Dark Days. Derek Landy

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      She walked for a few minutes, careful to move in a relatively straight line so she could be sure of finding her way back. Ghastly had claimed that her clothes would regulate her temperature no matter what, but something wasn’t working. She was perspiring. A trickle of sweat rolled down her face. She took off her coat and left it at a corner as a marker, and felt the sun on her bare shoulders. She opened her top to let the air in, but whatever breeze there may have been was being blocked by the labyrinth of streets. Then she turned another corner and saw the body.

      It sat on the ground, propped up against the wall. Its chest was a gaping hole, the insides long since dried up. The head was smooth and featureless. This had been the body of the man called Batu, a body that had been commandeered by the last Faceless One to come through the portal. There was no sign of life in it now though. To the Faceless Ones, human bodies were mere vessels to be used and discarded. Batu’s body was nothing more than a leaky old boat or a rusted car. So much for his masterplan to become a god.

      The body was holding something in its right hand, a bone, most of it covered by rags. Valkyrie didn’t want to imagine that it might be one of Skulduggery’s. She was desperate to call out his name, but the idea of breaking this eerie silence repelled her. She didn’t know what else to do though. She could spend months checking this city without finding him. No. No, the portal would have opened somewhere in Skulduggery’s vicinity. He was nearby. He had to be.

      Valkyrie headed back the way she’d come, scooping up her coat and walking fast. She got back to the alley where the portal had delivered her. She followed it as far as she could, until the alley led into a cave. She dropped her coat again and summoned a flame into her hand. Then she stepped out of the sun into pitch-black.

      As she walked, she saw shelves carved from the walls and a table that had once been a boulder. There were large areas of the cave where she didn’t even need the flame – the windows had been constructed to drink in the sunlight and spread it around. The cave ended at a wall. As Valkyrie turned to go back, she saw a bone in the dirt and beside it stone steps, leading up. She climbed them.

      The sun came in through the three windows along the far wall and Valkyrie let the fire in her hand go out. She stood beside the steps and didn’t move. In the centre of the room a skeleton lay. Its clothes were shredded and hung off the frame that had been constructed to give the illusion of mass. From what she could see, the trouser-legs were empty and the skeleton’s right arm was missing. It lay on its back, its exposed ribcage dirty and covered in dust, and it didn’t move.

      Something clutched at Valkyrie’s heart and wouldn’t let go. She made a sound, like a whimper, but when she tried to say his name, she couldn’t. Her first step was uncertain because her legs felt weak. She walked slowly, so very slowly, to the middle of the room.

      “Hello?” she whispered. The skeleton lay on the ground and didn’t move.

      “It’s me. I’ve come to take you back. Can you hear me? I found you.”

      Not even a breeze stirred the ragged clothing.

      She knelt by the skeleton. “Please say something. Please. I’ve missed you so much and I’ve worked so hard to find you. Please.”

      She reached out to touch him, and Skulduggery Pleasant whipped his head to her and roared, “Boo!”

      Valkyrie shrieked and scrambled back, and Skulduggery laughed hysterically, like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He was still laughing when she got to her feet, and when she glared at him, he laughed even harder. Eventually, with bouts of laughter still rattling his bones, Skulduggery propped himself up on the only elbow he had left.

      “Oh, dear,” he said. “Now I’m deriving amusement from scaring my hallucinations. This can’t be good for me, psychologically speaking.”

      “I’m not a hallucination.”

      He looked up at her. “Yes, you are, my dear, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Being a hallucination is a state of mind, I always say.”

      “Skulduggery, I’m real.”

      “That’s the spirit.”

      “No, I mean I’m really real, and I’ve come to take you home.”

      “You’re an odd one. Usually my hallucinations do a lot more singing and dancing.”

      “It’s me. It’s Valkyrie.”

      “You’d be surprised how many figments of my imagination say that. You don’t happen to have an imaginary chessboard with you, do you? I’ve had a hankering to play for a while now, and since you’re an aspect of my personality, you’d probably be a worthy opponent.”

      “How do I prove to you that I’m real?”

      This made him pause. “Intriguing. It’s not as if you can tell me something only we would know because if I know it, my hallucination would know it. But, in the theoretical extension of that approach, if you were to tell me something only you would know, then that would prove to me that I’m not conjuring you up in my mind.”

      “So … what will I tell you? My deepest, darkest secret? My earliest memory? My ultimate fear?”

      “How about what you had for breakfast this morning?”

      “Honey Loops.”

      “Well, there you go.”

      “So now you believe I’m real?”

      “Not in the slightest. I may have just made that up.”

      “I found your skull – the one the goblins took. Fletcher used it as an Isthmus Anchor to open the portal and I came through to take you back.”

      “My skull?”

      “It makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s possible, right?”

      “It’s … very possible actually.”

      “Did you think of it? Did you imagine your skull could be used as an Anchor?”

      “I didn’t, but then I have been preoccupied by the torture and the lack of good conversation.”

      “So if this is something that you hadn’t thought of yet, how could I come up with it if I were just a figment of your imagination?”

      “Well,” Skulduggery said slowly, “you could be a figment of my subconscious.”

      “I’m not your subconscious. I’m Valkyrie. I’m real. And I’m here to rescue you.”

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