First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014

First published in this edition in the

United States of America by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

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.com

Derek Landy blogs under duress at

www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

Text copyright © Derek Landy 2014

Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2014

Skulduggery PleasantTM Derek Landy

Skulduggery Pleasant logoTM HarperCollins Publishers

All rights reserved.

Skulduggery Pleasant © TM Derek Landy

Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com

Cover illustration © Neil Swabb

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 ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9780008266448

Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780008266455

Version: 2018-11-06

This book is dedicated to me.

Derek, without you, I would not be where I am today.

Words cannot convey how much I owe you for the guidance you’ve shown me – for your wisdom, your wit, your keen insight and your keener intelligence, your taste, your strength, your integrity and your humility. I won’t mention the charity work you do, or the political activism you’re involved in, or the ecological work you’ve spearheaded. And it’s not just because you won’t talk about it – it’s because no one else does, either.

You have taught me how to be a better person.

Nay – you have taught us all.

Epigraph

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1: Meek Ridge

Chapter 2: Living in the Shadow

Chapter 3: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Chapter 4: Friends and Foe

Chapter 5: To Watch the World Burn

Chapter 6: My Normal Life

Chapter 7: Visions

Chapter 8: Curiosity

Chapter 9: Signate

Chapter 10: Girls’ Night Out

Chapter 11: Honey, I’m Home

Chapter 12: The Cauldron

Chapter 13: My Friend. My Furniture.

Chapter 14: A Common Enemy

Chapter 15: Finbar’s Dream

Chapter 16: The National Black Belt Review Board

Chapter 17: A Voice from the Darkness

Chapter 18: Brogues and Burrs

Chapter 19: Me and Her

Chapter 20: Home Delivery

Chapter 21: The Eviction

Chapter 22: The Return of Valkyrie Cain

Chapter 23

Chapter 24: A Fine Pair of Specimens

Chapter 25: Going To America

Chapter 26: Weird Feelings

Chapter 27: The Gnarl

Chapter 28

Chapter 29: Those Who Live in Darkness

Chapter 30: Forgiven

Chapter 31: Creepy Kid

Chapter 32: The Job Offer

Chapter 33: Misadventures in Babysitting

Chapter 34: Saying Goodbye

Chapter 35: The Loss

Chapter 36: Joining the Stream

Chapter 37: Brooking No Argument

Chapter 38: Enemy Territory

Chapter 39: Finding the Fountain

Chapter 40: Famous Last Words

Chapter 41: Here Be Dragons

Chapter 42: Brainstorm

Chapter 43: Shunting Ravel

Chapter 44: A Better Person

Chapter 45: A Brutal Act of Kindness

Chapter 46: The Conversation

Chapter 47: The Death Bringer Wakes

Chapter 48: A New Roarhaven

Chapter 49: Stopping for Gas

Chapter 50: The Card Trick

Chapter 51: The Temple of the Spider

Chapter 52: The Devil Comes to Play

Chapter 53: The End is Nye

Chapter 54: The Deal

Chapter 55: The Exiled

Chapter 56: Toe to Toe

Chapter 57: A World of Pain

Chapter 58: Valkyrie’s Affliction

Chapter 59: The Corpse Trail

Chapter 60: Freaks

Chapter 61: The Plan

Chapter 62: The Knock on the Door

Chapter 63: The City Below

Chapter 64: Chasing Alice

Chapter 65: The Second Test

Chapter 66: Table Manners

Chapter 67: Lightning

Chapter 68: The Hourglass

Chapter 69: Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 70: Return of the Living Dead

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Keep Reading …

Read on for a taste of Resurrection

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

About the Publisher

ive in the morning and Danny is up, rolling slowly out of bed, eyes half open as his bare feet touch the floorboards. Getting up this early is worse in the winter, when the cold threatens to push him back under the covers. Colorado winters are something to behold, as his dear departed dad would say, and Danny isn’t one to argue with his dear departed dad. But the summers are warm, and so he sits on the edge of his bed without shivering, and after a dull minute he forces his eyes open wide, stands up and dresses.

He goes downstairs, puts the coffee on while he opens the store. Five thirty every morning except Sundays, the General Store is open and ready for business. It was that way when Danny was a boy and his folks ran the place, and it’s that way now that Danny is twenty-seven and his folks are cold and quiet and lying side by side in the ground. On his more maudlin days, Danny also likes to think his dreams are buried down there with them too, but he knows this is unfair. He tried to be a musician; he moved to LA and formed a band and when it didn’t all happen the way he wanted he scampered back home to take over the family business.

He quit, and there’s no one to blame but himself.

By six, the town of Meek Ridge is awake. People stop by on the way to work, and he speaks to them with none of that easy patter his mom had been famous for. Back when she was alive, she’d talk the hind legs off a donkey, and she’d always be quick to crinkle up her eyes and laugh. His dad was more measured, more reserved, but people around here still liked him well enough. Danny doesn’t know what they think of him, the wannabe rock star who lit out as soon as he finished school and skulked back with his tail between his legs years later. Probably just as well.

Early morning grows into mid-morning, and mid-morning sprouts wings and becomes a hot, sun-blasted afternoon. Unless there’s a customer perusing the shelves, Danny stands at the door, cold bottle of Coke in his hand, watching the cars pass on Main Street and the people walk by, everyone seeming like they have things to do and places to go. By around three, business has picked up, same as it always does, and that keeps him busy and away from the sunshine, until finally he raises his head and it’s coming up to seven in the evening and his favourite time of the week.

He takes out the list even though he doesn’t need it, just to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. When he’s done, he’s filled two large grocery bags – the reusable canvas kind, not paper or plastic. He locks up, puts the bags on to the passenger seat of his dented old Ford and drives out of Meek Ridge with the window down, his busted AC not doing a whole lot to dispel the trapped heat. By the time the road gets narrower, he’s already sweating a little, and as he follows the twisting dust trail, he can feel the first trickle of perspiration running between his shoulder blades.

Finally, he comes to the locked gate and waits there, the engine idling. He doesn’t get out and hit the intercom button. Same time every week, he’s here and she knows it. Hidden somewhere in the trees or the bushes, a camera is focused on his face. He’s stopped trying to spot it. He just knows it’s there. The gate clicks, opens slowly, and he drives through.

The previous owner of this farm died when Danny was a teenager, and the buildings fell into disrepair and the fields, hundreds of acres of them, got overgrown with weeds and such. Now the fields are meadows, lush and vast and green, and the buildings have either been salvaged or rebuilt from scratch. A fence encircles the property, too tall to climb over, too sturdy to break. There are hidden cameras everywhere, and every last thing is rigged with alarms. Stories of the farm’s new owner swept through Meek Ridge like a tidal wave when she first moved in, and ever since the waters have been unsettled.

There are those say she’s an actress who’s had a breakdown, or an heiress who rejected her family’s lavish lifestyle. Others reckon she’s in Witness Protection, or the widowed wife of a European gangster. The tidal wave has left behind it pools and streams of gossip in which rumours and stories and outright lies ebb and flow, and Danny doubts any of them even remotely touch upon the truth. Not that he knows what the truth is. The farm’s new owner is almost as much a mystery to him as to anyone else in town. Only difference between them is that he gets to meet her once a week.

He pulls up to the farmhouse. She’s sitting in a rocking chair, an actual rocking chair, in the shade on the porch, something she likes to do most warm evenings with her dog curled up beside her. He takes the grocery bags, one in each arm, and walks up the steps as she puts down the book she’s reading and stands. She looks to be nineteen or thereabouts, with dark hair and dark eyes, but she’s been living here for over five years and she hasn’t changed a bit, so he reckons she’s somewhere around twenty-four or so.

Pretty. Real pretty. She has a single dimple when she smiles, which isn’t quite so much a rare sight any more. Her legs are long and strong, tanned in cut-off jeans, scuffed hiking boots on her feet. This evening she wears a sleeveless T-shirt, the name of some band he’s never heard of emblazoned across it. She has a tattoo on her left arm, from the shoulder to the elbow. Some kind of tribal thing, maybe. Weird symbols that almost look like hieroglyphics.

“Hi there,” he says.

Xena, the German shepherd who never leaves her side, growls at him, showing teeth.

“Xena, hold,” she says, talking quietly but with an edge to her voice. Xena stops growling, but those eyes never leave Danny’s throat. “You’re early,” she says, focusing on him at last.

Danny shrugs. “Slow day. Decided to give myself some time off. That’s one of the advantages of being your own boss, you know?”

She doesn’t respond. For a girl who lives up here with only a dog for company, she isn’t someone who embraces the gentle art of conversation.

She pulls open the screen door, then the door beyond, beckons him through. He brings the groceries inside, Xena padding behind him like an armed escort. The farmhouse is big and old and bright and clean. Lots of wood. Everything is heavy and solid, the kind of solid you’d grab on to to stop yourself from floating away. Danny feels like that sometimes, as if one of these days, he’d just float away and no one would notice.

He puts the groceries on the kitchen table, looks up to say something, realises he’s alone in here with the dog. Xena sits on her haunches, ears pricked, tail flat and still, staring at him.

“Hi there,” he says softly.

Xena growls.

“Here,” she says from right beside him and Danny jumps, spins quickly to the dog in case she mistakes his sudden movement for aggressiveness. But Xena just sits there, no longer growling, looking entirely innocent and not unamused.

Danny smiles self-consciously, takes the money he’s offered. “Sorry,” he says. “I always forget how quietly you walk. You’re like a ghost.”

Something in the way she looks at him makes him regret his choice of words, but before he can try to make things better she’s already unpacking the bags.

He stands awkwardly and tells himself to keep quiet. He knows the routine by now. As she busies herself with packing away the groceries, she will ask, in the most casual of tones—

“How are things in town?”

“Good,” Danny says, because that’s what he always says. “Things are quiet, but good. There’s gonna be a Starbucks opening on Main Street. Etta, she owns the coffee shop on the corner, she’s not too happy, and she tried to have a town meeting to stop it from happening. But no one went. People want Starbucks, I think. And they don’t really like Etta.”

She nods like she cares, and then she asks, just as he knew she would, “Any new faces?”

“Just the usual number of people passing through.”

“No one asking about me?”

Danny shakes his head. “No one.”

She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t smile or sigh or look disappointed. It’s just a question she needs answered, a fact she needs confirmed. He’s never asked who she’s waiting for, or who she’s expecting, or if someone asking about her would be a good thing or a bad thing. He doesn’t ask because he knows she wouldn’t tell him.

She closes the kitchen cabinet, folds one of the canvas bags into the other, hands them both back to Danny.

“Could you bring some eggs next time?” Stephanie asks. “I think I’ll be in the mood for an omelette.”

He smiles. “Sure,” he says. He’s always been a sucker for the Irish accent.

he flickering lights of the trashed supermarket threw deep shadows from dark places, and Stephanie stepped through it all with one hand wrapped tightly round the golden Sceptre. Rows of shelves lay toppled against each other in a domino-sprawl of scattered food tins and ketchup bottles. She caught the scent of a small ocean of spilled vinegar and glanced to her right in time to catch a flash of pinstripe. Then she was alone again in this half-collapsed maze, the only sound the gentle hum from the freezers.

She edged into the darkness and out again into the light. Slow steps and quiet ones and once more the darkness swallowed her in its cold hunger. The maze opened before her. A man hovered there, a metre off the ground, as if he were lying on an invisible bed. His hands were clasped on his belly, and his eyes were closed.

Stephanie raised the Sceptre.

One thought would be all it’d take for a bolt of black lightning to turn him to dust. One simple command that, less than a year ago, she wouldn’t have even hesitated to give. Ferrente Rhadaman was a threat. He was a danger to her and to others. He had stepped into the Accelerator and the boost to his powers had turned him violent. Unstable. Sooner or later, he was going to kill someone in full view of the public and, just like that, magic would be revealed to a world that wasn’t ready for it. He was now the enemy. The enemy deserved to die.

And yet … she hesitated.

She was not one to second-guess herself. She was not prone to introspection. For the majority of her existence, Stephanie had been all surface. She was the reflection, the stand-in, the copy. While Valkyrie Cain had been out playing hero, Stephanie had gone to school, sat at the dinner table, carried on with normal life. People viewed her as an unfeeling object. She had been an it.

But now that she was a she, things were murkier. Less defined. Now that she was a person, now that she was actually alive, she found that she didn’t want to deprive any other living thing of that same opportunity – not if she could help it. Which was, she openly admitted, hugely inconvenient.

Wearing a scowl as dark as her hair, she stepped out from cover and advanced on Rhadaman slowly. She took a pair of shackles from the bag on her back, made sure the chain didn’t jingle. She kept the Sceptre pointed at him – she didn’t want to kill anyone if she could help it, but she wasn’t stupid – and chose her steps carefully. The floor was littered with supermarket debris. She was halfway there and still Rhadaman hadn’t opened his eyes.

The closer she got, the louder her pulse sounded in her head. She felt sure he was going to hear her heartbeat. If not her heartbeat then at the very least her ridiculously loud breathing. When had she started breathing so loud? Had she always breathed this loud? She would have thought someone might have mentioned it.

Three steps away Stephanie paused, looked around, watching for pinstripes. Nothing. Why hadn’t she waited? Why did she have to do this on her own? Did she really have that much to prove? Probably, now that she thought about it. So would capturing Rhadaman single-handedly make her a worthy partner? Would that justify her continued existence?

She wasn’t used to all these conflicting thoughts ricocheting around in her head.

Three more steps and she reached out, shackles ready.

Rhadaman’s eyes snapped open.

He stared at her. She stared at him.

“Um … This is a dream?” she tried, and a wave of energy threw her back.

She went tumbling, realised in some dim part of her mind that her hands were empty, and when she came to a stop she looked up and Rhadaman was standing there holding the Sceptre.

“I’ve seen this in books,” he said. He was American. “It’s the real thing, isn’t it? The Ancients actually used this to kill the Faceless Ones, to drive them out of this reality. The original God-Killer.” He pointed it at her as she stood, then frowned. “It doesn’t work.”

“Must be broken,” said Stephanie. “Could I have it back?”

She held out her hand. He looked at her a moment longer, and his eyes widened. “You’re her.”

“No,” she said.

He dropped the Sceptre and his hands started glowing. “You’re her!”

“I am not!” she said, before he could attack. “You think I’m Darquesse, but I’m not! I’m her reflection! I’m perfectly normal!”

“You killed my friends!”

“Stop!” she said, pointing at him. “Stop right there! If I were Darquesse, I could kill you right now, yes? I wouldn’t need shackles to restrain you. Listen to me. Valkyrie Cain had a reflection. That’s me. Valkyrie Cain went off and turned evil and became Darquesse, but I’m still here. So I am not Darquesse and I did not kill your friends.”

Rhadaman’s bottom lip trembled. “You’re not a reflection.”

“I am. Or I was. I evolved. My name is Stephanie. How do you do?”

“This is a trick.”

“No,” said Stephanie. “A trick would be much cleverer than this.”

“I should … I should kill you.”

“Why would you want to do that? I’m working with the Sanctuary. The war’s over, right? You do remember that? We’re all back on the same side, although you guys kind of lost and we’re in charge. So, if I tell you to surrender, you have to surrender. Agreed?”

“No one gives me orders any more,” said Rhadaman.

“Ferrente, you don’t want to do something you’ll regret. The Accelerator boosted your magic, but it made you unstable. We need to take you back and monitor your condition until you return to normal. You’re not thinking clearly right now.”

“I’m thinking very clearly. Killing you may not bring my friends back, but it’ll sure as hell make me smile.”

“Now that,” Skulduggery Pleasant said, pressing the barrel of his gun to Rhadaman’s temple as he stepped up beside him, “is just disturbingly unhealthy.”

Rhadaman froze, his eyes wide. Skulduggery stood there in all his pinstriped glory, his hat at a rakish angle, his skull catching the light.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas,” Skulduggery said. “You’re powerful, but not powerful enough to walk away from a bullet to the head. You’re under arrest.”

“You’ll never take me alive.”

“I really think you should examine what you say before you say it. You’re not sounding altogether sane. Stephanie, you seem to have dropped your shackles. Would you mind picking them up and placing them on—”

Rhadaman moved faster than Stephanie was expecting. Faster even than Skulduggery was expecting. In the blink of an eye, Skulduggery’s gun was sliding along the floor and Skulduggery himself was leaping away from Rhadaman’s grasping hands.

“You can’t stop me!” Rhadaman screeched.

Skulduggery’s tie was crooked. He straightened it, his movements short and sharp. “We wanted to take you in without violence, Ferrente. Do not make this any harder than it has to be.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to have this kind of power,” Rhadaman said, anger flashing in his eyes. “And you want me to give it up? To go back to being how I was before?”

“This power level isn’t going to last,” Skulduggery said. “You know that. It’s already starting to dip, isn’t it? In fifteen days, there’ll be more dips than peaks, and by the end of the month you’ll be back to normal. It’s inevitable, Ferrente. So, do yourself a favour. Give up before you do any serious damage. We’ll get you the help you need, and when it’s all over, you’ll return to your old life. The alternative is to keep going until you hurt someone. If you do that, your future will be a prison cell.”

“You’re scared of my power.”

“As you should be.”

“Why should I be scared? This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“This?” Skulduggery said. “Really? Look around, Ferrente. We’re in the middle of a supermarket. The greatest thing that’s ever happened to you and you choose to trash a supermarket? Are you really that limited?”

Rhadaman smiled. “This? Oh, I didn’t do this.”

“No? Who did?”

“My friends.”

Stephanie couldn’t help herself – she had to look around.

“And where are your friends now?” Skulduggery asked.

Rhadaman shrugged. “Close by. They don’t wander off too far. There were loads of them around after the various battles, and I found a group and adopted them. They don’t say a whole lot.”

Stephanie picked up a faint whiff in the air. “Hollow Men?”

“I’ve given them names,” Rhadaman told her. “And I’ve dressed them in clothes. I’ve called them after my friends, the ones Darquesse killed. I think they like having names, not that they’d ever show it.”

“Hollow Men don’t like anything,” Stephanie responded. “They don’t think. They don’t feel.”

“Reflections aren’t supposed to feel, either,” Rhadaman said. “But you say you do. What makes you any different to them?”

“Because I’m a real person.”

“Or you just think you are.”

“If you surrender,” Skulduggery said, “I promise we’ll take your friends in and treat them well. Once the effects of the Accelerator wear off, they’ll be returned to you. Do we have a deal?”

“You know what they do enjoy?” Rhadaman asked, as if he hadn’t even heard Skulduggery. “They enjoy beating people to a pulp. They enjoy watching the blood splatter. They love the feel of bones breaking beneath their fists. That’s what my friends enjoy. That’s what will make them happy.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Skulduggery said.

Rhadaman smiled, curled his lip and gave a short shriek of a whistle.

Skulduggery flicked his wrist as he ran at Rhadaman, sending the Sceptre flying into Stephanie’s hands. Rhadaman caught him, threw him and leaped after him, and before she could run to help, the Hollow Men came at her, stumbling through a mountain of cereal boxes. Hollow Men dressed in clothes, ridiculous in badly-fitting suits, ludicrous in flowing floral dresses.

Black lightning flashed from the crystal set into the Sceptre, turning three of them to dust without even a sound. Lightning flashed again, and again, but they kept coming, and there were more Hollow Men behind her, and they were closing in. They had that knack. They were slow and clumsy and stupid, but it was when they were underestimated that they were at their most dangerous.

Stephanie darted right, clearing a path for herself, ducking under the heavy hands that reached for her. She led them down a narrow aisle, big heavy freezers on both sides, turned to them and backed away as they gave lurching chase. Numbers mean nothing if the enemy can be corralled. Skulduggery had taught her that. It’s all about choosing where to fight.

The black crystal spat crackling energy. If it could kill insane gods whose very appearance drove people mad, then artificial beings with skin of leathery paper and not one brain cell between them didn’t stand much of a chance. They exploded into dust that drifted to the floor and was trodden on by their unthinking brethren. They didn’t stop. Of course they didn’t. They didn’t know fear. They had no sense of self. They were poor imitations of life, much like Stephanie herself had been. Once upon a time.

But now Valkyrie Cain was gone, and Stephanie Edgley was all that was left.

From elsewhere in the supermarket, she heard a crash as Skulduggery fought Rhadaman. She wasn’t worried. He could take care of himself.

The shadows moved beside her and a fist came down on her arm. Her fingers sprang open and the Sceptre went spinning beneath an overturned shelf. Stephanie ducked back, cursing. Her only other weapon was the carved shock stick across her back, which had a limited charge and was useless against anything without a nervous system. She ran by a shelf of microwaves and blenders, past pots and pans. She grabbed a stainless-steel ladle that felt unsurprisingly unsatisfying in her hand, and immediately dropped it when she saw the one remaining box of kitchen knives. She dragged it from the shelf, threw it straight into the face of the nearest Hollow Man. The box fell, knives scattering across the floor.

Stephanie snatched up the two biggest ones and swung, the blades slicing through the Hollow Man’s neck. Green gas billowed like air from a punctured tyre. Even as she ran on, she could taste the sting of the gas in the back of her throat.

Two Hollow Men ahead of her, one in a shirt and tie and no trousers and the other in a silk dressing gown.

She dropped to her knees, sliding between them, cutting into their legs as she passed, and even as they were starting to deflate she was already on her feet again, stabbing the filleting knife into the chest of a Hollow Man wearing pyjamas. She spun away from the blast of gas, coughing, her eyes filling with tears. Something blurred in front of her and she hacked at it, shoved it away, her vision worsening, her lungs burning. Her stomach roiled. She tasted bile. She slipped on something. Fell. Lost one of the knives.

A hand grabbed her hair, pulled her back and she cried out. She tried slashing at it with the second knife, but the blade got tangled in her jacket and then it too was lost. She reached up, dug her nails into rough skin, tried to tear through. Her hair was released. Something crunched into her face. The world flashed and spun. She was hit again. She covered up, her arm doing its best to soak up the heavy punches, her head rattling with each impact. If she’d had magic, she’d have set the Hollow Man on fire by now or sent her shadows in to tear it apart. But she didn’t have magic. She didn’t have such a luxury to fall back on, to get her out of trouble. She wasn’t Valkyrie Cain. She didn’t need magic.

Stephanie brought her knees in and spun on her back. The Hollow Man loomed over her, little more than a black shape. Its fist came down on to her belly like a wrecking ball, would have emptied her lungs were it not for her armoured clothes. She braced her feet against its legs and pushed herself back out of range, rolling backwards into a crouch, the Hollow Man stumbling slightly. She plunged her hand into the display stand next to her, scrabbling for a weapon, fingers curling round a mop. The Hollow Man came at her and Stephanie rose, swinging the mop like a baseball bat.

