Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy

arm. Teleportation.

      Skulduggery hadn’t said the vanity light, he had said The Vanishing Night. The Vanishing Night had been one of Gordon’s earliest bestsellers. It had dealt with a creature, a Shibbach, that could appear anywhere, commit a very messy and overly-detailed murder then vanish and reappear a hundred kilometres away. She remembered Gordon now, the Gordon in the Echo Stone, telling her about the pieces of a Shibbach that Vengeous had grafted on.

      Valkyrie didn’t even have to look around to know the Grotesquery was behind her. She tried to run but her boot slipped on the wet ground, just as its right hand snatched at her. She fell sideways, glimpsed the Grotesquery’s bandaged head and tumbled down the stairs. She sprawled to a painful stop, grabbed the banister and hauled herself to her feet. She was at the main stairs now, and she took them two at a time, going dangerously fast.

      She reached the ground and sprinted for the screen, passed through and leaped off the stage. She ran for the exit, crashed through the door and the midday sunlight struck her like a fist.

      “Valkyrie!” Skulduggery shouted. The Bentley was ahead, engine running, and beyond it Baron Vengeous was striding through the lane towards them, followed by Sanguine and Dusk and his pack of Infected.

      The Grotesquery stepped out of thin air with a soft whump. Valkyrie dodged it and ran as the Bentley started moving. She jumped for the open window and Kenspeckle grabbed her and dragged her in as Skulduggery floored it. Tanith was in the backseat, still unconscious, and when Valkyrie righted herself she looked back and saw Baron Vengeous approaching the Grotesquery.

      The Grotesquery turned its head, keeping its eyeless gaze fixed on the car.

      “Seatbelt,” Skulduggery said.

      

      liss, flanked by Cleavers, was waiting at the rear of the Sanctuary. The Bentley pulled up sharply and Bliss yanked the door open, then lifted Tanith out. Her veins were sickly yellow spiderwebs that spread beneath her waxy skin, and she was barely breathing.

      “Out of my way, out of my way,” Kenspeckle muttered, shoving people aside. Bliss laid Tanith on the ground and handed Kenspeckle three different coloured leaves. He wrapped them around each other, tightly, then held them between his clasped hands and closed his eyes. A light shone from within, bright enough to almost turn his hands translucent. Valkyrie could see the bones of his fingers.

      The light faded. Bliss took a clear tube and held it out, and Kenspeckle opened his hands slightly. He let a fine, multicoloured dust – the remains of the leaves – sift gently into the tube. Bliss added a few drops of a deep red liquid that smelled vaguely of sulphur, and Kenspeckle took the tube and shook it, mixing the contents. Bliss handed him a syringe gun and Kenspeckle loaded the tube into it.

      “Hold her,” Kenspeckle said.

      Bliss placed his hands on Tanith’s shoulders, Skulduggery held down one arm and Valkyrie pinned the other. The Cleavers secured her legs. Kenspeckle pressed the syringe gun to Tanith’s neck and the gun hissed with compressed air. The concoction emptied into her bloodstream.

      Tanith thrashed and Valkyrie lost her grip on her arm. She grabbed it again, struggled to press it to the ground, and eventually had to kneel on it to keep it in place. Tanith bucked and writhed as the antidote worked through her. The yellow veins surged red, and her muscles knotted and strained.

      “Try to make sure she doesn’t swallow her tongue,” Kenspeckle said.

      And then Tanith went limp and the veins were no longer visible. Colour returned to her face.

      “Will she be all right?” Valkyrie asked.

      Kenspeckle raised an eyebrow. “Am I a magic-scientific genius or am I not?”

      “You are.”

      “Then of course she’ll be all right,” he said. “Which is more than I can say for my assistants. Do you know how hard it is to get good assistants these days? Granted, neither of them were actually any good, but …” He brushed his hands off and shook his head. “They were fine lads. They didn’t deserve to die like that.” He looked at Skulduggery. “You’ll stop it then?”

      “We’ll stop it.”

      “Fair enough.” Kenspeckle stood up. “Let’s get her inside.”

      Valkyrie was sore. Her arm was stiffening up and her body was covered in bruises. She had cut her lip without realising it and for some reason had a black eye, presumably the result of crashing the van or the tumble she took down the stairs.

      Tanith was sitting beside her and she was sulking. Tanith always sulked when she lost a fight. After she had fought the White Cleaver last year she had spent most of her recovery time staring out the window, scowling.

      The antidote had neutralised the effects of the Helaquin poison, and the wound the stinger had made was already stitched up and healing. The moment she was able, Tanith had gone off and sharpened her sword. It lay on the table before them in its black scabbard.

      They were in the Sanctuary meeting room. Mr Bliss was seated at the far end of the table and Skulduggery was standing against the wall, arms crossed and unmoving. The doors opened. Guild stalked in.

      “Who do I blame?” he thundered. “Tell me, who? We had the Grotesquery in custody? We had it and I wasn’t informed?”

      “I take full responsibility,” Skulduggery said.

      “You do, do you? That would be quite noble if I wasn’t blaming you anyway! You went behind my back, Detective. You requested the services of three Cleavers for guard duty and you didn’t follow procedure. Where are those Cleavers now?”

      Skulduggery hesitated. “They were killed.”

      “Well, that’s marvellous news, isn’t it?” Guild snapped. “Tell me, is there any part of this operation that you didn’t botch?”

      “Operation’s not over yet.”

      Guild glared. “You’re lucky I even let you in here, Detective. I don’t know how Eachan Meritorious handled things, but your reckless behaviour will not be tolerated by the new Council!”

      “Council of one,” Tanith murmured.

      Guild whirled. “I’m sorry? I didn’t quite catch that. Could you repeat what you said so we can all hear it?”

      Tanith looked at him. “Sure. I said ‘council of one’, referring to the fact that the Council is not the Council until it has all three members.”

      The Elder Mage bristled. “Your opinion is of little consequence in this country, Miss Low. You work for the Sanctuary in London, you shouldn’t even be here.”

      “Actually I’m freelance,” Tanith responded.

      “And I requested her help,” Skulduggery said. “It seems we could use it. Didn’t you say we would be getting reinforcements?” Guild’s face went red, but Bliss spoke before he could start shouting again.

      “All the offers of international aid have been withdrawn. In the past few hours there have been attacks on personnel connected to practically every Sanctuary around the world.”

      “Distractions,” Skulduggery said, “to keep everyone else busy. We’ve been isolated.”

      “Indeed we have.”

      “But who would be powerful enough to organise all this?” Valkyrie asked. “Vengeous?”

      “This has taken a lot of planning,” Skulduggery said.