Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole (33 page)

Skulduggery reared up behind Dalrymple and Dalrymple spun, thrusting through Skulduggery’s ribcage. Skulduggery froze, looking down at the blade that pierced his clothing. Then Dalrymple twisted the sword and dragged it out so that it scraped across Skulduggery’s sternum, and Skulduggery howled in pain and crumpled to the ground.

China slashed her rapier at the back of Dalrymple’s neck, but he dodged, whirled, and his sword crashed against hers and suddenly her hand was empty. He kicked her in the chest and she went down.

He stood over her with the tip of his blade at her throat. “There,” he said, panting a little. “You are defeated. Now it is
you
who will answer
my
questions. Where are they? Where are the Remnants?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

The tip pressed against her skin. “Tell me or I’ll kill you.”

Skulduggery was still curled up on the floor, his arms wrapped around himself. China sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But if you switched on a television or a radio, you’d already know all this.”

“I don’t trust modern technology,” he informed her.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? In that case, you’ve missed the countless stories of riots that are breaking out all across the city. All across the country.”

Dalrymple’s mouth hung open. “They’re all out? The Remnants? All of them? That’s… That’s…”

“That’s what you’ve been waiting for?”

His eyes brimmed with tears. “Yes.”

“For well over a hundred years?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes.”

“Then tonight is your lucky night, Burgundy. But you better hurry or else there’ll be none left to join with you.”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes unfocused. “Yes, I… I have to go.”

The tip of his sword wavered from her throat and China lashed out, the toe of her expensive boot crunching into his knee. He fell back and Skulduggery rose, grabbed Dalrymple’s sword-hand and wrenched it behind him, breaking it. Dalrymple screamed and the sword dropped, and Skulduggery threw him against the wall.

“Give me your half of the key,” Skulduggery said, his voice cold, devoid of humanity.

Dalrymple sobbed in pain. He tried to run for the door, but Skulduggery kicked his feet from under him. He stomped on Dalrymple’s broken arm and the poor man screeched until he
passed out. China stood up as Skulduggery searched him, finally finding the key on a light chain around the unconscious man’s neck.

“Are you OK?” Skulduggery asked China as he examined the flat piece of gold.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “How are you? He hurt you, I see.”

“Just a scratch.”

“Just enough to make you lose your sense of humour?”

He looked at her. “Only temporarily, I assure you. I’m right as rain now, though. We have one half of the key, Valkyrie has the other. We might actually win this, you know, even against overwhelming odds.”

China shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

S
kulduggery and China arrived in Drogheda, and they all got into the nice warm van. Tanith immediately told them that Valkyrie had beaten up a priest and an old woman. China laughed, and Skulduggery handed Valkyrie the half of the key he’d recovered from Dalrymple. She pressed it against the half from the church and was unable to pry them apart again.

They got on to the motorway and drove without seeing another car until they got to the slipway for Balbriggan. Two
cars were stopped in the middle lane – the doors open and no one around.

“A crash?” Tanith asked as they drove slowly by. Valkyrie could see no sign of collision, and she got the uncomfortable feeling that they were being watched.

Skulduggery pressed down on the accelerator. “We don’t stop,” he said. “For anyone.”

Neither Valkyrie or Tanith said anything.

They reached the city centre and cut through the empty streets, ignoring traffic lights. At the entrance to Trinity College, a grit-spreader was pulled in to the side of the road with its lights on and its engine running, but there was no sign of the driver. They swung around St Stephen’s Green and saw a man running up to them, waving his arms frantically. Valkyrie looked away as they left him behind.

The city was dead around them, killed by cold and fear.

“Checkpoint,” Skulduggery said, as his façade flowed over his skull.

Valkyrie peered out at the flashing blue lights of the Garda squad cars ahead of them. Four cops in reflective jackets waved them down.

