When they were all on the dais, it started to rise. They passed tier upon tier of silent convicts, itching to tear them apart.
The dais stopped at the very top and Abyssinia led the way off. A huge convict stepped out of his cell once Abyssinia had walked by.
“The Skeleton Detective,” the big guy sneered. “You got some nerve coming in here, coming into our house. You think we’re gonna let you leave here in one piece, little skeleton? You think we’re gonna let you—”
Skulduggery grabbed him, twisted, and threw him over the balcony, and the big guy screamed all the way down.
“Sorry,” Skulduggery said to Abyssinia, “you were saying?”
They resumed walking, and Temper waved to the convicts he recognised.
“Nero, Razzia and Destrier were with Cadaverous when he took Caisson,” Abyssinia said. “I’ve looked into their minds – they had no idea what he was planning.”
“We’ll need to speak to them,” Skulduggery said.
“I assumed as much.”
They came to a large cell filled with books and a comfortable-looking bed. Razzia and Destrier stood at the open door.
“These are Cadaverous’s quarters,” Abyssinia said. “We haven’t yet conducted a search. I thought you would like to be the first one to do so.”
“Very much appreciated,” Skulduggery said. “Razzia, very good to see you again.”
She smiled back. “G’day, Skulduggery.”
“Cadaverous’s home — do you know where it is?”
Razzia frowned. “You’re looking at it.”
Skulduggery shook his head. “Cadaverous’s home is his castle. He transforms it into whatever his imagination can conjure. That’s where he’s gone. That’s where he’s taken Caisson, and that’s where Valkyrie is. He’s drawing us in to where he has all the advantages.” Skulduggery glanced at Abyssinia. “Your power won’t mean a whole lot in there. You realise that, yes?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “He has my son.”
“I liked you better when you were evil,” Razzia said. “You were more fun. You threatened to kill people more.”
“I’m still fun, Razzia. You just have to give me a chance.”
“He spoke about it once,” Destrier said.
Skulduggery swivelled his head. “Cadaverous spoke about his home? What did he say?”
Destrier’s eyes were on his shoes. His hands were intertwined. His fingers tapped nervously against each other. “Not much,” he said. “He thought I wasn’t listening but I was. I hear everything, but most of it doesn’t interest me. Not very much interests me, apart from the things that do. They interest me very much. He didn’t say where it was, but he said he had a new home.”
“When was this?” Temper asked.
“Five years and two months ago. And twelve days.”
“Any idea which country it was in?”
Destrier shook his head.
“Cadaverous has been preparing for this for a long time,” Skulduggery said.
“If that’s true,” Abyssinia responded, “then he managed to keep it from me when I was inside his head. A clever boy, that Cadaverous. Truly cunning.”
Skulduggery stepped into the cell, and went straight to the bookcase. “Shakespeare’s plays are all in chronological order apart from this one,” he said, taking The Tempest from the shelf. He flicked through it, caught a white card as it fell out. “An address,” he said.
Abyssinia clapped her hands delightedly. “We’ve found him!”
Temper raised an eyebrow. “A bit too easy, don’t you think?”
“I’d agree with Temper,” Skulduggery said. “But it’s a lead.”
“Then we’ll follow it wherever it takes us,” said Abyssinia, and smiled at Skulduggery. “Together again, eh, my love? The way it was always meant to be.”
47
She lifted from the murk and the world sharpened, and she opened her eyes. She lay on the floor, her hands bound behind her with tape, her legs bound at the ankles. It hurt to move her head.
Valkyrie turned over, on to her side. Pádraig was working at the stove.
“Mr Gant isn’t going to be happy,” Valkyrie said.
Pádraig looked round, and smiled. “You’re awake! You must have a hard head! And don’t you worry about Mr Gant. He told us that once we’d passed over the card we could do whatever we wanted with you. And we’re going to eat you.”
He turned back to shove more wood into the stove.
“I’m sorry?” Valkyrie said.
