Playing with Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 2) (30 page)

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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 okay?" 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 onto 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.

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"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.

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"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."

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Chapter Forty-one

BILLY-RAY SANGUINE'S ERSTWHILE EMPLOYER

Billy-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.

A man sat down at his table. "Behave yourself." Sanguine grinned. "Just admirin' the scenery." The man put a thin envelope on the table, placed one

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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. "Bid 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

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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 realized that if they returned and took over, he wouldn't particularly enjoy it. Still, a job was a job, and he didn't let his own political or religious beliefs interfere; and besides, the Diablerie was a group who paid well. His hand drifted to his jacket pocket, to the slim envelope secreted there, and all misgivings fled from his mind. He stood and left the table, walking in the direction of the two pretty Italian girls who had passed him.

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Chapter Forty- Two

BAD THINGS

THE HEAT BROKE and the rain came with the night. Valkyrie sat down by the pier, her coat slick and wet. It wasn't the black coat, the one that kept saving her life. This one was deep blue, and it had a hood, which she wore up. Her jeans were soaked. She didn't care.

It had been two days since they'd faced Baron Vengeous and the Grotesquery at Clearwater Hospital, and despite Kenspeckle's science magic, Valkyrie still ached. The gash on her cheek had

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healed up without even a scar, and all the other cuts and bruises had faded away to nothing, but her body was stiff and tired. She was alive, though, so whenever something hurt she didn't complain-- she just felt glad that she was able to feel
anything.

Haggard was quiet and sleeping. The sea came in against the pier and bucked against it, like it was trying to dislodge it, maybe grab it and pull it down into its depths. The air was fresh, and she breathed it in, deep and slow and long. She didn't close her eyes. She kept her gaze on the water until she heard the car.

The Bentley stopped and its headlights cut off. Skulduggery got out, walked over to her, his coat flapping in the breeze. The rain spilled over the brim of his hat and dripped to his shoulders.

"Still keeping watch?" he asked.

Valkyrie shrugged. "Not all of Dusk's vampires were infected at the same time. There may have been one or two, freshly infected, that the water didn't kill. If nothing pops out at me by tomorrow night, then I'll believe that they're all dead."

"And then you'll sleep?"

"I promise." She looked up at him. "How's your arm?"

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He showed her his right hand and wriggled his gloved fingers. "Reattached and getting back to normal, thanks to Kenspeckle. We've had a rough few days."

"Yes we have."

"Did Tanith come and see you?"

Valkyrie nodded. "Came by earlier, on her way to the airport. She told me Mr. Bliss was seeing to the Grotesquery, taking it apart and stuff."

"Taking it apart, separating it into all its original components, then chopping it up, cremating and scattering the remains. It's safe to say that the Grotesquery won't be returning. Or if it does, it'll be in really,
really
small pieces."

"And Vile's armor?"

Skulduggery hesitated. "Thurid Guild has it. Apparently he plans to hide it away where no one can ever use it for evil again."

"Do you believe him?"

"I believe he plans to hide it away until he has a use for it."

Valkyrie got up so that she was standing beside him. "Are you still fired?"

"I am."

"But don't they see that it was
his
greed and
his

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stupidity that helped Vengeous escape in the first place?"

Skulduggery's head tilted. "Who are
they?
There
is
no
they.
Guild is the Grand Mage-- he's the one in charge. There is no one to watch the watchmen, Valkyrie."

"There's us."

He laughed. "I suppose there is."

There was a gust of wind that blew her hood down. She didn't fix it. "So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to do what I've always done: solve crimes and save the world, usually with mere seconds to spare. Although, granted, this time it was
you
who saved the world. Well done, by the way."

"Thanks."

"We'll get by. It won't be easy, operating without the Sanctuary's resources, but we'll manage. There is something larger at work here. It isn't over."

Her hair was plastered to her scalp, and the rainwater ran in sheets down her face. "Sanguine's mysterious bosses."

"Indeed. Someone is working behind the scenes, keeping out of the spotlight as much as

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possible. But I fear that time is coming to an end, and we need to be ready for whatever happens next." He looked at her. "Bad things are coming for us, Valkyrie."

"That seems to be what bad things do, all right."

With the wind and the rain, she almost didn't feel it, but she saw the way Skulduggery tilted his head, and so she examined the sensations that the air brought to her skin. The air currents twisted and writhed, but there was a space behind them that the air buffeted, in the same way that the sea buffeted the pier.

They turned slowly and saw the vampire. Its arms were sinewy, and veins stood out against its wet white skin. It was hungry, yet to feed, and it was having difficulty breathing. But it had survived, and now it was looking for its first prey. It bared its fangs and its black eyes narrowed. Muscles coiled.

It came at them through the rain, and Skulduggery was moving, taking his gun from his coat, and Valkyrie summoned a flame into her hand and prepared, once again, to fight.

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DEREK LANDY

lives near Dublin, Ireland. Before writing his novels about a well-dressed, sharp-tongued skeleton detective, he wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a little thriller in which everybody dies. He is a black belt in Kenpo Karate, an occasional teacher of self-defense to children, and an avid player of computer games. To find out more about him and the world he has created in his novels, go to
www.skulduggerypleasant.com
.

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