First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010

Reissued in this edition in 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Skulduggery Pleasant rests his weary bones on the web at:

www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk

Derek Landy blogs under duress at

www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

Text copyright © Derek Landy 2010

Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2010

Skulduggery Pleasant logoTM HarperCollinsPublishers

Skulduggery Pleasant ©TM Derek Landy

Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com

Cover illustration © Tom Percival

Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007326013

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007414352

Version: 2019-04-15

This book is dedicated, with great reluctance, to my editor, Nick Lake, because he is forcing me to.

Personally, I would have liked to include Gillie Russell and Michael Stearns who, along with Nick, really welcomed me into the publishing world with my first book.

Unfortunately, because Nick is now my sole editor, he has threatened to edit this dedication down to an unrecognisable mess of blacked-out lines, and so as a result this dedication is to him, and him alone.

Personally I think that this shows a staggering amount of and , which proves that Nick is nothing but a with for , but hey, that’s just my personal opinion.

Here, Nick. You finally get a book dedicated to you.

Hope you’re happy.

.

(Editor’s Note: Nick Lake is a great guy.)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1. Wreath’s Task

Chapter 2. The Smiling Detective

Chapter 3. Tesseract

Chapter 4. Grander Scales

Chapter 5. Valkyrie’s Dilemma

Chapter 6. The New Messiah

Chapter 7. Blood

Chapter 8. The Zombie King

Chapter 9. The New Grand Mage

Chapter 10. The Bonebreaker

Chapter 11. The Roarhaven Mages

Chapter 12. Keeping a Straight Face

Chapter 13. Suffering

Chapter 14. Dead Men

Chapter 15. The Banshee

Chapter 16. The Interrogation of Davina Marr

Chapter 17. The Job

Chapter 18. Licking Wounds

Chapter 19. Christmas Morning at the Midnight Hotel

Chapter 20. ’Tis the Season

Chapter 21. Nye

Chapter 22. Soul Searching

Chapter 23. The Grave

Chapter 24. The Dead Girl

Chapter 25. Dirt

Chapter 26. The Truth

Chapter 27. Back With Finbar

Chapter 28. The Z-Word

Chapter 29. Her Guardian Angel

Chapter 30. Meet the Parents

Chapter 31. The First Wave

Chapter 32. Shenanigans

Chapter 33. The Twins

Chapter 34. Remnants Unleashed

Chapter 35. Scrutinous

Chapter 36. Quiet, Please

Chapter 37. Enemy Hands

Chapter 38. Fighting

Chapter 39. Muriel

Chapter 40. The Plan

Chapter 41. The Head in the Box

Chapter 42. The Lesson Begins

Chapter 43. By the Sword

Chapter 44. Siege at the Hibernian

Chapter 45. Frightening

Chapter 46. According to Plan

Chapter 47. Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 48. Plan Falls Apart

Chapter 49. Following the Key

Chapter 50. Macgillycuddy’s Reeks

Chapter 51. The Receptacle

Chapter 52. New Year’s Eve

Chapter 53. Tenebrae

Chapter 54. Enemies

Chapter 55. The Return

Keep Reading …

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

About the Publisher

he doors swung open and High Priest Auron Tenebrae strode into the room, his robe swirling around his tall, narrow frame. To his right was Quiver, a miser with words, but overly generous with withering glares. To Tenebrae’s left, Craven, a bland sycophant, possessed of an uncanny skill to worm his way into his superior’s good graces. Solomon Wreath had been seeing far too much of all three lately.

“Cleric Wreath,” Tenebrae said, nodding imperiously at him.

“Your Eminence,” Wreath responded, bowing deeply. “To what do I owe the honour?”

“Why do you think we’re here?” Craven said, almost sneered. “You’re late with your report. Did you think the High Priest would forget? Do you think him a fool?”

“I do not think him a fool, no,” Wreath answered calmly. “But as to the intelligence of the people who accompany him, I’m afraid I cannot say.”

“An insult!” Craven screeched. “How dare you! How dare you use a derogatory tone in the presence of the High Priest!”

“Enough,” Tenebrae sighed, “both of you. Your constant bickering tries my patience.”

“My humblest apologies,” Craven said immediately, bowing and closing his eyes, his lower lip trembling on the verge of tears. A magnificent performance, as usual.

“Yes,” Wreath said. “Sorry about that.”

“Despite Cleric Craven’s overt dramatics,” Tenebrae said, “he is quite correct to point out that you are late with your report. How is Valkyrie Cain progressing through her studies?”

“She’s a fast learner,” said Wreath. “As far as the practical side goes anyway. She’s a natural at shadow casting, and every time I see her she’s improved.”

“And the philosophical aspect?” Quiver asked.

“Is not progressing nearly as smoothly,” Wreath admitted. “She doesn’t seem to be at all interested in the history or the teachings of the Order. It’s going to take a lot to open her mind to it.”

“The skeleton has already poisoned her against us,” Tenebrae said bitterly.

“I fear you may be right. But I still think the effort is worth it.”

“And I have yet to be convinced.”

“Just because the girl is a fast learner,” Quiver said, “does not mean she is the Death Bringer.”

“Cleric Quiver speaks the truth,” Tenebrae nodded.

Wreath did his best to look humble, keeping his comments to himself. He’d been searching for their saviour, for the one who would save the world from itself, for most of his life. He knew full well the danger of false hope and blind alleys – he’d had his fair share of both. But Valkyrie Cain was different. He felt it. Valkyrie Cain was the one.

“She troubles me,” Tenebrae said. “Does she have potential? Absolutely. With training and with study, she could be the best of us. But the best of us still falls far short of what the Death Bringer should be.”

“I’ll keep working with her,” Wreath said. “In two years, maybe three, we’ll have a better understanding of what she’s capable of.”

“Three years?” Tenebrae laughed. “A lot can happen, as we have seen, in a short space of time. Serpine. Vengeous. The Diablerie. Dare we risk being sidetracked by a mistake? While we are busy testing Miss Cain, another one of Mevolent’s disciples might actually succeed in their insane goals and bring back the Faceless Ones for good. What if, as you yourself fear, Cleric Wreath, Lord Vile returns to punish us all? If that happens, our plans mean nothing. There will be no world left to save.”

“Then what does His Eminence suggest?” Wreath asked.

“We need to know if we are wasting our time with this one.”

“A Sensitive,” Craven nodded.

“We’ve tried this before,” Wreath argued. “None of our psychics are able to tell us anything.”

“Reading the future has never been a particular talent of the Necromancer Order,” Tenebrae said. “Our Sensitives are somewhat lacking when it comes to fortune-telling. But there is another I keep hearing about. Finbar something …”

“Finbar Wrong,” Wreath said. “But he knows Valkyrie personally. It would raise too many questions. Even if he didn’t know her, I doubt he’d ever aid our cause. As I keep reminding you, nobody out there likes us.”

“We’re working to save them all!” Craven barked, and this time not even the High Priest paid him any attention.

“The psychic will help us,” Tenebrae said, “and afterwards he will remember nothing about it. Cleric Wreath, I want you to take the Soul Catcher and release the Remnant we have trapped inside it.”

Wreath’s face slackened. “Your Eminence, Remnants are highly dangerous …”

“Oh, I trust your ability to handle any situation,” Tenebrae said with an airy wave of his hand. “Have it possess this Finbar person, and if he sees a future where Valkyrie Cain is the Death Bringer, and he sees her saving the world, then we can put all our energies into making sure she fulfils her potential. If he does not see this future, we forget about her, and our search continues.”

“But using the Remnant …”

“Once the job is done, simply return it to the Soul Catcher. What could be easier?”

hristmas was a few days away, and all but one of the houses on this suburban Dublin street had lights in the windows. Three of the most competitive neighbours had filled their small gardens with flickering Santas and frolicking reindeer, and some idiot had even wrapped a cable of fairy lights round the lamp post outside his gate. There was no snow, but the night was cold, and frost clung to the city like glitter.

The big car that rolled to a stop outside the house with no lights was a 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental, one of only 208 ever made. It was an exquisite car, retro-fitted with modern conveniences, adapted to the needs of its owner. It was fast, it was powerful, and if it received even the slightest of dents, it would fall apart.

That’s what the mechanic had said. He’d done all he could, used all his knowledge and all his abilities to bring this car back from the brink so many times – but the next dent, he promised, would be its last. All the tricks he’d used to keep it going, to bend it back into shape, would be counteracted. The glass would shatter, the metal would rupture, the frame would buckle, the tyres would burst, the engine would crack … The only way to avoid complete and utter catastrophe, the mechanic had said, was to make sure you weren’t in the car when all this happened.

Skulduggery Pleasant got out first. He was tall and thin, and wore a dark blue suit and black gloves. His hair was brown and wavy, and his cheekbones were high and his jaw was square. His skin was slightly waxy and his eyes didn’t seem capable of focusing, but it was a pretty good face, all things considered. One of his better ones.

Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.

“Stop doing that,” she sighed.

“Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.

“Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.”

“I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said.

They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched downwards. “Am I smiling now?”

“No.”

“Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.

Valkyrie handed him his hat. “Why don’t you get rid of the face? You’re not going to need it in here.”

“You’re the one telling me how much I should practise,” he said, but slid his gloved fingers beneath his shirt collar anyway, tapping the symbols etched into his collarbones. The face and hair retracted off his head, leaving him with a gleaming skull.

He put on his hat, cocked at a jaunty angle. “Better?” he asked.

“Much.”

“Good.” He knocked, and took out his gun. “If anyone asks, we’re scary carollers.”

Humming ‘Good King Wenceslas’ to himself, he knocked again, and still no one answered the door, and no lights came on.

“What do you bet everyone’s dead?” Valkyrie asked.

“Are you just being incredibly pessimistic,” Skulduggery asked, “or is that ring of yours telling you something?”

The Necromancer ring was cold on her finger, but no colder than usual. “It’s not telling me anything. I can only sense death through it when I’m practically standing over the dead body.”

“Which is an astonishingly useful ability, I have to say. Hold this.”

He gave her his gun, and crouched down to pick the lock. She looked around, but no one was watching them.

“It might be a trap,” she said, speaking softly.

“Unlikely,” he whispered. “Traps are usually enticing.”

“It might be a very rubbish trap.”

“Always a possibility.”

The lock clicked open. Skulduggery straightened up, put his lock picks away, and took his gun back.

“I need a weapon,” Valkyrie muttered.

“You’re an Elemental with a Necromancer ring, trained in a variety of martial arts by some of the best fighters in the world,” Skulduggery pointed out. “I’m fairly certain that makes you a weapon.”

“I mean a weapon you hold. You have a gun, Tanith has a sword … I want a stick.”

“I’ll buy you a stick for Christmas.”

She glowered as he pushed the door. It opened silently, without even a creepy old creak. Skulduggery went first and Valkyrie followed, closing the door after them. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to this level of gloom, and Skulduggery, who had no eyes for this to be a problem, waited until she tapped him before moving on. They passed through into the living room, where she tapped him again. He looked at her, and she pointed to the Necromancer ring. It was buzzing with a dreadful kind of cold energy as it fed off the death in the room.

They found the first dead body sprawled across the couch. The second was slumped in the corner, amid the wreckage of what once had been a side table. Skulduggery looked closely at each of them, then shook his head at Valkyrie. Neither was the man they were looking for.

They moved into the kitchen, where they found a third corpse, face down on the floor. Were his head not twisted all the way around, he would have been looking up at the ceiling. A bottle lay beside his hand, smashed against the tiles, and the smell of beer was still strong.

The rest of the ground floor was clear of corpses, so they went to the stairs. The first one creaked, and Skulduggery stepped back off it. He wrapped his arms around Valkyrie’s waist, and they rose off the ground and drifted up to the body on the landing. It was a woman, who had died curled up in a foetal position.

There were three bedrooms and one bathroom. The bathroom was empty, as was the first bedroom they checked. The second bedroom had scorch marks on the wall and another dead woman halfway out of a window. Valkyrie guessed this woman was the one responsible for the scorch marks – she’d tried to defend herself, then tried to run. Neither attempt had worked.

There was someone alive in the last bedroom. They could hear whoever it was in the wardrobe, trying not to make a sound. They heard a deep breath being taken as they approached, and then there was absolute silence for all of thirteen seconds. The silence ended with a ridiculously loud gasping for air. Skulduggery thumbed back the hammer of his gun.

“Come out,” he said.

The wardrobe burst open and a shrieking madman leaped out at Valkyrie. She batted down his arm, grabbed his shirt and twisted her hip into him, his shriek turning to a yelp as he hit the floor.

“Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he lay there. “Oh God, please don’t kill me.”

“If you had let me finish,” Skulduggery said, slightly annoyed, “you would have heard me say, ‘Come out, we’re not going to hurt you’. Idiot.”

“He probably wouldn’t have said idiot,” Valkyrie told the sobbing man. “We’re trying our best to be nice.”

The man blinked through his tears, and looked up. “You’re … You’re not going to kill me?”

“No, we’re not,” Valkyrie said gently, “so long as you wipe your nose right now.”

The man sniffled into his sleeve and she stood back, trying not to shiver with revulsion. He got up.

“You’re Skulduggery Pleasant,” he said. “I’ve heard about you. The Skeleton Detective.”

“Season’s greetings,” Skulduggery nodded. “This is my partner, Valkyrie Cain. And you are …?”

“My name is Ranajay. I live here with my … with my friends. It’s so nice, living next to all these normal people. We really liked living here. Me and my … Me and my friends …”

Ranajay looked like he was going to start sobbing again, so Valkyrie cut in quickly. “Who did this? Who killed everyone?”

