“Back,” Skulduggery said. “Back inside the house. Move!”
Valkyrie went first, vaulted through the broken window, landing just as Fletcher teleported in. Skulduggery came last, flattening himself against the wall.
“Hide,” he whispered.
They ducked down.
The rain battered the cottage. Valkyrie risked a look up at Skulduggery.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“It’s a box,” he whispered back.
“What kind of box?”
“A wooden one.”
She gave him a look. “OK, I’ll try this. Why are we hiding from a box?”
“We’re not. We’re hiding from what’s inside the box.”
“What’s in the box?”
“Is it a head?” Fletcher asked.
“It’s the Jitter Girls.”
He peeked out. Valkyrie raised herself up slightly so she could see over the windowsill. The wooden box sat there on the trail in the mud and the rain.
“Who are the Jitter Girls?” she asked.
“Triplets,” Skulduggery said. “Born in 1931. When they were six years old, something tried to get into this world through them.”
“Through them?”
“It planted seeds in their minds, changed them mentally and physically. It dragged them just out of step with our reality, tried to make them a conduit through which it could emerge.”
“What are we talking about here?” Fletcher asked. “A Faceless One?”
“No,” Skulduggery said, “I don’t think so. This was something else. Their parents panicked. Doctors couldn’t help. Remember, this was Ireland in the 1930s, cut off and isolated from a world that was advancing around it. Everyone thought the children were possessed by the devil. They tried exorcism after exorcism, but the girls just got worse. Then I was called.”
“Could you help?” Valkyrie asked. She took another peek. The box was still just a box.
“They were too far gone,” Skulduggery said. “They spent a year in agony, twisting and squealing while strapped to their beds in the asylum.”
“Good God.”
“Their parents came in every single day. They’d sing to them. Nursery rhymes and old Irish songs. There was nothing I could do. The thing, whatever it was that was using them, I think it realised its plan wasn’t going to work. So it retreated. It went away, left them alone. They died soon after.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It is.”
“And so how are they in that box out there?”
Skulduggery shrugged. “They came back, didn’t they? Any poor soul tortured like that isn’t going to rest easy. They have too much pain to deal with by themselves, so they need to spread it around. That’s what I think, anyway. The truth is nobody knows why they came back, or why they started killing people. But that’s what happened.”
“And they’re in the box because …?”
“Everyone needs a home.”
“I see. I’m not altogether sure, though, why we’re hiding from them. If they can fit into that small box, how dangerous can they be?”
“It looks like you’re going to see for yourself,” Skulduggery said, his voice dropping back to a whisper.
Valkyrie peeked.
Impossibly, a pale hand emerged from the box. It trembled slightly as it lengthened, and it was an arm now, that curled. The hand gripped the edge of the box.
She ducked down.
“What’s happening?” Fletcher asked.
“They’re climbing out,” Valkyrie said dumbly.
“If they’re as dangerous as you say they are,” Fletcher said to Skulduggery, “then let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”
“They need to be contained,” Skulduggery said. “That’s why the killer brought them, to cover his escape. We can’t leave – there’s no telling what they’d do if they were allowed to roam free.”
Valkyrie took another look. At first, she thought there was something wrong with her eyes. A girl climbed out of the box. A little blonde six-year-old, wearing a white dress with a bow, moving like bad animation. She was stiff, jerky, missing out the smooth motion between the lifting of the foot and the placing it down as she walked. There was no other word for it. She jittered.
Behind her, another pale hand emerged.
“How do we fight them?” asked Valkyrie softly.
“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “Fletcher. Go see China. She must have something in her books about fighting these things.”
Fletcher shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“Then come with me,” Fletcher said. “Valkyrie, at least. I’m not leaving her here.”
Valkyrie turned to him. “Yes you are. Go. Be quick.”
He grabbed her. “I’m not—”
She took his hand off her. “We don’t have time to argue. Do it. Go.”
He stared at her, torn, then narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He didn’t even kiss her – he just vanished.
Valkyrie turned back to the window. “Hell,” she breathed.
All three Jitter Girls were out, and all three were walking towards the cottage.
“Late again, Cleric?” said Auron Tenebrae, High Priest of the Order, Patriarch of this Temple and a man with a gaze so withering the sun itself dared not show its face when he was in one of his moods. Or so the legend went. “This is the third time this week. If our little meetings are too much of an imposition for you, please let it be known and we will surely reschedule around your most arbitrary of whims.”
Craven bowed again. “My deepest apologies, Your Eminence. I have no excuse for my tardiness, other than I work without cease for the good of the Order.”
“And I’m sure we appreciate it,” Tenebrae said, already sounding bored.
Craven bowed so low his back hurt. He hated the High Priest, hated the distaste that flowed from him daily. A constant stream of snide remarks over the years, collecting in a vast reservoir inside Craven’s mind that he was never going to forget, and was certainly never going to forgive. No matter the flattery he offered, the compliments, the fawning, all he got in return