Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole (7 page)

The funeral director shook Scapegrace’s hand, and gave him a sad smile. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked gently.

“I would, yes. I’m feeling quite faint, because of the loss of my dead brother.”

The funeral director showed him to a comfortable chair, then sat behind his big desk and solemnly opened a ledger. He picked up what looked to be an expensive pen, and raised his eyes to Scapegrace. “May I ask your name?”

Scapegrace had rehearsed this part a dozen times, coming
up with answers for every possible question. This was an easy one. “Elvis O’Carroll.”

The funeral director hesitated, then nodded, and wrote it down. “And your brother’s?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your brother’s name?”

Scapegrace froze. It had all been going so well. “My brother’s name,” he managed, “is… a name that makes me cry every time I hear it. His name, my brother’s name, my dead brother, is…” His mind raced, careered off walls and stumbled over hurdles. A name. A simple name. All he needed was a simple name to get to the next stage of the conversation, and he could not think of one. Aware that he was staring at the funeral director with a perplexed look on his face, Scapegrace seized a random name from history. “Adolf,” he blurted.

The funeral director stared at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Adolf O’Carroll,” Scapegrace continued, trying to be as calm as possible. “That’s with two L’s at the end.”

“Your brother’s name was Adolf?”

“Yes. Do you find something wrong with that? It’s a common name in my family. I had an uncle Adolf, and a great-aunt Adolf.”

“A great-aunt? You realise, of course, that Adolf is traditionally a man’s name…?”

“Well, that makes sense, as my great-aunt was traditionally a man.”

“You do seem to have an interesting family, Mr O’Carroll,” the funeral director said politely as he scribbled notes.

“Please,” Scapegrace said. “Call me Elvis.”

“Indeed. May I inquire as to what service you wish us to provide for you, during this trying time? The funeral, of course, is what we specialise in, but we also—”

“Embalming,” Scapegrace said. “Do you do your own embalming?”

“We prepare the departed for their final resting place, yes.”

“And you do that here?”

“On the premises, yes. We have a staff of professionals who take care to treat each individual with the utmost respect. We have found there to be dignity in death, as there is in life.”

“How long does it take?”

“The embalming process?”

“How long does it take to stop the decomposition?”

“I’m not sure I understand… What exactly are you asking us to do?”

“I want him preserved.”

The funeral director put down his pen, and interlaced his fingers. “Are you… Are you asking us to perform taxidermy?”

“Am I? What’s that? Is that when an animal is stuffed and mounted?”

“It is.”

“That’s it!” Scapegrace said happily. “That’s what I want! Can you do that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the actual animal body is not
used
in taxidermy. The animal is skinned, and the skin is stretched over a
replica
animal body. Note, I keep saying
animal.
That is because taxidermy is not done to humans. It might be seen as somewhat barbaric.”

“Wouldn’t suit me anyway,” Scapegrace murmured. “It needs to be the original body. So can you embalm it and just give it to me?”

“I’m afraid that we do not provide a take-away service.”

“Maybe the place across the road does.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” the funeral director said huffily, “but I doubt even
they
would stoop to that level. Mr O’Carroll—”

“Elvis.”

“Elvis, I think the death of your brother has affected your judgement. You’re not thinking clearly. What you’re asking for is… unsettling.”

“It’s what Adolf would have wanted.”

“I’m sure he would have appreciated a more peaceful resting place.”

“His last words to me were,
‘Don’t bury me’.
”

“We also provide a cremation service.”

“And then he said,
‘Don’t burn me either’.
”

The funeral director sighed. “Elvis, I don’t think we are the people to help you. It is not often I recommend our rivals across the road, but I feel they would be more suited to your needs. I’m sure they’d be happy to deal with your… requests.”

He smiled.

Scapegrace left the funeral parlour and crossed the road, dousing himself with a half-can of deodorant as he went. He was greeted by another sombre funeral director, explained his injuries without the chuckling this time, and was shown to another comfortable chair. He skipped through the tragic loss stuff quickly and got down to specifics.

