Death Bringer

“Let’s not ruin a nice moment by arguing, OK?” She kissed him.

He sighed, and instead of rain on her face there was sunshine, and instead of being outside a small cottage with a broken window they were behind a tree in her back garden. “Much better,” she murmured. Dripping wet and covered in mud, she took Fletcher’s hand and they stepped out from behind the tree.

Her parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours, people she’d known all her life and people she’d never met stood around the barbecue pit and stared, their chatter dying away.

“Uh,” said Valkyrie.

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n Monday morning, China Sorrows walked the weed-strewn gap that led to the Church of the Faceless. She entered without knocking, found the head of this little chapel on his knees with his eyes closed, praying. A small man who greatly resembled a weasel – Prave, his name was. She didn’t know his first name and she didn’t care. She’d been here only once before, and by the time she left she had blood on her hands and a gun to dispose of.

“Curiosity,” she said, and Prave’s bulbous eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet. “That’s what brought me here. Who, I wondered, would be audacious enough to summon me to a squalid little house of worthless worship such as this? Surely, I told myself, it can’t be this man Prave, this snivelling little toad-person with a penchant for bad suits and terrible shirts.”

“What … what’s wrong with my shirt?” he burbled in a Yorkshire accent, his voice a nasal whine that triggered a primal urge within China’s psyche to hit something.

“It’s orange,” she told him. “It can’t be him, I thought. The man has no backbone to brag about, no spine to speak of. Who, then? Who is pulling the strings of the weasel-faced toad-person? So it is curiosity that brings me here, Mr Prave. Unveil your hidden master or risk me growing bored. I do terrible things when I grow bored.”

Prave stared at her with those round, wet eyes of his, and China heard slow, measured footsteps in the other room – high heels on wood. China knew who it was instantly.

Eliza Scorn walked through, dressed in black trousers and a jacket. She had left her long red hair to fall round her face, framing those cheekbones, those lips. Many men had fallen in love with Eliza Scorn, and then instantly forgotten her when China walked into the room. That was only the start of the animosity between them.

“China,” Scorn said, smiling.

“Eliza. What a surprise.”

“Please. I bet you’ve known I was back for months, haven’t you?”

“I may have heard talk.”

“And you didn’t try to get in touch? We could have met up, talked about the old days, traded gossip. Who’s alive, who’s dead, who’s about to die, that kind of thing.”

“My apologies, Eliza. I’ve been very busy.”

“Of course, of course, with the library. I must call round, see how it looks. How have you been? You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

“As are you, my dear. I love your shoes.”

“Aren’t they delightful? I saw them and just had to have them. Their previous owner wasn’t too keen to let them go, but I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

“Is that her blood on the left one?”

“And no amount of scrubbing will get it out, either. I hear you are still a treacherous heathen, then? Your back is still turned to the Dark Gods?”

“Both firmly and resolutely. I met some of them, a few years ago. Not very nice, to heathen and disciple alike.”

Scorn shrugged. “If the Faceless Ones deemed those disciples to be unworthy, so be it. We’ll just have to make sure that the rest of us are worthy of their love the next time they return.”

“The next time? Oh, my dear Eliza, you’re not going to carry on with this, are you? The Faceless Ones had their chance. They returned, and they were sent away again. It’s time to move on. Time to take up another hobby, like crocheting, or serial-killing.”

“Nonsense. Their return, however brief, was a signal that it can be done. We just need better organisation.”

“And you are going to provide that?”

“Naturally. The Church of the Faceless is going to have to expand, of course. We can’t be seen to be congregating in run-down old chapels like this. We need to appeal to a higher level of patron. Which is where you come in.”

“Now this should be fascinating.”

“We need your resources to get us started. Not just money, although we’ll be taking that too, but your contacts. The people you know, China. They are what we want. They can get us what we need. It’s going to be glorious, let me tell you.”

“Eliza, I don’t wish to be rude, but … actually, no, I don’t really care. Eliza, I came here today to find out who would have the audacity to summon me anywhere. If it had just been that weasel-faced gentleman cowering in the corner, he would be begging for forgiveness right about now. But as it’s you, seeing as how we are such good friends, I will simply depart. It was lovely seeing you again.”

“Prave,” Scorn said, “why don’t you step forward like a good little weasel, and tell China what you told me?”

Prave stepped up, coughed, brushed the dust from his knees. “A year and a half ago,” he said nervously, “you had just left here. I watched you go.”

There was a part of China that immediately tensed, but all she did was brush a strand of hair back over her ear, and wait patiently.

“You met Remus Crux outside,” Prave continued. “You were talking. He looked, he looked agitated and … I went out and hid behind the wall. I heard what he said, before you shot him.”

“Do you remember what Crux said?” Scorn asked China. “I bet you do. He said that you handed Skulduggery Pleasant’s wife and child over to Nefarian Serpine. He said that you led them to their deaths.”

China looked at them both, and nodded slowly. “I see,” she said.

Scorn smiled again. “Look at her face, Prave. Isn’t it a beautiful face? Isn’t it the most beautiful face you ever did see? But beauty is so deceptive. Looking at her now, you’d never guess that she was calculating the most efficient way of killing us, would you? There’s not a hint of that in those startlingly pale blue eyes. If we didn’t know better, we’d still be gazing at her, falling in love all over again, and she could walk right up and stab us through the heart, and we’d never see it coming. All because of that beautiful face.

“But we do know better, don’t we, Prave? We know better because I know China. I’ve known her a long, long time. We were inseparable once. We did everything together. We were so close we could practically read each other’s minds.”

“Can you read my mind now?” China asked.

Scorn laughed. “I don’t even need to, dear China, and I know you don’t need to read mine. Blackmail is such an ugly, ungainly word, but these are ugly and ungainly times in which we live. You will do as I say, exactly as I say, or I will tell the Skeleton Detective your terrible, terrible secret. Do you agree to my terms?”

“I really can’t see that I have any other choice, now do I?”

“No, you really don’t.”

“Then I agree to your terms,” said China. “I’m usually the one doing the blackmailing, so at the very least it will be interesting to experience it from the other side.”

“I’m glad you’re taking this so well.”

“Oh, dear Eliza, we are professionals, are we not? To allow something like this to get personal would be an unforgivable lapse of character. By the way, I was lying earlier. Those shoes are horrible on you.”

Scorn laughed, and shook her head. “Oh, China. I have missed you.”

“And I have missed you, Eliza. But don’t worry. Next time, my aim will be better.”

Scorn clapped her hands. “Delightful! Delightful!” With her hands clasped over her chest, she walked from the room. “We’ll be in touch, my love! And you’ll remember the way it used to be – Scorn and Sorrows, together again! The world will tremble!”

China watched her go, then turned and left the church without even glancing at Prave. The moment she stepped into the open air, her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.