“I don’t know. A big guy. Huge. He wore a mask, and spoke with an accent. His eyes were red.”

“What did he want?” Skulduggery asked.

“He came here looking for a friend of mine.”

Valkyrie frowned. “Ephraim Tungsten?”

“Yes,” Ranajay said. “How did you know?”

“That’s who we want to talk to. We believe he’s been in contact with a killer we’ve been tracking for five months.”

“Davina Marr, right? That detective who went bad, blew up the Sanctuary? That’s why the big guy wanted Ephraim too.”

“Do you know if Marr has been in touch with Ephraim?” Skulduggery asked.

“Oh, she has, yes. Paid him to make her a false ID and arrange to get her out of the country. That’s what Ephraim does. When people have to disappear, he takes care of it. Only this time he didn’t. I think after he realised what she’d done, he didn’t want any part of it. The detective, Marr, she came looking for everything she’d paid for after the Sanctuary fell into the ground, but he was gone. She tore this place up three times in the same month looking for him. Haven’t seen her since then. Haven’t seen Ephraim either. We all thought it’d be safer if we stayed away from him, you know? Fat lot of good that did my friends.”

“The man who killed them,” Skulduggery said, “did you tell him where Ephraim is?”

Ranajay shook his head. “Didn’t have to. I knew what he wanted to know. I think that’s the only reason he didn’t kill me. Ephraim had told me, ages ago, that the only thing he’d done for Marr was to set up places for her to stay in three spots across the city. That’s all the information the big guy wanted, just to know where Marr was staying.”

“Can you tell us the three spots?”

“Are you going after him?” asked Ranajay.

“Our main priority is Davina Marr, but the man who killed your friends has just made it to number two on our list.”

“You’ll stop him?”

“If we can.”

“You’ll kill him?”

“If we have to.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell you.”

e was a giant of a man, his thick-set muscles stretching the dusty black coat he wore, but he was quiet, she had to give him that. Smart too, to get this close to her without setting off the alarms. Probably dismantled them as he came, she thought as she flung herself through the window into the cold air. Taking his time, doing it right, the way any good assassin should. She knew who he was, of course. Killers that size tended to be conspicuous, and only one of them wore a metal mask over his scarred and misshapen face. The Russian, Tesseract.

She hit the ground and rolled, shards of broken glass accompanying her down. She reached into her jacket, found the trigger device, flicked the safety off with her thumb and pressed the red button without even taking it out of her pocket. He was up there, right now, and she would only get one chance at this.

But when there was no big explosion, she looked up to see him climbing out of the window overhead. He’d dismantled the explosives. Of course he had. Davina Marr didn’t even bother to curse. She just ran.

The ground was wet with recent rain, and she slipped in the mud and scrambled up again. All that time and effort spent fortifying this pitiful excuse for a dwelling, all for nothing. The security measures she’d placed at every conceivable entrance to the disused construction site had turned out to be useless. The traps she’d set on the metal stairs to the foreman’s office in which she’d been living had turned out to be less than useless. The big brute had entered silently and it had only been pure luck that she’d happened to look up in time.

She ran to her car, but if he was as meticulous as she thought he was, he’d already have sabotaged the engine, so she broke left, running for the tall fence that bordered the east side of the site. She heard quick footsteps behind her and decided to try to lose him in the maze of cargo containers. It was a moonless night, too dark to see much of anything, and she hoped he was finding it as difficult in this gloom as she was. There was a heavy clang, followed by footsteps on metal, and he was moving above her, across the top of the containers, aiming to cut her off before she reached the fence.

Marr doubled back, wishing that she’d had time to grab her gun off the table before she’d made that jump. Magic was all well and good, she often thought, but having a loaded gun in your hand was a reassurance like no other.

She ducked low and crept along, keeping her breathing under control. She couldn’t hear him any more. He was either still up there and not moving, or he was down here, in the muck and the mud and the dark, with her. Possibly sneaking up on her right now. Marr glanced over her shoulder, saw nothing but shadows.

She tried to remember what Tesseract’s chosen discipline was. He was an Adept, she knew that much, but beyond that, his magic was a mystery to her. She hoped it wasn’t the ability to see in the dark. That would be just typical, and it’d fit right in with how her luck had been going these past few months. All she’d wanted to do was go home, for God’s sake. Marr was from Boston, born and raised, and that’s where she wanted to die. Not here, in wet and muddy Ireland.

She got on her belly and crawled through a gap between pallets. She took another look behind her, to make sure he wasn’t reaching out to grab her ankle, and then considered her options. They weren’t great, and they weren’t many, and hiding wasn’t one of them. He’d find her eventually, probably sooner rather than later. She could try the east fence again, or she could go all the way back to the entrance at the south. Heading west was out of the question, seeing as how there was nothing there but acres of flat ground with no cover.

Marr propped herself up on her elbows, the cold wetness seeping through her clothes, and looked straight out in front, due north. There was another fence there, higher than the east side, but it was closer, and at least there were pallets and machinery she could duck behind if she needed to.

She inched forward, out through the gap, coming up on her hunkers. There were a couple of barrels stacked up on top of each other, and she hurried to them. Still no sign of Tesseract.

Running bent over, she came up around a bulldozer and made a mad dash for the next piece of cover. The chain-link fence was maybe twenty strides away. It was tall, as high as a house, taller than she’d remembered, but Marr felt sure she could jump it. She allowed herself a moment to envy the Skeleton Detective and his newfound ability to fly. That would really come in handy right about now. She gauged the distance and felt the currents in the air, reckoning that she’d need a running start to clear the fence successfully.

She looked back, making sure Tesseract wasn’t anywhere nearby. She scanned her surroundings carefully, methodically, pivoting her head slowly, on the alert for the slightest movement. It took her a full second to realise that she was looking straight at him as he ran at her. She couldn’t help it – she gave a short yelp of fright and stumbled back, tripping over her own feet.

Slipping and sliding on the wet ground, Marr scrambled for the fence. She flung her arms wide, hands open and grasping, then pulled the air in around her and lifted herself up, away from the mud. She wasn’t even halfway to the top when she realised she wasn’t going to make it. She managed to steer herself closer and reached out, fingers slipping through the links just as she started to drop. Her body swung into the rattling fence, her fingers burning. She looked down, saw him looking up, silent behind his metal mask. She started climbing, using only her hands. She glanced down. Tesseract was climbing up after her.

God, but he was quick.

It started to rain again, and the droplets soon began to sting against her face. Tesseract was closing the gap between them with alarming speed, his long arms reaching further than hers, and his great muscles hauling his body after her without tiring. As for Marr, her muscles were already complaining, and as she neared the top, they were screaming. Still, better them than her, she reckoned.

Below her, Tesseract had stalled. It looked like he’d snagged that coat of his in the fence somehow. Marr couldn’t spare the time to be smug about it, but she promised herself a smirk when this was all over.

She clambered over the top, pausing a moment to estimate how high up she was, and then let herself fall. The street rushed towards her, and as she prepared to use the air to slow her descent, she glanced at Tesseract. In an instant she saw that he hadn’t stalled, but had been cutting through the links with a knife.

As she passed him on her way down, he reached through the fence and grabbed her arm. Her body jerked and twisted. She cried out and he held her for a moment, then let her fall. She tumbled head over heels to the street below. Her shoulder hit the pavement first and shattered, and her head smacked against the concrete. Marr lay there, waiting for Tesseract to jump down and finish the job. And then a familiar car came screeching around the corner, and she blacked out.

kulduggery braked, the Bentley swerving to a perfect stop on the slippery road. Valkyrie threw the door open and jumped out. Davina Marr lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement, several bones obviously broken.

A man landed behind Marr, a big man in a metal mask, and Skulduggery appeared beside Valkyrie, gun in hand.

“You’re Tesseract,” he said. “You are, aren’t you? Who hired you? Who are you working for?”

The man, Tesseract, didn’t even look at him. His red eyes were focused on Marr. He moved towards her and Skulduggery stepped into his path. Immediately, Tesseract grabbed the gun, twisting it from Skulduggery’s grip. Skulduggery grabbed the bigger man’s elbow and wrist and wrenched, and the gun fell back into his hand.

“Get her to the car!” Skulduggery ordered, and Valkyrie grabbed Marr and started dragging her away.

As they struggled for control of the weapon, Tesseract kicked Skulduggery’s leg and Skulduggery kneed Tesseract’s thigh. They headbutted each other as they locked and counter-locked, using moves Valkyrie had never seen before. She heard the gun click, but their hands were covering it so she couldn’t see what was happening. Finally, Tesseract flipped Skulduggery over his hip, but Skulduggery took the gun with him. He rolled and came up, aiming dead-centre for Tesseract’s chest, and the fight froze.

Valkyrie shoved Marr into the back seat of the Bentley, and looked back in time to see Tesseract hold out his fist, and slowly open his hand. Six bullets fell to the ground.

“I thought it was a bit light,” Skulduggery muttered, putting the gun away.

Valkyrie considered helping, but she’d never even heard of this guy Tesseract, and she knew how dangerous it was to charge into a fight without knowing who your enemy was. Instead, she slipped in behind the wheel of the Bentley.

The priority here was Marr, and they had her, after all this time. Valkyrie wasn’t about to risk letting her escape again. She put the Bentley in reverse, like she’d done a hundred times before under Skulduggery’s tutelage, then yanked the wheel. The car spun and she put it in first. She sped away from the fight, rounded the corner and kept going. There was no other traffic on the road.

Valkyrie took another corner a little too sharply, but maintained control. Something moved in the rear-view mirror, and then Skulduggery was flying alongside the car. He nodded to her and she braked and slid over to the passenger side. Skulduggery got in behind the wheel and they took off again.

She frowned. “Are we not going back for him?”

“For Tesseract?” Skulduggery said. “Good God, no.”

“But he’s in shackles, right? You beat him?”

“I like to think I beat him in a moral sense, in that he’s an assassin and I’m not, but apart from that, no, not really.”

Valkyrie turned in her seat, looking at the dark street behind them, then settled back. “Who is he?”

“Assassin for hire, is all I know. I recognised him from his sheer size, and the fact that he wears a metal mask. I’ve never encountered him before. That’s probably a good thing. But let’s not dwell on the new enemy we might have made tonight. Let’s dwell instead on the old enemy we’ve got in the back seat. Hello, Davina. You’re under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”

Marr remained unconscious.

“Splendid,” Skulduggery said happily.

The Hibernian Cinema stood old and proud and slightly bewildered, like a senior citizen who’d wandered away from his tour group. It had no part in the Dublin that surrounded it. It hadn’t been refurbished or refitted, it didn’t have twenty screens on different floors and it didn’t have banks of concession stands. What it did have were old movie posters on its walls, frayed carpeting, a single stall for popcorn and drinks, and a certain mustiness that agitated long-dormant allergies. The one screen it did possess only ever showed one thing – the black and white image of a brick wall with a door to one side.

But beyond that screen were corridors of clean white walls and bright lighting, rooms of scientific and mystical equipment, a morgue capable of dissecting a god and a Medical Bay that Valkyrie visited on a worryingly regular basis.

Kenspeckle Grouse shambled in, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, what remained of his grey hair sticking up at odd angles. He looked grumpy, but then he always looked grumpy.

“What,” he said, “do you want?”

“We have a patient for you,” said Skulduggery, nodding to Davina Marr on the bed beside him.

Kenspeckle glared at the shackles around her wrists. “Don’t know her,” he said. “Take her to someone else. She’s your prisoner, isn’t she? Take her to one of those Sanctuary doctors, wake them up in the middle of the night.”

“We can’t do that. This is Davina Marr. She’s the one who destroyed the Sanctuary.”

Some of the grumpiness vanished from Kenspeckle’s eyes, replaced by a kind of disgusted curiosity. “This is her, then? You finally found her?” He walked closer. “She’s a bit the worse for wear, but I have to admit I’m surprised she’s still alive. Are you getting less ruthless as you get older, Detective?”

“We didn’t do this to her,” Valkyrie said, not comfortable with where Kenspeckle’s questions were heading. “We saved her, actually. She’d be dead if it wasn’t for Skulduggery.”

Kenspeckle pulled back one of Marr’s eyelids. “I put that down to your good influence, Valkyrie. But that still doesn’t explain why you haven’t taken her to the authorities. You are, after all, Sanctuary Detectives once again, are you not?”

“We want to keep this quiet,” Skulduggery said. “Things are too volatile at the moment. If we hand her over to the Cleavers, I doubt she’ll even get a trial. They’ll execute her on the spot.”

Kenspeckle traced his hands lightly around Marr’s head. “From what I remember, you’ve executed your fair share of guilty people in the past.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Professor. The fact is, I don’t believe she was working alone when she decided to destroy the Sanctuary, and I fear that her allies, or her bosses, will try to have her killed before she can name them. I’m fairly confident they’re the ones who hired the assassin.”

“Ah,” Kenspeckle said, “so it’s not mercy that stays your hand – it’s a grander scale of ruthlessness.”

Skulduggery cocked his head. “This woman is responsible for the deaths of fifty people, but there are others who also share that responsibility. They’re all going to pay.”

“Well,” Kenspeckle said, “justice can wait, can it not? Your prisoner has a serious head injury. She’s staying with me until she’s out of danger. It should be a few hours. A day at the most.”

“She’s going to need someone to stand guard over her.”

“You think she poses a threat? She’ll be unconscious until I say otherwise.”

“And what if the assassin comes looking for her?”

