Chapter 88
The Skulduggery Pleasant series
Magic.
The place dripped with the stuff. It gathered in the corner booths, spilled over the long, lacquered bar, and crawled its way across the floor, grinning its slow, idiot grin. It was in everything – the music, the drinks, the words spoken and the laughs they provoked. It was stitched into clothes and etched into jewellery. It was in the coiffed hair. The lipstick.
That’s what sorcerers did now. Free from the old rules, they took their magic and they experimented. They pushed their powers into sigils scrawled on squares of paper. They shared and swapped, dipped in and dabbled. For some, it meant a night of unforgettable wonder. For others, it meant sinking into a cold, dark place with no walls and no floors and no way to climb out. But the party went on. The party always went on.
The sorcerers looked at Valkyrie when she walked in. They knew her. They all knew her. Valkyrie Cain, the Arbiter, the detective, her dark hair loose, still wearing her jacket, still cold from outside. Twenty-five years old, six feet tall and made of muscle and sinew, a pretty girl with a nasty streak.
And, where she was, he was, emerging from the other side of the bar. Skulduggery Pleasant, the Arbiter, the Skeleton Detective, wearing a black three-piece with a blue shirt and black tie, his hat pulled low over one eye socket. If bad news had a name, it answered to Skulduggery.
The conversation faded just for a moment, then swelled again, as if acting innocent was going to save anyone. They talked, and laughed, every one of them hoping that they weren’t the person the Arbiters were looking for. Not tonight. Please, whatever god you believe in, not tonight.
Valkyrie took off her jacket. There were those who were impressed and those who weren’t – but they all looked. They looked at her shoulders, carved from granite, and peeked at her abs when her T-shirt rode up, carved from marble. They saw the work she’d put in, the sacrifices she’d made. The punishment. Most of them would never know what it took to go through that. None of them knew the pain that drove her.
Christopher Reign, at least, knew of the effort involved. He was a man who loved his muscles as much as he loved his suits. The suits were from Italy. The muscles came straight from Detroit.
Valkyrie and Skulduggery sat at his table and didn’t say anything. Skulduggery took off his hat.
Reign watched them. Smiled. Nodded to Valkyrie. “Thought you’d be bigger.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said back.
He looked away, raised a hand. “I got a girl could bench-press you.”
His girl stood up. She was taller than Valkyrie. Bigger arms. Her thighs stretched her trousers.
Valkyrie
