by Derek Landy
She had been at the lockers, in school, and she’d been talking to … No, the reflection had been talking to … No, it had been her, it had been Valkyrie. She’d been talking to a few of the girls, and Gary had walked up and said something that everyone laughed at, and the girls had walked off, chatting. Valkyrie remembered standing there, alone with Gary, and the way he smiled, and she remembered smiling back, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she had let him.
But that was it. There was the memory of the thing, of the act, but there was no memory of the feeling. There were no butterflies in her stomach, or nerves, or happiness, and she couldn’t remember liking any of it because there was no emotion to accompany it. The reflection was incapable of emotion.
Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. Her first kiss, and she hadn’t even been there when it happened.
She left the beans on toasted buns on the desk, her hunger fading, and sorted through the rest of the memories, sifting through to the most recent. She remembered watching herself climb through the window, then she remembered sliding beneath the bed, waiting under there, and then crawling out when she was told.
She remembered telling herself that Gary Price had kissed her, and the argument they’d just had, and then she remembered saying, “You’re upset. Is it because you weren’t around for your first kiss?” and the sharp “No” that followed. And then a moment, like the lights had dimmed, and then she was saying, “I don’t remember sighing. I’m sorry if I did.”
Valkyrie frowned. Another gap. They were rare, and they never lasted for more than a couple of seconds, but they were definitely there.
It had started when the reflection had been killed in Valkyrie’s place, months earlier. Maybe it had been damaged in a way she and Skulduggery hadn’t anticipated. She didn’t want to get rid of it and she didn’t want to replace it. It was more convincing than ever these days. If all Valkyrie had to worry about was a faulty memory, she figured that wasn’t too high a price to pay.
Four
THE SEA HAG
THE NARROW ROADS twisted like snakes, and on either side rose the tallest trees Valkyrie had ever seen. Now and then there was a break and she could see how far up they were. The mountains were beautiful and the air was crisp. Clear.
They arrived in Glendalough a little before ten. They were here to talk to someone who might have witnessed the murder of the Teleporter fifty years ago. Valkyrie had been complaining about the cold, and Skulduggery told her she didn’t have to come along, but there was no way she was going to pass up this opportunity. After all, she’d never even seen a Sea Hag before.
Skulduggery parked the Bentley and they walked the rest of the way. He was wearing a dark blue suit, with a coat he left open and a hat pulled low over his brow. His sunglasses were in place and his scarf was wrapped around the lower half of his skull, obscuring his skeletal features from the hikers and tourists they passed.
Valkyrie, for her part, was once again dressed in the all-too-snug black clothes that Ghastly had made for her.
They got to the Upper Lake. It was like someone had reached down and scooped out a huge handful of forest, and then the rain had come and filled it with liquid crystal. The lake was massive, stretching back to the far shore, where the mountains rose again.
They walked along the edge, between the water and the trees, until they came to a moss-covered stump. Skulduggery hunkered down and dipped his gloved hand through the hollow at its base, while Valkyrie looked around, making sure they weren’t being watched. But there was no one around. They were safe.
From the tree stump, the skeleton detective withdrew a tiny silver bell, the length of his thumb, then straightened up and rang it.
Valkyrie arched an eyebrow. “Think she heard that?”
“I’m sure she did.” He nodded as he removed the sunglasses and scarf.
“It’s not exactly loud though, is it? I barely heard it and I’m standing right next to you. You’d think the bell to summon a Sea Hag would be big. You’d think it would be the kind of bell that tolls. That was more of a tinkle than a toll.”
“It was rather unimpressive.”
Valkyrie looked at the lake. “No sign of her. She’s probably embarrassed because her bell is so rubbishy. What kind of a Sea Hag lives in a lake anyway?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” Skulduggery murmured as the waters churned and a wizened old woman rose from the surface. She was dressed in rags, and had long skinny arms and hair that was indistinguishable from the weeds that coiled through it. Her nose was hooked and her eyes were hollow, and instead of legs she had what appeared to be a fish’s tail that stayed beneath the water.
She looked, in Valkyrie’s opinion, like a really old, really ugly mermaid.
“Who disturbs me?” the Sea Hag asked in a voice that sounded like someone drowning.
“I do,” Skulduggery said. “My name is Skulduggery Pleasant.”
“That is not your name,” the Sea Hag said.
“It’s the name I’ve taken,” Skulduggery replied. “As my colleague beside me has taken the name Valkyrie Cain.”
The Sea Hag shook her head, almost sadly. “You give power to names,” she said. “Too much of your strength lies in your names. Long ago, I surrendered my name to the Deep. Cast your eyes upon me now and answer truthfully: Have you ever seen such happiness as this?”
Valkyrie looked at her—all weeds, wrinkled skin, and dour expression—and decided it best to contribute nothing to this conversation.
When it became clear that no one was going to answer, the Sea Hag spoke again. “Why have you disturbed me?”
“We seek answers,” Skulduggery said.
“Nothing you do matters,” the Sea Hag told them. “In the end, all things drown and drift away.”
“We’re looking for answers that are a tad more specific. Yesterday, a sorcerer named Cameron Light was killed.”