“First he’d have to know who she’s with, then where to find me, and lastly he’d have to get past my defences, for which he’d need an army. Leave me now. I’ll get in touch when she’s strong enough to answer your questions.”

With nothing left for them to do, they walked back to the Bentley. Valkyrie buckled her seatbelt as they pulled out on to the road. Skulduggery was using the façade again. Ghastly Bespoke’s façade gave him his own face every time, minus the scars, but Skulduggery hadn’t been able to decide on one look, so China made it so that his façade changed every time. Same cheekbones, same jaw, but all the rest was brand-new.

“Could you drop me off at Gordon’s?” Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery raised an eyebrow – a newly acquired skill. “You don’t want to go home to Haggard?”

“It’s not that, it’s just that I haven’t been to Gordon’s in a while, and it’s nearly Christmas. Around this time every year when I was a kid, we’d go up there, to his big house. I loved that part of Christmas, because, finally, someone would talk to me like I was a person, you know? A grown-up person, not a child. That’s what I loved about him the most.”

“Ah, there it is,” Skulduggery said, and nodded.

“Sorry?”

“That, right there. That story you just told. That little excerpt from your life. That’s the most annoying thing about Christmas. Everyone has these little stories about what Christmas means to them. You don’t get that at any other time of the year. You don’t get people telling you what Easter means to them, or St Patrick’s Day. But everyone opens up at Christmas time.”

“Wow,” Valkyrie said. “I never noticed before, but you’re a grouch.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re a Grinch.”

“I am neither a Grinch nor a grouch. I like Christmas as much as the next person, so long as the next person is as unsentimental as I am.”

“Sentimental’s nice.”

“You hate sentimental.”

“But not at Christmas. At Christmas, sentimental is a perfectly fine thing to be. It is allowed. In moderation, naturally. I don’t want anyone, you know, being sentimental around me, but in principle I have no problem with … uh …”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Um, the façade …”

Skulduggery tilted his head, and the left side of his face drooped down off his skull, looking like melted rubber.

“I think something’s going a bit wonky,” said Valkyrie.

Skulduggery felt his ear flapping against his lapel and took hold of his face with one hand and hoisted it back up again. He gathered a thick fold around his forehead, trying his best to manoeuvre an eye back into its socket. “This is a tad undignified,” he murmured. “Do please tell me if we’re about to crash into something.”

“Maybe you should let me drive.”

“I saw how you drove a few hours ago. I’m not letting you behind the wheel of this car ever again.” His voice was muffled because his lips were sliding down his jaw. “Do I look better now?”

“Oh, much.”

He did his best to keep his nose in one place.

“So will I pick you up from Gordon’s once your lapse into sentimentality is over? We have that meeting to go to, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“How could I have forgotten?” she asked dryly. “I’ve been looking forward to this incredibly boring meeting for days, I really and truly have, oh boy oh boy.”

“You appear to have found a new level of sarcasm,” Skulduggery nodded. “Impressive.”

“And no, you don’t have to pick me up. I’ll get Fletcher to pop by. Of course, if you change your mind and decide I don’t have to go to this incredibly boring meeting, I can take my time about it all, and really get the sentimentality out of my system for good.”

“And deprive you of your chance to be there? I actually think you’ll be surprised by how interesting it all is.”

“I actually think I’d be very surprised.”

“But we’ll be electing a new Grand Mage. This is history in the making, Valkyrie.”

“And how long do you think the new Grand Mage will last before he’s either murdered or imprisoned?”

“You’re too young to be so cynical.”

“I’m not cynical. I just happen to remember the last four years. You give me one good reason why I should go. One good reason why I would be even remotely interested in attending.”

“Erskine Ravel will be there.”

“Well, OK then.”

Skulduggery laughed, and let go of his face. After a dangerous quiver, it settled down and stopped misbehaving, apart from the ear that was slowly drifting towards his chin.

ith the morning sun barely making an effort to leak through the windows, Valkyrie’s dead uncle made a steeple of his fingers, and peered at her over the topmost peak. When he was alive, he would often do this while sitting in an armchair with his legs crossed, giving him the air of a wise and contemplative man. Now that he was dead and could no longer interact with the physical world, it merely gave him the air of a man in desperate need of a chair.

“You’ve discovered your true name,” he said.

“Yes,” Valkyrie responded.

“And your true name is Darquesse.”

“That’s right.”

“And Darquesse is the sorcerer that all the psychics are having visions about – the one who’s going to destroy the world.”

“Correct.”

“So you’re going to destroy the world.”

“It looks like it.”

“And when did you discover all this?”

“About five months ago.”

“And you’re only telling me about it now?”

“Gordon, it’s taken me this long to stop freaking out about it. I need your help.”

Gordon began to pace the room. It was a big room, lined with bookcases and Gothic paintings. An oil portrait of a semi-clothed Gordon, his body rippling with muscles he had never possessed when he was alive, hung over the vast fireplace, glaring down at all who passed like a great and terrible god. Even though this house and the land around it had been left to Valkyrie, she still couldn’t bring herself to take the painting down. It was far too amusing.

“Do you realise what this means for you?” Gordon asked, as his slow pacing took him towards the corner of the room. “A sorcerer who knows their own true name has access to power other sorcerers can only dream about.”

His image began to fade away, and Valkyrie cleared her throat loudly. Gordon stopped and swung round, pacing back the way he had come. Immediately, he became solid again. The Echo Stone which housed his consciousness sat in its cradle on the coffee table, glowing with a soothing blue light.

“I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “I saw one of these visions, OK? I saw a burning city and injured friends and I saw Darquesse – I saw me – kill my own parents.”

“Now, just wait a second. From what you’ve told me about Cassandra Pharos’s vision, your future self and Darquesse seem to be two distinctly separate entities.”

“That’s just because at no time in that vision was I ever seen hurting anyone. We saw fragments of what’s going to happen. We saw Darquesse, me, as a figure in the distance, fighting and killing and murdering, and then we saw me, my future self, close up, feeling pretty bad about it all, which was nice of her, but she’s undoubtedly a little fruitloops. Listen, it’s taken a while for me to look at this and be logical about it, but obviously someone finds out what my true name is, and they use it to control me.”

“Then you’re going to have to seal your name,” Gordon said.

“Do you know how I can do that?”

“No,” he admitted. “I wrote about magic, but as you are aware, I never had the aptitude for it. Something like that, sealing your true name, is knowledge only a certain breed of sorcerer would have.”

“I can’t ask Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said quietly. “I don’t want him to know.”

Gordon stopped pacing, and looked at her kindly. “He would understand, Valkyrie. Skulduggery has been through an awful lot.”

“If he’s so understanding, how come you still won’t let me tell him you exist?”

“Well,” Gordon said huffily, “that’s different. That was never about him or anyone else. It was always about me, and my insecurities.”

“Which you are now cured of, right?”

He hesitated. “In theory …”

“So you’d be fine with me telling Skulduggery that I talk to you on a regular basis?”

Gordon licked his lips. “I don’t think that now is the perfect time for that. You have a lot on your plate, and I think I can be of more use to you without the distraction of other people.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not scared, I’m cautious. I don’t know how my friends would react. I am not actually Gordon Edgley after all – I am merely a recording of his personality.”

“But …?” Valkyrie raised her eyebrows.

“But,” he said quickly, “that doesn’t mean I’m not a person in my own right, with my own identity and value.”

“Very good,” she smiled. “You’ve been working on it.”

“I have a lot of time for self-affirmation while I’m sitting in that little blue crystal, waiting for you to drop by.”

“Is that your subtle way of telling me I should call round more?”

“I practically cease to exist when you’re not here,” Gordon said. “There’s nothing subtle about it.”

The alarm on Valkyrie’s phone beeped once. “Fletcher will be here soon,” she said, picking up the Echo Stone and its cradle. “We better get you back.”

Gordon followed as she led the way out of the living room and up the stairs. “The big meeting is this afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she scowled. “Even after everything that’s been happening, with everything that’s hanging over me, I still have to waste my time at this stupid thing. Skulduggery says it’s important to see how this kind of politics works.”

“You’re lucky,” Gordon said wistfully. “I would have loved to have been invited to something like that when I was alive.”

“It’s going to be a bunch of people talking about what we’re going to do about setting up a new Sanctuary. What do I have to contribute to that?”

“I don’t know. A general air of grumpiness?”

“Now that I can do.”

They passed into the study, but instead of following her through the hidden doorway to the secret room where he kept the most valued pieces of his collection, Gordon went to a small bookshelf beside the window. “And how is Fletcher these days?”

“He’s grand.”

“Has he met your parents?”

Valkyrie frowned. “No. And he’s not going to.”

“You don’t think they’d approve?” Gordon asked as he scanned the books.

“I think they’d start asking all kinds of awkward questions. And I don’t think they’d like the fact that my boyfriend is older than me.”

“He’s eighteen, you’re sixteen,” Gordon said. “That’s not drastically older.”

“If I need to tell them, I will. Right now, Skulduggery has taken responsibility for asking every single awkward question that my parents could ever possibly ask, so you needn’t worry.”

“This one,” said Gordon, pointing to a thin notebook. “In here there are directions to a woman who might be able to help you.”

“She can seal my name?”

“Not her personally, but I think she knows someone who can.”

“Who is she?”

“Who isn’t important. What, however, is. She’s a banshee.”

“Seriously?”

“Most banshees are harmless,” Gordon said. “They provide a service, more then anything else.”

“What kind of service?”

“If you hear a banshee’s wail, it’s a warning that you’re going to die. I’m not sure of the advantage of such a service, but it’s a service nonetheless. Twenty-four hours after you hear it, the Dullahan gets you.”

“What’s a Dullahan?”

“He’s a headless horseman, in the service of the banshee.”

“Headless?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“So he has no head?”

“That’s usually what headless means.”

“No head at all?”

“You’re really getting hung up on this headless thing, aren’t you?”

“It’s just kind of silly, even for us.”

“Yet you spend your days with a living skeleton.”

“But at least Skulduggery has a head.”

“True.”

“He even has a spare.”

“Are we going to get past this now?”

“Yes. Sorry. Carry on.”

“Thank you. The Dullahan drives a carriage, the Coach-a-Bowers, that you can only see when it’s right up beside you. He is not a friendly fellow.”

“Probably because he has no head.”

“That may have something to do with it.”

“So this banshee,” Valkyrie said, “is she one of the harmless ones, or the harmful?”

“Now that I do not know. Banshees are an unsociable bunch at the best of times. If she isn’t too pleased to see you, though …”

“Yes?”

“I’d recommend putting your hands over your ears if she opens her mouth.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “Right,” she said. “Thanks for that.”

“When do you plan to approach her?”

“Soon, I suppose. I mean, as soon as I can. I want this over with. I think I’ll … Tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have to, Gordon. If I put it off, I’ll never do it. I’ll give Skulduggery some excuse. He won’t miss me.”

“Valkyrie, from what I know of it, sealing your name is a major procedure. You have to be sure, going in, that this is the best thing to do.”

“I’m going to be sure. You remember when Dusk bit me? He tasted something in my blood, something that marked me out as different. I think that whatever he tasted has to do with Darquesse. So I’m going to get a second opinion.”

Gordon frowned. “You’re going to get someone else to taste your …? Oh, I see. You’re talking about him.”

“Caelan will be able to tell me what Dusk sensed. If it’s bad, I won’t need any more proof or prodding. I’ll know this is something I have to do.”

“Right,” Gordon said gently.

Valkyrie nodded, feeling an unwelcome mixture of apprehension and uncertainty. She left the Echo Stone in the hidden room and took the notebook from the shelf, flicking through the pages until she got to the part about the banshee. She put the notebook in her jacket pocket and went down to the living room. Her phone beeped again, and a moment later Fletcher Renn appeared beside the fireplace. Blond hair standing on end, lips always ready to kiss or smirk, one hand behind his back, the other with a thumb hooked into the belt loops of his jeans.

“I’m gorgeous,” he said.

Valkyrie sighed. “Are you, now?”

“Do you ever just look at me and think, God he’s gorgeous? Do you? I do, all the time. I think you’re gorgeous too, of course.”

“Cheers.”

“You’ve got lovely dark eyes, and lovely dark hair, and your face is all pretty and stuff. And I love the way you dress in black, and I love the new clothes.”

“It’s a jacket, Fletch.”

“I love the new jacket,” he insisted. “Ghastly really made a lovely, lovely jacket.” He grinned.

“You look wide awake,” she said. “You’re never wide awake at this hour of the morning.”

“I’ve been researching. You’re not the only one who likes to read books, you know. Apparently, my power will increase if I work at it a little, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was told there was this book in Italy, written by a famous Teleporter – dead now, obviously – that could really help me, so I went there and got it.”

“Good man.”

“But it was written all in Italian, so I left it on the shelf and went to Australia for ice cream.” He brought his other hand out from behind his back, holding an ice-cream cone. “Got one for you.”

“Fletcher, it’s winter.”

“Not in Australia.”

“We’re not in Australia.”

“I’ll take you to Sydney for five minutes, you can eat the ice cream while we watch the sunset, and then we’ll come back to the misery here.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Your power is wasted on you.”

“My power is brilliant. Everyone wishes they had my power.”

“I don’t. I quite like being able to hurl people away from me just by moving the air.”

“Well, every non-violent person wishes they had my power, how’s that?”

Valkyrie frowned. “I’m not a violent person.”

“You punch people every day.”

“Not every day.”

“Val, you know I think you’re great, and I think you’re the coolest chick I’ve ever met, and the prettiest girl ever – but you get into a hell of a lot of fights. Face it, you lead a violent life.”

