First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010

Reissued in this edition in 2017

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

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Skulduggery Pleasant rests his weary bones on the web at:

www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk

Derek Landy blogs under duress at

www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

Text copyright © Derek Landy 2011

Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2011

Skulduggery Pleasant logoTM HarperCollinsPublishers

Skulduggery Pleasant © TM Derek Landy

Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com

Cover illustration © Tom Percival

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

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

Source ISBN: 9780007326037

Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007455430

Version: 2017-04-06

This book is dedicated to my nieces.

Girls, none of you were born when Skulduggery Pleasant first appeared. But since you’ve arrived, no one in our family wants to talk about the writer any more. Now all they want to talk about are the damn babies. All of a sudden, no one wants to cuddle me, and for that I blame you.

But I suppose you have your good points. It’s because of you that Valkyrie has a little sister, after all. You’re all mildly cute, reasonably adorable, and you make me laugh when you fall over.

So this book is dedicated to you, Rebecca and Emily, Sophie and Clara and

(insert names of any more nieces or nephews that might sprout up between now and when they’re old enough to read this).

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am your favourite uncle. And you probably prefer me to your parents, too.

(I’ve met your parents. I don’t blame you. They’re rubbish.)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Kenny

Chapter 2: Me and the Girl

Chapter 3: The Christening

Chapter 4: Craven

Chapter 5: The Jitter Girls

Chapter 6: China’s Secret

Chapter 7: The Death Bringer

Chapter 8: Friends in High Places

Chapter 9: Friends in Low Places

Chapter 10: The Warlock

Chapter 11: Alone at Last

Chapter 12: Bump in the Night

Chapter 13: Shadowknives

Chapter 14: The Call

Chapter 15: The Doctor is In

Chapter 16: Full Recovery

Chapter 17: The Zombie King and Co

Chapter 18: The Arrest Warrant

Chapter 19: Gods and Monsters

Chapter 20: Riding Out

Chapter 21: The Love of a Vampire

Chapter 22: The Church of the Faceless

Chapter 23: The Homecoming

Chapter 24: The Temple Siege

Chapter 25: The Vivid Dead

Chapter 26: Terminal Two

Chapter 27: Into the Temple

Chapter 28: A Vile History

Chapter 29: Who Knows What Darkness

Chapter 30: Tenebrae

Chapter 31: Fuel

Chapter 32: A Bad Night in Haggard

Chapter 33: Willow Hill

Chapter 34: Valkyrie and Fletcher

Chapter 35: Teaching the Twins

Chapter 36: Confiding in Uncle Gordon

Chapter 37: The Wisdom of Leonard Cohen

Chapter 38: Back at the Window Again

Chapter 39: Killing Craven

Chapter 40: The End of the Death Bringer

Chapter 41: Home Sweet Home

Chapter 42: A New Mission

Chapter 43: A & E

Chapter 44: Mission Accomplished

Chapter 45: The Nicest Town in Ireland

Chapter 46: The Requiem Ball

Chapter 47: This Evening’s Entertainment

Chapter 48: Going Underground

Chapter 49: The Pre-Emptive Strike

Chapter 50: China’s Ally

Chapter 51: Flirting Disastrously

Chapter 52: All Fall Down

Chapter 53: The Death Bringer Rises

Chapter 54: Monster, Murderer

Chapter 55: Tunnel Vision

Chapter 56: Panic

Chapter 57: Beheaded

Chapter 58: The Main Event

Chapter 59: Hero and Villain

Chapter 60: Tattletale

Chapter 61: My Twilight

Chapter 62: They Walk Among Us

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he closing door made the candlelight dance, waltzing and flickering over the girl strapped to the table. She turned her head to him. Her face, like every other part of her, was decorated with small, pale scars, symbols painstakingly carved into her flesh over the course of the last few months. Her name was Melancholia St Clair. She was his secret. His experiment. His last, desperate grasp for power.

“It hurts,” she said.

Vandameer Craven, Cleric First Class of the Necromancer Order, esteemed Scholar of Arcane Languages and feared opponent on the debating battlefield, nodded and patted her hand. She had entered into this arrangement with the kind of zeal that only the truly greedy can muster, but recently her bouts of annoying self-pity were becoming more and more frequent. “I know, my dear, I know it does. But pain is nothing. Once our work is done, there will be no pain. You have suffered for all of us. You have suffered for all life in this world, in this universe.”

“Please,” she whimpered, “make it stop. I’ve changed my mind about this. Please. I don’t want it any more.”

“I understand,” he said sadly. “I do. You’re scared because you don’t think you’re strong enough. But I know you’re strong enough. That’s why I picked you, out of everyone. I believe in you, Melancholia. I have faith in your strength.”

“I want to go home.”

“You are home.”

“Please …”

“Now now, my dear girl, there’s no need for begging. The Surge is a beautiful, wondrous thing, and it should be cherished. You’ve taken your next step. You’ve become who you were always meant to be. We all go through it. Every sorcerer goes through it.”

She gritted her teeth as a spasm of pain arched her spine, and then she gasped, “But it’s not supposed to last so long. You said I’d be the most powerful sorcerer in the world. You didn’t say anything about this.”

Craven made the effort to look her in the eyes. He despised people who sweated, and the perspiration was rolling off her in heavy rivulets. It turned his stomach to look at her wet, dripping, scarred face. “With the power I promised you, you’ve just had to suffer a little more than the rest of us,” he explained. “But all the work we’ve been doing, preparing you, it’s going to be worth it. Trust me. The symbols I’ve etched into you are seizing the power of the Surge and they’re keeping it, they’re looping it around, letting it build, letting it grow stronger.”

“Let me out.”

“Just another day or so.”

“Let me out!” she screeched, and shadows curled round her, rising and thrashing like tentacles.

He stepped forward quickly, gave her a smile. “But of course, my dear. You’re absolutely right – the time has come.”

Her eyes widened, and the shadows retreated. He doubted she was even aware of them. Strapped and bound as she was, she shouldn’t have been able to wield any kind of power. For once, Craven’s smile was genuine. This was a good sign.

“It’s done?” she asked, her voice meek. “You’re going to let me go?”

“Let you go?” he echoed, and gave a little laugh as he undid her straps. “You make it sound like I’ve been keeping you prisoner! Melancholia, I am your friend. I am your guide. I am the one person in the whole of the world that you can trust to always be honest with you.”

“I … I know that, Cleric Craven,” she said.

He took a handkerchief from his robes and used it to take hold of her wet, slippery arm in order to help her sit up. “We have to choose the right moment to tell the High Priest about you, but once we tell him what we’ve been doing down here for all this time, it’s all going to change. Word will get out that you are the Death Bringer, and there will be many people vying for your favour. Trust none of them.”

She nodded obediently.

“There will be some who won’t understand,” he continued, “even within the Necromancer Order itself. Whenever you feel unsure, or scared, or whenever you just want to talk – I’m here for you.”

“I’m scared now,” Melancholia said, her fingers closing around the skin of his wrist. It took all his self-control not to shiver with revulsion at her clammy touch.

He smiled reassuringly. “There’s nothing to fear, not while you’re with me. Rejoice, my dear. Very soon, you’re going to save the world.”

“Good and evil are so close as to be chained together in the soul.”

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)

enny Dunne wasn’t an expert on cars. He knew enough, to be fair to him. He knew what wheels were. He knew how to open and close the doors. He even knew where to put the nozzle thing when the car needed petrol. He knew the basics, enough to get by, and nothing more. But even to a man like Kenny, smoke billowing from beneath the bonnet while you’re driving is generally seen as a Bad Thing.

The car spluttered and coughed and retched, and Kenny’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “No,” he said. “Please.” The car belched and juddered in response, smoke filling his windscreen. Images flashed into his mind of the car suddenly exploding into a giant fireball, and he tore off his seatbelt and lunged out on to the sun-drenched street. Horns honked. Kenny jumped sideways to avoid a cursing cyclist who shot past him like a foul-tempered bullet. Dublin traffic on a Sunday morning wasn’t that bad at all. Dublin traffic on a Sunday morning with a big game on was terrible. Irate drivers with county flags stuck to their cars glared at him as they were forced to change lanes.

Kenny smiled apologetically, then looked back at his car. It was not exploding. He reached in, grabbed his bag and turned off the ignition. The car wheezed and slipped gratefully into an early death. Kenny left it there in the street and hailed a taxi.

He was late. He couldn’t believe he was late. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t learned his lesson, even after all these years of being late to things. How many interviews had he messed up because of his inability to arrive on time? Actors, rock stars, politicians, business people, citizens both rich and famous and poor and unknown – he had been late to meet all of them. It was not a good quality in a journalist, he had to admit, especially when every newspaper was cutting back on staff. Print was dead, they were saying. Not as dead as Kenny was going to be if he didn’t get the piece finished by the end of the month.

This story was juicy. It was glorious and bizarre and unique – the kind of thing that stood a chance of being picked up by other papers around the world, maybe even a few magazines. Whenever Kenny entertained that possibility, his mouth watered. A solid pay day. Food in the fridge, no worrying about rent for a while. Maybe even a half-decent car, if he got really lucky.

He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes late. He bit his lip and tapped his fingers on his bag, willing the road ahead to miraculously clear. He didn’t know how long his source would stick around, and if Kenny missed this chance, he doubted he’d get another. Tracking down Paul Lynch in the first place had not been easy, but then finding one homeless person in a city like Dublin was never going to be straightforward. And it wasn’t like Lynch had a phone or anything.

The taxi crawled along to another set of traffic lights and Kenny almost whimpered.

It was probably unhealthy to pin so much hope on one article that hadn’t even been commissioned, but there was really very little choice. Kenny needed a lucky break. He’d started off well, worked up to some high-profile interviews and articles, but then it all started to slide away from him. He could see it happening, but couldn’t do anything to stop it. Now he was freelance, thrown the occasional job, but his editors left it up to him to go out and find the stories himself. And that’s what he’d done.

When he’d first heard the rumours, years ago, he’d dismissed them. Of course he had. They were crazy. He wrote a few articles, noting the trend in the modern urban legend, but he’d never read more into it than that. But they persisted, these stories of strange people with strange powers doing strange things. Wonderful stuff, and not just the ravings of lunatics and paranoids and the disturbed. These stories were everywhere. They popped up occasionally on the Internet, then vanished just as fast. A few of the reports he’d followed up on had turned out to be hoaxes, with the person who reported the sighting now claiming to have no idea what he was talking about. He’d been close to forgetting the whole thing when he met Lynch. Lynch was Kenny’s link. In all his years of casual investigation, Lynch was his one solid lead – as solid a lead as a muttering homeless man could be, anyway – and Kenny had a feeling he was ready to reveal everything he knew. Kenny had spoken to him three times already, and felt he was beginning to earn his trust.

Today was the day, he knew. If only he could get there in time.

The taxi stopped again and Kenny lost patience. He paid the driver, lurched out of the car, swung his bag over his shoulder and ran.

Twenty seconds of running and he was seriously regretting this move. He hadn’t run in years. Good God, running was hard. And hot. Sweat formed on his brow. His lungs ached. He had shin splints.

He staggered to the next corner and hailed a taxi. It was the same taxi he’d just got out of.

“Didn’t go too well for you, did it?” asked the driver smugly.

Kenny just gasped and panted in the back seat.

They finally reached the park and Kenny paid the driver, again, and hurried across the grass. There were people everywhere, stretched out in the May sunshine, laughing and chatting, walking and eating ice cream. Small dogs scampered after their owners. Music played. The pond glinted.

Kenny saw Paul Lynch, sitting in the shade away from everyone, and a smile broke across his face like a wave of cool water. He wiped the sweat from his brow and walked over, taking it slower, holding up a hand in greeting. Lynch didn’t return the gesture. He just sat there, his back against the railing, shoulders slumped. He was probably in a bad mood.

If only he’d really been a psychic, then he’d have foreseen Kenny’s late arrival and there wouldn’t be a problem. Kenny’s smile turned to a grin.

“Sorry,” he said once he stepped into the shade. “The traffic, you know, and the car broke down, and I had to get a taxi.”

Lynch didn’t answer. He didn’t even raise his head.

Kenny stood there awkwardly, then shrugged and sat down. “Glorious morning, isn’t it? I swear, you can never tell how an Irish summer is going to turn out. Do you want an ice cream or something? I’d love an ice cream.”

Again, no response. Lynch’s eyes were closed.

“Paul?”

Kenny reached out and nudged his one solid lead. Nudged him again. Then he saw the blood that drenched Lynch’s shirt, and he grabbed him and shook him. Lynch’s head rolled back, revealing a throat with a long, smooth slit, like a red eye opening.

enny sat in the interview room and tried not to fidget. He was mildly disappointed that there was no two-way mirror built into the wall, like he’d seen on cop shows. Maybe they only had two-way mirrors in America. In Ireland, the Guards probably didn’t even have one-way mirrors.

The door to his right opened, and two people entered. The man was tall and thin, dressed in a dark blue suit of impeccable tailoring. He wore a hat like a 1940s private eye. He sat on the other side of the table and took the hat off. He had dark hair and high cheekbones. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. His skin looked waxy. He wore gloves.

His companion stood against the wall behind him. She was tall and pretty and dark-haired, but she couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She was dressed in black trousers and a tight black jacket, zipped halfway up, made of some material Kenny didn’t recognise. She didn’t look at him.

“Hi.” The man’s smile was bright. He had good teeth.

“Hi,” Kenny said.

The girl said nothing.

The man had a smooth voice, like velvet. “I’m Detective Inspector Me. Unusual name, I know. My family were incredibly narcissistic. I’m lucky I escaped with any degree of humility at all, to be honest, but then I’ve always managed to exceed expectations. You are Kenny Dunne, are you not?”

“I am.”

“Just a few questions for you, Mr Dunne. Or Kenny. Can I call you Kenny? I feel we’ve become friends these past few seconds. Can I call you Kenny?”

“Sure,” Kenny said, slightly baffled.

“Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s important you feel comfortable around me, Kenny. It’s important we build up a level of trust. That way I’ll catch you completely unprepared when I suddenly accuse you of murder.”

Kenny’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Oh dear,” said Inspector Me. “That wasn’t supposed to happen for another few minutes.”

“I didn’t kill Paul Lynch!”

“Could we go back to the nice feeling of trust we were building up?”

“Listen, I had arranged to meet him, I was going to interview him, but when I got there he was already dead.”

“You’d be surprised how often we hear the ‘he was already dead’ defence in our line of work. Or maybe you wouldn’t, I don’t know. The point is, Kenny, it’s not looking good for you. Maybe if you tell us everything you know, we can persuade our colleagues to go easy on you.”

Kenny stared at the man, then looked over at the girl. “Who are you?”

She returned his look, raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.

“She’s here on work experience,” said Inspector Me. “Don’t you worry about her, Kenny. You just worry about yourself. What was your relationship with the corpse?”

“Uh,” Kenny said, “I’m a journalist. He’s someone I’d interviewed a few times.”

“About what?”

“It’s … nothing. He is, or he was, a conspiracy nut, kind of.”

“Conspiracies? You mean like government cover-ups, that sort of thing?”

“No, not really. He was more …” Kenny sighed. “Listen, it’s a long story.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” said Inspector Me, and glanced back at the girl. “Do you?”

“Yes, actually,” she said. “I have a christening to get to.”

“Oh,” said Me. “Of course.” He turned back to Kenny. “So maybe if you talk really fast, you can explain it to us.”

Kenny took a moment, deciding on the best way to avoid sounding like a lunatic. “Right,” he said. “For the past few years, I’ve been investigating some oddball stories. Nothing big, nothing major, but stories that get ignored because when you hear them, they sound insane. No newspaper is going to take this stuff seriously, so I can really only devote a small amount of time to them.

“It started when I did a piece on urban legends. You have all your usual stuff, modern myths and burgeoning folklore, some funny, some horrible, some creepy, everything you’d expect to hear. But I started hearing new ones.”

“Like what?”

“Just rumours, snippets of stories. Someone saw a gunfight where people threw fire. Someone saw a man leap over a building, or a woman just disappear.”

Inspector Me tilted his head. “So the modern urban legend is about superheroes?”

“That’s what I was thinking, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been hearing whispers about an entire subculture where this stuff goes on. Lynch said it’s everywhere, if you know what to look for.”

“I see. And did Lynch claim to be such a superhero?”

“Lynch? No. God, no. I mean, he wasn’t well, obviously. He had visions, he said. That’s what he called them, visions. He’d had them since he was a teenager. They scared the hell out of him. He was sent to psychiatrist after psychiatrist, given pill after pill, but nothing worked. He’d describe these visions to me and they seemed so vivid, so real. He couldn’t hold down a job, couldn’t maintain a relationship … He ended up homeless, drinking too much, muttering away to himself in doorways.”

