The Dying of the Light (29 page)

“Will that work?”

“I don’t know,” Tanith said. “I haven’t really tried it yet. But now that Darquesse is gone … Is she gone? Really gone?”

“Uh,” said Valkyrie, “I really don’t want to make you decide to kill us again, but … she’s
mostly
gone. Finbar said that untethered entities like her can only last for so long in that state before they just … evaporate. She’s being driven by the need to survive, but that’ll only sustain her for so long.”

“And is there a way she
could
survive?”

“She could possess someone, someone open to possession. But that wouldn’t last long. An ordinary body wouldn’t be able to withstand her level of power without burning out. All the Sensitives are sleeping in protective circles tonight in case she tries to sneak in.”

“But she’s still alive? In a way? Hmm.” Tanith stood up.

Valkyrie and Stephanie got to their feet quickly.

“Are you going to try and kill us again?” Valkyrie asked.

Tanith sheathed her sword. “Naw. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The apocalypse seemed like a really good idea a few years ago. Now … I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not that into it any more. You should remember to lock your doors, by the way. I just walked in here.”

“Yeah,” said Valkyrie. “Thanks.”

Tanith gave them a smile. “I think I’ll leave through the front.”

When Tanith was gone, they tidied the living room and locked the patio door. Then they went back upstairs, and looked in on Alice, who had slept through the whole thing.

Stephanie went to the bathroom while Valkyrie went into her room. She stood there for a while before walking out. The door to the bathroom was open, and Stephanie was examining herself in the mirror.

“You OK?” Valkyrie asked.

Stephanie probed her cheek with her finger, and winced. “Ow. Look at that. That’s going to swell up something fierce by the morning.”

Valkyrie went back to her room, took a clot of dirt from a bundle of tinfoil, and ran it under the cold tap.

“Let’s see,” she said. Stephanie turned to her, and Valkyrie rubbed the mud into her skin. “That feel better?”

“It’s starting to,” Stephanie said.

“Did you think Tanith was going to kill us?” Valkyrie asked.

“For a moment. Well, a long moment. What about you?”

“At first, yeah. Hey, thanks, by the way. You probably saved my life.”

Stephanie shrugged. “Ah, you probably saved mine, too. That was a nice little flip you caught her with.”

“Saw that, eh? Yeah, it wasn’t bad. I’m really starting to miss my magic, though.”

Stephanie grinned. “I started to seriously regret not having the Sceptre with me.”

Valkyrie laughed. “I bet. The moment you put it down,
bam
– here’s Tanith!”

“Typical,” Stephanie said, drying her face with a towel. “There. Black eye averted, I reckon. Hopefully, that’s the last time I’ll ever have to do that.”

“Are you really going to quit?” Valkyrie asked as they walked back to the bedroom.

“Of course,” said Stephanie. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, yeah. I don’t know how you could leave it all behind. I mean, you’re me, essentially.”

Stephanie glanced at her as she got ready for bed. “What are you talking about? I’m not you. I just pretended to be you. The moment I became aware, really aware, was the moment I stopped being you and I started being me. I’ve got no interest in risking my life to save people I’ve never met. I would kill and die for my family and the people I love, but everyone else can take care of themselves, as far as I’m concerned.”

“So you won’t miss being Skulduggery’s partner?”

“Not one bit,” said Stephanie. “But that’s mainly because he was never that comfortable around me. There were times when he was fine, when he was like how he is with you. And then it was as if a switch were flicked, and he remembered who I really was. I’m not going to miss that at all.”

“And you’re not going to miss the adventure, or the excitement …?”

“Maybe a little,” said Stephanie. “At first, anyway. But I’m looking forward to being normal again. It sounds dumb, but being normal is what I find exciting.”

“Yeah,” said Valkyrie. “That does sound dumb.”

They laughed.

“I want to say goodbye tomorrow, though,” said Stephanie. “You know, to Skulduggery and China and, like …”

“Fletcher?”

