All content besides plot goes to their respected owners. I own nothing more than claims to my fanfiction storyline.
As a relatively new Whovian, I decided it was high time to write a fanfiction. So I sat down at my laptop, fingers poised to type my fantastic new Doctor Who story. But then I could not stop thinking about the first Skulduggery book I had just reread. It took me a while to realize what was staring me in the face like I was a Weeping Angel. And when I did realize, the fangirl explosion was so large that even the Doctor felt it, running through time and space like a mad man in a blue box.
When the story meandered down a very different course than I had planned, I called for backup. I could have asked a large slew of people to help me, but I was not sure if they could write such dark things. So I called someone I knew could be dramatic. Ebony Silk (or ebonyenigma, as her name on ffdotnet would be), a valued friend, someone with a killer impression of Blake from RWBY, and a brilliant writer. She guided me down the path that this, I must say, brilliant story has taken. Together we wrote this fanfiction, down to its patchwork storyline and obscure references. And because of that, I dedicate this story to Ebony Silk. The wonderful friend who drew me a picture of how I slyly bring Draco Malfoy into every conversation, the wonderful friend who sat through my insaneness, fit after fit. Thank you for writing this story with me, and thank you for writing a brilliant chapter of my life.
P.S. This is no way sponsored or affiliated with Tele products, hairstyles, fanfictions, or the Chicken of Shadows herself. She hasn't even read it!
Skulduggery Pleasant jumped through the church window, stained glass shattering in a beautiful decrescendo, tearing his mediocre suit that would never live up to the standards of Ghastly Bespoke's beautifully tailored creations. The detective had never seen a suit as perfect as the ones Ghastly made since the scarred boxer's death. He flew through the air, a skeletal Superman, landed in the overgrown graveyard, rolled, and kept running with all the precision of a man who had done this a million times before. And although he wasn't technically a man, he had done this numerous times before. Since Darquesse left and those still alive had begun to clean up the carnage, Skulduggery and his best friend Valkyrie Cain had had many adventures together. There were still villains and evils to vanquish, but nothing world-threatening.
It was because of the fact that no one was trying to end the entire universe that Valkyrie had accompanied Tanith on a little vacation, leaving Skulduggery to defend the world by himself for a week (can you imagine?). So as the famous Skeleton Detective advanced in fast reverse from the church, no Valkyrie Cain sprinted alongside him, dark ponytail streaming out behind her. No Valkyrie Cain was there to warn him that a floating and glowing dead body was extending its mangled arm to Skulduggery's shoulder. No Valkyrie Cain to shove him out of the way, to tell him to watch out. The arm got closer and closer, an inch away from the navy blue folds of Skulduggery's jacket. This animated corpse extended its bone finger. Closer. Closer.
And then, the skeleton tripped.
In later recountings of the story, Mr. Pleasant would deny any accusations of tripping and instead say he deliberately dropped to the ground as to avert the gruesome puppet's touch.
But, in fact, that did not happen. In truth, graceful Skulduggery Pleasant caught his shoe on a piece of a stone angel's face, its eye obscured by a carved hand, and tripped, plunging straight to the ground. As he lay in a heap, low-class pinstriped suit ruined, he finally got a good look at the puppet hovering over him. It was, for all intents and purposes, a corpse. A rotting, grotesque corpse inhabited by, simply put, magic. Skulduggery pulled out his gun and shot it. The bullet went whizzing through, exploding a bone. A stream of energy went after it, catching the shards of yellowing bone and put the clavicle back together again. Skulduggery cursed, and continued sitting there and staring at the floating corpse. It made no move to touch him, but Skulduggery knew that if he moved, the energy would recognize him as inhabitable. Skulduggery sighed, realizing he was stuck. When the detective had taken this case, he had no idea it would be this dangerous.
The girl and her parents watched the strange man with the waxy skin pull into the graveyard in his shiny black car. He got out fluidly, locked the car and approached them.
"Hello," he greeted, velvet tones pouring out of his thin mouth. "You called?"
The family nodded, and led him inside.
