Chapter 22

They found Sickening exactly where Ryker had left him, still unconscious and slumped against the wall. Immediately they grabbed him and Alasdair teleported them outside, where they would wait for Villainous and the others to leave the castle and then put forward the trade.

Sickening woke up five minute or so after they teleported and looked around, wondering where he was. The realisation dawned on him and he scowled.

"What are you numnuts hoping to achieve?" he asked in annoyance, Jeremy jumped in fright at the sudden break in silence and then quickly tried to regain his composure, hoping no-one had noticed. Alasdair looked round and grinned at Sickening.

"Ah, so you're finally awake." Sickening glared at him in absolute hatred, but Alasdair's grin didn't falter. "Well my young chum, we've decided to detain you while we wait for your charming friends to exit the building and then we shall propose a trade."

"You're expecting Maelicen Villainous to trade with you?" Sickening asked in disbelief.

"Yes we are my friend, what's wrong with that?" Alasdair asked, a slight crease appearing on his forehead.

"Maelicen Villainous does not trade." Sickening replied. "He does not need to trade; he always gets what he wants, no matter what it is."

"Well isn't that lucky then, since we just so happen to have what he wants… you." Alasdair replied smugly but Sickening just shook its head.

"Hey, Alasdair." Amya called over, coming back from checking the castle. "They're not appearing, go and check to see where they've got to." Alasdair nodded and disappeared.

When Alasdair left, they descended back into an awkward silence. Jeremy glanced over at Sickening, which was sitting on a rock, its eyes darting round the place and its hands fidgeting with a stick. The creature caught Jeremy's stare so he quickly looked away. Amya was looking over at the castle, probably for any signs of Alasdair, or anyone else.

Ryker on the other hand was lying on a slab of stone with his eyes closed; Jeremy wasn't sure if he was asleep or not, he didn't really want to check. Emerson was lying on the ground away to the side, definitely asleep. Amya had forced him to rest as soon as they'd got up here; he needed it after the beating he'd taken.

Emerson muttered something barely audible and started shaking his head.

"What was that?" Amya asked, confused.

"Cup-a-soup!" Emerson muttered, louder this time and Jeremy suppressed a laugh while Amya just smiled and shook her head. Yep, he was definitely asleep.

Jeremy wondered if he should have a nap, but quickly dismissed the idea. What would the others think if at the vital moment, Jeremy was snoozing in the corner, Emerson had a reason to sleep and Ryker was, well… Ryker. Besides, Alasdair had just left to check on the castle, he'd be back soon with information and they'd be up in no time. No, he definitely couldn't sleep, so what could he do?

"I can go and check down at the castle if you want?" Jeremy blurted out and Amya looked up, surprised.

"Ummm… sure, just don't get yourself caught." She said uncertainly. "Also, don't be long; chances are Alasdair will've found them." Jeremy nodded, stood up and set off down the hill.

As Jeremy strode off down the hill, he thought about how much his life had changed recently. Before Emerson and Caiden had knocked him off his bike, the most exciting moment of his life had probably been when he'd won an IPad in one of those arcade grabber machines. Yes, he'd found out that it was possible, however only if you spend almost as much money as an IPad is actually worth, so it wasn't really worth it.

He wasn't sure why he'd actually decided to go off like he did. He knew it wasn't really to help look for Caiden. Obviously he hoped to see something that might help, but that wasn't the real reason. No, he'd left the others because he needed some time on his own.

Sure, he was so amazingly grateful that he'd got this opportunity and he thought that everything that was happening was awesome, but now the initial amazement had kind of warn off, he needed some time to think. Up until now, he hadn't really thought about what was actually happening, what was taking place around him.

The more he thought about it, the more he knew that he should be freaking out, having a breakdown or something, but he wasn't. He wasn't sure if it was the fact that his mind hadn't really processed it yet, or if maybe, just maybe this was the life for him. Before now he'd been drifting, he'd had no clue what he was going to do with his life.

Throughout his entire life, he'd never truly belonged. He'd never been popular, not by a long shot, he wasn't clever enough for the nerds, or sporty enough for the jocks, not even the weirdoes accepted him as one of their own. So he'd made his own group of mediocre friends who were neither cool, nor weird, not clever, nor sporty, they just were.

Every day was the same for him; he'd get up, go to school, learn next to nothing, narrowly scrape through tests and exams, go home, do homework, play PlayStation and then go to bed. Then it would start all over again. Nothing exciting ever happened to him, he was just a completely average guy, no-one came and changed his life completely… well, until now.

His life had been boring, pointless until Caiden and Emerson had turned up. Now, he was in on something different, something big, something that he was certain would change his life and something he knew he needed. Recently, he'd been having thoughts, thoughts that he knew other teenagers had. He'd thought his life didn't mean anything, what did he do that affected anything? Why was he even there? Now however, there was a point to his life, he didn't need magic to help, he just needed himself.

He stopped and looked around, only just realising that he'd been walking for ages. He'd reached the castle; the recently emptied gateway was right in front of him. He hadn't seen anyone, so it was probably best that he went back, the others would be worried. Besides, Scraper and the others were probably just inside, waiting for him. He didn't want to do anything stupid, he should definitely go back. He turned around and got shot.

"Where are they?" Amya asked no-one in particular for the fourteenth time, the annoyance all too obvious in her voice. "They've both been ages, I told Jeremy to be quick. I bet he's gone and got himself caught."

"Don't be so harsh on him, he's just a kid." Emerson said as he stood up from his short nap. "Maybe they've found something together; they'll be back in a sec."

