Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy

leg moved. She took the step. The Grotesquery swung its arm and Valkyrie heard a tearing noise and the Torment was flung away.

      The Grotesquery dropped the piece of scalp in its hand, turning to Valkyrie as she lunged, swinging the sword and cutting into its left arm. It grabbed for her but she ducked under and spun, using the sword the way Tanith had shown her, and the blade found the Grotesquery’s side and opened it up.

      Valkyrie skipped back, holding the sword in both hands, her eyes on the wound she’d just inflicted. She watched the parted skin try to reform, try to heal, then stop altogether.

      The Grotesquery growled. Its right arm unravelled and came at her. One of the strips wrapped itself around her ankle and yanked her off her feet. She fell and the other strips darted at her. A talon ripped open her cheek and she felt her own warm blood splash across her face.

      She reached forward and the sword sheared through the strip around her ankle. The Grotesquery recoiled, the strips snapping back, trying to reform the arm. The middle finger was missing.

      Valkyrie jumped up, swinging the sword diagonally across the Grotesquery’s chest, lopping off sections of splayed ribcage. Another swipe took the Grotesquery’s left hand. It fell to the ground.

      The Grotesquery backed off, flailing at her to keep her away. She waited for her chance and dived. The sword slid between the damaged ribcage and the Grotesquery stiffened. Valkyrie gripped the hilt with both hands and angled it downwards, towards its heart, and she rammed it in deeper and twisted. The Grotesquery screamed.

      The scream hit her like a fist and darkness poured from the Grotesquery’s injuries. It slipped into her and her legs gave out and she collapsed. She felt the darkness move within her, racking her body with pain. Her spine arched. Images flashed into her head, images of the last time she had felt such agony. Serpine, pointing at her, his green eyes starting to fade, his body turning to dust.

      Her muscles started to spasm and she retched and gagged and tried to cry. And then the darkness left her and she opened her eyes, tears blurring her vision, watching the darkness rise from her, rise into the air and dissipate. She gulped in a breath.

      “Are you OK?” she heard Skulduggery ask from somewhere far in the distance.

      She raised her head. The Grotesquery was on the ground, unmoving. Little pieces of darkness still drifted from its body. She rolled over, up on to her elbow. “Ow,” she groaned. “That was sore.”

      Skulduggery walked over slowly. He had picked up his severed arm and was now holding it out to her.

      “Here,” he said. “Let me give you a hand.”

      She decided not to respond to his terrible, terrible joke, and allowed herself to be helped to her feet. She touched a hand to her face, felt the blood that was still running from the wound. Her cheek was numb, but she knew that wouldn’t last. The pain was about to hit.

      “We didn’t die,” she said.

      “Of course not. I’m too clever to die and you’re too pretty.”

      “I am pretty,” Valkyrie said, managing a grin.

      “My, my,” said a familiar voice from behind them. They turned.

      “Look at what you’ve done,” Sanguine said, shaking his head with mock severity. “You have foiled our insidious little plot. You have emerged triumphant and victorious. Curse you, do-gooders. Curse you.”

      “You don’t seem too upset that you’ve lost,” Valkyrie said.

      He laughed and took off his sunglasses. He started to clean them with a handkerchief. “What, you think this is over? You actually think this is finished? Li’l darlin’, it’s only just begun. But don’t fret, I’ll see you both again real soon. Y’all take care now, y’hear?”

      He put the sunglasses back on as the ground beneath his feet started to crack, and as he sank down into it, he blew Valkyrie a kiss.

      After a few moments, when they were sure he wasn’t going to pop back up, Skulduggery looked at her.

      “So that plan worked out well,” he said.

      “Skulduggery, your entire plan consisted of, and I quote, ‘let’s get up close and then see what happens’.”

      “All the same,” he said, “I think the whole thing worked out rather beautifully.”

      

      illy-Ray Sanguine sat in the shade and watched the pretty girls walk by. The square was alive with people, with chatter, with the glorious aroma of food. It was a beautiful day and he was halfway up the mountains in the walled town of San Gimignano, enjoying a fine cappuccino.

      A pair of stunning Italian girls walked by, looked at him and giggled to each other. He smiled and they giggled again.

      “Behave yourself,” said the man sitting beside him.

       Sanguine grinned. “Just admirin’ the scenery.”

      The man put a thin envelope on the table, placed one manicured fingertip on top of it and slid it across.

       “Your payment,” he said, “for a job well done.”

      Sanguine looked inside the envelope and, quite unconsciously, he licked his bottom lip. He put the envelope in his jacket.

       “It worked then?”

       The man nodded. “Did Vengeous suspect?”

       “He hadn’t a clue,” Sanguine sneered. “Guy was so caught up in himself he never imagined he was bein’ played. Not for a moment.”

      “He used to be a fine ally,” the man said sadly.

       “Yet you had no hesitation in lettin’ him take the fall for you and your little group.”

       The man raised his eyes and Sanguine forced himself to not look away. “The Diablerie needed to remain unseen,” the man said. “We have too much at stake to risk being uncovered so soon. However, now that the Grotesquery has fulfilled its purpose, that need is coming to an end.”

       “You knew Vengeous wouldn’t succeed, didn’t you?”

       “Not at all and we did everything in our power to help him.”

       “I don’t understand,” Sanguine said, leaning forward slightly. “The Grotesquery didn’t open no portal. It never got the chance to bring the Faceless Ones back. I mean … didn’t your plan fail?”

       “The Baron’s plan failed. Our plan is quite intact.”

       “I don’t … how?”

      The man smiled. “It called to them. Its death-scream called to the Faceless Ones. Our gods have been lost for millennia, barricaded outside our reality, unable to find their way back. Now they know where we are.” The man stood, and buttoned his jacket. “They’re coming, Billy-Ray. Our gods are coming back. All we have to do is be ready to open the door.”

      The man walked from the table and the crowd swallowed him. A few moments later, through a brief gap, Sanguine saw him standing with a woman, and the gap closed over and they vanished.

      Sanguine let his cappuccino go cold. Once, he had worshipped the Faceless Ones, but eighty years ago he’d realised that if they returned and