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“Now what’s a nice girl like you doing studying a nasty discipline like Necromancy? We don’t like Necromancers around here, haven’t you realised that? Nobody likes them. They can’t be trusted.”
“Let me up.”
Marr let the ring fall to the floor and slapped Valkyrie across the face. “You do not tell me what to do.” She slapped her again. “You do not tell your elders what to do. Do you understand me?” Another slap. “Say you understand. Say you understand.”
Through gritted teeth, Valkyrie said, “I’m going to kill you.”
Marr pressed her knee in harder against Valkyrie’s ribs and Valkyrie cried out again.
“You want me to break your arm, you little brat? You want me to break your ribs? Puncture a lung? Because I can do it. I can do anything I want and no one will question me. So go ahead. Lie there and threaten me some more. See where it gets you.”
Fighting back the tears, Valkyrie glared but said nothing.
“Good girl,” Marr said, her eyes narrow. “Now apologise.”
Valkyrie clenched her jaw.
“I said, apologise. There’s no one here but us. You’ve got no one to impress. Apologise and I’ll let you up and put you in your cell. If you don’t apologise …”
Marr slapped her again and raised her hand for another strike.
Valkyrie worked to ignore her pride and the anger that humiliation brought. She swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
Immediately, Marr softened. “OK. OK, Valkyrie, that’s all I needed to hear.” The pressure on her ribs was removed. “Now ask me to let you up.”
Valkyrie took a moment then, “Can I get up?”
“Say please.”
“Please … can I get up?”
“Of course.”
Marr stepped back and Valkyrie turned on to her hands and knees, and started to rise. Suddenly the air was pushing down, keeping her hunched over.
“Say thank you,” Marr said, controlling the air with her hand. Valkyrie looked up at her. “Say thank you, Detective Marr, for letting me stand up.”
And Valkyrie said, “Thank you, Detective Marr, for giving me back my ring.”
Marr’s eyes flickered to the ground where the ring had fallen, but it wasn’t there any more, and before she could do anything about it, Valkyrie sent a fist of shadows slamming into the detective’s chest.
Marr stumbled and Valkyrie straightened, reaching out through the air for the desk. It shot forward and slammed into Marr’s legs, and she flipped and fell over it.
Valkyrie opened the desk, snatched the keys up and ran to the cells. She unlocked Ghastly’s door and he emerged, tackling Marr as she came at Valkyrie.
“Prisoners are escaping!” Marr roared.
Valkyrie unlocked the second door and Tanith came out, just as Cleavers appeared around the corner.
“Get Fletcher,” Tanith said in Valkyrie’s ear, “then get Skulduggery back,” and she launched herself at the Cleavers.
Valkyrie unlocked the last cell and hauled Fletcher out.
“Stop them!” Marr screeched. Already the Cleavers had Ghastly and Tanith on the ground, arms locked behind them.
“Guild’s office,” Valkyrie said to Fletcher. He nodded and closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down and picture their destination.
Then they were outside Guild’s door. Valkyrie barged through. The office was empty. The shelves groaned with heavy books and artefacts, and the desk was made out of what appeared to be solid gold. Beside the desk was a cabinet. Skulduggery’s skull lay inside.
Shadows curled around her fist and she punched through the glass and grabbed the skull. She felt Fletcher’s hand on her shoulder and she blinked.
They were now standing in the maze of bookcases in China’s library.
Fletcher looked at her. “Are you OK?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. She could feel the side of her face burning from where Marr had repeatedly slapped her. “We have to get to Aranmore Farm.”
“We’re opening the portal?” Fletcher asked, concerned. “Just you, me and China? So who goes in with you?”
“No one. I go in alone.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s way too dangerous.”
“We don’t have time to waste!” Valkyrie said, suddenly angry. “We have to do it now before they find us again and lock us away! This is my only chance to get him back!”
“Our only chance,” he said.
“Yes. Yes, that’s what I … Fletcher, listen, China has to stay with you, on the farm. She has to make sure that you’re able to reopen the portal for Skulduggery and me to get back. I’m going in alone and that’s all there is to it.”
