Читать книгу Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12 - Derek Landy - Страница 216

hina Sorrows wasn’t in the library that took up an entire half of the tenement building’s third floor, and neither was she in her apartment across the hall, which took up the other half. China’s assistant, the thin man who never spoke, merely cast his eyes downwards when Skulduggery asked him her whereabouts, but apparently, this was sufficient.

Valkyrie followed Skulduggery down the dank staircase. His façade was up, but still refused to settle. She watched as his face started to drift round to the back of his head.

“Where are we going?” she asked. A pair of dull green eyes floated slowly through Skulduggery’s hair.

“To the basement.”

“I didn’t know this place had a basement.”

“There wasn’t one until China bought this building and commissioned the work to add a sub-level. Even the people living here don’t know about it.”

“You’ve got eyes in the back of your head, you know, and I don’t mean that as compliment.”

“I know,” said Skulduggery sadly.

“How can you even see right now?”

He glanced back at her. The mouth of the façade was gaping wide over his left eye socket.

“That is so wrong,” she murmured.

They continued walking.

“There’s only one reason why China ever goes down into the basement,” Skulduggery said. “Well, it’s also where she keeps her car. OK, so there’s only two reasons why she ever goes down there, apart from the fact that it’s secure and dry and it works well as a storage area. So that’s three, only three reasons why she ever goes down there, and apart from the car and the storage, the main reason is privacy. Seclusion. Why does she need privacy and seclusion?”

“Don’t know.”

“She needs privacy and seclusion when she catches someone trying to steal from her.” They reached the ground floor.

“How do we get there?” Valkyrie asked. “Is there an invisible elevator? A trapdoor? Oh, is it one of those fire station poles that we get to slide down?”

Skulduggery went to the broom closet, and opened the door. There were no brooms in there, and no floor. There were only—

“Stairs,” Valkyrie said, disappointed.

“Not just ordinary stairs,” Skulduggery told her as he led the way down. “Magic stairs.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.”

She followed him into the darkness. “How are they magic?”

“They just are.”

“In what way?”

“In a magicky way.”

She glared at the back of his head. “They aren’t magic at all, are they?”

“Not really.”

The basement was cold. A dim bulb struggled valiantly against the darkness. They walked down a narrow corridor between chain-link walls, passing stacks of boxes and crates. Rusted pipes crossed the ceiling, the failing light making them look like boa constrictors, liable to drop down and snatch the pair of them up and slowly squeeze the life out of them. Out of her. Skulduggery had no life to squeeze.

They heard voices ahead. Finally, the chain-link maze came to an end, and they stepped into a wide-open space, illuminated only by the headlights from an idle car. A man was on his knees, doing his best to shield his eyes. Whether he was shielding his eyes from the blinding light or the blinding beauty of the woman who stood above him was hard to tell.

China Sorrows was cast in half-shadow. Her raven hair was tied off her face in a simple ponytail. The light hit her back and made her clothes shine and her skin glow. She held a book by her side. Skulduggery and Valkyrie stayed where they were, watching silently.

“I’m sorry!” the man sobbed. “Oh God, Miss Sorrows, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do it!”

“You didn’t mean to hide this book under your jacket and leave without telling me?” China clarified. “This is a very valuable edition, and would be sorely missed from my collection.”

“Please. Please, I have a family. They’re starving.”

“And so you planned to feed them the book?”

“No … No, but …”

“You planned to sell it then. To whom, I wonder?”

“I don’t … I can’t …”

“If you tell me who the interested party is, I will let you go.” At a wave of her hand, a section of wall opened up at the top of a concrete ramp – obviously the means of exit for her car – and daylight flooded the gloom. “You will never be allowed back here, and you will cross the street and run away to avoid me, but I will take no further action. Against you. The actions I will take against the interested party, however, will be quite severe, even by my standards. I never ask twice – my patience is quite short. You will tell me now.”

He sagged. “Eliza Scorn.”

If there was any reaction shown in China’s face, the shadows hid it. “I see,” she said. “You may leave.”

“I … can?”

China sighed, and the man scrambled up, wiped his eyes, and hurried towards the ramp.

“Wait,” China said. She looked at him for a long moment. “If you return to Eliza Scorn without this book, she will most likely kill you and your pathetic starving family.” She held it out. “Take it.”

“Really?”

“I have three more around here somewhere. Take it before I change my mind.”

He scurried back to her, accepting the book. “Thank you,” he wept. “Thank you for your kindness and your, and your beauty. I … I love you, Miss Sorrows. I’ve never loved anyone as much as—”

“You have a pathetic starving family to get back to, you grubby little man. Get back to them.”

