Kingdom of the Wicked

by Derek Landy

  “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.

  “Well,” he said, “that was needlessly dramatic.”

  He walked off, and after a moment, Valkyrie sat up. She looked out over the ledge, at the great expanse of the snow-covered Alps. The beautiful, pristine Alps that had very nearly killed her.

  She was sore. The cold was seeping through the eyeholes in her mask, giving her a headache. Her neck was freezing, making her shiver.

  “I hate this place,” she said loudly. Skulduggery didn’t hear. The stupid alpine wind had snatched her words away. Stupid Alps.

  She got up stiffly, hurried after him. The plane was already looping around, disappearing into the clouds.

  “These are the co-ordinates,” he said. “They should be close by.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Then you should have worn a coat.”

  “I thought my jacket would be enough. It’s really cold up here. Why don’t you ever bring me somewhere nice? Somewhere warm and sunny? Somewhere I could sit by the pool?”

  “You’re talking about a holiday.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m just talking about a case where I have to sit by pools and be warm and get a tan. How hard would it be to find us a case like that?”

  “Our next case,” he said, “I’ll be sure to look out for poolside opportunities for you.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  “Hmmm …”

  “What?”

  He crouched. She crouched, too.

  “What?” she asked again.

  He pointed ahead of them. “See that?”

  “What, the snow?”

  “Beyond that.”

  “More snow?”

  “Stop looking at the snow.”

  “I don’t know what you’re pointing at. Are you pointing at the mountain? Yes, Skulduggery, I can see the mountain. It’s kind of hard to miss. It’s a mountain.” Something moved in the distance, something with dark fur. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. Is that an Abominable Snowman?”

  “It would appear so,” Skulduggery said.

  It was hard to make out, but it was big and furry. Valkyrie leaned closer and kept her voice low. “Can I ask you a question? You know with vampires and werewolves and goblins and things, is there any mythological creature that doesn’t actually exist?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “The unicorn and the leprechaun would be the two main ones. The Loch Ness Monster isn’t real, either, that’s just someone called Bert. Any more questions, or can we get back to the situation at hand?”

  “Please do.”

  “Thank you. The Yeti, or the Kang Admi as it is otherwise known, is not indigenous to these parts. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one straying from the Himalayas.”

  “Maybe this one got lost.”

  “Or maybe Tyren Lament brought it along for security purposes.”

  “Is it dangerous? It looks dangerous. On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous would it be?”

  “Well, if one is a kitten, and ten is a Yeti, then I’d say it’s a ten.”

  “Dear God, I want to hurt you so bad.”

  “Yetis are strong and fast and fierce. If you see one running at you, it’s already too late. We’ll have to stay out of sight. By the way, dressing head to toe in black is not the best camouflage when you’re in the snow.”

  “Says the man in the navy-blue suit.”

  “Ah, but all I have to do is remove my hat and my head blends into the background.”

  “So then it looks like there’s a navy-blue suit running around on its own, which is way less suspicious.” Valkyrie looked around. “If Lament did bring the Yeti to act as a doorman, that means the door must be somewhere around here.”

  “Look for anything that seems out of place.”

  “You mean anything that isn’t a rock or a snowflake.”

  “Exactly.”

  He stopped suddenly, and Valkyrie looked down at the massive pawprint in the snow.

  “So what?” she asked. “We already know it’s there.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not altogether sure that Yeti made this track. At the rate the snow is falling, this should have been covered up by now.”

  “Which means?”

  He looked at her. “Which means there is more than one Yeti.”

  From behind them there came a growl and Valkyrie whirled, fire filling her hands as the creature charged, and she prepared for the fight of her life.

  “Well,” Skulduggery said once the fight of her life was over, “that was bracing.”

  Valkyrie wheezed, and sat up. “It tried to eat my head.”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “It literally had my head in its mouth.”

  “What was that like?”

  “Smelly. Wet. Horrible. Exactly what you’d expect if a Yeti tried to eat your head. My freak mask saved me.”

  He helped her to her feet. “You handled yourself admirably.”

  “You think so?”

  “Your constant screaming definitely made it hesitate.”

  “Yeah, it’s a new tactic I’m trying out. Pants-wetting fear. Do you think its mate heard me?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. The wind carried your screaming in the opposite direction. But we should probably get moving before it comes back. I’d imagine it would be quite irate.”

  “If you threw me off a mountain, I’d be irate, too.”

