Skulduggery Pleasant: The End of the World (3 page)

R
yan spun, grabbed Francine, tried to drag her with him, but she laughed. She got an arm round his throat before he could call for help and hauled him backwards. He kicked and struggled, but she was much too strong, and then he was in the apartment and Foe was closing the door behind them.

Francine released him, and Ryan jumped away, almost colliding with Obloquy. Samuel watched him from the corner of the room.

“If you shout or scream,” Foe said, “we’ll kill you.”

“And then we’ll kill Valkyrie,” said Francine. She looked at Foe, and grinned. “He’s got a little crush on her.”

Foe raised an eyebrow. “Is that right? Well, can’t say I blame you, Ryan – she is a fine-looking girl. If I were a few hundred years younger, I’d be in there like a shot, believe you me. I’m not altogether sure what she’d ever see in
you
, though. You don’t seem quite up to her standard. No offence, but you’re kind of… unexceptional.”

“Maybe he’s hoping she’ll like him for his sense of humour,” Obloquy chuckled.

“Young love,” Foe said, almost wistfully. “If you’re lucky, you might have a chance to confess to her your eternal devotion, so long as you do exactly what I tell you.”

Ryan’s mouth was so dry his voice was a croak. “I’m not going to help you destroy the world.”

“Yes you are.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. If you want to die, why don’t you just kill yourselves and leave everyone else out of it?”

“Where’s the drama in that?” asked Francine.

Foe glanced at her. “That’s getting really disconcerting, you know.”

“Ain’t that something?” she murmured, and Ryan watched as Francine flickered, and he glimpsed someone underneath, someone slimmer, wearing black, with a bandaged arm… And then Francine was gone, and Mercy stood there. “That better?”

“Much,” Foe said, turning his attention back to Ryan. “We’re going to destroy the world because there is absolutely no point to its continued existence.”

There were a hundred things Ryan wanted to say.
That’s it? That’s the reason? You want to kill everyone because you can’t see the point? What kind of stupid, pathetic, selfish reason is that?
But he didn’t say any of it, because he was too scared. Because he wasn’t the hero. Because he was the one who was waiting for someone to rescue him.

There was a knock on the door.

“Francine?”

It was Valkyrie’s voice. Mercy stepped up to Ryan, pressing a blade against his belly.

“Francine,” Valkyrie called, “is Ryan in there with you?”

Foe looked at Ryan, and held his finger to his lips as Obloquy went to the door. The knife dug into Ryan’s skin painfully. He had to warn her. He had to. He couldn’t just stand here and keep quiet.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Mercy whispered. “I can see it all over your face. Just know that if you make a sound, I’ll kill you and cut off your hand.”

Valkyrie knocked again, and Mercy looked towards the door, and a sudden pressure built up inside Ryan until he shoved her away from him. And then Samuel was there, a hand closing round his throat and Ryan was moving with his feet off the ground, slamming back into the wall. Samuel’s fingers were like steel and Ryan’s vision clouded, dimmed, and a distant part of him knew he was about to pass out.

The window exploded. Ryan dropped. He sucked in air and his head pounded. There was movement all around him. Foe flew backwards over the couch. Skulduggery was there, flipping Mercy over his hip. The door came down, on top of Obloquy. Valkyrie, clambering over it, shouting at Ryan to run. Ryan’s legs, like concrete. Around him shouts and curses and the sound of breaking things. Samuel, hitting Valkyrie so hard she folded in mid-air. Foe diving at Skulduggery.

The floor moved and Ryan realised he was stumbling. He didn’t even remember ordering his legs to do it. He climbed over the door, slid down it, rolled out into the corridor. Got to his hands and knees, trying to get his brain back in gear.

“Oh God oh God,” he muttered, and stood, walked and ran, ran down to the corner, through the corridor, running for the stairs, leaving Skulduggery and Valkyrie to fight behind him. He got to the stairs and stopped. He couldn’t. He couldn’t leave them. They’d saved his life. He had this stupid key imprinted on to his hand and they were fighting to protect him. He couldn’t abandon them. He had to help. There was nothing he could do, but he had to help. He had to try. He had to do something. They would want him to run, he knew that. They would want him to run to safety, to leave the fighting to the professionals. They didn’t expect him to turn back and help. But he had no choice.

