Читать книгу Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 7 – 9: The Darquesse Trilogy - Derek Landy - Страница 41

alkyrie felt odd. Muted, somehow. It wasn’t as if she had been aware of Darquesse inside her at every minute of every day, or heard her voice constantly at the back of her mind, but now she could sense the part of her that was suddenly quiet. It wasn’t fair. Argeddion said it himself – Darquesse would have beaten him. But it was like the best close-combat fighter in the world being taken out by a sniper from a mile away – taken out before the fight had even begun.

Not that she wanted the fight to take place. Of course she didn’t. But if it did happen, she wanted to be as strong as she could be. She wanted to beat anyone who stood against her. She wanted to crush them. There was nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with wanting to survive. To win. To feel that power coursing through her.

She missed that power. She’d grown used to having it there, ready for when she needed it. She missed the voice in her head. No matter how much she ignored it, how much she fought against it, its presence had been reassuring. Facing down a werewolf? Three thugs kicking her half to death? None of that had bothered her because she knew, she knew, that all she had to do was give in for just one glorious moment, and she could feel that power again.

She didn’t tell Skulduggery that. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d understand – it was that he’d understand all too well. And Valkyrie didn’t want that.

But he was busy elsewhere in the Sanctuary. The force field had bisected some of the detention cells, short-circuiting the binding sigils that kept the prisoners’ powers down. Eight of them had escaped, including Silas Nadir. Skulduggery was not happy about that one, but he had more pressing concerns.

Valkyrie saw Tipstaff and followed him because she had nothing better to do. He led her into a room with a large table, at which sat the Elders with Strom and Sult. Tipstaff gave them all a cup of tea and a biscuit. No one spoke.

“Why is Argeddion’s plan such a bad idea?” she asked, breaking the silence. They looked at her blankly. “I mean, I know it’d be different, and the world would change in huge ways, but who are we to say that it wouldn’t change for the better?”

Quintin Strom stirred his tea. “If everyone in the world was suddenly capable of using magic,” he said, “there’d be a frantic scramble for dominance. We’d be looking at a new world order, and humanity would be decimated as each nation struggled to assert itself at the top.”

“Millions would die,” said Ravel. “Billions. There’s a reason Sanctuaries exist. We regulate our people. Keep them in line. Many sorcerers have the potential to be weapons of mass destruction. And in a world as fragmented as this one, with as many religious and political beliefs as it does? A small group of extremists could bring about our end.”

“So just explain all that to Argeddion,” Valkyrie said.

“The man’s been living in a bubble for the past thirty years,” said Ghastly, “and before that he was living in a different sort of bubble, where no one wants to hurt anyone else. He’d never be able to understand the mindset of violent people.”

“What,” said Valkyrie, “you mean people like us?”

Ghastly looked at her. “If we could live in Argeddion’s paradise, we would. And maybe it’s possible – it’d be wonderful to think that it was. But we’d have to step over a generation of dead bodies to reach it. The cost, Valkyrie, it’s just too great.”

“We can’t afford to be idealists,” Ravel said without looking up. “It’s our job to keep the world spinning. We let the mortals change it. As clumsy and as corrupt as they are, this is still their world. We’re just protecting it.”

The door opened and Skulduggery came in. He stood beside Valkyrie, and took his hat off. “Nothing,” he said. “No sign of Argeddion. No idea where he materialised and no traces for the Sensitives to follow.”

“We need to find out who his surprise guest is,” Ghastly said. “If his plan hinges on this guest and the Accelerator, we have to take one of them out. The Accelerator is still behind that force field, but the guest may be vulnerable. How much time do we have?”

“Tomorrow’s Thursday,” Skulduggery replied. “We have until Saturday before his tests are complete. He infected the mortals downstairs to find the best way to infect everyone. I’ve just checked with Doctor Synecdoche, but there was no change in their condition when Argeddion awoke.”

“And what about this Greta Dapple?” Ravel asked. “If he planned this out to coincide with her birthday, which is a sweet but psychotic thing to do, then maybe she plays a bigger part in this.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Maybe she does. She isn’t at her house and she isn’t answering her phone. I have people looking for her. If we can find her, she could lead us straight to Argeddion.”

“And what do we do when we find him?” Sult asked. “What can we do?” He looked to Strom, Strom looked to Ravel, and Ravel looked to Skulduggery.

“I’m working on it,” he said.

