Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men Read online

  “And I didn’t think I had to buy you a present to prove that you’re important to me.”

  “Well … I mean … you don’t, but … but that’s not the point. It’s not about proving it, it’s about showing it.”

  “And a gift is an accurate measurement? Your parents got you a car. Does this mean you are as important to them as a car is? Do they love you a car’s worth?”

  “Of course not. A birthday present is a token gift.”

  “A token gift is like an empty gesture – devoid of any kind of value.”

  “It’s a nice thing to do!”

  “Oh,” Skulduggery said. “OK. I understand. I’ll get you a present, then.”

  “Thank you.” She turned back, and knocked on the door. “Who are we here to see?”

  “An old friend of yours,” Skulduggery said, and for the first time she noticed the edge to his voice.

  She didn’t have time to question him further. The doors opened as one and Solomon Wreath smiled at her.

  “Hello, Valkyrie,” he said.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she was giving him a hug. “Solomon! What are you doing here? I thought you were off having adventures.”

  “I can’t have adventures in my home country every once in a while? This is where the real action is, after all. Come in, come in. Skulduggery, I suppose you can join us.”

  “You’re too kind,” Skulduggery muttered, following them inside and closing the doors behind him.

  The penthouse was huge and extravagant, though Valkyrie had been in bigger and more extravagant when she dated Fletcher. Back then, he’d spend his nights in whatever penthouse suite was available around the world, and all for free. Such were the advantages of being a Teleporter, she supposed, though these days all that had changed. Now he had a nice, normal girlfriend and he was living in his own apartment in Australia. He was almost settled. It was kind of scary.

  She glanced back at Skulduggery, who had already let his false face melt away. He took off his hat and didn’t say anything as Wreath came back with a small box, wrapped up in a bow.

  “Happy birthday,” Wreath said.

  Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “You got me a present?”

  “Of course,” Wreath said, almost laughing at her surprise. “You were my best student in all my years in the Necromancer Temple. No one took to it quite like you did, and although we may have hit a few bumps along the way—”

  “Like you trying to kill billions of people,” Skulduggery said.

  “—you have always been my favourite,” Wreath finished, ignoring him. “Open it. I think you’ll like it.”

  Valkyrie pulled the bow apart and the wrapping opened like a gently blooming flower. There was a wooden box within, and she opened the lid and raised an eyebrow. “It’s, uh, it’s an exact copy of my ring.”

  “Not exact,” said Wreath. “Inside, it is different indeed. When students begin their training, they are given objects like the ring you have now – good, strong, sturdy, capable of wielding an impressive amount of power. But after their Surge, they need something stronger, something to handle a lot more power.”

  “But I haven’t had my Surge yet.”

  Wreath smiled. “I know, and yet you need an upgrade already. In this, as in so many other ways, you are exceptional, Valkyrie. Your ring, please?”

  He held out his hand. She glanced at Skulduggery, then slid it from her finger and passed it over. As Wreath walked out of the room for a moment, she took the new one from the box, put it on.

  Wreath returned, carrying a hammer. “Now for the fun part,” he said, and put Valkyrie’s ring on the table and smashed it. A wave of shadows exploded from the flying shards, twisted in the air and went straight for the ring on her finger. The ring sucked them in eagerly, turning cold, and Valkyrie gasped.

  “Do you feel it?” Wreath asked. “Do you feel that power?”

  “Wow,” she said, regaining control of herself. “I do. Wow. That’s … that’s …”

  “That’s Necromancy.”

  It was startling. It was distracting. It was amazing. “Thank you,” she said.

  Wreath shrugged. “Turning eighteen is a big day for anyone. But I am well aware that you did not come to see me for gifts and hugs.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, getting her mind back on track. “Why are we here to see you?”

  “Your unusually silent partner here has been in touch. It seems you’ve been investigating the events surrounding that Warlock trying to kill you last year.”

  “He told us he was doing you Necromancers a favour,” Skulduggery said. “It was in exchange for information. A name.”

