DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
The portal closed, and Darquesse fell.
And she just.
Worlds burned and galaxies churned and this was not a fight not a battle not a war this was not the apocalypse because there was nothing left to end this was anarchy this was chaos this was The Faceless Ones this was Darquesse this was oblivion.
Kept.
Darquesse killed until she died and then she killed again and energy became matter became energy became nothingness became something she didn't have the words to describe this nobody did it nobody would ever survive seeing it breathing it living it dying it ending it ending everything the end of everything and she was so tired so old so young so broken but she didn't want to die and so she kept on existing because she had once been Valkyrie Cain and she had never learned to surrender.
Falling.
They were everywhere and she couldn't beat them so she just kept running and every time they killed her it was another lesson in how to die but they brought her back until she learned to do it herself and then the day came that the only thing she had left to learn about death was how to live and so she killed them with supernovas and black holes and the flick of her wrist and with nothing at all she was no longer beaten broken battered she had raged, raged against the dying of the light she did not go gentle into that good night the day was over and all she wanted to do was sleep and she opened a door to what should have been an empty universe.
She fell like a meteor, like a bomb, like Lucifer.
Fast.
Fast.
Faster.
Darquesse crashed to earth and did not get up.
That was how Danny found her. Stephanie—no, Valkyrie—was lying in a crater of her own making in his backyard, her legs and arms and neck all splayed at inhuman angles. She was naked and perfectly formed, and if one discounted the fact she was quite obviously dead, it might have been something out of one of his weirder dreams. Surprisingly, Danny found it a little hard to ignore that minor problem. After freaking out for about five minutes, he decided that, regardless of what else he should do, he definitely couldn't just leave her there. So he returned to his house, collected a blanket, moving the way one does on the edge of a panic attack, and came back outside.
Then he screamed. Loudly.
Valkyrie was getting to her feet, gingerly at first but regaining her grace as the space of a second ticked by; her bones were snapping back into alignment, and Danny flinched with each crack. Finally, she stood, and then she turned, slowly, and looked at him. She seemed bemused, like she was puzzled by the fact of his existence, and he wondered why the back of his neck was prickling - why the air seemed to shimmer ever so slightly around her body. Danny held her gaze for as long as he could—struggling to suppress the desire to look away, or worse, look down—but eventually had to resort to holding out the blanket to her, using it to shield her body (and her eyes) from his own.
"Uh... hey, Valkyrie. Do you want this blanket? Why are you naked? How are you still alive?" Alright, so he wasn't quite as calm as he was trying to appear. So what? The woman in front of him was supposed to be in Ireland, not shrugging off a broken neck in an entirely different continent. How the hell had she gotten here?
Instead of answering, Valkyrie closed her eyes, and, somehow, rose off the ground. She hung in the air before him, perhaps a foot off the air, and then nothing seemed to happen. Well. That was half a lie. Danny didn't see anything, didn't hear anything, didn't feel anything, but in the back corner of his mind, some primal, long-forgotten instinct was telling him to run. Seconds passed, and slowly her body began to glow, brighter and brighter like the first sparkings of a supernova, before the light abruptly vanished.
Valkyrie dropped back to earth before he could wonder why he'd almost started hyperventilating, and cocked her head to the side.
"You think I'm Valkyrie Cain. How cute."
Wait, what?
"Uh... who else wou—"
Oh. Oh no. No way. No fucking way.
She hummed in amusement, like she'd been reading his mind. She probably had been.
"You are not Darquesse. Darquesse is gone. Darquesse is dead."
"I tried that, you know," she said, and there was something in her eyes, halfway between arrogance and agony. "It didn't stick."
Danny tried not to make it obvious he was backing away.
"She told you everything, did she? How interesting. Such a naughty girl; and to think I'm supposed to be the evil one. At least I never went around telling random strangers about magic!"
Darquesse—because it had to be Darquesse, how else could she have survived a broken neck—was smiling, and it was terrifying, because it look so utterly human. She stretched her arms out to the sides, behind her (had Danny not fixed his gaze somewhere over her left shoulder, the motion would have done distracting things to her still-very-naked chest), luxuriating in the cracking of her shoulders. It was a mannerism Danny knew well - it was one he often affected after he'd just finished work for the day, in the first few moments when he arrived home and could just relax.
