Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

by Derek Landy

  “They patrol everywhere,” said the woman. “They arrested him. Just him, not any of his friends. It’s all a mistake. He would never have had anti-Mevolent thoughts. Please. Please, if you could talk to them, make them understand that my son isn’t a threat...”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to anyone. I don’t know them.”

  “But you’re a sorcerer, aren’t you? You’re...” The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re part of the Resistance.”

  “I’m not part of anything.”

  The woman tightened her hold. “Could you help him? Could you rescue him?”

  “I can’t,” said Valkyrie. “Sorry. I’m not even from here.”

  “They have my son. Please. They might execute him. You have to help me. Nobody else will.”

  “If they’ve brought him beyond the wall, then there’s nothing I can do.”

  “But they haven’t,” the woman said. “The Barge doesn’t return to the Palace for another three hours.”

  Stay out of trouble, Ravel had said, and it had seemed so easy at the time.

  “The Barge,” Valkyrie said. “Where is it?”

  “It leaves here in a few minutes, then joins the other Barges and they all return to the City. Please. There isn’t much time.”

  Valkyrie sighed. “Wait here.”

  “Please don’t leave me!”

  “I’m going to talk to my sister, OK? Just stay here for a moment.”

  She pulled her wrist free, and hurried over to the reflection, which stood in the shade with its head down.

  “I’m going to see if I can help this woman,” she said.

  “Skulduggery told you—”

  “I know what he told me. I want you to follow. Wherever I go and whatever I do, you follow. You don’t interfere unless it looks like I’m about to be killed or something.”

  “I thought we were supposed to stay within reach.”

  “Plans change.”

  The reflection looked up. “I really don’t want to be left here alone if you return without me.”

  Valkyrie hesitated. “I know. Listen to me, if that happens, go back to Haggard, where we arrived. I’ll come back for you.”

  The reflection nodded, then said, “Please don’t get killed.”

  Valkyrie gave it a shaky grin. “No promises.”

  Valkyrie allowed the woman to guide her to a field that ran along the outskirts of town. Parked in this field was a vessel roughly the size of a jumbo jet. In fact, if someone had taken a jumbo jet made of black metal, torn the wings off, flattened it till the cylinder shape became rectangular, then that’s what the Barge looked like. Minus wheels or windows or any obvious way in.

  “You seriously want me to break into that thing?”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I don’t see how. I don’t even know how it works. Where does it open? Where’s the door?”

  The woman looked at her. “You’ve really never seen a Barge before? Where are you from?”

  “Not here.”

  The woman bit her lip, then nodded. “I can show you the door. When it starts to leave, if we hurry, we can get to it without being seen.”

  “No, you should stay out of sight.”

  “You won’t find it without me. I can be quick when I need to be.” The woman picked up a rock. “And if the Redhoods come, I’ll fight them with you.”

  “We don’t fight Redhoods if we can help it,” said Valkyrie. “If you see them, you run, OK? Leave any fighting to me.”

  The woman nodded, but didn’t drop the rock.

  They ducked down as a small squad of Redhoods returned to the field. They disappeared round the other side of the Barge, and a few minutes later, a massive engine started rumbling.

  “Get ready,” said the woman.

  The Barge shook a little, then slowly lifted up off the ground.

  “It flies?” Valkyrie said. “You didn’t tell me it flies!”

  “Come on,” said the woman, hurrying out from cover into the wide-open space of the field. Against every instinct she possessed, Valkyrie followed. They passed into the shadow of the Barge, and when they were directly underneath, the woman stopped and pointed.

  “See? Right there. See that hatch?”

  Valkyrie frowned. The underside of the Barge was completely flat, with nothing to hang on to should she propel herself upwards. “That’s the only door? There isn’t one on top?”

  “That’s the only one I know of.”

  “Then we’re in trouble,” said Valkyrie. “I can probably get up there, but I’ve got no way of opening—”

  The woman swung and the rock cracked against Valkyrie’s skull. She wasn’t even aware of her body falling. She just lay on her back, her thoughts congealing into something slow and thick as she watched the hatch open, high above. A hovering platform lowered itself to the ground, and a man stepped off. He was familiar, but Valkyrie’s muddled thoughts couldn’t place him. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Grey hair. A strong jawline. The woman spoke to him, her hands clasped like she was begging. The man didn’t even look at her. His eyes were on Valkyrie, as her mind struggled towards clarity.

  “—brought her to you,” said the woman. “Let my son go. Please. He made a mistake. He’ll never do it again. Take her instead. I know you’ve been looking for her.”

  “Your son will be questioned,” the man said. He had a deep voice, rich with authority. “If he has committed no serious crime, he’ll be returned to you as a reward for your service.”

  The woman broke down crying. “Thank you, oh, thank you. When will he be released?”

  But the man had wasted enough time on this mortal woman, and instead stood over Valkyrie, shackles in hand. Using his foot, he flipped her on to her belly. A name floated through her thoughts. She almost hadn’t recognised him without his beard.

