The Faceless Ones

She was drenched, she was freezing, her hands were cut and stinging, she had muck and dead flesh under her fingernails, and she needed to wash her hair as soon as humanly possible.

  Something was happening in the middle of the lake. She looked closer, saw a ripple, moving fast, something breaking the surface. Skulduggery rose up out of the water until he was standing. He skimmed across the lake, hands in his pockets, like he was waiting for a bus.

  He slowed as he neared and then stepped onto land.

  “Well,” he said, “that takes care of that.” He waved a hand, and the water lifted from his clothes, leaving him dry.

  Valkyrie scowled. “You still haven’t taught me how to do that.”

  Skulduggery picked his hat off the ground and brushed off the dirt. “You’re the one insisting that lessons on fire and air manipulation are more important than lessons on water. You can’t really blame me for how much you resemble a drowned rat, now can you?”

  “I’m sure I could manage it,” she said grumpily. “How’s the Hag?”

  He shrugged. “Regretting her life choices, I imagine. I see you’ve rescued the corpse.”

  “Yes. He’s dead.”

  “Corpses usually are.”

  “I mean he’s not talking anymore.”

  “Then there is nothing left to do except honor his wishes. We’ll carry him to the car, trying very hard not to be seen by any passersby, and take him with us back to Dublin.”

  She nodded. Bit her lip.

  “What?” Skulduggery asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful or anything, but it might be weird, being in a car with the remains of a dead man….”

  “You do realize that I’m the remains of a dead man too, don’t you?”

  “I know, yeah, but … you don’t smell.”

  “You make an excellent point. Don’t worry, we’ll put him in the trunk. Now then, do you want to take his arms or his legs?”

  “Legs.”

  Skulduggery picked the corpse up, hands under the armpits. Valkyrie took hold of the corpse’s ankles and lifted, and the right leg fell off.

  “You can carry that,” said Skulduggery.

  Five

  TRACKING THE TELEPORTER

  THE BENTLEY parked near the tenement building where China Sorrows kept her library. Skulduggery had insisted, as part of her ongoing training, that Valkyrie dry herself, and although she had done her best to lift off the lake water, she hadn’t quite managed to get all of it. Patches of her clothes were still slightly damp, and her hair stank.

  “I’m a mess,” she grumbled as she got out of the car. “I hate seeing China when I’m a mess. She’s always so immaculate. How does my hair look?”

  Skulduggery activated the car alarm. “You have a twig in it.”

  Valkyrie yanked the twig out and scowled in pain. She glanced at the trunk of the car as they walked. “Where are you going to bury the body?”

  “I know a place.”

  “You know a place? Do you bury lots of bodies there?”

  “A few.”

  “That’s kind of creepy. What about the guy who killed him? Batu? Have you ever heard of him?”

  “Never.”

  “Maybe the Teleporter murders have nothing to do with Trope Kessel’s murder.”

  “And the fact that they’ve all been killed the same way?”

  “Could be coincidence.”

  “So you’re not worried then? You’re not concerned about the threat of the Faceless Ones coming back?”

  She pursed her lips. “Valkyrie?”

  She sighed. “I just wish you didn’t have to be right all the time.”

  “It is a burden. But the question becomes: Why was there a fifty-year gap between the first murder and the other four? What has our Mr. Batu been doing for those intervening years?”

  “Maybe he was in prison.”

  “You’re thinking more like a detective every day, do you know that? There are some people who owe me favors—I should be able to get a list of recently released felons.”

  She sighed. “This would be a lot easier if we were still with the Sanctuary.”

  As they were walking into the tenement building, they bumped into Savien Eck, a sorcerer Valkyrie had met only twice before. He was carrying a large book under his arm. It was bound in leather and looked old. He held it tightly against his side and nodded distractedly.

  “Afternoon, Skulduggery. Valkyrie.”

  All three of them climbed the stairs.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” Skulduggery asked.

  “A book. A book for—for China. She wants it. She said she’d buy it off me.”

  “Is it expensive?”

