Death Bringer (21 page)

Chapter 31
Fuel

ison Dragonclaw laid out his torture instruments on the table. Knives, saws, pliers, hammers, neatly arranged one by one. Valkyrie watched him.

When he was done, he hauled Skulduggery to his feet and shoved him against the wall, then went over to Valkyrie, did the same to her.

“You're not so tough now, are you?” he asked, his smile revealing small teeth behind that wispy goatee. “I bet you're really regretting the way you treated me. Now it's my turn. Now I get to inflict some pain.”

She didn't answer him. She barely heard him.

“We've not finished treating you badly,” Skulduggery said. “The moment we escape from these shackles, we're going to do it all over again.”

“Even if escape were possible,” Dragonclaw replied, “you'd be too late. The Death Bringer is about to change the world.”

“You hope.”

“It is a scientific inevitability.”

“There's no such thing.”

Dragonclaw stopped what he was doing, and looked round. “There is no such thing as a scientific inevitability?”

“Nope.”

“And what about, for instance, gravity? If I drop an apple, it will not fall?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall on the one hundred and first.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a rational man.”

“I am a rational man, but haven't you heard? I'm also insane. It gives me a unique perspective on things.”

“Here is what I am going to do,” Dragonclaw said. “I'm going to pull you apart.”

“Your High Priest doesn't want me harmed.”

“He doesn't want you
dead
. He was quite agreeable to my harming you.”

“If you separate my bones from each other, my consciousness could dissipate.”

“Don't worry, I'll leave most of you intact. The torso and the head, probably. Maybe I'll remove the jawbone. It might stop you talking.”

“I wouldn't like to bet on it.”

“Once you are incapacitated, I will then take apart your young apprentice.”

“I'm not his apprentice,” Valkyrie muttered.

“She's my combat accessory,” Skulduggery nodded. “But you won't get a chance to do any of that, I'm afraid. We're going to get free in the next few minutes and then you're really going to wish you had a few guards here for protection.”

“I see,” Dragonclaw said. “And do you mind telling me
how
you plan to get free?”

“I'm picking the lock on these shackles as we speak.”

“Those locks can't be picked.”

“So says the prevailing wisdom.”

“And you know better, I suppose?”

“That is the usual state of things.”

“And what are you picking the lock with, may I ask? A toothpick? A hairpin?”

“The top of your pen, actually.”

Dragonclaw laughed. “I don't have a pen.”

“Not any more, that's true. But you had one in the pocket of your robes, don't you remember?”

Dragonclaw's laugh faded. He searched his robes. “You're lying. I didn't have a pen.”

“The metal clip on the lid is the perfect size,” Skulduggery continued, clearly enjoying the look on Dragonclaw's face. Behind his back, his arms were moving ever so slightly. “I should be out of these in forty seconds or so, and then I'm going to hurt you.”

“You're lying,” Dragonclaw said. “Even if I did have a pen in my pocket, you couldn't have taken it from me.”

“But that's not strictly true, is it? When you pushed me against this wall, you got a little too close.”

“You couldn't have taken it. There's no way—”

“Could you stop talking for a moment? This is a tricky bit.”

Skulduggery's head tilted. Valkyrie heard a faint tapping of metal against metal.

Dragonclaw grabbed a knife and strode over to Valkyrie. “Stop that,” he ordered. “Stop it right now or she dies.”

“You're not going to kill her,” Skulduggery said. “If you kill her, in thirty seconds I will kill you. You don't want to die, not when you're this close to the Passage.”

Dragonclaw pressed the blade to Valkyrie's throat. It was cold against her skin. “Stop. Stop it.”

“Twenty seconds, Dragonclaw. And what a ridiculous name that is. Almost as ridiculous as your beard.”

The blade bit deeper, and then stopped, and all at once Dragonclaw was pushing her aside and storming towards Skulduggery. Valkyrie stepped behind him and kicked low, sweeping his feet at the ankles. Dragonclaw yelped and Skulduggery moved, smacking his knee into the Necromancer's face as he fell. Dragonclaw bounced off Skulduggery's knee and crumpled to the ground.

Skulduggery squatted beside him, managing to get his hands into the folds of the robe.

“You don't have his pen,” Valkyrie said.

“No,” Skulduggery admitted. “He never had one. Well done, by the way.”

She nodded, didn't answer.

He found the keys, and by the time he stood up, the shackles were already off. He uncuffed her and she felt magic flood her body. It was a nice feeling.

He opened the door, looked out, then gestured to her to stay put before going on ahead. She looked at him, her friend, as he sneaked to the corner, and she tried equating that with all the horror stories she'd heard about Vile. He'd saved her life and she'd saved his, and she had felt closer to him than she had to anyone else. If there was one person who would understand her, she had known it would always be him. But now…

Two Necromancers came round the corner and Skulduggery took them out. It was vicious and it was ugly, and neither Necromancer had time to even cry out. Valkyrie joined him, stepping over their unconscious bodies, and they moved on. He was in a bad mood. She knew the feeling.

The doors opened ahead of them before they could react, and six Necromancers came striding through. They didn't seem particularly surprised to see a teenage girl and a skeleton walking around unsupervised. They stood in a straight line, side by side, the blackness of their robes flowing together so that they looked like a single creature with six heads.

“You think we were going to let you walk out of here?” one of them asked.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery stayed where they were, waiting for them to make a move. The ring on her hand was ready to throw up a wall of shadows to block the strikes she knew were coming.

And then the Necromancers reached into their robes and pulled out sub-machine guns.

“Hell,” was all Skulduggery had time to say before they opened fire.

