The Dying of the Light
“What?”
“Mr Axle, you know who we are, yes? We don’t need to introduce ourselves, or tell you what we do. From the look on your face, you know all that.”
Axle swallowed. “So? What do you want with me?”
“When we walked in this door, all we wanted was the location of a friend of yours – Billy-Ray Sanguine.”
“Sanguine’s no friend of mine,” said Axle. “I know him, that’s all. Haven’t seen him in months. Maybe over a year. We’re not friends. Can’t help you.”
The bartender wandered over, and Axle went back to hunching over his beer.
“Can I get you folks something?” the bartender asked.
“I’m a skeleton,” said Skulduggery, “and she doesn’t drink.”
Stephanie frowned at him. “How do you know I don’t drink? I’m eighteen. I can drink if I want to.”
“Do you want to?”
She kept frowning. “Shut up.”
The bartender shrugged and wandered away again, and Axle watched him go.
“We’re looking for where Sanguine might go if he were in trouble,” Skulduggery said. “A safe house, something like that.”
Axle straightened with a pained expression, and shook his head. “Didn’t know him that well. Ask someone else. I haven’t even been in this dimension all that much over the last few years.”
The clothes, the cuts, the rough hands … construction work. “You helped build this city?” Stephanie asked.
He looked at her. “Helped build it? I practically built it myself. None of those other foremen could have done what I did. My crew built the best and we built the fastest. It’s because of us, because of me, that the city was ready to be unveiled by Grand Mage Ravel. Just in time for those bloody Warlocks to wreck half of it.”
“How’s the rebuilding going?”
Axle snorted. “You’d be surprised how a simple job can get complicated once you introduce a little red tape. When we were working in that other reality, we were below the radar. We were working in secret. Things got done. But now that it’s all out in the open you have committees and safety inspections and what have you, and immediately you’re behind schedule and waiting for approval and blah blah blah …”
Skulduggery tilted his head at the empty stool. “Waiting for someone?”
Axle stiffened again. “Yeah,” he said. “A friend of mine.”
“Is he late?”
“He is, yeah. He’ll be here, though.”
“Is this a regular thing? Going for a drink after work?”
Axle nodded. “End of a long day, yeah, it’s good to relax. That a crime?”
“No, it isn’t,” said Skulduggery. “Murder is, however.”
Stephanie raised an eyebrow, but left the question for Axle to ask.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Skulduggery took a pair of light handcuffs from his jacket and laid them on the bar. “What started the argument? Was it about work? Was the pressure getting to you?”
Axle gave a sharp, dry laugh. “What murder? Who’s dead?”
“Your friend.”
“You’re talking nonsense. He’s not dead. He’s just late.”
“What’s his name?”
“There! See? That’s how ridiculous this is! You don’t even know who he is and you’re saying he’s dead!”
“What’s your friend’s name, Mr Axle?”
Axle stared at Skulduggery. “Brock.”
“You’re incredulous, and yet you’re keeping your voice down. You’re scared of meeting the barman’s gaze, but you don’t want to take your eyes off him. You’re worried that he might have seen something last night – maybe he overheard your argument with Brock. You’re scared he’ll mention something about it in front of us.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t have to sit here and listen to—”
He went to slide off his stool, but Stephanie stepped up close to him, blocking his way. Skulduggery leaned in from the other side.
“You have muddy water dried into the left leg and the right knee of your trousers. Also the left side of your jacket. It wasn’t raining last night, but it was the night before, and there are still puddles out the back of this pub, aren’t there? You had too much to drink, you got out there, the argument turned physical. You hit him. That’s when you cut your knuckles. He went down and you went down with him. You started strangling him. He managed to turn you over, and you fell on to your left side, into a puddle. But you pushed back, got on top, straddled him, hence the stain on your other knee. He clawed at your hands, leaving those scratches. And you choked him until he died.”
Axle shook his head quickly.