“And this,” Inspector Me said, “was your source?”

“I know he sounds unreliable.”

“Just a touch.”

“But I stuck at it, listened to what he was saying. Eventually, I learned how to separate the ramblings from the … well, the facts, I suppose.”

“What kinds of things did he see?” asked the girl.

Kenny frowned. He didn’t really understand what gave a student on work experience the right to question him, but Inspector Me didn’t object, so Kenny reluctantly answered. “He saw the apocalypse,” he said. “He saw a few of them, to be honest. The first one concerned these Dark Gods, the Faceless Ones, whatever he called them. Someone banished them eons ago, nobody knows who, and they’ve been trying to get back ever since. When he was seventeen, Lynch had a vision in which they returned. He saw millions dead. Cities levelled. He saw the world break apart. He kept having these visions, and every time it would be some new aspect, some new viewpoint from which to watch the world end. He was convinced we were all going to die one night, a little under three years ago. He said these things, these god-creatures, would emerge through a glowing yellow door between realities. Of course no one would listen to him. And then the night came when the world was going to end … and it didn’t. And the visions stopped.”

“I love stories with a happy ending,” Inspector Me said.

“It wasn’t over, not for Lynch. More visions came to him. He predicted the Insanity Virus, you know.”

“The last I heard it wasn’t a virus,” said the girl. “It was a hallucinogen. They got the guys who did it.”

Kenny laughed. “You actually believe that?”

Inspector Me looked at him weirdly. “You don’t?”

“It’s all a little convenient, isn’t it? As a Christmas prank, a radical group of anarchists drop a drug into the water supplies around the country – and then months later they come forward and admit to it? Anarchists, taking responsibility for their actions? That defeats the whole point of being an anarchist, doesn’t it? Do you know when the trial is? Do you know which prison they’re locked up in until it happens? Because I don’t.”

Inspector Me sat back. “This sounds awfully like a conspiracy theory, Kenny. What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know, but Lynch said it wasn’t anarchists that did this. He said it was little slices of darkness, flying around and infecting people.”

To Kenny’s surprise, neither the Inspector nor the girl smirked.

“Do you know how many people reported seeing strange things over those few days?” Kenny continued. “I’ve read dozens of reports. There was a nightclub in North County Dublin that was apparently swarmed by the things, but it wasn’t even reported in the local paper.”

“Sounds like a bunch of people hallucinating to me,” said the girl.

“Lynch didn’t think so. He had a vision of those things spreading out, infecting the world, making everyone do crazy things, kill each other, drop bombs …”

“All right then,” said Me. “We have established that Lynch was psychologically disturbed, that he believed in a subculture of superheroes and evil gods. So why was he killed?”

Kenny blinked. “Uh, he was robbed, wasn’t he?”

“Was he?”

“Wasn’t he? That’s what the … that’s what the guy said, the Guard, the one who spoke to me. He said it looked like a mugging.”

“I see.”

Kenny frowned. “You think it’s got something to do with his visions, don’t you?”

“It’s a possibility,” said Me.

“Why were you meeting him this morning?” the girl asked.

“I’m sorry,” said Kenny, “I don’t mean to be rude, but why is she asking me questions? Why is she even here?”

“Work experience,” said Me.

“You accused me of murder. Do you make a habit of bringing schoolgirls into interview rooms with murder suspects?”

Me waved a hand. “Oh, I was only joking about that. I don’t really think you murdered anyone. Unless you did, in which case I reserve the right to say that I knew it all along. But she asks a good question, Kenny. Why were you meeting him?”

“For the past few months, he’d been having new visions, of shadows coming alive, of people dropping dead. His latest apocalypse.”

“What did he say about it?”

“Why is this important?”

“Everything is important.”

“But it’s not like he identified anyone. It’s not like he heard any names in his visions. He saw someone in a black robe, that’s it.”

“Male or female?”

“He couldn’t say.”

“Did he happen to mention the Passage at all?”

Kenny looked at him. There was something about the Inspector’s face that wasn’t quite right. As soon as Kenny noticed it, he looked away. His mother had taught him it was not polite to stare.

“He didn’t use that word,” Kenny said. “But I’ve heard it from others. How did you hear about it?”

“Who did you hear it from?” asked the girl.

“Others,” Kenny said irritably. “Three or four people, who had overheard it in pubs or alleyways or whatever. It sounds like the Rapture, to be honest.”

The girl frowned. “What’s that?”

“The Rapture,” Inspector Me said, “is a Christian belief in which God will collect the faithful and deliver them into Heaven. ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be raptured together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.’ Those found unworthy will be left here on earth with the rest of the sinners.”

“The Passage sounds like that sort of deal,” Kenny said. “Mass salvation before the end of the world. Whether or not there’s any kind of a god at work behind it, I don’t know, but there usually is.”

“Did Lynch give any kind of a time frame?” Me asked.

“His visions were getting stronger and more frequent,” Kenny answered. “The way it worked in the past is that he’d have another six or seven days at this level of intensity, then the apocalypse wouldn’t happen and he’d be able to relax again.”

“Seven days,” said Me.

“Or thereabouts, yeah. How did you hear about the Passage?”

“We’re detectives,” said Me. “We detect things.”

“She’s a detective as well, is she?”

“She’s a detective-in-training.”

“Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven’t even asked me any normal questions.”

“Normal questions? Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.”

“Did Lynch have any enemies?”

“Well, not that I know of, no.”

“Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?”

“No, that’s not—”

“Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?”

“No!”

“It’d be OK if you did.”

Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?”

“Well,” Me said, “maybe not OK, but understandable. Perhaps he said something that annoyed you. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” He looked back at the girl. “Haven’t we?”

“I’ve been there,” said the girl.

“We’ve all been there,” said Me, looking at Kenny again. “We know how it goes. He says something that annoys you, you get angry, all of a sudden he’s lying dead and you’re wondering where did the time go.”

“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Anyone? You mean there’s more?”

“What?”

Me sat back, tapped his chin with a gloved hand. “You know what, Kenny? I believe you. You have an honest face. You have honest ears. So who do you think killed him?”

“I had thought it was just a mugging.”

“And now?”

“Now … I don’t know. Do you think someone killed him because of the Passage? Are there people out there who really believe in this stuff?”

“People are strange,” said the girl, then started humming a few bars from the song.

“Did Lynch talk to anyone else about this?” Me asked. “Did he have any friends? Any family he still spoke to?”

“No, no one.”

“So he only talked about his visions to you?”

Kenny hesitated.

“He’s hesitating,” said the girl.

“I see that,” said Me.

“There’s an old woman,” Kenny said, “Bernadette something. Maguire, I think. She helps out at one of the shelters. She used to be a teacher, or something. She’s retired now, lives in the country somewhere. He talked to her. She hasn’t been around that much lately. I think she’s just too old. The first time I’d seen her in months was a few weeks ago. She was talking to Lynch.”

“You think he told her about his visions?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“You think Bernadette Maguire killed him?”

“Uh … no. She’s, like I said, she’s old.”

“Old people can kill people too.”

“I know, but …”

“She could be a ninja.”

“She’s not a ninja, for God’s sake. She’s somebody’s great-grandmother.”

“I want you to think carefully about this, Kenny. Have you ever seen her with a sword?”

“What?”

“How about throwing stars?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Have you ever seen her dressed up as a ninja? That would have been my first clue.”

The girl sucked in her cheeks so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.

“What kind of cop are you?” Kenny asked, resolutely unamused.

“I am the kind that is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery,” said Me.

The door opened, and a boy with blond hair poked his head in. Kenny was so startled by the way the boy’s hair stood on end that he completely missed Inspector Me getting to his feet.

“Thank you for your co-operation,” Me said, quickly following the girl out the door. “My colleague will be in to see you shortly.” Out in the corridor, the girl held the boy’s arm and reached for Inspector Me as he closed the door. It clicked shut, and all was suddenly quiet for a very brief moment.

The door opened again. A middle-aged man walked in, carrying a notebook. Inspector Me and his two teenage students were gone.

“Mr Dunne?” said the man. “My name is Detective Inspector Harris. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kenny said, a little doubtfully. “The other Inspector kept me busy.”

Detective Inspector Harris smiled good-naturedly as he sat down. “Other Inspector?”

“The one who just left.”

“Hmm? Who was that, then?”

“Detective Inspector Me.”

“Detective Inspector You?”

“No, Me. That’s his … He said that’s his name. You just passed him. He was with a girl on work experience and a boy with spiky hair.”

Harris blinked at him. “I didn’t pass anyone, Mr Dunne, and I’m the only Detective Inspector on duty right now.”

Kenny stared at him. “Then … then who the hell was I just speaking to?”

alkyrie Cain cradled her little sister in her arms and hoped to God she’d get through the day without being splattered with regurgitated baby milk. She’d barely made it home from the police station in time to get changed, and one top had already been rendered unwearable before they’d even left the house. It had been a nice top, too. It had really gone with her jeans.

“Please,” she whispered to little Alice, “do not throw up on me.”

Alice watched her with big blue eyes, but wasn’t promising anything.

Squinting slightly against the sun, Valkyrie glanced back into the church. Alice wasn’t the only one who had just been christened today, so the place was full of chatting, laughing families with camcorders, saving every gurgle and wail. She may have been biased, but it was Valkyrie’s sincere opinion that none of the other three babies were half as cute as her three-month-old sister. They just didn’t measure up where it counted. It was sad, really. Those babies had already lost the cuteness war and they wouldn’t even know it for years to come. A real tragedy.

She looked down at her sister. “You don’t do much, do you? You’re fairly limited, as far as most things go. Mum says I have to keep talking to you, to get you used to my voice. So, well, I suppose I’ll keep talking. There are two of me, you know. There’s me, the real me, and then there’s my reflection. The reflection looks like me, and talks like me, and acts like me, but it isn’t me. It steps out of my mirror and goes to school and does my homework and, yes, sometimes it babysits you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like leaving you in the care of something that has no emotions, but I’m a busy girl. Yes I am.

“When you’re a bit older, we’re going to read you stories about princesses and wizards and magic, and we’re going to let you believe, for a few years, that some magic is real. And then, this is the sucky bit, we’re going to tell you that most magic isn’t real. We’re going to tell you that people can’t fly and they can’t turn each other into toads and that there are no magical, mystical monsters. Between you and me, though, that’s the big lie. There is magic, people can fly, there are monsters … I’m not sure about the turning each other into toads bit, though. But who’d want that anyway? That’d be gross.”

Valkyrie started swaying the top half of her body slightly as she walked in a circle. “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie? You are, that’s who. You’re a cutie. And who’s sounding pretty dim-witted right now? That’d be me, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would.”

She looked down, saw the baby gazing up, and she laughed. “Oh God you’re adorable. I’d ask you to stay like this for ever but, you know, that’d be a little awkward. Especially when you’re old enough to go out on dates.

“We have a weird family, do you know that? You’ve probably already noticed. Mum’s normal enough, in her own way. But when she gets talking to Dad, a different side to her comes out – an immensely silly side. He’s a bad influence on her, that’s what he is. Because our dad is an oddball. Mm-hmm. As odd as they come. Uncle Fergus is odd too, but not in a nice way. He’s just mean all the time. It’s a shame you never got to meet Gordon. You’d have liked Gordon. He was a cool uncle.” She kissed the baby’s cheek and kept her head down. “Want to know a secret?” she whispered. “Magic runs in our family. You might be magic. Someday you might be able to do all the things I can do. Someday you might have to take a new name, like I did. Or you might not. But I don’t know if I want that for you. Being normal isn’t so bad, once you’ve seen the other side. I know it wouldn’t be fair if I kept this from you, but I don’t want you getting hurt. Do you understand me? Something like that, it’d kill me.”

The baby reached out, took a small handful of Valkyrie’s hair.

“I’m glad we understand each other. For someone with such a small brain, you’re very smart, you know that?”

Alice gurgled.

Valkyrie took her baby sister back inside the church, made her way over towards her folks. Her aunt emerged from the crowd, hair pulled back off her face, pinching it tight. It was not a good look.

“Hello Stephanie,” Beryl said. “You’re holding her wrong.”

“She seems pretty comfortable,” Valkyrie responded, making sure she said it politely.

Beryl reached out thin hands. “No no no, let me show you.” But, as usual, Alice’s spider-sense picked up the incoming threat and she turned her head, saw Beryl’s suddenly smiling face and wailed. Beryl recoiled sharply, fingers twitching. When their aunt had retreated to an acceptable distance, Alice stopped wailing and glomped her gums on to a button on Valkyrie’s top.

“She’s been grumpy all day,” Valkyrie lied, pleased with how things had turned out. Beryl made a noise in her throat, obviously unimpressed with her brand-new niece. Valkyrie jerked her head back slightly. “Mum and Dad are over there,” she said. “They’ve been wanting to talk to you. Mum said earlier what a lovely dress you’re wearing.”

Beryl’s eyebrows wriggled like two tiny tapeworms. “This?” she said. “But I’ve had this for years.”

It was a beige dress that would have looked better on an eighty-year-old. Any eighty-year-old, man or woman.

“I think you’ve really grown into it,” Valkyrie said.

“I always thought it was a little shapeless.”

Valkyrie resisted the urge to say that was what she meant.

Beryl broke off the conversation as she usually did, without any warning whatsoever and with her husband trailing after her. Hilariously, Fergus nodded to the baby as he passed, as if Alice was going to nod back, but he reserved a look akin to a glare for Valkyrie. She hadn’t a clue what that was about.

She watched Carol and Crystal walk towards her, and prepared herself for the onslaught to come. In the past, she would have been expecting poorly thought-out taunts and flatly executed jibes from her cousins at a time like this. These days, unfortunately, it was a whole lot worse.

“Hi Valkyrie,” Carol whispered.

Crystal jabbed Carol with an elbow. “Don’t call her that!”

Carol glared. “I whispered it. No one else could hear.”

“You still shouldn’t call her that! Call her Stephanie!”

A few more precious moments of life were sucked away from Valkyrie’s grasp, never to be seen again.

“Fine,” Carol said, not looking pleased. “Hello, Stephanie. How are you?”

“I’m doing good,” Valkyrie replied, talking quickly in an effort to hijack the conversation and steer it towards calm and unexceptional waters. “How are you guys? How’s college? Looking forward to the summer holidays? Crystal, I love your shoes. Your feet fit really well into them. Doesn’t Alice look adorable?”

She turned slightly so that they could see the baby. They both murmured something about cuteness, and then it was as if Alice didn’t even exist.

“We were thinking,” Carol said, and both twins stepped closer so they wouldn’t be overheard. “You know the way you said we were too short to learn magic? Well, we’re not sure that we are. You started to learn magic when you were shorter than we are now, didn’t you? And also, elves.”

Valkyrie blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Elves,” said Crystal. “You know, with the pointy ears? They’re pretty small, aren’t they? I know in some movies they’re regular-sized, but mostly elves are small, and they can do magic.”

“Uh, elves aren’t real,” Valkyrie said.

Carol sighed at her sister. “Told you.”

Crystal glared back, then looked again at Valkyrie. “Why aren’t they real?”

“I’m not sure I can, uh, answer that.”

Crystal looked confused. “What about goblins?”

“Oh,” Valkyrie said. “Yeah, OK, goblins exist. Right, listen, it’s not a height thing, it’s a danger thing. The fact is it isn’t safe. I’ve been beaten up more times than I can count. I’ve had bones broken and teeth broken and five months ago I was technically dead for half a day. I even had an autopsy done on me.”

“What was that like?”

“Unsurprisingly unsettling.”

Carol’s eyes gleamed. “But you get to do magic, and save the world, and hang around with cool people.”

“And have friends,” Crystal added.

“And what do we get to do? We get to go to college and do exams and get spots and we don’t get to have boyfriends.”

Valkyrie attempted a smile. “I get spots too, you know. Everyone does. And you’ve both had plenty of boyfriends.”

Crystal shook her head. “Not like Fletcher. He’s nice.”

“And I wouldn’t call them boyfriends, either,” mumbled Carol. “Stephanie, we just want what you have. We want to have fun and we want to have powers and do exciting things. We’ve been talking, and we’ve decided that we want you to teach us magic.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“And we really do.”

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I just don’t have the time. Tanith is still out there, and she’s got a Remnant inside her, and she’s with Billy-Ray Sanguine and she knows much too much about my life and my family. I need to find her and get her some help, and I’ve also got to stop the end of the world and … It’s just not safe to start showing you things.”