The drive back to Haggard seemed to take for ever. Valkyrie fell asleep twice, and woke up both times by bouncing her head against the window. “Ow,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Skulduggery. They were on country roads, and his skull was in complete darkness. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “My head feels empty. He just... cut her off from me. I don’t have her any more.”

“If it’s permanent, that could be a cause for celebration.”

“But Darquesse and Vile might have been our only weapons against him.” She sighed. “What are we going to do? This isn’t as clearcut as usual. Kitana and Doran and Sean and Silas Nadir... those are the people we’re used to dealing with. Killers. People who hurt other people. But Argeddion... he’s not like them.”

“Argeddion is as dangerous as anyone we’ve faced,” Skulduggery said. “He may not be out to physically hurt us, but his goals are just as damaging. We need to treat him just like any other hostile.”

“Would you kill him?” asked Valkyrie. “He’s a pacifist who only wants to help people. And there’s no guarantee that mankind would destroy itself. It might all work out according to Argeddion’s plan. Who are we to say it won’t?”

“Are you willing to take that risk?”

“I just... I don’t feel right about this. He wants to make the world a better place and we want to keep the world as it is. That doesn’t sound particularly... heroic.”

“We have to maintain the status quo, Valkyrie. It’s not our job to change the world. That’s for the mortals to do.”

“So you would kill him?”

There was a pause. “I believe his plan would result in billions dead. Yes, I would kill him.”

“I… I don’t think I could.”

He turned his head to her. “I’m not asking you to.”

The Bentley pulled in at the pier and Valkyrie got out. It was just past ten but she was exhausted. The air lifted her to her window and she climbed in. Her room was empty. She sat at her desk, where schoolbooks lay open. She yawned, and her reflection came in. It shut the door behind it.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” it said back. “You look like you’ve had a rough day.”

“Rough enough.”

“Where’s your jacket?”

Valkyrie glowered. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go to bed. You finished our homework?”

It shook its head. “Another half-hour or so, I’d say. Can you wait until then?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll go for a walk, actually.” She got up. “Hey, I want your opinion on something.”

“Sure,” said the reflection, stepping towards the mirror.

“No,” said Valkyrie. “I want your opinion as the reflection of me the last time I was here, not as the reflection of me now. If you know what I know, then your perspective will be my perspective, and I don’t want my perspective. I want your perspective.”

“For anyone else, that would be overly complicated. OK. What do you want your old perspective on?”

“Argeddion is out. He’s free. He wants to make every mortal magic and live in a kingdom of enlightenment and righteousness. It sounds lovely, to be honest, but according to Skulduggery and the others, it’d never work and we’d all end up killing each other. But he’s really powerful, and the only way we had to stop him was to...”

“Become Darquesse,” said the reflection.

“Yes. But I can’t do that any more. He got in my head, he blocked her off. I can’t Hulk out and Argeddion took Skulduggery’s armour, made it vanish. It’s not destroyed, or else all the Necromancer magic would return to Skulduggery, but it’s hidden.”

“You’re disappointed.”

“Argeddion’s at least as powerful as Darquesse. We needed her.”

“Needing her is dangerous.”

“I know.”

“You might have been able to stop Argeddion, but who would stop you?”

“Hopefully, Skulduggery.”

“He’d have put on the armour and gone after you? After what happened last time?”

Valkyrie collapsed back into her chair. “I don’t know. Yes. He did it before.”

“He stopped you, eventually, after you both tore up O’Connell Street. You tried to kill people. You tried to take down a helicopter. And what about Skulduggery? When he puts on that armour, he’s a killer. You know he is.”

“But last time—”

“Last time was a fluke,” the reflection said. “Somehow, he managed to regain control of himself and he talked you down. But if you let her take over again, she won’t go so quietly next time.”

“Well, we don’t have that option any more.”

“That shouldn’t have even been an option. Argeddion has a plan that might backfire – but your plan was to send two killers after him? What’s the term that was used before? World-breakers? You were going to send two world-breakers after him? There is a risk of his plan going wrong and resulting in death and destruction. But if you had unleashed Darquesse, you’d be guaranteeing that people would die.”

“Skulduggery would have stopped me.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I trust him.”

“And that’s the problem.”

“What? What’s the problem?”

