Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole

by Derek Landy

  “You’ll be happier with me,” the woman said. “I’m getting used to a female body, and us girls have to stick together, don’t we?”

  “I don’t care if you’re good people,” Tanith snarled. “Kenspeckle Grouse was a good person, but he still hammered nails through my hands and legs. If either of you takes one more step, I’ll hurt you.”

  Ged and the woman looked at each other, laughed, and came closer.

  Tanith took three quick steps and jumped, twisting her hips slightly and snapping out both legs. The toe of her left boot hit Ged’s cheek, and the heel of her right boot crunched into the woman’s nose. They went sprawling on either side of her as she landed.

  She ran out into the cold and hopped on her bike. Pulling on her helmet, she moved the bike off its kickstand and fired up the engine. She looked back to see the boy sprinting after her, screaming in fury as she roared out on to the road.

  39

  MURIEL

  Muriel Hubbard came in, left her car keys on the hall table and draped her coat over the banister. She went looking for her husband, found him in the living room on the phone, talking about a riot. Today was his day off, but they still came running to their Chief Superintendent whenever anything bad happened. Her own phone rang, and James looked around, gave her a tight smile. She smiled back and left the room, bringing the phone to her ear.

  “Mum.” It was Ashley. She was whispering. “I need help.”

  Muriel adjusted the thermostat in the hall, it was much too warm in the house, and walked into the kitchen. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “They’re after me.”

  “Who is after you?”

  “The others.”

  “Your friends?”

  “They’re not my friends.”

  Muriel brought the kettle to the sink and filled it. “Are you arguing with Imogen again? Sweetie, you know what she’s like. Give her a few hours and she’ll be all apologies.”

  “Imogen’s dead.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You’ll forgive her, you always do.”

  “Mum. Imogen is dead. They killed her.”

  “Who killed her?” asked Muriel.

  “The others. Dan and Aoife and the others.” Her daughter’s voice shook. “They… they tore her apart.”

  Muriel nodded. “And why did they do that?”

  “I don’t bloody know!”

  “There’s no need to curse, Ashley. We’ve all had arguments, we’ve all had fights, we’ve all torn strips off each other. True friends work it out.”

  “Mum, you’re not listening to me. I don’t mean they tore her apart with words. They tore her apart with their hands. She’s not dead to me, Mum, she’s just dead. Are you understanding me now? They physically attacked her and physically killed her.”

  Muriel sighed. “Then why don’t you come home?”

  “I’m hiding.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m in the playground, in the little hut thing.”

  “Where the little kids play? You can fit into that?”

  “They’re looking for me. They want Dad.”

  Muriel poured boiling water into a cup and dipped a tea bag in. “Why do they want your father?”

  “I don’t know. They said he has influence.”

  “Of course he has influence, he’s the Garda Superintendent.”

  Ashley’s whisper rose again. “I know who he is, Mum! I’m just telling you what they said! They said they could use him, and they wanted to get to him through me!”

  “Oh, right.” Muriel took a sip of tea.

  “They’re here,” Ashley said, much quieter.

  “Your friends?”

  Ashley didn’t answer. Muriel took another sip as she waited for her daughter to speak again. She heard a distant shout, and the sound of movement, the phone being jostled, and then rushing wind in the receiver.

  “Mum!” Ashley cried, loud enough so that Muriel had to hold the phone away from her. “Get Dad! They’re after me! I’m heading home, but they’re right behind me! They’re faster!”

  Jostling. The rush of wind. Ashley’s panicked breathing. Muriel shook her head, and looked up as her husband walked in.

  “There’s something happening in town,” James said, picking up his car keys. “Bunch of people going crazy, apparently. Riots in the streets. Have you seen my coat?”

  “I think it’s on the bed,” Muriel told him. He nodded, went upstairs. “Sorry sweetie,” she said into the phone, “what were you saying?”

  “Get Dad!” Ashley screamed. The sound of movement abruptly ended with a loud thud.

