Kitabı oku: «Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 10 - 12», sayfa 19
47
“My car is better,” Pleasant said. “I don’t mean to offend you. Your car is fine, and I admire the fact that you went to the trouble of transporting it across the Atlantic … but was that really the best use of anyone’s time? A Cadillac is a fine car, but a Bentley … A Bentley has character.”
“And where is your Bentley?” Cadaverous said, unlocking the Cadillac. “Is it back in Roarhaven? It is? Then I guess, all things considered, that my car is the superior vehicle.”
He got in behind the wheel. A moment later, Pleasant curled his long frame into the passenger seat. He put his hat on his lap and buckled his belt.
“This is an odd sensation,” he said. When Cadaverous didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m used to driving, that’s all. Of course, this is a left-hand drive car so I’m still sitting on my usual side, which alleviates the problem somewhat. But even so, I’m used to being in control. It’s quite discomfiting to not be in control. It’s not a feeling I’m used to. Maybe it would be a good idea if I drove?”
“Only I drive this car,” Cadaverous said, pulling away from the kerb.
Pleasant nodded. “And I totally understand that. I do. However, I’m used to driving on this side of the road, so maybe it’d be safer for us both if I—”
“Only I drive this car.”
Pleasant looked at him, then shrugged. “OK.” He settled back into his seat. “Fine.”
They turned left at the junction, joined the fast-moving traffic.
“If you tell me where Tanner Rut is living,” Pleasant said, “I could just fly there. I can do that, you know. Fly. I could fly there, grab him, take him back, or fly there and wait for you, if you really want to be involved …”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Cadaverous said. “I don’t trust you, skeleton.”
“I am deeply offended by that, Cadaverous. I have been a loyal member of this team for almost twenty-three hours now. Does that bonding-time mean nothing to you?”
“Abyssinia doesn’t trust you, either.”
“Abyssinia and I have history. Did she tell you about that? No? Ah, so she’s keeping something from her minions. That’s interesting.”
“I don’t care.”
“No? Are you sure? It’s salacious. I stole her heart, you see. I stole it and I put it in that box. My point is, yes, she may have some trust issues with me, but time heals all wounds, Cadaverous. I have a feeling when we bring her back all will be forgiven, and, once that happens, you’re really going to want to be on my good side. So what do you say? Will we be friends?”
“That will never happen.”
“Do I detect a hint of growing admiration in your voice?”
“You’re a ridiculous creature,” Cadaverous said. “You’re a bad vaudeville act. You belong on stage.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“I’ve known people like you my entire adult life,” Cadaverous said. “Puffed up with their own sense of importance, inflated by their own so-called genius. Arrogant and pompous.”
“You have formed an opinion of me.”
“I have.”
“I have formed one of you. Would you like to hear it?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I know you, Cadaverous. You think I don’t, but I do.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“No?” Pleasant said. “But maybe I knew someone just like you. Except his name wasn’t Cadaverous Gant – it was Charles Grantham, a retired professor of English at a semi-prestigious New England university. He’d written a few books of poetry, but nothing that set the world on fire. Truth be told, his poetry was lazy and uninspired. Hackneyed, I believe was the popular opinion among his peers.”
Cadaverous’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“At age seventy-eight, Charles apparently flew into a fit of rage after listening to a so-called ‘street poet’ reinterpret the works of Keats. Charles tried, unsuccessfully, to strangle this street poet, and suffered a heart attack as a result. While he was recovering in hospital, police raided his home. Interesting thing about his home – he’d had it built by three different builders. None of them knew what the others were doing, but Charles knew. There were corridors that went nowhere, doors that opened on to brick walls. There were secret passageways and pits. How many people did you kill in that house over the years, Cadaverous? Was it more than the police believed? Was it more than forty-seven? How many of them were your students?”
“You think you know it all,” Cadaverous said.
“I know Charles Grantham disappeared,” Pleasant replied. “The house had been searched illegally – everything in there was inadmissible in court. A few months later, Professor Grantham was gone. Is that when Abyssinia first spoke to you? Is that when Cadaverous Gant was born?”
Cadaverous slowed at the lights. A part of him, a significant part, had no desire to answer. Satisfying the skeleton’s questions was not something that interested him. Another part, however, had been snagged, as if Pleasant’s words were a hook cast into the still lake.