The reflection hunkered down and rested her folded arms on Valkyrie’s knees. “China told you once that Skulduggery would kill you without hesitation if he had to. He’d sacrifice anyone for the good of the mission. When you realised you were Darquesse, this was practically a comfort. You knew that if things got bad enough, you could rely on Skulduggery to put a bullet in your brain to stop you from killing your parents.”

“That’s ridiculous. I never—”

“You can lie to yourself,” the reflection said, “but you can’t lie to me.”

Valkyrie shut her mouth.

The reflection continued. “But things have changed. Your relationship with Skulduggery has deepened, you know it has. You know the lengths he would go to for you, and that’s the problem. Valkyrie, he would sacrifice the world to save you.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“No,” said the reflection. “But it’s what you suspect.”

“He wouldn’t let me do that. He just wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not. But he’d waste time. He’d second-guess himself. He’d look for another way. He wouldn’t go for the kill shot when he was given the chance, and by then, it might be too late. You don’t have that reassurance any more. It’s the two of you against the world. But that’s not what you need. You need him with his finger on the trigger, and the gun to your head. You should be thankful Darquesse is no longer an option. I can’t see how it could have ended well.”

Valkyrie sighed. “How am I supposed to know what to do?”

“You’re not,” the reflection said gently. “You’re seventeen. You’re supposed to be dealing with school and hormones and dim-witted parents. You’re supposed to be finding out who you are as a person.”

“But I already know who I am,” Valkyrie said. “I’m a world-breaker.”

She changed her clothes. It was still warm outside so she pulled on jeans and a different T-shirt and went for a walk along the pier, listening to the dark waves against the rocks, then turned and walked up into Haggard. She passed the takeaway that had sprung up when the Pizza Palace had gone out of business. The video shop was gone, too. A lot of things had changed in the last five years.

Carol Edgley came out of the takeaway holding a steaming bag of food. She saw Valkyrie and hid the bag behind her back. “Hi, Stephanie,” she said. She was blushing.

Valkyrie gave her a smile. “Hiya, Carol. Oh my God, that smells amazing.”

“Uh, do you... do you want to share?”

“Would you mind? Just one or two.”

Carol hesitated, then brought the bag out and opened it. She offered it to Valkyrie, who took a small handful of piping hot chips. Her stomach rumbled; she realised she was starving. She blew on them a few times before eating.

“These are so good.”

Carol smiled, and had a few herself. They walked towards the corner of Main Street, where the road split.

“How are things?” Valkyrie asked.

“Good,” Carol said. “Grand.”

“How’s your mum?”

“Fine. She joined a bridge club.”

“I didn’t know she liked bridge.”

“She doesn’t, but ever since we started defending you she needed a wider range of people to disapprove of.”

Valkyrie took another few chips, and grinned. “You know, if it makes your life any easier, you can always go back to agreeing with her.”

“No. No way. Those days are gone. Look at everything we missed out on because we were too busy being selfish. Gordon chose you to have all these adventures. He could have easily chosen us if we’d been nicer or cooler or, I don’t know, happier. It’s like Mum just kind of trained us to be miserable. Dad spoiled us and Mum was a bad example and look how we turned out. And then look at your mum and dad. They’re cool, and funny, and weird, and genuine. They’re genuine, y’know? Mum isn’t genuine.”

They walked along for a bit, with Carol eating her chips and Valkyrie looking at her. “She’s not all bad.”

“No,” Carol said. “She isn’t. She’s my mum, and I love her, but she’s not a nice person. You mightn’t think we realise that but we do.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Valkyrie admitted. “I don’t want to agree with you, because that’d be mean. And I can’t really argue...”

Carol laughed, and Valkyrie smiled.

“But no one’s perfect,” she continued. “My folks can get just as annoying as anyone’s.”

“But you had a head start,” Carol said. “They gave you that, and that’s what makes them cool. They didn’t spoil you. They criticised you when you needed it. They didn’t treat you like you were this little princess that only they could see. You were way more independent at twelve than we are even now. Do you understand that? The twelve-year-old version of you was more of a grown-up than I am right now, aged twenty.”

“I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”

They reached the corner and Carol turned to her. “Look at me, Valkyrie. I mean, just look at me. I’m a slob.”

“No, you’re not.”

“It’s ten o’clock on a Wednesday night and I’m walking home with a bag of chips, just like I do every night. I’m fat. I’ve always been fat and I’ve always hated being fat but I’m too lazy to do anything about it. I start diets but they’re too hard so I stop, and eat more. I’m fat and Crystal is thin, she’s way too thin and she won’t listen to me, she won’t believe me when I tell her she’s too skinny. She always says no, she hasn’t reached her target weight yet, and she gets thinner and thinner and I can see her bones now. I know you’re used to that with Skulduggery, but it’s a lot different when it’s your sister.”

