The Dying of the Light

by Derek Landy

  “Maybe. Remember, Foe and his friends are their own peculiar brand of nihilists. They want the world to perish, themselves along with it. When they turned up last night, they were allowed in to view Obloquy’s body, then they were forgotten about. They hung around until Stephanie’s body was wheeled in, and they grabbed it and disappeared. We’re trying to track them, but I don’t like our chances, not with a six-hour head start on us.”

  Socks. Socks. Where the hell were her socks? “So if they’re bringing Stephanie’s body to Darquesse, what is she going to do with it? Can she inhabit it?”

  “Unlikely,” said Skulduggery. “Leaving aside the fact that she’d be trying to possess a corpse, Stephanie wasn’t magical. She didn’t share your genes – she wasn’t descended from the Ancients. Even if, somehow, Darquesse managed to possess a dead body, Synecdoche estimates she’d burn it out within seconds. I don’t know what her plan is, but we’ll figure it out. There is one piece of good news, though. Creyfon Signate has found Mevolent’s dimension. If we hide Ravel over there, we can lure Darquesse in any time we want.”

  “Well, that’s just wonderful,” Valkyrie said, finding her socks. “Especially seeing as how we don’t have the Sceptre to use any more.”

  “Positive attitude, Valkyrie.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I’ll drive over now and help you with …”

  She paused, one sock on.

  “Valkyrie?”

  “I’ll be in Roarhaven as soon as I can,” she said, continuing to dress. “I just remembered something, and I want to check on it first.”

  “OK. Is the Sceptre stored away?”

  She sat on the bed, jammed the phone between her jaw and shoulder, and pulled on her boots. “Yeah. Sorry about that. The most powerful weapon in the world and the only one who can use it is my twenty-month-old sister.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Skulduggery said. “At least it hasn’t fallen into enemy hands. That’s the main thing. OK, I have to go. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  He hung up before Valkyrie could summon any indignation, and she finished dressing and hurried downstairs. She hopped in her car while munching an apple. Not the most satisfying breakfast ever, but it’d have to do. She drove to Gordon’s house.

  When she walked into the study, the Echo Stone lit up in its cradle on the table, and Gordon Edgley appeared before her. Sort of. The image was faded.

  Gordon frowned. “This is odd,” he said.

  Valkyrie tapped the stone, shifted it in its cradle, and the image became clearer.

  “Looks like I need a service,” Gordon said. “Hello, Stephanie. I hope you’re here to bring me news of my niece.”

  Valkyrie frowned. “What do you …?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, Gordon! I am so sorry! I didn’t come to see you! I didn’t explain!”

  “About what?”

  “It’s me. It’s Valkyrie.”

  Gordon’s frown deepened. “But … but Valkyrie became Darquesse …”

  “I’m me again! I’m so sorry, I didn’t get a chance to come and tell you.”

  A smile broke out across Gordon’s features. “My favourite niece has returned to me! Tuesdays were always my favourite days!”

  “It’s Thursday.”

  “Closely followed by Thursdays! Valkyrie, it’s so good to have you back! I bet there’s a tale needs telling …”

  “There is,” she said, “but we’re kind of pressed for time. Gordon, a lot has happened. Obviously. I’m back, Skulduggery’s fine, the Sceptre is at my house and it’s bonded to Alice, but that’s another story entirely, and Darquesse is … she’s an untethered entity.”

  “Things have been happening.”

  “And Stephanie is … dead.”

  “Oh,” said Gordon. “Oh, that’s inconvenient.”

  “It’s a little more than inconvenient, Gordon. She … she was a person. And she’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gordon. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. But keep in mind that she did try to kill you.”

  “I remember.”

  “And she did kill poor Carol.”

  “I remember that, too. But all she wanted was a family. All she wanted was to be normal. And now she’s dead and I … don’t really know how to feel.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “Yes, actually. She was … I liked her. She had a thing with Fletcher – as weird as that sounds. She liked him, he liked her …”

  “That must have been very confusing for him,” said Gordon.

