by Derek Landy
“Yes, sir,” she said, then hung up.
“Valkyrie?” Omen said.
“Stay here,” she responded, and walked quickly into the
gents’ toilet.
43
It reeked in there.
Valkyrie went straight to the sink, gripped the sides, stared at her reflection in the water-flecked mirror. Cadaverous was watching, she knew he was. She snarled at him, then looked down, and focused.
She closed her eyes, controlled her breathing, reached out with her mind. The world was a mass of grey, but there was a single light shining in the gloom and that’s where she sent her thoughts. Then she felt it – an acknowledgement.
She opened her eyes again. Kept staring down at the sink. At the filthy plughole.
“Ow,” Kes said from behind her. “What did you do?”
“I called you,” said Valkyrie. “I wasn’t sure if I could do it.”
“Well, don’t do it again – my head is splitting. What the hell do you want? Jesus, are we in the men’s toilets? This place is disgusting.”
“Cadaverous Gant took Alice.”
A moment. “Our Alice?”
“My Alice,” Valkyrie said. Then, “Our Alice, yes.”
“Let’s go get her back,” Kes said, urgency biting into her words. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Not yet. Omen’s with me.”
“Why? The kid’s useless.”
“Cadaverous told me to bring him. Now he … Now he wants me to kill him.”
“What?”
Valkyrie struggled to keep her voice down. “In order to get to Alice, Cadaverous wants me to kill Omen.”
“Are you going to?”
“Of course not. That’s why I called you.”
“Why aren’t you looking at me?”
“He can see what I see.”
“What?”
“He had a guy tattoo my eyes,” Valkyrie said. “He sees what I see. He wants to watch me shoot and kill Omen.”
“That’s impressively sick. So what can I do?”
Valkyrie didn’t know. She was making this up as she went along. “Do you think I see you?” she asked. “Like, do you actually think I’m seeing you physically?”
“Yes,” said Kes. “That’s how seeing things works.”
“But no one else can see you.”
“Yeah, because no one else is tuned to my frequency. And you can only see me when I want you to see me.”
“But am I seeing you through my eyes,” Valkyrie said, “or am I seeing you with my mind?”
Kes hesitated. “Ah.”
“If I’m seeing you with my mind, then Cadaverous won’t be able to see you.”
Kes moved behind her, like she was pacing. “I don’t know, Valkyrie. I don’t know how this works. It might be a mind thing, it might be an eye thing, or it might be both. Why? What’s your plan?”
“If Cadaverous can’t see you,” said Valkyrie, “then you can stand in front of Omen when I shoot him.”
“What good will that do? The bullet will just pass through me.”
“Not if you catch it.”
Kes went quiet for a moment. “Oh my God,” she said. “You want to shoot me.”
“You can heal yourself.”
“You want to actually shoot me.”
“But you’ll survive. Omen wouldn’t.”
“I’ve just teleported here, and now you want me to use my weak reserves of power to become tangible, and then you want to shoot me.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Kes—”
“No way in hell.”
“He’s going to kill Alice unless I do this.”
“Then do it,” said Kes. “Shoot Omen. Kill him. It’s not like anyone’s really going to miss him when he’s gone.”
Valkyrie clenched her fists. “I’m not going to murder an innocent boy.”
“But you’re fine with murdering me?”
“You can heal yourself.”
“You think. We don’t know that I’ll be able to. I can’t even remain tangible for more than a few seconds. Besides, so what? Say I do stand there like an idiot and you shoot me instead of Omen – what then? Have you had a chance to discuss this wonderful plan with him? Does he know that he’ll have to fall down and play dead?”
“No,” Valkyrie admitted. “You’ll have to zap him.”
Kes laughed. “Zap him?”
“Like you did with Lethe. When I fire, you zap Omen, make him fall, make him lose consciousness.”
“That’s more power for me to use, Valkyrie. I’d be stretched thin as it is, just becoming tangible. But healing myself and zapping him? How do you know I wouldn’t just fade away afterwards? Your plan is something I might not recover from.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, we do,” Kes said. “Kill Omen.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“It’s Omen or it’s Alice. Pick one.”
“It’s Omen, it’s Alice, or it’s you.”
Kes laughed without humour. “Wow.”
“You can do this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. You’re strong enough, and we don’t have any more time to talk about it. Please.”
“You won’t kill Omen, but you will kill me, is that it?”
“I’m willing to risk your life, yes. Just like I’d be willing to risk mine.”
“All of this means nothing if Cadaverous can see me.”
“I know,” Valkyrie said, and turned, looking Kes straight in the eye. “Well, he either sees you right now, or he doesn’t.”
Kes didn’t say anything. Valkyrie held the phone, and waited for it to ring.
When it didn’t, she put it back in her pocket. “Please,” she said.
Kes folded her arms, and didn’t answer.
Valkyrie walked out.
“What do we do now?” Omen asked.
Valkyrie picked up the fallen gun. She checked it was loaded, and turned.
“Uh … Valkyrie?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, aiming. “Cadaverous needs me to do this.”
