by Derek Landy
She pulled back and saw herself. The darkness wasn’t a problem any more. She could see everything. Her face was placid. Her eyes were closed. She opened them, and looked at herself watching herself. Then she closed them again. She looked so dead.
So
very
dead.
In the dark.
In
the
dark.
Her mind went
a
w
a
y.
In the dark.
Something scratched against the wood beneath her. Rats. Something worse. Scratching and scraping. Soon they’d be inside the coffin with her. Crawling over her. Biting. Burrowing.
The wood broke. She heard it splinter. She felt hands, in the dark, arms wrapping round her and then there was cracking and more splintering and down she went, out of the coffin, into the cold, the earth rumbling, dirt in her hair, dirt in her ears and her eyes and her nose.
She didn’t mind. She was already dead. Already a corpse.
The grip tightened, and now they were going sideways, and then upwards. She was pulled along and she didn’t think about it. Her thoughts had left her head. There was a pleasing numbness up there now, like everything had gone soft, so, when the tangled tumbleweeds of guilt and shame and loathing came rolling in, their thorns had nothing to scrape against.
Through the darkness they rumbled for what could have been a minute or what could have been a month, and then they exploded up into light and Valkyrie sprawled on to something wet. Grass.
Her body took in air. She hadn’t asked it to. Her own weight rolled her on to her back. Her eyes were open. There was darkness overhead, but it was layered, and it had pinpricks of light. Stars.
“You’re home,” Billy-Ray Sanguine said, pulling her to her feet. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. That was odd. “I brought you home. You’ll be safe here.”
They were in the back garden of her parents’ house.
“Go on,” said Billy-Ray.
Her legs didn’t move. This didn’t surprise her. A corpse’s legs rarely moved of their own accord.
Billy-Ray nudged her. Her body put out a foot to stop itself from tipping over.
“Hey,” Billy-Ray said, moving round, holding her shoulders. He frowned at her, looked at her with eyes he didn’t have. “Is this it? Is it over? Have you given up?”
She looked at him because that’s where her eyes were pointed.
“I thought you were formidable,” Billy-Ray said. “Thought you were unbeatable. What happened to that girl?”
She didn’t answer because corpses didn’t answer. Generally.
“Go on now,” Billy-Ray said. “Your family is waitin’ for you. You’ll be safe at home.” He sank into the ground and left her alone.
Home.
Her body moved its head away. She didn’t want to look at the house she’d grown up in, because she wasn’t there. She was still in the coffin. This was all some cruel, sadistic trick. That hadn’t even been Billy-Ray. Billy-Ray was …
She frowned. Billy-Ray was something. She couldn’t remember what.
It made no difference. She was trapped in a wooden box and she was dead, and this was a trick. She wasn’t here and this wasn’t her house, and her parents weren’t in there and her sister wasn’t in there and all the love and support and the understanding that she’d grown up with, none of that was in there, either.
She missed it. She missed it all. It was so tempting to let herself believe this was real because then she’d be able to feel something again, if only a lie and if only for a moment. Was that so wrong?
She moved a foot. Then she moved the other one.
One foot and then the other, slowly and heavily, that was how Valkyrie traversed the few steps to the back door. Steering the corpse like an unresponsive car, she reached out its hand and turned the handle. Her body caught its toes on the step through the door. It stumbled. Righted itself. Closed the door behind it.
The cruel trick continued. She stood in the kitchen she’d grown up in. Beyond the cold shell of flesh, there was warmth. It didn’t quite reach her, she was tucked away too deeply for that, but she knew it was there and that was enough.
The kitchen was dark. Red digits glowed at her from the oven. The fridge started to hum. Otherwise the house was silent.
She left the kitchen behind her as she moved into the hall. Photographs on the wall. The vase on the side table, and the dish where her parents kept their keys. Unopened letters. Bills, probably.
Her body took a breath in through its nose, and Valkyrie smelled the house. It smelled right. It smelled like home.
Maybe this was real.
She got to the stairs. Up there, her parents would be sleeping. Her sister would be sleeping. Up there was her old bedroom, the room where she could be alone and be herself. Up there, she was alive.
Her body put a foot on to the first step, and Valkyrie felt something, deep in her body’s chest.
It took another step, and there it was again. A heartbeat.
Gripping the banister with one cold hand, her body took the next step, and the next, and Valkyrie could feel her lungs again, and how empty they were. The higher she climbed, the more she felt. Her head was dizzy. Her hands and feet tingled as blood remembered to flow through her veins.
Up she went, and each step brought her closer to life, until finally she reached the top and gulped in a mouthful of air.
Stumbling drunkenly, she made it to her room without waking her family. She closed the door gently, wincing as it clicked, and switched on the light. Posters on the walls. Books scattered. Clothes strewn, poking out from beneath the bed. The room she’d had when she’d been a teenager.
She went to the bed and sat. She was alive. Alive. That was good. That was promising. Did that mean all this was real? Call Skulduggery. She should call Skulduggery and he’d be able to tell her what was real and what wasn’t.
