Mortal Coil

kulduggery braked, the Bentley swerving to a perfect stop on the slippery road. Valkyrie threw the door open and jumped out. Davina Marr lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement, several bones obviously broken.

A man landed behind Marr, a big man in a metal mask, and Skulduggery appeared beside Valkyrie, gun in hand.

“You’re Tesseract,” he said. “You are, aren’t you? Who hired you? Who are you working for?”

The man, Tesseract, didn’t even look at him. His red eyes were focused on Marr. He moved towards her and Skulduggery stepped into his path. Immediately, Tesseract grabbed the gun, twisting it from Skulduggery’s grip. Skulduggery grabbed the bigger man’s elbow and wrist and wrenched, and the gun fell back into his hand.

“Get her to the car!” Skulduggery ordered, and Valkyrie grabbed Marr and started dragging her away.

As they struggled for control of the weapon, Tesseract kicked Skulduggery’s leg and Skulduggery kneed Tesseract’s thigh. They headbutted each other as they locked and counter-locked, using moves Valkyrie had never seen before. She heard the gun click, but their hands were covering it so she couldn’t see what was happening. Finally, Tesseract flipped Skulduggery over his hip, but Skulduggery took the gun with him. He rolled and came up, aiming dead-centre for Tesseract’s chest, and the fight froze.

Valkyrie shoved Marr into the back seat of the Bentley, and looked back in time to see Tesseract hold out his fist, and slowly open his hand. Six bullets fell to the ground.

“I thought it was a bit light,” Skulduggery muttered, putting the gun away.

Valkyrie considered helping, but she’d never even heard of this guy Tesseract, and she knew how dangerous it was to charge into a fight without knowing who your enemy was. Instead, she slipped in behind the wheel of the Bentley.

The priority here was Marr, and they had her, after all this time. Valkyrie wasn’t about to risk letting her escape again. She put the Bentley in reverse, like she’d done a hundred times before under Skulduggery’s tutelage, then yanked the wheel. The car spun and she put it in first. She sped away from the fight, rounded the corner and kept going. There was no other traffic on the road.

Valkyrie took another corner a little too sharply, but maintained control. Something moved in the rear-view mirror, and then Skulduggery was flying alongside the car. He nodded to her and she braked and slid over to the passenger side. Skulduggery got in behind the wheel and they took off again.

She frowned. “Are we not going back for him?”

“For Tesseract?” Skulduggery said. “Good God, no.”

“But he’s in shackles, right? You beat him?”

“I like to think I beat him in a moral sense, in that he’s an assassin and I’m not, but apart from that, no, not really.”

Valkyrie turned in her seat, looking at the dark street behind them, then settled back. “Who is he?”

“Assassin for hire, is all I know. I recognised him from his sheer size, and the fact that he wears a metal mask. I’ve never encountered him before. That’s probably a good thing. But let’s not dwell on the new enemy we might have made tonight. Let’s dwell instead on the old enemy we’ve got in the back seat. Hello, Davina. You’re under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”

Marr remained unconscious.

“Splendid,” Skulduggery said happily.

The Hibernian Cinema stood old and proud and slightly bewildered, like a senior citizen who’d wandered away from his tour group. It had no part in the Dublin that surrounded it. It hadn’t been refurbished or refitted, it didn’t have twenty screens on different floors and it didn’t have banks of concession stands. What it did have were old movie posters on its walls, frayed carpeting, a single stall for popcorn and drinks, and a certain mustiness that agitated long-dormant allergies. The one screen it did possess only ever showed one thing – the black and white image of a brick wall with a door to one side.

But beyond that screen were corridors of clean white walls and bright lighting, rooms of scientific and mystical equipment, a morgue capable of dissecting a god and a Medical Bay that Valkyrie visited on a worryingly regular basis.

Kenspeckle Grouse shambled in, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, what remained of his grey hair sticking up at odd angles. He looked grumpy, but then he always looked grumpy.

“What,” he said, “do you want?”

“We have a patient for you,” said Skulduggery, nodding to Davina Marr on the bed beside him.

Kenspeckle glared at the shackles around her wrists. “Don’t know her,” he said. “Take her to someone else. She’s your prisoner, isn’t she? Take her to one of those Sanctuary doctors, wake them up in the middle of the night.”

“We can’t do that. This is Davina Marr. She’s the one who destroyed the Sanctuary.”

Some of the grumpiness vanished from Kenspeckle’s eyes, replaced by a kind of disgusted curiosity. “This is her, then? You finally found her?” He walked closer. “She’s a bit the worse for wear, but I have to admit I’m surprised she’s still alive. Are you getting less ruthless as you get older, Detective?”

