Death Bringer

  “The metal clip on the lid is the perfect size,” Skulduggery continued, clearly enjoying the look on Dragonclaw’s face. Behind his back, his arms were moving ever so slightly. “I should be out of these in forty seconds or so, and then I’m going to hurt you.”

  “You’re lying,” Dragonclaw said. “Even if I did have a pen in my pocket, you couldn’t have taken it from me.”

  “But that’s not strictly true, is it? When you pushed me against this wall, you got a little too close.”

  “You couldn’t have taken it. There’s no way—”

  “Could you stop talking for a moment? This is a tricky bit.”

  Skulduggery’s head tilted. Valkyrie heard a faint tapping of metal against metal.

  Dragonclaw grabbed a knife and strode over to Valkyrie. “Stop that,” he ordered. “Stop it right now or she dies.”

  “You’re not going to kill her,” Skulduggery said. “If you kill her, in thirty seconds I will kill you. You don’t want to die, not when you’re this close to the Passage.”

  Dragonclaw pressed the blade to Valkyrie’s throat. It was cold against her skin. “Stop. Stop it.”

  “Twenty seconds, Dragonclaw. And what a ridiculous name that is. Almost as ridiculous as your beard.”

  The blade bit deeper, and then stopped, and all at once Dragonclaw was pushing her aside and storming towards Skulduggery. Valkyrie stepped behind him and kicked low, sweeping his feet at the ankles. Dragonclaw yelped and Skulduggery moved, smacking his knee into the Necromancer’s face as he fell. Dragonclaw bounced off Skulduggery’s knee and crumpled to the ground.

  Skulduggery squatted beside him, managing to get his hands into the folds of the robe.

  “You don’t have his pen,” Valkyrie said.

  “No,” Skulduggery admitted. “He never had one. Well done, by the way.”

  She nodded, didn’t answer.

  He found the keys, and by the time he stood up, the shackles were already off. He uncuffed her and she felt magic flood her body. It was a nice feeling.

  He opened the door, looked out, then gestured to her to stay put before going on ahead. She looked at him, her friend, as he sneaked to the corner, and she tried equating that with all the horror stories she’d heard about Vile. He’d saved her life and she’d saved his, and she had felt closer to him than she had to anyone else. If there was one person who would understand her, she had known it would always be him. But now…

  Two Necromancers came round the corner and Skulduggery took them out. It was vicious and it was ugly, and neither Necromancer had time to even cry out. Valkyrie joined him, stepping over their unconscious bodies, and they moved on. He was in a bad mood. She knew the feeling.

  The doors opened ahead of them before they could react, and six Necromancers came striding through. They didn’t seem particularly surprised to see a teenage girl and a skeleton walking around unsupervised. They stood in a straight line, side by side, the blackness of their robes flowing together so that they looked like a single creature with six heads.

  “You think we were going to let you walk out of here?” one of them asked.

  Valkyrie and Skulduggery stayed where they were, waiting for them to make a move. The ring on her hand was ready to throw up a wall of shadows to block the strikes she knew were coming.

  And then the Necromancers reached into their robes and pulled out sub-machine guns.

  “Hell,” was all Skulduggery had time to say before they opened fire.

  Valkyrie crossed her arms over her head as bullets slammed into her. She staggered back, winded, her clothes dissipating the impacts. More bullets hit her arms, but she kept them where they were, kept them tight together, not letting any through. Skulduggery was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him over the gunfire, and then she felt him grab her from behind and pull her back round the corner. Out of the firing line, he pushed her against the wall.

  “Are you OK?” he asked quickly, his hands checking her for bullet hits. “Are you hurt?”

  Valkyrie shook her head, unable to speak until there was breath in her lungs again. Something flew round the corner, bouncing on the floor beside them. She hadn’t even registered what it was before Skulduggery reached out his hand. The grenade went off, but Skulduggery kept the explosion contained in a tight bubble of air. He released his grip and the smoke curled through the corridor.

  They ran back the way they had come.

  Dragonclaw was in the corridor, using the wall to support himself. He saw them coming and his eyes managed to widen. He dug a hand into his robes.

