Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (43 page)

Valkyrie sat up, yawned, stretched both arms above her head.

“I’m still here,” Skulduggery told her, and she yelped, almost fell out of bed. “Sorry,” he said. “You looked like you’d forgotten about me.”

“I had,” she said, glaring. “Did we get a call?”

“Yes, we did. One of the mages stationed at St Brendan’s School saw someone answering Kitana Kellaway’s appearance in the vicinity. We may as well drop by on our way to the Sanctuary to check it out.”

He stayed in her room while she took a shower, then she dressed in her school uniform and went down to the kitchen. She had a quick breakfast, said goodbye to her folks, and left the house. She hurried round the corner, rose up to her window and climbed through. Skulduggery turned his back while she pulled on her black trousers and boots. She pulled on a black top, really missing her jacket. Then they both dropped down to the garden. Sixty seconds later, they were in the Bentley, driving for Haggard’s Main Street.

Behind St Brendan’s Secondary School there was a closed-down supermarket, and at the rear of that there was a small car park. It was here that they found the dead sorcerers. Five of them, their bodies torn and ruptured. Skulduggery muttered something Valkyrie couldn’t hear and she turned away, went to the brick wall that acted as a boundary between the car park and the school grounds. She used the air to hoist herself to the top and straddled the wall.

“It looks quiet,” she said.

Skulduggery rose into the air until he was standing on the wall. “We’ll have reinforcements here in ten minutes. We should wait.”

“That’s what we
should
do,” Valkyrie agreed, swinging her leg over and dropping down on to school grounds.

Skulduggery drifted down beside her as she walked. “It really doesn’t seem fair,” he said, checking his gun. “Those sorcerers trained for years to develop their powers, and these kids wake up one morning and they’re able to tear them apart with a gesture.”

“They’re not kids,” Valkyrie said. “They’re the same age as me. Do you think of me as a kid?”

“No, but then I’ve never defined you by your age.”

“Then don’t define them by their age, either. They’re not kids, they’re murderers.”

“If you’re telling me not to go easy on them because they’re under eighteen, you don’t have to worry.”

“So you’re going to be your usual ruthless self?”

“It’s been working well for me so far.”

She glanced behind them. “Did you know any of the sorcerers back there?”

“I knew all of them,” he said. “You knew three – but you wouldn’t have recognised them.”

The empty feeling in Valkyrie’s chest expanded slightly.

They reached the football pitch and looked across at the school buildings. No alarms, no screaming, no explosions.

“Maybe they changed their minds,” Valkyrie said.

“I doubt it,” Skulduggery responded, putting his gun away.

“Do we have a plan?”

“We do, but it’s not very good.”

“Any plan at all would be a reassurance.”

“Very well. We go in there and we evacuate each room as quietly as possible.”

“That actually sounds like a good plan.”

“It does, until you realise it’s very light on details, such as
how
we evacuate them and how we manage to do it without causing a panic.”

“We could set off the fire alarm.”

“Which would cause the panic I just mentioned, which in turn could set off Kitana and her friends. If this turns bad, we’re going to have to forget about hiding magic from the mortals. If you have to throw fire right in front of them, then that’s what you do. Focus everything you’ve got on defending yourself and the people inside, do you understand?”

“Yes. This really isn’t going to be pretty, is it?”

“It’s really not,” Skulduggery said.

They approached the school from the rear. Skulduggery disconnected the alarm on the fire doors and they slipped inside. The corridor was long and empty. Still no screaming. A face slid upwards from Skulduggery’s collarbones, and he opened the door of the first classroom they came to. The teacher, standing at the board, looked round.

“Can I help you?”

“I’d like a word, please,” Skulduggery said. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

The teacher frowned, but joined them in the corridor.

“My name is Detective Inspector Me,” Skulduggery said, keeping his voice low, “and I’m part of the new school safety initiative. You won’t have heard of it, it’s all very top secret. Basically, what I’m going to need you to do is take your class out through the fire door here and escort them a safe distance from the school.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Get your class away from the school.”

“Listen, I wasn’t told anything about this.”

“That would have ruined the surprise, don’t you think? Please do as I say.”

“Could I see some identification, or a badge or something?”

“I don’t need a badge, I have natural authority.”