He lay there, looking like the bag of bones he essentially was. The dead body swooped around, trying to find prey. If Skulduggery even twitched, he was dead. The little girl's voice drifted around his head. He told us not to twitch. The woman with the fire hair and the strange man with the strange screwdriver told us that if the sleeping people woke up, to not even twitch.
"Marianne is talking about a couple days ago," the mother clarified. "Right after we started noticing the graves being dug up. That's happened before, people digging up the coffins for money and we figured it must be that. So David stayed out, watching, but there was no one digging up the graves." The father took over the story from there.
"I watched for a couple hours, but nobody showed, so I went back to the house. The next day, another grave was dug up. People digging up dead bodies just seemed so rude and painful, so I was determined to catch them. So I stayed out another night. I was nodding off when one of the gravestones started glowing with a yellow light. I hurried over, thinking it was a flashlight, but the light seemed to be coming from under the dirt. I stared at it, trying to figure out what was going on, when the dirt started moving. Like someone was digging out of the grave. Now, Detective, you have to understand that I'm not a coward. But when it's pitch black and the dirt above a grave starts moving, it's enough to get anyone scared. I ran into the house, terrified for a couple of minutes. Then I looked outside and the light was gone, so I dismissed it as being tired and overworked. But then the woman and the Doctor came."
Skulduggery Pleasant was clever, very clever, and everyone knew it. But this case, it just baffled him. This family had lived by the graveyard for almost a decade without anything strange happening. Then suddenly, the graves started glowing and dead people started flying around. The detective had done what he did for every case - look for clues, ask China, all the procedures developed from hundreds of years of being very, very good at his job - but nothing showed up. It was like this case had nothing to do with the mages! No sorcerers cared about this mortal graveyard, no sorcerers lived close to it, no sorcerers had any use for it.
But this case so obviously involved magic. There were glowing corpses, for Faceless One's sake! Speaking of the magic, this kind of death animation was unheard of! It had to be someone powerful, someone advanced, someone capable of creating a new type of Adept magic, and everyone like that had tabs kept on them. They were all far away from this tiny mortal town, either brutally murdering people or stopping people from being brutally murdered. This case already seemed uncrackable, and Skulduggery wasn't even factoring in the two mages who showed up, knew almost everything about what was happening, then disappeared without a trace!
"Tell me more about the 'woman with the fire hair and the strange man with a strange screwdriver'," Skulduggery asked.
"They came the third day," David explained. "I know everyone in this town, and no one had heard of them. Amy and the Doctor, they called themselves."
"Doctor who?" Skulduggery asked.
"Just 'the Doctor'. That's all. They appeared, knowing almost everything about what was happening, even though we hadn't told anyone. Amy asked us questions and we told her our story while the man ran about the graveyard, yelling about reversing the polar bears or - "
"Reversing the polarity, dear," corrected his wife.
"Yeah, that. And he had this scanner, a screwdriver he called it, that made weird noises. That night they tried to lock us in the house, but the scanner didn't work on wood or something like that, so I went after them. They weren't mad about my coming with them and let me stay. We sat in the graveyard for about an hour, until the grave started glowing. the Doctor scanned it, but it just kept glowing and the dirt kept moving. We watched the thing dig, until it finally broke the surface. The glowing light surrounded the rotting corpse, and made it fly around. We ran into the forest, the thing chasing us. Suddenly, the man told us to stay still, to not even twitch. It was like the thing couldn't see us. It just flew around, like it was looking for something. But then Marianne ran out of the house. It instantly started chasing her, and it almost had her until the redhead Amy jumped in front of her. The energy touched her, then flew into her, leaving the bones. The corpse fell to the ground, and the last of the energy got soaked into Amy. The Doctor was yelling and scanning her while I talked to Marianne. I put her back to bed, then helped the Doctor move Amy to the garage. He was talking to her limp body like it wasn't Amy anymore, like it was another race. I went back into the house, but I could hear him pacing around for the longest time. He disappeared for an hour that night, and I saw him walk into the forest and then come back with this machine that honestly looked like a junkyard glued together and tinkered with it in the garage for the whole day. That night, he had me set it up by attaching little spheres to extension cords leading to the machine and bury them in the graves that had already been dug up. I asked him whether we needed to do the other graves too, but he answered with some gibberish and went to attach Amy to the machine. It took a couple scans with his screwdriver and lots of reversing the polar bears, I mean, polarity, but then the machine lit up. It got really bright so I could barely see, but I think that the machine sucked out all the energy. The graves, he promised, were normal again."