  Baron Vengeous shackled her hands behind her back, and hauled her to her feet.

  lsie stood behind the lamp post and tried to work up the courage to talk to the construction supervisor. Most of the work in the street was already done. The café had a new window, the wrecked car had been taken away, all the damage was being patched up. According to the first news reports this street had seen some kind of gang battle, with people shooting at each other and blowing up cars. Then the reports changed to indicate that someone had been using a flame-thrower and, bizarrely, some kind of “laser beam”. But the latest news cleared up all the confusion, stating that it had merely been a boring old car crash. The eyewitnesses came back on air, apologised for their mistakes and the newsreaders chuckled about it. The important thing was that nobody was hurt, and nobody was suing anybody.

  Elsie had listened to all of it and she just knew that Kitana and the others were responsible, and that the people that Xebec had been talking about, the magic cops, were hiding what had really happened.

  “Excuse me?”

  She turned as two men approached, journalists, one of them holding a camera. The other one glanced around quickly, and gave her a furtive smile. “Were you here?” he asked. “Did you see it? Did you see what really happened?”

  She blinked into the camera lens. “Are you from the news?”

  “We’re making a documentary,” said the man. “We’re exposing the truth behind the cover-ups. Are you a witness? Would you be willing to tell us what you saw?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know what... I wasn’t here. Sorry.”

  The man looked at her. “Did they get to you, too?”

  She frowned, and the cameraman tugged on his colleague’s arm. “Come on, Kenny, let’s go.”

  “She knows something.”

  “We’ll be seen. Come on.”

  The cameraman hurried off. The other man, Kenny, gave her a business card. “If you remember anything,” he said, walking backwards, “call this number.” And then he was gone.

  Elsie waited a few moments, then went to the skip by the side of the road and dropped the card in among the debris an
d broken glass. She took a deep breath, then approached the construction supervisor. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’d like to talk to someone in charge.”

  The supervisor smiled at her. “That’d be me.”

  “Uh,” she said. “No, I mean... someone who’s really in charge. You know. Of the secret thing.”

  “The secret thing?”

  She nodded. “With the... stuff.”

  He frowned at her. “Were you hit on the head recently, Miss? Maybe we should get a doctor to take a look at you.”

  “I’m fine,” Elsie said quickly. “Well, no I’m not, but I just want to help. I know this wasn’t a car crash. And I don’t think it was gangs with laser beams, either. I... I think I might know the people who did this.”

  The supervisor looked at her, and gave her another smile. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “You know what?” he said. “I think I might call my boss. Do you mind hanging around for a bit?”

  “I’ll stay,” she said.

  He nodded, stepped away and made a call. Half an hour later, a beautiful black car pulled up and a tall, thin man in a black suit got out. He took off his hat and smiled at her as he shook her hand. He wore gloves.

  “Elsie,” he said, “thank you for getting in touch.” He had such a nice voice. Smooth and comforting. “We’ve been looking for you over the past few days. Your mother is worried.”

  “I can’t go home,” Elsie said. “Not yet. I just need help.”

  “I know you do. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. Unusual name, I know, but then I’m an unusual person. As are you, it seems.”

  “You... you know about the... stuff?”

  “If by stuff you mean your powers, yes I do.”

  “I just want this whole thing to stop,” she blurted. “Can you do that? Can you take away my powers?”

  “We can’t,” he said. “Not yet. But we’re working on it.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “I know. But your friends do.”

  Elsie’s smile was anything but happy. “I don’t think they’re my friends any more. I’ve known Sean since we were kids. Our mums are best friends, so we grew up around each other. I don’t really know Doran. I mean, we’ve been in the same class for years, but I don’t know him well. He’s a bully, and he was arrested last year for assaulting a college student. He got away with it, though. He’s… angry. I think he intimidates everyone. Except Kitana.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “She’s always been popular. All the guys do whatever she says. I suppose everyone does whatever she says, even me. The only thing we’ve got in common is Sean. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think she’d even know my name. Kitana is… there’s something wrong with her. Like, even before we got these powers she was always… wrong.”

  “And these powers – you all have identical abilities?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “What did you do when you got them?”

  “What did I do? I don’t know. I suppose I panicked. We were behind the school, mitching off maths. That’s where we went when we were supposed to be in class, behind the sheds out the back. We were all normal. The lads were trying to impress Kitana and I was just sitting there, and then I felt sick. Like, hot and sweaty but also really cold, you know? Like I had the flu or something. And I looked up and the others were the same. We just thought it was a bug. We went home, and we all had the same dream, about Argeddion. I can’t remember much of it, just this man in white and he was giving me something. A gift. I woke up the next morning and... and I just knew. I knew there was power inside me.”

  “How did it make you feel?”

  “I didn’t like it. Kitana said it was amazing but... I don’t know. It was like there was a part of me that wasn’t me. It was – what’s the word? Unsettling.”

  “So all four of you suddenly had powers,” Skulduggery said. “What did you do?”

  Elsie shrugged. “We messed about for a few days. The more we used the powers, the stronger they got. Sean was really excited, he was talking about being superheroes and whatever. Doran called him stupid, he said we should rob all the banks in the country. Kitana said this was going to make her famous. She’d always wanted to be a model or be in the movies or something. It was going to make her a star.”

