2/2
After he'd dropped off their crews in Ghana and the US, Fletcher brought Vex and Low to England. France was last in line, and they would soon come to regret that decision.
"Ready?" Fletcher asked the Monster Hunters as he arrived in front of them.
"Ready to hunt some monsters?" Donegan half-heartedly joked, "you must be confusing us with someone else."
Fletcher smiled at the comment with a similar lack of enthusiasm. He held out his arm, and the other men grabbed on. Yet, when he teleported to the courtyard of the castle that housed the French Sanctuary, they only stayed there for about two seconds.
All Fletcher could see, before his survival instincts automatically kicked in, was that there wasn't a single human being left there. All of the noise and chaos came from thousands of screeching vodun creatures.
In the very next moment, they were back in Diamond's house. The men looked at each other in utter shock.
"What was that?" Gracious asked, eyes wide with horror, "what just happened?" But they all knew what had just happened.
"Fletch... Take us to a vantage point nearby..." Donegan murmured.
Fletcher nodded and, as the other men still held on to him, immediately teleported again. He chose a spot further away that would give them a decent view over the building. The pretty Romance-era castle was nestled into a hilly countryside. Sweeping wine lands and orchards expanded from it in all directions, providing food and drink for the habitants. Hillswept forests continued beyond that, providing cover and privacy for the secret community.
Yet, when the men appeared on a sunny hilltop nearby, they didn't waste a second on taking in the picturesque scenery. All of their focus was locked onto the swarm of monsters that had taken over the sanctuary. There wasn't a single sign of life anywhere, other than the herd of warped and twisted souls that scuttled across the castle's courtyards.
From over here, it almost looked like an invasion of aggressive poisonous ants, as the creatures used their unnaturally long limbs to scramble up each wall and tower of the building.
"Holy shit..." Gracious mumbled.
The other men, feeling equally as horrified and defeated, didn't see the need to add anything. They stood there for a while, watching the monsters scurry from afar, listening to the echos of their shrill terrifying noise. They thought of how many people had just been brutally murdered - not just here, but all across the world.
Eventually, they were interrupted by the ringtone of Fletcher's phone. He quickly picked up.
"Fletcher, meet us by the gates!" Skulduggery called over the distinct noise of another monster army, "now!"
He hung up and turned to the Monster Hunters. "Gotta get to Ghana."
They held on to his shoulders, and he took them back to the monster-free zone of Diamond's house. Once the hunters were safe there, he immediately teleported to the spot outside the Ghanaian Sanctuary gates.
Fletcher appeared inside a clearing, underneath the hot sun. But this wasn't the type of pleasant sunny clearing surrounded by trees and woods. No, this was a clearing surrounded by a forest of monsters. He froze and stared in disbelief. His instant reflex was to teleport back to safety right away.
"Fletch!" Valkyrie's voice called behind him, "over here!"
He turned and saw Grand Mage Onwu, followed by Valkyrie and Skulduggery. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that he hadn't just been tricked into an ambush. Glad to put some distance between himself and the creatures, Fletcher ran towards the rescue party, arm outstretched and ready to teleport.
The three of them reached him, and he took them to Diamond's place. There was no sign of Gracious and Donegan in the entrance area; they had probably retreated deeper into the house in order to leave space for new arrivals.
"Well," Skulduggery stated, "that was a close call. I believe we owe you a thanks, Grand Mage."
"Feel free to keep it..." Onwu absentmindedly murmured. There was no malice to it; his usually sharp eyes were a bit glazed-over in thought. He didn't look like celebrating the downfall of his sanctuary, or whatever heroic action had brought them here.
Fletcher's cellphone rang again. "Oop!" he said as he recognized Tanith's number. "That'll be England."
He teleported to the entrance area of the British Sanctuary. There were no monsters here yet, only the usual crowds of regular humans. Weirdly enough, there also wasn't an Elder or any of his friends to be seen anywhere.
"Huh," Fletcher said and picked up the call. "Hey, I'm here. Where are you?"
Tanith answered with a weird tone of voice. Usually she reserved most forms of niceness from him, probably so he wouldn't get his hopes up. He did so anyway, but this wasn't what mattered at the moment. What mattered was that she was being nice now, maybe even a little meak.