“It was the heart attack,” he said, accelerating again. “When I woke up, I could feel magic. I could feel it. Do you have any idea what that’s like, to get old, to watch your own body betray you, only to find out that you could have stopped it? That you could have stayed young forever?”
“I’d imagine that would have upset just about anyone, let alone a serial killer.”
“You can’t reduce my life down to a label like that.”
“Why not? You reduced forty-seven lives down to nothing.”
“They were cattle,” Cadaverous said. “Each of them had a sad little existence that I ended. Each of them had stumbled through their lives with blinkers on. They didn’t appreciate the world. They didn’t appreciate art, or poetry, or the beauty in the everyday. Every single person I killed, every single one of them, deserved to die. They were small. They were meaningless.”
“Unlike you.”
Cadaverous nodded. “Unlike me.”
“And then Abyssinia spoke to you, did she? And took you under her wing …”
“Is that what you did?” Cadaverous asked. “After we went after Valkyrie Cain, you investigated me?”
“After she sent you packing, yes, I did.”
“You were coming after me, were you? For daring to harm your precious Valkyrie?”
“But I couldn’t find you,” said Pleasant. “So I waited. And finally here we are.”
“Are you going to kill me now, skeleton?”
“I’m not sure,” Pleasant said. “It would certainly be easy enough. According to Valkyrie, you’re stronger and faster than you look, but outside your home, you’re just as vulnerable as anyone else.”
“You wouldn’t last a minute in my home.”
“I was there,” Pleasant said. “Your house on Lombard Street. Valkyrie described it as a hellish inferno with metal catwalks and chains everywhere. She mentioned a bottomless pit of fire. And yet when I walked through it twelve hours later it was a nice, ordinary suburban house. Quite boring, actually. We demolished it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Cadaverous. “My home is where I make it, and I am king of my domain.”
“What an unusual power.”
“Like I said, you wouldn’t last a minute.”
“So, if you invite me in, I’m to politely decline?”
“You wouldn’t get an invitation.”
“Even so, I’d just decline.”
“You can’t decline an offer you haven’t received.”
“I can pre-empt it, though.”
“You can’t pre-empt an offer you’re never going to get.”
“Not if I decline it before—”
“Stop it,” Cadaverous said sharply. “Just stop it. Seriously. I’ll drive us off a cliff if you continue this … this … whatever it is. We’re not talking nonsense, do you understand me?”
“Sure,” Pleasant said. “Of course. My apologies. I just get overly chatty when I feel like I’m not in control of the situation.”
“You’re not driving my car.”
“Just a little bit.”
“Stop asking me.”
“Fine,” said Pleasant, and sat back. “I’ll try to enjoy the journey, then, shall I? Apparently it’s not the destination that matters – especially when you travel with friends.”
48
Never teleported them to the roof of the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center and immediately they ducked down. It wasn’t a tall building, and a single glimpse would be all it took for the dozens of tourists to look up and point, and then for the cops to come investigating.
This was Omen’s first time in America. Crouching down, with Valkyrie and Temper on one side and Never on the other, he focused on not being sick from the journey while he looked out at the suspension bridge that spanned the water. He was struck by how big it all was. The bridge. The skyline behind him. The sky.
“The bridge is one point seven miles long,” said Never. He was wearing scuffed jeans, a hoody and a jacket. Omen should have worn his hoody under his jacket. It was cold up here. “It opened in 1937. That colour? It’s called international orange.”
“Why do you know so much about it?” Omen asked.
Never shrugged. “It’s a bridge. I know stuff about bridges.”
They teleported on to the grass behind some trees, and Omen threw up. He apologised profusely, and when he was done they walked to the roadside. Valkyrie hailed a cab and they climbed in, Valkyrie in front. The driver chatted and Temper chatted back, but Valkyrie stayed quiet and Never looked out of the window. Omen knew he was committing as much of their surroundings to memory as he could. That was one of Fletcher Renn’s rules.
Omen had once wanted to be a Teleporter. The power to leave whenever he wanted appealed to him when he was growing up, watching all the attention being focused on his brother. Not in an entirely good way, of course. He knew, from the not quite disguised looks that would flash occasionally across Auger’s face, that such attention was more burden than gift. All that training, all that testing, all those expectations … On someone weaker – Omen, for example – it would have proven too much. But Auger handled it the same way Auger handled everything, with charm and good humour.