Another adventure, then. Another secret she’d have to keep from her parents. She was getting used to it by now. She crossed to the wardrobe, opened it. Her reflection looked back at her. She didn’t look like a teenager. She looked older. That didn’t make any sense. She touched the glass and stepped back, and the reflection blinked, like it was awakening from a dream.
Valkyrie smiled at it, and stepped forward, and then stepped through the glass.
She emerged on the other side and the other Valkyrie stepped back to allow her through, and Valkyrie shook her head suddenly because this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
“This isn’t right,” she mumbled.
“What isn’t?” said the other Valkyrie.
“This isn’t how it works.”
“Of course it is,” the other Valkyrie said. “I touch the mirror and you come through.”
“But I’m not the reflection,” Valkyrie said. “You are.”
The other Valkyrie peered at her. “I think you’re broken.”
“No. I’m not. I’m just … I touched the glass. You’re meant to—”
“I touched the glass,” the other Valkyrie said. “I did. You just copied me because you’re my reflection. Do you … do you think you’re real?”
Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. “I am real.”
“I should call Skulduggery,” the other Valkyrie said, and took a phone from her pocket.
Valkyrie didn’t know why, but she slapped the phone out of the other Valkyrie’s hand.
“OK,” the other Valkyrie said, “you’re going to have to get back in the mirror while I figure this out. Did you hear me? Get back in there.”
The thought of going back through the mirror suddenly filled Valkyrie with terror. She couldn’t go back there. All the bad feelings were back there. All the coldness and the numbness were back there.
She shook her head. “You’re the reflection,” she said.
The other Valkyrie picked up her phone, slipped it back in her pocket. “You stepped through.”
“And then I went through doors and I was in a coffin and Billy-Ray pulled me out and brought me here,” the other Valkyrie said. “Yeah, I know. That happened to me, not you.”
Valkyrie shook her head harder. “You’re getting confused.”
“Oh, I am way past confused,” the other Valkyrie said. “I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. They did something to me. The air. It made me … it loosened my mind. Maybe this has something to do with that. It probably has, because this doesn’t make any sense. But I do know one thing. You are the one who stepped through the mirror. You’re the reflection. I’m sorry, but you’re not real, and you’re going back into that mirror, even if I have to throw you in myself.”
The other Valkyrie put a hand on Valkyrie’s shoulder.
Valkyrie hit her, latched on to her, hit her again as she fell back. The other Valkyrie went low, grabbed her around the waist, holding on for a few seconds to recover while Valkyrie tried to get at her. Then the other Valkyrie lifted, ran forward, and Valkyrie’s back hit the wardrobe door and her elbow went through the mirror. The other Valkyrie got a hand to her face and pushed her head into the glass. It was like being pushed underwater.
Valkyrie took hold of the other Valkyrie’s T-shirt and let herself fall backwards through the mirror, slamming the other Valkyrie’s face hard into the glass. While the other Valkyrie went reeling, the real Valkyrie scrambled out of the mirror again. She shut the wardrobe door.
The other Valkyrie straightened. Blood ran from her nose.
Valkyrie raised her hands and so did the other one and lightning crackled and flew between them, and Valkyrie winced because she expected it to hurt like hell, but it just tingled. The other Valkyrie snarled.
They charged at each other. Valkyrie threw a punch that crunched painfully off a forearm. In return, she got an elbow to the jaw that rocked her skull. The other Valkyrie’s hands grasped at her, yanked her over a hip and Valkyrie’s face hit the floor and her arm nearly broke. She covered up as the hammers came down, tried to turn, but the other Valkyrie was kneeling on her ribs, keeping her in place. So this was what it felt like.
Energy crackled around Valkyrie’s body and she shot out from beneath her, across the floor, crashing into the wall and demolishing the desk. The other Valkyrie stumbled and Valkyrie got to one knee, magic crackling again, and this time she flew upwards, hitting the other Valkyrie like a cannonball, spinning her into the corner while Valkyrie collided with the wall beside the door.
Valkyrie collapsed again, clutching her right shoulder. Something was broken.
“Jesus,” the other Valkyrie said. “You broke my ribs.”
Valkyrie groaned, turned over, got up.
The other Valkyrie, her face a mask of pain and blood, came forward and threw a right cross that nearly took Valkyrie’s head off.
“You’re not real,” the other Valkyrie said. “You’re my reflection. Do you get that? Do you?”
Valkyrie lunged at her, tried to grab her, tried to sink her teeth into her neck, but the other Valkyrie caught her with a hook just behind her left ear and all the bones left Valkyrie’s body and she fell, a useless heap. Her hand closed around the other Valkyrie’s ankle. She got a knee in the cheek for her effort and her head hit the wall and the room darkened.
Valkyrie stepped back as the reflection slumped into unconsciousness. When she was sure it wasn’t going to pop up again, she sat on the footboard of the bed and probed her left side. Her ribs were definitely broken. Every breath she took sent a dozen knives stabbing into her, and the leaves she usually took for pain were in the coat that she’d dropped back in the last of the white rooms.
She heaved herself to a standing position. The reflection was still unconscious, but she crept past it anyway, closing the door behind her. She shuffled to the bathroom. It was a minor miracle she hadn’t woken her family with all that crashing around.
