Chapter 11
There were five.
"I’ll deal with them,” Jay said and drew a thin, long knife out of her jacket.
It was incredibly bright and sharp. She loved it. Since her parents couldn’t teach her magic, her father taught her how to handle knives. This one was the one he’d given to her for her last birthday and she carried it with her everywhere. She dove at the first Hollow Man and slashed him across the chest, ducking under the swing of a second one and slashed up cutting his arm away. The other three were smarter and came at her at the same time. She kicked the first one, while cutting the second one through the head. The third one got a hard kick into her stomach and she was thrown back onto the floor. She used the momentum that his kick gave her to drag the knife through his knee and he started to deflate. The one that she had kicked came back at her and she rolled up onto one knee. She threw her knife at him and it shot straight through his chest.
“That’s all of them but I think more are coming. You know, you would have thought that he would have used better henchmen.”
Skulduggery nodded absentmindedly and then pushed the air one more time and the remains of the wall crumbled.
“Oh, hello.”
China was shackled to the floor. Her hair was a mess and her clothes were torn in several places and yet she managed to look completely calm and collected.
“So you came to save me. It’s so terrible here.”
“Jay,” Skulduggery said, gesturing to the shackles that bound China’s legs.
She put her hands on them.
“Nothing. Just a regular binding charm.”
Skulduggery nodded and leaned over them for a few minutes. Jay felt restless.
“Vile isn’t an idiot. I think he thought that we would find or at least suspect the trap on the door. There is another trap. I just don’t know where.”
Fletcher squirmed at the words.
“Well, it won’t matter. As soon as we have China, I’ll teleport and everything will be fine.”
A realization hit Jay like a truck.
“No!!” Jay shouted. “Teleporting right now would be bad. I know why I didn’t feel any magic before. He drained it all so that Fletcher teleporting would be the only magic that he felt. You probably can’t even teleport.”
“Wait, wait. Wouldn’t he have felt my magic first? I mean, I used it to destroy the wall and you used yours to feel for traps.”
Jay shook her head quickly, “Yes, but I think he can only feel magic in general, not specifically, like I can, you know? He probably primed the whole building so that if anyone tried to teleport they wouldn’t be able to. The backlash of a failed attempt at magic can be huge. When he feels that strong lash he’ll probably run down and kill us.”
Fletcher felt the color drain from his face. If they were caught it would be his fault.
“Why couldn’t you feel it?”
“Because it absorbed my magic. It feels the same way when there is nothing there. It’s like echolocation. When the sound bounces back you know something’s there. It never bounced back so I supposed nothing was there.”
“Ah, right, so no teleporting okay?” Skulduggery said and he received glares from Jay and the newly freed China.
“Okay, so we just walk back up?”
Indecision flickered across Jay’s face before she nodded uncertainly.
“You sure?”
“Nope,” she said nodding happily.
They started to make their way across the room, through the hole and then up to steps. As soon as Skulduggery’s foot touched the bottom step, shadows spread across the floor.
“So, not good?” he said, stepping backwards.
“Get up the steps,” Jay yelled, grabbing China and Fletcher’s wrists and yanking them up with her.
Skulduggery followed as quickly as he could.
“All the way up!!!”
They kept on running.
“Still no teleporting?”
Jay just shook her head. He probably wouldn’t be able to. They were going up the last flight of stairs when they saw the shadow looming over them. They faltered.
“Hello, Skulduggery, China, and others.”
“Hey!! I’m not others. I have a name you know!” said Fletcher, obviously under the impression that yelling at people ready to kill you was a good idea.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Renn. It was so nice of you to show up. And you are…”
Jay didn’t say anything, apparently having decided that glaring was good enough.
“Alright. Suit yourself. I’ll find out anyway. After I kill you of course.”
“Well seeing as I’m already dead, killing me won’t be necessary. Right?” Skulduggery asked.
“Sorry, I’ll have to kill you. You still have a soul, which essentially is what life is so I’ll have to drain that. I hope past favors will make up for it.”
“Well, undoing past favors kind of makes them pointless so if you kill me there will be no past favor only past insults. Even if I did consider past favors, they are greatly outnumbered by past insults so it wouldn’t make a difference and I feel like I’m rambling. Am I rambling?”
“Uh-huh,” Jay said nodding.
“Oh, okay then.”
Jay grabbed China’s hand and then Fletcher’s. She saw him reach out and grab Skulduggery’s coat. Maybe Jay could counter the spell and Fletcher could teleport. Jay started to work her magic, carefully, pumping magic to her feet so that in a second she could release it. Once she had a good amount of magic there she told it to dispel all the other enchantments and allow Fletcher to teleport.
“I just recognized that I was on the losing side and ran away to fought another day.”
“No, you disappeared and gave up. I, on the other hand, never give up. I even died and I didn’t give up. So we have all agreed, I’m better than you.”
Vile sighed.
Suddenly the floor at their feet started to glow a bright white instead of black and Fletcher felt Jay’s hand squeeze again. She wasn’t sure if it would work at all or if she would just make Vile mad but suddenly, they appeared in front of Skulduggery’s house. She sighed with relief and then felt a dark cloud go over her eyes and felt herself falling. Then, nothing.
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