Death Bringer by Derek Landy
High Priest Craven glanced at him distastefully, then looked back at Scapegrace. “This is one you turned? Why is it still with you?”
“I’ve tried getting rid of him,” Scapegrace offered. “But he keeps coming back.”
High Priest Craven sighed. “No matter. I have a task for you, zombie. You will obey without question.”
Scapegrace nodded eagerly. He had only just met his Master, but already he could tell that the Necromancer was a very important man.
Thrasher hurried forward. “Can I obey too?” he begged. “All I do here is clean the toilets. I long to serve!”
The Master’s lip curled. “If you shut up and move away from me, yes, you can obey.”
Thrasher squealed with delight and ran back beside Scapegrace.
“I need you to steal something for me,” the Master said. “It looks exactly like this.” He showed them a gold disc, the size of his palm. “There is undoubtedly one to be found in the offices of the Elder Mages. All I need is one. When you have located said disc, substitute it with this forgery.” The Master threw the disc to Scapegrace. He snatched it from the air and held it close to his heart. “Do not, under any circumstances, arouse suspicion. It is to be a straight swap. Do you understand?”
“Yes Master,” Scapegrace said.
“Yes Master,” Thrasher said, and started bowing like the pitiful fool he was. It was an utterly pathetic display. Scapegrace got to his knees, showing everyone what real bowing was.
The Master looked at them both, and then shifted his eyes to the man who had held the door open. “These are the only zombies in town? We’re absolutely sure there are no others?”
The man shook his head sadly.
The Master looked annoyed. “Very well,” he said. “They’ll have to do.”
Scapegrace was so happy he could have cried, had his tear ducts not long since dried up.
Chapter 43
A & E
lice’s eyes were wide open, watching the activity in the Accident and Emergency Room with interest as Valkyrie rocked her with her free hand. Her other arm was flat on the table as a cute doctor stitched her up.
“You sure you’re OK?” he asked again.
“I’m grand,” she said. The leaves she’d chewed while she waited for the cops to show up were still working to dull the pain. She winced every time the needle went through her skin, but that was more for show than anything else. He’d already stitched the cut on her hip, assuring her as he did so that there probably wouldn’t be a scar. She’d shrugged. A scar on her hip was the least of her worries.
She heard her mother’s voice, looked over as a nurse led her parents into the A&E.
“There,” the doctor said. “Finished. I’ll have a nurse bandage this up. I swear, I wish all my patients were as calm as you, you know that?”
“Thanks. I wish all my doctors were as hot as you.”
He laughed, then stood aside as Valkyrie’s mum barged through, arms out to hug. She stopped abruptly, backed off, looked at the doctor.
“Is it OK to hug her?” she asked.
“We actually encourage it,” he said, smiling, and walked off as the hug came on.
“My baby,” her mum said. “My poor baby.”
“I’m fine,” Valkyrie said, her voice muffled. Her eyes flickered to her dad, who was checking on Alice. He looked grim. She wasn’t used to him looking grim. Her mum started crying. Automatically, Valkyrie stiffened, blinking back the tears that had sprung up without warning and now threatened to spill over.
“Mum,” she said, laughing as she pulled away. “Mum, I’m grand. Look. Not a bother on me.”
“Your face,” her mother said.
“Cuts and bruises, already fading.”
“Your poor arm.”
“Stitched up and healing. Honestly, I’m fine.”
“He beat himself up in his cell,” her dad said. He was still looking at Alice. “That’s why they let him out. They should have been outside. The moment they let that scumbag walk free, they should have parked a squad car outside the house.”
“Dad, they didn’t know he knew where we lived, and they certainly didn’t know he’d want some kind of stupid revenge for getting thrown in jail in the first place. You can’t blame them.”
“They let him go.”
“This isn’t their fault.”
He looked at her for the first time. “He could have…”
“Des, don’t,” her mum said, her hand covering her mouth. “Please. Don’t say it.”
