Until the End, page 17
Skulduggery sighed. “Yes.”
“But … but …”
Skulduggery watched her struggle to absorb the information.
She got up. Walked in a circle. Stopped. “But that means that your father is the God of the Apocalypse.”
“Yes,” said Skulduggery.
“So that makes you a god.”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, it doesn’t.”
“What does it make you? What’s it called when there’s a …? Demi-god! That’s the thing! You’re a demi-god!”
“I’m not a demi-god,” Skulduggery said. “I’m not any kind of god. That’s not how gods work. Well, it might be how some gods work, but not this god. None of his children inherited any of his power.”
“But your dad …”
The air shimmered around him and he rose off the edge of the roof, turning as his feet touched down. “I know.”
“The God of the … Skulduggery, this is huge. This is amazing. This is cosmopolitan!”
“Do you mean cosmological?”
“I mean your father is an actual god!”
“Then you mean cosmological. Although, I suppose, you could also mean cosmopolitan.”
“And all the time we’ve known each other, you’re only telling me now?”
“We’ve only known each other for fourteen years.”
“That’s most of my life!”
“But not most of mine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“Because I didn’t want you to know.”
Valkyrie opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. “OK, that’s a pretty good reason. Am I ever going to meet any of your brothers or sisters?”
“You already have.”
“Really?”
“You’ve met one of my brothers, yes.”
“Who is he? Was it Ghastly?”
“You know it wasn’t Ghastly.”
“Oh, yeah. Do I know him well? Do I like him? Does he like me? What does he think of me? Does he think I’m nice?”
“I’m sure he thinks you’re wonderful.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“Valkyrie.”
“What?”
“Let’s get back to the subject.”
“What is the subject? I’ve completely forgotten how this conversation started. A lot has happened since then, you know? Certain things have come to light.” She narrowed her eyes, forced herself to focus. “OK,” she said. “So you chained up Abrogate – you chained up Gog Magog – and then you swapped him with a prisoner from the Dire Dimension. I’m assuming this prisoner is a pretty big deal, yeah? Like a serious threat? Oh, God – it’s not Quietus, is it?”
“It’s Quietus.”
“But I thought he was in charge! You said he was the Tyrant of Gaunt, a mass-murdering warlord!”
“And he was finally overthrown and replaced with a more democratic system of government,” Skulduggery said. “They didn’t want him over there because his loyal followers kept trying to free him, and we didn’t want Abrogate over here for the same reason, so we swapped.”
“And Quietus knows where the Void World is, but you don’t want to ask him because he’ll ask for something in return, right? He’ll ask to be released.”
“Which we won’t do.”
“Then he’ll ask for something else. He’ll ask … He’ll ask to be returned to the Dire Dimension. Which will mean Abrogate Raze comes back over here.”
“Correct.”
“I see your dilemma.”
“I’m glad.”
“We don’t have much of a choice, though, do we? We need the Void meteorite, or Obsidian’s going to find a way to kill me.”
“As you said,” Skulduggery replied, “a dilemma.”
Creed was working in the gardens behind the Dark Cathedral, pulling weeds from the dirt, when Valkyrie landed beside him. She told him what they needed. When she was done, he kept working, and took a moment to respond.
“We do not have many arrangements in place with the Dire Dimension,” he said at last. “Nobody does. The fact that they trusted us to hold the Tyrant of Gaunt in one of our prisons has been an important diplomatic bond between us – one that no other dimension can boast. You are certain this is the only course of action available?”
“Skulduggery reckons this is the one thing that would make Quietus tell us where the Void World is,” said Valkyrie.
Creed wiped the sweat from his heavy brow, and looked up. “These are surely desperate times if Skulduggery Pleasant is willing to accept Abrogate Raze back into our reality. Very well. At noon tomorrow, Quietus of Gaunt will be transferred to your custody, Valkyrie, to be sent home. Make sure you get what we need.”
Sebastian ran.
Behind him, there were cries and shouts and curses. He heard Raylan pleading with the other guards to let the prisoners go, and then a sharp yelp and no more from Raylan. Sebastian fought the urge to turn back and help, knowing it would do no good. The escape was a bust, ruined by three City Guard officers stumbling across them at the worst possible moment.
The other members of the Darquesse Society, not a seasoned fighter among them, had launched themselves at the cops to give Sebastian a chance to flee.
There was more at stake than their freedom, they knew. Sebastian had a mission to complete, and time was slipping away.
The door ahead, the one Raylan had told them to run to, the one he’d said would lead to the outside, opened before Sebastian got halfway there. A muscle-bound City Guard officer ambled through, eyes widening when he realised he wasn’t alone. Sebastian’s stomach flipped. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Bloody typical.
Running footsteps behind and Sebastian prepared himself to be tackled, but then Nuncle was sprinting past and charging into the cop. They went down in a tangle.
“Run, boy!” Nuncle shouted, his face sweaty with exertion. “Get away!”
Sebastian hesitated, then leaped over the tussling figures and ran out into the morning sun.
Alice snapped out two jabs and then spun, the heel of her foot coming up to smack into the exact centre of the pad. She continued the spin, settling back into the fighting stance, hands up and elbows in.
