The Dying of the Light Read online

  “Leave or I’ll call the police.”

  “Police?” the fat man screeches, his face going a deep red. “You’re the one in the wrong! I’m the victim here! Call the police! Go on, do it! We’ll let them decide who here is the aggrieved party! Oh, not so cocksure now, are you, now that I’ve called your bluff?”

  “Are you going to leave, or not?”

  The fat man’s lip curls unattractively. “What’s wrong – you don’t want me to make a scene in front of all these customers?”

  “What are you talking about? The only other person in here is your friend.”

  “Who, him?” says the fat man. “I’ve never seen that gentleman before in my life.”

  On cue, the old man turns, smiling. His face is a fascinating map of lines and wrinkles clustered round the landmarks of his features. A large nose, small, bright eyes, a thin, wide mouth. His hair is white and trails from his mottled scalp in wisps. There is something of the vulture about him.

  He marches forward, moving surprisingly smoothly for someone so elderly, his gnarled hands held at his sides. “Pardon me ever so,” he says, “but I couldn’t help but overhear this lively debate from where I stood, perusing the magazine stall. If I may interject, in the spirit of an impartial observer and a stranger to you both, I would offer the opinion that a simple misunderstanding is at the root of this current discord. May I enquire as to your names, kind sirs, so as to better sow the seeds of calmness and brotherhood?”

  “My name is Jeremiah Wallow,” says the fat man, standing a little straighter. “I hail from Boston, in Massachusetts, which is in the region known as New England.”

  “It is a singular pleasure to meet you, Jeremiah Wallow,” says the old man. “And may I say what an unusual last name you have. My last name, Gant, is somewhat of a rarity also. Originally I came from a small town in a small country in Europe, but as you can probably tell by my accent I have long since made my home in the Midwest, specifically in St Louis, and that is in Missouri. And you, young man? May I inquire as to your details?”

  Danny looks at them both. “I’m Danny,” he says.

  They wait, but he offers nothing more. The old man, Gant, widens his smile. “And where do you hail from, Danny? Are you a native of Meek Ridge?”

  “I am.”

  “That must have been marvellous, to have been raised in such beauteous surroundings. I myself cannot remember a town with such natural charm. Can you, Mr Wallow?”

  “I cannot,” says Jeremiah.

  “You have lived here all your life, then?” Gant asks Danny. “You have watched the comings and goings of your friends and neighbours? And this being, in fact, the General Store, situated as it is on the main thoroughfare, I doubt there is anything, or indeed anyone, that escapes your notice for very long, now is there?”

  Danny waits for him to get to the point.

  “I dare say you hear an awful lot of accents, do you not?” Gant says. “Accents and dialects and brogues and burrs. What’s your favourite? Do you have one? I personally have always been partial to the Scots accent. It’s the way they roll their r’s. Do you have a preference, Danny my boy?”

  “Not really.”

  “No? No favourite? What about you, Mr Wallow? Or may I call you Jeremiah?”

  “I insist on it,” says Jeremiah. “And I would say, if asked, which you have, that out of all the accents in all the world, Irish is my favourite, what with me being a Boston boy.”

  Gant claps his hands. “Irish! Yes! Oh, those beautiful lilts and those soft t’s, every word an event unto itself. I knew an Irishman once – he could charm the birds out of a bush, as the saying goes, and it was all down to that accent. What do you think of the Irish accent, Danny?”

  Danny works very hard to keep his expression neutral. “Don’t have much of an opinion on it.”

  “You don’t?” says Gant. “Well, my boy, in that case, you need to listen to an Irish person speak in order to form one. What are we without our opinions, after all? When was the last time you heard an Irish person speak?”

  Gant looks at him, all smiles, while Jeremiah’s eyebrows are raised in a gently quizzical manner.

  “Guess it was the last time I saw a Liam Neeson movie,” Danny says.

  Gant waves his hand dismissively. “Movies hardly count. Real life, now that is the only experience worth having. When was the last time you heard an Irish person speak in real life?”

