Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

by Derek Landy

  One of the Sense-Wardens turned his head, his hood shifting slightly. He stepped from the circle, slowly nearing a young woman with short cropped hair. Her eyes were closed but she could undoubtedly hear his footsteps. She stiffened, and even Valkyrie could see her face twitch with panic.

  The Sense-Warden walked slowly round her. The young woman’s shoulders started to shake. She was crying, but her eyes remained closed.

  Another Sense-Warden broke from the circle, joining the first. A pale hand emerged from a voluminous sleeve and lightly touched the woman’s head. She flinched and sobbed, and her legs gave out and she fell to her knees. She looked up at the Sense-Wardens as they backed away, and a Redhood came forward. He gripped the young woman’s arm and pulled her to her feet.

  “They have someone,” Valkyrie said, her voice quiet. “A girl. Not much older than me.”

  The balding man, from somewhere behind her, spoke without emotion. “She’ll be taken to the Palace. Whatever secrets she’s hiding will come spilling out of her, and if they’re bad enough, she’ll be killed. If not, imprisonment.”

  “There must be someone who fights against this.”

  “There is,” said the man. “At least, I think there is. For all I know it’s just another legend, a story to tell our children at night. I wouldn’t be surprised. Every sorcerer I’ve ever met has hated mortals. I suppose it’s childish to think there are some out there who fight for us.”

  “I’m a sorcerer,” said Valkyrie, “and I’ll fight for you. For as long as I’m here, anyway.”

  The man shrugged. “Then by all means, go down there and save that girl.”

  She hesitated. “There are nine of them.”

  “And it’s only one mortal girl,” said the man, nodding. “She’d hardly be worth the risk.”

  Valkyrie glared at him. “That’s not what I meant. I meant you’ve got to pick your battles. Charging in head first would only get me killed, and what use would I be to anyone then?”

  “What use are you to anyone now?”

  “I’m not going to die for someone I don’t know in a reality I don’t understand. This isn’t even my dimension, for God’s sake.”

  “Fair enough. No one could expect you to bother yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t stand a chance anyway. If your Redhoods are the same as my Cleavers then their clothes are resistant to magic. I wouldn’t last two seconds against nine of them.” As she spoke, she looked out of the window. The Redhood was taking the young woman, who was now wearing shackles, back through the streets. The others, including the Sense-Wardens, had continued on in the other direction, out of sight. She looked at the Redhood and the young woman. “However...” she murmured.

  “However what?”

  “However, I might stand a chance against one of them.”

  She moved to the door but he stood in her way. “No.”

  Valkyrie arched an eyebrow. “No?”

  “You can’t.”

  “You were just saying—”

  “Because I didn’t think you’d try anything. If a Redhood is attacked, do you have any idea what that would mean? They’d tear through these streets looking for whoever did it. They’d torture and kill and take their anger out on innocent people. You can’t interfere.”

  “But that girl—”

  “Is one of a countless number who are taken off the streets every week. You can’t save them all, and saving one would make it worse for everyone else.”

  “So no one does anything? How do you expect things to change if you’re not willing to make a stand?”

  The man laughed. “But I don’t expect things to change. This is the way of the world. Those with magic rule and live for ever, and those without magic work and perish. You think it’s any different in France? Britain? In what’s left of America? Everywhere’s the same.” His voice softened. “Look, thank you for wanting to try. Even though I’m starting to doubt that you are a sorcerer and not just some lunatic, it’s appreciated.”

  Valkyrie clicked her fingers and the balding man recoiled slightly from the fireball.

  “OK,” he said quickly, “you’re a sorcerer.”

  She let the flames go out.

  “If you’re not from here,” he said, “then you should try to go home as soon as possible, before you do something that has repercussions for those of us who have to live here.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. I’m going to need help, though. A Dimensional Shunter sent me here, so I’m going to need another one to send me back.”

  “I don’t know what that is, but maybe you should track down the Resistance, see if they have one.”

  “Are they the sorcerers who are fighting for you?”

