Читать книгу Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy - Страница 14

Skulduggery Pleasant’s car was a 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental, one of only 208 ever made, a car that housed a six-cylinder, 4.5-litre engine, and was retro-fitted with central locking, climate control, satellite navigation and a host of other modern conveniences. Skulduggery told Stephanie all of this when she asked. She’d have been happy with, “It’s a Bentley.”

They left Gordon’s land via a back road at the rear of the estate to avoid the flooding, a road that Stephanie hadn’t even noticed until they were on it. Skulduggery told her he was a regular visitor here, and knew all the little nooks and crannies. They passed a sign for Haggard and she thought about asking him to drop her home, but quickly banished that idea from her head. If she went home now she’d be turning her back on everything she’d just seen. She needed to know more. She needed to see more.

“Where are we going?” she asked as they drove on.

“Into the city. I’ve got a meeting with an old friend. She might be able to shed some light on recent events.”

“Why were you at the house?”

“Sorry?”

“Tonight. Not that I’m not grateful, but how come you happened to be nearby?”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Yes, I can see how that question would arise.”

“So are you going to answer it?”

“That’s unlikely.”

“Well, why not?”

He glanced at her, or at least he turned his head a fraction. “The less you know about all this, the better. You’re a perfectly normal young lady, and after tonight, you’re going to return to your perfectly normal life. It wouldn’t do for you to get too involved in this.”

“But I am involved.”

“But we can limit that involvement.”

“But I don’t want to limit that involvement.”

“But it’s what’s best for you.”

“But I don’t want that!”

“But it might—”

“Don’t start another sentence with ‘but’.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“You can’t expect me to forget about all of this. I’ve seen magic and fire and you, and I’ve learned about wars they don’t tell us about in school. I’ve seen a world I never even knew existed.”

“Don’t you want to get back to that world? It’s safer there.”

“That’s not where I belong.”

Skulduggery turned his whole head to her and cocked it at an angle. “Funny. When I first met your uncle, that’s what he said too.”

“The things he wrote about,” Stephanie said, the idea just dawning on her, “are they true?”

“His books? No, not a one.”

“Oh.”

“They’re more inspired by true stories, really. He just changed them enough so he wouldn’t insult anyone and get hunted down and killed. Your uncle was a good man, he really was. We solved many mysteries together.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, you should be proud to have had an uncle like him. Of course, he got me into a hundred fights because I’d bring him somewhere, and he wouldn’t stop pestering people, but… Fun times. Fun times.”

They drove on until they saw the lights of the city looming ahead. Soon the darkness that surrounded the car was replaced with an orange haze that reflected off the wet roads. The city was quiet and still, the streets almost empty. They pulled into a small outdoor car park and Skulduggery switched off the engine and looked at Stephanie.

“OK then, you wait here.”

“Right.”

He got out. Two seconds passed, but Stephanie hadn’t tagged along just to wait on the sidelines – she needed to see what other surprises the world had in store for her. She got out and Skulduggery looked at her.

“Stephanie, I’m not altogether sure you’re respecting my authority.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I see. OK then.” He put on his hat and wrapped his scarf around his jaw, but did without the wig and the sunglasses. He clicked his keyring and the car beeped and the doors locked.

“That’s it?”

He looked up. “Sorry?”

“Aren’t you afraid it might get stolen? We’re not exactly in a good part of town.”

“It’s got a car alarm.”

“Don’t you, like, cast a spell or something? To keep it safe?”

“No. It’s a pretty good car alarm.”

He started walking. She hurried to keep up.

“Do you cast spells then?”

“Sometimes. I try not to depend on magic these days, I try to get by on what’s up here.” He tapped his head.

“There’s empty space up there.”

“Well, yes,” Skulduggery said irritably, “but you know what I mean.”

“What else can you do?”

“Sorry?”

“With magic. Show me something.”

If Skulduggery had had eyebrows, they would most likely be arched. “What, a living skeleton isn’t enough for you? You want more?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “Give me a tutorial.”

He shrugged. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. There are two types of mages, or sorcerers – Adepts practise one branch of magic, Elementals practise another. Adepts are more aggressive; their techniques are more immediately powerful. In contrast, an Elemental, such as myself, chooses the quieter course and works on mastering their command of the elements.”