“Nice,” said Valkyrie, moving round. “Again.”
Valkyrie held up the pads and the jabs came in and then the spinning kick, with even more power than before.
“Again.”
Jabs. Spinning kick.
“Go nuts.”
Valkyrie started throwing the pads up at different heights and angles and Alice caught them perfectly each time, rattling out a combination of jabs and crosses and hooks and uppercuts, mixing it with straight and roundhouse kicks, spinning when necessary, and introducing elbows, knees and headbutts when the pads came close enough.
They moved all the way across the back garden and back again, and then Valkyrie broke away, laughing. “Oh my goodness.”
Alice grinned. “That was good?”
“That was brilliant. How are the Jiu-Jitsu classes going?”
She soured. “There’s a boy in the class and he always goes really tough on me. He’s way bigger and heavier and he never lets me try anything.”
“There’ll always be people like that,” Valkyrie told her, taking off the pads. “The best training partners are the kind who don’t punish you for attempting something new.”
“Dad says he probably likes me. He says all nine-year-old boys are like that.”
“What do you think?”
“I think that’s a stupid way of showing how much you like someone.”
“I’d agree. Do you like him back?”
“Ew, no. I don’t like anyone.” Alice frowned, then corrected herself. “I don’t like anyone in a boyfriend or girlfriend way. I like people in a friend way. But I don’t even like this boy in a friend way. His name’s Ethan and he likes action movies and I like action movies, but I don’t always go on about them. He talks about some movies and I know for a fact that he hasn’t seen them because when anyone asks him questions he never knows the answers, but he always pretends he’s seen them. And he smells of cheese-and-onion crisps. I like cheese-and-onion crisps, but I don’t want to always be smelling them.”
“But apart from that, Jiu-Jitsu is good?”
“Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.”
“Sorry. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is good?”
“It’s good. Although I don’t like it when my arms are trapped and I can’t move.”
Valkyrie winced. “Yeah. I’m the same.”
“Can you do the splits?”
“I can, actually,” said Valkyrie, quite used to these whiplash topic changes by now, “but not in these jeans. Can you?”
Alice dropped into the box splits and shrugged up at her. “Yeah.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“Thanks,” Alice said, springing back to her feet and doing a little dance.
“You’re a bundle of energy, aren’t you?” Valkyrie asked, unable to stop another laugh.
“I have my moments,” said Alice. “Did you hear what Dad did yesterday? Oh, God, it was so embarrassing. Wait till he tells you. Dad!”
Alice charged back into the house and Valkyrie followed. They found their parents in the kitchen, arguing.
“If you don’t want to go to golf,” Melissa said, “don’t go.”
“But I have to,” Desmond whined.
“You’re a grown man. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do when it comes to a hobby you don’t even like.”
“But all my friends are doing it.”
“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”
“I don’t know,” Desmond said, sitting heavily in a chair by the table. “If it looked cool, then probably.”
“Dad,” said Alice, “tell Stephanie about what you did.”
“Not this again,” he moaned.
Valkyrie grinned. “What did you do, Dad?”
He rolled his eyes. “We were sitting here yesterday morning, and we were talking about all the sorcerers and Cleavers who stand outside all day long, keeping watch, protecting us, and I thought that they might like a cup of tea. So I ran the idea past your mother, who told me no, don’t do anything nice for them.”
“I didn’t say that,” Melissa interrupted. “I just said that Stephanie had made it clear that we shouldn’t acknowledge them – that it would be too dangerous and also it would risk exposing them to the neighbours.”
“Anyway,” Desmond continued, “your mum went upstairs to have a shower, and I was left in the kitchen, with the kettle, and mugs, and a tray, so I thought that I’d just break the rules, just this one time. So I made five or six mugs of tea, got some chocolate-chip cookies, put them all on the tray, and walked out to the front gate.”
Melissa struggled to stop her smile from spreading. “Tell Steph what you said.”
He sighed. “I said, ‘I know I’m not supposed to do this, but I thought you might want a break.’”
“And who did you say this to?”
“Well, no one,” Desmond answered. “They were invisible, weren’t they? They had that invisible cloaking ball thing, hiding them from view.”
“I was out of the shower by this stage,” Melissa said, “and watching from the upstairs window as my adorable husband has a full-blown conversation with the gatepost, even though you’d specifically told us that none of our security detail would be stationed anywhere near the gate. I watched as the man I fell in love with spoke to thin air and held out his tray full of mugs to no one at all.”
“Oh, Dad,” said Valkyrie. “When did you realise there was no one there?”
“When no one took the tea.”
“And how long did that take?”
“A few minutes.”
“And, when no one answered immediately, did you not think you might have got this wrong?”
“I just thought they were really professional. Like those sentries with the fluffy hats outside Buckingham Palace, the ones who can’t react to tourists.”
“Oh, Dad,” she said again, and then her phone buzzed. “OK, I gotta go. Father, please try not to embarrass yourself while I’m away.”
“Absolutely no guarantees,” Desmond warned.
She gave him a hug, then pulled on her jacket and grabbed her helmet.
