“And there’s nothing else we should know?”
“Nothing else of value. The only other item of interest was that one of the soldiers mentioned their orders had been given by an old man with a long grey beard and another man he couldn’t identify.”
Valkyrie ignored the ring, and frowned. “What, he didn’t know him?”
“No,” said Wreath. “Baritone was under the impression that the soldier couldn’t even remember him.”
“All of this,” Skulduggery said, “strikes me as something you could have told me over the phone.”
Wreath laughed. “Now that is very true, Skulduggery. However, we don’t like each other very much, so I wasn’t about to tell you anything. And how else was I going to see my favourite student on her special day without popping up uninvited outside her window? Such behaviour strikes me as being vaguely unhealthy, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A visit from you strikes me as very unhealthy,” Skulduggery said.
Valkyrie got to her feet. “I’m going to cut this short before you start hitting each other. Solomon, thank you for your help and thank you so much for the present – it was really nice of you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, coming forward and kissing her cheek. “Happy birthday again.”
Skulduggery put on his hat and walked out. Valkyrie caught up with him at the elevator, right before the doors slid closed. They started their descent.
“What do you think it all means?” she asked.
Skulduggery didn’t respond.
She sighed. “Are you sulking?”
“Me? No. I don’t sulk.”
“You sound like you’re sulking.”
“I’m just waiting for the violent urges to subside.”
“Why don’t you like Solomon? He’s really not that bad.”
“I’ve known him a lot longer than you have.”
“Fine. Be like that. So this mystery man giving orders, the one who couldn’t be remembered … We’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”
Skulduggery activated his façade as they reached the ground floor. The face was plain, the expression grim. They walked to the exit. “Three years ago, Davina Marr was enlisted to destroy the Sanctuary in Dublin by a man she couldn’t remember clearly. A similar man turns up five years ago and is revealed to be behind some Warlock killings. Sean Mackin, that lovable teenage psychopath, was released from his Sanctuary cell three months ago by a man he can’t quite remember. It would appear that this is the same man, and he has a significant connection to Roarhaven.” They left the hotel, walked to the Bentley.
“So …” said Valkyrie. “Department X is killing Warlocks, except Department X doesn’t exist. But if the Warlocks think it does exist, then … what does that mean? Are they going to go after mortals in revenge? How does framing ordinary people help our mystery man achieve whatever it is he wants to achieve?”
“I don’t know. But practically every mage in Roarhaven believes that sorcerers should be running the world.”
“So that’s his plan? To get the Warlocks to kill some mortals? That’s kind of a stupid plan. I mean, as soon as we find the Warlocks, we’re going to stop them, right?”
“Unless there’s a war on to distract us.”
“You think the mystery man has something to do with what’s happening with the Supreme Council?”
“I don’t like coincidences, Valkyrie. They’re ugly and annoying.” He glanced at her. “How do you like your ring?”
She couldn’t help it. She beamed. “It is awesome.”
It was even less easy to be a man in a woman in a man’s world. And who says it’s a man’s world anyway? Such outdated notions of sexism had no place in the mind of Vaurien Scapegrace. Not any more. Not since the … mistake.
Once he had been the Killer Supreme. Then the Zombie King. Then a head in a jar. That was probably the low point. But he’d been given a chance, an opportunity to turn it all around. He’d been shown a body, a perfect physical specimen, and he knew that this empty vessel would be the ideal place for his transplanted brain to rest. He could live again. He would live again. He would be a living, breathing man once more. No rotting flesh for him. No decomposition. No ridicule. He would have respect. Finally, he would have respect.
Instead, his brain got put into the body of a woman, and his idiot zombie sidekick got the body of the tall, handsome man with all those muscles.
Life had sucked when Scapegrace was alive. Then death sucked. And now life was sucking all over again.
Living in a new body was hard, but living in a woman’s body was even harder. Every time he spoke, he heard a voice that wasn’t his, and for the first few weeks he kept looking round to check if there were someone else in the room. He didn’t even know how to walk without looking stupid. And then there was the whole trauma of looking into the mirror and seeing a face that was not his own.
It was a pretty face, he wasn’t denying that. The woman had been very attractive. Early twenties, with auburn hair and green eyes. Six feet tall and in excellent physical condition. If Scapegrace had met her in other circumstances, he liked to think he would have swept her off her feet. Or he’d have considered it, at the very least. She would probably have laughed at him if he’d tried. Women this attractive usually did.
He frowned. Where was he going with this train of thought? He had no idea.
He looked at his reflection as he frowned. The woman even looked good when she did that. Or rather, he did. He even looked good when he did that. It was all very confusing.
“Are you looking at your reflection in that blade?”
Scapegrace whirled, the sword held out in front of him. The old man who had spoken stood there with his hands pressed together like he was praying. Grandmaster Ping was the kind of old that you just didn’t see a whole lot of any more. He was a small Chinese man with a grey wispy beard that sprouted from his chin like a trail of hairy smoke. His skin was like parchment paper that had been crumpled up, tossed in a bin, then taken out and half-heartedly flattened. It was full of wrinkles, basically. Ping was dressed in what he called the traditional robes of his ancestors, but Scapegrace was fairly certain that the bathrobe was new.
“You must be ready at all times,” Ping said in that heavy Chinese accent. “How can you see your enemies clearly when you cannot even take your eyes off yourself?”
Scapegrace didn’t answer. He was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.
Ping’s hands moved like flowing water, and he stepped back into a deep fighting stance. “Come,” he said. “Attack me.”
“But you don’t have a sword,” Scapegrace said.
Ping smiled. “That does not mean I am unarmed.”
Scapegrace let out a yell and ran forward, slashing his sword