Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy

She slapped him across the face, hard.

      “Where is Dusk? Where were you taken?”

      “A castle,” he muttered, as a dark shape came through the hole and collided with her.

      They went sprawling in the mess on the floor. She grabbed a chunk of debris and smacked it into the face of her attacker. She rolled, now she was on top, and punched him with her left, and it felt like her hand had broken. She got up and he kicked her legs from under her.

      Light flooded the room as the door opened behind her and hands grabbed her. Suddenly she was being hauled out.

      “No!” she cried. “That one knows where they are!”

      She was outside now, pressed against the concrete railing, looking out at the other tower blocks and the grey sky and the eleven-storey drop beneath her. She spun round to tell Skulduggery to get the Infected man she’d burned. But it wasn’t Skulduggery.

      Dusk lifted her and threw her over the railing.

      

      he tower tilted away from her, and then there was nothing but the grey sky and the sound of wind rushing in her ears.

      The other towers veered into view then the ground swept in and out again, and Valkyrie was turning over as she fell. There was the sky and heavy clouds and her hair, and a shape, Skulduggery, dropping towards her. She turned again and saw the ground and his arms wrapped around her.

      Their plummet slowed and now they were merely drifting. Then they stopped and Skulduggery let her put her feet on the ground.

      “Are you OK?” he asked.

      She couldn’t answer. She could barely breathe. She just gripped his shoulder to make sure she didn’t fall over.

      There were people looking at them. The ordinary tenants of the building had stepped out of their apartments and they were looking down at them silently.

      “Dusk,” she managed to say. “He’s up there.”

      The only floors that didn’t have a line of people at the balconies were the eleventh and the thirteenth, but now she could see movement on the uppermost floor. People were climbing over the railing. Eight of them.

      They let themselves go.

      They fell gracefully, three stories at a time, balcony to balcony, pausing only momentarily before allowing themselves to continue down. Then half of them sprang, propelling themselves away from the building, and the others waited a heartbeat and then dived. All eight vampires flipped and landed in a perfect circle surrounding Skulduggery and Valkyrie.

      The vampires smiled at them, not even out of breath.

      Moloch came down last, carrying something big over his shoulder. He got to the fourth-floor balcony and let it drop. It tumbled and spun as it fell, and she saw that it was Caelan. He hit the ground hard and lay there, unconscious and bleeding.

      Moloch landed. The ring of vampires parted and he walked through.

      “Give Dusk to us,” Skulduggery said.

      “He’s already gone,” Moloch responded.

      Skulduggery nodded, considering what he was going to say next, and then his gun flashed from his jacket and Moloch batted it from his hand. Another vampire caught it. One of them laughed.

      “You won’t kill us,” Skulduggery told Moloch.

      “Really?” Moloch said. “Why not?”

      “Because you won’t be able to. And then we will come back with an army of Cleavers and tear these towers down around you. We want Dusk.”

      “I’ve helped you all I can,” Moloch shrugged.

      “Helped us? You tried to kill Valkyrie.”

      “No, I didn’t. I put her in a situation where she might die, yeah, but I didn’t try to kill her. Did you get what you needed, young one?”

      Valkyrie met his eyes. “He just said a castle.”

      “There you go then. He was brought to a castle. That’s a clue, isn’t it? I mean, how many castles are there around here? Not that many, I’d wager.”

      “When we take down Dusk,” Skulduggery said, “we’re going to take down everyone who stands with him.”

      The amusement left Moloch’s face. “We don’t stand with him, skeleton. He made us an offer and if certain things go certain ways, we’ll be considering it. If you happen to take him down before that, so be it.”

      “Then what was he doing here?”

      “Requesting some of the Infected to bring home, to replace the lads lost in the Sanctuary raid. Apparently, he can’t afford to be waiting the two nights it takes to turn vampires on his own.”

      “And did you give him your Infected?”

      “Of course not. He wasn’t exactly happy about it, but there you go.”

      Skulduggery held out his hand to the vampire with his gun. Moloch nodded assent and the gun was returned. Skulduggery slid it into his holster.

      “We’re going to be watching you,” he said.

      “Of course you are,” Moloch replied, bitterness in his voice. At an unseen signal, the eight vampires left them, walking silently from the square. “Take Caelan with you when you leave,” Moloch continued. “He’s used up any good grace I have left. Tell him never to come back here.”

      Skulduggery nodded and they watched him go.

      They’d left Caelan at the storage facility, and he had limped from the car without looking back. Valkyrie felt bad – he’d been hurt because of them after all. But they couldn’t bring him with them to see Kenspeckle Grouse, not with the Professor’s vampire phobia at an all-time high lately.

      They parked at the back of the old Hibernian Cinema and walked in. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the pain from the hand Valkyrie had broken while punching was shooting through her. She cradled her arm as she followed Skulduggery up on to the stage and through the door projected on to the screen.

      They took the first corridor to their right, almost bumping into Clarabelle. She held two long test tubes, one in each hand, both filled with a clear liquid.

      “Hi, Clarabelle,” Valkyrie said. “Is the Professor in?”

      Clarabelle’s eyes were moving between the test tubes. “Safe, unsafe. Safe, unsafe. Left one safe, right one unsafe. Left safe, right unsafe.” She looked up and smiled brightly. “Hello, Valkyrie! Hello, Skulduggery! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

      “Well,” Skulduggery said, “I’ve been—”

      “It’s been weeks, hasn’t it?” Clarabelle continued and laughed. “It’s probably only been a few days, but it feels like it’s been weeks! I’d take that as a compliment if I were you!”

      “I’ll try,” Skulduggery murmured.

      Clarabelle looked back at the tubes. “Left safe, right unsafe. Safe, unsafe.”

      “What’s that you’re holding?” Valkyrie asked because she had to – there was really no way around it.

      “Oh, these?” beamed Clarabelle. “They’re nothing.”

      “Oh.”

      “They’re not really nothing though. It’s just another of the Professor’s