"Well. This has been awfully fun, but I have things to do. People to see. You know how it is," she said, and she waved a hand and—
Danny wondered what on earth had possessed him to carry a blanket out to the backyard.
And why there was a crater in the middle of it.
Teleportation was instant. There was no time delay, no nothing - it shattered the speed of light and flat-out ignored the laws of physics. Or, at least, to most, it did. One or two more scientifically-minded sorcerers had theorised that a Teleporter was actually the human equivalent of quantum superposition. They existed in all possible states—in all possible places—simultaneously, and their magic was not the act of teleportation: no, their magic was the act of observation. All a Teleporter did, these sorcerers said, was re-define their location in space-time; they didn't break the speed of light, and thus general relativity (amongst a few other things), because they never actually moved.
Darquesse found the notion rather amusing. She'd have been more interested if it was possible to avoid collapsing the wave-function while simultaneously observing it; omnipresence would be a rather convenient ability, all things considered. Sadly, to the best of her knowledge—well, hers, and that of several thousand Remnants—such a thing was impossible, even to her. So, rather than ruminating further on the nature of teleportation as she re-appeared, still naked, in Valkyrie Cain's bedroom (or, the bedroom that had once been hers, back at her parent's house), she instead sat on the bed, folding her legs beneath her, and wondered what to wear.
There was nobody at home; the Edgleys were out, including not-so-little Alice, having lunch with Valkyrie, Skulduggery, Tanith, and Fletcher. It seemed to be a regular thing, based on what she'd skimmed off the tops of her... parents' minds. Hmm. That was an interesting existential conundrum. Were Melissa and Desmond Edgley her parents? Could she, as Darquesse—a separate concept from Valkyrie Cain—actually have parents? She might have gone further down the tangent directly, but based on the way the ward-sigils she'd tripped on arrival were pulsing (Darquesse wondered how China Sorrows might have justified the decision to ward Valkyrie's parent's entire house to herself while simultaneously pretending not to care about anyone), they might be arriving back soon. So, instead, she shunted that particular line of thought to a separate part of her mind, and returned to deciding whether or not it would be worth it awaiting their arrival on their couch wearing nothing but an old pair of Valkyrie's pyjamas. It would certainly be amusing.
In the end, however, she decided that as much as she might have derived some enjoyment out of it, she was fonder still of dressing a little like how she used to; sharp enough to kill a man, and beautiful enough to make him want it. For all that she had been through, in the ten years of death agony destruction painpainpain, a part of Darquesse was still, and would always be, a hedonist. And it gave her great pleasure to look like heartbreak (both figurative and literal).
So, Darquesse crooked a finger, and the air seemed to condense around her, into black and red and leather; long pants, sleeveless blouse, a jacket halfway between a biker's and a gangster's, all tight to her body without revealing every curve. She dressed herself like she was beautiful and knew it, which was entirely true. Valkyrie Cain, though fairly attractive, was no China Sorrows; Darquesse, on the other hand, was so much more. She drew the eye the same way a black hole did – and for roughly the same reasons.
Her guests had almost arrived; Fletcher had teleported them all nearby (minus Melissa, Desmond, and Alice. Shame. She'd have to do something about that later), but not straight into the house. Sound tactics. Who knew what could be awaiting them? Especially since, according to the wards, she would have registered as an unknown Teleporter. Still, they'd be here very soon, so she supposed she'd best get her show on the road.
Darquesse vanished with a thought, and reappeared before the living room's couch, where she promptly sat down, lounging in the centre without a care in the world.
Valkyrie Cain was, all things considered, rather pissed off. She'd been having a nice lunch with her friends and family, only to be forced to cut it short when somebody decided it would be a good idea to break into her parent's house. Seriously, what kind of idiot would do that? She was Valkyrie Cain; her sojourn to America had ended five years ago, and she'd been kicking ass and taking names (though nobody had beaten Bison Dragonclaw as of yet) once again ever since she came back.