  Eck’s laugh was as sudden as it was desperate. “Oh, yes. Oh … oh, yes. Quite rare, this one is. Priceless, I’d say.”

  “And what is the going price for a priceless book these days?”

  “A lot,” Eck said decisively. “I’m not going to be a pushover, you know? You see these other people, and the moment they see her, they forget about money, or a fair deal, and all they want to do is make her happy. Well, not me. I’m a businessman, Skulduggery. This is business.”

  By the time they reached the third floor, Eck’s teeth were chattering. Skulduggery knocked on the door marked LIBRARY, and a thin man opened it and beckoned them inside. Eck’s legs gave out a little, but he managed to stay upright, and they followed him through the labyrinth of bookcases until they came to the desk.

  China Sorrows, hair as black as sin and eyes as blue as sky, saw them coming, rose from her chair, and the most beautiful woman in the world smiled.

  Savien Eck fell to his knees, held the book out before him, and whimpered, “I adore you.”

  Skulduggery shook his head and left Valkyrie’s side to peruse the bookshelves.

  “Savien,” China said, “you’re so sweet.” The thin man took the leather-bound book from Eck’s trembling hands and placed it on the desk.

  “Now, about payment …”

  Eck nodded quickly. “Yes. Payment, yes.”

  “How are you, by the way? You’re looking well. Have you been exercising?”

  He smiled weakly. “I like to jog.”

  “It definitely shows,” China said, eyes narrowing appreciatively.

  Eck whimpered again.

  “I’m sorry,” China said, giving a light laugh and appearing flustered. “You have a tendency to distract me. Back to business, if I can keep my mind on the job for more than three seconds. We were talking about payment.”

  “You can have it,” Eck said in a strangled voice.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Eck rose off his knees. “I give it to you, China. It’s my gift. There’s no payment necessary.”

  “Savien, I couldn’t possibly—”

  “Please, China. Accept it. Accept it as a token of my, of my …”

  Valkyrie was impressed by how large and hopeful China could make her eyes.

  “Yes, Savien?”

  “… my love, China.”

  China pressed a delicate finger to her lips, like she was struggling to hold back a torrent of passion. “Thank you, Savien.”

  Eck bowed, swayed slightly, and turned. Judging by his smile, he was outrageously, deliriously pleased, and he hurried back the way they’d come. The thin man followed along behind to make sure he didn’t stumble into anything.

  “That,” Valkyrie said, “was disgraceful.”

  China shrugged, resumed her seat, and opened the book. “I do what I must to get the things that I want.” She used a magnifying glass to examine the pages more closely. “You look like you’ve been swimming, Valkyrie,” she said, without raising her head. “And what happened to your hands? All those little cuts look sore.”

  “I, uh, I hit a tree.”

  “Well, I’m sure it had it coming.”

  Desperate to steer the conversation away from her appearance, Valkyrie asked, “What’s the book?”

>   “It’s a spell book, written by the Mad Sorcerer over a thousand years ago.”

  “Why was he called the Mad Sorcerer?”

  “Because he was mad.”

  “Oh.”

  China straightened up and pursed her lips. “This book’s a forgery. I’d say it’s at least five hundred years old, but it’s still a forgery.”

  Valkyrie shrugged. “Good thing you didn’t pay for it, then, or you’d have to get your money back.”

  China closed the book and examined the cover. “I’m not sure I’d want to. The Mad Sorcerer, as well as being quite mad, was also a second-rate sorcerer. The majority of the spells in his spell book did absolutely nothing at all. But this forger, whoever he was, corrected every mistake as he went along. I daresay this is the most important academic discovery of the last fifteen years.”

  “Wow.”

  “And it’s mine,” China said with a contented smile.

  Skulduggery came back, carefully turning the pages of a book that had seen better days. “We need your help,” he said.

  China made a face. “Small talk’s over already? Well, that’s no fun. We didn’t even get to trade barbs. Oh, how I miss the old days. Don’t you, Valkyrie?”

  “They had their moments.”

