A little onseshot to fill the lack of Guild in Death Bringer.
This is set after Mortal Coil, though Tanith wasn't taken over by the Remnant and Guild was allowed out of jail to have a minor position in the Sanctuary, where he sits in his office brooding and writing in a diary.
Side note - the choreography they perform is similar to Glee's version of Toxic.
Enjoy :)
11th October 2011
Dear Diary,
I have a problem.
For once, I am not referring to Fletcher Renn and his unnatural fondness for hair-care products, forcing me to drive over the border just to find my favourite brand of scented jujuba shampoo because he's cleared it out of all the pharmacies in the county.
No, my problem is of an even greater kind.
The bi-centurial England V. Ireland Sanctuary ten-a-side football match.
I myself participated in the last match in the 1960s, striker against that insufferable idiot Quintin Strom. Such bloodshed hadn't been seen since World War Two - understandable as three of the opposing team were in fact ex-Nazis recruited by the English Sanctuary in order to better their chances in the match.
You think I'm joking? There's photos.
When I thought of our crippling defeat at the hands of the Anglos and two Germans (the third Nazi had an unlikable aura of Austrian about him) I was filled with rage. It was then I realised: I must coach the football team myself. I will lead the Irish Sanctuary to greatness again. And I will treasure the look on Strom's face as I wipe the floor with him after he so crushingly beat us in 1962. Just let the Elders try to stop me. I have vengeance to carry out like the hand of an almighty Faceless God.
First step - convince the Grand Mage to let me coach the team. (It'll be easy - that prize wuss banned me from using the electric chair to interrogate prisoners.) Plus Ravel can't handle his liquor. I'll pump him so full of top-market shandy that he'll hardly be able to spell his name on the contract form I put in front of him.
The second step is to get a team. Which is admittedly my biggest problem, because if talent were gold the mages of the Sanctuary would be poorer than a greedy investment banker in a Porsche dealership.
Careful research will have to be carried out.
I'll keep you posted.
13th October 2011
Dear Diary,
Erskine Ravel is lying beside me drunk as a skunk, and I have my contracts signed. The current members of the team are the inebriated Grand Mage, Elder Bespoke, Anton Shudder, Tanith Low, Fletcher Renn, Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant.
The skeleton needed to be bribed with the promise of new car furnishings supplied by my arms dealer in Dubai, and I suspected the others only followed his lead, but I don't really give a damn.
Ravel has also permitted for a section of flat land beside the Sanctuary to be used as a practice pitch. He was slightly concerned about the threat of venemous Children of the Spider lurking in the nearby undergrowth, but hey, nothing like a hint of danger to keep people on their toes.
My team is coming together like two oppositely-charged atoms finding each other in the great chasm of space.
I knew that one day my Physics Ph.D would be handy in creating snappy metaphors.
15th October 2011
Dear Diary,
Convinced Dexter Vex to join the team. He didn't seem to care that I'm using him like a cheap whore to make up numbers for the ten-a-side rule, but rather was more concerned with the fact that there wouldn't be any attractive single girls at the after party when we inevitably won the match.
I promised I would plane over a carefully selected group of young women from Staten Island's infamous Playboy Mansion that would cater to his needs. He seemed pleased.
Ah, man sluts. So easy to manipulate.
16th October 2011
Dear Diary,
I have just learned that Quintin Strom is coaching the English Sanctuary squad.
Bring.
It.
On.
19th October 2011
Dear Diary,
I've made a difficult decision to include Solomon Wreath and the obnoxious American Sanguine in my lineup. It was tricky, but I agreed to let them join Vex in his lusty post-game admiration of the Playboy girls and offered to pay for the medical bills for any long-term damages caused by injuries from when I ambushed them.
Wreath will bring a much-needed injection of style into the team - my impeccable good looks will get tired of covering for the deficiences of the others - and Sanguine has been part of attempts to take over this country so often that it's simple courtesy he be offered a place in the group.
To be honest, I'm not too sure if Sanguine will gel easily enough with the rest of the group, but I'm reasonably confident I'll be able to kick him out before he stabs someone with that ridiculous razor. And if I don't manage to, it's no great loss.
After creating a basic practice itinerary that I mailed to each member, I sat back to begin drawing up diet plans. Only a strict regimen of lime-flavoured water and carrot sticks will be allowed for those that could do with losing a few extra pounds.
Anorexia gets such bad press in the media.
On second thoughts, I'll replace the flavoured water with plain. Lime flavourings could cause a rush of blood sugar, boosting endorphin levels and resulting in cheerful team members.
I can't allow that.
