Skulduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy

fry the stick insect here.”

      The woman in black didn’t respond. Her cloak coiled around her.

      “You would not kill me,” said Nye, its voice a little garbled. Its skin felt oily in her grip.

      “I wouldn’t want to kill you,” Valkyrie corrected him. “I wouldn’t want to kill anyone. But, if your awesome bodyguard tries to kill me, I’ll kill you faster than your beady little eyes can blink.”

      Nye made a small sound, like a laugh. “Then it seems that we have reached an impasse.”

      “Not at all,” said Valkyrie. “An impasse implies that we’re evenly matched. But we all know that’s not true.” She glanced at the woman in black. “I dabbled with Necromancy. Did you know that? Solomon Wreath taught me a few things. So I know that you can shadow-walk. That’s what you did with Skulduggery, right? But I also know that the range for shadow-walking is limited – so he’s already on his way back here and he’s coming mighty fast. We only have a few seconds before he bursts through these doors, and when that happens … it’s not going to be pretty. All I have to do is wait, because time is on my side. But for you the clock is ticking. Can you hear that? The tick-tock in your head?”

      “I am not going back to Ironpoint,” said Nye. “I only have a few years left in my life. I will not spend them in a cell. Whisper – kill her.”

      “Whisper – wait,” Valkyrie said, tightening her grip. “Why is it always killing, huh? Why is it always fighting? Why is violence always the default position?”

      Nye held up a hand to Whisper, even though the woman had not moved. “You offer an alternative?” it asked.

      “Give me Quidnunc, and I’ll let you go before Skulduggery gets back.”

      “I do not know where Quidnunc is,” Nye said. “But I do know one thing that could possibly lead you to him.”

      “Did you tell this one thing to Abyssinia?”

      “I did.”

      “So we’d be playing catch-up.”

      “Yes.”

      Valkyrie considered her options, of which there were none. “OK,” she said. “Deal.”

      “First, you must release me.”

      “I don’t trust you enough to release you, Doctor.”

      “Then you had better make a decision before the Skeleton Detective gets here, Miss Cain. Time is ticking away.”

      Valkyrie almost smiled. She took her hand from Nye’s throat and stepped back as it stood. It turned, looking down at her, as Whisper came up behind it. Her cloak swirled around them both.

      “Quidnunc suffers from liquefactive necrosis,” Nye said, and the shadows convulsed and Valkyrie was left alone.

      “Huh,” she said.

      The doors burst open and Skulduggery stormed in, gun in one hand and fire in the other. “Where are they?” he demanded.

      “Gone,” said Valkyrie. “You just missed them.”

      Skulduggery stood there for a moment, then shook the flames from his hand and slipped the gun back under his jacket. “That’s annoying,” he said. “Are you OK?”

      She shrugged. “Grand. Quidnunc has, um, liquid active necrosis.”

      “Do you mean liquefactive necrosis?”

      “Let’s say that I do. What is it?”

      “A form of organic rot that Mevolent had weaponised during the war.”

      “That the same thing Tesseract had? So Quidnunc wears a mask, like him?”

      “Perhaps,” Skulduggery said. “In any case, he will need the same serums that kept Tesseract alive, and those serums are hard to come by. If we find who makes them, we’ll find Quidnunc.”

      “Cool. Although Nye told Abyssinia, y’know, about the liquid factor thing.”

      “Liquefactive necrosis.”

      “He told her about that, too.”

      “Then we have no time to waste,” Skulduggery said, stalking to the door. He spun round. “Unless you’re hungry. Are you hungry? You haven’t eaten since noon.”

      “I’m pretty hungry, yeah.”

      “Then we’ll stop for pizza,” Skulduggery said, and marched out.

       4

      Education, Omen Darkly mused as he examined the test he’d just got back, may not have been the area in which he was destined to excel.

      While Corrival Academy was indeed a school for sorcerers, that didn’t mean all the lessons were about throwing fireballs or shooting streams of energy out of your hands/eyes/mouth – although there was a fair bit of that stuff.

      Mostly it was sitting at desks, reading textbooks and scribbling answers – pretty much the same experience Omen had had when he’d gone to a mortal school, back in Galway. A lot of the time, in fact, things at Corrival were worse. Because there were more subjects to cover – Omen not only had to study history and science, but also mortal history and mortal science – the school day was longer. PE wasn’t just about combat training and self-defence, as tough as those things could be – it was also about picking a sport and playing it, magic not allowed. Students were taught to be the best sorcerer they could be, but they were also taught how to live, behave and thrive in the mortal world. Which meant more work, more tests, and more opportunities to fall short.

      Omen folded the test paper, hiding the big red E from view. It wasn’t that big a deal. It had been a difficult test – everyone said so, even the smarter kids. What chance did he have, really, when even the smarter kids were finding it tricky? Sure, they still technically passed, as did just about everyone else in his class, but he wasn’t a big believer in grades anyway. He preferred to get his education out there, on the streets. Where it mattered.

      Omen chewed his lip. That said, his parents were probably going to kill him if they found out.

      He stuffed the test paper down into his bag. That was one of the good things about Corrival being a boarding school, he supposed – less exposure to disapproving parental figures. Of course, there was a pretty fair chance that they wouldn’t actually care about a failed test. Omen had, quite by accident, cultivated a relationship with his folks that depended entirely on their low expectations. He sidled along in the background of their lives while their focus was on his twin brother, Auger – the subject of an actual prophecy, destined to face the King of the Darklands in a battle to save the world. In order to aid him in this battle, Auger had been born strong, fast and smart – not to mention naturally talented, extremely hard-working, courageous, decent, resourceful, charming, funny, tall and good-looking. Because being good-looking was obviously a vital quality in any self-respecting Chosen One.

      Omen had missed out on being the Chosen One by virtue of being born second, so he didn’t possess any of Auger’s attributes. What he did have, however, was a plucky demeanour and a never-say-die attitude – but he didn’t really have them, either.

      Life was one bitter disappointment after another. Sure, there had been glimmers of hope along the way. His best friend was pretty cool, for a start, and seven months ago he’d helped Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain stop an ancient evil from being reborn. Well, sort of.

      No, he had helped. He had been right there, sharing in the adventure. He’d come away with the bruises to prove it. The problem was that the ancient evil hadn’t actually been stopped. Abyssinia, after all, had succeeded in coming back to life. Taking this into account, he supposed that meant he had helped