Something hit her in the small of the back. She reached behind her, felt the wetness, and then she was through, into the maze.
Valkyrie slowed down to catch her breath. Outside the maze were the screams of the dying – inside was the hushed panting of the desperate. They plunged on without thought, without strategy, barging past Valkyrie in their eagerness to win a place in the Wild Hunt.
Psychos, she decided. Hunters and hunted, both as bad as each other.
There was a rule about mazes, she knew there was. Keep right, maybe? Keep trailing your hand along the wall to your right and it will lead you to the centre?
Or was it left?
She looked back as the hunters streamed into the maze on foot, swords glinting.
She turned right and ran.
The hedges ranged from knee-height to three metres tall. Sound worked differently here. All around her were the sounds of the pursuers – their footsteps, their calls, their laughter, their shouts – and the sounds of the pursued – their footsteps, their cries, their sobbing, their screams – but these sounds crept up from odd angles. Sometimes they were behind, sometimes in front. Sometimes above, and sometimes just over her shoulder.
The deeper Valkyrie went, the further from the lights she moved, the darker it got. She crouched, listening to someone begging nearby. There was a laugh, and a sudden, gurgled moan, and the begging stopped.
There was someone coming for her.
Valkyrie moved on, keeping low. She tugged at the bracelet round the wrist, but there was no way it was coming off.
She stopped. Her hand. It was luminous orange.
She twisted, looking down at herself, hissing a curse under her breath. Her jacket, her trousers, drenched with that liquid, now glowed in the dark, a beacon to the hunters who were closing in.
Footsteps. Rushing her. Valkyrie spun and the hunter stopped running. He laughed beneath his mask.
She sagged. “Come on then,” she said, allowing her voice to tremble. “Get it over with. If you’re going to kill me, kill me. Just … just make it quick.”
She raised her chin and turned her head a little, giving him a clean swing at her neck. He marched forward, confident in her submission and his inevitable victory. He raised the sword as he walked, and when he was in range he swung. Valkyrie stepped into him, left arm wrapping round his right while her other hand cracked into his chin. He stumbled but she held on, hit him a few more times as he went down, then hit him a few more times after that.
She straightened, looked around for the sword. It had flown from his grip and was now lost in a hedge somewhere.
“Here!” another hunter shouted, and Valkyrie bolted.
She tore off her jacket as she ran, dropping it, thankful that the T-shirt beneath was black. She took a corner. There were two hunters ahead, hacking a man to death, and Valkyrie ducked behind the next corner before they saw her, then slipped backwards into the shadows. She crouched, doing her best to hide the parts of her that glowed, and held her breath. The hunter on her tail ran past.
“She come this way?” the hunter, a woman, barked.
“Who?” one of the other hunters asked.
The woman didn’t bother answering. She hurried back to the corner, and Valkyrie squirmed further into the darkness.
The woman passed, sword in hand, and Valkyrie stepped out, wrapping an arm round her throat – but the hunter grabbed her arm and twisted and Valkyrie flew over her shoulder.
She managed to pull the hunter down with her and they both hit the ground. The woman did her best to scramble up, but Valkyrie dived on her, grabbing the wrist that still held the sword.
The hunter squirmed, scratching Valkyrie’s face, trying to push her off. Valkyrie kept control of the woman’s sword hand, worked her way into a dominant position, and started to ram her elbow into the hunter’s jaw. The hunter was strong, roughly the same size as Valkyrie herself, but it didn’t take much to put her out.
Valkyrie swapped her trousers for the hunter’s jodhpurs and pulled her boots back on.
Someone screamed. Someone else laughed. Valkyrie carried on.
She got through the next few minutes without meeting any more hunters. When she came to smaller hedges, she climbed over them, heading for the light she could see every now and then through the leaves. She quickened her pace, and her feet hit something and she tripped, went tumbling.
“Shush!” said the man she’d tripped over. “Shhhh!”
Valkyrie glared at whoever it was. “You saw me coming,” she whispered. “You could have warned me you were there.”
“You should look where you’re going!”
“It’s dark!”
“That’s no excuse!” the man said, straightening up. “Now I have to find another hiding spot!” He turned, walked right into a sword thrust.
“Eryx?” he said, gasping.
The hunter peered closer. “Pyramus?” he said through his mask. “It is you. Hey. Uh … oh, man. Sorry.” Pyramus gurgled, and fell down, and Eryx the hunter turned to Valkyrie. “He was a friend of mine,” he said. “I encouraged him to take part. I feel really bad now.”
Valkyrie nodded, and ran.
He ran after her.
She scrambled for the corner, sprinted down another path, turned the corner and immediately ducked and spun and crouched.
She heard Eryx running up. Getting closer. Closer.
She powered out of her crouch, catching him in the side as he turned the corner. He went flying and she slipped on the wet grass. The sword landed next to her.
She grabbed it as Eryx came up to his knees, holding his ribs, struggling to breathe. He looked around for his sword, saw it in Valkyrie’s hands and froze.
She stood. He held up his hands.
“Please don’t kill me,” Eryx said.
“Take off the mask.”
He did as he was told. His face was unexceptional, and shiny with sweat.
