Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 4 - 6

“Do you know who it was?” Valkyrie asked.

“No. Every single shred of evidence pointed to Mevolent’s men and Scarab in particular. By the time it registered that this was all too neat, too easy, we’d already captured Scarab and thrown him in prison.”

“You could have said something.”

Skulduggery didn’t answer.

“Let’s say you’re right,” Tanith said. “Let’s say Meritorious and Guild orchestrated Vanguard’s assassination and framed Scarab. For 200 years Scarab’s been sitting in his cell. After being cut off from his magic for so long, he would have started to age again, right? So he’s an old man, he’s out and he’s angry. He has his psycho son and their nutball gang, and they’re looking for revenge. So they steal a Desolation Engine that won’t go off and a Soul Catcher. How does this help them get their revenge?”

“And who are they going to get revenge on?” Fletcher added. “Meritorious is dead.”

“They’ll be going after Guild,” said Skulduggery, “so we should warn him. They’ll probably be after me too, but you don’t have to warn me. I already know. As for what they want with the things they’ve stolen, I haven’t worked that out yet. But I will.

“On the plus side, the more people Scarab has, the greater our chances are of finding one of them. Crux was last seen in Haggard – maybe he’s still there, trying to find a way through China’s perimeter.”

“I know the area,” Tanith said. “I’ll take my bike, have a look around.”

“And I know of a couple of bars Sanguine used to frequent when he was here last,” Ghastly said. “They’ll still be open, even this late. I can ask if he’s been in recently.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Take Fletcher with you – you’ll get through it faster. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about Dusk. The vampire I took to the holding cell isn’t co-operating, which isn’t much of a surprise, and his kind are impervious to most kinds of psychic reading.”

“Then just get Valkyrie to ask her vampire mate,” Fletcher said.

Skulduggery turned sharply. “Her what?”

Valkyrie glared at Fletcher and he blushed.

“Uh, didn’t she…She didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Valkyrie said, her jaw tight.

Skulduggery looked at her. “You have a vampire friend?”

“He set up the meeting with Chabon,” she explained. “I was never alone with him. Tanith or Ghastly were always—”

Skulduggery whirled on them. “You knew about this? You knew she was meeting with a vampire and you allowed it?”

“We had it under control,” Tanith said.

“You never have a vampire under control!” Skulduggery roared. “It could have killed her! For what? For a chance to get me back? You should have left me there!”

Tanith looked away and Valkyrie lowered her eyes, her face burning. Only Ghastly kept his gaze level.

“It was a risk,” Ghastly said, as calm as ever, “but it was a risk we decided to take. And now that she has made contact with this vampire, we should consider using him to try and find Dusk. It’s only logical.”

Skulduggery didn’t move for a moment.

“Agreed,” he said at last, all anger gone from his voice. “Valkyrie, would you be able to arrange that?”

She nodded slowly. These abrupt changes of mood were becoming unsettling.

“Excellent. If we’re lucky, one of those three possibilities will lead to Scarab. Call if you find anything out. Valkyrie?”

She led the way out of the shop. The night was cold, but at least it hadn’t started to rain yet. They walked to the Bentley.

“I could have said something,” Skulduggery told her.

“What?”

“You said I could have said something, once I realised Scarab had been framed. I was agreeing with you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

They reached the car. He unlocked it, but they didn’t get in.

“When the war started,” he said, “I was flesh and blood. I was a father and a husband first, and a soldier second. When Serpine killed my family, killed me, that changed. I came back a soldier. The war was all I had.

“I didn’t like Esryn Vanguard and I didn’t agree with him. I saw him as a weakening influence that we couldn’t afford to tolerate. If he continued to make his speeches, to try to negotiate with Mevolent, I truly felt we would have lost the war.

“I found out, a few years later, that Meritorious’s suspicions had been correct. Mevolent planned to accept the peace that Vanguard was preaching then move his people into position and strike against his enemies in one bloody night. I happen to take some comfort from that – the knowledge that what Meritorious did was, essentially, the right thing to do.”

“So you approved of him ordering the murder of an innocent man?”

“We were fighting a war,” Skulduggery said. “Harsh decisions had to be made every day. This was one of them.”

The first raindrops of the night fell. Valkyrie didn’t move.

“I have done terrible things in my life, Valkyrie. Things that haunt me. Some of those things I had to do. Some…I didn’t. But I did them anyway. For my sins I should have stayed on the other side of that portal, where I belonged. I should have been hunted and tortured until my bones turned to dust. But you came into hell and you brought me back. I may disappoint you, but you have never disappointed me. And you never will.”

He got in the car. A few seconds later she did too. They drove.

She slept in the Bentley, seat back and using her coat as a blanket. When she woke, just after dawn, her dream slipped away from her and she sat up.

“Bad dream?” Skulduggery asked.

“Was it? I can’t remember.”

“Sounded like a nightmare from all that muttering. Not that you could be blamed for having nightmares.”

Valkyrie frowned, the dream too far gone now, dispersing even as she grasped for it. “Don’t know,” she said. “It was an odd one though, I can remember that much. Did I say anything embarrassing?”

“Nothing that could be used against you.”

She smiled thinly and looked across the street to the storage facility. “Any movement?”

“Not yet, but it takes a few minutes for a vampire’s human skin and hair to grow back. He should be out soon, if he’s even in there at all.”

Valkyrie readjusted her seat. “This is where he’s got his cage set up.”