by Landy Derek
The Faceless One grabbed him, its fingers sliding between his ribs and gripping, and Skulduggery screamed as he was lifted off the ground.
"Valkyrie!" Wreath shouted from behind. She turned, and he threw his cane at her feet. "Use it!"
"I don't know how!"
"Just use the damn thing!"
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She grabbed it, felt the dark power contained within. Shadows leaked from the cane and wrapped around her wrist. She knew instinctively that if Wreath hadn't given it voluntarily, those shadows would tighten and turn her bones to dust.
She turned the cane in her hand, feeling the drag, as though it was moving through water, and then she whipped it straight out, and a shadow sliced against the back of the Faceless One's leg. The shadow didn't break its skin, but it did get its attention. The Faceless One turned to her.
Valkyrie rotated the cane by her side, like she was gathering cotton candy around a stick, then flicked it at the Faceless One. Instead of cotton candy, shadows flew, hit the Faceless One, and tried to wrap around it. It threw Skulduggery down and brushed the shadows away with one angry gesture.
She ran up to it, swinging the cane. The Faceless One caught it and snapped it. An explosion of darkness hurled Valkyrie backward and sent the Faceless One staggering.
Valkyrie thudded into Ghastly's arms, and he grunted and let her down. She saw the Faceless One, standing just outside the gateway, struggling to escape its gravitational pull.
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It was almost in. It was almost through.
"Hit it!" she shouted. "Somebody hit it!"
Ghastly stepped forward and China left the column of smoke, but tentacles burst from the Faceless One's chest, slammed into them, and tossed them back. The tentacles, made of entrails and organs, wrapped around trees and burrowed through the ground in a last-ditch effort, an effort that was destroying its host body to save the god within.
Then Skulduggery stood, looked at the Faceless One, and stepped forward, sinking into the stance. He snapped his hands against the air, and the air rippled. The Faceless One hurtled back, disappearing into the portal, its flailing tentacles yanked in after it, taking branches and clumps of earth along with it. Immediately, Skulduggery whirled.
"The Grotesquery!" he shouted. "Now!"
Within the column of smoke, Fletcher slid his hands underneath the Grotesquery's torso and heaved, and the torso rolled out of the circle. Skulduggery gestured, and the air caught the torso and brought it into his hands. He grunted and stepped back and launched it into the gateway.
Now that the link was gone, the gateway started to rapidly close.
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And then a tentacle slid out and wrapped around Skulduggery's ankle.
It tugged and he fell. He clutched at the ground as he was dragged quickly back.
"Skulduggery!" Valkyrie screamed, sprinting toward him.
He looked up and reached out to her, but it was too late. He disappeared through the gateway.
"Keep it open!" Valkyrie screamed to Fletcher.
"I can't!"
She was three steps away when the portal collapsed.
"Open it!" she yelled.
But Fletcher was standing, and through the swirling smoke she could see his stunned face. He shook his head.
"No! Fletcher, no! You've got to open it!"
"I don't have the Grotesquery," he said. "I can't."
China was standing, and Valkyrie ran to her, grabbed her. "Do something!"
China didn't even look at her. Her blue eyes, so pretty, so pale, were on the empty space where she'd last seen Skulduggery. Valkyrie shoved her away, turned to Ghastly.
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"Come on!" she roared.
"He's gone," Ghastly said, his voice dull.
"He can't be!"
Valkyrie turned, turned again, looking for someone who knew what to do, someone who'd have a plan. She saw no one. No one knew what to do.
And then she was on her knees. There were tears running down her face, and it was like a part of her had been cut out, somewhere in her belly, and her thoughts were frozen in her mind.
It was quiet. The smoke had stopped swirling, and it drifted away in the afternoon breeze. It was still, and it was peaceful, and around them were the dead bodies of friends and colleagues and enemies, and the air stank of ozone and magic.
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Forty-four
***
T he Task
Paris had been nice, apparently. Her parent had been home, and her dad had hugged her reflection and then gone to read the newspaper. Her mother had told the reflection all about their weekend as she unpacked. Long walks and fine food and romantic evenings. She'd asked how the reflection had got on staying with Beryl and Fergus, and the reflection had lied with accustomed ease and said it had been fine.
