Skulduggery was silent for a moment. “Melancholia is not Lord Vile.”
“If she’s the Death Bringer, their power levels will be similar. Skulduggery, you know as well as I do, if Melancholia had wanted to kill Valkyrie, Valkyrie would be dead. But she didn’t. She just wanted to inflict some pain. And she won’t get away with it. I’ve spoken with Erskine and Mist, and they agree. An attack on one Sanctuary agent is an attack on the Sanctuary as a whole. Melancholia has just handed us the excuse we needed to take that Temple apart.”
“Then give me an army, and I’ll take it apart and drag her out.”
“We have to do this right. Before we go in, we issue a warrant for her arrest.”
“She’s not going to give herself up,” Skulduggery said.
“No, but we have to give her the chance. Maybe High Priest Tenebrae will see it as an opportunity to bring his Order in from the cold. Maybe he’ll co-operate.”
“I doubt it.”
“I doubt it too. So if she doesn’t turn herself in within twenty-four hours, then yes, we go after her, and you get all the back-up you need.”
“If Melancholia resists?”
Ghastly looked at him. “Then you do what needs to be done.”
Chapter 16
Full Recovery
octor Nye had a smile like splitting skin. “Welcome back,” it said, “to the land of the living.”
Valkyrie jerked against the restraints tying her to the bed. Nye waved its hand.
“Do not exert yourself. You are still quite weak. The restraints, I assure you, are for your own good.”
“Where am I?” she snapped.
“In the Sanctuary. You are quite safe. The woman who did this to you is long gone.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about.”
Nye chuckled. “Oh. Of course. You remember our little… encounter. But that’s all in the past, is it not? Any indiscretions I may have perpetrated against you I have made up for, yes? I replaced your organs, sewed you back together and you walked from my facility as a living, breathing person once again. Forgive and forget.”
“You tried to dissect me.”
“I did dissect you. I just didn’t dissect you enough.”
“Let me out of here.”
“I am worried that you may injure yourself.”
“Let me out of here or I swear to God—”
“What do you swear? Do you swear to tell the Elders about me – about what I did? But then, of course, you would have to explain to them why you had come to me. You would have to explain that you had discovered your true name, and you wanted it sealed so that no one could control you against your will.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I did.”
“You were talking, you know. As I dissected you, you were talking to yourself. Muttering. I believe, at times, hallucinating. You said a name. When you said it, it meant nothing to me. Why should it? I was leading a secluded existence. But after you’d gone, I heard that name again. Darquesse. The one who kills us all.”
Valkyrie stopped struggling.
“I don’t know what you have to do with Darquesse, but if you tell the Elders about the extent of the experiments I was conducting, I shall be forced to tell them that you are involved in this somehow, and I’m sure they’d start asking all sorts of awkward questions.”
Nye smiled again, and suddenly hurtled backwards, knocking over a tray of instruments. Valkyrie turned her head, saw Skulduggery and Ghastly marching in. Skulduggery had his hand splayed, using the air to pin Nye against the wall. He glanced at her as he passed, his eye sockets moving fractionally in her direction, and then he continued towards Nye as Ghastly undid the restraints around Valkyrie’s wrists.
Nye grunted, its frail body struggling uselessly like a daddy-long-legs trapped in a web. With his other hand, Skulduggery took out his gun, pressed it against Nye’s forehead. Nye stopped struggling.
“Skulduggery,” Ghastly said, alarmed. “What are you doing?”
“I told myself if I ever got the chance to end this miserable excuse for a life, I wouldn’t hesitate. Now that I have no more use for it…”
“Don’t. Skulduggery, do not pull that trigger. What Nye did during the war was unforgivable, but we have other concerns now.”
Skulduggery’s voice was cold. “I don’t care what he did during the war. I’m thinking about something much more recent.”
Ghastly approached, walking slowly. “What are you talking about? Doctor Nye has been locked away in its laboratory for the last hundred years.”
Skulduggery looked back at him, and didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Nye was right. Any accusations on their part would raise questions about Valkyrie, and that was a truth they weren’t prepared to share with anyone.
“Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said, holding the surgical sheet around her as she slid off the bed. “It’s OK. Nye fixed me. I’m OK.”
For a moment, she doubted her words would be enough, but then Skulduggery lowered the gun, and stopped pressing against the air.
Nye stood, towering above them all, outrage showing on its face. “This… This is deplorable. Madame Mist personally granted me amnesty for past misdeeds, and she assured me that I would not be held accountable for merely following orders. Elder Bespoke, I hope you will discipline Detective Pleasant for his unacceptable actions.”
“Shut up, Nye,” Ghastly said. “I’m this close to putting a bullet in you myself. Where’s your assistant? He was supposed to stay with Valkyrie at all times.”
“The man was an imbecile,” Nye replied stiffly. “I told him to go away and never let me see him again. If I had known it was so important to you, I would have had him stay.”
“It’s not important to me, Doctor,” Ghastly said. “It’s essential. It’s essential both for my peace of mind and for your well-being that you have an assistant with you at all times. You are not to be left alone with any patient. Do you understand me? Do you understand those orders?”
