Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (32 page)

oran Purcell’s friends were quickly identified as Kitana Kellaway and Sean Mackin, all three of them seventeen years old and all pupils of St Brendan’s Secondary School. Their parents hadn’t seen them in days, and no one else had heard from them. There was a fourth member of their group, a girl called Elsie O’Brien. She was unaccounted for. Valkyrie didn’t much care about that. Elsie O’Brien hadn’t tried to kick her to death, after all.

She didn’t remember much of it. The pain had sent jagged spikes through her mind, cutting her off from the details of whose boot came in first, or who had kicked her more, or how long she’d endured before the blackness started to seep into her vision. But she did remember the moment the air quaked, and the way Doran and Sean hurtled into Kitana. Skulduggery lifting her up was pretty clear in her head, as was the back door bursting open. She blacked out before they rose into the air, and only regained consciousness once she was back in the Sanctuary.

She was patched up by Reverie Synecdoche, a Sanctuary doctor who shivered whenever Doctor Nye passed behind her. Nye was working on Skulduggery, much to Skulduggery’s irritation. The injuries he’d sustained had only aggravated his earlier ones, the bones the werewolf had damaged. Now he had to lie back and let Nye work its magic. He did so with no small amount of complaining.

Ravel dropped by at his first opportunity, heard Skulduggery moaning and stayed over beside Valkyrie. “We’re looking for them,” he told her. “We have mages combing the city, with strict instructions not to engage unless absolutely necessary. How are you?”

She chewed on the leaf that melted her pain away. “Mad,” she said. “They took my jacket. What about the witnesses?”

Ravel expelled a deep breath. “We’re doing our best,” he said. “Geoffrey and Philomena are on it, we have clean-up crews and reconstruction going on... I won’t lie, Valkyrie. This is a big one. This could be seen as a major mistake.”

She looked at him. “Skulduggery will tell you, we did everything right. We kept our distance until we lost sight of Doran Purcell. Skulduggery went into the café after him, saw him there with the other two. The girl, Kitana, was hurling insults at some random woman. She went to melt her face and Skulduggery stepped in. Next thing he knew he was flying backwards through the window. These aren’t sorcerers we’re dealing with. They don’t know the rules about public displays of power and if we don’t find them fast, things are going to get a whole lot worse.”

“Hopefully, their inexperience will work to our advantage,” Ravel said. “They won’t know where to hide or how to disappear. They’re just teenagers.”

“So am I. Their level of power was massively different to anyone else we’ve seen, though. Argeddion must have overloaded them because they had no skill and no training and they still nearly killed us. Skulduggery fired at them and they didn’t even know they could throw up force fields until it happened.”

“It sounds like they’re operating on pure instinct. We’ll find them soon enough.”

For the first time, Valkyrie noticed the Cleavers standing at a respectful distance. She frowned. “Hey... are they your bodyguards?”

Ravel glowered. “They follow me everywhere. Wherever I go I’m under constant protection. Ghastly can roam as he pleases, but me?”

“Well,” she said, “you’re the Grand Mage. You’re important. What did Mist say about you taking control of the Cleavers?”

“She didn’t say much, but then she never does. I have no idea if she even knows we suspect her of being involved in the attack. That damn veil hides a lot. Here, give me good news. Apparently you’ve solved the murder of Christophe Nocturnal.”

“It was easy. The unlocked door, the sword wound. Tanith killed him.”

“Any idea why?”

“Probably for sending that woman to kill me. She’s quite protective, in her own way.”

“Right,” Ravel said. “Well, leaving aside what a staggering breach in security that was, at least it’s one case closed, two more to go. We have Silas Nadir in the detention cell if you want to talk to him, to put a stop to your dimensional jaunts. And if Lament and his friends ever get their work finished downstairs, we’ll have no more mortals going crazy, and the Supreme Council can leave us alone.”

“See? Everything’s almost fine.”