"Hey, Fletcher... We're by the bunker..."
He frowned confusedly. "What are you doing down there? I can't teleport to the basement."
"Yeah, so... About that..." Tanith dragged on, and he could virtually hear her sway her body in an apologetic fashion.
He heard an annoyed grunt from a familiar male voice. "Give me that," it demanded.
There was a scratching sound as someone claimed the phone for themselves. A moment later, Grand Mage Penn was talking to him.
"Mister Renn, if you and your friends want to take me away from my sanctuary, you'll have to pick me up from here," he coolly informed him. "I won't be risking my place in the secure bunker for some bogus rogue mission."
"By the time we get back here, this place will be swamped," Fletcher argued, "going there and back is a waste of time!"
"No, this conversation is a waste of time. You should know that the teleportation block doesn't apply when you're teleporting with the Grand Mage, aka me. Now, run along. The doors will be closing in two minutes."
"Two minutes?!" he echoed in shock, "but the bunker is five minutes away from here!"
"Well then, I suppose you'll just have to run fast."
Fletcher couldn't believe his own ears. "But Sir, I don't-"
Penn impatiently cut him off. "That's an order, Mister Renn."
He scoffed, equally stressed and at a loss of words. The phone on the other end was reclaimed, and Tanith's voice returned.
"I'm so sorry, Fletcher..." she said. "We really tried."
"Unbelievable!" he growled and started running. "Ugh! I hate this job!"
Before Tanith could say anything else apologetic, Fletcher hung up to focus on running. He pocketed his phone and used both hands to push through the crowd, calling at people to get out of the way. Far too slowly for his liking, he made it towards the stairs that led to the basement. He stumbled down it, taking two steps at a time, and almost ran into someone as he turned the next corner.
As he chased past them, most people looked rather surprised by the sight of a stressed Fletcher Renn, valiantly running through the sanctuary halls. This was something they expected of Skulduggery Pleasant or Valkyrie Cain, but not of him. Renn is a teleporter, they were probably thinking, why was the teleporter running?
Fletcher would have been happy to tell them why. This job; that was why. He hated it. He hated being the bus. He hated being ordered around. And more than anything, he hated running.
He growled and used his frustration to push himself harder. His breath was already running out, his muscles were already aching, and he hadn't even made it halfway there yet.
Fletcher slowed his run just enough to reach into his pocket when his phone rang again. It was Nuke. He was probably calling to be picked up. He was probably in mortal danger and needed rescuing right the hell now. And Fletcher was down here, still running.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." he anxiously chanted as he stormed down another staircase.
He suppressed the urge to pick up Nuke's call. There was no use, he couldn't teleport from here, and he likely wouldn't be able to utter a coherent sentence anyway. But he let the phone ring inside his sweaty hand, using the nagging sound to push forward. He tried running faster, but he was getting seriously tired, and his legs only seemed to want to slow down.
The deeper Fletcher went into the underground level of the former prison complex, the less people passed him by. This gave the place an undeniably eerie vibe, but at least there wasn't anyone here to stand in his way.
Finally! He turned a corner and spotted Grand Mage Penn. He was standing in front of the reinforced doors of the emergency bunker, along with his two Elders and Tanith and Dexter.
But alas, Fletcher was too slow. Just as he saw them, the doors of the bunker began to close. The two Elders quickly rushed inside, before they could be locked out.
"No, WAIT!" Fletcher called, voice scratching from how out of breath he was.
Grand Mage Penn faltered and saw Fletcher, running towards him. He glanced at the closing doors and his two Elders beyond them. Then, he turned towards the bunker.
"Don't you dare!" Fletcher gasped, "don't you dare... let him go... in there!"
Tanith and Dexter glanced at each other. Fetcher could barely look straight for exhaustion, but he thought to see them smirk. Then, like they had rehearsed this, they simultaneously grabbed Penn by the shoulders.
"Hey, what on Earth are you...?!" Penn began to shout in outrage, trying to wiggle himself free, but he was no match for the both of them.