She wanted to protest, but no argument sprang to mind. Fletcher stopped holding out the ice cream, and started licking it instead, already forgetting what they’d just been talking about. Valkyrie checked the time, forcing her attention back to the here and now.

“Are you getting me anything for Christmas?” Fletcher asked, and Valkyrie found herself grinning despite everything.

“Yes. You better be getting me something.”

He shrugged. “Of course I am.”

“It better be amazing.”

“Of course it is. Hey, this time next year, you’ll have someone else to buy presents for. When’s your mum due?”

“Middle of February. I’m going to be asked to babysit, you know. How am I supposed to do that?”

“Get your reflection to do it.”

“I’m not leaving the baby with the reflection. Are you nuts? But I don’t even know how to hold a baby. Their heads are so big. Aren’t babies’ heads abnormally large? I’m not sure I’m going to be a good big sister. I hope she doesn’t take after me. I’d like her to have friends.”

“You have friends.”

“I’d like her to have friends who weren’t hundreds of years older than her.”

“Have you realised that you’re referring to the baby as ‘her’?”

“Am I? I suppose I am. I don’t know. It just feels like it’s going to be a girl.”

“Do you think she’ll be magic?”

“Skulduggery says it’s possible. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’ll ever find out about magic. Take my cousins, for example.”

“Ah, the infamous Toxic Twins.”

“They’re descended from the Last of the Ancients the same as I am, but we’ll never know if they can do magic, because they don’t know magic even exists.”

“So if you don’t want your sister involved in this crazy life of yours, you can just not tell her. And in twenty-five years, she’ll be looking at you, going, ‘Hey, sis, how come we look like we’re exactly the same age?’ Will you tell her then that magic slows the aging process?”

“I’ll probably just tell her that my natural beauty makes me look eternally young. She’s my little sister – she’ll believe anything I tell her.”

“To be honest, Val, I love the fact that this is happening. Once you have a sister, or a brother, that looks up to you and needs you, it might make you stop and think before rushing into dangerous situations.”

“I do stop and think.”

“And then you rush in anyway.”

“There’s still stopping and thinking involved.”

Fletcher smiled. “Sometimes I just worry about you.”

“Your concern is touching.”

“You’re not taking me even a little bit seriously, are you?”

“I can’t take you seriously, Fletch, you have a dollop of ice cream on your nose. Besides, we can have this conversation a thousand times – it’s not going to stop me going out there and doing what I do.”

Fletcher finished off the cone and wiped the ice cream from his face.

“Are you so determined to be the hero?” he asked softly.

She kissed him, and didn’t answer. He was wrong, of course. It wasn’t about her being the hero – not any more. It was just about her trying not to be the villain.

neaking up on someone who can see into the future is not as impossible a task as many people think. For one thing, the future changes. Details shift, circumstances alter, and while the universe is struggling to realign itself into some semblance of balance, opportunity has its moment to present itself. The trick is to be a constant destabilising influence in a world that really just wants to be left alone.

Solomon Wreath was confident that he could be just such a destabilising influence. Leaving many of his decisions open to chance, he had approached the tattoo parlour three times already, and by the toss of a coin he had walked on by. The fourth toss of the coin, however, brought him to the door, and had him climbing the narrow stairs, black bag in one hand, cane in the other. No sound coming from above him. No whine of the tattooist’s needle. No chat, laughter or yelp. He could practically sense the trap waiting for him, but this didn’t slow his step.

At the top of the stairs he turned and walked through the doorway, and that was when the skinny man with the Pogues T-shirt came at him with a cushion. Not being the world’s deadliest weapon, the cushion bounced softly off Wreath’s shoulder, and the skinny man did his best to run by. Wreath dropped his cane, caught the man and threw him against a chair that looked like it belonged in a dental surgery. The skinny man fell awkwardly over it.

“Finbar Wrong,” Wreath said, putting the black bag on a nearby table. “May I call you Finbar? I assume you know who I am.”

Finbar sprang to his feet, hands held out in front of him, fingers rigid. “I do,” he said, “and I feel I have to warn you, man, you can’t beat me. I’ve seen this fight already, and I know every move you’re gonna make.”

Shadows curled around Wreath’s cane, and brought it up off the floor and into his waiting hand.

Finbar nodded. “I knew you were gonna do that.”

Wreath went to walk around the chair. Finbar moved in the opposite direction. Wreath turned, went the other way, and so did Finbar.

Wreath sighed. “This is ridicul—”

“Ridiculous!” Finbar interrupted quickly. “See? I’ve already lived through this encounter. You’d better walk away now, dude, save yourself a whole lot of pain.”

“If you have seen this fight, if you knew precisely when I would arrive, then why did you attack me with a cushion?”

Finbar hesitated. “I’m … I’m toying with you, is what I’m doing. Hitting you with a cushion instead of my fists of fury is gonna, like, take longer, draw out your agony. Kinda like water torture, with cushions. Cushion torture.”

“It doesn’t sound very painful.”

“Well, I haven’t really settled on a name for it …”

“You’re a trained fighter, I take it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You’re a bit thin, aren’t you? You’re practically malnourished.”

“Looks can be deceiving, man. After all, the strongest muscle in the human body is the brain.”

“Well then, as along as you don’t hit me with your brain, I should be OK.”

Finbar suddenly broke for the door. Wreath came up behind him, whacked the cane into the back of his legs. Finbar crashed into the wall.

“Ow,” he moaned.

Wreath took a hold of him and dragged him back, threw him into the dentist’s chair. “When did you first have a vision that I would be paying you a visit?”

“Last night,” he moaned.

“And what did you do?”

“I sent Sharon and my kid away. I was gonna join them, but the vision changed, and you weren’t gonna come.”

“But then a few minutes ago …”

He nodded. “Had another one. Told me you were about to climb the stairs. Only weapon I had was the cushion.”

“Which is not technically considered a weapon.”

Finbar glared. “A true master can make anything into a weapon.”

“But you’re not a true master, Finbar.” Wreath prodded him with the cane, forcing him to sit back. “Did your vision tell you why I was coming to see you?”

“I didn’t really get that far.”

“I need you to do me a favour. I want you to look into Valkyrie Cain’s future, and tell me what you see.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?”

“I need something more than what you’ve already seen. I need you to look harder.”

“Can’t do it,” Finbar said, shaking his head. “I won’t do it. Val’s a friend of mine. You can torture me all you want.”

“Can I?”

He paled. “Metaphorically speaking.”

Wreath smiled, and shadows crept up the chair, wrapping themselves around Finbar’s arms and legs before he could even struggle. Wreath went to the black bag on the table. “It’s OK. I know it would probably take a lot for you to betray a friend like that. So I’m taking the option away from you.”

From the bag, Wreath took a glass sphere, encased in a stone shell.

Quickly realising that he couldn’t break his bonds, Finbar settled back into the chair. “You’re bribing me with a snow globe?” he asked. “That’s a bit … insulting, don’t you think?”

“This isn’t for you.”

Now Finbar could see the darkness swirling in the sphere, and his face slackened and his voice cracked. “That’s a Soul Catcher.”

“Yes, it is. And its occupant is the Remnant who caused everyone so much trouble a few months ago. This is the little guy who possessed Kenspeckle Grouse, who went on to repair the Desolation Engine that destroyed the Sanctuary. This is not a very nice Remnant.”

Finbar licked his lips nervously. “You can’t put it in me. You just can’t, man. No, listen, that thing is, it’s evil, right? Once it’s in me, it’ll lie to you, tell you whatever it thinks you wanna hear.”

“It will tell me whatever I want to know, Finbar, which is not quite the same thing.”

“Aw, please, don’t do this.” The man was almost crying.

“I’ll take it out of you immediately after,” Wreath assured him. “You’ll black out; you won’t remember a thing.”

“I don’t want it in me. It’ll change me.”

“Only for a few minutes.”

Wreath turned the sphere in the stone, and stepped back.

The darkness drained out of the Soul Catcher as the Remnant flitted straight to Finbar. He turned his head and shut his eyes and clamped his mouth shut, but the Remnant would not be denied. Things that may have been hands prised his jaws apart. Wreath watched, fighting the urge to suck the foul creature back into its prison.

Finbar tried to scream as the Remnant, no more than a streak of twisted darkness, clambered its way down his throat. The scream choked and the throat bulged. Finbar’s body thrashed, but Wreath’s restraints held. Finbar suddenly went limp. A moment passed, and dark veins spread beneath his skin and his lips turned black. Then his eyes opened.

“Why is it,” Finbar said, “that every time I’m set free, I have to share a body that isn’t in the peak of physical perfection? Last time it was an old man. Now it’s … this.”

“I didn’t release you for a casual conversation,” Wreath said. “I just want to know what I want to know.”

“And why would I help you dig up information on my good buddy Valkyrie?”

“She isn’t your friend,” Wreath said. “She’s Finbar Wrong’s friend.”

“And there you go, man, making the mistake that everyone makes. I am Finbar Wrong.”

“No, you’re a Remnant.”

“To be honest with you there, a Remnant isn’t really much more than intent. It flies around being angry and doesn’t think too much about anything, y’know? It doesn’t have a personality, or a real consciousness to speak of. But when it inhabits a body, that all changes. It’s whole again. I am Finbar Wrong, but I’m also the Remnant inside him. We’re very happy together, as you can see.” He smiled, and the black veins receded and the darkness disappeared from his lips.

“It’s easy for you to pass for normal, isn’t it?” Wreath asked. “To hide the tell-tale signs that mark the possessed?”

“We can hide it when we need to, yeah.”

“And it’s good to be out of the Soul Catcher, yes?”

“Oh, yeah,” Finbar laughed. “That thing is even worse than being in that room in the Midnight Hotel where they kept us locked up.”

“Now that you’ve tasted freedom, do you want more? I can give you more. I can let you go.”

“A few moments ago you said you were gonna separate us immediately after.”

“I’m a Necromancer. I lied to make it easier on … you. The old you. Look into the future for me, and tell me what you see.”

“And what makes you think I’ll be able to see anything new?”

“Because you and I both know that Sensitives are wary about pushing themselves too hard. Seeing the future is a dangerous line of work. Minds can snap.”

“That they can.”

“But your mind is reinforced now, isn’t it? It’s stronger. So you can look further, and harder, until you see what you need to see.”

“This is all very true,” Finbar nodded. “But why should I trust you? The last people to ask me a favour put me in an old man’s body. Now, I’m not denying I had fun being Kenspeckle Grouse for a day, especially when it came time to hammer nails through Tanith Low’s hands, but they cheated me. They wouldn’t let me go when they said they would.”

“Scarab has never been a trustworthy man.”

“And you are? You’re a Necromancer.”

“Then how about this? You look into the future for me, or I’ll kill you. Remnants can’t survive in something dead, am I right? So the moment Finbar’s body dies, the Remnant inside him dies too. Do you want to die? Either of you?”

Finbar smiled. “You’re talking like there are two of us in here, man. There’s not. You had Finbar, you had the Remnant, and when you put them together, you get me. And I happen to think that the world would miss me too much if you killed me.”

Wreath smiled back. “I thought you’d see it my way.”

“I’m gonna need a few things before I start, though. Herbs, potions, a backrub …”

“You have three seconds to begin.”

“A very quick backrub, then.”

Wreath raised the cane, and Finbar laughed. “OK, OK! I suppose I could do without the luxuries, just this one time. You’re gonna have to back off – I’m not gonna be able to attain the required level of relaxation if you’re hovering over me.”

Wreath nodded. “Get it done, Remnant, or you’re going back in the bottle.”

“Chill,” Finbar breathed, closing his eyes. “My old buddy Val,” he murmured. “Are you going to show me why everyone’s so interested in you, are you? Are you going to show me what’s in store for you …?”

Wreath suppressed a sigh while Finbar prattled on, his voice growing softer and softer. He’d never had much time for Sensitives. They’d deliberately chosen a branch of magic where you reached out with your feelings instead of your fists. They were, in his opinion, a bunch of spaced-out, peace-loving hippies, and he’d never liked hippies. The 1960s and 70s had been particularly annoying times for him.

“There she is,” Finbar said, a slight smile on his face. “Found her.”

“How far ahead are you?” Wreath asked quickly.

“Hard to say, man … She looks a little older … She’s got a tattoo …”

“Is she a Necromancer?”

Finbar’s brow creased over his closed eyes. “Don’t know …”

“What’s she doing?”

“Walking …”

“Where?”

“In the ruins.”

Wreath shook his head. “That’s with Darquesse, right? I’m not interested in that. You need to find out if Valkyrie is the Death Bringer.”

“I can only see what I see,” Finbar said in a sing-song voice. “My sight is drawn to the big moments …”

“Then look away,” Wreath snarled, but his impatience went unnoticed.

“I’ve never seen this much detail,” Finbar continued, deep in the trance. “I’ve always flinched … But now I can see it all … So many dead … It’s wonderful …”

Wreath held his tongue.

“I’m looking at Darquesse now … She’s magnificent … She’s striding through the city, death all around her … You’d like this, dude. So much death …”

“I didn’t ask for a vision of Darquesse, I asked for a vision of Valkyrie.” Wreath’s eyes narrowed. “Unless …”

Finbar smiled in his dream-state. “Unless?”

“Is Valkyrie still there? Can you see her?”

“I can sense her presence, but all I can see is Darquesse.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Wreath said, sudden excitement burning through him. “Maybe that’s how she does it. If Valkyrie is the Death Bringer, maybe she’s the one who steps up and fights. Maybe she’s the one who stops Darquesse and then this, her victory, is what leads to the Passage. This is how she saves the world.”