“Hands on your head,” said Valkyrie. “Interlace the fingers.”
“Oh, God,” Eryx said as he complied. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? You are. Just say it. Just tell me. You’re going to kill me.”
“Shut up, Eryx.”
“I’ll beg if I have to.”
“You’re already begging.”
“I’ll beg more. I’ll beg better. Please don’t do it. I have a family. I have a wife and children.”
“Is that so?” Valkyrie said, stepping closer, tapping the tip of the sword on one of the brass buttons on Eryx’s jacket. “What’s your wife’s name?”
He blinked. “She … she’s my ex-wife.”
“What’s your ex-wife’s name, Eryx?”
“I … I can’t remember.”
“I think you’re lying about the family, Eryx.”
He shook his head. “I love them very much. Please don’t deprive my children of their father. They need a strong male role model in their lives.”
“You murder people, Eryx.”
“You can’t blame them for that. Please. Think of my kids. Think of little Timmy.”
“I think little Timmy will be fine without you, Eryx.”
“He won’t,” Eryx said, crying. “He’s useless.”
“Do you know this maze, Eryx? How do I get to the middle?”
Sobbing, he looked around. “We’re quite close to it,” he said. “Keep going that way. Look for the openings to get narrower. The narrower the better. They’ll take you right to the middle.”
“Thanks for that,” Valkyrie said, and hit him behind the ear with the pommel of the sword. Eryx fell forward and she carried on.
She followed his advice, chose the narrower of the options available to her, and in under three minutes she stepped into a clearing. Before her was a fountain surrounded by a small hedge. No one else was here yet, but upon the ledge of the fountain lay a white card.
And then a blade pressed against her throat from behind.
50
Valkyrie dropped the swor
d and turned so, so slowly.
Two hunters stood there – a woman in a black jacket and a man in a green one. The Master of the Hunt. It was the woman’s sword that scraped her windpipe.
“I reached the middle,” Valkyrie said.
“No,” said the Master. “That’s the middle. Over there. You haven’t reached it, which means you’re going to die.”
“Cadaverous won’t be happy with you. He wants to kill me himself.”
“You think I care what Cadaverous Gant wants?” the Master said. “I owed him. I agreed to include you in tonight’s hunt in order to repay my debt. Now we’re square. In fact, I rather enjoy the idea of killing someone he wants to kill himself. I really don’t like him.”
Valkyrie licked her lips. “I’ll pay you.”
“We don’t do this for money.”
“Well, hold on now,” the woman in the black jacket said. “Tell me more.”
“A relative left me a lot of money,” Valkyrie said. “He was a writer. Gordon Edgley – you heard of him?”
The woman lowered her sword. “The Gordon Edgley?”
Valkyrie nodded. “He left me his fortune. I can pay you, both of you, to walk away.”
The Master looked at the woman. “Hypatia, no.”
“How much?” Hypatia asked.
“A lot.”
“You’re lying,” the Master said. “She’s lying.”
He went to stab Valkyrie, but Hypatia held him back. “How much?”
“Most of it is tied up in investments and policies and things, but I’m pretty sure I can get you a million. Each.”
“Not interested,” said the Master.
“Maybe you’re not interested,” Hypatia said, “because you’ve got money. You’ve been around for two hundred years. But I’m young. A million each, you say?”
“In cash.”
“You expect us to trust that you’ll live up to your end?”
“This is a big reward,” Valkyrie said. “You’ve got to take a big risk to get a big reward.”
“Stop this,” said the Master. “This very conversation is cheapening the name of the Wild Hunt. Hypatia, maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you’re not one of us, after all. I think I’ll have to talk to the others.”
Hypatia stuck her sword through the Master’s chest. He gave a surprised sigh, and crumpled.
“Two million,” Hypatia said. “For me.”
Valkyrie nodded. “Agreed.”
“If you try and cheat me …”
“I won’t, but I’m going to need some way to contact you when I have the money.”
Hypatia took out her phone and held it up. “I’m recording,” she said. “Give me an email or a number or something.”
Valkyrie recited her number and Hypatia put her phone away. “Three days,” she said.
“Agreed,” Valkyrie said, and ran to the fountain. Upon the card were printed five words:
Midnight at the Midnight Hotel
She spun. “What time is it? The time, quickly!”
Hypatia looked at her phone. “Ten to ten.”
“Is there a shortcut out of here?” Valkyrie asked, hurrying back. “I need to get to my car.”
“For two million,” Hypatia said, “I think I can give you a lift.”
She wrapped an arm round Valkyrie’s waist and brought the air in, boosting them high over the maze. They leapfrogged like this all the way back up the hill, coming to a stop at the country house.
“You know,” said Hypatia, “you did reach the middle of the maze, so technically you’re invited to join the Wild Hunt.”
“Is this what you do, then? Hunting down people and killing the ones you catch?”
Hypatia shrugged. “It’s not all we do. We’re an interesting group. I think you’d like us, if you gave us a chance.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got enough friends.”
Valkyrie started running for her car.
“You can never have enough friends!” Hypatia shouted after her. “I’ll call you!”
Valkyrie jumped in the car.
