“I want it in my possession,” Darquesse continued. “I’m thinking of hiding it on the moon, once I’ve mastered space travel.”
“The Sceptre,” Vex said, giving another nod. “We’ll retrieve it for you, you have my word. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Faced with Vex’s calm demeanour, Darquesse paused, allowed herself to stop fretting. “Your brothers and sisters. Are they ready to strike?”
“They await your command.”
“I haven’t heard of any major Remnant disruption.”
“You asked us to lie low,” said Vex. “That’s what we’re doing.”
“How have you kept them under control?”
Vex shrugged. “I like to think all they needed was the right kind of leadership. I’m their boss but I’m also their friend, you know?”
Darquesse took a moment. “You don’t talk to me the way the others do.”
“Because they’re afraid of you,” said Vex.
“And you’re not?”
“Why should I be? You’re going to destroy the world. You’re my dream girl.”
Darquesse grunted. “Next time I call, be here sooner.”
Vex flashed her a dazzling smile. “Your wish, my lady.”
He bowed again, and left.
Darquesse turned to Foe and Samuel. “Are you scared of me?”
Samuel didn’t reply. Sanguine doubted anyone expected him to.
“I have a healthy respect for your power,” said Foe. “In some circles, that may be seen as a type of fear.”
“And you, Billy-Ray?” Darquesse asked. “Are you scared of me?”
He saw no point in lying. “Yes.”
“And yet,” Darquesse said, walking closer, “you released Tanith. You let her escape, and you stayed. You didn’t even try to run. If you’re so scared of me, why are you still here?”
“Because you’d probably be able to find me,” Sanguine said. “I felt I had a better chance talking to you face to face than running from you. At the very least, I’d be able to see the killing blow coming.”
“Interesting.” She stopped just out of arm’s reach. Did she know? Did she know he possessed one of the only weapons in the world that could kill her? He waited for her to take one more step. One more step, he decided, and he’d go for the dagger, no matter what.
“You miss her, don’t you?”
He licked his lips. “Sorry?”
“Tanith. She’s not here any more and that makes you sad. Hey, Billy-Ray, I remember being sad. Sad is not fun. So what are you going to do?”
“As regards …?”
“Me. Us. I think it’s time to be honest with each other, don’t you? You were only on my side because you were tagging along with Tanith, right? She’s the only reason you were here.”
“I guess.”
“So what happens now? Are you going to leave me, too?”
She took another step forward. His hand remained where it was. The dagger remained where it was. He chose his next words with care. “Well, I mean … I figure this is the winning side, and I ain’t never been on the winning side before, so I’ll probably stick around. If you’ll have me.”
“You really mean that?” Darquesse said, clapping her hands in delight.
“Sure,” he said, his heart sinking. “Why not?”
“What do you think, Vincent? What do you think, Samuel? Should we trust him?”
“Not one bit,” said Foe.
“Oh, you are no fun!” Darquesse said, and turned her smile back to Sanguine. “This means so much to me. It truly does. You really want me to destroy the world? You really want me to end your life along with everyone else’s?”
“Uh-huh …”
“Oh, that is good news.”
“Though you might wanna kill me last. Because of the loyalty, and all.”
“Loyalty,” Darquesse said. “Of course.”
She kept that delighted look on her face, but Sanguine wasn’t fooled. “So what’s the plan, boss?”
“The plan? Well … I’ve learned all I can as a physical form. I think my next state of being will be pure thought. Yes, I like that idea. But there are two things delaying me. The first is Erskine Ravel. He took Ghastly from us. I’m still angry about that, so I think, just for my own sense of closure, I need to find Ravel again and punish him. I need to drive him mad with pain, and then destroy him utterly. He doesn’t deserve to live on as energy.”
“And the second thing?”
Darquesse hesitated. “Valkyrie. It kills me to say this, it really does, but without her, I’m not all I could be. I’ll never live up to my true potential until we’re one being again. I’d like to see Mevolent using the magic-sucking thing on me then.”