He smiled despite himself. “I’ll leave you. I have things to do and headaches to suffer. I’d love to tell you to take some time off and heal but...”

“I don’t need to heal,” she told him, smiling back. “I’m ready and rarin’ to go.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, starting to walk off. “Oh, when Skulduggery’s back on his feet, could you go down and check with Lament, see how things are going?”

“You got it.”

“You’re my favourite detective, you know that?”

“Oh, I bet you say that to all the teenage girls.”

He laughed, and the Cleavers flanked him and then he was gone.

A minute later, Skulduggery had had enough. He strode to the door, fixing his tie, and Valkyrie ran after him. She told him what Ravel had said, and on their way to see Lament they took a detour to the interview room. Silas Nadir didn’t even look up when they entered.

Skulduggery sat opposite him, and Valkyrie stood by the wall. Skulduggery tapped the tabletop, his fingers drumming a beat. Nadir moved his head like he was testing a crick in his neck, then raised his eyes.

“Look who it is,” he said. “The cheating skeleton and his girl sidekick. Why am I even here?”

“You’re here because you have a choice,” Skulduggery said. “Hammer Lane is closing down so you’re being sent to a new prison. If you co-operate, you can go to the gaol at Keel, maybe Funshog. If not, you can go to The Depths.”

A flicker of something on Nadir’s face. “You wouldn’t send me there. You couldn’t. I’ve killed a few people, yeah, but I haven’t... You can’t just send someone to...”

“We can,” Skulduggery said, “and we will. Unless you co-operate.”

“Co-operate how?”

“Undo what you did to Valkyrie.”

Nadir looked at him, then at Valkyrie. “What?”

“Undo it,” Skulduggery said.

“Undo what?”

“You’re not doing yourself any favours.”

“Listen, I have no idea what you want me to do, or undo. Tell me what it is, and I’ll do it.”

“You shunted me,” Valkyrie said.

He made a face. “I did not.”

Skulduggery got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Nadir said. “Just hold on a second. Tell me what you think I did.”

Skulduggery stayed standing, but didn’t move. “You performed some kind of delayed shunt on Valkyrie when you attacked her at Hammer Lane.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Skulduggery took a step towards the door.

“OK!” Nadir cried. “OK, fine, you say I attacked her, then I attacked her. I don’t remember doing it, but I’d just been unhooked from that machine so, yeah, OK, maybe I did.”

Valkyrie asked, “What exactly did you do? My arm hurt for a few days and then suddenly I was in another dimension. Twenty minutes later, I was back here.”

Nadir sat forward, his eyes suddenly excited. “What was it like? It had a breathable atmosphere obviously, but what else did it have? Were there animals? Were there
people
?”

“You’ve never been there yourself?”

“No,” he said. “God, no. Finding a frequency for a new dimension is one thing, but actually travelling there? What if the air is toxic? What if I appear in the middle of a volcano? What if there is no planet to stand on? There’s a reason why there aren’t many Dimensional Shunters still around, you know. Most of them are nothing but dust in some weird reality where the laws of physics are backwards. But the dimension I sent you to – it’s habitable. This is amazing. Do you know how rare that is? I found a previously undiscovered
reality
.”

“And you sent me there,” Valkyrie said. “How?”

Nadir nodded. “Right, yeah. It’s called echoing. It’s when a shunt doesn’t work right away. Instead of one great big shunt, you get a kind of echo of a shunt. It echoes and echoes and gets louder and louder, and when it’s loud enough, you get shunted.”

“Will it happen again?”

“That depends. How many times has it happened so far?”

“I shunted over and back.”

Nadir hesitated. “Then yeah, it’ll happen again.”

“So stop it,” Skulduggery said.

“I can’t. It’s all about the reverberations inside her now. It’s got nothing to do with me. It’ll stop itself. Something like that, you’re really only looking at eight or ten trips before the echo gets too weak to affect you. You’ve taken two trips so far, so you have between four and six left to go, and that’s it.”

