"Shall we depart?" she asked, her hands on their arms, and the shadows swirled around them and then they were in darkness and gloom, away from the sounds of fighting. They were down below, in the caves. Shade tore herself from Melancholia's touch, turned and ran. Melancholia laughed and sent a shadow to slice through her back. Shade collapsed and Melancholia smiled at Craven. "You're not going to run from me, are you?"

"No," Craven managed to say.

"I need somewhere quiet if I want to kill a country, and I need someone to look out for me while I do it."

"I'd... I'd be honoured. But we need to keep moving. There are creatures down here who feed on magic, and if the Rippers find us..."

"I wouldn't worry about the Rippers or the monsters," she laughed. "If I were you, I'd worry about Skulduggery Pleasant."

Craven stared at her. "He isn't dead?"

"Oh, he's dead, but it's the same dead as always. He and Valkyrie weren't in the crowd when I took all those lives. I'd say they're looking for us as we speak. Come."

She turned, led the way through the tunnel.

She was going to kill him. There was no way round it a Melancholia was going to kill him, and she wasn't trying to hide it. Craven knew what his options were. He could run, but he doubted he'd get very far, or he could fight, but that option scared him even more than running. He knew what Solomon Wreath would do in his place. He would bide his time, wait until Melancholia was distracted, and then he'd attack. It would be short, sharp and brutal. She'd be dead before she knew what had happened. That's what Wreath would do, and he wouldn't hesitate, either. He'd have that a.s.surance he was always so good at wielding.

Craven didn't have that level of a.s.surance, though. He was afraid he'd panic, misjudge the attack, or miss the moment. And then what would happen? She'd turn to him, laugh at his pathetic attempt, and with a casual flick of the wrist, she'd tear him apart.

His eyes came to rest on the back of Melancholia's head as she walked. If Wreath was with him, it would have been over by now. Melancholia would be lying dead on the ground, and they'd go back to looking for a Death Bringer they could control. But Craven was alone, and it was up to him to save himself. He raised his hands, feeling the power in his amulet ready to burst forth. His tongue slid over his dry lips. The ground levelled off and Melancholia walked in a straight line, like she was inviting him to try it.

What if she was inviting him? And what if he missed?

Head pounding in his chest, Craven lowered his trembling hands. He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk making the attempt and failing. He couldn't risk angering her. For all he knew, maybe she'd decided that she needed him around to look out for her. Maybe she wasn't going to kill him after all.

Melancholia looked at him over her shoulder, and he saw the smile on her lips and in her eyes, which were still glowing with that deep, deep red.

Chapter 53.

The Death Bringer Rises

hey had come when they'd heard Gordon shouting for help. Skulduggery had leaped over fallen bodies, Valkyrie right behind him. They burst into the ballroom. All around them, the guests lay on the floor, silent and unmoving.

The ring was so cold on Valkyrie's finger that it almost burned. "They're dead," she whispered.

"They just fell," Gordon said, from the far side of the room. His eyes were wide, his voice hollow. "They were standing and talking and laughing and then they... they stiffened, and breathed out, and fell."

Valkyrie frowned. "Melancholia?"

"She's not dead," Skulduggery murmured, and then his head tilted to the people around them. "Which means neither are they."

"What?"

"She sucked their lives from them, drank those lives in, used them to make her stronger. If we can get to her before she wastes that strength, we can force her to return those lives to their owners."

"That'll work?"

Skulduggery raised his hands, fingers flexing. "In theory."

Valkyrie's breath became a cloud in the air. "What are you doing?"

"Cooling things down," Skulduggery said. "Their life forces won't do them a whole lot of good if we allow their brains to die. You have a change of clothes, I expect?"

She hugged herself as the temperature plummeted. Particles of frost began to glisten on the faces around her. "In the Bentley."

He threw her the keys. "You might want to hurry."

She nodded, backed off, turned and ran.

