This made China pause. “In exchange for …?”
“Us.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Vampires,” he said. “Not only would Roarhaven be the first sorcerer city in the world, but it would also be the first magical community to count vampires among its citizens. It would show every Sanctuary on every continent that there’s nothing Roarhaven is afraid of. There is no threat it cannot control. No beast it cannot tame.”
“You’re offering us your services? You’d be our tame vampires?”
He nodded. “We would be part of the city, and part of the Sanctuary. You would have your operatives, your sorcerers, your Cleavers … and your vampires.”
China hesitated. “This has never been tried before.”
“With good reason. But times are changing.”
“And why exactly have you chosen now to make this offer?”
“Darquesse. A pack of vampires might not last that long against her on its own, but as part of a strategic plan …”
“So you think you’re swooping in to aid us in our hour of need?”
“We need you. You may have a need for us. This is an opportune time for a deal to be made, I think. Would you agree?”
China had to admit, she liked the idea. The first magical community to have its own vampires. What a signal that would be. What a message that would send. Dusk was right – Roarhaven would instantly develop the kind of reputation she needed it to have. And as for what it would do for China’s own reputation …
“Come in,” she said. “Talk to me while I bathe.”
56
TOE TO TOE
howtime.
The midday sun distant and indifferent over her head, Valkyrie walked the wide street, forcing herself to stroll with confidence towards the Palace, watching the people scatter and the street empty. Even the Redhoods stayed back. The white-robed Sense-Wardens watched her, but didn’t try to peek into her mind. They had learned their lesson when they’d tried that against Darquesse.
She felt vulnerable. The only disguise she needed was a change of clothes, which meant she’d had to leave her black ones behind. The outfit she’d been given – red, like Darquesse’s – wasn’t even armoured. She didn’t like this. Not one bit. She had to resist the urge to reach behind her to check if Peregrine was still there. She couldn’t even hear his footsteps.
Her mouth was dry. She really wanted to lick her lips, but was afraid that would make her look nervous. She couldn’t afford to drop the act, not even for a moment.
Valkyrie stopped walking, put her hands on her hips, and smiled.
They’d expected Mevolent to appear long before this. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe he didn’t believe for a moment that she was Darquesse. Maybe someone was going to shoot her from a rooftop before Peregrine had a chance to teleport her to safety. One bullet, right between the eyes. How stupid would she feel then?
She was almost relieved when Mevolent drifted down from the sky. Almost.
He didn’t have Vile or Vengeous with him. Were they too busy torturing Skulduggery and Ravel, or were they sneaking up behind her? She wanted to look round, but kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.
“Sorry about yesterday,” she said loudly. “You caught me unawares. Shall we pick up where we left off?”
Her voice only trembled a little, right at the start. She didn’t think he noticed, though. She hoped he didn’t.
Mevolent brought the magic-sucking gun out from beneath his cloak. Valkyrie kept the smile, and wondered if this was going to hurt.
The beam hit her and it was hot against her skin, and hit with enough force to drive her back one step. But with no magic to drain out of her, once she’d got over the initial impact, all she felt was a mild tingle. Even so, she mimicked Darquesse’s earlier reactions, and fell to her knees like she was exhausted.
Mevolent cut off the beam and strode forward. Before he had a chance to finish her, Valkyrie stood up, felt Peregrine’s hand on her back, and suddenly she was on the opposite side of the street.
“Is that it?” she asked, forcing a grin on to her face. “Is that the only setting it’s got?”
Mevolent raised the weapon and fired again. This time when the beam hit her, Valkyrie laughed.
Peregrine teleported her three strides to the left. “Your little toys only work on me for a short time,” she said. “Then I learn. I adapt. We have a race of beings in my universe – we call them the Borg. They taught me everything they know about adapting to new weaponry. You cannot defeat me, Mevolent. Resistance is futile.”
Mevolent fired again, and again. After each blast, Valkyrie forced her smile to grow wider.
He leaped at her and suddenly she was on the opposite side of the street, watching Mevolent land.
