let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

[impudentsongbird]

Book Four: Dark Days
1 | into the breach
2 | finding skulduggery
3 | retreat to the tunnels
4 | into the cacophony
5 | sanctuary in the cathedral
6 | reuniting old friends
7 | kenspeckle's new patient
8 | holy water and disinfectant
9 | objecting to china sorrows
10 | the roadtrip
11 | baffling guild
12 | shenanigans at the safehouse
13 | reassuring fletcher
14 | valkyrie's intervention
15 | solomon's revelation
16 | visiting the edgleys
17 | recalled to the sanctuary
18 | guild's confusion
19 | gabe is busted
20 | the psychic tattoist
21 | envisioning the cacophony
22 | angel's first migraine
23 | the morning after
24 | china and solomon
25 | detectives' council of war
26 | china's foolishness
27 | the collector dethroned
28 | finding crux
29 | skulduggery's vileness revealed
30 | sorrows in aftermath
31 | finding equilibrium
32 | the devil's number
33 | at the carnival
34 | meeting authorities
35 | solomon's confession
36 | the stray soul
37 | sanguine unsettled
38 | solomon's choice
39 | a cowboy underground
40 | in scarab's basement
41 | striking midnight
42 | craven contested
43 | emergency services
44 | on your feet
45 | and don't stop moving
46 | easy recognition
47 | a deuce of an evening
48 | engines roaring
49 | compromising judgements
50 | solomon's conflict
51 | axis turning
52 | thinking circular
53 | blasting the past
54 | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
55 | sanctuary unsanctified
56 | shudder unravelling
57 | catching an angel
58 | layering dimensions
59 | dead men meeting
60 | when it rains
61 | power plays
62 | sing on gold
63 | the valley of death
64 | grand aspersions
65 | no evil feared
66 | new days rising
67 | angelic neuroses
68 | step-brothers working
69 | the many sorrows of china
70 | peacefully wreathed
71 | tarnished gold
72 | the secret in darkness
73 | magical intent
74 | scars worth keeping
75 | benefits of a beau
76 | grand magery
77 | lighting the darkness
78 | old dogs and new tricks
79 | flouting traditions
80 | drawing lines
81 | brothers and sisters in arms
82 | channelling angels
83 | return of the carnies
84 | the death bringers
85 | meriting agelessness
86 | knick knack, paddy
87 | give a dog a bone
88 | americans propheteering
89 | the right side of honour
90 | tailored shocks
91 | hosting angels
92 | elders anonymous
93 | rediscovered strays
94 | changings and changelings
95 | a state of reflection
96 | adding hope
97 | the devil's truth
98 | dead mens' hospitality
99 | lives half lived
100 | next to godliness
101 | devilish plans
102 | beached angels
103 | lights of revelation
104 | heroes worshipped
105 | new devilries
106 | angels under the yoke
107 | brains frozen
108 | father, mother, daughter
109 | parental guidance recommended
110 | driven round the bend
111 | ongoing training
112 | privileged information
113 | reasonable men
114 | passing the buck
115 | gifting magicks
116 | strengths and weaknesses
117 | immaturity's perks
118 | priests and prophets
119 | scaling evil
120 | blowing covers
121 | marring an afternoon
122 | lie detection
123 | five-dimensional pain
124 | reliving nightmares
125 | taking stock
126 | sampling spices
127 | sleeping prophets lying
128 | rueful returns
129 | dead men reunion
130 | medically-approved hugs

The life of an angel was a contradiction in changes and stability. On one hand, they understood very well the way the cosmos was shaped by events within it. On the other, they stood at one step apart from it—or at least had, for a very long time, up until their Master's recent wager with Lucifer. Changes in the recent past had, even for angels, been fast and turbulent, but there were none that concerned Raphael more than Gabriel's abrupt reserve.

In the aftermath of the wager Gabriel had been almost the only one to know where their Lord was at any given time, a fact which had put the Archangel very firmly under Lucifer's radar. Raphael had joked that Gabriel ought to arm himself with more jokes or worse clothes to drive the fallen angel away; Michael had offered the peace of the Garden Coast. (Rafe thought his idea was better.)

Either way, even though their Master was fair hidden, every angel knew that they had only to ask Gabriel and the Archangel would pass on a message.

