Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (22 page)

alkyrie was halfway to the Bentley when Ghastly called out to her. She turned, waited as he approached.

“Here,” he said, handing her a small box, “this is for your journey.”

Valkyrie opened it, pulled out what was inside. “A mask?”

“It should keep you warm,” Ghastly said. “Unless you’d prefer a woolly hat and earmuffs?”

She smiled. “This will do fine, thank you.”

“It’s the same material I used for your clothes, but don’t get too carried away. It’ll absorb impacts and dissipate the effects, but you’re still going to feel it and it’s still going to hurt.”

“But it’s still bulletproof, right?”

Ghastly hesitated. “Yes,” he said slowly, “it is bulletproof. Just do me a favour and don’t get shot in the head. The mask won’t let the bullet through, but the impact alone might be enough to kill you. Valkyrie, please – view this as something to keep your head warm. Nothing more.”

“Right,” she said. “Thanks.”

“There are also some gloves in there.”

“You’re the best, Ghastly.”

“Call me Elder Bespoke when we’re in public.”

She blinked, and he chuckled and walked away. “I’m so funny,” he said.

She grinned and got in the car beside Skulduggery, and they drove to the private airstrip the Sanctuary owned. Their transport was a huge cargo plane that looked like it had seen action in a world war – which one, Valkyrie couldn’t be sure. It was big and loud and cold, and they had the entire body of the thing to themselves. She put on her new gloves and tried to go to sleep against the netting, eventually falling into a fitful doze. She was woken, hours later, by Skulduggery.

“We’re here,” he said over the roar of the engines.

She sat up. It had gone from cold to freezing. Moving a little stiffly, she crossed to a porthole and looked out over the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s just like watching TV.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “Yet again, you manage to drain the wonder out of the most impressive of spectacles.”

Valkyrie grinned at him. “Are we close to the airport?”

“Airport?”

“Sorry, airstrip. The landing thing. Runway. Whatever.”

“Ah,” he said. “I’m afraid we won’t be landing. This is a round trip for the pilots, no rest stops in between.”

Her eyes widened. “We’re going to parachute out? Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to try that!”

“Parachutes,” Skulduggery said. “Yeah, they’d probably have been a good idea.”

She frowned. “We don’t have parachutes?”

“Why would we need them?”

“Because… we’re jumping out of a plane.”

“You jump out of your bedroom window all the time.”

She stared. “That’s a little different, Skulduggery. My bedroom window isn’t thirty thousand feet off the ground.”

“But you still use the air to slow your descent, yes? So do the same here. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

“I’m not worried about the jumping,” she said. “I’m worried about the falling. I’m worried about the splatting.”

He patted her shoulder. “You amuse me,” he said, and walked up to the cockpit.

Valkyrie pushed the nerves down, and found herself grinning. She took the mask from her pocket and pulled it on. It covered her whole head save for her eyes and mouth, and there was even a hole in the back for her ponytail to hang from. Like everything Ghastly made, it fitted perfectly, and it warmed her immediately.

Skulduggery came back, holding a GPS device. “Sixty seconds to our destination,” he informed her.

She put on her gloves. “What do you think? Do I look amazing?”

“You do indeed.”

“Do I look like a ninja?”

“Not a million miles away.”

She looked around for a reflective surface, actually found a mirror tied into the netting. Probably there for when paratroopers applied camouflage to their faces or something. She ducked down to see how fantastic she looked, and her grin dropped.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I look like a freak.”

“You look great,” Skulduggery assured her.

“Ghastly made me a freak mask.”

“It actually looks rather fetching.”

“Yeah, if you’re a freak.”

“Nonsense. You look perfectly normal. Come on, it’s time to jump out of a plane without a parachute.”

Still frowning, she followed him to the door. They looked at a light bulb. Waited. Valkyrie’s frown left her and she started to grin again.

The bulb lit up, and Skulduggery opened the door and threw himself out. The wind took him, whipped him away. Grinning ever wider beneath her mask, Valkyrie took hold of the bar above the doorway, and with a roar of pure adrenaline she launched herself out after him.

Immediately she was lost in rushing wind. The mountains were unimaginably vast, devastatingly beautiful, stretching to a horizon that flipped around her as she fell. The freezing wind shot up the sleeves of her jacket, down past her collar, up through her trousers. She whooped as she spun through the cold.

Skulduggery was below her, his hat in one hand, the GPS device in the other. She followed where he went, both of them diving down, twisting and arcing. He was more graceful than her, but Valkyrie didn’t care. She’d just jumped out of a plane without a parachute. Beneath her mask, she laughed.

She levelled off, arms and legs outstretched, copying Skulduggery. She brought the air in to correct her course, angling for the side of a peak. She didn’t want this to stop. Out here, up here, she was as free as she had ever been. The only time she’d approached this level of pure abandonment was when she’d been Darquesse, flying over Dublin City. She remembered the joy, wallowed in it for a moment, then shut away the memory, covering it with shame.

Skulduggery was slowing, the air around him rippling. Valkyrie brought the wind in to buffet her descent, trying to do it gradually, straining to catch the currents. She lost control and spiralled away, reached out to snag something, anything, brought in a gust that flipped her head over heels towards the mountain face. She pushed back against the air and fell, tumbling, calling for help, and then there was a surface approaching and she managed to slow herself enough so that when she slammed into it she didn’t break any bones. She rolled, grunting, found something to grab. She hung on, trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out which way was up, and then Skulduggery was there, looking down at her.

“Well,” he said, “that was needlessly dramatic.”

He walked off, and after a moment, Valkyrie sat up. She looked out over the ledge, at the great expanse of the snow-covered Alps. The beautiful, pristine Alps that had very nearly killed her.

