Playing With Fire

Chapter Twenty-four ARGUS

THE OLD HOSPITAL was steeped in dead terror and stale tears. How many people had breathed their last while lying on those small beds? How many had spent their final nights in those tiny rooms, sleeping fitfully while their nightmares rampaged across the landscapes of their minds? When Baron Vengeous walked these halls, he fancied he could count every single one of them.

The psychiatric ward was the best. Here, even without the sensitivities brought on by his new armor, he could sense the echoes of fear, madness, and desperation. But with the armor, these echoes soaked into him, making him stronger. He felt his armor flourish, after all those years of neglect in that cavern.

This would be the perfect place for the Grotesquery to break down the borders between realities, open the portal, and invite the Faceless Ones to return. Now all he needed was the Grotesquery itself — but that wasn't going to be a problem. For all his flashes of rage and his fearsome temper, Vengeous was a military man, first and foremost. True, he had suffered a setback, but he had already initiated a plan to rectify the situation.

One of the Infected was standing farther along the corridor, and it opened the door as he approached. He could tell by its eyes that it was close to becoming a true vampire. He had already ordered Dusk to kill them all before that happened. Dusk, because of the serums he used, controlled the vampire part of himself, but the Infected would be far too unpredictable to keep around.

Vengeous focused on the armor, drawing it back in. He had been letting it writhe and revel in the collected anguish of the old building, but now it was time for business.

Billy-Ray Sanguine was waiting for him. There was a man shackled to an operating table, and when Vengeous walked into the room, the man's eyes widened.

"Impossible," he breathed. "You're dead. You're . . . it can't be you, you 're dead!"

Vengeous realized that with the helmet obscuring his face, the man thought Vengeous was Lord Vile, risen from the grave to exact a terrible revenge. He said nothing.

"This is a trick!" the man said, straining against his shackles. "I don't know what you think you 're doing, but you 've made a huge mistake! Do you even know who I am?"

"Sure we do," Sanguine drawled. "You 're a lily-livered sorcerer who's managed to stay alive by runnin' from every conceivable fight. Why do you think we chose you?"

"Chose me?" the man repeated. "Chose me for what?"

"For a quick answer," Vengeous said, aware that the helmet even made him sound like Vile.

The man paled. He was sweating already. "What. .. what do you want to know?"

"As you can probably tell," Sanguine said, "I ain 't from around these parts. And the gentleman who is makin' you mess your britches right now . . . well, he's been away for a time.

So we need you, chuckles, to tell us where someone might go with the inanimate corpse of a half god in order to, oh, I dunno, destroy it."

The man licked his lips. "And . . . and then you 'll let me go?"

"Yeah, why not?"

Vengeous felt his armor coil. This man's fear was too potent to ignore. Vengeous narrowed his eyes, controlling the armor through sheer force of will.

"They'd go to the Sanctuary," the man said.

"That ain't what we're lookin' for," Sanguine responded. "We got people keepin' an eye on the Sanctuary, and they ain 't turned up there. We 're lookin' for somethin' a little more specialist, y'know?"

The man frowned. "Then . . . then maybe they've gone to Grouse."

"Kenspeckle Grouse?" Vengeous said.

"Uh, yeah. He does work for the Sanctuary. They'd bring anything weird to him."

"Where?"

"An old cinema, closed down now, the Hibernian. Are you going to let me go now?"

Sanguine looked at Vengeous, and Vengeous looked at their captive.

"What did you do during the war?" Vengeous asked.

"Uh . .. well. . . not much."

"I know you, Argus."

"No. I mean, no sir, we 've never met. I did some work for Baron Vengeous, but ..."

"You supplied Baron Vengeous with the location of a safe house, when he needed somewhere to lie low for a few days."

"I. . . yes . . . but how would you — ?"

"Skulduggery Pleasant tracked him to that safe house, Argus. The information you supplied led directly to his capture."

"That's not my fault. That's . .. it wasn't my fault."

"The safe house was known to our enemies, but in your stupidity, you hadn 't realized that."

"Okay," Argus said quickly, "okay, I made a mistake, and Vengeous got arrested. But Lord Vile, what's it to do with you?"

"I am not Lord Vile," Vengeous said. He reached up and removed the helmet, and it melted into his gloves and flowed into the rest of the armor.

"Oh no," Argus whispered when he saw Vengeous's face. "Oh please no."

Vengeous glared, and Argus shook uncontrollably, and then it was as if his body forgot everything it had ever learned about how to stay in one piece. His torso exploded outward and his limbs were flung to the corners of the room, and his head popped open. His insides dripped from the walls.

Vengeous turned to Sanguine. "The Hibernian Cinema. We're leaving immediately."

The Texan brushed a piece of Argus's brain from his jacket. "And if we happen to encounter any dark-haired young girls along the way?"

"You have my permission to kill whomever you deem fit."

Billy-Ray Sanguine smiled. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir."