A crescent tattoo faded up on China’s wrist and began to burn, signalling to her that someone had breached the perimeter alarms she’d installed.
“Stay here,” she ordered and strode off across the yard.
They came around the corner of the farmhouse – a Sanctuary agent she recognised as Pennant and four Cleavers. At a nod, the Cleavers ran at her and China tapped the symbols on her forearms and flung her arms wide. A wave of blue energy struck one of the Cleavers with full force and knocked him back. The other three were ready though, and they twisted into the wave, the magic rolling over their uniforms.
This was no mere arrest, she realised as she dodged the scythes. From the way they were attacking, the Cleavers had permission to use lethal force and they weren’t being shy about it. She knocked her fists together and the red tattoos on her knuckles became visible. She ducked a swipe and punched. On impact, the Cleaver’s head snapped around and he crumpled and didn’t get up. She caught the next one in the gut and he doubled over.
The last Cleaver cracked his scythe’s staff against her knee. China gasped in pain and barely managed to avoid the blade that followed it. His uniform was too well protected for this to be any kind of a fair fight.
She collided with him, grabbed his arm and yanked up his sleeve. Her right hand clenched, her fingertips pressing tightly into her palm, activating the symbol she had carved there so long ago. She closed her fingers around his bare wrist. He stiffened and she could have sworn she heard him scream beneath his helmet, and as he collapsed she turned to Pennant and he shot her.
The bullet caught China in the chest and she found herself walking backwards quickly, trying to regain her balance. She brought her hands to the wound, the dark blood gushing out between her fingers. Her legs buckled and she fell awkwardly. Her head hit the ground and she lay there, looking up at the clouds.
“Oh,” was all she said.
The pressure in her ears was back to normal, and while her heart was beating fast, it was no longer threatening to break free of her chest. When she was sure she wasn’t going to throw up, she followed at a safe distance. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do against a Faceless One, except maybe distract it by dying loudly. If it started to torture Skulduggery again, she’d just have to watch. She didn’t much like that idea.
She was still clutching Skulduggery’s right arm. It was in one piece, fingers and all, and it clacked slightly as she moved.
The Faceless One dragged itself up the steps and Valkyrie crouched in case it happened to glance back. It didn’t of course. Faceless Ones were not the type to “glance”. For a start, they didn’t even have eyes. Valkyrie waited until it was gone from sight and crept forward. She had a niggling suspicion why Batu’s body was still being used – maybe torture was more satisfying when conducted in human form. She climbed the stairs slowly, peeking up to see Skulduggery backing away from the Faceless One as it neared.
“I knew she wasn’t real,” Skulduggery was saying. “It’s all part of some new trick, isn’t it?”
He grunted and rose into the air, and suddenly his body locked out straight. Valkyrie watched in horror as an unseen force began separating his bones from each other, centimetre by centimetre. The sounds of his pain started low, then twisted, and he threw his head back and screamed in abject agony as his jaw was slowly pulled from his skull.
Valkyrie bolted into the circle, her Necromancer ring grabbing the shadows and curling them around the Faceless One’s left ankle. She kept running and yanked the shadows with all her strength, but the shadows went taut and her legs flew from under her and she crashed to the ground. The Faceless One hadn’t budged. Its blank head turned, and it let Skulduggery drop to a groaning heap. Valkyrie threw his remaining arm to him as she got up.
The Faceless One observed her without moving. She’d experienced this reaction before, eleven months ago. It was China’s theory that the Faceless Ones could detect the blood in her veins, the blood of the Last of the Ancients. Valkyrie didn’t know if that was the genuine reason, but she took every advantage she could find. She snapped her palms and the air rippled and slammed into the ruined body before her. The rags it wore fluttered in the violent gust, but the body stayed still.
The ring was cold on her finger and it drank in the death this city had seen. She focused the shadows and hurled them at her enemy. A spear of darkness flew into the torso cavity and tore out through the back. The Faceless One staggered and looked down at itself.
Skulduggery sat there, flexing the fingers on both of his hands, and Valkyrie grabbed him and hauled him up. He was surprisingly heavy. They got to the steps, jumped down, and ran on towards the mouth of the cave.
“Faster!” she demanded.
“Why?” he asked. “I’m still not entirely sure you’re real.”
“I just picked you up back there!”
“That could have been a draught.”
They left the cave and Valkyrie grabbed her coat off the ground and looked back. The Faceless One hadn’t even reached the steps yet.
She looked at Skulduggery. “I’m not a draught!”
“You look like a draught…”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“My verbal sparring has been a tad one-sided of late. I should keep moving. You’re welcome to come along.”
“But this is where the portal opens.”
“If the Isthmus Anchor is linked to me, the portal will open near to wherever I am. Come along now, we don’t have much time.”
“How did it hunt you?” Valkyrie asked as they ran through the narrow alleyway. “It can barely move faster than a walk.”
“It has pets,” Skulduggery said. “And its pets have pets.” He pointed to the red sky. “And here they come now.”
She saw them, black against the red, beating their massive wings. Their bodies were the size of buses and their jagged tails were twice as long again. She saw what appeared to be straps, criss-crossing their underbellies, and she realised these beasts had a dozen riders or more saddled on top.
“You’ll know they’ve spotted us when they screech,” Skulduggery told her.
The creatures screeched.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie jumped a low wall and ducked through a doorway, moving through the ruined house and out of the window on the other side. The winged beasts swooped low over the streets and the riders dropped from them.
Two riders landed close by. They were skinny things, with primitive tattoos covering their yellow skin, dressed in leathers and furs and wielding thin, wicked blades. Their teeth were sharp and their eyes were dark, and their hair was spiked like porcupine needles.
Skulduggery went to meet them, blocking the first swipe of a dagger and snapping the arm at the elbow. He pulled the screaming rider into the path of his companion, using the momentary confusion to kick out the other rider’s knee. He left them and took Valkyrie’s hand again, steering them between two houses.
A rider dropped from the roof, but Skulduggery pushed at the air and he flew backwards. Valkyrie spun as another rider dropped behind her. The sword he swung was huge, too big for such a narrow space.