“Command of the elements?”

“Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We don’t command them as such, we manipulate them. We influence them.”

“Like what? Like earth, wind—”

“Water and fire, yes.”

“So show me.”

Skulduggery tilted his head a little to the right and she could hear the good humour in his voice. “Very well,” he said and held up his open hand in front of her. She frowned, feeling a little chilly, and then she became aware of a droplet of water running down her face. In an instant her hair was drenched, like she had just surfaced from a dive.

“How did you do that?” she asked, shaking her head, flinging drops of water away from her.

“You tell me,” Skulduggery answered.

“I don’t know. You did something to the moisture in the air?”

He looked down at her. “Very good,” he said, impressed. “The first element, water. We can’t part the Red Sea or anything, but we have a little influence with it.”

“Show me fire again,” Stephanie said eagerly.

Skulduggery snapped his gloved fingers and sparks flew, and he curled his hand and the sparks grew to flame, and he held that ball of flame in his palm as they walked. The flame intensified and Stephanie could feel her hair drying.

“Wow,” she said.

“Wow indeed,” Skulduggery responded and thrust his hand out, sending the ball of fire shooting through the air. It burned out as it arced in the night sky and faded to nothing.

“What about earth?” Stephanie asked, but Skulduggery shook his head.

“You don’t want to see that, and hopefully you’ll never have to. The earth power is purely defensive and purely for use as a last resort.”

“So what’s the most powerful? Is it fire?”

“That’s the flashiest, that gets all the ‘wows’, but you’d be surprised what a little air can do if you displace it properly. Displaced air doesn’t just disappear – it needs somewhere to be displaced to.”

“Can I see?”

They reached the edge of the car park and passed the low wall that encircled it. Skulduggery flexed his fingers and suddenly splayed his hand, snapping his palm towards the wall. The air rippled and the bricks exploded outwards. Stephanie stared at the brand-new hole in the wall.

“That,” she said, “is so cool.”

They walked on, Stephanie glancing back at the wall every so often. “What about the Adepts then? What can they do?”

“I knew a fellow, a few years ago, who could read minds. I met this woman once who could change her shape, become anyone, right in front of your eyes.”

“So who’s stronger?” Stephanie asked. “An Elemental or an Adept?”

“Depends on the mage. An Adept could have so many tricks up his sleeve, so many different abilities, that he could prove himself stronger than even the most powerful Elemental. That’s been known to happen.”

“The sorcerer, the worst one of all, was he an Adept?”

“Actually, no. Mevolent was an Elemental. It’s rare that you get an Elemental straying so far down the dark paths, but it happens.”

There was a question Stephanie had been dying to ask, but she didn’t want to appear too eager. As casually as she could, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of her jeans, she said, as if she had just plucked this thought out of thin air, “So how do you know if you can do magic? Can anyone do it?”

“Not anyone. Relatively few actually. Those who can usually congregate in the same areas, so there are small pockets of communities, all over the world. In Ireland and the United Kingdom alone, there are eighteen different neighbourhoods populated solely by sorcerers.”

“Can you be a sorcerer without realising it?”

“Oh, yes. Some people walk around every day, bored with their lives, having no idea that there’s a world of wonder at their fingertips. And they’ll live out their days, completely oblivious, and they’ll die without knowing how great they could have been.”

“That’s really sad.”

“Actually it’s quite amusing.”

“No, it’s not, it’s sad. How would you like it if you never discovered what you could do?”

“I wouldn’t know any better,” Skulduggery answered, stopping beside her. “We’re here.”

Stephanie looked up. They had arrived outside a crumbling old tenement building, its wall defaced with graffiti and its windows cracked and dirty. She followed him up the concrete steps and into the foyer, and together they ascended the sagging staircase.

The first floor was quiet and smelled of damp. On the second floor, splintered shards of light escaped through the cracks between door and doorway into the otherwise dark corridor. They could hear the sound of a TV from one of the apartments.