She was sore. The cold was seeping through the eyeholes in her mask, giving her a headache. Her neck was freezing, making her shiver.

“I hate this place,” she said loudly. Skulduggery didn’t hear. The stupid alpine wind had snatched her words away. Stupid Alps.

She got up stiffly, hurried after him. The plane was already looping around, disappearing into the clouds.

“These are the co-ordinates,” he said. “They should be close by.”

“I’m cold.”

“Then you should have worn a coat.”

“I thought my jacket would be enough. It’s really cold up here. Why don’t you ever bring me somewhere nice? Somewhere warm and sunny? Somewhere I could sit by the pool?”

“You’re talking about a holiday.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just talking about a case where I have to sit by pools and be warm and get a tan. How hard would it be to find us a case like that?”

“Our next case,” he said, “I’ll be sure to look out for poolside opportunities for you.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“Hmmm...”

“What?”

He crouched. She crouched, too.

“What?” she asked again.

He pointed ahead of them. “See that?”

“What, the snow?”

“Beyond that.”

“More snow?”

“Stop looking at the snow.”

“I don’t know what you’re pointing at. Are you pointing at the mountain? Yes, Skulduggery, I can see the mountain. It’s kind of hard to miss. It’s a mountain.” Something moved in the distance, something with dark fur. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. Is that an Abominable Snowman?”

“It would appear so,” Skulduggery said.

It was hard to make out, but it was big and furry. Valkyrie leaned closer and kept her voice low. “Can I ask you a question? You know with vampires and werewolves and goblins and things, is there any mythological creature that
doesn’t
actually exist?”

“Of course,” he replied. “The unicorn and the leprechaun would be the two main ones. The Loch Ness Monster isn’t real, either, that’s just someone called Bert. Any more questions, or can we get back to the situation at hand?”

“Please do.”

“Thank you. The Yeti, or the Kang Admi as it is otherwise known, is not indigenous to these parts. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one straying from the Himalayas.”

“Maybe this one got lost.”

“Or maybe Tyren Lament brought it along for security purposes.”

“Is it dangerous? It looks dangerous. On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous would it be?”

“Well, if one is a kitten, and ten is a Yeti, then I’d say it’s a ten.”

“Dear God, I want to hurt you so bad.”

“Yetis are strong and fast and fierce. If you see one running at you, it’s already too late. We’ll have to stay out of sight. By the way, dressing head to toe in black is not the best camouflage when you’re in the snow.”

“Says the man in the navy-blue suit.”

“Ah, but all I have to do is remove my hat and my head blends into the background.”

“So then it looks like there’s a navy-blue suit running around on its own, which is way less suspicious.” Valkyrie looked around. “If Lament did bring the Yeti to act as a doorman, that means the door
must
be somewhere around here.”

“Look for anything that seems out of place.”

“You mean anything that isn’t a rock or a snowflake.”

“Exactly.”

He stopped suddenly, and Valkyrie looked down at the massive pawprint in the snow.

“So what?” she asked. “We already know it’s there.”

He shook his head. “I’m not altogether sure that Yeti made this track. At the rate the snow is falling, this should have been covered up by now.”

“Which means?”

He looked at her. “Which means there is more than one Yeti.”

From behind them there came a growl and Valkyrie whirled, fire filling her hands as the creature charged, and she prepared for the fight of her life.

“Well,” Skulduggery said once the fight of her life was over, “that was bracing.”

Valkyrie wheezed, and sat up. “It tried to eat my head.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“It literally had my head in its mouth.”

“What was that like?”

“Smelly. Wet. Horrible. Exactly what you’d expect if a Yeti tried to eat your head. My freak mask saved me.”

He helped her to her feet. “You handled yourself admirably.”

“You think so?”

“Your constant screaming definitely made it hesitate.”

“Yeah, it’s a new tactic I’m trying out. Pants-wetting fear. Do you think its mate heard me?”

“I wouldn’t say so. The wind carried your screaming in the opposite direction. But we should probably get moving before it comes back. I’d imagine it would be quite irate.”

“If you threw me off a mountain, I’d be irate, too.”

She walked beside him across the snow, her gloved hands tucked under her armpits. She kept her mouth closed. Her lips were freezing. Her eyeballs, too. The snow was sucking at her boots, trying to pull her down. It didn’t take long before her legs got tired.

“Are we nearly there?” she asked, looking around at him for the first time since they started walking. “Hey. You’re cheating!”

The snow curled around him but didn’t touch him, and the snow on the ground parted for his feet. “Snow is water,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to realise this for the past five minutes.”

She glared. “My brain is frozen.”

“Manipulate the snow just like you would water and you’ll be fine.”

The gloves Ghastly had made for her were the same as Skulduggery’s, meaning she could click her fingers to generate a spark or feel the air to move an object. But for something like water, an element she hadn’t spent much time practising with, she needed a bare hand. She took off her right glove, the cold closing round her skin and robbing it of its warmth. She did her best to ignore all that, and focused on making the compacted snow under her boots roll backwards like a wave. But nothing happened. The dynamics were totally different than with free-flowing water. She gritted her teeth and poured her magic into it, and the snow surged, whipping her feet out from under her.

“Found it,” Skulduggery said from up ahead.

Growling, Valkyrie struggled up and clomped through the snow to where he was standing. Once, maybe, it had been a cave, but now it was just a mass of snow-covered boulders and rocks. “This looks just like everything else around here,” she said. “Are you sure this is it?”

“There’s evidence of a bridge out there,” he said, nodding his head towards the ledge. “It must have connected this peak to the one next to it. Once all the equipment was shipped in, the bridge was destroyed and the entrance collapsed.”