LITMIR.BIZ

      hristmas was a few days away, and all but one of the houses on this suburban Dublin street had lights in the windows. Three of the most competitive neighbours had filled their small gardens with flickering Santas and frolicking reindeer, and some idiot had even wrapped a cable of fairy lights round the lamp post outside his gate. There was no snow, but the night was cold, and frost clung to the city like glitter.

      The big car that rolled to a stop outside the house with no lights was a 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental, one of only 208 ever made. It was an exquisite car, retro-fitted with modern conveniences, adapted to the needs of its owner. It was fast, it was powerful, and if it received even the slightest of dents, it would fall apart.

      That’s what the mechanic had said. He’d done all he could, used all his knowledge and all his abilities to bring this car back from the brink so many times – but the next dent, he promised, would be its last. All the tricks he’d used to keep it going, to bend it back into shape, would be counteracted. The glass would shatter, the metal would rupture, the frame would buckle, the tyres would burst, the engine would crack … The only way to avoid complete and utter catastrophe, the mechanic had said, was to make sure you weren’t in the car when all this happened.

      Skulduggery Pleasant got out first. He was tall and thin, and wore a dark blue suit and black gloves. His hair was brown and wavy, and his cheekbones were high and his jaw was square. His skin was slightly waxy and his eyes didn’t seem capable of focusing, but it was a pretty good face, all things considered. One of his better ones.

      Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.

      “Stop doing that,” she sighed.

      “Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.

      “Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.”

      “I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said.

      They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched downwards. “Am I smiling now?”

      “No.”

      “Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.

      Valkyrie handed him his hat. “Why don’t you get rid of the face? You’re not going to need it in here.”

      “You’re the one telling me how much I should practise,” he said, but slid his gloved fingers beneath his shirt collar anyway, tapping the symbols etched into his collarbones. The face and hair retracted off his head, leaving him with a gleaming skull.

      He put on his hat, cocked at a jaunty angle. “Better?” he asked.

      “Much.”

      “Good.” He knocked, and took out his gun. “If anyone asks, we’re scary carollers.”

      Humming ‘Good King Wenceslas’ to himself, he knocked again, and still no one answered the door, and no lights came on.

      “What do you bet everyone’s dead?” Valkyrie asked.

      “Are you just being incredibly pessimistic,” Skulduggery asked, “or is that ring of yours telling you something?”

      The Necromancer ring was cold on her finger, but no colder than usual. “It’s not telling me anything. I can only sense death through it when I’m practically standing over the dead body.”

      “Which is an astonishingly useful ability, I have to say. Hold this.”

      He gave her his gun, and crouched down to pick the lock. She looked around, but no one was watching them.

      “It might be a trap,” she said, speaking softly.

      “Unlikely,” he whispered. “Traps are usually enticing.”

      “It might be a very rubbish trap.”

      “Always a possibility.”

      The lock clicked open. Skulduggery straightened up, put his lock picks away, and took his gun back.

      “I need a weapon,” Valkyrie muttered.

      “You’re an Elemental with a Necromancer ring, trained in a variety of martial arts by some of the best fighters in the world,” Skulduggery pointed out. “I’m fairly certain that makes you a weapon.”

      “I mean a weapon you hold. You have a gun, Tanith has a sword … I want a stick.”

      “I’ll buy you a stick for Christmas.”

      She glowered as he pushed the door. It opened silently, without even a creepy old creak. Skulduggery went first and Valkyrie followed, closing the door after them. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to this level of gloom, and Skulduggery, who had no eyes for this to be a problem, waited until she tapped him before moving on. They passed through into the living room, where she tapped him again. He looked at her, and she pointed to the Necromancer ring. It was buzzing with a dreadful kind of cold energy as it fed off the death in the room.

      They

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