When they got to the third floor, Stephanie knew they had arrived. The third floor was clean, it didn’t smell and it was well-lit. It was like an entirely different building. She followed Skulduggery to the middle of the corridor and noticed that none of the doors were numbered. She looked at the door Skulduggery knocked on, the door that had a plaque fastened to it: ‘Library’.

While they waited there, Skulduggery said, “One more thing. No matter how much you might want to, do not tell her your name.”

The door opened before she could ask any more questions and a thin man with large round spectacles peered out. His nose was hooked and his wiry hair was receding. He wore a checked suit with a bow tie. He glanced at Stephanie then nodded to Skulduggery and opened the door wide for them to come through.

Stephanie realised why none of the doors were numbered – it was because they all led into the same room. The walls between apartments had been taken away in order to accommodate the vast number of books on the shelves. Stacks and stacks of books, a labyrinth of bookshelves that stretched from one side of the building to the other. As they followed the bespectacled man through the maze she saw more people, their attention focused on their reading, people half-hidden in shadow, people who didn’t look exactly right…

In the middle of the library was an open space, like a clearing in a forest, and in this open space stood the most beautiful woman Stephanie had ever seen. Her hair was black as raven wings, and her eyes were the palest blue. Her features were so delicate Stephanie feared they might break if she smiled, and then the lady smiled and Stephanie felt such warmth that for an instant she never wanted to be anywhere else but at this lady’s side.

“Stop that,” said Skulduggery.

The lady let her eyes move to him and her smile turned playful. Stephanie stared, enraptured. Her body felt so heavy, so clumsy; all she wanted to do with her life was just stand here, in this spot, and gaze at pure and true beauty.

“Stop that,” Skulduggery said again, and the lady laughed and shrugged and looked back at Stephanie.

“Sorry about that,” she said, and Stephanie felt a fog lift from her mind. She felt dizzy and staggered, but Skulduggery was there, a hand on the small of her back, supporting her.

“My apologies,” the lady said, giving her a small bow. “I do forget the effect I have on people. First impressions and all that.”

“Seems like every time you meet someone new, you forget that little fact,” Skulduggery said.

“I’m a scatterbrain, what can I say?”

Skulduggery grunted and turned to Stephanie. “Don’t feel self-conscious. The first time anyone sets eyes on China, they fall in love. Believe me, the effect lessens the more you get to know her.”

“Lessens,” the woman named China said, “but never entirely goes away, does it, Skulduggery?”

The detective took off his hat and looked at China, but ignored her question. China smiled at Stephanie and handed her a business card. It was eggshell white and bore a single telephone number, etched with delicate elegance.

“Feel free to call me if you ever stumble across a book or an item you think I might be interested in. Skulduggery used to. He doesn’t any more. Too much water has flowed under that proverbial bridge, I’m afraid. Oh, where are my manners? My name is China Sorrows, my dear. And you are…?”

Stephanie was about to tell China her name when Skulduggery turned his head to her sharply, and she remembered what he had said. She frowned. The urge to tell this woman everything was almost overwhelming.

“You don’t need to know her name,” Skulduggery said. “All you need to know is that she witnessed someone breaking into Gordon Edgley’s house. He was looking for something. What would Gordon have that someone might want?”

“You don’t know who he was?”

“He wasn’t anyone. His master, that’s who I’m after.”

“So who do you think his master is?”

Skulduggery didn’t answer and China laughed. “Serpine again? My darling, you think Serpine is the culprit behind practically every crime.”

“That’s because he is.”

“So why come to me?”

“You hear things.”

“Do I?”

“People talk to you.”

“I am very approachable.”

“I was wondering if you’d heard anything: rumours, whispers, anything.”

“Nothing that would help you.”

“But you have heard something?”

“I’ve heard nonsense. I’ve heard something that doesn’t even deserve to be called a rumour. Apparently Serpine has been making inquiries about the Sceptre of the Ancients.”

“What about it?”

“He’s looking for it.”

“What do you mean? The Sceptre’s a fairy tale.”

“Like I said, it’s nonsense.”

Skulduggery fell silent for a moment, as if he was storing that piece of information away for further study. When he spoke again, it was with a new line of questioning. “So what would Gordon have that he – or anyone else – might want?”