These mysterious mages called Amy and the Doctor knew about the magic, Skulduggery reflected as he continued his impersonation of a corpse. They had known what to do. Amy had been cured, and the Doctor had thought he had fixed everything, so they left. At least, if 'left' was a synonym for 'disappeared without a trace'… But after one night of peace, the untouched graves started digging themselves up again. The family had tried to contact the Doctor and Amy once more, but to no avail. Skulduggery had asked around about them and had done his research like a good little world-renowned magical detective, but he had found only clubs of pathetic people bent on finding two ghosts that, according to all his (exhaustive) resources, had never existed in the universe he knew. And these two people, who didn't exist, were the only people who could stop this madness.
Hours ticked by as Skulduggery sat where he had tripped in the oh-so-undignified way, still as the angel statue that had caused his graceless downfall. The glowing monster had been flying about the forest for the last hour, but he dared not move, lest it came back to possess him. He would have to wait until dawn, when, he hoped, the thing would go back to the hole where it belonged. Oh, how his annoying deserter of a partner would laugh at the great and powerful Skeleton Detective, huddled in a ball at the mercy of merciless and demanding Time. As he had plenty of time to be philosophical, he reflected on the irony. Here he was, having died once and lived for three hundred years after, and he was currently bored out of his mind after sitting on the ground for less than twelve hours. If skeletons had tear ducts, unwanted tears would surely be falling down the lonely skull.
The girl had approached him as he conducted his search of the graves. She was young, barely over five years old, innocence and fear intermingling the wide chocolate brown eyes with which she observed him intently.
"You'll make sure the sleeping people don't wake up again, won't you? I hate it when my mummy wakes me up when I'm still sleepy." He looked at her, blank facade eyes attempting to convey emotion, and achieving what Valkyrie would call an 'epic fail'. She would be so much better at this than he would. Since his own daughter was killed, he had always had an uneasy feeling around children, as though by merely associating with them he was dooming them to an early and painful death. He wished the dark-haired young woman was here with him. Valkyrie, for all her occasional idiocy and pitiful sense of sarcasm, was much better than he was with people.
"Of course, Marianne. They'll all go to bed soon." She smiled up at him and skipped off, singing a little song to herself as her brown braids flew behind her like something alive.
"Tick tock, goes the clock, he will surely shock her. Tick tock, and down will go, the man who outwitted the Doctor."
Streams of warm light were finally permeating the darkness of night, and the glowing corpse had reluctantly settled into its coffin. Skulduggery waited a minute, then stood up, stretching his limbs, and sprinted to the Bentley. Surprisingly enough, sitting alone in the darkness with nothing to occupy himself had given Skulduggery some quality thinking time. He knew how to save this village. He knew how to stop that evil magic from leaving the graveyard and adjacent forest and possessing the quaint and very unusual people who lived here. All the great Skeleton detective needed was a Necromancer.
That smarmy, cocky, greasy skeleton stepped out of his shiny car and approached Solomon Wreath. His plastic face smiled and winked before melting away and revealing his skull.
"Why, hello, Solomon. Your hair is looking particularly greasy, and your nose even more hooked than usual. Why aren't you off teaching some young corpse-bearers their deathly ABCs?"
When Solomon came out of the Temple holding a cross-body satchel, Skulduggery snickered inwardly. The world was such an easy place to live in if you knew how to work with it. They made the transaction, Skulduggery once again patronizing and head-patting toward Wreath with the promise of returning the magical artifact. The detective walked off, shoes clicking on the pavement, swinging the satchel in uneven circles. The picture of brilliant insanity, the picture of perfect madness, the calm before the storm. Skulduggery Pleasant, the man who defeated death again and again. The man who outwitted the Doctor.