“I wish you wouldn’t ride that motorbike everywhere,” Melissa said as Valkyrie kissed her cheek. “It’s really dangerous.”
“Mum, it’s fine. It’s actually a lot safer than you’d think.”
Alice gave her a big hug. “Maybe one day I can ride on the back?”
“Not a chance,” said Valkyrie, kissing the top of her head. “It’s way too dangerous.”
Sunday-morning traffic was light, and she made it to Ironpoint Gaol a half-hour ahead of Skulduggery. She parked the bike and leaned against it.
Jagett was here already, standing in the sun, ignoring her. She thought about calling over to him, but decided against it.
The Phantom pulled up, and Skulduggery got out. An SUV followed behind, and Ragner clambered awkwardly out.
“How are you feeling about this?” Valkyrie asked Skulduggery as he came over.
“The level of sarcasm I could wield at this point would be considered a deadly weapon,” he told her, “so instead I shall answer with understated sincerity: I’m not feeling the best about this.”
Finally out of the car, Ragner joined them. “Greetings, Valkyrie,” he said, a worried smile on his face.
“Hey there,” she said. “How’s Eraddin?”
“Very good,” Ragner said. “He has much relief that the death threats were not a personal slight on his character. I am not so pleased with how things have turned out, but I have gladness in my heart that my friend is safe.”
“I take it you and your brother don’t get along?”
“We do not.” They watched Jagett, standing just out of earshot. “When we were five years old, he challenged me to a duel in the Arena of Blood. My father waived the usual rules and allowed it to proceed. Jagett failed to kill me that day; our father has never let him forget it, and my brother has never forgiven me for not dying. My family, Valkyrie, it is complicated.”
The doors to the gaol opened and the warden led a squad of Cleavers out. They carried a black coffin between them, made of some metal Valkyrie didn’t recognise. Large circles of sigils were carved into it, and criss-crossing the whole thing were black chains, similarly inscribed.
They set the coffin on to a horizontal metal lattice that had been set up earlier, and Jagett came over to watch as keys went into locks and sigils were deactivated and countered, glowed brightly and then faded. Chains slithered off.
The warden turned to them. “Are you sure about this, Arbiters?”
“Just open it,” growled Jagett.
Skulduggery nodded.
The Warden shook his head, then gave the order, and the Cleavers pulled the coffin open.
Quietus was bigger than his son. Tall and broad. Immense, was the word that popped into Valkyrie’s head. Massive chest, massive arms, legs that seemed impossibly thick. He had long hair, black and grey, like Jagett, and a beard and a wide face. He should have been sleeping – the coffin was designed to sedate its occupant into unconsciousness – but he was watching them the whole time.
“Quietus of Gaunt,” Skulduggery said, “you are to be transferred from our planet to your own, where you will live out the rest of your days in this coffin. This is the reward you will receive in exchange for one piece of information that you will furnish to us. Do you accept these terms?”
Quietus looked at him like he was contemplating whether or not to respond. Finally, he spoke in a voice that rumbled. “Where is my son?”
Jagett went down on one knee, his head bowed. “I’m here, Father, ready to do you—”
“Where,” said Quietus, “is my other son?”
Ragner hesitated, then stepped into his father’s view.
A grim smile rose to Quietus’s mouth. “The traitor,” he said. “The betrayer.”
“They need the dimensional frequency of the Void World,” Ragner said.
“And for this, I get to languish in my prison at home instead of languishing in my prison here? What difference should it make to me?”
“This universe is ending, Father,” said Jagett. “We must leave.”
Quietus sniffed the air. “Yes. The air is heavy with imminent destruction. Skeleton – you think the solution to your problem lies on the Void World? Then if I am your only hope, I would demand more from you. I would demand my freedom.”
“Demand away,” said Skulduggery. “You’ve heard the terms of the only deal you’re going to get.”
“Then I have nothing to say to you.”
Jagett got to his feet. “Father, you cannot stay here.” Quietus looked at him and Jagett wilted. “I mean to say … our universe needs your strength. It needs your leadership. Transferring you back to Gaunt is surely one step closer to—”
“Only I possess the information you need to save your entire universe, skeleton. If you can do without me, you may put me back where you found me.”
Skulduggery watched him. “Warden,” he said at last, “can I have a moment of privacy with the prisoner?”
“He’s all yours, Detective,” the Warden said, and the Cleavers followed him back to the gaol.
Skulduggery motioned for Valkyrie to stay where she was, and he walked up to Quietus and held his hands out. The air around them rippled, preventing their words from escaping.
“What is he doing?” Jagett asked.
“I have no idea,” said Valkyrie.
When they were done, Skulduggery dropped his hands and turned to them. “We’ve reached an agreement,” he said. “We’ll take custody of Abrogate Raze and return Quietus to the Dire Dimension. Before he goes through, Quietus will tell us where to find the Void World.”
Quietus’s face betrayed no emotion, but Valkyrie could sense how pleased he was.
“What did you say to him?” she asked.
Skulduggery tilted his head at her. “We negotiated.”
She didn’t press it. Didn’t ask what Skulduggery had promised him to get him to change his mind. Priorities, she reminded herself. Solve the immediate problems, then worry about the new ones.