  She walked beside him across the snow, her gloved hands tucked under her armpits. She kept her mouth closed. Her lips were freezing. Her eyeballs, too. The snow was sucking at her boots, trying to pull he
r down. It didn’t take long before her legs got tired.

  “Are we nearly there?” she asked, looking around at him for the first time since they started walking. “Hey. You’re cheating!”

  The snow curled around him but didn’t touch him, and the snow on the ground parted for his feet. “Snow is water,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to realise this for the past five minutes.”

  She glared. “My brain is frozen.”

  “Manipulate the snow just like you would water and you’ll be fine.”

  The gloves Ghastly had made for her were the same as Skulduggery’s, meaning she could click her fingers to generate a spark or feel the air to move an object. But for something like water, an element she hadn’t spent much time practising with, she needed a bare hand. She took off her right glove, the cold closing round her skin and robbing it of its warmth. She did her best to ignore all that, and focused on making the compacted snow under her boots roll backwards like a wave. But nothing happened. The dynamics were totally different than with free-flowing water. She gritted her teeth and poured her magic into it, and the snow surged, whipping her feet out from under her.

  “Found it,” Skulduggery said from up ahead.

  Growling, Valkyrie struggled up and clomped through the snow to where he was standing. Once, maybe, it had been a cave, but now it was just a mass of snow-covered boulders and rocks. “This looks just like everything else around here,” she said. “Are you sure this is it?”

  “There’s evidence of a bridge out there,” he said, nodding his head towards the ledge. “It must have connected this peak to the one next to it. Once all the equipment was shipped in, the bridge was destroyed and the entrance collapsed.”

  Valkyrie stamped her feet. “So how do we get in?”

  Skulduggery pressed his hands against the rock. A moment later, Valkyrie heard a low rumbling. Dust fell. The wall of rocks shifted violently, tearing a hole in itself. Skulduggery stepped back.

  “There,” he said. “That’s as much as I can do while still maintaining the integrity of the wall.”

  The hole was a narrow gash of an opening, slanting almost at a horizontal angle. Valkyrie was not a fan of tight spaces. “You want us to climb through there?”

  “I’ll go first,” he said, “to make sure it’s safe. Hold my hat.”

  She did so, and watched him crouch by the hole. He slipped his head and shoulders in first, manoeuvred around, then pulled himself through. She watched his shoes disappear.

  “How is it?” she called. “What’s on the other side?”

  “A tunnel,” he called back. His hand came through, fingers wiggling. “My hat, please.”

  She passed it to him, and crouched. She eyed the gap uneasily. Another tight space. “Are you sure I’ll be able to fit?”

  Skulduggery’s face appeared on the other side. “Of course you will. I did.”

  “But you’re a skeleton,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, but I’m big-boned. You’ll be fine.”

  She looked behind her, at the swirling snow and vast empty whiteness of it all, and sighed. She put her arms through first, getting a good grip, and then put her head and shoulders through. The other side of the cave wall was warm – much too warm to be natural. Skulduggery held fire in his hand so she could see what she was doing. Grunting slightly, she climbed in further, her chest scraping along the rock. When she was halfway through, she slipped sideways a little, down the slant. She tried to pull herself through.

  “I’m stuck,” she said.

  “No, you’re not,” Skulduggery told her. “Just wriggle, you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m stuck,” she insisted, and started laughing despite herself.

  Skulduggery tilted his head. “I thought you didn’t like tight spaces.”

  “I don’t. I’m kind of panicking, but my bum is jammed. How can you not laugh when your bum is jammed? Help me.”

  He took her hands and pulled.

  “Oh my God,” she said, doing her best to stop giggling, “that’s doing absolutely nothing. Could you please get me out of here?”

  “But of course, dear.” He reached in, gripped her waistband and pulled her out of the narrower end. He hooked his hands under her arms and dragged her the rest of the way through. Once back on her feet, she brushed the dust from her clothes and took off her mask, grinning at him.

  “Never mention this to anyone,” she said, stuffing the mask and gloves into her jacket.

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  They walked down the sloping tunnel, holding fire in their hands until the darkness shifted to mere gloom, and then brightened. They let the flames go out and proceeded cautiously.

  The ground turned into a metal grille. Thick support struts criss-crossed overhead and glowing orbs hung from them, as if someone had caught handfuls of daylight and brought them underground. They passed through corridors of rock walls. The air was fresh, and carried a scent of cut grass and flowers. It was a warm summer’s day down here in this mountain.