  “First of all,” said Wreath, “I was kept out of that particular loop. It was not my idea to include the Warlocks in any of our sordid schemes, because I am neither stupid nor deranged. That was all Craven, by way of that idiot Dragonclaw.”

  “So what did Dragonclaw tell the Warlock?” Valkyrie asked.

  “Please,” Wreath said, “take a seat. What do you know about the Warlocks?”

  Valkyrie settled herself on the couch, the ring sending slivers of sensation dancing up and down her arm. “Just the, uh, you know, the usual stuff. They’re not … wow, this ring is cool … they’re not like the rest of us. They have their own culture, their own traditions, their own type of magic …”

  Wreath nodded. “A type of magic that, quite frankly, we don’t understand. And all of that is fine because there aren’t very many of them and they keep to themselves. Or at least they did.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Someone’s been attacking them,” Wreath said. “Provoking the Warlocks is not a wise move at the best of times, but there seems to be a group of people who are determined to do just that. In the past five years, dozens of Warlocks have been killed. They’ve been isolated from the others, hunted down, and executed. Now there is only a handful left.”

  Valkyrie frowned. “The one who attacked us, he said they’re growing stronger every day.”

  Wreath smiled. “Warlocks are known for never showing weakness. It’s what I like about them.”

  “So what name did he want from Dragonclaw?”

  “An associate of mine, Baritone, actually one of the Necromancers who were killed during the battle at Aranmore, was travelling through France a year or so before he died and happened to come across a group of mortals in a bar who were boasting of a job well done. Naturally, he pretended to be a mere mortal just like they were and, from what he gathered, they were ex-Special Forces, funded by secret government money and directed to—”

  “Wait,” Skulduggery said. “You’re talking about Department X.”

  “Who are they?” Valkyrie asked.

  “They don’t exist,” Skulduggery said. “There have always been rumours of mortal governments forming death squads to go out and exterminate sorcerers. Department X was supposedly a British and Irish joint task force, shrouded in mystery and conspiracy. Except, as I said, they don’t exist. Any time someone in power starts to ask questions, we send people like Geoffrey Scrutinous in to convince them they’re being silly.”

  “That may be so,” said Wreath, “but these mortals admitted to Baritone that they had just taken out, in their words, the most dangerous targets they’d ever hunted. They told Baritone he wouldn’t believe the whole story if he heard it – they said the targets they killed bled light. Sound familiar?”

  “Sounds like Warlocks,” said Valkyrie.

  “And that’s all Dragonclaw gave the Warlock in question?” Skulduggery pressed. “A sorcerer’s urban legend?”

  Wreath shrugged. “It’s the only juicy little titbit concerning the Warlocks that we possess. I can’t imagine what else it could have been. Obviously, word got out that we knew something and Charivari sent his little friend to investigate.”

  “And there’s nothing else we should know?”

  “Nothing else of value. The only other item of interest was that one of the soldiers me
ntioned their orders had been given by an old man with a long grey beard and another man he couldn’t identify.”

  Valkyrie ignored the ring, and frowned. “What, he didn’t know him?”

  “No,” said Wreath. “Baritone was under the impression that the soldier couldn’t even remember him.”

  “All of this,” Skulduggery said, “strikes me as something you could have told me over the phone.”

  Wreath laughed. “Now that is very true, Skulduggery. However, we don’t like each other very much, so I wasn’t about to tell you anything. And how else was I going to see my favourite student on her special day without popping up uninvited outside her window? Such behaviour strikes me as being vaguely unhealthy, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “A visit from you strikes me as very unhealthy,” Skulduggery said.

  Valkyrie got to her feet. “I’m going to cut this short before you start hitting each other. Solomon, thank you for your help and thank you so much for the present – it was really nice of you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, coming forward and kissing her cheek. “Happy birthday again.”

  Skulduggery put on his hat and walked out. Valkyrie caught up with him at the elevator, right before the doors slid closed. They started their descent.