“I don’t see any of that,” Finbar said. “All I see is Darquesse.” His smile was replaced by a grimace. “This is painful, by the way …”

“Keep looking.”

“It hurts my head.”

“Keep looking or you’ll lose that head.”

“I’ll keep looking then.”

Blood dripped from Finbar’s nose. Wreath said nothing.

“I’ve found her again,” Finbar said happily.

“Valkyrie?”

“Darquesse. I’m … I’m drawn to her … I don’t have a choice. She is … everything. She’s so cold. I’m trying to get in closer, but she’s … She’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen …”

“Can you see a weakness? How can Valkyrie destroy her?”

“Darquesse will not be destroyed!” Finbar snarled suddenly. “She is everything!”

“Tell me her weakness.”

“She has none! She is perfection!”

“Then who is she? Where does she come from?”

Finbar strained harder, and blood began leaking from his ears. “The shadows are heavy around her … I’m trying to see her face … She’s looking away from me … No, wait, she’s turning, she’s turning, I can see her …”

Finbar stopped talking.

“Well?” Wreath pressed. “Can you see her face? What does she look like? Who is she?”

Finbar’s eyes opened. He blinked up at Wreath. “This changes everything.”

Wreath leaned in close. “Who is she, damn it?”

“You Necromancers have your messiah,” Finbar said, “now we Remnants have ours.”

The black veins appeared again, and his head shot forward and crunched against Wreath’s nose. Wreath stumbled back, cursing, feeling his shadow restraints collapse under Finbar’s Remnant-enhanced strength. Hands grabbed him, and suddenly he was flying into the far wall. He crashed through a shelf and sent equipment spilling out across the floor.

“Hope you don’t mind, man,” Finbar said, smiling at him, “but I’m gonna take you over for a bit. I have a brand-new mission, and I need an upgrade.”

Wreath tasted his own blood. His cane was on the floor behind him. There were two ways out of this room – the door and the window. The window was closer.

Finbar opened his mouth wide. Wreath glimpsed the Remnant start to climb out and then he spun, snatching up his cane and using the shadows to smash the window. He leaped through the broken glass without the slightest hesitation, landing painfully on the cobbled street, sending people scattering all around him. He didn’t look at their shocked faces. He didn’t look back at Finbar, standing at the window. He just ran.

alkyrie took a taxi to St Anne’s Park, which was still covered in a fine frosting of white that the weak sun was failing to melt away. She passed over the gurgling stream, smiling at a dog that was being taken for a walk. Her breath came out in puffs of cloud, and her hands were jammed in her pockets. She moved off the well-worn trail into the trees. Dead twigs cracked under her boots.

Caelan was standing on an embankment that dipped five metres down. He didn’t look round as she approached. Instead, he kept his gaze on an old couple below him, out for a brisk midday stroll. Valkyrie wondered, briefly, if he was hungry.

“I need your help,” she said, and watched him turn his eyes to her. Being held in his gaze had become an electric experience that was as addictive as it was unsettling. She didn’t like this power he had over her. Being around him was like being around China, but with China she at least had the knowledge that the attraction was coerced through use of magic. With Caelan, though, the attraction was real, and so it was a lot more dangerous.

“I’m waiting,” he said, with a slight smile, and she realised she hadn’t spoken a word for the last few seconds. She looked away, letting her hair fall over her face to hide the blush creeping through her cheeks.

“You’re probably not going to like it,” she said, “so it’d be a huge favour I’d have to pay back. The problem is that I can’t really tell you why I need this done. You’ve just got to trust me when I say I have my reasons.”

“What do you need?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “I need you to taste my blood.”

Caelan’s smile froze on his lips. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dusk bit me,” she said. “You know how much he wanted to kill me, and he had his chance, but he didn’t take it. Haven’t you ever wondered why he let me go?”

“Because I stopped him,” Caelan replied gruffly.

“No. You arrived after he’d pushed me away. He told Billy-Ray Sanguine that he tasted my blood and … I don’t know. Whatever happened, whatever was in my blood, it changed his mind. He no longer wants to kill me. They both think it’s a lot crueller to let me live.”

“You want me to tell you what’s so special about your blood?”

“Yes.”

“Dusk is hundreds of years older than me. He could detect a thousand different nuances in your blood that I couldn’t begin to identify. Dusk is a connoisseur. I’m not.”

“But you can try.”

“There’s no point.”

“Caelan, there’s something wrong with me, do you understand? There’s something wrong with who I am and Dusk knew straight away, from one tiny bite. You might not have his experience, but I need you to try.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking. It’s far too dangerous.”

“I’m used to dangerous.”

“For me, Valkyrie. It’s too dangerous for me. I don’t know how Dusk managed to deny himself, but I’m not that strong. If I bite you, I won’t stop feeding until you’re dead.”

“Then don’t bite me. I’ll cut my finger – you can taste a drop.”

“Would you please remember who you’re talking to? I’m a vampire! There’s a reason I’m classed as a monster! You really think that letting me taste a drop of your blood is a good idea? Really? You think that won’t drive me insane? One drop and I’d need the rest. I’d need all of it.”

“You’ve still got a mind. You don’t lose the ability to think, do you? You’re not an animal.”

“That’s precisely what I am. You look at me while the sun is shining, and you think this is me. This is Caelan. You think the vampire is the thing that comes out at night, then goes away in the morning and Caelan comes back. You don’t understand yet that the vampire is Caelan.

“This face is a mask. This skin is a disguise. Beneath it is the real me, Valkyrie. I’m not a tortured soul. I’m not a brooding romantic figure. I’m a monster, and not a moment goes by when I don’t want to rip your throat out. No other vampire on the planet wants anything to do with me, and I really don’t want to be cornered by the Skeleton Detective and his vengeance-hungry friends after I’m done feeding on your corpse. I quite like immortality. You get very used to it after a while.”

Valkyrie looked at him, but didn’t speak, and the anger slowly left him, until they were just two people, standing there in silence.

“You know,” she said at last, “that’s the most words I’ve ever heard you speak.”

Caelan nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“You feeling OK?”

“Vocal cords are a little sore.”

“You might want to sit down.”

He smiled, and she smiled back.

“I need you to do this.”

His smile vanished. “I’m telling you, no.”

“Listen to me, OK? I’m working on something, something to help me, something that could hopefully solve all my problems. But the thing is, it’s dangerous. And I mean really dangerous. I might not live through it. And I can’t tell Skulduggery or Tanith or Fletcher because they’ll try to stop me.”

“But you can tell me because you think I won’t try to stop you?”

“No, I’m not telling you either. But before I do this, I have to know if this is the right thing to do. I need to know what Dusk saw, or what he felt, or what he sensed. If it’s as bad as I think it is, then I’ll go through with this dangerous thing because it’ll be my only option. If it isn’t as bad as I think, I won’t. Simple as that.”

Caelan turned away, and didn’t speak for a long time.

“Fine,” he said at last. “But afterwards, it would probably be best if we never saw each other again.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.”

“But that’s stupid. Why should we never see each other?”

“You say that like you’d miss me.”

“Of course I’d miss you. You’re my friend.”

“No, I’m not.”

She frowned. “You’re not?”

“You and me could never just be friends, Valkyrie. We were fated to either be nothing to each other, or everything.”

She stared at him, struggling to make sense of what he was saying. “Uh …”

“Eloquent as usual.”

“I mean … Caelan, I’m with Fletcher. And I like Fletcher, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I … I don’t know how I feel about you. This is a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest.”

“You truly didn’t know how I felt?”

“I really and truly didn’t. I’m sorry if you think I did.”

“I see.”

She looked at him as he stepped back. “And now I feel awful.”

“Don’t,” said Caelan.

“I can’t help it. Do you … I hope you don’t think I was leading you on, or anything.”

He shook his head, but kept his eyes down. “Of course not. This is my fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault, Caelan. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just, you know, I’m with Fletcher, and I never really thought about … the possibility of you.”

“Because I’m a vampire,” he said softly, like he was cursing his very soul.

“That’s part of it,” admitted Valkyrie. “But most of all it’s because I’m sixteen and you’re, like, a hundred.”

“Ah,” he said, cracking a smile. “I’m too old for you.”

“Ever so slightly.”

“And there is no part of you that wonders what it would be like?”

She swallowed. “I didn’t … I didn’t say that …”

“You need me to do this?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Very well.” He stepped up to her, one hand at her shoulder, the other sweeping her hair slowly from her neck. “I’m sorry to say this will hurt.”

“I’ve been bitten before,” said Valkyrie, and gritted her teeth.

Caelan pulled her towards him and she waited. When she was this close to Fletcher, she could feel his warmth, the heat emanating from him with each rapid heartbeat, but there was no warmth coming from Caelan. He was cold as smooth stone. Even though his mouth was a centimetre from her bare skin, she felt no breath. The fingers of his right hand curled in the collar of her jacket, the fingers of his left in her hair. She waited for his teeth. His cold body sagged, and he stepped back.

“I can’t,” he murmured. “I’d tear your throat out.” He took a penknife from his pocket, slid the blade free, and gave it to her. “Just a drop. No more, Valkyrie, OK? I should be able to handle a drop. I think.”

She pressed the blade into the pad of her fingertip, wincing as it pierced the skin. A drop of blood swelled up, and she brushed it with the knife and handed it back to him. Caelan hesitated, then brought the knife to his lips, running his tongue the length of the blade. He worked the blood around in his mouth, and as he did so, he folded the penknife and put it away. His movements were slow and deliberate; his eyes were closed. He swallowed, and licked his lips, like a lion standing over a felled deer.

Valkyrie had a sudden urge to step away.

“Caelan?” she said softly.

He was on her, lifting her off her feet and driving her back, teeth bared and diving for her throat. She twisted in his grip and hit a tree and he moved from her throat to her mouth and kissed her, his mouth crushing against hers. The kiss took her by complete surprise, and she hung there for a long moment before she realised she was kissing him back. She felt her arms wrap round his neck, felt his hard chest press against her. Then something sparked in Valkyrie’s mind.

She pushed off against the tree with one foot while she tripped him with the other. They both fell to the ground, and she rolled off him and got to her feet. She tried to speak, but he was already behind her, his cold hands on her face, turning her head to kiss her again. Valkyrie folded into him, weakness flooding her body, before she forced strength back into it. She broke off the kiss and leaned away.

“This is not going to happen,” she breathed.

“It already is,” he said, his eyes dark.

“What did you see? Caelan! My blood. What did you see?”

He smiled. “Nothing. I tasted your blood and saw nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t know what insight Dusk gained, but I gained nothing. The only difference between your blood and anyone else’s is … history.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s old blood. It stretches back to power.”

“To the Last of the Ancients?”

“That’s probably it.” His hand reached out to her and she slapped it away. His smile broadened. “But everyone knows you’re descended from the Ancients. I can’t see why it should come as such a big revelation to Dusk.”

“Maybe he saw something else.”

“Very possible. I’ve changed my mind, you know.”

“About what?”

“About how we should spend some time apart.”

“Caelan …”

“Now I think we should spend more time together.”

“I think I need to go now.”

Valkyrie went to walk by him and he laughed, and grabbed her hand. When she swung back to face him, his laugh was gone. “Fletcher’s a boy,” he said.

“That’s why they call it a boyfriend.”

“We’re meant for each other.”

“Holy God,” she said, “do you always come on this strong?”

Caelan looked like he was about to sneer, then he frowned, and backed off. “I told you,” he murmured, looking away. “I’m not … I’m not always in control.”

Valkyrie took the opportunity to hurry away.

“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder.

Caelan didn’t answer.

he refrigerated van pulled in to the side of the road. Seconds passed, and the driver got out. He was a middle-aged man with bad skin. He wasn’t very bright and tended to say stupid things that annoyed his master. His master was a great and terrible man. His master was the Killer Supreme. His master was the Zombie King.

Thrasher opened the rear door and Vaurien Scapegrace, the Zombie King, stood there majestically, blinking against the cold afternoon sunlight.

“We have arrived?” he asked imperiously.

“We’re here,” Thrasher said, nodding his idiot head. “We got lost for a little bit. I took a wrong turn, had to stop and ask for directions. I had a map with me, but it’s pretty old, and with all these new one-way systems it’s pretty hard to …”

And he prattled on, annoying the Zombie King with mind-numbingly boring detail. Not for the first time, Scapegrace wished he’d picked someone else to be his first zombie recruit. Every recruit after Thrasher decayed at the normal speed for a dead body, but Thrasher had – unfortunately – inherited some of Scapegrace’s longevity.

But even the great Zombie King was looking poorly these days. Months earlier, his face had been badly burned by Valkyrie Cain. He had tried to peel the burnt skin off in giant flakes, but that only made things worse. His body would not repair itself, and so the disfigurement stayed, and occasionally another bit of him would fall off or stop working. Survival had become his only ambition. He went everywhere in this refrigerated van, he stayed out of the sun as much as possible, and he covered himself in car fresheners that struggled to mask the stench of rotting meat with sickly wafts of pine.

Survival. That’s what it was all about. And that’s why he was here today. Scapegrace stepped out of the van, on to the road.

“What do you need me to do, Master?” Thrasher asked, eagerness ripening his features.

“Stay here,” Scapegrace replied, “and don’t annoy me. How is my face?”

Thrasher hesitated. “It’s … good. Fine. The make-up is … it really hides the, uh, the worst of the scarring.”