  “Years ago,” Danny says. “Probably when I was in LA. Don’t really remember.”

  Gant’s smile fades a little. “I see.”

  “No Irish around here?” Jeremiah asks.

  Danny shakes his head.

  “No Irish girls?” Jeremiah says. “Irish women? You sure?”

  “Meek Ridge doesn’t have a whole lot to offer,” says Danny. “We don’t get many people moving in. We usually get people moving out.”

  “And you say,” presses Gant, “no Irish?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well … that is odd.”

  “You were expecting some?” asks Danny.

  “Expecting one,” says Gant. “Friend of mine. Niece, actually. Dark hair. Tall. Pretty. Kind of girl you’d remember.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Gant smiles again. “Thank you for your time, Danny, but I must be going. Jeremiah, might I offer you a lift?”

  “That would be most kind,” says Jeremiah, trailing after the old man as he walks from the store.

  They leave, and the bell tinkles, and silence rushes in.

  19

  ME AND HER

  tephanie dripped ice cream on to her T-shirt and made a face. “Aww.”

  “Should have got you a bib,” Skulduggery muttered, leaning out past her to take another look through the café window at the Dublin Art Gallery. The face he wore was good-looking and clean shaven. Out there, through the window, Dublin City was in full night-time mode, with people spilling out of one bar and piling into the next. Nobody was paying attention to the sleek, gleaming art gallery and its tastefully minimalist garden protected by a high wrought-iron fence. The fence was new.

  “I probably shouldn’t have got an ice cream,” Stephanie said after a moment. “Technically, it’s still winter. Why is this place even selling ice-cream cones in winter?”

  “Because there are people like you who will buy them presumably.”

  The café was warm and quiet. A bored girl sat behind the till, reading a magazine. It was nearly closing time. Stephanie got up, dumped the ice cream in the bin, and used a napkin to dab her T-shirt. She’d also got some on her jacket, but she didn’t mind that. One wipe and it came right off.

  She headed back to the table, but stopped, looking out through the glass partition in the door. “You’re about to get a ticket,” she said.

  Immediately, Skulduggery was on his feet, putting his hat on and stalking outside. Grinning, Stephanie followed him over to the man standing by the Bentley.

  The traffic warden looked up. “This your car?”

  “It is,” said Skulduggery.

  The traffic warden nodded. “Very nice, very nice. But you can’t park here, day or night.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “There’s a sign right over there.”

  “I didn’t think it applied to me.”

  “Why wouldn’t it have applied to you?”

  Skulduggery tilted his head. “Because I’m special.”

  “Don’t care how special you think you are, you’re parked in a no parking area and as such you’re—”

  “We’re here on official police business.”

  The traffic warden narrowed his eyes. “You’re Garda? I’m going to need to see some identification.”

  “We’re undercover,” said Skulduggery. “This is a very important undercover operation which you are endangering just by talking to us.” He opened his jacket. “Look, I have a gun. I am Detective Inspector Me. This is my partner, Detective Her.”

  T
he traffic warden frowned. “Her?”

  “Me,” said Stephanie.

  “Him?”

  “Not me,” said Skulduggery. “Her.”

  “Me,” said Stephanie.

  “You?” said the traffic warden.

  “Yes,” said Stephanie.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  Stephanie looked at him. “I’m Her, he’s Me. Got it? Good. You better get out of here before you blow our cover. They’ve got snipers.”

  The traffic warden swung round, scanning rooftops. “Snipers?”

  “Don’t look!” Stephanie whispered. “You want to get us killed? Get out of here! Run, but don’t make it look like you’re running!”

  Eyes bulging, the traffic warden hurried away, alternating between speed-walking and panicked jogging.

  “Nicely done,” said Skulduggery.

  “Thank you,” said Stephanie. “So can we break in yet?”

  Skulduggery checked the time on his pocket watch. “Since you’re so eager … I don’t see why not. Come along.”

  They walked to the iron fence and looked around, made sure no one was looking.