“Right. OK. So what are you gonna do?”
“End her life,” Darquesse said simply. “Absorb her energy. Once I am whole, I’ll be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
She smiled. “For what happens next.”
62
THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR
letcher teleported Valkyrie home. “Can I see?” he asked.
She put her fingers to her lips, went to her bedroom door and listened. Her parents were downstairs. She turned back to Fletcher, took off her jacket and showed him her arm.
“Wow,” he said.
She pulled back the sleeve of her T-shirt, revealing the whole tattoo. Long swirls of solid black tumbled from her shoulder. They twisted round her bicep, linking with angular slashes that ran from the triceps to just above the elbow. Between these shapes were a dozen different markings that, by turn, bisected, separated and joined the two sections. It was a sigil comprised of smaller sigils, a tattoo that China had never tried before. She was, however, confident it would work.
“I was thinking of getting one,” Fletcher said. “Not that, obviously. But a tattoo.”
“Of what?” Valkyrie asked. “Your own face? I can see you with a tattoo of your own face. That’d be typical you.”
Fletcher tried to smile. “Yeah,” he said. “It would. But I was actually thinking of just getting Stephanie across my arm.”
“Oh,” said Valkyrie. “Right. Well, you know, that’s … Listen, we haven’t had a chance to talk since … since she died. I’m sorry about that, I really am.”
“Don’t be,” said Fletcher. “I’m the one who ran. And when I got myself together enough to come back, you were going through your Surge. How was that, by the way?”
“Painful. You know when everyone tells you it’s painful? You should really believe them.”
“Oh, joy,” he muttered. “I can’t wait for mine.”
“Fletch, are you OK?”
He smiled again, but this time it wasn’t forced. It was sad. “I don’t know, Val. On the outside, I feel normal things. I’m in mourning, I miss her, I think I may have loved her, maybe. I feel all that, and I think about that. But then, on the inside, I feel terrible. Like, guilty. Because of the things she probably heard, and what she thought before she died, and what she thought of me and … So I have these normal feelings of loss, but I also have these selfish feelings of me, me, me. And I don’t know which is stronger. I’m not altogether sure I’m a nice person.”
“You are, Fletch.”
“But my sadness isn’t all about Stephanie. A lot of it is about me.”
“Of course. You’ve lost her. You’ve suffered a loss. You have to deal with that.”
He shook his head. “Other people don’t. Other people are capable of feeling sad for the person who died.”
“How do you know? Can you look inside their minds? Maybe everyone feels this exact same way when they lose someone they care about. I mean, mourning itself is selfish, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
There was a quiet beep from the triangular piece of metal on Fletcher’s belt. “Time to go,” he said. “We’re going to have to follow a load of complicated directions to this Necropolis place. Sure, we’ll be teleporting instead of walkin
g, but we still have to travel slowly or else we’ll miss clues or turns or whatever. Skulduggery reckons we’ll be searching for at least a day.”
“You’d better get going, then. Thanks for the lift home.” On impulse, she hugged him. “You’re going to be fine,” she whispered.
He smiled, and vanished.
Valkyrie changed into jeans and pulled on a warm top. Then she took a few deep breaths, and went downstairs. Her parents were in the living room, playing with Alice. The mood was unusually sombre for playtime.
“Hi,” Valkyrie said.
“Ste’nee!” Alice cried, and hurtled over.
“Didn’t hear you come in,” said her mum. She stayed on the floor, her feet tucked beneath her.
Valkyrie scooped up Alice. “Fletcher dropped me off. We teleported.”
Her mum sighed. “Yes. Of course.”
“Tanith said she’d been keeping in touch with you.”
Valkyrie’s dad nodded as he sat into his armchair. “She called over, then rang to tell us you were out of your Surge. Am I getting that right? Surge?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, good. She said you were in huge amounts of pain.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“She told us a lot about what sorcerers do,” her mum said. “Told us stories. She told us about a man who can make people believe whatever he tells them.”
