Death Bringer

“Is she in there?” Skulduggery asked. “Valkyrie? Can she hear me?”

Darquesse said nothing.

Skulduggery’s head tilted. “Are you going to let her come back? That’s her body you’re wearing. That’s her face you’re using. You can’t keep her sleeping for ever. It isn’t your time yet. This is still Valkyrie’s time. She gets to walk around. She gets to live. Not you.”

She could see his consciousness. It formed a shell around his skeleton, a shell of multicoloured lights. It sparkled prettily. This shell was how he thought. This shell was how he felt. When he had pulled himself back together, all those hundreds of years ago, he recreated himself in a form that only she could see. She reached out and gently dug her fingers into the shell of light. Skulduggery gasped and went rigid. She turned her hand, twisting his consciousness, feeling and understanding how she could tear through it or pull it away, shred it to pieces or turn it to vapour. What she held, buzzing, between her fingertips, was life itself. It was a wonderful thing, a glorious thing. She released him and he staggered back, but she was already forgetting he was there.

She rose off the ground, into the rain-filled air, floating high above the cottage. She could see across the countryside from here, to the city in the distance. She wondered how easy it would be to turn the whole city to dust. Probably not that hard. Not if she focused.

Somebody rose up to meet her.

“I want Valkyrie back,” Skulduggery said. “Give her back right now. I’m not going to ask again.”

Darquesse smiled at him. She liked him, she really did. He was unique. She didn’t want to kill him. Not yet. Not when there were still ways for him to amuse her.

Darquesse went away, and when Valkyrie blinked her wet hair was in her face and she was falling to the earth.

“Bloody hell!” she hollered.

Skulduggery swooped down, caught her, held her close as he descended.

“No need to shout,” he told her.

She clutched him tightly. “What’s happening? How’d we get here?”

“You don’t remember?”

“How I got into the bloody sky? No, I don’t bloody …” She trailed off. “Oh, wait. I do. It was her.”

“Indeed it was.”

She sagged in his arms. “Great,” she mumbled.

They touched down. Valkyrie swayed on her feet a moment then nodded, and they walked over to the wooden box.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked, a headache starting up behind her eyes. “She can just come and go whenever she likes? Every time things get too dangerous, am I just going to Hulk out, change into the person who’s going to kill the world?”

“I don’t think it’s quite so simple,” Skulduggery responded. “From what I could see, the Jitter Girl literally had her hand inside your head. That would shake anything loose. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but Darquesse did save us.”

Valkyrie folded her arms, shivering. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You saved us, then. Does that sound better?”

Valkyrie glared at him through the rain. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Yes, you did. You are Darquesse, Valkyrie. Darquesse isn’t a different person, no matter how many times we talk about her like she is. At its simplest level, Darquesse is a state of mind.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s you, without your conscience, or your feelings. She’s you without your humanity.”

“You’re saying she’s a mood swing?”

He shrugged. “Or maybe you are her mood swing.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

Skulduggery picked up the wooden box and they started back towards the cottage. “I’m not joking. The fact is we have no way of knowing if the person who we think we are is at the core of our being. Are you a decent girl with the potential to someday become an evil monster, or are you an evil monster that thinks it’s a decent girl?”

“Wouldn’t I know which one I was?”

“Good God, no. The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”

“You have an amazing ability to depress me sometimes, you know that?”

“I try my best.” Skulduggery gestured, and his mud-soaked hat rose into his hand. He gazed at it forlornly. “How are you feeling?”

“Headachy. But fine. Bad man got away.”

“Yes, he did.”

“He killed Paul Lynch and now the little old lady Lynch confided in. Somebody doesn’t want us to know anything about the Passage. You think he was a Necromancer?”

“Even though dressing in black is in no way an indication – yes, I quite do.”

She nodded. “Me too. Plus, he had a ridiculous beard. I should probably ask Solomon about him.”

“I should probably help.”

“No hitting.”

“A small amount of hitting.”

Fletcher lunged out of thin air before them, his eyes wide, fists clenched, ready to fight. He looked at them, spun round, spun back again.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“Back in the box,” Valkyrie told him. “Did you find out anything?”

“China wasn’t at the library,” he said, the rain flattening down his hair. “Nobody there could help me. How did you beat them?”

“With unimaginable skill,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie, I’ve got a two-hour drive back to Dublin where dry clothes await me.”

She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

He walked to the Bentley. Fletcher turned to Valkyrie, hands loosely holding her arms. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said quietly.

She smiled. “I know.”