  Muriel heard Ashley crying, but she sounded far away, like she’d dropped the phone.

  James came back in, his coat on. “Maybe you should stay indoors,” he said. “It mightn’t be safe out. Where’s Ashley?”

  “I’m just talking to her now,” Muriel said.

  He nodded. “Tell her to come home.”

  “Oh, she won’t like that.”

  “Tell her she can give me one of her teenage tantrums later and I’ll sit through the whole thing, I promise. But it’s not safe out.”

  “It’s not even safe in,” Muriel said with a chuckle.

  James laughed, then stopped. “I don’t get it.”

  Muriel hit him and he flew back against the kitchen counter and collapsed on to the tiled floor. The first time in thirty-two years of marriage that one of them had raised a hand to the other. Sad, really.

  Another voice came over the phone. Low. Mocking. “Is that Ashley’s mammy?”

  “Hello, Dan,” Muriel said. “You’re too late, I’m afraid. You should have gone after him through the wife, not the daughter.” She heard Dan curse, and it made her smile. She opened her mouth wide and the Remnant struggled out. Her body dropped, and it flitted to her husband and climbed down his throat. James’s eyes flickered open. He groaned softly as he sat up, really wishing he hadn’t hit himself so hard. He reached for the fallen phone as he stood.

  “Still there, Dan? Now I’m the one in control of all those nice policemen and women, and you’re what, exactly? A spotty teenager?”

  “No,” Dan said defensively. “I have a Plan B.”

  “Oh, I’d love to hear it.”

  “Well, first I’m going to kill your daughter here. Then I’m…” James heard other voices, and after a moment Dan came back on. “OK,” he said, “apparently, I’m not going to kill your daughter. Aoife got a bit carried away, the little psycho. But I’m still going to have fun. You’re the Superintendent? Then I’m going to be the Taoiseach.”

  James laughed. “From spotty teenager to prime minister – not a bad promotion. Providing someone doesn’t get there before you. You’d better hurry, Dan. If you keep wasting time like this, all the super-powered sorcerers and the very important mortals will be taken.”

  Dan didn’t answer; he just hung up. James laughed, got to his feet, and stepped over his unconscious wife. Then he left the house, going in to work on his day off.

  No rest for the wicked, he thought to himself, and laughed.

  40

  THE PLAN

  The Hibernian Cinema was in lockdown. The doors were barred and the windows covered. Every non-essential wing of the science-magic facility was sealed off. Kenspeckle was taking no chances.

  Valkyrie sat in the Medical Bay. She’d been here for hours, had spent the morning inhaling a bowl of steam that Kenspeckle had shoved into her hands. “So you won’t catch cold,” he’d gruffly said as he busied himself with something else.

  Fletcher was beside her, watching the news on TV, and Tanith and Ghastly were across from them, sitting side by side on one of the beds. China sat in the corner, making phone calls that weren’t answered, doing her best to stay away from Clarabelle, who seemed to be fascinated by her. Skulduggery walked in, hat pushed back off his brow, the only sign that he was concerned.

  “China?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” China said. “Everyone’s
gone straight to panic stations.”

  “Don’t make any more calls,” Skulduggery said. “If they haven’t answered by now, we can assume they’ve been compromised. From this moment out, we trust no one.”

  “How many?” Tanith asked. “If they’ve all escaped from the Midnight Hotel, and we have to assume they have, how many of them are we talking about?”

  “We don’t know,” Ghastly said. “A thousand. Maybe two. No one’s ever been able to accurately count.”

  “Two thousand Remnants,” she breathed. “What do they want? What are they after?”

  Valkyrie went pale.

  “They’re after Darquesse,” Skulduggery said, before she could even consider confessing. “That’s what they told Valkyrie. One of them must have hijacked a Sensitive and seen that version of the future. Now they have someone to worship.”

  Tanith frowned. “So you’re saying they have a purpose? Remnants have a purpose? A reason to organise? That’s unheard of. That’s… bloody terrifying.”

