The Dying of the Light (48 page)

Red energy coursed from Serpine’s right hand and met the stream of darkness that flowed from Vile’s fist. At first, they seemed evenly matched, but as Valkyrie watched she could see that the darkness was inching forward, bit by bit, and Serpine was showing the strain. He was pale, and sweating, and his arm was trembling.

The magic-sucker caught her eye. Vile had dropped it or someone had snatched it from him – either way it was on the ground once again. She remembered how it had looked in Mevolent’s hands, how he had held it. Right before he pulled the trigger his left hand had tightened on the barrel. Maybe that was it. Maybe activating the sigils there was all that was needed to ready the trigger.

Serpine’s legs gave out and he dropped, the red energy dissipating and the shadows glancing off his shoulder. He grunted, went sprawling, and Vile’s shadows turned sharp.

Then Vile hesitated. To him, this Nefarian Serpine was the man who had murdered his wife and child, the man who had been responsible for turning him from Skulduggery Pleasant into Lord Vile. Valkyrie reckoned that killing such a man was bound to make anyone relish the moment.

Valkyrie ran from cover, snatched the weapon up, but even as she aimed Vile was turning, sending a shadow shard out to meet her.

What happened next happened slowly. The magic-sucker buzzed slightly in her hand and she felt it activate, felt the beam ready to burst forth. The shadow shard came around like a whip, caught the weapon at its exact centre, a hair’s breadth from Valkyrie’s forefinger. The gun split as it tried to fire and light erupted from within and filled Valkyrie’s vision.

She wasn’t aware of being thrown back. She wasn’t aware of Vile stumbling. She wasn’t aware of her own screaming. All that she was aware of was the pain, and that was enough.

alkyrie missed the long trek back to Roarhaven. That trek, as long as it was, was entirely replaced by never-ending pain.

Skulduggery would later tell her that following the explosion, Lord Vile had shadow-walked away, injured. Serpine had picked up the two halves of the magic-sucker, examined them, cursed, and had Peregrine teleport him away. Skulduggery had then bound Valkyrie’s arms and legs so she would be easier to manage, and took her with him on his horse. Ravel went on ahead, his horse tethered to Skulduggery’s. It was slow-going, and they missed their rendezvous, but they made the one after that, and Signate shunted them into the circle that China had devised in the Sanctuary in their own dimension. They’d left Ravel in that circle, hidden from Darquesse.

Valkyrie missed all that. All she saw were blurred faces and faraway voices. If she were lucky, unconsciousness would snatch her away from the pain for hours at a time.

She wasn’t lucky very often.

isjointed. That’s how Tanith felt. Like nothing fitted right. Like she’d lost the rhythm of how her life was lived. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was stumbling. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her feet were suddenly leaden.

She was dealing with a life interrupted, and she was lost and alone and she had no one to help guide her back. She hadn’t called her family. She wanted to leave that until she had a handle on where things were going. Which would be a nice change.

Ghastly is dead.

Those three words haunted her. They waited at the end of every thought. Sometimes they’d fade a little, allow her a distraction, a moment of engagement. But they never left her alone for long. They were persistent, those three little words.

She took to exploring Roarhaven. She’d tried to help with preparing the city for Darquesse’s wrath, but she only got in the way. Saracen Rue was too busy to talk and while she’d read their books, she’d never been introduced to Donegan Bane or Gracious O’Callahan. Her Remnant-self knew them, apparently. It was funny. Her Remnant-self had had a better grip on her life than Tanith did.

Mostly, she just hung around the Sanctuary and waited for Valkyrie to get back. She was there when they shunted in. Thank God. She’d even visited Ravel in his little circle. She used to fancy him. He was so smooth, so charming, so good-looking. And those eyes – those beautiful golden eyes. But now she hated him.

Ghastly is dead.

She needed to get out. She needed to get on her bike and ride.

She left Roarhaven in a cloud of dust. She didn’t know where she was going. She got on to the motorway, joined the traffic, found herself taking a familiar exit.

Oh. So
that’s
where she was going.

She pulled up outside Valkyrie’s house. Knocked on the door.

Melissa Edgley answered it. Desmond passed behind her, with little Alice scampering around after him.

Tanith smiled. “Hi,” she said. “I’m—”

“I know you,” Melissa said. She looked agitated. “You came to our house a few years ago after Christmas. You were Stephanie’s substitute teacher.”

“Ah,” Tanith said. “Right. That actually wasn’t me – not really. And I don’t remember it, so I apologise for anything I may have said or done. I was possessed at the time by this horrible little thing that turned me evil for a few years. I just got rid of it, actually. Today is my first Saturday Remnant-free for over two years. My name is Tanith Low, and I suppose I
was
a teacher to your daughter, actually. I handled half of her fight training.”

Melissa stared at her.

“Valkyrie told me you found out about the whole magic thing. I, uh, I didn’t misunderstand or anything, did I?”

