Death Bringer

  Valkyrie went cold, and saw China sag. Skulduggery’s gun didn’t waver.

  “I’m sure you remember who was in the Diablerie back in those days,” Scorn said. “There was Vengeous – before he became one of Mevolent’s Generals, of course – Gruesome, Murder Rose – delightful lady – Jaron Gallow, may he rest in peace – a few others… and China. The leader of the pack, as it were. If I’m right, and I think I am, Rose went after your child. That wasn’t much of a problem. To be honest, from what I’ve read, the biggest danger there was whether Rose would go too far and kill the kid. But for once, she obeyed orders.

  “China, because she enjoyed that kind of thing, went after your wife. By all accounts, it was a knock-down, drag-out fight. There was blood, sweat, tears, hair-pulling, even some name-calling. Things got pretty heated, but eventually China emerged triumphant, and she shackled your pretty little wife and hauled her all the way back to Serpine’s castle. Then she stood in the shadows, and watched you run in, saw you scream when they died. She was there while Serpine was torturing you. Apparently, different members of the Diablerie liked to stop by every now and then to watch. That’s pretty dark, isn’t it?”

  Skulduggery lowered his gun.

  “Of course,” Scorn said, “this probably makes no difference to you in the slightest, does it? I mean, you’re already friends with her. You’ve already forgiven her for the things she did during the war. This is just one more thing, am I right? Just one more thing to forgive her for.”

  She held up the switch. Skulduggery didn’t move. Scorn smiled, and thumbed the little red button. The windows on the top floor of the tenement building exploded, spraying glass all the way across the street. Flames licked the air. Black smoke billowed. Burning pages rained down. China shook her head slowly and Valkyrie stared, but Scorn just smiled and Skulduggery still didn’t move.

  China tried to get up and Scorn drove a knee into her face. She started kicking her, lashing her boot in. China gagged and curled up.

  Skulduggery turned round, started walking back to the Bentley.

  People were stumbling out on to the street, staring at the fire and calling the fire brigade, looking at Scorn beating China and calling the cops. Valkyrie ran over, shoved Scorn back. China lay gasping between them.

  “You want to take her place?” Scorn asked, eyes narrowed.

  “If you make one move towards me,” Valkyrie said, “Skulduggery will kill you. Leave. Now.”

  Scorn observed her for another few moments, and then that smile returned. “Of course, Detective Cain. Whatever you say.”

  She cast another glance down at China and her smile widened. Then she moved off, disappearing into the crowd.

  China turned over on to her back. Her face was a mess. Swollen and cut and bloody. She held her arm against her ribs, and every breath seemed to hurt. She grimaced, forced herself to sit up. She didn’t raise her eyes. “I won’t blame you,” she said, her voice tight with pain, “if you walk away.”

  “Good,” Valkyrie said, and she did just that.

  Chapter 61

  My Twilight

  he first time she’d met China, Skulduggery had warned Valkyrie not to trust her. She could only be relied upon to serve her own best interests, he had said, and people like that were the most dangerous kind.

  But since then, even Skulduggery’s attitude towards China had softened. They’d all been through so much together. They’d fought side by side. They’d faced death and overcome certain destruction. China had been shifting, ever so slightly, from her throne of neutrality to being an ally who could be depended upon. And ever since Valkyrie had lost Tanith, China had become something even more – she’d become a friend.

  But now all that was over. Because of his own past, Skulduggery could forgive a great many sins. But this? Being directly involved in the murder of his wife and child? Valkyrie feared that it would be asking too much of him to forgive a crime of that magnitude.

  She hadn’t heard from him in two days. She kept expecting a call from Ghastly, informing her that Skulduggery was in custody, charged with the unlawful killing of China Sorrows. But as the darkness drew in on another day her phone, thankfully, remained silent.

  She was in no mood for Caelan that night. He tapped on her window and she stared at him for the longest time, then pointed behind him, at the pier, and he nodded, and vanished. She got dressed, sneaked out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when she neared.