“You’re having trouble sitting up straight,” Skulduggery continued. “Did you do something to your back? Maybe as you were carrying his body through the back streets and alleys? You couldn’t have supported his weight for too long, not in your inebriated state, but you would have needed to take him somewhere you knew well, and somewhere you knew would be deserted. The construction site you’re working on isn’t too far away from here, is it? That’s where you dumped his body – probably in a pit scheduled to be filled in this morning.
“But you couldn’t leave – you couldn’t risk someone coming in early and discovering your crime. So you stayed. When your co-workers arrived, you poured in the concrete yourself – hastily, by the state of your boots. After that, you had to act as if nothing was wrong, so you put in a day’s work. A sloppy day’s work, judging by the more recent cuts on your hands. You had to stick to your routine, so you rushed home to shave, not bothering to change clothes, and then came here.”
Stephanie frowned. “Why did he shave?”
“From what I can see, Brock was an Elemental. He tried to shove a handful of fire into Mr Axle’s face. He only barely missed, too. See how the skin is slightly paler around the cheeks and chin? You had a beard up until a few hours ago, didn’t you, Mr Axle? But you shaved it off. Nicked yourself a few times, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting rid of the singed beard. You even had to cut your own hair in a few places. You missed your left eyebrow, though.”
“You don’t know what you’re—”
“I’m arresting you for murder, Mr Axle. Please stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Axle said, but stood just the same.
“We’ll let the Sensitives take a peek inside your mind. Maybe they’ll see something that’ll get you a reduced sentence.”
“No,” said Axle, backing away, “please. I’ll help you. I’ll tell you everything I know about Sanguine. Do you know about his family home, in Texas?”
“The Americans are keeping an eye on that,” Skulduggery said. “He hasn’t visited.”
“I know others,” said Axle. “There’s a house in Dublin. I think it’s his. An ex-girlfriend of mine told me about it. He took her there once.”
“Where?” Stephanie asked.
“Stoneybatter, just off Norseman Place. That’s worth something, isn’t it? I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill him. It was a stupid argument. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“We’ll see you’re treated fairly,” Skulduggery said, reaching for him.
“No!” Axle shouted, snapping his palms out. The air rippled and Stephanie flew backwards, getting tangled up with Skulduggery. Tables and chairs scattered and people cursed and cried out, and she glimpsed Axle running out.
Skulduggery hauled her to her feet. “Outside,” he said. “I’ll lead him to you.”
And then he was off in pursuit.
Stephanie barged through the stunned patrons, forcing her way outside. She ran down the alley, her boots splashing in puddles. No sign of Axle. She went to double back and the window above her exploded. She cursed as Skulduggery and Axle landed beside her in a shower of broken glass. Axle staggered, his eyes wide and terrified, his hands already shackled. He fell to his knees.
Stephanie glared at Skulduggery. “What was wrong with the door? You could have just come down the stairs and walked out the door. Why did you have to jump out the window?”
“You know why,” Skulduggery said, walking away.
Axle looked up, tears streaming from his eyes. “Why did he do that? Why?”
Stephanie glowered. “Because doors are for people with no imagination,” she said, and led Axle to the car.
He moved on. The safe house was quickly becoming his least favourite place to be. Sure, it had its upsides. It was where Tanith was, so that was nice, even if she’d barely spoken to him the entire time they’d been hiding out there. But it was enough to be close to her, he reckoned. And once they were married, all this awkward tension would just drain away and leave them with the rest of their lives to get on with. Assuming the rest of their lives meant anything longer than a week.
And then there was the downside.
Darquesse.
Every time he returned to the place, he had to steel himself before he saw her. It was a good thing she usually stayed in the spare room these days, conducting her terrifying little experiments. Sanguine didn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she took to roaming about the—
Goddamn.
Darquesse was in the living room, sitting in the armchair with her legs crossed. The man on the sofa across from her would have looked like a normal, middle-aged college professor were it not for the black lips and all those black veins that he wasn’t bothering to hide.
“Billy-Ray,” Darquesse said, smiling brightly. “Allow me to introduce Nestor Tarry, my new best friend. Nestor was just telling me about his work in quantum mechanics.”