  “What about you? What did you want to use your powers for?”

  “I liked Sean’s idea the most,” she mumbled.

  “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know. We were all getting along great, we were all laughing and trying to decide what to do, and then...”

  “Then?”

  Elsie hesitated. “There was a bouncer in a nightclub who never let Doran in, because he was underage. Doran was always talking about him, about how he was going to go up one of these nights and kick his teeth in. And that’s what he did. He went up, the bouncer told him he wasn’t getting in, and Doran used his powers. He put the bouncer in hospital. I think he’s still in a critical condition. Doran was laughing when he told us about it.”

  “How did Sean and Kitana react?”

  “Sean was quiet at first, but Kitana kept asking all these questions, like what did it feel like, stuff like that. You could tell that she was into it, and because she was into it Sean got into it.”

  “And that’s how it started.”

  “Yeah. Then it really got out of control. They killed Kitana’s ex, they killed this guy who turned up and started telling us about the magic police… they killed Doran’s brother…”

  “We need to stop them before they hurt anyone else. Once they’re back to normal, we can deal with whatever we have to deal with. But right now we need to stop them. Can you help us?”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Do you have any idea where they are, or what their plans are?”

  “They keep moving around, and I don’t even know if they have plans. The lads do what Kitana tells them, and Kitana does whatever she feels like.”

  “Patrick Xebec was killed because he was a threat, but their real targets have been Kitana’s ex-boyfriend and Doran’s brother. They’re going after people who treated them badly at some stage in their lives. Does Sean have anyone like that?”

  “No. Not that I know of. His parents are nice. Doran’s dad is drunk most of the time and Kitana’s parents are never home, but Sean’s whole family is lovely. Sean wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “His power is corrupting him.”

  “But still, he wouldn’t. He’s not like the other two. He’s nice.”

  “He’s an accomplice to murder, Elsie. We have to stop him before he makes things any worse for himself. Can you think of anywhere they might go, or any score they might have to settle?”

  “I can’t think of anything. I’m really sorry. It doesn’t even make any sense. Kitana didn’t care about her ex. Not really.”

  “Then she was just looking for an excuse to hurt someone,” Skulduggery said. “No one is safe from her, Elsie.”

  “I don’t know where she is, honestly. The only... the only place I can think of that has people she’d like to hurt would be, you know, our school. You don’t think they’d do anything, do you? We have friends there.”

  “I’ll send some people round to keep an eye on the place. If they turn up, we’ll deal with it. In the meantime, I’d like you to accompany me back to a place we call the Sanctuary. It... may not be the safest place in the world, but at least Kitana and the others won’t find you. Will you accompany me?”

  Elsie nodded. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Skulduggery opened the passenger door and she got in, then he slid in the other side. “You might have to adjust the seat,” he said. “The girl who usually sits there is quite tall, and likes everything exactly right.”

  Elsie moved the seat forward. “Will she mind?”

  “Assuming she’s still alive and she ever gets home, I’m fairly certain I’ll never hear
the end of it. Buckle up.”

  he Barge rumbled and shook as it moved over Dublin City. Were it not for the fact that her reflection was somewhere down there, Valkyrie would have been perfectly happy to spend hours in this little cell, just filling in the time until she was pulled back to her own dimension. But she didn’t want to leave it there. She didn’t want to abandon it.

  The shackles hurt her wrists, but comfort hadn’t been uppermost in Vengeous’s mind when he’d thrown her in here. Vengeous. The last time she’d seen him the Grotesquery was crushing his head, which was, what? Four years ago? She was pretty sure she preferred him with a crushed head. The Vengeous from this reality was every bit as humourless as his alternate self, and every bit as intimidating. He didn’t have his sword any more, though, that cutlass thing. That was one thing to be grateful for, Valkyrie supposed.

  It was pretty much the only thing.

  Vengeous hadn’t wasted any time with questions. He assumed she was part of this Resistance everyone kept talking about, and was probably looking forward to a nice bit of interrogation once they got back to the Palace. Valkyrie wondered if this version of Vengeous had been arrested by Skulduggery during that legendary fight China had once spoken of, or if none of that had happened here. If Mevolent, and now Vengeous, was alive here, then who else was? Was Nefarian Serpine waiting for them beyond the wall? And where was this reality’s version of Skulduggery? Would he be much different to the Skulduggery she knew?

  The idea that there could be two identical versions of Skulduggery Pleasant actually made her smile despite herself. The conversations that would result would probably be brain-punchingly narcissistic, at the very least.

  The pitch of the Barge’s engines changed. Deprived of a view, Valkyrie had no idea what was happening until the whole thing shook and clanked and shuddered, and then the engines slowly grew quiet.

  They had arrived.

  The door to her cell opened and a Redhood came in, yanked her to her feet. He brought her to the open belly of the Barge, to Vengeous, who ignored her while he oversaw the transfer of the mortal prisoners. Finally, he turned, dismissed the Redhood and walked down the steps. He turned when he was halfway down, looked back at her, his eyes glowing yellow. Valkyrie started down after him and his eyes returned to normal, and he led her out from under the Barge’s shadow into the City.