  “Keep watch,” Skulduggery said, and lifted off the ground.

  Stephanie stuffed her hands in her pockets, tried her best to look casual. She had the reassuring weight of the Sceptre in her backpack to ease her anxiety about what they were about to do. It helped. A lot.

  A minute later, a gust of wind took her off her feet. She passed over the fence, landed on the grass beside Skulduggery.

  “I’ve disabled the cameras and the external motion sensors,” Skulduggery said as she followed him across the garden area to the gallery wall, where the shadows merged.

  “So how are we getting in?” Stephanie asked. Last time it had been through a skylight.

  “We’re taking a leaf out of Billy-Ray Sanguine’s book,” Skulduggery said as he placed both hands flat against the wall.

  Stephanie frowned. “Seriously? You’re going to try to—”

  The wall cracked, a thousand little fissures opening up and spreading downwards.

  “Now then,” Skulduggery muttered, “this is either going to be very cool or very stupid …” He pushed one hand into the wall, and kept going until he was in up to his elbow.

  “Well?” Stephanie asked.

  He looked back at her. “I’m still in one piece. Grab on.”

  Stephanie’s left eyebrow arched all on its own. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

  “We don’t have time to argue.”

  “Who’s arguing? I’m asking relevant questions. Is this your first time doing this?”

  “I’ve actually been developing this aspect of the Elemental discipline for a while now. Sanguine’s ability is merely a focus on earth magic, after all, so I thought to myself, why couldn’t I achieve the same results with a little bit of work?”

  “Yeah, that’s all very interesting, but is this the first time you’ve tried to move through a wall?”

  He hesitated. “No, actually.”

  “You’ve tried it before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “Strictly speaking?” Another hesitation. “No. I kind of got stuck.”

  “You got stuck in a wall?” she said. “For how long?”

  “A few minutes. Half an hour. An hour at the most. Maybe two. Or a day. Remember that day I called Valkyrie and told her to take the afternoon off? Yeah, I was stuck in a wall. But I got out of it, and I’ve been working on it ever since. So grab on, Stephanie.”

  “I’ll wait out here, thank you very much.”

  “He who dares wins.”

  “Fools rush in.”

  “Valkyrie would trust me.”

  She glared as he held out his free hand, then sighed. “If you get me stuck in a wall, I will be seriously annoyed with you.”

  “Duly noted.”

  She took his hand and he pulled her close. She screwed her eyes shut and then she was passing through something cold, something jagged. Sharp corners prodded her all over at once. The pain was bearable. The rumbling was loud, like great slabs of rock scraping against each other.

  And then she was out, stumbling into empty space. Her eyes opened to the dim surroundings of the gallery after closing time.

  “There,” Skulduggery whispered, “told you I could do it.”

  “You sound surprised,” she whispered back.

  “Actually, I’m astonished,” he said, and moved on.

  They passed through a room of paintings, Skulduggery manipulating the air so as to mute their footsteps. When they got to the corner, he peeked out first, then turned to her and raised a finger to his lips. She nodded.

  He peeked again, and motioned her to join him. She inched forward. There was movement in the darkness at the far end of the wide room that adjoined this one. She glimpsed alabaster skin. A person, a thing, almost on all fours. Bald. Naked. Big black eyes. A mouth that couldn’t close properly due to the mass of jutting, irregular fangs contained within.

  Skulduggery’s hand closed round Stephanie’s wrist, and she saw another vampire, and another. The place was crawling with them. She and Skulduggery backed away, out of earshot.

  “Looks like they’ve hired more security since we were here last,” he said softly. “This might be a tad trickier than I’d anticipated.”

  They chose another route and moved up a set of stairs silently, Skulduggery taking the lead, reading the air around them. They got to the dark café, passed chairs stacked upon tables in the gloom. To the left of the tables was the balcony overlooking the exhibits in the room below.

