Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men Read online

  “Not as much as I used to,” Cassandra said. “I was pretty good, once upon a time. I picked up an old one in the sixties and I was taught by one of the best guitarists of the era.”

  “Jimi Hendrix?”

  “Angelo Bartolotti. This was the 1660s.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  “It was a whole different instrument back then. But you didn’t come here to talk about my musical past as a Baroque chick, did you?”

  “You’ve had a vision?” Skulduggery asked.

  “Yes,” said Cassandra. “Or at least I will. In a few minutes.”

  Valkyrie frowned. “You haven’t had it yet?”

  “No. But I dreamed that I was going to have it, and that it involved the two of you.”

  “Wait. So … you had a vision that you were going to have a vision?”

  “Fortune-telling is a strange business. Come down to the cellar.”

  She led the way downstairs to a large room with cement walls and a metal grille for a floor. Rusted pipes ran up the walls and across the ceiling like infected veins. It was cold and it was bleak. Cassandra sat in the straight-backed chair in the middle of the chamber, picked up the yellow umbrella and held it across her lap. “So how have you both been?”

  “Uh, fine,” Valkyrie said. “Are you having your vision now?”

  “It’ll come when it comes,” Cassandra told her. “How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

  “Fletcher?”

  “No, the other one.”

  Valkyrie felt a scowl rise. “Caelan?”

  “No, the other one. Or … wait. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “What? You’ve seen a future boyfriend of mine? Who is he? What’s his name? Is he hot?”

  Cassandra smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

  “Just tell me if he’s hot.”

  “If I give you any details about him at all, it could change what happens. The future is uncertain. It’s always changing. If you know who he is, he might never become your boyfriend.”

  “She’s annoying when she has a boyfriend,” Skulduggery said. “Please do me a favour and tell us who it is.”

  Cassandra laughed. “I’ve said too much already. The only reason I’m showing you this vision I’m about to have is because it relates to the one you’ve already seen.”

  “The ruined city,” Valkyrie said.

  “Aha,” Cassandra murmured, her eyes closing. “It’s starting. If you wouldn’t mind?”

  Skulduggery clicked his fingers and Valkyrie did the same, and they each summoned a ball of fire into their hands. They dropped the fireballs to the grille – within seconds the coals underneath were glowing orange. Heat rose, filling the chamber. Valkyrie stood with her back against the wall.

  Cassandra opened the umbrella, and Skulduggery turned a little red wheel. Water gurgled through the pipes and sprayed from the sprinklers, and immediately clouds of steam began billowing. Cassandra sat in the middle of it all, the umbrella keeping her dry. When she was lost amid the swirling steam, Skulduggery cut off the water.

  Valkyrie stepped forward, and Skulduggery joined her. It was quiet. The steam was as thick as fog. Even the slow dripping from the sprinklers sounded distant.

  The first time she’d been down here, an image of Ghastly had run at her. But this was different. A shape moved. Staggered. There were walls around them now, in the steam, and a table, a big one. She knew this place. The conference room, in the Sanctuary. The figure stumbled into view. Erskine Ravel, dressed in his Elder robes, falling to his knees with his hands shackled behind his back, screaming in unimaginable agony.

  He fell forward and the image swirled, and now they were in a city, smoke rising from the ruins. Valkyrie looked for something familiar, some way to identify what city this was – even a street sign – but the steam was lending everything a hazy quality. The city was an out-of-focus photograph, a blurred representation of reality.

  Ghastly ran by, just like he had the first time, and then the street started moving around her like the whole thing, Ghastly included, was on a treadmill. It was hugely disorientating and Valkyrie had to hold Skulduggery’s arm to steady herself. Ghastly turned a corner and the corner whipped by so fast that Valkyrie jerked back. He eventually slowed his run and the street slowed its movement, and when he stopped the street stopped.

  Ghastly glanced behind him, getting his breath back.

  “That’s new,” Skulduggery murmured.

  Ghastly had a scar bisecting the others along the left side of his head, just over his ear. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t old, either.

