by Derek Landy
Five seconds to brain death.
Mevolent was still walking away. He’d been tougher than she’d expected. He’d practically killed her, after all. Practically. Almost. Almost, but not quite. Pull the head off, the brain still has time. That was a mistake.
She reached out with her magic and pulled her body towards her. It slithered over the ground. Brown-clothed mortals opened their mouths to cry in shock but all she heard was the sea, like the sea back in Haggard, where she’d been young and safe and happy. Where she’d been Valkyrie Cain, and before that, Stephanie Edgley. Where she’d had her parents and her sister. Where she’d been loved.
But that was Valkyrie, facing her own mortality, grasping the things that meant the most to her. And Valkyrie had no place here. Not now. Darquesse needed to stay in control. Only Darquesse could do what needed to be done.
Three seconds to brain death.
The body nudged against her and she tipped herself back, lining up her ruined neck. Tendrils of meat latched on to each other, finding their mate, pulling the head and body together. Vertebrae clicked and cartilage clacked and muscles reached and re-formed and strengthened. Veins and arteries, nerves and skin, becoming whole.
Blood surged. Oxygen rushed. Brain death averted.
Darquesse propped herself up on to her elbows and looked at Mevolent, who was striding back towards her. “Wow,” she said. “That was something.”
He flew at her and she kicked, both legs catching him in the stomach and sending him crashing into the road behind her. He sprang up and so did she, but she swayed, the world tilting.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
Mevolent’s fist crunched into her cheek and she reeled back, knocking against a heavy wooden fence post. He came at her again and she grabbed the post, swung it with all her strength. It broke on impact but at least Mevolent was driven to his knees.
Darquesse reached for another post, tore it from the ground and threw it as Mevolent stood. He stumbled back a few steps. Darquesse threw another, and another, plucking them from the earth, throwing them like darts. Mevolent tried to get up. He got to one knee, shook his head beneath that helmet, and stood. He looked around, and that’s when Darquesse hit him with the horse.
She found the Sceptre in a side street just as China Sorrows was picking it up off the ground.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Darquesse said, landing gently behind her.
China raised the Sceptre. “Did you kill Mevolent?”
“If I did, then that Sceptre is now yours to control. So you can use it to kill me. Of course, if he isn’t dead, and you try to use it, then I’ll just take it from you and beat you to death.”
“An interesting dilemma,” China said.
“Isn’t it just?”
“How long do we have?”
“Before I return home? A few seconds. I can feel them ticking down. I’m starting to feel the pull already.”
“So we only have moments to resolve this.”
Darquesse smiled, and didn’t say anything.
China bit her lip thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose running would do me any good.”
Darquesse shook her head, started walking towards her.
China backed away. “Take the sword. The God-Killer. You can kill your enemy with that.”
“Don’t like swords any more,” Darquesse replied.
“There are others weapons. I’ve heard of them.”
“I want the Sceptre.”
“The Sceptre belongs here.”
“I’m taking it with me.”
“There must be something I can do to make you—”
Darquesse held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
The black crystal sparkled in a shaft of sunlight. China tightened her grip. “I think Mevolent’s dead. If you didn’t kill him, he’d be here by now. I think he’s dead and this thing will kill you if I fire.”
“That’s your decision to make,” said Darquesse. Her fingers neared the Sceptre.
China’s jaw set. Her muscles tensed. Darquesse smiled.
She took the Sceptre, and China’s hand dropped to her side.
It felt good in her grip. Darquesse searched through the magic inside her, found the reverberating energy that Silas Nadir had passed into her system. There was only a small amount left but she grabbed it, spun it, strengthened it, and within moments her arm was starting to throb. She looked back at China. “If I were you, I’d run,” she said. “Mevolent’s forces are closing in.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“Didn’t have time.”
“So if I’d tried to fire...”
“I’d be wearing your beauty all over my fist by now.” The world flickered. “My time here is up. Good luck with your war.”
