by Derek Landy
“Why?”
“Why do we want a beach?”
“Why are you leaving Abyssinia?”
Colleen hugged herself. “We never wanted to be there. We thought we did. We let Mr Lilt convince us that we were bigger and better than everyone else, and that Abyssinia would let us take what was ours.”
“And what is yours?”
“I don’t even know,” Colleen said, her shoulders slumping. “I think we just wanted to be respected, and we didn’t want to wait for it. We wanted it now. We wanted to be on the winning side. Does that sound stupid?”
“Very much so.”
“I don’t know why we fell for it, Omen. OK? Maybe because we were in a gang, and we all thought we were cool, and then Lethe told us we were awesome, that we were First Wave, and Razzia was there, and Nero, back when he was behaving normally, and it was all exciting and cool and fun.”
“You were hanging around with murderers.”
“Yes, I know,” Colleen snapped. “Thank you, Omen, for stating the bloody obvious.”
“Well, you were,” Omen mumbled.
Colleen looked away. “Isidora’s dead.”
Something turned in Omen’s chest. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He’d never had someone he knew die before – not one of his contemporaries, at least. Someone his own age. Someone he’d passed in the corridor. “How?”
Colleen cleared her throat. “Jenan killed her.”
“What?”
“She tried to leave,” said Colleen. “In fact, no, she didn’t try. She just wanted to. She was finding out how she could, but Abyssinia … Well. Abyssinia can read your mind, you know?”
“Jenan did it?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was this whole big ceremony,” Colleen said. “You know that round thing that hovers over the energy field in Coldheart?”
“The dais.”
“Is that what it’s called? I didn’t know that. Anyway, yeah, the dais. We were all on it. The convicts were looking down at us, Abyssinia was making a speech, and Isidora was standing right on the edge of the dais. She was crying. I was crying. She was apologising and begging and … and Abyssinia told Jenan to push her off.”
“And he did it?”
“Yes. I think Abyssinia helped. I think she maybe got into his head, maybe gave him encouragement. Maybe took over, I don’t know. But yes. He pushed Isidora off. She was my best friend. Since then, we’ve all been too scared to try anything.”
“So why now?” Omen asked.
“Something’s about to happen. They won’t tell us what, but we’re going to have to hurt some people, I think. We don’t have any time left. We have to get out in the next few days. We need your help.”
Omen nodded. “Tell me everything. I can get Skulduggery and Valkyrie to—”
“No,” Colleen said sharply.
“Why not?”
“They’ll use us to get to Abyssinia, or they’ll get us to answer questions or whatever. But all we want to do is get out, and then disappear.”
“They’ll help you.”
“They’ll also help themselves. Omen, come on – that’s what they do. If they know that something bad is about to happen, they’ll have to, like, solve the problem, won’t they?”
“I suppose …”
“We’ve got no interest in that. It’s too dangerous as it is – we’re not going to risk anything more. You can’t tell them about this. You can’t tell your brother, either – he’s just like them. Promise me, Omen.”
“Colleen, you can trust them.”
“Promise me, or I’m getting off this tram and you’ll never see me again.”
Omen sighed. “I promise. What do you need?”
“Papers,” she said.
“Aw, Colleen.”
“Birth certificates, medical histories, all the mortal papers we’ve been taught how to replicate.”
“Colleen, I’m the worst forger in class. You know that. I barely scrape by, I never do the homework and I cheat on all the tests – very, very badly.”
Colleen squinted. “Didn’t you get an A on your end-of-year assignment?”
Omen went red. “I didn’t forge that. I just submitted the real certificate.”
“Oh, Omen.”
“I’m really not the person you want for this.”
“You can do it,” Colleen said.
“Well, it’s nice that you have faith in me …”
“You have to do it,” Colleen continued. “We have no other choice. We are completely and hopelessly desperate. I wouldn’t be here if I had, literally, any other option.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Please?” said Colleen. “I know we’re not friends. I know we’ve never spoken more than a few words to each other, and not all of them have been overly nice. But you’re the only one we can trust to do this. Please. Our lives are at stake.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you,” Colleen said. She took a folder from her coat and passed it to him.
“Just the four of you?” Omen asked.
Colleen nodded. “Jenan’s in too deep to come out. I think the thing with Isidora … He pushed her over the edge, but I think it pushed him over the edge, too. He’s changed. He’s not right in the head.”
“He was never right in the head.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What about Lapse and Gall?”
A look of disgust came over her face. “Gall would follow Jenan into hell, and I think Lapse is actually enjoying himself. He was always a bit of a mindless thug, and now he’s in his element. The rest of us are just terrified.”
“I’ll get it done. But how will I get them to you?”
“I won’t be able to get back into Roarhaven, but I’ll be able to get to Dublin, if you could sneak out of Corrival and meet me there? Thursday, maybe? How about the Spire, at three o’clock?”
Omen nodded. “I can do that.”
Colleen pressed the stop button and the tram slowed. Before she stepped off, she turned to him and said, “Help us, Omen-one Kenobi. You’re our only hope.”
And then she was gone.
