Until the End, page 18
Ragner and Jagett arranged a dozen small metal triangles on the ground in a circle. Once they were in place, the triangles started to vibrate. The space between them shimmered and a ribbon of energy, deep blue like the sea, flowed to each one, connecting them and expanding to fill the circle. Simultaneously, another circle appeared beside it.
The brothers wheeled the lattice into the space between the metal triangles, then stepped away.
“Skeleton,” Quietus said, “come here and I will tell you how to get to the Void World.”
Skulduggery hesitated, then walked into the circle. He leaned close and Quietus spoke to him, and Skulduggery nodded. He moved back and closed the coffin lid, sealing it, then stepped out of the circle.
When he was clear, the triangles lifted off the ground, swallowing the coffin. At the same time, the other circle also lifted, revealing an identical coffin, still wrapped in chains. Ragner and Jagett carried this coffin to the lattice, resting it upon the struts. No one made a move to open it.
“Did you get what we need?” Valkyrie asked Skulduggery. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Skulduggery?”
He looked away from the coffin, and tilted his head at her. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
“Are you OK?”
“Not especially.”
He went quiet again, so Valkyrie looked over at Jagett.
“You have twenty-four hours to leave this world,” she told him. “You’re here illegally, but Supreme Mage Creed will allow you a one-day grace period. After that, we will hunt you down and turn you over to the Gaunt authorities.”
Jagett smiled. “You fret for no reason. I will be walking upon my home soil before nightfall. Today is a good day for the future of the Dire Dimension.”
“I foresee very little will change,” Ragner said. “Our father may have been returned home, but he is still imprisoned, and he will remain so.”
“Until someone lets him out, my brother. Rest assured, our father will rule Gaunt once again and this will not be good news for some of us.”
Jagett pressed a sigil on his belt and he vanished.
“Huh,” said Valkyrie. “Can we get one of those?”
“It is not that impressive,” Ragner said dismissively. “What is really awesome, however, is a fully electric Sports Utility Vehicle with heated steering wheel to keep your hands warm. A mode of transport that is both cosy and impressive.”
“I think I’d rather have a belt teleporter.”
Ragner shook his head sadly, and looked at Skulduggery. “I am hoping all this was not a mistake that will cost lives.”
Skulduggery didn’t say anything as Ragner got in his SUV and drove off.
Valkyrie looked at the new coffin, then at Skulduggery. “That’s your dad, then?”
“That is he.”
“You gonna open it, say hi?”
“No.”
She nodded. A moment passed. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling. Like, the rage alone must be tearing you apart. The hatred. If it were me, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. I think I’d be screaming and kicking the coffin and setting it on fire or something. You must be going through a hell of a lot right now.”
“I am,” said Skulduggery. “Thankfully, I have you to keep my mind off it.”
“Ah,” said Valkyrie. “Sorry. So what’re you going to do with him?”
“We’ll secrete him away where no one will ever find him.”
“We as in you and me?”
Skulduggery shook his head. “We as in me and my siblings.”
She realised he was looking up and she followed his gaze as six figures drifted out of the clouds and began to descend.
They flew just like Skulduggery tended to – standing upright, as if they’d just stepped out of a restaurant and were waiting for the car to be brought round.
“The one in the middle is Carver Gallant,” Skulduggery said, referring to the handsome but serious man with the blond hair and the nice suit. To his right was a dark-haired woman in jeans and a long coat, and beside her a petite blonde who looked no older than Valkyrie herself.
“Then you’ve got Confelicity Divine and Apricity Delight. You already know Uther, of course.” Uther Peccant, the old, grouchy teacher from Corrival Academy.
“That’s your brother?” Valkyrie said. “I’ve met him, like, a hundred times. Why did you never mention it?”
“You’ve met him a maximum of four times,” said Skulduggery, “and we’ve always had other things to talk about. The gent in the colourful waistcoat is Fransic Catawampus, and the one on the end is Bayard Muchly.”
Fransic touched down beside the others and shook his head, like he’d been daydreaming about other things the whole time. Bayard was a stupidly gorgeous man who looked immediately bored.
“Valkyrie,” Carver said, shaking her hand, “it’s very good to meet you.”
“You can all fly,” Valkyrie said, which wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to say, but it was out now, so she figured it best to just go with it. “But you’re not all Elementals.”
“We are, actually,” Confelicity said, “but we’re other things as well.”
“Being magically ambidextrous runs in the family,” said Skulduggery. “Though I’m a little behind when it comes to mastering other techniques.”
“On account of the effort it took to keep himself in one piece after he died,” Apricity said, stepping up to wrap Valkyrie in a hug. “Hi there. I’ve read so much about you, it’s like I’m meeting a celebrity.”
“Uh, thank you.”
“A celebrity that nobody likes and people still blame for the unthinking murder of thousands of people.”
“That’s me.”
Apricity grinned. “I like you. We’re going to be best friends.”
“No, you’re not,” said Skulduggery. “After we do this, we’re all going to go our separate ways, like we always do.”