The Doctor pulled a lever, spun a dial, and slid a thin finger along a row of rainbow buttons. He turned towards his companion and rubbed his hands together.
"So, Amy, where shall we go next? Axpoidiance, the planet inhabited entirely by eight armed octopus men? Or maybe Jussaneasiam, where invisible creatures float around and make your brain go all wibbly wobbly? Perhaps-" The Doctor broke off and looked at the TARDIS in confusion, like something was wrong.
And then the TARDIS flipped upside down.
The skeleton checked his newly repaired side mirrors that had been ripped off by a woman who had tried to turn herself into a golden retriever and pulled away from the Necromancy Temple. He drove slowly, deliberately, taking his time so he could formulate a plan. Go to the house by the graveyard, camp out at night, and then what? Skulduggery looked over to the satchel that was resting in Valkyrie's seat. The satchel that contained their saviour. The satchel that contained all of Skulduggery's brilliance in one good deed. The satchel that contained the Soul Catcher.
It was third day of Skulduggery's investigation, approximately 57 hours since he first drove into the driveway of that troubled house by the graveyard, and the second time he was braving the night, until the end of the dark. You would think that anyone in this situation would be terrified and at the very least nervous. But the Skeleton Detective was not scared, not nervous, not even the slightest bit apprehensive, in fact he was excited. Because what made Skulduggery different was that his ego knew no bounds. Utterly no bounds to hold it back. And that was why the skeleton honestly knew this was going to work perfectly. How very wrong he was…
"DOCTOR!" Amelia Pond screamed, almost losing her grip on the lever she was desperately grasping onto as the TARDIS spun around crazily. "WHAT IS HAPPENING?"
The Doctor twisted around the control desk, helplessly trying to regain control. He finally made his way to a screen, holding on to the edges with both hands, his body flying out behind him. "The TARDIS is trying to reverse her course! I'm trying to stop it, but I'm just confusing her! If I could just get my screwdriver."
"So you're making us spin in every direction when you could just let it go where it wants?" Amy asked, anger and disbelief lacing her words like a deadly poison.
"She always was a free spirit," he pondered, missing his companion's emotions entirely. "Fine. You can take as where you want."
And so the TARDIS flew off, the only soul in the entire universe who knew what danger they were getting into.
The Skeleton Detective pulled up outside the graveyard and put the first stage of his, if he did say so himself (which he did) absolutely brilliant plan into action. He hopped out, giving his baby a happy pat with one white-gloved hand as he did so, and nearly skipped to the grave where his plot would be enacted (perhaps Valkyrie was having a bigger impact on him than everyone had thought). Then he grabbed a shovel leaning up against the gravestone, thanked the Ancients that he wasn't wearing a nice suit, and began to dig.
Twenty-four minutes later, he wiped nonexistent sweat from his nonexistent skin for dramatic effect - although no one was watching, he prided himself on being always expressive with his gestures - and put down the shovel after setting his hat on top of the headstone. Then, ironically enough, he did the thing he had been trying to avoid for centuries upon centuries, he jumped into the grave (exactly six feet deep, would he ever give himself any less?) and peeked out, covering himself up to his eye sockets with the mountain of soil beside the grave and making sure the Soul Catcher was primed for action. Then he settled himself in for a long wait.
Forty-seven minutes later, just as he was beginning to get nonexistent pins and needles in his nonexistent feet, Skulduggery saw something. A glowing yellow light, dancing on the edge of the dark spruce trees at the end of the graveyard. A nonexistent grin spread over his nonexistent lips and he grabbed the Soul Catcher in his no-longer-white gloved hand.
The yellow light drew closer, and closer. Skulduggery was morbidly reminded of the ghost stories that Valkyrie used to tell him on the nights when she insisted on giving him a facial to brighten up his nonexistent complexion.
Closer and closer. Now the Skeleton Detective could almost reach out and touch it. Closer and closer. The base of its body was level with his nonexistent nose, and he could smell the stench of rotting meat with his nonexistent nostrils. Closer and closer, just a little closer. Skulduggery willed it to come just a bit. Just an inch...
"HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!" Skulduggery roared, leaping out of the grave - literally this time. He held up the Soul Catcher and caught the spirit. It tugged out of the corpse and hung in the air, pulled as if by a magnet toward the Soul Catcher. Skulduggery laughed maniacally, a feeling of exhilaration rushing through him that he only felt when he took a villain down.
Then, something happened that he swore he would take the story of to the grave - er, rather, let's just say that he would never tell anybody. Skulduggery Pleasant tripped. Again. On the same angel's face that - he observed as he toppled to the ground like the incredibly graceful undead skeleton he was - must have had a personal vendetta against him.
And he hit the ground, wrist smacking against a stone.
The Soul Catcher flew out of his hand.
It soared through the air, almost as if it was in slow motion, carried by an unimaginable force. It was beautiful, shining with the light of a million suns (or in the case, a million dead bodies suspended by energy). Soaring like a bird, an inanimate object growing wings and taking flight.
Then the Soul Catcher smashed into a grave, breaking. The pieces fell to the ground, controlled by gravity once again. Solomon would be so angry.
The energy was released and hovered in the air, confused.
Skulduggery took this opportunity to advance in reverse. At a very high speed.
Everything was under control, well, as under control as it ever got in the TARDIS, and the Doctor was busy trying to figure out where they were going and why. There hadn't been any messages on the psychic paper and for once, in every lifetime he'd had, the Doctor was truly clueless. He was wandering about the TARDIS, checking the relative normality of everything. He'd even checked the chlorine levels in the swimming pool when suddenly -
"Doctor! I found something!" Amy yelled down one of the hallways, not quite sure if it was the one the Doctor had disappeared down. It was clear to the redhead that it wasn't when the Doctor came running down an adjacent hallway. He ran over to her and practically shoved her out of the way to look at a flashing screen. Amy looked over her shoulder, confused. "What does it mean?"
"It looks like an energy reading… But of what?" The picture became clearer. "A 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental? But there were only 208 ever made! You know, I met the - "
"No one cares, Raggedy Man," Amy scoffed. "Why is it glowing?"
"Some kind of energy is infesting it…"
"What kind?"
"An evil, terrible kind. The kind that haunts our nightmares and - "
"You don't know what it is, do you?"
"Not at all. Now, Amy Pond, what do we say?" The woman sighed, obviously reluctant to obey the man's wishes. "Come on! I know you want to say it!"
"Oh, fine." And Amelia Pond, one of the Doctor's companions, took a deep breath and yelled as loud as she could, excitement taking over her face.
"GERONIMO!"
If Skulduggery had lungs or a trachea, he would have been bent over double with lack of breath. He had spent the past thirty-nine minutes chasing his car around the tiny town of Little Drownerton. Yes, his car. His baby, the proverbial light of Skulduggery Pleasant's unusual life, had been possessed by the yellow energy that was the evil, evil spirit of the undead corpse.
After he had, erm, been pulled to the ground by a vengeful statue, the Soul Catcher had slipped out of his hands and the spirit, not quite anchored to it yet, had floated free. And Skulduggery had ran away as fast as his skeletal legs could carry him, barely out-sprinting the energy. He had dived into his car through the window that he had so brilliantly left open in case of emergency and rolled it up, effectively blocking the energy. He started up the Bentley, already making a new plan as he drove away. He watched the energy follow behind, thinking everyone was safe for the time being, when all of a sudden, it disappeared into the exhaust pipe. Skulduggery stopped the car and ran out, examining his precious Bentley, one of his earliest friends. There was no trace of the magic anywhere, even in the boot. The skeleton puttered around, not finding any damage to to car, and so continued driving into the city.
The Skeleton Detective pulled to a stop when he saw a man with glasses and a tweed coat walking down the street with a huge armful of books and papers. Skulduggery got out and slammed the door, Soul Catcher in hand, once again without a Valkyrie Cain to point out that a few specks of magic yellow light sprang out at the impact like a little cloud of glitter. Skulduggery approached the man and addressed him.
