by Derek Landy
China’s squad of Cleavers still hadn’t teleported in, so Valkyrie picked up a scythe of her own, started casually twirling it as she circled. She twirled it one-handed, then two-handed, then finished the twirl one-handed again. Skulduggery and Lethe observed her silently and she raised an eyebrow at them both.
Lethe attacked Skulduggery so suddenly that he barely had time to block, barely had time to sidestep and parry and twist away. But that’s how fights like these were fought – with barely enough time. Valkyrie took three quick steps and swiped low, then brought the scythe blade up high. Lethe dodged the first and blocked the second, responded with a swipe of his own like she knew he would. She countered, cracked her staff into his knee, rammed her shoulder into his chest and slashed at his head. The tip of her blade scraped a line in his mask, but didn’t puncture through.
“Unusual style,” Lethe said, backing away. His head turned fractionally to Skulduggery. “You didn’t teach her.”
“No, I didn’t,” Skulduggery said. “As ever, Valkyrie is full of surprises.”
He used the air to nudge Lethe off balance and swung his scythe. The instant Lethe blocked, Skulduggery moved, changing up his angles, going low then high then low again. Staffs cracked and blades scraped. Valkyrie came in, tried a broad slash to mess with Lethe’s rhythm, but he kept his tempo as well as any Cleaver she’d ever seen.
Lethe backed away and now Valkyrie and Skulduggery were fighting side by side, pursuing him across the disc, all three of them stepping carefully over the unconscious bodies at their feet while their weapons blurred and clashed. The exhilaration of that moment pumped through Valkyrie’s veins, feeding strength into her muscles, sharpening her reflexes. Skulduggery’s support allowed her to try things, to risk moves that drew Lethe out, opened up opportunities. Victory was mere seconds away.
And then it started to shift. The flow changed. Reversed. Now it was Valkyrie and Skulduggery who were stepping backwards and Lethe who was pressing the attack. His scythe moved impossibly fast. He blocked their strikes like he knew they were coming, batting aside their blades with something akin to contempt. He spun with a kick that sent Skulduggery stumbling and whacked his scythe’s staff into the side of Valkyrie’s face. She dropped her own scythe as she went to the ground. She lay there, too stunned to think, while Skulduggery plunged back into the fight.
Darquesse wandered into view. “Today is a good day,” she said. “This morning I almost tasted an apple, and this afternoon I get to watch you die.”
“Help us,” Valkyrie muttered.
Darquesse laughed. “And why would I do something stupid like that? If you really need help, though, maybe you should tap that sigil again. What’s it called, an auxilium? The look on your face when nobody arrived to save you, a look of sad disappointment … I’ll never forget it.”
Valkyrie turned over, got to her hands and knees, waiting for her head to stop spinning. “If I die, you’ll have no one to talk to.”
The grin faded from Darquesse’s face. “So I won’t have to endure your whiny self-loathing. I think I’ll be OK with that.”
Valkyrie kept her voice low. “You hate me, right?”
“Obviously.”
“And yet you still talk to me, because you know you’d go nuts otherwise. So either help us or say your goodbyes.”
Valkyrie clambered up as Skulduggery crashed into her.
“You’ve got him on the ropes,” Valkyrie assured him as they untangled themselves.
Skulduggery nodded. “That’s just what I was thinking.”
Lethe stood there, arms wide, awaiting their next attack.
“I have an idea,” Skulduggery said.
“A strategy?” Valkyrie asked.
“More of a tactic.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A strategy is a plan. Tactics are the manoeuvres you employ to achieve that plan.”
“He can hear us, though.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Skulduggery said. “This tactic is so simple it doesn’t matter if he knows it’s coming.”
“This should be interesting,” said Lethe.
“We rush him,” Skulduggery said.
Valkyrie frowned. “That’s it?”
“It is.”
“We run at him? That’s the manoeuvre we’re employing? Running?”
“And, when we get to him, we start hitting him,” Skulduggery said. “That’s the beauty of this whole thing. It ends with us hitting him. In the face.”
