Her mum frowned at him. “Are you proposing you juggle our new-born child?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’d only be able to juggle her if you’d had twins. Otherwise it’s just throwing.”
“Steph,” her mum said, “give me my baby and never let your father near her.”
“Deal,” Valkyrie said, handing her sister over.
Her dad put the apples back in the bowl. “Everyone seems to forget that I’m not a complete novice at this. Don’t I already have one beautiful daughter, and she turned out OK, didn’t she? I didn’t drop her once.”
“You dropped her when we were at the zoo,” Valkyrie’s mum said.
Valkyrie spun her head to him. “You dropped me?”
“Ah,” he said, “I’d forgotten about that. In my defence, though, you were a very wriggly child. One moment you were there, the next you were, you know, on the ground in the penguin enclosure.”
She blinked. “You dropped me in the penguin enclosure?”
“I was leaning over the railing and you just plopped out of my grip. You weren’t hurt, or anything. And even if you had been, I’m sure the penguins would have taken you in, raised you as one of their own. It would have been a different life for you, but still a good one.”
“I can’t believe you dropped me.”
“Neither could the people around us. Some crazy woman stormed up and roared at me for five minutes about how I shouldn’t be putting my child in danger.”
“That was me,” Valkyrie’s mum muttered.
“Now it makes sense,” Valkyrie said, collapsing on to the couch. “My fear of zoos. My fear of penguins. My fear of being dropped in a zoo with the penguins. It’s all Dad’s fault.”
“Most things are,” he admitted sadly, and wandered over to his wife. “But I won’t make the same mistakes again, I promise. From this moment on, I will be the best father the world has ever seen. Wifey, may I please hold my child?”
“I’m feeding her.”
“Give me the child and the bottle. I’ll feed her.”
Valkyrie’s mum looked at him suspiciously. “When you hold a baby, what is the most important thing to remember?”
“Not to drop it,” he said proudly.
“Well, yes, well done, dear, but I was thinking more about how you hold the baby.”
“Ah,” he said, “of course. The secret to holding a baby is to pick it up by the scruff of the neck.”
“You’re thinking of kittens.”
“Pick it up by its ears, then.”
“You’re thinking of nothing.”
“Can I please just hold her?”
“I don’t think that’s wise.”
“A lot of things aren’t wise, Melissa. Is crossing the road with your eyes closed wise? No, but I do it anyway.”
His wife nodded. “Stephanie, you’re in charge of teaching Alice how to cross the road.”
“Gotcha.”
Her dad held his hands out, and finally her mum sighed. “Be careful,” she warned.
“Trust me,” he said.
She handed the baby over. Valkyrie’s dad held Alice out straight, looked at her and smiled. “Aren’t you so cute?” he asked. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you the cutest?” He brought her in close, held her against his face and staggered around the room. “Help me!” he cried. “A facehugger has me!” Valkyrie and her mother observed him as he lifted her off, chuckling. “You know,” he said, “from Alien. The facehugger.” He held the baby against his face again. “Help me, Sigourney Weaver! Help me!” Alice, for her part, seemed bemused by the whole thing.
They left half an hour later, when Alice was in her basket and sleeping. Valkyrie dialled Skulduggery’s number and he picked up.
“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s me.”
Skulduggery paused. “No, it’s not. If it were me, then I’d be talking to myself, and I don’t do that any more. I certainly don’t ring myself. That’s one of the first signs of madness, and if it isn’t, it should be.”
She sighed. “Are you finished talking nonsense?”
“I haven’t talked nonsense all morning. I miss it. Why are you speaking so quietly?”
“Because the baby’s asleep.”
“Can she walk yet?”
“No.”
“I could walk from a very young age, you know. I was a very advanced child.”
“You must be so proud.”
“I am.”
“It’s funny, actually. I’ve never thought about what you’d have been like as a child. What were you like?”
“I was shorter.”
“I bet you never shut up.”
“Actually, I found it very difficult to speak. I had a stutter, you see.”
“You?”
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? It didn’t stop me from developing a razor-sharp wit, though, even if the townspeople did suspect that I was possessed by the devil. Four hundred years ago, no one really understood why people stuttered. They were simpler times.”
“So why do people stutter?”
“I don’t know. They’re probably possessed by the devil.”
“You are so annoying. Any word on Craven?”
“Three of his Necromancers have been arrested trying to flee the country – that leaves us with fourteen more, not counting the White Cleaver or Craven himself.”
“So he’s still at large.”
“Yes, but that won’t last long. If it were Wreath we were talking about, he’d vanish and we’d never see him again. But Craven has spent most of his adult life in one Temple or another. Only rarely did he venture out into the real world. We’ll catch him soon enough.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Hey,” she said, “I have to go. Call me if there’s, you know, anything to talk about.”
He sounded amused. “You’re bored, aren’t you?”
“No,” she said, walking into the hall. “This is my day off and I’m enjoying being normal.”
“You’re bored.”
“You’re the one who’s bored. Without me around, you’re lost, aren’t you? Just admit that you miss me.”
“You are an amusing oddity.”
She grinned. “That’ll do for now.”