  “Well now,” said a voice in the steam, “don’t I feel stupid?”

  Steam billowed and now Valkyrie could see Tanith Low leaning against a streetlight, both hands pressing into the lower half of her torso, which was a mess of blood and ruined flesh. Ghastly rushed over to her, his eyes wide.

  Steam hissed as Ghastly and Tanith talked, but their words were snatched away until Ghastly grabbed her and Tanith cried out.

  “Bloody hell, that hurts!”

  “I don’t care,” said Ghastly, and he pulled her into him and they kissed, long and hard, so long and so hard that Valkyrie began to feel vaguely uncomfortable watching them. She was saved from having to look away by fresh clouds of steam, and a new image solidified in front of her.

  The first time she had seen her future self she remembered thinking how much older she looked in the steam. Her future self had been taller, with strong arms and strong legs. But now they were identical, apart from the tattoo on her future self’s left arm and the metal gauntlet on her right. For the first time, Valkyrie noticed a strap that crossed her future self’s chest. She had something slung across her back.

  “I’ve seen this,” the Valkyrie in the steam said, the wind playing with her hair. “I was watching from …” She looked around, narrowed her eyes. “… there. Hi.”

  Valkyrie frowned. This was different from last time. She hadn’t said “Hi” last time.

  The other Valkyrie smiled sadly. “This is where it happens, but then you know that, right? At least you think you do. You think this is where I let them die.”

  “Stephanie!”

  Two shapes in the distance, running. Sprinting. The other Valkyrie shook her head. “I don’t want to see this. Please. I don’t want this to happen. Let me stop it. Please let me stop it.” She held something in her hand, something the steam was obscuring as she looked at it. “Please work,” she said, tears running down her face. “Please let me save them.”

  And then her image was swept away as Valkyrie’s parents neared. Her mother turned on the spot, looking up at the sky. She was holding something.

  “Oh, no,” Valkyrie said weakly, watching as her baby sister clung to her mother.

  “Stephanie!” her father shouted. “We’re here! Steph!”

  A figure in black dropped to the ground behind them, cracking the pavement with the force of her landing.

  Darquesse. She smiled with Valkyrie’s smile. From neck to toe she was dressed in a black so tight it was like a second skin. Desmond Edgley stepped between his wife and the monster.

  “Give our daughter back to us,” he said.

  Darquesse continued to smile.

  “Give her back!” her dad roared.

  It was nothing but a moving image, it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened yet, but when Darquesse burned her family with black flame Valkyrie cried out nonetheless.

  Skulduggery wrapped an arm round her shoulders and she sagged against him, tears in her eyes.

  The swirling steam brought a new figure, Skulduggery, dressed in a black suit, his skull bare and his gun in his hand. He slowed and stopped, reached down to pick something up off the ground. His hat. He put it on, spent a moment angling the brim. Behind him, Darquesse approached. Skulduggery turned slowly, not bothering to look up. He reloaded his gun.

  The smile on the face of Darquesse widened. “My favourite little toy. You know you�
��re going to die now, don’t you?”

  Skulduggery raised his head slightly, one eye socket visible under his hat. “I made a promise.”

  Darquesse nodded. “Until the end.”

  “That’s right,” said Skulduggery, clicking the revolver shut and thumbing back the hammer. “Until the end.”

  He raised the gun and fired and walked forward and fired and fired again. And then he fumbled slightly and the gun fell, and a moment later his glove followed it. His fingers spilled out across the ground.

  He grunted, unimpressed, as his other hand dropped from his wrist, and now the radius and ulna bones were sliding from his sleeves and his ankles came apart and he stumbled, fell to his knees.

  His hips detached and his upper body fell backwards with the sound of clacking bones. He was a ribcage and a spine and a head, trying in vain to sit up. The ribcage collapsed next.

  Darquesse stepped over him, reached down, plucked his skull from his spine. She kissed his closed mouth, her lips on his teeth, then she let the skull fall and the jawbone broke and spun away.