“I heard horses,” Omen said from the back seat.
“Alice is in the Midnight Hotel,” Valkyrie said, starting the engine and putting her foot down. The car kicked up stones as it sped for the road.
“Huh,” said Omen. “Suppose that fits.”
“You know about it?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Well, kind of. We just covered it in school.”
“Then you know where it is?”
“It changes location every twelve hours.”
“I know that – I mean do you know where it is when it’s in Ireland? I’ve been there, but Skulduggery always drove and I didn’t really pay attention. Do you know the address?”
“Um …”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I, uh … I’m not very good at remembering facts about things. I know that the hotel is planted at each new location. There are these green seeds that grow in the bushes around the hotel – you put one in the ground and you add water and a new hotel just … sprouts up, and the people inside are teleported straight in to it. The existing hotel, like, wilts, or whatever it is it does, withers away to nothing. I saw a video of it, taken back before people had proper phones. They had the camera looking out the window and everything outside is so big, because the hotel is only growing, you know, and everyone inside is tiny? It only takes a few minutes for it to reach full size, though, and then there’s a brand-new hotel. It’s pretty cool.”
“Omen. I need the address.”
“I … I don’t know.”
“I know roughly where we’re going, but I really need you to think now, OK? I need the exact address?”
“It’s … um … it’s in … Wait.” He frowned. “Oh my God,” he said. “I know this. I actually know this! I’ve remembered something from school!”
“Student of the goddamn year,” Valkyrie said, and gunned the engine.
51
The address on the card led them to a small apartment building that had popped up behind a newsagent’s in somewhere called Mountmellick – which was in Laois, apparently. Temper had never been to Laois before. It seemed like a nice enough place.
Skulduggery activated his façade and went to pick the lock of the side door, but Abyssinia just kicked it open and strolled through. Temper watched Skulduggery lecture her on the way up the stairs. Abyssinia agreed with everything he said, but was obviously ignoring him. It was kind of amusing.
They reached the door to Cadaverous’s apartment.
“If this is Cadaverous’s home,” Skulduggery said, “we might be walking into something we’re not ready for.”
“Let’s go,” said Abyssinia.
“Hold on,” Skulduggery said. “He likes to say that in his home he is God. And, while that may be grandiose, it’s not untrue.”
“Let’s go in and find out.”
“Just wait a second, would you?”
She grabbed Skulduggery, slammed him against the wall. “Our son is in there!”
“We don’t know that,” Skulduggery responded coolly. “Also, hands off the suit.”
“I could crush you,” Abyssinia snarled.
“Hands. Off. The suit.”
The door to the neighbouring apartment opened, and a man with a shaggy beard came out, a knapsack over one shoulder. He looked at the three of them.
“Howyeh,” he said.
Temper waved. “Hi there.”
The bearded man hesitated, then closed his door, walked between them and moved on to the stairs.
When he was gone, Abyssinia released Skulduggery and stepped back, a smile sweeping the anger from her face. “You’re maddening,” she said. “You never used to be like this. Razzia was right. You’re more fun when you’re evil.”
“Aren’t we all?” Skulduggery said, straightening his tie. He knelt by the door to pick the lock.
Abyssinia looked at Temper. “We were in love,” she said.
&
nbsp; Temper nodded. “Love is nice.”
Skulduggery put his lock picks away, and stood. “When I open this door, anything might happen. Cadaverous has had five years to build the nightmare of his dreams – we could literally be walking into hell.”
“I’m ready,” said Abyssinia.
“I could wait in the car?” said Temper.
Skulduggery deactivated his façade and drew his gun. “Then let’s go.”
Temper drew his, too, and when Skulduggery pushed the door open they swarmed in –
– to an empty apartment.
“Huh,” said Temper.
There was one item of furniture – a table with a white card placed upon it. Temper read what it said.
“Abyssinia – you didn’t think it would be this easy, did you? We’re going to play a little game, you and I. I call it Let’s Save Caisson. The objective is simple. You’ve got forty-eight hours to find him, and you have to do this alone. No Teleporters. No back-up. Your first stop will be to—”
Abyssinia snatched the card out of Temper’s hand and read the rest of it herself. “He thinks he can make me play his game? The insolence of the man! I will find him and crush him.”
“Again with the crushing,” Skulduggery muttered, coming out of the bedroom.
“If his plan was to draw Abyssinia in like this,” Temper said, “then maybe he’s done the same thing with Valkyrie.”
“Call Omen,” Skulduggery said, checking the empty cupboards. “He was babysitting Alice this afternoon.”
Temper dialled Omen’s number and waited.
“What are you doing?” Abyssinia asked Skulduggery.
“Looking for clues,” he said.
“Are you finding any?”
“Not really.”
“Then you’re just wasting time while Caisson is in the hands of a lunatic. I heard that you had become this great detective in my absence, but, aside from finding a card in a book, I have yet to see you detecting anything.”
Temper put his phone away. “Omen isn’t answering. You think Cadaverous has Alice?”
“I do,” Skulduggery said.
“You think he has Omen?”
“If Omen is lucky – yes. If he isn’t lucky, he’s already dead.”