She hung up, and opened the door. She put her phone in her pocket as she stepped out and looked around. No one. Shrugging, she went back inside, walked into the kitchen.
God, she was bored.
When Alice was awake, time flitted by. But when she was asleep, Valkyrie had nothing to do. She needed a hobby, something that didn’t include hitting people. Or maybe some friends that she could invite over on a Saturday morning to keep her company while she babysat. She felt a pang when Fletcher flashed into her head, and fought it down hard. She refused to feel lonely, not on her day off.
Valkyrie walked to the back door, which hadn’t been closed properly, shut it and locked it. There was now a baby in the house, after all. She couldn’t take the chance that a wild animal might wander in and make off with Alice, like those dingoes in Australia. She was probably being unfair to both dingoes and Australia, but she couldn’t risk it. Locked doors kept the dingoes out, and that’s all there was to it, even if she didn’t know what a dingo actually was. She took out her phone, searched the Internet, found a picture of a baby dingo and now she really wanted a baby dingo for a pet.
Valkyrie sighed, putting the phone away. She really needed a hobby. She walked out of the kitchen and someone grabbed her, smashed her head against the wall. White light exploded behind her eyes. She wanted to drop to the ground, but there were hands on her, someone speaking, and then the hallway blurred as she was thrown the length of it. She hit the ground, banging her chin and biting her tongue. Blood in her mouth, thunder in her head. She felt fingers in her hair, heard herself cry out as she was wrenched back. More talking, but the words slipped by. Her ears were buzzing. Her head snapped. Someone had hit her. She was on the floor again, on her back this time. Someone sittin
g on her, straddling her. A hand at her throat. She tried to push at the air but she couldn’t focus. She clicked her fingers but couldn’t find the spark. Her head was splitting.
She blinked, the man on top of her becoming less hazy. For a moment she didn’t recognise him. All she saw was the snarling mouth with the cut lip and the spittle that flew as he spoke. She saw the eyes, wide and bruised and burning with anger. A name drifted to her. Moore.
“You thought I wouldn’t come back at you?” he sneered. “You thought you could do that and get away with it?”
His hand at her throat was cutting off her air. She realised she already had her hands up, trying to release the pressure. She brought her knees in so they were pressed against him from behind, and then she hooked her left foot to the outside of his right. He didn’t notice.
“They had to let me go,” he said. “Cops can’t have someone beaten up in their own cells, not without a lawsuit.”
He pulled his right hand back, cracked it against her cheek. Her head swam but she fought through it.
“I saw your mother’s address on one of their files. I thought to myself, the moment I get out of here, I’m paying that girl a visit. I’m going to give her some of what she gave me.” He leaned down, his face mere inches from hers. “I don’t know how you did all that crazy stuff, but I can do some crazy stuff of my own. I can beat that pretty face of yours right off you.”
She waited until he started to lean away, then she trapped his right hand at her throat and smacked her own right hand up into his chin. She didn’t even give him time to feel it. Her hand went to his shoulder, fingers closing around his jacket, and she snapped her body off the ground, bridging him up and over and now she was on top, smashing her elbow down into his face, again and again while he attempted to cover up.
He tried to push her off but she kept bringing the elbow down. He started shouting, cursing at her. Somewhere in the distance she heard a baby crying. Alice had woken up.
Her head felt light and for a moment she thought she was going to faint. Moore seized his chance, started to push her off. Her head cleared as he turned over, tried to crawl out from under her. She fell on to him, right arm wrapping around his throat, the other searching for a sleeper hold. He gagged, raised up to his hands and knees, but she stayed on his back, hooking her feet into his legs. He launched himself sideways. She tucked her head against him, clung on like a limpet. He rolled, gasping and gagging, doing everything he could to throw her off. Her left arm snaked closer to that sleeper hold. They crashed into the hall table. The vase toppled, smashed on the ground. Flowers and water went everywhere.
She found the sleeper hold, started to tighten, then she felt something slice into her left arm. She cried out, but only let go when Moore twisted the shard of broken vase. She fell back, clutching her arm, blood dripping through her fingers. Moore got to his feet, staggered slightly, his face bright red, bleeding and sweating, the shard in his hand. She tried to push at the air but her focus was gone. Her head buzzed too loudly, every movement sending pain ricocheting against the inside of her skull.
She backed off to the front door and he closed in, teeth bloodied and gritted. If she had been wearing her black clothes, a shard of vase wouldn’t have worried her too much. But she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Her black clothes were upstairs, in her room, with her Necromancer ring.
Moore came in, stabbing towards her gut. Valkyrie jerked her hips back as she tried to grab his wrist with both hands. She missed, had no choice but to commit, so she grabbed his arm where she could and launched herself at him, slamming her forehead into his face. She felt the shard slice across her hip. Her momentum took her forward as he stumbled, and she had a good grip of his arm now. She slid in, clasping his arm across her body tightly while her free hand sent palm shot after palm shot towards his face, trying to get his chin. Hit the chin, shake the brain, that’s what Skulduggery said.
