by Derek Landy
“I met them at the last Requiem Ball, almost ten years ago now. They were …”
“Intense?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like them, all right.” Omen slurped some more juice. “Could I ask if, when you were a kid, you liked your parents?”
Skulduggery hesitated. “I liked my mother. I’d even go as far as to say I loved my mother. I had … disagreements with my father.”
“I didn’t mean to make it sound like I don’t love my parents,” Omen said quickly. “I do. Of course I do. I’m just … I’m just not really sure if they love me.”
Skulduggery’s head tilted again.
“Sorry,” said Omen, giving a shaky laugh. “You probably think that sounds really pathetic.”
“Parents should love their children,” Skulduggery said. “It doesn’t always happen that way, unfortunately. Things go wrong. Some people aren’t built for it. But you’re not pathetic for wanting something that should naturally be yours, Omen, and never be afraid to be sad. The wind does not break a tree that bends.”
“That’s … wow. Is that, like, some ancient proverb that you picked up on your travels, hundreds of years ago?”
“It is,” Skulduggery said. “Also it’s written on the back of your juice carton.” His phone buzzed, and he read the message, then picked up his hat and stood. “I have to go now, Omen. I’m under instructions to remind you to stay away from America. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes. I mean, I already promised Valkyrie, but yeah, I’ll stay away. Can I ask why, though?”
“I’m sure Valkyrie will tell you once it’s all over. For now, you should really get to class.”
Omen paled. “But aren’t you coming with me to talk to Mr Peccant, to tell him why I’m late?”
“You’ll be fine,” Skulduggery said, walking away. “Uther Peccant is a very understanding man.”
“I don’t think you know him very well.”
But Skulduggery was already gone.
“Aw, dammit,” said Omen.
When the dreams came, Valkyrie was trapped in that coffin again, being buried alive by all the people who’d died because of her. She screamed and begged and pleaded and all they did was laugh and throw down more dirt.
She woke, hot and tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. She sat up and cried until her insides quivered.
When she was all cried out, she dragged herself into the shower and stood under the hot spray until she’d stopped shaking. She put on some clothes, fed Xena and herself, and then she worked out, ignoring her phone when it rang. She had another shower, a longer one, and dried her hair and dressed properly.
The phone rang again. She didn’t answer it. A message came through from Skulduggery, telling her that Oberon Guile had a lead regarding Crepuscular Vies. She should have answered it, but she didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t want to leave the house, so she lifted the lid of the music box and sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the wall.
The jingly-jangly thoughts quietened, and fell obediently into place.
The vision involving Omen and Auger was still on track to happen the way Valkyrie had seen. They were still in danger. Working with Oberon Guile could possibly help to avert that future.
She stood. Helping Oberon meant helping Omen. That was her priority right now. Well, one of them.
Valkyrie frowned. Was today Monday? Today was Monday, she was pretty sure. She’d arranged to meet Caisson tonight. Could she get to America and back before ten? With Fletcher she could. He was so handy.
The phone was ringing again. How long had it been ringing? How long had she been sitting there?
She closed the lid of the music box. Time to get back to work.
Forty minutes later, she was standing with Skulduggery and Oberon Guile outside an apartment building in Tucson, Arizona. Skulduggery was wearing a façade. Valkyrie was wearing a coat and holding a photograph of a man in a military uniform staring straight at the camera.
“His name’s Thomas Bolton,” Oberon said. “He spent twelve years in the US Army and then he quit to join a private company. No one I’ve talked to seems to know which private army, however.”
Valkyrie passed the photo to Skulduggery. “We could find that out pretty easily,” she said.
“I have no doubt,” Oberon responded, taking the photo back. “My detective skills only go so far before they fall over and die. From what I’ve been able to gather, though, he’s making a living as a mercenary these days.”
“And what links him to Crepuscular Vies?” Skulduggery asked.
