The Faceless Ones (Skulduggery Pleasant - Book 3) (8 page)

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"It seems like every second day you come here,'' he said, "mortally wounded, bones broken, bleeding to death, hanging on by a thread, and you expect me to perform some amazingly astounding miracle cure."

"These are mortal wounds?" she asked skeptically.

"Don't be cheeky."

"Sorry."

He shrugged, then shuffled off to the small table beside the bed. The medical department in Kenspeckle's science-magic facility was small, but perfectly formed, and usually quiet--except for the times when one of Kenspeckle's experiments went impressively wrong, or when old gods awoke in the morgue. But nothing like that had happened in months.

"Do you know the problem with people your age, Valkyrie?"

"We're too pretty?" she answered hopefully.

"You think you'll live forever. You rush into situations without considering the consequences. You're thirteen--"

"Just turned fourteen."

"--and how do you spend your days? "

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He came back to the bedside and started dabbing ointment onto the cuts on her hands.

"Well, usually we're on a case, so we're tracking down suspects, or we're doing research, or I'm training, or Skulduggery's teaching me magic, or, you know ..."

"And how, pray tell, do other just turned fourteen-year-old girls spend their days?"

Valkyrie hesitated. "Pretty much the same as me?"

"Amazingly, no."

"Ah."

"Once you become an adult, you can endanger yourself as much as you want, and I promise I will not admonish you, but I'd hate to see you miss out on all the things normal teenagers do. You're only young once, Valkyrie."

"Yeah, but it goes on for ages."

Kenspeckle shook his head and sighed again. He took a black needle and started to stitch the cut on her face. The needle went through her flesh without drawing blood, and instead of pain, she felt warmth.

"Has there been any progress?" she asked. "With Ghastly?"

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"I'm afraid not." He sighed. "I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do. He will emerge from his current state when he emerges, and there is nothing anyone can do to speed up the process."

"I miss him," said Valkyrie. "Skulduggery misses him too, although he'd never say it. I think Ghastly was his only friend."

"But now he has you, yes?"

She laughed. "I suppose so, yes."

"And apart from him, do
you
have friends of your own?"

"What? Of course I do."

"Name three."

"No problem. There's Tanith Low...."

"Who joins you on investigations, trains you in combat, and is about seventy years old."

"Well, yeah, but she
looks,
like, twenty-two. And she
acts
like a four-year-old."

"That's one friend. Name two more."

Valkyrie opened her mouth, but no names came out. Kenspeckle finished the stitching.

"I can afford to have no friends," he told her. "I am old, and cranky, and I long ago decided that people are an annoyance I can do without. But

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you? You need friends and you need normality."

"I like my life the way it is."

Kenspeckle shrugged. "I don't expect you to take my advice. Another problem with young people like you, Valkyrie, is that you think you know everything. Whereas I am the only one who can make a claim like that without fear of ridicule." He stood back. "There. That should keep your face from falling off. The splinters should be out now too."

She looked at her hands, just in time to see the last splinter rise from her skin into the clear ointment. She didn't even feel it happen.

"Wash your hands in the sink, there's a good girl."

She got up, went to the sink, and put her hands under the tap. "Will you help us out?" she asked. "Can Fletcher stay here?"

Kenspeckle sighed. "There is nowhere else to keep him?"

"No."

"And he truly is in danger? "

"Yes."

"Very well. But only because you asked so nicely."

She smiled. "Thanks, Kenspeckle. Really."

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"You'll probably be back to see me again before the day is out," he said as he walked to the door. "You'll no doubt want me to sew your head back on or something."

"And you'll be able to do it, right?"

"Naturally. I'm just going to fetch you a bandage--then you can go."

He left, and Clarabelle breezed in.

"Hello," she said brightly. "You got into another fight. Did it hurt much?"

Valkyrie smiled faintly. "Not really."

"The professor is always going on about how you'd be dead if it wasn't for him. Do you think that's true? I think it's probably true. The professor's always right about things like that. He said one of these days he's not going to be able to save you. He's probably right about that, too. Do
you
think you'll die one of these days?"

Valkyrie frowned. "I hope not."

Clarabelle laughed like she'd just heard the funniest thing ever. "Of course you
hope
you won't die, Valkyrie! Who would
hope
to die? That's just
silly!
But you probably
will
die, that's what I'm saying. Don't you think so?"

Valkyrie dried her hands. "I'm not going to die

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anytime soon, Clarabelle."

"I like your coat, by the way."

"Thanks."

"It's a little small for you though."

"Yeah."

"Can I have it when you're dead?"

Valkyrie paused, trying to think of an appropriate response, but Clarabelle had already flitted out of the room. A few moments later, Kenspeckle returned.

"Clarabelle's odd," Valkyrie said.

"She is at that," Kenspeckle agreed. He fixed a small bandage over the stitches. "Give it an hour or so. The stitches will dissolve. It's not going to scar."

They walked out of the medical bay.

"I heard Cameron Light was killed yesterday," he said. "I've never liked Teleporters, but even so, it's a terrible world we live in."

"Why does everyone dislike Teleporters?" Valkyrie had to ask. "Practically no one I've met has a good word to say about them."

"Teleporters are a sneaky lot. Sagacious Tome was a Teleporter, in case you've forgotten, and he turned out to be a traitor. I just don't trust anyone who would choose it as their magical discipline.