“Do what?” Omen said, his face going pale. “You’re … you’re not going to shoot me, are you? I mean … that’d kill me. You’d be killing me.”
“I’m sorry.”
He held up his hands. “But, now, wait. I don’t understand. Why does he want you to kill me? I can be useful. I can help. I can … I don’t know what I can do, but I can do it and you won’t have to kill me. Valkyrie, please. You can tie me up. You can tie me up and lock me in a room.”
“He’s going to kill Alice if I don’t do it.”
Omen’s face crumpled, and tears started to fall. He stayed standing, even though his legs were shaking. “Please don’t kill me.”
Her hand, the hand that held the gun, was surprisingly steady. She thumbed back the hammer. “This is a test,” she said. “If I fail, he’ll kill Alice right now and I’ll never see her again.”
Omen wiped his tears with his sleeve, but more fell. He looked down, his lip trembling. Then he looked up, and nodded. “OK,” he said. “Get your sister back.”
“What?”
“I’d do it,” Omen said, “for my brother. Or I’d want to, at least. Probably wouldn’t be brave enough. Probably mess it up. It’s my fault anyway. I should have put up more of a fight. She’s seven years old and I let him take her.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Do it. It’s OK. You can do it.”
“Thank you, Omen.”
He nodded again, and closed his eyes. “I forgive you.”
“Why does he have to be so insufferably nice?” Kes muttered, and stepped in front of him, her hands on either side of his head. “Three,” she said, “two, one.”
Power pulsed from her fingertips and Omen’s entire body jerked back as Valkyrie fired, the bullet catching Kes in the back. Omen fell and Kes cried out, twisted, and vanished before she hit
the ground.
Valkyrie looked away immediately. A few seconds later, the phone rang.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Cadaverous said.
“He won’t be the last person I kill.”
Cadaverous chuckled. “So many delightful promises. It really is quite disconcerting, you know, looking at the world through your eyes.”
“Where’s Alice?”
“Ah-ah, not yet, I’m afraid. You still have miles to go before you sleep, and stops to make along the way.”
“No,” she said, anger rising. “I killed a boy for you. I murdered for you. Tell me where my sister is and let’s finish this.”
“It seems that someone is forgetting her manners.”
Valkyrie bit her lip. Hard. Then she started again. “I would like to see my sister again as soon as possible,” she said. “Please, sir.”
“Soon, Valkyrie,” Cadaverous said. She could hear the smile in his voice. “But, before that, I’m going to need you to drive to the home of some friends of mine. The address is in the box Palter opened. Turn round. Good girl. See it there? On the floor.”
A white card. She picked it up, shoved it in her pocket.
“This is fun,” said Cadaverous. “I imagine this is what it’s like to play a video game – although this is infinitely more entertaining. And pick up Omen, there’s a good girl, and let’s get back on the road.”
Valkyrie frowned. “Omen’s dead.”
“And I can’t very well have his corpse found at this early stage, can I? The City Guard will discover this scene of carnage and be stumped for a few vital hours. But if we leave Omen here, the skeleton will hear about it and link it to you and me. No, no, it’s better to clean up after us as we go. Take him with you, there’s a good girl.”
44
Temper Fray barged past the jerk in the robes and pushed the doors open. Creed’s office, here at the very top of the Dark Cathedral, was just as he’d imagined: bare, functional and a little bit creepy.
There was a desk with a circular window behind it and there were chains on the walls. Actual chains. On the walls.
“Why are there chains on the walls?” he asked.
“You cannot come in here!” the jerk in the robes shrieked. “You are infringing upon—”
“Leave us,” said Arch-Canon Damocles Creed, who hadn’t even looked up from the papers he was reading.
The jerk whimpered, and backed out, closing the doors after him.
“The walls,” said Temper. “Why are there chains on them?”
“They act as a reminder,” Creed said.
“A reminder of what?”
“The shackles that bind us.”
“It’s weird. That’s all I’m gonna say about it. It’s weird and off-putting. It’s weird and off-putting and kinda unsettling. Do you have many visitors up here? I doubt you do. I doubt there are many people who want to come for meetings in the office with all the chains on the walls.”
Creed sighed, and finally raised his big bald head. “I had forgotten how much you talked.”
“I am a talker.”
“What can I do for you, Officer Fray? I am very busy.”
“I’d say you are, what with all the hijinks you’re getting up to. You got your fingers in some pies, don’t you, Damocles?”
Creed’s eyes were heavy-lidded, which gave him the air of someone permanently unimpressed. But Temper had been there during Creed’s sermons, when those eyes widened so much they threatened to bulge out of his head.
“We’re on a first-name basis, are we?” Creed asked. “I can’t remember us ever being so informal.”
“I’m trying something new,” said Temper. “I figured I spent enough time deferring to you when I was one of your mindless little drones that I should give disrespect a shot. You know what? I’m kinda liking it.”
“You were never a drone, Temper,” Creed said. “You were always one of my favourites.” He sat back in the chair, his simple shirt stretched tight across his chest. “But now look at you, standing there in a uniform. Obeying the same rules, enforcing the same laws, bound by the same restrictions … I think you’ve finally become the mindless drone you feared you’d become.”