“Probably quite a lot,” China answered. “Dear Gordon was like me: he was a collector. But I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.”

Skulduggery thought for a moment. “Ah.”

Stephanie looked at the two of them. “What? What?”

“The question,” Skulduggery said, “is not what did Gordon have that someone might want to steal, but rather what did Gordon have that someone had to wait until he was dead in order to steal it?”

Stephanie looked at him. “There’s a difference?”

China answered her. “There are items that cannot be taken, possessions that cannot be stolen. In such a case, the owner must be dead before anyone else can take advantage of its powers.”

“If you hear anything that might be of use,” Skulduggery said, “will you let me know?”

“And what do I get in return?” China responded, that smile playing on her lips again.

“My appreciation?”

“Tempting. That is tempting.”

“Then how about this?” Skulduggery said. “Do it as a favour, for a friend.”

“A friend?” China said. “After all these years, after everything that’s happened, are you saying that you’re my friend again?”

“I was talking about Gordon.”

China laughed and Stephanie followed Skulduggery as he walked back through the stacks. They left the library and travelled back the way they’d come.

When they were out on the street, Stephanie spoke up at last.

“So that was China Sorrows,” she said.

“Yes, that was,” Skulduggery responded. “A woman not to be trusted.”

“Beautiful name, though.”

“Like I said, names are power. There are three names for everyone. The name you’re born with, the name you’re given and the name you take. Everyone, no matter who they are, is born with a name. You were born with a name. Do you know what it is?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“Do you know what your name is?”

“Yes. Stephanie Edgley.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s your given name. That’s the name other people handed you. If a mage with any kind of knowledge wanted to, he could use that name to influence you, to attain some small degree of control – to make you stand, sit, speak, things like that.”

“Like a dog.”

“I suppose so.”

“You’re likening me to a dog?”

“No,” he said, and then paused. “Well, yes.”

“Oh, cheers.”

“But you have another name, a real name, a true name. A name unique to you and you alone.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. You don’t know it either, at least not consciously. This name gives you power, but it would also give other people absolute power over you. If someone knew it, they could command your loyalty, your love, everything about you. Your free will could be totally eradicated. Which is why we keep our true names hidden.”

“So what’s the third name?”

“The name you take. It can’t be used against you, it can’t be used to influence you and it’s your first defence against a sorcerer’s attack. Your taken name seals your given name, protects it, and that’s why it’s so important to get it right.”

“So Skulduggery is the name you took?”

“It is.”

“What about me? Should I have a third name?”

He hesitated for only a moment. “If you’re going to be accompanying me on this, then yes, you probably should.”

“And am I going to be accompanying you?”

“That depends. Do you need your parents’ permission?”

Stephanie’s parents wanted her to find her own way in life. That’s what they’d said countless times in the past. Of course, they’d been referring to school subjects and college applications and job prospects. Presumably, at no stage did they factor living skeletons and magic underworlds into their considerations. If they had, their advice would probably have been very different.

Stephanie shrugged. “No, not really.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me.”

They reached the car and got in, and as they pulled out on to the road, she looked at him.

“So who’s this Serpine you were talking about?”

“Nefarian Serpine is one of the bad guys. I suppose, now that Mevolent is gone, he’d be considered the bad guy.”

“What’s so bad about him?”

The purr of the engine was all that filled the car for a few moments. “Serpine is an Adept,” Skulduggery said at last. “He was Mevolent’s most trusted lieutenant. You heard what China was saying, about how she is a collector, how Gordon was a collector? Serpine is a collector too. He collects magic. He has tortured, maimed and killed in order to learn other people’s secrets. He has committed untold atrocities in order to uncover obscure rituals, searching for the one ritual that he, and religious fanatics like him, have been seeking for generations. Back when the war broke out, he had this… weapon. These days he’s full of surprises, but he still uses it because, quite frankly, there is no defence against it.”

“What’s the weapon?”

“To put it simply, agonising death.”

“Agonising death… on its own? Not, like, fired from a gun or anything?”

“He just has to point his red right hand at you and… well, like I said, agonising death. It’s a necromancy technique.”

“Necromancy?”