“That’s Geoffrey.”
“You could have asked Geoffrey to brainwash us, couldn’t you? Made us forget about this magic thing?”
“Yes,” said Valkyrie. “I thought about it. But I didn’t want to lie to you any more. It’s just too hard. Too complicated. I think you have a right to know. No one else thinks that, by the way. If you have a mortal family, the generally accepted rule is that you keep them in the dark for as long as you can.”
“And then what?”
“Then you leave. You come up with an elaborate story, or you disappear, or you fake your own death …”
“They wanted you to fake your own death?”
Valkyrie hesitated. “Sorcerers live longer than other people. They live for hundreds of years. Providing the world doesn’t end in the next few days, and providing I survive, I’ll probably stay looking eighteen until I’m at least forty or fifty.”
Her mum had tears in her eyes as she stood. “You’re never going to grow up?”
Valkyrie smiled. “I am grown up, Mum. I’m just going to age really slowly from here on out. I’ll be the youngest looking forty-year-old you know.”
“You’ll be missing out on a normal life.”
“What’s so great about a normal life? I’m going to be strong and fit and healthy for centuries. I’m going to live an extraordinary life.”
“If you can call that living. What about meeting someone? Falling in love? Raising a family?”
“I can still do all that.”
“But we won’t get to see it. We’ll keep ageing. We’ll die and you’ll carry on and you’ll have no one left. We won’t get to see you start a family. I want grandchildren, Steph.”
“Mum, you’re not being fair.”
“You’re not being fair. This is about more than just you. When Alice is old enough, what’s she going to think? Is she going to be like you?”
“Like me?”
“Magic,” her mum said, making it sound like a dirty word.
“I don’t know,” Valkyrie answered, suddenly hurt. She put Alice down gently. “Maybe. Maybe not. But we don’t have to tell her.”
“And when she realises that her big sister isn’t getting any older, or when she sees her big sister flying around on a broomstick or casting spells or whatever it is you do, she’s not going to want to join in the fun?”
“Mum, I don’t have all the answers.”
“When you were born, I wanted you to be special. Of course I did. Every mother does. Every parent does. Please, God, let my child be the smartest and the prettiest and the best at everything. Let her have all the advantages in the world. But there’s another thought, and it rests just underneath that one. That thought is please, please let my child be ordinary. Let her be just smart enough and just pretty enough and just special enough to get what she wants and be happy.
“Extraordinary people are outcasts, Steph. They’re shunned. They’re called names. They’re hated and feared and misunderstood. I just wanted you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Des, feel free to contribute. Don’t you dare make me the bad guy in this.”
Valkyrie’s dad was silent a moment longer, and she knew he was sorting his thoughts into some kind of order in his head. When he was ready, he spoke. “I think it’s wonderful.”
Valkyrie looked up.
“You can’t be serious,” her mum said.
“I don’t want our daughter risking her life any more than you do, Melissa. But that’s what she does. She risks her life for others. It’s amazing. It’s … inspiring. When she was a kid, you never wanted to read her princess stories, do you remember that? You said she gets enough princess stories rammed down her throat from cartoons and toys and colouring books … You wanted her to colour in pictures of astronauts and footballers and you wanted to read her stories about adventurers and mad scientists. Remember, in spite of everything we did, she went through a pink stage anyway, where everything had to involve princesses? She got bored of that pretty quickly, didn’t she?”
“Not conforming to society’s view of what girls should be is one thing, Des, and it’s a good thing. But this? This is insane.”
“It’s what you wanted for her.”
Valkyrie’s mum looked shocked. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
“It’s no one’s fault, Melissa. No one is at fault. There’s nothing wrong with what she’s doing. She’s a hero. Our job now is to support her.”
“I can’t support our daughter living a life like this. You can’t expect me to. Jesus, Des, she’s going to get herself killed!”