Fletcher looked at her, his jaw clenched. “Fine,” he snapped and led the way through the maze.
Valkyrie didn’t know any of the sorcerers they passed among the stacks, and none of them raised their eyes from their open books. The library was considered to be a neutral place, where privacy was paramount.
China Sorrows was waiting for them, dressed in black trousers and a simple blue shirt. As usual, her unnatural beauty elevated her outfit to something beyond the ordinary. A delicate chain hung around her left wrist. Her hair, black as deepest sin, framed her face while her eyes, as pale a blue as her brother’s had been, watched them approach.
Valkyrie fought down the feelings that were stirring within her. Fletcher wasn’t quite so successful.
“I love you,” he whispered and was ignored.
“The plan didn’t work,” Valkyrie told her. “In fact, it probably made things worse. Ghastly and Tanith are under arrest, and agents are coming here to take you in.”
China sighed. “And we’re going to rescue Skulduggery now, I take it? With the full might of the Sanctuary bearing down on us?”
“Yes. Sorry about that.”
China shrugged. “You make life interesting, Valkyrie. Just give me a moment, I have two annoying spies to deal with.”
Valkyrie looked behind her as a man and woman advanced, shackles in hand.
China tapped her forearms and glowing tattoos rose to the surface of her skin. She flung her arms wide and a wall of blue energy slammed into the agents, knocking them back. They were unconscious even before they stopped tumbling across the floor.
An elderly sorcerer peered round a bookcase and scowled.
“My apologies for the disturbance,” China said gracefully. “They wouldn’t pay their late fees.”
The elderly woman shrugged and went back to her reading.
China held out her hands and both Valkyrie and Fletcher took one. “These shoes will probably be ruined,” she said, “but I’m sure one of you will inform Skulduggery of the sacrifices I have made getting him back. Take us to the farm, Mr Renn.”
The library vanished and the afternoon sun was without heat. A cold wind blew in across the fields of Aranmore and howled softly through the ruined walls of the farmhouse.
“This boy is handy to have around,” China said, but for once Fletcher didn’t seem to be taking notice of her. His eyes were on Valkyrie as they walked.
“Have you said goodbye to your parents?” he asked.
“Shut up, Fletcher.”
“I just thought you might like to, that’s all. One last goodbye before you get yourself killed.”
“The only way it would be a last goodbye is if you don’t have that portal open for me to get back.”
He laughed bitterly. “You’re walking into a world run by a race of evil gods. And for what? If Skulduggery isn’t dead, he’s insane. One glance at a Faceless One is enough to drive you nuts. He’s been there for almost a year, Val. How many glances do you think he’s had?”
“You don’t know him. He’s alive and he’s waiting for me.”
“We’re taking a big risk here, aren’t we? Like, a major risk? We’re opening a door to a universe of unspeakable evils and hoping they don’t notice. Is Skulduggery worth it if this goes wrong?”
“If you’re not going to help,” Valkyrie said, “I can’t make you. But if you are, then shut up. None of us would be here if it wasn’t for him, and he wouldn’t leave any of us over there. Not even you.”
They reached the farmhouse and froze. A Sanctuary agent ambled by inside, sipping a mug of tea. He frowned, and turned, and seemed surprised to find three people staring in at him through the gaping hole in the wall.
“Um,” he said.
Valkyrie snapped her palm. The air rippled and the sorcerer went skidding across the floor. She stepped inside, using her ring to gather the shadows in the house and bring them crashing down on his head. He didn’t get up.
China and Fletcher joined her, and they moved to the hole in the opposite wall, the one that opened up to the yard beyond. Across the yard, standing amid the rusted farm machinery, was the second sorcerer. He saw them and his hand dug into his jacket for his phone.
Fletcher vanished and reappeared instantly next to the mage. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and then they were both gone. A moment later Fletcher was back, standing right in front of Valkyrie. She was about to ask where he had put the Sanctuary agent when she heard a terrified yell, and the agent dropped from the sky and hit the ground hard. He moaned, then stopped moving.
Fletcher pulled Valkyrie towards him, and before she could protest he kissed her. She stiffened in his arms, but as his right thumb brushed her cheek, she relaxed into him. Her belly did flips. And then the kiss was over.
