Ok. I need to get something straight with all of you. If one of my stories says its complete then... THERE WILL BE NO MORE SO PLEASE STOP ASKING ME TO ADD MORE! I mentioned this last time, but some of you didn't get the message. If it happens again, I will be naming names. And this? I don't want to add more becasue otherwise it will get monotonous. So please, stop angering me.
And thanks to those who read and favouritse my stories. I always like that.
Anyway, enjoy.
His wife hit the floor, his beautiful, beautiful wife. Her soul rattled around her body, trying to get out, its presence just enough to make her dying face glow. His daughter was already gone but her eyes were still crying, still screaming for her father. He tried to hold them both, but they only fell back to the floor. The anger coursing through his body was making him shake but had not yet reached his brain. That was still the domain of sadness, bedecked in the endless grey of loss. "I love you," he whispered to his wife. "I really do."
"After all these years of marriage, I guessed that." She was crying too and their tears mingled on the floor.
"Not now," he pleaded. "Not now."
"I know. I really do. I love you, Skulduggery. Please never forget that."
"M-" but her soul flew out the window and her face stopped glowing, the tears and him the only life left in the room as the other man here had no soul. Skulduggery reached for the knife and turned to Serpine. He knew it was poisoned, he knew Serpine had 'tricked' him; he knew it would kill him. It was exactly what he wanted.
Drip, drip, drip.
***
The lines on her face now defined her more than anything about her, more than her past and more than her personality. Age was the only thing lighting up her skin, not the life and love that used to live there. "Sora, you can't die now, after only a few years of living."
"Skulduggery, I've lived my fair eighty four years. Don't make me feel bad for dying now."
"But magic-"
"Is not the life I want. It killed my sister, it killed my niece and it's tried to kill you."
"It brought me back."
"You didn't want to come back."
"Sora, please don't leave me." He couldn't cry and this made him the hurt bite so much more. "Please, don't leave me. I don't want to live alone; I don't want to be left-"
"But you are."
"Sora, please-"
"It's not your choice."
"I'm begging you." He was kneeling on the floor by her bed, clasping at her hands.
"Skulduggery, let me die. That's the one thing I'm asking of you."
"I can't."
"Please. I'm the one begging now." His sensitive bones felt the pulse weakening through her mortal skin. "Sora..." his voice was hoarse now. Then he shook his head. "Have a happy afterlife, Sora. See if you can do better than this one."
"Thank you." Skulduggery stood up and sat in his chair again, watching and waiting.
He glanced at his watch. Two twenty in the morning. He got out his mobile phone and dialled. "Hello? Doctor Coteman, it's Skulduggery. She's gone." He wrote the time on a piece of paper, placed it on the bedside table and left the room, without glancing back, not letting himself.
Drip, drip, drip.
***
"I have to!" Skulduggery yelled, throwing Ghastly to the floor. "You know that!" Ghastly replied only by slamming Skulduggery into the wall, fury ingrained into every scar of his face. "Ghastly-"
"Leave my brother alone!"
"I have to!"
"YOU DON'T!" Skulduggery pinned Ghastly to the floor.
"I have to," Skulduggery repeated.
"YOU DON'T!"
"You know I have to."
"HE'S MY BROTHER!"
"Regardless..." said Skulduggery softly.
"IT'S NOT HIS FAULT!"
"Regardless..." he said, even more softly. Ghastly went limp. "He's my brother," he said through sobs. "I know," Skulduggery said whilst rubbing his back. "I know."
"He never meant to."
"I know."
"He was tricked."
"I know."
"He's a good person."
"I know that too, Ghastly. I liked your brother. He was like my brother."
"So why do we have to?" Ghastly groaned.
"Because he's Vengeous's lackey."
"So why do – we – have – to?" Ghastly was crying again.
"He's killing people." Ghastly was still crying when Skulduggery left. Foppish Bout was a good brother, a close brother to Ghastly and likewise as a friend to Skulduggery. With none of Ghastly's looks and all of his charm, he was almost always the favourite. Not so with Skulduggery, but still... someone close, someone he didn't want to lose. As he pulled his gun on the man and saw him fall back to the floor, he was shaking his head. I'm sorry, Foppish. But he didn't say it.
Drip, drip, drip.
***
Skulduggery heard the crashing over head and was half way up the stairs before anyone else at the drinks party looked up. He entered their room swiftly and saw two men fighting. Or he would've, if he'd entered the room a few seconds earlier. The two men were falling away from each other, blood pouring from their chests. "What the-?" He heard the flush of a toilet, a pause, and the China entered her bedroom, seemingly unperturbed by the dead men on her floor. "China, what the hell is going on?"
"Why on earth should I know?" her serenity was, as always, intact.
"The noises were coming from our room, the fight was in our room, the dead bodies are in our room and so were you."
"My my, you really are quite the detective." She sat at her dressing table, picking up a green emerald necklace that lay on it. He glanced at it casually, noticed how it glimmered against her skin and hair, then looked away. Then he looked back. It was not a green emerald necklace, it was the green emerald necklace. "China, is that the Roue Necklace?"
"Yes. Doesn't it look perfect with this skirt?"
"China, two men have just died because of that!"
"I know. People generally do when it's involved. And now it's mine."
"And you don't care?"
"Not really."
"I know these men. Ungracious Oculus." He pointed to the man on the right. "Rummy Sheik." He pointed to the man on the left. "Both good friends of mine actually. Do you care now?"
"Not really." She turned and smiled. "I just wanted the necklace. I didn't make them fight for it."
"You disgust me."
"And I don't really care." She smiled again and turned back to her reflection in the mirror, watching Skulduggery's reflection pick up his belongings from his bedside table and then close the door quietly behind him. He ran away down the corridor, away from that woman and leapt out the window. It felt good to be doing something reckless, something that let him know he alive.
Drip, drip, drip.
***
Skulduggery was sitting in his flat, flicking through his address book. He'd finally found it under the dresser, but couldn't remember why it was there.
Halcyon Ataraxis had been attacked on her way back from a charity fête. He ripped out her page.
Mr Bliss. He'd seen him ripped apart by Gods. His page was ripped out too,
Sora Cardinal. Old age. Rip.
Xii Efflorescence. Poison. Rip.
Crystal Hammer. Bludgeoned. Rip.
Amytal Junk. Shot himself. Rip.
Titillating Mary. Murder. Rip.
Ungracious Oculus. Fight. Rip.
Ace Paladin. Drowned. Rip.
Rummy Sheik. Fight. Rip.
The human ice cube felt more drops of himself roll away with every name in the book. The only tears he could shed were the little pieces of soul that fell to the ground and always stayed there, too small to pick up and too big to live without, showing him everything that he had lost. What was left inside reminded him of everything he had to lose. And one day that would be gone, whittled away. If he was alone in a room, he wouldn't count as alive anymore. He barely did now.
He threw the address book under the dresser.
Drip, drip, drip, was the only noise his soul could make. Drip, drip, drip.