The Dying of the Light (67 page)

She stood there, looking down at him, suddenly aware that this was being watched by some past version of Valkyrie and Skulduggery himself, and she turned to look into the space where they would be standing, and she forced herself to give them a smile.

“Get ready,” said Skulduggery, as

Darquesse lifted off the ground, rose high into the air, where the wind dried her tears. Roarhaven spread out below her like a wounded animal, waiting to be put down. She drifted to its weakly beating heart, touched her feet to the ground and walked right through the front doors of the Sanctuary. Cleavers came at her and she waved them out of existence. The sorcerers who tried to fight exploded into nothingness. Those who tried to run she killed with a little more brutality. She wasn’t as strong as she once was, but the extra effort made it all the more rewarding.

Tanith sprang at her from the shadows. Darquesse allowed the sword to almost reach her neck, but teleported before it scratched her. Tanith’s cry of surprise was amusing. Darquesse punched through her from behind, her fist bursting from Tanith’s chest.

Tanith Low had time to look down at her own heart before she died.

Darquesse went from room to room. Killing. Black flames and blood. No one could stand against her. No one could reason with her. China Sorrows tried. China Sorrows died.

When the Sanctuary was clear of the living, when Synecdoche and Clarabelle were resting in peace and when Erskine Ravel had screamed his last, Darquesse reached her magic into the very foundations of the building and shook them. The walls cracked and the floors crumbled and the world was filled with a thousand roars, and the Sanctuary fell.

Roarhaven fell soon after. She left it in her wake, a flat and smoking ruin. By the time she reached Dublin, her heart was heavy. She carved up the streets and threw cars into buildings and she thought about what she had done. Not even the screams and the sirens could pierce her grey mood.

At first, she wanted to take the cities of the world one at a time. So she took London, and New York, and Moscow and Paris and Berlin and Beijing. She turned missiles to flowers and bullets to rain. She breathed in nerve gas and it cleared her sinuses. She survived the first three nuclear strikes aimed at her by enclosing herself in a little bubble. By the fourth one, she’d figured out how to survive it without the bubble. She may not have been as strong as she once was, but she was still becoming indestructible. And while she may have had the odd headache now and then, she was still a god.

But Beijing annoyed her. The mortals were still fighting her and the sorcerers were helping them. All over the world, they refused to accept the fact that their silly little meaningless lives were over. It was insulting, if she were to be honest. They thought they still had a

chance with this, and one only.” Skulduggery grabbed Fletcher, pulled him to his feet, and pointed at Valkyrie and her parents. “Get Alice and get them the hell out of

here she was, destruction incarnate, and these mortals dared to hope that somehow, maybe, with the help of all these sorcerers, they could find a way to beat her.

It was aggravating.

She went away for a week, thought about her next move, and decided to just kill them all, absorb as much of their energy as she could, and move on. She had itchy feet. She wanted to explore the universe. To seek out new life and new civilisations. Then to kill them, too.

So she killed the world, burned it to a husk, and flew off into space.

She set foot on the moon. She teleported to Mars. The gases of Neptune made her eyes water. By the time she breached the galaxy, she didn’t need her body to travel any more. Her body became her mind, and she travelled at the speed of thought, and upon discovering life her physical form would take shape once again.

She appeared as a vast alien god to these otherworldly species. And she was not a nice god.

There were challenges that she had to overcome. Weapons she was unfamiliar with. Life cycles she was ignorant of. A constant pressure on her head, like a hand pressing down on her. But her biggest challenge was boredom. When she had had her fill of this universe, she returned to what remained of Earth. She began to long for something new. Something different.

Using everything she had learned from all those thousands of Remnants she had absorbed, she solved the mechanics of reality, and lifted off the ground and

rose high into the air. Fletcher watched, sure that she would snap out of it, fix her gaze on them, but she didn’t, she kept rising, a peculiar look on her face. She reached out with her hands and pulled

the empty space apart. Darquesse felt her fingers buzz. This was a new way of doing it, a new way of creating a portal, a doorway to a world with a

red sky, there was a red sky, and Fletcher’s heart thundered in his chest when he heard that noise, that awful, sickening

mourning call of the Faceless Ones, beautiful in its way, and Darquesse smiled at last. She hadn’t smiled since she’d killed Skulduggery Pleasant, all those years ago.

