“Oh, yes. I’m an artist. I make murder into art. That’s kind of what I do – that’s my whole thing. And she has repeatedly stopped me from doing that. Also, one time, she beat me up when I was already really badly injured.”

“A fifteen-year-old girl beat you up?”

“When I was badly injured, yes. And she was fourteen at the time.”

“Well, I suppose in the right environment, Elemental magic is hard to defend against.”

“Oh, she didn’t use any magic.”

“So she just…beat you up then?”

“When I was injured, yes.”

“How injured were you?”

“Very.”

“You were very injured?”

“Yes, I was. Have you ever been beaten up by a fourteen-year-old girl?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“It’s not very nice.”

“I wouldn’t say it is.”

“So that’s why I want revenge.”

“Listen, mate, I don’t mean to pick a fight or nothin’, but you call yourself the Killer Supreme, right? Have you ever actually killed anyone?”

Scapegrace erupted into horribly forced laughter, desperate and panicky, and Jack could have sworn he started to blush.

Jack didn’t much care of course. They were here to make up the numbers, to sit here while Scarab and Sanguine called the shots. And then, when it was time, they would strike.

Jack was looking forward to that bit.

9 DEAD NEW WORLD

9
DEAD NEW WORLD

The sky was red.

The sun, directly above her, was a ball of fire. It was big and hot, and closer than the sun back home.

Once the city would have been impressive. Its inhabitants would have lived in the towering cliff, using the caves as homes, carving doors and windows from the rock, before extending outwards. The stone houses that they built, on top of each other, jutted from the cliff face and reminded Valkyrie of pictures she’d seen of mountain towns in Brazil. She imagined that it had been a city teeming with life, energy and noise, with hundreds of thousands of people packed in together and forced to get along.

It was quiet now though. Quiet and dead.

The portal closed behind her and Valkyrie was in a narrow alley of white, sun-bleached stone that hurt her eyes. She followed the alley down, her footsteps crunching on the cracked ground. She peered into half-crumbled houses as she passed, but every room was empty, stripped bare by the elements and whatever else was around here.

The alley plateaued and opened into a square, and she walked to the middle and turned in a slow circle, scanning her surroundings. She looked up at the cliff face, the sheer size of it finally becoming clear. It wouldn’t have been hundreds of thousands of people living here, she realised – it would have been millions. A thought struck her. She was standing on an alien world.

Despite herself, Valkyrie grinned.