  “They did, didn’t they? It was all ‘Sanctuary business’ this, ‘saving the world’ that, but now what is it? Now you’re on the outside, looking in at a few measly murders. Is this really a case that is worthy of the magnificent Skulduggery Pleasant?”

  “Murder’s murder,” Skulduggery said, not looking up from the book.

  “Oh, I suppose you’re right. So tell me, how is Guild’s man handling the Irish end of the investigation?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” Valkyrie asked, genuinely puzzled. She’d learned by now that every good detective makes full use of information brokers, and China was by far the best in her field.

  China smiled. “Do you really think that Remus Crux would associate with me, a person of my dubious history? Remember, dear Valkyrie, I once consorted with the enemy. I once was the enemy. Crux is a limited man of limited imagination. He has his rules, as set down by Thurid Guild, and he follows them. People who follow rules do not come to me. Which explains why I speak to both of you with such regularity.”

  “We rogues have to stick together,” Skulduggery said absently.

  “That kind of defeats the purpose of being a rogue though, doesn’t it?”

  “‘Isthmus Anchor,’” Skulduggery said, reading aloud from the book. “‘An object belonging to one reality, residing in another. Animate or inanimate. Magical or otherwise. Casts an Isthmus Stream, linking realities through dimensional portals.’” He closed the book, and his head tilted thoughtfully.

  “So?” Valkyrie asked.

  “So we have to figure out what form this Anchor takes, and find it before the enemy does. Let me muse on it awhile. China, we need to find someone. An English boy—Fletcher Renn.”

  “I’ve never heard of him. Is he a mage?”

  “Natural-born Teleporter.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I see. In that case, I may have heard of him after all. Three reports of a ‘ghost boy’ in three different nightclubs in County Meath. The nightclub staff either refused him entry or refused to serve him, and he grew petulant, stormed off, and vanished into, as they say, thin air. Because his vanishings were only witnessed by the intoxicated, the inebriated, and the stupid, the authorities aren’t exactly taking it seriously.”

  “Where in Meath?” Skulduggery asked.

  China motioned to the thin man, who was standing so still that Valkyrie had forgotten all about him. The thin man disappeared for a moment, then came back with a map and spread it over China’s desk.

  “Here, here, and here,” China said, her manicured fingernail tapping lightly on the map.

  Skulduggery took a pencil from the desk and drew a circle around the three points. “If what Peregrine says is true, and Mr. Renn can only teleport a few miles at a time, then that would put him somewhere in this area.”

  “That’s a lot of buildings to search,” China noted.

  Skulduggery tapped the pencil against his skull. It made a pleasing hollow sound. “A seventeen-year-old boy with the power to appear anywhere. If he needs money, he appears in a bank vault. If he needs clothes, a clothes shop. Food, a supermarket. He’s not going to be just anywhere. He’s starting to see himself as better than everybody else. He’ll only stay in the best places. The best hotels.” The pencil made an X on the map, within the circle.

  “The Grandeur Hotel,” China commented. “Very likely the only hotel in the area with a games console in every room.”

  “That’s where he is,” Skulduggery said, wrapping his scarf around his jaw. “That’s where we’ll find him.”

  Six

  FLETCHER RENN

  THE HOTEL LOBBY was wide, with a small row of plants against one wall and a delicate waterfall feature against the other. Two huge marble pillars rose from floor to ceiling, and Skulduggery used one of these pillars to shield himself from the smiling receptionist. He had only his hat and the scarf wrapped around his jaw as a disguise. He casually strolled to the elevators, Valkyrie behind him. She kept her hands, which she had bandaged, in her pockets, and returned the receptionist’s smile until they were both out of sight.

  The elevator doors slid open, and an elderly couple stepped out. The woman looked curiously at Skulduggery as they passed. Valkyrie joined him in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, Fletcher Renn’s most likely location. As they started to rise, Skulduggery checked his gun.

  From the elevator they walked down a long corridor. They turned a corner and almost bumped into the man coming the other way. He had blond hair and was wearing sunglasses. There was a moment of stunned silence.

  “Oh,” Billy-Ray Sanguine said, “hell.”