  “Yes. I don’t know where they are, though.”

  “Wow,” she said. “You’re a great help.”

  He frowned. “I’m not really.”

  “Yeah. That was sarcasm. Don’t you have sarcasm in this reality?” He didn’t answer and she paled. “Oh my God. You don’t, do you? Oh, you poor people.”

  “I don’t know what that word means.”

  “Sarcasm? It’s a kind of joke, where you say one thing and mean another.”

  “I... still don’t fully understand.”

  “It’s OK, you don’t have to.” She patted his arm. “It just means that, right now, I’m the funniest person in the world.”

  They walked back to the stairs, Valkyrie taking the lead this time. The whole building creaked around them. She got a hand on the banister, about to take the first step down, when she heard the man gasp behind her.

  A Redhood was standing at the foot of the stairs.

  alkyrie cursed, shoved the man back into the room as a second Redhood came crashing through the window. Valkyrie pushed at the air but he moved through the ripples, his scythe flashing. The blade cut through the balding man’s neck, severing his head. Valkyrie pushed at the air again, catching his body as it crumpled and slamming it into the Redhood, taking him off his feet. She felt the air shift behind her and she ducked, barely dodging the other Redhood’s scythe. She threw herself forward, rolled and sprang for the broken window. She leaped through, falling to the street, hands out to slow her descent. But her thoughts flashed with pain and she tumbled through space and hit the ground hard.

  The three Sense-Wardens stood before her, attacking her mind, driving needles into her brain. Her vision blurred. Figures in red approached from her left. She tried to get up but couldn’t.

  Get out of my mind, said the voice in her head.

  The pain doubled and she cried out. The pain, the agony, wasn’t just in her brain any more, it was all over. It was in her self. It was in her being. She could feel them, with their psychic needles, poking and prodding and gouging. They were attacking who she was. So who she was attacked them.

  GET OUT OF MY MIND.

  The Sense-Wardens staggered and the pain went away, and Valkyrie fought to keep Darquesse trapped within her. She brought her hands in, the wind snatching her from the street just as the Redhoods reached her. She rose into the sky, dropped to a rooftop and immediately started running.

  As she used the air to leap from rooftop to rooftop, she tried making sense of where she was. This was still Dublin, although a different Dublin to the one she knew. Somewhere along the timeline of this reality, something significant had happened that hadn’t occurred in her own dimension. But there should still be landmarks she recognised, some clue to help her get her bearings.

  She swooped up to a higher roof, and almost stumbled in astonishment. The River Liffey coiled before her, but on its far banks lay a wall like she had never seen. It coiled with the river, looming over the water forty storeys or more. O’Connell Bridge seemed to be the only entry point, leading to a pair of massive gates. And beyond all that the towers and steeples of what looked like a cathedral or a palace rose above even the wall.

  “And who might you be?”

  Valkyrie whirled. A man stood on the rooft
op, smiling. He was good-looking, with a thin moustache that actually twirled. His clothes were beautiful, his shoes polished to a gleam. He looked like he had never done a day’s work in his life.

  “I’m Valkyrie,” she said at last. “And you are?”

  “Alexander Remit, at your service.” He even bowed. “May I enquire as to the nature of your visit to this neck of the proverbial woods?”

  “I took a wrong turn.”

  “Oh, I see. This is all a big mistake, then?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Then I should just leave you to go about your business?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  She started walking across the rooftop. He followed on a parallel course.

  “And you have absolutely nothing to do with the Resistance,” he said, “or the sorcerer who leads it?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Valkyrie, and that is a lovely name, I’m finding it hard to believe you, I’m afraid to say. I think you might be fibbing. I think you might be here as an agent of the Resistance to spy on us, or possibly even attempt an assassination.”

  “Not me.”

  “In that case, you would have no objection to accompanying me to the Palace, as my guest?”

  “I actually would have an objection.”

  “Such a pity. Here I am, extending an olive branch, and you refuse to take it. I don’t have to be so polite, you know. You attacked Sense-Wardens and Redhoods. Such criminal acts are punishable by death.”

