and up the stairs.
“What have you heard about Tesseract?” Skulduggery asked as they climbed. His bottom lip hung over his chin like a dead slug.
“The Russian killer? Why on earth would you want …” China looked down at them, her pale blue eyes narrowed. “He’s in the country?”
“You didn’t know?” Skulduggery asked, actually sounding shocked.
There was a brief flicker of annoyance on China’s perfect face, and then it evaporated. She turned, and resumed climbing to the third floor.
“Here is what I know about Tesseract. Born and raised in Russia, somewhere between three and four hundred years ago. He is an Adept, nobody knows who trained him, and nobody knows how many people he’s killed. He wears a mask – again, nobody knows why. He lives in a truck of some description. He’s self-sufficient, doesn’t need to resupply for weeks at a time. His method of communication is a mystery to me – how those who require his services get in touch with him, I confess, I do not know.
“What all this means is that he could be living across the street from me and I’d never know it. It means that I have not heard one single rumour about him in twenty years, and the fact that he is here and I didn’t know about it causes me no small amount of alarm and drives me to unimaginable fury. I am, however, hiding it well. You are sure he is here?”
“We saw him,” said Skulduggery.
They reached the third floor and stopped talking as a man and a woman passed. The man stared at China, entranced by her beauty. The woman stared at Skulduggery, repulsed by the face that was slowly sliding down his head. China led them into her apartment – to Valkyrie it was as beautiful and elegant as China herself – and shut the door after them.
“He went after Davina Marr,” Skulduggery said.
China’s eyebrow raised. “Did he kill her?”
“He came close.”
“Do you have her?”
“She’s somewhere safe and secure – you don’t have to worry about her. This can’t be repeated to anyone, of course.”
“Who do you think I am, some cheap and tawdry gossip-monger? Sit. Loosen your tie.”
Skulduggery did as he was told, and China took a small black case from her desk. From the case she withdrew a calligraphy pen that reminded Valkyrie of a scalpel. She dipped it in black ink before taking a monocle from a side pocket. She crossed to Skulduggery, undid a few shirt buttons to expose the symbols carved into his collarbones, and examined them using the monocle. “Have you questioned Marr yet?” she asked.
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