“Good luck with yours,” China said, stepping back into a doorway. But there was someone there, someone waiting for her, and a skinless hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder. China stiffened, those beautiful blue eyes widening, and red energy crackled round her body and brought her to her toes before she could even scream. Pain blossomed from within her and snapped her body from Serpine’s grip, and she fell to the ground, as perfect and lifeless as a doll.
Serpine smiled at Darquesse, and she smiled back. The world flickered again, and in that moment Serpine brought up his hand and energy exploded out at her. She hurtled back, head over heels through the air, and the world changed and she slammed into a parked truck. She dropped to her knees, back in her own reality, kneeling in dirt in some quarry, surrounded by trucks and pallets and equipment. She took a moment to laugh at Serpine’s audacity and rub her chest where he’d hit her, and then she realised her hands were empty. She’d dropped the Sceptre.
“No!” she roared, springing to her feet. “NO!”
She whipped her head round. Maybe it was here. Maybe it had come through with her. Maybe it was—
She kicked the truck and sent it sideways. “NO!”
She flung herself into the air, into the sunshine, screaming her curses, twisting and flying for the Sanctuary, her speed drawing tears from her eyes. And still she screamed. Serpine. Serpine, that murderous, treacherous little toerag. He was beyond her reach now but Kitana wasn’t, or Sean, or Doran. She was going to kill them all. Going to rip them apart. Going to obliterate them.
She flew faster than she’d ever flown before. It might have been fun if she hadn’t been feeling so murderous.
Roarhaven approached. Her eyes narrowed as she neared the Sanctuary, seeing in her mind’s eye where Kitana was standing, three levels below the surface, down there in the maze of corridors, in the Accelerator Room. She saw Doran and Sean, too, and Vile on the floor, trying to get up.
She flew at the roof, punching through and crashing through this floor and then the next, swerving now, crashing through a wall, sensing the alarm as Kitana turned. Then she was bursting through, barrelling past Doran and Sean, her fists colliding with Kitana’s pretty face. She hit Kitana with the speed of a bullet and the poor girl’s head came apart. Her momentum took Darquesse through into the next room, and she touched down, laughing. Back in a good mood. She stepped back through the hole in the wall. Doran and Sean were on their knees, staring at what was left of Kitana.
“Oops,” said Darquesse.
Magic writhed around Doran’s arm, and his hand glowed and spat forward a stream of energy that burrowed through Darquesse’s belly. He still hadn’t figured it out.
Even as she healed herself, Darquesse diverted some of her power down through her veins to bundle around her hand. She released it and it burned through Doran and he toppled over, a smoking crater where his face used to be.
“The brain,” she said to Sean as he backed away. “Destroy the brain, and how can we heal ourselves? Do you see? It’s simple.”
Sean licked his lips. His magic thrashed, waiting to be unleashed. She watched it, and when she saw how he was going to use it, she moved, batted his arm down even as it was rising. One hand grippe
d him under the chin and she spun behind him, her other arm braced against his shoulder blades, and she pulled his head off with all the effort of popping open a can of Coke.
A sorcerer who had earned his power could have used the last few moments until brain death to try something, to try to heal himself, but Sean didn’t know the first thing about anything. Darquesse dropped the head and kicked it out into the corridor. She wished Mevolent could have seen that.
“Violent,” she murmured. “So very violent.” She looked over at Lord Vile as he got to his feet. “We make a good team, you and I. We should do this again. Maybe go after Argeddion when he gets back, finish this once and for all. What do you say?”
Vile, as usual, stood there and said nothing. His fingers tapped against his leg, that same fast rhythm that Skulduggery had been tapping for the past few days, like it was a song he couldn’t get out of his head. Annoying, now that she thought of it.