Fear and the promise of a solid meal after we win the match is what will motivate the group, until I can hire a team of these dream-hackers to perform an intricate inception that will have the team's sleeping moments filled with a shadowy Hell populated by me, them and several of my choicest weapons, their new place of residence if they lose the match.
20th October 2011
Dear Diary,
The team don't seem particularly enthused about their fitness programme of practicing every second day for a minimum of four hours.
For some reason they believe they have a say in this.
How odd.
22nd October 2011
Dear Diary,
Found Cain and that immeasurable failure Renn kissing in the car park after practice this evening. Naturally, I did what any responsible citizen would and sprayed them down with a nearby fire extinguisher.
After the foam-covered lovers extricated themselves from each other like the parting of two hormonal octopi, I nodded and walked away.
Nothing like sexual frustration to bring out bursts of intensity during matches.
23rd October 2011
Dear Diary,
Ravel informed me that the match is in May. I have less than a year to teach this motley group to accurately pass to one another.
I have been looking out onto the pitch as I write this, and Renn just Teleported away from the ball Sanguine kicked at him.
I may have to bring back my whip.
25th October 2011
Dear Diary,
I have become far too acquainted with this group than I could ever have wished to be.
However, I have found out that Cain wields remarkable power over the males of the group. Pleasant, Bespoke, Renn, Wreath and Sanguine all seem to hold her in high levels of regard and/or fascination.
In fact, Renn looks at her with such wide, love-torn eyes that I had a sudden urge to call up an old taxedermist friend with the news that Bambi was wandering around the Irish Sanctuary, and that it would make a wonderful addition to his mounted deer head collection.
29th October 2011
Dear Diary,
Today while discussing possible names for the team, that Renn boy put forward his idea of calling being called 'The Awesomes'.
It took considerable restraint - and I speak as an ex-KGB trained agent - not to reach across and throttle him where he stood. Fortunately for him, I'm afraid my hand would stick to his ridiculously over-gelled hair and I would be forced to walk around for the rest of my life with something resembling a blonde, overgrown tumour attached to my arm.
However, I have recently been considering stealing a small orphan babe away from a care home and raising it as my personal masseuse. I'm sure Renn is equally as unloved and overlooked. With any luck he won't be missed until someone realises that months have gone by and they're breathing in air non-polluted by the fumes coming off his luxuriant spikes of hair.
4th November 2011
Dear Diary,
My intel sources have revealed that the twerp Hansard Kray has been lured to the English Sanctuary's side as a star striker.
Apparently he's of one-eighth Yorkshire descent which makes him eligible to play. Well, I'm a sixteenth Native Indian, but you don't see me running around my Nevada desert homeland wearing a feathered headress while banging a drum.
5th November 2011
Dear Diary,
Am convinving Cain to use her feminine wiles in distracting Kray during the match, though she refuses to do it.
I called her out on not being a team player.
She insulted my dress sense, so I sent her to the Morgue for a full sixty minutes, so she could come face to face with the state she would be in if she didn't do exactly as I commanded her.
To her credit, she lasted the hour.
And she locked Weeper, the idiot who was supervising her, in one of the refrigerators.
When I asked her why, she shrugged and replied with ''He talked too much.''
Diary, I think she is beginning to grow on me.
7th November 2011
Dear Diary,
The team didn't respond well to the group email I sent them containing the rough idea of what I want their uniform strips to look like.
According to them, having my face embazoned across the back of the shirts is tacky.
They have no sense of fun.
10th November 2011
Dear Diary,
Valkyrie came in with the most delightful idea to seduce and then systematically destroy the soul of one Hansard Kray.
I knew there was at least one spark of intelligence in that team. I promoted her to vice captain, then informed her of how she was eating too many empty carbohydrates and her shorts were now ill-fitting. It's important not to let a person get too self-confident.
If she proves to be subordinate I'll demote her straight back down to the rest of the gutter rats, but the look on Sanguine's face when I announced her promotion was more than worth it.
13th November 2011
Dear Diary,
The Texan is proving to be quite the thorn in my side, sending me various emails of how he should be second-in-charge over Valkyrie.
I sent him back a digitalised image of a finger flipping him off.
There have been no further messages.
22nd November 2011
Dear Diary,
Practice has been going excellently - during a trial game Renn even managed to score a point for his team!
Granted, it was in his own goal, but he's getting there. I can't blame it all on him, though; the gel in his hair has stiffened into a concrete-like hardness and the weight it's applying to his head must make it hard to think.
25th November 2011
Dear Diary,
Bespoke, who I did not actively hate due to the fact he actually keeps his mouth shut (unlike the rest of the team), spoke entirely out of turn today.
