Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [138]
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 – 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 – 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 – and yet they wouldn’t tell me what the Passage 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 appetite 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 gods, 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