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The Faceless Ones
Derek Landy
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior.Oh yes. And dead.If you’ve read the previous Skulduggery books then you know what the Faceless Ones are – and if you know what the Faceless Ones are, then you can probably take a wild guess that things in this book are going to get AWFULLY sticky for our skeletal hero and his young sidekick.If you haven’t read the previous Skulduggery books then what are you doing reading this? Go and read them right now, so that you know what all that stuff in the previous paragraph was about.Done? Good. So now you’re on tenterhooks too, desperately awaiting the answers to all your questions, and instead you’re going to have to wait to read the book. Sorry about that.
Copyright (#ulink_292ec162-55e5-5ec7-8029-2e6367bd49ed)
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2007
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.co.uk (http://www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk)
Derek Landy blogs under duress at
www.dereklandy.blogspot.com (http://www.dereklandy.blogspot.com)
Text copyright © Derek Landy 2009
Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2009
Skulduggery Pleasant logo
HarperCollins Publishers
Skulduggery Pleasant ©
Derek Landy
Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com (http://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: 9780007302161
Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007318285
Version: 2016-12-12
This book is dedicated to my agent, Michelle Kass.
I’m not going to be sappy here, OK? I’m not going to talk about how much you’ve done for me (which is a lot), or the impact you’ve had on my life (which is immense), and I’m not even going to talk about the advice, encouragement, and counsel you’ve given me since we met. And I’m not going to mention conversations on tractors either, or iPods at dinner tables, or the amount of Yiddish words you’ve taught me that I’ve promptly forgotten.
All of which, surprisingly, leaves me with nothing much to say.
Sorry about that.
Contents
Cover (#ued894f6d-cd9c-5309-a9ef-ff65a08668b0)
Title Page (#u34aaf96e-a023-5a11-bd37-1f404ae55229)
Copyright (#ubfa2fe34-4a8f-5e3f-99f4-e988af3181eb)
Dedication (#ufeec4670-5dd0-5fda-847f-866cbebdb785)
Chapter 1: The Scene of the Crime (#uae67b02c-c724-531c-b605-a426a02d7caf)
Chapter 2: Killer on the Loose (#u2b842c56-87a2-514b-91f8-abc7ecc64534)
Chapter 3: That First Kiss (#u01808118-de96-5051-af70-e4aa75aea2e9)
Chapter 4: The Sea Hag (#u5b302b6e-11db-5496-bc5c-1c94ce865da4)
Chapter 5: Tracking the Teleporter (#u48806ded-cc30-59b5-9d63-ce40da76411c)
Chapter 6: Fletcher Renn (#ue639acf0-c1b6-5d16-a0ac-772cdae77b08)
Chapter 7: Batu (#u4faa183c-c75e-511f-9fd5-ebf400f3b929)
Chapter 8: The Civilised Man (#u5b59d57a-f44a-52e8-a5bf-d9dbf191914a)
Chapter 9: The Enemy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: Finbar’s Little Trip (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: Wreath (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: In the Office of the Grand Mage (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: The House on Cemetery Road (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: The Diablerie (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Breaking and Entering (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Stealing the Grotesquery (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: The Dark Little Secret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: In the Flesh (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: The Man Who Would Be King (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: Aranmore Farm (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Opportunity Rings (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Conversations with a Late Uncle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Anathem Mire (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: The Changing House (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: The Raid (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: The Sceptre (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Blink (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Saying Goodbye (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Cellmates (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Beryl (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Old Friends (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: The Trade (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Jailbreak (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34: The Battle of Aranmore (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: The Things of Impossibility (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Enemies (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37: Falling into Place (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: From all Sides (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Crisis of Faith (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40: Killing Gods (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: Black Lightning (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: The Moment (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: The Gateway (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44: The Task (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
The Skulduggery Pleasant series (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#ulink_4847784e-85e3-5bb9-915f-07df275088ab)
he dead man was in the living room, face down on the floor beside the coffee table. His name had been Cameron Light, but that was back when his heart had a beat and his lungs had breath. His blood had dried into the carpet in a large stain that spread outwards from where he lay. He’d been stabbed, once, in the small of the back. He was fully clothed, his hands were empty and there was no other sign of disturbance in the room.
Valkyrie moved through the room as she had been taught, scanning the floor and surfaces, but managing to avoid looking at the body. She felt no compulsion to see any more of the victim than she absolutely had to. Her dark eyes drifted to the window. The park across the street was empty, the slides glistening with the rain and the swings creaking in the chill, early morning breeze.
Footsteps in the room and she turned to watch Skulduggery Pleasant take a small bag of powder from his jacket. He was wearing a pinstriped suit that successfully filled out his skeletal frame, and his hat was low over his eye sockets. He dipped a gloved finger into the bag and started to stir, breaking up the smaller lumps.
“Thoughts?” he said.
“He was taken by surprise,” answered Valkyrie. “The lack of any defensive marks means he didn’t have time to put up a fight. Just like the others.”
“So the killer was either completely silent …”
“Or his victims trusted him.” There was something odd about the room, something that didn’t quite fit. Valkyrie looked around. “Are you sure he lived here? There are no books on magic, no talismans, no charms on the walls, nothing.”
Skulduggery shrugged. “Some mages enjoy living on both sides. The magical community is secretive, but there are exceptions – those who work and socialise in the so-called ‘mortal’ world. Mr Light here obviously had a few friends who didn’t know he was a sorcerer.”
There were framed photographs on a shelf, of Light himself and other people. Friends. Loved ones. From the photos alone it seemed like he’d had a good life, a life filled with companionship. Now it was over of course. There was no Cameron Light any more, just an empty shell on the carpet.
Crime scenes, Valkyrie reflected, were rather depressing places.
She looked over at Skulduggery as he sprinkled the powder into the air. It was called rainbow dust because of the way any residual traces of magic in an area would change its colour. This time, however, the powder remained the same colour as it drifted all the way down to the floor.
“Not one trace,” he muttered.
Although the couch was obscuring her view of the body, Valkyrie could still see one foot. Cameron Light had been wearing black shoes and grey socks with worn elastic. He had a very white ankle. Valkyrie stepped to the side so the foot was out of view.
A bald man with broad shoulders and piercing blue eyes joined them in the room. “Detective Crux is nearby,” Mr Bliss said. “If you are caught at a crime scene …” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
“We’re going,” Skulduggery said. He pulled on his coat and wrapped his scarf around the lower half of his skull. “We appreciate you calling us in on this by the way.”