But alas, teleportation was not to be for the younger Darkly twin. For a start, every competent Teleporter who’d ever lived had been born with the aptitude. To someone like Never, teleportation was instinct, albeit instinct he needed help channelling. Never’s discipline – for there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Never would choose teleportation – was a part of who she was. Omen’s was still a mystery. There was nothing yet that he could truly claim to excel at – even his Elemental skills were lagging behind those of his classmates. He liked the various languages of magic, he supposed, but that was mostly because he liked to read.
The drive to Haight Street only took a few minutes. Omen stepped out in front of a brightly coloured store brimming with psychedelic positivity, and Never nudged him, directing his attention to the multitude of exotic pipes in the window. Far out, man.
Valkyrie wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery, and Temper was too busy adulting to show interest, so they walked ahead, going uphill, closing in on the address while Omen and Never followed along behind. An old guy with dreadlocks rocked by, moving to some internal rhythm only he could hear, and a small pack of street kids, lounging on someone’s front steps, ignored them with such professional detachment that even Never had to raise an eyebrow in admiration. A dog sat beside a white and red fire hydrant, like it was considering whether or not to mark its territory. It watched them walk on.
They crossed the street and arrived at a fenced-off piece of flattened ground. Valkyrie looked at the map on her phone, checked all around, then stared at the empty space before them.
“Well, crap,” she said.
“You’re sure this is it?” Temper asked.
“I’m sure. Even if I wasn’t sure, I’d know this is the place we’re looking for simply because it’s not here any more, and of course it wouldn’t be here any more, because that’s how life works. Just when you think it couldn’t possibly suck any more than it already sucks, it burns down the goddamn house.”
“Oh, that house didn’t burn down,” said an old woman, passing. “It was demolished years ago.”
Temper gave the old woman a smile. “You live near here?”
“I live right here,” the woman said, pointing a pale, knobbly finger at the house next door. “Do you know them, then?”
“Who, Richard and Savant?” Temper asked. “We do. In fact, we’re trying to find them. You wouldn’t happen to know where they moved on to, do you?”
“Maryland or Maine, somewhere like that, I think. After they were gone, squatters moved in and let the house fall into disrepair, and then the bulldozers came and flattened the whole thing. How are they doing, do you know? They were such lovely neighbours.”
“They’re fine,” Temper assured her. “We just lost touch. We were hoping to find some clue as to where they might be living now, maybe track down some of their friends – but obviously that’s not going to happen.”
“I guess not,” said the old woman. “But you could always check their things.”
Valkyrie frowned. “What things?”
“Their possessions,” the old woman said. “I went in there and packed up as much of their stuff as I could fit into their suitcases. The squatters were nice enough, I guess, but they didn’t respect other people’s property as much as they should have.”
“Can we see it?” Valkyrie asked. “Can we look through the suitcases?”
“If you’re friends of Richard and Savant, I don’t see why not.” She led the way to her house. “That’s a nice accent you’ve got, by the way. Irish, is it? My grandmother was Irish. I was named after her. Bridget.”
“I’m Valkyrie. This is Temper, Omen and Never.”
Bridget beamed. “What delightful names! Your parents must have been hippies. We get that a lot around here. Come on in. Wipe your feet.”
She took them into the back room of her warm house, which smelled of old people and cookies. Three suitcases were stacked in a wardrobe so big it could have opened up into Narnia. The case Temper searched contained nothing but clothes, but the cases that Valkyrie, Omen and Never looked through were full of papers and notebooks and pictures.
Never examined a framed photograph of two handsome, smiling men. “Which is which?” he asked.
Temper reached over, tapped the image of the slightly better-looking one. “Savant,” he said.
“Lovely men,” Bridget said, hands clasped over her bosom. “They’d do anything for you. I used to have terrible trouble with my pipes, and they’d come in here and fix it all up. Wouldn’t even let me pay them for their trouble.”
“Did you ever meet any of their friends?” Valkyrie asked, sifting through a handful of documents.
Bridget nodded. “All the time. They hosted the best dinner parties, and knew the most fabulously interesting people.”
“I know some of those same people,” Temper said.
“You do? You don’t look half old enough.”
Temper chuckled. “I remember them from when I was a kid. A couple of them were a bit much, don’t you think? They were a little – I don’t know what the right word is … scary?”