  “For what?”

  “For not being there when you needed me. You went through all of that without me.”

  “It’s grand, OK? Forget about it.”

  “But I failed you, Valkyrie.”

  She sighed. “I can’t do this any more.”

  “You can’t do what?”

  “Caelan, whatever we have, it’s over, all right? We never went out, but we’re breaking up, even so.”

  His beautiful eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re way too intense for me. I mean, for God’s sake, every word out of your mouth is how much you love me and how we’re meant to be together. I don’t look forward to seeing you any more because I know exactly what I’ll be getting.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, Caelan, I do. We’re not Buffy and Angel, or Romeo and Juliet, or those two from West Side Story. We’re not even Edward and Bella, OK? You’re far too freaky for me.”

  He looked at her. “We’re meant to be together…”

  “And this is exactly what I mean.”

  “Our love is written in the stars.”

  “And there you go again.”

  “I love you.”

  “You bore me.”

  He faltered. “What?”

  “Seriously. You do. I hate to be so mean, but you’re just not hearing this. You bore the hell out of me. At first, you were cool. But my God, you got boring really fast. There’s only so much of this brooding loner thing a girl can take before she really just needs someone to make her laugh. You’re not a funny guy, Caelan.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You can’t tell jokes.”

  “No, I mean I don’t understand why you’re saying these things.”

  “And you just missed another joke. See?”

  “It’s Fletcher, isn’t it?”

  “Fletcher has nothing to do with this, other than I can’t believe I’ve had to break up with two guys in the space of a week.”

  He grabbed her arm. “I can change,” he said. “That’s not going to do it.”

  “Then you can change.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can do what I say for once. Have you never thought that the reason you are unhappy is because you never obey me?”

  “Seriously? No, that thought never entered my head.”

  “I only want what’s best for you.”

  “Let go of my arm.”

  “Why? Do you think I’d break it? I would never hurt you, Valkyrie. This? This isn’t pain.” He squeezed, and she grimaced. “This is nothing compared to the agony I feel in my heart. A bruise, a broken bone is paltry.”

  “Caelan, let go of me right now.”

  “Why?” he asked, a sneer on his lips. “So you can run away from me? So you can leave me, and fall into the arms of another? Who is he, Valkyrie?”

  “There’s no one else, you psycho.”

  “Stop lying to me!”

  Valkyrie twisted her arm and yanked it from his grip and Caelan caught her across the jaw with his fist. She was halfway to the ground when his hand closed around her throat and suddenly he was slamming her against the wall on the far side of the road.

  “Who is he?” he snarled. “Who are you with? Give me his name!”

  She clutched at his hand, but couldn’t prise it off, and her head was pounding and lights danced before her eyes.

  Suddenly the grip was released, and Valkyrie slumped to a sitting position. A moment passed, and then a hand stroked
her face tenderly.

  “I’m sorry,” Caelan said. “I’m sorry, Valkyrie. I didn’t mean to strike you. I would never hurt you, you know that. But sometimes… sometimes you just have to listen to me, and do what I say. Now, if you tell me there is no one else, then I believe you. Of course I do. Because I love you. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded. He smiled, took her hands, and raised her slowly to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” he asked gently.

  “I’m OK,” she said.

  “I love you,” he smiled.

  She snapped her palms and the space between them rippled and Caelan flew backwards. He managed to land in a crouch, and leaped at her, but she sent the shadows to intercept, pulling him from the air and driving him head first into the ground. He got to his hands and knees, dazed, and Valkyrie ran up, went to kick, but he batted her foot away and his fist crunched into her belly. She doubled over with a cry of pain that turned into a strangled wheeze.

  “Why do you do this?” he raged. “Why do you defy me? I love you, Valkyrie! Do you know what that means?”

  She dropped to her knees.

  “I love you,” he said in her ear. “We’re meant for each other. Can’t you understand that? I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried so hard. But you just don’t get it. You continue to fight.”

