Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

by Derek Landy

  When Thrasher returned, he had been all apologies, of course. He wept with shame as he struggled to scoop the nose out of the jar with a little fishing net he’d picked up at a pet store. Every time he’d jabbed Scapegrace he’d let out a howl of anguish. Not for the first time, Scapegrace wished he’d chosen someone else to be the first zombie he’d ever turned.

  To make matters worse the jar had been sitting on a table, which meant that Scapegrace was forced to look straight at Thrasher’s belly while all this was going on. Several months earlier, the idiot had somehow disembowelled himself with a can opener. The accident, while at first highly amusing, soon became hugely distressing to Scapegrace, as Thrasher’s guts kept falling out. In an attempt to keep himself in one piece, Thrasher had tied a sheet round his midsection, and now seemed completely oblivious to how stupid it made him look. Aside from anything else, it wasn’t even very effective, as a small piece of dried and shrivelled intestine had escaped its confines and swung merrily every time Thrasher made a move.

  Walking up to the Sanctuary, therefore, made it swing with a rhythm that was almost hypnotic – a fact that Scapegrace could attest to as the idiot was carrying him the wrong way round. They stopped suddenly.

  “What the hell are you?” asked a sorcerer.

  “I’m a zombie,” said Thrasher, “and this is my master.”

  “Your master’s a jar?”

  “No, my master’s in the jar.”

  Scapegrace tried to look up, but all he could see was Thrasher’s belly.

  “Oh, God, that’s disgusting,” said the man. “What are you doing here? Why did you come? Do you want us to put you out of your misery?”

  “No!” Thrasher said, startled. “No, sir, thank you, we’re quite happy with our misery. We just want to speak with Clarabelle. She works with Doctor Nye? She’s its assistant?”

  “I know who she is. She’s that crazy one with the hair. She expecting you?”

  “Not really,” said Thrasher, “but we’re old friends. She’ll be happy to see us.”

  “I doubt that. You smell really bad. But fine, whatever, you can go in. But don’t cause any trouble and don’t try to eat anyone.”

  “Thank you,” Thrasher said, and suddenly they were moving again, and that piece of intestine was swaying back and forth, back and forth…

  They walked through a set of doors and then Scapegrace heard Clarabelle’s voice.

  “Gerald!” she cried. There was the sound of running feet and then darkness loomed as Thrasher was wrapped up in a hug. It was a tense few moments of sloshing about, but at least the motion turned Scapegrace in his jar, his head lodging diagonally against the glass. Now he was looking at her belly instead of Thrasher’s, and that was a definite improvement. Her top had ridden up, and he could see the piercing in her navel. It was a little love-heart.

  She released the hug and stepped back. “I thought you were dead! Well, you are dead, but I thought you were properly dead, the kind of dead where you don’t walk around afterwards. Valkyrie said you’d probably been eaten by monsters down in those caves. I’m really glad you weren’t.”

  “Thank you,” said Thrasher, sounding pleased. Idiot. He eventually remembered his job, and put the jar on a table.

  Scapegrace had to wait for the liquid to settle before he could talk. “Hello,” he said. His confines didn’t do him any favours as far as his voice went. Every word he spoke sounded like he was blowing bubbles.

  Clarabelle looked around. “Who said that?”

  “I did,” said Scapegrace. “Look down. No, too far. Look up. At the table. See the jar?”

  Clarabelle peered through the glass, and a huge smile broke out. “Oh, wow! Scapey! You’re alive, too! Oh, I’m so happy!” She clapped her hands in delight. Scapegrace would have done the same if he’d had any hands.

  Clarabelle hunkered down to eye level, and frowned. “There’s something different about you.”

  “I’m in a jar.”

  “That’s probably it. Did you get a haircut?”

  “No. I’m in a jar, though.”

  Clarabelle murmured, not entirely convinced. “I think you’re shorter than you were,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Scapegrace, “because I’m in a jar. I’m just a head.”

  Clarabelle shrugged. “We’re all just heads, when you think about it. The only difference between us is that we have arms and legs and bodies and we don’t live in jars like you do. It’s a nice jar, though. Where did you get it?”