Valkyrie made herself smile. “Hey, the pair of you, snap out of it. Alice slept through the whole thing and I’m fine.”
A nurse came over. “Excuse me? I just have to bandage up your arm.”
“Bandage away,” Valkyrie said.
The nurse smiled, started working. “I heard what happened,” she said. “They’re all talking about it. I thought you might like to know that the man who attacked you is being treated in a secure room, surrounded by three very angry-looking Guards. You broke four of his ribs, his nose, his jaw, cracked three fingers, knocked out three teeth, and gave him a concussion. He was seeing two of you, do you know that?”
Valkyrie’s mother blinked. “Stephanie did all that?”
“She sure did,” said the nurse. She secured the bandage in place. “I’ll be right back with the paperwork.”
The nurse walked off. Valkyrie’s parents stared at her.
“What?” Valkyrie asked as innocently as she could. “I’ve been taking self-defence lessons at the gym. Hard Target Krav Maga type stuff. Combatives, things like that. It’s really not a big deal.”
“But he was a grown man,” her mother said.
“There’s not really a lot of point to self-defence if you can’t use it against just that type of person. Oh, Mum, your vase got broken. The one in the hall. Sorry.”
Her mum blinked. “That’s… quite all right. It was an ugly vase and I never liked it anyway.”
“See?” Valkyrie beamed. “It’s worked out well for everybody.”
“Are you sure you’re not in shock?”
“Honestly, I’m good. I’m just glad Dad wasn’t there or he’d have thrown him through another window.”
Her mum smiled, and hugged her husband. “I have a family of fighters,” she said. “Alice, it looks like it’s up to you and me to be the reasonable ones.”
Alice gurgled.
Her parents drove her home. It was weird, sitting in the back seat of a car. She almost felt like a kid. Music was playing and she started singing softly to Alison. Alison smiled, and Valkyrie laughed.
They got home and spent the evening cleaning up the mess. There was a knock on the door and her dad went to answer it. He came back in, paused, then spoke. “Fletcher’s here,” he said. “I told him if he’s here to argue with you, he should just walk away. But he said he’s not. Maybe you should talk to him.”
Her mum nodded. “He’s a nice boy. He deserves it.”
“Yeah,” Valkyrie said. “I know.” She took a breath, then walked into the hall. Fletcher stood in the doorway. She stuffed her hands in her jeans. “Hi,” she said.
He looked at her. “Go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
He turned, started walking down the path. She followed him out, closing the door behind her. They walked towards the park.
“Are you talking to me again?” she asked.
“I suppose I am,” he said. “You look like you’ve been in the wars.”
“You know me, always running into trouble.”
“And coming out the other side. That’s the important bit.” He kicked a pebble and it skittered away. “I don’t forgive you,” he said. “I’d like to. I’d like it if we could just forget about it all, get back together, carry on like before. But that’s not going to happen.”
“I know,” said Valkyrie quietly. “But I don’t want you to hate me, Fletch.”
“That’s a little out of your hands, though, isn’t
“I suppose.”
“It’s kind of hard to stay angry at you. You probably don’t feel you did anything wrong, do you?”
“Of course I do. I cheated on you.”
“But why?”
“Because I was stupid, and I didn’t think about it, and—”
“No,” Fletcher said. He looked at her. “At the time, what was going through your head? Why did you do it?”
“How is this going to help anything?”
“It’ll help prove my point.”
Valkyrie sighed. “I thought, at the time, that you were being too… boyfriendy.”
“Is that the technical term for it?”
“You were being too protective. You were…”
“Go on.”
They were in the park now, sticking to the well-lit areas. There was nobody else around. “You were lecturing me. You were disapproving of the things I did. I thought it was all just too safe, you know?”
“And you turned to Caelan. Who is anything but safe.”
“I suppose.”
“So when you cheated on me, you knew why you were doing it. You could justify it.”