Ryan turned, ran back the way he had come. An old man was in the corridor, blinking.

“I’ve phoned the police,” he said.

“Get back inside,” Ryan told him. “Lock the door.”

The old man nodded, shuffled out of the corridor, and then Valkyrie came crashing through the wall of his apartment in a shower of broken plaster and chipboard. The old man howled in shock, ran past Ryan, sprinting round the corner with surprising agility. Valkyrie was on the floor in a cloud of dust, groaning and trying to get up. Obloquy climbed through the broken wall after her and saw Ryan.

“Run!” Valkyrie shouted.

Ryan ran.

He got to the corner before he heard Obloquy’s voice in his head –
pain, feel pain, too much pain to move
– and Ryan staggered, doubled up, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He looked back, saw Obloquy, and now he dropped to his knees, trying not to cry out. The pain was building, intensifying, the closer Obloquy got to him, and then Valkyrie was there, covered in dust and swinging both arms, and the pain went away as Obloquy hurtled into the wall.

Mercy stepped out behind her and Ryan shouted a warning, but even as Valkyrie spun, Mercy was opening her mouth, and that red stream of energy slammed straight into Valkyrie’s chest, throwing her back. Skulduggery leaped from nowhere, barging into Mercy, and Ryan scrambled over to Valkyrie, his eyes wide, expecting to see a gaping, bloody hole. But when she came to a groaning stop, there was no injury – just trails of steam that rose from her jacket. He grabbed her, pulled her up.

There were gunshots, and with every deafening bang, Ryan yelped and flinched, but he managed to drag Valkyrie round the corner before either of them was horribly killed. She straightened up, taking a deep breath and rubbing her chest.

He had to ask. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“Protective clothing,” she said, eyes scanning the corridor. “You don’t think I wear this outfit just because it’s tight, do you?”

She ran to the window at the end of the corridor, flattened both hands against the air. The glass exploded outwards and the frame splintered. “Come on,” she said, climbing on to the narrow sill.

“Uh,” Ryan said.

She looked back in. “Move!”

He swallowed, and did what she ordered. As he searched for the securest position possible, fingers curling round the edge of the wall, he tried not to look at the concrete courtyard below them. “We’re… we’re not going to jump, are we?”

She took hold of his arm, and said gently, “Not if you don’t want to.”

He relaxed, his grip on the edge of the wall loosening slightly, and that’s when she stepped off the sill and yanked him after her.

Ryan screamed as they plummeted to the ground, the wind rushing into his mouth and up his nose and through his hair and suddenly it was buffeting them both, slowing their descent. He saw Valkyrie’s hand move, like she was orchestrating the air. They landed heavily, but at least they didn’t go splat.

Ryan staggered away from her. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Skulduggery dropped down in front of him and Ryan screamed again.

“Well said,” Skulduggery muttered, reloading his revolver. “We’d better hurry, now. Come along.”

They ran through the tunnel connecting the courtyard to the street on the other side of the apartment buildings. Skulduggery put his gun away and let his façade flow over his skull. They got in the Bentley and the car roared and shot forward.

“Everyone OK?” Skulduggery asked.

“I’m in pain,” Valkyrie groaned. “Ryan?”

Ryan nodded quickly. “I’m fine. I’m OK. I’m not hurt.”

“Are you shaking yet?”

Ryan looked at his hand. “No.”

“It’ll start any minute now.”

Ryan’s hand began to tremble violently. “Oh wow, yeah. I’m definitely shaking now.” He laughed. It was a weird sound.

“Geoffrey’s going to have his hands full explaining this one,” Valkyrie said as she brushed the dust off her jacket. It rose from her in small clouds.

“Please don’t do that in the car,” Skulduggery said.