  They looked over. The Vault was down a narrow corridor marked Staff Only. Stephanie could see the sign from where they stood. Skulduggery nodded to her and she threw one leg over the balcony, then the other, and perched there, ready to jump. Skulduggery merely rose into the air, floated over the balcony, and descended until Stephanie could wrap her arms round his neck. Then they drifted low, skimming over the exhibits, and landed gently by the Staff Only sign.

  Down this corridor was a wooden door criss-crossed by metal. Skulduggery picked the lock while Stephanie kept watch. No vampires passed. She sneaked back to Skulduggery when the last tumbler fell, and they passed through. Skulduggery closed the door behind them, as gently as he could, and clicked his fingers. Guided by his light, she followed him down the steps. It was cold down here. Cold and creepy. They passed half a dozen doors, each etched with a unique shield.

  “Are you ever going to reclaim your family crest?” she asked, keeping her voice down.

  “Now is not the time, Stephanie.”

  “I think you should. Reclaim it, I mean. You’ve saved the world, for God’s sake. That has to make up for all the bad stuff you’ve done.”

  “That’s the thing about redemption,” said Skulduggery. “If you’re looking for it, the chances are you’ll never find it.”

  “Well, I think your family would be proud of you, and I think they’d be even prouder if you took back your crest.”

  “This is the one we’re looking for,” Skulduggery said. The crest on this door was a tree and a lightning strike.

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Imagine that,” he said, and held up both hands. Air moved down narrow spaces she couldn’t see, but she heard tiny sounds, like mice skittering behind skirting boards. There was a click, and the door opened.

  They hurried in, Skulduggery closing the door behind them, and the light flickered on. It was a narrow room, with two walls, floor to ceiling, of safety-deposit boxes, each one with a sigil over the lock. Skulduggery didn’t say anything for a few moments. When he finally did, it wasn’t very encouraging.

  “Dammit.”

  Stephanie walked forward. “There are a lot of boxes here. Ten down and, how many is that, fifty across? Five hundred boxes on each side at least. Do we have time to open them all?”

  “The time it’d take is suddenly irrelevant,�
�� Skulduggery said. “These locks can’t be picked. Even if they could, each box has an alarm that’d alert the vampires the moment we tried to tamper with it. I have to be honest here. I did not expect this.”

  Stephanie said, “They hired more vampire security guards after the last time you broke in. Kind of makes sense that the security inside the Vault would be heightened, too. Every action has a consequence, right? Stuff you did when you first met Valkyrie is coming back at you now, six years later. Kind of makes you wonder what repercussions our actions today will have, six years down the line.”

  “If we don’t get the grimoire, I doubt we’ll need to worry about that.” Skulduggery rapped his knuckles against one of the boxes. “OK then. We wanted to do this quietly so that no one would notice. That’s no longer an option. So we go loud.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest,” said Skulduggery, “that you point the Sceptre at the boxes and blow them open. As many and as quickly as you can.”

  Stephanie grinned, and took the Sceptre from its bag.

  “Just don’t aim right at them,” said Skulduggery. “Aim at an angle. A point-blank shot would probably fry everything inside the boxes, not just the surface.”

  Stephanie nodded. “I’ll try my best.”

  “The alarms will draw in the vampires,” Skulduggery said. “When we have the grimoire, you make a hole in the far wall. If I’m not mistaken, that should take us into the manuscript room. Try not to damage anything in there, it’s all very valuable. The door to our right will take us back to the main exhibits. We’ll want to go up, on to the roof.”

  “Last time you were here, Valkyrie had to jump from that roof.”

  “But I couldn’t fly back then. I can now, so we’ll be fine.”

  “You sure about that?” asked Stephanie. “Vampires are fast.”

  “Vampires are overrated.”

  “You once called them the most efficient killing machines on the planet.”

  “Ah, they’re not so tough. Ready to go?”

  She exhaled. “Why the hell not?”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Stephanie took the Sceptre from her backpack.

  “Now,” said Skulduggery.

  Black lightning turned a patch of steel boxes to dust, and an alarm wailed while Skulduggery waved his hand. The dust blew into the corner of the room and Skulduggery checked the contents.