He complained that his cracked feet were staining his shoes with blood and he would charge me with the expenses of removing them.
I gave him the number of my personal dry cleaner in Moscow, told him to use his own credit card, and advised him to with that same card buy several tubs of hair re-growth serum to use on that eggy head of his.
Though I must admit, Bespoke reflecting the sun's rays off his bald scalp to blind members of the opposite team is a brilliant tactic.
7th December 2011
Dear Diary,
Today the team said I was driving them too hard. I proceeded to twist off Pleasant's head to use as a ball and challenged the ten of them against one of me. I got the head past three strikers, two defenders and Renn's hair - which deserves a mention of its own - and while facing backwards kicked it up over my head and into the net.
I re-attached Pleasant's skull, pushed Vex's hanging jaw back up and left without saying a word.
They're still practicing right now, and I'm writing this at eleven P.M.
Diary, I think I made an impression.
12th December 2011
Dear Diary,
Operation SACK (Seduce and crush Kray) was carried out today.
It went better than even I expected.
Cain spent most of a good hour in a hotel room with the boy before telling him - I was lurking in the vents above, I couldn't resist seeing the delicious look of hurt on Kray's face - that he looked like a bushbaby who had half-morphed into human form and couldn't quite change back, that he severely lacked kissing skills and described, in detail, how much 'better' Fletcher Renn was.
I may have thrown up a little in my own mouth at that, but I reminded myself it was all for a good cause.
When Kray left the hotel in tears I followed him. For good measure I stepped on his toes, so if by some miracle he wasn't emotionally damaged enough to quit the team, his lack of ability to kick a ball straight would have ensured he couldn't play. As he howled in pain I silently handed him a note saying 'This is how we deal with traitors where I'm from.'
In celebration, I allowed each member of team to eat half a low-fat mince pie. Sanguine supplemented his with cream so I sent him out to do wind sprints in the snow. His face has darkened to a purplish hue because of his prolonged exposure to sub-zero temperatures.
Maybe I'll go provide him with a jacket in a half-hour.
13th December 2011
Dear Diary,
Right now Sanguine is recuperating in the Sanctuary after contracting a slight strain of pneumonia. I told him that if he doesn't get better in a week I'm cutting his medicine supply in half.
On the plus side, it was announced that Hansard Kray withdrew from the English Sanctuary football team.
When I was in my prime, treason like his was punishable by flogging.
Oh, how I long for these simpler times.
17th December 2011
Dear Diary,
The team joined together for the last practice of the year today. You know words like 'awe-inspiring' or 'stupendous' or 'truly brilliant'?
Well, they couldn't be used to describe the team, because they sucked worse than a hoover.
I think I may have started to tear up when Wreath and Low attempted to header the ball at the same time and ended up cracking skulls.
Diary, you know how I said this was the last practice of the year?
I lied.
Come Boxing Day morning I'll be waking them up with an air horn and a bottle of iced water ready to be squirted at them if they don't roll out of bed soon enough.
And Sanguine's excuses that he's contracted a chest infection just won't cut it.
3rd January 2012
Dear Diary,
A new year begins, and I am even more hell-bent on leading the football team to win the match. We met again today for another run through, but I think some of them are slightly hung over from their raucous partying.
Sanguine's 'chest infection' has cleared up so he's stopped flopping around during practice complaining of pains in his lungs. This is a huge help, as the others seem distracted by the consuquences from their massive alcohol intake.
I've restricted them from eating solid foods for the net week to nullify the effects the calorie-filled martinis will have had on their body.
Vex looked baleful, but he'll really thank me when he finds out that I've taken away all the cans of Carlsberg he had in his fridge.
14th January 2012
Dear Diary,
Decided to give the group a motivational talk on what would happen if they lost. They have grown too complacent. I discussed the word 'failure' with them - or rather, I didn't. 'Failure' is not in my vocabulary, nor any dictionary I own - I've scribbled it out with a particularly harsh shade of ink. The f-word is not a term I use in my life and, I explained rationally, nor would I allow it to be used in theirs.
It went better than I could ever have hoped.
Wreath cried.
They all delivered me iron-clad promises that they would win the competition and left the room with an air of defeat you usually associate with jails or courthouses.
As I sit in my office, I can taste the sweet tang of something delicious on my tongue.
It is called fear.
26th January 2012
Dear Diary,
There really has been a marked change in the team's abilities after the talk I gave them. Why, today Ravel managed to score three goals against Low. I decided to put her in the goalkeeping position after learning that males were adverse to kicking the ball near her, scared in case they damaged her pretty face (or cleavage).
