'We can't just leave her!' Valkyrie said as they ran.
'Agreed,' Skulduggery said. 'But we can't beat him when he's wearing that armor, that much we know. We need to find a way to get that armor off.'
'What? But the only way we could do that is by getting in close, and we can't get past those shadows!'
'Exactly. So we need to cheat.'
They jumped down the other side, landing beside the Jeep, and found what Skulduggery was looking for.
'Ah,' Valkyrie said. 'Clever.'
'Naturally.'
Valkyrie crept across the rooftop. The battle was over. Unconscious Cleavers lay all around, the Grotesquery was still trying to heal itself, and China was hurt and on her knees.
Baron Vengeous was standing behind her, gazing at his armored hands.
'I can see why someone would choose necromancy,' Vengeous was saying. 'It has its limitations, of course, but for the sheer thrill of using it against one's enemies ... it's hard to beat.
'I fought alongside Vile during the war. I never liked him. He was ... different. He had secrets. But I knew he was powerful. I just never realized how powerful. Nothing compared to the Faceless Ones, obviously, but still. . . potent. And now that power is mine.'
'You're not. . . ,' China muttered.
'I'm sorry? I didn't quite catch that.'
Valkyrie stayed low and kept moving, getting closer.
'You're not in his league,' China said, finding the strength to speak. 'Vile . . . was extraordinary. . . . You just wear his clothes.'
'I wield his power,' Vengeous said. 'I wield the power of necromancy.'
'It isn't yours,' China said, and she laughed and it sounded brittle and painful. 'You're right. Vile was different. He could have used his power to ... to change the world. . . . But you, Baron? You wouldn't know where to begin.'
The victorious smile had drifted from the Baron's face. He gathered darkness in his hands.
'I should have killed you years ago,' he said.
The darkness hit China and flipped her over, and then Billy-Ray Sanguine erupted from the ground behind Vengeous with Skulduggery Pleasant clinging to his back and holding a gun to his head.
Skulduggery threw Sanguine away and dropped his gun, grabbing Vengeous in a choke hold before he could even turn. Valkyrie leaped off the roof and displaced the air beneath her, as Sanguine straightened up. She landed, focused, and splayed her hand, and he shot back off his feet.
Vengeous twisted violently, but Skulduggery held on, and Valkyrie heard a small click amid all the curses, and she saw the armor's chest plate open and a mist of darkness burst forth.
Vengeous screamed in rage and tried to pull away, but Skulduggery had a good grip on the chest plate. He threw it to the ground, and Vengeous stumbled forward. Darkness leaked from the armor and dissipated in the night air.
Vengeous extended a hand and the shadows whipped for Skulduggery, but they were frail and slight. Skulduggery broke them and moved in, hitting Vengeous in the sternum with the heel of his palm. Vengeous gasped and staggered, tried again, but the shadows missed Skulduggery entirely this time, and the detective went low and to the side, raking an elbow across the ribs and then driving it back and down into the kidney.
Vengeous's knees buckled and he hissed in pain.
Something moved in the corner of Valkyrie's eye, and she turned just as Sanguine rammed into her. He took her off her feet and she hit the ground. He was standing right over her, reaching down, and she punched the side of his knee. It hurt her fist but hurt him more, and she rolled and got up, but he grabbed her again, hands on her throat.
She punched him in the gut, in the jaw, but he shook it off and grinned, fingers tightening.
She punched him square on the nose and he howled and she grabbed his little finger and wrenched, and he howled again and let go. She booted him in the groin and he gasped and reached for her, then doubled over as the pain hit.
Vengeous got Skulduggery in some kind of lock that would have torn the muscles and sinew of a man with muscles and sinew. Skulduggery wriggled out of it and went to work with his elbows, slamming them like bullets into Vengeous's face and body.
Sanguine moaned in pain and went to get up, and Valkyrie grabbed him from behind, pressing his own straight razor against his throat.
'So that's where it is,' he said, trying to pull back from the blade, but Valkyrie held him tight.
'Don't even try to do your disappearing act here,' she warned him. 'The moment I see the ground start to crack, you're dead.'
The laugh that escaped his lips was dry. 'You can't kill me, darlin'. You're one of the good guys. That'd be murder.'
She pressed the blade in deeper. 'See if I care.'
She looked up as Vengeous snatched up his cutlass. The blade flashed as Skulduggery held up his right hand to protect himself, and it sliced through his upper arm.
He cried out and fell back, his severed arm falling to the ground, still wrapped in its sleeve. Vengeous kicked and Skulduggery went down, and Vengeous stood over him, cutlass raised.
'Baron!' Valkyrie shouted. He looked over, cutlass frozen in midswing. 'Put the sword down.'
Vengeous laughed. 'Or what? You'll cut Sanguine's throat? Go ahead.'
'I'm not kidding. I'll do it.'
'I believe you.'
'I'll do anythin',' Sanguine pleaded. 'I'll go away, I'll never come back, I'll never see you again, I swear.'
Vengeous looked faintly disgusted. 'Try dying with some dignity, you godless wretch.'
'Shut up, old man!' Sanguine shouted.
Vengeous laughed. 'Look up, girl. It's almost time.'
Valkyrie looked up at the clear night, at the full moon. The Earth's shadow had almost covered it.
'Can you feel it?' Vengeous asked. 'The world is about to change.'
Valkyrie felt a hand close over her own, and suddenly Sanguine was twisting, and she went right over his shoulder, landing in a tumble, the straight razor gone from her grip. She turned, ready to defend herself, but Sanguine took a look at the situation and then looked back at her, folded the straight razor into his pocket, and sank through the ground.
Vengeous smiled at her, then looked down at Skulduggery. 'The eclipse is almost upon us, abomination. The Faceless Ones are coming. Everything I have planned, everything I have dreamed of, is being realized. You have failed.'
'Not yet I haven't,' Skulduggery muttered.
'What are you going to do?' Vengeous mocked.
'Have you a clever surprise in store for me, up your sleeve? Be careful now, you only have one left.'
'Then for my next trick,' Skulduggery said, and then faltered. 'Ah sod it, I can't be bothered thinking up something smart to say. Valkyrie.'
Valkyrie clicked her fingers and hurled a fireball. It struck Vengeous in the chest, and the clothes he wore under the armor went alight. Vengeous cursed and used the shadows to douse the flames, and the revolver skimmed across the ground into Skulduggery's left hand and he fired.
The cutlass fell. Blood started to trickle from Vengeous's burned chest. Vengeous could only stare down into Skulduggery's empty eye sockets.
'But this isn't how I'm supposed to die,' he said weakly. 'Not like this. Not by your hand.
You're . . . you're an abomination.'
'I'm a lot of things,' Skulduggery said, and dropped his gun.
