Playing With Fire

Chapter Seventeen GRAVE ROBBING

THE remainsof Bancrook Castle stood on the top of a small hill. Valkyrie followed Skulduggery through the gaping hole in the wall that acted as its doorway. The castle was dark and quiet, and most of the roof had fallen in. Above them the sun was setting, and a startling orange had bled into the sky.

They hadn't had time to stop off in Haggard after depositing Scapegrace at the Sanctuary, so the body of the reflection was still in the Bentley. It was a creepy sensation, looking in at it, seeing it lying there, cold and unmoving. Valkyrie kept expecting to see it breathe, or to see some flutter of the eyelids, like it was only sleeping. But it just lay in the trunk, a thing, a corpse with her face.

Skulduggery held up his hand and read the air, then nodded with satisfaction. "No one has been here for a long time. The Grotesquery must still be around here somewhere."

They walked deeper into the ruins, clicking their fingers and summoning flames into their hands. The light flickered off the moss-covered stones that made up the walls. They took the steps leading down and passed beneath ground level. It was cold down here, and damp.

Valkyrie pulled her coat a little tighter around herself.

Skulduggery hunkered down, examining the ground, looking for any sign that the Grotesquery was buried underneath, and Valkyrie went up to a section of the wall and scraped away at a covering of moss.

"Anything suspicious?" Skulduggery asked.

"That depends. Are we treating ordinary walls as suspicious?"

"Not particularly."

"Then I got nothing."

She abandoned the moss scraping and glanced at her watch. Dinnertime at home. God, she was hungry. She thought of her reflection, about all the times it had sat at the table, pretending to be a part of the family, eating Valkyrie's dinner and speaking with Valkyrie's voice. She wondered if her parents were starting to love the reflection more than they loved her. She wondered if it would ever get to the point where she would be a stranger in her own home.

She shook her head. She didn't like thinking those thoughts. They came regularly, unwelcome visitors in her mind, and they stayed far too long and they made too much mess.

She focused on the positive. She was living a life of adventure. She was living the life she'd always wanted. It was perfectly understandable, every now and again, if she missed the simple little luxuries that she didn't have time for anymore.

She frowned and turned to Skulduggery. "It's probably a bad sign when you start to think of your parents as mildly distracting luxuries, isn't it?"

"One would imagine so." He looked up at her. "Do you wish you could go to the family reunion?"

"What? No, no way."

"Have you been thinking about it?"

"I haven't really had time, what with the world being in danger and all."

"Somewhat understandable. But still, these things are important. You should try to seize the opportunity to reconnect with the people who matter to you most."

She nearly laughed. "Are we talking about the same family here?"

"Family's important," Skulduggery said.

"Tell me, and be honest — did you ever have an aunt as bad as Beryl?"

"Well, no. But I did have a cousin who was a cannibal."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. When they caught him, he ate himself to hide the evidence."

"He couldn't have eaten himself — that's impossible."

"Well he didn't eat all of himself, obviously. He left his mouth."

"Oh my God, would you shut up, you're being — Car."

"I'm being car?"

"No," she whispered, letting her flame go out. "There's a car coming."

He extinguished his own flame and grabbed her hand, and they sprinted for the steps, ducking back as headlights swept by, and then ran on. There was another set of stairs leading up, up through the caved-in roof, to the top of the ruins. The steps were covered in moss and slippery, but these things didn't seem to matter to Skulduggery.

They emerged into the gloom of the evening, as the sun was finally melting into the horizon. They pressed themselves to what was left of the castle's battlements and peered over.

The black Jeep was parked directly beneath them. They watched a white van approach and stop. Seven people got out, wearing blood-splattered clothing. The Infected.

Baron Vengeous and Dusk got out of the Jeep. Vengeous still had the cutlass in his belt, but if he had found Lord Vile's armor, he wasn't wearing it.

Dusk spoke with Vengeous, then issued orders to the Infected, and they took a long wooden crate from the white van. Everyone but Dusk followed Vengeous into the ruins.

Valkyrie switched positions and peered down the crumbling steps, into the castle.

Vengeous approached the only wall that was still intact, and she heard his voice, though she couldn't make out the words. Dust started to rise from the wall, and it began to shake. The topmost stone came loose and fell. Within moments the wall was tumbling down, the stones falling on one another and rolling into the shadows, and the small room behind it was revealed.

Valkyrie was up too high to see into this room, but she knew what it contained. Vengeous sent the Infected in.

She peered over the battlement at Dusk, who was leaning against the Jeep, keeping lookout. Then she turned to Skulduggery.

"Sanguine isn't here," she whispered.

"Not yet, no."

"Please tell me it's time to call for backup."

"It's time to call for backup."

"Oh good."

She dug her phone out of her pocket, dialed, and waited. When the Sanctuary's Administrator answered the phone, Valkyrie passed the information on in hushed tones. She hung up and nodded to Skulduggery, and held up both her hands with her fingers extended. Ten minutes until the Cleavers arrived.

The Infected reemerged, carrying a figure between them. It looked like a mummy, all wrapped in dirty bandages, but it was huge, and judging by the difficulty with which the Infected were moving, it was heavy.

They carried it toward the open crate. One of the Infected lost his grip, and the body of the Grotesquery nearly fell.

Vengeous flew into a rage, threw the offending Infected to the ground, and glared, his eyes glowing yellow for a moment. The Infected tried getting up, but something was clearly wrong.

His body started trembling, shaking uncontrollably. Even from here, Valkyrie could see the panic in his face.

And then he exploded in a mist of blood and fleshy chunks.

"Oh my God," Valkyrie whispered.

"Stay here," Skulduggery said, and started moving.

She frowned. "Where are you going?"

"I have to delay them until the Cleavers arrive. We can't afford to lose track of them — not now."

"Well, I'm going with you."

"No you're not. You're important to Vengeous and we don't know why — until we do, you're staying out of sight."

"Then I'll stay up here and, I don't know, throw stones, and when you're finished I'll go down and help out."

He looked at her. "In order to finish, I'll have to have defeated six Infected, Dusk, and Vengeous himself."

"Yeah. So?"

"The Infected I can manage."

She frowned. "And Vengeous? I mean, you can beat him, right?"

"Well," he said, "I can certainly try. And trying is half the battle."

"What's the other half?"

He shrugged. "Hitting him more times than he hits me." He moved to the battlement. "If things go wrong, I'll lead them away. Once it's clear, get back to the car. If you don't see me in five minutes, then I've probably died a very brave and heroic death.

Oh, and don't touch the radio — I've just got it tuned right where I want it and I don't want you messing that up."

And then Skulduggery placed his hand on the top of the battlement and vaulted over it, and disappeared.