Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Cole (26 page)

“Is he your boyfriend?” Crystal asked, once he was out of earshot.

“He is,” Valkyrie answered.

“He’s older than you, though. He might prefer someone like me. I’m closer to his age.”

“Yeah, no. Don’t see that happening.”

“Does he have a brother?”

“Nope.”

“He’s gorgeous.”

“He thinks so.”

“His hair is amazing.”

“It defies both gravity and reason.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“I helped save his life.”

“Oh,” Crystal said, nodding like suddenly the whole thing made sense. “So he’s your boyfriend out of gratitude.”

Valkyrie sighed.

E
amon Campbell was a hail, rain, sleet or snow kind of milkman. He took his job seriously, applying the same level of dedication to his work as his father had, and
his
father before him. There once was a time when Eamon had hoped that the tradition might carry on after he was gone, but unless his son lost his enthusiasm for accounting sometime soon, Eamon feared the days of the Campbell milkmen were drawing to a close. Eamon had no time for accounting. It was all numbers and digits and
complicated pieces of paper. He didn’t like it and he didn’t trust it.

He liked milk, though. Milk was simple. The best things in life, Eamon had often thought, were simple. His job. His wife. The best things.

He didn’t mind the early starts. In fact, he liked being up before anyone else, working in the dark, bringing the milk to people’s doorsteps. He was the last of a dying breed, as he was fond of telling anyone who’d listen. These days, everyone got their milk in great big shops. Where was the personal touch? he often asked. Where was the effort?

Eamon slowed his milk truck, careful on the icy roads. A lot of people were complaining about the weather. Eamon wasn’t. He was used to it. When you started work at three o’clock in the morning, you could get used to anything. He turned off the radio, tutting at reports of fights breaking out in a nightclub. Things were a lot different when
he’d
been young, and no mistake.

He got out, opened the side panel of the truck, gathered three cartons in his hands, and left them at the doorstop of Number 11. Number 12 bought their milk in a supermarket, so all he gave them was a scowl. He left two cartons at Number 13, and the same at Number 14. He missed the clink
of milk bottles as he worked. Some of his fondest childhood memories were of the clink of milk bottles in his father’s big hands.

He saw the jogger heading his way, keeping to the grass verge along the pavements, and muttered under his breath. The jogger had appeared a few months ago, passing Eamon at the same time every morning, giving him a nod and a smile as he went by. He wore reflective armbands and belts and flashing lights on his wrists. He looked ridiculous, but that wasn’t why Eamon hated him. Eamon hated him for the simple reason that he had stolen Eamon’s alone time.

This time of the morning, from 3 am to 5:30 am, was Eamon’s. He was the only one up, the only one awake, the only one active. And then this eejit, lit up like a lanky Christmas tree, started interrupting his routine. A nod and a smile. Eamon didn’t want
anyone
nodding and smiling to him, especially not some bloody gobsheen they could probably see from space.

Eamon’s reaction was to simply ignore the man. For the first few weeks, this worked fine. The jogger jogged by, nodded and smiled, and Eamon looked down at his milk, or looked up at the stars, or looked across at a hedge. The jogger must have realised he was being ignored, because he started to run as
near to Eamon as he could, and when that didn’t work, he added a wave to his repertoire, and then a “Howyeh”. It was getting harder and harder to ignore him, but Eamon was determined that this blow-in would not beat him.

Eamon filled his arms with milk cartons and glanced up, noting that the jogger wasn’t doing his usual prancing gazelle run. He was sprinting. Eamon could understand sprinting. You ran fast because you had somewhere to get to. He didn’t understand this jogging lark. It was a run, only slower, so obviously you were in no hurry to get where you were going. So why not walk?

Still muttering to himself, Eamon crossed the road, heading for Number 9. He happened to glance at the jogger again, whose quick feet crunched over the frost-covered grass. Sprinting. Not like a gazelle, but like a lion. Like a lion, closing in on its prey.

The jogger left the grass and ran on to the road. He ran straight into Eamon and took him off his feet. The cartons flew through the cold air, hitting the ground and bursting. Spilt milk. Eamon almost cried.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled, shoving the jogger off him. “You could have killed me!”