She missed wooden mops. Wooden mops had a little weight to them – whereas the plastic one in her hands merely bounced lightly off the Hollow Man’s head.

She flipped it, drove the other end into its mouth, pushed until she’d sent it staggering and then she let go, turned and ran back the way she’d come. Her eyes were clearing. She no longer wanted to puke. A Hollow Man turned to her and she dodged round it, tripped and fell and saw the Sceptre. She threw herself forward, plunged her hand under the fallen shelf, her fingers closing round its reassuring weight. The Hollow Man reached for her. She turned it to dust.

She got up, disintegrated the next one, and the one after that. Three more trundled into view and she dispatched them with equal ease. Then the only sounds in the place were coming from Skulduggery.

She hurried back to the open area, in time to see Rhadaman pull Skulduggery’s arm from its socket.

Skulduggery screamed as his bones clattered to the floor. A blast of energy took him off his feet, and Rhadaman closed in, ready to deliver the killing blow.

“Freeze!” Stephanie yelled, the Sceptre aimed right at his chest.

He looked at her and laughed. “That doesn’t work, remember?”

She shifted her aim, turned the door behind him to dust. “It only works for its owner, moron. Now, unless you want your remains to be swept into a dustpan, you’ll shackle yourself.” She kicked the shackles across the floor at him. They hit his feet, but he didn’t move.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking, ‘Can I kill this girl before she fires?’ Well, seeing as how this is the Sceptre of the Ancients, the most powerful God-Killer in the world, and it can turn you to dust with a single thought, you’ve got to ask yourself—”

Skulduggery swung the butt of his gun into Rhadaman’s jaw and Rhadaman spun in a semicircle and collapsed.

Stephanie stared. “Seriously?”

Skulduggery nudged Rhadaman with his foot, making sure he was unconscious.

“I was in the middle of something,” Stephanie said. “I had him, and I was in the middle of something. I was doing a bit. You don’t interrupt someone when they’re doing a bit.”

“Cuff him,” Skulduggery said. He holstered the gun and picked up his arm, started to thread it through his sleeve.

“I’d almost got to the best line and you … fine.” Stephanie shoved the Sceptre into the bag on her back, walked over and cuffed Rhadaman’s hands tight. She stood as Skulduggery’s arm clicked back into its socket.

“Ouch,” he muttered, then looked at her. “Sorry? You were saying something?”

“I was being cool,” she said.

“I doubt that.”

“I was being really cool and I was quoting from a really cool movie and you totally ruined it for me.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not. You just can’t stand it when other people get to say cool stuff while you’re too busy screaming, can you?”

“He did pull my arm off.”

“Your arms get pulled off all the time. I rarely get to say anything cool, and usually there’s no one else around to hear it anyway.”

“I apologise,” Skulduggery said. “Please, continue.”

“Well, I’m not going to say it now.”

“Why not? It obviously means a lot to you.”

“No. There’s no point. He’s already in shackles. Also, he’s unconscious.”

“It might make you feel better.”

“I’d feel stupid,” said Stephanie. “I can’t say cool things to an unconscious person.”

“This isn’t about him. It’s about you.”

“No. Forget it. You’d just laugh at me.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Forget it, I said.”

He shrugged. “OK. If you don’t want to finish it, you don’t have to. But it might make you feel better.”

“No.”

“OK then.”

He stood there, looking at her. She glared back, opened her mouth to continue the conversation, but he suddenly turned, walked away, like he’d just remembered that she may look and sound and talk like Valkyrie Cain, but she wasn’t Valkyrie Cain.

And she never would be.

oarhaven was a young city – barely more than three weeks old. It had grown from its humble beginnings as a small town beside a dead lake to a wonder of architectural brilliance in the blink of an eye. Constructed in a parallel reality and then shunted into this one, it overlaid the old town seamlessly. Roarhaven’s narrow streets were now wide, its meagre dwellings now lavish. Its border was immense, proclaimed with authority by the protective wall that encircled it, a wall that used tricks and science and magic to shield it from prying, mortal eyes. At the city’s centre was the Sanctuary, a palace by any other name, resplendent with steeples and towers and quite the envy of the magical communities around the world.

This was to have been the first magical city of the New World Order. Others would follow, as per Ravel’s plan. When the Warlocks started killing mortals and the mortals needed saviours, the sorcerers would swoop in, beat back the horde and be hailed as heroes. They would prove themselves invaluable allies against the newly-discovered forces of darkness. Sorcerer and mortal would stand united. And then, slowly and subtly, the sorcerers would nudge the mortals to one side, and the world would be theirs. But what was that quote Valkyrie Cain had heard once, that Stephanie now remembered?

No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

The Warlocks had come in numbers far greater than expected. They took down the shield, smashed the wall and breached the gate. To even the odds, Erskine Ravel sent Accelerator-boosted sorcerers to fight them – but these supercharged operatives proved to be as much a threat to their own side as to the enemy. And then Darquesse appeared.

In the chaos that followed, many more people died. The Warlocks, having seen their leader killed, scattered and withdrew, nineteen supercharged sorcerers fled, and Darquesse inflicted the punishment of all punishments upon Erskine Ravel.

Roarhaven survived, but the dream had been broken.

Now, sixteen days after the battle had ended, only a fraction of its lavish buildings were occupied. Its streets were quiet and its people humbled and scared and ashamed. They had been promised glory and dominion; they were told they were going to claim their birthright as conquering heroes of the world. What a shock it must have been to discover that they were the villains of this little story.

Stephanie had no sympathy for them, however. They may have seen themselves as lions, but they flocked like lambs.

She hadn’t made up her mind about the city, though. Yes, it was impressive and in places beautiful, and the emptiness of it all added a certain eerie quality she found she liked, but it took the Bentley eight minutes to get from the city gates to the Sanctuary. And that wasn’t because of traffic – there was barely any to speak of – but because of the ridiculous grid system they’d used to arrange the streets. It would have been fine if those eight minutes were filled with conversation, but this morning Skulduggery was in one of his quiet moods, so Stephanie sat in silence.

They got to the Sanctuary – or to the palace that the Sanctuary had become – and took the ramp down below street level, where they parked and rode the elevator up to the lobby. No expense had been spared to remind visitors that this was where the power lay. The lobby was a vision of statues and paintings, white marble and deepest obsidian. Grey-suited Cleavers stood guard, their scythes gleaming wickedly.

The Administrator walked to meet them. “Detective Pleasant,” Tipstaff said, “Miss Edgley, Grand Mage Sorrows will be ready to receive you shortly.”

Skulduggery nodded as Tipstaff walked away, already checking his clipboard for the next item on his to-do list. Skulduggery waited with his hands in his pockets, standing as still as any of the statues around him. Stephanie wasn’t nearly so patient, so off she went, glad for the chance to get away from him. He had his moments of levity, moments when the old Skulduggery would emerge, but they were few and short-lived. His mind was on other things. His mind was on Valkyrie Cain.

She didn’t need to be around him when he was thinking about her.

She left the marble and the brightly-lit corridors and entered the area that had become known as the Old Sanctuary, what remained of the original building with its concrete walls and flickering lights and dancing shadows. Not many sorcerers bothered coming down here, and that’s why Stephanie liked it. Those other sorcerers looked at her uneasily. To them, she was the reflection of the world-breaker, the cheap copy of the girl who was going to kill them all. They didn’t trust her. They didn’t like her. They certainly didn’t value her.

She stepped into the Accelerator Room.

“Hi,” she said.

The Engineer turned. The smiley face that Clarabelle had drawn on to its smooth metal head was still there, and gave the robot an endearingly cheerful expression. Parts were missing from its sigil-covered body, and in those gaps a blue-white light pulsed gently, almost hypnotically.

“Hello, Stephanie,” the Engineer said. “How are you today?”

She shrugged. The Accelerator stood in the middle of the room like an open vase, the uppermost tips of its wall almost scraping the ceiling. Circuitry ran beneath the surface of its skin, crackling brightly. It drew its power from a rift between this world and the source of all magic, a rift the size of a pinprick that the machinery had been built around.

“It’s getting brighter,” she said.

“Yes it is,” said the Engineer. “Every time the power loops, it grows.”

It had originally given them twenty-three days, eight hours, three minutes and twelve seconds until the Accelerator overloaded. Tasked with extending that deadline if at all possible, it had tinkered with the machine, re-routing its power flow and usage, until seven more days had been added to the countdown. But that brief moment of breathing space had been swallowed up as time marched onwards.

“How long left before it all goes kaboom?” Stephanie asked.

“Fourteen days, seven hours and two minutes,” the Engineer said. “Although the sound it makes will not be kaboom. If and when the Accelerator overloads, the sound will more than likely be a very loud fizz. Possibly a whump.”

“Right. So not very impressive, then.”

“Indeed. The effects, however, will be most impressive.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie said. “Every sorcerer in the world boosted to twenty times their normal level of power and driven insane in the process, effectively dooming the entire planet. That’s damned impressive, all right.”

“Sarcasm is your forte, Miss Edgley.”

She smiled. “So nice of you to say, Engineer. So, has anyone come forward yet to offer their soul in exchange for shutting it down?”

“Not yet.”

“They’re probably busy.”

“That is what I have surmised.”

“We have two weeks left. I’m sure there’ll be a queue of volunteers once word gets out.”

“Undoubtedly.”

She laughed. “You’re a cool robot, you know that?”

“Possibly the coolest. You are damaged?”

“Sorry?”

“Your face. It is bruised.”

“Oh,” she said, “it’s nothing. Just another perk of the job.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No. Not really. Only when I poke it.”

“Seeing as how pain is not generally sought after, why would you poke it?”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Stephanie grinned, then the grin faded. “Can I ask you a question? It’s about the symbols you have on you. One of the things they do is make sure you can’t be seen by mortals, right?”

“Essentially.”

“But I’m mortal, and I can see you.”

“But you are different.”

“How? I mean, I’m not magic.”

“But you come from magic,” the Engineer said. “You are a thing born from magic, as am I. But, unlike me, you have surpassed your original purpose. You have become a person – much like Pinocchio in the old fable.”

“Pinocchio,” Stephanie said. “Huh. I hadn’t looked at it like that.”

“My creator, Doctor Rote, would read to me at night. That was his favourite story. It is now my favourite also.”

“Aw, that’s actually sweet. You want to be human?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said the Engineer. “I want to be a puppet.”

She found Skulduggery in the Medical Wing, talking with Reverie Synecdoche. She didn’t get too close. Synecdoche was a nice enough doctor, but she was way too fascinated by Stephanie’s independent existence for it to be anything other than unnerving. Stephanie let Skulduggery talk and hung back, out of the way.

The Medical Wing was adjacent to the Science Wing, and everyone in this part of the Sanctuary was serious and industrious and at all times busy. Apart from Clarabelle. Stephanie watched her work – or at least do something that could be misconstrued as work. She moved with none of the energy of the people around her and carried an empty clipboard, but the look of concentration on her face was fierce, and double that of anyone else. She had bright green hair today.

“Hi, Clarabelle,” said Stephanie.

Clarabelle stopped walking, but didn’t lose that look. “Hi, Valkyrie.”

Stephanie shook her head. “It’s still Stephanie, I’m afraid.”

“Why are you afraid? Did you do something wrong?”

“That’s very likely,” said Stephanie. “You look busy.”

“I know. I’m practising. None of the doctors will let me do anything until I’ve proven myself, so I’m pretending to be busy so that they’ll see I’m really good at it.”

“Do you think that’ll work?”

“I’m fairly confident,” said Clarabelle. “It’s how I got Professor Grouse to hire me. He told me afterwards that he immediately regretted his decision, but by then I’d already moved my stuff in. The doctors here aren’t as much fun. There’s one who looks like a toadstool. You’d imagine someone who looks like a toadstool would be fun to hang around with, but he isn’t. He also doesn’t appreciate being called a toadstool. Even Doctor Nye was more fun than Toadstool-head. Where is Doctor Nye?”

“Prison.”

“When is it getting out?”

“Not for a long time.”

Clarabelle pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. Doctor Nye isn’t very nice. It likes experimenting on things. I heard it once combined the top half of a centaur with the bottom half of a minotaur and the creature escaped, and you can hear it sometimes, roaming the woods at night, howling at the full moon …”

“I’m not sure any of that is true.”

“Still, though,” Clarabelle said, walking away, “it makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“Stephanie,” Doctor Synecdoche called, and waved her over.

Stephanie stifled a groan, and joined them without much enthusiasm.

“I have something for you,” said Synecdoche, rooting around in a desk. “I don’t approve of it, personally, as I’m in the habit of saving lives rather than taking them. But an item was recently discovered buried in the backrooms of the Old Sanctuary, and I was considering your situation and I thought that … let me just find it …”

“My situation?” Stephanie asked.

“Not having magic,” said Skulduggery. “The shock stick is useful, but limited if you can’t recharge it yourself. The Sceptre is unstoppable but, in its own way, also limited. You may not have the space to aim and fire.”

“So I saw something,” Synecdoche said, “and thought of you. Ah, here we are. What do you think?”

She held out a gauntlet made of black metal.

Stephanie’s eyes widened, and even Skulduggery stiffened.

Synecdoche couldn’t help but notice the reaction. “Is something wrong?”

“This is the gauntlet I wear in the vision,” Stephanie said.

“So it would seem,” murmured Skulduggery.

“You’ve seen this in a vision?” Synecdoche asked. “But I just came across it yesterday. I thought you might want it as a last-resort weapon.”

Stephanie frowned. “What does it do?”

Synecdoche hesitated. “The Old Sanctuary was built by a more ruthless breed of sorcerer. This belonged to one of them. It’s called a Deathtouch Gauntlet. When it’s activated, one touch will take someone’s life. Ordinarily I’d have had it destroyed immediately, but considering what you’re going up against, I thought you could use all the help you can get. You said Mevolent pulled Darquesse’s head off and she reattached it, yes? She managed to use her last few seconds of thought to heal herself. With the Deathtouch Gauntlet, there are no last thoughts. Physical death and brain death are instantaneous, so, provided Darquesse doesn’t know what’s coming, she won’t even have the chance to survive.”

Stephanie looked at Skulduggery. “If I don’t wear it, will the future we’ve seen be averted?”

“Not wearing the gauntlet will more than likely have no impact whatsoever on the vision coming true,” Skulduggery said. “We’ve seen details of the vision change, but the result is always the same.”

“Well, I’m not wearing it,” said Stephanie. “There. I’ve decided. Can we go see Cassandra? Check if the vision still ends the same way?”

Skulduggery nodded, his voice suddenly brighter. “I’ll tell Cassandra to expect us. Doctor, thank you for your efforts, but it appears we won’t be taking the gauntlet.”

“OK,” said Synecdoche. “But I’ll put it aside for you, Stephanie, just in case.”

“Don’t bother,” Stephanie said, already moving away. “I’ll never wear it.”

hina Sorrows was waiting for them when they entered the Room of Prisms. Thin pillars of angled glass stretched from floor to ceiling, and in the centre of the room sat the Grand Mage herself, elegant in a flowing powder-blue dress, a brooch on her breast signifying her elevated status. Stephanie had heard people say she’d chosen this room to receive visitors because it had more angles with which to reflect her unnatural beauty – her raven hair, her eyes like ice, her perfect features – but Stephanie knew better. China had chosen this room so that she could see anyone trying to sneak up behind her. China was a cut-throat, and only cut-throats know how cut-throats work.

Behind China’s throne – for that’s what it was – the Black Cleaver stood with silent menace.

“Here they come,” China said, smiling. “The only two people who ever bring me any good news. Do you know how depressing that can be? If I were delicate, I’d surely faint with the pressure.”

“You wanted the job,” said Skulduggery.

“I wanted the title, the power, and all those lovely books. The stress I could do without. I think I’m close to getting a worry line on my forehead.”

“How dreadful,” said Skulduggery.

“See? You understand. And so here you are, with good news. Congratulations, by the way, on taking down Ferrente Rhadaman without alerting one single member of the public. Scrutinous and Random have been working overtime to cover up some very sloppy displays. I’m amazed we’re not splashed all over the news. Did Rhadaman have any information on the remaining renegade sorcerers?”

“He didn’t have specifics, but he did say they’re grouping together.”

“Because there is safety in numbers?”

Skulduggery shook his head. “He said someone has been in contact with them. Sounds like a refuge is being offered.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. Do you mean another Sanctuary?”

“I have no more information.”

China sat back, and said nothing for a few moments. “If it’s another Sanctuary offering them asylum, we have to find out which one it is. Since the War of the Sanctuaries, international relations are … precarious. The last thing we need is one of them going rogue and upsetting everyone else.”

The door opened, and Tipstaff walked in. He whispered in China’s ear, and she nodded. When he left, she glanced at Skulduggery and Stephanie.

“Bear with me one minute,” she said.

A man walked in. Tall and lean, unshaven, with dark hair that needed a cut and faded jeans that needed a wash. He exuded an air of menace that was as natural to him as breathing.

“Mr Foe,” said China. “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get here.”

Vincent Foe looked at them all warily. “Apologies, Grand Mage. I was working on my bike.”

“Well,” said China, smiling, “if your motorcycle has broken down the next time I call for you, I expect you to catch the next available bus.”

Foe’s lip curled at the thought.

China continued. “You would do well to remember that, on a whim, I could have the Cleavers round you up and throw you in a cell and nobody, and I do mean nobody, would raise a single objection.”

Foe brushed the hair out of his eyes. “That kind of strikes me as a potential abuse of power.”

China’s smile deepened. “As I always say, what’s the point of power if you can’t abuse it? You owe me, Mr Foe, and until your debt is paid, you are mine. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry?”

Foe cleared his throat. “Yes. I understand. And how, I wonder, will I know when the debt has been paid?”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to tell you.”

Foe smiled thinly, then looked over at Skulduggery and Stephanie. “You’re OK with this, are you? This is how tyrants are created.”

“What do you care?” Stephanie asked. “You’re a nihilist.”

He shrugged. “Just pointing it out.”

“Mr Foe,” said China, “I’m not done abusing my power.”

Foe gave a little bow. “Once again, my apologies. What enemy is in your sights, may I ask?”

“An old one,” said China. “Eliza Scorn has her Church of the Faceless up and running. I’ve watched her take it over, gather support, build it up, and I’ve waited for the perfect moment to tear it all down. I want to do it properly – not just here in Ireland, but around the world. So I need access to every little secret she has.”

“You want us to break in somewhere, steal her files?”

“I said I wanted this done properly. Above board. No breaking, no stealing. I need a reason to confiscate every last scrap of paper that woman has.”

“So?” Foe asked.

“She wants you to join the Church,” Skulduggery said.

Foe frowned. “But we don’t worship the Faceless Ones.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said China. “One of the rules that were set down when the Church was given official status was that no one with a criminal background could be a member.”

“Ah,” said Foe. “And me and my little gang are all ex-cons.”

“Precisely. You join, we swoop. Eliza loses it all.”

“And then we’re square?”

China laughed. “Mr Foe, you tried to kill me. We are a long way from being square. Leave.”

Foe hesitated, then nodded and walked out.

When he was gone, Skulduggery spoke. “It would be a mistake to trust that man.”

“Just as it would be a mistake for him to cross me,” China responded. “Now where were we? Oh, yes, congratulating you on taking Ferrente Rhadaman into custody. Very good work, both of you. Of course, it’s not the work you should have been doing. I assigned Dexter Vex and Saracen Rue to track down these renegades with the aid of the Monster Hunters.”

“And they’re doing very well,” said Skulduggery. “Out of the nineteen, we’ve taken down one, they’ve caught six, two more have burned out all by themselves, and various Sanctuaries around the world have dealt with a further four. Which leaves us with six renegades still at large.”

“And you’re wilfully missing the point,” said China. “Rounding up the renegades is hugely important, I accept this. But I assigned the two of you to the task of finding and stopping Darquesse. I’ve given you access to whatever resources you need to get this done, as it remains our number-one priority. If the renegades are not corralled, they will alert the world to our existence. But if Darquesse is not stopped, there will be no world to alert. So tell me, how are things progressing on that front?”

“As expected,” said Skulduggery.

“Really? We expected no progress?”

“Just because we have no results doesn’t mean we’ve made no progress. We’re looking for one person who could be literally anywhere in the world. At this early stage, it’s a process of elimination.”

“I see,” said China. “And where have you eliminated so far?”

Skulduggery looked around. “Here. Darquesse is not here, therefore this room can be eliminated from the list of places she could be. Unless she enters this room after we’ve gone, in which case, we’d be foolish to rule it out completely.”

China sighed. “So what you’re saying is that it’s impossible to track her down.”

“No, not at all. In fact, we have two ways of finding out where she is. The first is quite simple – we bring her to us.”

“And how do we do that?”

“She’s punishing Erskine Ravel for the murders of Anton and Ghastly. For twenty-three hours of every day, he’s subjected to unimaginable agony. If the doctors try to alleviate his suffering, the pain increases. If he grows somewhat tolerant, the pain increases. This link between them is something we can exploit. If we shunt Ravel into another reality, the link could break.”

“And how does this help us?”

“Once the link is severed, Darquesse will come looking for answers. When we bring Ravel back, he’ll be her first target. Naturally, we’ll have to be ready, because we’re only going to get one shot at luring her in.”

China pursed her lips. “Risky.”

“Oh, yes,” said Skulduggery. “Hugely risky. Possibly suicidal. But we should probably get started on finding a reality to shunt him into.”

China sighed. “Very well. And the second way?”

“That’s a little trickier, but it’s also more straightforward. We don’t have to track her – we just have to track the people with her.”

“You mean Tanith Low.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Yes I do. Tanith Low and Billy-Ray Sanguine.”

e watched her standing in the air, her eyes closed, hovering just above the wooden floor. She was wrapped in darkness, from each individual toe right up to her jawline, a darkness so tight he could see the muscles in her legs, the tightness of her belly. She’d been like that for days. Hadn’t opened her eyes, or said one word. Just hovered there.

Sanguine took off his coat, dumped it on a straight-backed chair, the only piece of furniture in the room. It was cold outside, but hot in here, all that heat generated from the eighteen-year-old girl slowing rotating in mid-air. What was going on inside her mind, he had no idea. Were they human thoughts she was thinking, or something else? Something beyond human?

Someone that powerful, he reckoned, would only take a short while to start thinking thoughts that had no place in a human head.

A whisper of leather behind him, but he didn’t turn. Tanith Low was quiet when she did her patrol of this little house in this little ghost estate. Were he to glance out of that window, he’d see a dozen identical houses to this one, but all hollow and empty. Years back, they were set to be sold to the affluent Irish and the lucky immigrants who came here for a better life. Then the money went away and immigrants sought better lives elsewhere, took a good chunk of the Irish with them.