"Excuse me, sir, but could I help you with your things?" The man nodded furiously and handed half the stack to Skulduggery who was now walking beside him.
"Thank you very much! I had to clean out my desk and carry it all home, and this is a handful, even for me."
"Is that some tape I see?" asked the skeleton abruptly. The man looked over, thinking he was going to regret ever talking to this weirdo. Skulduggery dumped his half of the papers back into the man's arms, and then stole his tape. As Skulduggery taped the all-powerful Soul Catcher back together, he heard an engine started up. It sound familiar, very familiar, almost like… "MY BENTLEY!"
"Pardon?" the man asked confused. But Skulduggery had throw the tape over his shoulder and was running, Soul Catcher in hand, after his own car, a stranger running after him, papers trailing in the air behind him. For the first time in four days, he was unbelievably glad that Valkyrie wasn't here with him. Having someone here to laugh at him would be the only thing that could possibly make this situation worse...
Skulduggery peeked around a corner and his facade eyes widened in glee. The Bentley sat puffing at the kerb, engine running. Skulduggery carefully inched around the corner and snuck up behind it, keeping low to the ground. Then, wincing at the possible effects of what he was about to do, he ran up and jumped, sailing onto the smooth black roof.
The Bentley lurched and rocked back and forth, almost shaking Skulduggery loose, but he held on, grasping the edges above the windows. With great effort and hatred about what he was going to do, he displaced the air, shattering the window and swung and hoisted himself into the now open driver's seat window. Once inside, he scanned the car carefully until he located the glowing yellow light emanating from an open air vent. A grin spread across his facade, and he held the taped Soul Catcher close to the vent. The yellow light sucked itself out of the vent like a particularly troublesome piece of lint pulling off one of Skulduggery's designer suits, and it vanished into the Soul Catcher. Skulduggery looked at it, sitting there, containing the essence of his Bentley. The essence of his friend.
"This is quite anticlimactic," Amy Pond complained, balancing on the edge of the control panel. "I yelled 'Geronimo". Aren't we supposed to burst into flames or something?" The Doctor looked over at her.
"900 years of time and space, yet you are the only person to ever call traveling with me 'anticlimactic'."
"Well it is! You were very dramatic about the whole thing and now we're just slowly gliding towards our destination!"
"Oh, so you wanted to go fast?" the Doctor's finger was inching towards a big red button.
"No," Amy begged. "Don't! Don't make - " But the button had been pressed.
Ketchup spurted out onto the Doctor's pristine white shirt.
"Oops. Wrong red button." And he stabbed the red button next to it. Instantly, the TARDIS went into insane mode. And for the second time that day, the Doctor and Amy went flying.
And then it flew out the window. No, literally, flew out the window. The essence of Skulduggery Pleasant's oldest friends flew out its former body's window. The tape had unfortunately not fixed the Soul Catcher and now it was just being possessed by the energy. The Soul Catcher floated over to the professor covered in papers, stopping right in front of his nose. The man stared at it, dropping the only thing left from that huge stack of tchotchkes in his arms, a pencil, in shock. And then the Soul Catcher fell to the ground for the second time that day and shattered (Solomon would be doubly-angry). Then, the energy flew into the man's mouth. He breathed in, a long and deep intake, then opened his formerly brown eyes and looked straight at Skulduggery. The professor's eyes were shiny, metallic black, just like the glossy coat of paint on the Bentley. Skulduggery felt a burst of exhilaration at this. The Bentley's soul was currently living in a man. A man who could speak, a man who could wrap his arms around Skulduggery's bony shoulders.
"You're a narcissistic idiot who has a hat addiction," said the young professor in a clipped, smart tone, cocking his dark head to one side. "Although that girl is very good-looking. I don't know how you got her." He gave Skulduggery a bright smile, showing straight white teeth, and waited for him to respond with an inquisitive look, as though he was curious what he would do in response to this provocation. The exhilaration dissipated, and Skulduggery felt disappointment flood him, and reality struck. This poor man was being possessed by an evil spirit who had to be stopped. And Skulduggery was the one to do so.