“And my suit? Do I have any bits on it?” His ear had fallen off the day before. He’d stuck it back on with glue.

“It looks clean, sir.”

“Excellent. Back in the van you go, Thrasher.”

“Yes, sir … only …”

Scapegrace sighed. “What?”

“Don’t you think I should be the one to talk to these people, Master? They are civilians, and I don’t have the … distinguishing features that may alarm them …”

“Nonsense. I have it all worked out. I have my plan, and I’ve accounted for every single possibility. Every question they are likely, or even not so likely, to ask, I have prepared an answer for. My backstory is rock solid. My lies are intricate and one hundred per cent infallible. You’d only mess it all up.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Back in the van, moron.”

Thrasher bowed, and did as he was bid. Scapegrace adjusted his tie, then strode purposefully along the pavement. The road was a cul-de-sac, with only three buildings on it – a funeral parlour on either side, and a large house at the end with a car outside.

Scapegrace entered the first funeral parlour. A man in a sombre suit hurried up to him, took one look at his face and faltered.

“It looks worse than it is,” Scapegrace chuckled good-naturedly.

“I … see,” said the man.

“It was the same accident that killed my brother,” Scapegrace continued, realising that he should probably stop chuckling. “It’s a tragic shock. We’re all very saddened by his loss.”

The funeral director shook Scapegrace’s hand, and gave him a sad smile. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked gently.

“I would, yes. I’m feeling quite faint, because of the loss of my dead brother.”

The funeral director showed him to a comfortable chair, then sat behind his big desk and solemnly opened a ledger. He picked up what looked to be an expensive pen, and raised his eyes to Scapegrace. “May I ask your name?”

Scapegrace had rehearsed this part a dozen times, coming up with answers for every possible question. This was an easy one. “Elvis O’Carroll.”

The funeral director hesitated, then nodded, and wrote it down. “And your brother’s?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your brother’s name?”

Scapegrace froze. It had all been going so well. “My brother’s name,” he managed, “is … a name that makes me cry every time I hear it. His name, my brother’s name, my dead brother, is …” His mind raced, careered off walls and stumbled over hurdles. A name. A simple name. All he needed was a simple name to get to the next stage of the conversation, and he could not think of one. Aware that he was staring at the funeral director with a perplexed look on his face, Scapegrace seized a random name from history. “Adolf,” he blurted.

The funeral director stared at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Adolf O’Carroll,” Scapegrace continued, trying to be as calm as possible. “That’s with two L’s at the end.”

“Your brother’s name was Adolf?”

“Yes. Do you find something wrong with that? It’s a common name in my family. I had an uncle Adolf, and a great-aunt Adolf.”

“A great-aunt? You realise, of course, that Adolf is traditionally a man’s name …?”

“Well, that makes sense, as my great-aunt was traditionally a man.”

“You do seem to have an interesting family, Mr O’Carroll,” the funeral director said politely as he scribbled notes.

“Please,” Scapegrace said. “Call me Elvis.”

“Indeed. May I inquire as to what service you wish us to provide for you, during this trying time? The funeral, of course, is what we specialise in, but we also—”

“Embalming,” Scapegrace said. “Do you do your own embalming?”

“We prepare the departed for their final resting place, yes.”

“And you do that here?”

“On the premises, yes. We have a staff of professionals who take care to treat each individual with the utmost respect. We have found there to be dignity in death, as there is in life.”

“How long does it take?”

“The embalming process?”

“How long does it take to stop the decomposition?”

“I’m not sure I understand … What exactly are you asking us to do?”

“I want him preserved.”

The funeral director put down his pen, and interlaced his fingers. “Are you … Are you asking us to perform taxidermy?”

“Am I? What’s that? Is that when an animal is stuffed and mounted?”

“It is.”

“That’s it!” Scapegrace said happily. “That’s what I want! Can you do that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the actual animal body is not used in taxidermy. The animal is skinned, and the skin is stretched over a replica animal body. Note, I keep saying animal. That is because taxidermy is not done to humans. It might be seen as somewhat barbaric.”

“Wouldn’t suit me anyway,” Scapegrace murmured. “It needs to be the original body. So can you embalm it and just give it to me?”

“I’m afraid that we do not provide a take-away service.”

“Maybe the place across the road does.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” the funeral director said huffily, “but I doubt even they would stoop to that level. Mr O’Carroll—”

“Elvis.”

“Elvis, I think the death of your brother has affected your judgement. You’re not thinking clearly. What you’re asking for is … unsettling.”

“It’s what Adolf would have wanted.”

“I’m sure he would have appreciated a more peaceful resting place.”

“His last words to me were, ‘Don’t bury me’.”

“We also provide a cremation service.”

“And then he said, ‘Don’t burn me either’.”

The funeral director sighed. “Elvis, I don’t think we are the people to help you. It is not often I recommend our rivals across the road, but I feel they would be more suited to your needs. I’m sure they’d be happy to deal with your … requests.”

He smiled.

Scapegrace left the funeral parlour and crossed the road, dousing himself with a half-can of deodorant as he went. He was greeted by another sombre funeral director, explained his injuries without the chuckling this time, and was shown to another comfortable chair. He skipped through the tragic loss stuff quickly and got down to specifics.

“Adolf was a devout Catholic,” he said. “And I mean, devout. Oh, he was crazy for that religion. He’d be praying every day, sometimes twice a day. It was all Our Father this and Hail Mary that. Rosary beads and signed pictures of the Pope. He went nuts for the whole thing. He thought priests were great altogether.”

The funeral director nodded slowly. “So at least he was comforted in his time of need. Then it will be a traditional funeral you’re looking for?”

“Not at all. Have you read the Bible?”

“I have, yes. I find great strength in its words.”

“Did you read the bit about the zombies?”

“Uh …”

“The bit at the end, where God raises the dead for Judgement Day.”

“Um, I … I’m not sure I …”

“It’s when God decides who gets into Heaven and who doesn’t, and all the dead climb out of their graves and they all wait there to see who gets in. That’s in the Bible, right? That’s what Adolf wants to do, but he wants a head start on all the others. He doesn’t want to waste time crawling out of a hole in the ground. He wants to be ready for the sprint. So I want you to preserve him.”

The funeral director paled. “Preserve?”

“I was thinking, if you pump all that embalming fluid into his veins, then I can take him away, store him somewhere cool, and he’ll be ready to go at the end of the world. What do you think?”

“Are you … being serious?”

“I’ve got my dead brother in the back of my car. Of course I’m being serious.”

“Mr O’Carroll …”

“Elvis.”

“Elvis, what you’re saying makes no sense.”

“Do not deride my brother’s religion.”

“I assure you, I am doing no such thing. But what I am saying is that … your plan is nonsensical. A dead body will rot, sir, no matter how much embalming fluid is injected into it. Over time, everything decays.”

“Adolf is particularly resilient.”

“Even if Judgement Day happened before he started to decompose – say, if it happened on Thursday – embalming fluid would actually be a hindrance. It suffuses the muscles, stiffens them until they can’t be moved. Do you understand, Elvis? He wouldn’t have a head start on anyone. He’d actually be left behind, unable to move.”

Scapegrace frowned. “So … So there’s nothing you can do to stop decomposition?”

“I am sorry.”

“What about those bodies they find in bogs, hundreds of years old?”

“Do you really want to lay Adolf to rest in a bog? Elvis, unless you’re prepared to mummify your brother, he is going to decompose.”

“What’s that? Mummify? He’d be a mummy?”

“We don’t do that sort of thing here.”

“Well, who does?”

“Nobody.”

“What about the Egyptians?”

“Nobody apart from the Egyptians,” the funeral director nodded. “Take him to an Egyptian funeral parlour. They’ll wrap him in bandages and put him in a sarcophagus and he’ll be right as rain come Judgement Day.”

“Really?”

“No. Those morons across the road paid you to come in here and waste my valuable time, didn’t they?”

“Of course not.”

“Did they tell you to act so stupid?”

“I’m not acting,” Scapegrace responded.

“Tell them if they want to start this practical joke war again, then I’m fine with that. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve. If it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll get.”

Scapegrace left the funeral parlour, confused and disheartened. It was as if the universe was closing off every avenue just as he was realising it was there. He had pinned all his hopes on being embalmed, and what was he left with, now that science had let him down?

He stopped in the middle of the road. Magic. Of course. He hadn’t considered it before because, quite honestly, he had no sorcerer friends. But surely there must be something a mage could do. They were always coming up with new and exciting ways to live for as long as possible. Would it really take that much power to stop meat from rotting?

He was no expert – even in life, his grasp of magic had been negligible at best – but this seemed possible. All of Scapegrace’s magic was used to animate his body and keep him thinking, but there was nothing stopping anyone else from performing magic on him.

There was a name that his old master Scarab had once mentioned. He had been talking about an expert in science-magic … Grouse, that was it. Kenspeckle Grouse, who had a Medical Facility somewhere in Dublin. Butterflies of excitement fluttered within Scapegrace’s stomach. He just needed to find out where it was, and all his troubles would be over.

A car horn beeped right behind him and he jumped in fright, then stalked to the pavement, muttering curses. The car carried on past him. Scapegrace saw it out of the corner of his eye, and froze. He knew that car. The first time he’d seen it, he had been thrown into the backseat in handcuffs. The second time, he was thrown into the trunk, in another set of handcuffs. It was the car Skulduggery Pleasant drove.

Scapegrace suddenly forgot how to walk like normal people. How had Pleasant known he was here? Had he been following him? Was this the day his existence ended? He was sure he hadn’t been recognised, because he had been facing the other way and he was dressed in a suit, but all it would take was one glance and it would all be over. He staggered to a large bush and fell into it, then crawled around to take a look through the leaves. The black car turned the corner and was gone.

This didn’t make any sense. Was it all an elaborate trap? An ambush? Pleasant had driven right by him. Had the great Skeleton Detective made a silly mistake? Or maybe he hadn’t been searching for him after all. Maybe this was just a coincidence. Maybe the house …

Scapegrace looked back at the big house. Pleasant’s car had been parked outside it. In the driveway in fact. Pleasant had parked his car in the driveway of the house like … like … like he’d owned the place.

Scapegrace stared. He knew where Skulduggery Pleasant lived.

Now all he had to do was figure out who’d pay the most for the information.

alkyrie followed Skulduggery as he strode briskly through the alley. It was so cold it was almost painful, and for once, she was glad of it. It meant she had something else to think about other than kissing Caelan. She regretted it now. She’d regretted it the moment after it happened, but she couldn’t stop replaying it over and over in her head.

Skulduggery came to some steps leading down below street level, and an iron door swung open to let them through. The corridor they walked into was warm, with fantastic images carved into the walls on both sides. In places the paint was cracked and peeling, but the years had not diminished the sheer lushness of the colours used. Valkyrie bent to examine a tiny running figure. Even the light glinting in the figure’s eyes had been painted in.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“History,” Skulduggery answered. “It’s all here, for those who know how to look.” He nodded to a carving of two men and a woman, holding light in their hands. “These are the Ancients, discovering magic for the first time. The clouds above them represent the Faceless Ones, and the grass at their feet represents the people.”

“Regular people are represented by a lawn?” Valkyrie asked with a raised eyebrow. “How nice, and not at all insulting.”

“The people are represented by individual blades of grass,” Skulduggery said, a smile in his voice. “Born of the earth, as natural and integral a part of life as magic. You can see the Ancients protecting the grass from the unnatural storm clouds.”

“All I see are the Ancients standing on the grass, being rained on, and not one of them thought to bring an umbrella. Not the smartest, were they?”

“Don’t be too harsh – you’re descended from one of them, remember.”

“Any ancestor of mine would have brought an umbrella,” Valkyrie muttered, and crossed to the other wall. The scene depicted there disturbed her, like a hook that had found its way inside her belly and was now tugging gently at her guts. A city in ruins, the dead scattered like dry leaves fallen from a tree on a still afternoon. At its centre stood a man, burning with black fire. “And this?” she asked. “Is this meant to be Mevolent?”

Skulduggery stood at her elbow. “These chambers were built before the war with Mevolent even started. No, that’s not Mevolent. That’s his master. That’s the Unnamed.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “Was his name the Unnamed, or did he just not have a name?”

“He didn’t have one.”

She frowned. “But how does that work? All our magic comes from our true name, right? I’ve been reading all about this. So if he didn’t have a true name, where did he get his magic from?”

“To every law of nature, there are the aberrations. I’m very impressed that you’re doing a little research, by the way.”

“After Marr ordered Myron Stray to kill himself and destroy the Sanctuary, I thought it might be a good idea to learn a little more about the whole name thing.”

“You’re worried that someone might learn your true name?”

Worried was such a weak term for something so coldly terrifying. Valkyrie nodded, but didn’t speak. She didn’t trust herself to answer him.

Skulduggery started walking again. “So what did you learn?”

She walked beside him, forcing herself to remain casual. “Our true names are names of magic, from the oldest of the magical languages. Virtually all of us go around without knowing what that name actually is, but we can still use the magic it provides.”

“And?”

“If you find out what your true name is, it’s kind of like going straight to the source. You’d become more powerful than even the Ancients were. You’d be able to take on the Faceless Ones without needing a weapon.”

“If that is so,” Skulduggery said, “then how come Myron Stray became a puppet, and not a god?”

“Someone, in this case Mr Bliss, found out his true name before he did, so he never had time to seal it.”

They walked into the Great Chamber and the conversation died away. Thirty or forty people stood around on the marble floor, talking quietly. The walls in here were splendid, the elaborate carvings continuing up to the domed ceiling.