“To a degree.”
“So in your head, it was all my fault.”
“What? No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Val, you did what you did, you made those decisions, because you were doing what you thought was the right thing for you at the time. I try to be angry but I just… can’t. You did what you thought was best for you. That’s how you live. You never set about to be mean or cruel. These are just things that happen, kind of like a side-effect.”
“Because I’m selfish.”
“Yeah. Because you’re selfish. Maybe you’ll grow out of it in a few years. I don’t know. I hope you do.”
“That’d be nice,” she murmured.
“I don’t hate you,” said Fletcher. “I may not like you all that much right now, but I don’t hate you. And I really don’t think it’d be a good idea to be around you any more. I’m moving.”
Something yanked at Valkyrie’s heart. “Where to?”
“Australia. I like it there. It’s warm, and they talk funny.”
“But what about your training?”
“Australia’s a Cradle of Magic, just like Ireland. There’ll be plenty of boring old people over there who can offer me useless advice, same as here. What’s wrong?”
“I just… I don’t want you to go. We weren’t just boyfriend and girlfriend. We were friends, too. I don’t… I don’t have many friends. I don’t want to lose another one.”
“Well, you break a heart, that’s what happens.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
“Besides,” he said, “I’m a Teleporter. We’re never really that far away, wherever we are. Take care, Valkyrie.”
She went to speak but he vanished mid-step.
She turned round, walked home.
Chapter 44
Mission Accomplished
or once, Scapegrace didn’t mind the midday sun, or how harsh it was on his skin. He would gladly let the seasons rot him away if that was the Master’s wish – although he sincerely hoped it wasn’t. He climbed down from the Penguin-Mobile to the dirt track, and hurried over to where High Priest Craven and the White Cleaver were waiting. Secret meetings were exciting.
“Sire,” Scapegrace said, dropping to one knee and holding the gold disc up to him with both hands. “I have returned.” Thrasher fell to both knees beside him, hands clasped in prayer.
“I see that,” High Priest Craven said, snatching up the disc. “You did as I instructed?”
“Oh yes, Sire.”
“Exactly as I instructed?”
“I located Ghastly Bespoke’s quarters, let myself in—”
“Let ourselves in,” Thrasher corrected.
“– and then I located the disc. I substituted—”
“We substituted,” Thrasher corrected.
“– the fake disc you had given me, and returned here to you, now, with the real disc. So now he has the fake disc and you have the real disc. I live only to serve.”
“We live only to serve,” Thrasher corrected.
“You don’t live,” the Master said, examining his prize. “And nobody saw you?”
“Nobody, Sire. I was like the wind.”
“We were like the wind,” said Thrasher.
“But I was like the wind more.”
“I was more breeze-like,” Thrasher said, and bowed forward until his forehead was touching the ground. It was, once again, an unsurprisingly pathetic display, and one that Scapegrace would have no problem surpassing.
He laid himself flat on the ground, face stuck into the dirt, and waved his arms in the air. “Give me another order, Master, I beg of you.”
“Me too,” Thrasher said, lying beside Scapegrace, doing his best to wriggle deeper into the dirt. Furious, Scapegrace started wriggling alongside him.
“If you were not already dead,” the Master said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I would gladly kill you both. Stop wriggling, and listen very closely. I want you to gather more like you.”
“More zombies?” Thrasher asked, spitting out a small stone.
“I said listen, not talk. I want twenty by this time tomorrow. If you fail me…”
“I won’t,” said Scapegrace.
“I won’t,” said Thrasher.
“He might,” said Scapegrace.
“Shut,” the Master said, “up.”
Scapegrace stayed where he was until the Master and the White Cleaver were gone, and then he got up. Thrasher stood beside him, brushing the dirt from his clothes. “You’re pathetic,” Scapegrace sneered.
“I know,” Thrasher said meekly. “But whenever the Master is around, nothing else matters but him. It’s like he said, zombies are made to serve Necromancers. That… that doesn’t mean I still don’t value your leadership, sir.”
