After almost crashing her car the previous night, Valkyrie decided to let Skulduggery pick her up. She left Xena outside so that she could run around, and got in the Bentley. Skulduggery’s façade was a tanned gentleman with a blond moustache.
“Nice,” said Valkyrie. “Have you found out where the Sadists’ Club is?”
“Not yet,” he said, swooping the car round and heading for the gate. “But I’m expecting a call from one of my contacts who will – hopefully – relay that information.”
“Is Temper the contact?”
“No.”
“He’s usually the contact.”
“I have more than one contact, you know.”
She shrugged, and sank into a silence that lasted until they’d reached the motorway.
“Is everything OK?” Skulduggery asked.
“Sorry?”
“You seem quiet.”
“Do I?”
“I think I know why.”
Valkyrie looked at him, and didn’t say anything. There was no way he knew about the visions. No way.
“It’s about the dinner, isn’t it? I ruined your family dinner and you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you,” she said, relaxing. “You know what happens when I’m mad at you.”
“You tend to throw mugs at me.”
“And have I thrown any mugs? Do you even see any mugs? No. So I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at my parents, either, even though they invited you without asking me. I understand why they did it. They’re worried about me; they think getting more involved in my life will ease their minds.”
“It won’t, though,” Skulduggery said. “At all. In the slightest. If they knew more about what you did—”
“They’d never sleep again,” Valkyrie said. “Exactly. But, y’know … they’re parents. It’s their job to worry about me, just like it’s my job to protect them from what’s coming.” She winced even as the words escaped her lips, hoping fervently that he’d let it go. But of course he didn’t.
He looked at her. “Do you think about that a lot?”
“Think about what?”
“About what’s coming. The things you saw in your vision.”
Valkyrie tried to give a nonchalant shrug. “A bit. But, if I feel it getting me down, I just remind myself that we’ve seen the future before and we’ve seen the future change, so …”
“So you’re hoping to change the future.”
“Y’know … yeah.”
“That’s quite a burden to carry.”
“Is it?”
“It’s almost as if you’re taking all responsibility for the bad things that are going to happen.”
“Well,” Valkyrie said, giving a little laugh, “they won’t happen if we change them, will they?”
“We were able to alter aspects of the future that Cassandra Pharos saw,” Skulduggery said. “But it was only aspects. Are you hoping to avoid this new future altogether?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, it’s not out of the question, is it? The future I saw only exists because certain things happen along the way. We change those things, and that future vanishes. It’s not like we’re battling against fate or something, right? I don’t believe in destiny. Auger Darkly isn’t destined to face the King of the Darklands – it’s just been foreseen. By psychics. There’s a difference. So if there’s no fate, and no destiny, what are we left with? God? I’ve seen no evidence of a higher power controlling everything, and I’ve been Darquesse. If anyone could have sensed the presence of an upper-case God, it’s her.”
“All that may be true,” Skulduggery said, “but we know from experience that changing the future is not easy. In order to ensure it doesn’t happen, we’d need to know a lot more about what’s coming. You’d need to delve deeper into your vision.”
“Well, OK,” Valkyrie responded. “Then let’s do it.”
“Unfortunately, that brings its own complications, as you well know. In order to safely navigate the psychic highways, you’ll need training. Safeguards will have to be put in place.”
“That’ll take years.”
“You don’t know that,” Skulduggery said. “There’s never been a Sensitive like you before. The ability essentially exploded inside you. Maybe it won’t take that long.”
“You told me it’d take three years minimum before I could start exploring the vision seriously. Have you changed your mind?”
Skulduggery hesitated. “No,” he said at last.
“And, while I’m spending the next three years – minimum – studying to be a Sensitive, the world is going to hell around me? No, thanks. What I should be doing is just diving into the vision, head first.”
“Far too dangerous.”
“You don’t know that. It might be fine.”
“Or it might have huge, untold side effects,” he said. “You could lose control. You could lose your mind.”
“I’m strong enough to take it.”
“If anyone could, then yes, I agree, it would be you. And I freely acknowledge the fact that this caution goes against every instinct I have. I much prefer to plunge into danger. It’s more fun. But something like this … is different.”
“If you were me,” she said, “would you do it?”
Skulduggery didn’t answer. The eyes of his façade remained fixed on the road.
“Yeah,” she said. “See?”
His phone rang. She answered, then hung up and told him where the Sadists’ Club was.
They got to Roarhaven, drove through and parked, then walked a little, coming to a metal door with a shelf riveted on to it, level with Valkyrie’s chest. Skulduggery knocked, and a small voice piped up. “Who goes there?”
“Visitors,” Skulduggery said, “just passing through. We heard this would be a good place to meet like-minded people.”
There was a moment of hesitation, and then, “Skulduggery? Is that you?”
Skulduggery frowned. “It might be. Who is this?”
A slot opened, and a man no taller than Valkyrie’s outstretched hand stepped out on to the shelf. He was wearing a green suit and orange tie, and he had wings and pointed ears.
“It’s me,” said the small man. “Cormac.”
“Whoa,” said Valkyrie.
Skulduggery deactivated his façade, and peered closer. “Cormac?”
The little man grinned. “I thought that was you! How’ve you been?”
“Fine,” Skulduggery said. “You look … different.”
“Ah, yeah, I shaved the beard.”
“That must be it. Also, you’ve shrunk.”
Cormac’s face soured. “The faerie genes kicked in three years ago. My ears went pointy and I grew the wings and I got all that faerie magic that’d been promised me since I was a kid, but … well. As you can see, my parents left out some pretty pertinent information.”
“Hi,” said Valkyrie. “My name’s Valkyrie. How are you? Could I ask a question?”
“Go ahead,” said Cormac.
“Are your parents faeries, too?”
“Yes, they are. Proud members of the fae community.”
“And are they … small?”
He folded his arms and sighed, like this was the hundredth time today he’d had to explain this. “They’re people-sized. All faeries start off people-sized. Some faeries develop the ability to switch back and forth between sizes. Some – and this is the part I didn’t know until three years ago – shrink down to this size and are then stuck like this. It hasn’t been easy. I have to wear modified dolls’ clothes, I can’t form meaningful relationships with anyone taller than twenty centimetres, and cats keep trying to eat me. Also, I lost my job.”
“What were you?”
“I was a hand model. I modelled wristwatches in photo shoots, things like that. I have good wrists. Lightly haired.”
“Right.”
“And now I’m here, stuck doing security for the Sadists’ Club.” He winced. “Damn. That’s supposed to be a secret.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Skulduggery said. “Could you let us in? We’re looking for someone.”
“Can’t do it,” Cormac replied. “Wish I could. You and me go way back, and I always look out for my friends – but this is my job, Skulduggery. Do you know how hard it is for a faerie of my size to find gainful employment? First, I have to overcome the stigma of being a faerie in the first place. You think that’s easy? That was hard even when I was people-sized. You know the problem? There are so few faeries left in the world that nobody knows a thing about us or our culture. All they have to go on are tired old tropes and stereotypes, with the clapping and the fairy dust and the constant Tinkerbell references. I struck it lucky with this job. Yeah, the clientele are not exactly my kind of people, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”
“So how do we get in?”
“You really want to do this? There’s a whole thing. You want to do this?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Skulduggery.
“No, we can do it. I can pretend I don’t know you, we’ll go through the process, and, if you pass, you get in. Fair’s fair.”
“What do we do?”
Cormac put his tiny hands on his tiny hips. “One of you has to fight me.”