“Death magic, a particularly dangerous Adept discipline. I don’t know how he learned it, but learn it he did.”

“And what does the Sceptre thing have to do with all this?”

“Nothing. It has nothing to do with anything.”

“Well, what is it?”

“It’s a weapon of unstoppable destructive power. Or it would be, if it actually existed. It’s a rod, about the length of your thigh bone… Actually, I think I might have a picture of it…”

He pulled the car over and got out to open the Bentley’s boot. Stephanie had never been to this part of town before. The streets were quiet and empty. She could see the bridge over the canal in the distance. Moments later Skulduggery was back behind the wheel, they were driving again and Stephanie had a leather bound book on her lap.

“What’s this?” she asked, opening the clasp and flicking through the pages.

“Our most popular myths and legends,” said Skulduggery. “You just passed the Sceptre.”

She flicked back and came to a reproduction of a painting of a wide-eyed man reaching for a golden staff with a black crystal embedded in its hilt. The Sceptre was glowing and he was shielding his eyes. On the opposite page was another picture, this time of a man holding the Sceptre, surrounded by cowering figures, their heads turned away. “Who’s this guy?”

“He’s an Ancient. In the legends, they were the very first sorcerers, the first to wield the power of the elements, the first to use magic. They lived apart from the mortal world, had no interest in it. They had their own ways, their own customs and their own gods. Eventually, they decided that they wanted to have their own destinies too, so they rose up against their gods, rather nasty beings called the Faceless Ones, and battled them on the land, in the skies and in the oceans. The Faceless Ones, being immortal, won every battle, until the Ancients constructed a weapon powerful enough to drive them back – the Sceptre.”

“You sound like you know the story well.”

“Tales around the campfire might seem quaint now, but it’s all we had before movies. The Faceless Ones were banished, forced back to wherever they came from.”

“So what’s happening here? He’s killing his gods?”

“Yep. The Sceptre was fuelled by the Ancients’ desire to be free. That was the most powerful force they had at their disposal.”

“So it’s a force for freedom?”

“Originally. However, once the Ancients no longer had the Faceless Ones to tell them what to do, they started fighting among themselves, and they turned the Sceptre on each other and fuelled it with hate.”

The streetlights played on his skull as they passed in and out of darkness, flashing bone-white in a hypnotic rhythm.

“The last Ancient,” he continued, “having driven his gods away, having killed all his friends and all his family, realised what he had done and hurled the Sceptre deep into the earth, where the ground swallowed it.”

“What did he do then?”

“Probably went for a snooze. I don’t know, it’s a legend. It’s an allegory. It didn’t really happen.”

“So why does Serpine think it’s real?”

“Now that is puzzling. Like his master before him, he believes some of our darker myths, our more disturbing legends. He believes the world was a better place when the Faceless Ones were in charge. They didn’t exactly approve of humanity, you see, and they demanded worship.”

“The ritual that he’s been looking for – is it to bring them back?”

“It is indeed.”

“So he might think that the Sceptre, which drove them away, could somehow call them home, right?”

“People believe all kinds of things when it comes to their religion.”

“Do you believe in any of it? The Ancients, Faceless Ones, any of it?”

“I believe in me, Stephanie, and that’s enough for now.”

“So could the Sceptre be real?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“So what does any of this have to do with my uncle?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery admitted. “That’s why they call it a mystery.”

Light filled the car and suddenly the world was bucking, the only sounds a terrifying crash and the shriek of metal on metal. Stephanie lurched against her seatbelt and slammed her head against the window. The street outside tilted wildly and she realised the Bentley was flipping over. She heard Skulduggery curse beside her and for an instant she was weightless, and then the Bentley hit the ground again and jarred her against the dashboard.

It rocked back on to its tyres. Stephanie looked at her knees, her eyes wide but her brain too stunned to think. Look up, said a faint voice in her head. Look up to see what’s happening. The Bentley was still, its engine cut out, but there was another engine. A car door opening and closing. Look up. Footsteps, running footsteps. Look up now. Skulduggery beside her, not moving. Look up, there’s someone coming for you. Look up NOW.

A window exploded beside her for the second time that night, and the man from the house was grabbing her and hauling her out of the car.