“Because all the evidence pointed his way,” Skulduggery nodded. “It was only later than I began to suspect that the evidence was rather too easy to come by.”

“Scarab was framed?” asked Valkyrie. “He’s innocent?”

“Not entirely innocent. Or even remotely innocent. He was Mevolent’s top assassin, remember. But, as regards this particular crime, yes, I believe he was innocent.”

“You have a theory then?”

“Naturally.”

“So who framed Scarab? Who killed Vanguard?”

Skulduggery hesitated. “I actually have a horrible feeling that we did.”

23 CRUX

23
CRUX

R emus Crux dreamed of gods without faces and girls without heads. He dreamed of a vast forest of dead trees, of screaming things hunting him. He saw things in his dream that he recognised as pieces from his old life. They passed him by and he watched them go and didn’t miss them.

He woke.

He had told Dusk how to breach the Sanctuary’s defences, and where to go to get what they were after, and now the vampire was back, mission accomplished, and Crux felt not one shred of remorse. People that had once been his colleagues had just been killed and he didn’t care. They were heathens, unbelievers, enemies of the Faceless Ones.

Dreylan Scarab was a heathen too, but he was a useful heathen. He served a purpose. Crux viewed Scarab and his little Revengers’ Club as a conduit to get him where he needed to be. Once they had fulfilled their usefulness, Crux would either abandon them or kill them, whichever was easier. But for now, they wanted the Sanctuary to fall almost as much as he did, and so he was content to go along with their plan.

He could be patient. He could wait. He’d get his chance. The girl had killed two of his Dark Gods after all. The girl had to pay for that and she had to pay for the legacy she had inherited.

Crux knew the legend well. The Faceless Ones had ruled this world until the first sorcerers, the Ancients, constructed the Sceptre to kill them and drive them out. Once the Faceless Ones had been banished, the Ancients fought among themselves like the petty insects they were, until only one of them was left alive. Valkyrie Cain was descended from the last of them.

It was now time for her to pay for the crimes of her ancestors.

24 THE PLOT THICKENS…

24
THE PLOT THICKENS…

“Vanguard had noble intentions,” Skulduggery said, his voice filling the space between them all. “His dream of peace was a dream that inspired a great many people who were sick of the war, people on both sides. Someone once said about him that he had seen what he was capable of, what we all were capable of, and it frightened him. So he tried to save us.