  Then Darquesse turned, looked straight into Valkyrie’s eyes, and smiled.

  The smile dispersed with the steam, and then there was no more Darquesse and no more ruined city, and they were back in the Steam Chamber and Cassandra was opening her eyes.

  “Distressing,” she said, her voice hollow.

  Valkyrie didn’t say anything. She went straight to the stairs and got out of there.

  The tea was hot and a bit too sweet, but Valkyrie drank it anyway. Her hands had stopped shaking, thank God. Cassandra’s hadn’t. Having visions of that nature could not be good for your nerves.

  “So you’ll show me a vision of my family dying,” Valkyrie said, forcing some strength into her voice, “but you won’t tell me the name of my next boyfriend? How is that fair?”

  Cassandra gave a shaky smile. “Because your next boyfriend might not be something you’d want to miss out on, whereas that particular future most certainly is.”

  “The order was different,” Skulduggery said from where he stood by the window. “In the first vision, we saw Ghastly, then me, then Valkyrie, and then Valkyrie’s parents. In this one, it was altered. Is that significant?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cassandra. “Maybe. Maybe not. Your knowledge of the future changes it. Sometimes in tiny, insignificant ways. Sometimes in huge, world-changing ways.”

  “I spoke more this time,” Valkyrie said. “Did you see that? I was actually talking to me, the me watching. And my parents … they had my little sister with them. They didn’t have her in the first vision.”

  Cassandra nodded. “The future is in a constant state of flux.”

  “And Ghastly and Tanith,” said Valkyrie, “and Ravel … Was he dying? It looked like he was dying.” She looked up. “How do we stop it? How do we stop all of that from happening? Some things we hadn’t seen before, some things were switched around, so does that mean the events we saw don’t happen in chronological order?”

  “Usually they do,” Cassandra said. “Usually. It’s a vision interpreted through my mind, remember, and so it’s subject to my subconscious whims. Maybe I pulled the images of your family forward because I knew that’s where your focus would be.”

  Skulduggery turned away from the window. “But if it was in chronological order, then Ravel in pain will be the first of those events to occur. And if we stop that from happening?”

  Cassandra shrugged. “Everything else will be affected. Some of it will be changed, even avoided. Some of it won’t.”

  “Then we do what we can,” Skulduggery said. “We keep Ravel safe. He was wearing the robes of his office and he only wears those when he’s in the Sanctuary, so we make sure he stays away from Roarhaven. Cassandra, thank you for alerting us. Valkyrie, we need to get going.”

  “Not yet,” Cassandra said. “Not while those men are outside.”

  Valkyrie frowned at her. “What men?”

  “The ones who’ve come to kill you. They should be arriving any moment now.”

  kulduggery whipped round. “You set us up?”

  Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

  Valkyrie joined Skulduggery at the window as a van pulled up and armed men jumped out.

  “I had another vision,” Cassandra explained.

  Valkyrie ducked out of sight. “And you’re only telling us now?”

  “I only told you at this point in the vision, too. If I’d given you any more warning, you might do something differently and you won’t walk away.”

  “So we win this?”

  “Yes,” said Cassandra. “Of course, now that you know the future, you might change it. Fortune-telling – it’s a tricky business.”

  Someone was shouting Skulduggery’s name.

  He grunted, took off his hat and handed it to Cassandra. “Keep this safe,” he said, and walked to the door. Valkyrie followed him outside. Nine men stood waiting.

  “Skulduggery,” said the man in charge, an American. “It’s been a while. You’re looking well for a dead man.”

  “The same could be said for you, Gepard. Mind me asking what it is you think you’re doing?”

  “Obeying orders. We’ve been instructed to take the two of you out.”

  “Attacking us will start a war.”

  “You haven’t heard? The war’s already started. Your side executed Bernard Sult live on the Global Link.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Valkyrie said.

  “Afraid not. Those two Children of the Spider weirdos did it, not ten minutes ago. There’s a list of people the Supreme Council needs terminated. You two are at the top of that list.”