Fletcher had finally made it. Tanith and Dexter shoved the Grand Mage off-balance, towards him. He grabbed Penn's flailing hand, waited for two more hands to connect with him, and teleported.
Penn caught his step, paused, and looked around in Diamond's house. He scoffed in disbelief. "You can't do this!" he immediately argued, "take me back to my people, this instance!"
Fletcher wasn't in the position to argue or take orders. He doubled over and frantically sucked air into his lungs.
When the teleporter wasn't helpful, he turned around to Dexter. "This is kidnapping, this is...!"
"Sway Penn," China's voice cut in, calm as it was sharp. "Will you compose yourself."
Penn swirled around to tell off whoever had dared to insult him. But when he saw Grand Mage Sorrows and Grand Mage Onwu, standing in the doorway behind Skulduggery, he faltered.
"Oh," Penn said and cleared his throat. "You two are here as well."
"And there are about to be more of us, so quit your whining."
He cleared his throat again, "yes... Yes, Ma'am."
"Speaking of," Skulduggery said to Fletcher, "have you heard from any of the other Grand Mages?"
Fletcher was still exhausted and hot and out of breath, and he was sweating even more than during the exercise. But he had recovered just enough to make a coordinated jump. Nuke had called him several minutes ago; who knew what kind of trouble he and Diamond were in by now. If they were still alive...
"On it," Fletcher breathed. He straightened up with a deep inhale, gathered his dwindling strength, and forced his magic to the surface.
It used to be, he needed to focus hard on a location - clearly invision it inside his mind. Nowadays, when he'd already been to a place a couple of times, Fletcher didn't need a visual image anymore. All he needed was the feeling he associated with that place, and this strategy thankfully didn't require too much work from his oxygen-deprived brain.
Fletcher therefore needed a second to realize that he had appeared in the middle of a monster horde, once again. He came to his senses quite quickly after that. Claws were flailing all around him, the broken glass doors were shattered beneath his feet, and a horrid alarm was wailing from the speakers.
Fletcher teleported back to the house. A couple pairs of eyes surprisedly turned to him.
"Okay, that was bad. Trying again!" he announced, and teleported back.
This time around, Fletcher moved far away from the broken front doors, and towards the very back of the reception hall. If he wasn't mistaken, he had heard the sound of Nuke's explosions somewhere over there.
Fletcher appeared inside a spot with way less monsters. There were still alot of them, but they weren't quite as close. He glanced around and spotted a flash of Diamond's red hair. She seemed to be on her own and was shielding Paige Arrephoros. He teleported to the spot next to her.
"Fletcher, thank goodness you're alive!" Diamond called when she saw him.
"You're telling me!"
They both looked at Nuke, standing several steps ahead of them, and cried out in shock. Nuke was about to be mowed down by monsters, but for some reason, he was moving towards them. One of his arms was insanely reaching for something inside the chaos.
"Nuke!" Diamond called and quickly reached for something on her hip.
She was suddenly holding some type of leathern handle. She snapped her arm forward and a lash shot from its tip and zipped towards Nuke. Fletcher just about recognized this as a whip, as the lash snapped against Nuke's wrist and wrapped itself around it. It kept him from diving into the wall of incoming monsters, pulling him back towards safety.
"Fletcher, now!" Diamond called.
Realizing that there now was a tether between them and their friend, he grabbed Diamond and teleported. Just in time before Nuke could get eaten alive.
Fletcher breathed a sigh of relief when they appeared back inside the safe townhouse, but no one else seemed to share his sentiment. Diamond looked sad, Arrephoros looked shaken, and Nuke wasn't moving. He was standing there, one arm wrapped up in Diamond's curious whip, one arm hovering in the air.
"Nuke?" Fletcher carefully asked.
He didn't respond, he just lowered his arm. Arrephoros burst out crying, and Diamond moved in to comfort her. The glum look that she gave Fletcher suggested, something bad had happened in his absence. Whatever had happened, he blamed Penn.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie walked into the entrance area, a group of Grand Mages in tow. Behind them, Tanith, Dexter, and the Monster Hunters were craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the latest arrivals.