She stepped through the portal, leaving the lifeless universe of her home, and the portal closed behind her.

Fletcher blinked. “It worked?”

Cassandra sagged and Skulduggery caught her. Finbar collapsed and Fletcher only noticed when he heard the thump beside him.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”

Finbar mumbled something, and waved his hand weakly.

Fletcher looked up again, at where the portal had just been. At where Darquesse had vanished. “We beat her?”

“We didn’t beat her,” Skulduggery said. “We fooled her. There’s a difference. Everyone link up.”

Geoffrey and Philomena held out their hands. They were pale. Weak. What they had just done had taken a lot out of them. Fletcher made sure everyone was touching, then teleported back to the Medical Wing.

Valkyrie was the first to see them – of course she was – and she sat up in bed and tried to move her parents and Synecdoche out of the way, but the doctor was having none of it.

“You do not move,” she said sternly.

Fletcher and Skulduggery walked over. Valkyrie’s neck was in a brace and her face was swollen and cut. Her left hand sported new bandages which matched the bandages on her elbows.

“She’s gone,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie tried to nod, and winced. “I know,” she said. “I felt her somehow. She seemed happy.”

“She’s got a whole new universe to conquer. I’m sure she’s thrilled.”

Fletcher spotted Tanith across the room, sitting on the edge of a bed with her head down. “Is Tanith OK?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “She’s fine. But Billy-Ray Sanguine is dead. I … I told her about, you know … the two of them. When she had the Remnant. I couldn’t
not
tell her. Not after he gave his life to save her. I figured she ought to know the whole story.”

“How did she take it?”

Valkyrie shook her head. “I’m still not sure.”

Synecdoche sat her up, lifted her shirt, and applied clear gel to her badly-bruised torso.

“We’ve got an assortment of broken ribs here that we’ll have to mend later today,” the doctor said, “along with the broken arm, the concussion, the fractured skull and the internal injuries. For now, though, we’ll strap you up and move you on. We need the space and, astonishingly, you’re not critical.”

Synecdoche motioned to an assistant to finish the job, and hurried to a moaning patient elsewhere.

“Is that it?” Desmond asked. “Darquesse is gone? It’s over?”

Skulduggery nodded. “Cassandra and Finbar and the others gave her the reality she wanted and then allowed her to leave it. As far as she knows, we’re all dead. Our universe is dead. There’s nothing for her to come back to.”

“No more danger?” Melissa asked.

“Not from Darquesse.”

Melissa sobbed, turned to Valkyrie and grabbed her good hand. “Sweetheart …”

“Mum …”

“Sweetheart, I am so proud of you. I am so … proud. No parent has ever been as proud of their daughter.”

Valkyrie managed a strained smile that looked odd to Fletcher somehow. The assistant finished up and Skulduggery helped Valkyrie stand.

“You’re coming home with us?” her mum asked.

“I will,” Valkyrie said. “When I’m cleared here.”

“Steph, please—”

“Mum. Fletcher will take you three home now and I’ll be there as soon as Doctor Synecdoche says I can. I still have things to do here, and I want to check on a few people. I won’t be getting hurt any more today, though, I promise.”

Melissa hesitated, then nodded, and looked up at Skulduggery. “I owe you an apology.”

“No,” he said, “you don’t.”

“I said some pretty horrible things.”

“Entirely justified.”

“Oh, I know they were,” Melissa said, “but I’m beginning to think that your good points outweigh your bad. Steph says it’s because of you that she’s alive today.”

“That may be so. But I’m only here today because of her.”

Melissa looked back at Valkyrie. “Can I hug you? Would it hurt too much?”

