“Hey, Steph, just calling to let you know that I’m doing a roast chicken for Sunday, if you want me to make enough for you. I know it’s only Tuesday right now, but I’m planning ahead and, well, it’d be good to see you. Alice is always asking where her big sister is.” She introduced a little levity into her voice there, to pass it off as no big thing. “OK, that’s all. Give me a call when you can. We know you’re busy. Love you. And please stay safe.”
The call ended, and Valkyrie checked who the other calls were from, though she needn’t have bothered. They were both from him.
She left the phone where it was and showered, and when she came back downstairs the phone was ringing again. She answered.
“Hey,” she said.
His voice, smooth and rich, like velvet. “Good afternoon, Valkyrie. Are you busy?”
She was standing barefoot in the warm kitchen, her hair still wet and water trickling down the back of her T-shirt. “Kinda,” she said.
“Would you be able to spare some time? I could do with your help.”
She didn’t answer for a bit.
“Valkyrie?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m ready. Give me a few weeks. In a few weeks, I’ll have myself sorted out and then I’ll be able to lend a hand.”
“I see.”
“Listen, I have to go. I’ve got things to do and I haven’t charged my phone so it’s going to die at any moment.”
“You’ll be ready in a few weeks, you say?”
She nodded to the refrigerator like it was he himself standing there. “Yep. Give me another call then and we’ll meet up.”
“I’m afraid things are a bit more urgent than that.”
She bit her lip. “How urgent?”
“Me-driving-through-your-gate-right-now urgent.”
Valkyrie went to the hall and looked out of the window, watching as the gleaming black car came up the long, long driveway. She sighed, and hung up.
She stayed where she was for a moment, then unlocked the front door. It took a few seconds, as she had installed many new locks, and she pulled it open just as the 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental rolled to a stop outside. He got out. Tall and slim, wearing a charcoal three-piece suit, black shirt and grey tie. He didn’t feel the cold so didn’t bother with a coat. His hair was swept back from his forehead, but his hair didn’t matter. His eyes were sparkling blue, but his eyes didn’t matter. His skin was pale and unlined and clean-shaven, but his skin, that didn’t matter, either. His hands were gloved, and as he set his fedora upon his head – charcoal, like his suit, with a black hatband, like his shirt – his hair and his eyes and his skin flowed off his skull, vanishing beneath the crisp collar of his crisp shirt, and Skulduggery Pleasant, the Skeleton Detective, turned his head towards her and they looked at each other in the cold sunlight.
Valkyrie walked back into the house. Skulduggery followed.
Xena had taken up her usual spot on the couch in the living room, but when she saw Skulduggery she jumped down and ran over. He crouched, ruffling her fur, allowing her to lick his jaw.
“I always feel vaguely threatened when she does this,” he muttered, but let it continue until Valkyrie called her away. He straightened, brushing some imagined dust from his knee. “You’re looking well,” he said. “Strong.”
Valkyrie folded her arms, the fingertips of her right hand tapping gently against the edge of the tattoo that peeked out from the short sleeve of the T-shirt. “Gordon had his own personal gym installed in one of the rooms on the second floor.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “Really? I’ve never been in there.”
“Neither had Gordon, from what I can see. The equipment was never used. It’s pretty good, though. State of the art twenty years ago. I had similar stuff in Colorado.”
“So that’s how you’re spending your time?” Skulduggery asked, walking over to the bookcases. “Lifting weights and punching bags? What about the magic? Have you been practising?”
“Just stopped for the day, actually.”
“And how’s that going?”
She hesitated. “Fine.”
“Do you have any more control over it?”
“Some.”
“You don’t sound overly enthused.”
“I’m just rusty, that’s all. And it’s not like I can ask anyone for advice. I’m the only one with this particular set of abilities.”
“The curse of the truly unique. But yes, you’re absolutely right. We don’t even know the limits to what you can do yet. If you’d like me to work with you, I’d be happy to do so.”
“Ah, I’m grand for now,” she said, watching him examine the books. “Why are you here?”
He looked round.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to sound so … unwelcoming. You said there was trouble.”
“I did. Temper Fray has gone missing.”
“OK,” she said, and waited.
“That’s, uh, that’s the trouble I mentioned.”
“Temper’s a big boy,” Valkyrie told him. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
“Barely.”
“Well, he seemed really competent to me.”
“You met him once.”
“And during that meeting he struck me as someone you don’t have to worry about.”
“I sent him undercover. I think they might have figured out that he’s not on their side.”
Valkyrie sat beside Xena, whose ears perked up, expecting a cuddle. “I can’t do this, Skulduggery. I’m not ready to go back.”
“You’re already back,” he countered. “You made the decision to return, didn’t you?”
“I thought it’d be easier than it has been. I thought it’d be like I’d never left. But I can’t. So much has changed, and not only with me. After Devastation Day, after the Night of Knives … so many of our friends are dead and I don’t understand how things are now. I just need more time.”
Skulduggery sat in the chair opposite, elbows on his knees and hat in his hands. “You’re freezing up,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen. In war. In conflict. Soldiers see things; they do things … I don’t have to tell you about the horrors of combat, of taking lives, of people trying to take yours. With that kind of trauma, there is no easy fix. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. You get past it however you can.
“But one thing I do know, from my own experience, is that the longer you leave it, the harder it gets. Fear is cold water rushing through your veins – if you don’t start moving, that water will turn to ice.”
“How do you even know I can still do this?” Valkyrie asked. “Physically?”
“You proved that you could when Cadaverous Gant and Jeremiah Wallow went after you.”
“That was five months ago,” she responded.
“I’m not worried about the physical,” he said. “Your instincts will come back to you. Your training will kick in.”
She looked at him, her eyes to his eye sockets. “Then what about the mental? I’ve been through a lot. Might not take much more to break me.”
“Alternatively,