Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole (38 page)

“I hope not. I’m assuming this key will activate the machine and open the door, but…”

“But where’s the keyhole?”

“Indeed.”

He tapped the key against the rock wall. Nothing happened. She pressed her hand flat against it, the way she’d open any locked door. Still nothing.

“Are you sure this is the door?” Tanith asked. “I can’t see any join, or hinge, or anything like that. How does it open? Does it swing, or rise, or sink, or what? If we knew that, we could work our way back from there.”

Skulduggery examined the rock anew. “It wouldn’t be easy
to open, but at the same time it should be straightforward. Anyone who needs to access the Receptacle ought to be able to do so, once they have the key.”

“So maybe it’s a combination of both,” Tanith said. “A magic word spoken by whoever’s holding the key.”

“It’s possible, but that doesn’t exactly help us. Any one word in any language, magical or mortal, could unlock it.”

“Well, you’re the detective. You figure it out.”

Skulduggery sighed, and considered the rock wall again. “Open,” he said loudly.
“Oscail. Oscailte amach.
Enter.
Mellon.
Open Sesame. Remnant. Soul Catcher. Receptacle. Danger.”

“Wow,” Tanith breathed. “We could be here a while.”

Sanguine looked up from his seated position beside Skulduggery. “There’s somethin’ written on it,” he said, slurring his words. “The key. Look.”

Skulduggery turned it over and Tanith stepped up, but all she could see was flat gold. “I can’t see anything,” she said.

“I can,” Skulduggery murmured. He tilted the key till it caught the light. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”

She peered closer. “You sure it’s not just your imagination playing tricks?”

“When my imagination plays tricks,” Skulduggery answered, “they’re a lot more elaborate.”

“I swear, I can’t see anything.”

“That’s because you’re lookin’ with your eyes,” Sanguine said, his head drooping. “Me an’ the skeleton, we ain’t
got
eyes.”

“It says
erode,”
Skulduggery said.

Tanith looked at the rock wall. “Nothing’s happening.”

Skulduggery thought for a moment, then said,
“Creim,”
and the wall started to rumble.

Tanith looked at him. “It worked. It’s working. What did you say?”

”
Creim
,” he repeated. “It means
erode
in Irish.”

Relief swept through her and she smiled, and the rock exploded into a cloud of dust that stung her eyes and got into her mouth. Tanith stumbled away, coughing and spluttering. The dust was in her hair and in her clothes. Her vision finally cleared and she saw Skulduggery, standing there in a dust-free air bubble.

“Oh,” he said, noticing the state she was in. “Sorry.”

The cloud parted for him as he walked through it. Tanith scowled and followed, helping Sanguine up and entering the newly-formed cave mouth.

“Maybe you should put your arm around me,” Sanguine said. “I’m feelin’ faint.”

“If you faint, you fall,” Tanith responded.

Torches flared in brackets as they passed. The tunnel went on for twenty metres, then opened out into a cavern. Skulduggery stood just ahead, waiting for them to catch up.

“Well?” Tanith asked. “Is it there?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

A globe, like a small glass moon, 100 metres high and 100 metres wide, sat in a cradle of metal and wooden struts, lashed together with rope and chains. The architects, the engineers, whoever had built this, had used the rocky outcrops to border the machine, to supply its foundation. The cavern itself seemed to be an extension of the massive device, designed to accentuate the size and shape, giving the Receptacle an air of something that had always been here, a natural formation of magic and old science, deep within the mountain.

“Cool,” Tanith said.

She left Sanguine leaning against the wall, and joined Skulduggery as he hurried to what looked like a control centre. There were dials and gauges and levers, and a narrow rectangular slot. Without wasting time on ceremony, Skulduggery slipped the key into the slot. Immediately, a gauge came to life. Skulduggery grabbed a lever and pulled it down sharply.

And nothing happened.

“Well,” Tanith heard Sanguine say, “that’s kinda disappointin’.”

“No,” Skulduggery said, “look. It’s moving.”

Tanith could see it now. The globe was beginning to rotate – very, very slowly. It creaked as it did so.