“Where is she?” Melissa asked. “She hasn’t been answering our calls and we don’t know where she is. Is she all right?”

“She’s in the Medical Wing in the Sanctuary. Basically, she’s in hospital. I thought you’d probably be worried about her, and it would never occur to Skulduggery to let you know these things.”

Melissa went very pale. “Take us to her.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“She’s our daughter and you’d better—”

“Melissa,” Tanith said, talking over her, “it isn’t a good idea to take you to see her because seeing her would distress you too much.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s in pain,” said Tanith. “A hideous amount of pain, if I’m honest. But it shouldn’t be too long now before it passes.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story, and full of aspects that you’d find confusing, so I’m going to stick to the simplest explanation, if that’s OK with you. Valkyrie and Skulduggery went away to do a job. While they were gone, she was caught in an explosion of sorts.”

“An
explosion
?”

“Of sorts. Physically, she’s fine, she’s uninjured, but she is in an incredible amount of pain. Our doctors didn’t know what to make of it at first, until they realised that it wasn’t nearly as complicated as they’d feared. In fact, Valkyrie is going through something that everyone there is very familiar with.”

“What?” Melissa asked. “For God’s sake, what’s wrong with her?”

“It’s a magic thing.”

“But she’s not magic. She told us herself, she lost her magic.”

“So she did,” said Tanith. “But the facts are the facts, and the fact is the explosion kick-started her Surge. What she’ll be when she emerges is anyone’s guess.”

he Cadillac slows, the high whine of asphalt replaced by the crunch of roadside gravel, and then there’s nothing. Apart from some residual ticking, even the engine is silent. Danny stops his teeth from chattering long enough to hear a few muffled words of conversation from up front. He doesn’t get all of it – he’s too cold and he has a pounding headache and he’s nauseous and he desperately needs to pee again – but he catches the gist of what they’re saying. They’re afraid they’ve lost Stephanie – or rather, they’re afraid that Stephanie has lost them.

Jeremiah suggests they loop round, to see if they can pick her up again, but Gant is against the idea. He doesn’t want to make it obvious that they’re luring her in. They talk about this for a few minutes, with Jeremiah coming up with suggestions like an eager employee trying to impress his boss. Gant, for his part, grows increasingly irate, and Jeremiah eventually gets the message and stops suggesting stupid things.

There’s movement, and then a door opens – only one – and someone gets out. Gant. His footsteps move along the side of the car, and stop somewhere close to Danny’s head.

“I need to pee,” Danny calls.

There’s the sharp bang of a fist on the trunk. “Shut up,” says Gant, and a moment later Danny hears an approaching car. He catches a brief sweep of headlights through the cracks of the trunk, and then the car slows. It isn’t Stephanie. Stephanie wouldn’t pull up to where Gant was standing. He hears a voice, a man’s voice, saying something, possibly offering to help in some way, and then he jumps as three gunshots ring out.

Gant’s movements are unhurried as he gets back in the Cadillac. The engine fires up and they pull out on to the road and continue on.

Danny doesn’t need to hear the conversation to know that that was a sign for Stephanie to follow.

A half-hour later, he can’t hold it any longer. He unzips and pees into the carpet under the latch, the sense of relief momentarily overwhelming the bizarre sense of shame that threatens to engulf him. When he’s finished, he zips up and shuffles back as far as he can, his jacket held up over his nose and mouth. He tests the air every few minutes until he can’t smell anything rank, and begins to breathe normally again.

They haven’t bothered tying him up after the gas station. They know he’s beaten. He knows he’s beaten. The acceptance is sudden and unexpected, but no less valid than the thought that follows after. He’s beaten
now
, at this particular moment in time. But once they let him out of this trunk? Once he’s got his strength back? Then he has a chance again.

The Cadillac slows again and he wakes. It’s morning now. A thin line of warm sunlight falls across his face. He hears Gant say, “Excuse me,” very clearly, like he’s leaning out of an open window. Running footsteps approach. A woman’s voice. An early morning jogger.

A thought surfaces in the murk of Danny’s mind. The man in the car. The gunshots. A trail of carnage for Stephanie to follow.

“Run!” Danny screams. “Run! He’s going to kill you!”

He hears the woman’s voice. Not the words, but the tone – confused, suddenly wary – and Gant, trying to be soothing, trying to coax her closer. Then there’s a scrape of rubber soles on the road, and the woman is running and Gant is cursing. Car doors open. A gun fires twice. More cursing.

“Go!” Gant shouts, and Danny hears Jeremiah take off in pursuit.

Gant gets back in the car and they leap forward, tyres spinning. The Cadillac swerves violently and Danny hits his head and jars his shoulder. The world rattles and bumps around him. They’re off the road now, on some kind of dirt track. Branches scrape against metal. Water splashes. Another turn, and another, and for a moment they’re going sideways and Danny is sure they’re going to crash, but somehow Gant gets the big car back under control and they straighten out, picking up even more speed.