“You didn’t say Mercy could do that,” Ryan said. “She changed shape. She’s a shape-changer.”

“Actually,” Skulduggery said, “she’s not. Francine was a psychic image. Basically, an illusion. Physically, there
was
no disguise. That was Mercy sitting at the table, talking to us, in her normal form. But our minds reinterpreted Mercy as Francine. We heard Francine’s voice.”

“I smelled her perfume,” Ryan said.

“All an illusion. The only person in Dublin, in all of Ireland really, capable of disguising her like that is a man called Robert Crasis. In wartime, his skills were invaluable. We might have twenty people ready to storm an enemy position, but thanks to Crasis it would look like we had a thousand.”

“So he’s a good guy?” Valkyrie asked. “Then why did he help Foe?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “I suppose we’ll have to ask him.”

O
n the way to see Crasis, they stopped off so Ryan and Valkyrie could get something to eat. They each bought a Coke and a sandwich, but Skulduggery made them eat with their heads sticking out of the window to avoid crumbs being dropped. Ryan didn’t dare open his Coke in case it fizzed out over the seats, and by the time the Bentley pulled over, his throat was parched.

Skulduggery led the way to an old workshop in a quiet part of town. He knocked on the door and waited. When Robert Crasis opened the door, he looked at Skulduggery and Valkyrie, but barely glanced at Ryan. He was a man in his sixties. He was tall, broad-shouldered. His hair was grey, his jaw coated in stubble.

“Can I help you?”

“Hello Robert,” said Skulduggery. “Mind if we come in?”

“Skulduggery?” Crasis frowned, peering at him. “Since when do you have a face?”

“It’s a relatively new addition. We’d like a word, if that’s OK.”

Crasis hesitated, then stepped back to allow them through the door.

They walked into a carpenter’s workshop, to the smell of wood shavings and varnish. It was a big space, no windows, lit in spots that allowed the darkness to soak in around the edges.

Skulduggery let his face melt away, and he took off his hat and looked around. “This reminds me of your place in Venice.”

“Before it was burned down,” Crasis responded. “Skulduggery, I don’t mean to be rude, but I was really hoping never to see you again.”

“You know why we’re here.”

Crasis shook his head. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “All I want is to be left alone. I’m out of that game, but people… people keep pulling me back in. After years of not being involved in any craziness, suddenly there’s one after another, when all I want to do is be a carpenter and grow old.”

“You
want
to get old?” Valkyrie asked, sounding surprised.

“Staying young isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Crasis said. “I’ve been young and strong and healthy for two hundred years. I’ve had to leave my home countless times to stop my mortal friends from wondering why I never seem to age. Then I met Sarah, and she became my wife, and suddenly I had someone I wanted to grow old with. So I stopped doing magic. Up until two weeks ago, I hadn’t done magic in nearly fifteen years. I went grey. Last month I noticed a bald spot. It was working. I was ageing again. But now? Now it’ll take years for me to age a
day
.”

“This last job you did,” Skulduggery said, “it was for Mercy Charient, wasn’t it?”

Crasis nodded. “They came in the back, the whole lot of them. Deacon Maybury, the idiot, had mentioned what I used to do for the Sanctuary, and they remembered. Of course they remembered. So they came in, threatened me, threatened my wife, my kids… What could I do?”

“We’re not blaming you,” Skulduggery said.

“So I did it. I made her into a frumpy little woman. It wasn’t my best work, but it would do for a few hours, which is all they wanted it for. Sorry if any of you were hurt, but I have a family to protect.”

“We weren’t hurt,” Valkyrie said. “But Deacon Maybury… he was killed a few days ago.”

Crasis looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. He swallowed, and nodded. “That’s a shame,” he said, his eyes drifting down. “He was… I’d like to say he was a good man, but he was… Deacon. I owed him, though. He’s the one who actually introduced me to Sarah. He’d asked her out the previous week and she’d laughed so hard she fell over. It was love at first sight for Sarah and me. So I owed him, I did. It’s a… it’s a real pity I’ll never get to repay him.”

