'Did Tanith come and see you?'
Valkyrie nodded. 'Came by earlier, on her way to the airport. She told me Mr. Bliss was seeing to the Grotesquery, taking it apart and stuff.'
'Taking it apart, separating it into all its original components, then chopping it up, cremating and scattering the remains. It's safe to say that the Grotesquery won't be returning. Or if it does, it'll be in really, really small pieces.'
'And Vile's armor?'
Skulduggery hesitated. 'Thurid Guild has it. Apparently he plans to hide it away where no one can ever use it for evil again.'
'Do you believe him?'
'I believe he plans to hide it away until he has a use for it.'
Valkyrie got up so that she was standing beside him. 'Are you still fired?'
'I am.'
'But don't they see that it was his greed and his stupidity that helped Vengeous escape in the first place?'
Skulduggery's head tilted. 'Who are they? There is no they. Guild is the Grand Mage —
he's the one in charge. There is no one to watch the watchmen, Valkyrie.'
'There's us.'
He laughed. 'I suppose there is.'
There was a gust of wind that blew her hood down. She didn't fix it. 'So what are you going to do?'
'I'm going to do what I've always done: solve crimes and save the world, usually with mere seconds to spare. Although, granted, this time it was you who saved the world. Well done, by the way.'
'Thanks.'
'We'll get by. It won't be easy, operating without the Sanctuary's resources, but we'll manage. There is something larger at work here. It isn't over.'
Her hair was plastered to her scalp, and the rainwater ran in sheets down her face.
'Sanguine's mysterious bosses.'
'Indeed. Someone is working behind the scenes, keeping out of the spotlight as much as possible. But I fear that time is coming to an end, and we need to be ready for whatever happens next.' He looked at her. 'Bad things are coming for us, Valkyrie.'
'That seems to be what bad things do, all right.'
With the wind and the rain, she almost didn't feel it, but she saw the way Skulduggery tilted his head, and so she examined the sensations that the air brought to her skin. The air currents twisted and writhed, but there was a space behind them that the air buffeted, in the same way that the sea buffeted the pier.
They turned slowly and saw the vampire. Its arms were sinewy, and veins stood out against its wet white skin. It was hungry, yet to feed, and it was having difficulty breathing. But it had survived, and now it was looking for its first prey. It bared its fangs and its black eyes narrowed. Muscles coiled.
It came at them through the rain, and Skulduggery was moving, taking his gun from his coat, and Valkyrie summoned a flame into her hand and prepared, once again, to fight.
DEREK LANDY
lives near Dublin, Ireland. Before writing his novels about a well-dressed, sharp-tongued skeleton detective, he wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a little thriller in which everybody dies. He is a black belt in Kenpo Karate, an occasional teacher of self-defense to children, and an avid player of computer games. To find out more about him and the world he has created in his novels, go to www.skulduggerypleasant.com .
