Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 7 - 9

Valkyrie opened it, pulled out what was inside. “A mask?”

“It should keep you warm,” Ghastly said. “Unless you’d prefer a woolly hat and earmuffs?”

She smiled. “This will do fine, thank you.”

“It’s the same material I used for your clothes, but don’t get too carried away. It’ll absorb impacts and dissipate the effects, but you’re still going to feel it and it’s still going to hurt.”

“But it’s still bulletproof, right?”

Ghastly hesitated. “Yes,” he said slowly, “it is bulletproof. Just do me a favour and don’t get shot in the head. The mask won’t let the bullet through, but the impact alone might be enough to kill you. Valkyrie, please – view this as something to keep your head warm. Nothing more.”

“Right,” she said. “Thanks.”

“There are also some gloves in there.”

“You’re the best, Ghastly.”

“Call me Elder Bespoke when we’re in public.”

She blinked, and he chuckled and walked away. “I’m so funny,” he said.

She grinned and got in the car beside Skulduggery, and they drove to the private airstrip the Sanctuary owned. Their transport was a huge cargo plane that looked like it had seen action in a world war – which one, Valkyrie couldn’t be sure. It was big and loud and cold, and they had the entire body of the thing to themselves. She put on her new gloves and tried to go to sleep against the netting, eventually falling into a fitful doze. She was woken, hours later, by Skulduggery.

“We’re here,” he said over the roar of the engines.

She sat up. It had gone from cold to freezing. Moving a little stiffly, she crossed to a porthole and looked out over the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s just like watching TV.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “Yet again, you manage to drain the wonder out of the most impressive of spectacles.”

Valkyrie grinned at him. “Are we close to the airport?”

“Airport?”

“Sorry, airstrip. The landing thing. Runway. Whatever.”

“Ah,” he said. “I’m afraid we won’t be landing. This is a round trip for the pilots, no rest stops in between.”

Her eyes widened. “We’re going to parachute out? Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to try that!”

“Parachutes,” Skulduggery said. “Yeah, they’d probably have been a good idea.”

She frowned. “We don’t have parachutes?”

“Why would we need them?”

“Because… we’re jumping out of a plane.”

“You jump out of your bedroom window all the time.”

She stared. “That’s a little different, Skulduggery. My bedroom window isn’t thirty thousand feet off the ground.”

“But you still use the air to slow your descent, yes? So do the same here. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

“I’m not worried about the jumping,” she said. “I’m worried about the falling. I’m worried about the splatting.”

He patted her shoulder. “You amuse me,” he said, and walked up to the cockpit.

Valkyrie pushed the nerves down, and found herself grinning. She took the mask from her pocket and pulled it on. It covered her whole head save for her eyes and mouth, and there was even a hole in the back for her ponytail to hang from. Like everything Ghastly made, it fitted perfectly, and it warmed her immediately.

Skulduggery came back, holding a GPS device. “Sixty seconds to our destination,” he informed her.

She put on her gloves. “What do you think? Do I look amazing?”

“You do indeed.”

“Do I look like a ninja?”

“Not a million miles away.”

She looked around for a reflective surface, actually found a mirror tied into the netting. Probably there for when paratroopers applied camouflage to their faces or something. She ducked down to see how fantastic she looked, and her grin dropped.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I look like a freak.”

“You look great,” Skulduggery assured her.

“Ghastly made me a freak mask.”

“It actually looks rather fetching.”

“Yeah, if you’re a freak.”

“Nonsense. You look perfectly normal. Come on, it’s time to jump out of a plane without a parachute.”

Still frowning, she followed him to the door. They looked at a light bulb. Waited. Valkyrie’s frown left her and she started to grin again.

The bulb lit up, and Skulduggery opened the door and threw himself out. The wind took him, whipped him away. Grinning ever wider beneath her mask, Valkyrie took hold of the bar above the doorway, and with a roar of pure adrenaline she launched herself out after him.

Immediately she was lost in rushing wind. The mountains were unimaginably vast, devastatingly beautiful, stretching to a horizon that flipped around her as she fell. The freezing wind shot up the sleeves of her jacket, down past her collar, up through her trousers. She whooped as she spun through the cold.

Skulduggery was below her, his hat in one hand, the GPS device in the other. She followed where he went, both of them diving down, twisting and arcing. He was more graceful than her, but Valkyrie didn’t care. She’d just jumped out of a plane without a parachute. Beneath her mask, she laughed.

She levelled off, arms and legs outstretched, copying Skulduggery. She brought the air in to correct her course, angling for the side of a peak. She didn’t want this to stop. Out here, up here, she was as free as she had ever been. The only time she’d approached this level of pure abandonment was when she’d been Darquesse, flying over Dublin City. She remembered the joy, wallowed in it for a moment, then shut away the memory, covering it with shame.

Skulduggery was slowing, the air around him rippling. Valkyrie brought the wind in to buffet her descent, trying to do it gradually, straining to catch the currents. She lost control and spiralled away, reached out to snag something, anything, brought in a gust that flipped her head over heels towards the mountain face. She pushed back against the air and fell, tumbling, calling for help, and then there was a surface approaching and she managed to slow herself enough so that when she slammed into it she didn’t break any bones. She rolled, grunting, found something to grab. She hung on, trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out which way was up, and then Skulduggery was there, looking down at her.

“Well,” he said, “that was needlessly dramatic.”