“Well … I don’t know if I’d have to say goodbye to …”

“What exactly is, uh, going on between you two?”

“I don’t know,” said Stephanie. “I don’t know how he feels about, like, the whole thing, or what he’ll do when I tell him I’m quitting …”

“But you like him?”

“Well … yeah.”

“And he likes you?”

“I think so.”

“And you’re going to want to continue … seeing him?”

“Maybe,” said Stephanie. “Yes. If he wants to, I mean. I don’t know how he’ll react to me being normal.”

“And how are
we
going to do this?” Valkyrie asked. “You and me and my … you and me and
our
family?”

“Well,” Stephanie said, thinking it over, “I suppose we could … we could choose not to treat it any differently. I mean, if you’re cool with it, I’d spend most of my time here, and a couple of times a week I could stay in Gordon’s house while you take my place. It won’t be as easy as getting the memories straight into our heads, but we could just, y’know, tell each other what’s been happening before we switch places.”

“Tell each other,” Valkyrie echoed. “How revolutionary.”

“I know, right?”

“You realise we’re going to be arguing a lot, yeah?”

Stephanie shrugged. “I’m OK with that if you are.”

“Well, at least it’d be intelligent conversation.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “That’s such a Skulduggery thing to say.”

“Shut up,” Valkyrie said, laughing. “Well, I suppose if tomorrow is your last day risking your life, you should probably be the one to get the bed.”

“Maybe,” said Stephanie. “Or, y’know … it’s a pretty big bed, for a single. We could share it.”

Valkyrie smiled. “Cool.”

“But I get the good pillow.”

atching Valkyrie and Skulduggery together, Stephanie was actually jealous of all the things she’d been denied. She envied that relationship, the confidence that Valkyrie exuded around Skulduggery, where she knew she would have his support and understanding no matter what. Stephanie didn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone. She was still treading with a light foot, even around Fletcher. She couldn’t afford to screw up. Not yet.

It’d get better, though. She knew it would. It was already better now than it had been at the start. The more she was around people, the more she changed their attitudes towards her. To Skulduggery, to China and Saracen and the Monster Hunters, she wasn’t just the faulty reflection any more. She was Stephanie. A person. An individual.

It was just typical that just as she was about to reap the rewards of all the work she’d put in here, all the things she’d done, she’d reached the point where it was time to leave it all behind.

But she was glad to go. Mostly. She wasn’t wired the same way that Valkyrie was. She wasn’t dissatisfied with life in Haggard, with life as a normal person. She wasn’t drawn to danger, or adventure, or darkness. Her original purpose as a reflection was to carry on with Valkyrie’s normal routine – was it really so hard to believe that she’d grown to love that routine? Her parents, her sister, her friends, her town, her future … these were all things that interested her. These were all things she needed. She certainly wasn’t going to miss hitting people. She certainly wasn’t going to miss being hit.

But even so … she was envious.

“Mortal female, forty-six years old,” Skulduggery was saying as he and Valkyrie walked through the Sanctuary. Stephanie trailed after them. “We’d been keeping an eye on her as she’d displayed some psychic tendencies in the past. Nothing too earth-shattering, but enough to register as an untrained Sensitive. Her body was found early this morning. Little more than a dried-out husk.”

“Darquesse?” Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery nodded. “Looks like it. From what we can gather, Darquesse couldn’t have possessed her for more than three hours before she burned up.”

“Where was the body found?”

“In a field near Ashbourne. Her car was nearby.”

“So Darquesse possessed this woman and that’s as far as she could get?” asked Valkyrie. “What’s in Ashbourne?”

“Our operative on the scene noticed some fresh tyre tracks nearby. A motorbike.”

“Tanith?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie said, and glanced back at Stephanie. “What do you think? Tanith was talking last night like she was ready to call it quits.”

“She could have changed her mind,” said Stephanie. “Darquesse could have called her after she left us, when she was still in this woman’s body, and convinced her to come back.”