“It hasn’t been used in over a century,” Skulduggery said. “It needs some time to warm up. In order for the Remnants to be dragged into it, we’ve got to make sure that the possessed stay close by.”

“An’ just how,” Sanguine asked, “are you plannin’ on doin’
that?”

Skulduggery looked at him, and his head tilted.

Sanguine’s mouth turned down. “Aw, hell,” he muttered.

H
er surroundings were quite beautiful – a snow-covered mountain, layers of mist rising from the valleys, a pale blue sky. They had passed a lake on the way here, and the roads were narrow and winding, occasionally edged with low stone walls. Altogether very pretty, with the effect only ruined by the two thousand black-veined people waiting for her when she was pulled out of the van.

China marched her to a small hill in the middle of the
clearing, all the Remnants gathered round in their hijacked bodies. China removed the shackles from Valkyrie’s wrists. Anton Shudder and Tesseract joined them on the hill. The crowd was silent.

“Valkyrie Cain,” Tesseract said, “I am very glad I didn’t kill you. What a mistake that would have been. I would have robbed us of our saviour.”

“Let me go,” Valkyrie said. “If I’m your saviour, then do as I command. Let me go.”

“You’re not our saviour. Not yet. But with a little help from us, you soon will be.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say. Do you think I’m just going to agree to all this? I’m not going to hurt innocent people.”

“If we torture you enough,” said Tesseract, “you’ll do anything we tell you to.”

Valkyrie said nothing.

“I’m the one who saw you. I saw you through the eyes of Finbar Wrong, laying waste to the world. That’s all we want. We want a dead world, where we are free, where we don’t have to hide in flesh suits. You give us that world. From the moment I saw you I knew we had to help, to guide you on your path. Now, I am not so sure I was right.”

“So you’re going to let me go?”

There was a ripple of laughter in the crowd.

“No,” Tesseract said. “You see, we have been talking, all of us, and we wonder if we are taking the correct approach. It was China who thought of it, actually.”

China smiled. “We’re friends, aren’t we, Valkyrie? That’s what you said. And because we’re friends, because I know you so well, I can see that it would take a lot to make you hurt the people you love.”

“I’m not Darquesse,” Valkyrie blurted. “I’ve changed all that. That future doesn’t happen any more.”

“How can you be sure?” asked China.

“I’ve sealed my name.”

“Ah, I see. So you think the only reason you kill everyone is because someone is forcing you to, yes?”

“Of course. Why else would I do it?”

“Because you want to, perhaps? Because something happens, something so awful that it drives you to the edge, and the only way out you can see is if everybody dies?”

“That’s insane.”

“All kinds of people want to kill the world, Valkyrie.”

“Not me.”

“Not yet.” China laughed. “But I agree with you. I don’t
think you have it in you. So I came up with an alternative. What if, Valkyrie, what you say is true? What if you
would
never do this? What if, in fact, it isn’t even you?”

“What?”

“I think Darquesse is like
us,
you see. I think Darquesse has a Remnant inside her.”

Valkyrie shrank back. “No.”

“I think in order for our messiah to come out, one of us is going to have to bond with you.”

“No.”

“And we already have a volunteer,” China said with a smile.

Fletcher appeared at China’s side. “I love you,” he said to Valkyrie. “And now I’m going to
be
you.”

Hands grabbed her and she struggled against them, but there were too many. Her head was pulled back and there were fingers in her mouth. She bit down and tasted blood, heard a howl of pain, but her jaws were forced apart and she saw it, the Remnant, darting from Fletcher’s mouth as he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

The Remnant latched on to her face and it was cold. The hands released her and Valkyrie staggered back, lost her footing. She fell, rolled down the small hill, all the while trying to pull the darkness away from her. She felt it slither down into
her throat. Her hands clutched at her chest as the Remnant dissipated within her. Tendrils of cold slithered through her body and pierced her brain. Something burst within her mind and the fear went away, and Darquesse stood.

The others were watching her expectantly, eyes filled with hope and hunger, mouths twisted in smiles.