Bridget gave a nod so quick she reminded Omen of a bird pecking at a crumb. “A few of them were,” she confided, like she’d been given permission to gossip. “A few of them were downright weird – and I know weird. I grew up here. I was living in this house during the Summer of Love. I was a Deadhead. I thought I’d seen it all … but there were one or two of those friends who just gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Do you remember any names?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. A lot of hippy names, though – that I do remember.”
Omen pulled a small photo album from the case and flicked through it. The first third, or thereabouts, was filled with old pictures – black and white and sepia-tinged – of Melior and Vega. The first few were posed and stiff, the pair unsmiling, but gradually they eased, until their smiles were broad and their arms were around each other’s shoulders. There was even a kiss here and there. Colour started seeping in as the decades brought their own advancements, and the hairstyles got progressively sillier. One photo, discoloured by age and sunlight, showed Melior and Vega standing with two other men and a woman. The men were all wearing bowling shirts and holding a trophy aloft, and the woman, who had a gigantic Afro and hoop earrings, was laughing. Omen frowned, and looked closer. The man standing to Savant’s right was Parthenios Lilt.
“Found something,” he said, and handed the album to Valkyrie. Her eyes widened.
“See something interesting?” Temper asked.
For a moment, Valkyrie didn’t answer, then she flipped the album so he could see. “Recognise anyone?”
“That’s Lilt,” Never said, pointing.
Temper’s own eyes narrowed. “The woman,” he said. “She’s an old friend. Her name’s Tessa Mehrbano. You know her?”
“Not her,” said Valkyrie, “and not Lilt.” Her finger jabbed at the image of the small, smiling man next to Richard Melior. “Him.”
Temper took a moment, and his eyebrows slowly rose. “Wow. Nice hair.”
Omen and Never crowded round.
“Who is he?” Never asked.
Valkyrie pulled the photograph from the album, looking at Bridget as she did so. “Can I borrow this?”
“I guess so,” the old woman said. “Is everything OK? You look ill.”
“I’m fine,” said Valkyrie. “Just eager to talk to some people. Thank you very much for your help.”
“Of course,” said Bridget. “If you track them down, please tell them I was asking after them. They were such lovely boys.”
“We will,” said Valkyrie, and led the way out. The moment they were out of Bridget’s view – she stood in her doorway, waving as they walked – they dodged off the street, hurrying up the steps into the cover of Buena Vista Park.
Valkyrie spun to Temper. “This old friend of yours, what’s her name again?”
“Tessa Mehrbano.”
“You know where she lives?”
“Yeah. New York.”
“Talk to her. We’ll head back to Roarhaven, get things sorted out there. Maybe Mehrbano knows something that’ll help us, maybe she doesn’t, but it won’t hurt to try.”
Temper hesitated. “I haven’t really been her favourite person for a few years now.”
“I doubt you’re anyone’s favourite person except your own,” Valkyrie said, “but you still have to go.”
“OK, that was especially harsh.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it. Not thinking straight. Never, take him.”
“I’m not a taxicab,” Never snapped.
Valkyrie stiffened, and turned her gaze to him slowly. “Take Temper to New York,” she said, “then come back for us. When I have time to ask nicely, I will ask nicely. But right now, do what I say or get out of my sight.”
Never flushed. “Hey, you’re the one who came to me for help.”
“And if you’re going to give that help then you’re going to do it without sulking every time you look at me. Now take him to New York.”
Glaring, Never reached out and Temper took his hand, and they vanished.
Valkyrie deflated all of a sudden, sagging back against a tree. Omen got the feeling she’d forgotten he was there. A familiar sensation.
“Um,” he said.
She looked up. “Yes?”
“I was … I was just going to ask. The guy in the picture. Who is he?”
“You really don’t know? Have you ever been to the High Sanctuary?”
“No.”
“If you had, you’d have seen him,” Valkyrie said. She frowned, and looked around. “Huh,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
She hesitated. “Nothing, I just …”
And that’s when somebody punched Omen in the back of the head.
49
Valkyrie lunged, trying to catch Omen before he hit the ground, but he’d already face-planted in the dirt before she got anywhere close. He lay there, not moving, and Valkyrie looked around, trying to work out what the hell had happened.
“What’s your name, then?”
She spun. The man standing there was a little taller than she was. He wore old jeans and dirty boots. No shirt. He was wiry, his muscles tight. His grey hair was long. Messy. He had a grinning mouth tattooed across the lower half of his jaw. Other tattoos decorated his torso and arms. He was painted like his skin was peeling back, revealing an army of swarming demons beneath the surface.
