Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole

by Derek Landy

  Skulduggery clicked the chamber back into place. “No running. Not any more. I’m going to stand and fight.”

  “So what is your connection? Why do you fear him? What power does he have over you?”

  Skulduggery raised the gun and thumbed back the hammer.

  Slowly, Tesseract brought his hands up to the straps around his head, his numb fingers clumsily unbuckling the mask. Finally, it came free, and he let if fall, felt the air on his ravaged face. It felt so good. He felt like laughing.

  “A dying man’s last request,” he said. “Answer me this. You were killed, yet you came back. Do you know how it happened? Do you know who would be powerful enough to hold back death, true death? Was it Necromancy that brought you back, Skulduggery? Was it Lord Vile?”

  Skulduggery’s gloved finger tightened on the trigger, but before the gun fired Tesseract’s legs gave way beneath him once again. He stumbled to the wall, hit it with his shoulder and slid down to the floor. There was no pain, which was nice, because he could feel the rot spreading over his head. When he looked up, Skulduggery was putting his gun away.

  “Not going to kill me?” he asked.

  “Waste of a bullet.”

  “I realise I have no right to ask this, but would you help me outside? It’s almost dawn, and I would like to feel the sun on my face.”

  Skulduggery tilted his head slightly. Then he came forward, stooped to wrap Tesseract’s left arm around his neck, and straightened up, lifting Tesseract out of a pool of his own blood.

  “The problem with living so long,” Tesseract said, as Skulduggery walked him to the door, “is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay… but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think.”

  “You’re quite chatty now that I’ve got to know you,” Skulduggery said.

  “I have a cat, you know. Back home.”

  “I know. You had cat hair on your lapel the day you killed Davina Marr.”

  “You don’t miss much, do you? She doesn’t have a name. She is just Cat. She curls up on my chest whenever I sit down, and goes to sleep. I hope she doesn’t miss me. I’m going to miss her.”

  They emerged into the cold air of the morning. Dawn had yet to break. Skulduggery found a bench and he let Tesseract sit, facing the stagnant lake, and beyond it, the horizon. Then he sat beside him.

  “Is there anything you regret?” Skulduggery asked.

  “I regret being mortally wounded just a few minutes ago.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Apart from that, no. I lived. I killed. My life is my own.”

  The rot was seeping through Tesseract’s body. He turned his hand over, but it was probably a good thing he couldn’t see much in this dim light. He felt the flesh bubble, like he was being boiled from the inside out. It was an effort to look up again.

  “What about you?” he asked, his words not much more than a mumble. “Regrets?”

  “Many,” Skulduggery said.

  Tesseract’s breath rattled in his chest. “That’s the good thing about living. You get to make up for past mistakes.”

  “Or make brand-new ones.”

  Tesseract tried to smile, but didn’t have the strength for it. His head dipped, and Skulduggery reached out to steady him. The sun cracked the horizon, split it with light that spilled through the sky in streaks of orange and deep red.

  Also by Derek Landy:

  Skulduggery

  Pleasant

  Skulduggery

  Pleasant

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  Skulduggery

  Pleasant

  THE FACELESS ONES

  Skulduggery

  Pleasant

  DARK DAYS

  Copyright

  First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  Visit us on the web at www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Skulduggery Pleasant rests his weary bones on the web at www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk

  Derek Landy blogs under duress at www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

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  Copyright © Derek Landy 2010

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  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-41435-2

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  Illuminated letters © Tom Percival 2010

  Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy

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  ISBN 978-0-00-732598-6

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  Table of Contents

  48PLAN FALLS APART

  Cover

  Title Page

  1 - WREATH’S TASK

  2 - THE SMILING DETECTIVE

  3 - TESSERACT

  4 - GRANDER SCALES

  5 - VALKYRIE’S DILEMMA

  6 - THE NEW MESSIAH

  7 - BLOOD

  8 - THE ZOMBIE KING

  9 - THE NEW GRAND MAGE

  10 - THE BONEBREAKER

  11 - THE ROARHAVEN MAGES

  12 - KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE

  13 - SUFFERING

  14 - DEAD MEN

  15 - THE BANSHEE

  16 - THE INTERROGATION OF DAVINA MARR

  17 - THE JOB

  18 - LICKING WOUNDS

  19 - CHRISTMAS MORNING AT THE MIDNIGHT HOTEL

  20 - ’TIS THE SEASON

  21 - NYE

  22 - SOUL SEARCHING

  23 - THE GRAVE

  24 - THE DEAD GIRL

  25 - DIRT

  26 - THE TRUTH

  27 - BACK WITH FINBAR

  28 - THE Z-WORD

  29 - HER GUARDIAN ANGEL

  30 - MEET THE PARENTS

  31 - THE FIRST WAVE

  32 - SHENANIGANS

  33 - THE TWINS

  34 - REMNANTS UNLEASHED

  35 - SCRUTINOUS

  36 - QUIET, PLEASE

  37 - ENEMY HANDS

  38 - FIGHTING

  39 - MURIEL

  40 - THE PLAN

  41 - THE HEAD IN THE BOX

  42 - THE LESSON BEGINS

  43 - BY THE SWORD

  44 - SIEGE AT THE HIBERNIAN

  45 - FRIGHTENING

 
46 - ACCORDING TO PLAN

  47 - STRANGE BEDFELLOWS