“Those restrictions you mentioned – they happen to be connected to the Religious Freedom Act?”
“Ah,” said Creed, “that’s why you’re here.”
“We were just told about it. Apparently, all religious practices and rituals are now protected.”
“The Sanctuaries should never have been able to dictate how any religious order is allowed to worship. The Supreme Mage agrees with me, and we are all the better for it, not just the Church of the Faceless.”
“But, as far as I know, the Church of the Faceless is the only religious order to advocate human sacrifice.”
“That’s a ridiculous accusation.”
“I was next on the list to be sacrificed.”
“We do not kill.”
“The Kith are as good as dead and you know it.”
Creed sighed and stood, coming out from behind the desk, reminding Temper of just how massive he was. “The Kith will be first in line to meet the Faceless Ones upon their return. You would deny them this honour?”
“I would.”
“Then it is a good thing that you have strayed from the path, Temper. You are unworthy.”
“If I hear that’s what you’re up to – if people start going missing? The Religious Freedom Act won’t save you.”
Creed lowered his head, his heavy brow throwing a shadow over his eyes. His mouth widened into a smile that creased his face. There. That glint of madness.
“Do you know what the Religious Freedom Act means, Temper? What it really means? It means I could kill you right here, with witnesses just outside the door. It means I could tear you apart and have everyone hear your screams – and your colleagues in the City Guard wouldn’t be able to arrest me for it, even if they wanted to.”
Time slowed, and the space between them turned jagged.
Temper drew his gun and Creed batted it from his hand with surprising speed. Temper hit him – an elbow to the solar plexus that Creed didn’t seem to feel – and stepped back to pull his sword. Creed closed his hand round Temper’s wrist and squeezed, and Temper’s fingers sprang open. The sword dropped and Creed kicked him in the chest and Temper hit the wall, the chains rattling. He rebounded, winded, rage coursing through him, took one step and prepared to unleash – and froze.
Creed’s thin smile had never left his face, and now it split, revealing his teeth. “You could kill me if you wanted,” he said softly. “Tear me apart. Decorate this room with my innards. But what would it cost you, Officer Fray? Everything? Or more?”
Temper cut off his anger. Starved it of oxygen. He straightened. Adjusted his uniform.
Creed walked back round his desk and sat, resumed reading the papers. “Get out,” he said. “And close the door after you.”
Temper picked up his weapons and left. He didn’t close the door.
He returned to the Vault, that concrete block of a building that housed the City Guard, and changed out of his uniform and into some civilian threads. Skulduggery was waiting for him outside.
“Sorry I’m late,” Temper said. “I had a thing to do before my shift ended.”
“Take a walk with me,” Skulduggery said, and Temper shrugged and fell into step. “Has there been any breakthrough with the portal device?”
“Not yet,” said Temper, “but the guy who’s in charge of the reverse-engineering is confident he can figure out how it works. A little guy named Forby. Nice enough, if a little weird.”
“I heard the portal itself was shut down this morning.”
“Yeah. What you may not have heard is that there were another ten thousand mortals waiting on the other side when the button was pushed.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “I was under the impression that they’d all come through.”
“I’m afraid you
were misled. Mevolent’s forces were getting too close, apparently. Rather than risk a confrontation, the device was deactivated and our people pulled out – which left those ten thousand mortals pretty much defenceless.”
“China gave that order?”
“I can only assume so.”
“Those people will have been slaughtered.”
“As Commander Hoc personally reminded me when I brought up that exact point – they ain’t our mortals, and it ain’t our problem.”
“That’s the Commander Hoc I know and adore,” Skulduggery responded. “So all our hopes lie with this Forby, do they?”
“They do,” said Temper, “and I don’t envy him having to deliver on everything that’s expected of him. If he doesn’t figure out how to stop portals like that from opening anywhere at any time, there’ll be nothing to prevent Mevolent from attacking. Hell, we could be talking a full-scale global invasion. Skulduggery?”
“Yes?”
“I’m talking invasions and you’re barely listening.”
“I’ll have you know that I was listening to every word you said. But I was also checking on the gentleman who’s been following me for the last half-hour.”
Without looking round, Temper said, “The guy in the baseball cap or the guy in the green jacket?”
“The gent in the jacket is merely lost. Our baseball-cap-wearing friend is the one we’re interested in.”
“Are we leading him somewhere?”
“We are,” said Skulduggery.
They turned down a side street and waited for the guy in the baseball cap to hurry by. Skulduggery stepped out from behind cover and grabbed him, threw him against the wall. The cap came off. The guy beneath was scruffy and startled.
“Argosy Pelt,” Skulduggery said.
Pelt tried to run off and Temper shoved him back. “You know him?”
“I’ve glanced at his file,” Skulduggery said. “He had been incarcerated in Coldheart Prison when Abyssinia took it over.”
“For a crime I didn’t commit!” Pelt blurted.
“Shut up,” said Temper, and frowned at Skulduggery. “Did you glance at the files of all the inmates?”
“Of course.”
“How many was that?”
“Seven hundred and thirty-two.”
“And you recognised his face from his mugshot?”