“Just a few tricks,” Crystal pressed.

“They’re not called tricks,” said Valkyrie.

“Illusions, then.”

“They’re not illusions.”

“Spells?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “OK, you can call them tricks.”

“Just show us a few small ones,” said Carol, “like flying.”

“Flying is not one of the small ones.”

“Can you fly yet?”

“No, I can’t. Skulduggery’s the only one who can.”

“Maybe he’ll teach us.”

Valkyrie couldn’t help it, she had to smile. “I doubt that very much.”

The twins suddenly started fixing their hair, and Valkyrie knew that Fletcher had arrived.

“Hello, ladies,” he said to them while his left arm wrapped round Valkyrie’s waist.

“Hi, Fletcher,” the twins said in unison.

“Having a good christening?” he asked. “I’ve never been to one and I have to admit, it seems kind of … well, boring. But in a nice way.”

“I found it really boring too,” Carol said before Crystal had a chance. “And I didn’t understand most of what the priest was saying.”

“I wasn’t even listening,” Crystal said. “It was something about babies, I think. I really like your hair today. You have it sticking up really nicely.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Valkyrie groaned. Fletcher laughed, and gave her a quick kiss.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we have to go for just a moment.”

“We do?” Valkyrie asked. He nodded to her, all serious. “Ah,” she said. “OK. Yeah. Guys, we have to go.”

Carol’s eyes widened. “Is there trouble? Are we in danger?”

“Is the world ending?” Crystal asked. The twins looked up at the church ceiling, like they were expecting to see it crack and fall in on top of them.

“Don’t worry about it,” Valkyrie said with a chuckle. She headed over to her parents, Fletcher beside her. “They don’t have to worry about it, do they?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll be OK for another few days.”

“Did you find Bernadette Maguire’s house?”

“Skulduggery’s there right now, waiting for me to return with you.”

She grinned at him. “Was it a nice drive?”

“It took two hours,” he grumbled. “And he wouldn’t let me speak. Do you know what it’s like to be driving for two hours and not be able to speak?”

“No. What’s it like?”

“It’s boring.”

She nodded. “I could probably have guessed that.”

They reached her parents, and Valkyrie’s mum lit up when Valkyrie passed her Alice.

“Here she is,” her mum said, cooing at the baby, “my special girl.”

“Oh, cheers,” Valkyrie said, rolling her eyes.

Her mum laughed. “Hello, Fletcher, when did you get here?”

“I just arrived,” he said. “Sorry. The bus service on a Sunday is awful.”

“You should have called us – Desmond could have picked you up.”

“No, I couldn’t have,” Valkyrie’s dad said, stepping into earshot. “Sorry, Fletcher, but I had important fatherly duties to take care of, which included eating breakfast, showering and finding my trousers. Of those three, I only managed two. Without looking down, can you guess which one I missed?”

Valkyrie’s mother sighed. “Des, it’s too early in the day for your nonsense. Fletcher, will you be joining us for the post-christening lunch?”

“Yes, I will,” Fletcher smiled back. “I just have to borrow Stephanie for a moment.”

“Take our daughter,” Valkyrie’s dad said, waving his hand airily. “We have another one now.”

Valkyrie laughed, leading Fletcher through the crowd. They left the church and walked round the corner. When they were sure they weren’t being watched, Fletcher turned to her, kissed her, and the moment their lips touched, they teleported. The church and the grass and the sunshine vanished, replaced by a cottage being lashed by rain.

Valkyrie broke off the kiss instantly and leaped sideways to the Bentley, which was under the cover of a tree. Fletcher joined her.

“The sun is splitting the stones in Haggard,” she said, glaring. “Don’t you think staying dry will be kind of important for when we teleport back?”

“You make a good point,” Fletcher conceded. “See, there’s a reason why you’re the girl and I’m the boy. You think about things, while I …”

“Don’t?”

“Exactly,” he said happily.

Skulduggery walked towards them from the cottage, his gloved hand raised to divert the rain around him. His suit was impeccable, his hat cocked just right. His face was sallow-skinned, but as he neared he tapped the two symbols etched into his collarbones, and his features flowed away, revealing the skull beneath. “Sorry to pull you away,” he said to Valkyrie.

She shrugged. “I was there for the christening itself. Once that’s done with, it’s just a family get-together, and Christmas is enough for me. Is the old lady home?”

“I knocked on windows and doors, but there’s no answer,” he said. “We’ll have to let ourselves in.” Fletcher held out his hands, but Skulduggery shook his head. “Relying on teleportation is making us lazy, so we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way. Valkyrie, would you mind keeping the rain off?”

He turned, started walking back to the cottage. Valkyrie hurried after him, raising her arms, moving the air into a shield.

“You should really get used to manipulating water instead of relying on air all the time,” he told her. “One of these days you’re going to wish you’d practised more. There’s very little point in being an Elemental sorcerer if you only use two elements.”

“But air and fire are the handiest,” she said, pretending to whine. “Manipulating moisture just doesn’t grab me that way. And as for earth …” She trailed off.

They reached the front door and Skulduggery knelt, working the lock pick. Fletcher stood behind Valkyrie, trying to avoid the raindrops that got through her defence.

“And yet,” Skulduggery said, “your Necromancy lessons are continuing without interruption, are they not?”

“Well, yeah, but I need more lessons in Necromancy because Solomon isn’t as good a teacher as you are.” He looked at her and she grinned, then shrugged. “Besides, most of the training I do with you these days is combat. I’ll get the Elemental stuff back on track, I promise.”

Skulduggery grunted. Ever since Tanith Low had been lost to a Remnant, he had changed what he’d been teaching Valkyrie. There was no way she’d be able to match Tanith’s speed and agility, so going up against her using pure martial arts would end in disaster. The new stuff she’d been learning was ugly, brutal and effective – combatives, not martial arts. It had taken Valkyrie a while to adjust, but the threat of Tanith’s return had spurred her on. A rematch was inevitable, she knew, so when she did go up against Tanith again, she was making damn sure that it wasn’t going to be on Tanith’s terms.

The lock clicked, and Skulduggery stood up and opened the door, then poked his head in. “Hello? Mrs Maguire? Anyone home?” He waited. No answer. He stepped inside, Valkyrie following. His hair suddenly in danger of getting wet, Fletcher hopped in after her. Aside from the steady rhythm of the rain, the cottage was quiet. It was orderly, and smelled of old person. Valkyrie took another step and the ring on her right hand grew colder.

“Someone’s dead in here,” she whispered.

Stepping slowly and carefully, they entered the living room, where small porcelain figurines lined every surface and an old woman sat in an armchair, very dead.

Skulduggery took out his gun.

“Wait a second,” Fletcher said, his eyes widening. “Look at her. This was natural causes. She was old. Old people die. That’s what old people do.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “There was someone else here.”

He motioned them to stay put, and left the room. Fletcher looked at Valkyrie searchingly, but all she could do was shrug. After a few moments, Skulduggery came back in and put his gun away.

“How do you know there was someone else here?” she asked.

He nodded behind him as he took a small bag of rainbow dust from his pocket. “Notice the figurines. Horrible little things, aren’t they? Little cherubs, cheap and tasteless. See how they’re so lovingly arranged, evenly spaced, all looking outwards? Now look at the ones beside you.”

Valkyrie looked down. Fat little figurines, holding harps and little bows and arrows, were positioned haphazardly along the edge of the cabinet. “They fell,” she said, “and someone put them back in a hurry. Someone who didn’t care enough to face them all in the same direction.”

Skulduggery broke up the lumps in the powder. He took a pinch and threw it into the air. It fell gently in a small cloud, changing colour as it did so. “Adept magic was used,” he murmured. “Hard to tell what sort. But it was recent.”

“How recent?” Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery put the bag away. “The last ten minutes.”

Fletcher glanced over his shoulder. “So the attacker could still be in the area?”

Skulduggery took out his gun again. “Always a possibility.”

Valkyrie patted Fletcher’s arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “If the bad man comes, I’ll protect you.”

“If the bad man comes,” Fletcher responded, “I’ll bravely give out a high-pitched scream to distract him. I may even bravely faint, to give him a false sense of security. That will be your signal to strike.”

“We make a great team.”

“Just don’t forget to stand in front of me the whole time,” he said, and then yelled. Valkyrie jumped and Skulduggery whirled, and Fletcher pointed at the window. “Outside!” he blurted. “Bad man! Outside!”

Skulduggery charged, thrust his hand against the air and the window exploded outwards. He jumped through, Valkyrie and Fletcher right behind him. The rain pelted them, made the ground muddy. A bald man in black slipped on the trail that led into the woods, fell to his hands and knees. He cast a quick glance behind him. He had a long nose and a ridiculous goatee beard that ended in wispy trails far below his chin. He fumbled with something they couldn’t see, and then sprang up. He slipped and slid, but kept on running, leaving a wooden box open on the ground behind him.

“Back,” Skulduggery said. “Back inside the house. Move!”

Valkyrie went first, vaulted through the broken window, landing just as Fletcher teleported in. Skulduggery came last, flattening himself against the wall.

“Hide,” he whispered.

They ducked down.

The rain battered the cottage. Valkyrie risked a look up at Skulduggery.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“It’s a box,” he whispered back.

“What kind of box?”

“A wooden one.”

She gave him a look. “OK, I’ll try this. Why are we hiding from a box?”

“We’re not. We’re hiding from what’s inside the box.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Is it a head?” Fletcher asked.

“It’s the Jitter Girls.”

He peeked out. Valkyrie raised herself up slightly so she could see over the windowsill. The wooden box sat there on the trail in the mud and the rain.

“Who are the Jitter Girls?” she asked.

“Triplets,” Skulduggery said. “Born in 1931. When they were six years old, something tried to get into this world through them.”

“Through them?”

“It planted seeds in their minds, changed them mentally and physically. It dragged them just out of step with our reality, tried to make them a conduit through which it could emerge.”

“What are we talking about here?” Fletcher asked. “A Faceless One?”

“No,” Skulduggery said, “I don’t think so. This was something else. Their parents panicked. Doctors couldn’t help. Remember, this was Ireland in the 1930s, cut off and isolated from a world that was advancing around it. Everyone thought the children were possessed by the devil. They tried exorcism after exorcism, but the girls just got worse. Then I was called.”

“Could you help?” Valkyrie asked. She took another peek. The box was still just a box.

“They were too far gone,” Skulduggery said. “They spent a year in agony, twisting and squealing while strapped to their beds in the asylum.”

“Good God.”

“Their parents came in every single day. They’d sing to them. Nursery rhymes and old Irish songs. There was nothing I could do. The thing, whatever it was that was using them, I think it realised its plan wasn’t going to work. So it retreated. It went away, left them alone. They died soon after.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It is.”

“And so how are they in that box out there?”

Skulduggery shrugged. “They came back, didn’t they? Any poor soul tortured like that isn’t going to rest easy. They have too much pain to deal with by themselves, so they need to spread it around. That’s what I think, anyway. The truth is nobody knows why they came back, or why they started killing people. But that’s what happened.”

“And they’re in the box because …?”

“Everyone needs a home.”

“I see. I’m not altogether sure, though, why we’re hiding from them. If they can fit into that small box, how dangerous can they be?”

“It looks like you’re going to see for yourself,” Skulduggery said, his voice dropping back to a whisper.

Valkyrie peeked.

Impossibly, a pale hand emerged from the box. It trembled slightly as it lengthened, and it was an arm now, that curled. The hand gripped the edge of the box.

She ducked down.

“What’s happening?” Fletcher asked.

“They’re climbing out,” Valkyrie said dumbly.

“If they’re as dangerous as you say they are,” Fletcher said to Skulduggery, “then let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

“They need to be contained,” Skulduggery said. “That’s why the killer brought them, to cover his escape. We can’t leave – there’s no telling what they’d do if they were allowed to roam free.”

Valkyrie took another look. At first, she thought there was something wrong with her eyes. A girl climbed out of the box. A little blonde six-year-old, wearing a white dress with a bow, moving like bad animation. She was stiff, jerky, missing out the smooth motion between the lifting of the foot and the placing it down as she walked. There was no other word for it. She jittered.

Behind her, another pale hand emerged.

“How do we fight them?” asked Valkyrie softly.

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “Fletcher. Go see China. She must have something in her books about fighting these things.”

Fletcher shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

“Then come with me,” Fletcher said. “Valkyrie, at least. I’m not leaving her here.”

Valkyrie turned to him. “Yes you are. Go. Be quick.”

He grabbed her. “I’m not—”

She took his hand off her. “We don’t have time to argue. Do it. Go.”

He stared at her, torn, then narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

He didn’t even kiss her – he just vanished.

Valkyrie turned back to the window. “Hell,” she breathed.

All three Jitter Girls were out, and all three were walking towards the cottage.

raven walked into the High Priest’s office with his head bowed.

“Late again, Cleric?” said Auron Tenebrae, High Priest of the Order, Patriarch of this Temple and a man with a gaze so withering the sun itself dared not show its face when he was in one of his moods. Or so the legend went. “This is the third time this week. If our little meetings are too much of an imposition for you, please let it be known and we will surely reschedule around your most arbitrary of whims.”

Craven bowed again. “My deepest apologies, Your Eminence. I have no excuse for my tardiness, other than I work without cease for the good of the Order.”

“And I’m sure we appreciate it,” Tenebrae said, already sounding bored.

Craven bowed so low his back hurt. He hated the High Priest, hated the distaste that flowed from him daily. A constant stream of snide remarks over the years, collecting in a vast reservoir inside Craven’s mind that he was never going to forget, and was certainly never going to forgive. No matter the flattery he offered, the compliments, the fawning, all he got in return was this river of barely concealed contempt. The worst of it was that Tenebrae made no effort to confine this contempt to moments when they were alone. Standing at the High Priest’s shoulder was Nathanial Quiver, Cleric First Class of the Necromancer Order, stringent Keeper of the Law and a man who seemingly possessed no facial muscles that would enable him to smile. Any such muscles, Quiver probably thought, would be put to better use on a good frown.

“Cleric Wreath,” Tenebrae said, “you may continue.”

And the last of Craven’s supposed peers, the last to witness this constant belittling – Solomon Wreath. Cleric First Class of the Necromancer Order, infamous Field Operative and notorious trouble-maker, standing there in his tailor-made black suit while the rest of them wore proper Necromancer robes.

Craven had a special place of hatred reserved for Solomon Wreath, down deep in his heart.

“I believe Valkyrie is about to make a breakthrough,” Wreath said, and Craven’s eyes widened in alarm. “She’s becoming more proficient at Necromancy with every lesson. She’s taking giant steps now, progressing faster and faster. If she continues like this, I’m confident that she will choose Necromancy over Elemental magic when it’s time for the Surge.”

“I see,” said Tenebrae. “And how has Pleasant reacted to this?”

Wreath allowed himself a smile. “They’ve argued about it enough, so he’s not saying anything for the moment. He trusts her to find her own way, and so do I. It’s just that I think her way will be our way.”

“And you think she’s safe out there, with Lord Vile on the loose?”

Wreath hesitated. “I think she’s as safe with Skulduggery Pleasant as she’d be anywhere. Besides, Vile hasn’t been seen since he attacked Pleasant in the Sanctuary. He may well have vowed to kill the Death Bringer, but for all we know, he won’t be returning.”

Craven coughed lightly, and waited till they were looking at him. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I fail to see how any of this is a noteworthy development. We do not all believe that Valkyrie Cain will be the Death Bringer, Cleric Wreath. Some of us, in this room, believe she’s just another unexceptional girl.”

“Unexceptional?” Wreath echoed. “This girl is but a few months away from her seventeenth birthday and already she has saved the world and killed a god. What have you done?”

Tenebrae chuckled and Craven bristled. “What I mean to say is that while she may have the makings of a fine sorcerer, I have yet to be convinced that she will ever have the power to become the Death Bringer and initiate the Passage. And even if she does have that potential, she is, as you say, not even seventeen. She won’t experience the Surge for another three or four years. You want us to wait four years to see if she might be strong enough?”

“You have an alternative to waiting?” Wreath asked. “Did someone invent a time machine while I wasn’t looking?”

“Your sarcasm notwithstanding, I think it would be a mistake to put too much faith in a girl so heavily under the influence of Skulduggery Pleasant. Besides which, we have plenty of our own candidates. Take my protégée, for example. I believe that Melancholia St Clair has been showing signs of definite—”

“Melancholia?” Tenebrae interrupted. “You’re still insisting on her? Cleric, I haven’t seen anything special about that girl at all. The only extraordinary quality she seems to possess is the ability to look extraordinarily annoyed whenever I see her. Which hasn’t been for quite some months now.”