Valkyrie absorbed these memories and didn't bother examining them. In the weeks since her parents had got back, she hadn't even spoken to
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them--not personally. She was afraid they'd see her and instantly know something terrible had happened. She couldn't deal with that right now. She doubted she'd have even been able to come up with a lie.
Now she stood in the graveyard and waited. It was raining again. It was always raining. She was getting sick of the rain.
She didn't hear him approach, but she knew he was behind her.
"Thank you for coming," Solomon Wreath said. "Have you spoken with Guild?"
Valkyrie turned.
"He called me into the Sanctuary last week. He said that I'm no longer a fugitive."
"That must be nice."
"Did you know that he's telling everyone that the victory is all down to him and Mr. Bliss? I'm sorry Bliss is dead and all, but he's saying Skulduggery did nothing."
"I had heard that, but the people who matter know the truth."
"Everyone should know the truth," she muttered.
"How is your friend? The one who was hurt? "
"She's healing. Nothing can keep Tanith down."
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Valkyrie looked at the headstones around her, then back at him. "Sorry I broke your cane."
Wreath shrugged. "When the power was released, it flowed back into me, where it bubbled and boiled until I channeled it into something new." He showed her a cane, identical to the last one.
"How original of you."
He smiled. "I was very impressed with how you handled it, by the way. You seem to have an instinctive grasp of Necromancy."
"Just blind luck, to be honest."
"Nonsense. It made me wonder, actually, if Elemental magic was the road you should be taking."
"You're saying I should be a Necromancer?"
"Why not?"
"Because I'm an Elemental."
"You're young. You can change your mind a hundred times before you settle on the discipline that's right for you. Is Necromancy as elegant as Elemental magic? Perhaps not. Are Necromancers held in as high regard as Elementals? Definitely not. But as a student, you would have instant power at your fingertips, and I think you're going to need as much power as you can get."
"Why do you think that?"
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"Well, you want to get Skulduggery Pleasant back, don't you? "
Valkyrie's eyes narrowed. "Skulduggery's gone."
"Not necessarily."
"The gateway is closed."
"Actually, I don't think it is."
She shook her head. "If you've got something to say, just say it. I'm tired, and I want to go home."
"What made it possible for Fletcher Renn to open the gate?"
"The Grotesquery was an Isthmus Anchor, and there's a ..." She sighed. "There's this invisible, magical, wonderful thread that runs from an Isthmus Anchor to whatever it links to, which keeps the gate from closing for good. Fletcher used the Grotesquery to force the gateway open."
"Exactly. So all you need is another Anchor."
"The Grotesquery is gone. Skulduggery lobbed it through th
e portal because he didn't want anybody opening it ever again. There are no more bits of Faceless Ones lying around."
"It doesn't have to be an object that links to the Faceless Ones," Wreath told her. "It just has to link to something in that reality."
"Like what?"
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"Like Skulduggery."
"Mr. Wreath ..."
He smiled. "There is a part of Skulduggery still here, in this reality. In this country in fact. And you know what it is."
"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're--"
"Skulduggery Pleasant's head, Miss Cain."
Something fluttered in her belly. "He lost that. He told me. He won the head he's wearing now in a poker game."
"All true. But if you were to retrieve this missing head and give it to Mr. Renn, he would find that the link between the skeleton and his real skull is keeping the gateway from closing over."
"And ... and he could open it? Fletcher could open the gateway? "
"And save Skulduggery, yes."
"Where is it? Where's his head?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea. That part is up to you."
"Why are you helping me?"
"You don't think I'm doing it because I'm a nice person?"
"You have something to gain."
"You are an astute young lady. I am hoping to
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gain something, as a matter of fact."
"What?"
"You. In order to conduct this search, in order to do the things you will need to do, you're going to need more power than you currently wield. I'm hoping you choose Necromancy."
He stepped back and tapped his cane on the ground. The shadows moved in, curled around him, and she saw him smile before his face darkened.
"I'll be in touch," he said, and the shadows scattered and he was gone.
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Before embarking on a writing career, DEREK LANDY had adventures. He wrestled a grizzly on a mountainside, foiled a giggling maniac's citywide crime spree, and found the Lost City of Gold.
(He promptly lost the Lost City of Gold, due to being unable to remember which "big tree" it was next to.)
He lives in Dublin, Ireland, where he divides his time between writing books and screenplays and training his Munchkin Army to protect him against the ninjas.
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