Kitana and Doran certainly didn’t know. They were lost. They were drunk on this power they’d been given. There was no hope for them. She didn’t know if there was any hope for her, either, but she didn’t much care about that. The only person she cared about was Sean, but he was slipping away every day, becoming more like the others.
“Keep up,” Kitana said, and Elsie dutifully trotted along after them a little faster. All she wanted to do was turn and run. But she didn’t. She kept following, because that’s what she did. She was a follower.
They got to Doran’s house. His dad was out. His mum was gone, having abandoned the family years ago. Doran never talked about it and Elsie had never asked. Not that he’d have answered her if she had. When Doran was ready, they went inside, into the living room, where his older brother was playing a video game.
“Hey, Tommy,” said Doran.
Tommy looked around. His scowl turned nonchalant when he saw Kitana. She had a habit of making guys act differently.
“Hey,” he said, sitting a little straighter.
Doran was trying not to grin, and doing a really bad job of it. “What’s the game like? Is it good? Are you good at it? Are you good at playing your little video game?”
Tommy put the controller on the coffee table and slowly stood up. “What’s this?” he asked. “Acting tough in front of your friends? You weren’t so tough last week when I twisted your arm so much you started crying, were you?”
Whatever reaction Tommy was expecting, a wider grin was not it.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Doran. “Wasn’t nearly as tough as I am now, big brother. You want to try that again?”
Tommy’s eyes flickered to Kitana, then back to Doran. “You really want that? You really want me to embarrass you in front of your girlfriend?”
“Oh, I’m not his girlfriend,” Kitana said sweetly. “I prefer older men. What age are you, Tommy?”
“Twenty,” he said, squaring his shoulders.
“Twenty,” Kitana breathed. “That’s the perfect age for me.”
Tommy had a grin of his own now, and he looked back at Doran. “Why don’t the rest of you run along? Kitana, you want to hang out for while?”
“Actually,” said Kitana, “I’d really like to go somewhere private. Maybe go for a drive.”
Doran laughed so suddenly it was like a gunshot. “Yeah, Tommy,” he said. “Take her for a drive. Take her for a drive in your car. How is your car, anyway? Is it in good shape? Is it roadworthy? Have you seen it lately?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your car,” Doran said, laughing again. “Have you seen it in, say, the last few minutes?”
Tommy frowned. “You better not have done anything to it.”
Doran shrugged. Tommy barged past him on his way to the window. Doran stumbled back against the wall, still laughing.
Elsie didn’t need to look out of the window to know what Tommy was seeing. He was seeing his prized car – the car he had so lovingly restored – dismantled and in pieces in the driveway. He was seeing the dissected engine and the sheared body and the shredded tyres. He was seeing what it had taken Doran five minutes to accomplish.
Tommy sagged so quickly he had to grip the windowsill to stay upright. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. He had gone a dangerous shade of pale.
Doran was doubled over he was laughing so hard. Tommy spun, face contorted with utter, utter hatred. He ran at his younger brother, fist arcing downwards to catch Doran full in the face. Doran fell back, still laughing. Tommy started lashing kicks in, and with every kick Doran would just laugh harder. Tommy straddled him, began raining down punches. Doran howled like he was being tickled.
Finally, Tommy fell backwards, panting hard, upset and confused as Doran sat up like he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Oh,” Doran said, wiping the tears from his eyes, “oh man, that was funny. The look on your face. I’m going to remember that for as long as I live.”
He got to his feet without any hurry. Tommy scrambled up.
Elsie felt sorry for Tommy. She didn’t like him, she never had. Any time she’d seen him he was beating up Doran, humiliating him in front of everyone out of some need to be seen as strong. Sometimes he beat him up just out of sheer meanness. Tommy wasn’t a nice guy at all, but she felt sorry for him all the same. He didn’t have the first idea what was going on or what he was dealing with.
Tommy shoved Doran again. “What did you do to my car?”
“Same thing I’m going to do to you,” said Doran, grabbing him.
And just like he had pulled apart the body of the car with his bare hands, he pulled apart poor Tommy’s body.
By the time Doran was done, Sean was so still and so pale he looked dead. Kitana laughed as Elsie hurried from the room. She burst out of the back door and threw up in the garden. Tears ran down her face but her mind was strangely calm. Despite the horror of what she had just witnessed, her thoughts were clear.
There was a low wall at the other end of the garden. Elsie climbed over it and walked away. She didn’t bother running. It’d be another half an hour before they even noticed she was gone.
Valkyrie raised her head off the pillow even as she woke. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, then she recognised the house on Cemetery Road and blinked a few times before croaking out, “Who?”
“Patrick Xebec,” Skulduggery said, standing in the morning sunlight that streamed in through the window. “The Elemental who went missing. He was passing through Monkstown when he saw those energy streams in the sky. Michael Delaney, the poor chap who was torn apart in his own living room, lived in Woodside. That’s practically next door to Monkstown.”
Valkyrie sat up, bleary-eyed. “So the lights in the sky have something to do with whoever killed Michael Delaney.”
“And probably something to do with whoever killed this latest victim.”
“There’s another one?”
“In Ballinteer. Wheels up in fifteen.”
He left the room and Valkyrie sighed, swung her legs out of bed. She took a quick shower, dressed, and Skulduggery had a bowl of cereal waiting for her when she emerged. When she had first visited his house, all those years ago, every room had been a living room. Now she had her own bedroom, there was a bathroom with a huge shower and a kitchen with a fully-stocked fridge. Sometimes she wondered how much money she’d cost him with her insistence on refurbishment, then realised she didn’t much care. Money wasn’t a big deal to someone like Skulduggery.
By the time they were both in the Bentley, her wits had woken up, too.
They arrived at the house in Ballinteer. As usual, there were Cleavers disguised as Guards making sure no one got too close. Philomena Random was talking to a news crew that had arrived.