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“Meaning you won’t have to worry about them. You’ll have to worry about us.”
Fletcher grew even paler than before. Skulduggery, Valkyrie reflected, could be a very scary person when he wanted to.
“You don’t want me as an enemy, Fletcher. You want to be my friend. You want to do as I say, and for your own good, you want to enter into protective custody. Am I right?”
For a moment, Valkyrie thought Fletcher was going to defy him again, just for the sake of it, but then his eyes softened and he nodded. “Yeah, OK.”
“Excellent news. And I have the perfect place for you to stay.”
(#ulink_ddaee0cd-880c-5efa-ba1a-137a4203e4e6)
here’s Gallow?” Billy-Ray Sanguine asked the empty room.
“Elsewhere,” said the voice, distorted over the tinny old speaker that hung in the corner. “They are all elsewhere.”
The walls were cold stone. There was one door, no window and a mirror. Sanguine was fairly certain there was a camera behind the mirror, watching him.
“So who are you?” he asked.
“I’m nobody,” the voice said.
Sanguine smiled. “You’re Batu, ain’t you? You’re the one they keep talkin’ about.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah, you are. You’re the big boss. So how come you ain’t here in person? I been workin’ for you for over a year now. Ain’t it time we met, face to face?”
“I value my privacy.”
Sanguine shrugged. “I get that.”
“You failed me, Mr Sanguine. I paid you to do a job and you failed me.”
“You said nothin’ about the skeleton detective and the girl gettin’ involved. That’s what we call extenuatin’ circumstances. If I’d have known they’d be there, I could have prepared. Or at least charged double.”
“You will have a chance to redeem yourself.”
“Yippee,” Sanguine said, without enthusiasm.
“I’m going to need you to steal something for me, as soon as Gruesome Krav returns. There is a very good chance you will encounter opposition.”
“So you’ll double my rate?”
“Naturally.”
“Yippee,” Sanguine said and this time he smiled.
(#ulink_75bf56ca-1420-5087-9665-1cab1b55ffe8)
he Hibernian Cinema was as quiet and dark as ever, the sound of laughter and applause long since faded. Skulduggery went first, down the aisle between the red-covered seats. Fletcher made comments as they walked, comments that neither Valkyrie nor Skulduggery responded to. As they approached the small stage, the heavy curtains parted and the screen lit up. Valkyrie allowed herself an inner smile when they moved to the projected image, an open doorway, and passed through, and Fletcher was finally impressed enough to shut up.
The darkness was replaced by the bright lights of the corridors that snaked between the laboratories, and the smell of disinfectant replaced the mustiness. Clarabelle, one of Professor Kenspeckle Grouse’s new assistants, drifted by them dreamily, humming to herself. She wasn’t, in Valkyrie’s opinion, all there.
They walked into a circular room with a high ceiling. There were spotlights on the wall, casting a hazy glow on to a statue of a man on his knees, one hand touching the ground. His bald head was ridged with scars and the expression on his face was one of resignation.
Ghastly Bespoke had used the final Elemental power – the earth power – to save himself while he held off the White Cleaver. Valkyrie still had dreams about that moment, looking back in time to see the concrete of the floor latch on to Ghastly’s body and spread, even as the White Cleaver swung his scythe. Tanith Low had thrown her into the back of the Bentley and they had escaped, but Ghastly had been left as a statue, and no one knew how long the effect would last.
Professor Kenspeckle Grouse stood behind the statue, hands glowing as he passed them over its surface. His eyes were closed, his white eyebrows furrowed in concentration. For two years now, Kenspeckle had worked to return Ghastly to a flesh and blood state. He had used all kinds of science-magic, brought in every sort of expert, tried everything he could think of and then went even further, with no success.
“Who’s the old guy?” Fletcher asked loudly. Kenspeckle scowled and looked up.
Valkyrie smiled and waved. Kenspeckle left the statue and came over.
“Valkyrie. You’re injured again.”
“A few little cuts; nothing to worry about.”
“I’m the medical genius, Valkyrie. I think I’ll make up my own mind about that.” He examined the cut on her face and then her hands. “Who’s the annoying boy?”
“I’m not—” Fletcher began.
“This is Fletcher Renn,” Skulduggery interrupted. “I was hoping he could stay here for a few days.”
“And why would you imagine that I would agree to that?” Kenspeckle growled.
“He needs to be kept somewhere safe, with someone responsible.”
“You want me to stay here?” Fletcher asked, clearly appalled.
“Shut up,” Kenspeckle said, his eyes never leaving Valkyrie’s cut. “Are you trying to bring trouble to my door, Detective?”