  “I got it,” Thrasher said. “It was filled with sweets, but I emptied them all out.”

  “You’re very clever.”

  Thrasher giggled. “Thank you.”

  “Clarabelle,” said Scapegrace before the giggling grew too much, “we need your help.”

  “Do you need another jar?” she asked. “I don’t think I have one that size. I have a flowerpot. Would you like to live in a flowerpot? It’s got a hole in the bottom but apart from that it’d be perfect.”

  “Clarabelle, my situation is dire. I am a bodiless man. If my enemies were to attack, I’d be defenceless.”

  “Do you have enemies?”

  “All great men have enemies.”

  “But do you have enemies?”

  “I... yes. I’m a... I’m a great man.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I’m the Zombie King, and many people would love to kill the Zombie King because they fear me and my army of the dead.”

  “You have an army of the dead?”

  “It’s... more of a metaphor.”

  “A metaphor for what?”

  “A metaphor for...” Scapegrace hesitated. “...Thrasher. But they still fear me, and without a body I am a... a...”

  “A head,” Thrasher said helpfully.

  “Shut up, you fool.”

  “Sorry.”

  Clarabelle sat back on her haunches. “So what do you need me to do?”

  “I need to speak to Doctor Nye.”

  “You already asked it to help you ages ago. It said no. And Doctor Nye doesn’t change its mind a lot.”

  “I told him we shouldn’t come back,” Thrasher said quietly.

  Scapegrace would have swung around to him if he’d had a neck. “Thrasher!”

  “Sorry, Master,” Thrasher said quickly, “but it’s just not a very nice creature, and I don’t trust it. I heard it tortured people during the war. I also heard it conducted bizarre human experiments.”

  “I heard that, too,” said Clarabelle in a whisper. “I heard it once turned a man into a goat. Or a goat into a man. Or a goat into another goat. I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

  Now Thrasher came around to squat beside Clarabelle and peer into the jar. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “You see, Master? This might be a mistake, coming here. We asked it for help once before and it told us to go away.”

  “That was before I was a head in a jar.”

  “You think the doctor would reattach your head to your body?” Clarabelle asked.

  Scapegrace took a moment to seethe a little bit. “I don’t see how, since a horde of rat-things ran away with my body and we’ve never seen it again. And we know whose fault that was, don’t we?”

  “Mine,” Thrasher said meekly.

  “Yours,” Scapegrace confirmed.

  “But, Master, I couldn’t carry both your body and you.”

  “Did you try? Did you even attempt it? No. You didn’t.”

  “Because the White Cleaver was there in the caves, and Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain, and Valkyrie Cain has a history of damaging you.”

  “Enough excuses!” Scapegrace roared in bubbles.

  “Sorry, Master,” Thrasher mumbled, head down.

  “Scapey,” Clarabelle scolded, “don’t be mean to Gerald. He does his best, don’t you, Gerald?”

  “I do,” Thrasher whimpered.

  “And I don’t know if Doctor Nye will even see you. It’s very busy right now. It’s back there working on top-s
ecret things that it won’t tell me about because it thinks I talk too much and it can’t trust me. I’m not allowed to even peek. I heard a voice and it was an American accent, and he said a bad word. Do you want to know which one it was? It started with F. It’s not the one you’re thinking of, though. It’s the other one. The one that ends with P. Do you want to know what it was? It was froop.” She frowned. “Wait. That’s not a word.”

  “Clarabelle,” Scapegrace said, “you’re absolutely right. I asked him to help us and he did say no, but that was before. That was when I was merely a zombie. And even though he said no, I could tell he was intrigued.”

  “Doctor Nye is an it, not a he.”

  “Then it was intrigued. The chance to bring life to a zombie was almost more than it could handle.”

  “And yet,” came a high, raspy voice from behind, “I still managed to say no.”

  Scapegrace scowled. He could see Thrasher’s reaction to Nye’s entrance, but the idiot didn’t think to turn the jar around.