“Begging your pardon, High Priest, but I have been spending a lot of time as her personal tutor, and I think she could be the one.”

Tenebrae sat back in his chair. “You’re tutoring her?”

“Yes, High Priest.”

“But I thought you wanted her to excel,” Tenebrae said, laughing while Wreath smirked. Craven’s face burned, but he managed a grateful smile nonetheless.

“Waste your time however you want,” Tenebrae said, waving his hand. “But right now, the Cain girl seems to be the one viable possibility we have. No other Temple around the world has any candidates of worth. All eyes are resting on us. Cleric Wreath, I hope she doesn’t let us down.”

“As do I, Your Eminence,” Wreath said, nodding instead of bowing. Tenebrae didn’t seem to mind.

Craven stormed into the depths of the Temple, replaying the conversation in his head, substituting the things he had said with the things he wished he had said. They were so much better, all the caustic witticisms that occurred to him afterwards. They made him sound strong and smart and in control. In his imagination, he never blushed.

He reached the heavy wooden door, and spent a few moments calming himself. Tenebrae’s days were numbered, as were Wreath’s. Quiver, he wasn’t so sure of. Quiver never mocked him. Quiver never mocked anyone.

He entered the room, and Melancholia raised her head.

“I’m tired,” she said. She spent half her time tired. The other half was spent pacing the floor, practically crackling with energy. It was either one or the other – extremely powerful or extremely weak. Craven had wanted another few days to run more tests, to find the source of the instability and purge it, but his patience had run out.

“It’s time,” he said. “I’m presenting you to the High Priest. Clean that sweat from your face and follow me.”

“I don’t feel well,” she said, almost whimpered.

“I don’t care!” he roared, and grabbed Melancholia’s arm, yanking her to her feet. “They will not laugh at me again! No one will ever laugh at me again! We will wipe the smiles from their smug faces and they will worship you and obey me!”

She looked at him fearfully, with tears in her eyes, and he caught his anger and quelled it. He couldn’t afford to lose her. He couldn’t afford to lose the trust he had spent so long building up while he was carving those symbols into her flesh and listening to her scream.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly. “I’ll be with you. No one will hurt you while I’m with you. You’re a very special girl, and I love you as I would my own daughter.”

Melancholia nodded bravely, and he gave her a gentle smile as he led her to the door. What he’d said was quite true – he did love her like a daughter. He had a daughter, somewhere in the world, and he absolutely and without reservation despised her.

alkyrie and Skulduggery backed away from the window.

The first Jitter Girl approached in that awful, messed-up, stop-motion way, moving slowly, her face blank. She reached the wall and vanished, and was suddenly inside the cottage with them.

Skulduggery’s hand closed around Valkyrie’s wrist. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t look at her.”

Fighting the urge to run, Valkyrie stayed where she was and kept her eyes down. The Jitter Girl flickered into her peripheral vision. Her heart thundered in her chest like hoof beats. The Jitter Girl paused, maybe to examine the porcelain figures on the sideboard. Valkyrie’s hair was wet. Her jeans were damp and her top was sticking to her. She was aware of all of this as she stood perfectly still. One of the Jitter Girl’s sisters moved slowly by the window.

The Jitter Girl passed behind Valkyrie, out of her line of sight. Valkyrie had never wanted to turn round so much in her life. Goosebumps rippled her flesh.

There was a mirror on the wall. Valkyrie could see Skulduggery and herself reflected on the edge of the glass. Her mouth was dry. In the mirror, she saw a pale hand slowly reaching for her own.

Skulduggery grabbed her, twisted her away, the air rushing as they hurtled through the broken window without finesse. They landed in the mud and scrambled up, a Jitter Girl on either side. The Girls grew as they came forward. Every flash made them bigger, made them older, made their hair paler and wilder. Their faces changed, from pretty and blank to contorted and tortured. Lines appeared on smooth skin. Mouths opened, lips cracked and white teeth became yellow, became brown, became blackened, and still they came forward.

Skulduggery’s gun went off, again and again, the bullets passing through the flickering creatures. Valkyrie hurled fire, threw shadows, but the Jitter Girls, all three of them now, advanced impervious.

Skulduggery was yanked from Valkyrie’s side. One of them had him, her fingers pressing into his clothes, sliding between his ribs. He screamed.

Valkyrie lunged for him, but slipped, splashing down in mud and muck, her hair in her eyes, calling his name. And then one of them was right in front of her, standing over her, her hand pressed against Valkyrie’s forehead, pressed into her skin. Valkyrie screamed as the fingers melted into her skull, poked through her brain. White daggers of blinding light seared across her mind. Her body seized up and her jaw locked. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Images played in darkness as the little girl-monster wriggled her fingers. Images and memories, sensations and emotions, mixing up, matching up, latching on to each other, splitting off from each other, and still the little girl-monster played, curious, sifting through the insides of Valkyrie’s mind like she was looking for something, searching for someone, and she found it, found it waiting, found it watching. Found it ready.

Valkyrie went away, and Darquesse wrapped her hand around the little girl-monster’s wrist and she crushed it as she pulled the fingers from her mind.

Darquesse stood, still holding on to the wrist. The Jitter Girl screeched and contorted and jittered, but her arm remained in Darquesse’s grip. Darquesse watched her, fascinated. She poured magic out through her fingers and the little girl-monster returned to her normal size and screamed. It was like no human scream. It was like no animal scream. It was the scream of a creature who had never felt the need to scream before. It was new, and raw, a freshly born thing of exquisite agony and sudden, overwhelming fear.

Darquesse dropped her. Another was coming, jittering across the mud, eager to play, and there was so much magic in Darquesse’s veins, broiling and coiling and boiling inside her, that she just had to share it. The power leaped from her hand in a twisting, turning stream, crossed the distance between them and washed over the Jitter Girl, taking her off her feet. Unable to escape the flow, the little girl-monster squirmed and kicked and writhed in the mud, and Darquesse increased the intensity until she became bored of the screeches.

She turned to the last little girl-monster, who held her gaze for a moment before releasing Skulduggery. He fell, gasping. The Jitter Girl returned to her normal size and shape, regarding Darquesse with those wonderfully blank eyes, then moved to the box. Her sisters dragged themselves, in that flickering manner, to join her, and one by one they climbed back inside. Once all three were in, the top of the box closed over.

Darquesse turned back. Skulduggery Pleasant got to his feet, his exquisite suit covered in muck. His hat was in the mud somewhere, and the rain ran off his gleaming head.

“Hello,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Darquesse smiled, walking towards him.

“You’re very impressive,” he continued. “That’s a kind of magic I don’t think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen every kind of magic. You are quite the curiosity, aren’t you?”

Darquesse could have turned his bones to splinters where he stood.

“Is she in there?” Skulduggery asked. “Valkyrie? Can she hear me?”

Darquesse said nothing.

Skulduggery’s head tilted. “Are you going to let her come back? That’s her body you’re wearing. That’s her face you’re using. You can’t keep her sleeping for ever. It isn’t your time yet. This is still Valkyrie’s time. She gets to walk around. She gets to live. Not you.”

She could see his consciousness. It formed a shell around his skeleton, a shell of multicoloured lights. It sparkled prettily. This shell was how he thought. This shell was how he felt. When he had pulled himself back together, all those hundreds of years ago, he recreated himself in a form that only she could see. She reached out and gently dug her fingers into the shell of light. Skulduggery gasped and went rigid. She turned her hand, twisting his consciousness, feeling and understanding how she could tear through it or pull it away, shred it to pieces or turn it to vapour. What she held, buzzing, between her fingertips, was life itself. It was a wonderful thing, a glorious thing. She released him and he staggered back, but she was already forgetting he was there.

She rose off the ground, into the rain-filled air, floating high above the cottage. She could see across the countryside from here, to the city in the distance. She wondered how easy it would be to turn the whole city to dust. Probably not that hard. Not if she focused.

Somebody rose up to meet her.

“I want Valkyrie back,” Skulduggery said. “Give her back right now. I’m not going to ask again.”

Darquesse smiled at him. She liked him, she really did. He was unique. She didn’t want to kill him. Not yet. Not when there were still ways for him to amuse her.

Darquesse went away, and when Valkyrie blinked her wet hair was in her face and she was falling to the earth.

“Bloody hell!” she hollered.

Skulduggery swooped down, caught her, held her close as he descended.

“No need to shout,” he told her.

She clutched him tightly. “What’s happening? How’d we get here?”

“You don’t remember?”

“How I got into the bloody sky? No, I don’t bloody …” She trailed off. “Oh, wait. I do. It was her.”

“Indeed it was.”

She sagged in his arms. “Great,” she mumbled.

They touched down. Valkyrie swayed on her feet a moment then nodded, and they walked over to the wooden box.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked, a headache starting up behind her eyes. “She can just come and go whenever she likes? Every time things get too dangerous, am I just going to Hulk out, change into the person who’s going to kill the world?”

“I don’t think it’s quite so simple,” Skulduggery responded. “From what I could see, the Jitter Girl literally had her hand inside your head. That would shake anything loose. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but Darquesse did save us.”

Valkyrie folded her arms, shivering. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You saved us, then. Does that sound better?”

Valkyrie glared at him through the rain. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Yes, you did. You are Darquesse, Valkyrie. Darquesse isn’t a different person, no matter how many times we talk about her like she is. At its simplest level, Darquesse is a state of mind.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s you, without your conscience, or your feelings. She’s you without your humanity.”

“You’re saying she’s a mood swing?”

He shrugged. “Or maybe you are her mood swing.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

Skulduggery picked up the wooden box and they started back towards the cottage. “I’m not joking. The fact is we have no way of knowing if the person who we think we are is at the core of our being. Are you a decent girl with the potential to someday become an evil monster, or are you an evil monster that thinks it’s a decent girl?”

“Wouldn’t I know which one I was?”

“Good God, no. The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”

“You have an amazing ability to depress me sometimes, you know that?”

“I try my best.” Skulduggery gestured, and his mud-soaked hat rose into his hand. He gazed at it forlornly. “How are you feeling?”

“Headachy. But fine. Bad man got away.”

“Yes, he did.”

“He killed Paul Lynch and now the little old lady Lynch confided in. Somebody doesn’t want us to know anything about the Passage. You think he was a Necromancer?”

“Even though dressing in black is in no way an indication – yes, I quite do.”

She nodded. “Me too. Plus, he had a ridiculous beard. I should probably ask Solomon about him.”

“I should probably help.”

“No hitting.”

“A small amount of hitting.”

Fletcher lunged out of thin air before them, his eyes wide, fists clenched, ready to fight. He looked at them, spun round, spun back again.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“Back in the box,” Valkyrie told him. “Did you find out anything?”

“China wasn’t at the library,” he said, the rain flattening down his hair. “Nobody there could help me. How did you beat them?”

“With unimaginable skill,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie, I’ve got a two-hour drive back to Dublin where dry clothes await me.”

She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

He walked to the Bentley. Fletcher turned to Valkyrie, hands loosely holding her arms. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said quietly.

She smiled. “I know.”

“You should have come with me.”

“Let’s not ruin a nice moment by arguing, OK?” She kissed him.

He sighed, and instead of rain on her face there was sunshine, and instead of being outside a small cottage with a broken window they were behind a tree in her back garden. “Much better,” she murmured. Dripping wet and covered in mud, she took Fletcher’s hand and they stepped out from behind the tree.

Her parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours, people she’d known all her life and people she’d never met stood around the barbecue pit and stared, their chatter dying away.

“Uh,” said Valkyrie.

n Monday morning, China Sorrows walked the weed-strewn gap that led to the Church of the Faceless. She entered without knocking, found the head of this little chapel on his knees with his eyes closed, praying. A small man who greatly resembled a weasel – Prave, his name was. She didn’t know his first name and she didn’t care. She’d been here only once before, and by the time she left she had blood on her hands and a gun to dispose of.

“Curiosity,” she said, and Prave’s bulbous eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet. “That’s what brought me here. Who, I wondered, would be audacious enough to summon me to a squalid little house of worthless worship such as this? Surely, I told myself, it can’t be this man Prave, this snivelling little toad-person with a penchant for bad suits and terrible shirts.”

“What … what’s wrong with my shirt?” he burbled in a Yorkshire accent, his voice a nasal whine that triggered a primal urge within China’s psyche to hit something.

“It’s orange,” she told him. “It can’t be him, I thought. The man has no backbone to brag about, no spine to speak of. Who, then? Who is pulling the strings of the weasel-faced toad-person? So it is curiosity that brings me here, Mr Prave. Unveil your hidden master or risk me growing bored. I do terrible things when I grow bored.”

Prave stared at her with those round, wet eyes of his, and China heard slow, measured footsteps in the other room – high heels on wood. China knew who it was instantly.

Eliza Scorn walked through, dressed in black trousers and a jacket. She had left her long red hair to fall round her face, framing those cheekbones, those lips. Many men had fallen in love with Eliza Scorn, and then instantly forgotten her when China walked into the room. That was only the start of the animosity between them.

“China,” Scorn said, smiling.

“Eliza. What a surprise.”

“Please. I bet you’ve known I was back for months, haven’t you?”

“I may have heard talk.”

“And you didn’t try to get in touch? We could have met up, talked about the old days, traded gossip. Who’s alive, who’s dead, who’s about to die, that kind of thing.”

“My apologies, Eliza. I’ve been very busy.”

“Of course, of course, with the library. I must call round, see how it looks. How have you been? You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

“As are you, my dear. I love your shoes.”

“Aren’t they delightful? I saw them and just had to have them. Their previous owner wasn’t too keen to let them go, but I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

“Is that her blood on the left one?”

“And no amount of scrubbing will get it out, either. I hear you are still a treacherous heathen, then? Your back is still turned to the Dark Gods?”

“Both firmly and resolutely. I met some of them, a few years ago. Not very nice, to heathen and disciple alike.”

Scorn shrugged. “If the Faceless Ones deemed those disciples to be unworthy, so be it. We’ll just have to make sure that the rest of us are worthy of their love the next time they return.”

“The next time? Oh, my dear Eliza, you’re not going to carry on with this, are you? The Faceless Ones had their chance. They returned, and they were sent away again. It’s time to move on. Time to take up another hobby, like crocheting, or serial-killing.”

“Nonsense. Their return, however brief, was a signal that it can be done. We just need better organisation.”

“And you are going to provide that?”

“Naturally. The Church of the Faceless is going to have to expand, of course. We can’t be seen to be congregating in run-down old chapels like this. We need to appeal to a higher level of patron. Which is where you come in.”

“Now this should be fascinating.”

“We need your resources to get us started. Not just money, although we’ll be taking that too, but your contacts. The people you know, China. They are what we want. They can get us what we need. It’s going to be glorious, let me tell you.”

“Eliza, I don’t wish to be rude, but … actually, no, I don’t really care. Eliza, I came here today to find out who would have the audacity to summon me anywhere. If it had just been that weasel-faced gentleman cowering in the corner, he would be begging for forgiveness right about now. But as it’s you, seeing as how we are such good friends, I will simply depart. It was lovely seeing you again.”

“Prave,” Scorn said, “why don’t you step forward like a good little weasel, and tell China what you told me?”

Prave stepped up, coughed, brushed the dust from his knees. “A year and a half ago,” he said nervously, “you had just left here. I watched you go.”

There was a part of China that immediately tensed, but all she did was brush a strand of hair back over her ear, and wait patiently.

“You met Remus Crux outside,” Prave continued. “You were talking. He looked, he looked agitated and … I went out and hid behind the wall. I heard what he said, before you shot him.”

“Do you remember what Crux said?” Scorn asked China. “I bet you do. He said that you handed Skulduggery Pleasant’s wife and child over to Nefarian Serpine. He said that you led them to their deaths.”

China looked at them both, and nodded slowly. “I see,” she said.

Scorn smiled again. “Look at her face, Prave. Isn’t it a beautiful face? Isn’t it the most beautiful face you ever did see? But beauty is so deceptive. Looking at her now, you’d never guess that she was calculating the most efficient way of killing us, would you? There’s not a hint of that in those startlingly pale blue eyes. If we didn’t know better, we’d still be gazing at her, falling in love all over again, and she could walk right up and stab us through the heart, and we’d never see it coming. All because of that beautiful face.

“But we do know better, don’t we, Prave? We know better because I know China. I’ve known her a long, long time. We were inseparable once. We did everything together. We were so close we could practically read each other’s minds.”

“Can you read my mind now?” China asked.

