“Who was the first sorcerer killed?” Valkyrie asked.
“His name was Elwood Satchel. Low-level Elemental. If the curse did start with him, then the killer must has some connection. We find that connection, we find the killer, we save Geoffrey.”
“Then let’s do it,” Scrutinous said. He paused. “How do we do it?”
“We talk to someone who knew Satchel well. He has a brother who’s out of the country right now, and a friend who lives close by.”
“So we talk to the friend,” Valkyrie said. “Let’s go.”
They got in the Bentley, drove to the friend’s house and knocked on the door. There was nobody home, so they went back to the Bentley and waited. Skulduggery didn’t move for hours, and Valkyrie fell asleep. Scrutinous sat in the back seat and thought about sharks all night.
Satchel’s friend returned home at ten the next morning. He was a sorcerer but, like Satchel, he wasn’t a very powerful one. He worked nights as a security guard to pay the bills.
“It was a clear day,” he said when Skulduggery asked him how Satchel had died. “The sun was shining. There were no clouds. But Elwood was… panicking. He kept running around, looking up at the sky. He ran into a café, ran right back out again, screaming something about how it didn’t have a ceiling. And then… And then he jerked backwards, flew right off his feet. He was all twisted up, and you could smell burnt hair.”
“He was electrocuted?” Skulduggery asked.
“Yeah. Apparently. The doctors said it was a massive electrical current. But I didn’t see anything, and he was running across the park when it happened. There was nothing electrical around.”
“Did you find a note?” asked Valkyrie.
The man frowned. “What? How did you know about that?”
“Then you did find a note.”
“Yes. Well, we think. A few days after he died, Elwood’s brother found something written on the back of a receipt. It said ‘I’m going to be struck by lightning’.”
Skulduggery nodded. “Did Elwood have any enemies?”
“I… suppose. I mean, doesn’t everyone?”
“Any enemies he had recently made?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. One. Davit Maybury. They were friends once.”
“What happened?”
“Ah, I don’t know. The usual.”
“I don’t quite believe you,” said Skulduggery.
“Look, Maybury’s a weirdo, OK? He comes out with these weird things, and he looks… odd. He’s got crazy eyes, you know? But Elwood grew up with him, they were childhood friends, and then… Elwood kind of stole Maybury’s girlfriend.”
“Ah.”
“I suppose it was kind of a sucky thing to do. Maybury found it hard to talk to girls, because of his whole weirdness thing, and he finally found one who liked him and Elwood comes in and sweeps her off her feet… You think Maybury had something to do with his death?”
“Perhaps,” Skulduggery said. “Do you know where we could find him? We just want a little chat.”
Davit Maybury’s house was quite nondescript from the outside. Skulduggery knocked a few times, then kicked the door in. It was quite a nondescript house from the inside, too. Skulduggery went first, hand open and fingers splayed.
“The air hasn’t been disturbed for weeks,” he said. “It doesn’t look like anybody’s home.”
“So what are we going to do now?” Scrutinous asked. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. I have one hour before a shark eats me.”
“You’ll be fine,” Skulduggery said, poking around. “Everyone spread out. Look for clues.”
Skulduggery and Valkyrie went wandering, examining things and muttering to themselves and each other. Scrutinous bit his lip and checked his watch.
Almost three quarters of an hour later, Skulduggery found something in the main bedroom.
“It’s a door,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the wall. “Very well hidden. Whoever installed it knew what they were doing.”
“Where does it lead?” Scrutinous asked, and shifted his weight. The carpet in here was soggy, and water spilled through his sandals to wet his socks.
“It could be a stairway leading to a tunnel, or it could be a single room.” Skulduggery stood back. “Maybury isn’t the strongest sorcerer out there, and by all accounts he doesn’t have many friends. It is therefore entirely conceivable that the moment he released the cursed pen upon Elwood Satchel he secluded himself away until it was all over. If something went wrong with the curse, if it didn’t work, then Satchel might come after him.”
