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 barely glanced at her. “I’m not here to outflex your gym buddies. I’m here to talk to you about Doctor Nye.”
“I know you are,” said Reign, and laughed. “Everyone knows you are. You been looking for that messed-up freak since before Christmas. That’s over two months now. Why is that?”
“It’s a family matter.”
“A family matter involving Nye? Yowch.” He chuckled. “Ever think that maybe it don’t wanna be found?”
“We don’t much care,” said Valkyrie. “We’re going to find it anyway. We’ve heard you might know where it is.”
Reign shook his head. “I don’t associate with the Crenga. They may talk like they’re kinda human, but they’re not. They’re monsters. Intelligent monsters, hell, yeah, but monsters. You can’t trust a monster.”
Valkyrie put a square piece of paper on the table. It had a sigil drawn on it.
“I don’t know what that is,” said Reign.
“Of course you don’t. People are calling it a Splash.”
“Oh,” said Reign. “Oh, I heard about this. Little jolts of magic shared between friends, am I right? Just enough to make you feel good?”
“Sure,” Valkyrie said. “Completely harmless fun, if you don’t count the potential side effects.”
Reign’s smile widened. “Side effects, Miss Detective? Oh, you’re talking about those mages who lost control for a bit, right? Hurt a few people? Such a shame.”
“Yes, it was,” said Valkyrie. She tapped the piece of paper. “This is one of yours, isn’t it? One you’ve sold?”
“What a positively outrageous accusation. I am deeply, deeply hurt.”
“We talked to some people,” said Valkyrie. “We did our homework. These little Splashes started appearing six weeks ago. We traced them right back here.”
“Back here?” Reign said, eyebrows rising.
“Back here,” said Valkyrie, nodding.
“Wow. I mean, I’m assuming you have evidence …”
“You’ve been watching too many mortal cop shows, Christopher. We don’t need evidence. All we need is a suspicion, and then we let our Sensitives take a peek inside your mind.”
“That would be worrying, if indeed I was involved in a criminal enterprise, and I didn’t have the best psychic barriers that money can buy.”
For the first time, Valkyrie smiled. “I’m a bit of a Sensitive myself,” she said. “I’ve only just started to find out what I can do, but I bet I could break through those pesky barriers of yours.”
“I think I’d like to see you try.”
“How’d you do it, Christopher?”
His face fell. “Have we stopped flirting already?”
“Oh, that wasn’t flirting. See, we know you don’t have anyone in your crew who could come up with these Splashes. Something like this is relatively easy to replicate, but not at all easy to create. We think you had outside help.”
“Ah,” said Reign. “You think Doctor Nye is responsible.”
“That’s what we think.”
“And so you’re hoping that I still know where that gangly, no-nosed freak might be hiding out.”
“That’s exactly it.”
Reign finished his drink and a waitress appeared, taking the empty glass and replacing it with a fresh one.
Skulduggery watched her hurry away. “Do you have mortals working in your bar, Mr Reign?” he asked.
“Sure do. I got a few of ’em. It’s perfectly legal, and they’re cheaper than hiring one of us. No mage wants to wait tables or scrub toilets, you know?”
“Back to Doctor Nye, Christopher,” said Valkyrie.
“I told you, I don’t associate with Crengarrions. I’m a business owner. I run a bar. I’m not a criminal. I don’t deal drugs, magical or otherwise. I am a law-abiding citizen of Roarhaven, and I pay my taxes, the same as everyone else. Now, I just met you, and I like you, but right now I’m feeling … what’s the word? Harassed. I feel like you’re harassing me. You’re welcome to buy yourself a drink and stay, chat, make new friends. I would love to see you loosen up. But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to call a halt to the interrogation.”
“You don’t have much of a say in it,” said Valkyrie.
Reign’s gym buddy came over then, the tall woman with all the muscles.
“This is Panthea,” said Reign. “She’s one of the door staff here. She is well within her rights to throw you outta this bar. All she needs is an excuse.”
Valkyrie sighed, and stood. The chatter stopped. Only the music continued. Skulduggery started to rise, but Valkyrie put a hand on his shoulder as she stepped round him.
“You want to take the first swing?” she asked, looking up at Panthea.
Panthea sneered. “So you can arrest me for assaulting an Arbiter?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t arrest you for something like that.”
“So … I could knock you the hell out and I wouldn’t land in a jail cell?”
“I doubt you’d be able to,” said Valkyrie, “but sure.”
Panthea smiled.
“So how do you want to do this?” Valkyrie asked.
