LITMIR.BIZ

      he house had a face.

      The two large windows on the first floor peered down at the Bentley as it drew to a halt. The paint was like dried skin, cracked and peeling back, and the front door was open like a great gaping mouth. It would have been creepy, Valkyrie reflected, were it not for the drawn blinds that gave the face a half-asleep expression. As it was, it looked as if it was caught in the middle of a giant yawn.

      “Once upon a time,” Skulduggery said, “Myron Stray was an information broker, much like China is today. He was respected too. Until it all fell apart for him.”

      “What happened?” Valkyrie asked.

      “Mr Bliss found out Myron’s true name. Myron and Bliss never got on – always at each other’s throats. One night, in a pub in Belfast where they were supposed to be planning how to take down Mevolent, they got into an argument. I wasn’t there, but the way I heard it, Myron was taunting him, goading him, and Bliss just sat back in his chair and then very calmly, very quietly, said, ‘Laudigan, leave.’ Myron went white as a sheet, apparently, and walked out. Mr Bliss just smiled.”

      “Laudigan is his true name?”

      “Indeed it is. Something like that spreads like nothing you’ve ever seen. And just like that, Myron’s life, the life he had built up for himself, was over. He dealt in information and now anyone could use that name to control him, make him give up his secrets or lie to their enemies. His friends left. The woman he was living with walked out the very next day. His life fell apart.”

      “That’s terrible.”

      “I suppose it is. But taunting Mr Bliss – that was Myron’s mistake.”

      “But you stayed friends with him, right? With Myron? When everyone else abandoned him?”

      “To be honest, we were never really friends. And even if we had been, I wasn’t around in those days. I was sick of the whole thing. I was sick of the war and I just wanted it to be over. By the time I came back, and I heard what had happened, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to help him out, even if I had wanted to.”

      “But you’re hoping that he still hears things, aren’t you?”

      “China is still recovering – she could have missed something important. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for her to get better, so yes, we’re forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel. And if there’s one place where Myron is at home these days, it’s the bottom of the barrel.”

      They got out of the car and Valkyrie followed Skulduggery through the broken gate and up the cracked path to the house. They peered in through the open door. The damp walls were covered with faded green wallpaper, bleached in places by the sun. The floor was bare, but the stairs were carpeted. Whoever had owned this house in the 1970s had obviously tried to match the stairs with the wallpaper, but the best they could manage was an ugly carpet the colour of bile. Skulduggery rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and Valkyrie heard movement from deep within the house.

      A moment later, Myron Stray appeared. He wasn’t too tall, wasn’t too slim, and wasn’t too good-looking. In fact, he wasn’t too anything. He was pretty average in a pale, unshaven kind of way.

      “Skulduggery,” he said. “You haven’t darkened my door in an age.”

      “I’ve been away.”

      “I heard. This must be Valkyrie Cain then.”

      Valkyrie smiled and held out her hand. Myron turned away.

      “Come on in,” he said.

      Valkyrie took an instant dislike to the man. They followed him into the kitchen. The table was a mass of pizza boxes and wine bottles, and dishes were piled up in the sink. Substances that may once have been food had long since dried and hardened to the plates, and each and every cup Valkyrie saw had fuzzy mould creeping over the brim. The air was stale, and flies tapped and buzzed against the grimy windows.

      “I like what you’ve done to the place,” Skulduggery said eventually.

      Myron took a can of beer from the fridge and cracked it open. “I always wanted someone to come up with a Mary Poppins trick, didn’t you? You know, just click your fingers and dishes wash themselves and the floor mops itself and all that stuff? It’d save me a bundle on housekeeping.”

      Valkyrie frowned. “You have a housekeeper?”

      “I was making a joke. This one’s not too smart is she, Skulduggery?”

      All pretence at being civil left Valkyrie’s face, to be replaced by open and obvious hostility.

      “Not like your last partner,” Myron continued, sitting at the table, “the one who died. How did he die again? I can’t quite remember.”

      “Horribly,” Skulduggery said.

      “He died screaming your name, didn’t he? Now here’s where things get a little fuzzy. When he was screaming your name, was he calling for help, or was he cursing you?”

      “A little bit of both I would imagine. Myron, I don’t appreciate you insulting my partner. I would have leaped to her defence, but Valkyrie is more than capable of fighting her own battles. Valkyrie?

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