“We didn’t do this to her,” Valkyrie said, not comfortable with where Kenspeckle’s questions were heading. “We saved her, actually. She’d be dead if it wasn’t for Skulduggery.”

Kenspeckle pulled back one of Marr’s eyelids. “I put that down to your good influence, Valkyrie. But that still doesn’t explain why you haven’t taken her to the authorities. You are, after all, Sanctuary Detectives once again, are you not?”

“We want to keep this quiet,” Skulduggery said. “Things are too volatile at the moment. If we hand her over to the Cleavers, I doubt she’ll even get a trial. They’ll execute her on the spot.”

Kenspeckle traced his hands lightly around Marr’s head. “From what I remember, you’ve executed your fair share of guilty people in the past.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Professor. The fact is, I don’t believe she was working alone when she decided to destroy the Sanctuary, and I fear that her allies, or her bosses, will try to have her killed before she can name them. I’m fairly confident they’re the ones who hired the assassin.”

“Ah,” Kenspeckle said, “so it’s not mercy that stays your hand – it’s a grander scale of ruthlessness.”

Skulduggery cocked his head. “This woman is responsible for the deaths of fifty people, but there are others who also share that responsibility. They’re all going to pay.”

“Well,” Kenspeckle said, “justice can wait, can it not? Your prisoner has a serious head injury. She’s staying with me until she’s out of danger. It should be a few hours. A day at the most.”

“She’s going to need someone to stand guard over her.”

“You think she poses a threat? She’ll be unconscious until I say otherwise.”

“And what if the assassin comes looking for her?”

“First he’d have to know who she’s with, then where to find me, and lastly he’d have to get past my defences, for which he’d need an army. Leave me now. I’ll get in touch when she’s strong enough to answer your questions.”

With nothing left for them to do, they walked back to the Bentley. Valkyrie buckled her seatbelt as they pulled out on to the road. Skulduggery was using the façade again. Ghastly Bespoke’s façade gave him his own face every time, minus the scars, but Skulduggery hadn’t been able to decide on one look, so China made it so that his façade changed every time. Same cheekbones, same jaw, but all the rest was brand-new.

“Could you drop me off at Gordon’s?” Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery raised an eyebrow – a newly acquired skill. “You don’t want to go home to Haggard?”

“It’s not that, it’s just that I haven’t been to Gordon’s in a while, and it’s nearly Christmas. Around this time every year when I was a kid, we’d go up there, to his big house. I loved that part of Christmas, because, finally, someone would talk to me like I was a person, you know? A grown-up person, not a child. That’s what I loved about him the most.”

“Ah, there it is,” Skulduggery said, and nodded.

“Sorry?”

“That, right there. That story you just told. That little excerpt from your life. That’s the most annoying thing about Christmas. Everyone has these little stories about what Christmas means to them. You don’t get that at any other time of the year. You don’t get people telling you what Easter means to them, or St Patrick’s Day. But everyone opens up at Christmas time.”

“Wow,” Valkyrie said. “I never noticed before, but you’re a grouch.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re a Grinch.”

“I am neither a Grinch nor a grouch. I like Christmas as much as the next person, so long as the next person is as unsentimental as I am.”

“Sentimental’s nice.”

“You hate sentimental.”

“But not at Christmas. At Christmas, sentimental is a perfectly fine thing to be. It is allowed. In moderation, naturally. I don’t want anyone, you know, being sentimental around me, but in principle I have no problem with … uh …”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Um, the façade …”

Skulduggery tilted his head, and the left side of his face drooped down off his skull, looking like melted rubber.

“I think something’s going a bit wonky,” said Valkyrie.

Skulduggery felt his ear flapping against his lapel and took hold of his face with one hand and hoisted it back up again. He gathered a thick fold around his forehead, trying his best to manoeuvre an eye back into its socket. “This is a tad undignified,” he murmured. “Do please tell me if we’re about to crash into something.”

“Maybe you should let me drive.”

“I saw how you drove a few hours ago. I’m not letting you behind the wheel of this car ever again.” His voice was muffled because his lips were sliding down his jaw. “Do I look better now?”

“Oh, much.”

He did his best to keep his nose in one place.

“So will I pick you up from Gordon’s once your lapse into sentimentality is over? We have that meeting to go to, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“How could I have forgotten?” she asked dryly. “I’ve been looking forward to this incredibly boring meeting for days, I really and truly have, oh boy oh boy.”

“You appear to have found a new level of sarcasm,” Skulduggery nodded. “Impressive.”