Then Gabriel had simply blipped off the radar himself. Poof! Gone! No one had noticed at first, because, well, they weren't exactly in constant connection. It was just when Raphael had taken a whim to seek out his younger brother that he'd noticed it, and let it be, because there was absolutely a reason for it. Gabe did not just off and vanish, except that once with his self-exile, and that didn’t count.

But when Gabriel had come back, he had been strangely agitated and yet close-mouthed. The younger Archangel had vanished off to wherever their Master was hidden for a long chat Raphael was dying to have listened into, and yet couldn't (but only partly because it would have been rude). Now he was here, floating among the stars and examining a black hole with unnerving intensity.

For a time Raphael watched without letting on that he was there, but eventually Gabriel spoke. “I’d rather you came to join me instead of lurking, brother.”

Absolutely refusing to feel chagrined, Raphael let himself manifest with an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and ruffled the younger angel’s hair. Gabriel threw a fond, longsuffering glance up at him, but there was something in his eyes, something distracted and sharp, which indicated that Gabriel still wasn’t truly present. Raphael only wished he knew where the other Archangel was.

“Just wondering what you’re doin’ all the way out here,” he said teasingly. “There’s a party going on down there on Earth, Gabe.” There was always a party going on down on Earth. “You oughta be down there bobbin’ for apples and switching up party-hats!”

“I can’t,” Gabriel said quietly, with a sort of seriousness Raphael had, for all Gabriel’s literalness, rarely heard from him. So Raphael fell into the same seriousness, lost his playful accent, and spoke directly.

“Why not, brother? You’ve been reserved of late. I conf—I’m worried for you.”

For a very long time Gabriel said nothing and stared into the slow-turning swirl of the black hole. Raphael waited patiently, his arm still companionably across the other Archangel’s shoulders. Eventually Gabriel spoke. “Did you know, Raphael,” he said, “that the universe you see around you here isn’t the only one our Master has created?”

Raphael was so startled that he couldn’t answer. That wasn’t what he was imagining. He hadn’t been sure what he’d been imagining, but that wasn’t it. “I’m not sure what you mean, Gabriel,” he said after a moment. “Our Lord told me the story of Creation not all that long ago, and he never mentioned anything of the kind.”

Gabriel nodded. “He told me that story as well. And then He asked if I really wanted to know details.” He hesitated. “I … admit, I declined. It’s something He said—about faith. I decided I didn’t need to know details. But it’s true, nevertheless. Just beyond this …” The Archangel reached out his hand and touched that gossamer and unbreakable fabric that supported reality. “There are other universes, even with different versions of us.”

“Different versions of us?” Raphael repeated, appalled and uncertain and entirely confused. How could that be possible? What could their Master want with more than one of any of them? What was going on? Where had Gabriel gone in that time he’d vanished? Then something occurred to him and he smiled with relief. “This is a joke, right?”

Gabriel looked up at him and smiled back with such a gentle understanding that for a moment Raphael felt very small indeed. “No, Rafe. I’m not joking. It was a shock to me too. That isn’t the point, though.”

“Isn’t it?” Raphael asked, feeling as dazed as an angel possibly could, especially when he wasn’t even inhabiting an actual physical body.

“No.” Gabriel returned to watching the black hole intently. “I met some people from other realities. One of them is in a kind of Hell, and he very much does not deserve it. I promised him that, if I could, I would save him from it.”

Which did not in the least explain why Gabe was staring at a black hole, let alone a million other questions Raphael would have liked to ask and for which he couldn’t find the words. Finally he found one. “How?”

“First,” Gabriel said with a sort of tranquillity Raphael had heard in his brother’s voice a million times but never after delivering so turbulent a piece of news, “I’m going to jimmy open a crack in the door through this hole.”

Raphael stared at Gabe, and then at the black hole, and then back at Gabe. He opened his mouth to ask whether their Master knew he was planning this and then closed it, because that was a stupid question. He opened it again to query if Gabriel had asked whether he could go around lifting the sheets and then realised that was also a stupid question, because whether he had or not, their Master probably would have told him to do what he felt was best.

It was equally clear that Gabriel very much planned to go through with this, no matter what Raphael said, and really, did Raphael have the right to object? Surely if this carried a risk, their Master would have already forbidden Gabriel from making the attempt?

