are you doing this?” Valkyrie blurted out. “Why does he still want me? It’s not like Skulduggery’s going to back off just because I’m being held captive.”
Sanguine stared. “Are you serious?” He laughed. “Li’l darlin’, you ain’t no hostage, you never were!”
“What?”
“This whole thing, everythin’ that’s happenin’, it’s because of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You heard about the missin’ ingredient, right? The one thing Vengeous couldn’t get his hands on eighty years ago. You heard about that?”
“Of course. What’s that got to do with me?”
“Sweetie, it is you. You’re the missin’ ingredient.” She stared at him and his smile grew wider.
“You’re a direct descendant of the Ancients, ain’t you? What, you thought that little bit of information wouldn’t get around? When I heard about that, I knew the time had come to set the Baron free.”
“You’re lying …”
“Scout’s honour. The one thing he was missin’ was blood with a certain type of power in it. Seein’ as how he wasn’t likely to get the blood of another Faceless One anytime soon, the next best thing is the blood of one of the guys who managed to kill a Faceless One. That was the last ingredient to the end-of–the-world-as-we-know-it cocktail he was brewin’. Must make you feel pretty special, huh?”
Valkyrie couldn’t answer. She felt the colour drain from her face.
“This is good,” Sanguine said, clearly delighted, as he started the engine. “This is good.”
Vengeous felt its power, felt it pierce his skin and wrap itself around his insides. Even if he wanted to, even if he changed his mind about what he planned to do, it was too late now. It was pulling him forward. How could Vile ever have been beaten with power like this?
The Infected had laid out the armour on a table, in a small room at the rear of the church. From such humble beginnings, Vengeous thought to himself, and smiled.
He approached the table, reached out, but stopped, his hands hovering over the gauntlets. His fingers trailed in the air, moving over the chest-plate, the boots. The first piece of armour he touched was the mask. He picked it up carefully, held it, felt it change and shift beneath his touch.
The garments he wore – black and simple to the eye – were specially woven to ensure a successful binding. He would be wearing Lord Vile’s armour – his body would need insulating against the raw power contained within, power that could sear his flesh and boil his blood.
By now, Billy-Ray Sanguine would have located the Cain girl and he would be bringing her to the church. The Baron himself had subdued Dusk, and injected him with the serum. By shedding his skin, Dusk had failed him, nearly cost him everything. But Vengeous would punish him later. For right now, all his dreams were about to come true.
As Baron Vengeous donned the armour, shadows rose from it like steam.
He pushed open the ancient double doors and guided her into the cold, dank church. There were still a few pews that hadn’t rotted away, and there were hundreds of lit candles that sent the shadows dancing and pirouetting across the walls. The altar had been ransacked and cleared, replaced with a large slab, solid and proud, and upon that slab was the massive, bandaged body of the Grotesquery, covered in a sheet.
Baron Vengeous was waiting for them, clad in the black armour of Lord Vile. It was not what Valkyrie had expected. The armour did not clank or rattle, and it cast no sheen. It seemed to be alive, subtly moving and reshaping itself even as she watched.
There were others in the church, Infected men and women, the vampire virus working through their bodies, changing them every moment that passed. They stayed in the shadows as best they could.
She could see Dusk now. His human form had grown back, but it had kept the scar across his face. It was deep and ugly, and he was glaring at her with every ounce of hatred his blackened soul was capable of.
“Valkyrie Cain,” Vengeous said, the mask distorting his voice into a rough whisper. “So nice of you to join us on this most auspicious of nights. The creature on this table will open the gateway for its brethren, and this world will be cleansed. The unworthy will be decimated and we will usher in a new paradise, and it’s all thanks to you.”
Sanguine took Valkyrie by the elbow and led her to the front pew, where he made her sit beside him, and they watched Vengeous lower his head, his hands raised above the body on the slab. Shadows started moving around Vengeous. The candles were flickering like a strong wind was blowing, but the inside of the church was deathly calm.
“The Grotesquery’s gonna feed on you,” Sanguine whispered, almost casual. “That good ole boy’s been out for the count – he’s gonna need your blood in his veins. Gonna have himself a slap up meal. You mind if I take pictures? Brought my own camera and everythin’.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks.”
“No, really, run head first into the wall and knock yourself out because I’m telling you, you better be unconscious when Skulduggery gets here.”
Sanguine grinned and sat back. “I can handle Mister Funnybones, don’t you worry about that. Pay attention now, darlin’, this is where it gets interestin’.”
Valkyrie looked back at the altar just as the shadows bunched up behind Vengeous and descended on him like a shroud. He stiffened and his body jerked, as if he was being shot through with electric currents. The shadows started flowing out through his fingertips and down, passing through the sheet.
“Mr Sanguine,” Vengeous whispered.
Sanguine pulled Valkyrie up and dragged her over to the slab. He grinned as he showed her his straight razor then grabbed her wrist. She tried to struggle but he was far too strong, and she cried out as he ran the cold blade across the palm of her right hand. But instead of running off her hand and dripping on to the sheet, her blood drifted to the shadow stream, mixing with it, twirling through it and around it, being fed into the body of the Grotesquery.
And that’s when the double doors swung open and Skulduggery Pleasant strolled into the church.
The Infected snarled and Valkyrie pulled her hand from Sanguine’s grip. Vengeous looked up from his dark work and his armour grew angry spikes, as Skulduggery walked up to the end of the aisle and sat in the front pew. He crossed his legs, settled into a comfortable position and waved his hand in the