“A very thin thread,” Oberon admitted. “I know a lot of ex-cons, a lot of disreputable people, but only one of them had even heard about a sorcerer matching Vies’s description. So I followed that trail, shaky as it was. Talked to one person who sent me to another who sent me to another, and eventually I got chatting to a plumber from Philadelphia. I mean, he’s a sorcerer, too, but he needs to earn a living, you know? Anyway, Bolton’s his ex-brother-in-law, a real dirtbag from what I been told. Thanksgiving before last, the plumber starts to get the feeling that Bolton knows about us – you know, the magic thing? He reckons Bolton’s new employers know about us, too, so a few days later he follows him, ends up sneaking around a warehouse where a bunch of military guys are congregating. But he’s a lot better at plumbing than he is at sneaking, so he gets discovered, and a guy with a ‘freaky-looking face’ – his words, not mine – and answering to the name of Crepuscular proceeds to beat the living hell out of him. He manages to run, and Bolton doesn’t see him, so the plumber goes home, convinces his sister to finally end her crappy marriage, and gets on with his life.”
“That’s actually pretty good detective work,” said Valkyrie.
“You think so?”
“You show potential,” Skulduggery said, and looked up at the apartment building. It was a rather nice building, as buildings went. “Is Mr Bolton at home right now?”
“As far as I can tell, yes, he is,” Oberon replied. “And I’m pretty sure he’s alone.”
They took the elevator up. Valkyrie used to be nervous stepping into elevators, especially old ones, paranoid that they’d break down between floors and she’d be trapped for hours.
Right now, she wasn’t worried too much. About anything. It was nice.
Skulduggery led the way to Bolton’s apartment. He pushed at the air and the door burst open, and he went in first.
The apartment was open-plan. Doors to their right and left – the bedroom and bathroom, presumably – and then the kitchen and the living room sharing the same space. Everything was stylish and expensive. Whoever Bolton worked for, they obviously paid a hell of a lot of money.
Thomas Bolton came running out of the bedroom with a gun in his hand and Skulduggery waved and a wall of air hurled Bolton backwards. He landed on a coffee table and bounced off, hit the TV, the gun clattering into the corner.
“We have some questions,” Skulduggery said, but Bolton’s hand was at his ankle, and when he stood he had another gun and he was firing. Oberon dodged back out of the apartment while Valkyrie threw herself behind the kitchen island. Skulduggery grunted as bullets pulled at his jacket, and he spun and went down on one knee, hand clutching his shoulder.
The firing stopped. There was the click of a magazine being ejected and Valkyrie stood, hands crackling. Bolton saw her mid-reload and barely dodged the lightning she sent his way. It scorched the wall behind him.
Bolton scrambled for the window, firing without looking, forcing Valkyrie to duck. When she looked up, he was already climbing out.
She hurried over to Skulduggery as Oberon ran in.
“I’m OK,” Skulduggery said. “Catch him before he gets away.”
Valkyrie knelt, tried to pull his hand away from his shoulder. “Did he shoot you? Did he hit you?”
“He damaged my jacket,” Skulduggery said, but, when she managed to pull his hand away, his façade’s skin was rippling and fragments of bone fell to th
e floor. “It’s just my clavicle,” he said. “I have a spare. Valkyrie, we can’t let him get away.”
She nodded, straightened, backed up so she could see out of the window. Bolton was running across a neighbour’s roof.
Anger curling her lip, she crouched, energy crackling around her whole body. Then she launched herself forward, out through the window, across the roof, her fists out in front, and at the last moment she brought her hands in and slammed her shoulder into Bolton’s back and he flipped, windmilling off the roof while Valkyrie flew on.
She applied the brakes and got her legs under her, feet slapping the rooftop at a run. When she finally stopped, she let herself slide down the roof and then jumped, landing in the same back garden in which Bolton was just getting to his feet.
