Until the End, page 49
How pointless. How frivolous. How unlike her.
“Right then,” she muttered.
She slammed her fist on to the sigil she’d just carved into the wall and it lit up and, one by one, all the other sigils lit up after it. The sigil she had yet to carve, the bridge that would have connected the disparate elements of her shield, she dismissed from her mind. There was no time left to think about opportunities missed.
The bomb went off.
It flashed, and the sigils formed a shield around it, a single column of bright blue energy that sizzled in its doomed efforts to contain the blast. China tapped her palms and stepped forward. Just as the shield was about to falter, she pressed her hands to it.
Her body locked suddenly into position. Her teeth clenched. Her lips pulled back. Her eyes went wide and started streaming water. The energy played with her hair like electricity. All the sigils on her body faded up on her skin until she was covered in beautiful, gentle, lethal tattoos.
The energy from the blast sucked at the shield and China did her best to reinforce it, to hold it together with her own magic. Despite her efforts, the blast continued to creep outwards.
It latched on to her.
There was a sound, like a wounded animal, and China realised she was screaming.
Drawing on the very last dregs of her strength, she focused on narrowing the column. The blast energy thrashed. She felt it pulling her life away from her. She watched her hands – her perfect, long-fingered hands – start to wrinkle. Start to shrivel. She listened to her bones weaken and creak. Her strength washed from her like a wave retreating from the beach.
The column narrowed again, and again, and it contained the blast energy and then extinguished it, and the sigils stopped glowing and China fell to her knees.
“I’m an idiot,” said Omen, his back to the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest.
“You’re not an idiot,” said Crepuscular.
“I believed you when you said we were friends. I believed you when you said you weren’t doing this to prove a point. I was on your side. I helped you. What an absolute idiot I was.”
“Omen – I am sorry that I manipulated you. I needed you onside, but I didn’t enjoy that aspect of it. You’re a good kid. You’re smart and capable. You’re—”
“Don’t tell me what I am,” Omen said, getting to his feet. “I’m tired of people telling me what I am. They don’t know. Skulduggery and Valkyrie don’t know, the teachers at school don’t know, and you don’t know. You know who else doesn’t have a clue who I am? My parents. You all think you know me, but you just know this.” He jabbed his own chest. “You know this person. This Omen Darkly. But Omen Darkly’s an idiot and he lets everyone lie to him and manipulate him and he’s never in charge. He never gets to decide what the best thing to do is.”
Crepuscular watched him. “It sounds like you’re approaching a turning point in your life.”
“Oh, I’m past it,” Omen said. “I passed it a while ago. I just didn’t realise.”
“Then there may be hope for you yet.”
“Drop dead, Crepuscular.”
Omen walked over to the door. Before he reached it, he heard Crepuscular curse softly, and turned in time to see him looking at his phone before he vanished.
Frowning, Omen took out his own phone. He hesitated for a moment, then checked the news sites. Everyone was talking about more Shalgoth attacks and the various military responses. No one was talking about an assassination.
He hurried back over to Abyssinia’s body. He felt for a pulse and couldn’t find one. She wasn’t breathing, either. She certainly looked dead and, without the machine to keep her soul trapped in her body, that life-force bomb should have killed Flanery by now. Omen tried to figure out what could have gone wrong, but quickly abandoned the attempt. He hadn’t a clue, and he wouldn’t know where to even begin.
Cadaver Cain walked in, accompanied by a City Guard officer.
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” Omen said. “This was all part of your plan, right? Kill Abyssinia, set off the bomb, kill Flanery.”
“That was the plan,” the Supreme Mage conceded, “but I don’t think things have run smoothly. Abyssinia’s dead, but Flanery isn’t – which makes me wonder if someone got to the bomb before it detonated.”
Omen smiled. “Skulduggery and Valkyrie.”
“Actually, no,” said Cadaver. “They’re both here, in the Research Wing. You’re a helpful lad, aren’t you, Omen? Would you mind fetching them for me, maybe bringing them to the main chamber downstairs? That’s where all this is going to end, you see. You’re welcome to come, too, if you’d like.”
