China wasn't sleeping. She wasn't letting herself sleep.
She'd lost everything. Her beautiful library was gone. The chic furnishings, all those priceless books, all her treasures. There were few things left in the wreckage of the library that hadn't been turned to ash or soaked in tar. She rescued nothing.
The new apartment was cold and drab. Something was growing on the ceiling. When the podgy estate agent had first shown her around the building, China had actually wept. But it was all she could afford - and more to the point, all she deserved.
She'd moved in immediately, found herself a dark blue futon and wasted green armchair and resigned herself to the fact that this was now her home. She stayed in her self-made grot, playing music on a battered CD player, and looking in a mirror at her own pale face.
Right now, China lay on the futon, listening to Martin Grech singing about wanting more meaning in his life. He was good. His soft voice and gentle rhythms, washing over her in waves, were just what she needed. It was like being back in the sea. China used to swim. Not as a means of keeping fit, like Valkyrie. She'd just liked to step into the water and feel the rhythm of the tide. Some days she'd spend all day in the sea, and then go to bed at night and still feel it pulling her body back and forth.
God, that was a long time ago.
Before the Church of the Faceless. Before she'd met Skulduggery.
China shook her head. It hurt to think of Skulduggery. She hadn't heard from him since the day Eliza Scorn destroyed everything. And he'd just stood there, saying nothing. Lowering his gun, like he didn't have the strength to hold it up.
She was going to have to confront him, say something, before she walked out of his life forever.
Martin Grech stopped singing. She started the CD again.
The next morning she woke to find her ears were still plugged, the music still piping in.
China tossed away the CD player, suddenly sick of Grech. Today she was going to go outside. Maybe she'd cook some proper food for -
What time was it?
China checked. Almost eleven.
Well, she'd make something. Anything. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Maybe all three. She had to occupy herself in some way or she'd turn into Blanche Dubois. The mirror would have to go too.
A knock at the door surprised her. She stepped back. Who was this? Who knew where she lived?
"Anybody there?" somebody said from outside. It was a man's voice. "I've got a letter."
China relaxed. Of course. The postman.
She opened the door. The man looked at her face, blinked, but said nothing. China suspected he hadn't fallen in love with her as she was used to. It was hardly surprising, given how she looked, but it was still painful.
"A letter?" she said.
"Yeah." he produced a small brown envelope. "Just thought I'd introduce myself, like, in person. Jerome O'Donnell."
Jerome was young with red hair. He looked damp from the rain. China took the envelope. Her address was on the front in green ink. She threw it on the carpet by her feet.
"Thank you," she muttered. "Is the rain bad?"
The postman's eyes flickered to the window behind her. "Well, it was worse yesterday. They said on the news it would clear up."
"I'll have to take your word for that."
There was a beat of silence. China looked into Jerome's eyes. She sighed.
"Has anyone ever told you," she said, quoting Streetcar, "that you look like a prince from the Arabian Nights?"
His face broke into a disbelieving smile. "Well, no, but thanks for the compliment. You're a sweet lady."
China nodded, feeling a fool, and watched him leave. She kicked the envelope across the room, then, having nothing better to do, went to retrieve it and open it.
The letter was short and written on thin, cheap paper.
Tanith Low staying in County Kildare, 16th-24th.
The letter was unsigned.
Well, China thought, this was interesting. And here she was thinking her days as an information broker were over.
This was... peculiar. Somebody had found out where China lived and delivered this letter - this scrap of information - for nothing. China knew none of her contacts dealt this sort of information without expecting something in return. This... this was something a friend might do.
But she had no friends. At least, she didn't think she did.
China ran through the possibilities. It couldn't have been Valkyrie. They had confided in each other from time to time, it was true, but they were not friends. Not then, and certainly not now. Besides, if Valkyrie had known anything about Tanith, she would have gone to Skulduggery with the news.
Gordon, who now existed in echo form in his old house, couldn't have been the one to send the letter either. Echo-Gordon couldn't pick up a pen. Besides which, he wasn't a part of the outside world any more. He couldn't have known about Tanith.
Skulduggery would have taken the information straight to Ghastly, and Ghastly would have taken the information all the way to Kildare on his own.
Then it occurred to her. Could Tanith have written the letter?
With the right materials, China could have verified the penmanship by carving a few symbols. But she didn't have the right materials.
She checked herself. The sender wasn't the most important thing right now. What was important was whether the information was accurate. And if it was, what would she do then?
Valkyrie Cain opened her eyes. There was a feeling floating just out of her reach. It was pain. It flooded in as she drifted back into the room and she gritted her teeth.
"Don't move," said a voice.
Valkyrie tried to turn her head and hissed.
"What did I just say?" It was Skulduggery. She managed a sideways glance and saw him sitting at the side of her hospital bed.
"Oh, Jesus, that hurts," she said.
His voice carried a tone of concern, but Valkyrie could tell he was trying to be light-hearted. "You never do what I ask you. I think you must be intimidated by how great I am. How much wiser I am than you. I may have to start using reverse psychology on you. No, actually, forget that. I'm not using reverse psychology on you."
"Skulduggery..."
"Yes?"
"You're not making much sense."
"And you're moving your head too much. Keep still."
Valkyrie huffed. "What happened, then?"
"You don't remember?"
"I remember going up against a few vampires on the pier in Haggard and throwing them into the sea..." Valkyrie slowly recalled. "And then we saw the water churning and something... something massive came out and... And that's all I remember."
Skulduggery nodded. It was painful to look at him sideways like this. "That's about the point you were knocked out," he said. "I had to battle a fully-grown Farraige Dragain on my own. You would have been suitably impressed, had you not decided to take a nap."
"I wasn't taking a nap," Valkyrie scowled. "A fully-grown what?"
"Sea Dragon. You don't remember? It was glaring right at you just before you decided to catch forty winks."
"I was NOT catching forty winks!"
"You weren't? But I saw you. Horizontal, snoring-"
"I never snore. What happened to me?"
Skulduggery coughed. "It slammed into you, a bit."
"A bit?"
"A lot. So I threw fire in its face and sent it back into the water. It didn't mind that much. The dead vampires, that's what attracted it in the first place. So it got busy eating those. Just be thankful it didn't eat you before I stopped it."
Valkyrie sighed. "You're not my hero."
"You're welcome."
"Damage report?"
Skulduggery stopped making jokes for a second. "Well, most of your ribs are broken, one of your legs, and your head, well..."
"Took a bit of a whack."
"Yes."
A thought occurred to Valkyrie, a thought that made her want to sit up at once. "Is Nye here?"
"Not right now. Don't worry, Clarabelle will be keeping a very close eye on you. How's the pain?"
Valkyrie grimaced. "It's not fun."
"You'll have to stay here a day or two," Skulduggery informed her. "If anything happens, anything at all, you should alert me." He dug in the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out Valkyrie's phone, placing it in her hand. "It should be charged."
"Thanks."
Skulduggery got to his feet.
"I was wondering," Valkyrie added, her head to the ceiling, "are you used to seeing me getting beaten up? I mean, I appreciate your trying to keep the mood light, but-"
"That was a gerund," Skulduggery interrupted. "I like gerunds."
"What?"
"Nothing. Go on."
"Er..." Valkyrie tried to remember what they were talking about. "Oh yeah. Does it bother you when I'm beaten up, or is it, like, I'm learning a lesson? Or is it that you know I'm going to be all right really?"
She heard his footsteps on the floor of the theatre as he walked off. "I move in mysterious ways," he said.