The Dying of the Light

“That’s the thing about redemption,” said Skulduggery. “If you’re looking for it, the chances are you’ll never find it.”

“Well, I think your family would be proud of you, and I think they’d be even prouder if you took back your crest.”

“This is the one we’re looking for,” Skulduggery said. The crest on this door was a tree and a lightning strike.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Imagine that,” he said, and held up both hands. Air moved down narrow spaces she couldn’t see, but she heard tiny sounds, like mice skittering behind skirting boards. There was a click, and the door opened.

They hurried in, Skulduggery closing the door behind them, and the light flickered on. It was a narrow room, with two walls, floor to ceiling, of safety-deposit boxes, each one with a sigil over the lock. Skulduggery didn’t say anything for a few moments. When he finally did, it wasn’t very encouraging.

“Dammit.”

Stephanie walked forward. “There are a lot of boxes here. Ten down and, how many is that, fifty across? Five hundred boxes on each side at least. Do we have time to open them all?”

“The time it’d take is suddenly irrelevant,” Skulduggery said. “These locks can’t be picked. Even if they could, each box has an alarm that’d alert the vampires the moment we tried to tamper with it. I have to be honest here. I did not expect this.”

Stephanie said, “They hired more vampire security guards after the last time you broke in. Kind of makes sense that the security inside the Vault would be heightened, too. Every action has a consequence, right? Stuff you did when you first met Valkyrie is coming back at you now, six years later. Kind of makes you wonder what repercussions our actions today will have, six years down the line.”

“If we don’t get the grimoire, I doubt we’ll need to worry about that.” Skulduggery rapped his knuckles against one of the boxes. “OK then. We wanted to do this quietly so that no one would notice. That’s no longer an option. So we go loud.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest,” said Skulduggery, “that you point the Sceptre at the boxes and blow them open. As many and as quickly as you can.”

Stephanie grinned, and took the Sceptre from its bag.

“Just don’t aim right at them,” said Skulduggery. “Aim at an angle. A point-blank shot would probably fry everything inside the boxes, not just the surface.”

Stephanie nodded. “I’ll try my best.”

“The alarms will draw in the vampires,” Skulduggery said. “When we have the grimoire, you make a hole in the far wall. If I’m not mistaken, that should take us into the manuscript room. Try not to damage anything in there, it’s all very valuable. The door to our right will take us back to the main exhibits. We’ll want to go up, on to the roof.”

“Last time you were here, Valkyrie had to jump from that roof.”

“But I couldn’t fly back then. I can now, so we’ll be fine.”

“You sure about that?” asked Stephanie. “Vampires are fast.”

“Vampires are overrated.”

“You once called them the most efficient killing machines on the planet.”

“Ah, they’re not so tough. Ready to go?”

She exhaled. “Why the hell not?”

“That’s the spirit.”

Stephanie took the Sceptre from her backpack.

“Now,” said Skulduggery.

Black lightning turned a patch of steel boxes to dust, and an alarm wailed while Skulduggery waved his hand. The dust blew into the corner of the room and Skulduggery checked the contents.

“Keep going!” he shouted.

Stephanie fired again and again, keeping her angle shallow, to avoid destroying the contents of the boxes. Dust swirled in the narrow room, and behind the alarm, Stephanie could hear the frantic scrabbling outside the door.

“Got it!” Skulduggery called, pulling a thick, leatherbound tome from the crumbling dust. Stephanie turned so that he could slip it into the bag on her back, then fired at the wall opposite. Skulduggery went first and she came after, coughing, stumbling into a glass case displaying three curling, aged pages. Skulduggery took her wrist and they ran, up some steps, back into the gallery proper.

A snarl, from somewhere to their right. Stephanie was about to shout a warning when a gust of wind took her off her feet, sent her hurtling up over the balcony. She caught her foot on the edge and went tumbling, snatching a glimpse of Skulduggery turning to face the onrushing vampire. Then she hit the ground, badly, and cursed to herself as she rolled. She got to her feet. If the alarm were raised, if they were separated, the plan was for Stephanie to get to the roof.

Well, OK then. She just had to find the stairs leading up, and she’d be—

The hairs on the back her neck stood up. There was something behind her.

Stephanie broke into a run a moment before the vampire launched itself at her. She twisted as she ran, firing the Sceptre, but the vampire was moving too fast. It streaked through the shadows, knocking tables and chairs out of its way. Stephanie stopped trying to aim at it and instead fired ahead of her, black lightning turning a section of the wall to dust. She ran through, took a short cut through the next wall as well, and the next, and then she was running up stairs, disintegrating the steps behind her. She reached the top before the whole thing collapsed, and it was like the entire building was roaring at her. She glanced back, daring to hope that the falling debris had trapped the vampire, but it sprang from the billowing clouds of dust, caught sight of her again and snarled.

Stephanie ran on, found the door, burst out on to the roof. The vampire followed.

She backed away, missed with every shot she took, and the vampire jumped and she leaped backwards, fired at the section of roof she’d just been standing on. The vampire fell through, vanished from sight, and Stephanie collapsed on to her back, taking a moment to catch her breath and gather her strength.

She sat up, pushed herself to her feet and shook the dust from her hair. She looked at the hole in the roof and went cold. The vampire’s claws were clinging to the edge.

It shot up, out of the hole, and Stephanie spun and ran for the edge of the building. She leaped and fell towards a tree, steeling herself for the impact, but something slammed into her, hands clutching her, and she was lifted – twirling – into the sky and over the city, the streets becoming blurred streams of light beneath her. The arms that held her were warm and strong – flesh and blood arms, not bone. Not Skulduggery. She looked up into a bright smile.