Scorn laughed. “I don’t even need to, dear China, and I know you don’t need to read mine. Blackmail is such an ugly, ungainly word, but these are ugly and ungainly times in which we live. You will do as I say, exactly as I say, or I will tell the Skeleton Detective your terrible, terrible secret. Do you agree to my terms?”

“I really can’t see that I have any other choice, now do I?”

“No, you really don’t.”

“Then I agree to your terms,” said China. “I’m usually the one doing the blackmailing, so at the very least it will be interesting to experience it from the other side.”

“I’m glad you’re taking this so well.”

“Oh, dear Eliza, we are professionals, are we not? To allow something like this to get personal would be an unforgivable lapse of character. By the way, I was lying earlier. Those shoes are horrible on you.”

Scorn laughed, and shook her head. “Oh, China. I have missed you.”

“And I have missed you, Eliza. But don’t worry. Next time, my aim will be better.”

Scorn clapped her hands. “Delightful! Delightful!” With her hands clasped over her chest, she walked from the room. “We’ll be in touch, my love! And you’ll remember the way it used to be – Scorn and Sorrows, together again! The world will tremble!”

China watched her go, then turned and left the church without even glancing at Prave. The moment she stepped into the open air, her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.

China spent the next few hours sitting in her apartment, running through scenarios in her head. Her only option seemed to be to kill Eliza Scorn, but even this had its problems. For one thing, someone as resourceful as Scorn would certainly have found a way to release the incriminating information in the event of her untimely demise. For another, the actual physical act of killing her would not be easy. Scorn was a formidable adversary, and not one China would be confident of taking down on her own. The main problem in all of this was that China had a lot to lose, while Scorn had virtually nothing. This automatically put China in the weaker position. And if there was one thing China hated, it was a weak position.

Someone knocked on the door and China looked up, waved at the symbol carved into the doorframe. A section of the door turned translucent from her side, and she saw Valkyrie exchanging a few words with Skulduggery before he went into the library and she turned back, continuing to wait. Neither seemed particularly furious, so China deemed it safe to open the door.

“Hello, my dear,” she said, greeting Valkyrie with the warmest smile she was capable of. “Come in, come in. Let us talk of important things before Skulduggery disturbs us. You look as beautiful as ever.”

Valkyrie smiled in response and walked in, wearing her usual black. “You should have seen me yesterday,” she said. “Myself and Fletcher turned up at my sister’s christening dripping with mud.”

“Irish weather is not kind to teleportation. How did you manage to explain it?”

“Sprinkler system, flower beds, a lost dog – it wasn’t easy, but eventually we bombarded everyone with enough conflicting details that they figured it was easier to just let us get away with it.”

“Ah, the curse of maintaining a secret identity,” China said.

Valkyrie sat at the elaborately carved eighteenth-century table – what was commonly referred to as an antique, even though China was much older. “We went up against the Jitter Girls,” Valkyrie said.

China’s eyebrow rose fractionally. “How did you escape?”

“Skulduggery and I managed to get them back in the box.”

“My word, that is impressive.”

“We’re trying to identify the man who released them.”

“I am sorry, Valkyrie, I can’t help you. The last I heard of the Jitter Girls, they’d been seen in New Zealand, but this was maybe ten years ago. I have no idea who would have had access to them since then. Of course, when I said we should talk of important things, that is not quite what I had in mind.”

Valkyrie laughed softly, and crossed her legs. “You want to know about Fletcher.”

“But of course. Some people watch television for their vicarious thrills. All I need do is talk to you. How is Fletcher these days? Apart from muddy?”

“He’s grand.”

“Still annoying you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And how is this mysterious other person?”

Valkyrie’s head dropped. “I wish I hadn’t told you about that.”

“Oh, come now, you’ve barely told me anything. Today is the day when you reveal all, though. I can feel it. Do I know this person? Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” she said, then frowned. “Well, I don’t know if you’d call him a boy. Male. Definitely male. I don’t know what I’m … When I say there’s someone else, I don’t mean it’s someone I’m going to dump Fletcher for, but … Doesn’t the fact that there is someone else mean something? Doesn’t it mean that my feelings for Fletcher aren’t as strong as …”

“As his feelings for you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“But that was always going to be the case, was it not? That he would feel more deeply for you than you did for him?” China sat down. “I’m enjoying this immensely, by the way.”

Valkyrie looked quizzical. “Enjoying what?”

“I’ve never had any children,” China said, “and I haven’t had a friend in centuries. To me, talking like this is wonderful. So tell me the truth now – have you committed the cardinal sin?”

“Uh, that depends,” Valkyrie said warily. “What’s the cardinal sin?”

“Have you told Fletcher you loved him?”

“Oh,” Valkyrie said, sagging again. “Yes.”

“Oh my.”

“It was ages ago, but … I didn’t mean it like that. Not really. But I said it, and he took it to mean that I’m in love with him. I haven’t mentioned it since. I just … I don’t know.”

“Are you playing with Fletcher’s heart, my dear?”

“I’m trying not to.”

“And this other man?”

“I’ve no interest in a relationship with him, either,” said Valkyrie.

“Either?”

“Sorry?”

“You said you have no interest in a relationship with him, either. Implying that you have no interest in a relationship with him or Fletcher.”

Valkyrie looked startled. “I … That’s not what I meant.”

“Is your relationship with Fletcher coming to an end?”

There was silence, and then, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant … Oh, God, I don’t know. I like having Fletcher. He’s warm, and nice, and safe.”

“All good qualities,” China assured her, “in a puppy. You need someone smart, and strong, and capable. Someone assured. You need someone to challenge you. You need someone better than you. That’s what love is, you know. Love is finding someone better than you are, and holding on for dear life.”

“It sounds hard.”

“The good things in life always are. But you’re not looking for love, are you? Of course you’re not. What girl your age is? You want fun. You want someone … amazing. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been going out with Fletcher?”

“A year and a half, maybe.”

“If you care for him, and I know you care for him, you won’t want to hurt him. But time passes and feelings deepen. And that’s when the real hurt will set in. Are you taking him to the Ball?”

Valkyrie blinked. “The what?”

“The Requiem Ball, dear.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know. Am I even going? Skulduggery didn’t say anything.”

“Of course you’re going. You’ve saved the world, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but the Requiem Ball is to commemorate the end of the war with Mevolent, and I had nothing to do with that.”

“Do you really think you’d be allowed to miss it because of a trifling matter of details? If you don’t go this year, you’ll have to wait another ten years for it to come around again, and that would never do. Oh, you’ll love it. The women dress in the most beautiful gowns, the men wear tuxedos and we dance the night away. It is quite the social highlight of the decade.”

“When you say ‘dance’,” Valkyrie said, “you don’t mean the way you’d dance at a nightclub, do you? Because that’s the only kind of dancing I know how to do.”

“It’s nothing extravagant,” China assured her. “A waltz or two. A tango. A minuet. Even a quadrille, if we’re feeling debauched. We’re going to have to get you into a gloriously decadent dress, I think, with gloriously decadent shoes that will make you even taller than you are now.”

Skulduggery knocked on the door, and China let him in. He was, as ever, impeccably dressed. “We were just talking about the Requiem Ball,” she said. “I assume the two of you are going?”

“Naturally,” Skulduggery replied, removing his hat.

“We are?” Valkyrie asked, clearly surprised. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Did I not? How unlike me. Still, I simply couldn’t deprive you of your chance to see me in a tuxedo. I wear it well, as you can imagine. Besides, it would be rude not to invite you. Technically, you own the venue where it’s being held.”

“I what?”

“It used to be held in a mansion owned by the late Corrival Deuce,” China said, “but your dear uncle Gordon has offered us the use of his house instead. Or your house. Whichever it is.”

“Ah,” said Valkyrie. “Well, it’s certainly big enough. I mean, it’s got rooms I never go into. Will I have to do anything? Like stand at the door and welcome people, or …?”

“Nothing like that,” Skulduggery said, sounding amused. “You’ll be treated as just another very important guest. There’ll be nothing for you to worry about. And if all the smiling and small talk proves too much for you, you can always disappear into Gordon’s study and read one of his books until everyone leaves.”

Finally, Valkyrie smiled. “OK. OK, yeah, I can do that.”

Skulduggery turned to China. “Back to business, though. Has Valkyrie spoken to you about what we’re after?”

“You mean the person who set the Jitter Girls on you? I’m afraid I was of no assistance in the matter. I do, however, have other news you may not have heard. I was waiting for you to join us before I divulged.”

“Please,” Skulduggery said, “divulge.”

China gave the information a respectable pause. “The Necromancers have their Death Bringer.”

Valkyrie looked up sharply. “They what?”

“Who?” asked Skulduggery.

“Nothing has been announced yet,” China said, holding up her hands, “so nothing has been confirmed, but apparently one of the fledgling Necromancers has recently experienced the Surge. It must have unlocked some hitherto unknown reserves of power, because every Temple around the world is celebrating in typical Necromancer fashion. Very quietly, of course, with barely any smiles.”

Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie. “Do you have any idea who the Death Bringer could be?”

“Well, the only one I know of who was waiting for the Surge was Melancholia, but—”

“That’s her,” China said. “That’s her name. Melancholia St Clair.”

Valkyrie shook her head. “She’s the Death Bringer? Wow. I mean … wow. Didn’t see that coming. It’s nice to be let off the hook and all, but … You’re sure?”

“That’s the rumour going around.”

“When did you hear?” Skulduggery asked.

“This morning. I was going to call to let you know, but I was a little … preoccupied.”

“We should go,” Skulduggery said. “We need to report this to the Elders.”

China smiled. “It must be such a relief, after all this time, to have two of your best friends on the Council.”

“It’s a nice change,” Skulduggery admitted, “but really, I mostly go to mock the robes they wear. China, thank you very much. Valkyrie?”

Valkyrie nodded, Skulduggery put his hat back on and they left, shutting the door behind them.

Silence settled in the apartment once again, and China frowned. She usually liked silence, liked the solitude that accompanied it. But not recently. Recently, the solitude was starting to feel rather like loneliness, and that was not a feeling she was accustomed to.

She stood by the window until she saw Skulduggery and Valkyrie walk to the Bentley. She felt an irrational urge to rush after them, to continue their conversation, to help them formulate plans and strategies. But she didn’t. That wasn’t who she was. China didn’t join people. People joined her. That was the simple, inalienable fact of her existence, and she’d been around for too long to change it now. How much of this sudden fear of being alone was due to the threat posed by Eliza Scorn, China didn’t know. But the fact was, if she allowed the situation to worsen, she could very well lose the friendship of the two most important people in her life.

And then those same two people could very well come after her with murder on their minds.

reath watched her, while the others fawned. She sat like she was delicate, as if a sudden move might snap her in two. She was pale, sickly. Her blond hair was limp, her face a network of small, raised scars. She was still the tall, skinny girl she’d always been, but there was something different about her, even Wreath had to admit that. There was something in the way she looked at the people around her. No longer the student, no longer the girl who opened doors and fetched the High Priest’s meals. She was special. She was important. She was the most important person who would ever live.

Craven was loving it, of course. Over the past few months he had taken a personal interest in Melancholia’s studies, which was distinctly unusual for a man who despised helping anyone other than himself. But here he was, shaking his head in an attempt to appear modest, the man who had recognised the potential and nursed the Death Bringer through her Surge. Wreath had hoped that he would have been the one to do that, to guide Valkyrie when she needed guidance the most. It was not to be, however. The honour had never been meant for him. But why, oh why, had it gone to someone like Craven?

“Here sits our saviour,” Cleric Quiver said from Wreath’s elbow. Wreath hadn’t even heard him approach.

“I suppose she does,” Wreath said. “I have to hand it to Craven, though – he saw something in Melancholia that I completely missed. I had always viewed her as somewhat … unexceptional.”

“As had I,” Quiver responded. “I fully expected young Valkyrie to be the one.”

Wreath raised an eyebrow. “You never told me that.”

“It’s not my job to tell you things, Cleric Wreath.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a hard man to like?”

“My mother may have said something along those lines.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

“Not to put a dampener on the occasion, but does the Death Bringer appear … weak to you?”

“She looks tired,” said Wreath, nodding. “She looks drained. From what I’ve heard, it was an unusually long Surge. What do you think those scars are for?”

“Cleric Craven says they are protection sigils, to guard her from her own power.”

“Do you believe him?”

The ghost of a shrug was all Quiver offered. “Our tests have shown extreme spikes and drops in her power level,” he said. “It is quite conceivable that she could hurt herself if careless. You don’t believe him, I take it?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I don’t even know if it matters. If she gets the job done, who am I to complain? Have your tests told you when she’ll be strong enough to initiate the Passage?”

“Every spike is stronger than the one preceding it. If she continues in this fashion, a few days. Maybe a week.”

“With our dear friend Cleric Craven holding her hand every step of the way,” Wreath said, allowing the distaste to creep into his voice. “Are you ready for the world to be a better place?”

“I never really liked this world all that much to begin with, so any change would be an improvement. And you? You’ve always seemed to like things the way they are.”

“I got used to it,” Wreath admitted. “But I’ve lived my entire life waiting for the Passage – I’m not going to bemoan the fact that we’re finally about to get it. You know, I think this is the most we’ve ever talked, you and I. Why is that, do you think?”

Quiver shrugged. “Until this point, I confess that I was never sure if I liked you. Now I just don’t care any more.”

Wreath smiled.

oarhaven stood like a dirty inkblot on a nice clean page. A small town, barely even that, beside a dark and stagnant lake, it was hemmed in on two sides by steep banks of brown grasses. It had its main street and its offshoots, its houses and bars and grim-windowed shops. Sorcerers lived in this town, but only the truly bitter, the genuinely resentful. The outside world was a world gone wrong, a world of ignorant mortals with their squabbling ways. In the bars of Roarhaven, of which there were two, the citizens were known to whisper of some future time when the mortals would fall and the sorcerers rise. And when the drink gave them the courage, these whispers would grow louder, turn to muttered oaths punctuated by fists pounding on tabletops.

Change, they said, was coming.

Roarhaven, Valkyrie knew, was many things. One thing it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, was a tourist town. So when the Bentley passed a rental car stopped outside what passed for the town’s corner shop, Valkyrie frowned.

“Pull over,” she said.

Skulduggery looked at her as they slowed. “Here?”

“I’ve seen how this place treats strangers. I just want to make sure we’re not going to need Geoffrey Scrutinous to come in and smooth things over.”

The Bentley stopped and Valkyrie got out. Skulduggery continued on to the Sanctuary as she walked back to the rental car. A woman sat in the passenger seat. Three kids were squashed in behind. American accents.

She smiled at the woman, got a curt nod back, and then she entered the shop. A few newspapers on the racks. No magazines. Some food, confectioneries, stationery, a fridge with cartons of milk and ham slices, and a broad American man arguing over the counter with the tight-lipped shopkeeper.

Valkyrie smiled as she walked up. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

“This man won’t leave me alone,” said the shopkeeper.

The American frowned at him. “I’m trying to buy something.”

The shopkeeper ignored him. “He just won’t leave.”

The American turned to Valkyrie. “We came into this store—”

“It’s not a store,” interrupted the shopkeeper, “it’s a shop.”

“Fine,” the American growled. “We came into this shop ten minutes ago. My kids picked out what they wanted, brought them up to the counter to pay. This jerk stood there, right where he is now, looking up at the ceiling while we tried to get his attention.”

“I was ignoring them,” said the shopkeeper. “I had heard that if you ignore them, they go away. This one did not go away.”

“You’re damn right I’m not going away. I’m a customer and you will serve me.”

The shopkeeper sneered. “We don’t serve your kind here.”

“You don’t serve Americans?”

“I don’t serve mortals.”

The American raised his eyebrows at Valkyrie. “And then he starts with this nonsense.”

Valkyrie looked at the shopkeeper. “Wouldn’t it be easier at this stage to just let him buy the stuff and leave?”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “You do that for one of them, you’ll have to do it for all of them.”

“For all of who? There isn’t anyone else waiting out there.”

“They’ll hear about it, though.”

“Hear about it?” the American said. “Hear about this little shop in the middle of nowhere where I actually bought something? First of all, I don’t even know where we are! Far as I can tell, it’s not on any of our maps. I can find that dirty lake out there, but there’s not supposed to be any freaky little town beside it.”

“If you didn’t know there was anything here,” the shopkeeper said, “then how did you find us?”

“We’re sightseeing.”

“Sightseeing,” the shopkeeper said, “or spying?”

“Spying? On you? Why the hell would we spy on you? You’re a lunatic with a crummy little store who seems to have a pathological need to not sell anything to his customers.”