  “They’re all over the news,” Fletcher said. “Reports of a riot in the nightclub, disturbances all over the city, and another riot in Galway.”

  “No,” Kenspeckle said, walking in, “the Galway thing wasn’t the Remnants. That was me.”

  Valkyrie frowned. “What?”

  He smoothed down his lab coat. “Ever since my experience with the Remnants five months ago, I’ve been working on a carefully controlled virus. It heightens aggression and antisocial behaviour, lasts a few minutes, and then vanishes, leaving the infected people unconscious, with no memory of what happened. We placed canisters full of this virus around the country where they’ve lain dormant, until tonight.”

  Fletcher stared at him. “Why? I mean… for God’s sake, why?”

  “It’s our cover story,” Skulduggery said. “It gets the civilian population believing that there is a somewhat rational explanation to all this madness, while at the same time scaring them into staying off the streets and locking the doors. Leaving us to operate unhindered.”

  “I thought we might need it,” Kenspeckle nodded. “Granted, I thought it would be a few decades before we’d need it, so it’s a good thing I work fast.”

  “But the Professor says it won’t hurt anyone,” Clarabelle said happily.

  “It’s a thought virus as much as anything else,” he said. “If the infected person is in danger of harming himself or anyone else, he falls asleep ahead of time. I’ve done what I can to reduce the risk of injury, but the point is the real Remnant attacks will be mixed up with our fake ones, so it’ll look like the same outbreak. When we have the real problem solved, and all those dreadful things are locked away, I’ll pass the secrets to the antidote to some struggling young doctors who just want to make the world a better place. They’ll save us all, be heroes, and whatever wonderful projects they’re working on will have ten years’ worth of funding overnight. Everyone, as they say, wins.”

  “Now all we have to do is solve the real problem,” Skulduggery said.

  Valkyrie put the steaming bowl down. “This happened before,” she said. “You told me about it. Years ago, in Kerry.”

  “Eighteen ninety-two,” Skulduggery nodded. “They took over an entire town. A giant Soul Catcher was built in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks to trap them.”

  “Who reeks?” Fletcher asked.

  “It’s a mountain range on the other side of the country. And that machine, the Receptacle, is our only chance to stop them.”

  “OK then,” Tanith said, “so we lure the possessed there, turn it on, the Remnants get sucked out of the bodies they’re in, and the problem’s over.”

  “As usual,” China said, “it’s a little more complicated than that. For one thing, we’re hardly going to be able to lure them back to the only place in the world where they know they can be hurt. They fell for it once, they’re not going to fall for it again. And for another thing, I’m fairly certain that nobody knows how to even turn this giant Soul Catcher on.”

  “Nobody alive,” Skulduggery agreed. “Gordon Edgley was the only person I knew who had that knowledge.”

  “I can find it,” Valkyrie said, stepping forward. “It’ll be in his study. He kept all his research there.”

  Skulduggery shook his head. “It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Fletcher can teleport me over, I’ll find out what we need to know, and we’ll be back in three minutes.”

  “We’ll all teleport over,” Skulduggery said.

  “Uh, I tend to find things quicker when I’m alone.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion.”

  “China’s right, though,” Ghastly said. “Activating the Receptacle is one thing, but how are we going to lead the possessed there?”

  Skulduggery looked at Fletcher. “How many people do you think you can teleport at one time?”

  “Uh,” said Fletcher. “Don’t know. Ten?”

  “You’re going to need to teleport a lot more than that. If we lure the possessed into one spot, if we have them all touching, or connected, maybe standing on the same surface, do you think you’d be able to teleport them to Kerry?”

  Fletcher stared. “Two thousand people? Two thousand evil people?”

  “Do you think you could do it?”

  “No. Not a chance.”

  “But it’s possible,” Skulduggery said. “I saw Cameron Light teleport a ballroom full of people halfway around the world without batting an eyelid.”