Even if her existence alone wasn't threatening enough, she happened to be Skulduggery Pleasant's partner, one of the closest things the current Grand Mage (i.e. China fucking Sorrows) had to a friend, and was good friends with a Teleporter (you know, those wacky fellows who had the ability to be basically anywhere they wanted to at a whim). Oh, and did she mention she was practically Tanith Low's sister, and had been inducted into the Dead Men, making her a comrade of Dexter Vex and Saracen Rue?
And yet, someone had decided to ignore all that, and attack her family in their house. They were lucky nobody was home, or else Valkyrie would have been far more inclined to kill first and not bother asking any questions.
"So, Val, how're we going to go about this?" Tanith asked, her hand resting almost loosely on her sword.
"You and I will take the front door. Fletcher, you can start upstairs."
Skulduggery's façade managed an impressive pout. "What about me, oh fearless leader?"
"Use your imagination," she said, grinning.
With that, Fletcher disappeared, Skulduggery—after briefly checking to see if anyone was around—lifted off into the air, and Tanith and Valkyrie sprinted across the street and barged the door down, the former with her sword drawn and the latter with white lightning crackling at her fingertips.
Then they froze, just as Fletcher appeared in the living room and Skulduggery stopped halfway down the stairs.
"Long time no see, Valkyrie," Darquesse said, waving airily at them all. "How've you been?"
The first discharge struck her in the chest, flipping her over the lip of the couch, the second hurled her into the wall, and the third kept her there, convulsing. Ozone was heavy on the air, and power roared through Valkyrie's body, sparking through nerve endings in a way that would have been almost orgasmic were it not for her sheer, overpowering rage.
Nobody tried to hold her back – no, Tanith hurled herself toward Darquesse, sword singing to slice off first her limbs and then her head, a head which Skulduggery crushed using nothing but raw wind manipulation. Fletcher almost seemed to flicker in place, such was the speed of his teleportation, returning with a flame-thrower he'd stashed somewhere and unleashing it the moment Tanith got out of the way; Skulduggery seemed to be guiding the flames, confining them so they didn't destroy the whole house alongside Darquesse's body.
The whole exchange took less than ten seconds, and when there was not a single trace of her but ash on the floor and scorch-marks against the wall, Valkyrie started to breathe again.
"What the fuck?" Skulduggery was the only one who hadn't spoken.
Then the ash started to move, swirling with ever-increasing speed as it rose off the ground and shaped itself into the rough simulacrum of a person. There was a whump—the sort of sound one might associate with an implosion—and then Darquesse reappeared, apparently none the worse for wear after reforming herself out of thin air. Skulduggery had his hands out in a position Valkyrie had seen before, when he'd once created and controlled a whirlwind, but by the expression on his skull, whatever he'd tried hadn't done anything.
"Well," Darquesse said, rolling her shoulders as she dropped lightly to the floor. "That was refreshing. Maybe next time I'll manage to break twenty-four hours without dying."
It took Valkyrie a second to realise that the reason she couldn't move had nothing to do with her slowly-collapsing mind, and then all she could do was stand there, glaring impotently at Darquesse as the... she didn't have the right word to describe her. Woman was too kind, goddess too reverential, demon too limited, and horror too soft. Darquesse was Darquesse. She passed by Valkyrie, sauntering with casual arrogance, and arranged herself once again on the couch, facing away from her four attackers – until she flicked a finger, and they found themselves reconstituted in front of her, standing in a line like warriors preparing to pledge fealty to their queen.
"I have to say, your manners have gotten much, much worse since last we talked. Back then you'd at least say hello before trying to kill me."
With that, the magic that bound them released itself, and then Valkyrie, Tanith and Fletcher sucked air back into their lungs. Skulduggery stood there, motionless, watching Darquesse, his regard a slow, silent thing as Lord Vile stirred in the empty sockets of his eyes. Darquesse simply smiled, sharp as starlight and terribly amused.
"You are ten years too late to be able to defeat me," she said, and Valkyrie knew it for truth. "You exist because I allow it, and you will end if I demand it. Do not try my patience further."