Sanguine was tired of Ireland. It was coming to the tail end of winter, but the winds were still bitter and the rain was still mean. He wanted to go home, back to the heat of East Texas. He was sick of living the life of an outlaw. He wanted to sit on the porch in the evenings and not have to worry about the world ending, or how to play his part in it.

He watched Tanith slip out of the window and walk up the outside wall towards the roof. She had binoculars up there she could use to sweep the full 360. She hadn’t said much since they’d arrived here, and she barely slept. The Remnant inside her kept her going, kept her strong and alert. Sometimes he’d catch her looking at him and wonder if today was the day she’d kill him.

Because she had to kill him. He knew that much.

Darquesse, that god-in-a-girl’s-body that had once been known as Valkyrie Cain, was the Remnant’s messiah, destined to decimate the earth and reduce civilisation to cinders for some reason yet to be discovered. When Darquesse had asked Tanith to look after her while she “hibernated” – her words – Tanith had been overjoyed. Sanguine had tagged along, of course he had. Tanith was his fiancée, after all. He loved her. But no matter how much he loved Tanith, Darquesse had never been his messiah, and he had no wish to see the world burn.

Tanith knew that, given enough time, he’d go on to do something drastic to avert that apocalypse, and the only reason she hadn’t killed him yet was because she obviously didn’t think he’d be up to it. But even now there was a dagger tucked into his belt, one of four God-Killer weapons he’d hidden away from her that were more than capable of ending this god-girl’s life. He’d heard what Darquesse could do. He’d heard her head had once been pulled off, and she’d put herself back together in those last few moments before brain death.

Yet Darquesse was killable. Darquesse was very killable. But in order to kill her, he needed to plunge this dagger into her before she had a chance to formulate any thoughts on the matter. He could do it now. Tanith was on the roof, Darquesse had her eyes closed, and here he was, standing with one hand already sneaking round behind his back to the dagger. He lifted it from his belt with great care, and when he held it he pointed it down and away from his body. These weapons killed whatever they nicked, and if they could kill a god they could certainly kill Momma Sanguine’s favourite son.

The dagger felt good in his hand. Well-balanced. Three steps and he’d be next to her, then all he’d have to do would be to reach up, drive the blade through her skull. It’d be the easiest kill of his life, and the most important. Hell, he’d be saving the damn world. How many other hitmen could say that? Course, by killing Darquesse he’d be destroying the dreams of Tanith Low, the only woman he’d ever loved, and in doing that he’d be inciting her rage to the point where he’d have to kill her before she killed him.

Darquesse hovered there, head down and eyes closed, turning ever so slowly, and Sanguine put the dagger back in his belt. He reckoned he could allow his warm and fuzzy feelings to stay alive a little longer.

ome.

It always made her smile to go home. Those awkward days filled with awkward silences and occasional, maddening bursts of friendship were made bearable by the fact that Stephanie had a home to go to at the end of it all. The smile began when she got out of the Bentley, and it broadened to a grin when she pushed open the front door.

Comfort.

No, more than comfort. Belonging.

Her dad was in the living room, her mum moving round the house, and at this time of night Alice was already in bed. Her whole family, alive and safe. Shoving the knowledge of their possible fates into a dark corner of her mind, Stephanie went up to her room, changed into jeans and a hoody, and stowed the Sceptre and the stick under her bed. In her bare feet, she crept into Alice’s room, looked down at her as she slept.

“Hey there,” she whispered. “Sorry I didn’t get to play with you today. Doing important stuff. When it’s all done, I’ll be able to play with you every single day, I promise.”

Alice lay there, eyes closed and mouth open, looking beautiful. Stephanie felt such an overwhelming sense of love and, not for the first time, sheer thrilling excitement that this was her life now. She had a family. Parents and a sister. She was a normal girl living a normal life. Or it would be a normal life, just as soon as she escaped all the weirdness.

She crept back out and went downstairs. Her first stop was the kitchen. She’d been starving for hours, but hadn’t bothered to tell Skulduggery. She’d started to feel that these biological needs of hers – to eat, to pee – were complications he could do without knowing about. Things were fraught enough between them as it was – she didn’t want to annoy him any further.

She heated some leftovers in the microwave and washed them down with a glass of cold milk. Her belly no longer rumbling, she cleaned the plate and took her glass into the living room. Her dad didn’t even glance up from the TV.

“Muh,” he said, waving a hand.

“Hi, Dad. Whatcha watching?”

“TV.”

“What’s on?”

“Film.”

“What’s it called?”

He didn’t answer.

“Dad? What’s it called?”

“Three Days of the Condor.”

“Is it good?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Is it complicated?”

“Very.”

“What’s it about?”

“Not sure,” he said. “I think it’s about a bird.”

Stephanie left him to his movie, and picked up a sealed envelope from the side table. Someone had written Edgleys across it, in handwriting she didn’t recognise. Something slid around inside. She dug a fingertip in, ripped it open, and a memory stick fell out on to her palm.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“What’s what?”

She turned, showed him.

“Oh, that,” he said, looking back at the TV. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a memory stick,” she said.

“If you knew, why did you ask?”

“It was in an envelope addressed to us.”

“Was it?” her dad asked. “That’s odd. That’s very odd. Well, it’s sort of odd, but not really.” He paused the movie. “I have no idea what’s going on in this film.”

“Who sent the envelope?”

“Hmm? Oh, someone knocked on the door, handed it over, said something and walked away. The strangest thing I’ve ever seen except, again, it wasn’t really.”

“Who was it?” said Stephanie.

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“What did he say?”

“Can’t really remember. It was weeks ago. He stood there and I remember thinking, This is unusual. It looked like he was about to cry, or hug me, or both. I think he said something like, It’s an honour to meet you. Which, of course, it is, though most people don’t usually say it out loud.”

“And you didn’t open the envelope?”

“I was going to,” said her dad, “but I got bored. Is that the only thing in it? It didn’t come with a covering note?”

“Just this.”

“Are you going to see what’s on it?” he asked. “I don’t know if that’s wise. It might be a virus, or an artificial intelligence like Skynet who just wants to usher in nuclear war so that our robot overlords can take over. I don’t know if I’d like the responsibility of setting all that in motion. I mean, I probably would, because at least then I’d be famous, but seeing as how it would lead to everyone dying … I don’t know. I’m conflicted.”

“I doubt it would usher in Armageddon.”

“But you can’t be sure, can you? I’m not equipped to survive Armageddon, Steph. Maybe once upon a time I could have led the resistance, but I’ve gone soft. I’ve lost my edge. I wear slippers now. I never used to wear slippers.”

“What’s this about slippers?” Stephanie’s mum said, walking in.

“Dad’s just saying he could never lead the resistance against a robot army because he wears slippers.”

“This is very true,” her mum said.

“Then it’s decided,” Stephanie’s father said. “When the robot army makes itself known, I will be one of the first traitors to sell out the human race.”

“Wow,” said Stephanie.

“Now that’s an about-turn,” said her mum.

“It’s the only way,” said her dad. “I have to make sure my family survives. The two of you and that other one, the smaller one—”

“Alice.”

“That’s her. You’re all that matter to me. You’re all I care about. I will betray the human race so that the robot army spares you. And then later, I will betray you so that the robot army spares me. It’s a dangerous ploy, but someone has to be willing to take the big risks, and I’ll be damned if I’m about to let anyone else gamble with my family’s future.”

“You’re so brave,” Stephanie’s mum said.

“I know,” said her dad, and then, quieter, “I know.”

Stephanie grinned, left the memory stick on the side table and went to the couch, sank into it and curled her feet up under her. They all watched the rest of Three Days of the Condor and then Stephanie and her mum explained the plot to her dad. When he was satisfied, they said goodnight and Stephanie went up to bed. She climbed beneath the covers and closed her eyes, and a few seconds later her phone beeped. She read the text, sent back an answer and turned on her bedside lamp as she sat up, holding the covers close.

Fletcher Renn emerged from thin air in the middle of her room. “Hi,” he whispered.

“Hey.”

He sat on the bed. He looked good and strong and healthy. He looked tanned. His hair was awesome. He leaned in and they kissed.

“You taste yummy,” she said.

“I’ve just been in New Zealand, eating strawberries. Do you want some? We could pop over …?”

“I’m in bed,” Stephanie said, smiling. “It’s bedtime now. And Skulduggery’s picking me up early to drive over to Cassandra Pharos, so no quick jaunts for me.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Were you in New Zealand with the Monster Hunters or just for the strawberries?”

“Strawberries,” said Fletcher. “There’s a little shop in Wellington that I love. They always have the best strawberries, for some reason.”

She leaned back against the headboard. “So how is life as a big, bad Monster Hunter? Is it official yet?”

He grinned. “It is, and I’m actually enjoying it. Donegan and Gracious are pretty cool. Gracious is such an unbelievable geek, though. It’s like everything he’s ever loved is now on a T-shirt. They asked Dai Maybury to join, too, did you hear that? He said he couldn’t, he was too much of a lone wolf – those were his exact words – but he agreed to be an Emergency Monster Hunter, to be called on only when needed. And now he just won’t go away.”

Stephanie laughed softly. “Sounds like you’re all getting on well.”

“We are,” said Fletcher, nodding. “It’s nice to be a part of something that … changes things, you know? We go after the renegade sorcerers with all their supercharged powers, and we beat them, we shackle them, we throw them in a cell. We stop them from killing innocent people, we stop them from exposing magic, and we move on to the next one. It’s just … it’s a wonderful feeling. To be useful.”

“Look at that,” Stephanie said. “My boyfriend is taking pride in his work.”

“Boyfriend, am I?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Her smile vanished. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. Do you want me to be?”

“Well … yes.”

He leaned closer. “OK. Then I suppose I’m your boyfriend. Are you my girlfriend?”

“That’s usually how these things go.”

He kissed her again. “Good.”

kulduggery was at the pier on time the next morning, because Skulduggery was always at the pier on time. Stephanie was always a few minutes late. Valkyrie had rarely been late, but then Valkyrie had enjoyed this stuff a lot more.

“Sorry,” Stephanie said, buckling her seatbelt. “Dad wouldn’t get out of the shower.”

Skulduggery nodded, didn’t answer, and they pulled out on to the road. Stephanie sat back in her seat. Great. Another one of those days.

Cassandra Pharos was ready for them when they arrived. The door to her cottage was open, and Skulduggery led the way inside. They went down into the cellar, where the coals beneath the floor grille were already glowing orange, filling the chamber with a close, muggy heat. Cassandra sat on the chair, umbrella open and held comfortably over her head. Her lined face, framed by a cascade of grey hair, broke into a smile when she saw them.

“Hello there,” she said brightly.

Stephanie liked Cassandra. She was one of the only people who didn’t treat her like a poor replacement for a real person.

“There have been a few changes to the last vision I showed you,” she said. “Skulduggery, be a dear and turn the water on, would you? Now, while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

Skulduggery turned the valve on the wall, and water sprinkled from the pipes in the ceiling. The coals hissed and steam billowed. Skulduggery waited until Cassandra was lost to sight, then turned the water off.

The first time Valkyrie had come down here, she’d witnessed Cassandra’s vision of the future. The second time had revealed greater detail, and yet there were some aspects that were different. Knowledge of the future changes the future, Cassandra had said. The second time, the vision had begun with Erskine Ravel in his Elder robes, his hands shackled, screaming in agony. That future had already come to pass with two tiny differences – Ravel hadn’t been wearing his robes, and the room in which it occurred wasn’t the room in the vision.

This time, with Stephanie down here instead of Valkyrie, the vision was different again. It didn’t start with Ghastly running by. It started with Tanith staggering through the fog, one hand at a wound in her belly, the other gripping her sword. It wasn’t a ruined city that materialised around her this time, but one of the Sanctuary corridors. She stumbled against a wall, waited there a moment to catch her breath.

“Suppose it’s fitting,” she said, looking up at someone just over Stephanie’s shoulder, “that it comes down to you and me, after all this time.”

A figure walked right through Stephanie and she jumped back, disrupting the steam.

Tanith did her best to stand upright. “Come and have a go …” she said, but her words faded along with her image, and the steam swirled and Stephanie saw herself standing in the city.

Because that’s who it was. It was Stephanie. When Valkyrie had seen this, she hadn’t been able to understand how there could be a Valkyrie Cain and a Darquesse in the vision at the same time. But of course there had never been a Valkyrie Cain. It had always been Stephanie and Darquesse. From the very beginning, that’s how it was meant to be.

The Stephanie in the vision wore a torn and bloody T-shirt, black like her trousers. No jacket. The Deathtouch Gauntlet was on her right forearm, and on her left arm she had a tattoo. There was a bag on her back, the strap slung across her chest, the same bag Stephanie was wearing now to carry the Sceptre.

“I’ve seen this,” her future self said, looking up to stare directly into Stephanie’s eyes. “I was watching from … there. Hi. This is where it happens, but then you know that, right? At least you think you do. You think this is where I let them die.”

“Stephanie!”

The voice was so real and so sharp that Stephanie forgot for a moment that it came from the vision, and instead looked around for her father, her heart lurching. The panic passed as suddenly as it had arrived – it wasn’t real, not yet – and she watched her parents, her mother carrying Alice, searching the ruins.

Her future self shook her head. “I don’t want to see this. Please. I don’t want this to happen. Let me stop it. Please let me stop it.” She took something from her pocket and looked at it, tears streaming. “Please work. Please let me save them.”

Stephanie’s future self was lost in a fresh swirl of billowing steam that rippled through the images of her parents, but failed to disperse them.

“Stephanie!” her father shouted. “We’re here! Steph!”

Darquesse landed behind them, cracking the pavement. Her shadowskin covered her from toe to jawline, and she smiled as Stephanie’s dad positioned himself in front of his wife and child.

“Give our daughter back to us,” he said.

Darquesse didn’t say anything. She just smiled.

“Give her back!” Desmond Edgley roared, and in the next instant he was enveloped in black flame.

Stephanie had known it was coming, but it still hit her like a fist. She sagged, made a sound like a wounded dog, and thankfully the steam billowed and took the image away. It was replaced with a new one, of a black hat lying on a cracked street. A breeze tried to play with it, tried to roll and flip it, but the hat proved resistant and eventually the breeze gave up. A gloved hand reached down, plucked the hat off the ground and brushed the dust from it. Skulduggery, dressed in black, returning the hat to his head, angling the brim and looking good while he did so.

They were coming to the end now, Stephanie knew. The only thing left was for Darquesse to …

… and here she was now.

Darquesse walked up behind Skulduggery and he turned, unhurried. He reloaded his gun.

“My favourite little toy,” said Darquesse, her voice echoing slightly in the chamber.

“Are you referring to my gun or to me?” Skulduggery asked.

Darquesse laughed. “You know you’re going to die now, don’t you? And still you make jokes.”

Skulduggery looked up slightly. “I made a promise.”

Darquesse nodded. “Until the end.”

“That’s right,” said Skulduggery. “Until the end.”

He walked forward, firing the gun. He’d taken three steps before the pistol fell to the ground, followed quickly by his glove. Stephanie glanced at the real Skulduggery, wishing he had a face she could read while he watched his future self come apart, limbs falling, bones scattering. The Skulduggery in the vision collapsed and Darquesse picked up his head.

She kissed his teeth, then dropped the skull, and as the steam billowed and the last dregs of the vision were swept away, she turned, looked straight into Stephanie’s eyes, and smiled.

e didn’t want to do it. There were a ton of things he’d have preferred to do right at that moment. Leave it alone, for one thing. Walk away, for another. Take a vacation, somewhere hot and lazy, and let other people sort this out. But he couldn’t just abandon everything. Not yet. Not until he knew for sure that there was someone out there who could stop her. So Sanguine put down the beer he’d barely touched, and went to investigate the scream.

He pushed open the door to the spare room. It hit something on the other side, something that rolled, then came to a lazy stop as the door swung wider. A head. Male. Sanguine didn’t recognise the face. Nor did he recognise the other faces he saw in the room, twisted as they were in frozen snapshots of terror. How many were in here was impossible to judge. Body parts were grouped in piles, with the heads in the near corner. The floorboards were red and sodden. Blood splattered the walls and dripped from the ceiling. In the centre of the room crouched Darquesse, her fingers digging into what remained of a torso. She’d woken up from her hibernation, and she’d woken up curious. She looked up at him, her face calm.

Sanguine had no problems with taking a human life. He didn’t even have a problem with taking an innocent life, provided he was paid for it or had sufficient personal reasons. He was a killer. When he slept, his victims didn’t haunt his dreams, and so he was a good killer. All these things he recognised and acknowledged when he said, with some horror, “What have you done?”

Darquesse dug her fingers in a little more. The blood didn’t show on her shadowskin. “I’m investigating,” she said.

Words, he felt, needed to be chosen with care. “Who were they?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The people … the bodies.”

Darquesse stood. “Their names, you mean? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I think that one’s name is Daisy, because it says Daisy on her badge. She works in a supermarket.”

“I see. And why did you kill Daisy?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t kill her? Then who did all this?”

Darquesse looked around, then back at him. “I did.”

“Then you did kill her.”

“No. Well, I stopped her heart beating and her brain functioning, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“But I didn’t kill her. She’s still here. They’re all still here, Billy-Ray. I wouldn’t just kill them. How cruel would that be?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’d be pretty cruel, all right. So when you say they’re still here, what exactly are you talking about?”

Darquesse fluttered her fingers. “They’re still here. Around us.”

“You mean like ghosts?”

“In a way,” Darquesse said, smiling. “I mean their energy. Can’t you feel it?”

“Have to be honest with you, Darquesse, I cannot feel that. That must be one of your special abilities, because to me, it looks like you just killed a whole bunch of people for no reason.”

“Oh,” said Darquesse. “That’s so sad.”

“It’s a little depressing, yeah. So is that what you’re investigating, this energy?”

“I’m seeing how it works.”

“Found out much?”

“A fair bit. I might need to talk to some experts, though. Maybe scientists. I need to know how things work before I can play with them, you know?”

“That makes sense,” said Sanguine carefully.

“You know what’d be handy? Remnants. Lots of them. They take over the experts, the experts tell me what I want to know. Doesn’t that sound handy?”

“Uh, it sounds more trouble than it’s worth …”

“Nonsense,” said Darquesse. “The Remnants are lovely. Aren’t you engaged to one, after all?”

“Tanith’s a special case, though. And how are you even gonna find them? The Receptacle has been hidden away—”

“No it hasn’t,” Darquesse said happily. “There were plans to relocate it. Great plans. Plans that got sidetracked. Forgotten about. Quietly abandoned. The Receptacle is still in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, guarded by a few sorcerers and a squad of Cleavers. No problem.”

“You really think this is a good idea? Last time those Remnants were loose, you killed a whole bunch of them. Remnants have long memories.”

“You don’t think they’ll like me?” Darquesse asked, and frowned. “Maybe we should ask Tanith.”

She walked out and Sanguine hesitated, then followed. They found Tanith in the kitchen, sipping from a mug of coffee.

“I’m going to set the Remnants free,” Darquesse said. “What do you think about that?”

Tanith paused, then took another sip and shrugged. “Don’t really care one way or the other, to be honest. Some of them will be happy to see you. Some won’t.”

“Want to come with me? Say hi?”

“Sure,” said Tanith. “Let me drink this and I’ll meet you on the roof.”

Darquesse grinned, went to the window and flew out.

Tanith watched Sanguine for a moment. “You look like you have something to say.”

He kept his voice low. “You know she killed some people just to look at their energy, whatever the hell that means? She’s killing people, but not seeing it like killing people. Tanith, that ain’t safe. She’s tipping over the edge.”

“Of what? Sanity? Billy-Ray, what does sanity mean to someone like her? How does it apply?”

“She could kill us just as easily as anyone else.”

“No,” Tanith said. “She won’t kill us. Not till right before the end.”

“She can do no wrong in your eyes, can she?”

“Actually,” said Tanith, “she’s doing plenty wrong. She’s wasting time, for a start. I mean, what’s the problem? She has enough power to turn the world into a blackened, charred husk.”

“Is that what you want?”

“You know that’s what I want.”

“I know that’s what you wanted,” said Sanguine. “But that was before you talked to that guy who’d learned to control the Remnant inside him.”

“His name is Moribund. And he doesn’t control the Remnant, OK? How many times do I have to say it? After a few days, the Remnant stops being a separate entity.”

“OK, sorry, but my point remains. He said you didn’t have to be this way. He said you could rebuild your conscience if you worked at it.”

“Why would I want to?” said Tanith. “I’m happy being me.”

“No you’re not.”

Tanith laughed, put the coffee down. “Oh, really? You’re the expert on how I feel and what I think, are you?”

“I saw you working alongside Valkyrie and the Monster Hunters and the Dead Men. You were having fun, sure, but it was more than that. You were where you belonged.”

“Why don’t you just admit it? You don’t want Darquesse to destroy the world, do you?”

Now it was Sanguine’s turn to laugh. “Of course I don’t.”

“Then why are you helping us?”

“Because I love you and I wanna be there when you realise you’re wrong, because on that day you’ll need someone to have your back.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Love makes a fool of us all.”

“Will you please stop saying that word?”

“Why? It making you uncomfortable? Maybe the more you hear it, the more you’ll remember it. Maybe that’s the problem here.”

“There is no problem,” said Tanith. “I just want Darquesse to hurry up and kill everything.”

“You want the world to end now because the longer it takes, the more time you have to think, and doubt, and question yourself. See, you’re coming off a wonderful certainty, where you knew for sure that you wanted the world to end. But you don’t have that certainty any more, and that scares you.”

Tanith shot him a glare, and walked to the window. Right before she climbed out she looked back and said, “You don’t know me half as well as you think you do.”

“That’s right,” said Sanguine, “I don’t. But hell, Tanith, you don’t know yourself, either.”

ack to Roarhaven, and not a word spoken in the car. Stephanie replayed the vision over and over in her head. Details changed, but the facts remained the same. Stephanie, standing there with a tattoo and that gauntlet. Darquesse, murdering her family. Skulduggery’s skull plucked from his spine. That smile. Those things didn’t change. Those things wouldn’t change.

They drove by the elderly sorcerer whose job it was to turn back any mortal who strayed too close. He nodded to them, and a few moments later the road narrowed and they passed through the illusion of emptiness that protected Roarhaven from mortal eyes. The city loomed, its huge gates open. The Bentley slid through the streets, parked below ground. Stephanie followed Skulduggery into the Sanctuary corridors and they went deeper. They walked without speaking. Stephanie wondered if Skulduggery even remembered she was there.