“Somewhere between?” Skulduggery said. “So it might not be an even number? It might not be four or six trips – it might be three or five. Which means she could be shunted over there and left stranded.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nadir said. “Didn’t think of that.”

“How much time before I get shunted again?” Valkyrie asked.

He shrugged. “This kind of thing sets up its own rhythm.”

“If Detective Cain gets shunted over there,” Skulduggery said, “and doesn’t shunt back within an acceptable time frame, we’ll need to go over after her. And you’ll be taking us.”

Nadir leaned back in his chair. “Will I, now? Well, as an integral part of the rescue mission, I might have a few conditions of my own. I’ll let you know if I’m available.” He smirked.

Skulduggery placed both hands on the table and leaned over. “You’ve heard about me. You’ve heard about the things I’ve done.”

The smirk faded a little. “So?”

“So the stories you’ve heard are nothing compared to the truth, and the truth is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if something happens to Valkyrie. I’m the worst enemy you could ever make, Silas. Look at me and answer honestly. Do you believe me?”

Nadir swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

They left him there, and headed for the Accelerator Room. “You’re going to have to stay above ground,” said Skulduggery. “When you shunt, you stay in the same place, you just switch dimensions. We don’t know if the other dimension has this Sanctuary. If it doesn’t, you’ll shunt right into compacted rock and earth.”

“And if I’m above ground, I might shunt into a building or a tree or a person. It’s dangerous either way.”

“True, but—”

“We carry on as normal,” she said. “We have to. We’re too busy not to. Tell you what, when Lament gets the Accelerator working and when Kitana and Doran and Sean are in shackles, we’ll find somewhere nice and safe and I’ll stay there for however long it takes. OK?”

“For
however
long it takes. Even if it’s weeks.”

She nodded. “I’ll bring a long book with big words.”

“Deal,” he said. “And if you shunt in the meantime without me, just stay in the one spot, stay out of sight and stay out of trouble until you return. Do you think you can do that?”

“Me? Stay out of trouble? Shouldn’t be a problem in the
slightest
.”

The Accelerator pulsed like a heart was beating from somewhere deep inside, sending a warm, gentle light through the veins of circuitry that passed beneath the skin of the machine. The white disc that had lain at its base now hovered centimetres off the ground, suspended by an unknown force, forming a sort of raised platform, what Lament was calling a dais.

Lament and the others worked in silence to disconnect the Cube from its power source. He and Kalvin may have been the engineers of the group, but both Lenka Bazaar and Vernon Plight proved themselves to be the equal of any scientist. Valkyrie reckoned that’s what thirty years stuck in a mountain would do to you.

Ravel paid frequent visits to what was now known as the Accelerator Room, eager for progress, but Lament would not be hurried. The Cube would only be transferred into the Accelerator once all precautions had been taken. Valkyrie watched until she grew bored. Admittedly, it didn’t take long.

She went exploring. There were lights down there now, and heat was starting to be pumped in and it wasn’t quite as damp as it had been, but it was still pretty squalid. As she walked, she wondered how many hidden tunnels she was passing. Roarhaven was known for its secrets, after all.

“How are you feeling?” Skulduggery asked from behind her.

She turned, holding out her hands. “I feel great. Don’t I look great?”

“You look wonderful,” he said. “A little cold, maybe.”

She glowered, and hugged her bare arms. “I can’t believe that wretch has my jacket. I’m going to break her face next time I see her.”

“They gave you quite a going-over.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Have you?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. What about you?”

“The only thing that still hurts is my pride.”

“Yeah. Three amateurs, like. That’s just embarrassing for you.”

His head tilted. “Embarrassing for me, but not for you?”

“I’m not the one with the reputation in tatters.”

“I think my legend will survive, thank you very much. We underestimated them and that was our mistake. The magic has woven in and around their reflexes and instincts – they don’t need to know
how
they’re doing something, they just do it. Next time we’ll be prepared.”