“I’ll come with,” Raphael said at last, and this time when Gabriel glanced back the younger Archangel’s expression was startled. A moment later that expression shifted into grateful apology.

“I’m sorry, Rafe, but I’m not entirely certain I’ll make it through, and we can hardly leave Michael here alone.” He grinned. “Did you see what he was wearing last festival day on the Garden Coast? He hasn’t moved out of the eighteenth century yet. How would he possibly handle the rest of the world?”

Raphael laughed out loud, warm but startled, and the sound of it rang through space. Gabriel chuckled quietly beside him, and for a few minutes there was just companionable humour that faded into an equally comfortable silence.

Still, Raphael had a lot of questions. How did Gabriel plan to find his friend, let alone the universe he was in? How was he going to get back? What would he do if he met another version of himself? Or, worse, Lucifer? Finally the Archangel just asked, “Have you figured out how to crack open the door?”

“I think so,” Gabriel said, considering the black hole. “Once I figured out what to look for. I wouldn’t have gotten even that far if it weren’t for some things our Master said.”

Which meant that, in some fashion, this expedition was sanctioned by their Master, Raphael translated, and something tense in him relaxed. “Something do to with this drain here, I’ll bet,” he said, falling into his casual accent once more. “Gonna rip out the kitchen sink, li’l brother?”

“Just to see what’s hiding underneath,” Gabriel said with a grin.

“I’ll try’n keep it open for ya,” Raphael promised, and Gabriel sent him a smile which lit up the very space around them with its brilliance.

“Thank you, Rafe,” he said, and straightened. Raphael took his arm away as Gabriel lifted his hands, not exactly stepping back so much as giving Gabriel space. The youngest Archangel didn’t often reveal his power, but it was always a sight to see, a song to hear, when he did.

As it was now. Gabriel’s voice started deep, lifted high, split and wove and became more melodies than one would think a single being could possibly sing at once. The sound of it made Raphael’s heart soar, made him want to fly and laugh. It was so deep, so light, so resonating that it was physical; it touched the slow turn of the black hole and made it, for just the briefest of moments, still. In that moment Gabriel sent a carefully-aimed bolt of energy into the heart of it.

It was the kind of sight Raphael hadn’t seen in thousands of years, a play of physics and metaphysics which he hadn’t thought possible, let alone imagined. There was an eruption in the centre of the black hole, where gravity was condensed; the cascade of energy plumed upward and was dragged back down as quick, a tear in the fabric of the reality not allowed the time to widen or become a danger.

Raphael didn’t even know Gabe had moved until the younger Archangel was gone, he was so busy staring in awe. With a start the Archangel stretched out his senses and just barely managed to catch a glimpse of his brother shooting toward the hole at speeds few angels could have achieved through such a gravity well. Raphael certainly couldn’t have.

How, he suddenly wondered, was he meant to keep that open if he didn’t even have the speed of thought to track Gabriel’s movements through it?

Desperately the Archangel cast about for something to jam in the door, as it were. There was some dark matter nearby and with a thought he fashioned it into a spear and pitched it toward the centre of the black hole. It struck just as Gabriel flitted through the crack nearly wholly collapsed in on itself; the star’s gravity caught it, pulled it in, and plugged the opening like a metaphysical sink.

Slowly Raphael made every part of himself relax. For good or ill, Gabe was gone on this quest of his, and now Raphael should probably go and round up some of their younger siblings to guard the area. Just in case.


