did. Two days, and it looks brand-new.'
Skulduggery nodded. 'Cost me a fortune.'
'It's worth it.'
'Glad you think so. Also glad that I don't have to eat anytime soon. Or at all.'
She smiled and looked at him. He was looking out the windshield. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
'What is it?' she asked.
'I'm sorry?'
'You're thinking about something.'
'I'm always thinking about something. Thinking is what I do. I'm very good at it.'
'But you've just figured something out.'
'And how did you know that?'
'You hold your head differently when you've just figured something out. So what is it?'
'It just occurred to me,' he said. 'In the cave, the Scepter's crystal warned Serpine that I was close — but it didn't warn him that you were right there beside him.'
She shrugged. 'Maybe it didn't see me as a threat. It's not like I could have hurt him or anything.'
'That's hardly the point,' Skulduggery said. 'We may have found a weakness in the ultimate weapon.'
Stephanie frowned. 'What?'
'Remember what Oisin, the nice man in the Echo Stone, said?' Skulduggery asked. 'The black crystal sang to the gods whenever an enemy neared, but it was silent when the Ancients took it.'
'So, what, it thinks I'm an Ancient?'
'Technically, according to your father at least, you might well be.'
'Does that mean you're starting to believe that they were more than just legends and myths?'
'I'm . . . keeping an open mind about it. The thing I still don't understand, however, is why Gordon didn't tell me about your family history. We were friends for years, we had conversations about the Ancients and the Faceless Ones that went on for days, so why didn't he tell me?'
'Does it mean anything else? Being descended from the Ancients, I mean. What does it, what...'
'What does it signify?'
'Yes.'
'It means you're special. It means you're meant to do this, you're meant to be involved in this world, in this life.'
'I am?'
'You are.'
'Then maybe that's why he didn't tell you. He wanted to write about it from the outside, not be stuck in the middle of it all.'
He cocked his head. 'You're wise beyond your years, Valkyrie.'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes I am.'
Chapter Twenty-four
Planning for Murder
Mr. Bliss stood in the palm of the Grasping Rock and watched Serpine approach. The Grasping Rock was shaped like a massive upturned hand, jutting from the peak of the mountain, fingers curled, as if reaching for the sun in the blood-red sky.
Serpine climbed into the palm with ease, and Bliss bowed slightly. Serpine, for his part, merely smiled.
'Do you have it?' Bliss asked.
'Luckily for you, yes.'
'Luckily for me?'
'My dear Mr. Bliss, if I had gone down to those caves and emerged without the Scepter, where would that have left you? You would be standing in one of those cages in the Sanctuary's jail, powerless, awaiting judgment. Instead you are here, standing with me, on the verge of a new world. Be thankful.'
'You seem to forget that if you had emerged with nothing, you'd be in the cage next to me — '
Serpine looked at him. A short time ago they would have been equals. But not now.
' — my master,' Bliss finished respectfully, inclining his head.
Serpine smiled again and turned his back to him, looking out through the curled fingers of the rock and down at the valley below them.
'Is it as powerful as the scholars have imagined?' Bliss asked.
'What the scholars have imagined pales in comparison to the reality. No one can stop us now.'
'The Elders,' Bliss said.
Serpine turned his head. 'I have a plan to deal with the Elders. They are nothing if not predictable, and they will die because of it. Meritorious himself will crumble to dust. Nothing can stand in our way.'
'The Elders may be predictable,' Bliss responded, 'but that is not a trait Skulduggery Pleasant shares with them.
He's cunning, powerful, and very, very dangerous.'
'Do not concern yourself with the detective. I also have a plan to deal with him.'
'Oh?'
'Skulduggery Pleasant has always had one weakness — he forms attachments to people who are very easily killed. In the past it was his wife and child. Now it is this girl who is with him, this Valkyrie Cain. He is a threat to us only if he is thinking clearly. You know as well as I do that once he becomes angry, his judgment is clouded.'
'So what an you going to do?'
'I have already done it, Bliss. I have sent someone to . . . cloud his judgment. In less than an hour, Valkyrie Cain will be dead, and Skulduggery Pleasant will trouble us no longer.'
Chapter Twenty-five
The White Cleaver
By the time they got to Denholm Street, day had been beaten back and the night was soaking through the city. It was a long street, dirty and quiet. The Bentley pulled up outside the warehouse. Ghastly and Tanith were waiting for them when they got out.
'Anyone inside?' Skulduggery asked, checking that his gun was loaded.
'Not as far as we can tell,' Ghastly said, 'but they could be masking their presence. If Serpine is in there, or Bliss, we're going to need backup.'
'They aren't here,' Skulduggery said.
'How do you know?' Stephanie asked.
'Serpine used this place for something, something big and strange enough to raise a few eyebrows. He'd know eyebrows were being raised, he'd know I'd hear about it, so he's already moved on.'
'Then why are we here?'
'You can only anticipate what someone is going to do if you know exactly what that someone has just done.'
They approached the single door, and Tanith put her ear against it and listened. After a moment, she put her hand over the lock, but instead of the lock breaking, this time Stephanie heard it click.
'How come you can't do that?' Stephanie whispered to Skulduggery. 'It's faster than picking a lock, and quieter than blasting the door down.'
He shook his head sadly. 'A living skeleton isn't enough for you, is it? What does it take to impress young people these days?'
Stephanie grinned. Tanith pushed the door open, and they went inside.
The door led straight into the warehouse office, a dark, poky room with a desk and an empty cork-board. The place obviously hadn't been used by any reputable company for quite some time. The office had a door that opened out to the warehouse proper, and beside it a grime-covered window that Stephanie peered through.
'Seems quiet enough,' she said.
Skulduggery hit a few switches on the wall, and lights flickered on. They walked out onto the warehouse floor. There were pigeons in the rafters high above them, cooing and hooting and fluttering from one perch to the next, startled by the sudden light. They walked to the middle of the warehouse, where an array of what appeared to be medical machinery was collected around an operating table. Stephanie looked at Skulduggery.