Ryan tried opening his Coke quietly. It fizzed and they all looked at him. He blushed.

“Maybe you can repay him,” Skulduggery said, looking back at Crasis. “When you were working on Mercy, did any of them say anything? They have the Doomsday Machine hidden away somewhere and we need to find it.”

“Foe has the Doomsday Machine?” Crasis said, his eyes widening. “And Deacon was working with those guys?”

“He planned to sell the key to whoever paid him enough,” Valkyrie said.

Crasis stared at her, stared at Skulduggery, stared at Ryan, then stared at his hands. “It’s a good thing he’s dead,” he said. “Because if I had the chance, I’d kill him myself. I did hear something, actually. I heard Obloquy complain that there were always people around whenever they’d check on ‘it’. They never said what it was, but obviously it was the Machine. Mercy was supposed to stay still and quiet while I worked, but she kept moving and joining in with the conversation. She was joking that if their car broke down, they’d all have to get the Luas. She said they’d be riding the tram to the end of the world. I told her to shut up or I’d have to start again. I should have let her keep talking.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a street map of Dublin, would you?” Skulduggery asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Crasis said. “I think I have one somewhere around here.”

He went off to search, and Skulduggery picked up a thick felt pen off a desk that was littered with paperwork. “They’ve hidden the Machine in a public place,” he said, “and it’s somewhere on or near a tram line.”

Crasis came back with a tattered map and laid it out on a large, freshly carved table. Skulduggery started drawing lines down streets, drawing in the routes the Luas tram went down. Crasis and Valkyrie pored over the map and Ryan, not wanting to feel left out, did the same. He put his Coke on the table and did his best to appear as smart as the other people in the room.

When Skulduggery had marked all the routes they examined the map anew.

“Lot of public places,” Valkyrie murmured.

“A very large amount,” Ryan said, nodding like he was contributing.

“Ryan,” Skulduggery said, and for a moment Ryan thought that he’d accidentally solved the mystery.

“Yes?” he said eagerly.

“Could you take your Coke off the map, please?”

“Oh,” Ryan said. “Sorry.” He lifted his bottle. There was now a wet circle around Dundrum. To hide his blush he took a long swig from his drink.

“The heaviest population centres would be here, here and here,” Skulduggery said, marking the map with Xs. “If the Machine is hidden outdoors, we should be looking for areas that have had extensive construction work in the last few years. If it’s indoors, then we’re looking for new public buildings or shopping areas.”

The Coke went down the wrong way and Ryan choked, gagged, and spat a mouthful all over the map.

Skulduggery, Crasis and Valkyrie looked at him.

“Sorry,” he wheezed, before doubling over into a coughing fit.

“Maybe you should get some air,” Skulduggery suggested.

Ryan nodded, coughing too much to respond, and staggered out of the door. His eyes were streaming and he knew his face was glowing an attractive shade of red. He went to the Bentley and leaned against it, finally getting the coughing under control. Not his finest moment.

“How’re you doing, Ryan?”

He looked around as Valkyrie walked up.

“I’m OK,” he said. “Just choking a bit. Sorry about that. I hope I didn’t spit any on you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He became aware of her looking at him and he looked away.

“Why do you do that?” she asked.

“Why do I do what?”

“Why do you look away whenever I look at you?”

“Um,” Ryan said, “I don’t know. I think, once I realise that I’m looking someone in the eye, I forget how long I’m supposed to do it. So, I don’t know, I suppose I look away before it gets weird.”

She smiled. “You’re an oddball.”

“Yeah,” he said, sagging.

Valkyrie didn’t notice the sag. She was looking up the street, watching the people pass. “But that’s OK. We’re all oddballs here.”

Now that she wasn’t paying attention, he could look at her. He liked her face. She was very pretty, had a cute nose and a single dimple when she smiled. He’d always wanted a girlfriend like her – someone impressive, someone confident. He’d like to go back to school once the summer was over and have her beside him. Then everyone would stop and stare, and they’d think to themselves that there must be more to this Ryan guy after all.