“On dry land?”
“Yes.”
“That does not interest me.”
“We think the case may be connected to a murder, fifty years ago, that happened right here, by this lake. If the victim told you anything as he died, if you know anything about him or the one who killed him, we need to hear it.”
“You want to know another’s secrets?”
“We need to.”
“The girl has not spoken a word since I appeared,” the Sea Hag said, turning her attention to Valkyrie, “yet she spoke, with scarcely a pause, before that. Have you nothing to say now, girl?”
“Hello,” said Valkyrie.
“Words travel far beneath the waves. Your words about my bell traveled far. You do not like it?”
“Um,” said Valkyrie. “It’s fine. It’s a fine bell.”
“It is as old as I am, and I am far too old for beauty to reach. I was beautiful once. My bell, the sound it makes, is beautiful still.”
“It makes a pretty sound,” Valkyrie agreed. “Even if it is a bit small.”
The Sea Hag swayed back and forth, showing more of her giant fish tail, or whatever it was, and leaned down until she was an arm’s breadth away from Valkyrie. She smelled of rotting fish.
“Would you like to drown?” she inquired.
“No,” Valkyrie said. “No, thank you.”
The Sea Hag scowled. “What is it you want?”
Skulduggery stepped between them. “The man, fifty years ago?”
The Sea Hag returned to her original position and resumed her swaying. Valkyrie wondered how big the fish part of her actually was. It was more like the body of a snake than a fish. Or a serpent.
“Your questions do not interest me,” the Hag said. “Your search for answers is of no importance. If you seek the knowledge of the dead man, you can ask him yourself.”
The Hag waved her hand, and the remains of a man broke the surface of the lake beside her. This man of rot and bone, his clothes congealed into what was left of his skin and stained the same mud brown color, rose so that his feet were the only par
t of him still hidden beneath the small, choppy waves. His arms dangled loosely by his sides, and his eyes opened and water trickled from his mouth.
“Help me,” he said.
The Sea Hag looked annoyed. “They cannot help you, corpse. They are here to ask you questions.”
“Why do you need our help?” Skulduggery asked.
“I want to go home,” the corpse told him.
“You are home,” the Hag interjected.
The remains of the man shook his head. “I want to be buried. I want to be surrounded by earth. I want to be dry.”
“Tough,” said the Sea Hag.
“If you help us,” Skulduggery told the remains, “we’ll see what we can do. Fair enough?”
The corpse nodded. “I will answer all of your questions.”
“Are you Trope Kessel, the Teleporter?”
“I am.”
“We are here because four Teleporters have been killed in the past month. There is a possibility, however faint, that those murders are somehow linked to yours. How were you killed?”
“With a knife, in my back.”
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. The other Teleporters had been killed in exactly the same way. Maybe there was a link after all.
“Who killed you?” she asked.
“He said his name was Batu.”
“Why did he kill you?” Skulduggery pressed.
“I was, I suppose, a scholar,” the dead man said. “Eons ago, the Faceless Ones were driven from this reality, and even though I had no wish to see them return, the mechanics behind their exile—the magic, the theory … It was a puzzle, and I became obsessed trying to solve it. I died because of my curiosity and my blind trust. I believed people were, by nature, good and decent and worthy. Batu, it transpired, was none of those things. He killed me because I knew how to find the thing he desired, and once I had told him, he had to protect his secret.”
“What did he desire?”
“The gate,” the corpse said. “The gate that will open and allow the Faceless Ones to return.”
There was a moment where nothing was said. Valkyrie realized she had taken a breath and had yet to release it. She made herself breathe again.
“Such a gate exists?” Skulduggery asked. He spoke slowly, cautiously, as if the answers were a dog he didn’t want to disturb. He actually sounded worried.
“It does, but I merely worked out how to find it—I never had the chance to put that theory into practice. The wall between our realities has weakened over time. Their darkness and their evil have bled through. A powerful-enough Sensitive should be able to trace the lines of energy in our world to their weakest point. It is there that the gate will open.”
“So why haven’t the Faceless Ones come through already?” Valkyrie asked.
“Two things are needed,” the corpse told them. “The first is an Isthmus Anchor, an object bound by an invisible thread traveling from this reality into the next. This thread is what keeps the gate from closing forever. But the Anchor is useless without someone to force the gate open, and only a Teleporter can do this.”
Valkyrie frowned. “But all the Teleporters are being killed.”
Skulduggery looked at her. “So what does that suggest?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Unless … I don’t know, unless the killer doesn’t want the Faceless Ones to return, so he’s killing all the Teleporters to make sure they never open the gate.”
“Which would mean?”
“It’d mean that maybe he’s not a bad guy at all—maybe he’s just a really twisted good guy.”
Skulduggery was quiet and then nodded to the corpse. “Thank you. You have done the world a great service.”
“And you will help me now?”
“Indeed we will.”
The Sea Hag laughed. “You will never leave this lake, corpse.”
Skulduggery looked at her. “What do you want in exchange for him?”
The Hag curled a lip. “I want nothing. He belongs to me. This lake is the place of his death. Its waters have already claimed him.”