“That so?” said Sanguine, leaning against the doorframe, trying to appear casual and not at all intimidated. “Just your average, ordinary, everyday conversation about quantum mechanics, huh? You managing to keep up?”
“Actually,” Tarry said, “Darquesse is quite well versed in quantum theory.”
“I read a lot,” Darquesse said, shrugging, “and absorb information instantly. It’s a talent.”
Tarry smiled. “One of many, it seems. But I have taken you as far as I am able. The answers you seek are, I’m afraid, beyond me.”
“So who takes me further?”
“I could give you a list of names – but it would be a short list, made even shorter by events over the last few years. Actually, I think your next port of call is a book, not a person. The Hessian Grimoire is a collection of, essentially, theories about the next stages of magic. Where we can go from here, how we can expand our knowledge, the ways in which we can use what we know to delve deeper into the source of all magic. I don’t know who is currently in possession of the book, unfortunately, but if you can find it, I think it could help you.”
“The Hessian Grimoire,” Darquesse said, nodding. “OK then, sounds good. And after that? The list of names you were going to give me?”
Tarry raised his chin and moved his head from side to side, acknowledging the request, but see-sawing between options. “There are two or three people left alive who could help you. Really, the person who could have helped you the most would have been Walden D’Essai.”
“Argeddion.”
Tarry nodded. “His work was just … it was far beyond any of his contemporaries. I never liked the man, I was always far too jealous of his accomplishments. That’s something I could never have admitted without this Remnant inside me, by the way.” He chuckled, and didn’t seem to notice when Darquesse didn’t join in. “But his mind was an astonishing thing. His work, his research … Even the questions he posed in his field outshone the answers I got in mine. If you truly wanted to master this thing called magic, if you truly wanted to touch infinity … I would have said talk to D’Essai. Talk to Argeddion. But, of course, now it’s too late.”
“Argeddion is alive,” said Darquesse.
Tarry frowned. “No. He’s dead. Skulduggery Pleasant killed him when—”
Darquesse spoke over him, her words calm. “Officially, Argeddion died following the confrontation with those super-powered hooligans he’d created. Skulduggery finished him off. That’s the story that was circulated.”
Tarry sat forward. “It’s a lie?”
“They couldn’t kill him,” Darquesse said. “They didn’t know how. So they rewrote his personality, convinced him he was normal, and hid him away. Even I don’t know where he is now.”
Tarry was quiet for a moment. “The Hessian Grimoire,” he said. “That should help you find him.”
“How?”
“You have a deep understanding of energy, Darquesse. Your understanding might even surpass my own.”
“Oh,” said Darquesse, “it does.”
A faint flicker of irritation crossed Tarry’s features. Sanguine noticed it. And if Sanguine noticed it, then Darquesse certainly did. That faint flicker of irritation had most likely just signed Mr Tarry’s death warrant.
“But once you read that book,” Tarry continued, “you will know how to detect and track energy. Argeddion found out his true name, the same as you. For all intents and purposes, he is lit up like a beacon – providing you know how to look for him.”
“The Hessian Grimoire sounds like the answer to all my prayers,” Darquesse said. “Thank you, Nestor. You have been most helpful.”
Tarry stood, but wavered. Finally, he plucked up the courage to ask, “Can I come with you? When you find Argeddion, I mean. You’ll need a Remnant to possess him, won’t you? So he’ll talk? I would do anything for the opportunity to peek inside his mind. He is … astonishing.”
“He is,” said Darquesse. “But I’ll just have to use my other Remnant to possess him. I’ve kind of grown bored with you.”
Tarry paled, making his black veins stand out even more. “What?”
“You’ve just rubbed me up the wrong way,” Darquesse explained.
“I … I’m sorry. I apologise. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not your fault,” said Darquesse as she got to her feet. “It’s mine. I’m probably just overly sensitive. I’ve only been studying quantum mechanics for a few days, and … I don’t know. Any kind of criticism or – what’s the word? – irritation shown is just … it’s more than I’m prepared to accept right now.”