"What are you? What did you do to this man?"
"Oh! You don't even recognize your most dearly loved friend? Shame on you, skeleton. Shame, shame, shame! Now make it up to your sweetheart and say hello to me. Your Bentley!"
"Leave," the skeleton whispered. "Get out." The man's face contorted with anger.
"Why aren't you happy? I finally get to respond to what you say to me! We get to talk!"
"GET OUT OF HIM!" Skulduggery roared. "You aren't even my car! You aren't one of my friends! You are a monster, pretending to be something I love!'
"You get to say mean things? Well, so do I! I never agreed to be a raging skeleton's car! I never agreed to be the transportation of a dead man whose heart is so filled with anger and hate that he can't even love his friends!"
Skulduggery got out of the actual Bentley and strode towards the man. He punched his Bentley in the face and glared at it through facade eyes. The young man stumbled back against the brick wall of the alleyway, yellow mist bleeding like ichor of the gods from his left nostril, glasses crooked across the bridge of his nose.
Skulduggery had a sensation then. A roaring, powerful, corrupted, dirty sensation, filling his nonexistent ears and turning his vision dark. He knew then what it was. It was the feeling he got when he was Lord Vile, killing and turning on all in his way. It was like fire, and suddenly he knew why Valkyrie, his true friend, had told him that his life force was red. It was red like blood, red like the pain and suffering he could inflict, red like the rage he felt. It was power, and it was metal like the taste in his mouth, and it was liquid like the blood that had been taken from his veins long ago.
Skulduggery advanced on the man, blue facade eyes snapping, voice low and dangerous. "You... For fifty years I had you. I loved you, I took care of you, I cared about you! When I had no one, I had you. When I was dying inside, when I was alone, I had you! And you think I can't even love my friends? I love Valkyrie more than you, an inanimate object, could ever imagine! I loved my wife and child who died because of me! So don't insult their memories by saying I am filled with hate for them! " He was shouting now, gesturing wildly with his arms, voice breaking and soaring like a bird riding the thermals. He extended his wings and glided, velvety voice flying. "And I have people now, people who care about me! People who know what I am and, more important, know what I can be! I may be a psychopath who loves his car, but you are not who I love! You aren't my Bentley! Cars do not have souls! You are just a twisted Remnant eating her memories!" He socked the Bentley again with all his strength, and felt joy and red and blood and metal course through his nonexistent veins as the car-man's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed onto the ground.
The yellow mist seeped out of the man's nose, mixing with blood, and into the broken Soul Catcher. The energy slowly floated up, holding the shards of the Soul Catcher as it had the bones of the corpses, and slowly glued them back together. Then the evil energy that had broken so many people became the Soul Catcher magic that had trapped Remnants and itself once.
And then it was just them in the alleyway.
The man who Skulduggery had rendered unconscious when he didn't even know his name.
The Soul Catcher holding the soul of the Skeleton Detective's formerly only friend.
And a skeleton still frightened of himself, of what he still had inside.
Amy Pond and the Eleventh Doctor fell out of the TARDIS and onto cold and foreign pavement.
"Holding onto the door handles was a horrible idea," Amy whimpered, her face smushed against the street.
"I had no idea the TARDIS would land sideways! It was the first time I used that button!"
"I vote that River Song drives next time." But the Doctor wasn't listening. He was wandering around, holding his sonic screwdriver out and scanning the air. He turned back to Amy, helped her up, and took her hand.
"Come along, Pond."
And they ran.
Skulduggery Pleasant fell to his knees, manic emotions dissipating, and sat on the cold and foreign pavement. He leaned forward over the collapsed man who had just held the broken soul of the Bentley. His black hair was tousled, his glasses askew on his face as he sprawled over the rough cobblestones of the Little Drownerton street. He looked alright and was breathing normally, tweed-covered chest rising and falling in rhythm. Skulduggery let out a long sigh and rocked back on his heels. He held out his hand, scanning the air, and felt two people run towards him. Then he turned and walked back to the (now still and inanimate but for the gentle purr of the still-running engine) Bentley. He opened the driver's door and got in, patting the soft seats lovingly. He suddenly had an urge to pet them, but shook it off in an attempt to maintain some small portion of his exponentially decreasing dignity.
