crawling across his face.
“Dear God,” Skulduggery said. “You look demented.”
“I’m just really excited.”
“It’s getting freaky,” said Valkyrie. “Quit it.”
“I can’t. I don’t know how.”
“We’re not asking you to take any risks,” Skulduggery said. “We’re asking you to keep your eyes and ears open. Are any of your fellow students acting suspiciously? Are they congregating at unusual times, in unusual places? Your teachers – are they acting normally? Do any of them seem unusually angry?”
“Mr Peccant is usually unusually angry,” Omen said at once. “Usually at me.”
“I’ll investigate Mr Peccant, don’t worry,” Skulduggery said, “but I’ll need you to focus here, OK? Any behaviour that strikes you as out of the ordinary. That’s what you need to be looking for.”
“And then what?”
“Then you tell us,” said Valkyrie.
Omen nodded. “OK, yeah. And then what?”
Skulduggery and Valkyrie looked at each other.
“I don’t understand,” said Skulduggery.
“Like, do I come with you, then?” Omen asked. “Do I still have to go to school, or will you give me a note to get out of classes or something? I mean, I’d use my reflection, but the teachers can always tell, and little alarms go off sometimes.”
Valkyrie held up her hand. “Wait, hold on. We’re asking you to snoop around this school. That’s it. That’s all we’re asking, and that’s all you’re going to be doing.”
“But … but you might need me. For stuff after.”
“Doubtful.”
Omen looked at Skulduggery. “But sir … I read all about you. All about the both of you. You took Valkyrie on as a partner when she was twelve. I’m fourteen.”
“This is true,” Skulduggery said slowly. “But, as it was pointed out to me only an hour ago, I am a very irresponsible person. I’m trying to change that, truly I am, so unfortunately I am not taking on any more partners. Ever.”
“Then I’ll … I’ll be your protégé.”
“I’m not taking on protégés, either.”
Omen looked at Valkyrie. “Could I be your protégé?”
She looked horrified. “What? No. I don’t have protégés. I’m too young to have protégés. I’m only twenty-four, for God’s sake. I barely know what a protégé is. I’m still the kid here. I’m still the … Skulduggery, tell him. I’m the young one in this whole dynamic.”
Skulduggery nodded. “You definitely are the young one. Though technically he is younger.”
“But he’s not a protégé! Or a partner! He’s a schoolboy! I’m the partner, I’m the young partner. I still have learning to do. I’m still …” She trailed off, then glared at Omen. “I’m the young one here.”
“OK,” he said. “Sorry.”
“I feel like we’ve strayed a little off topic,” Skulduggery said, “so allow me to pull things back to our original question. I realise this is a lot to take in, but we have to know – Omen Darkly, will you help us save the world?”
Cadaverous Gant was of the opinion that this world was not worth saving.
It was peopled with savages who revelled in their own ignorance, who splashed about in the mud and the mire like children. This was a Truth he had glimpsed even before his Great Awakening, a Truth that had stained his hands red, that had left bodies in his wake, and it was a Truth that would rend flesh and shatter bones for years to come. Cadaverous would be there to see it happen. This he had been promised.
Sorcerers called them mortals. Cadaverous preferred to call them what they were: cattle. Dead-eyed and unthinking. Bags of meat and fountains of blood, unimaginative animals awaiting slaughter. In the end, they all sounded the same. They all wept the same tears, prayed to the same gods, offered the same feeble entreaties. And they all died the same. Every single one of them.
And there had been many. The methods he had used may have varied, but the deaths were identical. Once they’d got past the terror, once they’d realised their fate was inevitable, they were still surprised by the very act of dying, as if they hadn’t truly believed it could happen to them.
In his mortal youth, he had gloried in the hunt. They ran, screaming and sobbing, the perfect prey, and he pursued, calm and determined, the perfect predator. When his muscles were strong and his legs were quick, their deaths were explosions of brutal violence. When his muscles weakened and his legs grew tired, their deaths were splendid blueprints of meticulous planning. His house was his weapon, his traps mere extensions of his will.
And then his heart attack, and the voice, the woman’s voice, that whispered to him and led him to his Great Awakening.
Charles. Charles, open your eyes. Open your eyes, Charles. You are mine. You will come to me.
And so he left his mortal life behind and opened his eyes to the lights of the operating room and the sounds of the machines and the doctors and the nurses and the clink of scalpels on trays and the squeak of the wheels of gurneys and the faraway voices and the chatter and that soft whispering in his mind that said, Charles, welcome back, we have work to do.
She had brought him magic in those moments of death. He was an old man, but his magic made him new again. He was strong, and quick, with a new appetite for killing and a new mission. The war they were to bring about. The things they were to do.
There had been missteps. There had been failures. He had suffered defeat and suffered loss. The boy he had mentored, the boy to whom he had bequeathed his knowledge and his insight and his philosophy, who had grown to be a man of sterling character and dark potential, had been delivered a meaningless death at the hands of a mewling, pathetic young woman, a woman just like all the others except for that crackling, cackling power that she held in her fingertips.
Cadaverous had wanted immediate vengeance, but the voice in his head commanded him to wait. Soon, she said. Soon you will have her life in your hands. Free me, and you will have both your reward and your revenge.
And it was almost here.
He stood on the clifftop, looking out to sea, the cold wind snagging at his coat. The others stood beside him but not with him. He was apart from them. He was special.
“I can’t see it,” said Nero. His voice had adopted the annoying whine that irritated Cadaverous so much.
“Of course you can’t,” Smoke said. “It’s got a cloaking shield around it.”
“But if I can’t see it then I can’t teleport on to it, can I?”
“You can and you will,” said Lethe. “We know exactly where it’ll be in three minutes, so, in three minutes’ time, you’re going to teleport out there.” He pointed directly in front of them. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Nero asked.
“We’re not. We have its schedule.”
Nero hugged himself against the cold. “What if the schedule’s wrong? We’re going to be teleporting into empty space.”
“It won’t be empty.”
“But