“Yeah.”

“And then we look at you. Even from here I can see the muscles on your arms.”

“I have to be strong to do what I do. If I wasn’t involved in all this, I’d be just like you guys.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d still be tall, for a start, and you’d probably be swimming every day or horse-riding or something.”

“Well, that’s all you need to do. Whenever I’m not working on a case with Skulduggery, I train really hard. I practise magic, I fight, I lift weights, I work out. Every few months Skulduggery brings in another friend of his who’s an expert in some fighting style I’ve never heard of and I get thrown about the place. Whatever muscles I have I got through hard work and sweat. And I hated most of it. But all you have to do is find the activity that you enjoy and you won’t care about how hard the work is.”

“I’ve... I might have found an activity.” Carol looked away. “I’ve been, kind of… I’ve been practising magic.”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

“Just the fire stuff,” Carol said quickly. “I’m not really good with the air, and I don’t know about the water and earth, but I can click my fingers and sometimes things go on fire.”

“Sounds... dangerous.”

“I keep a bucket of water beside me when I do it.”

“Listen, I don’t want to tell you not to practise. I don’t have that right. You have magic in you, it’s part of your heritage, just like it’s a part of mine. But you’re taking a risk every time you do it. What if your mum sees you? Or your dad? They’d freak out, Carol. They’d call every emergency service they could think of. You could get into a lot of trouble.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Can you at least try not to set fire to anything? That’s going to raise some suspicions sooner or later.”

“I won’t do it in the house any more.”

“OK. Thank you.”

“Do you want another chip?”

Valkyrie smiled, and took one.

“Are you working on a case at the moment?” asked Carol.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Anything exciting?”

“A few days ago I wrestled an Abominable Snowman.”

“No way!”

Valkyrie grinned. “Yep. That was pretty cool. Really bad breath, though. Like, disgusting.”

“Eww.”

“And I’ve been to an alternate universe.”

“Seriously? Like on Star Trek?”

Valkyrie laughed. “Since when do you know about Star Trek?”

Carol looked around, like someone might be listening, then leaned in. “Don’t tell your parents, but Mum loves Star Trek. When we were kids, we used to watch the reruns of the original series, Next Generation, DS9... She liked Voyager more than we did, and none of us liked Enterprise... But she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s a Trekkie, so...”

“I promise I won’t tell, no matter how amused it might make me.”

“Thank you. So what was the alternate universe like? Are there evil versions of everybody? Is there an evil version of me?”

Valkyrie laughed. “Sadly, no. Our histories ran parallel up to a few hundred years ago, so none of us have been born.”

“Oh. That sucks.” Carol ate another chip. “Wouldn’t it be cool to find out what your evil version would be like?”

Valkyrie made a face. “Not really...”

She walked Carol back to her house and they finished off the bag of chips. Carol told her about this guy she liked in college, and they giggled and laughed and when Carol walked to her front door, she had a bounce in her step, and looked lighter than her frame would suggest. Smiling to herself, Valkyrie took the little lane down to the beach and walked back to her house along the sand. She got to her room, the reflection went back into the mirror, and she stripped down to underwear and a T-shirt and climbed into bed. Sleep came quickly.

She didn’t know what time it was when the throbbing in her arm woke her, but it was still dark as she lunged out of bed. She grabbed her phone and her ring off the bedside table and stumbled to the wardrobe. The world flickered around her and a wave of dizziness sent her into the mirror. Her ring fell from her grip. She reached for her black clothes as the reflection stepped out and then the bedroom was gone and Valkyrie was falling through empty space. She hit the ground and rolled, sprawling on to her back.

Her house was gone. She sat up, groaning, looking down towards the pier as the waves crashed and churned. The modern houses were gone. Old walls crumbled beside dirt tracks instead of roads.

She sat there on the untamed grass, in her underwear and a T-shirt, her phone clutched in her hand. She didn’t have her protective clothing. She didn’t have her Necromancer ring. The only thing she’d managed to do right was release her reflection, so at least her family wouldn’t notice her departure. That was something, at least.

“Looks like we’re in trouble,” her own voice said, and she whipped around to see her reflection sitting behind her.