Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 7 - 9

“I’m afraid I don’t know what a Grotesquery is.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, in my history, Vengeous found the remains of a Faceless One and it was later used as an Isthmus Anchor to—”

“Stop!” he whispered suddenly. “Don’t say anything. If you know where the remains are in your reality, then they’ll find them in this one and—”

“But I don’t,” Valkyrie said, keeping her voice down. “Vengeous found the remains during the war. I don’t know where they were originally.”

“Then that must be another difference between the timelines,” Meritorious said. “So the point where our realities diverge was not Mevolent’s death, after all. It was something else. Interesting.”

“Is the whole world like this? Is everywhere as bad?”

“Some places it’s even worse. Africa is no more, did you know that? They were the last to fall, and Mevolent made an example out of them.”

“It sounds like hell.”

“It has similarities. And your home, to me it sounds like heaven. A paradise where the mortals control their own destinies and fire angry birds at pigs in little boxes. May I see them again?”

She took out her phone. “How about we listen to some music instead? I’m thinking ‘Apple of my Eye’. Do you have Damien Dempsey in this dimension?”

“I’m not really sure.”

“Well, then,” she smiled, “this’ll be an education.”

She had dozed off with her back to the wall. When someone shook her awake, she opened her eyes to a figure in darkness.

“Valkyrie Cain?” the man whispered. “Your reflection asked us to get you out of here.”

Before she could answer, he stood and moved further into the gloom to wake another prisoner. The dungeon was suddenly a very quiet hive of activity. People hurried through the torchlight, chains rattling as shackles were unlocked. It was a prison break.

Hope flaring in her chest, Valkyrie sprang to her feet. There was a man on his knees, his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. A rope was tied around his neck like a leash, the other end gripped by a man she knew.

“Dexter Vex,” she said.

Vex frowned and smiled at the same time. “Do I know you?”

She resisted the urge to hug him. “Sort of. Kind of. Not really. You’ve seen my reflection?”

He nodded. “It’s waiting for us at the rendezvous point.”

“You’re the Resistance?”

“That we are,” he said. “And it’s thanks to you that we can free our brothers and sisters.”

“Me? What did I do?”

Vex grinned. “You gave us our way in.”

He pulled back on the leash and the kneeling man raised his head to the light. Alexander Remit glared up at her.

“You left him on a roof, and the poor fella was so disorientated when my friends arrived that he didn’t even have time to teleport away.”

Remit growled something behind his gag.

“We’ve been after one of their Teleporters for years,” Vex continued. “But we never expected to get one like this. He’s been everywhere. Every part of the City, every part of the Palace. We were given our opportunity, and we took it. Thanks to you.”

“Happy to help,” Valkyrie said. “So who’s going to release Meritorious?”

Vex looked back at Meritorious as he hung there on the wall. “We can’t free him,” he said, his voice heavy. “The chains that are holding him are beyond anything we’re used to. Mevolent made sure that no matter what happens, the Grand Mage will stay a prisoner.”

“You’re just going to leave him?”

“We don’t have a choice,” said a man as he walked by. It was the same man who’d woken her. She should have recognised his voice.

“Ghastly,” she said.

Ghastly Bespoke glanced back at her. “You and your reflection know a lot about us. You mind telling me how?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “Later,” she said. “I promise.”

It was unsettling, looking at Ghastly and not seeing the recognition in his eyes. For the first time she noticed what some of them were wearing – black clothes, made of the same material as her own outfit back home. This Ghastly was a little narrower than the one she was used to. He still had the same broad shoulders but where her Ghastly had a boxer’s physique, the Ghastly who stood before her looked like a sprinter. Less physically powerful, but faster.

He walked over to Meritorious and Valkyrie followed.

“I’m sorry,” said Ghastly.

Meritorious smiled. “You’re not to blame, my friend. Do what you can. Save who you can. This girl here, take her, too. She has an interesting story.”

“I’m sure she does,” said Ghastly. “We’ve rounded up everyone. We have to go.”

“Then go.”

“I’ll be back for you, Eachan. We’ll get you out somehow.”

“I’m an old man and my time is almost done, so don’t you worry about me. I’m not as valuable as you all seem to think I am, and I’m certainly not as wise as I pretend to be. If I see you again in the sunshine, so be it. If I die down here, I’ll make sure they’ll have to clean up after me for a week.”

The air was split by a scream.

“Vile!” someone shouted. “It’s Lord Vile!”

Suddenly everyone was panicking. Ghastly grabbed Valkyrie’s arm, dragged her after him. She glimpsed a dark figure striding between the cells, and all those people trying to get away.

Darkness swarmed to his armour, filling the space behind him. Tendrils lashed out, as fast as striking cobras, impaling those who tried to run. The dead and the dying were lifted off their feet and paraded ahead of Vile as he walked, their tortured cries adding to the panic of those still with a chance of escape.

“Keep him back!” Ghastly roared, and immediately five sorcerers barged past Valkyrie, on an intercept course. Elementals and Adepts, they hurled whatever they had at him. Most of their attacks struck the helpless bodies of Vile’s victims, and the attacks that got by were instantly swarmed by shadows.

Ghastly ran to a wall, started drawing with chalk. “Behind me!” he roared. “Everyone behind me!”

People pushed and shoved, almost knocking Valkyrie back. Finished with one symbol, Ghastly ran to the opposite wall, started drawing there. He had a scrap of paper in his other hand, and he was copying it as best he could.