They got to the cells. Skulduggery spoke with the man in charge, told him what he needed. Moments later, they were in the interview room. Skulduggery sat at the table. Stephanie walked slowly from one wall to the other and back again, her hands in her pockets. She looked round when the door opened, and a small, neat man stepped in. Creyfon Signate was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, and his hands were shackled before him.

“Finally!” he said, once he saw who had summoned him. He walked forward, dropping into the empty chair.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve been asking to speak to someone in charge ever since I was arrested,” said Signate. “I’ve been locked up here for weeks!”

“Erskine Ravel orchestrated a war in which hundreds of sorcerers were killed,” said Stephanie, “and you played a huge part in that. Of course you were locked up. You’re lucky we kept you here instead of shipping you out to an actual gaol.”

Signate shook his head. “I had nothing whatsoever to do with the war. I was brought in to do a job, to oversee the construction of a city in a hospitable dimension and then to shunt the people and the city itself back to this one. The city we built had to overlay the town of Roarhaven exactly. It took pinpoint planning, an absurd attention to detail, and it required my full attention. Do you really think I had time to plot and conspire with Ravel and the Children of the Spider, even if I’d wanted to?”

“So you’re entirely innocent?” Skulduggery said. “You were just doing your job?”

“I believed in what Ravel tried to do. I believed in his vision. But having an unpopular ideology is not a crime, and yet here I sit. In shackles.”

“You’re not in shackles for the ideology part,” said Stephanie. “You’re in shackles for everything else you did.”

“But I didn’t do anything! I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t even lie to anyone. All I did was obey the Grand Mage.”

“Construction on the city started long before Ravel became Grand Mage,” said Skulduggery. “You can’t use that as an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse, Detective. I was just doing my job, and breaking no laws while I did it. Bring in your Sensitives, have them read my mind. They’ll tell you I’m innocent.”

“They’ll tell us you believe you’re innocent,” Skulduggery said. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Then allow me a trial. We can still have one of those, can’t we? They haven’t been rendered completely obsolete? Allow me to be judged by my peers, based on evidence and testimony. Let them weigh up the facts and deliver their verdict.”

“No,” said Skulduggery.

“This is preposterous! You cannot keep me in prison! I deserve a chance to prove my innocence!”

“Mr Signate,” Skulduggery said, his voice calm, “you won’t require a trial because we’re here to offer you a deal.”

Signate’s fury vanished. “You are?”

“Darquesse poses a threat like virtually nothing we’ve ever seen. While we do have a way of fighting her, we don’t have a way of finding her. She could be anywhere. That’s why we need you.”

“I don’t understand how I could be of use.”

“You’re one of the best Shunters alive, Mr Signate. We’re going to require someone of your skill to do what needs to be done.”

“I … I still don’t see what—”

“If you’re interested,” Skulduggery said, interrupting him, “and you agree to help us, then you walk free this very afternoon. You’ll be working with the Sanctuary and all your previous misdeeds will be forgotten. Are you interested?”

“I … I am,” Signate said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Before she vanished, Darquesse punished Erskine Ravel for everything he’d done. In particular, the murder of Ghastly Bespoke. She took that personally. You may have heard that Ravel is allowed one hour free of agony every day. The other twenty-three hours are spent screaming. No sedatives or painkillers can help him, no Sensitive can calm him. On his hour off, he has taken to begging. He wants to die. He wants the pain to end. Obviously, I won’t let that happen. I took Ghastly’s murder personally, too.”

“I didn’t know Ravel was planning to … to kill Elder Bespoke,” Signate said, fear in his eyes for the first time. Stephanie believed him.

“The human body adapts,” Skulduggery said, ignoring Signate’s distress. “If constant pain is inflicted, it raises its threshold. Ravel has been denied this luxury. Every time he gets used to the pain, the pain intensifies. The only way this is possible, we think, is if Darquesse has formed a direct link to Ravel. She’s turning the dial on his agony herself.”

Signate looked at Skulduggery for a few moments. “You want me to shunt Ravel into another dimension,” he said.

Skulduggery nodded. “Doing so should sever the link between them, catching Darquesse’s attention. Then, when you bring Ravel back, she should come for him.”

“And you’ll be waiting.”

“Yes. You’ll take a team of Cleavers with you when you shunt to keep Ravel in check.”

“It’s a good plan,” said Signate. “But there’s a problem. I have access to four dimensions. Three of them are inhospitable at this time of year. The fourth is where we built the city.”

“So that’s where you’ll be shunting.”

“I’m afraid not. There are creatures in that reality that we barely managed to hold back with the city’s walls. Some of these creatures are as big as elephants. Some are the size of large dogs. They’re all predators, and now that there are no walls to keep them at bay, we would be shunting straight into a feeding frenzy.”

“So you need a new dimension to shunt into,” Skulduggery said, and went silent for a moment. “Tell me, Mr Signate, do you know Silas Nadir?”

Signate’s lip curled in distaste. “I know him. Haven’t spoken to him in over sixty years. If you’re hoping I know where to find him, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I try not to associate with serial killers.”

“We don’t need you to find him. We’ve come close to it in the past, and one of these days we’ll catch him and make sure he never kills again. But you’re aware of the dimension he found?”

“I am, of course,” said Signate. “A reality where Mevolent rules the world. Not somewhere I’d ever be interested in visiting, mind you, but … oh.”

“Do you think you can find it? I’m aware that every dimension has its own frequency and there’s an infinite number of realities, but—”

“Once a frequency has been found,” said Signate, seizing his own opportunity to interrupt, “it’s out there, open, waiting. It becomes noticeable, if you’re of a particular skill level. And of course I am. It would help me greatly if there was something I could draw a reading from, though. Did you happen to bring back any souvenirs?”

“We have this,” said Stephanie, taking the Sceptre from her backpack.

Signate’s eyes widened. “Oh, my … That’s the Sceptre of the Ancients, isn’t it? That’s a piece of history. It’s … magnificent.”

“It’s not ours,” Stephanie said. “Our Sceptre was destroyed. This one belongs in the other dimension. We kind of liberated it.”

“Can I … Can I touch it?” Signate asked. “It won’t go off, will it?”

“It’s Deadlocked,” she told him. “It’s bonded to me, so I’m the only one it’ll work for. Can you get a reading from it?”

With slightly trembling hands, Signate reached out, fingertips brushing the Sceptre. He closed his eyes and bit his lip. His fingertips tapped lightly. Then he withdrew his hands, and looked up. “That is tremendously helpful. It would have taken me months to find the proper frequency – now it will only take weeks.”

“You have days,” said Skulduggery. “Do you think you can do it?”

Signate smiled for the first time. “I have always appreciated a challenge.”

Skulduggery stood. “You’ll be out in an hour. Report directly to Administrator Tipstaff. You’re working with us now, Creyfon. Do not disappoint me.”

They left him there and walked back. The silence was beginning to get to Stephanie. It was a peculiar sort of silence. It was sharp. It had angles. It jostled between them, its edges cutting into her. But she kept her mouth shut. Attempting to start a conversation, trying for small talk, would be a defeat. If Skulduggery didn’t want to talk to her, then she didn’t want to talk to Skulduggery.

Even though she did. Badly.

eep within the mountain, Cleavers came and Cleavers died, their bodies crumpling while their energies burst free of their earthly bonds and soared upwards into the heavens. It was a beautiful thing to behold, amid the spray of blood and the mangled limbs, and Darquesse found she could appreciate it on a whole new, artistic level. The squalor and the splendour of existence, displayed before her like a grand diorama.

Tanith wasn’t appreciating it, unfortunately. She leaped and dodged and fought and killed in the shadow of the giant Receptacle that housed all of her fellow Remnants, and she did so with the same look of intense focus on her face that she always had. She wasn’t even smiling. She rarely smiled any more, now that Darquesse thought about it. Curious.

Darquesse wondered what Tanith was making of the grand diorama of existence she was seeing. She had become so pragmatic lately that she would probably dismiss it. That almost made Darquesse sad. If only everyone could see things the way she did. She reckoned people would be a lot happier. She grinned as she stepped between two Cleavers, dodging every move they made. “Did you know that Cleavers fight naked?” she asked as she ducked a scythe blade.

Tanith beheaded a downed opponent. “I did.”

Darquesse nodded, leaned away from a kick, and immediately spun to avoid a grab. “Deep within every training area in every Sanctuary, they have a Combat Circle. They step in there, strip off every item of clothing, and fight.”

The Cleavers kept attacking – not slowing up, and yet not allowing their frustration to show. Impressive. “It’s a huge honour to step into the circle, apparently. It is a challenge that cannot be refused. That’s where they prove themselves, without armour or protection.”

“I know all this,” said Tanith. “I was the one who told you. Years ago.”

Darquesse happily ignored her. “These guys would all have fought naked, at some point. Wouldn’t that have been something to see?”

She suddenly lunged, driving her hand through the chest of the Cleaver nearest to her. The last two closed in, but their scythe blades exploded into rust before they got close. Darquesse flicked her wrists and their necks snapped.

“That was fun,” she said.

“Was it?”

She turned to Tanith. “You didn’t think so?”

“You could have killed them all with a wave of your hand,” Tanith said. “We didn’t have to fight.”

“But you like fighting.”

“Fighting without a reason to fight is stupid. And having someone like you around just takes the fun out of it.”

“Oh,” said Darquesse. “I didn’t know that.”

Tanith put away her sword. She looked up at the Receptacle, a globe 100 metres in diameter, set into a cradle of metal with thick wooden struts. Within the globe, blackness swirled. “You’re really going to let them all out, then?”

“I am,” said Darquesse. She trailed her fingers along the side. “All these thousands of Remnants, your brothers and sisters … They’ve been cooped up in this thing, deprived of even a change of scenery. You remember what it was like to be trapped in that room in the Midnight Hotel, don’t you?”

“Yes I do,” said Tanith. “And I didn’t like it one little bit.”

Darquesse gave her a wicked smile. “You want to be the one to let them out?”

Tanith hesitated. “I don’t know. The longer the Remnant is inside me, the longer I’m me, the less I care about other Remnants. I want to free them, but I don’t … need to. It’s something I wanted to do, once upon a time. But now …”

“Personally,” said Darquesse, “I think it’s important to hang on to things like that. That’s why I’m so determined to keep punishing Ravel. It’s what I wanted to do, once upon a time, and I remember that feeling of satisfaction when he first started to scream. I liked that feeling. I want to preserve it.”

“So you think I should let them out?”

Darquesse shrugged. “Only if you want to.”

“Well … freeing them would be advantageous. We could set them loose to distract Skulduggery and the others while you …”

“While I what?” Darquesse said. “What is it you think I’m doing?”

“I’ve seen the future. I’ve seen what you do to the world. You destroy everything.”

“And that’s what you want, is it? Even now? You want a world where everyone is dead? But then there’d be no people to possess, and no trouble to get into. And we both know how much Remnants love getting into trouble.”

“Darquesse, looking into the future, seeing what you do … it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

“That was then. What about now?”

“I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re asking. If you doubt my loyalty—”

“This isn’t about loyalty, Tanith. You’re a different person to who you were.”

“Well, what about you? Only a few days ago you were insisting you had no intention of killing every living thing on the planet. But I notice you’ve stopped correcting me when I say it.”

Darquesse shrugged. “I’m still figuring this all out, and I reserve the right to change my mind. As you should.”

Tanith looked her dead in the eye. “You can count on me.”

Darquesse smiled. “Of course I can. I know that. Pick up our friend, would you? He’s regained consciousness but trying to hide it.”

One of the two last remaining sorcerers in the place heard her, but amusingly he stayed where he was, slumped in the corner where Tanith had knocked him out and shackled him. Now Tanith grabbed his hair, pulled him to his feet. He cried out in pain, and stumbled after her as she presented him to Darquesse.

“And what is your name?” Darquesse asked.

“Maksy,” the sorcerer said, tears in his eyes. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Like we’ve killed all these other sorcerers, you mean? And all these Cleavers? Like we’ve killed just about everyone who was assigned to guard the Receptacle?”

“Yes,” said Maksy. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Darquesse said. “I have other plans for you.”

She pressed her hand against the Receptacle. The globe looked like glass but wasn’t – it was a solid energy field, a giant version of a Soul Catcher. She pushed her arm through, and the shadows on the other side stirred into a frenzy.

“Ooh,” she said. “Tickles.”

She pulled her arm out, a Remnant in her grip. It twisted and writhed, but couldn’t squirm free. Darquesse noticed Tanith’s lip curling in distaste. “Something wrong?” she asked.

“No,” Tanith said quickly. “Nothing.”

“Don’t make me ask twice.”

A hesitation. “I don’t know, I … I once thought that Remnants were slivers of pure evil. But they’re not, are they? They’re just nasty little unfinished things. The creature you’re holding is nothing but a bundle of sickness that needs a host to become whole. They’re not evil. They’re desperate and pathetic. I’ve seen evil. I know what evil looks like now, and that isn’t it.”

“So what does evil look like?” Darquesse asked.

Tanith glanced at her and said nothing.

Darquesse shrugged, and turned to Maksy. “Open wide.”

He shook his head. He was pale, sweating. Terrified. “No. Please. I have a newborn son. Please. I need to be there for him.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Tanith said. “You can still be you, even when you have a Remnant inside. It won’t even be in there that long. We’ll just need you to carry it around for a day or two, and then it’ll be gone, and you won’t remember any of it.”

“My family—”

“We won’t let you near them,” said Tanith. “You won’t hurt anyone. I promise.”

Maksy tried to pull back as Darquesse approached, but Tanith dug her fingers into his arm, and he reluctantly opened his mouth. The Remnant reached for him, gained purchase, and Darquesse let go and it squirmed in. Maksy staggered and Tanith let him go. His throat bulged for an instant, and then he sagged. Ever so slowly, he rolled his head back, his lips darkening, black veins running under his skin.

He opened his eyes and smiled. “The first thing I see through human eyes in years, and it is two beautiful women. It’s almost worth the captivity, it really is.” He took a moment to breathe in, and then slowly out. “Physical form,” he muttered. “It’s so nice. It’s like coming home. Although this one … Before we release the others, can I go get another host? Someone better looking? Some Remnants go for hosts with power, but I’ve always found that power comes to good-looking people anyway, and … Here, which one of you gorgeous girls is going to help me out of these shackles?”

Tanith hit him and he dropped, unconscious, to the floor.

“You haven’t changed, eh?” Darquesse said, a small smile on her lips. “So, when you were nice to him just now, assuring him that everything will be all right, that was you … what? Being mean and uncaring?”

Tanith ignored the mocking tone. “I just remember what it was like to fear the Remnants,” she said. “There’s no harm in telling someone he’s not going to kill his family if we know he’s not going to kill his family, is there?”

“Harm?” said Darquesse. “No. No harm at all.”

Tanith shrugged. “Then what’s the big deal? We have another captive that we can put a Remnant into and take around with us, and then we can release the others and get out of here while they cause their usual amount of chaos and panic. Job done, right?”

“Job done,” said Darquesse. “I’m glad we got to do this, Tanith. We needed a girls’ night out, didn’t we? This was fun.”

“Yeah,” said Tanith. “This was a hoot.”

ife as a woman had its ups and downs.

Ups: people listened to him a lot more. When he had been a man, Vaurien Scapegrace had found it somewhat difficult to be taken seriously. But once his brain had been transferred into the red-haired woman’s statuesque body, everyone seemed to find a lot more time for him. This was good for pub business.

Downs: sometimes he felt as though people weren’t really listening to him. Sometimes he felt as though they’d laugh at any feeble joke he made, just so long as the joke emerged from his new, plump, incredibly soft lips. He also didn’t like the way all those eyes would follow him as he went to fetch a patron’s drinks. It was unnerving.

Walking down the street was unnerving, too. He felt far too self-conscious to be comfortable. He’d left Roarhaven and gone into Dublin the previous week, and that was even worse. All that time spent living apart from the mortal world had made him forget what mortals were like. They didn’t even try to hide their staring. A few of them – random people he passed on the street – had even made comments about his appearance.

And this was acceptable?

He’d seen a lot, had Scapegrace. In his time as the self-deluded Killer Supreme, he’d surrounded himself with murderers and low lifes and religious psychopaths. In his time as the self-deluded Zombie King, he’d surrounded himself with rot and evil and decay and corruption. He had seen a lot of bad things happen. He had encountered a lot of bad people. But these were, in a way, professionally bad people. They were insane or twisted or downright evil, but they carried that air of professionalism with them wherever they went. And they certainly didn’t make catcalls or wolf whistles whenever they saw a passing female whose form they appreciated.

When he’d got back to Roarhaven, he vowed to never again leave unless it was an absolute necessity, because at least in Roarhaven he had a sanctuary. And it wasn’t the huge palace in the middle of the city, either. It wasn’t the one surrounded by Cleavers and ruled by China Sorrows. Scapegrace’s sanctuary was a small house, tucked away in the corner of the south district, and it was here he returned to at the end of another long night in the pub.

He walked through his front door, hung his coat on a hook and went through to the kitchen. He sagged. It had been Clarabelle’s turn to clean, but Clarabelle had a unique way of doing things that made sense only to her. Her way of cleaning, for example, entailed taking everything that was messy and moving it to another side of the room. It took as much time as cleaning would actually take, but the end result was far less useful.

Light footsteps came down the stairs. Clad in a fluffy pink bathrobe and wearing fluffy pink slippers, on which swayed twin ping-pong balls painted like eyes, Clarabelle’s hair was a furious shade of green. “Hello,” she said.

She didn’t launch into a full-blown babble, which was unusual. Very unusual.

“What did you do?” Scapegrace asked.

A series of expressions flitted across Clarabelle’s face. First, there was indignation, then there was resignation, followed by hope, chased by confusion, and finally knocked down and sat upon by innocence. “Nothing.”

“Did you set fire to something again?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

She frowned, then nodded.

“Where were you just now?”

“Up in my room,” she said. “I was sorting through my favourite socks. I have seven. Snow White had seven dwarves, did you know that? I have seven socks. In a way, I’m kind of like Snow White.”

“Snow White cleaned the kitchen every once in a while.”

“She had little birds and squirrels to help her. All I could find was a hedgehog, but he was useless. I had to do everything myself.”

“Moving things is not cleaning them.”

“Do you want to know what I did wrong?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

Clarabelle scrunched up her mouth, like she did when she was figuring out the best way to say something. Before she could confess, the front door opened and Thrasher walked in.

“I’m home!” he called, even though he could see them both standing in the kitchen.

“Gerald!” Clarabelle said, bounding over to him. Thrasher hugged Clarabelle, wrapping her in his massive, muscular arms. “Did you have a good day? Did anything fun happen?”

“Every day is a fun day when you’re doing what you love,” Thrasher said, and flashed an eager smile at Scapegrace. Scapegrace ignored him, walked to the fridge and left them to their chit-chat. He poured himself a glass of milk, leaned his hip against the cooker and drank.

It was sad how quickly he’d got used to normal things again. Life as the Zombie King, as self-deluded as he’d been, meant that magic had sustained him and his steadily-rotting body. But after Doctor Nye had placed his brain into its new home, he’d had to deal with the gradual reawakening of natural bodily functions. Normal things like eating and drinking had become astonishing adventures in sensation. A glass of milk was a delight. But now? Now it was a glass of milk again. How quickly it had lost its thrill.

Thrasher and Clarabelle came into the kitchen, still talking. He ignored them. He did that a lot lately. He just couldn’t summon the anger he used to direct Thrasher’s way. It was … gone. It had slowly evaporated these past few weeks. Thrasher had noticed, of course. Thrasher always noticed things like that. But where he had assumed that it was as a result of living a normal life, maybe even of a softening of attitudes and a growing fondness, Scapegrace knew better. The anger was gone because the anger was beaten. There was no point to it any more. It had lost.

Scapegrace was living in the suburbs of a city full of sorcerers. He was no longer deluded enough to call himself the Killer Supreme. No longer dead enough to call himself the Zombie King. He was just another citizen, just a regular guy who’d had his brain transplanted into the body of a beautiful woman. He was normal. He was average. And this was his life.

“Master?” Thrasher said.

Scapegrace brushed his luxurious hair from his face and looked up. “Hmm? What?”

Thrasher and Clarabelle looked at him with real concern in their eyes. The old Scapegrace would have heaped scorn upon them. The new Scapegrace didn’t see the point.

“I was saying that I washed the floor in the pub, just like you asked,” Thrasher continued.

“And I was saying you shouldn’t get Gerald to do that every time,” said Clarabelle. “He’s not your slave.”

“I don’t mind, really,” Thrasher said, blushing.

“You should mind,” said Clarabelle. “Scapey, it’s just not nice, the way you treat Gerald. He’s your best friend in the whole entire world and you two are my best friends in the whole entire world and best friends shouldn’t treat each other like that.”

It had been a long day. All Scapegrace wanted to do was have a shower and go to bed. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

They stood there and blinked at him.

“You’re sorry?” Thrasher asked.

Irritation flared in the back of Scapegrace’s mind, then sputtered out. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“You … you’ve never said that to me before,” Thrasher said, tears in his eyes. Dear lord, he was going to cry.

“Then I’m not sorry,” Scapegrace said hastily, in an effort to hold off an embarrassing display of emotion. “Does that make you feel better?”

Thrasher’s hands went to his mouth as tears spilled down his perfect cheekbones. “You’ve never cared about how I feel before.”

Scapegrace went to roll his eyes, but lost his enthusiasm halfway through and ended up looking at the ceiling.

“Are you feeling OK?” Clarabelle asked.

For the second time in the last few minutes, Scapegrace sighed. “I’m fine.”

“But are you really?”

“Of course. The pub is doing good business. We have a loyal customer base. Most of them are in every night. What’s to complain about?”

“I don’t know,” said Clarabelle. With natural grace, she sprang on to the kitchen table and sat there, cross-legged, while the dishes she’d knocked off crashed to the floor around her. “You tell me.”

Scapegrace hesitated. He’d always viewed himself as an old-fashioned type of guy, not the kind to talk about whatever was troubling him. But circumstances, he supposed, had changed. One glance at his reflection in the window proved that.

“I always wanted to do something important,” he said. “I wanted to be someone important. I wanted to make a difference.”

“You make a difference to me,” said Thrasher.

The old Scapegrace would have thrown something at him for that. The new Scapegrace didn’t bother.

“I never wanted to be normal,” he continued. “But here, normal is all I am. In Roarhaven, I’m … unexceptional.”

Clarabelle frowned. “Do you want to leave?”

“No. Nothing like that …”

“But if you do leave,” Clarabelle said, “do you promise to take me with you?”

“I’m not leaving.”