Grand Mage Onwu walked closer and put a hand on Arrephoros's shoulder. She looked up at him, and they seemed to be familiar with each other, as she gladly leaned on him instead of Diamond.
When the American Grand Mage had somewhat collected herself, Skulduggery looked around at everyone assembled. "We're incomplete," he noted, "where is Grand Mage Puissance?"
The Monster Hunters exchanged a deeply discomforted look, which spoke volumes before they did.
"I'm sorry, Skulduggery. France got hit first," Gracious somberly informed him. "The sanctuary was already leveled by the time we got there. It was pretty horrific..."
Some nervous whispers and glum murmurs were exchanged amongst the different group members. None of the Grand Mages looked remotely gleeful about these news.
Skulduggery softly groaned. "They never listen to me," he muttered, just loud enough for Fletcher to hear. "Not until everything's on fire..."
Fletcher hated to admit it but, today, he wholeheartedly agreed with him.
"Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, we should all count ourselves lucky," Skulduggery officially said to the Grand Mages, although his voice didn't suggest that he felt especially lucky. "Your Elders have fought valiantly for your freedom. But sadly, we have lost France."
The whispers faded and a quiet moment developed, which could almost qualify as a minute of memorial silence. While most seemed to think of the colleagues they had lost, Onwu looked most affected by the loss of the French Grand Mage.
Fletcher glanced at Arrephoros. Her shoulders hunched like she was still waiting to be buried under falling debris. She hadn't said a word since they'd arrived. Not even Penn dared to speak.
"Now, as we are technically all here..." Skulduggery began to say.
"Wait!" Valkyrie suddenly called. A look of shock had entered her features that suggested, she had just remembered something of vital importance.
Everyone paused and looked at her, but Valkyrie only looked at Diamond. And as the women's eyes locked, Diamond seemed to remember too.
"Ninja." they both said.
As they said it, the same bomb dropped in Fletcher's mind. He heard Arrephoros gasp. He sharply glanced at Nuke, who looked oddly glum with concern.
"Dammit!" Valkyrie hissed as she turned back to Skulduggery, "Ninja and Reverie, they're still at the hospital!"
Skulduggery looked about as shocked as they were, but not quite as quick to the draw. "Now, hold on. The hospital is part of the Sanctuary. You don't know if..."
But he wouldn't get any further than that. Valkyrie looked at Diamond again, and both women looked at Fletcher and Nuke. Finally, the four of them looked at Skulduggery.
"Sorry," they all said in canon.
Nuke held on to Fletcher, who teleported closer to the women and grabbed them too. He could just about hear Skulduggery call something to stop them, but his voice was cut off two words into the sentence. A moment later, they were standing in the entrance area of the hospital wing.
Fletcher fully expected to enter a situation similar to France and the US. They immediately swirled around, prepared to be met by yet another swarm of monsters. And there were indeed monsters here but, miraculously, they hadn't made it all that far into the building.
The four of them paused and stared in awe for a moment. Ninja Norocosul and Doctor Synecdoche were keeping the horde at bay, preventing it from ever advancing past the automatic sliding doors of the entrance. And they were doing so, with grenades.
Apparently, Synecdoche had fashioned some chemical bombs and Molotov cocktails from the various chemicals available at the hospital. She was currently priming them, by pouring some reactive liquid into glass flasks, or by lighting up strips of gauze that were stuck in bottles of pure sterilization alcohol. Whenever a grenade was primed, she handed it to Ninja. And Ninja seemed to be having a good amount of fun, throwing the grenades at the entrance and watching the monsters burn.
"Oh, hello!" Reverie called over the noise of squealing creatures as she passed Ninja a chemical bomb. "We were hoping you'd come soon!"
"Sorry it took us so long!" Valkyrie called back. "Looks like you've been handling yourselves, though!"
"Yes, now we just need to figure out how to get all of the patients out of here!"
They paused and uneasily glanced at each other.
"I can't teleport to and from patient rooms," Fletcher contritely told her. "We'd have to move them all out into this area."
"We can't do that, they aren't safe out here, and we can't hold the monsters back for much longer!" Reverie impatiently responded. "This is the emergency room, most of them can't even walk!"
"Yeah," Diamond sadly said, "we know that."
