Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 10 - 12. Derek Landy

I’m afraid I cannot allow it. You are the enemy. You must die. Richard, can you kill him?”

      Melior hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “Probably.”

      Lethe beckoned him over with Skulduggery’s jawbone. “Then, by all means, have at it.” He tossed the jawbone away.

      Melior hesitated, but with a nudge from the goateed man he started walking over. Valkyrie tried getting up, but Nero stomped on her shoulder and she screamed and fell back.

      And then Fletcher Renn appeared in the middle of it all.

      Even through tear-filled eyes, Valkyrie recognised him. Tall. Good-looking. Blond hair still ridiculous.

      Fletcher turned, taking in the scene. For the first time, Lethe and the others didn’t seem so confident. Fletcher winked at Valkyrie.

      “I don’t know exactly what is going on here,” he said. “All I do know is that two dozen Cleavers are on their way. You can try to leave if you want. I don’t care. But I’m taking Valkyrie and Skulduggery. If I were you, I wouldn’t try—”

      He stopped talking.

      Valkyrie sat up. At first, she thought Fletcher was frozen, but no, he was still moving. Just very slowly. Incredibly slowly. The nervous guy in the ill-fitting suit had his hands raised and his eyes were narrowed. He was doing this. She’d seen it before, or something like it. Jeremiah Wallow had been able to slow time whenever he attacked, so as to prolong the pleasure of the kill. It seemed to her to be the perfect power for serial killers everywhere.

      “Nero,” said Lethe, “I think it’s only fitting that one Teleporter should kill another.”

      “As you command,” Nero said, taking a long knife from his jacket and walking up behind Fletcher.

      Hissing with the pain, Valkyrie got to her knees and let loose a stream of lightning. She missed the guy in the ill-fitting suit, but did make him duck away.

      “—to stop me,” Fletcher said, moving normally again.

      “Behind you!” Valkyrie called, and Fletcher vanished just as Nero went to stab him in the back, appearing beside him an instant later and slugging him across the jaw.

      Nero stumbled and Fletcher teleported to Skulduggery’s side and they both disappeared. A moment later, he was pulling Valkyrie to her feet and then they were indoors, in a hospital, and Fletcher let go of her and teleported again.

      Two orderlies were helping Skulduggery on to a bed. Another one came for Valkyrie. Reverie Synecdoche hurried in from another room, eyes wide in alarm. Fletcher reappeared, his hands full of Skulduggery’s discarded bones.

      “Here’s the rest,” he said, and Nero appeared behind him.

      “No!” Valkyrie cried, and Fletcher turned and Nero plunged the knife into his belly.

       20

      “Ouch,” said Omen, sticking his thumb into his mouth and sucking it.

      Never didn’t even look up from her textbook. “What’d you do?”

      “Paper cut,” said Omen.

      “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

      The detention hall was empty except for them. It would have been empty except for Omen if Never hadn’t decided to keep him company at the last minute.

      “You’re hiding from someone,” Omen said.

      “No, I’m not,” Never replied. “I just thought I’d make a start on my homework, that’s all. How far are you through Peccant’s punishment?”

      Omen checked. “Almost halfway.”

      “You’d want to get a move on.”

      “It’s really difficult.”

      “That’s why it’s called a punishment and not a treat.”

      Omen checked what he had left to do, then looked up. “Never …”

      Never didn’t answer.

      “Never …”

      “What?”

      “Can you do it for me?”

      Never turned the page, kept reading. “No.”

      “But you’re so much better at maths than I am.”

      “My cat is better at maths than you are.”

      “But it’ll only take you a few minutes to get through the rest of this.”

      Never sighed. “Omen, I hate sounding like a teacher, or a parent, or just a general adult, but if you don’t do it yourself you’ll never learn.”

      “It’s maths, though,” said Omen. “I’m not going to need maths when I leave school.”

      Never closed her book, and raised her eyes. “What are you going to be?”

      “When I’m done with school? I don’t know.”

      “Then how do you know you won’t need maths?”

      “Because whatever I’m going to be, it won’t be a mathematician or an accountant or, y’know, someone who does a lot of sums. I know how to add and subtract and divide … that’s all I need to know. What else is there? What else is important? Is calculating the angle of something really going to be that necessary in my everyday life? Is it?”

      “I’m not doing your work for you.”

      Omen lowered his head to the desk. “But I hate it.”

      “You remember back in First Year, when we became friends? You remember how that happened?”

      “Of course. We started talking, and we just got along.”

      “No, that’s not how it happened at all. I was chatty, amusing and effervescent and you barely said a word to anyone. I was incredibly popular – do you remember that? I had just made a stirring, inspiring speech about my own particular rules that I wanted people to follow regarding my gender-fluidity. I listed the pronouns I was prepared to accept and the times at which I was prepared to accept them. I let people know that everyone was different and that my rules might not be the same as their rules. I was interesting. I was engaging. From that moment on, I had my pick of friends. Do you remember all that? Do you?”

      “I remember you talking …”

      “But, even though I had my pick of friends, I’d watch you in class and think to myself, This Omen kid might be cool. You were always on time, you never took your eyes off the teacher, you always worked so hard … How did that guy become this guy?”

      Omen didn’t say anything.

      “That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” said Never.

      “It sounded like one.”

      “What happened to you, Omen?”

      “I don’t know what you want me to say, Never.”

      “Is it a parent thing, or …?”

      “I dunno. I mean … I don’t really examine why I do things.”

      “Obviously.”

      “But you know how they are. Mum only calls when she’s wondering why Auger isn’t answering his phone. Dad … well, Dad never calls. I … I suppose when I started here I thought I could become someone new. Like, someone they’d approve of.”

      “And?”

      Omen shrugged. “I realised I couldn’t do it. I tried working hard, but nothing changed. I wasn’t