"That's what I've been telling myself for half an hour, maybe we should go…" She was interrupted by Alasdair appearing.

"They're coming!" he said. "They've got Jeremy, he's shot and they're taking both him and Caiden up here for a 'trade'!"

"Crap!" Emerson cursed. "Is Jeremy ok, where was he shot?"

"Just the shoulder I think, they weren't trying to kill him." Alasdair explained. "He'll be fine for the moment, but he's losing a lot of blood. He needs to get to a doctor soon, or it could be bad, really bad."

"Oh… Well I know what we have to do." Emerson said quietly. "I knew we shouldn't have brought him, he's just a freakin' kid! It was so stupid, I was so stupid! Now he's gone and ruined everything!" he ranted, his voice echoing across the valley. The others kept quiet, knowing that he was right, just not wanting to admit it.

"Well we might as well go down to meet them." Emerson said his voice quiet and his mood having changed from light to scarily dark in a matter of seconds. He took one step and threw a vicious punch that crashed into Sickening's jaw, knocking it unconscious and then started off down the hill towards the castle not even caring if anyone followed him. Ryker stood up, grabbed Sickening and followed Emerson. Alasdair looked at Amya.

"Well this has gone swimmingly." He said and started down the hill after the others, Amya followed, the sides of her mouth curled into a slight smile.

Alasdair caught sight of Villainous and the others after only a few minutes of walking, Caiden was carrying Jeremy, although obviously struggling to take the weight in his weakened condition. Villainous and the Archie were the only two present; Angela was obviously still in Siberia, but Angelo? Probably fetching his sister, Alasdair decided. Each group stopped walking when there was about thirty metres in between them and Caiden gently laid Jeremy down and slumped to the ground himself.

"Hello there Mr Tate, I am here to propose a trade." Villainous said, his voice carrying over the distance.

"I guessed." Emerson said back.

"No witty remarks?" Villainous asked mockingly. "Something ruined your mood?"

"I find there's no point wasting humour on people like you." Emerson replied dryly.

"People like me? And what are they?" Villainous asked.

"Crimes against humanity." Emerson replied quietly.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said you're a crime against humanity, you're despicable, an insult to all existence!" Emerson shouted. Villainous didn't move, he said nothing, just stared right at Emerson, as if trying to kill him with his eyes.

"Anyway, we might as well get this over with." Emerson said, seemingly settled. Again Villainous said nothing; Alasdair suspected Emerson had hit a nerve and with someone like Maelicen Villainous, he doubted that was a great idea.

"Send over Sickening and we'll give you the boy. Or your brother if you'd prefer?" Archie spoke up sensing Villainous wasn't in the mood to conduct the trade.

"No." Emerson replied, defeated. "Alasdair will come over, bring Jeremy back here. Then bring Sickening to you."

"How can we be sure you'll give us Sickening when you have the boy?" Archie asked.

"You'll have Caiden the whole time, if we try anything, you can obviously just kill him." Emerson said bluntly and Alasdair flinched at the harshness of it.

"Fair enough." Angelo shrugged. "Send 'the jumper' over then."

Emerson nodded to Alasdair, and he disappeared.

"What are we going to do?" Amya whispered almost silently to Emerson.

"We're going to go forward with the trade and let it happen." He said a bit too calmly. "We can't do anything now that the boy screwed up; we're back to square one."

"Don't be too harsh on him, he's just a kid." Amya replied.

Emerson said nothing.

Alasdair reappeared and laid Jeremy down on the ground in front of Ryker. Then, grabbing Sickening, he reappeared on the other side and dropped its prone body on the ground in front of Archie and Villainous. He glanced at Caiden, their eyes locking and the fire master said something quietly.

"Tell Emerson to go to Slater."

Alasdair nodded and disappeared.

"Well would you look at this." Angelo Scraper said grinning, as he strode up the hill to stop by Villainous. "Aren't we all happy families."

"Is it here?" Villainous asked him and he nodded.

"There's a lovely little chopper waiting down by the castle. Courtesy of your friend Navaryous Rysk." He called over to Emerson. "He really has been ever so helpful, you see…" Angelo continued but they grabbed on to Alasdair and disappeared. "Oh… well that's rude…" he muttered.

The Texan turned to Villainous, "We really should get ourselves one of those, he could take us anywhere. I reckon we should pick one up after this is all over, we could each take turns having a go with him."

"What do we do now?" Archie enquired, ignoring Angelo's rambling.

"He'd be so funny…" Angelo muttered.

"We take our newly acquired chopper and find a new place to stay, we can't have the goodies finding us again too easily can we?" Villainous explained, his mood having brightened a bit. "First though, we'd better pick up poor old Angela. Where did the boy say she was? Siberia? She's probably freezing the poor girl." With that he turned and started off down the hill with the others in tow, Angelo still smiling at the thought of getting themselves a pet 'jumper'.

"I wonder how you fly a helicopter…" Villainous muttered. "Oh, I'm sure it's just like riding a bike."

A/N: So I haven't uploaded or written anything for ages… but this morning I thought, I really want to do some writing, so I did and finished off this chapter. I slipped a few Skulduggery references and even a Sherlock one, see if you can notice it. Anyway, cheers for reading, but just saying, the reason I didn't really write anything, is because I have no incentive. If I get reviews, I'll have that incentive, but thanks anyway. I'll hopefully try to do some more writing cause I have a lot of spare time this week. Maybe it'll be my Christmas present to you, like one of those gifts that someone makes for you so it's really thoughtful and you have to love it and stuff, but actually you just wish they got you an amazon voucher…

Merry Christmas!

Mangobean.