Ninja and the Doctor both sharply turned their heads around to her, inactively staring in shock for a second.
"No," Synecdoche then sternly said, and they focused back on the grenades.
"Reverie..." Diamond tried.
"No!" she barked and - apparently out of sheer frustration - threw the next Molotov cocktail, herself. "I'm not abandoning my patients!"
"Reverie, they're already gone."
She shook her head, face contorting to a look of sheer defiance, as she conjured up a chemical grenade. "No, I won't leave here until they've had a fighting chance!"
"Me too!" Ninja declared and tossed the grenade.
Diamond sharply sighed and looked at her companions. "You stay here and help, I'll make an announcement."
She jogged away towards the reception desk. After a short moment of analyzing the equipment, she pulled up a microphone and pushed a button. Her voice now resonated from the different speakers around the hospital.
"Patients and staff, please evacuate toward the main entrance. Help others if you're able. I repeat, please evacuate toward the main entrance."
As Diamond hung up and hurried back to them, they focused on helping to push back the monsters. Valkyrie shot some lightning bolts into the crowd, and Nuke blew up whoever came close enough.
"Fletcher," Diamond instructed as she arrived, "take them somewhere safe. Remote, but in walking distance of civilization, and ideally with a roof over their heads and access to electricity."
He nodded and headed towards the developing group of patients and staff, who were pouring into the entrance hall. Some were on stretchers, some could slowly walk with the help of others. Many of the patients were visibly terrified at the sight of the encroaching monsters, but the bravest staff members uttered soothing reassurances to them.
Fletcher quickly tried to think of a good target destination and decided on a large abandoned barn he had once found in the Scottish Highlands. There was an old generator in the back, along with some fuel tanks and a water filter. The roof was a bit leaky but it would shield them from the worst. The closest town was about thirty minutes away by foot, and if he remembered correctly, it even had a little hospital.
"Everybody hold on to somebody!" he announced, and the current group of mages quickly did so. He grabbed one of the closest stretchers and teleported.
Many of the patients weren't in a state to handle a transport like this, and they promptly puked their guts out. Fletcher didn't have time to be apologetic. He went back to the hospital, grabbed the next group of people, and took them to the barn too.
As he went back-and-forth like this, Fletcher occasionally paused inside the emergency room and glanced at the others. Ninja and Reverie were running out of materials for their grenades. They had about five of them left, and Ninja had switched over to throwing fireballs, leaving the healer to brandish the rest.
Fletcher teleported a group of people, then he checked again. Nuke and Valkyrie were slowly advancing now, as more and more monsters made it through their defenses. Time was running out, but there were still patients coming to the entrance in the hopes of being saved by Fletcher.
The hospital became the barn, and the barn became the hospital again. He glanced back towards his friends. One of the monsters had made it further than the others. It avoided Reverie's last grenade, darted underneath a flash of Valkyrie's lightning, dodged a detonation from Nuke, and was entirely unbothered by a fireball from Ninja.
Fletcher stopped teleporting and watched in horror, as the monster rammed into Doctor Synecdoche. His friends cried out in alarm and grabbed for the creature, as its long claws sliced open her abdomen.
Reverie screamed in horror and agony, as the monster clawed at her until her intestines were falling out from her belly. But still, she was squirming and fighting in an attempt to escape.
Diamond and Ninja were growling with effort as they tried to haul the monster off her. Even with the help of Diamond's magic, they weren't strong enough. Meanwhile, Valkyrie and Nuke quickly remembered to ward off the monsters before more could reach them, but too many of them had made it through the doors by now. Fletcher teleported closer and tried to help with pulling the monster off the Doctor, but he could barely get a grip on its twitchy limbs.
Something shiny suddenly flashed beneath them, and Fletcher just about caught a glimpse of a big scalpel, clutched in Synecdoche's hand. With a long pained battle cry, she returned the monster's favor. She stabbed it, and then brutally dragged the scalpel all the way through its abdomen, from its sternum down to its pelvis.
The monster opened up, and buckets of black blood and organs sloshed down on Reverie. Its lifeless body slumped on top of her.