  Valkyrie sprinted for him. Two Necromancers emerged from an adjoining corridor just as she passed. They raised their weapons, but she left them to Skulduggery. She heard their grunts and cries of pain and kept going towards Dragonclaw. He pulled a gun from his robe, Skulduggery’s gun, raised it with a trembling hand and fired. The bullet missed Valkyrie completely and she swiped at the air, yanking the weapon away from him. The gun fell and she collided with him, her elbow crunching into his face. He reeled back, squawking, but she was latched on to him now and she didn’t stop hitting until he was on the floor, his arms flopping uselessly at his sides.

  Skulduggery hauled her up with one hand, his gun flying into the other, and he kept her moving as he fired behind them. Sub-machine guns peppered the corridor with bullets, the walls spitting chunks of plaster and plumes of dust. They got behind the next corner and ran on, straight into a dead end. They turned, but it was too late, the Necromancers were already there.

  And then the Necromancer furthest away stiffened, his gun falling. Valkyrie frowned as the next one did the same, and the next one, and finally the Necromancer closest to them exhaled, and his face went blank. All six of them stood there, suddenly very pale. Then they fell, one at a time, the closest Necromancer first, the effect rippling backwards.

  Skulduggery walked forward warily, and checked for a pulse. “He’s dead,” he said, a hint of surprise in his voice.

  He picked up a sub-machine gun, stepped over the dead Necromancer and continued on, back the way they had come. Valkyrie’s ring was like ice.

  The Temple was quiet. Every corner they turned revealed more dead people in black robes. Bison Dragonclaw lay sprawled across the floor, eyes open, seeing nothing.

  Doors opened ahead of them and Melancholia stepped through. She was smiling. “Wasn’t that fun?”

  Skulduggery raised the sub-machine gun to his shoulder, finger hovering over the trigger. “You did this?”

  “I needed a boost,” Melancholia said with a shrug. “A little pick-me-up. Valkyrie knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, Valkyrie? That little ring is burning so cold now, isn’t it? My whole body is burning like that. It’s intoxicating. But don’t worry – I didn’t kill all of them. There are still plenty left to fawn over me.”

  “You’re under arrest,” Skulduggery said.

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to save the world.”

  “By killing half of it.”

  “Omelettes and eggs, skeleton.”

  “Give up. This will be your only warning.”

  Melancholia laughed, shook her head, and as she opened her mouth to speak, Skulduggery pulled the trigger. Melancholia jerked back into a sudden cloud of darkness as gunfire filled the air and bullet casings rattled on to the floor. When the gun was empty, he dropped it and clicked his fingers, summoning flames into his hands. Valkyrie readied shadows of her own.

  The cloud faded. Melancholia was still standing. “You’re sneaky,” she said. “I like you.”

  Skulduggery threw a fireball but Melancholia sent the darkness to extinguish it. He pushed at the air and she staggered, sent a spear of shadows his way in return. He twisted, the spear missing him by inches. Valkyrie whipped the darkness at her but Melancholia rose on to a wave of pitch-black. Columns of dark shot out, too fast to dodge. One column struck Valkyrie, taking her off her feet. Skulduggery was hit square in the chest,
and twice more as he tried to recover.

  The wave lowered Melancholia to the ground, and at a gesture it turned towards Skulduggery. It crashed down on top of him, dispersing into tendrils that threw him down the corridor.

  Valkyrie swept the air in around her and hurtled towards Melancholia. She almost reached her, too, but a wall of darkness appeared between them. Valkyrie hit the wall and it drank her in. She struggled, tried to pull away, but it was like quicksand. Her arms and legs were already in and she turned her head away, arching her spine. The corridor lit up with flame and suddenly she was free. She dropped to the ground while Melancholia dodged another of Skulduggery’s attacks. He had run in close, trying to get his hands on her.