She tried to give a laugh, but all that emerged was a strangled bark that she really hoped nobody heard.
Mevolent turned to her. Valkyrie did her best to look arrogant. After all those years of being arrogant, it should have come to her a lot more naturally than it did. “I’m not here for you,” she said. “I’m here for Skulduggery Pleasant and Erskine Ravel. Give them to me and I will leave this depressing little reality and never come back. You have my word.”
Mevolent observed her from behind his helmet. Then he dropped the magic-sucking gun, and held out his hand. For a moment, he stood there like that, and then the God-Killer broadsword drifted down from the rooftops and settled into his grip.
Involuntarily, Valkyrie reached behind her, grabbing for Peregrine. Her fingers grasped at nothing but air, and her entire body went cold.
“Are you there?” she whispered, trying not to move her lips. “Hey!”
But there was no response, and no reassuring pat on the back. The moment Mevolent dropped the gun, Peregrine had moved. She was alone.
Mevolent walked forward slowly, the flat of the broadsword resting on his shoulder. The magic-sucker, on the ground behind him, disappeared, scooped up by the invisible Teleporter.
She couldn’t run. Even if she had somewhere to run to, she was nowhere near fast enough to get there. She couldn’t fight. She didn’t even have her armoured clothes – not that they’d do any good against a God-Killer. That sword was going to slice her in two so cleanly she doubted it’d get any of her blood on its blade.
“Stop!” she screamed.
Mevolent stopped walking.
Fear turned to fury inside her, and bubbled from her belly to her throat. “You think you can kill me?” she roared, and found herself striding forward. “You think I’m going to be killed by the likes of you? I am Darquesse! I have lived inside nightmares since before I was even born! I was always here! I was always meant to be here! I’m going to kill every man, woman and child, every animal, plant and organism in my reality and I’m going to do it because I can! I am a god, you pathetic little man. I am the darkness at the end of the day. I am the cold that overcomes the heat. I am inevitable, you insignificant little toad. Who the hell are you to think you can threaten me?”
When she finished talking, she was standing right before him, glaring up through the eyeholes of his helmet and seriously regretting this course of action. She wanted to pee. Her left leg was shaking so much she thought she was going to collapse. Thankfully, Mevolent’s sword was still resting on his shoulder. He seemed to believe that she was who she said she was, that she was capable of carrying out her threats to—
Mevolent’s left hand rose, unhurried. Valkyrie forced herself to ignore it, to keep her glare fixed. His hand went to her face, cupping her chin. The slightest squeeze would crumple her jaw, she knew, but she was all out of ideas and staying very still and looking very angry seemed to be the best thing to do in her current situation.
She felt him observing her for the longest time, as if he were peering into her soul and weighing up what he found there. If he found her strong enough, he might just let her go. If he discovered her weakness, he’d kill her where she stood.
His hand left her
face.
“You are not Darquesse,” he said, and even as he was stepping back to swing the sword, Valkyrie felt hands on her from behind and then she was indoors.
She recognised this place, the darkness and the smell. It was the dungeon beneath Mevolent’s Palace. The cloaking sphere retracted and Peregrine stuffed it in his coat. He held the energy-sucker in his other hand.
“You came back for me,” Valkyrie said, her eyes wide.
“Of course,” said Peregrine. “You think I’d leave you there? We’re the good guys, Valkyrie.”
“Indeed we are,” said a voice behind her, and she turned as Serpine joined them, Skulduggery and Ravel following behind in shackles, escorted by a team of grim sorcerers. “See? Your colleagues, as promised. I am nothing if not a man who sometimes keeps his word. Peregrine, what is that wonderful object you’re holding? Is it, perhaps, the weapon I’ve been waiting for?”
Peregrine handed it over and, while Serpine gave it a cursory examination, Valkyrie rushed over to Skulduggery. “Are you OK? I wanted to get you out sooner but—”
“You got me out when you could,” Skulduggery said. “You have no need to apologise.”