He’d been Star Wars-ed.
Feeling better now that she had confessed all to Skulduggery, Valkyrie listened to the radio while they drove. Skulduggery preferred to drive in silence, but she needed the distraction. Silence made it easier to hear the voices in her head, and that stirred her anxiety. She didn’t like that. Anxiety split her in two and hid the stronger part away. Until she found Nye, until she had healed Alice’s soul, she couldn’t afford to be anything but strong. When she was strong, she was unbeatable. When she was strong, she got things done.
“Are you OK?” Skulduggery asked. His hat was on the back seat and his façade was up. It was one she’d seen before. A dark-haired man with nice eyes.
“Of course,” Valkyrie said. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re humming.”
“Was I?”
“You were.”
She hadn’t realised. She shrugged. “So what? I was humming along to the music.”
“No,” he said. “The music was playing, but you were humming a single, continuous note.”
She didn’t remember doing that. It would have worried her if she’d let it take root in her mind. “So who are we going to see?” she asked.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Skulduggery, Jesus, I’m grand. I’m sorry my tuneless humming offended your sensitive ear cavities. I was miles away and … and that’s it. No big deal. So – this person we’re going to visit. Who is it?”
“Her name is Mellifluous Golding,” he said. “She collects secrets. I’m hoping that the location of Greymire Asylum is one she has in her possession.”
“You’re hoping?”
“Hope is what we have, Valkyrie, and it has served us well in the past. I am nothing if not a very optimistic pessimist.”
“You’
re a pessimist?”
“By nature.”
“But you’re always so cheerful.”
“My pessimism has nothing to do with my disposition.”
“I’m an optimist.”
“Good for you.”
“I think. Is there a test?”
“Indeed there is,” said Skulduggery. “Do you always expect the best in any situation? Do you have unwavering faith in your fellow human beings? Are you reassured by the certainty that life has a true and intrinsic value?”
“No, no and yes. What does that make me?”
He smiled thinly. “Conflicted.”
Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I could have told you that. So you’re a pessimist, then. Do you expect the best in any situation?”
“Generally, no. I try not to have any expectations about anything. That can be quite difficult to do, of course, but it helps me keep an open mind.”
“And what about the unwavering belief in our fellow human beings?”
“If you don’t expect anything good from people, you are rarely disappointed. That said, I do have unwavering belief in you, Valkyrie. But you’ve always been the exception.”
She smiled at that. “And what about the third one? What was it?”
He looked at her. “Am I reassured by the certainty that life has a true and intrinsic value?”
“Yeah, that. Are you?”
“Not at all,” he said, and looked back to the road.
They passed through a set of gates, took a well-paved road up through a landscaped woodland. When the trees stopped – suddenly, like someone had taken a slice from a pie – the house came into view.
It was tall, and smooth, and exceedingly narrow, no wider than Valkyrie’s living room. It curved and sprouted offshoots that linked up with each other. There were few windows.
Valkyrie and Skulduggery got out of the Bentley. As they walked towards the double doors of the entrance, Valkyrie called for her magic to blast her upwards, high over the house. She hovered there, a little unsteadily, and looked down. It was as she’d thought.
She descended, landing heavily beside Skulduggery. “It’s a sigil,” she said. “The entire house is a huge sigil. Why? What does it do?”
“Nobody knows, except for Mellifluous,” he said. “Maybe you should ask her.”
They climbed the three steps and the doors opened, and they were greeted by a striking woman in an emerald green dress with Grace Kelly hair.
“Skulduggery,” she said. “Valkyrie. My day is instantly brighter.” She stepped forward, shook Valkyrie’s hand. “Mellifluous Golding, my dear. You are a tall one, aren’t you?”
Valkyrie smiled. “Very nice to meet you.”
“And so polite.” Mellifluous winked at her, and ushered them in. “Entrez, entrez, s’il vous plaît. Welcome to Clockwork House.”
The floors were polished and the ceilings were high. The light came in through the skylights. The walls …
The walls were covered with burnished cogs of various sizes. They formed one long trail that flowed up and around and back on itself. There didn’t appear to be 190-degree turns in this house – all the corners were rounded, which allowed the trail to move from wall to wall.
Mellifluous chatted to Skulduggery as she took them through. Wide-open, arched doorways led from one insanely long room to another.
They came to what was presumably a living room, and sat. All the furniture looked expensive.
Mellifluous crossed her legs and adjusted her skirt over her knee. “So what can I do for you?”
“We need to get to Greymire Asylum,” Skulduggery said.
She raised an eyebrow. “My, my. That’s an unusual one. Very few people have even heard of that God-awful place.”
“Do you know where it is?” Valkyrie asked.
“Me personally? Not a clue, darling. Nor do I want to. Even thinking about Greymire Asylum gives me the heebie-jeebies. I have a policy of staying away from places full of people who’d want to kill me and wear my face.” She laughed. “Morbid. I love it.”
“Is it here?” Skulduggery asked. “Is it one of your secrets?”
“Very possibly,” said Mellifluous. “You may ask.”