“We’re going to eat you,” Pádraig repeated. “We’ve been eating people for years now, Rosemary and I.”
“You’re cannibals?”
Pádraig looked at her over his shoulder. “Ah, now, we don’t like the word, so we don’t. We don’t like it. It has unpleasant connotations. But yes, essentially, cannibals are what we are. But we only eat magical folk. They taste the best.”
“Are you going to eat me alive?”
Pádraig laughed. “Jaysis, no! Would you eat a chicken alive? Or a cow or a pig? No, no, no. We’re going to cook you and then eat you. Well, first we’re going to boil you, and you’ll be alive when you’re being boiled, but I doubt you’ll stay that way for very long. It’s our way of marinating you before we start the cooking.”
“Mr Gant wants to kill me himself.”
“Yes and no,” said Pádraig. “This is a test, you see. If we eat you – and we will – then you’ll have failed the test, and so it wouldn’t be worth his time killing you. If you escape us – and you won’t – then you’ll have proven yourself worthy. You understand?”
“Am I going to be given any kind of a fighting chance?”
Pádraig looked puzzled. “This is your fighting chance.” Satisfied with the stove, he took a cookbook from the shelf and laid it on the table, and started flicking through the pages.
“What time is it?” Valkyrie asked.
He checked his watch. “Almost nine.”
She groaned. “I’ve only got three hours left. OK. Could you hurry this along? I really don’t have time to waste.”
He chuckled. “You’re really not getting this, are you? It’s over. You’re over. You’re tied up and you’ve got no magic. D’you know where Rosemary is right now? She’s on the toilet, emptying herself and making room for you. Because in three hours you’re not going to be saving your sister. You’re going to be a midnight feast.”
Valkyrie turned over on to her knees. She got her toes under her and rocked back on to her heels, then stood.
Pádraig looked up, and sighed. “What are you doing?”
“You’re not going to stop me.”
“If I let you sit in the armchair, will you quit being silly?”
“Sure.”
Pádraig came forward, arms out to guide her. “You’re going to have to hop over there. I’m not as strong as I used to be.”
Valkyrie waited until he was close enough, then slammed her forehead into the space right between his eyes. Bright light flashed behind her vision and she had to jump madly to stop from toppling over, but when she regained her balance Pádraig was sprawled out on the floor, hands tapping feebly at his face. Blood gushed from his broken nose.
“Guess you’re right,” she said as she hopped over. “I do have a hard head.”
She jumped, came down on his belly with both knees. Pádraig whooped and she fell sideways as he curled up in silent agony. She ran her hands down the back of her legs, struggling a little to get them over her boot heels. When they were over, she sat up, drew in her feet, started to rake at the tape round her ankles. It was thick, but she managed to scratch a small hole in it, and she kept going, making the hole bigger.
She heard a toilet flush.
Valkyrie looked around. Under the table was a fork. She rolled over to it, grabbed it, sat up again and used it to tear into the tape.
“I feel ten pounds lighter, so I do,” Rosemary said, walking in. “Pádraig? Pádraig,
where are you?”
Rosemary’s heavy footsteps came closer, heading for the stove. Any moment now and she’d see her husband. Valkyrie hacked.
“Pádraig!” Rosemary cried, and stumbled into view, about to fall to her knees at her husband’s side. But at the last moment she saw Valkyrie and she straightened up.
“You!” she snarled. “How could you do this to him? He’s an old man!”
Valkyrie didn’t bother answering. She just kept hacking.
It took a moment for Rosemary’s eyes to flicker downwards, to realise what Valkyrie was doing. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no you don’t.”
Rosemary clicked her fingers, summoning a ball of fire into her hand. Valkyrie turned over as she hurled it, felt it strike her back, and then Valkyrie was on her feet, tearing her ankles apart while Rosemary grabbed a meat cleaver.