“OK,” Clarabelle said happily. “Just don’t decide to leave one morning before I get up. Then I’ll get up and you’ll be gone and Gerald will be gone and I’ll be all alone in this house and I’ll have no friends.”

Thrasher wrapped his gigantic arm round her shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere.”

She nodded. “Because I have trouble making friends. People think I’m weird, just because sometimes I see things that aren’t really there, and just because I say things they don’t understand. They don’t want to be my friends. But you guys don’t care about things like that. You two are really nice.”

“I’m not leaving,” Scapegrace said. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I … I suppose I can just see myself living out the rest of my life as an ordinary person.”

“You’re not ordinary,” Clarabelle said. “None of us are.”

“I get sad, too,” Thrasher said. “I don’t like to bother anyone with it, but … I mean, my new body is very nice. It really is. But every time I look in the mirror, I see someone that isn’t me. I don’t think that feeling is ever going to go away.”

Scapegrace nodded. “You’re always looking into the face of a stranger.”

“That gets to you,” said Thrasher. “After a while, the novelty wears off and you just want to see your own face again.”

“You forget where you came from,” Scapegrace said softly. “You forget who you are.”

Clarabelle leaned forward. “Would it make you feel better to remember?”

“It would.”

She smiled. “Then the news I have is good news. I went exploring today. I’ve never been to the left side of the Medical Wing before because, when I walk in the door, I always turn to the right.”

Scapegrace frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to turn left, but I never do. I think I turned left once in a previous life and I was beheaded or something, so I’ve never even wanted to walk down that side. But today was different. I was playing with a Cleaver and we were both taking it in turns to spin around really fast. I was winning, because he kept forgetting to spin, and he just stood there and I spun and spun and spun, and by the end of the game I was really dizzy and I think I threw up on him a little bit. Just on to his coat, though. I don’t think he minded much. He just stayed standing there. He probably thought we were playing musical statues.”

She hesitated. “Maybe we were. Oh, I think we were. If we were, then he won, because statues aren’t supposed to spin around. Anyway, I was dizzy, and when I walked into the Medical Wing I started to fall. It took me ages to fall, and I knocked over a few people along the way, but when the dizziness went away I was in the left corner of the Medical Wing. It was amazing! The sights that were on show … You know the way tables seem really different if you look at them from a different angle?”

“Clarabelle,” said Scapegrace, “it’s been a long day. Could you get to the point?”

“Right, sorry. Anyway, there are all these rooms in the Medical Wing, so I went into a few of them. And in one of them there was a big glass tank full of green water, and there were two people floating in that tank. It was you. It was the two of you.”

Scapegrace frowned. “What?”

“Your old bodies,” she said. “They still have your old bodies.”

he lead came in a little after seven that evening. A sorcerer named Midnight Blue had turned it up, found a link to one of Billy-Ray Sanguine’s old friends, a gentleman called Axle. It was tenuous, this lead, but while they waited for Signate to shunt Ravel away and break the connection to Darquesse, tracking down Sanguine and Tanith was the only course of action open to them. The good news was that Axle lived right here in Roarhaven. So then it was back into the Bentley for Stephanie, and another quiet car ride through the streets.

They got to Axle’s house. Stephanie went round the back while Skulduggery knocked on the door. Sometimes people with dodgy pasts liked to sneak out of windows. She cupped her hands, blew on them. It was chilly out. Roarhaven was as dark and as quiet as ever. She heard the low murmur of Skulduggery’s voice. No alarm raised, no windows opening, no one trying to run.

She heard the front door close, and walked back to the Bentley. Skulduggery was already behind the wheel. They didn’t speak as they pulled away from the kerb. They drove for a few minutes, stopped outside a dingy little pub called The Cauldron.

Skulduggery led the way into the chatter and the laughter. Stephanie didn’t have his skills. She couldn’t glance at a room and notice every single thing, catalogue every single face, in one go. It took her a few seconds to notice the man sitting at the bar with an empty stool beside him. His work boots were dirty, his clothes not much better. He sat with his head down, shoulders slumped unevenly, staring into his drink. They walked up to him and for a few moments he didn’t notice them. He had a small cut on his jawline, another on his neck. There was a larger abrasion on his right hand and across his thick knuckles, and a plaster was wrapped clumsily round the thumb of his left.

“Mr Axle,” Skulduggery said, and Axle looked up sharply. He paled when he saw them, and when he finally spoke he could only manage one word.

“What?”

“Mr Axle, you know who we are, yes? We don’t need to introduce ourselves, or tell you what we do. From the look on your face, you know all that.”

Axle swallowed. “So? What do you want with me?”

“When we walked in this door, all we wanted was the location of a friend of yours – Billy-Ray Sanguine.”

“Sanguine’s no friend of mine,” said Axle. “I know him, that’s all. Haven’t seen him in months. Maybe over a year. We’re not friends. Can’t help you.”

The bartender wandered over, and Axle went back to hunching over his beer.

“Can I get you folks something?” the bartender asked.

“I’m a skeleton,” said Skulduggery, “and she doesn’t drink.”

Stephanie frowned at him. “How do you know I don’t drink? I’m eighteen. I can drink if I want to.”

“Do you want to?”

She kept frowning. “Shut up.”

The bartender shrugged and wandered away again, and Axle watched him go.

“We’re looking for where Sanguine might go if he were in trouble,” Skulduggery said. “A safe house, something like that.”

Axle straightened with a pained expression, and shook his head. “Didn’t know him that well. Ask someone else. I haven’t even been in this dimension all that much over the last few years.”

The clothes, the cuts, the rough hands … construction work. “You helped build this city?” Stephanie asked.

He looked at her. “Helped build it? I practically built it myself. None of those other foremen could have done what I did. My crew built the best and we built the fastest. It’s because of us, because of me, that the city was ready to be unveiled by Grand Mage Ravel. Just in time for those bloody Warlocks to wreck half of it.”

“How’s the rebuilding going?”

Axle snorted. “You’d be surprised how a simple job can get complicated once you introduce a little red tape. When we were working in that other reality, we were below the radar. We were working in secret. Things got done. But now that it’s all out in the open you have committees and safety inspections and what have you, and immediately you’re behind schedule and waiting for approval and blah blah blah …”

Skulduggery tilted his head at the empty stool. “Waiting for someone?”

Axle stiffened again. “Yeah,” he said. “A friend of mine.”

“Is he late?”

“He is, yeah. He’ll be here, though.”

“Is this a regular thing? Going for a drink after work?”

Axle nodded. “End of a long day, yeah, it’s good to relax. That a crime?”

“No, it isn’t,” said Skulduggery. “Murder is, however.”

Stephanie raised an eyebrow, but left the question for Axle to ask.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Skulduggery took a pair of light handcuffs from his jacket and laid them on the bar. “What started the argument? Was it about work? Was the pressure getting to you?”

Axle gave a sharp, dry laugh. “What murder? Who’s dead?”

“Your friend.”

“You’re talking nonsense. He’s not dead. He’s just late.”

“What’s his name?”

“There! See? That’s how ridiculous this is! You don’t even know who he is and you’re saying he’s dead!”

“What’s your friend’s name, Mr Axle?”

Axle stared at Skulduggery. “Brock.”

“You’re incredulous, and yet you’re keeping your voice down. You’re scared of meeting the barman’s gaze, but you don’t want to take your eyes off him. You’re worried that he might have seen something last night – maybe he overheard your argument with Brock. You’re scared he’ll mention something about it in front of us.”

“This is ridiculous. I don’t have to sit here and listen to—”

He went to slide off his stool, but Stephanie stepped up close to him, blocking his way. Skulduggery leaned in from the other side.

“You have muddy water dried into the left leg and the right knee of your trousers. Also the left side of your jacket. It wasn’t raining last night, but it was the night before, and there are still puddles out the back of this pub, aren’t there? You had too much to drink, you got out there, the argument turned physical. You hit him. That’s when you cut your knuckles. He went down and you went down with him. You started strangling him. He managed to turn you over, and you fell on to your left side, into a puddle. But you pushed back, got on top, straddled him, hence the stain on your other knee. He clawed at your hands, leaving those scratches. And you choked him until he died.”

Axle shook his head quickly.

“You’re having trouble sitting up straight,” Skulduggery continued. “Did you do something to your back? Maybe as you were carrying his body through the back streets and alleys? You couldn’t have supported his weight for too long, not in your inebriated state, but you would have needed to take him somewhere you knew well, and somewhere you knew would be deserted. The construction site you’re working on isn’t too far away from here, is it? That’s where you dumped his body – probably in a pit scheduled to be filled in this morning.

“But you couldn’t leave – you couldn’t risk someone coming in early and discovering your crime. So you stayed. When your co-workers arrived, you poured in the concrete yourself – hastily, by the state of your boots. After that, you had to act as if nothing was wrong, so you put in a day’s work. A sloppy day’s work, judging by the more recent cuts on your hands. You had to stick to your routine, so you rushed home to shave, not bothering to change clothes, and then came here.”

Stephanie frowned. “Why did he shave?”

“From what I can see, Brock was an Elemental. He tried to shove a handful of fire into Mr Axle’s face. He only barely missed, too. See how the skin is slightly paler around the cheeks and chin? You had a beard up until a few hours ago, didn’t you, Mr Axle? But you shaved it off. Nicked yourself a few times, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting rid of the singed beard. You even had to cut your own hair in a few places. You missed your left eyebrow, though.”

“You don’t know what you’re—”

“I’m arresting you for murder, Mr Axle. Please stand up and put your hands behind your back.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Axle said, but stood just the same.

“We’ll let the Sensitives take a peek inside your mind. Maybe they’ll see something that’ll get you a reduced sentence.”

“No,” said Axle, backing away, “please. I’ll help you. I’ll tell you everything I know about Sanguine. Do you know about his family home, in Texas?”

“The Americans are keeping an eye on that,” Skulduggery said. “He hasn’t visited.”

“I know others,” said Axle. “There’s a house in Dublin. I think it’s his. An ex-girlfriend of mine told me about it. He took her there once.”

“Where?” Stephanie asked.

“Stoneybatter, just off Norseman Place. That’s worth something, isn’t it? I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill him. It was a stupid argument. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“We’ll see you’re treated fairly,” Skulduggery said, reaching for him.

“No!” Axle shouted, snapping his palms out. The air rippled and Stephanie flew backwards, getting tangled up with Skulduggery. Tables and chairs scattered and people cursed and cried out, and she glimpsed Axle running out.

Skulduggery hauled her to her feet. “Outside,” he said. “I’ll lead him to you.”

And then he was off in pursuit.

Stephanie barged through the stunned patrons, forcing her way outside. She ran down the alley, her boots splashing in puddles. No sign of Axle. She went to double back and the window above her exploded. She cursed as Skulduggery and Axle landed beside her in a shower of broken glass. Axle staggered, his eyes wide and terrified, his hands already shackled. He fell to his knees.

Stephanie glared at Skulduggery. “What was wrong with the door? You could have just come down the stairs and walked out the door. Why did you have to jump out the window?”

“You know why,” Skulduggery said, walking away.

Axle looked up, tears streaming from his eyes. “Why did he do that? Why?”

Stephanie glowered. “Because doors are for people with no imagination,” she said, and led Axle to the car.

anguine moved through the wall, stepping into the quiet kitchen. A man sat at the table. His name was Levitt. The chatty one, Maksy, was missing. That could mean one of two things – either Tanith had killed him out of sheer irritation, or Darquesse had needed Maksy’s Remnant to inhabit someone she wanted to talk to. Sanguine didn’t know what would have become of Maksy after that. Darquesse had probably killed him.

He moved on. The safe house was quickly becoming his least favourite place to be. Sure, it had its upsides. It was where Tanith was, so that was nice, even if she’d barely spoken to him the entire time they’d been hiding out there. But it was enough to be close to her, he reckoned. And once they were married, all this awkward tension would just drain away and leave them with the rest of their lives to get on with. Assuming the rest of their lives meant anything longer than a week.

And then there was the downside.

Darquesse.

Every time he returned to the place, he had to steel himself before he saw her. It was a good thing she usually stayed in the spare room these days, conducting her terrifying little experiments. Sanguine didn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she took to roaming about the—

Goddamn.

Darquesse was in the living room, sitting in the armchair with her legs crossed. The man on the sofa across from her would have looked like a normal, middle-aged college professor were it not for the black lips and all those black veins that he wasn’t bothering to hide.

“Billy-Ray,” Darquesse said, smiling brightly. “Allow me to introduce Nestor Tarry, my new best friend. Nestor was just telling me about his work in quantum mechanics.”

“That so?” said Sanguine, leaning against the doorframe, trying to appear casual and not at all intimidated. “Just your average, ordinary, everyday conversation about quantum mechanics, huh? You managing to keep up?”

“Actually,” Tarry said, “Darquesse is quite well versed in quantum theory.”

“I read a lot,” Darquesse said, shrugging, “and absorb information instantly. It’s a talent.”

Tarry smiled. “One of many, it seems. But I have taken you as far as I am able. The answers you seek are, I’m afraid, beyond me.”

“So who takes me further?”

“I could give you a list of names – but it would be a short list, made even shorter by events over the last few years. Actually, I think your next port of call is a book, not a person. The Hessian Grimoire is a collection of, essentially, theories about the next stages of magic. Where we can go from here, how we can expand our knowledge, the ways in which we can use what we know to delve deeper into the source of all magic. I don’t know who is currently in possession of the book, unfortunately, but if you can find it, I think it could help you.”

“The Hessian Grimoire,” Darquesse said, nodding. “OK then, sounds good. And after that? The list of names you were going to give me?”

Tarry raised his chin and moved his head from side to side, acknowledging the request, but see-sawing between options. “There are two or three people left alive who could help you. Really, the person who could have helped you the most would have been Walden D’Essai.”

“Argeddion.”

Tarry nodded. “His work was just … it was far beyond any of his contemporaries. I never liked the man, I was always far too jealous of his accomplishments. That’s something I could never have admitted without this Remnant inside me, by the way.” He chuckled, and didn’t seem to notice when Darquesse didn’t join in. “But his mind was an astonishing thing. His work, his research … Even the questions he posed in his field outshone the answers I got in mine. If you truly wanted to master this thing called magic, if you truly wanted to touch infinity … I would have said talk to D’Essai. Talk to Argeddion. But, of course, now it’s too late.”

“Argeddion is alive,” said Darquesse.

Tarry frowned. “No. He’s dead. Skulduggery Pleasant killed him when—”

Darquesse spoke over him, her words calm. “Officially, Argeddion died following the confrontation with those super-powered hooligans he’d created. Skulduggery finished him off. That’s the story that was circulated.”

Tarry sat forward. “It’s a lie?”

“They couldn’t kill him,” Darquesse said. “They didn’t know how. So they rewrote his personality, convinced him he was normal, and hid him away. Even I don’t know where he is now.”

Tarry was quiet for a moment. “The Hessian Grimoire,” he said. “That should help you find him.”

“How?”

“You have a deep understanding of energy, Darquesse. Your understanding might even surpass my own.”

“Oh,” said Darquesse, “it does.”

A faint flicker of irritation crossed Tarry’s features. Sanguine noticed it. And if Sanguine noticed it, then Darquesse certainly did. That faint flicker of irritation had most likely just signed Mr Tarry’s death warrant.

“But once you read that book,” Tarry continued, “you will know how to detect and track energy. Argeddion found out his true name, the same as you. For all intents and purposes, he is lit up like a beacon – providing you know how to look for him.”

“The Hessian Grimoire sounds like the answer to all my prayers,” Darquesse said. “Thank you, Nestor. You have been most helpful.”

Tarry stood, but wavered. Finally, he plucked up the courage to ask, “Can I come with you? When you find Argeddion, I mean. You’ll need a Remnant to possess him, won’t you? So he’ll talk? I would do anything for the opportunity to peek inside his mind. He is … astonishing.”

“He is,” said Darquesse. “But I’ll just have to use my other Remnant to possess him. I’ve kind of grown bored with you.”

Tarry paled, making his black veins stand out even more. “What?”

“You’ve just rubbed me up the wrong way,” Darquesse explained.

“I … I’m sorry. I apologise. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s not your fault,” said Darquesse as she got to her feet. “It’s mine. I’m probably just overly sensitive. I’ve only been studying quantum mechanics for a few days, and … I don’t know. Any kind of criticism or – what’s the word? – irritation shown is just … it’s more than I’m prepared to accept right now.”

Tarry backed away. “I wasn’t irritated. I wasn’t, I swear. And I would never criticise you. Never. The amount you’ve learned in such a short space of time is hugely, hugely impressive.”

Darquesse narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I do not like being patronised.”

She raised her hand and Tarry exploded into nothingness.

Sanguine jerked back in astonishment. No blood, no meat, no bones. Nothing.

“There,” Darquesse said, a smile on her face once again. “I feel so much better now.”

“What did you do to him?” Sanguine asked. “Where is he?”

“He’s still here,” said Darquesse, her fingers playing lightly against the air. “His atoms are spread out around the room. It’s funny, isn’t it? Group all those atoms together and Nestor has a body. Separate them, and you have to ask where he’s gone. I can put him back together, if you’d like.”

“You could do that?”

“Sure. I think. Putting things back together is a lot harder than pulling them apart, but I’ll do my best.”

Darquesse chewed her bottom lip as she focused. A moment passed, and she closed her fist, and Tarry reappeared, blurring into existence. He staggered, eyes glassy, and dropped to his knees.

“He’s in shock,” said Darquesse. “Either that or he’s a vegetable. The brain is tricky. I can see how the body reassembles, how the nervous system fits, but the brain will take a little more practice. Want a seat?”

Sanguine looked at her. “Sorry?”

“A seat,” she said. “You want one? You look tired.”

Before he could answer, she had splayed her hand and Tarry exploded into nothingness once more. This time when she closed her fist, however, a chair blurred into being.

“There,” Darquesse said.

“Did you … did you just turn him into a chair?”

“Yes I did,” said Darquesse, grinning. “Atoms are atoms. It’s all about what you do with them and how you arrange them. Man gets turned into a chair. Chair gets turned into a glass of water. It’s still Nestor, though. He’s still there. I haven’t killed him.”

“You turned him into furniture.”

“It’s just another form to take.”

“I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that one, Darquesse. He’s dead. You killed him. Where are his memories? His personality? Where are all the things that define him?”

Darquesse tilted her head. “None of that stuff defines us, Billy-Ray. Memories can be lost. Personalities can be changed. Who we are, our true essence, is our energy. If I wanted to kill him, I’d just do it.”

She clicked her fingers and the chair was incinerated in a burst of black flame.

“There,” said Darquesse. “Happy now? Nestor is dead. Every last trace of him. His atoms, his energy – gone. He can’t be brought back now. That’s how you kill someone, Billy-Ray. You wipe them from existence. Stopping a heart from beating, cutting off thoughts, turning someone into something … that doesn’t mean anything. Consciousness doesn’t mean anything. Are you any more valuable than a rock, just because you have sentience? No you’re not.”

“But you’re still punishing Erskine Ravel for killing Ghastly Bespoke.”

“That’s different,” said Darquesse. “I’m punishing him out of anger.”

“So what about your friends?” Sanguine said. “Tanith, or China Sorrows, or Skulduggery Pleasant? You’ve formed attachments to them, right? You value them more than you’d value a rock.”

Darquesse shrugged. “Not really. That was my old way of looking at things. Personalities are fun for a while, but when you think about it, and I mean really think about it, they’re just side effects of brain function. I don’t mean I don’t value them at all, it’s just not so much of a big deal to me any more.”

“So … so you’d turn them into furniture, too?”

“Sure. I could turn you into a cushion, if you want.”

“Please don’t. I don’t wanna be a cushion.”

She laughed. “If you were a cushion, you wouldn’t know any better. What would you miss? Your thoughts? Cushions don’t sit there missing their thoughts, Billy-Ray. Your thoughts seem important to you now, but I’m here to tell you … they don’t mean anything.”

“They mean something to me.”

“Well, now you’re just being silly. What you’re saying, basically, is that your thoughts mean something to your thoughts. It’s a loop of nonsense. Go off and think about it, OK? It took me a while to come to terms with all this, too. But I’ve learned so much. And not just about how to mix and match atoms and particles and molecules and stuff. Other things. Fun things. You know the God-Killers?”

“Uh … yeah, like the Sceptre …”

“Actually, no, I’m talking about the sword and the dagger and the stuff you and Tanith stole.”

Sanguine felt the blood drain from his face. She knew. Oh, God, she knew. And he didn’t even have the dagger with him. He’d been worried that she’d notice it under his jacket. Why the hell hadn’t he just brought it anyway? “Sure, right,” he said. “What about them?”

“Do you know how they were made?” Darquesse asked. “Those four? Other God-Killers were made in different ways, of course. The Sceptre was forged by the Faceless Ones somewhere, but these four weapons started out as ordinary objects. Nothing special about them. But then they were left in this pool of water, deep inside the caves under Gordon Edgley’s house. Whatever qualities that water had, it made the weapons soak up magic, made them acquire the ability to kill a god. Isn’t that fascinating? It goes against everything we’ve been told about how magic works. I’d love to find that pool. Don’t you think that’s fascinating?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty fascinating.”

“Billy-Ray?”

“Yes?”

“You look nervous.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“You think I’m going to turn you into a cushion, even though I told you it wouldn’t matter if I did?”

“That’s why I’m nervous, Darquesse.”

She chuckled. “You’re funny. I don’t know how I didn’t see that when Valkyrie was in charge.”

“Maybe my humour is an acquired taste.”

“Maybe.”

“I just popped by to make sure everything was, y’know, hunky-dory. I’m actually heading out again.”

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Just out. Just headed out. Errands to run. I’ll be back later, so … OK, well, I gotta go.”

“See you soon,” Darquesse said, smiling, and Sanguine smiled back. He walked out and immediately sank into the ground.

He turned, moving deeper through the darkness. The familiar rumble of shifting rocks filled his ears. It used to make him feel safe. There were only a handful of people in the world who could do what he did – even fewer now, after what had transpired during the War of the Sanctuaries – and that little fact had transformed the dark and the cold into a refuge. Down here, he couldn’t be touched. Down here, he couldn’t even be found.

But Darquesse could find him. There would be no escape from her down here, not if she were coming after him.

He piled on the speed.

He didn’t pay attention to how fast he was going. Sometimes he liked to time himself. Not tonight. He got to his place in Dublin, rose up through the cracking, crumbling floorboards. The first blush of dawn brightened the house, not that he needed light to see. There weren’t even any bulbs in this small house on this quiet street. No one knew about this place. Not even Tanith. The only people he’d brought back here were—

“Move and I shoot.”

Sanguine yelled and spun.

