Double Darquesse

AN: Hello there! Recently got an audio book version of of the first volume in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, and this little idea popped into my head.

Warning: MAJOR spoilers for the later books, especially regarding Darquesse.

Without further ado, enjoy!

Prologue: Insanity Runs In the Family

"It'll never work."

"You don't know that."

"This is insane! Even if you could cast the spell on her, it's untested. You have no idea if it will work like you think, and even if it does, who's to say she won't find a way back and catch us off guard?"

"Do you have a better plan?"

"…"

"That's what I thought. Even if this does only by us time, it will still be worth the effort."

"But how will you cast it without her knowing?"

"I won't. This spell is brand new and if there is one thing Darquess has proven to be, it is curious."

"That and unstoppable."

"Well, yes, that too."

"Oh? What is this? Not Elemental magic, not Necromancy…"

"It's something new. Something just for you. Wouldn't you like to see it?"

"HA! Now that's an obvious ploy if I've ever heard one. Come on, Skulduggery, we both know you can do better than that."

"True, but you still want to see it."

"…Why not? I suppose I can give you one, for old times' sake."

"Much obliged."

"Oh my, it's certainly pretty to look at. It almost feels like… Shunters' magic!? Wait, why can't I control it? What did you do!?"

"Dimensional Shunting mixed with the ritual you used to save me from the Faceless Ones. It's designed to pull in any magic directed towards it, along with its target. I'm sorry, but there's no getting out of this one. We can't kill you, we can't contain you, but at least this way, we can get rid of you. You can live out all your homicidal fantasies in some other dimension. If you're lucky, you'll end up in a world similar to this one. If I'm lucky, you'll end up in the world of the Faceless Ones and kill all of them for us, or wipe out the world Mevolent conquered. Either way, this world will be safe. Either way, this is goodbye."

"You don't really believe that do you? It might take me years, even centuries, but we both know I'll find a way back. I'm just too stub-"

Stephanie did not like lying to her father. She had made it a point years ago to be as honest as possible where her parents were involved. But things were different now. She had secrets. "So, what else did Beryl say?"

"Well, she seems to think she saw you with Skulduggery Pleasant yesterday," Stephanie's father said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said as casually as she could. "She told me. That's weird."

"She seems to think you've fallen in with the wrong crowd."

"You should hear the way she talks about him! She doesn't even know him. Probably thinks I'm part of some cult or something."

"And are you?" Her father asked with concern.

She looked at him appalled. "What?"

Her father sighed. "Beryl has good reason to think that."

"But it's insane!"

"Well, insanity runs in the family," he admitted slowly.

She could see something in his eyes, a reluctance but also a resignation. "My grandfather, your great-grandfather," he said, "was a wonderful man. Us kids loved him; me, Fergus, Gordon. We'd sit around and he'd tell us these fantastic stories. My father, however, didn't have a lot of time for him. All those stories that he was telling us, he told my father when he was a kid, but when my dad grew up, he realized it was all nonsense. My grandad refused to see it. My grandfather believed… he believed we were… magic."

Stephanie stared at him. "…What?"

"He said it had been passed down, this 'magic', generation to generation," Stephanie's father went on. "He said we were descendants of a great sorcerer called 'The Last of the Ancients'."

The sound of the sea faded to nothing. The sun dimmed and the beach vanished, and the only thing that existed in the world was her father and the only sound the words he was speaking.

"These stories, this belief, has followed the family for centuries. I don't know how it began or when, but it seems like it has always been part of us. Now and then, there have been members of our family that have chosen to believe it. Gordon believed it. A rational man, an intelligent man, and yet he believed in magic and sorcery and people who never age. All the stuff he wrote about, he probably believed in most, if not all, of it. Because of it, he got involved in things that were… unhealthy. The people he mixed with, who fed into his delusions, who shared his madness, dangerous people. It's a sickness, Stephanie. My grandfather had it. Gordon had it. I don't want you to get it."

A moment of silenced passed and then Stephanie said softly but firmly, "I'm not mad."

"And I'm not saying you are, but I know how easy it can be to be swept up by stories, by things you wish were real. When I was younger, I believed. I believed even more than Gordon did, but I stopped. I made a decision to live in the real world. To stop indulging this… this curse that has plagued us," her father explained. "Gordon introduced me to your mother and I fell in love. I put it all behind me."

"So, you think Gordon was part of a cult?" Stephanie asked.

"For want of a better word, yes," he admitted.

"And you think, what, that I'm part of the cult now?"

He gave a gentle laugh. "Heh, no, I suppose I don't. Not really. But what Beryl was saying, it got me thinking. In the last few days, sometimes there's a distance in your eyes I haven't seen before. I don't know what it is. I look at you now and you're my little girl, but I've been getting the feeling that… I don't know. Recently it seems that, you're somewhere else."

Stephanie did not dare respond.

"I just wish you'd talk to someone. You don't have to talk to me, because you know how much I babble, but your mother, you could tell her. You could tell us anything, and as long as you're honest with us, you know that we'd help you in whatever way we can."

"I know, dad."

He looked at her, but before either could say more, a sharp cracking sound drew their attention. As they turned to look in its direction, they saw an orb of swirling darkness and light hovering over the pier.

"What… what is that?" Stephanie's father wondered aloud.

'Magic,' Stephanie thought but knew she could not say aloud, not after the conversation they had just had. She opened her mouth to make some reply.

"-born not to! Ah!"

The voice, the oddly familiar voice, came from a ragged black form the orb turned into as it fell from the air… only to stop suddenly, floating about a foot above the ground. As it floated back up, the figure righted itself, revealing itself to be a young woman with pale skin and dark hair, wrapped in a cloak of pure darkness. As she settled on her feet, her eyes locked with Stephanie.

And Stephanie knew those eyes. They were not just the same dark brown as hers, it was more. Every time she had looked in the mirror, every time she had seen her reflection come to life, she had seen those eyes.

As impossible as it was, the woman had Stephanie's eyes.

AN: And there we go. Not sure if I'll continue this or not, given how many other projects I have. We'll see what sort of response it gets.