  “But we’re friends, aren’t we?” Skulduggery asked. “Or friendly, at the very least. We shouldn’t have to fight each other.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Excellent. So what are the conditions of your surrender?”

  Gepard chuckled. “I’m afraid your advanced years and lack of a physical brain have led to some confusion. I have superior numbers on my side. The outcome of this day is not in any doubt – the only question is how much you want it to hurt.”

  “Do you know whose cottage this is? Cassandra Pharos’s. She’s already seen this happen. We win. You lose. Walk away.”

  Gepard shook his head. “You think I want to be here? You think I want to fight you? What the hell are Erskine and Ghastly thinking? The Supreme Council has a point, for God’s sake. They’re making sense. They don’t want to take over, they just want to help you maintain order.”

  “And to show us just how eager they are to provide this help, they’ve sent you over to kill a few of us. No, Gepard, this isn’t about maintaining order. The Supreme Council sees an opportunity to snatch up a Cradle of Magic and they’re seizing it with both hands. You may not want to admit this, but you are an invading force.”

  Gepard sighed. “You can’t win. You know that, right? So I’m giving you a chance. Walk away. The report I hand in will say you fought valiantly, but were outnumbered, so you had to retreat. You’re going to lose, but that doesn’t mean we have to fight.”

  “Actually,” Skulduggery said, “your report will detail an exciting battle of legendary proportions in which we prevail despite overwhelming odds. It will be quite a stirring read, I assure you. Many will be moved to tears.”

  “We fought Mevolent side by side.”

  “And now we’ll fight face to face.”

  Gepard looked at him for a long moment and, at his nod, the guns were raised.

  Skulduggery went one way, Valkyrie went another, diving behind Cassandra’s car as the air was filled with gunfire. She hated bullets. She much preferred it when they fired magical beams of energy. At least they were pretty and colourful. But bullets were too small and moved too fast to see. One of them could smack right into your head and you’d never know anything about it.

  One of the men had sneaked round behind t
he cottage. She saw him waddling behind an old tractor, trying to keep out of sight, and she pushed herself up and ran for him. He peeked out, saw her coming and his eyes widened. He jerked his gun-hand up, but she pushed at the air and he went backwards. She crashed into him as he tumbled, both of them fighting for control of the gun. She held it away from her and he fired – a gunshot so loud it almost deafened her. She hit with her elbow, again and again, and when she hit him hard enough to knock him out she hauled herself off, and realised she was holding his gun.

  Skulduggery was walking and shooting, his revolver in a two-handed grip. Bullets whipped by him and energy streams sizzled. He responded to each one in turn, firing methodically. Valkyrie saw a big guy go down, caught dead centre in the chest. A smaller guy opened up with eyeblasts. Skulduggery spun behind an old trailer, reloaded and leaned out, one-handed, squeezed off a shot that flipped the guy over backwards like some kind of acrobat. For Skulduggery, killing was easy.

  Valkyrie threw her gun down, clicking her fingers and summoning fireballs into her hands. She hurled them as she sprinted, keeping a man pinned behind a van. She was very calm as she moved to his position. She could feel the blood coursing and the energy flowing – she was practically high on adrenaline – but her mind was a calm place of practical things. One step after another. No panicking. Haste makes waste. Use the fireballs to get in close.

  The man stepped out and she whipped the shadows at him, sent them slicing into his arm. He dropped his gun and she clicked her fingers, threw a fireball at his legs, then seized hold of the air as he screeched and yanked him off his feet. He hit the cottage wall face first.

  She turned to see Skulduggery dismantle a fat guy with bad hair. He was unconscious even before he started to topple, and Skulduggery was already darting to his next target.

  Something thumped Valkyrie in the chest and she stepped back. Another bullet whizzed by her ear. A third struck her shoulder. She didn’t even know who the hell was shooting her. She should have ducked, dodged, done something, but instead she glared, searching for the shooter. She saw him, crouched and firing with a startled look on his face, wondering why she wasn’t going down. He shifted his aim and fired at her head, obviously figuring it out.