Liam ran at Valkyrie, yelling out a war cry. She clicked her fingers and he stopped and cowered, expecting the fireball. But instead she moved in, stiffened the fingers of her other hand and jabbed into his neck. His head swung around, offering up the perfect target. Her elbow connected with the hinge of his jaw, and Liam the goblin crumpled to the ground.
“You don’t really love me,” she heard Skulduggery say.
Peg was sitting against a wall, Skulduggery standing over her, the remains of the broken pew in his hands.
“I’m flattered,” he continued, “really I am. I’m sure you’re a lovely girl.”
Peg moaned.
“But the truth is, we don’t know each other. Not really. I don’t know what your favourite song is, or what flower you like most, or what you like to do on long summer evenings. And what do you really know about me?”
“I uv oo, Skuluggy.”
“No, you don’t, Peg. This isn’t real love. This isn’t true love. You deserve someone who can give you true love.”
“Oo?”
“No, not me.”
“Moh.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Peg sniffled.
“He’s out there, you know. Your Mister Right. And I’m sure he’s looking for you.”
She looked up. “Eally?”
“Really. You just have to find him.”
Peg nodded, then nodded again, with renewed determination. Skulduggery stepped back as she stood up and brushed some of the dust off her wedding dress.
“Stay away from your brothers, OK? They’re not a very good influence on you.”
She nodded, and marched for the church door. Before she stepped out, she stopped, and looked back tearfully. “I awah ink awoo, Skuluggy.”
“And I’ll always think of you, too,” Skulduggery replied.
And then Peg was gone.
Valkyrie stood beside Skulduggery. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“No,” he said. “Not really. Are all the babies safe?”
“Safe and unharmed. Their folks will be glad to have them back. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me? To share?”
“Relatively positive, yes.”
“She seems nice. Peg, I mean.”
He looked at her. “It’s going to take you a while to stop teasing me about this, isn’t it?”
She grinned. “Oh, yes.”
He sighed. “Then you may as well get started.”
Had she laughed and played, like other girls? Had she giggled and joked, and run through the meadows and the fields of Leicester, letting the sunshine warm her skin? Highly unlikely. The more she thought about it, the more she remembered. She couldn’t recall any friends, nor could she recall any giggling or joking. She seemed to remember a lot of screaming, though. Oh, yes, a whole lot of screaming.
Annis walked to the cave mouth, her feet crunching on bones and human remains. It was almost morning. She hated mornings. She hated the morning, the noon, the early afternoon, the late afternoon, and bright evenings. She hated a lot of things.
What had she been thinking about? Oh, yes, her childhood. Now that was a time of her life that had outstayed its welcome. Her parents had been terrified of her. Her father had thought she was the spawn of the devil, but she’d always taken that as a compliment. Whenever she got angry her fingernails would grow long and pointed, and her teeth became jagged and her skin turned blue. She’d never really understood why her skin turned blue, or what purpose it served, but her parents used it as an early-warning system. Annis’s temper was not a pretty sight.
All in all, it had probably surprised no one when she started eating people. Her parents’ friends had probably nodded when they’d heard, maybe shrugged, saying something like, “Aye, doesn’t surprise me one bit, her eatin’ people. Always had that look about her, didn’t she?” Black Annis didn’t mind. By the time she was twenty she’d eaten everyone in her village, parents and all.
That had been … how long ago? Two hundred years, maybe. Now she had streaks of grey in her black matted hair, and her face was lined and she wore her age like an ugly shawl. This was her life – living in a cave that opened into a ditch, kept awake during the day by the tractors that ploughed the field above.
A rat scampered in from the ditch outside and she snatched it up. It was thin and mangy and squirmed in her grip, but she hadn’t eaten in a week, so she bit down and the rat squealed and its warm blood ran down her throat.
She munched through it, not bothering with the tail, which was always too chewy, and dropped the remains at her feet. She coughed up a hairball and spat it out, then wandered back to the fire at the centre of the cave.
She heard Scrannel returning, heard the clanging of his armour, and she allowed a spark of hope to permeate her usual dour humour. He was hurrying. Maybe that meant he’d been successful. Maybe he was struggling with someone. She heard him lose his footing and splash and crash into the ditch. She didn’t care who he’d brought with him – child, adult, old person, she genuinely didn’t care. She was regretting eating the rat now – she should have held off a little longer. She heard Scrannel hiss in pain – either the meal had struck him, or he’d become tangled in the thorns again. Black Annis licked her lips, picturing a plump child, maybe ten years old. She was starving.
But when Scrannel appeared at the cave mouth, he was alone. Disappointment became a weight in the pit of Annis’s stomach.
“Hullo,” Scrannel said, his armour dripping with ditch water. “I’m back.” It wasn’t real armour, of course. He had made it from an assortment of tin products and segments of corrugated iron. It was held together by nuts and bolts and pieces of frayed string. It clanked when he walked. It clanked when he didn’t walk. It just clanked.
“Where’s my dinner?” Black Annis asked, even though the answer didn’t interest her. The only thing that mattered was that she wasn’t going to eat. Again.
“No one’s about,” Scrannel said, giving an apologetic shrug that kicked up quite a racket. “Everyone’s asleep.”
“Of course everyone’s asleep,” Annis snapped. “It’s night. You were supposed to sneak into a house and grab someone.”
“I tried,” Scrannel claimed, eyes wide with earnestness. “But every time I got close to a door or window, the lights would come on and I’d have to run away. I don’t know how they knew I was there. It happened six or seven times.”
Annis crossed her arms. Her dress was shapeless and made of sackcloth. “Do you think,” she said, her voice quiet and filled with barely restrained rage, “that maybe they hear that stupid armour you insist on wearing?”
Scrannel