Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [53]
He read back over it, battling the tide of boredom that swept over him. It didn’t stop him reading, of course. He was a journalist. Research was what he did, and oftentimes research was mind-numbingly boring, just like this was.
He didn’t know why it was boring, though. He couldn’t put his finger on it. It didn’t sound boring. Super powers and the apocalypse and saving the world. But Geoffrey had known. For all his lunacy, he’d hit the nail right on the head with that one, and the moment he’d uttered those words, Kenny had felt it. The boredom. The dullness. It just seeped in, robbing him of his enthusiasm.
Kenny frowned. Before Geoffrey had told him that this was all boring, Kenny had found it fascinating. He remembered that distinctly. But then it was like a switch had been flicked inside him, and all his interest had faded away. He sat on the arm of the chair, brow furrowed. How had that happened? How could it have happened?
He remembered Geoffrey’s face. Smiling. Avuncular. A bit of an oddball, granted. A crackpot, even, as he himself had said. His voice was nice. It wasn’t as smooth as the tall man’s, but it had a quality that got inside your head. It was a warm voice. Comforting. It made you want to trust him. It made you want to believe him.
Kenny’s notes dropped from his hand, scattered across the floor. His eyes were wide. His mouth was half open.
He’d been hypnotised.
He didn’t know how Geoffrey had done it, but he’d convinced him with a few short words that he didn’t think what he thought, that he didn’t believe what he believed.
“Good God,” he said to his empty apartment.
All of a sudden his enthusiasm came back to him, his interest roaring inside him like a furnace in his chest. Finbar had sent him to meet with Geoffrey so that Geoffrey could work his hoodoo on him, make him walk away from what might have been the biggest story of his career.
Kenny grinned. You’re gonna have to do better than that.
Chapter 20
Riding Out
hina gripped the reins and pulled, straining against the horse’s resistance. He was a wilful one, all right. Every turn they made, he tried to shake her loose. Every ditch they jumped, he threatened to throw her into. She’d been fighting him since she swung into the saddle. Her arms ached and her legs burned. Her jodhpurs were splattered with mud and her shirt stuck to her back. Her hands were raw from the reins.
God, she loved him.
A creature of fierce strength and beauty, and one that made her work to get him to do what she wanted. A challenge.
She used to ride out all the time when she was younger, but as her friends fell away or died, or she betrayed them or they betrayed her, it had become a solitary pursuit – and for a while, she preferred it that way. Just her and the horse and the open countryside, the hoof beats that thudded through her body, clods of grass and mud kicked up behind them. No talk, no flattery, no professions of love.
But people change, and she was as vulnerable to this phenomenon as anyone. Decades of solitude had hardened her, but isolation without end was a dangerous thing. Suddenly she didn’t want to be alone on these afternoons.
Valkyrie would enjoy this, she knew. China had heard her talk of when she rode out as a young girl, before she met Skulduggery – just a beginner, but with a natural’s love for it. Maybe one of these days, as soon as Valkyrie got a break from saving the world, China would invite her to the stables. She even had the perfect horse picked out – strong and fast with a hint of mischief. The perfect way to get reacquainted with the saddle.
Providing, of course, that China found a way to settle this Eliza Scorn business. It required not just a single strike against Scorn, or even a strike against Scorn and Prave together, but multiple