“I’m sorry,” said the shopkeeper, “I can’t understand your ridiculous accent.”

“My accent?”

“It is quite silly.”

“So you can’t understand me?”

“Not a word.”

“Then how did you understand that?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t understand what I just said?”

“That’s right.”

“You understood that, though.”

“Not at all.”

The American glowered. “I swear to God, I will reach across this counter and I will punch you right in the mouth.”

“Uh,” Valkyrie said, “I think we should all calm down a little. Sir, as you may have guessed, this isn’t the friendliest town in the world. You go to any other town in the area, I can guarantee that you will be greeted with the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen. But they do things differently here.”

“We just stopped off for some soda for my kids. And I’m not leaving until this guy takes my money and gives me my change.”

“Please,” Valkyrie said to the shopkeeper, “take his money.”

The shopkeeper lowered his eyes to the money on the counter. His lip curling distastefully, he placed a finger on the note and dragged it to the till.

“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” the American asked.

The shopkeeper ignored him, and spilled a few coins on to the counter. With a sigh, he looked up. “Happy?”

The American stuffed the change in his pocket then picked up the drinks. “I heard the Irish were especially friendly.”

“That was before anyone ever came here,” the shopkeeper told him. “Now we’re exactly as friendly as everyone else.”

The American narrowed his eyes, but managed to restrain himself from slipping further into the argument. “I’m going to walk out of here. Someone as rude as you, you’re not worth my time.”

The shopkeeper didn’t respond. He had gone back to looking up at the ceiling.

Valkyrie escorted the American to his car. “I’m really sorry about that,” she said. “I’ve been visiting this town for almost a year now, and they still don’t like talking to me, either.”

Skulduggery walked over, a bright smile on his fake face. “Hello there!” he cried. “Everything OK?”

The American frowned suspiciously, but Valkyrie nodded to him. “Just the shopkeeper being rude again, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Skulduggery said, “yes. Very rude man, that shopkeeper. All’s well, though? No harm done? Excellent.” He crouched at the car window and looked in. “What a lovely family you have. What a charming family. They’re all lovely. Except for that one.” His finger jabbed the glass. “That one’s a bit ugly.”

The American stepped towards him. “What? What did you say?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure his personality makes up for his face.”

Valkyrie jumped between them, keeping the American back. “He didn’t mean it,” she said quickly. “My friend is not right in the head. He just says things. Bad things. I’m really very sorry. You should probably go.”

“Not before this creep gives my kid an apology.”

“Oh, God,” Valkyrie muttered.

“Have I offended you?” Skulduggery asked. “Oh, dear. I really am sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me,” the American snarled. “Apologise to my son.”

“Which one? The ugly one?”

“Whichever one you were talking about.”

“It was the ugly one,” Skulduggery confirmed.

“Stop calling my kid ugly!”

Valkyrie elbowed Skulduggery in the ribs. “Apologise this instant,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Of course,” Skulduggery said, and leaned down to the window. “I’m very sorry!” he said loudly so they could hear. “Sometimes I say things and I’m not aware that I’m saying them until it’s too late. It’s entirely my fault. My sincerest apologies for any offence caused.” He straightened up.

The American finally dragged his eyes off Skulduggery. “This,” he said, “is the nastiest town I’ve ever been to.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Valkyrie said.

He glared at Skulduggery one final time, then got into the rental car and drove off.

“What,” Valkyrie said, “was that?”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “What was what?”

“You called his kid ugly!”

“Did I?”

“It just happened twenty seconds ago!”

“Oh. I didn’t notice, to be honest. My mind was elsewhere. I’m sure I was joking, though. And I’m sure he knew I was joking. It’s all fine. It was an ugly kid, though. Did you see it? It’s like it had two half-finished faces pushed together. Still, all that’s in the past. I do hope they come back. They seemed nice. Come along.”

He walked towards the Sanctuary. Valkyrie hurried to catch up.

“Are you feeling OK?” she asked.

“Me?”

“You.”

“I suppose I’m feeling a little discombobulated. A little out of sorts. But I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Why are we here?”

She frowned. “We’re meeting with the Elders about Melancholia.”

He snapped his fingers. “Yes! Excellent. Good. So we are. Marvellous.”

The Bentley was parked outside an ugly building of concrete and granite. The Sanctuary was round and flat and low, and squatted beside the stagnant lake like someone had dropped it from a great height. It had one main entrance and three hidden exits. No windows. No paint. No frills. Inside it was just as frugal, stone walls and curving corridors flowing in a concentric pattern to the middle. Cleavers stood guard and sorcerers and officials went about their business. No matter the weather outside, it was always cold in the Sanctuary.

The Administrator met them when they entered. “Detectives Pleasant and Cain, the Council is waiting for you.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Lead the way, Tipstaff.”

Tipstaff nodded politely. They followed him on a bisecting route through the ever-decreasing circles of corridors, straight to the Round Room at the building’s core.

Pictures of dead Elders lined the walls, salvaged from the gloom by small spotlights. Three large chairs, like thrones, were placed in the middle of the room, and on those thrones sat the Elders. Ghastly Bespoke sat to the left, the light playing on the ridges of the scars that covered his entire head. In the middle sat Grand Mage Erskine Ravel, a handsome man with beautiful eyes and the slyest smile Valkyrie had ever seen, and on the right sat Madame Mist, a Child of the Spider, who looked at them through her veil. Out of all three Elders, she was the only one who didn’t seem to mind the robes they had to wear.

“Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain seek an audience with the Council,” Tipstaff announced, bowing before them. “Does the Council acquiesce?”

Ghastly sighed. “Is this really necessary?”

Tipstaff looked up. “Protocol must be followed, Elder Bespoke.”

“But they’re our friends.”

“That may be so, yet rules exist to guard us from chaos. This is a new Sanctuary, and protocol must be established and followed.”

“So we sit up here on these bloody thrones,” Ravel said, “and they stand down there? We can’t walk around or, I don’t know, grab a coffee while we talk?”

“If you want coffee, I’ll be more than happy to bring you some, Grand Mage.”

“I don’t want coffee,” Ravel grumbled. “Fine. OK. We’ll follow the rules. Skulduggery, Valkyrie, sorry about this.”

“No need to apologise,” Skulduggery said. “The whole situation is highly amusing, believe me. I like your robes, by the way.”

“I tried to redesign them,” Ghastly muttered, “but apparently, that’s not allowed, either.”

Tipstaff said nothing.

Madame Mist didn’t move an inch as she spoke. “Now that the quaint small talk has been dispensed with, perhaps the detectives could tell us what they came to see us about – something to do with Melancholia St Clair, no doubt.”

Skulduggery hesitated. “You’ve heard, then.”

“We have,” said Ravel. “What do we know about her?”

“She’s a few years older than me,” Valkyrie said. “Not much more than a low-level student. She’s spent her life in the Temple, reading the books and practising how to sound really pretentious when she talks. I don’t think anyone expected her to suddenly become so powerful. Wreath didn’t. Tenebrae didn’t.”

Ghastly moved in his seat, trying to get comfortable. “Is she trouble?”

“She’s nothing but a Necromancer,” Mist said in her soft voice. “All this talk of the Death Bringer is a waste of our time. Darquesse is the true danger. We should be focusing our energies on finding and killing her before she has a chance to strike.”

“The Necromancers should not be dismissed so casually,” Skulduggery said as Valkyrie looked away.

“I agree,” Ghastly nodded. “If Valkyrie had turned out to be the Death Bringer, we could have kept a close eye on things. That would have been ideal. But now that there’s an actual Necromancer in that position, we lose that advantage.”

Mist sighed. “The Necromancers are selfish cowards. They haven’t posed a threat to anyone in hundreds of years and I doubt they’re going to start now.”

“I hate to say it,” said Ravel, “but Elder Mist is right. It’s hard to take them seriously when they’ve barely poked a head out of their Temples in so long. Maybe if we knew a little more about this Passage thing …?”

“The Necromancers are working to keep us in the dark,” Skulduggery said. “Two people with vital information have so far been killed. That in itself tells me they’re planning something big.”

Ghastly frowned. “You told me once that the Passage is something that will break through the barrier between life and death.”

“Yes.”

“So what does that actually mean?”

“To be honest, Ghastly, I haven’t a bull’s notion.”

“Elder Bespoke should be addressed by his title,” Tipstaff said.

“Of course,” Skulduggery said. “To be honest, Your Highness, I haven’t a bull’s notion. The Necromancers believe life is a continuous stream of energy, flowing from life into death and around again into life. It’s all very vague and unsatisfying. They want to save the world, which is nice of them, but as of yet, they haven’t told us what they want to save the world from.”

“Well,” Ravel said, “maybe we’ll get lucky and Lord Vile will make an appearance, kill the Death Bringer like he said he would, take care of this whole thing before it becomes a problem and then walk off into the sunset.”

“I think it would be a mistake to count on Lord Vile to do anything other than murder a whole lot of people,” Skulduggery said.

“Agreed,” said Ghastly.

“Detective Pleasant,” Madame Mist said, “it is a well-known fact that you don’t like the Necromancer Order. That you take particular exception to their activities – especially since Solomon Wreath began training your protégée.”

“That would be an accurate summation, yes.”

“You don’t feel that your attitude could be tainting your objectivity?”

“When it comes to the Necromancers,” Skulduggery said, “I’m not objective in the slightest. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Our next move should be a visit to the Temple, where we can ask Solomon Wreath about this unknown agent who keeps killing the people we want to talk to.”

“So you’re requesting that more Sanctuary resources be made available to you, should you need them?” Ravel asked.

Skulduggery shrugged. “Yes I am, Your Almighty Holiness. What’s the point of having friends in high places if you can’t use them to settle old grudges?”

Ghastly looked at Ravel. “We need to find out what they’re up to.”

“This is a waste of our time,” said Mist.

Ravel shook his head. “I’m willing to go along with Skulduggery on this one. It might turn out to be nothing, but we need to find out what this Passage is, and we need to stop people dying.” He sat back in his throne, raising an eyebrow. “Hear that, Skulduggery? The Elders have spoken. That is the sound of the system working for you.”

Skulduggery tipped his hat to them. “I’m not going to lie to you, I could get used to this.”

alkyrie’s boots crunched on old graveyard gravel on their way to the crypt. Skulduggery didn’t even have his façade up – there was no one around on this bright evening to see them anyway. By this stage, Valkyrie knew the cemetery well, which was an odd boast for a sixteen-year-old to make, she was aware.

Skulduggery knocked heavily on the crypt door. Thirty seconds later, it opened, and a pale face regarded them with casual indifference. Valkyrie recognised him. His name was Oblivion, or Obliviate, or something. Or maybe Oblivious. No, she doubted it was Oblivious. Although …

“Yes?” said Oblivious. “What?”

“This is why I like Necromancers,” Skulduggery said. “You’re all so cheerful all the time. We’d like to speak with Cleric Wreath, please.”

“Cleric Wreath is busy,” Oblivious said lazily, and started to close the door.

Skulduggery jammed it with his foot. “I’m sure he’d love to see us, though. Look, she’s his favourite student.”

Oblivious observed Valkyrie then sighed. “We already have a Death Bringer, thank you. We don’t need another one.”

“He’s expecting us,” Valkyrie said. “He said to come right over, he’s got exciting news. He said we could walk right in, actually.”

“Your name isn’t on the list,” Oblivious responded.

“Well, maybe not on your list,” Valkyrie laughed.

“Are you implying that there is more than one list?”

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie said mysteriously. “Am I?”

Oblivious frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re—”

“Super!” Skulduggery exclaimed, and Oblivious yelped as Skulduggery shoved the door open and barged through. Valkyrie hurried down the narrow steps after him.

“I didn’t give you permission!” Oblivious raged. “Guards! Guards! We have intruders!”

Two Necromancers appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Skulduggery waved to them. “We’re not really intruding,” he called down. “This is all a big misunderstanding.”

“Stop right there!” shouted one of them.

Skulduggery held his hand to an ear he didn’t have. “What’s that?”

“Stop!”

“Keep going?”

“Stop!”

“OK, we’ll keep going.”

The Necromancer guards backed off as Skulduggery and Valkyrie reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Is Solomon in?” Skulduggery asked. “We’d like to give him a present that Valkyrie got for the Death Bringer. It’s a small gift, just to say congratulations, the best woman won, et cetera et cetera. Valkyrie, show them the gift.”

Valkyrie smiled at them, searched through the pockets of her jacket and came out with a half-empty packet of Skittles.

Oblivious came charging down the stairs. “You do not have permission to be here! You are trespassing!”

“Only a little bit,” Skulduggery said. “We’ll wait here for Wreath, if you wouldn’t mind calling him.”

Oblivious jabbed a finger into Skulduggery’s chest. “I demand that you leave!”

“But that would defeat the whole purpose of coming here.”

“We can do this the easy way,” Oblivious snarled, “or the hard way.”

“What’s the easy way?”

“You leave immediately.”

“And what’s the hard way?”

“We make you leave.”

Skulduggery’s head tilted. “What’s the easy way again?”

“Let them through,” said a voice from behind the guards. Solomon Wreath walked towards them, dressed in a black suit with a black shirt, cane in hand.

“But they’re trespassing,” Oblivious protested weakly.

Wreath waved a hand. “Only a little bit.”

“But our orders are from the High Priest himself. Now that we have the Death Bringer, we can’t allow any outsiders into the Temple, for her safety.”

“Then they’ll stay here in the Antechamber. They’re practically already outside.” Wreath’s good humour faded for a moment. “Now go away.”

The guards dispersed, and Oblivious swallowed thickly and backed off.

“Sorry about that,” Wreath said, turning to them.

“Quite all right,” Skulduggery responded.

Wreath smiled. “I wasn’t talking to you. Valkyrie, I wanted to speak to you before this, I really did, but things have been hectic here, and—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, shrugging. “Melancholia gets to save the world. That’s cool. Saves me from having to do it, right?”

“Still, I should have been the one to tell you. No one was more surprised than I when Craven brought her forward as the Death Bringer. But we’ve run some preliminary tests on her powers and they exceed anything we’ve ever seen, so she certainly qualifies. I’m not sure how it happened, it defies explanation, but … well. It happened.”

“Really, Solomon, it’s OK. You’re not going to ask for the ring back though, are you?”

Wreath smiled. “No. Just because you’re not the Death Bringer doesn’t mean you won’t make a powerful Necromancer.”

“But if this Passage thing happens, and I’m not trying to mock your beliefs or anything, won’t we be living in a paradise?”

“Am I to take it that you don’t yet believe the world is about to change?”

“Sorry. It’s just kind of hard to imagine. Again, it’s your belief and I don’t want to offend you …”

Wreath smiled. “You could never offend me.”

“I bet I could,” said Skulduggery. “Solomon, we want to talk to you about a friend of yours we ran into yesterday. Absolutely charming fellow – bald, he was, with a terrible goatee. He set the Jitter Girls on us while he made his escape.”

“That’s dreadful,” Wreath said. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t ring any bells. Anything else? Any other distinguishing marks or specific traits?”

“He was killing an old woman because she knew something about the Passage, and a few days earlier he’d killed a homeless man for the same reason,” Skulduggery said. “Is that specific enough for you?”

“That all sounds terrible,” Wreath said. “And yet, again, no bells are ringing.”

“Solomon,” Valkyrie said, “come on. He was a Necromancer. He was one of you.”

“That doesn’t mean I know anything about what he was doing.”

“But you do know him, yes?”

He looked at her. “Bald, with a goatee? I might.”

“The people he killed were of no threat to anyone. Paul Lynch was a Sensitive with a history of mental health problems. The only person who was ever going to listen to him was the old lady who was killed next.”

Wreath nodded. “It does seem quite … excessive.”

“What’s the bald man’s name?” Valkyrie asked.

Wreath sighed. “Dragonclaw.”

She frowned. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s a ridiculous name.”

“We are quite aware of how ridiculous it is, thank you. He’s used for black ops, but not very often. He tends to … go too far. Using the Jitter Girls as a delaying tactic is a perfect example of this.”

“And you know nothing about it?” Skulduggery asked.

“Not a thing,” Wreath said. “I’ve been busy lately, in case you haven’t noticed. I was ready to take Valkyrie to the next stage of her training – but now it seems as if Melancholia will be taking up everyone’s time. Joy of joys.”

Valkyrie heard the main door open again as someone else entered the Temple. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“So when might we get to experience this wonderful and world-changing Passage?” Skulduggery asked.

“Soon enough,” Wreath said. “Don’t you worry about it.”

“We heard we had until Sunday. Would that be about right?”