He rushed her without hesitation. She could have blasted him, but she let him come, let him grab her, let him try to hit her and then she hit him, an elbow straight to the chin. He grunted. Stepped back. Realised she was gripping his sleeve. He tried to pull his arm free and Valkyrie stepped into him, the point of her elbow to the sweet spot at his sternum. He gasped and she hammered her fist into his nose, then hit him three more times, all to the jaw.
His knees crumpled and she thought he was going down, but instead his arms encircled her just below the hips. She could do nothing as he picked her up and then threw her down again, hard. The breath left her lungs and he was on top, and it was all Valkyrie could do to hold on to him, to pull him close. He struggled to get free, struggled to get some distance to throw a punch, but she had one arm wrapped around the back of his neck and the other wrapped around his right arm, while her ankles locked together around his waist.
Bolton struggled and cursed. Valkyrie held on, and sucked in a welcome breath of cold air.
“I’ll kill you,” Bolton snarled through gritted teeth. “Kill you. Freak. Kill all of you.”
He spat. Right in her face.
She roared and seized his head with both hands and put enough juice into her palms to throw him backwards. He landed and rolled and she was up, stalking over, ready to fry him, ready to cook him where he lay.
Then Oberon was jumping down, stepping in between them, his hands up, and he was saying something and blocking her way and all she wanted to do was throw him aside and kill this piece of—
She stopped.
She didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t want to kill anyone.
Valkyrie backed off, hands at her head, and Skulduggery was there, holding his shoulder.
“I need to get home,” she muttered to him. “I need to get home before I hurt him.”
“I’ll call Fletcher,” Skulduggery said. “Oberon, can you handle Mr Bolton from here?”
Oberon looked uncertain. “You want me to … question him?”
“Interrogating a suspect is no big deal,” Skulduggery began, and went on to say something funny that Valkyrie was only half listening to.
The voices in her head … they were screaming at her.
Fletcher teleported them to Skulduggery’s house on Cemetery Road. Valkyrie had recovered enough to insist on helping Skulduggery with his injury.
“I want to see your Clavicle Room,” she said to him after Fletcher had left them, injecting more frivolity into her voice than she was feeling.
“I don’t have a Clavicle Room,” Skulduggery insisted. Valkyrie was pretty sure he was lying.
The house was, as always, immaculate. The living room had a large TV that was only used when Valkyrie was around. There were two armchairs. The fireplace was empty. The kitchen was stark. There were no photographs anywhere. No keepsakes. No curios.
Skulduggery took off his jacket as he walked deeper into the house. There were bullet holes in his waistcoat, too.
“Does it hurt?” Valkyrie asked, following.
“Not any more,” he said.
“Is your façade damaged?”
“It’ll be fine in a few hours. You really don’t have to worry about me.” He looked back at her. “How are you?”
She smiled and frowned at the same time. “Me? I’m fine …”
“That’s some temper you’re developing.”
“He spat at me, Skulduggery. Also, come on, he shot through you and your jacket, and it’s a nice jacket.”
“It is a nice jacket,” Skulduggery murmured.
The first room on the left was, essentially, a giant walk-in wardrobe. It was one of three in the house. This one had three-piece suits, of varying shades of blue and black. The greys and charcoals were in the room across the hall.
Skulduggery chose a suit of the deepest, darkest blue, and laid it on a small table. “If you wouldn’t mind?” he said, taking off his tie.
Valkyrie flashed him a smile. “I don’t mind at all.”
He folded the tie, put it away in his tie drawer, and took his smashed clavicle from his pocket and looked at it for a moment before tossing it in a box. “Pick another one out for me, would you?”
“Sure,” she said. “Where?”
“The library,” he said. “Gordon’s first book.”
Valkyrie left him to change clothes. She went to one of the largest rooms in the house, a library with bookcases on every wall. She found her uncle’s books, pulled out a rare first edition of the cult horror Caterpillars, and reached into the space it had occupied.