Erskine Ravel smiled as he came over. Valkyrie had met him a few times before – he had fought in a special unit with Skulduggery and Ghastly during the war. She liked Ravel. He was charming and nice and quite beautiful, in a manly sort of way.

“Erskine,” Skulduggery said, shaking his hand.

“Skulduggery, good to see you,” said Ravel, shaking Valkyrie’s hand next. “Valkyrie, you’re looking well.”

She actually blushed, and turned her head so it wouldn’t be noticed. Then she spotted an old man with a grey beard, and frowned. “Why is he here?”

Ravel put his hands in his pockets. “Like it or not, we need representatives from all the major groups in order to elect a new Grand Mage, and the mages in Roarhaven have as much say as anyone.”

“But why does he have to be here?”

“You don’t like the Torment?”

“He doesn’t like me.”

The Torment scowled at Valkyrie when he met her eyes. There was a woman beside him, in a black dress that flowed on to the ground at her feet. Her face was covered by a veil, and her hands were gloved.

“He’s here with his sister,” Ravel said, anticipating her next question. “Not his real sister, of course, but another Child of the Spider.”

Valkyrie had seen with her own horrified eyes the way the Torment could vomit black spiders the size of rats, with talons for legs. He also had the disconcerting habit of transforming into a spider himself – a huge monstrous thing that liked to haunt her dreams every once in a while.

“Madame Mist,” Skulduggery said, eyeless gaze on the woman in the black veil. “She lives in Roarhaven now too? Since when? I didn’t even know she was in the country.”

Ravel shrugged. “We really weren’t chatting long enough for me to get the details. I try to stay away from Children of the Spider, you know? They tend to give me the creeps. And speaking of creepy …”

High Priest Tenebrae entered the hall, flanked as always by Craven and Quiver. Tenebrae nodded to Valkyrie as they swept by in their black robes.

“Well now,” Ravel said, catching the nod. “You seem to know more people here than I do.”

Valkyrie smiled. “I’m still going to need some help with the boring ones.”

Ravel laughed. “I’m sure they’d love to hear themselves being called that. In this hall, you have the usual suspects. Sorcerers of particular power or age or standing. That lady over there is Shakra, and beside her is Flaring. You probably know them from the Sanctuary. They were lucky enough not to be there the day the Desolation Engine went off. To their left are assorted sorcerers you may not know – they work behind the scenes mostly, and do their best to stay out of the spotlight.

“Over here we have Corrival Deuce,” Ravel continued, indicating a portly old man in a colourful coat. “He’s more or less retired now, but we dragged him out of his house for this little get-together. He’s a good man.”

“A very good man,” Skulduggery agreed. “We took orders from him during the war. There aren’t many people I’d take orders from. He’s one of them.”

Valkyrie had heard Skulduggery and Ghastly mention Corrival Deuce in their conversations, always with real affection and respect. She decided she liked the old man very much, even though she’d never met him.

“The two people ahead of us,” Skulduggery said, “are Geoffrey Scrutinous and Philomena Random.” Scrutinous had bizarrely frizzy hair and a goatee, and despite the cold weather outside, he was wearing sandals. Random’s appearance was altogether more sober – she had short hair, a warm coat, and none of the beads or rings or bangles that decorated her colleague’s wrists and hands.

“They’re public relations officers – it’s their job to convince the mortals they didn’t see what they thought they saw. The five people glaring at the Necromancers call themselves the Four Elementals. They see themselves as being in harmony with the world around them, and because of this they’re astonishingly self-righteous.”

“The Four Elementals?”

“Yes.”

“But there are five of them.”

“I know.”

“Can they not count?”

“They started off with four, but then Amity, the man with the unusual chin married the heavyset woman with all the jewellery and insisted she be allowed to become the fifth member of the quartet.”

“Couldn’t they just rename themselves?”

“And become the Five Elementals, when there are only four elements? They didn’t want to lose their precious synchronicity.”

“It’s better than everyone thinking you can’t count.”

“That it is,” said someone at Valkyrie’s elbow. She turned, surprised to see Corrival Deuce standing there. She hadn’t heard him approach. “You’re Valkyrie Cain,” he said, smiling. “I’ve heard so much about you. This is indeed an honour.”

She shook his hand. “Hi,” was all she could think to say.

“Erskine,” Corrival said. “Skulduggery. Good to see you again.”

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Ravel said to the older sorcerer.

Corrival barked a laugh. “What, after a solid three weeks of you pestering me about it?”

“I thought I was being subtle.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word. Where are the others, then? Where’s Ghastly, and Vex?”

“Ghastly hates these things,” Skulduggery said, “and I don’t know where Vex is.”

“Probably having another adventure,” Corrival said with a little sigh. “That boy needs to grow up one of these days, he really does. What about Anton Shudder?”

“Shudder likes to stay in his hotel,” Ravel said. “Besides all the Remnants trapped in there, he also has a vampire guest to contend with. If I were him, I’d want to keep a close eye on things too.”

The memory of Caelan’s kiss came flooding back into Valkyrie’s mind, and she fought against it in vain.

Corrival looked around. “So is this it? Is everyone here? Erskine, maybe you should start the ball rolling. I have places to go and things to do.”

“Me?” Ravel asked. “Why do I have to start it? You’re the most respected mage here. You start it. Or Skulduggery.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “I can’t start it. I don’t like most of these people. I might start shooting.”

Ravel scowled. “Fine.”

He turned, cleared his throat, and spoke loudly. “Everyone who is going to be here is here,” he announced. The other conversations died down, and all eyes turned to him. “We all know why we’ve gathered. If we can elect a Grand Mage today, then we can immediately start work on forming a new Council and finding a new Sanctuary.”

“Before we talk about the new Sanctuary,” Geoffrey Scrutinous said, “I think we should discuss the old one. In particular, I think everyone would like to ask how the search for Davina Marr has been going.”

“As far as we know, she’s still in the country,” Skulduggery said. “Any more than that, I’m afraid I can’t disclose.”

“Why not?” asked the Elemental named Amity.

“It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“She has evaded you for five months already, Detective Pleasant. Maybe we should be entrusting somebody else with the task of tracking her down.”

“Then by all means, Amity,” Skulduggery said, “find someone else.”

“The damage has been done,” the woman called Shakra said in a Belfast accent. “Marr isn’t important, not any more. What is important is how weak we appear. The Sanctuaries around the world are waiting to pounce, did you know that?”

“That’s a slight exaggeration,” Scrutinous said.

“Is it? The Americans have already announced how they will no longer stand by and watch as Ireland struggles against the legacy that people like Mevolent have left us. That’s what they said, word for word.”

“It was a gesture of support,” Amity said.

“No,” Shakra responded, “it was a threat. They’re telling us they’re getting ready to step in and take over if something like this happens again.”

Amity shook his head. “Nonsense. Ireland is a Cradle of Magic. No one would dare disrupt the delicate balance that holds the world in check.”

Shakra scowled. “You’re a moron.”

“Being rude does not make you more intelligent than I.”

“No, being more intelligent than you makes me more intelligent than you, you goat-brained simpleton.”

“I did not come here to be insulted.”

“What, do you have somewhere special to go for that kind of thing?”

“Can we please focus?” Corrival asked. Immediately, everyone shut up. “In the last five years alone, two of our Elders have been murdered, the third betrayed us, and the Grand Mage who took over has been revealed as a criminal. Two out of Mevolent’s Three Generals returned, and the Faceless Ones actually broke through into this reality.

“Amity, you and your Four Elementals may not want to believe this, but Ireland is under attack. We have enemies both obvious and hidden. The war with Mevolent was fought largely on Irish soil. His actions, and the actions of his followers, have created an instability that is impossible to be rid of. This is where the agents of unrest are drawn. There is blood in the water here.”

“That’s right,” Flaring said. “Dark sorcerers like Charivari in France, or Keratin in the mountains of Siberia, hate us and plot against us with every moment that passes. And what about all the visions of this Darquesse person, laying waste to the world? We need to be ready.”

Valkyrie saw the nods and the looks in the eyes. If any one of them knew the truth, they’d have torn her apart right there and then.

“Then we need to get down to business,” High Priest Tenebrae said. “The task ahead is not an easy one. We’ll have to set up a new Council, elect a Grand Mage and two Elders, build a new Sanctuary and consolidate our power base. Even though it will add greatly to my responsibilities and workload, I am willing to put my own name forward for the role of Grand Mage.”

There were some rolled eyes and cruel whispers, but Corrival held up a hand to silence them. “Thank you, High Priest. Who are the other nominees?”

“Some of us have been talking about this among ourselves,” Scrutinous said, “and we’d like to suggest Corrival Deuce as a candidate.”

Corrival raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’re well-respected and well-liked, Corrival, and—”

“I know what I am,” Corrival interrupted, “and what I am is retired. Even if I wasn’t retired, I’ve never been interested in the job. That’s for people like Meritorious, not people like me.”

“Your country needs you,” Flaring said.

“My country needs better taste.”

“You’re the only one who can do it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Corrival said. “I don’t have the experience or the training, and I’m always getting into arguments. Not many sorcerers agree with my point of view, you know.”

“Even so,” said Philomena Random, “you’re one of the few people who could bring the Irish magical community together in its time of need.”

“Nonsense. There are plenty of others.”

“We don’t make this suggestion lightly, Corrival. We’ve considered this a great deal.”

“And all you could come up with was me?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But I’m really enjoying my retirement. I get to sleep in every day. I do crossword puzzles and eat cakes.”

“Duty calls, Corrival.”

“Then we’ll vote,” Flaring said. “Right here, right now. Let’s forgo the usual pomp and circumstance and have it as a simple aye or nay. All those in favour of High Priest Auron Tenebrae as the new Grand Mage, say aye.”

Craven and Quiver both said aye. Tenebrae clenched his jaw against the overwhelming silence.

“OK then,” Scrutinous said. “All in favour of Corrival Deuce as the new Grand Mage, say aye.”

Ayes filled the room. Only the Necromancers and the Roarhaven mages stayed quiet.

Scrutinous grinned. “I think it’s decided.”

“Fine,” Corrival said. “I’ll accept the position, on the condition that as soon as someone more competent comes along, you’ll all let me retire in peace.”

“Agreed,” said Amity. “So now we need to talk about nominations for the other two seats on the Council, and where the new Sanctuary is going to be built.”

“Don’t need to start building,” the Torment said in his dreadful croaky voice. “We have a Sanctuary, ready and waiting.”

“In Roarhaven?” Tenebrae said, disgust in his voice.

“Yes,” the Torment glared back. “A fine building, built especially for this purpose.”

“Built for a coup that failed,” said Ravel.

“That may be so,” the Torment said, “but the fact remains. There is a new Sanctuary building with all the rooms and requirements. Do any of you have any proper objections, apart from the fact that it’s outside your precious capital city?”

There was silence.

“It’s a good suggestion,” Corrival said. Valkyrie looked at him in surprise. She wasn’t the only one. “The fact is,” he continued, “it’s there, and it’s available. And if someone sets off another bomb, we won’t have to explain it to the civilian authorities. And as for the other two seats on the Council, I already have my nominees. I nominate Erskine Ravel and Skulduggery Pleasant.”

Someone barked a laugh. Valkyrie turned to Skulduggery, really wishing he was wearing a face so she could see his reaction.

“Ah,” said Ravel.

“Oh,” said Skulduggery.

“Sorry, fellas,” Corrival said, “but if I have to suffer through this ridiculousness, then so do you. Both of you are controversial figures, but I fought with your unit on the battlefield, and I’ve never known such bravery and honour. Erskine, you like spending money way too much, but you’ve been my trusted confidant for the last hundred years, and I don’t think there is anyone who is going to deny that you would make an excellent Elder. You’re wise when you need to be, and impulsive when you have to be.

“Skulduggery, my old friend, I daresay a lot of people are going to object to your nomination.”

“Myself included,” Skulduggery answered.

“You make more enemies than friends, which isn’t saying an awful lot, but you also make the difficult decisions. You always have. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. The rest is up to the voters. As duly elected Grand Mage, I now call a halt to proceedings, as I have a crossword to do and some cakes to eat.”

Without waiting for a response, Corrival turned and walked from the room.

“I was not expecting that,” Ravel said in a low voice.

“I’ll vote for you,” Skulduggery said, “so long as you promise not to vote for me.”

Ravel grinned. “And let you miss the fun? Not on your life, dead man.”

As they were walking for the Bentley, Valkyrie caught sight of a pretty blonde girl standing by a long, black car. “Back in a minute,” she said to Skulduggery, and jogged over to the girl, trying her best not to smile too broadly.

“Hi Melancholia,” she said brightly.

Melancholia scowled. She was four years older than Valkyrie, tall, and she wore black Necromancer robes. From the very start, Melancholia had never made a secret of the fact that she despised Valkyrie utterly. Valkyrie, for her part, thought this was astonishingly amusing, and revelled in the many opportunities she had to annoy the older girl.

“What you doing?” Valkyrie asked, smiling a friendly smile.

“I’m standing here,” Melancholia responded, not looking at her.

“And a fine job you’re doing of it, too. Do you know where Solomon is? He said he was going to come today, but I didn’t see him.”

“Cleric Wreath is on an assignment.”

“Cool. What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it exciting?”

“I don’t know.”

“Right. So you’re just waiting here for the others, then? Waiting for ol’ Tenebrae?”

Melancholia stiffened. “You should show more respect for the High Priest. You should use his full title when referring to him.”

