She lifted from the murk and the world sharpened, and she opened her eyes. She lay on the floor, her hands bound behind her with tape, her legs bound at the ankles. It hurt to move her head.
Valkyrie turned over, on to her side. Pádraig was working at the stove.
“Mr Gant isn’t going to be happy,” Valkyrie said.
Pádraig looked round, and smiled. “You’re awake! You must have a hard head! And don’t you worry about Mr Gant. He told us that once we’d passed over the card we could do whatever we wanted with you. And we’re going to eat you.”
He turned back to shove more wood into the stove.
“I’m sorry?” Valkyrie said.
“We’re going to eat you,” Pádraig repeated. “We’ve been eating people for years now, Rosemary and I.”
“You’re cannibals?”
Pádraig looked at her over his shoulder. “Ah, now, we don’t like the word, so we don’t. We don’t like it. It has unpleasant connotations. But yes, essentially, cannibals are what we are. But we only eat magical folk. They taste the best.”
“Are you going to eat me alive?”
Pádraig laughed. “Jaysis, no! Would you eat a chicken alive? Or a cow or a pig? No, no, no. We’re going to cook you and then eat you. Well, first we’re going to boil you, and you’ll be alive when you’re being boiled, but I doubt you’ll stay that way for very long. It’s our way of marinating you before we start the cooking.”
“Mr Gant wants to kill me himself.”
“Yes and no,” said Pádraig. “This is a test, you see. If we eat you – and we will – then you’ll have failed the test, and so it wouldn’t be worth his time killing you. If you escape us – and you won’t – then you’ll have proven yourself worthy. You understand?”
“Am I going to be given any kind of a fighting chance?”
Pádraig looked puzzled. “This is your fighting chance.” Satisfied with the stove, he took a cookbook from the shelf and laid it on the table, and started flicking through the pages.
“What time is it?” Valkyrie asked.
He checked his watch. “Almost nine.”
She groaned. “I’ve only got three hours left. OK. Could you hurry this along? I really don’t have time to waste.”
He chuckled. “You’re really not getting this, are you? It’s over. You’re over. You’re tied up and you’ve got no magic. D’you know where Rosemary is right now? She’s on the toilet, emptying herself and making room for you. Because in three hours you’re not going to be saving your sister. You’re going to be a midnight feast.”
Valkyrie turned over on to her knees. She got her toes under her and rocked back on to her heels, then stood.
Pádraig looked up, and sighed. “What are you doing?”
“You’re not going to stop me.”
“If I let you sit in the armchair, will you quit being silly?”
“Sure.”
Pádraig came forward, arms out to guide her. “You’re going to have to hop over there. I’m not as strong as I used to be.”
Valkyrie waited until he was close enough, then slammed her forehead into the space right between his eyes. Bright light flashed behind her vision and she had to jump madly to stop from toppling over, but when she regained her balance Pádraig was sprawled out on the floor, hands tapping feebly at his face. Blood gushed from his broken nose.
“Guess you’re right,” she said as she hopped over. “I do have a hard head.”
She jumped, came down on his belly with both knees. Pádraig whooped and she fell sideways as he curled up in silent agony. She ran her hands down the back of her legs, struggling a little to get them over her boot heels. When they were over, she sat up, drew in her feet, started to rake at the tape round her ankles. It was thick, but she managed to scratch a small hole in it, and she kept going, making the hole bigger.
She heard a toilet flush.
Valkyrie looked around. Under the table was a fork. She rolled over to it, grabbed it, sat up again and used it to tear into the tape.
“I feel ten pounds lighter, so I do,” Rosemary said, walking in. “Pádraig? Pádraig, where are you?”
Rosemary’s heavy footsteps came closer, heading for the stove. Any moment now and she’d see her husband. Valkyrie hacked.
“Pádraig!” Rosemary cried, and stumbled into view, about to fall to her knees at her husband’s side. But at the last moment she saw Valkyrie and she straightened up.
“You!” she snarled. “How could you do this to him? He’s an old man!”
Valkyrie didn’t bother answering. She just kept hacking.
It took a moment for Rosemary’s eyes to flicker downwards, to realise what Valkyrie was doing. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no you don’t.”
Rosemary clicked her fingers, summoning a ball of fire into her hand. Valkyrie turned over as she hurled it, felt it strike her back, and then Valkyrie was on her feet, tearing her ankles apart while Rosemary grabbed a meat cleaver.
Valkyrie kicked Rosemary in the chest, hearing bones crack and sending the old woman flipping over the table. She landed on the floor on the other side and started yelling in pain. Valkyrie ignored her, exchanged the fork for the sharpest knife she could find and used it to cut away the tape round her wrists.
Her phone rang.
She freed herself and answered.
“They’re always trying to eat people,” Cadaverous said, chuckling. “I was introduced to them through a friend of a friend. They’re not friends of mine, per se – I try not to associate with known cannibals – but they do have their charms, don’t they?”
Valkyrie pulled the card from her pocket. There was an address printed on it. “Do I go here now?”
“Valkyrie, Valkyrie … you sound impatient.”
“I’m just keenly aware of how little time I have.”
“Oh, I guess you have a point. Yes, Valkyrie, that’s where you go, and it’s the last stop before you get to your sister. It’s forty minutes away if you drive really fast. Tick-tock goes the clock, Valkyrie.’
Pádraig moaned as Valkyrie hurried past. She didn’t even bother to kick him.
She got in the car, swung back out on to the dark road, the headlights splitting the night.
She heard another moan now, from behind her. She fixed her eyes straight ahead. “Omen,” she said. “Omen. Omen.”
“Uhhh …”
“Don’t sit up.”
The moaning stopped. “Valkyrie?”
“You’re meant to be dead,” Valkyrie responded. “So no sitting up, understand?”
“You … did you shoot me?”
“Do you have a bullet in you? No? Then I didn’t shoot you. But Cadaverous thinks you’re dead, and we’re not going to do anything to break that illusion.”
“My head feels—”
“I don’t care.”
“You didn’t shoot me.”
“Of course not.”
“Is he … is he looking through your eyes right now?”
“I don’t know. I doubt he’s looking every single moment, but I have no way of knowing, so I’m assuming that he’s constantly watching.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve got one more stop before he tells me where Alice is. I expect there’ll be someone there who’s going to try to kill me.”
“Valkyrie?”
“What?”
“Thank you for not killing me.”
She softened. “No problem. Thank you for understanding.”
“Should I sneak away and call Skulduggery?”
“No,” she said. “We can’t call anyone. If Cadaverous even gets a whiff that I’m not playing by his rules, he’ll kill her.”
“So … so you don’t have any back-up? At all?”
“I have you, don’t I?”
“I suppose. What should I do?”
“Lie back there and pretend to be dead.”
“But I must be able to help,” Omen said. “I mean, Cadaverous holds all the cards, right? This is his plan, he’s a step ahead, but he doesn’t know that I’m alive. So, like, this is where we turn the tables.”
“I appreciate the optimism, Omen, but you’re not my secret weapon. I don’t want you doing anything, at any time. I want you to stay in the car and not move. That’s all.”
“I don’t know, Valkyrie – that seems like a waste. We have the element of surprise now. Shouldn’t we use it?”
“No, not really.”
“I wouldn’t let you down.”
“I know you’d try your very best, and, a lot of the time, that’d be enough. But Alice’s life is in danger. I can’t take the risk.”
“Yeah,” Omen said sadly. “I get it.”