Book Four: Dark Days
into the breach | finding skulduggery | retreat to the tunnels | into the cacophony | sanctuary in the cathedral | reuniting old friends | kenspeckle's new patient | holy water and disinfectant | objecting to china sorrows | the roadtrip | baffling guild | shenanigans at the safehouse | reassuring fletcher | valkyrie's intervention | solomon's revelation | visiting the edgleys | recalled to the sanctuary | guild's confusion | gabe is busted | the psychic tattoist | envisioning the cacophony | angel's first migraine | the morning after | china and solomon | detectives' council of war | china's foolishness | the collector dethroned | finding crux | skulduggery's vileness revealed | sorrows in aftermath | finding equilibrium | the devil's number | at the carnival | meeting authorities | solomon's confession | the stray soul | sanguine unsettled | solomon's choice | a cowboy underground | in scarab's basement | striking midnight | craven contested | emergency services | on your feet | and don't stop moving | easy recognition | a deuce of an evening | engines roaring | compromising judgements | solomon's conflict | axis turning | thinking circular | blasting the past | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
sanctuary unsanctified | shudder unravelling | catching an angel | layering dimensions | dead men meeting | when it rains | power plays | sing on gold | the valley of death | grand aspersions | no evil feared | new days rising | angelic neuroses | step-brothers working | the many sorrows of china | peacefully wreathed | tarnished gold | the secret in darkness | magical intent | scars worth keeping | benefits of a beau | grand magery | lighting the darkness | old dogs and new tricks | flouting traditions | drawing lines | brothers and sisters in arms | channelling angels | return of the carnies | the death bringers | meriting agelessness | knick knack, paddy | give a dog a bone | americans propheteering | the right side of honour | tailored shocks | hosting angels | elders anonymous | rediscovered strays | changings and changelings | a state of reflection | adding hope | the devil's truth | dead mens' hospitality | lives half lived | next to godliness | devilish plans | beached angels | lights of revelation | heroes worshipped | new devilries | angels under the yoke | brains frozen | father, mother, daughter | parental guidance recommended | driven round the bend | ongoing training | privileged information | reasonable men | passing the buck | gifting magicks | strengths and weaknesses | immaturity's perks | priests and prophets | scaling evil | blowing covers | marring an afternoon | lie detection | five-dimensional pain | reliving nightmares | taking stock | sampling spices | sleeping prophets lying | rueful returns | dead men reunion | medically-approved hugs

Comments

[skeletonenigma]

It had been two months since Skulduggery disappeared through the yellow portal.

Tanith missed him, of course. Everyone did, even if they never talked about it. China, who had lost her brother in the same day, wasn’t seen at her library for days at a time – so unlike her that Tanith had almost considered putting together a search party the first time it happened. Several times now, Tanith had caught Ghastly simply staring off into space, an expression of such loss and hopelessness on his face that it broke her heart. He’d only just come back into the world, only just reunited with Skulduggery, and then… this.

But none of them were strangers to loss, and Tanith knew that given time, even Ghastly would eventually move on. The only person she was truly worried about was Valkyrie. As maturely as the young girl liked to present herself, she wasn’t even fifteen yet, and she’d just lost her best friend.

It only worried Tanith more when Valkyrie didn’t seem to collapse, almost didn’t seem to care. Face closed, few words, carrying on with her life as if nothing had changed except her own bitter view of the world. That, Tanith knew, couldn’t last. At some point soon, Valkyrie was going to come to her with an impossible and reckless plan for getting Skulduggery back, despite the Sanctuary’s firm insistence that the portal could not be opened again. And Tanith was going to have to gently explain that Skulduggery himself made sure the portal was closed forever. Without the Grotesquery, without the Isthmus Anchor, he was well and truly gone. Tanith only hoped that it would be enough to break through the wall surrounding Valkyrie’s heart, so that Tanith could finally help her young friend begin to heal. That was her role, right? The mature big sister.

Well. She was right about some of it, at least. Valkyrie had come to her, with a cocky and reckless plan for rescuing Skulduggery from the Faceless Ones. Except that this was a cocky and reckless plan that might actually work.

Tanith closed her eyes and shook her head. “You want to run that by me again?”

There was no frustrated sigh, no snappy line so characteristic of Valkyrie. It was like she’d emptied herself of emotion, forced herself neutral and utterly focused on the task at hand. “To open the portal, you need a Teleporter and an Isthmus Anchor, right? Something that belongs over there, but it’s here instead.”

“Yeah,” Tanith agreed. “Like the Grotesquery.” She hesitated. “Which is gone.”

“I know,” said Valkyrie evenly. Her tone was so deadpan that it physically hurt Tanith to hear it. “We have the Teleporter, obviously. Fletcher’s more than happy to try again. But we also have an Isthmus Anchor, and that’s Skulduggery’s head.”

And that was the crux of the plan, the assumption that Skulduggery hadn’t simply been exaggerating stories when he told Valkyrie that his current skull was not actually his own. “Which he lost in a poker game, eh?” Tanith finished quietly.