  His hand closed around her jaw, and lifted her face to him.

  “You think it’s easy for me?” he asked, tears in his eyes. “You think it’s easy to give my love? I’ve tried, in the past. Girls, women, so many, they each stole my heart. But each time it ended I lost a piece of myself.”

  Her hand went to her pocket, fumbled with the phone.

  “But you,” Caelan said, “you’re different. The others, they couldn’t keep the monster away. As much as I loved them, our love just wasn’t strong enough to keep them alive. Sooner or later, the monster would emerge. That’s when Dusk found me.” He sneered. “He said I was endangering everyone with the things I did. He tried to stop me, but he couldn’t kill me. He was living by the code. We don’t kill our own kind. The vampire he had with him, he was even worse than Dusk. He talked about living in darkness, in solitude, keeping away from the mortals. One day I’d had enough of his lectures, and I slit his throat and took his head. And because of that, I was exiled, cast out to an existence of loneliness. Until I found you. We’re meant for each other. And if you can’t understand that, I’ll have to make you.”

  Moonlight made the sweat on his brow glisten. He opened his mouth, his fangs growing.

  “Caelan.”

  Caelan snarled, and turned. Fletcher stood there.

  “Get away from my ex-girlfriend, you moany little whinge-bag.”

  Caelan took a breath, like he was in pain, and straightened up. His voice was low, guttural. “I was hoping I’d get the chance to kill you.”

  “You won’t be killing anyone, you sad little emo git.”

  “You’ve stood in the way of our love for long enough.”

  “Just listening to you makes me want to top myself, you self-pitying Paranormal Romance reject.”

  Caelan glared. “Stop insulting me.”

  “Why? If you cry, will your mascara run?”

  “You’re just making me angrier. And I really should have taken my serum tonight.”

  Caelan’s fingers dug into his shirt, into his flesh, and he ripped it off, revealing the bone-white skin beneath. A suddenly clawed hand went to his face, tore it from his head, taking the hair with it. The vampire shook off the ragged remains of its human form, its black eyes gleaming as it advanced.

  Fletcher licked his lips nervously and backed off. Valkyrie did her best to sit up, watching the muscles move beneath the vampire’s pale skin. A creature made for killing. She wanted to shout out, to warn Fletcher, to tell him to go and get Skulduggery, but all she managed was a moan.

  Fletcher teleported, reappearing a moment later with a baseball bat in his hands. He teleported behind the vampire, swung, but the vampire was too quick, and twisted out of the way. Fletcher barely had time to vanish before a claw lashed through him.

  Fletcher appeared, regarding the vampire warily. The vampire snarled. They circled each other. Fletcher teleported again, appearing behind his foe, then teleported to the other side as those claws came for him again. He swung for the head, but the bat was knocked from his hands. Fletcher stumbled, the vampire lunged, found nothing but empty space.

  It wasn’t working. The vampire was just too fast.

  Fletcher picked up the fallen bat. He held it in a tight grip, brought it up over his shoulder, settled into his stance, like he was expecting the vampire to oblige him by charging across the ten metres that separated them. Then he swung, solid and vicious, and for a heartbeat he was beside the vampire, the bat crashing into that snarling face, and then he was back out of range, the bat recoiling after the impact. The vampire roared, and Fletcher smiled.

  He swung again, teleported behind the vampire just at the point of impact and then teleported away. Again and again he did it, and the vampire twisted and slashed and snapped, but Fletcher was only in range for the length of an eyeblink before he was gone again. The vampire stumbled to one knee. The bat cracked against the vampire’s ribs. The bat cracked against the vampire’s back. The bat cracked against the vampire’s head, and it splintered.

  Fletcher was gone for a moment, and returned with an axe. He swung, teleported, and the axe blade dug into the vampire’s shoulder. But when Fletcher teleported away he took the vampire with him. He cursed when he realised what he’d done, tried to release the axe but the vampire’s hand closed around Fletcher’s arm and Fletcher screamed as nails perforated his flesh. Fletcher was sent rolling across the ground, clutching his arm and screaming. The vampire reached up, dislodged the axe and threw it away.