Skulduggery tapped his collarbones and the facade retreated, his now-blank skull camouflaged by the Bentley's tinted windows. Just as he was about to pull away from the kerb, he heard a noise coming from the alleyway he had vacated. He turned, and if he had still had eyes, they would have popped out.
A young woman and a middle-aged man were standing in the alley. The man had a device in his hand that Skulduggery instinctively knew must have been the 'screwdriver' spoken of on the quiet street across from the graveyard, and the girl had hair of a shade of orange so flaming, it looked like Clarabelle's when she got it into her head to try a new look (completely disregarding both Valkyrie and China's protests that a) orange wasn't her color and b) the 'sultry chainsaw cut' that she had seen in Mage's Top 'Dos wouldn't work for anyone).
The man was frantically scanning the body of the young professor with his screwdriver and muttering to himself in a low and fast tone that reminded the Skeleton Detective of when Ghastly used to be working on a particularly challenging design and had a pencil in one hand, scissors in the other, pins in his mouth, and couldn't quite reach the measuring tape. As always when he thought of his old friend, he was suddenly hit with a pang right where his small intestine would join with his large intestine if he were still the proud owner of either.
The woman was examining the walls and stones of the alley, scowling and obviously deep in thought. She glanced over at her partner occasionally with an amused smile on her face, as though used to this sort of unusual behavior (and this was Skulduggery calling it unusual, mind you) from him.
"I felt it!" the man cried. "I know I saw it on the readings! Sonics don't lie, Pond, at least not the ones I build!" He squinted at the screwdriver, as though hoping to see something different by looking from a different angle.
"Yes, yes," said Amelia Pond, smiling indulgently. "I know they do, Doctor."
Skulduggery was more baffled than ever! What was going on here? What did the machines do? And who were these people? Amy Pond and the Doctor… Doctor who? This made no sense, not even by mage standards.
He glanced at the Soul Catcher beside him, pulsing with yellow light, and made a decision. He unbuckled his seatbelt, slid over to the passenger side, and rolled down the window. Then the great Skeleton Detective took the Soul Catcher from the seat and tossed it out.
It didn't break, of course. Things like that never did. Imagine if, for example, you were to take on a dangerous job for an even more dangerous woman and you did everything she wanted, but then that priceless necklace just slipped out of your and your best friend's fingertips and shattered on the pavement. Or if, for example, you were to be sworn to a man and have his mark on your left forearm and then have to steal something, but while you were there you had to face off against some of your son's school enemies, then the thing you were stealing smashed onto a mysterious rock near a mysterious archway that whispered of the dead. Imagine how much easier it would be in these hypothetical situations if the Faceless Ones-forsaken thing just didn't break!
So the little glowing orb just rolled over to the feet of the Doctor.
And the fiery-haired woman looked down.
Skulduggery Pleasant pulled away from the kerb, the Bentley following his every command seamlessly. And this time, it was not the Doctor and his companion leaving amazement behind by disappearing in that beautiful TARDIS. Instead, it was Skulduggery Pleasant, Skeleton Detective, who left Amelia Pond with an eyebrow raised and her Raggedy Man paused, about to straighten his bowtie, and mouth hanging open as the skeleton drove away in his shiny black Bentley.
The car pulled up to the airport's main doors and Skulduggery got out just as they opened and a young, dark-haired woman stepped through them, carrying a suitcase. She smiled at him cheerfully through her new tan, but stopped once she recognized the customary Annoyed Slouch Against The Bentley.
Valkyrie Cain swallowed hard.
"So… How was your week?" she asked faintly.
Skulduggery Pleasant tapped his fingers to his collarbone, activating his facade. He glared at her with brilliant blue eyes, then deactivated it again. "May I take your bag?" he asked, velvety voice icy.
His partner winced. "That bad, huh?"