“I don’t want to assume it’s Tanith until we’ve at least verified that the tyre tracks match her bike,” said Skulduggery. “Maybe it’s not her. Maybe it’s someone else entirely who’s got nothing to do with any of this.”

They met two sorcerers coming the other way, escorting a man in a nice suit with a harried look on his face. Skulduggery held up a hand, and all three slowed to a stop.

“Keir Tanner,” Skulduggery said. “Do you know who I am?”

The harried gentleman, Tanner, nodded distractedly. “Of course. Not too many living skeletons around, even in Roarhaven.”

“Indeed there aren’t,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie, Stephanie, Mr Tanner here is Chief Warden of Ironpoint Gaol, scene of the audacious midday escape by our old friend Doctor Nye. Any idea how this escape occurred, Warden Tanner?”

Tanner sighed. “Someone got in, bypassed the security protocol, sneaked Nye to the surface where, we think, it stowed away on a truck.”

“Forgive me, Warden,” said Skulduggery, “but you make that sound astonishingly easy.”

Tanner flushed. “We’re a low-security prison, Detective Pleasant. The Sanctuary knew that when they shipped Nye to us, but we were the only place with a cell big enough to accommodate it. And Nye wasn’t even a security risk, at least not according to the file I was sent.”

“That doesn’t mean we expected someone to be able to walk the prisoner out the front door,” Valkyrie said.

Tanner ground his teeth. Stephanie could almost hear it. “I assure you, we are conducting a thorough investigation into how this happened. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I came here to help with organising a search, not to be berated by a mass murderer.”

Stephanie’s eyebrows shot up and Skulduggery slammed Tanner against the wall. The other two sorcerers tried to pull him back, and Valkyrie just stood there, stunned.

“Let go of me!” Tanner commanded, his face flushed bright red. “Release me this instant!”

Ignoring the attempts to separate them, Skulduggery leaned in close, and whispered something into Tanner’s ear. Whatever he said, it was enough to turn that flushed face deathly pale.

Skulduggery stepped away. The sorcerers grabbed Tanner, hurried him onwards. They passed Stephanie and Tanner looked terrified.

“Where were we?” Skulduggery asked when Tanner was gone.

“Is that how people see me?” Valkyrie asked in a quiet voice.

Skulduggery didn’t have an immediate response to that.

“Some of them,” said Stephanie. “Especially here. They look at you – they look at
me
– and all they see is the face of the person who killed all their loved ones. They hate Darquesse. They hate us. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

Valkyrie looked at her. “You’ve had to endure this since that day?”

“You’ll learn to ignore it. Or almost ignore it.”

Valkyrie chewed her lip for a few seconds, then said, “So much for the moral high ground.”

Stephanie laughed. “Yeah, you can’t stay up there any longer.”

“I loved that place,” Valkyrie muttered.

“The moral high ground is overrated,” Skulduggery said, “and the view’s much better from down here. Come along, troublemakers.”

“Actually,” Stephanie said, “I just want to say goodbye to the Engineer, if that’s OK?”

“By all means,” said Skulduggery.

“I’ll come get you when we’re ready to go,” Valkyrie said. Stephanie nodded, and headed off by herself.

Within minutes, she’d left the new Sanctuary behind, and was back in the cold and dark remains of the old. She got to the Accelerator Room, and the Engineer looked up.

“Hello, Stephanie,” it said.

She grinned. “And how do you know I’m not the recently-returned Valkyrie Cain? Is it because I’m not wearing black?”

“Not at all,” said the Engineer. “You walk differently. You are lighter on the balls of your feet, whereas she walks like she has a weight upon her shoulders.”

Stephanie’s grin faded. “That’s … kind of sad, actually. I would’ve thought she’d be the cheerier one.”

“I suppose it cannot be easy, being the architect of the world’s demise.”

“You’re depressing me.”

“Oh!” said the Engineer. “Well, I certainly did not intend to do that. I should point out that visions of the apocalypse and prophecies of doom rarely turn out to be accurate. So far anyway.”