She located the hidden lever with her fingers and pulled it, and the bookcase swung open. Valkyrie stepped into a room lined with mirrors. In the centre of the room, on a series of glass shelves that rose from floor level to head-height, there were enough bones to build a complete skeleton many times over.
Valkyrie traced her finger over the clavicles, and picked up the longest as Skulduggery came in behind her. He held out his hand, but she stepped up.
“I’ll do it,” she said. She unbuttoned his shirt a little and pulled it gently to one side. Flicking on her aura-vision, she watched as his aura shrank away from the clavicle as she moved it in. Then, quite suddenly, it latched on, and the bone clicked, jerking out of her grip slightly and settling into place.
“Thank you,” Skulduggery said, buttoning his shirt.
“Dare I ask where you got all these spare parts?”
“A lot of them I’ve picked up along the way,” he said. “Some have been donated by friends.”
“Does that happen? Friends give you their bones?”
“They leave me their bones, yes.”
“That’s weird. Nice but weird. But mainly nice. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could heal Alice so easily? What do you think it’ll do to her? Healing her, I mean.”
Skulduggery hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“It might be fine,” Valkyrie said. “She mightn’t even notice.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Or it might traumatise her, right?”
“Another possibility.”
Valkyrie started walking and he followed. “No matter what I do, I always seem to be about to hurt my sister. I mean, how can that be fair? How can healing her damage her in a whole new way? It shouldn’t be allowed.”
“No, it shouldn’t.”
“Do you think I should do it?”
“We’ve had this conversation.”
“Yes, but now we’re closer to it happening, so do you think I should do it?”
“It’s not my—”
She turned to him. “Skulduggery, please. Just tell me. Should I do it?”
“Yes.”
“Even with everything that could go wrong?”
“She’s broken,” Skulduggery said. “You can fix her.”
“Is she, though? Is she broken? I mean, she’s her. This is who she is, and it’s who she’s been for the last six years.”
“But she’s not who she was born to be,” he countered. “Permanently happy is not a natural state.”
“It should be,” said Valkyrie. “God, how great would that be? You go through life with a smile on your face and even when things go bad and y
ou lose people … none of it makes any difference. Because you’re happy. All the time.”
“But she’s not whole.”
“You keep saying that like it’s a terrible thing, but it doesn’t have to be. I mean, if you lose a part of yourself, you come in here. You pick up a spare bone and you slot it in and then you walk out and you’re still the same you. It’s not like that with the rest of us. We’re not so easy to put back together. If we lose a part of ourselves, it’s gone for good.”
His head slowly tilted. “If you could heal yourself, would you?”
“I … I don’t …”
“If you could throw away the guilt you’re carrying around, would you do it?”
“We’re not talking about me,” she said, annoyed.
“We’re talking about healing.”
“This isn’t—”
“Would you wipe away all the bad thoughts in your head?”
“It doesn’t matter what—”
“Would you wipe away—”
“No!” she snapped, as energy crackled from her eyes. “OK? I wouldn’t. But there’s a difference between Alice and me. Alice doesn’t deserve any of this. None of it was her choice.”
“And you think you deserve to suffer?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that this isn’t about me?” She tried to bury the anger, but it kept growing. “You’re twisting this. You want me to say something or admit to something and I don’t know what you want.”
She spun, walked out. She had to. The anger was boiling, magic darting between her fingertips. Getting hard to see. Had to get outside. Had to fly.
Skulduggery’s hand on her arm. “You don’t deserve to suffer, Valkyrie.”
“Let go.”
“It’s not your—”
Her magic flexed and hurled Skulduggery back and Valkyrie ran for the back door and it opened to let her out and then she was flying, screaming at the sky.
She flew back to Grimwood because her clothes were in tatters. Another outfit ruined. She dumped the remains in the outside bin and let herself into the house. Xena followed her in, squirming between her legs as she tried to walk. Finally, Valkyrie sat on the stairs and cuddled her, eyes fixed on the floor.
