tilted his head. “They have the prison?”
“They overthrew it two days ago. Which means they have the heart.”
Valkyrie frowned. “And what about the prisoners?”
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with them.”
“We put away some of those lunatics …”
“Could you do it?” Skulduggery asked. “Could you bring Abyssinia back if you just had her heart?”
“If she has this healing ability you described and I had access to the right type of energy, then … then probably, yes.”
An idea exploded behind Valkyrie’s eyes. “Could you do that to someone else?” she asked, and glanced at Skulduggery. “What about Ghastly?”
“Ghastly and Anton were cremated,” Skulduggery reminded her, and the excitement in her chest died as quickly as it had formed.
Then it sparked again. “What about Gordon? We could bring him back.”
“I can’t,” Melior said. “Resurrecting someone who’s died on my operating table – that’s one thing. But exhuming a corpse, bringing that back? I’m not prepared to do it, not if I have any choice in the matter. I’m sorry. I’m not here to play God.”
“We’re not asking you to resurrect everyone,” said Valkyrie. “Just a few. My uncle was such a good man and he was murdered. How is that fair? If it wasn’t right to kill him, then how can it be wrong to bring him back?”
“Valkyrie,” Skulduggery said quietly.
“What?” Valkyrie said, speaking too quickly, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying. “How many people have you lost that you would love to see again?”
Skulduggery’s head tilted ever so slightly, and Valkyrie felt herself flush.
“There are a few,” he said. “But I wouldn’t presume to have the right to drag them out of their slumber.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry.”
Skulduggery nodded, and turned to Melior. “The circumstances you would need in order to bring Abyssinia back – what would they be?”
“When I revive people on the operating table,” Melior said, “I transfer some of my energy to them. It weakens me, but after a few days my life force replenishes and I recover. Something like this, though … I’d need to take a life force and transfer it to her remains. More than one, actually. Two, possibly three. I’d need a modified Soul Catcher to harness it all, and life forces from mortals wouldn’t be enough. I’d need sorcerers, whose unique energy signatures conform to specific …” He trailed off. “Oh, dear God. They knew I’d need Neoterics. That’s why they’ve been recruiting them.”
Skulduggery nodded. “So not only has Abyssinia built up a small army awaiting her return, but she’s also been using the process to hunt for donors. Infuriatingly clever.” He walked to the window and turned. “But if they took your husband to force you to work for them, and nothing has changed, then why come to us now?”
“Because things have changed,” said Melior. “They’re so close to getting what they want that they wouldn’t dare kill him now. They need me too much. So I figure there’s an opportunity, right? Now is the time to strike, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery.
“You actually have a point,” Skulduggery said. “Savant’s probably never been safer than he is right now.”
“Exactly!” Melior said, clapping his hands. “So we go after him. The three of us. If they’re keeping Savant anywhere, they’ll be keeping him in that prison, right? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Where better to keep a prisoner?”
“How much do you know about Coldheart?” Valkyrie asked gently.
“I know it’s pretty much impenetrable,” Melior said. “Only two people have ever escaped from it. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but you two have accomplished miracles together. I’ve heard the stories.”
“And did you know that it moves?”
“What moves?”
“The prison,” Skulduggery said. “It doesn’t stay in one place. It’s a floating island. It could be anywhere in the world right now.”
Melior paled. “No. No, please …”
“Richard, even if we found Coldheart, even if we were able to break in … there’s no guarantee that Savant would still be alive.”
“I don’t accept that and I don’t believe it. He’s alive. I would know if he wasn’t alive.”
“It’s been five years.”
“And if we were mortals that’d mean something. But we’re not, are we? Five years apart means nothing to people like us.”
Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie, then shrugged, and put on his hat. “So let’s go rescue the love of your life.”
He led the way out of the apartment and down the stairs. Melior followed, his hands still shackled, and Valkyrie came last. She switched on the aura-vision again, focused on Melior, examining how the shackles dimmed his light. She looked at her own hand as they descended, at the ever-shifting luminescence that refused to be contained by her physical form. Her strength, her magic, her life beamed out through her skin. She was like a child’s drawing of herself, where the child hadn’t bothered to colour inside the lines. And, down below, Skulduggery, with his aura of raging red, unlike any other aura she’d seen.
They emerged on to the street and Smoke was waiting for them. He reached out for Skulduggery and Skulduggery batted his hand away, then grabbed his jacket, moved to take him down. But he stopped suddenly, and Valkyrie watched Smoke’s aura, dark grey and crackling with yellow, flow over Skulduggery’s.
Skulduggery had been wrong. Smoke didn’t need a physical brain to override because he didn’t corrupt people’s minds – he corrupted their very essence. And not even Skulduggery was immune to that.
Melior spun to her. “Run,” he said, fear jolting through his eyes, and Valkyrie backed off, climbing the stairs again.
Skulduggery turned, looked up at her and tilted his head. “Yes,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Run.”
Melior’s door was locked, and sturdier than it looked. Valkyrie slammed her shoulder against it and bounced off, cursed and went running for the window down the length of corridor. Her hand lit up with lightning and the glass exploded, and she glanced over her shoulder just as Skulduggery reached the top of the stairs.
She jumped through the window.
