Playing With Fire

Her mother was there, and sitting beside her was Valkyrie’s shrill, sharp-featured aunt, Beryl.

“Morning,” Valkyrie said as she passed them, going straight for the cupboard.

“Hi, love,” her mother said.

“Good morning, Stephanie,” Beryl said primly.

“Beryl,” Valkyrie said in greeting.

“How is school going for you?”

Valkyrie poured some cereal into her bowl and added milk. She didn’t bother sitting. “It’s OK.”

“Are you studying hard? My girls are always studying. They get it from my side of the family, I have to say. It’s a valuable work ethic I’ve instilled in them.”

Valkyrie murmured and scooped a spoonful of cereal into her mouth, doubting the validity of just about everything Beryl had just said. Her aunt didn’t like her and Valkyrie didn’t like her aunt. Her aunt didn’t like her because Valkyrie had inherited her late uncle’s estate, and Valkyrie didn’t like her aunt, or her aunt’s husband Fergus, because they were dislikeable people.

Her father came in, dressed in smart trousers, vest and a tie around his bare neck. He winked at Valkyrie then noticed his sister-in-law.

“Beryl,” he said, utterly failing to hide his dismay.

“Desmond, good morning.”

“Beryl, what are you doing here? It’s not even 8 o’clock. You know I don’t like seeing you before I’ve had my first cup of coffee.”

Beryl laughed that hideous fake laugh of hers. “Oh Desmond, you’re such a messer! I’m just here to talk to Melissa, that’s all. We’ve got a lot to organise for tomorrow night.”

“Oh, dear God, the family reunion thing.”

“It’ll be wonderful!”

“But you’ll be there,” her dad said, puzzled, and Valkyrie nearly choked on her cereal.

Her mum looked up at him. “You forgot your shirt.”

“Oh, yes, the reason I’m here. I don’t have a clean one.”

“Behind the door.”

He turned, saw the crisp white shirt hanging on the coat hook and rubbed his hands together. He took it off the hook and put it on, sliding the collar up beneath the tie as he buttoned it. He didn’t like wearing ties – he owned a construction company so he’d always thought he’d be in work-boots and jeans. But every now and then he had to dress up and pretend – as he put it – to be civilised.

“So Steph,” he said, “looking forward to a great day in school?”

“Oh yes,” she said with mock enthusiasm.

“What do you think you’ll learn today?”

“I can’t begin to guess. Maybe how to subtract.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Subtraction’s overrated. It’s like adding, only backwards. You’re not ever going to need it.”

“Desmond!” Beryl said sternly. “You shouldn’t take that attitude. Stephanie is at an easily-influenced age, and she needs to be taught that everything she learns in school is valuable. Joking around is all well and good, but some things just have to be taken seriously. How can you ever expect Stephanie to be responsible when all you ever do is set a bad example?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Luck, I suppose.”

Beryl sighed in exasperation and looked like she was about to give them a lecture. Valkyrie and her father both pounced on the same opportunity before Beryl could utter another word.

“I’m going to school,” Valkyrie said quickly, shovelling the last spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“I’m going to work,” her dad said, only a millisecond behind.

Valkyrie slipped her bowl into the dishwasher and made for the door.

“But Desmond, you haven’t had any breakfast,” Valkyrie’s mother said with a frown.

“I’ll get something on the way,” her father said, following her out. They got to the hallway and Valkyrie turned for the stairs as her dad picked his keys up off the small table. They looked at each other and nodded their silent goodbyes. Then they both smiled, and he walked out and she went to her room.

Not for the first time, she wondered how her father would react if he knew that the family legends were true, that they were descended from the Ancients, that his grandfather and his late brother had been right. But she didn’t tell him. If he knew the truth, he’d try and stop her from going out every day, try to protect her from people like Serpine, and Vengeous, and whoever else wanted to kill her. Or worse, maybe he’d want to get involved. She didn’t think she’d be able to cope with her father putting himself in danger. She wanted her family to be normal. Normal was good. Normal was safe.

She closed the door then took off her school jumper and dropped it on the bed. She touched her mirror and a moment later her reflection stepped out. She had forgotten about the logo rule once and the reflection had gone to school with the school crest on the wrong side and the school motto written backwards. Valkyrie hadn’t made that mistake again. She waited until her reflection had pulled on the jumper then handed it her schoolbag.

“Have fun,” she said, and the reflection nodded and hurried out of the room.

Not for the first time, Valkyrie grinned to herself. She’d hardly been to school since Skulduggery had worked his magic on that mirror, yet she was up to date on all the classes, all the gossip, all the day-to-day workings of an ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill thirteen year old. Without having to actually set foot through a classroom door.

Sure, there were times when she wished she’d been there to experience something firsthand instead of reliving it through the reflection’s eyes. It wasn’t the same merely having the memories of, say, a joke being told, instead of actually having been around for the real thing. Just another price to pay, she reckoned.

Moving quietly, Valkyrie took off the rest of her uniform, hid it under her bed and dressed in the black clothes that had been made especially for her. She’d grown a bit since Ghastly Bespoke had designed them, but they still fitted, and for that she was thankful. They had saved her life on more than one occasion, and it wasn’t as if she could ask Ghastly to make her any more. In a fight with the White Cleaver he had used the earth power as a last-ditch defence and turned himself to stone. She hadn’t known him that well, but she missed him and she knew that Skulduggery did too.

She slipped into her coat and opened the window. She breathed deep and slow. Checking to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she climbed out on to the sill and paused there for a moment, focusing her mind. Then she slipped off the edge, displacing the air beneath her to slow her descent. It wasn’t graceful, and her landing was still a little too hard, but it was a lot better than it had been.

She hurried down the road to the pier. When she was younger she used to join her friends there. They used to sprint for the edge and leap as far as they could over the rocks right below them, splashing down into the sparkling water. Yes, it was dangerous, and yes, poor J. J. Pearl once shattered his knee on those rocks, but the danger gave the exercise a certain extra kick. These days, J. J. walked with a slight limp and she’d long since drifted apart from her childhood friends. She missed swimming though. She didn’t get to do a whole lot of that now.

The Bentley was waiting for her, parked beside a rusty old Fiat. It stood out by a mile – but then it stood out by a mile wherever it went.

“Good morning,” Skulduggery said when she got in. “Well rested, are you?”

“I had two hours’ sleep,” she said.

“Well, no one said being a great detective leading an action-packed life was easy.”

“You said it was easy.”

“I said it was easy for me,” he corrected. “Was that your lovely aunt’s car I saw outside your house?”

“Yeah, it was,” said Valkyrie, and told him about her brief run-in with Beryl.

“Family reunion?” Skulduggery said when she had finished. “Are you going?”