“If we’re going to go through with this,” he said gruffly, “then hurry it up. It’s not everyday I send someone into hell.”
China made a circle on the ground and Fletcher knelt in it, holding the skull in both hands. She carved protective symbols around him. If something did come out of the portal uninvited, she explained, these symbols would at least give Fletcher enough time to close it before he died. He didn’t look comforted, but he didn’t say anything.
She activated the symbols and red smoke drifted from them, swirling with the black smoke that rose from the circle. The smoke formed a column that grew more violent as it twisted into the sky.
Fletcher knew what to do this time. Eleven months ago, forced to open the portal, he had to learn as he went. He had to use the Isthmus Anchor – back then it was the Grotesquery, today it was the skull – without sufficient preparation and he said it was like tearing open his insides. Today, from the glimpses Valkyrie caught through the smoke, he had everything under control. He looked determined. Angry, but determined.
A yellow light appeared, like a flattened sun, the edges boiling with flame. It grew wider.
China took Valkyrie’s arm, leaning in close to be heard over the roar of the column of smoke. “You have one hour,” she shouted. “In exactly one hour that gate will open again. You’d better be ready – with or without him.”
“I’m not leaving him there,” Valkyrie shouted back. “You just make sure Fletcher’s still here when it’s time for us to come home.”
China looked at her, her blue eyes bright, and she hugged Valkyrie. “Thank you for doing this,” China said into Valkyrie’s ear.
China stepped away and Valkyrie turned to the portal. It was taller than she was now. She licked her lips and walked forward. The wind whipped her hair and she could feel the gravitational pull, eager to welcome her. Valkyrie hesitated and then ran, straight into the yellow.
(#ulink_4cc4cda4-db32-58a6-a89d-000e5d982817)
pringheeled Jack missed London. He missed its rooftops and its towers and its parapets. He missed the way he could dance, high above it all, watching the people pass below him. He missed the way Londoners sounded as he killed them – like they were offended that anyone would even dare.
Jack hadn’t been home in over a year. They were hunting him there. He’d tried Paris, he’d tried Berlin, and he’d liked them well enough, but he knew he was homesick when he realised the only people he was killing were English tourists. That had sent him into a spiral of depression that lasted months. Finally, in an effort to confront this problem, he had made a list of everyone he viewed as being responsible for his exile, and he marvelled at the way the depression quickly turned to anger. Every name on that list worked for various Sanctuaries around the world, and suddenly Jack’s mission was clear.
Destroy the Sanctuaries.
And now here he was, serendipity be praised, back in Dublin, working with two men he had never expected to share the same space with again, Billy-Ray Sanguine and Dusk. But since Sanguine was no longer palling around with those Faceless Ones nutters, and since his fight with Dusk hadn’t been personal to begin with, Jack was willing to forgive and forget. They were all working towards the same goal after all – revenge on those who had wronged them.
“I want Tanith Low,” he said to that other bloke, Scapegrace, while they were lounging about in the castle.
Scapegrace looked up, startled that anyone was talking to him. “I’m sorry?”
“Tanith Low,” Jack repeated. “Her of the brown leather and the singing sword. I want to be the one to get her.”
“Oh,” Scapegrace said.
“In a way, you know, she’s responsible for me bein’ hunted. She arrested me – put me in that cell where Sanguine found me. If I hadn’t agreed to help him in return for freedom, I’d never have been hunted in the first place.”
“Right,” Scapegrace said.
“What about you then?”
“Me?”
“Who do you want revenge on?”
“Oh, uh, Valkyrie Cain.”
“She’s a popular one to get revenge on. What age is she, fifteen? Fifteen years old and already four people want to kill her.”
“Well,” Scapegrace said, leaning forward, like he was confiding, “she’s responsible for foiling my plans, you see.”
“That so?”
“Oh, yes. I’m an artist. I make murder into art. That’s kind of what I do – that’s my whole thing. And she has repeatedly stopped me from doing that. Also, one time, she beat me up when I was already really badly injured.”
“A fifteen-year-old girl beat you up?”