“And no, you don’t have to pick me up. I’ll get Fletcher to pop by. Of course, if you change your mind and decide I don’t have to go to this incredibly boring meeting, I can take my time about it all, and really get the sentimentality out of my system for good.”

“And deprive you of your chance to be there? I actually think you’ll be surprised by how interesting it all is.”

“I actually think I’d be very surprised.”

“But we’ll be electing a new Grand Mage. This is history in the making, Valkyrie.”

“And how long do you think the new Grand Mage will last before he’s either murdered or imprisoned?”

“You’re too young to be so cynical.”

“I’m not cynical. I just happen to remember the last four years. You give me one good reason why I should go. One good reason why I would be even remotely interested in attending.”

“Erskine Ravel will be there.”

“Well, OK then.”

Skulduggery laughed, and let go of his face. After a dangerous quiver, it settled down and stopped misbehaving, apart from the ear that was slowly drifting towards his chin.

ith the morning sun barely making an effort to leak through the windows, Valkyrie’s dead uncle made a steeple of his fingers, and peered at her over the topmost peak. When he was alive, he would often do this while sitting in an armchair with his legs crossed, giving him the air of a wise and contemplative man. Now that he was dead and could no longer interact with the physical world, it merely gave him the air of a man in desperate need of a chair.

“You’ve discovered your true name,” he said.

“Yes,” Valkyrie responded.

“And your true name is Darquesse.”

“That’s right.”

“And Darquesse is the sorcerer that all the psychics are having visions about – the one who’s going to destroy the world.”

“Correct.”

“So you’re going to destroy the world.”

“It looks like it.”

“And when did you discover all this?”

“About five months ago.”

“And you’re only telling me about it now?”

“Gordon, it’s taken me this long to stop freaking out about it. I need your help.”

Gordon began to pace the room. It was a big room, lined with bookcases and Gothic paintings. An oil portrait of a semi-clothed Gordon, his body rippling with muscles he had never possessed when he was alive, hung over the vast fireplace, glaring down at all who passed like a great and terrible god. Even though this house and the land around it had been left to Valkyrie, she still couldn’t bring herself to take the painting down. It was far too amusing.

“Do you realise what this means for you?” Gordon asked, as his slow pacing took him towards the corner of the room. “A sorcerer who knows their own true name has access to power other sorcerers can only dream about.”

His image began to fade away, and Valkyrie cleared her throat loudly. Gordon stopped and swung round, pacing back the way he had come. Immediately, he became solid again. The Echo Stone which housed his consciousness sat in its cradle on the coffee table, glowing with a soothing blue light.

“I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “I saw one of these visions, OK? I saw a burning city and injured friends and I saw Darquesse – I saw me – kill my own parents.”

“Now, just wait a second. From what you’ve told me about Cassandra Pharos’s vision, your future self and Darquesse seem to be two distinctly separate entities.”

“That’s just because at no time in that vision was I ever seen hurting anyone. We saw fragments of what’s going to happen. We saw Darquesse, me, as a figure in the distance, fighting and killing and murdering, and then we saw me, my future self, close up, feeling pretty bad about it all, which was nice of her, but she’s undoubtedly a little fruitloops. Listen, it’s taken a while for me to look at this and be logical about it, but obviously someone finds out what my true name is, and they use it to control me.”

“Then you’re going to have to seal your name,” Gordon said.

“Do you know how I can do that?”

“No,” he admitted. “I wrote about magic, but as you are aware, I never had the aptitude for it. Something like that, sealing your true name, is knowledge only a certain breed of sorcerer would have.”

“I can’t ask Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said quietly. “I don’t want him to know.”

Gordon stopped pacing, and looked at her kindly. “He would understand, Valkyrie. Skulduggery has been through an awful lot.”

“If he’s so understanding, how come you still won’t let me tell him you exist?”

“Well,” Gordon said huffily, “that’s different. That was never about him or anyone else. It was always about me, and my insecurities.”

“Which you are now cured of, right?”

He hesitated. “In theory …”

“So you’d be fine with me telling Skulduggery that I talk to you on a regular basis?”

Gordon licked his lips. “I don’t think that now is the perfect time for that. You have a lot on your plate, and I think I can be of more use to you without the distraction of other people.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not scared, I’m cautious. I don’t know how my friends would react. I am not actually Gordon Edgley after all – I am merely a recording of his personality.”

“But …?” Valkyrie raised her eyebrows.

“But,” he said quickly, “that doesn’t mean I’m not a person in my own right, with my own identity and value.”