Skulduggery Pleasant was sitting in Sanguine’s favourite arm-chair, the one in the corner. His hand was on the armrest. In his hand was a gun.

echnically,” the skeleton said, “I should have shot you for that. But let’s start over. Move again and I really will shoot.”

Sanguine stayed perfectly still. He was too busy getting over the fact that there was someone in his house to even think about trying something sneaky.

The girl walked in. The reflection, Stephanie. She walked right by Sanguine like she didn’t have a care in the world. For a moment, she was close enough for him to grab, maybe use as a shield. But she knew that. She was testing him. They both were. He wasn’t going to fall for it.

She went to the couch. Sat. Looked at him like she was bored. He started to feel that maybe now was the time to start speaking.

“I’m real glad you’re here,” he said.

Stephanie laughed and Pleasant tilted his head.

“I’m serious,” Sanguine continued. “I was coming to talk to you, actually. I just stopped off here on my way to Roarhaven to, y’know, collect my thoughts. And a few other things.”

“Where is she?” Pleasant asked.

“Darquesse is with Tanith.”

“And where is Tanith?” Stephanie asked.

“With Darquesse.”

“I don’t have to shoot anything important,” Pleasant said, pointing the gun at his legs. “I can just shoot something painful.”

“I don’t want you to shoot anything, but I’m not gonna tell you where they are. You really think Darquesse won’t be able to sense a strike team if they get in close? And then who’ll she blame for telling you where to find her? Momma Sanguine’s favourite boy, that’s who.”

“Then if you weren’t going to tell us where she is,” Stephanie said, “why were you coming to see us? Unless, of course, you were fibbing about that.”

“Stephanie, I’m insulted. I would never fib to you. I can’t tell you where she is, but I can help you stop her. Would you be interested in such a deal?”

Pleasant’s head moved slightly, casting a deeper shadow over his jaw. “What could you possibly offer us?”

Sanguine gave him a smile. “Gifts. Gifts that you would find very useful indeed.”

“Oh,” said Pleasant. “You mean the God-Killers.”

Sanguine’s smile faded. “What?”

And now Sanguine noticed the blanket on the couch beside Stephanie. She pulled it back, revealing the sword, the dagger, the spear and the bow.

“You found them.”

“Yes we did,” said Pleasant. “Very good hiding places, by the way. Took me all of six minutes to find all four. These are your gifts, I presume? You’re gifting these to us?”

“Uh, yeah. Kinda. They weren’t easy to keep a hold of, let me tell you. See, the weapons I told Tanith I was melting down were—”

“Forgeries,” Pleasant said. “Yes, we figured that out, thank you.”

“No problem,” said Sanguine. “However, I’m just gifting you with three of these weapons. I’m actually keepin’ the dagger for my—”

Sanguine made to take a step towards the sofa and all at once Pleasant was on his feet and across the room with the barrel of the gun pressing very firmly against Sanguine’s forehead.

“Woah.”

“I told you not to move,” Pleasant said, his voice dangerously quiet.

Sanguine licked his lips. “I thought we were over that. I thought we’d moved on to being buddies. Compadres. We got a common enemy, after all.”

Stephanie hadn’t budged from where she was sitting. “Do you always treat your enemies like they’re your boss?”

“I don’t have a boss. I’m a free agent, dammit.”

“You’re a lackey. Just like Tanith.”

Sanguine went to shake his head, then thought better of it. “We ain’t lackeys. She’s following Darquesse because she’s had this notion for a while now that Darquesse is her messiah, and I’m following Tanith because we’re in love and we’re gonna get married. But be that as it may, I am a practical man, and I see only advantages in my fiancée’s messiah getting killed, so … common enemy.”

“How romantic.”

“I take it,” said Pleasant, “that Tanith doesn’t know that the God-Killers haven’t been destroyed.”

“No, sir, she doesn’t. She’d likely kill me if she found out. And while you may think I’m saying this just because you have a gun to my head, these weapons really are for you. Let’s be straight about this – I wish I didn’t have to give them to you. I was counting on you to figure out a way of taking down Darquesse on your own, but I guess I overestimated your competence, now didn’t I? So here I am, riding in to the rescue, a cavalry of one.”

Pleasant lowered the gun, and Sanguine took a step backwards.

“If you want Darquesse dead, why don’t you do it yourself?”

Sanguine grinned. “Because I ain’t the hero in this scenario. The hero does dumb things like go up against the pretty girl-god, and is liable to get himself killed in the process. Me, I have every intention of surviving the next few days. If I see an opportunity, sure, I’ll take it, but I’m not gonna go looking for it. That’s your job.”

“What are her plans?” asked Skulduggery. “Where will she be?”

“You think I’m privy to those details? To Darquesse, I’m the hired help she hasn’t even hired. She won’t even tell Tanith what her plans are. Seems she thinks Tanith’s faith ain’t what it used to be.”

“Is that true?” Stephanie asked.

“To talk to her, my fiancée is just as determined to bring about the end of days as she ever was. But I don’t know. Closer it gets, the more the doubts seep in. Cold feet, as it were. Of course, when she finds out that I betrayed her, she’s gonna want to kill me. So I’m keeping the dagger.”

“You think so, do you?” Pleasant asked.

“Oh, I know it,” Sanguine said. “You know it, too. From this point on, I’m your man on the inside. Because of that, I need some way to defend myself. So the dagger stays with me.”

A moment passed, and Sanguine thought he had overplayed his hand, but Pleasant motioned to Stephanie and she stood up, held the dagger out for him. Sanguine took it, but not by the blade. He kept his hands well away from the blade.

“The Remnants are out, by the way,” he said, once the dagger was back in his possession.

Pleasant tilted his head. “When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“No. We would have heard something. The news would be full of reports of disturbances and violence.”

“Even more than it already is? Naw, Darquesse gave them an order, so Tanith said. She told them to behave. Guess they’re obeying.”

“Why’d she do it?” Stephanie asked.

“For one thing, she wants an army should she need it. Another, she’s using Remnants to get all these scientist guys to talk to her about magic and quantum mechanics and whatnot. She’s expanding her knowledge in a big way. Last guy she talked to, a guy she turned into a damn chair not a half-hour ago, told her to read something called the Hessian Grimoire. I were a betting man, I’d say that’s where she’s going next.”

ood morning,” the Administrator said when Stephanie and Skulduggery walked by. Tipstaff fell into step beside them. “Finbar Wrong is here to see you. I asked him to wait in the lobby.”

“Did he say why he was here?” Skulduggery asked.

“He did not. I pressed him, but he seems to believe he has information best delivered personally. I told him you were scheduled to brief Grand Mage Sorrows on your investigation, and when you were finished, if you were so inclined, you would perhaps speak with him.”

“That’s fine,” Skulduggery said.

“Mr Wrong is a most unusual man,” Tipstaff continued, frowning slightly. “He tried to convince me to allow him to give me a tattoo.”

Stephanie grinned at the idea. “And you said no?”

“I did,” said Tipstaff. “I simply don’t have room for another one. Miss Sorrows will be joining you in the Room of Prisms shortly. Have a good day.” He gave them a nod and veered into another corridor, leaving them to continue on on their own.

“What do you think he wants?” Stephanie asked.

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said.

End of conversation.

Stephanie came to an abrupt halt. “I’m sick of this.”

Skulduggery stopped and looked back. “This?”

“This,” she said, pointing between them. “You and me. The awkwardness. The silences. That uncomfortable feeling.”

He tilted his head.

“I’m not her,” Stephanie said. “But you seem to think that I’m trying to be. Even though I’ve told you a hundred times that I have no interest whatsoever in replacing Valkyrie. I’m helping you because you asked for my help. You came to me and you asked. For my help. Not the other way around. I’m not the annoying little girl tagging along.”

“I know that.”

Anger flashed. “So stop treating me like I am.”

Skulduggery went quiet for a moment. “I see.”

“Do you? Because I don’t think you do. You’re caught up in our mission and that’s fine. You’re in mourning for Valkyrie, and that’s fine, too. That’s understandable. But don’t punish me for everything that’s happened.”

“I don’t want to punish you, Stephanie.”

“Then stop making me feel like this.”

“I’ll … try.”

All at once, her anger vanished. She felt bad. His best friend had, essentially, died, and she was berating him for not being his usual cheerful self.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with you, either. You’re a good person, Stephanie. Or you’ve become one, anyway. You’ve proven yourself. And I appreciate how difficult it must have been to say that just now. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled.

He swept his hand before him. “Shall we continue on? We don’t want to keep the Grand Mage waiting.”

Stephanie smiled, and they resumed walking. She opened her mouth to speak, but Skulduggery held up a finger to silence her. He tilted his head at the look on her face, took her arm gently and led her down an adjoining corridor. She began to hear a raised voice. Female.

They got to the corner, saw Eliza Scorn standing toe to toe with China. It looked like Scorn would have thrown a punch if the Black Cleaver hadn’t been standing at China’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you just admit it?” Scorn snarled. “You sent Vincent Foe and his gang of degenerates over to the Church to join us. I want a Sensitive down here right now to pick the truth from the filthy recesses of your mind.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” China said, the epitome of calm. “Even if I did do that, which I did, the fact is your weasel-faced little man didn’t know any better, and he allowed it to happen. So the raid you’re here to lodge a complaint against was entirely justified.”

“You set us up!”

“And your man fell for it and, in doing so, broke the terms of your Church’s agreement with this Sanctuary. This is all very regrettable, though it isn’t really, and I wish to assure you that I, in no way, derive any personal satisfaction from any of this, even though I so obviously do. If you feel the need to vent any more of your frustration, please feel free to do so, as I intend to build a collage of this moment and I’d like some more amusing anecdotes to go along with it.”

Scorn jabbed a finger at her. “This isn’t over.”

“I dare say you’re right,” China said, and smiled as Scorn stormed away. She waited a moment, then turned her blue eyes on Stephanie and Skulduggery. “Good morning. I take it you heard all that?”

“We did,” Skulduggery said.

“Was I as marvellous as I thought I was?”

“You were supremely aggravating and terrifically smug.”

“Oh!” said China. “The perfect combination! Come walk with me. Tell me good news.”

They took up positions on either side of her and moved down the corridor, the Black Cleaver a silent shadow behind them.

“I’m afraid good news is in short supply,” Skulduggery said. “Darquesse has freed the Remnants.”

“She did what?”

“We sent people to the Receptacle to check. Most of the guards there are dead or injured. Two are missing, probably possessed.”

For a heartbeat, it looked like China might narrow her eyes in anger, but she took a deep breath, exhaled, and calm was restored. “Where have they struck first?”

“That’s just it,” Skulduggery said. “They haven’t struck anywhere.”

China frowned. “So where are they?”

“We don’t know,” said Stephanie. “There’s been nothing on the police scanners or news reports, either.”

“This is just what we need,” China said. “Darquesse, the renegades, and now the Remnants. Do you think they’d be nice enough to stay out of trouble while we deal with the first two?”

“It’s always possible,” said Skulduggery.

A pair of sorcerers passed, nodding respectfully to China, and Skulduggery waited till they were out of earshot before continuing.

“The Remnants, in their natural form, are very hard to control. It’s only when they’ve possessed a host that they can take orders. Darquesse may think she has herself an army, and she may well be right, but there’s a chance that she’s overestimated her control over them.”

“I don’t like relying on chance,” said China. “The remaining renegades are still lying low, aren’t they? Well, until they resurface, tell Vex and Rue to take the Monster Hunters and track down the Remnants. Once we know where they are, we’ll take care of them once and for all. If the renegades poke their heads up in the mean time, we’ll take care of them, too. No more half-measures. From this point on, when we solve a problem, it stays solved. No matter what. You two, meanwhile, keep your sights on Darquesse. Have there been any developments on that side of things?”

“We’ve spoken to Billy-Ray Sanguine.”

“You have him?”

“We spoke to him.”

“You let him go?”

“Sanguine finds Darquesse’s long-term goals objectionable,” Skulduggery said. “In his own way, he seems to be on our side.”

“He’s been on our side before, and he’s betrayed us.”

“He’s given us three God-Killers as a show of faith. The ones he destroyed were forgeries.”

“I see. Did he tell you where to find Darquesse?”

“He told us her next move. She’s looking for the Hessian Grimoire.”

China frowned again. “The Hessian? But that … that’s all theory. There’s nothing at all practical within those pages. I could name a hundred grimoires that would be more useful than the Hessian.”

“The Hessian Grimoire contains knowledge,” Skulduggery said. “That’s what she’s after. The only reason most of those theories remain theories is because there’s been no one powerful enough to test them. Until now. If she gets her hands on that … it’s all over. The one advantage we have is that we know where the grimoire is being stored, and Darquesse doesn’t.”

“It won’t take her long to find out,” China said. “You need to get to it before she does.”

“Agreed,” said Skulduggery. “I was thinking we go and get it tonight, actually.”

“What a coincidence,” said China. “So was I.”

They walked to the lobby and found Finbar Wrong asleep on one of the chairs. His tattered denim jacket was covering him like a blanket and his Doc Martens were off.

“Finbar,” Stephanie said, shaking him gently.

“Mmm.”

“Finbar, wake up.”

He opened his eyes slowly, blinked up at her and grinned sleepily. “Oh, hello. Mmm. Sorry. Where am I?”

“Roarhaven,” Skulduggery said. “You have something for us?”

“I’m in Roarhaven?”

“You are.”

“How did I get here?”

“We don’t know.”

“Maybe I drove. I think I drove. I probably drove. Can I drive?”

“Tipstaff said you had information for us.”

“Who’s Tipstaff?”

“The Administrator. The man you were talking to about tattoos.”

“That’s Tipstaff? I was calling him Kevin. Aw, man, that’s so embarrassing.”

He held up his hands and Stephanie pulled him out of the chair.

“You’re not used to early mornings, are you?”

He shook his head. “Early mornings were invented by the system to keep the people occupied. But not me. I’m on to them. They’re not gonna catch me napping. Metaphorically, like. Obviously, they can catch me physically napping like, four or five times a day, but, metaphorically, I am so far beyond their reach.”

“Finbar,” Skulduggery said.

“Hey, Skul-man.”

“Hello, Finbar. You told Tipstaff you had information you could only pass on to us personally. So here we are.”

“There you are,” Finbar said, his eyes narrowing as he looked around. “Can we trust the others?”

“There’s no one else here,” Stephanie said.

“Oh. But aren’t we being monitored or something?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Well, OK then, though I’d seriously look into planting a few microphones around here. You never know what people might be whispering about.”

“Finbar.”

“Right. Yeah. Something big has happened. Something huge. Last night, while I was asleep? I had a dream about Valkyrie.”

Stephanie looked at him. “So?”

“So, um, so I had a dream about her.”

“So what?”

“No, no,” said Finbar. “I don’t mean I just had a dream and Valkyrie was in it. Although, yeah, I do. But what I also mean is that Valkyrie came to me in a dream.”

“What do you mean, she came to you?” asked Stephanie.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “What happened?”

“I was in some vast city,” said Finbar, “full of neon lights and skyscrapers. I was a Power Ranger. I don’t know why I was a Power Ranger, but I was. I was the Red Ranger. Sharon was dressed up like Princess – y’know, from G-Force? Anyway, we had to rescue our son, who was this weird turtle thing, from all these kaiju – Godzilla and Mothra and Rodan, and for some reason King Kong was there as well, but I don’t think that’s relevant.”

Stephanie blinked. “You don’t think that’s relevant?”

“He’s not a kaiju, is he? Not technically. He’s just a giant ape.”

“Where does Valkyrie enter into all this?” Skulduggery asked.

“Ah, yeah, right, OK, so there we were, me and Sharon, and we were fighting these people made from broccoli, which I’m pretty sure was a dream nod to a Warren Ellis comic, and then Rodan came thundering towards us and it all looked bad, it looked like we were about to die, and then the ground, like, exploded, and there was this … this thing … with all these tentacles, bursting up and grabbing Rodan, and it threw him away, over the skyscrapers. And then it turned to me, and I couldn’t see a face, but I heard its voice, and it was Valkyrie. She called my name and said, ‘Help me.’ And then I woke up.”

“That’s it?” Stephanie asked, frowning.

“Well,” Finbar said, “there was a bit more action with the Fiery Phoenix and some mechs, but I don’t think you’d be interested in any of that unless you’re a big anime fan. Are you?”

“I meant,” Stephanie said, “is that it as far as Valkyrie’s concerned?”

“Oh,” Finbar said. “Yeah, it is.”

“Then I must be missing something. You had a dream where you were fighting Godzilla and you heard Valkyrie talking. You’re not saying it’s a premonition, are you? Because there’s no such thing as Godzilla, and you’re not a Power Ranger.”

“Not a premonition, no. But I think Valkyrie was trying to communicate with me.”

“How do you know it wasn’t just another part of the dream?” asked Stephanie.

Finbar answered her frown with one of his own. “Because I’m a psychic. I know the difference. I usually know the difference. Sometimes I know the difference. I’m sure it was her, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

“But Valkyrie’s gone,” said Stephanie. “If you heard her voice, that was Darquesse.”

“But why would Darquesse be asking for my help?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Stephanie. “Maybe it was just part of the dream.”

“It was part of the dream,” Finbar said. “And it was also Valkyrie trying to communicate.”

“How sure are you?” Skulduggery asked.

“Relatively,” Finbar said.

Skulduggery took Finbar’s arm. “Come with me,” he said, leading him out of the lobby.

“But my Doc Martens …”

“You can pick them up in a minute.” Skulduggery pushed open a door, made sure the room was empty, and closed it once Finbar and Stephanie were both inside. He pulled out his phone, dialled and put it on speaker.

Cassandra Pharos answered. “You just can’t stay away from me, can you?”

“Be warned, Cassandra, you’re on speaker.”

“Oh, phooey.”

“I’m here with Stephanie and Finbar.”

“Good morning, Steph. Finbar, what has you up this early on a weekday?”

Finbar frowned. “It’s a weekday?”

“Valkyrie came to him in a dream,” Skulduggery said. “She said ‘help me’ and disappeared.”

“I see,” Cassandra said. “Finbar, it was really a communication? You’re not getting confused again, are you?”

“I’m sure,” Finbar said. “The TV wasn’t even on this time.” He glanced at Stephanie. “Last time I thought someone was contacting me, it was William Shatner.” He looked back at the phone. “But this time I’m sure, Cassie. It was her. It was Valkyrie.”

“How would Valkyrie even know how to possess someone?” Stephanie asked. “If the dream was real, how do we know it’s not someone pretending to be her? Either a Sensitive or Darquesse herself? Maybe they want to lie to us or distract us or just spy on us. We don’t know it’s Valkyrie. Valkyrie’s gone.”

“I’m not entirely convinced of that,” said Cassandra. “There is a possibility that Valkyrie could merely be subdued, in the same way that Darquesse was when Valkyrie was in control. If that’s the case, it’s entirely reasonable to assume that she’s diverting some of Darquesse’s power to contact us without Darquesse even being aware of it.”

“But Valkyrie doesn’t know how,” Stephanie said.

“She knows everything Darquesse knows,” said Skulduggery. “And Darquesse learns, adapts, and acquires new abilities at a remarkable rate.”

“Is this what you think,” Stephanie asked, “or what you hope? You’re all acting like Valkyrie is still there to be saved. I’m here to tell you, as the only one who could possibly know, that there is no Valkyrie any more. I know how strong Darquesse is. She would have swallowed Valkyrie whole.”

“Is that what you think or what you hope?” Skulduggery murmured. She glared at him as he spoke into the phone. “If it is Valkyrie, and I’m not saying it is, how do we use that to help her?”

“I don’t know,” said Cassandra. “There are two distinct viewpoints within her mind, and yet they’re the same personality. Theoretically we could push one aspect down, suppress it, using some of the techniques we employed with Argeddion. But we’d need some very powerful Sensitives to do it.”

“This is insane,” said Stephanie. “If we go after her with the intention of subduing her, she’ll kill us. We agreed on this, Skulduggery. We agreed that if I had the shot, I’d take it.”

“If we have no other choice.”

“We don’t.”

“We have this,” he said. “This is a choice. If that is Valkyrie, she’s reaching out to us.”

“You’re putting the world in danger for someone who’s already gone.”

“I’m not giving up on her unless I absolutely have to.”

“Even if it works, what then? Darquesse is pushed back down into the dark corners of Valkyrie’s mind. So what? She’ll rise to the top. She’ll emerge. She’ll take over. Just like she’s done before. If she can be saved, then the only way to do it would be to do what was done to Argeddion. Push everything down. Repress everything, and rewrite her personality. Give her a new mortal identity and send her away where she’ll never bother anyone ever again.”

“She could be right,” Cassandra said quietly. “That might be the only way to save Valkyrie’s life.”

Skulduggery didn’t answer.

ife as a Monster Hunter was not without its perks.

There was the opportunity to travel, for one – though as a Teleporter, travel was pretty much Fletcher’s thing anyway. But then there were other perks, too, like being part of an internationally recognised and respected team of adventurers. Although they weren’t quite as recognised and respected as Fletcher had been led to believe. Most of the sorcerers they spoke to around the world had only a passing notion of who they actually were, being more familiar, in fact, with the books they wrote than their actual real-life escapades.

Gracious O’Callahan – the short, strong one with the muscles and the T-shirts – and Donegan Bane – the tall, dapper one with the skinny jeans and the skinny ties – spent most of their time signing autographs and posing for photos while Dai Maybury stroked his beard and looked on with envy and Fletcher was ignored altogether.

The reason they’d got as far as they had in their search for the renegade sorcerers had nothing to do with the Monster Hunters at all, and everything to do with the two men who accompanied them. Dexter Vex, he of the chiselled abs and the scuffed boots, and Saracen Rue, of the winning smile and the designer suits, had a reputation that all but guaranteed straight answers to their many questions. The Dead Men were taken seriously wherever they went.

And now they were back in a small town in Ireland with a new set of targets – the Remnants. Even Gracious had looked apprehensive at the idea of taking on those sneaky little bodysnatchers. Vex and Saracen, of course, hadn’t batted an eyelid, and gradually their sense of calm had spread throughout the group, and the casual nature of the team returned. Unfortunately.

“I remember my first girlfriend,” said Gracious as they prowled the town’s quiet back streets.

“Stephanie is not my first,” Fletcher responded.

Gracious ignored him. “A farmer’s daughter, she was, though back then nearly every girl was a farmer’s daughter. Or a farmer. She had hair as long as rope, and a nose. All her eyes were blue and she had a smile like a radiant hole in the ground, with teeth. God, she was beautiful.”

“She sounds terrifying,” said Donegan.

“Hush, you. I will hear no bad word spoken of your sister.”

“Stephanie is not my first,” Fletcher repeated. “I really don’t need any advice.”