“Don’t suppose it matters,” he continued. His accent was New York. “You were asking about the gay guys, which automatically means you get put on the list. Which means I have to kill you.” He shrugged. “Hope you don’t take it personal.” He reached into his waistband, and frowned. “Aw dammit,” he muttered, and looked up. “Don’t suppose you’d have the loan of a knife or a gun, would you?”
Valkyrie’s hand lit up, but the tattooed man skipped forward and slapped her so hard she nearly blacked out. She stumbled sideways instead, went down on one knee, but forced herself up again, keeping distance between them, backing off as he closed in.
“Guess I’ll just have to beat you to death,” he said, and smiled.
She raised her hand, tried blasting him, but her body wasn’t co-operating. By the time her fingertips finally started to tingle, he’d vanished. Teleporter.
She whirled, whirled again, then heard a boot stepping on dried twigs and she turned back to the spot where he’d vanished and there was no one there, but pain exploded across her face and her head snapped back and she staggered, both hands over her face while blood streamed through her fingers. Her nose was broken. The pain was excruciating. Through tear-filled eyes she watched his image solidify in front of her.
Not a Teleporter, then.
“I should have brought a gun,” he said. “For the first month or two, I always had a gun on me. But they’re pretty heavy, you know? And uncomfortable. So I stopped bringing it. Not very professional, I know, but this isn’t a full-time gig for me. I’m being paid to keep an eye on that patch of land and, if anyone comes snooping, I have to kill them. To be honest, you’re the first to come snooping. Until now, this has been the easiest money I ever made. Course, it’s still pretty easy.”
Never teleported in and his eyes widened immediately.
“Omen!” Valkyrie shouted, pointing.
Never ran to Omen’s side, crouching beside him as he tried to sit up, and Valkyrie bolted towards them. The tattooed man ran to intercept, but Valkyrie’s head start was more than enough to keep her out of his reach.
Never looked around, looked right at her with panic in his eyes, and just before Valkyrie could touch him he teleported, taking Omen with him.
Goddammit.
Valkyrie veered away and the tattooed man slammed into her.
They crashed through the undergrowth and tumbled down a small hill, Valkyrie managing to lash a kick into him as they rolled, and the moment she was able to she scrambled up, her right hand crackling.
The tattooed man froze in a half-crouch. “Ah,” he said.
“That’s a nice trick,” she said, “turning invisible. You do it again and I’ll fry you.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I got that.”
Her left hand dipped into her pocket, pulled out a few leaves and crammed them into her mouth. The pain dulled, and went away. She used to be so much better at this. She’d snap out a line and be all ultra-cool and her voice wouldn’t shake and her hands wouldn’t tremble.
Or maybe her voice had shaken, even then. Maybe her hands had trembled. Maybe she had just been better at fooling herself.
“You’re going to answer some questions,” she said, wiping some of the blood away. “You’re going to answer them or I’m going to light you up. My aim hasn’t always been the best lately, but I doubt even I could miss at this range.”
He gave a little shrug. “I believe in you.”
“What’s your name?”
“Shakespeare,” he said. “Gleeman Shakespeare. Though most people in the press call me Mr Glee.”
“Why do people in the press call you anything?”
Another shrug. “Oh, I like to kill people. As a hobby. I sign my name when I’m done.”
“So you’re a serial killer.”
“I guess I am.”
“You’re not the first one I’ve met.”
“I don’t doubt it. Would you like a handkerchief? For the blood? It’s clean, I promise.”
“Yeah,” said Valkyrie. “That’d be good.”
Glee produced a spotless white handkerchief from his back pocket, and tossed it over.
She held it to her nose. “Abyssinia sent you to keep an eye on things here, did she?”
“Oh, I’m not one of the chosen few who are lucky enough to hear the voice of the telltale heart,” Glee answered. “Naw, I get my orders the old-fashioned way, from people who aren’t internal organs.”
“So Lethe, then. Where are they keeping Savant Vega? Do they have him with them on Coldheart?”
Glee’s smile spread beneath his tattoo. “That’s on a need-to-know basis, and I am merely an underling, not privy to sensitive information such as that. Pardon me, can I stand? I’m not as young as I used to be and—”
“Stay right where you are.”
He sighed.
“So you’re saying you don’t know anything useful? At all?”