  “Of course you said no,” Scapegrace said loudly, “and I couldn’t blame you. Bringing life to zombies? How boring. How pedestrian. That’s not a job worthy of your talents.”

  Doctor Nye’s knees came into view. Its legs were impossibly long and impossibly thin, the smock it wore grubby and bloodstained. Those knees bent and Nye’s body contorted as it leaned down. That scab of a nose, those small yellow eyes, that mouth, its thin lips punctured by broken thread, twisting into a smile.

  “And now you have a job that is worthy of me?” it asked.

  “Of course,” said Scapegrace. “I’m a zombie head in a jar. I’m unique. I’m a challenge.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I want you to attach me to a new body, Doctor. I want to live again.”

  Nye laughed, and straightened, immediately towering out of Scapegrace’s view. “I think not,” it said, and turned to walk away.

  “I can pay you,” Scapegrace said.

  Nye hesitated. Scapegrace could see its long fingers, contorting like a huge spider. Nye swung its head back, its small eyes magnified as it peered in.

  “How much?”

  “I won’t be paying you in money, Doctor. I’ll be paying you in something far more valuable.”

  “I am not a patient creature, zombie-head. Tell me what you have or—”

  “The White Cleaver,” said Scapegrace. “I have the White Cleaver.”

  Nye observed him through the glass. “The White Cleaver is destroyed. Lord Vile tore him apart.”

  “And even then, he was alive. Little bits of finger, twitching on the ground in all of the blood. His right eye was intact, and it was looking around. So I got Thrasher to pick up the pieces – every single little piece – and put them in plastic containers.”

  “He is functional?”

  “You just have to put him back together,” said Scapegrace. “So you can do that, and take ownership, after you’ve attached my head to a new body.”

  “And mine,” Thrasher said.

  “We are not sharing,” Scapegrace said quickly.

  “I mean a new body of my own, Master. This one rots, and my intestines keep falling out.”

  Scapegrace sighed. “Fine. You find us new bodies, Doctor Nye, and you get to keep the White Cleaver. Someone like you, with your history, I’m sure you could find a use for him.”

  Nye smiled. “I’m sure I could, zombie-head. Very well. But you should know – this idea of transferring your heads to fresh bodies is ridiculous. Your heads would continue to rot, after all. Instead, I will be transplanting your brains. You will have to say goodbye to what is left of your face.”

  “I barely have a face any more, Doctor. Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes, zombie-head. We do. I will arrange for your idiot companion to bring me the remains through a private entrance, and once that is done, I will make you live again.”

  It was a very dramatic moment, spoiled only by Thrasher saying, “Yippee.”

  alkyrie was halfway to the Bentley when Ghastly called out to her. She turned, waited as he approached.

  “Here,” he said, handing her a small box, “this is for your journey.”

  Valkyrie opened it, pulled out what was inside. “A mask?”

  “It should keep you warm,” Ghastly said. “Unless you’d prefer a woolly hat and earmuffs?”

  She smiled. “This will do fine, thank you.”

  “It’s the same material I used for your clothes, but don’t get too carried away. It’ll absorb impacts and dissipate the effects, but you’re still going to feel it and it’s still going to hurt.”

  “But it’s still bulletproof, right?”

  Ghastly hesitated. “Yes,” he said slowly, “it is bulletproof. Just do me a favour and don’t get shot in the head. The mask won’t let the bullet through, but the impact alone might be enough to kill you. Valkyrie, please – view this as something to keep your head warm. Nothing more.”

  “Right,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “There are also some gloves in there.”

  “You’re the best, Ghastly.”

  “Call me Elder Bespoke when we’re in public.”

  She blinked, and he chuckled and walked away. “I’m so funny,” he said.

  She grinned and got in the car beside Skulduggery, and they drove to the private airstrip the Sanctuary owned. Their transport was a huge cargo plane that looked like it had seen action in a world war – which one, Valkyrie couldn’t be sure. It was big and loud and cold, and they had the entire body of the thing to themselves. She put on her new gloves and tried to go to sleep against the netting, eventually falling into a fitful doze. She was woken, hours later, by Skulduggery.

  “We’re here,” he said over the roar of the engines.

