Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 7 - 9

“Even so, an attempt on your lives is a major step for anyone to take. If they’ve gone this far, they’ll go further.”

“We need greater control over the Cleavers,” Ghastly said. “They don’t question orders. If Mist – or whoever – used them against us once, she might do so again, and I don’t fancy going up against those scythes.”

“Agreed,” said Skulduggery. “Erskine, you should take direct control from now on – the Cleavers take orders from the Grand Mage and that’s it. Mist has Roarhaven on her side. We need the Cleavers on ours.”

“But their numbers are still depleted,” Ravel pointed out. “If Mist is behind this and we go up against her, even with the Cleavers and whatever mages are loyal to us, we can’t be guaranteed of winning. We need more. We need an advantage.”

All three fell silent. None of them wanted to state the obvious.

“We could ask the Supreme Council for help,” Valkyrie said.

“Let’s change the subject before I hit someone,” Ghastly said, and Ravel’s image immediately shifted away from him slightly. “What do we need to do to get this Accelerator working?”

“Lament will have to take a look at it,” Skulduggery said. “Can you get it shipped up here?”

Ravel shook his head. “It can’t be moved. From what we understand, the Sanctuary itself acts as a kind of lightning rod. If you want to use it to power Argeddion’s cage, you’re going to have to bring the cage to Roarhaven.”

“OK,” said Skulduggery, “it shouldn’t take too much convincing to get Lament to agree to that. I also think Valkyrie’s ex-boyfriend will come in handy here.”

Ravel frowned. “The dead vampire?”

Valkyrie glared at him. “I think he means Fletcher.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Caelan was never my boyfriend.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“We don’t talk about Caelan,” Ghastly muttered.

“I’m really sorry, Valkyrie,” Ravel said. “Fletcher’s great. He’s wonderful. I’m sure he’d be delighted to help, and having a Teleporter here will certainly solve some problems. We’ll arrange that, we’ll get him over to you, start the ball rolling, as it were. Once again, sorry about bringing up the vampire.”

Ghastly shot him a look, whispered, “Why do you keep talking about him?”

“I can’t help it,” Ravel whispered back. “Now he’s all I can think about.”

“You realise,” Valkyrie said, “that we can hear you both perfectly well.”

Ghastly shut up immediately. Ravel nodded slowly. “Right. Righto. You sure you heard everything, now? Did you hear the bit where I complimented you and called you amazing?”

“I must have missed that part.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. That’s a real...” He looked off to his right, eyebrows raising. “What’s that? I’m needed elsewhere? Important business?”

Ghastly sighed. “There’s no one there.”

“Valkyrie, Skulduggery, we’ll talk with Fletcher and get back to you,” Ravel said, and glared at Ghastly as their images faded to nothing.

Four hours later, the same huge plane that had flown them to Switzerland appeared as a speck over the mountains. Valkyrie held fire in her hand to warm herself while she waited. She knew Fletcher wasn’t onboard. He rarely suffered through the indignities of travel any more. Because Teleporters can only teleport to places they’ve already been, or places they can actually see, he had devised a tactic to be used on planes and trains and boats.

First, he’d have teleported to Ireland, where he’d have introduced himself to the pilots and stepped on to the plane. Then he’d have teleported home to Australia and spent the next few hours doing whatever it was he did when he was over there. When the plane had reached its destination – roughly where it was now – the pilot would call him and he’d teleport back to the plane, look out of the window, see her, and teleport down. It was a simple and effective way of visiting places all around the world without having to actually waste time getting there. And it was typical Fletcher.

The plane got closer and she took off her mask, then sent a fistful of shadows curling along the snow to attract their attention. A moment later, Fletcher Renn appeared in front of her.

“Oh my God!” was the first thing he said. “It’s freezing!”

Valkyrie grinned. “That’d be all the snow. Come on, it’s warmer inside.”

He frowned at the hole in the rocks she’d squirmed through to get out there. “Haven’t these people heard of doors?”

“It keeps the Abominable Snowmen out.”

He stared. “Seriously?”

“Two of them, yeah. One of them tried to eat my head.”

He held out his hand and she took it, and he crouched down, peered through the gap, and suddenly they were on the other side of the rocks, in the warmth. These days, teleportation didn’t even result in a twinge of nausea, much less puking her guts up like it did in the early days. Fletcher straightened, and smiled at her.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She smiled. “You look well.” He did. She’d forgotten how cute he was. “Your hair’s still stupid.”

Fletcher nodded. “Thanks for that. Should’ve known better than to expect you to stay nice for more than a few seconds.”

She laughed. “Sorry. Bad habit. You really do look good, though. Australia agrees with you.”

“Australia has good taste. And it’s taken a while but you’ve obviously decided that you can’t live without me, either. I have to say, coming up with this whole Argeddion thing just to have an excuse to see me again? I admit it, I’m flattered.”

“You’re such a goon. Why do you have to be such a goon? You’re cute and you’re hot and if you’d just stay quiet, you’d be perfect.”

He shrugged. “My mouth gets me into trouble. As you well know.”

“And now you’re a dope. You’re both a goon and a dope. Well done.”

“I try my very best.” He suddenly frowned. “Should we hug, or something? I think we should hug, after not seeing each other for so long.”

“Why not?” she said, and hugged him. For a moment Valkyrie remembered how good it felt, and then she stepped away.

His eyes flickered over her shoulder, and he stood a little straighter as Skulduggery walked up.

“Skulduggery.”

“Fletcher.”

Fletcher stuck out his hand. Skulduggery observed it for a moment.

“I’m sorry, what are we doing now?”