“Yeah, well,” Scapegrace said, curling what was left of his lip, “just don’t you forget it.”
Chapter 45
The Nicest Town in Ireland
eoffrey had been the key.
It was a good trick, all right, getting people to believe whatever he told them. He hadn’t reckoned on Kenny’s journalism training being able to renew his interest in the story, but that wasn’t Geoffrey’s fault. It was a fluke, nothing more. Kenny had no trouble believing that Geoffrey’s power would work on anyone. And that had got him thinking.
He had spent the last few days digging out all the reports he’d found that had later been retracted. He read over them again with fresh eyes, with a new perspective. What if these reports hadn’t been hoaxes or mistakes? What if they were genuine, and had only been retracted after someone like Geoffrey had convinced the poor, frightened people that they hadn’t seen what they’d thought they’d seen?
Kenny had laid all these reports out on his floor, and he’d spent hours going through them. One of them caught his eye. Only a few lines long. A few years ago, a man in north County Dublin had called the cops after witnessing a dark-haired girl fleeing from a pack of white-skinned “animals” who ran on two legs. The girl – he hadn’t seen her face – led them towards the pier.
His statement was taken by the local cops. The next day he denied ever seeing such a thing. The day after that, the cops who had taken his statement denied ever doing so. It would have been completely forgotten about if Kenny hadn’t been such a keen collector of oddness.
It was a long shot, Kenny knew. There were plenty of darkhaired girls in Ireland. There was absolutely no reason to think that it was the same girl who Geoffrey had called Valkyrie Cain. But the name of the town in which this had happened was Haggard, which was only a kilometre or two from the town in which there had been all that Insanity Virus trouble at that nightclub. And so Kenny got the bus to Haggard. He stayed in a B&B and talked to the couple who owned it about any odd occurrences they might have heard about. Odd? they said. Sure nothing
By the end of his second day, he was believing that. Haggard was rapidly becoming the nicest town in Ireland, where nothing weird ever happened.
The oddest thing, according to a small old man in a farmer’s cap who didn’t appear to have any teeth, was a car that had been showing up regularly for the last five years or so. Kenny didn’t know much about cars, but he knew what a Bentley was when the old man mentioned it. A real beauty too, apparently. A few times a week, usually at night, the Bentley could be seen driving through town. Nobody knew who owned it. Sometimes there’d be a passenger, a dark-haired girl. She always kept her head down.
Kenny felt the flutter of excitement building inside him. It was them. He knew it was. It had to be.
His attention caught by this mysterious Bentley, Kenny didn’t pay much attention to the news that a local woman had been mugged on Main Street. Everyone was talking about it. Melissa Edgley had had her handbag snatched by a thug called Ian Moore. Melissa’s husband had thrown Moore through a window, and the cops had come and Moore had been escorted into a cell. No magic or super powers involved.
But then, the next day, they were all talking about Moore again. The Guards had been forced to let him go, the nice people of Haggard said, and he’d gone straight to Melissa Edgley’s house looking for revenge. Melissa’s daughter, Stephanie, had been home with her new-born sister, and Stephanie had managed to overpower the thug and call the police. The poor girl, the good people of Haggard said. She must have been terrified. It must have been awful. Isn’t it great how she overpowered him, though? Isn’t that amazing? Wonder how she did it?
And then the good people of Haggard would shrug. But then, she’s always been an odd one, has that Stephanie.
And Kenny’s interest was piqued.
Chapter 46
The Requiem Ball
here was a box on the table when they walked into Skulduggery’s house. It was done up with a ribbon tied into a bow. Valkyrie opened it, took out a beautiful black dress.
“Wow,” she said.
“Normally, Ghastly would have been happy to make you a dress,” Skulduggery said, “but all his spare time is invested in tracking down Tanith. So I thought I’d spoil you.”