He tore his eyes away from her and ran, wailing, up the ramp and out into the alley. The wall closed up behind him, and China turned, allowing the light to cast itself over her perfect features.

“An act of kindness,” she said, “purely for your benefit, Valkyrie. I know how much you dislike me being mean to people.”

Valkyrie stepped out of the shadows, smiling. “Kindness suits you.”

“Really? I think I’m quite allergic to it. Now what can I do for you both? Perhaps you are here seeking my opinion on matters discussed at this top-secret meeting to which I was not invited?”

“You may not have been there,” Skulduggery said, “but I’m sure a woman of your resources has heard detailed accounts of everything that was spoken about.”

“Nonsense. That meeting was highly confidential. Congratulations, by the way.”

Skulduggery grunted. “There’s nothing to congratulate.”

“Don’t be so modest – I haven’t laughed so hard in years. Erskine, possibly, has the makings of a good Elder, and Corrival Deuce is an inspired choice for Grand Mage. But you? Skulduggery my dear … that is inspired lunacy.”

“Yes, well, we’ll see how it all pans out, but I’m afraid we’re here on matters much more cosmetic.” Skulduggery took a step out of the gloom, and China saw his drooping face.

“Oh dear,” she said.

“It gets better when I do this.” He began slapping himself and shaking his head violently, causing the face to tighten slightly.

“Well,” China said, “at least you’re keeping your dignity. Come. Keep the façade active.”

She touched the car and the headlights went out. They followed her out of the basement and up the stairs.

“What have you heard about Tesseract?” Skulduggery asked as they climbed. His bottom lip hung over his chin like a dead slug.

“The Russian killer? Why on earth would you want …” China looked down at them, her pale blue eyes narrowed. “He’s in the country?”

“You didn’t know?” Skulduggery asked, actually sounding shocked.

There was a brief flicker of annoyance on China’s perfect face, and then it evaporated. She turned, and resumed climbing to the third floor.

“Here is what I know about Tesseract. Born and raised in Russia, somewhere between three and four hundred years ago. He is an Adept, nobody knows who trained him, and nobody knows how many people he’s killed. He wears a mask – again, nobody knows why. He lives in a truck of some description. He’s self-sufficient, doesn’t need to resupply for weeks at a time. His method of communication is a mystery to me – how those who require his services get in touch with him, I confess, I do not know.

“What all this means is that he could be living across the street from me and I’d never know it. It means that I have not heard one single rumour about him in twenty years, and the fact that he is here and I didn’t know about it causes me no small amount of alarm and drives me to unimaginable fury. I am, however, hiding it well. You are sure he is here?”

“We saw him,” said Skulduggery.

They reached the third floor and stopped talking as a man and a woman passed. The man stared at China, entranced by her beauty. The woman stared at Skulduggery, repulsed by the face that was slowly sliding down his head. China led them into her apartment – to Valkyrie it was as beautiful and elegant as China herself – and shut the door after them.

“He went after Davina Marr,” Skulduggery said.

China’s eyebrow raised. “Did he kill her?”

“He came close.”

“Do you have her?”

“She’s somewhere safe and secure – you don’t have to worry about her. This can’t be repeated to anyone, of course.”

“Who do you think I am, some cheap and tawdry gossip-monger? Sit. Loosen your tie.”

Skulduggery did as he was told, and China took a small black case from her desk. From the case she withdrew a calligraphy pen that reminded Valkyrie of a scalpel. She dipped it in black ink before taking a monocle from a side pocket. She crossed to Skulduggery, undid a few shirt buttons to expose the symbols carved into his collarbones, and examined them using the monocle. “Have you questioned Marr yet?” she asked.

“She remains stubbornly unconscious,” he answered. “However, the very fact that someone sent an assassin after her has told us an awful lot. Up until now I was almost prepared to believe that Marr acted alone. She could have enslaved Myron Stray of her own volition, put the Desolation Engine into his hands, and arranged for Valkyrie and myself to get caught in the blast. I was close to putting her actions down to pure anger and a petty need for revenge that escalated into something terrible. But that doesn’t hold up. Not any more.”

“Because of Tesseract?” Valkyrie asked.

“Tesseract was put on her trail, which leads me to believe that she had co-conspirators who have since abandoned her, and now want her silenced.”

China put down the monocle, pressed the pen against the symbol on Skulduggery’s left collarbone, and applied pressure. “If there is a conspiracy, who would gain from the destruction of the Sanctuary? There has been a five-month period where there has been no Sanctuary, no Grand Mage, and yet from what I can see, there has been no dramatic upsurge in antisocial activity. Whoever organised this seems to have missed their opportunity.”