And now that he was still, the subtle movement of his armour became apparent, pulsing slightly to the irregular beat. Darquesse narrowed her eyes. Skulduggery Pleasant was a cunning adversary. He’d have foreseen a time when Darquesse would return, and he knew she’d never give him the chance to talk her down again. He needed a weapon against her, a weapon that he would have had to keep secret from Valkyrie.
That finger-tapping was no meaningless tic. It was a psychological trigger that he’d embedded in his subconscious. It may have been Lord Vile standing before her, but it was Skulduggery underneath, and he was using the rhythm to break free of the more murderous part of his nature.
Whatever he was planning, Darquesse couldn’t let it happen.
She studied Vile’s armour, saw how it moved. She looked closer, deeper, saw how Necromancy inhabited it. The armour was a living thing, though not a living thing with any degree of sentience. Magic lived in it, and magic was alive, and so the very nature of the armour was transformed as a result. She saw it and understood it, and once she was ready, she focused her mind and called to it.
Vile inclined his head, and stopped tapping his leg.
She called again, more forcefully this time, and the armour reacted, straining against Vile’s command. Black droplets of shadow splashed to the ground and Vile struggled, the armour turning solid again, solid and sharp. Darquesse ducked a swipe at her throat. She moved in but he was fast, grabbing her and twisting and smashing her head through the wall. He pulled her on to his hip and flipped her. The world tilted and the floor spun into her face. She started to laugh as Vile knelt on her back. This was fun.
She threw him back with a simple pulse of energy and she called to his armour and it flowed to her hand, collecting into a spinning ball of shadow and substance.
The last of it dripped from Skulduggery and he fell sideways, barely managing to support himself against the wall.
“Sorry,” said Darquesse, the ball still spinning. “I know you were planning something sneaky, but I quite like it out here and I have no intention of returning to the dark corners of my mind.”
“Give me Valkyrie back,” said Skulduggery, his voice weak.
“No. And don’t think you can charm your way through to her. No more touching stories on how much you mean to each other. She wants me out here. She wants me in charge. She’s enjoying this.”
Skulduggery took a moment, then straightened up. “You can’t kill me,” he said.
Darquesse laughed, held out her hand to prove him wrong, then hesitated.
“You might want to,” said Skulduggery, “but you can’t. That’s Valkyrie’s influence.”
She dropped her hand on to her hip. “It’s an influence that’s fading. Her voice grows fainter every minute. Another day of this and I think we’ll come to an agreement, her and I, and then we will truly be one.”
“You’re not going to have a day. You’re not even going to have another minute.”
“Ah,” said Darquesse, “this is the moment where you unveil your secret weapon, is it? Come on, then, don’t keep me in suspense. What are you waiting for?”
“Them.”
Darquesse sensed Argeddion before she heard his footsteps, and turned as he came in. Walden D’Essai followed after him, his face pale and his eyes wide. Magic boiled in his veins, and she knew Argeddion had shared with him their true name.
Argeddion looked at the carnage with dismay.
“You didn’t have to kill the children,” he said.
“But I did,” she answered, “the same way I have to kill you.”
Even as she said it, though, she knew she couldn’t. Killing Kitana and the others had released their power to flow back into him. He was far beyond even her now.
“Why do you hurt people?” Argeddion asked. “We talked about the things I would show you. If you had just turned your back on violence, the secrets of the universe could have been yours.”
He waved his hand gently and Darquesse turned, eyebrows rising, as Kitana got to her feet, her head in one piece. Without magic inside her she was an unexceptional individual, suddenly terrified and empty. Doran stirred, and started to get up as Sean’s head appeared by his body and reattached itself.
“You resurrected the dead,” said Darquesse. “That is impressive.”
“And that is only the beginning of my power,” Argeddion replied. “Today the world changes. Today the human race moves on.”
Darquesse grinned. “Cool.”
Argeddion shook his head. “I’m sorry, Darquesse, but we have to leave you behind. I don’t know why you are the way you are but... oh, my dear child. You could have been the best of us.”
“Uh,” Walden said. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?”
