Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy

      “How do you think it got here?” she asked.

      “I don’t know,” Skulduggery answered. “Maybe it got lost.”

      They walked towards it. The house was dark. Some of the curtains were closed. Skulduggery didn’t bother scouting around. He knocked on the front door and waited, and when no one came out, he pushed the door open.

      “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”

      There was no answer, so he took out his gun and stepped in. Valkyrie followed. It was somehow colder in here than it was in the caves and she shivered. If it wasn’t for the flashlights, they would have been enveloped in pitch-black.

      There were no power lines down here, no access to electricity, so when Valkyrie flicked the light switch, she wasn’t expecting the diffusion of sickly green that rose in the dust-covered light bulbs.

      “Interesting,” Skulduggery murmured.

      It was an unsettling feeling, to stand in a place familiar yet alien. The staircase that, in Gordon’s house, was solid and wide, was here narrow and twisted. There were paintings on the walls, images of depravity and torture.

      They moved into the living room and Skulduggery turned on a few lamps. That same sickly green changed the absolute darkness into an unhealthy murk. The colour was making Valkyrie nauseous.

      There was an armchair and a sofa by the cold fireplace, and an ornate mirror above the mantelpiece. Valkyrie nudged Skulduggery and pointed. Someone was sitting in the armchair.

      “Excuse me,” Skulduggery said.

      The figure didn’t stir. All they could see was part of an arm, and the top of a head.

      They moved slowly to the sofa, giving the armchair a wide berth. Valkyrie saw a shoe now. Then a knee. A man was sitting in the chair, his right hand on the armrest, his left in his lap. His suit was old-fashioned and stained with something dark around the chest. His moustache drooped over the corners of his mouth, down to either side of his chin. His hair was dark. He looked to be in his fifties. His eyes were open and gazing at nothing.

      “Hi,” Skulduggery said in greeting. His tone was warm and friendly, but he hadn’t put his gun away. “I am Skulduggery Pleasant and this is my partner, Valkyrie Cain. According to our map, there is a vein of black crystals in the rocks around this cavern. Have you seen any?”

      The man in the armchair didn’t look up.

      “The reason I ask,” Skulduggery continued, “is that we really need one and time is of the essence. If anyone would know where to find these crystals, I’d say it would be you, am I right?”

      Skulduggery nodded, as if the man had answered.

      “This is a nice house by the way. We know of a similar one, up on the surface. The real one actually. This is like a half-remembered copy, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a home. I’m sure you’re wonderfully happy here, Anathem.”

      Valkyrie turned her head to Skulduggery. “What?”

      “I’m assuming that’s Mire,” he told her. “He came down here, all those hundreds of years ago, intending to continue his exploration. Obviously, he was wounded, as evidenced by the blood on his clothes, by either a fellow explorer or one of the creatures who inhabit these caves, but he didn’t want to die here. Who would? It’s dark and cold and miserable. So, being a conjurer of some power, he conjured this house, so that he could pass away in more familiar surroundings.”

      “This house is made of magic?”

      “Can’t you feel it? There’s a certain tingle to everything.”

      Valkyrie looked at the man. “He’s been sitting there for the last few hundred years, slowly bleeding to death?”

      “No, no. He’s quite dead by now.”

      “Then why hasn’t the house disappeared?”

      “Because he hasn’t left.”

      Skulduggery stepped forward.

      Valkyrie frowned. “What are you doing?”

      “Waking him up.”

      Skulduggery kicked, hard. The chair tipped over backwards, taking the body with it, but the body that hit the ground was decayed and mouldy, and it left an indistinct after-image of the moustached man, sitting on thin air. His eyes flickered, like he’d finally noticed something different, and slowly, he looked up.

      “Trespassers,” he hissed, face contorting, and his image blurred as he stood. “Interlopers!”

      “Calm down,” Skulduggery said.

      Anathem Mire screeched and went for them, and Valkyrie jerked back and lashed out as he charged straight through her.

      “He’s a ghost,” Skulduggery said. “He can’t touch you.”

      Mire’s form turned and came around. His face took shape. “This is my house,” he snarled. “You are intruders!”

      The sofa picked itself up and hurtled at them. Skulduggery hauled Valkyrie out of its path.

      “The sofa can touch you,” he told her and pushed at the air, deflecting the table that rushed at them from behind.

      Mire spread his arms wide. “I will bring this house down upon you,” he said as the house started to shake.

      Skulduggery ran to the large mirror over the fireplace and took it down, turned and swung it into Mire. The glass soaked him up and Skulduggery pressed the mirror against the wall.

      Valkyrie had read about mirrors being the only thing able to capture souls and spirits. The fact that she didn’t have to ask what had just happened made her glow a little inside.

      “We’re not looking for a fight,” Skulduggery said, loud enough for Mire’s ghost to hear. “We just want a single black crystal.”

      “The crystals are mine!” Mire shouted. “Release me, demon!”

      “I’m not a demon, I’m a sorcerer. Like you. We didn’t come here to hurt you.”

      “Trickery! Lies! You’re another demon of the caves, another monster, sent here to torture me! To drive me mad!”

      Skulduggery sighed and looked at Valkyrie. “Take a look around. If he’s claiming ownership of his surroundings, maybe he’s managed to get a hold of some crystals.”

      She nodded, and left Skulduggery to try and reason with the ghost. She walked into the kitchen, turning on lamps as she went. A giant black stove stood under a chimney that didn’t exist in Gordon’s house. Valkyrie opened a cupboard, and an insect the length of her finger scuttled around the edge of the door and vanished up her sleeve. She jumped away, ripping the overcoat off and throwing it down, but the insect was on her bare arm, climbing to her shoulder. She swatted at it, but it hung on and darted inside her tunic. She tore the tunic open, reached in and grabbed it, feeling it squirming in her grip. Valkyrie flung it to the other side of the room and she flailed with revulsion.

      Once she was done flailing, she picked up Gordon’s coat, dusted it off and checked to make sure nothing else had sneaked in. She put it on, buttoned her tunic and smoothed down her hair. That, she told herself, was revolting.

      She opened the rest of the cupboards much quicker, taking her hand away faster and faster each time. She had a horrible vision of a bat-like thing flapping out at her, so she stood to one side as she did it. There were no black crystals in the cupboards, no more insects and thankfully no bat-like things.

      Valkyrie left the kitchen, glaring at the corner where she’d thrown the insect, and climbed the stairs. They creaked with every footstep. The bedrooms were in roughly the same places as Gordon’s bedrooms, but the beds were all four-poster, and the headboards had apparently been carved by a degenerate. The bathroom looked uninviting