“No, I am not, Professor.”
“Because the last time you brought trouble to my door, people died.”
He looked at Skulduggery and Skulduggery looked at him.
“It’s not safe for him out there. He’s untrained, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s basically an idiot. I need to know he’s somewhere safe. I need him kept out of harm’s way. You’re the only one I can trust to do that.”
“And this has to do with the Teleporter murders that everyone is talking about?”
“Yes.”
Kenspeckle turned back to Valkyrie. “Come with me to the Infirmary.”
He walked out without glancing at Skulduggery and she followed. When they got to the Infirmary, he told Valkyrie to hop up on the bed, then dabbed at her hands and cheek with a sweet-smelling cloth.
“It seems like every second day you come here,” he said, “mortally wounded, bones broken, bleeding to death, hanging on by a thread, and you expect me to perform some amazingly astounding miracle cure.”
“These are mortal wounds?” she asked sceptically.
“Don’t be cheeky.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged, then shuffled off to the small table beside the bed. The medical department in Kenspeckle’s science-magic facility was small, but perfectly formed, and usually quiet – except for the times when one of Kenspeckle’s experiments went impressively wrong, or when old gods awoke in the Morgue. But nothing like that had happened in months.
“Do you know the problem with people your age, Valkyrie?”
“We’re too pretty?” she answered hopefully.
“You think you’ll live forever. You rush into situations without considering the consequences. You’re thirteen …”
“Just gone fourteen.”
“… and how do you spend your days?”
He came back to the bedside and started dabbing ointment on the cuts on her hands.
“Well, usually we’re on a case, so we’re tracking down suspects, or we’re doing research, or I’m training, or Skulduggery’s teaching me magic, or, you know …”
“And how, pray tell, do other just gone fourteen-year-old girls spend their days?”
Valkyrie hesitated. “Pretty much the same as me?”
“Amazingly, no.”
“Ah.”
“Once you become an adult, you can endanger yourself as much as you want and I promise I will not admonish you, but I’d hate to see you miss out on all the things normal teenagers do. You’re only young once, Valkyrie.”
“Yeah, but it goes on for ages.”
Kenspeckle shook his head and sighed again. He took a black needle and started to stitch the cut on her face. The needle went through her flesh without drawing blood, and instead of pain, she felt warmth.
“Has there been any progress?” she asked. “With Ghastly?”
“I’m afraid not,” he sighed. “I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do. He will emerge from his current state when he emerges, and there is nothing anyone can do to speed up the process.”
“I miss him,” said Valkyrie. “Skulduggery misses him too, although he’d never say it. I think Ghastly was his only friend.”
“But now he has you, yes?”
She laughed. “I suppose so, yes.”
“And apart from him, do you have friends of your own?”
“What? Of course I do.”
“Name three.”
“No problem. There’s Tanith Low …”
“Who joins you on investigations, trains you in combat and is over eighty years old.”
“Well, yeah, but she looks, like, twenty-two. And she acts like a four-year-old.”
“That’s one friend. Name two more.”
Valkyrie opened her mouth, but no names came out. Kenspeckle finished the stitching.
“I can afford to have no friends,” he told her. “I am old, and cranky, and I have long ago decided that people are an annoyance I can do without. But you? You need friends and you need normality.”
“I like my life the way it is.”
Kenspeckle shrugged. “I don’t expect you to take my advice. Another problem with young people like you, Valkyrie, is that you think you know everything. Whereas I am the only one who can make a claim like that without fear of ridicule.” He stood back. “There. That should keep your face from falling off. The splinters should be out now too.”
She looked at her hands, just in time to see the last splinter rise from her skin into the clear ointment. She didn’t even feel it happen.
“Wash your hands in the basin, there’s a good girl.”
She got up, went to the basin and put her hands under the tap. “Will you help us out?” she asked. “Can Fletcher stay here?”
Kenspeckle sighed. “There is nowhere else to keep him?”
“No.”
“And he truly is in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. But only because you asked so nicely.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Kenspeckle. Really.”
“You’ll probably be back to see me again before the day is out,” he said as he walked to the door. “You’ll no doubt want me to sew your head back on or something.”
“And you’ll be able to do it, right?”
“Naturally. I’m just going to fetch you a bandage, then you can go.”
He left and Clarabelle breezed in.
“Hello,” she said brightly. “You got into another fight. Did it hurt much?”
Valkyrie smiled faintly. “Not really.”
“The Professor is always going on about how you’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. Do you think that’s true? I think it’s probably true. The Professor’s always right about things like that. He said one of these days he’s not going to be able to save you. He’s probably right about that too. Do you think you’ll die one of these days?”