  “What do you think it all means?” she asked.

  Skulduggery didn’t respond.

  She sighed. “Are you sulking?”

  “Me? No. I don’t sulk.”

  “You sound like you’re sulking.”

  “I’m just waiting for the violent urges to subside.”

  “Why don’t you like Solomon? He’s really not that bad.”

  “I’ve known him a lot longer than you have.”

  “Fine. Be like that. So this mystery man giving orders, the one who couldn’t be remembered … We’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

  Skulduggery activated his façade as they reached the ground floor. The face was plain, the expression grim. They walked to the exit. “Three years ago, Davina Marr was enlisted to destroy the Sanctuary in Dublin by a man she couldn’t remember clearly. A similar man turns up five years ago and is revealed to be behind some Warlock killings. Sean Mackin, that lovable teenage psychopath, was released from his Sanctuary cell three months ago by a man he can’t quite remember. It would appear that this is the same man, and he has a significant connection to Roarhaven.” They left the hotel, walked to the Bentley.

  “So …” said Valkyrie. “Department X is killing Warlocks, except Department X doesn’t exist. But if the Warlocks think it does exist, then … what does that mean? Are they going to go after mortals in revenge? How does framing ordinary people help our mystery man achieve whatever it is he wants to achieve?”

  “I don’t know. But practically every mage in Roarhaven believes that sorcerers should be running the world.”

  “So that’s his plan? To get the Warlocks to kill some mortals? That’s kind of a stupid plan. I mean, as soon as we find the Warlocks, we’re going to stop them, right?”

  “Unless there’s a war on to distract us.”

  “You think the mystery man has something to do with what’s happening with the Supreme Council?”

  “I don’t like coincidences, Valkyrie. They’re ugly and annoying.” He glanced at her. “How do you like your ring?”

  She couldn’t help it. She beamed. “It is awesome.”

  t wasn’t easy, being a woman in a man’s world.

  It was even less easy to be a man in a woman in a man’s world. And who says it’s a man’s world anyway? Such outdated notions of sexism had no place in the mind of Vaurien Scapegrace. Not any more. Not since the … mistake.

  Once he had been the Killer Supreme. Then the Zombie King. Then a head in a jar. That was probably the low point. But he’d been given a chance, an opportunity to turn it all around. He’d been shown a body, a perfect physical specimen, and he knew that this empty vessel would be the ideal place for his transplanted brain to rest. He could live again. He would live again. He would be a living, breathing man once more. No rotting flesh for him. No decomposition. No ridicule. He would have respect. Finally, he would have respect.

  Instead, his brain got put into the body of a woman, and his idiot zombie sidekick got the body of the tall, handsome man with all those muscles.

  Life had sucked when Scapegrace was alive. Then death sucked. And now life was sucking all over again.

  Living in a new body was hard, but living in a woman’s body was even harder. Every time he spoke, he heard a voice that wasn’t his, and for the first few weeks he kept looking round to check if there were someone else in the room. He didn’t even know how to walk without looking stupid. And then there was the whole trauma of looking into the mirror and seeing a face that was not his own.

  It was a pretty face, he wasn’t denying that. The woman had been very attractive. Early twenties, with auburn hair and green eyes. Six feet tall and in excellent physical condition. If Scapegrace had met her in other circumstances, he liked to think he would have swept her off her feet. Or he’d have considered it, at the very least. She would probably have laughed at him if he’d tried. Women this attractive usually did.

  He frowned. Where was he going with this train of thought? He had no idea.

  He looked at his reflection as he frowned. The woman even looked good when she did that. Or rather, he did. He even looked good when he did that. It was all very confusing.

  “Are you looking at your reflection in that blade?”