“No. Goblins stole it. He won the head he’s wearing now in a poker game.”

Only you, Skulduggery. Tanith fixed Valkyrie with a sympathetic look, wondering if it was really the teenager she was now trying to convince, or herself. “But that was twenty years ago, you said. That skull could be anywhere. It could take us decades to track it down.”

Valkyrie smiled, an expression that startled Tanith as much as the happiness that wasn’t in it. “Then we’d better start now. I already did. Skulduggery found out a while ago that someone named Larks stole everything the goblins had, and then sold them on. He never found out who bought them.” Her smile vanished. “I did. The skull was bought by a mortal woman as a wedding gift, but she used it to beat her husband to death after he stole from her. It was logged as evidence. Have you ever heard of the Murder Skull?”

“Once,” Tanith admitted. “Didn’t it disappear?”

“Exactly. And I need your help to find it. You and Ghastly and Fletcher. Maybe even China, if she’s feeling generous.”

Tanith couldn’t help scowling at the thought of China helping anyone other than herself. “Valkyrie, opening that portal is dangerous. There’s a reason Skulduggery made sure it could never happen again. We might let more Faceless Ones through, or maybe something else just as nasty. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but Skulduggery…” Tanith bit her lip, and took the plunge. “He’s alone in a dimension with a race of evil gods who are angry at us, and have no one to take it out on but him. He might not even be Skulduggery anymore.”

“He’s my friend.”

Tanith looked at Valkyrie, at the single tear on her cheek, and instantly knew that they had to try. Because the knowledge that it was at least possible might be the only thing holding Valkyrie together. And besides, Skulduggery would have done the same stupid, reckless thing for any of them by now.

Tanith gave a curt nod, and a smile. “What do you need us to do?”

Valkyrie didn’t return the smile. She just reached up to wipe away the tear, staring down at the floor. “What do you think it’s like, where he is?”

Tanith gripped Valkyrie’s shoulders, somehow even more scared of this new, unsure version of her friend than the empty shell. “Don’t, Valkyrie. Don’t do that to yourself. There’s nothing anyone could have done, okay? Wherever Skulduggery is, I can guarantee you he’d rather be there alone than let the Faceless Ones get control of this reality. And it doesn’t matter anymore, because we’re going to save him. You hear me? We’re going to get him back.”

~~

Everyone was home.

That was the first thought to cross Skulduggery’s mind as he tumbled out onto the thick white stone. The Institute may or may not have been gone; it was impossible to tell now. Even Martin Landel’s fate was unknown, supposedly in the hands of people who knew better. But the one hard fact was that everyone was free, and back where they belonged, for better or for worse. For Skulduggery, it just happened to be worse.

He’d been poised to run. If the battle at Aranmore Farm was any indication, it was practically impossible to run from a god, but Skulduggery was not going to let them take him without a fight. He’d been prepared to run, prepared for the wonderful feeling of his magic once again flooding his body, prepared to escape into an unfamiliar environment that was likely just as dangerous as anything the Faceless Ones had to offer.

But he’d made one mistake, apart from apparently misjudging the height of the portal. He’d gotten a little too used to his new human body during his imprisonment in that Institute, and when one foot moved forward to begin the process of running, far too little weight was on top of it, and Skulduggery ended up crashing painfully into the ground. He thought he’d be returned to the exact moment he was taken, that he would still have that intestine wrapped around his leg, pulling him through the portal, and he would look up to find himself surrounded by insanity-inducing blasphemies of nature intent on ripping him apart. Instead, it seemed a lot of time had passed. Skulduggery was alone, the portal was nowhere in sight, and nothing was moving around for miles, according to the air currents.

Skulduggery looked down at his skeletal form, surprised at how strange it suddenly looked. It felt just like the first time he’d glanced down to see nothing but bones where his leg should be. This time, fortunately, he wouldn’t have to crawl out of a sodden cloth bag and put himself back together. That was an experience that did not bear repeating. On the plus side, he now knew the human skeleton better than most doctors did.

Over the next few hours, Skulduggery was no closer to understanding where, exactly, he’d ended up – or even knowing how to describe it. The closest equivalent he could think of was a Brazilian mountain town. It was a sprawling city carved out of the rock into the side of a mountain, baking underneath a sun at least five times bigger than the one Skulduggery was used to. The sky was blood-red, and any ground that wasn’t rock sparkled like the golden sand of a desert.