  “I’d say so. She was building up her own life. She had a boyfriend, for God’s sake. Yes, it was my ex, but it still counts.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Darquesse.”

  “Oh.”

  “And now the body’s gone. We think Darquesse has it.”

  “Well, that won’t last …” Gordon’s voice faded and his image flickered.

  Valkyrie tapped the stone again. “Hey. Gordon, hey, I can’t hear you.”

  The image steadied. Gordon blinked. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, good. Now what was I saying? Oh, of course. The body won’t last long. An entity of Darquesse’s power can only survive in her original form – in this case, you. She’ll burn out any temporary vessel within—”

  “I know all that,” said Valkyrie. “I don’t think she’s taken possession of Stephanie yet, though. She had someone else steal the body.”

  “Huh,” said Gordon. “Do you know why?”

  Valkyrie hesitated. “I’m wondering if, before she hops into Stephanie, she’s going to try to do something to make sure she can possess her without burning her out.”

  “Do you have any idea what that might be?”

  “When I was Darquesse, I spent a lot of time collecting information on how magic works. I can’t remember most of it, and the stuff I do remember I don’t understand any more. But I remember some things. Like a story about a pool in the caves below us, where ordinary weapons were turned into God-Killers.”

  Gordon nodded. “Yes, the Source Fountain, as it’s called. Anathem Mire mentioned it in the journals he kept when he went exploring.”

  “Did he find this fountain?”

  “He did indeed. Fascinating properties, that water, turning ordinary objects into magical items. Simply fascinating.”

  Valkyrie looked at him. It took him a moment. Then his eyes widened.

  “Oh, my! You think Darquesse is going to put Stephanie’s body in the fountain!”

  “Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t that work? It’d be like marinating the body in magical juices, right? And when it’s done marinating, she takes it out and this non-magical body is suddenly capable of absorbing whatever magic is poured into it. That’s how the fountain works, yeah? How long would it take? To marinate?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gordon. “Hours, certainly.”

  “Darquesse has already had it for hours.”

  Gordon flickered, but his voice remained strong. “Then we have no time to waste. Whoever took the body will still have had to get it down there, past all those horribly nasty creatures. If we’re lucky, that’s delayed them. If we’re really lucky, it’s killed them. I suppose we’ll soon find out.”

  “We?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Gordon, putting his hands on his hips. “You really think I’m letting you go down there without me? I’ve read Anathem Mire’s journals from cover to cover. I know his maps, I know his notes, I know every short cut and every dead end off by heart. You’re taking me down there, young lady, and I will brook no argument.”

  Valkyrie raised her eyebrows. “Fair enough.”

  “Excellent. So what do we do now?”

  “I’m going to call Skulduggery.”

  “Splendid. I shall continue to stand here with my hands on my hips. Hurry along now. We have heroics to undertake.”

  38

  ENEMY TERRITORY

  here is a soft click, and the wall across the room op
ens up, and Stephanie peeks out.

  A door. A hidden door. A panic room. She’s had a panic room installed.

  Xena pokes her head out, sniffs the air and growls, and Stephanie hurries forward, her finger to her lips. Xena pads after her, tail wagging with suppressed ferocity, hackles raised. Stephanie crouches at Danny’s feet, fingers digging into the knotted rope. As she works, Danny can hear Gant and Jeremiah talking. Gant is telling Jeremiah to wash the blood off the tyre iron.

  Stephanie hisses a curse. She can’t get the knot untied. Instead, she rises, pulls at the rope around Danny’s throat. It loosens instantly, and Stephanie hauls him to his feet, spins him in place. He falls backwards into her arms, and she starts pulling him towards the panic room, his heels dragging along the floorboards. They are halfway there when they hear the footsteps coming back.

  Danny glances over his shoulder at the room. Too far. They’ll never make it. Before he can whisper at Stephanie to drop him, she drops him. He falls heavily, jarring his injured arm, hears Stephanie whisper an order to Xena. The dog runs into the panic room, spins and waits for Stephanie to join her. Instead, Stephanie ducks behind the sofa, aims a fob at the panic room and the hidden door swings closed just as Cadaverous Gant walks in.

