sorry? Do I look like I make house calls? You may leave me now.”
“Thank you, China,” Valkyrie said and turned to go. “Oh, one more thing. Ghastly’s façade. It’s great.”
China smiled. “He seems to like it, doesn’t he? It took me long enough to devise, but I think it’s worth it.”
“Me too,” smiled Valkyrie then hurried out to the corridor.
“Well?” Fletcher asked grumpily.
“We have the connection,” she told him, and immediately his grumpiness vanished and he took her hand.
They appeared in Ghastly’s shop. It was dark, so they turned on the lights and waited for Skulduggery and the others to get there. Valkyrie crossed her arms and looked at Fletcher.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“You’re dying to say it.”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“They’re still on their way back from the Sanctuary. We’ve been to China’s, found a very large piece of the puzzle and we’re here before them. Say it.”
“I’m sorry, Valkyrie, I really don’t know what you want me to say.”
She waited.
“Although,” he began.
“Here it comes.”
“Teleportation is clearly the best power to have and you should all be really grateful that I’m on your side. Why anyone would still be using cars, I have no idea. Is it pride? Is it because Skulduggery doesn’t want to admit how useful I am? I don’t think I’m appreciated as much as I should be, that’s all.”
“Right.”
“We were getting on fine without him, you know.”
“We really weren’t.”
“We were doing OK. It wasn’t a disaster. No one got killed.”
“A few people got killed.”
“But not any of us,” he said, exasperated.
“Anything else you want to complain about before he gets here?”
Fletcher laughed. “What, do you really think I’m scared of him? I’m not scared of him. But since you brought it up, yes, there is one thing. I’m older than you. I should be the one giving you orders.”
“Yeah, no. That’s not going to happen.”
“I have more world experience.”
“At doing your hair.”
“What is everyone’s problem with my hair? My hair’s cool.”
He kept talking about his hair until Valkyrie told him to shut up. A few minutes later Skulduggery and the others got back and Valkyrie told them what she’d learned.
“It’s too neat to be a coincidence,” Skulduggery agreed. “Well, all right then. That means we have our big boss. Scarab is released, he has an emotional father-son reunion with his psychopathic offspring and they recruit Dusk, maybe Remus Crux, and whoever else happens to be around and holding a grudge against society.”
“So what does Scarab want?” Tanith asked as she lovingly cleaned her sword.
“My guess is he wants revenge,” Skulduggery said.
“For what? He committed a crime and he was punished for it. If he was going to take these things personally, he shouldn’t have killed Vanguard in the first place.”
“Ah,” Skulduggery said, “that’s the thing. You see, I don’t think he did kill Vanguard. It’s something I’ve suspected for a while now.”
Ghastly stared. “But…you arrested him.”
“Because all the evidence pointed his way,” Skulduggery nodded. “It was only later than I began to suspect that the evidence was rather too easy to come by.”
“Scarab was framed?” asked Valkyrie. “He’s innocent?”
“Not entirely innocent. Or even remotely innocent. He was Mevolent’s top assassin, remember. But, as regards this particular crime, yes, I believe he was innocent.”
“You have a theory then?”
“Naturally.”
“So who framed Scarab? Who killed Vanguard?”
Skulduggery hesitated. “I actually have a horrible feeling that we did.”
emus Crux dreamed of gods without faces and girls without heads. He dreamed of a vast forest of dead trees, of screaming things hunting him. He saw things in his dream that he recognised as pieces from his old life. They passed him by and he watched them go and didn’t miss them.
He woke.
He had told Dusk how to breach the Sanctuary’s defences, and where to go to get what they were after, and now the vampire was back, mission accomplished, and Crux felt not one shred of remorse. People that had once been his colleagues had just been killed and he didn’t care. They were heathens, unbelievers, enemies of the Faceless Ones.
Dreylan Scarab was a heathen too, but he was a useful heathen. He served a purpose. Crux viewed Scarab and his little Revengers’ Club as a conduit to get him where he needed to be. Once they had fulfilled their usefulness, Crux would either abandon them or kill them, whichever was easier. But for now, they wanted the Sanctuary to fall almost as much as he did, and so he was content to go along with their plan.
He could be patient. He could wait. He’d get his chance. The girl had killed two of his Dark Gods after all. The girl had to pay for that and she had to pay for the legacy she had inherited.
Crux knew the legend well. The Faceless Ones had ruled this world until the first sorcerers, the Ancients, constructed the Sceptre to kill them and drive them out. Once the Faceless Ones had been banished, the Ancients fought among themselves like the petty insects they were, until only one of them was left alive. Valkyrie Cain was descended from the last of them.
It was now time for her to pay for the crimes of her ancestors.
