if you're trying to kill us, there are quicker ways than telling us your life story."

"Less painful, too," added Valkyrie.

"I just thought you'd like to know," Scapegrace said, indignantly. "I thought it might help if I told you the history of the place and my relationship to it."

"Any particular reason why you think this knowledge would be helpful?" Skulduggery asked.

"If you'll let me finish, I'll tell you."

"Okay then. Finish."

"The reason they frequented my pub in particular was because, in a town that's full of sorcerers, there weren't a whole lot of places you could get together and feel special, you know?

But I took care of that. So while, out in front, the pub catered to the rest of Roarhaven's mages, there was also a private section just for me and my friends, to sit and talk and plan."

"Is that so?" Skulduggery asked as Valkyrie opened the door.

"Yep," Scapegrace said with a nod. "A private section right here in the back."

They walked in. Two men, sitting at the bar. Two more playing pool on a ratty old pool table. A surly bartender and, standing in the corner, a giant, his balding head touching the ceiling. They all stopped and shut up and looked over.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery froze.

Scapegrace grinned. "Hi, fellas."