All in all, the effect should have been rather beautiful, but there was something ominous about it. The city, and the horizon, which the sun never seemed to touch. When Skulduggery finally made it to a proper cliff at the edge of the city, he looked out over nothing but more city, extending down into the valley floor and up onto the side of another mountain off in the distance. Everywhere he looked, there was only the blinding white of sun-bleached stone.

The skeleton detective was fascinated, despite himself. Of course, the Faceless Ones wouldn’t have been the first to occupy this reality. Millions of people would have lived here once. He wondered what they looked like, before the Faceless Ones carved into their city and slaughtered all of them.

As more time passed and still, nothing moved but Skulduggery, he began to wonder if the planet in this reality was as big as Earth. The Faceless Ones might be thousands of miles away by now. He might have nothing to worry about, other than an eternity of loneliness in a city that looked as big as a country.

It didn’t matter. Everyone he cared about was home, and safe. Whatever happened next would do nothing more than satisfy his curiosity.

Of course, in a city as big as a country, there were bound to be survivors, and Skulduggery ran into a small group of them some unidentifiable amount of time later; it was difficult to judge the passing of time, as the sun never seemed to set and he never got tired or hungry. The survivors, though initially suspicious of him, grew very friendly after a while. The language they spoke really was beautiful, designed to be a fluid painting of sound rather than to get information across. Skulduggery could imagine, when millions of the creatures lived in the city, that the constant sound of their talking would be magnified by the bare walls of their stone houses and mix together to create a symphony in the air above the valley. Nature really was remarkable.

It didn’t take him long to learn that language. He’d never be able to speak it as fluidly or captivatingly as they could, which seemed to amuse the younger ones in particular, but he learned enough to get by. Eventually, when they told each other stories, he even understood a good deal of them. And what he learned darkened his mood.

When the Ancients first cast the Faceless Ones out of their reality, they hadn’t even considered where they were sending the dark gods. It turned out that they ended up in a reality very similar to this one, killed everyone in it, tore through the walls into a different reality, killed everyone there, and continued on, until they came to this one. Countless trillions of people, dead because of the very first sorcerers in Skulduggery’ s world.

And he’d made another mistake, he realized bitterly as the dreaded, thunderous whispers finally picked up over the valley after one such story. No sooner had he convinced himself to stop feeling responsible for everything the Faceless Ones had done over the last few eons, than the Faceless Ones had tracked him down – and he’d led them right to the last group of survivors.

Of course. It was idiotic to think they might have forgotten about him.

Skulduggery never saw what happened to his new friends. He couldn’t even remember if they’d screamed or not. All that filled his waking moments now were his own screams, the blur of unendurable agony separated by a few hours of sheer bliss as he was generously given time to find his various limbs and pull them back on. And as soon as he was in one piece, like clockwork, a Faceless One would appear in its shambling, broken-down human form with no face, and it would hunt him back down to start tearing him apart all over again. It, and all of its equally-nasty-looking pets atop flying black beasts.

In his more lucid moments, Skulduggery would try to put together lists of everyone and anyone who knew where he was, who would have the capability of rescuing him, and the willingness to try. Those survivors? Of course not. They were dead. Skulduggery should be dead too, but either there really was no way of killing a skeleton, or the Faceless Ones actually felt something close to satisfaction with his pain.

Valkyrie? Tempting. He hallucinated her occasionally, talking to him. But there was no way back into this reality. The Sanctuary, and Thurid Guild, would make damn sure that Valkyrie never even tried.

Anyone from Landel’s reality? Gabriel, maybe. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t let anything like this happen. But he was an Archangel with a whole universe of his own to run. He might even be cleaning up Landel’s mess. Besides, was Skulduggery worth rescuing? Gabe might have said he was, but there was no way any kind of Christian God would want him out of harm’s way anymore, not after the war with Mevolent and what happened in it.

So Skulduggery allowed himself to accept the simple truth he’d known since that intestine first wrapped around his ankle so long ago – he deserved this. He deserved this and worse. In fact, it was mildly surprising his punishment had waited so long to get here.