“Lads,” said Gracious, “any words of wisdom for Fletcher here?”

The others closed in.

“Honesty is, honestly, the best policy,” said Saracen. “But when honesty doesn’t work, lie, and lie convincingly.”

“Treat her right and with respect,” said Vex from up ahead. “Even when it ends, you want to remain friends.”

Donegan pondered. “My advice would be to go for someone better than you are. Stops you from getting complacent.”

“Grow a beard,” said Dai.

Fletcher frowned back at him. “Sorry?”

“A beard,” Dai said. “Women love beards. Grow one like mine. Mine is a manly beard.”

“I suppose it is kind of … manly.”

“I’ve had it since I was twelve.”

“You must have been a very hairy child.”

“The hairiest.”

“Hold on a second,” said Donegan, waving around a forked branch. “My divining rod is picking up something.”

“It’s not a divining rod,” Saracen said. “It’s a twig. You broke it off a tree.”

“It does work, though,” Gracious said. “It’s not one hundred percent accurate, it doesn’t lead you straight to the source of magic, but it gets you into the general area.”

“This way.” Donegan led them down a narrow alley. “Something’s close. Very close.”

“How sure are you?” Vex asked.

“Pretty sure,” Donegan called back. “This isn’t an exact science.”

“It’s not even remotely a science,” said Saracen.

“Aha!” Gracious said, picking up speed and passing Donegan. He pointed to two chocolate bar wrappers as they skipped along on the breeze.

“I’m missing something,” said Fletcher.

“One of the strongest urges a Remnant has once it takes a new host is to sate its appetites,” Vex told him. “It needs sensation. It needs to experience pleasure or pain. Food is an instant source of pleasure.”

“So all these sweet wrappers …”

“Classic signs of a Remnant possession. Look. More.”

They followed the trail to a loose pile of wrappers beneath an open window. Fletcher peered in. A small office with a single desk and cheap trophies on a shelf.

“A dojo,” said Saracen.

Fletcher looked back. “What?”

“A martial arts school. Looks like our Remnant might be an instructor.”

They walked round the corner to the street entrance. It was an unimpressive building with a cheap sign showing a badly-drawn man executing a flying kick. Fletcher followed the others inside. They passed a framed photograph of a man with a ponytail in a black karate uniform. The name under it was Noonan.

They pushed through another set of doors, entered the hall. Parents sat at one end while their kids stood to attention in the main space. The uniforms they wore were black and red. Only the man in charge, the one called Noonan, had a black belt around his waist.

A teenaged student hurried to the top of the class and faced him. The student settled into a fighting stance, and at Noonan’s nod he stepped in with a right punch. Noonan moved, blocking with a quick exhalation, and then he pivoted, shouting out a “Ki-yah!” as his fist sank into the student’s side. The student dropped to his knees, wheezing.

Noonan swung round to address the students and their parents. “A basic defence against a straight punch!” he announced. “Now I will demonstrate a defence against a knife attack!”

He gestured to another student, and Fletcher saw the trepidation in the girl’s eyes as she picked up a rubber training knife and approached the mat. Noonan said a few words to her, the student nodded, and Noonan readied himself.

A curt nod to the student, who stepped in with a wild slash. Noonan dodged back and kicked, his foot connecting with the student’s wrist. The knife went flying, and Noonan continued the technique with a series of whirling kicks that sent the student slamming back into the wall.

“Is this guy always so rough?” Saracen whispered to a parent.

The parent glowered. “Every time. He’s a bully and a thug.”

“Questions?” Noonan said loudly. “No? No one? Our system speaks for itself, doesn’t it?” He laughed. There were a few uneasy chuckles from his students. “But anyone can do it, regardless of age or fitness level. I can teach any student to defend themselves and their loved ones. Would one of the parents like to volunteer for a demonstration? No? Are you a little nervous of being shown up in front of your kids?” He laughed again.

Vex walked forward.

“A volunteer!” Noonan said. “Give this brave soul a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen!”

Everyone clapped. Fletcher joined in.

“I’m just going to demonstrate some simple defences against a right punch,” Noonan told him. “I’ll go easy on you, don’t worry! Just take your shoes off and – no, just remove your shoes. Take your shoes off when you’re on the mat. Take them—”

Vex strolled across the mat, his boots still on. Noonan’s smile became a little strained.

“OK then,” he said. “Shoes staying on, are they? Well, seeing as how this is your first time, I can forgive that.” The anger in his eyes suggested otherwise. “Now then, sir, this defence is against a right punch, so—”

Vex strolled by him and his left fist flashed out, struck Noonan right on the nose. Noonan stepped back, hands at his face, and Vex circled him unhurriedly.

“Ow!” said Noonan. “No! I didn’t say begin! You can’t just begin without me being ready! Is it bleeding? Am I bleeding?”

He took his hands away from his nose to show Vex, and Vex hit him again.

“Ow! What are you doing? We weren’t doing the technique that time! Oh, God, I’m bleeding now, amn’t I? Now I’m bleeding!” Noonan wiped the blood from his nose and sniffled. “And they weren’t even right punches. Those were left jabs you threw. Stop walking. Stop walking, for God’s sake!”

Vex stopped walking.

“Thank you,” Noonan said, seething. “Now then, you’re going to throw a right punch, so put your left leg forward, and step through with the punch when I say begin, OK? Do you understand? Am I being clear?”

Vex stomped on Noonan’s bare foot, and Noonan screeched.

“You can’t do that! You can’t do that!”

He hopped, clutching his foot, then lost his balance and toppled over. He glared up. “I see. You’re here to prove yourself, are you? You’re a tough guy, and you want to cheat? Any other night, I’d throw you out right now. But tonight is different. Tonight, I’m different. So, if you want to freestyle …” Noonan stood up. “Let’s freestyle.”

Noonan started moving, bouncing on his toes, shifting his weight, weaving from side to side and forward and back. His right fist was up at his chin, his left lower and out in front. A classic fighting stance.

Vex just stood there.

Noonan snapped out a kick, whirled with another, jumped and spun with a third. All three of them were well out of range, though, and Vex just kept standing there. The unimpressed look on his face seemed to agitate Noonan almost as much as the foot stomp. Black veins started to rise as he lunged with a punch.

Vex covered up and went to meet him, arms up and elbows out. Noonan’s fist crunched against one of those elbows and he howled. Vex grabbed him, drove him backwards, smacked his head against the wall. The crowd gave a horrified “oooh” and Noonan staggered. The black veins had vanished as quickly as they’d risen. Vex gripped the back of his neck with one hand, and led him into the office.

Saracen stepped forward, turning to smile at the onlookers. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are inspectors from the National Black Belt Review Board, and we need to talk to Mr Noonan about his teaching methods. I’m afraid tonight’s class will have to be cut short. Thanks very much for your attention, and safe home.”

Saracen bowed, then turned on his heel and walked after Vex. The Monster Hunters followed as the students and parents murmured among themselves and began to file out. Fletcher was the last one into the office, and he closed the door behind him. Noonan was sitting in his chair, his hands shackled, while some very intimidating men looked down at him.

“Where are the others?” Vex asked.

“Other what?” said Noonan. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need some ice for my head. I think my hand is broken. And my foot. And maybe my nose.”

Saracen sat on the edge of the desk. “Do you like being him? This man you’ve hijacked? He seems a tad petty, doesn’t he? I bet you’ve inhabited far more interesting people over the years than this loser.”

Noonan glowered. “I’m not a loser.”

“You’re a pudgy martial arts instructor with a quick temper and no control. You regularly hurt your students in order to show off and boost your own ego. You’re a loser, my friend.”

“Take these cuffs off and I’ll show you who the real loser is.”

“Don’t make this any more difficult for yourself,” said Vex. “Listen, we’ve seen worse Remnants. Some of them, they possess a body and their first instinct is to kill. To cause damage. But you? Your first instinct was to eat junk food. To experience. It looks like you really wanted to make this work.”

Noonan nodded. “I did. I do.”

“You’re probably tired of being hunted, right? Tired of being caught and locked away?”

“Exactly!” said Noonan. “I just want to fit in now. I want to live.”

“Like this?” Saracen asked. “Like a loser?”

“I am not a loser!”

“You really think you could keep this up? We know what you’re like. You’re a Remnant. You have no conscience. Sooner or later, you’d kill someone.”

“No! Not this time! This time I’m going to have a proper life!”

Saracen laughed. “I swear to God, I’d almost believe this guy.”

“I’m telling the truth!” Noonan insisted. He looked to Vex. “I’m not going to kill anyone. Yeah, fine, I don’t have a conscience, but so what? Most of the really successful business people in the world are technically psychopaths. They don’t kill people, do they? I don’t have to, either. Let me prove it. Let me stay in this body, and let me prove it.”

Vex frowned. “What? You want us to just walk away? We came here to track you Remnants down and lock you up again.”

“Please,” said Noonan. “I can help you. The others aren’t here. They’ve gone on. If you leave me alone, I’ll tell you where.”

“And how do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“Have you seen any other Remnants? You haven’t, have you? You said it yourself, most of them start to kill people pretty soon after taking a new host. There haven’t been any murders in the area because they’re not here. Things are different this time.”

“Different how?”

Noonan hesitated.

“I’m your only chance of getting what you want,” said Vex. “You either talk to me now, tell me what you know, or we take out the Soul Catcher and lock you away.”

“Darquesse released us,” said Noonan. “She wants an army, ready to swoop in at her command. Only … only things have changed. We don’t think of her in the same way any more.”

“Does she know this?” Saracen asked.

“No,” said Noonan. “I don’t think so anyway. But she ordered us to lie low until, you know, she needs us. So they all went off.”

“Except for you.”

“We passed this town. I saw all the people. I couldn’t resist. I took a body. I realised, yes, I actually want a life without looking over my shoulder the whole time. So I took another body, and then I took this one.”

Saracen frowned. “This loser is the best you could find?”

“I am not a loser! I am a martial arts instructor! I am respected in my community!”

“Calm down,” said Vex. “Look at me. You have one chance to stay in this body. Where are they headed? The other Remnants?”

“East.”

“That’s it?” Gracious asked. “East? That’s the best you can do?”

“They’re looking for a town small enough to take over,” Noonan said. “Then they’ll settle down and wait.”

“But you don’t know where? There are a lot of towns east of here. You want us to check every single one of them?”

“I’m really sorry. I don’t know. Please … what are you going to do with me?”

“You’re possessing a body without permission,” said Vex. “I’m afraid you have to come out.”

“No. No, please, you said I could stay! You said it!”

Dai took something that looked like an empty snow globe from his coat, and Noonan jerked away.

“This is a new and improved Soul Catcher,” Saracen said. “China Sorrows herself etched a few sigils into it. Can you feel the pull? You can, can’t you? You can feel it dragging you in.”

Noonan shook his head. He was sweating badly now. “No. Nope. No.”

Dai pushed the Soul Catcher closer, and Noonan screamed.

His throat bulged. Fletcher glimpsed darkness – dark claws, snapping jaws – rise up in Noonan’s open mouth. The Remnant tried to burst free, to dart towards Gracious, but it was caught in the globe’s gravity and sucked into it. The globe instantly turned black.

Noonan collapsed in his chair. He began snoring.

Vex lifted the Soul Catcher and peered into it. “At least we know China’s improvements work,” he said. “Now all we need is another few thousand of these and we’re set.”

old hands,” Cassandra said, and Stephanie scowled.

This was ridiculous. Sitting round a table, holding hands, staring into a flickering candle. This was a bad seance in a bad TV show. She had Skulduggery on one side and Cassandra on the other, and across from her was the placid face of Finbar Wrong.

She wondered how long they’d have to sit like this.

After a few minutes, Finbar’s chin dropped to his chest. He was asleep. Again.

Stephanie bit back the ridicule. If she said something and interrupted whatever the hell was happening, they’d probably have to start again. The best thing she could do was wait until everyone else at this table realised the stupidity of what they were—

“Valkyrie?” said Cassandra. “Can you hear me?”

Stephanie took a cautious look around. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Valkyrie’s ghost to appear, perhaps?

“Valkyrie,” Cassandra said again. “If you can hear me, give me a sign.”

Nothing. No ghost. No lightning strike. The candle didn’t blow out. Not one thing. Just as she’d thought.

“I can hear you,” Finbar mumbled, without raising his head.

Stephanie frowned. She was about to point out that Cassandra wasn’t talking to him when he muttered something else, then said, “Skulduggery? Where’s Skulduggery?”

“I’m here,” Skulduggery said. “I was beginning to think you were lost to us.”

Finbar’s mouth twitched into a brief smile. “Sorry. You’re not going to get rid of me so easily.”

Stephanie’s eyes widened. No way.

“Valkyrie, what can you tell us about where you are?” Cassandra asked.

“It … it’s dark here,” Finbar said. “Cold. Finbar is like … his mind is at the far end of a bridge, and you’re just beyond that. You’re this dim light …”

“Do you know where you are physically?” Skulduggery asked. “Where is Darquesse right now? What’s she doing?”

Finbar’s frown deepened. “Experimenting,” he said. “Experimenting with magic. Expanding her abilities. When she’s like this, I can … I can talk, and she won’t notice.”

“Hold on there,” Stephanie said. “Wait a second. How can we be sure that you’re really Valkyrie?”

“You don’t get to speak to me,” Finbar said, his voice sharpening. “Last time I saw you, you tried to kill me. Skulduggery, why is she here?”

“Stephanie’s helping,” Skulduggery said.

“You can’t trust her.”

“He can’t trust you,” said Stephanie, the anger rising.

Finbar pointed a finger straight into Stephanie’s face. “Shut. Up.” His arm collapsed back on to the table. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll deal with her when I’m back in control. So how do I do that?”

Cassandra sat forward. “Valkyrie, we’re going to need you to focus.”

“I’m focused.”

“Not now. We need you to prepare yourself, psychically, for what we have to do.”

“Uh,” said Finbar, “how do I do that?”

“By listening, and understanding. I’ve been speaking to every Sensitive worth talking to and, while the chances are slim, we think there is a way to force Darquesse from your body, at least theoretically.”

“Theoretically fails to fill me with hope,” Finbar said.

Cassandra gave a soft smile. “Deacon Maybury has the ability to rewrite personalities. To do this, he builds up psychic walls, constructs corridors for thoughts, and shuts off aspects of the personality that need to be kept hidden. He fundamentally redesigns the architecture of the mind. Not even Argeddion, who also knows his own true name, has broken through these walls.”

“But we don’t want to suppress Darquesse,” Finbar said. “We want to get rid of her. And the only reason Argeddion hasn’t broken through is because he’s unaware of his situation. Darquesse knows what Deacon Maybury can do.”

Cassandra nodded. “Getting rid of her is still the goal, don’t worry. Essentially, what Deacon’s redesign does is to split the original personality in two, creating a pocket personality that is then sequestered off to one side. Working with some friends of mine, I believe I can isolate this part and remove it from your mind.”

Stephanie frowned. “And put it where exactly?”

Skulduggery set a glass orb on the table. “A Soul Catcher will trap Darquesse’s essence just as effectively as a Remnant. What we do with her after that is a conversation for another time. Valkyrie, the only thing you have to concern yourself with is preparing to hold on with everything you’ve got once the Sensitives start their work.”

“I can do that,” said Finbar.

“It won’t be easy,” said Cassandra.

“Dammit,” said Finbar.

“You’ll feel your thoughts splitting,” Cassandra said. “You’ll find it difficult to concentrate, difficult to remember. But you must. You have to focus on something, a word, a phrase, something to latch on to while we’re pulling Darquesse away from you.”

“The sparrow flies south for winter,” Finbar said immediately.

Stephanie heard the amusement in Skulduggery’s voice. He was talking a little faster now, with a little more life to his words. “Yes. Good. When Cassandra and the other Sensitives are doing their thing, I’ll be with you, and that phrase will bind us together. The moment you hear me say it, you focus on it, repeat it, pour everything you’ve got into those six words.”

“I don’t know how long the process will take,” said Cassandra. “It might be minutes. It might be days. You have to be ready for anything.”

“So when do we do it?” Finbar asked.

“Soon,” said Skulduggery. “I don’t want to tell you exactly when. I don’t want Darquesse to pick up on anything unusual. But be ready.”

“OK,” said Finbar. “I can do this. OK. I mean, it’s risky, though. What if she figures out what I’m up to?”

“You just have to hope she doesn’t,” said Skulduggery.

“And we just have to hope that you’re really Valkyrie,” said Stephanie. “Otherwise we’re the ones who’ll be walking into a trap.”

Finbar paused, then said, “I really don’t like you.” He frowned. “I have to go. I’ve talked to you for too long.”

Skulduggery squeezed Finbar’s hand. “I’ll see you soon, Valkyrie.”

Finbar managed a smile, and then his face went blank. A moment later, he snorted, raised his head and opened his eyes, looked around. “Well? Did it work?”

Stephanie pulled her hands back, and folded her arms.

“Oh, it worked,” said Skulduggery.

He was insufferable. Stephanie walked beside him as they made their way through the Sanctuary’s corridors, and Skulduggery would not shut up. He cracked jokes, he told stories, he was by turns smug, arrogant and whimsical and, worst of all, he was paying attention to her.

“I thought you wanted me to talk more,” he said when he noticed her silence. “Can’t have it both ways, Stephanie. I can’t be quiet when you want to sulk and chatty when you want to chat. That’s not how it works. That’s not how I work.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Well, you’re doing something with your face that resembles sulking. Are you glowering? You might be glowering. Glowering is like sulking only scarier.”

They stepped into the elevator, and Skulduggery thumbed the button for the top floor. The doors slid closed.

“You’re definitely frowning, though,” he continued as they started to move. “Do you know how many muscles it takes to frown, as opposed to the muscles it takes to smile? I don’t. I doubt anyone does. What constitutes a smile anyway? Is it just the movement of the mouth, or are the eyes involved? And to what extent is each muscle utilised? The old homily about how frowning uses more muscles than smiling is entirely redundant unless, of course, you’re talking about the underlying message, and as a message, it’s a wonderful, life-affirming thing that bypasses anything so pedantic as actual, provable facts.”

“Could we go back to the awkward silences, please?”

“We’ve moved beyond the silences, Stephanie. We’re on new ground now.”

“I hate new ground.”

“Do you want a hug?” asked Skulduggery.

“God, no.”

“You’re probably right. I should probably save my hugs for later.”

The elevator stopped and they got out. They approached a set of double doors guarded by the Black Cleaver.

Skulduggery knocked, then nodded to the Cleaver. “Hi.”

The Black Cleaver didn’t acknowledge him.

“I meant to say, I like the new look,” Skulduggery continued. “It’s moody. It’s edgy. It doesn’t really leave a whole lot of scope for anything further down the line, though. That would be my only criticism. You’ve gone from grey to white and now to black and, really, what’s left? You could go multicoloured, I suppose. You could show your support for the gay, lesbian and transgender communities. The Rainbow Cleaver, perhaps? No? Too much? That’s not your thing? Ah, that’s a pity.”

Skulduggery stopped talking. The Black Cleaver didn’t move a millimetre.

Skulduggery resumed talking. “I don’t know if you know this, you probably do, but people here have been around for a few hundred years and, well, things happen. You stop being so fixated on things that don’t matter. The pursuit of happiness, that’s what it’s all about. That’s all I’m saying on the subject. It’s OK to be different, because we’re all different in our own ways. There. Sermon over. Would you like a hug?”

The doors opened. “Are you giving out hugs?” China asked.

“Only to those who need them,” Skulduggery said, leading the way in.

China raised an eyebrow. “Someone’s in a good mood.”

“He won’t shut up,” Stephanie muttered.

China’s apartment was on the top floor of the highest tower in the Sanctuary. White walls and high ceilings. It was a celebration of taste – of art, of culture, of history, of magic. Of power.

China closed the doors behind them. “Should I take it that this good mood means you were successful in communicating with Valkyrie?”

Skulduggery walked up to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out over Roarhaven. “You should,” he said.

“And she agreed to Cassandra’s plan?”

“She did.”

China smiled. “Well, that is good news.”

For some reason, seeing recent events brighten China’s mood was even more annoying than Skulduggery’s chirpiness. At least Stephanie had expected Skulduggery’s chirpiness. Some of it anyway.

“In order for the Sensitives to do their part,” Stephanie said, “we’ll need to hold Darquesse in one place for a period of time, right? Have we figured out just how we’re going to do this, or are we simply hoping she trips over and knocks herself out?”

“Such attitude,” said China. “I dare say this one is even more sarcastic than the original. She lacks a certain warmth, though, a quality that made Valkyrie so endearing.”

“I’m not here to be warm or to be liked,” said Stephanie. “I’m here to stop Darquesse and go home. Are you going to help us with that or aren’t you?”

The corner of China’s mouth curved slightly upwards. “But of course, my dear. I do apologise for wasting time with small talk. I believe I may be of some assistance, yes.”

She led them to a large table filled with open books. On a clear space by the edge was a journal, in which was drawn a circle of symbols. Notes were scrawled in different coloured inks, linked by arrows and underlined for effect. Measurements spilled out on to the adjoining page, like an idea that couldn’t be contained.

“For the last few weeks, I have been spending my precious time designing traps,” said China. “This design you see before you is the culmination of my work. It should take a sorcerer’s power and throw it back at her. Once Darquesse enters this circle, her own strength will loop back and stun her, incapacitating her for between five and ten seconds. Because Stephanie is the only one of us without magic, and so the only one who will not be affected by the trap, I suggest she act as bait. Fletcher Renn will be waiting with the Sensitives in a secure location, and when Darquesse is stunned Stephanie can deactivate the trap, the Sensitives can teleport in, and the day can be saved. Can we be certain that Darquesse won’t recover while they work?”

“Cassandra seems confident,” said Skulduggery.

“Splendid. Our entire existence rests on the assurances of a hippy.”

“She hasn’t let me down yet. My main concern is this trap of yours and whether or not it’ll work on someone of Darquesse’s power.”

China smiled. “Oh, my dear, you wound me. Have I ever let you down?”

“Numerous times.”

“I meant today.”

“Then, no. You haven’t. That I know of.”

“So we have our trap,” Stephanie said, cutting across them both, “but we don’t have any way of luring Darquesse into it. Creyfon Signate is still trying to find Mevolent’s alternate reality and until we have that, Ravel can’t be our bait.”

“We don’t need him to be,” Skulduggery said. “Darquesse is after the Hessian Grimoire. All we have to do is break into the Vault and get to it before she does.”

“The Vault?” said Stephanie. “Beneath the Dublin Art Gallery? The one with the vampire security guards?”

“The very same. Security has been tightened since Valkyrie and I broke in six years ago, but it’s nothing we won’t be able to handle.”