“Adolf was a devout Catholic,” he said. “And I mean, devout. Oh, he was crazy for that religion. He’d be praying every day, sometimes twice a day. It was all
Our Father
this and
Hail Mary
that. Rosary beads and signed pictures of the Pope. He went nuts for the whole thing. He thought priests were great altogether.”

The funeral director nodded slowly. “So at least he was comforted in his time of need. Then it will be a traditional funeral you’re looking for?”

“Not at all. Have you read the Bible?”

“I have, yes. I find great strength in its words.”

“Did you read the bit about the zombies?”

“Uh…”

“The bit at the end, where God raises the dead for Judgement Day.”

“Um, I… I’m not sure I…”

“It’s when God decides who gets into Heaven and who doesn’t, and all the dead climb out of their graves and they all wait there to see who gets in. That’s in the Bible, right? That’s what Adolf wants to do, but he wants a head start on all the others. He doesn’t want to waste time crawling out of a hole in the ground. He wants to be ready for the sprint. So I want you to preserve him.”

The funeral director paled. “
Preserve?
”

“I was thinking, if you pump all that embalming fluid into his veins, then I can take him away, store him somewhere cool, and he’ll be ready to go at the end of the world. What do you think?”

“Are you… being serious?”

“I’ve got my dead brother in the back of my car. Of course I’m being serious.”

“Mr O’Carroll…”

“Elvis.”

“Elvis, what you’re saying makes no sense.”

“Do not deride my brother’s religion.”

“I assure you, I am doing no such thing. But what I
am
saying is that… your plan is nonsensical. A dead body will rot, sir, no matter how much embalming fluid is injected into it. Over time, everything decays.”

“Adolf is particularly resilient.”

“Even if Judgement Day happened before he started to decompose – say, if it happened on Thursday – embalming fluid would actually be a hindrance. It suffuses the muscles, stiffens them until they can’t be moved. Do you understand, Elvis? He wouldn’t have a head start on anyone. He’d actually be left behind, unable to move.”

Scapegrace frowned. “So… So there’s nothing you can do to stop decomposition?”

“I am sorry.”

“What about those bodies they find in bogs, hundreds of years old?”

“Do you really want to lay Adolf to rest in a bog? Elvis, unless you’re prepared to mummify your brother, he is going to decompose.”

“What’s that? Mummify? He’d be a mummy?”

“We don’t do that sort of thing here.”

“Well, who does?”

“Nobody.”

“What about the Egyptians?”

“Nobody apart from the Egyptians,” the funeral director nodded. “Take him to an Egyptian funeral parlour. They’ll wrap him in bandages and put him in a sarcophagus and he’ll be right as rain come Judgement Day.”

“Really?”

“No. Those morons across the road paid you to come in here and waste my valuable time, didn’t they?”

“Of course not.”

“Did they tell you to act so stupid?”

“I’m not acting,” Scapegrace responded.

“Tell them if they want to start this practical joke war again, then I’m fine with that. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve. If it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll get.”

Scapegrace left the funeral parlour, confused and disheartened. It was as if the universe was closing off every avenue just as he was realising it was there. He had pinned all his hopes on being embalmed, and what was he left with, now that science had let him down?

He stopped in the middle of the road. Magic. Of course. He hadn’t considered it before because, quite honestly, he had no sorcerer friends. But surely there
must
be something a mage could do. They were always coming up with new and exciting ways to live for as long as possible. Would it really take that much power to stop meat from rotting?

He was no expert – even in life, his grasp of magic had been negligible at best – but this seemed possible. All of Scapegrace’s magic was used to animate his body and keep him thinking, but there was nothing stopping anyone else from performing magic
on
him.

There was a name that his old master Scarab had once mentioned. He had been talking about an expert in science-magic… Grouse, that was it. Kenspeckle Grouse, who had a
Medical Facility somewhere in Dublin. Butterflies of excitement fluttered within Scapegrace’s stomach. He just needed to find out where it was, and all his troubles would be over.

