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Dark Days
Derek Landy
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior.Oh yes. And dead.Skulduggery Pleasant is gone, sucked into a parallel dimension overrun by the Faceless Ones. If his bones haven’t already been turned to dust, chances are he’s insane, driven out of his mind by the horror of the ancient gods. There is no official, Sanctuary-approved rescue mission. There is no official plan to save him.But Valkyrie's never had much time for plans.The problem is, even if she can get Skulduggery back, there might not be much left for him to return to. There’s a gang of villains bent on destroying the Sanctuary, there are some very powerful people who want Valkyrie dead, and as if all that wasn’t enough it looks very likely that a sorcerer named Darquesse is going to kill the world and everyone on it.Skulduggery is gone. All our hopes rest with Valkyrie. The world’s weight is on her shoulders, and its fate is in her hands.These are dark days indeed.
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010
First published in this edition in the
United States of America by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018
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 (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Skulduggery Pleasant rests his weary bones on the web at:
www.skulduggerypleasant.com (http://www.skulduggerypleasant.com)
Derek Landy blogs under duress at
www.dereklandy.blogspot.com (http://www.dereklandy.blogspot.com)
Text copyright © Derek Landy 2010
Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2010
Skulduggery Pleasant logo
HarperCollins Publishers
Skulduggery Pleasant ©
Derek Landy
Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com (http://blacksheep-uk.com)
Cover illustration © Neil Swabb
Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this 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: 9780008266349
Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780008266356
Version: 2018-07-25
This book is dedicated to Laura.
I’m not going to make any jokes here, because apparently you are the one person on Earth who does not find me even remotely funny.
I am HILARIOUS. Ask anyone. Ask your sister. She thinks I’m HYSTERICAL (you do, don’t you Katie …?)
And yet, even though you refuse to recognise my comedy genius, and you refuse to publicly admit how impressed you are by everything I do, you’re still getting a book dedicated to you – because without you, Skulduggery wouldn’t have his Valkyrie.
You’re my best friend and my muse, and I owe you a lot.
(A “lot” being, of course, entirely figurative, and in no way implies that you’re getting a share of the royalties.)
Contents
Cover (#ub65cdc2f-3335-5b61-8b75-ac55f3db5b34)
Title Page (#uaeb1f365-9059-52a2-bfa9-d63e50f485ca)
Copyright (#ucddf5e5b-08e1-58c9-a9b5-2de1c1fcaba7)
Dedication (#u1f02d111-2612-517b-a971-e2fd86e6aa89)
Chapter 1: Scarab (#u9b255ebc-2785-5928-81f3-7b1071992176)
Chapter 2: Home Invasion (#uf31d7e0b-a570-5551-b8e3-750397c7c037)
Chapter 3: The Plan, Such as It Is (#u2eac7d37-141d-55b3-9c7e-945dc9e834d0)
Chapter 4: Bring Me the Head of Skulduggery Pleasant (#u1dbac927-18fb-57c1-9cd2-8bff53e2259d)
Chapter 5: The Revengers’ Club (#u634634e6-67b1-5735-a6b8-71a023845e11)
Chapter 6: Into the Sanctuary (#u6ae54fe7-8e76-523e-9231-719f076009f7)
Chapter 7: Back to Aranmore (#u671d3522-9cde-5cdb-bef9-c543cd7cfb07)
Chapter 8: Calling Dibs (#u05f64626-103b-5faa-b864-8b5aabd55393)
Chapter 9: Dead New World (#u1a71b243-2bdc-5116-9be2-f0543e0aad4e)
Chapter 10: Blood and Bullets (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: The Faceless Ones (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: Down the Barrel (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: No Thanks (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: The Fact of the Matter (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Back on Cemetery Road (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: The Temple (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Dead Man Talking (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Darquesse (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: The New Pet (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: The Zombie Horde (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: The Raid (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: The Man Who Killed Esryn Vanguard (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Crux (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: The Plot Thickens … (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Last Vampire Standing (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Kidnapped (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: When Kenspeckle Met Scarab (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: The Midnight Hotel (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: The Sit-Down (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Mid-Aftrnoon of the Dead (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Billy-Ray (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Things Get Worse (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Possessed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34: The Meeting (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Myron Stray (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Playtime (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37: China’s Dark Secret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: The Castle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Hollow Man (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40: With Gordon (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: The Exorcists (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: The Necromancers (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: The Road to Croke Park (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44: Revenge (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45: Searching for Scarab (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46: Endgame (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47: Crazy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48: A Quiet Moment (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49: Escorting the Prisoner (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50: Back to Haggard (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51: Whispers (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
The Skulduggery Pleasant series (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#ulink_13a98629-44bd-5943-9c46-5fa6f31cdf8d)
hen Dreylan Scarab had been locked away in his little cell, he’d thought about nothing but murder. He liked murder. Murder and long walks had been two of his favourite things when he was younger. He’d walk a long way to kill someone, he’d often said, and he’d kill for a long walk. But after close to 200 years in that cell, he’d kind of lost interest in walks. His passion for murder, however, burned brighter than ever.
They let him out of prison a few days early, and he stepped into the Arizona sunshine an old man. They had kept his power from him, and without his power his body had withered and aged. But his mind stayed sharp. Try as they might, the years could not dull his mind. Still, he didn’t like being old. He counted how long it took him to cross the road and wasn’t pleased with the result.
He stood there for two hours. The dust kicked up and got into his eyes. He looked around for something to kill, then quelled the urge. The entrance to the underground prison was within spitting distance, and killing something while the guards were still watching was probably a bad idea. Besides, Scarab’s magic hadn’t returned to him yet, so even if there were something in this desert worth killing, he might not have been able to manage it.
A shape came through the shimmer of the heat haze, solidifying into a black, air-conditioned automobile. It pulled up and a man got out slowly. It took Scarab a moment to recognise him.
“Why the hell didn’t you break me out?” Scarab growled. His voice depressed him. In the open air, away from the confines of the prison, even his growl sounded old and frail.
