She took a black ring from her finger and put it on the bedside table. Ghastly, Tanith and China didn’t like the ring—it was a Necromancer tool after all. But for what Valkyrie had had to face over the past eleven months she had needed something extra, and her natural aptitude for Necromancy had provided her with the sheer strength she had required.
She undressed, dropping her sleeveless top and her trousers on the floor over her boots. No clothes made by Ghastly Bespoke ever creased, and for that she was quietly grateful. Valkyrie pulled on her shorts and the new Dublin football jersey her dad had got her last Christmas then climbed into bed. She reached out and turned off the light before quickly pulling her arm back under the covers.
Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow they would find the skull and tomorrow they would use it to open the portal. Wherever Skulduggery was, the portal would open close by. Valkyrie thought about this and what she would do when she saw him again. She pictured running to him and hugging him, feeling the framework beneath his clothes that gave him mass, and she tried to imagine the first thing he would say. Something dry, she knew. Something understated and funny. Probably a boast.
When she looked at her bedside clock, Valkyrie realised that she’d been lying in bed for over an hour. She sighed, flipped the pillow to the cool side and turned over, banishing such thoughts from her mind, and eventually she experienced the welcome embrace of sleep.
It was a fitful sleep though, uneasy, and she awoke in the night to find someone standing over her. Her heart lurched, yet even through the shock, she was going through a list of possibilities—Mum Dad Tanith—and then the man reached down and wrapped his cold hands around her throat.
Valkyrie squirmed, trying to kick out, but the bedcovers were trapping her legs. She fought to break the chokehold, but her assailant was far too strong. His fingers dug into her throat and blood pounded in her temples. She was going to pass out.
The covers came loose and she slammed her foot into his thigh. His leg moved back, but his grip didn’t loosen. She got both feet against his belly and tried to shove him off. The dark shape stayed where it was, looming over her. She was going to die. She took one hand away from his wrist and pushed at the air, but the push was too weak to have any effect. She reached for the Necromancer ring, desperately slipping her finger into it, and immediately she felt the darkness within, cold and coiling. She curled her hand and thrust it at him. A fist of shadow slammed into his chest and suddenly the choking fingers were gone and he was stumbling away. Valkyrie leaped off the bed, snapped her palms against the air and the man shot backwards off his feet. He hit the wall and fell, crashing through her desk. She clicked her fingers, conjuring fire into her hand, illuminating the room.
For a moment she didn’t recognise him. The clothes were all wrong—layers of torn and filthy garments, mud-caked boots and fingerless gloves. The hair was longer, untamed, and the face was dirty. It was the beard that gave him away though. The pointy little beard that Remus Crux always wore to hide his weak chin.
She heard her father shout her name and she extinguished the fire. Her parents were about to barge in. She whipped a trail of shadow around her bed and dragged it so that it jammed the door shut.
“Stephanie!” her mother screamed from the other side as the doorhandle turned uselessly.
Valkyrie turned back to Crux just as he grabbed her and hurled her against the wall. She rebounded and jumped into him, using her knee to drive him back. She jumped again, extending both legs, her feet slamming into his chest. He wheeled back, tripping over her discarded clothes and falling. His head crunched off her bedside table.
Her parents were doing their best to break down the door.
In an enclosed space Valkyrie’s knowledge of Elemental magic wasn’t going to get the job done. The Necromancer ring was cold on her finger as she drew in the darkness. She focused it into a point and then unleashed it. It hit Crux’s shoulder and he jerked back. She did it again, hitting his left leg, and it crumpled beneath him.
“Steph!” her father roared. “Open the door! Open the door now!”
Crux came at her before she could strike him again. With one hand he grabbed her wrist, holding the ring away from him, and with the other he grabbed her throat. He pinned her against the wall, pressing against her, cutting off her weapons. His eyes were narrowed and through them she could see his madness.
The window shattered in on top of them. Valkyrie gasped as Crux was wrenched away from her. Shadows swirled and a thousand arrows of darkness flew at him and he dived, barely avoiding the barrage. He snarled, flinging himself out through the broken window.
Solomon Wreath turned to her, checking that she was OK, while shadows wrapped themselves around the cane in his hand.
The door hit the bed and it moved sharply. Wreath followed Crux out of the window and Valkyrie shoved her bed aside. Her parents barged in, her mother wrapping her in a hug while her dad searched the room for an intruder.
“Where is he?” he yelled.
Valkyrie looked at him from over her mother’s shoulder. “Where’s who?” she asked, not having to act a whole lot in order to sound shaken.
Her father spun to her. “Who was here?”
“No one.”
Her mum gripped her shoulders and took a step back so as to look at her properly. “What happened, Steph?”
Valkyrie scanned the room. “A bat,” she decided.
Her dad froze. “What?”
“A bat. It flew through the window.”
“A…bat? It sounded like you were being attacked in here.”
“Wait,” her mum said. “No, we heard the window break after everything else.”
Damn.
Valkyrie nodded. “It was already in here. I think it was in the corner. It must have flown in a few days ago and, I don’t know, hibernated or something.”
“Stephanie,” her dad said, “this room is a war zone.”
“I panicked. Dad, it was a bat. A massive one. I woke up and it was fluttering around the room, and I fell against my desk. It landed on the floor and I tried to push the bed over it. Then it flew straight through the window.”
Valkyrie hoped it wouldn’t register with her parents that all the broken glass was on the inside.
Her father sagged as relief spread through him. “I thought something awful was happening.”
She frowned. “Something awful was happening. It could have got stuck in my hair.”
After enduring another few minutes of her parents worrying about her, and checking her feet to make sure she hadn’t cut herself, her mother helped her set up the bed in the spare room and finally said goodnight.
Valkyrie waited until she was sure they were back in their own bed before she sneaked out of the window. She let herself drop, using the air to slow her descent. Her bare feet touched wet grass and she hugged herself against the freezing cold.
“He’s gone,” Wreath said from behind her.
She turned. Wreath stood, tall and handsome in a pale kind of way, dressed in black. He was as tall as Skulduggery, and as calm, but they shared other traits too. They were both excellent teachers. Skulduggery had taught her Elemental magic and Wreath was teaching her Necromancy, but they both treated her as an equal. Not every mage she met did that. Another one of Skulduggery’s talents that Wreath shared was the knack of arriving in the nick of time, for which Valkyrie was particularly grateful. “What are you doing here?” she asked. She didn’t thank him. Wreath didn’t believe in thanks.