There was a commotion. Rippers had run in from outside, congregating at the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Valkyrie ran past, out of the house, kicking off her shoes and unlocking the Bentley with a beep. The boot opened and she grabbed her trousers from her bag, pulled them on under her dress, buckled them, pulled on her socks and boots. She searched for the zip on her dress, cursing, yanking the whole thing round her body till she found it. She whipped the dress off, stuffed it into the trunk, couldn't find her T-shirt so she just grabbed her jacket, put it on as she ran back to the house. It was freezing in there, so cold it actually made her hesitate. She zipped up her jacket as Skulduggery walked from the room beside her, and he joined her as she ran for the bas.e.m.e.nt.

They pa.s.sed three bloodied bodies, and Skulduggery went first down the steps. Dead Necromancers and Rippers covered the floor like a carpet. The White Cleaver stood half-crouched, his back to the wall, his scythe swinging. The remaining Rippers had him surrounded.

"A girl," Skulduggery said, ignoring the Cleaver situation as he started turning over bodies, "blonde, scars on her face. Is she here?"

The Rippers didn't answer.

"She's not here," Valkyrie said, running her eyes over the upturned faces. "Neither is Craven. If she shadow-walked, she could be anywhere up to two kilometres in any direction."

Skulduggery picked a stone up off the floor. He was quiet for a moment. "They're in the caves," he said, dropping it. "They had someone down there already, searching for the other side of the entrance. If they shadow-walked anywhere, they'd have shadow-walked down there." He went to the wall, removed the brick and twisted the key behind it. A section of the floor rumbled and opened. Valkyrie followed him to the stone steps, looked back at the Rippers.

"Any of you coming?" she asked, but they didn't move.

"They're not Cleavers," Skulduggery said, already halfway down the steps. "They're mercenaries. They were paid to provide security, not chase after people. Their job is everything above ground a which means the White Cleaver."

The Rippers paid her no attention. They started to close in on the White Cleaver, and Valkyrie left them to it. She hurried down the steps as the floor closed above. "They didn't do a very good job at providing security," she pointed out to the back of Skulduggery's head. "Everyone's dead."

"True enough," he said.

They emerged into the caves. A Necromancer woman lay dead before them a proof, if any was needed, that they were on the right track. They summoned flames into their hands and ran.

Valkyrie had been down here before, and each time she'd been lucky to escape with her life. The tunnels twisted into each other, opened out into vast, empty s.p.a.ces and closed down into the narrowest of gaps. Travellers needed to respect the caves as much as any adversary a a wrong turn could lead to a step off a precipice and a long fall into cold darkness. And that was before the creatures down here were taken into account.

Skulduggery slowed, and she did the same. They extinguished their flames, letting their way be lit by the shafts of silver light that worked their way down from the surface.

"We're waiting," called a voice, echoing playfully towards them.

Skulduggery grunted, and they stood up straight and walked forward. They emerged from the tunnel to stand atop a gentle slope that led ten feet down to the cavern floor. On the other side of the cavern stood Melancholia and Vandameer Craven.

"Now this is funny," Melancholia continued. Her eyes were red. "We were hurrying along, Vandameer and I, and a thought struck me. Why am I doing this? Why am I running? I can understand why Vandameer runs a he's a weakling who's afraid of practically everything you'd care to mention. But me? Who do I have to run from? So I stopped running, and turned, and look who appears..."

"Melancholia," Skulduggery said, "we don't want to hurt you."

Melancholia laughed. Her laugh echoed. "You actually believe you can stop me? The two of you? I killed three hundred of the world's most powerful sorcerers in the blink of an uncaring eye. What makes you think, even for a moment, that I won't snuff out your weak, flickering flames just as quickly?"

"Because," Skulduggery said, "to do that, you need a moment or two of concentration. And we don't plan on giving you that."

Melancholia laughed again. "You seem to know a lot about my powers, skeleton."