Recently, I've been considering having the team perform at half time during the match. This will amp up support from the crowd, which can be vital to the scores. During one Superbowl in the '90s I convinced the entire crowd to point at a loathsome linebacker and chant 'Who ate all the pies!'
He burst into tears and ran headfirst into the bleachers, knocking himself out and costing his team the match.
Suffice to say, my plan of performing is a great one. Perhaps Cain will have some more to say on the topic. (I probably won't listen to her, but I do try to make sure my second-in-commands feel included.)
31st January 2012
Dear Diary,
As it turns out, some of Valkyrie's advice was sound. She mentioned a show her sister (Aoife? Alicia? Allie?) liked to look at, Joy or Happiness, or something along these lines.
It apparently focuses on photogenic teens bursting out in well-choreographed song. I looked up a few of their numbers on the internet and there was one in particular that didn't entirely make me want to fall into a deep cycle of REM-standard sleep.
I told the team I had an idea for a musical performance. Ravel, Wreath and Pleasant voiced their dislike at the idea, but I managed to calm them down with some cholorform I keep handy.
At the end of the meeting Renn asked me for a relevant solo, and I gladly supplied him with sheet music for 'Man! I Feel Like a Woman'.
10th February 2012
Dear Diary,
Low and Bespoke have announced that they are in a relationship.
The football team and various mages in the Sanctuary voiced their congratulations to the nauseatingly happy couple...
I sat in my office amusing myself by wondering what their bald, sword-wielding children would look like.
27th February 2012
Dear Diary,
I've arranged a preliminary dance routine for the performance. Erskine complained, saying things like ''This is ridiculous,'' and ''The choreogrphy could start a sex riot,'' but if I'm honest with you Diary, I was more concerned with the state of his hair.
As a new, inexperienced Grand Mage - there are no hard feelings there, I promise! - he may have foregone personal grooming as deadlines and political meetings loom.
I ordered him to go shear off the abysmal dead-rat lookalike on top of his head, and when he told me that he was my boss, I threw my coffee maker at him.
He finally seemed to have got the message.
9th March 2012
Dear Diary,
I gave the team some ideas on who they could draw inspiration from as they trained for the match (I was sitting on a side bench shouting the speech to them, occasionally punctuated by calls of 'You're fat! Run five laps!' to know I was keeping a watchful eye on their training).
None of them appreciated my talk on how dictators are actually inovators, though they listened up once I spoke of my love for the Chinese water torture system, an art I perfected during my period spent in the Far East developing nuclear weapons for the megalomaniacal then-president of North Korea.
They also had no respect for my role model, Nicholas Sarkozy. He may be a mortal, and French at that - eating the legs of amphibians goes to their brain and fries the synapses - but he wields authority fiercely and does it in absolute style.
The team have no idea what idolisation is. You want to shout your loyalty to this person out loud, preferably with a microphone that bursts the listening public's fragile eardrums, so the last sound they ever hear is your confirmation of the sheer brilliance of this esteemed person. You want the public to know the utter greatness of your idol and their achievements.
As I told them, I might tattoo Nicholas' face onto MY face.
Now that's commitment.
6th March 2012
Dear Diary,
After re-reading yesterday's entry, an important thought occured to me.
Why don't I get the team to voice their respect for me during Friday lunch break in the canteen? I can't believe I haven't thought of it before.
25th February 2012
Dear Diary,
Every single one of them refused to shout my praises.
I punished them by selling their various favoured items on an internet site called eBay.
The glee I derived from watching Pleasant discover his hat was being shipped to South America was unimaginable.
And Low is a lot less intimidating without that sword.
On second thoughts, the glare she's giving me right now does slightly make up for it.
4th March 2012
Dear Diary,
Today Anton Shudder referred to himself as an 'Irish man-god'.
I chuckled as I made him crawl around the Sanctuary while I sat on his back - it let him know that the only heavenly member of the group is yours truly.
And allowed me more time to consider who I would rather face in a fight: 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck.
Shudder collapsed after the ninth hour but I soon brought him round with smelling salts and forced him to carry on. It all comes from a place of caring.
5th March 2012
Dear Diary,
Some of the team have recently asked if I'm the bastard offspring of Vandameer Craven and the Devil.
That statement is completely ridiculous, and I informed them so.
Besides, I came from an immaculate conception.
13th March 2012
Dear Diary,
I gathered the team in my office today for a pep talk about the looming match. As I rose to speak a hideous chuckle emitted from the corner of the room and I toppled from my chair.
Amid gales of laughter Low explained that the noise was her text alert in the form of 'Voldemort's laugh'.