“I do like that part,” Valkyrie admitted. “But the rest sounds a bit iffy.”
“He’ll never expect it.”
“I’m expecting it right now,” Lethe said.
“He’s lying,” Skulduggery whispered.
Valkyrie thought for a moment, and shrugged. “OK. Let’s do it.”
“You’re both insane,” Lethe said. “I love it.”
Skulduggery rolled his shoulders. “Ready?”
Valkyrie put a hand on his arm. “Wait a second. We’ll go on my mark.” She watched Darquesse walk up to Lethe, hesitate, and put a hand through his head. Lethe had no idea it was happening.
“Three …” Valkyrie said, “two … one.”
Darquesse’s hand crackled with energy and Lethe stiffened, and a moment later Skulduggery and Valkyrie slammed into him. They tumbled to the ground, Valkyrie falling through Darquesse, who sagged, drained by the effort. Skulduggery punched and Valkyrie dropped elbows, and then Skulduggery flipped Lethe on to his front and shackled his hands behind him.
“Will that do it?” Valkyrie asked, pressing her knee into the small of his back. “This is a necronaut suit. Do shackles work on these things?”
“They work,” Skulduggery said, pressing Lethe’s face into the ground. “Where did you hear about necronaut suits?”
“I’m not completely useless without you around, you know.”
“I never said you were,” he replied, amused.
“I can’t believe that worked.”
“There is genius in simplicity,” Skulduggery reminded her.
Darquesse lifted off her feet. She’d gone gravely pale, her forehead covered with a light sheen of perspiration. She caught Valkyrie looking at her and turned, drifted away from the dais and passed through the wall.
“Where is he?” Melior asked.
Valkyrie looked back, but Melior wasn’t talking to her or to Skulduggery – he was talking to Lethe.
He came forward, fists bunched. “Where’s Savant? Tell me where you’ve been keeping him.”
Skulduggery straightened up and held him back. “We’ll get all the answers you want, but give us space.”
“Space?” Melior repeated, almost laughing. “He’s had my husband for five years! For five years, he’s walked around with that knowledge in his head and I couldn’t say one thing about it because of what they might do. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this man beaten and this is my first chance to ask him and he is going to tell me what he knows. If he’d snatched someone you love, Mr Pleasant, would you be inclined to give him space?”
Skulduggery’s head tilted. “I suppose I wouldn’t. But I can’t let you near him. Sorry.”
Melior glared. “You really think you can stop me?”
Skulduggery didn’t get a chance to answer.
He stepped within arm’s reach of Azzedine Smoke, lying there half covered by unconscious convicts, and Smoke lunged, grabbed Skulduggery’s leg with both hands and some internal switch flicked inside Valkyrie’s mind and she saw the darkness swirl around Skulduggery’s aura, faster than before, thicker and darker. Smoke was putting everything into this, everything into overpowering Skulduggery’s essence, and then it was done.
Smoke looked back at Valkyrie. “Kill her,” he snapped.
Skulduggery turned.
Valkyrie raised a hand, but he knocked it aside and hit her, a fist to the jaw that spun her, sent her to her knees. His gun flew into his hand, and he pressed it to Valkyrie’s fo
rehead.
The room stopped.
“Skulduggery,” Valkyrie whispered.
65
On her knees, all strength having abandoned her, bruised and battered with her left eye swelling shut, Valkyrie could only whisper his name.
He stood over her, one hand holding a fistful of her hair, the other holding the gun that felt so cold against her forehead. He burned with darkness. Smoke’s sickness wrapped around him, twisting and seething, infecting him until there was not one glimmer of his true self remaining.
She wasn’t scared. That surprised her. She wasn’t scared, she was just sad. So incredibly sad. This was what she deserved, of that she had no doubt. She was a killer who deserved to be killed, a murderer who deserved to be murdered. Her death, violent and bloody, was inevitable. If it hadn’t been at his hands, it would have been at someone else’s. If not today, then tomorrow, or next week, or a hundred years from now. But she could no more escape her fate than the Earth could escape its orbit of the sun.
