"I suppose."

"It's kind of hard to stay angry at you. You probably don't feel you did anything wrong, do you?"

"Of course I do. I cheated on you."

"But why?"

"Because I was stupid, and I didn't think about it, and-"

"No," Fletcher said. He looked at her. "At the time, what was going through your head? Why did you do it?"

"How is this going to help anything?"

"It'll help prove my point."

Valkyrie sighed. "I thought, at the time, that you were being too... boyfriendy."

"Is that the technical term for it?"

"You were being too protective. You were..."

"Go on."

They were in the park now, sticking to the well-lit areas. There was n.o.body else around. "You were lecturing me. You were disapproving of the things I did. I thought it was all just too safe, you know?"

"And you turned to Caelan. Who is anything but safe."

"I suppose."

"So when you cheated on me, you knew why you were doing it. You could justify it."

"To a degree."

"So in your head, it was all my fault."

"What? No, that's not what I meant."

"Val, you did what you did, you made those decisions, because you were doing what you thought was the right thing for you at the time. I try to be angry but I just... can't. You did what you thought was best for you. That's how you live. You never set about to be mean or cruel. These are just things that happen, kind of like a side-effect."

"Because I'm selfish."

"Yeah. Because you're selfish. Maybe you'll grow out of it in a few years. I don't know. I hope you do."

"That'd be nice," she murmured.

"I don't hate you," said Fletcher. "I may not like you all that much right now, but I don't hate you. And I really don't think it'd be a good idea to be around you any more. I'm moving."

Something yanked at Valkyrie's heart. "Where to?"

"Australia. I like it there. It's warm, and they talk funny."

"But what about your training?"

"Australia's a Cradle of Magic, just like Ireland. There'll be plenty of boring old people over there who can offer me useless advice, same as here. What's wrong?"

"I just... I don't want you to go. We weren't just boyfriend and girlfriend. We were friends, too. I don't... I don't have many friends. I don't want to lose another one."

"Well, you break a heart, that's what happens."

"Yeah," she muttered.

"Besides," he said, "I'm a Teleporter. We're never really that far away, wherever we are. Take care, Valkyrie."

She went to speak but he vanished mid-step.

She turned round, walked home.

Chapter 44.

Mission Accomplished

or once, Scapegrace didn't mind the midday sun, or how harsh it was on his skin. He would gladly let the seasons rot him away if that was the Master's wish a although he sincerely hoped it wasn't. He climbed down from the Penguin-Mobile to the dirt track, and hurried over to where High Priest Craven and the White Cleaver were waiting. Secret meetings were exciting.

"Sire," Scapegrace said, dropping to one knee and holding the gold disc up to him with both hands. "I have returned." Thrasher fell to both knees beside him, hands clasped in prayer.

"I see that," High Priest Craven said, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the disc. "You did as I instructed?"

"Oh yes, Sire."

"Exactly as I instructed?"

"I located Ghastly Bespoke's quarters, let myself in-"

"Let ourselves in," Thrasher corrected.

"a and then I located the disc. I subst.i.tuted-"

"We subst.i.tuted," Thrasher corrected.

"a the fake disc you had given me, and returned here to you, now, with the real disc. So now he has the fake disc and you have the real disc. I live only to serve."

"We live only to serve," Thrasher corrected.

"You don't live," the Master said, examining his prize. "And n.o.body saw you?"

"n.o.body, Sire. I was like the wind."

"We were like the wind," said Thrasher.

"But I was like the wind more."

"I was more breeze-like," Thrasher said, and bowed forward until his forehead was touching the ground. It was, once again, an unsurprisingly pathetic display, and one that Scapegrace would have no problem surpa.s.sing.

He laid himself flat on the ground, face stuck into the dirt, and waved his arms in the air. "Give me another order, Master, I beg of you."

"Me too," Thrasher said, lying beside Scapegrace, doing his best to wriggle deeper into the dirt. Furious, Scapegrace started wriggling alongside him.

"If you were not already dead," the Master said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I would gladly kill you both. Stop wriggling, and listen very closely. I want you to gather more like you."

"More zombies?" Thrasher asked, spitting out a small stone.

"I said listen, not talk. I want twenty by this time tomorrow. If you fail me..."