  Melancholia kept throwing shadows between them, but the shadows were flimsy. She was panicking, trying to give herself some room to manoeuvre. Given the space, she could send out an attack that was impossible to defend against. Skulduggery was making sure that didn’t happen, and he was using skill, determination and luck to do it. But while his skill wasn’t going to fade and his determination wasn’t going to falter, his luck was an element he had no control over.

  Another panicked move by Melancholia sent a tentacle of shadow whipping for him. He saw it coming and ducked, weaving under it, but the tentacle flexed at the last moment before it dissipated, and it caught him in the side of the head. He stumbled, and Melancholia struck, sending him spinning backwards.

  Something heavy landed on Valkyrie’s back as she tried to get up. A mass of shadows, keeping her pinned to the floor. She cursed and strained, but couldn’t move.

  Skulduggery groaned. Melancholia was doing something to him. Shadows curled out from the cuffs of his jacket, out around his collar, through the buttons on his shirt. But then Valkyrie saw the expression on Melancholia’s face. She was frowning – not with intent, but with curiosity. Whatever was going on with Skulduggery, Melancholia wasn’t the one doing it.

  Skulduggery arched his back and darkness burst from his chest in a steady stream, writhing and twisting in the air, collecting on the far side of the room. A shape formed, the stream broke from Skulduggery, and the shape became solid. A tall man, encased head to foot in black armour that shifted and moved on his body. Valkyrie stared.

  Lord Vile hadn’t been hiding in a cave or an old base somewhere – he’d been hiding within Skulduggery himself.

  Melancholia stepped back, her eyes wide with fear. Lord Vile held out his arm and his hand lengthened to a sharp point that flew at her. She cried out, barely managing to deflect the strike. He went at her again, and again, and she stumbled from each attack, her hair in her eyes. The darkness that had been holding Valkyrie down was gone, and she got up, watching Melancholia being stalked like a deer.

  “Help me!” Melancholia cried. “You can’t let him kill me! Please!”

  The Death Bringer, begging for help. The only person who had the power and the intention to kill three billion people, begging for someone to step in and save her. Valkyrie wasn’t going to do it. She couldn’t do it. She had to let Vile kill her. It was the only way to save all those lives.

  “Valkyrie!” Melancholia called. “Please help me!”

  And suddenly Valkyrie was running, and she was running straight at Lord Vile, while every part of her mind screamed at her to stop. But her body kept going, it wouldn’t listen, and Vile waved his hand and she went flying back through the air. As she spun, she saw shadows grow from beneath Melancholia’s robes, and then she felt the air shift around her. Her trajectory changed and she fell against Skulduggery, who staggered slightly as he caught her.

  Melancholia’s shadows sprang at Lord Vile, whose armour grew tendrils that intercepted each one of them. Melancholia was rising to her feet now, standing just beyond arm’s reach of Vile. Their shadows, sharp and jagged, pressed and darted and defended. More grew, and still more, pushing out of their arms and legs and torsos. They started to resemble a pair of weird insects, or crabs maybe, snapping at each other with an ever-increasing array of weapons.

  Melancholia was smiling. Her blonde hair was obscuring most of her face, but she was definitely smiling, and now Valkyrie could see why. Her shadows were thickening, getting bigger, and Vile was being pushed back. He wasn’t whole, after all. He was merely the armour of Lord Vile, Skulduggery’s old Necromancer power given sentience. If Skulduggery had been in that armour, the Death Bringer would have met her match. But the armour was empty, and the Death Bringer was realising just how powerful she really was.

  The shadows behind Melancholia swooped in through her body and erupted from her chest, slamming into Vile and taking him to the far end of the room. He was thrown with such force he hit the double doors and burst through, splintering the wood and ripping them from their hinges. The shadows retracted, back inside Melancholia, and she turned to Valkyrie and Skulduggery, and smiled.

  “You saved my life,” she said, laughing. The darkness moved in around her, and she disappeared just as Vile lunged at her from the shadows. He grabbed nothing but air.

  Skulduggery stepped in front of Valkyrie. “Stop right there,” he said.

  Lord Vile, the armour, turned towards him.

  “I want you gone,” Skulduggery said. “You’re a part of me, and I want you gone. I left you behind a long time ago and I have no intention of letting this continue. Your time is up.”