“Yes,” Nye said. “Of course.”
On the drive to Skulduggery’s house, Valkyrie took off the black ring and examined it thoughtfully.
“Want me to open the window so you can throw it out?” Skulduggery asked.
She smiled. “No, but thanks for offering. Melancholia took this off me, you know. Just whipped it off my finger and bam, I had no Necromancer magic to call on.”
Skulduggery nodded. “That’s the problem with Necromancy. It’s powerful magic, absolutely it is, but it’s so unstable it needs to be housed in something to make sure it can be controlled. Power that unstable… it’s a terrifying prospect, if one were in the habit of being terrified.”
“Is Necromancy the only discipline that has to do that?”
“Not the only one, but the main one. There are very few others. It’s called Inhabiting.”
Valkyrie nodded. “Solomon told me about it. He said a perfect example was Lord Vile’s armour. When Baron Vengeous wore it, it still had all of Vile’s power. Maybe that’s what happening now. Maybe Vile isn’t back – maybe someone is just wearing his armour and using his magic and pretending to be him.”
“I don’t think so,” Skulduggery said. “He spoke to me. It was him. It’s impossible, but… it was him.”
She put the ring back on. “Have you found any trace of him since?”
He turned his head slightly. “How do you know I’ve been looking?”
“Little things,” she said. “You’ve been taking more of an interest in odd little crimes that don’t make any sense, you’ve been asking certain kinds of questions that aren’t really relevant to whatever case we’d be working on… You’re trying to find someone.”
“My my,” said Skulduggery. “What dashing mentor has been teaching you to be a detective? Oh, that’s right, it’s me.”
Valkyrie laughed. “So? Any trace?”
“None,” he said. “He killed Tesseract, I hit him, he exploded in shadow and no one’s seen him si
nce.”
“He might be dead,” she said hopefully.
“I don’t hit that hard.”
She shrugged. “It might be his ghost.”
“Actually,” Skulduggery said, “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes, indeed. Look at what we’ve got. Armour that is brimming with power. All it needs, let’s face it, is the will to get up and move around. All it needs is intent.”
“So you think Vile’s ghost found his old armour and now it’s living inside it?”
“That’s one possible explanation. His ghost or… I don’t know.”
“So inside the armour would be, like, nothing?”
Skulduggery hesitated. “It’s a theory. One of many. But right now, it’s the only one that fits.”
“Then what was Vile doing at the Sanctuary?”
“Our beloved former Grand Mage Guild had the armour stored in boxes that were then shipped to Roarhaven. My fight with Tesseract must have disturbed it, or…”
He went quiet, and she frowned at him. “Is there something about Vile, or about what he said to you, or… Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Skulduggery laughed. “Oh Valkyrie, my loyal and trustworthy combat accessory. Of course there’s something I’m not telling you. That’s what makes me fun.”
Valkyrie stood in Skulduggery’s hat room and looked at her hand. It wasn’t shaking. She turned it, frowning, trying to spot a hidden tremble. Nothing. She knew this wasn’t right. She’d been attacked and almost killed, endured pain and agony on a scale most people would never experience, and yet she didn’t seem to be suffering from any psychological side-effects whatsoever.
She remembered the attack vividly. It was seared into her memory. She wasn’t repressing anything, as far as she could tell. She wasn’t numb. She wasn’t traumatised. Then what was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she in shock? Or maybe this was shock. No, she’d been in shock before. She knew the signs. This thing she was experiencing now was… normality.
Her body had been half ripped to shreds the previous night, and now she was fine with it. It was like there was something cool in her centre, keeping the panic down, gently guiding her past the horror. She could almost hear the voice in her mind.
Calm, it said. Keep calm. You’re still alive, aren’t you?
She turned to the full-length mirror that Skulduggery kept in here, just so he could check the overall effect of whatever hat he was wearing. Hugely vain and narcissistic, but endearingly so. Her clothes – freshly washed – were so ripped and torn they barely stayed on. Valkyrie parted a long slash in her T-shirt and traced a finger along her side. Still alive. She leaned in and examined her face. “The scars are almost gone,” she said loudly.
“That’s good,” Skulduggery responded from the other room.
So many hats in here. She took one, a black one, and tried it on. It looked pretty good on her, she had to admit. She liked the way it came down low over one eye. It gave her a rakish quality. Calm. She put the hat back on the stand and walked into the main living room. Skulduggery stood among the ruins of what had once been a sofa. Valkyrie raised an eyebrow.
“I was trying to make up the sofa bed so you could get some rest,” he explained, and pointed to the second sofa across the room. “Unfortunately, it would appear that that is the sofa bed, and this, apparently, is just a sofa.”
“Not any more it’s not.”
“Well, yes, now it’s a dead sofa. It put up a valiant struggle, however.”
“I’m sure its family would be proud.” She wrapped herself in a blanket and collapsed into an armchair.
“I kill a sofa for you and you go and sit in a chair?” Skulduggery asked. “I don’t think you appreciate the sacrifice that has been made for you.”