“You can hug me a little,” Valkyrie said, an actual smile poking through. Both her parents gave her the lightest of hugs, but they both spent ages doing it. When her father was done, he stepped back.

“Gordon would be so proud of you,” he said. “I know I am. You helped save the world today, sweetie. The kid I raised helped save the world. In a way … in a way, I suppose that means
I
saved the world.”

“If anyone’s still listening,” Melissa said, “I would like to apologise for my husband.”

“I’m going to get a T-shirt printed up. Maybe a mug.”

Melissa turned to Fletcher. “When you take us home, are we going to throw up again?”

He couldn’t lie. “Probably,” he said.

She sighed.

Desmond poked his finger at Alice. “And don’t think I’m forgetting about you, young lady. Your big sister saved the world today. What the hell have you done?”

Alice giggled, and Fletcher took them home.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery left the Medical Wing. The Sanctuary was in chaos. People ran, shouted at each other. Emergency crews took over. Valkyrie and Skulduggery ignored it all. Valkyrie and Skulduggery had had enough.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked when they entered the peace and quiet of the Old Sanctuary.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You’re bleeding internally.”

“A little internal bleeding never hurt anyone.”

“That’s not strictly true, though. Do you want me to carry you, or …?”

She gave him a look. “Am I slowing you down? Is that what it is? Would you rather be walking faster?”

“To be honest … yes.”

“Well, tough.”

They walked along in silence for a bit.

“Congratulations on saving the world,” Skulduggery said. “Or helping to save it anyway. Being in the general vicinity. Cassandra and Finbar and the others
actually
saved it. But it was my plan, and you enabled it to happen, so … I think we’re all winners here, really.”

“Yay us.”

“You don’t sound overly delighted.”

“Would you be? I didn’t help save the world, Skulduggery – I helped cancel out the threat I posed to it. Those people, the ones who attacked me, they had it right. I’m to blame for all this.”

“You know it’s not as simple as that.”

“Darquesse was part of me. That little fact is inescapable.” Valkyrie paused. “I notice you haven’t asked me yet how I could suddenly use the Sceptre.”

“No I haven’t. And I won’t. We’re called on to do things, again and again, that a person should never be asked to do. But we find a way, Valkyrie. And your family is safe and Darquesse is gone. It looks like we’re going to have a happy ending on this one.”

She grunted. “Since when do we ever get a happy ending?”

“It’s rare,” he said, “but it’s possible.”

They started down the steps.

“You think she stands a chance against the Faceless Ones?” Valkyrie asked.

“I don’t know. Part of the reality the Sensitives constructed was to convince her that she’d accumulated more power than she had. But
she
opened that portal. It probably took everything she had to do it, but that part was no illusion. And if she could do that … she might stand a chance against a Faceless One. Maybe even two.”

“But not an entire race of them?”

Skulduggery shook his head.

“Then she’s gone,” said Valkyrie. “My bad mood is gone. Odd, I don’t feel any cheerier. I thought …”

“Yes?”

They got to the bottom of the steps, walked the cold corridor to the next set.

“I thought Darquesse was my bad side,” she said. “But I did something so … so terrible …”

Skulduggery looked at her. “Long life can be a curse. The longer you live, the greater the chance that you’re going to do things you regret. But long life is also a blessing – because you have a lot of time in which to set things right.”

“And what if there
is
no setting it right?”

His voice was soft. “Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It’s lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work.”

“You’ve been working for redemption for a while now. Are you any closer to it? Are you ready to pick up your family crest again?”

He tilted her head to her. “You remember.”

“That you wouldn’t carry the crest until you reckoned you were worthy of it? Yes, I remember. So are you ready to carry it now? How do you know when your redemption is complete?”

“I’m hoping you just … know.”

“The scientific method.”

His jaws opened, he was about to say something, probably something like “Precisely”, but he didn’t. He stopped. China lay very still in the corridor ahead of them.

Skulduggery sprinted to her. Valkyrie hobbled as fast she was able, reaching them just as China’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m fine,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Darquesse?”