  A bird flew past, disappearing around the corner.

  “Well,” Valkyrie said, “that’s just unexpected, is what that is.”

  They walked on until the corridor widened, and in this widened corridor a man wandered by. Valkyrie recognised him from his file. Kalvin Accord. Adept, specialising in science-magic. Now dressed in what looked like a bathrobe and sandals.

  “Kalvin,” Skulduggery said gently.

  Kalvin whipped around, eyes wide. Stared at them.

  Skulduggery took a step forward. “Sorry. We didn’t want to startle you. How are you?”

  “Oh, this isn’t good,” Kalvin murmured. “Oh, this isn’t good at all.”

  He turned and ran.

  Skulduggery glanced at Valkyrie, and they started jogging after him.

  “Kalvin,” Skulduggery called. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Please, just stop and talk to us.”

  But Kalvin kept running. Granted, it wasn’t a very impressive run – there’s only so fast a person can move wearing sandals. He stumbled and one of the sandals came flying off, and he went on without it. Valkyrie picked it up on the way past.

  Skulduggery caught up to him and they ran side by side. “Hi, Kalvin,” he said.

  Kalvin whined.

  Valkyrie appeared at his other elbow. She held the sandal out as they ran. “I picked this up for you.”

  Kalvin was panting. “Thank you,” he said, taking it from her.

  “Why are you running away from us?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “But now that I’m doing it, I may as well keep going.”

  “Except you’re not really running away from us,” Skulduggery pointed out.

  “True,” he gasped. “But I don’t think I can stop. I want to stop. I do. But I don’t think I can.”

  “Just slow down,” Valkyrie said. “Come on, just slow down. That’s it. A little more.”

  They slowed the run back to a jog, and Kalvin’s legs started to wobble. He veered away from them and ran into the wall, then collapsed and rolled across the floor, clutching his side.

  “Stitch,” he explained when they looked down at him.

  “You don’t get an awful lot of exercise down here, do you?” Skulduggery said.

  “Not really …”

  “Do you want a hand up?”

  “If it’s OK with you … I’ll just stay down here … for another moment.”

  “No problem.”

  “Why … why are you here?”

  “It’s about Argeddion.”

  “Then you’re going to want to talk to Tyren.” Kalvin took another few breaths, and sat up. “He is not going to be happy to see you.”

  yren Lament was definitely not happy to see them. Skulduggery and Valkyrie sat at the long table in the dining hall, and Lament stood looking at them with his arms crossed. He looked to be around forty, with long fair hair. He had a long nose and sharp, intelligent eyes. He was dressed i
dentically to Kalvin. From the glimpses Valkyrie had snatched of the other sorcerers on the way here, robes and sandals seemed to be the uniform for mountain-dwelling mages.

  “How did you find us?” were his first words to them.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Skulduggery said.

  He looked annoyed. “It was supposed to be impossible. We didn’t go to all this trouble to be ‘hard to find’. We did it to disappear.”

  “We’d never have come looking for you if it wasn’t for Argeddion,” said Valkyrie. “He’s doing something to ordinary people, giving them magic.”

  Lament shook his head. “Impossible. No one can transfer magic in any way to anyone who doesn’t already have magic within them.”

  “For all we know,” said Skulduggery, “these mortals did have magic within them. But if they did, it was dormant. They didn’t know anything about it.”

  “And what do you think Argeddion has done to them? Because whatever you suspect, I can assure you, he didn’t do it. He’s been resting in a coma-state for the past thirty years.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure. He is closely monitored at every moment. The slightest increase in neural activity would be picked up on. Whoever is doing this to the mortals, it’s not Argeddion.”

  “If it’s not,” said Skulduggery, “then it’s someone connected to him somehow. We’d like to see him, all the same.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to. You’ve already breached our outer perimeter – I can’t allow you to breach the inner one. I knew you thirty years ago, Skulduggery, but a man can change in thirty years.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I don’t. And I don’t even know your companion.”

  “We’ve saved the world,” Valkyrie said.

  “And on behalf of this little part of that world, I thank you,” said Lament. “But you’re still not getting close to Argeddion, I’m sorry.”

  Skulduggery sighed, and sat back. “Can we ask about the facility here?”

  Lament sat opposite them. “Of course.”

  “How many can it hold?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”