Valkyrie kicked Rosemary in the chest, hearing bones crack and sending the old woman flipping over the table. She landed on the floor on the other side and started yelling in pain. Valkyrie ignored her, exchanged the fork for the sharpest knife she could find and used it to cut away the tape round her wrists.
Her phone rang.
She freed herself and answered.
“They’re always trying to eat people,” Cadaverous said, chuckling. “I was introduced to them through a friend of a friend. They’re not friends of mine, per se – I try not to associate with known cannibals – but they do have their charms, don’t they?”
Valkyrie pulled the card from her pocket. There was an address printed on it. “Do I go here now?”
“Valkyrie, Valkyrie … you sound impatient.”
“I’m just keenly aware of how little time I have.”
“Oh, I guess you have a point. Yes, Valkyrie, that’s where you go, and it’s the last stop before you get to your sister. It’s forty minutes away if you drive really fast. Tick-tock goes the clock, Valkyrie.’
Pádraig moaned as Valkyrie hurried past. She didn’t even bother to kick him.
She got in the car, swung back out on to the dark road, the headlights splitting the night.
She heard another moan now, from behind her. She fixed her eyes straight ahead. “Omen,” she said. “Omen. Omen.”
“Uhhh …”
“Don’t sit up.”
The moaning stopped. “Valkyrie?”
“You’re meant to be dead,” Valkyrie responded. “So no sitting up, understand?”
“You … did you shoot me?”
“Do you have a bullet in you? No? Then I didn’t shoot you. But Cadaverous thinks you’re dead, and we’re not going to do anything to break that illusion.”
“My head feels—”
“I don’t care.”
“You didn’t shoot me.”
“Of course not.”
“Is he … is he looking through your eyes right now?”
“I don’t know. I doubt he’s looking every single moment, but I have no way of knowing, so I’m assuming that he’s constantly watching.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve got one more stop before he tells me where Alice is. I expect there’ll be someone there who’s going to try to kill me.”
“Valkyrie?”
“What?”
“Thank you for not killing me.”
She softened. “No problem. Thank you for understanding.”
“Should I sneak away and call Skulduggery?”
“No,” she said. “We can’t call anyone. If Cadaverous even gets a whiff that I’m not playing by his rules, he’ll kill her.”
“So … so you don’t have any back-up? At all?”
“I have you, don’t I?”
“I suppose. What should I do?”
“Lie back there and pretend to be dead.”
“But I must be able to help,” Omen said. “I mean, Cadaverous holds all the cards, right? This is his plan, he’s a step ahead, but he doesn’t know that I’m alive. So, like, this is where we turn the tables.”
“I appreciate the optimism, Omen, but you’re not my secret weapon. I don’t want you doing anything, at any time. I want you to stay in the car and not move. That’s all.”
“I don’t know, Valkyrie – that seems like a waste. We have the element of surprise now. Shouldn’t we use it?”
“No, not really.”
“I wouldn’t let you down.”
“I know you’d try your very best, and, a lot of the time, that’d be enough. But Alice’s life is in danger. I can’t take the risk.”
“Yeah,” Omen said sadly. “I get it.”
48
Nero teleported them back to Roarhaven, to the Bentley parked by the side of the street.
“Why are we taking a car?” Nero asked, confusion riddling his pretty face. “I can get us anywhere in an eyeblink, remember?”
Temper watched as Skulduggery turned and put a hand on Nero’s chest to stop him. “You’re not coming with us.”
“Oh, you think so, do you?”
Skulduggery seemed unimpressed with Nero’s sudden posturing. “I only barely trust one Teleporter with silly hair, Nero, and that’s not you. Abyssinia, send him away.”
“We’ll be much faster with Nero than with a car,” Abyssinia said.
“Send him away or this partnership ends right here, right now.”
Abyssinia sighed. “Yes, fine. Nero, shoo.”
“You want me to go?” Nero said, frowning. “But … but you won’t have any back-up.”
“I’m the Princess of the Darklands. I don’t need back-up. Go on now.”
“Yeah,” Temper said. “Shoo.”