The teacher frowned at Valkyrie. “And who are you? You’re a little young to be a cop, aren’t you?”

“I’m the student liaison,” she told him. “It’s my job to take notes on how the teachers interact with the pupils in a time of crisis.”

“So this is some kind of fire drill? Then why isn’t the alarm going off?”

“Because we want to observe each class one at a time,” Skulduggery said. “And speaking of time, we’re running out of it. If you don’t start the evacuation in the next thirty seconds, you will have failed the test.”

“Failed? Now just hold on there...”

“Twenty-five seconds.”

The teacher’s eyes widened. “But where do I evacuate them to?”

“Anywhere away from the school.”

“But where? We could go across the football pitch. There’s a car park at an old supermarket we could—”

“Not there,” Valkyrie said quickly. “Is there anywhere else?”

“There’s the trail down to the woods.”

“Is that out of sight of the school?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s where you take them. Eight seconds left. And tell them not to make a sound.”

The teacher darted back into the classroom. While Skulduggery waited, Valkyrie hurried to the next door and glanced through the glass panel. A full room. She hurried on, counting one empty room and two more full. She reached a room at the halfway point and stopped. The teacher was sitting rigidly at his desk. The students were also sitting bolt upright. She heard someone talking, too low to make out the words. She backed off, walked quickly back to Skulduggery as the last of the students left through the fire door.

“They’re here,” she whispered. “They’re in class. Everyone in that room is terrified.”

Skulduggery’s face grimaced. “We’re going to have to evacuate everyone out through the windows. Footsteps on this floor are just too loud.”

“We won’t be able to do it,” she said. “You’re talking about hundreds of students who are going to be giggling and laughing and once they’re outside you know there’s bound to be a few eejits who start shouting for joy at missing class. Once Kitana realises that something is wrong, she’s going to start killing people.”

“Then we forget about the evacuation. We focus on taking them down.”

“We’ll have to take them by surprise.”

“And I have just the thing,” he said, undoing a few shirt buttons. He reached his hand in and rooted around.

“What are you doing?”

“I keep a pouch in there now,” he said. “There’s a big empty space inside me, so why not use it for storage? It beats having unsightly bulges in jacket pockets. Ah, here it is.” He took out a wooden ball, and handed it to her. The cloaking sphere.

“You hold this,” he said. “You’ll have to adjust it accordingly, because we’re going in and bringing them out one at a time. Either that or we go in, get into position, and leap out at them. Or we do something else. I don’t know. It depends on what it’s like in there. Are you clear on the plan?”

“That’s not a plan.”

“Are you clear on what we’re hoping to do?”

“Barely.”

“Then let’s go.”

She twisted the sphere – one side clockwise, the other counter-clockwise – and they were enveloped in a bubble of haze that rendered them invisible to anyone standing outside it. She twisted the hemispheres back a little, drawing the bubble tighter around them. Sticking close together, they approached the door. Skulduggery turned the handle and pushed it open slowly.

“Who is it?” Kitana asked from the back of the class.

“No... no one...” the teacher said.

They stepped in. It was incredibly weird to be standing there in front of thirty people and not one of them able to see or hear them. Kitana and Doran were sitting beside each other at the very back, and Sean was lounging at his desk a little closer to the front. Everyone around them was terrified.

“Hey!” Kitana shouted. She was wearing Valkyrie’s jacket. “Come on in, whoever you are!”

“We’ll go for Sean first,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie nodded. She didn’t want to talk when they were being stealthy. It just felt wrong.

Kitana rolled her eyes. “Sean, would you please close the door? I want to get back to my speech. What was I saying? Hey, Mr Teacher, sir, what was I saying?”

Sean got up, started walking for the door while the teacher started stammering. “I... I don’t...”

“What was the last thing I said, Mr Teacher?” Kitana continued, her hand glowing with energy. “Don’t you remember? Weren’t you listening?”

The teacher looked at the open door and bolted, but Sean darted forward, caught him and threw him back over his desk. Kitana laughed and Doran whooped.

“Yay, Sean!” Kitana called. “You’re my hero! That’s a gold star for Sean in Teacher-Throwing, my favourite new subject!”

