The Dying of the Light

And yet … she hesitated.

She was not one to second-guess herself. She was not prone to introspection. For the majority of her existence, Stephanie had been all surface. She was the reflection, the stand-in, the copy. While Valkyrie Cain had been out playing hero, Stephanie had gone to school, sat at the dinner table, carried on with normal life. People viewed her as an unfeeling object. She had been an it.

But now that she was a she, things were murkier. Less defined. Now that she was a person, now that she was actually alive, she found that she didn’t want to deprive any other living thing of that same opportunity – not if she could help it. Which was, she openly admitted, hugely inconvenient.

Wearing a scowl as dark as her hair, she stepped out from cover and advanced on Rhadaman slowly. She took a pair of shackles from the bag on her back, made sure the chain didn’t jingle. She kept the Sceptre pointed at him – she didn’t want to kill anyone if she could help it, but she wasn’t stupid – and chose her steps carefully. The floor was littered with supermarket debris. She was halfway there and still Rhadaman hadn’t opened his eyes.

The closer she got, the louder her pulse sounded in her head. She felt sure he was going to hear her heartbeat. If not her heartbeat then at the very least her ridiculously loud breathing. When had she started breathing so loud? Had she always breathed this loud? She would have thought someone might have mentioned it.

Three steps away Stephanie paused, looked around, watching for pinstripes. Nothing. Why hadn’t she waited? Why did she have to do this on her own? Did she really have that much to prove? Probably, now that she thought about it. So would capturing Rhadaman single-handedly make her a worthy partner? Would that justify her continued existence?

She wasn’t used to all these conflicting thoughts ricocheting around in her head.

Three more steps and she reached out, shackles ready.

Rhadaman’s eyes snapped open.

He stared at her. She stared at him.

“Um … This is a dream?” she tried, and a wave of energy threw her back.

She went tumbling, realised in some dim part of her mind that her hands were empty, and when she came to a stop she looked up and Rhadaman was standing there holding the Sceptre.

“I’ve seen this in books,” he said. He was American. “It’s the real thing, isn’t it? The Ancients actually used this to kill the Faceless Ones, to drive them out of this reality. The original God-Killer.” He pointed it at her as she stood, then frowned. “It doesn’t work.”

“Must be broken,” said Stephanie. “Could I have it back?”

She held out her hand. He looked at her a moment longer, and his eyes widened. “You’re her.”

“No,” she said.

He dropped the Sceptre and his hands started glowing. “You’re her!”

“I am not!” she said, before he could attack. “You think I’m Darquesse, but I’m not! I’m her reflection! I’m perfectly normal!”

“You killed my friends!”

“Stop!” she said, pointing at him. “Stop right there! If I were Darquesse, I could kill you right now, yes? I wouldn’t need shackles to restrain you. Listen to me. Valkyrie Cain had a reflection. That’s me. Valkyrie Cain went off and turned evil and became Darquesse, but I’m still here. So I am not Darquesse and I did not kill your friends.”

Rhadaman’s bottom lip trembled. “You’re not a reflection.”

“I am. Or I was. I evolved. My name is Stephanie. How do you do?”

“This is a trick.”

“No,” said Stephanie. “A trick would be much cleverer than this.”

“I should … I should kill you.”

“Why would you want to do that? I’m working with the Sanctuary. The war’s over, right? You do remember that? We’re all back on the same side, although you guys kind of lost and we’re in charge. So, if I tell you to surrender, you have to surrender. Agreed?”

“No one gives me orders any more,” said Rhadaman.

“Ferrente, you don’t want to do something you’ll regret. The Accelerator boosted your magic, but it made you unstable. We need to take you back and monitor your condition until you return to normal. You’re not thinking clearly right now.”

“I’m thinking very clearly. Killing you may not bring my friends back, but it’ll sure as hell make me smile.”

“Now that,” Skulduggery Pleasant said, pressing the barrel of his gun to Rhadaman’s temple as he stepped up beside him, “is just disturbingly unhealthy.”

Rhadaman froze, his eyes wide. Skulduggery stood there in all his pinstriped glory, his hat at a rakish angle, his skull catching the light.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas,” Skulduggery said. “You’re powerful, but not powerful enough to walk away from a bullet to the head. You’re under arrest.”

“You’ll never take me alive.”

“I really think you should examine what you say before you say it. You’re not sounding altogether sane. Stephanie, you seem to have dropped your shackles. Would you mind picking them up and placing them on—”

Rhadaman moved faster than Stephanie was expecting. Faster even than Skulduggery was expecting. In the blink of an eye, Skulduggery’s gun was sliding along the floor and Skulduggery himself was leaping away from Rhadaman’s grasping hands.

“You can’t stop me!” Rhadaman screeched.

Skulduggery’s tie was crooked. He straightened it, his movements short and sharp. “We wanted to take you in without violence, Ferrente. Do not make this any harder than it has to be.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to have this kind of power,” Rhadaman said, anger flashing in his eyes. “And you want me to give it up? To go back to being how I was before?”

“This power level isn’t going to last,” Skulduggery said. “You know that. It’s already starting to dip, isn’t it? In fifteen days, there’ll be more dips than peaks, and by the end of the month you’ll be back to normal. It’s inevitable, Ferrente. So, do yourself a favour. Give up before you do any serious damage. We’ll get you the help you need, and when it’s all over, you’ll return to your old life. The alternative is to keep going until you hurt someone. If you do that, your future will be a prison cell.”

“You’re scared of my power.”

“As you should be.”

“Why should I be scared? This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“This?” Skulduggery said. “Really? Look around, Ferrente. We’re in the middle of a supermarket. The greatest thing that’s ever happened to you and you choose to trash a supermarket? Are you really that limited?”

Rhadaman smiled. “This? Oh, I didn’t do this.”

“No? Who did?”

“My friends.”

Stephanie couldn’t help herself – she had to look around.

“And where are your friends now?” Skulduggery asked.

Rhadaman shrugged. “Close by. They don’t wander off too far. There were loads of them around after the various battles, and I found a group and adopted them. They don’t say a whole lot.”

Stephanie picked up a faint whiff in the air. “Hollow Men?”