Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [46]
“It does come as quite a surprise,” Skulduggery murmured, and stood up.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I was talking about a little sister, not… not a child of your own… I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Skulduggery shook his head. “Nonsense. You described it perfectly. Pure, unconditional love. It’s a wonderful thing. You’ll experience it again when you have a child of your own.”
“Whoa!” said Valkyrie, jumping to her feet, the blanket falling around her. “Whoa! Stop right there! We’re not even going to talk about that! We’re not even going to mention the possibility!”
“It unnerves you, then?”
“It freaks me out is what it does! I think I still have a few years left of, you know, playing the field before I find someone I want to settle down with. We’re talking a few centuries, you know?”
“So you’re not planning on rushing into anything?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Does Fletcher know this?”
She laughed. “He’d better.”
“And Caelan?”
“I make sure to tell him every time I see him.”
Skulduggery put his hat on. “That’s my girl.”
Chapter 17
The Zombie King and Co
aurien Scapegrace, the Killer Supreme, the Zombie King, lay in a freezer, his legs curled up to his chest. He felt the freezer move slightly and he muttered dark things under his breath. The refrigerated truck he’d been using as a mobile base had broken down, so he’d sent that idiot Thrasher to get another one. But Thrasher couldn’t find a refrigerated truck. The only thing he could find that even remotely met Scapegrace’s requirements was a Percy Penguin Ice-cream Van.
Thrasher had tried to convince Scapegrace, when faced with his wrath, that an ice-cream van was ideal – it was innocent, it was unexpected, no one would ever imagine it housed a terrifying zombie. Scapegrace fumed. Innocent was not the same as discreet. His mobile base had a smiling plastic penguin on its roof, and it couldn’t go faster than forty kilometres an hour. They couldn’t even find a way to switch off that damn Popeye music that jingled and jangled on a constant loop. It was driving Scapegrace mad. What was worse, every time they stopped in traffic, he could hear people run up and tap on the window.
They were moving through yet another small town. Scapegrace hated small towns. He felt the van slow, and heard the kids immediately swarm out on to the road, waving money and shouting their orders. Scapegrace stayed where he was, safe in the frosty confines of the freezer, trying to think of things that would soothe his impatience. He thought of tranquil lakes, of birds singing, of plucking out Thrasher’s eyes, and eventually, he reached a place within himself that had some degree of balance.
He heard Thrasher’s voice, the one thing guaranteed to ruin the Zen of even the most placid monk, and opened the freezer lid. He could hear people battering on the window above him.
“What did you say?” he called out.
“I’m just wondering,” Thrasher answered from the driver’s seat, “if maybe we should serve some ice cream.”
“Why on earth would we want to do that?”
“To be inconspicuous. They’re all around us. If we give them ice cream, they’ll go away, and we won’t arouse suspicion.”
Scapegrace struggled to control his temper. Tranquil lakes. Birds singing. Eye-plucking. Calm.
“Thrasher,” he called out, “we have no ice cream. I’m in the freezer, Thrasher. Did you forget that?”
“Well, what about the machine?”
“The ice-cream-making machine?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to work it?”
“You just, you just put the cone under the nozzle and you pull the thing and the ice cream swirls out and you stick a chocolate flake in it.”
“It’s that easy?”
“Yes.”
“Should I get out of the freezer and do it?”
“If you want.”
“You’re an idiot, Thrasher. I have bits falling off me and I have a burnt head. I’d say that would arouse a little suspicion, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh… yes.