“Where’s the key?” Valkyrie asked Serpine. “The key to the shackles, where is it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Serpine mumbled, his attention still on the magic-sucker, “and I’m sure I don’t care to.” Satisfied, he looked up. “Your skeleton friend has a habit of hitting me, so he’s going to remain in shackles until you go home, which hopefully will be very soon. Peregrine, I think it’s time we all got out of—”
“Company!” one of Serpine’s sorcerers snarled as Baron Vengeous stormed towards them.
“Oh, this should be fun,” Serpine said, aiming the magic-sucker at him.
He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
Serpine shook the weapon. “Work, damn you.”
“Get us out of here,” Skulduggery ordered, and everyone linked up, and before Valkyrie had formed her next thought they were back in the small fishing village on the other side of the country.
“Damn it, why won’t it work?” Serpine yelled, stalking away from them. He tried firing at the sky, spun and aimed at Peregrine, but again nothing happened. “Why won’t it work?”
“Maybe it doesn’t work because you don’t know how to work it,” Valkyrie said. “Maybe it’s not so simple as pulling the trigger. You’re like a kid who gets a toy on Christmas morning and flings it away when it doesn’t work first time.”
“Why the hell would kids get toys at Christmas?” Serpine said. “And why are you still here? Don’t you have a dimension to get back to?”
“We don’t rendezvous with our Shunter for another twenty-six hours,” Skulduggery said.
“Well, that’s just annoying, isn’t it? Do yourself a favour and stay out of everyone’s way.” He tossed the magic-sucker to one of his men. “And you. Get this working. I’ll be in my chambers.” He stalked away, shouted Harmony’s name. She emerged from a doorway and hurried after him with a scowl on her face.
Peregrine passed a small key to Valkyrie. “For the shackles,” he said. “I’m assuming you’ve arranged to meet up with your Shunter in Roarhaven? Whenever you need to go, come find me.”
“We will,” she said. “Thanks.”
Peregrine and the other sorcerers dispersed. Valkyrie ignored Ravel and unlocked Skulduggery’s shackles.
“You OK?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Skulduggery said, adjusting his cufflinks. “That is a very useful weapon they’ve just stolen.”
“It is,” said Valkyrie. “It’s called a magic-sucker.”
“That the technical term for it, is it?”
“Yep.”
“You know … taking down Darquesse would be a lot easier with that weapon.”
She nodded. “I was just thinking that. But Serpine’s not going to let us simply take it. We already have a Sceptre from this reality. Taking the—”
“How can you stand to talk to him?” Ravel asked, his voice dripping with disgust.
Skulduggery turned to him slowly. “I’m sorry?”
“Serpine,” said Ravel. “For hundreds of years, hunting down that man was what drove you. What drove us. We chased him across the world to make him pay for what he did. He killed our friends, Skulduggery. He killed your—”
Skulduggery moved, and all at once they were standing so close that Skulduggery’s hat brim was touching Ravel’s forehead.
“I know what Nefarian Serpine did,” Skulduggery said in a low, quiet voice. “And the Nefarian Serpine who killed those people is dead.”
“They’re the same man.”
“In a lot of ways. But the Serpine who just walked away from us is not the one who killed our friends. I carried around that anger for long enough. I let it change me. Do you really want me to pick it up again?”
Ravel hesitated. “He’s the enemy.”
Skulduggery didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t have to. Ravel took a step back, and looked away.
Skulduggery turned back to Valkyrie. “Serpine thinks he has twenty-six hours in which to get paranoid. But we can take the magic-sucker, steal some horses and get to Roarhaven in ten – just in time to make our actual rendezvous with Signate.”
Valkyrie smiled. “You are sneaky.”
“When I have to be.”
They waited around for two hours for their chance. It was getting dark by then. Valkyrie, clad once again in her black clothes, kept watch. Ravel stood beside her. His hands were still shackled, and the shock stick was on her back and fully charged. If he tried anything, she was ready. Minutes passed.
Skulduggery emerged from the doorway, the magic-sucker wrapped in a blanket. Not a word was spoken. They moved through the village quickly. They got to the stables.