Valkyrie peered at the wall. “So you think he’s still in there?”
“Mister Maybury,” Skulduggery said loudly, “we need to talk to you. If you can hear me, please open the door. I am a detective with the Sanctuary – we’re not going to hurt you.”
They looked at the wall and waited, and nothing happened.
“Um,” said Scrutinous. “Where’s that water coming from?”
Valkyrie looked around. “What water?”
Scrutinous splashed his foot a few times.
“That’s the carpet,” Valkyrie told him.
“And why is it covered in water?”
She frowned at him. “What are you talking about? It’s not. It’s just a regular carpet.”
“It’s a regular carpet covered in water, Valkyrie. You’re standing in it, too.”
“No, Geoffrey, I’m not. My feet are perfectly dry, as are yours. Are you feeling OK?”
He stared at her. The water was rising. It was up to her ankles. It had completely covered his own sandals. It was cold and wet. “You can’t see this?” he asked. “You can’t hear the splashing? You can’t feel it?”
She hunkered down, put her hand in the water, flat on the floor. Her eyes were on him the whole time. “Am I touching the water now?”
He nodded. She brought her hand up. It was perfectly dry. No drops fell.
“Oh, dear,” Scrutinous said.
“Interesting,” Skulduggery murmured. “The curse must deliver a reality that only the victim can experience.”
“Which explains how a train fitted into Cassidy’s living room,” Valkyrie said.
Scrutinous peered into the water, and his eyes widened. “I see a fish,” he said. “A small one, a tiny one, but… it’s a fish.” He looked up. “When there’s enough water, the shark will appear, won’t it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Skulduggery said. “Which means we have to get through this door.”
Skulduggery and Valkyrie walked through the water without disturbing it, Scrutinous splashing noisily after them. They ran their hands all over the wall, feeling for imperfections.
“There has to be a lever here somewhere,” Skulduggery said. “The time and the effort was put into making this door virtually undetectable, not into making it impenetrable. At Maybury’s price range, it’s one or the other. So there has to be a lever somewhere nearby.”
Even as he spoke, something clicked beneath his fingers. The wall shifted, the door swung open, and Skulduggery led the way in.
It was a small room, windowless, with an armchair and a side-table. On the side-table there was thick book and a scalpel. There was water in here, too. Now it was up past Scrutinous’s knees. His legs were freezing, and every now and then a school of tiny fish would brush past and he’d jerk away.
“We may have a problem,” Skulduggery said.
Scrutinous stopped scanning the water and glanced up, saw a corpse in the armchair. Valkyrie had her hand covering her mouth and nose, but all Scrutinous could smell was the briny sea.
“That’s Maybury?” he asked. “But… he’s dead. He is dead, isn’t he?”
“He must have trapped himself inside,” Skulduggery said.
“He starved to death?” Valkyrie asked.
“I’m afraid he ran out of air long before that could happen. He obviously didn’t think this through too well.”
“But if he’s dead,” said Scrutinous, “how ca
n he lift the curse? Who’s going to lift the curse?”
“The important thing to remember is not to panic,” Skulduggery said.
“How can I not panic? A shark is going to eat me!”
“It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I was attacked by a shark once, back when I was alive. Well, not so much a shark as a rather large fish. And not so much attacked as looked at menacingly. But it had murder in its eyes, that fish. I knew, in that instant, if our roles had been reversed and the fish had been holding the fishing pole and I had been the one to be caught, it wouldn’t hesitate a moment before eating me. So I cooked it and ate before it had a chance to turn the tables.”
“That,” Valkyrie said, “is one of the most useless stories you’ve ever told me.”
“I’m just trying to make Geoffrey feel better.”
“You went fishing, Skulduggery. That’s not the same as being eaten by a shark.”
“It shares similarities.”
“Like what?”
“It was wet. Also, one eats the other. When looked upon like that, the main points are practically identical.”