“She’s fighting to save us all.”
“Let someone else do it!” her mum shouted, and Alice started crying. “There are plenty of people with magic powers running around this place! Let them handle it!”
“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”
Valkyrie’s mum picked up Alice. “If something happens to her, Des, if she gets hurt, if she … If our daughter dies, I will never forgive you.”
Holding Alice tightly to her, she walked out. Valkyrie’s dad watched her go.
“Do your best not to die, sweetie,” he said quietly. “She’s the only one who knows how to work the dishwasher.” Then he followed after her.
Valkyrie went to bed early that night. She wanted to call Skulduggery to talk this through, but he was out trying to find the Necropolis. She would have called Tanith, but found herself hesitating. Even though the Remnant was gone, even though Tanith was back to her old self, ignoring the last two years was something Valkyrie couldn’t do easily.
She realised, then, that the person she needed to speak to wasn’t there any more, and she cried for Stephanie, and finally went to sleep.
The next morning started in silence. Valkyrie woke up early, nightmares driving her from slumber, but got up late, almost midday. She pulled on her dressing gown over a pair of light shorts and a T-shirt. She stood in her room and listened to her parents downstairs. She didn’t even know what day it was. Was it the weekend? Was it a Sunday? She didn’t want to go down. She didn’t want to find out that her parents hadn’t spoken to each other all night. Her folks never argued. There was never tension in the air.
She left her room. The door to Alice’s room was open, and Alice lay napping in her cot. Valkyrie couldn’t help it. She looked at her sister and smiled. Her baby sister always made her smile.
She went downstairs. Someone knocked on the door, and she went to answer it, tightening the sash round her waist as she did so. Her bare feet settled into the bristles of the welcome mat and he
r hand went to the latch, twisted it to the right. She pulled the door open, smiling politely in gentle anticipation. The smile didn’t leave her face, even as she saw Dai Maybury standing there.
It left her face when he hit her, though. As she stumbled back, blood spouting from her nose, sudden tears in her eyes, her mouth was opening to, what? Curse? Cry out? Threaten? She’d never know, because he was already in the hall with her and he grabbed her and hurled her into the living-room door. It burst open under the impact and she sprawled over the armchair. She heard her mother’s cry of alarm, and a rush of feet, and she raised her head in time to see Dai’s hand collide with her mother’s jaw. Her mum collapsed.
Valkyrie shoved the armchair out of her way and dived at Dai. He batted down her arms, keeping her fingers from his eyes, and she followed up with a headbutt that she realised, too late, he was expecting. His elbow cracked into her cheek and lights flashed behind her eyes, and he pivoted out of the way and let her own momentum take her into the wall. Her shoulder dislodged some family photographs. One of them, in a heavy frame, fell right on her foot. She didn’t notice.
Her father came running in, charging straight at Dai, who watched him come and moved only at the last moment, hip-throwing Desmond Edgley to the carpet. Dai leaned over, hit him three times, and Valkyrie’s dad stayed down.
The room spun and Valkyrie lurched upright. She went to run at Dai, but her knees bent without warning and she stumbled sideways, falling on to the coffee table. Dai walked by her. She watched him go, her eyes unfocused. He went upstairs.
She needed to get her head straight. She was stunned. Her equilibrium was shot. Blood ran from her nose. She was close to passing out. Concussion? Maybe. If she was concussed, then passing out would be the worst thing she could possibly do. She took a moment, breathed in through her mouth, working to sharpen her thoughts. Upstairs she heard movement. Dai was searching for something. What was he searching for?
The Sceptre.
Valkyrie stood. The sounds of the search upstairs had ceased. He’d found it. Her vision no longer swam. She was back in control.
She grabbed the poker from the fireplace as Dai came down the stairs. She ran into the hall, about to swing it at his head. Dai was calm. Why was he calm? She saw the backpack over his shoulder, the backpack containing the Sceptre. In his arms, he carried the sleeping beauty, little baby Alice.