“There must be something you want, something we can give you in exchange.”
“I want nothing you can offer. I am a Maiden of the Water. I am above temptation.”
“You’re not a Maiden of the Water,” Valkyrie said. “You’re a Sea Hag.”
The Hag’s eyes narrowed. “When I was younger, I was a Maiden of the—”
“Don’t care,” Valkyrie interrupted. “You may have been beautiful once, but now you’re an ugly old fish-woman.”
“Do not raise my ire, girl.”
“I have no intention of even touching your ire, but we’re not leaving without the dead man. So hand him over, or things are going to go bad for you.”
“It seems you do want to drown after all,” the Hag snarled, and lunged, and in an eyeblink her bony hands were gripping Valkyrie’s shoulders. She reared back and Valkyrie was lifted off the ground, high into the air, and tossed like a rag doll. She hit the water hard and went under. She twisted and, through the bubbles, saw the Sea Hag’s long, serpentlike body tapering off into a tail. And then the body coiled and the Hag was beside her, eyes wide and triumphant, grabbing her again and holding her under.
Valkyrie tried to punch, but her fist moved way too slowly underwater. The Hag laughed, the lake filling her mouth, running down her throat; and for the first time Valkyrie saw the lines of gills on either side of her neck.
Valkyrie’s lungs were already burning. She hadn’t had time to take a breath. She went for the Hag’s eyes, tried to jab at them, but those bony fingers closed over her wrists. The Hag was too strong for her.
And then something moved toward them, and Valkyrie saw Skulduggery, shooting through the water like a torpedo. He was right beside them before the Hag even realized he was close.
The Hag tried clawing at him, but Skulduggery took hold of Valkyrie’s wrist, the wrist that the Hag had released, and Valkyrie was yanked free.
She clutched Skulduggery tight, feeling the water part in front and boost them from behind. The Hag was after them, her body undulating as she gave chase, her face furious. She drew close and reached out, but Skulduggery veered, taking them into the murky depths of the lake, and then they rolled, changing course, heading back, passing right by the Hag, who screamed her rage in escaping bubbles.
The lake bed was close as they passed over it, and getting closer. Valkyrie could have reached out and touched the pebbles and the rocks and the silt and the sand.
And then Skulduggery kicked upward and they burst free of the water, rising high through the air and falling now, falling to the tree line. Then there was a screech, and the Sea Hag erupted from the churning waves behind them and grabbed Skulduggery, her thin arms encircling his waist, pulling him back under.
Valkyrie dropped, grabbing for a tree branch. She couldn’t hold on. She hit the ground and grunted, barely aware that her hands were cut and bleeding, lacerated by splinters.
She groaned and moved her head slightly to look back at the water. She couldn’t see Skulduggery or the Hag, and the ripples were already spreading out and dying, as if the lake was trying to hide what was going on beneath its surface. Valkyrie rolled over, her dark hair hanging in front of her face, and got up slowly, grimacing when she saw her hands.
The corpse was still standing in the water where they had left him, probably waiting for the Hag to come back and reclaim what she saw as hers. Valkyrie started moving. The corpse had helped them, and they’d promised to return the favor.
She ran along the edge of the lake, slipping every now and then, coming too close to the water for her liking. Even so, the Hag didn’t jump out at her, didn’t snatch her as she passed. Skulduggery was probably kicking the hell out of her. At least she hoped he was.
She got back to the corpse, breathing hard, holding her hands away from her body because they were starting to sting.
“Hey,” she said. “Come on out of there.”
>
He shook his head. “I can’t move on my own. I’ve spent the last fifty years at the bottom of this lake. I don’t think I can even remember how to move.”
“In that case,” Valkyrie said, “I’ll come and get you.”
“Thank you,” said the corpse.
Valkyrie stepped into the lake. The waters here were calm. No sign of the Sea Hag—which meant that either Skulduggery was keeping her busy or she was lying in wait for Valkyrie to step within easy reach. Valkyrie walked in up to her knees, then her thighs, and when she was waist-deep, she thrust herself forward and swam.
So far, so good. So far, no hands grabbing her and pulling her under.
She reached the corpse and looked up at him. “How do I get you down?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” he replied.
She took a breath and plunged her head underwater. He wasn’t standing on anything. It was as if the lake itself was keeping him upright.
She surfaced and reached out to try and pull him down. The moment she touched his skin, the lake stopped holding him. He splashed down.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Valkyrie responded, hooking her hand under his chin. She fought the urge to shiver as her hand closed over his ice-cold, mottled flesh, and she swam back to land, taking him with her. Her feet touched the bottom. She held him under the arms and started dragging him out.
“Thank you for doing this,” he said.
“We owe you.”
“It was horrible, in that lake.”
“We’ll find you a nice dry grave, don’t you worry.”
He managed to twist his head and look back at her. “If the Faceless Ones return, the world will end. Please promise me you’ll stop them.”
She gave him a smile. “Stopping the bad guys is what we do.”
The moment his feet left the water, his head lolled forward and he stopped talking. He was just a corpse once again.
Valkyrie kept dragging him until they were well clear of the lake, and then, very carefully, she laid him down.