“You can fetch them yourself,” said Omen. “I’m not doing anyone else’s dirty work. Not any more.”
“I’m not all bad, though, Omen. I brought Sergeant Yonder with me, did I not? Sergeant, if you wouldn’t mind?”
The cop came forward, shoving Omen out of the way. He pulled the tubes and wires away from Abyssinia’s body and placed a seven-sided metal star on her chest. Omen had never seen one before now, but he knew what a Sunburst looked like, and he knew what it did.
“You want to revive her?” he asked, confused.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for Abyssinia,” Cadaver said.
The cop grunted. “It won’t work. Sunbursts can revive the recently deceased – but this lady’s been dead for a while.”
“Abyssinia is an exception,” Cadaver said, his voice friendly and most pleasant, “so do what I ordered you to do, there’s a good sergeant.”
Yonder muttered something under his breath and tapped the Sunburst. The sigils carved into it lit up, and then flashed red and Abyssinia’s eyes snapped open.
She gasped and sat up and grabbed Yonder as he yelled, her hands on either side of his head. Omen stumbled back as he watched her suck the life force out of the cop, then left his wrinkled, dried husk of a body to collapse while she rolled her neck in the most luxurious of stretches. Her skin shone with health. Her silver hair was glorious. Her lips reddened and her eyes sparkled.
“Welcome back,” said Cadaver, and then nodded to Omen. “Skulduggery and Valkyrie – could you tell them where I’ll be? There’s a good lad.”
He walked out.
Abyssinia turned her head to Omen, and smiled. “I know you.”
Skulduggery’s suit was black, matched by his tie and hat. His shirt was white.
“My bones need a deep clean,” he said as they stepped out of the elevator.
“They look fine to me,” Valkyrie responded, blasting a City Guard officer who happened to be passing at precisely the wrong time.
They strode across the foyer. “People have been handling them,” Skulduggery said. “I can feel their dirty, smudgy fingerprints all over my ribs.”
“How long will it take? Cleaning the whole thing?”
“I’ll clean one bone every evening. Barring incident, or skipped evenings, that will take me two hundred and six days.”
“That seems a ridiculously long time. Couldn’t you just have a shower?”
“There are some stains a shower can’t remove.”
They opened the main doors. A cool breeze toyed with Valkyrie’s hair. Roarhaven was quiet. No sirens, no shooting, no explosions. They didn’t step out.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“We’re here now,” Skulduggery said. “We take the opportunity to end this. We might not be able to stop the Twenty being unleashed, we might already be too late, but we can stop whatever plans Crepuscular and Cadaver have for them once they’re free. We go back in; we hunt them down. Arrest them if we can. Kill them if we have to.”
“They’re probably saying the same thing about us.”
He shrugged. “Let them try.”
They turned, and another set of elevator doors opened and Omen and Abyssinia emerged.
“What?” said Valkyrie.
“She came back to life,” Omen said helpfully.
“What?” said Valkyrie.
“Hi there,” said Abyssinia.
“What?” said Valkyrie.
“The bomb,” Skulduggery said.
“I don’t know what happened,” Omen told him. “Crepuscular turned off the life-support for –” he nodded to Abyssinia – “and she died. It should have gone off right then, right? But I don’t think it did.”
“And then a nice man revived me,” Abyssinia said with a big smile, “and provided me with a nutritious meal to get me up and about again. Omen has been giving me a quick rundown on what’s been happening since I’ve been gone. You have been busy, haven’t you? Alternate dimensions, wars, a future version of Skulduggery, the Chosen One turning bad … and this Crepuscular individual. Now him I am quite eager to see again, sit down and talk with, maybe kill him a little bit.”
“Cadaver Cain’s waiting for you,” Omen said to them. “He asked me to bring you to the main hall. That’s where it’s going to end, he said. It’s just, it really sounds like we’d be walking into an obvious trap – that’s the only thing.”