Nero glared, and vanished.
While Skulduggery got behind the wheel, Temper opened the passenger door, pulled the seat forward, and motioned for Abyssinia to climb in the back.
She peered in. “You want me to get in there? But it’s so cramped.”
“I’ve already called shotgun, I’m afraid,” said Temper. “In you go.”
Sighing, Abyssinia manoeuvred her way in with no small amount of grace. Temper returned the seat to its original position and got in.
49
The country house, every detail captured in the warm glow of floodlights, was as big as Grimwood and even grander. It had a fountain in the driveway that Valkyrie circled, before parking facing the exit – in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
She looked in the rear-view. Someone was walking over.
“Stay down,” she said to Omen as she undid her seatbelt. She got out.
The man who approached wore fox-hunting gear – a green jacket with four brass buttons, riding hat, jodhpurs and polished boots. He looked to be in his forties. He was tall, and observed her disdainfully. “You are late.”
Valkyrie ignored the voice in her head that told her to punch him. “What am I here for?”
He observed her for a bit longer, then sighed and turned. “This way.”
She followed as he led her round the house, to where the countryside rolled to the starry horizon on dark waves, spotted here and there with the lights of isolated houses and passing cars. A line of thirteen horses stood directly behind the house, their riders in an assortment of black, green and tweed jackets. Standing in front of the horses were maybe twenty people. They looked nervous. Jittery.
At the bottom of the hill was woodland, and built into that woodland, twisting in and around the trees, was a massive hedge maze, like nothing Valkyrie had ever seen.
The man in the green jacket indicated that Valkyrie should stand beside the scared people. She did so, as he climbed into the saddle of the biggest horse. Now that she could see them properly, Valkyrie realised the riders were all wearing grotesque masks.
She sighed, and turned to the woman next to her. “We’re going to be hunted, aren’t we?”
The woman met her eyes, and laughed with an excitement that Valkyrie found disturbing.
“At the centre of that maze,” the man in the green jacket said loudly, “is safe
ty. Anyone who reaches it will live. Anyone who doesn’t will die.”
Valkyrie stepped forward. “Do I have to do this? You seem to have a thing going on here, but I’m just looking for my—”
“Back in line!” roared the man in green.
Valkyrie glared, and stepped back.
“For those who reach the middle,” he continued, “you will join the Wild Hunt at our next meet. You will be one of us, with all the privileges that go with that. Every hunter you see before you has been where you are. We understand your fear.” He glanced at Valkyrie again, and irritation washed over his face. “As for you, there is a card in the middle of the maze. Written on that card is an address. In the unlikely event that you survive, that will be your reward.”
He took off his riding hat, pulled on a carved mask, and put his hat on over it. “I am the Master of the Hunt,” he said, “and I tell you to run!”
The men and women around Valkyrie ran. She hesitated long enough to see the hunters draw curved swords, then bolted after them.
The grass was wet and slippery. Already some of her fellow targets had lost their footing and were tumbling uncontrollably down the hill. Valkyrie passed the excitable woman, who reached out to grab her. Valkyrie shoved her away and kept going.
Behind them, a horn blew, and the night trembled with the thunder of approaching hooves.
Someone fell in Valkyrie’s way and she leaped over him, reached the bottom of the hill and sprinted on, finding herself near the front of the charge. There were some seriously unfit people running for their lives. She passed a wheezing woman who was slowing with each step. She was about to reach out and pull her along when an arrow thudded into the woman’s head and she dropped dead.
Valkyrie started zigzagging as she ran.
There were screams behind her as the horses caught up to the stragglers. Valkyrie glanced back, caught the flash of a curved blade, saw an arc of blood.
An arrow hit her shoulder and bounced off. Another one pierced the ground at her feet. A third landed ahead of her, but this one exploded in a burst of liquid.
A similar arrow hit a man to her left, made him stumble but didn’t hurt him. He ran on, his back drenched, disappearing through the entrance to the maze.