“Unless the scale is far grander than we imagine,” Skulduggery said.

“Now you just sound paranoid.” Whatever China was doing to the symbol was having an effect on Skulduggery’s face. It tightened until it almost split, then loosened again. “If you’re right about this grand conspiracy, by the way, you might want to consider the possibility that Marr never really stopped working for the American Sanctuary.”

“We’ve thought about that,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie?”

“OK,” Valkyrie said, “so two years ago, Marr is working for the American Sanctuary. Thurid Guild offers her a job in Ireland, thinking she won’t be able to resist the chance to work at a Cradle of Magic because, let’s face it, every day here is an adventure. She tells her bosses, they tell her to accept the job, but to work undercover for them. Any Sanctuary around the world would want to gain a foothold in a country with this much raw magic at its core, and America is no different.

“She starts work, proves to be as good at her job as everyone expects, but all the time she’s looking for a way to bring down the Sanctuary. The Americans need a crisis so they can swoop in. Marr eventually gives them that crisis.”

“The problem with that theory,” Skulduggery continued, “is that once the Sanctuary is destroyed, the Americans do nothing, and then Corrival Deuce gets elected as Grand Mage, with Ravel and myself as possible Elders. I really can’t see how that would benefit the Americans, or anyone else, in the slightest.”

“That should do it,” China said, stepping back. Skulduggery looked up at her, his face staying put. “It was off by a millimetre in depth,” she explained. “An unforgivable mistake on my part, and yet I think I shall manage to forgive myself. Could you deactivate the façade now?”

Skulduggery tapped the symbols, and the face slid away. “You want me to use it only when I have to?” he asked.

“Not at all,” China said. “It’s just that talking to you when you have a face is quite disconcerting. I much prefer you as a skeleton.”

“Me too,” Valkyrie agreed.

As Skulduggery stood up and buttoned his shirt, China began to pack away her equipment. “Then maybe it isn’t the Americans,” she said. “Maybe Marr was working undercover for somebody else.”

“It could be someone who just doesn’t like us,” said Valkyrie. “We’ve already had Dreylan Scarab and Billy-Ray Sanguine come after us for revenge, so what about other bad guys we’ve beaten? What about Jaron Gallow? No one’s heard from him since he chopped off his own arm and ran away from the Faceless Ones. And Remus Crux. If there’s anyone crazy enough to want to kill that many people, it’s that lunatic.”

“It’s not Remus Crux,” China said.

“How do you know?”

“Because Davina Marr would never work with someone so unstable.”

“Then what about the Torment? Roarhaven stands to benefit a lot from this. They get the Sanctuary right in the middle of their creepy little town.”

“But that still doesn’t grant them any great degree of power,” Skulduggery argued, fixing his tie. “There will still be a Council of Elders, and an entire staff of non-Roarhaven sorcerers. All they gain is the proximity of location.”

“Which is not a good enough reason to set off the Desolation Engine,” China said. “The Children of the Spider are known for their cunning, but the fact is, this may have nothing to do with Roarhaven.”

“I still think the Torment is behind this,” Valkyrie muttered.

Skulduggery’s smile was in his voice. “Is that because he tried to get me to kill you?”

“I think he’s behind this because he’s a horrible old man who turns into a giant spider. But mostly because he tried to get you to kill me. There are still plenty of others to choose from, though. And don’t forget, we only have Scarab’s word that he wasn’t behind it. This might be his last bid for revenge before he dies in prison, to make us think there’s someone else out there.”

“So,” Skulduggery said, “to sum up: Davina Marr’s co-conspirators could either be the Roarhaven mages, the Americans, or anyone else who just doesn’t like us.”

China smiled. “I’m just glad we could narrow it down.” She walked from the room, Valkyrie and Skulduggery following her into the library. “And may I say what a privilege it is to be involved in this investigation at its inception. It fills my heart with warmth to know that, finally, you trust me enough to bother me with things at a much earlier stage than I am used to or am, indeed, happy with.”

“They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” Valkyrie said.

China glanced at her. “They’ve obviously never met me.”

“The fact is,” Skulduggery said as they walked through the labyrinth of bookcases, “over the past few years you’ve proven yourself to be someone who can be depended on.”

“And the unfortunate side effect of that,” Valkyrie continued, “is that you get to join our little crime-fighting club, whether you like it or not.”