“Probably,” said Abyssinia.
“Definitely,” said Valkyrie.
Skulduggery straightened his tie. “Walking into traps is what we do, Omen.”
“Oh,” Omen said miserably, “good.”
“But just in case this goes hilariously wrong,” Valkyrie said to him, “if it looks like we’re in trouble, let Fletcher know, would you? You have his number, right? He’s waiting for a message.”
Omen nodded, and fell into step beside them. It was weird walking through a building that was usually teeming with people. Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness. The doors to the main hall were open wide, where an old woman was waiting.
For a moment, Valkyrie thought it was Solace, but then the woman’s knees buckled and she stumbled, and Valkyrie ran forward, catching her as she fell. Now that she was up close, she frowned at the stylish grey hair, frowned at the wonderfully understated but loose-fitting clothes, frowned at the once-beautiful face that was now lined and sunken, the skin mottled. The eyes, at least, were still a startling blue.
“Oh, China,” Skulduggery said, moving up and kneeling by her, “what did they do to you?”
Valkyrie froze and her thoughts jammed.
“I did this to myself,” China answered, smiling. “Trying to be a hero. Trying to save lives. You’re a bad influence on me – you always have been.”
Valkyrie broke out of her frozen state and together they helped China stand. The arm Valkyrie gripped was thin and frail.
“When Crepuscular came to check on what had happened,” China said, “he asked me if it was worth it, exchanging my youth and beauty for the life of Martin Flanery. I’m relying on you to make sure I don’t regret that decision.”
“It wasn’t just Flanery you saved,” said Valkyrie. “It was thousands of others. Thousands of innocent lives.”
Abyssinia came forward, looked China dead in the eye. “There’s definitely something different about you,” she said, “but I can’t quite put my finger on what.”
China glanced at Valkyrie. “Abyssinia’s alive, then?”
“Apparently.”
“Typical.”
Helping China, they walked through the doors, into the gloom. In the centre of the hall was a wide patch of light. Cadaver Cain stood in the middle of it, his skull gleaming, the shadows in his eye sockets pitch-black. Solace stood beside him.
“Abyssinia,” Cadaver said, “it’s so good to see you again. Did they fill you in on what happened after you, for want of a better word, died? Did they tell you what happened to Caisson?”
“I know what happened to Caisson,” Abyssinia responded. “He was murdered by an assassin sent by Serafina Dey, and he died in my arms.”
“And then he came back to life.”
“No. Then his body came back to life, but my son was dead. It was my father inhabiting Caisson’s body from that moment on. Omen told me all about it.”
“He told you how his brother stabbed your father with the Obsidian Blade and wiped him from existence?”
Abyssinia smiled. “Do you think that will upset me, Cadaver? Do you think I should kill Omen Darkly out of some misguided sense of revenge?”
“Oh, that’s not what I’m trying to do here,” Cadaver said, amusement in his voice. “But it’s all connected, you see. You’re all connected. Bound by the decisions you’ve made in the past. Mevolent killed your family and fatally injured your father with the Obsidian Blade. To exact your revenge, you joined his army centuries later – you and Lord Vile. You got close to your enemy. Too close, as it turned out.”
Abyssinia looked at Omen. “I had an affair with Mevolent. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what happened. I hope you don’t think less of me.”
“I just think of you as someone who murders people,” said Omen.
“Thank you,” Abyssinia responded.
“And because of that affair,” Cadaver continued, “you fell pregnant. And then you fell out of a window.”
“I was thrown,” Abyssinia said, sparing a quick glare for Skulduggery.
“Indeed you were. But you survived, and your baby survived, and you gave birth to Caisson, the apple of your eye.”
“We know all this,” said Valkyrie.
“I don’t,” said Omen.
Valkyrie sighed. “Abyssinia gave Caisson to China to raise as her ward in exchange for Abyssinia’s surrender. Abyssinia was executed, China raised Caisson, Caisson tried to kill Skulduggery—”
“Wait,” Omen said, “why did he do that?”
