Skulduggery drove Ghastly’s van, with Valkyrie in the passenger seat. Ghastly, Tanith and Fletcher sat on the cushions in the rear. No matter how sharp the corner they turned or how deep the pothole they plunged into, Ghastly and Tanith remained perfectly still. Fletcher, on the other hand, was being thrown about like an old shoe in a washing machine, and he did not appreciate it.
They reached Aranmore and drove up to the farmhouse. By the looks of things it hadn’t rained much here. Valkyrie was getting tired of the rain.
The van stopped and Skulduggery made sure his scarf and sunglasses were on securely. He pulled his hat down low and got out. Valkyrie scrambled out the other side as Paddy walked over to them, a shovel in his hand, face red from recent exertion.
“I called you because I said I would if I saw anything suspicious,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Not because I wanted you to come back.”
“We understand that,” said Skulduggery, “but we had little choice.”
“You don’t get it. I’m not going to sell this land, to you, or that other fella, or anyone.”
“We’re not trying to buy your home.”
“Good, because you won’t.”
Valkyrie stayed quiet. On the way over here they had discussed the best way to approach the old man. They needed him to leave before anything bad happened, but they had both agreed that he wasn’t the type to be scared off. So they’d decided to tell him the truth.
“Do you follow any particular faith?” Skulduggery asked.
Paddy raised his eyebrows. “You’re not trying to sell me a bible, are you?”
“No.”
“Then you want to convert me? That’s very flattering, but look at me. Is it really worth your while?”
“We’re not here to convert you,” Skulduggery said, gentle amusement in his voice.
Paddy looked at them both. “Are you purposefully trying to baffle me?”
“Not at all. The bafflement is effortless.”
Paddy sighed. “Yes. I follow a particular faith. I would never say that I’m overly religious, but—”
“Then you’re willing to accept that there are aspects to this life that are beyond our current understanding?”
Paddy shrugged. “The older you get, the more you realise you don’t actually know. So, yes, I accept that.”
“And what about magic?”
“Bunny-from-a-top-hat magic?”
“No.”
“You mean real magic? Do I believe real magic exists?”
“Do you?”
Paddy paused a moment. “Funny you should say that. My father, Pat Hanratty, he believed. At least, I think he did. From little things he said when I was growing up, I got that impression. Why do you ask?”
Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie, and Valkyrie clicked her fingers and summoned a flame.
Paddy’s face cracked and Valkyrie realised he was smiling. “Well, that is impressive, I have to say. How do you do it?”
“Magic,” Valkyrie said and pulled back her sleeve to show that it was no trick.
Paddy’s smile faded a little. “I’m… I’m not sure I understand…”
“Your father was right,” Skulduggery said. “Real magic exists. Real sorcerers exist. Paddy, there are bad people who want to change the world, and they need this land to do it.”
Paddy shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what you want…”
“This land is important,” Valkyrie said, extinguishing the flame. “This is where it will all happen.”
“Where what will happen?”
“A gateway will open,” Skulduggery told him, “between this world and another, and the Faceless Ones will come through.”
“Faceless…?
“They’re the bad guys. We’re the good guys.”
“No offence,” Paddy said, “but I think you’re both a little insane.”
Skulduggery took off his sunglasses, and his scarf, and his hat, and Paddy stared at him.
“No,” the old man said. “Apparently, I’m the insane one.”
Valkyrie watched him carefully. His face was pale and his eyes were wide, and she readied herself to rush forward if he passed out. But instead of passing out, Paddy pressed his lips together and nodded.
“All right. OK. Fair enough. You’re a skeleton.”
“I am.”
“Right so. Just making sure. And you, are you magic too?”
“I am,” Valkyrie said.
“Right. I might need to sit down.”
“Before you do that,” Skulduggery said, “I want to introduce you to some friends of ours.”
The side door of the van opened and Ghastly and Tanith got out, followed by Fletcher.
Paddy stared at Ghastly. “What happened to you?”
“I was cursed before I was born,” Ghastly told him.