Skulduggery looked around. “I wish to know the location of Greymire Asylum,” he said loudly.
A sheen ran across the surface of the cogs.
“You’re in luck,” Mellifluous said, and got up quickly. “This way.”
They followed the sheen as it moved across the cogs, out of the room. Through two more doorways they passed until finally they came to the cog in the middle of a wall where the sheen had settled.
“I do indeed possess that secret,” Mellifluous said. “I will need two secrets in return, one from each of you.”
Valkyrie frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Mellifluous led the way into another room. “Every cog contains a secret. Some are little secrets, some are big – but all are secret for a reason. The reason is what matters. This secret,” she said, tapping a random cog, “could be the truth behind who killed JFK, while this secret,” she tapped another, “could be an exam that somebody cheated on twenty years ago. So long as it’s important to you, the secret has meaning. It has power.”
They came to a room with four closed doors along one wall, and Valkyrie realised these were the first interior doors she’d seen.
“Are any of your secrets here?” she asked.
“Oh, my secret is in the very first cog,” said Mellifluous. “It’s how I started it all. And again, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a secret that would change the world – but it was a secret that changed my world. It was my first taken name, from back when I was a man. I took a new taken name and a new gender and I was reborn as this fabulous creature you see before you. Secrets are secrets. As long as they matter to someone, they matter. So tell me, Valkyrie – do you have a secret?”
“And that would be where I come in,” the splinter of Darquesse whispered into Valkyrie’s ear.
Valkyrie jumped, then tried to disguise the jump with a cough.
Mellifluous smiled. “Is everything all right, my dear?”
“Yes,” Valkyrie said, smiling back. She glared at Kes, then looked away, made a show of examining various cogs. Kes walked right by Skulduggery and Mellifluous, and they had no idea she was even there.
“And there’s a reason you haven’t told anyone about me,” Kes continued. “If people knew I was hanging around, after all those people Darquesse killed, they’d find a way to make me corporeal just so they could execute me. I think that makes me a particularly juicy secret.”
“I do have one,” Valkyrie said, turning to Mellifluous. “A secret, I mean. I think it should do.”
“Excellent,” Mellifluous said, and motioned to the doors. “Valkyrie, you will find your cog in the first room. Skulduggery, yours is in the second. Bring them to me when you’ve finished.”
Valkyrie hesitated. “Who will hear it?”
“Nobody,” Mellifluous responded. “Not even me. If someone listens to a secret, it’s no longer a secret, is it?”
Valkyrie glanced at Skulduggery, reassured by the slight nod he gave.
“The cog will know if you’re lying,” Mellifluous said.
The room Valkyrie stepped into was bare apart from a table, on which sat a cog, average-sized but duller than the cogs on the walls. She shut the door behind her, and a moment later Kes walked through the wall.
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow at her. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“No offence,” Kes said, approaching the cog, “but you’ve been a little bit of a misery guts lately. I mean, ever since you saw the damage you’d done to Alice’s soul, it’s been pretty bleak to be around you.”
Valkyrie stared. “Wow.”
“I’m just being honest.”
“You could be a little less honest.”
“Where’s the fun in that? But I’ve been keeping tabs on you, you know, keeping
up to date. On things.” She grinned. “How’s Militsa?”
“She’s great, thank you.”
“I bet she is.”
Ignoring the tease, Valkyrie joined her at the table, and looked down at the cog. “What do I do? Is there a microphone or something? Or do I just, like, talk?”
Kes had moved over to the wall that separated this room from the room Skulduggery entered. “Think I should stick my head in?” she asked.
“Why would you do that?”
“So I can hear Skulduggery’s secret.”
“No,” Valkyrie said immediately, looking up. “God, no.”
“But aren’t you curious? He’s had so many huge secrets so far, what can he have left?”
“He’s four hundred and fifty years old. I’m sure he’s got loads of secrets left. And you’re not going to listen because it’s private.”
“That’s not an actual reason, though, is it?”
“Then how about this? If you listen to his secret while he tells the cog, it’s no longer a secret.”
Kes sighed. “You’re no fun.”
Valkyrie picked up the cog and brought it close to her lips. “Hi,” she whispered. “So … when Darquesse left, a part of her stayed behind. I’m the only one who can see or hear her.”
“Lucky girl,” Kes said happily.
Valkyrie glared, then went back to whispering. “That’s it. That’s the secret. Nobody else knows, so … That’s it. Is that OK? I hope it is. Anyway, uh, bye.”
She looked at the cog.
Kes peered at it. “Did it work?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did it beep?”
“Why would it beep?”
“I don’t know,” Kes said, a little hotly. “Things beep when you leave messages.”
“It’s not voicemail, Kes. It’s part of a magical … thingy.”
“I love it when you get technical.”
“I think it’s done,” Valkyrie said. “I mean, I told it the secret. There’s nothing left to actually do. So … it’s done. Right?”
“Yes,” said Kes. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe the secret isn’t big enough.”
“You said it was.”
Kes made a face. “What do I know? I’m a version of you, like, three times removed. I’m essentially an idiot.”