Tarry backed away. “I wasn’t irritated. I wasn’t, I swear. And I would never criticise you. Never. The amount you’ve learned in such a short space of time is hugely, hugely impressive.”
Darquesse narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I do not like being patronised.”
She raised her hand and Tarry exploded into nothingness.
Sanguine jerked back in astonishment. No blood, no meat, no bones. Nothing.
“There,” Darquesse said, a smile on her face once again. “I feel so much better now.”
“What did you do to him?” Sanguine asked. “Where is he?”
“He’s still here,” said Darquesse, her fingers playing lightly against the air. “His atoms are spread out around the room. It’s funny, isn’t it? Group all those atoms together and Nestor has a body. Separate them, and you have to ask where he’s gone. I can put him back together, if you’d like.”
“You could do that?”
“Sure. I think. Putting things back together is a lot harder than pulling them apart, but I’ll do my best.”
Darquesse chewed her bottom lip as she focused. A moment passed, and she closed her fist, and Tarry reappeared, blurring into existence. He staggered, eyes glassy, and dropped to his knees.
“He’s in shock,” said Darquesse. “Either that or he’s a vegetable. The brain is tricky. I can see how the body reassembles, how the nervous system fits, but the brain will take a little more practice. Want a seat?”
Sanguine looked at her. “Sorry?”
“A seat,” she said. “You want one? You look tired.”
Before he could answer, she had splayed her hand and Tarry exploded into nothingness once more. This time when she closed her fist, however, a chair blurred into being.
“There,” Darquesse said.
“Did you … did you just turn him into a chair?”
“Yes I did,” said Darquesse, grinning. “Atoms are atoms. It’s all about what you do with them and how you arrange them. Man gets turned into a chair. Chair gets turned into a glass of water. It’s still Nestor, though. He’s still there. I haven’t killed him.”
“You turned him into furniture.”
“It’s just another form to take.”
“I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that one, Darquesse. He’s dead. You killed him. Where are his memories? His personality? Where are all the things that define him?”
Darquesse tilted her head. “None of that stuff defines us, Billy-Ray. Memories can be lost. Personalities can be changed. Who we are, our true essence, is our energy. If I wanted to kill him, I’d just do it.”
She clicked her fingers and the chair was incinerated in a burst of black flame.
“There,” said Darquesse. “Happy now? Nestor is dead. Every last trace of him. His atoms, his energy – gone. He can’t be brought back now. That’s how you kill someone, Billy-Ray. You wipe them from existence. Stopping a heart from beating, cutting off thoughts, turning someone into something … that doesn’t mean anything. Consciousness doesn’t mean anything. Are you any more valuable than a rock, just because you have sentience? No you’re not.”
“But you’re still punishing Erskine Ravel for killing Ghastly Bespoke.”
“That’s different,” said Darquesse. “I’m punishing him out of anger.”
“So what about your friends?” Sanguine said. “Tanith, or China Sorrows, or Skulduggery Pleasant? You’ve formed attachments to them, right? You value them more than you’d value a rock.”
Darquesse shrugged. “Not really. That was my old way of looking at things. Personalities are fun for a while, but when you think about it, and I mean really think about it, they’re just side effects of brain function. I don’t mean I don’t value them at all, it’s just not so much of a big deal to me any more.”
“So … so you’d turn them into furniture, too?”
“Sure. I could turn you into a cushion, if you want.”
“Please don’t. I don’t wanna be a cushion.”
She laughed. “If you were a cushion, you wouldn’t know any better. What would you miss? Your thoughts? Cushions don’t sit there missing their thoughts, Billy-Ray. Your thoughts seem important to you now, but I’m here to tell you … they don’t mean anything.”
“They mean something to me.”
“Well, now you’re just being silly. What you’re saying, basically, is that your thoughts mean something to your thoughts. It’s a loop of nonsense. Go off and think about it, OK? It took me a while to come to terms with all this, too. But I’ve learned so much. And not just about how to mix and match atoms and particles and molecules and stuff. Other things. Fun things. You know the God-Killers?”