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How are the rest of us supposed to feel safe if there are people out there who can appear anywhere at any moment? When I was a younger man, I had a stifling fear that someone would appear beside me as I was using the toilet--and I had an anxious bladder at the
best
of times."

"Oh my God," Valkyrie breathed. "I didn't need to know that."

Skulduggery was waiting for them at the next corner, and immediately Kenspeckle's face soured. "Are you going to be dragging her into more danger, Detective?"

"She can handle it," Skulduggery said. "Fletcher, on the other hand, cannot. Can he stay here?"

"As long as he doesn't annoy me too much," Kenspeckle replied grumpily.

"I can't promise that."

"Then do me a favor, Detective, and solve this particular case as fast as you possibly can."

"Maybe you could help with that. If you could examine the body of the last victim ..."

Kenspeckle shook his head. "Unlikely. The Sanctuary has its own supposed
experts,
as you well know, and they wouldn't appreciate my ... input. From what I have heard, however, the killer has left

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no traces and no clues. He is, distastefulness aside, quite admirable."

"I'll be sure to pass on the compliment when I'm hitting his face," Skulduggery assured him.

Kenspeckle shook his head. "Do you really think Valkyrie needs a role model who meets every obstacle with his fists? She is at a very impressionable age."

"I am not," she said defensively.

"Valkyrie is doing important work," Skulduggery said. "She needs to be able to handle herself."

"That's right," Valkyrie agreed. "And you're not my role model."

"The war is over," Kenspeckle countered. "Those days of death and mayhem are gone."

"Not for some of us."

Kenspeckle looked at Skulduggery, and there was something in his eyes Valkyrie had never seen before.

"Perhaps," the old man conceded. "For those of you who need it."

Skulduggery was quiet for a moment. "Professor," he said at last, "I hope you're not implying that I
like
the death and the mayhem."

"Without it, where would you be? Or, more to

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the point,
who
would you be? We are defined by the things that we do, Detective. And you tend to hurt people."

Skulduggery's chin tilted slightly. "The world is a dangerous place. In order for people like you to live in relative safety, there need to be people like me."

"Killers, you mean."

The simple viciousness of the words stunned Valkyrie, but Skulduggery's body language showed no signs of anger, or even annoyance. "You are an interesting man, Professor."

"Why is that, Skulduggery? Because I'm not scared of you? Even during the war, with the reputation you and your friends enjoyed, I spoke out against your methods. I wasn't afraid of you then and I'm certainly not afraid of you now."

There was a pause; then Skulduggery said, "We should probably go."

"That's probably a good idea," Kenspeckle agreed. "Valkyrie, it was lovely seeing you again."

"Right," she murmured, unsure.

She walked with Skulduggery to the double doors. Just as they reached them, Kenspeckle spoke again.

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"Detective, have you ever considered the fact that violence is the recourse of the uncivilized man? "

Skulduggery looked back. "I'm sophisticated, charming, suave, and debonair, Professor. But I have never claimed to be civilized."

They walked out, and the doors swung shut behind them.

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Nine

***

T
he Enemy

Tanith Low didn't much like protection detail. It was often dull and deathly boring, and being in the same confined space as the person you were protecting meant a lot of cross words and general crankiness. She just wasn't cut out to be a bodyguard.

But Skulduggery had called her, told her she'd be doing him a favor if she helped out Emmett Peregrine, and she'd said okay. Peregrine wasn't bad anyway, and all he really needed was for her to look out for him while he grabbed a few hours' sleep. By the looks of him, he needed it.

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Tanith didn't agree with Peregrine's choice of safe house, though. They were in an apartment he owned in London, and he insisted nobody knew about it. She'd tried to persuade him to go somewhere else, anywhere else, but he had that Teleporter arrogance she'd seen before. For hundreds of years, he had been a man who could not be captured, or cornered, or hunted, and that arrogance was still with him, even now.

Together, they'd drawn enough protective symbols on the walls of the bedroom so that if anyone entered while he was sleeping, the entire building would know about it. They weren't taking any chances, not when the enemy had someone like Billy-Ray Sanguine in their employ.

Tanith spent the first few hours on a chair in the hall, looking at the door. She took a bathroom break, then went to the kitchen to look for something to eat. She was trying to figure out how the microwave worked when her phone rang.

She answered and a man with a deep Kenyan accent said, "It does my heart good to hear your voice."

She smiled. "Hi, Frightening."

Frightening Jones was an old friend. They'd

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dated briefly back in the 1970s, before he took up a position within the English Sanctuary. Her natural distrust of authority meant that the relationship couldn't continue, but they'd remained close, and anytime he heard something that involved her, he would call and let her know.

"What have I done wrong now?" she asked.

She could hear the TV on in Peregrine's bedroom.

"You've broken no laws lately," Frightening replied, "or at least if you have, you have broken them very, very quietly. No, this is just a routine report that had your name on it. One of my agents has seen you with Emmett Peregrine."

Tanith's smile vanished. "What?"

"You are at his apartment, yes?"

"Frightening, who else knows about this?"

"The agent who saw you, and Elder Strom, whom I report to, and I. Is anything wrong? You can trust my agent, and Elder Strom is a good man. No one is going to hear about this who doesn't have to, I assure you. And of course, Elder Strom has informed the Irish Sanctuary."

Tanith unsheathed her sword. "Why?"

"The Irish are spearheading the Teleporter