  He stepped back as his hand darted for his pocket, but Skulduggery slammed into him and the straight razor flew from Sanguine’s grasp. Skulduggery’s elbow cracked against his jaw and Sanguine stumbled, hand reaching for the wall. Upon contact with the Texan assassin, the wall started to crumble and Sanguine began passing through, but Skulduggery grabbed him and hauled him out again.

  Valkyrie heard a door open and turned to see a good-looking boy who apparently loved his hair staring at them from the doorway of his room.

  She lunged at him, pushing him into the room, and slammed the door behind them. The room was luxurious, with a couch and armchairs, a huge TV, and a gigantic bed, none of which mattered in the slightest right now.

  “You’re Fletcher Renn,” she said. “You’re in great danger.”

  Fletcher Renn looked at her. “What?”

  “There are some people who want to kill you. We’re here to help you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He had an English accent, not too dissimilar to Tanith Low’s. He was better-looking than she’d imagined. His hair was spiky and carefully, meticulously untamed.

  “My name’s Valkyrie Cain.”

  “Valerie?”

  “Valkyrie. I know all about you and what you can do, and you’re going to need to teleport right now.”

  His eyes flickered to something behind her. She turned to see a million little cracks appear in the plaster on the wall. Sanguine passed through into the room, his lip bleeding and his sunglasses missing.

  Fletcher saw the black holes where Sanguine’s eyes used to be and swore under his breath.

  Valkyrie ripped the bandage off her right hand and clicked her fingers, felt the spark generated by the friction, and fed it her magic. The spark ignited into flame and grew, swirling in her palm. She hurled the fireball, and Sanguine threw himself to one side, barely avoiding it.

  The blade of his straight razor gleamed wickedly. Valkyrie took one step forward and extended her arm, hand open. She sank into the stance, knees bending slightly, as she snapped her palm against the air and the spac
e in front of her rippled. Sanguine dived to one side, and the displaced air hit the couch where he had just been standing and sent it crashing against the wall.

  Sanguine threw a lamp at Valkyrie, and the base struck her cheek. She stumbled and he moved straight toward her. Even as she was ducking the swipe of the razor, she knew it had been a feint, and he grabbed her and hauled her back as the hotel room door was kicked open and Skulduggery stormed in. His hat and scarf were gone, and Fletcher gaped as he caught his first glimpse of the skeleton detective.

  “Let her go,” Skulduggery said, the revolver in his hand, ready to fire.

  “But then you might shoot me,” Sanguine said. “An’ getting’ shot hurts. Drop the gun, gimme the kid with the freaky hairdo, or I kill the girl.”

  “No.”

  “Then I reckon we got ourselves a good old-fashioned standoff.”

  The blade of the straight razor pressed deeper into Valkyrie’s throat, and she didn’t even dare swallow. Her cheek throbbed with pain and she felt a trickle of blood run down her face where the lamp had struck her.

  Nobody moved, or said anything, for the next few moments.

  “Old-fashioned standoffs are mighty borin’,” Sanguine muttered.

  Fletcher was staring at Skulduggery. “You’re a skeleton.”

  “Get behind me,” Skulduggery said.

  “What’s going on? There’s a guy with no eyes and a razor versus a skeleton in a suit with a gun. Who’s the good guy here?”

  Valkyrie clicked her fingers, but had to do it softly or else Sanguine would hear. She tried again but still couldn’t summon a spark.

  “Fletcher,” Sanguine said, “unlike these two, I came here to make you an offer. My employers are very generous people, and they’d like to pay you a lot of money to do one little job for them.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Skulduggery warned.

  “Why would I need money?” Fletcher asked. “I teleport wherever I want to go and I take whatever I need. I don’t have to pay for anything.”

  “There are other rewards,” Sanguine tried. “We can work something out.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what any of you want, or why guns and knives are being waved around, or why the girl has just been taken hostage, but everyone seems to be acting like having a talking skeleton in the room is perfectly normal. And you, where are your eyes? How can you see? How come the only people with eyes in this room are me and her?”