“That’d do it all right. And you’re all magic then? Even the boy with the ridiculous hair?”
“I’m Fletcher Renn,” Fletcher scowled. “I’m the most important person in the world right now.”
Paddy looked at Fletcher, then at Skulduggery and turned to Valkyrie. “Does magic automatically make you an insufferable pain, or am I just lucky to get two at the same time?”
“Just lucky,” she grinned.
He shook his head in wonder. “My father would have loved this. He would have really loved this. And my land is important, is it?”
“Very,” Skulduggery said and turned to Fletcher. He told him what to do and Fletcher looked at him sceptically, but eventually did as he was instructed. He raised his hands and walked slowly forward with his eyes closed. Skulduggery followed.
Leaving Tanith with Ghastly, Valkyrie and Paddy walked along behind.
“Do you still need to sit down?” she asked.
“I think I’m OK, thank you.”
She looked at the shovel in his hands. “Working hard?”
He nodded. “Digging. Do you have a spell for digging?”
“Uh, not that I know of…”
“That would have been handy. I wasted so much of my life digging holes with a shovel. I probably wasted so much of my life doing other things as well. Life would have been easier with magic. What’s it like?”
For a moment Valkyrie was going to downplay everything, but the look in his eyes made her tell the truth. “It’s amazing,” she admitted.
“How do you know I can even do this?” she heard Fletcher ask.
“You can do this because it’s something you can do,” Skulduggery said. “You’ll start to feel a tingling sensation when you’re at a spot where the walls of reality are thinnest.”
“Tingling?”
“Or tickling. Or burning.”
“Burning?”
“Or you might get a toothache or a nosebleed or you might have a seizure – it’s hard to say.”
“I might have a seizure?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll stop you from swallowing your tongue.”
Fletcher scowled.
“Can I ask you something?” Paddy said quietly. “When you meet the people you used to know, like other kids your age, what do you feel? Do you despise them?”
“Why would I despise them?”
“Someone who can run fast dismisses the people slower than he is. What if it’s someone who can run really fast? Then the slower people become little more than an annoyance, and then an irritation. Superiority breeds contempt.”
“I don’t agree with that at all,” Valkyrie said, shaking her head. “I can do some things other people can’t, but those other people can do things I can’t. It evens itself out.”
Paddy smiled. “But those other people might be better than you at schoolwork, or tennis, or fixing bicycles… whereas you have magic. I wouldn’t call that a level playing field.”
“Well, OK, I’d agree with that, but it still doesn’t mean that mortals have to be despised.”
“Mortals? That’s what you call us?”
Valkyrie blushed. “It’s not, like, an official term or anything. I mean, it is accurate because you’re mortal, but so are we, so…”
He couldn’t help but smile. “I think my point has been proven.”
“What? No, it hasn’t.”
“What do magic people call themselves? Magicians?”
“Sorcerers,” she said. “Or mages.”
“So magic people view themselves as mages and everyone else as mortals. And that doesn’t sound like a group of people elevating themselves to godhood to you?”
“Sorcerers don’t believe that they’re gods.”
“Why shouldn’t they? They have the power of gods, don’t they? They have magic at their fingertips. Their affairs affect the world. If you fail in your current ‘mission’, what will happen?”
She hesitated. “The world will end.”
Paddy laughed. “Wonderful! Beautiful! Do you see it? The importance of your work! A mortal fails at his job and what happens to him? He doesn’t get his Christmas bonus? He gets demoted? Fired? And life continues around him. But if a mage fails, if you and your friends fail, everybody dies. Why shouldn’t you think of yourselves as gods? You hold the fate of the world in your hands. If that’s not godlike, I don’t know what is.”
“Can we change the subject?”
“To what?”
“Anything that doesn’t make me sound like a crazy person?”
He laughed and they walked closer to Skulduggery as Fletcher announced that he was feeling something. They had crossed the yard, standing in the long grass. Fletcher’s eyes were open and his fingers were splayed. His steps grew smaller as he honed in on the spot.