“Um,” Scrutinous said, “could we start talking about how we’re going to lift the curse if the man who started it all is dead?”
“Yes,” Skulduggery said, “of course. All is not lost. While it would have been easier to have Maybury simply cancel the whole thing, that is only one way to solve the problem. Davit Maybury was not an evil man. He was a weird one, by all accounts, but not evil. As such, it does not make sense that he would want many people to die, when all he was after was revenge on the one man who had stolen the woman he loved.”
He took the wooden box from his jacket and opened it. Hesitating only a moment, he took the pen from the box. “Well,” he said, “now we’re in this together, Geoffrey.” He held the pen in both hands, and twisted. The outer shell cracked and he pulled it away. He murmured something, then held up the pen for Valkyrie and Scrutinous to see. Four symbols had been cut into the inside. “The curse,” he said. “I think Maybury made a mistake. Instead of the curse afflicting the first person to touch the pen, it has instead afflicted every person to touch the pen. Maybe he used the wrong symbol or misjudged the depth or the width… Every aspect of these sigils has to be perfectly judged.”
“How does that help us?” Valkyrie asked.
“It means we don’t have to lift the curse – we just have to correct his spelling.”
“He carved the wrong symbol, so now we have to carve the right one?”
“In theory, once we do, it will mean the curse will have fulfilled its purpose the first time it was used, and all this will just… stop.”
“In theory?” Scrutinous pressed. His teeth were chattering.
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t s-sound very certain.”
“It’s a very strong theory, Geoffrey. In much the same way that gravity is a very strong theory. It’s almost certainly true. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I have ten m-minutes left. The water has reached the ends of my shorts. There are f-f-fish swimming all around me and the floor has changed to a s-seabed. How do you expect me to not w-worry about this?”
“By taking deep, calming breaths.”
“Do you know how to correct it?” Valkyrie asked.
Skulduggery picked up the scalpel from the side-table, before opening the book. “This is obviously what Maybury used to start it all, but because he got it wrong I would be disinclined to trust the same instructions he followed. We’ll have to ask China.”
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “But China isn’t here.”
“Your b-boyfriend,” Scrutinous said. “He’s a tele… porter… He can bring her.”
“Fletcher’s never been here,” Valkyrie said. “He can’t teleport anywhere he’s never been.”
“Well,” Skulduggery said, taking out his phone, “where magic fails, technology prevails.” He took a picture of the pen, then made a call.
Scrutinous glanced behind him, just in time to see a pale fin sink beneath the water’s surface.
“It’s here!” he screeched. “It’s over there!”
Valkyrie jumped in front of him protectively.
“That won’t do any good,” Skulduggery said.
“I know!” she snapped. “But we can’t just stand around while he gets eaten!”
Scrutinous took a deep breath and ducked his head into the water. The confines of the room did not exist down here. Down here, he was in the middle of the ocean. He saw a dark shape move out of the corner of his eye, and then it was gone. He came up for air.
“It’s huge,” he said. “Oh, God, it’s h-huge.”
“China,” Skulduggery said suddenly. “We have a bit of an emergency here. I just sent you a picture, did you get it? Excellent.” He waited a moment, listening to her talk. “But that’s just the thing. It is a mistake. The gent who set the curse didn’t mean it to apply to everyone – he meant it to apply simply to the first one.”
Scrutinous took another breath, and ducked down for another look.
The shark, and it must have been a Great White judging by its size, was visible in the distance, turning towards him. Scrutinous broke the surface, gasping for air. “It’s coming!”
“But my question,” Skulduggery was saying, “is how to correct the curse so that the original intent overrides the mistake? Really? Oh, that’s interesting.”
“It’s coming!” Scrutinous screamed.
“Geoffrey, please,” Skulduggery said, “I can’t hear what she’s saying.” He put the phone back to his head. “Carry on.”