“Because I’m the one who executed Abyssinia,” Skulduggery said.
Omen nodded. “OK. That’s fair enough.”
“Caisson barely survived that encounter,” Cadaver said, “and China’s daughter, Solace – who had escaped from her position as Serafina’s handmaiden and fled Mevolent’s castle – nursed him back to health.”
Everyone looked at Solace to continue the story. “I’m not doing this,” she said.
They all looked back at Cadaver. “And they fell in love,” he continued. “And they married. And they started a family.”
With a flourish, he swept his arm behind him and the back of the hall lit up, illuminating the men and women standing there in complete stillness. They were dressed in black bodysuits and their faces were blank, impassive, their eyes closed. They each had an identical sigil burned into the sides of their necks. The sigils glowed, pulsing with darkness.
“And they trained their children to be killers and saboteurs,” said Cadaver. “Trained them to be the Hosts’ last-resort weapon against the mortal world. The Twenty.”
“And I’m the middle child,” Crepuscular said, drifting down from above. “The spare. The one to fill in the gap if one of them fell.” He landed beside Cadaver, who nodded appreciatively.
“Very nicely done.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s a very well-timed entrance. You have a gift for the theatrical.”
“Theatre is life.”
“But you left us,” Solace said.
Crepuscular sniffed, and brushed lint from his sleeve. “Mother, I thought you weren’t going to involve yourself in the storytelling part of today’s festivities.”
“You abandoned us,” Solace said.
“You say nothing about this for the last few days and now you admonish me? When we have an audience? Apparently, I didn’t lick my theatricality from a stone.” He sighed. “Fine. I did. I did abandon you. I grew tired of it all: the training, the preparation, the Hosts’ interference. I grew tired of the fact that my brothers and sisters were being raised to be nothing more than robots. Look at them. Look at them standing there. This is what you wanted for them? Drained of all individuality? You said you loved us, but all you did was programme us.”
“Your brothers and sisters understand,” Solace said.
“No, they don’t,” Crepuscular responded. “They were taught to never question their orders. To never question if their lives could be different, or better. They had their roles and I had mine and you wouldn’t let us break free of them, would you? You never even gave us the chance.”
“And yet,” said Solace, “you still managed to abandon us.”
Crepuscular took a breath. “I did. I didn’t want to spend my entire life being a spare part. I didn’t even know who I was when I left. I had no one to help me, no one to guide me. I had to make up who I was as I went along.”
“You betrayed us.”
Crepuscular laughed. “No, Solace. You’re the ones who betrayed us. You and our father. You and Caisson betrayed your own children. My brothers and sisters deserve more than what you gave them. You used to tell us that China Sorrows was the worst mother who’d ever lived – but, in her own small way, she loved you. She gave Caisson to Serafina Dey – gave away her ward, the boy she’d raised – instead of you.”
“And then she locked me in a tower.”
“I wish she’d done that a lot earlier,” Crepuscular said. “It might have spared us the grief of being your children.”
A moment of silence passed.
“I’d just like to point out,” said Abyssinia, “that, out of everyone here, I am by far the best mother in this room.”
Cadaver held up his hands like he expected to stave off conflict, but no one argued the point, so he shrugged. “Be that as it may, we find ourselves here, gathered together to witness the fruits of Crepuscular’s masterful orchestrations of world events, ensuring that the Hosts’ Doomsday Protocol has been activated. The Twenty have been unleashed. Hurrah!”
“They’re not doing much,” said Valkyrie.
“That’s true,” Cadaver said, glancing back at them. “I wonder why that is. Crepuscular, do you know why your siblings aren’t running around, destabilising the mortal world?” Crepuscular didn’t answer, so Cadaver turned to Skulduggery. “What about you, young man? Do you know?”
“Those sigils on their necks,” Skulduggery said, “the pulses are getting quicker. Why is that?”