They finally managed to drag the monster off her. Reverie was still breathing, her eyes were hazy but wide open. Yet, she was completely covered in the blood and liquid of her insides, as well as the insides of the monster. Ninja was hysterical, trying to twist out of a constraining hug from Diamond.
"Val! Nuke!" Fletcher called, "quick, we gotta go!"
They didn't need to be told twice. They had recently switched to hand-to-hand combat, and they looked glad to run away now. Simultaneously, they looked just as horrified and concerned at Reverie's state as the rest of them. Everyone quickly held on to one friend or another.
Fletcher took them all to Diamond's house. When they got there, none of them were relieved to be safe. Synecdoche was quite the opposite of safe; she was quickly dying. Her breathing was flat and her lungs were audibly filling up with blood.
As the other people present in the house walked in to see what was going on, Nuke and Fletcher kept them from getting any closer. Everyone gasped in shock at what they saw, even China gave a sound of surprise. Skulduggery pushed through the crowd and joined the other men in creating a physical barrier for some sense of privacy.
The women dropped to their knees by Reverie's side. Ninja was crying and incoherent, she was mostly saying "no," over and over again. Diamond and Valkyrie were doing their best to assess the situation but it was long clear. Even if any of them had the ability to treat wounds this severe, they didn't have access to the necessary equipment. And even then, it would've been virtually impossible to clean the monster's rancid bodily fluids off her exposed internal organs.
"Come on, Ladies..." Reverie croaked, with a tone of irony that was diminished by her gurgling voice. "Let's not kid ourselves..."
The other women looked at each other. Valkyrie looked dead serious, Diamond looked like she was at the verge of tears.
Ninja glanced between them, shook her head in a panic, and tried to wiggle herself free from Diamond's hug. Diamond just held her tighter, pulling her head against her chest, and Ninja stopped struggling and began sobbing uncontrollably.
"Thank you," Diamond said to Reverie as she petted Ninja's hair. "For taking such good care of her."
Reverie made a semi-successful attempt at a smile. "Yeah... You'll keep her safe from here, right?" she asked both of them.
"Of course," Valkyrie smiled back and gently took her bloody hand. She looked so calm. She always looked so calm in moments like these. Calm, or maybe... removed. Not really there.
"Nuke?" Diamond asked. Her voice was a bit hoarse, as a pair of tears came loose from her eyes. "Would you get my kit please?"
Nuke nodded beside Fletcher and got moving. He walked to the hallway closet and pulled out a red backpack that was marked with a white First Aid cross. He brought it over to Diamond, and she murmured something to him that seemed to include the word Morphine.
He rummaged around in the bag until he pulled out a glass vial, likely filled with Morphine, along with a clean syringe. Nuke looked a bit lost of what to do with it, and Diamond was busy holding Ninja, so Valkyrie pulled the equipment from his hands. She didn't have the medical expertise either, but she didn't have to know how much medicine to give Synechdoche. At this stage, the correct dosage was simply; all of it.
With just the faintest of tremors in her fingers, Valkyrie pulled the cap off with her teeth and filled the syringe with Morphine, all the way up to the top. She stabbed the needle into Reverie's shoulder and emptied the full syringe into her veins.
Noticing this, Ninja grew hysterical again. She tended to do this; throw herself at the friends she had lost, although Fletcher was never sure what she was planning to do once she got there.
Nuke was the one to step in this time. He and Diamond pulled her up and away. Fletcher felt inclined to help, and they managed to take her to another room. The two partners stayed inside with Ninja, and Fletcher shut the door behind them.
He turned around to watch Reverie take her last breath. Valkyrie was holding her hand again, but the Doctor's gaze was directed at the door, behind which Ninja had just disappeared. There was a thought in her eyes, some final words that she might have wanted to say. But the Morphine hit before she got the chance.
First, being relieved of the pain was clearly an ecstatic experience. Her eyes rolled back and fluttered shut with a sigh of ease. Next, the overdose kicked in. Her shredded body convulsed, once, twice. Bloody foam trickled from the edges of her mouth. Her breathing ceased, and her hand went slack in Valkyrie's grasp. And finally, Doctor Reverie Synecdoche was dead.