Valkyrie crossed her arms over her head as bullets slammed into her. She staggered back, winded, her clothes dissipating the impacts. More bullets hit her arms, but she kept them where they were, kept them tight together, not letting any through. Skulduggery was saying something, but she couldn't hear him over the gunfire, and then she felt him grab her from behind and pull her back round the corner. Out of the firing line, he pushed her against the wall.

“Are you OK?” he asked quickly, his hands checking her for bullet hits. “Are you hurt?”

Valkyrie shook her head, unable to speak until there was breath in her lungs again. Something flew round the corner, bouncing on the floor beside them. She hadn't even registered what it was before Skulduggery reached out his hand. The grenade went off, but Skulduggery kept the explosion contained in a tight bubble of air. He released his grip and the smoke curled through the corridor.

They ran back the way they had come.

Dragonclaw was in the corridor, using the wall to support himself. He saw them coming and his eyes managed to widen. He dug a hand into his robes.

Valkyrie sprinted for him. Two Necromancers emerged from an adjoining corridor just as she passed. They raised their weapons, but she left them to Skulduggery. She heard their grunts and cries of pain and kept going towards Dragonclaw. He pulled a gun from his robe, Skulduggery's gun, raised it with a trembling hand and fired. The bullet missed Valkyrie completely and she swiped at the air, yanking the weapon away from him. The gun fell and she collided with him, her elbow crunching into his face. He reeled back, squawking, but she was latched on to him now and she didn't stop hitting until he was on the floor, his arms flopping uselessly at his sides.

Skulduggery hauled her up with one hand, his gun flying into the other, and he kept her moving as he fired behind them. Sub-machine guns peppered the corridor with bullets, the walls spitting chunks of plaster and plumes of dust. They got behind the next corner and ran on, straight into a dead end. They turned, but it was too late, the Necromancers were already there.

And then the Necromancer furthest away stiffened, his gun falling. Valkyrie frowned as the next one did the same, and the next one, and finally the Necromancer closest to them exhaled, and his face went blank. All six of them stood there, suddenly very pale. Then they fell, one at a time, the closest Necromancer first, the effect rippling backwards.

Skulduggery walked forward warily, and checked for a pulse. “He's dead,” he said, a hint of surprise in his voice.

He picked up a sub-machine gun, stepped over the dead Necromancer and continued on, back the way they had come. Valkyrie's ring was like ice.

The Temple was quiet. Every corner they turned revealed more dead people in black robes. Bison Dragonclaw lay sprawled across the floor, eyes open, seeing nothing.

Doors opened ahead of them and Melancholia stepped through. She was smiling. “Wasn't that fun?”

Skulduggery raised the sub-machine gun to his shoulder, finger hovering over the trigger. “You did this?”

“I needed a boost,” Melancholia said with a shrug. “A little pick-me-up. Valkyrie knows what I'm talking about, don't you, Valkyrie? That little ring is burning so cold now, isn't it? My whole body is burning like that. It's intoxicating. But don't worry – I didn't kill all of them. There are still plenty left to fawn over me.”

“You're under arrest,” Skulduggery said.

“Don't be stupid. I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to save the world.”

“By killing half of it.”

“Omelettes and eggs, skeleton.”

“Give up. This will be your only warning.”

Melancholia laughed, shook her head, and as she opened her mouth to speak, Skulduggery pulled the trigger. Melancholia jerked back into a sudden cloud of darkness as gunfire filled the air and bullet casings rattled on to the floor. When the gun was empty, he dropped it and clicked his fingers, summoning flames into his hands. Valkyrie readied shadows of her own.

The cloud faded. Melancholia was still standing. “You're sneaky,” she said. “I like you.”

Skulduggery threw a fireball but Melancholia sent the darkness to extinguish it. He pushed at the air and she staggered, sent a spear of shadows his way in return. He twisted, the spear missing him by inches. Valkyrie whipped the darkness at her but Melancholia rose on to a wave of pitch-black. Columns of dark shot out, too fast to dodge. One column struck Valkyrie, taking her off her feet. Skulduggery was hit square in the chest, and twice more as he tried to recover.

The wave lowered Melancholia to the ground, and at a gesture it turned towards Skulduggery. It crashed down on top of him, dispersing into tendrils that threw him down the corridor.

Valkyrie swept the air in around her and hurtled towards Melancholia. She almost reached her, too, but a wall of darkness appeared between them. Valkyrie hit the wall and it drank her in. She struggled, tried to pull away, but it was like quicksand. Her arms and legs were already in and she turned her head away, arching her spine. The corridor lit up with flame and suddenly she was free. She dropped to the ground while Melancholia dodged another of Skulduggery's attacks. He had run in close, trying to get his hands on her.

Melancholia kept throwing shadows between them, but the shadows were flimsy. She was panicking, trying to give herself some room to manoeuvre. Given the space, she could send out an attack that was impossible to defend against. Skulduggery was making sure that didn't happen, and he was using skill, determination and luck to do it. But while his skill wasn't going to fade and his determination wasn't going to falter, his luck was an element he had no control over.

Another panicked move by Melancholia sent a tentacle of shadow whipping for him. He saw it coming and ducked, weaving under it, but the tentacle flexed at the last moment before it dissipated, and it caught him in the side of the head. He stumbled, and Melancholia struck, sending him spinning backwards.

Something heavy landed on Valkyrie's back as she tried to get up. A mass of shadows, keeping her pinned to the floor. She cursed and strained, but couldn't move.

Skulduggery groaned. Melancholia was doing something to him. Shadows curled out from the cuffs of his jacket, out around his collar, through the buttons on his shirt. But then Valkyrie saw the expression on Melancholia's face. She was frowning – not with intent, but with curiosity. Whatever was going on with Skulduggery, Melancholia wasn't the one doing it.