Skulduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy

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      The old castle stood dark against the star-filled sky, its tall windows empty, its battlements jutting like teeth. Upon those battlements, and indifferent to the cold winds that scoured the mountaintops, stood Wretchlings, monstrous things of scabs and sores whose insides boiled with poisoned blood and decaying meat.

      Lying on a blanket on a snow-covered perch 809 metres west and 193 metres up, Skulduggery Pleasant put his right eye socket to the scope of his rifle and adjusted the dial.

      He wriggled slightly, settling deeper into the blanket, then went perfectly still. His gloved finger began to slowly squeeze the trigger, and Valkyrie raised her binoculars, training them on the closest Wretchling.

      The gun went off with a loud crack that the wind snatched away, but they were so far from the target that it took a few seconds for the bullet to hit.

      The Wretchling jerked slightly, and looked down at its chest. A moment later, it started to tremble. The stitches that held it together unravelled, and the Wretchling came undone, its body parts falling, its stolen entrails spilling out, and it collapsed on top of itself, a pile of meat steaming in the cold air.

      Skulduggery moved on to the next target and adjusted the scope once more.

      “You think they feel pain?” Valkyrie asked.

      Skulduggery paused for a moment, and looked at her. “I’m sorry?”

      “The Wretchlings,” she said. “Do you think they feel pain?”

      “Not really,” he answered, and went back to aiming his rifle.

      “But they have brains, right? Fair enough, they might not be thinking great thoughts, but they do still think. And if they think, they might be able to feel. And if their body can feel physically, can’t their minds feel emotionally?”

      Skulduggery fired again. Valkyrie didn’t bother looking to see if the bullet hit its target. Of course it did.

      “They do have brains,” Skulduggery said. “They’re stolen from the dead, along with the limbs and the internal organs, and they’re twisted and warped and attached to the Wretchling like the parts of a machine – because that’s what they are. They look alive, but it’s all artificial. Are you feeling guilty about what we’re doing?”

      “No.” She watched him acquire his next target. “Kind of.”

      “They’re just like Hollow Men.” He put his eye socket to the scope.

      “But Hollow Men don’t have brains.”

      “I don’t have a brain.”

      “But Hollow Men can’t think.”

      “Believe me, the only thing on a Wretchling’s mind is the messiest way to kill someone.”

      Valkyrie looked through the binoculars. “So we kill them first? That’s hardly enlightened, is it?”

      “We’re not killing them,” Skulduggery said. “These clever little bullets are designed to dismantle, not destroy.”

      He fired, and she watched as the next Wretchling was dismantled. Black blood gushed.

      Skulduggery stood. “That’s the last of them,” he said, taking Valkyrie’s hand and pulling her to her feet. He left the sniper rifle on the blanket and she handed him his hat. It was black, like his three-piece suit, like his shirt and tie. Valkyrie was dressed all in black, too – in the armoured clothes made for her years ago by Ghastly Bespoke and the heavy coat with the fur-lined hood she wore over them.

      Clouds were moving in from the east, scraping over the jagged peaks of the mountains, blocking out the stars. Below where they stood, the drop disappeared into gloom. The wind nudged Valkyrie, like it wanted to tip her over the edge, send her spinning downwards into the cold emptiness. She felt an almost irresistible urge to take a big step forward.

      “Are you OK?” Skulduggery asked.

      Her face, numb though it was, had gone quite slack. She fixed it into a smile. “Peachy,” she said, taking off her coat. “Let’s go.”

      He wrapped an arm round her waist. “Are you sure you don’t want to try this alone?”

      “If I knew I’d be able to fly, no problem,” she said. “But I told my folks I’d be there for roast dinner, and if I plunge to my death before that they’ll just think it’s rude, so …”

      They lifted up and drifted beyond the ledge, the world opening up beneath them. Skulduggery redirected the freezing winds so that not a single hair was disturbed on Valkyrie’s head. It was strangely quiet as they flew, surrounded by the howls and shrieks of the mountains but tucked away from it all.

      “The thought has occurred to me that maybe you’ll only start flying when you absolutely need to,” Skulduggery said.

      “Do not drop me.”

      “Indulge me for a moment. The range of your powers is still largely unknown to us, yes? You can fire lightning from your fingertips, you certainly have destructive potential, and you have the burgeoning psychic abilities of at least a Level 4 Sensitive. Plus, you have flown before.”

      “Hovering is not flying.”

      “I bet if I were to drop you, you’d fly.”

      “I’m not sure if I can emphasise this enough, but do not drop me.”

      “The prospect of imminent death could release you from the mental barriers that are holding you back.”

      “It wouldn’t be imminent death, though, would it? You’d catch me. There’s no threat there. You’d save me because saving me is what you do, just like saving you is what I do. The only thing that dropping me would accomplish is to annoy the hell out of me.”

      Skulduggery was quiet for a moment.

      “Do not drop me,” Valkyrie repeated.

      He sighed, and they continued over to the castle, landing beside a pile of Wretchling remains. A sudden gust surrounded them with the stench of putrid meat and human waste. It filled Valkyrie’s nose and mouth and she gagged. As Skulduggery sent the foul air away with a wave of his hand, Valkyrie lunged for the battlements, sure she was going to puke over the side – but she swallowed, managed to keep it down.

      “Sometimes I miss having a sense of smell,” Skulduggery said. “Tonight is not one of those times.”

      Valkyrie spat, wiped her mouth, and stayed where she was for a moment to recover. She felt sure that she’d once been told the proper names for the different sections of the battlements, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what they were.

      The wind whipped her hair in front of her face, so she tied it back into a ponytail, then took a wooden sphere, roughly the size СКАЧАТЬ