“Uh … yeah, like the Sceptre …”
“Actually, no, I’m talking about the sword and the dagger and the stuff you and Tanith stole.”
Sanguine felt the blood drain from his face. She knew. Oh, God, she knew. And he didn’t even have the dagger with him. He’d been worried that she’d notice it under his jacket. Why the hell hadn’t he just brought it anyway? “Sure, right,” he said. “What about them?”
“Do you know how they were made?” Darquesse asked. “Those four? Other God-Killers were made in different ways, of course. The Sceptre was forged by the Faceless Ones somewhere, but these four weapons started out as ordinary objects. Nothing special about them. But then they were left in this pool of water, deep inside the caves under Gordon Edgley’s house. Whatever qualities that water had, it made the weapons soak up magic, made them acquire the ability to kill a god. Isn’t that fascinating? It goes against everything we’ve been told about how magic works. I’d love to find that pool. Don’t you think that’s fascinating?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty fascinating.”
“Billy-Ray?”
“Yes?”
“You look nervous.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“You think I’m going to turn you into a cushion, even though I told you it wouldn’t matter if I did?”
“That’s why I’m nervous, Darquesse.”
She chuckled. “You’re funny. I don’t know how I didn’t see that when Valkyrie was in charge.”
“Maybe my humour is an acquired taste.”
“Maybe.”
“I just popped by to make sure everything was, y’know, hunky-dory. I’m actually heading out again.”
“Oh? Where are you going?”
“Just out. Just headed out. Errands to run. I’ll be back later, so … OK, well, I gotta go.”
“See you soon,” Darquesse said, smiling, and Sanguine smiled back. He walked out and immediately sank into the ground.
He turned, moving deeper through the darkness. The familiar rumble of shifting rocks filled his ears. It used to make him feel safe. There were only a handful of people in the world who could do what he did – even fewer now, after what had transpired during the War of the Sanctuaries – and that little fact had transformed the dark and the cold into a refuge. Down here, he couldn’t be touched. Down here, he couldn’t even be found.
But Darquesse could find him. There would be no escape from her down here, not if she were coming after him.
He piled on the speed.
He didn’t pay attention to how fast he was going. Sometimes he liked to time himself. Not tonight. He got to his place in Dublin, rose up through the cracking, crumbling floorboards. The first blush of dawn brightened the house, not that he needed light to see. There weren’t even any bulbs in this small house on this quiet street. No one knew about this place. Not even Tanith. The only people he’d brought back here were—
“Move and I shoot.”
Sanguine yelled and spun.
Skulduggery Pleasant was sitting in Sanguine’s favourite arm-chair, the one in the corner. His hand was on the armrest. In his hand was a gun.
Sanguine stayed perfectly still. He was too busy getting over the fact that there was someone in his house to even think about trying something sneaky.
The girl walked in. The reflection, Stephanie. She walked right by Sanguine like she didn’t have a care in the world. For a moment, she was close enough for him to grab, maybe use as a shield. But she knew that. She was testing him. They both were. He wasn’t going to fall for it.
She went to the couch. Sat. Looked at him like she was bored. He started to feel that maybe now was the time to start speaking.
“I’m real glad you’re here,” he said.
Stephanie laughed and Pleasant tilted his head.
“I’m serious,” Sanguine continued. “I was coming to talk to you, actually. I just stopped off here on my way to Roarhaven to, y’know, collect my thoughts. And a few other things.”
“Where is she?” Pleasant asked.
“Darquesse is with Tanith.”
“And where is Tanith?” Stephanie asked.
“With Darquesse.”
“I don’t have to shoot anything important,” Pleasant said, pointing the gun at his legs. “I can just shoot something painful.”
“I don’t want you to shoot anything, but I’m not gonna tell you where they are. You really think Darquesse won’t be able to sense a strike team if they get in close? And then who’ll she blame for telling you where to find her? Momma Sanguine’s favourite boy, that’s who.”