“Splash about,” Valkyrie said. “Make a lot of noise. Scare it away.”
Scrutinous splashed at the water and kicked his legs and screamed and yelled and hollered.
“A shark’s coming for him,” Skulduggery said into the phone. “Oh, have you? OK, I’ll tell him.” Skulduggery looked over. “China was attacked by a shark once, just like I was, except it was an actual shark and she was actually attacked. She says you’re not to splash about, she says that makes you look like a seal, and sharks really like eating seals.”
Scrutinous froze, and Valkyrie winced. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I saw that once on TV. Sorry.”
“So it’s just the upwards slash, then?” Skulduggery was saying, peering at the pen. “Is it too long or too short? How long should it be? No, shouldn’t be a problem.” He put the phone on loudspeaker and placed it in his top pocket, then readied Maybury’s scalpel. “OK, making the cut now…”
China’s voice came from the phone. “Has the shark eaten him yet?”
“Not yet,” Skulduggery muttered, focusing on his task. “What happens if I do it wrong?”
“Geoffrey gets eaten,” China said. “Am I on loudspeaker?”
“Yes, sorry, should have told you. Valkyrie and Geoffrey are here.”
“Can they hear me?”
“Yes, they can.”
“Hello, Valkyrie,” China said.
“Uh, hi,” Valkyrie said back. “Is this going to take long? The shark’s coming for him.”
China said something in response but Scrutinous didn’t hear it. The shark came at him like a torpedo, its mouth open impossibly wide and all those teeth biting in at him. Scrutinous shrieked, dimly aware of Skulduggery gesturing, and then he was sent deeper into the water, tumbling head over heels, the shark missing him by inches.
Scrutinous turned, twisted, saw the shark flick its great tail and shoot back towards him, coming in for another go. In desperation, knowing it was useless but doing it anyway, he started to swim away from it. But there was nowhere to swim to, nowhere to hide, and then something snagged his right wrist.
An invisible force yanked him to the surface, the shark passing so close that its rough skin scraped like sandpaper across his leg. He broke the surface, gasping, realising that Valkyrie had grabbed his arm and pulled, and for a moment he saw the both of them, the alarm in Valkyrie’s eyes
, Skulduggery still working on the pen, the room around them, and then he dropped again, below the surface, and Valkyrie and Skulduggery disappeared and there was only the shark down there in the middle of the ocean.
Oxygen bubbles filled his vision and he jerked his head from side to side, trying to get his bearings, trying to work out what direction the shark would attack from. Then he saw it, that huge mouth, those huge teeth, coming in on top of him and there was no way out, not this time, and the massive jaws closed over him just as the water went away and Scrutinous fell to the floor.
“There,” Skulduggery said. “I think that did it.”
Scrutinous sat up, gasping, looking around in astonishment.
“Is he dead?” China asked from the phone.
“Not even remotely,” Skulduggery said. “He’s back on dry land. Many thanks, China.”
He hung up as Valkyrie helped Scrutinous to his feet. The water was gone, the shark was gone. Scrutinous wasn’t even wet any more.
“It had me,” he said. “The shark had me. I was, literally, about to be torn in two. You saved me. In the nick of time, you saved me.”
“You’re welcome,” Skulduggery said.
“I was talking to Valkyrie.”
Skulduggery’s head tilted. “But I’m the one who worked the whole thing out.”
Valkyrie grinned. “You’re very welcome, Geoffrey, although I can’t take all the credit. China helped, you know.”
“But I carved the right symbol,” Skulduggery said.
Scrutinous clasped Valkyrie’s hand in his. “If there is anything I can do for you in the future, anything at all, do not hesitate to ask.”
Skulduggery looked at him. “Can I ask, too?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Valkyrie cared that I was being attacked. You told me to shut up.”
“That’s because your screaming was very annoying. How is that my fault?”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Scrutinous said, “I’m going to go for a walk. A nice, long walk, on solid ground.”