China stopped, and turned to them, a slight frown on her face. “Does this mean … Please don’t tell me this means we are all now friends. I have done very well without friends up to this point and I have no intention of developing any now.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You make us sound like a rash.”

“An irritation that shows up when you least want it? I think the analogy is quite apt.”

“You do realise that I know what all the big words you’re using mean, right?”

“And there I was, trying to baffle you with my verbiage.”

“Understood that, too.” Valkyrie glimpsed a familiar face in among the stacks. “Be right back,” she said. They walked on and she approached her friend. “This is where we first met,” she said.

Tanith Low looked up, and smiled. “God, that seems like a hundred years ago. You were so small.”

“I was never small.”

“And so narrow. Now look at you. How are the arms?”

“I’m not showing you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. We’re in the middle of a library.”

“A library frequented solely by freaks and other assorted weirdos. I haven’t seen the arms in weeks. Come on.”

Valkyrie tried to sigh, but ended up grinning. She unzipped her jacket and took it off.

“Damn,” Tanith said, drawing the word out. “I hope Fletcher appreciates all the work I’ve put in to making his girlfriend rock solid.”

“I’ve told him I’m aiming to have shoulders like yours. He kind of dribbled when he heard that.” Valkyrie put her jacket back on. “But I was never small.”

Tanith laughed, slid the book she’d been reading back on to the shelf. “You were so unsure and innocent and wide-eyed and shy … Well, maybe not shy.”

“Never shy.”

“But definitely unsure. I knew from the moment I met you we’d be friends, you know.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t know we’d be quite so close, but I saw you and I went, yeah, she’s cool. Hadn’t a clue you had anything to do with why I was over here, though. Things kind of worked out quite well, didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did.”

“My folks say hi, by the way. And my brother wants to meet you. He’s heard so much about the great Valkyrie Cain.”

“Your parents are lovely, and I’ve seen a picture of your brother. I definitely want to meet him.”

Tanith wagged her finger. “You, my dear, are a one-man woman. Stick with Fletcher, and stay away from my older brother.” Tanith’s smile faded slightly. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“I said ‘one-man woman’ and you … you practically flinched.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Everything OK with Fletcher?”

“Yes,” said Valkyrie. “Things are great.”

“And you’re happy with him? Still having fun?”

“Sometimes it’s like leading a child around, but yes, absolutely, still having a laugh.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Valkyrie said, and laughed.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know who—”

Tanith looked into her eyes.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

“Oh no what?”

“Not him.”

“Tanith, I really don’t know what you’re on about.”

“The vampire, Val? Really? The vampire?”

“He has a name.”

“He’s a vampire!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, OK? Nothing happened!”

“Oh, that’s a big old lie right there.”

Valkyrie prepared to argue, but she knew there was little use. She sagged. “Fine. OK. We kissed.”

Tanith covered her face with her hands. “No. No no no. You can’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything. It was a one-off. It’s not going to happen again.”

“He’s too old for you.”

“I know that.”

“And he’s a vampire.”

“Tanith. Caelan has problems, but he’s not like the others.”

“Valkyrie. You’re insane. He’s exactly like the others. This isn’t some brooding Gothic rubbish.”

“I swear to God, I know all this. I explained to him, it’ll never happen again. I’m not in love with him, for God’s sake. It meant basically nothing.”

“It might have meant nothing to you,” Tanith said, “but I can tell you that it meant a lot to him.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“It will be. Val, I hate to disapprove of anything that you do. We’re friends. I shouldn’t lecture you. I should support you. And I will. And I do. But something like this, you’re just going to have to forgive me, because I’ll keep going on about it until it’s over for good.”

Valkyrie nodded. “I understand that.”

“I take it Fletcher doesn’t have any idea?”

“God, no.”

“Good. There’s no point in hurting him and destroying your relationship when you don’t have to. It was a mistake.”

“Yes, it was,” said Valkyrie.

“And it’ll never happen again.”

“No, it won’t.”

“But if it does, you can talk to me about it and I won’t shout at you too much.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not even going to ask if Skulduggery knows. If Caelan’s still alive, that means he doesn’t.”

Valkyrie nodded her agreement, the truth of that statement making her uneasy.

They walked out of the stacks, to where Skulduggery and China were talking.

“Oh, good,” China said without enthusiasm, “Tanith’s here.”

Tanith’s smile made no effort to reach her eyes. “Hello China. You’re looking radiant as ever.”

“And your leather seems to have shrunk since the last time I saw you,” China responded. “Don’t you all have somewhere else to be? It’s not that I want you to go, it’s just that I don’t want you to stay.”