Stephanie frowned. “But why do we have to break in? We’re the Sanctuary now. Why don’t we just set up the trap in the gallery, Darquesse will walk in, and we’ll have her. What’s the problem?”

“The Sanctuary has no jurisdiction over the Vault,” said China. “They won’t let us set up the trap, and we can’t force anyone to open those doors for us. Also, the man who owns this particular grimoire is unlikely to loan it out.”

“We’ll just explain that we need it to save the world,” Stephanie said. “Who’s going to say no to that?”

China smiled. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on that book for centuries as a private collector. He may see this request as simply an attempt to use my newfound position of authority to snatch up all the little trinkets I’ve had my eye on – something I would never, ever admit to. So a little bit of crime is in order.”

“We break in and steal the grimoire before Darquesse has a chance to,” said Skulduggery. “We set up the trap nearby. When Darquesse arrives, Stephanie takes the grimoire and leads her into the circle. The Sensitives separate Valkyrie from Darquesse and Darquesse is pulled into the Soul Catcher. No one gets hurt, no one gets killed, and Darquesse is locked away forever. Questions?”

Stephanie raised her hand. “How do I deactivate the trap?”

“It’s easy,” said China. “NJ will show you.”

“NJ? Not you?”

“Unfortunately, I will not be attending,” China said. “But I am sending NJ and another two of my best students and, believe me, they will have detailed instructions on what to do. I would go myself, but I haven’t had a chance to test the trap yet, so I don’t know if it’ll work, and I don’t want to be killed if it doesn’t. Any more questions? No? Wonderful. I have a good feeling about tonight. This is a good plan. Nothing can possibly, possibly go wrong.” She smiled again. “At all.”

inter’s come, and it’s a slow day, and cold, and Danny is in the backroom strumming on his guitar, a battered old six-string he’s had since he was fourteen. Inspired by Stephanie, he’s singing ‘Spancil Hill’ by the Dubliners.

He’s playing softly enough to listen out for the bell over the door, and when it tinkles he puts down the guitar and walks out to greet his prospective customer. Two of them, actually. There’s a tall old man over by the magazine rack, his back to Danny, and a younger, shorter, fatter man waiting at the counter. He has a black goatee beard that is failing in its attempt to hide twin moles, one on his upper lip, one on his chin. His thinning hair is long, pulled tight into a ponytail. He looks like he’d be more comfortable in a grubby Black Sabbath T-shirt, but here he is, stuffed into his shirt and tie like a sulky schoolboy forced to dress up for church.

“Do you sell rat poison?” is the first thing he says.

“Afraid not,” says Danny, “but we do have some rat repellers that work on an ultrasonic frequency if you have a rodent problem.”

The fat man considers this by chewing his lip. “You sell knives?”

“Penknives, yes.”

“Hunting knives?”

“No.”

“OK. You sell hammers?”

“We have a few,” says Danny. “Other side of the shelf behind you.”

The fat man doesn’t even glance over his shoulder. Usually this kind of time-wasting is done by kids to distract Danny from shoplifting going on elsewhere, but the only other person in the store is the old man, and he stays in plain sight.

“You sell guns?” the fat man asks.

“No,” says Danny, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to prickle.

“Pity,” says the fat man. “I like guns.”

He doesn’t say it in a threatening manner – in fact, he says it wistfully, almost like a sigh – but a feeling starts to grow in the hinterland of Danny’s mind, and it grows fast and it grows big.

The fat man has a Boston accent. A long way to travel for a hammer and some rat poison. With just the counter between them, Danny can examine the unhealthy pallor of the man’s skin and pick out the different stains on the badly-knotted tie, fixed so tight it makes thick rolls of flesh bulge out at his shirt collar.

“Anything else I can help you with?” Danny asks, meaning you can leave my store any time now, thank you very much, but the fat man doesn’t take the hint, and he stays where he is, eyes moving sluggishly over the racks of stuff on the wall before he comes to something that snags his interest.

“You sell padlocks.”

“Yes we do,” says Danny. “You want one?”

The fat man shakes his head. “We have all we need. Chains, too. I was just remarking on the fact that you have them, that’s all. Doesn’t mean I intend to buy any.”

“Right.”

For the first time, the fat man’s eyes meet Danny’s. It isn’t a pleasant experience. “You shouldn’t be so quick to try to sell me things. That’s the problem with this country, you know. That’s the problem with America. Everyone is out for number one. Everyone’s out for themselves. So eager to part me from my money. If I keeled over of a heart attack this very moment, you probably wouldn’t think twice about rifling through my wallet before calling for an ambulance, would you?”

“I’m sorry,” Danny says. “You pointed out the padlocks. I took that to mean you were interested in buying one.”

“Didn’t I just say I have enough padlocks? What are you, stupid?”

The last of Danny’s politeness washes away. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave my store.”

The fat man’s eyes bug. “What? You’re the one started this! You’re the one trying to take my money! Customer’s always right, you ever heard that? The customer is always right. You were being stupid and dumb and selfish, and what, I’m not allowed to call you on it? I’m not allowed to stand up for ordinary, decent values?”

“Leave or I’ll call the police.”

“Police?” the fat man screeches, his face going a deep red. “You’re the one in the wrong! I’m the victim here! Call the police! Go on, do it! We’ll let them decide who here is the aggrieved party! Oh, not so cocksure now, are you, now that I’ve called your bluff?”

“Are you going to leave, or not?”

The fat man’s lip curls unattractively. “What’s wrong – you don’t want me to make a scene in front of all these customers?”

“What are you talking about? The only other person in here is your friend.”

“Who, him?” says the fat man. “I’ve never seen that gentleman before in my life.”

On cue, the old man turns, smiling. His face is a fascinating map of lines and wrinkles clustered round the landmarks of his features. A large nose, small, bright eyes, a thin, wide mouth. His hair is white and trails from his mottled scalp in wisps. There is something of the vulture about him.

He marches forward, moving surprisingly smoothly for someone so elderly, his gnarled hands held at his sides. “Pardon me ever so,” he says, “but I couldn’t help but overhear this lively debate from where I stood, perusing the magazine stall. If I may interject, in the spirit of an impartial observer and a stranger to you both, I would offer the opinion that a simple misunderstanding is at the root of this current discord. May I enquire as to your names, kind sirs, so as to better sow the seeds of calmness and brotherhood?”

“My name is Jeremiah Wallow,” says the fat man, standing a little straighter. “I hail from Boston, in Massachusetts, which is in the region known as New England.”

“It is a singular pleasure to meet you, Jeremiah Wallow,” says the old man. “And may I say what an unusual last name you have. My last name, Gant, is somewhat of a rarity also. Originally I came from a small town in a small country in Europe, but as you can probably tell by my accent I have long since made my home in the Midwest, specifically in St Louis, and that is in Missouri. And you, young man? May I inquire as to your details?”

Danny looks at them both. “I’m Danny,” he says.

They wait, but he offers nothing more. The old man, Gant, widens his smile. “And where do you hail from, Danny? Are you a native of Meek Ridge?”

“I am.”

“That must have been marvellous, to have been raised in such beauteous surroundings. I myself cannot remember a town with such natural charm. Can you, Mr Wallow?”

“I cannot,” says Jeremiah.

“You have lived here all your life, then?” Gant asks Danny. “You have watched the comings and goings of your friends and neighbours? And this being, in fact, the General Store, situated as it is on the main thoroughfare, I doubt there is anything, or indeed anyone, that escapes your notice for very long, now is there?”

Danny waits for him to get to the point.

“I dare say you hear an awful lot of accents, do you not?” Gant says. “Accents and dialects and brogues and burrs. What’s your favourite? Do you have one? I personally have always been partial to the Scots accent. It’s the way they roll their r’s. Do you have a preference, Danny my boy?”

“Not really.”

“No? No favourite? What about you, Mr Wallow? Or may I call you Jeremiah?”

“I insist on it,” says Jeremiah. “And I would say, if asked, which you have, that out of all the accents in all the world, Irish is my favourite, what with me being a Boston boy.”

Gant claps his hands. “Irish! Yes! Oh, those beautiful lilts and those soft t’s, every word an event unto itself. I knew an Irishman once – he could charm the birds out of a bush, as the saying goes, and it was all down to that accent. What do you think of the Irish accent, Danny?”

Danny works very hard to keep his expression neutral. “Don’t have much of an opinion on it.”

“You don’t?” says Gant. “Well, my boy, in that case, you need to listen to an Irish person speak in order to form one. What are we without our opinions, after all? When was the last time you heard an Irish person speak?”

Gant looks at him, all smiles, while Jeremiah’s eyebrows are raised in a gently quizzical manner.

“Guess it was the last time I saw a Liam Neeson movie,” Danny says.

Gant waves his hand dismissively. “Movies hardly count. Real life, now that is the only experience worth having. When was the last time you heard an Irish person speak in real life?”

“Years ago,” Danny says. “Probably when I was in LA. Don’t really remember.”

Gant’s smile fades a little. “I see.”

“No Irish around here?” Jeremiah asks.

Danny shakes his head.

“No Irish girls?” Jeremiah says. “Irish women? You sure?”

“Meek Ridge doesn’t have a whole lot to offer,” says Danny. “We don’t get many people moving in. We usually get people moving out.”

“And you say,” presses Gant, “no Irish?”

“Nope.”

“Well … that is odd.”

“You were expecting some?” asks Danny.

“Expecting one,” says Gant. “Friend of mine. Niece, actually. Dark hair. Tall. Pretty. Kind of girl you’d remember.”

“What’s her name?”

Gant smiles again. “Thank you for your time, Danny, but I must be going. Jeremiah, might I offer you a lift?”

“That would be most kind,” says Jeremiah, trailing after the old man as he walks from the store.

They leave, and the bell tinkles, and silence rushes in.

tephanie dripped ice cream on to her T-shirt and made a face. “Aww.”

“Should have got you a bib,” Skulduggery muttered, leaning out past her to take another look through the café window at the Dublin Art Gallery. The face he wore was good-looking and clean shaven. Out there, through the window, Dublin City was in full night-time mode, with people spilling out of one bar and piling into the next. Nobody was paying attention to the sleek, gleaming art gallery and its tastefully minimalist garden protected by a high wrought-iron fence. The fence was new.

“I probably shouldn’t have got an ice cream,” Stephanie said after a moment. “Technically, it’s still winter. Why is this place even selling ice-cream cones in winter?”

“Because there are people like you who will buy them presumably.”

The café was warm and quiet. A bored girl sat behind the till, reading a magazine. It was nearly closing time. Stephanie got up, dumped the ice cream in the bin, and used a napkin to dab her T-shirt. She’d also got some on her jacket, but she didn’t mind that. One wipe and it came right off.

She headed back to the table, but stopped, looking out through the glass partition in the door. “You’re about to get a ticket,” she said.

Immediately, Skulduggery was on his feet, putting his hat on and stalking outside. Grinning, Stephanie followed him over to the man standing by the Bentley.

The traffic warden looked up. “This your car?”

“It is,” said Skulduggery.

The traffic warden nodded. “Very nice, very nice. But you can’t park here, day or night.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“There’s a sign right over there.”

“I didn’t think it applied to me.”

“Why wouldn’t it have applied to you?”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Because I’m special.”

“Don’t care how special you think you are, you’re parked in a no parking area and as such you’re—”

“We’re here on official police business.”

The traffic warden narrowed his eyes. “You’re Garda? I’m going to need to see some identification.”

“We’re undercover,” said Skulduggery. “This is a very important undercover operation which you are endangering just by talking to us.” He opened his jacket. “Look, I have a gun. I am Detective Inspector Me. This is my partner, Detective Her.”

The traffic warden frowned. “Her?”

“Me,” said Stephanie.

“Him?”

“Not me,” said Skulduggery. “Her.”

“Me,” said Stephanie.

“You?” said the traffic warden.

“Yes,” said Stephanie.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

Stephanie looked at him. “I’m Her, he’s Me. Got it? Good. You better get out of here before you blow our cover. They’ve got snipers.”

The traffic warden swung round, scanning rooftops. “Snipers?”

“Don’t look!” Stephanie whispered. “You want to get us killed? Get out of here! Run, but don’t make it look like you’re running!”

Eyes bulging, the traffic warden hurried away, alternating between speed-walking and panicked jogging.

“Nicely done,” said Skulduggery.

“Thank you,” said Stephanie. “So can we break in yet?”

Skulduggery checked the time on his pocket watch. “Since you’re so eager … I don’t see why not. Come along.”

They walked to the iron fence and looked around, made sure no one was looking.

“Keep watch,” Skulduggery said, and lifted off the ground.

Stephanie stuffed her hands in her pockets, tried her best to look casual. She had the reassuring weight of the Sceptre in her backpack to ease her anxiety about what they were about to do. It helped. A lot.

A minute later, a gust of wind took her off her feet. She passed over the fence, landed on the grass beside Skulduggery.

“I’ve disabled the cameras and the external motion sensors,” Skulduggery said as she followed him across the garden area to the gallery wall, where the shadows merged.

“So how are we getting in?” Stephanie asked. Last time it had been through a skylight.

“We’re taking a leaf out of Billy-Ray Sanguine’s book,” Skulduggery said as he placed both hands flat against the wall.

Stephanie frowned. “Seriously? You’re going to try to—”

The wall cracked, a thousand little fissures opening up and spreading downwards.

“Now then,” Skulduggery muttered, “this is either going to be very cool or very stupid …” He pushed one hand into the wall, and kept going until he was in up to his elbow.

“Well?” Stephanie asked.

He looked back at her. “I’m still in one piece. Grab on.”

Stephanie’s left eyebrow arched all on its own. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

“We don’t have time to argue.”

“Who’s arguing? I’m asking relevant questions. Is this your first time doing this?”

“I’ve actually been developing this aspect of the Elemental discipline for a while now. Sanguine’s ability is merely a focus on earth magic, after all, so I thought to myself, why couldn’t I achieve the same results with a little bit of work?”

“Yeah, that’s all very interesting, but is this the first time you’ve tried to move through a wall?”

He hesitated. “No, actually.”

“You’ve tried it before?”

“Yes.”

“Did you succeed?”

“Strictly speaking?” Another hesitation. “No. I kind of got stuck.”

“You got stuck in a wall?” she said. “For how long?”

“A few minutes. Half an hour. An hour at the most. Maybe two. Or a day. Remember that day I called Valkyrie and told her to take the afternoon off? Yeah, I was stuck in a wall. But I got out of it, and I’ve been working on it ever since. So grab on, Stephanie.”

“I’ll wait out here, thank you very much.”

“He who dares wins.”

“Fools rush in.”

“Valkyrie would trust me.”

She glared as he held out his free hand, then sighed. “If you get me stuck in a wall, I will be seriously annoyed with you.”

“Duly noted.”

She took his hand and he pulled her close. She screwed her eyes shut and then she was passing through something cold, something jagged. Sharp corners prodded her all over at once. The pain was bearable. The rumbling was loud, like great slabs of rock scraping against each other.

And then she was out, stumbling into empty space. Her eyes opened to the dim surroundings of the gallery after closing time.

“There,” Skulduggery whispered, “told you I could do it.”

“You sound surprised,” she whispered back.

“Actually, I’m astonished,” he said, and moved on.

They passed through a room of paintings, Skulduggery manipulating the air so as to mute their footsteps. When they got to the corner, he peeked out first, then turned to her and raised a finger to his lips. She nodded.

He peeked again, and motioned her to join him. She inched forward. There was movement in the darkness at the far end of the wide room that adjoined this one. She glimpsed alabaster skin. A person, a thing, almost on all fours. Bald. Naked. Big black eyes. A mouth that couldn’t close properly due to the mass of jutting, irregular fangs contained within.

Skulduggery’s hand closed round Stephanie’s wrist, and she saw another vampire, and another. The place was crawling with them. She and Skulduggery backed away, out of earshot.

“Looks like they’ve hired more security since we were here last,” he said softly. “This might be a tad trickier than I’d anticipated.”

They chose another route and moved up a set of stairs silently, Skulduggery taking the lead, reading the air around them. They got to the dark café, passed chairs stacked upon tables in the gloom. To the left of the tables was the balcony overlooking the exhibits in the room below.

They looked over. The Vault was down a narrow corridor marked Staff Only. Stephanie could see the sign from where they stood. Skulduggery nodded to her and she threw one leg over the balcony, then the other, and perched there, ready to jump. Skulduggery merely rose into the air, floated over the balcony, and descended until Stephanie could wrap her arms round his neck. Then they drifted low, skimming over the exhibits, and landed gently by the Staff Only sign.

Down this corridor was a wooden door criss-crossed by metal. Skulduggery picked the lock while Stephanie kept watch. No vampires passed. She sneaked back to Skulduggery when the last tumbler fell, and they passed through. Skulduggery closed the door behind them, as gently as he could, and clicked his fingers. Guided by his light, she followed him down the steps. It was cold down here. Cold and creepy. They passed half a dozen doors, each etched with a unique shield.

“Are you ever going to reclaim your family crest?” she asked, keeping her voice down.

“Now is not the time, Stephanie.”

“I think you should. Reclaim it, I mean. You’ve saved the world, for God’s sake. That has to make up for all the bad stuff you’ve done.”

“That’s the thing about redemption,” said Skulduggery. “If you’re looking for it, the chances are you’ll never find it.”

“Well, I think your family would be proud of you, and I think they’d be even prouder if you took back your crest.”

“This is the one we’re looking for,” Skulduggery said. The crest on this door was a tree and a lightning strike.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Imagine that,” he said, and held up both hands. Air moved down narrow spaces she couldn’t see, but she heard tiny sounds, like mice skittering behind skirting boards. There was a click, and the door opened.

They hurried in, Skulduggery closing the door behind them, and the light flickered on. It was a narrow room, with two walls, floor to ceiling, of safety-deposit boxes, each one with a sigil over the lock. Skulduggery didn’t say anything for a few moments. When he finally did, it wasn’t very encouraging.

“Dammit.”

Stephanie walked forward. “There are a lot of boxes here. Ten down and, how many is that, fifty across? Five hundred boxes on each side at least. Do we have time to open them all?”

“The time it’d take is suddenly irrelevant,” Skulduggery said. “These locks can’t be picked. Even if they could, each box has an alarm that’d alert the vampires the moment we tried to tamper with it. I have to be honest here. I did not expect this.”

Stephanie said, “They hired more vampire security guards after the last time you broke in. Kind of makes sense that the security inside the Vault would be heightened, too. Every action has a consequence, right? Stuff you did when you first met Valkyrie is coming back at you now, six years later. Kind of makes you wonder what repercussions our actions today will have, six years down the line.”

“If we don’t get the grimoire, I doubt we’ll need to worry about that.” Skulduggery rapped his knuckles against one of the boxes. “OK then. We wanted to do this quietly so that no one would notice. That’s no longer an option. So we go loud.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest,” said Skulduggery, “that you point the Sceptre at the boxes and blow them open. As many and as quickly as you can.”

Stephanie grinned, and took the Sceptre from its bag.

“Just don’t aim right at them,” said Skulduggery. “Aim at an angle. A point-blank shot would probably fry everything inside the boxes, not just the surface.”

Stephanie nodded. “I’ll try my best.”

“The alarms will draw in the vampires,” Skulduggery said. “When we have the grimoire, you make a hole in the far wall. If I’m not mistaken, that should take us into the manuscript room. Try not to damage anything in there, it’s all very valuable. The door to our right will take us back to the main exhibits. We’ll want to go up, on to the roof.”

“Last time you were here, Valkyrie had to jump from that roof.”

“But I couldn’t fly back then. I can now, so we’ll be fine.”

“You sure about that?” asked Stephanie. “Vampires are fast.”

“Vampires are overrated.”

“You once called them the most efficient killing machines on the planet.”

“Ah, they’re not so tough. Ready to go?”

She exhaled. “Why the hell not?”

“That’s the spirit.”

Stephanie took the Sceptre from her backpack.

“Now,” said Skulduggery.

Black lightning turned a patch of steel boxes to dust, and an alarm wailed while Skulduggery waved his hand. The dust blew into the corner of the room and Skulduggery checked the contents.

“Keep going!” he shouted.

Stephanie fired again and again, keeping her angle shallow, to avoid destroying the contents of the boxes. Dust swirled in the narrow room, and behind the alarm, Stephanie could hear the frantic scrabbling outside the door.

“Got it!” Skulduggery called, pulling a thick, leatherbound tome from the crumbling dust. Stephanie turned so that he could slip it into the bag on her back, then fired at the wall opposite. Skulduggery went first and she came after, coughing, stumbling into a glass case displaying three curling, aged pages. Skulduggery took her wrist and they ran, up some steps, back into the gallery proper.

A snarl, from somewhere to their right. Stephanie was about to shout a warning when a gust of wind took her off her feet, sent her hurtling up over the balcony. She caught her foot on the edge and went tumbling, snatching a glimpse of Skulduggery turning to face the onrushing vampire. Then she hit the ground, badly, and cursed to herself as she rolled. She got to her feet. If the alarm were raised, if they were separated, the plan was for Stephanie to get to the roof.

Well, OK then. She just had to find the stairs leading up, and she’d be—

The hairs on the back her neck stood up. There was something behind her.

Stephanie broke into a run a moment before the vampire launched itself at her. She twisted as she ran, firing the Sceptre, but the vampire was moving too fast. It streaked through the shadows, knocking tables and chairs out of its way. Stephanie stopped trying to aim at it and instead fired ahead of her, black lightning turning a section of the wall to dust. She ran through, took a short cut through the next wall as well, and the next, and then she was running up stairs, disintegrating the steps behind her. She reached the top before the whole thing collapsed, and it was like the entire building was roaring at her. She glanced back, daring to hope that the falling debris had trapped the vampire, but it sprang from the billowing clouds of dust, caught sight of her again and snarled.

Stephanie ran on, found the door, burst out on to the roof. The vampire followed.

She backed away, missed with every shot she took, and the vampire jumped and she leaped backwards, fired at the section of roof she’d just been standing on. The vampire fell through, vanished from sight, and Stephanie collapsed on to her back, taking a moment to catch her breath and gather her strength.

She sat up, pushed herself to her feet and shook the dust from her hair. She looked at the hole in the roof and went cold. The vampire’s claws were clinging to the edge.

It shot up, out of the hole, and Stephanie spun and ran for the edge of the building. She leaped and fell towards a tree, steeling herself for the impact, but something slammed into her, hands clutching her, and she was lifted – twirling – into the sky and over the city, the streets becoming blurred streams of light beneath her. The arms that held her were warm and strong – flesh and blood arms, not bone. Not Skulduggery. She looked up into a bright smile.

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