"I won't," said Scapegrace.

"I won't," said Thrasher.

"He might," said Scapegrace.

"Shut," the Master said, "up."

Scapegrace stayed where he was until the Master and the White Cleaver were gone, and then he got up. Thrasher stood beside him, brushing the dirt from his clothes. "You're pathetic," Scapegrace sneered.

"I know," Thrasher said meekly. "But whenever the Master is around, nothing else matters but him. It's like he said, zombies are made to serve Necromancers. That... that doesn't mean I still don't value your leadership, sir."

"Yeah, well," Scapegrace said, curling what was left of his lip, "just don't you forget it."

Chapter 45.

The Nicest Town in Ireland

eoffrey had been the key.

It was a good trick, all right, getting people to believe whatever he told them. He hadn't reckoned on Kenny's journalism training being able to renew his interest in the story, but that wasn't Geoffrey's fault. It was a fluke, nothing more. Kenny had no trouble believing that Geoffrey's power would work on anyone. And that had got him thinking.

He had spent the last few days digging out all the reports he'd found that had later been retracted. He read over them again with fresh eyes, with a new perspective. What if these reports hadn't been hoaxes or mistakes? What if they were genuine, and had only been retracted after someone like Geoffrey had convinced the poor, frightened people that they hadn't seen what they'd thought they'd seen?

Kenny had laid all these reports out on his floor, and he'd spent hours going through them. One of them caught his eye. Only a few lines long. A few years ago, a man in north County Dublin had called the cops after witnessing a dark-haired girl fleeing from a pack of white-skinned "animals" who ran on two legs. The girl a he hadn't seen her face a led them towards the pier.

His statement was taken by the local cops. The next day he denied ever seeing such a thing. The day after that, the cops who had taken his statement denied ever doing so. It would have been completely forgotten about if Kenny hadn't been such a keen collector of oddness.

It was a long shot, Kenny knew. There were plenty of darkhaired girls in Ireland. There was absolutely no reason to think that it was the same girl who Geoffrey had called Valkyrie Cain. But the name of the town in which this had happened was Haggard, which was only a kilometre or two from the town in which there had been all that Insanity Virus trouble at that nightclub. And so Kenny got the bus to Haggard. He stayed in a B&B and talked to the couple who owned it about any odd occurrences they might have heard about. Odd? they said. Sure nothing odd ever happens in Haggard.

By the end of his second day, he was believing that. Haggard was rapidly becoming the nicest town in Ireland, where nothing weird ever happened.

The oddest thing, according to a small old man in a farmer's cap who didn't appear to have any teeth, was a car that had been showing up regularly for the last five years or so. Kenny didn't know much about cars, but he knew what a Bentley was when the old man mentioned it. A real beauty too, apparently. A few times a week, usually at night, the Bentley could be seen driving through town. n.o.body knew who owned it. Sometimes there'd be a pa.s.senger, a dark-haired girl. She always kept her head down.

Kenny felt the flutter of excitement building inside him. It was them. He knew it was. It had to be.

His attention caught by this mysterious Bentley, Kenny didn't pay much attention to the news that a local woman had been mugged on Main Street. Everyone was talking about it. Melissa Edgley had had her handbag s.n.a.t.c.hed by a thug called Ian Moore. Melissa's husband had thrown Moore through a window, and the cops had come and Moore had been escorted into a cell. No magic or super powers involved.

But then, the next day, they were all talking about Moore again. The Guards had been forced to let him go, the nice people of Haggard said, and he'd gone straight to Melissa Edgley's house looking for revenge. Melissa's daughter, Stephanie, had been home with her new-born sister, and Stephanie had managed to overpower the thug and call the police. The poor girl, the good people of Haggard said. She must have been terrified. It must have been awful. Isn't it great how she overpowered him, though? Isn't that amazing? Wonder how she did it?

And then the good people of Haggard would shrug. But then, she's always been an odd one, has that Stephanie.

And Kenny's interest was piqued.

Chapter 46.

The Requiem Ball

here was a box on the table when they walked into Skulduggery's house. It was done up with a ribbon tied into a bow. Valkyrie opened it, took out a beautiful black dress.