Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 4 - 6

“And did you give him your Infected?”

“Of course not. He wasn’t exactly happy about it, but there you go.”

Skulduggery held out his hand to the vampire with his gun. Moloch nodded assent and the gun was returned. Skulduggery slid it into his holster.

“We’re going to be watching you,” he said.

“Of course you are,” Moloch replied, bitterness in his voice. At an unseen signal, the eight vampires left them, walking silently from the square. “Take Caelan with you when you leave,” Moloch continued. “He’s used up any good grace I have left. Tell him never to come back here.”

Skulduggery nodded and they watched him go.

They’d left Caelan at the storage facility, and he had limped from the car without looking back. Valkyrie felt bad – he’d been hurt because of them after all. But they couldn’t bring him with them to see Kenspeckle Grouse, not with the Professor’s vampire phobia at an all-time high lately.

They parked at the back of the old Hibernian Cinema and walked in. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the pain from the hand Valkyrie had broken while punching was shooting through her. She cradled her arm as she followed Skulduggery up on to the stage and through the door projected on to the screen.

They took the first corridor to their right, almost bumping into Clarabelle. She held two long test tubes, one in each hand, both filled with a clear liquid.

“Hi, Clarabelle,” Valkyrie said. “Is the Professor in?”

Clarabelle’s eyes were moving between the test tubes. “Safe, unsafe. Safe, unsafe. Left one safe, right one unsafe. Left safe, right unsafe.” She looked up and smiled brightly. “Hello, Valkyrie! Hello, Skulduggery! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Well,” Skulduggery said, “I’ve been—”

“It’s been weeks, hasn’t it?” Clarabelle continued and laughed. “It’s probably only been a few days, but it feels like it’s been weeks! I’d take that as a compliment if I were you!”

“I’ll try,” Skulduggery murmured.

Clarabelle looked back at the tubes. “Left safe, right unsafe. Safe, unsafe.”

“What’s that you’re holding?” Valkyrie asked because she had to – there was really no way around it.

“Oh, these?” beamed Clarabelle. “They’re nothing.”

“Oh.”

“They’re not really nothing though. It’s just another of the Professor’s experiments – you know how he is. But the important thing to remember is not to drink either of them. That’s what he told me. He said above all else, do not drink. So I asked him, if I did drink, which one would be worse for me? And the Professor said don’t drink. And I said yes, but if I did, and he said why would I, since he’s just told me not to? But I said yes, I know that, but just say I did drink one of them, which one would be worse for me? And he said the one in my left hand.”

“But that’s the safe one,” Valkyrie said.

“Sorry?”

“You were saying left safe, right unsafe, just a moment ago.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

“The left one is the safe one,” Skulduggery said. “That’s what you were chanting.”

Clarabelle frowned. “I don’t really know my right hand from my left hand though.”

Skulduggery pointed. “That’s your left hand.”

“But this is the unsafe one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Practically. I’ll check.”

Before they could stop her, Clarabelle sipped from the tube in her right hand. She sloshed it around in her mouth, swallowed and nodded. “Yes,” she said happily.

“Was that the safe one?” Valkyrie asked.

“No idea,” Clarabelle said and walked on.

Kenspeckle Grouse hurried into the Emergency Room ahead of them. They walked in after him. He was brushing his white hair, his back to them. He saw them enter in the mirror he was using.

“I don’t know why I bother,” he grumbled. “I never neaten my hair. I just move it around on my head.”

“Hello, Professor,” Skulduggery said.

“I heard you were back.” Kenspeckle turned. He was wearing slacks, a blazer and a yellow bow tie. “I said to myself, it’s only a matter of time before he arrives in here, Valkyrie beside him, with another injury for me to fix. What is it this time, Valkyrie? Broken arm?”

“Just the hand.”

“Oh, that’s much better,” he said scornfully. He picked a leaf from a bowl on the table and folded it. “Open,” he ordered. She opened her mouth and he popped it in. He examined her hand while she chewed and immediately the pain lessened. Pleasingly, it also blocked off another headache that was threatening to emerge.

“We passed Clarabelle,” Skulduggery said. “She drank from one of the test tubes she was holding.”

Kenspeckle’s head drooped. “That girl,” he said. “One of these days she’ll learn. I don’t know what she’ll learn, but she’ll learn and it will be a good day.”

“Is she in any danger?”

He started searching drawers. “Not really. Both tubes contain mineral water. You’d be astonished how many times I’ve given her water and told her it was something else and not to drink it. She always drinks it though. Always. It’s a compulsion.” He showed them a huge uneven bowl that looked like it was made in an idiot’s pottery class. “She made this for me, as a token of her appreciation for employing her when nobody else would.”

“It’s nice,” Valkyrie lied. “Colourful.”

“It was meant to be a mug,” Kenspeckle told her. “How big does she think my mouth is? I could fit my whole head in there, for God’s sake. It doesn’t even have a handle. And look at this.” He put the bowl on the table and it tilted drastically. “It’s so off balance it’s in danger of falling off a flat surface.”

He poured various liquids and powders into the bowl and checked his watch.

Valkyrie frowned. “Are you going out?” she asked.

Kenspeckle started stirring. The bowl rocked rhythmically. “I am.”

“You’re all dressed up. You never get dressed up. Are you…? Do you have a date?”

“Why do you sound so surprised? Because I’m old, is that it? Because I’m an old man and old people shouldn’t go out on dates? Because we don’t need love or companionship, and we don’t get lonely? Is that it? Is that why you’re so surprised I have a date?”

“No,” she said. “It’s because you’re really grumpy.”