The Faceless Ones

Chapter Nine. The Enemy

Tanith Low didn't much like protection detail. It was often dull and deathly boring, and being in the same confined space as the person you were protecting meant a lot of cross words and general crankiness. She just wasn't cut out to be a bodyguard.

But Skulduggery had called her, told her she'd be doing him a favor if she helped out Emmett Peregrine, and she'd said okay. Peregrine wasn't bad anyway, and all he really needed was for her to look out for him while he grabbed a few hours' sleep. By the looks of him, he needed it.Tanith didn't agree with Peregrine's choice of safe house, though. They were in an apartment he owned in London, and he insisted nobody knew about it. She'd tried to persuade him to go somewhere else, anywhere else, but he had that Teleporter arrogance she'd seen before. For hundreds of years, he had been a man who could not be captured, or cornered, or hunted, and that arrogance was still with him, even now.

Together, they'd drawn enough protective symbols on the walls of the bedroom so that if anyone entered while he was sleeping, the entire building would know about it. They weren't taking any chances, not when the enemy had someone like Billy-Ray Sanguine in their employ.

Tanith spent the first few hours on a chair in the hall, looking at the door. She took a bathroom break, then went to the kitchen to look for something to eat. She was trying to figure out how the microwave worked when her phone rang.

She answered and a man with a deep Kenyan accent said, "It does my heart good to hear your voice."

She smiled. "Hi, Frightening."

Frightening Jones was an old friend. They'd dated briefly back in the 1970s, before he took up a position within the English Sanctuary. Her natural distrust of authority meant that the relationship couldn't continue, but they'd remained close, and anytime he heard something that involved her, he would call and let her know.

"What have I done wrong now?" she asked.

She could hear the TV on in Peregrine's bedroom.

"You've broken no laws lately," Frightening replied, "or at least if you have, you have broken them very, very quietly. No, this is just a routine report that had your name on it. One of my agents has seen you with Emmett Peregrine."

Tanith's smile vanished. "What?"

"You are at his apartment, yes?"

"Frightening, who else knows about this?"

"The agent who saw you, and Elder Strom, whom I report to, and I. Is anything wrong? You can trust my agent, and Elder Strom is a good man. No one is going to hear about this who doesn't have to, I assure you. And of course, Elder Strom has informed the Irish Sanctuary."

Tanith unsheathed her sword. "Why?"

"The Irish are spearheading the Teleporter investigation. It was common courtesy that ... Tanith, what is the matter?"

"There's a spy in the Irish Sanctuary," she said, whispering. "If they know, the Diablerie know."

She hung up. That wasn't the TV she had heard--it had been Peregrine, talking to someone. And he hadn't been in his bedroom, either. He had been at the apartment door.

Tanith lunged out of the kitchen in time to see the shadow of Peregrine's killer in the corridor outside the apartment.

In an instant, she was at Peregrine's side. He was already dead. His warm blood was soaking through the back of his shirt.

She ran to the open door, managing to catch a glimpse of the killer on the stairs, heading up. She gave chase, fearing that she was already too late. She reached the stairs and jumped, running up the wall, closing the gap between them. A door slammed shut overhead.

Tanith grabbed the stairwell railing and vaulted over. Her boot met the door and it sprang open, and she ran out onto the roof of the building. A fist hit her like a wrecking ball. She went down and rolled, dimly aware that the sword was no longer in her grip. She got to her feet and fought the dizziness, backing away from the huge man with silver hair tied in a ponytail.

His fist came at her again and she ducked, responding with a punch of her own that got him in the ribs, but it was like hitting a brick wall. It was like hitting Mr. Bliss. Tanith dodged back. This wasn't the person who had killed Peregrine. He was much too big. Which meant that there was someone else on the roof.

She tried to turn, but it was no use. A black boot came at her and she went spinning. She fell to one knee, and a dark-haired woman grabbed her and hauled her backward. Tanith saw a pretty face contorted with savagery and ruby-red lips that twisted in a sneer. She struck out with her elbow and the woman grunted, but when Tanith tried to follow it up with another strike, she was flipped over the woman's hip.

This woman wasn't the killer either. Tanith cursed. She was being distracted while her quarry got away. She somersaulted backward and got up. The big man wore trousers with old-fashioned suspenders, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up on his muscular forearms. The red-lipped woman wore an outfit made up of an assortment of black straps that wrapped tightly around her body. Most of those straps held knives of varying sizes.

Tanith waited for them to say something, to boast or threaten or tell her how they were going to take over the world, but neither of them spoke.

Her sword was behind them. There was no way she could get to it, and she didn't fancy the idea of taking them on unarmed, not without knowing who they were or what they could do. They moved with a violent confidence she found unsettling.

She backed up to the edge of the building and they followed her. There was a man standing by the door she had come through. He must have been there all along and she hadn't noticed him. He was slender, with dark hair, and he watched her with indifference.

A thought came into her head and she didn't like it. She was outclassed. Whoever these people were, she didn't stand a chance against them.

"This isn't over," she said, and blew them a kiss.

The woman moved like nothing Tanith had ever seen. There was a flash of steel, and suddenly a knife was sticking through the hand she had used to blow the kiss. Tanith roared in pain and stepped back into nothing; then she was falling down the side of the building.

Her hair whipping in her face, she reached out and felt brickwork. The friction peeled the skin from her fingertips. Her good hand snagged a window ledge, and her body swung in and smashed against the wall, and she was falling again. She tried bracing her feet against the bricks, to use her skills and shift her center of gravity, but her own momentum was working against her, and still she fell.

She stuck both arms out and grabbed another window ledge. Now her knees slammed against the wall, and she screamed as the knife shifted in her hand. But she didn't let go.

Muscles straining, sweat coating her entire body, Tanith hauled herself up and through the window, into an empty apartment. She had failed her assignment and lost her sword, and her hand was bleeding profusely, but she didn't have time to feel sorry for herself. They'd be after her.

Her face burning with anger, Tanith ran.