  Scapegrace whirled, the sword held out in front of him. The old man who had spoken stood there with his hands pressed together like he was praying. Grandmaster Ping was the kind of old that you just didn’t see a whole lot of any more. He was a small Chinese man with a grey wispy beard that sprouted from his chin like a trail of hairy smoke. His skin was like parchment paper that had been crumpled up, tossed in a bin, then taken out and half-heartedly flattened. It was full of wrinkles, basically. Ping was dressed in what he called the traditional robes of his ancestors, but Scapegrace was fairly certain that the bathrobe was new.

  “You must be ready at all times,” Ping said in that heavy Chinese accent. “How can you see your enemies clearly when you cannot even take your eyes off yourself?”

  Scapegrace didn’t answer. He was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.

  Ping’s hands moved like flowing water, and he stepped back into a deep fighting stance. “Come,” he said. “Attack me.”

  “But you don’t have a sword,” Scapegrace said.

  Ping smiled. “That does not mean I am unarmed.”

  Scapegrace let out a yell and ran forward, slashing his sword at the air, and then he leaped, spun, landed and twisted his ankle. He cried out, dropped the sword as he stumbled to one knee in front of Ping, who looked down at him and punched him on the nose.

  “Ow!” Scapegrace yelled.

  Ping brought his hands together again, and he bowed. “Ask yourself, my student, how did I beat you?”

  “You hit my nose!”

  “Exactly. If you can hit your opponent’s nose more than he can hit yours, you too will taste victory.”

  “I’m bleeding!”

  “You might need a tissue.”

  Thrasher came forward, a box of tissues in his big, stupid, masculine hands. Scapegrace yanked a handful free and held them to his face as he glared at Ping. “When will I be ready?”

  “Soon, my student.”

  “You keep saying that. How soon is soon?”

  “Soon is when the moment passes,” Ping answered.

  Scapegrace was certain that made no actual sense, but he knew better than to press it. Thrasher helped him to his feet. The idiot’s new body was all muscle and chiselled jawline – a chiselled jawline that should have been Scapegrace’s own.

  “You seem frustrated,” Ping said.

  “Of course I’m frustrated,” said Scapegrace. “I have one way of gaining the respect of the people who have mocked me all
my life – to become the greatest warrior the world has ever seen. You were supposed to teach me the deadly arts, but all you do is hit me when I fall down.”

  “I see,” said Ping. “You do not think you are learning, is that it? Tell me something, my student. Have you ever seen The Karate Kid? The original, starring Ralph Macchio, not the remake, starring the son of Will Smith. Have you seen it?”

  “Of course.”

  “In that movie, Daniel-san does not believe he is learning, either, does he? And yet Mr Miyagi is teaching him without him even being aware of it. That is sort of what I am doing.”

  “So what am I learning?”

  “When the time comes, you will know.”

  Scapegrace narrowed his eyes. “In that movie, Mr Miyagi has Daniel doing all these mundane tasks like painting the fence and waxing the car, then later Daniel does the same moves and finds out it’s karate. You have me doing all of these fighting moves … if I find out later that what you’re actually doing is teaching me how to paint fences and wax cars, I’m not paying you, you understand?”

  Ping chortled. “Very funny, you are, Miss Scapegrace.”

  “Mr!” Scapegrace roared. “I am a man!”

  “Of course,” Ping said, bowing. “Of course you are. Our lessons begin again in the morning.” And with that, he stepped backwards into the shadows, and silence settled like autumn leaves falling from the trees.

  Thrasher peered closer. “Are you still there?”

  From the shadows, the aforementioned silence. Then, “No.”

  “You are,” said Thrasher. “I can see you.”

  Scapegrace could see Ping, too, but he didn’t say anything as the wise old grandmaster shuffled sideways until he reached the doorway, then went down on his hands and knees and crawled out. A few seconds later, the back door opened and closed. Thrasher murmured something.

  Scapegrace glared. “What? What did you say?”

  Thrasher sighed. “I just don’t see why you have to become a warrior, Master. Why put yourself in harm’s way? We have healthy new bodies and new lives to live and, OK, your body might not be ideal, but who cares about what we look like? It’s who we are inside that counts.”