Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 7 - 9

Doran shrugged. Tommy barged past him on his way to the window. Doran stumbled back against the wall, still laughing.

Elsie didn’t need to look out of the window to know what Tommy was seeing. He was seeing his prized car – the car he had so lovingly restored – dismantled and in pieces in the driveway. He was seeing the dissected engine and the sheared body and the shredded tyres. He was seeing what it had taken Doran five minutes to accomplish.

Tommy sagged so quickly he had to grip the windowsill to stay upright. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. He had gone a dangerous shade of pale.

Doran was doubled over he was laughing so hard. Tommy spun, face contorted with utter, utter hatred. He ran at his younger brother, fist arcing downwards to catch Doran full in the face. Doran fell back, still laughing. Tommy started lashing kicks in, and with every kick Doran would just laugh harder. Tommy straddled him, began raining down punches. Doran howled like he was being tickled.

Finally, Tommy fell backwards, panting hard, upset and confused as Doran sat up like he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Oh,” Doran said, wiping the tears from his eyes, “oh man, that was funny. The look on your face. I’m going to remember that for as long as I live.”

He got to his feet without any hurry. Tommy scrambled up.

Elsie felt sorry for Tommy. She didn’t like him, she never had. Any time she’d seen him he was beating up Doran, humiliating him in front of everyone out of some need to be seen as strong. Sometimes he beat him up just out of sheer meanness. Tommy wasn’t a nice guy at all, but she felt sorry for him all the same. He didn’t have the first idea what was going on or what he was dealing with.

Tommy shoved Doran again. “What did you do to my car?”

“Same thing I’m going to do to you,” said Doran, grabbing him.

And just like he had pulled apart the body of the car with his bare hands, he pulled apart poor Tommy’s body.

By the time Doran was done, Sean was so still and so pale he looked dead. Kitana laughed as Elsie hurried from the room. She burst out of the back door and threw up in the garden. Tears ran down her face but her mind was strangely calm. Despite the horror of what she had just witnessed, her thoughts were clear.

There was a low wall at the other end of the garden. Elsie climbed over it and walked away. She didn’t bother running. It’d be another half an hour before they even noticed she was gone.

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emember that sorcerer who went missing?”

Valkyrie raised her head off the pillow even as she woke. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, then she recognised the house on Cemetery Road and blinked a few times before croaking out, “Who?”

“Patrick Xebec,” Skulduggery said, standing in the morning sunlight that streamed in through the window. “The Elemental who went missing. He was passing through Monkstown when he saw those energy streams in the sky. Michael Delaney, the poor chap who was torn apart in his own living room, lived in Woodside. That’s practically next door to Monkstown.”

Valkyrie sat up, bleary-eyed. “So the lights in the sky have something to do with whoever killed Michael Delaney.”

“And probably something to do with whoever killed this latest victim.”

“There’s another one?”

“In Ballinteer. Wheels up in fifteen.”

He left the room and Valkyrie sighed, swung her legs out of bed. She took a quick shower, dressed, and Skulduggery had a bowl of cereal waiting for her when she emerged. When she had first visited his house, all those years ago, every room had been a living room. Now she had her own bedroom, there was a bathroom with a huge shower and a kitchen with a fully-stocked fridge. Sometimes she wondered how much money she’d cost him with her insistence on refurbishment, then realised she didn’t much care. Money wasn’t a big deal to someone like Skulduggery.

By the time they were both in the Bentley, her wits had woken up, too.

They arrived at the house in Ballinteer. As usual, there were Cleavers disguised as Guards making sure no one got too close. Philomena Random was talking to a news crew that had arrived. By the time Valkyrie got out of the Bentley, the news crew were packing up and heading away without filming a single frame.

Valkyrie let Skulduggery go inside. She didn’t need to see any more blood. She waited at the door until he came back out.

“Same killer?” she asked.

“The method is different but the result’s the same,” he said. “This one was done by hand. The victim was thrown about the place like a rag doll. Plenty of footprints. Sloppy. Angry. Sadistic.”

“Does that mean we have two killers?”

“If this murder is connected to the others, then I think we have at least two people working here, maybe more. This has all the hallmarks of a gang urging each other on. Each murder is more savage than the one before. Each time it gets more personal.”

“Any idea why there’s a car spread out like a jigsaw in the driveway?”

“None whatsoever.”

“We have to find the link between the victims,” Valkyrie said. “What was his name?”

“Thomas Purcell. Tommy. Twenty years old. Apprentice electrician. Mother absent, father works the nightshift, isn’t home from work yet. Younger brother Doran, seventeen.”

“Maybe he could help us,” Valkyrie said. “If Tommy had any enemies, anyone who’d want to hurt him, his brother ought to know, right?”

“Maybe. That is if his brother is in any fit state to talk.”

“Is he here?”

“Geoffrey’s talking to him in the garage. See if he can be of any help. I’ll take a look around outside.”

Valkyrie nodded, walked to the garage and looked in. Geoffrey Scrutinous was sitting on a crate talking to a boy dressed in baggy jeans and a hoody. Geoffrey’s hair was its usual wild and frizzy self, but he looked exhausted. These last few weeks had seen him rushing all around the country, convincing people they hadn’t seen what they thought they’d seen.

“You can feel yourself calming down,” Geoffrey said. “You’re calm and you’re clear. Oh, hello, Valkyrie. Valkyrie Cain, this is Doran Purcell. Doran lost his brother today.”

“I’m very sorry,” Valkyrie said.

Doran looked up at her. Geoffrey’s routine had worked wonders. Doran looked remarkably calm.

“It’s OK,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Doran smiled. “You’re my age. What are you doing, acting the detective?”

“I just want to talk to you, see if you can help us find out who did this terrible thing.”

“Right,” said Doran. “Terrible. Yeah. Sure, ask away.”

“Thank you. Do you know who might have wanted to hurt your brother?”

Doran nodded. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got a good idea. Everyone who ever met him.”

Valkyrie blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“My brother was a tool. He was a bully. He’d bully whoever he could get away with bullying. He had loads of enemies. Everyone wanted to hurt him. I’m telling you, there’ll be a load of happy people today once this gets out.”