He picked himself up off the road, fuming. The jogger
was already on his feet. There was something wrong with his face.

The jogger’s hands closed around Eamon’s throat, tightening to a choke that instantly made the blood pound in Eamon’s head. He squawked and slipped backwards, taking the jogger with him. They slipped and slid, but the choke stayed on, the grip impossibly strong. The jogger’s face was mottled with dark veins and his lips were black.

“I never liked you, old man,” the jogger said with a grin.

Eamon hit the side of his truck and felt around for a weapon. Smashing a milk bottle into his attacker’s head would have stopped him. Smashing a milk
carton
wasn’t going to have the same effect.

Eamon pushed back, propping himself against the truck to gain whatever purchase he could. The jogger’s running shoes, the heels of which flashed with pretty lights, slipped on the ice, and once Eamon had a bit of momentum going, he piled on the pressure, steering his attacker towards the puddle of milk. The jogger’s legs went from under him, and the choke was lost. The jogger hit the ground and Eamon reeled back, gasping for breath. The jogger laughed, and opened his mouth wide.

Eamon watched as a black shadow pulled itself out of the
jogger’s mouth and flitted through the air, to the door of Number 9. It opened the letter box and disappeared through.

Eamon stared. Never, in all his years’ delivering milk, had he seen anything like
that
before.

He looked back at the jogger, who seemed to have fallen asleep. He lay there, all those stupid lights still flashing, the dark veins gone, no more a threat to Eamon than a baby duck. But that thing, the shadow thing, was in Number 9, and Eamon had a responsibility to help the people he delivered milk to. He started across the road, hands balled into fists.

Before he was halfway over, the hall light turned on, and a moment later, the door to Number 9 opened. A bare-footed girl, maybe twenty-five years old, stood there in her pyjamas. Eamon took off his hat, and was about to speak when the girl bolted out of her house, straight at him.

He had time to see those same dark veins on her face as he turned to run, but she leaped on to his back. He tried to throw her off, but she was strong, stronger than him, and she nothing but a slip of a girl. She laughed as he struggled, her hands gripping his head, so tight he felt his skull might burst. He knew if he fell, he was finished. He had to stay on his feet. So
long as he stayed on his feet, he had a chance of dislodging her and getting out of there.

He stepped into the puddle of milk beside the unconscious jogger and slid on the wet ice. Eamon fell to the road, the girl laughing all the way down.

G
eoffrey Scrutinous looked into the eyes of the hysterical woman and said, “No, you didn’t.”

She grabbed his arm, tears running down her face. “I did, I swear! I know it sounds insane, but I saw these… these
things,
these
shadow things,
climb inside people’s
mouths!”

“You didn’t see that,” Scrutinous said, speaking calmly and maintaining eye contact. His hair was especially wild and frizzy tonight, but he was hoping she’d ignore that and keep
looking into his eyes. “And you’re not panicking right now. You’re feeling much calmer.”

She nodded, and took a deep breath. “I am, actually. But I still saw—”

“You saw people turn violent,” Scrutinous interrupted, “and then you got out of there. That was quite shocking to see, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, it was.”

“You’re glad you left when you did.”

“You have no idea how glad I am,” she told him.

“You’re going to go home now, get into bed, and in the morning you won’t remember any of the bad stuff that happened tonight.”

She released his arm and gave him a shaky smile. “I really have to go. Thank you for your help, but I…”

“Not at all, not at all. Safe home now.”

The woman smiled, pulled her coat tighter around her, and hurried away. Immediately, Scrutinous started walking for his car. He pulled out his phone and dialled.

“This is bad,” Philomena Random said upon answering the call.

“It sounds like Remnants,” Scrutinous said. “Break it off.
We’re not going to be able to contain this and it’s too dangerous out here. Get back to the Great Chamber. I’ll meet you there.”

He hung up and heard a cry. Cursing under his breath, he moved to the corner and peeked around, as a fat man threw a Guard against a shop window. The window cracked and the cop rebounded off. He was battered and bloody, and could barely stand.

“I hate people,” the fat man told him. “Bags of meat, that’s all you are. Disgusting bags of meat.”