Wreath called me a prize buffoon. I felt like hitting him. Instead I tossed him out of my office to spend the day with Mist.
Revenge is best served with an ugly spider woman.
26th March 2012
Dear Diary,
In practice this morning each member of the team managed to score at least two goals against Low. As a treat I took them to see a movie called The Hunger Games (I was extremely disappointed with the title; there was hardly any food involved in it at all).
There was crying involved - and I'm pleased to say I managed to record Vex's blubbing on the tape recorder I always carry around with me.
The fight scenes, I must add, were impressive, and I'm considering making some of them a regular part of the team's practice sessions. I wonder how long it would take Renn to learn how to hold a spear...?
After it had finished and I was doing my inevitable mocking of those who had cried, Valkyrie fired back with ''Yes, but we all heard you sniffle after the evil guy got eaten by the dogs.''
Diary, she is filled with more comebacks than Madonna's career.
2nd April 2012
Dear Diary,
While practicing a back handspring for the half-time performance, Ravel broke his wrist. The Nye fixed him up, all the while making snide comments about my appearance.
I wasn't bothered by it - I know I look like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's taller cousin.
14th April 2012
Dear Diary,
A miraculous thing has happened - the team may actually be good enough to not completely humiliate me at the match.
Of course, it was I who trained them so naturally they would be amazing.
Sanguine saw my satisfied look and asked for some solid food.
See, this is what happens when you give the little people praise. They get drunk on it like a heady wine.
22nd April 2012
Dear Diary,
It is now less than a month until the match and tensions are high. Yesterday Sanguine slapped Wreath and called him a ' 'lil bitch'. Wreath threw him into a wall.
I left them when they started pulling each other's hair.
(Later I was informed that Pleasant and Shudder joined the fray and, along with Wreath, they brought the Texan to the ground and began kicking him. I was truly upset. Why did they wait until I had left to beat Sanguine within an inch of his life?)
1st May 2012
Dear Diary,
This weekend it was decided that the match would be played here in Ireland. A group of mages are renovating the team's makeshift pitch to make it a suitable venue for the English Sanctuary's team to be ruined upon.
I look out as I write this, Diary, in the direction of London. I can smell the blood that shall be metaphorically, and if Sanguine has anything to do with it literally, spilled, like a hound sensing its prey.
I hope the English Sanctuary's team look across to Roarhaven, and tremble at what is coming. What fury we will release upon them.
I think I may be now quoting Braveheart, so I shall take my leave and return home for the night. My wife is waiting, Diary, and who am I to deny her the exquisite joy of my company?
20th May 2012
Dear Diary,
So close. We are so close. I gathered the team, my team, of ten, these people that I have grown to...well...not dislike as much as I previously did. They looked at me expectantly and reverently, as you would a God, which is quite fitting.
''Tomorrow,'' I said, ''we face a great threat: foes that will attempt to besmirch the great reputation of our country.''
There was silence, broken only by Renn tapping away at his phone to look up what 'besmirch' meant.
''But we shall fight! We shall fight, and score, and perform great dancing, and we shall show everyone what we are capable of. I know it hasn't been easy. Frankly, it was a challenge for me to coach you to become the near-flawless players you are today.''
At this I stood up out of my chair, majestic, regal. ''But I prevailed, and now look at yourselves. No, Shudder, don't actually take out a mirror. You shall crush your opponents. You shall laugh at their destruction. You shall inevitably win.
''And when you do, I will allow you to eat whatever food you want.''
I was momentarily blinded by their eyes lighting up.
They all left my office with hopeful spirits, ready to crush their opponents with any force necessary.
Tomorrow will be nail-biting.
I'l let you know how it goes.
21st May 2012
Dear Diary,
Fuck you, Quintin Strom!
Fuck. You.
When Pleasant scored a frankly amazing goal during the last seconds of the match and Strom sunk to his knees in defeat, I knew I had done it. I have had my vengeance on that idiot and restored pride to our Sanctuary.
As I walked off the pitch to deafening applause and catcalls, I locked eyes with Strom as he tended to a member of his team that Renn had slammed with concrete-hard gelled hair.
And right there, in front of the whole crowd, I flipped Quintin Strom off.
I'm getting thrills just recounting it right now.
Immediately after the result was announced six members of the team succumbed to acute heat exhaustion and had to be rushed to hospital.
I'm going to see them now, to deliver food in person. Thurid Guild never goes back on his promises. Though I suppose Vex, Sanguine and Wreath will have to wait for the Playboys another time. If not, I can always put them to good use.
My wife won't mind.
I mean, I do have a near God-like status amongst mages right now.
How fun it is to win, Diary.
How fun.