“We don’t go our separate ways,” Bayard said. “You go your separate way, and the rest of us hang out together.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “You do?”
“You know we do,” said Confelicity. “I told you we do. I invited you to come along. You said you were busy.”
“I am busy an awful lot. What do you do when you hang out together?”
“We each have our preoccupations. Some of us solve problems. Play chess.”
“Try to track down our errant siblings,” Fransic said, his voice quiet and his smile small.
“And how is that going?”
“Haven’t found them yet.”
“That’s surprising.”
“Is it?” Fransic asked. “They are frightfully intelligent people.”
“So are you.”
“No, we are terribly intelligent people. They are frightfully intelligent. It’s a completely different kind of intelligence.”
Skulduggery nodded. “Good point. Uther, you’re glaring at me rather pointedly.”
“That’s how I always look at you,” Peccant said.
“Hi,” said Valkyrie. “Before, when we’d meet, I didn’t know you were his brother. So … hi.”
“Miss Cain,” he said, and that seemed to be the end of it.
“Apologies for the change of topic,” Bayard said, “but can we now discuss the fact that our beloved father is lying in a coffin before us when we all promised each other that he would never again return to this dimension?”
“Circumstances have changed,” Skulduggery said.
“Circumstances tend to do that. It’s why promises matter.”
“They’ve changed in what way?” Carver asked.
“I assume you’ve been keeping up with current events?” Skulduggery asked.
“Naturally.”
“The being known as Obsidian poses a direct threat to this universe. A means of containing and/or defeating him lies on the Void World. We needed to take Abrogate back in order to learn the location of the Void World. It was a simple exchange.”
“He’s the God of the Apocalypse.”
“I am aware.”
“He killed our mother,” Bayard said.
“I’m aware of that, too.”
“But you weren’t there,” said Apricity. “You weren’t there to watch it happen. You don’t have those memories.”
“Accepting Abrogate’s return was the only way we were going to learn the frequency of the Void World.”
“You should have consulted us,” said Carver.
“I did consult you.”
“No, you alerted us, after you’d made your decision. You didn’t consult us because you knew we’d object. You knew we’d have sought another way to gain that information. But you didn’t want to wait.”
“I couldn’t afford to wait,” Skulduggery said.
“And you wonder why we’re angry with you?”
“Not at all,” said Skulduggery. “I know exactly why you’re angry with me. I always have.”
Bayard scowled at Fransic. “Are you going to say anything?”
“I have said something,” Fransic responded.
“Are you going to say anything else?”
Fransic sighed, and looked at Skulduggery. “Please understand that I was perfectly happy to keep relatively quiet.”
Skulduggery gave a gentle nod. “Of course.”
“You have a problem, Skulduggery,” said Fransic. “You are a terrifyingly intelligent man, but you think you are smarter than all of us, that you alone can see all the angles. You think you know best.”
Confelicity smiled apologetically at Valkyrie. “I’m sorry, but I think we need to talk to our brother alone. Family business. I hope you understand.”
“Of course,” Valkyrie said. “I’ve got to report back to Creed anyway. Skulduggery?”
Skulduggery took out his phone, tapped at the screen for a few seconds, then put the phone away. “The co-ordinates,” he said.
Valkyrie’s own phone buzzed in her pocket and she nodded to him, then nodded to the others. “Nice meeting you all.”
In return, she got a range of smiles, nods and, from Peccant, indifference, and then she got on her bike and slipped on her helmet.
When she got back to Roarhaven, she hopped the kerb, slowly passed the bewildered guards, and parked at the door to the Dark Cathedral. As she took the elevator up, she transferred the co-ordinates from her phone to a piece of paper, because Creed was boringly old-school. He was in his office alone, still hunched over the Nexus Helmet, his thick fingers making surprisingly nimble adjustments to the headset.
“Got them,” she said, tossing the paper on to the desk. He barely glanced at it before returning his attention to his work.
“This is good news,” he said. “Good news, indeed. I’ll have a Shunter open a portal and send a team of our best people and, finally, we’ll have something to hold Obsidian.”
“Yeah,” Valkyrie said, and frowned. “Sorry, what’s this about sending a team?”
“Our best team, of our best people.”
“See, that’s what I thought you meant. The thing is, Skulduggery and I, we pretty much do this sort of thing ourselves, you know? We don’t, like, pass it off for someone else to handle.”
“I completely understand,” said Creed, putting aside his work and looking up at her, “but I’m afraid there is no other choice. I don’t trust the skeleton, and you’re too valuable to risk sending to another reality. What if you’re trapped there? What will then happen to the Faceless Ones that are currently held inside you if you’re unable to return? No, no, I’m afraid I must insist that you stay home.”
Valkyrie watched him. “Yeah,” she said, even slower than before. “It’s just, that’s not how we do things.”
He sighed, and stood, and spoke to her like she was a child. “Valkyrie, we don’t know how dangerous the Void World will be.”