Not for the first time, Scrutinous really wished his chosen Adept discipline had been combat-based – then situations like these would not be as daunting as they were now. The plain fact of the matter was, he hated violence, he always had, but that was mainly because he was so rubbish at it.

The cop did his best to throw a punch. It hit the fat man, but failed to do any damage.

“Look at what I’m wearing,” the fat man said, and hit him back. The cop folded, gasping. “It smells. Can you smell it? It stinks. You stink. You all stink.”

But what was Scrutinous going to do? Stand here at this corner and watch a Remnant kill a mortal – just because he didn’t want to get into a fight? That was against his code,
wasn’t it? Well, it would have been, if he’d had a code. He really wished that he’d bothered to come up with a code, then situations like this would be much easier to resolve.

The fat man closed one chubby, meaty, sweaty hand around the Guard’s throat, and pinned him to the wall. The Guard struggled and kicked, but his face was already turning purple.

Scrutinous scowled, and sprang into action.

“Excuse me?” he said.

The fat man turned his fat head. “What? Who’s there?”

Scrutinous peeked out from behind the corner, and gave a little wave. “Uh, me. I’m going, um, I’m going to have to ask you to put down that mortal.”

“Is that so?” the fat man sneered.

“I’m… I’m sorry, but I have to insist.”

The fat man laughed and tightened his grip on the Guard. Scrutinous took a few quick breaths to get the blood pumping, and then he leaped out and sprinted towards them. But his sandals had no grip, and so he slipped on the icy road and fell, skinning his knee and cracking his elbow.

As he rolled around on the road in pain, the fat man shook his head. “You’re rubbish.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” Scrutinous said through gritted teeth.

The fat man let the now unconscious Guard drop, and walked over. “You’re a sorcerer, then? What can you do?”

Scrutinous forced himself up. “I’m a trained fighter,” he lied. “Come one step closer and I’ll tear out your larynx with my Tiger Paw Technique.”

The fat man smirked, and Scrutinous stopped hobbling long enough to fall back into a t’ai chi pose he had seen once. A fat fist crunched into his nose and he reeled, staggering towards a bright light. Was that it? Had that single punch killed him? Was he leaving this world behind, travelling into the Great Unknown? And then he heard the engine, and a car door open, and knew he was stumbling towards a set of headlights.

“More bags of meat?” the fat man said. “Fine with me.”

“No meat here,” Skulduggery Pleasant said, stepping between Scrutinous and the fat man, “but plenty of bone.” He had his gun out, aimed directly at the fat man’s head.

The fat man smiled. “You wouldn’t shoot.”

“No?”

“I’m innocent. I’m mortal.”

“The man before me is innocent,” Skulduggery said, “and mortal, but the Remnant inside him is twisted and evil. And it has ten seconds to vacate.”

“Why bother? I’ll just find someone else to possess.”

“You do that. Find someone in better shape. You’re about to give that man a heart attack.”

The fat man looked down at Scrutinous. “You’re lucky.”

He threw back his head and the Remnant crawled out of his mouth, flying into the air, disappearing in the darkness. The fat man collapsed to the road, unconscious.

Skulduggery helped Scrutinous to his feet. “You OK?”

“I skinned my knee and hurt my elbow.”

“Poor you. Get in the car – we have to get to the Great Chamber.”

Scrutinous limped to the passenger side as Skulduggery got back behind the wheel. It was a nice car, the Bentley. It moved fast.

“How did it start?” Scrutinous asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Skulduggery replied. “Shudder, Ravel, Corrival Deuce – they’ve all been possessed. I’m quarantining the people who I
know
are unaffected until I have a better idea of what we’re up against.”

Scrutinous looked at him. “They got Deuce? Already? But… why? He’s not the most powerful sorcerer around, he’s just…”

“He’s our Grand Mage. This isn’t like the outbreaks we’ve had before, Geoffrey. This time, the Remnants seem to have a plan.”

Scrutinous paled. “If that’s the case, then… then one of their first ports of call would be the Great Chamber, to stop us organising the fight back.”

Skulduggery nodded. “No one at the Chamber is answering their phone.”

“Then why are
we
headed there?”