  “Well, that was Cameron Light,” said Fletcher. “I’ve only been doing this a few years. I still haven’t a clue what I’m doing half the time. Plus, I’ve never been to Kerry, and I can’t teleport somewhere I’ve never been.”

  “First things first. We need to know if we can turn it on. Fletcher, you’re going to teleport all eight of us to Gordon’s house.”

  Kenspeckle looked around. “What’s this? I’m going too?”

  “We have to stay together,” said Skulduggery.

  “But I don’t want to go,” Kenspeckle frowned. “I object to the very idea of teleportation.”

  “Sorry, Professor, I’m really not giving you a choice. We’ll only be there a minute.”

  “I want to teleport!” Clarabelle announced, smiling excitedly. “Will I change my shoes? I have wellington boots with cows on them.”

  “Your shoes are fine,” Skulduggery said. “Everyone step in and link arms. Fletcher?”

  Fletcher waited until everyone was linked, and the bright Medical Bay changed instantly into the darkening living room of Gordon Edgley’s house.

  “Ooh,” Kenspeckle murmured, “I don’t feel well.”

  “I’m going to be sick!” Clarabelle laughed.

  “Everyone stay here,” Valkyrie said. “I’ll take a look in his study.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said China.

  Skulduggery held up his hand. “There’s nothing up there that you can add to your collection, China. Valkyrie will be quicker alone.”

  China rolled her eyes. “You’re all so suspicious of me.” But she stayed where she was.

  Valkyrie turned on a few lights as she hurried to the stairs. It was late afternoon and already dark. She reached the landing and closed the door of Gordon’s study behind her. Moving quickly, she passed through into the hidden room, and pressed her finger to her lips as Gordon’s image shimmered up before her.

  He raised an eyebrow. “We have company?” he whispered.

  “They’re downstairs,” she whispered back. “Gordon, we have a serious problem. The Remnants are loose, and you’re the only one who knows how to activate that big Soul Catcher in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks.”

  “The Remnants are loose? What, all of them?”

  “It seems that way. Do you know how to activate it?”

  “The Receptacle? Yes, it’s fairly straightforward. All you need is the key, and I know where that is. How do you plan to lure them there?”

  “We’re still working on that. Skulduggery wants
Fletcher to teleport them over, but Fletcher says he can’t teleport that many people.”

  “Of course he can. You need to read Into Thin Air again. Not only is it one of my best books, full of danger and intrigue, and the winner of the Bram Stoker Award, a Hugo and a Nebula, but as research I conducted many interviews with Teleporters. There are quite a few chapters which could help Fletcher reach his potential.”

  “We don’t really have time to read, Gordon.”

  He shook his head sadly. “That’s the problem with the world today – no one takes the time to sit down with a good book.”

  “Actually, the problem with the world today is that the Remnants are loose and trying to kill everyone.”

  “I don’t know, I still say it’s that no one likes to read any more.”

  “Gordon, I need you to do me a favour.”

  “Anything.”

  Valkyrie hesitated. “I need you to talk to Skulduggery and the others.”

  “Anything but that.”

  “It’s time for you to make your grand return.”

  “No it’s not,” said Gordon.

  “We need you.”

  “I can tell you what you need to know, and you can tell them. Wouldn’t that be so much better? That way, you get to save the day.”

  “I’ve saved the day plenty, Gordon. We don’t have the time to do this our usual way – you know everything we need to know. Why are you afraid?”

  “Because I am not me, Valkyrie. I am not Gordon, no matter how much I pretend to be. I am little more than a recording.”

  “You think they’ll be disappointed?”

  “It’s not that, it’s… You treat me like you have always treated me, and I appreciate that. But to everyone else, to all my old friends, I will appear… diminished. And my ego, while furious and grand, could not take that kind of attack.”

  “You won’t help us because of your ego?”

  “My dear niece, a great portion of who I am is ego. Confidence bleeds to arrogance, and arrogance props me up when my limbs are too weak.”

  “Gordon, you have to do this. You have to make the sacrifice.”