“Stop.”
Valkyrie froze. Ever so slowly, she turned, saw Skulduggery and Ravel do the same, as Serpine walked up. Behind him, a squad of sorcerers armed with shotguns and automatic weapons.
“I knew I couldn’t trust you,” Serpine said. “I knew this would prove just too tempting. You come in here, cause trouble, then disappear with something that belongs to us. Well … not this time. This time you fail. Hand it over.”
“Why?” Skulduggery asked. “It’s not like you can get it to work.”
“We will,” said Serpine. “And if we don’t, so be it. But you’re not taking it with you.”
“We just want to borrow it, really. We’ll bring it right back.”
“Drop it at your feet, or I’ll give the order and all three of you will be blasted apart.”
Skulduggery put the weapon on the ground slowly, then straightened up, hands in the air.
“If I ever see you again,” said Serpine, “I’ll assume you’re here to try and steal something else, and you will be treated as an enemy. You can leave now.”
Valkyrie and Skulduggery backed away from the magic-sucker, taking Ravel with them. At any moment, Valkyrie expected Serpine to give the order to shoot, but as soon as it became clear that he’d already lost interest, she relaxed. She watched him gesture to one of his sorcerers, instructing him to fetch the weapon. Instead, another sorcerer went to get it, a man in a tattered coat and hood. She glimpsed his face, frowned, and reversed her course.
“Valkyrie,” said Skulduggery, but she ignored him, stepped closer, peering under that hood as the sorcerer bent to pick up the weapon. His face was unshaven, his lips stretched into a grin. In fact, his whole face was stretched, like it was a mask pulled too tight. The sorcerer raised his head, she saw blackness curling from his empty eyes, and she knew it was a mask – a face cut from another man’s head.
“Lord Vile!” she cried, and Vile straightened, tendrils of shadow tearing his clothes to shreds as they lashed out at the startled sorcerers. Bullets raked his armour, either bouncing off or being absorbed into it, and Serpine cursed and dodged back, stumbling to avoid a shadow that would have ta
ken his head off.
Skulduggery grabbed Valkyrie’s arm and they ran, joining Ravel behind cover. Bullets whined and fire whooshed and energy sizzled, and screams mixed with shouts until the sound of people dying became the only thing they heard. Valkyrie raised herself up, took a peek. Bodies lay strewn about, and only Vile and Serpine remained standing.
Red energy coursed from Serpine’s right hand and met the stream of darkness that flowed from Vile’s fist. At first, they seemed evenly matched, but as Valkyrie watched she could see that the darkness was inching forward, bit by bit, and Serpine was showing the strain. He was pale, and sweating, and his arm was trembling.
The magic-sucker caught her eye. Vile had dropped it or someone had snatched it from him – either way it was on the ground once again. She remembered how it had looked in Mevolent’s hands, how he had held it. Right before he pulled the trigger his left hand had tightened on the barrel. Maybe that was it. Maybe activating the sigils there was all that was needed to ready the trigger.
Serpine’s legs gave out and he dropped, the red energy dissipating and the shadows glancing off his shoulder. He grunted, went sprawling, and Vile’s shadows turned sharp.
Then Vile hesitated. To him, this Nefarian Serpine was the man who had murdered his wife and child, the man who had been responsible for turning him from Skulduggery Pleasant into Lord Vile. Valkyrie reckoned that killing such a man was bound to make anyone relish the moment.
Valkyrie ran from cover, snatched the weapon up, but even as she aimed Vile was turning, sending a shadow shard out to meet her.
What happened next happened slowly. The magic-sucker buzzed slightly in her hand and she felt it activate, felt the beam ready to burst forth. The shadow shard came around like a whip, caught the weapon at its exact centre, a hair’s breadth from Valkyrie’s forefinger. The gun split as it tried to fire and light erupted from within and filled Valkyrie’s vision.
She wasn’t aware of being thrown back. She wasn’t aware of Vile stumbling. She wasn’t aware of her own screaming. All that she was aware of was the pain, and that was enough.