Valkyrie shrugged. “High Priest Tenebrae just takes so long to say, you know? I usually just call him Tenny. He likes that.”

“If you were truly one of us, you would be severely disciplined for such behaviour.”

Valkyrie frowned. “Do you really talk like that, or are you just putting it on?”

Melancholia finally looked at her. “You are mocking me?” she snarled.

“Is that a statement or a question?”

Melancholia was taller than Valkyrie, and she loomed over her. “I should punish you myself, on behalf of the High Priest.”

“I don’t think Tenny would like that very much.”

“You are not our saviour.”

“Solomon seems to think I am.”

“Cleric Wreath has spent too long out in this decadent world. He’s lost his objectivity. He looks at you and he sees the Death Bringer, whereas everyone else looks at you and sees a pathetic little child.”

Valkyrie grinned. Despite how sinister it sounded, the Death Bringer was a title that she was beginning to actually like. She found Necromancers creepy on a very fundamental level – Solomon Wreath aside – but even so, it was nice to be thought of as a possible saviour. Certainly, it was a change from having to think of herself as Darquesse. The chance, no matter how slim, that instead she might turn out to be the Death Bringer was a source of comfort to her. Two possible destinies – one where she saves the world, and one where she ends it. Her future couldn’t get any starker than that. “Maybe I am the Death Bringer,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd. You’ve been studying Necromancy for just over a year. I’ve been studying death magic since I was four years old. You’re nothing compared to me, or anyone like me.”

“And yet,” Valkyrie interrupted, “I’m the one they’re all making a fuss of.”

Melancholia scowled. “You’re nothing but an Elemental playing at being a Necromancer.”

“And you’re a Necromancer, through and through. You’ve wanted to be nothing else your entire life. And yet, I’ve been invited to all the important meetings and you get to stay out here and mind the car. I’ve been told things about your art and your religion that you won’t be told for another year or two.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Is it? When were you told about the Passage?”

Melancholia hesitated. “I learned about the Passage when I was ready, when I had completed my studies on over three dozen—”

“It was pretty recently, wasn’t it?”

Melancholia gritted her teeth. “Yes.”

“See, I was told about it ages ago. Now, I’m not saying I’m an expert. In fact, I have loads of questions about the whole thing. You must have noticed that some of it just doesn’t seem to make any sense. Your religion is based on the idea that when you die, your energy passes from this world to another one, right?”

“It’s not an idea,” Melancholia said tersely. “It’s a scientific fact.”

“It’s little more than a theory,” Valkyrie countered. “But I’m OK with that. So you guys are waiting for the Death Bringer to come and collapse the wall between the two worlds, so the living and the dead can exist in the same place, at the same time, meaning that there will be no more strife, no more war, and everyone will live, or at least exist, happily ever after.”

“Yes,” Melancholia said.

“And yet, no one has told me how this is possible.”

“You can hardly expect to understand the advanced stages of our teachings, if you do not have the patience or the skill to master the basics.”

“Do you know how it’s possible?”

“I will. Soon. Once I experience the Surge, once I am locked into Necromancy for the rest of my life, all of its secrets will be laid open for me.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice. I still don’t know if it’s for me, though. I really don’t want to draw my power from death, and that’s basically what Necromancy is. I’d rather not have to rely on other people’s pain to use magic.”

“I hardly think it will be up to you. The sooner the Clerics realise what a mistake they’re making, wasting their time on you, the better. Then you can run along with your skeleton friend and have lots of fun together, and you can leave the important stuff to us.”

“Sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t like me.”

“Trust your feelings.”

“So we’re not going to be friends?”

“I’d rather gouge my own eyes out.”

Valkyrie shook her head sadly, and started to walk back to the Bentley. “Your leaders are looking to me to be their saviour, Melancholia. You might have to learn to love me.”

Melancholia’s voice was laced with venom. “You are not our saviour.”

Valkyrie looked at her over her shoulder, shot her a smile. “Better start praying to me, just in case.”

ack when Vaurien Scapegrace was alive, he had briefly owned a pub in Roarhaven that catered, almost exclusively, for sorcerers. That had been before he’d found his true calling as a Killer Supreme and, later, as the Zombie King, but he’d enjoyed it nevertheless. He knew there were pubs and clubs and bars around the country, around the world, whose clientele were magical, but he liked to think that his pub offered something a little different. A home away from home perhaps. A refuge from the pressures and stresses of modern living.

But now that some time had passed, now that he was viewing it all with a more objective eye, he realised what it was that his pub had really offered. It had offered dim lighting, bad drinks, grumpy bar staff and a toilet that smelled of wet cabbage. There was absolutely nothing to take pride in. Nothing to feel good about. But that, of course, was the whole point. Sorcerer pubs were bad pubs by necessity. If they were good pubs, everyone would be going to them.

Sitting in this particular sorcerer pub in Dublin, Scapegrace reflected on the trials and tribulations he had gone through as a living man, and hoped that by the time this night was done, he would be a step closer to being a living man once again.

Thrasher came through the sombre crowd, spilling someone’s drink and apologising profusely before arriving at Scapegrace’s table. “Some men are here,” he said urgently. “They say they know you.”

Scapegrace leaned back in his chair. “Let’s see them.”

Thrasher nodded, turned, but the crowd was already parting for the six newcomers. Scapegrace did indeed know them. Lightning Dave sidled up on Scapegrace’s right, playing with a bright stream of electricity that crackled between his fingertips. His hair stood on end, and his features had settled into a permanent smirk.

Beside him was Hokum Pete. Hokum Pete had been born in Kerry, but harboured a well-known and widely ridiculed desire to be seen as a Wild West outlaw. He liked to wear cowboy boots and long duster coats, and today he had a six-gun holstered low on his right leg. His hand flashed and the gun cleared the holster. He started to spin it around on his finger, like that was going to impress anyone.

Thrasher gave a delighted “Oooh”, and Scapegrace fought the urge to hit him.

To Scapegrace’s left was a pair of sorcerers who had never managed to garner much of a reputation for themselves. They weren’t powerful and they weren’t smart, and Scapegrace could never remember their names.

Brobding the giant, bringing up the rear, had to hunch over to even fit in here, and the man who stood right in front of Scapegrace was Hieronymus Deadfall. Deadfall had been a mercenary, had fought in a few wars, both magical and mortal, before returning to Ireland and settling down in Roarhaven, where he had stolen Scapegrace’s pub from under him. Not that Scapegrace held a grudge or anything.

“Hello, moron,” said Scapegrace.

“My God,” Deadfall responded. “It’s true. Everything they said is true. You’re a shambling pile of decomposition.”

Hokum Pete sniggered, and Scapegrace sat up a little straighter. “I am the living dead, if that’s what you mean, yes. What can I do for you, Hieronymus? I assume you’ve heard about the auction.”

“We heard,” Deadfall nodded. “So you know where the Skeleton Detective lives?”

“Yes, I do. You want revenge, for the time he smacked you around your own pub? This is how you do it. Catch him unawares. Or you can sell the information to someone else. His little partner will probably be there too.”

“Cain,” snarled one of the sorcerers whose name Scapegrace couldn’t remember.

“This information is worth a lot,” Scapegrace continued, “but all I’m looking for is information in exchange. Kenspeckle Grouse. I want to know where to find him.”

It was all going so perfectly, and Scapegrace had to resist grinning in case any more teeth fell out. He’d give up the Skeleton Detective’s location, and in return he’d find Kenspeckle Grouse and get himself fixed. It was, he had to admit, one of his more brilliant plans.

“Grouse …” Deadfall said. “The scientist? How the hell would I know that?”

“If you don’t know it, you’re of no use to me. Next! Anyone know where Kenspeckle Grouse is?”

Deadfall smiled. “Tell me, Vaurien, what’s to stop us from just pulling you apart, limb from limb, until you tell us the skeleton’s address?”

Scapegrace didn’t really have an answer for that one.

There were mumblings and mutterings in the crowd as a large man in a long coat passed Deadfall and approached the table. He had his hood up, and beneath it Scapegrace could see metal, like a mask.

“I need to know where Skulduggery Pleasant lives,” the big man said with an accent. Eastern European maybe, or Russian. Scapegrace decided on Russian. It was, like many sorcerer’s accents, one that came from a lot of places over the years.

“Do you have what I need in exchange?” Scapegrace asked, ignoring Deadfall’s scowl.

The head beneath the hood shook. “I have heard of this Grouse person, but I do not know where he lives.”

“Then why are you wasting my time?”

The Russian didn’t answer for a bit. Then he placed both hands on the table, and leaned in. “Because I’m giving you a chance to avoid bloodshed. Tell me where the Skeleton Detective lives and we can all walk out of here. You are a dead man, but there are ways to kill even dead men.”

The conversation had tilted wildly out of Scapegrace’s control in a remarkably short amount of time, with an astonishingly small amount of words.

It was the tone the big Russian was using, a tone that implied that violence was a mere afterthought. Scapegrace didn’t like that one bit. Anyone who did not give violence its careful and rightful due was someone to whom violence was an old pair of shoes – slip on, slip off, think nothing more about it. That wasn’t Scapegrace’s style at all.

“Maybe,” he said, “we can reach a compromise.”

“No way,” Deadfall said to the mysterious Russian. “Listen, pal, a funny accent and a funny mask don’t scare me. We were here first, so you, take a hike.”

The big man turned to him slowly. “You do not want to make trouble with me.”

Deadfall actually chuckled in disbelief. “Scapegrace, take note. After we deal with the funny man here, you’re next.”

Hokum Pete was still showing off with his six-gun. His finger in the trigger guard, he spun it until it blurred, then flipped it, reversed it, slid it into the holster. It barely had time to settle before it flashed out again. He tossed it into the air and caught it as it spun, tossed it to his other hand, still spinning. He threw it over his shoulder and caught it, reversed the motion and that was when the Russian reached back, snatched it from the air, and shot him point-blank.

Hokum Pete flew backwards, there were screams and yells and cries, and suddenly everyone was moving.

Lightning Dave snarled and electricity burst from his fingers. The Russian dodged behind the giant, and Brobding shrieked as the stream hit him instead. Scapegrace toppled backwards over his chair, saw Thrasher dive to the floor. Panic spread, and there was a stampede for the exits.

The Russian shot Lightning Dave twice in the chest. Deadfall, his fists already turning to hammers, knocked the gun from the Russian’s hand and swung for his head. The Russian ducked under the swing and moved past him, towards the two sorcerers with the forgettable names.

The first of them had glowing hands, ready to discharge a blast of energy. The second had opted for the up-close-and-personal approach, drawing a long dagger from his sleeve. Scapegrace watched as the Russian bent the second sorcerer’s arm back, stabbing him with his own blade. The poor, unmemorable fool gurgled in astonishment, and the Russian took the dagger from him and whipped it across the throat of his friend. Then he turned, saw Brobding coming for him and flicked the dagger to the ground. It impaled itself through the giant’s foot, pinning it to the floor. Brobding shrieked.

Deadfall came at him. The Russian swayed back out of range, watched the hammer swing uselessly by his face, then leaned in. His knuckles met the hinge of Deadfall’s jaw, and Deadfall’s legs gave out from under him.

Brobding pulled the dagger from his foot with a self-pitying squawk of pain. He fixed his face with a snarl, and charged. He didn’t have far to charge, but he did have to keep himself stooped, so it resembled more of a stumble. Still, the intent behind it was unmistakable.

The Russian ducked under the giant’s arms. Brobding’s great fist came around, but the masked man avoided it easily. Brobding lunged and the Russian snapped out a pair of jabs that broke the giant’s nose and split his lip. Brobding bellowed and the Russian kicked his knee. The bellow became a howl, drawn-out and horrified, his huge hands clutching at his leg.

The Russian tapped a single fingertip lightly against Brobding’s chest. There was a terrible crack of bone, and Brobding fell, dead. It was like a great oak falling in a forest.

Deadfall was up again, preparing to swing his hammer-fists, but the Russian just stepped close and pressed his hand against him. Every bone that comprised the skeleton of Hieronymus Deadfall gave a slight tremor, and then came apart with a violence that ruptured his body. Bone shards burst both organs and skin, spraying blood into the air. His corpse dropped, contorted and disfigured beyond recognition. The Russian turned to look at Scapegrace, his eyes red beneath his mask.

“I’ll tell you,” Scapegrace said, hands high above his head. “I’ll tell you where Skulduggery Pleasant lives. Just please, don’t explode me.”

he closer you got to Roarhaven, the sicker the trees looked, the browner the grasses, the blacker the lake. Its streets were narrow, its buildings hunched, their windows squinting. Paranoia and hatred, seething resentment and bitter hostility – these things leaked through the town like its lifeblood. It was a creature, a mangy, diseased dog, afflicted with fleas and ticks and lice, kept alive by its own loathing.

The man with the golden eyes stood by the stagnant lake, his coat buttoned up against the cold. “Marr?” he asked.

“Still alive,” said the old man behind him.

The veiled woman in black spoke quietly. “I thought we hired the best.”

The old man didn’t bother to keep the irritation out of his voice. “We did.”

“She needs to die,” said the woman. “She’s far too dangerous to be languishing in chains.”

“Tesseract assures me she will be dead soon.” The old man looked away from the woman. “Do they still think the Americans are to blame?”

The man with the golden eyes shrugged. “Who knows what Skulduggery Pleasant thinks? We can only stick to the plan. If he begins to suspect us, we’ll deal with him then. For the moment, though, we’re on schedule. This town will hold the new Sanctuary. From here, we’re going to change the world.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.