Skulduggery leaned against the Accelerator, fingers tapping that annoying rhythm once more against the skin. “You’re here to change the world, Walden. He wants to bring magic to the masses.”
Walden looked at Argeddion. “Is that what you meant by making your world a better place?”
“A new age approaches,” Argeddion said, smiling gently.
Walden stared at him. “Are you insane?”
Argeddion blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Giving magic to mortals? Have you ever met any mortals? They’d kill each other!”
“No,” Argeddion said. “My experiments are complete. Thanks to Kitana and Sean and Doran, I know the dangerous levels. Mankind will be elevated to a new plane of existence.”
“I’ve lived in a world dominated by magic. The strong rule. The weak are oppressed and kept down in the gutter.”
“Strength will cease to be an issue—”
“Strength is always an issue, you fool! There will always be the strong and there will always be the weak! And you want me to help you? You want me to help you use magic to destroy your own world? No. I won’t do it. Return me to mine.”
“Magic is mankind’s birthright, Argeddion. I don’t understand why you can’t see that.”
“Argeddion is your name,” Walden said, “not mine. I’m still me. I’m still Walden D’Essai. I live at eighteen Mount Temple Place and I love Greta Dapple. I’m not going to change just because I can. Look at the people you’ve hurt. Look at the pain you’ve caused. You say magic is our birthright? I’ve studied magic my entire life and I’ve come to the conclusion that it was never meant for us. It’s an accident we have it.”
“No. No. Magic is a beautiful—”
“It’s dangerous! It’s too dangerous!”
“You can’t mean that.” Argeddion took hold of Walden’s arm, tried dragging him to the dais. “Please. Come along. We’ll make the world—”
“Let go of me!” Walden shouted, shoving Argeddion back. Darquesse watched as the two men scuffled, Walden’s hands tightening round Argeddion’s throat. She saw the anger in them, and Argeddion pushed him back and Walden just kept coming and here it was, Argeddion’s animal instinct, blossoming across his mind and his temper flared and Walden burned to ashes in his hands.
Argeddion stagge
red back in shock. Darquesse’s grin grew wider.
“No,” said Argeddion as the ashes settled. “No. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. What have I done?”
If Darquesse were to ever have a chance of killing him, it was now, while he was too distraught to think straight. She stepped towards him.
Skulduggery’s fingers drummed against the Accelerator, faster and faster, chasing that rhythm, that irregular beat that he repeated, looped, again and again.
Incessantly.
Argeddion looked at him and Darquesse stopped her approach, caught out. Annoyed, she turned.
“I have to ask,” she said. “What are you doing? That tapping, that’s your big plan? How is that supposed to defeat the both of us?”
“You have the power of gods,” Skulduggery murmured, “but you’re not gods. Not yet. Your thoughts are human thoughts. Your minds may be expanding, but how you think is still a human process – for the moment, anyway.”
She noticed that there were sigils on the walls, but they were simple things, made to generate light but not energy.
Then the sigils started to pulse with the rhythm. And they got faster, starting pulsing on their own, faster and faster and brighter and brighter and Darquesse frowned, and laughed, and opened her mouth to speak and
alkyrie woke on the floor. She looked at the ceiling while she tried figuring out what the hell was going on.
There were voices. People. Ghastly stepped over her. “She’s awake,” she heard him say.
There were more people. The Sanctuary was no longer empty. The mages had returned. Skulduggery knelt by her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
She looked at him a while before she spoke. “What did you do?”
“I had the lights orchestrated to interfere with the electrical activity in the human brain. Basically, I induced a seizure in both of you.”
“But... I’m not epileptic.”
“You don’t have to be. All that’s required is the right sequence at the right speed.”
He helped her up. Argeddion was sitting against the wall, eyes open but not looking at anything. Cassandra Pharos and two other Sensitives were kneeling around him. Someone else, too, a man she recognised. Deacon Maybury.