Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 10 - 12. Derek Landy

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       21

      Cadaverous preferred the silence. The others – Lethe and his gang of misfits – hadn’t returned to the prison yet, so he didn’t have to suffer through the banality of their conversation. There was no one there to engage with, anyway, no true discussions to be had. Debate with people so limited was a pointless exercise. He didn’t even hear the convicts, tucked away in their cells, as they begged for freedom. He was not their jailer and he would not be their saviour. He was just an old man listening to the voice in his head.

       You are close, Cadaverous. Come to me.

      Cadaverous enjoyed this time alone. He wandered the prison corridors and searched the offices, stepping over discarded scythes and fallen automatic weapons while he checked for hidden passages.

      Two hours after beginning his search of the prison’s lower area, he found rough-hewn steps leading downwards, and downwards he went, feeling the cold and the damp seep into his bones. His flashlight was new, its bulb powerful, but the darkness ate up the beam, swallowed it, as if there were no walls for it to hit, no features for it to catch.

      There was just the dark down here. The dark and the voice.

       You will be rewarded.

      He licked his dry lips. There was only one reward he was interested in, something he had possessed once, all too briefly, before it had been snatched away from him. He hadn’t known what he’d had. He hadn’t known the value of it until it was gone.

      Free me, said the voice, and I will make you young again.

      The walls closed in and the beam swept over the cold stones, which were wet to the touch. The walls brought a new sharpness to his footfall. The reflected light illuminated his frozen breath. He slipped on the steps, almost went tumbling, had to jam his hand against the wall to save himself, opening a cut along his palm. He examined it under the light, watching the blood trickle. He wiped it on his shirt. He couldn’t feel the pain.

      At the bottom of the steps there was a steel door the colour of storm clouds. He took out the set of keys that he’d found in the control room and looked at each key in turn. He found the one most likely to fit and eased it into the lock. It turned smoothly, with a deep and satisfying clunk, and he pushed the door open.

      It was a small room. Circular. No light. No ornamentation. In the middle of the room, there was a metal box on a pedestal.

      Cadaverous approached. The hair on his arms, on the back of his neck, stood on end. The ring held a small key, much smaller than the others. He found it by touch, unable to take his eyes off the box.

      The key turned in the lock. The lid opened ever so slightly.

      Cadaverous pocketed the keys and reached out with trembling hands. He hesitated only a moment, then raised the lid fully. It was surprisingly heavy.

      In the box, there was a heart.

      In his head, there was a voice.

      It said, Good.