  Danny stops squirming. Gant looks down at him, frowning slightly.

  “Danny my boy,” says Gant, “how am I ever supposed to trust you if, the moment I leave the room, you try to effect an escape, however ill-judged and badly executed it may be? What does that say about you, Danny? Does that say you cannot be trusted? I fear it might.” Gant picked him up off the floor with easy strength. “Now please, return to your seat.”

  There is nothing Danny can say or do, and so he hops back to the sofa on his good leg, and sits. He has no way of telling if Stephanie is still hiding behind it.

  Jeremiah enters, laying the tyre iron on a side table, and finishes drying his hands on a dishcloth. “Do you think she knows we’re here yet?”

  Gant goes to the window, looks out. “She knows. She’s watching us right now. I can feel it.”

  “Then we should string Danny up outside,” Jeremiah says. “Cut him a little. Let him bleed out. She’ll have to come save him, won’t she?”

  “Will she?” Gant says. “What do we know of this girl, Jeremiah my old friend? The bare minimum, that’s what. We have been unable to undertake our usual copious amounts of research and, as a result, we are at a distinct disadvantage. She might be walking away right this very moment, leaving the poor unfortunate Danny in the hands of two highly irritable killers.”

  “Should we go?” Jeremiah asks. “How about we kill Danny and leave him here for her to find? She’ll think we’ve given up, killed him in frustration, and she’ll come back and we’ll grab her and kill her.”

  “A sound plan,” Gant says, nodding, “and in normal circumstances, it might stand a chance of working. But something tells me Stephanie Edgley is not a girl to be taken in so easily. What were we told about her?”

  “She’s resourceful,” Jeremiah says, almost grudgingly. “She is not to be underestimated.”

  “Indeed,” says Gant. “We’ve done very well so far, Jeremiah. She was impossible to find and yet we found her. We are standing in her house. We have forced her to hide. These are things we should be proud of. But we cannot afford to be overconfident. Overconfidence is a killer. If she knows we are here, she may very well be gone already. If she intends to save Danny, however, she is unlikely to be caught out by any of our usual ruses.”

  “So what do we do?” Jeremiah asks.

  Gant is silent for a moment. “We currently stand in enemy territory, Jeremiah. This is her house and, as we both know, one’s house is one’s domain. She knows it well. We don’t know it at all. There may be two of us, but here she has the advantage. We need to take that away from her. Put Danny in the car.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Gant turns to him. “Home, Jeremiah. If she wants to save him, she’ll have to follow us.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “We kill him, and start looking for her all over again. Put Danny in the car, there’s a good lad.”

  Gant walks out, and Jeremiah kneels down to untie Danny’s feet. When he’s done, he attaches the piece of rope to Danny’s bound wrists and uses it to pull him off the sofa. Then he walks out, tugging Danny along behind him.

  Danny glances back and sees Stephanie, still crouched behind the sofa. Her face is tight, tense but expressionless. He catches her eye, but she doesn’t move as Jeremiah yanks on the rope, tugging him from the room. Danny stumbles on his injured leg and Jeremiah walks on, not giving a damn if Danny falls and has to be dragged out. He manages to stay on his feet, however, and a moment later he’s limping out into cold air and snow.

  Jeremiah goes to the back of the Cadillac, opens the trunk. Danny gets his good leg under him and charges, aiming to ram him with his shoulder and hobble on, but Jeremiah steps out of the way and Danny slips and falls, coughs out a gurgle as the taut rope cuts off his air.

  “Don’t misbehave,” says Jeremiah, looping the rope round his hand. “You really don’t have much of a chance of emerging from all this alive, not if I’m being honest, but you’ll live longer if you’re good. Now hop in.”

  Jeremiah pulls on the rope and Danny is jerked to his feet. Standing, the pressure on his windpipe is lessened. He looks into the trunk.

  “I don’t have to get in there,” he says. “I’ll behave. I’ll be good.”

  “In,” says Jeremiah.

  “I’ll freeze.”

  “It’s more comfortable than it looks. In.”