Ghastly was the first to step forward. “My Lady?” he asked, voice shaking. When Ghastly had been Ghastly, before the Remnant shared his being, he had been a good man. Darquesse remembered their first meeting, when he had told her that magic wasn’t a game, and that she should walk away and leave this behind her. He had said those words for her own good, but of course she hadn’t listened. This was a path she had always been meant to walk.

Destiny? She didn’t believe in it. But she had seen into the future and they had seen herself burn the world. And
that,
she believed in.

She took her eyes off the people around her and looked at the world. The mountains and the snow, and the rocks and the sky. She tasted the air. Why would she want to destroy all this? What was it that could drive her to annihilate an entire planet? And what would she do, once everyone and everything was dead? Who would there be to talk to?

Darquesse smiled at the questions she found herself asking. No doubt, when the time came, she would fully understand why she was killing everything. When the time came, she was sure it would all make perfect sense.

“Lady Darquesse,” someone said, barging through the crowd to throw himself at her feet. His left arm was in a sling. “I am yours to command. You have given me purpose. You have given me a reason to exist. What is your will?”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes.

She kicked him under the chin, marvelling at her strength. His jaw splintered instantly, but her boot continued upwards and his head came apart around it. Some important piece of him, possibly his brain, shot into the sky like a football. His body crumpled and she laughed and turned to the others. The shock over what she had just done made some of them step back, but there were plenty of others who were laughing along with her, and there were a few who actually applauded. She despised them all.

She leaped for the nearest one, a sorcerer she had once spoken to in the old Sanctuary. Her fingers closed around his throat and she tore out his windpipe. The woman beside him clapped, and Darquesse put her fist through the woman’s chest, then flung the body behind her.

The laughter was dying. No one was cheering any more.

Darquesse swept through them, their screams like a lullaby, making her smile. As she moved, she could sense the Remnant inside her. She could sense its presence and its confusion. This was not how it was meant to be. It had slithered its way inside and opened her up, allowed Darquesse to surface. But they had not, as the Remnant had expected, become one pure being. They were still two separate entities, and she felt its fear and it brought a chuckle to her lips.

Her soul was sealed, Nye had seen to that. It was hers, and hers alone. All the Remnant had managed to do was break down some walls between Valkyrie Cain and the source of her magic. It may have tainted something along the way, Darquesse couldn’t be entirely sure. Not that it mattered. It was Darquesse who was in control here.

The Remnant wanted to get out. It was trying to bring itself back together and crawl out of her, but Darquesse wouldn’t allow it. She kept it where it was, isolating it, draining its malevolence to add to the magic that was pumping through her body.

The sorcerers were attacking her now, trying to subdue her, trying to save themselves. She used the air to fling three of them upwards, then sent three spears of shadows after them.

Hands seized her from behind, trying to choke her. She poured darkness through her skin into his, and the man shrieked and fell back, his hands melting away to stumps. A stream of energy sizzled to her and she caught it in her palm, countered its effects without even knowing how she was doing it, and threw it back. The stream hit its owner, and its owner split apart in a fine red mist.

She crushed the skull of a handsome man and tossed him away from her. His body spiralled over the angry crowd. Things were not going as they had planned.

Darquesse clicked her fingers and flame enveloped her. Her skin and hair and clothes all burned, fiercely and brightly, but the fire didn’t damage her. People scrambled to get away. She held out a hand and fire leaped at them. They rolled and writhed and screamed. She laughed. A man tried to run. Tesseract caught him by the throat.

“You run from your saviour, you ungrateful wretch?”

“She’s killing us,” the man gasped.

“This is what we call warming up.” Tesseract shoved him back. “Darquesse, please accept my apologies. Kill as many as you like. When you are ready to begin the decimation of the world, please know that we will be ready to serve, to help in any way.”

Darquesse used the fire to kill the man who had run, then let the flame go out and stalked towards Tesseract, wondering how long he would stay faithful once she started pulling out his spine. But then the ground started to crack, and Skulduggery Pleasant and Tanith Low burst up in a shower of dirt and rock. Billy-Ray Sanguine collapsed behind them and didn’t move.