Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [65]
Despite the alarming turn of events, there was still protocol to be followed, still rules to obey and pay heed to. Wreath was a senior Cleric with the ear of the High Priest, but even he had to slow down and wait like everyone else if he wanted to see the Director of Storage. It was a mundane title that suggested pedantry and a multitude of lists, but the reality was much different. The Director of Storage was the person who oversaw and controlled equipment and food supplies, and as such, he acted within a bubble of his own authority. Wreath was kept waiting almost ten minutes before he was told that the Director would see him now.
Cleric Bertrand Solus didn’t bother to raise his eyes from the papers on his desk as Wreath walked in. He was a busy man. There was only one chair in the office, and Solus was sitting on it.
“Yes?” Solus said, his pen scratching ink on to parchment. Why these people couldn’t invest in a computer was beyond Wreath’s understanding.
“Sanctuary agents have us surrounded,” Wreath said.
“I am aware of the situation.”
“To keep them out until the Death Bringer regains her strength, we need to collapse the auxiliary tunnels and barricade the main door.”
“As I said, I am aware.”
“But there is one tunnel that we do not know the location of.”
Finally, Solus’s pen stopped scratching, and he raised his eyes.
“You have your own tunnel,” Wreath continued. “You use it to bring in supplies you don’t want anyone to know about. I’ve never had a problem with this. You do your job well, and if sometimes you feel that you are best served by secrecy, who am I to say different?”
“Why are you here?” Solus asked.
“I don’t want to collapse your tunnel. I want to use it. If things go bad, I want as many personnel as possible to get to safety. The Sanctuary agents know about some of our tunnels, but not all. I doubt they have any idea about a tunnel so secret that it doesn’t even exist in any official capacity.”
“It’s not wide,” said Solus, “and it’s long. If the Temple is breached, you could use it to evacuate perhaps ten or twelve people at a time. Any more, and it would be discovered.”
“Twelve people at a time, then,” Wreath said. “The first of which shall be the Death Bringer, the White Cleaver and ten senior Clerics. Yourself included, of course. Where is the entrance?”
Solus regarded him with cautious, wary eyes. “The small storage room below us,” he said. “The tunnel is two miles long. It emerges into a small warehouse the Temple owns through three different subsidiaries. There are vehicles in the warehouse, enough to take a substantial number to a safe house.”
“Thank you very much for your co-operation, Cleric,” Wreath said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have much to arrange.”
Solus waved him away, his pen already scratching as Wreath left his office.
Chapter 25
The Vivid Dead
he world felt different to her now, ever since the Surge. It even looked different: paler, more vague. Less real. The people looked different too. She could see, for the first time, how glassy and unfocused their eyes were, how translucent their skin. She thought, if she concentrated hard enough, that she’d be able to see through them, to the underneath, to the blood and the veins and bones. She wondered if that would reassure her that all this was real. She doubted it.
The White Cleaver was at the door. He stood like a statue, his scythe held in one hand. He was real to her. He was solid. He was as different to a zombie as humans were to apes, but he was still a dead thing. And as such, she didn’t even have to look at him to know he was there. She could feel him. She didn’t know how, she couldn’t explain it, but while everyone else had become vague and distant, he was the one clear thing she could latch on to for comfort.
The other man in the room, another guard, was so insubstantial he was almost a ghost. She’d spoken to him a few times, and before the Surge he had appeared perfectly normal. But she was seeing things differently now. She reached out with her mind, trying