  “Jeremiah, please, you can let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

  “Me and Mr Gant are driving away,” says Jeremiah. “You can either climb in the trunk right now without any more complaints, or I’ll tie this rope to the tow bar and we’ll drag you behind us the whole way home. It’s a long way, Danny. You’re gonna be a red smear on the road before we get fifty miles. Up to you.”

  Danny climbs in.

  39

  FINDING THE FOUNTAIN

  alkyrie led the way down the stone stairs, her torchlight pushing back the gloom with every step, Skulduggery behind her and Gordon drifting through solid objects with barely concealed delight. Cold down here. The ground flattened as much as it was able and they walked quietly through a tunnel carved into the rock, till the walls around them vanished and the ceiling disappeared and they emerged into the first of many caverns. Slivers of captured sunlight criss-crossed its length and breadth and Valkyrie put away her torch so that she could grip the tranquilliser gun with both hands. She liked the tranq gun. Skulduggery held its long-barrelled twin. He liked to keep them as a set.

  Unspeaking, they took the tunnel to their right, walked on through patches of darkness and light. Around them, the skittering of tiny legs, of sharp claws on stone. The tunnel got narrower. The first hints of claustrophobia crowded at the edges of Valkyrie’s mind. The first time she’d come down into these caves, they had been searching for the Sceptre of the Ancients. The second time, she’d been held captive by what was left of Anathem Mire. Her last trip down here had not been any happier. The memory of being dragged into a tightening hole, too narrow to even move her arms, slipped by her defences and she took a shallow breath. Then she caught herself, made her heart turn to steel, and she pushed the fear away from her. If Skulduggery noticed the slight hesitation in her step, he didn’t say anything.

  Something brushed by her foot and she jumped back, clenching her jaw to stifle the scream. There was more skittering now, these little creatures drawn to the magic that held Skulduggery together. Valkyrie forced herself onwards, swinging her feet to kick them out of her way. Her boot connected solidly with some living thing of bloated but yielding mass, then another that was made of sturdier stuff, and the others seemed to get the message – stay out of the way of the girl in black.

  They went over a bridge that crossed a c
hasm, out of which belched steam and cold winds that tossed Valkyrie’s hair and threatened to snatch her off the edge. Then they took a tunnel as wide and tall as a chapel but as long as a racetrack. The ground got slippery. Somewhere, the sound of running water, all gurgles and rush.

  They got to another bridge, a narrower one, and Skulduggery stopped, his hand out, reading the air.

  “Just once,” he said, “I’d have liked things to have gone without a hitch.”

  On the other side, a creature emerged from the shadows.

  The size of a small tiger, its grey and black fur was short and fine, and grew up around the protrusions of bones at its joints and around its skull.

  “Mire had a name for these things,” Gordon whispered. “He called them Phalanx Tigers. They were responsible for the death of more than one expedition member.”

  “Well, maybe this one’s friendly,” Skulduggery muttered.

  The tiger padded slowly across the bridge, and Skulduggery went to meet it.

  “Easy, girl,” Valkyrie heard him say as he raised his gun. “Just stay very still …”

  The tranq gun whispered just as the tiger growled, and the dart bounced off its rows of teeth. Its multiple rows of teeth.

  Its jaws opened in two directions. Its mouth was vast. The teeth looked sharp, and they were everywhere. It leaped at Skulduggery and he dodged, barely. The tiger landed and spun without pause, and Skulduggery took off, lifted into the air. But the tiger jumped, collided with him and they went down. Those jaws closed over his forearm and Skulduggery yelled in pain. He used the air to roll himself sideways, took the tiger with him, and they rolled off the edge of the bridge and fell.

  They dropped into the chasm. On the way down, the tiger released Skulduggery’s arm.

  The tiger continued to fall, as Skulduggery swooped up and landed beside Valkyrie.

  She glared at him. “You let it fall.”

  He held up his torn sleeve. “It bit me.”

  “It was a tiger. You don’t let tigers fall. They’re endangered.”

  “Up there, yes,” he said. “Down here, no. You also seem to be forgetting the fact that it bit me.”