  She sat up. It had gone from cold to freezing. Moving a little stiffly, she crossed to a porthole and looked out over the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.

  “Wow,” she said. “It’s just like watching TV.”

  Skulduggery shook his head. “Yet again, you manage to drain the wonder out of the most impressive of spectacles.”

  Valkyrie grinned at him. “Are we close to the airport?”

  “Airport?”

  “Sorry, airstrip. The landing thing. Runway. Whatever.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I’m afraid we won’t be landing. This is a round trip for the pilots, no rest stops in between.”

  Her eyes widened. “We’re going to parachute out? Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to try that!”

  “Parachutes,” Skulduggery said. “Yeah, they’d probably have been a good idea.”

  She frowned. “We don’t have parachutes?”

  “Why would we need them?”

  “Because… we’re jumping out of a plane.”

  “You jump out of your bedroom window all the time.”

  She stared. “That’s a little different, Skulduggery. My bedroom window isn’t thirty thousand feet off the ground.”

  “But you still use the air to slow your descent, yes? So do the same here. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

  “I’m not worried about the jumping,” she said. “I’m worried about the falling. I’m worried about the splatting.”

  He patted her shoulder. “You amuse me,” he said, and walked up to the cockpit.

  Valkyrie pushed the nerves down, and found herself grinning. She took the mask from her pocket and pulled it on. It covered her whole head save for her eyes and mouth, and there was even a hole in the back for her ponytail to hang from. Like everything Ghastly made, it fitted perfectly, and it warmed her immediately.

  Skulduggery came back, holding a GPS device. “Sixty seconds to our destination,” he informed her.

  She put on her gloves. “What do you think? Do I look amazing?”

  “You do indeed.”

  “Do I look like a ninja?”

  “Not a million miles away.”

  She looked around for a reflective surfa
ce, actually found a mirror tied into the netting. Probably there for when paratroopers applied camouflage to their faces or something. She ducked down to see how fantastic she looked, and her grin dropped.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “I look like a freak.”

  “You look great,” Skulduggery assured her.

  “Ghastly made me a freak mask.”

  “It actually looks rather fetching.”

  “Yeah, if you’re a freak.”

  “Nonsense. You look perfectly normal. Come on, it’s time to jump out of a plane without a parachute.”

  Still frowning, she followed him to the door. They looked at a light bulb. Waited. Valkyrie’s frown left her and she started to grin again.

  The bulb lit up, and Skulduggery opened the door and threw himself out. The wind took him, whipped him away. Grinning ever wider beneath her mask, Valkyrie took hold of the bar above the doorway, and with a roar of pure adrenaline she launched herself out after him.

  Immediately she was lost in rushing wind. The mountains were unimaginably vast, devastatingly beautiful, stretching to a horizon that flipped around her as she fell. The freezing wind shot up the sleeves of her jacket, down past her collar, up through her trousers. She whooped as she spun through the cold.

  Skulduggery was below her, his hat in one hand, the GPS device in the other. She followed where he went, both of them diving down, twisting and arcing. He was more graceful than her, but Valkyrie didn’t care. She’d just jumped out of a plane without a parachute. Beneath her mask, she laughed.

  She levelled off, arms and legs outstretched, copying Skulduggery. She brought the air in to correct her course, angling for the side of a peak. She didn’t want this to stop. Out here, up here, she was as free as she had ever been. The only time she’d approached this level of pure abandonment was when she’d been Darquesse, flying over Dublin City. She remembered the joy, wallowed in it for a moment, then shut away the memory, covering it with shame.

  Skulduggery was slowing, the air around him rippling. Valkyrie brought the wind in to buffet her descent, trying to do it gradually, straining to catch the currents. She lost control and spiralled away, reached out to snag something, anything, brought in a gust that flipped her head over heels towards the mountain face. She pushed back against the air and fell, tumbling, calling for help, and then there was a surface approaching and she managed to slow herself enough so that when she slammed into it she didn’t break any bones. She rolled, grunting, found something to grab. She hung on, trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out which way was up, and then Skulduggery was there, looking down at her.