“Lament,” Nadir said, and spat. “It’s his fault I’m here. His fault I’m—”
Skulduggery interrupted him. “Actually, it would be your fault. You know, for killing all those people. Speaking of Lament, as we were, I need to know the names of his associates.”
Nadir glared. “Go to hell.”
“Silas, now really. Is that any way to speak to the person who has just liberated you from the void? Lament’s colleagues. Who were they?”
Nadir licked his lips. “And what if I tell you? What do I get?”
“You get unhooked, Silas.”
“You say I’ve been here for fifteen years? The last thing I remember is being in my cell. OK. OK, I’ll help you, but in return you hook me back up.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”
“You hook me back up to this thing. Let me serve my sentence here. If you do that, I’ll help you.”
“See?” Mien said from beneath Valkyrie, his voice shaky. “He wants to be here...”
“Shut up,” Valkyrie said. “He wants to be here because fifteen years went by and he didn’t even notice it. But he wasn’t sent to prison just so it could pass in the blink of an eye. He has to suffer.”
“That’s my condition,” Nadir said. “I know a few of Lament’s buddies. He called in three or four of them when he was hunting me. I can help you. I know what you need.”
“OK,” Skulduggery said, “you have a deal. Give me the names.”
Nadir laughed. “Call me cynical, skeleton, but I don’t trust you. I want this deal on paper and signed by the Grand Mage himself – by the end of the day. And I want it on that special Sanctuary paper I’ve heard about, the kind that can only be written on by the Elders. You’re not going to cheat me out of this.”
Skulduggery was quiet for a moment. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said.
Nadir was sitting behind a desk when a Cleaver escorted them in three hours later. Skulduggery slapped the page down in front of him. Smirking, Nadir ran his finger along the embossed header.
“Official Sanctuary paper,” he breathed, then laughed as he started reading. Valkyrie watched him. His lips moved, forming the words. When he’d finished, he looked up.
“It’s already signed,” he said. “I wanted the Grand Mage to sign this in front of me.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Skulduggery said. “He’s a busy man. Too busy to be visiting prisons. You know it’s genuine – only the Grand Mage can write on that paper.”
Nadir tipped a finger to his lips. “And what about dear old Delafonte Mien? How is he going to be punished for his blatant abuse of power?”
“Mien is already in a cell in the Sanctuary. His punishment is yet to be decided.”
“You be sure to throw the book at him, you hear me? I feel violated, Detective. Violated.”
“I’ll throw this table at you if you don’t give us the names we’re looking for.”
Still smirking, Nadir lounged back in his chair. “Lament was a scientist, so he never went anywhere without his muscle to back him up – Vernon Plight. That woman was with them too sometimes, the small one, the psychic. Lenka Bazaar, that’s her name. And someone else.”
“Who?”
“Can’t remember.”
Skulduggery reached for the contract but Nadir snatched it back. “Kalvin Accord! That was it! That’s all I know.”
Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie. “Vernon Plight is missing presumed dead. Same with Kalvin Accord, and I’ve never heard of this Lenka Bazaar.”
Nadir shrugged. “That’s not my fault. I fulfilled my side of the deal.”
“Yes, you did,” said Skulduggery. “There’s no one else you remember? No one else they mentioned?”
“I wasn’t really taking much notice of what they were saying in between hitting me. Those are the names I’ve got for you. That’s all.”
“OK. It’s something to go on, at least. Cleaver, could you escort Mr Nadir to his cell, please?”
Nadir stared. “What? You said you’d hook me back up. You said you’d take me back to that contraption!” The Cleaver hauled him to his feet and shackled his wrists. “We had a deal! We have a contract!”
“Yes, we do,” Skulduggery said, picking it up off the desk. “Unfortunately for you it’s not binding.”
“But the Grand Mage signed it! Eachan Meritorious himself signed it!”
“The Grand Mage did sign it,” Skulduggery nodded, “but Eachan Meritorious is dead – which you wouldn’t have heard about, what with being hooked up to that thing for the last fifteen years. And unless Erskine Ravel, the current Grand Mage, signs this contract with his own name, well... It can hardly be considered a legal document, now can it?”
“You cheated me!” Nadir screeched as the Cleaver dragged him to the door.
“You’re a serial killer, Mr Nadir,” said Skulduggery, tearing up the page. “You deserve to be cheated.”
Valkyrie didn’t like murder scenes. The more she’d visited, the less she’d liked. If they were more along the lines of the murder scenes that her gran watched on TV, where elderly detectives tut-tutted around beautiful countrysides and manor homes, she might have changed her opinion. But the murder scenes she tended to visit belonged in horror movies or police procedurals, where the emphasis was on blood splatter and defensive wounds and, occasionally, finding the head.
Skulduggery had warned her that this morning’s murder scene contained blood, and lots of it. But that was ages away. Skulduggery wouldn’t be picking her up for another half an hour or so. If she were a mayfly, that would be practically a lifetime away. So here she was, in a nice bright coffee shop in town, standing in line like a normal person.
She gave her order, paid and stepped back to wait. A middle-aged woman in the queue behind her stopped rooting through her handbag long enough to look at the selection available and annoy the people behind her by taking ages to make a choice. She smiled at Valkyrie and Valkyrie smiled back politely. She looked like a nice enough person. She probably had a nice enough name, like Helen, or Margaret. Seven people stood behind Margaret, getting increasingly irritated. An eighth person walked in, joined the queue at the end. A big man in a long coat with a shaven head, looking straight at Valkyrie.
She met his gaze and he looked away. He was broad-shouldered. Looked strong. Margaret finally handed over her money and then stepped away to let the next person place their order.
“I always take so long,” she said.
Valkyrie took her eyes off the big man. “I’m sorry?”
“To choose,” Margaret said. “I always take so long