“Pretty much,” he replied. “You should probably just let me go.”
“Or I could let the High Sanctuary’s Sensitives poke through your thoughts.”
Glee pulled a face. “Really? They’d have to wear wading boots and come armed with blacklights. It is messy in there.”
It suddenly occurred to Valkyrie that she had neglected to bring any shackles with her. Yet another small, personal triumph for her to revel in later.
Glee frowned. “You OK, miss?”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’m thinking.”
“And you’re sure I can’t move? My legs are cramping something awful.”
“Is this the face of someone who cares?”
“I did give you that handkerchief …”
“After you broke my nose.”
He sighed again. “Then do you mind me asking what we’re waiting for? I mean, are you going to arrest me or not?”
“You tried to kill me. Of course I’m arresting you.”
“Right. It’s just that you don’t look like you’re arresting me. You look like you’re trying to remember what you had for dinner yesterday. Or are you deciding if I’m worth the effort of hauling in? Maybe you’re wondering if you should just kill me right here. Is that what you’re doing? You want to kill me? Fry me?”
“You don’t want to be tempting me right now, Mr Glee.”
“Could you do it?” he asked, peering closer. “Hell, maybe you could, at that. You got a killer’s eyes.”
The crackling intensified. “Say one more word and you’ll find out.”
She heard Never calling her name.
“Down here!” she shouted, not taking her eyes off Glee.
A moment later, Never came half running, half skidding down the embankment, stopping beside her.
“I thought you’d abandoned me,” Valkyrie said.
“I was scared,” responded Never. “Fear is a magic inhibitor. Everyone knows that. Get over it.”
“Should I step away?” Glee asked. “Let you two talk it over?”
“Not an inch,” said Valkyrie.
“So what do we do with him?” Never asked.
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Valkyrie.
Glee smiled at them both, and the energy, which had been crackling so fiercely around Valkyrie’s hand, started to fade. She focused, tried to pour more power into her fingertips, but she was overthinking, she was letting her doubts block her instincts, and Glee could see it. He straightened.
“Get us out of here,” Valkyrie muttered.
“I … I’m trying,” said Never, his hand on her shoulder.
As the energy in her hands crackled out and died, Glee started to whistle a tune, that ‘Flowers in Your Hair’ song from the 1970s, and then he turned invisible. Keeping Never beside her, Valkyrie backed away.
“Never …”
“I know, I’m trying …”
Valkyrie kept her eyes on the space where the whistling came from, trying to spot a telltale ripple in the air, but the only sign of his movement came from the grass that flattened under his feet. He was coming closer. Closer.
The whistling stopped.
She heard him, heard movement, a sudden exhalation of breath and he was running at her, and she grabbed Never, pulled him behind her and covered up, screwing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw and waiting for the impact, and then the cool breeze went away and no impact came, and she looked up and saw a wall.
“Oh my God, that was way too close,” she said, the words tumbling out in one whispered sigh. She looked around. They were back at the school. “Where’s Omen?”
“Nurse’s Office,” said Never.
“Is he OK?”
He shrugged. A couple of kids passed in the corridor intersecting theirs, but were too wrapped up in their conversation to notice them.
“Thanks,” Valkyrie said. “I know first-hand how fear and adrenaline can affect your control over magic, so coming back for me took real guts.” The handkerchief was sodden with blood. It dripped to the floor. “I need to get to the High Sanctuary as quickly as possible. Can you help me, just a little bit more?”
Never looked at her, and made a sound halfway between a grunt and a scoff. “I’m not a tram,” he said, and walked away.
Teenagers.
Valkyrie turned and started running.
Startled students leaped out of her way as she ran, bloodstained and manic, for the street outside. She jumped into the first tram she saw and as it flowed towards Meritorious Square she probed her broken nose, hissing in pain. She did her best to wipe the blood from her face, but avoided her reflection in case she really did look as bad as she thought. When the tram slowed at the square, she threw herself off and sprinted to the steps of the High Sanctuary. There was a line of Cleavers and City Guards outside, not letting anyone in or out, but when they saw her they let her through without even checking her badge.
She got a few worried looks as she bounded up the steps, but she ignored them and crashed through the doors. Immediately, she was hit by the wail of an alarm, and had to shoulder her way through the massing crowd. Someone’s arm tipped against her face and it was like they’d swung a shovel into her nose.
