Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [72]
It was a robe. She put it on. The sleeves were gigantic, and swallowed her arms. She pushed them back to her elbows and then pulled up the hood. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, getting the hood to sit just right. It kept falling down over her face. Finally, she got it to where it would stay up, and turned to Skulduggery. He stood there, the black robe flowing around him, his skull barely visible beneath the hood.
“Good God,” she breathed. “You look like the Grim Reaper.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t meant as one.”
“I’m taking it anyway. You’re a regular visitor here – any advice on how we should proceed?”
She shrugged. “If anyone stops us, as long as we mumble something pretentious about the glory of death, we should be fine.”
“Excellent.”
They left the storage room, moving quickly but quietly. Valkyrie’s heart sped up when two Necromancers hurried by, but they were too busy panicking about the Sanctuary forces outside to notice them. Occasionally she would recognise something and nudge Skulduggery to alter their course, but for the most part she hadn’t a clue where they were. On all of her trips through the Temple, she hadn’t really been paying attention. Wreath had been the one to lead the way and she’d been happy enough to follow along, continuing whatever conversation they were having without bothering to acquaint herself with her surroundings. She was regretting that now.
“Hey!” said a voice behind them. “You!”
They stopped. Valkyrie glanced at Skulduggery and they turned. A Necromancer stalked over to them, his hood down off his head. It was that man, Oblivious or something, the one who hadn’t wanted to let them in days ago.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he ranted. “We have our orders! You think they don’t apply to you? You think just because our enemies are massing at the gates, we should abandon our posts? Is that what you think?”
“Uh,” Skulduggery said, “the stream of death carries us where it may.”
“That may be true,” Oblivious said curtly, “but we are still bound by the oaths we swore. Or have you forgotten them?”
Skulduggery shook his head beneath his hood. “My duty is to death, but death’s duty is to itself. As of life, as of death, as of the stream between…”
Oblivious frowned. “What?”
“In the stream of life, we are but paddlers.”
“I’m not sure I… who are you? Let me see your face.”
Skulduggery looked round, made sure no one else was coming. “The sparrow flies south for winter,” he said, and punched Oblivious right on the chin. He looked up at Valkyrie as he dragged the unconscious Necromancer into the nearest room. “See? It’s a perfect code.”
“We’re paddling in the stream of life?”
Skulduggery came back out, shutting the door behind him. “I’m not very good at being pretentious. It’s one of my few flaws. But there’s no denying – that code worked.”
“And you slipped it into the conversation seamlessly.”
They carried on, managing to avoid the panicking Necromancers. Finally, Skulduggery took Valkyrie’s arm, pulled her into a dark corner, and nodded ahead.
“If I’m right,” he said, “the door mechanism is in there. If the door isn’t unlocked in the correct way, an alarm will sound, the door won’t open, and everyone will come running. So you’re going to have to stay here. If I were you, I’d find somewhere to hide. This may take a while.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“You realise,” he said, “that you’re wearing a hood and I can’t see your face, so if you’re glaring at me, or scowling, or raising an eyebrow, I have no way of knowing. You realise that, right?”
“Why,” said Valkyrie, “do I have to stay here?”
“Because what I’m going to do is extremely dangerous.”
“So is everything you drag me into.”
“Your point being?”
“What is up with everyone? Fletcher wants to protect me, Caelan wants to protect me, now you. For God’s sake,