The Faceless Ones

Chapter Forty-three. The Gateway

Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain found the Faceless One that had once been Batu on the other side of the wood. Ghastly was suspended in the air before it, his back arched, his mouth open, trying to scream. Veins were popping out all over his body, as if the Faceless One was bringing each one to the surface with the intention of ripping them all out.

"Hey!" Valkyrie shouted.

It looked over at them, didn't move for three or four seconds, then cast Ghastly aside and started to run toward them."Okay," Skulduggery said, "the moment it--" The Faceless One waved its arm, and Skulduggery was wrenched off his feet and sent flying through the air.

Valkyrie cursed and spun, sprinting into the trees. The idea had been for Skulduggery to distract it if it got too close too fast, but now there was no one between them. This was already going badly.

She darted between trees and jumped over fallen branches. She glanced back, saw trees uprooting and branches disintegrating, clearing a path for the Faceless One to run straight through.

She saw it wave its arm, and she was thrown forward. She hit the ground and got a mouthful of dirt as she rolled.

Something white blurred in her peripheral vision, and the White Cleaver jumped to intercept. He raked his scythe across the Faceless One's torso, then spun to go for the neck. Any other enemy would have fallen, such was the speed and precision of the move, but the blade didn't even penetrate the skin. The Faceless One slammed its fist against the Cleaver's chest, and he hurtled back, quickly disappearing from view.

The Faceless One strode toward Valkyrie. She spat out dirt and wiped her mouth, watching it come. She timed its steps and then splayed her hands. The air rippled, striking not the Faceless One but the loose ground just in front of it. Its foot touched down and its weight shifted onto it just as the ground shot backward, and the Faceless One fell.

Valkyrie burst from the tree line, and to her left she saw Skulduggery running parallel. They raced to the top of the meadow, to where Fletcher was once again kneeling with his hands on the Grotesquery. The yellow gateway was opening.

China was doing her thing with the symbols around the circle. Red and black smoke began to rise. "Where is it?" she shouted.

"Behind me," Valkyrie said breathlessly. A shadow fell and Skulduggery dived into her as the Faceless One landed where she had just been.

She saw Solomon Wreath, riding a wave of darkness that spilled from his cane. He jumped to the ground beside them and pulled her up, and used the cane to drive a hundred needles of dark into the Faceless One's chest.

"Drive it back!" China shouted from the swirling column of smoke. "Get it close enough to the gateway so it'll be sucked in!"

The gravitational pull from the yellow portal was immense. Even from where she stood, Valkyrie could feel herself slipping toward it. She forced herself back as Skulduggery joined Wreath in his efforts.

She pushed at the air to dislodge the ground beneath the Faceless One's feet, but she wasn't rewarded. Its movements were solid as it battled, and its steps were impossible to predict.

"Gateway's as open as it's going to get!" Fletcher shouted.

Wreath suddenly started screaming. His right leg buckled and twisted and blood spurted, and Skulduggery snapped his hand against the air, throwing the Necromancer out of the fight before he was killed. Wreath landed and clutched at his leg, but now Skulduggery was the only one left.

The Faceless One grabbed him, its fingers sliding between his ribs and gripping, and Skulduggery screamed as he was lifted off the ground.

"Valkyrie!" Wreath shouted from behind. She turned, and he threw his cane at her feet. "Use it!"

"I don't know how!"

"Just use the damn thing!»She grabbed it, felt the dark power contained within. Shadows leaked from the cane and wrapped around her wrist. She knew instinctively that if Wreath hadn't given it voluntarily, those shadows would tighten and turn her bones to dust.

She turned the cane in her hand, feeling the drag, as though it was moving through water, and then she whipped it straight out, and a shadow sliced against the back of the Faceless One's leg. The shadow didn't break its skin, but it did get its attention. The Faceless One turned to her.

Valkyrie rotated the cane by her side, like she was gathering cotton candy around a stick, then flicked it at the Faceless One. Instead of cotton candy, shadows flew, hit the Faceless One, and tried to wrap around it. It threw Skulduggery down and brushed the shadows away with one angry gesture.

She ran up to it, swinging the cane. The Faceless One caught it and snapped it. An explosion of darkness hurled Valkyrie backward and sent the Faceless One staggering.

Valkyrie thudded into Ghastly's arms, and he grunted and let her down. She saw the Faceless One, standing just outside the gateway, struggling to escape its gravitational pull.It was almost in. It was almost through.

"Hit it!" she shouted. "Somebody hit it!"

Ghastly stepped forward and China left the column of smoke, but tentacles burst from the Faceless One's chest, slammed into them, and tossed them back. The tentacles, made of entrails and organs, wrapped around trees and burrowed through the ground in a last-ditch effort, an effort that was destroying its host body to save the god within.

Then Skulduggery stood, looked at the Faceless One, and stepped forward, sinking into the stance. He snapped his hands against the air, and the air rippled. The Faceless One hurtled back, disappearing into the portal, its flailing tentacles yanked in after it, taking branches and clumps of earth along with it. Immediately, Skulduggery whirled.

"The Grotesquery!" he shouted. "Now!"

Within the column of smoke, Fletcher slid his hands underneath the Grotesquery's torso and heaved, and the torso rolled out of the circle. Skulduggery gestured, and the air caught the torso and brought it into his hands. He grunted and stepped back and launched it into the gateway.

Now that the link was gone, the gateway started to rapidly close.And then a tentacle slid out and wrapped around Skulduggery's ankle.

It tugged and he fell. He clutched at the ground as he was dragged quickly back.

"Skulduggery!" Valkyrie screamed, sprinting toward him.

He looked up and reached out to her, but it was too late. He disappeared through the gateway.

"Keep it open!" Valkyrie screamed to Fletcher.

"I can't!"

She was three steps away when the portal collapsed.

"Open it!" she yelled.

But Fletcher was standing, and through the swirling smoke she could see his stunned face. He shook his head.

"No! Fletcher, no! You've got to open it!"

"I don't have the Grotesquery," he said. "I can't."

China was standing, and Valkyrie ran to her, grabbed her. "Do something!"

China didn't even look at her. Her blue eyes, so pretty, so pale, were on the empty space where she'd last seen Skulduggery. Valkyrie shoved her away, turned to Ghastly."Come on!" she roared.

"He's gone," Ghastly said, his voice dull.

"He can't be!"

Valkyrie turned, turned again, looking for someone who knew what to do, someone who'd have a plan. She saw no one. No one knew what to do.

And then she was on her knees. There were tears running down her face, and it was like a part of her had been cut out, somewhere in her belly, and her thoughts were frozen in her mind.

It was quiet. The smoke had stopped swirling, and it drifted away in the afternoon breeze. It was still, and it was peaceful, and around them were the dead bodies of friends and colleagues and enemies, and the air stank of ozone and magic.