“I don’t need a bed right now. I just need to nap for a few hours, then the scars will be completely gone and I can go home and collapse into my own bed.”
“So you’ll be OK here on your own?”
“I’ll be fine. Go off and issue that arrest warrant. But don’t kill anyone. I want the chance to beat the hell out of Melancholia for what she did – but I don’t want her dead. Not yet anyway. You’re going to be calm about this, aren’t you?”
“Exceedingly.”
“You promise?”
“I cross the place where my heart used to be and hope to be even more deader than I am now.”
“Well, OK then.” Valkyrie looked away for a moment. “Why didn’t Darquesse come out?”
“Sorry?”
She shrugged at him. “Melancholia nearly killed me. I was kind of expecting Darquesse to take over and, you know…”
“Relying on Darquesse to save you would probably be a bad habit to get into,” Skulduggery said.
“I know,” she responded quickly, “and I wasn’t. But still… it’d help if I knew the rules. Do I Hulk out when I’m in danger, or does it have to be like when the Jitter Girl actually had her fingers in my brain, or…?”
“I don’t know, Valkyrie. Maybe you subconsciously knew that Melancholia didn’t actually intend to kill you. Maybe Darquesse only emerges as a last resort in order to keep you alive. Or maybe it’s a whim. I don’t know.”
Valkyrie nodded. “She weakened, you know.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “Melancholia?”
“Right before she inflicted the serious damage, she weakened. She almost fainted, I think. There’s something wrong with her. I didn’t stand a chance once she got her strength back, but if I’d gone after her in that moment, when she was weak, I could have battered her around the place, I know I could have.”
“Interesting,” Skulduggery said.
“What does it mean? Is it anything useful?”
“I’m sure it is,” he said. “Get some rest, OK? And maybe you should call Fletcher. You’ve been through a traumatic experience.”
“I’m used to them.”
“I’m sure Fletcher’s worried about you.”
“Since when do you care if he’s worried? I called him from the Sanctuary, told him I’m fine. I’m fine, he’s fine. You’re the only one who’s worried.”
“I care too much, that’s always been my problem. Well, if you’re absolutely positive you don’t need company, and you don’t need me to tell you a story before you go to sleep…”
“Actually,” she said, “maybe a small one.”
“Oh?”
“Having little Alice around got me thinking. You never did tell me why you abandoned your family crest.”
His head tilted. “Did I not? Are you sure? I’m sure I mentioned it. Possibly when we were fighting something huge and horrible. I think I shouted it to you, but you may have been too busy being thrown against a wall. Still, the important thing is that I told you, so let’s cherish that moment and move on.”
“Or you could just tell me again.”
“Oh, Valkyrie, you know how much I hate repeating myself.”
“Yet you’ve told me the story of how you saved that orphanage, like, a hundred times.”
“That’s because it’s an exciting story, with twists and turns, and it paints me in an impressive light.”
“So the story of why you abandoned your family crest paints you in a negative light?”
“Essentially.”
“Hey, if you really don’t want to tell me, that’s OK, I understand.”
“Excellent.” He walked towards the door.
She frowned. “So?”
He stopped. “So what?”
“So tell me.”
“You… said you understood…”
“Don’t you know anything? That was me, lying. Whenever someone says you don’t have to tell them, you have to tell them. That’s a rule. It’s how communication works.”
“It seems to be a flawed system.”
“Tell me why you abandoned your crest, and I’ll tell you one of my secrets.”
“You have no secrets
.”
“I have loads.”
“You have none. Let’s see, your given name is Stephanie Edgley. Your true name is Darquesse, and apparently you’re destined to extinguish all life on the planet. Oh, and you’re seeing a vampire behind your boyfriend’s back.”
Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “You… you know about that, then?”
“Of course I do.”
“You’re not mad?”
“I think it’s a huge mistake that will end extraordinarily badly – but if that’s the only way you’ll learn, so be it.”
“I can’t believe you’re not mad.”
“I comfort myself with the thought that I may have to kill Caelan at some stage.”
“Oh. Then just tell me why you abandoned the crest, for God’s sake. If ever I have a big secret from this moment on that I wouldn’t normally tell you, I’ll tell you. Deal?”
Skulduggery sighed, walked over to the remains of the sofa and sat on the arm. “I abandoned my family crest because I hadn’t lived up to the high standards as set by my parents and my brothers and sisters.”
“You had brothers and sisters?”
“Of course.”
“What were their names?”
“What does it matter? They’re all dead now. I’m the only one left, the only one to carry that crest down through the years. They were good, honourable, decent people. When they were alive, the crest meant something.”
“But you’re good and honourable and decent too.”
He took off his hat, brushed imaginary lint from the brim. “Unfortunately, in war, you let some of those qualities slip. When I feel I have regained the right to reclaim that crest, I’ll reclaim it.”
“I don’t know, I think you overreact.”
“Do you, now?”
“I know people do terrible things in war, but I can’t imagine you doing something so bad that it changes your opinion on who you are. You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“That’s always been a flaw of mine.”
“Were you the oldest?”
“Second oldest. I had an older brother.”