She stifled a sudden blast of anger. “It’s the Void World. There’s nothing there.”
“We don’t know that – but, even if it’s true, we don’t know what the environment will be like. What if there’s no oxygen? No atmosphere? What if the ground is made of lava?”
“Then sending me and Skulduggery would be your smartest move. My suit supplies me with oxygen, and he doesn’t need to breathe. Plus, we can both fly. Can your best people fly?”
“Two of them can, yes. I understand that you want to go and I understand that you’re used to getting your own way. But you have a responsibility now. There is an untold number of Faceless Ones waiting to pass through you into this world. You are the Child and the Mother. Your place is here. You see that, don’t you?”
“Damocles, I’m going to say this once: you ever talk to me again like you’re talking to me right now, and I will break your jaw. You get me?”
“Have I done something to offend you?”
Her anger flared and lightning hit the walls, sparking off the chains, before she forced it down and smiled. “That was my only warning.”
“I thought we were allies.”
“And I respect you as such. But you either return the favour or I’ll be doing this alone.”
“I see,” said Creed. “I have offended you, in whatever fashion, and I’m truly sorry. But it is my fervent opinion that you should not be part of the expedition to the Void World. It is simply too dangerous.”
When Valkyrie left his office, her fists were clenched. A priest came up to say something with a smile on his face, but he backed off when he saw her expression. She called Skulduggery.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Driving back. You sound annoyed.”
“I am annoyed. Creed won’t let us go to the Void World.”
There was a moment of amused silence. “He won’t let us?”
“He said he doesn’t want me doing anything risky.”
“Has he met you?”
“He’s going to send a team instead.”
“It’s adorable that he thinks we’ll do what he tells us.”
Valkyrie grinned. “Finally – someone speaking sense.”
“They’re not going to shunt, are they?”
“No. His Shunters are afraid they’ll just be shunting into, like, a world of instant death or something.”
“So they’re going to reprogramme one of the portal devices,” Skulduggery said.
“Why do I bother calling to tell you things that you’ve already figured out yourself?”
“I sincerely don’t know. They’ll need time to adapt the device, so keep an eye on them and, when they move, we’ll move.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“In the meantime, to take our respective minds off our respective troubles, I thought we might search Serpine’s place of residence, to try to solve at least one of our little mysteries. Shall I meet you there?”
Another grin. “Oh, I rather think you shall.”
The house was tidy. There were no ornaments and no pictures. The cupboard had one dinner plate, one side plate, one cup and one saucer. A knife, fork and spoon were all that rattled in the cutlery drawer. The fridge was empty save for milk and cheese. There was a tiny cactus on the windowsill.
“Wow,” said Valkyrie, “it looks like a serial killer lives here.”
“Are you surprised?” Skulduggery asked, leading the way up the stairs.
“Kinda, yeah. Serpine has more personality than … this.”
They entered the bedroom. The bed was perfectly made. Among the clothes in the wardrobe was the grey suit. There was nothing else of note.
“So many clues,” Valkyrie said, then raised her eyebrows at Skulduggery. “So, that was your family, huh?”
“Minus our three more murderous siblings who are still out there, plotting murderous plots, yes.”
“They seem nice. Bayard is hot.”
“So he tells me.”
“Are they all as smart as you?”
“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “They’d need to try to kill me before I could make a reasonably accurate judgement on that issue.”
“Is that likely to happen?”
“Any time soon? Probably not.”
They went downstairs.
“It must have been nice when they came back,” she said. “I mean, for all this time you’ve been alone, and then suddenly you have your brothers and sisters again.”
“I wasn’t alone,” Skulduggery said. “I had you.” He turned on the basement light and then led the way down, and Valkyrie watched him for a moment without moving. He turned on the steps and looked up. “Are you coming?”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, cool,” she said as gruffly as she could manage, and followed him.
On the shelf against one breeze-block wall there was a jar with a lump of flesh floating in a murky solution the colour of urine.
“Ah,” said Valkyrie, poking at the glass to make the lump of flesh move. “He kept it.”
“Your first attempt at a new hand?”
She nodded. “I needed a few goes before I got it right. It’s relatively easy to regrow a limb for myself, but regrowing it for other people is actually sort of tricky. We had four failed attempts before I got it right.”
“And after every failed attempt?” Skulduggery asked, peering into another jar on another shelf.
“We had to chop it off.”
“So he’s been complaining about me letting his hand get cut off once, and not complaining about you chopping his hand off four times?”
“I’m cuter than you. Also, I was doing it to help.”
“There are three jars.”
“Sorry?”
“Four failed attempts, four chopped-off hands … only three jars.”
Valkyrie joined him, looking around. “Huh,” she said.
The first attempt had resulted in the lump of flesh. The second was a hand that was all thumbs. The third had eight fingers and two thumbs.
“The last is missing,” she said.
“What went wrong with that one?” Skulduggery asked, conducting a search of the rest of the basement. There wasn’t much down there, though, so it didn’t take too long.