  “I’m just trying to get home, Alexander.”

  “Where is home, Valkyrie?”

  She shrugged. “Not here.”

  They each stopped walking, and he took a pair of shackles from his jacket. “You look like an intelligent girl. Do the smart thing, and put these on.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “That makes me sad.”

  “You’re about to get a lot sadder.”

  Remit vanished. Teleporter. The instant that word registered in Valkyrie’s mind she was twisting, swinging her fist. She’d spent enough time with Fletcher to know that his first move was always to teleport behind his enemy. She swung blindly and was almost surprised when her arm struck Remit’s jaw. He spun, eyes rolling in his head, his legs collapsing beneath him. He crumpled to the rooftop.

  Valkyrie cuffed his arms behind his back with his own shackles, and waited for him to wake up. Her arm, the arm where Nadir had grabbed her, started to throb again.

  “You’re under arrest,” Remit said weakly.

  “Hush now, or I’ll tell people that I cuffed you with your own shackles.”

  The throbbing got worse, just like it did before she shunted over here in the first place.

  “Your head’ll be on the block soon enough,” he said, trying to get to his knees. “No one dares assault a—”

  His voice dimmed for a moment. He dimmed for a moment. In fact, everything dimmed. Valkyrie stepped back, suddenly dizzy. The world flickered. Remit was too busy sitting up to notice.

  “You’ll be tortured first,” he was saying. “We’ll prise every little secret out of your pretty little brain.”

  He got to his feet, a little awkwardly, and she didn’t stop him. “You’ll beg for mercy. Every sorcerer we capture renounces the Resistance, and they all beg. You’ll be no different. I’d say you wouldn’t last more than a few hours, in fact.” He stumbled, still groggy. “I bet everything I own that the day you’re captured, you’ll be swearing your loyalty to Mevolent before the sun goes down.”

  Valkyrie looked up, eyes wide, and then the world flickered again and it was gone, and she was in a room and falling, crashing to the ground and smacking her head.

  A mop and bucket. Cleaning supplies. A storeroom.

  She got up, rubbed her head. Moving quietly, she opened the door and stepped out into a hotel corridor. It was bright, and clean, and normal. She hurried to the nearest window and looked out across Dublin City. Her Dublin City. She took out her phone. Four missed calls, all from Skulduggery. She pressed RETURN CALL and waited for him to answer.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m back.”

  * * *

  As if the Elders didn’t have enough to deal with, now they had Valkyrie’s adventures in Bizarro Land. She felt strangely guilty as they convened, like she was pulling them away from other, more important matters. Ghastly rushed over immediately, asking how she was, if she was hurt. Ravel looked like he wanted to do the same, but he forced himself to sit in the Grand Mage’s chair and act like a professional. Only Madame Mist didn’t seem like she cared.

  Valkyrie told them what had happened, the exact same story she had told Skulduggery, minus a few swear words and sidebars. She had almost reached the point where Remit had mentioned Mevolent’s name when Tipstaff entered, apologised unreservedly, and hurried over to whisper in Ravel’s ear. Ravel listened, sighed, and thanked him.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Pressing matters, all that stuff. Valkyrie, I’m glad you’re OK, I really am, and I need to hear the rest of the story, but for the moment, business calls. Ghastly tells me you have a plane waiting to take you over the Alps.”

  Skulduggery tilted his head. “We’re not going.”

  Ravel frowned. “You’re not?”

  Valkyrie frowned. “We’re not?”

  “We can’t,” Skulduggery said. “We need to get Nadir to reverse whatever he did.”

  “The search for Argeddion takes precedence,” said Ravel. “We have to stop whatever he’s doing, before any more mortals acquire magical powers. You said yourself that Xebec was probably killed by one of them. This is the priority.”

  “For you, maybe. But Valkyrie could be pulled back into that other reality at any time, and we need Nadir to stop that from happening.”