Wreath did an impressive job of keeping the frown off his face. “Where did you hear that?”

“So it is Sunday, then.”

Wreath scowled. “Maybe. By our calculations, Sunday would seem to be the best time to attempt it. Whether or not things work out the way we’d like remains to be seen.”

“On Sunday the world changes.”

“On Sunday the world is saved.”

“Yes,” Skulduggery said, “well, we’ll see about that.”

They turned, saw Dragonclaw coming down the steps. He caught sight of them and froze.

“Some people here to see you,” Wreath called lazily, and Dragonclaw spun on the step and ran back the way he had come.

Skulduggery bolted after him, Valkyrie at his heels. They ran up the steps and burst out into the open air to see Dragonclaw sprinting for the gate. He had a dagger in his hand, and with it he drew in the lengthening shadows and flicked them behind him. Skulduggery went right, Valkyrie went left, and the shadows passed harmlessly between them. Dragonclaw waved the dagger in a circle, surrounding himself with darkness, and vanished.

Skulduggery didn’t stop running. “He can’t shadow-walk far,” he said. “He’s still in the area.”

A car sped by on the road outside the cemetery, Dragonclaw at the wheel.

They ran for the Bentley. Valkyrie had barely buckled her seatbelt when Skulduggery jammed his foot on the accelerator and they shot forward. They got to the end of the road and turned, taking the corner so tight it was like the Bentley was on rails. Dragonclaw’s car, a black Hyundai, appeared through the windscreen. It overtook a van and swerved dangerously. The Bentley was gaining fast.

The Hyundai left the road, spinning its wheels as it slid sideways, and then took off down a narrow lane, careening from wall to wall. Skulduggery braked, changed gears, swung smoothly into the lane in pursuit. The walls whipped by on either side and Valkyrie cringed, expecting the wing mirrors to be snapped off. Skulduggery, of course, would never allow that to happen.

Dragonclaw wasn’t as skilful. The Hyundai hit a broken pallet that had been discarded in a pile of rubbish and it jumped slightly, its left side screeching against the wall. He pulled away too sharply and hit the right wall, jamming the Hyundai the width of the lane. As the Bentley braked, Valkyrie could see Dragonclaw clambering over the seat and tumbling out of the car on the far side.

She got out, Skulduggery already moving for the Hyundai. They both used the air to jump the ruined car, but when they landed on the other side, Dragonclaw was gone. Valkyrie started to run, but Skulduggery reached out, grabbed her arm.

“He must have known we’d go to the Temple,” Skulduggery said. She realised he had his gun in his hand. “He must have taken into account the chance that we’d find him.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You think this is a trap?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I try not to underestimate my opponents, no matter how ridiculous their beards.”

A man walked into the lane from the other end. Valkyrie tensed. He walked towards them slowly, taking his time. Wary of distractions, Valkyrie splayed her left hand, doing her best to read the air. If someone dropped from the buildings above, hopefully she’d notice the disruption to the air currents before they landed on her head.

The man walked closer. He wore a frayed coat and old, ill-fitting clothes. He was unshaven, and needed a haircut. He was holding something – a photograph. When he was twenty paces away, he stopped, examined the photo, then looked up.

“Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain,” he said. His accent was thick, Eastern European, and he sounded bored. “I’ve been paid to kill you.” He put the photograph away.

“Interesting,” Skulduggery said. “Does it make any difference, the fact that I’m pointing a gun at you?”

The man shrugged.

“He doesn’t seem worried,” Valkyrie murmured.

“That’s never a good sign,” Skulduggery murmured back. He spoke louder. “We have no quarrel with you. We just want the man who hired you – we want Dragonclaw.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have a quarrel with me or not,” the man replied, raising his hand. “I’m going to kill you both.”

“Happy to disappoint,” Skulduggery said, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the man in the neck, opening up a wound from which burst dazzling yellow light. He clamped a hand over the wound, shutting off the glare, and when he removed it, the bullet hole had sealed.

“You’re a Warlock,” Skulduggery said. “I thought your kind were extinct.”

For the first time, the man smiled. “Almost. Not quite. We’re growing stronger every day.”

“What are you doing here? You’re a mercenary now, is that it? Being paid to kill people?”

“This is a special favour,” the Warlock replied. “When it is over, when I am told my services are no longer required, I will return home.”

“What are you getting out of this? What is Dragonclaw doing for you in return? Or maybe it’s not Dragonclaw. Maybe it’s the Necromancers as a whole. What do they want?”

“I can’t see the point of telling you, seeing as how you will be dead soon.”

“What do you know of the Passage?” Skulduggery asked.

The Warlock shook his head. “I don’t know what that is, and we have talked enough.”

His hand bubbled and boiled, and when he thrust it forward, his palm burst open and a stream of yellow light erupted from beneath. It hit Valkyrie’s left shoulder and she spun, cursing, her shoulder tingling then going numb, and by the time she found her balance again, her whole arm was dead.

Skulduggery had used those few seconds to launch himself at the Warlock. His hat flew off as he slammed his forehead into the man’s face, followed it with three sharp elbows and then clubbed the man with the butt of his gun. The Warlock reached out, taking hold of him and launching him through the air.

Valkyrie whipped her good hand at the Warlock, and a trail of shadows sought the man out. They slashed across his face, tearing skin. More light burst from the wounds. Valkyrie whipped her hand back, pouring her magic into the next strike, aiming to take the man’s head from his body. But her opponent ducked, moving fast, and another beam of light escaped from the jagged hole in his palm. Valkyrie jerked away, the light narrowly missing her, and the man was upon her, fingers closing around her throat. The Warlock hauled her up, slammed her against the wall with one hand. His other hand, the hand with the hole in it, was inches from Valkyrie’s face.

It began to bubble again.

kulduggery slammed into the Warlock just as the yellow light exploded. The beam missed Valkyrie and she fell awkwardly, aware of Skulduggery and the Warlock tumbling away from her. Skulduggery was the first up, made to grab the Warlock, but the Warlock kept ducking and dodging, giving himself room, not letting Skulduggery latch on to him. And then his hand opened up again and that light burst out, catching Skulduggery full in the chest. Skulduggery crumpled to the ground.

The Warlock straightened up, held his hand out towards Valkyrie. She swept her arm up and a sudden wind took her off her feet as the yellow light exploded, lancing the space where she had just been standing. She spun through the air, hit the ground and tumbled, finally rolling to her feet. The Warlock wasn’t looking so calm any more. He cradled his wounded hand close to his chest, flexing the fingers. He was pale, his jaw clenched. Using that kind of magic was taking its toll.

Valkyrie’s left arm was tingling now as feeling returned to it. She’d probably only get one chance at ending this fight, and she had to seize it. She broke into a sprint, barrelling right at the Warlock. She saw the man’s other hand too late, saw how the skin bubbled, and though she tried to twist out of the way, she wasn’t fast enough. The yellow light filled her vision and she lost all bearing.

She wasn’t running any more, she knew that. She wasn’t doing anything any more. She blinked, saw the sky above. She was lying on her back. Her body was numb. Unresponsive.

She heard footsteps. The Warlock. Walking slowly. Dragging his feet. Getting closer. He came into view. His hair clung tight to his scalp. He was sweating. He held his hands away from his body, the fingers curled painfully. He looked weak. He looked drained. He looked hungry.

With much effort, the Warlock straddled Valkyrie, sitting on her belly, a bent knee on either side. The wounds on his hands were trying to close, but they were too great. The Warlock didn’t move for the longest time. He was gathering his strength. Valkyrie tried to move, but she couldn’t. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t do that, either.

The Warlock licked his dry lips, pulled them back off his teeth. He did that a few more times, and every time he did it, his mouth widened. His jaw clicked and cracked. His teeth darkened. He was getting ready to eat.

In her mind, Valkyrie screamed and raged. She kicked and punched and fought. In her mind, she reached up and raked the eyes of the Warlock, gouging them from their sockets. She clawed the Warlock’s face, leaving bloody furrows in the skin.

But her body did none of that. Her body lay where it was. The Warlock was going to eat through her flesh to her soul, and by the looks of it, Valkyrie was going to be alive when it all happened.

She felt something. A tingle in her right boot. Her big toe. She could feel her big toe. She wriggled it, tried to get the feeling to spread.

A finger now. The middle finger on her left hand. Tingling and buzzing. Pins and needles. Lovely pins and lovely needles.

She could feel the Warlock’s weight now. Her hip buzzed, the buzzing travelling slowly across her waist. The Warlock knew none of this. The Warlock just sat there, licking his lips and widening his mouth. The teeth looked bigger, darker, stronger. They looked like teeth that could tear through bone and gristle.

Valkyrie’s own lips were burning as sensation flooded back into them. Her nose was itchy.

The Warlock’s mouth stopped widening. The process was complete. The Warlock was going to eat, before feeling returned to Valkyrie’s arms and legs. The Warlock bent down, the huge mouth wide open, and Valkyrie sat up and crunched her head into his nose. He gagged, dropped back a little, shaking his head, eyes closed, too stunned to react properly. She did it again, the pain exploding through her skull, and this time the Warlock toppled backwards. She shifted her hips to the side, managed to get to her knees, tried to run but collapsed. The Warlock roared in pain and anger. His hand closed around her ankle and he pulled her to him.

Skulduggery grabbed him from behind, wrapping him up in a sleeper hold and hauling him to his feet. The Warlock’s huge mouth snapped and snarled.

Valkyrie fumbled clumsily for the handcuffs she kept on her belt. Moving unsteadily, she fell against the Warlock. He tried to bite her, but she swayed away from him, grabbed an arm and clicked the handcuff around his wrist.

The Warlock gasped as his magic was bound. His mouth shrank. Skulduggery threw him against the wall and stomped on his knee. The Warlock howled in pain as Skulduggery cuffed the other hand.

Valkyrie’s knees gave out, but Skulduggery grabbed her, stopped her from falling.

“I’m all tingly,” Valkyrie said.

“I have that effect,” Skulduggery responded.

“You won’t stop us,” the Warlock snarled from the ground. “My brothers and sisters will be coming for you.”

“Lots of people are coming for us,” Skulduggery told him. “We’re very unpopular in certain circles. Evil circles, you know. But your brothers and sisters are very far away, and it’s going to take a while for them to even hear about this, so they don’t really concern us right now. The only thing we care about is finding Dragonclaw. If you can help us do that, we’d be willing to make a deal.”

“You cannot bargain,” the Warlock said. “It is too late for that. Too late for you. I will be avenged.”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “We hit you a few times. Is there really a need to be avenged for a few slaps?”

The Warlock managed a smile. “Look out for us,” he said. “We’re coming.”

He contorted in pain, eyes screwed tightly shut. When he opened them, yellow light spilled out.

“Uh-oh,” Skulduggery said. He scooped Valkyrie into his arms and they flew, the wind in her hair, landing behind the Hyundai as more light burst from the Warlock’s screaming mouth. Skulduggery pulled Valkyrie down behind cover and there was an explosion of blinding yellow light – and then nothing.

Valkyrie blinked rapidly, trying to get her vision back. She felt Skulduggery stand up, and she did the same. “What happened?” she asked.

“He’s dead,” Skulduggery answered. “Some kind of Warlock self-destruct thing. It must have been triggered the moment his powers were bound.”

Her sight was returning to her, and she looked over at where the Warlock had lain. Now there were only his empty clothes.

Skulduggery called the Sanctuary, then searched through the Warlock’s clothes while they waited for back-up to arrive.

“Nothing,” he said. “No receipts, no ticket stubs, no clues.”

“Warlocks, eh?” Valkyrie said, watching him.

“Warlocks are dark sorcerers on a dark path. They eat the souls of their enemies to absorb their strength. I haven’t gone up against them in … a long time. I didn’t think there were any left.” Skulduggery picked up his hat and put it on. “During the war, Mevolent tried to form an alliance with them. He sent a squad of his best people to open negotiations, and they were never heard from again.”

“And yet we just took down one of them,” Valkyrie said. “They don’t seem to be that tough. Apart from the nearly killing us bit. Do you think there’ll be more?”

“Eventually. Not for a while. If we’re lucky. This is the second time Dragonclaw has got away from us, though. First the Jitter Girls, now a Warlock. He really is breaking all the rules.” Skulduggery looked up. “Still, maybe this will convince the Elders to take the Necromancer threat seriously.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You don’t think they do already?”

“Not really, no. Neither does anyone else. All the Sanctuaries around the world are either too busy with their own problems or they’re preparing to battle this oh-so-mysterious Darquesse. If the Death Bringer was seen as a threat, we’d have teams from twenty different Sanctuaries storming the Temple as we speak.”

“Maybe that means the Passage won’t be a bad thing, then. Maybe it will save the world.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “Paul Lynch had a vision of something that got him killed. This ridiculous Dragonclaw person isn’t covering up that trail for the fun of it.”

“Then maybe the other Sanctuaries are just hoping that Lord Vile carries out his threat and kills the Death Bringer.”

“Very likely,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie hesitated. “Do you think he’ll come after me, like he told you he would?”

“That was before,” Skulduggery said. “That was when everyone thought that you were going to be the Death Bringer. Now that we actually have one confirmed, all his attention will be focused on her.”

“Lucky, lucky Melancholia. You’re sure about this, though?”

“I’m sure. Killing you won’t help Lord Vile achieve his aim.”

“Do you have any idea why he’s so keen to stop the Passage from happening?”

“I don’t,” Skulduggery murmured. “It must be important, though, to bring him back like this. I thought he was gone for good.”

“Guess he just doesn’t want to live in a perfect world.”

A van pulled up at the mouth of the lane. Sanctuary sorcerers got out, nodded to them as they began cordoning off the area.

“You don’t think the problem here is us, do you?” Valkyrie asked. “I mean, maybe we’re so used to being the ones who save the world that we can’t see it when someone else is about to do the same. Solomon keeps saying that the Passage is going to help people.”

“True,” Skulduggery said. “But if you asked Serpine why he wanted to bring the Faceless Ones back, he’d have told you the same thing. It all depends on what people you’re talking about helping. That’s the wonderful thing about just about every religion on the planet – they’re all so incredibly selfish.”

“You are a cynical man, Mr Pleasant.”

“We live in cynical times, Miss Cain.”

He dropped her off at the pier, and she watched him drive away before turning to the shadows. “I know you’re there,” she said.

He emerged, his footsteps silent. He was tall and slender, his hair black and his skin pale. He had died as a nineteen-year-old, and it was in this form that he was frozen. He would never grow old. He would never fade. His face would never lose its beauty.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Caelan said, his voice barely audible over the gentle lapping of the waves.

“Couldn’t you have found a safer place to wait?” she asked, hooking her thumbs into her pockets. “People like you really shouldn’t be hanging around the waterfront, you know. If you swallow any sea spray, your throat’s going to close up and you’ll die.”

“And would you be sad?”

“Sure I would. I once lost a gerbil. I’d imagine the pain would be similar.”

He moved closer to her. “So I’m your pet, am I?”

“Of course. You’re my vampire.”

He was right in front of her now, and he leaned in and they kissed. “And are you my human?” he whispered.

“So long as you’re OK about sharing me, sure,” she said, and they kissed again.

His hand went to her face. “I don’t like sharing things.”

“And I don’t like being called a thing, but life isn’t fair.”

“You should be mine alone.”

She gave him a smile. “Have you taken your serum tonight? Because you’re sounding awfully territorial.”

He stepped back. “The serum is not to be joked about. Without it, I would tear off my skin and devour you.”

“Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? But I can’t tonight, dear, I’m on babysitting duty, which I’m actually quite looking forward to, and then it’s bedtime.”

“Then I will remain beside you while you sleep.”

“My folks would love that,” Valkyrie said with a chuckle. He didn’t smile. “You’re not going to watch me sleep.”

“I have made up my mind.”

She looked at him. “Eh, what?”

“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Valkyrie. But you needn’t worry. From this moment on, you are mine to protect.”

“I’m a little stuck for words here,” she said. “I’m just trying to get my head around it, trying to find the right way to … OK, yeah, I have it now. Caelan, cop on to yourself.”

He blinked his beautiful eyes. “I’m … I’m only doing this because I care so much. I’m here to protect you.”

“See, that’s where the problem is stemming from. I don’t need you to protect me. I’m not saying I don’t need protection. My God, the amount of trouble I get into, I could use all the help I can get. But my protection comes from people like Skulduggery, and Ghastly, and China – you know, people who are powerful enough to protect me from the things I can’t protect myself from.”

“You … think I’m weak?”