Sean laughed and Doran thumped his desk in amusement, but Kitana’s smile faded, and she leaned forward. “Hey, Sean... what’s wrong with your leg?”

Valkyrie looked down. The bubble curved over the side of Sean’s knee.

“Dude,” said Doran, “a chunk of your leg’s missing.”

Skulduggery nodded and Valkyrie twisted the sphere a bit more. The bubble grew, enveloping Sean completely. As everyone else in the classroom gasped at his apparent disappearance, Skulduggery slid an arm round his throat. Sean made a sound and his hands flailed as the sleeper hold tightened.

Doran leaped from his chair, eyes wide. “Seriously? We can turn invisible now? This keeps getting cooler!”

Skulduggery backed off and Valkyrie stayed with him. By the time they passed into the corridor Sean was unconscious. Skulduggery laid him on the floor and snapped handcuffs around his wrists.

“Sean?”

Kitana walked out of the classroom. “Sean?” she repeated. “Are you here?”

Skulduggery muttered a curse, picked Sean off the floor and dragged him further away.

Doran came out after her, his face red from straining. “Am I still here? Can you still see me?”

“I can still see you, you idiot,” Kitana said. “I don’t think he’s invisible.”

“Then where’s he gone?”

“I think he’s still here. I can feel him. He’s close. Can’t you feel him?”

Doran shrugged, then turned and looked right at Valkyrie. For a moment she thought he could actually see her, but his eyes moved on without focusing and she relaxed.

“They have him,” Kitana whispered.

Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery. “What do we do?” she asked, her voice sounding unreasonably loud.

“
Who
has him?” Doran whispered back to Kitana.

“Taking them by surprise seems to work,” Skulduggery said.

Kitana looked around and whispered, “The magic people.”

“If they can’t see us coming, their instincts can’t kick in to save them,” Skulduggery said. He left Sean on the floor and took out his gun, held it straight out, aimed right at Doran’s head.

Valkyrie blinked.

“You think they’re still here?” whispered Doran. “You think they can see us?”

Kitana didn’t answer. Doran waved his hand through the air, trying to feel for enemies. Skulduggery’s gloved finger rested on the trigger as Doran turned his way.

“You can’t just...” Valkyrie said, and faltered.

“You said I’d have to be my usual ruthless self,” Skulduggery replied. “If I take them both out now, they won’t get to harm another living soul. It’s better for everyone if they die right here.”

“You’re just going to shoot them?”

“This is life or death, Valkyrie.” He thumbed the hammer back. “Giving someone a fighting chance is giving them a chance to beat you. What have I taught you about combat?”

She looked at Doran and Kitana as they slowly backed away. “Never fight on someone else’s terms,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes. “Do it.”

She waited for the gunshot, hearing only Doran’s whisperings. She looked up. Skulduggery was putting his gun away.

“Dammit,” he said, then picked Sean up off the floor and threw him straight at Doran. To Doran, Sean suddenly appeared out of thin air and collided with him. They cracked their heads together and went down, and Kitana jumped back, cursing.

“Evacuate them,” Skulduggery said, and used the air to leap at Kitana. He grabbed her, arm round her neck, but a wave of energy rippled out from her centre, flinging him away.

Resisting the urge to jump into the fight, Valkyrie instead ran into the classroom. She slammed the door, deactivated the sphere, scaring the hell out of everyone inside.

“The windows,” she said. “Out the windows. Hurry!”

Windows were opened and there was a frantic dash. They were shoving and pushing and stamping to get out. The teacher was doing his best to orchestrate things but he was making it worse.

Valkyrie clicked her fingers, summoning a ball of flame into her hand. Everyone froze. She nodded at a group. “You. Out first. Go. No one else move.”

The group did as they were told. When they were off and running, she nodded to the next group. “You lot. Go.”

Group by group, they left, followed by the teacher. Valkyrie turned back to the door. It had gone suspiciously quiet out there.

She turned the handle and peeked out. Sean was still unconscious, still in shackles. She stepped over him, ran to the double doors at the end of the corridor. Smoke rose from a huge scorch mark in the wood. She passed through. Heard a crash. She ran, came to the gym. One of the doors was off its hinges. There was a flash of light from inside and she heard Skulduggery cry out. She twisted the sphere and ran in.