“It’s a buzzing,” he said, “in my fingers, like I get when I teleport. OK, now I can feel it all over.” He turned slightly. “It’s there. I know it is. Right there.”
To Valkyrie, he was staring at empty space, but his voice was strong and his eyes were sure.
“What’s so special about here?” Paddy asked. “It’s just the same as anywhere else.”
“You can’t see it,” Fletcher said scornfully, “but I can feel it. It’s amazing. I can open it right now.”
“No, you can’t,” Skulduggery said. “But well done for finding it.”
“No, I can do more than that,” Fletcher insisted. “I can go through.”
“You can’t and I wouldn’t advise trying,” Skulduggery said, and he’d barely uttered the last word when Fletcher disappeared.
Paddy jumped back. “Good God!”
Valkyrie spun to Skulduggery. “Could he have done it? Could he have gone through?”
“I… I don’t know,” Skulduggery said.
Valkyrie’s hand flew to her mouth. “If he did go through, he’s in there with the Faceless Ones. They’ll tear him apart.”
Skulduggery shook his head. “He didn’t have the Isthmus Anchor. Without that, there’s no way to open the gate, let alone go through. No, it’s impossible.”
“So where is he?” Paddy asked.
Valkyrie’s phone rang and she put it to her ear.
“Hey, Val,” Tanith said on the other end, “did you happen to lose something? Not too bright, vacant expression on his face, silly hair? Ring any bells?”
Valkyrie sighed in relief. “Skulduggery, he’s back at the van.”
“I’m going,” Skulduggery said as he strode quickly past her, “to kill him.”
*
They got back to Dublin and Fletcher still hadn’t said one word. Skulduggery had spent close to five minutes berating him for what he had tried to do, and by the end of it, even Fletcher’s hair had wilted into a sullen pile. It had been the most fun Valkyrie had had in ages.
Ghastly needed to return to Kenspeckle for a check-up and Tanith agreed to go with him. Now that the two of them were back in the game, Skulduggery was feeling better about keeping Fletcher at the labs. When he said this, Fletcher narrowed his eyes and spoke up for the first time in half an hour.
“This is feeling a lot like everyone is babysitting me.”
“That’s because they are,” Valkyrie smiled.
They left them just as Fletcher was asking Tanith if she’d tuck him in tonight.
“What’s our next move?” Valkyrie asked as they walked to the Purple Menace.
“We have to prepare for the worst,” said Skulduggery. “If, despite our best efforts, they get the gate open and the Faceless Ones return, we’re going to need the only weapon powerful enough to kill them.”
She frowned. “Which is?”
“The Sceptre of the Ancients.”
He got in behind the wheel, and she climbed in the passenger side and buckled her seatbelt. “Skulduggery, you broke the Sceptre.”
“No, I broke the black crystal that powered it. In theory, all we need is another black crystal and we have a weapon capable of killing a god.”
“Do you know where to get another black crystal?”
He started the car and they moved off. “Not exactly.”
“Do other black crystals exist?”
“Almost certainly.”
“How do we find one?”
“Research, my dear Valkyrie.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I hate research. It’s almost as bad as homework.”
“When was the last time you did homework?”
“I always do my homework.”
“Your reflection does your homework.”
“But I still have to suffer through the memory of it. That’s practically the same thing.”
“I hear millions of schoolchildren around the world crying in sympathy for you.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“But don’t worry, your research will be fun.”
“How do you work that one out?”
“Your uncle was planning to write a book about the Sceptre before he died. Knowing Gordon, that means he made quite a lot of notes.”
Valkyrie’s mood lifted. “So all I have to do is read through his notes?”
“You read his notes, I’ll do some research of my own in the library and we’ll see who comes up with an answer first. Agreed?”
Valkyrie kept her grin to herself. “Oh, all right,” she said, trying to sound irritable. Her uncle had been dead for two years, and he’d had a treasure trove of secrets locked away behind his study in his old house. Valkyrie loved going through the secret room and she welcomed any opportunity to do so.
Besides, she hadn’t talked to her dead uncle in weeks.