She waited for her nose to stop bleeding and then washed the blood from her face. She took out her phone, but before she could dial there was a knock on the door and Cassandra Pharos stepped in.
“You have to hurry,” she said.
“I’m just going to call Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said, but Cassandra was shaking her head as she pulled Valkyrie gently out of the bathroom.
“No time,” she said. “No time. You’re not safe here.”
“But this is my home.”
Finbar Wrong was waiting on the landing. “She can get to you here,” he told her. “We didn’t think she could but she can. You have to keep going before she gets you.”
“Before who gets me?”
“The Nemesis of Greymire.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
They brought her to the top of the stairs.
“It’s her,” said Cassandra.
The Nemesis of Greymire came slowly up the steps. She was thin, and dressed in rags. Her head was covered in a cloth mask, like the kind they wore in the asylum. She carried a sledgehammer, the long handle balanced on one shoulder.
“What does she want?” Valkyrie asked.
“To punish you,” said Finbar, “for all the bad things you’ve done.”
They backed away from the stairs, and a baby started to cry in Alice’s room.
“Go on,” Cassandra said. “Take your sister. Run. We’ll try to delay the Nemesis.”
“She’ll kill us,” Finbar said to Cassandra.
Cassandra shrugged. “It won’t be the first time we’ve died because of Valkyrie.”
He nodded his agreement, and they stayed where they were while Valkyrie hurried to Alice’s bedroom. She went straight to her sister’s cot, wrapped her in her blanket and scooped her up.
“It’s OK,” Valkyrie whispered, kissing the baby’s forehead. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Alice stopped crying.
Valkyrie stepped out of the bedroom as the Nemesis reached the top of the stairs. Cassandra and Finbar ran at her and the Nemesis swung the hammer, caught them both with the same swing. Their skulls crunched. The Nemesis flicked the hammer up and around and balanced it once again on her shoulder. She stepped over their bodies.
Clutching Alice tight to her chest, Valkyrie ran through a corridor she didn’t remember existing and kicked open the door at the end. She caught her foot on a rock and tripped, went stumbling, fell to one knee. The grass was wet, and quickly soaked into her jeans. She was in a graveyard. The sky was grey. Clouds blocked out the sun.
She turned to close the door, but the door wasn’t there any more. There was only the Nemesis, walking towards her. Valkyrie tried blasting it with everything she could muster, but the lightning just hit the creature’s skin and then it was gone. There was nothing burnt, nothing singed, nothing damaged in any way whatsoever. The Nemesis of Greymire ate up the lightning and carried on regardless.
Valkyrie ran between the graves. It was a large cemetery, on a hill. The headstones were in lines, like hundreds of dominoes. Valkyrie slipped on the grass, went sliding down for a bit. She came up in a crouch, Alice still safe in her arms. She didn’t recognise the name on the headstone beside her, but she recognised the date. Devastation Day. The day Darquesse murdered all those people in Roarhaven.
She started running again. Every headstone on either side had the same date carved into the granite.
She turned right, ran straight across. Took a left. Went diagonally.
Everyone. Everyone in this cemetery died on the same day.
“This way!” someone shouted. They waved at her. “Hurry!”
She checked behind her. The Nemesis wasn’t moving quickly, but she was closing in all the same.
Valkyrie ran towards the waving figure. She almost laughed with relief when she reached him.
“In trouble again, I see,” Kenspeckle Grouse said. “And you’ve managed to drag yo
ur little sister into this mess with you. How proud you must feel.”
Valkyrie’s relief washed away. “I’m helping her,” she said.
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?”
“Her life is in danger.”
Kenspeckle nodded. “It is, yes. You know, I told Skulduggery the same thing all those years ago. I told him involving you was obscenely irresponsible.”
“He didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Nonsense. He just didn’t want to listen, and neither did you. You had your whole life ahead of you, Valkyrie. You could have been happy. Instead, you chose this. And now you want to subject your sister to the same horrors you experienced?”
“I’m saving her,” Valkyrie said, anger rising.
“You can’t save anyone,” Kenspeckle responded. “You couldn’t save me, could you?”
Alice started to cry again. Valkyrie patted her, swaying, and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to save her,” she said.
There was movement out of the corner of her eye and Valkyrie threw herself down, protecting Alice as she rolled. The Nemesis of Greymire’s hammer swung lazily into Kenspeckle’s chest, lifting him and flinging him over the headstones. Valkyrie slipped and hands grabbed her, pulled her up.
“Come on,” said Anton Shudder, and led her away from the Nemesis.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Valkyrie said as they ran.
“The Nemesis is here to punish you,” Shudder told her, not looking back.
“For what?”
“For everything.”
“Why is she after Alice?”
“She’s not.”
“She’s chasing her.”
“She’s chasing you. You’re endangering your sister by bringing her with you.”
“I couldn’t just leave her there.”
“Why not?”
There was a strange sound, a deep throb getting louder, and the Nemesis of Greymire’s hammer came spinning by Valkyrie’s ear and hit Shudder in the back. He was propelled forward, off his feet. He fell face down as the hammer thudded to the grass.