LITMIR.BIZ

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after Christophe Nocturnal before he sends another assassin after you. Just a thought. Last I heard, he was staying somewhere in Killiney. It was great seeing you again. You look amazing, by the way.”

      She held Sanguine’s hand, and they sank down through the ground.

      Valkyrie allowed herself a moment, then went back to the door. There were squad cars all over the place, Guards milling around the street and barking orders into walkie-talkies. The poor guy she’d kneed in the groin stood hunched over by an ambulance, and the cop that Margaret had struck stood nearby, glowering.

      The Bentley pulled up, and she waited until the cops had stopped admiring it before stepping out and running over. She jumped in.

      Skulduggery looked at her, then looked at all the cops. “Your doing?” he asked. She nodded, and he sighed as they pulled away. “OK then, who tried to kill you this time?”

      rom one scene of violence and death to another – Valkyrie didn’t know how she managed to be so lucky. The house was cordoned off with official Garda tape, but the men and women in the uniforms who were standing around were not Guards.

      Skulduggery led the way up the garden path, talking on the phone as he did so. He was arranging for a squad of Cleavers to comb through Killiney with a Sensitive leading the hunt. He was confident that if Christophe Nocturnal really was staying there, they’d bring him in. Valkyrie was only half listening. She nodded to a mage she knew at the door, and went in through the hallway. It was a nice house, small but well maintained. Skulduggery put the phone away and they stepped into the living room.

      “My God,” he said.

      There were recognisable body parts in the mess, but not many. Valkyrie lunged back out of the door and threw up in the flower bed. When she’d finished, she leaned against the doorframe and closed her eyes. A few moments later, Skulduggery joined her. He was quiet.

      He spoke to the other mages, then they both got in the Bentley and Valkyrie wiped her eyes.

      “The house belongs to a Gary and Rosemary Delaney,” he said, “both of whom are confirmed to be at work at the moment. They have one son, Michael, eighteen years old. We’re waiting on the test results to get back, but it would appear that Michael is the one in the living room.”

      “That’s weird,” Valkyrie said. “I’m crying. Look. I’m crying. I don’t feel like I’m crying but look at my eyes. Those are tears. Why am I crying?”

      “Because you know that somebody did that,” Skulduggery said. “Somebody, a human, not an animal, purposefully ripped that boy apart. You’re crying because you can’t understand how anyone could do such a thing.”

      She took a deep breath and let it out. “You didn’t spend long in there.”

      “I got what I needed.”

      She looked at him. “You know who did it?”

      “No. But I have enough information to start narrowing it down. So do you.”

      “I just glanced in.”

      “And what did you learn?”

      “Skulduggery, please, I’m really not in the mood for this.”

      “Which is why it’s important.”

      Valkyrie sighed. “The whole place was covered in blood. There were pieces of him everywhere.”

      “How was he killed?”

      “Ripped apart, like you said.”

      “But how, Valkyrie? Claws? Was he ripped apart by the killer’s bare hands?”

      She pictured the scene and shook her head. “No. There were no footprints in the blood. If there had been someone in there, physically attacking him, there’d be footprints. There’d probably be drops of blood leaving the house, too. I didn’t see any.”

      “What does that tell us?”

      “Whoever killed him did it remotely. From a distance of more than two or three metres, I’d say.”

      “Very good.”

      “Apart from all the blood, the room was tidy. No signs of a struggle. There was no scorching, either.”

      “Why does that matter?”

      “If he was killed with an energy blast, you’d expect it to go through him and out the other side to get a result like that.”

      “Then that’s not how he was killed.”

      “The killer could have a power like Baron Vengeous. You told me about that friend of yours. Vengeous just looked at him and his whole body ruptured.”

      “It shares similarities, yes. But there are a dozen ways to kill someone like that.”

      She hunted around in her pocket, came out with some chewing gum that she popped in her mouth to get rid of the horrible taste. “Can we leave this to someone else? We have enough to be dealing with, and there are other detectives. Let’s give this case to them.”

      Skulduggery considered it. “We do have a heavy workload.”

      “Hell yeah, we do. We should be concentrating on Argeddion, pouring all our energy into that. Forget this horrible murder and forget people trying to kill me and forget Tanith hooking up with Billy-Ray bloody Sanguine... Let’s just solve a problem. Summer starts next Saturday, so we have until then to figure out what’s going on. Let’s get this thing solved and put it away and forget about it, and then move on to the next.”

      “Sounds like a lovely idea.”

      “That’s because it is. And we let the Cleavers arrest Nocturnal and deal with him. I know his people want me dead, but I really don’t want to have to deal with religious fanatics today.”

      “Understandable. Then how about we return to the Sanctuary, open some files, and do a little research on the names that Nadir gave us?”

      She made a face. “Research?”

      “It’s the bedrock of any investigation.”

      “Isn’t that punching?”

      “It’s the bedrock of most investigations.”

      “Most?”

      “Some. Listen, we’re doing research and that’s that.”

      “Blood-splattered crime scenes and musty old filing cabinets,” she said. “My life is beyond glamorous.”

      They got back to Roarhaven and Valkyrie trudged after Skulduggery on their way to the Magical Hall of Mystical Cabinets, which she insisted on calling the file room, mainly because it annoyed Skulduggery. They walked down the steps, turned the corner, and a man in a black suit was standing there.

      “Name, please,” he said, holding up a hand. He was big and strong with a Newcastle accent, one of Quintin Strom’s heavies.

      Skulduggery tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

      “Name, please,” the heavy repeated. “I have a list of people authorised to pass beyond this point. What are your names?”

      Valkyrie frowned. “We always pass beyond this point. We’re allowed to pass beyond this point.”

      The man nodded. “And so long as your names are on my list, you are free to do so again.”

      Skulduggery took a moment to observe him, then spoke. “I have to say, without any sense of false modesty, that I am a unique and distinctive person. Look at

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