Valkyrie and Tanith lay flat in the back. Valkyrie’s heart was thumping wildly by the time the van stopped. She heard the
window whir down, and a cop asking Skulduggery for his driver’s licence. China asked if there was a problem. The cop stammered a little when he replied that this was just a routine checkpoint, nothing to worry about. At least his love-struck reaction to China Sorrows was a normal response. That was a good start. But when Skulduggery told him that he didn’t have his licence on him, the cop ordered him to step out of the van.

“Is there a problem?” Skulduggery asked.

“Just step out of the van, sir,” the cop replied.

“We weren’t speeding, Guard.”

“Sir,” the cop said, irritation creeping into his voice, “I’m telling you to step out of the van. You can either do as I ask, or we’ll pull you out and arrest you.”

“There’s no need for threats,” Skulduggery said. Valkyrie heard the door open, and Skulduggery got out. The door closed.

“There’s four of them,” China whispered from the front. “One on my side. Three around Skulduggery.”

There was a knock on the passenger side window. China wound it down.

“Hello, there,” Valkyrie heard a cop say.

“Hello,” China said back, a smile in her voice.

Valkyrie noticed Tanith moving slightly. The streetlight
glinted briefly across the steel of her sword. Valkyrie swallowed.

There was a short cry from outside, then something slammed into the side of the van at the same time as China kicked her door open. The sound of the door hitting the cop’s head was unmistakable. China closed her door calmly as Skulduggery got back behind the wheel, and they sped on.

“Trouble?” Tanith asked, sitting up.

“Nothing I couldn’t talk my way out of,” Skulduggery replied.

Valkyrie looked out the back window at the crumpled forms of the Guards. “Were they possessed?”

“I don’t think so,” China said. “They didn’t seem especially strong.”

“All it takes is one Remnant in a position of power,” Skulduggery said. “For all we know, they could have the entire police force on the lookout for us. Everyone hold on – we’re going to be moving a little faster.”

He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, and the van roared.

By the time they reached the Hibernian, Valkyrie was scared and depressed. She worried about her parents, and for the first
time she worried about her cousins. She wondered how they were coping with what they’d learned over the past twenty-four hours. The events they’d witnessed, plus the madness breaking out all over the city, all over the country, would be enough to freak
anyone
out, let alone two highly-strung teenagers.

According to the radio, the entire country was, understandably, panicking. The authorities were inundated with reports of missing people. Some commentators were saying this was a neurological virus, others said it was a biological attack, and still others were saying, and this was Valkyrie’s personal favourite, that this was God’s punishment for not going to church any more. Some of the attacks reported were genuine Remnant activity, but others were clearly down to Kenspeckle’s time-released thought bomb.

Whatever the cause, the effect was the same. People were staying in, locking their doors and windows and isolating themselves from their neighbours. There were reports of scientists in hazmat suits walking the streets. The country was going crazy, and the rest of the world was just waiting for the sickness to spread to them.

Skulduggery parked Ghastly’s van across the road from the Hibernian and out of sight. Making sure no one was watching, they hurried over to the locked door at the rear of the cinema.
A hidden camera picked them up, and a few moments later the door clicked. They hurried inside and the moment the door closed again it locked, sliding steel bars into place and activating an alarm system that Kenspeckle himself had designed.

“Ghastly called,” Kenspeckle said when he saw them. “He said they’re three hours away, if they’re lucky.”

Skulduggery sent Tanith to check defences on the upper levels, and he took Valkyrie with him as he checked the lower ones.

“When do you think the possessed will get here?” Valkyrie asked as they walked.

“Any time now. To be honest, I’m surprised they’re not here already.”

“I don’t like waiting,” Valkyrie said. “I think too much. I think of everything that could go wrong with this dreadful plan of ours.”

“Surely not
everything.”

“You are of no reassurance at all, do you know that? If you were any kind of a friend, you’d be telling me that in a few hours the Remnants will be gone and everyone will be back to normal.”