“I think you’re grand. And I acknowledge the fact that you’re a vampire – that’s very impressive. But let’s face it, your real power kicks in when you turn and, unfortunately, when you turn, you tend to forget who’s a friend and who’s a foe, so that’s not a whole lot of use to any of us.”

“I would never hurt you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, but, really, you’d never get that chance. Caelan, you’re not my protector, you’re not my guardian angel and you’re not my boyfriend.”

His perfect jaw tightened. “But I love you.”

“Here we go.”

“When will you admit that you’re in love with me too?”

“I swear, talking to you is like talking to a really good-looking and mildly stupid brick wall. Look, I like you, OK? I do. I know I shouldn’t, I know it’s a cliché to fall for the bad boy …”

Caelan frowned. “I’m a bad boy?”

“But it happened,” she continued, ignoring him, “and that’s it. I think you’re cute. You could probably ease up on the brooding and self-loathing, though – that stopped being attractive a while ago. But I mean, on the whole, I like you, and you like me—”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, well …”

“You make my heart want to beat.”

“That’s nice and creepy. But I’m with Fletcher.”

“You’ve been with him for a while now. It doesn’t stop you coming to me.”

“Yeah, and that makes me feel so much better about it all. I’m cheating on my boyfriend, who is really nice and sweet and hot, and I’m cheating on him because, let’s face it, I’m really not a good person. I’m a cheating girlfriend.”

“Then never see him again and your conscience will be clear,” he said, taking her hand in his.

She frowned at him. “But I want to see him again.”

“If you wanted him, you wouldn’t be with me.”

“It is possible to want more than one person at the same time, you know.”

“I only want you.”

“And you should really get out more.” Valkyrie disentangled herself from him. “Also, all these proclamations of your undying love for me are getting kind of … It’s a bit much, to be honest. Just hold back a little.”

“But my love for you is eternal.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

“I need you. I need to be around you. I’m dead, Valkyrie. I’m dead, but when you’re here, I feel alive. Memories are stirred of a pulse, of breath in my lungs, of life in my heart. The more I’m with you, the more I need. My passion burns …”

She made a face. “I don’t need to know about your burning passion.”

“It burns for you, Valkyrie. I’m on fire. My mind is in flames.”

“Couldn’t we just be each other’s bit on the side?”

“You love me. I see it in your eyes.”

“I think you’re mistaking confusion for love.”

“I love you with everything that is me.”

“Remember when you were the strong, silent type? Could we go back to that?”

“It’s too late to go back. You’ve reawakened the old Caelan. Because of you, I remember who I used to be. Because of you, I can push the monster down.”

“And that is very much appreciated.”

“Before you, my life was in darkness. It was hollow and empty and cold. But you shone a light through the darkness. You led me home.”

“Yeah, I’m great. Could we stop talking now?”

“But I want to talk. I want to talk for ever.”

“I think you are…”

“You, Valkyrie, are my sweet agony.”

She held up a hand. “OK, I’m really going to have to stop you there. You say one more thing that sounds like it’s ripped from the pages of a really bad gothic romance and I’m out of here, are we clear? You’ll have talked yourself out of ten minutes with me. Is that what you want?”

Caelan shook his head.

“Good doggy. And never call me your sweet agony ever again.”

elancholia listened patiently while the woman explained what all the charts meant. Two other Necromancers stood by the door, and Cleric Craven hovered nearby, as was his new habit. He seemed reluctant to let Melancholia out of his sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

“The good news,” the woman said, “is that we have established a pattern. If our calculations are correct, you should start to feel strong again sometime in the next twenty minutes, and this strength should stay with you for anywhere between three and four hours.”

The woman had an annoying tendency to wait for some indication that Melancholia had heard and understood, so Melancholia gave her a nod. “Four hours,” she echoed.

“You may experience some dizziness and some fatigue during those four hours, and if you do, don’t worry about it. It should pass within moments.” The woman’s name was Adrienna Shade. She was powerful, and intelligent, and had risen quickly through the Necromancer ranks. There had been rumours that she was to be made a Cleric, a virtually unheard of promotion for one so young. Melancholia used to admire her. But that was before Craven’s experiment, before the Surge. Now Adrienna Shade meant nothing to her. Melancholia glanced around the room. None of these people meant anything to her.

“But in four hours’ time,” Shade continued, “you’ll grow weak again. Very weak. We’ll have IV drips and oxygen standing by in case you sink to dangerous levels. Whatever happens, we’ll be ready for it.”

Melancholia doubted that very much, but she smiled and thanked her nonetheless, and Shade put away her charts and instruments, and left the chamber.

“Cleric Craven,” Melancholia said, “is it OK for me to be alone for the next few hours?”

He frowned. “We need to conduct more tests, Melancholia.”

“But this is a lot to take in, and I think it would really help me if I had the night to myself. I’ll submit to all the tests in the morning, I promise.”

Craven sighed irritably. He had a tendency to get irritated very easily. “Yes, very well. The night, then. Tomorrow, tests.”

“Thank you, Cleric,” Melancholia said, and bowed her head. She knew Craven responded well to things like that.

The Cleric walked from the room, ushering the guards out before him. The door closed, and Melancholia allowed herself a smile. Twenty minutes, and she’d feel that power again. Twenty minutes, and she could have herself a little fun.

lice woke at a little before midnight, and Valkyrie muted the TV before scooping her out of her bed. Her parents were out. Valkyrie didn’t mind. It had been a long day and all she wanted to do was relax at home with her little sister.

“Hello,” Valkyrie said. “You’re awake, then. Did you have a good sleep? Are you rested?”

The baby looked at her and said nothing. Valkyrie took one of the bottles from the side table, teased it down to Alice’s mouth until she started feeding. Her phone rang.

It was Fletcher. “Are your folks still out?”

“Yep. Me and the kid are downstairs. Want to come over?”

“Be right there,” he said, and hung up.

She looked at Alice. “Your sister is a bad person,” she whispered. “Two-timing is not an admirable quality in anyone.”

Fletcher appeared beside her. He peered at the baby.

“Can it do any tricks yet?” he asked.

“I’m still working on it. Want to hold her?”

“God, no,” Fletcher said, laughing. “I’d drop it.”

“It’s not an it, it’s my sister. Go on, hold her. You won’t make a mess of it, I swear. Only an idiot could drop a baby.”

“You always say I am an idiot.”

“But you’re a special kind of idiot. Here.”

She passed Alice into his arms, and he stood there, rigid, a look of intense concentration on his face.

“I’ve got to support the head, right?” he asked. “And the rest of the body, obviously, but mostly the head. The head’s the important bit. Am I doing it right?”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Do you think it likes me?”

“Honestly, I think she has more taste than that. The baby’s like me – she tolerates you.” She gave him the bottle, waited until Alice was feeding again, then stepped back. “Want a cup of coffee?”

“I’d better not, I’m holding a baby.”

“Suit yourself.” Valkyrie went to the kitchen, dumped a spoonful of coffee into a mug while she waited for the water to boil. She looked up at the window, tried to peer through the blackness on the other side, but all she could see was her own face staring back at her.

Fletcher walked in on stiff legs. “Haven’t dropped it yet.”

“You’re a natural,” Valkyrie said, smiling and turning away from the window.

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, yeah. All you need is to wipe that petrified look off your face and you’ll be inundated with babysitting jobs.”

“In that case, I think I’ll keep this petrified look, thank you very much.”

She poured the boiling water into the mug and gave it a few quick stirs, but just as she was about to take a sip, they heard a noise coming from upstairs.

They froze. Fletcher looked at her.

“I thought we were alone,” he said softly.

“We were,” Valkyrie replied. She put down the mug. “Stay here.”

Fletcher shook his head, holding Alice out to her. “You stay here. I can teleport up and back again before whoever it is even blinks.”

“It’s my house. I’m in charge. I’m going up. If it’s trouble, take the baby to the twins, then get back here immediately and help.”

“Valkyrie, for God’s sake—”

“We’re not arguing about this.”

She walked past him, out of the kitchen and into the hall. The lights were on upstairs. It was brightly lit and warm and welcoming. She climbed the stairs. Shadows curled around her right hand.

Another sound, coming from her room. The first thought that entered her mind was that Tanith had lied when she’d said she’d leave Valkyrie’s family alone. Valkyrie hesitated, then shouldered the door open and barged in.

The reflection turned to her.

Relief flooded through Valkyrie’s veins, followed by puzzlement, and then anger. “What are you doing out?”

“I’m sorry?” the reflection said.

“You’re out of the mirror. How the hell are you out of the mirror?”

“You didn’t put me back in.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No. You didn’t. You told me to get into the mirror, but you didn’t touch the glass.”

Valkyrie frowned. “I did. I did touch it.”

The reflection shook its head. “You must have forgotten.”

“I didn’t forget, for God’s sake. It was two hours ago. I climbed through the window, you got in the mirror, I touched the glass and absorbed your memories. I remember everything you did today.”

Now it was the reflection’s turn to frown, a perfect simulation of a puzzled expression. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

“Oh for God’s sake … I let you out of the mirror this morning, you went downstairs and Alice was crying—”

“That was yesterday.”

Valkyrie stopped. “What?”

“You’re remembering yesterday. Alice was fine this morning. You came back two hours ago, I got in the mirror but you left the room before you touched the glass, that’s all. You just forgot.”

“But I remember touching the …”

“Do you? Do you actually remember? Or do you just assume you did it because it’s what you always do?”

Downstairs, the baby started crying.

“She probably needs her bottle,” the reflection said, and walked past Valkyrie, out of the room. Valkyrie watched it go, still frowning. She looked at the mirror, piecing together the events of the last two hours. She’d climbed through the window and the reflection had been doing their homework for school the next day. Valkyrie had told it to step into the mirror, and she’d changed her clothes, fixed her hair and … and …

She was sure that she’d touched the mirror. She was sure that the reflection’s memories had flooded her mind. She was almost certain of it. It was possible, of course it was, that she was getting mixed up. It was an easy mistake to make, after all. It was like locking the front door before bed, then lying in bed minutes later and wondering if you’d actually locked the door or you’d just thought about it.

Valkyrie went downstairs. Keeping track of two sets of memories had been tricky at first, but she was an expert at it by now – two parallel tracks of experiences, happening at the same time, sometimes even in the same space. It had taken the longest time to get used to sorting through conversations that she’d had with herself. Viewing a conversation from both sides had been brain-meltingly unsettling. And even though there were some flaws in the process, some gaps in the reflection’s memories that she couldn’t access, she had always felt that she had a handle on it all. Until just now.

Valkyrie walked into the living room. The reflection had Alice in its arms, and it was smiling gently as the baby guzzled from the bottle. Fletcher stood nearby.

“Sorry,” he said. “She kept batting the bottle away and then started crying.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Valkyrie said, keeping her eyes on the reflection. “So you’ve been in the mirror for the past few hours?”

“Yes,” the reflection said.

“And then what? You got bored? Decided to go for a walk?”

“I don’t get bored. There was homework that needed to be finished. I finished it.”

“Right. But, see, I’m sure I touched that mirror.”

“You didn’t. I’m sorry if I startled you. Fletcher, could you hand me a tissue?”

Fletcher snagged a tissue from the box on the mantelpiece and gave it to the reflection. The reflection used it to wipe milk from the baby’s chin, and then went back to feeding. “You can continue your conversation, if you like. Forget I’m even here.”

Fletcher started grinning, and Valkyrie turned her frown on him. “What’s so amusing?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. Well … OK, I was just thinking … And don’t get mad, because this is just a thought that entered my head, so it’s not my fault, it’s the thought’s fault, but … If you found me with your reflection one day, would that technically be cheating?”

Valkyrie’s frown turned to a glare, and Fletcher backed away, laughing. “It was a thought! It was a question I had to ask! I mean, come on, you’ve thought about it yourself, haven’t you?”

“No,” she said coldly, “I haven’t.”

“Yes, she has,” the reflection said, and Fletcher burst out laughing. The reflection laughed along with him.

“I knew it!” Fletcher cried. “I knew it!”

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”

The reflection smiled at her. “I’m simulating appropriate human responses. Fletcher found the truth amusing and I joined him in laughing at your embarrassment.”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

“Yes, you are.”

“It’s fine,” Fletcher said, “forget I ever said anything. I have the real Valkyrie anyway – why would I ever need a substitute?”

Fletcher went to wrap an arm around Valkyrie, but she moved away from him, keeping her eyes on the reflection. “Give me my sister.” The reflection walked over, did as Valkyrie ordered. “Now go upstairs. Get into the mirror. Stay there.”

“Of course,” the reflection said, and its gaze dropped to the baby for a split-second. As it walked out, it smiled at Fletcher. “Goodnight,” it said.

Fletcher waved, then frowned. “Goodnight,” he said, unsure. They listened to it climb the stairs. “It’s never done that before. It’s never said goodnight.”

“What the hell were you doing? You were encouraging it. You were playing with it.”

“I was just having a laugh …”

“And it was having a laugh too. It was laughing at me. You don’t find anything about that slightly weird? It’s not supposed to do that.”

“Well, I don’t know, it’s not supposed to do a lot of things, is it? The programming is a little off. There’s a malfunction somewhere. So what? It does its job. It imitates you to perfection. And it got Alice to stop crying the moment it took her. So it acts weird every now and then, so you forget to touch the glass every once in a while, so what? It’s not the end of the world, and you’ve got other things to worry about. Like the end of the world.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Here. We have an evening to ourselves. An ordinary, average evening, where we can be a normal boyfriend and girlfriend, babysitting and snuggling on the couch. I can pop over to Milan for a pizza from that great place under the arch, I can get that ice cream you love from that place in San Francisco … It’ll be a nice, quiet night in. That sound good to you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it sounds nice. I’m starving, actually. Get the pizza.”

“And the ice cream?”

“And the ice cream.”

He smiled, and vanished. Valkyrie laid Alice in her cot, made sure she was comfortable, and went upstairs to her bedroom. The reflection was in the mirror. Valkyrie tapped the glass firmly, and the memories transferred as the girl in the mirror changed to reflect her own image. The memories settled as she stood there. The reflection had been right. She had simply forgotten to touch the glass earlier on. She saw herself change her clothes, fix her hair and then just walk out of the room. She replayed the memory again, while it was still fresh in her mind, before the details faded and it was just another mix of sensations. She watched herself change her clothes, fix her hair and …

She was sure she had approached the mirror. She was sure she had touched the glass. But the reflection’s memory made it clear that she had just turned and walked out. She hadn’t even glanced at the mirror.

That was that. Mystery solved. She’d made a mistake and that’s all there was to it.

The reflection had kept things from her before – there had been gaps, moments that were missing. There was nothing missing here, though. There was no sign of tampering – nothing obvious anyway. Unless the reflection had discovered a new way of editing its memories, a new way to seamlessly cover over the gaps, then it had been telling the truth. Valkyrie tapped the glass again. “It looks like I owe you an apology.”

The reflection leaned forward till its head passed through the mirror. “No need. I am incapable of being offended.”

Valkyrie frowned. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. I know that.”

“Then why did you apologise?”

“I’m … not sure.”

“Do you want me to finish your homework?”

“Yeah. Good. You do that.”

The reflection nodded, stepped out of the mirror and sat at the desk. Unsettled, with no clear reason why, Valkyrie went back downstairs. Halfway down, someone knocked on the front door. Valkyrie crossed the hall, opened the door, looked out into darkness.

Melancholia stood where the garden path met the pavement. Her hood was down, the breeze playing with her hair, a smile playing on her lips.

“Hello, Valkyrie,” she said, then held her arms out to either side and said, “Surprise.”

alkyrie felt something cold twist in her gut. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice brittle and sharp. “This is my home.”

“I know it is,” Melancholia answered. “I’ve heard Cleric Wreath mention the pier in Haggard so many times that it was really no trouble finding you. So this is where you live, then. How … mundane.”

Melancholia smiled as she approached. The hem of her robes flowed over the ground like a river of shadows. “What’s wrong? Nothing to say? You usually have lots to say. Are you feeling all right? Are you sick? Are you ill? You don’t look ill. Are you putting a brave face on it? You have nothing to prove to me, you know. I respect you for who you are. And who are you again? Oh yes, that’s right. Absolutely nobody.”

“Whatever you want,” Valkyrie said, struggling to keep her anger down, “it can wait, OK? My baby sister’s inside.”

Melancholia’s smile grew wider, and now Valkyrie could see the multitude of symbols that scarred her face. “You have a sister? I didn’t know that. Do you think she’ll grow up to be as ordinary as you, perhaps? How does it feel, to suddenly go from being the saviour of the world back to being some insignificant little schoolgirl?”

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