“Very good,” she smiled. “You’ve been working on it.”

“I have a lot of time for self-affirmation while I’m sitting in that little blue crystal, waiting for you to drop by.”

“Is that your subtle way of telling me I should call round more?”

“I practically cease to exist when you’re not here,” Gordon said. “There’s nothing subtle about it.”

The alarm on Valkyrie’s phone beeped once. “Fletcher will be here soon,” she said, picking up the Echo Stone and its cradle. “We better get you back.”

Gordon followed as she led the way out of the living room and up the stairs. “The big meeting is this afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she scowled. “Even after everything that’s been happening, with everything that’s hanging over me, I still have to waste my time at this stupid thing. Skulduggery says it’s important to see how this kind of politics works.”

“You’re lucky,” Gordon said wistfully. “I would have loved to have been invited to something like that when I was alive.”

“It’s going to be a bunch of people talking about what we’re going to do about setting up a new Sanctuary. What do I have to contribute to that?”

“I don’t know. A general air of grumpiness?”

“Now that I can do.”

They passed into the study, but instead of following her through the hidden doorway to the secret room where he kept the most valued pieces of his collection, Gordon went to a small bookshelf beside the window. “And how is Fletcher these days?”

“He’s grand.”

“Has he met your parents?”

Valkyrie frowned. “No. And he’s not going to.”

“You don’t think they’d approve?” Gordon asked as he scanned the books.

“I think they’d start asking all kinds of awkward questions. And I don’t think they’d like the fact that my boyfriend is older than me.”

“He’s eighteen, you’re sixteen,” Gordon said. “That’s not drastically older.”

“If I need to tell them, I will. Right now, Skulduggery has taken responsibility for asking every single awkward question that my parents could ever possibly ask, so you needn’t worry.”

“This one,” said Gordon, pointing to a thin notebook. “In here there are directions to a woman who might be able to help you.”

“She can seal my name?”

“Not her personally, but I think she knows someone who can.”

“Who is she?”

“Who isn’t important. What, however, is. She’s a banshee.”

“Seriously?”

“Most banshees are harmless,” Gordon said. “They provide a service, more then anything else.”

“What kind of service?”

“If you hear a banshee’s wail, it’s a warning that you’re going to die. I’m not sure of the advantage of such a service, but it’s a service nonetheless. Twenty-four hours after you hear it, the Dullahan gets you.”

“What’s a Dullahan?”

“He’s a headless horseman, in the service of the banshee.”

“Headless?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“So he has no head?”

“That’s usually what headless means.”

“No head at all?”

“You’re really getting hung up on this headless thing, aren’t you?”

“It’s just kind of silly, even for us.”

“Yet you spend your days with a living skeleton.”

“But at least Skulduggery has a head.”

“True.”

“He even has a spare.”

“Are we going to get past this now?”

“Yes. Sorry. Carry on.”

“Thank you. The Dullahan drives a carriage, the Coach-a-Bowers, that you can only see when it’s right up beside you. He is not a friendly fellow.”

“Probably because he has no head.”

“That may have something to do with it.”

“So this banshee,” Valkyrie said, “is she one of the harmless ones, or the harmful?”

“Now that I do not know. Banshees are an unsociable bunch at the best of times. If she isn’t too pleased to see you, though …”

“Yes?”

“I’d recommend putting your hands over your ears if she opens her mouth.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “Right,” she said. “Thanks for that.”

“When do you plan to approach her?”

“Soon, I suppose. I mean, as soon as I can. I want this over with. I think I’ll … Tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have to, Gordon. If I put it off, I’ll never do it. I’ll give Skulduggery some excuse. He won’t miss me.”

“Valkyrie, from what I know of it, sealing your name is a major procedure. You have to be sure, going in, that this is the best thing to do.”

“I’m going to be sure. You remember when Dusk bit me? He tasted something in my blood, something that marked me out as different. I think that whatever he tasted has to do with Darquesse. So I’m going to get a second opinion.”

Gordon frowned. “You’re going to get someone else to taste your …? Oh, I see. You’re talking about him.”

“Caelan will be able to tell me what Dusk sensed. If it’s bad, I won’t need any more proof or prodding. I’ll know this is something I have to do.”

“Right,” Gordon said gently.

Valkyrie nodded, feeling an unwelcome mixture of apprehension and uncertainty. She left the Echo Stone in the hidden room and took the notebook from the shelf, flicking through the pages until she got to the part about the banshee. She put the notebook in her jacket pocket and went down to the living room. Her phone beeped again, and a moment later Fletcher Renn appeared beside the fireplace. Blond hair standing on end, lips always ready to kiss or smirk, one hand behind his back, the other with a thumb hooked into the belt loops of his jeans.