“You mean if I was a true friend,” Skulduggery said, “I’d take this opportunity to lie to you?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“In that case, this dreadful plan cannot fail. In a few hours, the Remnants will be trapped in the Receptacle and everyone will be back to normal. People can carry on arguing about who should be the two new Elders, I can get back to tracking down this Tesseract character, and you can continue your lessons in Necromancy while you go on another date with Fletcher, as Caelan seethes with jealousy on the sidelines.”

He tested iron shutters that were sealing off an old doorway.

“You notice everything,” she said.

“Not everything, but a lot.”

“He told me he loves me,” Valkyrie said. “Caelan.”

They resumed their walk.

“You don’t want a vampire loving you, Valkyrie.”

“He’s not a bad person.”

“Because he’s not a person.”

“Don’t give me that,” she said irritably. “That’s all anyone ever says.
He’s an animal. He can’t be trusted.
That’s what
he
says, too. He calls
himself an
animal, for God’s sake.”

“And what do you think he is? Troubled? Misunderstood? He’s a killer.”

“Caelan is different from the others.”

“Yes, he is.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You agree with me?”

“Absolutely. The other vampires are brutal, bloodthirsty animals barely held in check by their brutal, bloodthirsty code. But Caelan? He’s much worse.”

She sighed and shook her head, but he continued.

“He broke the first law of being a vampire when he killed his own kind. If he can’t stick to that simple rule, how safe do you think you are? Do you know why vampires are known for holding grudges? It’s because once a passion for something, in that case vengeance, starts to burn, it consumes them absolutely. Vengeance, hatred, or love. They each burn as bright.”

“So you’re saying he’ll become obsessed with me?”

“If he told you he loves you, he’s
already
obsessed with you.”

“If you talked to him, if you sat down and gave him a chance, you’d realise how wrong you are.”

Skulduggery didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, then slowly cocked his head to one side. Valkyrie looked away, aware of the blush that was rising.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I didn’t do anything. What are you talking about?”

“Loath as I am to protect your relationship with Fletcher, you
are
still with the boy, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“You’re not with Caelan, then?”

She shook her head.

“And you have no
plans
to be with him?”

“He’s way too old.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say! Do you want me to say we kissed? Because OK, we did! Once! That’s all. And I said never again because I’m with Fletcher, and he agreed. There. What else do you want to know?”

Skulduggery said nothing, just kept walking. She felt the flash of righteous anger fading fast, leaving her feeling stupid and childish and really wishing she hadn’t said anything.

“I see,” he said at last.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said Valkyrie. “I don’t need to get your permission to kiss Caelan, or Fletcher, or anyone.”

“That’s right,” he said quietly, “you don’t. But we still have the problem of a vampire being in love with you.”

“I told you, it’s
not
a problem.”

“You can’t afford to encourage him.”

She glared. “I’m not encouraging him.”

“Then kissing him probably sends the wrong signal.”

Valkyrie looked away, unable to argue with him there.

“And what if Fletcher finds out?” Skulduggery continued. “Are you willing to lose your boyfriend over this? Caelan may be on his best behaviour
with you,
but by now, I can assure you, he is
hating
Fletcher. A hint, a suggestion, that’s all it would take to ruin things between you two.”

“Caelan’s not going to say anything,” she said, without conviction.

Then the lights went out. Before Valkyrie could even click her fingers, the emergency generator activated.

“Power cut?” she asked. “Or…?”

“Remnants,” Skulduggery said. “They’re here.”

They ran back to the others. Kenspeckle had a screen set up in the Medical Bay that showed multiple shots of the building’s exteriors.

There were hundreds of them – men and women and even a few children, mortal and sorcerer, all of them out there in the freezing cold with black-lipped smiles on their black-veined faces. Valkyrie could see Wreath and Shudder and Ravel, and a few other people she recognised. There was movement in the crowd around the main door, and Tesseract walked forward. He looked straight up into the camera.

Valkyrie felt the fear in her gut, and the cold, cold guilt. A
part of her, a despairing part, wailed and cried that they were here for her, that all this was her fault.