  Vile sent a shadow crashing into him.

  “Hey!” Valkyrie shouted. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

  Four spears of shadow rose up over Vile’s head, and Valkyrie turned and ran. They shot towards her as she jumped sideways. All but one of the spears missed her. The last one glanced off the back of her jacket and spun her round as she fell.

  There were shouts. The barricades had been breached. Sanctuary operatives were storming the Temple. Vile tilted his head, the same way Skulduggery did. Then the shadows swirled and he was gone.

  Chapter 32

  A Bad Night in Haggard

  alkyrie sat hunched over on a fallen headstone, her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the ground. Around her, Cleavers and sorcerers filed in and out of the Temple. They hadn’t started bringing the bodies out yet. She didn’t want to be here when they did.

  She watched Skulduggery talk to them, nodding and pointing, issuing commands. She didn’t even understand how any of this was possible. She wanted to travel back in time, back to before she knew the truth. If only she hadn’t followed Wreath, left herself open to attack, then Tenebrae would never have had the chance to spoil everything. Skulduggery turned, walked over, and Valkyrie suddenly felt sick, like her insides were rotting away.

  “Are you OK?” he asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Wreath and Craven are unaccounted for – we don’t know how many others. We have teams out searching, but I don’t like our chances. We’ll head back to the Sanctuary, brief the Council.”

  “Not me,” Valkyrie said.

  “What?”

  “Not me, all right? I’m tired, and I’m bruised, and I just want to go home. I don’t care about any of this any more. I’m going to let other people save the world this time.”

  “Listen, I know you’ve been through a lot, but—”

  “Enough,” she corrected, standing up. “I’ve been through enough. In the last few days, I was slashed half to death, I was healed by a monster who once dissected me, I was betrayed and attacked by Solomon Wreath, who I thought was my friend, and then… you.”

  “Valkyrie…”

  “There is absolutely nothing you can say to make this better, so don’t even try.”

  “You’ve got to understand—”

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, and walked away.

  She could have called Fletcher, but she really didn’t want to come up with a lie to tell him that would explain her mood. She got a lift into the centre of town from one of the sorcerers she knew, and hopped on a bus. She sat with her arms folded, leaning her head against the cool
window. The bus would go over a bump and she’d rock slightly. She didn’t think of anything. She just looked at the seat in front and let the bus take her to Haggard.

  She got off and cut through the small park, walked through darkness instead of the brightly lit Main Street. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. All she wanted to do was pick up her baby sister and hug her.

  The lights were off in her house, and there were no cars in the driveway, so Valkyrie let herself in the front door. Her family wasn’t in. She went up to her room, but her reflection wasn’t there. Frowning, she took out her phone, dialled a number and waited.

  The call was answered, and she heard her own voice say, “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Valkyrie said. “Where are you? Where is everyone?”

  “We’re at the hospital,” the reflection said.

  Alarm pulsed through Valkyrie like electricity and she gripped the phone tighter. “What? What happened? Is it Alice? Is something wrong?”

  “It’s not Alice,” the reflection said calmly. “It’s your mother. She was mugged this afternoon.”

  Valkyrie went cold. “Mugged? By who? By a mortal?”

  “Yes. It happened on Main Street. Everyone’s saying it was a stupid place to mug someone. No one ever gets mugged in Haggard. It’s too small. He hit her. She’s fine, but she was brought to hospital to make sure. So we’re all in here.”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “She has a bruise on her cheek.”

  Valkyrie stood in the middle of her room, trying to make sense of this. “Who did it?” she asked. She was surprised at how soft her voice sounded.

  “I only heard his last name. Moore. He’s not from Haggard. His car broke down, the Guards said. Dad was in the pharmacy paying, and Mum was standing outside with Alice in the pram and Moore ran up, grabbed her handbag. She pulled it back, he hit her in the face, took the bag and ran right into Dad. Dad threw him through the pharmacy window. The ambulance people put on a few bandages and handed him over to the Guards.”

  “He’s still here, then? In Haggard?”