  Fletcher scrambled up, fell, scrambled up again, running on to the pier to get some distance between them, to get some time to focus and teleport. It wasn’t going to happen. Valkyrie could see that. The pain was too intense. The panic had set in. The vampire moved after him.

  Fletcher tripped and fell, tried to crawl on, leaving a trail of blood. The vampire hissed and snarled, but followed slowly, the way a cat would follow an injured mouse. It kicked Fletcher over on to his back, looked down at him, claws flexing. It dropped to its knees, straddling him. It wasn’t going to bite him. It wasn’t going to give him the chance of living as a monster. It was going to rip him open, from chest to throat. Its claws lifted.

  Valkyrie dived at it, hooked her arm around its neck, hauling it off Fletcher and bringing it to the ground. They rolled and it struggled, but she held on, still rolling, and suddenly there was nothing beneath them and they were falling.

  They hit the water. Valkyrie’s leg banged against the rocks and she screamed through gritted teeth. The vampire thrashed but she held it down in the darkness beneath the surface. It managed to shake her off and she swam backwards against the current. The waves brought the vampire in towards the rocks and it grabbed them, started to haul itself out. For one terrifying moment, Valkyrie thought the salt water hadn’t worked. But then the vampire’s movements grew weaker, and its hands went to its throat. It turned its head to her, black eyes open wide, mouth gagging gently. Then it stopped.

  Valkyrie swam over, pulled herself on to the rocks, moaning in pain. She reached the rusted ladder set into the side of the pier and climbed slowly. Fletcher lay on his back, his breathing shallow and quick. He looked at her as she crawled over.

  “With one exception,” he managed to say, “you’ve got terrible taste in men.”

  She lay beside him, too tired and sore to answer.

  “You’re going to have to take me off speed dial,” he said. “I don’t want to waste time being mad with you, but you’re still not my favourite person in the world right now. I’m not going to be jumping back here every time you get yourself in trouble.”

  “I know,” she said. “Fletch? Thank you.”

>   He nodded, and grimaced. “I am really bleeding a lot here. You might want to hang on. I think we’re in need of some medical assistance.”

  Valkyrie moved her hand till she found his. “I was an idiot for the way I treated you,” she said.

  “At last,” he said, “something we can both agree on.”

  And they vanished.

  Chapter 62

  They Walk Among Us

  enny lowered his camera as Valkyrie Cain disappeared into thin air. His hands were shaking. He didn’t know who the kid with the stupid hair was, but he’d find out. And that monster…

  This was bigger than he’d ever dared imagine. He stood up on shaking legs, and decided, then and there, that Valkyrie was the name he was going to use for her in the article. It was a good name. Certainly a name that deserved to be spoken aloud alongside Skulduggery Pleasant. But as far as the book was concerned…

  He could see it now. A story like this was too big for a mere newspaper article. Much too big. He’d use the article to alert the world, but the full story needed something grander to contain it. It needed a book and an accompanying TV special. He already had a provisional title picked out: “They Walk Among Us: The Sorcerers In Our Midst”. A world-changing exposé on the secret magical subculture that exists in every country around the planet.

  He decided now that it would be in the book where he would focus on Valkyrie Cain. She was the perfect figure for the audience to identify with, to root for. A normal girl, thrust into a life of danger and excitement, taken under the wing of an honest-to-goodness living skeleton. It was like Peter Parker being bitten by that radioactive spider – a normal kid given extraordinary powers. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It would make him a household name and a billionaire, all in one go.

  But it would be in the TV special, not the book and not the article, where Kenny would reveal to the world that badass sorcerer Valkyrie Cain had really been mild-mannered teenager Stephanie Edgley all along.

  Because if there was one thing the public was going to love more than a superhero, it was a superhero unmasked – live on air.