"Well, I should. I was the Death Bringer before you were even born."

"I'm not sure I get the joke."

"No joke," Skulduggery said. "I was Lord Vile."

Valkyrie could see Craven's frown from where she stood. "What are you talking about? We saw you and Vile in the same room!"

"That wasn't Vile," Valkyrie told them. "That was Vile's armour."

"I'm the real thing," Skulduggery said. "So I know exactly what I'm talking about, Melancholia, because my powers were just like yours a except I came by mine naturally."

"You're lying."

"You can reach out with your mind, can't you? You can sense the life around you, and you can reach for it. It's like a bubble that keeps expanding and then, when you release, the bubble withdraws and drags all that life back to you, leaving the bodies to fall behind."

"It's a death bubble," Valkyrie said.

"Don't call it that," said Skulduggery.

She frowned at him. "Well, what do you call it?"

Skulduggery hesitated.

"See?" Valkyrie said. "Death bubble."

"Shut up," Melancholia said. She narrowed her red eyes at Skulduggery. "You were Vile? But you're an Elemental."

"As it turned out, I was what some people call magically ambidextrous. It's rare. It's exceedingly rare, in fact, and I didn't even know it myself until after it happened. But during the war I got... lost. I was consumed by the endless battles and bloodshed, the terrible things I saw and the terrible things I did. I waded in blood and I emerged as... something different. Someone different. I put on the armour and found I had a real flair for Necromancy.

"I shouldn't have been surprised, I suppose. I had always been good with death. Pretty soon, they were proclaiming me to be the Death Bringer a and yet they wouldn't tell me what the Pa.s.sage actually entailed, other than it would save the world. They were talking about immortality. But I had no interest in saving the world. I had no interest in helping weak men and women live for ever. I wanted sudden and violent death for everyone. That's why I joined Mevolent. Finally, I thought, someone who shares my appet.i.te for destruction. I didn't believe that the Faceless Ones were real, and even if they were I certainly didn't believe he'd be able to bring them back, but a part of me hoped that he would. Because then I'd be able to kill an entire race of G.o.ds, after I was finished with people."

"You," Melancholia said, "are a dark, dark man."

"Aren't I just?"

"So why didn't you kill us all?" Craven asked.

"I simply came to my senses. Do you know, do you have any idea, how many people I killed when I called myself Lord Vile? I don't. But it was a lot. I killed whole battlefields. All that violent death, so tinged with fear and panic... it made me so, so strong. I could have cracked this world wide open. But I didn't. One day, I just stopped. I walked deep inside a mountain, took off the armour, and I've been trying to make up for it ever since. I never will, of course. Such redemption is well beyond me at this stage. But I try. And stopping people like you, Melancholia, is how I try."

"So you do think you can stop me."

"I don't want to fight you. I want you to give the people above us back their lives."

"I'm the Death Bringer, not the Life Giver."

"You're neither, actually. You're not even close to being as strong as I was. But you can still release the energy you stole from them."

Melancholia smirked. "And they'll just return to life as if nothing happened?"

"Their energy will seek them out, yes."

"You're sure of this?"

"Relatively sure."

"And why would I ever want to release this energy?"

"Because if you don't, we will fight you and we will kill you, and then the energy will return to them anyway."

Melancholia shrugged. "Then let's fight and see what happens."

"You can still do the right thing."

"Do you want to attack first, or will I?"

Skulduggery held up a finger. "Do you mind if I confer with my colleague for a moment?"

"By all means."

Skulduggery leaned in towards Valkyrie. "d.a.m.n," he whispered. "She's not going to do the right thing."

"Did you really think she would?"

"I was really hoping."

"Can we beat her?" Valkyrie asked.

"I don't like our chances."

"What are our chances?"

"We don't have any," Skulduggery admitted. "Do you think you can take Craven on your own?"

"No."

"Me neither. Do you want to leave him to me, then, and you can take her?"