Woah Leif... That's really GOOD! 
Hugo's FAR more interesting than I thought!! 
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wow, powerful stuff, and an interesting viewpoint from an oft overlooked villain group.
ho-ly sh-it, thats really good, well done. more i say, more !
Euthan sat hunched over an old chess set. He was alone in the old store room; unless you counted the skulls that had been placed carefully along off-setting lines about the room. It made more sense to count them than it might seem: not all of the empty eye-sockets were blind.
Lanky, ginger-haired and with a face full of freckles, Euthan looked out of place among the morbid display. He looked more like a carefree college student, more interested in Guiness than in necromancy. He certainly did not look like a rising star in the Skull's leadership. It was easy to underestimate him and some of the half-blind skulls in the room belonged to rivals that had done just that.
The chess set he was toying with was crudely made, but that was part of its charm. The black pieces had been carved from the headstone of an executed murderer, the board was made from a piece of his coffin. The white pieces; well, if the murderer had been cremated rather than buried, there wouldn't have been any white pieces.
There was power in the chess set. A child's power. Euthan smiled a thin, self-ironic smile, thinking back to the time when he had been excited by such trifling magic. Had he really been that ignorant? That powerless? He shook his head and on a whim moved his remaining knight forward to threaten the white king. He studied the position for a long moment, then smiled in satisfaction. He had just felt a faint trembling in the lines of darkness that stretcheh along the rows of skulls. Death had just entered the room. It was about time.
"I know you are here, dead man. You might as well come forward." Euthanos said and leant back in his chair, grinning with anticipation.
A man stepped out of the shadows by the side entrance and into the muted light of the slow-burning candles that lit the center of the room.
He was sickly looking; his skinned sallowed and seemingly pulled taut over his bones; his cheeks sunken and his fingers thin and boney. His hair was blond, but so lackluster it seemed almost grey. It was as if all the colours of him had been muted, sun-bleached by time. Only his eyes were fully alive, narrowed, quick, glittering with suppressed anger.
There was a faint whiff of chemicals about him; naphtalene and benzene; moth-balls and preservatise. To Euthanos' trained senses that was just an undercurent -- the whole man reeked of death; the cold, neutral smell of salt and dry ash.
"Where's the girl?" the man asked curtly.
Euthan frowned, annoyed by the man's cliched insistence on dealing with trivialities when there was so much power to be found within him. Heroes, so predictable in their inane concerns.
"See for yourself, de Carteret." Euthanos said and reached to press a switch besides his chair that had been prepared for just this moment. Behind him, a spot-light came to life.
Euthanos watched the man's face in anticipation; knowing the sight that had just been revealed. The girl they had taken as bait and killed. At first it would seem as if she was just standing there, but then he'd notice how her feet was not touching the floor and how she was swinging very gently. Or maybe he would notice the look on her face first; the blue lips, the glazed eyes, the muscles contorted with the pain.
The man's reaction was disappointing. He only looked matter of factly at the girl for a second or two. His jaws set a little more with anger, his eyes narrowing a little bit more; but there was no shock there, hardly even surprise.
"I see." the man stated curtly, and without even an angry outburst or an insult, he started singing. It was a broken, staccato singing; the man had forgotten the words, and most of the notes, but still it held great power. The unearthly sound washed over Euthan, crashing against him like a great wave breaking on a hidden skerry, and for a moment he felt fear.
Then he sensed his defenses working; the power of the song diverted, flowing around him, and the fear turned to elation. The mambo had told the truth; this revenant knew the chants of Charon, the music of Styx. What secrets this man would be the key to. What power. Euthan started laughing.
The man stopped singing when he heard the laugh. He frowed and watched Euthan with wary anger.
"Hah! Did you think your music could harm me, Hugo de Carteret? Me! I who have drunk the water of the Lethe from my brother's skull. I who have eaten the heart of Anpu the jackal. I who know the eight mysteries of the thugee. You thought you could hold power over me?" Euthan asked, roaring in helpless, elated laughter. The power that would be his!
The revenant did not answer, only stared coldly at the laughing Skull and reached into his pocket and took out a small silver snuff-box. He opened the box and took out a small pinch of tobacco; sniffed it into his nose and waited for Euthan to stop laughing.
Eventually Euthan did. The lanky necromancer rose from his chair, towering over the slightly dimute de Carteret. Euthan smiled broadly, basking in triumph.
"What now, dead man? What will you do now that you find yourself powerless? What will you do now that you know true power. Will you beg? Will you tremble? Will you worship?" Euthan's eyes shone with crazed ambition. He knew he was rambling, talking only to prolong the moment, but this moment was just too sweet not to savour.
"I think I will change the tune." de Carteret said evenly and returned the silver snuff-box to his pocket.
There was a great deal of noise.
When the noise had faded, Euthan was slunk sprawling back in the chair, dead. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. The look on his frozen face was of surprised disbelief mixed with disappointment, as if he had lost a game of cards due to cheating.
Hugo paused for a moment, studying the game of chess Euthan had been playing. He looked over at the girl he had been unable to rescue, then to the corpse of her murderer. He shifted his grip on his Webley revolver and brought it down forcefully, smashing the black king to pieces.
He put the revolver back into the pocket with the snuff box and gave the poor girl a final look before turning around and walking away. There would be a reckoning.