A car horn beeped right behind him and he jumped in fright, then stalked to the pavement, muttering curses. The car carried on past him. Scapegrace saw it out of the corner of his eye, and froze. He knew that car. The first time he’d seen it, he had been thrown into the backseat in handcuffs. The second time, he was thrown into the trunk, in another set of handcuffs. It was the car Skulduggery Pleasant drove.

Scapegrace suddenly forgot how to walk like normal people. How had Pleasant known he was here? Had he been following him? Was this the day his existence ended? He was sure he hadn’t been recognised, because he had been facing the other way and he was dressed in a suit, but all it would take was one glance and it would all be over. He staggered to a large bush and fell into it, then crawled around to take a look through the leaves. The black car turned the corner and was gone.

This didn’t make any sense. Was it all an elaborate trap? An ambush? Pleasant had driven right by him. Had the great Skeleton Detective made a silly mistake? Or maybe he
hadn’t
been searching for him after all. Maybe this was just a coincidence. Maybe the house…

Scapegrace looked back at the big house. Pleasant’s car had been parked outside it. In the driveway in fact. Pleasant had parked his car in the driveway of the house like… like… like he’d
owned
the place.

Scapegrace stared. He knew where Skulduggery Pleasant lived.

Now all he had to do was figure out who’d pay the most for the information.

V
alkyrie followed Skulduggery as he strode briskly through the alley. It was so cold it was almost painful, and for once, she was glad of it. It meant she had something else to think about other than kissing Caelan. She regretted it now. She’d regretted it the moment after it happened, but she couldn’t stop replaying it over and over in her head.

Skulduggery came to some steps leading down below street level, and an iron door swung open to let them through. The corridor they walked into was warm, with fantastic images
carved into the walls on both sides. In places the paint was cracked and peeling, but the years had not diminished the sheer lushness of the colours used. Valkyrie bent to examine a tiny running figure. Even the light glinting in the figure’s eyes had been painted in.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“History,” Skulduggery answered. “It’s all here, for those who know how to look.” He nodded to a carving of two men and a woman, holding light in their hands. “These are the Ancients, discovering magic for the first time. The clouds above them represent the Faceless Ones, and the grass at their feet represents the people.”

“Regular people are represented by a lawn?” Valkyrie asked with a raised eyebrow. “How nice, and not at all insulting.”

“The people are represented by individual blades of grass,” Skulduggery said, a smile in his voice. “Born of the earth, as natural and integral a part of life as magic. You can see the Ancients protecting the grass from the unnatural storm clouds.”

“All I see are the Ancients
standing
on the grass, being rained on, and not one of them thought to bring an umbrella. Not the smartest, were they?”

“Don’t be
too
harsh – you’re descended from one of them, remember.”

“Any ancestor of
mine
would have brought an umbrella,” Valkyrie muttered, and crossed to the other wall. The scene depicted there disturbed her, like a hook that had found its way inside her belly and was now tugging gently at her guts. A city in ruins, the dead scattered like dry leaves fallen from a tree on a still afternoon. At its centre stood a man, burning with black fire. “And this?” she asked. “Is this meant to be Mevolent?”

Skulduggery stood at her elbow. “These chambers were built before the war with Mevolent even started. No, that’s not Mevolent. That’s his master. That’s the Unnamed.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “Was his
name
the Unnamed, or did he just not
have
a name?”

“He didn’t have one.”

She frowned. “But how does
that
work? All our magic comes from our true name, right? I’ve been reading all about this. So if he didn’t
have
a true name, where did he get his magic from?”

“To every law of nature, there are the aberrations. I’m very impressed that you’re doing a little research, by the way.”

“After Marr ordered Myron Stray to kill himself and destroy the Sanctuary, I thought it might be a good idea to learn a little more about the whole name thing.”

“You’re worried that someone might learn
your
true name?”

Worried
was such a weak term for something so coldly terrifying. Valkyrie nodded, but didn’t speak. She didn’t trust herself to answer him.