“I’m gorgeous,” he said.

Valkyrie sighed. “Are you, now?”

“Do you ever just look at me and think, God he’s gorgeous? Do you? I do, all the time. I think you’re gorgeous too, of course.”

“Cheers.”

“You’ve got lovely dark eyes, and lovely dark hair, and your face is all pretty and stuff. And I love the way you dress in black, and I love the new clothes.”

“It’s a jacket, Fletch.”

“I love the new jacket,” he insisted. “Ghastly really made a lovely, lovely jacket.” He grinned.

“You look wide awake,” she said. “You’re never wide awake at this hour of the morning.”

“I’ve been researching. You’re not the only one who likes to read books, you know. Apparently, my power will increase if I work at it a little, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was told there was this book in Italy, written by a famous Teleporter – dead now, obviously – that could really help me, so I went there and got it.”

“Good man.”

“But it was written all in Italian, so I left it on the shelf and went to Australia for ice cream.” He brought his other hand out from behind his back, holding an ice-cream cone. “Got one for you.”

“Fletcher, it’s winter.”

“Not in Australia.”

“We’re not in Australia.”

“I’ll take you to Sydney for five minutes, you can eat the ice cream while we watch the sunset, and then we’ll come back to the misery here.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Your power is wasted on you.”

“My power is brilliant. Everyone wishes they had my power.”

“I don’t. I quite like being able to hurl people away from me just by moving the air.”

“Well, every non-violent person wishes they had my power, how’s that?”

Valkyrie frowned. “I’m not a violent person.”

“You punch people every day.”

“Not every day.”

“Val, you know I think you’re great, and I think you’re the coolest chick I’ve ever met, and the prettiest girl ever – but you get into a hell of a lot of fights. Face it, you lead a violent life.”

She wanted to protest, but no argument sprang to mind. Fletcher stopped holding out the ice cream, and started licking it instead, already forgetting what they’d just been talking about. Valkyrie checked the time, forcing her attention back to the here and now.

“Are you getting me anything for Christmas?” Fletcher asked, and Valkyrie found herself grinning despite everything.

“Yes. You better be getting me something.”

He shrugged. “Of course I am.”

“It better be amazing.”

“Of course it is. Hey, this time next year, you’ll have someone else to buy presents for. When’s your mum due?”

“Middle of February. I’m going to be asked to babysit, you know. How am I supposed to do that?”

“Get your reflection to do it.”

“I’m not leaving the baby with the reflection. Are you nuts? But I don’t even know how to hold a baby. Their heads are so big. Aren’t babies’ heads abnormally large? I’m not sure I’m going to be a good big sister. I hope she doesn’t take after me. I’d like her to have friends.”

“You have friends.”

“I’d like her to have friends who weren’t hundreds of years older than her.”

“Have you realised that you’re referring to the baby as ‘her’?”

“Am I? I suppose I am. I don’t know. It just feels like it’s going to be a girl.”

“Do you think she’ll be magic?”

“Skulduggery says it’s possible. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’ll ever find out about magic. Take my cousins, for example.”

“Ah, the infamous Toxic Twins.”

“They’re descended from the Last of the Ancients the same as I am, but we’ll never know if they can do magic, because they don’t know magic even exists.”

“So if you don’t want your sister involved in this crazy life of yours, you can just not tell her. And in twenty-five years, she’ll be looking at you, going, ‘Hey, sis, how come we look like we’re exactly the same age?’ Will you tell her then that magic slows the aging process?”

“I’ll probably just tell her that my natural beauty makes me look eternally young. She’s my little sister – she’ll believe anything I tell her.”

“To be honest, Val, I love the fact that this is happening. Once you have a sister, or a brother, that looks up to you and needs you, it might make you stop and think before rushing into dangerous situations.”

“I do stop and think.”

“And then you rush in anyway.”

“There’s still stopping and thinking involved.”

Fletcher smiled. “Sometimes I just worry about you.”

“Your concern is touching.”

“You’re not taking me even a little bit seriously, are you?”

“I can’t take you seriously, Fletch, you have a dollop of ice cream on your nose. Besides, we can have this conversation a thousand times – it’s not going to stop me going out there and doing what I do.”

Fletcher finished off the cone and wiped the ice cream from his face.

“Are you so determined to be the hero?” he asked softly.

She kissed him, and didn’t answer. He was wrong, of course. It wasn’t about her being the hero – not any more. It was just about her trying not to be the villain.