Playing With Fire

Chapter Thirty-four UNFINISHED BUSINESS

TANITH SAT IN THE Bentley and tried not to fidget. Her body wasn't used to sitting still and not doing anything. Skulduggery, sitting beside her, was a model of stillness and everlasting patience. She tried to relax, but every so often a shot of adrenaline would pump through her and her right leg would kick out involuntarily. It was very embarrassing.

They were parked on a slight bluff overlooking the putting green. From here they could see the golf clubhouse, but they were far enough away so that Dusk wouldn't recognize the car.

Once they saw anything suspicious, the Bentley would be able to speed down the narrow road and they'd be able to intercept the vampire before he even got close to the reunion. It was a good plan.

The moon was full and bright. Tanith checked her watch. The lunar eclipse was three hours away. Plenty of time to get what they needed to get and do what they needed to do.

Hopefully.

Something hit the Bentley, and the car shook. Tanith grabbed her sword and leaped out.

Skulduggery was out the other side, gun in his hand. An old man stood in the silver moonlight and looked at them. Tanith had never seen him before. He didn't look like one of the Infected.

She started to relax.

"You lied to me," the old man said.

"You wanted to see the girl die," Skulduggery responded. "You got what you wanted." He wasn't putting his gun away. Tanith knew who it was now. She gripped her sword tighter.

The Torment's eyes were fierce. "It was a sham. I knew there was something wrong, but I had been in that cellar for so long I couldn't see it. It was a reflection, wasn't it? You did something to a reflection, improved it, so that it would fool me. You cheated."

"We don't have time for this. We've got a busy night ahead of us."

"Oh yes," the Torment said with a smile. "You do."

He opened his mouth wide, and a jet of black hit Skulduggery and knocked him back.

Tanith tried to move away, but he turned to her and the stream of darkness struck her with such force, it knocked her off her feet. She rolled, keeping her mouth and eyes shut. She heard the black stuff, whatever it was, splatter on the ground beside her. It was inky and foul smelling but it had substance, and when she pulled it off her, it came away in thick strips.

She opened her eyes, saw the Torment wipe his mouth and grin.

She pulled away another strip of black, threw it down, where it joined the pool. And then the pool started to shift. It moved in on itself, bunched up and thickened, and grew legs.

Lots of legs.

"Oh hell," Tanith muttered, as the black stuff formed into spiders and the spiders clacked.

Skulduggery clicked his fingers and hurled twin fireballs into the lake of scuttling blackness that was filling the ground before them.

Tanith's sword was out, slicing at the spiders as they leaped for her. The blade cut through their hard bodies, and dark green blood splashed onto her tunic.

She felt something on her leg and swatted at it, and another spider leaped onto her shoulder. She slammed the sword hilt into it and stepped back, stood on another spider that squished underfoot, and she slipped. The ground went away and she was falling, then she hit something solid and flipped over as she tumbled down the bluff.

She rolled through long grass, burst through it to level ground, realized she was on the putting green. A few spiders had joined her for the trip, and she looked up as they leaped for her. She fell back again, flicking her wrist, the sword blade catching the moonlight. One of the spiders squealed. Tanith grunted with satisfaction.

She looked up at the bluff, to where the Bentley was parked, saw a wave of darkness blacker than the night spilling over and coming down toward her. Hundreds of spider legs clacking against stone and earth.

"I've got this," Skulduggery said from beside her right shoulder. She hadn't even heard him join her.

He stepped forward and raised his arms, like he was welcoming the wave of eight-legged killers. Tanith watched his fingers curl slightly as he took hold of some invisible thing, and then, ever so slowly, he moved his hands clockwise.

The long grass swayed in the sudden breeze.

And then Skulduggery struck, his fingers tightening, his hands moving over each other in wide circles, and the spiders were lifted high off the ground. They spun in a whirlwind, more and more of them getting sucked in.

Tanith's sword dealt with the few that the whirlwind didn't trap, and then she stepped back and marveled at Skulduggery's control. His hands moved faster and faster, in tighter and tighter circles, and the whirlwind narrowed and became a mass of churning black bodies. Then Skulduggery twisted his hands and the whirlwind folded in on itself, and the night was filled with terrible cracking sounds. Green blood, thick and heavy, spurted into the warm air.

Skulduggery dropped his hands, and the mangled bodies of the spiders fell to the putting green.

"We have to get to Valkyrie," he said, turning toward the golf club. Tanith went to follow him but stopped when he stopped.

The Torment was standing between them and the clubhouse, and the inky substance filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks like tears. It ran from his nostrils, and his ears, and his mouth, and spread over his skin, in through his hair and his beard, covering his clothes and spreading further. His arms jerked, his hands becoming talons, and his shoes split as his legs grew and the blackness covered him completely. He arched his back and lifted his arms, and two pairs of giant spider legs burst from his torso, flexed, and touched down. His limbs kept growing, and his body lifted off the ground as a third eye opened on his forehead and blinked.

He stopped growing. His eight legs clacked and his mouth was open wide and showing teeth. The Torment-spider looked down at them and chattered.