He stood over her, his finger on the trigger. Time slowed. Not Destrier’s doing. This was her perception of the moment of her own death, and time was generous in this instance, in order to allow her to fully appreciate the experience.
She thought of her sister, and her parents, and her dog, and she thought of Omen and Never and Militsa. She thought of Tanith, and wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye, and thought of Ghastly and Gordon, and wondered if she’d see them again. She thought of people and places and times, but only as sensations, memories of emotions that she recognised as clearly as faces. They flooded her mind, lingering both an eternity and an instant, and then she thought of Skulduggery, the man standing over her, and she hoped he’d never snap out of this.
“I love you,” she said, and closed her eyes.
66
The shot filled the room.
67
“I love you, too,” Skulduggery said, and Valkyrie opened her eyes, watching the fierce red of his aura bursting through the black like the sun through storm clouds. Her ears rang, the gun having gone off so close to her head. The red swirled, overcoming Smoke’s darkness, burning so fiercely that she had to switch off her aura-vision before it blinded her.
“What are you doing?” Smoke demanded, hobbling on his good leg. “What the hell are you doing?”
Skulduggery turned and pushed at the air, and Azzedine Smoke flew backwards off the dais, and fell to the lake of energy below.
It was so incredibly surreal. Valkyrie was supposed to be dead, yet life seemed determined to continue.
She watched, dazed, as Lethe grabbed Melior and shoved him over to Abyssinia’s body on the slab.
“Use me,” Lethe said, attaching one of the hoses to the tripod and pressing the other end into his chest. “Use my life force. I’m a Neoteric. My life force will work, won’t it?”
“I … I don’t know,” Melior said.
“It’s over,” Skulduggery said. “You’ve failed, Lethe. Let it go.”
Lethe shook his head. “It’s not over. It’s not. Richard, kill me now, right now, and you get Savant back. I promise you. I swear to you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Above all else?”
“I … I’m not going to kill you …”
“Do it,” Lethe said. “I’m the one who’s kept him from you. It was me. It was all me. Don’t you understand? I did it. I ruined your life, and I have tortured Savant every day since then. Every single day. Have your revenge. Kill me.”
Skulduggery raised his gun. “Don’t do it, Richard.”
“Kill me now,” said Lethe.
Then Never teleported in, but, instead of bringing with her dozens of Cleavers, her hands were on the shoulders of Omen Darkly and Temper Fray.
“Stop!” Temper shouted, hands out towards Melior. “Don’t do anything!”
“Kill me and you’ll get Savant back,” Lethe said.
“Kill him and you’ll kill Savant!” Temper countered. “Richard, a few hours ago I spoke with a mutual friend of ours – Tessa Mehrbano.”
Melior frowned. “So?”
“She knew Smoke. For weeks leading up to Savant’s abduction, she saw Smoke pour his corruption into a black rubber suit – Lethe’s black rubber suit.”
“Kill me,” Lethe growled.
“Lethe is Savant!” Omen blurted. “Lethe is your husband!”
Melior froze.
Skulduggery lowered his gun. “Smoke drenched the necronaut suit with his power,” he murmured. “Once they sealed it, Savant was stuck. He had no escape.”
“They’re lying to you,” Lethe said.
“The affectations,” Skulduggery continued, “the vocal distortions, the deliberate speech patterns … it was all to disguise the man beneath.”
Melior hesitated, then shook his head. “Savant is a pacifist,” he said. “He couldn’t hurt someone if he tried.”
“He’s a quick learner,” said Skulduggery. “A very quick learner. That’s his power, isn’t it? That’s why Lethe fights the way he does. That’s why he loses until he’s learned your moves. Once he’s seen you in action, once he’s gone up against you, he uses your own skills against you.”
Melior looked up. “Is that … is that true?”
When Lethe didn’t answer, Melior’s skin started to glow.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” Melior pressed. “The last five years, you’ve been right in front of me?”