The vase shard dropped and Moore lost his footing, went down, dragging Valkyrie off balance. She tumbled over him and he grabbed at her, but she kicked him away, got up, ran for the stairs. She took them three at a time, but he was after her, lunged and caught her ankle. She fell against the stairs painfully. He was gripping her leg with one hand, the other reaching up, hooking into the waistband of her jeans, dragging her down towards him. She twisted, crunching his fingers between her back and the wooden step, and he roared and released. She scrambled up, got to the landing, burst into her room, flung open the wardrobe and grabbed the black clothes, searching the pockets for the ring.
Moore collided with her from behind. He was roaring now, a constant roar of anger and murderous hatred. He threw her back. She fell on to her bed and he was on top of her. She crossed her arms over her head and his knuckles cracked against her elbows. He hissed in pain, grabbed her arms, tried to pull them away from her face but she resisted, her muscles burning. She waited until he gave an almighty heave and then she shoved him, adding to his own strength, and he fell backwards off the bed. She tried to spring past him but he flailed, caught her leg. She hit the ground and he was on her. The Necromancer ring was on the floor of the wardrobe. She didn’t need to focus to use it. She reached out but it was too far. She could see herself in the mirror, see Moore on top of her. He caught her eye and grinned. She stopped reaching for the ring, and instead her fingers tapped the mirror. Her reflection, bloody and bruised, blinked, and stood up.
Moore froze. “What the hell…?”
The reflection’s foot came out of the mirror and lashed into Moore’s face.
He went backwards. Valkyrie heard him crash into her desk. She turned over, and the reflection pulled her to her feet.
“This isn’t right,” Moore gasped, sucking in air through broken teeth. “How did you do that? What the hell is that?”
The reflection left Valkyrie standing there and closed in. For a moment Moore looked like he might shrink back, but fear mixed with his anger and he snarled again. He threw a punch and the reflection lunged, its arms crossed in front of its face, taking the punch on its forearms. It grabbed Moore’s head and started slamming in headbutts. Moore’s legs gave out and he slipped from the reflection’s grasp, his face a mess, already unconscious as he hit the floor.
The reflection looked back at Valkyrie. “We should kill him,” it said.
Valkyrie frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous, it’s practical. I’ll do it if you don’t want to. You can call Skulduggery. We’ll need to hide the body.”
Valkyrie fought to get her breath back. “We’re not killing him, OK? We’re not killers. Or I’m not a killer, and that means you’re not a killer, either.”
The reflection looked at her. “He’s the one who broke in and attacked you. If your parents were here, he would have attacked them, too. For all we know, he might even have hurt Alice. We should kill him.”
“No, all right? We’re going to do this like normal people. I’m calling the Guards.”
“He’ll identify you as the person who attacked him in his cell.”
“And I’ll say he’s lying.”
“And what will you say when he mentions me?”
“I’ll say I hit him so hard he was seeing double. Nobody’s going to believe a word he says, especially when he starts talking about anything magical.”
“If you call the Guards, they’ll arrest him, put him on trial, throw him in jail. And what are you going to do when he gets out again? He’ll come back, you know he will, and you’re not going to be here.”
“No,” Valkyrie said, “but you are. And you’re going to protect my family.”
The reflection looked down at Moore. “If he comes back,” it said, “I’m going to kill him.”
Valkyrie kept her eyes on the reflection, and didn’t say anything. That sounded fair to her.
Chapter 42
A New Mission
capegrace threw open the doors to the pub, and nobody came in. The people of Roarhaven w
rinkled their noses at his disfigured appearance as they passed. Not one of them said hello. Not one of them stepped inside. He turned, went back into the cool interior, away from the glare of the sun and the glares of the people.
Years ago, when he had first run the place, the bar had been split into two. There was a section for the regular people, and a section for the special guests, the VIPs. Now there weren’t any VIPs, but neither were there regular people. There was just Scapegrace, the owner and bartender, and Thrasher, the idiot who wiped the tables.
“Stop wiping the tables,” Scapegrace said. “There’s no one here. You keep wiping the damn tables. You do a loop of the room, humming away to yourself, wiping the tables one after another… It’s insane. You look like an insane person doing that.”
“Sorry,” Thrasher said, his head drooping.
“Go clean the toilets.”
“But they’re disgusting.”
“So are you. Clean them.”
Thrasher’s head dipped even lower, and he trudged away to do his duty.
Sometime around mid-afternoon, two men walked in. They wore black, and Scapegrace had never seen them before. They certainly weren’t Roarhaven natives. One of them held the door open and two more men walked in. The first was dressed in a black robe, and the second was dressed all in white. Scapegrace’s eyes would have widened if they’d been able, but having half his face burned off severely limited his expressions of surprise. He stared at the White Cleaver until the man in the black robe cleared his throat.
“You’re a zombie,” said the man.
Scapegrace nodded. No point in denying it.
“Do you know what that means?” the man continued. “It means that you, like the White Cleaver here, are a product of Necromancer magic. As such, you are bound to Necromancer will.”
“I am?” asked Scapegrace. It was news to him, and yet he did feel an odd urge to bow.
“Oh, you are,” said the man. “And that means you are bound to my will. I am High Priest Vandameer Craven. I am your master.”
Thrasher popped his head out of the toilets. “Are you my master too?”