  Ravel shook his head. “Don’t make me pull rank on you, Skulduggery. Behind all the jokes and amusement I am still the Grand Mage. You persuaded us to take this job, remember? It’s because of you that I’m here, and it’s because of you that I’m forced to order you to keep Argeddion as your priority. If Valkyrie gets pulled back in, she can take care of herself. She came back here once, right? She’ll do it again. Valkyrie, all you have to do is stay out of trouble.”

  “There’s something we haven’t told you yet,” Skulduggery said, “about where she went.”

  “Over there,” Valkyrie said, “Mevolent is still alive.”

  Ravel’s eyes widened.

  “Their timeline could have been identical to ours,” Skulduggery said, “right up to the point where Mevolent died. Obviously, over there, he survived. And now he’s in charge.”

  “You should have seen it,” Valkyrie said. “Sorcerers control everything over there. The mortals are terrified. People disappear and are never seen again. There’s torture and executions and Sensitives patrol the streets, listening out for guilty thoughts.”

  “What if Valkyrie is pulled back over there,” said Skulduggery, “and she’s captured? What if Mevolent questions her? And when she returns, if she returns, what if he’s touching her, and she brings him back with her? Do we want Mevolent walking the streets of our reality? We got rid of him once, but now he’s had another hundred years to grow even more powerful.”

  Ghastly sat back. “He could invade,” he said, his voice quiet. “He could set up an Isthmus Anchor between dimensions. He could open and close a portal any time he wanted.”

  “And he already has a Teleporter,” said Valkyrie.

  “He wouldn’t need one,” said Mist. “The Diablerie required Fletcher Renn to open their portal because their Anchor stretched between this world, in this dimension, and another world, in another dimension. But Mevolent’s Anchor would only need to serve as a link between alternate versions of the same world.”

  “Which means,” Ghastly said, “it would be easier. Which means he could transport whole armies at a time.”

  Ravel hesitated, then shook his head. “We’re talking about possibilities,”
he said, “but Argeddion is a certainty. We only have a few days before the Summer of Light begins, whatever that is, and even less time to prove to the Supreme Council that we can handle things without their ‘help’. I’ll arrange to have Nadir transported here so you can talk to him when you get back, but Argeddion is our most immediate threat, and he must be dealt with using everything and everyone we have. Skulduggery, Valkyrie, I’m sorry, but we can’t do this without you.”

  Skulduggery started to speak, but Valkyrie put her hand on his arm. Finding Argeddion meant finding his prison, and finding his prison meant Valkyrie’s family had a chance of survival.

  “We understand,” she said. “We’ll take care of Argeddion first.”

  Skulduggery looked at her, and didn’t say anything.

  ife was simple, for a head in a jar.

  Scapegrace didn’t need trousers, for one thing. Or shoes. Or shirts. In fact, clothes as a concept were now completely irrelevant to his wants and needs – with the possible exception of hats. He could wear hats. He could wear an assortment of hats of different shapes and styles. Boater hats, cowboy hats, bowler hats. The list went on. Pork-pie hats, bucket hats, trilbies and panamas. Top hats, straw hats, trapper hats. Wide brim, narrow brim, stingy brim. He could wear a fez. Fezzes were cool. Hadn’t someone once said that fezzes were cool? He was pretty sure they had. And they were. They were cool. And he could wear them. He could wear them all.

  Not while he was in the jar, of course. It was far too narrow, and filled with a formaldehyde solution to stop what remained of his flesh from rotting away. He could wear a woolly hat, he supposed, or a beanie, if he didn’t mind getting it wet. He decided he wouldn’t wear baseball caps. Zombie Kings, he reckoned, should not wear baseball caps or trucker caps. Such hats were beneath them. As it were.

  As a head, he would have also had the option of wearing sunglasses were it not for the fact that he only had one ear still attached, and his nose had fallen off. That had happened only recently, while Thrasher had been away, so Scapegrace had been forced to watch his nose drift around his head for three hours. It was unsettling, to say the least. No man should be forced to see his nose like that.