Lethe dropped the hose and grabbed him. “Kill me!”
Melior’s energy burst from him, flinging Lethe back.
Temper rushed over, but Lethe wasn’t getting up. Temper knelt by him, started working at the fastenings around his throat.
Skulduggery helped Valkyrie to her feet. “Are you OK?” he asked gently.
“I’ll live,” she said.
Temper pulled the mask away, and Melior gave a strangled cry when he saw the face of his unconscious beloved beneath.
A tremendous feeling of déjà vu washed over Valkyrie and her skin prickled with the memory of fiery coals and swirling steam. An image, a single image from her vision, of a girl struck by a searing blast of energy, and she saw Never standing in front of her and she looked up, to the tier above, where the convicts roared and jostled. She saw a fierce light growing around a prisoner’s hand, and the arm straightening, and she launched herself at Never, shoving her out of the way as pain exploded in her left shoulder.
The force of the blast twirled her, actually twirled her in place, and once she was done twirling she staggered, gasping and holding her arm, coming to a stop against the slab. Blood ran like a burst faucet. So much blood. So red. So warm. Dimly aware of Skulduggery waving his own arm, she watched as the convict with the glowing hand was plucked from his perch and tossed screaming into the lake of energy below them.
Valkyrie blinked. Temper was running over to her. Behind him, Omen helped Never back to her feet and Skulduggery was pointing. Pointing.
What was he pointing at?
She felt hands on her shoulders. Long fingers, weak but desperate. Hungry. She turned her head as Abyssinia sat up behind her, mouth open, inhaling Valkyrie’s essence, her life force, her soul, and Valkyrie gasped, aware of the heat rushing from her body.
Abyssinia’s eyes opened, locked on to Valkyrie’s.
Someone else’s hand, closing round her wrist, and the world speeded up and Temper was hauling her towards the others as Abyssinia swung her feet off the table. Abyssinia stood, gazing at her new hands, looking down at her new body, a smile spreading across her new face.
She was back. She was alive.
Abyssinia looked at them all and laughed, and Never teleported Valkyrie and the others away and suddenly they were outside, in a courtyard with Corrival Academy’s South Tower looming over them, and Valkyrie’s knees gave way and sent her tripping over Lethe and she went down in a tangle with Never and Melior.
She breathed, quick and shallow. Skulduggery crouched over her, pressing his hands against her w
ound. He was issuing orders. People were panicking. Valkyrie just kept her eyes on him.
68
It had been a rough few days.
Flanery was tired and cranky. He’d left the Oval Office by mid-afternoon, taking calls and holding meetings instead in the Executive Residence. He had the TV on in the background. Every few seconds, he’d look away from whoever was talking to flick to another news network. He knew he should stick to the friendly channels, the smart ones with smart journalists that understood him and what he was trying to do, but, like an itch he couldn’t scratch, he always found himself going back to the ones who said mean things about him.
It wasn’t that they didn’t get it – he understood that now. It wasn’t that they couldn’t see the terrific things he was doing. It was that they had an agenda, and that agenda was to ruin him. They were stacked with liars and frauds and people who had it in for him.
Irritated, he started to cut meetings short, skipped phone calls and then cancelled briefings altogether. He wanted to be alone with the television. He wanted to stew in his own hatred.
His phone rang. The cellphone that only three people on the planet knew about.
He hesitated, and answered. “Hello?”
“Mr President,” a man said, “it is an honour to finally talk to you, sir. My name is Parthenios Lilt. I think it’s about time we met.”
69
“Hello?”
Sebastian knocked again on the open door. Still no answer. He walked into the gloom, past the suitcases in the hall.
“Bennet? You home?”
He found him in the darkness of the kitchen, sitting at the table, half a mug of coffee left to go cold in his hand. Sebastian flicked on the light.
“It’s my son,” Bennet said without looking up. “Kase. He … he’s staying. I’m moving but he’s … not. He’ll be living with his mother and … and Conrad. He says he’ll see me in a couple of weeks when things have settled.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sebastian.