Last Stand of Dead Men

“You’ve had a vision?” Skulduggery asked.

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “Or at least I will. In a few minutes.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You haven’t had it yet?”

“No. But I dreamed that I was going to have it, and that it involved the two of you.”

“Wait. So … you had a vision that you were going to have a vision?”

“Fortune-telling is a strange business. Come down to the cellar.”

She led the way downstairs to a large room with cement walls and a metal grille for a floor. Rusted pipes ran up the walls and across the ceiling like infected veins. It was cold and it was bleak. Cassandra sat in the straight-backed chair in the middle of the chamber, picked up the yellow umbrella and held it across her lap. “So how have you both been?”

“Uh, fine,” Valkyrie said. “Are you having your vision now?”

“It’ll come when it comes,” Cassandra told her. “How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“Fletcher?”

“No, the other one.”

Valkyrie felt a scowl rise. “Caelan?”

“No, the other one. Or … wait. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet.”

“What? You’ve seen a future boyfriend of mine? Who is he? What’s his name? Is he hot?”

Cassandra smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

“Just tell me if he’s hot.”

“If I give you any details about him at all, it could change what happens. The future is uncertain. It’s always changing. If you know who he is, he might never become your boyfriend.”

“She’s annoying when she has a boyfriend,” Skulduggery said. “Please do me a favour and tell us who it is.”

Cassandra laughed. “I’ve said too much already. The only reason I’m showing you this vision I’m about to have is because it relates to the one you’ve already seen.”

“The ruined city,” Valkyrie said.

“Aha,” Cassandra murmured, her eyes closing. “It’s starting. If you wouldn’t mind?”

Skulduggery clicked his fingers and Valkyrie did the same, and they each summoned a ball of fire into their hands. They dropped the fireballs to the grille – within seconds the coals underneath were glowing orange. Heat rose, filling the chamber. Valkyrie stood with her back against the wall.

Cassandra opened the umbrella, and Skulduggery turned a little red wheel. Water gurgled through the pipes and sprayed from the sprinklers, and immediately clouds of steam began billowing. Cassandra sat in the middle of it all, the umbrella keeping her dry. When she was lost amid the swirling steam, Skulduggery cut off the water.

Valkyrie stepped forward, and Skulduggery joined her. It was quiet. The steam was as thick as fog. Even the slow dripping from the sprinklers sounded distant.

The first time she’d been down here, an image of Ghastly had run at her. But this was different. A shape moved. Staggered. There were walls around them now, in the steam, and a table, a big one. She knew this place. The conference room, in the Sanctuary. The figure stumbled into view. Erskine Ravel, dressed in his Elder robes, falling to his knees with his hands shackled behind his back, screaming in unimaginable agony.

He fell forward and the image swirled, and now they were in a city, smoke rising from the ruins. Valkyrie looked for something familiar, some way to identify what city this was – even a street sign – but the steam was lending everything a hazy quality. The city was an out-of-focus photograph, a blurred representation of reality.

Ghastly ran by, just like he had the first time, and then the street started moving around her like the whole thing, Ghastly included, was on a treadmill. It was hugely disorientating and Valkyrie had to hold Skulduggery’s arm to steady herself. Ghastly turned a corner and the corner whipped by so fast that Valkyrie jerked back. He eventually slowed his run and the street slowed its movement, and when he stopped the street stopped.

Ghastly glanced behind him, getting his breath back.

“That’s new,” Skulduggery murmured.

Ghastly had a scar bisecting the others along the left side of his head, just over his ear. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t old, either.

“Well now,” said a voice in the steam, “don’t I feel stupid?”

Steam billowed and now Valkyrie could see Tanith Low leaning against a streetlight, both hands pressing into the lower half of her torso, which was a mess of blood and ruined flesh. Ghastly rushed over to her, his eyes wide.

Steam hissed as Ghastly and Tanith talked, but their words were snatched away until Ghastly grabbed her and Tanith cried out.

“Bloody hell, that hurts!”

“I don’t care,” said Ghastly, and he pulled her into him and they kissed, long and hard, so long and so hard that Valkyrie began to feel vaguely uncomfortable watching them. She was saved from having to look away by fresh clouds of steam, and a new image solidified in front of her.

The first time she had seen her future self she remembered thinking how much older she looked in the steam. Her future self had been taller, with strong arms and strong legs. But now they were identical, apart from the tattoo on her future self’s left arm and the metal gauntlet on her right. For the first time, Valkyrie noticed a strap that crossed her future self’s chest. She had something slung across her back.

“I’ve seen this,” the Valkyrie in the steam said, the wind playing with her hair. “I was watching from …” She looked around, narrowed her eyes. “… there. Hi.”

Valkyrie frowned. This was different from last time. She hadn’t said “Hi” last time.

The other Valkyrie smiled sadly. “This is where it happens, but then you know that, right? At least you think you do. You think this is where I let them die.”

“Stephanie!”

Two shapes in the distance, running. Sprinting. The other Valkyrie shook her head. “I don’t want to see this. Please. I don’t want this to happen. Let me stop it. Please let me stop it.” She held something in her hand, something the steam was obscuring as she looked at it. “Please work,” she said, tears running down her face. “Please let me save them.”

And then her image was swept away as Valkyrie’s parents neared. Her mother turned on the spot, looking up at the sky. She was holding something.

“Oh, no,” Valkyrie said weakly, watching as her baby sister clung to her mother.

“Stephanie!” her father shouted. “We’re here! Steph!”

A figure in black dropped to the ground behind them, cracking the pavement with the force of her landing.

Darquesse. She smiled with Valkyrie’s smile. From neck to toe she was dressed in a black so tight it was like a second skin. Desmond Edgley stepped between his wife and the monster.

“Give our daughter back to us,” he said.

Darquesse continued to smile.

“Give her back!” her dad roared.

It was nothing but a moving image, it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened yet, but when Darquesse burned her family with black flame Valkyrie cried out nonetheless.