Skulduggery's shadow faded, retreating back into his body, as Fletcher's body convulsed once, briefly – Valkyrie had a sneaking suspicion he'd tried to teleport. By the look in his eyes, he likely wasn't going to try that again anytime soon. Darquesse's smile widened, more smirk-like than anything else, and it was to that expression that Skulduggery spoke.
"You know, you're looking awfully chipper for being dead. Wish I knew how – it might have helped me save some face."
Valkyrie groaned. "That was terrible."
"Terribly good," he shot back; Darquesse laughed once, delighted, and she drew her hands together as if on the edge of applause.
"Now, now, a girl has to have some secrets," she said languidly. "So, I must ask… how have you been, Valkyrie? Meet any cute boys lately? That Danny wasn't half-bad, all things considered."
Valkyrie wasn't entirely sure what was worse – the way Darquesse had managed to mimic the cadence of Tanith's voice when she asked her those sorts of questions—the sound of a loveably overbearing big sister—or that she'd somehow met Danny. Both were equally terrifying. What had she been doing before she came here? How many people had been reduced to 'energy'?
"Did you kill him?"
"Oh, he's still around," and Valkyrie noted that didn't quite answer the question. The curve of Darquesse's lip told her that was entirely deliberate.
"What game are you trying to play, Darquesse?" Tanith's voice was biting. "Stop screwing around and get to the point already. I'd rather not be killed by waffling and wasted time."
Darquesse stilled, and as her gaze settled on Tanith's face, Valkyrie realised a truth she'd once tried to ignore. Darquesse was human in the same way she was breathing. Sometimes, she seemed to forget. Her eyes were something alien, as vast and terrifying as the reaches of space, and death flitted in the corner of her smile. It was a savage thing, sharp and white as Valkyrie's lightning.
"How bold you are," Darquesse said softly, like a funeral dirge, "to demand something of me. Do you understand, Tanith Low, how hard it is to step on an ant and not crush it? Every breath you take is one I grant you, and if I choose to waste them, you should be glad I am content with that."
Then she laughed, wild and free.
"But, of course, once again you over-estimate your self-importance. I'm not here to visit you."
She made no visible movement, and Valkyrie's parents appeared.
In front of them was Alice.
In that moment, she hated Darquesse more than she ever had before.
"You will not touch my sister," Valkyrie snarled, and there was madness in it. The same madness that had turned Skulduggery into Lord Vile – the same madness that had given birth to Darquesse.
In response, Darquesse reached out and poked Alice with two fingers, right in the centre of her forehead.
The whole time, her sister did not say a word. She stood, frozen, the way people do when confronted with something wholly beyond their comprehension. Alice was a child, and she had a child's instincts: Valkyrie could see the fear—the fear her sister didn't understand, but felt anyway—trembling through her bones.
Her parents were silent, too, but, from the way the muscles around their mouths strained, and the furious working of their throats, that didn't appear to be by choice – a predicament they seemed to share with the rest of the room. Valkyrie included, apparently, as she felt something lock around her throat.
In the silence, Darquesse spoke.
"There's a part of me that wants to kill you," she said, resting a finger between Alice's eyes with horrifying gentleness. "Slowly. Painfully. In every way I know your sister fears. It would be the least of the deaths I owe her."
The realisation came like a gunshot, and Valkyrie knew exactly what Darquesse was going to say next.
"But the beautiful thing is I don't have to."
Darquesse's smile was a whip-crack across her face, harsh and cruel, and her words hung in the air long after she strolled out of the door and disappeared.
"She already did it for me."
Because the Faceless Ones like to play with their food (I'm sure we all remember Dark Days), and because you all know a part of you was always rooting for Darquesse (or maybe that's just me and my addiction to evil female villains but hey).
This has been in the works for a while (as anyone who follows me on tumblr would know). I finished the last 300 words in one—annoyingly long—sitting after maybe a month's hiatus. So if the ending feels rushed, I apologise - that's probably why.
I hope you liked it!
Also, you have no idea how hard it was not to summarise this story with "Darquesse did not go gentle into that good night."
P.S you can't you tag Darquesse as a character somebody fix this because I don't know how.