But he’d never get a girlfriend like her. He knew that. Girls like Valkyrie saw him as a friend only. They went off with the good-looking guys or the cool guys or the guys who didn’t make fools of themselves at regular intervals. A girl like Valkyrie would never be impressed with someone like Ryan.

He looked away before she looked back. He didn’t want her to catch him watching.

“You’re coping pretty well, you know,” she said, facing him again. “When I first saw Skulduggery and all this stuff, I freaked. I actually blacked out.”

“You fainted?”

“No,” she said, her good humour fading. “I blacked out. There’s a difference.”

He grinned. “You fainted.”

“Shut up. You’re handling this well, that’s all I’m saying. You haven’t once asked to go home.”

His grin went away. “Why would I? You’re not that much older than me, you know.”

She frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’m fifteen. You’re, I don’t know, seventeen?”

“So?”

“That’s only two years’ difference,” Ryan said hotly. “We’re practically the same age and you’re treating me like I’m a child. Fine, OK? You have no interest in me. I’m used to that. But don’t stand there and talk down to me like you’re so much better than I am.”

Valkyrie looked at him and didn’t say anything. He started to feel stupid.

Then she folded her arms and tilted her hips and it only got worse. “First of all,” she said, “I’m not talking down to you
or
treating you like a child.”

“But you expect me to want to go home.”

“Of course I do. You were attacked. You’re in danger. You’re hanging around with people who can do magic. You’ve had what we call in the business a shock. Usually, when people get a shock they want to retreat to a safe place so that they can process what they’ve seen. Most people would want to go home right now. But not you. You haven’t mentioned home, haven’t mentioned your family, haven’t tried to run off or call the cops. You are coping well, Ryan. That’s all I said. That’s all I meant. I have no idea what our ages have to do with anything or what you’re talking about when you say I have no interest.”

“Oh,” he said.

“And the only time you have actually acted like a child,” she said, “is right now. I don’t like petulance, Ryan. I don’t respond well to it.”

“Right.”

“When it comes to this kind of stuff, I’m the only one who is allowed to sulk. Skulduggery understands that. Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“You better be.”

“I really am.”

“I gave you a compliment and you jumped down my throat.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what was all that about having no interest? Having no interest in what?”

“Uh, nothing.”

“Don’t make me hit you, Ryan.”

He winced. “I don’t know, I was just… I thought you saw me as a, you know, as a kid and… I was just saying, that while, obviously, you’d never, like, go out with someone like me, that’s still no reason to talk down to me. Which you weren’t doing, and I apologise again for thinking you were.”

“But what does me going out or not going out with someone like you have to do with anything?”

Ryan tried a smile. “I really don’t know any more. It made sense when I said it.”

She shook her head, looked about to say something else, then stopped. “Oh,” she said. She was looking at him now like Andrea from school had looked at him when he’d asked her to the movies. She was looking at him with a kind of gentle pity.

“It’s OK,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Ryan, we only just met.”

He nodded. “Absolutely.”

“It’s not that I never would,” Valkyrie said, “but I generally go for guys… older than me, you know?”

Ryan tried a laugh. “Like vampires.”

Her tone turned sharp. “We don’t joke about vampires, Ryan.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“I think you’re nice,” Valkyrie said, softening again. “But let’s concentrate on being friends for the time being, all right?”

“Sure. Yep. Don’t worry.”

The workshop door opened and Skulduggery emerged. “Ryan,” he said, “stop leaning against my car.”

“Sorry,” Ryan mumbled, straightening up.

Skulduggery stopped in front of them. He was wearing a different face, and he put his hat on. “I have solved the mystery,” he announced. “Before I take you to where the Doomsday Machine is located, I would like you both to acknowledge how brilliant I am.”

“Uh,” said Ryan, “you’re brilliant.”

“You’re OK,” said Valkyrie.

“That’s good enough for me,” Skulduggery nodded. “Get in the car. We’ve got a world to save.”